“I’m Tim,” Tim said. “One of his students.”
Jacob nodded and smiled. “You are a believer, I see.”
“What?”
“A follower of the Almighty.”
“Um, yeah,” Tim said. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to speak with the ghost of Dr. Bramlett,” Jacob said. “But I could not find him. His friend, Anthony, told me what happened here, and after further study, I have determined that no ghost of Dr. Bramlett exists.”
“Okay,” Tim said. He backed towards the open doorway.
“The creature that killed him, the Weeping Lady, she not only took the life from his earthly body, but she consumed his soul, as well,” Jacob said. He shook his head slowly. “It seems these Men of Perdition are given an ability and power I thought only belonged to the Arch Fiends of Hell itself. And this I do not understand.”
“Mister, you’re crazy,” Tim said. He reached the doorway.
Jacob offered Tim a sad smile. “You were friends with Dr. Bramlett.”
“No, not really. I mean, he was a good teacher, but his religion was all wrong,” Tim said.
“You came here because you mourn for him,” Jacob said. “I tell you, do not mourn for who he was, mourn instead because he will never see the light of God’s eyes, that he will never glimpse on the divine. Perhaps if he’d lived a more holy life he would have been spared. I don’t know.” Jacob put his finger to his chin. “These events, these Men of Perdition, they disturb me.”
“Who are you again?” Tim said.
“I am Jacob Sterns,” Jacob said, standing to his feet. “I was a friend of Dr. Bramlett’s.”
“You said that already,” Tim said.
“You doubt me,” Jacob said. “You wouldn’t be the first. I can’t offer you much, Tim Wiskowski, but I can give you this.”
“How did you know my name?” Tim said.
Jacob ignored him. “You try to live a good life, you have a deep belief in God, and you tried to help Dr. Bramlett see the truth. These are good things and if you continue to live like this, the blessings of Heaven will be laid at your feet.”
“Are you some kind of Holy Roller?” Tim said.
Jacob laughed. “No and yes,” he said. “I see you feel sad because you were not able to get through to Dr. Bramlett, that you were not able to bring him back to God.”
“How do you know?”
“But I tell you again, do not weep anymore for this man. He made his decisions and has faced the consequences. Long ago, when he was in school here, his parents died in a horrific car accident and Dr. Bramlett lost his faith and nearly his life. He never recovered and his life became one long, bitter tirade against God,” Jacob said. “Dr. Bramlett lived how he wished. Now you must do the same. Forget him, forget today, forget me. Concentrate on the good and the holy.”
“This is nuts,” Tim said.
“Arm yourself with the sword of the Lord and put on the Armor of God, which is His word,” Jacob said. He crossed the room and brushed past Tim as he exited the room. “For there are dark and dangerous times ahead.”
Tim turned to see where Jacob was going but when he did, Jacob had disappeared down the hallway and around the corner.
PART THREE
I
William Sanders and Family
William Sanders was glad to be back on the road and on the way home. This whole trip, something that had started as a ‘family outing,’ had dissolved into a weekend of terror for him. Spending so much time in a car with his wife and two kids hadn’t turned out the way he’d imagined. William had nurtured some romantic notions of the family vacation, of him and his wife and kids on the road, singing along with songs on the radio, telling jokes and laughing, and just generally enjoying each other’s company. Like when he was a kid and his Dad took him and his sister out. Nothing like that happened on this trip, though.
Katy, the youngest at age six, sat in her seat the whole time and stared out at the passing scenery, headphones plugged into her ears, listening to her MP3 player. William looked back every now and then, checking to see if she got tired of what she was hearing, but she never did. And didn’t those things ever run out of battery power? Katy was like her mother, cute, with short blonde hair and a pretty smile, but she was always so distant. She spent way too much time with her nose pressed in a book or with her headphones on or both. William guessed he should have been glad she was a reader, but the distance between them bothered him.
Ralph, the oldest, aged nine, couldn’t be bothered from his video games. He sat next to Katy and his fingers clacked away on the buttons for hours on end. This was followed by electronic beeps and whoops and all manner of noise that grated on William’s every nerve. Ralph had sandy hair, was skinny, pale-skinned, with lots of freckles dotting his face. He was smart, but he only applied it to his video games.
Erica, the still-beautiful-if-getting-chubby wife of his sat across from William and hardly said a word. She had soft features and a plump face and despite her coldness, he still found her very attractive. He was disappointed, then, that having a room to themselves down in Gatlinburg hadn’t amounted to any sex of any kind, except for William, desperate at the end of a long day, beating off in the bathroom.
He checked his rearview mirror, watched his kids for a moment, then studied his own face. He was no looker but he wasn’t ugly, either. Lean and trim with a banker’s face, the worst thing about him was his receding hairline. He should still be attractive to his wife, but for some reason, after Katy was born, the fires died. He asked his Dad about it once and he just chuckled and said that’s the way it was when you got married. William didn’t like that answer, so he formulated a plan.
It was simple: they had four days to drive from Lexington down to Gatlinburg, stay in a motel there and enjoy the town, spend some quality family time together, and then come home. Somewhere in the between hours, he would woo his wife and they’d reignite the flame between them. None of it worked out, leading to his disappointment and disillusionment. The worst of it was that this whole experience had made him feel like a failure as a husband and a father. Here was his wife who showed no interest in him and his kids who showed even less. What had he done wrong?
He fiddled with the radio, trying in vain to get in a good rock station. It had been like this most of the trip, the radio providing little relief from his frustrations. All he seemed to be able to find were A.M. stations that were full of either ancient country crooners or bible thumpers. William had little love for either. He still couldn’t find anything, so he turned it off and looked over at Erica, who immediately shut her eyes and pretended to be sleeping. Bitch.
He really wished he didn’t think that about Erica and he really wished he wasn’t so angry at his kids, but he was. There was no getting around it. The whole trip had been one bitter moment after another. The only time, the only moment, he’d felt good at all, was back in that little country diner they’d just left fifteen minutes ago. The food was good and the jukebox, thank God, played old time rock and roll. It wasn’t his favorite music, but after a whole trip of Rev. Wrinklefart and Country Dan and his Spoonlickers, a little Beatles and Beach Boys didn’t hurt his feelings one bit.
He looked out at the road ahead. He’d come this way, same as on the way down, so he could see some new sights. He thought it would be fun and educational. The kids hated it, of course, and so did Erica, although she didn’t really say anything. He could tell from the rolling of the eyes and the slumping of her shoulders. Their torment would be over soon because the junction to get to I-75 was just another ten miles up ahead. Until then, he would enjoy the twisting country road all by himself and pray that somehow, some way, his life got better.
A canopy of trees grew up and reached over the road like skeletal fingers full of fat green leaves. The shadows they cast dropped the temperature in the car and William decided to turn off the AC and get a little fresh air. He rolled down his window and let the humid air brush his fa
ce.
“Come on, Dad!” Ralph said. “It’s hot!”
“Enjoy the fresh air, buddy,” William said.
Katy’s nose wrinkled. “It smells like cow doo-doo,” she said.
“Yes,” William said, smiling. Finally, he was going to get to talk to his kids, even if he had to be a dick to force them into it. “Smells great, huh?”
“It stinks,” Erica said. She shot him a sour look. “Roll up your window. Nobody likes it.”
Anger surged in his chest. He opened his mouth to cuss his wife when Erica suddenly screamed and pointed to the road ahead. He whipped his head around and jammed on the brakes.
Standing in the middle of the road in a straight line, shoulder to shoulder, blocking the highway, were three of the ugliest kids he’d ever laid eyes on. They were pale, with stringy black hair that hung down in their faces and deep, dark circles under their eyes.
Shoeless, Hippy Girl, and Red Shirt stood still and unblinking.
The car skidded to a halt just twenty feet from the unmoving kids.
“Oh, my God!” Erica said.
“Jesus!” William said. “What in the fuck are they doing in the middle of the road?”
“Watch your language,” Erica said.
Katy stuck her head between the seats. “What is it, Daddy?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He watched as the three kids, all wearing hand me down clothes straight from the dope-smoking seventies, walked slowly towards the car. He stuck his head out the window as Shoeless came over to him.
“Have you seen our Mother?” Shoeless said. The kid reeked of rotten cabbage and William had to turn his nose so as not to get sick.
Hippy Girl walked to Erica’s side of the car and lightly rapped on the closed window.
“Have you seen our Mother?” Hippy Girl said.
Red Shirt joined Hippy Girl’s side and stood next to Katy’s window. He tilted his head as he gazed in at her.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” William said. It was all he could do not to gag. Shoeless was pasty as a jellyfish and up close, he could see the veins under the kid’s skin like a network of blue spider-webs crawling up and down his face. And his eyes, they were so dark, so black, like a moonless night in a deep forest. A shiver ran down William’s spine. Something wasn’t right with these kids, and it wasn’t that they were crazy or retarded, but something else. Something evil.
“Have you seen our Mother?” Shoeless said.
William shook his head. “No, but good luck with that,” he said. He started to roll up his window and put the car back into gear.
“What are you doing?” Erica said. William turned to look at her.
“I’m getting out of here,” he said. “Something’s not right.”
“We can’t just leave them by the side of the road,” Erica said.
“The fuck we can’t,” William said.
“They’re just children,” Erica said.
Ralph screamed and when he did, William felt a white hot pain slash across his cheek. Then he saw blood, his own blood, splash across the steering wheel. He yelled and looked in the rearview mirror. Half his cheek had been torn away and when he spun around, he saw Shoeless leaning in through the open window, a chunk of William’s cheek hanging from his grubby, stinking fingers.
William slammed the car into drive and jammed on the gas as Shoeless clawed at his face again. The car roared forward and zoomed off as William, still not sure what exactly had happened, gripped his hands tight around the wheel.
He checked the rearview and saw the three children join hands and stroll down the road in casual pursuit.
“Look out!” Erica screamed.
He never saw the oak tree at the bend in the road up ahead, but he heard it greet his car with a screech of wrenching metal and shouting bark. The car smashed head-first into the tree and everything went black for a moment.
When he raised his head and looked out the front, smashed window, everything was a bleary red. He wiped his eyes of blood and could see again, although the ground tended to tilt one way and then the other. He turned to his left and saw Erica, pinned to her seat, her head in an impossible position, with a tree branch shoved through her right eye socket.
Her left eye blinked and fixed on him. He wanted to scream when she opened her mouth, blood poured out in a big, black clot, but the sound froze in his throat. Her good eye glazed over and she died, yet he still couldn’t process it; the whole thing felt like a crazy dream, like those moments of unreality when a person experiences déjà vu. Katy’s sudden scream snapped everything back into focus.
The back door wrenched open and he spun around as Katy and Ralph were dragged from the car by those weird, black eyed kids. Shoeless had Katy by the hair, yanking her along the road and into the woods. Red Shirt had his arm locked around Ralph’s neck and was tugging him after Shoeless, although Ralph, to his credit, kicked and screamed and fought back.
Where was the girl?
“Have you seen our Mother?” Hippy Girl said. She was standing outside his door, hands at her side, the most placid, vacant look on her face.
“Have you seen our Mother?” Hippy Girl repeated.
He flung his door open, knocking Hippy Girl back a step, and staggered out of the wreck. He still couldn’t quite get his bearings and fell against the car, steadying himself on the open door. The ground spun and tilted. He thought maybe he was going to vomit when he heard Katy scream again and clarity, sweet, sudden clarity, sliced through the fog in his brain.
He kicked Hippy Girl in the stomach and as she bent over, he punched the side of her head, thumping her to the ground. If he had any ill feelings about hitting a child they didn’t surface in that moment. His only thoughts were of his own children and the danger they were in. He ran off into the woods in pursuit, leaving Hippy Girl on the ground, gasping for breath.
Katy screamed again and so did Ralph, his voice joining his sister’s in a sick harmony as William plunged through the bushes. Branches and stickers slashed at his hands and face but he hardly noticed. He’d already lost his wife; he wasn’t going to lose his children, too.
Another scream, this one high-pitched, like the keen of a dying animal, echoed through the woods. It was Ralph he was hearing, Ralph sounding like a girl, his voice full of terror and pain. What were they doing to Ralph?
He pushed on, a tree branch sticking the flapping piece of meat where his cheek had been and tearing it from his face as he kept moving, heedless of his own pain. Katy screamed again and at last, William fell into a clearing, right into a scene from a nightmare. The two creepy kids were standing over his children, and what they were doing to them was abominable.
Red Shirt sat on Ralph’s chest and plucked out Ralph’s left eye with a wet, popping sound. He threw the orb over his shoulder where it hit the grass and rolled to a rest next to Ralph’s other eye.
“Have you seen our Mother?” Red Shirt said as he dug his fingers inside Ralph’s skull, through his torn eye sockets. He scooped out chunks of red, pulpy matter, flinging them over his shoulders like a dog kicks up dirt when digging for a bone.
Ralph’s body twitched underneath Red Shirt in its death throes.
Shoeless had Katy pinned on her stomach and was yanking fistfuls of her hair out.
“Have you seen our Mother?” Shoeless said, over and over again.
Katy’s scream choked off as Shoeless wrapped his hands around her neck, squeezing hard. Katy kicked and punched but Shoeless was single-minded. He squashed Katy’s neck just under her chin, her face turning purple as her eyes and tongue bulged out.
William leapt for Shoeless, grabbed him by his shoulders, and hauled him up into the air. Shoeless let go of Katy and looked at William, black eyes glittering. Shafts of sunlight poured through the opening in the canopy of trees above them.
He swung Shoeless around, slamming his head against a nearby oak tree. They boy’s neck snapped like a rotten twig. William dropped him to the ground, dead.
He looked at his daughter as her fingers clawed at her neck. She couldn’t breathe. She blinked and cried as William stared down, helpless, as his little girl died. It only took a few moments and then she went still, never to move again.
William crumpled, defeated.
Red Shirt stopped pulling Ralph’s brains out through his eye sockets and pivoted on the boy’s dead body. He stared at William.
“Have you seen our Mother?” he said.
William screamed with rage. He was going to kill this kid, too, and then he was going back to finish the job on that girl back there; he didn’t care what the police or anyone might think. These murdering bastards were going to die.
“Have you seen our Mother?” Katy said, her voice raspy and harsh.
William turned to see his daughter, once dead, now alive, her blue eyes black as charred wood. She stared at him, no longer his daughter, now something else. Just like that, in the blink of an eye.
“Baby?” William said.
“Have you seen our Mother?” Katy said. She clambered to her feet, clumps of torn hair falling from her shoulders. Dark circles bled under the skin of her torn scalp and formed below her eyes, big and puffy.
“Have you seen our Mother?” Katy said.
He stumbled to his left and tripped and fell, knocking the wind from his lungs. Red Shirt strolled over and joined Katy and Hippy Girl as they stood over William, staring at him with their dark eyes.
“Have you seen our Mother?” they said in unison.
Men of Perdition Page 11
