The Ninth Caller Ch. 06

Sofia shivered as she squeezed her eyes shut tight. The biting icy wind whipped across her back, and the feel of her breath freezing in mid-air sent a shudder of terror up her spine. She knew where she was and this recognition caused new shivers that matched the cold.

Intellectually, she knew she was asleep and this was only a dream, but she was still scared. Her rational brain told her she was safe in her bed in her hotel room, but, it made no difference. This was a new vision from beyond the grave. Soul crushing fear kept her eyelids sealed, afraid to face it. What terrible sight would she see this time? What new horrible abomination would she witness? What terrible harbinger would be revealed to her tonight? She could only imagine, but her spine bristled as she braced herself.

Her lungs ached as the subzero air sank down deep into her body and she quivered in the cold. She tried to will her eyes open, but they remained shut. She was too afraid of what she would see, and her reptilian instincts tried to wake herself into consciousness and wake her. She didn't. In the back of her brain, flickering like a candle buffeted in a strong breeze, lingered a thought that put iron in her spine. This is the only way to save Jenny. She needs to show you something important and that is why you were brought here. Jenny needs you to know something; something only she can show you..., now, and in this way.

With her eyes screwed tight the rest of her senses compensated by heightening in intensity. As her ears burned and her skin crackled, she felt an electric charge flow over her flesh, as a new truth was revealed. This was like no dream she had ever had before. It wasn't just real, she had had plenty of lucid dreams in the past, but it was too real. It was if her body and soul had actually infused into the ground.

Her teeth chattered as a fresh blast of cold blew across her face, and the damp, aching cold of deep snow clutched at her ankles. Her pulse quickened and a fresh coating of gooseflesh crawled up her arms, stopping to stab her in the neck. Her body was warning her. There was no point waiting any longer. She had to face this and she opened her eyes.

As before, she was outside, snow up to her knees with heavy snow falling all around her. She glanced down to the ground, and felt her stomach drop as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. Her legs were not visible. In a panic, she lifted her hand up to her face, and like her legs, she saw nothing. Whatever else was going to happen in this vision, it was obvious she was to meant to remain unseen. Perhaps she was now in spirit form too.

She squinted in the bright light. Her eyes were very sensitive, as if her vision had been adjusted too far over on the contrast, like an old TV set. It was hard to see in the glaring, swirling white snow. Her hands flew up to her ears to block the sound too. Everything was too loud. Like the ache in her eyes, her ears ached in air that was too frigid. As she tried to adjust to this new reality, she struggled to block her eardrums as her ears picked up the racket of individual snowflakes thudding onto the ground, like miniature explosions of shattered crystal. What the hell is this? How can I hear that? Is this how spirits sense the world? It must be awful.

After her eyes adjusted and her ears settled, she was able to focus and she glanced down into the valley below her. Her stomach dropped at the sight. It was that same house from before.

Her ears tingled again as she picked up new sounds. It was the sound of singing. "I..., am a man of constant sorrow, I've seen trouble all my days. I..., bid farewell, to Ole Kentucky, the place where I..., was born and raised."

She could not tell where the singing was coming from, but the voice she heard was unearthly. It was melodious, yet hollow; croaking, yet sweet; haunting and sad, and yet oddly gleeful. A corkscrew of fear slivered its way up her spine like a snake crawling up a tree. She turned her head towards the singing and her eyes narrowed as she focused on the barn to the left of the enormous house. The singing was coming from in there.

Terror gripped her gut as she started slowly walked through the snow, her legs tingling in the cold and yet leaving no tracks. As she approached closer to the house, she saw tracks in front of her, and stopped. There was a shock of red on the ground, the only color in the swirling sea of gray and white. It was blood. Lots and lots of blood, and as she felt her jaw tighten, she saw the sanguine trail ran straight towards the barn.

She bent down to study the tracks more closely as that icy corkscrew tightened its grip on her back. Her ears rang as the singing continued and grew clearer. "For six long years..., I've been in trouble, no pleasure here, on earth I've found. For in this world, I'm bound to ramble, I have no friends to help me now."

She continued to walk and then stopped again. Now she saw two tracks. The ones on the left were obviously made by a man. His heavy boot prints clearly marked in the fresh snow. The ones on the right, however had stopped and what they had turned into made her stomach churn. They weren't tracks anymore. They were a long furrow made by something that had been dragged in the fresh snow. Seeing the thin smear of red filling the ditch in the snow, her mind raced at the logical horrifying conclusion. That man she had seen before had killed that woman, Jenny, and dragged her body out to the barn.

She continued to walk slowly towards the barn, her heart pounding faster and faster as she approached, the singing growing louder and louder. "It's fare thee well, my old true lover. I never expect, to see you again. For I'm bound to ride, that northern railroad, perhaps I'll die upon this train."

As she reached the door, she paused before opening it as she sniffed the air and frowned. Her heightened sense of smell caught everything in her fully flared nostrils, and it was too much for her mind to process. She could smell the pine off in the forest behind her. She jerked her head to the right as she caught a whiff something else. It was the scent of fresh, wet earth. It was an odd odor to encounter in this wintry landscape. Her eyes narrowed again when she glanced across the clearing and saw a patch of newly tilled ground. This was even stranger, especially as it was winter. It was a perfect square of evenly planted leafless trees all spaced out perfectly in rows. She counted the trees: one, two..., and finished at eight, with a new hole recently dug for the 9th. Nine! What are you showing me, Jenny? What are you showing me? Her mind reeled as she tried to make sense of this. It had to mean something.

She swallowed hard when her nose filled with a new scent, one that caused her to nearly retch. It was that sickening warm coppery smell, and it was overpowering. Oh yes, she knew that odor well, and knew what it meant. It was blood, fresh blood, and her hand trembled as she lay her hand on the handle to the barn and prepared to open it. What awful sight would she see behind this door. She closed her eyes and tried to drill up courage from her gut, her mind chanting, it's only a vision, remember. It's only a dream. Visions cannot hurt you. You must do it. You must do it for Jenny. With every ounce of courage she could muster, she pulled open the barn door.

"You can bury me, in some deep valley, for many years, where I may lay. And you may learn, to love another, whilst I am sleeping in my..." As the door opened, the man spun back to see who was entering and smiled. His grin grew wide as he finished his last note, "grave!"

"I knew you would come back. I just knew you would," Tim said. "I am so sorry Jenny. You must believe that I am sorry."

"He can see me!" Sofia thought to herself as her blood chilled.

"I am going to make it right, Jenny," Tim said. His withered thin lips curled into smile as he nodded his head. "You'll see! I am going to make it all right. You will live forever now. Beautiful and serene. You will like that won't you?"

"I..., uh?"

"Now..., this might get a bit messy," Tim said. "I hadn't really intended on you visiting me for..., this."

"Seeing what?" Sofia shouted. "Seeing what!" She felt her lips move but no sound came out of her mouth.

Tim's eyes flashed and he smiled as Sofia gasped. That smile made her stomach turn. The sight of his malignant gleeful smirk sent a dagger of total ice right into Sofia's gut. It was perverted, like the glowering snicker of a psychopath. She fought the urge to run and her nose wrinkled as a new smell assaulted her overly sensitive nose. It was gasoline.

Tim started singing again as he turned his back to her and poured gasoline into the tank of the machine at his feet. "Maybe your friends, think I'm just a stranger. My face you never will see no more. But there is one promise that is given, I'll meet you on God's golden shore."

Now that the tank was full, he stopped singing and reached down and pulled the starter cord. Zip. Zip. Zip. Zip..., roar. The engine burst into life.

Sofia covered her ears. The noise was deafening. The motor was running hard, every RPM echoing through the empty barn like a screeching banshee. Added to the roar of the motor, the high metallic hum of spinning blades added to the din. Shaking and trembling in absolute terror, she had to see what was happening. The man's thin and decrepit form blocked her view so she gently crept across the barn floor until she stood right behind him. She jumped when he glanced over his shoulder and stared directly into her eyes. He knew she was there.

"You will see, Jenny," Tim said. "It may be ugly now, but soon you will be transformed into a thing of beauty. For centuries the breeze will rush through your hair, the rain gently caressing your long limbs. It will be perfect. It will be so nice." He smiled warmly into her face as he added, "You were so fresh..., and fresh you shall remain."

Sofia shuddered. The eyes of this man peering at her were unnerving. There was something desperate behind those dark pupils, something horrible and dark, and yet desperate and scared. It was the gaze of complete insanity and she felt the blast of his lunacy slam into her soul. The loud grinding metal sound of the machine below added to the shrieking sense of insanity. When he bent down to a tarp at his feet, she could see the machine fully. It was a wood chipper. What the hell is all of this? As she studied the machine, Tim ripped back the tarp with a loud swoosh.

Her eyes went wide and her mouth flew open into a silent scream as she glared down at the barn floor. There laying in the dirt was the girl from her dream the night before. Her eyes were grey and cloudy, lifeless, staring up at her in a death stare. Blood saturated her T-shirt and jeans and it was obvious where it came from. On the girl's neck, thick and wide, a huge gash had been sliced across her throat.

Tim winked as he looked back at Sofia and said, "You may want to look away for a minute, girl. This could get a bit..., sticky." He walked to the chute at the end of the wood chipper and placed a large black leaf and lawn bag over the opening. Returning to the girl on the floor, he reached down and grabbed the stiff foot of Jenny and started to lift it up to the hopper. With no emotion in his voice, he said, "You see..., you have to feed them in slowly, or else the cartilage gums up the blades."

Whir, crunch, crunch, crunch, whir

"Oh my God!" Sofia shrieked as her eyes popped open and she bolted upright in her bed. Sweat poured off of her face as her heart raced, her mind trying to make sense of what she had just seen. As she sat there, covered in sweat and panting, she nearly leaped out of bed when the phone rang.

"Sofia," Jane said. "I am sorry to disturb you, but this is Jane Harris. I hope it is not too early for me to call."

"No..., no, it's all right," Sofia said, her voice quivering as she tried to catch her breath. "What..., what time is it?"

"It's very early," Jane said. "It is only 6:30."

"AM?"

"Yes, AM," Jane said. "I do apologize; I hope I didn't wake you up."

"No..., you didn't," Sofia said. "I..., I am glad to hear your voice. I really need to talk to Frank, right away."

"Oh, thank God," Jane said. "I was afraid you would tell me to go jump in a lake when I got you on the phone. I wouldn't blame you. Frank has been a world class dick throughout this whole thing."

"It is a hard thing to receive a dark message from the beyond," Sofia said. "Trust me," she paused. "I know."

"Frank wants to talk to you."

"Wonderful," Sofia said. "I was hoping he would come around. When does he want to—"

"How soon can you be ready?" Jane said. "He wants to talk to you ASAP."

"What happened Jane?" Sofia said. "Something must have happened."

"Yes..., something happened," Jane said. "When can I—"

"I can be ready in twenty minutes," Sofia said.

"Perfect," Jane said. "I will send Frank's driver over to pick you up. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you agreeing to talk to Frank, in spite of his behavior."

"I want to Jane," Sofia said. "I have to. It..., it is God's will. I can see that now."

*****

Ricky sat in his car in the parking lot of the McKee Assembly of God church and battled back the fresh wave of bile creeping up his throat. Like the relentless tides rolling in at the beach, this hot acidic stew was bubbling up fairly regularly now, at least once every 45 minutes. This development worried him. Here in his stomach, unlike at the beach, the tide was coming in with increasing frequency and the churning surf of burning acid seemed slightly higher each hour. "Jesus! I thought this was supposed to get easier," Ricky sighed as he swallowed.

He groaned as he rubbed his temples. "God damn it, not this again!" The clicking was back. When it had first started up, it was just a dull sensation and occasional twinge, but now..., it was maddening. Clickity click click click! Clickity click click click! It was relentless. Day and night, twenty-four seven, 365, and to his horror it was growing louder and more insistent by the second. It needed to stop, now. The bongo rhythms playing out in his head like an endless riff from Buddy Rich did have one benefit, though. It made the boiling lava geyser in his gut seem almost heavenly by comparison.

Hopefully, if Dave was right, help was just a few steps away. It waited for him down in the wood paneled parish hall of McKee Assembly of God Church. There, Addicts Anonymous met twice a week. This afternoon, finally, at long last, he was going to take that step.

"Like Dave said," Ricky said to himself as he closed his eyes. "The journey of a thousand miles begins was a single step."

He bit his lip, closed his eyes, and pulled his hand up off of the steering wheel. Sweat dripped from his palms as his skin released from the vinyl with a loud pop. He glanced down at his palms and grimaced. His hands were shaking pretty hard now. "Shit. That was sure to be noticeable. I got the fucking DTs, just like my old man used to get." He growled as he watched his hands vibrate uncontrollably. "Loser! I am just a fucking drunken loser..., just like him. I am such a fucking dumbass, I should have known where that ocean of Jim Beam would lead. Dad always said I was thick as a post. Yet another thing he was right about."

Ricky's Dad never could hold a job. His mother, God bless her soul, lived every day of her life teetering on the abyss of either ultra-violence or complete despair. Somehow she kept the water bill paid, and the lights on, as her worthless husband floated from one job to another. So many Monday night humiliations coming home to explain the latest entry in his book of fuckiture. Dad always got fired on a Mondays. Drunks, just like him, always hate Mondays. Hangovers always are hardest to hide on the first day of the week. As Ricky continued to stare at his trembling hands, his face flushed as he swallowed hard and tried to hold it together.

He closed his eyes and exhaled loudly as he fought the urge to vomit. "I have to get my shit together!"

It had been two days since he had a drink and he felt like his guts were about to erupt out of his throat as his whole body was ripped inside out. It was as if an enormous hand had been shoved down his throat and was pulling his liver out of his nose. It was about as unpleasant as anything he had ever experienced, and he had once gotten a snake bite on his balls, so he knew what unpleasant was. In thirty years, this was the longest he had ever gone without a drink, and, he hoped it would have gotten easier with time. Now, after having not slept in 48 hours, and already shaking like a flag in a tornado, he knew the horrible truth. It would not. If he was going to make this work, he needed help.

Reluctantly Ricky got out of the car began walking towards the church.

When he walked down the stairs into the basement, he sighed as he started to feel a little better. The posters for mission positions overseas, the colorful ads for the upcoming vacation bible school and the smell of the prior night's pot luck supper still hung in the air and flooded his mind with happy memories of his late Mom. The banal normality of it all was soothing.

Here he would be safe. Here others, just like him, came for relief. There was no shame in admitting you needed help. Like victims of a shipwreck, tossed overboard from their individual foundering boats, desperate drunks, meth-heads, heroin addicts, and a whole collection of broken shattered people clutched at this final life raft in the churning seas of their self-created hurricanes. Now at the entrance to the parish hall he saw the temporary sign taped to the door. It was written on the back of a manilla envelope in purple highlighter and said — 'McKee Chapter of Addicts Anonymous'. He smiled and opened the door.

"Ricky! You came!" a loud deep voice boomed as he entered. He quickly glanced over to the voice and weakly smiled back at the man walking forward. It was Dave. The huge bear of a man rushed over and smacked Ricky hard on the back. "I knew you would come. I just knew it. I knew you were one of the winners." His big smile got even bigger as he added, "I am proud of you, son. You are claiming captainship of your own boat, and that is a good first step. No man can sail on this journey alone and every boat needs a full crew."

"Thanks, Dave," Ricky said as his voice cracked. His throat was dry, water and coffee not doing the trick to calm the swirling acidic stew in his mouth. Sadly, only Jim Beam could get that particular job done. "I said I would give it a try, and so..."

"And so here you are," Dave said. "Look, I know you are nervous, but you don't have to be. The first time is always the roughest, and you don't have to say anything today. Just watch and learn. But, know this, many people have recovered from the same thing you struggle with, and, the fact you are here increases the odds of your healing 1000 percent."

"Yes," Ricky said, "I realize this is too big for me to fight alone. I have to turn my addiction over to a higher power."

"Wonderful," Dave said. "Wonderful. That is music to my ears."

"So, what happens now?" Ricky said as he nervously looked around the room. "You know, McKee is a small town and—"

Dave laughed. "It is, and that is why we are Addicts Anonymous and not more specific about the source of our struggles. Here, not only do you not use your last name, but, you don't tell the group what your addiction is. You can, and should, tell everything else though. How it has affected you. What sort of problems it has caused in your life: why you want to get clean, the battles you face, the temptations, all of that sort of stuff. But, do not name the disease. To name it, is to claim it."