A voice is calling from the darkness beyond the end of the cul de sac. I swing my flashlight around, but see nothing.

I've recently gotten a couple of e-mails from friends wanting to know why this blog is called the "ghost of communication". It's quite simple, really. This is a computer screen you're looking at right now, not a person. It is only a pale shadow of what a real conversation would be. There is no possibility of picking up the subtle nuances of facial expression and body language. There is no immediate reply. Physical contact is impossible. Our hands brush through the ether, grasping for the touch of skin, but all that we really feel are the cold, hard, plastic, letter-imprinted cubes on our keyboards. This is where communication goes when it dies. It is still felt by the living, but it is no longer alive.
I know that all sounds a bit negative, but if we only dwell on the positive, then the problems will never be fixed.
I've also gotten an interesting hit off of a google search: should you be afraid if you see a dead relative? I'd say that it depends on whether or not this dead relative is moving around or not. Even if they are, for some unknown reason, up and about, you may not have much to fear from them if your previous relationship was friendly. I hope this helps.

I'm still cleaning up around here. I've only got a couple of more days before Isabel and the boys arrive. I've let things get really dusty again. The garden is a riot of tangled green, but smells so fresh and earthy that I don't have the heart to weed it. I've always liked that slightly abandoned look anyway.
I've even e-mailed the head of the Sociology department at the university, with a rough outline of my new research idea. It needs a little tweaking, but I think I can pull it off. The trick is to make it seem like I'm hunting for something other than my real objective. On the surface, the project is going to be about self-fulfilling prophecy. We'll see how it goes.

It has been more than a month since the day that screams were heard in the woods. I mention this now because I omitted a detail of that day's events. I was interviewed by a TV reporter. It was little more than a soundbyte, really. It didn't seem important at the time.
I am reminded of this because I got a phone call from Isabel today. She had seen me on television - a brief clip of me voicing mild discomfort over woodland screams. She said it had taken her weeks to finally track me down - more due to business on her part than in any real snags in the process itself.
We spent several hours catching up. She's been doing some writing too. I elected to omit details of my experiences over the last month, especially the part about how I suspected that cannibals had stolen some of the notes for my latest project.
I did tell her about my wish. I had wished (just three days ago - it seems like much more time has passed) that she would come back into my life.
She told me that she had recently gotten divorced. She had come to the conclusion that an unhappy relationship would make for unhappy children, and do no good for anybody involved.
I asked her if she'd like to bring the kids up for the weekend. She immediately agreed. By the time we finally hung up our phones my head was spinning with the wonder of it all.
Full of anticipatory energy, I stopped by the school to see what the official word on Andy was. I was told that he was missing and that people were combing the woods for him. I offered to help, just because it seemed to be the proper thing to say, and was told that I was welcome to join in. I spent some time pretending to look, beating back bushes and calling Andy's name. I'm not sure why I didn't tell anybody I'd seen him. I think it's because I'd said I wouldn't. I always keep my promises, even when made in haste. On the surface, Andy is a boy in much need of help, but it seems to me that he's found his own sort of help. I feel sorry for anybody else who has wronged him. I suppose that deep down inside I'm scared of making him angry. If I told on him, would I wake up one night to find my house full of unwanted guests?
After what seemed like a reasonable amount of time "searching", I said my goodbyes and left, feeling half guilty and half satisfied about my exclusive information concerning the strange goings-on.
Then I got to thinking that maybe my information isn't so exclusive. Maybe more people know. Certainly there is plenty of incentive to keep quiet. Pick a reason. I wonder how many of the people who live in this neck of the woods know how to make wishes come true? It gives me an idea for another research project. I'll have to think how to set it up without making people suspicious.
I'll worry about all of that later though. Isabel and her boys will be here at the end of the week. I've got to clean the house for my long anticipated and hoped for company.

In the light of yesterday morning, as I soaked away my mental cobwebs with strong, black coffee, I decided that it was insane to have anything to do with Andy. Any talks with him would, no doubt, be closely scrutinized. The things I wished to ask him, if they were overheard, would probably lead me to some sort of involuntary vacation in a small padded room with no door knob on my side.
I decided to follow my cat instead, but when by 1:00 pm he hadn't moved except to follow the path of the sunbeam spilling across the floor in my study, I decided to go get my backpack. After all, I reasoned, I should take advantage of the sun. Maybe I would even find the courage to look around a little more.
As I set out, I thought of Isabel as I had last seen her: I thought of how the sun glinted in her tears as she kissed me goodbye. She moved upstate the next day to try to piece together her trainwreck of a marriage. Her kids rested at the heart of this decision. Who am I to argue with that? I pulled up anchor soon after. I tend to do that whenever something good in my life ends. It's my way of finding a new beginning. I remember moving out of my parent's house soon after a hard break-up. That first time must have helped, because it has become habit.
As I continued up the trail, I reflected on how time and circumstance change some things and leave others untouched. I wondered where she had gotten to in the world, and whether or not she still thought of me. The trees seemed to sense my mood and the stillness of the forest was almost eerie. After hiking for a half hour or so, I stopped in a clearing and sat down on a fallen log, drinking in the stillness.
Then, in a moment of whimsy, I leaned over towards the impassive, old redwood behind me, placed my hands on its rough skin, and made a wish.
Maybe that's all there is to it. I'd always thought that when wishes came true it could be chalked up to self-fulfilling prophecy. Subconscious action. Not Magic. But who knows for sure.
Feeling a slight chill, I stood and continued walking.
The coast, as it often is this time of year, was fogged in. The bright greens, browns, and blues became muted, merging together under a cool, grey blanket of airbourne liquid. My hair drooped wetly over my eyes as I trudged. My spirit sagged like a flooded roof, ready to collapse under its own weight. Still, I was committed, so I kept on.
I could hear the ocean crashing against the rocks at the base of the cliff to my left, adding sound to the heaviness I felt.
By the time I reached the little side trail and could see the domes of the boulders in the distance, I was exhausted. I slowly picked my way upwards, not feeling the scrape of branches against the exposed, goose-bumped skin of my arms.
It took my some time to re-orient myself and find the clearing. When I did find it, I nearly bumbled into something completely unexpected.
Have you ever come across a child playing when he or she thinks nobody is watching? There is such an innocence to these moments, especially when it involves role play - adult talk filtered through a child's perception, usually spoken in grave (no pun intended) terms. It gives us insight into how we, as adults, are perceived.
I suppose, in amongst the horror the scene facing me presented, there was more than a trace of this innocence.
I'm not sure how Andy got to this little clearing when he should have been under close watch. I'm not sure what had happened with him after he was found home alone. Maybe he'd been sent to a less-than-vigilent relative's house.
As to why he was here... he was here to resolve some issues with his parents.
He had to do the talking for them.

They had no tongues.

I heard his stern little voice moments before I would have burst into the clearing.
"Only little BABIES pee their pants. Are you a BABY Andy?"
Andy answered in his own voice. "I'm not any more. I've got some friends now who are nice to me. My friends don't like you at all. They think you're stupid!"
A slightly different voice answered. "Now look what you've made my do, you little brat!!"
These assumed voices were accompanied by a strange clicking sound.
I slowly pushed aside a branch. Andy was sitting near the grave. The mound had been disturbed. "I'm not a baby or a brat. I'm Good Old Andy!" he shouted. The skull in his hands gave no reply, its lower jaw hanging slack in surprise or outrage. Andy closed its mouth with a clicking of teeth. I could see extensive dental work. For a moment, all I could think was, didn't floss enough. Another skull was picked up and its mouth forced closed in similar fashion. As far as symbolism went, this was about as subtle as a first sexual encounter.
It was pretty brilliant for a little kid though... Andy was sitting next to a mound of bones. Most were cracked, like somebody or something had a taste for marrow.
Without thinking, I stepped into the clearing, my hands held out in front of me in a placating gesture. My defensive comedy impulse was to say something like, "time for bed, Andy. Put your parents away now."
As it turned out, Andy spoke first. "You know how to wish too, don't you? I can tell." He smiled a sad little smile and, like many people feel compelled to do when caught doing something strange, explained a few things. "My daddy told me a long time ago to stay out of the woods or the albino cannibals would get me. I think he did it just to be mean." As he spoke, he rolled one of the skulls away from him. "One day he did something very bad and I ran away to the woods and I wanted the albino cannibals to get me. But then I wanted them to get all of the people who were mean to me, so I made a wish. Now the cannibals are my friends. You're not going to be mean to me are you?"
I assured him that I had the best of intentions and that I was just looking for my backpack.
"It's not here anymore. They always keep the things they find." He smiled towards the surrounding undergrowth.
It would have been funny had it not been so upsetting: a sheet-white, file-toothed apparition bounding through the shrubbery wearing nothing but my backpack. I forced a smile and told Andy that I didn't really need it back, and made my leave as quickly and tactfully as I could, promising not to tell anybody that I had seen him.
Again, I have little recollection of returning home, other than the certainty that unseen eyes were tracking me.
I slept poorly that night (yesterday), and in my tossings and turnings came to the conclusion that justice, harsh though it may seem, had been done.
Did Andy eat his parents? It didn't seem possible. On the other hand, neither did any of the other explanations. When I did sleep, I dreamt of finding my half-eaten backpack in the woods, with my research notes spit out in soggy, masticated lumps.

I'll begin at the beginning - the words want to come pouring out of me in a frantic jumble. If this journal is to do me any good, I must maintain a semblance of order here.
When I got to the school, there were two police cars parked in the bus circle. At first I thought it might have something to do with Amy, but I was wrong.
The police were there because of Andy. It seems his parents have gone missing. Apparently (no pun intended) he'd been living alone quite contentedly for almost a week, not thinking to let anybody know his parents were gone. I can't say I blame him. It's probably a blessing for that boy to be on his own. I was relieved to know that he wasn't buried in the woods, but distressed to realize that the mystery had deepened on me.
I found a newspaper in the teacher's lounge and, as I expected, there was extensive coverage of Amy's death. I could sense a desire on the reporter's part to call it murder, but so far the evidence was inconclusive. More interesting was the back page rundown of other unexplained disappearances and deaths over the years. People seemed to have a habit of vanishing hereabouts. As far as I could tell from the article, there were no definite links between any of the cases, other than the fact that several of the victims(?) were not well liked. This makes me think, of course, of Andy's parents.
But what about Amy Sanderson? On a whim, I decided to ask the kids about her. I didn't know how the administration would react to this, so I simply marched out onto the playground during the lunch break and found some kids I recognized from previous visits. From all accounts, she was a popular girl. I almost regretted bringing up the subject, as it seemed to rekindle the fears that were most certainly brewing in the guts of the children. One girl broke down and wouldn't stop crying, so I decided to stop asking questions.
It was a chance comment that changed things. One of the older boys was talking to a friend as I took my leave. "I'll bet Andy won't miss her. She was so mean to him."
I asked the boy to elaborate. It turned out that she bullied Andy and a couple of the other "weird" kids quite mercilessly.
I thanked the boy and took my leave, stopping on the way off school grounds to have a chat with a police officer I recognized from the day that screams had come from the woods. From him, thanks to youthful rookie indescretion, why cause of death had not been determined in the Amy Sanderson case.
She had been partially eaten. The theory was that wild animals had found the body first. Apparently they had left quite a mess.
The officer, with the gravity of a confessing sinner, admitted that he had thrown up. He was quick to point out, however, that he hadn't been the only one to do so. As I left, his parting words were to "keep it under my hat." I nodded and thanked him, while my mind did what it does best: it invented.
Sometimes these inventions turn out to be closer to the truth than they have any right to be.
I decided to go home and mull things over. I got a surprise when I opened the front door. At first I thought I was having some sort of acid flashback. The floor was rippling - a queasy, white undulation that transformed, when I clicked on the light, into a carpet of rats. Never before have I seen such a concentration of vermin. ...And every one of them was sheet-white, including, strangely enough, their eyes.
I thought of the piercing black eyes of the rats impaled out in the woods, and fought for a moment with the screaming horrors. It was the cat that brought me back from the bad place my mind was taking me. He served as a focus point - a little dose of reality in the midst of something I could not accept.
If ever there was a kitty heaven, my cat had found the closest earthly equivalent. He was so busy pouncing and rending that for a long moment he didn't notice me at all, standing as I was with my eyes bulging and mouth gaping. When he finally did see me, he adopted a somewhat guilty expression and voiced that querelous little "mrrowl" that he usually reserved for the times he was caught on the counter or peeing in my shoes.
The rats started disappearing then, some running of behind furniture, and some just winking out of existence like burst soap bubbles.
The cat came up and rubbed against my legs in abject apology. I ran my fingers down his back in stern forgiveness, my eyes still darting after the quickly dwindling rat population of my living room.
I kept thinking that if a cat could wish for something, it would probably be either something to play with, or something to eat. Rats are both. How could such a wish be granted in this fashion? I could think of several things I would wish for, if given the chance. Too bad cats can't talk.
I was, however, starting to develop a feeling that there was at least one person who knew how to make wishes come true in this fashion - somebody a little less innocent in his desires. Somebody tormented.
What would an abused child wish for if given the opportunity? Escape? Revenge? If the revenge is of the fatal variety, then escape is a given. Stones and multiple birds.
I could even, with an intuitive leap, tie in the impaled rats. Children learn what they live, or so the old saying goes. Take your aggressions out on something defenseless... butterflies... rodents...
It seemed to make sense in an insane sort of way.
Tomorrow, then. Tomorrow I'm going to do, or try to do, two things: talk to Andy and go get my damn backpack. I say "try" because, given the situation, Andy is probably beyond my reach.
I'm thinking, or I guess I should say "wondering" as I type these lines, about what rats wish for.
I'm tired, and I'm starting to ramble again. I miss Isabel. I wish for her to come back into my life. I wish I knew how to make it come true.
The rats weren't real - the ones in my house. Amy's death was real.
I don't know what any of this means.

I know one thing now with certainty. Whoever is buried in that grave (if grave it is) is not Amy Sanderson.
Amy's body was found in a meadow near the edge of the forest a mile or so from the school. The news report I heard was chaotic and unhelpful, like most breaking news stories are. Cause of death has yet to be determined, or yet to be released to the media. It is a heartbreaking thing that I'm not surprised.
My episode of two days ago has taken on a tinge of unreality. Did it all really happen? I don't know enough about mental illness to be able to tell if I need help or not. It's not my area of expertise. Should I make an appointment with somebody?
I am afraid. I am sad. I don't recall whether or not I met Amy - so many kids in such a short time. Only a few really stand out. Good Old Andy stands out, but not for reasons that would make anybody proud - especially not, if I'm reading things right, his parents. I'm going to the school tomorrow to see if he's turned up. I won't be asking any more questions about songs. In light of recent events, my research project suddenly seems small and silly.
I think I'll go back and get my backpack too. It's something I have to do for myself. It doesn't matter that nobody was there to see my shameful panic. The way I behaved doesn't gel with the way I'd like to behave, so I'm going to hike out there and get my backpack after I stop by the school. I want to see Andy so I know that I wasn't running from his grave the other day.

Most people like to think that they would comport themselves with bravery when faced with a threatening or mysterious situation. Many people will not hesitate to let you know that, "things would have been different," if they had been there to take charge. These people are so full of shit... I stop here, not being able to think of a clever, unchildish way to finish this sentence. I notice that I am taking refuge in cheap humor again - a long running safety net for me.
I write the above as a preface to something that I must relate: my own cowardice.
I finally did go into the woods to quiet the insistent nagging of my gut. I didn't really expect to find anything. I think I went more out of a desire to reassure myself that all was well, that there wasn't anything ominous going on, than for any other reason.
I might as well have saved myself the trouble.
I set out around noon, with a daypack containing lunch and some of my research notes slung over my shoulders. The idea was to get a little work done out under the trees when I got tired of hiking.
The trees themselves were moist, with low branches sending miniature torrents of last night's rainwater down the back of my neck. The leaf covered forest floor was also treacherous, sending me slipping and sliding on several occasions. The air, however, was sweet with the wild smells of life: of pine and soil and a thousand other mingling smells. I inhaled forcefully as I strode along, feeling the tension of the last few days relax its hold upon me. It felt good to be doing something, even if I thought it would not end up enlightening me any further.
I walked for much longer than I ever had previously, steaming along as if the physical action were purging me of my fears and uncertainty. My whole body was humming like a gypsy dance tune. My mind was surprisingly serene. What seems like a big worry at home is much less so in the woods.
By afternoon, the trees thinned and I realized that I had walked all the way to the ocean. I could hear the distant booming of the surf and smell a salty tang underlying the scent of the evergreens.
Soon I was following a powdery little trail as it meandered through hardy sagebrush along a cliff edge overlooking the vast, misty grey expanse of the Pacific. I breathed deeply and exhaled my tension into the grey.
That's when things started to go wrong. I had begun to feel the effects of my mad march through the woods. My muscles were singing to me the sweet songs of the damned - a sound that, if indeed it were a sound, might resemble John Zorn being pushed off a cliff in the midst of a truckload of silverware. But I belabor the point...
There was a small trail leading away from the edge of the cliff, back into the larger bushes and, one would assume, eventually into the trees. I decided to follow it, as I could see several large, flattish boulders breasting the green tide of shrubbery. There's nothing to lubricate the pen quite like writing atop a boulder in sight of the ocean.
It was hard going at first. The shrubbery tore at my clothes, and my feet slid off chalky smoothe rocks. During the first fifty feet alone I must have been responsible for the sudden eviction of hundreds of spiders. This was obviously not a well travelled trail.
I eventually struggled my way up to one of the large boulders I had spotted from the main trail - a weathered, sandstone dome with little concavities on top filled with rainwater. I climbed up from the rear, and upon reaching the top, some ten feet off the ground, was rewarded with a spectacular view of the restless ocean beyond the cliffs. I could see why ancient peoples had thought of this as the edge of the world.
It was with these musings rattling around in my head that I finally sat and pulled out my notes. I tried and tried to enter a scholarly frame of mind. Tried and failed. Finally, I gave a mental shrug, put my materials away, squirmed into my backpack, and stood up.
Seconds later I caught my foot in one of those accursed bowls of rainwater and tumbled off the northern side of the boulder.
Fortunately, my fall was broken by shrubbery and I received only a few long, shallow scratches along my arms. The wind was knocked out of me and one of the straps on my backpack had torn off. I sat up slowly and came face to face with a large, blotchy slug.
It was such an impressive specimen that at first I failed to notice what it was crawling on. It was only as it moved onto a branch that I realized its original resting place was covered in moist, matted grey fur. I was looking at a rat, reduced to fur, skin, and bone by time and the elements; impaled on a stout juniper branch. Its yellowed incisors sneered dangerously a foot from my nose. Beady eyes, two wet points of blackness, regarded my dispassionately.
It took a second for this to sink in. Dessicated corpses shouldn't have beady eyes. I stood up quickly, a small cry of disgust escaping from my suddenly bone dry mouth. From my new vantage point I could see that the rat was not alone. Other rats, like grisly Christmas tree ornaments, hung on nearby bushes. All of them had sparkling, night-black eyes. All of them were rain-matted little lumps of fur draped loosely over bone.
They stared in silence. I can't begin to describe the feeling of panic that overtook me at this moment. I dropped my backpack and barreled through a relatively rat-less patch of shrub.
Thinking back, as I write these words, I wonder whether it was coincidence that the shrub I blindly pushed my way through was without rodents. ...Or was it planned that way? And if so, why? But I get ahead of myself...
The bushes snagged my clothes and left more long scratches on my arms. I pushed my way out of them and found myself in a small clearing carpeted with clovers and dotted with lichen covered rocks. My eyes were immediately drawn to a bare patch in the carpet - an area that had experienced recent upheaval. The area that had been disturbed was roughly two feet by six feet. Everything about it shouted "grave!", from the suggestively convex mound of dirt to the general feeling of solemnity that it somehow conveyed.
Here somebody had been buried in secret. Here, quite possibly, lay the very answer to the vague worries and questions that had been plaguing me. I thought of missing children. I thought of dreams.
Then I ran from that horrible place. Using the great dome of the boulder as a guide, I was soon pounding down the little trail towards the ocean. Tears blinded me - tears of shame at my cowardice. Tears for whoever slept uneasily beneath that secret mound of earth.
Little Amy Sanderson? Good Old Andy? ...Or was my imagination putting together puzzle pieces that didn't fit?
I didn't stop running until I was well away from the oceanside. My breath tore out of me like sandpaper, lacerating my lungs and esophagus. My legs eventually refused to keep up the pace. My hair was plastered to my face in clumps, like worms on a wet sidewalk.
Other than that, I have little recollection of my return home. It must have been near nightfall when I stumbled through my unlocked front door (had I forgotten to lock it?) and into bed. I didn't sleep. Here I am, at some ungodly hour of the morning, trying to sort this all out. I'm thinking of my backpack, full of my research notes and reference materials, resting uncomfortably within a circle of dead, staring rats. I feel ill. Did I really see what I think I saw? Do I need help?