1 The Bank of the River (6 page)

 Steven
parked the Accord at trailer number 48 and waited for the truck at number 56 to
pull away. It was 6:50, and if he had calculated correctly, John would leave
for work in a few minutes. Then he’d walk over to Debra’s trailer and start
again. This time he’d make sure she knew he respected her beliefs.

He thought
over the events of the last couple of days since he’d visited her last. The
knockings that had, back then, terrorized him enough to seek her out now seemed
like child’s play, almost cute in comparison to the encounters he and his
father had endured. While he was still a long way from being able to profess a
belief in anything like religion or god, his experiences of the last 48 hours
made it much easier to not crack a patronizing smile when someone said “evil.”

Steven saw
the truck back out of their driveway and head the other direction.
There
must be a closer exit that way,
Steven thought, noting to try it himself
when he left.

He waited a
few minutes, not really sure why. If John was going to return home, it could
happen any time he was there, not just in the first few minutes. But he waited
nonetheless, thinking it might lower the chances.

When he felt
it was safe he walked up to the trailer and knocked on the door. After a moment
it opened.

“Oh. It’s
you,” Debra said, surprised.

“Yeah, it’s
me. I was wondering if we could try again. With me keeping my mouth shut this
time,” he smiled.

She smiled
back, thought about it. “Sure. John just left. But I suppose you knew that.
Come on in.”

Steven
stepped up into the trailer and resumed his seat on the cluttered couch. Not
much had changed since he left two days ago, including the cat piss. He
resigned to not let it show on his face.

Debra sat
down across from him. “I gotta tell you, you look awful. I don’t mean it
personal, but obviously things aren’t getting better.”

“You’re
right,” Steven answered. “They’re not. I had a few more experiences in the
house and decided to get my dad involved. He’s had some experience with events
like these.”

“Oh, has he?”
Debra asked. “Did he see something in the house?”

“Yes, he
did.” Steven was unsure how far he should go, but he did want Debra to feel
comfortable with him, enough to speak to him about her father-in-law’s
experience. “He went into a sort of trance, and we both saw a figure, kind of a
shadow, that had — ”

Debra raised
a hand, cutting him off. “Don’t, don’t tell me,” she shuddered. “It’ll just
give me nightmares. I try to keep my mind clear of those kind of things. Just
the times I felt it when I visited Ben were enough for me. Sounds like you got
a good dose of it yourself.”

“That’s a
good way to put it,” Steven said. “Listen,” he continued, “the last time I was
here, I really don’t think I was ready to hear what you had to say. My
apologies. After what I’ve seen and been through since then, trust me, I’m
ready. It’s just that, my father and I, we’re struggling for answers. I can’t
afford to just move and abandon the place. He’s dead set on continuing his
trances in the house, to try and figure it out. I’m not sure there’s anything
to figure out, it might just be unsolvable and I’ll be forced to live with it
or take a financial loss. But I did think, after remembering our conversation
from Monday, that I had stupidly cut you off before you could tell me something
important. Something about your father-in-law. I might be grasping at straws
here, but I’m hoping you can share some more with me, something that might help
us figure things out.”

Debra lit a
cigarette, took a long drag on it.

“Anything,”
Steven continued, “anything that might help, even if it seems irrelevant.”

“The only
thing we didn’t talk about when you were here before,” Debra said, “was Ben’s
decline. The problems at that house developed over time, they weren’t the way
they are now, when Ben first moved there. Things all went downhill for him
after Little Tony disappeared. Little Tony was Ben’s youngest son. They called
him Little Tony because Ben had a brother named Anthony that Little Tony was
named after. Anyway, he was six years old when he went missing. Ben always let
him play in the yard with neighbor kids, and always he’d come in for dinner,
just like the neighbor kids. This one day, he didn’t come in.”

Steven
leaned back in the couch, afraid of knocking something over, but needing to
adjust. “He disappeared?” he asked.

“Literally without
a trace,” she replied. “Of course Ben talked to every single neighbor, and all
the kids, asking them if they’d seen Little Tony that day. No one had, or if
they had, they didn’t say anything. Ben put up posters all over the
neighborhood. Cops were involved, but after a while, with no leads, and after
deciding that Ben wasn’t the cause, the cops just dropped it. Another missing
child case. Apparently it happens a lot.”

Steven
listened intently. The information was like manna to him, giving him new
options he desperately needed.

“Ben spent
all of his time searching,” Debra continued. “He was constantly in his car, for
weeks, driving up and down streets. He bought maps of the city and was methodically
searching through parks and fields. Sometimes people would help him, we did
many times, but most of the time he did it himself. Then one day he stopped. We
thought he’d given up, exhausted from all the hunting. But instead of looking,
he became paranoid. He’d invent all kinds of crazy theories about what had
happened to Little Tony and he’d try to convince me and John of them. We
weren’t having it, but we weren’t going to tell Ben he was crazy, either. I
think John half believed some of his ideas ‘cause John was a wreck too. There
was a big age difference between John and Little Tony, but they loved each
other and John spent a lot of time with him. John was just as devastated as Ben.
I figured the best thing was to let them both work through it in their own way.
John eventually came out of it, but things never improved for Ben. He seemed to
become more and more obsessed with theories.”

Debra pulled
out another cigarette, chain-lighting it from the first. “At one point we
thought he had made a turn, that maybe he was recovering from the grief and
starting to return to some kind of normal life, because he seemed better, not
always talking about Little Tony and the theories. He actually seemed at peace.
I remember John and I talking about how maybe things would get back to some
kind of normal routine, as normal as they can get when you’ve had such a major
loss. But it didn’t last long. Something hit him physically. I think it was all
the stress that had built up during the whole thing, just took its toll on his
body. He went from being perfectly fine and able to get around, to being unable
to get out of bed, in a matter of weeks. That’s when we would visit him, try to
keep him company, keep his spirits up. We went over many times. But it got so I
couldn’t set foot in that damned house – it was just so oppressive. Towards the
end I couldn’t stand to breathe the air, I didn’t want it in me. I know how strange
that must sound.”

“I’ve had
the same feeling,” Steven assured her. “I know what you mean.”

“So I don’t
know if that helps. That’s what happened to Ben. He developed those crazy ideas,
but in my heart I know he wasn’t crazy, just grief stricken. People do strange
things when they’re in that much despair. But that wasn’t what killed him.
Something else killed him. That house.”

“Killed
him?” Steven asked.

“That’s
right. Killed him. There was something there he just couldn’t see anymore,
couldn’t stand to look at. That’s why he cut out his eyes. He wasn’t crazy. He
was driven to that. I got a taste of it whenever I was there. You know what I’m
talking about.”

“Yes, I
think I do,” Steven replied.

Steven
arrived back late at his father’s house, thinking they would pack up and head
back over to his house for the second trance. But upon arriving at Roy’s house,
Steven could tell it wasn’t going to happen.

“I’m
exhausted, there’s no way,” Roy said. “I think I just need to get a good
night’s sleep and we’ll tackle it tomorrow night. But I insist that you sleep
here tonight, Stevie. You shouldn’t go back into that house. At least not
alone. Here you’ll be safe, and we’ll both be able to recharge our batteries.
Tomorrow we can come back at it, stronger.”

This made
sense to Steven and he agreed. He was concerned about his father’s health
already, and felt going back to the house tonight for another dose of what
happened the night before was pushing it. If the ghosts had been there for fifteen
years they would last for another night.

Steven found
himself in the room he grew up in, a room his mother had turned into a guest
room years ago. But Steven still remembered the bunk bed he shared with Bernie,
the walls that held posters, and the closet that had given them both
nightmares.
Funny how the things that scare us are so universal,
he
thought.

The last
time Steven had stayed in the guest room had been the days between his mother’s
passing and the funeral. Those had been strange days. In some ways, Claire’s
passing had been a relief, but viewing it as such immediately brought guilt.
Both his and Bernie’s relationship with their mother had been strained at best.
She was always the disciplinarian; Roy never got the chance to fill that role.
When both Steven and Bernie left for college and stopped attending church, she
was like a harpy, forever trying to get them to repent and go. They tried to
handle her gently, hoping she’d eventually accept the fact that neither of them
had any interest in religion or following her advice in that regard. When she
didn’t get the message, it became easier to just distance themselves from her. Bernie
used geography and Steven used work: Bernie moved to San Antonio, and Steven
was too busy to be around, no time for the Jesus lectures. They rarely visited.

Of course,
this came at a price. They were both distant from Roy, too. Steven realized
he’d learned more about Roy in the past few days than he knew from his entire
life before. He wondered what Bernie would think of this whole thing.

Steven
closed his eyes and let sleep come. If he could even get half of a night
straight through, he’d take it.

-

It was the
kind of nightmare you tried to force yourself out of. In a pool of water,
daylight receding. Falling, trying to hold your breath, but eventually having
to let it in, water rushing into your lungs. Light beginning to condense. He
knew it was a dream while it was happening, and he willed himself to wake up. As
he opened his eyes, the ceiling above him was unfamiliar, but he oriented
himself within moments. His mouth felt dry; he’d been drooling on the pillow,
and it was soaked. He flipped it over, but now he was waking up.
So much for
sleeping straight through,
he thought. He decided to make his way to the
kitchen for some water. The layout of the house came back to him quickly. He
glanced at the door to his father’s room – it was closed. He made his way to
the kitchen, found a glass, filled it, and downed it. Sat it down quietly. He
walked back to the guest room, hoping to fall asleep quickly, when he noticed
the door to Roy’s room was now ajar.

The same
dread and heavy air filled the hallway as he made his way down to his father’s
room. He pushed the door open.

In a way, it
didn’t surprise him. He’d taken Roy’s opinion that they were safe here at face
value. But as soon as he saw it, he knew it had been a bad assumption. In the
middle of the room stood the shadow, its eyes gleaming, focused intently on
Roy. Like before, Roy was rigid and shaking. This time Steven didn’t try to
rouse Roy – he already knew what it was doing to him. He approached the shadow,
raising his voice. “Goddamn it, leave him alone!” he shouted.

As he neared
the shadow he had a sensation of a cold, icy knife slicing through his skin. The
pain was incredible, and he jumped back. In his peripheral vision he saw Roy
soften and still, and he knew the shadow had released him. Its eyes turned to
center on Steven. He stared it down, neither of them moving. He noticed Roy
waking, taking in the scene in the middle of the room. Roy arose and approached
the shadow too. Steven felt he should not lose eye contact with the shadow – as
long as he didn’t, he felt the shadow didn’t know about Roy’s movement, it
remained focused on him. Steven was expecting an attack, for it to turn on him
the way it had on Roy, but it didn’t move, it didn’t seem to want anything of
him. It was just watching him. He noticed Roy behind it. Roy was lowering his
head, as though he was praying.
Going into a trance?
Steven thought. The
eyes in the shadow slowly closed, and the ambient light in the room began to
appear inside it. Within moments, it was gone. Roy raised his head.

“So much for
being safe here,” Steven said.

“Yeah,” Roy
replied. “I think I have really misjudged this thing.” He was rubbing his arms,
obviously in pain once again.

“How did you
make it go away?” Steven asked.

“I willed
it. It was easy,” Roy said. “You could try the next time you see it.”

“I don’t
think it would work,” Steven said.

“It might,”
Roy said. “You just close your eyes, concentrate, and mentally say, ‘go away.’”

“Really?
That’s all?” Steven asked.

“Yes,”
replied Roy, “and you have the advantage of being awake when this thing is
attacking me. I’m asleep, I can’t do it. It knows that.”

“Is that
what it’s doing?” Steven asked. “Attacking you?”

“You felt it
last night. What did it feel like to you?”

“Yes, I
would call it an attack. It felt like I was being raped. Not physically, but
mentally. It was taking something from me.”

“Next time
defend yourself,” Roy replied. “You might be surprised at what you’re able to
do.”

“Do you
think it will come back?” Steven asked.

“Why not?”
Roy replied. “I was wrong about it not following us here. For whatever reason
it wants us, it’ll just wait until we’re asleep and attack again.”

“Then we can
sleep in shifts,” Steven said.

“Good idea.
You sleep first,” Roy said. “I’m coming at this the wrong way, and I need to
study up before we approach it tonight at the house, discover what I’m doing
wrong.”

“With your
secret book?” Steven asked.

“Yes,” Roy
replied, “with my secret book that might save your ass. Try to sleep as much as
you can. I’ll wake you in a few hours, and we’ll trade off.”