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Sidney was knocked back a few feet but
quickly turned, catching his breath and facing the unknown nemesis.
A crack split the left lens of his now broken glasses, but the TV
screen remained intact, the unwavering static taunting him.

“Now I’m pissed,” he said. A wash of sweat
dampened his wavy, brown hair as he seethed. “Who are you, and
where is David?”

The loud moaning continued, bellowing an
urgent SOS that sought pardon from the shadowy confines of death,
attempting to usurp the static that grew louder with the rising TV
volume. Both noises became unbearable, and all plugged their ears
except an irate Sidney, who stood firm and commanding.

The sounds died away to a strange humming,
and the mysterious gust of wind had passed, leaving behind the icy
chill that still pervaded the room. The lights continued to
flicker, some of which had been off all along.

Dylan and Brett scurried to retrieve the
toppled tripods, righting them and examining them for possible
damage. Leah held on to Tracy, and Susan sat with her fingernails
clawing into the arms of Tracy’s loveseat.

Sidney was panting when he called out
again.

“David, are you there?!”

Nothing but the strange humming
responded.

Suddenly, Leah’s eyes widened and stared
straight at the center of the vast living room. An all too familiar
fear gripped her, an almost friendly foe on a revisited playground.
In her mind’s eye, the aura of her present surroundings was
changing, switching like stage lights from red, to green, to blue,
to a gray uncertainty.

“Sit down,” she said, gently pushing Tracy
back down to the couch. She strutted and stepped forward, a sudden
lioness about to battle. “Sidney, move away from the screen...now!
There’s someone standing right in front of you.”

His face displayed the look of someone held
at gunpoint, so Sidney did as he was told, stepping back behind the
seer who assumed control. She stood solid, her blue eyes unblinking
in focused fixation at a specter standing tall before her. It would
be only her eyes in this instant that would glimpse the unknown
ghost of a man that surely wasn’t David, and was in fact, the
culprit of the interrupting calamity. The seer and the spirit faced
each other with eyes recognizing from worlds cosmically apart.

“Leah, what do you see?” Dylan asked in a
slow and cautious tone, careful not to obstruct the vision that
consumed her.

She described the lurking menace in detail,
as he stood in towering height with penetrating eyes as black as
midnight, the kind that gazed deep into one’s soul. His dark hair
was slicked back, and she could see the insidious grin stamped upon
the face of what should have been a lifeless form, but instead, a
vital, ageless phantom thrived and loomed large in height, a master
manipulating multiple realms.

“There’s a man standing there,” she said.
“It’s not David.”

“Do you recognize him?” Sidney said, standing
behind her.

“No, but he is who—or what, interrupted. He’s
just staring at me with this expression like he’s in absolute
control, dominating everything. His eyes are black, so black there
are no pupils.”

The reddish aura that surrounded the specter
began to change, becoming brighter and stronger in luminescence,
then pulsating to the rhythm of the humming noise that grew louder.
Leah watched the aura morph into a golden hue and form a glowing
ring around the specter, then it flared another hot-white, flash of
light. Gasps escaped those assembled as the ghostly intruder became
visible to all.

“Do you all see him?” Leah’s voice trembled,
realizing that what she beheld was strong enough to manifest its
presence to an audience. The sounds of confused affirmation behind
her confirmed it. “Who are you? Why are you here?”

The looming figure stared at her in silence,
then looked at Sidney standing beside her, then to Susan Logan, who
sat speechless and shaking. It moved its head toward Dylan and
Brett, surveying everyone, sizing up the creatures of a world it no
longer inhabited. Then with another quick move of the head, it
fixed its gaze upon Tracy with a solid, comprehending stare that
lingered in silent fascination.

Tracy winced, feeling the grasp of someone or
something that reached inside and shook her soul, leaving behind a
feeling of dark foreboding, the emptiness of an unspoken omen.

“What do you want?! Where is David?!” Leah
shouted, breaking the concentration it lavished upon Tracy. It spun
its head toward her, and those black eyes resumed their focus on
her baby blues. She found nothing as she searched the rounded orbs
of obsidian, so black that reflected light bounced off of them in
diversion. The equally dark brows were raised upward in a malicious
arch, and the facial expression bordered upon a sadistic and
spiteful tyranny.

“Speak to me, damn you!” Sidney shouted at
the leering entity whose piercing eyes were now redirected at him.
“I can hear you. I can help you, but you must let me.”

The black eyes narrowed and cast a cynical
stare sent to stifle him. Sidney stepped closer as the surrounding
sounds went silent, and the temporary deafness in both of his muted
ears shunned a sounding, human world.

“The sands are slipping through the
hourglass, Sidney.”

The specter spoke without moving its lips,
and the voice boomed an echoing timbre of sharp, crystal clarity.
The somber tone was dead, yet alive and only Sidney had heard the
riddle of mysterious words.

Then, all eyes became distracted. A
flickering sea of light suddenly rippled in waves above the ghostly
intruder’s head that now turned upward to greet it. The floating
web of lightning seemed to belong to it, and the black eyes were
now entranced in a hypnotic thrall toward its sanctuary. The
specter glanced once more upon the earthly faces gathered round and
then back up toward the luminous gateway glowing above and
beyond.

The rushing sound of wind through a tunnel
returned and moved like a tornado, breaking the muted pause that
filled Sidney’s ears--and then an exploding sound...

POW!

The sound reverberated, bouncing off the
walls. The figure disappeared, gone with the blinding brilliance
that radiated from it.

No one spoke. They heeded the static, the
only sound to remain. Leah closed her eyes and opened them again.
There was nothing, not the strange figure, not the brilliant force
of light that showcased it, not the icy wind inside the room, only
the static.

“What’s that smell?” she asked, twitching her
nose. They whiffed as an invisible rancidity wisped through the
room, invading their nostrils. The freeze dried smell of rotten
meat lightly singed had lingered, forcing them into choking gasps
and futile attempts to close their airways.

Brett’s response was one of recognition.

“Residual smell---often left behind by—”

“Poltergeists,” Leah said, and the sound of
the word struck a chord of fear in Tracy’s heart.

Dylan glanced down at the dial of the EMF
meter still in his hand; now the needle was being pulled back and
forth in a magnetic fit far beyond the white notch pointing to
seven.

“The EMF reading has surpassed seven, a
confirmation of poltergeist activity with six witnesses to the
manifestation.” He spoke for the main audio recorders and the reset
video cameras that were taping the entire episode, unimpaired by
the force that had toppled the tripods.

Tracy stared around the room, her quivering
breath in synchronicity to the shakes that ravaged her body.

“But where is David?”

They glanced back at the screen, awaiting an
answer from the static that droned on as normal. Then, the
incessant inertia stopped. Seconds of a solemn silence wrapped the
room in a soft cotton blanket of quiet.

They waited with eyes unblinking, hearts
pounding, sweat breaking, as the TV set said nothing. Then the
audio returned, blaring from the volume level that had climbed in
the chaos. The day’s news was heralding, shouting out from reality
which had begun again. Brett turned the raging volume down.

“I think it’s over,” he said.

“For now,” Sidney said. “It’s over for
now.”

* * * *

Tracy was the first to walk away, and as she
strode off to the kitchen, they followed and watched her open the
cabinet and reach for the bottle she’d failed to finish the night
before.

“Anyone else want a drink?” She asked,
twisting the cap from the bottle. “Because, I sure as hell need
one.”

“No, wait, Tracy,” Dylan said. “That is
something I wanted to address to you.”

Tracy uttered a soft laugh under her
breath.

“What? Are you going to tell me not to drink
in my own house?”

“It’s not that--”

“Now is not the time, Dylan,” Leah said. “I
could use a drink myself, right about now.” Though Leah’s life had
been spellbound and plagued by visions, poltergeists, and
hauntings, she had yet to be granted immunity from the
preternatural. The clearly manifested appearance, the contrived
face that stared back at her with those menacing black orbs, the
malevolent intent, the gale force wind and flying objects, all of
it made so much knowledge and experience seem callow in the space
of only seconds. It was then that the memories of the Cedar Drive
house seemed to occur all over again.

“Make that three,” Brett said.

“Oh, great.” Dylan had no recourse but to
explain why. “It’s said that poltergeists are often triggered by
something or mainly, someone. That is, someone who may be exuding a
certain amount of trauma or mental anxiety in the course of such
events.”

“Okay, so you think it’s Tracy that was
responsible for that thing that just blew in here from Hell?”
Leah’s voice climbed in protest. “Dylan, Sidney and I have a
history of being surrounded by this type of activity. These things
are attracted to people like us. So, don’t you think that whatever
that thing was could have been generated by one of us?”

There was a silence.

“Well?” She demanded.

“It’s possible, but unlikely” he said,
reluctant, but truthful. “You know as well as anyone that the
exertion of high-level, mental stress in certain people often
causes a telekinetic response. Tracy’s recent stress is a prime
example.”

“And, it is known that grief, and especially
guilt, can trigger the mental mechanism known as ‘psycho kinesis,’
which can lead to poltergeist manifestations.” Susan broke into the
debate, no longer the silent spectator, but the psychiatrist who
had just witnessed everything. Her trembling hands shook along with
her voice. “Tracy’s struggle with survivor’s guilt could be that
trigger.”

“Well, someone’s done their homework. I take
it this is the first time you’ve actually seen this?” Sidney
directed his comment at her quivering attempts at composure. She
said nothing.

“No,” Leah said. “Something was different.
You saw the way it looked at all of us. If you were right, you
would be saying that she projected that thing from her mind. Did
that thing or person, look familiar to you, Tracy?”

Tracy shook her head.

“I think you’re right,” Sidney said. “It
spoke to me.”

“What did it say to you, Sidney?” Leah’s
voice issued an urgent demand, implying that her old pal might
forget or fail to reveal everything. “What did it say?!”

“It said something about time slipping
through the hourglass.” Sidney closed his eyes for a second,
recalled the words, then repeated them verbatim.

“So, it’s got us on a time schedule, for
what?” Dylan said. “That doesn’t make any sense. David was
definitely here, Tracy; you heard him. Whatever that thing was that
intervened had taken over. Yes, sometimes another spirit is
present, but these interruptions are often caused unintentionally
by human emotions. Either way, I wasn’t judging you about your
drinking.”

Tracy nodded in dismissal and Dylan turned to
face everyone.

“The spirit world has been opened to us all.
We need to be extremely cautious of our emotions and reactions. I
don’t need to tell anyone here of what an extremely rare occurrence
we just experienced. We faced it, but I don’t think this is the end
of it.”

“I don’t understand the message of time,”
Sidney said. “It spoke with no emotion, but somehow, it was
taunting me.”

“Perhaps it’s pressing of you for time was a
projection from your mind, Sidney?” Susan had settled into a
kitchen chair. “It could also be that your inner anxiousness is
what manifested itself into what we saw, your subconscious quest
for perfection in a timely manner that was fueling that thing. Leah
is right; Tracy is not the only possible source. If it realized
that someone who could hear it was present, then why can’t you be
the host that invited it in? And although this is my first time as
an actual eyewitness, yes, I have done my homework. Somewhat like
you, Sidney, I listened.”

No one spoke, and the only sound now was the
clinking of broken glass in the living room, as Brett had begun
clearing away the pieces that were once Tracy’s lamps and crystal
vases. Tracy looked in on the disaster area she had ignored moments
earlier and gave a heavy sigh.

“Don’t worry,” Leah said, patting her on the
shoulder. “We’re all in this together.”

Her voice sounded less confident than
before.

Chapter Eleven

The October dusk
fell early, spreading a rust colored sunset over a rural
Pennsylvania backdrop. The team remained at the house, clearing the
catastrophe that had trashed Tracy’s living room. Every eye swept
the floor, removing minuscule shards of glass embedded in the
carpet, and Tracy straightened a painting that now hung awry on the
wall.

Dylan and Brett worked fast, examining what
the cameras had caught—the sooner the playback, the better.