The Invitation

The Invitation
By
Raman Jalota

   “Let’s go up to my bedroom and do it there.”
   Peter looked at Mark and smiled, “Yes. And I brought some black candles too. Do you have any booze in the house?”
   “I don’t know. My dad drinks some of that hard stuff. He’s got bottles in one of the kitchen cabinets.”
“Let’s see what he’s got.”
   Mark opened one of the cabinets and they looked at bottles of Gin, Bourbon and Scotch lined up on the shelf.
   “Which one should we take dude?” Mark pointed at the cabinet.
   “Let’s take the Wild Turkey, dude. And do you have any club soda?”
   Armed with the booze and snacks they climbed up to Mark’s room and lit all of the four black candles, placing them at each of the corners. They unwrapped the Ouija board and placed it on Mark’s bed.
   “Dude this whiskey tastes bitter, but I like the pickles and chips. So what do we do next?”
   Mark turned off the light and put both his hands on the board, his fingers touching the edge of the planchette. He motioned for Peter to do the same. Peter giggled nervously as he placed his fingers on the planchette.
   Peter took a sip from his whiskey glass and said, “Who should we ask to come here?”
   “Who else; a young chick of course.”
   “Alright, you do it.”

…..

   The planchette on the board was moving slowly but surely. It had a rhythmic movement, back and forth and up and down and sometimes it would break the pattern and take off at an angle then back again to the center of the board. The black candles had a fruity smell that was adding to the strange atmosphere that was building up in the room. Mark closed his eyes and extended the invitation
   “We would like to have a young girl … or woman to come through and talk to us. Please hear us and come to us.”
   Peter chuckled nervously, “Yes a sexy, young chick … come to us now. We don’t want an old woman … a young chick … yes.”
   The Ouija board slowed down from its frantic rhythm to a slow rhythm that kept pace with their breathing. The planchette seemed to tremble and then moved. It settled on I for a short time, then moved purposely and rapidly.
   “I am here.”
   “Wow, dude! You pushed it.”
   Mark shook his head, “No, It’s the spirit that’s here.”
   A shiver ran up and down his spine as he formulated his question, “Who are you?”
   As the planchette started to move, Peter whispered, “Are you young and sexy?”
   The Ouija board jumped off the bed and there was a flash of light as the planchette zigzagged furiously
   “Who the hell do you think I am? Your grandmother? I am young and sexy and will remain young and sexy forever and ever.”
   “What’s your name?”
   “Veronica. I am 16 and tall and beautiful … Ha Ha.”
   Mark’s throat was drying, “Veronica. Do we know you?”
   “You do Mark.”
   “I do … I don’t remember a Veronica.”
   “Yes you do. You will find out soon enough.”
   “How did you come here?”
   “You invited me. And now I am going to stay here with you.”
   “Are you here in the room with us .. physically I mean?”
   “Yes. You want me to show you?”
   “No” Mark said quickly.
   “Oh Yes baby” Peter said at the same time.
   There was a sound as the drapes on the windows moved; a loud sound of a gust of wind entering the room. A shaft of bright light flashed across the room and two of the candles went out.
   Peter spilled his whiskey, “I can’t take this shit. Too spooky man.”
   Mark turned on the light and put away the Ouija board.
   “Don’t ever do that man. That’s nothing to play with. It’s a ghost. Do you understand? We can’t do anything to it.”
   “It was scary, but fun, man. What else did you expect to happen?”
   “I don’t ever want to do this with you again. You could have gotten us into a lot of trouble.”

…..

   Mark lay on his bed thinking about Veronica. Who is she? Why did she show up tonight? How long has she been dead? Why does she think I know her? This is getting scary now.
   He tossed and turned before falling off to sleep. He awoke almost immediately. The open window was letting in a howl of wind mixed with rain and there were flashes of light outside. I didn’t know it was supposed to rain.
   “Mark, help me.”
   That’s a very distinct voice. She is in some kind of danger. Who the heck is she?
   “Mark, get me away from here.” She screamed.
   He gingerly walked forward. He shook his head in disbelief. He was in the middle of a field. His old high school's football field. There was a group of boys shouting and laughing just ahead of him. The voice of the girl seemed to come from the middle of the group. He ran carefully, the rain was making the grass slick. Grass! On our football field?
   A young kid pulled away from the crowd. His face was scratched and bleeding. He laughed as he saw Mark.
   “You have no business here, Mark. Get the hell out.”
   His fist came straight for Mark’s face. Mark fell on the grass tasting his own blood mixed with mud. Another boy walked up to him. He turned him over with his foot.
   “Oh shit Mark. You look like hell. Told you not to mess with us tonight. Now get out of here.”
   Before he could say something, a shoe came down towards his face. He turned to avoid it. His face was pushed into the mud.

…..

   It was cold and freezing. A drizzle, not quite snow, not quite rain either, was drifting across Denver as Mark stared at the last truck pulling out of the Stapleton airport. His boss waved to him as he left with the last of the airline's furniture for the warehouse. Mark tore open the envelope and took out his last paycheck. He looked at the amount and put it back in his pocket.
   Damn, damn, damn. Back where I started. You leave your home and find a job … and everything's great for a long long time … 9 years … and just like that; damn Continental airlines closes and I have no job.
   He walked towards his car not looking where he was stepping, slipped and fell. He cursed as he wiped the mud from his face and shook his jacket to get rid of the mud on it.
   He sat down in his trailer and stared at the wall. I need to wipe off my face. I should take a shower. Oh fuck it all.
   He walked to the fridge and took out a can of beer. He stepped into the bathroom and looked at his face. His face was dirty and had some blood on it too. He washed it with the lukewarm water and dried it. He went back to the sofa and sat there drinking the Budweiser.
   After his fourth and last beer, he slowly started to drift into a lazy sleep. For a second his face with the mud and blood flashed before his eyes. The next instant, he was lying in the football field, mud in his mouth. He spat it out.
   Do I dare get up and go help the girl? These bastards are just going to kick me to death if I try anything. Who the heck is the girl they have?
   The two kids standing by him pushed him with their feet. He rolled exposing his dirty face. He kept his eyes closed. Maybe they will leave me alone, if they think I have passed out or something.
   He was right. One of them nudged him with his foot. When Mark didn't move he signaled to the other and they went back to the circle.
   Beautiful Veronica lay in a heap as the fifth boy got up from on top of her. He smiled and high-fived with the others and a sixth boy started to unzip his pants. Veronica's eyes were half-closed from the beating she had taken. Tears, blood and mud were streaked across her face. Her lips were bleeding and her head was exploding from the unbelievable nightmare that was taking place. She screamed as she heard the sound of the zipper. Her legs unconsciously twitched and tried to close. The sixth kid easily pushed her legs apart and smiled at the circle of his friends as he entered her.
   Veronica tried to lift her hands to hit the boy. He slapped her and pinned both of her hands with one hand on the ground. She tried to kick him. He let go of her hands and hit her several times in the face with his fist.
   Veronica felt the blows one by one. Her head seemed to fill up with pain till it couldn't take anymore. She gasped and blacked out again.

…..

   Mark woke up with a bad headache. What time is it? Jesus, I slept through the whole damn day.
   He got up and tried to find the light switch. He hit his foot on the side of the dining table and cursed. He finally found the wall and ran his hand over it, trying to feel his way to the switch.
   Thump, thump; some one was walking on top of the trailer. He could feel the footsteps as they went down the length of the trailer. He froze. It can't be. No one could be up there walking on this stupid trailer.
   The footsteps went to the end of the trailer and seemed to continue down the side. He listened intently anticipating the sound to stop as whosoever it was reached the ground. His throat turned dry as he clearly heard the footsteps continue down the length of the trailer, but on the bottom.
   This is insane. Someone's walking upside down under my trailer! I must be dreaming. He decided to call out.
   "Who is there?"
   "It's me, Veronica."
   He clearly saw his own face as it looked in the mirror this morning; muddy and bloody. Almost immediately another face floated into his vision. A muddy and bloody face of Mark lying on the football field as a gang of boys raped a girl. He rubbed his eyes, not sure if he was seeing things or imagining them.
   "That was you, Veronica?"
   "Yes."
   "What do you want?"
   A streak of light came into the trailer as if from a crack in the side. He was lifted and thrown to the end of the trailer. He hit the backend heavily. He slowly got up and felt the back of his head. Rats, I am bleeding.
   "Who the hell are you? What the hell do you want from me?"
   He was lifted again, almost as a little toy by powerful unseen hands and thrown towards the other end. He hit the end with a loud thud and lay on the floor, bleeding. As if in a bad movie that's stuck in a loop; he was picked up again and again and thrown from one end of the trailer to the other. His head and face were cut and bleeding. He couldn’t tell if his arms were broken or not. I can't survive this pounding. What the hell is happening to me?

…..

   Mark shuffled out of the hospital. No one believes my story. My trailer is a mess and yet they don’t believe that three men broke in and beat me senseless. How the hell will they believe that a ghost beat me up?
   I better find out what this is all about. Otherwise next time I will end up dead. God! I hope she doesn’t want me dead. Why would she? I don’t even know who she is.
   He stood at the curb for a few minutes before catching the bus back home. He sat in the back of the bus thinking. When he got home, he changed and packed a small bag with a change of clothes. He drove to the bank and withdrew the last of his money and headed east to Kansas.
   He pulled into his old high school’s parking lot late in the afternoon. He nodded at some young kids smoking and hanging around the parking area. He knew exactly where the football field was and walked towards it. As he turned a corner and could see the field, he froze.
   There it was. A little used and dirty from the recent fall semester, yet very green, just as he always remembered it. A regular synthetic turf green. He lit up a cigarette and stared hard. Ah that is the visitor’s end. Yes that’s where I saw the rape happen. That’s where I saw Mark try and then give up helping Veronica. But there was real grass and mud in my visions! Well I will be damned! It’s now or never. I need to face it.
    He walked into the old school library and approached the middle-aged woman sitting behind the desk. She noticed him entering the library and kept her eyes on him all the way.
    “Yes sir?”
    “I need some help ... help with the school’s history and things.”
    “What kind of history?”
    “For example, when did we have grass on the football field. I always remembered it having synthetic turf. I graduated back in 1985.”
    “Welcome back then. Let me see .. you know .. that should be right in here.”
    She walked over to a bookshelf behind her desk and pulled out a brown leather-bound book. She opened it and thumbed through it.
    “Ahh … there, 1974. The synthetic turf was put in 1974 at a cost of three hundred thousand dollars. My, my!”
    “So before 1974 it was just plain old grass?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you have a picture of the football teams from back then. I mean before 1974?”
    “I am afraid not. But you know, you can go to the city library and look at the old issues of the Prairie Gazette news. They have them on film ... well maybe by now they have them on their computers. The newspaper covered the football team all the time. Nothing much happens here any way.”
    Mark smiled, “That’s how I remember.   Nothing much ever happened here. Thanks ma’am. Great, I will go to the library and look through there.”

…..

    The city librarian looked at him intently, "What do you want to see the old football teams pictures for?"
Rats! I didn't think of a story for this stupid bitch. Think Mark think!
    "I err … want to look up an old fr … actually an old relative …"
    The librarian smiled. "Ah I see. One of those! You are doing your family's genealogy, eh?"
    Whew. That's great.
    "Yes, one of my great aunts thinks a relative of mine may have played on the football team back in the old days, when we used to have grass instead of this synthetic stuff."
    "Well O.K."
    She showed him where the microfilms were and how to use the reader and printer. He settled in for a long day.
    Mark had gone through six years of newspapers when he saw a shaft of light coming through the window. This is the East end of the library. Besides it's almost 5'O clock. It's getting dark. Is there something trying to show me what to do?
    He walked out to the vending machine area and bought a cup of hot coffee. He walked in the hallway trying to think what he should do next. The newspapers from 1973 to 1968 hadn't yielded a single recognizable face or anything else that grabbed his attention. Out of nowhere a strange thought hit him. It was so clear; he almost heard it. "Just look at the January 1st newspapers Mark. There will be stories in those that will guide you."
    He walked to the shelf with the 1960's microfilms and something drew him to the lowest shelf. Like a tired old man, he sat down slowly and pulled the 1949, 1948 and 1947 January Microfilms. As he got up one of them slipped out of his hand and landed with a thud on it's side. It didn't fall over but stayed balanced on its side. It was from January 1949.
    That was the microfilm he popped in the machine and pulled the January 1st newspaper on to the screen. Here it was in big bold letters, "Biggest story of 1948 - The Rape and Murder of Veronica Fletcher."
    He buried his face in his hands. He could smell the wet grass and mud in his face. The taste of blood was in his mouth. His clothes were getting wet and his body shivered. He could hear laughs and taunts of the boys and an occasional whimper from the girl.
    Do I dare raise my head and look? Should I just lie here and wait for them to go away. Maybe I won't get hurt anymore. She's past any help any way. My jumping in won't do her any good. I couldn't stop it from starting, how would cutting it off now be any better … or worse?

…..

   How long has it been? Did I pass out here?
   He lifted his head slowly and looked in the direction where the noise had been coming from earlier. There was nobody there. He slowly got up and noticed a bluish cloth lying where the rape had taken place. He walked closer and then he saw her.
   Veronica was lying face down in the grass. Her dark hair was covered with thick red blood that had been washing off and mixing in the mud for a long time. Her body was naked and very white. Pieces of her clothes lay around torn and dirty. There was a gaping wound in her skull as if it had been broken open with a baseball bat. He turned her over. Her right eye had popped out of its socket. Her face was covered with mud, blood and grass. He knew she was dead.
   He heard the sound of cars coming and quickly ran away from her. He took shelter behind the stands and watched as two cars came to a stop and a group of boys came to the field, picked up her body and threw it into one of the cars and drove away.
   Fuckers! They had killed her. For one night of their insanity, they had killed the beautiful, young Veronica. And what about me? I had left her cold and freezing. I had lain down like a coward as she was raped and bleeding. No. It wasn't me. It was someone else named Mark!
   The skies thundered and a heavy rain started to fall. Suddenly it was very clear. The Mark, the coward from 1948 is no other than the Mark from 2001. It's not me. Yet, it is me. I am the same Mark that had left her to be raped and killed. I am the coward. I didn’t want to spend another ten minutes of my life fighting an injustice that I could see and hear. Had I spent another ten minutes … had I even died fighting … perhaps, those bastards would have just run away … perhaps Veronica could have stayed alive … perhaps … perhaps.

…..

   Mark sat in his car shaking uncontrollably. Did I read that in the library, or did I see it or did I relive it? Where do I go from here?
   He felt another presence in his car. "Is that you Veronica?"
   "Yes Mark. It's me."
   "Did you see what I saw?"
   "I have been seeing it everyday for the last 53 years Mark."
   "I am sorry Veronica. It's all my fault. Can you forgive me please? To avoid a little pain, I took the coward's way out. I could have helped you. I didn't. Anything you have done to me in this life … or in my previous life is trivial compared to what I caused you to go through. I forgive you for anything you have ever done to me or want to do to me. Can you forgive me?"
   And what about me? Do I forgive myself? Do I dare? Come on Mark, don't be a coward. At the very least forgive yourself!

…..

    The sun broke through the clouds and the day started to warm up. Mark got in his car and decided to leave everything behind. Denver, Kansas … everything. He headed up north. He rolled open his windows as the sun shone brightly. The freeway was clean and open and it felt like a new world was about to take shape. He closed his eyes and smiled. He felt absolved, free of guilt and full of peace. He felt the presence of Veronica in the car and realized he was finally also free of fear.

The End       3529 words

Copyright © 2004 Raman Jalota. All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

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