Call out to the Dead

He came at me ready to kill only to be repelled by something. His eyes dropped to the ground the threshold between us then slowly worked their way up to my neck. His eyes narrowed and he whispered to himself, “You listened.”

He disappeared from view just like that.

“He can’t come in without an invitation!” Jo now sounded more excited than you’d ever imagine. We had something to use against him, she was sure.

Yet, I wasn’t as comforted as her. His foot was over the threshold before he started sliding back and Jo hadn’t seen that. Still I went with her on that victory. Maybe she was right. Maybe I saw things wrong because of the paranoia I’d acquired during this experience.

We somehow made it to sleep that night even with all my thoughts that I’d never sleep again. The dreams were still in full force only now I saw the face of the man in the woods. Michael. Tormenting me even while I slept. This night there was no message though. He didn’t say a word we were just locked at the eyes his dark green eyes getting lighter and lighter until they were an intense bright green like they were when he came at me. They almost matched the color of my mother’s rosary.

The next day we were left at the same place first thing in the morning. She and I met up in the living room taking a seat waiting a minute before speaking.

“We’re going to have to call the police.” I spoke solemnly breaking the silence. This was the one thing that I was going to know more about.

“They aren’t going to believe us. It sounds crazy. We’re not her friends, well not close enough to be the last person she called.” Jo worried that us calling them would make us prime suspects one and two.

“However they killed her isn’t going to look like we could have done it. You heard the sounds, she’s gonna be torn up. They’ll probably think it was an animal.” I told her speaking softly. This was going to suck. “If we don’t call them they’ll call us when they find her phone records.”

“Fuck.” She muttered. “When?”

I left the room going out to the kitchen to grab the cordless house phone, just so they can track the number with more ease. When I walked back Jo’s head was in her hands. She was panicking. Everyone has their comfort zones. I can deal with a death, she can deal with a poltergeist. Realistically I deal better with before she deals better with after.

I sat back down and sat the phone on one of the many piles of books. “Jo. We didn’t do anything wrong. We just have to make the call tell them what we heard. They’ll have trouble believing it at first but once they find the body they’ll know. There’s only one lie we have to tell. We didn’t call last night because we thought it was a prank. We debated until now. We can’t tell them about some vampire -Michael- outside my house that I shot three times.” I hated having to say it but the whole truth just wasn’t what the world was ready for.

She just nodded and waved me on to make the call.

I was directed straight to a detective after trying to give a shorthand explanation to the girl who screens the calls.

“This is Detective Stone.” The man’s strong voice rang into the phone.

“Hello, I’m Eliza O’Shea and I want to report a possible murder.” Saying that honestly trying to keep your voice from shaking is harder than you realize. “Janet West called me last night -me and Joanne Wilson both heard the call- in a panic. She couldn’t tell us where she was. She was running and crying talking about something stalking her.”

“Why didn’t you call last night?” Obvious question first.

“We though it was a prank. We debated all night about calling you -I could hardly sleep- but we were worried that we were overreacting.” I spoke feigning honesty with just enough regret seasoned in there to make it believable.

“What makes it worth calling now?” He believed we were wasting his time.

“It all sounded so real.” I spoke with the chilling vagueness that I figured would draw him perfectly.

“What sounded real?” I had him hooked.

“The sounds of her running, her phone hitting the ground, the... ripping sounds.” I trailed off expecting him to understand why.

“You live at the old O’Shea house way out on Sparrows Way, right? Is your friend still with you.” He was definitely interested now.

“Yeah, we’re both out here.”

“I’m going to make a few call make sure no one has seen or heard from her today. If she hasn’t I’ll be out there to interview the both of you, so don’t go anywhere.”

“We’ll be here.”

Then he was gone.

I looked over to her and she still looked unsure. “He’ll probably be here in a few hours.”

“You shot a vampire.” She bluntly informed me.

“I know I was there.” For a brief moment I thought she flipped her lid.

“Three times Eli. A cop is coming to your house.” She had to all but draw me a picture.

“Holy shit! The blood!” I didn’t want to imagine what would happen if he just wanted to walk around my house and there was blood splatter everywhere.

I hurried and Jo followed -we’ve been doing this a lot- to help clean up. Why hadn’t I cleaned this while it was still wet?

We didn’t see blood when we got out there though.

“What the fuck happened to the blood? That bastard bled!” I spoke in worried frustration. I was so sick of everything rational being turned upside down.

She crouched down at my side, touched the ground and rubbed her fingers together. “Ashes. He’s a vampire. There goes all my ADD hopes that he’d sparkle.”

“What?” None of those statements seemed to belong together.

“You’ve never read a vampire book before have you?” She sounded exasperated with me. “Vampire myths in fiction has changed over and over. Authors all not wanting to trot out the same trite cliches. Most recently shitty books have pansy ass high school vamps that sparkle in the sun.”

“Vampires by nature are night creatures though, that’s stupid.” Even I knew vampires didn’t belong in the sun.

“Yeah that’s what all the vamp groupies have been saying. After the detective leaves we’re finding more things to repel him.”

“So no clean up. I don’t understand anything anymore.”

Jo straightened back up and put her hand on my shoulder. “We should get ready for the interview so we don’t kill Stone with our stench.”

What was a girl like me supposed to do in a world where rationality was no longer king?

My bathroom was very modern. My parents had expanded it by taking out a linen closet to put in a tub out of a dream; huge with jets. I loved the bathroom, it was definitely my favorite part of my old house.

Once I came out dressed in a simple gray tube dress, rosary in it’s place, towel wrapped around my head. Not much a fall attire but I didn’t plan on going out my door. I meandered back to the living room sitting on the couch and crossing my feet under me.

Jo came out in our high school sweat pants and the matching tank.

“Why do you still have those God awful sweats?” I asked unable to contain my laughter at the hideous gray and orange sweats.

“Hey Miss Cleo, we didn’t ask you what you saw baby!” She said ending with her lamest Miss Cleo accent.

“Hater.” I reached out to the book I’d mocked her for bringing. Turns out she was right about covering our bases. I flipped through the book. “Most of this stuff is about fiction, how does this help?”

Jo’s face returned to a clinical sort of serious in a blink. “But it also contains the old superstitions. It tells of all the old world ways.”

***

Detective Stone was a no nonsense man with small eyes that appeared to always be searching you for the truth. He showed up on my steps looking like he trusted nothing and no one.

It was easy to read from him that he thought we knew more than we would admit.

I gave him permission to pull my phone records. I knew they’d be able to pinpoint where the call was made. They’d find whatever was left of the body by the last satilite her phone pinged off of. This was the upside of big brother having such easy access to our location these days.

We rattled off the same story, he asked a few questions, and begrudgingly left. I think he wanted one of us to waver to show something dishonest.

After he left we got back into the vampire book. We focused on the charts that were sporadically spread through the book. They had charts on Destroying and Detecting that spanned from page 66-68, Powers on page 212, Preventing on page 213, and the one I wanted the most was Protection from Vampires on page 216. That led us around the book to figure out why some of the random things worked. In different parts of Europe they believed that vampires were compulsive in many different ways, counting, untangling/tying things. Those were the things we decided to bank on first. Mostly because I had rice in the house that would be something that would take anyone a long fucking time to count.

So after a long couple of days she and I finished sprinkling rice around the house and went to bed early with nothing but hope that it’d be a peaceful night.

I tossed and turned as I dreamt of the tattooed vampire again.

I woke up on my side slowly sliding my eyes open wide enough to see 3:47am on the alarm clock by my bed. I’d fallen asleep in my dress.

I glanced around my room, finding my bearings in this obscene hour, and shot up out of my bed seeing the very same man sitting on the chaise lounge across from my bed.

Jo had been wrong.