The Dead Man's Call

The grave was still fresh when I heard its call. A peaceful slumber continuously managed to slip out of my grasp, sleep somehow always escaping me before the sun rises. Maybe it was a sign that nighttime should always be feared.

That night was no different. I lay awake, staring at the darkened ceiling, my light turned off but my mind not so lucky, when I heard that dreadful knock at my front door. At that time of night, being on high alert was not unexpected. I grabbed the rifle underneath my bed frame, more out of precaution than bloodlust, because who knows what could happen when even the angels are resting?

The time on my clock read 3:00 AM on the dot. I wasn't one for superstition, but even I felt a dark chill run up my spine. This was all the makings of the most stereotypical horror scene of all time, but that did nothing to ease the lingering fear that settled just between my heart and my stomach, weakening the courage and resolve that briefly surged when my hand grasped the cool metal of my rifle.

As I contemplated whether it was even worth it to see who was knocking on my front door, there it came again. Three knocks, harder this time, violent enough to rattle the door, which only served to disquiet me further. My hand tightened around my gun and I stood up, steeling myself to face whatever was lurking just outside my flimsy wooden door. The fear leapt from my stomach to my feet, leaving me shaking ever so slightly as I crept forward in the darkness. Not even the moon seemed to give me any grace on this particular night. Perhaps she, too, was afraid, too afraid to show herself lest she be exposed as well.

I adjusted my hold on the gun, my finger resting on the trigger guard, ready at a moment's notice. I'd never been so careful in my life as I slinked down, not wanting to even have the chance to be seen through the peep hole by whatever being that was disturbing me. Slowly, ever so slowly, I lifted my head, looking through the peep hole.

Unfortunately for me, not even my caution could save me from what I saw before me.

My heart may have stopped as a distinct figure stared back at me, gazing directly into my soul from within the darkness. The figure. He had only been gone for two weeks. My brother, my only brother, who left this plane of existence at just 35 years old, a drunk man behind the wheel the responsible party. But it was not possible for my deceased brother to be right in front of me, the only thing blocking him being my door. There should be miles of distance. There should be a coffin. A coffin I carried, lowered into the ground, and watched with barely-contained emotions as it was covered in dirt.

But there he was.

I barely noticed when my gun dropped to the floor, nausea and terror forcing its way into my body, like a tsunami raging in my whole being, uprooting everything I thought I knew and sweeping it away like it was never there to begin with.

I scrambled to pick up my gun, my mind warring between opening the door to greet my deceased brother... and simply going back to my bedroom and praying to God that I would wake up sane. If I could even sleep.

There was no chance I could sleep.

Was I hallucinating, delirious from not sleeping? Was this torment sent by God to punish me for my sins?

Was I ever sane to start?

I could not bear it, not knowing if it truly was him, or whether it was my own guilt looming over me to make me doubt myself and everything I knew. I had to open the door.

As I opened the door, it occurred to me then that there had not been a knock since I was right behind the door.

"Michael." I breathed out his name as he stood there, looking at me, a wary expression on his face and a scar across his eye that I did not remember him having.

"Oliver. It's been too long. Can I come in? I have... a lot to talk about."

I knew, I knew that something was wrong. The man I buried... Was he truly standing in front of me? Was I losing my grasp on reality that badly?

Was I truly ever sane? Was the image of my deceased brother, lying on the cold, metal slab of the mortuary, waiting to be identified, merely a figment of my imagination? What was real, at this point? Too many questions, and none would ever be answered, that much I was certain of.

I was far too frazzled to protest when he stepped in the door, and at that point, the gun in my hand was the only thing to ground me.

"How are you...?" I asked before I could stop myself.

"Would you believe me if I said I managed to escape that wreck by the skin of my teeth?" He turned to look at me, and I could have sworn his face briefly morphed into the cold, dead corpse of the man I identified.

"No. Frankly, I wouldn't."

My brother laughed, and reached out to pat me on my shoulder. I could feel his hand fall on my shoulder, the touch only leading me further down a path of self-destruction.

"How do you think I got the scar? I was so badly mangled... but I was saved." His hopeful tone pulled at my heart, and briefly, I forgot about my doubts.

Grieving him was a knife to my heart and led to nothing good, only to my isolation. But... Who was this standing before me? Did my brother truly die? Who was it that I identified? Who had I lowered into the ground? I couldn't think clearly. The memories blurred together in one long motion of perpetual torment. My stomach churned, and I thought for sure I would vomit, faint, or both. My head drooped down as I stared at the floor, and I could no longer handle the collision of insanity and reality.

"You survived?" I mumbled, looking back up at my brother, only to find not a single soul, the door still hanging open from my brother barging his way in. Was it possible he merely walked back out? Did I let him in to begin with?

I struggled to bring myself to move from the spot I was frozen. My legs seemed disconnected from my body, unwilling or unable to move. I managed it eventually, drudging as I retreated back into the imagined safety of my own bedroom. I let the gun fall from my hand, as I no longer knew if even that was real.

The rising of the sun did nothing to make me feel any sort of comfort. Man's natural instinct is to fear the night, and everything that lurks in the shroud of darkness, but I could not help but feel that the daytime was no longer safe. After many painfully long hours of trying to decipher what was real and what was not, I'd slipped into a dreamless sleep, just as the sun dipped below the horizon.

I'd only gotten a few hours of sleep when I was jolted awake by knocking at my door. I could barely find the strength to get out of bed, knowing with deep dread that my brother was back, though I could not prove it beyond the shaking of my limbs and the pain in my gut. I readied my gun once again and made my way to the door, tempted to shoot first and ask questions later, but what little common sense I had left prevented me from doing this. I checked the peephole, and there he stood, though significantly more damaged than when he first visited me. If you could call it a visit.

I opened the door, and it was like I had always imagined his body would have looked immediately after the crash. Blood poured from a gash on his eye, he was covered in bruises and cuts, and his clothes were torn badly. If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought he'd gotten into a bar fight.

"Oliver. Let me in." He demanded, and I clutched my gun tighter out of pure instinct, if nothing else.

"Who are you?" The shaking in my voice and in my body gave away my internal struggle for normalcy, and Michael looked almost... angry. But the anger was immediately replaced by sadness, and I was still left reeling from everything that had brought me to this point.

"Does that matter?" he asked softly, trying to reach out to touch me again, but I recoiled, noticing how his arm looked to be bent at an odd angle.

"You need to go to a hospital," I whispered. "You're hurt. You need to leave."

"None of that matters, Oliver. I'm here now, with you." He stepped towards me, and I stepped back, lifting my gun to him.

"You're not here. You're not real!" I shouted, my very being trembling as I pointed the gun.

"Do you honestly believe that? Do you think that your mind can prevent you from remembering? Remembering everything that happened? You can escape your delusions, but you can't escape reality."

"My reality is that you're in a grave! You can't be here! You're not real, you're dead, Michael!" I couldn't stop the tears from forming, nor could I stop them immediately falling down my face. I kept my eyes on him, unwilling to back down despite how fractured I felt. I sniffled as snot filled my nose and left me struggling to breathe, though I wasn't sure if I had ever felt the comfort of a deep breath of fresh air, not for some time. All I knew now was my own home, and the suffocation it brought me.

Michael sighed, agitated, unwilling or unable to hide it. "Stop trying to fool yourself. It's not going to work for long."

The tears piled up until they blocked my vision, and I knew the second I looked away or closed my eyes, he would vanish once again. And I was correct. As I wiped my eyes, I was left alone, my gun pointed at the wall. The only thing accompanying me was the silence, and no Michael to be seen.

At what point could the human mind be pushed to the brink with no chance of return? Would it be when you could no longer tell what was real? Or would it, perhaps, be when you could no longer trust that anything was real? When Michael knocked on my door that third night, I became convinced that the only true reality was that this was an act of cruelty by a spiteful, brutal God that would have nothing to do with me in the afterlife.

The knocking, soft and careful, asked for acknowledgement. Then, when I was too afraid to move, the knocking became forceful, no longer asked, but demanded answering. Telling me under no uncertain terms to open the door. 'Oliver, open the door.' I could imagine him saying. 'Open the damn door now, or I will find a way in.'

Of course, I could never resist the call of fate that lingered outside my door and in my mind. Despite the alarm bells ringing in my head and the tell-tale sign that I couldn't bear the distress any further lest my heart give out, I still stood, and walked with shaking legs to the door.

The man I saw outside my door, through the peephole, made me immediately, deeply regret this decision.

The grotesque, rotted figure before me caused me to drop my weapon out of unexpected terror. I had to will my stomach to not empty its contents onto the floor as I hastily picked up the gun again.

As I did so, I debated whether or not this was even worth it. I knew for certain that, if nothing else, I was being mocked. Mocked by my own mind, mocked by God himself, mocked for being born broken.

"Oliver." I heard the thing gurgling, and my blood chilled. My heart pounded, and I fought back tears as I stood fully, holding my weapon at the door. This had to end, here and now.

"Oliver, let me in."

"I can't do that." I said, loudly enough that it could hear me beyond the door.

"You've always been a fool, Oliver. You don't need me to tell you that, do you? Letting your mind get the better of you. You don't deserve to keep your sanity."

"Shut up!" I screamed, tears now streaming down my face. I could barely hold the gun up as Michael poked and prodded at everything I had felt about myself for years. He wouldn't dare say this to me, he was a kind-hearted man. Yet this apparition... It knew me just as well. It knew what I did and did not want to hear, and made sure to use it to its advantage.

"Do it, Oliver! Do what you have always wanted to, and end it!" The corpse yelled back, and it broke me. Even through the distortion of his voice, it was still Michael, and that was what drove the despair straight through my heart.

The weapon in my hands became blurry as I stared down at it, my arms weakening until the gun felt too heavy to lift. It mocked me, laughing and jeering as I was chewed up and spat out by my own mind. Is this all I had left, the ghosts of my sins coming back to lead me to an early grave? Is the guilt and pain what finally drove me over the edge?

I lifted the gun to the door, and despite the wood blocking the way, I fired. No noise came from the creature lurking outside to indicate that I had hit or killed it. I couldn't bring myself to check, resolving myself to never know. If I had killed something that merely resembled my brother, then that was my only goal. If I killed nothing but the lingering regret and visions it brought me, then at least I would have some peace and quiet as I drew my final breaths.

I was met with only hostility when staring down the barrel of the weapon. The afterlife would have no need for me, for certain. I was damaged, too damaged for anything good. My brother's face, both in life and death, was there when I closed my eyes, and would likely never stop following me. I whispered the faintest words that only he could hear, wherever he was.

"Free me of the guilt, for I am coming home."