The Calling

by Robert Swartwood

  Moses Cunningham was nothing like I’d expected after meeting his son. He was a tall and broad-shouldered. His hair was short. He wore dark slacks and a white shirt with a tie gray. Because Joey wore glasses, I figured he would too. But the man stood up in front of the congregation and read from his Bible without glasses and without trouble.

  He read from James chapter 2, verses 14 through 26. I didn’t have a Bible of my own and read off my grandmother’s. The passage dealt with faith and works, and how both must go hand in hand.

  Moses had a strong, confident speaking voice, which reminded me a lot of James Young. He knew when to add emphasis, when to pause in his reading or speaking to make his words more meaningful. Halfway through when he began talking about Abraham and how he offered up Isaac to God to show how his works perfected his faith, Moses’s eyes shifted and he stared right at me. It was only for a second, maybe two, and then he blinked and, bowing his head, said, “Let us pray.”

  Chapter 7

  After a lunch of tomato soup and grilled cheese (my grandmother, God love her, kept her cooking consistent with making the sandwiches a little burnt), I left Grandma’s and headed down the drive toward my trailer. The sky was clear, the sun was bright, and a soft breeze pushed its way through The Hill. Off in the distance I heard the faint sound of traffic down on 13.

  Sitting in front of the trailer, in a dirty lawn chair that had been knocked over, was Joey Cunningham. He was cleaning his glasses, and when I walked up, he had to squint at me until he put them back on his face.

  He said, “Hey, Chris,” his small voice cheerful. “How’s it going?”

  Truthfully, I wasn’t surprised to see him.

  I forced a smile. “What’s up, Joey?”

  “I’m just waiting for John. You know, his dad owns this trailer park. He’s t-taking me down to the Beckett House.” He grinned. “It’s haunted.”

  “Haunted, huh?”

  “You don’t have to believe me. That’s fine.”

  Again, I didn’t know what to say. It was like this kid had some kind of power over me that kept making me speechless. He’d looked so happy, like nothing was going to get him down, but now his smile was gone and he stared at his sneakers.

  “Look,” I said, but before I could get anything else out, he stood up and pointed up the drive at the Rec House.

  “Can you come with me? I wanna show you something.”

  • • •

  TWO THINGS WORKED for Joey in that cinderblock building full of junk. First was that he managed to open the screen door with hardly any sound or trouble at all. Second was that when he flicked the light switch, the fluorescents in the ceiling came on at once.

  “You heard about Mrs. Porter, right?”

  He started through the building, past the table and the bright yellow car sitting upside down on the floor. I followed him, at first glancing back at where Sarah had been hiding yesterday. The spot behind the counter was empty. Then Joey came to the corner of the building, standing in front of a framed picture of a woman in her late thirties. Below it were smaller pictures, of a family that looked happy and strong. Sarah standing with her father and mother and brother, smiling and staring back at the camera with the most innocent eyes.

  “She died in a car accident,” Joey said. His voice had become a whisper. He tapped the smaller frame with an old newspaper clipping inside; when his finger came away it left a fingerprint in the dust. “This is the obituary. You should read it when you get the chance.”

  Before I could ask him why, he turned and walked to a narrow chalkboard hanging on the wall, right behind the ancient TV. In bold letters across the top was printed SURVIVORS OF THE BECKETT HOUSE. Below it, in either yellow or white chalk, were maybe two dozen names. Joey pointed to the space beneath the last one.

  “That’s where my name’s gonna go.”

  The idea of spending the night in a supposed haunted house was something I just couldn’t see Joey doing. I didn’t know him well, of course, but he didn’t seem like the kind of person to buy into all that stuff, let alone actually go along and try to be a part of it.

  “Why, Joey?” I asked. “Why do you want to do this?”

  He looked up at me. “Do you really care?”

  Once again, I didn’t know what to say.

  “I never knew my mom,” he whispered, staring back at the chalkboard. “She died when I was born. When I was like three or four my dad quit his job and started going around speaking at a bunch of different churches. We’ve been doing that ever since. I never went to school, my dad taught me everything, so I never really had any friends. I meet people everywhere I go, and they act like my friends, but they’re not.

  “In another week my dad’s done speaking here and ... and we’ll be moving on. And what will we leave behind? Those plates up there? No one’s signed them in a long time. But this, this board right here, after I spend the night tonight my name will be added. It’ll be there forever.”

  He shrugged and gave me a weak smile.

  “It might sound weird, but it’s just a way to ... be remembered. I mean, in another month, who’s really going to remember me and my dad?”

  I hadn’t realized it, but this was a different Joey Cunningham than the one I’d met yesterday, or even talked to this morning. His happy, outgoing look on life had deteriorated into this small sad child. Also, his stutter was gone. Not that it meant anything, really, but he spoke fluently, without any trouble at all. It just didn’t seem like the kid who had problems with his hard Ts and Ps. No, somehow he had matured, had become much older than his limited years.

  I said, “I’ll remember you, Joey,” and even now I’m not sure what made me say it. “I’ll remember you and your—”

  “There you are, Joe. Sorry I’m late.”

  Standing in the doorway—he too managed to open the screen door without noise or trouble—was eighteen-year-old John Porter. He was a skinny kid, his hair long and brown, all over the place like he’d just woken up. He wore shorts and a black tank top, grinning like a stoner. He noticed the lights, frowned, then punched the switch beside him.

  “What the hell?” he muttered. His voice was deep, sounding almost forced. “You guys think electricity grows on trees?”

  “Hey, John, how’s it going?” Joey’s demeanor had suddenly changed and he was again the cheery, nothing’s-going-to-get-me-down kid I remembered. “This is Chris Myers.”

  We walked up to John, and when we reached the door he stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, man.”

  Joey said, “John, did you ever wonder what Jesus did with the gold, frankincense and myrrh the magi gave him?”

  John frowned at me. “Dude, what the fuck’s a magi?”

  I couldn’t help it—I busted up laughing.

  We filed outside and down the drive, toward the field beside the trailer park. John strode on ahead like he owned the place. I thought of something and caught up with Joey, tapping him on the shoulder. He glanced back at me.

  “How’d you know my last name?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My last name. I never told you what it was.”

  He frowned for a moment, then smiled. “Come on, you don’t even remembering t-t-talking yesterday. Yeah you told me. You told me you’re Chris Myers from Lanton, P-P-Pennsylvania.”

  He turned away, shouted at John to slow down, and hurried up ahead.

  I slowed, hesitated. My trailer was ten yards away, and I started toward it. I’d had enough of this for one day.

  “Come on, Chris, hurry up!” Joey shouted. They were waiting for me. I sighed. I knew I’d regret it later, but I turned and jogged after them.

  • • •

  IN THE SMALL field beside the trailer park was a scattered number of picnic tables, their surfaces weather-worn and covered in spots of gray birdshit. There were also two metal poles standing erect out of the shaggy grass, about ten feet apart, what I assumed had been used to hang a volleyball net back in the day. John took
us past these, toward a wall of lush pine trees that protected The Hill from the valley beyond. At a spot just before the trees you could see where the grass had been trampled to death. Now it was just dirt, the beginning of the trail that led down through the hemlocks and birches and other trees toward the Beckett House.

  The slope descended gradually. You had to watch where you stepped or you might stumble over some small rocks or tree vines sticking out of the dirt. John led the way. Somewhere along the path he lit up a cigarette; an occasional puff of a smoke drifted up toward the canopy of leaves above us.

  “How much farther?” I asked. We’d been walking for two minutes already.

  John didn’t answer me. He just kept walking. I started to call up again, to ask the same question, when I saw the trees thinning out up ahead.

  Seconds later we entered a small clearing, and John said, “That’s it,” almost proudly, nodding at what rested in the middle of the long grass and weeds. “That’s the Beckett House.”

  When Joey had said haunted house, I’d pictured something out of a Hitchcock film: like Norman Bates’ house in Psycho or Manderley in Rebecca. Your overly large house, with big shutters and drapes that sometimes move, because there’s something dead inside peeking out. The porch would be a dilapidated mess, with boards missing and invisible nails sticking out just waiting for careless feet and hands. There might even be a swing hanging from two rusted chains, swaying slowly back and forth even though there’s no wind.

  But the Beckett House was nothing like that.

  More like a shack than a house, the building was only one story and completely made of stone. Maybe only fifteen feet high, the entire structure was blackened, as if it had survived a fire. The roof had been thatched but was mostly gone, except for one spot that was covered in generations of dead leaves. No door, except a wide space nearly ten feet tall where a door might have once been. Some white looping graffiti, near the corner of the house, announced that Ted loved Sandy.

  “That’s supposed to be haunted?” I asked.

  John offered me one of his Marlboros. I shook my head and he lit another for himself. He took a long and satisfying drag, then nodded his head earnestly.

  Joey said, “Doesn’t look t-t-too scary t-to me.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe not at first. But wait until you hear this.” John picked up a stick from the ground, pointed it at the house. “A long time ago—like fifty or a hundred years, something like that—this guy used to live there. Name was Devin Beckett, a real whack-job, and he never came out of his house. A real, ah ... what’s it called ... recluse. Anyway, one night he just snaps. Goes into town and starts killing people. Killed, I don’t know, like thirty or forty people. Used a machete too, sliced them up real good.”

  For an instant images flooded my mind: my parents in bed, their cut up bodies and all the blood.

  John took another long drag of his cigarette. He tapped the stick on the ground and turned back to us, a frown on his face.

  “Actually wait, that might be wrong. It’s been a while since I last told this story. Maybe he was going around the state killing people, I forget. But all I know for sure is the police tracked him down back to this house. His hideout, if you wanna call it that.”

  John turned and walked toward the house. Joey and I followed.

  Inside there was nothing except some discarded bottles of Bud Light and cigarette butts. No tables, no chairs, no bed; only an open hole in the wall which must have once been the fireplace ... and which now, I noticed, contained a few used condoms. The walls were more darkened than the outside. The floor was a mixture of wood and stone, with what looked like a few scratch marks here and there. The scent of alcohol and piss was faint.

  John snubbed his cigarette out on the floor with the heel of his Nike. Then he grabbed the stick with both hands, lifted it over his head and rested it across his shoulders.

  “So then there’s this standoff. Something like ten or twelve hours. And this guy, he doesn’t want to come out. He yells at them, tells them there’s no fucking way he’s giving up, and he shoots whoever tries to come near. So these cops, they tell him they’re gonna burn the place down, thinking that’s the only way they’ll get him out, right? Wrong. The sad son of a bitch never comes out, so they torch the place with him in it.”

  There was silence then. Above us, past the small patch of roofing that was supported by a thick charcoaled piece of wood, a breeze blew through the tops of the trees. A few birds hid somewhere in the branches, chirping aimlessly.

  “That’s it?” Joey sounded disappointed. “That’s all that happened?”

  John dropped the stick and held up a finger. “But here’s the really freaky thing. Beckett’s body? They never found it.”

  “Bullshit,” I said.

  “Dude, I swear to you, it’s the truth. Never found his body. Burned this place out, had the whole thing surrounded, and they couldn’t find his body.” He grinned again. “But you know, Joe, legend has it that late at night, when the wind’s quiet, you can still hear him screaming to death. You can even smell his roasting flesh. The legend says that the reason his body was never found is because he’s still here, burning forever for his sins.”

  Joey didn’t look frightened at all. In fact, he looked bored. He asked, “Did you see anything when you stayed?”

  “Me? Nah, I didn’t see a thing. Really, it wasn’t so bad. Just cold. Course, I stayed here during the fall, but fuck, make sure you got a sleeping bag and you’ll be fine.”

  “How long do I have to stay?”

  “I’ll bring you down around midnight, then come and get you before school tomorrow. So, what, around seven hours, give or take.”

  “School?” I said. “It’s the first week of June.”

  “Tell me about it, dude.” John gave an overdramatic sigh. “Fucking blizzard back around Christmas used up all our snow days and some. We got pushed back an extra week.”

  “That sucks,” Joey said.

  “So yeah, sorry to jet, but I need to be getting back.” John clapped me on the shoulder. “Chris, nice meeting you, man. And Joe, I’ll come get you tonight, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Then John was gone.

  I glanced around the house one last time, still skeptical about the story, when I noticed Joey staring at me.

  “It started here,” he whispered. “It makes sense it should end here too.”

  Again, a different voice and tone from the kid’s mouth. Older somehow, more mature. And shouldn’t there have been a stutter on that last word?

  I frowned and cocked my head. “What was that?”

  “Can you feel it, Chris?”

  “Feel what?”

  Joey stared a moment longer before shaking his head. “Never mind,” he muttered, and headed outside.

  I stood then by myself in the Beckett House, and for an instant I did feel something, a kind of chill race through my body. Was that what he’d meant? After a few seconds I decided it didn’t matter and started to leave, before glancing down at the wood and stone floor, before noticing the few scratch marks there. It hadn’t been part of John’s story, but I immediately saw a child there on the ground, trying to crawl away, screaming and crying and scratching at the floor. I saw its fingernails cracking and bleeding and tearing apart before that child was pulled back into darkness.

  Chapter 8

  By four o’clock that Sunday afternoon I’d arrived at the conclusion that coming to Bridgton was a mistake. If my parents’ killer did somehow find out where I’d gone, and he came up here planning to finish whatever job he started, he wouldn’t have any trouble at all. Steve had said coming here was the best route right now, that my deputy uncle could keep a constant eye on me, but so far I’d only seen him once, and that was at Luanne’s. I felt like a stranger up there on The Hill, knew that the rest of the old folks were probably whispering to each other, asking who I was, wondering why Lily Myers had never mentioned anything about a grandson before. I just need
ed to get away for a little, I needed something to pass the time, so I headed to Half Creek Road, paused, then made a right and started walking.

  Ten minutes later, after walking past Bridgton Calvary Church and four rundown houses, one with a series of wind chimes running the length of the porch, another with a tree stump in its front yard, a weatherworn ceramic gnome standing atop keeping a constant vigil, I came around a slight bend and spotted Shepherd’s Books. The small parking lot beside it was empty, the wooden CLOSED sign rocking slightly back and forth in the breeze.

  An old man sat in the shade of the house’s porch. He stared out at the road, smoking a cigar, his feet up on the paint-flaked railing.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “What are your hours?”

  He glanced at me, puffed smoke, and with only the corner of his mouth muttered, “My what?”

  “Your hours. When do you open?”

  “Open?” He coughed a raspy chuckle. “Kid, you ain’t from around here, are you.”

  I shook my head.

  “Well then, I’ll let you in on a little secret.” He took his muddy boots off the railing and dropped them on the porch. Leaned forward and said, “I ain’t ever open.”

  “Okay. And why’s that?”

  “To keep punks like you off my property.” He puffed more smoke and then squinted at me, his eyebrows white and bushy. “Where’d you come from anyway?”

  I said, “My mother’s vagina,” and started to turn away to head back up Half Creek Road.

  The old man sputtered after me, saying, “You little smart ass. You better hurry up and get off my property or else I’ll call the Sheriff and have you arrested for trespassing.”