by Matt Kilby
“That’s her,” she rolled her eyes, raising the dish. “I’m Sara. Do you believe she made me bring this?”
“Broccoli casserole,” he said, and she snorted a laugh.
“You’d think it was some love potion.”
She blushed again, as if the words were an accident. But her soft eyes watched him as if this was some moment they would laugh about when they told their kids, making him doubt she put up much fight on the way out her grandma’s door.
“Listen,” he said, but she didn’t appear to hear. She slipped across the stoop until she was close enough to feel the warmth under her wool coat. He sighed through his nose, but the way she looked into his face said she still misunderstood.
“I should get this into your fridge,” she said with some meaning behind it he couldn’t guess, but before he thought of a reason for her not to, she pushed past him. He wondered if Iva knew her granddaughter at all and if she would have sent her to her pastor’s house if she did. One thing he could say for sure was she hadn’t spent the time since her divorce looking for a good man. It was more likely she set out to prove none of them were.
Out of fear of the old Tuck, he refused to force her out. He stood helpless as she invaded his living room, though she only made it two steps before stopping short. His attention drifted up the hall to where Carly lingered in the kitchen doorway. She stood half-covered by the wall, enough of her out to show the frilled edges of her black underwear.
“Pookie,” she said, her whine an octave higher than her voice. “I’m freezing.”
She batted her eyes in a way that would have made him laugh if he wasn’t mortified. He imagined Iva’s face when her granddaughter came home with revelations about her pious pastor. Rumors would fire like kindling and, if he made it to Sunday, he wouldn’t be surprised if the sharp stares those old ladies reserved for each other were focused on him. At best, he would lose his church. At worst, he would cost people their faith as they wondered how they had a chance at being good when someone so close to God could fall so far. But before he made it to any of that, he had to deal with what was in front of him. Shocked, Sara Lefitte turned to gawk at him as Carly gave a wink. With his face flushed, he pointed at the front door.
“I want you out,” he looked between them. “Both of you.”
Sara sighed sharp, shoving the casserole into his hands as she walked back to the porch. She might have waited for him to reconsider, but he couldn’t say. He was too busy staring at the half-naked woman in his hallway.
“You too,” he nodded at Carly.
“You don’t want to do that,” she shook her head.
“Why not? Because you think my life depends on you sitting around drinking my coffee? I told you as plain as I can: my faith is in God. If He wants me to live, He’ll save me.”
“It’s that simple?”
“It is.”
She breathed through her nose and disappeared into the kitchen, coming back with her pants on. She buttoned them as she walked and stopped beside him in the doorway, watching Iva’s granddaughter speed out of the parking lot. Carly stared after her and rubbed her elbow.
“It’s cold,” she said as if he would change his mind. He almost did before he caught himself, realizing sending her out might keep the other two from coming back in. He could be done with the entire situation. All he had to do was close the door.
“I’m sorry,” he shook his head and grabbed her arm. He intended to pull her onto the porch, shutting and locking her out, but he didn’t make it that far. Her arm tensed, and he didn’t look up to see why until she said her next word.
“Shit.”
He followed her eyes to the lone figure in the distance, marching toward them. He didn’t know the man but recognized the thing in his hand, a dark brick flashing streaks of light. He knew without asking that the question in Carly’s head was the same as his. If this stranger had the brick, what happened to the other two? Before he found words for the thought, she grabbed his shirt.
“Tell me you have the keys to the church,” she said without taking her eyes from the approaching man.
“Inside.”
“Get them,” she said and let him go, raising the gun to aim. She pulled the trigger, but Brandon didn’t wait to see if the shot was to warn or kill. He scrambled inside to the table next to the hallway, his keys dangling from a wooden cross in its center. He squeezed them as he ran back to be sure he didn’t drop them. As he made it through the door, Carly fired twice more, the stranger’s shoulder jerking with the impact, though he didn’t miss a step. She swore so soft, he couldn’t tell what she said but didn’t think it mattered. Any profanity fit. When she realized he was beside her, she linked her free arm around his and pulled him down the steps. She kept her gun on the stranger, who stopped when they were on his level, fifty feet of asphalt between them.
“You won’t get away,” the man called out, eyes fixed on them. “Turn him over and I’ll let you live.”
Carly answered with another gunshot, this one taking the stranger’s eye and rocking him off his feet. The sound of his head against the pavement was enough to guess him dead without the blood streaming from the empty socket, but she didn’t hesitate a step as they reached the church’s lawn.
“Get the key ready,” she mumbled, her jaw tight with either cold air or adrenaline.
“You got him.” Brandon did what she told him, fumbling for the sanctuary key.
“It didn’t matter for Lester Johnson.”
“Who?” he asked, though the answer didn’t matter. Whoever she was talking about must have explained why the dead stranger sat up and wiped blood out of his eye—an eye that shouldn’t be there. Brandon felt his breath rush out of him and the world buck under his feet, trying to take his balance. Realizing the futility of the gun, Carly put the hand with it on his arm and the other around his waist to steady him. He leaned into her and shoved the key into the lock. When the door came open, the two plunged through into the dark hallway, lit only by the green emergency exit sign above them. Brandon rose onto his knees long enough to lock the door and then fell back beside her. He closed his eyes in silent prayer to thank God for getting them to safety, opening them again to let out a moan.
“I don’t know if the doors will keep him out,” Carly said to the ceiling.
“They’ve survived hurricanes,” he told her and tried to ignore her ominous huff as she sat up. She turned her head, pointing her ear at the door as if it might help her hear the man outside. After a minute, she stood.
“We should be in the sanctuary,” she looked down the hall. “The only way we survive this is with space to see him coming.”
“To see who coming?” he asked and didn’t like the way she shook her head.
“One of them, I guess. If he’s like John, we’re in real trouble.”
The “them” stuck in his head, reminding him of Eric, who said there was someone else inside him. Brandon didn’t believe him. At best, he suffered a mental disorder: schizophrenia or some nervous breakdown. He might have been an addict in the middle of a binge, but whatever his problem, there was no demon. Anything he claimed to know, even the name Tuck Marshall, had some rational explanation. This was different. A man had been shot and not only survived but recovered in seconds. If Eric Vanger was delusional, it was contagious. He preferred that to the alternative of the night happening the way he witnessed it. It would even explain Carly’s wild look as she offered her hand.
“Come on,” she said when he didn’t reach for it, staring at her fingers as if they were the first step toward losing his mind. “It’ll be safer in there.”
His head felt light and empty as if dreaming, but somehow his hand drifted to hers. She closed her fingers and tugged him to his feet. Together, they walked to the sanctuary. The only lights were for the emergency exits, but the front pews were close. He took the lead and pulled her there, kneeling to lean his elbows on the bench cushion.
“What now?”
�
��I don’t know,” she breathed sharp. When she did, a rough crunch came from the vestibule, the hinges of the double doors leading outside squealing as they wrenched open. The dark left Carly’s face a mystery, but her fingernails dug into his hand.
The sanctuary lights were on dimmer switches: one in the vestibule and the other in the hallway behind them. At first, he didn’t realize they’d been turned on, the amber glow low enough to make him believe his eyes had adjusted. But they grew steadily brighter until the room was lit for Sunday morning, unsettling in the silence and understanding his life would soon end in the same room where he tried to repay the debt he owed his God. He glanced over his shoulder at the altar and imagined himself looking at his congregation, hymnals in their hands as they sang “Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow” and then “The Old Rugged Cross” if he gave the music minister the signal. Cowering on the floor, he wondered where his courage went, the kind it took to lead a flock, many who’d rather be anywhere else. The kind that brought him back to Creek Hollow with his head high as he apologized to anyone who listened for what he did as a boy. He thought of Eric Vanger and the voice that asked for his real name. His mind was so full of shame and purpose, he didn’t know he was on his feet again until Carly tugged his hand to snap him out of it. Instead, he shook his fingers free and walked to the aisle to wait for the stranger to shove open the sanctuary doors. Brandon saw him better as he walked toward him, his tattered clothes and shaggy hair like Eric’s the day they met.
“It is you,” the man growled, the brick flickering brighter with every step. “I should have killed you that night at the trestle.”
The words and the memory behind them rocked Brandon, almost hard enough to sit him on the floor. Most of his early life blended into a steady stream of mistakes, but the night he tried to kill Grady Perlson never left his thoughts.
“You weren’t there,” he shook his head.
“After all you’ve seen,” the man said, “you still think Grady was talking to himself? I’m who he saved you from and who you owe every day since.”
Brandon rubbed his forehead as if coaxing the memory. The old words drifted out of decades, but he spoke them aloud.
“Drop that knife or you’ll find out what I am,” he said and the man stopped halfway down the aisle.
“Now you get it. Despite everything you did to him, Grady begged me to show you mercy.”
Brandon shook his head. “You’re wrong.”
“Wrong?” the man tilted his head.
“God spared my life. Do you know what I did with my second chance? I could have run with my father or alone after he was caught. I could have gone far from this town and the boy I was, but I didn’t. I came home to fix what I broke. If Grady stayed, I would have done that for him too. In his place, I fed the homeless and comforted anyone who needed it. Didn’t I prove myself worthy?”
“That isn’t for me to say,” the man said.
“No, it isn’t.”
“But it doesn’t matter,” the man shook his head as he closed the distance to a few short feet. “You were meant to die, so I’ll kill you. This isn’t personal. It isn’t deserved. It’s just how it has to be.”
“That isn’t for you to say either.”
The man didn’t hold any weapon but the flashing stone, but maybe he didn’t need one. If he shrugged off bullets, he could easily wrap his fingers around a pastor’s throat and squeeze. By the look in his eyes, he wouldn’t be talked out of it, so Brandon saved his breath. He sank to his knees, head nodding toward the floor. As much as he wished to be God’s perfect servant in that moment, opening his mouth to find the right words at his lips, fear and adrenaline clouded his mind. He couldn’t think of any prayers, even The Lord’s Prayer or Psalms 23, but in their place, he whispered the word “please” and hoped it was enough.
As feet brushed the carpet, his prayer faltered from the hope he would be spared to a more reasonable request that death came quick. Even then, his mouth formed that single word. Please. Nothing else came for long enough he couldn’t help but open his eyes. Instead of the stranger standing over him, he found the backs of Carly’s legs. She stood between them with the gun aimed at the man, who appeared conflicted about what to do with her. Brandon took comfort in that. It meant he didn’t want to kill her, but he might if she shot him again.
“Carly,” Brandon whispered.
“That won’t stop me,” the man said.
“I’ll shoot you anyway. You want him, you have to kill me first.”
8
“Are you sure?” the stranger approached.
If Carly was honest, she wasn’t sure about much anymore. As bad as her life had been before John Valance, at least it made sense. When she and Snead needed money, they sold drugs. When that special itch came, the one that only left with the prick of a syringe, she used heroin. Everything was simple after that. No one expected her to bring them a beer or dance naked for their buddies. No one tried to talk her into lying still a few minutes to make a quick hundred. All the complications lived outside the narcotic bubble, and she didn’t even get the benefit of normal ones when it popped. Instead, she was sobered by a 150-year-old cowboy who brought her along to kill a couple wayward spirits. At that moment, the only thing she knew with real certainty was the man holding Vick Hafferty’s magic stone was the second of them. She didn’t know what he had to do with the pastor kneeling behind her and didn’t care. Brandon was a good man who wanted to help someone, taking him into his home because he had nowhere else to go. He shouldn’t die for that.
“I am,” she nodded firm. “One more step and I’ll shoot you. It won’t kill you, but I bet it hurts.”
“He has to die and you don’t,” the stranger continued. “I’ll leave you alone as a favor to John. I owe him that. But if you pull that trigger, I’ll make sure you die knowing nothing you did for him mattered. Your choice.”
Carly held the pistol steady but remembered the way he sat up in the parking lot, his eye reforming in its socket. She couldn’t fight him. She could only die and make Brandon suffer in understanding it was his fault. Maybe sparing him the torture was better, but maybe that was the coward in her—the one who turned to drugs when life got too hard to manage. The one who let Snead talk her into things because she was too afraid the road behind her was impassable. After his third step, she still hadn’t shot the man. His thin smile said she never would.
“It’s okay,” he said with a sympathetic nod, standing with the bridge of his nose an inch from the barrel. “This is the right choice.”
“Why?”
“Because he was meant to die,” the stranger said. “Thirty years ago on train tracks a mile from here. It was my mistake he didn’t, and not correcting it risks too much. Too many lives. Too many souls. Isn’t that what it’s all about in the end, preacher?”
Brandon didn’t say anything. She wished she could see his face to guess his mind but didn’t dare look back. As long as she held the gun with the stranger on the other end, she had a choice and a chance to not make the wrong one. The stranger waited for her to decide, but with everything at stake, she couldn’t. A few seconds later, she didn’t need to.
“Warden,” a voice shouted up the aisle, drawing her glance past the stranger’s face to find Vick standing there. She breathed a relieved sigh at the same time the man pushed an annoyed huff through his nose. When he looked over his shoulder, she stared past him long enough to lose hope. At the vestibule doors, Vick stood with his hands at his sides and both empty.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with them,” Vick said. “Whatever I’ll do to make you hate me, they don’t deserve to die.”
“I never hated you,” the man Vick called “warden” shook his head. “You couldn’t help having it easy while I did everything right and got nothing but misery, over and over while you decided to stop. That’s not how this works. You play your part, I play mine, and the world keeps turning.”
“You call this easy?” Vick
took slow steps down the aisle. “My father died in Pine Haven. I lost my best friend tonight. Suzanne is out there while I’m stuck arguing with you, and I’m supposed to accept she’s dying because the guy who knows everything says he’ll help me find her body. If that’s easy, put a bullet in my head.”
“What?” the warden turned fast, his voice a growl. “Do you know where Joe Richards is right now? Where this started for me? I was beaten and tortured, torn apart and reassembled in some government bunker. I witnessed my wife’s murder on repeat until I couldn’t anymore and let her die alone. They took me from my son and told him I was dead. Joe will lose even more before he gets to this moment, listening to you whine about some girl who stopped loving you years ago.”
“Shut up,” Vick shook his head, the mistake building in his sharpened eyes.
“You ruined your chance with her,” the warden walked to meet him. “Then you had to ruin my life and the world itself to save her. As if she’ll thank you.”
The warden’s voice flared as he left her and Brandon, but she knew better than to put hope in the distraction. Vick didn’t take his eyes from the man’s face as he stepped back. She understood as if they’d planned it. He was luring the warden away. She should grab Brandon’s hand to lead him back to the hallway and out the rear doors. Vick probably left his Charger idling for their escape, but she couldn’t move from where she stood watching.
“If the man I become thinks she’s worth that,” Vick said, “I believe him.”
“Belief is pain,” the warden stalked Vick back toward the vestibule, “but I don’t expect you to understand. Not yet.”
“I’ll accept that if it’s what keeps you from hurting anyone else.”
“Don’t think you’re innocent,” the warden growled. “This is because of you.”
“Then I’m sorry,” Vick offered as he passed through the sanctuary doors, his voice quieted by distance. For the second time, Carly realized she should take Brandon somewhere safe, but she couldn’t. She blamed the echo of their voices or the flickering stone in the darkness beyond the doors, the thing Vick and John believed carried the fate of the universe inside. She listened as she dropped Vick’s handgun to her side. Going should have been easy, especially when the preacher touched her ankle as if telling her to let Vick sacrifice himself. She didn’t buy it any more than she would a month ago when plunging enough heroin into her arm to find out what waited on the other side. She didn’t deserve mercy, so she refused to accept any. Instead, she pulled her foot away and followed the two men. She left the gun halfway up the violet carpet, knowing it wouldn’t help anymore. All she could do was watch, but she owed Vick that so walked through the first doors as the warden pursued him through the next, out into the cold night air. She didn’t notice the snow at first though it fell heavy, driving down across the front pillars. Between them, Vick stopped to let the warden catch up, his hands held out as if to placate him.
