Stories (2011) (86 page)

"Not me. No spirits besides those in a bottle as far as
I'm concerned. When you're dead you're dead. Just you and the worms for a
while, and after a bit, just the worms."

Gardner scratched Meko gently behind the ears. She purred.
If there was one thing Gardner really loved, it was that cat.

"Did I ever tell you what I used to do, Rocky? The work
I did?"

"No. Guess I thought you were always a painter."

"Well, I've always painted, and I love it, but before I
moved here from Houston I was a psychiatrist."

"You're joking?"

"No. I sort of got... drummed out of the business, I
guess you could say." He smiled at me with those very white, capped teeth
of his. "I enjoyed the psychiatric profession almost as well as my
painting."

"Why'd you quit then?"

"I said I was drummed out of the business, and I meant
that.

My colleagues thought I was whacko. Don't smile. Lots of psychiatrists
are nuts. But don't worry, I'm not one of them. It was my belief, in what we
casually refer to as 'the supernatural,' that got me in trouble with the
profession.

"You see, Rocky, I thought the supernatural, or as I
prefer to call it, the paranormal, was, and is, just another branch of science
we've yet to understand or explain."

Outside, the December wind had picked up, and the first tentative
fingers of a cold rain scratched at the roof.

"I don't believe in the supernatural," I said,
"but I don't see how you believing in it would get you run out of the
business."

"It's witch-doctor stuff to them, Rocky. Doesn't mix
well with the image. As a psychiatrist, I dealt with all manner of problems.

For all the people who came to see me, who needed help, I
was only able to really do a handful some good. That was depressing.

"But what really bothered me were those sent to me by
the state. Those that I call 'spontaneous psychopaths.' It was this type that
directed me toward my theories."

"Theories?"

"These are the sort of folks that seem like normal
citizens, show no sign of abnormal behavior, and suddenly they blow.

They're the Charles Whitmans who climb in towers and rain bullets
down on innocent people for no apparent reason. The Mark David Chapmans who
step from the shadows to kill public figures against whom they have no grudge. Or
the Gary Gilmores who kill and seem totally perplexed at what they've done,
even insist that they be killed and put out of their misery, out of the way of
society.

These people are often glad to die, and I think there may
well be a reason, a clue in that."

"I think I slept through part of this," I said.
"Or maybe it's the wine. You're not making sense to me." Gardner
laughed. "That's what I like about you, Rocky. You're so damned down to
Earth it helps me keep my feet on the ground, my head out of the clouds."

"Thanks... I think."

"What I'm saying is, these people often want to die
because they realize that that's the only way they can get rid of ...
this
thing."

"This thing meaning insanity?"

"Not exactly. There's a lot of badness in the world,
Rocky.

Some of it stems from greed, hate... even love. There's
badness that develops out of social problems, racial oppression, but what I'm
talking about is something altogether different. I'm talking about true evil,
Rocky."

"I think maybe if I had another glass of wine this
would all start to make sense." I tipped the last of the bottle into my
glass.

Gardner got up from his chair and put another log on the
fire, took a poker from the rack and pushed it well into the flames.

Outside there was an explosive blast of thunder that shook
the house and charged the air with electricity.

"What if outside this world as we know it, something
waits,"

Gardner said, hanging the poker in the rack next to the
scoop shovel. "A force so elemental it's beyond our understanding. A
creature. A thing. Something I've come to call the soul ghoul."

"Soul ghoul?"

Gardner returned to his seat.

"These senseless murders. Why does a normal person
spring off the deep end like that, without warning? That's what perplexed me,
and I began to pursue the problem, turned to everything I could find for an
answer. Even areas where my colleagues refused to look. The occult. I read up
on it. Attended seances, examined it inside out.

"A lot of it's crap, Rocky. No doubt. But I came away
feeling that the basic belief that something lies beyond has been with us since
the beginning of man, and for good reason. Exorcism and possession first led me
to my conclusions. How I arrived at them is rather tedious, but suffice to say
I began to believe there was a parasite of sorts that fed on the emotional
trauma of men, the energy that one expends in the process of performing fearful
deeds, and of course, in dying. The more traumatic the situation, the more
energy we expend. And what more is the soul than energy from within?

"The soul ghoul is like a mind without a body, a soul
in search of a house. It uses a human being much like a rider uses a horse.

"Voodoo has an element of this. When a believer lets
down his or her barriers, a spirit enters them. They call it the loa. There are
both good and evil loas. Perhaps these evil loas are in fact the manifestation
of the ghoul. Call it hysteria if you like, I think not."

"How could a person know what it was going to get? I
mean, a good spirit or bad?"

"He can't. But I believe this evil spirit, this ghoul
of the soul, is attracted to certain types of people. People whose emotions run
deep. Not necessarily intelligent people, or even kind people, but people with
odd emotional stirrings that are quite different from their fellows; stirrings
that make them game for this...
thing.

"Once it possesses an individual it either uses them up
until they are an emotionless, zombie-shell like Chapman, or the fear of it
within them drives what remains of the persons personality to destroy
it
 by
destroying themselves. As in Gilmore's case."

"Interesting theory, but a bit difficult to prove,
Gardner"

"Unless one were willing to extend himself, open the
way for this ghoul, examine its actions from within."

"If there is such a thing, and I don't believe it for a
minute, wouldn't that be risky? Once it was hold of you..."

"Maybe. But there are preparations. Things that have
come to be called white magic; spells, diagrams and such for warding off evil
spirits. It is my belief that there is some scientific reasoning for these
things driving back evil forces, that it's not magic at all, just something we
call magic for lack of understanding. Whatever it is, it must work, and I have
considerable knowledge of these things."

"You?"

"Yes, I want to open the way."

"All right, you want to open the way. How?"

"Ever play with a Ouija board, Rocky?"

"No. I know what it is though. Nonsense."

"Perhaps." Gardner stood up and motioned to me.
"Come, into the dining room. I want to show you something."

Reluctantly, I got out of my chair and followed him to the dining
room, which was about the size of my apartment over on Pearl Street. Gardner
flipped on the light and except for a table and chairs, and a Ouija board on
the far end of the table, it was bare. Of furniture, anyway. The place stank of
incense. There were candles of incense in each corner of the room and they
sputtered and flickered and gave off an odor like a dog's armpit. On the walls
in bold, black lines diagrams had been drawn. A huge circle was drawn around
the table in white chalk.

"The candles, the diagrams, the spell I'll chant, they
are the most important part of this. The Ouija is merely a doorway."

Meko lazily followed us into the room, and Gardner bent down
to scratch her behind the ears. "That'll hold her," he said.

Gardner stepped inside the circle, took a chair in front of
the Ouija, placed his fingers on the triangular piece of plastic that serves as
the message indicator. I sat on his left.

"Say this is real," I said, "what happens if
we just get someone's Aunt Harriet, or one of those mischievous ghosts, what do
you call them?"

"Poltergeists. Hey, there may be hope for you yet,
Rocky. As for Aunt Harriet, I've been experimenting for the last week now, and
I've already made contact with this spirit, the one I call the soul ghoul. I
feel certain that it's the ghoul; its evil weighs on me like a boulder"

"Come on, Gardner."

"Therefore, it's easier to contact each time. One
thing, Rocky, will you get the lights?"

I got up and turned them out, resumed my seat. I was getting
a bit impatient with all th is. "Let's get on with it already," I
said.

Gardner began to chant. The words were all nonsense to me.

Maybe it was Greek or Latin, or both, but after a while he
said in English, "Are you there?"

Nothing happened. There was only the sound of the storm outside,
picking up in ferocity. Beyond the windows, lightning spread needles of gold
fire across the sky; rain, whipped by the wind, sputtered against the window
panes.

"Are you there?" Gardner repeated. "I am
opening the way."

 Truth of the matter is, I guess it was getting to me some.
I             looked at the window directly across from Gardner and saw eyes.

Or what I thought were eyes. They were the beams of some car
passing on the road outside, and in a moment they passed on.

"Are you—" and then I heard the scrape of the
indicator on the polished wood of the Ouija board. When I looked, the
indicator, Gardner's fingers resting lightly on top, was moving toward the left
of the board, toward the word YES. It stopped there.

"Who are you?" Gardner asked.

The indicator began to move again, tracing its way over one
letter after another, gaining momentum as it went. I AM I AM I AM it repeated.

"What do you want?" Gardner asked.

YOU it spelled out immediately. THEM it spelled out after a short
stall. Well, I thought. Ask a silly question, get a silly answer "What are
you?".

Suddenly the triangle of plastic slid across the board,
stretched Gardner's arms to their full length. The plastic slipped out from
beneath his fingers and jetted along the smooth expanse of the table,
catapulted through the air and struck the window, shattering it. The tail of
the storm slipped in and slapped the room from wall to wall. I hadn't realized
it was
that
 cold outside.

"For the love of God," Gardner said softly

I got up, turned on the lights and sat back down.

"Now... now," Gardner said, "do you
believe?"

"Nothing to believe. Your subconscious did that,
spelled out those words."

"And tossed the indicator out the window?"

"It slipped. You were tense and it slipped. The table
is smooth, it skipped along it like a rock on a pond."

"That little plastic thing broke the window by
itself?"

"Gained force as it went. Anything, if it's moving fast
enough, can pack quite a wallop. Bantam weights for instance. They hit fast,
and can hit hard because of it. It's not just weight and muscle, it's
momentum."

Gardner put his head down on the Ouija. "Just like
them," he said.

"Trying to tell it like I see it is all... I'm a
friend."

"I know, Rocky. Sorry."

I sat quietly for a moment and then stood up. "Better
get that window patched over. It's going to be a cold one tonight. I'll call
you later."

"Sure."

Meko was in the den. She must have found the goings-on in the
dining room too silly for her taste. I scratched her behind the ears in
agreement and went out to my car.

I'm not big on the sort of crap Gardner was feeding me, but
it got me thinking. And besides, I was worried about the scrawny rascal.
Thought maybe he was starting to cling to the rim. I even went so far as to go
to the public library and study up some.

ound books on ghosts, demons, ghouls, you name it. I went            from
occult explanations — which were downright silly — to scientific ones. What I
got out of it from the scientific end was stuff like Ouijas and poltergeists —
which as far as could be told from investigation — were the results of the
mind, the subconscious. Which is just what I thought all along. A sort of
mental wish fulfillment, I guess you'd say, or perhaps the results of emotional
stress. It was a kind of self-hypnosis, and everyone knows strange things
happen under hypnosis. Like a hypnotist telling a subject that they've just
poured boiling water on their arm, and suddenly blisters pop up. Strange stuff.

I worried about Gardner for a while, but finally decided he
was just under strain. Besides, Gardner was a weird duck anyway. Next time I
saw him he'd be off this ghoul stuff.

It was about three weeks before Gardner and I got together again.
I never did get around to phoning him, just went over there one night uninvited
with a bottle of wine and a six-pack.

There wasn't a light on in the house. At first I thought he wasn't
home, but the Buick was in the garage poking its butt out shyly at the night.

I parked, went up the walk and knocked, then remembered the bell.
When I was growing up, we lived in the country, and it was rare to find a house
with a bell. Everybody knocked. So I'd never quite gotten used to doorbells.

I pushed the bell a couple of times, but no answer After a minute
or two had passed, I yelled Gardner's name, and still getting no response, I
tried the door. It was unlocked. I went in.

The place had a musty odor, like maybe it had been shut up
for a while without sunlight and fresh air. Silence crawled through the house
like something alive. It was smoky too. A green log smoldered in the fireplace,
churned out black smoke like rubber burning. But that was Gardner. He didn't
know softwood from hard, pine from walnut.