Southern Belle

by Stuart Jaffe

  Within five minutes, the church poked out of the darkness like another ghost. Max, Sandra, and Drummond all stood silent before the ruined building's front porch — two steps leading to a warped platform before a double door. Max moved forward, his flashlight drawing freakish shadows upon the building's old white walls.

  "Hon." Sandra reached out as if to yank him back. "Maybe we should check around the area first. In case Dr. Ernest buried the witch out here."

  Drummond clapped his hands, the noise echoing around them. "Excellent idea."

  Max doubted the body had been buried outside the church, but like his companions, he needed more time to build his courage. "Let's stick together."

  As a group, the three worked their way around the perimeter of the church. They saw no signs to indicate any sort of ritual burial nor did they see anything to suggest the ground had been disturbed in recent days. They startled a rat, but Max felt confident the rat had startled them worse.

  When they came around to where they had begun, Max knew the time for stalling had ended. He marched straight to the front porch, and not wanting to give Sandra a chance to talk him into turning back, he opened the door. The ancient hinges creaked.

  He pointed his flashlight through the door. The open space had little in it anymore but graffiti and layers of dust. On the left side, a closed door had been painted with a crude pentagram. A handful of pews faced the back wall like tombstones. Stepping in, Max's footfalls filled the emptiness with a hollow sound.

  While Sandra moved off to the right, Drummond remained in the doorway. "I'm glad I'm already dead."

  "Gee, thanks for the confidence booster," Sandra said.

  Max tried hard to ignore the feeling of an unseen weight pressing on him from all sides. He had never been the type to get claustrophobic, but he'd rather that be the explanation than anything else. He leaned the shovel against a pew and approached the door with the pentagram. Supernatural possibilities filled his head.

  He put his hand against the door as if he might feel a fire burning on the other side. Of course, he only felt wood — rough and cold. Better to keep pushing forward than let his mind play out the endless list of horrific scenarios. He grabbed the knob and opened the door.

  An office. Even a small church needed some place for the leaders to work. Pastors needed to write sermons. What little money they received had to be accounted for. Bake sales had to be planned. And then there were the private conversations — the troubled youth, the cheating spouse, the doubting intellectual. They all needed that one-on-one time with their spiritual leader, and this tiny office had to be the cramped quarters for just such conversations.

  Max stepped back into the church proper and noticed Drummond hesitating to enter. "Come on. I want you to check the walls, the floors, and the ceiling — all the places we can't get to. See if Dr. Ernest put her anywhere like that."

  "That's not a good idea," Drummond said.

  Max shined the flashlight on Drummond to get a better look at his face, but the bright light and white walls washed out the ghost's image. "For crying out loud, get in here so we can be done with this. I don't know what's got you spooked, but I'm not eager to hang around here either."

  "This is a church," Drummond said, thrusting his hands wide open. "We should have some respect for the place."

  "It's not a church anymore. It's an old, rotting building. That's all."

  "Buildings like this, ones used for a holy purpose, they hold on to what they were. They don't forget. Aw, heck, I can't expect you to understand. Trust me, okay? I've had experience with this before."

  "That's right. Your mother ..."

  Drummond's eyes flared as he soared straight at Max. "How do you know anything about my mother?" he asked, putting his cold hand inches from Max's face.

  "I ... kind of ... well, you were lying to us and I realized how little we knew about you —"

  "You researched me?"

  Sandra whirled on Max. "I told you not to do that."

  "Thanks, hon." But Sandra turned away, walking toward the front door.

  Drummond kicked at the pew and sailed straight through it. "Of all the low, rotten things you could do. You had no right."

  "I'm sorry. I am. I was worried about you and afraid and I made a stupid call." Max tried to speak in a soothing voice even as he saw Drummond getting angrier. He knew he should be most concerned with what he had done but he could only think about Drummond losing control and turning. "I know you must be mad, but please, let's focus on why we're here. When we go back to the office you can yell at me all you want. But not here."

  Sandra stood in the doorway. "Max?"

  Max turned his head toward her but Drummond whisked in to block his view. "What's the matter, Max ol' boy? Afraid I might snap right here, right now? Maybe you should go research that one."

  "Max? Do you see headlights coming closer?"

  Both Max and Drummond stopped their argument to look at Sandra. Moving to her side, Max said, "It's pitch black out there. I don't see anything."

  Sandra swallowed hard. "I was afraid of that." She nodded to the darkness. "Ghosts are coming."

  "Ghosts. Wait, what ghosts? Why?"

  Drummond moved to the other side of Sandra. "It must be the witches. Those that haven't been destroyed yet. Nobody else would know or care that we're here. They're coming to stop us."

  Max stepped backward, his mind racing to keep up with events. "The ghosts of the witches in the coven. If they're coming that means we're in the right place. A witch has to be buried here somewhere." He turned his trembling body toward Drummond. "It also means Patricia Welling will be with them. Listen to me. I'm terribly sorry for what I did. I don't know how to make that up to you, but right now, I need you to put that aside. I need you to stay calm or you risk turning."

  "You're the one that needs to relax. I'm fine. And trust me, I'll find some way for you to make things up. And then some."

  Sandra gasped. "They're all here. It looks the whole coven. We're surrounded."

  Chapter 16

  Nobody moved. Sandra squinted as she looked out the doorway, raising a hand to shield her eyes. Max followed her gaze but saw only darkness. He could imagine it, though, plenty clear. Bright, pale women forming a circle around the church, their faces twisted in pain, their necks slit open and bodies baring the brutal scars of the curse Drummond had participated in casting.

  Like a summer shower opening up without warning, Max heard a steady rat-a-tat striking the walls. "What's happening out there?"

  Keeping her eyes on the witches, Sandra said, "They're throwing rocks at us."

  Since any contact with the corporeal world caused ghosts sharp pain, repeatedly picking up and throwing rocks would not be pleasant for them. It might not be excruciating but it certainly signaled to Max that these witches were more than ticked off.

  "Wait a second." Max scrunched his face, puzzled. "Why aren't they coming in here?"

  "I noticed, too." Sandra walked back to Max and sat on one of the remaining pews. "It's a good thing. It means that one of the lessons I learned growing up was true — that evil and good are natural forces like the opposite sides of a magnet. They repel each other."

  "See that," Drummond said. "That means that this isn't just an old building. It still has its church mojo, and that's what is protecting us."

  "He's right. Whatever the history of this place, I have no doubt that when it was built, it served an honest, good sort of people."

  Max sat next to Sandra. "This means we have time to find that body, right? They can't get in, so we don't really have to worry about them."

  "Until we want to leave."

  "It's not like that." Sandra hurried back to the doorway. "Most places in the world hold a mixture of the good and evil, so some turned ghosts can manage to get inside. But this church appears to be filled with a lot of good energy. Enough to hold them back for the moment, until they break through the barrier. That's why they're throwing rocks — rocks handle
d by evil witches. They're looking for weaknesses, some spot that isn't as holy as the rest."

  Max planted his head in his hand. "You mean all they have to do is find the one spot where somebody had an illicit kiss or an evil thought or something and they can break through that?"

  "Pretty much."

  Without lifting his head, Max stretched out his arm and indicated the office door. "You mean like that pentagram over there?"

  Before she could respond, Sandra dropped to the ground, covering her ears and wincing. Banging his hip into the pew, Max rushed to her side. Tears leaked from her eyes, and she clasped her ears ever tighter. She groaned and curled into a fetal position.

  Max looked to Drummond for help, but he had fallen to the ground, too. "What's going on?"

  Through gritted teeth, Drummond said, "The witches — they're screaming."

  The wood floorboards rattled and the walls shook. Puffs of dust exploded from every crevice choking the air. Max coughed as he covered Sandra with his body. She twitched and shook as if having a seizure. Wood creaked and snapped. The shovel fell with a clang. One of the last standing pews toppled over.

  The wind rose, howling as it whipped around the building's corners. Through the open doorway, rocks and pebbles, twigs and sticks spewed into the room. Max rolled to his side, placing his back between the doorway and Sandra. One pinprick attack amounted to little, but thousands of tiny strikes added up. He felt his blood soaking his shirt.

  Bellowing to be heard, Max said, "How do we make it stop?"

  Everything ceased. The floor settled. The walls calmed. The wind silenced. Only the final few pebbles rattled as they found places to rest.

  Breathing hard and shaking, Sandra attempted to sit up. Damp with sweat, she put out a hand for Max to help steady her and did nothing more than breathe. Max held her hand tight.

  "She okay?" Drummond said as he took the air.

  "I don't know. What happened?"

  "Just because the witches can't get in here, doesn't mean they can't hurt us. The pentagram, the graffiti, whatever else's been done here wasn't big enough, evil enough, for them to gain entry, but they can certainly cause us trouble."

  "That was crazy. It was like a —"

  "Like a haunting," Sandra said. "That's what evil ghosts do. Haunted houses, all those dark stories — the ones that are true deal with a ghost that turned."

  Max brought his flashlight closer and relaxed a hair upon seeing color return to Sandra's face. "You going to be okay?"

  She nodded. "They took me by surprise. That's all."

  Max doubted that was all, but he let it be. He helped Sandra to her feet. Once he knew she could stand on her own, he stomped toward the back wall, picking up a broken piece of the pew.

  "What are you doing?" Drummond rushed over to Max.

  "We've got to find that body. Make sure Dr. Ernest destroyed it. Then we can get out of here. Try, at least." Max lifted the heavy wood, preparing to slam it into the wall.

  "You do that, you'll kill us all."

  "What now?"

  From the doorway, Sandra said, "He's right. If you break open those walls, you'll be desecrating holy ground. You'll be opening the entire building to them. Nothing will hold them back."

  Dropping the wood, Max said to Drummond, "Then we need you to go into those walls."

  Drummond glanced at the wall. "That might be just as bad."

  "Because the dead crawling around in the walls would be another form of desecration? Right?"

  "Something like that."

  "Well we can't wait around for them to attack again."

  Rubbing her temples, sounding exhausted, Sandra said, "Will you two be quiet. Please. I'm trying to think."

  A hundred sarcastic comments flooded Max's brain, but he said nothing. Sandra was on edge, too. Probably worse since he, at least, didn't have to listen to the intolerable screeching of a witch coven.

  Walking toward Max, her steps more assured, she tapped out her points on her fingers. "First, Dr. Ernest cursed the High Priestess, and second, he buried her here. Why here? Because this is sacred, holy ground. A source of good. The coven's ghosts wouldn't be able to get in here."

  "Hold on," Max said, his analytical side overcoming his fear. "How could he possibly bury her here? I mean, she's a source of evil, right? So, if her body were put in here, either her ghost couldn't come in, or the very act of burying her in this building would defile the building making the whole point, well, pointless. Right?"

  "You got that right, kiddo," Drummond chimed in.

  "But the witches," Sandra continued, "They came here, too. They wouldn't bother troubling us here for nothing. Especially when you consider how painful a lot of their actions are to a ghost."

  Drummond snapped his fingers and pointed at Sandra. "The lady's got you there."

  Max rolled his eyes. "You're a big help."

  "Well, have you two geniuses considered this: The witch coven's here because their High Priestess is here, and since you've figured out that she can't be buried on this holy ground, then she must be buried nearby."

  "We already checked around the grounds."

  "In the dark with a flashlight. Not the best conditions. But let's say you're right. She's not buried right outside. If it were me burying her, and it almost was me, I'd have put her somewhere that the ghosts who wanted to get to her would mistakenly think she was in the church."

  "He's right," Sandra said. "She has to be nearby, so close to the building that the ghosts' own fear of this holy ground would confuse them."

  Drummond pursed his lips. "The office."

  "Of course," Sandra said.

  "Huh?" Max played his flashlight's beam on the office door. "You just got through saying she couldn't be buried here at all."

  "She can't be buried on the holy ground. The office is physically attached to this church but it's not the holy ground of the church. The official praying, the gathering of people together and all that happened here, not in the office."

  "Okay, let's go."

  "You can't, yet."

  Max threw his arms in the air. "Why the hell not? You want to hang around for those bitches to make your ears bleed?"

  "If we destroy the High Priestess now, we won't get out of here alive."

  Drummond nodded. "The second we uncover that body, the coven will know what's going on. The office isn't going to hold them off like the church proper. They'll swarm in on us. We won't stand a chance."

  Staring at the office door like a prisoner waiting release, Max sighed. "Then what do you suggest we do? I haven't a clue."

  Sandra glanced out the doorway then back to Max. He had seen her brave face many times, but the face he looked upon now went far beyond bravery. He saw grim determination in her. It scared the hell out of him.

  "Here's what we're going to do." She crouched before Max and waited for Drummond to join the huddle. "You two go into that office and find the body. I'll go outside and make sure the witches are too busy to notice you."

  "Wait. What?" Max looked to Drummond for support but he had the same look as Sandra. "No, no, no. You are not going out there. They practically turned you into mush, and they can't even get in here. They were screaming — that's all. You go out there, and they'll kill you."

  "I wasn't expecting their attack. But I am now."

  "Wonderful. So you can see the killing blow come. I feel so much better now."

  Drummond edged over to the office door. "I'll be here when you're ready."

  Sandra took Max's face in her hands. "I know how to resist them. I've been doing it my whole life. If I didn't, I'd never have lived long enough to meet you. So, trust me."

  "I do trust you." Her hands were cold against his skin — she wasn't as confident as she acted. "But what I saw —"

  "Don't think about them. Think about me. I'm the only one you need to believe. I'm telling you, I can handle them."

  Max wanted to argue or reason or even bully her — anything to keep her in the c
hurch, safe. Her mouth lifted in a sorrowful smile, and he felt tears leaking from his eyes. How many times had he insisted she believe in him? How many times had she been forced to watch him walk off into dangers she knew he had no way to be prepared for? At least in this case, she had some previous experience. But all his debating aside, he knew he would have to let her go ahead with this plan because they had no other.

  He reached out and kissed her. Her soft lips trembled against his, and for a fleeting breath, he thought maybe she would reconsider. But an icy finger traced his heart — she trembled because she knew this might be their last kiss.

  When she tried to pull away, he clenched her tighter. He pressed in close against her, as if he could pass right through her. He stroked her hair with one hand and brought her closer with the other. At length, she placed her hands on his chest, and gently, firmly pushed back.

  "When you finish with the body, run for the car. I'll be right alongside you."

  "Don't you die," he said.

  "Don't take too long."

  As Sandra headed for the doorway, her hand holding on to Max until the last possible second, her eyes closed. Max watched her body straighten, her focus narrow. She turned all her attention to the witches and her plan. Max scurried across the room to the office door. He placed his hand on the knob and waited for Sandra's signal.

  Max's heart dropped with every step she took closer toward the outside. In a moment, he would be in the office and unable to protect her. And he had Drummond to worry about, too. The witch attack had hurt his ghost partner. Max would have to keep an eye on him, consider him a mining canary that would tell him if the witches had hit too hard.

  Before stepping outside, Sandra's shoulders rose slowly and fell fast — one last deep breath. And then she was gone. Walked straight out until Max could no longer see her.

  Drummond endured the pain it took to poke Max in the shoulder. "Time to move."

  "Right," Max muttered. Right, indeed. He had to be sharp now, succeed as fast as possible, make sure Sandra spent as little time out there as he could manage.