 |
|
 |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
My mom had only three months to grieve when my old man dropped dead from a sudden heart attack. She dropped just as suddenly in her sleep when a blood vessel in her head suddenly gave away. She complained about headaches for years but refused to go to the doctor. She kept claiming that it was just her sinuses acting up to the sudden change in the weather. Two dead parents within three months…. totally sucks… but, at least, they both went out quick and painlessly. I hope, when’s it my turn, I’ll die just as easily. For the second time in three month, I’m back at my parent’s home… the house I grew up in… this time to pack up my mom’s stuff instead of my dad’s. I’ll be donating most of it to charity. There are only a few things worth keeping or selling. Now that I was the owner of the house, my original intent was to sell it. Then my wife and I could move out of our apartment and finally buy a dream home of our own. Now that my wife had realized that my parent’s house was totally paid off and that she told me that we were expecting our first child, she had a change of heart. When we came here for my father’s funeral, she fell in love with the quiet, peaceful, serene town. She always talked about moving here someday and little did I know that “someday” would be three months later. A paid-off house and her pregnancy sealed the deal. She believed that this quiet community would be the ideal place to raise a family. Who was I to argue? It was a nice town. At the risk of sounding cliché, it was the type of town where everyone knew each other… everyone helped each other out… you could leave your doors unlocked. It was the type of place were children would rather play ball in the park or swing on an old tire tied to a tree in the back yard instead of burning brain cells on video games. Does it sound too good to be true? For the most part, it still is a nice little town; however, there was one dark spot that occurred some twenty-five years ago when I was only ten. Rich and Ty Morrison, two ten-year-old fraternal twin brothers, had disappeared without a trace. They went to the park one Saturday morning… and they were never heard from again. There were many reasons why their disappearance remained unsolved. Because of our low-crime rate, we had an inadequate police force that was so use to peace and quiet that it was ill-equipped and ill-trained to handle situations like this. Up until then, the only “law breaking” was j-walking, illegal parking and moving violations. The police were more community service than law enforcement. When Rich and Ty’s parents reported that it was late and their boys weren’t home, the laid-back, but well-meaning sheriff told Mr. and Mrs. Morrison not to worry. Boy will be boys. They were probably out “horsing around” and lost track of the time or stayed over at a friend’s house and forgot to tell their parents. It wasn’t until hours turned into days that the authorities and the town finally got off their butts to organize a search for the missing boys. Normally, a search should have been organized sooner but the town was in denial. Things like this just don’t happen here! When days turned to weeks and there was still no trace of the boys, the denial grew. I heard from many parents claiming that Rich and Ty had run off to join the circus. Some people grew downright hostile over it as this had put a blemish on the town’s “perfect record.” This wouldn’t have happened if the parent’s were watching their kids (but no one really watched their kids). Rich and Ty probably ran away from home because they had rotten parents. This hostility only managed to exacerbate the loss of his only two children and Mr. Morrison started to have anxiety attacks. The doctor gave him some tranquilizers to calm him down, but one day, Mr. Morrison must have taken too many. He dozed off behind the wheel of his car and was killed when he veered off the road and crashed into a tree. It was less than six months after her husband was buried, that Mrs. Morrison had managed to court a widower with three children of his own, get re-married, and move out of town. She told everyone that she wanted to put all these horrible things behind her and start a new life. For the most part, I can agree with that philosophy… but getting re-married after only six months? I’m no psychologist, but it sounds more like she was escaping rather than coping. After Mrs. Morrison left town, I never seen or heard anything about her again. As a matter of fact, no one ever talked about Rich and Ty’s disappearance. Any kid that asked about it was either told to keep quiet or given a stern look. No one wanted to talk about it. They just wanted to forget about it so things could go back to normal in their quiet little town… and for the most part, they did. As I grew older, my parents would swear up and down that I hardly knew Rich and Ty Morrison… that I never played with them. They kept telling me that I “confused” these brothers with two other boys that moved out of town shortly after I started hanging around with them. When I asked them the names of these boys, they would conveniently forget their names. On the few occasions that I pushed them to “try to remember,” I always got “How the heck should I remember all the kids you used to pal around with.” Funny… they could remember all the names of my other friends. When I grew older, I realized that my parents were trying to protect me from something… but from what? I was just so much easier to never mention Rich and Ty… act like I forgot about them like everyone else… act like I never really knew them. The fact of the matter was that I did know Rich and Ty. I never forgot them. How could I forget two of the best friends that I ever had… even if that friendship lasted only for a few months. We met in fifth grade. We were in the same classroom together. A chance encounter during recess and an immediate friendship ensued. We all liked the same hobbies, sports, and games. We laughed at each other jokes. We liked to make snide remarks about our fuss-pot teacher behind her back. We were as thick as thieves… the three musketeers (actually there were four in the novel). Every Saturday morning, like clockwork, Rich and Ty would come over to my house to pick me up so we could all take a leisurely stroll to the park and play some ball. We’d find a vacant baseball or softball diamond and then one person would bat, another would slow-pitch, and the third would take the field. Three strikes, a caught fly ball, or a grounder that didn’t get passed the pitcher was an out. A grounder passed the pitcher was a single. Any fly ball over the pitcher’s head was a double, triple or homer depending on how far it went. A dropped catch was always a ground-rule double. The imaginary runner on third could only advance to home if the next batter hit a triple, otherwise he would have to stay put. The batter continued to hit until he got three outs or made the mandatory slaughter rule of seven runs. Then we would switch off with the pitcher getting to bat, the batter taking the field, and the outfielder taking the mound. And so it went on and on until each of us had an equal number of times at bat. After we got tired of playing, we would bum around the neighborhood or each other houses until one of our parents made us all go home. I lived for Saturdays! It all came to a crashing halt one Saturday morning when I blew them off. It was shortly after I started fifth grade when I discovered that I liked girls. I had a major crush on a classmate named Anna Giddings. In my ten-year old mind, she was right up there with Farrah Fawsett. I was in love as much as a ten-year old could understand the concept. This was my deep dark secret at the time that I didn’t share with anyone including my two best pals, Ty and Rich. Ten-years-old was sort of the middle-of-the road age as far as girls were concerned. Most boys my age thought that girls were still “yucky” and if anyone found out that I liked Anna, I would be teased unmercifully. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to “come out of the closet” until I was twelve. One day in early-October, I was picking up a loaf of bread for my mom when I ran into Anna at the grocery store. He said hi. Then I said hi. Then we started talking. The next thing I knew, I was walking her home and hanging around her house. Her mother invited me to come over for lunch on Saturday and like a love-sick puppy dog, I accepted. I was halfway home before I realized that I accepted an invitation on the same day as my regular meeting with my buddies. What the hell was I going to do now? Rich and Ty would never understand that I was going to blow off our Saturday ritual… to see a girl! I would never hear the end of it. I did what any other coward in my position would do… I lied through my teeth. I told them that I was grounded for the weekend. I didn’t tell them the news until Saturday morning because telling them earlier in the week might risk blowing my cover should one of them mention it to my folks. I also took the precaution of running outside to intercept them before they could ring the bell to my house. I made sure to catch them before they walked on my front porch so I would not be within earshot of my bullshit excuse as to why I wasn’t joining them today. I also figured that if they spotted me later in the day or on Sunday, I would tell them that my parent’s relented and paroled me early from my grounding. I was a clever and manipulating bastard for my age and Rich and Ty bought my bullshit excuse hook, line, and sinker. They never even asked questions even though I rehearsed all possible scenarios in the event that they decided to interrogate me. They weren’t even suspicious. I hated to lie to them, but it was a necessary evil. They totally understood and they walked off to the park without me. I never saw them again. Maybe, that’s why my parents would always freak out every time I mentioned their names. If I was with them that day instead of eating pizza at Anna’s house, I might have disappeared along with them. Whatever trouble that got into, perhaps the “third man” might have made the difference. I might have been able to help prevent what happened. How do I suddenly remember this after all this time? It all seemed to sink in just after I started settling back in to my old house. Since I didn’t have the guts to tell my wife that I was reluctant to live in my old house because I was haunted by some demons of the past, I had no other legitimate excuse. Employment was not an issue since I worked at home on the internet or over the phone so my business would work just as well out of a small town as it did in the big city. The house was in good condition and all it needed was a little bit of remodeling. Since my wife needed to give two weeks notice to her current employer, I decide to go ahead of her and get the house ready while she was finishing up her professional commitment. The work on the house proved to be good therapy as it soon kept my mind off my troubles. By Saturday morning, the only thing left to go was get rid of that god-awful wallpaper in the living room and apply a nice coat of paint. After all these years, I decided that it was time to get over it. I rented a special machine which easily removed the wall paper. It was an old heavy cast-iron machine that looked like a vacuum cleaner except that it had a large rectangular attachment at the end of the hose… but it did the trick. All I had to do was put water into the machine and plug it in. Then the machine would heat the water until hot stream came out of the attachment. All I had to do was place the rectangle on the wallpaper and let the stream saturate it. Then you take a scrapper and it comes off like a peel on a banana. Not more than five minutes after I got started to hear the music. It sounded like a loud music box playing Pop goes the weasel. There was something awfully familiar about those tings and chimes…. I looked outside and there was the culprit… the Golden Day Ice Cream truck. I smiled to myself as I remembered having a treat every time I finished playing ball with Rich and Ty. The driver was a real nice guy, too. After a game on a hot day, we passed by his truck and he asked us if we would like a nice cold treat to cool us down. When we told him that we didn’t have any money, he just said to pay him next week. It was the first time that I had a Great Day Grape Snowcone. God, I loved those things… full of sugar and syrup. I’m surprised that my mom didn’t have to pull me off the ceiling before I had to go to bed. That’s all I ever had after that. It was cool that he trusted us and we made sure that we paid him back the next week. After that, we all had a treat after our game. Half the time we paid, while the other half he told us not to worry about it. We never asked him for free ice cream, he always offered to us. The pleasant memory was enough to make me happily return back to my labor. After ten minutes of non-stop chiming, the melody went from being cute to just plain boring and monotonous. Another ten minutes, the monotony turned to annoyance. Another ten minutes and the chimes were really getting on my nerves. Still another ten minutes, and I was ready to rip the guy’s head off. When the hell was this asshole going to quit? I opened my window and my rage grew when I still saw the truck sitting there… and not a kid in sight! I’m all for the small businessman and private enterprise but this was ridiculous! Why was this guy still standing around when it was obvious that there was no one buying his ice cream? The trucks in my neighborhood only stay around if there is a crowd and move on to another spot after ten minutes or so if the area was dead. As a matter of fact, most ice cream truck drivers only stop when there’s a pack of kids chasing after him, yelling and screaming for him to stop. I always got a kick about how the driver “pretends” that he can’t see or hear him and makes the little bastards run an extra block… but not this prick! He’s still hanging around and there’s not even a bird in sight. Enough was enough. If I didn’t put an end to this nonsense soon, I’ll be hearing this stupid melody in my sleep. I took a deep breathe, composed myself, and walked toward the truck. I thought I’d try diplomacy and politeness first… and then if he didn’t move along… then I’d feel justified when I threated to punch his lights out. From underneath the truck, I spotted a pair of legs on the opposite side. As I walked around the vehicle, I mustered up my most polite voice under the circumstances and said, “Excuse me. I hate to be rude, but is there any chance that you might move along to another street? I see that you have no customers here and I’m afraid the music is starting to give me a headache.” When I finally got to the other side of the truck to see the driver/culprit, I was taken aback by his appearance. I felt that I went through a time warp. We was wearing the kind the same kind of old-fashioned uniform the ice cream men use to wear when I was a kid. He had the full ensemble: white shirt, white slacks, white socks, white shoes, white jacket, and a white hat that looked similar to one worn by an army officer or commercial jet pilot. The only thing that wasn’t white on him was the black brim of his hat and his black bow tie. He was a man in his mid-thirties and had his black hair slicked back in a style that was outdated by some twenties years. I stopped dead in my tracks when he suddenly looked familiar to me. He was the same man that gave us ice cream in the park! How could that be? This guy hadn’t aged a day in twenty years! Then my rational side took over. I must be mistaken. Maybe this was a family business and this was the son of the original ice cream man and he merely looked like his father. Many of my own father’s old friends remarked that I looked like my old man when he was my age. “I so sorry, sir,” the Ice cream man answered in a smooth charming voice as he smiled with a row of perfectly straight white teeth. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’ll move along if you like… but before I do… how about a nice treat on the house… for your trouble?” “You know,” I said as I pulled out my wallet. “I could use a little treat… but it’s not necessary to give me a free one. I’ll pay for it. I don’t want you to get in trouble with your boss.” “You’re money is no good here, sir,” the Ice cream man continued to smile as he voice now seemed to take a melodic tone. “On the house… I insist. Don’t worry about the boss. I’m the boss.” “Okay,” I looked on the menu that was on the side of the truck. Much to my surprise and delight, I saw an item that I haven’t had in over twenty years. I thought that they stopped making them. “How about a….” “Good Day Grape Snowcone,” the ice cream man finished my sentence. “You’re very favorite.” “How did you know that it’s my favorite?” “The success of my business depends on knowing what my customers want.” He then opened the small freezer door on the side and started digging around. “I can tell by looking at you that you’re a Good Day Grape Snowcone man.” My amazement faded when I suddenly rationalized how he knew. He must have seen my eyes scan the cone on the menu and then when they widened and glowed, he must have figured that I really liked them and were my favorites. “Sold out?” I said as the Ice cream continued to dig around with no success. “Nope,” he answered. “I got some more in the big freezer in back.” “That’s okay. No big deal. Don’t trouble yourself.” “No trouble at all, Mike,” he fumbled through his pockets for his keys as he approached the double doors on the back of the truck. “I have to refill the small freezer anyway.” “Well, in that case… Hey! How did you know my name was Mike? I never told you my name.” “I remember all my regular customers,” the Ice cream man pulled out his keys. “You used to come to the park every Saturday with your friends, Rich and Ty. While your two pals were always trying a different treat every week, you were always asking for a snowcone. You were always so predictable and reliable. Every Saturday… ball game in the park… always a snowcone.” “It couldn’t be you,” I was totally confused. “You would have to be in your mid-fifties by now. You haven’t aged a day. You’re pulling my leg.” “Am I?” the Ice cream man gave me a playful smirk. “Time may be a concept for you, but it’s meaningless to me. Speaking of time… I always enjoyed the times I watched you and you two little friends play ball. It was the highlight of my week. You were all such nice, well-mannered boys… very cute… and you, Mike, were the cutest of them all.” “This isn’t funny,” I tried to rationalize it all. This guy wasn’t the original Ice cream man. He couldn’t be! He must be the guy’s son and his father told him all about us. That’s it.” “I’m not joking,” the ice cream man put the key in the lock and slowly opened the back door. “I can prove it. Just take a look in the back.” My first initial reaction was shock. I didn’t want to believe it but I was seeing it with my own eyes. My friends, Rich and Ty, were hanging on hooks like slabs of frozen beef. The ice that formed around them had preserved their twisted expression of fear, terror, and torture. Suddenly, I felt the Ice cream man lift me up and he started pushing me in to the back of his truck. I considered myself to be a relatively strong and healthy man, but I when I resisted, I could free myself giving way. “Twenty-five years, I waited for you,” he said as he continued to push me inside. “It’s time for you to join your friends.” When I screamed, I noticed that I was screaming a high-pitched scream… like a child… and not a man. I was screaming like a child because… I was a child now! I looked at myself and no longer saw a man in his mid-thirties… but a child of ten! No wonder I didn’t have the strength to fight back. No wonder he lifted me up so effortlessly. I did the only thing a ten-year-old kid could do to get away from a grown-up. I bit down hard on his wrist. As he yelped in pain, I made a dash for my house as fast as my little ten-year-old legs could carry me. I slammed the door behind me and dead-bolted in shut. I stood with my back pressed against the door as I desperately looked around for the telephone to call for help. Much to my shock, the Ice cream man was standing in front of it, blocking my way. How did he get inside the house ahead of me? I had a good head start. There’s no way he could have overtaken me… let alone get in here without me seeing him. “It’s no use,” the Ice cream man gave me a malicious smile. “You can’t escape your destiny. We were met to be together… the four of us. You are the missing piece that I’ve finally found.” “This can’t be happening,” I muttered. “This can’t be happening.” “You’re to blame for all this,” the Ice cream man said coldly. “It’s not my fault that I desire young boys rather than adult women. God made me that way. I can’t help it.” I knew that I didn’t have time to unlock the door and run outside. Instead, I started to back away slowly, trying to keep some distance while I looked for another hole to make a break for it. “You’re crazy!” I yelled at him. “You’re sick.” “That’s your fault again,” he slowly walked toward me. “I had it all under control. You see… it’s okay to look…. It’s okay to dream… okay to fanaticize… as long as I didn’t touch. I managed to keep my urges in check for a long time. It was all so simple and innocent. I would watch you play and then, when I went to bed at night, I would picture you all naked in my bed. Then I would start touching myself… pleasure myself. When it was all said and done, it was enough to curb me for the week until I saw you three again… but that all changed when you ruined it.” “Ruined it?” I decided to stall for some time until I could find a way to escape. “How did I ruin it?” “You ruined it when you didn’t show up with your friends,” the Ice cream man snapped back. “Can’t you see? There’s safety in numbers. I was able to contain the urge to try to kidnap you all because there were too many of you. It would be too hard to control three boys. It wasn’t worth the risk... however when only two showed up… it would be so easy. I couldn’t stop. With only two boys to control, I had to go for it.” The Ice cream man licked his lips as he recalled his demented precious memory. “I invited them to an old cottage that my mother owned. She got it when she divorced her second husband. She had no use for it as she had a stroke and was a bedridden vegetable for the rest of her life. The house was still registered in her last married name while I never bothered to change my original. No one knew the connection. I told those stupid boys that I had horses up there and they could go for a ride. They got in my truck and I took the back road out of town. No body saw us.” “They didn’t even get suspicious when they didn’t see any horses. I told them that I forgot that I let someone borrow them and that they would be returning them shortly. I suggested a cold beer and they took the bait. I was able to get them drunk so I could have my way with them. Ty was scared shitless and did whatever I told him to do. Rich… the ungrateful prick was the brave one. I never anticipated that. When he threatened to tell his parents what I tried to do to them, I had no choice but to kill him. I didn’t want to kill Ty but I had no other alternative either. He was a witness.” “The police never even questioned me. I was never a suspect because you three never told anyone that I gave you ice cream. It was almost perfect. There was only one loose end… you! I knew someday you would return so I could catch the fish that got away. You killed your friends because you didn’t show up that fateful day. They want you to share in their agony and know their last moments of torment before they embraced death.” “That’s a lie,” I saw my opening from the corner of my eye. “They would never want me to suffer with them.” “Make it easy on yourself,” the Ice cream man actually tried to rationalize his sickness. “I’ll kill you quick if you cooperate. Take off your clothes… nice and slow.” That’s when I bolted for the back door. I would have made it but I tripped over the hose to the wall paper removing machine. “Now you’ve done it, little bastard,” the Ice cream man got on top of me. “Now you’ll suffer little your two little friends. You can’t get away from me. I’ll…. Ahhhhhhhhhh!” It was true that I couldn’t get away from him as he demonstrated when he got into my house after I locked the door, but my bite on his wrist still prove that I could hurt him. I took the plate of the machine and pulled the trigger which shot a blast of hot steam into his face. When he rolled off from on top of me to hold his scorched face, I started hitting on the head with the handle… again and again! “It wasn’t my fault!” I yelled as I pummeled him. “You did this to them. They didn’t tempt you. We were just kids. We were young and naïve and you took advantage of that. Ty and Rich were victims. You were a predator. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You knew that you were sick. You should have gotten help.” My last strike hit the wooden floor. The Ice cream man was gone and I was an adult again. I looked out the window. The ice cream truck was gone! “He’s gone for good,” I heard a familiar voice. “You dispelled him,” said another familiar voice. I turned around and saw my old friends, Rich and Ty. They were as I last saw them: ten years old and still wearing the clothes they wore the day the disappeared. “We’re ghosts,” said Rich. “But the Ice cream man was a phantom.” “He doesn’t even know he’s dead,” said Ty. “He’s was doomed to ring the bell of his Ice cream truck until you showed up.” “You’ve carried your own phantom for twenty-years,” said Rich. “You blamed yourself all this time and keep it all bottled up inside.” “But you confronted him,” said Ty. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t get us killed… he did.” My lips trembled. “But if I went with you that day….” “You didn’t know what would have happened,” said Rich. “We were foolish enough to get in his truck.” “But I lied to you that day,” I said. “I blew off our regular game… so I could be with… a girl.” “You were just a kid and you didn’t know any better,” said Ty. “Everyone fibs.” “We would have teased you if you told the truth,” said Rich. “We were just kids, too, and we didn’t understand… but we understand now.” “All these years you’ve subconsciously wanted our forgiveness,” said Ty. “But you needed to forgive yourself to see the truth that this awful thing happened and it wasn’t your fault.” “I guess you’re right,” I answered. “I do feel a burden lifted off my shoulders.” “Can you do one thing for us?” asked Rich. “Name it.” “He buried us by the old cabin,” said Ty. “It’s still abandon.” “We would feel better if we rested on hollowed ground,” said Rich. “The Ice cream man’s name was Horace Trumble,” said Ty. “The cabin is under the name of Georgina Fergus.” “Friends forever, Mike?” Rich opened his arms to me and Ty did the same. I hugged them until I felt their bodies fade away. I never saw them again. It didn’t matter to me if the whole thing was real or just a figment of my imagination. I went to a telephone booth and made an anonymous call to the state police cold case division. Although they felt the lead was weak, they still checked it out in the event that it could mean something… which it did. With the use of modern technology, they were able to find the bodies. They didn’t have to random dig up the ground as they used some kind of scanner. After an autopsy, Rich and Ty Morrison were finally given a Christian burial. It turned out that Horace Thyne had a record of child molestation offenses going back to when he was sixteen. He evaded justice by moving on to a new state with a clean record. This was before the days of Adam Walsh and the mandatory sex offender registration and national database. Thyne was never caught for the murders of Rich and Ty because he was killed by a hit-and-run driver while changing a flat tire on a dark highway. In a small sense, justice was served. All I can do now is go on with my own life, keep an eye on my children, and, hopefully, educate them concerning the dangers of the world. How did you like this text? You have to be logged on to be able to rate and comment. Logon or Register , it won't take up more than 10 seconds of your time. Rating  Current rating is: 5 2 readers have rated this text Author's description A man must come to terms with terible guilt from the past. Comments Vasudha Pande, 28 October 2007: A very interesting read, Scot. You are a wonderful story-teller. Ghost Writer, 10 October 2007: Great story. I’m glad I don’t have kids. That was a creepy story. Great way for a pedophile to lure kids into his/her death trap by playing death’s music and selling death’s food from a truck we all knew so well growing up. I hope those creeps don’t read this and decide to try it. That would be a smart way for them to get about and attract the innocent for their own sick pleasure. What’s sad about the database is that all of those thousands and thousands on file unfortunately are just the ones who got caught. Perhaps as many as a million are in the professional field at dawn and hunt at dusk. |
|
|||||||
|
Contacts Synchronizer Buy and Sell Domains HantverkarGuiden TraineeGuiden.se Gratis saker hos GratisListan.se | ||||||||
