Death Theory

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Death Theory Page 19

by John Mimms


  “Don’t you youngsters keep all that in your smart phones now?” he asked.

  “I guess I’m a little behind the times,” Jeff lied.

  Of course, he had all the information on his phone, but he wanted to at least give everyone a heads up before giving it out to the cops. Captain Dean nodded and asked for the paper and pencil. He took it and scribbled his e-mail address before handing it back. “Please send it to this address as soon as possible tonight.”

  Jeff nodded. He folded the piece of paper and placed it in his shirt pocket. “You said you had one final question?”

  “Indeed, I do,” he said and motioned for Jeff to follow him.

  They walked through Mrs. Schwender’s bedroom, and then entered the living room. Jeff noticed Mrs. Schwender’s bed appeared to have been slept in; the sheets were drawn back and the pillows in disarray. Everything else seemed exactly as it had the previous Saturday night. When they reached Mrs. Schwender’s chair, the captain stopped and pointed at the floor. Jeff saw her cordless phone with the disconnected cords wrapped around the base.

  “Can you tell me why both of her phones are unplugged and wrapped up like this?”

  Jeff’s heart sank, he was afraid this completely innocent detail would come back to bite them. He explained the faulty wiring in the phones. He also detailed the possible adverse effects this could have had on Mrs. Schwender. He made sure to mention the phone could be the sole cause for all the experiences she described.

  Captain Dean listened with keen interest. When Jeff finished, he rubbed his chin.

  “That’s either the smartest thing I’ve ever heard or the biggest bunch of crap,” he said with a smile. For the first time since he arrived, Jeff started to feel somewhat at ease.

  Chapter 27

  “IT’S NO CRAP,” JEFF said, trying to go along with the sudden good humor. “If I had my EMF meter, I could show you.”

  “Not necessary, Jeff,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “I kinda know what you’re saying. About five years back, we had to pick up this poor fellow who was convinced his dead wife was following him. He was running up and down the streets screaming like a train whistle. Well, it turned out he worked at the power substation east of town. The poor guy’s brain was almost cooked with electric wave stuff from a faulty transformer.” He wiggled his fingers like a magician performing a trick.

  “Terrible,” Jeff said. “What happened to the guy?”

  “We arrested him and sent him to prison for life,” the captain replied.

  “For life? For something he had no control over?”

  “Oh, he had control,” said Captain Dean flatly. “He had control before all this happened. You know how I told you he thought his dead wife was following him?”

  Jeff nodded.

  “Well I suspect some of his ‘hallucinations’ came from guilt. The man had killed her two weeks before...with an axe.”

  “Damn,” Jeff muttered.

  “Damn indeed,” the Captain agreed.

  “Well Jeff, thank you for dropping by. I’m sure we’ll know something before long,” he said, extending his hand and giving Jeff a curt handshake. He then escorted him back through the bedroom and into the kitchen.

  A slim beam of orange light shone through the tiny kitchen window. It cast a surreal tint over the room as the last vestiges of the day slipped into dusk. Captain Dean was about to open the door. He paused and flipped on the overhead light.

  “There is one thing confusing me, Jeff.”

  Jeff paused, but remained silent.

  “When I came over here today, the house was locked up tighter than a drum.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jeff said.

  “If Mrs. Schwender just wandered off, why was every door and window locked up tight?”

  Jeff was puzzled. “She locked the door when she left?”

  “It is not typical for someone with Alzheimer’s or dementia. In the few unfortunate cases I have worked, the door is usually left standing wide open.”

  Captain Dean shook his head as if he were warding off a fly. “Well, anyway – have a good evening, Jeff.”

  Jeff started to tell him he wasn’t certain if Mrs. Schwender suffered from either one of those conditions. He decided, in the end, that it was best to keep his mouth shut. He thought Captain Dean believed him, but he also felt the good Captain didn’t regard him as above suspicion either. He got in his truck and drove to Debbie’s house. He wanted to see her, but he also wanted to share the news and warn her of a probable call from Captain Dean. His stomach twisted with knots, even though he knew he had nothing to feel guilty about.

  Captain Dean questioned everyone in the group during the week. He asked each one individually to come to Mrs. Schwender’s home where they faced intense scrutiny over the recipe cards of Mrs. Schwender’s table. Debbie came on Wednesday, Pac on Thursday, and Elvis on Friday. Each of them left feeling guilty. Debbie drove home in tears, Pac in anger, and Elvis reported– “I felt like I had chopped her up and burned her body parts with acid in the bathtub...like that Hitchcock movie. I felt guilty as hell!”

  It wasn’t as if Captain Dean said anything threatening, or even accused them of anything – it was his stare. The stare seemed to bore right through, exposing every bad thing you had ever done. It was like getting some sort of moral biopsy, leaving you in turmoil because no diagnosis had been provided.

  Jeff managed to put everything to the back of his mind by Saturday morning. He was busy preparing things for the big investigation at Pythian Castle that evening.

  They were to meet at the castle grounds at six o’clock and briefly go over assignments. Dr. Staples would be bringing the equipment in an old van he recently retrieved from storage. Everything seemed on course until Jeff got a phone call.

  “Hello,” Jeff said.

  “Is this Jeff Granger?” a man’s voice asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Jeff, this is Gene Green; I’m not sure if you remember me.”

  How could he forget? He was a member of a former group which Jeff belonged to for a brief time. It was easy to remember the name of someone whose first and last name rhymed. It was even easier when the person was a self-proclaimed demon hunter.

  “Sure, I do, Gene. Are you still a demonologist with Afterlife?”

  “Nah, I’m freelancing now. The drama in the group got to be too much. You know what I mean?”

  Jeff knew all too well what he meant. “I hear ya, man. What can I do for you today?”

  “Well I know this is kind of out of the blue and all, but I wanted to warn you.”

  “Warn me about what?”

  “Well, I saw the article in the paper today,” Gene said, his voice shaking. “Then I started getting this feeling. Let me tell ya, it wasn’t good.”

  “What article?”

  “The one about Mrs. Shweendor.”

  “Schwender,” Jeff corrected.

  A gnawing tension began to creep up his back and neck, as if his muscles were turning to stone. “Hold on a minute, Gene,” he said and set his phone on the back of the sofa before retrieving the paper from the porch.

  Jeff opened the paper and scanned the front page – nothing there. He opened the second page and experienced heart palpitating déjà vu. Staring back at him, in crisp black and white, was the picture of Mrs. Schwender that had startled him in her window. The lack of color gave the eyes a more foreboding stare than before. The caption below the picture read:

  Mrs. Julia Schwender, 79, missing since October 18

  Jeff went on to read the rest of the short article.

  Mrs. Julia Schwender, 79, of Springfield, MO has been missing from her home since October 18. The police have no leads on the case. Mrs. Schwender’s last known visitors were a paranormal ghost hunting group called SMS PAST. The leader of the group, Jeff Granger, reported her disappearance to police almost a week later. They told police that she was ghost free and they solved her problem. If you see Mrs. Schwender or know of he
r whereabouts, please contact Captain Bronson Dean with the Springfield Police Department at (417)555-8866.

  Jeff swallowed hard – he felt as if a cinder block slid down his throat. The article made him sound negligent, and the group, a joke. “Reported a week later? Told police she had no ghosts?” he muttered.

  He could see the snot-nose reporter in his mind’s eye. The man sat in a cubicle, typing away on his keyboard. He giggled with delight at the ridiculous nature of the report and his own cleverness for embellishment. “Captain Dean wouldn’t have reported it to the newspaper this way, would he?” Jeff tried to reassure himself.

  Jeff felt sick to his stomach. He tossed the paper onto the couch, jarring the phone loose from its resting place on the back of the sofa. It slid down and made a dull pop as it contacted the paper. Jeff walked over and picked the phone back up.

  “Sorry, Gene,” he said, every muscle in his body knotting like a piece of wood.

  “No problem...I take it you saw the article?”

  “Yes, I saw it – what an overstated crock of crap.”

  Gene cleared his throat and sighed.

  “Well, anyway,” Gene began. “How are things in your group?”

  “Fine. Drama is at a minimum, everyone seems eager and willing to learn. It’s better than I expected. Why do you ask?”

  “Are you sure there is nothing out of the ordinary?”

  “Pretty sure,” Jeff said, his impatience mounting. “We all have our different personalities and encounter disagreements from time to time.” Jeff paused for a moment. “Didn’t you say you got a strange feeling when you saw the article in the paper today?”

  “Yes ... but I’m not sure that over the phone is the best place to discuss it. Can we meet somewhere in person?”

  “That’s going to be tough. I have to leave shortly for the big investigation tonight. We’re doing Pythian Castle.”

  “Should be interesting,” Gene said, causing hackles to stand up on the back of Jeff’s neck. It was neither an excited tone, nor jealous one. It was the voice of someone in the twilight state between sleep and consciousness.

  Jeff listened to several moments of silence before speaking again.

  “Why don’t you go ahead and tell me now. We can meet somewhere next week.”

  Jeff listened to several more moments of thin silence. He would have hung up the phone, but he could still hear Gene’s breathing.

  “Gene?”

  “Yes,” Gene whispered.

  “Are you going to tell me now?”

  “Yes,” repeated the same whisper.

  “Well, go on then. I have a lot to get done today.”

  There was a sigh and a deep breath before he spoke.

  “Sorry about that, Jeff. I would rather tell you in person, but, since it is not possible right now, I will go ahead and tell you today.”

  He paused for several long moments. Jeff thought he had hung up before he finally spoke.

  “Well, you must remember ... it is only a feeling I have, but my feelings are accurate most of the time. I am sure you remember.”

  Jeff hadn’t stayed with Afterlife, Inc. long enough to have any clue of what he was talking about, but he would play along.

  “Sure,” Jeff said.

  “When I saw the picture of Mrs. Schwender, I knew ... I just knew.”

  “Knew what?” Jeff asked, with mounting impatience.

  “I knew Mrs. Schwender was gone because you have something attached to you, Jeff. Something terrible.”

  “What?” Jeff asked.

  “A demon.”

  Chapter 28

  JEFF’S NORMAL REACTION would have been to laugh, but his patience was gone. He was pissed. He was pissed at the newspaper, pissed at the reporter, pissed at Captain Dean, pissed at himself, and pissed at this jerk on the other end of the line. The jerk who he now remembered as one of the primary reasons he left Afterlife, Inc.

  Gene Green was not interested in the science because he was too narrow-minded. He saw a demon in every person, brick, piece of furniture, carpet fiber, slice of toast, drape, carton of milk, and roll of toilet paper he encountered. In short, Gene Green saw demons everywhere.

  “You called me for this crap?” Jeff shouted.

  “You must be strong in your faith, Jeff. You must be strong if you want to fight it off!”

  Jeff was a Christian and he believed in demons as part of his faith. The one thing he disliked as much as demons were hypocrites. Gene was a hypocrite because not even Jesus himself had seen as many demons when he walked the Earth.

  Jeff suspected this was a little man’s way of getting recognition. Gene proclaimed himself a demonologist. There was no certification from any college or higher learning institution to make one an expert demonologist. Not even the Catholic Church had any such certification. The man was either lonely, crazy, or a fraud (probably a weird potpourri of all three). In the end, Jeff knew that arguing with him would yield little benefit. “You can’t argue with ignorance,” his dad used to tell him. He ended the conversation as amicably as he could.

  “Thanks for the information, Gene. I’ll check into it.” Without giving him a chance to reply, Jeff hung up the phone.

  He stood in silence for several minutes, staring at the newspaper scattered across the sofa. Mrs. Schwender stared back at him from above the sports section. Her dull countenance awakened a small voice in his head, a voice he tried to keep locked away. He was usually successful at containing it most of the time, but his head was dealing with too much at the moment.

  ‘What if crazy rhyme time boy was right? What if Gene could actually tell a demon was following him?’ the little voice in his head asked.

  Reason arrived and slammed this thought, forcing it to retreat deep into the dark recesses of Jeff’s mind. The voice was gone, but its echo reverberated in Jeff’s cranium like violent aftershocks. Now the little voice pissed him off. This was the cherry on top of this whole crap sundae.

  Jeff managed to get himself into a better mood before he left for the investigation. Listening to 80’s classic music, and indulging on Cheetos often had this effect.

  The investigation was moving along without a hitch. The new equipment performed better than expected. They had a lot of data to go through, but no one was having any personal experiences. It was very disappointing, considering it was Halloween.

  Near the end of the night, Jeff and Elvis were alone together in the basement of Pythian Castle. Before they started their digital recorders, Elvis cleared his throat nervously and said, “Jeff, there is something I need to tell you about.”

  “What is it?” Jeff asked.

  “I don’t want you to think less of me if I tell you,” Elvis said.

  “What ... did you kill somebody?” Jeff joked.

  “Not exactly,” Elvis muttered. He sighed and said, “It’s Vicky ... you know ... I have been so desperate to talk to her ... I-I ... I think I had a lapse in judgment.”

  Jeff stood up from the dark corner where he had been sitting and approached Elvis. “It’s okay. What you say won’t go further than this room,” Jeff promised.

  Elvis sighed and then told him the whole story of his questionable research on the little boy. When he finished, he prepared himself for the ridicule and disgust that was sure to follow. To his surprise, Jeff was strangely quiet. This only made him more nervous.

  “I-I’m sorry,” Elvis said. “I know I shouldn’t have done it, but ...” He didn’t know what else to say.

  “No,” Jeff said flatly.

  “Here it comes,” Elvis thought.

  “No,” Jeff repeated. “it is absolutely incredible!”

  “What?” Elvis blurted.

  “You have all this documented ... including the recording?” Jeff asked.

  “Yes ... I still have it.”

  “Have you done any others, so you can compare the data?” Jeff asked excitedly.

  Some of Elvis’s own reproach began to diminish as it was transferred to
Jeff. He didn’t expect Jeff to be excited like this.

  “Don’t you think what I did was, well ... kinda sick?” Elvis asked.

  Jeff paused as if the thought had never occurred to him. He frowned and asked, “The child was dead when he arrived?”

  “Well, of course,” Elvis snapped. “I am a mortician, not a doctor!”

  “If he was already dead, then I don’t see the harm,” Jeff said. “Sure, it is kinda morbid and most people probably wouldn’t understand, but it’s great data!”

  “You realize, we couldn’t go public with this,” Elvis said. “Can you imagine how this would affect the poor kid’s family, not to mention ... I would probably lose my license.”

  “I understand,” Jeff said. “As I promised, nothing we discussed will leave this room.”

  “What good does research do if we can’t share it?” Elvis asked.

  Before Jeff could answer, both saw movement out of the corner of their eye. They quickly turned their flashlights in that direction. Their beams fell on the cocky, grinning face of Pac.

  “How long have you been there?” Elvis demanded.

  Pac did not reply, instead he slowly shrugged his shoulders. “We had a situation,” he said. “Something snuck in here. It scared the hell out of Debbie.”

  Jeff did not hesitate. He bolted past Pac, and then bounded up the stairs. He found Debbie a few moments later, laughing nervously with her arms folded over her chest. Dr. Staples sat nearby regarding her sympathetically. It turned out it was only a poor, hungry fellow searching for a place to sleep. As Jeff ran to his girlfriend’s rescue, the little voice in his head kept repeating a single word – demon.

  Jeff whispered a few choice expletives aimed at Gene Green, and then turned his tirade inside his head. He fought the annoying little voice continuing to whisper its insane suggestion – what if it’s true? It was worse than getting a bad song stuck in your head.

  The manager at Pythian Castle explained when the weather starts getting cooler, they always have a few homeless people who manage to get inside for shelter. The owner never pressed charges; she gave them something to eat and arranged for a ride to the homeless shelter downtown. It was usually a cop who provided the ride due to safety precautions.

 

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