Shelly hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until she exhaled. “So, this is it, then.”
“I’m not finished,” Graham said. He slid the bottle of wine back to Shelly.
“So? Finish.”
“There’s a larger part of me that thinks if you stay with me, that I can protect you. Keep you safe.”
“Yeah? Well, I was taking care of myself long before you came around, hot shot. I don’t need you to keep me safe.” She took another pull of wine from the bottle.
“I know,” he said. “I know that. But I think maybe I like having you around. I think I enjoy being with you. It’s been a long time since anyone has made me blush.”
“Is that what you think?” Shelly asked. “You think that? Well, it is cute. Your ears get all red. And you’re so easy.”
Graham smiled. It wasn’t a huge grin, but just enough to let Shelly know she could relax.
“I was hoping maybe we could be an official couple,” he said. “I’m not really sure what that entails, but, you know. Officially dating. Exclusively. You and me.”
“What, you wanna go together?” Shelly asked.
“That sounds perfect,” Graham said. “Just like fourth grade. We’ll go together. We’ll be a Thing.”
“A Thing? Really?”
“Yeah! And people ask if you and I are a Thing, we’ll say yes. Yes, we are a Thing. We are a Thing, we have a Thing, there are Things going on.”
Shelly batted her eyelashes. “I do love it when you get all romantic, you and your Things.”
“Does that clear things up?” Graham asked, taking back the wine bottle and drinking some.
“Crystal,” Shelly said.
“Do you think you can be happy with the way things are with the Thing?”
Shelly nodded. “For now,” she said.
“That’s fair,” Graham said.
“If I had known the night was going to end like this, I would have put on prettier underwear,” Shelly said.
“Me, too,” Graham said. “I’ve got this mesh thing I like to wear. Makes my balls look like a screen door.”
“Wear those to work, do ya?”
“Only if I have meetings that morning,” Graham said, laughing. “They increase my confidence level.”
“How many bottles of wine have we had?” Shelly asked.
“I don’t remember,” Graham said. “So that’s probably too much. We should get a room. Hang out here tonight. Maybe get one with a hot tub.”
“Oh, baby,” Shelly said. “Does your back hurt?”
Graham smirked. “Not yet. But you might need a walker by the time we’re finished.”
***
It was two-thirty in the morning. Graham had been successful in his quest for a hot tub room, and he was glad. He had pulled something in his back during the evening’s festivities. It was nothing serious, but enough to where the heat and pulsation of the jets felt amazing.
Shelly sat across from him in the hot water, thousand-yard stare in full effect, gently rubbing her foot against his ankle. “If this Thing involves things like this on a regular basis, then this may be the best Thing ever,” she said.
“I’m sure things can be arranged,” Graham mumbled.
“You know what’s going to be awesome about tonight?” Shelly asked. “Sleeping together in a bed that I don’t have to make the next day. No sheets to wash, no razors to throw away.”
“I said I was sorry about your cute little pink razors.”
She scooted over next to him and worked her head into the crook of his shoulder. “I don’t care about the razors,” she said. “They’re disposable. You’re not.”
“Come one, babe,” Graham whispered. “Let’s get some sleep. I still gotta work tomorrow.”
“Can you be… late?” Shelly asked.
He chuckled. “I think so. I’m the Sheriff of Elder’s Keep, baby. I gotta have some perks.”
***
The night smelled like fire and dead leaves covered the empty street. He felt a hand on his shoulder: he turned and no one was there. The whispering came from his other side – who was that? He knew the voice, but couldn’t place it – telling him again, “Three are coming.” The blacktop under his feet began to crack, pushing him off balance. He began to fall, through the street, through layers of crumbling red clay and dirt. He grabbed at the sides of the hole he was falling through, but there was nowhere to make purchase, no roots to grab. Just the act of falling, the soil landing in his eyes and mouth, filling his throat, making it impossible for him to scream and when…
…Graham sat up in bed, gasping for breath with red eyes and panic. Shelly wasn’t sure what to do. She thumped him on the back, in between the shoulder blades, until his coughing settled down.
“Do you need some water, honey?” she asked.
He waved her away, shaking his head.
“Does this happen often?”
“More often than I would like,” Graham said, his voice rough. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Shelly rubbed his back in a circular motion. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s all right.”
Graham lay back down on his side. Shelly lightly scratched his back until he fell back asleep.
***
Only an hour and a half later, Graham woke up to the sound of his cell phone ringing. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding,” he grumbled.
“No, no, no,” Shelly said, pulling a pillow over her head.
Graham picked up his phone. “So early,” he said. He unlocked his screen and answered the call.
“Strahan,” he said.
“Sheriff, it’s Deputy Moon,” came the panicked voice on the other end. “Where are you?”
“I’m in Bell Plains with my girlfriend,” he said, poking Shelly in the ribs with his finger. “And I was planning on coming in late today.”
“I understand, Sheriff, and I wouldn’t call if it weren’t an emergency.”
“Ugh. Fuck. Is it weird, bad or something you think is bad?”
Moon sighed. “It’s the Pendletons, Sheriff. Guy showed up to install a security system this morning. He found them. In the backyard.”
Graham balled his free hand up into a fist. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit!”
“I could use your help. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll be there as fast as I can, Kevin. Just rope it off and wait for me.”
“Do you want me to...”
“I told you to wait, Deputy, so fucking wait! Rope it, close it and guard it. Clear?”
“Crystal.”
Graham ended the call, put the phone on the nightstand and buried his face in his hands for a moment. When he raised his head, Graham was in Sheriff mode. He reached behind him and patted Shelly on the ass. “Come on, babe,” he said. “We gotta go.”
“I figured as much,” she said. “What happened? Or can you tell me?”
“While you and I were sleeping, hell broke loose in Elders Keep. Come on. Pack up.”
Part Three
Church in the Wildwood
In Elders Keep, the change of seasons began at the edges. By the time it was noticeable in the town proper, the surrounding ridges and mountains had already been through the cycle. On the fringes of the Keep, Autumn was spreading like a beautiful cancer through the trees; leaves were turning shades of red and yellow, before finally falling, like clumps of hair, from the branches, littering the ground with slippery black detritus. The woods were almost bare, with only a few branches still lush. Practically stripped of cover, it was easier to find things normally hidden by the forest, the places usually only seen during the winter. Squirrel nests, secret drinking places for local teenagers, strange clearings where nothing would grow: all things once hidden, laid bare.
Elders Keep Memorial Chapel (originally Baptist, King James, Pre-Millennial) sat abandoned and seething on a potholed road Nature had almost fully reclaimed. From the outside, the wooden church building looked ugly and foreboding. Green mold was grow
ing like a beard over the once whitewashed exterior. The wooden shutters, thirsty for new paint, hung like palsied eyelids over dust-caked windows. Brittle branches and wet leaves littered the small gravel parking lot. The cemetery, once immaculate and filled with flowers for the honored dead, was overgrown. Weeds and old pull-tab beer cans were strewn across the consecrated ground. Two centuries worth of white tombstones crumbled into the soft earth. The whole grounds had fallen into disrepair and couldn’t get up.
The Chapel was a victim of attrition. Their congregation had primarily consisted of elderly folk and, despite Pastor Edward’s best efforts, younger people were not interested in joining the small rural church. Most of the Jesus lovers within that desirable demographic in the Keep had been going to First Baptist in Bell Plains for about a decade, leaving the plainness of the Chapel behind, that stink of history, the sense of oldness.
First Baptist had turned into one of those mega-churches, with thousands of congregants, a flourishing youth program, their own gymnasium and a dynamic preacher who, even if he sometimes swung a little too hard towards the Universalist side of things, in Edward’s humble opinion, managed to write a good three-point sermon and get everyone out of there in time to hit the buffet before football came on. The believers in the Keep didn’t mind the drive to the next town. Such amenities! Loud music and basketball! The Chapel and stalwart Pastor Edward simply could not compete with First Baptist and its social media presence and its keenly marketed brand building. Even their Communion wine tasted good.
The Chapel faded, like hot breath on cold glass, as the woods encroached upon it from all sides. The roadside sign weathered and peeled, and no more visitors came. The place returned from where it came, a wooden building gone back to the Motherland, and the townspeople, with the exception of a couple, forgot it had ever existed. It simply disappeared from the collective consciousness of Elders Keep like a dream, like a nondescript stranger.
Pastor Edward still showed up every Sunday morning, a punctual ghost, ready to preach the Word to whoever showed up. It was his bitter calling. He could do nothing else. Edward never slept on Saturday nights. He would pace the floor of the Chapel, weeping and sweating, reconsecrating the ancient wooden floors of the building.
Some mornings, no one showed up. Pastor Edward would preach anyway. He would leave the worn wood behind the pulpit and stomp up and down the aisle, pointing at imaginary congregants in dusty pews. He would tell them of a Father in Heaven, cold and cruel, one who demanded the strictest obedience and doled out punishment like bottom-shelf rum at an open bar. Edward railed and raged, shrieking about vengeance and infractions, the fires of Hell and the grudging jack-booted grace of God, his own version of the Scriptures, twisted after so many years of being on the business end of God’s arrogant favoritism.
The apostates in Bell Plains would never have put up with his sermons. They would have called him mad, or filled with misunderstanding. They would have found some lovely way to call him a heretic, and his beliefs blasphemy.
“But it is they who have perverted your teachings, oh Lord, not I,” Edward said, praying aloud inside the empty chapel. “And yet you have abandoned me, not them. It is confusing, Father. I talk to you all the time. Why won’t you talk back?”
Dejected, Edward walked up the aisle and opened one side of the double doors. It was a brisk morning, although he knew it would be hotter than blazes by noon. Edward fished a pack of cigarettes out of his pants pocket and shook one out. He prayed quickly for forgiveness before lighting up. Damn it, he loved those things, and he inhaled like he had just broken the surface of an ice-covered lake.
He wondered briefly where his regulars were. Nobody can show up all the time, Edward reckoned, but it was still difficult for him to swallow his anger at them for not being diligent. He walked over to the church bell, which stood on a tall pole outside the building, and pulled the rope. The bell swung back and forth vigorously and silently; the clapper had rusted out years ago and no one had bothered replacing it.
Edward laughed softly enough for God to hear it, and no one else. Just like the bell. Just like his sermons. No one paid attention but Edward’s God in Heaven, and he was not offering an opinion either way. God was in Bell Plains, watching a multimedia presentation about spiritual warfare. Edward tossed his cigarette butt away and went back inside.
He stood behind the pulpit with his back stretched and his head lowered, like a wolf preparing to pounce. When he raised his head, there was someone sitting in the front pew, his head bowed.
“Good morning, Rafferty,” Father Edward said.
“Morning, Preacher,” Rafferty said, having finished his morning prayer.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” Edward said.
“You never do,” said Rafferty.
Rafferty was not much of a talker. He showed up one Sunday, no vehicle, no friends, no referrals, sat down in front and stayed for the whole service. When it was over, Rafferty disappeared. Edward didn’t even see him leave. The next Sunday, Rafferty showed up with a tattoo of Pastor Edward’s face on his right forearm.
Edward believed Rafferty lived in the woods somewhere. He had the aura of a man who didn’t want to be found. His clothes were always dirty and Edward had only seen him wear sleeveless shirts, even in the morning chill. Edward wasn’t even sure what color Rafferty’s eyes were. That space on his face seemed hollow. Black.
“Looks like it’s just you and me this morning, Rafferty,” Edward said.
“’Wherever two or more are gathered in My name, there am I also,’” Rafferty recited.
Edward grinned and nodded. “Rafferty, I have never met anyone with such quick mental access to the Scriptures as you.”
“’The Word of the Lord is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path,’” Rafferty said.
“This is the most I’ve ever heard you speak,” Edward said. “Do you sing? We could sing some hymns.”
Rafferty shook his head. “I don’t sing.”
Edward nodded in acknowledgement. “Well, then. Let’s begin. I see you have your Bible with you.”
Rafferty held the book up for inspection. It was an old King James Version, faux black leather, the kind they give kids in commemoration of their full immersion baptism. The red edging on the pages had been thumbed off over time, and Edward was sure if he checked, he would find verses underlined, highlighted and notated.
“Then let us, you and I,” Edward said, “turn to the book of Job.”
The front doors of the church burst open, like they had been kicked. Cold wind blew through the sanctuary, and some dead leaves tumbled their way in between the pews. Edward looked up. Rafferty turned.
“Pastor Edward, we have a problem.”
Penny Renfro walked to the front of the church, fell to her knees and began to shake and weep. Edward and Rafferty exchanged concerned glances before Edward ran to Penny’s side, placing an ecumenical arm around her shoulder.
“Sister Penny, what’s wrong? It’s all right. You can tell us. What’s wrong?”
Penny shook like a child just come inside from a cold rain. She heaved like she was ready to vomit in the house of the Lord. She drew in jagged breaths, and snot freely ran from her nose.
“The woman! She touched me!” Penny screamed.
“What woman?” Edward asked.
“The newcomer,” Penny said, still snuffling. “That new woman. That devil.”
Edward and Rafferty glanced at each other with serious looks. Rafferty folded his hands together and began to rock back and forth in the ancient rhythm of fervent prayer.
“All right, Penny, calm down,” Edward said. “You’re safe here. You’re with family.”
She wiped her snotty nose on her sleeve and took a couple more deep rasping breaths before finally settling down enough to speak.
“I sold a house,” Penny said.
“Well, that’s a good thing,” Edward said. “You know we had prayed about that. So, praise God for that.”
> “You don’t understand, Pastor,” she said. “The people were bad, they were so bad, you could just feel it pouring off of them, the evil, so thick, like smoke…”
“Where did they buy the house, Penny?” Edward asked, trying to keep the conversation grounded and relevant.
“Out in the subdivision. Out in Vanishing Pointe. The Blasted Lands. Out in the very back of the place. Only people out there. Good. Good! Keep those people isolated. Let them stay there by themselves. Consign the demons to the desert.”
“Penny, Sister, you’re talking crazy,” Edward huffed. “We’re trying to figure things out. We’re trying to help you out. So let’s just stay calm and go through things a step at a time.”
“They’re going to ruin everything,” Penny said. “I had only talked to them on the phone before they actually came in. And I didn’t think they would really buy that house. I was just doing my job, you know? Someone wants to see the house, you show the house. I wish I hadn’t picked up the phone. I wish I had never gotten that call.”
“All right. Now we’re making progress. You showed them the house. Then what happened?”
“They said they would take it. And I was excited for the money but I was terrified, because I could feel in my spirit the kind of people they are, you know, I could sense it.”
She stopped for a second and shuddered. Edward thought she was going to start crying and rambling again, so he patted her back and encouraged her to go on.
“She touched me! She shook my hand and I… I could feel it. Everywhere. I heard drums. My stomach cramped up like I had been kicked. I saw visions of flame and I swear, I could feel the heat, Pastor! I could feel it! And I wanted to kiss her, Pastor. She made me feel unnatural desires. I wanted to run my hands all over her, touch her, I wanted her to be mine, all mine, to live for no one else!”
Pastor Edward stared at Penny, a fine woman who had never so much as taken the Lord’s name in vain, in disbelief and wonder. Could this be? Had she been possessed?
“That’s not all,” Penny moaned.
Hunting Witches Page 11