Chapter 36 - The Trip
“Here's your roast beef sandwich, dear.” I took a bite. It was bad. Worse, it was too hot. I decided to go for a smoke break, give it a chance to cool down. A chance to get better. I stepped outside and tapped my cigarettes with my hand. As I brought the savory stick to my lips, the pay phone started to ring. Bbbring bbbring. It seemed to be calling to me. I was never one to ignore the siren song of a piece of technology. I placed my cancer causing buddy back in his housing and picked up the receiver.
“You shouldn't smoke, son. It's bad for your health.” The line went dead. I moved the receiver from my ear and stared at it intently, as if it had just turned into a dragon. An elderly man passing by noticed me. “You shouldn't answer pay phones. You never know what kind of perverts are on the other end.”
“Yeah, that's how I feel about interstates.”
He gave me a weird look and went inside the diner, shaking his head. Ding! The bell on the door chimed in. I followed the old man back inside and sat down. My food was gone. I wasn't that disappointed. I just rubbed my temples and sighed. The waitress spotted me. “Oh dear, you're back. I thought you took off on me. You want another sandwich?”
“Nah, thanks. I believe I'll call it a night.”
I stepped back outside into the cold. 3 am. Somewhere thereabouts. The pay phone rang again. I stared at it. Probably the last one of its kind. No reason to answer, though. 2 rings. Nothing good could come of it. 3 rings. I sighed, and picked up the receiver.
“Hello.”
“Eddie?”
“No, I'm not Eddie. This is a payphone.”
“I know it's a payphone. Listen, is Eddie around?”
“Eddie's not here. No one is here.”
“Oh. Hey, wait a minute. ... George? Is that you?” I stopped, and looked around. No cars. No wind. Nobody. I knew this was a bad idea.
“...Yeah, my name is George.”
“Damn, imagine that! Of all the people to answer. ... Listen, George, man ... this is Franklin.”
“Franklin. ... Franklin?”
“Yeah, you know. Franklin. From junior high. You know. ... The Serpent.”
“Oh. OH. Oh, man, yeah. What are you calling this phone for?”
“Looking for my buddy Eddie, man. He was supposed to answer. You sure you ain't seen him?”
“No, no one's here but me and some old guys in a diner.”
“Ha, George, I can't believe it. Listen man, I'm in big trouble.” I already knew he was. No one makes a social call to a payphone. Let alone at 3am on Halloween. And since he was in trouble, now I was in trouble. “I don't want to get you involved in this though, you know? So if anybody asks, you don't know who called, alright?”
I suddenly felt better. I'd been through some rough times with uh, Franklin. The kind of rough times that make people expect you to do things for them. But he didn't want me to do anything for him. I just had to pretend I'd never spoken to him, that nothing had happened. That I could do. I was great at that.
“Yeah, no problem. You know how it is. Well whatever it is, I hope it works out ok.”
“Thanks man. See you around.” And he hung up.
The Serpent. I hadn't thought about the Serpent in years. Or the times we hung out. Kids nicknamed him that because he always brought an apple in his lunch. We were bored, disturbed kids. One time a kid fell off the top of the slide in the park, landed on his head. We sat and kept him awake until the ambulance showed up. One other time, we were walking along the river.
“Say, have you guys seen that movie Deliverance?”
“Shut up, Joey.”
“Come on, it's just a movie.”
“That's not funny. Why can't you talk about baseball, or girls or something.”
“Because there ain't no baseball here. And there definitely ain't no girls, unless you got your sister hiding around here somewhere!”
“Hey!”
“Ha ha ha!”
“No sister, but I brought your mom out here last night.”
“Shut it Johnson!”
“That's not my name Joseph!”
Suddenly, Joey tripped. He looked down at the ground, in silence. Then he started crying. We all stopped and stared at him. He got up, started yelling even louder and ran away.
“Joey! Joey, get back here!”
No one chased after him. We slowly looked from the dot that was Joey in the distance, to the ground. Joey wasn't one to run away from much of anything. He'd tripped over something. Tree branch? No, it couldn't be, too wide. Carpet, a box? God no. Please no. No, it wasn't. It was something else. Something we'd never seen before.
We inched closer. I could feel every muscle in my body tighten, clench. I took a puff of my cigarette. We shouldn't be doing this. It's obvious what this is. We're all going to be in trouble. Suddenly, the top half popped open. Joey had loosened it. We jumped. I screamed. Nothing happened.
“Go see what it is.”
“I'm not going, you go!”
“Don't be a pussy Franklin!”
“I'm not! You do it if you think you're so tough!”
“I'll do it.”
“What? John?!” And like that, he ran forward and kicked the ... the thing. The top skidded off, flew a few feet away. He screamed bloody murder, and ran behind us. There was someone inside. A man. A bald, frozen, lightly blue skinned man. We were terrified, and about to make a break for it, if our legs still worked, when he started to move. Frozen solid. Shivering. The fear. He sat up. Still frozen. Shook his head. Pink eyes staring daggers into my soul.
I'll never forget. I'll never forget what we saw that night. I lit another cigarette. He sat up, and he spoke.
“Thank you, son. Thought you'd never show up.”
We ran.
We ran for our lives.
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