8 You’ve probably heard of Kirlian photography, by which rays emitted by any living thing are recorded on film. The process reveals that we are all surrounded by a kind of high-frequency electric field whose colour range or level of brightness can indicate a person’s state of health or wellbeing. Tumours and diseases, as well as damage to certain parts of the body, can be detected by the dullness or unhealthy murkiness of certain patches in the field. This ‘halo’ can also be influenced by moods and imbalances of the mind.
9 When we’d started the agency, Oliver, Sydney and I had had to have the standard headshots both for the trade rag Campaign and for our own prospectus, so they were formal black-and-white portraits without an inch of personality uncovered. This was one from that bunch and the Evening Standard must have poached it from the magazine’s photo archives, or from our agency itself.
10 Time itself seemed not to be having any proper continuum for me. One moment it might be broad daylight, next the deepest – and even lonelier for me – night, my mysterious ‘blank-outs’ filling the hours between. I had the idea of seeking out a medium in the morning, but when I arrived seemingly uncoerced at the house where the séance had begun, guided by nothing more than a self-wish or the medium’s dragnet for lost souls, the sun had given over to a half-moon in a cloudy sky.
11 The fact that even the medium had been unable to see me created a new puzzle. She had been aware of the ghosts’ presence, had spoken to the one I believed to be my dead father, and he had spoken to me through her. Did that mean I wasn’t a proper ghost; even though there was no doubt that my body was dead? Hell, it had even been cremated! If I wasn’t a spirit, then what was I? Neither alive, nor a ghost; at least, apparently not in the true sense of the word. I feared I might be going mad.
12 Again, I remembered – I was too distraught to register anything as subtle as auras at the time – how Prim’s muted radiance (although it still contained vibrant flashes within its down-toned glow) had intermingled with Andrea’s, who tried to console her, their light becoming part of a whole. It had also been visible when Primrose had sat on her granddad’s lap on the day of my funeral. Unfortunately, I recalled witnessing a different kind of interaction when Andrea and Oliver had kissed so passionately in my home later that same day: through their dulled colours, small vibrant charges had flashed from each of them.
13 It was peculiar how everything I would normally expect to be there (as far as I, myself, was concerned) indeed was, from my wristwatch to the handkerchief and keys in my pocket, even though I had no use for any of them. I could only assume that in the out-of-body state I saw everything as it was supposed to be, as if these inconsequential accessories that were personal and familiar to me afforded some small comfort. I’d have felt both embarrassed and intimidated if I were naked, even though I could not be seen, so my own mind gave me clothes, those I had been wearing on the night of my death. The other things were necessary for credibility. I’m sure I could easily have changed what I was wearing if I had set my mind to it, but what would be the point?
14 Even at the time I wondered why I noticed such irrelevant details and realized that since I’d left the dead woman’s body everything had become more clearly defined, my already enhanced perceptions now heightened to an incredible degree. I guess death and danger will do that whatever your state of existence.
15 Remember this: GHOSTS CANNOT PHYSICALLY HARM LIVING PEOPLE. Okay, they can cause insensate objects to fly across rooms, but those same objects will not even scratch their target; ghosts can make heavy furniture move, cause teacups and windows to rattle, even will some things to levitate, BUT THEY CANNOT PHYSICALLY HARM ANY LIVING PERSON. Of course, they can scare you to death, induce heart failure, even send you insane with fear by their haunting, BUT THEY CANNOT PHYSICALLY HARM YOU. Try not to forget it.
16 I had wondered if the damage to the brain (all those greyish lumps flowing with the blood!) would upset the body’s mechanism – the chemical signals sent through the system, the sinews that worked the bones – but it seemed that the mind, and thus the will, could manage without all of the physical driving force, the body’s engine, if you like. A metaphysical engine had now taken over Moker’s corpse, and while alien to its host, I hoped it would have the power to help me finish my task.
17 Incidentally, animals also have souls. I’ve watched them leave the bodies of dogs and cats run over in the streets (happens a lot in the city) or when they die naturally (cats nearly always find some secluded spot to die in, whereas dogs like to have their owners close by). And their little souls don’t rise up into the ‘heavens’, but, like ours, they evaporate just moments after leaving the dead body (if they don’t, if they drift away rather than vanishing, then a new ghost has been created). Yep, there are ghost-animals too. It’s the same with people, which is why ghosts always seem melancholy – they’re lost, you see. Other ghosts, like my father (I learned all this from him when he next came to me), come back from another dimension, but only to visit and never for very long. Anyway, it was he who explained how animals and human souls vanish rather than rise as if on a journey to the sky. The only exceptions, he told me, were birds, whose small spirits did float skywards, but only because that was what they knew best.
First published 2003 by Macmillan
This electronic edition published 2011 by Macmillan
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Copyright © James Herbert 2003
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James Herbert, Nobody True
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