by J. T. Warren
“Anger isn’t going to help anything.”
“God doesn’t want this. I refuse to believe that.”
“Then we’re done.”
“I can’t believe I was ever taken in by you. All your Jesus shit is just a front. You like manipulating people, deceiving them. You’re a monster.” He knocked open the passenger door, started to get out, paused. “Stay away from my son. You can’t have him.”
“We already do,” Ellis said with the faintest hint of victory.
“He’s in my house right now and if you or your partner try to keep me from my child, you will be very sorry.”
“You’ll fight off the men in the van behind us, too?”
The large guy in the driver’s seat was tapping his fingers on the wheel to an unheard beat.
“You’re threatening me?”
“It can be tough to accept what God has for us. It is easier, safer, to turn away, but when you turn from His glory, you end up in eternal darkness.”
“Stop spouting your shit.”
“Tell me now that there isn’t a part of you that wants to kill your wife. You’ve wanted to for a while. She’s practically dead anyway. Sleeps all day. Drugged to the gills. She’s no longer the woman you love. She’s a hindrance to your ascension.”
Anthony wanted to tell Ellis that he could shove his psychological Jesus games up his ass, but there was part of him that wanted to kill his wife, part of him that prayed quietly every time she took more of her pills that this time she would slip into her coma and never come out, part of him that imagined how easily he could suffocate her with a pillow. He would never admit that, of course, but it was true and its veracity would forever mark his soul. Given the right circumstance, maybe he would kill his wife. Not now, no, never. He was done with all this shit. The clouds had parted. He’d stopped digging that pit of grief deeper—it was time to climb out. It was time to take back his family. If they tried to stop him, beat him, threatened him, he’d just run to the police. Even if they abducted Brendan, the police wouldn’t take long to find him. “Stay away from me and my family.” The words rang with the certainty of a father’s commitment to do whatever was necessary to protect his family.
Ellis did not miss a beat. “I can just as easily have those men place Dr. Carroll back in your bedroom and you can discuss his death with the police. Dwayne and I, the whole Church of Jesus Christ the Empowered, none of it would be relevant. You hated Dr. Carroll for keeping your wife drugged up all the time, maybe even suspected him of having his way with her. It’s a very open and shut case.”
This threat gave Anthony only a moment’s pause. He had killed Dr. Carroll and he would have to face the consequences. He could claim temporary insanity, which was probably true anyway.
“So be it. I deserve to be punished for what I did.”
Ellis nodded, perhaps in appreciation of this statement, like a chess player admiring the bold move of his opponent. “That’s very noble of you and fine with me. You go to jail, Brendan goes with us.”
Anthony settled slowly back into the car seat. He stopped climbing: the hole was too deep. Streaks of sunlight slashed across Ellis’s face like prison bars.
“If I kill my wife?”
“You and Brendan and Tyler will be perfectly content and happy and, most importantly, helping us on our mission from God.”
The lines of sun on his face were not bars but gashes in a facade, exposing the sinister creature beneath. Anthony saw that creature now but was helpless to fight it or run from it.
15
Dwayne spoke quickly but with the determined beat of a storyteller who wished to give each part of his tale the attention it deserved. Brendan sat enraptured while Dwayne told him about Dr. Carroll and how, one day several years ago, Dwayne killed Sasha Karras’s father.
“Ellis had told me that one day I would be glad to know that someone with my DNA was walking around. That, more than anything else, stopped me from beating my wife and turned me to God. He was right. I wanted to have a child, a son, someone I could love unconditionally without all the bullshit that goes with marriages and Hallmark love.
“I walked out the door of my own house with Ellis and didn’t look back. Ellis saved me. I will be grateful for that until I die. I owe him everything. Without him, I’d be in jail right now. I don’t know how he found me, if God really led him to me or not, but I don’t really care. He brought me into the glory.
“Last fall, I contacted my wife. She wasn’t hard to find, hadn’t even moved. She’s divorced me, found some way to get it done because she claimed I ‘abandoned her.’ Really, I saved her—her life, anyway.
“I asked about our child, of course. I wasn’t going to assume any right to the kid, wasn’t even going to ask for any pictures. When God says it’s time, then it’s time. Instead, she told me the child was never born. After I walked out the door, she had a miscarriage. Couldn’t even reach the phone to call 9-1-1. My child, my son, slipped out of her and died on the kitchen floor while I was in a car with Ellis driving off to my calling.
“I beat her so viciously that I killed my son.”
Brendan thought of the woman hanging off Dwayne’s arm at the church. “You could have another.”
Dwayne was in another world, his voice drifting. “I spent all those years dreaming about a son I never even had. A son I walked away from to save. And by walking away, I killed him. You have any idea what that does to your mind?”
Was it any easier to kill a sister?
“He’d be almost thirteen now.” Dwayne’s eyes came out of the fog and landed on Brendan. They were piercing searchlights that left Brendan feeling naked.
“My woman now is wonderful. She’s helped me a great deal. She helped me see the bright side after I spoke to my wife. But we can’t have kids. She had uterine cancer when she was twenty, had a hysterectomy. She can’t ever get pregnant. God has His ways, that’s for sure.”
“What was the bright side?” Brendan asked.
“Well, you, of course.”
That didn’t make any sense. Dwayne said he had spoken to his wife last fall. He hadn’t even met Brendan until a day ago. This was one of those convenient lies adults concocted to create a sense of believability without exposing some nasty truth. Brendan had gotten good at constructing those lies, too.
“I see you don’t believe that, sounds like so much mushy, feel-good crap, right? I told you this started with Dr. Carroll and that’s where you come in.”
Brendan listened to the rest of Dwayne’s story without speaking. His hands grew hot and his throat dry, but he didn’t get any water. He wanted to stay perfectly still while Dwayne unveiled a truth that made him queasy.
“Ellis introduced me to Dr. Carroll, said he could help me. Doc wanted to give me a whole cocktail of meds, things to take the edge off and such. I told him I didn’t want to become some vegetable. I needed to stay strong and focused to do God’s will.
“He convinced me that without a little something I would end up being no help at all. He was afraid I was going to slip into depression and so, I agreed to take these little, yellow pills. It’s funny to think how obstinate I was about taking those things because once I started I felt so much better. Things became clearer. My pain about my son faded. That pain can never completely vanish, of course, but the pills did wonders.
“Dr. Carroll is—was—a believer. He and Ellis had met up a long time ago at one of Ellis’s old churches and together they spearheaded a new approach to Christianity, a whole new mentality to summon people into His flock.
“They turned, as Jesus did, to those who needed the most help. Dr. Carroll had been running a very successful practice for years and when he dedicated his life to carrying out God’s will, his practice grew exponentially. People suffering all forms of emotional trauma sought him out and he helped them first with the magic pills he carries and second by opening wide the gates to His Holy Empire. Dr. Carroll found the people and Ellis helped them find God.
“The two o
f them are responsible for saving hundreds of souls. They helped empower people who were on the cusp of complete despair. And in return, those people gave back to the church and that is why it is so strong today. We have over three hundred parishioners who are, as we speak, carrying out His will.
“Dr. Carroll led us to you. We have many young worshippers, but the doc convinced us that you were something special. Instead of intervening, however, Ellis believed we should wait for God’s intervention. The doc kept tabs on you and we went about our business of saving souls.”
Brendan thought of the myth book—had it been some sort of test? Why not give him the Bible?
“After your infant brother died, we knew your time would be soon. We came here last week because we knew your mother was getting worse, more and more dependent on drugs. She needed to be saved. To do that, however, we needed to first save your father.
“He didn’t want to hear anything from us. At first, almost everyone is resistant. Ellis told your father he would need our help and, as it has turned out, Ellis was right. He told me that God had only started working through your family, that the real miracles were yet to happen.
“Dr. Carroll spoke of your wondrous potential. He said you were going to be something remarkable—all you needed was a little guidance. As with most children who are not reared correctly, you were confused, trying to find meaning but lost in a tangle of barbaric ideas.
“You only wanted to protect your family, I know. God has worked through you, made you suffer like Job, because He has great things in mind for you. You see, we thought the death of your infant brother was the sign from God, but that was only the beginning. It was your sister’s death that has led us to this moment.
“You confessed your part in her death and for that we are forever grateful. You will carry that pain in your heart always, but we will help you manage it, funnel it, and direct it into the positive works He demands from us.”
Dwayne cracked his knuckles, one by one, as he spoke.
“Jacob Karras came to Dr. Carroll concerned about his wife. She was always weird, he said, but she was getting worse. She had an unnatural interest in the black arts—witchcraft. Dr. Carroll tried to help but she wouldn’t budge.
“Sometimes drastic measures need to be taken. The doc gave Jacob what he needed to help his wife. There are unfortunate turns of events, things that cannot be explained logically or sanely because we are not privy to God’s reasons.
“The drugs Jacob slipped his wife nearly killed her. She suffered a mild stroke, fell into a coma. Ellis and I assumed this was our moment to act, to help save the Karras family. We couldn’t have been more wrong.”
16
The moment Sasha said “Jesus Men,” Tyler felt the invisible weight of something still concealed begin to crush him.
“They wore suits and spoke about Jesus empowering you or some stupid shit. Whatever. I was going to tell them to try some other house, we weren’t the religious type, but my father came storming out of the house, started screaming at them.
“He told them to go away and stay the hell away for good if they were smart. My father wasn’t the type to get so pissed so easily, but there were other things …”
“What?” Tyler asked.
“I told you my mom went nuts after my father died, but that’s not all of it. She was a little nuts to begin with. She almost died.”
Sasha’s mother had had a stroke, fallen to a coma, and almost passed away. This psychiatrist her father knew tried to help but her father kicked him off the front steps, too.
“What was his name, the doctor?”
“Carroll something.”
“No.” That invisible weight grew heavier. “Dr. Carroll?”
She blinked. “Maybe, I don’t know.”
“What’d he look like?”
“I never met him,” she said. “Why?”
Tyler almost confessed to everything but stopped himself. There was a coincidence here too large to ignore, but it had no effect on the current problem. He still had to stick to the plan and he could sort out the oddities later. “Just asking,” he said. “So, your father?”
“The night after the Jesus Men left, they called the house. My father screamed at them again, and threatened to expose who they were. Said he would go to the papers, the TV, anyone who would listen. He told them the police would be coming their way soon.
“He slammed the phone so hard it fell off the wall. We still haven’t put it back up.” She wiped her face with one sleeve. It was a preemptive swipe at any tears preparing to fall. “The next morning he was dead.”
“Wait—how?”
Her voice choked with pain. “I found him at the bottom of the driveway. He had been shot twice, once in the chest, once in the head. I remember falling to the ground and screaming, screaming for hours until the neighbor came over. I’m sure it wasn’t hours, but it felt like it, you know?”
“When did all this happen?”
“I was twelve.”
“Jesus. I’m really sorry, Sasha, I didn’t know.”
“I told you it wasn’t important. My mother survived her stroke but she just came unhinged after that.”
That word again: unhinged.
“She started with all the witch crap and I went along with it. I tried to keep it from the kids at school, but you can never keep everything quiet. No one knows my dad was shot in my driveway. Even the guidance counselors think it was a heart attack. I was never asked to talk about it, so I never corrected them. They seemed pretty sure of their information.
“My mom’s not a bad person. She’s been through a lot, so I can’t be too critical, you know?”
“She needs help,” Tyler said. He was amazed he could move forward with his plan after her soul-purging. This last week had been one self-discovery after another.
“I’m not forcing her to take drugs.”
Tyler took a long, slow breath. He really had to sell this line. “I care about you, Sasha, I do. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I … want you to be safe.”
“You mean that?” She lifted her head like a deer checking to see if the path was clear.
“Of course. I know things have been fucked up lately, but I want to make everything better.”
“Do you love me?”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Yes, and that’s why we need to do something about your mother.”
“What?”
He reached into the bag at his feet and removed the bottle of Snapple.
17
There’s no reason to think that the human mind can’t withstand the most horrible emotional extremes. People endure travesties of unthinkable proportions. War. Death. Torture. Misery. Things that singe into the subconscious and burn there forever.
Anthony had suffered much already in his life, but what lay ahead was something he couldn’t quite fathom.
“How?”
“However you wish,” Ellis said.
“And then what, after it’s done?”
“Call us and we’ll take care of everything.”
“Do what you’re doing now?” Anthony couldn’t believe he was actually fielding these questions like he intended to go through with it. He wasn’t going to kill his wife. He kept repeating that over and over in his mind: I’m not killing my wife.
The Logical Voice should have backed him up, but instead that voice very calmly offered a logical perspective he didn’t want to hear. If you don’t kill her, these people will take Brendan. You have to do what they want or they will destroy your family.
Wouldn’t killing his wife be destroying his family anyway?
She’s barely been conscious for more than a month.
That didn’t mean she should die.
Ellis and his crew will cover everything up; they’ll be no proof, no worries.
“I need to know why.”
“Because I said so.”
“Why do you want her dead? Does she know something?”
Ellis laughed. “T
here’s no conspiracy, Anthony. There is simply God’s will and you are charged with carrying out that will.”
“Bullshit,” he said softly. Most of his anger had melted like ice defrosting off a slab of meat. He had no protection anymore. He was utterly vulnerable.
“If you don’t believe, you’ll never ascend to the incredible heights He has to offer. That will be your loss. However, do not let your fears and doubts stymie Brendan’s chance for empowerment. Your son is far too special. We care about him very much and if you do as well, go inside and kill your wife. We’ll even wait right here until it’s done and then we’ll handle the remains.”
That last phrase sent chills through him. Handle the remains. Would they chop her up and burn her in a campfire? He couldn’t kill her. Wouldn’t kill her.
What choice is there?
“No,” he said. “Don’t stay. It’ll be too suspicious if you hang around any longer. Leave and I’ll call you.”
“Take as much time as you need,” Ellis said. “Doing God’s work can be very torturous for the soul.”
Anthony gritted his teeth, stared straight at Ellis—his eyes masked all the vileness lurking there. “Thank you,” Anthony said and got out of the car.
Ellis drove off after another moment and the van followed. The big guy driving didn’t even glance Anthony’s way. He doesn’t have to, The Logical Voice said, they know you’re scared and you should be.
Anthony ran up his driveway and lunged inside his house. He sprinted upstairs, down the hall. The boys’ bedrooms were empty. In his bedroom, Chloe lay tucked beneath fresh cream-colored sheets and her sister Stephanie lay next to her on top of the comforter.
He ran back down the hall. Kitchen, dining room, family room: all empty. No, no, no.
“Brendan!” he screamed. His voice echoed through the silent house.
18
Having an adult trust him so completely that the adult didn’t hesitate to relay the real truth of the situation made Brendan feel close to Dwayne in a way he had never felt toward Dad. He loved Dad, of course, but Dwayne offered something else, something intriguing: entry into the adult world where the nasty truths were not sugar-coated or wrapped in lies.