by Steven Swaks
A couple visiting for the first time raised their hands at the pastor’s request. A young usher strode to them to provide some literature about the church without much more pressure. No, the church would not call them to entice them to come back, and nobody would ask them to join twenty-five groups. The congregation genuinely cared about them without putting much pressure to do anything more.
“Raise your hand,” Jessica whispered in Todd’s ear.
“Uh, no, that’s fine–”
“Come on, they’re not going to ask you for your social security number.” She chuckled. “Don’t tell me that you’re shy…”
“I’m not–”
“Then raise your hand,” she elbowed him harder than she would have liked.
“Hey.”
She put a hand to her mouth in amused horror, “I’m so sorry.”
“Anybody else?” The pastor asked.
Jessica raised her arm for him. “Chicken,” she quickly whispered in his ear.
“No, I was about to.”
“I’m sure.” A large smile underlined her sparkling eyes.
Another usher, a woman hardly old enough to pay her own bills for the first time since college, trotted to Todd and gave him the documentation.
Jessica eyeballed the treasure. “Hey, they gave you a new SFCC pen. I don’t even have one.”
“Do you want it?”
“Nah, you deserve it.”
The young pastor continued talking, but only key words emerged out of his speech. “Let’s bow our heads for prayer.”
The two did as asked in unison with the other two hundred worshipers. A complete silence fell on the sanctuary.
“Dear Lord, thank you for guiding us through hardship and joy, strengths and weaknesses,” the pastor continued on praying for the needs of the church and the community. He prayed for some of their missionaries in Africa and Thailand and didn’t forget a few sick people in the congregation. The young Lina was once again in the hospital for her leukemia, and the days were numbered for one of the elders.
Jessica was engaged in his prayer, but she couldn’t ignore Todd next to her. She couldn’t understand how she was falling for him. She could hear his slow breathing, so close to her.
The pastor carried on, “Heavenly Father, please be with the families of those who have left us recently, as our community has been stricken with untimely passings.”
Multiple hard blows on the long window behind them shattered the peace.
A dozen heads turned simultaneously to the glass partition. There was nobody but a single usher on the opposite side of the lobby as startled as they were.
Jessica looked at Todd with a concerned stare. “What was that?”
He opened his eyes wide, “I don’t know.”
The glass panels were five feet away from the first pew to provide easy access from the three doors. Todd looked at the empty aisle and the distance to the first pew. Nobody would have been able to play a prank on the worshippers.
The service went on, but she couldn’t concentrate on the message. She couldn’t precisely pinpoint what was wrong, but it wasn’t the same as usual. Todd was there. She was happy about that, but something was troubling her. She had heard the rapping, along with a lot of people in the last few rows. The young pastor hadn’t heard anything and had continued on. Even if the noise was startling, there was something else.
She felt uneasy. She peeked a few times above her shoulder. There was nothing but the lobby bathing in the Sunday morning sunshine. The few chairs were empty, except for the usher. A few tall plants decorated the room, and a small box hung on a wall for the well-needed offerings.
She stayed in her seat until the end of the service. Shereceived the benediction andsung the Doxology. The congregation stood in a loud rise of conversations. Some people asked for news from others. A young couple proudly bestowed their new baby to friends they had not seen in a while. Families made lunch plans with others with the promise of a chaotic meal filled with screaming children.
“How did you like the service?” Jessica asked Todd on their way out.
“It was great.”
“Come with me!” She dragged him by the arm, away from the tumultuous crowd.
They strolled to an adjacent long and wide room with a wall adorned with floor to ceiling mirrors for the entire length of the corridor where the concentration of people subsided.
She looked at him. She had held his arm to drag him through the worshipers. She withdrew her arm as if she had been stung by a cattle prod. She was a good girl. She was a Christ-believing young lady who didn’t go on grabbing boys. Her attitude was unacceptable.
Amused, Todd gazed at her without saying a word.
Her stomach melted.
“I have to go,” he said.
“Homework?”
“Tons.”
She didn’t want him to leave. “Maybe… you could come back next Sunday?”
“I would love that.”
“Maybe I’ll see you at the diner before that… by accident.”
The corner of her lip rose.
“I often study there late afternoons.”
“I might need to buy some pies for church,” she said with a developing smile.
“I have to go.” He extended his hand like a gentleman.
She shook it. “It was a marvelous morning, Mr. Todd.”
“Please, the pleasure was all mine, Miss Jessica.”
He turned around and walked away.
“Todd!”
He stopped.
“The exit is that way,” she shook a finger above her shoulder.
“Oh.” He passed by her with a heart-melting smile.
“Who the hell is this guy?” Tracy asked after the young man had walked away.
“Don’t use that word in church.”
“Whatever, answer me. Who the heck was that?” She crossed her arms.
“A friend, that’s all.”
“You mean… a boyfriend?”
“No, just a good friend.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, a very good friend, and cute, too. If I didn’t have my idiot of a boyfriend, I might make a move. Uh, even with Brad, I can still make a move.”
“No!” Jessica cried out.
“Just a friend, I can tell! Don’t worry, sis, I won’t do anything. It’s way too much fun to see you coming to the dark side,” she opened her eyes wide for emphasis. “I can’t wait to see what will happen!”
Mirror
Sergeant Berkley flipped the newspaper impatiently. He got out of his seat in Jim’s Repair and Body Work’s small waiting room, and leaned on the doorjamb into the mechanic’s bay. The shop was a mess, a greasy pit with tools scattered all over the place with a fat mechanic in the middle. He couldn’t stand to go in there, but with two mechanics out sick at the headquarters, he didn’t really have a choice.
“How long does it take to replace an alternator?” He asked with impatience marking his tone.
“As long as I need,” Jim Mackenzie, the mechanic and owner, said with his head under the hood.
“You’re taking a heck of a long time.”
“If you don’t like it, you can always do it yourself, cop.” Jim stood back from the engine. He picked up a greasy rag and wiped his bare and sweaty skull. “Don’t wet your panties. I’m done,” he said with a cold stare.
How this guy stayed in business was beyond Sergeant Berkley’s comprehension. Mackenzie was a default mechanic. People went to his shop because he was available and his prices were reasonable. The additional nonmonetary bill to pay was both physical with a filthy place, and psychological. The man was a complete jerk.
The department had dealt with him a few times, nothing much, noise complaints in the evening (his trailer behind the shop didn’t muffle the TV sound as well as he thought), public intoxication, and a girl or two who had found his hands a little too invasive.
Sergeant Berkley paid at the dirty counter.
“See ya later,
cop.”
“It’s Sergeant Berkley for you, Mackenzie,” the enforcer said standing tall.
“Yeah, sure, whatever you say, cop.” The mechanic smiled, revealing a row of coffee-stained teeth.
Berkley stayed stoic. Mackenzie was a waste of time. He was one of those in quest of a quick lawsuit against the department. A harassment claim was so easy these days.
The officer exited and sat in the black and white Dodge Charger.
Mackenzie was still looking at him through the window with an ironic smile.
Berkley adjusted his rear-view mirror.
“SHIT!” He screamed at the sight of a woman in his back seat. He swung around to look and jolted away from her, jarring his ribs on the steering wheel. He looked again. There was nothing.
Mackenzie saw the commotion from his waiting room. “What the hell is wrong with him?” He muttered. “Crazy cop.” He spat out a chunk of tobacco in a bin by the desk.
Berkley took a deep breath to calm down. He leaned to take a look at the back seat. There was nothing. Nobody. He brought his shaky hand to the ignition, twisted the key, and drove the car out of the bay.
It only took him ten minutes to drive back to HQ. The city looked different, somber. The sun was high on a cloudless sky, but the streets seemed darker. There was nothing specific, no clear sign or anything to pinpoint, but he could sense a difference, as if a malefic curtain was covering the town.
He looked back at the rear-view mirror. A few cars were behind him. None of them dared to pass him, of course. He was a patrol car. His thoughts brought him back to the furtive images. He was sitting in the car, adjusting the mirror, and the girl had showed up.
She was everywhere in his hallucinating world, juxtaposed to his reality. She was standing in front of a store going by. She was walking down Main Street and smiling at him with a demented mouth as he drove past her. She was there, haunting him.
Sergeant Berkley parked his cruiser and entered the station. He vaguely said hi to the front girl in uniform. He dialed the four-digit code on a keypad and pushed the access door open after hearing the distinct click of the unlocking mechanism. He walked deeper into the station and passed a few offices and a break room.
Another office door was open. Delano was behind his desk, flipping through a yellow folder.
Berkley stopped.
Delano looked up.
“Anything new on the hanging?” Berkley asked with a forced nonchalant voice.
“Larry Cherlin’s suicide? We’re going to file it. Nothing shows foul play,” Delano said observing him. “You look terrible. Are you coming down with something?”
“Me? No, I’m… I’m good. I’m fine.” Berkley stayed by the door.
The detective picked up his coffee mug, “I mean it. You’re pale, sweating. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Can I talk to you?”
“You mean, talk?”
“Yeah.”
Delano was about to joke. Something around Berkley cheating on his wife, but he decided otherwise. “Come in,” he beckoned him, “close the door and take a seat.”
Berkley did so and took a deep breath to collect his thoughts.
“What’s up?” Delano took a long sip of coffee. No sugar, no cream.
“I saw something today…” Berkley didn’t know how to put it.
“Spit it out? What did you see?”
“I went to Jim’s to change the alternator on one of the cruisers.”
“Sorry you had to deal with that jerk.”
“Tell me about it. Anyway, when I went to get the car back, I saw something in my rear-view mirror.”
Another sip of coffee. “I’m dying to know. What did you see?”
“Gina Hawkins.”
Delano choked, “Jeez, yeah, and she was with a bunch of white bunnies. Good one.”
Berkley’s face was as stern as the entrance of a jail cell.
Delano’s laughter decomposed. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
“I’ve never been so serious in my entire life.”
Delano shook his head. “What do you want me to tell you? Take some time off? I don’t know, maybe go to the beach, take some pills.”
“I’m not stressed out, Jack.”
“I can tell.”
“What do you want me to do?” Delano asked.
“Talk to the Chief.”
“Are you insane? What am I going to tell him? What’s up, Chief? Hey, guess what, Berkley saw a dead girl looking at him in the back of his car. Other than that, everything is groovy. Oh, by the way, he needs a new cruiser since his is haunted. He’s going to lock us up in the loony bin. I came to a smaller town to have a cushy job, eight to five, nothing crazy, no gang-bangers, drive-bys, nothing like that. Stone Falls is getting worse than L.A! People are starting to die in the street on a daily basis. We lost an officer, Cherlin hung himself for no apparent reason, and that psycho Gina girl didn’t find anything better to do than to play ninja with a meat cleaver on her mother!”
Chief Frank Burns walked by. His blue police uniform was impeccable, as usual. His salt and pepper hair was short, his thick mustache well-trimmed, and his smiles rare. He loved his men, and they knew it. He would have never let himself admit it, even under the worse torture: a five-hour trip at the mall with his teenage daughter.
“What’s going on in there?” he asked with a gruff voice. He looked at Berkley. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He paused an instant. “This used to be funny but not so much lately.”
“What do you mean, Chief?”
“Nothing, Berkley.”
“What do you mean, Chief?” he insisted.
“Why do you care, Berkley?” He rolled his eyes, “Oh, great, another one.”
“Another one?” Berkley frowned, “what else did you hear?”
“Nothing! All right? It’s none of your damn business! I don’t want to hear any of those stories, got it? Because you think you’re the only one? Every other cop in this place is going bonkers! You guys are cops! Do you get that? Cops! Keep your junior-high-school stories at home and come here to work! The next jerk who tells me a damn ghost story is suspended!” His finger wiggled in front of Berkley’s face. “You think that I didn’t hear anything about it? Even the fire guys and EMS are tripping out! Let me give you the scoop. The girl is dead! You hear me? Dead! She’s buried! And I don’t want to hear those stories again! Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good!” Chief Burns walked out and slammed the door behind him.
“That went well.” Delano said sitting down in his office chair. “I need a cigarette.” He opened his drawer and found a pack.
“You can’t smoke in the office, Jack.”
“Well, at least I don’t see dead girls in my mirror.”
“What can we do about it?”
“I don’t know, call the cops.” He took a long and slow drag on his cigarette. “What can I say? Maybe we should call a priest, or an exorcist. That would be interesting. We need a shrink. That’s what we need. ”
“Look, I know what I saw. I’m not crazy, and I have a feeling that it’s not going to go away unless we do something.”
“And do what exactly?”
Berkley remained quiet.
Delano continued, “Because keep one thing in mind. Whatever idea you have, you have to run it by the chief. And don’t forget to come over here to tell me how it worked out for you.”
Sweet Evening
The small condominium with an attached garage was only a rental. Christine and her husband George didn’t need much more anyway. Moving from Alaska, they wanted to take their time to find the right house in the right neighborhood. In the meantime, this lodging was a temporary lover’s nest with a small living room next to a kitchen mostly hidden behind a counter and hanging cabinets. A small hallway led to the master bedroom at the end, while two doors faced each other, one for a second bedroom on the right and a small bathroom on the left.
&nbs
p; Christine was sitting at the living room table when George came back from work. She was catching up with friends on Facebook, looking at mothers posting pictures of their young children, hoping that soon she would be among them. They had been too busy moving lately. Finally, life was settling down, and it was time to start a family.
George removed his shoes and loosened his tie, before gently kissing her. “How was your day?”
“Good, I went grocery shopping and ran a few errands, nothing exciting. What about you?”
“It was good. I’m just about ready to submit my project proposal for the software update.”
“Already?”
“Uh-huh,” he said with a rising smile. “You know what that means?”
“That if they accept it you are going to get your own office?”
“And an extra twelve grand a year,” George said with a large smile.
“Not bad, I have to say, not bad.”
He pulled a chair and sat next to her. “I miss Alaska, but this is good for us.”
She nodded.
“This company has huge potential, I can tell.”
“I’m glad for you.”
“For us, sweetie.” He paid close attention to her. She had an empty gaze. “I know that look. What’s on your mind?”
“I need to work. You know me. I can’t stay at home all day. There’s only so much cleaning and Facebooking I can do.”
“Then work,” he said with a tender smile.
“I think I will.”
“Go for it,” he said, lovingly rubbing her back.
“There’s an open position for a dispatcher with an ambulance company. It’s five days a week, and the salary isn’t bad. They provide the 911 coverage in the area.”
“Isn’t it hard? You know, talking to panicked people on the phone?”
“No, they don’t pick up the phone for 911 callers. They only dispatch ambulances. I used to do that with planes back home. I had to deal with weights, aviation regulations, moody passengers, changing weather, and grumpy pilots. This is nothing. I would only need to tell an ambulance crew where to go. That’s all.”
