The Calling

by Robert Swartwood

  “I don’t—I don’t know anything about no thirty-four lives. But he did tell me to watch out for you.”

  “Why?”

  Gerald only shook his head.

  “Did you know he was going to visit my grandmother?”

  He looked up at me. “Lily? What happened to Lily?”

  “Why the hell should I tell you?”

  “I—I didn’t know anything about her. Why? What’s happened to her?”

  “Don’t act like you care. Just tell me the truth.”

  “I am! I swear to you!”

  “And why should I believe you, Gerald? You’re a liar. And liars are right down there at the bottom of the barrel with child molesters and rapists.”

  “I told you, I had no choice!”

  “That’s bullshit. There’s always a choice. So what if you’re his puppet? Even a puppet can cut its own strings. When are you going to stop living in fear and just stand up to him? When are you going to be a man for once in your life?”

  He said nothing and lowered his chin, stared down at his lap. Drops of tears fell down, dampening his shirt even more. It was pathetic really, watching him cry like that, but I couldn’t move from where I stood. Because I knew that if I took even one step forward I would continue until I was right there over him, within striking distance, and with Joey’s present in my back pocket I didn’t trust myself if I came that close.

  “Tell me something, Gerald. When you finally die and stand before God, what are you going to say to Him? What will be your excuse for everything you’ve done? That you were scared, that you refused to stand up for yourself? My grandfather believed that there comes only one time in a person’s life when they’ll have to make a choice that directs their future. But the more I think about it, the more I think he was wrong. That time doesn’t come just once. It comes all the time. So what if you make the wrong decision? It’s possible to do something about it, to change your mind and try to make things right. So when every time they yawn, you have the chance to control your own fate.”

  He looked up at me, his eyes red. “Every time ... what yawn?”

  “Churchyards,” I said, and like that all my anger and rage disappeared. I was able to move again, to take a step forward if I wanted and not try to kill him. But instead I turned, deciding it was time to leave. Right now all I wanted to do was get out of this place, away from his sad, useless old man who’d created his own personal hell.

  So without a word I left, entering a hell all my own.

  Chapter 35

  He stood beside my car, dressed in the same clothes he wore the night before his murder. The brown slacks and white shirt, his silk tie crisscrossed with red and gold. Even the same brown penny-loafers, the pair I’d gotten him for Christmas. I remembered all the cuts and gashes on his face and body, how the blood had dried to his hair. But now they were gone, like they had never been there in the first place. Everything about him was the same—the stubble on his face, the cleft in his chin, the stance of his body and the part in his hair.

  Everything was the same except for the black eyes staring back at me.

  “Good evening, Christopher,” he said, the voice even that of my father’s.

  “Samael.”

  The night had gone completely still. No insects, no distant traffic, not even any wind.

  “What do you want?”

  “Look at you. Asking me what I want. Just like your grandfather. He figured it out before I visited him. I wonder though how he would have reacted had he not known. Would he have soiled himself like some of the others? Or maybe screamed like a woman? I wonder the same about you, Christopher. I wonder how this moment in time would play out had you no clue I existed at all.”

  “Well, unfortunately for both of us, I do know you exist. Now what do you want?”

  “It’s not what I want. It’s what you want.”

  “Let’s not talk in circles, okay? This whole thing is about you.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “You’re a piece of shit. Innocent people died because of your, what, games?”

  “Innocent?” A harsh darkness entered his voice. “Don’t even begin to think you understand innocence. Innocence is once being free to roam Paradise and then have it snatched away without another chance.”

  “Another chance? You defied God. What makes you think you deserve another chance?”

  “For the same reason you mortals do. Each and every one of you is given countless chances, all of which you take for granted. But what about me? What about the rest of my fellow brothers? Just because we followed Lucifer we will never get another chance.”

  I glanced at Half Creek Road. Wondered what would happen if a car or truck passed by. Would the driver see two figures facing each other almost twenty yards apart? Or would he just see me talking to an old and dented Cavalier?

  “Okay,” I said. “So what do you want? You want me to feel sorry for you?”

  “No, Christopher. To be sorry is to show weakness, and you have proven thus far you are not weak. Even that time a year ago, when I stood in your bedroom and decided to end your life. Yes, you remember that, don’t you? You woke up before I could finish the job. You fought back. So no, you are not weak. At least, not yet.”

  The silence of the night thickened.

  “What I want is quite simple. It’s what everyone before you has done. To make a choice.”

  “Everyone before me,” I said. “Like my father?”

  “No, Christopher. I decided to let him die instead.”

  “You decided. Like you have the power.”

  “You doubt my abilities?”

  “What about my uncle then? What was his choice?”

  Samael did not answer.

  “And what if I refuse? What if I tell you to go fuck yourself instead?”

  “Those are very bold words for a mortal whose fate lies in my hands.”

  For the first time since coming outside I thought about the knife in my back pocket, my parents’ murder weapon that Joey had given to me to use when the time was right.

  “You think I know nothing about you, Christopher, but you’re wrong. Do you remember our encounter at the restaurant? The question I asked? Because while it might not seem like much, it tells me a great deal about you.”

  “Oh really?” I slowly reached behind my back, lifted up my shirt, and gripped the handle of the knife. “Well guess what, you’re wrong. Because whatever the choice is, I choose myself. Kill me instead.”

  “It’s not that simple. The choice is for two lives, one or the other. And if you refuse to decide, both lives will perish.” He tilted his head, just enough that the moon was reflected in his black dead eyes. “Now, are you ready to see just how innocent you truly are?”

  Chapter 36

  Dark clouds infested the sky sometime during the night. By seven o’clock that Sunday morning a light rain had begun to soak the earth surrounding Bridgton, New York. By eight it had increased to a shower. By nine it had begun to pour.

  I took her up to Harris Hill Park, to the same spot she’d brought me to for our picnic, the spot I’d brought Moses to a few days later. The area was deserted. I parked the car facing the split-rail fence and benches and just sat there, staring out at the gray clouds and the occasional flicker of lightning. The windshield wipers were off and it took only a few seconds before I could hardly see anything at all.

  “So,” Sarah said after a long moment. “What’s up?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “You wanna know a secret? I’ve always thought I was a princess. A real princess. Just like in that Anne Hathaway movie. And that someday my long lost grandmother or grandfather would show up at my door with a tiara and a scepter or whatever else royal people carry, and then they would take me away to my own private island where I would rule over just a handful of people, mostly the servants there to keep me company.”

  I still said nothing, staring out the windshield.

  “Okay,” she said
after another moment. “That was a joke. A lame joke, I know. But come on, what’s this about? You show up at my door, tell me about Lily, and ask me to take a drive with you. I’m supposed to be going to church with my dad and my brother, but I say sure, okay, I can tell you really need somebody to talk to, and then you drive us here without a speaking a word and now here we are and you still haven’t said a word. So ... what’s up?”

  The rain battered the car. Lightning flickered.

  “Chris?” she said, reaching out and placing a hand on my arm.

  I jerked my arm away.

  “Whoa,” she said. “Take a chill pill, okay?”

  I looked at her then for the first time, listening to the blood pounding away in my ears. My throat was dry, and I had to swallow before speaking.

  “You told me a secret, so let me tell you one.”

  “Oh gosh. Please don’t let this be the scene where you tell me you’re a hermaphrodite.”

  She said it with a grin, meaning to make me laugh or smile or at least break the sudden tension between us.

  “This is serious,” I said.

  “Okay.” The grin fell off her face. “So what’s your secret?”

  “Three months ago I was suspended from school.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a big secret.”

  “Just listen. I was suspended for fighting. It happened in the cafeteria. I kicked the shit out of this kid for no apparent reason. Had they not pulled me off in time, I probably would have killed him.”

  Sarah was silent.

  “It was my very first offense. Before that”—I smiled, almost laughed—“before that I was what you might call a model student. I got straight As, was never late to class, always turned my work in on time. I’d never had one detention.”

  Lightning flickered again, followed by thunder.

  “The kid’s name was Grant Evans. He was in my grade. We’d had a few classes together, but we weren’t friends. And one day, a couple weeks after Mel got the abortion and she’d stopped speaking to me, I’d noticed something was wrong with a friend of mine. She was one of those girls who was always positive about everything, always nice. Like her smile could literary light up a room. But she wasn’t smiling that day. I’d asked her what was wrong but she wouldn’t look at me. And ... well, I thought she was still pissed about what me and Mel had done. I knew she didn’t approve, but that had been a couple weeks ago, and since then we’d talked and ... anyway, so she wouldn’t talk to me, started to turn away, and I reached out and grabbed her arm. And right then I knew. It was like ... like somehow the memory was transferred to me. I knew about the party she’d been to over the weekend, how somebody must have slipped something into her drink, and how ... how Grant Evans raped her. I saw it all in this flash, like it was nothing more than a brief memory, and my friend, she just stared at me, like she knew I now knew too. Next thing I knew she ran away, ducked into one of the bathrooms, and I turned and started walking. I found him in the cafeteria. He was sitting with his friends, laughing and joking. I grabbed him, pulled him out of his seat, and punched him in the face. He hit the ground and I climbed on top of him and just kept punching him. And ... and before they pulled me off, I leaned down to Grant’s bloody face and whispered that I knew what he’d done and that if he ever did it again I was going to kill him.”

  Lightning flickered again, followed by more thunder, and I blinked and looked at Sarah for the first time since I began speaking.

  “He never pressed charges. His parents wanted him to but apparently he refused and then a couple months went by and my parents were murdered and I ... I actually thought he had done it. That it was his revenge. But he didn’t. He was just this stupid fucking kid who’d date raped a friend of mine and then got the shit beat out of him in front of all his friends.”

  Sarah was turned slightly in her seat so she could watch me. She didn’t speak, didn’t move at all.

  “So I guess my whole reason for telling you this is I’m wondering something. Do you think it’s possible for people to know things they’re not supposed to know?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was a hesitant whisper. “I do.”

  Now it was my turn to say nothing.

  Sarah opened her mouth, closed it, opened her mouth again, and said, “Friday, after you stopped by the house to see John, you wanted me to promise you something. That I wouldn’t go to graduation. You wouldn’t tell me why either, just that you didn’t want me to go. And ... and yesterday, after everything that happened, I—I wondered to myself, did you know? And now ... now I guess I have my answer. You did know, didn’t you?”

  I was silent.

  “Chris.” She started to reach out again but caught herself and didn’t touch me. “How ... how did you know?”

  I glanced at the dashboard clock. “You’re going to be late for church.”

  “Chris ...”

  Turning the ignition, the Cavalier’s engine rumbling to life, I stared at the steering wheel. “I didn’t know. Let’s just leave it at that, okay?”

  I could see her from the corner of my eye, staring at me. “Okay. But why did you bring us up here? You could have easily told me that story back on The Hill.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, placing the car in reverse and backing us out of the space.

  But it was a lie. I knew. Not how exactly, or why, but I knew that if we didn’t come here and stay for at least ten minutes, Sarah would die.

  Chapter 37

  My uncle’s Explorer was parked right in front of the church. It sat at an awkward angle directly before the steps leading up to the entrance.

  As I pulled up behind it, Sarah glanced at me. “Lily?” she asked.

  I placed the car in park, undid my seatbelt, and opened my door. “Stay here.”

  I stepped out into the rain and hurried up the steps to the main doors. They were both locked. I turned, started back down the steps, when the noise came from inside.

  Curiosity had gotten the best of Sarah and she was getting out of the car when the noise sounded.

  I stared down at her just as she stared up at me.

  She said, “Was that—”

  “Get back in the car, Sarah.”

  “But were those—”

  “Now!”

  I ran back to the car, placed it in gear, and slammed on the gas as I spun the wheel.

  Beside me, Sarah was hysterical. “What’s—what’s—what’s happening? Were those—were those—were those gunshots?”

  Tearing through the parking lot, the rain coming down even harder, lightning flickering again, I thought about my grandmother, about Joey and Moses, about my parents and everybody inside that church right now.

  Right before turning onto Half Creek Road, I slammed on the brakes.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Sarah sobbed, jerking in her seat. Her face was pale, covered in tears.

  I said to her, “Can you drive?”

  “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

  “Sarah,” I shouted. “Can you drive?”

  She jerked in her seat like I’d just slapped her. Staring at me, wiping at her eyes, she said, “What?”

  “I need you to drive my car back to your house and call 911. Can you do that?”

  She just stared back at me, her lip trembling. “My dad and brother, they’re in there.”

  “Sarah, can you do that?”

  Slowly, so very slowly, she nodded.

  “Good. Now you need to be where I am. How’s the easiest way?”

  She swallowed, wiped at her eyes again. “I guess ... I guess I’ll have to walk around.”

  “Do you think you can do that?”

  With a little more confidence, she nodded again.

  “Then do it, quickly.”

  She had her door opened and then closed in the matter of seconds. As she hurried around the car, her right hand on her bulging belly, I leaned across the middle console and opened the glove box, reached in, and extracted Joey’s present.
>
  My door opened and I slammed the glove box shut, concealed the knife in my jacket, and stepped back out in the rain.

  “Chris,” Sarah said, shaking, her hair completely soaked. “Come with me.”

  “Go.”

  “But—”

  “Go!”

  She got in the car.

  I shut the door and stepped back and watched as she drove away, the Cavalier’s engine roaring as she climbed the hill toward her house. Then I turned and sprinted back toward the church, the rain soaking me, lightning flickering again, followed by thunder, then even more thunder.

  Only that wasn’t thunder now from inside the church, a distant but distinct crack crack crack.

  I started back up the steps before I remembered that they were locked. I just stood there then, staring at the building. Two windows were on either side of the locked entrance. There was an exit in the back of the church, but I somehow knew it’d be locked just like the front.

  I rushed to the window on the left and tried pushing it open. It wouldn’t budge. I didn’t bother trying the window on the right and instead ran directly to Dean’s Explorer.

  The passenger side door was locked, and I feared the driver’s side would be as well. It wasn’t. I released the trunk door and then went to the back. There was a roadside kit and a spare tire and a fire extinguisher and—

  “Bingo,” I said, grabbing the crowbar.

  I chose the left window and shattered the glass. After sliding the crowbar around the frame to get rid of the shards, I threw it inside, gripped hold of the ledge, and lifted myself up to peek inside. Nothing. I took the knife out of my jacket pocket, tossed it inside, then grabbed the ledge again and pulled myself up and into the church’s foyer. My hand came down on glass that bit into the skin.

  The foyer was still deserted. The table with the coffee pots and Styrofoam cups and bagels looked picked over, while the table with the missionary pamphlets looked untouched. Nearly every hanger on the trio of coat racks was in use. At least half a dozen umbrellas leaned against the wall. A folding chair was propped between the entrance doors’ handles, which meant whoever had done it was more concerned about someone trying to get in, rather than trying to get out. With nobody around, the fluorescents in the ceiling made the room much brighter, somehow less real.