Tom hadn’t thought of that and perhaps the evildoers wouldn’t either. He guessed they would be from the city. “It was actually over on the Garleys’ range where it happened. You know where the four corners of the different ranges meet?”
Cami nodded. It was where the permits of their and three other ranches came together like the four corner states. This gave her relief and concern at the same time. Relief that the Satanists would not be able to narrow Tom down immediately and concern for her neighbors being dragged into this.
“Let’s do a little research on this first, Cami. You know, ‘Know thy enemy’? I think we have to be very cautious. Who knows, they might have a whole network of people where you least expect it. Doug said he had seen a similar thing in Winnemucca.”
“That’s another thing I don’t get!” Cami crossed her arms. “What’s with Doug? You tell him you killed someone and he says, ‘Let’s talk about it tomorrow.’ There’s something weird there. I mean, what else is going on that he just lets this go by?”
Tom was silent. That bothered him as well. But he thought he knew the answer—Doug was afraid too. “Let’s stop by the house and get the kids in dry clothes and you loaded up and I’ll drive you into town.”
Cami was about to argue, but thinking of the basement, she turned and called the kids.
The drive to town was half an hour. Miraculously, when they had been on the road for only a few minutes, all of the kids fell asleep.
“Tom, I’m afraid for you to be alone tonight.” Cami grabbed his free hand.
“What do you think is the worst that can happen?” He teased her to cover up his own uneasiness and gently squeezed her hand.
“I don’t know, but you thought it was bad enough for us to stay in town.”
“You’re right.” He released her hand and gripped the steering wheel tightly. “I don’t know either. Whatever it was that bothered you in the basement … is probably still there. Know any good exorcists?” He was trying to be funny, but the idea that they might need an exorcist was not out of the question. They drove on in silence.
“I can talk to Father Bob. Back in college I had a journalism professor who did an exorcism feature for a New York paper. It wasn’t until I graduated that I found out the priest he talked about was Father Bob.”
“Our Father Bob?” Tom couldn’t believe it. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“God—I don’t know? I guess I had kind of forgotten about it.” She pushed her hair away from her face and gazed at Tom. “We need to tell my mom about this too.”
Tom raised his eyebrows skeptically.
“Maybe I could just tell her I was thinking of getting our house blessed, because I’ve been getting the willies when I go downstairs … or something like that.”
“If. If you can keep it at that, fine. I don’t need anyone asking me if I’ve got a ghost in my house or any other attention.”
“Well, I have to tell her why the kids and I are visiting out of the blue.”
That was true. They had never descended on his in-laws without some warning, especially for an overnight stay. “Just tell her you got freaked out in the basement, because the door got locked somehow. The girls might tell her that much. Tell her you just needed a break and that sort of thing. Real casual. No biggie.”
Cami’s mom, Linda, seemed to buy Cami’s explanation, but they both knew she suspected something more. The kids and catching up made it easy to avoid any serious discussion. Cami walked Tom out to the truck. “Call me when you get home,” Cami said, kissing him goodbye.
“I will.”
“And if anything weird happens.”
“Okay.”
“And call me tomorrow morning—”
“Cami! I can’t call you every minute. I’ll call you when I get home and let’s see how it goes from there.” He caressed her cheek. “If it makes you feel better, maybe I’ll stop and talk to Father Bob on the way out of town.” She kissed his hand and he started the truck and drove towards the west side of town, to the Catholic church.
Chapter 10
Tom had not realized how much relief he would get from leaving Cami and the kids safe in town. The priest’s house was right next to the church, and Father was sitting out on the front porch drinking what looked like a highball.
Tom waved and sat in the truck for a moment. He had no idea what he should say to the priest. He walked up the porch steps. “Good evening, Father.”
“Tom. Good to see you.” Father Bob shook his hand heartily. “Would you like a drink?”
Normally, Tom would have refused, but tonight nothing sounded more normal than knocking back a stiff one with Father Bob, while sitting on the front porch next to the church.
Father brought him half a glass of whiskey over ice; it tasted good. “Wild Turkey?” Tom guessed.
“Yeah, it’s my favorite. So what’s going on, Tom?”
Tom liked Father Bob. He didn’t bug you if you missed church, and he and Cami were sporadic churchgoers. He had a great sense of humor and best of all, he was approachable. Tom had talked with him several times at Linda’s house when she had invited a crowd for a BBQ. He and Father Bob held a lot of the same views. “Father Bob … I’m not sure how to say this—but I think there is a ghost or an evil spirit in my house.”
The priest coughed a little on his whiskey. “What?”
Tom smiled. “Yeah, it’s kinda out there, isn’t it?” He rocked steadily, taking another pull on his drink. He explained the gun safe shaking, the tree branch falling and Cami being locked in the basement. He did not describe the jewelry, but said he had brought a piece of jewelry into the house and then all of the activity began.
“Where did this jewelry come from?”
“I can’t tell you, Father. I want to, but it’s complicated. There’s a lot more to this story, but I don’t want you to become involved—at least not right now. I’m not even sure how to proceed.” Tom ran his hand through his hair and drained the last of the whiskey.
Father Bob raised his eyebrows at the empty whiskey glass and watched Tom. He said nothing, but sipped at his whiskey and rocked gently back and forth.
“I didn’t steal this jewelry. I’m just—I was—I am holding it for someone. Now I wish I had never brought it home.”
“Tom, you can tell me anything and I won’t tell anyone. I can hear any confession, and by vow, I cannot repeat it. Nothing said in confession can ever be revealed. Confession, the Church instructs, is between the sinner and God, with the priest acting only as an intermediary. I cannot tell anyone your sins, not even murder.” Father Bob smiled a bit at this, but did not see Tom pale and look away. “How about another drink?”
Tom shook his head. “No thanks. I’ve got to get home.” He started to rise from the rocker, but Father Bob gently put his hand on his shoulder and stopped him.
“Not so fast, Tom, we need to figure out what to do about your house. I want another drink to mull this over. Sit down and relax a minute, would ya?”
Tom drove towards home with a bottle of Holy Water, the bottle of Wild Turkey and Father Bob beside him. It was not what he planned, but he had to admit that facing entities might be easier with a priest, even a slightly hammered one. Father Bob had also packed a black leather satchel with some other items that Tom could only guess at—the idea that there was something in his house seemed crazy.
“You know, when I worked in New York, I knew a priest that specialized in exorcisms. Father O’Clary. I read his book and got to know him. It sounded like really exciting work. And at the time, I didn’t really think it was real.” He glanced at Tom. “You know, devils and stuff.” Tom nodded.
“Well, I wrangled a chance to help at one of his exorcisms.” Father Bob crossed himself. “It changed me. Evil is out there and it’s real. But the devil would prefer that most of us not know about him, because you know, if you realize that evil and the devil are real, you have to believe in the other side.”
The truck hummed down the highway
; it was slowly getting dark. Tom wanted to hear more about the exorcism, but Father Bob seemed preoccupied. He was right about people being ignorant of evil. People did not want to acknowledge God either, because then they would be accountable for their actions. Life was easier when you just went through your day imagining the world was supernatural-free and quite scientific. A world where everything was okay and “if it feels good, do it.”
“It was a little old lady,” Father Bob began abruptly and Tom jumped a little. “She lived alone with all of these cats. She had gotten into Tarot cards and that opened a door.” Father Bob waved a stubby finger at Tom. “That’s how it starts … a person opens a door. They play Tarot or have a séance or start hanging out with the wrong people. I would say it is a gradual thing in most cases.
“Well, she appeared so normal, really frail looking, all of eighty pounds soaking wet, I would say. She looked like a sweet, little grandma. But when you talked to her … her eyes were so empty and dead—they were—”
“Eyes without light,” Tom finished for him.
“Yes! Eyes without light! You know what I’m talking about?”
Tom nodded.
“Well, that must be part of what you don’t want to tell me—maybe you’ll tell me later, hmm? Anyway, she moved slow, talked slow, acted almost like a robot. There was something about her, something wrong. I mean, I could tell in a minute that it wasn’t mental illness or anything like that.
“One of her daughters was a Catholic and had finally figured out what was wrong. It was this daughter, me and Father O’Clary. So we get ready for the exorcism—you know, getting ready for an exorcism is kinda like getting ready for a tornado. You want the room empty, everything off of the walls, because everything in the room can become a projectile.”
“You’re kidding me,” Tom said, gripping the wheel tighter. He was also slowing the truck, unconsciously, as they got closer to the ranch.
“No, I’m not. This is some scary shit, Tom.” Father Bob had been a sailor and adding a little alcohol sometimes brought out his old cussing habits. “What you and your wife have experienced is just a small exhibit of what can happen.
“Anyway, we were pretty much ready to start, but these cats kept coming into the room. I’d shoo one out and another one would slip in between my legs. She must have had twenty cats. O’Clary insisted the cats be out of the room.”
“Well, a cat projectile would not be good.” Tom tried to lighten the mood.
“No shit! Finally, we closed the door and I gathered up the last cats, one by one, and put them out. None of them were friendly. The last one was a huge, white cat—he must have weighed thirty pounds. He sunk his claws in the carpet when I tried to lift him, then he growled and sank his teeth into me.” Father Bob showed Tom the scar between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. “The bastard! I swear his teeth met! Well, I howled and started bleeding, and it was all I could do to not kick that cat to kingdom come. Then O’Clary came over and sprinkled Holy Water on that cat, and that was when all hell broke loose. You would think that he lit that cat on fire. It was up the curtains, over, under and around the bed yowling, hissing, spitting. It even crapped and pissed everywhere! In the meantime, O’Clary is blessing the cat in Latin and sprinkling Holy Water at it whenever it squirts by.”
Father Bob was so animated that Tom was more interested in the story than driving. He pulled off the highway by the ranch road and listened.
“Well, a drop of this Holy Water lands on the old lady and it brought her out of her trance like that!” He snapped his fingers in front of Tom’s face. “She jumps out of her chair and says, ‘Nooooo!’ But it wasn’t her voice! It was deep, like a three hundred pound truck driver’s voice. She runs across the room and tackles O’Clary. He was six foot one and about one hundred and eighty pounds and she knocks him into the wall. As I said she was tiny, I mean, I thought she would have a hard time pushing a grocery cart, much less tackling a grown man. About that time, the cat starts running straight at me—it was just like a Bugs Bunny cartoon—I opened the door and the cat ran straight out and I could hear stuff getting knocked over in the other room and the other cats hissing and fighting. I locked the door and tried to help O’Clary. The daughter and I, we were trying to pull the old lady off the priest. She was flailing, clawing, kicking, spitting, and acting a lot like the cat actually. The best we could do was hold her back a little, so he could get up and help us. It was all the three of us could do to get her on the bed and hold her down. She was cussing us out—screaming—the most horrible language I’d ever heard. I mean, it scared the crap out of me. Imagine this sweet looking old lady gone berserk, screaming in another voice, acting like a wild animal and strong as an ox!
“After five minutes of this, she seemed to faint. She was panting, her eyes were unfocused and she went limp. O’Clary begins the exorcism. Can you imagine? A tiny bedroom, closed up tight and the air so thick with the stench of cat stuff you could cut it, add in the blood everywhere from my cat bite and O’Clary starting an exorcism to the sounds of the cats fighting throughout the rest of the house. It was horrible.
“Anyway, O’Clary gets started. The old lady starts to moan again, shaking her head back and forth. The daughter and I had never let her go and we tightened up our grip.
“He had just started the opening prayers when there is this thud that rattles the doorframe. I mean it is loud, and it sounds like someone threw a baseball at the door. The old lady moans and shakes every now and then and the noise continues. About every fifteen to thirty seconds … BANG! This goes on for almost two hours and finally stops altogether. I had gotten to the point where I had tuned it out, but I finally realized it stopped. After that the exorcism proceeded normally. The old lady came out of it, overcame her demon, and we were done in eight hours.”
“Eight hours!” Tom couldn’t believe it.
“Oh yeah, that’s a short one. Some of them take days. Anyway and here is the freaky end of this freaky story. We go to open the door and there is a mountain of dead cats outside! Every one of those damn cats had bashed its head against the door until it croaked. I’ll never forget that. This huge mess of dead cats, blood and fur and brains stuck to the door—man, did it stink! Yuck. Never much liked cats after that!”
Tom took a long pull of Wild Turkey. He glanced at the priest and they locked eyes. “This is a lot worse than possessed cats, Father.” He handed the priest the bottle. “I’m afraid I’ve gotten myself into something really bad.” Tom rested his head on the steering wheel, wondering how in the hell things could change so much in just a few days.
Father Bob took another drink of Wild Turkey and looked at Tom. He was silent for a moment. “Tom, courage isn’t an absence of fear; it’s going forward in spite of fear. Besides, we’re on the good guy’s side.”
Tom smiled and drove the pickup down the road to his ranch.
Chapter 11
They walked through the house. Nothing was disturbed. It was so quiet they could hear the tick of the clock in the living room. The heat of the afternoon had stifled the air. Tom opened some windows and the breeze gently wafted the curtains. The thunderheads that had been building at sunset looked to manifest into a storm; the air felt muggy. He thought of the burnt altar on the mountain and how a heavy rain would erase his tracks and any signs the others might have left behind.
Father Bob stood next to him looking out the window. “It’s going to storm.”
Tom looked at him and nodded. “Maybe it’s gone now?”
Father Bob laughed. “Yeah, right. You said it was in the basement? I think it’s still there.”
“Should we go down there then?” Tom’s shoulders tensed at the thought.
“Of course!” Father Bob laughed again. “But not yet. Let’s make the upstairs really uncomfortable for the bastards first. We don’t want them just moving around—we want them moving out.”
“Them? You mean it’s more than one—thing?” He had not thought of this possib
ility.
“Oh sure, you know that saying, misery loves company? Well, nasty things like these beasties—they are the most miserable creatures you can imagine. Remember in the Bible that the demon that Jesus drove out of the one man called himself ‘Legion’? How many are in a legion exactly?” He looked at Tom expectantly.
“A lot I guess.”
“I would say anywhere from forty five hundred to six thousand, but anything over one thousand is plenty, don’t you think?” Father Bob now opened his leather satchel and Tom saw it was crammed with crucifixes, a jar of what looked like salt, many small vials, and folded at the bottom, but now quite wrinkled, the priest’s robe and accessories.
“It looks like you forgot the garlic.”
Father Bob looked at him and they both cracked up; it helped to break the tension that had built up in the heat of the too quiet house with each tick of the clock. “You would be amazed at how much of the stuff in movies has a factual basis to it. Anyway, I’ll get dressed and we’ll get started.”
“What about me? Should I dress differently? Is there anything you want me to do?”
“Do you have a Saint Benedict’s medal? A blessed crucifix or something like that?”
Tom nodded and went to his bedroom. Cami’s mom had given them all blessed medals on chains; he thought they were Saint Benedict’s medals. He had never worn his, and Cami had hung it on the lamp next to his side of the bed.
“Hey! Put on some tennis shoes, those cowboy boots are about useless for traction,” Father Bob called after him.
“Okay.” He took his boots off and put the necklace on; the moment he slipped the chain over his neck, something scraped across the basement floor and the basement door slammed. The hair on the back of his neck prickled; he had left the door shut.
Father Bob smiled at Tom as he came back into the room. “Somebody ain’t happy.”
The Sacrifice Page 5