by Chris Raven
“He could never get over Dave’s death. I think he blamed himself and blamed us too. He shut himself up, stopped talking to everyone, left the baseball team, started suspending course after course... When I went to high school, I stopped seeing him. When he finished studying, he was crawling from one miserable job to another. Now he survives running errands for the old ladies in the neighborhood, their mowing their lawns and doing bungling. With that, he gets enough to spend the nights from bar to bar.
I look back at the gray figure in the corner. He has finished his glass and tries to get the attention of the waitress to give him another. Seeing what he has become, I think there’s another victim of the lake murderer to do justice. The Jake I knew also was murdered that summer.
I get up from the chair and go to the bar to order two more jugs of beer and a single whiskey. When they serve me, I beckon Jim to get up and follow me. He looks at the table where Jake is still sitting, his face buried in his hands. He denies with his head and looks at the ceiling while he huffs and puffs.
“Not a good idea,” he whispers as he follows me. “Have you seen the binge he has?”
I don’t answer to him. I’m just standing next to Jake’s table and put the whiskey glass in front of him. He raises his head and looks at me with glassy eyes.
“Can I buy a whiskey from an old friend?”Without waiting for him to answer, I sit in front of him and I tell Jim to do the same.
“Excuse me, do I know you?” He gets to babble.
“I’m Eric. Eric Armstrong. Do you remember me?”
Jake nods and drinks his whiskey. He doesn’t seem particularly excited to see me. He looks at me with narrowed eyes and tight lips. I can’t guess by his gesture if he doesn’t want to talk to me because he’s still blaming me about what happened to Dave or if he’s ashamed that I found him in this condition.
“Of course, I remember,” he turns to Jim and greets him by lifting his glass. “I haven’t talked to you for a long time, Jim.”
“Yes, well... Life” Jim’s face perfectly expresses that he does not feel like being here. In fact, he answers without looking at Jake, pretending to be very interested in the asses of some blonde women dancing next to the bar.
“It has been a long time,” I say, trying to save the situation. “Who was going to tell us? All together again, so long afterward.”
“We’re not all,” replies Jake. “There were four of us. Remember?”
I don’t know what to say about that phrase. I wasn’t expecting a direct attack. I recognize Jake’s look: It’s the look of someone looking for a fight. With how drunk he is, I don’t think it’s a good idea to try to redirect the conversation. I’m very likely to end up with a punch in the nose. Luckily, Jim gets up and grabs my arm.
“Some shitty music. Let’s talk to the waitress to see if they put anything decent.”
I turn to Jim to ask him for some more time, but he denies it with his head, as he draws with his lips the word “let’s go.” I grab my jug and I get up from the table.
“I’m glad I ran into you. Bye, Jake.”
I can’t swear by the volume of the music, but I get the impression that he whispers a “fuck you” as a farewell. Jim and I go to the bar and we lean over it. I cannot take my eyes off Jake, who has already disappeared the whiskey that we have taken him and is counting coins, surely trying to calculate how many more he can get.
“What a shame.” I take a long drink to my beer and decide to go back to the subject, even at the risk of Jim getting angry and ending up leaving me in this bar. “Do you still believe that you have to leave everything as it is and forget?”
“Eric, dude... You’re my colleague and I love you.” Jim passes an arm over my shoulder. It seems that with the last drinks, he has reached the stage of «exaltation of friendship.» “But there is nothing you can do. The killer’s gone. I guess we scared him the night Dave died. You chased him, and he couldn’t be sure if you’d seen his face or his license plate, so that night he’d get out of Swanton never to come back. There’s nothing we can do anymore.”
I hate his attitude, but I decide not to insist. Anyway, he doesn’t give the impression that he can know something that I don’t know about crimes. I nod, and I throw a forced smile at him.
“Come on, let’s stop talking about sad things,” he tells me as he hits me two strong slaps on the back. “This is a night of celebration.”
“OK. What do you want to do?”
“Ask for two tequilas and go after those two blonde girls who are watching us.”
“I’m not going to be with anyone tonight. I’m not in the mood.”
“Better, they will be both for me,” he winks at me and hits my back again as if he wants to dislocate a couple of vertebrae.
I do not think it is a good idea to continue drinking nor I feel like starting to flirt, but I have no choice but to stay here, so I try to smile, I take a couple of bills from the pocket and I ask the waitress to bring two tequilas.
It’s after four in the morning and they’ve had to throw us out of the bar with the threat of calling the police, so they can close. Jim and I headed towards his car leaning on each other, mixed with the rest of the drunks coming out of the premises. Jim stands in front of his car’s door and tries to put the key in the lock.
“Are you sure you’re going to be able to drive?”
“Of course... The road doesn’t have any curve and I’ve traveled it hundreds of times. I could get home asleep.”
I am not sure about that, and I am seriously thinking if it wouldn’t be safer to return to Swanton by bicycle. The early morning’s fresh air would clear me up, and besides, I am in no hurry. I don’t even know where the hell I’m going to sleep tonight.
The noise of a blow behind us makes us turn. We see a dark figure that has just hit a car’s door and it slides slowly to the ground. When it ends falling, it’s lying on its face, as if it had died.
“That one is not going to be able to get home,” says Jim, laughing.
I laugh too, but I get near the figure to see if it’s OK. When I’m at its side, I recognize him. It’s Jake and he looks unconscious.
“Jim, come here. It’s Jake. We have to help him.”
“Help him? The binge will pass away. Let him sleep quietly.”
“We can’t leave him here. Anything can happen to him. Help me get him in your truck.”
Jim huffs and puffs and drops a couple of curses between his teeth, but he comes up to help me. Between the two we managed to lift him, grabbing him under his arms. Jake mumbles incomprehensible words, but he allows to be carried away. We sit him in the copilot’s seat and I adjust his seatbelt. Then I look in his pocket for the keys to his car.
“We’ll take him home,” I explain to Jim. “I’ll drive his car and follow you.”
“OK, but as he pukes in my truck, you’re going to clean it up.”
“Deal.”
I wink at Jim and go back to Jake’s car. When he starts the engine, he puts the headlights at full beam a couple of times to tell me that he is ready. I put the car behind him and I follow him until Swanton.
The truth is that Jim drives very well for the binge he has. I’m the one who has a hard time keeping the car in the lane. Besides, even though the journey hardly lasts fifteen minutes, I’m so tired that I’m afraid of falling asleep behind the wheel. Luckily, I get to hold on and take the car to Jake’s house garden.
I stop the car, I put the keys in my pocket and I go to help Jim, who’s trying to get Jake out without much success. When we get him up, he’s so sleepy, that he almost falls to the ground. As we struggle to take him to his home, he raises his head, looks at us with a hallucinating face, drops a silly laugh and goes unconscious again.
A light lights up on the porch, leaving us blind as rabbits. The front door opens and a woman with a robe and a sleeping face appears. I recognize Jake’s and Dave’s mother, although time hasn’t treated her very well. She’s staring at us with her
arms akimbo while she denies with her head.
“Drunk again?”She asks us as if we were to blame.
“We have found him this way at the exit of the Karib” Jim apologizes. “Where do we put him?
“Leave him right there on the couch,” says the woman, stepping aside to allow us to pass.
We managed to take him to the couch and leave him there. His mother comes up with a blanket and tucks him in, while she gives us thanks. Jim and I left the house without saying anything else.
“Where do I leave you?” Jim asks me as we go back to his truck. “Where do you sleep?”
“I’m not very clear. I guess I’ll have to go to the Swanton Motel. It’s expensive, but at this hour I doubt I’ll find something better.”
“Come to my house. You can sleep in the guest room.”
There’s no need for him to repeat it twice. Saving me a hotel night is fantastic news after what I just spent on drinks. Besides, I’m so tired I’m sure I could sleep anywhere. I thank him with a smile and get in the van for him to take me home.
VI
When I wake up, I realize it hasn’t dawned yet. There is a very faint clarity that seeps through the slits of the blind and draws lumps and shadows into the room I’ve slept in. I feel restless, but instead of opening my eyes completely and turning on some light, I close them hard again. I know there’s something close, something that looks at me and waits. I know it’s ridiculous, but I caress the idea that if I pretend to be asleep, it’ll get tired and leave. If not, I’m sure the daylight will make it disappear. I just have to keep very still and wait.
Silence is exasperating, overwhelming. I can’t hear anything. Neither the singing of some early bird, nor the purr of a distant motor, nor even the rustle of the wind among the trees. Silence is as absolute as if the rest of the planet’s inhabitants were extinct, leaving me alone with my mysterious companion.
Then I hear it. A smothered sobbing as if the being were trying to draw my attention. It might want to pity me. I don’t care. I find myself so terrified that my whole body has turned to granite. I couldn’t move or raise my eyelids even if I wanted. It even gives me the impression that my lungs are also hardening and that every time I get less air. Shit, I’m panicking. I have to control myself. The being will leave if I hold on long enough.
I feel that a glacial cold invades the room, an impossible cold for an August night. I get to move enough to tuck myself even more with the blanket, hiding even the head, but the cold seems to be inside me, invading me completely and paralyzing me. In the impossible silence that reigns in the room, I hear clearly the sound of a few barefoot steps on the wooden floor. It’s coming to my bed, maybe it’s going to touch me. I shrink even more as if I wanted to become so small as to not be seen by it. Only the top of my head is out of the blanket and, right there, I notice a soft stream, an icy breeze. The being is whispering to me or sniffing, I don’t know. I just want this to end.
Suddenly, the sounds come back. I hear an engine approaching the road, the trill of some birds and the accelerated steps of an early-riser. Little by little the temperature is returning to normal. Still, I refuse to leave under the absurd shelter that offers me the blanket until I start to sweat, and the atmosphere becomes unbreathable. I slowly take my head out and watch the room. There’s no one there anymore. I even begin to think that everything has been a nightmare, that I should be in that middle state between sleep and wakefulness and that I have imagined everything. It’s probably because of my feelings of guilt by spending the night drunk with Jim instead of investigating.
Although I have almost managed to convince myself that nothing I have felt has been real, I keep finding myself uneasy. My heart is going to a thousand revolutions, my breathing is altered, and a nasty tingling runs all over my skin as if it was electrified. With this level of anxiety, any shadow can look like a horrible monster, so I turn on the bedside light to be quieter. Instantly my breathing stops. There are footprints in the room. Very small footprints, of barefoot and wet feet. They pop up from the center of the room and stop right next to the bed. Then they disappear. No prints back to the door. Now I know it wasn’t a dream. I’m sure it was Bobby.
I look at the clock and discover it’s only seven in the morning. I haven’t even slept for three hours and the reason I don’t have a hangover is that I’m still a little drunk. Although I know I should go back to sleep, I think that, surely, this guest room was Bobby’s room in the past. I’m in his territory, I’m the intruder here.
I get dressed, pick up my things and, before I go out, I turn back to the inside of the room. The footprints are still there, reminding me of my mission.
“I’ll get it. I will discover what happened to you and you shall have the justice that you deserve.” I tell to the empty room.
I notice a light current that crosses the bedroom and sits on my cheek, almost like a soft kiss. I decide to interpret it as a sign that they thank me.
I go out on the street and spend a couple of hours wandering around town with my bike. I feel very tired, but at least the morning air manages to clear me out. About nine, I decide to stop somewhere for breakfast. I leave the bike in front of a bar and I put my hand in my pocket to see if I carry money. I stumble upon something metallic I don’t recognize. I take it out and I keep looking at it. It’s a keychain.
The light opens up in my mind and I remember that it is Jake’s keychain. I put it in my pocket after leaving his car parked and, with the hassle of getting him into the house, I forgot to give it.
I get back on the bike and return to Jake’s house. Although it is very soon, I hope his mother is already awake. Upon arrival, I stand in front of their garden. The house has all the windows closed. The façade has been unpainted for a long time, the plants in the garden are withered and there are several boards eaten away and loose on the porch. It gives me the impression that, with Dave’s death, all its inhabitants died a little and that the house that shelters them also has been sick because of the sorrow.
I call with a couple of shy knocks. If they’re still asleep, I’d rather not wake them up yet and come back later. However, I hear a few steps on the other side of the door. Jake’s mother appears on the threshold, dressed in the same robe from the night before and with purple dark undereye circles adorning her face. She looks at me for a few seconds as if she didn’t recognize me.
“Good morning, Mrs. Carter. I’m Eric Armstrong. Do you remember me?”
She looks at me for a few seconds, surely trying to find in the young man that I am the child she met. Finally, she nods, although she doesn’t smile, nor her eyes lighten up. Her lips are closed, and her gaze conveys distrust. I think, even if she doesn’t say it, for her I’m responsible for her son’s death.
“Yesterday I helped Jim to bring Jake here and I inadvertently took his keychain.”I take it out of the pocket and I hand it to her.
“He is not at home and I was going out to do some important errands. Would you mind taking it to him if he needs it?”
“No problem. Where is he?”
“He’s at his aunt Eloise’s house, fixing her the roof. It’s number five on Liberty Street. It’s not far.”
I nod and say goodbye. I know where Jake’s aunt’s house is. All the kids in the neighborhood knew. It’s the witch’s house. Jake’s aunt was a strange woman who always wore black. Her gaze was disturbing. She seemed to hide something secret, some mysterious power. Her porch was always full of protective amulets and arcane symbols painted on the façade.
I remember with a smile that in Halloween we used to challenge ourselves to see who of us dared to take more steps inside her garden, risking to the witch’s wrath and to some terrible curse. The fun always ended when Jake and Dave entered without fear until knocking on the door and ordering candy. However, the rest of the kids stayed outside. It was possible that with Jake and Dave she behaved well because they were her nephews, but we did not trust that she was going to be just as lenient with us.
Now that I’ve grown up, all that makes me laugh. It’s amazing how the imagination of some kids could transform an eccentric woman into a fearsome sorceress. I think that all the way to her house, but when I stop my bike in front of it, I don’t feel so safe anymore. The irrational childhood fear is invading me again. It’s not just the memory distorted by the time or imagination of a child. This house has something strange. It is elongated and dark and its narrow windows look like eyes that look at me.
The porch is still full of strange hanging objects, handcrafted with branches, feathers, colored crystals... They remind me of The Blair Witch Project movie. And the symbols of the walls... I don’t know how to explain it, but they give the impression of being drawn by someone who knows what he’s doing. They are not just drawings. They symbolize something important. Something powerful.
As I cross the garden, I feel again as the frightened child who dared to defy the witch’s wrath. I try to breathe deep and calm down and knock on the door trying to appear calm. The smile freezes in my face as it opens. In front of me is the witch, even more fearsome than I remembered her. It is a woman of about fifty years, with very black hair gathered in a tight bun. Her face is elongated and her features are hard and prominent, almost horse-like. She’s not a beautiful woman, but in a way, you can’t stop looking at her and feel attracted to her. Maybe it’s her eyes, two dark wells that seem to pierce me and read in my soul. Even though I’ve been paralyzed and I’m not able to say anything, she starts the conversation.
“You’re Eric, right? Eric Armstrong. The spirits told me you’d come.”
Now I’m not capable of uttering a single word. I notice I’m looking at her gawking, with my mouth open, but I don’t know what to answer to what she just told me.
