by Tim McGregor
“Of course,” he said. “You’re Mary Agnes’s daughter. Judith phoned yesterday, told me to expect a call.”
So that was it, she thought. The next thought was, why? To warn him about a nosy busybody poking around the dingy roots of the family tree? “So you know why I’m calling?”
“Yes, yes,” he said, his voice brightening. “When are you free? We could meet in the city but it might be easier if you came here. Do you have a car? Can you make it out here to the wilds of Waterford?”
“I can get a car,” she said. This seemed too easy. “I’d love to come visit, thanks. When’s a good time for you?”
“Are you busy today?” he said.
“Depends on the time,” Billie replied, surprised at how easy this had turned out. “What’s your address?”
She scribbled down the address he gave her. A time was arranged and they said goodbye. Billie looked up at the legless ghost perched on the fridge, almost disbelieving her good luck.
“Well how about that?” she said to Tom. “I’ve got a family reunion today.”
His features remained blank. Poor Tom dropped to the floor and hobbled away on his hands, his signature smear of blood trailing behind him.
“Try not to get too excited about it,” she snarked.
Pleased with how the day was starting out, she picked up her phone again and scrolled down the contact list. She hit dial when Robin’s name came up. She’d just touch base with her. Maybe her good luck would continue and Robin would report that all the activity in the house had stopped since Billie’s visit. It rang thrice before clicking over to the answering service.
“Hey Robin,” she said after the beep. “It’s Billie. Just wanted to say hi, see how everyone is doing. If you have a moment, give me a ring back, okay?”
Hanging up, she looked at the time. The woman was just busy, probably getting Maya off to school.
Chapter 11
REVEREND JOY RETURNED to the house, dressed for battle. Of the black suits in his closet, one was a tailor-made. Costing a small fortune, this suit was reserved for finer occasions like weddings and funerals. Never christenings however, having learnt the hard way that infants were unpredictable in their tendency to upchuck.
Today called for the tailored armour, preserved in its film of plastic from the drycleaner. His favourite pair of brogues, polished to a high sheen, and his whitest starched dog collar. Inside the black leather satchel were the tools of war. The stole, his personal bible and a three vials of holy water. He had even packed a pewter tin containing three wafers of Eucharist, in the event that he might perform an impromptu Mass within the house.
It had all been for naught. He had emerged from the house on Cavell Avenue drained and sweating, hands trembling so hard that he could barely button up his overcoat. A sharp pain in his ribs where, later that evening, he would find a purpled bruise.
Robin and Noah were waiting for him at the Tim Hortons a few blocks away. Needing the house empty, he had asked them to wait there until it was over. Leaving the Reverend a key to lock up with when he was done, they placed their home in his trust and left. The atmosphere altered instantly once they were gone, the air pressure climbing as if he was in a plane gaining altitude. The house, it seemed, had been waiting for him. Reciting the Lord’s Prayer there in the foyer, he marched up to the second floor to begin. Same plan as before, bless each room until he made his way into the basement.
The devil was inside this house, of that he had no doubts. It taunted him as before, bumps and thuds coming from another room or behind him. He prayed, commanding the unclean entity to leave the house. It thumped and scraped, creaking noise through the floors and timbers like it was mocking him. Descending the stairs, he felt something shove him from behind, forcing him to snatch the handrail to keep from falling. Angered, he blessed the staircase itself, damping the cheap carpet runner with shakes of holy water.
The cellar, he knew, would be the worst spot. Ground zero in a spiritual war zone. No man’s land. What he couldn’t have known was how devious and malignant the devil could be. It was as if the wraith had reached into his pounding heart and plucked out his worst fear, his most painful of memory. Working his way through the cellar, he made his way to the darker corner on the north side. A deep Stygian pitch where the waxy light of the naked bulb did not reach. His eyes could just make out a few crates and an old wooden chair.
Then a figure rose up from behind the crates. It shambled into the light and Reverend Joy took in the horror that had been the last glimpse of his own father. Lines of hospital tubes dangled from his face and limbs, a patchwork of wires taped to the emaciated chest. The eyes still afire with that rage in the moments before he died. His father’s mouth yawned open, strings of sticky spittle threading the teeth as he spoke.
“Why?” it said. “Why did you let them do this to me?”
It was a trick. The logical part of his brain knew it was a ruse, but his mind wasn’t where it hurt. Like it was yesterday, his heart breaking all over again in the torment of a loved one’s death. This thing, this evil spirit, had no scruples. It would stop at nothing to hurt him, to make him run off like a coward.
“I told you I didn’t want this,” croaked the thing guised as his late father. “Skewered to pieces by these butchers. Why did you let them do this?”
Reverend Joy let the vial of holy water fall to the cold floor. The glass broke, the water steaming up as if the concrete itself was daemonic. He lowered his head, closed his eyes and simply prayed.
The thing lashed out, fast as a rattlesnake. The clawed hand striking his ribs, digging at him with filthy, broken fingernails as if the thing meant to rip past the bone to get at his heart. Joy dropped to one knee at the pain igniting every nerve in his body. The bulb popped, leaving him in pristine darkness.
He had lost the battle, plain and simple. He retreated, crawling up the creaking stairs of raw-milled lumber that left splinters in his palms. Withdraw and regroup. Fight another day. But what was he tell Noah and his poor family?
Their faces were lit with quietly contained hope when he entered the coffee shop, the two of them aching to hear good news. It fell away as the Reverend limped to their table, bedraggled and exhausted as a leper on Palm Sunday.
Robin would not let hope slip away so easily. She couldn’t. “Is it gone?”
Reverend Joy dropped into the empty chair, too drained to compose himself. “Not yet. Soon.” And then, “I’m sorry.”
“We’re grateful to you, Rev.” Noah, always looking for the silver lining. “For everything. I guess this one’s just a lost cause.”
“Nothing is a lost cause. We’ll try again. The important thing now is to not give up. Ever.” The man in the collar seemed unsure if he was addressing the couple or himself.
“It looks like it knocked you around,” Robin said.
“It seems stronger than last time. Angrier.” His eyes came up suddenly, intensely on one and then the other. “The psychic hasn’t been back, has she?”
“No,” Robin promised.
“Good.” He ran a hand through the flat buzz of hair. “Does Maya know what’s going on?”
“We haven’t told her but she suspects something. There are certain places she won’t go. Like the basement.”
Joy nodded. He couldn’t blame the child, the cellar was terrifying. The evil within its stone foundations was heavy, almost corporeal and he could still feel the raw sting of fingers clawing at his chest. Shaking it off, he looked at the couple. “Have either of you ever experienced anything before this? Before you moved into the house?”
Robin looked to Noah first, then the Reverend. They both shook theirs heads. “No. Why?”
“Just eliminating possibilities.” He brought his gaze to Noah. “Remind me, Noah. Maya is not your daughter, yes?”
“Biologically, no. But in every other way she is.” He backed up, qualifying the remark. “I mean, I love her.”
“And where is the biological father?”
A delicate question.
“No idea,” answered Robin. She lowered her voice, propriety in a busy cafe. “He took off before she was a year old. Worthless.”
“Were you married at the time?”
“No, thank God. I don’t mean to be flip, Reverend. It’s just better that we weren’t.” Still rattled from the direness of their situation, the tears hadn’t receded that far, threatening to spill again. “I haven’t led the most exemplary life.”
“Neither of us have,” Noah, said. Showing strength to her through the bond of shared experience. “We’ve both had our share of toxic people in the past.”
“Do you have a child with another woman?”
Noah shook his head slowly. “I did, years ago. The baby didn’t survive. It was an awful time.”
The Reverend paused, choosing his words carefully. “These toxic relationships, did either of your exes dabble in the occult?”
“Occult?”
“Ouija boards or witchcraft. Black magic or any New Age stuff?”
Another shared glance between the couple. Robin’s face had drained of colour. “Do you really think it has to do with something like that?”
“People play around with these things like it’s nothing, not realizing that they can invite all kinds of bad things into their life.” Reverend Joy straightened the cuff of his shirt. “This entity that’s infested your home is evil. There’s no other way to describe it. And all evil derives from the same source.”
Noah looked at the floor. Robin drained a little more, both of colour and hope. Her hands were in her lap, the cell phone clutched there, out of sight. The message from Billie, unanswered.
The Reverend reached out for their hands. “Don’t give in to despair. That’s how evil works, chipping away at us a piece at a time. We must show a united front, in strength and love, in order to drive the devil out. And drive him out we will. That is a vow.”
~
Three hours on the motorway in a dented Ford Fiesta, skirting round the rotten core of London, smoke slipstreaming from the driver’s side window. The traffic slowed to a turtle’s pace. Again. Exasperated, Gantry flung another cigarette butt out the window. “How the bloody hell do people do this everyday?”
He hated driving but the road trip he’d sketched out for the next few days would simply be easier by car. A lot of miles to run, some of it backroad rural. Before leaving Southend, he had toyed with the idea of simply nicking a car but the added risk was something he didn’t need. So he rented one, just like an everyday, average bloke. He’d hoped to get a Land Rover, or something that could handle a rough country road. What he ended up with was this miserable Fiesta. Atlantic Blue paintjob, ugly as sin. He had dinged the bumper on the way out of the rental carpark. Fortunately, the name he’d signed on the rental agreement wasn’t his own.
Slipping off the M4, onto Marlborough Road, it took another twenty minutes to find the address of Mr Darby Orton. A narrow street of cramped houses, the hedges brittle in the early February gale. He pulled up before the house of his former father-in-law, one window flickering in a jerky light from the telly. Deciding he wasn’t ready, he took off again looking for a pub.
Two hours later, he returned to the spot and got out of the stupid Fiesta, suitably prepared for the worst. Looking at the shitbox motor, he saw a deep scratch in the paint on the door and another ding in the rear bumper. Couldn’t remember where he’d picked up either but he liked the look of the damage and decided he would make it his personal mission to beat the absolute shite out of the wretched Ford before returning it the rental agency in Southend. Picturing their gobsmacked faces as he limped it home gave him an almost perverted tingle of glee.
He rang the doorbell quickly before he had a chance to chicken out and drive off. Having run through a dozen ways to greet the old man, Gantry found his brain empty, unable to recall any of them.
Inside the house a dog was yipping, alarmed by the doorbell. He heard footsteps shuffling. The door swung back.
Mr Orton stood with his hand on the doorknob, peering over his reading glasses. The cuffs of his grey cardy were worn, loose threads dangling. He blinked, staring at the visitor on his doorstep. He’d yet to even say hello.
It had been ages, Gantry realized. The pensioner simply didn’t recognize him. “Hullo, Darby,” Gantry said, diving in. “Do you have a minute?”
“Wait here,” Mr Orton said. He closed the door.
Gantry jerked his head back in surprise. Had the old gent lost his marbles in the intervening years? Maybe his eyesight was so poor he simply didn’t see who was calling at this hour.
The door opened again. The shotgun in Mr Orton’s hands was a double-barrelled antique. Beesly action, small calibre. The old man shouldered the stock, bringing the twin bores up to the visitor’s face. Small calibre or not, at this range it would shred anything to hamburger.
“Ah,” Gantry said. “So you do remember me.”
Mr Orton fired the first barrel. The hammer came down with a click but that was all.
“Bloody misfire!” the old man swore.
“Guns tend to do that around me.” Gantry gripped the barrel and pointed the business end to the flagstone. “Let’s put the blasters away and talk inside, yeah?”
“I’ve nothing to say to you,” said Mr Orton.
They sat in the living room before a cold hearth. The arms of Gantry’s chair was fuzzy with dust, unused. The only chair that wasn’t dusty was the one Orton sat crumpled in, aligned to the small telly beside the fireplace.
“Beside the bark of a shotgun, you mean?” He regretted it the minute it slipped out. He didn’t come here to snark at the old man. Gantry broke the gun at the hinge, plucked out the two thin cartridge shells and dropped them in his pocket. He snapped the gun closed, handed it back to its owner. “She’s a stout weapon, that is.”
“Never failed me before,” the old man said. “You’ve the luck of the devil, Gantry.”
“Comes in handy with the Wiltshire Dirty Harry set.”
The dog, a greying Yorkie, lay at the old man’s feet, eyeing the guest uneasily. Animals were like that, able to smell trouble before it happened.
“So.” Orton scratched at the bald patch on his head. “You murdered my Ellie. And now you’ve come to do me in, is it?”
“I’m not really sure why I’m here, to be honest.” Gantry’s fingers were empty and restless, already itching for a cigarette. “That’s a lie. I came to say that I was sorry.”
Orton’s brow wrinkled into a hundred creases. “Sorry? Ah well, that it makes it all better, doesn’t it? I’m sure being sorry will bring Ellie back. Do have her ring me, when she returns, won’t you?”
Gantry leaned back and stretched his legs out. He deserved that. And a thousand more like it.
“Would you pass me the telephone?”
The phone was a relic. Rotary dial, heavy plastic thing with a long cord. He took it from the desk and placed it in the man’s lap, the bell inside ringing softly. Orton lifted the receiver and turned the rotary disk.
“Who’re you calling?”
“The police.” The old man spun the disk again.
“Of course.” Gantry yanked the cord from the wall. “Call them later. Listen, I know you won’t believe a word I say but that doesn’t stop the need to say it. I never meant for Ellie to die.”
“You’re correct. I don’t believe you. Now away and sod off with you.”
“Something took hold of Ellie,” Gantry went on. He couldn’t stop now. Wouldn’t. “It got inside her, like an evil virus. I tried to get it out. I failed. Yes, her death is on my hands, it was my fault. But it wasn’t like how you think. Or how the filth say it happened.”
Orton peered over his glasses again, the phone receiver still held aloft in his hand. “Mmm. This is more of your spooky business, is it? Evil, was it? The devil is to blame? Well, thank you for that, Mister Gantry. That is so very comforting to me.”
Gantry frowned. He really should hav
e prepared better for this.
The Yorkie growled, all stringy hair and little teeth.
“Can I phone the police now,” Orton asked, “or do you want to discuss flying saucers and alien probes, too?”
Gantry rose. The dog yipped, rising also. He plugged the cord back into the wall. “Do as you like, granddad. I’ve said my piece.”
He stopped at the doorway and looked back. “They might think you’re mad, if you tell them it’s me.”
“You’re still their only suspect, aren’t you?”
“I was. But then I died.”
Orton’s sneer was livid. “Another parlour trick of yours.”
Reaching into his pocket, Gantry retrieved the two rifle cartridges and placed them on the hall table. “That, or I’m a ghost. Toodles.”
~
Cousin Earl’s home was a red-brick farmhouse with a wraparound veranda and three ancient black maples lining the long gravel drive. Quaint and charming, fringed with snow over the eaves and window sashes. A dream home, Billie thought, as she pulled into the driveway in a dented Nissan borrowed from her neighbour. She coveted any place with a porch, especially a wide one with wooden floorboards. She pictured herself sitting in a rocking chair on a summer’s evening with her feet up on the rail, listening to the crickets and the croak of bullfrogs from the nearby creek.
Cousin Earl turned out to be just as charming. She was pleasantly surprised at this, after the aloofness of cousin Judith.
“Welcome to the farm,” he said, coming out onto the porch to meet her. Late fifties was her guess, greying hair and a bit of a paunch under a flannel workshirt. His smile was warm, as was the hug that came with it. The smell of Old Spice.
“How was the drive?” he asked, pulling back to take a look at her. “Did you get stuck in that snowfall?”
“Some of it,” Billie said, banging it off her boots. Snow was drifting down over the yard in a soft patter, no wind. “I guess I brought it with me.”
“Come inside,” he said, shooing her into the farmhouse.