The two parental units looked at each other with confusion. Why was she being so dramatic? Probably teenage hormone overload. She shifted her attention to her younger son, kissed him on the forehead, pointing upstairs. “Come on, Jimmy. Let’s get ready for bed.”
Patrick had already begun inching towards the door.
That’s right. Keep it moving, buddy. Man, I cannot wait to get these little punks out of my house and out of my life.
Thrust into the cold evening wind minus one friend, his credibility under scrutiny and the threat of an unknown terror still lurking, Patrick’s head spun with an overwhelming sensation. He’d seen what had happened. They all had. It looked like adults weren’t going to be a help with this problem. He’d paid attention in school but where was the text book on gargoyle evasion tactics? Going to the police struck him as an egregiously reckless move. Where is your friend? You don’t say? How did that happen? Oh, really? Or is it more likely you and your little friends did away with him? Was it jealousy? About the girl? Patrick was a safe bet for the juvenile corrections facility, if they didn’t try him as an adult at that or commitment to the asylum at the very least.
Patrick coaxed himself off the porch and debated whether to take cover in some nearby hedges. He wished to go back to the park. He wanted desperately to avenge Rory. He wanted to hunt the creature down and kill it viciously, the same way it did to his friend. But he knew he couldn’t. There was nothing to be done. He didn’t like the feeling of helplessness. It reminded him of his days getting picked on by the older kids. He reached in his pocket and grabbed the cell phone his parents had given him for emergencies.
Chapter 13
Flashing red, white and blue lights intercepted Pastor Coleman’s attention and jerked him out of his flashback as he slid the luxury sedan smoothly around the corner of a four way stop, the tires crackling in tandem with the moist gravel from the light drizzle.
Oh, my God. Am I getting pulled over?
The sensation makes everyone’s cheeks clench regardless of criminal sophistication. On a subconscious level, everyone knows it’s over when they see those lights illuminating the cabin panels and twinkling in their rearview. Some who’ve run have made it. Most haven’t. It’s a headache to consider either way. And people know, whether they want to admit it or not, they have you. If they want to take full advantage of you, they can. At the very least, there will be punitive damages.
But the lights weren’t coming from behind him, thank Heavens. The parking lot on the corner. It was the church parking lot. His church. Was I that lost in my thoughts?
Lord!
No. Could something have happened to one of the children while I was gone?
Coleman pulled the vehicle into the parking lot and landed next to the handful of cars huddled together near the middle. A man and woman stood with their arms folded, chatting with a police officer. As he jumped out of the Buick and approached the conference, Larry Perkins alerted them to his presence.
“Look, there he is now.”
“What’s going on?”
Coleman searched their eyes for answers. The cop was first to reply.
“Just a welfare check, Pastor Coleman. Half an hour ago, this parking was full of parents and children.”
“Oh, yes. My wife fell ill. I took her home.” He explained it away, though his expression betrayed the severity of the moment.
“Praise be to God.” Chimed Bethany Simpson. “We feared the worst when you didn’t answer your phone.”
Oh, yeah. I have a cell phone. The concept had escaped him during the preceding chaos of the events still unfolding.
“Thank you, Bethany. Everything’s quite fine. I’m sorry to inconvenience everyone. I just wanted to get Challista somewhere safe.”
Larry stepped in as one of his twins latched on to his leg. “Sorry to give you a start, Barry. It was just so strange to come back after we talked and find you gone and the doors unlocked and wide open.”
“They were? Oh, no. I always carefully lock the doors before I shut down. I remember doing it, even as Challista went to the car.”
“Actually, all the doors were open. The gym, the activity hall, office area, kitchen and even the sanctuary. The class rooms were open too.”
Barry grimaced. What next?
“Should we take a look around?” Offered the law man. His name plate read Smith 1845.
“Um, yeah.” Coleman nodded in agreement. “We’d better make sure no one’s taken the offertory or anything else.”
“Gosh, Barry. I hope everything’s ok. I’d help you lock the place back up but I need to get these kiddos home.” Larry compensated. “Looks like you’re in the capable hands of Allenville’s finest, anyway.” He walked over and gave Barry a warm hug. “ I’m glad you’re ok, brother. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Absolutely, Larry. Thanks. That goes for you too, Beth. You can go ahead and go home. Get out of this weather before you catch a cold.”
“Oh, no. Really, it’s alright. Let me help you. I’m not doing anything right now. Is Challista ok?”
“Uh, yes. I think she’ll be fine.”
Coleman was already walking briskly toward the side door to the office area. All the perimeter doors would need to be checked and locked again. If someone had raided the safe, the money was insured but there would be paperwork. He sighed with the realization of the tedium his near future had in store for him. Wait. Why was he going about it like this? Oh, yeah. My wife was raped. Well, here’s your chance to make a report to the police. Of course, I didn’t actually see Gary. But my wife wouldn’t lie to me. Would she? Besides, The Book was the important thing right now.
“No really, Mrs. Simpson. That won’t be necessary. I’m just going to finish up with Officer Smith here and get back to my wife.” He stammered as they entered the building.
She just wouldn’t take no for an answer. “It’s ok. Let me help you. I’ll lock the classroom doors and the activity rooms.” She insisted.
Pastor Coleman continued with Smith to the office area undeterred. Hopefully the church proceeds were still intact, the safe contained a substantial amount of cash. A big trip to Central America had been in the works. They arrived at the office to discover the door open and an ugly mess waiting inside. Papers were strewn. Drawers had been ransacked. Barry rushed to the safe, twisted in the combination and flung the door open. As expected, empty.
“I suppose you’ll want to make a report.” Officer Smith broke in.
“You got that right.”
Coleman was shaking his head at the failure of human decency. Really? Robbing the church? Anytime now, Lord. The end must be near. If I were God, he mused, I’d have pulled the plug a long time ago. Thank God, I’m not! Thank God for his awesome mercy.
He crouched under the desk and checked the small wooden chest with the white tree symbol emblazoned. Wide open. Surprise, surprise. At least no one had The Book. That much he knew. He’d ingeniously stowed it away months ago where no one would ever think to search for it.
Pastor Coleman suddenly felt uncomfortable. Somebody’s eyes were on him. It was Officer Smith.
“Uh, did you want to go ahead and get the paperwork started, Officer Smith?”
Smith had been standing with his hands in his pockets, monitoring Coleman. It’s rude to stare.
“Oh, yes. The paperwork. Right.”
Coleman paused and settled himself into question answering mode. Only they weren’t coming for some reason. Actually, no attempt was being made on Officer Smith’s part to produce a notepad or anything of that nature. There were several blank legal pads clearly visible on the desk. No one was making a motion to pick them up. Creepy.
A sound emanated from the hallway. Wheels. A cart or something. Drawing closer, making the awkward silence between Smith and Coleman all the more unsettling.
Bethany appeared outside the door in the hallway with a bright yellow, plastic mop bucket in tow, guiding it by an orange handled dollar store mop. Petite, standing at 5�
��2”, the French braided, pale skinned Bethany Simpson cinched her cashmere sweater closed and smiled approvingly at the duo. She seemed to be content with the discomfort in the air.
Barry Coleman returned his gaze back to Officer Smith. With the anticlimax of the night’s events, perhaps he hadn’t noticed them before, Smith’s piercing, bright amethyst eyes. He smiled at Coleman’s realization, revealing a set of fangs.
The jig was up. Coleman felt the adrenaline rush as he dashed for the doorway. He had no idea the conspiracy ran this deep!
Mrs. Simpson met him there with the end of the mop stick, driving it into his gut. Surprisingly strong for her frame, the blow promptly removed the wind from Barry’s diaphragm as he crouched over the stick, eyes bulging, bringing his hands to his stomach. He stumbled backward into his office, trying to regain his breath, still hunching over from the pain, half expecting the psycho cop to catch him. Instead, Coleman brought his vision up to find Officer Smith coolly removing his baton from his utility belt. His perception turned to black at that time as Smith brought the baton down on the back of Barry’s hapless noggin.
When her parents finally left her room, Madison buried her head deep into her pillow. Well, maybe if she pressed the issue and stuck to her story or perhaps altered it slightly to make it more presentable, she could convince her folks to look further into the incident in the morning. She had to do something for her friend. She had to do something for Rory.
Bob and Linda were concerned for their daughter but Jimmy’s corroboration of her account had softened their stance considerably. It was all too sudden for them to accept these impressionable young people’s story but they had resolved to ‘sleep on it’. Why do they always want to sleep on it? When kids have a nightmare or a strange dream, it is quickly explained away as just a dream, not real. So why, when any decision of import comes into play, is it necessary to consult the dream realm for clarity? Surely, the same variables would still apply when they arise next morning.
Regardless, even if they were still unwilling to help, she was smart enough to know, if you don’t deal with your problems, you can’t expect them to go away on their own. And a 400lb gargoyle is one hell of a problem. And it was still out there. And so was Patrick. Sleep was a forgone conclusion.
Maddy’s mind spun consistently like the Energizer Bunny in a hamster wheel. She must have been working herself into a fit for at least 45 minutes before she noticed the incandescent glow coming from beneath her bed.
Dear Lord, please let this be a dream and I could just wake up from this and go back to bed. She willed her eyes open, pulled the covers from where she’d been holding them on her sandy blonde head of hair and was disappointed to find the eerie light still reflecting off of the ceiling. The glow was accompanied by a chime which modulated with intensity as the light rose and fell.
The apparition wasn’t going anywhere. There was something she was supposed to see.
I can do this. I’m in my bed. In my house. If I don’t face this, there will be nowhere I can go for safety, especially with that thing out there.
Young Madison Henley bravely forced herself to peer over the edge of the mattress and let her head hang so she could locate the source of the brightness. Most people equate light with love, positivity, purity. The line of thinking lead Maddy to hope there was serendipity awaiting her. But this light wasn’t exactly white. It was dirty. A yellowish, green color with all the mood of a fast food restaurant tile floor. What met her eyes was equally disturbing. It was her friend. Or more accurately, what was left of him. Rory’s disfigured remains lay in a gory heap underneath the wooden frame of her sleeping area. Very little skin was still visible. A mélange of ripped flesh, bone, torn muscle fibers and vital organs, bloodied to a pulp composed the amalgam of what was once Rory Sieverson. His hollowed out eye sockets held a pair of sparks bearing the same type of light which illuminated his body. This was seemingly the source of the light.
Madison shrunk back under the covers and shuddered at the abysmal imagery. She gripped the covers tightly over her eyes, trying to come up with a prayer or creed she could repeat over and over until it went away but she was too scared to come up with anything. Not even the Lord’s prayer. She was too frightened to scream even. If I scream, she reasoned, who knows what would happen next? It might do nothing more than galvanize whatever visage that was accosting her in her own dwelling. How was she to know that she might not drag her parents into some kind of serious, supernatural threat anyway? An impressively mature rumination, given the circumstances. If whatever it was was already in her bedroom and she may or may not become a casualty, why add her dear mum and dad to the talley?
Unfortunately, an unsettling sound broke up her thoughts. The mass of guts and tissue began gurgling and bubbling. Oh, my God! Could he still be alive? Maddy’s face fell full of contempt. She summoned the courage to look back underneath the bed. Rory’s eyes fixed on her as if he were waiting for her to return.
“Maa-maaaaddy.” It murmured. “Maa-aa-aaadddy.” He stretched a putrid hand toward her, searching for relief.
Somehow, she felt, she knew, she wasn’t in danger presently.
“No, Rory. You’re dead now. It’s ok. You can rest now.”
“Maaa-aa-aaady. Help me. Helllp me.”
Maddy jolted awake in her bed at the sound of something scratching at her window. No weird glow. No glob-o-guts. It was a dream. She was panting and sweating.
TAP
TAP
TAP
Patrick’s face hovered in the corner of the window.
Maddy hopped out of bed and hurried over to the window, unlatched it, raised it up a couple of feet. It was heavy but she was aware of it’s dimensions. Patrick slid inside head first and rolled forward deftly on to the carpet without making so much as a noise.
“Hey, are you ok?” She whispered.
Patrick regained his breath, “Yeah.”
He picked himself up and they shared a heartfelt embrace.
“I was worried about you.”
“I was too.” He confessed. “I was going to call my mom but I didn’t want to go home. I don’t want my mom to be driving around out here with that thing on the loose.”
“Yeah, I understand. I’m glad you stuck around. I was kind of hoping you had some good news or something, like it was all a bad dream.”
Patrick looked at the ground at this. It was not a bad dream. It was real.
“I want to do something about it. I don’t like sitting around and waiting for that thing to find us. I want to do something about Rory. What if he’s ok? We have to do something because no one else is going to.”
Maddy looked into his eyes and knew he was right.
“Ok……..but what are we supposed to do? What can we do?”
The question was met with silence.
“I don’t know. I think it can bleed, just like you and me. You saw when Rory hit it in the face with that rock, didn’t you?”
She nodded.
“It didn’t like that.”
Maddy reflected for a moment.
“Hmm. Ok, I have an idea. Wait here.”
Patrick waited in the dark for about fifteen minutes. When Madison returned, she had a brown and black Adidas shoe box. She placed it on the ground between them and popped the box top off. What lay inside was too good to be true. To Patrick, it looked about as good as a tall stack of pancakes and large glass of ice water after traveling through the Gobi for three days on foot with no supplies. Patrick reached into the box of rags, removed a big, black Ruger .380 snub nose revolver. Patrick lightly ran his fingers across it as though it was the most delicate, dainty woman to walk the Earth.
“You gotta be kidding me.”
“He’s been drinking tonight. I knew I could sneak around in the dark and grab it. He doesn’t even know I know he has it. Here, take these.”
She dumped a handful of shells into his palm. Hollow tip: when you care enough to send the very best. Big Bob didn’t exac
tly consider himself a firearms enthusiast, we find ourselves in a blue state. But he felt that if he was confronted with the possibility of someone intruding into his homestead with his family asleep, he wanted to be sure they would go down if he hit. The next guy might think twice about it.
“Do you know how to use that?”
Patrick eyed the device. He’d always wanted to play cops and robbers. A childhood spent simulating cowboys and Indians showdowns with finger pistols or even running some Nerf gun war games with his friends had given him to imagine a day where he might play out the scenarios in real life as though he was garnering some actual training hours during those scrimmages. But this was a little more serious than he had envisioned. His best friend wasn’t supposed to be dead. Especially at the hands of a supernatural, mythological beast no one else seemed to believe even existed, giving it the ultimate element of surprise. The shadow of doubt even causing him to toy with the notion, briefly, was he in a dark, twisted mausoleum of the mind which merely seemed real to him and him alone? Who’s to say. When that crazy man is shouting about space aliens on the street corner, they certainly seem real to him.
Hmm, I guess it’s supposed to have a safety. He turned it over from side to side. No safety. It’s a revolver. He mistook for the latch, unlocking the cylinder. Feeling it adjust, he slid the button to the side and unfolded the cylinder. Five slots, five bullets. He carefully clicked each slug into it’s respective chamber and rolled the cylinder back into place, the gratifying click signifying it was locked in.
“Um, yes.” He replied unconvincingly. “Let’s go back to the field. I’m going to kill that thing.”
Chapter 14
Barry Coleman slowly regained consciousness, awakening to a blurry, hazy world, mired with a hangover like fuzziness. He blinked in disbelief, swallowed in an attempt to gain saliva. He was parched. He found himself spread eagled, bound to the table in the middle of the altar area where he had prepared so many communion rituals over the years. The sanctuary was colored with a demonic shade of red as the lights from numerous candles danced from all directions.
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