Waiting for Autumn

by Scott Blum

  The closer I got to Yreka, the more I began to get used to my deadened sensory state. And other than one last scare when I headed straight for the guardrail on the steep mountain pass, I was much more coherent during the remaining trip.

  When I arrived in Yreka, I was surprised by how empty it seemed. It had always been a small town, but now it appeared nearly deserted. There were no cars on the streets, no birds in the sky, and no pedestrians on the sidewalks. Perhaps my dulled senses were playing tricks on me, but it felt like even the breeze had decided to abandon the old mining town and leave the stillness of the air to imprison all that remained.

  After parking in a mini-mart lot, I retraced my path back to the cement island that had greeted me immediately after I exited the freeway. I thought that I recognized some people I knew out of the corner of my eye when I drove past the bronze sculpture of a miner and mule underneath the blue and white tiled YREKA sign. I knew that it was impossible, since I was sure that everyone from my past had left the area many years before, yet I permitted a twinge of excitement to lead me back to the sculpture to find out if what I’d seen had been real or imagined.

  As I neared the backside of the sculpture, I was both excited and a bit nervous to discover that the people I’d seen were still there. Standing next to the miner was a young brown-haired boy with a shaggy bowl haircut and his balding father, who had a bushy sandy-blond beard. The closer I got, the more I could hear their conversation, and it chilled me when I recognized their voices.

  “Many people came to Siskiyou County during the gold rush to claim their fortunes,” the father explained. “But few succeeded, and most left penniless.”

  “Dad, are we going to find gold here?”

  “Probably not. But if we work hard enough, we can be the ones to fix the miners’ equipment when it breaks.”

  I remembered the conversation word for word when my family first arrived in Yreka after moving there from Southern California. Yreka was about twenty miles from the town of Greenview, where we eventually settled, but it was that bronze sculpture that had represented the optimism we’d all felt when we first arrived. The possibilities had seemed limitless, and we were all excited to have enough land where we could raise animals and grow our own food. My well-intentioned father had grown up in the heartland of Iowa, and although my mother was a Southern California girl through and through, he convinced her that the country was a much better place to raise children; and at the beginning, I too bought into this idea.

  When I circled to the front of the sculpture, the man and child were no longer there, and I immediately fell to my knees and began to weep. I had fallen out of touch with my family, and although we maintained contact through occasional phone calls on birthdays and holidays, my tears finally seemed to express the lack of connection I felt. The bronze statue was exactly the same, but I was no longer the wide-eyed little boy excited about a new adventure, and my father was no longer the idealistic mechanic eager to fix mining equipment. The years had eroded our optimism to reveal pessimism—his financially and mine socially. When we finally felt defeated by Siskiyou County, we both retreated to our respective birthplaces: my father took my mother and sister to Iowa to be near his family, and I left Cheryl’s grave on my way to Southern California, where I thought I’d be able to invent a new family that would be more like me.

  After about ten minutes at the foot of the bronze sculpture, I wiped the tears from my eyes, dusted myself off, and began to walk toward Miner Street. I’d come to Yreka to visit the park, but I wasn’t sure I was ready quite yet. I was feeling both fragile and nostalgic and decided to reminisce by visiting a few shops in the town center before going to the park.

  On Miner Street, the buildings still had the same old-fashioned façades from the late 1800s; however, years of neglect made it seem more like a decaying ghost town than a vibrant celebration of happier times. A few of the same shops still existed, and an old memory popped into my consciousness with nearly every step. The memories were flooding in when I found myself at the door of the sporting-goods store at the top of the street.

  Looking up, I recognized the carved wooden sign in the shape of a green fish hanging above the entrance. I carefully opened the glass door and recognized all the sights and smells from my youth and was instantly transported to my thirteenth birthday. My father had brought me to this very shop on that day, and I remembered the distinct smell of gunpowder mixed with the stench of rotting cheese and salmon eggs. The shelves were still packed with guns, fishing poles, ammunition, and all the paraphernalia needed to quickly and violently destroy any of our fellow nature friends.

  As the door shut behind me, I could see three generations of old-timers sitting on green vinylcovered bar stools and sipping steaming black coffee while talking to the store owner. They were all wearing matching pearl-buttoned cowboy shirts and grease-stained baseball caps with tractor company logos stitched on the fronts. Their dust-worn, gravelly voices intertwined with the uncomfortable memory of my thirteenth birthday.

  “I’m going to get my grandson this ought-six for Christmas.”

  “Today I’m going to show you the gun that will be yours if you keep your grades up.”

  “That’s quite a gun for a thirteen-year-old. It’ll knock him on his keister.”

  The store filled with laughter that nearly masked a coughing fit from the eldest.

  “This is the same gun my father gave me when I was your age, and if you weren’t so far behind in school, it would already be yours. A gun like this will make you a man.”

  “Yeah, but he’s a darn-near sharpshooter with his .22. Can shoot beer cans from 300 yards without a scope.”

  “I wish I had his peepers. I would’ve got that six-pointer a couple years back.”

  “You and that six-pointer. I don’t think I believe you even saw it anymore.”

  The other two roared with laughter, and this time the coughing fit went on for a solid thirty seconds.

  “It would be a shame if your lackadaisical attitude in school prevented you from becoming a man. Do you hear me?”

  I’m not sure where my father got the idea that I bought into his theory that you needed to kill innocent animals to become a man, but I had always been secretly proud that I helped save wildlife by letting my grades slip. To be honest, I’d been bored by the curriculum in the new school, which was almost two years behind what I had been learning before I moved. And by the time my new school had caught up, I felt I was so superior to everyone there, including most of the teachers, that I never bothered to do any homework—until I finally dropped out three years later.

  Mounted high on the wall of the shop were two deer heads frozen in time while locking their blood-covered horns. Both their long tongues were hanging out, and all four eyes had rolled to the backs of their heads in agony, as they clearly hadn’t passed on peaceful terms. The sight of the deer heads instantly transported me to the first time my father and I had gone hunting, a few months after my thirteenth birthday. Since my report card hadn’t arrived yet, he’d lent me one of his guns, which was way too big for me.

  “We’ll tell your mother you got this one yourself. I’m proud of you, son.”

  In truth I had nicked the deer’s back right leg with my shaky aim, and my father had finished it off with the second fatal shot before it had a chance to limp off into the wild. I was speechless as I stood over the deer and wondered how I could have been involved in taking such a beautiful life away from its family.

  My father thrust a large hunting knife into my small hands; and with his hand squeezing tightly around my fingers, he steadied the blade at the base of the deer’s long, smooth neck.

  “Come on, son, you have to move quickly. If you don’t bleed him in the first couple minutes, you’ll ruin the meat.”

  I tried to pull the knife away from the deer with all my strength, but my father squeezed my fingers until it felt like he was going to crush them. He then pushed the knife deliberately into the innocent
’s flesh, and bright red liquid began to foam and gush. . . .

  My stomach immediately grew queasy, and I almost passed out in the sporting-goods store. I was instantly light-headed and could feel my face turn pale. I stumbled to the door and pushed it open while gasping for air.

  “I believe he just saw Bambi and his little brother.” I heard the shopkeeper laugh as the door shut behind me with a muted thump.

  Once outside, I tripped on the curb and scraped my right knee through my faded blue jeans. I decided to stay seated on the curb until I could catch my breath. Returning to Yreka was bringing up some deep-seated memories I hadn’t even known I still had, and I was getting nervous about returning to the park because I wasn’t sure if I could handle what was next. I considered getting in the car and driving back to Ashland without even going near it, but I knew that if I didn’t go then, I never would. And if there was something to my feeling that the portal was only accessible on that day, I would forever regret not finding out what it was for.

  After about ten minutes—when I had recovered from my experience at the sporting-goods store enough to continue on—I picked myself up and started toward the park at the top of the hill. I was only a couple of blocks away, and my stomach fluttered when I saw the blackened granite archway that marked the entrance. I had spent many hours in this park with Cheryl, but even during all those years I had never really looked at the hand-carved lettering that adorned the imposing archway. Beneath the name of the park was the word SISKIYOU inscribed in large, ghostlike letters that seemed to dance in place. The name of the county where Yreka resided seemed an odd choice for prominent billing, but most eerie were the letters themselves, which appeared to mirror my every gesture.

  The park itself was divided in three sections. The one closest to the archway was a walking area where several large, stately trees had been planted amid occasional benches so visitors could lounge under the ample shade. On the opposite end was a baseball diamond that was the perfect size for Little League games, and to the left was the playground that contained the swing set I’d seen in my dreams.

  I was pulled toward the swings with a gravity I couldn’t control, and within seconds I was standing near the one that had been adjacent to the portal from my dream. However, the swing set was already occupied by two young redheaded girls being pushed by a middle-aged man with short red hair and a green and purple pin-striped buttoned shirt. The girls were both wearing yellow flowered sundresses, and the youngest had two matching flesh-colored bandages on her knees.

  I could tell that I made the father nervous, and assumed that not many grown men hung around swing sets in Yreka by themselves. I tried sitting in the swing next to where the girls were playing and discovered that it was clearly designed for children less than half my size. I barely fit into the small seat, and my knees nearly scraped the sand as the chains loudly squeaked under the stress of my weight. And as soon as I started swinging, the father began to whisper to his children about leaving, while he squinted his green eyes at me with apparent disapproval. I hadn’t intended to make anyone uncomfortable, so I exited the child swing and tried to casually browse the park-bench dedications while waiting for the family to finish.

  In my boredom I approached them again and attempted to put them at ease. “Beautiful day,” I said to the father.

  “Uh-huh.” His incredulity was intense.

  “I’m waiting for my niece,” I said, hoping my white lie would help. “She loves that swing.”

  “Oh, I see.” The man smiled, and I could tell that he was much more relaxed than he had been since I’d arrived. “We’re almost done. It’s the best swing in the park, so I can see why you’re waiting for it.”

  “Yeah, it’s the only one she likes. She made me come down here and get dibs on it.” I laughed as my white lie became more intricate with every syllable.

  “We should probably get going. Come on, girls, we really have to go now.” The three of them waved goodbye as they left the park and walked up Miner Street toward the houses in the hills.

  As soon as the family left, I immediately went to the swing from my dream. It felt a lot like the first one—very short and squeaky, and not very satisfying for someone of my size. But more significant, there was definitely not a portal, and like the rest of Yreka, the park seemed completely devoid of any spiritual energy.

  Confused and frustrated, I began to walk around the perimeter of the park to see if I could find the portal I had dreamed about. I kept retracing my steps, and I put the palms of my hands on every tree near the swing set to see if I could feel anything. There was a second swing set perpendicular to the one I’d seen in my dreams, and in my desperation, I went over to it and started swinging. These were “big person” swings with large rubber rectangles for seats and stainless-steel chains that were attached nearly twenty feet above the ground.

  The bigger swings were much more suited to my size, and although I didn’t feel anything supernatural, I did enjoy swinging on them for a few minutes. I even considered being brave enough to jump off when the swing was at its highest point in order to see how far I could fly before hitting the ground, but I wisely decided to wait until it had settled before getting off.

  Discouraged, I sat on the grass and stared at the swings, wondering if I had misinterpreted my dream. Perhaps my vision quest was already over and had simply been about coming to terms with my childhood. Or maybe it was supposed to be on a different day, and either I was too early or my opportunity had passed.

  Just as I was about to give up, I noticed a swing that was wrapped around a post, tied up and out of commission. I carefully unwound it from the post, and it fell into place. As it settled, I was perplexed to notice that it didn’t seem to have a shadow. I looked at the other swings and they all did, but the one in front of me didn’t appear to. I knew that it was physically impossible for one swing not to cast a shadow, so I convinced myself that it was an optical illusion of some sort and tried my best to ignore it.

  I cautiously lowered myself into the swing and pushed off with my legs. I almost immediately felt a sharp stabbing pain in my abdomen. I swung my legs back and forth, and with every swing, the pain in my stomach became more and more intense. I began to sweat profusely, and within seconds I shot out of the swing and hit the sand hard. The impact knocked the breath out of my lungs, and when I looked back toward the swing, I was shocked to see that it was already motionless, as if I’d never been on it.

  Terrified, I stood up and tried to run to the opposite end of the park, but my legs wouldn’t move. The more I tried, the more my muscles froze, and I found myself falling backward in slow motion until the ground slapped my back with a force that ensured my breath wouldn’t soon return.

  Staring up at the sky, I could see the clouds turning from an innocuous white to a menacing dark gray as they began to swirl above the park. The clouds circled slowly at first, then quickly picked up momentum until there was a visible funnel coming toward the park. I still couldn’t breathe or move my body, and my fear was replaced with genuine panic as the twister’s funnel descended. Within seconds the entire sky darkened, and I could feel the twister connect with my abdomen.

  The pain was excruciating—it felt like the funnel was sucking my organs out of my body and flinging them into the sky above. I tried to scream with all of my might, but only silence came out of my mouth while I gasped for air with a violently painful dry heave. And at that very moment, the park filled with the most petrifying sound I’d ever heard. It was the noise of all the anger that fueled every roar that had ever existed, the sound of the fear that powered every scream since the beginning of time, and the wailing of every baby that had ever been born. The piercing sound was absolutely deafening, and as the light dimmed to near black, I felt as if I’d begun to float above the ground.

  Through the darkness I could barely make out the grotesque mouths that were responsible for all the screams I was hearing. Their twisted faces swirled within the cyclone and began to impa
le me, one after another, plunging deep inside my abdomen. With every soul that entered me, the pain became more and more intolerable, until I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth as tightly as I could.

  Within seconds the roar was replaced by the sound of a single screaming baby, and when I opened my eyes, I could see that I was floating facedown above a crib, and the baby was screaming at me. The veins in its temples were nearly popping out of its head, and I could tell that I was terrifying the infant with my very presence. To the right of the crib I saw a television set that was showing black-and-white static, and I immediately recognized that the child was me as an infant.

  When I was just a few months old, my parents would leave the television on in my room, and the screen would turn to static after the stations went off the air. Once this happened, nearly every night a large dark figure would hover above my crib and gesture for me to join it. Instinctively I knew that whatever it was didn’t have the purest of intentions; and I would close my eyes and let out a long, silent scream until it left. I’d always wished that someone could hear my cries for help, but whenever the entity appeared, my vocal cords became paralyzed, and I would be forced to face it alone. In retrospect I’m convinced that it was coming for my young soul. I don’t know how I protected myself at such an early age, but thankfully it quit appearing by the time I could speak.

  But now it was back, and it was once again coming for me, this time with much less restraint than it had before.

  By then my abdomen was filled with literally hundreds of souls, all connecting me to the same dark entity I had feared as an infant, and they attached me strand by strand to a grotesquely writhing braided cord that disappeared far into the darkness.

  I struggled to regain my strength, and when I had nearly resigned myself to defeat, a familiar scene revealed itself. I was once again back at Cheryl’s accident, but this time the drunk driver got out of the car and started to approach me, laughing. He continued his chilling cackle as he walked past Cheryl, past my mother, past the police officer, and headed directly toward me. In the hundreds of times I’d experienced the dream before, I had only been an observer. But this was no dream, and the drunk driver definitely saw me there. I had never seen his face before, but as he came closer, I recognized him—and my blood ran cold. I completely lost all consciousness when I saw his face.