Afterlife (17 page)

1

“You went to see
who?”
Mel nearly shrieked. “Take off the sister hat and put on the friend hat,”

Julie said.

“I’m wearing the smart hat. What in God’s name were you doing there?”

They were driving around looking at real estate listings in Forest Lake, because Mel was still thinking of buying a place nearer Julie—“but not so close that I see you every day,” Mel had said.

“Look at that one.” Julie pointed to a small house at the edge of a hillside. “Look, it must have a view of the lake in back. Write down the realtor’s number.”

“Why the hell did you go down there? What good would it do?”

“Quit yelling at me.”

“I am not yelling.”

“I didn’t think it would turn out like it did. I thought maybe…I don’t know. I thought maybe she’d know something I didn’t.”

“She’s insane, Julie. He divorced her because she tried to kill her own son. Isn’t that enough for you?”

2

She dreamed that night of Amanda Hutchinson, stunningly beautiful, dressed in one of Hut’s business suits. Julie lay on a bare mattress on the floor of some auditorium. She had the sense that people were watching her. She struggled, but her hands—though not tied down—wouldn’t move. Nor would her legs.

Julie became aware of her nakedness only when Amanda bent down and touched her foot. Amanda licked the edge of her foot and took a toe in her mouth.

Then, on all fours, Amanda climbed on top of her, bringing her face within an inch of Julie’s.

“Does he touch you like this?” she asked, her tongue flicking out and lapping at Julie’s lips. “Like he’s more alive than he’s ever been?”

In the dream, Amanda Hutchinson’s hair was no longer black, but bright red. Julie noticed that there was a chair, above her, hanging suspended from the sky as if by a wire that went all the way up to heaven.

Julie felt a hand on her belly, fingers moving down toward the thatch of pubic hair.

Amanda Hutchinson’s face became Matt’s face, but with the same long red hair.

He had carvings all over his skin.

But it wasn’t Matt. It was Hut. Hut with tattoos all over his body. Holding her arms down at her side while his enormous penis pounded her. And she felt herself opening in that space, between her legs, opening herself to his sex, to his forced entry, unlocking the doors for him, letting him through.

In her dream, she whispered, I want you inside me, Hut. I want you inside me.

3

She awoke, thinking she’d heard Livy cry out. It took her a minute to adjust to the darkness. She was used to this by now—the routine of Livy’s nightmares. She rolled out of bed, putting the terry bathrobe on, and padded down the hallway through the veiled darkness, punctuated by the numerous nightlights she’d scattered in the various outlets so that Livy could see her way to the bathroom without getting scared.

Right on schedule, Livy was standing in the hallway, her back against the wall. Julie flicked up the hall light. “Honey,” she said.

Livy looked up at her, her eyes wide. “I’m sorry, Mommy. It just scared me. I know it’s just dreams. But it seemed real.”

“Well, but doesn’t Dr. Fishbain talk to you about this?”

Livy nodded.

“Does it help?”

Livy nodded again. “But Dr. Fishbain doesn’t have

to sleep here.”

Then, Julie had an idea. “What if I could prove to you that there’s no ghost?”

“How?”

4

Julie enlisted Matt to help set up the old NannyCams that they’d used when Livy had been younger and before they’d discovered Laura Reynen as a sitter. Julie had loved the NannyCam—Mel had convinced her that all babysitters were potential child-abusers after Livy had been born (“it’s always on the news. Nannies can be bad.”) So Hut had, one day, brought home their first NannyCam, and Julie had discovered that, in fact, none of their sitters slapped the baby. It was the NannyCam that had given Julie the idea for getting the camcorder for Matt so that he’d have a way of expressing himself and having a fun hobby, as well.

They set up one of the NannyCams along the stairs, and then the other one at the entrance to Livy’s bedroom. Matt brought up the VCR from downstairs, and then she got the old one that was in the storage closet next to the linen closet. They tested them, since none of them ever watched VHS anymore, having gone to DVDs. Both machines worked fine. He set up the wires and cables, and put some tapes in each machine. “See, Livy? This one,” he pointed to the NannyCam in the hall, “goes to this VCR. And that one, in your room, goes to the other one. If anyone comes in, we’ll catch it on the cam.”

Livy went around lining up more nightlights, pulling them from the three bathrooms in the house, and then the ones that Julie had bought at Home Depot. “They’re like little soldiers,” Livy said.

“See? We’ll catch the ghost,” Matt said, attaching the NannyCam to a small block of wood to steady it.

“There’s no ghost,” Julie crossed her arms, a bit annoyed with Matt for saying it in front of his little sister.

Livy seemed thrilled to think that her bad dreams might end.

5

The first morning after they’d set the NannyCams up, Julie sat down with Livy and fast-forwarded through the resulting videotape in the rec room. The hall tape showed nothing but the sentry line of nightlights, occasionally punctuated by Matt coming out into the hall and walking sleepily to the bathroom. “He pees a lot!” Livy giggled.

She and Livy laughed while Matt sped up, walking like a fast-paced Charlie Chaplin up and down the hall to the bathroom. For fun, Julie showed it backward and then forward.

“See? Nobody.”

“Matt was funny,” Livy giggled. “Let’s make him walk fast again.”

“Okay,” Julie said. Then, she sped through the rest of the tape. “See? Nobody’s in the hall. No one in your room other than you.”

Livy shook her head. “He didn’t come last night.”

6

They repeated this morning ritual for the next several days, and Livy was thrilled to see Matt—or even herself—wander to the bathroom in the purple light of morning. One tape had her looking right into the NannyCam and singing a silly little made up song. She played the tape for Livy, and Livy laughed at herself and told her to turn it off before she exploded. Then, she let Livy watch herself sleeping in bed. “I snore!” she cried out with glee. “Just like you do Mommy!”

One morning, Julie woke up and Livy was in bed with her, pressed against her back.

7

“I had a bad dream again,” Livy said.

After they’d been up a bit, Julie got out the videotape and said, “Let’s watch the NannyCam and see.”

“No,” Livy said.

“Come on. We can laugh about how Matt waddles down the hall.”

“No, Mommy. I don’t want to see him.”

“I promise you won’t,” Julie said, playing with Livy’s hair. “I promise you, Olivia Hutchinson, that you will not see a single person on the videotape unless it’s you or Matt going down the hall to the bathroom.”

Livy reluctantly agreed, and they went to watch the tapes. Julie sat in the rec room and fast-forwarded through the NannyCam tapes. There was Matt on his nocturnal trip to the john, and then, she saw a blur of movement. She stopped the tape, and then froze on the picture.

“That’s him!” Livy cried out, pointing to the screen. “That’s the ghost!”

Julie shushed her, and told her that it was nothing. “It’s just shadows, baby. It’s not a ghost.” But she shut the tape off, and tried to get Livy to think of something else. She took her out into the garden and they planted some seeds from packets that they’d bought at the local nursery. Livy, now and then, mentioned the ghost, and Julie did what she could to talk her out of it.

But later in the day, when Livy was in her room reading, Julie went back down to the rec room to watch the tape.

It wasn’t much. Might’ve just been a problem of the tape. She played it in slow motion.

She held her breath for a moment, surprised.

It was a blurred figure moving down the hall, but in weird jumps of motion. Then, she played the video at regular speed, but it was impossible to see it. She could only see it when she slowed the tape down.

She went backward and forward with the tape.

The hallway with the nightlights in a row like luminaria outside Livy’s bedroom.

It wasn’t that it was a blur—it was that whoever was crossing in front of the nightlights darkened them in such a way that they created a blurring effect. There was no way that it was Matt. It was a large person. An adult.

Then, she put in the tape for Livy’s bedroom NannyCam.

Fast-forwarded through the night as Livy tossed and turned, throwing her American Girl doll from the bed (where it should not have been in the first place), and pulling her pillow down to her chest. And then—Julie paused the tape, freezing the picture.

It looked like a dark movement, near Livy’s bed. For just the flash of a second.

Then, it was gone.

After it moved back into the shadows, Livy’s eyes fluttered open, although it was hard for Julie to make out much about her face in the darkness.

Livy sat up, and looked as if she were watching someone in her doorway. She clutched her blanket and pulled it up around her shoulders, and then shut her eyes tight.

8

Julie got Matt to watch the tape with her, and he said, “Wow. I wonder what that is?” He squinted. “It’s hard to make out in the dark. Sometimes video sucks.” “Do you think it’s a person?”

“It has to be, Julie. Look at that—the way it moves

around. That has to be an arm—right?”

“I don’t even know what this means.”

“Maybe it means someone is coming in our house at

night,” Matt said.

9

She showed the tapes to Mel, but she told her she wasn’t sure it was a person at all. “I don’t know. I don’t want to jump to conclusions,” Mel said. “I think it’s just shadows and stuff. I don’t really see anyone.” But she suggested that Julie get some kind of protection system in place. Julie decided to go all out: she got a burglar alarm system that keyed to the windows and doorways. They installed it within a week, and although it cost a small fortune, she decided it was well worth it. She made Matt memorize the code, but she kept it fairly simple. “At least until it gets cool, we keep the windows closed, and only in and out through the front door, okay?” She told both of them not to play with it. Then, she tested it once to see how fast the local police could get there.

She had a nice talk with the cops who showed up, and told them about the tapes. One of them volunteered to sit down and fast-forward through the tape to see what he could make of it. When Matt came back up from the rec room, he said, “Julie, you must’ve erased the tapes last time you watched them.”

“Yeah,” the cop said. “It looked like
Seinfeld
reruns on one of them.”

“
Mel
,” Julie said.

Matt turned to the cop and said, “My Aunt Melanie. She loves
Seinfeld
. She taped over my movie of last year’s Fourth of July parade, too.”

10

Julie kept taping the hall and the bedroom for several days, but didn’t see the shadowy movement.

And Livy began sleeping through the night.

11

On the phone with her mother the next day: “Did you read it?” her mother asked.

“Read what?”

“That book.
The Life Beyond
.”

“Some of it.”

“Well? Did you love it?”

“Mom, you know I don’t believe in that stuff.” “I’ve seen him twice. He’s fascinating.”

“I am not going to delude myself, Mom. I’m not

going to pretend that there’s someone out there who speaks to the dead.”

“No, it’s not like that. He doesn’t do that,” her mother said. “He just picks up things about you. When I was there a year ago, he told a man that his brother was looking for him. And within a month, it turned out the brother he thought was dead was actually alive. And a woman who had blocked childhood memories suddenly recalled that she’d witnessed her mother and her uncle making love. And that’s why she’d hated her mother so much. It’s halfway between psychic and therapy.”

“I have a great therapist.”

“Anyone can be a therapist,” her mother said. “Michael Diamond is a psychic. A real one. Did you read the whole book? I thought not. He’s not like those others, sweetie, believe you me. I’ve researched them all. He’s not as flashy, maybe, but he delivers the goods. And we have tickets to his show. I’ve been waiting for them to come through since mid-May. And guess what? It must be fate. They came through today.”

“I am not going,” Julie said, and clicked the phone off.

1

“I don’t know how you roped me into this,” Julie said. It was a lie: she knew how her mother had done it. Julie’s interest had been sparked by Michael Diamond’s book, and by her curiosity about Hut’s childhood, and how it might be connected to psychic ability, whether that existed or not. People believed in it. Detective McGuane had even told her that while he didn’t wholly believe in it, he had seen psychics consult on murder cases once in a while, with impressive results. She didn’t believe in it. But people did. Even the U.S. government, for God’s sake. Even homicide detectives in New York City, the city that wasn’t exactly the city of gullibility. Cops who couldn’t catch killers believed it.

She sat sandwiched between her mother and sister in the television studio with its uncomfortable chairs and blinding overhead lights. The place was packed, but Julie guesstimated that there weren’t more than 200 seats. The stage was round and small. Three large cameras and their operators moved around on it. And various lights came up and down. Taping wasn’t scheduled for another twenty minutes.

“I can’t wait to get his autograph. I loved his new book,” her mother said. She had a small cloth bag stuffed with paperbacks. “Melanie, you really should read some of them.”

“I prefer to stick to the classics,” Mel said, grinning, poking lightly at her sister.