by Chris Raven
I swallow saliva before I dare to look him in the eye and nod. He searches over and over at the keychain until he finds the key to the cell and opens it to me. I go out and I follow him through the hallway.
“I’ll tell Reeves to give you your things back. You have a visitor at the entrance.”
As I walk down the hall, I wonder who might have come looking for me. Nobody in town knows I’m back. I see a girl standing, wearing a very short denim miniskirt and a red T-shirt, strolling back and forth as she rubs her hands. I estimate she’ll be my age, so I may have gone with her to school, but she doesn’t ring a bell. Then I realize. Curly orange hair, white skin, freckles... She has to be Meg, although she is much hotter now than when she was twelve.
She seems to realize that I observe her because she turns to me and approaches timidly. She has always been a pale girl, but at this moment it seems that all the blood has left her face. Her pupils are as dilated as if she had just seen a ghost. I stretch my hand to greet her, waiting for that gesture to calm her down.
"Eric Armstrong?” She asks me.
When I nod, she also stretches her hand, but instead of holding mine, she slips a paper between my fingers and, without saying anything else, she turns and runs. When I get to react, unfold the paper that she has handed to me and I observe it, finding it strange.
At the top, there is a shopping list. She puts things like “eggs”, “milk”, “sausages”. Suddenly, the handwriting changes. It is much larger and rounded and has been written so hard that the pencil has gone through the paper on several points. There are only two words, which are repeated over and over again until they occupy the entire paper. “Help us.” At the end of the page, written with the same childish letter, there is one last message: “For Eric Armstrong.”
I forget to pick up my stuff and whether I have to sign something to get out of the station and I throw myself behind Meg. I see her later, down the street at a brisk pace. I run after her and, in a few seconds, I catch her and grab her by the arm to force her to turn around. When she sees me, she panics again and tries to get rid of my imprisonment, but I don’t allow it to her and I put the paper in front of her eyes.
“What is this supposed to be?”
“I don’t want to know anything about this matter,” she replies, returning to struggle to free herself. “Tell her to leave me alone.”
“Whom?”
“Anne. I’m not going to give you any more of her messages.” I notice she’s shaking. “I’m afraid of all this. I want it to stop.”
“Meg, listen to me...” I try to speak to her in a soothing tone and to capture her gaze for her to pay attention to me. “If you want me to stop this, you have to help me. I need you to explain to me what happened.”
“I just want to go and that this is over.”
“I promise I’ll help you if you help me.”I look around the street to discover a nearby coffee shop. “Come on, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee and you explain it all to me.”
In the end, it had to be Meg who invites, because my money is in the police station with all my personal belongings. I let the minutes go by, pretending that I am focused in my cup of coffee, to wait for Meg to calm down, but I don’t think I’m getting anything. Her shoulders are in tension and her ass is half raised from the seat as if she were ready to run out any time soon. I lay my hand carefully on the table and gently touch one of her fingers. Even though it’s just a slight rub, she jumps on the chair like I just stabbed her.
“Quiet. Are you better now?”
She nods and drinks another sip of coffee. I know she’s not better. I don’t have to know how to read the mind to realize that she just wants to leave here and not to see me again in what’s left of her life.
“Tell me what happened. What’s that paper you gave me?”
She leans back in the chair and passes her hands through her hair, gently pulling the skin of her temples while breathing deeply. Then she looks at me and shakes her head in denial, while she outlines a nervous smile.
“You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“No, I assure you. Strange things have happened to me, too. I’m sure I’ll believe you.”
Her look changes in seconds. It is no longer the little animal desperate to escape. Now she’s curious and maybe feels relieved. She smiles at me again before she starts talking.
“It all started two nights ago. I was watching TV and doing a crossword puzzle, and all of a sudden, I felt a terrible cold coming through. Never, even in the worst winter, had felt something like that. It was a cold that came from inside, that paralyzed your soul... And at the same time, I felt very lost and very lonely... I wanted to cry and scream and break things as it seemed so unfair how they had been with me...
“Unfair? Who? What happened to you?”
“Nothing. See? I’m just talking nonsense.”
“No, don’t worry. Keep talking.”
“Okay. I realized I couldn’t move. My whole body was stiff as if it were made of wood. I could only move my arm, I began to write words at full speed in the magazine I held in my hand. I felt like a puppet as if someone was controlling me. After a few minutes, everything stopped: the cold, the sadness, the stiffness... I felt exhausted and empty. I looked at what I had written and there were only those words, again and again: Help us. At the end of the page, I had written: «for Eric Armstrong.» If I’m honest, at first, I didn’t even know who I was talking about. The name rang a bell, but I didn’t know where. I spent the whole night thinking over and over about it, not daring to go to bed until I realized that it was you and that it was not the first letter that I had to give you.”
“It is true. You gave me the love letter that Anne wrote to me when her father grounded her without seeing me.”
“Yes, when I realized that, I got even more frightened. Anne has been dead for many years... This cannot be. This is crazy.”
“What did you do with the message?”
“I broke it into pieces and threw it in the trash. When it was daylight, I called my mother to ask her if she knew what had become of you. She told me she had lost track of you, but she would be informed. After a few hours, she called me to tell me that you were back in town and that you had been seen with your bike, touring our neighborhood up and down.”
“Well, the news flies,” I get surprised.
“That scared me too. I mean... It cannot be a coincidence that you just came back to town and that I, without knowing it, wrote a note for you when I had not remembered you for years.”
“So little flattering!” I try to joke to relax the tension. “I thought I would have left more marks on the village girls.”
She throws a smile at me out of a sense of duty. I see her eyes are getting glassy again and her hands are shaking. The voice is breaking up again as she talks.
“I’ve written that note a lot of times before giving it to you. Anne, that thing, whatever it is, it gets inside me and makes me write it again. I broke it over and over again, I asked her to leave me alone, I swore I would not help and that she would have to look for another... I finally had to bring it to you, but that’s enough. Tell that thing I don’t want to know anything about all this. I’m not going to be a messenger for a dead girl.”
She has already lost the little self-control she had shown so far. Tears furrow her face, her whole body trembles because of her sobs... The people in the cafeteria have abandoned their conversations and they look at us. They must think I’m a monster and I’m abandoning her or something. I try to touch her hand to calm her down, but she pulls it away like it just burned her with acid.
“You have your message. I’ve done what I had to do and I’m not going to participate anymore. Tell her.”
She gets up from the table, picks up her purse and leaves running. I finish my coffee in a couple of sips, while I notice the disapproving looks of everyone present. I leave the cafeteria while I’m thinking that I wish everything was as easy as Meg thinks. I can’t talk to An
ne, I can’t ask her to leave her alone. I would love for her to show up for me and tell me straight out how I can help her, but, unfortunately, it seems that ghost things don’t work that way. I hope I can understand how they work soon.
I’m going back to the police station to pick up my belongings. That guy, Reeves, a tall, muscular agent with a hole on his chin, pulls out a large manila envelope in which they kept my purse, my phone and my keys. He also gives me back my backpack and even tells me that they kept my bike and that they would give it to me as soon as I sign a few papers.
I go out on the street with no idea what to do or where to go. It seems clear that I cannot go back to my neighborhood to keep asking from door to door, at least until a few days have passed by and Dunning forgets about me. I’m still as lost as at the beginning of my investigation. I only have a children’s story and a shopping list in which a ghost asks for help.
I climb on the bike and decide to take a ride around the village to see if the inspiration comes from somewhere. After riding a few meters, I realize that something is wrong. I stop on the verge and watch the bike. The rear wheel is punctured. I curse between teeth while I wonder if it was an accident or a warning from the boys at the station. It will be best to think that I have stepped on some nail inadvertently. It wouldn’t do me any good to get paranoid and get upset.
From where I am I see a Shell gas station, coming down First Street. It seems that at least luck smiles at me on this one. I leave the bike at the door and walk into the small 24-hour shop to ask if anyone can help me.
There’s another freckled redhead behind the counter. I hadn’t noticed that there were so many in Swanton. When the boy hears the doorbell, he raises his head and looks at me. Despite the years that have passed by, I recognize him instantly. It’s Jim, my great childhood friend. I stand still without knowing how to greet him, while I see how a big smile is drawn on his face.
“Holy shit,” he says, as he comes from behind the counter. “Eric? It’s you?”
I nod and, before I can say a word, he throws himself at me and gives me a hug that cuts my breath. It’s strange, I think we’ve never touched before, but that hug is the first thing that makes me feel like I’m home since I came back to Swanton.
“Fuck... how long has it been?”
“Fifteen years,” I answer when he releases me, and I can breathe again. “Man, you look the same.”
“What the fuck do you mean I look the same? I’m much hotter.”He jokes. “You’re the same, the same nerd face. What are you doing in Swanton?
“I’ve come on vacation for a couple of weeks.”
“Well, we have to celebrate. Now I have to work, but this afternoon we’ll have dinner and a few beers. Eric and Jim together again. We’re going to bulldoze Vermont.”
I smile and nod, though I am afraid of his enthusiasm. I’ve never been able to drink too much, and I don’t want to get drunk and talk too much, but on the other hand, Jim will be able to tell me about everything that’s happened in town since I left. Maybe I can get some important information. Also, I get the impression that Jim will not accept refusal and I have to make him help me repair the bike.
V
I’m sitting on a bench, in the corner where I’m meeting Jim, watching as it gets dark. I had nothing to do, so I have arrived with more than half an hour in advance. I have the bike resting on the bench and the backpack next to it, with all my stuff in it. It doesn’t seem like the right equipment for a binge night with a childhood colleague, but I still have no idea where I’m going to sleep tonight. I see myself going back to the Swanton Motel, though, between the price and the problems with the faucet, I don’t feel at all like passing through there.
I see a girl walking along the sidewalk across the street. She’s short and thin, almost with a girl’s body. She has a dark, wavy mane that reaches her shoulders. I stay gawking because, for a second, it reminds me a lot of Debbie. When the girl turns around, I see she’s nothing like her. She does not have her huge blue eyes, nor the bangs too long, nor her thin-lipped smile... Suddenly, I find myself missing her and I feel even more stupid. What the hell do I miss? Have a bad time in the queue of her cafeteria while I wait for my turn to come? Because that’s all I have with her. Despite the logic of my thoughts, I feel like my stomach is shrinking and, for some strange reason, I have the conviction that I would feel better just to see her or hear her voice, even if only to ask me how much sugar I want in my coffee. If I only would have had the courage to ask for her phone number, I could call her and talk about any nonsense. I know her voice, which has nothing to do with my past life, with my family or with Swanton, would be like a balm that would make me feel less lost and alone.
The sound of a horn takes me out of my thoughts. I see Jim parked on the sidewalk across the street. He drives a truck of those that have the back uncovered.
“Are you going to go with the bike to the party, loser?” He says to me as a greeting. “Go on, put it at the back.”
I obey, and I get in the copilot seat, leaving the backpack at my feet. He looks at it as if he found it strange but says nothing. He lowers the volume of the music and gives me a couple of slaps on my shoulder that is about to dislocate my collarbone.
“I thought that we would stay around here and that I could leave the bike somewhere”. I say to apologize.
“We’re not going to stay in Swanton, dude. This is dead. We’re going to St. Albans. We’re going to burn the city.”
I nod, though I’m afraid my liver can’t keep up with Jim’s rhythm. I smile at him and let myself be carried away. After all, I’m thrilled to go for drinks with him and see if there’s still something of what brought us together when we were kids. And, although I know it can be painful, I want to try to talk about his brother and what happened. With how lost I am, any small piece of information could help me. I cannot go to sleep without having advanced absolutely nothing. I think the spirits of my friends would not forgive me.
I’ve lost count of the beers I’ve had for a while. The place seems to fluctuate, the soil is soft and makes it difficult for me to stand up without oscillating. I look at the bottom of the bar. There are some small tables that seem to call me. After insisting a couple of times, I get Jim to stop fooling around with the waitress and to follow me there. As soon as I sit, the world seems to recover a little of its usual clarity and consistency.
“I’m dizzy, man! I’m not used to drinking that much.”
“Don’t you go out in Burlington?”
“I don’t know the others, but I don’t do too much. I told you I’m a boring bookcase with monastic customs.”
“Fuck, you’re a pansy” He laughs at me and gives his beer another long sip. “You should stay in Swanton. I’d take you astray.”
“I’d like to, but I’ve only come for a couple of weeks...”
“And how is that? There are no better places to go on vacation than fucking Swanton.”
Even though I don’t feel like getting a drop of alcohol anymore, I pick up the jug and hit my beer, trying to earn some time to sort out my cloudy thoughts. I don’t know how to explain my true reasons for returning to Swanton without him calling 911, saying I need psychiatric assistance. I can’t tell him that I think that there are several spirits stalking me to make them justice and that one of them is his dead brother.
“The truth is that I’m not just here on vacation... I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m back for the murders... I haven’t been able to forget what happened and I feel like I have to do something.”
“And what are you going to do?” Jim outlines a sarcastic smile as he throws himself back in the chair and crosses his legs. “The police have been investigating for months. Even the FBI came. They got nothing. I doubt that you’ll find anything.”
“So, are we going to leave it like this? Do we forget and continue our lives?”
Jim leaves the jug on the table with a knock. There are sparks of rage in his eyes. It seems that I had r
eally upset him.
“Do you think it’s going to be useful to go over and over again on the matter? Do you think it was easy for me to go on with my life? You went away and left everything behind, but I had to continue walking through the same streets that Anne walked, I had to continue living in the house in which Bobby lived, I had to continue going to class with Jake, seeing in what he was becoming after losing his brother...”
“Hey, man... Calm down. I did not decide to leave.” I give him a few seconds for him to take a new sip to his beer and to calm down. “What happened to Jake? Did he manage to recover?”
“Judge by yourself,” he points out at a gloomy table to the bottom of the bar. “You got him there.”
I turn slowly, trying not to be noticed, and look at the place that Jim pointed at me. There’s a guy sitting alone, tossing a glass of whiskey. At first, I think Jim’s teasing me. That man is much older than the two of us, he has a beer belly that threatens to burst the buttons on his shirt and his shoulders are hunched, as if life weighed too much. The hair starts to become sparse and most likely hasn’t shower or shave for days.
“That’s not Jake,” I tell him after a minute of observation.
“Yes, it is: Jake Carter, our childhood friend. It’s amazing how many people mess up over time, right?”
I still can’t believe it’s him. Jake was the best of us: the tallest, the strongest, the most handsome... I always imagined he would grow up and become the captain of the High school baseball team and go to college on a sports scholarship. Since childhood, he had a winning aura, an energy with which he seemed to be eating the world. He even had a movie actor smile and a hole on his chin. The wraith spinning his whiskey glass can’t be our Jake.