The Summoning

by Bentley Little

  Robert. He needed to call Robert.

  No. The church. He should call Wheeler first, see if they were there.

  He dug through the notes and scraps of paper underneath the telephone that served as Corrie's address book, found the number of the church, and called it. He got an answering machine, Wheeler telling him in the slow placating tones usually reserved for obstinate children that he was not in right now, but he cared about what you had to say; you could leave a message at the beep. Rich left a message, then found Wheeler's home phone number, her and dialed it. No answer.

  Corrie had no real friends in Rio Verde. Acquaintances maybe, but no friends, no one she saw socially after dark. Still, he called the women she did knowmMarge and where Peggy and she was.Winnie--but' as he'd known, they had no idea

  Maybe she was paying him back for the pizza night. Maybe she'd just taken Anna out for dinner.

  But she didn't believe in wasting money on eating out. He called Robert at home, let the phone ring fifteen times, in case he was in the shower or going to the bath room, then dialed the station. His brother wasn't there, but Rich talked to Ted, told him the problem, and the officer promised to let Robert know the second he came in.

  "You want me to have Steve swing by the church on his patrol?" Ted asked. "See if anyone there can tell him anything? Those construction volunteers are still working all night." "Yeah," Rich said. "If you would. I'll make some more calls. I'll buzz you back in a few minutes."

  "Make it ten."

  Rich hung up. Underneath the end table on which the phone sat, he saw the peachy pink legs of a haft-dressed doll. He was filled with a sudden, aching sense of loss. He'd been about to try dialing the number of one of Anna's friend's parents, but he found that he had to put down the phone. He was shaking, and it was difficult for him to breathe. He hadn't realized until this moment how much he had taken for granted the notion that none of this would touch his family. He had made them take pre cautions, sure. He had done everything he could or was supposed to do. But deep down, on that bedrock emotional level that set the tone for the thoughts that came after it, he had not thought that he or Robert or Corrie or Anna would be touched by this.

  Not even last night, when he'd seen the Laughing Man. He'd been terrified, but he had not, in his heart of hearts, thought that he or his family could be killed or even hurt. They were the good guys. The injuries would happen to other people, people he didn't know that well, peripheral people.

  He knew now how wrong he was.

  He reached out and picked up the doll. Maybe this morning, maybe yesterday, Anna had been playing with this toy, pretending it was another person, making believe that she was its mommy.

  What would he do if something happened to Anna? Since the day she was born, he had not conceived of a future without her. His mind had concocted a million see narios. She'd been everything from the first woman president to a runaway hooker, and he had mentally prepared himself for all eventualities, deciding ahead of time how he would react to each situation.

  But he had never imagined her death.

  That was something he had never planned for.

  He took a deep breath. They weren't dead. They couldn't be dead. At the very worst, they were being held hostage, and he and Robert and Sue and their team would rescue them at the last minute. Probably it was not even that bad. Probably the car had gotten a flat, or they were at Basha's or Dairy Queen.

  Maybe.

  Hopefully. His hands were still shaking, he was still having a tough time catching his breath, but he forced himself to pick up the phone and start dialing.

  They were in the living room of Sue's house: Rich and Robert, Rossiter and Woods. Rich and the coroner sat on the couch across from Sue and her parents. Rich's eyes were bloodshot. He had obviously not slept at all last night, and his head kept falling forward and snapping back as he began dozing and then suddenly jerked awake. Robert and the FBI agent stood, Robert pacing agitatedly back and forth in front of the silent television.

  "This is bullshit!" Robert said. "How long are we going to wait here and do nothing? I'm starting to think you guys don't know as much as you pretend." He addressed Sue but pointed at her grandmother. "How many people die before that old off her wrinkled have to woman gets ass and starts helping us here? ..... Robert," Woods warned..

  "It's okay." Sue faced the police chief. "You can't hurry Iaht sic.

  '"

  "Lot sick?

  "Fate."

  Sue's father nodded. "World not follow your timetable," he said. "You follow world timetable."

  "Exactly. Just because you want something to happen at a certain time doesn't mean it will. Even my grandmother cannot hurry laht sic.

  Things will be revealed in their own time."

  "It just seems to me that you're all being way too calm and inscrutable about this."

  "The old woman knows what she's talking about," Rossiter said.

  Sue fixed him with her gaze. "Her name is May Ling, not Old Woman."

  "I'm sorry. I apologize."

  "Okay." Sue looked toward Rich. He had been in bad shape when he'd first come over, and though he looked a little better now, she was still worried about him. He had been hoarse and despondently slump-shouldered when she'd opened the front door, and the first thing he'd said was, "Corrie and Anna are gone."

  Her grandmother had spoken up immediately, before she'd even had time to tell her what he'd said. "Tell him he is now one of the seven."

  "But I thought you said--"

  Her grandmother frowned. "Things have changed." "He says his wife and daughter are missing." "I know. Tell him this..."

  "Your wife and daughter are fine," Sue translated, and though she sensed the falsity in her grandmother's words, she tried not to convey that in her speech to him. "She said she does not know where they are, but they are safe. They sensed danger and protected themselves from it, going into hiding, and they are afraid to show themselves. They will be okay."

  The look of relief on Rich's face told her that he had believed her, and as she looked at him, she understood how people came to believe in fortune-tellers and palm readers. They believed because they wanted to believe. It was easier to accept the reassuring words of others than face the truth yourself. She'd wanted to ask her grandmother what she knew about Corrie and Anna, and how she knew, but she did not. It was one thing to translate. It was quite another to knowingly lie.

  There was pain in her own chest now as she thought of Rich's daughter.

  Had something happened to the girl? She hoped with all of her heart that nothing had. She'd only known Anna for a short time, but she liked her and cared for her, felt almost as though she was a baby sister. She stared at Rich. She knew what he was going through. She recalled how she'd felt the other day when they'd been searching for John, when she'd thought the cup hug/rngs/might have taken him.

  She hoped both Anna and Corrie were all right Rich looked up from the couch, met her eyes, and she looked quickly away.

  She thought John should be at this meeting too, but for once her grandmother had sided with her parents and said no. He was too weak, too young. As far as she was concerned, his trial by fire had earned him a place here, but her grandmother had not agreed.

  Influenced.

  The word scared her. '

  "We went out to Pee Wee's today," Robert said slowly. i "Went through his stuff."

  Pee Wee. Another empty spot within her. There had been so many deaths lately. She wondered if at some point she would not be able to deal with any more of them, if an emotional wall would go up to protect her and keep her from feeling each loss so profoundly. Or if her emotions would just keep on taking hits as her battered psyche spiraled downward.

  "Did he finish the baht gwa?" her grandmother asked.

  Sue translated.

  "One of them," Robert said. "The other's halfway done. They're both out in my car." '

  Sue translated again, and the look that fell over her grandmother's face ca
used them all to fall silent. The old woman did not speak for a moment. ""Tell them to bring be seven of us. If you go, there will be eight. Someone the baht gwa inside," she finally said to Sue. Her voice was will die. We may die anyway, but if there are eight it will not as strong as before, and there was a slight quaver in be certain.

  Is saving face worth the cost of a life?" it, though she was obviously trying to pretend as though

  "No," he admitted. nothing had changed. "You and your father get the

  "John needs you here. You must protect him." spears."

  During this exchange, the other men watched them,

  Sue and her father walked through the kitchen and uncertain of what was being said, not knowing if it was a into the laundry room to gather up the willow branches conference or an argument. Now her grandmother they'd sharpened earlier, while Robert and Woods went handed Robert the final spear. outside and brought in two oversize mirrors wrapped in

  "For Mr. Buford," Sue translated. blankets. The two men unwrapped the blankets on the

  Robert looked at the sharpened sticks. "Will we sue floor, revealing one octagon mirror the size of a small teed?" he asked Sue. "Does she know that? Can she tell us if we'll get the .. cup hugirngsi?" coffee table and another mirror, slightly larger, that was

  "We will succeed," her grandmother said, and chills something between a pentagon and a hexagon, raced down Sue's arms. Her grandmother was lying.

  Her grandmother looked at the baht gnoa, said nothing,

  She felt it. She knew it.

  She took the spears and gave one to Robert, one to Rich, one to the coroner, one to the FBI agent.

  Di Lo Ling Gum.

  She looked into the old woman's eyes, looked away,

  "Hold on to these," Sue translated. "Until tomorrow."

  "Tomorrow?" frightened.

  "We will succeed," Sue said. She tried to make her

  Sue's pulse sped up as she translated her grandmother's words into English. "Tomorrow we will know." voice strong, enthusiastic, but she was not sure if any of

  "She said there were supposed to be seven of us. the men believed her.

  Who are the other three?"

  They nodded.

  Sue repeated the question, and her grandmother responded with only a few terse syllables. "She is," Sue said. tired!

  ""AndRobertme. frowned And Mr. "Buford look up. After everyone was gone and the house locked up, Sue took a shower. She felt dirty.

  Unclean and uncomfortable.

  "That's what she says."

  "I must go also," her father suddenly announced in And the water on her skin felt soothing and good. She got out of the shower, dried herself, then put on a maxi

  Cantonese. "I must right the cup hugirngsi. "' pad and panties before pulling on her pajamas.

  "You cannot," her grandmother replied. "You must re main here and protect your family."

  God, she hated having her period. She'd read some

  "I cannot let women go out and do men's work while where that women were luckier than men because they stay here and do woman's work." were multi orgasmic but she thought she would gladly give

  "It's the twentieth century," Sue told him. that up if she didn't have to suffer each month. Men were

  Her grandmother turned to face him. "There are to really the lucky ones; they didn't have to go through this.

  She had never gotten a sex lecture from her mother Or from her father, for that matter. It was simply some thing that was not discussed by the family. If she hadn' seen Carr/e and hadn't talked about it with her friend she would not even have known what to expect, she would not have been prepared for her period. She would have thought she was suffering from internal bleeding or something the first time it came.

  Well, that wasn't precisely true. Menstruation had been discussed in seventh grade health class. But the discussions in class about menstruation and sex had been technical and scientific, so vague in practical application that she'd really learned nothing from them. The real fac of sex, the physical, go ly part of it, she'd had learn from her friends and, later, from the books she repdtiously read in the library.

  She opened the bathroom door, and a cloud of steam escaped into the hallway. She glanced toward her parent" room at the end of the hall, saw her mother sitting on top of the bed, brushing her hair.

  Why would her grandmother lie?

  That bothered her. She had been so sure of everythin until now, so certain that her grandmother would tell them exactly what to do, they would do it, the cup g/rngsi would be destroyed, and everyone would live ha pily ever after. But she recalled now that her grant mother's only other encounter with a cup hugrngsi had been as a small child, and that everything she might have learned about stm-stm gwaig'wai, the supernatural, in Cm ton was probably only. theoretical. For all Sue knew, she might be making this up as she went along, acting entirel on instinct.

  She remembered that the cup hugirngsi couldn't cro,. running water.

  But had killed Aaron and Cheri in the river.

  She reached her bedroom. The door was closed. She distinctly remembered having left it open before going in to take her shower. She frowned, turned the knob, pushed the door open.

  And stopped. John was naked and kneeling before her bed. He had thrown the bedspread and the blankets onto the floor, and on the flat sheet in front of him were four or five used maxi-pads. Her maxi-pads.

  He turned toward her, and she saw weak red smears on his chest and cheeks and forehead, blood on his lips and nostrils.

  "What are you doing?" She stared at him, shocked, frightened, and filled with a deep humiliating shame. Influenced.

  He grinned, and there was red on his teeth, on his tongue. "I love your blood," he said.

  She grimaced in disgust, overcome with revulsion. The saliva in her mouth suddenly tasted putrid, and she felt like throwing up.

  He picked up a maxi-pad, pressed it against his mouth and nose like a surgical mask, breathed deeply. He turned toward her, grinning. "I can smell you in the blood," he said. "I can smell your ripe pussy."

  She backed away. "I'm telling Father. I'm telling Grandmother."

  "Have you ever been fucked? I could do it to you if you let me in your bed tonight."

  She turned, ran down the hall. "FatherI" she called. "Father!"

  There was the sound of shattering glass from behind her, from within her room. She stopped running. Her parents and grandmother were already emerging from their respective rooms, her father tying the belt on his bathrobe, her mother and grandmother holding shut the tops of their nightgowns as they ran.

  She hurried back to her room, reached it the same time as her father.

  John had punched a hole through the window and was now trying to clear out the shards of broker glass still embedded in the window frame.

  Blood was flowing down his arm in huge streams, and the remaining pieces of window looked like a pop art project, drops and droplets of red spread out centrifugally.

  Her father ran past her, into the room, and grabbed John's shoulders, spinning him around, away from the window. John hit him across the face, a wet, sickening slap, and then her grandmother was in the room.

  The old woman held her hands in the air and began chanting in a strange musical dialect with which Sue was not familiar.

  Yet, already the chanting was having an effect on John. His arms were falling to his sides, the tension and aggre sive ness leaving his muscles. Sue looked over at her mother, who seemed as confused as she herself felt. Her grandmother wasn't a witch? Then what was this?

  John's eyes were fluttering, starting to close, his body beginning to go limp. Sue tried to listen to the low words her grandmother was speaking and thought she made out the Cantonese phrases for "evil" and

  "mother" and

  John collapsed into his father's arms, and her grand mother stopped chanting. "Get him into the bathroom," she said. "I will treat his wounds."

  "Will he be all right?" her mother asked
worriedly.

  "He will be fine. He will sleep for a day, and then it will be as if this never happened."

  Her mother hurried across the room to help her father with John.

  "Can you do that to the cup hugirngsi?" Sue asked. "Talk to it and put it to sleep?"

  Her grandmother smiled. "I wish I could. But I can noL"

  "Sue," her father said, as he pushed past her, John's bleeding body in his arms, "you sleep in our room tonight."

  "No," her grandmother said firmly. "She will sleep with

  Sue stood in place as they moved into the hall behind her, took John into the bathroom. She faced the broken window, a cold breeze ruffling her hair, and stared unblinkingly into the darkness of the night.

  Pastor Wheeler knelt in the empty church and prayed, his elbows resting on the soft rise of Bill Covey's stomach. The old fuck had died happily, voluntarily, and though he'd thought that would admit him to the kingdom of Heaven, it would not. Oh, no. Wheeler knew that now.

  There was room in Heaven for only forty more, and Jesus had come to earth to personally select those forty. He was separating not only the wheat from the chaff, but the good wheat from the bad wheat.

  Wheeler heard the sound of muffled hammering from far away.

  Tomorrow.

  The Second Coming was tomorrow.

  An electric tingle coursed through his body, causing his penis to stiffen. It would not be long now.

  Wheeler closed his eyes. "Now I lay me down to sleep, with the girl across the street. If I should die before I wake, please, dear Lord, don't let me bake." He squeezed his hands more tightly together, prepared for the big sen doff. "Amen."

  He opened his eyes, unclasped his hands. He pressed his fingers against Covey's naked body, felt the cold, bloated stomach, the white-haired chest. His mouth felt dry, and he knew what Jesus wanted him to do.

  He took a deep breath, bent over, bit into Covey's neck, and as the cool blood spilled, pooled, he began to lick.

  Mor Tillis was cold. He had wrapped himself up like a mummy while asleep, rolling around in his blankets until every square inch of his body was covered, but the freezing air had penetrated his defenses, and now he lay shivering beneath his comforter. His breath was visible, white in the darkened room.