The Calling (27 page)

He stopped the cruiser in front of my trailer. Cut the lights but kept the engine running.
 

Dean, staring ahead out through his bug-splattered windshield, said, “You’ll have to fend for yourself tomorrow morning. Mom always has breakfast with some of the girls up here on The Hill on Fridays down in Elmira.” He glanced at me. “But the point of my story is that I learned early on you can’t trust anybody. I think everyone learns that eventually, some just take longer than others. But after living your life and coming into contact with people who care only for themselves, you begin to realize the only way to survive is having faith in yourself and nobody else.”
 

He shook his head.
 

“But you, Chris ... the sad thing is, I don’t even know who you are. The little I do know is what Steve told me last week. Like how you were suspended for fighting and should have been arrested but the kid didn’t press charges.”
 

“You don’t know the whole story.”
 

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is I can’t trust you. Tonight just proves it. I should cite you for drinking and God knows what else—I can smell the weed on your clothes—but I think you saved that girl’s life tonight, so I’m going to let it go. But by Saturday you’ll be back in Lanton and out of our lives. Hopefully we’ll keep in touch.”
 

He sighed and shrugged.

“So do I believe what Steve told me? There are times when I think I can, but then I always have to remember that unless I’m there to actually experience it myself, I can’t be certain. That’s why I never go with Mom to church anymore. I just don’t have the faith to believe in God. But Steve ... he sounded like he believed it though, so at least I know he does.”
 

Dean had been staring forward at the field beyond the drive hiding in darkness. Now he looked at me.
 

“And in case you’re wondering, I’m not going to tell Mom about tonight. She might ask where you were, and if I were you I’d tell her you were with Moses Cunningham. At least maybe she can believe that. I know she does try her best to trust people. And I know she trusts you.” He paused, nodded once. “Goodnight, Chris.”
 

I got out of the car, shut the door and waited until he turned back on his lights. I watched him as he drove down the drive and circled around the trailer park. When his taillights disappeared down Half Creek Road, I headed toward my trailer. It didn’t take long before I was inside and in bed. And it didn’t take much longer before I was asleep and had the dream.

Chapter 24

I
’m standing in a narrow hallway. The pictures on the wall show me and my family but I can tell from the white carpet and sky blue wallpaper that this is Denise Rowe’s house. A cold pang slices through my soul and I turn around, notice her closed bedroom door. Behind it, a faint but familiar sound:
bwaamp-bwaamp-bwaamp-bwaamp
.
 

Joey suddenly appears not ten feet away. He’s wearing the clothes he had on the night he stayed in the Beckett House: plain shorts and T-shirt, his nondescript sneakers. His hands are behind his back. He faces the wall, staring at a framed picture.
 

“Joey?” I say, my voice faint and echoing. Then, as any naïve dreamer is apt to do, I begin, “I thought you were—”
 

“You should read it when you get the chance,” he says, his voice not only an echo in the hallway but also an echo from the past. Slowly, and in a very stiff way, he looks at me. His eyes are gone. In the empty sockets, deep darkness stares back. “Really,” he says, pointing with a hand that has now become a skeletal claw, “you should read this.”
 

Then he’s gone and I have only a moment to step forward to see the picture. Only it’s not a picture. It’s a section of a newspaper hiding behind thin glass. A black and white photograph of a woman rests in the corner, surrounded by text. I recognize her immediately as Sarah’s mother.
 

Another icy pang stabs my soul, and I turn back toward the door at the end of the hall. Behind it, my parents’ alarm clock has gone silent. I start forward but immediately stop when I hear heavy breathing coming from behind a closed door to my right. It’s a mixture of moaning and panting, and before I can stop myself I open the door.
 

Like before he’s taking her from behind, only this time the girl is someone I know. I watch as he grips onto her shoulder with one hand, his other hand holding her waist. Her hanging breasts aren’t large but still they sway back and forth as he thrusts. Her eyes are closed as her face writhes in pleasure, but as she begins to cry out in orgasm they snap open. She looks straight up at me.
 

She screams, “
Promise me, Chris! Promise me!
”
 

I grab the door and slam it shut. I expect to hear her continued screams from behind, but there is only silence. I continue down the hall.
 

Something lies right in front of the door: a large bundle in the dimness. I can’t tell what it is until I’m standing less than three feet away. It’s a bloody bed sheet—my parents’ bloody bed sheet. Something moves around inside the bundle. The movement is slight but still it’s there. I lean down and reach out, even though I want nothing to do with it. If I could have it my way I’d kick it aside and continue on to what’s behind the closed door—where I know something terrible is happening, where I need to be—but this is a dream, and just like in most dreams where we fool ourselves into thinking we have control, I’m forced to unwrap the bed sheet.
 

A fetus rests inside. It’s a living fetus covered in blood, and even though it’s impossible—I
know
it’s impossible—the fetus stares up at me.
 

Why did you kill me?
the fetus’s black eyes ask.
 

Blinking, the fetus is gone. Blinking, the bloody bed sheet is gone. Blinking, the only thing in front of me now is the closed bedroom door.
 

I step forward, grab the knob, turn it.
 

The door opens inward. Inside, Mrs. Roberts lies in bed. She’s sleeping, so her dark glasses are off her face, resting on the wooden stand beside her bed, along with a clock and a large print trade paperback of Danielle Steele. Her one wrinkled hand is on her chest. A soft and steady snore comes from her opened mouth.
 

I wonder what I’m doing here, why the icy pang has brought me to this room, when I see the fly.
 

It crawls freely from her mouth, onto her dried lip, then down to her chin. It seems to be alone until, seconds later, others follow. More appear, from behind the curtains and pillows, from behind the clothes and under the bed. They fill the room with a buzzing roar so loud that I wonder how the woman can possibly continue sleeping.
 

Then, as if on cue, she awakens.
 

Her eyes open and her mouth widens even more as she sees and feels the flies. At once they attack. Those that aren’t already swarming her body come at her hard and fast, until she’s covered and then covered again. She tries to scream but her mouth quickly becomes blocked. She tries coughing but only manages to swallow more flies.
 

I stand in the doorway watching, my entire body frozen. Mrs. Roberts stares back at me, her eyes the only things not yet covered. They scream at me, her eyes, they scream for help, and as much as I wish I could I still can’t move.
 

Then both her eyes disappear as even more flies land and begin driving their way into her sockets.

•
 
•
 
•

I
AWOKE
WITH
a start. For one disconcerting moment I didn’t know where I was. Then the present caught up with me and I lay back down in bed. My hair was damp with sweat, my neck sore. I did my best to slow my heavy breathing.
 

I lay there for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling. My head pounded some from my hangover. Sunlight streamed behind the closed windows and curtain, enough so that the cramped trailer had begun to overheat. I glanced at my watch, saw it was almost nine o’clock.
 

I sat up, yawning, wishing for a glass of cold water. I thought about what all had happened in my dream. I remembered everything.
 

And suddenly I had a feeling.
 

Not
the
feeling, but another feeling which was almost the same, though this was more of a hunch.
 

I stood and grabbed a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, my socks and sneakers. When I walked outside seconds later a cool breeze hit me at once. The sky was clear, the sun bright. Off in the distance, behind the faint traffic on 13, I heard the sound of a lawnmower.
 

And flies.
 

Lots of flies.
 

I started up the drive. As I passed my grandmother’s I noticed a note taped to her door that in big curved letters read

Christopher,
 

The girls and I went to Alice’s for breakfast. We should be back around ten.
 

Love, Grandma
 

but I ignored it and kept walking. Moments later I stood in front of Mrs. Robert’s trailer. I figured she was one of “the girls” and was gone, but something told me that wasn’t the case. The flies were even louder now, their low buzzing drone coming from within.
 

I took a step forward to knock on the door—why I did this I don’t know, logic said nobody was home—when I noticed the curtains.
 

The curtains were moving.
 

Closing my eyes, I saw my dream and pictured exactly what was happening inside, and before I knew it I had pulled open the door.
 

I stood there then, my body tense and ready, waiting for something to happen.
 

For a single instant nothing did.
 

Then at once the low drone erupted into a chorus of chaos, as thousands of flies escaped from inside, and I couldn’t help myself, I threw up.

•
 
•
 
•

I
DON
’
T
KNOW
who called 911, but by the time the police arrived already a dozen elderly folk had scattered themselves along the drive to watch. Even Henry Porter, who hadn’t gone into work today, made his way across Half Creek Road to see what had happened. Everyone stayed far enough back so they wouldn’t be forced to smell the stench of the old woman’s decayed body that had been cooking for days in her trailer, but still the breeze occasionally tossed it from one direction to another.
 

After the police came the fire department. It took them awhile to navigate the bright yellow truck down the drive, but once it was parked the men inside weren’t quite sure how to get rid of all the flies that hadn’t already flown away.
 

I watched with Moses beside Grandma’s trailer. Neither of us said a word. I’d already spoken with a deputy and explained how I’d been walking toward the Rec House when I heard the buzzing. I was worried about Mrs. Roberts, as she was one of my grandmother’s closest friends. So after knocking with no answer I got nervous and tried the door. The rest was pretty much evident.
 

“I just saw her yesterday, too,” Moses said softly. “She asked me how I was holding up after what happened to Joey. She was such a nice lady, it’s a shame this had to happen. I just hope she knew the Lord well enough.”
 

Up at Mrs. Robert’s, a fireman decked out in his gear entered the trailer. Two deputies had attempted already but hadn’t made it more than a few seconds before running back outside coughing and cursing the flies. One had even dry-heaved. Standing there watching, my arms crossed, I heard Moses’s words but at first they meant nothing. Then, as a fly flew into my face and I knocked it away, I began to play with another piece of the puzzle.
 

I frowned and looked at him. I’d brushed my teeth after vomiting, gargled Listerine three times; my mouth still tingled of cool mint. I said, “You saw her yesterday?”
 

He nodded, still staring ahead. “She stopped by the RV for a couple of minutes. Said she couldn’t stay long but wanted to see how I was doing.”
 

I stared at him, my mouth slightly open, as I tried processing the last half hour. I glanced at the trailer once more, the propped open screen door scattered with flies, before looking back at Moses.
 

“But that’s impossible. The stench alone proves she’s been dead more than a few days. There’s no way you—”
 

It hit both of us then. Our eyes widened just a little as we stared at each other. At the same time we looked back at the trailer and realized the truth.
 

Staring at nothing in particular up the drive, I said, “Moses, do you have your keys handy?”
 

He told me he did.
 

“Can I have them?”
 

He brought them out of his jeans pocket and placed them in my hand. At first I wasn’t sure why he had done so, I wasn’t even sure why I’d asked for them to begin with. But then the note taped to my grandmother’s door caught my attention again and everything fell into place.
 

“Let’s go,” I said, already walking.
 

Moses followed. “Where are we going?”
 

I grabbed the note off the door and handed it to him, as we started around the trailer toward Moses’s Metro. The car’s key was out and ready, and I wondered just how long we had. Grandma said she would be back around ten. Already it was nine-thirty and I didn’t know how long it’d take to get to Alice’s.