Absolution

by: Neal James

David Samson his name is, this psychowhatsit guy that’s come to decide if I’m crazy or not. Well, I’m not; I’m about the sanest man that I know, and I know a lot of people. It’s the dreams that’re doin’ it – that’s one of the reasons I ended up here in this Goddamned awful place. Psychiatric hospitals they call ‘em; used to be lunatic asylums when I was just growin’ up, but that’s a long time ago, now.

I never sought Absolution. Absolution found me an’ I wish to God that it’d never bothered. Dreams; did I say dreams? Well, maybe I was wrong – they’re more like nightmares an’ I wake up screamin’ when they come a-callin’. The authorities put me in this padded cell until they think I’ve calmed down an’ not goin’ to hurt anyone – particularly me. I take a deep breath as the guy gets out his notepad an’ pen. We’re sittin’ in a room just along the corridor from the cell, but I’m on the other side of a Plexiglas screen in case… you know. He sets himself up and smiles. I have to smile back – that’s the rule.

“Well, Mr French,” he begins. “How are you today?”

Dumb assed question if you ask me, but I have to be positive. “About as good as I can be, considerin’ what happened,” I say.

“Yes,” he says, lookin’ down at his notes. “Quite a show from what I heard. Another occurrence?”

‘Occurrences’ he calls ‘em. He’d call ‘em somethin’ else if he came along with me an’ saw for hisself. We’ve met for three times now, but this will be the first instance that I’ve felt clear enough to let him into what I’ve been goin’ through. The last ‘occurrence’ was two nights ago, an’ they only removed the straightjacket this morning.

“Yessir,” I say. “Another one of them there.”

“Can we get to the cause?”

“You mean can I tell you the story?” I reply. “Hell, yes; what’re we waitin’ for?”

I’m Tobias French. It was back in ‘64 that me an’ Jimmy Rae Hollis went on a boy’s weekend up in the mountains. We’d planned a few days huntin’, fishin’ an’ generally doin’ the kind of things that men do when they think that they’re still teenagers. Our wives were none too impressed, but it seemed like the last fling before settlin’ down an’ bein’ sensible, so they let us off the leash. We’d driven out from Portland after work on the Friday, an’ headed east on Route 26 for the Mount Hood National Forest. Jimmy Rae’s mom an’ dad had a cabin up in the woods near Alder Creek, an’ we turned off onto South East Alder Creek Road – the place was a couple of miles further on.

“Why don’t we start with the day Jimmy Rae… disappeared,” Samson said.

“You mean when they say I murdered him?” I asked. “I served twenty-five in Salem for somethin’ that I didn’t do, an’ now they label me as a crazy an’ lock me up for the rest of my life.”

“If you want to get out of here, you need to be more co-operative,” he said.

“Have it your way. We’d been on the road for a while an’ turned off 26 onto the track leadin’ to the cabin. Jimmy Rae was drivin’, an’ suddenly this thick mist comes down an’ we could hardly see where we were goin’. He’s slows down so’s we could follow the route an’ the mist lifts a little. That’s when we saw the sign.”

“Sign? What did it say?”

“Absolution,” I told him. “It was a town sign; you know, the kind that you see on any highway as you drive along. This one was just a beat up old sign an’ we stopped the car an’ got out to take a look at it.”

“Go on.”

“Well, there it was, by the side of the road. All it said was ‘Absolution’ and ‘Pop. 512’. We peered into the distance but all we could see was the mist. I’d never heard of the place, an’ Jimmy Rae said we should take a look, so we did.”

“And when you got there?”

“Place was like somethin’ out of the Wild West, ‘cept there was nobody around. Whole town looked abandoned; dust everywhere an’ tumbleweeds rollin’ down the street. Jimmy Rae parked up outside what musta been the saloon an’ we got out of the car. The breeze stopped an’ you coulda heard a pin drop – it was real spooky.”

“What did you do?” Samson asked, scribblin’ away at his notepad.

“Went up the steps to the saloon an’ walked inside. Them doors squawked like they’d never moved in a hundred years. Man, it was dirty in there. Place looked as though folks had upped an’ left in a real hurry – chairs knocked over an’ glasses still on some of the tables, an’ all. I said we should leave an’ try to find a way back to Route 26, but Jimmy Rae smiled that smile of his an’ it was suddenly like we was both kids again.”

“What did he want?”

“He says to me ‘C’mon Tobias. How often d’you get to look around a real old ghost town?’ Well, we’d nothin’ better to do, an’ it was kinda creepy, so I said okay. We had a look around the bar room an’ then headed up the stairs. That’s when we heard the noise.”

“Noise?” Samson said, looking up at me. “What noise?”

“Freaked us out back then, an’ we stopped half way up them stairs. Jimmy Rae laughed an’ we carried on. It was a kinda growl, but like no growl that I’d ever heard. It was comin’ from a corridor to the right of the head of that stairway, an’ I suppose we thought that it might have been some wild animal trapped in one of the rooms.”

“And was it?” Samson asked. He’d stopped takin’ notes by this time.

“Never really got to think about that. Things happened kinda fast. Jimmy Rae looked back at me – he was in the front – an’ then there was this… thing comin’ hell for leather down the corridor. Jimmy Rae never stood a chance, an’ then it had him by the shoulder. I stood frozen to the spot – musta been no more’n ten feet away. Then there was blood gushin’ all over the place, an’ Jimmy Rae screamin’.”

“What? What did he say?”

“I’ll never forget them words. ‘Run Tobias! Get the hell out…’ an’ that’s all he had time for. I was covered in blood by then an’ just turned an’ hightailed it out of there.”

“The police…”

“Cops found me later back on 26. Oregon State Troopers passin’ by saw me just starin’ right ahead. I had no idea how I’d got there. Car was smeared in Jimmy Rae’s blood an’ they took me in. They never found Jimmy Rae and the DA made a case for me killin’ him an’ disposin’ of the body. That’s about it; I served the time, but I didn’t kill Jimmy Rae; whatever there was in that saloon did that, but nobody believed me.”

“Tobias,” Sansom said. “I checked up on Absolution in the Oregon state records in Portland. The place doesn’t exist. I even went down to the county records level, but there’s no mention of any place by that name and the files go way back into the nineteenth century.”

I thought about that for a while; Sansom looked as though he was tryin’ to believe me but he just shrugged an’ started to put away his stuff. As he rose to leave there was only one thing left for me to do.

“I guess there’s only one way that I’m goin’ to convince you. Why don’t I show you where it is? Think the hospital will let me out if you an’ some others come along?”

I could see him weighin’ it up, an’ it really was my last card – my final chance to prove to them all that I wasn’t nuts. He put his bag on the table an’ looked me right in the eye.

“I’ll see what I can do. I have to check in with Doctor Porter before I leave, and if you agree to take a couple of cops along with us he might just go for it.”

He did.

We started the drive from my old home in Portland an’ followed the exact same route at the exact same time of day as me an’ Jimmy Rae had way back in ‘64. We didn’t talk much durin’ the drive, an’ when the turn off for Alder Creek came up, I started to get this weird feelin’ deep inside like we’d stepped right back in time. When the Oregon Police Camaro suddenly hit a bank of mist, I could feel the tension inside the vehicle go through the roof. We slowed down, just like Jimmy Rae had done back then an’ pretty soon the town sign came into view. There it was, tellin’ us the same information from over fifty years earlier – at least I thought it was at first, but the count was up by one:

Absolution

Pop. 513

Samson had the troopers pull over an’ got out to take a look. He stood there shakin’ his head like he couldn’t believe what he was seein’. He got back in the car an’ looked at me.

“Am I going as nuts as you?” he asked.

“Glad you joined me,” I replied. “Better late than never. Shall we?” I nodded my head at the windscreen, an’ he told the troopers to move on.

The town was just as I remembered it, even down to the tumbleweed rollin’ down the main street. We pulled up outside the saloon an’ the four of us got out. I took a deep breath, almost expectin’ Jimmy Rae to come runnin’ outta that building screamin’ for his life, but there wasn’t a sound – not even a bird in that Godforsaken place.

“What now?” Samson asked.

“It was in there,” I said, pointin’ at the saloon. “Up the stairs an’ down the corridor on the right. That’s where we go if you want to see if I’ve been lyin’. Don’t forget that you said this place didn’ even exist.”

The three of us, me, Samson an’ one of the troopers, made our way up the steps an’ into the bar room. Officer Devon – that was his name – brought along his pump-action shotgun. Guess he thought it was his insurance policy. We left the other trooper in the car. We shivered as we pushed through the swing doors – even me, an’ I was ready for it.

“Up there?” Samson asked, noddin’ at the stairs an’ the darkened landing at the top.

“Yessir,” I said. “Want me to go first?”

“I’ll go,” Officer Devon said, cocking the shotgun. “Never know who might be waiting for us.”

“Knock yourself out,” I replied, followin’ his lead an’ happy to have him as a shield. Samson might not know what was comin’ but I had a good idea. It was time to face my demons an’ get revenge for Jimmy Rae.

We’d reached the top of the stairs, an’ Devon had taken a few steps down the corridor when we heard the sound. It was the same growling rumble that I’d faced all those years ago, an’ I hesitated so suddenly that Samson ran into me. Devon continued his walk, stoopin’ a little in that way that cops have when they’re on a raid. The movement wasn’t so fast this time, but the effect was pretty much the same. The steps came slowly, one foot – if that’s what it was – draggin’ behind the other.

“Come out where I can see you!” Officer Devon called, bringin’ the shotgun up to waist level.

The sloughin’ steps paused, an’ the growl deepened as if whatever was down that corridor was weighin’ up the odds. Then the action quickened an’ Devon gasped in surprise. His surprise turned to blind panic as the thing emerged into the half-light. I’d seen images of demons in any amount of movies an’ TV horror shows, but this thing was like nothing from any of them – it was the eyes; glowin’ yellow in the shadow an’ then brightenin’ as the thing stepped forward. Samson peered over my shoulder an’ screamed. Officer Devon was lifted off his feet an’ his head rolled across the floor as the thing bit it clean off. The shotgun clattered away towards my feet an’ I picked it up.

“Now’s the time to go, Samson,” I yelled, bringin’ the weapon up an’ into line with the thing’s body. “This is my fight, an’ I’m takin’ this sucker down for Jimmy Rae!”

I’m a psychiatrist – I deal in the provable, the believable. The job title is there on my certificate just below my name ‘David J. Sansom’. Nevertheless, I ran from that saloon as if I had wings on my heels. The state trooper by the car started asking questions but I just jumped into the vehicle and told him to drive. He paused, and that’s when we heard another scream and the sound of the gun shot. I’d seen the brown stains of the blood that I now know had belonged to Jimmy Rae Hollis and I wanted out of there. The trooper got out of the car and drew his gun.

“You fool!” I yelled. “Get back here and drive!”

It was no use; he was through the saloon doors and I heard him clumping up the stairs. That was when I heard the third scream that day. I shifted across the car, turned the ignition key and floored the accelerator pedal. I was down that road faster than I’d ever believed I’d drive. Now I knew that Tobias French was telling the truth and yet, according to all of the literature and records, the town of Absolution simply does not exist. By the time I’d got back to Portland and parked up the police car, some semblance of my rational mind had returned to me and I stopped off at the city library as I had done when first checking out French’s story.

“Well, like I said before, Mr Samson,” the librarian said, “I don’t believe that such a place has ever existed, but we’ll take a look in the local history section again. Come this way.”

He led me through a labyrinth of bookshelves until we came to the section he wanted. He paused and I could see a look of surprise come over his face.

“Well, I certainly don’t remember seeing this one before,” he said, pulling out an old brown book from the end of one of the shelves. “Maybe it will help you in your search.”

With that, he left to return to the front desk, and I sat down at one of the tables and opened the book. It smelled kind of musty and there were no stamps to record when it had last been taken out on loan. The pictures were old – some of them going back to the turn of the century, but I was about two thirds of the way through the pages when my heart seemed to jump to my throat. There it was, just as Tobias French had described it to me – Absolution, Oregon. A township of some 516 souls which had been left to decay when the railroad bypassed the area on its way to Portland.

The picture that particularly caught my attention was an old sepia print of a group of men standing outside the town saloon. They were a mixture of ages but there, at the right hand side, was the unmistakable face of Tobias French. I’d seen his mug shot from his police and jail records and there was no doubt that it was him. No doubt, also, that the young man to his left, and towards whose head Tobias was pointing, was Jimmy Rae Hollis. I looked back again at the head count on the description – 516! It had been 513 when we first saw the town sign.

The dreams began a week ago. They were odd at first more than scary, but now they’re becoming terrifying. This can’t be happening to me; I’m a sane man – a logical man. And yet I’m scared to death to close my eyes each night; I see the sign: ‘Absolution. Pop.516’. Unlike Tobias French I did seek Absolution… and now it’s coming for me.