Dead Souls

by Michael Laimo

  In eerie silence, Henry, lying on his side, reached for the pouch. Johnny screamed in agony and pulled furiously against the nail. It budged slightly, but not so easily—the gushing blood from his hand caused his fingers to slip against his grasp. From above, the bird squawked loudly, and often. Henry crawled forward, his fingers brushing against the leather sash of the pouch. The pouch opened. A single nail slipped out.

  Judson leaned down and grabbed the hammer that Mary had dropped. The bloated fingers of this right hand curled around the bloody handle.

  Henry rolled onto his back, unnaturally silent despite the looming threat. He isn't panting, Johnny thought with horror. Oh God, no…

  Johnny bucked and thrashed, digging deep down into the darkness of his fortitude and unearthing a final burst of energy to scream and wrench his blood-soaked hand against the nail driven through it.

  The nail loosened from the wood.

  Judson, the hammer now gripped in his hand, swung it over his head and down. With a deafening crack, it connected squarely with Henry's forehead. Henry slammed down on the ground, a pool of blood gushing from his collapsing skull. Dust rose about him in a cloud.

  Judson turned and faced Johnny. He grinned. Terrible lines of pus dripped from his lips to the ground. Maggots churned in the meat of his face.

  He raised the hammer.

  For a second, just a second, Johnny had stopped thrashing. But then the panic in him rose in full force again, giving him the will to make one last ditch attempt to yank the nail from the crucifix. His hand poured blood; he could feel it, could hear his flesh tearing.

  He gazed at Henry, now twitching…now moving. He wasn't dead! Or…was he?

  Seemingly unaffected by the blow Judson delivered, Henry popped up, looking like a grisly jack-in-the-box. His skull was caved into a half-moon shape to which hunks of spattered brain clung. He reached out and clawed at Judson's legs, teeth exposed with lunatic aggression. Judson, mere seconds from delivering Johnny an incapacitating blow that would allow him to be crucified, tripped over Henry's reaching grasp. The soul within doesn't know, Johnny thought quickly. The rest of family, they have been saved from evil. They have been sent to heaven, via the fifth nail. But this one here, it does not know…

  With a shriek, Johnny tore the nail out of the crucifix. He buckled forward, five and a half inches of nail and splinters protruding from the back of his hand. Blood splashed out everywhere, on his bare chest, his legs, the ground. He back up against the crucifix and twisted his hand around, palm against his chest—his scar. Andrew Judson fell forward. The nail sunk into his exposed heart like a warm knife into butter.

  The dead man trembled against Johnny, face wilting like a flower in a microwave. It released a gaseous breath of decay and dropped down and out of sight. Johnny crumpled down on top of him, his nailed hand ripping free of the blackened heart. There he remained for a few endless seconds, hyperventilating and not knowing how he could still be alive. He nearly passed out before he twisted his head up and peered at Henry Depford. The man was sitting up, grinning at Johnny, the front portion his head gone. Johnny could see the raw brain within, swelling like a hideous tumor.

  Johnny knew. He saved your life once before…

  "Eddie?" he coughed, his voice a wounded whisper.

  The dead thing that was Henry Depford nodded once, then collapsed to the ground in a lifeless mound of cold, bleeding flesh. A thick mound of white ectoplasm oozed from his mouth and nose and soared up into the loft.

  Johnny rolled onto his back in a dead faint, exhausted and fatigued and unable to move. His eyes stared unwaveringly toward the loft where the souls of the Conroy family and Eddie Carlson departed to.

  The bird was there, laying on the loft's edge. It was dead, coated in maggots, its clawed feet sticking up in the air like withered flags of surrender. Evil has left it…

  Johnny closed his eyes and lay there amid the corpses, the only survivor in a religious war that nobody could win. The sun rose up over the Conroy house, its gentle warmth providing little comfort to Johnny as he slipped into the embracing arms of unconsciousness…

  …and here he dreams of the Golden pain, of all the images that haunted his dreams while growing up. This vision, he knew, would be final—his last confrontation with the horrors that eventually brought him to Wellfield, placing him into a lead role in the war of good vs. evil. At last he finds the strength within to shun the growing light and the searing attack of the brand that left him scarred for life. The pain fades. He peers ahead, and sees another light. This one is softer, less invasive. A white figure emerges from it stands before Johnny. It is Eddie Carlson. In spite of the soft white light that envelops him, Johnny sees that he is wearing a football jersey, and has a helmet tucked firmly beneath his right arm. He is completely unscarred, as if he'd never had the deadly misfortune of confronting Benjamin Conroy.

  "Thank you," Johnny whispers.

  Eddie nods, and smiles warmly. His eyes twinkle beneath the light enveloping him. "It was my destiny, to not just save you Johnny, but to save Elizabeth, Faith, Daniel, and Benjamin as well, not from death, but from an eternity of pain and anguish in the afterlife. It was the goodness of God that beckoned me, allowed me the honor of bestowing upon the Conroy family His forgiveness of sin. I have heeded His word, Johnny. And now, my job is done." The apparition smiles warmly. "Johnny, please, see to it that evil never returns to Wellfield again…"

  The apparition fades. Johnny steps forward, heart breaking with thankfulness, and horror. He realizes: Eddie Carlson wishes for me to continue his work. God's work. As he paces forward, he can hear his footfalls on the ground, thump…thump…thump. He shudders with sudden fear, and then is abruptly stopped in his tracks by a pair of dead, bloated hands that grab his shoulders.

  A voice whispers its hidden terror in his ear: "Johhhnnnny…"

  He startled awake, screaming.

  A body leaned over him, a dark silhouette before dawn's bleeding light. Its hands grabbed his shoulders, shaking him.

  Johnny screamed again, eyes bulging.

  Again, the voice: "Johnny, Johnny. It's all right now. I'm going to help you."

  Still in a panic, Johnny squinted. The person above him came into view, like an angel from a dream. Carl Davies, Henry Depford's former deputy—the man who'd picked him up and brought him to Henry's home. He was hunched, as pale as parchment, his hands warm wax against Johnny's bare shoulders.

  "What in God's name happened here?" He was surveying the carnage with wide, vacant, unbelieving eyes.

  The pain filtered back into Johnny, and he groaned, unable to utter a single word.

  "You be quiet," Carl said.

  Then, without another word, just as Henry Depford did to baby Bryan Conroy—to him—seventeen years earlier, Carl Davies scooped Johnny up in his arms, and carried him away from the Conroy house, once and forever.

  Epilogue: Evil Leaves Wellfield

  October 18th, 2005

  10:30 AM

  At ten-thirty AM on October 4th, Wellfield experienced its first flurries in a winter that was forecasted to be one of the worst in the last twenty-five years. The winds whipped about Main Street, stealing away the last of the leaves still clinging to the elms lining the sidewalk outside the courthouse.

  Inside the brick walls of the courthouse, Johnny sat in a room with the mayor, the current sheriff (a man by the name of Tibbs that looked remarkably like Henry Depford), his deputy, and five serious-faced men that were introduced as lawyers.

  "And one more right here," the balding, middle-aged man to his right instructed.

  His hand cramped and itched painfully beneath the bandage, but Johnny signed his name anyway. How many dotted lines had there been? A hundred? Two? This was promised to be the last one. He dropped the pen on the cherry wood desk and gazed at Mr. balding-middle-aged. What was his name again? Baker? Barker? He'd been introduced to all of them, some more than once, but couldn't remember any of their names. Loss of short-term m
emory seemed to be an ongoing problem.

  After a three week stay at the Glendale Hospital two towns over, Johnny returned to Wellfield. There been the damage to his hand. Two broken ribs. A concussion. Internal bleeding. Loss of blood. Nothing wholly life-threatening, but nonetheless worthy of a few weeks' healing time. A plain but pretty female psychologist named Dr Allis spent the final ten days of his stay with him, ultimately diagnosing him with generalized anxiety and post-traumatic-stress-disorder.

  Carl Davies had been very generous in allowing Johnny a place to stay until he was granted permission to leave town. The mayor was anxious to get the land into Wellfield ownership—the Orono businessmen were already lined up, the ink wet and ready in their pens. The Greens Community Homes, which were scheduled to break ground next month in the northeast end of Conroy's land, would divert the press's attention from Wellfield's stigma of another mass murder (at the same location as the first one seventeen years earlier, no less). The Mayor had been able to pull a few legal and financial strings, clearing Johnny of any wrongdoing, as long as Carl Davies was willing to vouch for him, which he readily did.

  The murders were ultimately pinned on David Mackey. His medical history and psychological background backed up the long-shot possibility of his repeating a similar aggression that Benjamin Conroy had committed upon him and his family seventeen years earlier. The Daily Observer reported that after murdering a night guard at the Pine Oak Institute for the Mentally Insane, David escaped the grounds on foot and went on a rather clever, revengeful rampage, killing Benjamin Conroy's sister and brother-in-law, the lawyer handling Conroy's assets, plus a local couple who'd furtively amassed a wealth of information on Conroy and his checkered history. The only one to survive the attack was Conroy's only living legacy, Johnny Petrie, who'd come to Wellfield to claim the Conroy estate. Of course it was never entirely explained as to how Mackey learned of the Petrie Family's visit, other than he'd known about it all along and had kept track of the passing years and months on a calendar on the wall in the institute's TV room. Johnny had been questioned about the murder of the driver in his apartment, but the bus ticket with his name on it showed that he'd left Wellfield prior to this occurrence. He'd never found out what happened afterwards, and didn't really wish to know, although he came to assume that his mother had somehow perpetrated the misdeed.

  Last night, on the fortieth night following the end of it all, Johnny had a dream. It had been the first dream after thirty-nine nights of dark, uninterrupted sleep. In this dream, he returned to Wellfield, at sunrise. The town was completely deserted, the people gone, the buildings crumbling before a baleful sunrise. Sepia-toned clouds filled the sky as he paced down Main Street, his footfalls thump, thump, thumping along the concrete sidewalk. In the middle of the street stood the entire Conroy family: Benjamin, Faith, Elizabeth, and Daniel. They were whole again, unhampered of injury. They appeared angelic, hazy white lights glowing behind their heads like halos. Benjamin spoke: "Jesus roamed the earth for forty nights before ascending into heaven to be seated at the right hand of God."

  Johnny felt himself waver, then fell down into darkness. But not before hearing Benjamin's final words: Son…there is one more…

  He'd awoken in the middle of the night, nearly unable to breathe, thinking over and over again: on the fortieth night, on the fortieth night….

  He'd remained awake the rest of the night.

  Now, seven hours later, he stood up from a leather chair in the Wellfield town courthouse and shook hands with eight men who were all smiling greedily. He shook hands with the mayor last.

  "In about two hours, Johnny, you'll be a millionaire. How's it feel?"

  Johnny shrugged. Smiled. He supposed it felt good to know that he wouldn't have to rush off and find work right away. Two million dollars, after taxes, would amount to about one-point-three million, which would certainly pay the rent for a few years in Manhattan before he'd have to decide what to do with the rest of his life.

  I just want the hell out of this God-forsaken town, he thought. Out, never to look back at the hell left behind. I'll press forward and hope and pray for the 'happily-ever-after' to take over. After all, I know there's a God now—chalk up another one in Mary's corner. Yeah, she knew, all right. There IS a God, and He is watching over us all, making certain that there are many more happy endings in this little concept we call 'life on earth'. We go through the motions, spending our short lives wondering if He exists, and if there are such things as ghosts. All I can tell you is that if the concept is there, then it is true because God put it there for a reason. He wants us to believe in Him…but will never just come out and tell us and take a bow at center stage because His adversary would crash the party like a bolt of lightning and do the same exact thing: tell us that he is there, rubbing his hands in anticipation for us to summon him out of its hidey-hole for a game of good vs. evil.

  No, I won't look back. I'll be true and brave and will only look forward for the rest of my life here on earth, because I know a dark moving shadow will always be right behind me, breathing down my neck, waiting…

  Johnny exited the room. Carl Davies was there, caught in mid-pace. "Well?"

  "Done," Johnny said. "The money will be wired into an account in my name today."

  Carl holds out a hand. Johnny takes it, unemotionally. "You've paid the price Johnny. Enjoy your reward. It's the very least you deserve."

  "Thank you Carl. I truly appreciate your kindness and generosity."

  They left the courthouse and walked in silence down the sidewalk to Carl's car, parked a hundred feet away. Johnny pinched the top of his coat up around his mouth. The wind whipped into his eyes. Tears formed and froze as they trickled down his cheeks.

  And in his mind, the dream-voice of Eddie Carlson haunted him: Johnny, please, see to it that evil never returns to Wellfield again…, and then, the voice of Benjamin Conroy: Son, there is one more…

  "Where's the box?" Johnny asked.

  Carl starts the car. "In the trunk."

  Johnny took a deep breath, then said, "There's one last thing I need to do."

  As if understanding of Johnny's sudden plight, Carl drove away down Main. "Where are we going Johnny?"

  "We're going to the bus station Carl. But first, we need to make one stop, okay?"

  "And where is that?"

  Johnny hesitated, then answered, "The Conroy house."

  In less than ten minutes, they were there. Although the property was still considered a crime scene, the investigation was officially over. The posts that at one time tethered strips of yellow crime scene tape still stood erect from the ground. Strips of the plastic tape whipped in the wind like flags. Carl pulled the car into the driveway.

  "Keep going," Johnny said. "All the way up."

  The familiar sound of high weeds and gravel crunched under the tires. Carl drove to the head of the driveway and stopped.

  "What are we doing here Johnny?" Carl finally asked.

  Johnny considered telling Carl what he already knew, but ultimately decided to keep it to himself. "Just open the trunk, okay?"

  Carl nodded, reached down under the steering wheel, and popped the trunk-release. Johnny exited the car and circled around to the back. He lifted the trunk, and peered inside.

  The box. He reached in and carefully poked through all of Henry Depford's research materials: the bibles, the papers, the notebooks, the photographs, everything that at one point had belonged to Benjamin Conroy. Johnny had requested the materials, reminding those taking charge of willing Conroy's estate that these things had originally belonged to his father, and were to be included as a part of the inheritance. The small stipulation was immediately agreed to by Wellfield's lawyers, the will was amended, and in two days Johnny and Henry were allowed to search through Depford's study, which fortunately had been 'held as evidence' from his surviving family members. He gathered only those items that at one time belonged to his father.

  Including one nail that had been hi
dden in an envelope. Inside it was a note from Benjamin Conroy, written seventeen years earlier:

  There is one more…

  Indeed there is, Johnny thought, grabbing the envelope containing the note and the nail. He opened the envelope and removed the nail, then walked to the barn, thinking along the way, Benjamin knew. Somehow, he knew. Perhaps it was God who told him. Or maybe it was the false guidance of the non-existent spirit of Osiris. Regardless, in life, he knew how things would pan out, and left me a message, because in death, guided by evil, he knew there would be no other direction than that of evil's lies.

  Holding the nail, Johnny entered into the barn.

  There is one more…

  He paced into the gloom beneath the loft, its rotted wall torn away to reveal its dust coated walls, as unremarkable-looking as the rest of the structure. There huddled in the corner, was the last one.

  He recalled what Henry Depford had told him when they spoke about Benjamin and the events perpetrated at his home: Benjamin couldn't get to you, so he crucified the family dog instead…

  Johnny paced to it. It had survived here in the same body for forty days: the soul of Conroy's dog, now in the mangled body of the dog Henry ran over with his pickup. It was rotted and full of holes, covered with maggots and horseflies. Its yellow fur was reduced to patches of mangy fuzz. A thick coconut-like foam covered its sticky-red muzzle. It lay on its side, exposed innards dark and still.