Sylvia looked at Peter, who was chewing the inside of his cheek. “Do you…?”
“No,” Peter said. “Nothing about that. Wait here. I’m…” He stood up and scooted past her. “I’ll be right back. Pay attention for the both of us.”
Sylvia understood. Peter had made up his mind. Whatever he had decided to do, he was doing it. She watched him walk up the aisle, hands stuffed in his pockets. The room brightened and darkened again as he pushed open the doors and went outside.
After a moment, George Bateman came over, drinking a coffee, and sat down next to Sylvia. “Well, if it isn’t the lady with the appetite and the dancing shoes. You have fun last night, I hope?”
Sylvia looked up and smiled. “Hi. George, right?”
“That’s it. Sylvia?”
“Yes. I had a great time. It was just what I needed.”
“You mind?” He pointed to the seat beside her.
“Not at all.”
George sat down and glanced behind Sylvia. “Hey, Sue.”
“How goes it, George? I was just telling Mrs. Martell here that I don’t have a good feeling about this. Teenage girl goes missing, it’s never a good thing. Lotsa preverts out there.” She shook her head.
“Jeez, Sue. Always the optimist.”
She threw her hands up. “I’m just sayin, is all.”
“Yeah, well, don’t let Corbin hear you ‘just sayin’ anything,” George said.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m here, aren’t I?” Sue leaned back and folded her arms.
“Where’s Peter?” George asked. “I saw him here just a second ago.”
“He had to get something from the car. He’ll be right back.”
“Ah. I see,” George said and took a sip of his coffee. “You met my wife, I heard.”
“I did?”
“Yep. Beth. She said she just signed you and Peter in.”
“Of course, yes. I didn’t know that was your wife.”
“The one and only. She still can’t believe someone as small as you took down two Delights and a side of fries and still had enough left in you to dance.”
“And how, I wonder, did she hear about that?” Sylvia said, smiling. She felt her skin blush. She was neither proud nor ashamed, just unaccustomed to being the subject of such a conversation.
The room brightened and darkened again. Sylvia checked to see if it was Peter returning, but it was a man in a pharmacist’s coat. He was unbuttoning it as he came up the aisle. “Sorry I’m late,” he said to no one in particular.
She shifted her eyes back to George.
“That was a true accomplishment. I had to tell someone. She didn’t believe me, though. To be honest, I think she was a little jealous.” George winked at her, a friendly gesture. Nothing more. “I told her it was you after she signed you in. I think she believes it even less now.”
Sylvia laughed, then promptly covered her mouth, realizing it wasn’t the place for such behavior.
“Two? I could do two. No sweat,” Sue said softly.
George and Sylvia both glanced back at her. She was fixated on picking something out of the tread of her boot using a small twig. Her lips were tight save for the tip of her tongue sticking out from the corner. Sylvia wondered where the little stick had come from. Had Sue been carrying a twig in her pocket? Oddly enough, she wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.
They turned back around. George rolled his eyes and shook his head slightly. He looked around the room, scratching the side of his face. “I just hope we can get this show on the road soon. Looked like it could start raining hard any moment now. We’re burning daylight.”
A loud bang issued from behind the pulpit stage as a heavy door swung open and found the wall. All heads swiveled in the same direction. Looks of confused disgust slowly emerged on people’s faces. A few of the younger men, police especially, looked more amused than concerned. All the same, the room went cold quiet.
A naked man stood in the doorway at the back of the stage. He was holding something with wires attached to it in his hands. Despite the distance, Sylvia could see how green the man’s eyes were. They could’ve been two glowing emeralds. He seemed torn—terrified yet determined. He trembled, the green metal device in his hands rattling thinly. The wires looped to the ground and disappeared through the doorway behind him, down what looked like a staircase.
Sylvia glanced over her shoulder to see if Peter was back yet. He wasn’t. She didn’t quite understand what she was seeing. Her eyes, coupled with the lack of concern on the policemen’s faces, told her it was probably just a local drunk who wasn’t a stranger to law enforcement. Sure, this was just something he did from time to time—get drunk and show up at church naked. But something deeper let out a distress call. She should go. She should get out of there.
“What’s this happy horseshit?” George said.
“Oh boy,” Sue said, leaning forward again. “He must be drunk as a skunk in a funk. Corbin’s gonna lose it when he sees this.”
One of the police officers took a step toward the man, hands on his hips, nowhere near his gun. He didn’t seem worried, more so annoyed. “Jim, what the hell are you doing? Are you kidding me?”
“I’m doing their will. Please forgive me.” The man pressed his hand down on top of the device.
Nothing happened. George and Sylvia looked at each other. He opened his mouth to say something. But the words never came. A hot, powerful rush lifted Sylvia skyward, pulling her in every direction at once. No pain, just force. Her final thought was that she had somehow been caught in a violent, crashing wave. Soon she would crash on a shore and sand would be swept into her bathing suit.
Then loud whiteness clapped her ears and swallowed her up.
4
“You’re going the wrong way,” Tad Halloran said as Peter headed down the front steps of the church. “We didn’t scare you off, did we? I promise nobody in there will bite.”
“Hi, Tad. No, I’m coming back. I just need to grab something before we head out.”
“More Rolaids?”
Peter laughed politely. “That too.”
“I’ll see you in there,” Tad said. “And don’t forget bug repellant if you have it. That’s always the first thing we run out of.”
“Good to know. Just give me a minute.”
Tad continued up the steps, and Peter continued down, their paths never to cross again.
When Peter reached the bottom, he sat against the stone wall, waiting for Chief Delancey to finish talking with Mr. Collins, who seemed to have cooled down. They were standing on the sidewalk across the street in front of a little coffee shop called The Daybreak Café. After a minute or two, Mr. Collins apologized and headed back toward the church, his head hung low.
“I’ll make a call, Chief,” he said when he reached the other side of the street. “See if I can’t get a few of my guys to come help. How’s that sound? I’ll ask any of em if they seen Ricky, too. I got eyes everywhere. We’ll figure this out.”
Delancey only nodded. He stood there and watched him walk away. When Mr. Collins made it to the steps of the church, Delancey scrubbed a tired hand over his face, then hitched up his pants, his gaze shifting up the sidewalk.
He didn’t look like an approachable man, not at the moment, but Peter crossed the street anyway. He was still unsure of how to go about this. Probably, he would just start talking and see where his mouth led him. What did he really have to lose? Well, maybe besides coming off as completely crazy and somehow implicating himself in a crime by possessing information he had no business possessing. He was, after all, a stranger in town. That thought wasn’t entirely lost on him. But he had a wife who could provide an alibi, if it actually came to that. Maybe all it would take would be for him to give a vague description of the freckle-faced kid and say he thought he saw the kid with the girl, and that would point them in the right direction. Or maybe it wouldn’t help at all. Only one way to find out…
“Chief Delancey?” Peter said
, walking around the back of a parked car.
Delancey looked at him, his hand still clamped over his mouth. He dropped it. “Yeah. Do I know you?”
“You wouldn’t, no,” Peter said. “My wife and I are renting up at the lake. My name’s Peter Martell.”
“The writer?”
“Doesn’t feel that way since I’ve been here, but yes. You a fan?” Peter asked, with an air of doubtful humor. He didn’t realize the offensive implication until he had already said it, and it made him cringe a little inside.
“No. Small town,” Delancey said, his voice controlled.
“That’ll teach me.”
“Uh-huh.” Delancey narrowed his eyes, watching Peter closely. “You’re helping with the search? I saw you in the church.”
“I was told you could use the help,” Peter said, shifting his gaze between the church and Chief Delancey. “You can thank Tad for that.”
Delancey nodded, then folded his arms. “I appreciate it. It’s my daughter what went missing. You heard that?”
“Yes. That’s actually why I wanted to…” Peter trailed off as he noticed Delancey’s attention shift to something behind him.
“Sorry, just a second,” Delancey said, looking surprised. “Benny?”
Peter turned around. Coming up the sidewalk twenty feet out was a familiar-looking man. It took Peter a second to place him, but the name and the face came together. Last he had seen him, he had been falling-down drunk and coming out of Dale’s on a Friday afternoon. It was the guy who had licked his face. Benny looked different, though. This afternoon he had on a clean chambray shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His pants looked worn but washed. And his hair was combed neatly to one side. In one hand was a cup of coffee, in the other was a cigarette.
“Say, Corb,” Benny said.
“That you, Benny? You look…”
“Yeah, yeah. I know,” Benny said, bowing his head a little. “Let’s not make it a bigger deal than it is.”
“How long?” Delancey asked.
“Three days or so. Not much, but it’s a start.”
“Dry is dry. Take it any way you can.”
“Yeah.” Benny took a pull off his cigarette, then flicked it into the street. “Anyway, I heard there was a search being put together for your girl. That true?”
“Uh-huh. We’re heading out in twenty,” Delancey said, almost reluctantly.
“How long she been gone?”
“Since yesterday.” Delancey swallowed hard, then cleared his throat. “Between noon and nighttime so far as we can tell.”
Peter was struck by the balance in Chief Delancey’s voice. It was half scared father, half levelheaded law enforcement. He knew the territory all too well and suspected one side would win out over the other sooner rather than later.
“I’d like to help, if you don’t mind,” Benny said.
“Can you keep up?”
“I’ll manage. If I can’t, I won’t be your problem.”
“Head on inside, then,” Delancey said, glancing at the church. “I’ll be up in a minute to go over things. If anyone asks after me, tell em the same.”
“Sure thing, Corb.” Benny turned to leave, then got snagged on a thought and stopped. “Grace is a smart girl. I bet she’s okay.”
“Thanks, Benny. I’m sure you’re right,” Delancey said. But there was a doubt in his eyes that anyone could see. On top of that, he looked exhausted, completely sapped.
Benny turned to Peter and tipped his head, the two exchanging a polite, wordless glance. Peter didn’t imagine he had any recollection of their meeting last week. He knew drunk, and when he’d first encountered the man, Benny had been just about as bad as a person could get without being on his back, out cold. It was a state where memories weren’t made. Instead, they were shuffled through the mind in a hurry and flushed out the back before they could leave behind any trace.
Benny crossed the street and headed to the church, sipping his coffee carefully with a jittery hand. Chief Delancey and Peter watched him for a moment. When he reached the walkway that led up to the front steps of Our Savior, he hesitated and started to veer left and go down a narrower stretch of walk that skirted around the steps and looked like it led to a lower entrance in the basement of the church.
“That fool,” Delancey said kindly. “He’s going to the preschool in the basement.” He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Upstairs, Benny,” he shouted. Then to Peter, he added: “We used the preschool auditorium awhile back when his daughter… well. He must be confused.”
“What?” Benny shouted back.
“Not Mrs. Penny’s. We’re upstairs,” Delancey yelled to him.
Benny raised his cup to say thank you, then corrected course and doubled back toward the front steps. But it was all happening in slow motion. Something had shaken loose in Peter’s mind. A big, mean thought was blooming. The name “Mrs. Penny” was a key sliding snuggly into a well-greased lock. And now the key was turning.
“What were you saying?” Delancey asked. “We should probably get back inside. Can you walk and chew gum?”
“It’s your daughter,” Peter said, dazed. It didn’t even feel like it was him talking. “I saw…” He trailed off, his mind starting to race with undefinable terror.
“What about her?” Delancey asked, his tone sharpening. “Do you know something?”
Peter stared at the church, his mind unfolding. He saw them everywhere; there but not there. They were on the other side, in the other place… waiting to drink in the chaos, the dread, and all the horrible. The building, the whole area, was covered with gishets. They swarmed like tall, hungry insects with shimmering faces, squatting on the front steps, on the roof, in packs on the street. The strong scent of wet smoke hung on the air.
Peter looked up. The sky flickered red, as if some giant faulty lightbulb behind the sky had just been tapped. Then it returned to normal. The moment held the urgency of collision. This place, this time, was a cosmic intersection designed to bring about one thing: suffering.
Delancey dropped his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Hey, pal, tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”
Peter looked at him, his face a sheet of sad revelation. “Something’s wrong. We have to get them out.” He turned to run toward the church.
Delancey caught him by the collar. “What were you about to say? You know about what happened to my daughter? Spill it if you know something.”
Peter looked at him, then back at the church. Benny had just mounted the first step but had stopped and bent down to tie his boot. There was a silent flash, followed by a hot blast of stinging air.
At some point Peter had been reoriented. He lay on his back, looking up as debris rained down and the wind carried thick black tendrils of smoke across the sky. His ears were ringing. He flopped his head to the side and saw a blurry Chief Delancey on his back, hands resting peacefully atop his chest. A six-inch red streak had appeared over his ear, and it was joining the sidewalk and pooling. He wasn’t moving.
Peter tried to sit up, but the world started swimming. He fell back against the ground with a hard thud, his head landing in what felt like shattered glass. And right before he lost consciousness, the ringing in his ears turned to screams. One fading gray thought saw him off into darkness:
Was Sylvia among the screaming, or was she among the silent?
5
Ricky was just returning to his project since leaving her the day before. He had been a busy boy. Originally he had intended to go back to town, gather supplies, and return in time to have a little fun with Grace that first night. He had never really been able to take his time before, and he liked the idea of savoring this one, especially considering who she was. But one thing had led to another, and he had ended up burying a splitting maul in his father’s forehead. That had needed cleaning up, but it was okay. Letting her spend the night out there alone was a fitting punishment, and his dark thing had liked the idea of seasoning her with a little fear.
After he had left the pump shed on Tuesday, he had gone to the General Store and picked up enough canned food, MoonPies, booze, and cigarettes to last him at least a week. The plan was simple, and Ricky liked simple. There was a certain elegance to simple, not that he really knew what that word meant. But he felt it. He would spend a few days out at the pump shed, which he liked to think of as his hideaway, with Grace. And when he was done, after she had helped give him a proper sendoff from this version of Ricky Osterman, he would leave Gilchrist once and for all and become the thing he was always meant to be—his ultimate form. Maybe he would travel for a while, and when he found a nice place, a place where no one knew who or what he was, he would settle in and start over. Then rinse and repeat as necessary. That was the plan, and it was already in motion… perhaps it had been for a long time.
When he had finished picking up food and cigarettes for his big sendoff, he had driven to his house and parked his car out on the little access road that led to the town reservoir. He walked the short distance through the woods and stole the entire box of .45 ammunition from the glove box of his father’s tow truck. His old man hadn’t noticed the gun missing from under the seat for the week or so it had been in Ricky’s possession, so Ricky doubted he would notice the bullets were gone.
It doesn’t fucking matter, Ricky, he had told himself. You’re never going to see that fat asshole again.
But he had been wrong.
As Ricky was leaving, Chief Delancey had shown up asking questions. He had figured that would be the first place the chief would check when his daughter didn’t come home, especially after the confrontation they’d had earlier that day. But he had heard his old man refer to him, his own flesh and blood, as a dipshit. It was one thing if his father wanted to be a bastard to his face, but Ricky wasn’t going to tolerate that piece of shit talking down on him behind his back, smearing his name when he wasn’t even there to set the record right. So when Chief Delancey left, the judge decided, and the deal came down… so, too, had the ax. These things happen, his dark thing reassured him. These things happen.
After he had dragged his father’s body behind the woodshed and covered it with a tarp, he had gone inside. His mom had been sitting in the living room, combing her hair in the reflection of a cloudy window. Peyton Place was playing on the television. Watching that show was the last thing Nate and Barbara Osterman did together. Of course, in public, Nate said the only television he watched was reruns of The Honeymooners or Gunsmoke.
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