The Wicked

by James Newman

  “Maybe. But I couldn’t help it, Kate. Jesus. All I saw was my daughter, terrified of that man who’s supposed to make children happy—frigging Santa Claus, for God’s sake! During those first few seconds, I saw red. And yeah, maybe I did overreact. Because I had to protect my daughter.”

  “Our daughter,” Kate corrected him.

  “I did what I felt had to be done at the time,” David said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Understood. Still...you didn’t see me running across the mall to slap Santa across the face.”

  “I guess it’s just a father thing.”

  “A macho thing.”

  “No. A father thing. Don’t patronize me, Kate. You know I hate it when you do that.”

  “You looked like you wanted to kill that man, David!” Kate burst.

  “Nah,” David said, smirking. “Just break his arms and legs.”

  “You’re incorrigible.”

  “And you’re not being fair! I can’t believe you’re making me out to be the bad guy, when all I wanted to do was protect our daughter from some fucking drunk who shouldn’t have been working with kids in the first place!”

  “There’s no need to curse,” Kate said. “You need to calm down.”

  David stood, his chair scraping loudly against the linoleum like a third party adding its own two cents to their argument. “I’m through arguing about this. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I did overreact. But the owners of that mall are lucky I don’t sue their asses for everything they have! Hiring some alcoholic who’s hardly better than a fucking skid-row bum to work with children? It’s bullshit, and I’m sorry you don’t agree.”

  They had asked Becca what Santa said to her on their way home from the mall, but she wasn’t able to explain anything other than the fact that Santa scared her. Something about how he thought she had been naughty, and her Daddy didn’t love her.

  Poor kid. David had wanted to beat the guy within an inch of his life—frankly, he had surprised himself even more than he surprised Kate, as he was normally a man who tried his best to avoid conflict—but saner minds prevailed. Kate had pulled him away from the center court of the mall’s west wing, assuring the overweight, out-of-breath security guard who ran onto the scene that they were leaving. Somehow they had walked away from the whole thing without David ending up in jail.

  Kate flinched beneath her husband’s fury now, her hands covering her pregnant belly, as David turned to leave the room.

  As she watched him go, she began to cry.

  What was happening to them, Kate wondered? What was happening to their family?

  It was all falling apart. Crumbling, piece by piece, every day.

  Maybe David had been right. Maybe they would have been happier if they had just stayed in New York.

  The subject was eventually dropped. No more was said about the incident at the mall. David couldn’t get anything out of Becca no matter how hard he tried, so he realized he’d better not push her into getting upset about the Santa thing all over again.

  Finally it was time to turn in for the night. Kate retired to their queen-size bed, David to the sofa where he drifted off in front of the David Letterman show on T.V.

  David considered sneaking into the bedroom and attempting reconciliation with Kate, but ultimately decided to hell with it. He was sick of trying. And he was still infuriated that she had made him out to be the villain in the whole thing.

  What a wonderful Christmas this is going to be, he thought with a smirk, mere seconds before the clock on the DVD player atop the television clicked over to midnight.

  It was Christmas Eve in Morganville.

  CHAPTER 21

  A few minutes after two a.m., David Little woke abruptly, sitting straight up on the sofa with a single hoarse word on his sleep-crusted lips: “Moloch.”

  He did not know how it came to him. But out of nowhere it materialized, after he had pursued its origin so desperately over a week ago, that night Becca mentioned the name of the terrifying man in her nightmare.

  “Holy shit.”

  It hit him.

  That name again...Moloch.

  Suddenly, David knew exactly where he had heard that word before.

  “Of course!” he whispered as he rose from the sofa. “Why could I not remember it before?”

  He tiptoed out of the living room and into his studio. At first, the moonlight was the room’s only illumination, its pale glow shining through the big bay window that overlooked the back yard. David pulled the cord in the center of the ceiling, dousing the room with light.

  He walked past his cluttered desk, around the empty easel in the center of the room, and stood before the bookshelf that ran along the entire length of one wall. Here were 137 books, at last count, neatly shelved paperbacks and hardcovers David had arranged in chronological order according to when he had done the work; here he had stored every book for which he had designed and painted the cover art since the beginning of his career. The spines of sci-fi serials such as Galactic Renegade #47: Dominion Quest—a sci-fi novel which had been his first paid gig and the one painting in his portfolio which still made him cringe every time he gazed upon its amateurish style—stood alongside sword-and-sorcery epics like Reign of the Dark Mage and Elvin Thieves of Shandakk as well as mainstream thrillers such as Liar’s Game, Protocol 99, and The President’s Decoy. Not to mention their bottom-of-the-barrel horror brethren, books David had illustrated for no other reason than the quick, easy cash—titles such as Hellbeast, Lucifer’s Hammer, and Kiss of the Vampire, all with equally lurid covers.

  David’s lips worked silently as he read each title, searching for a specific book.

  Where could it be...?

  “There,” he said, pulling a book from the shelf. “A-ha.” A thin paperback from an independent outfit called Bloodstone Press, it sat between a Stephen King reprint that was one of David’s finest professional moments (not to mention his sweetest paycheck to date) and a lesser-known hardcover work from an author David had never heard from again after illustrating that particular piece, something called Vamprey: Bloodfeast 3000.

  David stared for a moment at the book in his hands, the novel he was quite sure had been the source of that word which so stubbornly evaded him the night Becca woke up screaming:

  Moloch.

  Its title was The Feasting, by a fellow named Andrew Holland. The cover in question depicted some small country town being swallowed by a beast with humongous needle-fangs. A bone-white full moon was the tentacled thing’s single eye, and as it leaned from the black sky toward the reader in an embossed effect designed to suggest three-dimensionality, it dwarfed the close-knit houses below with their tiny yellow windows of nocturnal life.

  David couldn’t stop a nostalgic grin from spreading across his face. Like most of his covers, he could remember painting this piece as if he had just finished its final stroke the day before.

  He turned the book over and read aloud the synopsis on the back (called “selling copy” in the jargon of the biz, though David could never imagine such purple prose convincing him to buy a copy):

  “In the small town of Scuttley’s Corners, Maine, people are dropping like flies.

  Good people, God-fearing people...

  people with nothing to fear.

  All that has changed, now.

  For Scuttley’s Corners is no longer a good place to live.

  In fact, Scuttley’s Corners is an evil place.

  A place of death. A place of darkness.

  And now there is much to fear.

  For Scuttley’s Corners is now a place possessed...by an unholy being named MOLOCH.”

  “I knew it!” David flicked the back of the book with one finger. His fingernail made a hollow little pop sound as it hit. “Fucking-A.”

  That cinched it. Becca had seen the word “Moloch” at some point when she had been in her father’s studio, messing around where she was not supposed to be messing around. Perhaps she had seen the book on the shelf, pulled it
down and glanced at its back cover with wide-eyed wonder, as children are wont to do when confronted with visions of things that go bump in the night, terrified of such nightmare images yet at the same time morbidly fascinated and unable to turn away. Perhaps she had spotted that word while helping Mommy and Daddy as they were moving in, unpacking the contents of the boxes that had lain about the house for several days.

  David nodded again as he left the room, turning out the light as he went.

  Absolutely. That explained everything. Becca had heard about the Dawson boy’s murder on TV, and she had seen the word “Moloch” in that synopsis of Andrew Holland’s literary masterpiece, The Feasting. Her imagination had then taken the ball and run with it, and even if the child had not been consciously aware of reading that word somewhere in Daddy’s stack of books, there was no doubt in David’s mind that she had seen it. Her subconscious had stored it away, dredging it up again when the time came for a harmless, perfectly explainable nightmare.

  “Damn, I’m good,” David said.

  He closed the studio door behind him then, quite sure that he would sleep soundly for the rest of the night with this mystery solved at last.

  CHAPTER 22

  Reverend Darryl Rhodes wept.

  Ever since that awful night in August, he felt as if the guilt had been eating him alive. Now it had all “come to a head,” as his dear old father used to say. Now there were more, more than just those who had passed on in The Great Fire.

  Reverend Rhodes felt haunted by them all.

  He had let them go; he had allowed them to leave this world without proper reconciliation with their Lord. Rhodes was quite sure he would answer for that come Judgment Day.

  A pastor’s job did not begin and end on Sunday mornings, as many believed. The sermons were only one small part of it. There was so much more to being a Man of God. When Darryl Rhodes had answered the Lord’s calling, he knew he had taken it all upon himself. Not just some of it.

  The Heavenly Father was a boss who wanted all or nothing.

  Now, as Rhodes sat at the foot of his pulpit in the heart of Morganville’s First Baptist Church, he wondered if he could continue. Never before had he doubted himself or his choice of profession, until these last few months.

  In fact, Reverend Rhodes had recently begun to wonder if he even wanted this job anymore.

  Perhaps the time had come to give the Lord his notice. Cut his losses, hope for a halfway-decent severance plan, and get out while he still could.

  Maybe.

  Rhodes shook his head at that, gave a sad little chuckle in spite of his tears as he gazed upon his surroundings. Most of the chapel’s lights had been turned off for the night, only the soft illumination of those yellow bulbs around the preacher’s wooden podium basking him in their somber glow. Rhodes sat with his head in his hands, trying to pray. But the words would not come to him. When they did, they felt hollow, empty of meaning. As if someone had written them down half-heartedly, a cold script written by a talentless hack minister, and now he recited them to a God who was far too busy to listen to Darryl Rhodes’ problems anyway.

  Rhodes shook his head again, stood. He would pay for that blasphemous thought, he knew. The bones in his knees cracked and popped like those of a man twice his age as he descended the steps of the church’s main stage. He wondered why he hadn’t just retired by now. He would probably be better off. Not just his own peace of mind, but the whole church. Maybe the congregation would be happier, more folks would attend Sunday services if he just gave it up. The crowd had thinned significantly of late, and Rhodes had wondered for quite some time just what he’d done wrong. Yes, perhaps it was time to step aside, let some handsome young pastor come in and turn this place around. That’d probably change a lot. Attendance would skyrocket.

  Sure.

  “To hell with your self-pity,” Rhodes said to himself. His voice was low, but it echoed unnaturally through the empty church as if the building itself were mocking him.

  Rhodes turned and stood in the center of the teal-carpeted stage. He felt so small and insignificant as he stared out over the dozens of empty pews. Bathed in the soft pink glow of the day’s setting sun as it pierced the stained-glass windows on all sides of the chapel, the wooden benches appeared soaked in blood. So many sermons he had preached from this spot—surely they numbered somewhere in the hundreds, if not thousands—but had they meant anything at all? Like his prayer, had they merely been random notes, words scribbled by a man who loved God but wasn’t quite sure if the Lord still loved him? Did anyone take those words home anymore? Or did they forget everything their pastor said the second those doors opened and they were back on Morganville’s streets?

  Perhaps, Rhodes thought, it was the dreams getting to him. Influencing him to think such thoughts. Those horrible dreams he’d been experiencing ever since Heller Home burned down.

  No, he tried not to think about that. Wouldn’t think about that. Because thinking about them made them real. Thinking about them gave his nightmares credence. Power.

  And the things in his nightmares could not be real.

  The preacher turned, stared toward the back of the stage. Here was where the choir normally gathered before the Sunday services, where they sat behind him, during his sermons.

  Reverend Rhodes’ stubbled jaw dropped.

  It couldn’t be.

  It wasn’t possible.

  He rubbed his eyes, opened them again.

  “Oh, Lord...”

  At the rear of the church hung a massive wooden cross, suspended from the ceiling by several steel braces bolted behind it. It was a beautiful thing, backlit by a fiery orange glow where the arms of the holy symbol met. It was a sight that never failed to lift Reverend Rhodes’ spirits any time he started feeling down. Any time he felt short of divine inspiration.

  But not today. Not now.

  Now the sight of that thing...floating there...sent chills down his spine, his legs, his toes.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” he babbled.

  It was the man from his nightmares, up there.

  Hanging from the cross—or, rather, not touching it at all but bobbing in the air several inches in front of the holy icon—was a very old, old man. The bearded one. His mottled, skeletal arms were outstretched, and he wore only a filthy yellow loincloth as if in mockery of the Savior. The ancient thing’s foul gray beard dangled from his bony chin like rivers of corruption, coiling onto the floor of the stage beneath him. Fat bluebottle flies swarmed around his emaciated form, in and out of his long beard, and the stench that met Rhodes’ nostrils as he stared at the man and the man stared back at him reminded Rhodes of something burning.

  “Hello?” said the preacher. He was frozen. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. A persistent buzzing filled his mind.

  The thing shot down from the cross then, descended upon Revered Rhodes in the blink of an eye as if suspended on invisible wires.

  The man’s cold, cold fingers—fingers that were unnaturally long and spider-like—embraced the preacher’s head. Gently, like the touch of a lover.

  Rhodes came in his trousers as the ancient thing’s mouth opened, and the darkness embraced him.

  Contrary to what he had been told all along, contrary to what he had preached to Morganville’s faithful from this stage every Sunday, contrary to what Darryl Rhodes had believed in and worshipped his whole life...the dark was good.

  So good.

  He entered it, willingly.

  The thing called Moloch whispered sweet secrets to his soul.

  And, at last, Reverend Darryl Rhodes realized his true calling.

  He realized he had been lied to. All of his goddamned life.

  CHAPTER 23

  As if God knew they deserved it above anyone else after everything their family had been through the past eight months, the Littles experienced one of their best Christmases ever. Becca was wide awake by five a.m., poking and prodding her parents like some giggling, organic alarm clock that could
not be silenced no matter how hard her sleepy-eyed parents wished to snooze. Finally, Mommy and Daddy gave in. David hadn’t gone to bed until well after one a.m., as—just like every year—he had played Santa Claus in the wee hours of the morning. Stalking quietly through the living room, he ate several of the chocolate-chip cookies Becca had left out for Santa, emptied most of the glass of milk in the sink, and took a minute to write his daughter a quick thank you note in an altered style of penmanship which he imagined might resemble Santa’s merry scrawl. Afterward, he laid out all the presents he and Kate had kept hidden in their closet since their shopping spree, arranging them around the Christmas tree, so sure that Becca would hardly know where to begin.

  Becca declared it the greatest day of her life. For the most part she had gotten everything she wanted for Christmas: the Barbie bicycle, the Barbie sing-along radio, the Just-4-Kidz Kitchen Set with the Real Working Microwave, and the Baby Bouncy-Bear. Now Kate and David felt as if their house had been flooded—not by heavy rains, but by ragged pieces of gift-wrapping and fat crumpled bows of every size and shape and color.

  Joel arrived a few minutes after they finished breakfast, bringing with him the new dress and hairdryer Kate had been wanting for Christmas. For David he brought a set of new paintbrushes and a sign that said DO NOT DISTURB: GENIUS AT WORK for his brother-in-law’s studio. Becca, meanwhile, did not even know where to begin wading through her sea of toys, which grew even deeper once Uncle Joel arrived.

  Things could not have gone better. For once, a day passed for the Littles with no arguments. No awkward moments between David and Joel, no tension between Kate and David, and no psychotic Santas smelling of sour sweat and scotch.

  Once, David even placed his head upon Kate’s huge tummy, smiled up at her before kissing a line down to her belly button. The baby didn’t kick, but he kept his ear there for several minutes, winked at Joel and holding his wife tightly like he had in the days before Becca was born.