Speak the Dead

by Grant McKenzie

  Father Black sat at one end of the kitchen table with a mug of steaming coffee cradled in his large hands. Aedan sat on his right with his back to the heavy wooden shutters that blocked most of the light from the front window.

  Aedan’s eyes were dark and unflinching beneath hooded lids as Sally entered the room, and she could sense a murderous rage bubbling just beneath the surface like a cancer of the blood.

  When Sally crossed the threshold, the priest gestured to an empty seat at the opposite end of the table.

  Helen joined them as Sally sat.

  “Would you like coffee?” Helen asked. “It’s fresh brewed.”

  Sally’s first reaction was to scream: You kidnap me, beat me, and try to fucking drown me… but she controlled it.

  Despite her anger, Sally realized she wanted a cup.

  She nodded and an unpleasant tremor rippled through her flesh. It took sheer force of will to stay strong and not collapse into a blubbering heap… to beg for mercy… to throw a fit. She pressed her weight into the seat, thankful for its solidity, and faced the priest.

  She refused to make eye contact with Aedan.

  Father Black took a long, slow sip of coffee and waited in silence while his wife placed a steaming mug in front of Sally.

  “Milk?” Helen acted as though it was a pleasant tea party on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

  “Black is fine.”

  Sally curled her hands around the mug, absorbing its warmth before bringing it to her lips. Her hands trembled, but only slightly.

  “Careful,” warned Helen, “I percolate it on the stove. Father likes it strong.”

  Sally sipped a small amount into her mouth, relishing the scorching, bitter heat.

  Then—with a vicious snap of her wrist— she flung the hot liquid at Aedan.

  Aedan’s eyes widened in the millisecond it took for the scorching liquid to splash the right side of his face. He roared and leapt backwards, his feet becoming entangled in the wooden chair.

  Helen screamed, “Don’t touch it!”

  Aedan kicked the chair away, his hands hovering a fraction above his melting skin. He gasped through the pain, his eyes aflame with anger, his face already beginning to blister.

  “You fucking bitch!”

  Aedan slapped Sally hard across the mouth, knocking her out of the chair and onto the floor. The empty coffee mug flew from her grasp and smashed in shards nearby.

  Aedan groaned and bared his teeth as he stomped around the table and drew back his foot to kick the vulnerable woman.

  “Enough!” bellowed Father Black.

  Aedan spun to face his father, but his anger was too raw to be stopped. He kicked Sally in the stomach with such force she was lifted from the floor.

  “We have to treat this,” Helen yelled. She rushed forward to grab her son’s arm.

  Aedan lifted his foot again, this time to stomp.

  Father Black stood up. “I said enough.”

  Father and son stared at each other until Aedan slammed his foot down with enough force to crush bone—

  His foot landed less than an inch from Sally’s head.

  Sally gasped, her chest wheezing like a burst accordion, and curled into a protective ball.

  Aedan spat on her before allowing himself to be dragged to the sink where his mother splashed his scolded face with cold water.

  “I’ll call the doctor,” Helen said. “I think he’s still in the meadow.”

  Sally felt Father Black looming over her as she lay in the fetal position. She was perfectly still and perfectly quiet. No tears, no whimpers, just the wheezing as she struggled to catch her breath.

  “Get up,” he barked. “We need to talk.”

  Sally slowly lifted her head and looked around, assessing the danger. When she was satisfied that Aedan’s mother had him under control, she unfurled and stood. Returning to her seat, her movements were cautious. Her stomach ached like someone had tried to gut her with a dull spade, and her mouth was bleeding, but she wasn’t about to let Aedan see any more of her pain.

  Father Black eyed her with newfound respect.

  “Your mother was a fighter,” he said, his voice flat. “My brother used to talk about how stubborn she could become when she set her mind to something. ‘Course, your father was too damn soft for his own good. She wouldn’t have treated me that way.”

  Sally settled at the table and wiped blood from her mouth onto the back of her hand.

  “I don’t remember them,” she said. Then, her voice turned hard, “Except for the way they died.”

  Father Black took another sip of coffee. “That was unfortunate.”

  “Why did my father kill my mother?” Sally asked.

  Aedan jerked his head from the sink, the right side of his face scarlet. “Because she was a witch,” he spat. “Like you.”

  Helen shushed her son and pulled him by the arm again. The two of them disappeared out the rear door to find the doctor.

  Father Black sipped his coffee and watched them leave.

  “Who knows what happens behind closed doors,” he said after a moment. “Your mother rode him to the edge and when he finally fought back, it took them both over.”

  “I have no memory of them arguing.”

  “You have no memory,” Father Black corrected. “They could have fought like jackals.” He paused. “Maybe you were lucky to get out alive.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  Father Black shrugged. “Can you prove otherwise?”

  Sally looked away and saw the coffee pot still percolating on the stove. She tilted her chin in its direction. “Do you mind?”

  Father Black’s mouth formed a thin, wary smile. “So long as you drink it this time.”

  Sally crossed to the stove, wincing slightly at the pain in her stomach, more bruises for her growing collection. She washed the blood off her hands at the sink and found a new mug. She filled it with hot coffee, then crossed to the fridge and added a small drop of milk.

  She turned to the priest. “Spoons?”

  “Next to the stove.”

  With her back to the priest, Sally opened the cutlery drawer and discreetly removed two pieces of stainless steel. She placed the teaspoon in her cup and stirred. The metal collided with the side of the mug with a sharp tinkle before Sally dropped it with a clang into the metal sink. With the familiar noises distracting the priest, Sally slipped the second piece, a heavy butter knife, up her dress sleeve and out of sight.

  To calm her nerves, she took a sip of coffee. It was strong, syrupy, and delicious.

  Keeping her back to the priest, Sally took a quick assessment of her situation. The front door was likely locked, but the back door wasn’t. Unfortunately, it led to the enclosed gardens and unless the large doors were open to the outside, it was a dead end. Even if she did escape, she needed transportation…

  With her stomach and face still aching, Sally put on a brave face and returned to the table, mug in hand. She held her left arm down by her side, protecting the dull knife.

  Father Black steepled his hands. “I fear we started on the wrong foot. You’re family, but—”

  “You murder people. You’re not my family.” The words slipped out before she could stop them, her anger too close to the surface.

  “It’s not murder—”

  “You slit their thro—”

  “Silence!” Father Black slammed both hands onto the table. The force of the blow made the table jump. “Listen to my words, or I will make your stay more unpleasant.” His eyes burrowed into Sally’s skull. “You don’t want to know what I’m capable of.”

  Sally believed him. She nodded sheepishly for him to continue.

  Father Black inhaled deeply through his nose. “You have a gift,” he began. “The same gift as your mother. It is the ability to travel with a departed soul in the journey of death. You walk beside them as they seek out the light. You see the dangers; the wrong turns. You can guide them to the portal and into our Lord’s embr
ace. But unlike those souls, you can return. You can bring back His message. You can enlighten, educate, inform.” He paused. “And yet you refuse to tell us what you saw.”

  Sally stared at the priest over her coffee cup, her jaw unhinged, her expression disbelieving.

  “You make it sound so natural,” she said in a restrained voice. “But I watched Aedan cut those people open and then force my hands into their blood—”

  “It was their time.”

  “Their time?” Sally’s voice trembled. “You sacrificed them. It wasn’t—”

  “Their lives were in ruin,” Father Black argued, “their families in crisis. These were bright, eager souls trapped in prisons of broken and disturbed flesh. Medical science is a soulless machine. We are not meant to live with such crippling burdens simply because science allows it. How many people are crying out in pain, begging for release but being refused because our government wants to control what is morally right? How dare they! That is not their mandate. Would you rather choose stronger and more experimental drugs or eternal peace and salvation? With the blessing of those souls, we freed them for the Journey. You must have seen that once you broke through the veil.”

  “I felt their fear and their pain,” Sally said coldly. “I didn’t feel their blessing.”

  Father Black waved that off. “You know the Journey exists. You’ve traveled and returned. You can offer people guidance through the dark unknown. You can quell their fears.” He wiped a prickling of perspiration from his brow and licked his lips like a junkie with a fresh needle, all loaded and ready. “What else did you feel when you crossed over? Was there a message?”

  Sally stared into her coffee. “What messages did my mother bring back?”

  Father Black sighed. “Your mother was a servant of our Lord who—”

  “Why did Aedan call her a witch?” Sally interrupted.

  “Aedan is angry.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve been missing a long time, Sally. Our church is built on our belief in the Journey, but without a Seer to assure our congregation…” He paused, his face revealing strain. “Faith can weaken.”

  “If my mother was so important to you,” Sally said carefully, “why wasn’t she protected?”

  Father Black closed his eyes and folded his hands in prayer. “Your father loved you.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  He opened his eyes again. “You were too young to understand, but that’s why we need you now. The answers you seek are available to you. Your mother knew so much of the world and she learned it all on the Journey. If I could travel—”

  “I’m sure that could be arranged,” Sally quipped, but instantly regretted it.

  Father Black slammed his hands on the table again and his face flushed red.

  “Don’t ever!” he blustered, spittle spraying from his lips. “The punishment for blaspheme—” he struggled to finish the sentence as the back door opened, and Helen entered the kitchen.

  Father Black turned to her in annoyance. “Where’s Aedan?”

  Helen instantly bowed her head in supplication. “He returned to his cabin. The doctor gave him—”

  Father Black’s fists hit the table. “Return this… this… woman to her room. Her lesson has not been learned.”

  Helen hurried to Sally’s side and took hold of her arm. Sally shook her off and pushed away from the table. She would leave of her own choosing.

  The priest’s eyes burned into her back as she did so.

  57

  Aedan slammed an open hand against the bathroom mirror and cursed as the glass spidered in long, silvery tracks.

  The right side of his face, shiny with antiseptic gel, had erupted with a half-dozen unsightly blisters. All he needed was for his eye to start sliding down his face and he would look as gruesome as his earlier disguise.

  He tossed two more useless painkillers into his mouth, crunched them between his teeth, and dry swallowed the bitter white mess. The taste of it made him shudder, but he had never been any damn good at swallowing pills whole.

  He gave the pills a full five seconds. When they did nothing to alleviate his pain, he opened the medicine cabinet and withdrew his bottle of generic painkillers and the small bag of brown powder inside.

  He twitched with anticipation as he spooned a generous hit on a square of foil and shoved the glass tube between his lips. The right side of his mouth was dry and his lips were cracked. The doctor had told him to drink lots of water as burns caused dehydration, but he also said Tylenol #3s would help his pain.

  Fuck that!

  Aedan was an expert at hiding pain. He touched flame to foil and waited for the heroin to melt, bubble, and smoke. Using the glass tube, he sucked the curling white smoke deep into his lungs.

  By the time he exhaled, the pain had shifted to a different part of his brain. It stuffed itself inside a small cupboard with a windowless door that he could wedge closed and rest his back against. The pain didn’t disappear, but it became so muffled, trapped in its own dark space, he could ignore its existence.

  The tube fell from his lips to clatter in the sink as he straightened his back and faced the cracked mirror again. The watery blisters on his face looked like alien incubators, the cloudy pus expanding and contracting in a rhythm only it could feel.

  He had an urge to pop them, to feel the sharp prick of pain and the melting sensation of his own hot juices running down his scalded face. But he didn’t want to bare the scars for everyone to see. It was better to carry them inside, tucked away, private.

  He thought about the unexpected assault at the kitchen table. The bitch had fought back and actually scored a hit. The idea of it was unfathomable. He had nearly drowned her, sent her hurtling to glimpse death’s door, and yet she came back fighting.

  If he could know love, he would have to agree that his parents had selected the perfect wife. But love was an unrealistic emotion, and there was no way he could allow this witch to gain power over him.

  He had only been a child, but he witnessed how that mistake destroyed his uncle. The congregation revered his wife, while he shrunk in insignificance. Every mistake, of which there were many, was magnified to the point that he was vilified. Aedan had pitied his uncle until his father explained that it was weakness that brought him low, cowardice that had allowed his role to be twisted and destroyed by the powerful witch in their midst. His uncle wasn’t to be pitied for the failing was his own.

  Aedan sure as hell wasn’t going to let that same thing happen to him.

  Once she delivered the healing message that would make their congregation strong again, Sally would have to go. She already knew how to make the Journey, but next time he would make sure she didn’t return.

  58

  Dust.

  That was all the Angels left in their wake when they roared out of the yard in response to the call.

  In the hospital, Sister Mary Theresa hung up the phone and returned to Sister Fleur’s side. The battered nun’s body was broken and bruised, but the fire in her eyes burned so brightly it could set the ceiling alight. She had told her friend and mentor everything that was missing from her email report.

  “We’ll find her,” assured Sister Mary Theresa. “And we’ll bring her home.”

  Sister Fleur blinked away tears. “She’s still so angry with me.” The words were a struggle; her mouth and lips still badly swollen. “I failed as a mother, and I couldn’t be a friend. I tried—” She choked and began to cough. The involuntary action made her eyes squeeze tight, and she cradled her chest as if to hold the bones in place.

  Sister Mary Theresa took her hand and squeezed in an effort to share the pain. “You did what was necessary at the time,” she said. “You were her protector.”

  “If only I could have explained,” Sister Fleur wheezed. “Her gift… she didn’t know. I… I—”

  “Shhh. It’s alright. There’s still time.”

  “But is there?” Sister Fleur asked. “How lon
g have I been here, unable to help? That monster—”

  “Won’t touch you ever again.”

  Sister Fleur winced. “It’s not me I’m scared for.”

  Sister Mary Theresa released the patient’s hand and stood. Her shapeless nun’s habit had been replaced by head-to-toe black leather and her vibrant yellow hair poked out in errant tufts beneath a Stars & Stripes bandanna. She picked up a black motorcycle helmet and tucked it under her arm.

  “Leave this to us.”

  In the hospital parking lot, Sister Mary Theresa straddled a powerful Harley Davidson Fat Boy and affixed her helmet. She would meet her six deadly angels on the road, and God help anyone who stood in their way.

  59

  “Do you still want to go home?”

  April nodded.

  Sally had brought April to sit beside her on the bed. They were alone in the room.

  “Does your dad have a car?”

  April nodded again.

  “Can you get the keys without him noticing?”

  A look of panic flooded April’s face.

  “It’s okay,” Sally assured. “It would just be until we got home. Nothing will happen to it, I promise.”

  “Daddy will be very… up… up… angry.”

  Sally squeezed the girl’s hand. “It’ll be okay. Once we’re home, he’ll understand that you just wanted to see your mom. He won’t be angry after that.”

  “He… he’s angry a… a lot.”

  “But this is special, April. This time you’re helping me, and I’ll explain everything to him once I’m back home.”

  “Maybe he will help—”

  “No!” Sally’s voice was too sharp and April recoiled. “I’m sorry, April. It’s just… remember when I said the people here didn’t want me to leave? Well, your father might be one of those people, and I don’t want him telling anyone. This needs to be our secret. Can you keep a secret?”

  April nodded. “Mom and I have secrets.”

  “Good, good, that’s good. Well, this would be the same. I need you to get your father’s keys without him knowing. Do you think you could do that?”

  April shrugged. “I can try.”