He Walks in Duty, Likes the Night

Hey! Something is afoot here at the homestead!

Just when you think your supernatural activities are on the wane, all not-heaven breaks loose again.

Genius was home for the holidays. He was sickly most of the break. Which meant he stayed home all but two days, and was in bed at a reasonable hour. I just assumed those noises I heard in his room were him. Like the turning in the bed, and the footsteps to and fro. Perhaps he had gotten up for the bathroom, or to get his medicine and a drink from the kitchen. That's what a reasonable person would assume in a house with a noisy bedroom that was occupied.

On a day that Genius was feeling up to snuff, when he made an all-day trip to visit a college pal, I thought I saw something. Darkness had not yet fallen. It was late afternoon, a cloudy day. Genius has a bedroom with a wall of windows facing the west, the front of the house. He leaves his shades open, and the door to his room open while he's gone. I was on my way from living room to kitchen when I spied it out of the corner of my eye.

It looked like a person in Genius's room. Not with clear features, like that headless man I saw in the basement years ago. But the size and shape of a person, with a body and head, kind of a gray color. I turned my head to look into the door of Genius's room. That gray person stepped over against the inner wall to avoid me. Uh huh. It didn't fade away like that headless man. It hurried out of my sight.

I did NOT go to look inside the room.

I didn't tell anybody. Maybe it was a trick of the light. Maybe I had a floater in my eye. I'm sure there was a reasonable explanation. Genius returned home after 10:30 that night. The usual home-Genius noises occurred above my head as I sat downstairs in my blue recliner watching the big screen TV.

So Genius packed up and left us on Thursday. I was kind of busy visiting my mom, and tired in the evening, so much so that I fell asleep in the chair, oblivious to any real or imagined noises.

Saturday night and Sunday night, around 8:30, with The Pony on his basement couch, and me in my recliner, we heard footsteps thumping around upstairs. Hick was gone to the auction from 6:00 to 10:30. The footsteps were not as heavy as his footless ankle-stumping.

"Did you hear that?"

"Yeeessss."

"It's waiting for you to go upstairs."

"Maybe."

"It sounds like it's in your room."

"I know. It's been doing that all afternoon."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

"I try to ignore it. I heard it before, but I pretended it was Genius. Then that one night, when I went up to take my shower, I was on my way to the kitchen to get some ice water, and I saw something in the hall, between my bedroom and Genius's. It was white or grayish. I don't really remember the shape, because I saw it out of the corner of my eye, and I just thought, 'HUH?' And I backed up to get a better look, and it was gone."

"I'm going to pretend any future noises are you getting up in the night."

Just this evening, around 6:05, with me in the living room ensconced in Hick's La-Z-Boy, and Hick out test-driving T-Hoe for a new rattle, and The Pony in the basement...we heard a loud THUMP in the kitchen. Kind of a cross between a THUMP and a BANG. Like a can of biscuits exploding in Frig II. Or a two-liter soda bottle falling off the kitchen counter.

"I have no idea what that was."

"I don't WANT to know."

"I heard it yesterday afternoon, too. In the same place. Nothing there."

"Well, now you heard it again."

The Pony is not much help during Val's investigations. I've half a mind to revoke his Mystery Inc. membership card.