by Ronald Kelly
Life certainly hadn’t been easy for her during the past five years. Wendell seemed to disapprove of everything she did: her housekeeping, her cooking, the books she read, and the television shows she liked to watch. He often accused her of being unfaithful and unenthusiastic in her devotion to the church, even though she taught her own Sunday school class and organized most of the ladies’ functions that took place. Wendell also grew angry whenever she talked back to him or expressed an opinion that contradicted his. Tammy had found it easier—and safer—to simply play the part of the obedient wife and try to avoid conflict as much as possible. But even when she did, Wendell came looking for it. She had been a high-strung girl before she married, but during the past few years her anxiety had grown by leaps and bounds. Sometimes she was afraid one of Wendell’s tantrums would push her completely over the edge and she would suffer a nervous breakdown. She had come close to that precarious point several times during the past couple of months.
But even with all the grief he caused her, Tammy couldn’t help but admit that she loved the man. It might have been masochistic of her, considering all he had put her through, but it was the truth.
A sound came from the foyer, startling her from her thoughts. Tammy heard the doorknob rattle, then stop. Her heart leapt with hope. At first, she was certain it was Wendell. But then a knock came on the front door and she knew it wasn’t him. Her husband would have come right in. He would never have knocked on the door of his own house.
Her heart pounding in her chest, Tammy left the couch and crossed the dark living room to the outer hallway. She wore only a flannel gown and a pair of socks to keep her feet warm. She hated to answer the door dressed like that, but she knew it might be something important. It might be Chief Watts with some news for her.
She went to the door and hesitated for a moment. “Who is it?” she called, like she always did when she was home alone.
No one said anything at first. Then a familiar voice answered.
“It’s me. Wendell.”
A sensation that was both joyous and nervous swelled in her heart. She lifted her glasses and wiped away her tears with the sleeve of her gown. Then she slipped the chain off its latch, turned the deadbolt, and opened the door.
Her husband stood there, staring at her. Tammy had never seen him look so disheveled and sickly. His face was deathly pale, his eyes were bloodshot, and his dark hair was uncombed. He wore his navy dress pants and Sunday shoes, but the starched white shirt was gone. He wore a red-and-black checkered flannel shirt instead, one that looked a couple of sizes too big for him.
She thought nothing of the strange shirt. She was just relieved to see him standing there, a little worse for wear, but okay.
“Wendell,” she said with a sigh. “You’re home.”
“May I come in, Tammy?” he asked.
What an odd thing for him to say, she thought to herself. “Of course, honey,” she said, stepping aside.
The tension in Wendell’s face eased a little as he stepped inside the house. She immediately threw herself at him, embracing him tightly.
“Oh, dear God, Wendell!” she cried, burying her face against his broad shoulder. “Where on earth have you been?”
Wendell stood there as still and as silent as a statue.
Tammy realized that something was wrong with her husband. His muscles were rigid, much harder than usual, and he was cold, as cold as ice. It was a little chilly that night, but not that chilly. He felt as if he had no warmth to him at all.
She pulled away from him and looked into his pale face. His lips had an unhealthy blueness to them. “Sweetheart… are you all right?”
Wendell flashed a smile that chilled her to the bone. “All right?” he asked. “My dear Tammy, I’m much more than all right. I have been reborn.”
“Reborn?” she echoed. Suddenly she was scared. Wendell had a look in his eyes that seemed to mesmerize her and make her feel insignificant inside, even more so than usual.
“Yes,” he said. He began to walk toward her, that disturbing smile growing broader. “I have been transformed into something much more than I was before. I have gone beyond the bounds of mortal man, Tammy. I have experienced death… and survived it.”
Tammy stared at him, her heart pounding wildly. “What are you talking about, Wendell?”
The preacher continued toward her, his pace easy, as if he possessed all the time in the world. “I’m talking about immortality, my dear. I’m talking about the power to preach God’s word the way it must be preached… by force! And I have that power now. The power to move mountains and part the seas. The power to convert millions.”
“You’re talking crazy,” she said before she could catch herself.
That anger Tammy knew so well flared in his eyes, along with something else. It was almost as if the pupils of his eyes had taken on a glow. A peculiar red light of some sort.
“I should have expected such ignorance on your part, Tammy,” he said. He bared his teeth in a contemptuous grin. They seemed much stronger, much longer than she remembered them being. “But then, that is the reason I came here tonight. To make you believe. To save your pathetic soul.”
Tammy was stunned. “I have been saved,” she said. She had devoted her life to God when she was twelve years old, and her husband knew that.
“Not in a way that you would understand,” Wendell told her. He had backed her halfway down the hallway now. “The baptism you experienced before was only to prepare you for the kingdom of Heaven. The one I offer you tonight will prepare you for an existence you never dreamed possible. Immortality, Tammy! The chance to spread the gospel of the Lord for as long as the world shall exist.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. But something down deep inside her did understand, or was gradually beginning to. She stared at Wendell, at his bloodless face and strange red eyes. And those teeth. Those teeth that seemed to be lengthening, little by little, especially the canines.
“Yes, you do,” said Wendell. “You’ve read enough of those godawful books to know the undead when you see it.”
“Undead?” she said dully. She glanced to the hallway wall, at an oval mirror that hung there. It remained empty as Wendell passed it and continued toward her.
“Don’t you believe me?” he asked with an expression of mock hurt. “Here, let me prove it to you.” He unbuttoned the front of the shirt and pulled it open.
Tammy gasped. There was a large, ugly hole in the very center of her husband’s white chest, surrounded by dozens of smaller ones. The edges of the larger wound were ragged, but bloodless. Within the dark pit of his chest she saw splintered bone and his heart hanging there, sunken and blue. It was as motionless as a stone. Dead. “Now do you understand?” he asked.
Tammy felt as if she were about to faint. “Yes,” she managed to say.
“Come to me, Tammy,” he said, extending hands with nails as sharp as razors. The light in his eyes had grown brighter, and fangs bristled from the corners of his mouth. “Come, and let me bless you with the glory of eternal life. Or, rather, undeath. Let me baptize you and cleanse you. Come and be my wife in this new realm of existence, just as you were in the other.”
Tammy felt the crimson glow pierce her eyes, snaking its way into her brain. She felt her fear begin to abate, felt her nerves begin to calm. But she knew if she surrendered to him, she would be lost. And there would be no coming back.
Stop looking at his eyes! she told herself. Look away! Tammy summoned a strength she never knew she possessed. She fought against the seductive light and tore her gaze from Wendell’s.
“No!” she screamed. She turned and ran down the hallway, toward the staircase at the other end.
She heard her husband laugh behind her. She had never heard such an evil laugh in her entire life. “You cannot escape me, Tammy!” he called out to her. “You don’t have a choice in the matter. You never did, as far as I’m concerned.”
Tammy knew that he was right. He would get his way, sooner or later. But she swore that she wouldn’t make it easy for him. She reached the stairs and ran toward the upper floor, almost stumbling a couple of times. She remembered the Bible lying on the cherrywood table in the upstairs hallway. If she could reach it, maybe she would have a fighting chance.
She was nearing the second floor when she stopped in her tracks. A thick cloud of bluish mist hung at the head of the stairs, so heavy that she couldn’t see through it. An offensive odor curled in her nostrils, a sulfurous stench similar to that of lit matches.
Then the mist parted and she saw Wendell standing there, smiling down at her. “I told you it was needless to run,” he said. “You shall be saved, Tammy… whether it is by your will or my own.”
Panic raced through her as he took one step down the staircase, then another. In a matter of seconds, he would be in front of her. And then she would be lost. He would “baptize” her into the same hell that he was now a part of.
He was only a few feet away when she caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye. It was a picture on the wall; one of several that hung diagonally along the length of the staircase. But this one sparked a glimmer of hope in Tammy’s soul.
It was a framed print of Jesus Christ, nailed to the cross at Calvary.
“Come to me, Tammy,” rasped Wendell. His fangs jutted like ivory spikes.
“No!” she screamed. Then she grabbed the picture from the wall and held it in front of her.
The reaction she received from her husband was the one she had prayed for. Wendell’s eyes widened and the red light winked out like a flame that had been extinguished. His face grew even paler than before as he threw up his arms and cried out. He screamed hoarsely with such force that his voice rattled the glass in every window in the house.
Tammy took a step forward, extending the picture toward the creature that had once been her soulmate.
“Damn you!” he cursed, turning away. Then mist rose around him in a smoky column and his form seemed to withdraw and grow smaller. A second later, a coal-black dove with fiery red eyes burst from the mist. It gave a shrill cry and flew over the top of the picture. Tammy turned and saw it winging its way down the stairway. Soon, it was past the hallway and through the open doorway.
Tammy knew that she had no time to waste. She held on tightly to the painting of the Crucifixion and made it to the top of the stairs. She was aware that the time she had bought was limited. It wouldn’t be long before Wendell’s shock wore off and he came back for her.
She ran down the upstairs hallway. Halfway along the corridor stood the cherrywood table with the big Bible lying at its center. She snatched up the heavy book as she went, then stopped at the end of the hall. Above her head was the trapdoor that led to the attic.
She laid the Bible on the floor beneath the door, then jumped up, trying to reach the pull chain. She missed the first time, her fingers scarcely an inch away. The second try did the trick. Tammy grabbed hold of the chain and gave it a jerk. The door opened and the folding steps came barreling down, almost striking her in the head.
Tammy looked up at the dusty darkness that lay beyond the tiny doorway. It was her only chance and she knew it. She heard something downstairs. It was Wendell, calling to her.
“Tammy,” he cried. “I’m coming for you, sweetheart.”
“The hell you are,” she said beneath her breath. Then she stepped up onto the stairway and hurriedly made her way through the trapdoor, cradling the picture of Jesus snugly beneath her armpit.
When she had reached the attic, she tugged on a strap that was secured to the middle joint of the stairs. They folded inward with a squeal of unoiled hinges. She reached through the gaps in the steps, and grabbing a knob on the inside of the door, pulled it shut.
She thought of turning on the attic light but decided against it. She felt through the darkness until she found a heavy trunk that had belonged to Wendell’s great-grandmother. It took every bit of strength on her part, but she finally wrestled it across the attic floor, pulling it over the entranceway and blocking it completely.
She held her breath when she heard Wendell’s footsteps enter the upstairs hallway. “Tammy!” he said. Then he uttered an angry hiss and a curse. Tammy couldn’t help but smile. He had seen the Bible lying below the trapdoor and had been repelled by its presence. She could hear his footsteps on the staircase, taking him back to the ground floor, followed by the slamming of the front door.
She grabbed the picture of the crucified Christ and crawled toward the gable at the front of the house. Moonlight shone through the circular window, casting a pale glow across the junk that had been crammed into the limited space: stacks of cardboard boxes, a dressmaker’s dummy, a couple of mounted deer heads with cobwebs stretching between the points of their antlers. She reached the window and sat next to it, leaning against a pile of yellowed newspapers.
Tammy breathed deeply, trying to catch her wind. Her heart thundered in her chest so hard that it hurt. After a moment, she wiped away the dust from the inner panes of the circular window and stared out. The front yard of the parsonage was deserted. The only shadows that stretched across its dewy grass were those that belonged there.
She was closing her eyes and leaning back against the newspapers when the window imploded. Shards of glass rained in on her. One of them sliced across her forehead above her right eye, drawing blood. Startled, she opened her eyes and saw Wendell there, two-and-a-half stories above the ground. His face leered in at her with blazing red eyes and snarling fangs. His hand groped through the shattered window, trying to reach her. Its claws brushed her lank brown hair, severing a few strands and sending them fluttering to the dust-covered floor.
“Leave me alone!” she screamed shrilly. She lifted the painting of Jesus on the cross and held it before the window.
The look of triumph vanished from Wendell’s face and he let out a cry of terror. His hand withdrew as if threatened by a flame, and he retreated into the darkness. Tammy heard the sound of a bird’s wings fading into the night, then silence.
She wedged the picture tightly into the circular window frame, shutting out the cool air and blocking any further attacks from Wendell. Then she sat back, all the strength gone from her thin body. She felt on the verge of tears, but for some reason, they refused to come. She suddenly realized what had taken place, realized what her husband had become and what he had come there to do that night. She had encountered the same scene dozens of times within the pages of her books, as well as the horror movies she watched on the sly from time to time. But that had been in her imagination. This was for real. She had actually lived the horror this time.
Suddenly, Tammy Craven couldn’t accept the fact that it had been for real. Her mind began to reject the horrible images of the holes in Wendell’s chest and the fiendish visage his face had become. She began to tremble, then shake violently. A low moan shuddered from out of her throat, and slowly she curled into a fetal position on the dusty floor of the attic.
She felt her fear receding, like a pinpoint, becoming smaller and smaller. As, unfortunately, did the rest of her mind. Her trembling subsided as her thoughts withdrew into some secret place inside her. Soon, she was lost in blissful oblivion, devoid of emotion or sensation. There was only the comforting darkness.
Chapter Twenty
Dud Craven pulled his truck off Maple Creek Road and into the drive next to the rusty rental trailer. He parked behind Boyd Andrews’s Ford half-ton and cut the engine. From where he sat, he could see the workshop out back. The garage door stood open.
The farmer’s heart sank. He could see Boyd at work. The carpenter still hadn’t finished the coffin. He was in the process of nailing the sides to the base at that moment, gently tapping the nails in place, then driving them in the rest of the way with a claw hammer.
Dud shook his head and left the truck. When he reached the workshop, Boyd was examining his work. He ran his fingers
over the heads of the nails, then evened out those that still protruded a little.
“Hey there, Boyd,” said Dud, standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets.
Boyd turned and nodded. “Dud,” he simply said, then walked around to start on the opposite side.
“I was hoping maybe you’d have it done by today,” the farmer said, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.
“Well, it ain’t,” snapped Boyd. “You can tell by looking, can’t you?”
Dud studied the carpenter for a minute. It looked as though Boyd had seen better days. His red hair was oily and uncombed, and his face had a gauntness to it that Dud attributed to worry or fear. Boyd’s eyes were bloodshot and hollow-looking, and dark half-circles lay just below them. He looked like a man who hadn’t gotten a lick of sleep the night before. He also smelled like a man who hadn’t taken a shower that morning, either out of forgetfulness or apathy. Dud figured it to be the latter.
“So,” he said. “When will you have it finished?”
Boyd looked at him, eyes belligerent. “Why? You figuring on kicking the bucket right away?”
Dud said nothing in reply. As he came closer, he could smell a sour stench that wasn’t sweat. He recognized it as the odor of moonshine liquor. He glanced over at the workbench and saw a bell jar sitting next to the shop vise. It only had an inch of clear corn whiskey left in the bottom.
Boyd hammered a couple more nails in, then tossed his hammer onto the concrete floor with a curse. When he looked back at Dud, there was regret in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Dud,” he grumbled. “That was a right shitty thing for me to say.”
Dud shrugged his shoulders. “No offense taken.” He watched as Boyd walked to the workbench and drank the rest of the white lightning. “You look like a man with troubles.”