by J. S. Bailey
He and Janet couldn’t have been more different.
They were driving through another sea of brown. Frankie squinted to look for their exit. “There it is,” he said when one of the normally-ubiquitous green road signs came into view.
He drove onto the ramp and merged onto a two-lane country road. The directions he’d found online told him that Kevin’s home lay just four miles east of here.
He hoped his old successor was there.
“I don’t see any houses,” Janet said after they’d traveled a mile or so down the road. More low, brown hills came into view. A spindly cell tower had been constructed on top of one of them.
“The directions said this is the way to go.”
She gave a curt shrug and fell silent. Frankie wasn’t going to admit that he was starting to have some misgivings about this, too. Neither he nor Janet owned phones that had internet access. If the directions he’d gotten were wrong, he would have to turn back and find a public library in Pocatello so he could use the computer and recheck the information he found about Kevin’s whereabouts.
When he was about to turn around in the middle of the road and do just that, he spotted a crooked black mailbox emblazoned with the number of Kevin’s address sitting at the end of a gravel lane so long it seemed to disappear in the distance.
He swung the car off the pavement. “This must be his driveway.”
A couple gray silos and a Quonset hut appeared on the right after several minutes of bumping and jolting down the lane. Ahead of them was a cream and brown double-wide house trailer with a satellite dish mounted out front. One large tree in the yard stood starkly green against the drab landscape.
A spotted mutt ran out to greet them when they pulled up next to a red pickup truck parked in front of the trailer. Janet recoiled and her expression tightened.
“Don’t worry,” he said to her. “I’ll have Kevin tie him before you get out.”
She gave a wordless nod.
Frankie climbed out of the car, straightened his shoulders, and strode up three wooden steps to the door. The muffled voice of a sportscaster coming through the thin walls told him a radio was blaring inside.
He rapped on the door three times and waited. He could imagine Kevin halting in the middle of whatever he was doing, jerking his head toward the door, and racing through some kind of mental catalog to figure out who in the world could be calling on him.
Frankie stepped aside when he sensed movement from beyond the door. The inner door swung open and a man he barely recognized appeared behind the screen that separated them.
“Can I help…?” The words died on the man’s lips. “Frankie?”
“The very same,” Frankie said. “It’s been a long time.”
“N-nineteen years, I think.” Kevin opened the screen door and ran a shaking hand through his sparse hair. It used to be full and blond, but now it had thinned and turned the color of dried brush. He’d developed a paunch around his middle in the past nineteen years, too. He wore faded bib overalls over a faded work shirt, which matched his faded boots.
The dog came up behind Frankie and was now barking as if to alert Kevin that an intruder had entered the premises. “I don’t mean to be rude,” Frankie said, even though showing up unannounced like this might have been considered such, “but could you tie up your dog? Janet doesn’t like—”
“Oh, I remember,” Kevin blurted. “She had that Doberman attack her when she was a kid. Sure, I’ll put him around back for you. Chet!” He whistled and stepped past Frankie. “C’mon, boy. Let’s go give the lady some peace.”
Chet was more than happy to oblige. Tail wagging, he followed Kevin around the corner of the trailer.
Kevin returned a minute later and dragged a hand over his sweaty forehead. “Sorry about that. If I’d known you two were coming, I’d have had him tied already. So what brings you to Idaho?”
Frankie beckoned to Janet. “Bad news. We should talk about this inside.”
Kevin’s face paled. “Did somebody die?”
“Not yet,” Frankie said. “That’s why we need you.”
FRANKIE AND Janet took seats at a round table in Kevin’s kitchen. Kevin poured three glasses of tea and offered them Fig Newtons before sitting down.
“So how is everyone?” Kevin asked once they were settled. “How’s my boy Gary doing? I bet he’s married now and has a brood of kids who look just like him.”
Frankie exchanged a dark look with Janet, whose lips formed a thin line. Gary Humphrey was Kevin’s successor. “Gary was killed in a car accident seventeen years ago,” Frankie said, feeling an uncharacteristic twinge of sorrow as he remembered the day it happened. “It was one of those freak things. He had the windows rolled down and they think a bee or spider got inside and caused him to panic. He went off the road into a utility pole.”
Frankie could hear the breath leaving Kevin’s chest. “Oh no.” Kevin’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Did he have a…a…”
“Replacement? Yes. He chose Martin Hampstead shortly before he died.”
Kevin’s mood lightened a little. “I remember him! He went to that Methodist church down the street from St. Paul’s. Always cracking jokes, that one was. Never knew he’d end up being chosen. Is he doing all right?”
Frankie had known their conversation would take a turn like this since Kevin had been out of the loop for so long. “I’m sure he’s doing quite a bit better than we are. He was murdered in 2002.”
Kevin’s face was now utterly devoid of color. “Murdered?”
“He was helping a woman and her ex didn’t like it, so he shot Martin in the chest. I’ve been told his death was instant.”
Kevin bowed his head, and his shoulders shook. “I just can’t believe they’re both gone. And so young! I mean, I…”
“They’re not gone, Kevin. Did you forget who called us to be Servants? Do you think the death of our bodies is the very end? You know it’s not! Or have you chosen to forget everything you knew back home?”
Kevin’s pouchy face was damp with tears. “No, Frankie. You don’t understand. I came out here because it’s so quiet. Nothing ever bothers me out here. I didn’t think I’d find peace again, but I did. This is where God wants me to be.”
“Can you still heal?”
The question took the former Servant by surprise. “Pardon?”
“I said, can you still heal?”
Kevin frowned. “Of course I can still heal. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Prove it.”
“I don’t understand. You don’t believe me?”
“When was the last time you did it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe last month? Chet cut his paw on a rock when we were walking through the creek at the back of my property. All I had to do was touch him and he was just fine. He’s a good dog.”
Janet squirmed in her chair and gazed into her tea. She had never allowed Frankie or Carly to have any pets that weren’t fish. The idea that a dog might be good was wholly foreign to her.
“So we’ll practice and see if your ability still works on humans.” Frankie eyed a knife block sitting on Kevin’s cluttered counter. “Excuse me.” He rose from the table and selected the largest knife he could find. Kevin needed to get over his cowardice. This might help.
Janet gasped when Frankie returned to the table with the knife. “Frankie Jovingo, what in the world are you doing?”
Frankie twisted his left arm so his palm faced upward. He pressed the tip of the knife to the skin of his wrist and made a light incision about two inches long. It stung when the top layer of skin separated from itself, but the pain would pass soon enough. “There,” he said. “Heal it.”
Kevin looked ill even though the quantity of blood seeping from the cut couldn’t have filled a thimble. “You’re crazy,” he said, and brought the fingers of his right hand to rest on the cut.
Warmth penetrated his skin, and the pain vanished.
“That’s what they keep telling me,�
� Frankie said as Kevin took his hand away. Frankie pulled a napkin out of the holder sitting in the center of the table and wiped away the blood. He held his arm closer to his face. His skin was unbroken—there wasn’t even a scar.
Kevin rose on shaking legs and went to the sink to wash his hands. “I had nightmares,” he said in a strained voice. “Horrible ones. Since I’ve lived here, they’ve mostly gone away.”
“You didn’t need to have nightmares,” Frankie said. “God is on your side. With him, there’s nothing to fear.”
“I’m not you, Frankie.” Kevin dried his hands on a dish towel and resumed his seat, looking forlorn.
Janet looked to Kevin. “I’m sorry he’s treating you like this. I told him to leave you alone but he insisted on finding you, so I came along to keep him in line.”
To Frankie’s surprise, Kevin’s face broke into a smile. “Keep Frankie in line? That’ll be the day. I remember what it was like. Roger would just about have a heart attack whenever you’d skip town without notice. Graham always thought that was so funny.” His expression sobered. “Please tell me Roger and Graham are still doing okay.”
Frankie cleared his throat. “Roger is quite well, though I do keep advising him that he should probably lose some weight. Graham, however, is not.” He proceeded to tell Kevin about all that transpired during the past year in regard to Graham’s plot against Randy, whom Kevin had never met.
“So if this Randy survived and was replaced by a new guy,” Kevin said when Frankie finished, “then what in the world do you need me for?”
Frankie straightened his shoulders. “An angel told me to find you.”
“An angel.”
“Do you doubt me?”
“You’re making it up.”
Frankie had expected Kevin to doubt him. Many would. “He clearly thinks your ability will be of use to us.”
Kevin’s bottom lip trembled. “Do you want to know what I dreamed about before I left?”
“I don’t need to know. We do ask that you consider returning with us. I don’t know what disaster awaits, but I do know it must be bad enough that God sent one of his messengers to intervene.”
“Did this messenger have a name?”
“Yes. Caleb.”
Kevin looked like he’d just been slapped. “You’re sure?”
“Why?”
Kevin cleared his throat. “He and I may have been somewhat acquainted at one point. Back when I was the Servant, you know. He told me…never mind.”
Interesting. Frankie’s own grandfather had mentioned receiving help from an entity named Caleb, as well, which had lent some credibility to the message Frankie had received.
“I don’t want to go back,” Kevin said.
“I didn’t think you would.”
“Then why did you come?”
Frankie leaned forward. “Because I didn’t feel it would be proper to disobey such an urgent request.”
Silence. Then, “No offense, but I don’t want to deal with you people again. I’ve been a happy man since I came out here. I’ve got my land, I’ve got my dog, and I’ve got my God, and I don’t need anything or anyone else.”
“If you truly feel you’re right in the eyes of God, come with us. If someone dies because you’re too stubborn to come out of your little hermit hole, you will take the blame for it.”
Tears filled Kevin’s eyes. “Oh Lord. Oh geez. Oh Lord.” His breaths became shallow, and he grabbed onto the edge of the table. “Lord, what am I going to do?”
“That’s your decision to make.”
“Oh geez.” Kevin shook his head. “Word for word, what did Caleb tell you?”
“He said, ‘Find Kevin Lyle and tell him to return to Oregon.’ I asked him why and he said, ‘Because someone important will need him.’”
Kevin dragged a hand over his tired face. “Lord have mercy. Let me think this over.”
BOBBY’S MIND wandered as he headed north on Interstate 5, the directions to The Pink Rooster displayed in his mind’s eye.
His earlier encounter with Thane grew increasingly surreal as he replayed it in his head. Had he been so sleep-deprived that his mind conjured a new buddy to help him figure things out? Or was Thane, like Caleb, an angel sent from above to help him?
He wished he knew.
Turning his thoughts to more pressing matters, Bobby got off on the first exit after crossing into Hillsdale’s town limits and turned left onto a busy thoroughfare called Grand Avenue before making turns onto progressively smaller streets where the homes and businesses grew progressively shabby.
The Pink Rooster came up so unexpectedly that Bobby almost passed it. He slammed on the brakes just in time and whipped the Nissan into the lot, choosing an empty spot by the door.
He studied the building before getting out. The Pink Rooster—not pink at all—was a one-story structure made of cinder blocks painted blue with lime green trim around the windows and door. Judging from the architecture, the building might have begun its career as an auto repair shop that was later remodeled to accommodate restaurant-style seating. He could even see where a bay door had been partly filled in with newer cinder blocks and fitted with a window.
Exactly what had drawn Mystery Woman to this place? It looked like the run-down sort of joint whose clientele might be comprised solely of “regulars.”
Which might mean someone would remember the woman—again, assuming the receipts they’d found were hers.
He got out, took slow breaths to calm his nerves, and went to the door. In the split second before he pulled it open, something fluttered in his gut and the Spirit whispered, Be vigilant.
Praying he wouldn’t be confronted by a seven-foot-tall thug who didn’t like the looks of him, Bobby went inside.
Music that would have awakened a deaf man assaulted his ears as he shouldered his way into the establishment. Neon beer signs and hanging lamps with green shades lit the area. Just inside the door on the back of a booth was a movie-poster-sized painting of a pink cartoon rooster wearing sunglasses and taking a swig from a bottle of Blue Moon beer.
Bobby had only taken four steps into the room when blackness deeper than a starless night filled his mind. It was like his head was full of worms, millions and millions of them writhing over and under each other as they slowly ate away at everything pure and good.
Fear tightened his chest, and the sounds around him diminished until all he could hear was the beating of his own frantic heart.
It could mean only one thing: a demon had possessed someone. And that someone was somewhere in this room.
He gulped down fresh air and did his best to compose himself, though the black, wormlike aura did not abate. His hearing cleared, and he sent up a prayer of thanks.
Bobby felt about two feet tall as he approached the counter, where the bartender and a patron were watching a baseball game on a wall-mounted television while complaining about a player who had been traded to another team.
Neither of them was the source of the aura.
He breathed a small sigh of relief and said, “Excuse me.”
The bartender, who had greasy black hair and about four days of stubble on his chin, drew his attention away from the television and smiled. Most of his teeth were yellow. The rest were missing. “What can I do for you today, son? Looking to celebrate your tenth birthday here?”
The man watching the game from his barstool let out a hearty laugh as he shoved a cheese-drenched pretzel into his mouth. “Vern, you’re just getting old. Don’t you know? This is what men look like these days.”
Vern pretended to take offense. “If I’m old, you’re a corpse. I’ll bet you don’t even last half a second anymore.”
The man with the pretzels just snickered.
“Actually, I’m looking for someone,” Bobby said as he placed the woman’s picture on the counter while desperately trying to ignore the aura that continued to invade his thoughts. “I think she’s been in here a few times and I wondered if you knew a
nything about her.”
“Sounds like we’ve got a mystery on our hands.” Vern swiped the picture off the counter with a flourish and fished a pair of reading glasses out of a pocket. “Now let me see here,” he said as he put them on one-handed. “Do you know what day she was in?”
Bobby withdrew the receipts from his pocket and checked the dates. “Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.”
“See, here’s the problem. I’m not here any of those days. You want to know about her, ask my brother Chuck.”
“Is Chuck here?”
“No.”
Bobby refused to let disappointment take hold of him. “She could have been here other days, too. And I think she was with a blond guy.”
“That narrows it down.”
“Do you have any blond regulars?”
“It might be we do,” Vern said. “And it might be we don’t.”
“Supposing you do,” Bobby said. “Would one of them have a certain thing for women?”
“Son, you just described most of the folks who come in here. What specific thing are you talking about?”
Bobby took a deep breath. “He might be a predator. I think he might have befriended this woman here and then kidnapped her.”
Vern shrugged. “It’s not my problem if he did or didn’t. I just work here.”
“Do you know anyone named Phil Mason?”
“Sure don’t.”
Bobby believed him. “Thanks for your help,” he said even though he hadn’t really learned anything. “Do you have a bathroom?”
Vern pointed to a short hallway off to Bobby’s right. “It’s down that way. You can’t miss it.”
“Thanks.” Bobby hurried into the hallway, which made a ninety-degree left turn about five feet in and led to five doors: two restrooms on the right and two doors marked “Employees Only” on the left. An exit sign hung over the door at the end. He didn’t see any cameras.
Now that he was here, the aura dimmed.
It was possible, however remote, that Mystery Woman was being kept prisoner here.