It was a hot and moonless night in the badlands above Riverside. A parcel of land between March Airforce Base and the town down below where eons of weathering had created a wasteland of ruts and gullies where no one ever went. Except for teenagers that is. On summer nights They populated the old dirt road that lead up to the south east from ritzy Canyon Crest. Many a romance was born on that rise above the city, under the stars and with the glittering lights of the Inland Empire in an eternal blaze below. Few of them knew that on that same rise of land many an outlaw had dangled from an old olive tree until his eyes bulged and his swollen purple tongue popped out of a newly dead mouth.
Jake Finnegan was one of the few kids in town who did know the stories. But this night on the rising badlands he had no idea what was about to rise from the earth behind his old 1964 Crystal Blue Dotson pickup truck.
Annie Ramirez straightened her blouse and twisted the rearview mirror to check her smeared lipstick.
“It’s okay Jake. I didn’t want to go all the way anyway.”
“Yeah” Jake said. Holding in the urge to say. “I wanna breakup anyway.” He was not doing so well with the girls these days.
BAM! The truck rocked violently to the right and continued to rock for a good six and a half seconds.
“What was that?” Annie screamed.
“I don’t know.” Jake whispered. Some animal must have been running in the dark and didn’t see the truck. Jake rolled down his window and looked down at the ground then back to the rear of the truck bed. There was nothing there.
“Shit Jake roll up the window! You don’t know what’s out there. Let’s get outta here. “
BOOM! Another something hit the truck.
Jack simultaneously rolled up the window and started the truck pressing the accelerator to the floor. He glanced back in the rear-view mirror to see a huge dull ball of dust kick up from the earth as he pealed onto the old dirt road. He looked ahead and realized he hadn’t turned on the headlights. “Shit!” He flipped them just in time to see the curve ahead at the edge of what was locally knows as Hard Sand Canyon. The truck lurched to the right and barely stayed on the road just making the curve, barely.
“Oh my God.” Annie said. “What do you think that was.
“I don’t know.” He repeated.
He glanced at the rear-view mirror. He saw the pale eyes in dark sockets and the rictus smile. There was a passenger in the bed of the truck.
“JAKE! LOOK OUT!”
Jakes eyes snapped back to the road ahead just in time to jerk the truck to the left just missing a coyote.
When he looked back in the rear-view mirror the passenger was gone.
Jake dropped Annie off at her dorm at UCR and drove the rest of the way home with the radio blaring “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder. He lived with his parents who were away on a conference at Berkeley. As he drove up to 3205 Valencia Hill Drive, he felt finally safe.
The house was 7 years old, bought brand new it stood near the site of an old Spanish ranchero that had begun being subdivide in the first decade of the 20th century. There were rumors around the neighborhood that the house of 3205 Valencia Hill Drive was built over the buried foundation of the old Hacienda.
Jake stayed up watching the Tonight Show and then a part of a late movie just to try and forget those eyes he was now convincing himself were a trick of the mirror or his imagination. It must have somehow just been his own reflection…. Somehow.
He shut off the lights in the house and those in the upstairs hall and finally crawled into bed on the second floor just after 2am. He switched off the light by his Early American maple twin and as he had since he was three, pulled the covers up tight over his head.
There was a soft sound in the dark. Almost imperceptible. Like someone breathing.
“Stop it Jake.” He whispered.
The breathing stopped. Jake squeezed his shut eyelids tighter.
It began at the bottom of the stairs. Boom. Boom, BOOM, BOOM!
Someone of something was coming up the stairs banging on the
walls. The House began to creak like an old ship in a storm. BOOM. BOOM. The
thing was banging on the doors at the end of the hall and coming closer.
Jake threw off the blanket and sat up in terror. He switched on the light. It was icy cold in his room. He gasped as the banging hit his bedroom door. He could see the vapor of that gasp explode in front of him. He struggled up and ran for the door. He put his hand against it and grabbed the doorknob. If he opened it, what would he see?
“Please, please.” He whispered. “GO AWAY!” his shout shocked him. He flung open the door. The hall was ablaze with light. No one was there. He ran down the hall for the stairs and as he made his way he was tossed from side to side, bouncing off the walls. The whole house was pitching and rolling.
He nearly tumbled down the stairs to the foyer. The first floor was lit up. All the closet doors were open. He ran into the kitchen; cupboards were flung wide. But not a dish disturbed. The house was moaning as if being tortured! Time to get out.
When Jake opened the front door and stepped out onto the lawn it was softly, soothingly quiet. It was warm summer again. He looked out over the open filed across Valencia Hill Drive toward Box Springs Mountain. The moon was just coming up over the ridge. He turned to look back at the house burning electric bright and silent. After ten minutes he went back in and right to the phone.
“Annie it’s me…” he said as she picked up on the first ring.
“I know.” She said. “I saw him too. I’ll be right over.” She slammed the phone down.
She was there pulling up into the drive in under seven minutes. Still in her pajamas she jumped from her battered Renault and ran to meet Jake who waited on the porch.
“What do you mean you saw him?”
“When you were driving away. There was a man in the back of the truck. He waved to me. I tried to call you, but your phone was dead. Is he here?”
“Something is in the house. If we go in, you will hear it.”
“Okay…” Annie said tentatively. “but I don’t believe in ghosts. I think we should call the police.”
Annie walked into the foyer. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Is it cold?”
“Yes, it is. Come in and see.” As he stepped in, she looked around. Why are the doors all open and …? “
“I don’t know. Look Annie can you stay over. You can sleep in the guest room next to mine.”
“Why not in the same room?”
“I don’t think we should do that.”
“I didn’t mean THAT.”
“Neither do I. Look, you take the guest room and I’ll take my room and, in the morning we will compare notes. Its only a few hours away. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll sleep. “
“Okay, let’s just check to make sure no one is in the house. Got a baseball bat?”
“Yes.”
After a complete check, shutting cupboards and turning off lights. They locked all the doors and windows. And climbed the stairs. Jake checked the thermostat. It read 68 degrees. But still if felt bone cold.
“If you hear anything or get scared call me.” He said at the door to the guest room.
“Okay.” She opened the door then turned. “If YOU hear anything call me.”
“I will. Goodnight.”
“Let’s hope so.”
As soon as Jake closed the door to his room the cold was gone. The pressure in the room seemed to lighten. It was over.
A few hours later Jake woke to a white bright Southern California morning. He got up threw on his robe and opened the door to his room. Annie was sitting on the floor huddled wide eyed next to the door frame of his door .
“Annie what’s wrong? What happened.”
She looked up at him and he could see she was crying.
“He sat on the end of the bed all night. I was too frightened to move and call out.”
“Oh Annie!”
“He spoke to me.”
“What did he say?”
Annie closed her eyes then opened them to look at him.
“He said. ‘Go get Jake’.”
Left To Write 