(1995) The Oath

by Frank Peretti

  FRANK PERETTI

  Other Books By Frank Peretti

  Piercing the Darkness

  This Present Darkness

  The Visitation

  Hangman’s Curse (Veritas Project #1)

  Nightmare Academy (Veritas Project #2)

  Monster

  © 1995, 2003 by Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Peretti, Frank

  The oath / Frank Peretti.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-59554-045-4 (Hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-59554-119-2 (Trade Paper)

  1. Dragons—Fiction. I. Title.

  ps3566.e691317027 1995

  813'.54—dc20 95–14508

  Printed in the United States of America

  08 09 10 11 12 QW 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

  To Dan, Mike, Chaz, & Dave,

  You know what? It’s been great doing

  things that make sense—basically. Moses only had

  two guys to hold up his arms—I’ve had four.

  Thanks, guys.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  So much in today’s world is disposable. From fast food to fast news. Even more so with our entertainment options.

  People can’t wait to see the “can’t miss” movie—then forget it by the next day. Music that’s hot one week is outdated the next. The New York Times best-selling novel is soon on the bookstore’s discount table at 80 percent off collecting dust.

  When a novel is being read and celebrated ten years after its release, you know it is unique. The Oath is such a novel.

  First published in 1995, The Oath was a major international publishing event from day one. In fact, it made the bestseller list prior to its release through an innovative pre-sale campaign in Christian bookstores across the nation. Countless readers were riveted by the story of a deep secret that was destroying a small mining town. Throw in an invisible enemy with an unquenchable desire to devour all within its path and sin so real that it turns people’s hearts an oozing black—and you can see why the story would keep people turning pages long into the night. But The Oath is far more than just a fast-paced adventure. The story skillfully shows the devastating power of sin in a manner most readers have never seen before. Sin has become a word that our culture rarely uses anymore . . . a word to avoid as superstitious or outdated . . . something we’re far too sophisticated to really believe in. Frank Peretti’s story offers another perspective. Sin is real. Sin will find you. Hunt you. Destroy you. Sin is something to run from and avoid at all costs. That’s a core theme of this supernatural thriller . . . and a core truth according to Scripture.

  Now, ten years—and more than a million copies—later, The Oath continues to immerse readers with its heart-pounding ride and more twists and turns than a dozen other novels combined.

  If you’ve never read this classic, you’re in for an incredible experience. If you’re already a fan of this story, I trust you’ll savor this special hardcover 10th anniversary edition. For the first time, this anniversary edition includes an exclusive author interview where Frank Peretti reveals fresh new insights about his classic tale.

  Enjoy the read.

  — PUBLISHER, THOMAS NELSON FICTION

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY- ONE

  TWENTY- TWO

  EPILOGUE

  THE OATH AN INTERVIEW WITH FRANK PERETTI

  INTRODUCTION

  SIN IS THE MONSTER we love to deny.

  It can stalk us, bite a slice out of our lives, return again and bite again, and even as we bleed and hobble, we prefer to believe nothing has happened. That makes sin the perfect monster, a man-eater that blinds and numbs its victims, convincing them that nothing is wrong and there is no need to flee, and then consumes them at its leisure.

  We’ve all been assailed by this beast, sometimes face-to-face, but all too often from a direction we aren’t prepared to defend, and it’s only in recognizing the beast for what it is that we can hope to escape at all. In Jesus Christ we are forgiven and empowered to overcome sin, but opening the door and tossing the beast kitchen scraps of our character is no way to drive it off. Toying with an animal that is actually toying with us is a sure way to lose part of ourselves.

  I was watching it happen to some friends of mine the year I began writing The Oath. As the rest of us just kept on praising the Lord, loving one another, smiling, and trying not to be judgmental, some really good people walked stupidly, blindly into the jaws of sin. The tooth marks still show today, in ruined marriages and soiled ministries. The rest of us should have said something.

  In The Oath, I tried to say something through a vicious drama. I gave sin a form, an identifiable embodiment hellbent to consume the hero. I chose an obscure, remote setting because sin shies from examination just as vermin flee from the light, and in this place, there are no rules. Denial is easy, and sin is protected. The consequences, of course, play out just as they do in so many real lives: we’ve all seen friends, relatives, and fellow believers dragged out the door by a pet that got too big to control. Some have managed to come back, bleeding and bruised, hopefully healing and wiser. Some have never come back at all. And some of us have been there.

  The Oath is a story we’ve all had a part in, to one degree or another. And years later, it still cries out the same warning God gave Cain: “Sin is crouching at the door, and it wants you, but you must overcome it.”

  — FRANK PERETTI

  Twenty-seven people died that I know of, and I can only guess that the others fled with whatever they could carry away. I could hear the screams and the shooting all night long, and I dared not venture out.

  The Reverend DuBois was left hanging in Hyde Hall until this afternoon. I informed Ben and the others that I would not attend the signing of the Charter until the body was removed, so Ben ordered him cut down, taken out, and buried with the others.

  By late afternoon, the men who remained in Hyde River were back in the mines as if nothing had happened, and I also attended to my business. After nightfall, we gathered in Hyde Hall under cover of darkness and signed the Charter. With the signing of our names, we took the oath of silence, so I cannot speak of these things, but only write them secretly.

  The trouble is over, but I am no happier. I am afraid of what we have done. I am afraid of tomorrow.

  From t
he diary of Holly Ann Mayfield July 19, 1882

  ONE

  THE KILLING

  SHE RAN, tree limbs and brambles scratching, grabbing, tripping, and slapping her as if they were bony hands, reaching for her out of the darkness. The mountainside dropped steeply, and she ran pell-mell, her feet unsure on pine needles and loose stones. She beat at the limbs with flailing arms, looking for the trail, falling over logs, getting up and darting to the left, then the right. A fallen limb caught her ankle, and she fell again. Where was the trail?

  Blood. She reeked of it. It was hot and sticky between her fingers. It had soaked through her shirt and splattered on her khaki pants so her clothes clung to her. In her right hand she held a hunting knife in an iron grip, unaware that the tip of the blade was broken off.

  She had to make it out of these hills. She knew which way she and Cliff had come and where they’d parked the camper. All she had to do was backtrack.

  She was crying, praying, and babbling, “Let him go, let him go. Oh, Jesus save us . . . Go away, let him go,” as she groped her way along, stooping under limbs, clambering over more logs, and pushing her way through tangled thickets in the dark.

  At last she found the trail, a narrow, hoof-trodden route of dirt and stone descending steeply along the hillside, switch-backing through the tall firs and pines. She followed it carefully, not wanting to get lost again.

  “Oh, Jesus,” she said. “Oh, Jesus, help me . . .”

  HAROLD BLY had no reputation for mercy and no qualms about dragging his whimpering, pleading wife out of the house, through the front yard, and into the street where he tossed her away with as much respect as he would have given a plastic bag filled with garbage. Maggie Bly tumbled to the street with a yelp, bloodying her palms and elbow on the rough asphalt. Hurt and afraid, she righted herself and sat there, a blubbery, blue-jeaned mess, her tousled blonde hair hanging over her eyes. With the back of her hand, she swept her hair aside and saw her enraged husband walking away from her, a silhouette against the porch light that formed a glaring, dancing streak through her tears.

  “Harold!” she cried.

  Harold Bly, a tall, barrel-chested man, turned, one foot planted on the top porch step, and deigned to look upon his wife one more time. There was no pity in his eyes. In his mid-forties and twenty years her senior, he was and had always been a boss man who did not take kindly to betrayals. He’d enjoyed throwing her into the middle of the street. In fact, he wished she would get up so he could do it again. “It’s all over, Maggie,” he said with a slight shake of his head. “It’s a done deal.”

  Her eyes widened in terror. Gasping and whimpering, she struggled to her feet, then ran to him. “Harold, please . . . don’t. I’m sorry, Harold. I’m sorry.”

  “You think you can go two-timing on me and then just say you’re sorry?” he shouted, then pushed her down the porch steps with such strength that she fell again, letting out a cry the neighbors could hear.

  “Harold, please don’t make me go. Please!”

  “Too late, Maggie,” he said with a wave of his hand as if passing sentence on her. “It’s only a matter of time now, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Now you’d better get out of here, and I mean get way out of here.” He turned to go inside, then added, “I don’t want you around me when it happens. Nobody does.”

  “But where can I go?” she cried.

  “Well, you should’ve thought of that a lot sooner.”

  Across the narrow street a lace curtain was pulled ever so slightly open, and the wife of a mining company foreman watched the drama while her children watched cartoons on a satellite channel. Two doors down and opposite the Blys’ large, brick home, a miner and his wife cracked open their front door and listened together.

  “Harold,” they could hear Maggie almost screaming, “don’t leave me out here!”

  He was just opening the front door, but he turned once more to stab at her with his finger. “You stay away from me, Maggie! You come near here, and I’ll kill you, you hear me?”

  The front door slammed, and now Maggie was alone in the dark.

  I hope she doesn’t come here, the foreman’s wife thought and quickly let go of the lace curtain. The miner and his wife looked at each other, then closed their door quietly, hoping Maggie wouldn’t hear the sound.

  Maggie wiped away the tears that blurred her vision and looked around the neighborhood for any haven, any sign of welcome. Maybe she could go to the Carlsons . . . No. She saw the parlor curtains of their turn-of-the-century home being drawn across the windows. The Brannons, perhaps? No. Across the street, she saw the porch light, then the living room light, of their white house blink out.

  It was a clear July night, and Maggie realized that most of the neighborhood must have heard the argument. None of the neighbors would open the door to her; they wouldn’t risk Harold’s wrath.

  Despite the warmth of the evening, Maggie felt cold, and she folded her arms close to her body. She looked down the steep hill toward the rest of the little, has-been town and felt no warmth from the tight rows of metal-roofed homes and aging businesses. The rooflines with their chimneys looked like night-blackened sawteeth against the moonlit mountainside beyond. There was hardly a light on anywhere.

  Suddenly Maggie realized she was a stranger now, and to any stranger, Hyde River could be a cold and sharp-edged place.

  She wandered fearfully down the hill toward the highway that ran through town, her hand going to her heart as if feeling a deep pain. She looked behind, then ahead, then into the black sky, where stars twinkled benignly between the high mountain ridges. She stared for a long moment at the Hyde Mining Company, an immense concrete citadel just across the river, now black against the sky. In her terror-crazed imagination, the windows of the old building were eyes and the huge doors mouths, and it was sizing her up for a meal. She was sure she even saw it move. She quickened her step, looking over her shoulder, then toward the sky again, as if some unseen monster lurked there.

  She came to the Hyde River Road, the narrow, two-lane highway that ran through the core of the town and meandered south through thirty miles of deep valley to the town of West Fork, and beyond that, to the outside world. Just a few blocks up the highway, the town put on its best face. There, young businesses clustered around a four-way stop. Down the highway in the opposite direction was the old part of town. It had been through a lot more winters, had hung tough through a century of booms and busts, and made no apologies for its age. Maggie hurried up the highway, toward the newer section of town, through the four-way stop and past the small businesses, the True Value Hardware and the Chevron station, Charlie’s Tavern, still open, and Denning’s Mercantile. Beyond these, the town was a steadily decaying parade of ramshackle homes, boarded-up storefronts, dismembered pickup trucks, and rusted mine equipment. Finally she came to the McCoys’ mobile home, a windowed, metal shoebox with no wheels, perched and sagging on pier blocks and concrete-filled oil drums, the ruined roof now supplemented by heavy blue tarpaulins. Maggie could see Bertha McCoy peering out at her through her kitchen window. When their eyes met, Bertha’s face quickly disappeared.

  Maggie approached the toy-strewn front yard. Griz and Tony, the McCoys’ two mongrels, barked at her, which set the other dogs in the neighborhood barking. A knock on the door by this time would be only a matter of courtesy; the McCoys had to know someone was there.

  Maggie knocked, just a few timid taps, and Bertha called from inside, “What do you want?”

  “Bertha? Bertha, it’s Maggie.”

  “What do you want?”

  Maggie hesitated, flustered. What she wanted was nothing she felt comfortable shouting through a door. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

  Then came a man’s voice. “Who is it?” And Bertha’s voice replied, “Maggie Bly.”

  “What’s she doing here?” the man’s voice asked. Then the two voices muttered in a hushed discussion while the door remained shut.

  Finally the man
called, “What are you doing here, Maggie?”

  “I—” She looked around with fear-widened eyes. “I can’t stay out here.”

  “Then go home.”

  “I can’t. Harold—,” She had to say it. “—Harold kicked me out.”

  Elmer McCoy, once a foreman for Hyde Mining, was well acquainted with Harold Bly, and Maggie could hear it in the strained tone of his voice. “Maggie, we’ve got no quarrel with either one of you, and we don’t want one now.”

  Maggie pressed closely against the door as if for protection. All around, the town lay in the cold, gray colors of night, and to her, every darkened window, every shadow, seemed to be hiding something sinister.

  “Elmer, if you could just let me in for a while . . .”

  She could hear Bertha begging Elmer in a voice that quavered with fear. “Elmer, don’t let her in here!”

  “Go away, Maggie!” he yelled through the door.

  “Please . . .”

  Elmer’s voice sounded frightened as he said, “Go away, you hear me? We don’t want your trouble.”

  She turned away, and the dogs barked at her until she was out of sight.

  EVELYN BENSON stayed on the steep trail for miles, taking step after jarring, downhill step until at last the trail emptied onto the logging road she and Cliff had followed. Having made it this far, her desperation gave way to exhaustion, her knees buckled, and she sank to the ground on the side of the road, too numb with shock to weep, too emotionally spent to pray. By now the blood that soaked her clothing had mingled with sweat, and the night wind drew heat from her body until she began to shiver.

  “GO AWAY!” Carlotta Nelson hissed from behind the door of the small, one-story house.

  “Please, Carlotta! Let me in. I can’t stay out here!” Maggie cried, standing on the front porch and clinging to the knob of the closed door.