The Ghost and Mrs. McClure (13 page)

Such was the hypothesis of Dr. Frederic Haxan, author and paranormal researcher, as typed in a message to me by a graduate student with the self-explanatory screen name SPOOKSCIENCEGUY.

For the past hour I had fruitlessly surfed the cyberwaves, using the keywords “ghosts” and “haunting.” After hopping from one search engine to another, and one crackpot Web site to another, I’d finally stumbled onto this site, sponsored by the Department of Parapsychology at Wendell University (wherever that was).

I entered their active chat room and met SPOOKSCIENCEGUY, KARDECIAN, DOYLEFAIRY, M. BLAVATSKY, and the rest of the “Ghostbusters.”

At last, I could talk freely about my problem. I mean, honestly, how could I tell anyone that I was having an ongoing conversation in my head with the voice of a dead private eye? They were sure to assume I was suffering some sort of post-traumatic stress from witnessing my late husband’s leap.

Going to a doctor was out for the same reason. Diagnosis of nut job might land me in a straitjacket. And forget my in-laws, that’s all the excuse they’d need to take Spencer away from me for good.

I took a long sip from my mug of lukewarm coffee and shifted my gaze from the flickering computer screen to the dark, rain-swept street. An SUV swished by, splashing water on the soggy curb, then the thunder rumbled in the distance, and I imagined storm clouds gathering miles off Narragansett Bay, brooding over the surface of the ocean.

Okay, so “dark and stormy night” is a total cliché, but it really
was
such a night. And there I sat alone, behind Buy the Book’s checkout counter, typing away on an Internet chat room, reading supernatural jargon from a gaggle of parapsychologists.

I was about to pose a question to SPOOKSCIENCEGUY—ONE of the thirteen people now chatting—when screen name DOYLEFAIRY crashed our conversation.

wrote DOYLEFAIRY in big, bold, irritated letters.

Elves and fairies!?! I suddenly wondered what planet or dimensional plane DOYLEFAIRY hailed from.

 

“Way off base, FAIRY,”

 

screen name VENKMANN flashed a moment later.

GHOSTHUNTER jumped into the fray, followed quickly by COLDSPOT, WENDIGO, and GHOUL-LISHOUS.

I sat back and watched the argument scroll down my computer screen through bleary eyes, my too-fuzzy brain trying to make some sense of what these participants in the
wendellunv.edu/psyphenom/talk
chat room were saying.

Terms like “manifestations,” “elementals,” “poltergeist,” “exteriorization phenomena,” and “ur-spirits” were flying—most of them landing somewhere over my head. Meanwhile, the patter of rain against the arched front window was lulling me to sleep.

I blinked my eyes. My computer monitor began to flicker, and the sound of the rain receded. Against the scrolling banter of chat room text, I saw a man’s powerful profile. Jaw square. Fedora pulled low over the eyes.

I jumped, fully awake now. The vision vanished. Onscreen, the debate continued about my topic: sudden visitations from an outspoken ghost.

GHOSTHUNTER suggested an explanation for my “friend’s” problem. (Yes, I tried that transparent ploy, and no one who responded to my questions even pretended my “friend” was anyone but me—evidenced by the fact that they always put quote marks around the word “friend.”)

GHOSTHUNTER said my “friend” might be experiencing a form of demonic possession. This theory was predicated on the evidence that my “friend” was the only person to hear the entity, witness its physical manifestations, and its evil trickery (the upside-down chairs).

GHOSTHUNTER even had two suggestions: read Malachi Martin’s
Hostage to the Devil
, and see
The Exorcist.

Gee, what a comfort.

DOYLEFAIRY conveyed that “exteriorization phenomena” like turning over chairs and turning them back again was more indicative of poltergeist activity—none too subtly adding that poltergeists, though known as “mischievous spirits,” could be far more dangerous than the definition suggested—the word “mischievous” connoting, to me anyway, the sorts of things one might see the Peanuts gang doing in a Sunday comic strip.

DOYLEFAIRY also suggested that some “hysterical female” in our household was partly to blame because poltergeist activity required human energy to perform their antics. An anxious adolescent girl might provide such energy—or a mentally unstable woman of childbearing age, in some cases.

How nice, I thought, to be informed that I was mentally unstable by a woman who believed in elves and fairies.

I was getting increasingly frustrated. If these parapsychologists were any indication, then the “experts” in the field couldn’t even agree on the definition of the word “ghost.” How were they going to help me with my “dilemma”? (I will also confess that I seriously began to wonder if I needed to be a Roman Catholic to summon an exorcist.)

Suddenly, a newcomer joined the chat room: WANNADATE. “I’ve got huge breasts and a tiny skirt, and I’m looking for friendship.”

What the heck was that? I thought, supremely alarmed. But before I could type a thing, the entire chat room told WANNADATE to take a hike.

Major obscenities came across my screen before the chat room moderator ejected WANNADATE from the group.

I typed.

 

SPOOKSCIENCEGUY typed back to me,

 

“No problem,”

 

I typed.

DOYLEFAIRY was now typing, amid some sort of parapsychological argument with KARDECIAN.

Okay, I thought. I’ll bite.

I typed.

 

typed DOYLEFAIRY.

 

I typed, unable to stop myself.

 

“Like Tinkerbell?”

 

typed DOYLEFAIRY, apparently unruffled by my apparent skepticism. (Then again, if you professed to believe in fairies, you’d have to get a pretty thick skin, wouldn’t you?)

 

typed DOYLEFAIRY.

 

Okay, I thought, I’ll bite again.

 

DOYLEFAIRY typed,

 

I asked, “You mean they go away?”

 

Elsewhere, I thought. Like where? But what I typed was,

 

I was momentarily caught up with the thrill of an easy answer. Completely ignoring the ghost of Jack Shepard could be a no-fuss, no-muss way to end all of this. All I needed was a big, fat YES.

 

“No!”

 

typed GHOSTHUNTER almost instantly.

 

Darn, I thought. Darn, darn, darn.

 

typed GHOSTHUNTER.

 

I typed,

 

As the data stream went on, I let the chat room continue and opened up a second Web window to surf an on-line bookstore for titles relating to mental diseases, delusions, dementia, and nervous breakdowns. The title
A Beautiful Mind
popped up, and I felt slightly better. After all, if a Nobel Prize-winning mathematician could learn to live with hearing delusional voices, maybe I could, too.

Sorry, babe,
Jack Shepard said.
Sorry to give you the grouch, but I am really not a delusion. Really.

I sighed. If Jack Shepard’s spirit was only a voice in my head, as it had been for Professor John Nash, then I would have to start establishing some limits right now!

“I want to be alone,” I said in a clear voice.

That seemed to work. The ghost had decided not to press the point.

I stifled a yawn and was about to sign off when screen name RUNE flashed me a private “INSTANT MESSAGE.”

the message read.

I remembered seeing the name RUNE on the chat list, but I did not recall that name participating in the discussion. After a long pause, another instant message appeared.

the message read.

I typed a bland reply, something like

 

Then I pressed the “send” button.

Only after the reply came did I realize I had been holding my breath waiting for it.

said RUNE.

 

“Crop up? How?”

 

I typed.

 

“What does that mean?”

 

I typed.

 

—I stopped typing, hit the backspace to delete, and began typing again—

 

—typed RUNE,

 

I thought of Calvin.
Splat.
Not a pretty picture.

 

typed RUNE when I didn’t answer for a full minute.

 

I typed back.

 

You think this is a lot of supernatural baloney, don’t you?
said the voice of Jack loud and clear in my head.

Onscreen, RUNE instant-messaged once more before signing off from the chat list.

“This is crazy, all right,” I muttered. “And maybe I am, too.”

The chief problem about death . . . is the fear that there may be no afterlife, a depressing thought, particularly for those who have bothered to shave. . . . I do not believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.

—Woody Allen

 

 

 

JACK WATCHED PENELOPE log off the supernatural chat room site and begin frantically searching for information on what she assumed was her “mental condition.”

“Online Psychological Testing . . .” she mumbled, reading the screen. “Addictions, Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder . . . no, no, no. . . .”