A dry path of meandering stones and lichen-covered boulders led me along the river. I stepped between and around their endless seams. But it was not until I reached the familiar edge of the church grounds that I realized the skin of my elbow had peeled away. Looking at the damage, I didn’t remember falling down. Yet dried blood languished along my forearm. It seeped into the creases around my wrist as though some crude bracelet had refused to fall away.
Emerging from the river, I fastened the top of the church in my sights. There above me, a yawning moon feasted over the steeple. Had it been filled with teeth, it would have swallowed it whole.
Something I could not explain gnawed at my bones. Gobbled up the skin at the thickening joints of my legs and picked shivers over my ribs at a rate I thought might devour me whole. I went blank then. The walls of my mind slid away at the foundation of what I knew as sanity. And for awhile I stood in that deep dark gap and let it nurse at the things that terrified me. Mother was there too. She never left. I could see her fingernails constantly digging into the top of her coffin.
A push of air surged past my head into the trees. It sounded like someone had thrown a book at me. But it was a clatter of large wings. I threw up my arms and spun around. A barn owl screech jolted me alert.
I stood in the dark all alone and shaking.
I’m not going home. Not tonight. So deal with it.
Outside the entrance to the rear of the church, I squeezed my arm through an open vent hole and found a single key perched on an outcropping of wall. It was used to gain access once a week on Mondays. Warren delegated the duties of cleaning to his family. Although it was rare I ever came alone.
Trying to distance her thin nightmare, I popped the key in the lock and threw the bolt over. Inside the sanctuary doors I followed the curve of the wall around to the back. Then laid down on the last pew and closed my eyes. My head continued to pound, only it didn’t feel as bad when I stayed off my shoulders. And I drifted away to the sound of my heart.
Except sleep wouldn’t stay with me. It toyed with my brain the way a cricket’s legs made noise under a bed. It would come and go. Faster and faster still. Until a bumping sound stirred my eyes wide. Dry lips crackled under my tongue as I held my breath.
I studied the long flowing arches of plaster entwined at the center of the church’s rooftop crown. Slowly, I turned my head sideways, listening to the dark. Shadows filtered down into the black of nothing. But it wasn’t nothing. No. I knew that. Nothing doesn’t make a sound. And I wasn’t alone. Not by a long shot. Something else moved in the church with me.
My imagination became a thing that traced over my fears again and again. Only it never stayed inside the lines. I heard heavy footfalls one moment. The struggle of water filled lungs the next. It never stopped. Even the unmistakable rattle of chains dragging the center aisle. I flexed my neck back harder, looking behind me at the top of the pew, but not seeing anything.
The heavy sound of those footsteps shuffled along the carpet. Closer than before, I could tell. Blood boiled in my veins. I turned to my side, a sudden burst of adrenaline in my stomach. From the darkness a simmer of laughter cooked off in my ears. And fear caught fire.
Quickly, I slipped off the pew to the floor and pushed myself under the bottom of the seat. The wall of the sanctuary pressed into my back. From beneath the row of wooden supports anchored to the floor in front of me, I could see along the center aisle. Hear nothing but absolute quiet. Nothing moved. And I found it so hard to breathe in the silence.
Cords of dark iron flashed across the front of my face with a clatter. My head jolted backward into the wall. Above me, the pew strained under the collapsing weight of something heavy. I opened my mouth and tried to inhale, but the muscles in my chest never moved. Swirls of metal links, pelting the floor, filled the space with their sound and I shut it down. Closed off my mind.
For what seemed an eternity I lay there in the darkness. And when I finally opened my eyes, it was to lengths of chain and the muddled, pallor of translucent skin. What amounted to rotting calves and bone. Two dead things pocked full of purple lesions and spider-web veins. And they were so close to my face I could touch them.
Then the smell hit me. The unmistakable scent of death gagged in the trap at the back of my throat. And I almost vomited breathing in the air around them. Oh, my—God! I bit hard into my lip. Don’t breathe. You don’t want it to hear you. Tears skated over my cheeks as I tried to force out the smell. But I couldn’t. And those pitted chains drifted closer. Swung within inches of my nose and my flesh seized hold of the base of my skull and rocked my eyes back in fear.
They were not alive, but dead things made deader by the chains draped around them. Those terrible rings of filth which rose above the ankles. And I knew something else about them. That they walked from a long way away. Through hell, I thought. Through fields of the dead.
“Lee, why are you hiding?” it asked in low a simmer, like dry sand shifting through a narrow hole where air tried to escape around it. “Why don’t you come out so we can talk? Catch up on old times. Then you can see me with your eyes. I know you want to. It’s been so long.”
Something inside me began to weaken with that. And I didn’t mind the smell of it anymore. Because the sound of its voice did enough to make me sick. Like staring at a safety line leading into a dark hole, it ate away at the place in my mind where sanity kept a grip. I saw the rope slipping through my hands.
“I can smell you, your fear,” it hissed. “I know you’re under there. Keeping quiet. Hiding. We can never hide for long, can we?”
No, I wanted to scream. We can’t hide from you. And I stared at those nasty rings around its ankles, my eyes drawn to them. They were death stains. I understood that then. And whatever it was, I knew I was scared of it—of the chains—of where it had been. Its filthy feet told of places I didn’t care to go. And more than that I didn’t want to see above those stains. Have my eyes rest on it. I thought of pictures of petrified wood in a museum and I imagined that it shared a face with that, chains wrapped around its ancient neck and body.
I locked hold of my knees and brought them up to my chest. “Who are you?”
“Don’t you mean, what are you?” it asked in its sandy voice. “After all, that’s what you’re thinking.”
“What do you want?” I thought of its voice, a haunting thing I couldn’t quite place, but knew from somewhere.
“I’m an old acquaintance, but that doesn’t matter anymore. The past is gone, here today and dead tomorrow. What matters is things are about to change. Even before you know it, you will know it. All that you’ve seen has run its course and what’s coming, you cannot stop. These things too shall pass.” Long dead fingers curled under the pew as it called down to me, chain links spilling onto the floor like dead metal flies around me. “Rest now and sleep. It is the beginning.”
I pushed my back flat into the wall, not wanting to hear what it said. “Get away from me!” I screamed until my eyes were closed, hoping it would disappear. “You’re not here. You’re nothing—”
“You will know. Your days are numbered by 17,” the thing in the chains whispered, its words a brittle sound like rotting leaves. And it was gone.
I opened my eyes; the ghostly legs and chains were nowhere to be found. Reaching out across the floor, I searched for the links I saw drop around me, but found none of them. They were gone.
For a long time I laid there losing my mind, the memory of the chainman’s voice and its strange premonition in my ears. Your days are numbered by 17. But what did it mean? I rolled out from under the pew and sat up in the semi-darkness of the church, a murky well of light shining across the ceiling. There was no one.
When I was sure I was alone, I crawled back under the pew, chest facing out, and let sleep come for me, the number 17 and its meaning drifting at the edge of my mind. At some point it became a sense of relief. Of hope.
By morning the headache behind my eyes had nearly drifted awa
y, blown through my brain like the volatile pattern of a storm that had expended itself far out to sea. In the wake of its stormy departure, I was left with a blinding soreness. Everything from the arches of my feet to the joints and tendons of my body ached with an almost intolerable pain.
Somewhere outside, the voice of the wind whispered high in the boughs of the surrounding trees. I pictured silver maples tipping the belly of their crowns to the darkening sky, an offering before the storm. Eventually the sound of a downpour flooded the quiet. It ran the lines of the roof and poured down walls and glass and covered the church in a sheet of endless rain. And the weather came about sideways.
Above where I lay, through the sloping pathway of two pews, loomed a stain-glassed Christ in the chapel wall arch. His features blackened under the dim lit light of a raging storm. Sadness fixed His eyes. Like He realized the reality of sin carried a far greater burden than His people could bear.
Rain streaked His face in teary shadows that ran gray to black. It was as if He looked through the window of my soul and understood I carried the weight of glass. Only mine lay shattered in the worn out ruins of my life. And because of that I wanted to scream at Him and scream again until the damaged pieces on the inside of me came undone on the floor. You stand there and bare your cross and I’ll bear mine.
A sound stirred in the front hallway.
Came all the way through it on the wave of shadow and light that poured out from under the door.
My shoulders locked up.
Laughter spread across the sanctuary, followed by the sound of a door slamming on its hinges. My back pressed into the wall. The muffle of voices funneled under the pews. Hushed whispers like sandpaper. A man and woman.
Far below the angling floor, past the underside of the last pew, I caught a glimpse of two sets of feet standing together, toes facing into one another. They were almost touching and then they did. Two of them appeared larger than the others and both were absent of socks and shoes. I watched the noticeably smaller ones push forward, up onto the balls of the feet, toes curling over as a pair of delicate knees emerged against the sanctuary floor, followed by the bare curve of a woman’s hips rocking back to her heels, and the dark shape of her sex.
Then her hips listed in the air and the guttural tones of a man’s voice rose above the alcove. Drifted past the balcony to the door that led up to the steeple. Growing steadily louder, it registered in my mind as more animal than man.
“That’s it. Take it!” A man’s voice screamed.
A dead shiver coiled tight through my bladder. And I felt the warm swell of piss release across my left hip and I shuddered as it seeped under my shorts into the red carpet between the pews. Oh, Christ. I closed my eyes at the small half ring that broadened at its edge.
All the functions of breathing seemed to leave my body. Like a pile of corn husk, I lay there stripped lifeless. Tears washed out of my eyes as I envisioned the beating I’d get if Warren caught me. I took in the darkening stain at my waist. It’s not so bad. You can hardly see it. Right? So calm down. It’ll be okay. It’s barely even there—no, wait! Just use your shirt.
Leaning out, I quietly tugged at my clothing, hand mashing into the stain over and over again. When I pulled back I could smell the piss against my skin. But looking down, the darkened spot was no longer dark. Most of it came away. Now it was a faded color. You almost can’t tell. That’s good. It’s more of a worn spot. But the lie seemed cheap even to me. Because I could see it. It was right there staring me in the face. Clear as day. And I didn’t want to consider what would happen if Warren laid eyes on it too. He might just beat me senseless or something worse. Something I could easily not wake up from.
If anyone in the church found out he was sleeping with a woman from the congregation it would be catastrophic. Everything would be lost. Thinking about it hurt my head. I tried to push it out of my mind, but it wouldn’t go easy. Like a dog that had been scolded away, it left with its tail between its legs. Only it didn’t go far. It hung around outside the yard for a chance to redeem itself.
From under the front pew I saw the woman’s knees moving away to the alter, the arches of her feet flaring out as she lifted herself onto the first step. Then Warren’s knees dropped behind hers, his legs moving in and out as he took her from behind. I could see her hands gripping the back of the second riser, fingers spread wide.
Who are you? Something inside me desired to know the woman’s name. Know everything about her.
I looked down there again and saw her heels wrap around the backs of his legs, pulling him harder into her. The sound of her grunts pounding in my ears.
Why? Does it matter? But it did. For some reason I couldn’t explain it mattered to me greatly.
I reached hold of the hymnal pocket attached behind the pew in front of me and lifted up just enough to peer over the top. Out in front, I could see Warren’s naked back, his shoulders tensed into a thin sweat that rippled out along his arms. His body continued to thrust forward with each stroke, growing faster under her whimpers. Then he stretched forward and groaned in her hair, his hands working to pull her hips tighter, his backbone a spasm of muscles all slicked and arching like a hairless dog. When he finished rolling off her I could see the wet of her sex lifting up still, her bottom rounding under her like a heart. And there off to the side was the outline of Becky Odel’s face, blond hair thrown over her eyes.
I dropped down against my elbow and caught hold of a hymnal by accident. It fell out onto my arm with a flutter of pages, landing softly onto the floor. My heart jumped into my throat so hard I thought the arteries in my neck would rupture free. I froze in absolute panic.
Oh, God! Oh shit!
“What was that?” I could hear Warren’s feet hit the floor.
“I didn’t hear anything. What—”
“Shut up so I can listen.” Warren sprinted up the aisle and stopped midway. “I heard something.”
I squeezed under the pew, pushing my weight into the wall again. From there Becky Odel’s feet twisted around in place, following him through the sanctuary. A flash of color shot across the center aisle. I could see Warren’s feet turning back and forth and then gradually move away. Down in front of me I saw the hymnal lying under the pew. Without thinking I reached out and snagged the book with my right hand, picked it up, and brought to my chest and held it tight.
“Do you see anything?” Becky Odel asked.
Warren didn’t answer.
I lost sight of him. And that sent me crashing over the edge more than anything. Drug up that deep panic that unfolded out of the waves of hysteria. The one that wanted to know…Where’s he at? And with a deep breath I closed my eyes and kept still, temples buckling under the blood that coursed in my veins.
Thooff, thooff, thooff.
It was the sound I opened my eyes to. The sound that brought Warren’s feet standing in front of my face. Only now the urge to pee again burned in my shorts. Then I remembered the stain from earlier. The stain of piss I’d left at the carpet runner’s edge.
Warren pivoted around and I could smell him, smell the sex on his skin he brought with him and I wanted to be sick more than ever. And I thought of the chainman then and how scared I’d been, and it felt nothing like that. It was much worse. Your days are numbered by 17. I wasn’t going to live long enough to see 17 days.
His toes faced away from me, toward the front of the church. My eyes never moved from the piss stained carpet less than nine or ten inches from the outside of his heel. If he turned around again he’d step right in it with his bare feet and he’d know. Just like the chainman, he’d know. Warren would drop down on his knees and drag me out from under here and beat me to death. I wouldn’t live through the morning. He’d pull me kicking and screaming into the tacking shed, spouting out his lesson plan. The one for making my skin bleed.
“It was nothing,” she said, and my eyes lifted enough to see her walking closer. “Now come back down here, baby. I have to leave in a few
minutes. If you hurry, you can have me one more time.”
And he did, in the largest of the three chairs, behind the pulpit, with her legs straddling the heavy wooden arms rising out of its base, the one he normally stood from to deliver his Sunday message to the smiling faces of the church—and he screamed at her when he came. He screamed in pleasure, and it was a sound that I thought would jar my teeth loose.
I waited after they moved through the hall for fifteen minutes. Then I climbed out on my knees and crawled along to the back. I glanced under the pews one last time. Nobody was around. With that I stood up and darted through the door that led to the vestibule. Along the far wall rested the staircase leading into the basement of the church. Grabbing the handrail, I took the stairs two at time. The front of my shorts and shirt were wet with piss, and they gave off a stench in the dark. At the end of the corridor I turned left and headed to the far entrance steps. They would open out to the woods. When I got there I paused against the door and listened carefully.
“Same time next week?”
I jumped away at the sound of the voice as if a raging fire burned behind the door and the sheer touch threatened to consume my face.
The Weight of Glass Page 24
