The man was struck dumb for a moment, his big ruddy jaw slapping shut. Then he laughed wholeheartedly, a high-pitched cackle of a laugh that seemed to fit the man perfectly. His people laughed with him as he rolled his eyes toward them in wonderment. Once they'd quieted down, he asked, "Have you been baptized, son?"
"I don't think so." Owen thought about his mother's feelings toward religion, which he and Lori had eventually discovered were a facade. "Maybe?"
Again the minister chuckled. "You don't seem very sure of yourself, friend. But the Lord," the pastor smiled, "well, the Lord is sure of you."
Owen looked out at the open lake—he could see the main bay from here—where frothy white peaks had begun to form, growing larger as they slinked their way toward shore. He wondered what harm it could do, playing along. At least he'd have something amusing to tell Avery. She was always going on about her born-again brother and sister-in-law, both of whom had found Jesus after years of drug abuse. She'd go apeshit thinking they had brainwashed her partner, too.
Maybe they're the same people Lori came up here to see? Owen thought. Maybe this guy with the beard is one of the Shepherd's favorite sons, preaching His word while the Shepherd's in his compound, being tended to by a harem of innocent young girls.
He shrugged the thought away, not wanting to think of Lori in such circumstances. She was too strong to be lured into something so lurid… though he supposed many of these people had once been strong, too.
"Come, brother!" The minister ushered Owen toward them with a hand. "You're welcome to join us, if the spirit moves you. Come and be cleansed!"
His people nodded, waving Owen over. The baby girl cried out for attention. Her mother laid a kiss on her forehead, then took her little cherubic hand and used it to wave him toward them.
Owen shrugged, knowing he'd be fine among them if he was prepared against any attempt to convert him. "Okay," he said, already beginning to wade over.
"Welcome, son!" the minister said. "Welcome, welcome! I am Brother Woodrow, son, and these good people and I belong to the, uh… Blessed Trinity Mission."
"Thanks," Owen said, stepping into the fold. "Hey there," he said with a timid wave, as the congregation patted him on the shoulders, delighted voices greeting him, and then began singing Oh come to me, co-o-ome, let the little children come. When he reached Brother Woodrow, Owen realized he had begun to smile.
"What, may I ask, is your name, son?"
"Owen," he said, taking in all the smiling, singing faces, the clapping hands and swaying bodies. "Owen Saddler."
"Saddler," the minister repeated dubiously. A ripple of discontent flowed through his parishioners before they fell suddenly quiet, unmoving, watching Owen with seeming distrust. Amid their silence, Owen noticed the baby—the only one still making a noise, her little features pinched together as she wailed—had a small blue cross embroidered on the dress near her heart, the kind with clubs at the ends of each arm, like the ones on playing cards. A budded cross, Owen thought, unsure how he knew it.
"Now, hush, now," the minister said, holding out his hands in supplication. "The boy comes to us for salvation. Who are we to turn him away? We are all God's children, are we not?"
Tentative nods met this. Owen didn't like the vibe he was getting, and suddenly—desperately—he wanted nothing more than to creep away, to dive under the minister's legs and swim if he had to.
"Well, okay, then," said Brother Woodrow. "We've come down here to the lake to bestow upon this child the Sacrament of Immersion, or baptism, if you prefer, though we do not." He smiled over his congregation again, settling his eyes and his smile upon the child in his mother's arms. "But we are always looking for Seekers like us, aren't we, brothers and sisters?"
The congregation agreed.
"Seekers?" Owen wondered aloud.
"Of the Mystery," the minister explained, as if it were obvious. "Of our Father's Eternal Love."
"Right," Owen said, and hoped his sarcasm hadn't been noticeable. "You know, I think one of your tracts washed up over there. Blue thing. Stuff about the days before the flood and whatnot." He remembered the word that had troubled him. "And something called Abaddon?"
Brother Woodrow sneered. "Abaddon!" he scoffed. "I assure you, Owen, we don't issue anything so vile as tracts, and if you are referring to our, uh… religious readings, you are similarly mistaken. We carry nothing but the clothes on our backs and the word of the Lord to the Immersion, isn't that right, brothers and sisters? Excepting, of course, for my very own personal copy of the Good Book." At this, he patted the rectangular lump in the deep breast pocket of his robe.
"Oh," Owen said. He hadn't meant to offend them, but he seemed to have stumbled into something. "Sorry."
"No apology necessary," the minister said, replacing the sneer with his big, bushy smile. "Now, if you'll just step a touch closer to me and turn to face our brethren and sistren, we can begin."
Owen trudged out to Brother Woodrow, and turned to face the others. He crossed his arms over his chest as he'd seen people do in the movies and TV when they "went down to the water," crouching before Brother Woodrow, who laid his right hand gently on Owen's chest. The left hand, Woodrow raised toward the heavens.
"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost—"
The congregants said, "Amen."
A sudden chill came over Owen. Another holy-rolling ghost had tried to baptize him just last night—baptize him or murder him—while his flock had looked on, just like these people watched now. Brother Woodrow's hand pressed on Owen's chest like the Shepherd's had, and Owen suddenly feared this was a hallucination, not the men and women he'd seen before. Abaddon lies uncovered. If these people were products of his weary mind, he was in more danger here than he'd been in the tub. Last night he'd merely been in three feet of water. Here he had an entire lake to drown in, the same lake that had taken his sister.
And it was very likely these were the same people who'd sold Lori salvation. They'd filled her full of old time religion, and drowned her for her sins.
Owen slipped out from under the holy man's hand, rising quickly from the water. "I'm sorry," he said, so cold he was shaking. "It's the water. I can't—" He considered how not to further offend them. "I don't like going under," he said, and after last night, it wasn't exactly a lie.
"But immersion is necessary for salvation," the minister blustered, a look of caution on his ruddy face. "We must be cleansed of our sins and the sins of our fathers before we are permitted passage into His Heavenly Kingdom!"
"I know," Owen said. "I know. But I just don't think it's right for me. At this time."
The people looked to their minister. Brother Woodrow remained silent, favoring Owen with a grim smile. "Very well," the minister said flatly. "You know where to find us, should you change your mind." Then he added, somewhat ominously, "Or should it be changed for you."
Owen remembered the name. "Blessed Trinity Mission." She's with us now, Owen.
Brother Woodrow nodded reflectively. "Go in peace, brother. We have a young, uh… soul here to save."
The mother smiled and gently bounced her weeping child, the crowd parting like the Red Sea. Owen trudged through the frigid water, feeling the stares of Woodrow's ministry as he stepped through them, backing away from their circle. He stopped before the heavy pine bough and looked back. Gently shushing the baby in his arms, Brother Woodrow nodded brusquely to Owen, bidding him a silent farewell before he began his magical incantation over the innocent child.
Get ‘em while they're young, padre, Owen thought, his fear lessening. He pushed the bough aside and stepped out in front of the Hordyke property. The branch swung back behind him, hiding the Blessed Trinity—Father, Son, Holy Ghost, Owen thought reflexively—from view.
The parishioners raised their voices in song again: I'm on my way, praise God, I'm on my way… The sweetly sung words followed him to the house, where he peeled off his dripping clothes down to his boxers, reflecting on the strange event he'd just been
part of, and tossed his shirt and pants over the porch railing. Inside, he went upstairs, peeled off his underwear into the sink, and toweled off in the bathroom.
By the time he was dry and in fresh clothes, he was starving. The clock showed just past two, but it had to be later than that. His digital watch said 3:20. The kitchen clock must have run out of batteries. He told himself to find some later, get it started again, but right now, feeding himself was imperative. His stomach growled as if he hadn't eaten in days. He took a can of chicken noodle soup down from the pantry and opened it with a rusted can opener. Soup for the soul, he mused. It smelled okay, not spoiled. The stove lit on the first click with a whiff of sulfur.
Isn't sulfur the same as brimstone?
Owen peeked out the window as he placed the pot on the burner and stirred. By now, the Blessed Trinity Missionaries were likely all dried off and holy-rolling it back to their respective homes, comforted in the belief that they'd spared a young soul from eternal damnation, though likely irked that they hadn't been able to convert the stranger next door.
Tomorrow, he'd go back down to the water, but not to pray. The diving gear was calling to him; despite what he'd told Brother Woodrow, he was eager to go under, out in the main lake. But already he was exhausted. Tonight, all he could hope for was some mindless cable TV, or a decent book to read among the ones lining the wall.
Anything but the Bible.
CHAPTER 5
The Book of Revelations
1
OWEN DREAMED OF HIS SISTER.
She wore the flowing white nightgown, its hem soaked by the dark waters of Chapel Lake. Owen watched her from where he sat in a wooden rowboat. Between them, a black silhouette split the surface of the water: the cross of the church beneath the lake. Shallow waves rippled around it, catching glints of moonlight. Standing before the steeple was the man who walked on water, the Shepherd, holding out his arms to them in welcome.
Lori reached out toward Owen, mouthing her soundless plea. Without an oar, his desperate efforts to reach her were no match for the current steadily drawing him away. Worse, the boat was taking on water from a hole in the bottom, which was rising alarmingly fast. Owen searched for something to bail the water, and found nothing but a rusty old can with no bottom.
The boat was going down. He jumped out into the water, splashing against the current toward his sister, the steeple between them, the cross looming above him, eclipsing the sun. He clutched at its slimy wooden shingles. Waves struck his face. He spat, blinked water from his eyes, and began climbing to the cross, hugging it—
Lori was gone, and so was her ghost.
As the realization struck him, a bony hand burst from the water and clutched his ankle, its gray, chicken-skin flesh, cold and slimy; and as more hands broke the surface to drag Owen down to their watery grave, the words from the religious tract came back to him: The dead are in deep anguish, those beneath the waters and all that live in them…
He awoke to his own voice, shouting: "Abaddon!"
Rattled, he tried to get his bearings as his heartbeat began to slow. Dark. Cool. The bed stood lengthwise between an open doorway and a small, dim window, not the large, bright windows of his condo, and had a wardrobe at the foot of it (filled with unfashionable women's attire from an earlier era, he recalled). For a moment, he thought he must be at his mother's, but the smell of old wood and musty bed coverings, along with a slight fishy odor, brought everything back. He'd trudged upstairs to the single bed at Fisherman's Wharf after a short evening of mindless TV with fuzzy reception, and had fallen asleep almost immediately.
I saw Lori! he marveled, sitting up in the dark. He wanted to go back to sleep right away, to return to what he'd been dreaming before the things below the water had grabbed him, to see her again. She might have been dead in the real world, but in his dreams she was still very much alive. Trying to tell me something—but what?
He got up, stepping in a wet spot on the carpet, further evidence of cracks in the roof, and trudged down the hall to the small bathroom to urinate. When he stepped out again, the flush gurgling down the pipes, a light came on downstairs.
Fear gave way to reason. "Probably on a timer," he told himself. In the dim light, he glanced at the clock in the bedroom. Just past two in the morning.
Who the hell would set the lights to come on so late?
He answered himself right away: Someone without a proper alarm clock, that's who. Someone who wanted to get up in the dead of the night to go diving. Someone like Lori.
The light downstairs dimmed, then brightened again.
"Lori did this," he said. Downstairs, the light dimmed and brightened once more.
It's your imagination. A trick of light, like the shadow in the shower. The light's not dimming—or maybe it is, but not because of… It's faulty wiring. Happens all the time. Don't mistake poor craftsmanship with paranormal activity.
"There's no such thing as ghosts," he said aloud, though he didn't sound convinced, even to himself.
The light dimmed and brightened.
"Screw it," he said, and peered over the railing to the living room. The light by the chair at the bookshelf was on, barely enough to brighten the darkest corners of the room. Under the table, behind the sofa, anyone could be hiding.
"Hello?" he called out. Another flicker of the reading lamp seemed to answer him.
The darkened windows made him uneasy as he crossed to the lamp. You can look in, he thought, but you can't see out. He reached for the light switch. The bulb dimmed with a buzz. Brightened again.
That happened. Not my imagination. Gotta screw it in tighter.
Taking a tissue from the box on the end table to protect his fingers from the hot bulb, he reached up under the lampshade—
POW!
The bulb shattered, sharp little bits striking his fingers, plunging the house into darkness. Owen jerked his hand free, cursing under his breath. It hadn't cut him, but it had scared the living bejesus out of him, and now he couldn't see a thing.
What are the odds of that happening, huh, Mr. Home Inspector? You didn't even touch the bulb and it bursts like that?
"I don't know," he said, the wavering in his voice fueling his terror in the dark. He stood perfectly still, waiting for his heart to slow. Floorboards creaked and groaned, probably the house settling. Something tinkled to his right, at the bookshelf—not broken glass, but a small metallic sound. At least he could see through the windows now, black branches swaying in the cool night breeze. Cold comfort.
Can't stand here forever.
Finally his eyes adjusted to the dark enough to move. The main light switches were near the front door, so he headed there, careful of his footing, aware there was a low table around here some—there it is. He felt his way around it, bending to touch the tabletop. Past the table, you're home-free all the way to the door.
He bumped into something tall and fuzzy, and nearly stumbled back in fright of a shadow the size and shape of a man. He threw up his hands to defend himself from the intruder, and then squinted into the gloom.
Just the coat rack, idiot.
Chuckling nervously, he reached past it, slipped his fingers along the rough log wall until they grasped the light switch. He flicked on the overhead lights.
In his bare feet, he remained mindful of the glass, turned off the lamp and unplugged it, worried it might short circuit and shut out all the power in the house. He crossed to the kitchen, got the broom and dustpan, and swept up as many shards of the light bulb as he could find. He dumped them in the trash before returning to the lamp.
"Piece of crap," he said, looking down at the pale yellow-brown lampshade, decorated with dark brown beavers using logs as toothpicks. "Probably been here since they built the place."
Again, the delicate metallic tinkling came from the bookshelf. Curious, he moved toward it. Dozens of books lined the shelves, mostly mysteries—though likely not the same Mystery that Brother Woodrow spoke of—with titles by Agatha Christie,
James M. Cain, Dashiell Hammett, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who'd allegedly believed in ghosts. There were a few others of various genres, plays by Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw, the collected works of Dickens and Shakespeare, a few novels which had spawned movies and movie franchises. Owen selected a book at random, The Dice Man by Luke Reinhart, and was about to retrieve it when the small metallic chiming drew his attention again.
Tucked in among the books was a pendant on a thin chain. He recognized it right away: Lori's necklace. The unicorn hung loose against the clasp, but when he pulled the rest of it free, the crucifix was nowhere to be found. The chain had broken, snapped at three-quarters its length, and was still clasped. The crucifix must have fallen off, lost somewhere in the house. He pulled down a book, with a shiny black cover, that held the chain in place, newer than the rest of the dusty volumes and almost twice as tall as the paperbacks. Then he pushed the others aside to feel around to the back of the dusty shelf for the trinket, but he came up empty-handed.
Maybe she kept it with her, he thought. Ward off evil.
It didn't work though, did it? Why did you put this here? Was it for me to find? Did you make it rattle so I'd find it?
"Are you here with me?" he asked the eerily quiet house, and peered around himself, suddenly certain he'd find Lori standing in the second floor hall, dressed in the damp white gown from his dream. But the house was empty. In the kitchen, the fridge ticked away in place of the stopped clock, while an animal chewed on the underside of the house.
Owen slipped the necklace and pendant into his pocket, then happened to glance down at the table where he'd left the book he'd pulled down to hunt for Lori's crucifix.
It was a notebook. His breath caught in his throat when he recognized the handwriting on the first page. His knees buckled.
"Lori," he said, dropping down into the recliner. Too excited now to go back to bed, despite his exhaustion, Owen began to read:
June 8, 2014
Salvage Page 8