The Town
Page 20
Finally, Semyon cleared his throat. “We need your help,” he said loudly.
Vasili grew silent. He remained crouched, did not stand, but he looked up at them, his gaze flicking over the face of each. Agafia shivered as his eyes met hers, and he smiled at her. He still had all of his teeth, she saw, and seeing strong teeth in his wrinkled head was disturbing somehow.
On the sand next to the pra roak was what looked like a small village made out of sticks and stones and bits of dried cactus. Looking closer, she saw that it was McGuane. Not McGuane as it was, but McGuane as it used to be, when they’d first come here. There was a hole at one end, representing the mine, and from it stretched the other buildings, leading all the way up to Russiantown.
Nikolai took over. “We’re here—” he began.
“I know.”
And Vasili began to recount the story of Jim’s death. It was a detailed description, filled with specific incidents none of them could have known. It had happened much the same way they’d assumed, but hearing it spelled out like this was sobering in its horror.
The prophet’s Russian was hard for her to understand. Despite his appearance and reputed origins, the old man spoke in a higher-class dialect than that of the other Molokans. It was closer to Brezhnev’s educated speech than Krushchev’s peasant dialect, and she had to listen carefully and reorder the accented syllables in her mind before she could tell what he was talking about.
As he described the agony of Jim’s last moments, she wished she could not understand him at all.
“What is causing this?” Nikolai asked when he was through. “And what can we do about it? We have performed a Cleansing—”
“There is not only one,” Vasili said, and they were silent, listening to him. A distorted shadow of his crouched form flickered on the rock wall behind him in concert with the flames of the fire. “There are many evil spirits in McGuane. And more are coming. The dead do not rest well there.”
Agafia shivered. The pra roak looked up at her, and she felt more than saw the unfettered intensity of his gaze.
She heard the voice in her mind: You have invited them.
She looked quickly around, but none of the others were reacting, none of the others had heard.
This was meant only for her.
It is your fault. You have invited them.
The fact that the prophet was communicating with her in this way, that he could communicate in this way, did not surprise her, but it frightened her. No less frightening than the nature of the communication were the ideas behind it, and she tried to think of what he meant, of what she could possibly have done to invite these sorts of . . . beings to McGuane.
Invite.
The word triggered an association in her mind. Perhaps she had not invited these spirits, but by not inviting one, she had inadvertently allowed them entrance.
Jedushka di Muvedushka.
That could not be it. They had forgotten to invite the Owner of the House when they’d moved to McGuane and that would account for any unusual or unexplainable events at their new home, but all of the other Molokans had Owners protecting their houses, and there was no way that their own lack of protection could be affecting the entire town. The pra roak had to mean something else—but she could not for the life of her figure out what it was.
“No!” he suddenly screeched. “No!”
They jumped, all of them, Katsya letting out a little gasped cry and clutching a hand to her breast.
Vasili was holding his ears and grimacing with pain. It looked like he was trying to keep his head from exploding.
Suddenly he slumped forward, toward the fire, then seemed to catch himself. He shook his head as though just waking up from a long nap.
“They must be stopped,” he said, looking up.
“That is why we are here,” Nikolai explained patiently. “We do not know what to do. Are we supposed to pray? Perform more Cleansings? What do we do?”
“God will show you.”
“Has he shown you?” Nikolai asked. “If so, tell us. We are lost.”
“God will show you,” he repeated. “You will know what to do.”
“What if we don’t know what to do?” Agafia got up the courage to ask. She faced him. “What if God shows us, but we are too stupid to figure it out? What will happen then?”
The prophet grinned, the translucent skin of his face pulling tighter, his too-strong teeth giving his head the look of a skull. “All gone,” he said, and with one sweeping arm flattened the makeshift town on the sand next to him. His beard swung to the side as he moved and she saw his wrinkled, shriveled genitals. “All gone.”
They were silent on the trip home, each of them thinking individually about what Vasili had said, about what his words and warnings meant.
That was the trouble with prophets. They had to be interpreted.
Agafia closed her eyes, thought about the meeting.
The McGuane he had destroyed with his hand was already gone.
All gone.
Had he meant by that that the Molokan community in McGuane would be destroyed, the community that had been born when the town really had looked like his model? Or had he meant that the existing town would be somehow turned to rubble? Had he meant that there would be some sort of earthquake or disaster, or that spirits would somehow bring about the destruction?
It was impossible to tell, and that’s what was so frustrating. She considered asking Vera, seeing if the old woman had any ideas or any feelings about this, but Vera was already dead asleep in the back of the van.
Agafia was tired, too. Tired not just physically but mentally, spiritually. Living seemed like such an effort, the energy required to get through a single day almost too much to bear. Would she had felt the same way if she was still back in California, she wondered, if she had not agreed to leave L.A. and come with Gregory? She did not know, but Los Angeles seemed far away now, part of another life, and she could not imagine leading that life again.
Was she ready to die?
She might have been, but it was her grandchildren that kept her going, that supplied what little spark of meaning she had in her life. She sensed that they needed her, and though there was no evidence of that, she felt it in her bones and knew it to be true, and that was what enabled her to keep on living.
It is your fault. You have invited them.
She’d been avoiding that, trying not to think about it. Vasili had said no more to her, either verbally or in her head, and the entire meeting, the entire experience, had been so strange and dreamlike that already the reality of it was fading, the sharp edges blurring in her mind.
But the emotional impact of it had not lessened. And that was how she knew it was real, that was why she knew it had actually happened. The fear she’d felt was still inside her and could be recalled at any time.
Had he spoken to the others that way as well? Had they all heard voices in their heads? She didn’t know, but somehow she didn’t think so. She’d looked around at that moment, and everyone else’s attention had been focused on the external reality of the old man crouched next to the fire. None of them appeared to have been hearing any inner voices.
Why had she been chosen?
Was it really her fault?
She didn’t know. She glanced around the van at her fellow passengers, her fellow parishioners, her friends. She felt guilty for not telling them everything, for not telling them about what the pra roak had said, but she felt guiltier for what she’d done, for forgetting to invite the Owner of the House, and now she was too embarrassed to tell them the truth. Especially at this late date. If she’d been honest with Jim from the very beginning, perhaps he could have thought of some way to counteract or counterbalance her mistake, perhaps it all could have been avoided. He had known a lot more about rituals and traditions and ceremonies than anyone else, and it was possible that he could have come up with an idea.
But it was here and it was now and all they could do was deal with it.
It wasn’t her fault, she told herself again.
But she could not make herself believe it.
3
Scott woke up early on Saturday and had two cold cinnamon Pop Tarts for breakfast, washing them down with the dregs of his dad’s coffee. His parents were gone already, off on their usual weekend rounds of McGuane garage sales, and he was once again on his own.
He watched cartoons while he ate, then dumped his cup and plate in the sink and took his dad’s 35-millimeter camera from the closet where it had been gathering dust since their last trip to Disneyland. It still had film in it, but the counter had broken and he didn’t know how many pictures were left.
One would be enough if everything went perfectly, but things hardly ever did, and he hoped there was at least half a roll to go. He pressed the “Test” button on the attached flash. It worked, and he turned off the TV, locked up the house, got his bike out from the backyard, and pedaled over to Adam’s place.
Their family’s van was gone when he arrived, and though the house looked empty, he checked to make sure anyway. He knocked on the door, waited, knocked on the door, waited, but there was no answer, and after the sixth round of knocks he gave up. He’d told Adam ahead of time that he was coming over this morning, but obviously his friend wasn’t home. Maybe he’d been corralled into some family outing, suckered into going on a hike or a shopping trip or something.
Maybe he really hadn’t wanted to help him.
Scott hadn’t actually considered that before. He knew Dan was uncomfortable with the idea of taking photos of the bathhouse, but he hadn’t taken Adam’s mild objections seriously, and now he found himself wondering if both of his friends weren’t afraid of the small building.
No, he told himself. Adam went there all the time. Alone. It was spooky, but it was cool, and there was a slight prickle at the back of his neck as he hopped back on his bike and pedaled around the side of the house and across the property toward the hill.
The bathhouse.
He saw it against the background of the old burned-out home as he emerged from the copse of paloverdes and stopped.
The day was bright, the sun high in the sky, but suddenly he was not so sure he wanted to go through with this. The idea was a winner, and he had no doubt that he would be able to sell any pictures he took, but he thought that maybe he should wait until Adam was here or at least someone was home at Adam’s house before trying to take any photos.
He did not want to go into the bathhouse alone.
That’s what it came down to.
He leaned his bike against a tree trunk and walked slowly through the jumble of boulders toward the small adobe structure. There were no birds here, he noticed. This area was completely silent, the only sounds the crunching of his tennis shoes on the ground. He took the lens cap off the camera as he walked, turned on the flash. Maybe he could just take the pictures quickly and then get out of here as fast as possible.
He approached the bathhouse, feeling nervous. He’d been too glib before, too flippant in his attitude. Dan was right. There was something here.
Of course there was something here. That’s why he’d come to take pictures.
But it was evil, he thought now. It was not merely weird and interesting and X-Files-ish. It was not just a freakish occurrence to be exploited. There was something wrong and profoundly unnatural about what lay inside that little building, and he was suddenly cowed, intimidated by its presence.
Maybe he should just forget about the whole thing.
No, he’d come this far, he might as well go through with it. Because, after this, he certainly wouldn’t be brave enough to come back and try it again.
After this, he didn’t plan ever to come back here again.
He shivered as a tingle of fear shot down his spine, but there was something exciting about it. It was exhilarating as well as frightening, and that extra rush of adrenaline gave him the courage to walk across the last few feet of ground and up to the bathhouse.
He stood in the doorway, aimed the camera. It was too dark inside the building for him to see anything—the scene in the viewfinder was completely black—but he pointed the camera toward where he knew the shadow of the man was and pressed the shutter. There was a blinding overwhelming strobe of light, then darkness once again.
He stepped back. He thought he’d seen something in the flash. Movement. It had been quick, almost too quick to see, but it had been there. He was sure of it. A quick-silver flow of shadow from one place to another.
Heart pounding, he leaned forward, took another picture.
Again, movement.
Movement and flesh.
Yes. This time he’d seen skin. Someone naked, sitting on a bench.
Someone waiting for a steam bath.
He should run, he thought, leave, get the hell out of here. It would take only a few seconds to reach his bike, then he’d be gone, speeding away. He already had two pictures. He’d gotten what he came for.
But he had to know what was in there. He could not leave without seeing this through.
This’ll make a great story at school, a foolishly brave part of him thought.
It gave him the strength to go on.
He took another picture.
Once more, something was illuminated by the flash. Something he could not see on his own. The scene was more complicated this time, and he had the impression that there were several people in there.
People?
No. Not people.
It was completely silent in the bathhouse, and the phrase “the silence of the grave” popped into his mind. He didn’t know where he’d heard it before, but he backed slowly away from the door, peering into the darkness, trying desperately to make out any shapes inside the room, but the light seemed to die immediately after crossing the threshold, and nothing could be made out.
He wanted to take one more photo, give it one last shot, but this time he stayed away from the door and pointed the camera in the general direction, not bothering to look through the viewfinder.
He saw flesh and shadows, movement more fluid than anything on this earth, and, overseeing everything, on the back wall, the figure of the Russian man.
He ran.
He’d reached the end of the film anyway, and the camera’s automatic rewind was whirring. Several long strides brought him to the paloverde tree against which he’d leaned his bike. He hopped on it and took off, not looking back.
I got it! he thought as he pedaled furiously, leaping the ruts and holes in the path. I got it!
He did not slow down until he was off Adam’s road and downtown. He took the film out of the camera and dropped it off at the 1-Hour Photo next to the video store.
He went back home and put the camera away, turning on the television and watching Scooby Doo, trying desperately not to think of what he’d seen and waiting in vain for his fear-accelerated heart rate to slow.
After an hour that seemed like a day and a series of cartoons that seemed to make no linear sense, Scott raided the sock drawer where his dad stored the loose change he collected, snagged five dollars’ worth of quarters, and hoping that would be enough, took off on his bike for the 1-Hour Photo.
He waited until he was outside the store and alone on the sidewalk before ripping open the package and sorting through the pictures. Disneyland . . . Disneyland . . . Disneyland . . . the beach . . .
The bathhouse.
He stopped, looked at the photo.
The picture began to slide through his suddenly sweaty fingers, but he gripped it tighter as he stared at a scene that did not exist. He recognized the door frame at the top of the photograph, but inside he saw neithe
r the abandoned, neglected wreck that Adam had taken them through nor the creepy world of moving shadows that he’d almost seen in the flash illumination.
He saw a bunch of fat old people sitting naked on benches.
It was nothing he had expected, and he flipped to the next photograph.
Same thing.
The next.
The same.
He frowned at the last picture. The creepy ambiguity of the half-illuminated flash scene was nowhere in evidence. There was nothing remotely mysterious about the shot. About any of them. The scene was clear and well lit—two fat old couples, the men with towels around their waists, the women with towels around their waists and upper bodies. They were all sweating, though the photos showed no steam, and they appeared to be tired, the two women leaning back, eyes closed, the men leaning forward, with grimaces of discomfort on their faces. The back wall, he noticed, was clear. No ghostly shadow.
Maybe these people were ghosts.
Maybe. But somehow that didn’t seem right. They seemed too . . . real. These people were not spirits. They were flesh and blood. He could see the ugly mole on one man’s thigh, the sagging arm muscles of the heavier woman. It was too concrete, this scene, too specific. It was as if he had taken a photograph of a real event—only that event had not been the one before the camera in real life.
What had happened?
He’d taken pictures of the past!
It was the only logical explanation, and he quickly sorted through the bathhouse photos once again. He saw now the anachronistic hairdos and somehow old-timey faces of the women, the way the men looked more foreign than any Molokan he’d ever seen.
These were not just pictures of a spooky shadow. This was a miracle. These photos were worth way more than he’d ever hoped they could be. He shoved them back into the package and hopped on his bike, pedaling straight home. He was no longer scared. He was excited, tremendously excited, more excited than he had ever been in his life, and the first thing he did was immediately call Adam, but though he let the phone ring twenty times, no one answered.