Devil's Creek

by Todd Keisling

  The phone. His phone was ringing.

  He looked at the nightstand, and his heart lodged in his throat. The screen lit up, announcing an incoming call from Riley. Bobby checked his watch as he reached for the phone. 2:37 a.m.

  Oh God, he thought, his belly filling with a sickening dread like concrete. Please let him be okay. Please, Lord, let my son be okay.

  Bobby held his breath and accepted the call.

  “Dad?”

  Riley’s shaky voice was like angels singing in his ear. Oh, thank you, Jesus, thank you.

  “I’m here, Riley. What’s wrong? Is everything okay?”

  “No,” Riley said, his voice rising an octave, trembling. “No, it’s Ben. And Toby. They’re… Dad, they’re gone.”

  Bobby sat up, kicking back the blankets and planting his feet on the cold wooden floor. “What do you mean, ‘they’re gone?’”

  “I mean, they’re gone.”

  His son’s raw voice made Bobby’s heart palpitate. The bold, rebellious fifteen-year-old with whom he’d fought earlier was now reduced to the frightened six-year-old he loved and missed so much. Riley’s fear forced Bobby’s paternal instincts to surge. He needed to get dressed and go get his son. His son needed him, needed his father right now, and—

  “Someone came to the camp and took them.”

  “Took them?” Bobby rolled the word over in his head. “Riley, weren’t you in the same tent? Tell me exactly what happened.”

  Silence filled the line. Bobby heard his son breathing, thinking how to reply, and a pit opened in his gut as he slowly put the pieces together. He closed his eyes and made a silent prayer to God, hoping beyond measure he was wrong.

  “It’s my fault, Dad.”

  Bobby’s heart, the whole world, fell through his stomach. He opened his eyes and clenched his jaw.

  “I’m listening, son.”

  “I wasn’t in the tent. I was…out. In the woods. With Rachel Matthews.”

  “Riley James,” Bobby hissed, too late to catch his anger before giving it voice. He waited a moment to collect himself, for the heat to bleed from his cheeks. “Look, we can talk about all that when you get home. I’m coming to get you.”

  “I can’t leave yet. The cops are on their way. I have to give a statement.”

  Bobby sighed. Of course, he thought. Ozzie Bell is going to have a field day with this. And when Don and Harriet find out what their daughter was doing with my son…oh Jesus, please grant me grace and patience.

  “If I’d been there, Dad, I could’ve done something. I could’ve…”

  “Son, right now I need you to be strong, okay? You need to focus on what you remember, anything you saw, and tell the police when they get there. We can talk about…what you were doing when you get home. I’ll be on my way to get you in a few minutes. Which campsite are you camping at tonight?”

  Riley told him, and after a brief exchange of endearment, Bobby canceled the call with his son. His mind raced with questions and concerns, but underscoring the swelling maelstrom of anger, fear, and disappointment was a growing alarm for how close they were to the old church site near Devil’s Creek.

  The mounting realization brought long-buried memories to the surface of his mind, and as he rose to his feet to dress, fragments of his nightmare slowly faded into focus. There were hands in the murk, reaching to pull back a shroud of dust and ash, revealing blue torch fires burning in the pit below the old foundation. Ethereal echoes of children’s laughter filled the cavern, rising and falling in waves as they sang an old church hymn.

  “Give me that old-time religion, it’s good enough for me.”

  A slow chill crept across Bobby Tate’s back with the faint itch of spider legs. He shivered and shrugged off the sensation, dismissing the memory of song as nothing more than a nightmare. Minutes later, Bobby was on his way toward the west end of town and the twilit wilderness beyond. The uneasiness followed like a lost dog, always trotting a few steps behind, faithful in its resolve. No matter where Bobby Tate went, that old unease was always sure to follow.

  4

  At the summit of Gordon Hill, the radio tower of Z105.1 hummed with transmissions of the damned. Power chords, double bass drum kicks, and growls seeped from the tower, infecting the airwaves with all manner of metal. The radio signal wasn’t the only thing teeming with life; inside the small station sat the third-shift DJ, Cindy Farris, doing her best to enlighten the masses of Stauford with music from the witching hour.

  The song faded to dead air, and Cindy licked her lips as she leaned into the microphone.

  “Evenin’, Stauford. That was a little Faith No More to get your blood pumping. I don’t know about you ladies out there, but Mike Patton’s voice makes me melt, if you get my drift. I see the boards are lit up with requests, so what do you say we get to them?” Cindy punched the blinking red light on her telephone console. “Next caller, you’re on the air. Welcome to the Witching Hour. What can I play for you tonight?”

  A gruff voice filled her headphones. “Oh hey, Cindy, how you doin’ tonight, babe?”

  She rolled her eyes, picked up her pen, and drew another tick mark next to “drunken admirers” on her notepad.

  “I’m doin’ just fine, handsome. What can I play for you tonight?”

  “You can play me like a fiddle—”

  Cindy canceled the call and pulled the microphone closer. “And thank you, generous caller, for that lovely rendition of ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight.’ Next caller, you’re on the air.”

  To her relief, a woman’s voice filled her headphones. “Hi, Cindy. Any chance you could play ‘Holes in the Fabric’ by the Yellow Kings?”

  “Absolutely,” Cindy said, smiling. “I will always play one from Stauford’s fallen soldiers. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  “Mandy. Could you dedicate it to my brother, Tommy?”

  “You got it, Mandy.” Cindy canceled the call and queued up the request. “Here’s one from Stauford’s own Yellow Kings, gods rest their souls. From Mandy to Tommy, two kids braving the southern wastes. This one’s for you.”

  The red “ON AIR” light blinked off as the song began to play. On her way out of the studio, Cindy stopped to admire the corkboard in the hallway. Dozens of letters were pinned to the board, beneath a sign reading “Wall of Shame.” Hate mail, some of them addressed with names, most of them from anonymous senders, all filled with the same fire-and-brimstone rhetoric: Stop doing the Devil’s work!

  “Busybodies,” Cindy mumbled, and walked to the restroom. She’d grown up in the northern part of the state, and while the self-righteousness of Christian denominations was prevalent there, her hometown of Newport had nothing on Stauford. The town was a hive of religious goings-on, with a minimum of three churches in every quadrant. She’d never seen so many Baptist and Pentecostal centers in her entire life. The station heard from them all, but none so much as First Baptist. Bobby Tate’s congregation.

  In her first couple weeks working for the station, Cindy heard a rumor Stephanie was related to Bobby in some way, but she hadn’t worked up the nerve to inquire. Cindy knew enough about small towns to know she wasn’t a resident long enough to involve herself in rumors. Besides, she admired Stephanie, respected her, and was also partially afraid of her. Anyone who had the salt to set up a rock-focused radio station in the shiny buckle of the Bible Belt was someone who deserved admiration; anyone who had the balls to stand up and defy the religious masses demanding the station’s closure, well, that was someone to be feared, too.

  Stephanie stoked the flames a few weeks ago when she was interviewed by Michael Lot, a reporter for the Stauford Tribune, about the station’s apparent success despite its vocal detractors. “It’s time Stauford faced its reflection,” she’d said. “The Goat is here to hold up the mirror.”

  Ryan had framed the news article and hung it outside the studio. A pink Post-It note with Stephanie’s scrawl clung the glass: “OUR MISSION STATEMENT!!!”

  Goddamn rig
ht, Cindy thought. She felt empowered every time she walked by the article. The empowerment is what kept her here in this shitty town. It was the knowledge she was taking part in something greater, something that might help the youth of this closeted town break free of religious expectations and find the courage to be themselves.

  Cindy Farris sat back in her rolling chair and adjusted the microphone. The final notes of “Holes in the Fabric” faded out to dead air as she put on her headphones and went live.

  “I love that song so much,” she said. “For those of you out there in Stauford who are just tuning in, I’m Cindy Lou and this is the Witching Hour. That was Stauford’s own Yellow Kings, a special request from Mandy to Tommy, two siblings fighting the good fight in this war we call rock ‘n roll. I’ll be your guide through the fog as we walk hand-in-hand toward the dawn. Next caller, you’re on the air.”

  Silence filled the line. Cindy’s finger hovered over the board, ready to move on to the next call. “Caller, you’re live on the Witching Hour. What’s your request?”

  A shrill chuckle rose from the silence like a serpent from water, slick and agile and coated in a slime of anxiety. The sound forced a hitch in Cindy’s breath, the air forming a hard bubble in her throat. She turned away from the microphone to gasp. Voices folded over one another as the laughter rose in waves, and she felt the sharp sting of panic rising in her when she realized they were children on the line.

  “We request,” one said.

  “We request,” said another.

  “We request,” the voices said as one, “your young. Your seeds to grow paradise from bones and ash. We demand blood and fire. Blood of the damned, fire for the purge, for he lives. Rejoice, for he lives. He lives. HE LIVES!”

  A chorus of chattering youth surged through her headphones, overpowering the speakers and devolving into static noise. Cindy jabbed her finger on the board, canceling the call, and gave herself a moment to breathe before realizing there was dead silence on the air. She collected herself and cleared her throat.

  “And thank you for that lovely message, creepy children. We don’t shy away from the dark side here on the Witching Hour. Next caller, what’s your request?”

  She punched the blinking light on the console and held her breath.

  “Hey there, Cindy Lou. Anyone ever tell you ya got a purdy mouth?”

  Thank God, she thought. “Mmm, I sure do, darlin’. You got a request for me?”

  “Yeah, I got a request. How ‘bout you stuff my—”

  Cindy canceled the call and exhaled. She picked up her pen and marked the notepad with another tick mark. Her hand trembled.

  5

  “…next caller, you’re live on the Witching Hour. What’s your request?”

  Ruth McCormick set aside her notebook and sipped her tea, rocking idly in her late husband’s recliner. The Devil’s station was coming in clear tonight. Some nights all she could get was a few words and static, but not tonight. Tonight, she had audience with the followers of Satan, and like a good acolyte of the lord, she would transcribe their infractions for presentation to the ladies’ church group on Sunday morning. Soon, she thought, everyone will know what crude, awful things those people are promotin’ on their station. Allegiance to the Great Adversary, witching hours, pagan defiance, instruction to embrace nonconformity, and that horrid music…

  A barrage of crunching guitars and machine gun drumming rattled forth from her tiny radio’s speakers. An instant later, a man began shrieking in tongues, a language she couldn’t fathom, nor did she wish to. Ruth set down her teacup and saucer, her gnarled arthritic hands shaking as she made her way across the living room. She switched off the radio.

  “I’m sorry, Lord, but my soul can’t take no more of that tonight. Forgive me.”

  Ruth stared at the radio, almost expecting her god to respond from within, but He never did. And why should He? His work was in her hands, and what good hands they were. The lord trusted Ruth McCormick. She was a God-fearing sinner, a lady soldier carrying the Christian banner into the battlefield of Armageddon. She believed this with conviction in her heart and had done so ever since she’d rededicated her life following Ed’s departure.

  “I know you’re up there,” she said, picking up the empty dishes and wandering toward the kitchen. “Ed, I know you’re watching over me. You tell our Heavenly Father I’m doin’ the best I can, but even His soldiers have to sleep sometime.”

  Sleep. Yes, she needed her sleep, and she’d done what she could to squeeze in a few hours earlier that night, but the dreams kept her from rest. She tried to remember what they were as she rinsed her teacup in the sink. No, they weren’t dreams, they were nightmares. Awful things, really. There were children and the smell of smoke, deep down in a bottomless darkness, a darkness so thick it was fluid like oil, and the voice, dear God, the voice speaking from inside the murk was something that made her heart grow cold.

  Ruth’s hands shook as she thought about it, the teacup and saucer rattling in her fingers. She shut off the faucet, put the dishes in the strainer, and dried her hands.

  What was it the darkness said to her? Something about “old ways?” About rising again? Jesus rose again, rose right out of the pits of a fiery hell for He held all the keys, letting loose the condemned into His father’s kingdom of heaven. But the darkness of her dreams was different. Jesus wasn’t there in her dreams, He wasn’t there in the shadows. There was only strange writing on the walls of a cavern, the stench of incense and smoke, and somewhere in the dark, children linked hands and danced around a small stone carving. She tried to remember what the carving looked like, but her memory failed her. All she could recall was the color blue, and a pair of words repeated like a mantra looping in her head over and over again: He lives, he lives, he lives…

  “He lives,” she whispered. The sound of her voice startled her, and the kitchen darkened at the utterance of those words, the pale nightlight above the kitchen counter dimming somehow. A chill fell over her, and she rubbed her arms for warmth. He lives, she thought again. But of course He lives. He died on that cross and emerged three days later, hallelujah.

  Hallelujah, spoke a voice, a mere whisper coming from inside the living room. Ruth tilted her head and listened. Hallelujah, my love. He lives. He is risen.

  “Ed?”

  Her husband’s name fell flat in the empty kitchen, and she felt foolish for even entertaining the idea. Ed McCormick was by the lord’s side in Heaven, hallelujah, and would remain there for all eternity until she, Lord willing, would join him in paradise. And yet that soft and caring voice sounded like her husband, didn’t it? Ruth took a step toward the living room and listened, her frail heart humming in her chest, her paper-thin fingers trembling with the slightest unease.

  She waited a moment longer before sighing, holding back tears. “You silly old thing,” she told herself. “You’re goin’ senile faster than anything else, I declare.”

  Come to me, my darling.

  Ruth held her breath, her whole body shaking now, the beating in her chest like the rumble and roar of a freight train. She swallowed hard and winced at the raw click of her dry throat.

  “Eddie?”

  It’s me, my love. Come to me. I’m in here.

  Hesitant, Ruth tip-toed to the demarcation between kitchen and living room. There, she reached out with one shaking hand and peered around the corner, but with her eyes closed. He’s not there, she thought, he’s in Heaven, Ed’s in Heaven, and the only ghost is the Holy Ghost, hallelujah.

  She opened her eyes. A rush of relief swept through her. Her late husband’s recliner was empty.

  “Thank you, Jesus.”

  Over here, my love.

  Her heart ascended to her throat as panic set in. Ruth scanned the room, trying to hold her terror at bay, fearing someone had broken into her home and the awful intruder was imitating her dead husband. Her gaze fell upon the radio sitting atop her television cabinet. The frequency dial was illuminated with a pale
blue light, the backlit screen reading a jumble of numbers circulating across all bands, AM and FM.

  Ruth stared incredulously at the device, certain she’d turned it off.

  Hadn’t she? Her memory was fuzzy, like the remnants of that awful dream, and the room felt closer, the walls a few inches further inward, the air acrid, smoky. The light on the radio pulsed, picking up words from each rambling station, forming sentences, intoning the voice her husband.

  I want you to listen to me, my love. My darling. My angel from Heaven.

  “Ed?” she spoke again. “Am I dreaming, honey?”

  The greatest dream of all, my dear. I want you to listen, now. Get your pen and your notebook. The lord has a plan for you.

  “He has a plan for us all,” she whispered.

  That’s right, my dear, He truly does. Rejoice for He is risen. He lives. He lives. Not the god of false prophets and liars, but the one true apostle. Old lies above, and true love below. Rejoice, for His will and the Old Ways are one.

  “The one true apostle…” she whispered, retrieving her notebook as her husband asked. “…His will and the Old Ways are one…”

  That’s right, my darling. Now listen and bear witness—

  Ruth listened to what the darkness had to say, and she wrote it down.

  6

  Near dawn, as the sleeping babe of Stauford stirred in its cosmic crib beneath the deadened glow of the moon, one more phone rang at the psychiatric ward of Baptist Regional.

  Head nurse Madeline Ross lifted her gaze from the paperback she was reading and answered the nurse station’s phone.

  “Maddy Ross,” she said, licking her index finger to turn the page. Nurse Nichols filled her ear with panic and fright.

  “Maddy, we’ve got a situation in B Wing. I’ve—well, it’s best you come down here yourself.”