Deliver Us From Evil

by Allen Lee Harris

  Charlie stood there a moment. Then he reached down and touched the man’s shoulder.

  “Hank,” he said softly. “It’s me, Charlie.”

  But Hank only shook his head, still staring down at the girl. Putting his hand under the man’s arm, Charlie slowly lifted him up. Hank turned to him. And even in the moonlight Charlie could see that there were tears in his eyes.

  “Come on, Hank. I’m going to take you back home now. Okay?”

  The whole way back to Lucerne, neither Charlie nor Robins said a word. Hank, likewise silent, sat in the back seat, his hands in his lap, and stared out at the dark countryside that they passed through.

  Pulling up in front of old Doc’s, Charlie and Robins got out of the car, leaving Hank where he was.

  “I remember who it is now. 1 used to see him when I was a boy,” Robins said, then glanced at Charlie. “What do you think he was doing out there?”

  “I’m not sure,” Charlie said, staring into the back seat of the car. “Sometimes he just runs off in the middle of the night. Been doing it ever since—”

  “What is it, Charlie?”

  “Ever since about the time Catherine died. I never put the two things together before.”

  “You think he went out there the other times? Or was trying to? To the grave?”

  Charlie shook his head. “I don’t see how he could have even known whose grave it was, considering his condition.” Robins looked back at Hank. His face was turned to the window, and his lips were moving. He was whispering something, the same sound over and over. Robins listened, but couldn’t make it out.

  10

  When the two men got to the house, Charlie headed back to the hall closet. He reached up and pulled down a box, then carried it into his son’s room.

  “Here,” Charlie said. “There’s a gun inside. I don’t expect you’ll have to use it. Just keep it with you. And no matter what happens, stay here. You understand me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I know how you feel. But if what Jamey said is true, the best thing for everybody is for you to stay right where you are.”

  Again Larry nodded.

  “Are you going to find him, Dad?”

  “We’re going to try.”

  Back in the kitchen, Robins had just finished telling Tom Harlan what they had found—and hadn’t found—out at the cemetery. Hank was sitting in a chair in the corner, staring out through the screen door into the backyard. Robins was drinking a cup of instant coffee. Lou Anne was in her room. Still, as Charlie spoke, he was careful to keep his voice low.

  “So old Doc let the child live, without telling anybody. Even the Klines,” Tom said. “I guess that explains a lot, doesn’t it? Explains why he withdrew the way he did. And why he sent Jamey off. Because he couldn’t have anybody finding out who the boy really was. Not even the boy himself.”

  Charlie nodded, then said, “Only later, it looks like he started to wonder if he had done the right thing. He certainly kept up with him. Probably, at first, to see if the boy was going to turn out to he like Luther. Or worse. And then, I guess, from what Jamey told Larry, old Doc began to wonder if. . . if maybe he was wrong.”

  There was silence in the room. Even Hank sat absolutely rigid. Then Robins set his coffee down. “The way we found Catherine tonight, it made me think of something. In the legends about saints, there are some called the ‘Incorruptibles.’ Even long after death their bodies are said to look as if they were simply sleeping. I guess what I’m getting at is, maybe we shouldn’t dismiss anything too quickly right now. No matter how crazy we might think it sounds. There’s just too much that doesn’t make sense otherwise.”

  “Meaning what?” Charlie asked.

  “Alvin’s body out in that well. The things your son saw last night. Catherine’s condition. And everything that’s happened to Jamey. The boy down at Milledgeville, the moccasin, the—”

  Robins stopped. He turned around and saw that Lou Anne was standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

  “Honey?” Charlie was on the point of asking her how long she had been there listening. But just from looking at her face, he knew the answer. “There’s something I think you ought to read,” Lou Anne said. She went over to the kitchen table and set a book down on it. It was The New English Bible. She opened it and pointed at something she had put a check mark next to. “Read that.”

  Robins walked over to the table. Charlie read silently what his wife had marked. It wasn’t part of the text but was in the accompanying notes, a gloss on the second chapter of Second Thessalonians. “It’s the chapter where St. Paul talks about the coming of the Antichrist,” Lou Anne said. When Charlie had finished reading, he handed the book to Robins.

  “Read it aloud.”

  Robins nodded. “...the man doomed to perdition...”

  “That’s how the Antichrist is described,” Lou Anne explained.

  “...this ‘man’ is an evil imitation of Jesus, and his coming is described in terms similar to that of Jesus.’”

  “Then look down farther. Right here.”

  Robins did and again read aloud. ‘“The author’s dismay at the wicked one’s likeness to Jesus continues.” He stopped and looked up at Lou Anne. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at. What does this have to do with Jamey?”

  “Don’t you see? Everything that happened before, and what’s happening now, what if it’s like a mockery, an evil imitation of the way Jesus came the first time? Simon Randolph was like the prophets. His paintings were supposed to depict the Coming. And the birth, what happened at the well, it’s all been a mockery of the birth of Jesus. A young girl—a virgin—told by an angel that she would be given a child, only to be abducted in the middle of the night and taken out to be tortured and raped. It’s the story of the Nativity, only twisted. And now, remember those things Larry said he heard at the Anderson’s Funeral Home—that Alvin told him? How Newjesus would have twelve disciples, just like the old Jesus, and how they would be sent out into the world. Some had already been called, but the rest would be called tonight,” Lou Anne said. “That’s what it all is. A mockery. Like a black mass, where the crucifix is turned upside down and the words are read backward.” Lou Anne stopped and looked at Charlie. “There’s something else. There, read what the notes say about the ‘Day of Judgment.’”

  Robins looked back down and read: “That day cannot come before the final rebellion against God, when wickedness will be revealed in human form, the man doomed to perdition.”

  “But in the notes it says that the word translated as ‘rebellion’ is literally ‘apostasy.’”

  “Apostasy?” Tom Harlan repeated. He, too, was now standing by Robins, looking at the text over his shoulder.

  She nodded. “It doesn’t actually mean the same thing as rebellion. It doesn’t mean rebellion at all. It means abandoning faith,” she whispered.

  Charlie stared at his wife. “What are you getting at, honey?”

  Suddenly she shivered. Clutching her arms in her hands, she looked at Charlie. “It means that the Antichrist wouldn’t be an evil person to begin with. He could be good. Like Jesus was, to begin with, but then something might happen that would cause him to lose his faith, to have it just destroyed. Completely. Like in the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus had to pray, and he’s described as sweating blood. Because he knows what has to happen, he can already see the horror of the crucifixion that’s coming, and he’s afraid. He begs for it not to have to happen. I’ve always wondered, what could Jesus be afraid of? It couldn’t just be that He was afraid of dying. I never understood it until right now. He wasn’t afraid of death or pain. He was afraid that on the cross He would despair of His whole life, His purpose, of the purpose of the universe, even of God’s goodness. ‘Father, father, why has Thou forsaken me?’ Why did He say those words? Why did they even put them in the Bible? It was as if it w
as there, for everybody to see, that Jesus had lost His faith. At the end He believed that God had betrayed and abandoned Him.”

  “Honey...” Charlie started to say, taken aback by his wife’s tone of voice. He got up and went to put his hand on her shoulder, but she jumped away, standing up and walking over to the window over the sink. She stared out into the darkness of the backyard. “What if everything we’ve always wanted to believe is wrong? What if those were Jesus’s last words and there was nothing else? We keep trying to tell ourselves that goodness and light will win in the end. But what if we’re wrong? What if there is too much darkness? Maybe there’s enough horror to make Jamey lose faith, abandon hope, to make him despair. Only this time with a despair that will crush him entirely, so that he will have no choice but to become the Antichrist?”

  The three men exchanged glances, but no one said a word for the next minute. Robins closed the Bible and walked to the screen door. “I used to wonder about those words, too. The last words on the cross. But maybe Jamey gave us the key to them in the things he told your son this afternoon down by the river.”

  “How so?”

  “He said that when Jesus died on the cross, it was to show that even He wasn’t special. Somehow it had never occurred to me before, but if God was to take on human suffering, it could only be by forgetting that He was God. At that last moment on the cross, He had to believe that it was really all in vain. He had to believe that He had been forsaken. Because that’s the essence of suffering. It isn’t just pain. We can bear pain if we know that some good will come of it. But suffering is more. Suffering is the sickening sense that pain is pointless. That’s the heart of real human suffering—despair. ”

  “The same thing Jamey’s feeling right now,” Lou Anne said softly. “He could be what your grandfather once thought he was. What that poor boy down at Milledgeville thought he was. Without even knowing it. And tonight would be the moment of ultimate temptation. The moment that would decide which course he would take.”

  No one in the room said a word.

  Charlie turned and looked at the door. “All I know, all any of us knows for sure, is that there’s a boy out there, as alone as anyone has ever been.”

  “Not quite,” Robins said. “There’s something out there with him. Something that’s been waiting a long time for this night.”

  Suddenly Hank stood bolt upright, his eyes seeming to start from their sockets. “Heapmore,” he whispered, his lips trembling. He stood frozen for a moment and then turned to the screen door. “Heapmore...heapmore...” he repeated, his voice getting louder and more frantic in its urgency. He looked back for a moment at Charlie, looked him directly in the eyes, piercing, pleading. “Heapmore.” And then Hank turned around and slammed the screen door wide open.

  “Stop him!” Charlie yelled.

  Robins ran, but smacked right into the screen door as it bounced back into place. He knocked it open with his foot and tore into the backyard, with Charlie closely following him.

  “Where is he?”

  Charlie looked around. “Over there.”

  Hank was again standing absolutely still, his face turned back to them. And even at that distance—nearly forty feet— they could hear the sound he continued to make, each repetition more desperate than the one before.

  “It’s okay, Hank,” Charlie said, walking toward him. Hank again turned and began running as fast as he could.

  “Darnnit,” Charlie said. He started to follow after him again, but Robins took hold of his arm.

  “He’s trying to get you to follow him.”

  “I got to go after him,” Charlie said.

  But Robins kept his grasp on Charlie’s arm. “What if he’s part of it now?”

  Charlie looked back at the dark figure at the end of the driveway. He shook his head. “No, he’s just scared. I don’t know why. But I sure think I’d better find out.”

  “I’ll go with you.’’

  “No. You stay here with the others. Don’t leave, no matter what. Understand? And make sure Larry doesn’t try anything stupid. Okay?”

  “Look. He’s moving again.”

  Charlie nodded. Hank was now running down the street, in the direction that would take him to one of the little dirt roads that branched at the edge of the town. “I got to go,” Charlie said, then ran to his car and opened the door. Robins was right behind him.

  “You shouldn’t be out there by yourself, Charlie.”

  “I don’t have much choice.” Charlie said, “just stay here with my family.” Robins nodded reluctantly, then turned and hurried back around the house. Charlie pulled the car back out of the driveway. He glanced down and saw that once again Hank had stopped momentarily, this time at the end of the street. Charlie looked back to the house. He realized he hadn’t said good-bye to Lou Anne. Of course, Robins would tell her where Charlie was going. Yet, for a split second, Charlie was seized with an overwhelming urge to jump from the car and go back inside, to take hold of his wife and to kiss her like he had never kissed her before. To say something to her that would miraculously convey how much she had meant to him all the years they had been together, to tell her that she had been his light, his one love. Instead, he glanced back at Hank—he was running again, close to the point of disappearing into the darkness of the deserted street. Charlie looked back at the house one last time and whispered, “Good-bye, honey.”

  11

  It had been a half hour since Charlie had gone after Hank. Robins and Tom Harlan were sitting out on the back steps of the McAlister house.

  “I shouldn’t have let him go by himself,” Robins said, glancing down at his watch.

  “Charlie knows what he’s doing. He’s got a good head on his shoulders,” Tom said.

  “I feel so useless just sitting here.” Robins said. And, as if a change of posture might do the trick, he stood up. “Christ, there must be something we can do.”

  Tom stood up, too. “Maybe there is.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, he didn’t tell me to stay here. I can go looking for him.” Tom nodded. “If Charlie’s out there on one of them dirt roads, he’s going to need an old-timer like me to find him. ’Sides, I reckon I’m the most dispensable one of us. I mean, if I get lost out there, won’t be like the end of the world,” Tom said. “I left my truck over behind Becky’s. I can be there in ten minutes. Anyways, you tell Lou Anne what I’m doing. Just don’t say nothing to alarm her. Tell her I just had some errand to go on or something.”

  Robins walked Tom to the gate. “I was going to tell you to call us when you got to your store. But I guess there’s no point in trying to do that.”

  “Well, I’ll try anyhow. Maybe the phones will be back on then. See you later.”

  Robins watched Tom until he got out of sight, then went back inside the house. Lou Anne was in the living room, the telephone receiver to her ear.

  “Is it working?”

  She jumped and turned around. “Lord, you scared me.”

  Robins apologized and Lou Anne shook her head. “It’s not your fault. I guess we’re all jumpy. Where’s Tom?”

  “He had to get something from the store,” Robins said. “Is the phone working?”

  Lou Anne shook her head and put the receiver back down. “There’s something I don’t understand. You know, the last time this happened—I mean, when the line went down—- we had about a dozen people come by to ask Charlie if he knew about... to see if there was something he could do. But tonight, nobody’s come by. No one at all.” She glanced back up at Robins, then walked to the window. “Everything’s so dark out there. All the houses are so dark,” she whispered.

  “They’re always pretty dark at this time of night, if I remember right,” Robins said. “Probably most everybody else around here is in bed, asleep.”

  Lou Anne nodded, but the thought clearly didn’
t offer much consolation. “I guess,” she said softly. “I just wish Charlie would get back.”

  “Me, too.”

  The two of them said nothing for a few moments. Then, clutching her arms to her again, Lou Anne shivered. “There’s something that keeps going through my head. What Larry told us this morning how twelve would be called. And how they needed five more tonight.”

  Robins frowned and quickly looked away.

  “Tonight,” she whispered, “in the kitchen, I kept counting everybody, over and over. Everybody here.”

  Robins thought a moment. “But, including Larry and Hank, there were six people here.”

  “What if Hank was already one of them? That would leave five. You and me, Charlie and Tom, and Larry. That would make the five, wouldn’t it?”

  Robins stared at her.

  Suddenly both of them jumped. This time it was Larry. He was standing at the threshold of the living room. “Has Dad gotten back yet?”

  Lou Anne, recomposing herself, said, “No, not yet, honey. But he’ll be back. Real soon.”

  Larry stood there, looking from his mother to Robins. He went over to her and she put her arms around him. “Maybe...maybe he’s found Jamey,” he said. “Maybe he’s bringing him back right now.”

  “That’s probably what happened,” she whispered, stroking her son’s hair. Robins was looking out the window. For God’s sake, Charlie, he thought, get back here. Get back here quick.

  12

  Tom Harlan, keys in hand, stopped on the front steps of Becky’s Department Store. He turned around and looked back down into the middle of the old Highway 44. He squinted, unable to make out much in the darkness. “Ralph, that you?” he called out. He hesitated, then went back down the steps. He knew he had heard something—it sounded like a growl—and figured it must have been the town’s hound dog. Though, to the best of Tom’s recollection, Ralph hadn’t growled at anybody in the past seven years.