Portal

I’ve Been Hearing Things

Damn that sound! Every time I hear it, something or someone around me vanishes! At first, I thought it was just my tinnitus. It would kick up now and again and last a few minutes at the most. Then it would fade away for anywhere from a few days to a few years.

Recently, though, it has become increasingly worse. So bad, in fact, that the local cops in their efforts to figure out who was kidnapping all those people, decided that I seemed always to be nearby when someone vanished.

The only thing saving me was the day the cops had me in an interview room and someone nearby vanished. Though, in retrospect, I should have kept my mouth shut.

As it happened, I was being questioned aggressively. They were certain it was me. Handcuffed to the table, one cop standing behind me. Another seated in front. They had been verbally pounding on me for so long, I was ready to say whatever they wanted me to say. As I said… I was being questioned VERY aggressively.

The next thing I know, I can hear the sound beginning.

As the cop behind me was yelling in my ear, the one in front of me was leaning across and pounding on the table in front of my face. I looked up mid-yelling and asked softly, “Can you hear that sound?”

It took a moment for them to stop yelling at me, the fact that I said something finally sinking in. “What did you say?” the one in front of me hollered.

Looking him in the eyes I whispered, “Can you hear that sound?”

“What sound?” the one behind growled.

“That high pitched ringing sort of sound.”

“What high pitched sound?”

“About 8640 cycles per second. You can’t hear it, can you?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

With a great deal of resignation I whispered, “Someone within about a hundred feet is going to simply vanish in the next few moments.”

Both cops were now standing in front of me. The one I called ‘Cop 1’, his name was actually Detective Marston, snapped, “Get the shrink in here. This guy is nuts!”

With that, they talked amongst themselves for a few minutes. Cop 1, Marston, he was the one doing all the yelling and pounding on the table in front of me. Cop 2, I knew him as just ‘Jeff’. I’m assuming he was properly called Detective Jeff something, but I didn’t catch it. Anyway, Jeff finally left, presumably to get the shrink or psychologist or whatever he was. The way they talked about the fella, it was obvious they were none too impressed by him.

After a few minutes the door opened. Two other men stood in the doorway. Marston stepped out to talk to them. In seconds it turned into yelling as he seemed to be chewing out both the men.

“Damn it! I don’t care that he left, find him. He is supposed to be here!”

One of the others said, “I know. I told you his car is still outside, so he can’t be far.

“Then find him!”

Walking back into the room, Jeff said to Marston, “He said he was going to hit the can, and now he’s gone.”

“Great. So we wait.”

“I told you someone was going to disappear.”

“Shut up! I’m getting very tired of you.”

And so we sat… for about two more minutes. Then, in walked the shrink. Both the cops looked at me as if to say, “I told you so.”

Both cops sat down as Marston said, “He’s all yours, doc. He keeps insisting the people he’s making vanish are doing it themselves. Where were you, anyway?”

With a blush of embarrassment, “The men’s room was out of towels, so I snuck into the ladies room to clean up.”

“Brilliant!” Marston growled as he flipped his hand toward me dismissively.

The shrink sat down across from me and asked, “So, what’s bothering you, son?”

At that instant an alarm started blaring in the hallway.

“What now!” Marston snarled as he headed for the door. “Everyone sit tight. I’ll find out what’s going on.”

As we sat quietly, we could hear yelling and shouting in the distance. A few minutes on, Marston pokes his head back through the doorway and glares at me, “Don’t you move!” To which I just raised my arms a few inches to have them stopped by the handcuffs still securely attached to the table.

When the alarm was finally shut off, it got very quiet out there.

About five minutes passed and Marston came back into the room and sat silently. All eyes were on him. Finally, the shrink asked, “Shall we continue?”

Under his breath angrily, “Get the hell out of here.”

“What?”

Now loudly, “I said get the hell out of here!”

Hesitantly, “Fine! Maybe YOU should stop by my office later!”

Almost hysterically now, “GET OUT!”

After the door shut behind the shrink, Marston turned to me as if to say something, but remained silent.

Jeff finally asked, “What’s going on?”

Still staring at me, Marston muttered, “Someone escaped.”

“What?”

“I told you. Someone escaped.”

“Seriously? How? What do you mean by ‘escaped’?”

“Just that. Someone escaped from a locked holding cell.”

More surprised now, “What?”

“You heard me, damn it! Someone escaped from a locked holding cell!”

“How?”

“How the hell should I know? The video shows him sitting there, he looks up at the camera, the screen goes all staticky for a fraction of a second, and he was gone.”

“What?”

Shouting again, “Are you deaf?!”

“No! No… I heard you. I just don’t get it.”

“The camera on the corridor shows nothing but an empty corridor. And the clock on the wall never misses a tick.”

Under my breath I whispered, “I told you so, and it wasn’t me.”

Detective Marston jumped up and was across the room in one step, reaching across the table and grabbing me by my shirt. “I know you did it! I don’t know how, but by GOD I’m gonna catch you!”

Jeff was already up and tugging at Marston’s arm. “Don’t do anything stupid! You know this is all being recorded.”

“Turn the recorders off! I WILL find out how he does this!”

“STOP IT! It wasn’t him. Can’t you see that?”

“He’s the only common denominator! YOU tell me how he’s doing it!”

“I can’t. He can’t. We gotta let him go.”

Marston let go of me and turned to his partner with a look that could kill. Standing there fuming for a moment, finally turning and storming from the room, shouting back over his shoulder, “You let him go! I’m not!”

As the door slid shut, Jeff reached into his pocket for the keys. He stood silently as he fiddled with his keys for a moment and uncuffed me. Finally sitting down across from me, he sat the keys down and poked at them a few times. Looking up at me, “How long has this been going on?”

Both shocked and then relieved that someone might actually believe me, I answered, “At least since I was a teenager. That was when I noticed it anyway.”

“A teenager? That’s twenty odd years. How often do you think it happens?”

“Well… as I said a while ago, it varies. One time it skipped more than two years. While another period of a couple months it was happening upwards of three times a week.”

“Any idea how it might work? I mean, it’s never anyone that you see vanish? Do you think someone else is doing this? Surely you have some thoughts about it all.”

After a long pause, “Yeah, I’ve thought about it a lot.” Pausing again, then more quietly, “I’ve had a dream about it.”

Waiting for more information from me, with none forthcoming, Jeff continued, “Was the dream… prophetic in any way?”

“No… I don’t think so.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

“Sure. And when you stop laughing, can I leave?”

“Try me first. Let’s see if you can actually make me laugh about this.”

After another long pause, “I’ve had this dream more than once.”

Jeff actually seemed to believe me… so far. Now it was time to make him stop sitting there quietly… and make him laugh.

Finally, after almost a full minute of silence, “I’m standing somewhere looking at something. I can never see what I’m looking at. But I can see myself as I stand there staring at something.

“In an instant,” holding my hand out as if to grab something, “a hand reaches out to me. Then seemingly hundreds of hands. They grab me, pulling me through something and into… just… empty space. There is nothing there… and I simply vanish.”

“Do you think that’s how these people around you are vanishing? Maybe being pulled through a door or window? Maybe some sort of dimensional ‘opening’? Maybe a ‘rift’ of some sort?”

Staring at Jeff for a moment, then, “Makes about as much sense as anything else.”

“Obviously we are going to let you go today. It’s clear something is going on that you are somehow connected to, but how directly, I don’t know. Maybe not at all. All I DO know is you seem to be able to predict one of these events, if only by a moment.

“Here’s what I want you to do. Take my card. At any time you get a hint or whatever it is that lets you know someone or something is about to vanish, call me instantly. I want to know how this is happening. Seems the best way is to try to see it myself.”

“Not a problem. I’m just glad that someone finally believes me.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe you… not yet anyway. But I’m working on it.”

Fifteen minutes later, after Jeff processed me out and made sure I had a ride home, he headed in to find Marston. He found Detective Marston at a computer screen stepping one frame at a time through some security videos. He just kept going back over the same three or four frames.

With Jeff looking over his shoulder, “That’s bizarre. Back up and let me see it again.”

Marston spoke softly, “So, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

“No doubt about it. Those look like hands that seem somehow to be reaching from behind him as the screen is starting to fill with static. The next frame is nothing but static, and the third frame shows the image coming back with a fuzzy black vertical line where he used to be sitting. It almost looks like it could be a smudge on the lens. The last frame has not static… and no stinky old drunk. How many frames per second is that recording?”

With a look bordering on complete disdain, Marston looked at his partner asking, “Now just how the hell am I supposed to know that?”

Standing up and looking over the cubicle wall, Jeff asked in a raised voice, “What’s the frame rate on the security cameras?”

From several directions at the same time, “Twenty-nine frames per second!”

“Thank you!”

Marston muttered, “Smartass.”

“The question is: Has anyone tampered with the videos?”

“How can you tell? Damn it! All this tech shit needs tech geeks to figure it out!”

“Move over a sec. Let me see.”

Sitting down in front of the monitor, Jeff grabbed the mouse and started clicking. Instantly the screen showed a small area next to the fuzzy black line. More clicks and suddenly there were four small windows open on the screen comparing the same small area in all four images, highly pixelated as they were zoomed in as close as they could get.

Comparing the windows, Jeff said, “I really don’t see anything here that could hint at editing. I’m thinking these are all original pixels. Of course, looking at each one to see the exact color code it’s using would be more definitive, but if someone was drawing that black line, there very likely would have been some bleed over onto these pixels.”

“Fine. Whatever. He still did it somehow, and you’ll not convince me otherwise.”

Three days later, two twenty-three in the morning, Detective Jeff’s phone rang.

“I’m here.”

“It started seconds ago.”

Fully awake the instant he recognized the voice, “How long does it last?”

“Anywhere from a moment to twenty minutes or more.”

“Where are you?”

“Home.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Stabbing the disconnect button on his phone, Jeff dove into his pants. Grabbing shirt and shoes, holster and ID, he headed out the door barefoot, almost flying across the yard to his car.

Barely four minutes later, Jeff arrived with squealing tires. Bailing out of his car still barefoot with shirt half buttoned, yelping, “Where’s the fire?” as he charged across the lawn.

I stood waiting at the top step of the bungalow style porch. “I don’t know. Close. But I don’t know.”

“I have two units on their way here to do a quick scan of nearby houses. I have a feeling your neighbors are not going to like us before the morning is done.”

Chuckling a little, “Yeah. I’m sure of that. I really only have the four neighbors. I chose this house because there was no one living within the hundred feet or so that seems to be affected.”

“Well, you stay here, right where you are. I’m going to hit the houses on either side. When the units arrive, they’ll do the two rear neighbors and look around.” As he finished buttoning his shirt and started toward the first house, “Do you think ‘it’ has happened yet?”

“Based on experience, no, not yet. But should any moment.”

I watched has Jeff quickly jogged over to my first neighbor. Their living room and porch lights already on, I could see a shadow through the front door blind. The door opened before he finished taking the last half dozen steps of their porch in two bounds.

Showing his badge and ID, “I’m sorry to bother, folks, but can you tell me if everyone that is supposed to be in the house right now is accounted for?”

I could hear my neighbor saying something indistinct. Then Jeff insisted, “Just check. I’ll explain later.”

Seconds later my neighbor appeared, said something, and Jeff proceeded to run back across my yard toward my second neighbor. As he covered the ground, another ‘black and white’ rolled to a stop on the street. The cop in the car stuck his head out and there was a quick exchange between them. Speeding off around the block I knew he was headed toward one of my rearward neighbors.

As Jeff finished querying my second neighbor, an unmarked cop car whipped up in my driveway behind my car. As before, the two of them talked for a moment before the undercover cop grabbed a massive flashlight and headed on foot around the corner of my house.

Though it seemed hours, it could only have been minutes. Still dark, all three cops converged on my front lawn. After a few seconds of quickly exchanged dialogue, they all ran quickly around behind my house.

I knew it was over. The sound had gone away a few seconds earlier.

As the three returned, the unmarked car and its driver left. The black and white unit was driven away and what appeared to be heading around to the alley behind my house.

“One of my neighbors is gone?”

“No. All your neighbors are accounted for.”

At that instant, two more black and white police cars rolled up in front of my house. Slowing only for a second as Jeff signaled for them to go around back. Both drove off quickly.

Puzzled by all the activity, “What’s going on then?”

“Come with me. I want to show you something.”

Walking back around behind my house, we went through the back gate into the alleyway. A few feet further up, near where I keep my trash bins, there seemed a lot more activity than an empty trash bin should warrant. As we walked up to the spot, there was a backpack, some clothes, and a duffle looking like it had been opened up to access what looked like some food stuffs. A couple tins of vegetables, beans, some sardines, and what looked like a few bottles of soda pop of some sort.

It was evident by the way everything was laid out that someone had set up a small camp site. At the edge of the blanket or whatever it was that was beneath everything was a bottle of cola… spilled… still bubbling and fizzing on the ground.

There was a heated debate going on between two of the cops. We walked over to them.

“Your nuts. You were seeing things. Shadows.”

“No, damn it! I’m telling you, as I rounded the corner into the alley I saw someone sitting there in my headlights! When I drove up, there was no one there! Look at the alley! There is no way in hell anyone got up from there without me seeing them!”

“Well, people can’t just vanish. It had to be an optical illusion or shadows. Maybe some sort of reflection from your headlights.”

Leaning against the car behind him he held out his hands… they were shaking. “Look at me! I swear to God whoever was there simply wasn’t less than a second later! Check out the dash cam if you don’t believe me!”

Two days and what seemed like a thousand cups of coffee later, the five of us sat in a small tent that had been set up in the middle of the park. Cordoned off, no one was allowed within two hundred feet of us.

Marston was grumbling, as usual. “That’s forty-two that we can figure were around him during one of his so called ‘events’.”

Jeff queried, “But what do you make of the fact that none of the folks were what you would call upright citizens? None of them had any family that showed any interest in their disappearance. Drug addicts, alcoholics, a pimp, a couple drug dealers, even a used car salesman and a realtor – both of dubious reputation. A couple of them were undergoing treatment for some disease or other. Two undergoing cancer treatment which the doctors called a Hail Mary end of life effort. Same with another with kidney failure. None of them had any family connections. No kids. None with any parents or family still alive at all. What do you figure the odds are on that one?”

Marston sat quietly. The two officers acting as guards or witnesses or whatever also sat mentally twiddling their thumbs.

Jeff leaned back in his folding picnic chair, the best we could find at the spur of the moment, almost toppling backward, sputtering a startled, “Damn!” Righting himself, he leaned forward to avoid bobbling backward again. “We need some sort of bait.”

“Yeah, right! Let’s go find ourselves an old drunk with no kids, no family, and no friends. Someone with no redeeming values. Sound perfectly easy to me. Well? Come on! Let’s get to it!”

No one moved.

Jeff asked me, “So… they seem to cluster, these events. Two? Three? Maybe four at a time?

“Usually, yeah. When they do happen, it does seem to be a couple at a time. Early on I think it was all one-offs. In the last four or five years, I believe there have been as many as six over the course of a few weeks. Then it will be quiet for a while.”

“So… where do you think you are in this cycle?”

“Jeff, whoever it was that had set up camp behind my house was number five.”

“If everything goes as it has in the past, number six should be happening how soon?”

Not wanting to answer but knowing I had to, I whispered softly, “Today. No later than tomorrow afternoon.”

Everyone stared at me… the guards, a little nervously.

Marston jumped up, yelling again, “This is whacked!! You’re nuts! You’re all nuts! Any of you that believe this tripe is flat out stupid! He’s doing it somehow and you all know it! I’m going out for a smoke!”

“How much longer do you think we need to stay here?” one of the guards asked as he looked around nervously.

Jeff shook his head, “Dr. Peterson will be here in a few minutes. He’ll let us know what’s next on his plan. Looking at me with a puzzled expression, “Hey… what’s wrong? I can see you holding your head down a little.”

“I think it’s starting up again. With all the arguing and carrying on, I didn’t notice it at first. Usually, I can hear it a few minutes before it starts. This time it sounds like it’s peaking already.”

“Have you ever had an event where nothing has happened?”

It took me a moment to answer. “I think I’ve had this happen where no one noticed any change. No one seemed to have vanished.”

Outside the tent, Marson growled loudly, “Handy excuse if you ask me! Garbage! We all know you are doing this somehow! This is all bullshit and you know it!”

Everyone was looking at me. All I could do was sit there helplessly. What could I do?

A new voice came from the tent flap. In walked Dr. Peterson. “Hey, guys. How are we doing?”

No one answered

Peterson continued, “Well, as far as I am concerned, you guys can go. The dash cam corroborated what the officer said happened in the alley. No one understands it, but it happened just the way he said. Just the same as the disappearance from the jail cell. Poof!”

Both officers got up and headed for the tent flap, one thanking the doctor as he ducked out quickly.

Dr. Peterson sat down, leaning on the table, looking at me as if I was a new bacterium under his microscope. Squinting at me, “Son, I don’t understand this at all. Whatever is happening, you seem to be the facilitator. A couple of the guys at the college, after they stopped laughing and looked at the videos, offered that it could simply be that you have some sort of connection to another dimension – they still laughed a little. Of course, that’s all rubbish as far as I am concerned. There has to be another explanation.”

Jeff huffed, “So that’s your official diagnosis, eh, doc? Rubbish? Surely, there has to be some Latinny medical term for that. It seems a bit foolish to write ‘rubbish’ in the report.”

I had way too much coffee to drink over the last sixteen hours. I had to pee again and I wanted to go to bed and get some sleep. “When can I leave, guys?”

The doctor looked at Jeff and shrugged his shoulders. “I guess we should ask Detective Marston. See how much longer he wants to wait to see if anything happens.”

It was one of those moments when everyone just kind of looked at each other. Jeff said, “Doc, could you ask him to come back in?”

“Sure. Where is he?”

“He’s outside smoking.”

The doc looked around the room with a puzzled expression. We were all afraid of the answer, but somehow we knew what was coming.

“No, he isn’t.”

END