Deadly Decision

by Regina Smeltzer

  A knock sounded on the door. I opened it just enough to see out, keeping my foot tight against its base, then opened the door to Ed and Helen Brown. I tried to predict what they would tell us, but their faces were blank, especially Helen’s. After securing the door, I resumed my post between the living room and kitchen.

  “I’ll get right to it, Steve. Most of the church members support you and believe you’re innocent. They’re willing to go along as usual until the fiber tests on the blanket found in the church are back.”

  So that was it. I moved into the room, ready to suggest we head home. Thank you, Ed, for getting to the point.

  “But…” Steve stated. “There must be more.”

  Ed’s ruddy face morphed into a scowl.

  “I have to tell you, Helen and I are not happy with how this all came down.”

  Steve’s voice remained calm. “You have been a Christian brother to both Lisa and me. The decision is out of your control.”

  “Quiet,” I hissed. Faces turned toward me as I moved quickly to the window.

  Voices were arguing but I couldn’t catch the words. “Do you recognize any of them?”

  “I can’t be sure,” whispered Steve, “but I don’t think they’re from the congregation.”

  A car door slammed and tires squealed on the pavement. A few seconds later, an engine started and the second car sped off.

  “So what’s the news that has everyone so upset?” Steve asked.

  Ed Brown cleared his throat. “The good news is, you’re not fired. The bad news is, I have to ask for your keys to the church building until you’ve been cleared of Jimmy’s abduction and probable death.”

  The room was silent.

  More cars drove by; I tensed, but none stopped. I wondered about moving the couch away from the window. Anything thrown through the glass would most likely hit the pastor or Lisa on the head.

  As I hesitated, the shrill resonance of a police siren came closer, momentarily filled the room, and then moved on.

  “What about Sunday?” Steve finally asked. “Do we have to meet on the lawn?”

  “You can’t come back at all, Steve. No contact with anyone from the church unless they initiate it. We’ll find someone to fill the pulpit—temporarily of course.”

  “You’re treating Steve like he’s guilty,’ Trina cried. “He was set up. We all know that.”

  “It’s the best I could do, Trina. Everyone’s nervous. There was a group that wanted his resignation. They even said if he’s cleared, there will always be a cloud of doubt over his head.”

  “Ed Brown, that’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard come out of your mouth,” Sandra shouted.

  “I was at those meetings too,” Ted interjected. “We need to give Ed a lot of credit for keeping things under control as well as he did. I thought it was going to get real nasty for a while.”

  “So did I, Ted.”

  “Bottom line then, until the fiber tests come back, I am no longer the pastor?”

  “I’m sorry, Steve.”

  Even though I harbored my own doubts about the pastor, I had been sure the congregation would support Steve. Why would people, who less than a week ago had shown love and respect, suddenly turn on him?

  Pastor Steve’s words in the car flashed through my mind. Satan has control of this.

  What did all of this mean? I had been a Christian almost all of my life, been in church almost every Sunday. And yet what did I know about the power of Satan? Had I ever cared? And now…

  25

  Williamson Park had been off-limits for me since the day I ran out on Barbara. I wasn’t anxious to go back, especially to meet with Pastor Steve, but he’d asked me to meet him there, and I couldn’t think of a way to get out of it.

  His agenda: to talk about the ghosts. My agenda: to question him about Jimmy. Reason told me I didn’t have any evidence against the pastor. In fact, I wasn’t sure why I thought he might be guilty, but doubt was there, and since I had entertained the thought, it continued to grow like a wild vine, twining through my brain, grasping tighter, refusing to let go.

  We couldn’t meet at the church, and neither house provided enough privacy. Pastor Steve suggested the park, and I reluctantly agreed. If we ended up in verbal warfare, it was as secluded a place as anywhere.

  Trina was dusting in the entry as I was leaving. “I’m going for a walk.”

  “OK, Dad.” She spoke so quietly I could hardly hear her.

  “Why the whisper?”

  “Shhhh.” She nodded toward the den, where Ted was on his knees.

  “What’s going on?”

  “He’s praying.”

  “I know that. Why is he praying? Who’s sick?”

  “No one’s sick. God puts a burden on his heart sometimes, and he prays.”

  “So he has a burden?” I wondered if his burden had anything to do with my daughter’s illness, and his lack of attention.

  “No, he doesn’t have a burden,” Trina whispered, “someone else does. God lets Ted know when someone is in trouble, and Ted prays for them.”

  “Who’s in trouble? The preacher?”

  “Ted doesn’t know. He just knows there’s a person who needs God’s help. Someone is being tempted by Satan and needs protection.”

  I shrugged as I walked out of the house. I couldn’t imagine praying for nothing, but that was Ted. If I prayed every time I thought something was wrong in the world, I would never get anything done.

  Walking down Cashua, turning right onto Spain Street, I ended up at a stairway leading down into the park. My meeting with Pastor Steve was to take place on the park’s other side, so I took the path to my left.

  Four weeks of subtropical weather had doubled the size of almost everything green. Leafy Kudzu vines twisted around trees and blanketed the underbrush, forming solid green mounds. As I moved deeper into the park, green growth, in a myriad of shades and sizes, concealed much of the swampy ground. Avoiding the bench I had shared with Barbara, I chose another one farther away, and waited, trying to ignore the sweat that coated my palms. What would Steve do when confronted with my belief in his guilt? Trapped men tend to do desperate things.

  A bird, leaving the protection of the trees, flew into the sky. A pair of squirrels scurried across branches so thin they looked like threads.

  I was here to talk about ghosts with a man who may have killed a lovely woman’s grandson. Like the vines that twisted through the park, reshaping to suit their will, doubt had reshaped my heart. I was ready for the fight I knew was coming. Why hadn’t I thought to bring a weapon of some kind, perhaps a knife? I looked around for something I could use, a heavy stick, a large stone.

  Muffled footsteps alerted me that Pastor Steve was approaching.

  “Bill, good to see you.” The laugh lines on his face were now replaced by deep gullies, like those carved from torrential rain.

  I slid to the far edge of the bench, not wanting his body to touch mine. I motioned for him to sit, allowing the palm-sized rock I had picked up to fall to my feet. I kicked it behind my shoes, within quick reach but out of sight.

  “I called my seminary friends. They told me what I already knew.” Steve ran his fingers through his hair. “They were all in agreement, Bill. The Bible is clear: souls don’t linger after death.”

  It had been my intention to control the conversation. Now, forced to reply to his agenda and fueled by my anger, I deemed to prove his theology wrong. Let him flounder as he tries to find rebuttals to my logic, and then I’ll finish with my accusation. A smile crossed my lips. Much better plan. “What about the witch of Endor?” I asked. “She contacted the spirit of Samuel.”

  Steve chuckled. “Wondered if you’d bring that one up. It usually gets mentioned when there’s talk about communicating with the dead.”

  “So what about it? That proves it’s possible.” My smug attitude amazed me.

  “God permitted Samuel to speak to Saul. The witch had nothing to do with it.”
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  Steve sounded tired, but I wasn’t about to extend any sympathy. The same bland scripture-talk made the anger I was holding deep inside boil to the surface. I needed something that supported the fact that I had seen the actual ghost of Jimmy. If I had been able to communicate with Jimmy, he would have told me how he had died. Now I was forced to put the pieces together myself.

  “Since the creation of earth,” Steve continued, “Satan has tried to steal us from God. Using demonic spirits to mimic God’s power, he pulls believers away from the light.”

  I gazed at the scene in front of me as I wondered how soon I should bring up Jimmy’s death. The landscape was a wild maze, untamed for the most part, except for the path carved through it.

  A path through the maze. That’s what I was looking for. A path through the confusion between what I had seen and what I had been taught. And it was becoming apparent I would not find it with the pastor.

  There had been two ghosts. I had not asked to see them, did not seek them out. I did not go on a ghost hunt with fancy equipment. The two boys had just shown up, and my life had changed dramatically. I knew what I had seen.

  And I had experienced something awful with Barbara. There had been nothing childlike about the threatening voice. And now the demon chose to dwell in Trina’s house, and I had no idea why. The ghost boys in my room, maybe they were protecting me. I only felt safe in their presence, where their invisible touch reached me.

  Steve sighed. “Bill, you’re angry with God. It’s all right. He understands.”

  Something in me snapped, like a rubber band breaking inside my brain, releasing the anger I had been holding back. I couldn’t tolerate his condescending behavior any longer. Now was the time. My heel pushed against the rock behind it. “Where were you when Jimmy was abducted?”

  Seconds passed. I wondered if Steve would walk away. It didn’t matter. I would have my answer. His silence screamed responsible.

  He lowered his head and grasped his hands between his knees. “You have no idea the guilt I feel. It’s been eating me up for weeks.”

  I stiffened. Was he going to confess right here in Williamson Park? Just like my daily ghost hunts, I had no plan for a confession. I had planned for denial and anger, but not admission of guilt.

  “I may have been the last person to see Jimmy. He was just getting out of school when I drove by. He was standing on the sidewalk, and I thought about asking him if he wanted a ride home.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  “No. And I will regret it forever. I was running late for my weekly visit to the nursing home, and didn’t want to take the time.” Pain etched his face. “Because I didn’t take the time, a little boy is missing.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Most likely. When I was arrested, part of me was relieved. I deserved to be in jail. I did not kidnap Jimmy, but I might as well have. Satan knows this, and he’s using it to destroy the church.”

  Steve’s confession shocked me.

  “Satan takes every opportunity to cause trouble for God’s people. Arresting a minister is a big deal.”

  “Satan just hangs around watching everyone in the whole world?”

  “No, Satan isn’t omnipresent like God. That’s why he makes his demons spy for him.”

  I had a hard time envisioning demons as spies. Obviously, they existed for some reason, but serving as spies for Satan? Why?

  The memory of Barbara surfaced. What about Barbara? I knew deep within my core that the black figure that haunted Trina’s house was the spirit that had used Barbara’s body. The demon had not been outside of her, but inside, at least for those minutes in the attic. It was almost like Barbara had been… I choked on the thought. “What about demons?” I asked weakly. “Can they still inhabit people, or do they just hang around causing trouble?”

  “There are documented accounts of demon possession in recent years, but Satan has developed some new tactics. He’s learned to be sneakier with our generation.

  My heart shriveled. I had always known the demon had used Barbara’s voice, but the thought that she had been possessed had not registered.

  Demon possession. All I had wanted to do was talk to someone who seemed like a nice person. Demon possession. Was she possessed all the time, or did the demon come and go? Another thought flashed into my mind.

  What if the demon who spoke from Barbara was not the demon that remained in Trina’s house? I had been blaming Barbara for the demon being in the house. Had I attracted the attention of evil by my association with Barbara? Had the demon been watching, waiting… spying?

  Had I opened the door?

  Unworthiness filled me, and I tasted its bitterness. It had all started so innocently. I had not intended for any of this to happen.

  “There are people who are discouraged with traditional Christianity. For one reason or another, it hasn’t met their needs. They’re burned out and need something to fill the gap left behind. It’s an easy reach to turn to the paranormal because of its supposed spiritual dimension. The paranormal soon becomes addicting, with demons being the middle-men, working through the empty words of psychics.”

  Am I addicted to whatever Barbara introduced into my life? But I hate it. Does an addict love his addiction?

  “You’ve been assuming you saw the ghost of Jimmy,” Steve said quietly, “but you’re wrong.”

  “I did see Jimmy!” In spite of everything, Steve had said I still knew what I had experienced. I had seen the ghost boys. I had experienced the black shape of the demon. My head ached. The ghost boys could not be demons!

  “I don’t doubt that you saw the image of Jimmy. But it couldn’t have been his soul. It couldn’t have been Jimmy.”

  “I saw his picture.” My breath came in pants. “It was the same boy.”

  A couple, holding hands, rounded the corner. We sat quietly until they were beyond hearing distance, then Steven gave me an appraising look.

  “I think what you saw was supernatural.”

  I stared at him. Either I had experienced the supernatural or I hadn’t.

  My brain felt swollen within its bony confinement. The pain pills were at Trina’s. Probing for the lump on the back of my head, I pushed it. Pain radiated up my skull. I was still alive, but I wasn’t sure life was worth the struggle. Betsy was right. One cup of coffee had turned into the slippery slope I now found myself on. How could I ever find my way back up its incline?

  Unworthy.

  I dragged my attention back to Steve.

  “There are two options. You could have seen a demon—”

  “The ghost boys were not demons!” I paced in front of the bench, as close to tears as an adult male is allowed to be. Life was overwhelming. What had I gotten into? Where was God?

  For that matter, where had God been when Nancy died, and now Trina? I wanted to shout in rage, shake my fists at the sky. I was close to being totally out of control.

  “Sit down Bill. Please. There’s another option.”

  I perched on the edge of the bench, my heart trying to escape my chest, hands clenching and unclenching, the weapon at my feet forgotten. Would I soon be running from Williamson Park for the second time?

  “God could have sent you the vision of Jimmy.”

  “God doesn’t do that kind of stuff.” Not the God I knew. Not the God that allowed demons to take the form of a little boy. Not the God that allowed a mother and wife to die, and a daughter to inherit the sickness. “God might have sent visions in the Bible, but you said yourself times are different now.”

  “Times are different. But why can’t God send a vision? He’s God. He can do whatever he wants.”

  “OK, say He does. Why send a vision of Jimmy to me? I’ve never met the kid.”

  “That is the question we need to answer.”

  A siren’s call sang in my subconscious: Leave. The urge to run from Williamson Park became overwhelming.

  Steve’s voice echoed hollowly in my head. “Bill? Are you all right?”
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  The bush across from me rustled, and as it did, the bench faded; so did Pastor Steve. All that remained were me and the creature within the bush. It was a soothing place; a spiritual dimension. It was false. I knew it was false, but my head kept telling me that as long as I focused on the bush, I could stay in this place of comfort. I wouldn’t have to hear anyone, or make any decisions. I could simply exist. I should walk out of the park right now…

  “Bill?”

  I was back in Williamson Park, alone in my skin.

  A foggy feeling remained, like the half-dream, half-waking state that follows sleep. I stared into the distance. My energy drained. My fight was gone. “I’m the only one who saw them—Jimmy, and the other ghost boy. They didn’t feel demonic; they seemed to be little boys. That’s what I thought they were.”

  “I’m no expert Bill, but we would be naïve to think there are no evil spirits—demons—call them what you want, around us. Christians are Satan’s primary target.

  “I read somewhere that every home where Christ is the head will have an occasional demonic visit. I think I’m having mine now,” Steve chuckled. “My goal is to keep the visit from becoming permanent.”

  Leave!

  The voice returned, but where could I go? The danger wasn’t in Williamson Park. It wasn’t Pastor Steve. These yoyo feelings had to stop. What, or who, was causing them?

  I clamped my hands over my ears.

  There was only one answer for my behavior, and the thought sickened me, but I had to know. “Do you think I’m demon possessed?”

  Pastor Steve stared past me, toward the wooden bridge where Barbara and I had walked.

  I held my breath, feeling death ready to consume me.

  “No,” he finally said, “that’s not your problem.”

  Before I had time to process his words, he continued. “You’re not demon possessed, but you did experience something supernatural in the attic. It came from either God or Satan. Regardless, it’s a message.”

  My legs were fueled for a race, but I didn’t run. I paced in front of the bench. Back and forth, only a few steps in each direction, afraid to be too far from this man of God. “Since when does God—or Satan—send me messages?”