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y name’s Dean Edwards. I’m a successful stockbroker who lives with my wonderful wife Cindy, our two daughters Christy and Diana, and our goofy, spastic Irish setter “Puffers” in the rolling hills north of Atlanta, Georgia. I love them all dearly.
It breaks my heart knowing I must soon leave them behind, and that they’ll never know what became of me; it’s imperative that they don’t.
For to know of The Calling would be their end, just as it soon will be mine, and as it’s already been for a small circle of my old, dear friends.
I reckon you could say that this is my Last Will and Testament. Now, that I know I’m facing my impending demise, I view things differently. Life as a human being is only a brief way stop—a fraction of many countless things that each of us have been before, and will be again.
So much for philosophic moments.
Every story has a beginning, and this one started the moment my friends and I were conceived and lived our younger years in Half-Notch, Georgia in southern Appalachia. Half-Notch, per se, wasn’t to blame for our horrible fates any more than my lifelong, best friend Jerry Taylor was, but he was the catalyst. Without him, none of the events leading to The Calling would have happened. Sad thing is he just happened to be in a very wrong place at a very wrong time, and when he shared the experiences of that very wrong situation with us years later, well, you’ll see.
Jerry was the only one of our group who stayed behind in
Half-Notch. While the rest of us left for high cotton, he eked out a hardscrabble existence one decimal point above the poverty line at his small engine repair, grocery, and bait shop. To survive in rural Appalachia, a fellow has to be, well, “handy.”
That Jerry ran a little moonshine discreetly on the side every now and then didn’t hurt, either. Though decades and hundreds of miles lay between us, I never failed to call Jerry faithfully several times a year. He loved bending my ear and I his, and I suspect some part of me buried deep inside yearned to trade places with him—to once again experience the simplicity of places and times no longer mine. In his simple way, Jerry kept me sane in my insane world of high finance; the steel and concrete jungle quaintly called Atlanta.
One innocent call I made in the spring of 1993 triggered events leading down our road of no return. Jerry was delighted to hear from me as always, and we got to reminiscing about the old days. One thing led to another, and I ended up committing myself to contacting the old gang about a possible hunting and fishing vacation in Half-Notch later that summer. The dream became reality, and the Not-So-Magnificent Seven got together, plus one good friend of mine from Atlanta.
When we arrived in late July, Half-Notch hadn’t seen that much concentrated (albeit aging) testosterone in years. After two days exploring the forests of our youth, we gave up on the notion of bagging anything more menacing than an emaciated ground squirrel or a starving grasshopper. None of us wanted to leave just yet, because we felt we’d been cheated. There by-damn had to be some good hunting somewhere about.
Well, it didn’t require a rifle or shotgun to hunt booze, and booze makes no effort to hide, unless it’s simmering in a still up in the hills. So, after bagging a substantial quantity via the legal route, we got to flapping our gums. Billy Williams talked us into going over to Rook County. “Before we give up on her completely,” he’d said, “let’s make a run up to McKenzie Lodge, and scour the woods around Bald Knob a bit.”
Most of us agreed, as hunting had been fabulous around the ’Knob when we were kids. Jerry Taylor seemed very reluctant to go, but we finally talked him into it. My, how some things change.
During the decades since my last visit, the road leading to McKenzie Lodge had become a brushy, rutted mine field with saplings standing guard like leafy sentinels. Clay Rogers, my friend from Atlanta, had to repair a flat on his Toyota 4-Runner, courtesy of a sharp rock Ma Nature had cleverly-hidden in a leafy rut. Clay’s mishap should have been an omen.
Despite the sheer beauty of the forest blanketing the craggy hills, something felt wrong. It was like the mental equivalent of trying to breathe, and sucking in water or molasses instead of air. Our uneasiness intensified the closer we got to the old lodge. Still, we pressed on as if compelled.
We got a real shock when we rounded a sharp bend and caught our first glimpse of the once-beautiful place.
With a cigarette dangling from his lips like a cheap magic trick, Billy Williams turned, elbowed me in the ribs, and said,
“Well I’ll be damned, Dean. It don’t look like there’s been a soul here in a good five or six years!”
I just sat like a hypnotized rock in the front seat of my Scout and stared.
All the front porch windows were boarded up, and the two on the near side of the lodge were broken. If it’s possible for wood steps and a wrap-around porch to have leprosy, then those two features clinging desperately to McKenzie Lodge did; they were a shambles of crazily-tilted, half-rotted planks.
A large, dead oak tree leaned against the crumbling, native limestone chimney on the side of the lodge facing us. One of its stout branches had violated a couple of grimy windowpanes like an oversized phallus. Another large branch reposed on a drift of leaves on the roof, which still appeared somewhat sound. Saplings fifteen feet high sprouted like arthritic fingers from the brushy lawn. Most of the guttering had fallen away, swallowed by hungry weeds.
“I can’t believe it!” I replied. “This lodge used to be the pride of the hunting community for over a hundred miles around. Seems I remember the McKenzie family declined all sorts of offers for the place.”
Billy Williams replied, “Well, what we gonna do? We come all this way, and now it looks like we’ll have to drive back to
Half-Notch, tonight.”
While Billy and I were jawing, Clay Rogers ambled up and leaned on my driver side door. “Like hell we will,” he said, “I’ve already lost one tire to this crappy road, and I’m not driving back over it tonight. I say we make do and stay at the lodge. Maybe it’s better on the inside.”
“Well, it can’t be much worse,” I replied, still shocked at what I saw. “Let’s give her a look-see and hope she ain’t locked up.”
“Don’t make any difference if she is,” Clay replied with a laugh, “All we gotta do is climb through one of those busted windows, or blow down one of the walls with our breath.” Clay waved his arm in the direction of the road. “I mean, it’s not like anyone’s going to show up and get pissed because we’re here.”
A short time later, we discovered Clay was right about the inside being better off. Beyond a thick coating of dust, droopy, forlorn-looking spider webs, a small drift of leaves near broken windows, and a few stray varmint droppings, the inside was fine. Even the old, rustic wood furniture and bunks were intact. That was odd, I thought, wondering why someone hadn’t claimed them.
By nine o’clock, we had a roaring fire going in the fireplace, and had cleared away most of the dust. With some good hooch and grub, the old place began to feel downright cozy. With no timetable to worry over, we’d settled in for a jaw-flapping session second to none by ten o’clock. Eventually the subject of our hunting misfortunes came up.
“Simply don’t understand it,” Cleve Jones blubbered around his ripple. “Why, the woods ’round Bald Knob’s always been a hunter’s paradise.”
Jerry Taylor, who’d barely said two words all evening, eyed Cleve and said, “You ain’t set foot in these parts in more than twenty years. I know you growed up here, but things has changed. ’Specially out here. I know why, and it ain’t good,” he said sullenly.
Jerry turned his head slowly, staring bloody hell at everyone from his rheumy, rum-sotted eyes. Like a little kid who’d just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he realized too late that he’d get no peace until he’d told the tale behind his statement. Seeing how things were, he snatched a fifth of Jim Beam off the table, downed three healthy swigs, rolled his eyes at us with an accusatory stare again and said, “Okay. But I’m warning you: It may be your asses as well as mine.”
He started his wild tale slowly, and I could see it was genuine fear that held him back. But after five minutes or so when he leaned back in his chair with a glazed, far-off look in his eyes, his tale poured out so fast that he could barely keep up. Drawn by the elements of fear and mystery in his tale, we all unconsciously edged closer. “Y’all remember that day my brother Danny and I skipped school back in ’71?” he asked. “Sure ya do, ’cause that was when my brother and his dog disappeared without a trace.
“But I ain’t never told no one was what really happened. Leastways, not until tonight. You see, Danny and his hound disappeared somewhere between where we sit and the crest of Bald Knob, and not thirty miles west of here where I sent all the search parties in the weeks after he vanished.”
Jerry’s statement went through the group like an electric shock. Danny’s disappearance had been the biggest thing that ever happened in Half-Notch.
Why had Jerry mislead authorities? Why hadn’t he wanted his brother found? Five tons of TNT couldn’t have budged our collective asses one inch until we heard the truth.
Overcome with emotion, Jerry’s breath came in uneven hitches. “Yeah,” he said, “Danny and I thought we was real hot stuff, what with them new hunting dogs and all. I suggested we come over to McKenzie’s and tear up the countryside.
“But Danny told me the dogs wasn’t ready for no big timber hunt, yet. I didn’t listen. Wish to hell I had, ’cause Danny’d be alive today.
“Anyway, we skipped school, and boosted Pa’s old spare pickup outta the barn after he’d left to do some logging. After ploppin’ the hounds in the back, we hightailed it over here fast as we could so’s to get in a full afternoon of hunting, and still make it back before Pa got the wiser.
“At first, things worked out the way we’d planned. Danny took one hound and headed for Bald Knob. I took the other and wandered off toward Skunk Creek.
“Hunting started off good. Me and my dog worked the steep banks and timber, and he did a heckuva job. I bagged a ’possum and three squirrels in about an hour . . . then, things changed.
“My dog started acting skittish, and couldn’t find his ass with both paws, let alone any more game. After twenty minutes or so, I got pissed and cuffed him a couple good licks on the flank. Just as I was fixin’ to lay on another, he rolled his eyes and let out a long, drawn-out howl the likes of which I hope never to hear again, woulda made the devil piss ice cubes if he’d been there to hear it. Anyway, my dog lit out for the lodge with his tail tucked between his legs, fetchin’ so fast he’d plumb vanished in three or four ticks of a watch. I followed fast as I could.
“I didn’t see him ’til I got back to the lodge. He was all hunkered down in the truck’s bed, shivering so bad he was rocking the frame. He only had interest in only one thing—home. Somethin’ had spooked him bad.
“That’s when I first thought of Danny; he’d been out for almost two hours, and I’d been so distracted by my dog that I hadn’t given him a thought.
“And that’s when I first noticed the silence. Almost like a tomb, it was. Not a single bird singing, or a single squirrel chattering. Even the locusts and bugs weren’t buzzing. Only the wind sighed low in the treetops, now and again. Normally, the woods thereabouts was downright deafening with critter talk.
“Something was wrong. Bad wrong. And my dog sure as hell knew it. Looking back, it’s a wonder I went into those woods searching for Danny at all. That’s how scared I was all of a sudden.
“But I overcame my fear, and plunged up slope towards the ’Knob, shouting Danny’s name until I was hoarse. Now and again I’d stop to listen, and it was more close and silent than before. Only my love for my brother kept me headin’ for Bald Knob.
“By the time I’d reached the top, it was dark. If you’ve been to the crest of the ’Knob, you know it’s rough country up there with lots of brambles and briars. My clothes, arms, and face was all scratched up, and I was panting like a fourteen year old boy his first time in a whorehouse.
“I stopped in a clear spot about thirty yards from the crest to catch my wind, setting on a low granite boulder to think. The silence was so thick and close it sucked on my mind like a leech. Worse, I was gettin’ a bad headache.
“While I caught my breath, I turned and scanned the crest and slopes of the ’Knob. There was a full moon that night, and the stars were shining like Fourth of July fireworks. The sharp moonlight made for dense, black shadows, and they seemed to cower beneath the brush and trees scattered about—almost as if they was afraid of somethin’, too.”
Jerry sighed and took another long, slow pull from his bottle before continuing, “It took me awhile to realize somethin’ looked wrong about the shape of Bald Knob’s crest. You all probably remember that the ’Knob is gently flattened on the flanks all ’round until you get to the top, where it’s crowned with jagged granite boulders stickin’ up a good fifteen to twenty feet like crooked teeth.
“When I first saw what was on the crest of the ’Knob . . .” Jerry paused and struggled with the memory, searching for the right words to continue—words never meant to describe the nightmare he was about to reveal. Then he said, “I—I figgered I was seein’ things. The slopes near the crest of Bald Knob looked as they always had, but the granite boulders on top were gone! Well, not exactly gone, but softened-like. It was like them craggy boulders had been stuck in a giant oven an’ partially melted.
“But they hadn’t been,” he said, shivering. “They was buried under somethin’ huge.” Jerry’s voice had been steadily rising with excitement and fear. But the fear won out, and Jerry’s voice sank to a whisper. “Now, I ain’t saying a full moon’s best for seeing things proper-like, but there’s some things that oughtn’t to be seen at all; they just
don’t—belong!”
As Jerry had gotten deeper into his story, his hands had started shaking. Refilling his glass repeatedly, he downed two straight shots to calm his nerves, and really gathered steam from there on in. “If you can imagine a floppy, rubbery, flapjack-lookin’ thing nearly thirty feet across and maybe two feet thick draped over them boulders on the crest of the ’Knob like a big, gooey booger, you can sorta imagine what it looked like.
“When I seen it, I rubbed my eyes several times, an’ looked again. An’ there it still sat, actin’ like it had every right to be there.
“Despite bein’ afraid, I was curious, too. I figured if I was gonna die, I might as well take a good squint. So instead of runnin’ away like a person in their right mind, I edged closer.
“Its skin, hide, or whatnot was blotchy, sorta like a huge soft shell turtle’s shell. Its colors was hard to figure, ’cause they changed when it breathed. Anyway, I reckon it was breathin’, sittin’ there draped all over them boulders like a squishy blanket, wobblin’ and goin’ up and down like a tire that couldn’t make up its mind to go flat, or stay aired up.
“It had scattered clumps of bristles or feelers stickin’ out of it, too. Kinda like a teenager just gittin’ his first set of patchy whiskers.
“It didn’t have no eyes that I could see. But I darn sure felt it had some, ’cause it didn’t seem to have no problem gettin’ around.
“Big as a livin’ room carpet it was, an’ all made out of stuff the likes of which ain’t natural. When it finally moved off the crest of the ’Knob and oozed into the forest, its body parted and flowed around trees and large rocks like maple syrup.
“Huge as it was, it never made a sound. But it made up for that with its stink. If you remember the time them tires caught fire out back of Arkady’s Garage, it was sorta like that, but not exactly. If you crossed the smell of burnin’ rubber with the low, mean, meaty smell of a cider house gone bad and stirred hell out of the two, that’s kinda what it smelled like.
“Anyway, the thing left the ’Knob goin’ north and just sorta oozed into the forest, takin’ the stink with it. I moved off slow and deliberate-like in the opposite direction toward the lodge. I’d plumb forgot about Danny, and was only interested in savin’ my own skin.”
Then Jerry’s voice dropped to a frightened whisper, “But just when I was beginnin’ to feel good about my chances, it happened.
“My headache vanished. But it was replaced by the most creepy, nasty feeling I’ve ever felt. And it was right inside my head. That feelin’ was kinda like waking up at night and finding wasps crawling in your hair. They ain’t stung you yet, and maybe they won’t. Every now and then, one or two of ’em buzz in the dark, like they’re darin’ you to swipe at ’em. You know if they do, it’s gonna hurt like a pisser. But you also know if you start swattin’ and diggin’ at ’em, the situation’s gonna get a whole lot worse before it gets better—that kinda feeling.
“And then the feeling changed. It was like havin’ soft, rubbery fingers inside my skull, gently proddin’ and splittin’ the folds of my brain as easily as you or I would leaf through a phone book. It was—searching for somethin’.” Jerry cringed at the horrible memory. His eyes rolled wildly like those of a wild animal caught in a forest fire with nowhere to flee. His voice, already a ragged whisper, sank further. “And it found what it was lookin’ for, too. Switched it on just like you or I would turn on a light bulb. It was like watchin’ a movie in my head.”
Jerry’s voice quavered, rising in jagged leaps as he recalled the terror and anguish of that moment. “Oh, sweet, merciful God! I seen and felt how my brother an’ his dog was took by the thing, just as if I’d been there.
Panting hard, Jerry trembled, and nearly collapsed in a heap. Our group sat in silence; a pitiful little band struggling to capture a wisp of the full horror Jerry had felt over twenty years ago.
After a couple of minutes Jerry gathered himself and said, “Then a lance of pain shot through my head that was so intense I come near to faintin’. And with the pain came a warning. Not in words as you and I know ’em, but with something far more clear: the horror would let me live if I didn’t return, or break my silence about its being there.
“I guess it spared me that night ’cause it had fattened up on my brother and his dog. Maybe it would have been better if I’d died that night along with Danny.”
No one replied. What could we possibly say?
Then, Jerry broke the silence and said, “Most of you know some of the rest of what happened that night: Me breaking my arm, and still managing to drive Pa’s old truck to the sheriff’s office to tell Sheriff Potter my brother was missing in the woods.
What I didn’t tell him was where my brother was missing. I steered him and the search party to a stretch of timber thirty miles west of Bald Knob, ’cause I was afraid the thing would get anyone who poked around there, and I was doubly-terrified it would get me if I told the truth.
“That night, Pa hitched a ride to Sheriff Potters and drove the truck home while I was over at Langley Hospital getting my arm set. It was five-thirty in the morning before I got dismissed and come dragging in after hitching a ride. Pa was still sitting at the kitchen table waiting up for me drunk, worried, and mad as hell.
“I ended up getting one hell of a world-class ass whuppin’ for what we’d done. But that was the last time Pa had much mean left in him. Part of him shriveled up and died when it came clear Danny was really gone for good.
“I sat at home scared shitless for a month that summer while locals combed the hills looking for Danny. I was so relieved when the search was called off before folks started scouring the ’Knob that I didn’t hide it too good. I caught Pa eyeing me something peculiar several times for the next few months.
“Then, one time while we was milking the cows, Pa turned to me of a sudden and said, ‘You ain’t told me nor Sheriff Potter near all of what really happened that night. Not by a long shot, boy.’ I lowered my eyes and said nothin’, figurin’ I was in for yet another whuppin’. But that was the end of it.
“After that, the wind just kinda went out of him. Pa took more and more to himself and the bottle, and less to workin’. Four years later, his liver quit.
“At least, it’s over for my Pa. Me? I just go on dyin’ a little more each day. ’Cause I don’t know what I could have done different that night to have saved my brother’s life. We just shouldn’t have gone there that day, is all.”
Jerry sighed like air going out of a tired balloon. With shoulders slumped and eyes downcast he said, “My life ain’t been the same since that night on the ’Knob. That’s why I didn’t want to come back here. Whatever’s up there has claimed this place for its own. If it’s still around, it might be content to leave folks alone, unless we foolishly trespass on its stomping grounds, as we have tonight.”
We all sat around the table speechless. Most of us believed Jerry’s tale more than we cared to admit because we knew Jerry to be an honest man.
Clay Rogers, the only one in the group that didn’t grow up in Half-Notch, broke the silence. “What a load of happy horse crap! I may be the only ‘city slicker’ in this group, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you guys piss away my hunting vacation on this Voodoo shit.”
Things might have got ugly between Clay and Jerry if I hadn’t intervened. Fortunately, Clay settled down, and the group steered the conversation into safer waters. Everyone agreed to leave the lodge next morning in search of better hunting elsewhere.
Almost two years have come and gone since that night. I’d almost forgotten the whole affair until five months ago when I got a call from Clay Rogers at my office. He was quite nervous and upset, and informed me that four of our group, including Jerry Taylor, had taken a hunting trip to Bald Knob. A realtor ran across their abandoned vehicles parked in front of McKenzie Lodge a week later. Authorities were called in to search for the missing men, but none of the four were ever seen again.
I was shocked. I’d have bet everything I owned that nothing could have persuaded Jerry Taylor to set foot within fifty miles of Bald Knob again. But he had.
Now I know why.
Jerry and the other three went into the belly of the beast.
And I’m next.
Three month ago, I began having the same dream, night after night. In that dream, I stood near the crest of Bald Knob under a full moon, while its surface changed, moving in slow-motion ripples. I won’t reveal the rest of the horrors I saw, other than to mention what my friend Jerry Taylor once said, “Now, I ain’t saying a full moon’s best for seeing things proper-like, but there’s some things that oughtn’t to be seen at all. . . .”
To Jerry’s statement I will add: “The moonlight of dreams may not be best for seeing, but it’s more than enough to see the horror that lurks on Bald Knob.”
Of course, the dreams aren’t really dreams. I’m being summoned. Just like Jerry Taylor and the others were summoned.
When Jerry revealed the truth to us at McKenzie Lodge that night, he unwittingly placed us all in peril by breaking his pact with the horror and revealing our presence. The thing doesn’t want to be known, and we’ve become liabilities.
“Maybe it would have been better if I’d died that night along with my brother,” Jerry had also said. As much as I love him, he was right.
When I knew what my dreams foreshadowed, I called my life insurance representative Shelly Barnett, and had her increase my policy by a substantial amount. I think she was surprised. I pray enough time passes before the end to make my disappearance seem normal. I want to leave my family set for life.
How long should I stay before my increasing edginess draws too much attention from those I love? How long before the turmoil of my mind causes me in a moment of weakness to blurt part of the truth to my wife Cindy? I must go before I endanger her or our two daughters as well.
The calling was a gentle tug at first, but now it’s become quite insistent. It calls, and I must go.
Soon, but not yet.
Just a little longer with my family, and I’ll be content. Just a few more nights in my wife’s loving arms. Just long enough to see my oldest daughter Christy graduate with honors, and my youngest daughter Diana graduate from middle school.
I seem to have more will to resist than the others, except for Clay Rogers. Maybe it’s because he’s an outsider. He may be last, but he won’t be forgotten.
As for where the horror came from, who can say? Maybe it rode the coattails of a comet, asteroid, or meteor across the heavens, surviving a fall to earth in a blaze of fire. Perhaps it’s a freak of nature born eons ago when organic matter seeped into hydrothermal vents at the core of the ancient Appalachians. Maybe it fled from abyssal ocean deeps, chased by something even more horrifying and unknown. Maybe it’s a holdover from earth’s geologic past, the last of its kind.
There’s much that I don’t know, but I do know this: When my time comes, I pray the horror will be merciful and take me quickly.
Surely, a man can hope for that. |
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