Then Jake slammed and locked the door.
Leaving Christian in total darkness.
And woefully still alive.
Chapter Twenty-four
Jake stormed back into the studio, with the bat chopping the air in a blur like a helicopter rotor.
Gray shifted from foot to foot, like he had to pee. “Jake. The front door—”
“I know, I know. Take care of it. I got things to do.”
Eddie felt beads of sweat break out on his forehead. A huge Rorschach moth of perspiration spread out from his back to meet the overflow from his armpits.
Jake looked from Eddie to Mathias, doing some sick math in his head before pointing. “Take the handyman.”
Gray motioned to Eddie with the gun.
Eddie wanted to run, but he tried one last time to get Mathias’s attention. The boy was trapped like a bird under Jake’s penetrating stare.
Gray manhandled him out of the studio, but he looked over his shoulder as they left.
Still swinging the bat, Jake strolled over to Mathias, his arrogant grin back at full wattage.
“It’s time to share our faith.”
Gray shut the door, and the curtain closed around it like a shroud.
In the suffocating darkness of the holding cell, the women huddled by the window, watching Eddie and Gray come out the sliding glass door: Emmy craning for a peek at Mathias through the momentary gap in the curtain; Esther pressed against the glass, as if the sight of her might finally goose her lame-ass manservant into action.
Evangeline, too, was staring through the window, trying to gauge the possibilities of escape. Right now, it all rode on this Eddie guy. And, sweet mother of God, she hoped he had a plan.
Evangeline could not stop shaking. It was almost like a palsy, too much like cold turkey: all her muscles feverishly convulsing at once, from feet to fingertips to the follicles of her scalp.
She hugged herself, but it didn’t help. Right up there with trying to tickle herself, in the uselessness department. The terror in her ran so fucking deep that Jesus himself probably couldn’t massage it out of her.
Gray had the gun aimed at the back of Eddie’s head; but since Eddie couldn’t see it, he took a moment to aim it at the window and grin, as if this were the funniest thing in the world. Which, to him, it probably was.
The other women recoiled, screeching as if already shot; but Evangeline held her ground. She knew that psychotic freak wouldn’t scratch his own balls without Jake’s say-so.
“Fuck you,” she said out loud, and flipped him a pair of fluttering birds that only made Gray yawn theatrically.
Gray slid the door shut behind him, pulled a flashlight from his pocket. Then he and Eddie moved out of sight, on their way to the garage.
Emmy quivered in the center of the holding cell, also hugging herself. It didn’t seem to be working for her, either.
Meanwhile, Esther turned away from the window and tipped the flask to her lips, took a serious tug. It was the only sensible response, and the addict in Evangeline responded at once.
“Gimme some of that,” she heard herself say, almost before the thought had registered.
Esther pulled back, possessive. “There isn’t much.”
“I don’t want much. I don’t want any.” Her whole body shuddered. “I just need a little, right now.”
Esther looked at her knowingly, but did not nod her head, shook the flask instead. Not a lot left. That much was true.
“Please?” Evangeline said, trying to muzzle the voice inside that said, don’t make me take it from you, bitch…
Eddie opened the garage door and stared into pure darkness. Gray’s flashlight shone into it but only illuminated a narrow window of it at a time, casting the rest of it into murky chaos.
It was the default storage locker, full of boxes, bric-a-brac, and broken furniture: the kind of shit you kept, but somehow never needed again.
There was a fully stocked workbench, cluttered with tools that glistened in the flashlight’s beam. Eddie’s shadow cut across it as he stepped inside, started walking toward the back.
“Where’s the light switch?”
“Right next to you,” said Eddie. “But it doesn’t work. I have to pull the chain on the overhead.”
“Where?”
“Farther in.”
“Don’t fuck with me.”
“I won’t. Over here.” Eddie raised his hand in the general direction of the ceiling ahead of him. Gray followed it with his flashlight, saw the light fixture dangling, swaying slightly in the center of the garage.
“Okay. Where’s that door?”
“In the back. Keep the light up.”
Eddie advanced, brought his hand up to the chain.
And somewhere inside the garage, he heard the tittering of a madwoman.
A jagged bolt of fear ran up through Gray. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew it the second he felt it.
It was the feeling of being watched, very intently.
By something very powerful.
That meant to do you harm.
Gray found himself quickly backing up into the doorway, flashing the light around the room. “Who’s in there…?” he barked, ashamed of how his voice cracked.
Then the tittering stopped.
And the overhead light went on, swinging back and forth.
“What?” Eddie turned to look at him.
“Who was that, laughing?”
“I’m sorry…?”
The swinging light kept casting wild looping shadows across the garage. He could see no one else there. Eddie just looked genuinely confused.
Swallowing hard, feeling like an idiot, Gray waggled the gun at Eddie.
“Don’t worry about it,” he muttered. “Let’s go.”
Eddie shrugged and made his way through the clutter to the back of the garage, found the door, hoisted it up with a grunt. It was solid, dark-stained oak, and looked heavy as fuck. “You wanna give me a hand with this?”
Gray shook his head. “Why would you even ask?”
“I can’t carry this thing and the toolbox, you know.”
“Then we make two trips. Come on.”
Eddie tipped the door forward, started to drag it along. Just a little bit like Christ, and the cross he got nailed to. Gray stepped back as Eddie muscled it toward the doorway.
The light was still swinging back and forth as they left.
Chapter Twenty-five
Eddie dragged the heavy spare door out of the open garage and into the enclosed backyard. He stumbled, lurched, almost lost his grip, catching it by the knob before it crushed his foot.
Gray stood back and supervised, making a sound he probably thought was laughter.
Eddie looked anywhere but at Gray.
His eyes were not like a man’s. They were flat and almost looked painted on, like the eyes of those fish in Lake Erie that sucked all the blood and guts out of real fish.
It didn’t know what it was, didn’t see the right or wrong of what it did. It was as God made it; but Eddie, also being as God made him, wanted only to crush it.
Unfortunately—unlike any other parasite he’d ever seen—this one had a gun; and Eddie knew that if he looked too long, with Jake’s okay or not, this parasite would kill him.
Eddie felt his feet grow heavier with each step. The adrenaline rush that had flushed him with fighting spirit from the moment Jake came in the door had burned itself out, leaving him shaky and exhausted.
Seeing Esther in that cage again, like the old times he was not supposed to notice—locked up and fighting with Jake’s putas like a piece of trash in the drunk tank—he might have tried to take Gray, if he were not so tired, so broken.
Esther—
Eddie worked for her before Jake Connaway came along, and for her parents, before that. His feelings for the willowy, retiring beauty who haunted the big, empty house were always strong, but he never said a word. Such things were not done, and one’s heart always wante
d what was not to be, just to keep things interesting.
There were others, but nothing stuck. She was saving herself for Jake Connaway. She came completely out of her shell for him, turned herself inside out. She gave him his space, having Eddie install the locks in the doors cutting off the old school wing of the house for her husband’s hideout. But she seemed to be happy for the first time in her life, or at least to be trying—
When he first began to notice signs of the strange new games afoot in the house, Eddie thought she was discovering herself. He did not judge, did not let himself become jealous. He was the soul of discretion, watching as Jake Connaway tore through Esther like a forest fire, leaving nothing standing of that carefully cultivated, fragile woman.
He abused her, terrorized her, and then made her beg for more when he ignored her. He brought other women around when Esther was away, or asleep, as she seemed to be almost all the time.
It was not Eddie’s place to pry. There are all kinds of happiness.
Then finally, several months ago—last Memorial Day weekend—Mr. Connaway gave Eddie a healthy bonus and told him to stay away for a week. Eddie went to the Home Depot in town to get some gopher bait and varmint traps.
That was when he saw Mr. Connaway and a gray-haired stranger loading up a white Cadillac for a road trip at the Costco across the parking lot.
Eddie had never seen the other man before, and never since.
Until to night.
He’d tailed them north out of town. When they turned onto the 40, no doubt headed for Las Vegas, he turned back and went to the house.
He found her in that room, behind the garage.
Alone, in the hot, damp darkness that somehow never admitted light through the barred windows, even in the full blaze of day.
Drugged, chained to the wall on a mattress rife with fleas, with a jug of water and a bucket. Both eyes closed over, cigarette burns on her heaving white breasts.
It was not his place, but he could not pretend this was what she wanted, anymore. He freed her with a pair of bolt cutters and led her back to the house.
She would not hear of calling the sheriff, and she would not leave Jake. Eddie did not press the advantage. He did not get her drunk.
She reached out for him.
And he sought only to give comfort.
When Jake came back four days later, he asked no questions about how she got free. He said nothing at all. Maybe he was relieved that she hadn’t died.
Eddie never turned his back on the man of the house, after that.
Mr. Connaway would look at him every so often, smiling and waggling an eyebrow at their little secret. So it’s like that, said his smile. You let her out, but you didn’t do shit. What ever happens to her next, you’re a silent partner. An accomplice.
If she had asked, Eddie would have killed him for her. But even as Esther gave herself to him, she was still under the monster’s spell. That little bit of her that she shared with Eddie, he would kill or die to protect, but he never forgot his place. He knew that if Jake had only shown her the tiniest gesture of caring, she would never have turned to him at all.
When Jake was found dead in the desert, Eddie braced himself for her to throw him away as well, but she didn’t. It had begun to look like she might finally break free.
But hell’s claim on Jake Connaway was not, it seemed, as strong as Jake’s claim on Esther. God had taken a holiday, and let hell come to punish them. But for what?
No, he thought, redoubling his pace across the yard, closing in on the living room at last. This is not God’s work. Only the Devil could do what Mr. Connaway’s done with his word.
Eddie could pray for salvation, but in the end, he would have to be smarter and stronger than a dead man.
Chapter Twenty-six
Daniel, Mathias thought to himself, must have felt like this, in the lions’ den.
He was trying to whip up his courage with a story from the Bible. It was the closest he could come to accepting that this was really happening to him.
Daniel had prayed for God’s grace, and the lions had not harmed him. But Daniel had been sure of his worthiness of God’s grace, hadn’t he? If he had any doubt, the Bible had not seen fit to print it.
Maybe Job was a better story to draw from. Or Jonah—
Jake bustled around the studio, booting up the computers, warming up the cameras and firing up the lights in smooth succession, like he’d done it a million times. But he never seemed to look away from Mathias, tenderizing him with his eyes, as if a den filled with hungry lions prowled behind them.
Something Jake did made the theatrical curtains beside the door slide apart on humming tracks, revealing a massive picture window. Beyond the glass, a huge expanse of bed, a lushly appointed boudoir decorated like a dungeon with mirrors, and all arranged to display the action for a camera set up in the studio.
Mathias looked from the bedroom to the racks of tapes and disks. He thought of Emmy, and how she sometimes got choked up when she talked about her work for the church.
Jake caught his eye and winked knowingly, licked his lips and touched a key on the sampler behind the pulpit.
“I love you, Jake!” cried a swooning woman’s voice. Was it Emmy?
Jake hit another key and basked in digital worship. Rapturous applause and high, panty-creaming screams filled the studio.
Mathias cowered before the green screen when the spotlight hit him. He didn’t know where to go, what to do.
“So,” Jake said. “Tell me about yourself.”
Camera One was on a tripod, directly facing the green screen. Jake panned and zoomed in to lock Mathias in the shot.
“Come on,” Jake persisted. “You love Emmy. At least that’s what she tells me. And you love Jesus.” Coming out of his mouth, those sweet, simple words sounded perverse. “So tell me, real quick: who do you love more?”
Mathias blinked. “What?”
“That one too tough? Okay!” The playful edge in Jake’s voice was a tissue-thin veil over barbed, rusty rage. “Movin’ on. So what else is there to know?”
Mathias had nothing. He was too scared.
Jake stepped out from behind the camera.
“Turn-ons. Pet peeves. Favorite hobby, TV show, late-night snack. It’s not that hard. Just give us a little insight into who you are, so that we might come to know you, as God knows you.”
Mathias stammered, but nothing came out. Not even a prayer.
Jake nodded with sad understanding, and strolled into the shot.
In the holding cell, at least Evangeline’s shuddering had subsided. The few short swigs Esther wisely donated had done their little trick, and taken the edge off the edge.
But that didn’t mean they weren’t still going insane.
Emmy just stared out through the window—as if God’s love could peel away the bars, or at least help her see through the curtain—all the while singing “Amazing Grace” not so softly to herself.
Meanwhile, Esther polished off the last of the flask, as Emmy’s insufferable choir practice swelled to a grating crescendo.
“Gimme that thing.” Evangeline gestured for the flask. “I’m gonna throw it at her head.”
“Leave her alone,” Esther said.
“Sorry,” said Evangeline. “She’s makin’ me nuts.” Then loudly, at Emmy, “Do you really feel saved right now? Is that how you really feel?”
Emmy kept on singing, looking up at the sky, as if that were actually going to help.
“Some people,” Esther said, “still think that faith is beautiful.”
“Yeah, and some people still think Jake’s a prophet.”
Emmy’s voice cracked, but she kept singing. Esther and Evangeline locked into each other, hard.
“Well, clearly, you must have believed in something, or you wouldn’t be here with the rest of us suckers.”
“Oh, honey,” Evangeline snapped. “Belief had nothing to do with it.”
“Mm-hmm…”
Mathias hunkered down on the cold concrete floor: arms up, scooted back up against the green screen, just a little kid about to get the spanking of his life.
Jake stopped, four feet away. Mathias looked up only as far as his shiny black shoes, the razor-creases in his blood-spattered slacks.
“Get up.”
Mathias steepled his hands over his head. “No…”
“No?” Jake started unbuckling his belt.
“Wh—what are you doing?”
The sound of the belt slithering through the loops was like a sharp, indrawn breath.
“Spare the rod,” Jake said, “and spoil the child.”
He whipped the belt off, folded it and snapped it taut in his hands, relishing how the sound made Mathias jump. The buckle was a jagged metal lightning bolt of lovingly polished brass, with the letters “JC” embossed upon it. It looked heavy, and sharp enough to cut.
Mathias started to snivel harder.
“That’s what the Bible says, right?” Jake continued. “And we wouldn’t wanna argue with that.”
Snapping the belt in Mathias’s ear.
“Confess that you are a sinner.”
Without hesitation, Mathias cried out, “I am a sinner. Yes. I confess that I am a sinner…”
“Go on.”
“I am a sinner by nature, because of the sin of Adam. But through the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ, I am made clean in the sight of God…”
A sad smile crossed Jake’s face.
“If only that were true.”
Then he reared back, with terrible strength, and lashed out with the whistling belt.
Mathias’s head snapped back at the sonic boom, and his face ripped open, from brow to cheek. In the time it took for him to scream, the meat-flecked metal tore loose, cracked the air and came flying back.
He brought his arms up to shield his face, so they took the next hit: belt buckle fangs slitting the palms of his hands, and breaking the small bones beneath.
It was like being punched with a razor.
Over and over again.
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