The call

He could only afford a shack two long blocks from the beach.

It was a huge downgrade from the farmhouse he left behind in Iowa, but he could not resist the call to move east -- specifically to the foggy shores of Maine.

The same call instructed him to leave his wife of eleven years and their two small children behind on the ranch. Whatever internal agony he felt because of the hardship his family must have endured as a result was immediately eclipsed by that constant call.

So he moved in the dead of night with about two thousand dollars he had tucked away over the course of the previous six months. Hitching rides the entire time, he arrived in Maine about three weeks later. The remaining money was sufficient for a deposit on the delapidated shanty he would come to know as his new home.

That damned call. Nothing he did could drown it out, he thought, except completing the trip he felt compelled to make. But it did not stop -- in fact, it only grew more intense as he approached his destination. Its language was foreign but the instructions were somehow crystal clear.

It led him to the coast, where he followed its directives without fail. He was led to wade out into the ocean each morning to gather the fish that miraculously circled his legs upon reaching waist-deep waters. Three or four fish daily, mostly salmon or trout, would allow him to gently scoop them into the sack he was instructed to always carry with him.

The call warned him to eat only the fish provided and only raw. He acted in accordance with its order.

Twelve days after he arrived, he received his first new order. He gathered driftwood, twine, and other materials needed to construct a makeshift raft and stored it under the crumbling porch leading to his home's front door.

Meanwhile, he made intentional contact with no one and ignored even the friendliest greetings of locals he encountered while carrying out the bidding of his internal call.

After another twelve days, he was sent on a mission north. After walking more than three miles early that morning, the call ordered him to stop and pick up a package. It was heavy -- more than a hundred pounds -- and fit snugly into his sack. He slung the package over his right shoulder and began the trek back to his humble residence.

Without ever untying the sack, he followed the instructions that followed late that evening. Along with the package, he boarded the raft and set out for an uninhabited island a short distance from the coast.

Upon arriving, he prepared the package in a precise manner as specified by the call. As soon as he was finished, he directed his raft back toward the beach and walked the two long blocks back to his shack, exhausted from the day's intense mission.

A similar call came twelve days later -- this time leading him nearly eight miles west until he arrived at the location of a second package.

The process repeated time and again at the same interval with the only difference being the location of the packages.

Shortly after midnight as he completed his twelfth such mission, a young couple aboard a passing boat spotted him on the island and navigated in that direction to gain a better perspective. They found him clearly exhausted, disheveled, and apparently covered in blood.

Local police officers responded to an emergency call the couple made upon reaching the shore. The cops found him as described, toting an empty sack and preparing to set out on his small raft. He refused to answer their questions.

For the next several days, he underwent an intense psychological evaluation at an esteemed institution in a neighboring county. The call grew steadily quieter during this period until he was able to make out the voices of those around him and the faint sounds coming from a radio used by nurses at the front desk.

Early one evening, he clearly heard a news update revealing startling new details about a string of disappearances in the area and the discovery of a dozen bodies buried deep under the sand of a small island a short distance off the coast.

Moments later, authorities arrived and transported him to a high-security facility. For the first time in nearly a year, he could no longer hear the call.