The Calling Read online

  I kept staring down at the package in my hands. Eventually I blinked, looked up at the old man, and said, “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I apologize.”

  He held up a dry gnarled hand, shaking his head. “Don’t you worry about it, Christopher. You’ve already been through so much, you don’t need to apologize about nothing. I just wanted to make sure you got this. I tried dropping it off yesterday but nobody was here. Then I was passing by here earlier and saw you so ...” He forced a smile and spread his hands, palms out, as if to say, And here we are.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate it.”

  He may have nodded, or forced another smile, or stuck his tongue out at me. I have no idea. I just continued standing there, staring down at the package, and the next thing I knew the old man had turned away and was walking down the porch steps. I watched him for a moment before I stepped back inside my own house and shut the door. I walked directly toward the couch and sat down with the package in my lap.

  I didn’t want to open it. Whatever was inside, I didn’t want to know. It felt like I had Pandora’s Box in my hands, that if I opened it I would unleash a whole new evil into the world.

  Come on, I thought. You can do this. Evil doesn’t exist. There’s nothing hiding in the shadows.

  The packing material was old and worn, like thin cardboard; I didn’t even need scissors. Once it was opened, I hesitated a moment, then looked inside. A book, just as it had felt like. I pulled it out and set it on the coffee table, then glanced inside the package to see if there was anything else. Nothing, so I tossed it aside and picked up the book.

  It was thick, maybe four, five hundred pages long. The cover was brown and bare. Nothing was printed on its spine. I opened the first page to find an inscription. It was done in pen. I assumed it was my grandfather’s hand.

  Christopher, this is the fruit of my labor. I am sorry for what happened. Hopefully someday you will understand. Read Job 42 for guidance. Your life depends upon it. I love you.

  I read it twice then turned to the next page. I recognized it immediately. Not just from the title, but from the text as well. Genesis—the first book of the Bible. The entire text was in the same hand as the inscription.

  I flipped through the pages. They were all the same, all written in pen by my grandfather’s own hand. All the books of the Old Testament.

  “Well, I guess the jury’s no longer out,” I said. “He was a fucking nutcase.”

  I tossed the book on the couch and then headed back upstairs to finish packing.

  • • •

  FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE my uncle and grandmother came to the house, I sat in front of the computer and tried to compose an e-mail to Melanie. She was in Europe somewhere, having left the day after graduation. Before going to college in the fall she wanted to visit another continent, wanted to spend her summer doing something more engaging than visiting Ocean City, Maryland for the week. So she was over there now, doing whatever it was she was doing, and she had sent me an e-mail a few days ago, which surprised me, a simple note saying how very sorry she was for what happened and that she hoped I was doing well.

  Now here I sat, wanting to reply to her but not being able to think of anything good enough to write.

  After ten minutes of just staring at the screen, I closed the box.

  The computer asked me, SAVE CHANGES TO E-MAIL?

  I clicked NO.

  • • •

  TWO O’CLOCK ARRIVED, but my uncle and grandmother did not. I wasn’t worried. I knew my grandmother had trouble walking, that the trip down here had been exhausting for her. She was sixty-eight and needed the help of a cane to get around. Her skin was pale, sprinkled by a few freckles and moles on her face and arms. She had spent most of her life in the Restaurant Industry, which was another way of saying she’d been a waitress. It wouldn’t surprise me if she had taken an extra half hour with her nap and was slow getting around.

  I packed two suitcases, which now rested in the trunk of my car. There was no extra room in Dean’s Explorer, not with everything he’d packed to bring down, or else I’d ride up with him. The idea hadn’t occurred to Steve until earlier this week, when he first met my uncle. Had he known ahead of time, Dean joked to the police chief, he would have brought a U-Haul.

  I sat on the porch steps, trying to ignore the officer in the cruiser. He hardly seemed to notice me anyway. Couldn’t be fun at all assigned to babysit an eighteen-year-old. Even if that eighteen-year-old was being stalked by a murderer.

  When I checked my watch and saw it was two-twenty, I got up and went to the door, unlocked it and stepped inside. I stood at the bottom of the stairs and stared up. On my trips in and out of my room, I had kept glancing at my parents’ bedroom door. It was closed. After I’d turned ten or eleven or twelve, I never once stepped foot inside their room, only briefly saw inside if the door was open when I walked past. I’d never had any desire to go inside, knowing that that was their private place, just like my room was my own private place. But today, as I kept passing their closed door, I kept wondering what was behind it.

  I started up the steps, taking them slower than usual. The eighth step creaked, just as it always did. Then I was on the landing, staring at their door. I remembered the last time I opened it, the repetitive buzzing coming from behind. I remembered what I saw and felt.

  The first thing I noticed when I opened the door was that the sheets had been taken off the bed. The center of the mattress was stained dark with blood. I took a few hesitant steps inside, feeling like an intruder.

  There wasn’t much to the room. No pictures or paintings on the wall besides the blue floral border a few inches below the ceiling. Two windows, two closets, the strong scent of lemon disinfectant, and hardly anything else.

  I took another step forward, still uncertain what I was looking for, when I noticed the dresser. It sat against the wall next to the door. It was huge, made out of oak. The bottom half was drawers, the top half a large mirror. On both sides were three shelves each, and just by glancing at them I realized the left was my father’s, the right my mother’s. This was where they stored their mementos, their little keepsakes that told just who they were.

  I went to my mother’s side first.

  On the top shelf were books. Hardcovers that didn’t look familiar to me at all, except one with the title Peace Like a River. I remembered it was one of my mom’s favorites, because she’d tried getting me to read it more than once. Along with these were dozens of cards. Hesitantly I took them down, began flipping through each one. They were birthday cards, anniversary cards, Mother’s Day cards. Some were from my dad, but all the rest were from me, ever since I was old enough to scribble my name. I could tell by the handwriting which cards had been written when I was very young; these were the ones with little notes attached. Misspelled lines like Your the bestest mommy in the hole wide world and If I found a genies bodle I’d give you it so you could have ALL the wishes soon shortened to lines that read I hope you have a good b-day and Have a good one. And, in the last two years, I hadn’t even included any notes, but just signed my name with an obligatory and unfelt Love.

  I put them back on the shelf, suddenly feeling empty inside. I turned my attention to the second shelf, which held a small necklace tree with some of her jewelry hanging. Beside it sat a piece of crystal that was shaped like a swan. And beside the crystal swan was a ceramic umbrella, sitting upside down so its ceramic pole was erect. I picked it up. It was light green, the color of freshly grown grass. It was small and rested easily in the palm of my hand. It was clear that the pole had been glued together with the umbrella. My mom had found me the glue the day I came home crying. I’d been in fourth grade, had made it in Art, and on the bus it had snapped off. I wanted to give it to her and was angry because now it was ruined. But she told me it was okay, that everything can be fixed, and helped me glue it back together. I gave it to her then, a
nd she gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  I set it back where it was, turning my attention to the third shelf. Bottles of perfume rested there, nothing else.

  On the mantle in front of the mirror itself were pictures. They were all of me. A few showed me when I was in middle school, one with me in my basketball jersey, another with me and Mel, dressed in our best, before some formal. Only one showed me with my parents. It rested in the center of the others. In the picture I stood in the middle, my father on my right, my mother on my left. I couldn’t tell where the picture was taken, but people were in the background and it had been inside. It reminded me of the picture back on the corkboard in James Young’s office, except in this one only two of the three were genuinely smiling back at the camera. Those, of course, were my parents, their smiles real and wide. My own smile was crooked, clearly forced, and I was staring off at something over the cameraman’s shoulder.

  I turned my attention to my father’s side of the dresser. Instead of hardcovers, he had five paperbacks on the top shelf, all by the same author. My eyes drifted over two titles—Cat’s Cradle, Breakfast of Champions—and then lowered to what sat on the next shelf. It was a small stuffed plush of one of the Looney Tunes. The Tasmanian Devil, his hands held out at his sides, his mouth open wide showing all his teeth. I remembered winning it at some carnival when I was a freshman, by tossing a ping-pong ball into a goldfish bowl. When I brought it home, he had been in the kitchen doing some work at the table, and I had said, “Hey Dad, guess what I won for you.” It had been behind my back, and when I brought it around his face actually lit up with a smile. He thanked me, told me it made his day since he’d been swamped with work, and I had nodded and said sure, no problem at all. But the truth was he had just been in the right place at the right time. Had Mom been there in the kitchen instead, I would have given it to her. Had neither of them been there, I probably would have taken it along with me up to my room, or else tossed it in the trash.

  I reached forward, intending to simply touch the brown stuffed animal, when the doorbell rang. I jumped and stepped back. Looked about the room once more, my eyes purposely skipping over the blood on the mattress, and then hurried downstairs.

  I didn’t realize until I reached the landing that the picture of me and my parents was still in my hands. I folded it up, stuck it in my pocket.

  When I opened the door, Dean stared back at me. His face was expressionless at first, but then he smiled. “Sorry,” he said. “A little behind schedule, I know. But I talked to Officer Armstrong”—he jerked a thumb back at the street—“and he’s going to follow us until we get to Manheim. Ready?”

  For an instant, an image flashed in my mind: a body lying in what I somehow knew was a hospital bed.

  I blinked, shaking it away.

  “Whoa there,” Dean said. He sounded more upbeat than I’d heard him all week. “You all right? You look like you, I don’t know, like you just saw a ghost or something.”

  I forced a smile and stepped outside, pulling the door shut behind me. “No,” I said, turning the key in the lock. “Just a little lightheaded. No ghosts here.”

  And it was true; I hadn’t seen any ghosts.

  Not then.

  Chapter 4

  As far as towns go, Bridgton isn’t much of one. Compared to Elmira, which sits ten miles south and is part of the tri-county area of Chemung, it’s not even a dot on the map. It shares nothing commercial with Elmira—no Sunoco or Exxon stations, no Denny’s or Howard Johnson’s, no McDonald’s or Burger King, no K-Mart or Sears. Elmira has three hospitals, two colleges, one giant mall, almost sixty churches, and nearly twenty schools. It even has an airport. Its population runs close to forty thousand people, while Bridgton has only two hundred people or so to call its own.

  Nestled into the tree-strewn hills of the Allegheny Plateau, Bridgton should really be described as somebody’s failed attempt at a town. Bisecting Route 13—which begins in Elmira and continues up half the state, through Ithaca and Cortland and then farther north—is the road that leads into the heart of Bridgton. It’s called Mizner Road, though everyone agrees it should have just been named Main Street. Sitting on either side of the road is a large stone church of questionable affiliation, a diner named Luanne’s, a Salvation Army thrift-clothing store, and a mechanic shop. There’s even a general store, where the locals can purchase anything from bread and milk to condoms and beer, as well as postage stamps during the day, as a window in the back serves as the town’s post office. Not much else, unless you want to count Harvey’s Tavern and Fellman’s Used Cars, both which sit along Route 13, about a mile from Mizner Road—Harvey’s, of course, another place to buy beer, as well as a dimmed and quiet atmosphere to play pool and darts and drink alone.

  Houses of all types are scattered throughout the hills and fields beyond Bridgton’s “Main Street”—homes ranging from three-stories down to one-story, and even double-wide trailers with the occasional unmowed patches of lawn and empty Rolling Rock and Miller Lite cans littering the backyard. Some have dogs chained up outside, while others just have chains. Some have tire swings hanging off the branches of maple and hickory trees, while others just have tires in the grass. Some have their cars and pickups parked in the spots they call driveways, while others just have them parked beside one tree or another, easy targets for birdshit and rust. Various NASCAR flags hang off porch overhangs, signaling the numbers of favorite drivers.

  Bridgton has no schools, so its kids have to go into either Horseheads or Elmira for their education. It has no law enforcement either, and instead relies on the Chemung County Sheriff’s Department to provide an occasional deputy to keep the peace. My uncle, who was born and raised in Bridgton, is one of a few deputies assigned to this particular zone of the county.

  If one were to know his way around the back roads off Route 13, and go maybe half a mile up the hill, one would find Keller’s Bait and Tackle, Bridgton’s only reputable business besides the ones on Mizner Road. It sells anything from fishing rods, to lures, to line, to even vests and boxes. A handwritten sign out front announces its ongoing special of two dozen night crawlers for three bucks.

  A quarter mile away, on Half Creek Road which leads farther up the hill, is a two-story house with weather-worn shingles and peeling paint. Once, long ago, someone decided to turn the bottom floor into a used bookstore. A green sign outside, as weathered as the roof, reads SHEPHERD’S BOOKS. Another, smaller sign reading CLOSED, perpetually hangs below this. Its parking lot is gravel and always deserted, as the store itself never opens.

  Less than a half mile farther up Half Creek Road is Calvary Church. It’s a tiny, whitewashed building that has everything but a steeple. It sits off to the left of the road in a wide clearing. Behind it, through a wall of pine trees and following a narrow foot-beaten path to an obscure and cramped clearing, rests a small stone house that once was the center of a lot of pain in the town’s history. Now it sits alone, idle, allowing nature to give it a slow and steady decay.

  Continuing past the house, another narrow trail leads a little farther up the hill, past spruces and hemlocks, beeches and birches, to another clearing that overlooks the valley in which most of the town rests. Mobile homes have been situated around each other. All the locals call it The Hill—the T always capitalized, as if to give the area its due respect. There are less than twenty trailers in all, owned mostly by folks in their sixties and seventies who retreat to Florida in the winter to escape the snow. A squat cinderblock building, called the Rec House, sits at the entrance to this trailer park, a short in-ground pool with no water beside it.

  Of course, when I first came to Bridgton, I knew none of this. All I knew was that it was where my grandmother and uncle lived, and where I would now be staying until the police managed to track down my parents’ killer. I wasn’t aware that unlike most small towns that try to hide themselves from the rest of the world, Bridgton was a sleeping giant.

  • • •

  THE OVE
RALL TRIP from Lanton to Bridgton was supposed to take four hours. For us, it took five. Driving in my Cavalier, I followed my uncle down PA 72 through Manheim, up to Lebanon, until we eventually got onto Interstate 81. There it was continuous driving through the Appalachian Mountains. Green rolling hills on either side of the highway, an occasional town or city peeking up from a valley that could be glimpsed for only a couple of minutes as we were doing seventy or so miles an hour. Up past Wilkes-Barre, past Scranton, farther north until we exited Pennsylvania and entered New York. Once past Binghamton, my uncle merged onto NY 17, which we took all the way to Elmira.

  Because of my grandmother’s constant need to stretch her legs every hour, we stopped at whatever rest area was closest for a couple of minutes. Then, in Great Bend, we stopped at a gas station for snacks. I went inside with my uncle, while my grandmother stood beside the Explorer. He bought some bottled water, a bag of pretzels, and then, at the counter, eyed up the cigarettes. He must have noticed me looking, because a grin broke out over his normally hard face and he said, “Gave them up three times already. This is my fourth. Been two months, and I keep telling myself this is it.” He ended up buying a pack of Pep-O-Mint LifeSavers instead.

  By the time we finished with 17 and merged onto Route 13, it was close to eight o’clock. The sky was clear and purple, the sun nearing the ragged horizon. Then, ten minutes later, we arrived to Bridgton and the start of a new chapter in my life.