Devil's Creek

by Todd Keisling

  10:00 a.m.

  The first bell clanged from First Baptist’s steeple. Out of all the renovations and improvements at the church during Reverend Tate’s tenure, the one constant was the old bell, which still had to be operated via rope in the church’s foyer. A vote occurred during last Wednesday’s business meeting, appropriating funds to replace the bell with a more modern digital speaker system in the first quarter of the following year. Everything was sacred at First Baptist, except the things that weren’t.

  Downstairs, the classrooms filled with their eager students, young and old. Even Reverend Tate was in attendance, but not as a teacher. No, that honor belonged to David Sparks, one of the new deacons. Across the hall, Riley sat in the back row of the youth class, watching helplessly as Daniel Taswell struggled to keep his composure and give the morning’s lesson. Dark circles accented his eyes, his face too pale, and his voice cracked when he spoke. Riley wished Daniel had stayed home. Seeing me here probably doesn’t help, Riley thought, his cheeks flushing with shame. When their eyes met briefly, Daniel looked away.

  10:05 a.m.

  Further down the hall, the older ladies of the senior group awaited their teacher, Mrs. McCormick, whom no one heard from all weekend. Agnes Belview believed the poor woman was sick but wouldn’t elaborate further, and the rumors flew quietly among them as the morning church bell ceased its chimes. The senior ladies’ group eschewed its usual lessons for the better part of six months in favor of meeting to discuss how to combat the evils of that demonic radio station, but without Ruth there to guide and channel their disdain, all their misplaced contempt found other cracks through which to seep.

  Ruth waited for classes to begin before making her appearance. She pushed open the door, interrupting a lively gossip session among the group. Agnes gasped at the sight of her dear friend, unaware her hands were shaking.

  Ruth smiled, clutching the volumes of the new gospel to her chest.

  “Ladies,” she began, turning toward the door. “I’ve prepared a new lesson for this morning’s class. Hallelujah.”

  A metallic click punctuated her words when she flipped the lock.

  11:02 a.m.

  A yellow Ford pickup truck and a neon green Volkswagen pulled along the curb out front of First Baptist. Zeke Billings turned to his father in the passenger seat and asked, “Will you need me?”

  “No, my son. Your sister is waiting for you.”

  Zeke smiled. “Thank you, father.” He looked up at the church. “Are you going to show the heretics the error of their ways?”

  “Oh yes. The flock must be called home, and I am their shepherd.”

  Jacob exited the truck and walked back to the Volkswagen. The two children in the backseat climbed out to meet him.

  “Are we going home, father?”

  Jacob looked down at Ben Taswell, admiring the glow in his innocent eyes, the blackened marks of the lord on his cheeks. “Yes, my little lamb. Today we all go home.”

  Jacob turned back to the young sinners in the front. The blonde whore in the driver’s seat lowered the window. Jacob reached in, took her chin in his hand, and traced his thumb along her lips, smearing black sludge across her flesh.

  “Go spread the gospel as you once spread your legs, child.” He looked up at the young man in the passenger seat. “And you, boy, spread the gospel as you once yearned to spread your seed.”

  Amber and Jimmy smiled, speaking in unison: “Yes, father.”

  Jacob Masters stepped away from the car. He looked up at the front of the old church, which had changed during his years in the earth. The symbol of Stauford’s decadence had transformed, twisting further into an icon of sin.

  Go, my apostle. Show them the error of their ways. Spread my gospel.

  Jacob traced a blackened tongue across his teeth. “By Your will, my lord, my love, my light.”

  6

  The morning service at First Baptist began as always: with a moving rendition of “The Old Rugged Cross,” albeit without the church’s choir director, June Crabtree. There were other notable absences in the early minutes of the morning service—Ruth McCormick, Agnes Belview, Janet Thirston, and Mona Cartwright, to name a few—but the routine of morning worship would not be halted.

  Reverend Tate led the congregation in song, something he hated doing because he thought his singing voice was cringe-worthy at best. No one else seemed to mind, though, and when “Rugged Cross” concluded, several congregants shouted “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!” Bobby smiled at their show of spirit. This sort of fellowship is why he wanted to spread the gospel in the first place. Not just to bury the horrors of his past and atone for the sins of his father, but to lift the hearts and spirits of those around him. Together, they would walk hand in hand into the light of Jesus, hallelujah.

  Bobby cleared his throat as everyone took their seats. He adjusted the microphone at the pulpit, frowning as a whine of feedback squealed from the speakers. Before he opened his mouth to speak, Bobby surveyed the room, noting the empty seats. He didn’t see Ronny Cord or his son, but then again, he never saw them on Sunday morning; nor was the Matthews family in attendance, a fact which saddened him as he’d hoped to have a word with Don Matthews after the services were over. What did surprise him, however, was the sight of the Taswells and Gilpins, parked on opposite sides of the room halfway down the aisle. They glared at him, and while he didn’t back down from their gaze, he didn’t linger on them for too long, either.

  Satisfied his flock was settled, Bobby leaned into the microphone. “Amen, brothers and sisters. It’s another beautiful day in the kingdom of the lord.” He waited a moment and then bowed his head. “Let us pray.”

  Prayers came easily to Bobby Tate. They were little whispers in the dark, hopes for better things sent up to the sky, love letters to God in Heaven, and he was never lacking in hope for better things. He was so caught up in dancing around the subject of praying for those poor boys in the woods without naming their names that he did not hear the front doors of the church swing open.

  What finally tore his attention away from the prayer was the growing uneasiness in the room, a sort of heated anxiety clinging to his face and throat, suffocating him. He paused long enough to reach for the plastic cup of water on the lectern. That’s when he saw the boys walking down the center aisle.

  He knew who they were, even if he had a tough time believing his eyes. Oh, thank you, Jesus, he thought. “Thank you, God,” he whispered aloud, his voice magnified through the church’s sound system. Murmurs arose in the congregation as the two youths walked toward the pulpit.

  They were pale, their clothes covered in dirt and grime and stained nearly black by what could only be engine grease of some kind. Leaves and soil clung to their hair, matted in thick clumps. Although no one said it—no one said much of anything, the air seemingly sucked from the room, the tension palpable—a thought crossed the minds of everyone in the church, including those of Ben’s and Toby’s parents: Were their eyes always blue?

  Bobby Tate was so thrilled by the appearance of the boys, he stepped down from the pulpit and walked to meet them in the aisle. Grant and Linda Taswell rose from their seats, followed by John and Phyllis Gilpin, but Bobby reached the boys first. He knelt and took the boys into his arms, fighting back tears, not just in relief of their safety, but in relief that for once his son couldn’t be blamed for something horrible.

  “We’re so glad you’re safe,” Bobby whispered, clutching the boys close to him. “Thank you, Jesus.”

  But there was something wrong. Their clothing was damp, their skin nearly pruning as if they’d been submerged in water for hours, and the sensation of their touch made his mind scream. This is what touching a dead body must feel like, he thought, a suggestion so startling he immediately felt shame for it.

  Bobby pulled away, noticing the two boys didn’t hug him back, didn’t show any sort of emotion whatsoever. Their eyes pulsed with a glow reaching all the way back into Bobby’s memory, yanking
back something he’d long thought buried, something that terrified him every night of his childhood.

  Ben Taswell smiled. “His will and the Old Ways are one.”

  Toby Gilpin placed his hand on Bobby’s shoulder. “All heretics must suffer for their sins.”

  Bobby Tate’s mind froze, his inner voice uttering a silent scream, and his muscles refused to react.

  Ben and Toby opened their mouths, freeing a viscous sludge darker than midnight that dribbled down their chins. They clutched Bobby’s shoulders, holding him in place with a firmness he couldn’t resist.

  A dark figure emerged at the end of the hallway. A figure he’d not seen since he was a child but had dreamed about in some form for the last thirty years. Their eyes met, Bobby’s fear manifesting in the piercing glow surrounding Jacob’s gaze, and he heard his father in his head: Bobby-boy, my little lamb. I’ve come home. Give your father a kiss.

  And Bobby wanted to pull back, wanted so badly to scramble away in retreat, but the mind-freezing fear rooted him in place. Ben and Toby leaned in as if to kiss him, and when he turned in startled terror, a single word crossed his lips.

  “Please—”

  A stream of the black vomit erupted from Ben’s maw, interrupting Bobby’s words and invading his open mouth. The taste of dirt and oil filled his throat, the gut-wrenching stench of rot and offal invading his nostrils. Bobby collapsed backward, retching and coughing, trying to spit the awful black bile from his mouth, but the thick gunk refused to leave. It slid down the back of his throat like snot. Bobby spat, gagging on the black phlegm as it worked its way inside him.

  “Dad!” Riley knelt beside him, and Bobby was struck with the impulse to kiss the boy, to share the black essence between them. No, he thought, struggling to get a grip on himself, resisting the foreign urges infecting his mind. No, this is what he wants.

  He pushed Riley away. “Go…get my keys…”

  His son didn’t linger, ran to the door at the far end from the pulpit and disappeared. Good boy, Bobby thought. Your mama would be proud.

  Cries among the congregation tore his mind away from the horror he’d swallowed. As Bobby climbed to his feet, Ben Taswell and Toby Gilpin infected their fathers with the blackened corruption nesting inside them. More cries erupted near the entrance, and when Bobby turned to look, he saw the missing women of the senior ladies’ group. Ruth McCormick led the way with her gospel in hand, babbling a hymn in another language. She and the other ladies fell to their knees and raised their hands in devotion to their lord’s apostle.

  Jacob Masters hovered above the floor, his arms held out in mockery of the crucifixion, laughing as Bobby’s congregation writhed and screamed in pain around them.

  “Dad, come on!”

  Riley stood at in the doorway at the back of the room. Bobby turned back only once to look at the horrible bedlam unfolding beneath the holy rafters of First Baptist, before retreating out the backdoor to the parking lot.

  7

  Inside, as the essence of his lord worked its mysterious ways upon the heretics of First Baptist, Jacob Masters walked in midair toward the pulpit. A small table sat before the lectern with words etched in its surface: IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME. He vomited a pile of dirt and worms upon the table. When he was finished, Jacob turned back to his new flock, the converted.

  Many of them found peace with their new lord, their eyes aglow with His divine light. The rest writhed in agony, coughing in vain to dispel the essence from their bodies.

  “My little lambs,” Jacob said. “The Old Ways of our lord demand sacrifice, torment of flesh and suffering through the blood. There is no salvation without pain, but as your lord’s apostle, I will guide you to a most righteous path. Together we will build a new kingdom on earth, and from the seeds of this falling Babylon, so too shall it grow.”

  “Old lies above,” Ruth McCormick cried, “new love below!”

  “Old lies above,” Agnes Belview chanted, “new love below!”

  One by one, the corrupted members of First Baptist joined, chanting the gospel of the infernal god sleeping below Stauford, following the scripture of the Old Ways. Jacob Masters watched in ecstasy.

  Soon, my lord, you will have the blood of the damned, and fire for your great purge. The world will drown in your essence, and a new paradise shall grow. As above, so below.

  Near the front of the room, Ben Taswell pulled on the rope, chiming the bell above. No one outside the church took much notice, even if it was chiming far too early. Inside, the morning services were just beginning.

  8

  Miles away, while Bobby and Riley made their escape from the hell unfolding inside First Baptist, Dr. Tyler Booth turned left off the Cumberland Gap Parkway and drove up the hill toward Layne Camp Cemetery. After he parked, Tyler made his way along the small path over the hill, walking carefully between the hundreds of gravestones.

  After all his years digging up the old gravesites of indigenous cultures, stepping into a modern cemetery still made him uncomfortable. Maybe it was the notion of stepping on hallowed ground that bothered him so much. He’d never been one for the church, in any of its many forms, but the esoteric teachings to which Imogene exposed him piqued his curiosity. Maybe more than he’d cared to admit. When her grandson told him yesterday about the Hermetic maxim on her gravestone, Tyler wasn’t surprised.

  As above, so below. Microcosm and macrocosm. Life above, life below, life within, life without.

  As he walked among the rows of markers, looking for Imogene’s grave, he recalled what she’d told him about Jacob’s ways. He’d perverted the maxim in his teachings, spouting “old lies above and new love below,” another way of brainwashing people to believe in his malignant majesty underground.

  But what else had she said? Something about the binding ritual he’d performed the night they burned down his church.

  So below, as above. The inversion of the maxim. He bound his death to our lives, Tyler. Don’t you understand? When we’re all gone, he will return. To finish what he started. I can’t let him. I have to protect Jackie. I have to protect the rest of the kids.

  Tyler smiled. She was the perfect grandma all the way to the end. Why had he let her go through with the ritual? That was an easy one. He didn’t think she’d actually do it. Not when she had him. Not when they could spend the rest of their time together in quiet retirement.

  Panting from the brisk pace and riddled with heartache, Tyler stopped near a white marble mausoleum to catch his breath. He wiped tears from his eyes.

  Go on, old man. Get it over with. You know what you’re going to find. It’s all a pipe dream. Genie was crazy, all messed up from what she witnessed in that cult, and you’re too stubborn to admit it to yourself. You fell in love with a mad woman, old man. Accept it.

  Tyler started walking and nearly fell into an earthen hole ten feet away. He lost his balance, fell backward, and landed hard on his ass. He groaned in pain from the impact, and after the bright sparkling lights cleared from his vision, he realized what he’d almost stepped into.

  “No,” he whispered. “Genie, God, no, no, no!”

  The wound in the earth sat at the foot of Imogene Tremly’s gravestone. The mound of dirt surrounding the opening was piled outward, with thin lines traced there hours before by fingers he’d once held on long evening walks. Bits of splintered wood and concrete littered the area, and a fresh set of footprints led away from the gravesite.

  Tears flooded Tyler’s eyes, not from relief but from pure terror. Imogene’s ritual worked. Staring at her gravestone, incredulous despite the reality set before him, Tyler read and re-read the Latin inscription etched in marble: Et quod est superius est sicut quod est inferius. As above, so below.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  1

  Amber Rogers did as Father Jacob bade her, spreading the gospel as gleefully as she spread her legs. After leaving the church, she drove Jimmy to his neighborhood at the south side of town. Stauford’s Ghetto, some called it, al
though Jimmy would always have words with anyone who said as much to his face. Truth was, the only thing elevating Jimmy Cord to the height of social magnate in Stauford High School was his place on the football team. People in Stauford always seemed to ignore who lived down the street from a trailer park when football was involved.

  Jimmy looked up at his home when they parked along the curb. He followed the trail of sagging gutters, all the places where the old nails were loose in the rotting wood, where all the shitty patch jobs his father did himself to save money had failed anyway. He’d never noticed them all before, or how the house, with its limp roofing, peeling paint on crooked siding, and cracked windows, looked more like a bloated wasp nest than a home. God knew he’d suffered his share of stings inside its crumbling walls.

  His god knew a lot of things Jimmy wanted to forget, but that was part of his suffering, remembering all the horrible beatings his father gave him, even the ones before he was born. The beatings he heard from within the womb, when his mother carried him and tried her best to mask the tears while she hid her bruises. She’d been dead for five years now, rotting in the earth in the sweet embrace of the buried lord.

  Jimmy turned to Amber and took her hand. Black tears leaked from her eyes, striping her cheeks with dark lines bleeding into the veins pulsing beneath her skin. He leaned over and kissed her, their swollen tongues tasting each other with primal urgency. Her hand was already down his pants when Jimmy’s father called out to him from across the street.

  “Boy, what the hell you doin’? Have you been out all gaw’damn night?”

  Ronny Cord stood on the front porch, hands on his hips like he always did when he was pissed and itching for a fight. He’d just come home, having worked more than his share of a third shift down at the railroad. He was buzzed from the whiskey flask he kept in his work vest and the fire in his eyes was paramount.