Epilogue

The supernatural has always been a part of my life, regardless if I wanted it to be or not. I had convinced myself so much of it was the overactive imagination of a kid who spent too much time in his head in order to cope with all the shit life threw at him. The memory is a fickle thing, a picture book drawn by a bad artist, an unreliable narrator picking away at the important bits while slamming square pegs in round holes to try and make them fit a narrative. It is also something of a benevolent protector, shielding us from what lies just beyond the veil that divides our fragile concepts of reality and the sledgehammer that is the truth. These last few months really showed me that. So, where do I begin talking about the events that became the hammer to the glass that was my hated reality?

 

*click*

 

“Really?” I said to the barrel of a six shooter staring at me dead between the eyes, “I’m trying to have a serious introspective monologue.”

 

The trench coat wearing man dressed like John Wayne taking himself way too seriously, with his one pure as white eye and a hole where the other would have been stood at the other end, looking like something made from the fever dreams of the Duke himself.

 

“Jusssstice…” he hissed between gums and rotted teeth, proving that America has always had one hell of a health system.

 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah... fuck you. I’m tired, I’ve been driving for hours now, I can’t remember the last time I slept well, and most importantly, I’m not sure if I mentioned, but fuck you. So what if its gone!? Better for us, you all don’t deserve to be here anyway, you get that?”

 

I know, I know, this is a weird place to start, but something about having a gun pointed at your head by a homeless looking Wyatt Earp when you haven’t slept well in awhile just gets you thinking. Reflecting on how you got here. In the grand scheme of what’s coming up, this guy is nothing more than a distraction. Hell, if this was a movie, right now we would freeze frame, have some music and I’d say “I bet you’re wondering how I got here!” Here’s the thing, we won't be coming back here, at least not for a long time. Maybe not ever, because what I’m trying to convey here is that life is absurd. This whole damn thing is funny, it is dumb, and then its gets very, very real.

 

“Jusssti”

 

“Yeah, I get it! Justice or whatever, fuck you bu..”

 

*BANG*

 

Chapter 1

 

The truck backfired and sent puffs of black smoke into the warm desert air of Southern California.

 

“That’s… probably a good sound,” I said, leaning up against the closed driver door of the white, I think a Ford, truck, my arms crossed on the rolled down window.

 

“Its normal,” retorted Parker tiredly as he tried to start it again. He reached down to the area where keys would normally go, and hits a two button switch he had moments ago set-up since he had lost the keys.

 

“Yeah, but still probably not good.”

 

“Hey! Don’t you doubt the dirty girl, Junk Truck is doing her best,” he gave me a glare and then hit the buttons in sequence, the truck starting to life. He then smiled in success, “see, just takes persistence.”

 

“Bet that attitude helps with the college girls.”

 

“Oh yeah, living in a barely working truck in the middle of a desert really gets them going.” Parker rolled his eyes.

 

I gave the dented door a solid pat, “just takes persistence.”

 

“Fuck you.”

 

“You’re such a romantic!” We laughed a moment and then stared out into the desert. Being surrounded on every side by dirt and dead things with the faintest hint of homes and businesses on the horizon really had a way of reminding us… this town sucks.

 

I had thought I had escaped it. I moved to Chicago to go work with my uncle after high school, but I got a year into that excursion, which turned out to be enough time to experience each of the four seasons and realize that they were all awful. I moved back to sunny, not the nice part of southern California three months ago and was able to reconnect with my good school buddies without any trouble. They were pretty much the same as they were before graduating, just with more time on their hands since full time work wasn’t exactly common out here.

 

We had all been raised in this city, finding each other through various mutual friends, becoming close through being able to relate to one another’s past and creative ways of dealing with that past. By that, I mean both via misguided coping processes like teenage drinking and rebellious behavior as well as some form of creative and imaginative pursuit. For example, Parker is a hell of smart dude, beating a life that could have crushed a normal person with a smile and persistent ingenuity. He was in and out of the foster system his entire childhood. When I first met him in middle-school, he was living in a shitty little two bedroom home with three other kids and a middle-aged couple that spent more money on booze than food.

 

They had this super old computer at the time that all the kids had to share, and I’m talking old, this was 1999 and his computer was still running on DOS and had those floppy disks, you know, the big black floppy disks as we called them, because dick jokes are funny. He didn’t really have a great deal of toys and I loved video games. So, he would come by and play games with me and then go home and program a game similar to that. Parker did more with less and with it, he developed a hell of a talent with a computer, a talent that sadly went to waste at this point.

 

You see, Parker didn’t stay with those people for too much longer. By our sophomore year in high school, he had been removed from that home of drunk abusive losers and put into the home of a nice woman in a good middle class home. She was something of a saint, a damn nice lady and good to Parker. Sad thing is, after graduation and after I had left to go to Chicago, she was killed in a hit and run. It was rough to hear, but Parker… well, he was an adult now and however it went down, he lived out here now.

 

He lived right smack in the middle of a big desert lot, in an old beat to shit white pick-up truck that didn’t have any power steering, had a coat hanger for an antenna, and a lazy eye for one of the headlights. I mean that, when he drove at night, one light was on the road and the other was freaking out people in their homes as it shined brightly into their windows. It was also useful when we drove by desert areas, as we could see a good distance into what is usually freaky, that is where the axe murderer is, level darkness.

 

Parker was always an awkward looking kid, tall and lanky with a blonde curly jew-fro and light colored facial hair on a thin long face. Now though, he was skinny, like Jared Leto in Requiem for a Dream skinny. You could tell that despite his best efforts, he wasn’t eating well. He never accepted help though, be it to pay for a dinner or to stay at one of our homes. He was stubborn about it and had a masterful way of deflecting pity with a smile and a sense of humor. That’s one thing I could always admire about him, he was almost always smiling and joking like everything was pretty chill in the world.

 

“Hey, you coming tonight?” Parker asked, breaking the silent meditation we had fallen into.

 

“To the asylum? Yeah, of course, Drew will be picking me up at my place, think he will be bring Andy and Erin.” I pushed myself away from the door I had been leaning on and started to make my way to the passenger side.

 

“Oh, nice, guess I’ll be meeting you guys,” he reached over, opening the door from the inside with a grunt, since the door handle was broken on the outside, “there then. Oh! I picked up some new shit for the investigation!” He pointed at a bag on the floor in front of the passenger seat, his tired looking eyes opening wide in excitement with a grin.

 

I reached into the bag curiously, finding a still in the package voice recorder, a couple extra small tapes, and an EMF meter. I nodded, pursing my lips together and slanting my eyes in a look of curiosity.  

 

“Cool, right?” Parker asked excitedly.

 

“Looks like it was built in the 1980s, they all do. Nobody can seem to make a good looking one of these things.”

 

“Aww, shut up. It’s cool!” He took it out of my hand, glaring at me with a smile creeping on his face.

 

“Probably worth the price of free you got them for.”

 

“When you got a talent,” he shrugged and tossed the meter at the bag on the ground, missing the opening, but making quite the racket. By a talent, he meant shoplifting, something I guess he picked up when he became homeless. He was good at it, and was getting pretty bold in his attempts as well. That worried me, of course, but we didn’t focus on it much.

 

Oh yeah, I should probably explain the asylum thing too. You see, we had gotten into ghost hunting. The idea of being somewhere creepy and maybe haunted excited us. We were sort of into the idea of the supernatural in some form or another, and the whole concept of spirits roaming the earth for various reasons had a romanticly dark appeal. Plus, this was 2007 and the TV show, Ghost Hunters, was extremely popular. Beyond that, we had become friends with a couple of your typical goth kids, many of which had started practicing various forms of witchcraft, such as Neo-Paganism and Wicca. It all felt rebellious and interesting, plus, as far as I was concerned, it wasn’t real. We were roleplaying, psyching each other up, and playing along to suppress our boredom.

 

Honestly, it's no surprise that a group of bored 19 year old kids that had just welcomed adult life with varying degrees of apathy were finding inventive ways to keep themselves entertained. The asylum was this abandoned hospital that was shut down under controversy a handful of years ago, a decrepit looking creepy building out in the middle of the desert without much of anything around it. We had been there three times before, experiencing little bits of creepy shit, but by the second visit, we had brought alcohol with us. To the surprise of none one, the booze acted as one heck of a distraction to our serious attempt at being the ones that found evidence of ghosts. We more or less spent the last two visits hanging out and drinking in an environment that felt very much us. Plus, when you had alcohol in you, it was a lot easier to believe those creeks where the spirit of a dead psycho patient.

 

“Thanks for bringing me the buttons I asked for, by the way,” Parker said as I climbed into the truck, “glad I could get her started again.” He gave the steering wheel a couple light pats.

 

“Yeah, of course. Had no idea you could turn the keyhole...starter… thing, into a push button thing,” I’m good with cars.

 

“Push Button Thing, wonderful invention name, the PBT start system, available now in crap Ford cars everywhere!” We laughed a moment and then let the silence sit as we thought of something to say next, “So, I need to go to the gym to shower, want me to drop you off somewhere?”

 

“Actually, yes. Ninja Brad’s, told him I’d come by today, we were going to do more of that magic meditation or whatever,” I replied, starting to roll the manual window down.

 

“Really? Again? Thought those weren’t going well for you.”

 

I was able to get the window down a little bit before it seemingly got stuck, causing me to stare at the roller with an angry glare, “My mind tends to go to dark places and I got an overactive imagination, probably just some weird interpretation of a suppressed memory.

 

“Dark places is a bit of an understatement, last time I heard about one, you saw yourself as a kid getting attacked by a shadow man tentacle beast. Ninja Brad said you woke out of it in a hell of a panic.” Parker reached out a hand, bending his fingers toward himself in a ‘gimme’ gesture. I handed him a cigarette from the pack I had just pulled from my pocket.

 

“Damn him, that’s a break of student, teacher confidentiality!”

 

“That doesn’t exist and he’s not a teacher.”

 

“But you’re an asshole,” I lit my cigarette, returning the lighter to my shirt pocket to Parker’s frustration as he didn’t have a lighter and had is hand out to take it from me.

 

“Well, hopefully your next meditation doesn’t become another cliche hentai. Can you give me the lighter, please?”

 

I gave it to him with a stern look, “wasn’t that type of tentacle man.”

 

“We all got our fantasties.”

 

“Take me to Ninja Brad’s and shut the fuck up.”

The Door to the Others

 

We turned into the cul de sac, Parker having to use both hands and pull hard to get the wheel to turn. He had to do that for every turn with Trash Truck due to it not having any power steering. Made it surprising he didn’t have much sign of muscle in his arms, especially with how much he had to drive. He parked onto the street in front of the corner home, it was this run down one story home with a black tiled roof, that was missing a decent amount of its tiles and cream walls that had a nice layer of dirt on it, like everything in this town. The entire property was protected by a chain link fence with a gate that had a clear as can be “no soliciting” sign hung on it.

 

“Alright, see you tonight, Jonathan,” Parker said, pulling the parking break since the truck had a bad habit of rolling on any sort of incline.

 

“For sure, now go wash yourself, you smell homeless.”

 

“Fuck you.”

 

“I’m not sure I appreciate your persistence.”

 

“Get out of my car.”

 

I opened the door and did as he asked, giving a small chuckle, which he returned. I held the door open a moment, turning my head to look to Parker, “drive safe tonight, you know it is way out there and your truck ain’t exactly in the best of shape.”

 

He nodded, giving a big smile in return, “I paid for my minutes, I’ll call if Trash Truck shits herself.”

 

“With this old girl, it's only a matter of time. See yah, Parker.”

 

“Don’t bad mouth her.. See yah.”

 

I closed the door and walked to the gate as Parker started to pull away.  As I opened the gate I was able to hear clearly where Ninja Brad was, just by the sounds of a few oofs and ha’s coming from the backyard area, behind the wood fence that separated the front from the rear. I stepped onto the front lawn where a katana was stuck into the center of the lawn. I stared at it a moment, noting the decorative handle had been removed and replaced by two pieces of smooth sanded wood and wrapped in tape and black cloth. This was probably for me, but I wasn’t really interested in playing with sharp objects today.

 

I headed over to the tall wooden gate at the side of the home, stepping on a pile of neatly stacked bricks that had been there for as long as I had known him. They got bought for something, I’m sure. I was able to peek over the gate and into the well maintained backyard, primarily well maintained due to the grass having all been removed to be replaced by sand. Nothing like being surrounded by sand at home too, at least it was more practical than trying to keep up a lawn in the desert. Most people’s grass lawns had a beautiful shade of dead to them. The sand had fresh rake marks in them, something he tended to do, it was meditative or something, made it have this nice low budget zen garden aesthetic.

 

Ninja Brad stood in the center of the backyard, just behind the house, a pillar sort of blocking my view of him. I could tell he was wearing his iconic outfit, because of course a guy we called Ninja Brad had an iconic outfit. He had on his black gi with a black belt tied around it, it had no official logos on, just a large patch of an upright pentagram on the back. He had his katana in hand, taking two hard swipes at the air, coming down overhead with a quick follow up to one side. Every swipe causing his long brown hair to fall into his freckled and stubble covered face, making him give a shake of his head to get it out of his eyes as he re-adjusted his stance to return where he started before the downward swing. It was all rather rhythmic and strangely calming to watch.

 

“Hey, did your front lawn deserve a stabbing?” I shouted toward him, holding to the top of the fence and standing on my tiptoes to make sure my head was peeking over the tall wooden structure.

 

“It did. Did you take the blade?” Brad asked, swinging his sword down hard at an arc.

 

“I did not,” I proclaimed proudly, watching as he followed the downward swipe with a quick turn of the blade and swing to the left.

 

“Why not, Jonathan?” He shook his head to get the hair out of his face as he returned his right foot back to stand up straight.

 

“Because, I’m not a ninja.”

 

“Neither am I.”

 

“But, you’re Ninja Brad!”

 

“I didn’t give myself that name.” That was true, me and Parker started calling him that. He never referred to himself as a ninja, he actually found the name a bit childish, which is probably why we loved it, “well, either way, I guess sword training isn’t what you are here for.”

 

“Nope, the idea of getting cut doesn’t appeal to me too much.” I gave a toothy grin, knowing there wasn’t much he enjoyed more than his swords. Other than maybe, his spiritual beliefs. He turned to finally look in my direction, his face even and stern. A pretty typical expression for Mr. Ninja.

 

“Come to the front door, I’ll let you in.” He started to walk towards the rear of the home where the sliding glass door was. I stepped off the bricks and headed to where he told me to and waited for him to open up. As I waited, I found my gaze drifting towards the sword sticking out of the ground right in plain view of the street.

 

Ninja Brad is an interesting fellow, he was twenty-six, older than the rest of the group by seven to eight years. I had been introduced to him through some of those goth kids I mentioned earlier, they were training with him and talked about him from time to time. I asked to be introduced, then Drew and Parker went with me. Thinking about it, I never asked those goth kids how they met him. Either way, he became a pretty regular presence in our life after that meeting, he did a tarot reading with us, then showed us some martial arts moves and his collection of swords. All of which concluded to him being a cool sort of weird in our books.

 

I had started to try and learn kendo with him, but after taking a few shots to the hand with the wooden practice swords, I was kind of over it. However, his other big hobby, the practice of pagan magic and spirituality fascinated me. I wasn’t a believer by any means, but the fact he very much was, made me want to see what it was all about. Magic had an air of taboo to it, and much like the exploration of haunted places, taboo peaked my curiosity. Plus, Ninja Brad said I was a natural at it, which is cool to hear, even if it isn’t real. I’m really good at make believe, I’m sure Mom would be proud.

 

“Grab the sword and come on in,” said a voice that broke my train of thought. I looked at Brad as he held the door open, realizing I had been staring out at nothing.

 

“Yeah, sure…” I replied with a nod before walking over to my own personal sword in the stone. Just instead of stone, it was soft ground and anyone could pull it out. That might be an analogy for life I went for there, I’m not sure. I plucked the sword out with one hard pull, brushing off the point of the blade on my pant leg before going back to him. He held the door open and I went inside.

 

I stepped onto the wood tiled part of the floor that seperated the doorway area to a slight step up onto carpeted area.

 

“Shoes.” he said, as per tradition. I nodded and removed my shoes, kicking them into place on a small area rug he had up against the wall. After that was done, I followed him inside further. I’m not sure he was really trying to preserve his carpet any, it was more or less an adoption from a culture he followed with reverence. There wasn’t anything worth preserving with the carpet really, the light brown mess of a thing had a fair share of stains in it. One of which made for a pretty nice greeting was a large dark brown spot a few feet from the doorway, it was made by blood spilled when my buddy you all haven’t met yet, Drew, had cut his arm playing with one of the swords.

 

The house overall had an interesting appeal to it, a mixture of Japanese, Irish, and Druidic inspired decorations. It was a mix of all Ninja Brad’s greatest interests, most of which, I admit caught my interest as well, plus the place was clean. Brad was a strange guy, but he was disciplined, I’ll give him that.

 

Propped up against the wall just in front of the door was a sheath for the sword, which Brad gestured to. I obliged and slid the sword I had plucked from the ground into it and set it back against the wall.

 

“How are you feeling after last time?” Brad asked, referring to the last meditation session.

 

“Fine, mostly, it was scary in the moment but it also felt familiar, I guess. I don’t know, not as frightening as the real life horrors out there.” That was mostly true, sometimes these trips he has me go on look and feel quite real, like I’m actually traveling somewhere.

 

“I’ve been wondering if this is something of a suppression of yours manifested or an actual memory,” he trailed off on the last thought, seemingly musing a bit too much on the possibilities of it.

 

“I doubt its a memory, I mean, I may not remember much of my childhood but I doubt it's because I was haunted by a tentacled shadow man.”

 

“Never say never, not in this world of wonders, my dear Jonathan,” Brad always said weird shit like that as if he was quoting some proverb, might just be his cadence. He has said things about grilled cheese being the bridge to his childhood self in much the same way.

 

“Sure, I guess,” then I remembered I had a bone to pick, “Oh, why in the hell did you have to go and tell Parker about it all anyway?”

 

“Did I?” Bread thought a moment, tapping his chin with a finger, “ah, yes!” He pointed up at the sky to convey the lightbulb went off, “didn’t think much of it, was it private?”

 

“Sort of…” I replied pensively, scratching the back of my head, “I mean, not really, just try and not tell anyone of the guys the weirder shit I’ve been seeing, at least not until we can figure out what it all means.“

 

“Alright,” Brad nodded, agreeable, “I’ll not let them know about your weird tentacle obsession.”

 

“You too!?” I was legitimately shocked, making crude jokes was not his way. We must be rubbing off on him. He laughed heartily with this high pitched cackle. His laugh was always a bit weird, like someone who had not known what a laugh was until he watched the Wizard of Oz, heard the witches laugh, and decided that would be the best option.

 

“I do follow the history and modern trends of Japanese culture, I’m well aware of the tentacle fetish,” He answered in a straightforward manner, which was often his way. He was either overtly straightforward or irritatingly cryptic, “well then, should we get started? We won't be breaking through those blocked memories of yours by standing around and… shooting the shit.” He was trying to talk like people, it was cute.

 

He led the way to the back bedroom of the two bedroom home. He lived alone, so the spare had been turned into a work area of sorts. Lets just say that if this was the 1980’s, this room would be what every media outlet was dying to exploit in the infamous satanic panic. Not that anything in the room was satanic, but right in the corner of the room was a large alter with a cow skull with a pentagram necklace hanging hanging on its right horn.

 

It was interesting getting to know Brad and learning just how much of pagan based beliefs and culture linked up with the more common faiths of the day. The pentagram wasn’t an evil thing, well, the upside down version of it certainly had some connection to actual satanism, but your standard upright one, not so much. The altar had many little trinkets and charms on it, along with a sword leaning up against it, one wrapped in a similar way to the one I had found outside, but in a white cloth around the sanded wooden handle. Ninja Brad had talked about the way he had blessed it for the purpose of magic once before, but since I wasn’t exactly a believer in it all, I didn’t retain the process by memory.

 

He had the entire room covered in black sheets. You could see specks of yellow on them if you looked closely, the yellow was dots of glow in the dark paint that made the room look as if you were standing in the middle of space, surrounded by stars when the lights were off. Brad did all this since he felt atmosphere was important to staying focused when practicing anything that took immense concentration and internal peace. I just thought it was a bad ass idea that I was going to steal one day to give girls I brought home something to wow at.

 

“Sweet or floral?” Brad asked, motioning to the brass cups on the altar full of incense.

 

“Floral. Sweet brings to mind cookies and candy, the thought of food sounds distracting.”

 

“Did you need to eat?” Brad took an incense from one of the middle cups, gave it a sniff, nodded, and then inserted it into the mouth of Japanese style dragon holder he had made of nicely carved wood.

 

“No, I’m fine.” When the incense was lit up, it gave the room a nice smell, like lavender. Ninja Brad then took the white handled sword that leaned up against the altar before walking over to the window, moving aside the thick blackout curtain to look toward the sky.

 

“Waxing, right?” I asked, taking a seat on the center of the floor. He let go of the curtain and nodded.

 

“Correct. You’re learning the moon’s phases?” he said with a pleased smile.

 

“Yeah, figured in case a ritual of yours turned me into a werewolf it would be good knowledge to have.”

 

“Would you like to be a werewolf?” He asked as he put the tip of the sword to the ground gently.

 

“Why? Could you make me one?”

 

“No.” He started dragging the sword along the carpet at his side tracing out a circle around us.

 

“Then no.”

 

“Would the answer be different if I said I could?” When he finished the circle, I had to stand and move aside as he traced the shape of the five pointed star.

 

“I do get six pack abs as a werewolf, right?”

 

“Depends on the lore.”

 

“Then my answer is, it depends.”

 

He smirked and gave a small laugh, which I took as a success. He was typically very serious come circle time. The last shapes he traced out with sword and carpet were the runic signs for the four elements on each of the cardinal directions. That was something I would need a compass for, I couldn’t tell what direction I was facing at any given moment and also had a bad habit of getting east and west confused.

 

“Are you ready?” He asked as he finished the southern shape.

 

“Yeah. Is it time to summon Captain Pla..”

 

“No.” He interrupted, apparently tired of that joke, “have you memorized it?”

 

“Yes.” I said more pointedly since serious Ninja Brad had shown up. He nodded and reached up to pull down on the cord from the ceiling fan above to turn off the light. The room went dark and slowly the glow in the dark spots on the walls started to glow, giving the room an ambience. Brad offered me a hand, which I took as he positioned himself to stand at my side.

 

“Great Mother and Great Father, I ask you to join us and protect us from the spirits that would intrude upon this here sacred ground. By the great powers of air, fire, earth, and water, bless and empower us as we journey beyond.”

 

The invocation was said in tandem, turning to each of the cardinal directions as the elements were named off. Afterwards, we let go of each others hands and sat down opposite one another. My hands fell naturally to rest folded on top of my folded legs. I knew it was important to be comfortable, and sit straight to help avoid falling asleep.

 

“Deep breath in, pay attention to your diaphragm, how it decompresses and your chest tightens. Hold the air in for a second, taking not to the stillness within, now exhale.”

 

I did as he directed, taking the breath in slow through my nose and focusing on my breath, my body, and its sensations before exhaling it out through my mouth in a slow and deliberate manner.

 

“Again,” He said, taking part in the breathing, his inhale loud and deliberate, just as his exhale was. I always thought it was dramatic how much he put into it, though I knew he put more into it to make it clear how long the breath was supposed to be and how slow the exhale was supposed to be. We repeated this process over and over again, which caused my head and arms to feel heavy as it always did. This felt like it went on for awhile, I wondered what I was going to see today. Last time wasn’t all that pleasant.

 

“Do not drift, focus on your breath and the sensation.”

 

My wandering mind directed itself back to the breathing at his cue. I thought of nothing but the breath, nothing but how heavy I suddenly felt, nothing but how much I wanted to slouch but knew I shouldn’t. Eventually his loud breathing stopped and mine became less pronounced with it.

 

“Take a look around your minds eye, turn within the space. What do you see?”

 

I felt as if I was turning in the space, imagining it, but also feeling feet below me pivot to turn a body.

 

“Darkness, all around me, darkness,” I replied, the voice sounding like it came from well above where I was, but not myself.

 

“Before you, you will see a door.”

 

In the blackness, a large violet wooden double door materialized itself in front of me. The doors were plain with no details or accents, the handles on the other hand were gold, with a five pointed star shape etched into it.

 

“Open the door and step inside.”

 

I reached with both hands and turned the knobs, the moment I began to turn them, the doors shot open and my vision was covered in light. I reached up with my arms to block my eyes, squinting as a searing pain flared up in the back of my head. The light enveloped me and I felt my body drifting weightlessly as I was pulled forward.Then it stopped and darkness returned.

 

I dropped my arms to investigate my surroundings, noticing I was standing inside of someone’s home. The house was dark and all of my surroundings had this haze to it. I could still see the details of what lay before me with everything lit just enough by a dim blue light. I stood at the front door and the path before me was a short hallway with a door on my left, my mind telling me it was a bathroom. At the end of the entry hall, the room opened up, a divider in the wall on the right led to a kitchen and dining room, to the left the living room and directly in front was stairs leading up to the second floor. My recognition was nearly immediate, this was a childhood home.

 

I moved homes a lot when I was younger and I could never remember the layout of them. This one however, was as clear to me as ever. I was five or six at the time when we lived here, and my family shared stories of this place. While they would talk about supernatural events in many of the homes we were in, this one was special. My mother told stories about this house being occupied by many spirits, many that made her believe without a shadow of a doubt, that they existed.

 

As I stared ahead, letting the realization of where I was sink in, I noticed Brad’s voice had stopped giving instructions. He had either stopped doing so or I was so deep I could no longer hear him. I was alone now and my first instinct was to open the door behind me and get out. I tried to turn the knob and it was locked. It didn’t even turn or budge at all.

 

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, “This isn’t real, you are safe at Brad’s house, this is in your head,” I said to myself aloud, my body betraying the advice as my heart pounded and my senses narrowed in focus. My hands shook uncontrollably, the fight or flight instinct was kicking in. The world around was pushing on me, telling me to leave and get out, that I had trespassed into somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be. I opened my eyes, hoping I had left that place, that my will to move on would allow me to do so. In the full frame of my vision, the door stood in my way.

 

“Fuck you, you stupid brain…” I turned around and scanned the area. It was weirdly quiet, well, almost quiet. There were faint sounds coming from up ahead in the living room, they sounded muffled, muted, as if they were further off in the distance than just a couple of feet away. Something else was in the background, it was this low rhythmic *whump…. whump….whump*

 

This slow, bassy heartbeat sound that surrounded and followed me. As I concentrated on it, it got louder, started to creep into the back of my head and thudding its way forward. It felt like it was trying to pound through my skull and reach my eyes.

 

I gave a shake of my head and moved forward, taking note that the sound drifted away as I did so. The noise from the living room became clearer as I got closer. I could hear voices, a few of them, I couldn’t make out words, they were distorted and twisted. I took in a breath and peeked around the wall where the room opened up and the light and shape of a tube set TV stared back, the light from it was bright, but the overpowering blue glow in the air kept it from projecting far. I couldn’t make out was on the television, just the light and various colored moving shapes. In the corner of my view there was sudden movement. I looked toward it and sitting on the recliner facing the screen was a familiar presence. My mother.

 

She was much younger looking than I ever remember her. She was in a baby blue bathrobe and her light brown hair was wet from a recent shower. She looked tired and sad. To be honest, she probably was… My Dad was rarely around, so she spent a lot of time alone taking care of me and my sister. When he was around, she would still be taking care of us and our sudden increase in injuries. That dark pit in the depths of my stomach, that foreboding, it now had a sudden mixture of sadness.

 

“When this is over, I should call Mom…” I said in a whisper, knowing she wouldn’t be able to hear me anyway. Then suddenly there was a loud creak of the floor above me that broke my train of thought, it was followed by another, as if something heavy was slowly walking up there. I stared up toward it and after three steps, it stopped. Then a door creaked open and the steps turned direction. Those sounds were so clear and amplified over everything else. I pushed myself away from the wall and walked towards the stairs, stopping at the foot of them with one hand on the banister.

 

I didn’t want to go up there, but I had to, “This isn’t real, you are safe at Brad’s house, this is in your head.” I started up the stairs, taking slow and deliberate steps, trying to be quiet as I listened. The stairs stopped halfway up and then turned the other direction to go up, as I turned the corner and put my foot on the first step, I had to stop instantly when I heard a loud noise heading toward me.

 

*thump thump thump thump*

 

It was coming from the hallway just up the stairs, quicker and more erratic.

 

A quick and blurred figure of a young girl popped into view in the hallway above me, her entire body silhouetted in blue. She was running towards me quickly, her eyes intense, fearful, and determined. Our eyes met and her body flinched. What little warmth in the area got sucked out of the environment, and I suddenly became very cold. She turned and ran directly through the open door on the left of the hallway, the door slamming behind her without anyone touching it.

 

My mother’s voice entered into my mind “When I had the house to myself, I would stay up late at night after you two went to bed. I liked to take advantage of that time when I could. Every now and then though, I’d hear the sudden running of little feet before a door would slam. I had thought it was you guys messing about, but I always found you sleeping soundly. One day, you were all staying at your Grandparents and I was in the house alone. Then it happened again, the running of little feet and suddenly a slam of a door. That’s when I knew…”

 

She had told us that story quite a few times, it was one of a good little number of them. She is a pragmatic woman, but when it came to ghosts and hauntings, she didn’t question the legitimacy of them. However, those footsteps earlier, those were different, they were not made by little feet, they were bigger, slower, more purposeful. I pushed the thoughts out of my head and continued up the stairs, trying the door the child had gone through, slowly turning the knob before a faint sound of singing from down the hall caught my ear. Three doors total that way, one at the center, and one on each side.

 

I let the doorknob go as I focused on the voice. It was a soothing tone, motherly in a way, but no other female adults lived in this home.

 

*Slam*

 

I jumped away as the door I was just opening slammed back shut.

 

“You little shit,” I whispered under my breath, taking in a deep breath and putting my hand to my chest. My heart was pounding. I let the air out slowly, trying to steady myself. Why did this all feel so fucking real?

 

I slowly approached the singing, the voice becoming more and more clear, it was an old song I recognized.

 

Rest tired eyes a while

Sweet is thy baby’s smile

Angels are guarding and they watch over the

 

I continued to walk towards it, transfixed by the soothing sound of it. It enveloped my surroundings, breaking through the thick air that muffled it earlier.

 

Sleep, sleep, grah mo chree *

Here on you mamma’s knee

Angels are guarding

And they watch over the

 

I reached out to the doorknob of my sister’s room and slowly turned it open. Inside the small figure of my older sister laid in her bed, sleeping calmly as an elderly woman in a rose patterned dress that came down to just above her ankles and a white apron stood over her, tucking the covers around my sister as she sung the lullaby. There was that same blue glow about her and she was translucent, an apparition. I looked down at my hand for the first time since coming to this place, seeing that I was the same.

 

My mother’s voice again entered my head, “When you two were younger, you once asked me why I didn’t tuck you in anymore. I didn’t quite understand the question since I hadn’t tucked you all in since you were babies. You told me someone had tucked you in every night in that house and she would sing a song to you. One I had never heard. I asked if you ever felt scared with her, like you did with the other one, you said no. I started tucking you all in after that, until you got to be older and asked me to stop babying you.”

 

The elderly woman turned her head to look at me, her face wrinkled but soft. She smiled as she sang.

 

Sleep, sleep, grah mo chree

 

My vision went black and the house disappeared. I felt myself getting pulled out of the room, then through the next door to my own childhood room before suddenly being forced down. There was the soft firmness of a pillow under my head, softness at my back, covers on my body.

 

My mother’s voice broke through the darkness, “You had a lot of frightful experiences in that house too. They terrified you. Always the same… you would wake up in your bed.”

 

My eyes shot open, and the roof of the home and the tops of the walls in front of me were there to greet me. I felt smaller in my own body, I traced over the sensations from before. I was in my old bed, I had been sleeping, I was a child again.

 

“You talked about how you would be unable to move, said your body was paralyzed.”

 

I tried to move my head to look around but I couldn’t. I could dart my eyes back and forth but that could only let me see so far. The door, I couldn’t see the door.

 

I tried to lift my arm, my leg... nothing.

 

I tried to wiggle my fingers, my toes… nothing.

 

“You’d see shadows on the wall, shapes of people all around you but with no actual bodies to accompany them.”

 

All around me in my frame of vision, the shadows of people reflected off the moonlight that slipped through the closed curtains. They were on the wall, their figures pointed towards the bed as if staring down at me. I could not see who or what was projecting them.

 

“You would want to scream but you couldn’t.”

 

I tried to shout, to say anything, to tell them to fuck off, to let me go. I couldn’t. No words, no sounds, my mouth was firmly closed and unable to speak. I wanted to cry, to kick, to shout. This helplessness, this fear, it was intense and overwhelming. No matter how many times I woke up in this paralyzed and haunted state, I never got used to it.

 

“You would feel something climb on to the bed at your feet”

 

At the foot of my bed, the mattress compressed under my body, shaking as a weight was placed down on it, it moved up and shook my body, my vision blurring as my head whipped side to side. One hand at a time gripped on the mattress at either side of my body as it made its way up. I tried to lift my head and peek at what it was, but I couldn’t, I was stuck and unable to move, but I could feel it, I could feel the weight of it, I could feel its breath on my body.  

 

“It would slowly come into view and stare you in the eyes.”

 

The shapes of black deer antlers rose into my peripheral, followed by black fur upon a black as night human shaped head. The air was distorted around it, it moved and throbbed. These reddish, dark crimson eyes on a face with no skin and patches of bone showing through pieces of black muscle looked down at me. A mouth like a snakes unhinged jaw opened and came towards my face, looking to take a clean bite of flesh. I never wanted to scream more in my entire life.

 

“That’s when you would wake up.”

 

I screamed.

 

The world melted away and suddenly I was staring directly at a shocked and afraid looking Ninja Brad. I quickly shot back away from him, using my arms and legs to push myself until I felt the wall behind me. I breathed heavily, my heart thudding hard against my chest, the thump of it reverberating in the back of my head.

 

“Jonathan, you’re back, nothing can hurt you,” Brad said calmly, slowly shuffling toward me on his knees, keeping low and trying to be as unthreatening as possible. It was clear he knew I was panicked, “are you okay?”

 

I couldn’t answer him, I was breathing too heavily. I looked around at everything but him trying to find the shadows or any other presences in the room, but the light glow of the painted stars on the black walls were all I could find.

 

“Hey! Look at me!” He exclaimed, my attention snapping to him, and his voice immediately calmed when he knew he had my focus. “Alright now, deep breath. In…” I tried to steady my breathing, taking in a slow breath as directed, “and out,” I breathed out, my heart calming and my muscles losing some tension.

 

“Turn on the lights please,” I replied tiredly, my mind spinning and unable to put together the pieces, exhausted by trying to make sense of what happened. I couldn’t grasp what had happened, but I knew I didn’t want to be in the dark anymore. He nodded and stood up to go and flick the light switch on the wall.

 

The yellow colored embrace of real world light surrounded me and I sighed in relief, my eyes closing as I leaned my head back against the wall, my limbs falling limp on the ground. I had been so tense for so long and now that it was over, I needed to let every ounce of it go and just let my body relax.

 

“Are you okay?” Brad asked again, taking a seat on the floor where he had started originally. I opened an eye to look at him and nodded.

 

“Yeah, I think.”

 

“You must have gone really deep this time, you stopped responding, it scared me,” he did look worried, but intrigued as well.

 

I sighed, “Yeah, this was deeper then I had ever gone before. I was there and I could not tell the difference between this reality,” I touched the sheet hung on the wall, “and wherever it was that I saw.”

 

“What did you see?” He asked with a sense of urgency, leaning forward out of excitement.

 

I took in a breath and explained to him what had happened. Every detail I could about how real it all felt, how connected it was to what felt like real memories. During the retelling of it all, I had moved to sit where I had started so he could re-trace the circle to “repair” the damage I had done in my panic to get away from him. When I got to the part about being sucked back into my childhood body and the sleep paralysis, he had leaned forward and rested his chin upon the knuckles of his clasped together hands, obviously very interested in what I had to say.

 

“Yes… that must have been when your eyes opened!” He said, a small laugh slipping out, his gaze unbroken from mine.

 

I tilted my head to the side, confused. “What do you mean my eyes opened?”

 

“Hmmm?” Ninja Brad hummed out, perking a brow and allowing his gaze to drift toward the ground as he thought about something, “Oh!” he perked up and grinned, “I said that out loud didn’t I? I apologize.”

 

I sighed and twirled my finger around in a circle, signaling for him to get on with it. He laughed in his typically cackling way.

 

“Aww, well, you see. Everything was going normal, I’d get responses from you when I called for them, at least at first. Then at the time of crossing over into your subconscious,”

 

“The door?”

 

“Yes, the door. You stopped responding, no answers, you had even stopped moving. I couldn’t tell if you were breathing. It was worrisome to say the least. I had seen some people go deep, but nobody like you,” he laughed again, this shit really did excite him. In this sort of situation though, his bedside manner could use a lot of work, “I even tried to shake you out of it, but I couldn’t get through. I didn’t know what to do, so I settled down close and watched. Suddenly your eyes opened,” he pantomimed my eyes shooting open with his hands, “you stared directly at me, but still didn’t respond. Your eyes moved back and forth in a panic as if searching, but your body didn’t move.”

 

“Holy… fuck.” I didn’t understand what that meant, but nothing about it seemed normal, “holy fuck, Brad. What in the mother fucking hell happened to me?”

 

“You went back! You crossed over! All at once, Jonathan. I mean, I may meditate and see that I’m traveling, maybe see shades of the world, but you… you experience so, so much more!” He was way too excited about this.

 

“Okay, calm the fuck down. That isn’t what happened.”

 

“How else can you define what you are describing?”

 

“I don’t fucking know,” I paused, thinking, trying to tap that logical side of my brain. The old friend that could pull out theories based in god damned reality, “suggestion, like hypnosis. The mind is able to play on ideas and when under a hypnotic state, it may project a realistic version of reality based on the hosts experiences and the therapists suggestions. That’s what these are, right?”

 

He looked baffled by my explanation.

 

“Okay, so look,” I readjusted the way I sat to be on my knees and able to lean forward and better talk with my hands as I typically did when speaking, “we have been digging into these sessions trying to unlock forgotten pieces of my childhood, this meditative practice of yours is an instructed diveinto the mind. It requires focus, calming, repetitive phrasing to hook onto. It is like hypnotism. Some people are more susceptible than others, sure. Obviously, I am and well, my mind was on tonight's haunting hunt with the group. So, mix that with my want to dive back to my forgotten childhood, and I got a mixture of both. I went back to an old home of mine, a home that my Mom always talked about being haunted and I saw the ghosts she claimed lived there. That’s got to be it!”

 

Brad looked disappointed.

 

“I didn’t cross over or anything like that, I dug up something in my past I hadn’t thought about in a long time, which I thank you for. That was the purpose of this, “ I tried to save it, at least a little.

 

Brad nodded and stood up, “I appreciate your ability to dig at an explanation. I fear that is why so much of you is locked away,” he offered me a hand, which I accepted.

 

“I can’t just readily accept the unexplainable with reckless abandon, that’s irresponsible,” I was jerked onto me feet, proving yet again that this skinny looking guy was actually quite strong.

 

“As long as you don’t stop trying to explore the unexplainable, you’ll see what I see.”

 

“I hope so, would sure as hell beat the day to day grind of work, sleep, more work, masturbation, sleep.”

 

“Could get a girlfriend.”

 

“Fuck you.”

 

“I’m already spoken for.”

 

Brad was learning! We were influencing him! I’m pretty sure that was a bad thing. We laughed and nodded to each other.

 

“Next week?” He asked, wondering if I would be returning for another session. The idea of it didn’t exactly sound comforting. Despite my trying to explain what happened, there was something in the pit of my stomach telling me every word I said was full of shit and next time will take me even deeper. Then again, that was kind of exciting, wasn’t it?

 

“Yeah,” I nodded confidently, “next week.”

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 24.09.2018

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Widmung:
To all my wonderful artistic friends who have put up with my various start and stops over the years. You encouraged me to keep on going and keep on creating, that I was worth of creating something.