“How do you know my name?” Robert asked finally, no longer able to stand the eerie silence that pervaded the house. And it truly was silent. Lifeless.
“You touched my card,” the old man replied, his voice like dried leaves. To him the answer was an obvious one. Robert wanted to argue this, tell the old man that that was no answer. It explained nothing. “You want me to teach you how to project yourself beyond your body?”
Did he? Robert wasn’t so sure. He still wasn’t even sure why he was here; what had compelled him to pick up the card, to call the number, and to visit the house? And he sure as hell wasn’t sure why he would want to take a trip out of his body. So he shrugged. “Suppose so,” he said.
“Good. Close your eyes.”
Robert blinked. “That’s it? No build up? Just ‘close your eyes’? I thought I had to go into a trance or something. Imagine myself lifting up, pulling away, looking down at my body.”
“Ah.” The old man smiled at Robert, but his rheumy eyes contained the same balefulness. “Do you think that will help? Are you some kind of expert now?” he asked, his voice becoming more forceful with every word.
“Well…” Robert swallowed. Hard. “No, of course not, but I saw something about it on
Most Haunted
the other week and Yvette said…”
The old man sighed. “Robert. Just. Close…Your…Eyes.”
Robert did so. He didn’t know what the old man was expecting as a result, but nothing happened. Apart from Robert becoming aware of the smells in the house. Rank, acrid; the smell of the dead. He went to open an eye—just the one, mind, to get a quick peek to see what the old man was up to—but no sooner had he thought about opening that eye than he felt something grab hold of him.
Not his body. Oh no, because at that moment it occurred to him that he wasn’t his body. That was merely a shell, a vessel in which he moved, became a part of the substantial world.
He
was something else entirely. And it was that something else that was being grabbed, pulled,
yanked
out of the body with such force that he could not resist. Not that he would have known how to. Until a second ago he didn’t even realise he was this
something else
.
There was his body, slumped against the grimy wall of the old man’s kitchen, now vacant of its owner. He was above it, floating in the ether, a spectral mass of conscience looking down on a limited form that had once constrained him.
Wait; why was he thinking such things? He was Robert Hoard of East Acton; a nobody, sure, just a small man going about his own business. Aspirations nil; a shelf filler in a local supermarket, and slave to his mother. Still. After forty years.
“Because, Robert, on the astral plane everyone is high and mighty.”
Robert tried to look around, find the source of the voice, but he couldn’t. Look that is; he had no eyes with which to look. He knew the voice, though, even out here on the “astral plane.” It was the old man.
Robert tried to speak, but shock of shocks he didn’t know how. He had only ever spoken with his physical voice. A—what? Astral voice? Yes. An astral voice was new to him and he had no idea how to use it.
“You’ll work it out. You shall be here for a while. And you’ll discover that although you are literally high out here, you are far from mighty. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m just going to borrow your body for a while.”
Mind? Of course he minded. But what could he possibly do to stop the old man? There was nothing he could do because he was nothing. Just thought, intangible and hanging uselessly in the ether.
His mind was all over the place. Perhaps he was having a mind panic? That’s what happened when you panicked after all; your mind goes all over the place, not able to focus on any one thing. Instead it was in little bits; here, there and everywhere. Analysing the wrong things, going down the wrong paths, and not paying attention to the immediate issue. If that was so, then yes, Robert was having a mind panic attack.
He was everywhere in the house at once. In the skanky bedroom in which the old man used to sleep, back when he did sleep, which was probably before the days when he used the room as a dumping ground for more trash. At the same time he was in the lounge, which unsurprisingly contained a very ancient TV, a huge wooden box with the smallest screen, the kind Robert had seen in pictures from the late ’50s, and, of course, the now anticipated mess and general look of abandonment. All over the house it was the same; a place where someone used to live, probably with some contentment, but now that happiness had moved, replaced by apathy that was verging on clinical disassociation. The old man simply did not view this house as a home any more, but a prison unworthy of respect. Walls that kept him from the world beyond.
Robert wondered where that had come from. Somehow, deep down, he knew he was right, that the man truly believed this was his prison.
What was it Douglas Adams had once written? Don’t Panic! Possibly the best advice in the world. Panic was not something Robert tended to do a lot, after all, his mother pretty much controlled most of his life so he had little space in which to lose it.
His mind was rambling. He had to focus.
The old man had talked of borrowing Robert’s body, and considering the state of the old man’s body, Robert wasn’t sure he much liked the idea of that. God knew what state his own would be in when he got it back.
It was the thought of that, more than anything else, that gave him his focus back. He was back in the kitchen, once again looking at the scene from above. His body started to stir. At first it was just the fingers, twitching as if he were dreaming. Only it was not he, this was for sure. He was still up near the ceiling, an abstract collection of thoughts with no form to affect anything.
However…
A thought occurred to him. Surely if the old man could somehow transfer to his body, then Robert could do the same. All he had to do was get in the old man’s body first, rouse it, and then tie up his own body. Perhaps a few threats, a bit of minor damage, and the old man would vacate. Robert mentally shrugged. At this point he had little else to lose.
Shutting his astral eyes, an act that didn’t actually block anything out, but merely allowed him to focus inwards, he pictured what it would be like to be in the old man’s body. Frail, full of aches and unwanted spasms. No longer able to digest the foods he liked so much. No more fatty burgers, excess amounts of pop. Just a carefully controlled diet and…
Oh my god!
He was there. Within a split second of being in that old, disgusting, body Robert knew he wanted to be anywhere but. There were thoughts, images, not of his making. There was no doubt in his mind—if, indeed, he even could claim to have his own mind while inside the body of this disgusting thing!—that he had not lived the life he was now being exposed to. His life had been dull, yes, boring beyond words, but at least it had been safe, free of such sin as this!
The man, Bernard Jacob Rubin, had been such a good fellow in his younger years. Always there for his family and his friends. This house had welcomed many a person over the years; no one was turned away from his happy home. His wife would busy herself in the kitchen preparing food and drinks for their guests while he entertained them with stories—for Bernard was a storyteller of the finest order. People were always telling him to write them down, but he never truly believed in himself. Then one day they took in a young woman, Georgia, the daughter of Frank and Julie Nettles, very dear friends of his wife and he. Georgia was something of a trouble maker, but Bernard saw the light in the seventeen-year-old. Alas, it seemed Bernard saw too much, and a lot more than the young woman saw in herself. Soon Bernard was lured to the teen’s bedroom and…
“No!” Robert shouted, and expelled himself from the old man’s body with haste.
He hovered there, once again mind without form, only this time he felt contaminated. He had seen what happened and wanted to shut it out, but he could not. Even as he pulled out of Bernard’s shell the scene had continued, the events speeding up like some fast-forwarded film, taking Robert right up to the moment where Bernard had opened the door to him less than a half-hour ago.
Robert was revolted. The hatred, the self-loathing. Once again, though, it was not truly him feeling this. These emotions, intense, eating away at the core, came from the old man. Bernard.
Robert now understood, but he was helpless to prevent what was going to happen.
Robert’s body was on its feet, animated by the presence of Bernard. He reached beneath the table, rummaged through the trash, and pulled out a steel pipe. He looked up, and Robert was shocked at the lack of feeling on his own face. It was as if Bernard was beyond being able to express the guilt that had eaten at him every single day for the last twenty years.
“You see, Robert, this is what I must do. Penance for my sin… Never in my life have I ever thought of touching, even looking at, another woman. I had my wife, what did I need other women for? We let this Georgia in, did our best to help her and she…” Bernard shook Robert’s head. “Yes, she was legal, but she was the daughter of a friend, someone I took in. People tell me she led me on, but…” Even now, the words were beyond him. Helpless to act, all Robert could do was listen to what Bernard had to say. That it came in Robert’s own voice disturbed him greatly, even more than what he had seen of Bernard’s life. “It was this body,” Bernard continued, pointing at the old body lying on the dirty floor, “that gave in, allowed itself to be led down the dark path of indiscretion. And it must pay, as I have paid by losing everything.”
Robert knew of what Bernard spoke. His friends, his family, even his wife, who had promised to stick by him unto death, had turned on him. Not even wishing to hear his side of the story. Since that time he had been alone… Just Bernard and his guilt.
Robert wanted to speak, tell Bernard that it was not his fault. He had seen the life Bernard had lived, watched as the teenager manipulated things, twisted everything. Bernard never stood a chance.
Robert knew from his brief tour of Bernard’s memory that he was the latest in a long line of people who Bernard had lured to his house, to borrow their bodies, use them as tools of his punishment.
In his whole life, Robert had never wanted to block anything out as much as he did this. And he knew, whatever the outcome of this night, his safe life was gone for good. And so he watched—what else could he do?—as Bernard raised the pipe and began beating down on his own, vacant, body…
*
Time passed, as it was wont to do, and Robert could do nothing but wait. Float around the house, explore every nook and cranny, anything to keep himself occupied and out of the kitchen. Away from the beaten pulp of Bernard’s body.
Robert had watched, horrified by the pure viciousness of Bernard’s assault, raining down blow after blow with the steel pipe. Eventually, after what seemed like hours but was probably only twenty minutes, Bernard had stopped, turning away from the body, paying it no further mind. He had gone to the sink, and washed the blood off the pipe and Robert’s hands, before returning the pipe to its hiding place amongst the rubbish beneath the table.
“I will be back,” Bernard had said, looking up. “Make yourself at home. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he added.
Robert was struck by the lack of feeling in Bernard’s voice. He could only pretend to understand how much the self-hatred ate its way inside Bernard; even with the snapshot view of Bernard’s life, Robert could not truly comprehend living with such darkness for twenty years. Bernard had left, walking out of the house in Robert’s skin as if he’d only borrowed a jumper.
Robert was left to float around uselessly. Exploring the house was no adventure; it was disgusting and vile. For someone to think so little about themselves, that they’d allow their home to get in such a state… It sickened Robert, who lived in a tidy house, sure he didn’t have a world-shaping life, but he had a good life, one of self-respect. Looking around, he wondered just what would need to happen in his life for it to sink to the level of Bernard’s.
Robert shook his astral head. What was he doing, trying to sympathise? Bernard had brought him to this house by nefarious means. To what end? To play this twisted game of self-loathing? What had happened was wrong, Robert could not and would not deny that, but for Bernard to carry on the way he was…it was one sin compounded on another.
How many people had Bernard brought into his dark and twisted world? Almost twenty years’ worth of visitors, stealing their bodies, using them to inflict unimaginable pain on his own useless shell. Leaving them to float around the house, helpless, while Bernard went out into the real world, his body healing from the worst of the injuries.
Disassociation at its worst. Bernard was not paying for his error, he was distancing himself from it. Dishing out the punishment on his body, as if it wasn’t him who gave in all those years ago. No, Robert, decided, the cycle had to end.
*
It was the early hours of the morning, by the time his body sauntered into the kitchen; yes, actually sauntered, carrying bags of shopping, as if the old man inhabiting it had not a care in the world. Robert would have smiled to himself if he could. Bernard looked up, to where he imagined Robert would be.
“You’ll soon be back in your body,” Bernard said, Robert’s voice having already started to take on the gravelly cadence of the old man. He hefted the carrier bags onto the table. “Needed food.”
Robert didn’t know why. If Bernard was so intent on punishing himself, then why bother with the sporadic trips to the shops? Then again, soon it wouldn’t matter. Obviously, though, Bernard had been up to more than just shopping. It wasn’t even ten o’clock when he’d left the house, and now the sun was back up, the sounds of life returning to the world outside.
He waited patiently, watching as Bernard pottered around the kitchen like he had all the time in the world. He opened cupboards, placing the new tins next to the already half-opened ones, pushing aside maggots like they were nothing. Robert was glad to see that Bernard hadn’t bought any fresh produce, as he didn’t think he could stomach seeing the results of such previous shopping. Rotten skins, peelings… If he could, Robert would have shuddered at the thought.