Garden of Evil

by Graham Masterton

  Jim went down a short flight of steps and then walked around the colonnades until he came to a pair of carved-oak doors, one of which was half open. He peered inside and saw a wide reception hall, with glossy brown floor tiles, and a curving staircase that led up to a galleried landing. An elaborate crystal chandelier hung down from the ceiling like a giant spider’s web. He could faintly smell sandalwood incense.

  On the far side of the hall there was another pair of doors, and both of these were wide open. Beyond was a bright, sunlit room, although the sunlight made it too blurry for Jim to be able to see if there was anybody inside it.

  ‘Hallo!’ he called out. ‘Reverend Silence! Simon! Anybody home?’

  He waited, but there was no response, so he called out again.

  ‘Reverend Silence! It’s Jim Rook! I need to talk to you, sir!’

  Still no response. He waited a little longer, and then he pushed the open door a little wider and stepped inside.

  ‘Reverend Silence!’

  He walked across the hallway and into the room beyond. This was obviously the main room where the members of the Church of Divine Conquest congregated, because it was filled with at least ten rows of plain white chairs, with an aisle in between them. The room was so bright because three walls were floor-to-ceiling windows, covered in nothing but thin white muslin drapes. Facing the chairs was an altar, covered in a blood-red cloth. On top of the altar stood two blood-red candles, in silver candleholders, and in between them was a small silver figure of a man with his arms and his legs outstretched, inside a hoop, like Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.

  In front of this figure lay an open book, and as Jim approached the altar he saw that it was the same book from which Simon Silence had been reading to the students of Special Class Two in the middle of the night – the white-bound Book of Paradise.

  ‘You should read it some day.’

  Jim went right up to the altar. The Book of Paradise was quite slim. It looked as if it was probably no longer than Genesis or Numbers or Leviticus, or any of the other books in the Bible. The pages where it had been left open were marked with two blood-red strips of silk, embroidered with circular symbols like the silver figure of the outstretched man.

  Jim looked around. The Church of the Divine Conquest was uncannily silent. He couldn’t even hear the quail whistling on the roof. He leaned forward a little and started to read.

  ‘And The Lord God created Lilith out of the dust of the earth to be given to Adam as his wife. Her hair was long and red like a rose, her cheeks were white and red. Her mouth was set like a narrow door comely in its decor, her words were smooth like oil. Her lips were also red like a rose and sweetened by all the sweetness of the world.

  ‘She was naked but from her ears hung six ornaments, and cords and ornaments hung from her nape and she was adorned with forty ornaments less one.

  ‘But because she was fashioned from the same earth as Adam, Lilith would not acknowledge him as her master and become his servant. She left him and The Lord God was angered and exiled her from Paradise. She made the deserts and all the desolate places her home, and vowed vengeance for the unjust treatment that she had received.

  ‘Before he created for Adam another wife, The Lord God sent three angels to seek out Lilith and return her to Paradise. And the angels’ names were Samvi, Sansavi and Semangelaf. But Lilith spurned the entreaties of the three angels and refused to return to Paradise if it meant that she had to accept Adam as her master.

  ‘When she refused to return, The Lord God put a curse on Lilith, that one hundred of her offspring should die every day, for ever, and that when they died, all should be condemned to Gehenna. In retaliation, Lilith became the mistress of Sammael, the uncircumcised arch demon, known also as the Angel of Death, and thus she became a queen of demons.

  ‘Sammael and Lilith bore a son, Saklas. And when Saklas had grown, Lilith sent him in the guise of a serpent into Paradise. Saklas tempted Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and The Lord God cast Adam and Eve out of Paradise for their disobedience. So it was that Lilith had her revenge.’

  Jim was still reading when a voice quite close to him said, ‘You came, Mr Rook! Good! We were expecting you.’

  Jim said, ‘Jesus!’ and took a quick step back from the altar.

  The Reverend John Silence was standing only ten feet away from him, in his loose white shirt and his baggy white pants, smiling. Simon Silence was sitting on one of the plain white chairs, two rows from the back, although he was looking more serious, and his face appeared flatter than ever, as if he were pressing it up against a storefront window.

  ‘We must apologize for not having explained ourselves more clearly,’ said the Reverend Silence. ‘But you must know from your experience as a teacher that the only sure way to ensure that your students do exactly what you want them to do is to make them believe that they are doing exactly the opposite.’

  Jim said, ‘Ricky Kaminsky.’

  The Reverend Silence continued to smile, unabashed. ‘Yes, Mr Rook. Ricky Kaminsky. What about him?’

  ‘He was still alive when I found him. He said that he was nailed to the ceiling by two men in white.’

  ‘He was still alive? That’s incredible. What a resilient man he must have been.’

  ‘Did you kill him? Did you nail him up there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jim opened and closed his mouth, but he was so shocked by the Reverend Silence’s immediate confession that his lungs were emptied of air and no words came out.

  ‘Before you ask,’ said the Reverend Silence, ‘we also nailed up Bethany Edwards and Alvaro Esteban.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We needed people close to you – or people you knew, at the very least. We could have picked Sheila Colefax or Summer Parks, but as fate would have it, those three were the easiest for us to get to.’

  ‘You murdered my daughter,’ said Jim. His felt as if he were choking on a ball of thorns, and he couldn’t stop his eyes from filling up with tears. ‘That was my daughter, and you knew she was my daughter even before I found out that she existed, and you murdered her, and you nailed her to the fucking ceiling! You’re a psychopath! You and your psycho son! You’re both psychopaths!’

  ‘Mr Rook, please.’

  The Reverend Silence raised both his hands in a gesture of appeasement. He took a step closer, but Jim backed away and said, ‘Don’t you come anywhere near me, you murdering psychopath! I’m calling the cops and I’m calling them now!’

  ‘I think you should listen first,’ said the Reverend Silence.

  ‘Listen? Listen to what? To some screwball psychopathic murderous Old Testament hogwash? Your son writes essays about the world on fire, and people who never should have been, and heaps of smoking bones! You’re both of you crazy! I’m calling the cops!’

  Jim fumbled in his pocket for his cell, and punched out 911, but the Reverend Silence simply shook his head. ‘You won’t get a signal here, Mr Rook. The Church of Divine Conquest is a dead zone, to coin a phrase.’

  ‘OK. In that case, I’ll make the call from outside. See you later, psychopath.’

  ‘Please, Mr Rook – wait! If you walk out on this now, you will never be able to bring your Bethany back to life, nor your father, nor Alvaro Esteban, nor Ricky Kaminsky, for that matter.

  ‘I admit it, yes, we killed two birds with one stone. We needed to make three human sacrifices before we could bring back Paradise, and it was my decision to sacrifice three people who were quite close to you. People you knew, anyhow.’

  Jim smeared the tears away from his eyes with the back of his hand. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  The Reverend Silence slowly paced backward and forward, while Simon Silence remained where he was at the back of the room, hunched forward in his chair, looking sullen.

  ‘We never thought that this day would ever be possible,’ said the Reverend Silence. ‘The world is crowded with psychics and mediums and sensitives a
nd people who claim that they can talk to the dead. There are countless people who have had a near-death experience like yours, Mr Rook, and some of them even say that it gave them the gift of second sight.

  ‘The truth is, though, that not a single one of those psychics and mediums and sensitives is genuine. Not one of them, on the entire planet. Some of them genuinely believe that they can communicate with those who have gone beyond, and to be fair to them they probably do hear voices. But they’re deluding themselves.’

  The Reverend Silence stopped circling, and came right up to look Jim directly in the eyes. If I had a gun, thought Jim, I would blow your fucking head off, right here and now. But he knew that he had to listen. He had to find out how everything fitted together. Otherwise there would be no hope of putting any of this right.

  ‘This may surprise you, Mr Rook,’ said the Reverend Silence, ‘but you are the only person in the world who can actually see the dead and talk to the dead and see spirits and demons and other wraiths, too. Nobody else can, no matter how much they pretend. Nobody. Not one.

  ‘I have no idea why. What happened to you when you had that near-death experience when you were a boy – who knows? Maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe you were born with that ability but it was only when you nearly died that you became aware of it.

  ‘As it was, I found out about it purely by chance. It was Margaret Keaton, remember? That grade school teacher from Santa Monica who shot her husband because his cancer was causing him so much pain, and then shot herself? She didn’t believe she was dead, did she? Not until she talked to you. But you took her walking through Woodlawn Cemetery, and you showed her the grave where she was interred, and then she believed it. But I was there, that afternoon, Mr Rook, and I saw you talking to that dead woman, and it was then that I realized that after centuries of searching, we had at last found the person we had only been able to pray for.’

  Jim was beginning to feel light-headed, almost as if he were going to faint. ‘I think I need to sit down,’ he said. ‘No – don’t help me. I don’t want your help. Don’t come anywhere near me.’

  He went across to the front row of chairs and sat down. The Reverend Silence followed him but stayed at a respectful distance.

  ‘Would you like a glass of water, Mr Rook? Simon can bring one for you.’

  ‘No, thanks. I’d rather die of thirst.’

  ‘Very well. I can fully understand why you’re angry. But I had to make sure that you would help us to bring about Paradise, and that you wouldn’t change your mind.’

  ‘By murdering my daughter?’

  ‘Yes, by murdering your daughter. Because only by helping us to bring about Paradise will you be able to bring her back to life.’

  ‘Jesus. I’ve heard of blackmail, but this beats everything. You and your son, you’re way beyond sick.’

  The Reverend Silence raised an eyebrow. ‘Over six hundred people are murdered in this city every year, Mr Rook. Over six hundred – and for what? Nothing, except to make life more dangerous and more unpleasant. But the meaningful sacrifice of these three people will change everything for everybody. It will bring Paradise.’

  ‘You beat somebody to death and cover them with white paint and nail them to the ceiling surrounded by dead cats. What kind of sacrifice is that?’

  ‘It’s the ritual sacrifice performed by the followers of Ba’al.’

  ‘Ba’al? You mean like the King of Hell? You’re even crazier than I thought.’

  ‘You saw the figure made of smoke. You saw the face in Ricky Kaminsky’s painting. You saw who was standing behind your father, on the seashore. You can’t deny it.’

  ‘You’re trying to tell me that was Ba’al?’

  The Reverend Silence nodded indulgently, like a teacher encouraging a very slow learner. ‘The ritual for summoning Ba’al is this: three blameless people have to be taken out and punished for their blamelessness. Then they are painted white to show that they have committed no sin. They are nailed up high in a mockery of Calvary, to show that Jesus was not unique in being wrongfully crucified for being good, and that the Son of God doesn’t have the exclusive rights to pointless martyrdom.’

  ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. What about the cats? Where do the cats come into it?’

  ‘White cats symbolize purity and good fortune. The followers of Ba’al would nail a live white cat to the gatepost of anybody who had done them wrong, in order to make sure that their luck ran out, and that they were visited by poverty and sickness.’

  ‘And for this lunacy, you murdered my daughter?’

  ‘Oh, it’s far from lunacy, Mr Rook,’ said the Reverend Silence. ‘Each of those three sacrifices unlocks one more door for Ba’al, and allows him to exercise his power in the world of men. And women, I might add.

  ‘The first sacrifice unlocks the sanction of the Holy Spirit. The second sacrifice unlocks the sanction of the Son of God. The third sacrifice unlocks the sanction of the Lord God Himself.

  ‘Ba’al is now free, Mr Rook, for the first time since the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And with your help, he is going to set this earth to rights.’

  Jim stood up. He glanced over at Simon Silence and then turned back to his father. ‘Do you know what I think?’ he said. ‘I think you’re nuts. And I think I’m just as nuts for listening to all of this BS.’

  The Reverend Silence smiled indulgently. ‘How can you say that, Mr Rook? You saw the great Ba’al for yourself.’

  ‘I was tired. I was stressed. I was hallucinating. Too many beers, not enough sleep.’

  ‘How do you think we nailed all those people to the ceiling, and up that tree?’

  ‘I don’t know, and I’m not sure that I want to know.’

  ‘We did it like this, Mr Rook,’ said the Reverend Silence. With that, he spread his arms wide, closed his eyes for a moment, and then rose up into the air, until he was floating more than six feet off the floor.

  EIGHTEEN

  Jim took three or four clumsy steps backward, colliding with the chairs behind him. He had seen spirits levitate before now, and witnessed out-of-body experiences, when somebody’s soul had risen out of their sleeping body and floated out through an open window.

  But he had never seen a living human being lift himself up off the floor by sheer willpower, the way that the Reverend John Silence was doing, right in front of him. He was shocked and frightened, but at the same time he found it strangely enthralling.

  ‘How the hell do you do that?’ he said.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed, Mr Rook,’ said the Reverend Silence, in the same soothing voice. ‘My son and I are not what we appear to be.’

  ‘Then what are you?’

  ‘You will find out very soon, when we gather for the Great Atonement.’

  ‘You still think I’m going to help you?’

  ‘Of course, Mr Rook. You really have no alternative. You want your loved ones back, don’t you? And you don’t want any harm to come to your class. Well . . . no more harm than is strictly necessary.’

  ‘My class? You mean Special Class Two? What about them? I swear to God, if you hurt any of them—’

  ‘Please don’t swear to God,’ said the Reverend Silence. As he said this, he was gradually sinking back down to the floor, and after a few seconds his sandaled feet came softly into contact with the polished-oak parquet. ‘In all momentous times, sacrifices have to be made, and your class will have to make sacrifices, like many others.’

  ‘What do you mean, sacrifices? You’re not going to start nailing them to the ceiling?’

  ‘You will find out very soon, Mr Rook. Don’t you see how dark it’s growing?’

  Jim looked around. The Reverend Silence was right. The sunlight had faded and the room was becoming gloomy. A soft, cold draft had begun to blow through the building, and the muslin drapes rose and fell as if they were breathing. Simon Silence was still hunched at the back of the room, and his face looked even more reptilian than it had before. He gave Jim a slopin
g, triumphant smile.

  ‘Time to go now,’ said the Reverend Silence. ‘You don’t have any objection to driving us, do you?’

  ‘Driving you? Where to?’

  ‘Back to your college, of course. That is where your disciples will be waiting for you. That is where our congregation will assemble. That is where you will assist Ba’al to make the Great Atonement.’

  Jim felt as if his brain was being physically ripped apart. He was being asked to betray everything that he had ever believed in, and compromise every principle that made him who he was. Up until now, he had always retaliated against people who threatened him, no matter what natural or supernatural powers they possessed. But what alternative did he have? If he didn’t bring Bethany and Santana and Ricky back from the dead, when he had the ability to do it, he would be just as guilty of killing them as the Silences were.

  The room grew darker and darker, and the draft blew even more strongly, until the red altar cloth began to flap.

  ‘OK,’ said Jim. ‘But I want you to know that I’m not doing this willingly.’

  ‘Of course you’re not,’ smiled the Reverend Silence. ‘Hardly any of the men and women who have made the most momentous contributions to the history of the world have done so willingly. They have done so because it was necessary. And now that your unique and wonderful gift has given us the opportunity to do so, it is necessary to right the wrongs that God has done to us, ever since Eden.’

  ‘Let’s just go, shall we?’ said Jim. ‘I don’t need a sermon.’

  Simon Silence stood up and waited for Jim and his father to walk up the aisle to the back of the room and join him. The three of them left the church building and went Indian file through the derelict garden. Jim looked up. The sky was thunderously dark, and sheet lightning was flashing behind the clouds. As they stepped out of the front gate, the wind was blowing up dust and dried yucca leaves, which were scuttling across the road with a sound like rattlesnakes.