Photograph by John D. Stanton © 2006 3AMBlue
The Call
by John Stanton
Hey, Gary,
I figured it was about time for you to ask me about that again. I haven't felt “The Call” for several years - “the tug,” yes. A nudge here, a little reminder, a synchronistic hiccup just to let you know that it's still there, keeping tabs on you - I doubt if that will ever go away.
The last time I felt “The Call,” we all felt it. That really bothered me. Keep family out of it. I should have told you at the time, I know. That was almost two years ago, in October, a Saturday night. We were watching TV late, and Jody was asleep between us on the couch. All at once, we stood up, grabbed our jackets and silently headed out to the car. Like always before, solemn and focused. This time we drove across the reservoir, about a block past the abandoned Jones Chapel cemetery. To my surprise, there was a long curved driveway to the right, just past the woods - it snaked around to a huge corporate building, all shiny and silver. I thought at the time, they built that awfully fast. I couldn't make out the name of the company. I turned around quickly in the driveway and parked in the shadows near the highway. We sat there for no more than ten minutes in utter silence; even Jody didn't make a sound, then I drove back home. I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my hands cramped - I could see my knuckles white in the moonlight.
Fifteen minutes to the reservoir - ten minutes in the driveway - fifteen minutes home. I noted the time when we got in - we had lost almost three and a half hours. We all had headaches the next morning, and slept in. I found a tooth chipped - lower right jaw. The car was parked cockeyed, window rolled down. Left rear tire: flat. Down half a tank of gas, about three drops and two farts worth left.
I got up the nerve to drive by about a week later, in the daytime - no shiny silver building, no driveway. Just the woods that have always been there. Typical.
The synchronized night terrors lasted about three nights this time.
Fast-forward to this week. We went to the mall Tuesday. Still hanging out at OJ - we get a couple of large Julius drinks, and one of those small water cups for Jody - Carolyn and I take turns filling it from ours - less to spill that way. We buy a giant chocolate chip cookie from Tiffany's Bakery around the corner. Jody totes along his canvas toy bag full of “figs” – super-hero action figures - and he's happy for hours.
It's funny - that spot I told you about, maybe six feet behind where I sit - it still happens. Carolyn saw it this time - a roly-poly fellow stuffed in a tight suit was walking behind me and his legs just went out from under him. Splat - right on his ass. There was nobody else within ten feet of him, except us. Jody was in full Spider-Man mode, and “whachoom'ed” him, covering him with an imaginary web. Chubby must have hit hard, because he sat there dazed for a minute or so. He was up rubbing his rump before Security rounded the corner. After he went into Sears, Carolyn and I walked through the same spot several times - nothing slippery, no vertigo. Go figure. It still happens when things are just about to get strange.
It was a little more unnerving this time, for some reason. After that, we got antsy and decided to make a couple of circuits of the mall. I didn't tell Carolyn, but I was on Yellow Alert by then, edging into Orange. That stage where nearby conversations become gibberish, and you're deep into the thousand-yard-stare. Great. A pleasant evening with the family, and now this. Carolyn recognizes the symptoms by now, and she starts scanning along with me. Even Jody clammed-up and mimicked me - that's beginning to get a little spooky - like this is already sliding into the next generation.
Still, our first loop was uneventful. Except for a vaguely inappropriate vibe off of a sallow-faced creep fawning over his 12-year-old daughter, it was just normal suburbia, and we loosened up and our conversation jump-started. Every time we cross the tiles in front of Kimmel Shoe Repair, Jody grabs our hands and we lift him up high so he can fly and land on the other side. I don't know why he picked those tiles, but he has to fly every time we come to them. I love it, though. It's one of those little things you remember the rest of your life.
We stopped once and chatted with Carolyn's ex-coworker Connie. You will no doubt remember her from the company picnic we dragged you to, the one where the manager bitched about the turnout and we each had to take two watermelons home. Before you ask, yes, she still has those Angelina Jolie home-wrecker eyelids; but she's remarried now, and has a new rug rat, and a slick corporate job, to boot. Connie's still a 13-year-old's wet dream, but you're out of luck, my man. Looks she's settled down for good this time.
Midway into our second ring around the mall, I was suddenly deep into Orange. That place where your perceptions go split-screen: half of you is insanely alert, and the other half feels like it's dreaming. I choked down on Red - I did NOT want it to go to Red.
Carolyn's voice sounded as if she were talking to me from the basement, through the furnace vent. Jody went silent again, wide-eyed and scared. I tried my best not to look like a brain-fried veteran of domestic wars. Hey, now there's an idea - maybe we should start up a VDW post.
As we passed Lazarus, it was as if you and I were slogging through the mud again, down by the railroad bridge. My leg muscles ached, and I could swear I smelled sewer. It is still hard to believe that so much took place in the woods behind the mall. The footpaths are still there - they change very little, and are still mostly overgrown by mid-July. I rarely go all the way to the railroad trestle - or beyond - anymore, but still I walk the path a couple of times a year, just to look for signs. It's been three months since I've checked - and found another abandoned tent, full of clothes and camping supplies - not a good sign.
Oh - and there are a half-dozen “Missing” posters up on the bulletin board at Miller's drugstore. Definitely bad juju.
Anyway, we were halfway around the mall again when I spotted him. Camouflage jacket, jeans; ragged hair like I used to have. He was sitting on a bench near the entrance, and he'd taken off his boots. His sweat socks were laid out to dry, and he was pulling thorns out of one of his boots; there were little tears in his jacket, and drying droplets of blood on one hand. The mud on his knees showed he hadn't memorized the path, and must have gone down on that dip near sewer #2, the concrete cylinder that juts out of the ground about five feet – you remember, the one that's welded shut. Where I lost my glasses the second time we were chased. Apparently, his cigarettes flew out of his pocket, because he also had a half-pack of damp weeds lined up next to his socks.
There are so many different secret frequencies people communicate on. Cop eyes see smarmy little things the rest of us miss utterly; and the bad guys can spot a sucker a mile away. There's the “I'm available” frequency, and the wounded fawn “I was molested when I was a child” look in some women's eyes. You remember Duane -Donna's ex - you could push him out of an airplane over any city in the world, and he'd land on the nearest drug dealer's roof. In a similar way, people like you and I know each other by sight. If not smell. (Big grin - his socks smelled like sewer.)
I only paused for a few seconds, to light one of his damp cigarettes. When he cupped his shaky hands around my lighter, I knew for sure, and he knew that I knew. I've never seen such a pleading look in a man's eyes before; I know they will haunt me, because when he opened his mouth to speak, I just turned and walked away.
I couldn't tell him that everything is going to be all right, because it won't. Even if he does survive, even if I don't find his face on a missing person's poster at Miller's Apothecary, nothing will ever be the same again. The soul-crushing migraines, the night terrors, the missing time. The chill that goes up your spine whenever you hear a branch break or smell sewer stench. When you wake up more exhausted than when you went to bed, and find your shoes sopping wet and covered in mud and weeds, and you can't remember going out. The garbled death threats on the phone in the middle of the night; the personal items that turn up missing from your home. The way friends and family will shun you if you even hint at what's really going on. What could I possibly tell this young man that would make his life any easier?
Life has been peaceful for us for a while now, and I need to keep it that way.
You do, too. Keep taking your meds - at least you'll stay down for the night.
Take care, my friend.
Joe