Dreams The Ragman (6 page)

EIGHT

Caleb’s flushed face, staring down at me from all those years ago…

My head was still spinning but the air that had been knocked from my lungs was slowly coming back. The hot ocean wind blew past, shaking the grass along the dunes behind us. I imagined myself poised on those dunes gazing out at the moonlit waves. But I was flat on my back, crippled.

“It’s all right,” Caleb said softly. “I know where the Ragman hides.”

I gasped for air, found some and coughed it back out.

“Breathe,” he said. He reached down and gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze, but looked around frantically as he did so, like he expected someone or something to close in on us at any second. Is that why he’d been running so fast? Was something chasing us? “I know you’re wasted, I am too, but you have to get up. The storm’s coming. We can’t stay out in the open.”

Perspiration coated me like a second skin, clammy and cold against the warm night air. I did my best to roll over onto all-fours, but my body was useless and weak, my limbs flopping about as if boneless and my stomach clenching and shooting bile and alcohol up into the back of my throat. “I can’t make it,” I said, slurring the words.

“Please, Derrick, get up. We have to hurry!”

“Help me up. I can’t get up.”

Caleb’s eyes shifted, revealing something deep within them I’d never before seen. It wasn’t fear—not exactly, not solely—but something more. He began pacing about like a restless zoo animal walking its cage, his hands on either side of his head as if to hold in whatever was trying to get out, or perhaps to quell a sudden explosion of pain. Above me and set against a backdrop of black sky, through my partially-blurred vision I saw him suddenly double-over and vomit onto the sand.

As Caleb’s retching sounds cut the night, he gagged then spit and staggered from my line of sight. I said his name, I was sure of it, but all I heard was a mocking wind and the rush of nearby ocean.

“You don’t understand,” he said breathlessly, standing over me again and looking sick and exhausted and frightened. “We can’t stay here. It’s
happening
.”

In the distance, from another part of town that seemed so very far away just then, I heard the shriek of a whistle. A train was racing toward town. Visions of a ghoul in rags riding the rails and grinning demonically through the darkness flooded my mind, the bloody cleaver clutched in his skeletal hand waving about and cutting the night.

I felt pressure against my ankles, and suddenly the moon and dark skies were sliding over me. Caleb was dragging me. But to where? I could feel the earth shifting and moving beneath me as my body cut a swath in the sand, my arms trailing behind and out beyond my head now. The smell of ocean grew stronger, and I felt the delicate spray of seawater on my skin. And then, just as he released me, the soft ground became unbearably rigid, and things bony, rough and sharp dug into me. My head lolled to the side. Using moonlight to guide me, I squinted and did my best to focus. I was lying on a bed of rocks set atop an expanse of wet sand just feet from the ocean. Up in the sky, opposite the ocean, I saw the cliffs at the farthest reaches of the beach looming overhead and jutting up into the charcoal sky.

Although I had no memory of it, I know Caleb eventually managed to get me to my feet, and with me hanging onto him for dear life, we stumbled across the rocks until we’d reached the base of the bluffs.

And there, waiting for us in the night, was the mouth of a small cave.

* * * *

In total darkness, I followed the stairs to the bowels of the Sheppard Beach Police Department. When I reached the last step, traces of dull yellow light revealed a hallway bathed in shadow. A series of overhead fixtures along the ceiling illuminated the area just enough for me to make out rows of cells on either side of the corridor.

I could hear faint sounds of water running. With caution, I moved deeper into the corridor. The low ceiling conspired with the cement floor and near-dark to give the area a horribly claustrophobic, tomblike feel, but I continued on, following the water sounds. All the cells were empty but for the final one to my left. Seemed fitting they’d bury Caleb as deep as they could and as far from the light as possible, like a demon they’d been unable to exorcise and had bound and sealed away instead.

He came to me first in silhouette, a dark blur in the back corner of the cell, huddled on a bunk void of blankets, his shoulders slumped and his head bowed. A bare toilet bowl protruded from the back wall like a remnant from some unfinished project, and next to it stood a squat metal sink. When I got a little closer the smell hit me and I realized it hadn’t been running water I’d heard after all. Fighting the urge to bring a hand to block my nose, I focused on the shadow’s lower half. The last bit of urine trickled down across bare ankles and feet, joining a stream already running into a nearby drain in the floor. Anger rose but I held it tight and close in the hopes of smothering it. I knew I couldn’t lose it, not here, not now. “Caleb,” I said softly. The shadow remained silent and still. “
Caleb
.”

Its head turned slightly toward me, only just then cognizant of my presence. Its body rocked slowly then again went still, and I heard a slow intake of breath followed by a hopeless sigh of an exhale.

I moved closer, gripped the bars and watched as the shadow became my old friend, his face breaching the darkness enough to reveal the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. Bloodshot, glassy and sunken, they squinted for a better look at me.

“Caleb,” I said again. “It’s me.”

He didn’t respond, but I knew he’d recognized me simply by the look in his eyes. They filled with tears and he began to tremble as his chapped and split lips slowly parted. I thought for sure he’d speak but no words came. His bottom lip quivered and his face—littered with scrapes and bruises and emaciated to the point of appearing skeletal—twisted into a grimace equal parts relief, sorrow and fear.

“It’s all right,” I told him. “I’m going to take you out of here.”

Caleb stared at me as if terrified I might vanish were he to look away for even a second. He began to weep. Quietly at first, and then in choking, rolling sobs.

The cell door was not locked, and swung open with a creaking sound that echoed along the corridor. I looked back to make sure I hadn’t been followed. There was no one behind me, nothing but hallway and dim light, so I slipped into the cell and crouched down before him. He was wearing a pair of ratty jeans and a sweatshirt, but his feet were bare. Fighting back the stench of urine, I carefully wrapped my arms around him. “Easy now,” I said, pulling him against me. “Easy, man, it’s all right. We’re getting out of here.” As his head lulled forward and flopped onto my shoulder, I shuddered. There was virtually nothing left of him, all points and sharp edges, he’d been reduced to a rack of bones and felt impossibly fragile in my grasp, like the slightest provocation might crumble him to pieces. I took his hollow face in my hands and lifted his head up so he could look at me again. “Right now, OK? We’re getting out of here,
right now
.” I waited until I saw a glint of understanding and hope in his eyes then let him go and searched the bunk behind him for his shoes. I eventually found an old pair of worn and scuffed boots beneath the bed, filthy socks stuffed inside them.

I tossed the socks aside and, gently as I could, pulled his boots on. He offered neither resistance nor help, and instead sat on the edge of the bunk and gazed at me listlessly. “The clothes on your back, is that all you had with you?” He teetered slightly. “Caleb, listen to me, did you have anything else with you when they brought you here?”

He watched me a while, as if trying to comprehend, then shook his head no.

I regained my feet. “Come on. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Caleb coughed and steadied himself. His mouth fell open again, like he planned to tell me something, but same as before, no words came. When he finally spoke it was with a raw, unfamiliar voice that sounded like he’d been up all night screaming, which perhaps he had. “They hurt me—they—hurt me really bad, I—my legs, I—they…” His voice cracked as more tears spilled from his eyes and streamed across sunken cheeks. “Derrick, I don’t think I can walk.”

* * * *

Considering the amount of drugs and alcohol I ingested, I could claim I didn’t remember anything more about that night on the beach; that I passed out and any memories that remained were still beyond my reach to this day. It would be an easy stance to take, and a wholly believable one. I could simply plead ignorance to all that transpired once Caleb and I reached the cave at the base of the cliffs and ventured inside. I could. But I won’t.

We were still staring down the mouth of the cave when the storm finally hit. The wind, once hot, turned colder, and behind us, enormous forks of crackling lightning split the sky, slashing down from the heavens like perfectly-timed special effects. Deafening thunderclaps chased close behind, followed by a violent summer rain that fell in thick and heavy sheets.

With Caleb’s assistance, we staggered into the cave, a small, musty and claustrophobic place that smelled of garbage and seawater, of rotting things that had once been alive and living things that would soon be dead. The floor was largely sand and pebbles, small sticks and debris. Caleb let me go and I dropped down onto my hands and knees, head spinning and stomach churning. But for the moonlight and intermittent flashes of lightning, the cave was hopelessly dark. I could hear Caleb near me, breathing and moving about, but couldn’t see him. The sounds of driving rain kept on, amplified along the stone walls and ceiling. None of it seemed real, more like a dream, or that moment when one awakens very early in the morning to the sounds and smells of a summer storm just beyond one’s window. That curious and ephemeral moment when dreams and wakefulness are one, but the rain is more closely tied to the former, a moment when one may or may not be real, when one is lost in that illusory moment of awareness, of epiphany even, when one senses something more to the rain and more to oneself, something
out there
connecting us to the beginning and end. And we realize then that the two are not as far apart as we once thought. In that moment we give up the night for those things we think will protect us and make us whole. We choose what we call reality over what we’re so sure, just then, could have only been dreams. We escape into light, where we’ve been led to believe we’re safe, and where those things that spoke to us when we first came awake cannot follow.

But on that night there was no escape. We
were
the dark.

I heard a scratching sound. A lighter came to life a few feet from me and an orange halo flickered about Caleb’s face. “This is where he hides,” he said. “I’ve been doing some reading about the hobo culture. People think it ended back during the old days of The Great Depression, but it didn’t. There are people still riding the rails, more than you think. They’re
here
. Look.” He moved the flame toward the wall of the cave to reveal several symbols that had been painted there in what looked like colored chalk. The first was a pound sign. “See this one?” Caleb looked back at me to be sure I was still conscious. “It means this area isn’t safe, that crimes have been committed here and they should move on.” The flame went out but quickly returned; this time aimed at a circle with an arrow through it. “This means the area should be avoided altogether. They know there’s a killer in their midst, and they know he’s been here.”

The storm raged on, the flame died and my head whirled again as nausea gripped the back of my throat.

“I’ve seen him here. The Ragman, I’ve seen him. Here, do you understand?”

I coughed, nearly vomited and flirted with the very brink of consciousness. “How do you know it was him? It could’ve been someone else, how do you know—”

“I know.” He moved the flame toward the ground. The remains of what had once been small animals were scattered about. They’d been torn to pieces. Caleb’s eyes lifted, peered at me through the sparse light. “I
know
.”

Thunder rolled in over the ocean.

I never wanted this for you.

A whisper in my head…or had Caleb said those words just then?

“The Ragman,” I said, my entire body trembling. “Is he coming back?”

The flame was extinguished.

“Caleb!
Is he coming back
?”

From darkness came his answer. “Yes.”

* * * *

“I’m sorry,” Caleb sobbed. “I—
Christ
—I’ve messed myself, I’m sorry, I—”

“It’s all right.” I put a hand under each of his arms and hoisted him to his feet. “None of that matters right now. We have to get you out of here, OK?” Before I could wrap my arms around him he fell against me. I caught him, holding him upright with virtually no effort. He weighed next to nothing. “I’ve got you. Lean on me and just try to move your feet. That’s it, good.”

We moved slowly out of the cell and along the corridor toward the stairs. Once we’d made it to the top of the stairs I saw Officer Pearl had turned off the video surveillance cameras in the lobby. She sat behind her glass partition doing paperwork and acting as if she hadn’t noticed us, and Sonny was holding up the opposite wall, arms folded over his chest and a wiseass smirk on his face.