Tree limbs snapped above and behind him in the dark.
The trees had arms, would hug him and hold him. The trees were part of the nightmare.
He scrambled to his feet, throwing damp leaves and dirt as he regained his balance. He ran ten steps, twenty steps, blind, his arm raised over his face to fend off the branches. His heart spasmed like a trapped animal in his chest.
Ronnie didn’t know where the road was, and couldn’t hear Tim above the noise of his own passing. He dodged between the trees, unaware of his feet.
Run, dingle-dork.
Maybe if the Bell Monster follows me, you can get away. If the thing’s not too hungry, maybe one boy will be enough for it.
Shards of moonlight cut into the forest canopy in places, creating a mad strobe as he ran from darkness to light, darkness to light. Then all was dark as he moved under the thicker canopy of old oak and hickory, and the branches were higher, no longer beating at his sides.
He was going downhill now, skidding in the mud. He stepped on a flat rock and fell on his rear, sliding and then rolling back to his feet.
A damp chill overlaid his sweat, and he knew he was near the river. Though his nose was blocked, he carried the river’s fishy and muddy smell in his memory. The rushing water roared faintly in his ears.
Follow me, but not TOO close, Ronnie silently willed the Bell Monster.
The trees opened and he reached the river. Moonlight glinted off the black water. The froth of waterfalls sparkled like ten million eyes. The air was colder here, fresh and heavy in Ronnie’s gasping lungs. The earth vibrated under his feet as he dodged among the gray rocks along the riverbank.
He huddled in a gap between two boulders, peering back up the slope. The tops of the trees moved, all big black creatures, live things, hostile and bristling and in league with the Bell Monster.
Ronnie didn’t know how long he had been running, but it felt like years. He breathed with his mouth open, his throat sore. His nose had stopped bleeding. He wiped his chin with his hand.
If the thing smells blood . . .
Ronnie crawled along the rocks until he reached the water. He stuck his hand in the current and a frigid shock ran up his arm. But he cupped his palm and brought the water to his face, wiping, then repeating the process until he thought his face was clean.
The front of his jacket was wet. He drew himself into a ball and waited for the Bell Monster to find him.
Waited.
Waited.
The river roared on, sweeping down below him past the red church and under the bridge into the valley.
A few thin clouds drifted across the sky, made silver-gray by the moonlight.
Did Tim make it? Or did the Bell Monster lose track of me and go after him?
Ronnie suddenly felt ashamed, remembering how he ran away when they’d found Boonie Houck. He’d left Tim behind to face the red, raw horror alone. And now he was abandoning him again.
Big brothers were supposed to take care of little brothers. Even if little brothers were dorks.
Dad was gone, and Mom was at that weird meeting in the red church. Tim had nobody to help him. Except Ronnie.
“Danged rocks are getting cold anyway,” he whispered to himself. He stood on trembling legs, his bones aching and stiff. The trees around him were still, their leaves wet and heavy.
He eased his way from behind the boulders, his back to the river. If he went upstream he would eventually come to Buckhorn Mountain, where a series of creeks ran together. If he went downstream he’d reach the bridge near the red church. If he went back into the woods, he would have to climb a hill to see where he was.
The river wasn’t too deep to cross, only waist-high in most places, but he was already nearly frozen. Besides, Tim wouldn’t dare cross the river. Tim had fallen into it once, and had been scared of deep water ever since.
Ronnie hunched low and headed back the way he thought he had come. His nose was not hurting much but, like the river, pulsed steadily under the bandages. He moved quietly through the trees, the way he did when he was playing Indian scout. He kept his palms up to push the branches from his face.
Once away from the river, he found an old hunting trail. A little moonlight splashed along the clearing, and he paused to listen for Tim. The Bell Monster probably hadn’t found Tim yet, or screams would be shattering the night silence.
Ronnie gulped at that thought. What if the thing had gotten Tim while Ronnie was cowering by the water? What if the Bell Monster had come aknocking on Tim’s rib cage? What if the thing with wings and claws and livers for eyes was even now scooping out Tim’s guts and having a late-night snack?
No. Think happy thoughts.
When you have one of those waking nightmares, when you think bad things in the dark and can’t go to sleep, you think happy thoughts. Cartoon dogs, fat clowns, things like that. Except sometimes the cartoon dogs bite and the fat clowns grow sharp smiles.
Happy thoughts.
Ronnie kept walking, using those words as a mantra, falling into their rhythm.
Think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts . . .
He tried to picture those stupid yellow smiley faces, but the faces kept turning into Preacher Staymore from Sunday School, lips pursed and asking, Can you hear Him aknocking?
Ronnie staggered on, tripping over roots and stones, mentally clinging to his happy-thoughts mantra.
He was nearly on his hundredth repetition when he first heard the twigs snapping.
He froze.
Whatever had been following him rustled some low bushes to his left.
A whisper of wings.
A soft clicking, like that of claws meeting in anticipation.
A wet flutter, like that made by liverish eyes opening and closing.
Ronnie’s limbs turned wooden, his feet grew roots, he was part of the dark soil he would die on. As the bushes exploded with movement, Ronnie’s last thought was that maybe Tim got away.
And then the monster had him, in a fury of tooth and wing and razor hatred.
The monster had smelled his blood in the dark.
The monster embraced him, eager and sharp-fingered.
The monster—
Ronnie kicked and screamed, flailing his elbows. He pressed his eyes closed, not wanting to watch the thing open his insides and pull out his dripping wet heart.
Ronnie balled his fists.
The creature growled in his ear.
“Ronnie, it’s me.”
Dad?
Yes, it was. Ronnie imagined Dad’s smell, all aftershave and sawdust and boot leather.
He relaxed in his dad’s strong arms, finally opening his eyes. Dad’s face was pale in the weak wash of moonlight.
“The . . . the thing,” Ronnie said, fighting back tears.
“Shh,” Dad said. “It’s okay now. Nothing’s going to get you.”
Ronnie shivered against his Dad, burrowing close for warmth. Ronnie was relieved to note that Dad had a gun with him. He suddenly pushed away. “Tim. Where’s Tim?”
“Right here.” Tim came out from the shadow of the trees.
“Did you see it?”
Tim’s glasses flashed as he nodded.
“What is it, Dad?” Ronnie asked.
“I’ll tell you later. Right now, let’s get to the house.” Dad put an arm around each boy and led them up the hill.
“Is Mom going to be okay?”
“I hope so, son. I hope so.”
They walked past midnight and into safety.
Midnight.
Linda was lifted by invisible loving arms. The singing, the sermon, the pure love of her fellow worshippers, all flowed through her like the charged juice of her blood. Every cell of her body glowed in the warmth of Archer’s glory. Her mouth was flooded with the sweetness of the communion they had taken.
She felt as if she had returned from a long sleep. But it had been a long sleep, years and years and years of religious tyranny, licking at the p
ierced feet of David’s foolish Jesus. But now Archer was back, and everything would be the way it was before.
She would belong again.
She looked to her right, to the owner of the hand she was holding. Sheriff Littlefield. Of course. The Littlefields were one of the old families. They, like the Greggs, Mathesons, Potters, and others, had attended the church back in Wendell McFall’s day. Now the families were reuniting, answering a call that was deeper than flesh and blood.
Archer McFall leaned over the lectern, spent from his rampaging sermon. His eyelids fluttered and the muscles in his shoulders twitched. He lifted his head and smiled. The sweat on his face glistened in the candlelight. He reached out with a trembling hand and caressed the broken wooden cross that jutted from the top of the lectern.
“He has found us worthy,” Archer said, in a drained voice that had none of its earlier thunder.
“Amen,” echoed the parishioners.
Linda turned from her front-row pew and looked at the others. Lester Matheson smiled at her, his teeth yellow. His wife Vivian swayed as if in rhythm to an inaudible hymn, her eyes closed. Old Mamie Pickett was beside Vivian, her wrinkled and spotted hands folded carefully across the waist of her blouse.
Nell and Haywood Absher sat erect in the back row, Nell in her blue hat with the diaphanous netting. Their daughter Noreen wore a blissful, vacant expression. Others filled the church, their eyes bright with joy. Mama Bet sat in the last row, her wrinkled mouth pressed in solemn joy.
Abshers. Mathesons. Greggs. Picketts. McFalls. Only one family was missing. No, two. The Potters and the Houcks.
The sheriff had said that old man Potter had died. And Boonie Houck had lost his sinful eyes and tongue and penis. Linda couldn’t mourn their loss. They had found their own path to the everlasting glory that Archer spoke of. They had paid in blood so that the other families might live unto the fourth generation.
Nobody gets anything without a little sacrifice. Archer needed them. He just sent them home ahead of the rest of us, that’s all.
Archer lifted his head, his brown eyes as intense as truck headlights. Linda quit thinking. He was about to speak.
“We have done God’s work,” Archer said, swiveling his head to indicate the refurbished interior of the church.
“We done Him proud,” Lester shouted.
“Amen,” Vivian said, not opening her eyes. A clamor of approval spread across the room. Linda glanced at the black world outside the windows, momentarily sorry for all the blind, misguided fools who had been led astray by that devil, Jesus. Even her very own sons had fallen for the devil’s tricks.
Her eyes welled and spilled over.
I’ll bring them. They should know of the true path before it’s too late.
She looked back at Archer, so grateful for his rescuing her from the flames of Christianity. She slid from her hard pew and knelt on the floorboards, bowing to Archer. Her heart was a tortured mix of love and regret. She had found Archer, then had lost him, and now she had found him again.
Archer says that the truth will always win out. Faith will beat Satan and Jesus both.
She bent lower, her head near the floor she had spent hours cleaning.
Faith is sacrifice. And sacrifice is the currency of God.
She kissed the floor, tasted the red church. And she knew—knew—that Archer would need her children.
Ronnie and Tim.
But what were their sins?
A voice came to her, unbidden: They don’t pay for their own sins. They pay for YOURS, Linda.
She looked up from where she was kneeling on the floor. Archer smiled at her, eyes moist and arms spread in supplication.
Remember Abraham from the Old Testament? When God asked him to kill his beloved son Isaac? Do you think Isaac was the one who had sins to pay for? Of course not. Abraham was the one who needed to suffer a little, who needed to prove his faith.
Around her, the parishioners stood and began to file out, talking quietly among themselves. Their words were joyless now, muted, as if the gathered had given all their emotions to the walls of the church. Outside they went, shuffling sacks of skin and fluid and organs, while within, the wood seemed vibrant, soaked with light and energy and the ghosts of prayers.
Archer stepped off the dais and came to Linda. He offered her his hands. For a moment she thought she saw stigmata, tiny red pocks in the white palms. The mark of Jesus. She recoiled in horror even as the image faded.
“What’s wrong, my child?” Archer said. He was the Archer of old, aged and ageless, wise and innocent, his eyes sparkling with love and hate.
“I—I’m . . .” she stammered, looking back down to the floor. She couldn’t meet his eyes, couldn’t stare into the hot hells inside them, couldn’t bear his gracious cruelty. Because she knew she would see the threat in them, the hunger, the need for her children.
But then, Archer was a divine incarnation, the flesh of God, sent among the mortals with a mission to perform. What were her needs next to the needs of Archer?
She felt Archer’s strong arms pulling her to her feet.
“Do you doubt?” he asked simply. There was no anger in his voice, no accusation.
Linda shook her head. She could hear the others talking outside, seemingly revived by the fresh spring night. A few cars started and drove away with a crunch of gravel.
Archer cupped her chin and tilted her head up until their eyes met. “You’re as lovely as you were in California.”
Linda thought for a moment that he was going to kiss her. If only . . .
But she was mortal and he was the Second Son. He didn’t need love the way that others did, the way that David did. For Archer, love was a fuel, a human juice that would propel the world to heaven. Love wasn’t for the soul, not a contract between two people in defiance of death; no, to Archer, love was for the Soul, the collective, the glory. Not an ounce of it could be spared on carnal yearnings.
Oh, she had loved him. Archer with his long hair and his Volkswagen bus with peace signs painted on the rear and sides. Archer who could never fit into the small-town mountain life. Archer who had dreams, who saw visions, who accepted the taunts and jeers with equanimity.
It was just after her high school graduation, when she and David had been busy planning their marriage and their careers and their future together. And that was when Linda first recognized the glass walls that surrounded her, that would forever keep her caged in the mountains. Oh, she could leave, she could go to Charlotte or the Outer Banks, but only for days at a time. Her life was here, as bound to the mountains as the granite foundations of the earth were. That long-ago summer, she had carried the certainty of it like a lump in her throat.
She was waiting tables at the Mountaineer Diner when Archer came in. She’d noticed Archer in high school, but he kept to himself, carrying at times a Bible or thick books that weren’t required reading. That in itself was enough to mark him as an outcast. But coupled with the fact that he was the great-great-grandson of the Hung Preacher, he might as well have had a sign that read Kick Me stuck to the back of his shirt.
He sat in a corner booth that day, under the fake antique Pepsi-Cola sign. Linda looked around, hoping Sue Ann, the other waitress on duty, would take the “weird one.” But Sue Ann was leaning over the counter, showing her cleavage to some red-eyed trucker. So Linda pulled out her order pad and walked over to the booth.
“What do you want?” she said, sizing him up as a lousy tipper in addition to being a long-haired creep. He fumbled with the menu and scraped a bit of gravy away with his thumb.
“Coffee,” he said.
“That all?” She was irritated by the way he watched her, as if she were a piece of chocolate cake.
He nodded. She turned to hurry back to the kitchen.
“Your name’s Linda, isn’t it?” he said.
Maybe he would tip after all. “Yeah,” she said, giving him her two-dollar smile.
“My name’s Archer.”
; “I know. You go to Pickett High, don’t you?”
“Did. I graduated.”
Linda didn’t remember him from the ceremony. Of course, she and David had hit a little Jim Beam before crossing the stage. Suddenly she felt guilty, as if his stare saw through her, into her. Then she was angry at herself for feeling guilty. Who cared what some longhaired bum thought?
His eyes were brown, vibrant yet distant. She felt dizzy looking into them.
“Uh . . . coffee, coming right up.”
She brought the coffee but he didn’t drink it. “The body is a temple,” he said. “And sacrifice is the currency of God. For He is a jealous God, and He punishes children for the iniquity of the parents.”
What a weirdo, she thought, but within fifteen minutes she was taking a break and sitting across from him in the booth, on the edge of the cheap vinyl seat. He talked matter-of-factly, and damned if he didn’t know just what he was talking about.
“You’re tired of this place,” Archer said. “You’re tired of these people and all this arguing over whether Chevy is better than Ford and what caliber bullet takes down a deer the fastest. You’re about to be married, your union blessed by God, and you think that this is your dream come true, that it’s happily-ever-after from now on. But scratch the surface”—he leaned forward as he said this, their faces only a foot apart—”and you find that you’re scared to death that this is it, this is all there is to life.”
She tried to protest, tried not to show that he had completely peeled back the layers of her soul like an onion. But she was already enthralled, already hooked, already mesmerized by the cadences of his speech. And by the time Sue Ann was calling Linda to get back to work, she had agreed to meet Archer for dinner.
She had to lie to David, but sinning was much easier back then. She and Archer ate at the Chick’n Shack over the line in Tennessee. She didn’t resist when Archer took her out behind the old red church after dinner. They rode back through town in his van, her with her head down, hoping no one would see her. At the same time, she was thinking that this was it, she was going to do it, she was going to cheat on David and damn the consequences. It was time to finally get around to the business of taking chances.
Ghost Box: Six Supernatural Thrillers Page 13