Old Man Caleb. The name slithers into my mind, a name I thought I wouldn’t ever hear. The old man lives in a secluded house right across from our trailer park. I have only been here a month so I don’t know enough lore about this man besides his name and that he’s crazy.
There had been occasions where I’ve heard vehement shouting echoing from his house, and sometimes hysterical laughter, but that’s about it. The neighbors here talk about him alright, which keeps him sentient and fresh in my mind, and probably the only reason I’m familiar with the name at all. They just call him Caleb though and I’ve heard some rumors about him swinging through the vines lately, though I’m not sure they hold any verity. They say that ever since his wife died, he’s been communicating with spirits of the dead to talk to her and conjuring demons for comfort. And they assume that’s how he became crazy. That somehow he knew too much. It’s all a load of bull to me. He’s probably just a crazy old man that likes to troll people. I can imagine that he’s probably been infected by now, just like the rest.
“How do d’you know about Caleb?” I ask. My feet is crunching with celerity on the sandy ground. I see several scorpions scuttle out of a mobile home and two rattlesnakes slither out of another one. I stiffen a little bit. Besides the cacti, sand critters are another irksome trait of living in Palvalla and all of Phoenix in general.
“Who don’t know about Old Man? He’s kind of an idol over here.”
A mysterious, ill-inducing idol. But we’ll split the difference. The white smoke from my mouth starts to fall back like I’ve grown a nebulous mustache.
Sloan continues. “I’ve been visiting him some. The man don’t got no friends and neither do I, so naturally, we hit it off.” He laughs. There’s a bit of cynicism in it. “He’s definitely off his rockers alright, but some of the things he’s told me, the things he’s taught me, it rings a few bells.”
“Like?” I say with bated breath.
“Like how there’s sumthn funny goin on in Palvalla. A dark mystery. He been trying to solve it, which prolly why he gone rockers. No, I ain’t believe in that bull about him talkin to demons and shit. I just think the man wants to find the truth.”
“Does it have to do with the infection? Did Caleb mention this mystery having anything to do with the infection?” I start to think of Renae again, and that cold soulless monster she’s become. Those callous milky white eyes roaming in the darkness of the mobile home.
“That’s kind of what I wanted to show you. Erre time I visit him, he does this eerie gesture, like he’s possessed. His body stiffens, eyes turn white, and his knees fall to the floor. It’s like—like—”
“Like he’s getting a vision,” I say, recovering his words.
Sloan stares at me, his black eyes shimmering. Jet neighs fretfully. “Yeah, like that. What’s your name Miss?”
I forget how relatively new Sloan is to my life that I didn’t even bother to introduce myself. But then again, he came up to me randomly.
I sigh, finally relenting. “I’m Reyes. And no, I don’t wanna go out with you."
“Hold your horses lady, I ain’t tryin to go anywhere with you. I just want to name a face I can talk to.”
An inflammatory bile of guilt surges through my body. “Sorry, I just thought you wanted to get into my pants. You have no idea how many of those creeps I met in high school.”
“Well, it’s a sightly pleasure to meet you Reyes. Jet thinks so too—Jet sputters his lips in affirmation—and yeah, maybe I was tryin to get in your pants.”
“Ok dude, shut up.” I punch his arms as he starts guffawing.
As we make our way down the trail, I learn that Sloan was homeschooled, which explains why I have never seen his face in school. Almost everyone that lives in Palvalla—as well as a few kids that live in Arcadia and Scottsdale—goes to Paradise Valley High School. So it is uncommon not to recognize a face or two when you are outside of class. And it’s not like we’re all buddies or whatever, it’s just that we recognize each other. And for some people (myself included, it’s usually a bad omen because we like to stay as anonymous as possible.
Sloan’s reasons are his parents thought he had some anger issues and had trouble focusing to go to a public school. I try not to snicker because I somehow can’t find these reasons far-fetched. But then again I have my own shit to deal with, so it’s not that amusing. Sloan got Jet when he was five, and the horse has not only been his best friend, but his most reliable transportation as well.
“My parents would never allow me to drive no car. They reckon I’m reckless,” Sloan tells me.
I ask him about the cowboy hat and he tells me he just likes the way it feels on his head. I assumed it was because he was trying to be some tough cowboy and he just laughs when I tell him. Who knows, there’s truth to every joke. Sloan has lived in these trailer parks his whole life. His parents could never afford real homes and they almost always got aid from the government. My heart starts to grow heavy. I can only imagine what the other kids would’ve thought of him.
After he’s done, I start telling him about my life. How I have a nicotine addiction, how I work at Subway (or rather worked), how we lost our home, and a whole bunch of stuff I would probably keep to myself. It wasn’t everything, trust me, but it was enough to make him raise his eyebrows. It felt weird opening up to some stranger, but comforting simultaneously.
“You went out with how many guys?” Sloan asks, incredulously.
“Nineteen throughout my Junior year. But sixteen of them were just friends and we barely ever talked.” That’s another thing about me, I’m very flirtatious. It’s kind of a habit I’m trying to mitigate these days, which is why I was quick to turn Sloan down. I’m starting to gradually regret telling him all of this. “I didn’t sleep with them! Their looks weren’t worth an ice cream cone, trust me. We just talked and stuff.”
We walk through the opened fence. Up ahead of us is an asphalt road and as our eyes travel past it, we come across a tall, humped, gothic structure hidden behind a flurry of pale green shrubs and cacti and standing on a crumbly tan bed of sand. The sand stretches as far as the slithering road does, probably reaching to downtown or perhaps until a small field obstructs it. The walls of the gothic house are a craggy caramel, flashing a high turret roof with glaring rectangular windows. The black wooden door is hissing at us as we approach. Sloan turns the doorknob and creeps inside, while I hold the rear.
We enter a dark hollow chamber with a faint humming that sounds eerily glasslike. The windows are resplendent, giving a faint glow to the scowling room. Then a creaking sound is submerged under our feet. I lay my hands on what feels like a smooth mahogany table and then something hard and bonelike grabs it, pinning it down.
“Aaah!” I’m tugging my hands but the skeletal hand won’t budge. Suddenly the fireplace roars to life and the chandelier tinkers on. The brown paneled walls start to show themselves more clearly and there’s a dusty staircase that spirals to the upper floors. The skeleton hand budges and relinquishes its grip, swinging back to its owner. The skeleton is sitting on the long mahogany table with its head laid flat. I realize it’s real and not some horrific gag because I can see a crack in its skull with spiders leaking out.
“Do you think that was his wife?” I ask. My body is tingling.
“I don’t know,” Sloan mutters over my shoulder. “Old Man don’t tell me everything. Sometimes he murmurs stuff to himself that just sounds like gibberish. He’s really good at that, talkin to himself ‘n all. Where’s the man anyway? It’s mighty quiet in here.”
I turn to the fireplace and see a limp, ghostly white man with dampened eyes and yellow hair, lying against the harlequined brick wall of the fireplace. Those wrinkly lines patently reveal the notorious profile. Caleb’s been infected but for some reason, he hasn’t turned. Or rather he’s just…
I touch his chin and suddenly I see those familiar gut-wrenching milky eyes. Caleb groans, but he doesn’t bite me…just yet. Instead, he grabs my hands and suddenly I feel my body growing cold, stiffening, and my head jerking upward.
I hear Sloan’s voice somewhere in the echoey distance. “Reyes, you ok?” What’s Old Man doing to you? Reyes?!”
When I open my eyes again, I automatically cover my mouth to stifle my outcry, for my fear is overwhelmingly capital. I’m no longer standing in the chamber, instead, I find myself in the far, dark, recess of space. But there are no stars. Or any happy astronauts waving by in their fancy rocket ships. No, this is something different. In the wide-open inky space, I’m floating in the center of a ring. A family of planets are surrounding me, and I recognize them. It’s Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, Venus, and Uranus but they’re completely massive—even more than they usually are—and they’re glowing brightly as if they have been divinely coronated by angels. Accompanied by these surrounding giants is the faint humming noise I heard when I first stepped into the chamber. The eerie, glassy, humming noise. It sounds as if I’m being held on a spiritual trial.
An old figure spawns in front of me, holding his arms out as if he’s about to fly. He has those familiar milky eyes, wrinkled skin, and golden yellow hair. The milky eyes are glowing.
“Old Man Caleb?” I whimper. “What am I doing here? Where am I?” My body is cold and I really don’t like the look of those planets.
Old Man Caleb screams and then he regains his voice. It’s incredibly deep. So deep it makes my insides tremble and the surrounding planets tingle.
“There’s an enemy among you. One who has tapped into the spiritual world. One of capital enormity, who seeks to destroy mankind and has already begun so. If left unchecked, you will all die and perish to damnation. But fear not, there is one who can stop him. One from the opposing branch. And she will be called Deathspeaker. Find her.”
Caleb disappears or rather the person that was playing as Caleb disappears and suddenly I find myself on the floor of the chamber again. Tears are flooding down my face and I’m having a fit as if I’m struggling to breathe. As if someone has torn my lungs. Sloan holds me in his arms. He smells like wood and old work boots. But I don’t care, I’m completely relieved to be in the terrestrial world where I can touch something.
“It’s ok. You’ll be ok,” Sloan tells me as I weep onto his white tanktops. “What happened? You sort of blanked out like Caleb usually does. Your body was stiff, your head was facing the ceiling and your eyes were glowing white. You kinda looked possessed. Did you see sumthn? Lika a vision?”
My body is still undulating in wails of tears. “I-It was so scary, Sloan. I was in space. And there were these planets that were humming and glowing—”
“Glowing?” Sloan interjects.
“And Caleb! He was there but it wasn’t him. It was probably like some divine creature dressed as him. He told me to find this girl that will be able to stop the enemy. The one who’s caused all these infections.”
Sloan stares at me solemnly. “Did he give you a hint? Like any locations or sumthn?”
“No. He just said to find her. He was pretty grave about it.”
“And if we don’t?”
My voice chokes in a sheen of tears. “We die.”
The silver tears trace the humps of my lips. “We have to find her, Sloan.”
I retract myself from Sloan’s embrace and look around the chamber. I see Caleb’s body is still uniformly lying by the fireplace but this time there’s a fireplace poker speared in his head. I stare curiously as if there’s any chance he’ll revive himself for a third life, but Caleb stays dead.
“I had to find something to pucker him to sleep. He would’ve bitten you mid-possession,” Sloan says behind me.
He warbles something else, but I’m not paying attention to that. Instead, my eyes are pronged to a silent hissing shadow that’s growing behind the staircase. The shadow reveals itself to be a huge, diamondback, flaxen rattlesnake slithering with utmost alacrity toward me.
“Don’t just stand there, run!” Sloan swiftly grabs my arm and we dash toward the door. But the snake has already coiled around my ankles and it sinks a huge bite into it. Sloan almost throws himself at the poker by the fireplace as he pushes it into the fire and sinks it right into the snakes slithery spine. The reptile recoils and hisses angrily at Sloan as its skin sizzles to black and is burned in half.
“Thanks,” I slurr. But my vision doesn’t feel the same. It’s blurry and dizzying, and suddenly everything cuts to black.
I wake up to find myself following a long desert road that’s moving very fast and then I’m standing on a damp, grassy, graveyard. The massive backdrop of Camelback Mountain is behind us, but it’s completely blackened and lacks visibility. However, the outline of the craggy mountain is shimmering in golden light. It’s as if I’m staring out into a mountainous eclipse.
I hear weeping. There’s a girl I’ve never seen in my life holding a boy in her hands. There’s a long silver instrument beside her, shimmering in the night. Both of their faces are blurred, like an opaque window.
“No, you can’t be dead. You don’t just get to do that,” the girl sobs. “Please wake up!”
I wade in a bit closer. “Sloan?"
But before I can get a closer look, another figure appears. It’s a feminine person with glowing platinum blonde hair. She’s just standing there at a distance, watching the scene. Her face is blurred as well.
“Why are you just standing there? Do something!” the girl yells at the blonde. The girl’s blonde hair stops glowing and she disappears and soon afterward, the whole scene evaporates. An echoey wind calls me in the shuddering black void.
“Reyes, wake up! Wake up!”
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