Riverwatch

Chapter Twenty-Two: A Message from Beyond

Around seven o’clock that night, Jake sat in Sam’s apartment waiting for his friend to finish dressing. Sam had swapped shifts with a co-worker earlier in the week so that he could go to a celebration being held for Dana Sandings, one of his friends, and Jake had reluctantly agreed to come along. While sitting around with a bunch of literary types might not be Jake’s first choice for a night out, it certainly beat being home alone.

The party was in full swing when they arrived, with people filling the apartment and spilling out onto the deck in back. Jake slipped through the crowd in search of the bar, while Sam grabbed a Pepsi from a passing tray, said hello to those he knew, and spent some time mingling with those he didn’t.

After a while he felt someone come up behind him and punch him lightly on the shoulder. He turned to find Jake standing there.

"Come on, you’ve got to see this," his friend said.

Jake headed back into the crowd, making his way toward one of the back rooms. They reached a closed door, which Jake opened softly, gesturing for Sam to precede him through the door.

The room they entered was almost completely dark, four candles being the only source of illumination. By their soft light, Sam could see five or six people seated in a loose semi-circle on the floor in the middle of the room, facing two others. These two in turn sat facing each other with some kind of game board between them.

It took Sam a minute to realize it was a Ouija board.

Will you look at this? he thought to himself. He’d always wanted to try a Ouija board but had never had the chance. He moved closer.

In the dim light, Sam recognized one of those in the group as Dana, their hostess. That wasn’t surprising. Sam knew she practiced such things as spirit-trances, fortune telling, palm reading, and what she described as communication with the dead; all a result of having a Romanian gypsy for a mother, she’d say.

While he watched, Dana began speaking.

"The spirits are everywhere, they see and know everything. They are always around us; in the air we breathe, in the smoke from the candles, in the light of the flames, forever present but cut off from us due to our skepticism in their existence. One must overcome this if a message is to be received."

Sam realized suddenly that Jake had sat down on the outskirts of the circle and moved to join him. The others noted their presence but did not speak to them. No one wanted to interrupt Dana.

"In order for us to contact someone on the other side, we must all wipe our minds clean of doubt. The spirits are constantly trying to communicate with us on this plane, with our help, they will be able to. If you can’t believe but wish to stay and witness their presence among us, you must wipe your mind of all negative thoughts. Think only positive thoughts. It doesn’t matter what they are, just as long as they are happy thoughts. The spirits will use the energy you produce to help them break through the barrier to our side."

"Whom should we talk to?" asked a dark-haired man.

Dana asked, "Are there any particular requests?"

A number of names were called out: John F. Kennedy, Jim Morrison, Ben Franklin, Adolf Hitler, Ted Bundy. Dana held up her hands for silence, and when she got it, looked over at Sam. "Choose someone," she said.

Sam was at a sudden loss. Who did he want to talk to?

Jake spoke up. "What about that Jesuit who supposedly haunts the library on the Benton University campus, Father Castelli?"

Sam agreed. He was as good as anyone else.

"Okay. Father Castelli it is." Dana turned her attention to Jake. "Why don’t you come over here and help me work the board?" she asked.

Jake was about to decline when Sam elbowed him sharply. "He’d love to," Sam replied for him.

Jake got up and crossed the room, sitting Indian-style in front of Dana with the Ouija board between them.

"Have you ever done this before?" she asked.

Jake shook his head. Sam could see he was doing his best to stifle a grin.

"Okay, then. Rest your fingers on the planchette. No, that’s too heavy. Do it lightly, so that you’re just barely touching it." As Jake complied, Dana said, "Good. That’s much better." She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Sam glanced around and saw everyone else staring intently at the board. He exchanged a humor-filled glance with Jake and was about to follow the others’ lead when Dana said, "Sam, why don’t you come over here and take my place? I don’t have to be using the board in order to provide a spirit channel for them to work through. I know you and your friend are most likely skeptics. This way neither of you can claim I was moving the planchette myself."

Sam enthusiastically agreed.

"Do I have your word that neither of you will consciously move the planchette?"

"Sure," said Jake.

Sam nodded as well.

"Okay. Everyone close your eyes. Clear your minds of all extraneous thoughts; let the outside world wash away. Pretend your mind is a television set and the only thing you are receiving is static. When you feel you’ve reached the proper state of awareness, you can open your eyes again. Casey, why don’t you read out the letters as the planchette lands on them?"

The woman seated to Sam’s left agreed.

Sam let his eyes slide shut and tried to follow Dana’s instructions, a little thrill of excitement growing in his stomach. Imagine if we really manage to contact someone, he thought to himself. Wouldn’t that be something?

Someone gave a small gasp, and Sam opened his eyes to find Jake and everyone else in the room staring in Dana’s direction.

Sam followed suit.

Dana’s eyes had rolled back in their sockets, so all that was visible were the whites of her eyeballs.

Neat trick, Sam thought, a bit disappointed at the theatrics.

Voices murmured somewhere on the edge of the room.

"Silence," Dana hissed, and quiet instantly returned. In a soft voice that was oddly lilting, she began speaking. "Is anyone out there? Can anyone hear me?"

Sam started to close his eyes again. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of the clock on the wall and noted in the back of his mind that it was one minute to twelve.

"Is anyone out there? We are trying to reach Father Castelli. Can you hear me, Father?"

Suddenly Sam felt two things happen at once. Across from him, Jake stiffened, and the planchette twitched beneath their fingers. Sam glanced up at Jake, but his head was lowered and he wouldn’t meet his gaze. Did Jake move this thing?

"Is anyone out…" Dana paused, and in a whisper spoke to the group. "I can feel the spirits. They are all around us, clamoring to speak to us. I sense a great urgency among them. Everyone concentrate on reaching out to Father Castelli. Let him know we wish to speak to him. Casey, would you please read the letters off the board once contact is made?"

"Can you hear me, Father?" she continued.

Beneath his fingers, Sam felt the planchette move again. He eased up on the pressure, until his fingers were barely touching it. He wanted to make sure that he wasn’t causing it to move. He saw the rest of the group leaning forward eagerly to watch the proceedings and this time he kept his eyes open like the rest of them.

"Father? Are you there, Father Castelli?"

The planchette began making slow lazy circles around the board and Sam felt a slight tingle in his fingertips, as if a mild current was passing through his flesh. The planchette began to move quicker and then abruptly slid across the board to the top left hand side, centering itself over the word "YES".

The group gasped collectively.

"Who are you?" Dana asked aloud.

The planchette swirled aimlessly for a moment and then dropped to the double row of letters in the center of the board.

"M," read Casey, and then "A…T…T…H…E…W." The planchette paused and so did Casey. After a moment, as if to signal the start of a new word, it continued. "C…A…S…T…E…L…L…I."

"This is Father Castelli?" Dana asked, just to be certain.

The planchette immediately moved back to the YES.

Dana said, "The contact is strengthening now. The spirits have broken through the barrier and their message will be clearer to us."

Before Dana could ask her next question, however, the planchette began spinning aimlessly around the board for a moment before moving on to spell another new word.

"B…E…W…A…R" Casey called out in response, her voice shaking slightly.

Stupid spirit can’t even spell, Sam thought to himself.

As if she’d heard him, Dana said, "Often a spirit will misspell something, it’s a pretty common occurrence, especially if the subject has been dead a long time."

"Is that your message?" she asked the board. "Beware?"

YES.

"Beware of what?" she asked.

A cool, whispery chill ran lightly up Sam’s spine.

The planchette was moving faster, as if guided by an unseen hand filled with urgency. Casey called out the letters in a voice filled with excitement. "E..V..I..L.-.E..V..I..L.-.E..V..I..L.. It’s repeating the word "evil" over and over again."

The planchette came to rest in the center of the board. Sam shifted his position slightly to get more comfortable.

"Don’t remove your hands, Sam! You’ll break the contact," said Dana.

Her warning was unnecessary, however. Sam was too engrossed in what was happening to even consider it.

Dana went on. "What is evil? Can you tell us what evil we are to beware of, Father Castelli?" Her voice was a quiet whisper in the otherwise silent room.

Immediately: B..L..A..K..E..S..B..A..N..E.

"Bane?" someone asked.

This time it was Jake who answered, his voice low but steady, "It means a cause of death or ruin."

Another voice could be heard from the back of the room. "It says Blake. Do you think it means Hudson Blake?"

No one had an answer.

Dana decided to ask for clarification. "Can you tell us what that is, Father?"

The planchette fell still. Dana repeated her question twice, slower each time. After what seemed an age to Sam, the planchette moved again. This time it was different instead of the smooth, circular motions, it moved in fits and starts, spasmodically jerking across the board.

"B..E..W..A..R..I..T..C..A..N..S..E…" Casey called out for those who couldn’t see the pointer.

Sam stared down at the board. The planchette was still moving helter-skelter across its surface, jerking left and right like a puppet on a string. The tingling in his arms had become almost, but not quite, pain. He wanted to tear his hands away and break the contact, but something compelled him to keep them in place. He tried to reassure himself. Jake must be doing this, he thought. Jake’s just spelling out messages to scare everyone.

"Father Castelli? Are you still with us, Father?" Dana asked. A strange expression ran across her face then, part grimace, part bewilderment. "Who’s there?" she asked. "Do you wish to speak with us?"

Beneath his hands, Sam felt the planchette slow down, then move with deliberation.

He watched in shock as it spelled out a message directed specifically at him.

R.E.M.E.M.B.E.R.M.Y.W.A.R.N.I.N.G.S.A.M.M.Y.

Sam sat there, stunned. The others around him who could see the board gasped in surprise, then looked at him rather oddly, as if they had just discovered something mysterious in their midst.

The planchette began moving again.

GOODBYE, SAMMY, it read.

That whispery touch of fear turned into a fist clenched savagely around his spine.

Then, with the suddenness of a striking snake, the planchette spelled out another message.

FOOLS! NEITHER YOU NOR THE OLD ONE CAN STOP ME NOW! I WILL SLAUGHTER YOU LIKE THE CATTLE YOU ARE.

Seeing this message spelled out in front of him, Sam jumped, almost breaking the contact. After what happened next, he wished he had.

Dana moaned.

Sam looked at her and recoiled in shock. She was shaking fiercely, as if a high voltage current was running through her veins. Her teeth were chattering, and the sound quickly filled the room, making it seem as if a herd of skeletons were charging past. The hand on his spine squeezed tighter.

There’s no way Jake is causing her to do that, his inner voice said.

Everyone in the room was frozen in a state of shock.

No one moved to help her.

Over her shoulder, Sam was surprised to see Katelynn staring across the room in their direction, her face as pale as a ghost. He had been so engrossed he hadn’t even noticed that she’d arrived.

Beneath his fingers, Sam felt the planchette begin to move again with slow, deliberate speed.

In a voice shaking with fear, Casey read the message aloud.

"SAY GOODBYE TO DANA."

As if in response, Dana suddenly screamed. The sound of her cry broke the paralysis that had held everyone in its grip. Sam jumped away from the board as if it were alive. Jake grabbed Dana. She was still shaking, more violently now, her heels drumming in a frenzy on the floor.

"She’s having a fit!" someone yelled.

"Hit the lights!"

A moment later the room was filled with electric brilliance as someone complied with the request.

Sam recovered his wits and moved to help Jake. He held Dana’s feet steady. Someone else, he thought it might be Bill, pinned her arms.

Blood was flowing from her mouth, and Sam realized she’d clamped her teeth down on her tongue. Probably cut the damn thing nearly in half. He watched as Jake clenched the sides of her jaw at some hidden nerve point and forced her mouth open. Inside it was a mess; blood and saliva mixing into a crimson froth that kept them from seeing how much damage she’d done to herself. Trying to find a way to prevent her from tearing herself up further, Jake forced his wallet between her jaws and then let go of his hold. Her teeth immediately clamped down on the wallet’s leather surface like a spring-loaded vice.

Katelynn pushed her way over to them. "Someone call the infirmary and get someone up here quick," she told the crowd. She turned to Jake. "Is she going to be okay?"

"I don’t know. Does anyone know if she’s epileptic?" he asked.

No one did.

Another minute passed. The convulsions slowed and then stopped altogether. Dana lay in Jake’s arms, limp but still conscious.

Katelynn removed the wallet from her mouth and tried to reassure her. "Take it easy. You’ve had some kind of a seizure. Help is on the way, just lie still."

Her gaze rolled around the room, wide and vacant, not really noticing any of them around her. Then she saw Jake. She stiffened in his arms, her eyes growing almost comically wide. Her left hand shot up and gripped the front of his shirt and pulled, dragging his face down close to her lips. She said something to him, but Sam was too far away to hear.

Jake blanched in response.

The mobile emergency team hustled into the room then, and everyone moved back to allow them some space to work in. Sam, Jake, and Katelynn backed away as well, noticing as they did so that the party had rapidly broken up around them. Only a few people were still in the apartment.

Katelynn stood at Sam’s side, her face pale. "What happened in there?" she asked.

"I’m not sure. We were using the Ouija board, and she suddenly went nuts, threw a fit of some kind." He shivered. Jake was moving that planchette, he kept telling himself. Just Jake, no one else.

That small voice spoke up again. Why don’t you ask him, it said, and he decided to do just that.

The medics loaded Dana onto a stretcher and then carried her down the stairs. Jake, Sam, and Katelynn followed the emergency team out of the building and watched as Dana was loaded into an ambulance outside. Lights flashing, the vehicle roared off toward the complex’s gates.

Jake turned to face Sam.

One glance into Jake’s eyes and Sam felt his fear grow. His blood ran cold and sluggish through his veins. He wrapped his arms around his chest in an unconscious attempt to warm himself.

Jake’s scared, he realized, recognizing the look in his friend’s eyes.

That frightened Sam more than anything that had happened that night. If Jake’s scared, he told himself, then I should be terrified. Abruptly, he realized that he was.

What Jake said next made things worse.

"Were you moving that thing, Sam?"

The question froze him where he stood. Numbly, Sam shook his head. He didn’t want to hear what he knew was coming next, but there was no escaping it.

"I wasn’t either, Sam. I swear it."

Next to them, Katelynn said, "If it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t Sam, then who…"

Jake could only shake his head in reply to her question.

But Sam thought he knew. There was only one person who called him Sammy. Gabriel. Something must have happened. He turned and began pushing his way back through the crowd, desperate to reach his car, his sudden fear so overwhelming that he didn’t bother telling his friends where he was headed.

The two of them stood there for a few minutes as the crowd dispersed, each of them lost in their own thoughts, until Katelynn broke the silence.

"What did she say to you, Jake?"

Jake hesitated, and then answered in a subdued tone. "She said that someone in the room was going to die soon."

In the distance, the ambulance siren shrieked like a banshee into the night’s darkness.