were not involved in any kind of criminal activity. In fact, the only similarity between the victims was that all three were professional people: the first had been a lawyer, the second an insurance broker, and the third, a woman this time, was a radiologist in the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.
I was no more than a few inches away from the man’s head as he snipped away at a copy of the Daily Telegraph and I became even more disturbed by his odd breathing. It was somehow coarse, guttural, as if his throat were clogged, and I was repulsed by the sound.
I backed away a step and stared at the back of his bowed head. His scrappy hair was badly cut, bald patches visible even in the poor light from the low lamp that threw his back into dark shadow; what hair there was looked lank and dirty and I was sure that if I had a sense of smell in my altered state, the man himself would be rank, unwashed.
I realized what else made me feel so uneasy about this person: the perception had never before been this clear as far as others were concerned, but now I could just make out this man’s aura, the glow that emanates from every living thing. Some claim it’s a person’s soul shining from within, while others, more pragmatic, say it’s merely the normal radiation emitted from any material form. Nowadays, I tend to go for the former.
It was nasty, this aura around him, thick with muddy greys and blacks, their range short, shallow, extending only here and there beyond half-an-inch, and it seemed to me that the phenomenon exuded something foul, something rotten. I backed further away and that was when the man stiffened, the scissors stopping mid-snip. His head lifted and I became still, almost afraid to breathe (not that I needed to breathe at all).
It was as if he had sensed my presence.
Yet I’d made no noise—I couldn’t, not in this form.
He seemed to have felt my gaze on the back of his neck.
But, of course, I wasn’t there in person, there could be no presence to feel.
He lifted the scissors and clicked the blade shut. He changed his grip and held them like a knife.
Then he slowly began to turn my way.
I retreated even further, hoping to become lost in the shadows. Ridiculous, I know, because I was invisible. In all my out-of-body excursions nobody had ever been able to observe me in this immaterial state.
Yet he was turning towards me with purpose and I felt terribly exposed.
And then his black bulbous eyes were looking into mine.
I screamed. I fled.
13
It was horrible, ugly, and suddenly the world was spinning around me.
I don’t know if it was the shock, or my natural abhorrence that took over and whisked me away from harm, but I left the room fast. I didn’t run away, of course, I merely zoomed off as if yanked by a hook, images and sounds whirling around me. I was out of the darkened room, heading skywards, and then I knew nothing more for a while. It was as if my spiritual form had passed out.
I “awoke”, if that could be the word, in the living room of my own house. There were no lights on, but I could see my location by the street light flooding through the window. I’ve since reasoned that it was instinct that brought me there, that I’d fled to where I felt safest—doesn’t everyone feel safest in the sanctity of their own home? What I didn’t realize though, not until I inadvertently glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece, was that a few hours had passed since I’d entered the OBE.
I remembered the horribly dingy basement room and the man inside snipping away at the newspapers, and I remembered him slowly turning round as if he’d become aware of me. I remembered… I remembered… no, I couldn’t remember the face that had looked directly at me. Somehow the image had been frightened from my mind. I tried to recall what had scared me so, but I couldn’t, I just could not bring it into focus. But I knew I’d witnessed something awful, something that my brain had no wish to recollect. Perhaps later…
It was good to be home, oh, it was so good. Familiar furniture, framed pictures, comfortable sofa and armchair, thick wall-to-wall carpet—home, sweet home. A natural response had brought me here, of that I had no doubt: I guess self-preservation has a homing instinct all its own. But where had I been dining the intervening hours? It took me some time to work this out, but eventually I realized that my mind—and hence my “spirit”—had just closed down. Panic had set it to flight, and when I was safely away from that… that… thing in the dark room, my mind had sought sanctuary in oblivion. Why I had not simply returned to my body, I had no idea, but now the impulse to do so was immense.
As a rule, just the thought was enough to send me gliding back, a journey never more than a second or two no matter how far I had journeyed. But this time I resisted the impulse. Maybe it was the recent threat of danger that had me seeking the assurance of everything familiar and ordinary—what could be more commonplace than your own house? Or maybe I just had to touch base with reality for a while—again, what’s more real than your own place? Before I went back to my body, I had to reassure myself that my loved ones were safe and secure for the night.
Just that thought sent me gliding into the hall and up the stairs to the bedrooms. Now you have a choice when out of body, in that you can move exactly as you would in real life—one step at a time, that sort of thing—or you can kind of sail or glide everywhere. I usually chose to do both, sometimes taking steps, other times pushing myself along as in those dreams I spoke of earlier. On this fretful occasion I glided up the stairs, using my hands to propel myself upwards as though I were beneath the ocean, almost weightless, exploring some undersea wreck. Normally, it was a wonderful feeling, but this night I was too agitated to enjoy the experience.
Up I went, for some reason terribly afraid for my family. It made no sense at all—the man had only felt my presence, hadn’t actually seen me. And so what? What could the man do? He didn’t know me, could have no idea of where I lived. But still the anxiety sent me gliding purposely up the stairs. I had understood that the man I’d witnessed collecting clippings from various newspapers was wicked, because it was evil that seemed to ooze from his very pores, manifesting itself in the ugly monochromed aura. Yes, he seemed to sweat badness and I’d sensed that even if I could not physically smell it.
Why should he have been cutting out those particular news stories of a serial killer? My absent heart turned cold, a peculiar experience, I must admit. Foolish too, because there was no way I could be traced back here to my home. Even if the man had actually seen me, even if he had some psychic sense that made it possible, he would not know me from Adam, and therefore could not know my home address. Yet his threat seemed very real.
I paused at the top of the stairs, unsettled, now definitely afraid for my wife and daughter. What if this person had the ability to follow me? What if he was capable of OBEs? No, not possible. Certainly I, myself, had caught glimpses of spirit people, a kind of faded print of moving images, but nothing I could connect with. If I approached, they merely melted away. They were sometimes picked up only in the periphery of my vision, to evaporate when looked at directly.
I got a grip of myself and went on.
Primrose’s bedroom door, as always, was open wide so that we could hear her if she had a bad dream and called out during the night, and I sped through. I hovered over her and regarded her lovely little face, her lips slightly parted, the soft drone of baby-snores assuring me she was safe and well. Her arms were thrown back, small clenched fists resting on the pillow, and her brown curls framed her sweet face. Leaning down I planted a gentle kiss on her cheek and she wrinkled her nose and turned her head aside as though something had tickled her. Without thought I tried to tuck the bedcovers up around her neck, but of course, my hands merely went through the soft material. I lingered for a few moments and imagined I could actually hear the small thud-ups of her heartbeat; imagined or not, it was reassuring.
Backing away cautiously as if I might make a sound and wake her, I tiptoed out (silly, I know) onto the landing. Again I paused, this time to listen for any extraneous sounds, anything foreign to the domestic peace, and only when satisfied there was nothing to be anxious about did I move along the landing to the bedroom I normally shared with Andrea.
The lamplight outside the window allowed me to see her lying on one side of our large double bed—she once told me that, out of habit, she never invaded my side when I was away—and she, too, looked peaceful. Her skin was pale in the cold glow from the street, and her features were beautiful and unlined. We’d had our problems during the marriage, particularly over the past year—I was the guilty party, work had eaten up so much of my time that Andrea was entitled to feel neglected—but I’d never stopped loving her and I hoped it was the same for her. I still found her exquisite and inwardly, and constantly, blessed her for giving me such a wonderful daughter. Her
