The Cantor Dimension (20 page)

"No, Ellen. Not a sin. We were all afraid to talk about it."

"Afraid? Why?"

"Well, as I said, she started out so normal. So... like the rest of us. I think we've all been afraid that it could creep up on us that way, too, and that talking about it was somehow like a bad charm, as if it might bring the evil eye upon us. Talking about it might get Johnny's blood to boiling inside of us, too."

"Gee, I never knew that." Ellen hesitated, but apprehension got the better of her so she pushed forward. "But how did it creep up on her? What sort of things happened in the beginning?"

"Well, I don't know that much about it, Ellen. I was a little girl at the time."

"Come on, Mom, you must know something. Little girls tend to peep through keyholes when nobody knows it. Little girls tend to know a whole lot more than grown-ups ever tell them," she giggled as a child would when conspiring with a friend.

A matching giggle answered and the stage was set. "Well, there was a time when her husband was talking to my mother... the weird things had just started and he was concerned. Are you sure you want to hear this?"

"Yes! Tell me already!"

"Okay. Martha came home from work one day and she didn't know who her husband was."

"Her own husband?"

"Yes! Her own husband. For about two hours she didn't recognize him at all. Only the photographs he showed her convinced her that they were indeed married and not to kick him out. She nearly phoned the police to report him as a burglar!"

"Wow!"

"And that wasn't the half of it! That was just the beginning. Pretty soon she started forgetting things, forgetting people, forgetting time..."

"What do you mean, forgetting time?"

"Forgetting time. Losing time. Like one minute it would be two o'clock and the next minute it would be ten o'clock and she wouldn't have any idea what happened in between the two."

"You're kidding!"

"No, I'm not kidding. That's exactly how it happened."

"What else?"

"Well, there were the voices. Always those voices." Dorothy Beamon sighed.

Ellen interjected, "And from there she wound up communing with little green men?"

"Yes, it's a shame, isn't it? She was such a beautiful girl. I've seen pictures of her in her youth. She looked a lot like you."

"Don't say that!" Ellen had begun to perspire heavily in spite of the cold.

"You're a beautiful girl, Ellen. I've always told you that."

"Yeah Mom, you have. Me with my carrot-top head. I never had one single date until Pat convinced me to dye my hair, toning out some of the red and leaving just a tinge."

"Pat? Is that a new friend of yours? You've never mentioned her before."

Ellen wasn't in the mood to go into the whole Pat thing again, especially with her mother. She was more interested in the fate of her great-aunt Martha. "It doesn't matter, but tell me something else. Did something set Martha off? Like a tragedy or something? Or did it just happen for no reason, out of the blue?"

"People like to say it happened out of the blue but it didn't. You know how the family is, they do like to dramatize things. Martha is the favorite ghost story. She keeps all the kids in line as you know."

"Yes, I remember." The parents had all used Martha as a tool to enforce discipline on the children. It worked rather well.

"Anyway, something did happen to trigger things. She lost her best friend."

Ellen had drifted off for a moment remembering how the adults had used Martha to scare the kids into obedience but this piece of news snapped her to attention again.

"What?"

"She lost her best friend, Alice Ansley, who was shot by a burglar. She'd known Alice all her life, having grown up together in Illinois before Martha's family moved to Rochester when she was a teenager. She and Alice had stayed in touch and she thought of Alice as her sister-in-heart.

"Martha had a hard time getting close to people in spite of her charm and except for Alice and her own husband, Martha never really connected with people. After Alice was murdered, Martha began to forget things and suffer bouts of confusion. When she started talking to the 'space aliens' everyone believed she was filling the empty place in her life where Alice had been. Eventually she got so bad that her husband had to have her committed. Bless his heart, he did his best to keep her together, but once the snowball started rolling nobody could stop it and Martha just lost her way."

Alice Ansley. Pat Phillips. Missing time. Forgetting people. It was too much for Ellen to grasp at one time. "Mom... Mom..." It took her a minute to break into her mother's narration. "There's somebody at the door. I'm really sorry but I've got to go! I'll call you back this weekend and we'll talk some more. Okay?"

"Okay Ellen, but..."

"Mom! The door!" With that, Ellen abruptly hung up the phone.

Table of Contents

A new day had dawned and with it, anxious phone calls wanting to know if the police had investigated the goings on at the Starnes' farm yet. Morning roll call was a blessing and a godsend. Being the boss, Police Chief Hunsinger could delegate any unpleasant task he wanted. Three bleary-eyed faces yawned as he handed out their assignments for the day. Face number four was out with the flu.

In this sleepy little precinct the routine remained the same. Except for the burglaries, a few wayward dogs and a shoplifter now and again, nothing much happened in Utica so they weren't prepared to pay close attention to the Chief's morning discourse.

"You, and you..." the Chief said, pointing to Officer Stokes and Officer Brimley, "pair up and investigate the disturbances at the Starnes' farm."

Instant alertness chased away the bleary eyes of the moment before. Without thinking Ed Stokes blurted, "But Chief, that place is haunted!"

Every man in the room duly avoided the Starnes' farm but until now, no one had dared to admit it. Chief Hunsinger raised an eyebrow. Ed Stokes blushed and stammered while Brimley studied his fingernails with avid fascination. Chief Hunsinger cut off the stammered explanations of Officer Stokes with a wave of his hand. He turned to Ed's unexpected partner for the day, his eyes daring Brimley to disobey a direct order.

"Officer Brimley, do you have anything to say about this assignment?"

"No sir."

"Well then, good. I'll expect a full report on my desk by two o'clock this afternoon. A
full
report. I want to know what's going on inside that house from top to bottom!" He intentionally omitted the new information about Eric Weissmuller and the Starnes' farm lest he color their findings in any way. Besides, he derived a perverse pleasure in watching them sweat it out.

Chief Hunsinger retired to his office while Stokes and Brimley trudged off to Officer Stokes' police car. Officer Brimley was the first to speak.

"Damn! What the hell did you do to make him mad?"

"Me? Nothin'."

"Well then how come he picked us?"

"I dunno."

Car doors slammed and the two men rode off in silence. Miles of barren farmland rolled past the window, dotted with an occasional bare-branched tree. Without the customary layer of snow, the plains of the Midwest were nothing but a desolate expanse of land stretching as far as the eye could see. Ed Stokes broke the silence.

"What was you doing the night the Weissmuller kid disappeared?"

"Nothin' much. Just watching some TV."

"You didn't see anything... strange... did you?"

An odd look came over Officer Brimley's face. "What do you mean, strange?"

"Well, like those lights everybody's talking about."

"I didn't see nothin'! Like I said, I was watching TV. Why do you wanna know?"

"Oh, no reason."

They finished the trip as they'd begun it - in uncomfortable silence. On the open plains the Starnes' farmhouse could be seen from quite a ways off. The house itself seemed to be shrouded in an envelope of miserable grey as though the witch-trees had sucked in what little sunlight tried to shine down upon it. The officers drove up slowly and with grim resolution, Officer Stokes parked the vehicle.

"Let's get this over with," he said. Brimley nodded and they approached the front door, side by side. Ed Stokes tried the doorknob. It was locked.

"Guess we can't get in!" he said, heading back toward the car.

"Uh, we could try a window."

Ed Stokes shot him a dirty look. "Thanks, partner."

Several rotting planks were nailed up over each window giving the house a creepy look. Ed Stokes opened his mouth to speak but Officer Brimley interrupted him. "There's a crowbar in the trunk."

Ed Stokes' mouth clamped shut, lines of anger appearing on either side. The front door popped open easily with the crowbar and the two men stood indecisively at the threshold. The flimsy beam from the flashlight barely penetrated the gloom inside. Once again Officer Brimley came to the rescue.

"We could turn on the headlights and aim them through the doorway," he offered.

"Yeah, good idea!" Ed rushed to the car, grateful for a moment away from the dark doorway. Brimley stood nervously by the front door, gun drawn and finger on the trigger, staring helplessly into the dark recesses beyond, ready to blast holes through any ghost that dared to appear in his presence.

Ed Stokes maneuvered the car and moments later a blinding beam of light cut through the darkness. Officer Brimley stepped inside staying well within the headlight's beam. The bright strip of light made the rest of the interior appear even darker and Officer Brimley's shadow stretched out in front of him blocking much of his view. He wiped his forehead in spite of the winter chill. Ed Stokes reluctantly followed.

As their eyes adjusted to the dim interior, distinct shapes began to emerge from the darkness. Off to the right, an open stairway disappeared upward into the shadowy depths. At the bottom of the stairs a doorway led to a room on their right. Directly ahead was a hallway lined with doors on either side.

"Which way?" Ed whispered.

"This way," Brimley answered, heading toward the room on the right. Neither man was ready to tackle a hallway lined with doors. The room they'd chosen was once a bedroom, now lifeless and empty, with nothing to show of the people who'd lived there except one rusty bed frame leaning against the far wall. They wondered if it were the bed Billy Starnes had been found murdered in.

They left the bedroom and stopped at the bottom of the stairway. Two pairs of eyes looked up the stairway and two pairs of feet backed away, heading instead for the hallway. One could affect a faster escape from the ground floor, two minds decided at once.

The headlight's beam didn't stretch down the hallway and their progress was slow and careful. Guns drawn, they threw open the first door they came to. The door crashed loudly against the inner wall. The officers jumped back, frightened by the sound of the crashing door. Two hearts pounded loudly as the men crept slowly forward, finally gathering up the courage to peer inside.

The room was empty. The next room was empty as well but the kitchen, located at the far end of the hallway, appeared to be full of clutter. The two men tiptoed inside feeling their way carefully so as not to knock anything over and disturb whatever ghosts might lurk therein, as if a sudden sound could evoke the wrath of the spirits.

Two flashlights swept slowly over the countertop. Empty beer cans, ashtrays full of cigarette butts, fast food wrappers, and mouse droppings all battled for supremacy. Four wooden chairs and a matching table stood off to one side, with a deck of cards and a dirty ashtray as the only decoration. Ed Stokes ran his finger over the tabletop. He studied his finger under the flashlight beam. It was fairly clean. He raised an eyebrow.

Further investigation uncovered candles, oil lamps, and bed sheets with large black eyes painted on them. In the center of the "eyes" were two eye holes, allowing the "ghosts" to see out of their bed sheet costumes.

"Well, it looks like we've found ourselves a couple of ghosts!" Brimley laughed, suddenly feeling at ease after the long moments of tension.

Ed Stokes was not similarly relieved. "Yeah, so let's get out of here. We found what we came for."

"Wait a minute, I want to look upstairs."

"The stairs might not be safe."

"Can't be too dangerous. Some of the lights were seen in the upstairs windows."

Officer Brimley headed for the stairs. Ed Stokes followed close behind, more afraid to be left alone than to follow Brimley into the shadowy depths. They took great care not to disturb the items they'd found in case the Chief wanted to catch the ghostly apparitions in the act. Upstairs they discovered row upon row of tables laden with televisions sets, VCRs, stereos, computers, typewriters, CD and DVD players, MP3 players, and boxes full of jewelry, coins, and guns.

Officer Brimley let out a long whistle. "Looks like we've found ourselves quite a stash! I'd say we just found ourselves the burglary ring we've been looking for!"

"Sure does!"

Ed Stokes shined a light into several of the boxes. Brimley had gone to the back of the room where the larger items were stored. There was a loud crash followed by a muttered
shit
as something tipped over and two glowing yellow eyes ran directly toward Officer Stokes.

Without thinking he said, "Here Pookey Pookey," in a sing-song voice and the glowing orbs stopped, a question mark forming in the round, yellow eyes. A small, furry head found Ed Stokes big, rough hand and he picked up the cat, crooning softly.

Brimley had put things back the way he'd found them and was now standing next to Stokes, who asked him to shine his flashlight on the cat in his arms. In the dim beam of the flashlight, the man and the cat gazed at each other in loving wonder.

"Pookey! Oh my God! It's really you! Pookey!"

"What the hell?"

"It's my cat, Pookey! She disappeared quite awhile ago and I never thought I'd see her again. Oh my sweet little Pookey..."

"How do you suppose she got way out here?"

"I don't know," he answered, shaking his head. "We're a long, long way from home, huh Pookey?"