The Barrow kin

Chapter 1

The Barrow-kin

                It’s like something out of a movie. Thought David Ratchett, as the sky wept heavily upon the ground. In the distance a clap of thunder echoed across the fields, mimicking the storm brewing within him.

                David was a tall, dark haired man, pale of skin. He had large arms, and broad shoulders, and but you could tell that age and sorrow had diminished him some. His skin hung loosely as though he had rapidly lost weight, which indeed he had, and his eyes were dark and hollow from lack of sleep. Salt began to mix with the pepper in his beard, which he had always kept neat and trim, though it had been days since he trimmed it.

                In his youth he had willfully decided to get a few tattoos on his arms. A mistake he knew now, he always wore long sleeved shirts to cover them now. The thought of his own youth brought fresh tears to his eyes. He wore a long sleeve shirt today, but for a different reason.

                Today he was doing something no man should ever have to do.  

                Something no one should have to do.

                Today he was burying his son.

                As he stood next to the deep, empty, hole that had been freshly dug up, a child sized coffin slowly being lowered in.   He looked to his wife, found he barely recognized her. And even though she held is hand in her own, he had never felt so far from her. They had been growing apart for months he had known, in fact, he was pretty sure she had been unfaithful on occasion.

                He had hoped for some warmth from her today, but her affection was nothing short of dutiful today.  She would hardly meet his gaze.

                How he longed for her pretty blue eyes to look upon him warmly, just for a little while. To feel the touch of her soft skin on his own. To run his hands through her smooth dirty blonde hair one last time.

                He knew she felt no such things of him however. He was sure that if they hadn’t been surrounded by friends and family, she wouldn’t even have offered a hand to him. That was what their marriage had become, a show.

                It all started after their son Malcom began his bout with cancer, it was his first time receiving Chemo therapy.  Kim began to spend less time at home. She couldn’t stand seeing her son in so much pain, with nothing she could do. He couldn’t fault her for that, we all have our own way of coping, and David didn’t mind being home with Malcom. So she began to pick up extra shifts at the diner she waited at.

                It was painful, to be sure, but he just couldn’t bear to be away from his son. So he took a leave of absence from his job, and became his son’s full time care taker. He would take Malcom to the park, or out for ice cream, maybe even a game every now and then, when Malcom was well enough. And stay home and comfort him as best he could when he wasn’t well enough.

                The sound of the small coffin hitting the ground snapped him back to the present. He broke from his wife’s hand, and fell to his knees, and began sobbing feebly when they began to toss dirt and shovels full of mud on top of the coffin.

                He felt hands on his back, trying to comfort him. He could not care less. He cursed them, he cursed his wife, and he cursed god. He just knelt there, soaking wet, and half buried in mud, and watched them cover up his best friend, his favorite student, his reason for life. He watched, as the best part of him was being buried beneath the earth.

                And never had he felt more cheated.

                He didn’t rise for a long time, and when he did, most everyone was gone. When he had finally composed himself, and brushed the mud off as best he could, he was completely alone and his eyes were burning after the tears had stopped.

                After another long minute, he made his way slowly back to his car, not hurrying even though the water fell in enormous, pounding drops.

                He thought he heard some laughter suddenly, like that of a child, but when he looked around he saw no one nearby, the only people he saw were in the distance, and getting in their vehicles. The laughter picked up again, and then he thought he heard a thin wispy voice say…. dad.

                He looked around franticly, searching from side to side.

                “Who’s there?” He yelled, panicked by the familiarity of the voice.

                But the only sound was his increasingly rapid breathing.

                “Malcom?” He whispered softly, almost to himself.

                There was no reply. He was still standing in the rain, more alone and more scared then he had ever been in his whole life.

 

                Two months had done nothing to dispirit the suffering pains which David Ratchett felt every day for the loss of his son. He still couldn’t concentrate while watching television, or reading, he couldn’t even do some of the most mundane things, if it reminded him of Malcom.

                It had been over a year since he had taken his leave from the school.

                His wife had returned to work at the diner a few weeks after the funeral, and had spent a lot of that time staying at her mothers. That had initially bothered David, but he soon found that perhaps it was for the best. He found that he could hardly cope himself, let alone, try to comfort his wife.

                He had his doubts about whether or not he was ready to return to work. It was almost halfway through the school year and he would just be jumping into the middle of a class in which he didn’t know the students, and it would be his first time teaching fourth grade.

                The call came almost a week ago; one of the secretaries called him up and begged him to return, because they had lost an elderly teacher for the rest of the year due to some illness or another.

                He supposed that teaching fourth grade wouldn’t be much harder than second, but it still made him nervous.

                Before, it wouldn’t have bothered him at all, but over the last few years he had become very nervous about everything. Sometimes he would have panic attacks over nothing, and that had gotten worse with the death of his son.

                His son.

                He was in the middle shaving when that particular thought crept on him. I will never teach my son to shave, he thought, as he began to weep yet again.

                He almost went to grab the phone and tell them he couldn’t do it. But he knew that he needed the job as much as they needed him.

                So, he wiped the tears away, gritted his teeth, and tried, with much difficulty, to regain his composure. After several minutes he resumed his shaving, and finished it up.

                He grabbed his toothbrush and put some paste on the brush, wetted it, and looked into the mirror, and screamed. For there before him, in the mirror, was Malcom. He had a big smile on his face and his eyes were bright and cheery, even though his father was screaming.

                When David turned to face his son, he was gone.

                Am I going insane? He thought to himself.

                He looked back to the mirror, and found himself as alone as he had been. So, tears running freely again, he picked up his fallen brush, and began brushing.

                I do need to get out of here, he said to himself. I need to be away from here, physically, and mentally.

                While he was getting dressed, and pouring his coffee after that, he could never quite shake the feeling of uneasy eyes upon watching him.

                Just the nerves, he thought. I am all alone, no matter how much I may wish I weren’t.

                But that did nothing to shake the fear building up in him.

 

                When he finally arrived at the school and received his assignment from the school secretary, he headed down to his new classroom. On the way there he walked past his old room, and saw a pretty, young teacher sitting at her desk, reading a book. When she looked up at him she smiled, and waved. He waved back politely, then put his head down and continued.

                Part of him wanted to go say hi and introduce himself, but he found that he couldn’t stand to be in that room right now. Malcom had been in his class back when that was his room, and he didn’t want to see his son’s old desk.

                So, he trudged onward, and finally came to his room.

                It was much the same as his old one, a large wooden desk at the head of the room, with a wall sized blackboard behind it. Educational posters were up all over the walls, and books were arranged neatly on the shelves.

                He set his coffee down on the desk, and began to look over their current school year agenda. Hoping to familiarize himself with what the class had been learning.

                It wasn’t long before the school bell rang, and he heard the loud clamor coming from the hallway. As the students filed in, and took their seats, he realized that not all the faces he saw were new. He saw some kids he had had in second grade a couple years ago. A few of which were Malcom’s old friends, and a couple had even been at the funeral.

                That made his heart ache for a brief second, as he realized that his son would have also been in the fourth grade, had he not passed away.

                He saw Billy Redwood, who he knew was Malcom’s best friend from school, who had been one of the only ones to visit his son in the hospital, and at his house when he was too ill for school.

                He saw Lilly Andrews who lived down the street from him, and played with Malcom a lot as they grew up.

                The sight of these young faces almost finished him and put him back in tears. But he bit them back. He needed to be strong.

                He took a deep breath, and introduced himself, and spent the first half hour getting to know his class, and it wasn’t long before he was back in the groove of teaching, and for the first time in what seemed forever, David even enjoyed himself a little.

                When the bell finally rang to signal lunch time, he had just finished a lecture on the founding fathers.

                “Ok class, go to lunch, and when we come back we will be starting our first math lesson together.” That brought a wave of sighs and jeers from his young students. But he just smiled at them and watched them scurry down the hall to the lunch room.

                He himself headed for the teachers’ lounge to eat his lunch. When he got there, some of his old teacher friends were in there. At first he was a little shy, but he opened up quickly. He engaged in the chatter that was going on, and even apologized to the young new teacher who had introduced herself as Nell.

                He felt good. Better than he had in ages.

                He felt like a normal person again.

 

                The next couple of weeks went roughly the same way, now he was starting to be the smiling, jubilant fellow that he had been before. And if he was sad about the loss of his son, which he certainly still was, well, then it hardly showed. 

                One afternoon however, after school had let out, he decided to stay and get some extra work done. He was sitting there correcting his students papers, when the feeling of being watched fell upon him again. This time, it came with an unfamiliar smell as well. It had a faint earthy smell to it, as well as the sickly sweet smell of a half rotten fruit.

                As he was sniffing, he got up and walked slowly towards the door. He opened it slowly and peeked out into the hall. Not thirty feet down the hall was a janitor swinging his mop back and forth across the hall. He returned the nod that the older man in the blue jumpsuit gave him, and breathed a sigh of relief. He shook his head and turned back to his papers, smiling at himself for being so foolish.

                When he turned back and looked at his desk, he saw him again. Only this time, he didn’t disappear, nor did he initially make a sound. He just stood there smiling.

                “Son?” David whispered. “Is it you?”

                Malcom just stood there, looking as he did before he was ill. He had his mother’s sandy hair, and his own bright green eyes.

                “You are not scared this time daddy? I tried to say hello before, but you started yelling, are you mad at me?”

                “Never.” David said lightly. “Never.”

                He ran to his son and wrapped him in a warm embrace. But any warmth he might have felt was frozen upon touching his skin. “Why son, you have a chill about you.”

                His son only giggled. Well of course I am dad, that’s what happens when you die.”

                David fell to the ground and started to cry again.

                “Don’t cry daddy, I will still play with you.”

                Whimpering was the only response he could give to that.

                Suddenly there was a sharp knock on the door, and the janitor entered the room. “Everythin’ ok mister Ratchett?”

                He composed himself a little. “Yes.” He replied. Then “no”.

                The janitor looked at him hard for a minute. “Maybe you should head home sir, and get some rest.”

                “Will do, thank you.” He said.

                When the door shut, he turned back to where Malcom was, and was shocked to see he was alone again.

                What is wrong with me? He asked himself again, why am I seeing these apparitions? Why am I being haunted so? Why Malcom? Why can’t you either stay with me or leave me be?

 

                That night when he got home, his wife had left a note saying that she wouldn’t be home for a few days, she was going to her mother’s again.

                He nodded as he read, expecting it. His newfound joy at work hadn’t translated to his home yet.

                He began preparing his dinner, and turned on the television to see what was on. While he waited for the water for his pasta to boil, he went upstairs and took a quick shower, then put on his bathrobe. When he came back down the water was ready, and he put in the pasta. There was something on the news about how some politician had stolen a bunch of money from some charity. He hardly paid any attention to it, he was used to these stories after years of following with current events, such things were far from infrequent in the world of American bureaucracy. As the night wound on, after he finished his dinner and did the dishes, he turned off the lights, and turned the TV over to a movie, and began to fall asleep in his comfortable armchair.

 

                He awoke some hours later, in a state of confusion. He had heard something, he knew, but what?  There it was, a pattering of footsteps from upstairs.

                His heart began to race. No one should be here, he kept the doors and windows locked, his wife was out of town. Who could it be?

                He slowly got up, and went to the phone.

                It was dead. He thought about leaving and going to a neighbor.

                But he instead found himself walking slowly towards the stairs. As he went, he thought he heard a child’s laughter coming from upstairs. He continued, he could feel the pounding in his chest, and thought that it was so loud, the intruder must hear it as well. But he kept going, one stair at a time.

                He heard the laughter again, this time it was different, higher pitched, like that of a little girl. He closed his eyes, took another deep breath, he could feel the fear building again, this time it almost crippled him. He could barely bring himself to move. The hairs on the back of his neck were raised. Tears were welling up. He bit his lip so hard he could taste blood.

                Just a few more steps, he told himself, one heart wrenching step at a time.

                The laughter continued.

                When he reached the landing, he saw that a light was on in the room at the end of the hallway, his son’s room. He began creeping his way towards it, the laughter within was at a climax, as if a couple of kids were having the time of their life.

                When he had almost reached the door, he stuck out his hand, and reached for the doorknob. His foot found a loose floorboard, and it let out a loud creak.

                The noise on the other side abruptly ended.

                He scolded himself, he had always known of the creak outside of his son’s room; he had left it there on purpose for when his son grew up, as an insurance that his son wouldn’t sneak out.

                Still, he had to open the door, he had come so far, he had to be brave. He must face whatever demons surely awaited him within.

                He grabbed the handle and turned. Then he slowly pushed the door open.

                What he saw within shocked him to the core.

                The room was as it had been since his son’s death. With no one inside it but him.

                He looked all around, under the bed, behind the door. He checked the two windows inside it, and found they were both locked.

                When he was done, he searched the whole house, but all the doors were locked, as well as the windows.

                He was alone, and as always when he was alone. He was out of his mind.

                He searched the medicine cabinet for some sleeping pills, and took a couple, and went back to his chair. Favoring that over his lonely marriage bed.

                Even still, sleep was a long time coming again, and it was troubled with bad dreams. The tattoo’s he had of his son’s baby feet were kicking him, and the hands were choking him. He and his son were playing hide and seek in his son’s closet, only it wasn’t his wife searching for them, it was some evil entity, and he knew if they were found, he wouldn’t just say “Found you.” He was breathing loudly, and his son tried to cover his mouth to keep him quiet, and when that didn’t work, his son began to choke him, and he couldn’t stop him. His son’s grasp was unnaturally strong. He felt his eyes swelling up, and he screamed a silent scream. Then he faded into blackness.

                When he awoke, the sun was already well in the sky, good thing it’s the weekend, he thought.

                It was a bight day, sunny as could be, and he could hear the birds chirping away outdoors.

                However, he was still haunted by the events of the past evening, and the dreams that had followed, so instead of beginning breakfast, he found himself walking back up the stairs, still shaking the sleep from his head.

                When he finally opened the closet inside his son’s room he gasped. What he saw within would surely haunt him for the rest of his life.

                Red headed, little Lilly Andrews, who he had known since she was a babe, lay motionless on the closet floor. Eyes wide open, mouth open in a scream that never left her chest. Her face was a sickly blue. Her throat was swollen and bruised.

                And not for the first time, did David Ratchett succumb to grief.