Some congregation members joined in Susan’s screaming, despite not being sure why.
With two mammoth steps, the beast’s twisted body strode out of view of the window, leaving Susan to be terrorized only by the shadow of a tree shimmying in the breeze. But, her fear did not diminish.
“Susan!” Gary was the first to shake his brain into alertness. “What? What is it?”
Though she tried, Susan couldn’t answer. She found it impossible to put into words what she had just seen. At that very moment, there was a creature, a giant as tall as the ceiling, stalking around the empty fields outside. And it had been watching them.
Matthew stood up from his pew and grabbed Susan by the shoulders in an effort to ground her. He tried to shake the hysteria from her body and was shocked at how well it worked. Her screams quieted as her eyes jostled about the room until Matthew offered them something to focus on. She looked into his steady gaze and rested there for a while.
The room was alive with panicked shouts.
Angela had awakened slightly after Gary and quickly surveyed the chaos, but there was no way of knowing whether the threat was real, or just a dream Susan had.
Most of the children were crying, but not Alex. He looked concerned, yet remained calm. Regardless, Angela pulled him tightly to herself.
“What’s wrong?” Matthew asked Susan.
“I saw it! I saw it!” she screamed back.
“What?”
“It’s outside! It’s real!”
With that, everyone shuffled away from the windows and into the centre of the room, creating a dangerous mob of tangled bodies, sprinkled with knee-high children.
Angela didn’t join the others. She instead remained seated with Alex, her attention fixed on the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the beast herself.
“Mom?” Alex spoke up. Whatever fear was not present in his demeanor certainly came through in the quiver of his voice.
“It’s okay. It’s alright, sweetie. We’re safe in here.”
“It’s coming for us.” He hugged her back tightly.
Gary popped his head up from the crowd and waved his hands in an effort to collect people’s attention. It took a great deal of flailing to upstage the beast outside, but he eventually managed.
“Everyone! Please,” he yelled, “we have to calm down! We don’t know what’s out there and we’re not going to help the situation by screaming till we can’t scream anymore. Is everyone alright?”
“We should head to the basement!” bellowed Emily.
“We’re not going back down there,” Gary replied sternly.
“It seems a hell of a lot safer than up here,” she barked back.
“Emily, we’re not going back into the basement.”
“Before we decide anything,” Angela added, “we should ask Susan what she really saw.”
Susan, who was now in the arms of her mother, didn’t look as though she had much interest in talking. She looked more like she would rather curl up into a small box and disappear.
Gary nodded and turned to Susan. “Angela is right. Susan, I know you’re scared. But, can you tell us exactly what you saw?”
Susan muttered something quietly to herself.
“What was that? Can you speak up?”
“The Behemoth.” She finally named it, and everyone in the room felt the chill. It was just as Rick said. The beast had come. They were not dealing with some ambiguous Father in the sky, there was a being outside they could touch and be touched by, a being that had demonstrated its power, and its malice.
Tina pulled at Gary’s shirt. “What are we going to do?”
“Listen, everyone!” Gary again spoke to the room. “Nothing has changed. Rick told us that thing was out there. We just have to keep our heads. Now, look around at your friends and your families. Look at them. They are what is going to get you through this. I’m scared, just like everyone. But, no matter how dark it gets out there, no matter what happens, we have to remember that we’re not alone. None of us are alone in this.”
“Where’s Dorothy?” Angela interrupted.
“I’m right here,” came a calm reply. Heads turned and found Dorothy standing in the doorway to the sanctuary. She looked unimpressed by Gary’s words.
Angela stared at her, but Dorothy refused to make eye contact.
“What if we fought this thing?” Chris’ young, but determined voice rose up from the crowd. The question was considered by few, but tossed away by most.
“It’s huge,” Susan replied.
“Maybe we can hurt it somehow,” offered Chris.
Emily swatted the notion down. “Don’t be stupid, Chris. You’ve seen what it can do. How are you going to fight it? With a baseball bat, or are you going to throw your shoes at it? You daft boy, it’s the beast we’re dealing with, not a wild dog you can just scare off.”
“Fuck you!” Chris yelled back. “You’re the daft one, you stupid, old bitch.” Normally, his disrespect would have been more delicately coded.
“Oh, please, Chris, that’s enough!” Tina scolded her son.
“No, mom, I’m right. Sitting here is a bad, fucking idea. We already know we can’t give this thing what it wants. We need to fight!”
“We can’t fight it. Think about what happened to Sandy!” came another disembodied voice.
After another condemning look from his mother, Chris shook his head and shut his mouth. There seemed to be no way to convince them. The mob had developed a thought process of its own, like a steamroller, and you could either move aside or be crushed. Chris looked over at Angela and could tell she was thinking the same thing. As long as there was at least one other person who saw what was happening, like his father had said, he was not alone.
“What are we going to do if it comes back?” posed Matthew.
“What makes you think it has left?” Dorothy asked from the cusp of the room. She stepped inside and slowly walked up the aisle next to the mob. Her dramatic stride was enough to ensure everyone’s close attention. This was a trick she had learned from her years watching Don, and knew he would have been proud to see his legacy of theatrics utilized thusly. “It hasn’t left, Matthew. It’s still here, cause we’re still here. It’s waiting.”
“For what?” he asked.
“What do you think? The Behemoth is waiting for us.”
The ominous statement silenced the room.
“We have to trust in God now,” Emily said, taken by a sudden surge of religious fever. “He’s the only one who has the power to save us. As always, He is our hope. We cannot lose our faith in Him. We have to trust God.”
“Which one?” asked Dorothy. She slipped away from the mob before anyone could answer and sat down in one of the pews with her hands clasped and her head down.
As the rest of the mob started to disperse and head back to their respective beds, Emily recited the Lord’s Prayer. She spoke it quickly to herself at a manic speed, but they all knew what she was saying. Everyone, even the children, knew the Lord’s Prayer by heart. After she was finished, she began again. She recited it from start to finish seven times before Michael escorted her back to where the two of them had been sleeping.
Angela had watched the chanting closely. There was desperation in Emily’s devotion that trembled her hands and drew tears from her eyes. There was no question Emily was begging for some divine intervention. Although Angela was fairly certain by this point that Emily was pleading to an absent God, she did wonder if the praying itself would help. If, perhaps, there was something out there that might listen, that might come to their aid. Maybe the thing outside was listening, and could be appealed to, if the right words were said.
However, the possibility was too slim to bring Angela to her knees.
CHAPTER 26
When the morning no one thought would come finally arrived, the tone of the sanctuary had changed. Each respective family had separated themselves from the group. The situation had become so tenuous that no one, not ev
en Gary, had tried to reassemble the congregation.
Tina and Emily brought around two trays of food to every member. On one tray was a stack of bread and the other, a stack of apples, which were originally intended for a charity event that required massive amounts of apple pies. Each member was allowed to take only one serving.
Tina was surprised by everyone’s appetite. Personally, she didn’t think she would ever be hungry again.
Once the food had been delivered, Tina and Emily, like everyone else, returned to their families to eat in silence. The quiet was unnerving, but the crunching and squishing of jaws proved even more unbearable.
“Maybe someone will come,” a naïve young man finally said. The only response he received was more chewing.
Eventually, the sun awakened the jovial chirp of a single red robin. It unabashedly sang of the joys of life as it fluttered in and out of view of the three small windows that lined the sanctuary wall opposite the stained-glass window. It was a pleasant enough treat, though the screech of a crow might have been more mood-appropriate.
Samantha and Dylan were the first children to be impressed by the bird’s flourishing dance and huddled into two of the three windows for a better view.
The Rosenthals had temporarily adopted Dylan, who asked about his father, Bruce, with increasing urgency. Emily and Michael, in a testament to their own discomfort with the subject of death, had told Dylan that Bruce had been called away and there was no telling when he might return. They then bombarded his worried child’s mind with ample distractions, and encouraged Samantha and Stanley to play with him. He seemed contented enough.
Stanley pushed Samantha out of the way so he could see the bird, despite there being enough windows for all three of them. Without complaint, Samantha repositioned herself at the other free window.
“Stanley, why can’t we be outside if the bird can?” asked Samantha in a whisper.
“Don’t be stupid,” he replied for lack of a better answer.
“Cause the troll outside doesn’t like birds, he likes us,” Dylan said.
“Troll?” Samantha was skeptical.
“Yeah. It’s what everyone was scared of last night.”
“What’s it like?”
“It’s big, and it eats people. And it wants to eat us.”
Samantha, who could barely reach the wood trim of the window, started to lose her grip. Her mind was too distracted by the image of a huge, hungry troll, to pay attention to what her hands were doing. She eventually voiced one of her deepest dreads. “I don’t want to be eaten.”
“Shut up, Dylan!” demanded Stanley. “You’re scaring her.”
“No, I’m not! It’s true!.”
“Even if there is a troll, it can’t come in here. We’re safe.”
“How do you know that?” asked Dylan, who secretly needed to alleviate his own fear as much as Samantha did.
“Cause we’re in a church, and churches are special, safe places. Everyone knows that. That’s why we’re here.”
“So the troll can’t come in?”
“That’s right. All we have to do is stay in here.”
After some thinking, Samantha asked, “Can trolls fly?”
“I don’t think so,” replied Dylan.
“Then it’s not a troll,” she declared smugly.
“How do you know?”
“Cause it took me flying last night while I was sleeping.”
The two boys went silent. Dylan fidgeted with his feet and Stanley scratched some paint off the windowsill.
“Me too... I went through clouds and then it swooped me down and showed me lava,” Stanley eventually admitted.
“I guess it’s not a troll then,” Dylan added.
The three of them remained quietly perched on the windows until the robin lost its charm, then they abandoned their posts for other entertainments.
As they charged down the aisle, they almost bumped into Chris, who had taken on the duty of offering everyone a cup of water.
He approached Matthew, who had been kneeling next to his grandmother all morning, feeding her small pieces of bread. Flora looked drained, lying on the back pew, like her body was slowly shutting down. Her empty eye sockets had become deep bruises that streaked dark purple and red across her forehead and cheekbones.
“Hi,” Chris greeted them softly.
“Hey.” Matthew answered, with no eye contact. He just kept feeding crumbs between Flora’s weak lips.
“How’s she doing?”
“She’s fine.”
“Do you guys need some water?”
“Sure.”
Chris poured two generous glasses and placed them next to Matthew on the floor.
“I hope you enjoyed your complimentary continental breakfast this morning of apples and bread,” Chris joked. “ For lunch I think they’re planning apple sauce on toast. They believe in recycling here.”
“Not really in the mood, Chris.”
“Yeah, no one really seems to be.”
“Is there anything else you wanted?”
“Yes, there is something else. I wanted to know how you were doing. If you need any help with anything...” Chris could barely finish the sentence before Matthew interrupted.
“Forget it Chris, if I need a shoulder, it won’t be yours.”
“That’s not what I meant. I’m not trying to just... I’m not just trying to get close, if that’s what you’re thinking. When I say it, I mean it. Matt, I want to help you. I keep trying to do stuff, but making things better is harder than it looks. The total truth, something inside of me just wants to make sure you’re okay, that’s all.”
“Save it. I know what you want. Thanks for the water, but could you please just go now?”
“Sure, I’ll leave you alone.” As Chris walked away, an alternate scenario flashed in his mind: he and Matthew nursing Flora back to health together. This would finally reveal to Matthew that, what had started as simple hormonal lust between them, had become something of substance, something that mattered, and compelled them to care for one another in the way that people do when they say, ‘I love you’, and actually mean it. Before he could wallow in how painfully unlikely his daydream was, Angela interrupted with a request.
“Oh, Chris! Do you mind if we grabbed some water?”
“Here,” he said, handing over the pitcher and stack of paper cups before continuing down the aisle without so much as a backward glance.
“Um, thanks.”
She poured a cup and turned to Alex, who was awake and sitting quietly, with his vision fixated on the front of the church.
“Here, Alex. You should have some water.” She offered him a cup and brought it to his lips. He looked at it, but didn’t drink. “Alex, you haven’t eaten anything, so please, at least have some water.”
He looked up at her, but she could tell he was somewhere else. Not somewhere, he was in the basement, with Clara.
“Listen, buddy,” Angela said, kneeling down to his level. “I know you’re upset. We all are. But you have to talk to me, okay? I know you can, you did it last night. Remember? You said he was coming for us. You remember that? But I promise, I won’t let him get you, I just need you to say something.” Her hands brushed at his hair and rubbed his back.
Alex turned his head toward one of the stained-glass angels that looked down on him from the window.
Angela had one last trick to reach him. Her hand unhooked the invisible radio from her belt and brought the device up to her mouth.
“Come in echo one, this is echo two.”
To her dismay, Alex did not offer any reaction. So, she adjusted her dials and repeated the transmission, “Come in echo one, this is echo two. Do you read me?”
His hand twitched.
“Echo two has an urgent message for you, echo one.”
He shifted and almost grabbed his radio.
“Echo one, can you hear me?”
“This is echo one,” he replied, “but you didn’t say over, echo
two. Over.”
“Sorry, echo one, that won’t happen again. Over,” she said, through an uncontrollable smile. She wanted to squeeze him, but fought the urge and tried to stay calm.
“What’s the message? Over.”
“I wanted to know where you have been, echo one. Over.”
“I can’t be an officer anymore. Over.”
“Why do you say that? Over”
“I failed. Over.”
“What did you fail? Over.”
“The mission.”
“No, echo one, you didn’t have a mission.”
“Yes I did,” he said, without the aid of his radio. “I was supposed to help her.”
“Alex, no. Don’t think that. What happened to Clara wasn’t because of you.”
“I couldn’t save her. I tried, but I couldn’t, and it’s my fault she’s dead.”
Angela recognized the pitch Alex’s voice always reached right before he started to cry. As soon as she heard the unsettled stutters, she grabbed hold of him. She wanted to wrap her body around his and protect him forever. Though, she knew she could not.
“Oh, sweetie, she would have been so proud of you. And she knew you did all you could. That’s all that matters. You tried. She would have been proud. She would have been so proud.”
The two of them rocked back and forth together on the pew, perfectly synchronized in their sorrow. He clung to her just as much as she clung to him, and their loss became a little more bearable, just so long as they promised to never let go.
While safe in their embrace, Angela began to think about what Chris had said. As she comforted her child, and felt his fragile body against hers, she started to agree with him. The sun would not be up forever, and who knew what betrayals would come when the Behemoth returned to collect. She had to do whatever she could to keep Alex safe, and that called for action. Exactly what she proposed to do was a mystery even to her, but she knew she had to do something.
Slowly, she ended the hug and pulled Alex away from her so she could see his face. She wiped his cheeks until they were once again dry and placed two warm hands on either side of his neck.
“Alex, I love you and I’ll be here for you whenever you need me,” she said, and then repeated the pledge. “Whenever you need me. But there are things I have to do now, okay?”
Worship Me Page 16