Probably nothing.

  Yet I couldn’t turn around. I was afraid I’d instead see exactly what the voice said would be there.

  Am I losing my mind?

  “He’s reaching his hands out to you now,” the voice warned me, louder than ever. “Don’t move. Don’t breathe. One move and you’ll set him off, and he will take your head.”

  The voice was a whisper, a sliver through the black of the room, like a hiss, sinister.

  My heart was thrashing in my ears, and I felt feverish and sick. Why was I so terrified? I remembered back to so many sleepless nights as a kid in my bedroom at my parent’s house, eyes crammed shut, focusing on every sound, every feeling of horror and dread–too terrified to even call out for my dad.

  I thought I heard something shift behind me in the dark. From the corner.

  I felt the rush of adrenaline hit me and in one sudden movement, surprising myself even, I rolled over and sat up in bed, my eyes fixed and focused on the corner of the room the voice warned me about.

  The corner was about five feet away from the bed. Shadows, pitch black. I let my eyes sit and adjust. I leaned in slightly.

  The outline of a boy, perhaps eight or nine.

  Arms out but not moving. Motionless. My feet and hands went numb and tingly, as if asleep.

  The shadow of the boy had no head.

  It’s my imagination…

  “Hi, Jim.”

  Not in my head.

  The voice was in the room. In the corner.

  And what I was seeing was real. It was a boy, with no head–reaching out to me–like the voice in my head warned me about.

  He wants to hurt you.

  Reaching out to me, straining–like he was begging for help or waiting for a hug or desperately wanting to be picked up. He was grasping in the dark to find something to cling onto and not let go. I could see the small fingers on his hands reaching, grasping, clenching, and unclenching. Searching.

  Suddenly a weight on the bed next to me, in Sarah’s spot, the feeling of a small hand on my shoulder and breath in my ear and the whisper of a child: “…let me introduce you to my friend.”

  The room was buzzing. Alarms going off in my head. I tore out of bed, panic-stricken and ran to the light switch, looking over my shoulder, eyes glued toward the corner of the bedroom and my bed while I frantically smacked the wall until I found the switch to flick it on. The little boy was still there. Flicked the switch.

  Light stung my eyes like white lightning, dizzy and disorienting as the room came into focus.

  Empty.

  The corner by the window was just the corner by the window. The bed, the blankets were ruffled only where I had been. No trace of anything.

  The hum of the furnace. The ticking of the blinds on the windows. The snow gently falling outside.

  My heart racing and banging in my ears.

  And then right next to me: “Jim?”

  I jumped and shouted.

  It was Sarah. She laughed.

  “You okay? I heard something, it sounded like you were banging on the walls in here. Did something happen?”

  “Jesus Christ, you scared me,” I said, letting out a relieved laugh. I eyeballed the room again, shaken.

  “What happened?” she asked, a confused smile. She could sense I was not myself.

  My mind was a blur of panic and worry. Was I losing my mind? Did that just happen?

  I hadn’t been this afraid since I was a kid.

  I just fucking saw a little boy with no head. In my room. I heard it. I felt something.

  “Honestly,” I lied, my adrenaline pumping, “I thought I heard something. I thought it might be a mouse or something shuffling around. I freaked out. But it was just the furnace vent blowing the blinds around. I’m being jittery and stupid. You know how I hate mice.”

  My voice was shaking, breathing erratic, like I’d been running.

  “Sounded like a brawl going on,” she said, chuckling. Slight concern flickered in her eyes.

  “Sorry if I scared you,” I smiled. “I think I just scared myself.”

  “We don’t have mice. And if we do – another reason why we should get a cat.”

  I exhaled, smiling, trying to sound relaxed. “We aren’t getting a stupid cat.”

  She winked, “Well, get some sleep, scaredy cat. I’m gonna go back downstairs for a bit. Oh, and I scared you? You scared me! Sounded like a bunch of wild animals trampling around up here!”

  She kissed me on the cheek and went back downstairs. I stayed standing by the light switch, still slightly trembling, staring at the corner by the bed. I felt like a kid again, afraid of the dark.

  What the hell just happened?

  “What did you say?” Sarah called from downstairs.

  Did I say that out loud?

  “Sorry! Nothing! Just said good night!”

  As I crawled into bed, I turned the night table lamp on. It was going to stay on. Childish of me, I know, but when I was a kid it was the only thing that would let me get to sleep. If I could see the room, I’d be fine. It was the dark that used to frighten me. The light distracted me from the dark, from my own imagination. From the voices in my head.

  My imagination had always been active, and now I had worked myself up.

  The light stayed on.

  Sarah would simply think I fell asleep with the lamp on. She wouldn’t even think anything of it.

  The hum of the furnace. The ticking of the blinds. No voices.

  Sleep.

  I awoke to the sound of Sarah screaming. Kind of a scream. It was a far more terrifying sound.

  She was screaming as much as one can while sleeping, her lungs trying to force out as much air as possible, her body paralyzed by the grip of deep sleep.

  She was making muffled whimpering sounds – like she was being strangled by pure terror.

  I froze for a split second before realizing what was happening. I quickly sat up and shook Sarah awake.

  She flailed her arms, jarred out of sleep, confused. Eyes wide and immediately calmed.

  “Sarah?” I asked.

  She looked at me in the dark, quiet. An odd expression on her face.

  When she replied, her voice had a calmer tone. No longer remotely terrified.

  “I just had the dumbest dream…”

  It sounded like she was about to tell me what the dream was and decided not to, mid-sentence.

  “What? Nightmare?” I thought of the voice, the boy.

  “No…kinda. It was stupid. I don’t even wanna say. Dumb dream. I’m fine. I’ll go back to sleep.”

  “Well, now you have to tell me!” I half laughed, but I also felt my heart picking up its pace.

  “Honestly,” she said, laying back down and rolling over. “It was stupid. A dumb dream and it startled me more than anything. I don’t even wanna talk about it. Was stupid. G’night.”

  I let my eyes adjust, staring at the ceiling. What the heck could her dream have been about that she didn’t want to say? The dumbest dream? It was stupid? Why did she scream, then?

  And if it was so stupid – why couldn’t she tell me?

  I briefly thought of the boy with no head. Perhaps it was all as real as the sound of the door slamming shut: Just a dream.

  The 7 a.m. alarm went off as usual. However, this morning was strange because Sarah was already out of bed. I could smell coffee and faintly hear the radio playing downstairs.

  I found her on the couch reading.

  “Morning,” she said without looking up from her phone.

  “You’re up early.” I grabbed a cup and poured myself a coffee.

  “Woke up and couldn’t fall back to sleep,” she said.

  “You had that nightmare last night.”

  She laughed. “Oh yeah. So dumb.”

  In the light of the morning it felt safer to ask her about it.

  “You said it was dumb last night too. What was it about?”

  She looked at me strangely and smiled, as if dismissing.

  “Honestly, I didn’t want to freak you out. It was super stupid though.” She paused.

  “I had this dream, we were in a bedroom just like ours, but it was a bit bigger, the walls were a different colour. It was actually kind of nice. You were there and your back was to me, and I got the sense you were mad. I called your name, and you turned around and you had no face.” She laughed then, shaking her head and continued.

  “Like I said, it was the dumbest thing. It was like you just had a dark hole where your face should have been. But then from the dark hole you started screaming. And it sounded like this high pitched, tortured, angry wail! So loud! I literally screamed and I guess I screamed in real life too and woke you up and then you woke me. Freaky dream. But stupid.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure if “stupid” was the right word. It was creepy as hell.

  I thought of the little boy that I thought I saw.

  He wants to hurt you. If he senses you, he’ll take your head.

  My ears buzzed and I felt panic rising in my chest.

  I brushed the thought away because I was freaking myself out again.

  And that’s all any of this was: Just me freaking myself out.

  Again.

  Hell bent on freaking myself out, later that night I found myself on my phone doing some more reading about voices and clairaudience and visions. I felt like I was doing all of this on the sly, without Sarah knowing. She’d think I was crazy.

  You can go down the rabbit hole of nonsense when you start digging in and it’s hard to tell if any of it is real or if it’s all just a big mess of people with overactive imaginations.

  The content I was reading was wild and very unbelievable. I couldn’t help but ask myself: Is it someone’s actual experience? Or someone’s work of fiction?

  Truly, it was hard to tell if any of what happened to me was real or my own imagination.

  I was flipping through various testimonials from people claiming to have had encounters with ghosts, spirits, the dead and other supernatural phenomena when I chanced upon a familiar face. It took me a second to place her, but when I did, I couldn’t believe the coincidence.

  Peggy Watts. Clairvoyant, clairaudient, medium, psychic. The same psychic I saw on that talk show so many years ago.

  Of course, she was a bit older, but seeing as it had to have been at least 25 years since I saw her on that show, she didn’t look that much different.

  The heavy tan, the bleached hair, the chunky gold jewellery–it was still there. There was a tug of war going on between her aging face and some plastic surgery, but other than that, she looked pretty much the same as I remembered her.

  I clicked on her social media, and it was extremely active. She’d been busy. More books, countless appearances on TV, radio, a YouTube channel with weekly episodes in which she did readings and gave advice to fans and followers.

  Her words on that talk show always stuck with me. She nailed what it was like to hear the voices and even just glancing through her extensive body of work and research, I figured she might have more information–a book–anything, on what I could possibly be experiencing. Answers. Something.

  To say she had been busy was an understatement.

  She must have upwards of 50 books now, with some pretty out there titles: Astral Projection: Your Passport to Worlds Unimaginable!, Shadows from The Void, Nightmares and Sleep Scares, Learning to Listen to your Intuition, Signs from the Afterlife. The typical books written by so-called psychics usually found on the shelves of new age book stores and shops that sell crystals and incense.

  She had a large following; her website even listed her as assisting police in solving crimes.

  I continued scrolling through her book titles. I couldn’t tell what would be helpful, and I really had no clue if any of it was anything more than straight up nonsense.

  That’s the thing about psychics. Who knows if they are real? But scams? Scams are absolutely a thing.

  She might just be some crazy dingbat who knows how to talk persuasively and can write and market herself. Half these supposed “psychics” are simply people with a talent for pushing other people’s buttons. All it takes is the right tone and wording and if it all equals out to exactly what desperate people want to hear, you got it made.

  Really, she’s writing about things that no one has any real answer to.

  Yet, here I was. Searching. And scam or not – she seemed to know a thing or two about exactly what I was experiencing. So, what else did she have to say on the subject?

  One title jumped out at me. Dead Air: Tuning into the Voices - A Guide to Clairaudience.

  This was the one. As I debated whether to order the book right there or make a note to look for it at the local bookstore, I saw something even more interesting: The “Contact Peggy” button.

  I did notice on her social media she seemed to be very interactive and responsive to people who reached out. Who knows if it was actually the “real” her or some social media or PR manager answering for her, but by the look of some of her online back-and-forth, it appeared to actually be Peggy Watts.

  I clicked the button and fired off a fast message to her, feeling a bit silly. Part of me felt like I was writing a fan letter, another part of me wondered if I was going a bit too far.

  But why not?

  Hi Peggy,

  I saw you years back on a talk show and you were talking to a little boy in the audience who could hear voices. You compared the voices to hearing a radio playing in the other room. It really spoke to me because I experience the same thing. Lately I’ve been experiencing it a bit more intensely. I feel a bit silly writing to you, but I am curious if in your research and experience with people, if anyone ever had the voices speak directly to them, and if they ever saw anything. I had a strange experience the other night and thought I saw a small child in my room. The voices told me the child wanted to hurt me. Again, I know this sounds crazy and you probably get bombarded with messages like this, but if you have a good book or any advice to point me in the right direction, I’m very interested in learning more about what’s going on.

  Thanks for your time,

  Jim

  I glanced at Sarah who was over on the other couch reading news. She had no idea I just emailed a famous talk show psychic. I could only imagine the eye roll if she did. And perhaps rightfully so. Who knew if Peggy Watts would even get back to me? Even her name sounded totally made up.

  Still, last night was something. Could it have been a dream? Was I losing my mind? Could be. Who knows?

  Sarah came to bed that night earlier than usual, which was nice, but it also made every sound in the house a bit of a mystery. Usually, when I’m up there alone and she’s downstairs, any noises I hear I can blame on her moving around, or the TV.

  The house felt empty below us as we curled up on our own sides of the bed after saying our goodnights.

  I listened.

  It’s funny how all houses make noises. No matter what kind of shape they’re in. New builds will settle. Older houses creak and crack for no reason. You get used to it. It’s like the house is breathing or settling in for the night as well. Like saying goodnight. A fine line between comforting and creepy.

  I listened harder. I could faintly hear the fridge humming downstairs.

  I tried to focus on it, isolate it the way the website said to.

  I heard a small crack on the stairs. Just the house settling.

  A car drove by in that same lonely whoosh, the headlights reflecting off the wall for a moment before gliding away with the sound of the car disappearing down the street. When I was a kid, I used to think the light reflected on the walls from passing cars looked like faces, like spirits floating by, checking in.

  There was a heavy, thick silence in the house. I wondered if Sarah was asleep.

  Her breathing was a slow, rhythmic, relaxed pace. Probably getting there.

  I decided to try again and call out to …it. Whatever it was. The voice. Invite it in to talk.

  Hey this is Jim. I’m here. If you’re real, tell me what you want. I’m here. Let’s talk.

  An almost immediately, a response:

  …Jim…

  I felt my ears grow hot. My body tingled with electricity, a buzz. Pins and needles, we called it when we were kids.

  For the sake of momentum I kept it going: Who are you?

  You know who I am Jim…when you gonna introduce me to your friend?

  More chills tingling all over my body.

  Who are you? I repeated in my head.

  The voice responded: Countdown is on Jim…

  What countd–I began to ask, but it interrupted me, and the voice began rapidly counting down:

  10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2… and the voice paused.

  I could hear my heart pounding. Something in the corner of the room made a small snapping noise. I jumped slightly. Silence.

  I thought I heard someone breathing heavily near the closet.

  I froze.

  NOW! The voice BOOMED in my ears, and Sarah bolted up screaming, arms flailing as if she was trying to fight someone off: Me. She was hitting me, slapping me frantically.

  “Sarah! Sarah! Sarah, wake up! It’s a dream! Sarah! Wake up!!”

  I held her arms away from me as she swiped in the air, hitting my chest and head. She resisted, terrified and struggling against me. Then she stopped and looked around in the dark, breathing fast, as if she’d been running.

  “Oh my god, Jim? Where is he?” She was frantic, tense, almost in a dazed, manic state as she became more awake. “Jim! Jim, turn the light on. TURN THE LIGHT ON!” Her voice was shrill, screaming in emergency mode.

  I jumped out of bed and hit the switch. Sarah was sitting up, blankets clutched to her chest defensively, eyes darting around the room, heaving breaths, nearly hyper-ventilating. She looked absolutely terrified.

  “Sarah? Sarah, What? What’s wrong?!” I felt my own breath increasing, heart rate pounding.

  “Did you see it? Did you see him?” she asked. Her eyes were wild, pupils dilated. I barely could recognize her. She was in such a state of panic.