by Bob Avey
Nothing made sense anymore. He’d dreamed of this, going home and experiencing things left behind. In a moment of grandeur, he’d entertained the idea there would be an article, even a Pulitzer in it. At the very least he’d thought it might be, if not nice, then enlightening, but now that he was here, he couldn’t wait to get back to the comfort of their covenant, their make-believe world where they never spoke of what had come before. He was unnerved over the location she’d chosen, but his feelings at this point were of little consequence. To put it bluntly, he had no choice in the matter. And it wasn’t that far from his present location. The houses she’d spoken of were just on the other side of the wooded area east of the compound.
Douglass Wistrom turned away from the gate to the compound and started toward the trees. Going through the woods at night would not be easy. Clouds covered the sky, restricting the available light to nearly nothing, but there had been a pathway that’d run from the old house where he’d lived to the church grounds, and if he could find that, the trip would be manageable. He searched the edge of the forest, using the light from his cell phone occasionally when a particular area looked familiar, and a few minutes later he found what he was looking for. The pathway had not disappeared or even faded, but was even more obvious than he’d remembered. It was still being used.
He stepped onto the path, which led him into the trees, and about twenty minutes later he stood on the other side of the wooded area just above a clearing where several houses sat in the distance, barely visible in the darkness. The scene played with the eye, leaving what he saw hovering somewhere between imagination and reality like the faded ghosts that they were.
He made his way to the largest structure, the only two-story in the bunch, and as he drew near, the appearance of the place sent a shiver up his spine. It looked just like the house he’d lived in as a child. Over time, he’d driven that which had been from his mind, the troublesome memories being replaced by a peaceful existence of love, his own bedroom, and a closet full of clothes for school. But as he stared at the house, trying to convince himself that it wasn’t the same place, was in fact some specter arising from deep beneath a buried house of his nightmares, he began to suspect that in some sort of hellish purgatory it all still existed. That he needed only to make a wrong move, take a step in the wrong direction, and he would fall through time to be caught in the midst of some lost dimension where all that he had run away from still lived.
Stumbling across the weed-tangled lawn, worrying perhaps too much about being watched by someone lurking in the black wilderness that surrounded the area, Douglass reached the house and climbed onto the porch. Living in make-believe, it seemed, had inspired paranoia rather than the confidence of someone in control of his own destiny. Once again, he chanced using his cell phone for light, and when he flipped it open, he saw that there was no door blocking the entrance, but just a hole full of darkness where it had been. He did not step readily through the portal, but slowly pushed his head into the void and called out. “Hello, anybody here?”
The lack of a reply only served to deepen his anxiety. He wondered, and not for the first time, why she had chosen such a place. To safeguard their anonymity, they kept no physical ties and met only when the situation called for it, and even then only in predetermined locations. In the past few days, the need for such get-togethers and the frequency of their occurrences had increased dramatically, which could mean only one thing: their lives, make-believe or not, were in jeopardy.
Disregarding his internal alarm, which was telling him to get the hell out of there, Douglass Wistrom stepped inside the house and took a few steps across the wooden floor of the living room. He called out again. “Anybody here?”
As he’d feared, again he received no answer, and he began to worry that he’d gotten the location wrong. But she’d been quite specific in her instructions, and he’d followed them to the letter. He flipped open his phone and shone the faint light around the room, half expecting to see old man Saucier, back from the dead and crouched in a corner, a sly grin spreading across his ghoulish face, or perhaps Reverend Coronet, his arm outstretched and his hand readied to clamp on Douglass’s shoulder, adding a personal touch as he buried a knife in his back. But he saw no one. The room was empty. He shook his head. She’d been quite unhappy about his killing Saucier. He’d tried to explain that he had not intended to. Things just got out of control. He’d panicked.
He made his way into the kitchen and after a quick search, which turned up nothing, he returned to the living room and walked across the floor toward the first bedroom. Before reaching it, however, he saw something, the little half door, which caught the light from his phone with such authenticity that he began to suspect that this was not some incredible doppelganger he’d stumbled into, but a ghostly version of the actual place he’d called home. He could not deny the faded blue paint. When he brought the phone closer, the blood ran from his head, and he braced himself against the wall to keep from falling, for what he saw told him that he had indeed been sent back to the origin of his sin. He stared at the symbol, and he knew that it was the same one that had been carved into the wood of the half door in their house, an inverted crucifix, which she told him was proof of Mom and Dad’s unholy affiliation.
Much had happened in that closet, the slanted one beneath the stairs where nothing was stored except the lingering memories of their torture, which was the punishment favored by Father, the taking away of their freedom. At some point, though, it’d become not punishment but reward, where she would share with him her knowledge and her friendship, such that he would never experience again, for he was to find no equal in the world that they, at her insistence, had created for themselves. She also told him of the carnal pleasures, which Reverend Coronet had tried to extract from her only to be denied by Father, though not for her benefit or rescue, but to save her purity and virginity as an appeasement, an offering to gain favor with the lord of darkness.
With no one else to turn to, he believed in her. He lived in the palm of her hand, hoping not to be squeezed too tightly lest the air be driven from his lungs. He could not stop himself, and he watched as his hand closed around the latch of the half door that hid the closet where they’d spent too many hours of their lives. Cool against his fingers, the latch released, and the small door swung effortlessly away from the wall.
He bent his knees and leaned forward, and in the faint odor of old musty books coming out of the hole in the wall, he shone the faint bluish light into the void, and there he saw her clothes, the same ones she’d worn during their last meeting, folded in a neat pile, and beside them on the floor of the closet was a handgun and a folded piece of paper.
He opened the paper and saw, written in a hand he did not recognize, two words: YOU’RE NEXT.
As the paper fell from his hand, he reached for the gun then flashed the cell phone around the room, its blue light falling on nothing but empty space, and while what-if scenarios played through his head, he thought of her, and though he’d vowed never to again speak her name, Elizabeth slipped like an old habit from his tongue.
His hands shook so that he could barely use the keypad, but he managed to punch in the number, using what power the phone had left to call her. He cursed as voice mail picked it up. He closed the phone, but then a distinctive sound, one that came from outside filtered into his ears. Someone was coming. He could hear them thrashing through the brush.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Leaving downtown Tulsa, Elliot pulled onto Highway 75 and headed south to Donegal. The caller’s insistence that he go immediately wasn’t enough to ensure Elliot’s cooperation, but the threat of harm to Cyndi was.
When Elliot reached the outskirts of the small town, the fuel gauge caught his attention, and he pulled off the highway and onto the lot of a station, stopping next to a pump.
Elliot slid his card into the reader but nothing happened. He thumbed the intercom, and the clerk came on, telling him to go ahead and fill up, then b
ring the card in.
After filling the tank, Elliot went inside the store.
The clerk shook his head. “Seems like that thing never works.”
“Maybe you should get it fixed,” Elliot said. When he turned back to look at the pump, he thought he saw someone walk behind his car.
The clerk said something, which caused Elliot to turn back around, and when he looked outside again, the person was gone.
“Do you want a receipt?”
“Yeah,” Elliot said. “Sure.”
Maybe it was his overstimulated imagination, playing mind games, but Elliot thought the person he’d seen wore brown pants with a matching shirt, much like the uniforms of Reverend Coronet’s men.
Outside, Elliot walked around the car but saw nothing out of the ordinary. He climbed in and started the car, then pulled back onto the highway.
Neither the moon nor the stars penetrated the cloud cover. The darkness seemed to squeeze the effectiveness from the beams thrown out by the car’s lights, and perhaps it was for that reason that Elliot did not immediately see the van in front of him. Its red taillights appeared from nowhere, as if the vehicle had just materialized, back from being lost somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle only to be deposited onto the tarmac of Highway 75 less than thirty feet ahead of him.
Elliot hit the brakes. The pedal fell uselessly to the floor. He turned hard to the right.
Something dripped in Elliot’s face. He tried to wipe it away, but a strap held his hand above his head, while his own weight pinned his other arm behind his back. Seconds later, he realized what had happened. The car had rolled over, and he was lying on the inside of the roof, his right arm tangled in the seatbelt above his head. He twisted then pulled and freed his right arm. He felt for the door handle, found it and pulled. Nothing happened. The door was jammed.
He fumbled around and found the window switch, then toggled it back and forth, trying to figure out which way to go with it, then rolled the window down—up, in the car’s present position.
Freeing his other arm, Elliot wiggled through the window. Pain arced through his arm. He grabbed for it, finding it wet and sticky, and at that moment he realized what had dripped into his face. Blood. He was cut and bleeding.
Once out of the vehicle, he stood and reached for his shoulder holster. The Glock was gone. He checked his pocket for the small flashlight. Gone too. Both must have fallen out during the crash.
He kept another flashlight in the glove box, but getting to it would be a problem. The passenger side of the vehicle rested against the wall of the bar ditch.
Elliot glanced at his watch. He still had time. He stumbled back to the driver’s side, then lay on his stomach and wiggled back inside the car. The way he figured it, he had no choice. The caller had told him to be at the rendezvous point at 7:45. He didn’t want to be late. The caller had made it clear that he didn’t appreciate him not following his orders.
Elliot fumbled around in the darkness and found the dashboard, then ran his hand along it until he came to the glove box. Inside, he found the flashlight. Switching it on, he directed the beam to his injury. A nasty gash ran about four inches up his forearm.
He scooted back out of the vehicle and stood. Propping the flashlight on the vehicle’s upturned bottom, he took off his jacket, unbuttoned his dress shirt, then tore off his T-shirt and wrapped it around the wound. He re-buttoned his shirt and worked his way back into the jacket. With that done, he lay down again and shone the light inside the car, moving the beam around until he found what he was looking for: the Glock. Grabbing the weapon, he tucked it into his shoulder holster, then got to his feet again.
Directing the light ahead of him, Elliot saw the van that’d caused the accident. The vehicle had pulled off the highway and parked on the shoulder. He decided to check it out, see if everyone was all right. Perhaps they could give him a ride.
Without pausing to think it through, he proceeded toward the van, setting a pace that was too fast, intimidating, but a sense of urgency had begun to form in his gut, and the closer he got to the vehicle, the stronger the feeling became. As he neared the rear of the van, he wondered if the actions of its driver had truly been random, or if instead they had been executed by careful design. He imagined Cyndi inside with a hulking maniac behind her, a knife drawn to her throat.
The concept that the driver of the van and the caller, who’d just minutes earlier laid down instructions for Elliot, were actually one and the same was not farfetched. Elliot drew his weapon and edged along the side of the vehicle.
Against his expectations, Elliot found the van seemingly unoccupied, its windows rolled up, the doors locked tight. He pressed his face against the glass of the driver’s side window and peered inside. The cab was empty. He pounded on the glass.
After that, he went to the rear of the vehicle and knocked on the doors and windows there. When he got no response, he shone the light down to view the vehicle’s license plate. It had none. Where the tag should have been, there was a symbol, which had been crudely painted onto the metal of the van. It was a five-pointed star with two circles around it, one point purposely facing the earth and the head of goat imposed onto it. The back of his neck prickled.
Elliot fell against the van, his thoughts scattered like a madman’s, but the sound of the passenger side door slamming shut wrenched him back to sanity. Someone had just exited the vehicle.
With the Glock readied, Elliot edged around to the driver’s side. He got there just in time to hear someone thrashing through the brush. He shone the light toward the noise and saw movement, a figure cutting through the trees.
Elliot ran after the driver, the caller, or whoever it was. He’d intended to go that direction anyway. He had fifteen minutes to make his rendezvous point, which the caller had given him, and he’d never make it following the road on foot, but cutting through the woods, he just might. And if he caught up with his fleeing friend, he just might get some answers.
Elliot pushed through the brush. He couldn’t see or hear the person who’d run from the van, but he knew he was out there. He plunged ahead, making too much noise, unable to hear his nemesis if he decided to turn the tables and come after him. He wondered if his haste might be counterproductive, but then he remembered the caller’s threats and the possibility that he might have Cyndi. Seconds counted.
Elliot increased his pace, well aware that whoever he was chasing might have stopped running, and could be waiting for him behind the next tree, ready to put a bullet in him as he came into view. But he couldn’t block the image of Cyndi being held hostage by this lunatic, and if he turned out to be who Elliot suspected he was, the deranged son of Kathryn and Solomon Stone, there was no telling what he might do.
When Elliot took another step, his foot caught on the underbrush, and as he plunged forward, dancing to keep his balance, the flashlight beam skipped around the foliage, momentarily revealing a portion of a man’s face.
Elliot steadied himself then jerked the light back in the direction where he’d seen the person. No one was there, though in the cold humid air, the scent of the man’s body odor lingered. Turning in a slow circle, Elliot shone the light around his immediate area. The beam illuminated parts of shrubs and pieces of trees but nothing else. The darkness seemed to close around him. Even though he’d seen the man run away and disappear into the black thicket, Elliot suspected he was near, perhaps behind him, turning as he turned.
Resuming his journey, Elliot pushed forward, hoping his irregular trajectory would lead him near his destination. He wondered why the caller would so adamantly demand that he follow his instructions, only to pull in front of him on the road, causing the crash, and then lure him into a romp through the woods. It made no sense. There were easier ways to kill a person, if that’s what he was trying to do.
As that thought wafted through Elliot’s head, he heard the crack of a rifle. The projectile buzzed past his ear, splintering the bark of a tree just inches from his head. He switched o
ff the light and crouched in the brush. He’d seen the blast from the barrel. Whoever had fired the shot was about fifty yards west of his position. He was either circling around or he’d changed course. Elliot also considered the possibility that he’d become disoriented, which meant that he was the one heading in the wrong direction.
He had a decision to make: Follow the shooter and hope for the best, or keep to his present course. Working purely on instinct he chose the latter. He got up from his squatting position but just enough to walk. He left the light off.
A few minutes later, the tress and brush gave way to grass. He’d reached a clearing. When he rose to his feet, he saw a small bluish light, bouncing around in the darkness about a hundred yards away in the valley below.
Elliot heard a noise, the sound of leaves crunching behind him, and he reached for his shoulder holster, but as his hand closed around the handle of the weapon, something heavy slammed into the back of his neck and everything went black.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Elliot awoke in darkness. He raised his head, then ran his hand across his face, feeling a series of indentations that’d been caused by his lying on something rough. He had no idea where he was. He remembered dreaming.
Perhaps the answer was as simple as that; he was in fact still asleep and at any moment he might fall back into another nightmare, where Brian McKenna and Reverend Coronet would come out of the darkness, laughing while they watched McKenna’s clan set fire to a stack of wood beneath an altar, atop of which lay a bound and screaming sacrifice.
As Elliot’s senses came back, he began to determine where he was. The worn texture of the wooden floor, and the unsettling yet familiar scents of liquor and body odor left little doubt in his mind. He was once again lying on the floor of the abandoned house, the one where the waitress had sent him and where Reverend Coronet’s men had ambushed him.