The Calling (31 page)

“It was ... a nightmare. But it ... it felt so real. I was giving ... birth to my baby ... but when ... when it was born ... my baby was ... it was dead.” Shaking her head, wiping more tears from her eyes. “God, it was ... awful. That’s the last ... thing in the world ... I’d want. Anything but ... my baby. Anything but ... my child.”
 

I wanted to tell her that it was okay, that she needn’t worry about anything because it was just a dream. But for some reason I knew I couldn’t do that. She would sense my lies faster than my grandmother, and lies were the last thing she needed.
 

I remembered the question I’d considered asking her yesterday as we sat talking on the picnic table. The question that would never be voiced, no matter what happened.
Have you considered an abortion?
Of course she’d considered it, even if it was for an instant, but now I had a better idea just what kind of answer I would have received had I asked.
 

The year before there was a girl in my high school who had gotten pregnant, who everyone had called trailer trash behind her back, and I remembered lying awake some nights in bed thinking about her. Thinking about the life she would now have because of a simple mistake. And because of her, I now saw Sarah in a whole different light.
 

Sarah too was a girl who, in all respects, was trailer trash. But was it destined from the moment she was born, or had she brought it upon herself? At what point in her journey of life had she lost her way and started down this new path? In five years where would she be, considering that nothing happened to her baby and she did her best to raise it on her own? Before, with the girl from school, I had imagined her eventually getting married with the guy from her neighborhood who had impregnated her, so that everything worked out in the end. But I had been fooling myself, because a part of me actually took pity on her. Now, realistically, I wondered what kind of life Sarah would have if she planned to raise the baby on her own, with no help at all from anyone else. Would she have to drop out of high school? If not, if she actually managed to graduate, would she consider taking college courses? There was no real career for a woman like her, except one waiting tables at Luanne’s or Harvey’s Tavern. She’d live in Bridgton her entire life, maybe date a guy from Horseheads or Elmira or even Ithaca, a guy in his twenties and already working toward becoming an alcoholic.
 

I started thinking about what would happen next, how the guy might get her pregnant and they’d eventually marry, but before I could I remembered Sarah again, not the girl of endless tragic possibilities but the girl who once saw herself doing so much more than having a baby before she even graduated high school. I realized I knew none of her desires, none of her ambitions in life, because the moment she realized she was pregnant they had all been tossed out the window.
 

She sniffed again, wiping her eyes, and looked up at me. “Do you mind ... if I stayed here? Just for a little? I don’t want ... to be alone.”
 

I nodded and told her of course. I pushed myself back against the wall, so that she would have more room on the bed. She leaned in against me and I put my arm around her, placed her head on my chest. Then we just lay there in silence, the only sounds our slow steady breathing.
 

Minutes passed, and as I held her, my chin resting on her head, I thought maybe she’d fallen asleep when she softly said my name.
 

“Yeah,” I whispered.
 

She sniffed once more. “Can you promise me something?”
 

“What’s that?”
 

“Don’t let anything happen to my baby.”
 

Softly I shushed her. “Sarah, it was only a dream. Don’t worry about it.”
 

“Promise me, Chris.”
 

An image of her naked, being taken from behind by some faceless guy, came flashing through my mind as I remembered that morning’s nightmare. Only I hadn’t given it any thought then, because the real Sarah hadn’t said that yet, she hadn’t asked me to promise her anything.
 

“Chris?”
 

“Yeah.”
 

“Please, can you promise me?”
 

It was the last thing I wanted to do, the very last, but I had no choice. It was meaningless, of course it was, but a promise was a promise and though I’d been a liar I had never been one to go back on my word when I meant it. Though I asked myself just how could I promise the safety of her unborn child? What powers did I hold that could determine whether it grew healthy or died prenatal?
 

It was crazy, completely insane, but this was what she wanted to hear—what she
needed
to hear—and so I relented and whispered, “I promise.”

“Thank you,” she said. She took my hand, gave it a slight squeeze.
 

She was asleep within five minutes, but it would be another hour before I drifted off, afraid of nightmares real and imagined—and not being able to tell the difference between them both.

Chapter 28

I
n the morning I opened my eyes to find Moses standing over me.
 

“What time is it?” I asked, yawning.
 

“Almost nine o’clock.”
 

“How long have you been here?”
 

“Only a few minutes.”
 

I sat up and rubbed at my eyes. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
 

“I figured right now you need all the rest you can get. Besides, I would have waited outside but your door was half-open. I know it might not mean anything with Samael, but considering what we’re up against it’d be best to stay safe at all times. For a second there I—”
 

But he didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t have to.
 

“You best get around,” Moses said. “I’ll wait outside.”
 

He left and I sat there for another minute, wondering just how long Sarah had stayed before I asked myself whether she had even been there in the first place. Lately I’d been having dreams that felt real and maybe that was just another. But I pinched my T-shirt to my nose and smelled Sarah there, the scent of her hair and skin, and knew it had been real.
 

I took a quick shower and dressed into jeans and a red polo shirt and then stepped outside. The sky was clear, only a few clouds hanging off near the horizon, and the sun seemed to shine down brighter than ever. Moses sat in the same chair his son had sat in only days before, though it felt like months.
 

He nodded and smiled at the sky as he stood up. “I think that’s a good sign.”
 

“What is?”
 

“The sky. They’d been calling for rain all week but now look how clear it is. Maybe it’s an omen.”
 

We stopped by my grandmother’s, Moses waiting outside while I went in to check on her. I hadn’t decided yet what excuse I would give her of where I was going, and as it turned out I didn’t need one. She was still in bed, snoring quietly, so I wrote her a note that said I went out with Moses and would be back later.
 

Before I got into Moses’s car I took one glance off The Hill down into the valley where the white church rested, the heart of Bridgton behind it. It was almost nine-thirty on a beautiful Saturday morning and it seemed like no one was up yet, like the entire trailer park was still sound asleep.
 

Or dead
, my mind murmured.
Dead like Mrs. Roberts with flies covering their bodies and crawling into their mouths and noses and ears
.
 

“Stop it,” I whispered, opening the car’s passenger door.
 

“What was that?” Moses asked.
 

I swallowed. “Should I bring the ... Joey’s present?”
 

“What do you think?”
 

I shook my head and climbed inside.
 

We had just passed the Rec House and were turning right when I murmured, “Oh, yeah.”
 

Moses glanced at me, took his foot off the gas. “What?”
 

Too late now, I thought, remembering what I’d seen inside the cinderblock building last night. I told Moses to just keep going. Then we drove down the hill, picking up speed. As Shepherd’s Books came around the bend, I pointed.
 

“You see that place?”
 

It was there for only a second or two before we drove by.
 

“The bookstore? Yeah, what about it? It’s been closed for the past week, if not longer.”
 

“That’s right. And for the past week I’ve been thinking the man who lives there is Lewis Shepherd, the owner.”
 

Moses said, “But he’s not.”
 

“No, he’s not. In fact, Lewis Shepherd’s been dead nearly two years. He was drunk when driving home and ended up hitting Mrs. Porter while she was jogging. She died instantly. He died a few hours later.”
 

“I heard she was killed in an accident. Where did you find this out?”
 

“Her obituary’s posted in the Rec House, as a kind of memorial I guess. Joey mentioned it to me almost a week ago. He told me to read it when I got the chance, but of course I didn’t, and it doesn’t make sense. I mean, why wouldn’t he just have me read it then and there instead of having me wait like this?”
 

“Maybe because he knew you weren’t ready to find out just yet. Or maybe because it wasn’t time. I don’t know the reason, Christopher, but what’s this all about?”
 

“He’s Gerald Alcott. Paul Alcott’s son. My grandfather said that he was still living in Bridgton the last time he checked. He’d found out news on James Bidwell and Richard Weiss, but nothing on Gerald. Who knows, maybe he went into hiding, but in the obituary it mentioned Gerald. About how he was the passenger in the truck when Lewis Shepherd hit Mrs. Porter. Shepherd ended up dying but Gerald walked away with only a broken wrist and a new bookstore left in his name.” I shook my head. “Damn it, Moses, he was playing me.”
 

“He told you he was Lewis Shepherd?”
 

“Shook my hand and everything.”
 

“You know what that means, don’t you.”
 

“Yeah I do. It means Samael got to him already. They must have made a deal. He probably realized his father’s curse and got scared and begged for his life.
Shit!
”
 

I smacked the dashboard hard, just once, feeling the anger that I’d felt last night while I stared at the dark empty house. It lasted only a few seconds and then I went back to staring out the window again. We had passed through town and were now out on 13, headed toward Horseheads.
 

“Feel any better?”
 

I said nothing.
 

“Look, Christopher, I understand where you’re coming from, but don’t let it get to you. It’s in the past. Right now we need to worry about the present. We’ll deal with Alcott later.”
 

I heard his words but didn’t answer and kept staring out the window. While I knew Moses understood my frustration to an extent, he didn’t understand fully. In my mind I saw Gerald Alcott making a deal with Samael and then trekking down to Lanton. Waiting outside my house until it was well past midnight, late enough where everyone would be asleep, and then breaking in through a door or window, making sure to leave no signs of him behind. Walking up the stairs, stepping over the eighth step that he somehow knew always creaked, then passing by my room with hardly a thought of me inside. (I, of course, would have just gotten home an hour or so earlier, passed out on my bed from partying.) He probably cut my parents’ throats first, to keep them from screaming out, and once the blood poured from each of them he began going to work. Slicing here, tearing there, until they were nothing more than butchered meat. Then, before leaving, he took their blood and painted a cross on my bedroom door.
 

It made sense too, perfect sense, and I couldn’t believe I’d been so blinded, so naïve to buy into the man’s entire façade.
 

Then I thought of my brief encounter with Samael and what he told me.
 

“Moses?”
 

“Yeah.”
 

Still staring out the window, I asked, “Did you and Joey kill my parents?”
 

He didn’t answer for the longest time. Then he said, “What do you think?”
 

“I don’t know what to think anymore.”

•
 
•
 
•

W
E
STOPPED
AT
a McDonald’s just after entering Elmira. Moses used the drive thru and ordered us breakfast. Once we got the food he parked in one of the empty spaces and turned off the engine.
 

He handed me my Sausage Egg McMuffin, hash brown, and orange juice without a word. Then he unwrapped his own meal and began to eat. Five minutes passed in heavy silence before Moses spoke.
 

“No, Christopher. Joey and I did not kill your parents.”
 

I glanced at him, stared into his dark and serious eyes. “Why didn’t you just say that before?”
 

“I was too shocked you had even considered the possibility. I didn’t know what to say.”
 

“It was Samael. He ... he put these ideas in my head.”
 

Moses nodded. “He’ll do that. You have to be prepared. You have to decide what it is you believe in and stick to it, no matter what.” He paused. “Now I think it’s time I should be totally honest with you. I could have told you earlier, but I ... I didn’t think it was a good idea.”