When it was time to report to his job, he’d pack Sarah off and drive her to the babysitter, a younger woman who taught with Nancy. Then he’d go to work and wait on the upper class for eight hours, all the while thinking about what Julie had told him. And he would think about how ineffectual he felt as a father for not being able to do more for Sarah and Nancy, and how he’d failed her in their marriage and how much he still loved her and how much he didn’t want it to end; she and Sarah were his whole world, and how the hell could Julie have found out about Karen? How could he have been so stupid to flirt with Karen in the first place? And before he knew it the club was closing and he was wiping down the bartop and assisting in cleanup and then he was walking out to his car, almost expecting to see Julie in her black Mercedes waiting for him, and he would banish the thought from his mind and drive home. And when he got home he would let himself in carefully because Nancy and Sarah would be asleep. He’d make his way through the darkened house to the living room and disrobe there, then creep down the hall to the bathroom where he would shower, then go to bed. Nancy would be fast asleep and would hardly awaken when he joined her in bed because she would have put in close to a sixteen-hour workday herself. And when the alarm clock woke them both up at six o’clock they would start the whole process over again.
The strain in his marriage had been slowly building since the layoff, but it was getting worse since the re-emergence of Sarah’s cancer. The chasm had been widening for the past three months, so much that they’d lost that sense of them against the world mentality they’d once shared. As Jim made his daughter a bowl of cereal while Nancy got ready for her day, he realized it was all crumbling down even faster. Something had to turn around, something had to—
“We got another letter from Bank of America,” Nancy said, startling him out of his thoughts. He spilled a dollop of milk on the table and Sarah managed a small laugh. Nancy was standing at the kitchen doorway dressed in a white terrycloth bathrobe, toweling her brown curly hair.
“Great,” he muttered, turning his attention to the mess he’d made with the milk. “How nasty were they?”
“We have thirty days to bring the account up to date and pay back the late fees.”
“Okay,” he said, mentally tallying up the figures. They had fallen a month behind on their mortgage payments the last time he was between jobs; Nancy’s paycheck that month had gone toward Sarah’s medical bills. They needed to pay three thousand dollars to bring the account up to date. They didn’t have it.
“Citibank and Sears called me at work yesterday,” Nancy continued, looking at him wearily. “They’re threatening to sue us in small claims court.”
“Um hmm.” He put two pieces of bread in the toaster for Sarah.
“Are you listening to anything I’m saying?” Nancy suddenly shouted. He whirled toward her and saw how upset she was; her face was drawn tight, the circles under her eyes had grown darker. Her eyes looked heavy from little sleep. Her hair was in disarray. As suddenly as she’d shouted at him she seemed to collapse, as if all the weight of the problems that had been resting on her shoulders suddenly proved to be too much for her. Her shoulders sagged and she leaned against the doorway that led to the kitchen and cried hoarsely. “I can’t take this anymore, Jim, I just can’t take it.”
Sarah looked up from her cereal, her once smiling face now frozen in an ‘O’ of astonishment as she waited out the storm that was threatening to come.
“Hey, hey,” Jim said, moving toward Nancy to take her in his arms.
She pushed him away and sobbed louder. Her face was red but no tears fell from her eyes. “Just leave me alone, Jim. Please...”
“Nancy...” Jim began, making another half-hearted attempt to comfort her.
“Just leave me alone!” she cried.
Behind them at the kitchen table, Sarah started to cry.
Nancy looked at her daughter, her eyes red, mouth trembling, and then back at Jim. “I’ve got to get ready for work.” She turned and began heading toward the bedroom.
Jim’s first impulse was to dart after his wife to make amends, to say he was sorry, but Sarah’s cries stopped him. He scooted over to her and picked her up, cradling her small frame against him. He felt her hot tears on his cheek. He stroked the wispy hair that still clung to her balding skull. She felt papery thin in his arms. “It’s okay, baby,” he crooned. “It’s okay. Mommy and Daddy just had a little argument. It’s okay.”
He kept crooning to her, kept holding her until her sobs quieted down. By the time she was herself again he promised they would visit the LA Zoo today—there was a special five dollar entrance today and kids under ten could get in for free. He could hear the shower going in the master bathroom. He put Sarah back down in her chair and headed toward the bedroom, intending to make amends. He stopped outside the half-closed bathroom door, thinking of what he was going to say when he heard it. Just over the din of the running shower.
Nancy. Still crying.
He stepped back from the bathroom. Now wasn’t the time for any half-assed attempts at apology. He knew that would simply start her up again and she would yell at him to just shut up and leave her alone. Whatever pain and sorrow she was going through, she would have to go through it alone.
Jim went back into the kitchen to finish making Sarah’s breakfast.
*
Thursday, 7:30 PM.
He sat across from Julie in a private back booth at the Rivera nursing his first drink of the evening—a Gin and Tonic—while she started on hers. He normally had Thursday nights off, but he told Nancy that he was filling in for another bartender and she believed it. Since their heated argument two days ago Nancy had been quiet. She hadn’t spoken to him much the following morning as they set about getting ready for the day, she showering and dressing for work and he getting Sarah’s breakfast ready. The last two nights she hadn’t waited up for him to talk either; instead, she’d been asleep, which troubled Jim. Usually when an argument commenced, she would make some attempt within the first day or so to talk about it, to bring her feelings out in the open for them to discuss. But this time she closed herself off even further, which Jim didn’t like. It was like she was retreating from their problems, from their marriage. She was giving up.
So last night he decided to play this game Julie’s way and see where it took him. If he didn’t show up at the Rivera, Nancy would get the phone call from Karen, probably the next day during class. If he showed up at the Rivera ready to bargain with her, he might be able to head this thing off at the pass, or at least stall the inevitable until he had a chance to talk to Nancy and tell her what was happening. He would surely have a better chance at talking to her about the blackmail attempt and what Julie was planning to do to shatter their marriage.
When he arrived at the Rivera he gave the Maitre’d his name and asked if anybody was waiting for him. He was directed to the back of the club where Julie was already seated, looking immaculate in black slacks and a white blouse. As usual, her hair and features were flawless. She managed a small smile as Jim approached the table. “I’m happy to see you made it.”
“Not as happy as I am,” Jim said. A waiter approached and took his order.
As he waited for his drink, Julie regarded him over her own cocktail. “I sense things haven’t been so great at home.”
“My, you are a genius, you know that?” So what if he was sarcastic? The bitch had put him up to it.
His sarcasm didn’t penetrate her veneer. “Just an observation.”
“I’m sure you’re great at that.”
“I am.”
“Of course. How else would you know which sucker at the bar to pick?”
She smiled and took a sip of her drink. “It took a little more than that.”
“Oh?”
“You’ll see when I explain.”
“I’m sure I will.”
The waiter reappeared with Jim’s drink, then whisked away. Jim didn’t even pay attention to the fact that h
e didn’t ask for payment. His attention was riveted on Julie. She surely didn’t look like a devil-worshipper; that was his other tactic, to see what was so different about her. Didn’t devil-worshippers wear inverted crucifixes? Or pentagrams? Julie wasn’t sporting anything that indicated she was a Satanist. “Okay. Let me hear it.”
“I admire that in a man,” Julie said.
“What’s that?”
“The fact that you get right down to business.”
Jim didn’t share her enthusiasm for his seriousness. “Cut the shit, Julie. Tell me what the hell you have in mind.”
“Fine.” Julie took a sip of her drink. “Your layoff is a result of an economic downturn that doesn’t even exist. At least not in the traditional sense that economists have come to recognize as a true recession. Yet despite that, you and millions of people are being affected by job layoffs. Outsourcing plays a big part in it, but other factors weigh very heavily, too. Among them are shareholder’s desire to maximize profits, CEO’s desire for higher wages and better benefits packages. Inflation is a big factor, too. In fact—”
“What does this have to do with your proposal?” Jim interrupted.
“It has everything to do with it. Bear with me.” Julie paused for a moment, then continued. “Haven’t you ever wondered why the standard cost of living has not kept pace with inflation during the past thirty years? Haven’t you ever wondered about the rise of religious fundamentalism in the last thirty years despite the incredible advance science has made in explaining everything from the geological history of the planet to the advances in medical science? Mankind continues to cling to outmoded concepts of a god that has been dying since the Middle Ages. But then I suppose a lengthy dissertation on the dying of the Christian god would not bode so well for you, being a Christian man.”
Jim said nothing to contradict her. He was by no means a devout Christian, and indeed he had his doubts, especially lately. Those doubts had led to him leaving the church he and Nancy had been attending since their marriage.
“To get straight to the point, ritual magic has been used to assist in the harnessing and direction of these seemingly random and natural occurrences. It has been used to cloud the minds of people who would otherwise be intelligent and rational. It has been used to affect Earth’s natural cycle as well: the warming of the planet, seismic activity, the weather.”
“You’re trying to tell me that global warming is the result of black magic?” Now he really knew she was off her rocker.
“It isn’t the cause,” Julie explained. “What our spells and rituals have resulted in is the clouding of minds to speed up the warming process. Without carbon dioxide emissions and the erosion of the ozone layer, the planet would have gradually heated up on its own anyway. The earth has gone through numerous heating and cooling cycles during its billions of years circling the sun. What we’ve done is accelerated the process by spreading chaos and confusion through various members of society, most notably by pitting the scientific and religious communities against each other. We’ve also utilized rituals in making sure most of the population remains under the influence of most organized religious leaders.”
“So where do I come in?”
“Part of what I’ve just described to you will result in the arrival of the Dark Father. Additional rituals are also being utilized to bring about His emergence into this sphere of existence. To give you some background, much of the formula we’re following was thwarted back in the 1940’s by various forces. Our current group resurrected the original cult and began work at harnessing what was left over. It’s taken the better part of the past thirty years to get to where we are now, but I can guarantee you that the rituals we’re working on will bring about sudden, more dramatic results.”
“And that’s where I come in?” Despite the outlandish claims, Jim found this fascinating.
“The ritual you will be participating in serves many purposes.” Julie took a sip of her drink. “For your willing participation, you will be paid handsomely. Three million dollars in cash. This payment serves as part of the ritual, too.”
“How so?”
“Your selection was not random. A willing person is needed, one who is not only a believer in Christ, but somebody who will be more prone to act on their base needs that will conflict with their religious beliefs. Your background, and your immediate family health and financial needs were prime factors in your selection.”
Jim nodded. If he hadn’t been unemployed, and their finances in such dire straights, he probably wouldn’t be having this conversation with Julie now.
“If you participate in the ritual you will be just one key in a series of rituals that we have been undertaking for thirty years. In addition to playing a part in our overall goals, the ritual you will participate in will also serve as a great slap in the face of the adversary, who always extols piety and self-sacrifice at the expense of the self. You won’t be laying your life on the line to save another; you will be betraying one of your own faith. And you will be feeding on your own self interest—to save your daughter and your marriage.”
It all made a sick sort of sense. Refuse her offer and suffer. Go to the police and what?
“Once the ritual is complete, you will be paid and then you and your family will never hear from me or the group ever again, provided you say nothing about what you did or give any hint to anybody of the group and its purpose.”
“And what if I decline?” Jim asked. He hadn’t touched his drink.
“We can control the outcome of your daughter’s illness.” Julie’s voice was cool, emotionless as she regarded him from across the table. “She will be dead in less than twelve months. She can go much quicker if you fail to cooperate.”
Jim could barely speak, he was so angry. “You heartless bitch!”
Julie ignored him. “You’ll never get the money fast enough to help her if you don’t go through your part in the ritual.”
“You’re actually saying you can speed up my daughter’s cancer?”
“Yes. Would you like a demonstration?” Julie held his gaze, daring him.
Jim glared at her silently.
“If you don’t go through with the offer, your daughter’s cancer will quickly worsen. Likewise, if you decide to go through with it and you later turn against the group by alerting the police, it will be as if the cancer has miraculously returned.”
“Have other people like myself been made similar offers?”
“Before you, I’ve made sixteen over the last seven years. Eleven took me up on it. They are now handsomely rich.”
“And the other five?”
“Keep in mind that the others faced dire straits in their lives that were far different from yours.” Julie leaned back and counted them on her fingers. “One is now in jail on embezzlement charges, two others are divorced and in total financial ruin, another has lost his home and business from bankruptcy, and the fifth is dead.” She smiled, as if proud of her track record. “Their families haven’t fared much better. In fact, there have been accidents...deaths.” She cast a dark look at Jim and he got the message. Jim looked away from her, back down at the rest of his drink, which he gulped down. He found what she’d just said horrifying.
“You had them killed?”
Her smile was wry. “No. Their foolishness led to their deaths.”
“And the ones that took you up on it...they led innocent people to their deaths?”
“Yes.”
“And they were paid three million bucks.”
“Actually, because you’re the first man with a family and a sick child to consider, you’re the first to receive a higher sum. The other parties in question received a million dollars in cash.”
“In cash.”
“Yep.”
“And you haven’t...interfered with their lives in any way?”
“They haven’t been harmed in any way, nor have their families.”
“And you know that because you keep track of them. Somehow y
ou know if they talk.”
“Only one talked. It’s a shame. The IRS still doesn’t know where he came into the money they found stuffed in his freezer. As a result, his heirs likely won’t receive any of it.”
“Nice. And you left his children alone even though he told somebody.”
“Not at all. His children were dealt with. Adult children, I might add. They were visited by a demon one of our members conjured, who silenced them. In fact, one of them is still missing.” Julie smiled.
Jim thought about this. “So only one of your takers talked, and he and his family were dealt with. The others though...they haven’t talked and they’re okay?”
“They’re fine, happy, and rich.”
Jim almost asked, are you sure they’re happy? but decided not to. He looked at his empty glass before him. “Three million...”
“We offer it because we realize the risks. We offer it because it is part of our belief system. Your participation plays a very vital role in our goals.” She leaned back and regarded him the way a snake sizes up a mouse before it strikes. “Think of how much the money will help you. Surely you can use that kind of cash now, don’t you think?”
He mused over this, examining all angles. “Who is it I lead to their death?”
Do Unto Others Page 3