The Summoning

by Bentley Little

  She peered down at the schedule in her hand, trying to read in the gloom. No, today was the fourth. The class was supposed to start today.

  So why was the school so empty? Why was no one else here?

  And why was she afraid to walk down the hall? Silence.

  That was the primary reason she kept standing here. The silence. Not a sound disrupted the complete quie rode of this place, not a voice or footstep disturbed the perfect noiseless ness It was like being in a vacuum, or a tomb. Even outside sounds from the other parts of town did not appear able to penetrate the invisible sonic barrier which seemed to surround the school.

  This was stupid. She was just being dumb. The reason everything was dark and silent was because night classes were all held on the other side of the school. Out of habit, she'd parked in the student lot on the south side of campus. She should're parked in the faculty lot on the north side. All she had to do was walk down the hallway, past the lockers, and through senior corner to get where she was supposed to be.

  But she didn't want to walk down the hallway.

  She peered into the dimness. Was it her imagination, or were the hall's irregularly spaced lights less bright than they had been just a moment before? And had the shadows shifted? She cleared her throat, and the noise was like a gunshot in the stillness. Why couldn't she hear any noise from the other side of campus?

  Then something moved at the far end of the hallway. Her heart lurched in her chest. A black amorphous shape had passed through a patch of dull light, moving from one shadow to another. She thought she could still see it, darker than its surroundings--jet against charcoal--but the specifics of its form were so vague that she could not be sure.

  Sue took a deep breath. She was not afraid of the dark, had never been plagued by that traditional childhood fear. But she could not shake the feeling that someone--s0something--was waiting for her at the far end of the hall. She had an impression of size. And tremendous age.

  It was the vast age that frightened her the most.

  Her mouth was dry, her hands shaking. She turned around and hurried back out to the parking lot, to the car. She fumbled with her keys, trying to open the door, certain that if she turned around she would see, coming up behind her, that ancient black shape, large and getting larger.

  She found the right key and unlocked the door, banging her knee on the metal as she pulled it open. She scrambled into the car as quickly as she could, locking the door before daring to look where she'd been.

  There was nothing there. The parking lot was empty. Still hyper consciously aware of the fact that she was alone out here, that if something happened there would be no one to hear her scream, she slipped the key into the ignition, started the engine, and peeled out.

  She did not know why she'd been so stupid, why she hadn't realized immediately that the parking lot was empty because night classes were held on the other side of the school. She'd told Janine and promised her parents that she would be careful, and instead she'd behaved like a complete idiot.

  She thought of Manuel Tortes, tried to imagine what a man would look like who'd been totally drained of blood.

  She drove down the small dirt road around the school to the faculty lot. Here there were lights, and other vehicles, and small groups of people walking toward their classrooms. She pulled into a parking space next to a Dodge van. The terror and the panic subsided somewhat.

  A moment before she'd been half ready to run screaming through a group of strangers, warning that the monsters were coming. But now, though the fear was still strong within her, though when she looked toward the darkened southern haft of the school she could still see in her mind that black and shifting shape, the idea that some sort of... monster lay crouched and waiting within the confines of the campus seemed absurd and melodramatic, the product of an overactive imagination.

  Still, she could not shake the feeling that she had been in very real danger.

  Maybe she would tell her teacher that she'd seen someone suspicious lurking in the hallways and let him find someone to check it out She walked toward the office, following two old women armed with paintbrushes and sketch pads who were obviously here to attend an art class. Outside the office, they parted ways, the two women heading toward the multipurpose rooms to the left, Sue going toward the right.

  She found room 211, her old sophomore English classroom, easily enough and entered. Again, everything seemed smaller than she remembered: the desks, the blackboards, the room itself. So far, she was the only student here. The teacher, a clean-shaven man in his early to midthirties who looked vaguely familiar, stood next to the front blackboard at the head of the rows of empty desks and smiled at her.

  Both of them glanced up at the wall clock at the same time.

  "Five minutes to go," the teacher said. "I don't think we're going to have a very big class."

  Sue smiled politely back at him and sat down at a des in the middle of the room.

  He looked down at the roll sheet in his hand. "You're Susan Wing?"

  "Yes." She nodded. "Sue."

  - "Well, you're the only one who's actually signed up for: the course.

  I did have two other people on the list, but they both cancelled. I was hoping I'd get some walk-it registrants, but I don't think so." He gave her a wry grin

  "Journalism's not the hot draw it was after Watergate." "What if no one else shows up?" she asked,

  "Then the class is cancelled. We need at least six people to keep a class open." He looked again at the clock. Three minutes to seven.

  "By the way, my name's Rich CarteJ I'm the editor of the R/0 Verde C, azetU. You can call me, Rich."

  Sighing, Sue looked down at her desktop. "I real[ wanted to take this class."

  "I really wanted to teach this class. I need the extI money."

  "I need the credits. I'm trying to get some of my get eral ed done at Pueblo before I transfer to ASU, but n that many applicable courses are offered."

  Rich walked down the middle aisle, stuck his 'head Of the door, looked both ways. He glanced back up at the clock. "Seven. I don't think anyone else is coming."

  Sue stood.

  "Have your ever taken a journalism class before? Were you on the school newspaper or anything?"

  Sue shook her head.

  "Well, did you sign up strictly for the GE credits, or are you really interested in journalism?"

  "Both."

  "The reason I'm asking is because I can give you some real hands-on journalism experience. We'd be able to kill two birds with one stone.

  I just lost one of my reporters, and I need a replacement. You'll get to do a little typesetting, a little paste up a little of everything, learn all pects of the newspaper biz. It'll be part time, of course, but I'll pay you. By the hour or by the column inch, whichever is more."

  "Will I still get credit for the class?"

  He laughed. "Sure. I'll talk to the dean. We'll call it

  "Independent Study' or something."

  "Thank you." .... "If it's not too presumptuous, may I ask why you're not going to one of the Valley community colleges for your general ed?

  It seems kind of backward to just wait around until Pueblo offers transferable courses. You might have to wait for years."

  Sue reddened. "I have no choice. We can't afford anything else."

  Rich nodded. "I hear you." He looked at her. "Don't you work at that Chinese restaurant?" "My family owns it," she admitted.

  "I thought so." He pulled a piece of paper from the pad beneath his roll sheet and wrote something down. "Here," he said, handing her the paper. "This is the number of the paper. Give me a call tomorrow morning around ten or so, and we'll set something up." "Okay."

  "I'll talk to you tomorrow, then."

  Sue started toward the door, saw the night outside, black in contrast to the light of the classroom. She turned back toward Rich. "Are you leaving now too?"

  He shook his head. "I'm required to stay here until twenty after, just in case
someone else shows up."

  "Well, I'll see you later, then." She swallowed, her heart pounding, and forced her feet to carry her through the door.

  Outside, it wasn't that bad. Other classrooms were lit: and there were plenty of late students and teachers walking around. She hazarded a glance toward the darkened other half of the school, and goose bumps popped up on her arms. It seemed stupid now to tell anyone what she'd seen, or to even hint that she'd seen anything, but the fear was still there.

  She ran through the lighted parking lot to the station wagon.

  She did not relax until the school was receding in he rearview mirror.

  Pastor Wheeler was awake the second time Jesus appeared.

  He was locking the door of the vestibule for the evening when he sensed a subtle change in the quality of the air. It seemed suddenly easier to breathe, and his head felt light, open, as though all oppressiveness and negativity had been lifted from his mind, and the full potential of his thoughts was suddenly allowed to flower freely and unrestrained within his brain.

  He turned around but saw nothing there, only the empty pews in their parallel rows, the last of the afternoon sun glowing in weak rainbows around the edges of the stained glass windows.

  He turned around again

  And there was Jesus.

  The Savior was standing in front of the altar in all of His glory, gazing up at the cross that hung above the pulpit, the cross that the pastor had found rotting in the desert near Goldfield and had refinished himself. Wheeler held his breath, not daring to move. He gazed, transfixed, at the back of Jesus' head, at His long, gorgeous reddish brown hair. Pride was a sin, Wheeler knew, but he felt proud nevertheless, knowing that the Savior would be pleased with his efforts. The cross had been constructed from discarded railroad ties, and the wood had been weatherworn and faded nearly white when he'd found it outside the ghost town, the whorled grain dried and raised by exposure into ridges. He had dragged the cross over his shoulder, as Jesus had, only through the desert to his car instead of through the streets to Golgotha. Days and nights he'd spent sanding the cross, finishing it, coating it with the finest oils, and when it was finished, he'd known that it was something special. He'd known that it was good.

  He had been preaching in Phoenix at that time, had moved twice since, but the cross had remained a constant in his life and had always accompanied him.

  Now Jesus turned to him, smiling, and Wheeler felt an ecstatic pride swell within his breast. "You have created a thing of beauty," Christ said. His voice filled the air of the silent church like music, caressing the empty space between the beams in the peaked roof, falling gracefully down to spread lightly through the lower haft of the chapel.

  "Men will volunteer to be crucified on your cross. Women will plead to be allowed to b nailed on such wood." i

  "Yes," Wheeler whispered. He stood unmoving as the warmth of rapture flooded through him. The feeling in real life was much stronger than it had been in his vision and much more immediate, a physical sense of extraordinary well-being that spread throughout his body, manifesting itself in his head, in his heart, his fingers and toes. It was a feeling like no other, and he knew with utter certainty that it was not something that could be duplicated by drugs or sex or any human-generated states of euphoria. It could only be found in the presence of the Lord.

  "You have heeded my words," Jesus said. "But there is still much that needs to be done."

  There was something both great and terrible in the countenance of Christ as He spoke, and though it was sublimated and subdued, translated for his benefit into human terms, Wheeler could, sense the awesome power of God in the arrangement of those familiar features. As before, there were questions he wanted to ask, things he wanted to know. But also as before, the impulse was quashed, and he was intimidated into silence by the Savior's presence.

  Jesus nodded His understanding. "All of your questions will be answered," He said. Tears of gratitude filled the pastor's eyes.

  "Thank you." Jesus smiled again, and His smile brightened the interior of the darkening church with the light of goodness. He gestured with one graceful hand toward the world outside the stained glass windows.

  "This town is home to sin. It is filled with evildoers. It must be cleansed before it can become host to the house of the Lord. It must be cleansed with the blood of the guilty."

  Information flooded into Wheeler's brain, the totality of the concepts that Jesus only touched upon with His words, each course of action instantly magnified and clarified. Wheeler saw tortured faces, scarred and scored and bleeding, contributing to the greater glory of God with the pure and exquisite beauty of their deaths. He saw gracefully severed heads and arms, artfully eviscerated torsos, streams of corrupted blood flowing into a river of forgiveness that led straight to Jesus Christ, He saw slaughtered sinners, immolations, decapitations, and crucifixions. He saw the virtuous rejoicing at the passing of the wicked, wielding weapons of pain in the war of the righteous, the pure and the chaste granting welcome release to the tortured souls given them by the Almighty.

  Wheeler found himself buoyed by the images, suddenly filled with strength, but still it took all of his courage to raise his head and address Jesus directly. "I bought some things for the church," he said. His voice was little more than a cracked whisper. He turned and fumblingly opened the door to the storeroom behind him to display what he had purchased in Phoenix.

  The fetters. The rope. The bear trap. The knives. Jesus smiled, and the radiant glow which always seemed to surround Him grew brighter.

  Wheeler sensed in the Savior a hunger, a craving, an almost tangible desire. Christ's gaze took in the assembled instruments of bondage and pain, and He looked upon Wheeler with approval, eyes shining. "You have done well, my son."

  Again, the minster was filled with an almost unbearable sense of pride.

  His actions had pleased the Lord!

  "You have forty days," Jesus said. "Forty days to complete your task."

  Wheeler nodded dumbly. Forty was the Lord's favorite number. When he destroyed the earth the first time, wiping the slate clean of wickedness and iniquity with the flood, it had rained for forty days and forty nights. When Christ went alone into the wilderness, he went for forty days and forty nights.

  Now Jesus was giving him forty days and forty nights to complete His church.

  Woe to him if he failed.

  Jesus turned away and, for a brief second, Wheeler thought that the Savior looked like his father. He saw the familiar heavy lantern jaw, the thin delicate nose. A wave of cold washed over him and he shivered, unnerved by. the resemblance. Then his attention was distracted by a black shadow that interrupted the rainbow glow, flitting past the series of stained glass windows.

  When he looked back, Jesus was gone: There was only a soft vague luminescence in the air where He had been.

  Wheeler's eyes were filled with tears, his heart with joy, and he knelt down to kiss the floor where Jesus had stood before closing the door to the storeroom and locking inside the blessed instruments with which the Lord's will would be done.......... The shell of the Baptist church arrived early Friday morning in twin flatbeds, a third truck with an attached crane carrying the interior fixtures and other nonstructural items in its half van. There were three volunteers from the ACCC in addition to the truck drivers, and Wheeler had engaged two workers from Worthy Construction for the day. Four other men from the parish had volunteered their own time to help reassemble the church.

  Wheeler stood next to the crane operator, a burly dark tanned man wearing a CAT hat, as the flatbeds were maneuvered into position on the vacant lot next to the existing church. The crane operator frowned as he watched the proceedings. He turned to the pastor. "Where are we going to put the structure?"

  Wheeler pointed to the empty section of property on the north side of the existing church. Ten parish members had spent the better part of the week clearing and leveling the ground. "Right there."

  "You got no
foundation. You got no hookups." "We're going to put it there."

  The crane operator looked around, then turned suspiciously hack toward Wheeler. "You got any permits? Building permits? Structural permits?

  Electrical permits?" .::i

  "We're going to put it there." Wheeler smiled calmly at the man.

  "You can't do this. You have to go through the proper channels. You have to follow the proper procedures. I'm going to talk to Davis. The council can't deliver a church to a location without any permits."

  "Talk to Davis," Wheeler said. The permits were all in order, he had obtained them from the county several days ago and had already shown them to the coordinator, but he was not about to tell that to this ignorantly officious nonentity. He watched the crane operator stride across the dirt toward the trucks, then looked slowly around in satisfaction. He saw the town as it had appeared in his vision, the hard desert ground covered with soft grass and beautiful flowers, the dusty, run-down buildings restored better than new with gleaming fresh paint and clean, shining windows. At the center of this new town, at the center of the new world, he saw the Church of the Living Christ, a glorious monument to the greatness of God.

  He smiled benignly at the group of onlookers who had gathered in the street to see what all the fuss was about. They would soon be dead, he knew, consigned to the pit of hell by the wrath of the Almighty. No more would they dog his heels with their petty annoyances, intruding into his life with the mundane strictures of their secular world. They would be dealt with by the hand of God. He saw in his mind Lang Crosby flayed alive, his eyes white and bulging bug-like in his bloody red-muscled face. He saw Jane Page with a ragged hole ripped between her legs where the source of her sin originated.