“Tell us about the rest of it,” said Whizzer, looking down at Ronnie, his smile like a possum’s. “Tell us about your Mama and the temple in California.”
Temple? California? His mom had never been to California. “You’re crazy, you . . . you—”
Ronnie was aware that he could never take back what he would say next. “You gap-toothed redneck.”
A murmur rippled through the hall. Some of the kids had buses to catch, but the crowd had grown larger. Sweat trickled down the back of Ronnie’s neck.
Where were those teachers?
Whizzer shoved Ronnie in the chest. Ronnie stumbled but kept his feet.
“Now you done it, you sissy,” said Whizzer. “The reverend says everybody got to pay for their sins in blood. Time for a down payment.”
The reverend? Ronnie’s head spun in confusion. His ears rang because of the pulse throbbing in his head. He was scarcely aware of the crowd now. It was just him and Whizzer and hate and pain.
Whizzer drew back a fist that looked the size of a football. Ronnie heard the whisper of air just before the fist crashed into the side of his head. His vision went black for a moment, and when it returned, he was looking at Whizzer’s boots only inches away.
One of the boots nudged him on the shoulder. “Get up, weasel. Or you want me to step on you a little?”
Ronnie struggled to his knees, then stood on wobbly legs. He realized that the crowd was roaring, shouts and laughter and jeers. Tim had slipped to safety. The blood hunters had bigger game now.
Ronnie pretended to be hurt. It wasn’t a far stretch of his imagination. His ears rang and the side of his face throbbed.
“Come on. Archer says there will come great trials,” taunted Whizzer. “Archer says it’s high time for a cleansing.”
Did none of the other kids realize Whizzer was a raving lunatic? No. They didn’t care. Reasons didn’t matter. Only entertainment at someone else’s expense.
Ronnie stooped and bulled his way into Whizzer’s belly. He heard the wind rush from Whizzer’s gut, and they both slammed into the lockers. Whizzer pounded on his back, but he could hardly feel it. He held on and squeezed, his nose pulsing now. He tasted blood on his lips.
An authoritative voice boomed through the hall. “What’s going on here?”
It was Mr. Gladstone, the principal. The one everybody called either Glad-Stoned or Fred Flintstone. The students backed away, and Ronnie relaxed his grip on Whizzer, though he didn’t let go. The principal grabbed Ronnie by the collar and finally dragged him to his feet. Whizzer stood and smoothed his jacket, his face red.
“Ah, Mr. Buchanan,” Mr. Gladstone said. “Why am I not surprised?”
He turned to Ronnie. “And you are . . . ?”
Lying was useless. Everything was useless. “Ronnie. Ronnie Day.”
“Okay, gentlemen. Let’s take a trip to my office.”
Ronnie and Whizzer marched down the hall like prisoners at gunpoint. The crowd had broken into lines on each side of the hall, whispering among themselves, already expanding the fight into a bloody schoolyard legend. Ronnie realized he was the first person stupid enough to stand up to Whizzer Buchanan. He wiped his nose with his hand. At least Whizzer hadn’t punched him there.
Sins paid for in blood. Well, how much freaking blood does it TAKE?
He looked behind him. The kids were juiced on adrenaline, dispersing now, a few shadow-boxing to re-create the fight. Tim’s tears had dried and he followed Mr. Gladstone as if in shock, carrying an armful of books. Melanie was behind Tim, and Ronnie looked back into her blue eyes.
So this is what it feels like when the Bell Monster rips open your chest and takes your heart. Except this way, you don’t die. This way, your heart keeps working, and you get a dose of nails and barbed wire and broken glass with every beat.
Melanie opened her mouth as if to explain, then looked down at the floor and shook her head. Her lip quivered and her eyes were moist.
She loves me. She loves me not.
At least that was one less thing to worry about. The principal nudged Whizzer and Ronnie into his office and closed the door.
###
“Another one dead.” Sheriff Littlefield let the deerskin jacket fall back over the face of the mutilated woman. “One of the Gregg girls.”
“You know her?” Detective Storie asked.
“Used to date her sister back in high school.” Littlefield looked up the road, where it wound into the hills. He knew this area well. A half dozen houses were tucked away in the shadowed folds. Behind them, Buckhorn Mountain rose so steep and rocky that no one could settle there. The mountain was the end of the world, a great wall that imprisoned as much as it protected.
Littlefield had grown up in one of those old houses. He still owned a couple of acres of sloping timberland at the foot of the mountain. He had visited the land only twice since his mom had died some ten years ago. She had gone to her grave still heartbroken over the deaths of her husband and youngest son.
Frank was the last of the Littlefields. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Seemed all the old families were dying out. The world had changed under them, time had left them in the dust, and all that remained was the demolishing of homesteads and the erecting of monuments. Stone markers that read, May God Protect and—
“Sheriff?” Storie called from the ditch.
He rubbed his eyes and looked up from where he was kneeling over the body. Whatever haze he’d been in last night still affected him. He felt as if he were moving underwater. “Did you find something?”
She held up a yellow receipt, gripping it carefully by the edge so that she wouldn’t smudge any fingerprints. “This must have fallen out of the jacket.”
“What does it say?”
“It’s from Barkersville Hardware. Made out to Day Construction.”
“David Day. He lives about a mile up the road.”
“We couldn’t be that lucky, could we?”
“David ain’t a murderer. I’ve known him since we were kids.”
David sometimes wore a jacket like the one over Donna Gregg’s body.
“How well do you know him?”
Littlefield stood, his knees sore. “Well enough.”
“As well as you know Archer McFall?”
The sheriff looked up the road, then at Sheila. “I’d better go question him.”
“I’ll call for Perry Hoyle,” Sheila said.
The county’s station wagon was putting on a lot of miles these days. Sheila headed back to her cruiser, which was pulled off the side of the road behind the sheriff’s Trooper.
Littlefield checked around the body. Chest ripped open. Heart gone. No mountain lion had performed that particular atrocity.
How about the Bell Monster, Frankie?
Samuel’s voice. Littlefield glanced into the forest on both sides of the road. His ears rang, a high-pitched buzz that ripped like a jigsaw blade through his brain.
He tried to blink away the darkness that seeped from the corners of his vision.
Not another blackout. Not in front of Sheila.
He wouldn’t allow himself to go insane. Too many people were counting on him. Samuel was dead. So were Donna Gregg and two others. More, unless he did something.
A car came down the road and slowed as it approached the scene. Littlefield forced himself to stand erect and wave the car past. One of the Absher boys was driving. Becca Faye smiled at him from the passenger’s side. Neither of the pair looked at the body lying in the weeds, though it was visible from the road.
The sheriff waited until his hands stopped trembling, then walked to Sheila’s cruiser. She was just hanging up her radio handset when he reached her open door.
“Another unit’s on the way, and Hoyle will be out in a half hour.” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you okay, Sheriff?”
He nodded, hoping she didn’t notice the sweat on his face. “I’m going to ride up to the Day place.”
“Good. I’ll wait here for ba
ckup, then I’m going to pay a little visit of my own.”
“Who to?”
“The Reverend Archer McFall.”
He came around the door and leaned over her. “Listen, Shei—” He started to say her first name, then caught himself. “Sergeant. We got nothing on him.”
“In that case, he won’t mind answering a few questions.”
“Maybe we should go together.”
She shook her head. “We don’t have time. Who knows when the killer’s going to strike again? We need to jump on every lead we’ve got.”
“Then let me take Archer.”
Her eyes shone with defiance. “This is my case, remember? You assigned it to me. What are you so worried about, anyway?”
Ghosts don’t exist. Archer McFall is just another preacher, another ordinary person who took up the Bible and found something in its pages that meant something. That doesn’t make him dangerous. That doesn’t even make him that unusual.
He didn’t want to admit that he was scared. The detective would perform a better interrogation without him around to muddy the waters. After all, Littlefield had taken his chances with Archer the evening before, and had nothing but a gaping hole in his memory to show for it. Littlefield was losing faith in his own abilities, and that was even scarier than the Hung Preacher’s ghost.
“Do you know where he’s staying?” he asked.
She nodded. “I checked around. He’s rented a room down at the Holiday Inn.”
“That’s funny. His mother has a place up the road. Wonder why he’s not staying with her?”
“With his money, you’d think he’d rent one of those chalets by the ski slopes. You’re the one who’s supposed to know him, remember?”
He looked at Donna Gregg’s cold body. “No,” he said quietly. “I don’t remember.”
“Maybe after you talk to David Day, you should get some sleep.” Sheila went past him and continued her search of the scene. Littlefield got in his Trooper and started the engine. He rolled down the window as he pulled away. “Be careful,” he called over the motor’s roar.
She nodded absently, her mind already consumed with analyzing the victim’s ragged flesh. Littlefield swallowed hard and headed toward Buckhorn Mountain.
###
It was past four o’clock. David and the boys should have been home by now.
I hope Archer didn’t take them early, Linda thought. The angel of God would be coming for them all sooner or later. She couldn’t help but hope it was later. She was going to miss the boys when they were gone. But at least the reunion would be sweet and everlasting.
For the tenth time, she peered anxiously through the curtains. The sheriff’s Trooper turned off the river road onto their packed dirt driveway. Linda dropped the curtain, heart pounding. Even though he’d attended last night’s service, she didn’t trust him.
She waited by the front door until she heard his feet on the porch. She swung the door open and forced a smile. “Hey, Sheriff. What brings you out to these parts?”
The sheriff bobbed his head in greeting. “Bad news, I’m afraid.”
Was there any other kind?
She cleared her throat. “It’s not the boys, is it?” Hoping, hoping.
Please, God, don’t take them yet.
“No.” The sheriff looked at her closely, as if they had once shared some secret that he’d forgotten. Then he pointed to the side of the house, where David had nailed a piece of plywood over the window. “Looks like you got a broken window.”
“Yeah. Those darned blue jays, they see their reflection and just got to pick a fight. One of them hit it just a little too hard.”
“Is David home?”
“He went to pick up the boys at school. Should be back any minute.”
“Mind if I wait for him?”
Linda opened the door all the way and stepped aside. “Please come in.”
The sheriff sat on the edge of the easy chair and leaned forward. Linda sat across from him, not knowing what to do with her hands. She straightened the magazines on the coffee table, wrinkled copies of David’s Field & Stream and her Woman’s World Weekly.
She sat back and cupped her hands over her knees, then pushed her hair away from her forehead. “Wasn’t that a wonderful service last night?”
“Reverend McFall sure knows how to preach up a storm. I’ll say that for him.”
The sheriff’s eyes focused behind her. She turned to see what he was looking at. It was a knitted sampler, one Grandma Gregg had made for her, which read, May God Protect And Keep This House. A little farm scene was stitched below the words.
“We’re mighty blessed that he came back,” she said.
“Came back?”
“To the mountains.”
The sheriff nodded. The room was cramped with silence. The air smelled of the trout she had cooked for lunch.
“So what do you think of this weather?” she asked.
“Pretty nice.”
“Yeah, we’ve got to get our pole beans planted. Been in such a commotion lately, we got behind on our chores.”
“How’s Ronnie?”
“Ronnie? Oh, he’s fine. Good enough to go back to school today. I got to take him to the doctor next week to get his stitches out, but he won’t have a permanent hump on his nose or anything.”
“That’s good.”
Another long silence. The sheriff looked at the wall again. “What’s that?” he asked.
Linda’s heart warmed as she looked at the small metal ankh on the wall. She had put the symbol of the temple in place of the old wooden cross David had nailed there. “It’s a joyous time, isn’t it?”
“Linda, what’s going on at the church?”
She swallowed some air and nearly choked on it. “You heard Archer last night. It’s time for a cleansing, time to pay for iniquities.”
“People are getting killed.”
“Archer says sins have to be paid for in blood.”
“Jesus did that for all of us by dying on the cross.”
Linda held her breath. Blasphemy. Archer had allowed this nonbeliever into the church?
Archer must have his reasons. Who was she to doubt his holy ways?
Outside, a vehicle pulled up. She jumped up from the sofa and ran to the door. The sheriff followed her out onto the porch. David and a glum-looking Ronnie and Tim got out of the Ranger.
David cast a hostile look at the sheriff. “What do you want?”
The sheriff looked at the two boys, then back to David. “It’s about Donna Gregg.”
Linda put her hand over her mouth. David turned to the boys. “Why don’t y’all go play in the barn for a while?” he said to them.
“What’s wrong?” Tim asked. His glasses sat askew on his nose. He pushed them up with a thin forefinger.
“Come on,” Ronnie said to Tim. “Let’s get out of here.”
As Ronnie turned, Linda saw the large bruise on his temple. “What happened?” she asked David.
“He got in a fight.”
Ronnie? In a fight? He wouldn’t hurt an earthworm.
“Something bad happened, didn’t it?” Tim said to Linda. “You always send us away when you want to talk about bad stuff.”
Ronnie took his brother’s arm and led him across the uneven stretch of green lawn. The sheriff waited until the boys had disappeared inside the barn, then said, “Donna’s dead.”
David looked at Buckhorn Mountain as if he wished he were walking its ridgeline. He always wanted to be away, alone, in troubled times. Linda tried to fake a sob, but failed.
“I found your jacket at the scene,” the sheriff said to David. “And a receipt made out to Day Construction. That kind of evidence is enough for me to take you in for questioning, but I’d just as soon do it here.”
“She was still warm when I found her,” David said, his voice as hollow as a potato barrel in spring. “Must have been about two in the morning.”
“Why didn’t you report it?”
<
br /> “You were around. I figured you knew about it before I did.”
“Did you see anybody?”
“Depends on your definition of ‘anybody.’”
Linda tried to signal David with her eyes. Then she realized she didn’t know whose side to be on. The sheriff was one of the flock, but somehow wrong, Jesus-tainted and closed-hearted. And David was . . . well, she didn’t know what David was.
“Tell me what you saw,” the sheriff said.
“Probably the same thing you saw.” David folded his arms. “After all, you’re one of them, ain’t you?”
“One of what?”
He nodded at Linda. “Them. Archer’s little angels. I saw you at the church last night.”
Linda looked from the sheriff to David, as if she were watching a badminton match being played with a live grenade. She chewed at her fingernail. Blood rushed from the ragged quick and filled her mouth with a brassy sweetness.
“Three people are dead,” the sheriff said. “All of them were somehow connected to the church.”
“It’s not Archer,” Linda said too quickly and forcefully.
“The old families,” Littlefield said. “Houck. Potter. Gregg.”
“They needed cleansing,” Linda said. “Archer says we all need cleansing.”
“Shut up,” David said. “I’m sick to death of ‘Archer this’ and ‘Archer that.’ I had enough of that the first time.”
“The first time?” the sheriff asked.
“Yeah,” David said. “In California.”
“What’s California got to do with what’s happening now?” Linda asked.
David slowly shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you? He was a lot smarter out in California. Or maybe he just didn’t know his own power.”
“Don’t bring your blamed old jealousy into this.”
“You didn’t see him,” David said, his voice rising in pitch. “You didn’t see him carry the bodies into the so-called temple.”
“What are you talking about?” Linda said.
“The Temple of the Two Suns,” he spat. “You didn’t hear about the murders out there. Who misses another lost drifter on the Santa Monica freeway? Even a half dozen. Plenty more where they came from. Now I just got to figure out why Archer came back.”
Ghost Box: Six Supernatural Thrillers Page 19