What did it mean?
A cool breeze blew through the open window of the trailer. The young man shivered.
Under the words cut into the stone, a strange marking of some sort. The young man studied the marking. It was very complicated, yet somehow familiar. Where had he seen it? He remembered. A medallion—yes, that was it! He had seen the markings on a medallion. But where had he seen it?
He took a magnifying glass, studying the markings more closely. A sensation of pure terror overcame him. He felt his lips pull back in revulsion. Under very close inspection, the marking was—horrible. Despicable. A man/creature, but yet, so much more, cut with such fine detail. A scene of debauchment, of total human depravity and ugly corruption.
The archaeologist covered the tablet with a piece of canvas. Just doing that made him feel better. But the scene cut into the stone haunted him. There had been people in that scene, humans, but they seemed more animal than human. He threw back the canvas to study the scene. Disgusting! He felt ill. The scene depicted an orgy, yet so much more than that. It went against everything the young man had been taught. Men with men; women with women; adults with children. He had never seen such detail cut into stone. In the very back of the cutting, a human sacrifice. Beyond that, a crucifixion.
He covered the stone tablet with the canvas, and, saying nothing to any of his fellow workers, drove into Whitfield. He'd been raised in the Christian church, but had not attended services in years. Today, though, he felt he needed to speak with a minister.
At the parsonage, he introduced himself to Sam Balon. He found himself liking the big, rough-looking minister with a rose tattooed on his left forearm.
Over coffee, the young man suddenly felt himself unable to speak of the tablet. Unable to speak because the minister's wife had entered the room, and the young man knew, then, where he had seen the medallion with the evil markings. Of course! It was worn by his fellow-workers—all of them, and by the project director, Dr. Wilder. Wilder, it was said, was humping a local woman. This woman. The minister's wife!
The woman looked at him with eyes that seemed to burn into his brain, silencing his tongue. The medallion around her neck seemed to glow with life. He could see the medallion and what it depicted—all the evil and debasement—why couldn't the minister?
Because he's not looking for anything evil in his wife, the young man answered his own question.
He was both fascinated and frightened by the power the woman seemed to hold over him. When he met her eyes, they seemed to control his thoughts, his tongue.
He chatted with the couple for a few minutes, then left. It was only while driving back to the Dig that he realized he did not know where he'd been, could recall nothing of his visit to the minister's home, or of seeing the man's wife. He did not recall the woman walking him to his car, he had no recognition of her kissing him on the mouth. He could not know he had been marked.
ONCE TOUCHED, FOREVER HIS. THE KISS OF LIFE AND DEATH.
The sun cast brilliant light through the open windows of the small trailer/lab at the Dig. The stone tablet, uncovered, seemed to glow with life, somehow mocking the young man.
"This is ridiculous!" he said aloud, rising from his stool. "A rock is a rock. A stone cannot mock a living person."
But mere words spoken aloud could not calm him.
Tim was not overly religious, but he did believe in God—and Satan. The young man felt a shiver of fear race through him, touching his spine, moving upward to settle in his brain. The lab seemed to become very stuffy. It was difficult for Tim to breathe. And his memory—something was wrong with his memory. He could remember finding the tablet . . . yesterday; yes, it had been yesterday. But what of yesterday afternoon? He could not remember.
Looking at the stone tablet and its markings, Tim suddenly felt he had opened the doors to Hell, and could hear the cries of the damned and smell the stink of burning flesh. He felt he could sense the agony of the forever condemned.
"Calm yourself," he said. "Control yourself. There is an explanation for everything, remember?" Well, almost, he thought ruefully. "Don't forget, you're a scientist."
His words did nothing to calm him.
He poured a glass of water from the pitcher in the small refrigerator, drank it, then sat down on the stool in front of his workbench. He glared at the tablet.
The tablet glared back at him.
Tim realized, although the day was cool, he was beginning to sweat. His face was damp with perspiration, his shirt sticking to him. He reached out to touch the tablet, jerking his hand back as his fingers touched the stone.
The tablet had burned him!
"Goddamn you!" he cursed the stone. He looked at his fingertips in numb shock. His fingertips were raw from blistering.
The stone was glowing, pulsing with life, almost as a heartbeat from within.
Tim was suddenly ill, fighting back sickness that threatened to erupt from his belly.
He looked at the stone. It had ceased its throbbing.
"Ugly," Tim said. "Profane. The stone is evil.
He glanced at a hammer on his workbench and somehow, as if spoken to by a voice from afar, what he must do—and do it quickly.
No! a voice screamed from inside his brain, stilling his hand as he reached for the hammer.
Do it! another voice cried, as if in great agony. The voice seemed to be speaking from a great distance. Destroy the stone, the voice screamed. You must destroy the tablet!
The voices battled within his head as Tim sat on the stool, listening to the utterances within him. One voice seemed to be almost pure in its vocalizing. The other voice was very evil.
The voices fought, long and hard and loudly. Tim found the strength to reach once more for the hammer. Something with great force knocked him from his stool. He clawed his way to his feet, his head ringing with sound. His hand closed around the handle of the hammer.
The voices ceased their battling as the trailer door opened. Sweat dripped from the young archaeologist, and his body was strangely exhausted. He looked toward the open door.
Black Wilder, the project director, stood looking at him, smiling. His shirt was open to the waist, the sunlight bouncing off a medallion hanging from a chain around his neck.
The stone tablet began its pulsing, seeming to draw life from the medallion. The pure voice in Tim's head screamed just once, then faded away into a silent void. A piece of a long-forgotten sermon entered Tim's mind: God rules the Heavens, but Satan rules the earth.
Tim tried to scream, but no sound came from his throat.
"What were you going to do with that hammer, Tim?"
Tim's voice returned with a gasp. "I—ah—was going to chip away a piece of that stone, sir."
"With a carpenter's hammer?" the older man laughed. If Tim had known just how old Wilder was, he would have died from fright. "Now, Tim, really!" Wilder's eyes burned into Tim's. "That's a very interesting tablet. Find it at this Dig?"
"Yes, sir. I—ah—was just about to call you."
"Were you?" Wilder's tone was doubting.
Tim moved away from the workbench, away from Wilder and the glowing medallion. "What is that thing, sir?" he glanced at the stone.
Wilder smiled. "Why didn't you call me yesterday, Tim? When you found the tablet. Why did you visit that minister in Whitfield—Balon?"
Tim's memory came rushing back, flooding his brain with remembrances. He recalled the minister's wife, Michelle, and her burning eyes. He remembered his mixed emotions as her lips touched his mouth. "Why are you answering a question with a question, sir?"
Doctor Wilder's smile was very unpleasant. "You've never liked it here, have you, Tim?"
"I wouldn't say that."
Wilder's smile was all-knowing. The medallion glowed. The stone tablet pulsed.
"I—uh—like it fine, sir. I—just can't seem to make any friends with your people, that's all. Most of them aren't even civil with me. I think they dislike me for some reason, and I don't k
now why. I wasn't wanted on this Dig, I know that, and I'm sorry I raised such a fuss about going, now."
"You haven't given us a chance, Tim." Wilder moved closer to the young man. "You know that's true. Why. you've only attended one of our talk sessions for the new people."
"That's something else. What has happened to the new embers. We were friendly when we first arrived. Now they won't even speak to me. I don't like your talk sessions, sir. I don't like the way you and your people scoff at God. And why is it I'm always sent to Lincoln on Fridays. I get the feeling you don't want me around here on Friday nights. Why?"
Wilder laughed at him; an ugly laugh. "Such a pious young man, Tim. And such a suspicious one. Too bad."
Tim was suddenly angry. "You tell me what this is, Doctor Wilder. You tell me what's going on. This is not a Dig—most of your people don't know a dog's hind foot from a dinosaur dropping. I've never seen such careless digging in my life!"
"Are you doubting my reputation as an archaeologist?"
"No, sir. Just your explanation for being here. We've uncovered nothing of any importance here, and no evidence to suggest there is anything of any importance."
"Oh, my, yes, Tim." Wilder's voice was soft, "And you've found it."
The trailer became hot—stiflingly so. The stone tablet began to pulse as Wilder moved toward Tim. The medallion glowed. Tim began screaming as Wilder reached for him. The man's eyes were wild, burning with the same intensity as the medallion and the tablet and had Mrs. Balon's eyes at the parsonage.
Terror washed over Tim. "Leave me alone!" he screamed.
Wilder touched him on the arm, the touch searing Tim's flesh through the cloth of his shirt.
Tim screamed in agony. He screamed for a long time, the pain moving through him in ever-heightening waves of torment. In his tortured mind, he imagined the small room filled with demons, Wilder the host demon. The trailer filled with stinking smoke, engulfing Tim in a mist of evil-smelling fetor.
Tim lost all sense of date and time. He knew only his horrible pain, wondering why this was happening to him. Then, as the mist cleared, Tim found himself naked, his clothing torn from him, not by hands, but by claws. Filthy claws. His agony was unbearable, but somehow he could not escape it, his mind refusing him the luxury of unconsciousness. He was dragged outside to the ground. He screamed, but no friend came to his aid.
Claws ripped his flesh as the people of the Digging surrounded him, tearing at him, their eyes burning with hate and evil.
At a word from Wilder, the clawing ceased. The man leaned close to Tim, his breath reeking, offending Tim's face. The young man looked up into eyes as old as evil, as old as time.
"Won't you join us, Tim?" Wilder asked. "You can. Just repeat the oath. Say this: God is filth. God is shit. Reject Him!"
"No!" Tim screamed.
"Reject Him," Wilder urged. "It's so easy. Join us. Accept the Prince of Darkness, the blood of the Believer. Let the Lord of Flies fill your life with all the pleasures you have but dreamed of."
"NO!"
Wilder hissed his outrage at this rejection, spittle from his mouth dripping on Tim's face. Again and again he urged Tim to blaspheme his God. The young man would not deny his God.
"Then you will die!" Wilder stood over him.
"Oh, my God—my Savior!" Tim cried out his pain. "Help me."
The others began laughing as they danced around the young man, their tongues spewing blasphemy. The sunlit day grew darker, gray clouds moving restlessly overhead.
"Where is your God, now?" Wilder laughed profanely. "You call on Him, but He does not hear you. Are you sure He even exists?"
"He hears me," Tim said, his faith growing as his body grew weaker. "He is real."
"Then where is He?"
"Everywhere," Tim spoke through his pain.
"Then perhaps He will hear you tonight," Wilder smiled. "When we cut out your heart. But you will suffer much before the knife ends it." Tim began screaming.
It was a Friday.
Four
Sam Balon, minister of the First Christian Church of Whitfield, woke from a deep and very troubled sleep. He no longer put out his hand to touch the far side of the bed. He knew his wife would not be there. She had not been there for months. She would be asleep in the bedroom on the far side of the parsonage, with heavy, black drapes pulled tightly shut, like shrouds, the bedroom door locked.
Once, weeks back, Sam had peeked into her bedroom when she had forgotten to lock the door. The heavy drapes were pulled tight. The room held a bad odor. Always a sun-lover, Michelle now avoided the sun, sleeping all day whenever she could. Sam had laid in his bed at night, many times, listening to his wife prowl the house in the darkness. Several times she had softly opened the door to his room, to stand looking at him, believing him asleep. Through slitted eyes, Sam had seen the medallion around her neck catch the light from the moon, winking at him. Once, he recalled, Michelle had hissed at him from the bedroom door.
She had not been a wife to him in months, domestically or sexually.
Once, several weeks back, when she had attempted to kiss him, Sam had jerked away from her. He still did not know why he had done that. His actions had enraged her.
On this early morning, in the summer of 1958, Sam had. as he had done so many times in the past several weeks, wakened soaked with sweat, his pajamas sticking uncomfortably to him. He had fought and struggled his way out of sleep—a sleep filled with nightmares of human sacrifice, devil worship, and orgies involving the most unspeakable of human deviations. And those creatures! Something straight out of a horror movie. But they were somehow familiar to Sam. He had seen or read about them, somewhere. But he could not pin it down.
Sam's restless sleep and troubled dreaming had tired him, leaving him feeling he had slept only a couple of hours, instead of eight. He had been experiencing these awful nightmares for weeks, and he could not understand why.
He had read no books nor seen any movies on devil worship or the supernatural—nothing to trigger such dreams. There had been no discussion of such things among his friends.
Friends? Sam's smile was bitter as he lay awake on the rumpled sheets. My once large circle of friends has certainly dwindled over the past weeks. Again . . . why?
He had read no books nor seen any movies on devil worship or the supernatural—nothing to trigger such dreams. There had been no discussion of such things among his friends. Friends? Sam's smile was bitter as he lay awake on the rumpled sheets. My once large circle of friends has certainly dwindled over the past weeks. Again . . . why?
But he did not consider his personal dreaming or his loss of a few fair-weather friends important enough to bother God with it in prayer. Yet.
But something was wrong in Whitfield.
He thought of Tim Bennett, the young archaeologist who had come to see him. He had been distraught that day, but had refused to say why. And he had not been back. When Sam had gone to the Dig site looking for him, he was told the young man had quit, gone back home, in the east.
Sam felt the man was lying to him. But why would he lie?
The preacher sat on the edge of the bed, in the dim light of predawn, and thought of his wife, probably sprawled in sleep in her black-draped room. Sam had not mentioned his dreams to her—why bother? The two of them had not shared a conversation of any substance in months. They had not shared anything in months.
Sam fought back the image of Jane Ann. Increasingly, she had the annoying habit of entering his thoughts at the most inopportune times and places. Alone in his bed. In the shower.
He had to smile. A preacher I may be, but I'm still a man, and Jane Ann is a very lovely woman.
He shook his head, clearing his thoughts of Jane Ann.
Sam had toyed with the idea that someone—God, perhaps—was trying to tell him something with these dreams. He had quickly rejected that idea.
Sam rose and padded softly to the kitchen. He poured a large glass of orange juice, drank it. then rubb
ed the cold glass against his forehead. He sat down at the table, weary from his hours of tossing and turning, fighting the dreams. He tried to think; his mind was a jumble of confusion.
Sam knew he and Michelle had been happy in their marriage. At first. At least he thought they had been. Childless, but content. But now, reviewing the past years, Sam could pick the marriage apart in retrospect. Their social life had never been very good; women seemed not to like or trust Michelle. And, he recalled, his mouth brassy with the knowledge, he knew she had been unfaithful to him many times. All the pieces fit in their proper places: the half-truths, the open lies he had caught her in, but never told her he knew.
And why, Sam reflected, would Michelle never see a doctor? Sam had gone, suspecting he was sterile. He was not. Michelle refused to go, becoming angry when he suggested it.
Sam thought back. He had known her . . . how long? Six years. And she had never been sick. Not once. She had never complained of cramps during her monthly time. Never had a cold. Never had a fever. Nothing. It was almost as if she were not . . . human.
And why had she been so insistent upon them coming here to Whitfield? He had other offers of more money, bigger churches. But no, she had thrown a temper tantrum when he suggested another church.
Why?
He had no answer.
Again, as he had many times before, Sam thought of the Catholic priest, Father Dubois. Dubois had never liked Michelle, nor she him. Sam sensed it. Did the priest know something Sam did not? If so, why didn't he tell him?
Again, the minister had no answer.
Sam could think of no logical explanation. None at all. None that would satisfy him. Sam wanted very much to be angry, but he could not direct his anger. Inward, perhaps? Is it all my fault; all my imagination?
No. No, it's neither my fault nor my imagination. I've done too much soul-searching. Whatever happened between us was not my doing, and there is something wrong here in Whitfield.
He shook his head in disgust, in anger, in frustration, in confusion. Rising, he placed the empty glass in the sink and made a pot of coffee. He moved quietly in the kitchen; a big man, in his mid-thirties.
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