Ghost Killer Collection

Chapter 8

By the time I got home, I had almost convinced myself that I was imagining these things. After a shower and some food, I began to pace around my apartment, trying to figure out what was happening to me and why. There were definite commonalities with the fever induced memories or dreams and the woman I"d seen in the park that morning. First, the eye glasses and vintage clothing; I had no idea what they meant, but there it was. Second, a person with some sort of ailment or deformity was always in the vicinity. Third, if the apparition was around a sick person and I poked it, it disappeared, along with the nearby person"s affliction. Of course there was the man in the lobby and the woman across from the deli to consider as well…neither of them seemed to be related to a sick person, but that didn"t mean there wasn"t a sick person nearby that I hadn"t noticed. These apparitions looked real, but what were they? Ghosts? Poltergeists? Demons? They seemed to be hurting people, but I didn"t know much about the paranormal; perhaps they were a combination of all three. More importantly, why was all of this suddenly surfacing? Why did I subconsciously know that I needed to poke the demon or poltergeist to be rid of it…or was I killing it? Why did it feel so real? What was all this pacing and thinking doing for me? Not a damn thing! Because there were no such things as ghosts or poltergeists, or whatever label my brain was trying to pin on them.

almostI walked over to the liquor cabinet in the corner of my living room and pulled out a bottle of Bushmills. I realized it was still morning, but I needed a swig of some good old fashioned Irish fire water to help calm my confusing thoughts. I didn"t bother with ice, just poured two fingers worth and gulped it down, which nearly caused me to throw-up. After a minute the burning stopped and I could feel the warming effects of the liquid gold as it mellowed me out. I felt better, and maybe a little buzzed.

If this was really happening—and I was beginning to believe it was at that point—was there a way to test it? I thought about going around the city finding people with problems, and if a bespectacled, vintage-clothed person was in the vicinity, I could give them a good jab and see if the afflicted one was suddenly healed. I didn"t actually think that was a reasonable idea, but it did seem like the only way to test my insane theory. So, I decided to take a walk and head down to a busy area of town where I could observe large crowds. Fisherman"s Wharf seemed like a good start. I didn"t actually have to wait that long, though.