Rememberers

by C. Edward Baldwin

Sharpening mind or not, this made no sense. Sampson, a professor of history, was very familiar with the Indian Goddess, Kali. She was a mortal enemy of demons.

  Reading the confusion plastered across the professor's face, Swag said, “I'm sure you've heard the expression, ‘if you can't beat them, you join them.’”

  Sampson nodded his head hesitantly.

  “Well,” Swag said, with an air of arrogance that curled Sampson's blood. “It's not written in stone that you must join them. They can, after all, join you.”

  They were the last words Sampson would hear in this lifetime. Swag deftly removed the pillow from beneath the professor's head and calmly placed it over his face before firmly applying pressure.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  She slept for three solid days. At some point she vaguely recalled Maggie opening her door, checking in on her, even bringing in a sandwich one time. But Kallie hadn't been hungry. She'd been tired. Dead tired.

  Despite the gruesomeness of the events of Friday night and the wee hours of Saturday morning, her sleep was peaceful, and just, and filled with colorful and vivid dreams, most of which featured her mother. And in the odd way of dreams, some of them were remakes or variations of things she'd actually done with her mother, while others sprang from some region of her unconsciousness of their own volition, newly scripted and motivated to existence by only God knows what. But she welcomed them all just the same because it meant that for a little while at least, even if only in the realm of unconsciousness, her mother was with her again.

  “You kissed him?” her mother asked. A bright sun's rays slipped through the cracks of the tree branches lording over the bike trail. The two of them were rollerblading down the trail. It was something she'd never had the chance to do with her mother when she was alive.

  “Actually, he kissed me,” Kallie corrected.

  “But you kissed him back.”

  It was true. She'd kissed him back. She couldn't deny it. Even in a dream-induced conversation with her dead mother, she couldn't deny it. She'd kissed Reverend Johnny Swag. And most troubling of all, she'd liked it.

  “What does it mean?” her mother asked her.

  “I don't know.”

  Her mother skated a few feet ahead and then stopped, turning around to face her. Kallie skated up to her, stopping at arm's length. “I'll tell you what it means,” her mother said. “It means you're young. It means you can kiss whoever you want.”

  “But why him?” Kallie asked.

  “Why not him? Look, I'm not saying you should kiss every boy you see or that there won't come a time when you'll want to save all your kisses for one boy. What I'm saying is that it's no crime to kiss another boy. And you'll know when you're with the right one.”

  “Should I tell Seth?”

  “Sorry, Kiddo. You're going to have to decide that one for yourself.”

  “But Mom!” Kallie exclaimed.

  “Don't but me no buts, missy,” her mother said. And suddenly, in the way of dreams, they were no longer skating on a bike trail. Now they were in a Five & Dime store and Kallie was now five years old, standing beside her mother and looking expectedly at a little doll. “You'll wait until your birthday.”

  “But mom,” Kallie screamed again.

  “If you keep that up, not even then,” her mother said with a finality that shut little Kallie up in dreamland and brought big Kallie to the edge of wakefulness.

  “But, but,” Kallie mumbled as her eyes blinked open and she realized that she wasn't five years old. She sat up in her bed and slowly looked around her room, reorienting herself to the here and now.

  There was a light tap at her bedroom door. She turned to it. It pushed open slightly and Maggie stuck her head into the room. “You awake yet?”

  Kallie stretched and yawned. “Yeah, come on in.”

  Maggie came into the room, plopping down on the bed beside Kallie. “Man that must've been some party.”

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “You've been out three days.”

  “What?” Kallie said. “What day is it?”

  “Tuesday,” Maggie said gleefully, obviously pleased to be the first to welcome her friend back to the land of the living. “I came in here a couple of times and stuck my finger under your nose to make sure you were still breathing. I even checked your temperature.”

  Kallie shifted uncomfortably.

  “I put it in your mouth, silly. It was 98.6, perfectly normal. Other than the fact that you were sleeping like Rip Van Wrinkle, you were fine. So, I figured you must've been drinking like a fish and got yourself plastered. Either that or someone slipped you something. Still, if you hadn't awakened today, I was going to call a doctor or somebody.”

  “Thanks for caring, Maggie,” Kallie said.

  “No worries,” Maggie said. “Now tell me about this party.”

  “Sorry to have to disappoint you. But I don't remember anything about it.”

  “It figures,” Maggie said. “Well at least tell me who brought you home.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I didn't hear you come home Friday night and Saturday morning, here you were in bed; but your car wasn't here.”

  Kallie looked down at her clothes. She was wearing her light blue nightgown.

  “I changed you into your nightgown on Saturday night when it became obvious that you weren't waking up anytime soon.”

  Kallie smiled weakly. “Thanks again.”

  Maggie nodded. “So, who brought you home?”

  “I honestly don't remember,” Kallie said.

  “Well then, where's your car?”

  Kallie looked off to the side, remembering. “I believe I left it parked at the church.”

  Maggie's jaw dropped. “The church! What, you got bunkered off communion wine?”

  Kallie just looked at her.

  “I know. I know,” Maggie said. “You don't remember.”

  Kallie shook her head. “Sorry.”

  “It's okay as long as you're all right.”

  “I'm fine, really. Anyway, tell me what's happening with you and what's-his-face?”

  “If you mean Cedric, we're doing just fine.”

  Kallie smiled. “We're?”

  “Yes, we're,” Maggie blushed. “Methinks he could be the one,” she added in a Shakespearean accent.

  Kallie playfully tapped her friend on the knee. “Well, whaddaya know. I'm so happy for you.”

  “I should thank you for introducing us.”

  “Although he wasn't the one I'd picked out for you.”

  “It doesn't really matter, does it?”

  “No, I guess not, as long as you're happy.”

  “And I am,” Maggie confirmed. They were silent for a moment. Then she asked, “Tell me what's going on with you and Seth? He came by here three times over the weekend. He said he tried calling you, but your phone goes straight to voicemail.”

  Kallie glanced over at the nightstand where her cell phone lay. “It probably does. I haven't charged it. The battery's likely dead.”

  “I know,” Maggie said. “I told him that. But he didn't seem to believe me. I think he believes you're avoiding him for some reason. Is something wrong between the two of you?”

  “No,” Kallie said, “It's just that lately I've been extremely busy.”

  “Have you told him that?”

  “No,” Kallie said. “I'd have to see him to tell him.” And she knew that there were a few other things she needed to tell him as well. It would be a difficult conversation. But one that needed to happen. She didn't know if it would include the part about her kissing Swag. That one might be too painful for the both of them. But he needed to know about this goddess/demon-killing business. They both needed to know where he stood with it. The easiest thing would be for her to keep everything to herself and just walk away. But Seth meant something to her and she was certain that she meant something to him. If their relationship was to end, then it should end with all their cards placed face
-up on the table.

  “Well, you're going to get your chance to tell him now,” Maggie said. She'd gone over and looked out of the window after they'd both heard a car park alongside the curb out front. “It's he.”

  She kept him waiting nearly twenty minutes. But she'd been asleep for three days following an all-night demonic slugfest and probably looked like whodunit and why. It was a small price to pay. As she'd washed up, she worked out in her mind what she would say to him. She'd decided that it was best to just get it out there in one quick motion like ripping off the Band-Aid of a partially healed scab. If you ripped it off quick enough, the resulting pain would be lessened or nonexistent. But when she finally came down the stairs and saw him standing by the door, already looking defeated, she was momentarily thrown off her game. She opened her mouth to say something, though she had no idea what words would emerge. But it quickly didn't matter because when he saw her, he spoke first.

  “Professor Sampson is dead.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  As Seth drove her to New Vibe to retrieve her car, he filled her in on the discovery of the professor's body the previous night. “No one had heard from him all day Monday. He hadn't shown up for work and hadn't called in. Apparently he called his family every weekend and when they hadn't heard from him and found out he hadn't gone to work either, they requested that the police send someone to his house to check on him. They found him in his bed. They say he probably had a heart attack. But I think they're going to do an autopsy.”

  They were silent for a while, listening to the sounds of everyday traffic and people going about the business of their lives. Then Seth said, “I thought he looked a little out of it all last week, but I didn't think all that much about it. But on Friday, when I saw him heading to his car, he looked a little better. You know, happy that it's Friday sort of thing. I figured he probably just needed to rest. I had no idea that would be the last time I'd see him alive.”

  The last time she'd seen the professor alive he'd been leaning over her, grabbing at his pecker. Understandably, she didn't share that memory with Seth.

  Seth pulled into the church's parking lot and alongside her Honda. She started to get out, but he gently touched her leg, stopping her. “Wait. What's going on?”

  She continued staring out the window at her car, reluctant to face him. “What do you mean?”

  “Something's happening between us. Something's different. You're distant.”

  Still staring out the car window, she shook her head slowly. “Nothing's changed, really. It's just… I'm busy. You're busy.”

  “We're too busy for each other?”

  She turned and faced him. “Let's not do this now. With the professor and all, this is not the right time.”

  “I disagree. This is the perfect time. You're here. I'm here. I don't have to talk to your voicemail. I don't have to send messages through your friends.”

  “Is that what this is about? You're not getting enough time with me?”

  He leaned back, throwing his hands up mockingly. “Aren't we mighty full of ourselves? I hate that this relationship is such a freaking burden on you and that your time is oh, so precious.”

  She turned back to the door again, grabbing hold of the door handle. “I don't have time for this.”

  “Yeah, I know. So why don't you go ahead and leave.”

  She paused and looked over her shoulder at him. “This is not working.”

  He poked his tongue on the inside of his jaw. “I know,” he said wearingly.

  “So, this is it,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he agreed and looked away.

  She got out of his car and walked quickly to hers.

  She didn't look back.

  * * *

  Veronica wasn't expecting to see her uncle outside her door. But there he was, standing there after insistently ringing her doorbell for several minutes. She'd fallen asleep as soon as she'd gotten home. Evidently, her hectic school and part-time work schedule had finally caught up to her. Sleep had come way too easily. Before the relentless ringing of the doorbell had invaded her slumber, she'd been cast ashore on some nameless island after a three-hour cruise was blown terribly off course. This time there were only two survivors of the mishap, she and the professor. And somehow, they’d both managed to swim ashore to the uninhabited island that was surprisingly well stocked with her favorite seafood and wine. Lots of wine. It was just she and the professor and lots of sun and wine. No Ginger, no Mary-Ann, no books, no goals, just she and the professor with nothing between them but desire and opportunity. Oh, this had better be good, she thought bitterly as she glared through the peephole at her uncle. The dream had been her first shot at a good time in months.

  She snatched the door open, barely able to contain her contempt.

  Seeing the expression on her face and the haphazard way her clothes draped her body, her uncle immediately launched into apologies. “I'm sorry, Roni. You have company. I caught you at a bad time.”

  It was insult added to injury, being busted for having a good dream. “No, Uncle Den. Come in. I'm just dog-tired. I'd just fallen asleep.”

  “Well, I'm sorry to have awakened you.”

  “Me too,” she said and meant it.

  “I wouldn't have barged over here unannounced if it wasn't important. I need your help.”

  She regarded him warily. “Don't tell me it involves Kallie Hunt again.”

  He shrugged his shoulders apologetically.

  * * *

  Josh sat alone at a table in the back left corner of the campus library, a thick book open before him. It was seven o'clock, Tuesday night. He was running on fumes and barely able to keep his eyes opened. In addition to his heavy graduate workload, heading Dr. Frost's memory project, and the two undergraduate religion classes he taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he'd been unable to tear himself away from his research on eternal return, life-cycles, and demons. He tried to convince himself that the extra research work would pay dividends for a possible topic for his next year's dissertation. But he'd already done significant legwork on his original topic, the one with the working title, “The Effects of Religion on the Financial Futures of Urban Youth”.

  His current research uncovered the tenebrous connection between eternal return, time-cycles, and demons. But one had to be meticulous in order to find it. He found relevant material related to each in various venues, including the Bible and other religious books, manifestoes written throughout history supposedly by religious nuts (which he found buried in the links of some obscure websites); surprisingly, even some gothic comics and horror B-movies contained very accurate data. It was as if different bodies of thought had each been given a piece of valuable information about time and origin and then were sent to their respective corners of existence, never for their trains of thought to meet. It was like an existential jigsaw puzzle.

  He'd called Madame Isabel's business line several times the past couple of weeks. Initially, he got the same business greeting with her hours of operation. But eventually the greeting was removed and the phone just rang before eventually peeling off into the intermittent buzzing of a dead line. He knew from newspaper accounts that she was still missing. He'd hoped that her husband would pick up the phone anyway, although he knew they most likely had a private home line, which he, of course, didn't have the number to.

  He'd been able to put the various pieces of the puzzle together and the developing picture was quite disturbing. Yet, the picture was incomplete. A piece of the puzzle was missing. He strongly feared the missing piece involved Madame Isabel's Book of Origins, and, quite possibly, his friend, Kallie.

  * * *

  At ten o'clock that same night, Johnny Swag finally answered his cell phone.

  “Johnny, why haven't you called me?” An irritated Father McCarthy bellowed into the phone.

  “These weekly calls are no longer conducive to me,” Swag said calmly.

  “Conducive! Now listen here, you….”

&n
bsp; The line went dead.

  So mad he could see red, McCarthy angrily hit the redial button. The call went straight to voicemail as it would the next few times he called, until McCarthy, pissed off and fed up, and clued to the reality that he was helpless to do anything about it at the moment, finally gave up and went storming off to bed.

  * * *

  “I'll get it,” Kallie called out to her housemates. She'd left her room and was standing in the middle of the upstairs hallway. The doors to all the other bedrooms were closed, so it was likely that none of the others gave a rat's butt as to who was at the door anyway. She could hear Maggie talking on the phone, probably with Cedric. When the two of them weren't stepping on each other's shadow, they were going at it nonstop on the phone. New love, Kallie thought with a touch of jealousy, and bounded down the stairs.

  She'd hoped it was Seth. They'd only been broken up since the morning, but she missed him terribly. She would apologize first and hope he wouldn't act manly and stubborn, as if he hadn't missed her as much as she missed him. She'd been wrong to get so upset with him in the first place. All he'd wanted was to be with her. He'd been patient. The past couple of weeks she'd been unfair to him and the relationship. Sure, she'd had her reasons, but he didn't know any of them. She'd told herself that she wouldn't allow them to break up without all their cards being placed face-up on the table. She owed him that. She owed their relationship that. And that was what she was going to tell him as soon as she opened the door.

  “Who is it?” she asked when she reached the door, her heart thumping with anticipation and hope for reconciliation.

  “It's me.”

  Kallie's heart dropped. The soft voice was not Seth's. She opened the door to find Veronica standing there. “May I come in?” Veronica asked, glancing around nervously.

  “Sure,” Kallie said, and stepped back, allowing her in. “What's wrong? You look as if you've seen a ghost.”

  “Can we talk?”

  “Yeah sure,” Kallie said. She led Veronica into the front room and flipped on a light. She went to the couch and sat down, indicating for Veronica to join her. “What's wrong?” Kallie asked again.