Chapter 4 – The Vanishing Man

I left Aunt Sela’s and arrived home around six-thirty PM. My appetite had finally returned with a vengeance. I hadn’t eaten anything all day, and the leftover pizza in the fridge was calling my name. I heated it in the microwave, devouring it down, then I went outside for a cigarette. These things were reality. These things were normal; leftovers, an evening cigarette, and cool night air. Nothing in the world seemed better to me than that little dose of normalcy after one of the most bizarre days I’d ever lived through.

Just as I was taking my third or fourth drag off of the cigarette, my cell phone vibrated in my pocket, causing me to jump. “I’m gonna have to get my blood pressure checked,” I said to myself as I pulled the device from my pocket, unlocked it, then read the message.

Will

Keith managed to get James calmed down

Still scared but he napped

That’s good.

He needed the sleep.

I sent the message, and just as I looked up from my phone’s screen, I heard wind chimes. Light, tinkling chimes, that sounded not so very far away. It was strange; all of the times that I’d been out on my front porch to smoke I had never heard them before. I looked to the house next door to see if they had wind chimes hung up by their door, but I couldn’t see because of the darkness. Night was falling earlier and earlier, and the leaves left remaining on the trees made it darker than usual in the front yard of my home.

The chiming stopped, but I had an uneasy feeling that I just couldn’t shake. That’s when I heard the squeaking sound. You’ve heard the sound effect in movies. Anytime wind needs to be cinematic, and the director wants you to know that this isn’t just a little breeze we’re talkin’ about. You know it’s straight line winds, set to destroy the quaint, little hamlet when the scene shows some sort of spinning object, with that squeaking sound effect.

In trying to pinpoint exactly what kind of wheel it sounded like, my mind landed on one thought—it sounded like a tricycle wheel. That’s what it reminded me of, and the image my mind put with it was a little red tricycle. The squeaking didn’t sound distant, either. In fact, it sounded like the trike was coming closer and closer.

I took another slow drag off of my cigarette, straining to see in the dark. I shifted my eyes up and down the road that my house sat on, to keep watch for any beasties. I didn’t see anything in either direction, but that didn’t mean that there wasn’t anything there; something creeping along, just beyond the warm, orange glow of the street light at the end of my driveway. I backed up a little closer to the front door, ready to bolt.

The sound reminded me of a story Will had told me once about a hunting trip his friend Greer had been on a few years before. Greer and his father were buck hunting, and there was an old tree stand that had been there, as far back as his father could remember. It was kept up, but no one was ever using it when they went, so they always camped out there, looking down, waiting on the deer to pass by for clean picking.

This particular trip, Greer decided to stay up in the stand alone while his dad went back to their truck to get more water for the two of them. Greer said that he dosed off, only to be awakened by a squeaking sound. He described it as the squeak of a hinge, or like an old tricycle’s wheels. He looked down, and sure enough, there was a little girl riding circles through the leaves, around the bottom of the tree stand.

“You can’t be out here!” Greer yelled out at the girl, but she didn’t answer him. She just kept riding in circles, and giggling. Then after a moment all sounds stopped, even the normal sounds of the woods, and he looked down, finding that she was gone. He sat there perplexed for a moment, then he heard someone coming up the ladder. “Hello?” he called, thinking it was his father. When no one answered he looked down to see who it could be.

Slowly climbing the ladder was a beautiful woman that appeared to be in her early twenties. Greer looked over towards the direction of his dad’s truck to see if anybody else was walking in his way, then he looked back down. There was now, very close to the top, a woman who looked to be in her late fifties.

Greer backed away from the ladder, and just as he reached the rail, an ancient woman climbed up over the edge of the tree stand. He said that she smiled at him with barely any teeth, and what teeth she did have were rotten. Her hair was greasy, stringy, and falling out, and her eyes were whitened with cataracts. She lunged towards him, and in a knee-jerk reaction, Greer clenched his eyes shut as he fired his shotgun at her. When he opened his eyes she was gone, no sign of blood or a body, and his father was screaming at him from below to stop firing or he would scare all the deer away.

Greer told Will that it took him weeks to tell his father what he had seen, but once he did his dad explained to him that there had been many a man to see that same thing, and that he didn’t have to go back if he didn’t want to. The next weekend came, and Greer was right back out there at the tree stand with his dad. He didn’t want to be considered a coward, so he sucked up his fear, and went back at it. He said that he never saw or heard anything like it again.

Thinking of that story unnerved me more than it usually would have because of the day’s events. I shivered, snuffed out my cigarette on the iron rail around my porch, and quickly ducked back inside the house. I looked out of the glass storm door, gazing up and down the street once more, checking for any sign of something abnormal. There wasn’t anything of course, and my imagination was clearly running away with me.

I shut the front door, turned the bolt, and headed to watch some television, flipping through three-hundred channels two times before settling on a movie I’d only seen once or twice. It was one of those teenage-angst ridden, supernatural thrillers, with people who are too pretty to really exist. It’s no surprise that it put me to sleep. I don’t remember exactly what time I dozed off, but when I woke up in my recliner it appeared to be dawn, and light was pouring in through a break in my curtains.

My eyes made their way to the time on the cable box which read three-thirty-four AM. That can’t be right, I thought, my mind bewildered and foggy with sleep. I dragged myself out of my chair, looking out the window to the driveway. A huge truck sat behind my car, and the light that I had mistaken for the sunrise, were the headlight beams, on bright. I squinted my eyes, trying to get a decent look at the vehicle, but found myself unable to make out if it belonged to someone I knew. I hurried to the front door, unbolted the lock, and stepped out onto the front porch.

I didn’t recognize the truck at all, and I fought the urge to go back inside, and lock myself in. Instead, I did what all stupid guys do in horror movies—I went to check it out. In my defense, I thought it could have been one of my friends in a borrowed vehicle, or maybe a cousin I hadn’t seen in a while. Trucks needed people to drive them, so this was just a person. I told myself that everything would be fine in the end. I realize now how foolish I was being.

The truck was a blue, late 70’s model Ford, and as I got closer to the driver’s side, I could tell that I definitely didn’t know the driver. As we’ve established, though, I was doing a stupid thing, and I continued towards the vehicle. The man was digging under the passenger seat, seeming frustrated at not finding whatever it was he was looking for.

I walked over, raising a hand to rap my knuckle lightly on the glass of the window, and the man looked up at me through the dirt smeared glass. He was older than me, but not by much. He had dark circles under his eyes as though he hadn’t slept much in days, and there were wrinkles at the corners of his mouth. From the expression on his face, they came from too many years of frowning. He cranked the window down, then sat there scowling at me for a few moments. “Yeah? What’d ya want?” he barked in a thick Southern accent.

“Well…” I said, raising my eyebrows, agitation replacing some of my anxiety. “I’d like to know why you’re parked in my driveway at nearly four in the morning, with your brights on.”

The man sneered at me. “Yer house? I’ve lived here all my damned life! I’d like you to tell me what yer doin’ in my driveway?”

So, he was not only very likely tanked on alcohol, he was bonkers to boot. “Sir, this is my house. My name is on the deed. I can go get it, and show it to you.”

“There ain’t no way yer goin’ anywhere near my house, ya hear?” he asked, waving a finger at me, furiously. He moved to get out of the truck, and I backed up several steps.

At this I took my cell phone from my pocket, pulling up the screen to make an emergency call. “Well, if you don’t get the hell off of my property I’m going to call the police.”

He started laughing, holding on to the driver-side door. “Now how ya gonna do that? Ain’t no payphone ‘round here fer a mile’t the least, and I ain‘t gonna let ya use my telephone.”

“Um…” I shook the cell phone in my hand a little dramatically to catch his attention with it. “Welcome to the communication age.”

“What is that?” He looked at my phone as if he’d never seen a cell before.

Then it occurred to me that, hell, maybe he hadn’t. “This is a cellular phone, shit-for-brains. Where have you been the last thirty-some-odd-years?”

The man let out a scoff. “Hell, I ain’t but twenty-nine—”

“What? Seriously?” I asked, looking at the wrinkles and his weary expression again. “Man…You need to take more days off, or something.”

He continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “I can’t say I ever seen one of them…What’d you call it? Secular phones?”

“Cellular,” I corrected. I tapped the phone to dial 911, but I hadn’t hit send yet. I’m not sure why, but I felt like something was playing out here, and let’s all remember—I was being stupid.

“Looky here,” he said. “I gotta get in the house or my mama is gonna beat both our tail ends with that little toy you got there. You have an all right night.” I backed up a few more steps as he turned off the truck lights, shut his door, then walked straight into my house.

“There’s a man in my house. Did that—did that just happen?” I asked myself. I hit send on the 911 call, my eyes wide.

“Blackwoods Bend Police and Fire. What’s your emergency?” the dispatcher asked on the other end of the line.

“A strange man just walked into my house. I don’t know if he’s dangerous, but he just showed up here sayin’ that this was his home, and that he’s lived here all his life. I wasn’t sure how else to handle this, except to call y’all,” I explained.

“What’s the address?” the dispatcher asked.

“Seven-sixty-three, Pine Drive,” I said, staring into my living room from where I stood, seeing no movement.

“We’ll have somebody out there in just a moment. Do you want me to stay on the line with you until the officer arrives?” the woman asked.

I shook my head, even though the woman on the other end of the line couldn’t see me. Funny how we do things like that on the phone, I thought to myself, my brain trying to ponder anything but fear. “No, no. I’m gonna wait outside,” I said.

“Call us back if you need to,” the woman said, and I hung up the call.

I stood there for five or so minutes, wondering what the man was doing with my things. Was he upset that he didn’t find his mother inside waiting on him? If she was the type to whoop him, maybe he was relieved that she wasn’t there. Was he cooking in my kitchen? Worse—was he using my bathroom? He could have been ransacking the place, but that seemed unlikely since no sound came from inside my house, and there was no movement through the windows.

I lit a cigarette just as the police patrol car pulled into my driveway. An older man, probably in his early sixties, got out of the car, approaching the truck. He radioed in the tag number of the vehicle, then walked over to me, never breaking his gaze from the house. When he finally looked up at me his eyebrows furrowed in what seemed like confusion.

“Evenin’, son. I’m Officer Hatchcoin. You report a home invasion?” the officer asked, sounding perplexed.

“I did, sir. This guy showed up in my driveway, and he seemed crazy, then he just walked right in through my front door. He hasn’t come out, so I don’t think he’s wanting to steal anything, and I haven’t heard anything breaking.” I scratched the back of my head as I shrugged. “I don’t know what the deal is. He’s a total stranger to me.”

“I’ll go in and check it out,” Hatchcoin said.

“Shit, I’m coming with you.” I threw my cigarette down, crushing it out with my shoe.

Hatchcoin shook his head. “I think it would be best if you stayed out here.”

“I don’t wanna be alone out here if he comes runnin’ out. He could have a knife, or a gun in the truck. Nah, I’m comin’, too,” I said firmly, my own accent slipping into my voice in my nervousness.

“Just stay behind me,” Hatchcoin grumbled. The officer unsnapped his gun holster, gripping the handle of the gun as we walked into the house. “Sir?” he called out as we crept through my living room then into the kitchen, “We don’t wanna hurt you, now. Just come on out.”

There was no answer, just the sound of the heat kicking on from the vents.

“Come on out, hands where I can see ‘em,” Hatchcoin said.

No answer.

“Hello?” I called, wondering if my presence might make a difference in the man’s decision to hide. Maybe I’d irritate him into coming out. Now I wasn’t just being stupid, I was using myself as bait. Good job, Danny.

Still, there was no answer.

We made it through every room in the house, even checking the back porch, and there was nothing. No sign of anyone. We checked nooks, crannies, closets, under beds, and under the desk. I made a show of checking one of the desk drawers, and Hatchcoin snorted out a laugh. There was no one in sight, no one in the backyard, or in the attic. Hatchcoin shrugged as we walked back to the front door, but then he stopped in his tracks. “Now, what in the blue hell?”

“Do you see him?” I asked, hurrying to stand next to the officer, shocked that we’d missed him somehow.

“The truck’s gone,” he said flatly.

“What? That’s impossible,” I said as I looked over Hatchcoin’s shoulder. Sure enough, the large truck was gone, leaving only my car and Officer Hatchcoin’s patrol car, spaced far apart in the driveway. “You parked behind the truck, and there’s the trees and the ditch…There’s nowhere for him to have gotten out!”

“I don’t know, son, but he’s gone all right.” We both walked outside, down the porch steps into the yard. There were no tire marks in the leaves and the grass, so he definitely hadn’t pulled through that way. Still silent, we walked over to the driveway to stand in the spot where the truck had been parked. Just then the scanner on Hatchcoin’s shoulder crackled, and I’ll admit that I jumped a little. Okay, I jumped violently. Sue me.

“Unit Twelve?” the woman’s voice asked.

Hatchcoin pushed a button to respond. “Go ahead.”

“Twelve, uh…That truck comes back under the name of Walter Rush—deceased 1979. Last address registered is seven-sixty-three, Pine Drive,” the woman said warily.

Hatchcoin clenched his jaw as he swallowed hard. “Ten-four. Dispatch, I’ve got an eleven-thirty-four here.”

“Ten-four,” the woman responded over the scanner.

Hatchcoin looked at me as he paled. I didn’t like the expression on his face, and I knew something was very wrong. I lit another cigarette, flicking the filter hard enough that the hot rock almost dropped off of it. Hatchcoin took a deep breath, blowing it out before speaking again. “I knew that truck looked too familiar.”

“What do you mean, the truck ‘looked familiar’?” I asked, coughing a little as my carcinogens went down the wrong pipe from inhaling while unnerved.

“Forty-five years ago…Nah, forget it. This sounds nuts.” He started to walk back to his patrol car.

“Now, you can’t do that to me, sir. What happened?” I called after him, holding a hand up.

Hatchcoin turned back around, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Forty-five years ago, I was just a rookie, and I got a call to this house from Wally Rush about some stranger in his driveway, waving some weird contraption at him, saying that this was their house, and not Wally’s.”

“What?” I asked, bowing my head slightly as I looked at him pointedly. “You only just remembered that?”

“I didn’t want to believe it. It seemed impossible. As weird as this may sound, you gotta be the stranger that he saw in his driveway,” he said, looking like he’d be sick. “On my life, I’m tellin’ you the truth.”

I shook my head. “This is…No way.”

“Yeah. We never found the stranger that night either, even though I was just a minute away when I got the call. Didn’t see anyone goin’, nor comin’. Suspect fit your description perfectly. Six-foot, blond, white male? He’d just vanished. I knew there was something odd when I showed up here, and saw you, but you get old like me, and things slip you until something jogs the memory,” Hatchcoin said, pointing to his temple.

“This is one of those, ‘I shouldn’t have gotten out of the car’ moments for you?” I suggested, wearily.

“You can say that again. I’ll just get on back to the station, and complete the paperwork,” he said with a nod of his head, as if he was agreeing with himself that would be what he would do.

“Yeah. Thanks,” I muttered, waving half-heartedly, wondering what kind of paperwork you filed for time slips, or whatever an eleven-thirty-four was.

“S’what I’m here for.” With that he walked to his car shaking his head. He climbed in and shut the door before shuffling some papers around, then he pulled out of the driveway and drove away.

I watched as his tail lights faded into the distance, before turning back to look at my house. The lights were all on, and it looked peaceful and inviting, except for the fact that I’d apparently been somebody else’s ghost story, forty-five years ago. “Shit…Shit!”

I ran back into the house, stopping to bolt the door. I jogged into my bedroom, throwing myself onto the bed, clenching my eyes shut tight. Sleep might not come, but I needed the sensory isolation. “Screw this whole day.”