A Seance from The Sleep Of Reason (Part 2)

Writing this sort of creeped me out, I hope the chills translate to others, as well:

Like a wisp of smoke that turned solid, the bluish presence within the circle slowly took form. Two eyes seemed to exude sadness and knowledge as they stared towards Russell. The figure was tall and thin, his narrow jaw and long nose blossoming into a prominent forehead. Wild waves of hair gathered around the sides of a receding hairline. The figure in the center radiated its blue light so that each of the members holding hands were bathed in the light.

“What secrets are you hoping to discover?” asked the blue apparition, peering down at them. He appeared unnaturally tall, as if he levitated in order to show his rank.

“We are looking for our missing friends,” said Russell. “Have you seen them?”

“You want answers, but answers are worth nothing until they are earned. If you wish to see what we see, then you must walk the path that we have walked.”

“We only wish to find our friends. Will you not help us?”

“Our secrets are our own. If you want answers, you must join us. Trust for trust.”

“We don’t want to join you,” said Doug, “we just want what’s ours. You have no right to keep our friends from us.”

“They came here of their own volition. Like you, they came seeking answers, which we provided them. But answers come with a price, which they have paid. Will you?”

Mindy was tempted to ask what price they would have to pay, what price Dave and Johnny had paid, but Doug spoke again.

“We have not come to bargain with you,” said Doug. His voice projected authority, but Mindy had no idea where it came from, what he could back it up with.

The figure inside the circle did not seem to recognize any authority other than his own. Mindy again became aware of the hands she clung to, felt the security they provided. Maintain the circle and contain the spirit. Although everyone in the circle reflected the blue glow from the presence in the middle. The blue glow seemed to lie now even beyond their circle. She felt the beads that Russell’s grasp pushed into the flesh of her hands, realized they belonged to the man in front of them, that he must be Gregor Soeldner. She feared that he might recognize them as his own, demand them back.

“I do not bargain, I speak truth. The Association has endured because we have not betrayed our secrets. If we let you in, we will not let you out.”

“We have summoned you to tell us what we need to know,” Mindy was pretty sure Doug was bluffing that he had nothing to back up his bluster. “You are contained within the circle we have created. You have no power, you cannot set conditions.”

“Yes, I am contained within your circle,” said Gregor. “But your circle is a small thing. And I am the only one within it.”

Mindy had been staring at Gregor, at the bluish glow of his presence. Now she shifted her gaze to beyond the circle the four members of The Beyond Show formed with their hands. Looking to her right, then left, she noticed beyond the circle the same glow existed outside of the four members. There were many figures outside of the circle, surrounding them, each of them holding hands in the same manner that Mindy and the others were. Each of them shared a gaze of intent that lacked any human element.

She looked at Doug and found him lacking any response. In that moment she knew she’d better gather her courage, that she was the one who had the most to lose. Whatever strength and experience the others had, she was among them and therefore had a part to play. She gazed at Gregor, who as yet had not looked at her, and said, “Perhaps they have us, but we have you. You have been summoned by us, and you will answer to us. You no longer speak from the authority that you did as a man of God, you are but a remnant of a man, a memory that has lingered. You exist to share your message. Speak!”

He looked at her as one who had been discovered, and said, “The answers and the people you seek are below us. If you dare to follow, it is there that you will find your answers.”

The figure of Gregor flickered, as if to say that it was not the thing they should be looking at. The group, still holding hands, turned their gaze outside of the circle, looked at the figures beyond. There were enough to form a full circle around them, even at a distance. But the circle soon dissipated as the figures began to walk single file towards a building to their west. Mindy looked to Doug and the others. Without the need for discussion, the decision was made. It was Russell who spoke for the group, “You are released, Gregor Soeldner.” The light that reflected from each of their faces vanished into blackness as the figure in front of them disappeared.

“Let’s follow them,” said Mindy, her words braver than the feeling in her heart. They trailed after the figures who moved slowly, like a chain gang returning from work. They disappeared through a door that Russell was forced to open for the others. Izzy would have been more than happy to be the last one through the door, but Doug stood behind, as if to guard against a reappearance from Gregor.

They walked upon tiled floors littered with glass, their way well-lit by the glow of the apparitions. There were perhaps fifty of them, most but not all of them dressed similar to Gregor. Some appeared to have been from newer eras, as if even in death The Association was adding to its ranks. There was one who seemed to be a teenager, perhaps one who had come to this place not many years back to drink a few beers and give a scare to his girlfriend. The whole of them shuffled along like zombies, as if their will had abandoned them, or as if they had surrendered themselves to the judgment of The Association, of Gregor Soeldner.

They led them down a flight of stairs, led them through hallways that shone blue in their presence. Great pipes hugged cement walls, vanishing into the darkness where the blue glow did not extend. Mindy walked behind Russell, content to have someone at her back in the darkness.

As Mindy walked she became aware of the terrible silence around her. The glowing apparitions were noiseless as they plodded along cement floors like zombies called by their master. Before she knew it, the smooth cement gave way to a hasher stone flooring, causing her to become more aware of her footsteps that padded softly like ripples on a still pond. The darkness gave opportunity for her mind to imagine hidden dangers, but she found herself preferring it to the blue glow.

There was a tunnel that led off to their right, cloaked in darkness. But at the edge of light emitted by the group, Mindy couldn’t help thinking that for an instant she caught a glimpse of a skeleton.

They were well lost by this point, having taken a large amounts of twists and turns, too many choices of which tunnel to take. As they passed by on offshoot, Mindy heard the sound of movement which she knew was not caused by any of them.

“Did you hear that?” Mindy asked, turning back towards Izzy and Doug.

“Yes,” said Doug. “Try not to think about it. Hopefully, The Association will keep us safe for their own purposes, whatever they may be.”

“It might be Dave!” said Mindy. Russell said he was somewhere in the dark, alone. We’ve got to find out if it’s him.”

“If we get lost in here, we’ll never find our way out. We have to stick with them.”

“I’ll go with her,” said Izzy. “I’ve got a flashlight. We’ll investigate and see what we can find.”

“You’ll get lost,” said Doug.

“We’ll only get lost if they allow us to get lost. I don’t think that will happen. You and Russell go ahead, we’ll catch up.”

Izzy appeared truly brave at that moment, making Mindy wonder if the times he appeared less so to be merely a guise. How could somebody so unknowable become so trustworthy, she thought.

Izzy turned on his flashlight and they headed down the dark tunnel, Russell and Doug still following the blue procession. Mindy found herself relieved when they had distanced themselves enough that she could no longer detect the blue that had so consumed her sight.

The tunnel they entered was rough, crudely dug, and Izzy gazed about with the aid of his flashlight to determine if it was even safe to enter. It looked to be dug into earth or clay rather than rock. They did not have to travel far before reaching the end. The noise was louder now, like the scratching of a rat. Izzy seemed reluctant to lower the beam of his flashlight, preferring ignorance to knowledge. When at last he found the courage to lower it, Mindy saw a figure hunched in the darkness, clawing at the wall in front of him as if he were looking to expand the tunnel he was lost in. It wasn’t Dave, thought Mindy, it couldn’t be him. He had been wearing the blue jacket she had bought for him when he left. This man wore a flannel shirt. And boots, Dave didn’t own boots. This couldn’t be Dave.

Mindy would have been content to let it go at that, allow whoever it was to go about his business. But Izzy realized him for what he was, a fellow human being in need of aid. He called to him, and when that did not work, grabbed him by the shoulder. The man twisted around with speed caused by fear. He stared into the light that Izzy shown at him, and Mindy couldn’t help thinking he flashed them a huge smile. But the edges of that smile were ragged, and in a flash of realization, Mindy realized that his lips were for the better part missing. Even as she looked at him in terror, the man in front of them was busily moving his jaw, attempting to bite at whatever flesh remained in chewing distance. His eyes were wide open despite the pain unexpected light must have caused him. He was alert in the way only great fear can achieve. Unable to look at the massacred mouth, she focused on his eyes, which radiated terror. She could see the pupils shrinking in reaction to the light, at the jaw nervously looking for something to chew.

Mindy screamed. She felt her body shrink towards Izzy, trying instinctually to find shelter in another’s strength. Together, they retreated slowly from the tunnel, Izzy’s flashlight still shining in the face of the man whose fear had caused him to chew his own lips off. Mindy could still the jaw working as the vision faded from her sight.

They had not been separated for long. When they returned to the tunnel they had come from, the glow had disappeared, but they knew which direction they were going. They ran quickly, as much to distance themselves from what they witnessed as to find the others.

A Séance From "The Sleep of Reason"

What's better than a séance in the middle of an abandoned church cemetery on a cold November evening? Here's from my upcoming novel, The Sleep of Reason:

Mindy and Russell parked their car at a designated spot a short distance from the entrance to the JFK Prep grounds as per Doug’s instructions. Doug and Izzy awaited them there, wearing serious expressions that conveyed their concern. Together they walked a short way to the gates of the site that had been the start of the town of St. Nazianz. Over a hundred and fifty years of growth and change had made it something utterly different from what it had started as, but some aspect of the vision remained. From its start as a religious sect seeking a new way of life, it had been taken over by a Catholic order that had used the place as a seminary. And when this had shut down, it became a prep school. But it was decades since it had been used for much of anything at all. Such places lend themselves to the creation of stories and legends.

“We will attempt a séance,” said Doug. More for Mindy’s sake than the others, he explained, “One cannot call a ghost into being. Either it already exists or it does not. The dead have passed on to the undiscovered country, or simply ceased to be. We’ll set aside any theological arguments regarding where we go when we die because, frankly, they have no bearing. As Johnny should have explained to Dave, a ghost is not the spirit of a dead person. It is merely a creation of a psychic trauma, a ball of emotional energy formed in the intensity of a person’s dying moments. Memories may be burned into what we call a ghost. Typically they are rather simplistic creatures, acting out a scene that is significant to someone who was once alive. Occasionally, they can be a rather sophisticated facsimile of the person they were formed from. Obviously, most people do not create ghosts at all when they die. Ghosts are quite rare, the intensity of the event would need to be quite profound.

“Johnny reported to me the events in Manitowoc. He informed me that they had encountered two separate entities resulting from the death of a single person. One was formed of grief at the betrayal of his wife and friend, the other a desire for justice due to the same event. I’m afraid what we have here is a similar dual or even multiple entities formed by an extreme emotional occurrence.

“I’ve been aware of this site, heard rumors and unsubstantiated stories. I knew the potential for trouble existed here, but I had no real cause to pursue the matter. I knew enough about it to warn Johnny to stay away, but perhaps I didn’t know enough about Johnny to appreciate the temptation it would present. But in the end, I will not hold myself accountable for the choices that others have made. We will however deal with this situation as best we can. We have need of the abilities Johnny and Dave possess, and we will not abandon them if there is something we can do. But be warned that there are obvious risks.”

Doug looked around at the others. When Mindy had shown in her gaze her obvious commitment, he turned to look at Izzy, and so did Mindy. She was fairly convinced Izzy had a good heart. If there was anything he might be lacking, it might be courage.In the event in the Apostle Islands, he didn’t appear overly eager to confront such things. But perhaps that too might be an act he put on for her benefit.

“I thought we were here for Bingo,” said Izzy. “Yeah, I’m in. But I’m going to need a vacation after this.”

“Did you get something acceptable?” asked Russell.

Izzy reached into the pocket of his thick flannel jacket to pull out what appeared to be a necklace. He placed it in Russell’s waiting hand.

“A rosary. Where did you find it?”

“Where do you think we found it?” asked Izzy.

“We took them from the hands of Gregor Soeldner,” said Doug.

“You dug up a grave?” said Russell, looking horrified at the idea of holding an item that had been in the clutch of a dead man for over a century.

“It’s not as if we had much choice,” said Doug, “or much time. You said you needed an item that was cherished by one of those in question. Gregor Soeldner was in charge of The Association after the death of Anton Oxner. There’s no guarantee he’s in any way a part of this, but I figured he was our best chance of discovering something. And as far as finding an article or relic from someone, I imagine that something that someone wanted to be buried with must be pretty important to them.”

“What about Oxner? Couldn’t you find anything of his?”

“We thought about it. It turns out he was buried under the altar in the chapel. Izzy couldn’t bring himself to go digging up an alter for such purposes, and I have to say I was uneasy about it myself. Let’s give it a go with this and if it doesn’t work, we’ll go from there.”

“Alright,” said Russell. “Let’s find a proper spot and we’ll do this. Any ideas?”

They eyed the grounds from their spot in the empty space surrounded by buildings.

“I wouldn’t mind doing it indoors, if we could,” said Mindy, feeling the chill of the evening.

“Where?” asked Izzy. “Somehow a church doesn’t seem to be a proper place for a séance. And the other buildings seem a little too new to be related to whatever it is that haunts this place.”

“The cemetery,” said Russell, a degree of authority in his voice. This was an area where his knowledge exceeded the others’ and he needed to assert the fact.

They walked towards the gravestones that cast shadows from a full moon that shown behind them. The chill in the air seemed to cut past Mindy’s clothes, penetrate her skin and take residence in her bones, making her feel older than she was. It felt as if her innermost self was not protected the way she was used to feeling, the soft hidden aspects of her were being exposed to a chilling and unfriendly outside force.

They followed Russell until he reached the center of the graveyard of perhaps two hundred graves. He stood before them and turned, his body blocking the rays of the moon that was sinking towards the horizon. It made him appear like a radiant saint, but the rays were all behind him, his form a blackness within the light. Whatever discomfort he normally showed was missing now: he now appeared as the scientist making sure the elements of his experiment were accounted for.

“Form a circle,” he said. They did, with Russell to Mindy’s left, Doug to her right, Izzy in front of her. I occurred to Mindy at that moment that she really didn’t know these people. Izzy was no longer the joking person he was, Russell had lost his discomfort, even Doug had abandoned his always-on stage persona.

“We’re going to have to hold hands for the duration of the séance. We must maintain the circle throughout the séance, this is most important. For that reason, we might as well sit down, make ourselves comfortable. If one of us were to slip and break the connection, we would be unleashing God knows what on the world.”

There was not much space between graves, so that when they sat down, Mindy realized she must be sitting on top of some long-dead soul. Several graves down she noticed the freshly dug grave from which Izzy and Doug had claimed their relic. When she joined hands with Doug, she could still feel bits of dirt on his hands. She had hoped in vain that the hand that Russell offered her was not the one that gripped the rosary beads. The feeling of the beads that Russell gripped hard against her hand felt to her like teeth ripped from a corpse.

“Now what?” asked Mindy.

“Now we wait for Russell to make a connection to the object in his hand,” said Doug. “And if there is a living entity, or reasonable facsimile of same, perhaps it will provide a link to said entity.”

“You all must be receptive to whatever thoughts my pop into your head,” said Russell, “because perhaps those thoughts will not be your own. If all goes well, we will soon be experiencing a blending of selves, so that we will be very much aware at the same time of things that we are not perceiving with our ordinary senses. We must all be both open to such perceptions and yet retain our personal integrity. This is not a matter of life or death, but a matter of success or failure, as well as just plain good manners. You’ll understand as we go.”

Mindy tried to silence her thoughts, tired to block out the outside world. She was acutely aware of the hands that held hers, that she held. She was both holder and holdee, she though, a link in a chain that was more than the accumulated links.

Gahhh! I’m thinking. I should be emptying my mind of thoughts, allow myself to be receptive. Now I’m thinking of thinking. And the cold ground, I can’t sit like this for long.

She tried to shift herself slightly, all the while being acutely aware of the hands she was holding, realizing that as she held on to them that they held on to her. She was holding hands of people who were probably busy trying to silence their thoughts in order to be open to something outside or inside of them. Four individuals joined together, and she couldn’t help thinking their minds should be no more distant or unreachable than their hands were. And all at once she had the feeling that her consciousness was not in her body but somewhere in the middle of the four of them. No, it wasn’t her consciousness! It was theirs. It was hers, but they were all sharing the same thoughts in the same way that people sitting around a fire were all sharing the same warmth and light. Except that she was the fire. Sort of. It wasn’t really so important to try to explain it as it was to just experience it.

She was aware of her body a few feet away, felt that she could return to it anytime she wished. It wasn’t effort that kept her where she was now, just a state of mind. She only hoped that she would continue holding the others’ hands, detached as she now felt from that body.

And as she looked upon her own body, she now looked upon the others in the same fashion. She felt that she was able to return to any of those as easily as she could her own, that they were just houses that could be entered as easily as opening a door. And it seemed that each house was as empty as her was.

Curious, she attempted to peer into the person that was Doug Slattery, magician, collector, man of wealth. She wondered what lay beneath the artifice and façade he showed to the world.

It shouldn’t have been surprising that she witnessed in him the same trepidation and concern that she felt, being in the same position as she was. But she realized that was only the concerns of the moment. There were great depths of experience and memory there to be delved into. Not thinking of the consequences, she delved in a little deeper.

And there she felt lust. Not merely physical urges but the frustration at withholding from acting upon such urges. And behind the lust and the frustration were deeper emotions, fear of being dislike by someone he had loved, fear of rejection and betrayal. And even beyond that was a deeper fear, a fear of being wrong, of believing he knew who he was and what the world was and the crushing pain it caused him to realize that he had been living in a fantasy world. All these emotions and sensations existed in him at once and were stacked upon each other, showing to her the complexity of a person and the myriad influences working upon even the simplest decisions. And anger welled up in him, akin to the sense of betrayal she had seen. She quickly retreated from the house that Doug’s life force had built about him, sneaking out through a side exit, careful not to slam the door.

She was again in the middle of the circle, again aware of the openness, even vulnerability, of the others. She was not sure what she should be focusing her awareness on, but knew it was Russell who was the driving force behind whatever it was that was going on. She suddenly became quite attuned to him, felt the concentration towards another awareness that allowed him no time to be aware of the others. She tried to align her awareness with his, to see what it was that he saw, aid him in his search. Again she found herself entering the house of another, so to speak, permitted herself to step past set boundaries.

She felt herself quickly swept up as a leaf in a breeze. It was thrilling until the realization of her helplessness set in Her psyche was in the grip of forces more powerful than she’d ever experienced, lifting her to tremendous heights, separating her from the rootedness she was familiar with. But the fear of falling quickly accompanied the thrill, until she dared to look down. She felt herself falling, prepared herself for a drop that would crush her against a rocky bottom.

But there was no bottom. Whatever ground she had been standing on had been swept away, leaving a deep dark pit into which she was speedily descending.

Again, her presence had been detected by the residence of the domain. Russell understood what she was doing, pulled himself back from his search. Within his mind he constructed for her a floor for her to land safely on. But even as her feet reached the ground, she felt herself opening up. Russell was probing into her as she had done to him. She experienced moments of her childhood popping open from long closed boxes. The unwelcome attention of her older brother’s friend, the humiliation of a boyfriend’s betrayal. She felt helpless before Rusell’s probing, couldn’t understand the cruelty of it. And then in an instant he retreated, leaving her psyche to herself.

It was then that she realized what to her felt like an assault was no different than the innocent probing she had been engaging in. She understood now what Russsell had meant when he talked about good manners. Learning proper boundaries was a matter of social etiquette whether or not one was talking about physical space.

She was back in the cold, dark cemetery again, but she still felt as if she were in the middle of the group rather than her own body. Until she looked in between the ring of hands and saw a bluish glow arising from the ground between them. She was then aware that she was back in her body, still holding hands with Russell and Doug. She noticed Doug Squeezing her hand hard and didn’t know why until she realized she was trying to tear away from the circle, trying to get away from whatever it was that was rising in their midst. She forced herself to stillness as best she could, tried to look at the others to gain strength from them. Each of them reflected the bluish light that came from the center of the circle.