Pipeline (6 page)

“I later wrote my history for the society,
and they conducted an investigation into that house, which has
remained uninhabited. It turned out that the woman I saw was a
young prostitute who was raped and murdered in that house in 1935.
The man who killed her was Agnes’ son, and the other man was a
fellow ex-con of his. They stashed her body in that house, and it
was discovered years later, a result of the investigation. It had
been walled up amid the limestone.”

Leah’s eyes unglued from the table top and
met those that were fixed on her.

“When I became old enough, I decided to use
my ‘gift’ to help others, to assist those that linger, unable to
move on from this world and to help those who are haunted to
understand. Otherwise, what is the point of having such an
ability?”

Tracy let out a gasp, realizing the strength
of the young woman in front of her.

“You’ve come to the right place, and we will
help you.”

“That’s right,” Dylan said. “We want you to
know that we are all in this together.” He reiterated the group’s
support to Tracy and thanked Leah for sharing her history. Now, he
turned to Sidney. “Well, Sid, it’s your turn.”

Chapter Seven

Again, Sidney
refrained from his slightly hunched slouch and raised his head, his
robust cheeks puffing out from under horn-rimmed glasses. He sat in
wonder as to where to begin and decided that the beginning was the
only way to tell a history.

“Well,” he said, “like Leah, I was also the
age of five when my first paranormal experience occurred. This is a
crucial age in the psychic development of children. One of my main
fields of study is that of children with certain gifts or
abilities. I have studied: child clairvoyants, telepaths,
telekinetics, spirit seers such as Leah, and ‘listeners’ such as
myself.

“Listeners are those who are able to hear the
voices of the dead, often immediately following or even days after
death. I first heard the voice of my grandfather only minutes after
he died. This event changed everything in my life and turned me
into whom, or should I say, ‘what’ I am today.

“These experiences are not about hearing
voices. Actually, what happens is an interruption of all the sounds
we identify as reality, and only the voice of the spirit can be
heard. When this interruption occurs, we are momentarily deaf to
the surrounding world, and we listen as the sounds of an unknown
realm become known to us. This I’ll explain further, but allow me
to start from the beginning.

“My grandfather meant the world to me when I
was only five, and it was just the four of us: me, my parents, and
him. My grandmother had died when I was too young to remember so
Grandpa had lived with us all of my life. He would take me fishing,
to the movies, on trips, a convenient baby-sitter for Mom and
Dad.

“Then, one day he died. I was crushed, beyond
inconsolable. The devastation went on for days. It was my first
interaction with the reality of death, my first conception of what
it meant to be gone forever. The word ‘why’ kept reverberating in
my mind, a constant echo. My state of mourning had left my parents
in a helpless state of dilemma.

“I sat on our front porch on that hot summer
day, sobbing, mourning, and distant. I had heard his voice, just as
clear as I am hearing my own. The power and magnitude of his voice
seemed to break through an unseen barrier into this world, throwing
what little I knew of it so far, into question.”

“‘
Sidney.’ I heard it; it was sharp and
interrupted the natural process. I knew it was real because
everything had stopped for the sound of that voice. The chirping of
birds, the soft breeze rustling in the trees, the off-hand noises
from inside the house, all were muted, diminished by the ghostly
interruption. My body chilled even as the bright orange sun blazed
down that August day.”

“‘
I love you,’ I heard him say,
‘always.’”

“The perfect, crystal clarity with which he
spoke was as though he were there. “I ran into the house and yelled
for my parents, who came running from the kitchen along with two of
our neighbors. I told them what I heard, and how I couldn’t hear
anything else at that moment, and how Grandpa was still
here...somewhere.

My mother’s face had melted into a molten
mask of humiliation that strangely enough, seemed frozen. Her
embarrassment, the greater concern, displayed like a work of
art.

“My father looked like someone whose darkest
secret was just exposed in the bright, summer sunlight for the
entire world to notice. The features of his face twitched and
tweaked, and the nervous climb of his breathing ascended as he
tried to speak over it. The way our neighbors looked at me
confirmed it, betraying their thoughts: Michael Pratt’s kid was a
whack job.

“I began to hear other voices since that day
and by the age of eight, I was able to identify the occurrences as
the same as when I heard my grandfather’s voice. My parents had
judged it to be a vivid, overactive, childhood imagination. Then I
mentioned names of people that, to my parents, had long passed on,
and their secret looks of confirmation to each other had done
nothing to fool me. These people were dead, and I could hear
them.

“I was taken to see psychiatrists, some of
whom concurred with the imagination theory, claiming I was
suffering from the traumatic effects of first-time grief, a child
compensating for a sudden, overwhelming loss. Then there was this
one shrink who had difficulty in diagnosing me as schizophrenic
because I lacked all the other symptoms.

“She became forceful one day during a
session, bearing down hard upon me in an attempt to break from me a
confession of my ‘overactive imagination.’ Suddenly, I could no
longer hear her voice, yet her mouth continued to chastise me. All
noise had ceased for the phantom sounds of gunfire. What I was
hearing was a battlefield in full throttle. That day, a voice gave
me a message for her, and I waited for her to finish speaking.”

“‘
Mark says he loves you, Suzy
Q.’”

“I said this to her, calling her by the pet
name he’d used for her. It was at that moment that her face had
drained of color and deflated in defeat. Her eyes opened wide in
disbelief, her lips parted in speechless abandon, and she stared at
me dead on. My parents’ eyes were locked together in terror, and I
had struck a nerve so great in that room that the tension in it
felt like humidity.

“Moments of silence passed; no one would
speak. Then she asked to see my parents outside, without me. They
returned minutes later, and I saw that shrink only a few more
times. The whole atmosphere of our sessions had changed; she wanted
to know everything I knew about Mark. I told her what little I
knew. It turned out that Mark was the man she almost married. He
was killed in Vietnam. He had spoken to me; I had listened.

“She knew that there was no way I could have
known, yet she sought desperately to discover one. Her interest had
peaked in what started to unravel into an obsession, and soon my
parents had stopped all sessions with her. I would continue through
life, listening and understanding that which my parents would begin
to ignore, deny, and pray would disappear.”

A brief pause ensued, as the spice of
Sidney’s life was ingested.

“Sid, you mentioned earlier, ‘breaking an
unseen barrier into this world,’” Brett said. “Don’t you think you
should clarify that for our guest? I mean, just a little, O’ wise
one?”

Brett hated it when Sidney began waxing
ethereal, and when he teased his old pal, snickers burst from the
others. Sidney threw his head upward in an exaggerated snub, his
face casting a snobbish, high-hatted sneer.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ll clarify...O’ wise
ass!”

The giggling continued and when it passed,
the silence cued the serious epilogue. “It means that my
grandfather’s spirit was powerful enough to do just that. Most
spirits are unable to perform the task of sounding off to a
listener, but some are strong enough to know how to manipulate the
energy that they represent, and then break through the barrier that
normally prevents the living from being able to hear or see
them.

“I only hear those that are strong enough to
communicate with me. Just like Leah only sees what is shown to her,
I only hear what the spirit chooses to tell. Sometimes, I only hear
words. It often takes a certain amount of coaxing to hear
more.”

“That’s right,” Leah said, hoping to
elaborate Sidney’s point. “I was supposed to see the visions that I
saw in that house. The woman knew that I could see her, and she
chose to show me those images. She had cried out for justice. It
was Sidney who explained all that to me, as he studied my childhood
experiences.”

“What we’re trying to say,” Sidney said, “is
that your late fiancée may speak to me, or he may not. He may show
himself to Leah but maybe not. We don’t choose what we see and
hear; they do. But I do know this: communication with the dead is
not easy, so when a rare occurrence of technology is involved and
contact has been made—”

“What we could be dealing with is a very
powerful entity,” Leah said, abrupt and interrupting Sidney’s
mounting hesitation, annunciating her last three words with
poignant precision. Sidney’s face sagged, as though she had popped
the air from his balloon with a pin.

Dylan’s eyes met Leah’s, motioning a hint at
candor. He didn’t want Tracy startled, but that is what happened as
she gave a quick, tense shudder. Leah’s eyes closed in sudden
regret.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just thought you
should know.”

Tracy’s nerves silently crawled back from the
edge.

Brett, outside of ribbing Sidney, had sat
silent while the stars of the group shined in their soliloquies,
and now he spoke to calm her.

“Tracy, I’ll be the one monitoring your
electrical setups around the house: the computer, the television,
and any radios. If this spirit has made contact by these means
already, it will likely do so again. We are all going to be there,
together. Don’t be afraid.”

“And keep in mind,” Dylan said, “that you may
not be dealing with something malevolent. I mean, you once loved
this person we call a spirit...am I right? Did you have any reason
to fear him while he was alive?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head.

“Was David a jealous, or possessive
person?”

“No,” an exasperated gasp escaped her.
“Never—he may have been overly concerned, or protective, but not
possessive. We were about to be married.”

“I apologize for having to ask that
question,” Dylan said, “but it shows that you are probably not
being haunted, but visited. The difference lies in the intention of
the spirit. David is probably unable to move on, unable to accept
the reality of the accident, nothing more.”

She wiped a rolling tear from her cheek.

“By the way,” Leah said, “you wouldn’t happen
to have a picture of him with you?” Tracy nodded, and Leah asked to
see it. She slipped out a picture she still kept in her wallet and
handed it to the seer, who memorized the young man’s face for
moments and passed it on to the others.

“What we’re going to do is set up shop,
tomorrow, if that’s okay?” Dylan asked.

Tracy thought of the unused sick days she had
coming at work; now was the time to use them. She wanted out of
this dream, to fix the crack in the framework of her reality,
wanted everything back to normal. She also wanted a drink.

“Yes, tomorrow’s fine,” she said. “I won’t be
working.”

“Great,” he said. “Tomorrow, Brett will set
up and examine your electronics, and the rest of us will do a quick
tour of the house to get familiar. I also need you to show us the
exact location of where you saw him tonight.”

She nodded.

“Then all of our normal procedures will
follow—agreed?”

The unanimous nodding of heads followed.
Dylan’s eyes searched around the room, gathering final thoughts,
and then he finished his instructions.

“Tracy, tonight I want you to document
anything that happens from the moment you leave here. I want you to
go about as though everything is normal, and don’t be afraid. We
will see you tomorrow.”

She agreed, thanking them for their help,
sharing their stories, and reassuring her that she wasn’t losing
her mind. They exchanged good-byes, and Dylan led her out of the
building and walked her to her car. The others stayed behind until
he returned, closing the door behind him.

“I’d like to address something before we
start,” he said. “I wanted to say thank you all, not just for
sharing your stories, but for joking around and laughing with her.
That was okay, but we have to remember that if this is what I think
it is, things are about to get serious, maybe even dangerous. We
have to keep that in mind at all times. Reassurance is one thing,
but we don’t know what’s going to happen from here.”

“This is going to be a first for the
society,” Brett said. “The studies on this have been few, and if we
have a genuine pipeline connection—” He threw his head up and
whistled in amazement.

“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Leah
said, “but my first concern is for Tracy, not how big this is going
to be for the society or the huge, invisible heads funding it.
Remember, if we do have a pipeline connection, it’s going to be
extremely difficult to prove.”

“What worries me,” Sidney said, “is that it
sounds as though this spirit will not move on. That’s why we had to
question the whole obsession idea. She was adamant, but whatever
the case, this may become intense.”

“I was a little concerned about the smell of
alcohol on her breath.” Dylan’s words had surprised them, as they’d
pretended not to notice. “I’m guessing, given her profession, that
habitual drinking is a rarity. I think this entire experience may
have led her to drinking in excess.”