by Matt Kilby
Brandon accepted the challenge with his heart banging in his chest, unsure if he was being selfless or stupid.
I bet I can, he called after him. I have a spare room until you’re ready to give me a chance.
“I’ve done bad things,” he said three nights ago and did again with a cold broccoli casserole at his feet.
“Me too,” Brandon nodded and hinted a smile, “but I’m proof those things don’t define you.”
“Just pray, right?”
“Maybe,” he shrugged. “It couldn’t hurt, but I’m not here to preach. I won’t say a word until you want me to. I’ll listen to whatever you want to tell me. It can be about those bad things you did but doesn’t have to be. You’re more than that, so you can talk about more. Who were you before? Who do you want to be?”
“I hear him,” the drifter lowered his eyes, but not his head, which was a start. The threat of tears was even better progress. “The voice told me he’d fix my life if I did something for him, but I didn’t.”
“That doesn’t sound so awful,” Brandon squinted in an attempt to understand.
“I didn’t tell anyone either,” he shook his head. “If I had, they might have prevented it. Maybe that was as bad, because I got everything he promised and more. I got him in my head. He’ll make me do something else, but this time I won’t be able to stop him. I left my home and family to protect the people I care about. Even now, I feel him inside, hating you. Make me leave while you can. Tell me to go and I will.”
“You’re free to go whenever you want,” Brandon gestured to the stairs.
“Free,” he huffed. “I’ll never be that again. His voice is as constant as my thoughts. He says he knows you, that you can’t hide behind a cross.”
“I’m not hiding anything,” Brandon breathed and stepped forward. “Ask most of the town and they’ll tell you who I was before I came to God. A bully. I learned from my old man, who did plenty worse before I decided I didn’t want to become him. I turned him into the police and stood witness against him in court. I made sure he never saw the sun again, and his mouth made sure he didn’t last in prison. He was beaten to death with a lunch tray, and I’m responsible for that, but not ashamed. He made the choices that put him there. I made the ones that put me here. Life is nothing more, and Satan loves when we stumble because he can keep us looking back when our only salvation is in what comes next. You need to decide that before this voice does for you.”
“I don’t know how,” the young man met the pastor’s eyes.
“Start with your name. I won’t go to the police. I just want to know who you are.”
“Eric,” he said. “My name’s Eric Vanger.”
“Nice to finally meet you, Eric,” Brandon offered his hand. “I’m Brandon Marshall.”
“No,” Eric said, his voice cold and empty as he grabbed the hand and squeezed. Brandon didn’t know if he believed in demon possession. He left those kinds of questions to the Catholics, but as he looked into Eric’s face, he swore his eyes were darker.
“No?” he repeated and tried to pull his hand away.
“If you want to help him,” a deeper voice said, “start with the truth. Tell him your real name.”
“My name is Brandon.”
As quick as the episode began, it ended. Eric let go so suddenly, Brandon sat on the floor. He didn’t stay down, scrambling to his feet and toward the stairs without looking back until he got there. Breathing hard, he turned to find Eric holding his forehead. He moaned and whimpered before the floor creaked under the pastor’s feet. With a short breath, he looked back.
“I’m sorry,” Eric said. “Please tell me to go.”
“No,” Brandon shook his head. As he started down the stairs, he added, “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“I heard him.”
Brandon didn’t say another word as he walked downstairs, but the next thing Eric said stopped him halfway, his hand squeezing the rail.
“He said your real name is Tuck.”
8
A dull hum dissolved the long dark, vibrating in Joe’s head until he woke. The black tinted red, the buzz replaced with a significant ache. He opened his eyes in an unfamiliar bedroom, lying on a single bed with a small nightstand. A silver lamp perched in the middle, and a wooden dresser sat across the room, its polish gleaming a reflection of lamplight.
Another throb inside his skull got him onto his feet to find a bathroom. The room opened into a living room connected to a small dining room and kitchen. As apartments went, it would make a better closet, but he didn’t have time to list its faults. Something surged from his stomach, and he didn’t want to vomit on the carpet until he found out who it belonged to.
With a hand on the wall and the other over his mouth, he staggered in a way he hadn’t since he buried his father. The night after the funeral, as the whiskey sent him down the hall of his childhood home, Elaine followed to make sure he felt her hard gaze the whole way. She’d watched him purge every drop to give him no choice but to look at her. She made him swear never to do that to her again, and he didn’t, even when her death made him desperate to deaden the pain. He obviously found something and was lucky to find the toilet before its encore. Strings of yellow bile rushed out of him and he closed his eyes, feeling Elaine watching from the doorway though turning would only find an empty space. Coughing up the last of what made him sick, he suddenly remembered more.
He met Vick at a diner, thinking handing over the stone would fulfill his obligation. On the way home, he noticed a van. There’d been soldiers and a man who knew more than he should. Conjured by the thought, the same gruff voice spoke from the living room.
“You need to drink water.”
Joe wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he flushed. His feet cooperated better as he walked out and expected to find the man on the white couch, but there was no one. He turned to check the kitchen and table in the corner, but he was alone. Though the nausea was gone, whatever they doped him with might cause hallucinations. Ready to write it off as that, he started toward the couch to sit and figure out where he was and why. Before he got halfway, the voice continued.
“Water or you’ll get sick again. The tap is filtered. The glasses are above the sink.”
He heard static in the voice and realized what was happening. It came over a speaker, a smart move since Joe would tear him apart with his hands if he got the chance. The power the stone gave him would be enough to do that easy, and he had justification. Beyond the kidnapping, he took him from his son, a boy who’d lost his mother months ago. When his dad didn’t pick him up, he’d think the worst.
For now, he drank a full glass of water and two more before the man spoke again.
“Don’t overdo it.”
“Where are you?” Joe grunted as he tossed the glass in the sink. It shattered but he didn’t care. Maybe the voice would be pissed off enough to show himself. With a basin of broken glass, he might not need his bare hands after all.
“Somewhere safe,” the man answered.
“You know enough about me to be scared,” Joe said.
“Cautious,” the voice corrected.
“If that makes you feel better,” Joe shrugged. “Whatever keeps me in here and you there. You drugged me, shot me, and drove me to God knows where. Fine. It cost me a headache and time, but I’ve got plenty to spare. I’m reasonable. I can forgive that. Let me go and I will.”
“If I don’t?”
“I’ll kill you.”
“That’s all? You’re not going to threaten to crush my skull or rip my head off? You don’t know half of what you’re capable of but act like you did more than sit around your office these past months pretending to be human. Right now, I know you better than you do. You might kill me, but we’ve got time before that happens.”
“You can stop this. I promise—”
The voice cut in. “You promise to let me live if I take you back to your son. Even if I wanted to, you’ve been here too l
ong. Brad thinks you’re dead. The whole world does.”
He ignored the fact the man knew his son’s name for the more important question. “How long?”
“Three days.”
“People have been missing longer. I’ll make up a story. I’ll make them believe.”
“How will you explain the body?”
“What body?”
“The one they found in your car, wearing your clothes. The impact knocked his teeth out, and the fire didn’t help identify him, but without any reason to question, no one did. I’m sorry to say he gets to rest beside your wife, but you weren’t going to use that burial plot anyway.”
“Who was he?”
“Does it matter?”
“Unless you happened to find a body when you needed one, it does.”
“One of mine,” the voice said, bitterness creeping in. “A volunteer.”
“Who would sign up for that?”
“Someone who understands his death means as much here as in any other war zone.”
“Why?” Joe asked.
“To prevent the end of the world.”
He should have seen it coming—the same stupid ideal that burned a town and saw most of its residents slaughtered. He went to the couch and sat, his head hanging limp to stare at the coffee table.
“You should rest,” the voice said. “Let your body process the sedatives and your mind adjust. There will be time to talk later.”
“I don’t want to talk to you again,” Joe said.
“Too bad. My orders are clear, and I haven’t failed one yet.”
“Orders from who?”
“Someone who knows you well.”
“Say his name,” Joe seethed and grabbed the coffee table. He flipped it over, the corner catching the television set and ripping a hole in the screen.
“Now how will you pass the time?”
“You think this is funny?” Joe shouted and rose. “You ruin a man’s life and hide behind a microphone?”
With a click and metallic whirr, the nearest wall separated and slid away to reveal a window. In an empty room, the man from the highway stood with his hands behind his back, his face stoic and serious.
“I didn’t mean it as a joke,” the man said. “I take this seriously because what’s coming promises to wipe out most of the world’s population. Men. Women. Children. Americans. I have a wife. A little boy and a little girl. They’d give everything to have me home just one day, but I’ll never see them again because I understand the bigger picture. When my job is done, they’ll get the father they’ve prayed for and I won’t be here with you. When I asked how you’ll pass the time, it was an honest question. Because you’re not leaving here until we say you can, so you might as well make yourself comfortable. Watch a movie. Read a book. Do what it takes to be okay with this.”
“In other words, I’m a prisoner.”
“No,” the man shook his head. “You were already that. Now it’s time you were free.”
9
Carly’s face felt swollen and brain on fire when she woke to the cowboy humming low. She stared at the ceiling, trying to decide if the song was familiar. It sounded like something she should recognize, back in the long ago and far away that put her in a church pew beside her parents—a moment so distant, she was sure she’d been in a training bra. The hymn was pleasant from the stoic man, drifting off at some points and others catching short. When he stopped, she raised her head.
He sat in the chair where she always found him, in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t shut his eyes in two days, but he didn’t act tired. Even now, he had his heavy duster off and in his lap, sewing bullet holes with thick black thread. He ran the needle through until his stitch was done and gnawed through the excess string, inspecting his work before looking for the next.
“There’s room on the bed,” she said, surprised at the weakness in her voice.
“I’m fine.”
“I won’t try anything again, if you’re worried about that,” she managed a smile, as if this was something they’d one day laugh about.
“I'm not,” he said and kept to his work.
She rolled her eyes and dropped her head to give the room time to settle. She needed to use the bathroom and stared at the door, twenty miles away as far as she was concerned. Crawling would seem more like forty and made her consider wetting the bed. Even in her fever, the solid ache from her neck to her toes, she knew she could never look him in the eyes again if it came to that. So she steeled herself and turned her legs out of the bed.
“You need to rest,” he told her and finally gave his attention, though his sharp eyes and sharper frown made her not want it.
“I need to pee,” she corrected and glared for as long as she could. The nausea was already churning her stomach, and though it was empty, she needed to move fast if she wanted to avoid dry heaving for the next hour. That reminded her of something else. “I’ll need to eat at some point too.”
He stood with a creak of his knees, but if they hurt him, he didn’t show it as he grabbed her elbow to help her.
“I can call something in when you’re ready,” he told her.
“Really?” she breathed short as she walked. “You can use a phone?”
Ignoring her joke, he nodded. Shaking her head, she reached for the bathroom door and pushed away, leaning on the knob as she went in.
On the toilet, she kept her face in her hands, fingertips digging into her temples to keep from adding a headache to everything else. When she was done, she pulled up with the sink and looked in the mirror at the wasted face staring back.
“Add makeup to the list,” she said with more strength in her voice as she walked out. “I look more like an addict now than when I was using.”
“Hush,” he said. She found him at the door with an eye to the peephole and the long-barreled cannon in his hand.
She hobbled to the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress, managing the position about ten seconds before she had to slip under the covers and close her eyes. As much as she wanted to fall back into her coma, to hopefully wake a new woman, the thought of him worried wouldn’t let her. So she opened her eyes and turned her head to watch him. He eventually lowered the gun and turned to her.
“What is it?”
“Nothing for you to worry about,” he answered on his way to the chair.
“But you are.”
He shook his head. “It’s hard to worry when you remember what’s coming. I’ll be ready, and that’s all you need to know.”
“What about what I want to know?”
“What do you want to know?” he echoed.
“Who you are is a start. Why you’re doing this for me is another.”
“I told you the day we met.”
“You told me you were a fairy tale from the town where I grew up. I didn’t believe it high, and I don’t now.”
He picked up his coat from the bed and turned it in his hands. When he found the next hole, he held it out for her to see.
“This one went through my heart, tearing through two chamber walls. I didn’t find one in the back, so I don’t think it made it out. If you need proof, I’ll let you cut the slug out. By my count, it’s the eighty-sixth bullet to pierce my flesh, but I was never much for numbers. Half should have killed me, and I think you can at least agree I am here talking to you. Whether you believe or not doesn’t change the fact my name is John Valance or that I’ve been walking this same ground for more lifetimes than you can imagine.”
“But how’s that possible?” she asked, and for the first time since they walked into the hotel room, she didn’t feel like her organs were being pulled through her throat. She didn’t think about how quick an injection of heroin would make her suffering go away. She focused on the impossibility in front of her as he shook his head.
“The story is long,” he said.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she shrugged, and his eyes met hers.
“Okay then.”
II. The ballad of john valance
1
In early January—one hundred and forty years to the day he told his story—it was time to plow, and that morning John Valance prayed the seed took. It was down to God’s grace alone, the year before so miserable he had to walk over to the Hovington property to ask for work. Pride stung less than the fact those same ten acres that dried up under his watch had been productive when part of Oliver Hovington’s plantation. He remembered pulling tobacco from that plot as a boy, green leaves so lush he sometimes got lost in them. Some people called it a testament to the value of those slaves the Yankees turned loose, but John knew better. He fought in the war that freed them and witnessed enough of its Hell to understand coming out the other side was enough providence to last a lifetime. The ground only set out to prove him right.
In the barn behind his house, he strapped his mule to the plow and stared up the hill to the massive white house. He imagined the house looking back on him, though there’d been no haughtiness on Mr. Hovington’s face when he carved that niche at the edge of his property. As he shook his hand, he called it gratitude for his service during the war, but John felt more pity in the gesture than patriotism. After all, his parents died while he was away. His father fell off a horse hauling Hovington’s tobacco and his mother succumbed to her grief. He didn’t know if she took her own life or wasted away and never asked. All that mattered was they were dead and he came home to find himself alone. So Hovington invited him for dinner and offered the land—ten acres of tillable cropland with a useless hill in the middle, but the maple on top was perfect for a shady lunch when a day turned hot. Of course, he would pay eventually, but Hovington gave him five years, a sight better than sharecroppers got. He figured it a start so shook the man’s hand with a smile that faded a little every year. Staring at Hovington’s house that morning, he didn’t smile at all.
His mule grunted as he pulled the strap too tight, and he apologized by running a hand over its hide, beneath the buckle and down its mane. Then he steered it past the house toward the field, looking over when the front door scraped open. A large, round belly led Mary out, supported with one hand as she propped the other on her hip. She gave a small wave, and he tipped his hat as if not responsible for her condition. She blushed like always, and he remembered what he told her under the maple the day he asked her to marry him. He courted her for months, and every time he saw her, he tipped his hat and said “ma’am.”