Baker's Dozen, page 4
Ray swallowed hard.
"I was being pulled down, Ray. Then, the dirt, the worms, the grass, and everything was gone, and that's when I felt it—"
"Felt what, Ronnie? What?" Ray asked.
"Something I didn't know existed. Terror. Man, I've never been afraid of anything, but I am now. Jesus, I am now."
"What did you see in your dream, Ronnie?"
"When the soil was gone and all, I was in this little cave, or cavern. Probably no bigger than this room. Except the walls were rock. Everything was red and hot as hell. To my right, there were these two very old, dirty men bound in chains to the wall, pounding chisels against the stone, carving something fucked up. The smell—the smell was something I couldn't explain, just like the horrible feeling I got. The smell was of old. It was hot down there, Ray. Too hot …" He trailed off, very still, and looked down and sideways, as if lost.
"Ronnie, but you kn-" Ray went to say.
Ronnie interrupted him with the rest of his story:
"No. Toward my left, there was a hole in the ground. Square, maybe four-foot by four-foot, and so black that it looked like it never ended. Right above that, there was this curved stone slide, like a laundry shoot. This went up into the ceiling. And there, right in front of me, not ten feet away—my God."
More tears fell. Ray was intrigued.
"It was a throne. A big, carved wooden throne trimmed in pure gold. Some diamonds and jewels were set in certain places. I even remember the arm of the chair. It was carved into these little snakelike faces. It was something far beyond what Dali could have painted, because it was real. The room got hotter and filled with steam that was coming from—somewhere. I didn't just want to flee when I saw what was sitting in that chair, I had to. The feelings it gave to me and took from me ... it was so powerful.
“So I turned to leave, but there was no door, no way out, and I felt like I'd be trapped there forever ... forever."
Ray immediately said, "What was sitting there?"
Ronnie took a moment to find the words, or to gain the courage to explain what it was he'd seen. Ray was sitting on pins and needles at this point.
Ronnie's hands were shaking even worse now. Small grunts escaped his throat as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.
"The thing was red. Deep blood red. It wasn't a man or an animal, but a monster. Not just a monster, but something much, much, much larger on the food chain than any human. Maybe even on a food chain we can't understand. It had these ..." Ronnie began to depict what he explained with hand gestures—"long dark claws that were dripping with this green slime that smelled like toxic waste. It wasn't muscular, but it was huge, with this weird beer-belly stomach. It had to have been eight feet tall. At least. But on the inside, it was much taller, much bigger, and much older than probably even the dinosaurs. Christ, Ray, horns were sticking out of the sides of its head. Long, twisted, stained horns almost as sharp as its claws. It was a devil. A demon of some sort. The things some people make into horror movies."
Ray went to say something, but Ronnie intercepted him again: "No! Not horror movies. The Exorcist could not compare to this, man. Its eyes were catlike, and they saw into me. Through me. It could read me and all I've ever done. It degraded me just by looking at me. I could feel it taking away my soul. It hated me more than I had hated anybody in my life." He drooped his head and went on crying. Ray, although interested, was beginning to feel on edge with this story. His friend had never been this weak, this fragile, and all because of a little night terror? Besides that, his wording was different. The tone of his voice was beyond the convex of seriousness. It was as if he'd lived it.
"Take your time. It's okay."
Ronnie yanked his head up, stopped crying, and said seriously, "No. Nothing's okay, Ray. I can explain it to you only in words, but to witness it—to be there makes wording it seem like nothing. To say and to be are different." He wiped away some snot with the back of his hand. "I was standing there, in that little dungeon. I could see that the old men were carving a pentagram into the wall. Then, one of the dirty old men turned to look at me. Except he couldn't see me. His eyelids were sewn shut. Terrible. And yet he knew I was there. He could smell me. He gave me this little grin, this evil smile that said welcome. It was about half as evil as the creature on the throne. The men were, in some way, his slaves.
“Then, from somewhere up above, there was this wrecking, vibrating sound, like a small earthquake was happening. The beast moved, stood up. Suddenly, he was holding a lit torch dripping with little flames. His movements, themselves, almost made me vomit, almost made me piss myself. Both at once—" he strayed off.
Ray said, "Go on."
"The rumbling sound got louder, louder. The guys carving at the wall carved it faster. The walls of the cave felt like they got a little smaller. The demon, or whatever it was, stood there, quiet, waiting… excitedly anticipating something.
“Suddenly, a man in a business suit slid down from the shoot, kicking, swinging his arms, trying to stop himself from falling. He was screaming. The demon smiled again. Its smile—" He cupped his face in his hands. Ray put a hand on his shoulder.
"That smile isn't normal! It only got bigger and more demented.
“Anyway, the business guy flew off the stone slide. I thought he was going to go right down into that black square hole, but he didn't. He hovered—stopped in midair. I knew it was the demon who'd made him stop and hover there. I couldn't see the man's face, but I could feel his fear. The red beast loved it. It was as if his fear made it stronger...”
“Go on...”
“The man just stayed there in the air, as if hanging by wires on stage. Then, very quickly, something happened that I could not believe. I got lightheaded in my dream."
"What happened, Ronnie?" Ray said, more of a command.
"It caught the guy on fire with the torch. He went up in flames. He began swinging, fighting, screaming—I can't get that out of my head. He was helpless. The fire wasn't only eating his skin; it was eating his soul, too. His screams were inhuman. Deafening. I can hear them now."
Ronnie closed his mouth for a few seconds, then did something that chilled Ray to the bone. Ronnie opened his mouth and screamed as loudly as he could.
"That was the sound he made. But in the dream, it was a hundred times worse. He tried uselessly to put out the fire eating him alive, the fire that would not stop in a minute or in a million years. The demon—the horrible thing that started it—just looked at him and laughed. HAHAHAHA!"-- Ronnie laughed crazily. Ray recoiled, almost falling out of the chair.
"The laugh was not one laugh but a mixture of different laughs, like those from people in a nuthouse, only magnified. Evil. Not only did my ears hear the sound, but it seemed to scrape a piece of my soul off with it.
“The flames got bigger, hotter, and he just floated there, nowhere to go and nobody to help him through any of this. I couldn't move. I couldn't help him. I jumped back when gravity kicked in and he went falling into the recesses of that black square hole. The demon laughed more ... and more. It was doing its job. It was having fun. I still saw the flames flicker against the walls of the inside of the black hole. His screams echoed back up, but they soon grew faint ... and fainter. There was no thud or thump or bang of him hitting the ground. His screams gradually drowned out until he was so far down I couldn't hear him anymore. The hole had no bottom. The men chiseled nonstop. The demon was still gazing down into the pit, watching the man go away. Its eyes weren't really green; they were black in truth. Then, very very slowly, it turned its head to look at me. At that moment I realized I was in hell. I was in hell! This was my punishment for everything bad I'd ever done, man. Me stealing shit, doing drugs, breaking people's faces because they talked bad about me, tormenting animals—this is what all that got me, man. There is no escape, no redemption, no nothing but punishment. That's what it's like when we die."
He let out a sigh of relief, but to Ray, Ronnie appeared anything but relieved. His friend had been scarred, scathed, beaten, battered, destroyed. This was the end of his preteen rampages, his midnight assaults with vandalizing local businesses, his end of committing crime and mischief ever again. Ray was a little let down that his best friend, with whom he followed through thick and thin, was overcome by a silly dream. Even though it was heartfelt and very realistic, there had to be a much more logical explanation.
"Ronnie, it was just a bad nightmare—"
Ronnie stood, walked over to his bed, reached under, and pulled out a pair of boxer shorts. To Ray's astonishment, they were soaked in urine and stained with shit.
"Just a nightmare, Ray? Just a nightmare?! You remember me telling you that I have had dreams that became real later, after I'd waked up? Of course they were small, like the UPS guy knocking at the door only five minutes after I dreamt it, or the time when my mom knocked on the door and said Uncle Bob came back home and I dreamt it just hours before he came. Tell me what that is!"
Ray could do nothing but stare at him. Then, he said: "You've been talking about 'twelve feet under' all day. Was that in your dream too?"
Ronnie thought about this and squinted his eyes shut. "Twelve feet under is eternal hell, Ray, that's what twelve feet under means. I will prove it."
"I don't understand."
Ronnie sat down to explain it. "You see, people who go to heaven leave the casket before they’re put in the ground to rot. Their soul flies up into heaven, like the little girl. But for us, for me, if you're destined to go to hell, it is six feet under your buried body. Six plus six is twelve, one digit below thirteen, the unlucky number. Guess how old I am? Twelve going on thirteen, soon."
Ray didn't know how to take this information from Ronnie—the toughest person he knew. He had seen something; something had happened to him. But was it just a dream?
"So you're saying that people who've gone to hell... their hell sits twelve feet under the surface of the ground?"
"You don't believe me? I'll show you. I'll show you!"
"God, Ray, it was just a nightmare. Just because you had a couple of psychic dreams, which may have been a coincidence, doesn't mean this will come true, too. Y'know?"
"I feel it, man. If I go to sleep tonight, I'll die. And if I don't, I can't have this dream again, or one that's worse. I know I can't explain it, but you know me. Can't you just trust me?"
Ray nodded.
"We'll go to the graveyard tomorrow and I'll prove it to you."
Ray nodded again.
"I don't know if I'll be able to even go to sleep. I can't get these images out of my mind. I keep seeing them over and over."
Ray put his hand on his shoulder. "Just try to relax."
***
The night passed slowly for both kids, especially Ronnie. Neither of them got their normal amount of sleep. Ray lay there, asking himself question after question about the content of the dream in his mind, but found no answers. Ronnie lay there until almost five in the morning, scared of drifting into the world that had swallowed him up just last night. He gasped every time his mind went to shut itself off, fearing never waking up again, fearing that little compact cavern and its despicable master. They both eventually fell asleep.
Ray woke up first, groggy and hungry. He looked up at the wall clock, which read: 12:00 on the dot. Then he remembered the story, the dream.
Ronnie was still asleep, though. He was lying on his stomach, his face mushed against the pillow, out like a light. His arm dangled lifelessly over the edge of the bed like a fallen tree limb. Ray snickered and shook his head. He sat up, stretched, and let out a ferocious yawn. Through the window, a pale gray light shone in. Dark storm clouds lingered skyward like pillows of dread.
"It's morning, man, rise and shine," Ray told Ronnie, who didn't budge. Ray tugged at the covers, trying to wake him, but it was useless.
"Time to get up and go to the graveyard to prove your dream wrong. Come on, asshole!" He tugged harder at the covers and gave him a little push. Nothing. Ray suddenly looked down at his friend's digital watch. It read: 12:00. The seconds digits were stopped on 00. It wasn't moving. The watch had stopped. Puzzled, Ray swung back and looked up at the wall clock. It, too, was fused on noon with its second hand stagnate.
"12 feet under..." he mumbled to himself. Suddenly, there was a rumble of thunder, and rain started to trickle against the small window above the dresser. Ray looked back up at Ronnie. He noticed that his face was just a little too pale, too drained of color.
"Wake up, man ..." he said, giving him a good hard shove.
Nothing.
Ray jumped to his feet, so fast that he almost fell back down to the floor. He gazed down at his friend, wondering if he was dreaming, joking, or even asleep.
"Come on, don't play games with me, Ronnie. Wake the hell up." He grabbed his arm, about to yank him out of bed, but knew it was no use. His arm was ice cold. There was no blood traveling through his veins, no beat to his heart, no thoughts in his mind anymore. His friend wasn't asleep, wasn’t trying to pull a fast one on him.
Ronnie was dead.
Ray was terrified. The whole story his friend had explained to him last night went through his head quickly: the graveyard, the cave, the chained men, the business man in flames going down into the never-ending hole, and that beast. It all weighed heavily on him as he stumbled backward toward the bedroom door, looking down at the body of his friend who had died maybe an hour or so ago, appalled and unable to believe it.
"No. No! It can't be!"
He dashed out of the house as fast as he could and went running through the streets in the pouring rain. He didn't stop until he made it home seven blocks away. There, he locked himself in his room and refused to come out again. He cried for almost twenty-four hours and did not—dared not—sleep.
But he did come out a day later when his mother told him that his best friend, Ronnie, was found dead. Apparently no known causes were found for his death. He had no physical, mental or psychological problems. Not even the doctors could explain the reason for his passing. Ronnie's mom did, however, suspect Ray might have had something to do with it, but he was never questioned.
“Things that can't be explained sometimes happen,” someone said at the funeral. Many people suspected drugs may have been involved, and others believed it was the mysterious ways of God. Ray did attend the funeral. He sat away from everyone, unable to speak or make any sounds other than tiny, barely-audible grunts here and there. He simply sat through the whole service like a ghost, too afraid to look into the casket and too afraid to repeat Ronnie’s story.
It would be a secret he would always keep.
It was on a cloudy Sunday afternoon when Ronnie was buried at Brooke Cemetery. Approximately fifty people attended the service. Wind was coming from almost every direction, cold, forewarning the appearance of winter. Dead leaves covered the ground, and dead splotches of yellow grass made it look much more deceased. Ray was there. He was the first one to show up, and he would be the last one to leave.
Reverend Jeremy Pallin was the one to say the last few words before they lowered the coffin six feet under—
Six feet under! Ray thought, feeling faint.
Six feet more and that's—
"May God bless him, may God save his soul. Amen," the preacher said, closing the bible gently, bowing his head, and walking away, sorrowful.
Ray stood right by the edge of the open grave as the casket was being lowered. People around him were weeping, mourning the loss of a boy who wasn't even a teenager yet and would never be one.
Slowly and periodically, people got into their cars and left, many probably ready to get home and drink their sorrows away. But Ray just stood there for a long time and watched as the big oak box was lowered into the rectangular hole, as it was filled with dirt, as the place became more and more like a graveyard—dead and void of the living.
Ray had to see. He had to know. That's why he waited, standing around. All the people left until he was in the graveyard alone, terrified with what he was about to do and with what he could possibly find. The wind tousled his hair, blew the yellow and orange leaves past his feet, but his eyes never moved.
12 feet under ... I have to see it. I have to know if he's right.
When evening rolled around and he knew nobody would see him do it, Ray knelt down by the new grave and began digging away the dirt with both his hands. He threw clumps of it backward, away from him, like a dog searching for a bone. He did it quickly, mechanically, not even looking away to see if anyone would catch him. It took him a while to get down to six feet—hours—but when he did, he knew he was halfway there.
6+6=12.
He dug around the casket to get to the bottom of things. The pile of soil behind him was growing into a huge mound of what looked like elephant shit. He dug until his arms were sore, until the dirt beneath his nails became bothersome, needing to know if Ronnie's dream had come true.
His eyes in the growing moonlight looked eerily glossy, overly layered with horror. A gentle mist began to fill the graveyard. The pain in his body was excruciating, yet he never felt a thing. He was tired, but he went on.
At 9:12 in the evening, the dirt started getting easier and easier to dig through. It was as if an empty chamber or tunnel was hidden underneath the coffin. And at 9:12, he reached a place in the soil where the ground cracked open to reveal inside—a red light. It shined brightly out of the ground, a red air which seemed to illuminate the whole graveyard. It, cast against Ray's face, made him look evil. Except he wasn't. He was afraid.
Smoke effused from that small crack, a smoke that smelled of old. The red light grew brighter. To Ray, it didn't seem to be a red light but more like a red energy. Then he heard something that would end up giving him nightmares forever—
It was Ronnie screaming!
It didn't sound like a mortal scream, but was more ghostly, more surreal. Atrocious.
Ray stumbled backward, hand over mouth. His brain turned against him and he became lightheaded. The world around him went fuzzy for a moment, then the harsh reality set back in. He would go running home, pondering on it all again in every waking moment, every unconscious dream, knowing that hell is only twelve feet below the surface of probably many given graves. That in dreams, many realities can surface, and that in death, there is no escape. How many people in the graveyard had hells? he wondered. Was it just his friend Ronnie's?
