The Last Caller

Jack Stone should’ve been dead by now. That’s what doctors, friends, and two ex-wives routinely told him. “Your lifestyle’s too unhealthy for a 77-year-old,” they’d lecture. “You take too many risks,” they’d scold. But tonight was New Year’s Eve, and Jack was well into his annual celebration of having yet again dodged the big sleep.

He sat alone in a worn brown leather chair in his cabin’s living room, white hair cascading from the sides and back of his balding head onto a red flannel shirt. He watched dancing snow flurries graze the frosty window next to the front door. The logs in the fireplace to his left had collapsed into smoldering orange embers and the room was receding into darkness. A small, unlit lamp stood on the bookstand to the right of the chair. Next to the lamp was a green glass ashtray with the pungent remnant of the second Cuban cigar he’d smoked and a heavy crystal glass that held the fourth bourbon of the evening. The bronze pendulum of the wall clock above the fireplace swung slowly, moving between shadow and the dying light of the embers.

Jack smiled, lifted the glass, and sucked in a long sip of the whiskey, savoring the pleasant tingling on his lips and tongue. Suddenly, he heard a sound outside that resembled the slamming of a car door. He thought of his Ford F-150 in the driveway, then shrugged. Probably just a tree branch falling on the tool shed, he thought. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Images of Vietnam flashed in his head. The firefight with the Viet Cong. Buddies blown up in spurts of crimson to his left and right. The bullet tearing mercilessly through his thigh. The whirring of the medevac helicopter. Jack quickly sipped the bourbon. When he’d healed and returned to the States, he and another combat vet had taken off on a month-long journey to watch a string of bullfights in Mexico. His thoughts turned to long rides on diesel-belching buses and Tequila nights in flea-bag hotels and the crazy fight in a Guadalajara cantina when the broken beer bottle had sliced his neck, narrowly missing the carotid artery.

Jack shook his head, now remembering his Harley skidding off the serpentine highway near Big Sur to avoid an oncoming truck and the sputtering engine of the pontoon prop plane he’d flown in Alaska and emergency landed on a pristine mountain lake. That had been his life: narrow misses; close calls; death lurking and lunging toward him, but still unable to land him. He nodded slowly. He’d convinced himself that when his ultimate demise was at hand, he’d know it; there’d be no doubt. Like one of those bulls in the ring, mighty head drooping from the exhaustion of the fight, he’d see the matador approaching, estoque unsheathed, readying for the kill. He smiled. “Ah, yes. Someday, Grim Reaper, someday,” he whispered hoarsely. “But not this year.” He laughed, then downed the last of the bourbon with a flourish of his wrist and slammed the glass on the bookstand.

Jack looked up at the clock’s pendulum, swinging slowly, persistently. Then, thinking he’d again heard a sound outside, he slid his right hand down to the shelf of the bookstand and ran his fingers over the cold smooth steel of a .38 caliber revolver. There’d been mornings when he’d gone out to get wood for the fire and had realized he’d forgotten to lock the door the night before. He tried to remember what he’d done last night. He shrugged and pulled his hand away from the gun. What difference did it make? No one would be out on a night like this; it probably was the wind. But then he heard creaking, and the front door suddenly swung open.

A dark figure, head down, stepped inside, snow blowing around it. The figure looked up and Jack could make out that it was a man in a black hooded parka. The intruder’s eyes widened. He paused momentarily, then threw back the hood. “Who the hell are you?” he blurted.

Jack reached to his left, clicked on the lamp, but said nothing. The man looked young, probably early twenties. His face was round and pock-marked, making him seem even younger, as if he were a teenager battling acne. His dark hair was matted, and Jack detected fear in the pale blue eyes.

“Listen,” the man said, his voice unsteady. “Don’t do anything stupid. I didn’t think anyone was inside. But I need money, and I need food. And I need the keys to that truck parked out front. Or I’ll kill you. Got it?”

Jack continued staring. Then he slowly shook his head and smiled. “Really? It’s you?”

The intruder scowled. “What? You don’t know me. Who the hell are you?” He reached back and closed the door, keeping his eyes on Jack.

Jack looked straight ahead while he slowly slid his right hand back down toward the gun. “I’d think you’d know who I am. If it’s really you.”

“What?” the man said through clenched teeth. “You’re drunk. Don’t fuck with me.” He reached under his coat and pulled out a knife with a four-inch blade. He pointed it and took a step toward Jack. “Do not fuck with me, old man. Get up and get me what I want. Or I’ll kill you.”

Jack looked into the callow eyes, then at the right hand quivering as it clutched the knife.  He shook his head. “Nah. It’s not you. Turn around and leave, son.”

“Goddamn you. You’re not making any sense. But I don’t give a shit, you hear me?” The man looked quickly around the room. “Where’s your money?” He took another step toward Jack. “I’ll fucking kill you. I will.” He waved the knife. “Now get moving.”

Jack laughed. “Nope. If you’d knocked down the door brandishing your terrible scythe or, for Christ’s sake, at least some type of sword or spear, I might’ve believed it was you. But you’re pointing a fishing knife at me, son.”

“It’s a goddamned hunting knife, you son of bitch,” the intruder screamed, raising the knife and stepping toward Jack. Jack raised the gun and leveled it at the man, who stopped cold, his eyes widening, his jaw slackening.

“Son, you’re nothing but a common thief, a coward. So, I’ll go on living, and you’ll leave with nothing. Now, go.”

“You think that’s going to scare me, grandpa?” The man swallowed, then shook his head. “You’re not going to use that thing, and you know it. It’s probably not even loaded.”

“Well, now, maybe you’re right. Truth be told, I can’t even remember whether it’s loaded.  You want to take that chance? No, you don’t. Now, go.”

The man scowled, gritted his teeth. “I ain’t going nowhere till I get what I want.”

Jack shook his head. “Get out. Now.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “No, no, you crazy old coot, that fucking thing ain’t loaded,” he screamed, lunging toward Jack.

Jack aimed and squeezed the trigger. A loud pop echoed in the room, and then another as the intruder fell face down not far from Jack’s feet, the knife clattering on the pinewood floor.

Jack rose slowly from the chair, still pointing the gun. He grabbed the armrest with his left hand to steady himself against a sudden dizziness. The body lay still, face down on the floor, blood seeping out under the parka.

“Shit,” Jack hissed. He stepped forward and bent over to feel the man’s neck for a pulse. “Shit,” he hissed again. He walked to a table on the other side of the room, set the gun down, picked up his mobile phone, and dialed 9-1-1.

“What’s your emergency?” a woman’s voice said.

“Guy broke in and tried to kill me. I shot him.”

“Are you OK?”

“Yeah.”

“What about the intruder?”

“Dead.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, he’s not moving, and I can’t find a pulse. Seems dead to me.”

“Where exactly are you located, sir?”

“Ten Pinecrest.”

There was silence. “OK, I’m looking at the map on my screen. Wow. That’s way up on the ridge. And off the highway a few miles.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not sure that I can get anybody up there for a while. We’re short sheriff officers tonight. Been quite a few disturbances in town. You know, not out of the ordinary for New Year’s Eve. And that access road off the highway’s difficult in the snow and the dark, and being that you’re okay and, well, that the guy’s dead—”

“So,” Jack interrupted. “How long do I have to babysit this corpse?”

“Truthfully, sir, I probably can’t get someone there before sunup.”

“Jesus. Are you kidding me?”

“Sorry, sir. But given the weather and it being New Year’s Eve and all—”

“Right,” Jack said. “Shit.”

“OK, well again, I’m sorry, sir. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Jack blurted a laugh. “Nope. Adios.” He ended the call and stared back at the body sprawled on the floor. Damned if I’m going to ring in the New Year with that, he thought. I don’t give a shit what the sheriff will say.

Jack walked to the closet and pulled out a large sheet of clear plastic that he’d used to cover furniture. He knelt next to the body, rolled up his shirt’s long sleeves, and spread the plastic on the floor. He crawled around the body, sliding his hands and forearms under it, and with a heave, rolled it over onto the plastic.

Jack’s eyes narrowed. The corpse’s lifeless eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, but the face was frozen in a broad, almost maniacal, grin that was at odds with the young man’s skittish visage when he was alive.

Jack’s hands, arms and jeans were covered in blood, and sweat beaded on his forehead. He raised his bicep where the rolled-up sleeve was still free of blood and wiped his face. He stood and grabbed the edge of the plastic where the body’s muddy boots pointed toward the ceiling and began to pull. The plastic slid across the lacquered pinewood floor, bearing the corpse toward the door. Jack opened the door. Snow flurries blew in, and the wind whistled through the pine trees. He continued pulling the body over the transom and into the snow.

Jack was panting. He bent over to catch his breath. He looked toward the tool shed not far from the cabin. He grabbed the plastic again and slowly backed his way toward the shed, his sneakers and the bottom of his jeans dampening from the snow’s moisture. He opened the door and pulled a vinyl cover off a snow blower. He took one last look at the corpse’s strangely contorted face. Then, grunting and groaning, he wrapped the body tightly in the vinyl, rolled it into the shed, and slammed the door shut.

Jack turned back toward the cabin, realizing that he was soaked with sweat. He wiped his face on his upper sleeve again. He wanted a shower. And another glass of bourbon. He entered the cabin and shut the door. He looked up at the clock whose hands were approaching twelve. Then his head began spinning and he felt a sharp pain in his chest extending down the inside of his left arm. He stumbled and lunged for the chair, knocking over the lamp on the bookstand and shattering its bulb. The room fell in darkness. He looked up toward the clock but could see nothing.

Jack felt his breath growing short as the clock’s chimes began counting their announcement of midnight in slow, melancholy beats. The muscles in the corners of his mouth began twitching to form the slightest of smiles. “I was wrong,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “It was you. It was you after all.”