The Calling

by Robert Swartwood

  The knife was on the floor by some shards of glass. I picked it up.

  Now that I was inside I could clearly hear people sobbing in the chapel. Even the sound of a baby crying.

  I noticed something on the floor just in front of the chapel doors. It was a cigarette butt, its tip still lit. A thin tendril of smoke drifted toward the ceiling. I stepped on it, smashing it out with the toe of my sneaker. I didn’t have to pick it up to know which brand it was.

  I touched one of the door handles but paused. I tried listening for sirens, for anything outside. There was nothing at all, except the rain beating against the unbroken window.

  I stared down at the knife in my hand. Joey’s present to me. The thing that had been used to murder my parents. A thing which had been used for evil but which Joey had believed would eventually be used for good.

  Inside came another gunshot, followed by more screams, then silence.

  Chapter 38

  It was like walking into my parents’ bedroom. Only the first thing that hit me this time wasn’t the smell, but rather the sight.

  Random spots of blood soaked the carpet and walls. Dead bodies lay motionless on the floor and in pews. Men, women, children—no one had been denied their death, except the fortunate few who fate had been kind enough to spare. These people either lay or sat on the floor behind the pews, cowering with their heads bent, their eyes closed. Others who didn’t have their eyes closed watched me, wondering just what the hell I was doing as I moved down the aisle, both my arms raised.

  I could smell the fear and blood around me, even the reek of defecation from those who were dead. And as I walked, I turned my head slowly to the left and to the right, looking at each murdered person, knowing who they were and how they died.

  Harold and Betty Swanson, Steve and Jessica Churchill, their one-year-old daughter, Chris Thompson, Nancy and John Rohrer, Heather Maxwell, Lydia Strick, Robert Russo, Jack Hauser, Philip and Wendy Fey, Paul Upton, Nick Daly, Bob and Jessica Wood, Dan Stilling, Jason Clarke, Dawn Bowyer and her young singer daughter Lindsay, Shawn and Lisa Gable, Reverend Peart, Tim and Murray Delaney, Emily Miller, Henry and John Porter, Gary and Natalie Wilkinson—each of them shot in the face, in the neck, in the back, in the chest.

  Thirty-two people dead.

  And two more to go.

  I was less than twenty feet from the front of the chapel, my arms still raised, when my uncle spoke.

  “Stop right there.”

  Dean had Moses on his knees facing the congregation. He stood behind him with a Beretta pointed at Moses’s head. An empty rifle lay at my uncle’s feet, what I knew had been used for most of the killing.

  Moses had his eyes closed and his head bent, no doubt praying.

  “I’ve been waiting for you, Chris. I knew you would come.”

  Around me people continued to sob and weep, that baby continued to cry, but I was able to filter it all out and only hear my uncle’s words.

  “He came to you, didn’t he,” I said. “He gave you this choice.”

  “He said ... he said everything would work out. That Mom would get better. That Susie would realize we were meant for each other. That I’d never have to worry about anything another day in my life.”

  “He lied to you, Dean. None of that’s going to happen.”

  “But it was Dad!” For the first time the gun pointed at Moses’s head began to shake. “It was Dad, Chris. I know you won’t believe me, that nobody will, but it was him. He said that if I came here and made these people suffer then everything would be okay. He said ... he said he’d be proud of me.”

  The gun kept shaking.

  “She’s dead, Chris,” he whispered. “Mom’s dead. She died an hour ago. And I was there. I watched her die.”

  In my mind I saw the green lines, sloping up and down, until they stopped and were flat.

  “Then I ... I came home and Dad was waiting for me. He said all I needed to do was come here and ... and do this, and everything would be okay. But ... but I don’t think it was him, Chris.”

  “How so?”

  “Because ... because Dad’s dead. He’s been dead four years now. Hasn’t he?”

  So far his face had been blank, showing no emotion, but now it opened up like a flower, filling with fear and anger and confusion. Tears sprang to his eyes, and with his free hand he wiped them away, closing his eyes.

  “It’s okay, Dean.” I didn’t realize until then that I’d begun taking slow steps forward. Now I was less than ten feet away from them. “Just put the gun down. No one else has to die.”

  His eyes popped open and he stared ahead, and now that I was close enough I saw the madness in his face, the insanity that had been driven there by seeing his dead father.

  “But what if he’s right? What if—what if everything can work out?”

  “No, it can’t—”

  “Dad said the nigger first”—he poked the gun’s barrel at Moses’s head—“then you, and everything will be better. Mom will be alive again, and Susie will come back, and we’ll all be a happy family. And Dad ... he’ll be proud of me.”

  At that moment Moses opened his eyes. Stared straight up at me. Mouthed the words It’s time and I nodded with my eyes, acknowledged that I understood. And I did too. I’d understood the moment I grabbed Joey’s present from the glove box. The knife that now rested on my right arm, the handle against the inside of my elbow, the sharp tip pointed toward the ceiling. All concealed by the sleeve of my jacket.

  It happened too quickly then. I was less than five feet away when Moses attempted to jump to his feet. Dean, surprised, shot him in the back, then immediately raised the gun at me. By then I’d brought my arms down, opening my right sleeve by spreading my fingers. Gravity brought the knife out, just as it had for Melvin Dumstorf, only now the blade sliced my hand, cut my fingers, and then I had a grip on the handle, I was bringing it up and shoving it into Dean’s neck.

  But not before he’d pulled the trigger.

  This last shot was the loudest of all, yet strangely was also the quietest. I fell to my knees, then onto my side. Dean followed suit, his entire body convulsing, blood flowing from his neck. On the floor I found myself staring at Moses. Tried saying his name. I crawled the short distance toward him. He was still alive, but just barely. His mouth was moving, blood coming out of it.

  “Moses.”

  With a shaking hand I went to cover his wound, to keep in the blood. But the look in his eyes stopped me, the look that said there was no need, that he was already gone. His lips still continued to move slightly as he tried producing words, but I couldn’t hear them or even read them so I crawled even closer, making it so my head was right by his mouth. He tried again, his voice barely audible over the wheezing coming from his throat. Then there was no more wheezing and no more words as the life finally faded from Moses Cunningham’s body.

  A hand touched my shoulder, but I ignored it and stared back into Moses’s face. He’d said three words, I was sure of it.

  “Son, just lie still,” said a voice. It belonged to Harry Quinn, a fifty-three-year-old man who had lived in Bridgton his entire life. That’s all I knew about him, all I could sense. He was dressed in his Sunday best, dark slacks and jacket, polished wingtips. His tie was blue, Italian silk, and some blood had been splattered near the bottom. “An ambulance has been called. It’ll be here very soon.”

  Even though I was wounded—Dean had shot me right in the stomach—I managed to stand up. I glanced behind the man at everyone else alive. Most had gotten to their feet, while others stayed crying on the floor or in the pews. A few fled the chapel, either to call 911 or cry in private.

  “Son, maybe you shouldn’t stand,” Harry said. His wide eyes stared at all the blood seeping through the fingers covering my stomach. “Just lie back down and wait for the ambulance. It’s okay. It’s all over now.”

  I thought of Joey, alive a week ago today. His face expectant as he stared back at me. Saying, It all started here ...
it makes sense it should end here too.

  I looked at the man and shook my head. “No,” I whispered. “It’s not over yet.”

  “What? But I don’t understand. What do you—”

  Without a word I turned and staggered toward the exit door in the corner. I pushed it open and stepped out into the rain. Lightning flickered, followed by the loudest roll of thunder I’d heard yet. I stood there, staring up at the gray sky, letting the drops soak me and wash everything from my shaking and dying body—all the doubt, all the fear, all the suffering.

  But the pain was still there. It was like a blaring siren going off inside my head. It was like my parents’ alarm clock on the morning I found them dead, never-ending, just pulsing away inside my body. Making me colder. Making me weaker. Making me understand that soon I was going to die.

  But not yet. Not until I’d finished this. So I started forward, through the rain, staggering toward the pine trees and the trail leading back to the Beckett House. And as I did I thought of what Moses had said. Those three words he managed to whisper before he died. Confirmation for something I’d been wondering my entire life.

  He does care.

  Chapter 39

  Even with the rain and the shadows cast by the trees surrounding it, the Beckett House was no more intimidating than the night I’d come down here to see Joey. Except now I knew more about its dark history, and I wondered if maybe it had started even before the giant had begun killing the children of Bridgton. If maybe these grounds were unholy, if ancient tribesmen had done sacrifices right on this spot.

  But I knew that wasn’t the case, at least here. Just like people, places don’t need a reason to be evil. Sometimes they just are.

  Someone had taken the time to drive stakes around the house and encircle it with yellow and black crime scene tape. Whether from the rain or some wild roaming animals, most of the tape had been ripped from the stakes and now lay useless in the grass and bushes.

  I don’t know how long I stood there, holding my stomach, staring at the entrance. Only darkness stared back. Besides the rain and the random thunder, the only other sound I heard was my own heart beating in my ears, getting weaker and weaker by the second.

  I started forward.

  As I neared the entrance I expected to see my father again. Standing in the middle of the room, wearing the same clothes as last night: brown slacks and white shirt, his tie and penny-loafers. Grinning like he always did when he had a secret. Only his eyes wouldn’t be the same blue as they had been in life. Of course they wouldn’t.

  Or maybe it would be my grandfather. I couldn’t remember him too well, but I could almost picture him standing there instead, just as he’d looked near the end of his life. His body hunched over, his face full of wrinkles. Liver spots would mark his hands and forehead. I didn’t know his eye color but it wouldn’t matter, because just like everyone else Samael took on as a shell, his eyes would be black.

  It could have been anyone—even Joey—and as I stepped into the house I closed my eyes. Held my breath for a second or two. Finally opened them.

  There was no one here. The place was completely empty, the bottles of Bud Light and cigarette butts gone, taken and marked as evidence by the police. Even the faint smell from before—alcohol and piss—was absent, instead now only the scent of rain and damp earth.

  I stood there for a long time, waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, I turned back around.

  And watched through the doorway as Gerald Alcott ran toward me through the trees, a rifle in his hands.

  “Christopher!” he shouted, waving the rifle at me. “You gotta get outta here! Do you hear me? You gotta get. He wants to kill you.”

  I stepped out into the rain and stood with the house behind me. My hands hadn’t yet left the wound on my stomach. I had no voice at first and just stared back at him. It obviously had been a long time since he last ran, and it appeared as if each step caused him pain. When he reached the top of the trail he slowed his pace, catching his breath as he walked the rest of the short distance.

  Lightning flickered, and for an instant I thought I saw something around the house. Something that looked like a dozen shadows spread out. Thunder quickly followed the lightning and then I found my voice and asked a very stupid question.

  “Who?”

  Gerald stopped at once. Just like last night his face paled, but his eyes widened even more. His mouth opened as if he wanted to say something, but now he was the one with no voice. Then I realized while his eyes were directed at me, he was staring at something over my shoulder.

  “Come now, Christopher, you’re smarter than that,” said a voice behind me, a voice so dark it hardly sounded human at all. “Now turn around so we can finish this.”

  I didn’t recognize him at first. He was tall and wore a long dark robe. His brown flowing hair hid none of his face, which looked almost perfect, handsome, but cold. The only reason I knew it was Samael was because of his bottomless black eyes, which seemed to sear into my very soul. And then I remembered how my great-grandfather had described the demon so long ago. This must be what he’d looked like not just then, but since the beginning of time, before his wings had been ripped away like his chances of redemption.

  “When is it going to end?” My voice was still hardly my own, and I tasted blood in the back of my throat. “You’ve already got your thirty-four lives. Killing me will make it thirty-five. If you kill Gerald, that’s just one more. And who knows how many there were before now. When are you going to stop? Until a million lives are lost? Until everyone in the world is dead?”

  “Don’t make yourself out to be a martyr. It’s beneath you. What do you care of life and death when it’s not your own? Thousands of people die every day. That’s the thing—death is inevitable. But does that affect you? Has it ever caused you to lose sleep? Of course it hasn’t, because you are just like every other mortal on this earth. You care only for yourself and no one else.”

  I staggered again, the pain becoming so much I hardly even felt it anymore. “That’s not true. Joey cared.”

  “Yes, but mortals like him are few and far between. Besides, look at the result of his caring.” Samael smiled. “When faced with the choice of life and death, mortals always take life. Every one is susceptible to the fear of death. They will do whatever it takes to save them and their own. But to answer your question, no I do not plan to kill everyone in the world. What good would that do? How then would I have any followers?”

  “Followers? You’re not ...”

  His smile widened even more, as he saw the understanding pass through my eyes.

  “Do you know when Lucifer challenged God and was banished from Heaven, when the legions of angels followed him—do you know what I felt that day? Jealousy. I remember watching it happen and feeling an emotion that should never have even existed deep within myself. I could not understand how Lucifer had attempted such a bold act. And at the same time I could not understand why I had not tried it myself. It took centuries, almost a millennium, until I gathered enough courage to do the same thing Lucifer had done to God. Only this time, I challenged the Morning Star himself.”

  Samael motioned for me to look behind me. I turned.

  Gerald still stood in the same place in which he’d stopped, the rifle in his hands aimed at the ground. The barrel trembled. He’d decided to take a chance and defy Samael, and now he was so scared he could do nothing more than stand frozen, not even attempt to run away.

  I wasn’t sure what Samael meant for me to see until the lightning flashed again. Like before, in the instant of brilliant light, I saw shadows. Only now there were more than a dozen. Now there were hundreds of shadows, all gathered before the stone house.

  But they weren’t just shadows. They were something more, something my mortal eyes could not perceive in the instant the lightning lasted. Would Joey have been able to see them? Perhaps. But it didn’t matter. Even without seeing them completely I knew what they were. Angels wh
o had once tasted the glory of Heaven but who had followed Lucifer down into the depths of Hell.

  Now they were fallen angels who had followed Samael.

  They were his legion.

  “Every day more join my army. They know the future has already been written. That Lucifer is to lose his battle against God. Why follow me then? The answer is quite simple, Christopher. It is because I’m the wild card. I’m the thing God’s omnipotent mind did not see coming. And in the end I will be more powerful than Lucifer ever was. I will challenge God like I should have done in the beginning. And do you know something, Christopher? I will win.”

  Once again that familiar feeling—a pang of ice shooting through my soul—passed through me and I sensed them all. Not hundreds or thousands, but millions. In every space stood an angel both fallen from Heaven and Hell, each staring toward this spot, toward their master. Toward their god, and the sacrifice he had planned.

  “The giant was my first. He was my first true mortal follower. I had no influence over him. One day he just began praying to me. Can you even begin to fathom the power in that? In a mortal being choosing you over God or the Morning Star? You have absolutely no idea how empowering that felt. And then to lose that one follower, the very first, to four boys thinking they were making a difference. Suffice it to say something had to be done. Somehow they had to pay for their sins against me.”

  I turned back to face him. His eyes were no longer looking at me but rather out at his legion. This was a day of reckoning, a day when he not only proved his power to his followers, but to Satan and to the world. To God.

  “So then this is all about power.” My voice was so very weak. I staggered some more. “Everything that’s happened. All the people that died because of what my great-grandfather and his friends did. All this is to somehow do what—prove you shouldn’t be fucked with?”