There is a phone. It doesn’t look like much: just a nondescript tan pay phone from some bygone era. But no phone company ever serviced this one; no one comes to collect the quarters. The phone is in the middle of the desert, at the bottom of a box canyon, propped up in the soft sand next to an ancient gnarled mesquite tree.
Getting there isn’t easy. It is a dozen or so miles off of Interstate 40 right at the Arizona-New Mexico border. You have to drive down rutted dirt roads that have been designed by nature to break car axles. Then you get to the canyon, and you have to start hiking. The soft sand at the bottom of the canyon pulls at your shoes like mud and shifts under your feet, so you are out of breath after just a few steps.
But people do it. Hundreds make this messed up pilgrimage to the phone because it is special. Some say it is a hotline to the other side. Some say it is a party line to hell. You pick up the phone, deposit the quarter – don’t ask where that goes – and listen.
You may hear the voices of angels and demons and old gods that melt your brain. You may hear your dead relatives tell you where the family fortune is buried or, more likely, how disappointed they are in you driving the family name into the ground. You may hear abductees begging for mercy from aliens or aliens begging for mercy from . . . well, probably better not to know who aliens beg for mercy from. You may hear secret societies plotting to kill presidents from the past and future or cult leaders ranting apocalyptic prophesies in disturbing detail.
Not me. I heard 15 minutes of static and scratching noises. Then Bugs Bunny came on the line and told me, “Aaahhh, go fuck yourself, doc,” and the line went dead. That was the low point. That’s when I knew just how screwed the universe really is, and I made my decision.
But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to the beginning. They all had their own reasons for finding their way to Black Oak . . .
Black Oak
Black Oak is a growing collection of serial short stories set in the fictional city of Black Oak, Oklahoma. They are told from the perspective of the people drawn to this mysterious city.
1 - The Package (Jessica)
The package was strange. It looked like a normal box that Amazon might use to ship a book, or some socks, or a computer part. Anything really. But this one was covered in a layer of dust, like it had been sitting on a shelf for years. Judging from post office date stamp, it was. It was dated almost 30 years ago. The year I was born, now that I think about it.
Oh, and it had a message written in marker next to the address label. It said, “Whatever you do, do not open this box!”
In retrospect, maybe I should have heeded that warning. But I don’t like being told what to do. Maybe that was why the warning was written. Maybe the person, or thing, who sent that box to me knew I don’t like being bossed around and wrote the exact opposite of what they wanted me to do. Maybe I’m being paranoid. I’ve gotten a lot more paranoid lately.
So of course, I ignored the warning. I brought the package into my apartment, never questioning the fact that there was no trace of the courier who had knocked and left it on my doorstep. It had my name and address on it, but the return address was just “Black Oak, Oklahoma.” Just that, nothing else. All of it was written in red marker directly on the cardboard. There was a post office date stamp, but no postage that I could see.
I set it on the table in my tiny kitchen, which is what I called the corner of my tiny apartment that had linoleum flooring instead of carpet. I blew off the dust, and a very faint bitter, musty, and sour smell filled the air with it. Using a knife from the drawer next to the sink, I sliced open the old, dried out packing tape. I opened the box, I screamed, and I jumped back, almost stabbing myself with the knife as my hip bumped the sink right behind me.
The package was full of spiders. When it opened, they exploded out, running out and away from the box like a sickening, skittering wave. Each one was the size of a quarter. They had fat round bodies, fat legs, and were covered with yellowish white fur. They looked like stunted albino tarantulas. That bitter sour smell was overpowering. They ran away from the box in every direction, except right at me thank God, faster than any bug I’ve ever seen. The sheer number of them running in every direction made a sound like sizzling bacon. They ran under furniture, into cracks in walls, under doors, and squeezing themselves into power outlet holes.
And then they were gone. It all happened in a few seconds. None were left. None. I looked under furniture, in cabinets, in my shoes, in the closets. I couldn’t find a single one of those spiders. Even the smell was gone. But I knew they were there, somewhere. In the walls maybe. My skin itched just thinking about sleeping in my own apartment that night.
Nervously, I went back and looked in the box. Inside was an empty egg sac the size of a baseball and a video cassette tape. There was no label on the tape. I had to dig an old VCR out of a box I had never opened since moving to this apartment over three years earlier. I hadn’t used it for years before that. But luckily, it still worked. (I looked in all the holes in the bottom to see if it had spiders first, trust me.) After hooking it up, I put in the tape and waited.
There was only static for several minutes. I was about to stop it when an image appeared. It was so dark and grainy, I didn’t recognize it at first. Then I realized what I was seeing: it was my apartment. It was someone walking through the front door of my apartment. I watched, transfixed, as someone holding the camera climbed the stairs to my loft bedroom.
And then, on a 30-year old video, was an image of me sleeping in my own bed. Yellow-white spiders crawled around on the sheets, in my hair. Suddenly, I could see a man’s hand in the video. It was holding a ridiculously big gun. The hand pointed the gun at my head. Then there was just static again.
As I said, the package was strange.
I’ve never moved out of a place so fast before. It sure makes moving quicker when you don’t bother to pack anything. Or tell anyone you are moving. Just grab car keys and go. That’s the ticket.
When I was a few hundred miles away, I stopped shaking. I slowed down to the speed limit, and I started thinking about where I was going. I hadn’t given it any thought. I had just headed north to Flagstaff. But I-17 doesn’t go any further north there, so I got on I-40 and started heading east. I was heading east.
“What is to the east?” I asked myself, out loud. I answered to myself, also out loud, “ New Mexico. Texas. Oklahoma.” Oklahoma . . . Right then, I knew where I was going.
Oh, and it had a message written in marker next to the address label. It said, “Whatever you do, do not open this box!”
In retrospect, maybe I should have heeded that warning. But I don’t like being told what to do. Maybe that was why the warning was written. Maybe the person, or thing, who sent that box to me knew I don’t like being bossed around and wrote the exact opposite of what they wanted me to do. Maybe I’m being paranoid. I’ve gotten a lot more paranoid lately.
So of course, I ignored the warning. I brought the package into my apartment, never questioning the fact that there was no trace of the courier who had knocked and left it on my doorstep. It had my name and address on it, but the return address was just “Black Oak, Oklahoma.” Just that, nothing else. All of it was written in red marker directly on the cardboard. There was a post office date stamp, but no postage that I could see.
I set it on the table in my tiny kitchen, which is what I called the corner of my tiny apartment that had linoleum flooring instead of carpet. I blew off the dust, and a very faint bitter, musty, and sour smell filled the air with it. Using a knife from the drawer next to the sink, I sliced open the old, dried out packing tape. I opened the box, I screamed, and I jumped back, almost stabbing myself with the knife as my hip bumped the sink right behind me.
The package was full of spiders. When it opened, they exploded out, running out and away from the box like a sickening, skittering wave. Each one was the size of a quarter. They had fat round bodies, fat legs, and were covered with yellowish white fur. They looked like stunted albino tarantulas. That bitter sour smell was overpowering. They ran away from the box in every direction, except right at me thank God, faster than any bug I’ve ever seen. The sheer number of them running in every direction made a sound like sizzling bacon. They ran under furniture, into cracks in walls, under doors, and squeezing themselves into power outlet holes.
And then they were gone. It all happened in a few seconds. None were left. None. I looked under furniture, in cabinets, in my shoes, in the closets. I couldn’t find a single one of those spiders. Even the smell was gone. But I knew they were there, somewhere. In the walls maybe. My skin itched just thinking about sleeping in my own apartment that night.
Nervously, I went back and looked in the box. Inside was an empty egg sac the size of a baseball and a video cassette tape. There was no label on the tape. I had to dig an old VCR out of a box I had never opened since moving to this apartment over three years earlier. I hadn’t used it for years before that. But luckily, it still worked. (I looked in all the holes in the bottom to see if it had spiders first, trust me.) After hooking it up, I put in the tape and waited.
There was only static for several minutes. I was about to stop it when an image appeared. It was so dark and grainy, I didn’t recognize it at first. Then I realized what I was seeing: it was my apartment. It was someone walking through the front door of my apartment. I watched, transfixed, as someone holding the camera climbed the stairs to my loft bedroom.
And then, on a 30-year old video, was an image of me sleeping in my own bed. Yellow-white spiders crawled around on the sheets, in my hair. Suddenly, I could see a man’s hand in the video. It was holding a ridiculously big gun. The hand pointed the gun at my head. Then there was just static again.
As I said, the package was strange.
I’ve never moved out of a place so fast before. It sure makes moving quicker when you don’t bother to pack anything. Or tell anyone you are moving. Just grab car keys and go. That’s the ticket.
When I was a few hundred miles away, I stopped shaking. I slowed down to the speed limit, and I started thinking about where I was going. I hadn’t given it any thought. I had just headed north to Flagstaff. But I-17 doesn’t go any further north there, so I got on I-40 and started heading east. I was heading east.
“What is to the east?” I asked myself, out loud. I answered to myself, also out loud, “ New Mexico. Texas. Oklahoma.” Oklahoma . . . Right then, I knew where I was going.
2 - The Story (Ibrihim)
“You’ve heard about The Dragon Boy
Ghost myth, right?”
I smiled. I had not heard about it;
it was clearly a local urban legend. This was exactly what I wanted, and my
face must have been beaming. “No. Tell me.”
He smiled back and took another
pull from his beer. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts, and as he did, his
face clouded over. “Look,” he hesitated, “it’s not a happy story. Not at first.
But. . . ,” he took a deep breath before continuing, “just . . . uh . . . hang
in to the end. It’s worth it, trust me.”
“So . . . uhm . . . ok, so there
was this kid. A little boy. And this was . . . ummm . . . well he was a special
kid. A heart of gold. Ah, I’m telling it wrong.” He took a last pull from his
beer and motioned to the bartender to bring another. “Let me start over. There
was a little boy. This boy lived a sad life. He had an abusive psycho for a
father and a bipolar drug addict for a mother. He was small, and kind, and
gentle, and people took advantage of him for that. There wasn’t a day in his
life that he hadn’t been bullied or pushed around or betrayed by those who were
supposed to protect him.
But this boy . . . this boy was the
bravest boy who ever lived. He was plenty smart enough to know how much his
life sucked, but he refused to see it that way. To him, everything was just a
monster in his way, and he was a monster hunter. It had started when he wasn’t
even 4 years old, impatient for school, he had taught himself to read. And
whooo boy did he love to read. Going to the local library with his mom were the
best memories he had. And it was there that he found the ultimate gateway drug
for geeks: The Hobbit.”
We both chuckled at that. He had a
good deep voice and a good rhythm for storytelling. I think he was laying it on
thick to impress me, and I let my smile touch my eyes to urge him on. Our eyes
met for a moment, and I couldn’t help but think how amazing he’d be telling
stories around a campfire, in a cowboy outfit. I barely kept the blush out of
my face and looked away. He continued,
“He read that local library out of
fantasy and sci fi books before he was 11. But it only took the first glimpse
at these worlds for him to know his role. He was the hero. He had no fear. He
stood up to any bully. He put himself in harm’s way to break up fights. He
walked the gay teenagers home when the creepy boys with the shaved heads were
around. He even volunteered his free time whenever he could. And he did it all
poor and hungry and going home to his own family.
He had plenty of monsters to fight,
and he merrily laughed and told the universe, ‘Bring it on!’
Then one night around his 13th birthday,
his parents’ fighting woke him up. His mom had taken too many pills or drank
too much or something and had vomited catastrophically all over the family’s
couch. For a tiny moment, the boy was happy because that meant a trip up to
Goodwill for a new couch, and Goodwill had all those racks of used books. He’d
been saving up for a month . . .
Then he noticed the look of fear on
his mom’s face, the bruises, so fresh they still looked like a blotchy red rash
but fading into a solid purple in real time. The boy turned slowly and saw the
intense look in his father’s eyes. They were too black, the pupils too big. The
boy realized he had heard his father screaming something just a minute before,
but everything had gone quiet when the boy walked in the room.”
He paused and took a long pull off
the new beer the waiter had brought. I took that moment to remind myself to
breath. Shit, this was pretty intense and specific for an urban legend. Before
my thoughts could spin back up, he began again,
“The father looked back and forth
between the boy and mother a few times, then glared at the mother with so much
hate that she whimpered. The father stomped into the kitchen and came back with
the butcher knife. This boy . . . He stood up to bullies and monsters. He put
himself in harm’s way. He was a hero. But he was also just a kid.”
He let the silence hang a perfect
beat, just long enough to let the implication set in without having to say the
asshat father murdered his saint of boy. It wasn’t just a sad story. It stirred
something in me. It made me think of other sad stories of sensitive little
boys. I had been one of those little boys. I looked up and met his eyes. A deep
nutty brown just a shade lighter than his skin, they were some amazing eyes to
meet. Kind. Intelligent. Playful. I wonder if he was one of the teenagers this
boy had walked home to deter the skin heads? For a brief moment I tasted copper
and felt my heart skip as a wave of rage pulsed through me. He seemed to sense
my thoughts and gave me a wink and a smile hinting that the bad part was over
before continuing,
“However . . . just as it seemed
like he was dying, he had enough strength to look up at his father. And there,
wrapped around his father, was a dragon. Her claws dug into his father’s chest and
stomach like a demonic backpack. Her tail whipped at his father’s legs, and her
wings beat the air in frustration. Her head, though, her head was perched right
next to his father’s ear, screaming. The dragon spirit was stuck to the father,
and she was screaming in helpless rage and despair. And the father couldn’t
hear her, not really. But she was still hurting the father, torturing him,
poisoning him. Locked together, these two poor creatures thrashed around in
pain.
And so, the boy reached up, grabbed
the dragon spirit’s tail, and said, ‘com’ere you!’ and the dragon let the
father go and flew down to the boy. The dragon was so elated that the boy could
hear her, that she immediately flooded the boy with strength. The boy stood up
and walked out, the dragon perched on his shoulder, whispering ancient secrets
in his ear. The father, now weak, was crying on the floor. The mother just
looked shocked, staring off into the middle distance while shaking. There
seemed to be a body of a little boy, bleeding out between them, but that didn’t
concern him anymore.
So anyway . . . I’ve heard a
version where they boy’s ghost and the dragon spirit become partners. But the
original I heard was that they merged together into . . . well . . . I know it
sounds silly, but The Dragon Boy Ghost.” He made a ridiculous
hand-stretched-out monster gesture as he said the name with a dramatic voice.
We both laughed.
“It’s . . . sort of like the ghost
of a boy who looks kinda demonic because of the dragon wings and tail. Whatever
version, it always ends by saying that he’s still out there. He helps others
find justice. Especially for us outcasts. Especially when the law has failed.
Or he helps people with anger issues and inner demons. It’s said he can even
help heal the pain that comes from being a victim of bad luck in this world.
You know, all the shit the comes from doing only what you must while the strong
do what they want. There are shrines all over the town, and if you really need
help and can’t get it anywhere else, you put a note in one of those shrines.
It’s . . . kinda scary because you are basically summoning this dark, violent
ghost that looks like a demon. But it’s said he only comes to the truly
desperate anyway.”
“Wow.” I puffed out after a moment.
He smiled behind his beer glass, and I again thought how good he would look in
a cowboy outfit. Don’t get me wrong, the tailored grey suit he wore looked
damned nice on him, but when I came out to Kansas to research these legends, I
was expecting to meet some damned cowboys!
Stop. My mind was going on
tangents. I did that when something bothered me, and the back of my brain
itched. I focused.
I gave him a genuine smile and
sighed, “It’s a good story. Really good, actually. But I need real urban
legends, not original fiction.”
He looked hurt, “It’s not . . .”
I held up a hand. “It’s too
specific. The particular details in descriptions of the scenes. The perspective
taking of the boy, knowing his intimate thoughts and memories. The odd phrasing
of avoiding pronouns except in the scenes with the dragon. There’s even a
literary reference to the Greek conquest of Crete in the middle of your
conclusion. It’s a great story, but it just doesn’t sound like a real urban
legend.”
As I talked, his face went from
hurt to thoughtful to confused. After a long moment, he said, “You’re right.
You’re absolutely right. But . . . I swear to you, I didn’t make it up. Trust
me, I wouldn't write it like that if I did. And what is weirder, is that for
the life of me, I can’t remember where I heard it.”
This was it. This was the tell-tale
sign of psychic contamination I had been searching for. I had finally found a
lead to the True Source. I looked down and composed myself, making sure that I
gave the most genuine smile of all time when I looked up. If I looked too
happy, he would want an explanation and would freak out. If I looked not happy
enough, anything I said next would seem patronizing. It had to be perfect. I
shoved every ounce of skill I had ever acquired over the years at pretending to
be human, and looked up with genuine human smile on my face.
“Hey!” I said cheerily, “a
mystery!”
3 - The Special Purpose (Mellisa)
“No, honey, you’re not special,” he replied kindly. The
words stung, but that sting was immediately soothed by the look of pure love in
my father’s face. “No one is special. You see, every single human is . . .” he
paused to think of the right word, “amazing.”
I remember my father smiling and pulling me into an embrace
that said what words never could, “you matter. Absolutely. To me, you mater
more than anything, I feel so much love for you.”
My father was troubled in many ways, and most people would
find his inability to come down to the level of normal people a fault. I don’t. Daddy didn’t use words. His mind transcended
them. I knew beyond any shadow of a doubt how much he loved me. It was all
there in the looks and the hugs.
“You see, sweetie,” he continued with the same beaming love in his face, “most people don’t understand the source of their reality. It’s all here,” he tapped my forehead, “inside the connections of neurons in the brain. When you feel me hug you,” he soothed as he pulled me closer, “you feel a surge of joy. And you associate that with me, and you know that joy is special.”
He let the silence hang for a moment, while I enjoyed being
warm, safe, and comfortable in his arms. I realize only now how often he did
that. How often he was just . . . there for me. THERE when I needed someone to
make me feel safe. THERE when I needed basic human touch. THERE when I needed
someone to sooth the hurts of life. THEHRE when I needed him. I can’t help but
think sometimes that I became a lesbian simply because no man in my life has
ever come close to getting close to the bar my father set. In my childhood
mind, he was a god of kindness and strength, and when the cancer took him away,
I was left a hollow husk.
In my memory, my father continued, “That joy. That JOY
really is special. When you think about someone you love, your brain uses
special neurons, special connections in your brain for that person. Those
connections are unique. They are truly special. No one else in the world can
make your brain trigger those connections, make you feel those feelings.”
His smile was like the sun on my face as he kept speaking, “Most
people never realize the difference. They only know they feel something special
when they look at their children, and so they think their children are somehow
special, different, unique.” He grew sad at this, “so much pain is caused in
the world, sweetie, because people don’t realize what is really special and
important are these bonds and feelings we have for each other.”
He looked intensely down on me, “Do you understand? I don’t
just love you with all my heart. I love you in a way that is unique – special –
from everyone else in the world.” His green eyes bore into my soul with their
intensity, but I wouldn’t truly understand his words for years. “Every parent
sees their child like this, through the prism of love. That makes you special to
us. But if you start thinking that any one person is truly unique and special,
you start to see everyone else as . . . less.”
He grew serious, “no one is less. No one is undeserving. Every person on
this planet is amazing and wonderful and beautiful.”
He held me even closer and whispered, “never limit yourself
like that. See all people in all their wonder, so that you can grow full of
love and show them all just how amazing and wonderful you are.”
That was my father, always the hopeless romantic and
optimist. He had a heart big enough for everyone in the world but didn’t know
how to show it. An ancient pain, a deep shame, hit my heart, and I clenched my
fists. In my mind, my own voice echoed, “how disappointed he would be in you
now.” When my hands stopped clenching and shaking, I picked up the sniper
rifle.
“I’m sorry, Daddy. You’re wrong.”
4 - The House (Jessica)
No one expects to have a life-changing epiphany during breakfast in a greasy roadside diner. Maybe they should. Because when you wind up picking at congealing country gravy and tough biscuits while you stare off into the middle distance for the fourth time that week, you really should be asking yourself what the fuck you are doing with your life.
That was exactly what I as asking myself that morning. I had been in Black Oak, Oklahoma for 3 weeks, and I was no closer to understanding why someone here had sent me a package full of spiders and a snuff film starring yours truly. As far as I could tell, Black Oak was typical Midwestern small city. I hadn't found anything in this town except a wild goose chase. I was wasting my time.
I thought I should give up this craziness and drive back to Phoenix. That would be the sensible thing to do. I had spent the last three weeks in the cheapest motel I could find off the highway on the edge of Black Oak. It was a throwback to the heyday of Route 66, complete with cheesy fake flying saucer in the front and an old chrome facade. The rooms were as old and rundown as the outside and as filthy as I ever imagined. I touched the sheets as little as I could, and I had nightmares about the hordes of roaches and rats coming out at night and waging little wars.
I desperately hoped they were just nightmares.
But even as much of a pit as the motel was, it was still draining what little savings I had. I had never expected to be here this long. Next to the unappetizing plate of greasy biscuits and gravy was the classified section of the local newspaper. The paper had dozens of both jobs and apartments crossed out. There was one temp agency circled, but I needed a place to stay more desperately. The thought of actually staying here, setting down roots in this city made my skin crawl. On the other hand, I sometimes felt like I had come home when I was wandering around the city center. I looked back at the classifieds for apartments.
I was reading the listings for the fourth time, trying desperately to see something I had missed the first three times – like a magical apartment that met my budget of “destitute” and didn't need a lease – when the man slid into the booth across from me. My gaze slid up a cream-white suit to a face that made a small panicky chill blossom in my brain and slide down my spine. Nothing about him was overtly monstrous. In fact, he was one of the most non-descript people I had ever seen, except for the curls of his perfect, golden blond hair or his too-pale hazel eyes. What bothered me was something else that I couldn't pin down, something about the proportions of his face or the emptiness in his eyes. I got the distinct impression that I was looking at a mask stretched over . . . something else.
“You should leave this town, Jessica Byrne,” he said in a voice like warm tap water. It was soft, and gentle, comforting even. But there was no humanity there. The little panicky chill inside me crawled back up my spine and settled into my brain.
I would like to say I threw a witty retort into his face. That would just be a lie. I was being torn apart by indignation at this man imposing himself on my space, anger at this stranger telling me what to do, and raw, unbridled terror that this thing knew my name. While I tried to sort out whether I wanted to tell him to fuck off or run from the diner screaming, I just sort of sat there and stared at him dumbly. He stared back with absolutely no emotion. After a few seconds, the anger was decidedly winning the battle against the terror. I was just about to tell him where he could shove his advice, and it must have shown in my face. He closed his eyes and sighed resignedly.
“I guess it was too much to hope you would just walk away,” he said quietly. “Very well. If you're insistent on staying . . .” Without finishing his thought, he reached over and grabbed the classified section I had been reading.
“Hey!” I shouted. Heads turned to look at us. Great, I had made a spectacle with my amazing wit. The strange man didn't even seem to notice I had spoken. He pulled out a fancy gold pen, flipped to another page of the paper and wrote something on it.
“When you have lost all hope, call this number,” he said as he wrote. Then he pushed the paper back over to me. “Good look in your quest miss Byrne.” And with that, he rose, turned, and strode out of the diner.
I glanced down at the paper. A phone number with a strange area code was scrawled across it in gold ink. I picked it up, prepared to crumple it up and toss it in the trash, when I froze. Right above the phone number was an ad I had not seen because it was in the miscellaneous section.
Old widow looking for roommate
to help with chores a few hours
a week. Free room and board.
I couldn't believe it. Free room and board. Free. Nothing in life was free. I sat back in my seat and thought about what the catch must be. I thought about being all alone in old age, no one to talk to, no one to help with anything. It might be worth giving away room and board just to have someone help bring in groceries. It made sense. Maybe this was legitimate. Maybe this was the break I needed. Even if I had to spend a few hours keeping a batty old nut company every week, I didn't really mind. And it would free me up to try to figure out where that package had come from.
What did I have to lose?
There was no phone number to call, jut an address, which turned out to be miles outside the city limit. The outskirts of town were not the endless miles of housing developments popping up all over the desert, like I had known in Phoenix. It was corn fields. Tall, dried out corn grew right up to the edge of the tiny 2-lane country road.
It creeped me right out.
Then it got worse. After only a few miles north, I found my turn. The faded road sign was obscured by the corn, and I almost skidded out of control trying to stop in time to turn. No one else was on the road, so I was saved from some embarrassment. I hurried down the side road with my heart still pounding.
The road I had turned onto was even narrower than one I had been on. Then it turned into a one-lane road. Then the pavement ended, and I crunched along on a gravel road. The plants were so close, they blocked out the rays of late afternoon sunlight. I had to turn on my headlights, causing sharp shadows to seem to skitter and dance in the rows of corn. Emaciated leaves scraped against the sides of my car, making a sound almost exactly like hissing cats while the crunch-crunch-crunch of my tires on the gravel began to sound like growling.
After what was probably five minutes of this, but felt like two hours, a driveway opened in the corn to my left. An antique mailbox sat at the end of the driveway on a rotting post. Rusted iron numbers on its side told me I had found the address. I turned down the lane and immediately let out a sigh of relief to be free from the claustrophobic corn. Then I saw the house.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” The words came out before I had a chance to remember I was alone in the car, and no one could hear me. The house turned out to be a huge, old mansion, maybe some antebellum plantation. It had seen better days.
Many of the windows were boarded up. A garden along the South side of the house was just weeds, and more weeds grew between the warped boards of the wrap-around porch. A forest of lightning rods along its peaked roofs had been reduced to crumbling rust. It even had an actual fountain out front that was filled with green stagnant water. The corn fields came up to within a dozen feet of the house, and tall weeds took over from there. I imagined the plants were trying to take over, to reclaim the land used by this monstrosity.
I wondered if it had ever been used as a haunted house prop in a movie. It would probably be turned down by any self-respecting producer as too cliché.
I suddenly felt very foolish. I wondered if the ad in the classifieds had been a joke, a hoax to get people to come out to this creepy old house. I thought there were probably a bunch of high school boys waiting in the corn field to jump out and try to scare any idiot who would actually walk up and knock on that door. I looked out at that corn swaying in the wind, casting shifting shadows in the dying light of the day. Why had I delayed coming out here until so late? Was I just being a coward, spooked by a creepy old house and some corn fields? The thought made me feel even more foolish.
I sat there in my car, listening to the breeze making the corn rustle against itself, paralyzed by embarrassment and nervousness. What was I doing here? Everything about this situation was silly, something a crazy person would do. The weight of my decision to leave Phoenix settled down on my shoulders in a small knot of tension. Now here I was, alone in the middle of nowhere sitting in front of some horror movie prop. The thought that I was alone brought up a new wave of fear. The classified might have meant to lure a fool out here for something more sinister than a hoax. That thought was enough to push me into action. It was time to give up this foolish game and go back home to Phoenix.
I started my car again and turned around in the house’s yard to leave, only to see my escaped blocked by a pair of headlights turning into the driveway. An older silver pick-up truck pulled up right in front of me, blinding me with its headlights.
“Shit . . . shit . . . shit” I said to myself over and over, my heart pounding, trying to figure out how I could smoothly get around this truck. The stupid fountain was on my left, and the house’s porch on my right. Could I back out fast enough? I imagined myself trying to back away into the corn fields like some insane stunt diver while some redneck serial killer shot at me with the hunting rifle from his truck’s gun rack.
The truck’s driver turned the lights off and shut the truck down. I tensed. The truck’s door opened . . . and a small old lady jumped spryly down from the truck’s cabin. She had leathery tan skin with lots of laugh lines and snow white hair cropped very short, and she could not have been more than five feet tall. She was wearing faded jeans that were too baggy, a floral top, and comfortable sneakers.
She squinted at me for a few seconds before her face broke into a broad sunny smile. Then she waved. “Hello, there dear!” she beamed, “Help me carry my groceries in, would you?”
Then she turned, grabbed a brown paper grocery bag from the bed of her truck, and walked towards the house. She moved easily for an old lady, but a slight limp betrayed her discomfort. Instantly my nervousness vanished. Maybe I was a fool, but I wasn’t about to refuse a request for help from a sweet old lady. I turned my car off, grabbed the other two grocery bags from the truck, and followed her up to the house.
That was exactly what I as asking myself that morning. I had been in Black Oak, Oklahoma for 3 weeks, and I was no closer to understanding why someone here had sent me a package full of spiders and a snuff film starring yours truly. As far as I could tell, Black Oak was typical Midwestern small city. I hadn't found anything in this town except a wild goose chase. I was wasting my time.
I thought I should give up this craziness and drive back to Phoenix. That would be the sensible thing to do. I had spent the last three weeks in the cheapest motel I could find off the highway on the edge of Black Oak. It was a throwback to the heyday of Route 66, complete with cheesy fake flying saucer in the front and an old chrome facade. The rooms were as old and rundown as the outside and as filthy as I ever imagined. I touched the sheets as little as I could, and I had nightmares about the hordes of roaches and rats coming out at night and waging little wars.
I desperately hoped they were just nightmares.
But even as much of a pit as the motel was, it was still draining what little savings I had. I had never expected to be here this long. Next to the unappetizing plate of greasy biscuits and gravy was the classified section of the local newspaper. The paper had dozens of both jobs and apartments crossed out. There was one temp agency circled, but I needed a place to stay more desperately. The thought of actually staying here, setting down roots in this city made my skin crawl. On the other hand, I sometimes felt like I had come home when I was wandering around the city center. I looked back at the classifieds for apartments.
I was reading the listings for the fourth time, trying desperately to see something I had missed the first three times – like a magical apartment that met my budget of “destitute” and didn't need a lease – when the man slid into the booth across from me. My gaze slid up a cream-white suit to a face that made a small panicky chill blossom in my brain and slide down my spine. Nothing about him was overtly monstrous. In fact, he was one of the most non-descript people I had ever seen, except for the curls of his perfect, golden blond hair or his too-pale hazel eyes. What bothered me was something else that I couldn't pin down, something about the proportions of his face or the emptiness in his eyes. I got the distinct impression that I was looking at a mask stretched over . . . something else.
“You should leave this town, Jessica Byrne,” he said in a voice like warm tap water. It was soft, and gentle, comforting even. But there was no humanity there. The little panicky chill inside me crawled back up my spine and settled into my brain.
I would like to say I threw a witty retort into his face. That would just be a lie. I was being torn apart by indignation at this man imposing himself on my space, anger at this stranger telling me what to do, and raw, unbridled terror that this thing knew my name. While I tried to sort out whether I wanted to tell him to fuck off or run from the diner screaming, I just sort of sat there and stared at him dumbly. He stared back with absolutely no emotion. After a few seconds, the anger was decidedly winning the battle against the terror. I was just about to tell him where he could shove his advice, and it must have shown in my face. He closed his eyes and sighed resignedly.
“I guess it was too much to hope you would just walk away,” he said quietly. “Very well. If you're insistent on staying . . .” Without finishing his thought, he reached over and grabbed the classified section I had been reading.
“Hey!” I shouted. Heads turned to look at us. Great, I had made a spectacle with my amazing wit. The strange man didn't even seem to notice I had spoken. He pulled out a fancy gold pen, flipped to another page of the paper and wrote something on it.
“When you have lost all hope, call this number,” he said as he wrote. Then he pushed the paper back over to me. “Good look in your quest miss Byrne.” And with that, he rose, turned, and strode out of the diner.
I glanced down at the paper. A phone number with a strange area code was scrawled across it in gold ink. I picked it up, prepared to crumple it up and toss it in the trash, when I froze. Right above the phone number was an ad I had not seen because it was in the miscellaneous section.
Old widow looking for roommate
to help with chores a few hours
a week. Free room and board.
I couldn't believe it. Free room and board. Free. Nothing in life was free. I sat back in my seat and thought about what the catch must be. I thought about being all alone in old age, no one to talk to, no one to help with anything. It might be worth giving away room and board just to have someone help bring in groceries. It made sense. Maybe this was legitimate. Maybe this was the break I needed. Even if I had to spend a few hours keeping a batty old nut company every week, I didn't really mind. And it would free me up to try to figure out where that package had come from.
What did I have to lose?
There was no phone number to call, jut an address, which turned out to be miles outside the city limit. The outskirts of town were not the endless miles of housing developments popping up all over the desert, like I had known in Phoenix. It was corn fields. Tall, dried out corn grew right up to the edge of the tiny 2-lane country road.
It creeped me right out.
Then it got worse. After only a few miles north, I found my turn. The faded road sign was obscured by the corn, and I almost skidded out of control trying to stop in time to turn. No one else was on the road, so I was saved from some embarrassment. I hurried down the side road with my heart still pounding.
The road I had turned onto was even narrower than one I had been on. Then it turned into a one-lane road. Then the pavement ended, and I crunched along on a gravel road. The plants were so close, they blocked out the rays of late afternoon sunlight. I had to turn on my headlights, causing sharp shadows to seem to skitter and dance in the rows of corn. Emaciated leaves scraped against the sides of my car, making a sound almost exactly like hissing cats while the crunch-crunch-crunch of my tires on the gravel began to sound like growling.
After what was probably five minutes of this, but felt like two hours, a driveway opened in the corn to my left. An antique mailbox sat at the end of the driveway on a rotting post. Rusted iron numbers on its side told me I had found the address. I turned down the lane and immediately let out a sigh of relief to be free from the claustrophobic corn. Then I saw the house.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” The words came out before I had a chance to remember I was alone in the car, and no one could hear me. The house turned out to be a huge, old mansion, maybe some antebellum plantation. It had seen better days.
Many of the windows were boarded up. A garden along the South side of the house was just weeds, and more weeds grew between the warped boards of the wrap-around porch. A forest of lightning rods along its peaked roofs had been reduced to crumbling rust. It even had an actual fountain out front that was filled with green stagnant water. The corn fields came up to within a dozen feet of the house, and tall weeds took over from there. I imagined the plants were trying to take over, to reclaim the land used by this monstrosity.
I wondered if it had ever been used as a haunted house prop in a movie. It would probably be turned down by any self-respecting producer as too cliché.
I suddenly felt very foolish. I wondered if the ad in the classifieds had been a joke, a hoax to get people to come out to this creepy old house. I thought there were probably a bunch of high school boys waiting in the corn field to jump out and try to scare any idiot who would actually walk up and knock on that door. I looked out at that corn swaying in the wind, casting shifting shadows in the dying light of the day. Why had I delayed coming out here until so late? Was I just being a coward, spooked by a creepy old house and some corn fields? The thought made me feel even more foolish.
I sat there in my car, listening to the breeze making the corn rustle against itself, paralyzed by embarrassment and nervousness. What was I doing here? Everything about this situation was silly, something a crazy person would do. The weight of my decision to leave Phoenix settled down on my shoulders in a small knot of tension. Now here I was, alone in the middle of nowhere sitting in front of some horror movie prop. The thought that I was alone brought up a new wave of fear. The classified might have meant to lure a fool out here for something more sinister than a hoax. That thought was enough to push me into action. It was time to give up this foolish game and go back home to Phoenix.
I started my car again and turned around in the house’s yard to leave, only to see my escaped blocked by a pair of headlights turning into the driveway. An older silver pick-up truck pulled up right in front of me, blinding me with its headlights.
“Shit . . . shit . . . shit” I said to myself over and over, my heart pounding, trying to figure out how I could smoothly get around this truck. The stupid fountain was on my left, and the house’s porch on my right. Could I back out fast enough? I imagined myself trying to back away into the corn fields like some insane stunt diver while some redneck serial killer shot at me with the hunting rifle from his truck’s gun rack.
The truck’s driver turned the lights off and shut the truck down. I tensed. The truck’s door opened . . . and a small old lady jumped spryly down from the truck’s cabin. She had leathery tan skin with lots of laugh lines and snow white hair cropped very short, and she could not have been more than five feet tall. She was wearing faded jeans that were too baggy, a floral top, and comfortable sneakers.
She squinted at me for a few seconds before her face broke into a broad sunny smile. Then she waved. “Hello, there dear!” she beamed, “Help me carry my groceries in, would you?”
Then she turned, grabbed a brown paper grocery bag from the bed of her truck, and walked towards the house. She moved easily for an old lady, but a slight limp betrayed her discomfort. Instantly my nervousness vanished. Maybe I was a fool, but I wasn’t about to refuse a request for help from a sweet old lady. I turned my car off, grabbed the other two grocery bags from the truck, and followed her up to the house.
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