Afterlife. Part 23

Mel came by and Julie reluctantly popped the video into the machine and pushed play on the remote control. When the video played, everything was the same as before-with the clock reading three a.m.-but there was no dark figure coming into the room at all. Instead, Julie threw off the covers and began taking her nightclothes off. Once she was naked, she began stroking her nipples. Then, she lifted her left hand and reached with it down between her legs.

"Oh my G.o.d," Julie said, and turned off the tape.

Mel sat there and stared for a few seconds at the television screen. She looked over at Julie.

"Mel, I swear to G.o.d, that is not what was on the tape before."

Mel offered up a warm look, and she looked too much like their mother at that moment. "Julie? What's going on?"

"That was not what I saw. I saw a man. I saw...Hut," she said it aloud, finally. Something in her mind cleared. "I slept through it last night. But I know I saw him."

"You know what we both just saw on that tape," Mel said in a too-sympathetic tone. "Why would you tape yourself like that?"

"Mel," she said. "You know I'd never do that."

"All I know is I didn't see Hut in it, Julie. Hut is dead. He was murdered. I know that's hard to face. To look at. And I love you. You're my sister. We're best friends. I have nothing against anyone getting their jollies from innocent stuff, but...I didn't expect this. Are you doing okay? Is that therapist even helping you through all this? I've seen the house. I know it's a lot to keep up with, but have you looked around? I can only come over and help so much, Julie," Mel said, her hand laid gently on Julie's arm.

2.

Mel told her to rest, that she'd take the kids for a few days, but bring them over after supper so she could get some peace and do whatever it was that "will make you whole again." She lectured her that she needed to somehow face herself, deal with life as it was, "the hand that the fates dealt." Mel talked a blue streak about responsibility and shirking and getting back on your feet and her work at the hospital and planning on the future happening even if Julie wanted to remain behind, and it just went on and on. Julie listened, nodded at the appropriate times, but began to resent Mel-resent her family-resent Hut and his death and the cops who couldn't catch the guy who'd killed him and a few others and even Rick and Joe and their oh-so-perfect coupledom and finally she just told Mel to leave, that she was getting a headache and they could talk about this later.

Then Julie wandered the house, room to room, looking at it in a way she hadn't in a long time. There was dust and dirt where the kids had brought it in from outside. Hadn't she cleaned up for Joe and Rick? Perhaps she'd been preoccupied. Then the kitchen, with dishes and gla.s.ses piled in the sink, and three dirty saucepans on the stove, with some stains around the counter, and empty soda cans near the toaster. That wasn't too bad. She wasn't much of a housekeeper, but she hadn't even called in the cleaning service in weeks to help out. She saw the piles of clothes on the washing machine, and more of them as she pa.s.sed the kids' rooms-in the corner of Livy's room, her T-shirts and shorts from the summer in a heap. The whole house seemed dull and gray.

She went into her bedroom and for the first time felt as if it were stuffy. She went to open the windows, and then saw her own clothes on the other side of her bed. In her bathroom, the medicine cabinet's mirror was still broken. She hadn't even thought of going to Home Depot to get another one. And she had done so little shopping in the past week that she wasn't even sure if the kids had snacks or if they had what they needed for the first weeks of the school year. Mel had taken up the slack, and she supposed Matt had done some of it, too.

How could she have had friends over with the house in that condition? What was wrong with her? She looked at her cracked image in the mirror and wondered what it was that made her see a man who looked in the dark very much like Hut, having s.e.x with her while she slept, forcing himself into her and against her body, and yet, somehow seeing a video of herself masturbating? What had brought her to this, she wondered. Where am I in all this? Where am I in all this?

She lay down on the bed, but could not stop looking over at the NannyCam's metal eye, watching her.

How can someone put an image in my head like that? Make me see it on a video that changed when someone else saw it?

She got up and tried calling her mother, but couldn't. Next, she tried calling Michael Diamond's office, but tracking him down was next to impossible.

Julie couldn't bring herself to watch the tape again until after more wine. She watched it again, and this time, it was exactly as she'd seen it with her sister: she was masturbating, alone in bed, and the room seemed to have more moonlight in it, for she could tell that her eyes were not closed. The video itself didn't seem that fuzzy. They were open. She felt disgusted with her own body, watching this. She felt as if a nerve pinched inside her mind as she tried to make sense out of this-out of the dreams, out of the tapes, out of seeing things that weren't there. Seeing things that could not be there.

She had two choices: she was either losing her mind, or this was something else.

3.

Her laptop open on her bed, she connected the cable and went online. She pulled up some search engines-Google and Hotbot and Yahoo-and began searching for the terms "school," "psychic," "remote viewing" and "1977," hoping this would come up with something. In each case, there were pages upon pages of listings, and she scrolled up and down the screen, taking a stab at each listing or mention. None of it seemed to point to anything helpful.

After about an hour of searching, she nearly gave up, but came upon a link to a webpage that didn't have much on the surface-mainly just a mention that there had been a sleep study for psychic ability in the 1970s in Los Angeles, and it had been completely unsuccessful. In the brief article, the writer referred to the "legendary scandal of Project Daylight."

Julie saved this page, and opened a new browser window, looking up the words "Project Daylight," "remote viewing," and "New York."

Nearly one hundred references came up for these search terms. It completely surprised her.

She began clicking links into each one of the terms. All seemed to go to conspiracy-theory-type sites. Some of the sites dealt with paranormal phenomena, some with urban legends, some with UFOs. When she found mention of Project Daylight, she found mention of a sleep study of children with sleep disorders-whether "night fears," or general insomnia. Each website she visited seemed to have a different piece of this puzzle about Project Daylight. Brief mentions. "n.o.body really knows about Project Daylight, other than a fire destroyed the house where the research took place." That was really the most definitive statement she could find. There were at least twenty children in the program, and many of them had come from the foster care system. One of the children had shown what they called an "advanced PSI ability," and she wasn't quite sure what PSI meant, other than psychic and a variant on the acronym ESP. In due course, she found its definition, and it did, indeed, refer to paranormal ability such as clairvoyance, telepathy, psychometry, and psychokinesis. She knew the first two terms, but was unsure of psychometry or psychokinesis, but she could take a wild guess.

The Chelsea Parapsychological Inst.i.tute kept coming up as a connection with the Daylight Project. She looked them up, too, and found that they'd shut down in the early 1980s, although it gave their old address.

It was the building on Rosetta Street.

Sixth floor of the building.

66S. Sixth Floor, Sixth Apartment, Letter S.

And she found out something else about the Chelsea Parapsychological Inst.i.tute.

It had been run by a retired Colonel in the Army who had once worked in military intelligence. A man named Alan Diamant.

She remembered something in Michael Diamond's book about his father.

4.

She sat at the kitchen table, with Diamond's books open. She skimmed pages, trying to remember where he mentioned his dad. Then, she remembered. It was the first thing she'd read. She opened The Life Beyond The Life Beyond, and scanned the introduction.

She found it: "My own father died several years ago, and if you looked up his name online or through public records, you'd eventually find out that he was a Colonel in the Army, that he served in Viet Nam, that he worked in military intelligence and then as a liaison in Bosnia even in retirement. You'd know the name of his brothers, of his parents, of his children and even how he died, because contributions were made to the American Cancer Society. You'd know his date and place of birth. You'd perhaps have a handful of names to research further, too. The internet today is such that people can trace entire family trees going back centuries if they want to. How easy is that for a psychic? All the psychic has to do is spend thirty minutes or so researching one or two families who are showing up for his audience, and then he gets up in front of the audience and says, 'I'm talking to someone who says he has a son here. He's showing me something about-a helicopter? Or a plane? Some kind of military plane? I'm getting the sense that he was a soldier of some kind. An officer? But there's something about Bosnia, too. Does this sound like anyone here?' And sheep that I am, I'd raise my hand and gasp and say, 'It's my dad!'"

5.

Back at her laptop, Julie did a search on terms she thought most likely to come up with an obituary of a man named Alan Diamant. It took her three tries, adding search terms each time. Finally, an obituary from 1982 showed up as part of the online archives for the Journal for Paranormal Research of America. It had all the particulars: Colonel in the Army, Viet Nam, went from military intelligence to applied research to parapsychology to founding-and funding-the (CPI) Chelsea Parapsychological Inst.i.tute for the decade of its existence. Married, divorced, re-married, divorced again, mention of the closing of the CPI, mention of two children. Mention not of cancer, as Michael Diamond had indicated in his book, but "as the result of an accident." There was a picture accompanying the obituary of Alan Diamant in his late 20s, in uniform. The obituary turned into an article about founders of various paranormal groups, and there was mention of government supervision of certain programs.

That was it.

"It doesn't mean it's his father," Joe Perrin told her when she called him up. "Even if it is..."

"If it is, he might know about Hut. If Hut was there. If any of this matters," she said. "Joe, you told me you believe in this kind of thing. I've experienced something recently."

"A ghost?" His voice carried with it a half-joke in the word, as if he were uneasy mentioning it.

"I don't know. A phenomenon of some kind that would make any sane person start drinking and any insane person start jumping out windows," she said, completing his joke to keep it light.

"I believe in ghosts," Joe said. "And I know our government backed programs for remote viewing. I've read too many articles about it not to believe it. It's tough thinking they might've used kids, but if it was a sleep study, maybe."

"I'm going to ask him."

"You got b.a.l.l.s," Joe laughed, but she didn't. His comment reminded her too much of something Amanda Hutchinson said to her.

"Well, if it's not his father, he'll laugh. He told me that I should come talk to him. Maybe he's psychic. I just am beginning to push to that side of things."

"Belief?"

"Belief. Or being open to this. Now. Given everything. And if Alan Diamant, well, maybe he knows something. Maybe he was there. If your dad runs a parapsychological foundation, it's pretty likely that you may grow up to be a psychic," she said. "Right?"

"I don't know. Maybe. But Diamant is a different name than Diamond."

"I don't know. It's not so different," she said. "Maybe he's ashamed of his father. Or maybe the name Diamond is just more..."

"Hollywood," Joe completed her thought. "He's cubic zirconia. Diamonds are not always a girl's best friend."

"Ha," she said.

"Don't forget me when you're in the city," Joe said before they hung up on each other. "I'll do some snooping around in all these books and magazines I've got piled up. Do you want a psychic reading? I can ask my friend Lauren. She's excellent."

6.

She decided to tape one more night. She went to Matt and asked about his camcorder. Could it be set up with a timer? Yes. Could he set it up so that it could shoot reasonably decent video in the dark? Yes. Could she then take the DVD and put it right into the computer without him seeing it? Yes. This time she intended to be drugged out of her mind with whatever substance could knock her out. She had an old bottle of whiskey in the liquor cabinet that she and Hut never drank, but she knew it was the good stuff. She took a few swigs before going to bed, very late, and then lay down on her bed. This time she kept her clothes on-her shirt and jeans and a sweater.

She drank three small gla.s.ses of whiskey and sat up too late, and then sleep came and it was deep.

In the morning, she took the NannyCam tapes and watched them, and there was nothing. Same for the camcorder's tape. She tried it three more nights. Nothing. Nothing.

And then, the fourth night was a charm.

7.

Although the visuals were too shadowy in the NannyCam tapes, Matt's camcorder had night vision technology, and she saw the dark of her room with greenish glows. The green-black figure of a man. His face so much like Hut's it made her gasp.

And then, as she watched, she had the strangest feeling she'd ever experienced. It was as if he was looking at her, watching him. Knowing that she would watch him hours later. Knowing that she would see this videotape.

He went to where the camcorder was set on the tripod, and looked directly into the camera. It was Hut. The video was dark and glowing green and grainy, but there was no doubt about it. He seemed to be trying to say something, but there was no sound on the video. Then, he fumbled with the camera. He lifted it up, and now, he had it in his hands and was filming the bedroom. Filming her. With one hand, he unb.u.t.toned her sweater, and then, beneath this, unb.u.t.toned her shirt. He spread the material apart, and pressed his hand in the brief gap between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Then he kept the camera focused on where his hand went. He delicately drew back each side of her shirt, exposing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and then put his fingers around the nipple of her right breast, and twisted it slightly. He cupped her breast in his hand, then drew the camera back.

He continued to undress her with some dexterity, filming each movement he made.

When he had her completely naked, he put his hand between her knees and pushed them apart. Then, he put the camera there, close enough that she could see herself-and he began stroking her there, between her legs, all the while keeping the camera focused where his fingers played.

She couldn't watch it anymore. She shut it off. Covered her face in her hands. She couldn't even conjure tears.

8.

"I'd like to speak with Eleanor Swanson," Julie said, holding the cell phone close to her face.

Eleanor's a.s.sistant told her that she was out for a few days. "Just a brief holiday," he said. "If it's an emergency, I can make sure she has your message before the end of the day."

Julie paused, and then said, "No, it's all right. I'll call her when she gets back."

9.

She remembered Matt's video that had struck her as odder than odd: the one where he'd videotaped her sleeping. She went to the desktop computer in the den and pulled up his videos. They were numbered, but not otherwise labeled. She knew there was one of her sleeping, and then the very strange one of the girl that was probably from his school. It had been in the back of her mind to ask him about them, but she hated to push him on anything after what he'd gone through. Eleanor had told her to expect that he'd be like stone about his mother's death for at least a few months until he got through a protective layer inside him. "And then expect Niagara Falls and some yelling and maybe some well-placed anger," Eleanor had said, suggesting several therapists he could see if he still didn't want to talk to her again.

Julie tried to open some of the videos, but none of them would open, and she wasn't technologically advanced enough to figure it out.

Then she made a call to Michael Diamond's office. They gave her the runaround and put her on hold (twice). She made sure all the doors were locked, windows closed and locked, checked the burglar alarm and got in the Camry and drove to the city.

In the backseat of the car, she'd tossed copies of The Mind's Journey The Mind's Journey and and The Life Beyond The Life Beyond.