The Outside

by Laura Bickle

  The animals had known that Darkness was coming. I remembered when I had been back home, before any hint of evil. The ravens had known, taking wing in huge flocks that blotted out the sun. I saw no sign of any of them as we traveled.

  I squinted, spying something white in the distance: a structure, with a gravel road leading up to it.

  Alex and Ginger and I traded glances.

  “What is it?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. I had never seen a house washed that white.

  “It’s a church,” Alex said.

  “If it hasn’t been defiled, this could be good.” Ginger sighed happily.

  I regarded it closely as we approached. Plain folk didn’t have churches. Our worship services took place at our homes, on a rotating basis. We’d listen to sermons in backyards and on front lawns. In that way, our whole space had been sanctified. We lived and worked with God.

  I had never been in a church before. The white structure was small, perhaps a story and a half, with wooden siding covered by paint that was beginning to peel. The windows were peaked, but closed with shutters. A large cross was nailed to the peak of the roof, and the gravel drive led up to the front door. A small stream meandered behind it. I doubted that it could contain half as many people as were held on my backyard on Sundays.

  A hand-lettered sign on the front lawn read CALVARY PENTECOSTAL APOSTOLIC CHURCH. ALL ARE WELCOME.

  I shuddered. I hope that wasn’t enough invitation for the vampires.

  I ran my fingers over the black painted letters of the sign. I knew that the Pentecost was when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples of Jesus, after his resurrection. “A Christian church, then,” I said, comforted a bit by the idea of a traditional God that I could recognize.

  Alex stared at the sign. “Yes,” he said. “Pentecostals have an experiential belief in God. They believe that the Holy Spirit can move within them, work miracles, make them speak in tongues, grant special rapport with animals . . .”

  I pressed my lips together and thought about what that might mean. “Interesting.” Plain folk believed that God and man were separate. My body seemed confused and crowded enough with just my spirit inside. How strange it would feel to have God inside me as well . . .

  Ginger climbed the steps. “Let’s see if anyone’s home.”

  She rapped on the whitewashed front door. It was tall with black hinges. We waited, hearing the sound echo in the structure. A mourning dove was disturbed from one of the gutters and flew away in a flurry of cooing.

  She knocked again.

  I heard thumping inside, creaking, like something come to life. I held my breath as the door opened.

  Ginger gasped and backed away.

  An old man stood in the doorway, covered in snakes. The reptiles wreathed his head and shoulders and outstretched arms: blacksnakes, garter snakes, copperheads. He said something unintelligible, his rheumy eyes taking us in.

  “Oh, yeah,” Alex said. “I forgot to mention the snake handling.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The old man’s eyes fixed on us. The garbled words from his mouth untangled, and he clearly said:

  “Welcome, friends.”

  His voice boomed like a drum, and he smiled beatifically. His beard and mustache were white. A tiny garter snake peeped out and disappeared in the knotted mass, possibly down the collar of his flannel shirt. His eyes were so brown that they were nearly black.

  I stood, rooted in place. I was afraid—I could feel the hair standing up on my arms—but also fascinated. The snakes seethed over his shoulders, wrapping around his arms. I was reminded of an old tree I knew as a child that had been struck by lightning. Half of it had turned black and rotted. The other half sprouted green leaves in winter. In the rotted half, snakes had moved in: large blacksnakes that wound around the wood, making it churn and still seem alive. Our Hexenmeister said that it had been touched in a bad way by lightning, by God’s wrath.

  We all avoided that tree.

  “Hello,” I squeaked.

  Alex held up his open hands. He wasn’t holding his knife. That was probably a good sign. I took his lead. “We don’t mean you any harm.”

  “We’re not vampires,” Ginger said, unnecessarily.

  The old man laughed. “Darkness hates sunshine. You aren’t Darkness.”

  I shuddered. He reminded me a bit of my old Hexenmeister. Though this man seemed hale and barrel-chested, there was something about his laugh and the way that he looked past us, through us. Something . . . that made me think he saw things that I couldn’t.

  “And what have we here?” The old man walked down the wooden steps, regarded each of us in turn.

  He paused before Ginger. He took in her borrowed Plain clothes, glasses, and her short haircut. “A mother without her children.”

  “I’m Ginger,” she said softly. “Ginger Parsall.” She laced her hands behind her back. I was pretty sure that she didn’t want to shake hands.

  He looked Alex up and down. “A lost scholar.”

  Alex nodded. “Fair enough. I’m Alex Greene.”

  He approached the horse. “This is your prophet.”

  Horace didn’t react to the snakes. Most horses I knew were terrified of them. This one simply looked at the man through his pale lashes.

  And then he turned to me. “And a Plain girl who is not yet filled with God.”

  I swallowed, lifted my chin. “Ja. I am Katie.”

  The old man mumbled to himself, again in the unintelligible language. He squinted at the sun lowering on the horizon. “I’m Pastor Gene. You’d best be getting inside before the sun sets.”

  My hands wound in Horace’s reins.

  “And the horse, too. The Darkness will come and tear him apart if you leave him.”

  He turned and disappeared inside the church.

  Alex, Ginger, and I stood rooted in place. None of us wanted to go first.

  “Snakes or vampires?” Alex asked.

  “The snakes . . . I don’t understand.” I shook my head.

  “That’s part of the Pentecostal belief system. He believes that the Holy Spirit keeps him safe from venom,” Alex explained.

  “I hate snakes,” Ginger said. I could see the pulse thudding along her collarbone and sweat prickling her brow. “But I hate vampires more.”

  “Ja,” I said. “The least of the things to fear.”

  “‘And the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die.’” Alex’s mouth turned down. “That’s what they said in Genesis, anyway.”

  “Ja,” I sighed.

  Alex climbed the stairs first, and we followed him into the shadow of the doorway.

  It took some time for my eyes to adjust from the gold gloaming of the sunset to the shade of the church. I smelled dust and roses. For a moment, I was blinded in red sun shadow, and all I could hear was my breathing in my ears and a low sibilance.

  My vision cleared to show a boxlike room with benches on the right and left of a center aisle. The floor was scarred pine, and light poured through the windows in broad orange shafts. In the ponds of sun on the floor, I saw a rat snake sunning itself. An altar at the front was decorated with brittle white roses, dried up and crumbling. A wooden cross adorned with a dove looked over the shattered flowers, a copperhead curled around it. Bits of the ruined flowers were strung in garlands on the pews, dropping petals on the floor. A blacksnake slipped beneath the altar.

  Pastor Gene was walking up the aisle, heedless of the snakes. “Don’t mind the reptiles. Or the décor.”

  Ginger was frozen in the doorway. I took her hand and tugged her inside. Horace’s hooves clomped on the old boards. Alex closed the doors behind us.

  “How did . . . how did they get here?” I asked.

  Pastor Gene reached out and grasped a white rose at the end of a pew, pinched it. The petals dissolved. “We were going to have a wedding here when the End Times came.”

  “I meant the snakes.” My voice was timid, echoing up to the dark ceiling.
<
br />   The snakes had begun to drop off of the pastor, the heavy weight of them striking the floor, slapping the boards with echoing thumps. They slithered off beneath the pews. Behind me, Ginger whimpered.

  “They began to show up shortly after the Darkness fell. When the news anchors were reporting that an infectious agent had been released on the East Coast, were telling everyone to stay indoors, I came here to pray, and noticed all the snakes on the bank of the creek.” He pointed through a window. “This is the creek where we do baptisms. Sunday Creek.”

  Minding where I stepped, I peered through the thick glass. The creek shimmered in the sunset. I saw ribbons of snakes in blacks, browns, and greens knotted in a mass on the bank. The sight transfixed me—it was like watching living water.

  “I knew it was a sign,” he said.

  I swallowed. “Back in my community, the ravens all left.”

  He nodded. “God speaks to the animals.”

  I glanced at the garter snake staring at me, unblinking, beneath his beard. “Do you . . . talk to them?”

  He chuckled. “No. I don’t. But I have no reason to fear them. The Holy Spirit moves in me. It’s one of God’s gifts. The Bible tells us:

  And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

  “From the Book of Mark,” I said.

  He smiled. “You’re a good student of the Bible. And: ‘Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.’”

  “Luke,” I said.

  His eyes shone, and I wanted to believe him. The garter snake flicked its tongue out at me.

  I flinched in the face of that evidence.

  “Do you feel the Spirit dwelling in you?” he asked.

  I stared out the window, at the last bit of sun reflected on the baptismal water of Pastor Gene’s creek. “I . . . I have not been baptized.” My cheeks flamed. “Amish are not baptized until they are old enough to choose the church of their free will.”

  “And you didn’t choose to?” His dark eyes searched me. “Or didn’t have time?”

  “My parents wanted me to be. But . . .” I struggled for words. “Before the end of Outside, I had intended on going on Rumspringa. With some of my friends, and a boy.”

  Pastor Gene glanced at Alex. “That boy?”

  I shook my head, and my blush deepened. “No. An Amish boy. Elijah. We were to be married.” I could hear the words coming out of me in a flood, like the stream below, didn’t try to stop them. “He was baptized in a hurry after we learned of the end of Outside, before the Darkness. I wasn’t ready. I was too . . . rebellious.”

  The corner of Pastor Gene’s mouth quirked up. “That boy, Alex—was he part of your rebellion?”

  “Ja. In a way. I found him injured beyond the fence of our property. The Elders told me to leave him there. They knew that the Darkness had come, but I couldn’t leave him to die.” I folded my hands at my waist. “I could not accept the Ordnung, the rules, and be baptized while harboring a fugitive.”

  “And the woman, Ginger? Was she also a fugitive?”

  “No. She just happened to be on our land when the order to close the gate came. I breed—used to breed—dogs, and she sells them for me in the English community.”

  “I see. And your community?”

  I shook my head. “The vampires were let in. Not by me, but they are inside. The Elders put us under the Bann . . . turned Alex, Ginger, and me out. So I don’t know what happened after I left. I hope that our Hexenmeister can help them.”

  “What’s a Hexenmeister?” His brow wrinkled and he lingered a bit on the first syllable.

  “He does the Lord’s work,” I explained. “But not in the way that clergy does. He paints hex signs and writes letters to God—Himmelsbriefen. He knew about the vampires, tried to keep us safe.”

  “I’ve known some Plain folks in my time, and I’ve never heard of that.” His words were slow, a bit suspicious.

  “Our community is a bit different from other Plain communities, in that way,” I said. “The Hexenmeister came over with the Pennsylvania Dutch. We have always kept a remnant of those old ways.” I stared at my reflection in the glass. “It may be a good thing. If they listen to him.”

  It was a while before Pastor Gene spoke. “My parishioners are baptized at a young age,” he said, without judgment. “Usually in summer, when the water’s warm.”

  “You walk in the creek?”

  He shook his head and lowered his hands. “All in. The Spirit dwells within all of us. Baptism fills us up with God. The Lord washes us clean of our sins. And then there’s a picnic.”

  I could picture it: a sunny day, by that cheerful creek, people playing in the grass rather than snakes, the smell of good food.

  “Where are your parishioners?” I asked. “And your family?”

  His gaze was far away. “I tried to tell them. They were afraid. A lot of them thought I was crazy—that I was one of those doomsday prophets talking about the end of the world. I think that much of it was that we’ve been moving too far into the future. In the modern world, God exists as an abstract. Everyone wanted to believe in sunshine. But not the Darkness. Not in evil.”

  “They all . . . they all left?”

  “Most of them went southwest, to the nearest military base. Some wouldn’t let their children be this close to the snakes.” He smiled sadly. “They didn’t believe.”

  I swallowed. I understood. In a strange way, it was hard to believe in an absolute good when I knew there was absolute evil in the world.

  “When the evil came close . . . when people were being slaughtered in their sleep, they came here to the church. But they heard their friends and families calling to them from outside.” Tears filled his eyes.

  “The glamour,” I said. “They came to us. They called to their families too. Convinced them to let them in . . .”

  Pastor Gene shook his head. “I kept them from letting the evil in, but I couldn’t keep them here. One by one, the Darkness called them. They called my wife, my sons.”

  “And they answered.”

  “They did. They slipped outside and became part of the Darkness. Became vampires. Those they don’t devour completely become part of it.”

  “But not you.”

  “No . . . I heard only the hissing. Just the snakes.”

  I screwed up my courage, reached out and touched his sleeve. The garter snake slipped down over his elbow and flicked its tongue at my fingers. “I am sorry for your losses, Pastor Gene.”

  He shook his head. “I thought I was the last one on earth. Meant to suffer, like Job.”

  “No. There have to be more,” I insisted.

  His fingers closed over mine, and the striped green snake fell into my palm. I reflexively caught it. It was no larger than a pencil, warm and dry in my hand. I could feel the articulation of its spine as it moved.

  It reminded me of when I was a child. Elijah had found a little garter snake in the barn. I’d taken it from him and set it free in a field. It had given me some satisfaction to see it vanish into the green grass, melting into the world.

  “We shall have to take that as an article of faith.”

  ***

  Pastor Gene brought us a loaf of sandwich bread and canned meat from the church cellar. We fell upon it, ravenous. We sat in the first pew of the church, our feet tucked beneath us, one eye on the snakes and the other on the setting sun. Clouds were gathering in the west, blotting out the gold.

  When the last of the light drained from the windows, Pastor Gene lit an oil lamp and set it on the altar.

  “I sleep in the dark,” he said. “But I thought that you might not be so used to the snakes.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I had my feet on the pew befor
e me, my arms wrapped around my knees. I could see the reptiles moving, hear them. It was more awful in the dark, not knowing where they were. I was not as afraid as I had been when I’d entered the church. But I was always unsure about the strength of my faith.

  Ginger rubbed her arms. She kept turning her head right and left—I knew that she couldn’t see well through her glasses in the dark, and the faint light sparked off the lenses.

  I reached for her sleeve. “We should pray,” I suggested.

  “Yes. We should,” Pastor Gene said. “The vampires are coming soon.”

  I bowed my head beside Ginger. I could see Alex silhouetted beyond us. He bowed his head respectfully, but his voice did not join the Lord’s Prayer. Ginger and Pastor Gene spoke in English, and I spoke in Deitsch. I heard a tapping on the rafters above us, the beginnings of rain.

  “Our Father, who art in Heaven . . .”

  The pastor’s voice was lovely, a large baritone. I thought to ask him if his church sang. Ours did, in our curiously chant-like way.

  Rain pattered on the thick glass. Somewhere inside the church, I heard a trickle of drizzle from the roof. A copperhead slithered from the altar to a puddle forming on the floor.

  I heard a huff in the back of the church: Horace fidgeting. His white shadow turned toward the window, and he tossed his head. The snakes began to hiss.

  A soft scraping began at the window. I tried not to look, but I couldn’t help it.

  The glass was black and wet, and a white hand was pressed against it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Don’t look,” Pastor Gene ordered.

  I was certain he’d said that many times before. More white fingers made trails in the runnels of water on the glass. I caught a glimpse of a wristwatch, of a wedding ring, a ponytail. It reminded me that they had once been people. Maybe people that Pastor Gene knew.

  The pastor wobbled to the altar. His gait was unsteady. A copperhead snake was wrapped around one wrist.

  “Gene?” Alex asked. He leaped to his feet to follow.

  The pastor turned. His eyes were vacant and garbled speech poured from his mouth. It sounded like gibberish, but his voice was loud and insistent, as if he was issuing a sermon in another language. He didn’t seem to be speaking to us, didn’t even seem aware of us at all. It was as if he’d dropped deep within himself, had closed himself off to the world and the terrible tapping on the windowpanes.