I’m a medium for patients in a persistent vegetative state. When a patient doesn’t have a living will, a family may bring me in to illicit a psychic response as to what the family should do i.e., pull the plug or not. I visit hospitals, hospices, and residential homes. I’d rather go to a patient’s house, because there is complete buy-in to what I am trying to accomplish. The hospital staff hates and resents me. They believe I’m a fake, a charlatan, an opportunistic snake-oil salesman, and of course, they are one hundred percent correct. I’m a fraud, but I provide a valuable service. I never make a decision that’s not in line with what the family wants. In fact, they almost always want me to tell them that their loved one is ready to move on, to get to the other side and cross the bright barrier of light into heaven. The family is truly making the decision, but they don’t want the associated guilt. I take that away from them and assure them that this is the right thing to do. No family ever calls me without already knowing what they have decided. I charge them three hundred dollars for each visit.
I didn’t start out trying to defraud people. I became a psychic to find that whisper that I lost so long ago. When I was seven years old my sister was diagnosed with leukemia. She put up a valiant fight, always forcing a smile, which, even as young as I was, I could tell it was contrived for my sake. She never wanted me to see her suffer, not for her own peace of mind, but to assure me that everything was alright. She died, not even graduating from high school, not quite an adult, but at the young age of seventeen. She died on March 14th.
The next year, on the anniversary of her death, late at night, while lying in bed, I had a vision of a large white snake moving through the high grass. I heard a whisper. I love you Booby. She always called me Booby instead of Bobby. Life was fun for her. She was always laughing and playing jokes. She was popular and well liked. How we were siblings I don’t know. She was light, and I was darkness. I was a gloomy loner, never making any friends. I heard that whisper on March 14th for fifteen years, and then, it just stopped. I assumed it was drowned out by the worries of becoming an adult with responsibilities well beyond what my immature mind could handle.
I visited a psychic and told her my story. She convinced me that I had the gift but had lost it because I didn’t continue to immerse my mind in the Akashic stream of consciousness. She was always talking in parables and metaphors. She took me in as a journeyman, teaching me the craft, which consisted of reading people and telling them what they wanted to hear. Surprisingly, she made a lot of money doing it. She lived where she worked. When she died, she left it all to me.
I didn’t come up with the idea of being a psychic power of attorney for the brain dead on my own. A woman made an appointment, and asked if I could come to St. Mark’s hospital, room 223. I agreed. I walked into the room to find it full of people. They were relatives, and the man lying in the hospitable bed was unconscious, unaware of their presence. He was a man in his forties, in a vegetative state, the result of numerous debilitating strokes. She wanted to know if Dave- that was his name- was ready to die.
That was a first for me, but why not? I could tell they were worn out and ready to be done with it, so I sat down and grabbed Dave’s lifeless hand, closed my eyes, and started to act like I was conversing with the man. I would ask questions audibly and respond as if he was talking back. I told them that he was conscious of everything that was going on around him. He felt like a prisoner, and it was driving him insane. He assured me that he was suffering immensely and ready to go home to heaven. He said that an angel had appeared to him and told him that there was a mansion in heaven prepared for his arrival.
After the session was done, the family looked relieved. The woman wrote me a check for five hundred dollars, and it didn’t bounce. At that point, I knew there was an available business niche that I could fill. I would have the market all to myself. I started advertising online and putting up flyers near hospitals. It’s not a steady stream of revenue but it pays well, because at that point the family is desperate, and willing to pay more than the normal amount, especially if I prolong the process, stretching it out across several sessions.
On one unlucky occasion, late at night, I was called to come to a trailer home. It was on a narrow country road on top of a flat hill, surrounded by trees. Culbertson Road runs along Mill Creek. There were no streetlights. There had been several instances of cars taking one of the curves too quick and running off into the creek. I made sure to keep it nice and slow. My destination was about half-way between the beginning and the end of the road, the only residence, with a lone tilted mailbox. There was a gate across the drive, kept shut with a chain and padlock. Waiting for me on the opposite side of the street was a station wagon, sitting idly in the dark.
The headlights turned on, blinding me as I came to a stop. A woman of a diminutive stature, dressed in a business casual suit, got out of the car and walked over to my window. I rolled down my window.
“Robert Jones?” she asked in a childlike voice.
“Yes mam.”
“Hello, I’m Beverly. We spoke on the phone. Let me open the gate and then you follow me.”
She pulled a set of keys out of her coat pocket and unlocked the padlock, unwrapped the chain, and then swung the gate back towards the property. She got in her car and pulled through the gate. I rolled in behind her and we slowly made our way up the hill. As we got closer, I could see the single wide trailer nestled among some barren trees. It was old and dirty, with faux rock skirting, and blue siding, a clash of colors meant to convey earth and sky. We parked the cars in the gravel driveway, mine behind hers. She got out her car and came to the back hatch. She opened the hatch and pulled out a flashlight and a lantern. I walked up to her, confused. The place looked abandoned.
“There’s no power. Forgive me. Mr. Davis didn’t have a lot of money. This property has been in his family for a long time.” She lit the lantern and handed me the flashlight. I tried to turn it on, but it didn’t work. I didn’t want to make a fuss, so I just kept my mouth shut. The name- Davis- sounded familiar to me, but I couldn’t completely recall where I had heard it.
We walked in and the first thing I noticed was that the interior was stripped bare and painted black, including the ceiling. There were no doors nor appliances. Walls had been removed so that it was one large empty space. The only thing in the room was a bed and next to it a chair and a nightstand. On the nightstand were jars filled with some liquid that I couldn’t as of yet identify. At the foot of the bed on each side of the footboard were candle stands, holding lit black candles.
“What the hell is this?” I said as I turned to face Beverly. She had pulled out a gun and it was pointed at my face.
“You have the gift or not? I hope you’re not a fake. Do as I say, and you can leave in one piece. Now sit in that chair, grab his hand, and do your thing.”
I plumped down in the seat, lost in thought. This is karma. I’m getting what I deserve. I grabbed his hand. It was cold and stiff, this son of a bitch was dead, beset by rigor mortis. I turned to look at Beverly. She nodded her head as if to say don’t even worry about it. I was dead. I just knew it. Was she expecting me to bring this guy back to life? I do readings, not resurrections. All of the sudden his hand grew warm. I went to pull my hand away, but he grabbed it and wouldn’t let go. It was like my hand was caught in a vice grip. He had superhuman strength and no matter how hard I pulled and tugged; I could not get free. I don’t know why I didn’t notice before but because of his moaning I looked up at his face. The crown of his skull was missing and where his eyes should have been there were empty sockets. His lips were withered down to two thin lines and his nose was all but corroded away.
“You do have the gift,” Beverly said, rapt in awe. “Meet Clayton Davis, the most powerful clairvoyant of all…. A god.”
Now I recalled that name. It was a story told around campfires. An urban legend about the real foundations of the community of Antioch, not founded by morally scrupulous Christians, but by a cult following a Mr. Davis said to have the power to make people do unspeakable things to themselves. He was worshipped out of fear but at some point, he was defeated and destroyed. The story is vague at that point. Who or what destroyed him?
Surely, this wasn’t the same Clayton Davis. I was getting a different vibe. This man was a pawn. His powers used at another’s bidding. I had a vision of him embraced by a white serpent, with a pale grey creature whispering in his ear. Clayton was a tool. I saw that he had been alive a prisoner for over 250 years. Only recently, had he freed his mind long enough to shove a pistol into his mouth and pull the trigger. Something needed Clayton Davis. Something needed his power, but Clayton didn’t want it. He wanted to move on. I could feel his desperation. He was pleading with me to stop this regeneration.
I felt a sharp cut across my lower forearm, the blade of a knife sliding deep and fast. Beverly held a mason jar under the cut and collected the blood. She went over to Clayton and forced the blood into his mouth, making him swallow against his will. The flesh of his body took on a livelier hue. Beverly walked back over to collect more blood, and I kicked her as hard as I could in her knee. I grabbed the knife by the blade, the only way I could grab it. It sunk deep into my palm, but I was able to take possession of it, flip it, and jab it into Clayton’s wrist. His grip loosened and I freed my hand, looking around for the gun. Where was the damn gun? Beverly moved to the edge of the bed. I spied the gun laying on the edge of the bed. Instead of going for it I concentrated on Beverly. I punched her in the face, knocking her back into the trailer wall. I then grabbed the gun. As I looked up to point it at Beverly, she smashed the lantern in my face, burning my skin and cutting my lip and cheek. The lantern dropped to the floor. I heard the trailer door slam and then an engine outside start, as Beverly made her escape.
The cheap shag carpet had caught fire, shadow and light flickering across the room, exposing an empty bed. The body, Clayton, or whatever, had gotten up. I looked around the room, my eyes stinging with smoke. I couldn’t locate him. From behind I was grabbed in a deadly embrace. I suddenly had the uncontrollable urge to put the gun to my temple and pull the trigger. I also had the urge to do it while standing in the growing fire, immersing myself in as much pain as possible. Clayton let go of me, but the urge didn’t. I walked toward the flames, the hair on my arms began to singe and my flesh started bubbling with the escaping heat. Out of nowhere I heard a small still voice, “I love you Booby.” My mind was released. I turned and shot Clayton in the face, freeing him from his years of torment. Just to be safe though, I dragged his body to the fire and let him be consumed.
I got into my car and drove away. In the rear-view mirror, I could see the flames had started to move across the exterior of the trailer, roof partially collapsing. I have never seen anything in the news about it. I assumed that Beverly was part of a sinister organization that did its best to cover up the whole affair. She had escaped… or so she thought. Two more years came and went. The whisper was back. I found Beverly, not physically, but mentally. Her real name was Deborah Jackson. She was a schoolteacher. One night I had a vision. A large white serpent approached me from the tall green grass. It lifted up and looked me in the eye, its tongue tasting the air. The white serpent coiled around my whole body, laying its heavy head on my shoulder. I was passive, a willing participant. I saw Beverly in front of me. I may not have been there physically, but I was deep in her head, making her do unspeakable things to herself.