Dreams The Ragman

by Gifune, Greg F.

  “That’s serious ink,” Maggie said. “Hardcore shit.”

  I turned, found her behind me over by a closet on the far wall. She kicked off her bunny slippers and began to undress. “Do they have actual meaning?” I asked.

  She watched me a moment as if to be sure I was serious, and then nodded. “Yeah, and none of it good.” She threw off her pajamas and paraded naked to a bureau, where she found a pair of jeans, panties and a Harley-Davidson sweatshirt. Maggie had a few tattoos herself, but nothing as menacing as Caleb’s, and though she had an amazing body I knew there was nothing sexual about her nonchalant striptease. I may as well have been a sister or girlfriend. She had no romantic interest in me, and nudity was clearly something she considered trivial at best. “He’s marked.”

  She said it as if it had been against his will, and I pictured Caleb strapped to a table while hooded ghouls burned their nightmares into his skin. “Marked how?”

  “Ever heard of The Left-Hand Path?” she asked, stepping into her panties.

  “Can’t say as I have.”

  For the first time, I sensed fear behind Maggie’s badass veneer. “Few of those types pass through here now and then, pure crazies. Real dark types, not pretenders or posers or even dabblers. I’m talking serious disciples of evil, man, heavy Devil shit, the real thing. Sick-ass psycho motherfuckers that’ll cut your throat, drink your blood, rape your kids, slaughter your dog and sleep like babies.”

  “Having a hard time imagining Caleb being involved in those sorts of things,” I said, though I could tell from her expression she wasn’t buying it. Not completely.

  “I ain’t no Bible-thumper, but I don’t mess with that shit. I believe in Jesus, OK?”

  “Caleb wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  “All kinds of evil to fall into out there, hoss, and the Left-Hand Path got all kinds of followers. Not all of them do it ‘cause they want to. Some got no choice but to serve the dark. It’s bigger and runs deeper than most know or want to know, but it’s there, and this one here,” she said, pointing to him, “he’s in it waist deep. The ink don’t lie. That boy’s on the run, I’ve seen it before. But what he’s running from ain’t human. He’s got the Devil on his ass, and all of Hell along with him.”

  I stood there, unsure of what to do or say.

  “You hear me?” she snapped. “Hell is on his ass. And Hell don’t stop coming, it don’t forget and it don’t let go until The Devil gets what he wants. Not ever.”

  “Fuck the Devil.” I headed for the bar. “And fuck his Hell.”

  TEN

  Once my vision began to come and go, I blocked out much of what actually occurred that night in the cave, or at least attempted to. I told myself the entire episode had been largely a dream. Caleb and I had come to the beach as we had countless times before. We’d gotten drunk and stoned, gone swimming, engaged in some deep conversation, and then taken refuge in the cave once the storm hit. From there I’d collapsed into a drug-induced and drunken slumber where nightmares took hold and ran rampant. My memories had to be nightmares because the things that took place that night were not possible. If I believed in them even for a moment, then I was completely insane. But if I didn’t, I was a liar. Evil. The ultimate trickster and a fixed game if ever there was one.

  Out beyond the mouth of the cave, lightning crackles and lights up the sky just long enough for me to see him standing there in the rain.

  This can’t be happening…this can’t be real…

  There, on the sand, facing the cave, a dark figure dressed in rags…

  The lightning vanishes and darkness rushes back in, claims the phantom and everything else along with it.

  My heart races, smashes my chest with such force I have trouble drawing a deep breath against the mounting fear. “Caleb, I see him, I—”

  “Stay quiet,” he hisses.

  Grabbing me under the arms, he drags me deeper into the cave. So deep I can just barely make out the opening, and even when lightning blinks again all I can see out there is more night. “We have to run, we—”

  “Derrick,” he says with urgency and fear in his voice I have never before heard. “You have got to stay quiet. Please stay quiet, no—no matter what you see or hear, don’t make a sound. It’ll be all right if you just stay quiet.”

  I know he’s lying but as he lets me go my body flops back uselessly onto dirt and stone. The world tilts and the cave ceiling drifts overhead, hazy and dark, as not so very far away, waves crash and wind blows, rain falls and thunder rolls.

  Lightning flashes impossibly again and again, a blue strobe blinking through the cave, the world a psychedelic trip of blurry shadows, lies and truths, shrieks of agony and moans of rapture. I see Caleb’s gaunt face in profile, barely visible in the darkness, eyes wide with terror as he realizes we are no longer alone in our sad little refuge.

  And then I know it too.

  I can smell him. I can hear the cleaver he carries slowly scraping the wall of the cave, screeching against rock like the dying wails of his victims...

  Caleb in flashes...nude…arms open…chest heaving…a sacrificial lamb offering itself up for slaughter so that others might live…

  I want to get up and run I want to get away from here but I can’t move I can’t get up I’m so scared I can’t move or see or hear or understand I want to go home I want to be safe please help me I don’t want to be here please I’m so scared I don’t want him near me I don’t want him looking at me and touching me please stop please don’t…

  God help me. God help us.

  He is God, little lamb. Bleed for him. Bleed for your god.

  The night closes in around us, leaving only Caleb’s furious breath and frenzied groans. It sounds as if he’s being gutted from the inside out.

  There can be neither death nor birth without blood.

  So Caleb bleeds.

  I sleep.

  And The Ragman, he dreams.

  * * * *

  Maggie had coffee brewing out at the bar. I poured myself a mug and slid onto a stool. I’d expected her to follow me but she didn’t. I don’t know how long I sat out there with my thoughts, but it seemed like forever. I wasn’t sure what Maggie was still doing back there, but it was her place, I had no business asking questions. Odds were her softer side had emerged again while no one was looking and she’d decided to sit with Caleb a while. For some reason that made me think of my wife. I wondered if I’d ever see her again, ever hear her voice. I thought about Louie too, if I’d ever hear his purr or feel his cold wet nose against mine as he kneaded my belly with his front paws.

  “Hey.”

  I looked up, saw Maggie at the end of the bar pouring herself some coffee.

  “My old man left some clothes in the closet. Be big on your boy’s bony ass but better than nothing. Once he gets cleaned up, get him what he needs and I’ll burn the shit he’s wearing now. By the way, he’s awake and asking for you.”

  “Maggie, I want to thank you for—”

  “Just don’t be here much longer, all right?”

  With a nod, I hopped off the stool and, coffee in hand, went out back.

  As I stepped into the mostly dark apartment, I noticed that Maggie had lit a few candles on the bureau. Bathed in soft candlelight, everything looked like a dream.

  Caleb was sitting on the far side of the bed with his back to me. Sans shirt, and long hair pulled back into a ponytail and held in place with a rubber band he’d evidently found among Maggie’s things, his bare back was exposed. What struck me first was how his spine protruded like a fossilized snake trapped just beneath his skin. Second was an immense and intricate tattoo that covered nearly his entire back. It depicted Poseidon, the muscle-bound god with long hair, full beard and fierce eyes, reclined on a large rock. In one hand he grasped his legendary trident, in the other a conch shell.

  “Do you remember when you used to say if God existed it was as Poseidon?”

  Without turning around, Caleb answered. “Yes.”
Though obviously high, he sounded more like himself to me. Along with weariness, there was a hint of fondness in his tone, but it was reserved, as if fearful his emotions might overwhelm him were he to give himself up to them fully. “You know I’ve always loved the ocean.”

  “Yes.” I moved deeper into the room. “It was always fire that scared you.”

  “And water that scared you.”

  “Are you all right?” It was a stupid question but I had to ask it.

  “I could use a hot shower. Do you think that would be OK?”

  “Maggie shot you up in her bed,” I reminded him. “Somehow I don’t think using the facilities is going to set her off. And you can help yourself to clothes in the closet.”

  He stayed quiet a while. “The candles are pretty, aren’t they? They remind me of the ones that used to burn near the altar at Midnight Mass on Christmas when we were kids. Do you remember? I used to love to sit in that church when no one else was there. It was so quiet. I’d sit and study the stain glass art, all those saints and martyrs staring down at me with such sorrow. And somehow in all that pain and suffering, I found peace, even love. I never once believed God rejected me, only other people did that.” He brought a hand to his face, rubbed his eyes but still he didn’t turn around. “Yes, Jesus loves me,” he sang in a quiet, broken voice. After a moment he laughed, sadly. “It was ourselves we could never love, and that’s where the true evil is, in the fear and hatred and self-loathing. It all seems so simple and yet…” He dropped his hand from his face. “Now when I close my eyes I see those same saints and martyrs, only their fingers are dipped in blood and their bodies are scarred, their eyes carved from their heads. I see visions, horrible visions so frightening that it feels as if someone has reached inside me with their hands and torn it all loose. Shouldn’t religious visions be comforting? Salvation isn’t supposed to be frightening. Is it?”

  “Maybe your visions aren’t about salvation.”

  Caleb finally looked over his shoulder at me. “No,” he said softly, “maybe not.” He turned back to the candles. The flames washed over him, licking his flesh. “I need to sleep. I haven’t slept in a very long time. And then I’ll clean myself up and we’ll go.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’re sure you won’t leave me here and go home to Jill where you belong?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.

  “I don’t have much time left,” he said drowsily.

  “Caleb—”

  “I should’ve listened to you all those years ago when you wanted to run away.” He bowed his head. “I wanted to, you know. God, how I wanted to. I was just so afraid. If I’d only known and understood what real fear was back then, we could’ve just packed a few things and gotten into that old car and gone. It would’ve been so easy.”

  “We were children, it would’ve been disastrous.”

  “No. This is disastrous. Here and now. This.”

  From somewhere deep within the storm came the faint sound of a train whistle.

  “Let me rest a while,” he said a moment later. “We’ll leave at nightfall.”

  Again, I asked where we were going.

  This time he told me. “To the beginning. And to the end.”

  * * * *

  In winter, daylight dies without warning. As dusk rolled in late that afternoon, closing on Sheppard Beach and swallowing everything in its path, the rain kept coming, no longer a mist but again a steady downpour.

  Caleb, dressed in a pair of jeans and a shirt several sizes too big for him, emerged from Maggie’s apartment looking like a child that had raided his father’s wardrobe. He was cleaner and more alert than before, but his wounds could not be washed away so easily. His was still the fragile and devastated appearance of a bruised and battered junkie sliding steadily toward death, and it broke my heart.

  But then, my heart had grown accustomed to such things.

  Caleb offered an awkward thank you to Maggie, who kept her distance behind the bar while doing her best to seem unaffected and bored. “Yes,” I added, extending my hand. “Thanks, Maggie. For everything.”

  She took my hand. “If I thought it’d do you any good, I’d wish you luck.”

  We left without saying much else. My last memory of Maggie was of her standing behind that bar staring down into a mug of coffee long since cold, her false eyelashes batting about like tiny wings.

  Caleb and I moved down the strip side-by-side toward the parking lot. One hand pulled my suitcase along behind us and the other I kept locked on Caleb’s arm to be certain he remained upright. He was a little stronger than he’d been earlier but still moved gingerly and with obvious difficulty. Several times his breathing grew heavy and he coughed, but it subsided quickly and we moved on.

  Once we reached the car, I got him into the passenger seat and strapped him in with the seatbelt. I threw my suitcase in the trunk then slid behind the wheel.

  “The rain,” he said, smiling gently. “It felt nice, didn’t it?”

  I frantically searched for some trace of who Caleb had once been, but he was already gone, a ghost leading me through a dark and bloody passage I could only hope to escape myself. He was close enough to touch and as far away as a memory could ever be, a character from a different life, a separate dream.

  Before I could ask him where we were headed, he said, “The last victim was an old man. He was murdered in his house. It’s by the beach, not far from here. The Ragman, he—he’ll return to that place. And he’ll be looking for us.”

  I grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment, slid it next to my seat and started the engine. “Tell me how to get there.”

  He did.

  In less than five minutes we were parked along the side of a narrow beach road bookended by sand dunes. Caleb had taken me all the way around to the opposite end of the beach, about as far as one could get from the strip without actually leaving the waterfront. In the distance were the ruins of what Sheppard Beach had once been, and several modest cottages in various stages of disrepair scattered about a nearby hillside overlooking the ocean. One in particular, sandwiched between two large dunes, was ringed with bright yellow police tape that billowed in the wind as if purposely left there to lure us in. The terrain was uneven and tough, and I wasn’t certain Caleb could make it. Evidently he sensed this. “Don’t worry,” he said wearily, “I can do it.” With a guilt-ridden sigh, he looked out at the sand. “I’ve been here before.”

  * * * *

  As dusk died, we stood before the murder scene in the wind and rain. I had the flashlight going even though we probably still could’ve seen well enough without it. But night was coming, and coming fast. The cottage had been there for decades, and though rundown and weathered, it was obviously still livable. A sad little house, it sat patiently waiting, perhaps for the return of the old man who had lived there for so long. Faded curtains still hung in the windows, and but for the harsh reminder of police tape, it looked like any other aging beach house. I recalled Spiffy’s description of the victim—Vern, he’d called him—and how he said he was such a nice man. I couldn’t help but imagine how horrified the poor soul must’ve been to find a madman in his house in the dead of night. Had his screams echoed along these very dunes, slipped through the tall grass then escaped across the sand and out to sea? Were those screams still out there somewhere, wandering the vast expanse of ocean?

  I moved closer, and was heading for the front steps when Caleb motioned to the rear of the cottage. He struggled through the wet sand until he was alongside me. Winded, he took a moment to catch his breath then said, “Around back.”

  As we approached the backdoor, I was met with a profound sense of dread. I could only suspect that the unthinkable carnage that had taken place here had left some sort of stain in its wake. Maybe that’s all ghosts were, residue left behind by the past rather than literal entities. Here, that past was bathed in blood and horror, and though I wanted desperately for whatever haunted this place
to be a figment of my imagination, I knew that was no longer possible.

  Caleb stumbled back a step or two, as if he’d changed his mind and no longer wanted to get too close to the cottage. “The Ragman,” he muttered, “he—”

  “He was an old man who scared my grandfather a hundred years ago.”

  “Give him whatever name you’d like. But he’s real. And he’s here.”

  I watched him through the rain and quickly dying scraps of light, swaying in the wind in time with the tall grass along the dunes. “There’s no one here but us, Caleb.”

  “He has many names,” he said as if he hadn’t heard me. “He’s moving, he…he’s always moving…like a shark…if he stops he dies. He moves all over the world, and has forever. He’s older than time itself. He’s Death. Do you understand? He’s Death.”

  “And who are you, Caleb?”

  His face twisted in pain. “I’m no one.”

  “We’re the only ghosts here.” I ducked under the police tape then swung the flashlight around and onto the back entrance. I tried the knob but the door was locked.

  “There are chosen ones,” Caleb said from somewhere behind me.

  I reared back and kicked the door in. It broke free far more easily than I’d imagined it would.

  “The chosen ones help him.”

  With the pool of light leading the way I stepped over the threshold and into a small, musty smelling kitchen.

  “The chosen ones procure for him.”

  Blood…everywhere…my God, I’d never seen so much of it…smeared along the walls, the floor, the appliances, even the ceiling. Painted into the same symbols and glyphs I’d seen all those years ago on the cave walls. It didn’t seem possible one body could contain so much blood, that it could be so bright and dark and awful, running through an old man’s veins one moment and spattered about a room the next.