The Haunted
Trailer Park
William
Robert McRoy was not the smartest person in the world. After his mother died
and was eaten by cats, he inherited her mobile home in rural South Carolina in
the town of Rickenbocker, where everybody was a Rickenbocker and basically they
were all cousins. Of course, Billy Bob, as the neighbors soon knew him, was
also a Rickenbocker on his mother's side, and, he found out soon, we was
related to everybody in the trailer park somehow.
Billy Bob was a big man. He topped 315 lbs with ease. And with a combination of disability insurance (he suffered from chronic back pain from his overweight), sales at the jockey lot of everything from counter-fit porn movies to used comic books, he did actually quite well. He spent most of his time searching for porn on his computer, and of course, downloading it and burning DVDs to sell the weekends.
Folks at the trailer park left him pretty much alone. His mother had been found after two weeks of being dead, eaten by her cats, who when she stopped feeding them, decided she would make a good breakfast. When the smell was bad enough to reach the neighbors, a local cop checked in on her and found her half-eaten body, now too putrid to be of any interest to the felines. The event had been a bit of a scandal at the Rickenbacker Trailer Park and thus, when Billy Bob came in to reclaim the trailer, he was shunned by the rest of the neighbors because they were mostly too embarrassed to speak to him personally.
Years later, nothing had changed. Not even the weird smell of death that clung around Billy Bob's single-wide. A couple of people did get to know Billy Bob mostly because of the sheer proximity of his trailer from theirs. The young married couple, Cindy and Al, who were just across the yard. And the single mom Sherry with her 8 year old Dee Dee. Cindy and Al avoided her because they thought that Sherry had been pregnant with Dee Dee by her own brother, who was now in a Federal Penitentiary for lewd acts upon a child. His fourteen year old cousin, of course. They had a fight, and she told about their "love" sessions to a local school teacher.
Because of all this, Sherry was a bit paranoid of Billy Bob and his 315 lbs of man-flesh, including ridiculously large man-tits, legs thick as hams and his choice of a viking-looking red beard. She also knew that he sold pornos at the Jockey Lot. So Dee Dee was not allowed to speak to Billy Bob, which made it all the most interesting for the precocious preteen to flirt daily with him.
One such day, when Sherry had gone off to work at the local Waffle House, Dee Dee came upon Billy Bob while he was cutting the lawn. He was not a fastidious housekeeper, but he did like to keep his busy body neighbors out of his way by keeping his yard reasonably clean.
"Ever been inside the haunted trailer, Billy Bob?" said the cute but mischief seeking child.
"Dee Dee, you know your mom don't let you talk to me. Why you bothering?"
"I ain't worried about you like my mom, Billy Bob. You're too stupid to be a rapist. Or a kidnapper."
"You mean the abandoned trailer?" replied Billy Bob trying to change the subject.
"Yeah. I've been inside. There is a pentagram drawn in blood inside." she said, with a weird other-wordy voice.
"Dee Dee go home and watch some cartoons or something."
"Scaredy cat. Scaredy cat.".
"I got work to do." said finally Billy Bob leaving the weed eater he used to cut his grass to one side and going back in without having another word with the child... Dee Dee kept repeating "scaredy cat, scaredy cat" until she got tired of it and went off to do some other terrible thing somewhere else.
In fact, Dee Dee hat hit a nerve.
Billy Bob did not think of himself as a obese freak living off social security. He actually believed himself to be a great adventurer. A paladin of justice. In fact, he considered himself the "avatar" of a powerful other-dimensional being, caught in this body at this time in this trailer park because something was going to happen to alter all reality and he was going to be in the right place at the right time to save the world.
In his dreams, he was Billy Bob, sure, but he was also Rainsong, a powerful warrior who lived in a distant planet called Nagaloka, and who had somehow split his "soul" into various bodies to make himself immortal, and one of these parts of his soul was Billy Bob. Rainsong was muscular and popular and immortal, and he was a kind of King, who lived in a huge yellow skyscraper in the middle of a forest full of weird and exotic beings.
He couldn't explain it all... but in his dreams, he knew... He knew.
And he also knew that the "Haunted Trailer" was actually some kind of doorway to this other dimension, a kind of gateway. He had dreamed of this haunted trailer many times. Dee Dee was right in calling him scaredy cat. He knew that he would find the gate if only he would go in.
But he was afraid of "breaking and entering." He had never done anything illegal in his life, (besides making pirate copies of porn videos hacked from internet, of course) and the idea of breaking the law terrified him. Well, maybe not the idea of breaking the law, but surely the idea of getting caught.
But Dee Dee's taunt had made up his mind.
He would BUY the haunted trailer.
The next day, he went early to the manager of the Rickenbocker Trailer Park, Dona Rickenbocker, a heavyset dirty blonde 30-something, who must have been gorgeous when she was a teen, but had long since lost her figure and her smile along the way, and who had inherited the trailer park from her cousin. A male cousin who lived with her until his untimely death in a hunting accident. She lived in a gorgeous double-wide home, something like a "trailer" palace, with a huge yard that even had a real apple tree. The apple tree had little green apples, but nobody ever touched them, so the vast majority of them were just rotting under the tree.
Dona was inside drinking ice-tea and vodka and watching soaps on television. She had a Vanity Fair next to her with a half-rolled joint and some loose weed on it. She closed it and went to answer the doorbell.
"Billy Bob. What can I do for you?"
"Is the haunted trailer still for sale, Dona?"
Dona saw money in his eyes. When it came to selling or buying trailers... She could smell blood from a mile away.
"You mean No. 23?"
"Yeah."
"You are ready to buy, Billy Bob?"
"Yeah."
"Hold on, I'll get the keys."
Dona and Billy Bob walked over to 23 Trailer Park Rd, the place where waited "the haunted trailer".
Number 23, as it was known, was a handsome single-wide with fake dark ceder panels, arched "venetian style" windows, a fifty-foot yard with a couple of pine trees on either side and a well-manicured lawn and a fake German-style roof. The only weird part of the trailer is that the huge venetian style windows had been boarded with plywood from the inside.
"You know, Billy Bob, I haven't mentioned but if you are buying then I recommend Number 47, which is on sale right now and it is bigger than this one, it is also cheaper." Done knew that Billy Bob had more money than he showed. She knew he had sold his mobile home back in Charleston when his mom died, and she knew that his pirate-video business was thriving.
"I like this one. I have been thinking about buying it for a while, Dona. It's a way to invest my money. That way I don't spend it on stupid stuff."
"Billy Bob, I must be frank with you. Part of the reason the windows have been boarded up is that there is some damage on the inside. Nobody has seen the inside but me... and... The original owner was huh... eccentric." Dona was not sure what to do. She had counted on convincing Billy Bob to look at some of the other trailers on her park. She knew what was expecting them inside. She also knew that if Billy Bob saw what was inside the trailer, he would probably even move out of the Trailer Park. Nobody had ever been allowed to go inside. Nobody. For a reason.
"Oh? I'd like to see anyway. I love this home, Dona. I have made up my mind, and I am gong to buy it. I really want to buy THIS trailer. I don't want another trailer. I want this one."
Dona considered her options. She could try to woo him away from the dastardly place, but Billy was very firm and he was also a little eccentric.
Dona kept her mouth shut as she opened the door for him with a keyring that held dozens of keys. She shrugged. If he didn't like it she was sure to sell him another.
The moment Billy Bob entered the trailer, he was transported to a dream within a dream. He knew this place. He knew every inch of the trailer. He always knew this trailer. It was exactly what he expected.
There was no furniture in it. The entrance was to the largest room, the living room, with it's arched ceiling. The walls were totally charred, as if they had been used for bonfires. In fact, all the walls were blackened with soot. But the kitchen, adjacent to the living room was intact.
In the center of the 6x4 ft room there was a pentagram, drawn inside a circle painted with what looked like dried blood. At the five corners of the pentagram were five skulls, apparently human, upon which candles had once burned.
Dona cringed.
"This is the living room. It has a master bedroom, a bathroom and you can see the kitchen and dining room from here. It's 8x27. I think all the utilities work fine. There's a little smoke damage, but it was definitively not a kitchen fire. It's an oldie. From the very first double wides that came out in the early 70s. She's only had one owner. A weird guy, European or something. He's the guy who probably burnt the walls. You could easily replace the wallpaper. Don't know how he did that. Maybe he was trying to do bar.b.q in here. It's over 30 years old, but it's never been used by anybody else. He bought it, put it here, and then abandoned it. He disappeared."
Actually, Billy Bob hadn't heard. He was transported to another time and another place. Dona's
"I'll buy it."
"Don't you want to see the rest of it? Nobody has been here in 40 years."
"I have seen enough. This is the place I want. I will buy it." said Billy Bob. "Just one thing...Did he make that pentagram on the floor?"
Dona looked at Billy curiously.
"What pentagram?"
Billy looked again. The living room was utterly clean. No trace of the pentagram was there.
Dona said: "The caretaker comes in once a month to check the fixtures and to make sure no animals get in. He also cleans it."
Billy shook his head. Had it been a dream? Was he hallucinating?
"I want this trailer, Donna. I'll buy it. How much does it cost?"
Dona couldn't believe her ears. But she didn't hesitate to pull out a series of documents out of her attaché case. And she didn't say much more, other than showing the transfer of documents to Billy Bob.
The final cost of the mobile home was $32,572 dollars, which for the antiquity of the structure was actually not a bargain. But Billy Bob didn't care. He wanted the trailer. He wanted to live here. He wanted to keep it to himself. He felt it was his "home" somehow...
Billy Bob had been thinking about buying a trailer like an investment for a while. He always imagined that if he could rent a trailer and live in another, he would have a secure form of income, but when he actually wrote the check that would wipe out his saving of over ten years, he realized that he was actually not really interested in an "investment". There was something about No. 27 that transcended completely any monetary concerns.
Within a matter of one week, Billy Bob had moved into his new home.
Billy Bob was a big man. He topped 315 lbs with ease. And with a combination of disability insurance (he suffered from chronic back pain from his overweight), sales at the jockey lot of everything from counter-fit porn movies to used comic books, he did actually quite well. He spent most of his time searching for porn on his computer, and of course, downloading it and burning DVDs to sell the weekends.
Folks at the trailer park left him pretty much alone. His mother had been found after two weeks of being dead, eaten by her cats, who when she stopped feeding them, decided she would make a good breakfast. When the smell was bad enough to reach the neighbors, a local cop checked in on her and found her half-eaten body, now too putrid to be of any interest to the felines. The event had been a bit of a scandal at the Rickenbacker Trailer Park and thus, when Billy Bob came in to reclaim the trailer, he was shunned by the rest of the neighbors because they were mostly too embarrassed to speak to him personally.
Years later, nothing had changed. Not even the weird smell of death that clung around Billy Bob's single-wide. A couple of people did get to know Billy Bob mostly because of the sheer proximity of his trailer from theirs. The young married couple, Cindy and Al, who were just across the yard. And the single mom Sherry with her 8 year old Dee Dee. Cindy and Al avoided her because they thought that Sherry had been pregnant with Dee Dee by her own brother, who was now in a Federal Penitentiary for lewd acts upon a child. His fourteen year old cousin, of course. They had a fight, and she told about their "love" sessions to a local school teacher.
Because of all this, Sherry was a bit paranoid of Billy Bob and his 315 lbs of man-flesh, including ridiculously large man-tits, legs thick as hams and his choice of a viking-looking red beard. She also knew that he sold pornos at the Jockey Lot. So Dee Dee was not allowed to speak to Billy Bob, which made it all the most interesting for the precocious preteen to flirt daily with him.
One such day, when Sherry had gone off to work at the local Waffle House, Dee Dee came upon Billy Bob while he was cutting the lawn. He was not a fastidious housekeeper, but he did like to keep his busy body neighbors out of his way by keeping his yard reasonably clean.
"Ever been inside the haunted trailer, Billy Bob?" said the cute but mischief seeking child.
"Dee Dee, you know your mom don't let you talk to me. Why you bothering?"
"I ain't worried about you like my mom, Billy Bob. You're too stupid to be a rapist. Or a kidnapper."
"You mean the abandoned trailer?" replied Billy Bob trying to change the subject.
"Yeah. I've been inside. There is a pentagram drawn in blood inside." she said, with a weird other-wordy voice.
"Dee Dee go home and watch some cartoons or something."
"Scaredy cat. Scaredy cat.".
"I got work to do." said finally Billy Bob leaving the weed eater he used to cut his grass to one side and going back in without having another word with the child... Dee Dee kept repeating "scaredy cat, scaredy cat" until she got tired of it and went off to do some other terrible thing somewhere else.
In fact, Dee Dee hat hit a nerve.
Billy Bob did not think of himself as a obese freak living off social security. He actually believed himself to be a great adventurer. A paladin of justice. In fact, he considered himself the "avatar" of a powerful other-dimensional being, caught in this body at this time in this trailer park because something was going to happen to alter all reality and he was going to be in the right place at the right time to save the world.
In his dreams, he was Billy Bob, sure, but he was also Rainsong, a powerful warrior who lived in a distant planet called Nagaloka, and who had somehow split his "soul" into various bodies to make himself immortal, and one of these parts of his soul was Billy Bob. Rainsong was muscular and popular and immortal, and he was a kind of King, who lived in a huge yellow skyscraper in the middle of a forest full of weird and exotic beings.
He couldn't explain it all... but in his dreams, he knew... He knew.
And he also knew that the "Haunted Trailer" was actually some kind of doorway to this other dimension, a kind of gateway. He had dreamed of this haunted trailer many times. Dee Dee was right in calling him scaredy cat. He knew that he would find the gate if only he would go in.
But he was afraid of "breaking and entering." He had never done anything illegal in his life, (besides making pirate copies of porn videos hacked from internet, of course) and the idea of breaking the law terrified him. Well, maybe not the idea of breaking the law, but surely the idea of getting caught.
But Dee Dee's taunt had made up his mind.
He would BUY the haunted trailer.
The next day, he went early to the manager of the Rickenbocker Trailer Park, Dona Rickenbocker, a heavyset dirty blonde 30-something, who must have been gorgeous when she was a teen, but had long since lost her figure and her smile along the way, and who had inherited the trailer park from her cousin. A male cousin who lived with her until his untimely death in a hunting accident. She lived in a gorgeous double-wide home, something like a "trailer" palace, with a huge yard that even had a real apple tree. The apple tree had little green apples, but nobody ever touched them, so the vast majority of them were just rotting under the tree.
Dona was inside drinking ice-tea and vodka and watching soaps on television. She had a Vanity Fair next to her with a half-rolled joint and some loose weed on it. She closed it and went to answer the doorbell.
"Billy Bob. What can I do for you?"
"Is the haunted trailer still for sale, Dona?"
Dona saw money in his eyes. When it came to selling or buying trailers... She could smell blood from a mile away.
"You mean No. 23?"
"Yeah."
"You are ready to buy, Billy Bob?"
"Yeah."
"Hold on, I'll get the keys."
Dona and Billy Bob walked over to 23 Trailer Park Rd, the place where waited "the haunted trailer".
Number 23, as it was known, was a handsome single-wide with fake dark ceder panels, arched "venetian style" windows, a fifty-foot yard with a couple of pine trees on either side and a well-manicured lawn and a fake German-style roof. The only weird part of the trailer is that the huge venetian style windows had been boarded with plywood from the inside.
"You know, Billy Bob, I haven't mentioned but if you are buying then I recommend Number 47, which is on sale right now and it is bigger than this one, it is also cheaper." Done knew that Billy Bob had more money than he showed. She knew he had sold his mobile home back in Charleston when his mom died, and she knew that his pirate-video business was thriving.
"I like this one. I have been thinking about buying it for a while, Dona. It's a way to invest my money. That way I don't spend it on stupid stuff."
"Billy Bob, I must be frank with you. Part of the reason the windows have been boarded up is that there is some damage on the inside. Nobody has seen the inside but me... and... The original owner was huh... eccentric." Dona was not sure what to do. She had counted on convincing Billy Bob to look at some of the other trailers on her park. She knew what was expecting them inside. She also knew that if Billy Bob saw what was inside the trailer, he would probably even move out of the Trailer Park. Nobody had ever been allowed to go inside. Nobody. For a reason.
"Oh? I'd like to see anyway. I love this home, Dona. I have made up my mind, and I am gong to buy it. I really want to buy THIS trailer. I don't want another trailer. I want this one."
Dona considered her options. She could try to woo him away from the dastardly place, but Billy was very firm and he was also a little eccentric.
Dona kept her mouth shut as she opened the door for him with a keyring that held dozens of keys. She shrugged. If he didn't like it she was sure to sell him another.
The moment Billy Bob entered the trailer, he was transported to a dream within a dream. He knew this place. He knew every inch of the trailer. He always knew this trailer. It was exactly what he expected.
There was no furniture in it. The entrance was to the largest room, the living room, with it's arched ceiling. The walls were totally charred, as if they had been used for bonfires. In fact, all the walls were blackened with soot. But the kitchen, adjacent to the living room was intact.
In the center of the 6x4 ft room there was a pentagram, drawn inside a circle painted with what looked like dried blood. At the five corners of the pentagram were five skulls, apparently human, upon which candles had once burned.
Dona cringed.
"This is the living room. It has a master bedroom, a bathroom and you can see the kitchen and dining room from here. It's 8x27. I think all the utilities work fine. There's a little smoke damage, but it was definitively not a kitchen fire. It's an oldie. From the very first double wides that came out in the early 70s. She's only had one owner. A weird guy, European or something. He's the guy who probably burnt the walls. You could easily replace the wallpaper. Don't know how he did that. Maybe he was trying to do bar.b.q in here. It's over 30 years old, but it's never been used by anybody else. He bought it, put it here, and then abandoned it. He disappeared."
Actually, Billy Bob hadn't heard. He was transported to another time and another place. Dona's
"I'll buy it."
"Don't you want to see the rest of it? Nobody has been here in 40 years."
"I have seen enough. This is the place I want. I will buy it." said Billy Bob. "Just one thing...Did he make that pentagram on the floor?"
Dona looked at Billy curiously.
"What pentagram?"
Billy looked again. The living room was utterly clean. No trace of the pentagram was there.
Dona said: "The caretaker comes in once a month to check the fixtures and to make sure no animals get in. He also cleans it."
Billy shook his head. Had it been a dream? Was he hallucinating?
"I want this trailer, Donna. I'll buy it. How much does it cost?"
Dona couldn't believe her ears. But she didn't hesitate to pull out a series of documents out of her attaché case. And she didn't say much more, other than showing the transfer of documents to Billy Bob.
The final cost of the mobile home was $32,572 dollars, which for the antiquity of the structure was actually not a bargain. But Billy Bob didn't care. He wanted the trailer. He wanted to live here. He wanted to keep it to himself. He felt it was his "home" somehow...
Billy Bob had been thinking about buying a trailer like an investment for a while. He always imagined that if he could rent a trailer and live in another, he would have a secure form of income, but when he actually wrote the check that would wipe out his saving of over ten years, he realized that he was actually not really interested in an "investment". There was something about No. 27 that transcended completely any monetary concerns.
Within a matter of one week, Billy Bob had moved into his new home.
Billy Bob
did not clean his new place, Instead, inspired by his dreams and
hallucinations, he began to redo the rituals and ceremonies which he imagined
had already taken place here long ago.
First, he
cut his left hand with a straight razor and re-traced the pentagram on the
living room. Then he bought new candles and lit them. For a while, he sat in
the floor, watching the candles burn, not sure what to do next, but one minute
before midnight that same night, he became “inspired” and started to circumvallate
the pentagon, chanting strange words which came to his mind.
The strange
words had a weird effect upon the five pointed star on the floor. It began to
glow.
It was an unearthly,
sickly green glow, a bit like a neon light seen from very far. It quickly
filled the pentagram much like a fog, which grew form the edges of the symbol
towards the center. More than horrified, Billy Bob was mesmerized.
And
suddenly, HE arrived.
He appeared
dim at first, like a hologram, but quickly, he took deeper and deeper colors
and shape and form until he stood, perfectly solid smack in the middle of the
pentagram.
He was
handsome. Looked in his late thirties, with a great drooping brown moustache,
long brown hair tied in a pony-tail, and a full suit of gold-leafed plate mail
armor. He had a large sword on a
scabbard and a beautiful inlaid helm with various colored feathers on top.
The Elder Rainsong,
one of the three creators of Lollipop City had arrived to South Carolina.
-Who
summoned me?- asked the great warrior.
-I did…-
replied Billy Bob, standing up and looking finally perplexed.
-William
Robert McRoy, I had not expected this from you.- said the warrior, smiling. And
then he laughed. Hard, strong, deep.
Billy Bob
would not believe what was happening.
But he knew
Rainsong. He had dreamed the warrior his whole life. Even as a child, Billy Bob
had lived, in his dreams, fantasies and hallucinations thinking himself as this
warrior, immortal, all-knowing, ever-blissful. Lollipop City was the city of
his dreams. A mad world of dragons, goblins and giants. And Rainsong …
-You know
me? How can this be? You are… a figment of my imagination.- murmured Billy Bob,
partly to himself and partly to the impressive figure facing him.
-Actually,
it’s the other way around.- replied Rainsong.
-What do
you mean?-
-You,
William Robert McRoy are MY creation. I created you in order to split my spirit
in manageable pieces so I would be able to beat death.-
Billy Bob
was incredulous. For a moment, he thought he was dreaming, perhaps a strong
nightmare from lack of sleep and using too much marijuana. It was all too
improbable. Rainsong, with his golden armor and sword, the terrible warrior of
Planet Nagaloka was just a fantasy. He had been building, in his mind, since
childhood, whole stories about this strange character. It was logical that his
diseased mind would eventually bring him to life somehow.
-You are
still thinking that you dreamed me when it was actually I who dreamed you,
William Robert McRoy. Let me explain. This mobile home you are in, this state and
country and world you think you live in, they are actually fictions. None of
them exist. Only I exist, and you have a part of my spirit in order to do what
I cannot. This way, my spirit need not re-incarnate in other bodies, because
when you die, that part of your spirit that belongs really to me, will return
to me where it will rejuvenate me for all the years you have lived. It is a
magic spell that took decades to complete, but it actually works marvelously.
Every year you are alive on this planet I will use to cheat death of one more
year in Nagaloka.- Rainsong smiled, but he did not cross the lines of blood
drawn upon the floor. –How do you think you were able to conjure the right
mantras to open a portal to Nagaloka? It was I who gave them to you, William
Robert McRoy.-
-You mean
like a vampire? Are you some kind of cosmic vampire?- said Billy Bob fearfully.
-No. Not at
all. In fact, before you were born, I was already preparing our connection in
order to let a peace of my soul lodge itself inside your heart. The process is
infinitely complex and almost impossible to explain to someone like you, with
your limited knowledge of magic. But basically, your existence accomplishes
certain karmic debts that I need not pay any longer, so my own existence can be
extended by paying these karmic debts. All your laziness, all your gluttony, your
lust and other sins, these sins I need not commit any longer, and thus, I can
extend myself.-
-I don’t
understand.- replied Billy Bob, angry.
-No, you wouldn’t.
But just know this… Your life is far from useless. You are very precious to me.
You and I are one. We are two aspects of one being, separated by time and space
in order to accomplish a totality of actions necessary for our mutual
prosperity. I brought you here to this trailer because I opened this gate long
ago so we could see each other and I could share with you the importance of
what you do.-
-I sell
pirate porn movies at a jockey lot and live off social security. What the hell
are you talking about!?- Billy Bob screamed at the apparition, now seriously
disturbed.
-Yes, you
do. And I travel through time and space in all the multiuniverses thanks to you
doing that. So you must not stop. Not ever.
Don’t worry, you need not understand how it is done. But now I am here
to tell you that you are worthy. You are very, very worthy.-
And
Rainsong disappeared.
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