The Summoning (4 page)

It was just a nightmare, he told himself. That’s all. It wasn’t real.

Ryan dried his face off with a “good towel” that Carol had hanging from decorative fake brass rings on the wall. He walked back out to his bedroom. He really wanted to take a shower and change into a different set of clothes. But he didn’t have another set of clothes – he still needed to go to the store.

He thought about the red-haired man again. There was something about the man, something … familiar.

No, Ryan didn’t want to believe that.

It was just a nightmare.

But the red-haired man could have something to do with the answers to my past, Ryan’s mind whispered. Maybe that’s why I’m here.

Ryan left the bathroom and went back to his bed. He sat down on the edge of it and stared at the window. He didn’t want to think about the red-haired man right now. He didn’t want to think about the nightmares.

He just watched the tree branches moving in the breeze outside the window. Leaves fluttering, sharp ends of small branches clawing at the glass.

After a half an hour Ryan stood up. He was calm now. He needed to go to the store. He needed a change of clothes.

And he needed to get out of this house for a while, drive somewhere, clear his mind some more.

Ryan walked to his bedroom door. He checked to make sure he had his car keys, wallet, and the wad of money in his pants pocket. Then he fished out the skeleton key and unlocked his door and went downstairs.

Downstairs in the living room, Carol sat in her recliner and knitted. Victor and Tom each sat on a couch. They were both reading; Tom was reading the financial section of the newspaper, and Victor was reading a detective novel. This seemed like a nightly routine for them. They all looked up as Ryan came down the stairs.

When Ryan got to the bottom of the stairs, he saw a big orange cat. The cat stared up at Ryan like it had just seen a monster. The cat’s ears went as flat as airplane wings and he hissed at Ryan before darting off down the hall to Carol’s bedroom.

Ryan watched the cat run for its life. He looked at Carol, Victor, and Tom who were all staring at him. He shrugged and gave them a lop-sided smile. “I guess the cat doesn’t like me much.”

“He usually likes everyone,” Victor said.

“Don’t give him a hard time, Victor,” Carol said. She looked at Ryan and gestured at the two men. “These are my other two tenants: Victor and Tom.”

Ryan smiled at them and walked over to shake their hands, but he stopped in his tracks when he realized that neither one had any interest in shaking his hand. “Pleased to meet you,” he said as he pulled his hand back.

“This is Ryan,” Carol said to Victor and Tom. “My new tenant. He’s renting out Bob’s old room.”

“You’re not from around here, are you?” Victor asked as he studied Ryan unabashedly.

“No,” Ryan answered.

“What brings you to Edrington?” Victor kept probing.

Ryan hesitated.

“You got family here?” Victor asked. “Friends?”

Ryan shrugged. He needed to give them some kind of answer. Even Carol had stopped knitting and waited for his response. Ryan surely couldn’t tell them that he’d woken up in a motel room with no memory of his life and that he’d found this address in his wallet.

“Work,” Ryan finally said. “I’m uh … looking for some work.”

Tom barked out a laugh and went back to reading his newspaper. “You came to the wrong town if you’re looking for work.”

Victor’s eyes never left Ryan. “I think you’re looking for something other than work.” Victor paused, waiting for a reaction from Ryan that he didn’t get. “Or more like you’re running from something.”

Ryan’s heart skipped a beat. Did Victor know something about Ryan’s past? Was he testing him in some way? Was Victor the reason Ryan was here? Ryan couldn’t be sure, and he couldn’t risk questioning Victor about it in front of Carol. He would have to wait it out and see what happened.

Carol tossed her knitting aside and got to her feet. “That’s enough from you, Victor.”

“What?” Victor said with feigned shock. “I was only trying to make conversation.” Victor glanced over at Tom for help, but Tom still had his nose buried in the newspaper.

Carol walked over to Ryan and she surprised him by gently taking his arm and leading him towards the dining room. “I think you’ve had enough of the Inquisition for one day. Are you hungry?”

Tom put his newspaper down. “He missed dinner time. Those are the rules.”

Carol stopped walking and she turned to Tom with fierce eyes. “Well, I’m making an exception this time.”

Tom looked wounded. “Okay, Carol. You don’t have to snap at me.”

Carol looked back at Ryan and she gave him a razor-thin smile. Ryan was sure Carol meant the smile to be comforting – but it wasn’t.

“Come on into the kitchen with me,” she said.

In the kitchen, Ryan sat at the small wood table that seated four. The décor was cozy-country, with old blue plates set on a high shelf all around the room. There were wood cabinets, the wood table, a wood floor – a lot of wood in the kitchen. Even though most of the kitchen still looked like it belonged to the turn of the century, the appliances had been updated to modern times. And Carol stood in front of one of those modern appliances, the microwave oven, and waited as a plate of food heated up.

“I’m sorry about Victor and Tom,” Carol said as she watched the plate of food rotate inside the microwave. “They’ll warm up to you, they’re just being overprotective. They’re always that way with new tenants.”

“It’s okay,” Ryan said from the table. “How long have you been renting rooms out?”

The microwave oven dinged and Carol opened the door and pulled out a heaping plate of food. She brought it to the table and set it in front of Ryan. “About ten years now. I started renting rooms after my husband died.” She turned away to grab some silverware for Ryan.

Ryan wished he hadn’t asked her now.

She brought a knife, fork, and paper towel back to Ryan. “We never had any children, and when he was gone, the house just seemed so … empty.”

Ryan nodded. Carol didn’t seem sad about it; she said everything matter-of-factly, like she had learned to deal with this long ago. She walked back to the refrigerator. “What do you want to drink?” she asked over her shoulder.

Ryan stared down at the knife and fork Carol had just laid down beside his plate of food. He picked up the knife and stared at it; it was a steak knife with a serrated edge. And it fascinated him for a moment. He turned it slightly in his hand and he let the overhead kitchen light wink off the blade.

“Uh … whatever you have,” Ryan finally answered Carol, but his voice sounded so far away to his own ears.

He set the knife down and looked at the plate of food. Some kind of meat smothered in brown gravy with mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables on the side. His stomach grumbled and he realized that he was very hungry. He wondered how long it had been since he had eaten. The last thing he remembered eating were the crackers and candy bars from the motel vending machines.

“I’ve got iced tea,” Carol said from the refrigerator. “Milk. Water. Orange juice.”

Ryan looked at Carol. “I haven’t had orange juice in a long time,” he said, but he wasn’t sure if this was true or not because he couldn’t remember his past. But it seemed true to him in a way that he couldn’t explain.

Carol poured a glass of orange juice and brought it to the table.

“Thanks,” Ryan said and he picked up the glass of juice. He had meant to just take a sip, but he ended up drinking almost all of it down. He was suddenly so thirsty and it tasted so good.

Carol sat down in one of the chairs at the table and she watched him carefully. Ryan noticed that she was staring at him and he smiled. He took a bite of the food and, much like the orange juice, he found it hard to stop eating the food once he started.

Ryan shoveled food into his mouth and then stopped when he realized that Carol was still staring at him. He smiled at her and swallowed a lump of food. “Sorry. I guess I was hungrier than I thought.”

“That’s quite all right,” she said and smiled, but her smile was tight and it didn’t touch her eyes. “I like to see a hungry man eat.”

Ryan ate the rest of the food.

Carol glanced at the archway that led out to the dining room like there might be someone spying on them, and then she looked back at Ryan as he wiped gravy from his mouth with the paper towel. “If you’re really looking for work, I know Buddy McRae is hiring.”

Ryan nodded. “Yeah, that would be great.”

“He’s building a new plaza on the north side of town. You ever do any construction work?”

Ryan couldn’t really answer that. He didn’t know what he’d done before last night. But he shrugged. “A little, I guess. I’m a quick learner.”

Carol jumped to her feet and hurried to a kitchen drawer. She took out a piece of paper and a pen. She jotted something down and brought the paper to Ryan. “I know Buddy very well. I’ll call him in a little while and let him know you’ll be coming by tomorrow morning.”

Ryan looked down at the directions Carol had written on the piece of paper. He looked up at her. “Thanks. You don’t have to go to all of this trouble.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Carol said and smiled at him. “I want to help.”

After Ryan finished his dinner, he tried to help Carol clean up the kitchen but she wouldn’t let him. He thanked her again for the dinner and told her that he was going to a store. He went back out to the living room and braced himself, ready for another onslaught of interrogation from the two old men, but they weren’t in the living room. He left out the front door and went to his car.

He drove back down south on the county road to a Super Wal-Mart he’d seen on his way into town; he figured they should have everything he needed there.

He roamed the aisles through the supermarket section first. He grabbed some toothpaste and a toothbrush, a comb, deodorant, some cheap cologne and aftershave, some shaving cream and razors.

In the clothing section, he picked out three sets of clothes – pants and shirts. He grabbed a pair of sweat pants to sleep in and a pack of socks and boxer briefs. He also selected a light jacket in case it got chilly at night.

That should be enough to get me by, he thought.

For how long? his mind whispered.

How long
was
he going to be here? Until his memory came back? Until whoever was following him caught up to him? Until the red-haired monstrosity from his nightmares came to –

Ryan pushed these thoughts away as he rolled his shopping cart to the checkout lanes. It was dark outside the plate glass windows of the store – later than he thought.

He sighed as he waited in line and made himself calm down. He just needed to take things one day at a time, let his mind relax and see what memories came back to him.

Hours after Ryan left the Super Wal-Mart, it was closing time at Charlie’s Pub.

Amber cleaned up the bar as Charlie tried to get the last of the drunks to stagger on home. Amber wiped down the bar, restocked the glasses, checked the liquor levels and recorded them in a log. She gathered up the two bags of garbage and took them to the dumpster out back.

As soon as she stepped outside the back door, the night wind toyed with her dark hair. She walked through the darker area of the parking lot (Charlie refused to spend the money on lights in this back parking area which was mostly for employees) to the dumpster that sat in the far corner; right now the dumpster was just a dark shape in the night.

When she got to the dumpster, she threw the garbage bags over the edge of the metal wall and heard the bags land on the bottom. But then she heard another noise that stopped her in her tracks.

A growling noise.

It sounded like a dog was growling – a big dog. She froze as she listened to the low and throaty growling. It sounded very close. She could imagine a big dog (or a wolf) jumping out at her and attacking her as she tried to run back to the pub.

She glanced at the back door of the pub that looked so far away now. She hadn’t moved a muscle yet as she tried to tell where the dog was in the darkness. She was trying her best not to make a sound.

But the dog knows I’m out here, she thought. It can smell me, that’s why it’s growling.

Amber moved one step away from the dumpster. Then another step. Then a third step. Her eyes were on the dumpster the whole time, but she still couldn’t see the dog anywhere in the darkness.

But she could hear the low growling.

Amber couldn’t fight the panic anymore; she turned and ran back to the pub. She knew she shouldn’t run – she’d always heard that running from a dog just made them want to chase you even more because it turned you into prey – but she couldn’t fight the natural instinct to flee back to safety. She didn’t even bother to scream or to cry out for help as she ran, she didn’t want to waste any energy on that; she wanted to pour every ounce of her energy into getting back inside the pub.

She finally reached the back door and tore it open. She bolted back inside. She was just about to slam the door shut, but she stopped herself. She made herself look out at the dark parking lot – the light from inside only reached so far from the back door and she couldn’t see much beyond it. She studied the darkness, and she could nearly make out the dark blob of the dumpster in the distance. But she still couldn’t see the dog.

“What’s wrong?”

Amber nearly jumped out of her skin and slammed the door shut as she turned around.

Charlie stared at her with a smirk on his face, but there was a trace of concern in his eyes. “What is it?” he said as his smile faltered a little.

“It’s … I think I heard a dog out there by the dumpster,” she finally said.

“Let me go see,” he said.

She was about to warn Charlie not to go out there, but he brushed by her and stepped outside. He looked around as he stood in the splash of light from the open back door. He didn’t see anything. He marched towards the dumpster. She watched him from the doorway as he looked around the dumpster.