Devil's Creek

by Todd Keisling

  In the impossible logic and perception of dreams, Tyler knew he wasn’t alone, the eyes beyond notwithstanding. There was someone in the temple with him, buried beneath his feet—and she was climbing her way out.

  “Tyler,” Imogene said, her voice nothing more than a rasp of dry air. A plume of ash shot up from the floor. “I did it. The ritual worked. I’m coming back.”

  And in the dream, Tyler knew she was speaking the truth—except something went wrong somehow, despite his memories speaking otherwise. He was there that day, watching her conduct the final rites beneath the light of the full moon, and at the passage of that brilliant celestial body, so had her life passed from her lips. As above, so below.

  But here in the dark dreamscape sculpted from his worst fears, Imogene’s rites cheated her, twisting their meaning to suit the dead pastor’s evil desires. Her rotting fingers breached the ashen earth, scraping the surface, seeking, pulling. Dead fingers became dead hands became the pallid bones of Imogene’s arms, and Tyler tried to scream, but an impossible cacophony of voices screamed for him from behind the passage.

  “I’m coming back,” she rasped. “I’m coming back for you, darlin’.”

  The cracked dome of Imogene Tremly’s skull protruded from the earth, flaps of wet skin and matted hair falling in clumps around her. The orbits of her eye sockets rose, filled with a sickening blue light, and when those awful eyes turned toward him, Tyler screamed.

  He screamed so long and loud he woke himself with a start, kicking off the thin sheet and scrambling to his feet in a fit of panic. He searched the dark, crying out, still haunted by the fading visions of a woman he’d once loved crawling from the earth. And with each panicked breath, each tremulous beat of his frail heart, the old professor’s dream seeped back into the shadows of reality. The contours of his bedroom fell into focus, illuminated by moonlight filtering through the open window.

  Tyler wiped sweat from his face, wandered down the hall to the bathroom, and ran water in the sink. He gasped at the feel of cold water on his cheeks and reeled as a tremor of tears overcame him. Oh God, he thought, fighting and failing to hold back the sobs. God, Genie, what did you do? What did we do?

  Tyler sank to the floor and leaned back against the cool tile, waiting for the tears to pass. He felt his age, felt every bit the frail and lonely old man he’d become. And he hated himself for what he’d let her do to herself. Maybe if he’d stopped her, she’d still be here with him and not six feet in the ground.

  “You’re a coward, old man. You couldn’t stop her then, you couldn’t tell her grandson the truth, and you’re too chickenshit to see if her plan worked.” He wiped his nose, snorted back the phlegm collecting at the edge of his throat, and sat for nearly an hour before he made up his mind. Tomorrow, he’d pay his fallen friend a visit that was long overdue, whether he liked it or not. He’d give himself some closure and try to move on with what little life he had left.

  Rising to his feet, groaning at the aches in his knees, Tyler looked at his reflection in the mirror.

  “And what if her plan worked?”

  His reflection didn’t say anything, and it didn’t have to. He already knew the answer. The possibility kept him awake for the rest of the night.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  1

  A slow fog rose from the banks of Laurel Lake and crept into town like a quiet intruder. Streetlights acquired ringed halos in the haze, and the stoplights on Main Street flashed cautionary yellow like blinking eyes, quietly signaling a warning to all who would travel at that ungodly hour. For the god of Stauford’s people wasn’t there, having slipped away into the long shadows drawn by the full moon above. There would be a new lord waiting for them on the morning of their Sabbath, and many suffered from troubled sleep, their heads filled with dark dreams of primal urges and pagan sacrifice.

  Strange symbols were etched into their skulls and lit with the orange glow of dancing flames. These glyphs possessed meaning and pronunciation in their dream space, impossibly linked with one another by a primal magic which lacked a name in any language, or a human tongue capable of describing it. The link simply was, the meaning universal, and through those carvings they understood the grim fate of their quiet little town. Men and women would don the ceremonial robes of their ancestors, wear the masks forgotten by time, and utter rites not performed in a millennium.

  Even as the sun rose and the fog subsided, the people of Stauford awoke to an uneasiness wrought by their dreams. The air was swollen with a sort of anxiety many of them had never experienced before, a powerful gravity pulling them down, anchoring them to the earth with invisible chains. Parents and their children regarded one another with lingering doubt, side-eye curiosity, and a tacit understanding between them that something would happen today, although no one could say what. So, too, were they hesitant to discuss the obscene bacchanalia inhabiting their dreams.

  Instead, the men and women, boys and girls of Stauford stumbled to their kitchen tables, ate their breakfast in silence, perused their Sunday edition of the Stauford Tribune—“Search Continues for Missing Boys,” the headline read—and prepared for the early morning services at First Baptist downtown. The old church from the days of the Stauford Six still stood on Kentucky Street, but had been the subject of many renovations. In the last thirty years, the old church was swallowed by modern excess, sporting several new conference rooms for such activities as the Wednesday night business meeting of the church’s many officers, the weekly Thursday night youth group meeting, or the bi-weekly Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting every other Friday.

  As Jack Tremly discovered earlier, for all the changes in the years of his absence, the old ways remained. The gears of Stauford’s ancient machine were still turning, and its people were locked in the same routine as they’d always been. Sunday School began at ten, with morning services beginning at eleven on the dot. Afternoon fellowship would follow in the cafeteria (with light refreshments), and evening services would begin at 7 p.m. For each session of worship, First Baptist’s bell would chime, announcing the lord’s house was now in session. Come all ye sinners, the doors are open for business.

  2

  Jack Tremly lay fast asleep, shirtless and sprawled across the sofa in his grandmother’s living room. The nightmares ripped him from sleep the night before, and he’d done what he’d always done when the terrors denied him rest: he created art, sketching out the demons haunting him. One hand dangled over the edge of the sofa, hovering above a scattering of charcoal pencils and a sketchpad filled with erratic shapes culled from the darkness of his memories. There were shapes of men and women emerging from a formless gloom, dragging behind them the bodies of the damned. He’d fallen asleep as the sun rose and wouldn’t awaken for several hours.

  His sister, Stephanie Green, also slept on a sofa, aglow in the erratic flash of her TV screen. Early morning infomercials not unlike those cheering on Susan the night before played on the screen, but Stephanie didn’t see them. She was still fast asleep even as sunlight poured through the open blinds of her apartment living room. In her dreams, she ran from unseen phantoms down the endless corridors of a labyrinth, sprinting toward something terrible and fantastic at the center, something that would reconcile her childhood memories once and for all. She snored lightly, her fingers twitching in the throes of her dream, and when the rays of light inched toward her, she stirred briefly, burying her face in the cushions.

  Chuck Tiptree, however, was wide awake, although he didn’t understand why. Sundays were his days to sleep in, had been for years, but something pulled him from his precious slumber. An ominous feeling, like he’d forgotten something long ago and glimpsed the tip of memory off in the distance but could no longer grasp what it was. Annoyed and puzzled, he sat on his front porch, sipping coffee to ward off the early morning chill and watching the fog sink into the earth. Across the street, Mr. Samson’s German Shepherd, Ox, squatted and shat in front of Mrs. Jourgensen’s prize-winning hydrangeas. Chu
ck watched with mild amusement, while the far-off part of his brain chased down what he’d forgotten. Was it something he’d dreamed about? Something from long ago, perhaps, when he was still a chubby little kid and terrified of his own shadow? When he was afraid the shadows would return to claim him? When he still had to sleep with his bedroom light on? Ox the German Shepherd finished his business, and Chuck sipped idly at his coffee, digging for an artifact he could no longer remember.

  Nor did Susan Prewitt sleep. She sat at the foot of her bed, marveling at the pretty designs she’d carved into Ozzie’s pale body. He’d fainted from the blood loss long ago, but his chest still rose and fell in labored breaths. The proof of her labors soaked through the sheets and into the mattress, crimson pools so deep and dark they looked like black paint. She’d started with his feet, carving a story one glyph at a time, inching up his legs, across his groin, along the canvas of his chest, and down his arms. The tale was older than man, one of a god living within the earth, fluid like water and blacker than sin, a god of eyes and mouths drinking from the pool of sanity and tears of pain. A god speaking to men from below, teaching them its ways from beyond the cosmos, where time is a dream and space a vanishing memory. At first, Susan only carved what she could remember from the teachings of her father the apostle, but as Ozzie’s pleas diminished, the hands of her lord guided her. Ozzie’s body was a new testament, writ in blood and agony. As the swollen wounds glistened in the early morning sunlight, so too did the tears on Susan’s cheeks. Her father would return, and soon. My cup runneth over, she thought.

  Bobby Tate was already awake, rehearsing the morning’s sermon in his head while he tied his necktie. As with most of his Sunday sermons, he tried to relate current events to the teachings of his lord; for this morning’s lesson, he chose the wanderings of Moses in the desert to relate to the boys lost in the wilderness. There would be salvation following great hardship, and even in times of crisis, the people of Stauford needed to remember to put their faith in their god. And they will, my son, but not in you, and not in your god. They’re going to put it in the faith of your daddy. He’s disappointed with you, boy, lettin’ the god of the heretics steer you wrong, but He will show you the error of your ways and bring you back into His flock. The voices from his nightmare seeped into his thoughts, and he was so startled by their appearance he missed the loop and had to start over with the tie.

  Down the hall, Riley Tate sat on the edge of his bed, rubbing sleep from his eyes and wondering if he could possibly get out of going to church today. Then he remembered Rachel would be there, and there might be a chance for them to talk between Sunday school and morning service. Riley reached under his pillow for his phone and sighed. The battery indicator flashed red, dropping from 15% to 14% as if to mock him. Annoyed with himself, Riley checked his messages. He’d sent her a text before going to bed the night before: “Can we talk tmrw?”

  He frowned. She’d read the message half an hour ago but hadn’t responded. Great, he thought. Just fuckin’ great.

  In the master bedroom, his old man hummed a church hymn out of tune, and Riley tensed. He’d expected twenty questions when he got home last night, but his father was already fast asleep. The last thing he wanted was an interrogation first thing in the morning, and Riley wasn’t sure how to even begin to answer the inevitable questions. Uh, yeah, Dad, I was out with Aunt Steph and Uncle Jack, and we figured out that maybe one of the guys who took Ben and Toby is your dead father. Oh, and I know all about what happened to you guys when you were kids, too. What’s for breakfast?

  Instead, Bobby Tate stuck his head in the doorway of Riley’s room, gave his son a once-over. “You need to get ready for church, son.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The questions Riley expected never came, and later, he’d regret they never would.

  But what of Zeke Billings? The youngest of the Stauford Six sat behind the wheel of his dead friend’s truck. The grimy engine growled as he stamped the gas pedal, spitting back gravel as they tore down the length of Devil’s Creek Road. Father Jacob sat in the passenger seat, and Amber Rogers’s Volkswagen trailed behind them, carrying the other corrupted youth.

  Together, their caravan traveled toward Stauford’s city limits, unremarkable and unnoticed, just in time for Sunday School.

  There, Father Jacob would deliver a sermon thirty years in the making and call his children home.

  3

  On the opposite side of town, Ruth McCormick stepped outside into the morning fog. She carried a stack of paperwork, comprised of notebooks and loose sheets of printing paper, volumes one and two of her lord’s gospel.

  The old radio still hissed static from within, which to the uninitiated sounded like nothing more than errant white noise. To Ruth it was the clipped guttural voice of their lord, commanding she prepare for the revival at First Baptist downtown. Somewhere far away in the back of her mind, Ruth heard herself screaming, and for a moment she was confused by the suggestion of a revival. First Baptist’s fall revival wasn’t for another three weeks, and she would know because she was on the planning committee.

  But the screaming voice faded, dimmed, and died away in a breathless whisper. In its place was the voice of the one true god, a powerful being from below the earth, eager to reward the believers and punish the heretics.

  Spread the gospel, her lord said, and like a good servant of the faith, Ruth obeyed.

  4

  “I’m coming, my lord.”

  Laura Tremly crouched in the overgrowth, hidden among the brambles and kudzu as a squadron of police cruisers sped by. She waited until the sirens faded into the distance before lifting her head above the weeds. She’d made her way down the hillside behind the hospital in the dark and waited in the brush before continuing. For those few unsettling hours, Laura curled herself into a ball beside the trunk of a dead tree and rocked in place, muttering the prayers her lover taught her in the starlit grotto beneath the old church.

  Your love is below, Your ways are the truth. I give this flesh to feed You, my lord. My blood for You to drink. My soul to be one with Your essence in the earth. Your love is below, Your ways are the truth…

  Sleep found her before dawn, and Laura Tremly dreamed she was back in the grotto, wading into those warm waters with Jacob. He was shirtless, his sallow flesh lit with a pale glow in the undying light of the eyes above. Jacob took her in his arms, kissed her forehead, and marked the symbol of the moon upon her flesh. You will be mine forever, he whispered, if you would do but one thing for me, my lamb.

  Anything, she told him. I’d give my life for you, my love. Anything. Just say it.

  Our son has something that belongs to our lord god below. Your mother stole it long ago, while I was still asleep in the earth. I want you to go get it back. Can you do that for me, my lamb? Will you do it for us? For your lord?

  “Yes,” Laura whispered, waking herself from the dream. The sun was up, the fog dissipating. She wandered through a copse of trees until she reached the nearby highway. A gas station stood on the other side. Traffic was light this time of morning, and she had no trouble crossing.

  A powder blue pickup truck was parked at the pumps. An older man dressed in a green John Deere cap and overalls leaned against the truck bed, whistling while he pumped gas. He was blissfully unaware of his impending death, even as Laura’s fingers gripped the side of his chin. The old man’s neck snapped with a quick twist. Minutes later, Laura sat behind the wheel of the truck, speeding along the Cumberland Falls Highway toward Stauford.

  5

  9:18 a.m.

  Bobby Tate parked in the lot behind the building. Riley followed him inside, into the small office his father occupied most days during the week. The room was sparse, decorated with a few framed landscape photographs sporting Biblical passages, a painting of Jesus suffering on the cross, and a coat rack in one corner. A desk sat in the center, adorned with a small desktop computer, a daily planner, and a pair of framed photographs of Riley and the la
te Janet Tate. Bobby took a seat and asked his son to do the same.

  “Join me in prayer, son.”

  Riley slumped in his chair. “I really don’t want to, Dad.”

  Bobby stared, fighting the urge to frown and voice his displeasure. Instead, he nodded and said, “Understood. I’ll pray for both of us, then.”

  He didn’t wait for his son to reply. Bobby bowed his head, closed his eyes, and thanked his god for a beautiful morning. He thanked God for blessing him with a son, even if his son had yet to accept their faith; he thanked God for blessing him with a beautiful wife, even if her time on this earth wasn’t as long as he’d liked; he prayed for a safe return of the boys who were taken in the forest on Friday night; and he prayed Ronny Cord and his son would learn to forgive Riley’s transgressions.

  And please, oh Father in heaven, spare me from the awful dreams of my youth. Spare me from the horrors that tainted me as a child. I have dedicated my life to serving You and Your will, to atone for the sins of my father as You gave your only son to atone for the world. Please take this cup from my lips. Please—

  A voice spoke up within his mind, echoing from dark chambers long thought buried: Drink deep, my son. Your suffering is just beginning.

  Bobby opened his eyes, startled by the intrusion, expecting to see his son smiling or even laughing in mockery. But Riley was still slumped in his seat, his eyes half-open and trained on the screen of his phone.

  Once again, Bobby Tate turned to the visage of his dying lord for answers. The white-washed depiction of Jesus, with his eyes upturned in cosmic agony, said nothing—but there was the slightest hint of a smirk on his bloodied lips. Bobby did a double take, his heart aflutter with panic, but the painting was as it had always been: Jesus in indescribable pain, suffering for all eternity in silence.