“We will reveal the identity of the sacrifice to you no later than the morning the ritual is to be performed.”
“And then what? Do I have to be present for it?”
“You will be briefed on what will happen the morning of the sacrifice. You won’t be required to participate directly in the actual hands-on of the sacrifice, but you will be required to be present. Once the ceremony is concluded, you will be free to go.”
“And when will I be paid?”
“You will be escorted home after the ceremony and given a card and a set of keys. On the card will be the phone number of several financial institutions. The money will be in safe deposit boxes at each institution. The keys will fit the locks. That will conclude our business arrangement.”
The waiter appeared to deliver another round of drinks. He drank and drummed his fingers on the table, thinking this thing out; if he didn’t go through with it, what was the minimal amount of damage that could happen? Nancy divorcing him? He couldn’t bear the thought of Nancy leaving him and taking Sarah. He would be devastated. Plus, since California was a community property state, she’d be legally entitled to half of everything, including his pension. He would be financially ruined. If he thought of the worst possible scenario there was no telling what else Julie might have up her sleeve. If what she told him about the five men who had refused her offer was true, then there could be more to pay than just his wife divorcing him. The mental anguish that would follow would surely be unbearable.
‘They were visited by a demon one of our members conjured, who silenced them. In fact, one of them is still missing—’
Did Julie and her friends really have that kind of power?
Despite Jim’s recent loss of his Christian faith, much less his growing disbelief in the supernatural, that simple statement held him, kept him centered. What if what she’s saying is true?
Did he really believe that?
He opened his eyes and looked at Julie’s uncompromising features. There was no turning back.
“I just have three simple questions for you,” he said.
She nodded.
“How do I know you’ll pay me? How do I know that...the people you told me about, who participated in the same things....how do I know they even exist?”
“I’m obligated not to talk about the prior eleven parties,” she said, “due to the nature of the deals we made. As far as how you can trust I will pay you, I can advance a small portion of your fee very shortly.”
He turned this over in his mind. He would simply have to wade in as things progressed. He plunged on to his next question. “Suppose I get caught? Suppose...something happens along the way, something that isn’t my fault—”
“You won’t get caught,” Julie interjected. “If you do, it will be your fault. The consequences for getting caught are the same as going to the authorities or talking to anybody about our arrangement.”
He took another sip of his Gin and Tonic. “I can’t win, can I?”
She tried to warm things up with a smile. “Sure you can, Jim. Simply do the job you’re being hired to do and do it well. If you do that, we both win.”
Jim paused, the third question on the tip of his tongue. Julie smiled at him. “You have a third question?”
Jim shook his head. “No.”
“Sure you do.” Julie leaned forward ever so slightly. “Your third question is, ‘how would I know if the supernatural elements of what I’ve told you are true?’” She leaned back, her smile pensive.
Jim tried not to let his surprise show. That had been his third question, verbatim.
How did she know what I was thinking?
“I think I’ve just answered that question for you, Mr. Cornell.” Julie raised her drink. “Do you have any further questions?”
He didn’t. Instead, all Jim Cornell had now was a world of concern.
And fear.
*
Thursday, 10:30 PM.
Nancy was watching TV when he came home that evening. She looked up from the television. “You’re home early.”
“I got off early,” he said, taking off his jacket and draping it on the coat rack near the door. “I didn’t feel so hot.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Just...aches,” he said, moving into the kitchen.
Nancy turned her attention back to the show she was watching. “What kind of aches?”
“Headaches...nausea...” He did feel bad, but it wasn’t anything physical. The empty feeling in his stomach he’d been feeling since Julie outlaid the plans for the deal had grown to resemble one huge pit nestled deep in his belly. It basically spelled out one thing: there was no way out of this.
He dry swallowed two Anacin's and walked through the living room toward the bedroom. “How’s Sarah?”
“Sleeping,” Nancy said. She was dressed in a pair of baggy shorts and a tank top with no bra; her sleepwear.
“Good.” He yawned. “I’m going to bed, too. Goodnight.”
“’Night.” No goodnight kiss, no I love you. Not even a how was your day?. She’d barely acknowledged him when he came in and hardly looked up from that goddamned TV when he was there. She was beginning to slip further away. He thought she was at the brink, teetering between the comfort of family and the desire to run away from it all.
But there may be a way out, his mind whispered. If what Julie says is right...
He brushed his teeth and washed his face, battling the voice down. He undressed, slipping into his sweat pants. He peeked in on Sarah before he entered her room, noting the soft rise and fall of her breathing as she slept. He was almost struck with a numbing grief of shame for not doing more to help her, but he squelched that quickly. That was a sign of weakness. He would see them through this, as horrible as Julie’s offer was...
He went to bed that night and fell asleep instantly. He didn’t remember hearing Nancy come to bed—a fact that troubled him.
She always woke him for a kiss goodnight.
*
Friday, 2:30 PM.
“Daddy, when are we going home?” Sarah asked. She’d quickly grown bored of paging through Where the Wild Things Are and put the book aside.
“In just a minute, hon,” Jim said, looking up from Satanism: An Anthropological Study by Arthur Meadows, a book that he was perusing at a table in the Pasadena Public Library.
“You said that an hour ago!” Sarah pouted.
“I know,” Jim said. He smiled down at her. “And I’m sorry, baby, I really am. Daddy is just really into this book right now, okay? I’m almost done, and as soon as I’m done making these notes, we’ll go.”
“Will we be home by the time Hannah Montana comes on?”
“We’ll be home before Hannah Montana comes on, pumpkin.”
“Okay.”
Jim smiled at her and turned back to the book he was interested in. He and Sarah had come to the library shortly after twelve and it was now almost two. He’d gotten an armload of children’s books for Sarah and asked the librarian for assistance in books on true crimes that had occult overtones; the librarian had been able to help him find five titles that Jim thought were sufficient. She’d helped him take all the books to a corner where he could do his research in peace and keep Sarah amused without disturbing the other patrons. Thankfully, Sarah had a fondness for books, but after only one hour of perusing the twenty-five children’s volumes they’d picked out, she grew bored. He had to keep her age in factor whenever he thought to bring her to places like the library; she was only six.
He’d promised that if she was good they could go to the La Brea Tar Pits the next morning. She’d stopped fidgeting and for a while was behaving quite nicely, reading quietly, sketching pictures in the notepad he’d brought along for her to draw in. But now she was restless again. She rocked back and forth in her chair, turning the pages of Where the Wild Things Are like it was a brochure. “Honey, don’t bend the pages of the book like that.”
Sarah stopped and gav
e him that little kid look; pouty bottom lip, sad Keane dog eyes. He turned back to his book, flipping through it for one more thing. He’d found most of the information he was interested in within this particular volume, but there was one more little bit of information he needed.
He’d started out that morning at home, researching on the Internet. There were thousands of websites on the occult, especially when it came to the dark side of the occult like Satanism. There’d been so much it was overwhelming. Jim had restricted his research to a few search terms: ‘Satanic rituals and human sacrifice’ and ‘Satanic related true crime’. The search engine had spit back thousands of websites at him. Jim had clicked through as many as he could, quickly dismissing the sites that were obvious frauds and, eventually, he also navigated away from sites that were about the Church of Satan. Pretty much all the experts claimed the Church of Satan disavowed human sacrifice and were more or less an atheistic group that didn’t believe in a literal devil. Julie Montenelli didn’t seem like that kind of Satanist, though.
Several of the websites he read mentioned several cults. The most commonly named were The Four P Movement and The Children of the Night. There were vague links to various crimes between both groups—Charles Manson, the serial killings of Edwin Groose in the Midwest, and the killings perpetrated by Archibald Lasher in 1920’s Los Angeles, among others. Jim jotted down names and dates, as well as the titles of books that were purported to contain more information. By then, Sarah was getting anxious to go to the library, so he’d closed down the internet connection, pocketed his notes, and they left the house.
The information he found in the books was very helpful, but only served to scare him more. According to what he’d read, the more sinister of the organizations, The Children of the Night, seemed more like urban legend than a bona-fide documented cult of loonies. Supposedly in operation since the early part of the twentieth century, the cult had origins in Europe and had spread to America in the 1920’s. Cult activity had risen in the 1940’s during World War II and it was suggested that Hitler and several of his key henchmen in the SS were secret members. Regardless, the cult was all but extinguished, scaled back to a mere skeleton crew of scattered members by the close of the war, and it was largely silent for the next twenty years.
By 1969 it was obvious to many investigators that the cult was back. Apparently resurrected by an unknown wealthy businessman from the San Francisco Bay area, the cult boasted a thousand members across the U.S., most of them recruited through personal referral. It was also suggested that older members simply handed their belief system down to their children, who took the reins of leadership in the late 1960’s. The man who supposedly led them from the late 1960’s to the present was only identified in the books as “The Grand Chingon”. Chingon was Spanish slang for “bad ass”.
Over the next twenty years various crime organizations and serial killers reportedly rubbed shoulders with the cult—Charles Manson and his Family, members of the Japanese Yakuza, various Islamic splinter groups from the Middle East, Jim Jones, Reverend Sun Moon, Henry Lee Lucas, Richard Ramirez, the Son of Sam...the list went on. It was suggested human sacrifice was practiced, that the group maintained large compounds where rituals were held, and properties where cult activity flourished were protected by armed guards.
And through it all, the real-life crime organizations that were said to have rubbed shoulders with the group all shared one common trait—members who’d hinted at The Children of the Night wound up dying mysteriously.
In Jim Jones’ case, hundreds of them had died.
And in various individual unsolved true crime cases involving murder in which the group was hinted at being a part of, law enforcement always remained tight-lipped about the details. Witnesses who went to the police usually wound up dead, missing, or insane. The few cases that made it to trial in which the cult was mentioned were always dismissed, the defendant disappearing into obscurity. Arthur Meadows even went so far as to reprint photos from crime scenes in his book that showed suspicious artifacts in the background.
It was in the Meadows volume that he stumbled on a reference to an ancient occult ritual that was said to be practiced by the Yazidis, a secret cult of devil-worshippers that lived in the mountains bordering Iran and Syria. The ritual called for the manipulation of a Christian to lead a fellow Christian to their sacrifice. At 1500 years old, it was one of the oldest occult rituals known, and also the most obscure. Meadows explained that several Children of the Night members he’d talked to made vague references to the ritual, and witnesses he’d interviewed (before mysteriously disappearing) suggested that the group engaged in the practice. That would explain why brazen abductions by the group were so rare. It also dovetailed with everything Julie Montenelli told him.
Jim closed the book. He looked down at Sarah, who was finished with Where the Wild Things Are again. She looked up at him. “Are we going to go now, Daddy?”
“Yes, pumpkin,” Jim said, trying to hide the nervousness from his voice. “We’re going.”
Witnesses who went to the police usually wound up dead, missing, or driven insane.
If you refuse the job, you will be ruined. Your wife will divorce you, your child won’t get the care she needs and she’ll die.
But if I say yes I’ll be leading an innocent person to their slaughter.
What were his options?
“Daddy?” He snapped out of his thoughts. Sarah was standing at the table, the books she’d been reading stacked on the table in a neat pile. She was ready to go.
Jim smiled and rose, squeezing her thin shoulder reassuringly. “Okay, honey. I’m sorry I took so long. Let’s go home.”
“Can we still go to the Tar Pits tomorrow?”
“You bet!”
As he and Sarah left the library, walking toward the car, Jim realized that the situation he was in was do or die. Either he would have to commit to it now and get the deed over with as soon as possible, or he wasn’t going to have the will power to go through with it at all. The more time that went by, the more he would think about the odds, about what might or might not happen, and the more he would want to back out of the deal.
He headed to work early that evening, hoping to get a chance to talk to Julie.
*
Friday evening.
He got lucky. Julie was seated at the bar when he showed up to work. He arrived ten minutes early, and after waving to his partner for that evening, Todd Peckham, he planted himself on the stool next to her. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said.
She turned to him, that look of disappointment coming over her features. Jim cut in before the wrong impression could infiltrate her brain. “I’ve changed my mind about when I’m available for the job. I’m available as soon as possible. As soon as you want.”
She smiled. “Why the sudden change?”
“Let’s just say that the longer the wait, the more I’ll lose my nerve.”
“Understandable.”
“When can I have a portion of the advance?”
She blinked at the sudden outward aggressiveness and took a sip of her drink. “I’ll make arrangements.”
“Good. Thank you.” He rose, still hating himself for what he was planning to do, for knowing what he was entering into and hating Julie even more, but feeling the situation was beyond his control. He’d thought about his plight long and hard; surely he could have alerted the authorities, and even though she hadn’t brought the subject up during their initial meeting, he knew she’d covered that angle just in case. If the authorities were alerted he might be safe for awhile...there was always the chance he could escape somewhere with Nancy and Sarah, somewhere Julie and her powerful cult family would never find them. Surely he could do the noble thing and refuse the job, alert the police and have Julie arrested.
But in the end he decided he couldn’t do that. And that was why he hated that one little part of himself.
Because...let’s face it—he didn’t want to lose what he had.
>
He didn’t want Sarah to die.
And it was that part that gave in to the proposal, that part that ruled over his heart and head, that part that whispered maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. Besides, Julie had forced him into it, the circumstances were grave, the threat was very real, and Sarah’s life hung in the balance. It wasn’t like he was actually killing somebody. He was just supposed to trick somebody into showing up at a place where they’d be killed by Julie’s cult. That wasn’t so bad.
All he had to do was go through with that, then quickly forget about it. Collect the money, correct the ailments that were plaguing his family.
And then, hopefully later, try to deal with the moral issue of what he’d done.
It was those thoughts that kept him working all through the night.
*
Saturday morning.
He had second thoughts the following morning as he woke up to a beautiful morning. Nancy made a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and coffee, and the three of them sat at the kitchen table, laughing and chatting as if none of the events of the past year had ever occurred. They laughed and chatted as if they were in the midst of the best part of their lives.
Jim felt it was all an act the entire morning, but he was giving Nancy the benefit of the doubt. It had been so long since he’d heard her laugh that he was content just to sit and watch her be joyful, wallow in it, revel in it, welcome it. After breakfast the three of them had sat down for a viewing of Aladdin – one of Sarah’s favorite movies. As they watched it together, Jim and Nancy seated on the couch while their daughter romped on the floor in front of the television, Jim felt the doors were opening. They hadn’t been this close in months. All the previous anger, doubt, and worry that had been present in her had seemed to fade overnight. She seemed to be her old self.
Do Unto Others Page 4