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life. After living in
     Turk’s Gut for many years, the Drummer passed away. The Simms family buried the
     man on their property, and laid a long, flat stone over his grave to mark his
     final resting spot.
    Eternal rest, however, seemed to elude the Drummer. After his death, ghostly
     hands could be heard beating on an invisible drum. Before long, stories began to
     spread along the coast that when people in the Drummer’s adopted home passed
     away, the Drummer could be heard for miles around.
    The noise of the Drummer was heard only during thenight, when
     all was quiet. It was as if he wanted no competition, so that there could be no
     mistaking his playing for what it was. It was also rumoured that on the eve of a
     local person’s death, the Drummer could be heard playing the drums under the
     windowsill of the person who was fated to die.
    So if you can find it, do pause for a moment beside that long, flat stone and
     listen, preferably in the evening, when all is quiet. Listen very carefully. If
     you hear the sound of a rhythm being tapped out on an invisible drum, it could
     be the Drummer, playing the music he loved so much in life. Or it could be a
     warning, a sign that someone you love, or even yourself, will be the next soul
     to join the Drummer beyond Death’s shadowy veil.

O
nly a short number of years ago, there
     was a family who lived in a small wooden house on a fairly quiet street. The
     family had a young son. On those days when the weather forced him to play
     inside, the small boy was more than content to wile away the hours playing down
     in the basement of the old house.
    The boy played by himself, but at the same time he never seemed to be alone.
     His mother could hear him talking as he amused himself, as if he were chatting
     with someone else. One day, she asked her son to whom he was speaking.
    “My dog,” said the boy.
    “Does your dog have a name?” asked his mother, smiling to herself.
    “No,” said the boy, seeming quite content that his invisible pet should remain
     nameless.
    “Does he go with you to school?” she asked, playing along.
    “No,” said the boy again. “He can’t leave the basement.”
    The mother thought that having an imaginary pet wasrelatively
     harmless. In fact, she was more concerned about the state of the basement itself
     than she was about her son’s active imagination. The walls had never been
     finished properly. The concrete floor was uneven and cracked, and looked as if
     it had been poured in great haste.
    She found a workman who was willing to redo her basement, and on the first day
     he was available the woman showed him exactly what she wanted done.
    “My son plays down here all the time,” she told the workman. “He has an
     invisible dog which he claims can’t leave the basement.”
    The workman only nodded, more concerned with the practical issues of how he was
     going to start work than he was about an imaginary beast. The mother went
     upstairs, and the man set to work with a sledgehammer, breaking up the concrete
     floor.
    The house rang with the sound of the man breaking up the old floor, and dust
     started to seep under the crack of the basement door. Then, suddenly, the sound
     of the blows ceased.
    For a while, there was silence, then the sound of footsteps slowly climbing the
     cellar stairs. The workman emerged from the depths, and called out to the
     owner.
    “Miss,” said he, “I think you better take a look at this.”
    “What is it?” she asked.
    “I think you better just look,” he replied.
    Together they went back down the rickety stairs to the basement, through a
     cloud of dust. The man brought her towhere he had started to
     break up the old concrete floor, revealing the dirt beneath the house. The man
     picked up a heavy iron pry rod and slipped one end of it under a large chunk of
     concrete. He heaved up the concrete, flipped it over with a great thud, and then
     stepped back out of the way.