What Haunts Me (3 page)

During the cab ride home, I emailed the pictures from my phone so I could view them on a larger screen. When I arrived at the apartment I went straight to my laptop. As the pictures were downloading, I grabbed a beer and walked over to my bay window and gazed out, unseeing, for a few minutes. I was putting off the viewing for three reasons. First, what if the pictures showed two
different
men, wearing similar clothing, one disabled, one not? What if the pictures showed the
same
man, one disabled and one not? Lastly, what if they showed the ghost? I didn't know much about ghosts; in fact, my knowledge was limited to what I'd seen in movies, and I didn't put much credence into Hollywood's knowledge of the paranormal beyond making money off it. Could ghosts be photographed?

If there were two separate men in the pictures, then I needed to reconsider my previous declaration regarding insanity. After all, I'd convinced myself that I had some sort of ghost or demon killing power to the extent that I went out and tried to test it. However, if there was only one man, in two different conditions, what did that actually mean? That I had the ability to find and extinguish evil spirits that plagued the living? That I could heal and save the living from these spirits? I wasn't actually sure which was more problematic at this point.

As I turned to go to the computer, I heard voices in the hallway. It sounded like Justine talking to someone. I ran to the door and looked out the peep hole. She was there, speaking loudly to another elderly neighbor, one who was very hard of hearing. I opened the door and she saw me and smiled. The elderly neighbor had turned to go back to her apartment and was shuffling in the opposite direction.

“Hey Justine, how was your luncheon?” I asked.

“George, my dear! Those people are such snobs,” she snickered, “but I do enjoy the ballet and must put up with the committee.” She shook her head in mock disgust.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course dear, anything you like,” she replied kindly.

“The little boy from this morning, is he going to be okay?”

She frowned, a look of confusion crossing her face. “Why do you ask dear? He seemed just fine to me. I saw him not ten minutes ago in the lobby. He was laughing and jumping around just like all boys do. They're so full of energy at that age.”

Of course he was, and why shouldn't he be? After all, a demon was plaguing him just a few short hours ago and now it wasn't. I was good and scared now, because that little boy
was
sick and I'd helped to cure him. It was real, and even though I hadn't viewed the pictures yet, I knew what they were going to show me.

Justine's brows furrowed. “Dear, are you sure you're feeling all right?”

I nodded. “Maybe not as well as I thought. I think I'll lay down for a bit, thanks Justine. Have a good afternoon,” I said as I walked back into my apartment. I leaned against the door and sighed heavily. It was time to look at those pictures.

They had loaded onto the screen and I clicked a few buttons so that I could view them side by side. The images were clear and crisp. The vet was sitting, head hung, crutches to one side, his only leg jutting out onto the sidewalk. Behind him, the bay, sailboats, tourist ferries, and other maritime craft were clearly visible, but no ghost girl in sight. There was one thing though; a slight fuzziness could be seen on the screen where the ghost teenager had been standing. I enlarged the photo and zoomed in on the spot, but only saw just a tiny bit of blurriness. It was almost as if a fly or something had flown past just as the photo was taken.

I went back to the second picture and compared them side by side. The men were identical in every way, except for the missing leg in the first picture and two legs and two athletic shoes in the next. I was seeing ghosts and I was killing them. More importantly, I was saving people that these demons were haunting.

Over the next several weeks I killed ghosts, lots of them, so many that I stopped keeping track after a while. I also saved lives, I just didn't know how many. Not all of the ghosts were accompanied by someone with an obvious affliction, so I couldn't be sure if I was saving someone directly or just ridding the world of a potential hazard. This had become my obsession and it was affecting every aspect of my being. I had no fear of repercussions either; the only thing that concerned me was that I had begun to notice numbness in my finger when I poked them with it. If this had occurred those first few times, I didn't recall, but it was happening more frequently now. To combat this problem, I began carrying an unsharpened yellow number two pencil, long enough that I could stay at arms-length plus six inches from each apparition, and short enough to keep it in my pocket.

I should mention that during all of this, there were two additional concerns, one minor, one not-so minor. On more than one occasion I had the curious sense of being watched. It was more of a sensation than anything else and it didn't frighten me in the least, so for the most part I dismissed it. I probably shouldn't have though. The second
not so
minor concern had to do with the ghosts…more specifically, the fact that I was encountering two different types— the demons that plagued people, and the “lost souls” as I'd begun to think of them. These poor souls appeared benign, uninterested in the living, but attracted to yours truly. They seemed to beg with their eyes, like they wanted me to kill them.

Whether you believe it or not, there was
something
after death; I knew that for sure now, because I was killing the bad
something
on a daily basis. But I didn't think the lost souls were bad and I didn't think this was what they had in mind…to wander through the plane of existence they used to occupy in life, without being able to participate in that life. The concern was, should I be killing them too? Who was I that I could be the executioner of their fate? What if I was sending them somewhere worse? But still, I couldn't help myself; the pleading and gestures were often too much, and without consciously realizing what I was doing, my trusty yellow friend was at it again and they would swirl away into nothingness.

All of this was leading up to the inevitable. People had begun to notice my odd behavior. I was coming into the office late and taking long lunches, and it was obvious that my mind wasn't focused on the job. Justine had been eyeballing me with concern for at least a few weeks. During my last softball game, I'd rounded home-base for a run, but instead made a wide arc at the last minute and stabbed a ghost standing close to the backstop. The catcher tagged me before I could hit the plate and I was out, but the umpire no longer needed that eye patch, so I thought I was justified.

That's why I wasn't surprised when my boss called me into his office. He went straight to the point…what was wrong with me? Knowing that the real answer wasn't appropriate, I told him that I had some personal issues that I needed to address and asked for a leave of absence. That wasn't exactly a financially stable move, but it was the only one I could think of on such short notice. He wanted to know why, which I declined to answer, and he didn't like that, but he considered me a valued employee and the leave was granted. I had six weeks to get myself sorted out.

Please don't think that while I was out stabbing ghosts with unsharpened pencils that I was ignoring the larger problem, I assure you, I wasn't. But you have to understand, this newly discovered talent was addicting, like a drug. I lived and breathed it. For several weeks it was all I thought about; everywhere I went I looked for them. I wanted to find them, but like any addict, I wasn't ready to face the root of my problem, I just wanted to enjoy the high. However, now that my livelihood was in jeopardy, it was time to find out why this was happening to me. So, with my uninvited but welcomed free time, I started to hunt for that reason.

The amount of information online about ghosts was overwhelming, but I was having a hard time finding information on ghost killers, because that's what I had begun to think of myself as: a ghost killer. I found quite a bit about exorcisms and several ghost killing video games, not to mention books, articles, and stories, but none of those addressed my specific problem. Several sites did point out a conundrum that had been scratching at the edges of my mind: you could not kill a ghost because they were already dead. Of course, that made a lot of sense, and I had no idea where these things went after my pencil met them, but acknowledging that something that was already dead couldn't be killed didn't help much either, because I
was
killing them, wasn't I?

One thing did catch my eye: a ghost tour of Pacific Heights, held four days a week for tourists and paranormal aficionados alike. Now, I know what you're thinking— ghost tours had always been on the same level as Halloween haunted houses, purely for entertainment of the frightening kind. However, I knew the city was rife with ghosts…I saw them all the time, so it stood to reason that maybe there was something to this, and just maybe the tour guide knew some things that could help me out. According to his website his name was Phil James, a self-proclaimed local authority on ghosts with an impressive resume in the literary and “real” world of the paranormal.

The majority of people seemed to believe that ghosts were mostly visible at night. I, of course, knew that wasn't true. I saw them day or night, rain or shine, but Mr. James was capitalizing on the theme of darkness, and his tour ran from seven to ten in the evening. I arrived at the designated meeting place at 6:45 in the hopes of getting a few moments with him before the tour started. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only one with this idea and many of the tour's patrons were lingering about, waiting for a chance to ask questions of the colorful character.

Phil James was a tall man with large, expressive eyes that appeared to protrude from their sockets when he spoke passionately, which was often. His hair hung in frizzy curls almost to his shoulders, his beard and mustache were neatly trimmed, and he wore a worn top hat, long wool coat, and black biker boots. I guessed he was somewhere in his mid-to-late forties. He also had a black leather vest on that was adorned by a silver pocket watch, the chain neatly attached to a button with the watch itself tucked into the vest pocket. He was constantly pulling it out and glancing at it, which I assumed was his subtle way of letting the patrons know it was time to get started.

Most of the questions from the tourists revolved around the building we were standing in front of. It was a large Victorian that had been used for a variety of businesses since its completion in the late 1800s, and was now a boutique hotel, having been fully refurbished in the period style of its origin; in all honesty, it was quite beautiful. As Phil gathered everyone around him, he again looked at his pocket watch, and then announced in a deep but whimsical tone (which caused his eyes to bug out to the point of escape) that the “ghost tour” would begin. He explained the origins of the building, the ghosts that haunted it, and then invited us all to wander about the public areas inside, keeping our eyes peeled for the ghosts that he assured us were in residence. I never saw a single one, but perhaps they were just tired of being sought after four nights a week.

After the brief tour of the hotel, Phil gathered us in the lobby and directed us out the door and up the mild hill toward California Street, all the while pointing out several stunning Victorian houses and stopping occasionally to explain a ghost sighting and give us a particular building's history to boot. It was all very interesting, but for the first hour or so, I didn't see a single ghost—I was beginning to doubt Phil's connections to the paranormal.

When we reached California Street, Phil stopped in front of a spectacular Victorian mansion. It perched above the street on a slight hill that was surrounded by a granite retaining wall. The lower portion of the building was obscured by bushes and trees, but you could clearly see the upper story, which was dark and a bit ominous. Phil explained that the original owner, an eccentric and wealthy woman in her mid-thirties, had died by throwing herself from the uppermost parapet. Her life was riddled with familial strife and betrayal, adulterous relationships, and shady business deals, all of which led to her suspicious suicide, which Phil explained was more likely a murder committed by her nemesis and much disdained sister. Phil gathered us in closer, all the while describing a spooky occurrence with a key that he attributed to her ghostly visits.

He selected a young lady out of the crowd and placed an old skeleton key in her hand. The key was laid flat, with the bow hanging off and the blade in the center of her palm, facing due west. I divided my attention between Phil's parlor trick and the sidewalk directly in front of the building. Standing in all her glory was a woman in her mid-thirties wearing a white, lace adorned floor-length dress with a high collar, wide puffed sleeves that tapered as they descended to the wrist, and a tiny wasp like waist-line. Her hair was swept up in an elegant but slightly loose bun atop her head, and of course, she was wearing round eye-glasses.

Phil explained that when the spirit of the woman was present, she would announce herself by moving the key, which he believed was the original key that opened the door to the very parapet she fell to her death from. As I watched, the key began to slowly but surely turn in an eastward direction, and all the while our ghostly visitor was raising her hand in sync with the key's movement. Mesmerized by the ghost's ability, I hadn't noticed that a man had moved next to me until I actually felt his shoulder against mine.

I had surveyed the crowd before we began our tour; it consisted of our guide, Phil, three couples ranging in age from their mid-twenties to their early fifties, two single women, and of course, myself. However, the man that was now encroaching on my personal space had not been part of our little group when we set off. I stepped away, putting much needed distance between us, but before I did, I noticed that his gaze was fixed on our Victorian apparition, and I was absolutely sure he could see her. That startled me, and when he looked over at me, I was sure of one more thing…he knew that I could see her too. He turned abruptly and headed up the street, his dark-skinned bald head gleaming as he walked under a street light, and although he was wearing a heavy wool overcoat, I could tell that he was broad and muscular.

When I turned my attention back to our tour guide, the crowd was oohing and awing at the key. It had completely turned itself so that the blade was now facing east and lying flat again in the young woman's palm. I looked over at the ghost, who smirked and tipped her hand in a two fingered salute, then turned and disappeared into the retaining wall.

To say that I was confused and a bit disturbed was an understatement. So far I'd never seen a ghost move anything in the physical world, and that confused me, because now I wondered if they could move something that could hurt yours truly…after all, I was killing them. They might decide at some point to start defending themselves. The disturbing part was the dark-skinned bald man. I couldn't tell his age from our brief encounter, but he looked strong and a bit dangerous, and as I said earlier, I was positive he saw what I'd seen, and maybe he even knew what I was.

These thoughts kept me occupied through the remainder of the tour, and when we reached our starting point, I'd completely forgotten the questions I wanted to ask Phil. Most of the tourists were thanking our guide as I stood on the outskirts of our little crowd desperately trying to remember what I needed to ask. Before I knew it, everyone was gone and Phil was asking
me
a question. “You got a minute to chat?”

I gave him a perplexed and questioning look, and he smiled and said, “I know you saw her. Which means you probably can see them all, I also saw Edgar nudge you, which means he knows you can see them, and buddy, that ain't a good thing.”

Phil asked my name and pointed to a neon bar sign across the street.