Hauntings (16 page)

              “Just tell me when and I'll be there.”

              ”Why don't you bring your folks too.” Oswald said not wanting to give Clara's parent's the wrong impression. Oswald climbed into his car and gave Clara a wave, then drove off up Galena Avenue, heading towards Bloody Gulch.

Chapter Six

              After unloading the car, and filling the ice box first with the dry ice, then with all of the perishables he had brought back from Oliver's grocery store. Oswald carried the jerry can of gasoline to the root cellar. After propping the trapdoor up, he gingerly climbed down the ladder to the root cellar. He placed the can on the dirt floor then he uncapped the generator's gas tank,  briefly  searched around for a funnel, found one nearby and last poured the fresh gasoline into the tank.

              When the generator's tank was full, the jerry can felt as if he still had a couple of gallons left in it.  Oswald shook the can and felt the gas slosh around inside the can. He recapped the gas can and left it on the dirt floor next to the stone foundation wall. He recapped the generators gas tank, and then gave a quick pull on the starter rope. The generator putted to life and the bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling lit filling the root cellar with amber light, exposing it to Oswald's view.

              The twelve foot concrete circle in the center of the cellar caught his attention, now that he knew some of the place's history it caught his imagination as well. He wondered what really could be under that slab. He took a quick look around, saw nothing unusual only the string hanging from the bare bulb and the boxes in the corner. He considered looking into the boxes, then decided against it. After all how would he feel if someone was digging around in his basement. Oswald considered shutting off the light, but kept it burning instead. Finding that little string in the dark would be a pain in the ass. He climbed up the ladder leaving the boxes and light bulb alone. He then let the trapdoor down.  Taking a beer from the ice box and carrying to the living room, he noticed an old desk that had to be at least a hundred years old sitting next to the log wall. He pulled back the old wooden desk chair and had a seat. There was a kerosene lantern on the desk, but as he went to all the bother of starting the generator he looked for an electric lamp. There was one on the end table next to a wingback chair. The sun was low in the sky and the light in the cabin was dimming, Oswald remembered the bedding he left airing out, hanging from the porch railing.

              He stepped outside  onto the porch, grabbed the quilt and took a sniff. The patchwork quilt seemed to be aired out enough. It smelled better than it did yesterday anyway. It was clean enough to go back on the bed. Oswald brought all bedding inside and quickly threw the bed together.

              Something was nagging at him, something he had forgotten was rambling around the back of his mind trying to get his attention, There was something he needed to do, yet it wouldn't come to mind. Then in a flash he remembered. The book! Of course the book.

              Oswald ran outside to the car and pulled the grayish Tupperware container from under the driver's seat.  He carefully carried it into the cabin placed the Tupperware on the kitchen table and popped open the lid exposing the oilcloth wrapped book inside. He took the book and carried the book to the old desk in the living room and gently placed it on the desktop. Oswald lovingly unwrapped the oilcloth exposing the ancient tome. He thought of moving the electric lamp closer to the desk, but didn't want to wait any longer than he had to. He trimmed the wick to the kerosene lamp, struck a match, and lit it. Somehow it seemed right to him to try to decipher this book by the light of a flame rather than  that  of an incandescent bulb.  The light flickered. He adjusted the wick and placed the light just so to maximize the illumination cast on the ancient book.

Oswald reverently opened the book and gazed upon it's pages. The runes appeared to dance in the flickering lantern light.  Oswald was soon entranced by the ancient hieroglyphs. The tome spoke of life, death, worlds known and unknown, times known and unknown. Rituals from the ancient past came blindingly to life.

              The sun slowly fell below the horizon, shadows appeared to gather, disperse and then merge once again as the darkness spread through the cabin. Oswald paid it little attention as the lantern provided enough light for his purposes. Shadows dancing in the darkness held little interest for him this night. Suddenly his head throbbed with a banging he could barely stand. He clapped his hands to his ears, yet the banging continued, the throbbing pain continued, his eyes burned, his vision blurred.

              “NO!” he shouted and awoke from his dream.

              There in front of him lay the ancient book open to the first page. The room was dark, the lantern long ago burned out. It was cold to the touch. Oswald was exhausted, although it was early morning, and he just awoke, he needed rest. He dragged himself to the bedroom and lay across the bed, and slept a dreamless sleep resembling nothing more than death.

              Oswald awoke sometime in the early afternoon. Feeling better than he had, but his bones ached from the cold. He wandered into the kitchen, looked in the wood bin hoping the Dyers had left him well stocked in firewood for the stove. There were a few sticks at the bottom of the bin. He took them and loaded them into the firebox. He hurried outside to gather some more dry wood. After finding enough to warm the house and make some coffee.

              Oswald came back carrying an armload of wood all dry enough to burn with little difficulty. He loaded the firebox and left some in the wood bin for tomorrow morning. With the fire lit, Oswald moved his attention to the coffee pot he had bought yesterday. Back in Leicester making coffee would be nothing more than putting ground coffee beans in a filter, and pouring a carafe of water into the drip coffee maker, then waiting for the pot to fill. His new gun metal colored peculator was like something from his long forgotten past. He remembered seeing them, even remembered watching the coffee bubble up through the little glass doodad at the top of the pot, but was he sure how to use it, not so much.

              He pulled the top from the pot and gazed inside. The was a metal filter perched atop a metal straw with a shiny base fitting the bottom of the pot. He pulled it all out. And after looking it over once or twice decided the best option was to fill the pot halfway with water, fill the filter with coffee, put it all back together then put it on the stove and wait.
Not that different from a drip style coffee maker.
The more things change the more they stay the same
he thought. He filled the pot with water from the pump, added what he thought would be enough coffee for a full pot to the metal filter, and then opened the fire box and poked the burning wood into a high flame.  Finally  he placed the coffee pot on top of the stove to heat up. He sat at the kitchen table to wait for his coffee to brew. 

              His thoughts ran to the book. Somehow it seemed to Oswald that last night he understood the runes in more than an academic sense. It was as if the runes were alive and speaking directly to him, but of course that is impossible.  The water was beginning to boil. Oswald thought he ought to eat something for breakfast. He looked in the ice box saw nothing to spur his appetite. He sat back down and waited while the coffee perked away.  The circle in the root cellar came to mind and he recalled the many circles that mark landscapes in ancient England, Celtic lands before the Romans “Civilized” them by conquest. The Druids were not a tribe as some may think, they were priests, teachers, and judges. They were the learned ones who ruled their people. The druids were the ones who performed the sacrifices that ensured the seasons and the harvests. That in part is why Rome would not, could not let them live. The tribes could be civilized, could be assimilated into Roman life more or less, but the Druids, never. Oswald decided he would have some breakfast after all, there were eggs in the ice box. A couple fried eggs with his coffee would do nicely. He scavenged around, found an old cast iron skillet, put it next to the coffee pot on the stove, let a spoon of butter melt in the pan before cracking the first egg. With the pan hot and ready he cracked two eggs and watched them sizzle and solidify in the skillet. He thought o the Druid sacrifices while his eggs sizzled. He wondered what it must have been like for the poor souls captured for the soul purpose of being butchered upon the Druid's altar. He flipped the eggs once to let both sides cook without overcooking the yolk. After a moment he slid the eggs from the pan unto a plate and having waited long enough for his coffee. He grabbed a cup from the cupboard and filled it to the brim. 

              Oswald took his food and drink to the kitchen table, took a sip of his coffee then added a spoon of sugar to sweeten it to his taste. Not the best coffee in the world, but it was certainly much better than that hot black seepage he bought from the rest stop vending machine on the road. Oswald leaned back in his chair took another sip of his coffee and then a bite of his eggs. He enjoyed the start of his day, late in the afternoon as it was. He decided, instead of going straight to work on deciphering the Druid book, he would take a little time to relax, and enjoy a walk in the woods to familiarize himself to the area. He took a final gulp of coffee, a last bite of egg. Got up from the table and put his mug and plate in the sink, thinking he could wash it when he came back.

              He walked out into the bright autumn sunlight, the golden and red leaves scattered across the ground brightened his mood, the autumn breeze smelled of the dying leaves it blew across the ground. The leaves danced and played in their death throes, through the clearing, as if they were possessed by young wood nymphs celebrating the equinox.

              Oswald selected a likely path it may have been an animal trail, he didn't know. He didn't care. Today he would enjoy himself, and not bother with the book, no worries about the townsfolk, just man and nature the way God intended. Oswald walked what had to have been miles. Then as he entered another clearing something caught his attention. Ahead, a flock of sparrows swooped across his path. As if driven by a single mind they first swooped to the left, then to the right, then the left again. Oswald paused to watch their activity and noticed that at first solid when they swooped to the left, but when they swooped to the  right they appeared translucent, then at last when they turned again to swoop low to the left they were gone. Vanished. When they appeared translucent he recalled thinking
this is what birds do, it is normal. And then the thought came that it must be a trick of the light, nothing more than a natural illusion, but they were gone!
An unnatural chill came over him and with a shudder  he decided to go no further. Oswald would not walk over the ground where the birds had last flown before vanishing. Not today, maybe never. He turned around and began his walk back to the cabin. It began to drizzle. The once sunny sky quickly turned gray and the icy rain did nothing to comfort the chill sinking into the tight muscles of Oswald's shoulders and neck.
What of the sparrows? Am I going mad?
He asked himself, not wanting to know the answer.

              The drizzling rain quickly turned to a downpour, the downpour, to a storm, the wind blowing the leaves wildly and bending the trees to it's will. Oswald pulled his collar up against the wind and the rain and hurried back along the path he had followed to this forsaken spot. Once home he could set a fire in the fireplace against the cold rain raging outside hoping to drive away the unnatural chill that had taken root in his spine, but he had top make it back to the cabin first.  It seemed like hours passed before he reached the cabin. At the door he could hear the  whining of a dog waiting to go out.
There was no dog, there is no dog
Oswald told himself as he fumbled for the keys to the door. His fingers felt stiff from the cold, “I'm still too young for arthritis.” he reminded himself out loud, knowing it was a vain lie he tells himself, at times like this, when the pain in his joints decides to raise it's ugly head and scream. A lie designed to keep him going when he'd rather give up. Oswald unlocked the door. The whining sound was gone, perhaps a stray dog had sought shelter from the rain somewhere nearby, but whatever it was it was gone now.

              He  trudged through the door and making his way to the fireplace intending to start a fire to warm the chill out of his tortured joints.  He found some old newspaper, a few dry sticks, and a split piece of log and placed the wood on the cast iron grate sitting within the firebox. He crumpled the newspaper and placed it beneath the grate. With the quick strike of a match and a few moments time the paper lit and the fire came to life warming the cabin.

              As the gentle glow of the fire warmed the room, he huddled near the fire for a few moments soaking in the heat. Holding his hands open out in front closer to the fire, feeling the aches slowly fade from his joints as the fire warmed his body. Oswald thought of the small gathering of birds vanishing before his eyes for a moment, just a moment. Then his rational mind came forward and denied any such thing ever happened. It was a mirage, and illusion of light, nothing more. Perhaps a hallucination, but if a hallucination what did that signify? A tumor working its way through his brain? Oswald forced the thought out of his mind. He got up from the floor and walked to the ice box. Inside an ice cold beer awaited him.

              Time was right for this hiatus. A break from teaching practical metaphysics to third year students at Leicester University is just what the doctor ordered, Oswald thought. The beer was cold and frothy and washed the taste of despair from his mouth. He opened another can  and this time took a sip deciding to savor the drink, as he sat back and enjoyed what was left of the day. The sound of the rain hitting the cabin's roof was relaxing, now hat he was inside and warm. Oswald's thoughts wandered to his moronic students and their fascination with the occult, their incessant questions about the Necronomicon, and the old gods.