Passover

by Aphrodite Anagnost

  “It ain’t moved a bit,” said the sheriff. “I’m guessin’ it had nothing to do with Deputy Ruiz’s car slamming that tree.”

  “Maybe not,” said Dave, gripping the St. Christopher medal that hung from his neck. “Of course it had everything to do with Leveaux,” he said, thinking he’d uttered a stupid thing as soon as it passed his lips. His fingers tightened around the medal. Blood rushed to his forehead. Fear had given way to anger. His hands cramped into fists. That thing outside. That evil thing. The creature had taken over the back pasture. His own land. It had encroached on his life.

  “Lookee here.” Creed drew the drapery on the other side of the room wide open. “It looks like an old friend is trying to help that new one surround us.”

  Dave hurried to Creed’s side and crouched at the front window of the living room like a wild dog preparing to attack. There, in the falling rain, loomed the specter of Mr. Petty in the form of a scarecrow forty feet from the house in the front yard, hands aflame.

  “It don’t mind being seen,” said the sheriff, scratching something down in his flip-top notebook.

  Unlike the back pasture, which offered nothing in the way of concealment, the front yard boasted a small manicured maze of trees and foliage that Dave had planted after the stately homes of colonial Williamsburg. It would have been a small matter for the ghost to stand behind one of the two Norwegian maples or the groomed English boxwood that grew head high, but, instead, it stood in plain view as if inviting Dave to shoot it, or try. Dave could smell cat piss from the hedge even from inside, wondering how the stink leaked in.

  “If the fella in the front yard is Mr. Petty,” the sheriff ran a hand over his hair as if to smooth it into place, “then the fella’ out back must be the former Mr. Ewell.”

  “If we’ve got to worry about the dead coming back to life,” said Dave, “there’s also Leveaux and Ruiz.”

  “Don’t want to fret about that,” said the sheriff.

  “Maybe we don’t have to worry about how many there are,” said Lev, standing behind them, looking at Dave’s most recent painting, the one of the grapes and the ram's horn. “Maybe we just need to worry about Passover.”

  Dave caught himself in a fantasy in which he was dousing the scarecrows in the yard with gasoline and then striking a match.

  “We can seal the house against the Angel of Death,” said Lev.

  “Nonsense,” said Creed.

  “Creed’s right,” said the sheriff. “I believe in my Bible as much as the next guy, but I’d bet my last nickel that the Angel of Death has nuthin’ to do with this business…”

  “You believe in ghosts,” said Lev. “Don’t you?”

  “Now, I do,” said the sheriff. “But that’s about it.”

  Dave considered the still-wet canvas of the ram horn and the grapes, but didn’t remember painting it. There was something premonitory about it, as if Dave had channeled something supernatural. As if the painting and its freshness had meaning. “Let Lev talk,” he said.

  “What if what we have here is a ghost,” said Lev. “One who believes he’s the Angel of Death. And these specters, or whatever you want to call them, are somehow controlled by him.”

  A ram horn and grapes did have something to do with Passover, thought Dave. There’s wine and a cup.

  “What makes you think these ghosts we’re looking at aren’t the whole show?” said Wise.

  “They’re just standing there, Sheriff,” said Lev. Maybe just waiting. Besides, our best information leads to Nuno Sievers. One man. And I bet we haven’t seen him yet.”

  “We’re dealing with a couple of murderers,” said Creed. “This ain’t no Occam’s Razor.

  This is bullshit.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Lev. “This is about Passover. And if there’s no such thing as an Angel of Death, why does it matter? If the ghost thinks he’s the Angel of Death, he’ll respond like the Angel of Death.”

  “I think Lev has a point,” Dave said. “We’d better listen.”

  “We’ll conduct a Seder to convince this Angel of Death we’re Jewish,” said Lev. “We’ll need blood.”

  “Whoa,” moaned Creed.

  “No problem,” said Dave, his anger waning.

  “It’s a stretch,” said the sheriff.

  “Sure is,” said Dave.

  “It’s complex,” said Lev. “At Passover, Jewish families were supposed to find a perfect male, yearling lamb and care for it until the fourteenth of the month. Each family slaughtered the lamb that evening and gathered the blood and smeared it on doorframes of houses. Later they ate the lamb.”

  “So we sacrifice an animal?” said Creed. “And then we eat.”

  “We eat,” said Lev. “With flatbread and bitter herbs.”

  “No, thank you,” said the sheriff.

  “Who’s going to go outside and smear the blood on the doorframes?” said Creed. He seemed eager.
“We don’t have a lamb,” said Dave.

  “Maybe we can do it with a TV dinner.” said Creed.

  “We don’t have to do it right,” said Lev. “We can fake it.”

  “You’re right,” said Rachel, helping her mother descend the last step of the staircase.

  Dave turned away from the window and found Rachel and Beatricia behind him in the foyer. Leaning on both canes, Beatricia smoothed her purple caftan. She looked like a regular Madame Blavatsky.

  “It’s got to be done,” said Beatricia. “And it’s not a joke either.”

  “There’s a ghost in the front yard and one in the back,” said Dave.

  “Of course, there are,” said Beatricia.

  “How long have you been listening?” Dave rubbed the St. Christopher medal with a thumb. It felt like the image was flattening, disappearing.

  “Long enough,” said Beatricia, a small smile coming to her lips. “Phil, get me a seat.” Wise offered Beatricia his arm, and escorted her to a chair at one head of the dining room table.

  Dave stoked the fire, feeling better. But a flame flared within him. “Let the son of a bitch come.”

  “Okay,” said Rachel. “Let’s go over the preparations, Lev. I know we have to fake it, but let’s stay as close to the book as possible.”

  “Here’s what I remember,” said Lev. “We got to try our best to make utensils look kosher. Stuff never before used. Like plastic forks and knives and paper plates.”

  “We have plenty,” said Dave.

  “The Angel won’t know the difference,” said Lev.

  “This Angel isn’t holy,” said Dave.

  “Dumb Angel,” said Creed.

  Lev’s features were inscrutable, except for his scar, which crinkled a bit. “We gotta get rid of all leavened bread from everywhere. There’s no bread in anyone’s car, is there? We need to get it in a garbage bag and throw it out on the street.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Creed. “I can get by that scarecrow out front.”

  “Ruiz didn’t make it to the street,” Dave said, shaking his head.

  “I know it can use tractors and cars as weapons,” said Creed. “I’ll be careful.”

  Lev put a hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “How long ago has the house been thoroughly cleaned?” he said.

  “How would I know? I had to work.” Rachel frowned and cut her eyes at Dave. Only for a moment, but it was one nasty habit he didn’t like in his wife.

  “The maid was in Wednesday,” said Dave. “She left a pile of laundry unfolded by the bed.”

  “Stupid bitch,” said Creed. “I told you she was fat and lazy. You should’ve hired Luisa. We’ve had her for five years. She even cleans Libba’s car. Vacuums out the dog hair. Now, that’s a maid.”

  Lev turned to Dave. “We’ll trust your housekeeper’s cleaning, then.” Lev oriented the chairs squarely, and wiped down the dining room table with a paper towel. “But, in case the ghost looks in, we should make a show of cleaning shelves, the sink, the stove. And cover them if we can. We need to clean off countertops and
eating surfaces.”

  “I can handle all of that,” said Rachel.

  “The traditional search for leavened bread is always a problem.” Lev opened the butler’s pantry. “We’re supposed to search for it with a feather by candlelight the night before Passover. But that time’s passed. Let’s get the candles. We need to put one in each window to show that the bread has been searched for.” He shrugged. “It might work. Since this Death Angel is probably insane. Who knows what he remembers.”

  “I can help set them out.” said Beatricia. “At least, downstairs.”

  “The biggest problem,” said Lev. “Is the slaughter of a lamb.” He slumped, his anxiety plain. “Since we don’t have a lamb, I suggest we use a chicken. That entails running out to the barn, catching one, and then killing it in the kitchen sink.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “To be kosher.”

  Thinking of this, Dave could feel a cramp coming in his contracting forehead. “Then I guess we have to spread its blood on the doorframes.”

  “Fine,” said Creed. “If I survive dumping the bread in the street, I’ll run out to the barn for a chicken, bolt back to the house, then slit its throat and smear the doors with blood.”

  “We can’t ask that much of you,” said Dave, frowning about the chicken.

  “I’ll dump the bread in the street,” said Crockett. “If that thing out front gets me, it gets me.”

  “I’ll do the rest,” said Creed.

  “No, you won’t,” said Dave. “If you go for the chicken, I’ll spread the blood.”

  “Fine,” Creed sauntered toward the stove. “But if anyone falters, I’ll do all of it.” He paused. “Just tell my wife that I volunteered. By the way. I’m no longer in the CIA. They said I took too many unnecessary risks.”

  “Let’s not forget to get rid of all the alcohol. Except wine,” said Lev. “No beer. No fermented grains. And, oh yes, anything containing grain alcohol. Perfume, cologne, hair spray hair tonic, shaving lotion, mouthwash. Trash the spray deodorant. Sheriff Wise, it might be a good idea if you go take a shower.”

  “I took one less than an hour ago,” said the sheriff.

  “Yeah,” said Lev. “But you used products. I can smell the cologne. Polo?”

  Dave laughed to himself. He’d been wanting to dump all that stuff anyway.

  As the household searched from top to bottom for offending edibles and fermented grains to dump, Sheriff Wise took a shower, resisting the impulse to linger under the hot spray. He would have loved to spend an hour scrubbing himself clean, then taking numerous, punctilious steps in his grooming. Stripping away hair tonic and residues of after-shave and deodorant left him feeling naked, even when he was dressed.

  His ego was shot. Far from congratulating himself on being the first living mortal to discern the supernatural elements of the case, unless Beatricia had beaten him to it, he berated himself for not figuring out what to do about it. How did Lev put the pieces of the puzzle together quicker than he? There had to be more to it than the young man had divined, but what? It was a sheriff’s job to be prescient, but he had struggled to dissect the case from the first. It seemed to him that he had spent a lot of time thinking about it, but why did his thinking produce no discernible results? Why was his brain so sluggish? There was motive to consider.

  If vengeance alone was the ghost’s raison d’etre, why didn’t Sievers search out neo-Nazis, or the boys who’d killed him, now grown men? Why attack the line of houses on Burnt Chestnut in an eastward direction, regardless of who lived there? What was he moving toward? And was the Shelton’s house a final destination, as the attack date, Passover, implied? Or was it only the next stop on an endless journey of mayhem. Was the ghost truly that confused—that insane?

  Wise tucked in his shirttail and straightened his belt, centering the buckle. He sat on a red velvet bench in the dressing room connected to the master suite. Resting his forehead in his hands, he pondered.

  Then an idea came to him. One that explained Nuno Sievers’ motivation, at least in part. It was almost a given that in its confused, protoplasmic mind, the ghost equated Egyptians and their first-born with Nazis, and the males of Zebulon with his own killers. Both the Nazis and the Egyptians were oppressors of the Jews. Both had tortured them, killed them, enslaved them. What’s more, according to one of the articles Sievers wrote, Nazi and Egyptian symbology had common elements. After all, the Swastika was an ancient Egyptian symbol of eternity.

  Beyond vengeance and a desire to free his people from oppression, perhaps the ghost was clear, sane, driven by an incorrect, but, in his gnarled mind, syllogistically valid purpose.

  Maybe the ghost saw the Sheltons’ house as a road to survival. Perhaps it wasn’t important that the houses were invaded in an eastern direction; but rather, that they were merely in a row, leading to a specific destination.

  What do the dead really want? To go to the light and step into it. What if the ghost was headed to the light, killing first-born sons, bumps in the road, as he raged? And others as they got in his way.

  Wise coughed to clear his head, disappointed his idea didn’t really work out. There was no spiritual light, now, as far as he knew, in Zebulon.

  He combed his hair and walked downstairs. Two garbage bags of leavened bread and products containing grain alcohol had been set by the door to the side porch. The crew had scraped the cupboards clean of liquor, perfumes, mouthwash.

  Rachel and Beatricia, supported by one of her canes, were finishing up scouring the kitchen counters, sinks, and cooking surfaces. Lev was swabbing down the dining-room table. Deputy Crockett was preparing himself by means of prayer and meditation to gather up the garbage bags for his run to the street. Creed was manning the dining-room window, looking through binoculars at the activities of the foggy facsimile of Revel Petty in the front yard. It still stood motionless, arms spread wide, flames rising from upturned palms.

  “Everything ready?” Wise slipped on his bomber jacket and prepared to step out onto the porch. Now here will be a fight! He remembered his time in Desert Storm, and a cold spot sprung up in his stomach and rose to lodge in his heart. He grabbed at a lancinating pain in his chest. Someone would be needed to cover Crockett every inch of the way. Dave stepped up in his heavy yellow raincoat, cradling a rifle, and posted beside the door. To give Crockett a sendoff, Rachel and Beatricia stepped quietly into the dining room in matching white aprons, each with a clean-up rag over one shoulder. Lev rose from the table. Rachel and Beatricia both made the sign of the cross.

  “Good luck, Crockett.” Sheriff Wise stood proud of his man, brave when it came right down to it.

  The deputy opened the door and then paused. “If I take upon myself the defeat,” he said, quoting the Dalai Lama, “then I offer to others the victory.” The rain poured down in sheets as fiercely as before. It blew across the porch, slapped his ankles, and soaked the dining room floor, depositing leaves and the wrinkled petals of spring flowers.

  Zebulon seemed an island hunched in a turbid sea: no gleaming moonlight, no streetlights, nor lit windows ablaze, no headlights of cars, nor trucks prowling their way through the deep dark. Plastic drawstrings wrapping his hands, Crockett picked up two stuffed garbage bags, and threw each one over his shoulders.

  “I’m going as far as the porch steps,” said the sheriff, his flashlight on. “I’ll train the light on the scarecrow in the front yard, in case it moves. Might distract him.” He stood behind Crockett, who approached the door.

  “Don’t worry ’bout me,” said Crockett, his long legs tensed to sprint.

  “Be guided by your feet,” said the sheriff. “There’s no moon. When you leave the porch, you’ll feel the brick walkway that leads to the driveway at the side of the house. Then, at the drive, there’ll be the crunch of shells. When you feel that, turn right toward the road and run the fifty feet to the street.”

  “Alright, sheriff.” Crockett nodded.

  All in plain view of the specter in the front yard. The she
riff wondered if the thing could hear. Because of Ruiz, he knew it could see.

  Crockett lumbered across the porch, struggling to balance the trash bags, the sheriff behind him. At the edge of the porch, Wise pointed his flashlight at the face of the scarecrow.

  Revel Petty, as suspected. The sheriff shuddered, almost dropping the slippery metal flashlight. He gripped it with both hands and steadied the beam. He’d known Mr. Petty, used his services as a landscape architect. Had gone fishing for flounder with him in Dingley’s Creek. But this…thing…he hardly recognized. The new face was mime-white, locked in a grimace that blew both cheeks up, like the white underbellies of blowfish. Its eyes were red marbles, glinting in the flashlight’s beam.

  “Go,” said the sheriff, regretting the syllable as soon as it escaped his lips. “It’s attracted to the light.”

  Wise couldn’t help feeling hollow. He imagined himself doing Crockett’s work: feeling for the step with the heel of one boot, easing off the porch into the steel dark night. He thought of all the tasks his deputy would manage stacked up ahead, like chips on a poker table. Crockett would be taking quick, careful strides down the brick path. The sheriff stayed with Johnny in his mind as he imagined rain lashing at the young man’s head, soaking his coat, making him shiver. The shells would be crunching underfoot. Time slowed to the creep of an inchworm. The sheriff guided the beam of the Surefire C2, so that the ghost which had been Mr. Petty stood transfixed, like a jack-lighted deer. Thunder rolled across the sky. Wise visualized the deputy taking a first step toward the road, then a second, then trotting to the end of the driveway as Petty remained motionless in the middle of the lawn.

  The sheriff grew weak with dread and leaned on the porch rail, knees buckling. The flashlight wobbled. Mr. Petty’s ears twitched like a cat’s, as if he’d heard something in spite of the rain. Probably Crockett’s footsteps. It was then the sheriff saw that the ghost was wearing a linen sport coat, the same shade of white as its face. The coat Petty had worn in the grave had been slit up the back by the mortician. But this was no creature merely raised from the grave, rather a being of animated dust, coattails blowing forward, flapping at the sides of its body— mouth opening, flashing two rows of sharp triangular teeth.