The Summoning

by Bentley Little

  She had also grown to like Pastor Wheeler, although she knew that the mere thought of that drove Rich crazy

  The pastor could be a little aloof, a little preoccupied, but he was a good man, with good ideas, and he really was dedicated to serving God.

  I have seen Jesus Christ.

  She pushed the thought from her mind and looked down at the paper on which she'd been writing. There was going to be a big church fund-raiser a few weeks from now, a picnic, and it was her responsibility to make sure that the event was publicized in the Gazette. Rich would cynically suggest that that was the reason she'd been hired, her close ties to the paper and the publicity which that relationship could provide. But he knew as well as she did that, in Rio Verde, anyone who wanted publicity got it. There simply wasn't enough real news to take up the slack. "

  At least not until recently.

  She added a line to the description of the fundraiser she'd been preparing, and glanced up at the clock on the bookshelf. Three-thirty.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the darkened doorway that led down the hall to the chapel, and she quickly focused her attention back on her paper.

  She didn't like being left alone in the church. Itwas a strange thing to admit, but it was true. She felt comfortable and at ease when the pastor was around, but as soon as he left, the whole tenor of the place seemed to change. Noises that had been unobtrusive became disconcertingly loud. The hallway and chapel seemed darker, the locked doors to the vestibule and storage room appeared to be hiding something. Her office remained unchanged, but the atmosphere in the rest of the church altered palpably, and the empty hulk of that new addition seemed downright threatening.

  He has spoken to me.

  Corrie reached over and turned on the desk radio, found the faint rhythmic stade of a powerful Top Forty station out of Phoenix. She shifted her chair so that in her peripheral vision she saw the window facing the street rather than the doorway opening onto the hall.

  She focused her attention once again on her work and began writing. c The spider was still there when she got home. Corrie stared at the hairy black body in the upper right corner of the living room as she took off her shoes. She knew Rich had seen the spider that morning, and she'd watched him studiously avoid that entire section of the room as he prepared for work. She had purposely not touched the spider, had waited for him to take care of the creature, though she'd known that he wouldn't kill it.

  Sure enough, he'd left it there for her to deal with.: : A grown man afraid of a bug.

  She heard Rich talking to Anna in the kitchen, and she felt suddenly annoyed with him. Why did she always have to be the one to take responsibility in this relationship? Whether it was their finances, their domestic arrangements, or even a simple spider, she always had to make the decisions, she always had to take action. Anything outside of the precious newspaper automatically became her responsibility. If he worked as hard on their marriage as he did on that damn paper, they might be able to have a fairly decent relationship.

  She heard Anna laugh, heard Rich say something to her. His voice was light, happy, relaxed. As always, he was acting as though nothing was wrong. That annoyed her too. It was fine to behave that way around your daughter; children needed their parents to be strong. But it was quite another thing to put on that same happy face in front of your wife. Part of her felt guilty for resenting his behavior. It wasn't up to her to tell him how to deal with his feelings, how to cope with his grief. But then again, maybe it was. She'd been sympathetic with him. She'd been there for him. She knew how he must feel having the graves of his parents desecrated--she knew how she'd feel if her parents died and their bodies were dug up--but he had not shared his feelings with her, had not opened up to her the way she'd expected.

  The way he should have. The way, at one time, he would have. That angered her. What made her even angrier was that she knew he wasn't even discussing it with Robert. She knew that the two of them, when together, would tiptoe around the subject, talk about it like reporter and cop, not talk about it like brothers, not talk about the way they felt inside. What the hell was wrong with that family?

  She picked up one of her shoes and, standing on her tiptoes, smacked it against the spider. The black body fell down onto the carpet, where she hit it again, pressing the heel down as hard as she could to make sure it was dead.

  Anna heard the sound, came running out from the kitchen. "Mommy["

  Rich looked at her over their daughter's head. "What was that you just killed? A spider?"

  Corrie picked up Anna, gave her a kiss on the forehead, then looked flatly at Rich. "Yes," she said. "It was."

  At the church, the days passed quickly, much more quickly than they had at the paper. The work was by no means challenging, but she felt less stifled than she had working with Rich all day, and some of the edge seemed to wear off of her dissatisfaction. She still wanted to get out of this town and move back to civilization, to raise Anna in a more culturally enlightened environment, but some of the urgency had gone out of her need. She was more laid back now, more willing to take things easier, to wait a little.

  Perhaps it was the influence of Jesus. She preferred not to think about that, tried desperately hard to keep it at the back of her consciousness. If she allowed herself to even consider the idea that Jesus had returned to earth, had come here to Rio Verde, she would become so frightened that she would not be able to function. She knew that Anna was still worried, still scared-she'd had nightmares every night this week--and she wished she could do more to set her daughter's mind at rest. To set her own mind at rest as well. In truth, she was not sure what to think. She and Pastor Wheeler discussed only the practical matters of the parish, the day-to-day operation of the church. She knew from Wheeler's bearing and attitude, from the assumptions underlying his statements, that he truly believed he had seen Jesus Christ. But her own certainty had waned with the week, the al most palpable belief that had been imparted to her and the rest of the crowd by the pastor's sermon now seeming more and more like the by-product of a good speech.

  But if she didn't believe, why was she dreading this Sun day's services?

  Why couldn't she reassure Anna that there was nothing to be afraid of?.

  And why was she keeping it all from Rich? She had the feeling that if she could just talk to Rich, if she could just tell him what was going on, if she could just share her confusion with him, everything would be okay. Wasn't that what marriage was about? Sharing and support?

  She pushed such thoughts away. The bottom line was that, despite the fear, she enjoyed working here, and she felt better now than she had in a long time. The words that came immediately to mind were "tranquil" and "at peace."

  Church words.

  He is going to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth.

  "Jesus loves you," the Pastor Mr. Wheeler said. Corrie looked up.

  The pastor was smiling at her. There was something a little off about that smile, a hint of fanaticism in its too wide parameters, and it would have frightened her had he not spoken, had he not said those words, had he not addressed the doubts inside her head.

  But he had spoken, he had said those words, he had addressed her doubts. And his voice was comforting, soothing, making her feel warm, wanted, and content.

  The Pastor Clan Wheeler had truly been blessed by God. Wheeler stood and walked out from behind his desk, holding in his hand the pristine white Bible from which he drew his sermon topics. "Glen Lyons did not show up last night," he said. "He was supposed to take over the night shift from Gary Watson and construct that installation in the walkway to the addition. I am very disappointed in Glen. Very disappointed.

  Would you call him and tell him that? Would you call him and tell him that the next time he volunteers his time and reneges on his promise, I will personally rip his balls out by the roots and feed them to Jesus?"

  The pastor was still smiling. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a warning buzzer sounded, telling her th
at these words were not normal, not right. But her perceptions seemed to have been encased in Lucite, and that warning was just a dull hum somewhere far in the back, ground.

  Corrie nodded. "I'll tell him."

  Behind the preacher, on the wall, she could see a calendar for the year. Small black X's filled the squares for the months of January through September. October 31, the date of the Second Coming, was circled in red. The rest of the year had been whited out.

  Corrie found Glen's number in the church directory, picked up her phone, and dialed while the pastor watched. She realized that there was less than a month left until the Second Coming.

  That suddenly seemed very important to her.

  Very important.

  Glen, obviously hungover, answered the phone after six rings. She told him in a cold voice that the next time he volunteered his time and did not show, causing construction of the church to fall behind schedule, Pastor Wheeler would rip his balls out by the roots and feed them to Jesus. She liked saying that word: "balls."

  And she found that she liked hearing the terror in Glen's voice as he desperately and pathetically tried to apologize.

  She hung up on him in the middle of his apology, and looked up at the pastor. He grinned at her. "Very good," he said. "Very good."

  Her doubts seemed to have disappeared, and in their place she felt only a quietly unobtrusive bliss. She was smiling to herself as she returned her attention to the invoices on her desk.

  He saw it again. The Face in the Sand. Cutler closed his eyes and gripped the sides of the sink for support. Outside the restroom of the Shell station he heard the blowing wind, a whooshing noise that would have sounded like water were it not for the tiny granules of sand that scraped against the metal door and the small dirty window above the wastebasket. From inside the gas station itself, muffled by the wall, he heard the dinging of the bell as a late-night customer ran over the cable and pulled up to the pumps.

  Cutler opened his eyes, looked again at the mirror. Over his shoulder, he could still see the reflection of The Face, peering in at him through the window.

  He looked down into the sink, concentrating on a rust stain connected to the drain directly below the faucet. The Face in the Sand. The malevolence of its gaze and the un naturalness of its composition had been burned permanently into his brain, and after all these years had lost none of its terrifying power. Seeing it again, Cutler felt like a small frightened child, and he was dimly aware that he had wet his pants.

  The whooshing sound seemed to grow louder.

  It was The Face in the Sand that had kept him from setting out and searching for the Lost Dutchman when he was eighteen. Along with Hobie Beecham and Phil Emmons, he'd been planning to take a year off after high school and before college, to search for the fabled gold mine.

  Having grown up in east Mesa, practically under the shadow of the Superstition Mountains, the three of them had spent most of their grammar school years obsessed with the Lost Dutchman, dreaming of becoming rough, tough, rich, and famous prospectors. For six months in fifth grade, after they'd pooled their allowance money one week and purchased a weathered "Genuine Lost Dutchman Treasure Map" from the tourist trap on Main Street, they'd thought the mine was theirs. The obsession had cooled somewhat by high school, but they were still seriously planning to spend a year prospecting in the Superstitions beginning the summer after graduation. They didn't really expect to find the mine, but they were expecting to party, live off the land, and generally enjoy their last gasp of freedom before becoming responsible adults.

  Then he'd seen The Face in the Sand.

  Cutler had never told his two friends what he'd seen, knowing they would think him pussy or worse. Instead, he'd given them a transparently false story about growing up and putting away childish things, a story neither of them bought. Both Hobie and Phil had tried desperately, together and separately, to change his mind, playing on his sympathy, on his memory, on his loyalty, but he'd re fused to budge. They'd ended up fighting with him, then fighting with each other, and the whole idea had died an ignominious death. He hadn't seen either of them after that, was not even sure if they'd kept in touch with each other. At the end of the summer, carrying only the stuffed backpack that he'd planned to bring with him into the Superstitions, he'd hit the road to Denver, where there was supposed to be an airplane mechanic's school. He had some half-baked idea of becoming a jet mechanic, but he'd lasted there about nine months before moving on to Colorado Springs, where he lasted about nine months before moving on to Albuquerque, where he lasted about nine months before moving on... :: And always The Face had haunted him. He'd seen The Face in the flat desert outside Apache Junction. It had been a hot Saturday afternoon, and he'd been walking alone, down one of the old Indian trails that wound through private property and reservation land to the base of the Superstitions. The sky had been spectacularly, unnaturally blue, so blue that he had specifically noticed it, though that was not something that often captured his attention. He'd felt slightly dizzy, and he'd stopped to rest on a low mound of sand, taking off his T-shirt and using it to wipe the sweat from his face, knowing from touch that his nose and forehead were already burned. He'd glanced down at his feet. : And he'd seen The Face. Twice the size of a normal human face, it had looked like a sculpture protruding from the ground. The chin and cheeks, eyes and mouth, nose and forehead had all been formed from sand and had a strange, grainily smooth texture. For a brief second he'd wondered why he hadn't seen it before and what its creators had used to hold the sand together. Then he'd seen that the face was moving, muscles outlined in ridges beneath the cheeks stretching taut, lips spreading out into a silent scream, eyes rolling wildly.

  He'd jumped up, nearly tripping over his feet in his at tempt to scramble away from the mound. Even as he moved frantically back, he kept his gaze on the face in the sand. Or The Face in the Sand, as it had immediately become. He would have screamed, wanted to scream, but was afraid of what The Face would do in reaction. The sweat pouring down his face was cold, and his heart was pumping crazily. It was not merely the fact that sand was sen dent that scared him so; it was the structure of The Face itself, the contours of its form. There was something about the cruel shape of the mouth, the way the eyes were positioned above the nose that seemed wrong, unnatural. Evil The effect was all the more terrifying because of the monochromatic nature of the sand. The eyes that were glaring at him, the mouth that was grimacing at him, everything was the same light tan white color, and the imposition of a three-dimensional form on a two-dimensional substance was monstrous.

  Above the beating of his heart and the pounding of blood in his temples, he'd thought he heard a noise, a hiss issuing from those shifting sand lips. He held his breath, tried to hear the sound above the panicked rasp of his own breathing.

  The words were faint, but audible: "I will find you." The eyes had met his, locked, and though he'd tried to look away, he couldn't. The Face had strained, grown, pushed outward, as though trying to break free of the confines of the earth, then had sunk back into ordinary sand.

  There'd been a brief moment of respite, a few confusing seconds in which he'd put it all down to heat prostration and an overactive imagination. Then The Face had reformed in the sand at his feet, thrusting upward from the ground. A small cactus was sucked into the opening mouth. The horrible eyes had glared at him, then the mouth had grinned and whispered his name. "Cutler." Again: "Cutler."

  And: "I will find you."

  He'd run then, back down the trail on which he'd come, knowing that at any moment The Face in the Sand might reappear, might pop up before him, might whisper his name.

  Might do something worse.

  He had not known why The Face had promised to follow him, but it was instantly clear that he had to get away from the desert, away from Arizona, away from the sand. Whatever it was, whatever its purpose or motives, it would not be able to find him if he stayed in forests or cities, if he got away from the stuff of its substance.


  He'd done a good job of keeping away from the desert before coming to Rio Verde to work at the Rocking D. But somehow, he had never traveled far. He had never gone to the East Coast or the South or the Pacific North west or another country. He'd always stayed in the South west, near Arizona.

  And now he'd returned.

  Why hadn't he stayed away forever?

  Again he closed his eyes, willing The Face to go away, praying to God, promising He or She or It that he would be good, that he would never so much as swear ffhe could just get out of this restroom with his sanity and his life.

  It was late and the gas station would be closing soon. Surely the attendant would come back here to see what had happened to him, to inform him that they were get ting ready to close.

  But the Face in the Sand might get the attendant.

  But then the police would come.

  But what if the police couldn't stop The Face? What if nothing could stop it? What if it would not give up until it had him, no matter how many others it had to kill first? "Curler." . The voice was rough and whispered, barely audible above the grainy liquid sound of the wind.

  He wanted to scream but could not. He opened his eyes, and in the mirror his mouth was open, although no sound was coming out. Over his shoulder, outside the small window, was The Face. The features changed, the wall of sand on the other side of the dirty glass shifting, rippling, now grimacing, now smiling, now screaming, the movement not smooth and fluid but still and jerky.

  Hadn't it been more fluid before? ,

  "I found you."; .;

  He plugged his ears, trying to keep out the voice, trying not to hear it, but though the sound of the wind was shut out, the voice echoed in his head. There were only the two phrases, repeated--"Cutler" and "I found you' rebut for some reason that frightened him more than if a coherent series of threats had been leveled at him.

  The glass in the window shattered, flying inward, and, reacting instinctively, Cutler hit the floor, curling instantly into a position under the sink that was half fetal, half duck-and-cover. Now he was screaming: short, high, feminine bursts.