Crucifax

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Crucifax Page 15

by Ray Garton


  Then there was Ellen, who wore only black clothes, sported a lizard tattoo on her arm, and wanted to be a rock star, "like Joan Jett," she often said. She was, indeed, blessed with a beautiful singing voice, and Bainbridge tried to coax her into using it at the weekend meetings, but she was more interested in singing her own songs about street life and sex than in singing music of a more sacred nature.

  Bainbridge had a few more problem kids living in the house, but those two were his biggest concerns because they each had so much potential. New ones came in all the time, either brought by their parents or by social workers who supported Bainbridge's work. And the Valley below him, sparkling like a vast garden of diamonds, was filled with many, many more young people hungry for the truth, for the Lord's love….

  Taking in a deep, fortifying breath, Bainbridge wiped the tears from his eyes and said in a full voice, "'To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against Him,' amen."

  He felt a little stronger, more prepared to look into those young eyes. Most of all, he was ready to face Nikki again. It was not the Lord's will that she end the life growing inside her, so surely He would give Bainbridge the wisdom to change her mind.

  He closed his eyes in a prayer of thanks for the strength he felt when he heard two soggy footsteps behind him.

  "Bitchin' view, isn't it?"

  Bainbridge twisted around toward the long-haired man he'd encountered earlier.

  "Who are you?" the reverend snapped. He was suddenly trembling again.

  Smiling, the man said, "We weren't introduced. I'm Mace. And you're Reverend Bainbridge, right?"

  "What do you want?"

  "Hey, hey, chill out. Just here to enjoy the view." His hands were buried deep in the pockets of his raincoat, and he did not look at Bainbridge.

  The reverend ground his teeth together for a moment, asking God to help him hold back his anger and calm the strange fear this man seemed to stir in him.

  "You followed me," Bainbridge said.

  "Why would I do that?"

  "I don't know. Just like I don't know why you would take such pleasure in frightening a young girl, as you did today."

  "I didn't frighten her. She was upset. I made her feel better."

  Bainbridge took a step toward him, his knuckles white as he clutched his umbrella. "You know very well what you did."

  Mace grinned at the Valley below them. "So do you, Reverend."

  "Look. I don't know how you know the things you do, but they're none of your business. That girl is in the middle of a personal crisis, and you'll only confuse her further by—"

  "Aren't you in the middle of that crisis, too, Reverend?" His hair whipped about in the wind. "Haven't you confused her, too?"

  Bainbridge realized his chest was heaving with angry breaths, and he decided it was best to leave.

  "Just leave her alone. Leave all of my kids alone." He turned to go.

  "Oh, don't leave, Reverend. Let's talk." He sounded genuinely friendly. "We have a lot in common, you know."

  Turning back to Mace, Bainbridge barked an incredulous laugh and said, "What could we possibly have in common?"

  "Several things. We've both come to feed the hungry souls of the young people here in this valley, am I right?"

  Another laugh from the reverend, then: "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm trying to—"

  "I know what you're doing. I'm very familiar with your work. In fact, you might say we're in the same business."

  "I am not in any business. I work with young people, I try to—"

  "So do I."

  It occurred to Bainbridge that this man might be a problem in the future, a stumbling block to his kids. Perhaps it would be a good idea to learn as much about him as possible. Still, Mace unnerved him and gave him the feeling that he was in danger.

  "I bet you do," Bainbridge said. "What are you into, my friend? Drugs? Are you a pusher?"

  Mace chuckled. "That's always the first thing you think of, isn't it? Blame everything on drugs."

  "Whatever you do, I wish you'd do it away from my kids."

  "They need me."

  "What could they possibly need from you? I've taken those kids off the streets, out of broken homes, away from abusive parents, I've—"

  "I do that, too. With one difference." He finally turned to Bainbridge, and for the first time the reverend realized how very tall the man was. Mace towered over him. "I accept them, Reverend. As they are. Flaws and all. I learn their strengths and nurture them. I find out what they want to be, and I encourage them."

  A shudder passed through Bainbridge, a shudder so powerful it forced him to stagger backward a step. His mouth worked a moment before any words came out, and then his voice was weak: "I give them salvation."

  "Whether they want it or not."

  "They need it."

  "They need acceptance, too."

  Bainbridge felt dizzy, overwhelmed by the need to get away from the man. He spun around to return to the van as the rain began to fall harder, sounding like machine-gun fire on his umbrella, but he lurched to a stop when something moved at his feet.

  "Don't go yet, Reverend," Mace said. "We're not through."

  He took another step, but something made a horrid, threatening hiss, then a guttural squeak—and the reverend saw the eyes looking up at him from the wet weeds around his feet, from the brush that grew along the road.

  Fear sprang up inside Bainbridge like water from a geyser.

  "They won't hurt you, Reverend. If you just stay and talk awhile."

  Bainbridge slowly backed up until he was standing beside Mace again; he was trembling so violently, his umbrella jittered above him.

  "You know, Reverend, I bet that if you changed your methods a little, your group would grow like you never thought it could."

  The reverend began to pray silently, his lips moving frantically as he watched the dark, squat creatures move toward him.

  "I bet if you and I worked together," Mace went on, putting his hand on Bainbridge's shoulder and turning him toward the sprawling view, slipping his arm around the reverend, "all this"—he swept his other arm over the Valley—"could be ours. All those kids looking to be accepted, looking for someone to say, 'Hey, you're okay,' they'd all be ours, Reverend. If you'd just work for me."

  Bainbridge was frozen with fear, he suddenly felt certain of who, of what, this man was, of what he wanted. He had to swallow several times before he could find his voice.

  "You're evil," he croaked.

  "Evil?" Mace laughed. "But I just told you, we're doing the same work. Getting those kids off the street. Saving them, as you'd put it."

  "But your intentions are… are evil. Selfish."

  "And yours? You want them to be what you want them to be. And remember, you've got a baby growing inside a girl barely old enough to drive a car. If I'm evil, Reverend," he laughed, "I sure hope you aren't an example of good."

  Tears blurred the reverend's vision as he pushed away from Mace, stumbled, and almost fell as he sputtered, "D-don't t-touch me! Don't touch me!" He ran into the cluster of glowing eyes, and they hissed and squeaked, snapping at his feet as he ran toward the road, toward the van.

  "Reverend," Mace called.

  Bainbridge pressed on as sharp teeth tore his pants, the hem of his coat. He collapsed his umbrella and began swinging at them, praying for deliverance as he felt something crawling up his leg, beneath his coat, up his back.

  "'G-get thee hence, S-Satan,'" he cried, falling forward, dropping the umbrella, clawing at the muddy earth, "'for it is written th-thou sh-shalt worship the Lord th-thy G-God and-and-and—'" They crawled onto his back, heavy and wet. "—and him only shalt thou seerrrve!'"

  Mace's feet stepped before his face, and Bainbridge heard the man's dry laugh.

  "What's your hurry to get back, Reverend?"

  Bainbridge held perfectly still as the creatures squirmed over him, their breath hot on his neck.

  "Want to s
ee Nikki? She won't be there. She's at my place."

  "Liar!"

  Mace offered his hand. "Why don't you give me the keys to your van, Reverend, and we'll go for a ride. I want to show you something."

  Eighteen

  Jeff called Lily twenty minutes before he was to close the store for the evening. She was so upset about Nikki that at first he had a hard time getting her to complete a sentence.

  "She kept saying she didn't know that guy," Lily said, "but she talked about him like she did."

  "What'd she say?"

  "That she had to talk to him, she had to talk to him. He understands, she said, and he would help her. Anyway, I knew she was zoned, so I asked her to a movie tonight, to get her mind off it, you know, and she says she can't and gives me a bunch of bullshit Calvary Youth reasons why spending time and money on movies is a sin, so I told her that if God didn't want her to go to the movies, He never would've, like, made Tom Cruise, so she says okay. That was a surprise. Anyway, we agreed I'd come get her after I changed my clothes, then I dropped her off at her place. But I called her before I left my place, and her mom says she never came in! Jeff, I'm scared. I mean, that guy gives me the creeps, and if she's with him… But I'm afraid to tell her mother, 'cause, like, what if I'm wrong? Nikki'd shit! She'd never forgive me."

  "Maybe she's at the Calvary Youth House."

  "Uh-uh, I called. The woman I talked to said Nikki hadn't been in since the group went out in the van. And they're all back."

  Jeff thought a moment, drumming his fingers on the counter.

  "Are you busy now?"

  "No."

  "What do you say we go down there?"

  "Where? The sewer?"

  "Yeah."

  "Oh, Jesus, you think they might have gone down there?"

  "Maybe."

  When she agreed, he told her to come to the back of the store. As he waited on two more customers, then prepared to lock up, he thought of Mallory, wondering if she'd returned home. He called the apartment but got no answer.

  I think I've got just the girl for you, Mace had said.

  Somehow, he knew Mallory. And somehow—

  He was just bluffing, please, God, just bluffing.

  —he knew of Jeff's feelings for her.

  He had to know more about Mace.

  The weather had gotten worse. Rain fell with a constant, monotonous purr, and the wind rattled the window-panes.

  When Lily knocked at the back door, Jeff opened it, and a rush of wind and rain followed her in. Her short hair was wet and tossed.

  As Jeff went through the store turning out the lights he said, "Do you have a flashlight in your car?"

  "I don't know. Do you?"

  "I don't have a car."

  "You were gonna walk home? In this weather?"

  He nodded.

  "I'm so sure. I'll take you when we're done."

  Jeff smiled. "It's gonna stink down there," he said. "Sure you want to go?"

  "Well… what are we looking for, anyway?"

  "I'm not sure. I just want to see if we can find out where Mace went."

  "If Nikki might be with him… yeah, I wanna go. I'm scared for her."

  Jeff was touched by her devotion to her friend. He realized he knew nothing about Lily but hoped to remedy that soon. He liked what he'd seen so far.

  While he got his things together, she stood at the front window staring out into the rain.

  "This weather," she mumbled. "You know, it's not like fall around here. It's… strange. Everything's been strange lately. Like something's just… wrong. Ever since that last weekend. You know, that last Saturday night before school started, it was really weird. I was with some…" She frowned out the window, scratching her chin with one finger, then suddenly turned to him and smiled. "I'm rambling. Sorry."

  But she was right. For the first time since it had happened, Jeff remembered walking on the boulevard with Mallory and Brad and the others, leaving the Calvary Youth behind at the theater. He remembered the odd hush that fell, the way everyone stopped to look up at the sky, as if there was something to see.

  But there was nothing there. Nothing he could see, anyway. He wondered if Lily had had a similar experience.

  They had no time to talk now, though.

  "Okay," he said, putting on his coat. "It's getting late. Let's go."

  When they stepped out the back door, the wind nearly blew them over.

  They found a flashlight in the tool compartment in back of Lily's car, then hurriedly pressed through the wind and rain to the manhole ip the back alley.

  Jeff hooked the index finger of each hand into a hole and lifted the cover with a grunt, sliding it to the side.

  "I'll go first," he said, shouting to be heard above the rain.

  "I know," Lily said with a nervous laugh.

  Shining the light into the hole, Jeff saw the rungs, the dirty pipes, and the filthy floor a few yards below. He tried to wipe his wet hands on his jeans so they wouldn't slip on the rungs, but his jeans were soaked. Clumsily holding the flashlight in one hand, he carefully climbed into the hole, shining the light on the rungs for Lily.

  Jeff was going to scurry back lip when she reached bottom and replace the cover, but before climbing down, Lily reached out and, with effort, dragged it back over the hole.

  Once she was beside him, she winced and said, "Jesus, it reeks down here!"

  It did, but the smell was not as bad as Jeff had expected. The wind blew through the sewer in gusts, whistling through the grates and manhole covers above like angry ghosts. Water poured from above, and the flashlight beam danced over the black, gushing sewage below them.

  "Now where do we go?" Lily asked, her hushed, trembling voice echoing in the darkness.

  "He went this way," Jeff said, turning to the right. "This walkway's pretty narrow, so be careful."

  "I'm right behind you." She clutched the back of his wet coat and pressed close to him as they walked.

  A couple yards ahead they came to an intersection. Jeff shone the light right and left, but the beam was swallowed by the darkness.

  "Let's keep going straight," he said.

  They crossed a narrow metal plank that spanned the intersecting gutter.

  A little farther on, Jeff felt a draft from the right. He shone the light toward the wall.

  At first it appeared to be a small, dark, rectangular nook in the wall, but the light fell on nothing—no wall or door—so it was deeper than it seemed.

  "Just a sec," Jeff said. He leaned into the opening a bit and shone the light around. Beyond the wall to their right, sound seemed compressed, the darkness seemed thicker. The beam passed over tangled, intestinelike pipes; beyond that was only more darkness.

  Bracing himself against the edge of the opening, Jeff leaned in a bit more.

  "What is it?" Lily hissed.

  "I… don't know. It looks like some kind of… room."

  To the left, at some distance away, Jeff saw a fire flickering in the darkness. Moving shapes hovered around it.

  Jeff immediately backed out, but it was too late. Heavy footsteps crunched through the darkness toward them as Jeff reached behind him and grabbed Lily's coat to pull her away, snapping, "Jesus, c'mon, let's—"

  A broken baseball bat with a splintered end swept out of the darkness and cracked against the edge of the opening, and a pale, bony hand slapped onto Jeff's head and clutched his hair.

  Lily's scream echoed all around them….

  Mallory lay on a pile of cushions in the swimming pool, naked from the waist down, her legs entwined with Kevin's beneath a warm blanket. A cloud of smoke was suspended a few feet above them, and more rose from the pool as the group sprawled around her continued to take drags on joints and pipes.

  There were lanterns above them on the floor, but in the pool it was dark. A radio was playing somewhere in the room, but it didn't cover the moans and sighs and wet smacking sounds in the pool.

  "Glad you came?" Kevin whispered.
<
br />   "Mm-hmm."

  He laughed.

  The night before she'd been hesitant, but she certainly didn't want to go home to her mother. The trip through the sewer had frightened her, but the reception she got from Mace made up for it. There were more people in the building than she'd expected. Besides the band members and their girlfriends, there were a couple dozen other teenagers, some of whom she recognized from school. They were all lounging around on cushions and piles of blankets, smoking grass, drinking beer, and, to Mallory's horror, holding and stroking those tusked, almond-eyed creatures that had frightened her during her first visit to the building. She didn't want to go in when she saw them, but Mace was quick to welcome her with a few tokes on a pipe. It wasn't long before she was relaxed, floating, a little drowsy, and in good spirits.

  Mace made a big deal of her arrival and ceremoniously presented her with a strange cross that seemed to be made of red obsidian. He said it was a Crucifax and that she was never to take it off.

  A few moments after she put it on, she realized everyone was wearing them.

  Mace rolled a joint for her and told her to relax while the band rehearsed. It had been a while since she'd heard them play, and she was stunned by their performance. It was as if she were listening to an entirely different band. Their music enveloped her like a mist, seemed almost tangible, and when Mace sang, his voice, which alternated between low and seductive and high and piercing, with a razor's edge, was hypnotic, totally captivating.

 

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