CHAPTER 2
Peter’s concern suggested he stay right where he was, but his feet were quickly taking him over to look into the room.
His worst expectations were confirmed. There against the back wall, sitting slouched in the poorly lit room was a nude man. Vomit spilled down his torso and onto the floor. The dripping liquid was being consumed by a swarm of black ants.
The person lifted his head and Peter saw it was the same face he had seen before. Peter whispered, “take a picture.” and Charlie lifted his phone and flashed. But even by the light of the flash it was easy for them to see that the photograph only showed the bare back wall. The man was gone just like before.
They checked the photo. It was a photo of ants eating vomit, but that was too abstract looking to represent any kind of proof. Charlie looked at Peter and said, “I don’t think you should call the deputy, this is not deputy type work.”
“I need to get home, too,” said Charlie. “Roman is making dinner tonight.” Roman was Charles Bobuck’s husband. Roman was a great cook. Peter gave a concerned look toward Charlie, and Charlie reading the priest's mind suggested that he spend the night at their house and not stay alone at the rectory. Peter agreed that he didn't want to be alone. All was a bit confusing.
Roman had made a mushroom lasagna and there was plenty to go around. Roman listened to the story with disbelief as they ate thin pasta slabs dripping in sauce and vegetables.
Charlie suggested that, while it was not a normal thing to see. Why shouldn’t there be weird things happening that seem fairly common in the Bible? That maybe the guy was an angel. Peter said that angels always appear with a purpose, they don’t show up looking horrified and confused. “I think it is a ghost.”
Charlie didn’t believe in ghosts, but did accept that unexplained phenomena exists. He said that when he was younger, he had had a period of time he was diagnosed as epileptic. That when he had a seizure, his sense was that he was transported to a different place. “Maybe it is an actual transport to a different place.”
The appearance seemed to be associated with that little side room and it seemed to happen about the same time of evening. The nude phantom didn't seem to be threatening. They could try to speak to him. At worse it could provide more information, and if he didn’t appear, nothing was lost.
The next morning Roman prepared a breakfast of crepes with clotted cream and homemade raspberry jam with a side of miniature turkey sausage medallions. Fortified, the two ghost hunters returned to the church, encouraged and excited by healthy sunshine after weeks of rain. Peter, unlike Charlie, actually had priest work to do, so Charlie went off to the nave alone. Opening the door to the little side room, he hoped to find a surprise waiting for him, but the room did not contain any naked ghost men. He went in and inspected the floor with the flashlight he had remembered to bring from home. Of particular interest was the "vomit" which was mostly gone, carried away by ambitious ants.
What remained did not appear to be vomit. Bobuck thought to himself, ectoplasm, the sticky substance often associated with the appearance of ghosts. This surprised him because he really did not wish to believe in ghosts. He scraped some up into a little pill bottle. He wasn't sure why. There was no lab to send it to, no local college professor friend to analyze it. He felt he had gotten too much of his sleuthing instructions from watching TV, but he had no other guidelines.
Charles Bobuck sat on a pew staring into the little side room. What clue did he have to follow? A thirty-ish nude male. Why nude, he pondered. People were rarely nude in normal life. Maybe that was a clue. People bathed nude but the man wasn't wet. In fact, the best answer was that the man was sleeping since most people sleep nude. No one would be sleeping yet in our time zone, so he assumed that it was a person who was not in the United States. He guessed Europe.
Charles lay down on the pew while still keeping an eye on the small room. Why was the man appearing here?
Slowly his eyes grew tired and he wondered what was keeping Peter. A deep sleep overtook him.
From nowhere, a naked man appeared at his side and purposely sat down on top of Charles head until the results appeared more like a centaur than any human ever seen. At one point the mans penis perfectly aligned with Charles' nose. The resulting image was quite funny though no one was around to appreciate it but Jesus hanging there on the altar. Then he slowly absorbed into the sleeping Bobuck, until all that was left was Bobuck.
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"Charles, when I count to three, you will wake up but will remember nothing of what has happened.
One...
Two...
Three."
Dr. Hill passed a hand slowly over Charles' face and Charles opened his eyes.
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