by J. S. Bailey
Caleb lowered the arm holding the flashlight so the beam only illuminated a small circle of grass. “Did they hurt you?”
“No.”
“Did they break anything?”
“No, but they would have if I hadn’t come out here. Can you imagine what Dave would’ve done if the guy broke a window?”
Caleb shrugged. “He would have known it wasn’t our fault.”
Bobby tucked the poker under one arm and dragged a hand through his short, dark brown hair. “I think whoever was here is gone now. Let’s go in.”
“Sounds good to me.”
They went in through the rear door, clicking off the flashlights as they passed over the threshold. Bobby replaced the poker in its stand and turned around to discover that Caleb was drilling him with an expectant stare.
“Do you believe in poltergeists?” Bobby blurted.
A muscle twitched in the corner of Caleb’s mouth. “Do you?”
Bobby sank onto the couch after removing his muddy shoes by the door and put his head into his hands. “I don’t know. You read all that quantum physics stuff. Do you think poltergeist activity can be explained by science?”
“Sure. Powerful electromagnetic fields can move objects around. Makes it look like invisible people are picking things up. Why?”
Bobby shook his head. “This is crazy.” He briefly recounted the tapping on the church window during the interview and Randy’s request to ignore it.
“Are you suggesting that an electromagnetic field that tossed rocks around at the church followed you home and started tossing them at our windows?” Amusement glistened in Caleb’s eyes.
Bobby’s face heated up. “Do you think it’s possible?”
Caleb finally took a seat in the recliner opposite him. “This is a strange and mysterious universe. Anything could be possible.”
“But what do you think? Could it have been some freak energy field doing all this? Because I don’t believe in ghosts.”
Caleb leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. “It could have been that.”
Bobby waited. “Or?”
“Or it could have been spirits.” His eyes opened. “Randy was smart in telling you to ignore it. You’ll make yourself go nuts if you don’t.”
Bobby couldn’t believe he was hearing this. “I’m already going nuts!”
Caleb raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t need to tell me that. You’re the one who woke me up talking up a storm with a pair of garbage cans. I was watching you out the back window, you know.”
Great. “And you’re the one telling me there might be invisible spirits outside? You’re nuttier than I am!”
The insult didn’t faze him. “Bobby, I went nuts eons ago.” Caleb stood up and stretched. “Now I’ve got to get some sleep. My first exam of the quarter’s in two days and I’ve barely studied.”
BOBBY WENT back to his room and sat on the edge of the bed. It was almost midnight now. Sleep would no doubt continue to elude him, especially since he wasn’t used to keeping these hours in the first place.
Bad dreams and phantom prowlers didn’t help.
He thought about picking up his guitar and plucking away at it in the hope of finding a new song to write down, but his nerves were stretched as taut as the strings that made the sweet sounds he loved to hear. His pulse had finally slowed to a more tolerable rate, though he could still feel his heart pounding behind his ribs like a prisoner demanding freedom.
Tap.
Oh no.
Tap-tap-tap.
The phantom prowler had returned.
Bobby clenched his hands into fists, longing to rush to the window to catch a glimpse of him or her but knowing he would see nothing if he did. So Caleb thought spirits were responsible for this? Maybe he was right. For all Bobby knew, Randy performed occult rituals in his free time and had therefore acquired an entourage of unsavory souls that cried out for human flesh.
He stood up. As much as he detested the idea of paying the man’s house another visit, he had to go talk to Randy. Man to man, face to face. If Randy really was into the occult, there might be some way for him to call off his invisible brethren and leave Bobby alone for good.
LUPE SANCHEZ didn’t know what to do.
Her prayers had been answered and Randy survived. She should have been overjoyed. And maybe she would be if Graham hadn’t barged in and demanded that she tell Randy she’d been in contact with him now for months.
How would she tell Randy without making him hate her? In fear, she had betrayed him. He didn’t deserve to be with someone who would willingly place his life in danger. If Randy died, how much evil would roam free?
She knew one thing for certain: if Randy had died tonight causing the world to burn, it would have all been her fault.
She lay on her back in the bathtub staring at the textured ceiling, hoping against hope that it would come crashing down and drive her into the grave she’d dug for herself so long ago.
And to think she had prayed to her Maker only hours before!
God must hate her. She was a pitiful creature, the spawn of two strangers who tumbled about in the lacy sheets of a cheap Nogales motel room. She had grown up begging for food and eventually turned to the profession that had been her genesis so she would never have to starve again.
But they had beaten her. Scratched her. Choked her until she was nearly blue in the face.
And, worst of all, they had impregnated her more times than she cared to admit because many refused to wear the one thing that would have protected them all. Inconvenient, they said. Pregnancy was her problem, not theirs.
It had hurt then, but it hurt even more now. Back then she knew she had about as much worth as a worn-out rag. Now she pretended to be the holy woman she wasn’t. She was nothing more than a monster wearing saints’ clothes. An imposter.
Nothing she could do would ever fix that.
Randy was insane for wanting to marry her, but perhaps God had made him insane. Randy knew almost everything about her. He knew about the little ones who never had the chance to be named. He knew about the terrible nights and the razor blades. And he accepted it like a big, dumb oaf whose heart was ten times bigger than it should be!
Lupe gripped her abdomen as tears leaked down her face. She didn’t want to die, but she had to before she made things even worse for Randy and the rest of the world. It was the only way to make things right.
As she lay there, she decided what she would do. It might not work, but it was worth a try.
When preparing her bath, Lupe had filled the tub until the water was over a foot deep. The bubbles she’d added came up to the rim of the tub when she’d eased herself into the water. Relaxing. If only she could pass away in comfort like this instead of agony.
She closed her eyes and exhaled every last bit of air in her lungs. “I love you, Randy,” she mouthed. And then, even though she didn’t believe he would, she prayed, Padre, please forgive me.
Lupe Sanchez let her head slip below the level of the water and took a deep breath.
THE RAIN fell again after a brief lull as Bobby navigated the streets back to Randy’s home. He felt even more awake now than when he sat in bed, and wave after wave of irrational thought crashed against the shore of his mind.
If Randy couldn’t help him, he didn’t know what he’d do. He couldn’t let the poltergeists hound him forever. Maybe he could even leave and return to Cincinnati, or more specifically, the small river town that lay twenty-odd miles east of the city he claimed as his home: Eleanor, population 2,000.
Yes. Go home. He could do that. His stepmother and Jonas would welcome him with open arms. They would probably even throw a party for him to celebrate the return of the prodigal son, though he hadn’t a clue who else would come. It didn’t matter, though. He loved the two remaining members of his family and missed them with an intensity he hadn’t even realized until now. If the party consisted of just the three of them, that would be okay.
He blinked
a few times. What was the matter with him? Of course he missed his family, but this was his life now. A few spooky noises in the night couldn’t make him pack up and go crawling home like a college dropout who’d squandered all of his money on booze.
Not that he could legally buy any yet, anyway. He wouldn’t be twenty-one until November.
He continued driving, keeping an eye out for the correct turnoff.
It could have been the weather; it could have been the fact that he’d been chasing spirits in the dark. Either way, an undefined sense of dread began to gnaw at Bobby’s bones like sharp-toothed rats.
Randy Bellison’s driveway came up so suddenly Bobby almost missed it.
He turned.
“IN THE name of Jesus Christ, the son of God and savior of those who have fallen and seek forgiveness for their transgressions, be gone from her!”
Trish’s eyes blazed. She had been unable to hold still for a single moment since Randy began this evening’s session, and he’d had to resort to restraining her with thin strips of cloth he’d long ago commissioned for this very purpose. He’d felt ugly inside as he’d tied her struggling hands behind her back and bound her ankles and midsection to the chair he’d brought down from the kitchen, but he couldn’t allow her to harm herself.
Or him.
She swore at him, saying words that would have shamed a ship full of sailors. Sweat seeped from every pore of her body. Her face turned red and feverish. She looked like she would have fared better in a hospital bed than here.
Though the Spirit filled him as always, Randy could feel his own strength waning. Ever since he’d almost bled to death at Graham Willard’s hand, he’d been unable to sustain the energy he’d once had in situations like these. Months of physical therapy and exercise had been unable to bring it all back.
Despite that, he kept his composure. On a previous day he had gotten the woman’s tormentor to admit its existence—a sign of progress he found encouraging. Any display of weakness could send both him and Trish careening back to square one, and his attempts to get the tormentor to open back up would be immeasurably more difficult than before.
“Jesus Christ suffered and died so that this child might have life!” He said the words with such conviction that tears filled his eyes. “In his name, leave her and never torment this child again!”
Trish let out a hair-raising wail. “Get him out of here!”
Randy let out a small breath of relief at this apparent progress. “Yes, Trish! We can get him out of here! Be strong, and pray that your father delivers you from this oppression!”
She pinched her eyes shut as if unable to bear the sight of Randy’s face. “We thought he was gone for good! We don’t need him! We don’t want him!”
She started to rise with the chair still attached to her tiny body, but Randy forced it back to the floor with his hand. Her enigmatic words were likely intended to confuse him. After all, who would cause the tormentor so much revulsion other than God himself?
He wasn’t going to fall for it.
NOBODY RESPONDED to Bobby’s light rapping on the door. He waited, shivering, for the temperature had dropped a few degrees since he’d prowled around his yard not so long before. Raindrops hissed through the thick growth of trees surrounding the decrepit dwelling. Since plywood covered the windows, he had no way of knowing if Randy was still awake.
He knocked again, harder this time; just not too hard because he didn’t want the house to collapse on itself like a pile of sticks. Randy was nuts for keeping the outside of his home in this condition.
And Bobby was nuts for having returned.
When neither Randy nor anyone else came to the door, Bobby tried the knob. Locked, of course. Randy claimed that someone was after him. If Bobby had been in his shoes, he’d make sure the entrances were bolted at all times, too.
He raised his hand to knock a third time when a faint female scream issued from beyond the walls.
The sense of dread that accompanied him in the car slammed back into him at full force, and all thoughts of the can-throwing poltergeists were instantly forgotten.
Fact one: A woman inside the house was being injured or even killed.
Fact two: If Bobby acted now, he might be able to save her.
Fact three: He would have to plow his way through Randy first.
Bring it on.
He started to swing his foot back so he could kick at the door with all his might, but the sound of that would put Randy on full alert if the knocking hadn’t already done so. There might be another way in. An unblocked window, maybe, or a back door.
Bobby hurried around the right-hand side of the house. Boards covered those windows, too. Kind of freaky, if you asked him. But what was that? There. A screen door, sans plywood.
It swung open with a screech so loud that Bobby was sure it hadn’t been used since the days of Moses. The interior door was set with nine square panes of glass so dirty he couldn’t see through them.
Randy had locked this door, too.
It looked like Bobby had no choice but to make some noise. Even though he knew it would hurt, he brought his fist back and punched the pane closest to the doorknob as hard as he could.
The glass remained intact. He punched it again. This time his knuckle split open, sending a spike of pain through his hand. His eyes watered but he couldn’t worry about that now. Act first, patch wounds later. At least that’s what heroes did in the movies.
Wishing he’d had the foresight to bring a hammer, Bobby propped the screen door open, drew back a short distance, and ran at the door with his elbow jutting out like a miniature battering ram.
All he received for his efforts was a crunching sound that was more likely bone than glass. He forced bile back down his throat and blinked so his vision would clear. If he maintained this course of action, he would have one giant body-sized bruise when he got up in the morning, and he still wouldn’t have gotten into the house.
The scream from within repeated itself, only from this new vantage point Bobby could tell it was a shout of words rather than a shriek of agony. What was the woman saying? Was she begging for mercy?
He didn’t want to think about what Randy might be doing to her. He had to think about how he might gain easy entry.
Suddenly it came to him.
His memory flashed back to a day roughly four years before when Bobby was a scrawny teenager of sixteen. His stepmother, Charlotte, left town to visit relatives, and Bobby chose to stay home since he still worked at Gold Star Chili and didn’t want to take a vacation.
“If you get locked out of the house,” Charlotte said before leaving, “there’s a spare key underneath the flowerpot.”
“What if I lose it?” Bobby had asked, holding back a grin.
She’d given him her best scolding look. “Then you’ll be spending the next week camping out on the porch and using the birdbath as a toilet.”
In the present, Bobby scanned the ground for a place where one might hide an extra key. His late grandfather had stashed his spare key inside a watering can he’d weighted down with a rock, and an aunt had hidden hers under a cement rabbit that guarded her flowerbed.
He couldn’t see any pots or lawn animals (they probably would have made the house look occupied), but there was an old mat on the ground where he could wipe his feet.
He threw the mat aside and patted the small concrete slab on which it had lain. His hand touched a cool metal object, and he closed his fingers around it.
Randy needed to jack up his security if he wanted to continue hiding from whoever was after him.
As he slid the key into the lock on the doorknob, Bobby had the sudden fear that the key actually belonged to a shed or barn or even Randy’s Ford, but after a few jiggles the knob yielded and he swung the door inward.
He felt as though he was about to enter a dank cavern where a fire-breathing dragon lay in wait for its next meal, and he had the wild idea that he wouldn’t survive the night all in one piece. Fe
ar made him hesitate on the threshold. Yes, he could very well die here. Only his concern for Randy’s prisoner kept him moving forward. Better to perish saving another than to run away allowing her to die instead.
Bobby went into stealth mode the moment he set foot in the hallway. Light came from the coral and aqua kitchen to his left. The air still smelled faintly of pizza, and it was no wonder why: a plate of it sat on the table even though hours had passed since Randy put the pizza in the oven.
He paused on the threshold between the hallway and kitchen to listen. Then: “You’re wasting your time!”
The voice dripped with vitriol, and something about its timbre made legions of goosebumps spread over Bobby’s skin.
He ducked back into the hallway. A door on the left remained somewhat ajar. Light from the gap spilled across the carpet.
With a shaking hand, he pulled the door the rest of the way open. A flight of stairs leading downward ended at blood-red carpet where a human-shaped shadow splayed across the floor.
Bobby placed a foot on the first step, fully aware that he was weak and unarmed. God be with me, he prayed. If he acted fast, he might be able to knock Randy over again and pull the guy’s own knife on him.
Before he could take another step, Randy spoke. “In the name of the judge of the living and the dead; in the name of our creator God the Father and his son, Jesus Christ; and the Holy Spirit who fills my veins; depart from this child! Christ has defeated you! Return to that pit to which you have been damned!”
Bobby stared at Randy’s shadow. This had to be a joke. But Bobby couldn’t hear anyone laughing. His desire to rush down there and save whoever Randy had imprisoned vanished on the spot.
The female voice spoke again. “Maybe we don’t want him gone after all. Look how he stands there in terror, not understanding what he hears!”
Bobby’s blood turned to ice water. From his position at the top of the stairs he couldn’t see anyone, so it wasn’t possible for them to see him, either.
