I See You

Prologue

      There could only be one reasonable explanation, obviously he was going senile. Because William O'Neal didn't actually believe in ghosts.
      But it was time to face facts; he was seeing and hearing things. So senility it was. Or at least that's what he almost wanted it to be.

      William glanced around the familiar kitchen he'd used for the last sixty years. Granted he'd been using it alone for the last ten since his wife Beth had passed on.

      Good Lord, how he missed her.

      William slowly drank his coffee and watched the shadows creep over the back yard. The sign that evening had arrived sent a wave of uneasiness washing over him. He could feel the hair on his body beginning to stand on end at the way the darkness was looming in the backyard.

      He frowned up toward the ceiling as a loud thump and then a scraping sound came from above his head. It was as if someone was throwing blocks of wood around and then dragging it back across the room to where it'd been thrown from. The inexplicable sounds unnerved him.

      Without a doubt he'd definitely be glad to see Emma this weekend. This old place was awfully lonely without her and frankly those noises were starting to worry him.

      William still hadn't decided if he should mention the unexplainable noises to his granddaughter when she visited this weekend or not. He hadn't the last few times she'd come for a visit from Baton Rouge. Of course if he wasn't insane then she'd hear the noises herself and he'd know it wasn't losing his mind.

      Lord help him, if she didn't witness the symphony of sounds he had been hearing. And of course, wouldn't you know it, they hadn't occurred when she'd visited the other times. So he'd not been unable to ascertain whether or not they were real and not just an illusion from his slowly declining mental health.

      The loud echoing boom caused him to jump and grip the counter.

      "Here we go again," he murmured as he pulled the coffee pot from the machine and refilled his favorite mug. Nervously he turned to look at the room around him, and realized it was time to have Harriet Breaux from down the street arrange to have her daughter come in and clean again for him.

      He did well enough in the cleaning department from day to day, but he didn't want Em to worry about how he got along without her.

      William had an arrangement with Harriet's daughter and her cleaning business. They would come in a few days before Emma's visits to clean the house, so his granddaughter didn't have to worry that he was living in squalor.
As he waited he gazed out at the quickly darkening back garden.

      It was sad that the garden spot was bare this time of year. He'd love to be able to look out and see the butterfly attracting flowers growing. William could recall Beth and Em working in the small garden out there. Em out there playing with the various dogs and cats they'd had through the years. Bethie had always enjoyed watching the brilliantly colored insects fluttering lazily over the bright colored blooms he and Emma had given her one year as a gift.

      The grandfather clock in the parlor announced the time with its loud bass voice. William leaned against the counter and continued to sip his coffee and waited, bracing himself for what was coming. He knew from experience that the noisy visitor upstairs was just getting started.

      Nearly every few nights for the last couple of months, sunset brought sounds from the storage room on the second floor. Previous nights had taught him the small thumps before were just the preemptive warm up for a long night of disturbing sounds.
Once the sun disappeared completely from the sky it began in earnest. The thumps, scraping and shuffling footsteps began. His eyes lifted upward toward the sounds and waited.