Deliver Us From Evil

by Allen Lee Harris

  “It’s true. I know it’s true now. He created me. I’m his child. Not Luther’s—he only used Luther. I’m the child of what you saw. Of that thing. I know that now. And that’s why—”

  “Why what?”

  “Why I know what I have to do,” Jamey whispered. “Only I can’t do it without you, Larry.”

  “Do what? What am I supposed to do?”

  Jamey didn’t move for a moment and then, still without looking at Larry, he went to hand him the gun. But Larry just looked at it without taking it.

  Suddenly Larry understood. “You want me to kill you.”

  Jamey said nothing.

  Larry jumped to his feet and knocked against the railing. He heard a crack, as if it were starting to break, but Jamey already had hold of him, pulling him back to safety. The two boys stood there, holding on to each other. Tears in his eyes, Larry shook his head. “I can’t, Jamey Don’t ask me to. We can get help. My dad, he’ll know what to—”

  “He’s dead, Larry.”

  Larry stared into the other boy’s eyes and felt the tower underneath him as it swayed in a sudden gust of wind. Larry went to pull himself away, but Jamey held him. “And it will happen to others, too. To your mother. And to you. What happened to you just now at the well, it was just the beginning, Larry. There is no other way.”

  “My dad’s dead,” Larry whispered, then slowly sank down to the floor of the cupola. Jamey kneeled down, still holding on to him.

  “I can’t cry,” Larry said softly, “I should cry, but I can’t. I can’t cry anymore.”

  “Don’t. Not now. You can cry later. Right now you have to do what I ask you to do, Larry,” Jamey said to him. “Last night, out in the woods, I thought I could kill myself and end everything... all the trouble for everyone else. But I couldn’t. I was afraid.”

  “To die?” Larry asked.

  Jamey shook his head. “No, of something worse.”

  “What?”

  “I was so alone out there. I hated myself and I hated the world. I hated that I was ever born. I even hated God for letting me be made. I knew that was what he wanted, Satan, and I thought what if, in those last seconds as I was dying, I heard him whispering to me, only his voice of all the voices in the world? And I asked myself, what would I do? Would I do what he asked me to do? I didn’t know, Larry. And it scared me. He only needs me to whisper it once. Just a single time. ‘Yes, you were right. You were always right.’ And in that single second I would become him. That’s why I knew I couldn’t do it alone. Why I knew I needed you.”

  “But why me?”

  “Because if you do it, I’ll know why you’re doing it, because you don’t want anything bad to happen to me. Because you love me. And I won’t be alone. I’ll know why I’m doing it, too. I’ll know it’s because I love you. And because now I know that no matter what happens to me the world is a good place and has good things in it. I know that now because of you. Because you’ve shown it to me, Larry.”

  Larry shook his head. He was trembling all over. “But I’ll miss you, Jamey.”

  Neither boy said anything for a few moments. Then, looking up at Jamey, Larry said, “When am I supposed to do it, Jamey?”

  “You can wait until I’m asleep. I haven’t slept in a long time,” Jamey whispered. “It will be nice going to sleep and not having to worry. Or to wonder.”

  Larry was on the point of asking when Jamey was going to sleep, but as he looked into the other boy’s eyes, he knew there was no need for the question. It couldn’t be very long. And already even Jamey’s tone of voice was that of someone struggling against sleep, fighting if off.

  “There’s just one thing, Larry,” Jamey whispered, his eyes down. “One thing you have to promise me.”

  “What is it?”

  “First promise me you’ll do it, no matter what. Promise?”

  Larry nodded yes.

  “You have to do it the moment you see I’m asleep. You can’t wait. Not for a minute. Not even for a second.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he will do something to trick you. He might come as somebody else. As your dad again, or maybe as Dr. Robins, or your momma. But no matter who you see coming up those steps, don’t listen. At the first sound of the steps creaking, you’ll know it’s him. And that’s when you have to do it. If you wait, it will be too late. Do you understand?” Larry shivered, then nodded. He looked out over the railing, at the moonlit expanse of woods all around them. “Okay,” he whispered.

  Again, neither boy spoke a word, both listening to the gentle sound of the wind as it swayed the tower. Then Larry looked back at Jamey.

  “Where you’re going, Jamey, you think maybe there’s some way you can...”

  “Can what?”

  “Talk to me from there?”

  Jamey looked away. “Maybe. Maybe there’ll be ways. Only you’ll have to look for them, sometimes very hard.”

  “Like what?”

  “Maybe it will be in ways you’re not thinking of.”

  “Tell me, Jamey.”

  Jamey frowned. “Your momma could be playing something on the piano. Something you’ve heard before but never paid attention to. But suddenly, this time, you’ll hear it, like you’re listening to it for the first time. And listening, you’ll see how she feels inside. Or maybe you’ll remember one day something your dad said to you. Something you didn’t understand when you first heard it. But suddenly now, you’ll see it so clearly. Do you understand?”

  “I think so,” Larry said, without being sure he really did. And again he looked out over the woods. They stretched to the horizon, then merged into the vast deep pool of stars, as if the two worlds were joined seamlessly, effortlessly at some hidden point in the distance. He looked back over at Jamey and, in alarm, saw that the other boy’s eyes were closed. “Jamey, you awake?”

  Jamey opened his eyes. “Yes. But I don’t know how much longer I can stay awake.”

  Larry, seeing that Jamey had no place to put his head, told him to rest it on his leg. Don’t worry, I’ll move you if my leg gets tired.’

  For nearly a minute, the two of them said not a word. Larry felt the wind on his face. It was strange how calm he felt, as if everything else had been a dream, a nightmare, and only this was real. The well, what Jamey had said about his father—they all seemed illusionary, something that, on waking, would disappear as if in a puff of smoke, leaving behind only the pleasant sense of having been returned to a world that had nearly been lost to him, and that, for that very reason, seemed far more precious than if it had never been threatened. Like those nightmares he had as a little boy that, on escaping from them, made even the most taken-for-granted items of the ordinary world seem incomprehensibly wonderful—the solid nightstand next to him, the steady and impassable walls of his room, the light that dispelled all shadows.

  Larry looked down at the gun.

  “Is there really someplace,” he whispered, “where you’ll go, Jamey? Where people go to when the die?”

  Jamey said nothing for a moment. Again worried that the other boy had fallen asleep, Larry moved his leg and called out Jamey s name. “Is there, Jamey?”

  “I think so,” Jamey whispered, his voice sleepy.

  “Tell me about it, please,” Larry said. “Tell me what it’s like.

  “Okay,” Jamey said. And, speaking in his soft and soothing voice, Jamey began to talk of it, of this other world that was always present, but only hidden from our waking eyes. As Larry listened, he tried to fix every word, every sentence in his memory, paying special attention to precisely those things he didn’t understand, telling himself that if he memorized them he could come back later on, when he was older, and that, recalling them, maybe he could see what he had missed before. He listened as Jamey told him that the other world wasn’t anyplace else but that it was always around us, only
we can’t see it most of the time. It was like the stars that way. You could easily see the stars at night, but during the day you couldn’t see them at all. Some people thought the stars went away during the day, but of course they didn’t really go away but were hidden. And then Jamey went on to say other things, harder things that Larry just couldn’t follow or keep up with, no matter how much he wrinkled his forehead or pressed his fingers against his temple. Words slipped away from him no matter how hard he tried to keep them in place. And then when Jamey stopped talking, Larry began to ask more questions. At first they were real questions, asked to clear up something Jamey had said to him. But as he felt the other boy slipping away into sleep, Larry started to ask questions just to ask questions, just so he could keep Jamey awake a few minutes, even a few seconds more, anything to postpone the inevitable coming of sleep. Until, finally, looking down at his friend’s exhausted face, something inside of Larry whispered, Let him sleep.

  Let him sleep.

  And yet he couldn’t. Not yet. There was so much more he wanted to know, even if he couldn’t remember what it was right then. Looking up, he thought back to that first night they slept out in the tree house and Jamey had explained to him about the stars. Larry looked out and saw, tilted right upon the far horizon, Orion. And above that the Pleiades, called the Seven Sisters. Jamey had said whole galaxies were being born that very moment in that swirl of stellar light, galaxies in which our whole solar system would be lost like a speck of dust.

  Larry wiggled his leg. “Jamey, Jamey,” he whispered desperately, “tell me about the stars. Tell me about the stars again.”

  But there was nothing. Not a sound from the other boy.

  Larry looked down at his face. “Jamey?”

  He was asleep.

  Larry sat there, his heart beating through his chest, remembering what Jamey had told him. He had to do it the moment he fell asleep. And that if he didn’t, then...then...Larry lifted his hand to shake the other boy, but stopped. Instead he only whispered again, “Please, don’t go to sleep now. I don’t want to do it right now, Jamey. I want to hear you talk some more. Please don’t. I don’t want to be alone now.”

  Then Larry heard something. A noise coming from down beneath them. He turned and stared at the dark opening a few feet behind him. It was where the spiral staircase came out into the landing. In the moonlight Larry could see the top three or four steps. That was where the noise was coming from. The whole tower was creaking, creaking because there was somebody coming up the steps from below. Somebody walking very slowly up to them.

  Larry shook Jamey. “Somebody’s coming,” he told him, “there’s somebody coming up the steps.” But the boy’s eyes didn’t open. “Jamey?” Then, putting his hand behind Jamey’s neck, Larry slid his leg out, then carefully eased Jamey’s head onto the floor of the cupola. Larry stood and went to where the steps came out. From there he could see down only about a fourth of the way. The stairs were empty. But he could still feel it in the vibrations, the footsteps coming closer and closer.

  Larry went back and picked up the gun. He clutched it to him and then in a choking voice called out, “Who is it? Who’s down there?”

  But there was no answer. Nothing but the steady creaking. Jamey’s words pounding against his temple. “Promise me...you have to do it the moment you see I’m asleep.” Larry aimed the gun at Jamey’s sleeping body. He pointed it first at the head and then at the side and then at the shoulder. Why had he promised him? It was crazy, he realized. There was no way he could do it. “Jamey, wake up! Wake up!” he shouted.

  Then suddenly he heard a voice coming from the spiral staircase.

  Larry jerked back around and looked at the opening in the landing. It could come as anybody, Jamey had warned him. His dad. Or Dr. Robins. Or even—

  Larry suddenly froze. It was calling up to him in a voice that pierced right through him.

  “Larry? Honey? You okay? It’s me.”

  He stood there. “Momma?” he whispered.

  “It’s going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine. Jamey was just confused. But we’re going to get him help. The best help there is. Don’t you see, things like that don’t happen, honey. Not really. We’re coming up there to get you, to take you and Jamey back where you belong. Honey?”

  The creaking on the steps was closer now. Larry stepped in front of the opening. He saw a figure in the shadows, about ten or twelve steps down the staircase. “Honey, I’m coming up.”

  It’s a trick, Larry told himself. He clutched the gun and pointed it down.

  Suddenly he saw her.

  “Momma,” he whispered.

  The figure slowly mounted the steps, the moonlight finally filtering down upon the face.

  “What happened to...to...” But Larry couldn’t get the words out. He stared down at the huge, gaping wound that had once been a mouth. Even in the moonlight he could see the greenish tint of the broken teeth, the shreds of torn lips and cheek.

  And right there before his eyes, he watched as her face transformed itself completely into the other lace. The face of his nightmare. It was on the last step.

  Larry went to the railing, his back pressed up against it, the gun still in his hand. He pressed the trigger and let off three shots in a row. The thing just stood there, the bullets ripping bloodlessly into its face, the mouth not registering even a flicker of response. He fired twice more. Then he realized: There was only one bullet left.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Larry heard himself gasping out.

  The mouth twisted. “Ain’t you already done figured it yet?”

  “You going to take me back down to the well?”

  The thing in front of him gave out a hideous sharp screech that was meant to be a laugh, and as he did, Larry watched the river slime ooze down from the mutilated lips. “Ain’t going to put you in no well.”

  It stepped closer to him. “Even Jameyboy here, smart as he is, why, even he couldn’t figure it. ’Cause it’s a whole heap worser than any well. Worser than any nightmare any boy ever did have.”

  Larry kept the gun pointed at the thing. It was so close now that he could smell the stench from the mouth. It reached up and Larry saw the stump.

  Suddenly Larry heard other voices. They were coming from down the stairwell. “He done guessed it yet?” Alvin’s voice called out. “I know. . . I know what it is.” And another voice said, “Well, hon, why don’t we see if Larry can figure it out for himself.”

  “What is it?” Larry whispered, his voice begging, pleading. His back pressed against the railing, he heard the wood crack. Instinctively Larry grabbed the railing and felt it give. It couldn’t hold much longer.

  “Reckon Jameyboy was thinking he was going to get away from his old daddy, ain’t that right?” the thing said. “Reckon it’s too late now.”

  DO IT, Larry told himself. DO IT NOW. He looked at Jamey. He was asleep. He wouldn’t know. He wouldn’t feel a thing. DO IT.

  Larry pointed the gun at the other boy. “I’m sorry, Jamey,” he whispered, his voice choking. “I’m—”

  He went to squeeze the trigger and suddenly heard something. A laugh. He looked at the thing. It was grinning. Larry stared at it. “I know,” Larry whispered, suddenly understanding. “I know what it is now. The worst thing. The worst thing that could happen to me. I know what it is now.”

  All at once the hideous grin dissolved.

  “That’s what you wanted me to do, isn’t it? To kill him. You wanted me to be so afraid that I’d kill him. Because he isn’t what you said he was, is he? The thing. He’s...he’s...”

  And there, as Larry looked on, the face again transformed itself. The mask was dropped. Larry stared into the very face of hell.

  “Do it,” it said with a hiss.

  Larry shook his head. “You’re afraid,” Larry whispered. “Because I know now. I know
the secret. Only you knew who he really was. You just wanted him to think he was yours. But he wasn’t. He never was.”

  “DO IT!”

  “And you’re afraid of what I’ll do. Because if I’m dead, there’s no way you can hurt me. There’s no way you can trick Jamey into becoming what you want him to become. If I’m dead, there’s nothing you could do.”

  Then, closing his eyes, Larry put the barrel of the gun against his own chest and pointed it directly at his heart.

  “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” the thing screeched.

  In the darkness he felt the cold trigger, then pulled it.

  The gun exploded and yet, as Larry reeled backward, crashing through the railing and falling down into the bottomless night, there was another sound, louder and even more terrible still. It was as if the darkness itself had given out a howl, a scream of despair and defeat.

  20

  Hank stood up, shuddering at the sound that had pierced the darkness all around him. His lips trembling, he watched where the dark thing had hit into the bushes. “Heapmore,” he whispered and then slowly crept through the tall grass toward the thing that had fallen from the high place. He stopped and looked down at it.

  It was a boy. He lay in the grass, and Hank could see his eyes in the moonlight. They were open wide and fixed on the stars. But his head was on wrong, crooked and twisted, and there was blood coming from his mouth. On his shirt there was blood, and it, too, was coming out.

  Trembling all over, Hank squatted down and touched the boy. He didn’t move.

  Hank stood up and looked around. He went to say his word but was too frightened, and when it came out of his throat it was not a word but a sob. Hank stepped back, then turned and saw him.

  It was the other boy. He stood there, and Hank saw the tears in his eyes. Hank stepped back and watched as the other boy bent down over the boy who had fallen. He looked at the boy and then reached out and put his hand onto the fallen boy’s face. He whispered something to him. And then he kept his hand there on the boy’s face.

  Hank listened and heard the boy whisper.