Before I Wake

by Robert J. Wiersema

  I could hear the faint sound of whistling from down the block, then a dark figure walked up the middle of the street and stopped in front of the driveway gate, just outside the pool of light thrown by the streetlamp.

  Was he one of the protestors? I couldn’t tell. He seemed—

  I realized suddenly that he was watching me.

  His voice cut through the still air so loudly that I was amazed that lights didn’t start turning on in all of the houses on the block, that the protestors didn’t hear. “Aren’t you cold, my boy?”

  “Tim?” I whispered, hurrying toward him. “What are you doing here?”

  It wasn’t until I saw that he was bundled up in a winter coat with scarf and gloves that I noticed the cold.

  “Freezing my ass off,” he answered, rubbing his gloves together. “And you, out here in your shirtsleeves.” He shook his head, then burst out laughing. “I was just about to tell you that you should be careful or you’ll catch your death.”

  I didn’t find the joke so funny. “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought I would see where you were going every night. I thought it might be here.”

  “I just—”

  “Henry,” he said, cutting me off. “I’ve got something important to tell you.” The humor had left his eyes. “Here, step into the light.” Pulling off a glove, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. There was an address on it, written in spidery black ink. Downtown. Not too far away from the library.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “It’s a church. An old church where your friend Father Peter holds meetings every night.”

  I flinched, and glanced over at the protestors. “You want me to go to a meeting with Father Peter? Why would I do that?”

  “For the same reason that you spend every night here, watching over this family.” He took a deep breath, his face tight with concern. “You know you have a role in this.”

  “But I don’t want to have anything to do with—”

  “I know.”

  “What’s he got to do with the Barretts anyway? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “You can’t imagine the terrible things he’s done, Henry.” He shook his head and laid one hand on my shoulder, squeezing. “His actions can’t be traced back to him directly, but when things do happen, he’s usually around. He’s been spotted in the backgrounds of photographs, or people mention seeing him days or hours before…I’ve seen what he’s done. I think you need to go to one of his meetings,” he said.

  “Why?”

  He sighed. “Because it is always better to know one’s enemy than to simply hope he’ll go away.”

  “Then why don’t you go?”

  “This isn’t about me, Henry,” he answered.

  No, it was about me. And the Barretts. Sherry.

  “What’s he going to do to them?”

  He gestured toward the note in my hand. “I don’t know.”

  “So I’m…” My voice trailed off as the full realization hit me. “I have to stop it, don’t I? That’s why I’m here. Whatever it is he’s planning to do, I have to stop it.”

  “You don’t have to do anything, Henry,” Tim said. “If you want to, you can just walk away from all this. But if you were going to do that, you wouldn’t be out here in the cold every night, would you? Here,” he added, undoing and pulling off his coat. “You hang on to this.” He held the coat out to me.

  I realized how cold I had been as I slipped into it, his warmth surrounding me. “Aren’t you going to be cold?”

  “I’m keeping the gloves.” He smiled. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll just steal another from the lost and found. You need it more than I do.”

  My cold fingers fumbled with the buttons, but once it was done up, the coat felt like armor.

  MARY

  When I opened my apartment door, it took me a moment to accept that Simon was really there, standing in the hallway. It had only been ten days, but it felt like a lifetime.

  “Hey,” I said, holding the doorknob tightly.

  He shifted from foot to foot. “I guess this is a bit of a surprise.”

  “A bit.”

  Part of me wanted to slam the door. Another part wanted to invite him in—to erase the time and the distance between us.

  I was afraid he was going to say that he wanted to come back, that leaving had been a mistake. I was afraid he was going to say that it was over, that he was happy with Karen. I was afraid of how I would respond to whatever he said.

  I so wanted to close the door.

  “I tried you at the office, and they said you were no longer with them.”

  I nodded.

  “Did they fire you? Was it because of us, or Sherry, or—”

  “I left.” Stepping back, I allowed the door to swing open. “Why don’t you…?”

  He nodded and stepped inside.

  It was strange to have him in the apartment again. “What’s done is done. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You worked so hard,” he continued, as if he hadn’t heard me.

  “I didn’t want to be there after what they did to you,” I blurted. “I know how stupid that sounds. I tried to give two weeks’ notice the day after they fired you and they told me to leave, immediately. Paid out my two weeks.”

  I pre-empted the lecture I knew was coming. “I know it was stupid. I know that I’ve thrown away, well, maybe my whole career. But I’m happier now. I’m going to be doing work that matters.”

  “You’ve got a new job already?”

  “After the holidays I’ll be starting with Legal Aid. My friend Brian from school hooked me up.”

  “That’s a good direction for you.”

  “No lecture about being naïve and idealistic?”

  “I don’t think you’re naïve. And I’m starting to think that maybe idealism isn’t such a bad thing.”

  “I think it’s the right thing for me right now.”

  “I’m glad,” he said. “I’m glad it’s working out for you.”

  He looked down at the carpet.

  “I wanted to say I’m sorry,” he said, without meeting my eye. “It wasn’t fair, what I did to you. Drawing you into all of this, then leaving you up in the air.”

  I touched the back of his hand, and he looked up. “I’m a big girl, Simon. I went into this with my eyes open. You don’t get involved with a married man assuming that it’s all going to work out perfectly. I never thought we’d be permanent. I never thought that you’d leave Karen. Or Sherry.” I smiled a little, and then simply asked, “Are you back with Karen?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve been at the house helping, but I’m staying at the Balmoral. It’s all still up in the air.”

  “But you want to be.”

  “I’m trying.”

  I thought I’d feel devastated to hear him say that. Instead, I felt relieved.

  For a long time he stared out the window over my left shoulder as I chased words round my head, trying to figure out how to say everything that I needed to say.

  “I should go,” he finally said.

  I nodded, unable to muster anything else. I was happy for him, and I was happy for myself, happy that this, at last, had turned out right. But I still felt on the verge of crying as his hand closed around the doorknob.

  “Simon.”

  He turned to face me, his hand still on the knob.

  I wanted to go to him, to feel myself against him this one last time, smell him, taste the salt of him.

  Instead, I whispered, “I hope you work it out. I hope you’ll be happy.”

  He smiled at me. Then he turned away, closing my apartment door softly as he left. The click as the bolt slid into place seemed to echo through the sudden stillness.

  I stared at the door, realizing, for what seemed like the first time, that part of life was never getting a chance to say all that you should say to someone before they are gone.

  HENRY />
  I came in just as Father Peter was stepping onto the small platform at the far end of the room. His bodyguard stood several steps behind him. I moved to one side, partly hidden by a set of shelves and thankful that the candlelight was too dim for him to see me.

  “Great God in Heaven,” he said loudly. “Please look down on this your enterprise and favor us with your blessing.”

  The room was packed, everyone with their heads bowed.

  “Our Lord Jesus, please forgive us our sins and betrayals, and bless us in this your work. Oh Holy Spirit, please bathe us in your glory, and anoint us for this your task. Amen.”

  The crowd echoed “Amen” and lifted their heads.

  “They have not learned,” he started, picking up from a speech that clearly everyone knew but me. “The people keep coming, lining up to sell their souls to that family. Nothing we do or say seems to stop them.”

  To look at his followers, I could have been in a library on a Saturday afternoon. Everyone looked so normal. An over-weight woman in her fifties clutched her purse tight against her chest, while the young man next to her looked like a student, with short hair and wire-framed glasses. A woman with dark hair held a sleeping baby on her shoulder, and three children—two boys and a girl, all fair-haired and under the age of ten—knelt at the very front, their eyes lifted to him as he spoke.

  “I’m not angry at those people they are calling ‘pilgrims.’ The Lord said, ‘Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.’ We must forgive those whose illness brings them low, makes them vulnerable to evil.

  “I feel sorry for those people. They think they are putting themselves in the hands of the Lord. They clutch their Bibles”—he lifted his up—“they whisper prayers, they kneel…They kneel before that little girl. Thou shalt worship no false idols before me! That’s the word of God, and yet these people, these people kneel before a little girl, like the Israelites before the golden calf! It is our job to protect these people, from the Barretts and from themselves!”

  The older woman clasped her hands and shut her eyes tight, while the young mother swayed in place.

  “We must be strong. We must be devout in our beliefs, and courageous in our actions. I have gathered you here because our church, our God, is under attack, and we, as the soldiers of the Lord, must go to battle in its defense.”

  The student and several other people shouted in agreement, their faces lighting up.

  “We have been gentle. We have been kind. We have tried to persuade and to remind, to turn people back to the path of true faith, of righteousness. But so long as that family opens their doors, so long as that child is whored out by her own family, our words mean nothing. How can the soft words of the righteous compete with the promises of evil?”

  The crowd leaned toward him, flexing itself like a single muscle. The children in the front folded their hands and closed their eyes in prayer.

  “It is time to act. It is time to take steps against the source of the evil. The time for words is over. Now is the time for action! Who is with me? Who will stand with me?”

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I ran for the door as people started calling out to him.

  The wind had picked up—it drove cold and merciless right through the bulky winter coat—but it felt good. It drove out the smell of that rotting basement. It rid my ears of his voice.

  I walked as fast as I could up the dark side-alley toward the main street.

  Under a streetlight, I started to feel a little better. The lamp posts were decorated for Christmas with lights and ribbons, and I slowed down a bit, drawing the coat up around my neck. I couldn’t work up the nerve to look behind me, afraid Father Peter had spotted me. I passed a few people on the sidewalk—they didn’t look like fanatics, but I had discovered that most fanatics don’t. The people in that church basement were as normal-looking as anyone I had ever seen, but they all had the same violence in their eyes that Father Peter did, caught up in his passion.

  And what about Father Peter’s bodyguard? When I looked up during Father Peter’s speech, it seemed like the huge man had been staring back at me.

  He could see me, too. I was sure of it.

  Even at a distance he had Father Peter’s eyes, narrow and dark, but glowing in the half-light, in the flicker of the candles.

  He watched me like a dog, tensing itself to pounce.

  The attack would come, I was sure.

  I just didn’t know when.

  “Karen, it’s Jamie. It’s a little past seven, Friday morning. December whatever. Twentieth, I guess. Uhm, listen, I’m not going to be able to make it to the house today. I’ve got something on the go. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but…Listen, I’ll tell you later, okay? Talk to you soon.”

  SIMON

  I didn’t think anything of it when Father Peter and his bodyguard joined the protestors the next morning before we opened the house. I heard a motor on the street and looked between the blinds of Sherry’s window as the plumbing company van that Father Peter’s thug drove pulled to a stop. The doors opened and a small group climbed out, carrying signs.

  I had just turned away from the window when the glass exploded behind me.

  Without thinking, I threw myself at Sherry, covering her with my body as glass sprayed into the room, a series of dull thuds echoing from the walls.

  Rocks. They were throwing rocks at the house.

  I could hear Karen running down the hall from the kitchen. Something flew through the window and shattered against the coffee table. Shattered.

  Bottles. Not rocks. They were throwing bottles.

  “Get down, Karen,” I called to her. “No—get out. Get out of the way.”

  Fumbling with the covers, I lifted Sherry, cradling her head to my chest, and carried her across the room, sheltering her with my body. She was surprisingly heavy. Shards of broken glass tore into my socked feet and I stumbled. Another bottle flew into the room, crashing against the wall at the head of the bed, spraying Sherry’s sheets with jagged diamonds.

  In the hallway, Karen’s eyes were wide with shock and worry.

  She reached for Sherry. “Simon, is she—?”

  I rushed past her into the seeming security of the family room.

  KAREN

  I fell to my knees at the side of the couch where he set Sherry down. “Is she all right?”

  “I think so. I don’t know.” He stepped away from her, and I saw the blood spotting her face.

  “She’s bleeding,” he said in the same moment. “I wasn’t quick enough.” Tracing his fingers over her forehead, streaking blood along her pale skin.

  “It’s okay,” I said. The fragments of glass had barely broken the skin. “This doesn’t look too bad, and Stephen will be here any minute now.”

  Nausea rose in my throat—I could still hear the sound of bottles smashing against the house. But that sound was a world away. All that mattered was that my baby was safe.

  “Are you okay, Simon?”

  I waited for him to reply, then realized I was alone in the room. “Simon?” His bloody footprints led out of the family room, toward the front door.

  I heard the click as the door opened, then Simon’s voice. “Hey, what do you think—?”

  The door closed. And then nothing.

  RUTH

  The pilgrims were huddled against the hedge when I pulled up to the house, and the protestors were in the middle of the lawn. I wondered if Karen was calling the police to report them for trespassing.

  I parked across the street, and was halfway to the sidewalk when I realized that the protestors were throwing bottles. Sherry’s window was broken.

  I didn’t know where to go. I couldn’t get to the house, but I didn’t want to just leave the pilgrims. They seemed so scared, cowering and huddling together.

  The police. They’d have to come if I called.

  I was about to run next door when the front door opened and Simon came out in his socks.

  He raised his hand t
o shield his eyes from the winter morning light. “Hey,” he called. “What do you think—?”

  As he spoke, the biggest of the protestors, the one who usually stood with Father Peter, threw a bottle, which caught the light as it spun through the air. Simon couldn’t see it. I could.

  The bottle shattered against his head. He stood for a moment, rocking on his feet as if he couldn’t understand what was happening to him, then crumpled slowly to the stoop.

  “Simon!” The protestors scattered as I ran through the yard.

  By the time I got to him, his face was masked in blood. His breath bubbled red between his lips.

  Please let the door be open.

  I pushed it with my hip as I bent to grasp Simon’s shoulders. I pulled him inside without looking up.

  Karen was there. “Oh my God! Simon!”

  “Towels,” I snapped at her. “Bring me some towels.” I looked up. “And close the door.”

  She slammed it and disappeared down the hallway.

  I cleared his mouth. I hoped that all the blood was from the scalp wound and he hadn’t suffered any internal injuries from the fall.

  Karen returned with the towels as I ran my fingers over the back of his skull. There was a bump from the fall on the crown of his head—not too serious. I pressed a towel against the wound on his forehead.

  Karen clutched at his hand, stared helplessly at the blood on his face.

  “Karen,” I said. “Karen! I can’t do this on my own.”

  She bit her lip, then picked up a towel and began to wipe the blood from the side of her husband’s face.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” I said.

  “That’s good. That’s good.”

  “There’s always lots of blood from head wounds.”

  His forehead was still positively gushing blood, but it didn’t look like it went too deep. He’d need stitches, but two inches in either direction and he could have been blinded or…I pressed the towel to the wound.

  “I’m going to check his feet.” She moved down his body.

  “His feet?”

  Craning my head, I saw that his socks were bloodsoaked too. She pulled them off and glass tinkled on the tile floor.