1 The Bank of the River

by Michael Richan

  Roy continued to wheeze and grunt while Steven approached. His arms were outstretched to the sides, within inches of the hallway’s walls, his fingers hanging. His head was thrown back, and Steven could see his Adam’s apple rise and fall as the sounds emerged from his throat. He looked down, checking his father’s body. To his horror he found the chair missing. His father was suspended, floating in the hallway.

  Still, he did not say anything or attempt to touch him, to awaken him. Maybe it was the kid in him, but he felt he’d be in more trouble for violating his father’s instructions than for letting this scene play out.

  Looking up from the space below his father, he noticed something on the front of Roy’s shirt. It was dark, and looked as though it had been dripped upon him. Roy slowly raised his head back into a normal position and Steven could see dark stains behind the blindfold, where his eyes would be. It was too dark to identify as blood for sure, but Steven didn’t need the confirmation. He’d had enough. He was going to find out what had happened to his father, regardless of the trance. He moved his arm to reach for the blindfold, but found it to be moving at the glacial pace of his legs.

  As his fingers reached it and began to pull it down from his father’s forehead, he called out to him, but nothing came out. He felt his lips move, but no sound emerged. He felt the cold, dense air move into his mouth and lungs, blocking him. As the blindfold began to fall he could see his father’s eyes – they had been gouged out, and were bleeding down his face and onto his shirt.

  All at once, Steven felt the force of the air he had just inhaled move him. It rapidly pushed him, standing, back down the hallway he had just traversed. Steven flailed his arms to the side, trying to grab onto something to stop the movement, but couldn’t reach anything, and he suspected that even if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself – the force pushing him back was far too powerful. He felt his back hit the doorframe to his bedroom and he felt himself being forced back into his bed, face up. He had never felt anything like this before. It felt as though he was being assaulted, forced against his will, and he strained to raise his head or arms from the bed but could not. Something incredibly heavy was pressing down on him, on all parts of him, keeping him from moving. He had never felt stopped before. He felt violated and humiliated. In frustration he felt a tear escape his right eye and drip down his face to his ear and the pillow below. God knows what was happening to his father out in the hallway, but if it was anything like this, he was doomed.

  The air darkened around him and he could no longer make out anything in his room. He felt consciousness leave him, and his last thoughts were: breathe. Breathe.

  -

  Knock. Steven’s eyes flew open he tried to turn his head toward the nightstand. It moved easily and he saw that it was 3 a.m. Another knock, the normal pattern. The horror of being unable to move in his own bed washed over him, and for a moment he was afraid he might not be able to sit up. But his brain gave the commands to his muscles and he found himself able to sit easily.

  Another knock. Dad!

  He raced into the hallway. It was empty. Grief and guilt hit him like a tidal wave. He was supposed to have kept an eye on him, to have protected him. But he had fallen asleep, or been forced asleep — he wasn’t sure which — and now his father was missing. He called out for him, and began frantically searching the house. The final knock sounded. Steven raced from room to room, calling for Roy, checking corners, closets. Nothing upstairs. He went downstairs, continuing the search.

  He found him in the bathroom downstairs. Roy was curled up in the bathtub, sleeping. Steven inspected him – no blood.

  “Dad! Dad!” he shouted, attempting to wake him. “Please wake up, dad! You’ve got to wake up!”

  He felt his father’s body come to life and saw his eyes open to look at him. They were perfectly fine. Steven let out a sigh of relief, and sat back on the bathroom floor as his father awoke and gathered his wits.

  “What time is it?” Roy asked.

  “I have no idea,” Steven replied, “but I’m so glad you’re OK. Do you know what happened? Do you know how you got down here?”

  Roy grabbed Steven’s arm, pulled him. “Steven, I know exactly what happened. Take me home.”

  “What happened? Tell me,” Steven implored.

  “Not while we’re still in the house. Take me to the car, drive me home.”

  They walked together, Steven offering to help Roy, but Roy insisting he didn’t need help. Steven left Roy at the basement door while he went upstairs to get the car keys. When he returned they went to the car together. The chair that Roy had been sitting on in the hallway was on top of the hood.

  “What the fuck?” Steven exclaimed.

  “It’s a message,” Roy said. “Take it off and get in the car. We need to leave.”

  Chapter Seven

  Back at Roy’s house it was still dark, but Steven and Roy had turned on all the lights. Coffee was brewing in the kitchen, and Steven was trying to understand what had happened to Roy during the trance.

  “So you know about the blood?” Steven asked. “Your eyes were gouged out.”

  “I saw it all. And more. Before you woke up in the hallway and tried to save me, I saw plenty. The faces you described in your bedroom, the disembodied head, all of it.”

  “They all appeared to you in the hallway?” Steven asked.

  “No, not in the hallway. In the trance. It’s a different place altogether. It felt like other trances I’ve been in, years ago. Something yearning, trying to communicate, and doing a damn poor job of it. But then, something else entirely different. Something else I’ve never felt before. Completely overwhelmed the trance, I lost all control of it. Then I felt my eyes being torn out. From then on, the whole thing felt like an assault.”

  Steven didn’t know if he should share with his dad that he had had the same feeling during the incident. The feeling of being violated, assaulted. Having something overwhelm, control, and take something from you.

  Roy paused, reflecting. “The only word for the latter part of the trance was evil. I know you don’t think much of that, and to be honest with you that’s not how I view things either. But this was dark, unusually dark. So opposite of anything I consider good and decent, the best word to describe it is evil.”

  Steven thought it best to let his father’s assessment stand, but he didn’t want to acknowledge that he’d had the same opinion. “Are you all right? Physically? It was horrifying to see you with your eyes torn out.”

  “I’m fine. Exhausted though. Feel like I need a week’s sleep. I’ll sleep today, and we’ll try again tonight.”

  “What?”

  “We’ll do it again tonight,” Roy said. “I need to go deeper.”

  “Like hell! You just said this – whatever it is – is evil. If that’s true, shouldn’t we steer clear?”

  “Evil is only powerful if you don’t stand up to it,” Roy said.

  “I felt that last night,” Steven said. “It was powerful. It could just have easily killed me as held me down. Seems to me we’re flirting with disaster here.”

  “It’s not going to kill either of us,” Roy replied.

  “How do you know that?”

  “It needs us alive. There’s something it wants. Killing us doesn’t achieve its goals. Listen, I’m a little more skilled in this than you’re giving me credit for.”

  “Isn’t some caution in order? I don’t like the idea of you walking in there and just opening yourself up to it. It scares the hell out of me.”

  “Listen,” Roy said. “What we need right now are answers. We’ve got a dozen pieces of a five hundred piece jigsaw puzzle, and the only way to get more is to dive in and get them. Besides, it’ll drive me crazy not knowing. There’s a few things I can do for precaution’s sake. But we need answers Stevie, or you’ll never have a night’s sleep in that house again.”

  Steven felt his father winning the argument, but he still needed to take some action on
his own. If more answers were needed, he knew where to get them. And this time he’d watch his rudeness to make sure the answers flowed.

  Chapter Eight

  Steven parked the Accord at trailer number 48 and waited for the truck at number 56 to pull away. It was 6:50, and if he had calculated correctly, John would leave for work in a few minutes. Then he’d walk over to Debra’s trailer and start again. This time he’d make sure she knew he respected her beliefs.

  He thought over the events of the last couple of days since he’d visited her last. The knockings that had, back then, terrorized him enough to seek her out now seemed like child’s play, almost cute in comparison to the encounters he and his father had endured. While he was still a long way from being able to profess a belief in anything like religion or god, his experiences of the last 48 hours made it much easier to not crack a patronizing smile when someone said “evil.”

  Steven saw the truck back out of their driveway and head the other direction. There must be a closer exit that way, Steven thought, noting to try it himself when he left.

  He waited a few minutes, not really sure why. If John was going to return home, it could happen any time he was there, not just in the first few minutes. But he waited nonetheless, thinking it might lower the chances.

  When he felt it was safe he walked up to the trailer and knocked on the door. After a moment it opened.

  “Oh. It’s you,” Debra said, surprised.

  “Yeah, it’s me. I was wondering if we could try again. With me keeping my mouth shut this time,” he smiled.

  She smiled back, thought about it. “Sure. John just left. But I suppose you knew that. Come on in.”

  Steven stepped up into the trailer and resumed his seat on the cluttered couch. Not much had changed since he left two days ago, including the cat piss. He resigned to not let it show on his face.

  Debra sat down across from him. “I gotta tell you, you look awful. I don’t mean it personal, but obviously things aren’t getting better.”

  “You’re right,” Steven answered. “They’re not. I had a few more experiences in the house and decided to get my dad involved. He’s had some experience with events like these.”

  “Oh, has he?” Debra asked. “Did he see something in the house?”

  “Yes, he did.” Steven was unsure how far he should go, but he did want Debra to feel comfortable with him, enough to speak to him about her father-in-law’s experience. “He went into a sort of trance, and we both saw a figure, kind of a shadow, that had — ”

  Debra raised a hand, cutting him off. “Don’t, don’t tell me,” she shuddered. “It’ll just give me nightmares. I try to keep my mind clear of those kind of things. Just the times I felt it when I visited Ben were enough for me. Sounds like you got a good dose of it yourself.”

  “That’s a good way to put it,” Steven said. “Listen,” he continued, “the last time I was here, I really don’t think I was ready to hear what you had to say. My apologies. After what I’ve seen and been through since then, trust me, I’m ready. It’s just that, my father and I, we’re struggling for answers. I can’t afford to just move and abandon the place. He’s dead set on continuing his trances in the house, to try and figure it out. I’m not sure there’s anything to figure out, it might just be unsolvable and I’ll be forced to live with it or take a financial loss. But I did think, after remembering our conversation from Monday, that I had stupidly cut you off before you could tell me something important. Something about your father-in-law. I might be grasping at straws here, but I’m hoping you can share some more with me, something that might help us figure things out.”

  Debra lit a cigarette, took a long drag on it.

  “Anything,” Steven continued, “anything that might help, even if it seems irrelevant.”

  “The only thing we didn’t talk about when you were here before,” Debra said, “was Ben’s decline. The problems at that house developed over time, they weren’t the way they are now, when Ben first moved there. Things all went downhill for him after Little Tony disappeared. Little Tony was Ben’s youngest son. They called him Little Tony because Ben had a brother named Anthony that Little Tony was named after. Anyway, he was six years old when he went missing. Ben always let him play in the yard with neighbor kids, and always he’d come in for dinner, just like the neighbor kids. This one day, he didn’t come in.”

  Steven leaned back in the couch, afraid of knocking something over, but needing to adjust. “He disappeared?” he asked.

  “Literally without a trace,” she replied. “Of course Ben talked to every single neighbor, and all the kids, asking them if they’d seen Little Tony that day. No one had, or if they had, they didn’t say anything. Ben put up posters all over the neighborhood. Cops were involved, but after a while, with no leads, and after deciding that Ben wasn’t the cause, the cops just dropped it. Another missing child case. Apparently it happens a lot.”

  Steven listened intently. The information was like manna to him, giving him new options he desperately needed.

  “Ben spent all of his time searching,” Debra continued. “He was constantly in his car, for weeks, driving up and down streets. He bought maps of the city and was methodically searching through parks and fields. Sometimes people would help him, we did many times, but most of the time he did it himself. Then one day he stopped. We thought he’d given up, exhausted from all the hunting. But instead of looking, he became paranoid. He’d invent all kinds of crazy theories about what had happened to Little Tony and he’d try to convince me and John of them. We weren’t having it, but we weren’t going to tell Ben he was crazy, either. I think John half believed some of his ideas ‘cause John was a wreck too. There was a big age difference between John and Little Tony, but they loved each other and John spent a lot of time with him. John was just as devastated as Ben. I figured the best thing was to let them both work through it in their own way. John eventually came out of it, but things never improved for Ben. He seemed to become more and more obsessed with theories.”

  Debra pulled out another cigarette, chain-lighting it from the first. “At one point we thought he had made a turn, that maybe he was recovering from the grief and starting to return to some kind of normal life, because he seemed better, not always talking about Little Tony and the theories. He actually seemed at peace. I remember John and I talking about how maybe things would get back to some kind of normal routine, as normal as they can get when you’ve had such a major loss. But it didn’t last long. Something hit him physically. I think it was all the stress that had built up during the whole thing, just took its toll on his body. He went from being perfectly fine and able to get around, to being unable to get out of bed, in a matter of weeks. That’s when we would visit him, try to keep him company, keep his spirits up. We went over many times. But it got so I couldn’t set foot in that damned house – it was just so oppressive. Towards the end I couldn’t stand to breathe the air, I didn’t want it in me. I know how strange that must sound.”

  “I’ve had the same feeling,” Steven assured her. “I know what you mean.”

  “So I don’t know if that helps. That’s what happened to Ben. He developed those crazy ideas, but in my heart I know he wasn’t crazy, just grief stricken. People do strange things when they’re in that much despair. But that wasn’t what killed him. Something else killed him. That house.”

  “Killed him?” Steven asked.

  “That’s right. Killed him. There was something there he just couldn’t see anymore, couldn’t stand to look at. That’s why he cut out his eyes. He wasn’t crazy. He was driven to that. I got a taste of it whenever I was there. You know what I’m talking about.”

  “Yes, I think I do,” Steven replied.

  Chapter Nine

  Steven arrived back late at his father’s house, thinking they would pack up and head back over to his house for the second trance. But upon arriving at Roy’s house, Steven could tell it wasn’t going to happen.

  “I’m e
xhausted, there’s no way,” Roy said. “I think I just need to get a good night’s sleep and we’ll tackle it tomorrow night. But I insist that you sleep here tonight, Stevie. You shouldn’t go back into that house. At least not alone. Here you’ll be safe, and we’ll both be able to recharge our batteries. Tomorrow we can come back at it, stronger.”

  This made sense to Steven and he agreed. He was concerned about his father’s health already, and felt going back to the house tonight for another dose of what happened the night before was pushing it. If the ghosts had been there for fifteen years they would last for another night.

  Steven found himself in the room he grew up in, a room his mother had turned into a guest room years ago. But Steven still remembered the bunk bed he shared with Bernie, the walls that held posters, and the closet that had given them both nightmares. Funny how the things that scare us are so universal, he thought.

  The last time Steven had stayed in the guest room had been the days between his mother’s passing and the funeral. Those had been strange days. In some ways, Claire’s passing had been a relief, but viewing it as such immediately brought guilt. Both his and Bernie’s relationship with their mother had been strained at best. She was always the disciplinarian; Roy never got the chance to fill that role. When both Steven and Bernie left for college and stopped attending church, she was like a harpy, forever trying to get them to repent and go. They tried to handle her gently, hoping she’d eventually accept the fact that neither of them had any interest in religion or following her advice in that regard. When she didn’t get the message, it became easier to just distance themselves from her. Bernie used geography and Steven used work: Bernie moved to San Antonio, and Steven was too busy to be around, no time for the Jesus lectures. They rarely visited.