“The body,” Vince said.
“You got it,” Frank said, almost deadpan. “They didn’t find a body. I had no idea until later that that’s why they came to the house. How my stepfather managed to get rid of it before the cops showed up, I still don’t know, but—”
“Wait,” Vince broke in. “How could you even be certain there was a body in the basement. Maybe this Larry kid was just…scared and out of his mind with what he saw happen to you.”
“That’s what I always used to think,” Frank said. “Until just lately.”
A slight shiver coursed down Vince’s spine.
Frank continued his narrative. “They didn’t find a body, but they did find evidence of physical abuse against me. They took me out of the house and placed my folks under arrest. I was in and out of foster homes for three or four years. When my folks got out of jail, they sent me to El Paso, Texas, to live with my paternal aunt and uncle and their kids. I didn’t know them very well at the time, since I rarely saw my dad’s side of the family. In fact, I barely remember my real dad. It’s only been recently that I’ve learned more about him.”
Vince’s heart was thudding. Could it be that their fathers were the same men? “What about your father?”
“Long story,” Frank said, dismissing it with a wave of one leather gloved hand. “I’ll get to that in due time. The basic story I got was that my father left my mom when I was three. That’s all I knew. It’s only been within the last year that I’ve discovered that my father didn’t leave so much as that he was…driven away. I’m…still doing some research on this, and don’t want to go too much into it now, if that’s okay.” He cocked a glance at Vince.
Vince shrugged. “Fine.”
“Okay.” Frank sighed and continued. “I went to live with my dad’s sister and her husband and my cousins, and I eventually left for Hollywood when I was sixteen. I wanted to be a musician, and I was in a band that came out here to try to make it in the music industry. To make a long story short, I lived on the streets for a while, sold drugs, became an alcoholic and a heroin addict, spent time in jail—the whole nine yards. I used people and people used me. I’m not proud of it.” He paused briefly, as if those memories of his past life were causing pain. “I lived in New York City for awhile and later moved to New Jersey. When I got clean, I came back out here. I’ve always had a knack for telling stories and writing, and I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember, probably as a psychological method of escaping what I was going through. Makes sense, now that I think about it. Most of my stuff is fantasy and science fiction. Anyway, I started selling stories professionally when I was nineteen, and was already building a pretty reputable name for myself as a science fiction writer when I blew it with my addiction. I managed to get it all back, and now I’m doing pretty good. I’ve got a short story collection coming out this summer, and the third installment of a trilogy due out next winter. I’ve just started a new novel, and a screenplay I wrote has been optioned. I’m married to a beautiful successful woman who I adore above all of God’s creations. I have a three-year old son and a baby daughter. Things are going better for me now than I can ever ask for. And I wonder why I would want to jeopardize all that by…finding you and going through with all this.”
His voice became brittle, verging on that cracking edge of anger and despair. He turned away from Vince and rested his arms against the steering wheel. His breathing became heavier. “All this….stuff just started emerging during therapy over the past six months. I haven’t seen or spoken to my mother or stepfather in almost twenty years, and I remember the names and faces of my childhood with such clarity that it’s almost as if I can step back into that world and relive the horror I thought I’d escaped. It’s pretty surprising considering the amount of dope I shot up to deaden those images.” He paused, his face quivering as he looked out the windshield. “Goddamn,” he muttered, tears pooling in his eyes. He slammed his fist down on the dashboard. “Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn!”
Each “goddamn” was punctuated with a pounding of his fist on the dashboard. He lowered his head to the steering wheel, his long black hair draped over his heavily tattooed arms and shoulders, struggling to compose himself. Vince felt leaden, as if he was a spectator in a film he’d been cast in that he hadn’t rehearsed for. He felt awkward sitting in this car while the owner, who looked like he could snap the vehicle in two with his bare hands, struggled to keep from weeping. Vince sat still while Frank reined his tears in, trying to not seem so conspicuous.
When Frank was finished he wiped his eyes with the back of his gloved hands and smoothed his hair back. He turned to Vince. “I’m sorry. It’s just that…thinking about this…remembering the hell I went through…what it made me, just…” He let it drift into an incomplete sentence, as if he didn’t know how to finish.
Vince nodded, uncomfortable. “It’s all right. I’ve been going through my own personal hell as well. But I guess you already know about that.”
“Yeah,” Frank said, looking out at the park again, then back at Vince. “I do.” His deep brown eyes held secrets that wanted to spill forth.
Vince was going to try asking Frank what he knew about his mother and Laura’s death, what he knew about the attempt on his own life, when the bigger man began again. “Do you have dreams about being in a dark room and candles are burning all over the place? And there’s a strange humming sound and black hooded figures move closer to you? And they’re chanting?”
Vince’s stomach turned over in his stomach, as if dropped down an elevator. The chanting dream! “How do you know about that?” he breathed.
“I have them, too.”
Vince looked surprised. “You? Wh…why?”
“I was there with you, Vince. That’s why I remember a little bit more of it than you. We were both there. Along with Nellie, and some of the other kids we used to play with. They stopped bringing us to them when I was five or six, but they continued the ceremonies themselves.”
“Ceremonies? I don’t understand—”
“Our parents were involved, Vince. Mine. Yours. A group of twenty or more people. Samuel Garrison was their leader. I even remember the sacrifices.”
A bolt of memory flashed through his mind. “Sacrifices?”
“Yes. I know it’s hard to believe, but—”
“Your parents were devil worshippers?”
“Not just my parents, Vince. Yours, too.”
THIS SUDDEN REVELATION drained Vince. He needed a drink.
Frank suggested they get out and wander over to the recreation center. There would be soft drink vending machines there. They walked across the park to the recreation center, not speaking, both lost in their own thoughts. Vince bought a Coke, Frank a Dr. Pepper, and they walked back to the car, the summer sun beating down over them as they made their way back to the vehicle. The shouting laughs of playing took Vince back to the summer he remembered spending in California that was clearest in his memory. Seven years old and playing outside with the neighborhood kids, delighting in afternoon games of hide-and-seek, playing Dinosaurs, watching cartoons. Mom and Dad working, spending his days with Nellie and her folks, chasing after the ice cream man in his carnival-music-sounding truck as it drove slowly down the street as sprinklers showered summer lawns with cool water to run and play in. It was a magical time that seemed to last forever.
When they got back to the car, they climbed back in and sat in the stillness for a moment, savoring their soft drinks. Vince broke the silence. “It’s just so…hard to believe.”
“I know,” Frank said, sipping his Dr. Pepper. He turned to Vince. “And I’m sorry you had to find out about this. Especially after your mother died.”
“Are you sure my mother was involved?” Vince turned to Frank, imploring him to tell the truth. Don’t lie. He hadn’t had a lot of respect for his mother in the last ten years of her life, and he could accept anything about her regardless of how hideous. But this? Devil worship? It was beyond him. She’d
been so…fundamentally Christian.
But then maybe that explained it.
Frank nodded. “I thought the memories were planted by the therapist I was seeing. I thought they were the result of my drug use. I didn’t know what to believe. But the more I thought about it, the more it began to make sense in a sick sort of way. I started thinking back on what I could remember that’d happened to me and place them with what I knew. It wasn’t until I started doing my own research into the occult that I found out a lot more. A whole lot more.”
“Like what?”
“So much that you can’t even imagine,” Frank began.
“My mother was killed by a devil cult I think,” Vince broke in, the words just tumbling out as everything began to come together. “The local detectives just think it’s some twisted kid or something, but… hearing all of this really ties it all in.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Frank said. “When I heard about your mother, I knew they’d tracked her down. And that’s why I had to get to you before they did.”
“But who are they?” Vince admonished. “I still don’t understand all that’s happening.”
“Okay, first things first.” Frank took a sip of Dr. Pepper, put the can in a holder between the bucket seats. “You need to know some background, how I came to find you and know about all this stuff. Okay?”
Vince nodded; he wanted to ask Frank why this cult would want him dead, but he remained silent. He took a sip of Coke, sat back and waited for Frank to begin.
“When I began my research into the occult, it was because of the repressed memories and dreams I was having that were coming out during therapy. At first I thought it was bullshit. The dreams actually first started coming sporadically about three years before I went into therapy. I wrote a novel loosely based on them called Darkness Inside. I thought I was purging the dreams when I wrote that novel. The dreams became a flood when the book was published, and that’s when I sought therapy. I thought I had another idea for a book—in fact, I’ve written several things based on these dreams, but we don’t need to go there. What you need to know is what I found in my research.”
He took another sip of Dr. Pepper and continued. “When I started doing my research I realized that there were many different kinds of satanic cults. There’s the usual group of stoned teenagers who have maybe listened to a little too much Danzig or Marilyn Manson, smoked too much dope and think Satan is cool and form an informal coven out of a sense of camaraderie. Most of the time these groups are harmless. Sometimes they cross the line into vandalism and other petty crimes. Sometimes they cross the line further and sacrifice neighborhood pets. Very rarely do they cross that line into killing people. Most often they’ll do blood ceremonies where they prick their fingers, squeeze blood into a chalice and drink it as their benediction. For the most part, these groups are very unorganized. Their theology is largely made up as they go along, but they usually find inspiration in black metal bands, horror movies, and a snippet from The Satanic Bible. In short, they’re usually formed out of rebellion.”
“The Satanic Bible?” Vince was amazed. “You mean one actually exists?”
“That’s where the second group of Satanists comes in,” Frank said. “That would be the ‘legitimate’ satanic groups.” He emphasized the word legitimate by moving his fingers in the air: Quote, unquote. “I call these groups legitimate because they have taken the pains to register their organizations as institutional religions, and have even gone so far as to advertise themselves in local phone books. Groups like the Church of Satan, the Temple of Set. Both of these groups revolve around the basic belief structure of The Satanic Bible, which was written in the late sixties by Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey. LaVey passed away almost two years ago and the reins have now been handed down to his companion, Blanche Barton and his oldest daughter, Karla. The group itself is basically atheist. They don’t even believe in the Devil, much less God. They use Satan as a symbol of man’s carnal, natural instincts and behavior, and encourage this through ritual designed to appeal to man’s basic Jungian need for religious ritual. To the LaVeyan Satanist, you,” he pointed at Vince, “are your highest God, thus if you are a LaVeyan Satanist you worship yourself.”
Vince was soaking this in. “Wow! I’ve never heard of this.”
Frank managed a small grin. “Satanism in this context is somewhat misleading. In actuality, it is a philosophy of Jungian ritual and social Darwinism that seeks to appeal to man’s basic’s instincts. LaVey was very heavily influenced by a German philosopher named Frederick Neitchze and utilized his concepts and philosophies when formulating his church’s beliefs. While LaVeyan Satanists use the traditional trappings of the occult like the Baphomet symbol and invoke Satan and various demons in their rituals, these are only used symbolically. Despite what born-again Christians may think, LaVeyan Satanists are harmless. They don’t believe in killing innocent people, or animals or children, nor do they engage in the type of behavior that your average born-again might like you to believe. In fact, they explicitly disapprove of such behavior. They’re very law-abiding people.”
He continued, holding up three fingers. “Then, there is the third kind of Satanist, the kind that most of our current myths of devil cults are based on. The more traditional form of Satanism, I guess you could say. Traditional in that unlike the legitimate Satanists, these groups, or group in this case, really believes in the Christian Devil and God, and they worship him the way Catholics pay homage to Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Unlike the LaVeyan Satanists, they whole-heartedly believe in blood sacrifice and they practice it. They are hold-overs from the old European devil cults of the Middle Ages and their sole purpose in life is the total destruction of not only Christianity, but man in general. It has been suggested by various groups that this group is largely imaginary, that it has been fostered for years by the Christian church and doesn’t exist, except in the minds of those who wish to believe in them.”
He paused for a moment, his eyes riveted on Vince. “To a certain extent, the skeptics are right. Fundamentalist Christians who specialize in writing about the occult from a Christian standpoint claim Satanists kill 50,000 people a year in ritual killings. That’s twice the number of the average homicide rate. They also claim they’re responsible for the majority of missing person’s cases and the list goes on. Most of what they say about Satanism is pure bullshit.” He leveled his gaze down, took a sip of Dr Pepper. “But unfortunately, a group like this does exist. They aren’t responsible for 50,000 murders a year. And they aren’t involved in the majority of kidnappings and child molestations that occur, either. They don’t run all the day care centers in America and rape our children. But they do exist, they can—and do—kill, and they are so powerful you wouldn’t believe it. It is this last group that our folks were involved with. A group that has been gaining strength since the late sixties and is now established all over the country and in many parts of the world. They worship not only Satan, but a god that is even older than Satan, a god that was worshipped when man was just a primitive ape with no language skills. This god is almost unknown to everybody but an elite sect of devil worshippers and these people are very secretive, very real, and very dangerous.”
All of this was coming at Vince so fast that it was hard to process, much less believe. He took another sip of Coke, his mind racing with a thousand questions. “I just have one question. If you found out my mother was killed and you feel she was killed by…one of them…how can you be so sure they don’t know about me yet?”
“I made extra sure of that, trust me,” Frank said, sipping his Dr. Pepper and looking out at the park beyond.
“Are you sure? Because…if you’re sure they don’t know about me, then who was the guy that tried to kill me yesterday at John Wayne Airport?”
“What’s that?” Frank raised his eyebrows, interested.
Vince told Frank a simplified version of what happened at John Wayne Airport. Frank reacted visibly; he actually went pale. �
�Fuck,” he said, one gloved hand rubbing his mouth. “You’ve got to be kidding. And the cops say they’ve got somebody in custody?”
Vince nodded. “Yeah. One of the detectives I’ve been working with is supposed to call me this afternoon with more info.”
“This changes everything, then.” Frank glanced in the mirrors, once again making Vince paranoid as well. “I’m gonna have to tell Mike about this.”
“Who’s Mike?”
“A friend of my father’s. He and I have been working on this for the past six months or so. He’s the one that did the extra surveillance on you and determined they hadn’t gotten to you yet. Obviously, they have. Shit!”
Frank’s mood had darkened considerably since this bit of news, and Vince sought to steer his mind back to the task at hand; he needed to know everything Frank knew. “Tell me about Mike.”
Frank continued looking out the windows and into his rear and side view mirrors. “He contacted me over a year ago. He’d been researching my father’s disappearance. You see, my mother originally left my father when I was about three years old. She just packed me up and moved to San Francisco and she took me with her. From what I’ve been able to gather, she wasn’t a member of the cult yet, but she was exposed to them in the Bay Area. My dad tracked us down and things get kind of fuzzy there.” He turned back to Vince. “He essentially disappeared for two years. He turned up later in El Paso. He was…all fucked up. Severe mental problems. My aunt Diane and Uncle Charlie tried to help him out, but he took off again a year or so later and nobody’s seen him since. Anyway, a few years ago, my dad’s best friend from when he was a kid, Mike Peterson, decides to do some of his own detective work. And he found out more than he cared to know. He was the one that initially found out the basic information on the cult. He tracked me down and asked if I wanted to help him. At first I didn’t, but by then I was having the dreams. So I agreed. It was through my memories that you and your mother came into the picture. I didn’t remember your names but therapy helped that, and even now I’m surprised I was still able to find you the way I did.”
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