As the prayer went on, Ramona opened her eyes and lifted her head. She looked first at her son, his head bowed and eyes squeezed tightly shut, then directed her gaze across the tent to a small, frail-looking boy she’d noticed even before Archie Kane had started speaking. Her heart was pounding. Enveloping the child was a shiny, purplish black cocoon of malignant light that pulsated like a diseased heart. The child’s head was bowed, his hands clasped tightly in prayer; he sat between his mother and father, two thin figures who had dressed in the pitiful rags of their Sunday best. As Ramona watched, the young mother placed her hand on the child’s shoulder and gently squeezed. Her face was gaunt, pale, grasping at the last straw of hope. Tears burned in Ramona’s eyes; the little boy was dying from some sickness, and would be dead soon: in a week, a day, several hours—she had no way of knowing when, but the black aura was clinging greedily to him, the sure harbinger of death that she had feared seeing in this crowded tent. She lowered her head, wondering as always when she saw it: What should I do?
And the awful answer, as always: There is nothing you can do.
“Amen,” Jimmy Jed Falconer said. The congregation looked up, ready for an explosion of fire and brimstone.
But he began softly, by whispering, “Sin.”
The sound of his voice made Billy tremble. John leaned forward slightly in his seat, his eyes wide and entranced; Ramona saw the dying child rest his head against his mother’s shoulder.
“Sin,” Falconer repeated, gripping the podium. “What do you think of it? What do you think is a sin? Somethin’ you’re not supposed to do or say or think?” He closed his eyes for a second. “Oh Lord God, sin…it’s an evil that gets in the blood, gets in our hearts and minds and…corrupts, decays, makes rotten…”
He looked across the congregation, bright beads of sweat shining on his face. Then, in an instant, his placid expression changed; his lips curled, his eyes widened, and he growled, “SINNNNNN… Can you smell it can you feel it can you see it? Do you know, neighbors, when you’ve sinned? I’ll tell you what sin is, neighbors, pure and simple: it’s walking away from God’s light, that’s what it is!” His ruddy face rippled with emotion, his voice taking the place of the silent organ, flowing up and down the scales. He pointed into the audience, at no one in particular, yet at everyone. “Have you ever stepped out of the light,” he whispered, “and found yourself in a dark place?”
Billy tensed, sat bolt upright.
“I mean a darrrrrk place,” the evangelist said, his voice deep and gravelly. “I mean a place so dark and Evil you can’t find your way out. Answer for yourselves: have you been there?”
Yes, Billy thought. And its still in my head, it comes to me at night when I try to sleep…
“No matter where the place is—the poolhall, the gamblin’ room, the shothouse, or the moonshine still—there’s hope, neighbors. Or it might be even darker than that: it might be the Room of Lust, or Envy, or Adultery. If you’re in one of those dark places, then you’re a guest of Satan!”
Billy’s eyes widened, his heart thumping. The last nightmare he’d had, several nights before, streaked through his mind: in it he’d sat up in his bed and seen the black mountain of coal slithering toward him through the hallway, and then the awful white hand had plunged out and grasped Billy’s sheet…slowly, slowly pulling it off and to the floor.
“SATAN’S GOT YOU!” Falconer roared, the veins of his neck bulging. “That cloven-hoofed, horned, fork-tongued Devil has got you right in his clawwwwws”—he lifted his right hand into the air, contorting it into a claw and twisting as if ripping flesh from the bone—“and he’s gonna squeeze you and mold you and make you like he isssss!… And if you’re a guest in Satan’s house and you like the dark, evil place, then you don’t belong here tonight!” The evangelist’s eyes glowed like spirit lamps, and now he lifted the microphone off its stand and paced the platform with nervous, electric energy. “Do you like the house of Satan? Do you like bein’ in that darrrk place, with him for company?” He stopped pacing, flailed the air with his fists, and raised his voice to a volume that almost blew out the speakers. “Well, I’m here to tell you there’s HOPE! You can BREAK OUT of Satan’s house! You can FIGHT that silver-tongued Devil and WIN, yes, WIN! ’cause there’s nowhere so dark—not poolhall nor brothel nor Room of Adultery—where you can’t find the Light of Jeeeesus! Nosir! It might be just one little candle, but it’s there, neighbor! And if you follow that light it’ll get bigger and brighter, and it’ll sure enough lead you right out of that dark place! The light of Jeeeesus will save you from sin and corruption and the everlastin’ burning fire of the PIT!” He stabbed his forefinger downward, and someone sitting behind Billy yelped, “Amen!”
Falconer grinned. He clapped his hands together like a second gunshot, and shouted, “Glory be to God, ’cause there’s power in the blood!” He lifted his head upward like a dog baying toward the moon. “Praise be the Light! Praise be the Redemption of the Sinnnnner!” Then he was right at the edge of the platform, falling down on his knees with his hands tightly clasped. He whispered, “And do you know how to find that Light, neighbors? Do you know how to renounce your sins and get out of that dark place? You’ve got to confess those sins!” He leaped up, bounding across the platform. His face streamed with sweat. “Confess! Give it all up to Jeeeesus! You’ve got to lay that darrrrk place out for the Lord to see!”
Confess? Billy thought, his heart hammering. Is that what I have to do to get it out of me? Around him people were crying and moaning; his daddy’s head was bowed in prayer, his momma was staring straight at the evangelist with a glazed look in her eyes. Confess? Billy asked himself, feeling a shiver of terror; if he didn’t confess, how would he ever escape the dark place?
“Confess! Confess! Confess!” Falconer was shouting, pointing his finger at random into the congregation. A heavy-hipped woman in a print dress stood up and began shaking, strange gurglings coming out of her mouth as her eyes rolled back in her head. She lifted her fleshy arms, crying out, “Praise God!” through the gibberish. Then a crewcut man in overalls rose to his feet and began jumping as if buck dancing, his boots stirring up clouds of sawdust. “CONFESS! CONFESS!” the evangelist roared. “Get out of that dark, dark place in your soul! Lay it out for the Lord!” He paced the platform, raising people from their seats with broad sweeps of his arms, as if they were attached to him on strings. John stood up and pulled Billy with him. “Glory be to God!” John shouted.
Falconer clutched at the microphone. “Is the Spirit with us tonight, neighbors?”
“YES!”
“Are we gonna lay it all out for the Lord tonight?”
“YES!”
“Praise the Spirit! Now folks, I want you to know that without you, and without the Hand of God moving you as He sees fit, the Falconer Crusade couldn’t go on like it does, year after year! We’re passin’ the collection plates now, and I want you folks to look deep into your hearts! Remember Satan don’t want you to give! Nosir! Ol’ Satan wants that money for the gamblin’ den and the moonshine still! If you feel the Spirit with us, if you want to confess your sins, then dig into your pockets and give! Hallelujah!”
Organ chords crashed through the speakers. The choir began to sing “Love Lifted Me,” and Falconer returned the microphone to its cradle, then clapped in rhythm to the music until everyone in the tent was clapping and singing. The golden light was full of sawdust, the air heavy and sweat-drenched. As the collection plate passed Billy, he saw it was filled with dollar bills.
When the offering was over and the plates had been taken up, Falconer shed his yellow coat and turned his blazing smile on full wattage. His shirt stuck to his back and ample belly. “Folks,” he said, “maybe you didn’t come here tonight just to hear me preach. Maybe you have other needs that have to be met. Right now I want to introduce somebody who’s real close to my heart. You might’ve heard about this young man. Folks, here’s my son—Little Wayne Falconer!”
There wer
e loud whoops and hollers, and a small figure in a bright yellow suit ran up the steps to the platform, throwing himself into his father’s arms. The evangelist caught him, and grinning, held him high. Billy craned his neck to get a good look. The little boy in Falconer’s arms had a mass of curly red hair, and his smile was even more incandescent than his father’s. Staring at him as the people in the audience shouted and applauded, Billy felt a strange stirring in the pit of his stomach. The boy’s gaze swept the crowd and seemingly fingered on him for a few seconds. Billy had the sudden urge to race forward to that stage and touch that boy.
“Wayne?” the evangelist asked. “Do you feel the Presence in this tent tonight?”
A silence fell. “Yes, Daddy,” the little boy said into the microphone.
“Do you hear the Presence callin’ on you to do miracles?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Miracles!” Falconer shouted to the congregation. “You heard me right! The Lord has seen fit to work through my son! This boy has a power in him that’ll shake you to your shoes, neighbors!” He lifted the boy as high as he could, and Wayne beamed. Again, Billy felt drawn toward that boy. “Are there those here tonight in need of healing?”
“Yes!” many in the audience cried out. Ramona saw that the young woman with the dying child—purplish black cocoon writhing, pulsating, sending out oily tendrils—had raised both arms, tears rolling down her face. The child clung around her neck, while the father whispered to him and smoothed his hair.
“Wayne, is the Presence gonna work through you tonight?”
The little boy’s eyes glowed with inner fire. He nodded.
Falconer set his son down, then handed the microphone to Wayne. Then he lifted his arms and shouted to the audience, “DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?”
The tent was filled with clamorous shouts and cries, and already people were rising from their seats to approach the platform. Electricity sparked in the air. Beside Billy, John was dazed and weak with excitement.
Wayne Falconer took a stance like a fighting rooster at the platform’s edge. His jaw was set and determined, though his eyes flickered nervously back and forth across the tent. “Who needs a miracle here tonight?” he called out, in a voice that carried almost as much power as his father’s.
People started pushing forward, many of them weeping. Ramona watched the couple with the dying child stand up and get in the line that was forming along the aisle. “Come on!” Wayne shouted. “Don’t be afraid!” He glanced back at his father for reassurance, then stretched out his hand for the first person in line, an elderly man in a red checked shirt. “Let the Lord work His miracles!”
The man gripped Wayne’s hand. “What’s your sickness, brother?” Wayne asked, and put the microphone to the man’s lips.
“My stomach’s got pains…my joints, oh Lord God they’re always achin’, and I can’t sleep at night… I’m sick…”
Wayne placed his hand on the man’s brown, creased forehead and closed his eyes tightly. “Satan’s causin’ this sufferin’!” he cried out. “Satan’s in you, ’cause people with God in their souls don’t get sick!” He clamped his small hand to the man’s head. “Come out, Satan of pain and sickness! I command you to come…out!” He trembled like a live wire, and the man’s legs sagged. An usher stepped forward to help him away, but then the elderly man was dancing in a circle, his arms uplifted and a wide grin on his face. “Walk the way of God!” Wayne shouted.
The line kept moving forward, full of people whose knees were aching, whose hearing was deteriorating, who were short of breath. Wayne healed them all, commanding the Satan of bad knees, bad hearing, and shortness of breath to leave their bodies. Behind him, Falconer smiled proudly and urged people to come up.
Ramona saw the couple with the child reach the platform. Wayne thrust the microphone to the woman’s lips.
“Donnie’s so weak,” she said in an emotion-laden voice. “Something’s wrong with his blood, the doctors say.” She sobbed brokenly. “Oh God sweet Jesus we’re poor sinners, and we had to give up one baby ’cause there weren’t no food. God’s punishin’ me ’cause I went and sold our little baby to a man in Fayette…”
Wayne gripped the boy’s head. The child began crying weakly. “Satan’s in this boy’s blood! I command you, Satan—come out!” The child jerked and wailed. “He won’t need a doctor again!” Wayne said. “He’s healed!”
Ramona reached for Billy’s hand. She clenched it tightly, her insides trembling. The black aura around that child had gotten deeper and stronger. Now the parents were grinning and sobbing, hugging the little boy between them. The black aura swelled. She stared at Wayne Falconer, her eyes widening. “No,” she whispered. “No, it’s not true…”
And to her horror, she saw an aged woman leaning on a cane stagger forward. The black aura clung to this woman too. The woman spoke into the microphone about her heart pains, and she said she was taking medicine but needed a miracle.
“Throw away that medicine, sister!” Wayne crowed as she was helped away by an usher. “You’re healed, you won’t need it!”
The black aura pulsated around her.
“No!” Ramona said, and started to rise to her feet. “It’s not—”
But then Billy pulled free from her and was running up the aisle. She shouted, “Billy!” but John’s hand closed on her arm. “Leave him be!” he said. “He knows what he’s doing—finally!”
When Billy reached the front, a grinning usher swept him up so he could speak into the microphone. Up close, the young evangelist—about his own age, Billy realized—had eyes that glinted like chips of blue ice. Wayne started to reach out for him, then stopped; the power of his grin seemed to falter, and there was a hint of confusion in his eyes. Billy could feel the hair at the back of his neck standing on end.
“Sin!” Billy wailed. Suddenly he was crying, unable to hold it in any longer. “I’ve sinned, I’ve been in the dark place and I need to confess!”
Wayne paused, his hand out toward the other boy. Suddenly he trembled, and his hand closed into a fist. He stepped back from the edge of the platform as his father quickly brushed past him and took the microphone. Falconer helped Billy up. “Confess it, son!” Falconer told him, putting the microphone to his lips as Wayne watched.
“I went into the dark place!” The loudness of his voice through the speakers startled him. He was crackling with electricity, and he could feel Wayne Falconer’s stare on him. Everyone was watching him. “I… I saw Evil! It was in the basement, and…”
Ramona suddenly rose to her feet.
“…it crawled up out of the coal pile and it…it looked like Will Booker, but its face was so white you could almost see right through it!” Tears rolled down Billy’s cheeks. The audience was silent. “It spoke to me…and said for me to tell people…where he was…”
“Billy!” John Creekmore shouted, breaking the awful silence. He stood up, gripping the chair before him, his face agonized.
“I sinned by going into the dark place!” Billy cried out. He turned to reach for Falconer’s hand, but the evangelist’s eyes were ticking back and forth. Falconer had sensed the gathering explosion, had seen the poisonous looks on the faces of the crowd.
And from the rear of the tent came a voice: “Demon!”
Someone else—Ralph Leighton’s voice, John realized—shouted, “The boy’s cursed, just like his mother! We all knew it, didn’t we?”
“He’s got the dark seed in him!”
“Like his mother, the Hawthorne witch!”
The tent erupted with ugly shouts. On the platform Billy felt a wave of hatred and fear crash over him. He stood stunned.
“He’s a child of the witch!” Leighton shouted, from the rear of the tent. “His mother’s Ramona Creekmore, and they don’t belong in here!”
J. J. Falconer had sweat on his face. He sensed their mood, and he knew also what he had to do. He gripped Billy by the scruff of the neck. “Demon, do you say?” he crowed. “Ar
e this boy and his mother pawns in the hand of Satan?” The name Ramona Creekmore had struck an alarm bell of recognition in him: Ramona Creekmore, the Hawthorne Valley witch, the woman who supposedly spoke with the dead and weaved evil spells. And this was her son? His showmanship went into high gear. “We’ll drag the Devil right out of this boy tonight! We’ll pull out Old Scratch, a-kickin’ and—”
Then there was utter silence. Ramona Creekmore was walking along the aisle, looking to neither right nor left. She said in a soft but commanding voice. “Take your hand off my son.”
Falconer released his grip, his eyes narrowing.
Ramona helped Billy down. Behind Falconer she saw Wayne’s frightened face, and something inside her twisted. Then she turned to face the mob. “You scared sheep!” she said, in a voice that carried to the back of the tent. “Nobody’s been healed here tonight! People who think they’re sick are being told they’re well, but those in real need are being doomed by false hope!” Her heart pounded. “It’s akin to murder, what these two are doing!”
“Shut your damned mouth!” a woman shouted. It was the young mother, still clutching her child.
Ramona turned toward Falconer. “Murder,” she said, her eyes flashing. “Because deep in your hearts, you know what you’re doing is wrong.” She looked at the boy, who trembled and stepped back under her gaze.
The evangelist roared, “Do you know what the Unpardonable Sin is? It’s seeing the Lord’s Power and calling it the Devil’s Work! You’re lost to the Lord, woman!” A cheer went up. “You’re lost!” he bellowed.
Before the ushers rushed them out of the tent, Billy looked over his shoulder. Behind the yellow-suited man, the boy in yellow stood rigid and frozen, his mouth half open. Their gazes met and locked. Billy felt righteous hatred, bitter and hot, flowing from that boy.
Then they were out in the field, and the ushers warned them not to come back.
Mystery Walk Page 9