by John Hart
“Catherine Wall was a mistake. I was angry at her husband. He took you from me, so I took his wife and his house. I admit the sin of it and am ashamed. Her death served no purpose. The house should not have burned. Both acts were born of weakness and spite, and that’s not my purpose.”
“What possible purpose?”
“I told you before.” He smoothed her hair again. “It’s all about the love.”
“Let Channing go.” She was begging. “If you love me at all…”
“But, I don’t. How could I do that and still honor the child you were?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Let me show you.”
His hands settled on her neck, and she felt the pressure build. It was gentle at first, an even force that mounted as he leaned closer and the world began to fade. In the distance, she heard Channing kicking at pews, trying to scream. The world ended for a time, and when Elizabeth came back, the transition was from soft to hard: his fingers on her throat, the altar beneath her head. He waited for her to focus, then choked her again, but even slower, the pressure building with a smoothness made terrible by the knowledge of what was to come: the last seconds of light, the way his eyes bored into hers and his lips drew gently back.
“Where are you?” His voice was tender. Her mouth opened, but she couldn’t answer. She saw tears on his face, colored light, and then nothing. She came back coughing, with the taste of copper in her mouth. The third time was even worse. He brought her to the edge of blackness and held her there.
“Elizabeth. Please.”
After the tenth time, she lost count. Minutes. Hours. She had no idea. The world was his face and his breath and the hot, hard fingers that pushed her down again and again. He never lost his patience, and each time his stare went deeper, as if he could touch the soft place she guarded like a secret. She felt him there, the brush of a finger.
When she came back from that place, he was teary-eyed and nodding. “I see you.” He covered his mouth to stifle a sob. “My baby…”
“I’m not your baby.”
“You are, of course you are. You’re my lovely girl.”
He pressed his lips against her face, kissing her cheeks, her eyes. He was weeping joyfully even as Elizabeth choked and coughed and tasted her own bitter tears.
“No.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s Daddy. I’m here.”
“Get away from me.”
“Don’t say that.”
“You’re not my father. I don’t even know you.”
She closed her eyes and turned her head away.
It was all she had.
All she could do.
“No.” His voice rose, tears spilling onto her face as he choked her hard and fast and ugly. “Come back!” He leaned into it. “Elizabeth! Please!” He squeezed Elizabeth’s throat until her eyes filled with blood, and she went deep in the black. After that, even when she returned, she was barely there. She sensed his anguish, and the light that dimmed in the church. Everything else was vague. His hands. The pain. “Please let me see her.” Elizabeth’s head lolled; he caught and held it. “Why are you keeping her from me? Do you hate me so very much?”
Elizabeth forced a whisper. “You’re sick. Let me help you.”
“I’m not sick.”
She blinked.
“Don’t you know this place? Can’t you feel it? The place where we spoke of life and the future, of God’s plans and all that we meant to each other? I was your father, here. You loved me.”
“I did.” The barest whisper. “I did love you.”
“And now?”
“Now I think you’re sick.”
“Don’t say that.”
But in all her life she’d only lied to him once, so she held his eyes and let him see the truth. That he was a killer. That she could never love him as she once had.
“Elizabeth—”
“Let me go. Let Channing go.”
He tightened his grip; her eyes fluttered. “I want the daughter I knew before the abortion and the lies. You took her from me when all you had to do was listen and do as I said. Our family would have survived, our church.” He let her breathe.
Elizabeth choked out a rasping sound. “I didn’t take her. You killed her.”
“I would never.”
“Here. At this altar.” He didn’t understand, and maybe he couldn’t. It wasn’t the rape or the abortion that destroyed the girl she’d been. It was him, right here. His betrayal. That was the irony. He’d killed the child he loved, then murdered a dozen women trying to get her back.
“Are you laughing?”
She was. She was dying, and she was. Maybe her brain was starved of oxygen. Maybe, at the end, this is what she proved to be, helpless even before herself. It didn’t matter. His face was perfect: the disbelief and wounded pride, the impotence before a dying daughter’s last, imperfect act.
“Don’t laugh at me.”
She laughed harder.
“Don’t,” he said. “But it was beyond her, now. “Elizabeth, please—”
She sucked deep and pushed it out, a high wheeze that sounded nothing like joy. But it was what she had, and she rode it even as his hands came down, and he rose again to his toes. The laughter ended with her breath, but she felt it inside, bright for a spell, then dim and dying, as was she.
35
Gideon woke to the sound of wind and the warmth of a blood-soaked shirt. He felt weak, but the truth was all around him.
This was real.
It was happening.
He tried to sit, but something didn’t work right, so he lay back down. The next time he went slower, and when the church stopped spinning, he looked at the yellow tape the preacher had torn down. There’d been bodies here. He could remember some of the names from what he’d seen on TV.
Ramona Morgan.
Lauren something.
Then, there were the ones beneath. Nine more women, they said. Nine more ghosts. The thought made him afraid, but his mother died here, too, and if there were ghosts, maybe she would be among them. She’d been a good person, so maybe the others had been, as well. Maybe they would see into his heart and offer no reason to fear. But, Gideon was a spiritual boy. He believed in God and angels and the bad things, too.
Did that include the preacher?
It shouldn’t, but he thought it must. Why else was he here with Liz and the other girl? Why were they tied and taped and terrified? It was too much, too big. But the truth of what he had to do was simple. He had to go inside and see. So he pulled himself up the stairs and at the top looked down at how the valley rolled out, soft and narrow and long. It was pretty, he thought, then opened the door and went looking for the ugly. It wasn’t hard to find. The altar was lit, and Liz was on it. Her father was hurting her, and the sight made Gideon weak. Ten steps later the weakness was worse, and he thought of such things as blood loss and shock and the doctor’s talk of a stitched artery.
The shirt was heavy.
His eyelids, too.
Holding on to a pew, he waited for the faintness to pass, but it didn’t. If anything, he felt worse. Numb legs. Dry mouth. He stumbled and went down on a knee, smelling the carpet, the rotted wood. The girl was screaming, but all he could see was Liz on the altar, how she twitched and jerked, and how ropes cut her ankles. Veins bulged in her neck; her mouth was open. Gideon dragged himself up, thinking, This is how my mother died. Just here. Just like that. The gap in his logic didn’t close until he was close enough to see the blood that filled Liz’s eyes.
She was dying as he watched. Not being hurt. Being killed.
Gideon swayed again, seeing his mother’s death, as it must have been.
This place.
This man.
How could that be possible? He’d loved the preacher more than his own father. Trusted him. Adored him. A day ago he’d have died for the Reverend Black.
“Hmmm! Hmm!”
The girl was at his feet, shoved half beneath the
pew. Her noises grew frantic as she tried to gesture with her entire body. The preacher’s coat was on the pew ten feet away. The girl dipped her head twice, and Gideon saw the stun gun beside the coat. He’d never seen one before today, but it looked simple. Metal points. Yellow trigger. He reached for it, then saw the real gun sticking out of a coat pocket. It was black and hard. He touched it once, but didn’t want to kill anyone.
It was still the reverend.
Right?
He wasn’t thinking straight, and his hands were tingling, too. The whole thing felt wrong, but life often felt that way. Mistakes happened. Things that seemed clear weren’t. He didn’t want to make a mistake now, but was so dizzy.
Was it really happening?
He bent for the stun gun and fell against the pew. New heat spread on his chest, and his fingers didn’t want to obey. They were far away, fumbling at the grip. His knees touched carpet, and blood from his shirt smeared the wooden seat. He turned his eyes to the girl beside him, saw the shiny eyes and yellow hair, the way she struggled and pleaded and screamed behind the tape as if to remind him that a woman was dying, and that it was Liz, who’d always loved him.
Gideon couldn’t allow that, so he pushed with all he had; he pushed and bled and found his feet beneath a vaulted ceiling and a wall of colored glass. The stun gun filled his hand, and shallow stairs led to the place Liz was dying. He asked his mother to help if she could. “I’m scared,” he whispered, and it was as if a dozen women kissed his face and lifted him. The pain in his chest went away. His head cleared, and he moved as light as any ghost across the carpet and up the steps to where pink light spilled down and motes hung in the air above the preacher’s head. Beyond the altar was Mary, in the glass, and in her arms an infant son. They wore halos and were smiling, but Gideon was angry and afraid and beyond such gentle things. He looked once at Liz’s bloody eyes, then put metal in the reverend’s back and lit the bastard up.
* * *
Channing watched it happen and felt a surge when the preacher went down. Above him, Elizabeth was unmoving. Maybe she was breathing, and maybe not. The boy, beside her, looked half dead with his bloody shirt and translucent skin. He wobbled where he stood and looked as if he, too, could drop at any second. She needed out of the tape before that happened.
“Hmmmm! Hmmmm!”
She tried to scream, but the boy seemed oblivious. He stared at the preacher and touched the man with a shoe. Beyond him, Elizabeth was open-eyed and paler even than the boy.
She wasn’t moving.
Was she breathing?
Channing screamed behind the tape, tasting it. The boy sat and looked at the face of the fallen man. He watched him stir, and even Channing saw the eyes flicker. He would wake and take the boy out. It would begin all over. Elizabeth would die, and so would she. They’d go back to the silo, or he’d kill them here. Who could stop it? The boy was glass-eyed and frozen. Liz couldn’t do it. Could Channing? She struggled against the tape, but it wasn’t going to happen. The man was moving for real, and the boy watched it happen. He waited for the eyes to open, then moved as deliberately as anything Channing had ever seen. He rolled to his knees, said something she missed, then put metal against the preacher’s skin and kept the trigger down until the battery died.
* * *
When it was over, Gideon looked down on Liz, then stumbled to the pew and used his teeth to work the tape off the girl’s wrists. Weak as he was, it took a long time; when it was done, he slumped to the floor and watched her do the rest.
She lost hair and skin, but the tape came off. “Is she alive?” That was her first question, and he blinked once. Channing stripped the last tape from her ankles. “Thank you, thank you so much. Are you okay?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“Here, lie down, and try not to move. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” She made a pillow of the tarp and got him stretched out on the floor. He felt her hands, but from a distance. “What did you say to him? You waited for him to wake up. I saw it. What did you say?”
“Nothing you’d understand.”
“Tell me anyway.”
He blinked again and kept his eyes on her face. She seemed nice. He wanted to make her happy. “I said, ‘You killed my mother. I hope this hurts.’”
* * *
Channing told him again to lie still, then went to Liz, who was alive, but in terrible shape. Her neck was swollen and black, her breath the barest thread. “Liz?” Channing touched her face. “Can you hear me?”
Nothing.
The eyes were blank, unseeing.
Channing worked at the knots that held Liz down, but her struggles had tightened them, and it took a long time. When she finished, Liz was with her, if only just. Her lips moved.
“What?” Channing leaned closer.
“Tie him.”
Channing didn’t know if the preacher was alive or dead, but it sounded like a good idea. She tied him as tightly as she could.
“What do I do now?” Channing touched Elizabeth’s face. “Liz, please. I don’t know what to do.”
* * *
Elizabeth was crushed in the bottom of a deep hole. She thought maybe the hole was a grave. It had hard edges, the right shape, the darkness. The walls were ragged and black, the opening so small above she could barely see it. Her father was somewhere close, but she couldn’t think about hurt that big or betrayal so vast. Shadows and black wind and sharp-edged stone. It was the place she couldn’t go: her father and childhood and his face as he’d tried to kill her. She wanted to collapse the hole, instead, to pull down earth and rock and all the things that made her feel. Maybe she wanted to die. That didn’t feel like her, but what else did? The blood in her vision? The utter despair?
The hole darkened and deepened.
Her father was above it. Beyond him was a question.
Elizabeth drew a breath that burned all the way down. Something troubled her about the question. Not the question. The answer. People called the police when they were in danger. That was the problem. They called the police.
Why was that wrong?
She had the answer, but it slipped away in the dark. She found it again and felt it stick. Channing needed to understand the danger. She wouldn’t see it coming.
“Channing…”
She felt her lips move, but knew the girl hadn’t heard. Her face was in the world above, a slash of color, a kite.
“No police…” It was the smallest sound.
The girl leaned closer. “Did you say no police?”
Elizabeth tried to move her head, but could not. “Beckett…” She was in the grave, and hurting.
“Call Beckett.”
* * *
When Elizabeth woke, the light was dim but she sensed Beckett in the church. It was his size, the way he loomed. “Charlie?”
“It’s good to have you back. I was worried.”
“There was a grave.…”
“No. No grave.”
“My father…”
“Shhh. He’s alive. He’s not going anywhere.”
Beckett moved to where she could see him. Same face and suit. Same worried eyes.
“Channing told you?”
“Let’s talk about you, first.” He put hands on her shoulders to keep her down. “Just breathe for a minute. You’re hurting. You’re in shock. I feel your heart running like a train.”
She felt it, too, the thunder and noise. “I’m going to be sick.”
“You’ll be fine. Just breathe.”
“No, I’m not.” Panic was a fist in her chest. “Jesus. God. I’m not.” She felt slippery and cold. Her hands were shaking.
“He can’t hurt you, Liz. He can’t hurt anybody.”
She risked a glance and saw him on the floor. He was tied and handcuffed, still unconscious, still her father. She lost it then, the rush of bile and the hard, hot vomit. She rolled left, and it spilled out of her like belief and warmth and life. She curled into a frozen ball, and Beckett was still
touching her: his hands, the press of his cheek. His voice was there, too, but like the sound of surf. She thought of Channing and Gideon; wanted to move, but absolutely could not. The grave was all around her; she was choking.
“Breathe…” Beckett’s voice was an ocean beyond the horizon. “Please, Liz. I need you to breathe.”
But, the pressure in her chest crushed everything. The world built and pushed her down, and when it dragged her back, Beckett was still there.
He lifted her so she could sit. “Liz, look at me.”
She blinked, and the rough edges filled in. She saw his face, his hands.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Can you stand?”
“Give me a minute.”
Elizabeth touched her throat, felt swollen flesh and ridges from her father’s fingers. She squinted around the church, saw the kids and her father and no one else. “Where is everybody?” She meant cops, paramedics. “There should be people here.”
“You’re still wanted on charges. Did you forget that?”
She nodded, but everything was fuzzy. She was dressed again, which must have been Channing’s doing, or Charlie’s. “Give me some space. Okay?”
“You sure?”
She raised a hand, and he backed off. Whatever happened next, she needed to do it on her own, to know she could. She swung her legs over the edge, coughing hard enough to choke all over again.
“Liz!”
Elizabeth pushed out with the same hand, keeping him back. She touched her chest and focused on taking careful, shallow breaths. He moved closer. “Don’t. Just … don’t touch me.”
She slipped off the altar, stumbled, but stayed on her feet. Her father was on the floor. She hugged her ribs.
“Channing told me everything. I’m sorry, Liz. I honestly don’t know what to say.”
“I don’t either.”
“You’ll deal with it. Time, maybe. Maybe therapy.”
“My father tried to kill me, Charlie. How could I possibly deal with it?”
He had no response. How could he?
“Channing? Are you okay?”
“I’m all right.”
“And Gideon?”