“You’re talking the mistakes of humans, not Jesus,” Tim said. “Humans are fallible.”
“Precisely,” Horace said.
A book slid off a stack over to Horace’s left. It cracked the floor like a gunshot.
Tim jumped and looked at the book.
“Don’t worry,” Horace said. “That’s just Anthony. He gets upset sometimes when I talk about God.”
Tim looked around. “Uh, Professor, there’s no one here.”
“Just because you can’t see Anthony doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist,” Horace said. “You can’t see the air, can you? And yet, there it is.”
Tim shook his head. Another book slipped off the stack and popped like a firecracker when it hit. Tim jumped.
“Relax, Tim,” Horace said. “Anthony is just a ghost. He won’t harm you.”
“A ghost?” Tim said. He looked at Horace as if the professor had lost his mind.
“Yes. Anthony was a student here forty years ago,” Horace said. He glanced over where Anthony sat and smiled at the ghost. “Quite bright, actually. He learned something through his studies about the nature of the universe and, despairing, committed suicide.”
“What?”
“Anthony knows there’s no God,” Horace said. “So he gets a little angry sometimes when the name comes up.”
Tim backed towards the door, his hand reaching behind him and clutching the doorknob to steady his trembling, skinny legs.
“Okay, well, then,” Tim said. “I’ll be going.”
Anthony shoved another book off the stack. It flew across the room and smacked the floor in front of Tim. He jumped and ran from the room. Anthony, a shimmering mist in Horace’s vision, turned and laughed in a voice that only Horace heard.
“You shouldn’t be so mean, Anthony,” he said, smiling.
Anthony shot three more books off the stack, slamming them to the floor. Horace stared at him, curious.
“What is it?” Horace said.
Two more books flew off the stack. Anthony hovered over the remaining book. He blinked at Horace and pointed at the tome and floated back and away. Horace watched Anthony, intrigued. He’d never acted like this before. The problem was, he had a hard time communicating with Anthony. He wished Jacob was here now. Jacob could talk to ghosts and he would let Horace know immediately what was going on.
Jacob Sterns. Now there was a name he hadn’t thought of in a while. He never really got along with Jacob, but there was grudging respect between the men. He’d worked with Jacob once when he was called to investigate a haunting at a mutual friend’s estate. Jacob fancied himself a “Man of God,” entrusted by the Lord to do His bidding on this Earth, so of course they butted heads immediately. But as the inquiry reached it’s conclusion, they found much common ground. For a while, Jacob used to come by and they’d get the occasional lunch together. He would never forget the first time Jacob met Anthony, greeting the specter with a grin and a pleasant hello.
It had been a long time since he’d seen Jacob and he wondered how the wandering prophet was doing.
He shook his head clear and picked up the book left alone on the floor.
“Ancient Myths and Demonology,” it read. Horace remembered grabbing it in a used bookstore over five years ago. He put it on a stack of books to read and promptly gotten lost in the shuffle. He looked over at Anthony.
“What is it?” he asked
Anthony said nothing. He never spoke, at least not to him. He was composed of nearly transparent mists that swirled and took on a vaguely human shape. Only at certain times did he become very distinct, and this was one of those times.
Anthony pointed a ghostly finger at the book and Horace opened it, rifling through the pages slowly, waiting for a response from the spirit. When he reached a chapter called “The Men of Perdition,” Anthony held his hand up to signal him to stop.
“Is this it?” Horace asked. Anthony nodded.
Horace read the chapter, fascinated by what he found. It took him two hours to pour through the contents because, after reading them once, he did so again, this time underlining important passages.
He was so thoroughly caught up in his work that he did not notice the afternoon go by and the day descend into evening. At long last, his eyes blurred and his mind dull, he sighed and looked away from the book. He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. He looked out his window and saw it was pitch black outside, with only the streetlamps lighting the campus, throwing little pools of illumination between large patches of darkness.
Horace looked around. Anthony was gone. He wondered what was so important about this particular chapter. Was there some kind of warning here, something Horace should heed? It was obviously very important or Anthony would not have been so insistent. If so, then where was he now?
His eyes froze when they saw the chalkboard across from him. All the Aramaic script he’d written, the script that woke him in the middle of the night to torment him, was erased. In its place, in large letters written as if by the hand of a small child or by someone with nerve damage, were two words: “Constance,” and “Kentucky.”
Was this a message from Anthony? There was no way to know because Anthony was nowhere to be found. He opened the book and wrote down the two words above the chapter heading for the section on “The Men of Perdition,” to remind himself when he came in tomorrow to see what it all meant. For now, he was tired, and a frozen pizza was calling his name.
Horace rocked to his feet, his knees popping, and put on his coat. He locked his office behind him, and walked through the deserted hallways. There was no one here at this time of night, not on Tuesdays, at least. No night classes and all the professors had gone home. Horace checked his watch. It was past eight. He walked down the stairs and exited the building, the doors locking shut behind him.
It was bitterly cold outside, which was quite odd, considering it was still summertime. He glanced around. The entire area was quiet and empty. A chill ran down his spine.
A woman cried suddenly, whimpering in pain.
His head jerked right and left, but he saw nobody. Unnerved, Horace waited a few seconds and started to walk again. Another cry broke through the silence. He looked around, uneasiness creeping across his skin like a thousand invisible ants.
The front of Cherry Hall, the building that housed the English, Religion, and History departments, was a pavilion made up of a long stretch of sparkling concrete, two rows of benches along the edges of the walkway, two lines of trees along the outsides of the walkway, and a statue of Henry Hardin Cherry, esteemed educator. His statue stood at the top of a series of steps that led to Cherry Hall and overlooked the downtown area of Bowling Green, which lay in a small valley below. Nothing moved in the pavilion, not even the smallest breeze.
He heard the whimper again.
Horace looked around and finally his eyes caught sight of a woman, dressed in all white, sitting hunched over at the far end of one of the bench rows. The woman moaned and threw her head back. She wailed at the empty air around her.
He trotted over. He wasn’t sure what he should do, but she was in obvious pain, and despite his instinctual misgivings, he knew he needed to offer his help. He screeched to a halt just short of her, however, when he got a good look at just who was sitting on the bench, crying.
She wore a white dress patterned with intricate lace and soft silk that ran the length of her body. She had a white veil pulled down over her face so her features were hidden, reduced to a vague outline. Black hair cascaded and spilled over her shoulders, long, curling locks dancing with every heave of her shoulders and every shudder of her chest.
The woman was familiar but Horace couldn’t quite place it. There was something unnatural about her, something unearthly, and it called to him in a way that a spirit like Anthony, who seemed very much bound to this world, did not. It was the timber of her voice, the sing-song quality of her weeping, and her physical presence. She was seductive, stirring a lust inside the deepest par
ts of his being. He wanted to help her, no, he needed to help her.
“Are you okay?” Horace said. His voice squeaked, garbling his words. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Is there anything I can do?”
The woman kept crying, her hair jostling on her shoulders and her sides expanding and contracting as she whimpered. She held her back to him.
He looked around. There was nobody near and even more strange, there was no activity around them. No crickets or birds, the wind did not stir, and the air around them was as still as air sealed into a coffin. He shivered and looked back down at the lady.
She hadn’t stopped crying, her thin and fragile arms holding her face as her body shuddered. It was killing Horace.
“Please,” he said. “If I can do anything, anything at all.”
Her crying stopped for a second. “Have you seen my children?” she said.
A cold wind blew through him. His teeth chattered as unease and dread settled deep into his bones. All at once, he knew who she was or, more precisely, what she was. This was La Llarona, the Weeping Lady. She was one of the Men of Perdition.
“Have you seen my children?” she said again.
Horace backed away from her, his brain going numb. How could this be? How could he have just read about her and then here she was?
The Weeping Lady turned to Horace, her china-white hands falling from her face as her long fingers slipped over the veil like spiders weaving a web.
He had to move, he had to get out of there. If she lifted the veil, if he saw what was under it, if he gazed up on her true face…
He shook his head and took another step back. His body wasn’t listening; it moved as if he’d been plopped into a giant jar of peanut butter. His limbs were sluggish and heavy and although he tried to raise his legs to turn, to run, to get away, he couldn’t. He was much too tired now, and as the Lady kept weeping, Horace could feel more and more of his strength seep from him.
The Weeping Lady stood.
“Have you seen my children?” she said.
She glided over the ground, the bottom of her dress whispering across the concrete. He could not move, as desperately as he tried to. He was held fast by her presence, trapped like a mouse.
She floated to him, a surreal ghost, until they were face to face. Horace still could not see beyond her veil and didn’t want to, but even as he tried to turn his neck, to twist his gaze away from her, his muscles cramped and froze.
“Have you seen my children?” she said.
“No,” Horace answered.
The Weeping Lady reached out with her right hand and her fingers, icy to the touch, slid along Horace’s left cheek, caressing it. Her other hand came up and she cupped his face in both her hands.
“Have you seen my children?” she said.
Her breath kissed his lips and delighted his nose. She smelled like crushed roses, wet and fragrant. He tried to blink but now even his eyelids were frozen.
Her fingers probed his face, stroking every crevasse, touching every dimple. Despite her coldness, her tender touch aroused Horace and he grew hard between his legs.
The Weeping Lady slid her right hand from his face and down his body, over his plump belly, and wrapped her fingers around his pulsing manhood. He shuddered at her touch, the chill from her hand sizzling against the warmth of his body.
“Have you seen my children?” she said.
Horace couldn’t respond, breathless from his encounter.
She let go of him and reached up with both her hands and played with the bottom of her veil.
“Have you seen my children?” she said.
He couldn’t speak. He was paralyzed, unable to move.
The Weeping Lady lifted her veil.
Horace tried to scream but nothing came out. He stared at her face as he felt his eyeballs split open and spit out a thick, hot mucous. He saw something wiggle inside the gunk coming from his eyes, small maggots that writhed and burrowed, sliding down his cheeks. They bit and tore his flesh and Horace couldn’t do anything to help himself, not even scream, because he still couldn’t move.
He could see, though, God help him. He didn’t know why, but even though his eyeballs ruptured and tore in two, the images went to his brain, the messages fragmented like a broken mirror, but he could still comprehend what he was looking at.
Her face was horrible, the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen. There was no way to describe it except if a person could taste the color black with the tip of their tongue, that’s what seeing her face did to his eyes. She was a living, breathing malignancy, vile and corrupt to the core. But the worst part was not her face, but her eyes. They were blacker than the darkness, and in them dwelt the madness of deep space, an ancient insanity full of unnamable terrors.
Horace could not put into words what she looked like because the enormity of it was too terrible, too horrific, and there were no words in the human language that could adequately explain it.
The maggots slithered down his face and dug their way up his nose and through his sinuses, chewing and crawling, tearing and ripping until they made their way into his brain. There they feasted, and he could feel every single bite as they pushed deeper into his skull.
Horace wet himself. He fell to his knees as his body spasmed, convulsing from the consumption of his brain.
“Have you seen my children?” the Weeping Lady said as she floated back and away.
He pitched forward, his face slamming into the concrete walk and his head exploding maggots, blood, and bits of brain and bone. They gushed out, sloshing across the ground and foaming at the feet of the Weeping Lady.
She hovered for a moment, staring at the worms as they wriggled in the remains of his brains, gorging themselves. Then she turned and floated away, disappearing down the hill.
Standing in a window on the third floor of Cherry Hall, the spirit of Anthony watched as Horace died. He stood, shimmering and glowing, until the Weeping Lady was gone and then he, too, faded away, tears on his face.
IV
Nashville, Tennessee
Teresa Goins was having a rough day. It all started with the washing machine breaking down. Three days worth of laundry, all her and Paul’s dirty clothes. She had to bundle the stack and take it to one of those coin-operated places closer to the city. She didn’t like going to the city. There was a reason she’d made Paul move out to the suburbs, and it was for the feeling of safety and distance from the city. But there were no Laundromats out here, so she didn’t have much choice.
So she drove to the laundry only to find all the machines being used. She sat and waited for a machine to free up and when it did, she put one load in. She had to wait for another machine to do her second load and finally, after both of those were done and in the dryers, she put in the third and last load. She chewed her fingernails, irritated. When she wasn’t gnawing at her fingertips, she ran her hands through her thick, black hair. She was only twenty-five but felt more like fifty, and the wrinkles on her knuckles that matched her Crow’s Feet were a constant source of anxiety. Add her growing ass and she lived in constant fear of Paul leaving her for somebody new.
It was getting near eleven o’clock in the morning when she finished the laundry. She was going to be late for her appointment at the doctor’s office. It wasn’t anything important, really, just a follow up on some blood work she’d had done. But she needed to get it over with and get to the grocery.
Pulling out of the parking lot of the laundry, she got a flat. Cursing, she changed the tire. When she finished, she checked the time to find out she missed her appointment. She called the doctor but got the answering machine. She left a message and hung up.
Teresa decided to stop at the local Arby’s and grab a roast beef sandwich and fries for lunch. As a rule, she ate pretty healthy, including lots of vegetables and fruits in her diet, but occasionally she got the craving for fast food, and when she did, Arby’s was where she went. She got her order and drove home, only to discover they’d
forgotten her fries. She cursed the morons and slapped her forehead. She’d totally forgotten to go to the grocery. She spat a few curses at herself as she got out of her car to unload the laundry when she discovered that, of course, she’d locked her keys inside the car.
She sighed and took a step back and counted to twenty. That wasn’t enough, so she took another step back and counted to one hundred. Some of the anger left her, enough so she remembered they had a spare set of keys in the house. She fetched them, came out and brought the laundry inside, and sat at the kitchen table alone, eating her roast beef sandwich with no fries.
She gave up on the grocery store. No way she was going back out there, not after this terrible morning. She instead puttered around the house a little, vacuuming, washing the dishes, and cleaning the bathroom. She wasn’t strictly a housewife but it was the only job that truly made her happy.
Once she finished, she decided to lay down a while. Her back was hurting and she was more tired than she had any right to be. She chalked it up to the rotten morning and decided to let her eyes get some rest. She opened the windows so a good breeze could blow through. She liked to sleep to a lazy wind and smiled as she curled up in bed. For the longest time, she didn’t move, not thinking or feeling anything, letting her thoughts drift on the drowsy draft sliding in and out the windows. She snoozed for a bit, not really sleeping fully, but hovering on the brink.
A funny smell drifted across her nose. Teresa reached up and scratched around the edge of her nostril. Her arm tired and heavy.
Something hissed by the window next to her head. She paid it no mind. Her arm slid down from her face and across her chest, wooden and numb. It flopped by her side and she lay on her back, unmoving.
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