Rage's Echo

by J. S. Bailey

  He had to do something. Go somewhere. Anything to get his mind off of what had just happened. Remaining idle would only make him go insane.

  He threw open the front door and ran. Down the sidewalk. Out onto Main, past the churches, then down Alexandria Pike. His calves and lungs began to burn like his throat. Spots swam before his eyes. He felt like he was going to die out here in the heat of mid-spring. The thought didn’t bother him. What did it matter if he lived or died? The only thing he had been living for was putrefying in a dumpster behind a clinic.

  His legs carried him all the way down to the community park. Since it was a Saturday, many young couples were there playing with their children, tossing horseshoes, swinging, and the like. Many heads turned as he ran down the nature trail that encircled a pond coated in patches of lily pads. He did not want anyone to look at him. He wished he could just disappear and never be seen again.

  He sank into the grass by the pond’s northern bank and wept. A female mallard paddled by on the pond’s glassy surface between the lily pads. Four ducklings swam in her wake. Why was it that animals as simple as ducks could have a family when he could not?

  Two children were playing a game of tag a short distance away. One of them stopped and said something to the other, and they both looked in his direction. He locked his gaze with theirs. They seemed so innocent and content with life, just as his own child undoubtedly would have been under his care.

  Suddenly his sadness was replaced by an inexplicable anger at the children who watched him. What was so special about them that they had deserved to be born?

  He thought about the other two children he and Abigail had lost—the ones who had died of natural causes before birth. He had been heartbroken then, but neither of those instances compared with this. This child was well on his or her way to being born. How Abigail could have been so cruel as to do this was beyond him.

  Suddenly the world was filled with the aberrant sound of creaking footsteps, and Jessica jerked awake, her heart hammering. Jerry had been showing her something again! Something about what had happened—

  Wayne’s voice carried across the hall from his bedroom. “Stop it! Stop, please don’t…”

  Jessica was out of bed and running before she had time to contemplate what she was doing. She threw open his door and flipped on the light, fully expecting to see Jerry attacking him, but the only soul visible was Wayne, tossing and turning as if fending off a phantom from a dream.

  He grew still, blinked, and sat up. He wasn’t wearing a shirt.

  He pulled his blanket around his chest like an embarrassed woman caught in bed with her lover. “What’s going on?”

  Her heart rate slowed a few beats. “You were shouting.”

  He rubbed his eyes. “It happens. Lord, what time is it?”

  “Uh…” She glanced at his alarm clock. “Looks like it’s about one. I—I thought someone was hurting you.”

  He flopped back down on his back. “I’m fine. I talk in my sleep sometimes, if you’re to believe my cousin.”

  Footsteps ascended the stairs, and Sidney appeared in the doorway. “Is something wrong?”

  “She thought I was dying,” Wayne said. He yawned.

  “Did not!” Then to Sidney she said, “What were you doing down there, anyway?” The footsteps that had awakened her must have been Sidney leaving the bedroom in the first place.

  “Relocating.” For the first time, Jessica detected fear in her friend’s eyes. “To the couch.”

  “What for?”

  Wayne pulled the blanket over his head. “Can you please let me get some sleep? I’ve got work in the morning.”

  “Sorry.” Jessica turned off the light and closed the door. She and Sidney faced each other in the hall. “What for?” she repeated in a whisper.

  “Between you two talking in your sleep and a bunch of weird tapping noises—”

  “I was talking in my sleep?”

  “Yeah. Something about killing people.”

  She strained to remember the dream she’d awakened from. There had been a woman hanging out clothes, and a park, and ducks. “I don’t remember dreaming anything like that.”

  “Well, you did, ’cause I had to hear all about it.”

  “What were you saying about tapping noises?”

  “It was probably nothing.” The look on her face said otherwise.

  “So you’re just going to leave me alone up here?”

  “I wouldn’t say you’re alone,” she said, moving back down the stairs. “You have plenty of company. Trust me.”

  Shrugging, Jessica returned to bed. The room was much too quiet without the sound of Sidney breathing. What so-called tapping had Sidney been talking about? The bedroom was as silent as the grave.

  Jessica got out her journal and laptop computer and went to the deck so she could enjoy what was bound to be the last warm day of the season. If she could change one thing about the town of Eleanor, it would be the erratic weather. Temperatures could soar into the nineties in July and plunge below twenty or even ten in January, and there never seemed to be a comfortable temperature in between.

  Except for today, of course.

  She kicked off her flip-flops and propped her bare feet up onto one of the metal chairs. Time to do some research.

  She logged into Wayne’s wireless network. The signal wasn’t very strong—only three out of five bars—but it would have to do.

  It didn’t take her long to find the website for the Iron Springs United Methodist Church. She was almost surprised they had one. The page hadn’t been updated in three or four years, so there were listings for “upcoming” church events like bake sales and youth group meetings that had occurred while Jessica was still in high school.

  The “about” tab told her that the congregation had begun meeting in churchgoers’ homes in 1860 while the church was built. Construction concluded in 1862. Pastor Albert Tumler’s face was pictured at the bottom of the screen. He had silvery hair and a beaming smile and looked like he was about sixty-five years old.

  She could call and ask him who the pastor had been in 1986. Then, if that man were still alive, she could try to contact him and ask if he or anyone else had noticed a group of people dragging a man to his death one summer night all those years ago.

  Though if there had been witnesses, surely one of them would have phoned the police. You just didn’t see that kind of thing and not say anything about it, unless you had a couple of screws loose somewhere in your head.

  She turned to a new page in her journal and began to write.

  10/22/2010. More things to ponder: Jerry Madison went missing in 1986. Jerry admitted that he was kidnapped and practically butchered by more than one person. They took him to the woods behind the cemetery to do the deed. They must have been familiar with the area to know how secluded it was. Were they churchgoers? Is some kindly old Methodist really a perverted killer?

  Going back to the graveyard and having a peek in the woods didn’t sound like such a bad idea. What could it hurt? If she came across Jerry’s remains, nobody would need to know about it.

  She would, however, need an excuse to be there in case she was seen. A plan was already forming in her mind. It had to be better than Wayne’s be-nice-to-Jerry-and-he-will-leave plan.

  Jessica went back into the house and located Al Tumler’s number in the list of received calls on her cell phone.

  She dialed, praying that the man would buy her story.

  “Hello?” The man’s much-clearer voice came on the line. He must have recovered from his illness since Tuesday.

  “Hi, Mr. Tumler? This is Jessica Roman-Dell. I’m the one who did the investigation in the graveyard the other night.”

  “Of course! How did it go?”

  “Let’s just say you’ve got one creepy place out there. I saw a full-body apparition, and no, I didn’t get a picture. Unfortunately.”

  “Wow.” He paused. “You’ve got a lot of courage, young lady.”


  She didn’t bother to tell him that she had nearly wet herself when Jerry had jumped on her. “Thanks. I do have some questions, though.”

  “Fire away.”

  “Well, I was wondering if the church owned the woods surrounding the graveyard, and if so, how far the property extends.”

  “You bet they own it. It was all part of a farm a hundred and fifty years ago, and when the farmer died, his property was willed to the local Methodist community. They sold off a lot of the acreage to raise enough money to build the church, but there’s still a good twenty acres left of the original lot. Fifteen of that is wooded. Why do you ask?”

  Here goes nothing. “You’ll probably think this is silly, but a friend of mine has a metal detector, and we were wondering if it would be okay to use it in the woods there.” Part of that was true. Wayne did own a metal detector that was currently collecting dust in a closet. “If we find anything valuable, we could give it to you.”

  He laughed. “What are you looking for, buried treasure? You won’t find much, I can tell you that. Hardly anyone goes out there.”

  “Yeah, but there could be a lot of older stuff. Indian head pennies, stuff like that. If you don’t want us digging around so close to the graveyard, I can understand, though.”

  “No, no, I don’t have a problem with it. Only problem is you’ll run into roots if you try to dig for anything in the woods. All the good stuff you’re thinking of is going to be close to a foot deep or more, so the roots may have even grown over top of them by now. You’ll probably come home empty-handed.”

  “Hey, I’m sure we’ll find something.” If she did dig up a few coins, it could provide her with an alibi if anyone saw her and asked what she was doing. And if she were fortunate enough to locate Jerry’s resting place, she could claim she had stumbled upon it purely by chance.

  “Well, good luck,” he said. “Just whatever you do, don’t dig anywhere near the graves.”

  She smiled. “I won’t do that. I promise.”

  When she ended the call, a slight feeling of guilt edged its way inside of her.

  She, Jessica Roman-Dell, had lied.

  WAYNE ONLY worked until noon on Fridays, so Jessica spotted him limping up to the house shortly thereafter.

  “How would you like to go metal detecting with me today?” she asked when he stepped into the entryway.

  His eyes were bloodshot, and he blinked, not understanding. “Metal detecting?”

  “Yeah. I figured we could go check out those woods where Jerry says he died.”

  “Ah.” He moved toward the refrigerator, frowning. “Any particular reason?”

  “I’m curious.” Extremely curious. “And it’s not like I have anything better to do.”

  He pulled a container of leftovers off the top shelf of the refrigerator and sighed. “You know what they say about curiosity.” He dumped cold spaghetti onto a plate and stuck it in the microwave.

  “I’m not a cat, and besides, it was your idea.” She sat down. She’d been thinking about Wayne’s theory that Jerry wasn’t at rest since his body hadn’t been found. It was doubtful that it was the real reason Jerry was still hanging around, but she supposed it could have been a contributing factor.

  “I didn’t say that we should do it,” he said. “You hungry?”

  “No, I’m good. I had some pizza rolls right before you got here.”

  The microwave beeped half a minute later. Wayne joined her at the table and twirled a clump of pasta around his fork. “All right. Let’s say we dig him up. Then what do we do?”

  She hadn’t thought ahead quite that far. Chances were good that they wouldn’t find him, anyway. “We might understand him a little better.”

  “You were supposed to do that by talking to him today.”

  “Yeah, and I haven’t seen him since yesterday evening. For all I know, he’s spending the weekend in Newport-on-the-Levee looking at the fish.”

  “Did you call out to see if he was hiding somewhere?”

  “I did a couple of times.” She’d done that as soon as she got off the phone with Mr. Tumler. “He wouldn’t answer me.”

  “Maybe he really did leave.”

  “I doubt it.” She watched him eat in silence for a few moments. “Sorry about waking you up last night. I had no clue you talked in your sleep.”

  “It’s all right. Lack of sleep isn’t going to kill me.”

  “It could.”

  “But not today.” He paused while he took a drink of water. “I’m just glad that these”—he rapped on one of his leg braces through his slacks—“didn’t do another disappearing act during the night. Though I sort of sprinkled holy water over them before I went to bed. You know, just in case somebody tried to mess with them again.”

  “You have holy water?”

  “I got a bottle of it from church a couple years ago. I keep it in my dresser.”

  She couldn’t help but smile as she pictured Wayne blessing his leg braces. “If you want to keep all the creepy things out, you can flood the house with it.”

  “Nah, that would ruin the drywall, and then I’d be more destitute than ever after paying for repairs.”

  She laughed. “You’re not destitute. You make what, forty grand a year?”

  Wayne scratched at his temple. “That forty grand goes pretty fast these days with all the bills I’ve got. I’m lucky if I can save a hundred dollars a month.”

  She stared at him. “I had no idea.”

  He shrugged. “If it weren’t for the muscle relaxant and doctor visits, it wouldn’t be so bad. I can’t exactly cut back on those, though.” He was right. The muscle relaxant helped loosen up the stiffness in his legs so he could walk easier.

  “Why did you let me move in here if you’re having that much trouble paying the bills?”

  “Why?” He smiled. “Some things are worth more than money.”

  “Thanks. You could teach Mom and Dad a thing or two.”

  “Not likely.” He swallowed his last bite of spaghetti and took his plate to the sink. “I guess I’d better change out of these clothes if we’re going on a metal-detecting expedition.”

  “Then you do want to go with me?”

  “Not really. But are you going to give me a choice?”

  “THIS IS one creepy place you found.”

  They were heading down Hill Road, coming up on the entrance to the church. Jessica was filled with an unnerving sense of déjà vu, and she felt almost as jittery as she had the first time she went on stage in front of the whole high school.

  “Doesn’t it look like something out of a horror film?” she said, spotting the church sign up ahead.

  “I don’t see any axe murderers, so we’re probably in good shape.” Despite his cheerful banter, a grim pallor settled over Wayne’s face. He knew as well as she the morbid implication of what they were about to do.

  “Turn here,” she said.

  He swung the pickup truck onto the lane. “Seems like an odd place to build a church.”

  “Tell me about it. A Gothic mansion would be perfect out here.”

  Wayne parked the truck in a space close to where she had parked the other night. Like before, no other vehicles were present in the lot.

  Neither of them spoke for several moments. Jessica stared at the countless headstones that stood before them like a petrified army. She spotted the bench where she first met Jerry, half-expecting to see him there again.

  The dull pain that had been throbbing in her body for days sharpened.

  “You ready?” Wayne said.

  Jessica unbuckled her seatbelt. Suddenly it almost hurt too much to move. “No.”

  She climbed out of the truck and went around to the bed, where they had stashed the metal detector, a shovel, and a five-gallon bucket. She had the crazy urge to laugh. What good could they possibly do by being out here? Jerry was dead. Digging him up wasn’t going to fix that.

  She handed the metal detector to Wayne and picked up the shovel and buc
ket. “Are you ready?”

  “Sure. Lead the way.”

  Jessica nodded. They needed to get this over with.

  She set off down the gravel path. “See that bench?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That’s where he was when I first saw him.”

  “Sitting right there?”

  “Yep.” The path curved to the left, but Jessica kept walking straight on toward the trees. Most of the headstones in this part of the graveyard seemed to be from the nineties and early two thousands.

  A dismal thought struck her. What would her own headstone look like someday? Who would come to her funeral? What bitter end was she not suspecting? Cancer, like Marjorie? Murder? An accident?

  How blessed people were to not know.

  Her footsteps crunched in the detritus on the forest floor. The leaves were dead. The sticks were dead. The soil that the trees grew in was dead.

  Her limbs burned. Maybe it was a sign that she would soon be dead as well.

  “It’s going to be a pain trying to dig for anything in all this,” Wayne said behind her.

  “We’ll find the spot. He said it was a clearing.”

  “Yeah, in 1986. Could be so overgrown with new trees that we won’t be able to find it.”

  She hadn’t thought about that. “Then we won’t find anything, we go home, and we figure out how to put up with you-know-who for the rest of our lives.” She stopped to scan the woods for thinning trees. It looked the same in all directions.

  “Is that a building?” Wayne asked.

  She turned. “Where?”

  “There. That little thing.” He pointed.

  Sure enough, some kind of structure mostly concealed by undergrowth and vines sat about fifty yards in front of them. “Looks like a cabin. You want to take a look?”

  Wayne was already walking past her. His awkward gait made it easy for her to catch up.

  Jessica made it to the cabin first. It didn’t look very old, even though the forest had already tried to reclaim it with Virginia creeper. She found the door on the narrow side of the building. She swiped away some of the burgundy vines and tried the knob. The door swung inward. “Hey, it’s unlocked!”