“I don’t know,” Jamey said.
“Where did you go to?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You got to tell me what’s going on, Jamey,” Larry said. “I’m . . . scared.”
Jamey turned his face away, his eyes fixed on the woods. “I did something tonight,” he whispered, his voice broken with sobs. “Like I did at...that place.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Like the fire. I did something like it again tonight, Larry,” Jamey said, looking up. Larry stared into the other hoy’s eyes. Never in his life had Larry seen eyes like that— eyes that pierced him to the heart, overwhelming, staggering in their sadness.
Larry shook his head. “What are you talking about, Jamey?”
“The nightmare man,” Jamey said, gasping. “He got out again. Like he did before. That time. When the fire. . . when they all got burned . . . when they all—”
“Jamey. What is it?”
“He came out then, too. That’s why they thought I started that fire, because of what he did when I was asleep. That’s why they sent me there, to that place.” Jamey’s voice broke and he sobbed.
“What place?” Larry asked gently, his arm on Jamey’s shoulder despite the smell.
“Where Doc found me. Where those people put me. It wasn’t an orphanage,” Jamey went on in a desperate torrent of words. “It was a crazy house. The one they send you when there’s no place else for you to go. The one at Milledgeville. The one where he was.”
Larry shook his head. But before Larry could grab Jamey to stop him, he turned and hurled himself back into the fringe of woods. Larry stood there and watched as the white t-shirt disappeared among the dark leaves. “Jamey!” he called out.
When Larry found him again, Jamey was sitting on a dead log, his head down, his shoulders hunched. He was sobbing. Larry sat down next to him.
“I’m not going to leave you, Jamey. So you got to talk to me now. Maybe we can figure it out together,” Larry said. “Tell me about the fire. And why they thought you did it.”
“Because I did.”
“But how? You couldn’t.”
“Nobody else could’ve,” Jamey said, still keeping his head down. Larry reached over to touch the other boy’s back, but as if Larry’s hand had been red-hot, Jamey jumped up and walked to the edge of the little clearing. He kept his back to Larry. “After the fire, they made me go see a psychiatrist. He asked me things. I thought he wanted to help me, so I told him about everything, even about the nightmare man and the things he said. I told him I wanted the nightmare man to go away. And I thought because he was a doctor, he could help me. But he didn’t,” Jamey whispered.
“What did the man in the nightmare say?”
Jamey was trembling all over now. He shook his head, still without turning around. “He said I was special. That I wasn’t like other people. ‘I’ll look after you and help you,’ was what he said.’’
“Help you how?’’
“Help me to become this...thing.”
“What thing?”
“He said it was our secret. But that one day the whole world would know. Know who I really was.” Jamey’s voice broke in a sob.
“What, Jamey? You’ve got to tell me.”
“It was so crazy,” Jamey whispered, then looked up at Larry. There were tears in his eyes, his face looked stricken. Larry waited for Jamey to say the words. “He said I was New...Jesus. Only he made it sound like one word: Newjesus.”
Larry, his mouth open, stared at the other boy. His voice, as he spoke, had sounded hollow, distant. Larry waited a moment, letting it sink in, then went to say something but found himself swallowing so hard that he had to gasp. “Shit.”
“I never wanted him to say those things about me. I wanted the doctors to get him to stop, to stop whispering and laughing and mocking. But they didn’t believe me. They thought I was crazy. They said the nightmare man was part of me. Like I had this other personality inside of me.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Jamey said softly, “he came out once.”
“Came out how?”
“They wanted to find out about the fire, what I really remembered about it. So they hypnotized me. Only what they heard was him. Laughing, that terrible, mocking laughter. ‘Why, doesn’t old Jesus help them burning children,’ he kept saying. ‘Why don’t he lift a finger to help them little kids all burning and blackening?’ ”
Larry sucked in his breath. The words of the nightmare man, they were like the words Luther had whispered mockingly to Catherine at the bottom of the snake well, ‘Where’s old Jesus now? Where’s old Jesus to help you now?’
“He wanted me to hate Jesus, to hate God. For letting something like that happen,” Jamey went on, his voice again sounding so distant. “And he keeps doing it, keeps making things like that happen. Terrible things. Until I do what he wants. Become what he wants me to be.”
“Shit,” Larry said again and grabbed Jamey’s arm. “Let’s get out of here, Jamey.”
The two boys were silent as they made their way out of the woods and back onto the dark streets of the little town. Larry kept glancing over at the other boy. They were only a few blocks from home when Jamey stopped. He was staring down one of the streets that branched off from Philippi. “I...I r-remember...I c-came by here...earlier... something happened down there. At the end of that street.” Jamey lifted up his hands and stared at them. “That’s where I got...this on me. This stuff. The smell...it’s...from there.”
Larry swallowed hard and stared down to the end of the desolate street. There’s nothing down that way...except...” Larry stopped himself. Except the Anderson Funeral Home. “Jamey?”
But he had already started walking in the direction of the funeral home.
There was not a light on anywhere, either in the upstairs or coming from the basement. Jamey’s damp forehead glistened in the moonlight, his eyes looked dazed and frightened. “I remember now,” he said, his voice stern and low. Larry realized then how old he suddenly sounded.
“Don’t go down there, Jamey!” Larry called out. He stood there, looking around, trying to think of something to make him stop. Goddamnit, Larry said to himself, his heart beating violently, both from the running and from plain fear.
Larry took a few cautious steps toward the open doorway to the parlor and called out the other boy’s name. But there was no answer. He stopped and tried to see if he could make out anything in the darkness of the parlor. But it was pitch black.
“Jamey?”
He waited for an answer, for a sound, for anything to indicate that Jamey was inside. He went to the threshold of the door.
“Larry?”
Larry quickly spun around. He thought the voice had come from behind him. But it hadn’t. He turned back and peered through the doorway. And again he heard the voice calling his name.
It was someone else. Something was off in the way the voice sounded. Too sweet. Too syrupy.
“Larry...it’s me.”
And then Larry realized who it was.
“Alvin? That you? What are you doing down there?”
“Oh, I ain’t afraid of the parlor no more now, Larry. I like it now. I like it down here, on account of it’s so dark. Come see how dark it is.”
At that moment Larry saw something in the shadows of the parlor. A figure was standing there, not much more than two or three yards from him. Only it was too big to be Alvin. Way too big.
“Who’s that?”
“Why, it’s me, Larry. It’s Alvin,” the voice said, coming out of the same huge figure. Suddenly Larry jumped back. There was someone else in there. “Who’s that?” Larry said.
“Why, Larry, ain’t you excited ‘bout tomorrow night?”
“What about tomorrow night?”
“Why that’s when N
ewjesus is going to ascend his throne of glory. Ain’t it going to be something, Larry? And you know the best part?”
“What?” Larry said with a croak.
“You’re going to help him, Larry. You’re going to help Newjesus take that last step up to the throne of glory. Cause he can’t take that last step less you’re there to help him up.”
“How am I going to help him?” Larry was very cold now and his voice was trembling.
“Why, don’t you know yet?” the voice said, smooth as syrup. “Ain’t them others done told you about that old snake well?”
“Hush up, Alvin,” the other figure said with a hiss. “He ain’t supposed to know yet.”
“They say I ain’t supposed to tell you no more, Larry.”
“Who? Who’s in there with you?”
“Them others. . . them others that was called. We’s disciples now, Larry. Ain’t but five of us now. But tomorrow night them others going to be called. Enough so’s it’ll make Twelve. Just like Oldjesus done had, Larry. And then we’s going unto all the world, teaching and preaching about Newjesus.’’
There was a harsh, mean laugh from the figure next to Alvin. “We’s going to do more than teaching and preaching. A whole heapmore…”
“That’s right. We’s going to make everything just the way it was a long, long time ago, before God set all them stars out. Before He come up with all that old light. I don’t like it no more, Larry. I like this better. I like the darkness now. Why, I like it better than ice cream and candy, Larry. And you will, too. just wait till you see what’s down in that old well tomorrow. Ain’t no stars down there. Ain’t a speck of that old light down in that well, Larry.”
“Hush...” a new voice said, hissing.
“They don’t want me to say no more, Larry.” Alvin started giggling. “But you want to take a peek at your surprise?”
Larry, holding the doorway for support, his legs going weak, heard other voices. A woman’s first. “Look behind you, hon.” Then a man’s. “Go on, Larry, you look behind you.” And then Alvin’s again. “You go on and take a peek, Larry. Ain’t going to hurt none just to look.”
The blood rushing from his head, Larry at once became aware of the horrible stench. And then, before he had a chance to move, he felt a hand around his neck, pulling him back. And then another arm wrapped around him. Gasping, unable even to scream, he stared down at the arm. It was dripping with slime dredged up from the bottom of the Allatoona. It reached up, and sharp against his chin Larry felt the stump where the hand should have been, pushing, twisting his neck back until Larry’s eyes were fixed on the hideously disfigured mouth, the lips ripped away, the green teeth broken out on one side. The forked nib of tongue reached out, flicking toward his eyes, and ail above him the stars and the night slipped away, reeling and sliding beneath his feet, until the thing let go and he felt himself falling and falling.
And then he was no longer falling. Someone was holding him, pulling him back away from the door of the parlor. It was Jamey. “It was...you,” he said with a gasp, trying to wriggle away now. “Just you.”
“No,” Jamey whispered. “He’s gone...back.”
“Back where?’’
Jamey shook his head. He was crying. “Don’t you understand yet?”
Larry stared at the other boy’s face. He realized what he meant. “No. No, Jamey. That’s crazy.”
“You saw him.”
“It was Luther. That’s who it was. We got to tell my dad he’s back.”
“No,” Jamey said. “He’s been here. He’ll be here as long as I’m alive.”
Larry had staggered to his feet. “No, Jamey.”
“He’s the nightmare man. He always was,” Jamey said. “And that’s why I know what I have to do now. Just promise me you won’t try to find me. Promise you’ll leave. . . you and your momma and daddy. Please. Right now. Go as far away as you can. There’s nothing you can do for me anymore. Nothing anybody can do. Except me.”
“What are you going to do, Jamey?”
“The only thing I can do.”
“Tell me.”
“I can’t.” Jamey quickly looked away. “You’d try to stop me.” Without saying another word, Jamey turned and began running as fast as he could in the direction of the woods behind the Anderson Funeral Home. Larry ran after him but stopped at the fringe of the woods.
“Jamey?”
And all at once he understood what Jamey had meant. “No, Jamey! NO! NO!” he shouted. But all that came back to him was the echo from the depths of the woods. He waited a second longer, then turned and ran back to his house.
Part Four:
In the Forests of the Night
1
“Is he asleep yet?”
Robins looked up at Charlie, then closed the door of Larry’s bedroom. “He’s asleep.” The two men stood there awkwardly, then Charlie asked Robins if he’d like a little breakfast.
Lou Anne was out in the kitchen. Charlie kissed her absently, then walked over to the back door. It was open, except for the screen. He looked out at the tree house and at the brilliant morning sunlight filtering and scattering through its leaves. “It’s going to he a pretty day, looks like,” he said softly. “A real pretty one.”
He walked back and sat down at the kitchen table, across from Robins. Lou Anne brought them coffee. “Did Larry say anything else?”
Robins shook his head no.
Charlie sipped from his cup. At five that morning he had been awakened by his son. He had been standing by the side of his bed, his face pale, his hair wet and matted to his forehead, his mouth open, his eyes distraught. Charlie, slow waker that he was, knew something terrible was wrong and jumped up from the bed. “What is it, son?” But Larry had only stood there, his body heaving, trying to catch his breath. Charlie put his arms around him and eased him down to the edge of the bed. By that time, Lou Anne was awake, too. Larry looked at his mother, then back at Charlie. Then with something strangely close to bitterness in his voice, Larry whispered, “Why did you lie to me?” and broke down in tears.
“Larry? What is it?” Lou Anne asked him, pulling him against her, stroking his fair hair. “What’s wrong?”
But for the next fifteen minutes Larry had sobbed convulsively and without restraint, a half-dozen conflicting emotions all vying for expression at one time. But there was something absolute and final about the outburst. Larry was crying the way that only a child can cry when the most precious certainty in his world has suddenly been shattered and he realizes, for the first time, that not everything can be put back together
It had been Lou Anne’s idea to call Robins. By the time he got there, Larry had stopped crying and began telling them what had happened. And then, after Robins arrived, Larry told them what had grabbed him down in the parlor, about the stump and the mutilated mouth, told them who he had seen and what words had been said. He looked from his mom to his dad and then to Robins, and then finally Larry went through what Jamey had said to him at last. “I know what he meant,” Larry finally said. “I know what he was talking about. He’s going to kill himself. Tonight. Unless we can find him.”
Robins asked his first question after a lapse of a minute, looking up from his cup of coffee. “You know him a hell of a lot better than I do. Could Jamey be crazy?”
Lou Anne looked at Charlie. “No. Not like that.”
“Well,” Robins said, standing up and pacing around the table, “assuming Larry got his facts straight; it’s not just schizophrenia. I mean, it’s one thing to have two conflicting moods or two conflicting attitudes. It’s another whole thing, though, to have two different personalities. The thing is, in most documented cases, you have this same pattern, and the normal personality has only the dimmest idea of what the other personality is like. They often have no idea of the other personality at all. Consequently, nobody who hadn’t seen that
other part would even dream it existed.” Robins thought a moment. “The thing I keep wondering is, could Jamey have some reason for making all that up? To get sympathy or attention?”
Lou Anne shook her head and appealed to Charlie. “You know what he’s like. I can’t believe he’d simply make up something like that.”
“Well, is it easier to think he’s psychotic?” Robins asked them both.
Lou Anne stood there, then shook her head. “No,” she whispered.
“But in that case,” Robins went on, “if we rule out the possibility that he’s lying and that he’s psychotic, what does that leave us with?”
The three of them said nothing for the next few moments. Charlie shook his head. “I can’t buy it. This is life. Things like this don’t happen.”
But they do, Charlie, Lou Anne said, her voice suddenly passionate. “It’s not that things like this don’t happen. It’s that we don’t want to see them, to admit them. Because if we allowed them, then we would have to change everything about the way we feel and think and live. And maybe we’re too scared or lazy to do that. So when things like this happen, we try to pretend life’s going on in the same old way. But it won’t work this time.”
Charlie shook his head. “I don’t know.” He stood up and carried his empty cup to the sink. “But there’s one thing I can do. Check out the Anderson Funeral Home, try to figure out what Larry really saw there last night. Assuming he really did see something,” Charlie added with a frown. “He sure as hell thought he did, I know that much.”
Robins got up, too, and walked to the car with Charlie. Outside, by the gate, Robins stopped. “There’s something I know about Jamey I think I’d better tell you.”
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