Sycamore Bluff

by Jude Hardin

  “Oh. I thought maybe they were part of some unseen force that was going to rain fire down on us if we misbehaved or something. It just sounds so ominous. The Monitors. Like something from a horror movie.”

  “It’s nothing like that,” Diana said. “Although they do sometimes dictate addendums to the rules in town meetings. They use a tape recorder and disguise their voices.”

  Colt nodded. “That explains the reel-to-reel on stage there in Town Hall. Not exactly state-of-the-art, but whatever works.”

  “To me, it looked like a big mechanical owl or something.”

  “An owl?”

  “You know, from a distance. The way the light was hitting it and all.”

  “If you say so.”

  Diana picked up her plate and drinking glass, took them to the sink and rinsed them off and loaded them into the dishwasher.

  “So do you know which couples are The Monitors?” Colt asked.

  “No. But if I had to guess, Brad Washington would be at the top of my list. And his wife, of course, even though we haven’t met her yet.”

  “I don’t know. Brad seems too nice to be any sort of tattletale hall monitor. To tell you the truth, he seems too nice to be any sort of human being.”

  “He seems pretty normal to me,” Diana said. “Maybe you’re just accustomed to dealing with jerks.”

  “Maybe.”

  Diana looked at her watch. “We need to get ready for church,” she said.

  “How about we just stay home and watch Sixty Minutes?”

  She ignored Colt’s little joke. “Did you bring a suit?” she said.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Well, find something decent to wear. And by the way, there’s an ironing board down in the basement by the washer and dryer. Use it.”

  “You trying to be the boss of me again?”

  “How about if I say pretty please with sugar on top?”

  “I’ll think about it,” Colt said.

  #

  It was a large white building with clapboard siding and a steeple with a bell and a sign out front that said The Church. It was the kind of structure you might expect to see on a Christmas card from the 1940s, with snow on the ground and a one horse open sleigh jingling by and children with heavy coats and scarves running around gleefully. Colt parked the car. He and Diana got out and started toward the front door.

  Diana threaded her arm inside Colt’s. He looked over at her and smiled.

  “Strictly for appearances,” she said.

  “Yeah. Come on. We’re late.”

  The service had already started, and the congregation was singing an old-time gospel hymn called “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” Colt remembered the song from when he was a kid. His mother gave him a vitamin every day and she took him to church every Sunday. Maybe he would have turned out better if she hadn’t wrapped her car around a tree when he was five. Then again, maybe not. Maybe there was such a thing as destiny, and maybe Colt was exactly where he was supposed to be right now. In church in a fabricated town on a bluff in Indiana. Maybe his stepfather was supposed to have blown his own brains out with a .44 Magnum when Colt was fifteen. Maybe Susan and Harmony and all the members of Colt’s band were supposed to have roasted in that airplane when it crashed, and maybe Juliet was supposed to be in a hospital bed in a coma now. Maybe Colt’s days as a world class guitarist were supposed to have ended when a Tennessee cracker named Lester crushed his left hand with the heel of a work boot. Maybe Colt’s best friend, Joe Crawford, was supposed to have been tortured and killed by an insane billionaire sadist playing a demented real life version of the videogame Snuff Tag 9 in the Okefenokee Swamp.

  Other than the situation with Juliet, the brutal, senseless murder of Joe Crawford haunted Colt more than anything these days. Malden Zephauser, the man responsible, had mentioned on several occasions that he was part of a group called The Sexy Bastards. Zephauser was dead now, and Colt hadn’t been able to find out anything about the group, or if they even really existed. He’d made a vow to himself to keep trying, though. And if he ever did find out who they were, he would do everything humanly possible to hunt them down and kill every last one of them. He would do it for Joe.

  So maybe all those things were supposed to have happened. Maybe there was such a thing as destiny.

  And maybe pigs were supposed to smell like roses.

  Colt thought about the jug of Old Fitzgerald in the cupboard and he looked forward to getting back to the house and having a drink.

  He and Diana slid into an empty pew near the back. The sanctuary was probably big enough to hold all six hundred and twelve residents, but there weren’t nearly that many people in attendance tonight. A hundred at most.

  Colt figured the majority of the residents had gone to the morning service. Those who chose to attend church, that is. It wasn’t mandatory. It wasn’t one of The Rules. Colt imagined that the townspeople who weren’t here at the moment, the believers and the non-believers alike, were at home relaxing now, resting up for the grueling seventy-two hour work week that would start tomorrow.

  The man standing behind the pulpit wore a long white robe, which matched his long white hair and beard. Embroidered patches of a Christian cross, a Star of David, a yin and yang, an angel moroni, a mandala, and several other religious symbols Colt didn’t recognize, had been stitched onto the satiny gold stole draped around his shoulders. A matching gold hat with a jeweled fleur de lis topped off the ensemble. The minister had a deep booming baritone singing voice, and he led the congregation enthusiastically, keeping time with his arms and hands in a manner similar to that of a symphony orchestra director. There was a harp player on one side of the altar and an organ player on the other. No guitars or drums or horns or any other potentially sinful instruments.

  The song finally ended and the man behind the pulpit said, “Amen. Thank you, Lord, for these Heavenly voices among us tonight. Welcome to the evening worship service, brothers and sisters. Before I say an opening prayer, I would like for everyone to welcome the newest members of our congregation. Mr. and Mrs. Millington, would you mind standing for just a moment?”

  As Nicholas Colt and Diana Dawkins rose, everyone in the crowd turned and looked at them and said in unison, “Welcome, Brother and Sister Millington!”

  Colt surveyed the shiny bright smiling faces, thinking this had to be, without a doubt, the happiest group of people he’d ever seen. They appeared blissful, but in a subtly strange way. Almost as if they were being paid to wear those joyous expressions. As if they were actors in a television commercial, where each and every one of them had recently been cured of athlete’s foot or constipation or something.

  Nearly each and every one of them, that is. Of all the Sycamore Bluff residents turned and gazing his and Diana’s way, Colt noticed only one who wasn’t wearing an ear-to-ear, just-won-the-jackpot grin. It was a young man, mid to late twenties, with dark brown hair and blue eyes and a mustache. He wore a black dress shirt and khaki pants, no tie. In contrast to everyone else, he looked downright melancholy. He wore a hangdog expression, sad and gloomy, as if someone had recently delivered some very bad news. Maybe he just didn’t feel good, Colt thought. Maybe he had a cold or something. Whatever the case, Colt was intrigued by the fact that he seemed immune to the glee bug that had bitten all the others. He was sitting alone, too, whereas everyone else was with a spouse. Interesting.

  “Can we sit down now?” Colt said, speaking to Diana from the side of his mouth.

  She nodded and they sat and the congregation turned its attention back to the man behind the pulpit, who finally introduced himself as Reverend Tobias R. Finley.

  “Let us bow our heads in prayer now,” he said.

  After a brief word of thankfulness for God’s wonderful grace and mercy, he began a sermon on the evil of coveting another person’s possessions. He started out slow and easy, but within a few minutes he ventured from the pulpit and paced the stage and thumped his Bible and shouted
things like glory hallelujah and praise the Lord. Reverend Finley might have pretended to be an interfaith kind of guy, but Colt knew a good old fashioned fire and brimstone evangelist when he heard one.

  Colt grabbed one of the New Testaments on the rack in front of him and pretended to follow along, but he was having some trouble concentrating. His legs were sore from the long hike last night, and he wanted a drink, but it was more than that. It was this place. The vibe here was just all wrong. These people weren’t normal, no matter what Diana Dawkins said. The residents of Sycamore Bluff had either been drugged, or brainwashed, or both. Colt was almost sure of it.

  After the sermon, there was some more singing and then an altar call. Colt remembered the practice from his days in the Baptist church as a child. Of course he’d been to protestant services a few times since then, but Juliet was Catholic, so in recent years he’d attended mass with her whenever he attended. Which was seldom.

  Catholics have an entirely different routine, but in a protestant church, if you wanted to be saved—to be born again, as they called it—you were supposed to step away from your pew and come forward and kneel at the altar and ask to be forgiven for all your sins. A sin was a sin was a sin, as Colt remembered it. So you could just as easily go to hell for stealing a tube of toothpaste as you could for murdering your family with a hatchet. This never made sense to Colt, even as a five-year-old. The punishment should fit the crime, he’d always thought. Nobody should have to face eternal damnation for looking at a Playboy magazine, for example. Maybe a guy who lusts in his heart should be sentenced to a few days in the lake of fire—a week at the most—but having to stay there forever just seemed a little extreme.

  The congregation sang a song called “Just as I Am” while Reverend Finley opened the altar to anyone who wanted to come forward. Nobody made the move. Apparently everyone in the building was either saved already or, like Colt, intended to keep on sinning.

  “In closing, I want to wish everyone a happy and safe work week,” Reverend Finley said. “May God bless you all.”

  “That’s our cue,” Colt said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Don’t be in such a rush,” Diana said. “We should go meet the pastor.”

  “What was the point of sitting all the way in back if we can’t make a run for it now?”

  Diana glared at him. “Put a sock in it,” she said.

  “Is that any way to talk to your husband?” Colt said.

  “You’re right,” Diana said. “I’m sorry. Put a sock in it, dear.”

  Colt followed her into the aisle, and they shuffled forward and stood behind some other folks who’d walked to the front of the sanctuary to shake Reverend Finley’s hand. Everyone was cheerful and friendly, and several of the other couples introduced themselves to Colt and Diana as they waited in line. Colt looked around for The Unsmiling Man, but evidently he’d hightailed it already.

  One of the couples who introduced themselves was the Piccards, Mel and Nancy, who also happened to live on Beaver Avenue. Mel was tall and balding and forty-ish and wore a gray pinstriped suit, and Nancy was short and plump and a few years younger and wore a navy blue dress that matched Mel’s tie. Meticulous grooming, expensive jewelry, blindingly bright porcelain veneers. They appeared to be as happy, and as phony, as a pair of mannequins in a display window. Maybe not mannequins, Colt thought. More like a couple of clueless crash test dummies, unaware that they were soon to be strapped in and hurled forward on a three-second joyride to Wreckville.

  “We’re practically neighbors,” Nancy said. “You guys will have to come over for dinner one Sunday afternoon.”

  “Nancy makes a mean meatloaf,” Mel said. “Hey, after we eat, maybe we could head on over to The Bowling Alley and bowl a few games before church. You like to bowl, John?”

  “I’m not very good at it,” Colt said. “They have a pool table in there?”

  “Why, yes they do, as a matter of fact. That’s a great idea! You and me can go shoot a game of pool. I haven’t played in a while, so I might be a little rusty, but I used to be pretty darned good.”

  “Great,” Colt said.

  “How about next Sunday?” Mel said. “I think we’re free, aren’t we sweetheart?”

  “I think we are,” Nancy said. “Yes, next Sunday will be fine.”

  Colt looked at Diana.

  “That’ll be fine,” Diana said. “Thanks so much for the invitation. It sounds like fun.”

  “Just give us a call sometime Sunday morning so we’ll know for sure that you’re coming,” Nancy said.

  It was Nancy and Mel’s turn to spend a moment with Reverend Finley, so they pivoted his way and made a gushingly big deal over the beauty of the service and the brilliance of the sermon. After shaking his hand a few million times and passing a few million germs back and forth, they made their way toward the exit, craning around at the last minute to wave goodbye to their new best friends, John and Karen Millington.

  Diana stepped forward and greeted the pastor.

  “That was lovely,” she said.

  “Thank you so much. And welcome to Sycamore Bluff! It’s always a blessing to have another pair of believers among us. I would like to arrange a private meeting with the two of you sometime in the next few days, just to share some thoughts and get a feel for your spiritual needs. If that would be okay.”

  “That would be terrific,” Diana said. “We’ll look forward to it. Feel free to call or stop by any time.”

  Colt didn’t say anything. He decided John Millington needed to be the quiet reflective type. He smiled and shook the Reverend’s hand and moved forward to make way for the next couple in line.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  On the drive home, Diana said, “You could have been a little friendlier back there.”

  “With the preacher?” Colt said.

  “With the preacher, with the Piccards, and with everybody else. We need to make friends here, Nicholas. That’s the only way we’re going to find out if there is, or if there has been, any sort of suspicious activity. Anything that might lead the scientists running this thing to believe that Kyle Lofton poisoned their little experiment. The sooner we rule that out, the sooner we can go home. You understand that, right?”

  “Yeah. But I think there’s something else going on here.”

  “Like what?” Diana said.

  “It’s nothing I can put my finger on. It’s just a feeling. Everyone’s just a little too jolly. It’s not realistic. It’s like they’ve been drugged or something.”

  “Drugged?”

  “Well, not really. As a musician, I was exposed to a lot of illegal substances and, as you know, I had a problem with heroin myself a while back. Narcotics make you feel good, but they also make you dopey. Drugs like cocaine and ecstasy get you flying high, but then you crash hard when they wear off. These people aren’t like that. They’re in a constant state of euphoria, only without any of the negative side effects normally associated with mind-altering chemicals.”

  “And you’ve figured all this out just from meeting Brad Washington last night and sitting through one worship service this evening? Think about it, Nicholas. These people were at church. Religion does that to people. What was it Marx said? The opiate of the masses? I bet when the people we saw tonight have to get up and go to work in the morning, they’ll be as grouchy as anyone. Or, maybe the residents here are genuinely content with their lives. Ever think of that? Maybe the experiment is a huge success.”

  “Maybe,” Colt said. “Or maybe I’m right. Maybe you’re ignoring the obvious because you’re so anxious to get out of here, chomping at the bit to get back to that CIAO thing you were working on.”

  “Whatever. I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. I think you’re looking for something that isn’t there. I guess we’ll know more tomorrow when we start our jobs. If everyone still seems inordinately jovial on Monday morning, you might be on to something. But I bet you they don’t.”

  Colt took a lef
t on Beaver Avenue, drove the block and half to his and Diana’s house and steered into the driveway. He switched off the ignition and they climbed out of the car. There was another envelope taped to the front door. Someone had written The Millingtons on the front of it. Nothing else. Just like the other one. More welcome wagon crap, Colt thought. He grabbed the envelope and stuffed it into his coat pocket and unlocked the door and walked inside. He took Diana’s coat and hung it with his in the little closet by the foyer. The closet was lined with cedar planks, which surprised Colt. Everything else about the house, the doors and light fixtures and faucets and everything, seemed to have been done as cheaply as possible. Maybe there was a big moth problem in this part of the country. Or, maybe cedar was plentiful and inexpensive around here. In Florida it cost a bundle. Colt took one last whiff of the fragrant wood and then closed the closet door.

  “What’s for supper?” he said.

  “I had that sandwich earlier, so I’m not really hungry. I think I’ll go ahead and turn in for the night. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”

  Colt tossed his keys onto the kitchen table, and they landed with a metallic jangle.

  “But it’s your turn to cook,” he said.

  Diana had already started down the hallway toward the bedroom.

  “What?” she said.

  “I cooked last night. Bacon and eggs and toast. Tonight, it’s your turn. So what’s for supper?”

  “Check the freezer,” she said. “There’s a stack of TV dinners in there. All kinds of stuff. Salisbury steak, spaghetti and meatballs, chicken ala king, whatever your heart desires. Just pop one in the microwave and, voila! Dinner is served. Isn’t the twenty-first century marvelous, darling? Now excuse me while I go wash my face and brush my teeth.”

  Colt stepped over to the hallway and started to say something, but she’d already ducked into the bathroom and shut the door.

  He walked back to the kitchen and opened the freezer, but he didn’t select any of the frozen dinners. He grabbed a handful of ice cubes and plunked them in a glass, took the jug of Old Fitz from the pantry and poured himself a double. He carried his drink into the living room and sat on the couch, wishing there was a television or a computer to turn on, or at least a newspaper to read. He needed something, anything, to pass the time. He’d never been so bored in his life.