Adrift on Ethereal Seas

Chapter 6

For well over a century the legend of Gladys Timms grew, aided largely by intermittent communications among the various residents of the parsonage, which the church sold in the 1920's. It was finally decided - or discovered - that Gladys only wanted attention when she made her presence known, and when someone, anyone in the Baileysburg community placed some flowers on her grave she would withdraw to a secret corner or chamber of the house and remain there for years at a time.

Gladys - or something - had not appeared for several years when the Sellers took up residence just three years ago. Interestingly, Tom and Marsha were the only couple in all that time to have a child, whose name was Charles, nicknamed Chucky. Prior to their arrival in Bailyesburg, Chucky had demonstrated all of the qualities of a happy, well-adjusted toddler - bright, energetic and given to laughter. But soon after they moved into the old parsonage Tom and Marsha began to notice a change in the boy. Beginning at age three to his present age of five Chucky had become increasingly withdrawn, fearful even. He showed no interest in his peers, although his parents enrolled him in the church nursery school across the street, and he never returned the warm greetings of an adult - not even the wave of a hand. No amount of chastisement from his parents could coerce Chucky to make eye contact or even acknowledge another adult, except for themselves and occasionally his teachers. Some of the best child psychologists in the business were at a loss to explain it, ruling out the most common sources of trauma like abuse or an undetected physical illness.

Without a change of some kind, Chucky seemed destined to remain a ward of his parents for the remainder of his earthly days.

However, that change - or something - came on Good Friday, April 13, shortly before 11:15 in the evening. Chucky had seemed particularly restless before going to bed and practically begged his dad not to lead him upstairs. But the child finally yielded at the promise of his favorite story, which was a long one. By 9:30 he had fallen into what appeared to be a deep sleep. Relieved that he could now return to the Yankees game on TV, Tom quietly covered his son and slipped from the room. All remained quiet for about ninety minutes.

As Tom and Marsha ascended the stairs for bed they heard a thunder-clap pounding in their son's room and screams that pierced the night. Bursting in they froze in horror at the sight of Chucky sitting upright, screaming repeatedly and staring wide-eyed at something behind the opened door. They spun to follow his eyes and, moments before it seemed to disintegrate, looked upon an apparition of barely discernible shape. When it disappeared Chucky's screams subsided into sobs and whimpers.

Tom and Marsha rushed to their son, but locked on each other in stunned, jaw-dropping silence. They both saw something that would forever rob them of blissful ignorance.

And what they saw was not human.

Part 2

At 11:15 on Good Friday evening, Rev. Terry Hansen finally decided to resign from the pastoral ministry, after twelve years of inner struggle. He could point to the pitiful turnout for the service earlier that evening, or dwindling enthusiasm for all aspects of church life among his congregants. He could even cite the church's long history of adversarial relationships with its ministers, as exemplified by the sale of the stately, spacious former parsonage next door and the purchase of the much smaller home in which he and his wife Janet now lived. But that was almost a century ago, and that, too, would be pointing in the wrong direction.

In truth, the problem was and would continue to be his own emotional emptiness, a simple but devastating lack of compassion, the most important quality of his profession. It wasn't that he hated anybody, it was just that he could feel nothing. He could feign sorrow in the face of grief, patience when attacked, amusement when the target of teasing, but he felt - nothing. Any appearance of emotional involvement was a sham.

For years Janet urged him to consider counseling (she, too, suffered from his emotional distance), and he even sought professional help for several weeks. However, the psychologist's findings failed to transcend the obvious. Spiritually and intellectually he offered superior gifts, but he never learned to attend to his own needs. The causes were irrelevant to the recommended cure: months, if not years away from the ministry until his emotional battery fully recharged. "Easy for you to say," he thought while reading the official report. "Give me the name of a corporate headhunter who specializes in placing burnt out clergy and I'll consider this time well spent." But no such person existed to his knowledge, and given the limited usefulness of a seminary education, he grasped desperately at a profession for which he knew, like so many of his peers, he was no longer qualified - if he ever was.

"Tonight's the night," he thought as he sat down at his laptop to begin typing, "Time to get out of the boat." As Janet brushed her teeth in the nearby bathroom, he pecked out the names of his elder board. Breathing deeply, he raised his hands to begin the body of his letter when a horrific sound froze his fingers an inch above the keys. It had been a gusty evening with a mild threat of mid-spring thunder storms, but only a tornadic wind could produce such a shriek. The windows, which rattled when a pick-up truck drove by, remained still, and the sound itself seemed muffled by distance and walls.

Hansen jumped to his feet and fumbled with his sneakers. On hearing the sudden movement, Janet rushed into the room. "What's wrong?!" she demanded, wide-eyed.

"There's something wrong at the Sellers' place," he gasped, visibly frightened.

"Should I call the police?" she cried. But he was already half-way down the stairs.

The wind had gathered strength, pushing thick ominous clouds past a nearly full moon and bathing the front lawns in intermittent blackness and light. Terry Hansen dashed onto the Sellers' property, oblivious to the threat of ground hog holes and fallen twigs. In seconds he stood before his neighbors' front door and pressed frantically on the lighted button.

Immediately, the door swung open to reveal an ashen-faced couple and child, the little one clutching his mother with arms and legs, his head buried into her neck.

At first, Hansen thought his discomfiting appearance - red eyes, wind-swept hair, a tattered bathrobe over blue striped pajamas and untied sneakers - startled his neighbors, but he quickly realized that a far greater shock had stricken them.

"Are you all right?!" Hansen wheezed, "D-did that sound come from here?"

Tense moments passed and neither Sellers spoke. Finally, Marsha strained to answer. "Y-yes, that was us, Pastor Terry." She shot a look at Chucky. "Please come in." As they stepped away from the door to allow entry, it occurred to Hansen that this was the first time either of the Sellers had addressed him as "pastor." Neither attended his church across the street, if they attended anywhere, and their casual greetings always comprised first names only.

Tom gestured toward the living room. Once seated, another uneasy silence followed. "So what happened?" Hansen asked.

Tom sighed, looked at the ceiling and shuddered. "We're not exactly sure . . ."

"Chucky started screaming, and we ran into his room . . ." Marsha blurted.

"Do you believe in ghosts, Pastor?" The suddenness of Tom's question startled Hansen. "Ghosts?!" He stifled a laugh, recalling the many stories about this house. "You don't mean Gladys Timms, do you?" he asked with a smile. When neither Sellers appeared amused, Hansen donned his serious face. "This is going to be a long night," he thought.

"I don't think it was Gladys Timms, Pastor. We don't know what it was," Marsha whispered, caressing the sleeping child in her arms.

Again, silence. Clearly, the Sellers expected an answer. "You mean you saw what made Chucky scream?"

"We saw - something." Hansen detected a slight tremble in Tom's voice. "The room was pretty dark, except for a night light and what comes through the windows from the street lamp. But there was something there - I swear to you - a dark mass, almost like a thick cloud, but . . . furry. I thought I saw red eyes . . ."

"It disappeared almost as soon as we saw it, but I saw the same thing," Marsha added, somewhat more composed.

They waited for the minister's response. "So it's this again," Hansen thought sourly, "a consultation about a brief foray into the unexplainable with the local shaman, who will soon to drift back into irrelevance. Might as well tell them straight."

"No. I don't believe in ghosts," he answered frankly.

"Then what did we see, Pastor Hansen?" Marsha handed Chucky to Tom and leaned forward. "There was something in that room, I assure you." She looked at the ceiling again and Hansen realized that Chucky's bedroom was right above them.

"I don't know, Marsha, but if by a ghost you mean the disembodied spirit of a human being - no, I do not."

Marsha sat back and glared at him. "Then you must think we're all crazy."

He glanced at Tom and saw a similar look of disappointment and anger.

"I didn't say that," Hansen scrambled to recover. "Clearly, you saw something, but what you saw was not a ghost."

"How do you know?" they asked simultaneously.

"Because Jesus said when a person passes from this life and enters the next a great chasm is fixed between us, and there is no returning from the next life or communication from it, which means that "mediums," "ghost whisperers," and "sixth senses," while fanciful stories, are all shams - every last one of them."

"So there is no spirit world," Marsha continued, more confused now than angry.

"I didn't say that, either," Hansen answered, his confidence somewhat restored. "There is indeed a spiritual world, and the human spirit may be part of it. Ghosts as we know them, however, do not stay here or come back. A room might contain residual energy from a human life, which could cause a psychic response in certain people, but the energy has no consciousness, no autonomy."

"Can anything come from the spirit world?" Tom asked in a barely audible voice.

Hansen nodded. "According to the Bible only two spiritual life forms have intruded into the human experience - angels and demons."

The Sellers exchanged worried glances. "So we saw a demon, then."

Hansen sighed. "I think before you jump to any conclusions, you should eliminate more believable explanations."

"OK, Pastor," Marsha said, caressing her son who now rested on Tom's thigh, "Maybe you'd like to come take a look at the room and see for yourself whether there's anything there that could play tricks on us."

"Uh, sure," he said a bit uncertainly, but not because of ghosts. He felt awkward invading anyone's private territory.

They left father and son on the couch, the little one sleeping soundly now, and climbed the stairs. Nightmarish memories of childhood flashed briefly through Hansen's mind, but quickly fled - the tentative gaze up at the second floor, steeped in darkness, and the mad dash for the light switch just beyond - before the monster emerged to devour him.

When they entered the room, they froze at the sight of a brilliant, crimson pulse bathing the walls. Hansen recoiled at this apparent vision of hell until reason prevailed and they came to the instant recognition of its source - a police car out front. Janet had called the department and was at this moment standing alongside two officers who knocked at the main entrance.

Marsha and Hansen looked at each other and almost laughed at their child-like susceptibility to the supernatural. "You see what I mean?" Hansen was about to say.