Grim Harvest

by Patrick C. Greene

  The others re-oriented themselves, only the uninvolved Hobie laughing. Nico helped Pipsqueak up. “Brother. You done good.”

  He brushed dirt out of Pip’s muttonchops, as Pip rubbed his chin. “Thanks Chief.”

  “My Ruthie’s gonna love sporting this little hellcat around.”

  * * * *

  Hudson and Pedro recruited a few of the emergency responders to help right the wrecked Blazer. Braking for a bunny rabbit, he’d run off the road and flipped, Hudson told them. It sounded better than the truth. Hudson was glad he had chosen to use his personal vehicle for the outing.

  As the civil workers returned to the Dietrich house, Hudson and Pedro took the chance to speak in private.

  “What the hell am I gonna write in my report, Petey?”

  “Nothing about wolfmen, I bet.”

  “I can’t ask you to lie.”

  “What are you, my scout master? Anyways, do I even look like the guy you’d want collaborating you on some story about a real-life overgrown Lon Chaney Junior?”

  “Corroborate,” Hudson corrected. “Dietrich seems to feel differently. He’s crying wolf to everyone in sight.”

  “What are you gonna say?” Pedro asked.

  “I had my suspicions based on what DeShaun and Stuart said. Reasonable enough, that I would come out unannounced to check on their friend.”

  “Sure. Then what?”

  “We didn’t see what happened in the house, because of the wreck.”

  “So, the truth, more or less, minus major chunks of crucial information.”

  “There’s no other way to play it. Tell the whole truth and I’ll be on psychiatric leave for about the next six hundred years. As for Dietrich, anything he says after ‘eight-foot dog monster’ is gonna fall on very doubtful ears.”

  “Serves him right,” Pedro said. “But I mean…there is some evidence. That The Howling just got re-enacted here, I mean.”

  “And probably about a thousand different, scientifically rational explanations that forensics could whip up.”

  “Okay. So what’s next?”

  “Dietrich described an actual human being. He sounds familiar. I need to match this up with a report about a prison transport accident. Main thing right now is finding Candace.”

  * * * *

  Whatever they had in mind for her, the Fireheads weren’t trying to make Jill suffer in discomfort—yet.

  She awoke in a second story bedroom with an adjoining bathroom. Uncarpeted hardwood floors, wallpapered plaster walls.

  All the windows had been nailed shut. There was a mattress on the floor; one pillow and a single fitted sheet left for her to put on if she wished. The closet was empty, the hanging rod removed.

  A plate with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a handful of saltine crackers was left for her on the floor, along with a bottle of beer.

  Spite said to ignore the food, but she wanted to stay sharp and strong, in case an opportunity for escape presented itself, or could be created. Though the beer was still capped and didn’t seem to have been tampered with, she emptied it down the sink drain and refilled it with water from the spigot.

  She went to the window as she wolfed down the sandwich, surveying the grounds to ascertain as much as she could about this place, her captors and their goal.

  She heard voices below the window, on or near the front porch. Studying the driveway, she spotted one of the bikers perched in a tree; a denim-feathered vulture keeping watch over the entrance.

  She plopped on the mattress and examined the beer bottle, visualizing how she could use it against whoever came to bring her food or check on her.

  Then, sounds of heavy boots and low voices came up the stairs.

  Six years in a punk rock outfit had made Jill resourceful and quick-witted when it came to brawls. She went to crouch beside the doorway, taking the bottle by the neck and raising it to smash over the first entrant’s head.

  Then she heard the muffled, distressed, and familiar voice of a child. She lowered the bottle and stepped back, still prepared to fight if possible.

  The key rattled, the door opened. Three Fireheads gazed in at her, tensed like zookeepers preparing to enter the cage of an uncontrollable silverback. But Jill did not have the luxury of enjoying the healthy respect in their eyes. She didn’t even think to return the fierce glower of the female, Aura. Her heart fell at the sight of a beloved friend.

  “Candace!” She dropped the bottle and went to the door, where she was met by a kick from Aura that sent her onto her butt. Even this didn’t dilute Jill’s worried focus on Candace.

  Hobie brought the little girl in by the arm. “Well, sounds like you girls already know each other!”

  Jill rose and embraced Candace. “Are you okay, sweetie?”

  “I don’t…know what’s going on!”

  “Hey that’s great!” Aura celebrated. “That means I get to be the one to tell you!”

  “Aura,” Rhino said in a low tone. “Leave it. We got work.”

  “Later,” Aura threatened. The trio left and locked the door.

  Jill walked Candace to the mattress, sat her down, and began rocking the girl and stroking her hair. “Did they come and get you at the home?”

  Candace nodded. “But there’s something worse.” Only now did she seem truly terrified.

  “What is it?”

  Candace gave Jill a gaze more terrifying than anything she had experienced since nearly a year before. “Everett is coming back.”

  Jill felt relief for the impossibility of the girl’s delusional fear. But she worried that the stress of being abducted had driven Candace over the edge; into the same fevered madness that had driven her brother.

  In that sense, perhaps her prophecy was true.

  Chapter 16

  Alone With Her

  Sunday Service had been uncomfortable at best. McGlazer’s sermon was rife with inappropriate innuendo, long pauses, flippant explanations of scripture and dogma. And had he winked at Brianna?

  Then he skipped the traditional post-service brunch in the church cafeteria. Seeing him head toward his office, Stella followed. The door was already closed by the time she caught up. She wanted to knock, to check on him. But she didn’t. Couldn’t. When she asked herself why, the answer made her shiver. He creeped her out now.

  The sermon had triggered a resolution though. She couldn’t help McGlazer. But she hoped it wasn’t too late to help Candace.

  She rushed the brunchers out. Leaving the cleanup for later, she drove home, preparing herself for a showdown with Bernard.

  First, to the kitchen. Hoping to catch flies with honey rather than vinegar, she a took glass of milk and a plate of oatmeal raisin cookies to the place where Bernard spent almost all his waking hours these days—the garage.

  His chemistry set had grown again. He moved between brand new glass beakers and test tubes, pouring and inspecting with his shiny elbow-length green gloves on; a harmless, paunchy Doctor Jekyll.

  On a baking sheet she had been missing lay a piece of Ragdoll Ruth’s evil Halloween candy; a fat glossy beetle awaiting dissection.

  “Any progress?” she began.

  He did not answer for almost a minute, but that was customary. “Traces of Ritalin, of all things. Ecstasy, PCP. All can cause paranoia. Something there I can’t really identify though.”

  Without meeting her gaze, he reached for the plate she held and bit into a cookie as he bent to his microscope.

  He swallowed the bite and raised the cookie, saying “Mmm” as his only acknowledgement. She handed him the milk and he took two noisy gulps, the way he always initiated the consumption of any beverage. Stella realized she had begun to find this, and many more of his idiosyncrasies, annoying to the point of distraction.

  “What’d you want?” he asked, making it clear he was
too busy for her—and unknowingly emboldening her.

  “Candace is in trouble.”

  “What makes you think so?” He showed only the barest interest.

  Stella told him what Elaine had told her, realizing the account was now third hand, and thus highly unlikely to impress Bernard in the least.

  He still hadn’t made eye contact with her. Shuffling from one apparatus to the other, he regarded her like a barely-tolerated pet.

  “You know how kids are,” he mumbled. “Dramatic.”

  This sounded so derisive that Stella had to count to ten before continuing. “Something needs to be done.”

  “That’s what the system is for.”

  “What system, Bernard?”

  He cleared his throat before tossing out his answer. “The system that oversees orphaned children. They’re qualified.”

  “You were in this system at some point, Bernard?”

  “You know I wasn’t, Stella. And neither were you.”

  “Exactly,” she countered. “We were both very lucky, and we learned how to be good parents.”

  Bernard shuffled away from her. He rubbed a pinch of powder into…

  “Is that my measuring cup?”

  “Non-toxic.”

  “I want to talk about this.”

  “Nothing to say,” he said. “We can’t take in a child right now, and that’s that.”

  He raised the flame on a Bunsen burner, and it might as well have been lit under her temper. He was a child playing with toys, with no thought beyond his own amusement. The center of his own tiny universe.

  “Well if that’s that,” she began, hard emphasis on every word, “then you can just have ‘that’ to yourself. Along with this house.”

  She spun to storm away, stopping when she heard him set down the glassware—but only to say, “You’re being emotional.”

  She spun hard, crossing her arms. “Yes I am. And I feel sorry for you that you can’t be.” She was at the door before speaking again. “Candace needs help, and if you won’t, then you’re in my way. Goodbye.”

  Much as she was tempted, she did not slam the door. Having already rehearsed this process a few times internally, she had visualized even what clothes she would pack, where she would go—the Blue Moon Inn, a block from Saint Saturn Unitarian—and how she would respond in the unlikely event he argued any of her points or tried to stop her. The only thing that could change her mind was if Bernard changed his mind—and heart.

  Wiping the few tears that escaped, she finished packing and set off for the Blue Moon within fifteen minutes.

  * * * *

  Standing to stretch, DeShaun parted the blinds. “Holy cannoli! It sure got dark.”

  Stuart raised his head from a frustratingly dark photocopy of a handwritten text and smacked the side of his head. “This stuff’s starting to bug me out anyways.”

  “What, the S’s that look like F’s?”

  “No, smart guy. You know what I mean.”

  “You think that journal is weird…” DeShaun held up, delicately, a pair of illustrations that depicted strange symbols interwoven with vaguely organic objects; plants with animalistic properties, and vice versa.

  “Sheesh. What the hell was up with these people?” Stuart asked.

  “Your people,” DeShaun noted. “Your lineage is back in there somewhere.”

  Stuart blinked at the realization. “Okay, let’s stow this junk. Just leave the ones you want Jill to copy on top.”

  * * * *

  Stella checked herself in at the Blue Moon, got settled in her room, and sat down to have a good cry. Then she realized she didn’t need a cry, she needed to get things done.

  She called the sheriff station for Hudson, to find some angle toward adopting Candace, but he was out.

  She returned to the church and set about cleaning like mad. She made use of the vacuum cleaner’s corner attachment and drapes brush, even hitting the underside of the pews to eradicate the most miniscule of unseen cobwebs. She attacked the chancel and choir platform, purifying them to a perfect next-to-godliness.

  After more than two hours she shut off the machine, expecting the room’s usual heavy silence to take over.

  It was the piano’s god-forsaken D key though, pinging in micro-seconds; an expectant and simplistic dirge, just as it had the previous year, when she’d been at the church alone.

  She spun toward the organ. McGlazer was there. His back was to her, his head raised toward the stained-glass depiction of Jesus in Gethsemane pleading for a mercy His Father would not grant.

  McGlazer’s arm was extended behind him in a way that had to be uncomfortable, absently and erratically plunking the D key.

  “Abe?”

  The minister slowly twisted toward her, maintaining his contemplation of the glass mosaic until physiognomy would no longer accommodate. Then he opened his mouth in a smirk so opposite the depicted pensive Jesus that it raised Stella’s heartbeat.

  “Stella?” Though the name rose on his voice like a query, a mockery, it was impossible that he would not know she was present.

  “I just…” Stella felt like this was a near-perfect McGlazer impostor. “Are you all right?”

  McGlazer released the D key and strode toward her, smiling, ever-smiling. “You’ve worried over me for months.”

  Stella frowned.

  “Perhaps even…years.”

  Before she knew it, McGlazer was standing inches from her face, his eyes like twin mesmeric spirals controlling everything within their radius.

  He gently cupped her chin. “You’re the faithful servant Yahweh doesn’t deserve.”

  She felt light, awkward, enticed; all at once.

  “The New Earth will call you goddess, I expect.”

  Stella didn’t feel uncomfortable with this sudden, strange attention, but knew she should pull away; a feat that was not possible. “What…‘New Earth?’”

  McGlazer wore mock lamentation. “This one cannot sustain itself.”

  Stella had no argument.

  “Your husband. You’re like a ghost to him, aren’t you?”

  McGlazer had always referred to Bernard by name. Now, a degree of separation. Could he know she had left him just a short while ago?

  The earnest minister she had known for so long seemed like a masterful, chameleonic actor of the highest order, inhabiting the role of not a character, but some historic figure possessed of exceptional personal drive of imperiousness, conviction of divine purpose, unquestionable destiny. This was far from him. Yet close enough that Stella’s suppressed attraction responded to its sunshine and burst from the earth to grow.

  She raised a trembling hand to his.

  “Let me show you what you are,” he said. “Let me show you what he cannot see.”

  Stella felt blissfully helpless.

  He took his hand from her chin and caressed her hair. She needed to make him stop, yet she saw him taking her, in her mind’s eye, undressing and ravishing her on a pew with God and the ghosts and the regretful Jesus at Gethsemane watching. She could not even imagine disapproval from the ethereal witnesses; only a regretful sort of understanding. This was too right—dogma be damned.

  He lowered his hand slowly and took hers. “Come.”

  He held her gaze as he led her, his insistence holding a sense of destiny. Even thoughts of Bernard and marriage vows, pledged before this very man—some piece of him anyway; perhaps a piece that had vaporized itself for this Greater Truth!—did not slow her stride.

  He was taking her to a place for lovemaking. She was sure of that. And they could repent later if that was even needed, but for now, what was needed was this; this holding of hands and revealing of secret thoughts and desires.

  * * * *

  “I’m coming to stop you, you lying bastard!”McGlazer
crashed into the office door like a berserker, unconcerned with pain or injury. “I’ll tear you to pieces before I’ll let you hurt her!”

  He slammed his shoulder, his foot, his fists into the oaken door. “You hear me, Bennington!” He shouted with his next strike, both forearms driven into the barrier like a steroid-fueled defensive lineman.

  The thick wood cracked.

  As thin filaments of eldritch light broke through, McGlazer grew in confidence and determination, realizing he could free himself. With Stella in danger, he no longer had any choice.

  McGlazer stepped back to make another running bash and felt his heel kick something. A bottle of course; Jefferson Select. It fell on its flat back with a high-pitched clink and lay there, sparkling and sloshing and calling to him.

  “No!” He booted the bottle, sending it spinning into the wall, where it smashed and evaporated in seconds, the glass pieces melting to dust.

  He didn’t allow the least lament, returning to the door with hammering blows. The crack grew, and the invading light of rescue with it. “I’m coming for you!”

  “Be still, ye simple sot! Or I’ll make it worse for her! And for your own ragged hide!”

  McGlazer’s righteous rage held firm. He kicked the door, raising dust motes that swirled in the expanding section of light. The brightness beyond gained strength, sucking the door into itself, burning it away. The light was McGlazer’s will at work.

  Then, something crossed the light, growing to overcome it, to block it out. A giant wooden button came near the crack. Eyes rolled in each of its four thread holes behind the strands holding it to her cracked white face.

  “I see through you, Abraham McGlazer, ye pretender! Impostor!”

  McGlazer wept in mourning for his own quick-bleeding resolve.

  “You carry the weight of countless unconfessed sins! You stink of its infection!”

  The light behind the figure weakened, along with McGlazer’s will.

  “The Lord commandeth me to turn you to a pillar of salt!”

  Her voice sounded as though it was being blasted through the maxed-out amps of The Chalk Outlines up on the theatre marquee. The volume threatened to shred him with its force, withered every part of him. McGlazer was The Incredible Melting Man.