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No Land's Man - Part 4 of 4 by Jim Kohl Russell walked the city street and tried to kick at a stone or a can when he passed one. Now and then, he got it to move a little. He mulled this idea of unfinished business. �I don�t think I got trapped here that way, this unfinished business. I can�t remember for sure, but I think it was more like I missed a ride or something when I got stuck here.� Russell talked out loud more and more. It helped him remember he was real. A man stepped out of a well lit bar. �What are you looking at, punk!� Russell said. �Keep walking away like you can�t hear me if you�re an idiot!� The man walked down the street and threw his argyle scarf around his neck. �I knew it,� Russell said. Unfinished business and how to finish it weighed heavy on Russell�s mind as he walked along the side of a freeway. Cars whizzed past him. One time, a car honked, but it didn�t stop, so he could not tell if the driver saw him or honked at something else. Russell turned off the highway and went into the first house he found that had people in it. There was a computer and a young girl. Russell stayed near the computer, and sure enough, though the girl was a teenager by the time she did, she logged onto DarkPalace.com. The original owner of the site, Greg Daniels, had aged and passed on. There was a tribute page showing a picture of Greg when his hair was still dark. He held a video camera in the picture and stood in a cemetery. The caption, �Greg on the hunt,� was below the picture in orange letters against the black screen. �So he died, huh?� Russell said. �He finally knows all the answers to all the questions he worked his whole life to answer. If he had waited and lived his life any other way, he would be just as wise now.� There were a bunch of orb pictures that Greg had taken on the screen as well. One was blown up to ten times its actual size, and there were arrows pointing to what Greg believed were facial features. Russell knew that was not correct, but he didn�t know why it wasn�t or why he knew it. �Greg was a genius,� the girl said. �Yeah. He knew all about souls,� Russell said. Russell had been reading about Greg for years. �Maybe if he had concentrated on living people instead of dead ones, he wouldn�t have been divorced.� The girl went through the EVPs, which were supposed to be sound recordings of voices from beyond the grave. Russell could see the hair stand up on the back of her neck. She got up from the computer chair and rummaged through the small room�s closet. She got out a small tape recorder. �If there is a spirit here, talk to me in this tape recorder,� she said. �Why should I?� Russell said. Then he got an idea, �Hi. Is there any way you can click to the screen on the site about unfinished business?� �I don�t know if you�re here, but if you are, please talk into my tape recorder.� Russell bent down close to the recorder. �I need to know what my unfinished business is so I can finish it.� The girl left the room. Russell heard the tape recorder click off. The girl picked up the tape recorder and sat it on her lap. She pressed rewind. She watched the small black tape wheels twirl. Russell could see them spinning in her eyes. Finally, the tape stopped and she pressed play. �Dammit!� she said. She shook the tape player. She breathed out heavy through her mouth, put the tape player on the computer desk, and rummaged through a drawer. �Where the hell is it? Where is it�� �Where is what?� Russell said. The girl stopped searching and looked behind her. Her eyes darted around the room, and she shrugged. She went back to the drawer. She pulled out a black AC adapter chord and plugged one end into the player and the other into the wall. She had to unplug a digital alarm clock to do this. She pressed play and turned the recorder up loud. She sat poised, listening to the tape hiss. �I DON�T KNOW�� she turned the tape down as her own voice boomed out of it. She laughed. �Melanie, you need to be more quiet please. Your sister is going to bed now.� �Sorry, mom.� The tape played through and Russell wondered why Melanie didn�t respond to his voice on the tape. Melanie left her house and her parents grew old and moved out as well. Russell still had no idea what his unfinished business might be. He started to doubt unfinished business. �If I didn�t finish it when I was alive, then how important could it be now? Why would I need to finish something that I didn�t finish when I was alive? If I�m not alive, then I�m finished. That�s all there is.� Many nights came and went. Russell lived with a family that owned a red pick up truck until they all either passed on or moved. Like always, one day he found himself alone in the house with clean carpet spots where the furniture had been. There were no white doors in this house, but he had followed the family to a hospital one day. Jeremy, the father, fell down while he was doing the gardening. He made it into the house, and his wife, Peg, called the ambulance. �Peg,� Jeremy had called from the green living room chair, �I love you very much.� Peg nodded. Jeremy slumped down in the green chair as relaxed as a body can be. �Will he be okay?� �He has a pulse and we have him stabilized,� the ambulance driver said. He wrapped a stethoscope up in his hand and hooked it into a notch in his navy blue one-piece suit. EMT emblazoned the back in bold yellow letters. Russell rode in the back of the red pick up truck and ended up in the hospital. He got in the room just in time to see Jeremy slip through one of those white doors. Russell tried the doorknob, but it was locked. They were always locked. Russell was in an empty house again. Russell hadn�t been paying enough attention to know what happened to Peg. Russell stayed in the house for a while. One night he left it and never found it again. Down the road from Peg and Jeremy�s house was a cemetery. There was a small group of people in front its wrought iron gates. Some carried cameras. Some had tape recorders. Some had small flashlights and notebooks. �You sure this is where he�s buried?� a girl in a green ski cap asked. �Yeah, I asked the woman when I got permission to hunt here.� �What was that like? Didn�t you feel like a freak asking if you could hunt for ghosts in their cemetery?� �I haven�t been too shy about it since the first time I ever did it.� The man speaking was tall and thinner than he should have been. He had red hair poking out from the side of a blue baseball cap. His face looked pale in the flashlight glow. �What I used to do was fax them a permission form and ask them to sign it and fax it back. Then one day I was like, screw it, and I just asked them to their face.� �You mean on the phone?� �Whatever.� The girl giggled. �Some day it will be to their face, huh Mark?� �So anyway,� Mark said, �Jen, you�re in charge of EVPs, right?� Jen patted the tape recorder. �Guillermo, you have the EMF detector right?� �Check,� Guillermo said. �Cool, remember, dude, any readings over positive two indicate supernatural forces. Who�s got the regular camera?� �Chuck does. He went back to the car to get the extra battery,� Guillermo said. He held the EMF detector out in front of him and tested the display�s light. The thin red needle sat at zero. �No ghosts yet.� Russell stood behind Guillermo to take a good look at the EMF detector. He had never seen one except on DarkPalace.com. Guillermo turned around and pointed the detector right at Russell. �Nope, no ghosts here either.� Everyone except Mark laughed. �You�re wasting the batteries. Where the hell is Chuck?� �Right here, boss.� Chuck came from between two trees with the camera and a pack of batteries. �I got some spirits for the spirits!� He held up a suitcase of Budweiser. �No one drinks till this is over,� Mark said. He eyed them all to make sure that they knew he was serious. �Anyone who breaks that rule will no longer be on staff.� �Does that mean I�ll lose my gigantic salary?� Chuck said. Guillermo laughed, �And my medical plan?� Jen saw the look on Mark�s face. The others did too. The difference was that Jen cared. �You guys. I take this very seriously. When Greg died, he left me in charge of DarkPalace. I need to fight to keep its integrity. The mainstream people and media only care about ghost hunts in October.� Mark looked at each of them. �We need to get as many good results as we can. We need to go about this professionally and respectfully.� Chuck and Guillermo looked at the ground. Jen fiddled with the tape recorder. Russell stood next to Guillermo and put his hand right by the EMF detector. The needle didn�t move. �Maybe I�m not a soul after all,� he said. �Jen,� Mark said, �Will you please lead this evening�s protection prayer?� The group circled up. With the equipment piled in the center of the circle, they put their arms around each other�s shoulders. Russell squeezed into the center of the circle and listened to the prayer. �Dear Lord,� Jen said with her eyes closed, �Please protect us from all physical and spiritual harm tonight. Enclose us in a ray of white light that will allow no evil. Above all, we ask that whatever we may encounter tonight not be allowed to follow us from this place. We ask this in Jesus� name.� �Amen,� they all said. �Cool prayer,� Russell said to Jen as she picked up her tape recorder. She walked off and joined the others at the front gate. Mark took a key from his pocket and worked the padlock on the gate until it clicked open. �I�m making a note that the temperature as we enter the cemetery is 55 degrees,� Mark said. �Noted,� Jen said. The group marched along the tombstones to the center of the cemetery. Russell followed just behind. �Okay, each of you get out your notebooks and your mini flashlights. Check to be sure they work.� Mark clicked on his own flashlight as he said the words. Soon four flashlights glowed. �Good. Check your watches. Make a note of the time and the place you were whenever you do anything besides walk. If you sneeze, note it. If we are all in a different place at the time and someone hears your sneeze, they�ll record it. If someone records that they heard a sneeze and no one records that they sneezed, then we know that the�� �Ghost is allergic to tall grass and dust.� Chuck said. Guillermo guffawed and bent over. Mark glared. Jen punched Chuck in the shoulder. �Don�t be a dick.� �Sorry, man. Sorry. I�I couldn�t resist.� Chuck rubbed his shoulder and made the most serious face he could. Mark tightened his face. Russell was still laughing. �Okay, well�collect as much data as you can, and we�ll meet back here in an hour. Please watch your step, and should you find any garbage, pick it up.� Guillermo and Chuck headed off toward the back of the cemetery. Mark and Jen headed toward the front. It was fifteen minutes before Mark noted a decrease in temperature right by the mausoleum. He snapped a couple of pictures and told Jen to roll the tape. �Do you think you have something?� Jen said. �I�ll know in a minute.� Mark looked at the back of his digital camera and fumbled with the display button. �Looks like we got us some orbs here look.� Russell looked over Mark�s shoulder, and sure enough, the familiar liquid looking bubbles were there. They hovered near the door of the crypt. Russell walked toward the mausoleum. �Hello?� The stone building stood silent before him. Plastic flowers adorned the metal vases on either side of the entrance, adding a splash of color to the gray. �If you are here, and you have something to say to us, please talk into the tape recorder,� Jen said. Having seen the flash from across the cemetery, Chuck and Guillermo ran over. �What you got?� Guillermo said. �A couple of orbs so far,� Mark said. �No way!� Mark held out the digital camera from them to see. �Why don�t you snap some pictures all around this thing,� Mark motioned to the crypt. �You know how people doubt digital cameras. If we can get similar results with a real camera and we have it on the negative�� �I�m on it,� Chuck said. He walked not a foot away from Russell and started snapping pictures. The green recording light on Jen�s tape recorder flashed with each click of the camera. �The temperature is lower here,� Mark said. �I�m not getting anything on the EMF, as a matter of fact�the light went out,� Guillermo said. �The light went out! When did you change the batteries?� Mark said, turning to Guillermo. He snatched the EMF detector out of Guillermo�s hand. �They were fresh tonight.� �The recorder is dead too,� Jen said. �Crap!� Mark said. He snapped picture after picture. Russell rounded the corner of the mausoleum. �Hello?� �That�s not a human,� someone said. �Well, I�ve never seen him before.� Russell saw three of them. One of them held a long stick with a metal hoop at the end of it. �Oh yeah!� Russell said, �Where did you come from?� �He sees us!� �I hear you too.� Russell ran toward them. It was nice not to be ignored. �Where did you come through?� The three saw him coming and backed away. They ran through headstones and Russell followed them as quick as he could. He jumped headstones and zig-zagged around a couple of trees. He had to catch them. Russell saw them slide into a white door by the corner of the cemetery. He tried the door. The knob would not even jiggle in his hand. He walked around it. There was no knob on the back of it. He pounded on the door. �Come on�I think I�m supposed to be over there. I know I was over there. I forget what it was even like, but I know you saw me. I know you heard me.� With every pound, Russell was surer that he wasn�t getting in and more positive that he belonged there. Mark�s group of ghost hunters got a great picture of an unexplainable red glow in the front corner of the cemetery that night. It showed up on digital as well as the regular pictures. It was on the negative. The tape recorder started to work again, and they got an eerie recording of what sounded like a man�s voice saying, �Come on�.I�.forget�me�.me�� DarkPalace.com was mixed as to whether they thought the pictures and recordings were fake or real. Jen left the group after that night. Russell left the white door. He looked back toward it one last time, and it had vanished. The ghost hunters were gone and the sun had come and gone at least twice by the time he remembered to look for them. Russell walked the cemetery hoping to see the white door again. He saw people, and he would ask them about the white door, but they ignored him. Groups like Mark�s came through now and again. At first, it was night after night, but soon it tapered off to nearly nothing. Russell just sat on a bench near Maria Holtzman�s grave and watched them explore. One night, he slapped a camera out of a guy�s hand, but the guy said he lost his grip on it. Russell sat on his bench and watched the trees sprout leaves. He watched the green leaves change to brown, yellow, and red a speck at a time. He watched them fall to the ground and get taken by the groundsmen, who always steered clear of the bench near Maria Holtzman�s grave. �I don�t know,� Russell heard one of them explain to a new hire, �I just feel like there�s always someone sitting there.� �Yeah, right,� the young man said. �Hey, you work here long enough, you start to notice stuff. Stuff you don�t get and that no one wants to hear about.� There was a funeral a few graves away from Russell�s bench. A little boy had lost his grandfather. He walked away from his parents and sat at the other end of Russell�s bench. The boy�s eyes were blood red, and dark circles framed them. �Don�t cry, little guy,� Russell said. The boy looked at him. Russell felt nervous at the eye contact, but he knew he had to keep it cool. �Your grandfather is in a better place,� Russell had heard many a preacher say that to grieving families since he had been sitting on this bench. �You mean�� the little boy said, �He�s in a better place than playing�ball with me�in the back yard?� His eyes flooded his cheeks. �He�s in a better place than going with me to the mall to get a danish?� �Well, no�I don�t think he�s in a better place than that. No,� Russell said. �I�m sure he would agree. And the truth is, I didn�t even know your grandfather.� �Then why are you here?� �I have no idea.� Russell shrugged and shook his head. �I have no idea at all.� The boy stopped sobbing long enough to look at Russell the way you look at crazy people. �I do know this, though. He�ll be waiting for you. He�ll know you when he sees you again. You�ll know him too. Neither of you will really know why, but you�ll be drawn to each other,� Russell said. �What do you mean?� �Just that. He�ll always be near when you need him.� �And he�ll remember me?� The boy�s eyes teared up and his face reddened. �Yes,� Russell said, �He absolutely will.� �How do you know?� �I just do.� Russell looked at the boy and tried to think of himself at his age. He remembered losing grandparents and uncles and aunts. It hurt like being dragged by your guts. Russell watched the boy leave and heard his mother tell him to hush when he talked about the man on the bench. Russell watched the sky turn gray. He saw that the sun went down faster than it had. Winter was the word that was used to describe this time of year. �Hey. Hey, do you see me here?� Russell called to everyone that passed. No one looked. The trees started sprouting leaves. Russell was convinced he must just be part of the bench. Sometimes people sat there with him. No one spoke to him. Everyone pretended they didn�t hear him talk. Russell knew that Jennica had turned the world against him. Groundsmen came and blew the multi-colored leaves into piles again. Russell watched families come and mourn and leave only to come back later with one less person to do it again. Russell thought, his thoughts were all he had. �I just think we were better when we were friends,� Jennica had said as she tossed her frosted hair over her left shoulder. Russell remembered her deep breath, �And I think we need to go back to being friends. Just�friends.� �You mean and start over from scratch?� Russell had asked. He remembered seeing the TV guide on the coffee table and noticed the address label had curled up on the upper left corner. �No, Russell. There is no starting over. I need to see what else is out there,� Jennica turned her back on him. �I�m sorry.� �Me too,� Russell had said. �More than you know.� He held himself up with the wall by the door. He didn�t see this coming, and he remembered thinking it was like being blindsided by a speeding car. �Are you going to be okay?� Jennica said. She halved the distance between them and raised her streamlined eyebrows in the middle. �Well, I mean�� Russell said. He put his hand in his pocket and shrugged a couple of times. �It�s not like I�m going to go out and kill myself or something. It hurts though.� He fought back the tears. He pretended to yawn and stretch. �I mean�I love you�You know?� �I love you too, but I�m just not�� �In love with you,� Russell said. She nodded, and he enjoyed the irony of being able to finish her sentences for her even now. He left the apartment. Russell replayed it over and over in his mind. �Yep, there was the break up, and then there was this bench,� he said to a family carrying flowers to a grave, �and that�s all there ever was.� Russell glanced over and noticed that you could not even see the name Maria Holtzman above the ground anymore. �Poor Maria,� he said, �they all forgot about you too, didn�t they? You and me, the people the world ignores, but at least they had the decency to bury you first.� A groundsman working nearby was pushing a mower. He felt hotter than he should have. Lightning pain ran the length of the left side of his body. He grabbed his chest and hit the grass near a concrete angel monument. His writhing body lay unnoticed; the other groundman worked out of the line of vision and wired out the world with his headphones. The fallen groundsman lay still. Moments later, a white door appeared right over Russell�s left shoulder. �Hey,� the groundsman called, �Hey, man�Are you the bench ghost?� Russell turned. The white door was striking. It was like nothing Russell had ever seen. More shocking was that someone spoke to him. �No. There is no bench ghost. You guys should really let that go. I�ve been sitting here forever, and I am yet to see a bench ghost.� The groundsman gave all his attention to the door and didn�t speak to Russell again. He opened the door and went inside. �It�s bad practice to go through a door that appears out of nowhere,� Russell called to the man. A team of groundsman ran to the body lying behind Russell. They shouted in English and Spanish. One of them ran to the front office building that was just past the main gate. In minutes, paramedics came and took the man away. �If you guys are looking for him,� Russell called out, �he went into that white door.� �Russell!� The voice came from behind him. It reminded Russell of the sound of vibrating crystal. �Russell!� He turned and looked. The white door was half opened. Inside was a woman. �Jennica?� �No, you used to call me Mary.� �I don�t know you.� Russell turned back forward and crossed his arms over his chest. �I told you it could get confusing out here. It�s time for you to come back.� �I�m supposed to sit on this bench,� Russell said without looking back. �Why?� Mary laughed, and if Russell had turned around, he would have seen that her hair changed from auburn to gold and back. �Why is not even worth asking.� �There will be no more questions if you come back through.� Mary said, �Come on Russell. I think you know now whether you are for or against.� �What?� �You are against. I�m against too, but I had to come.� �Why?� Mary�s hair turned a vibrant glittering blue, �I thought why was not worth asking?� She laughed like a miniature wind chime. �Get off the bench, Russell. Come to me.� �I don�t belong there. I don�t belong here. I belong on the bench and that�s it.� �You are against. You were confused. It�s time to go. I can�t hold the door much longer.� Russell turned and faced her. She reached out to him and wisps of white surrounded her arm. It seemed that her arm got closer and with it came understanding. �Well,� Russell said, �It is getting a little old not moving much. I thought I remembered moving, but all I know is that I never really said goodbye.� �Say it now. Come to me.� Russell stood and walked toward the white door. He glanced over his shoulder. He saw a family arrive with flowers in their hands and tears in their eyes. He understood the pain of missing and the hurt of longing. Russell knew he wanted to wait for them so that they would never feel like they had no place. He faced Mary and entered the long hallway of doors. Back to No Land's Man - Part 1 (c) 2002 Jim Kohl. All rights reserved. Jim Kohl lives in California with his wife and three kids. He enjoys playing guitar, and is currently writing his third book. He has also written a children's story and a handful of short stories. Visit him on the web to find out more about his latest book, Noble Poverty: A Teacher's Life in Silicon Valley. Contribute Artwork to the Paranormal Bohemian |