“You know it’s going to rain now,” he said, taking the glass from my hands. He threw the pills back into his mouth all at once and swallowed them with ease.
“I’ll take my chances,” I replied, and focused back on the screen. His editing software was all open and the footage from last night was quickly being downloaded through a USB.
“Can I do anything?” I asked, feeling useless when it came to this part of the show.
“Sure,” he said and handed me the EVP and a pair of headphones. “If you don’t mind spooking yourself out a little bit, you can listen to what we recorded and make notes of anything interesting.”
He reached into a drawer and pulled out a pen and paper. “Note if the wavelengths on the front monitor change, and if you hear anything, record the time so we can find it easily.”
I was already feeling spooked at my new task, even though the lights in the den were on and the door was open, letting the winter sun filter in through the gauzy curtains of the living room.
I gingerly placed the headphones on my head and before I hit play I told him I was going to listen to it while in the room with him.
I sat back on the bed, getting cozy and making sure there was nothing but the wall behind me. I pressed play and began to listen to what we recorded on Tuesday night. That felt like eons ago.
For most of the recording it was just sounds of us working. It was us talking, our footsteps, the camera. There was nothing on the EVP that wouldn’t show up on the audio from the footage he shot.
But then, after I had told him I was going to go use the washroom, the sound in the hallway abruptly changed. I heard the door close behind me and Dex’s footsteps as we roamed down the hallway away from the monitor, which had been propped up against the wall. But everything else went dead silent. No background fuzz. Not his breath going in and out. Soon the footsteps stopped, too, and it was the blank, unnerving silence that you get when your ears suddenly stop ringing.
I looked down at the monitor to make a note of the time of the recording but the wavelength on the screen started to jump sporadically. I turned the volume up, straining to hear something.
It was very faint. But I heard it.
A voice calling, “Declan. Declan.”
I froze and hit pause. I looked to Dex, who was working at the computer, his back to me, his outline glowing against the monitor. Had Dex heard someone when he was there alone?
I hit play and listened harder, the volume going up to maximum level.
“Declan,” the voice continued. The familiar accent of an elderly woman. Creepy Clown Lady.
My eyes bugged out.
“Declan, can you hear me? You should hear me now. You should see me soon. Your medication no longer works. She switched it on you.”
I let out a yelp and hit pause again.
Dex turned in his chair and stared at me. “What is it, kiddo? You hear something?”
“I…I’m not sure yet,” I said, my voice shaking. “I’ll have to keep listening.”
He frowned at me and pursed his lips. “You look like you’ve seen…or heard…a ghost. Is it…her? Abby?” He said her name warily as if saying it out loud would conjure up her spirit.
I shook my head, not wanting him to hear it quite yet. Freaking clown lady was going to rat me out!
“I’ll let you listen in a bit, OK?”
“OK,” he said hesitantly and turned back to his screen.
I breathed out slowly, readied myself and hit play again.
Clown Lady’s voice continued. “It is for the best. You need to be yourself. That’s the only way we connect again. You need to remember me. Remember your Pippa. I know it’s hard, you don’t want to remember the past. Neither of you do. But it’s time to accept what happened. What happened to both of you. I wish my family had let me stay with you, Declan. You needed someone to take care of you. Someone who loved you like I did.”
I was so engrossed in what I was hearing, I wasn’t aware that Dex had stopped working and was watching me. My hands had been covering my face in fascination and some strange pain as Clown Lady…or Pippa…had been talking. Dex knew something was up.
I glanced at him quickly and bit my lip hard.
Pippa kept talking, her voice pausing every so often as if to listen for Dex’s reaction. But on the recording, he never made any sound in return. “Remember the days we used to spend down in Central Park? The ghosts that walked among us? I’m one of them now. But I’m different. Because I was different before. Just like you. I can cross over when I choose. But I have to be careful. I’m being watched, we all are. By the soulless ones who keep us here. The demons.”
Suddenly the ring of Dex’s phone blasted across the earphones and I had to pluck them off my head with a cry. I had forgotten the volume was turned way up.
I waited, holding them away from my ears, able to hear the phone and Dex answering it. It had been me calling from the floor below, just before Abby attacked me.
When the noise died down, I put the headphones back on.
Pippa said, “Go to her Declan. Whatever you do, don’t let that Abby get a hold of her. The effects will last longer than you think. She’s in real danger, especially when you think she’s fine. When you think she’s safe, the damage will be done.”
There was a pause.
Then, “I don’t suppose you will hear this until later since you don’t seem to hear me now. But when you hear this, know that I’ll be around if I can and when I can. It’s getting trickier to see you. I’m being watched, as I said. So I need you to stop all your medication Declan. It’s time to face what you are. And what Perry is. And who I am to you. To both of you. Perry, if you’re listening…ask your parents who Declan O’Shea is. And watch them carefully. You’ll get the truth that I am not allowed to reveal.”