The Only Shelter
by Robert S. Dawson
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
“There’s someone up there,” Jeremy whispered. He gripped the rough-handled hatchet tightly.
Like a flash, Paul was up and mounting the stairs with the lantern held out. His torso through the portal, he stopped and took in whatever he saw. “Oh my God!” he said.
Jeremy clutched the hatchet to his chest.
“Come on up here.” With that, Paul disappeared up the stairs.
Slowly following, Jeremy thought about that face he’d seen in the dark. Hesitating on the stairs, he listened to Paul shuffling around after shutting the window; it sounded like he’d found more newspapers. When Jeremy finally got the nerve to go all the way up, he found Paul holding a magazine next to the lantern, a big grin on his face. He turned the cover toward Jeremy who could barely see through the fog of fear clouding his vision.
“Can you believe this? We should bring the packs up here and set up for the night.”
“All... right?”
While they were setting up, Jeremy looked around at the walls and the small fireplace and that lone chair that sat facing the window by the fireplace. There was really nowhere to hide. He rested easier as he lay on the pallet he’d made for himself while Paul lay with what Jeremy had finally realized was a Tijuana bible.
Jeremy rolled onto his opposite side and pulled out his iPhone. There was no signal, nor had he expected one, he just wanted to read over those last texts he’d gotten from Katherine before he’d lost the signal. For the past few months their relationship had been rocky.
He knew the score; everyone he knew that had any experience with “love” kept telling him that it was “puppy love” and wouldn’t last forever. She was in college now and would be meeting new people, new boys, which all terrified him utterly. So, her final text was a great comfort to him, despite the fact that this whole hike was to be about getting away from her and his youth and becoming a man.
That last text was simple but had said exactly what he wanted her to say. He read the line over and over, knowing that it really didn’t mean what it said, not the way he wanted it to; she’d explained it a hundred times or more, “I love you, I’m just not in love with you.”
“Jesus, man!” Paul said. “You know we can’t charge that thing. If we need it later, you’ll wish you hadn’t wasted the battery.”
Jeremy ignored him. He didn’t want to read cartoon porn despite Paul tossing him one. What Jeremy wanted to do, what he did, was begin a longwinded text detailing the hike and his mental journey and this creepy old house that he would send to Katherine once they’d acquired signal again.
At some point he must have fallen asleep, because he was woken up by his phone lighting up and beeping its alert that the battery was dying. He reached out to turn the thing off, saw the time was 3:33 and something off in the corner of his eye.
Looking over, he saw the outline, dimly lit by the phone, of that same face he’d seen on the stairs. Its eyes wild with rage. Screaming, Jeremy reached for the hatchet, but it wasn’t there, nor was the machete. Screaming again, hoping for Paul to wake, he used his arms to scramble backwards towards Paul, that face staying oddly over him as he moved.
Screaming and shaking Paul so hard, he woke himself up and found the darkness around him complete and still, the din of the rain against the roof, a steady drip from a leak somewhere. He fumbled with the lighter and got the lamp lit. Paul continued to sleep. In the orange glow he searched the room. There was no sign of anyone else.
* * *
The rain continued through the morning. Somehow, Paul seemed refreshed, but Jeremy couldn’t shake the need to sleep or the chill of fear from that ghostly presence. Once he was able to drag himself out of the sleeping bag, Paul assured him that there was no such thing as ghosts. “It’s all in your mind, man. Maybe you need to eat.”
Jeremy eyed the jerky.
“What’s wrong? You think there’s something wrong with it?”
“I don’t know,” Jeremy said. “Can’t you get sick from only eating meat?”
Paul shrugged. “If you can, you’d have to eat an awful lot of it.”
Somberly, Jeremy nodded.
“You think you’re getting sick?”
“Nah. Just thought maybe that would explain why I’m so tired and having such strange thoughts.”
“Eat, man. If anything, you’re probably malnourished.”
“What about you? I haven’t seen you eat any of this jerky.”
Looking offended, Paul said, “I ate earlier. Ate plenty more than you’ve been eating.”
“Doesn’t look like there’s any less than there was last night.”
“Trust me, I’m eating. I don’t want to die out here. Or worse, wind up like those guys in Alive. Remember that movie?”
They fell quiet and the rain drummed on the roof and the leaves and trees.
“I do have one piece of bad news though. You left the lamp burning all night, and now it’s out of fuel. When dark comes, we won’t have any light.”
Jeremy nodded. He didn’t like the sound of that, but there was nothing else that could be done. They sat in what little light was coming through the window in silence.
After a while, Jeremy said, “I think it’s letting up some. Haven’t heard any thunder since last night. We could push through it.”
“And risk pneumonia? We have shelter here. It’s better to wait it out.”
“But the roof’s already leaking upstairs. There might be a better shelter out there.”
Paul shook his head. “There’s no guarantee. Could be miles. We might even go in the wrong direction and never find anything.”
“If we follow the road that led us here...”
“In the rain? It was hard enough to see it before the bottom dropped out.”
Jeremy looked around. He still felt that strange feeling. It was like a shiver in his spine that wouldn’t go away. “There’s something here. I can feel it.” When Paul didn’t respond, Jeremy had a sudden realization in the dim silence. “Did you check the chimney?”
Paul’s face lit up. “That’s the best idea you’ve had since we found that dead animal.” He rushed to the chimney and shoved the lighter up. He sighed in disappointment. “It’s blocked.”
Using Paul’s Zippo, Jeremy looked up at the bricks which had collapsed into a kind of tunnel face and breathed a sigh of relief. He’d expected to find that creepy old man hiding up there.
“What the hell are you smiling about?” Paul looked like he was about to punch him.
“There’s no one up there.”
“And there’s nowhere to build a fire.”
“It’s not that cold yet. We’ll be all right. We have the jerky.”
“You were just complaining about it.”
Jeremy shrugged. He suddenly felt the best he’d felt in days. “We’ll wait the storm out and then follow the path back to civilization.”
“You’re sure? You aren’t worried about the ghost anymore?”
That shiver tingled his spine again, but the hope of seeing Katherine made him stand tall. “Ghosts can’t hurt us.”
They spent the rest of the day apart. Paul mostly stayed upstairs “looking” at the Tijuana bibles while Jeremy sat by the window downstairs watching the rain or looking around at the old junk that populated the house. His eyes, or his brain, weren’t really registering anything. He was off with Katherine some, wondering what she was doing or if she missed him, and he looked out at the rain willing it to end. Then he found himself avoiding looking back into the house, afraid of the dark spaces where that old man’s face would surely be waiting. When what little light was coming through the clouds began to dim more, Jeremy realized he hadn’t heard any noise from upstairs in a long time.
“Paul?” he called out.
Silence.
“Hey, Paul!” Nothing. He got up and walked over to the bottom of the stairs. “Paul!” He was really shouting now. “You better not be messing around, man! This ain’t funny.” He went up the stairs.
There was a single sleeping bag and pack. No sign of Paul, his gear, or the giant stack of Tijuana bibles. Jeremy rushed up the stairs and looked around. He looked out the window. The rain was falling steadily on the trees, but there was no sign of Paul. Then he saw something. There was someone out there on the path up to the house.
“Paul!”
But as the figure came closer, Jeremy realized it wasn’t Paul and it wasn’t alone. It was a ranger, followed by two other rangers, in forest-green rain gear.
Jeremy ran down to meet them.
* * *
He couldn’t imagine what he looked like to his rescuers when they finally saw him coming out of that old house in the rain and the dying light. Even when they showed him the pictures, he couldn’t believe it was himself. They looked like pictures of a starving man, skeletal and ghostly.
He wildly insisted that they find Paul. Gently they sat him down in that lone chair upstairs and explained to him that they’d already found Paul. But Paul wasn’t there, and they weren’t wanting to talk about it.
“Where is he?” Jeremy insisted.
The rangers exchanged looks with each other. The woman, who he’d thought looked like Katherine with her long blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, leaned down and took his hand. “He’s being taken care of. That’s all you need to know right now.”
They pulled Jeremy’s gear apart and took pictures of everything. And they sealed up the jerky in plastic bags.
“What are you doing? That’s all the food I have left.”
“We have food, Jeremy. Can I call you Jeremy? We have food. You won’t want to eat that anymore.”
“Is there something wrong with it? Is that why I’ve been seeing ghosts?”
The ranger squeezed his hand. “What ghost?”
“Well, there’s this old man I keep seeing in the dark ever since we got here.”
“We?”
“Yeah. Me and Paul.”
She shook her head. “What do you mean? Paul was here? When?”
“He went upstairs earlier today to jack off to those dumb Tijuana bibles and never came back down. When I went up there, he was gone.”
“Tijuana bibles? What are those?” She looked around. “I don’t see anything up here but your gear and that chair you’re sitting in.”
“He must have taken them with him,” Jeremy said. He slid the chair back and stormed over to the window. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“We told you,” she said, walking over to him, “we found Paul. Or at least, we found his remains. What’s left of them. And his gear.” Then she added, “Two days ago.”
Copyright © 2022 by Robert S. Dawson
