Don't Read After Dark: Keep the lights on while reading these! (A McCray Horror Collection)

by McCray, Carolyn

  He chuckled to himself. God seldom answered prayers in such specific ways.

  Gonzales knew that he should call the police, but as he said, the hour was late. Besides, he did not want to have to bring the law into the matter, if possible. He would visit Tomás’ mother in the morning. From her, he felt certain that he could discover the identities of the other boys—and speak with their parents as well. Although the youth center was closing down, he still counseled those who had lost the path.

  A clang came from behind the altar. Had the boys circled around to the back of the church? Had he misjudged their intent? Then some loud, dark, rock music blared from the confessional.

  “Hello?” he called out, but no answer greeted him.

  Cautiously, Gonzales made his way to the far side of the church. This was not the type of music Tomás and his friends listened to. They were mesmerized by the allure of rappers, with their pimps and hos.

  The throbbing music and screeching singer sounded nothing like that.

  “Feel him tonight. Call upon his dark strength. Allow his power to course through your veins. Lucifer calls. Lucifer calls.”

  Demonic lyrics? Was this some kind of strange prank?

  Perhaps a different type of initiation?

  He came alongside the confessional. The foul music was definitely coming from inside. Frowning, he jerked open the door to find a boom box on the seat. He hit the Stop button. The CD slowly spun to a stop.

  Gonzales stood for a moment, his hand shaking a bit. Why this small electronic device unsettled him more than the knife-wielding gang member, he did not know. An evil emanated from it.

  “How does it feel to be so saintly, Father?” a mechanized voice asked from the other side of the confessional screen.

  Steadying his voice, Gonzales replied, “I wouldn’t know, my son.”

  This must be some new sort of gang initiation, Gonzales decided. Scare-the-priest-ha-ha-ha. Gonzales would not give them the satisfaction.

  “Do you have something to confess?” he asked.

  The tinny voice answered back. “Nope… Give me a minute, though.”

  “Excuse me?”

  When no answer came, Gonzales backed out of the booth. He felt a call to the police was overdue. He turned toward the rectory, but was blocked by a figure dressed in a full Spanish Inquisition uniform. From the long, flowing robes to the hideous birdlike mask, the figure looked as though it had stepped straight out of a very dark period of history.

  “Surprise!” the mechanical voice announced.

  This was no gang member who stood before him. This was evil given human form.

  Dark eyes twinkled behind the gilded mask, clearly enjoying Gonzales’ fear. The father turned on his heel, trying to flee deeper into the church. If he could reach a phone, or if one of his loyal staff had lingered…

  “Help!”

  Gonzales called out as he ran, but he had been very clear in his instructions. His staff was nowhere to be found. He was but a few feet away from the rectory door when something hit his back. He stumbled trying to keep his feet, but he couldn’t. Gonzales cried out as his knees hit the floor. Twisting around, he found a huge cross—tapered like a spear—sticking out from his back. He coughed up blood and slumped to the floor. The figure leapt toward him.

  A very modern tennis shoe kicked him in the chin.

  The world spun as Gonzales, in one last effort, tried to crawl away.

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” the mechanical voice chided as he kicked again. “I guess being a saint ain’t what it’s cracked up to be.”

  CHAPTER 1

  Cecilia Knight pulled her pillow over her head, trying to block out the worst goth-rock song in the history of goth-rock songs. Her bedroom walls did little to dampen the music as the singer kept going on and on about Satan. Like they were BFFs or something.

  Then the infernal guitar riff.

  That was it!

  She sprang out of bed and headed down the darkened hallway, arriving at her younger brother’s door. Cecilia used the side of her fist to pound on the door.

  “Jeremy, how many times have I told you to keep it down?” When she got no answer, she yelled even louder. “It’s the middle of the night!”

  And yes, she did realize that it was slightly counterproductive to yell a statement like that, but she had to be up early for a test. Jeremy had gotten on her last frayed nerve.

  Still, there was no answer. Cecilia jiggled the handle. The door was locked. Pulling out a bobby pin that helped wrestle her curly blonde hair in place, she jimmied the tract home lock faster than P. Diddy changed names.

  Bursting into her brother’s room, she found… nothing. No one.

  Then the little punk crawled in the window.

  “What in the heck are you doing?” she asked, jerking him in by his hoodie.

  “What? I was just listening to my music.”

  “Out on the roof?” Cecilia asked, brushing off the dirt and pebbles from Jeremy’s back. “At midnight?”

  “Yes!” her brother exclaimed, ducking out from under her hand. “This is when Diana Dahmer tells us the music is at its zenith, and that we must listen to it under a full moon!”

  Cecilia rolled her eyes. If goth-rock star Diana Dahmer told her brother to jump off a bridge … Well… she feared he might just do that. She glanced around Jeremy’s room. Posters with demonic symbols announcing each of Diana Dahmer’s releases punctuated the black walls. They looked smeared with bright red blood.

  Her brother looked the ultimate goth fanboy as well. His hair was dyed raven black, making his pale face seem nearly translucent. His green eyes were hidden under dark contacts. For someone who proclaimed he didn’t care about life, he certainly spent a lot of time looking good for it.

  “Get down with the devil. Get down. His is our only true salvation, so get down with the devil.”

  “Okay. That’s it,” Cecilia stated as she hit the Off button on Jeremy’s MP3 player. However, her younger brother simply hit the On button, and the song continued right where it left off.

  “Fine.”

  Cecilia reached behind the dresser—painted black, of course—and pulled the power cord.

  “You know, Cecilia, you are seriously dope challenged.”

  Jeremy grabbed the MP3 player and took off across the room. Cecilia was right behind him.

  “So help me, if you are smoking—”

  “No!” Jeremy shouted as he jumped onto the bed, holding the player above his head, just out of her reach. “Jeez, Sis, loosen up.” He ducked and dove as she swiped at him with a pillow. “Get out on the street and learn our generation’s vernacular. Dope means ‘hip,’ ‘cool,’ ‘phat.’ ”

  Finally, Cecilia swung the pillow with both hands, right at her brother’s knees, knocking him down off his perch. She grabbed the MP3 player, trying to wrestle it from his hands. For such a scrawny goth guy, he had a pretty tight hold of the darn thing.

  “Just get to bed,” she said, as she finally gave up on the struggle. “It’s a school night.”

  “Gawd. Sis, do you ever chill?”

  “Do I chill?” Cecilia hissed as she backed away. She squinted, trying to see how the two of them could ever be related. Didn’t they live in the same house and deal with the same crap every day?

  “You know what?” she said. “I will chill when the mortgage is paid.”

  She glanced in the mirror, not recognizing herself for a moment. What used to be nice, tousled curls were now more of a rat’s nest pulled on top of her head. Her normally stark blue eyes looked gray and dull in the low light. Dark circles made her face seem nearly bruised. To think that a year ago she had dreamt of being voted the prom queen. Those days were long over.

  Even more angered, Cecilia turned to her brother. “You know what? I will get ‘phat’ when we have money left over to buy makeup, and I’ll be ‘doping’ with my ‘homies’ when I’m not cleaning up after you and Mom!”

  Jeremy’s lower lip trembled, reminding h
er that he was a full two years younger than she was, and in many ways even more tender than she. Taking a deep breath, Cecilia tried to rein in her anger. He was just a kid. Really, both of them were kids. Adding drama like this wasn’t going to make their life any better.

  “So, I don’t think it is asking too much of you to get to bed on time.”

  Her younger brother wouldn’t look her in the eye, so she just shut the window and left the room. No sooner had she closed the door, and the damned song started again.

  Tears sprang to her eyes. She just couldn’t take his belligerent, selfish attitude anymore. She didn’t care what the therapist kept telling her. She didn’t care that he was acting out and handling his grief differently than she was. She didn’t even care that the MP3 player was one of the last things that their dad had given him. Cecilia was going back in there and smashing the player—and the speakers—just for good measure.

  The only thing that stopped her was her name being called from downstairs.

  “C.C.?”

  Closing her eyes, she hoped her mother would stop there, so that Cecilia could pretend she didn’t hear her.

  “Cecilia, I can’t find my glasses,” her mother slurred.

  That was more than likely because she had left them in the dishwasher when she was looking for a clean glass for her vodka, which she had put in the freezer along with Jeremy’s academic probation paperwork. Exactly what her mother planned to read at midnight, Cecilia had no idea.

  But it did about as much good to voice those thoughts as it did to ask Jeremy to help out around the house.

  Instead, she wiped the tears from her eyes, put on her “good girl” smile, and shouted back, “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll find them.”

  * * *

  Detective Paxton Prover tried to get out of his car, but three coffee cups, two crumpled fast food bags, and a donut wrapper fell out first. The irony of the last item was not lost on him. He hurried to cram the stuff back into his car, but sure enough, his partner was already heading his way.

  “Breakfast of champions?” detective Ruth Matte asked, a grin on her lips.

  “Like I’ve had time to grab something to eat,” Paxton mumbled as he finished picking up the litter. He had really hoped to have a few seconds to himself before joining his partner.

  Ruth smiled as he brushed beer nuts and pretzel crumbs off his jacket. “Looks like you’ve got a pretty good start right there.”

  “Funny,” he said as he pulled the jacket on. There was no point in trying to pretend that these were fresh clothes. Clearly, they were the same clothes he wore yesterday—and they hadn’t even been that fresh then. Trying to avoid the subject, he put his head down and walked toward the large church up the block.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Paxton watched Ruth. Her dark ponytail swayed as she walked. The scent of strawberries and cream wafted over to him. Obviously, Ruth not only had fresh clothes on, but had showered as well. All this, and she was the one with a kid. Paxton barely had time for a stupid cockatiel.

  Which—note to self—he needed to swing home and feed at some point.

  “Looks like we’ve got plenty of company,” Ruth stated as they neared the church.

  He did not know this neighborhood well, but Paxton could guess that the huge crowd gathered around the entrance was not there for services. Crime brought out way more people than contrition.

  Ruth proved why she had made detective as she indicated a mustard stain on his cuff. “So, I take it you hit the precinct poker game last night?”

  “Ugh. And into the morning,” Paxton said, really wishing he had brushed his teeth at some point in the last twenty-four hours. “Had I known we were going to get called in so damned early—”

  “It’s after 9:00 in the morning.”

  Paxton stopped as he tried to straighten his tie. “Yeah, well, 9:00 a.m. on your day off is like 5:00 a.m. on a workday.”

  Ruth shook her head, tucked the file she was carrying under her arm, and “shushed” his hands away. Efficiently, she re-knotted the tie and made sure it was centered perfectly. While she seemed all about business, had there been something tender in the way she patted the tie after she was finished?

  He would never know, as she headed toward the church once again. Paxton trotted to keep up.

  “So what’s so important that the captain okayed overtime? For us?”

  “Don’t know,” Ruth said as they made their way through all of the looky-loos. “Just got told to meet you here, pronto.”

  When the crowd did not part, Paxton took the lead, gently nudging the thrill-seekers out of the way. Finally, they made it to the stark yellow tape that announced, “Crime Scene.”

  Paxton pulled the tape up to let Ruth pass beneath it. He may not have showered in the last twenty-four hours—all right, make it forty-eight—but he could still act the gentleman.

  As they approached the stone steps of the church, a young patrolman stepped in front of them. “I am sorry, but this is a restricted area.”

  No kidding.

  Paxton moved his jacket out of the way, but when the patrolman looked at his belt, there was no badge. Damn! He must have left it in the car. Or at home. Or at the poker party. At some point he was going to have to remember the last twelve hours.

  “Sir, like I said, I need you to step back.”

  Really? The kid couldn’t tell they were detectives? Okay, maybe not Paxton—at least not this morning. But Ruth? The chick oozed detective. From the finely tailored suit to the attractive, yet sensible enough shoes, she could outsprint a meth addict. She was true blue, through and through.

  Ruth sighed, probably more at Paxton than at the patrolman, and flashed her badge. “Detective Matte.” She nodded to Paxton. “And Prover.”

  The young kid blushed a bright crimson. “Oh, I am so, so, sorry! I did not mean any disrespect. I was just told to hold the perimeter,” he stammered.

  Had Paxton ever been that young or enthusiastic? The kid’s black uniform looked not only ironed, but starched as well. The silver badge on his chest glittered in the early morning light. He must have just polished it.

  “No, you were doing your job, officer.” Her eyes slid over to Paxton even though she was talking with the kid. “Don’t ever lose your sense of dedication and thoroughness.”

  While the patrolman answered, “Yes, ma’am,” Paxton was pretty damn sure those words weren’t meant for the kid, though.

  As he followed Ruth up the steps, Paxton was about to say something, but why bother? Ruth, a single working mom, had every reason to chide him. She was more put together than he ever was. And compared to his sister? Paxton wondered if she had even gotten his niece and nephew off to school this morning. He kept meaning to go over there and check on them, but his work, or a game of Texas hold ’em, got in the way.

  Two uniformed officers opened the stout church doors for them. As they crossed the threshold, Paxton saw Ruth make the sign of the cross, but then stop halfway. Her hand lingered in midair, as if she were uncertain of what to do. Then, she suddenly became extremely interested in the file she was carrying.

  He wanted to reach out, but for as much time as they spent together on the job, they never really talked much about their personal lives. There was always the station scuttlebutt, though. Paxton knew of the bitter divorce after her theological-scholar husband chose God over his wife and son. It looked like Ruth had lost faith in far more than men.

  “Ruth,” Lieutenant Tyner said, as he approached from deeper within the church. Warmly, he shook Ruth’s hand. “So glad you could make it on such short notice.”

  Paxton waited for some acknowledgment that he even existed, let alone that he was working on the case with Ruth. But why was he surprised? The lieutenant had eyes only for Ruth. Hell, if he hadn’t been her direct supervisor, the lieutenant probably would have proposed by now. He and just about everybody else on the force. Ruth, however, had kindly, but ever so firmly, let them all down gently.

  Li
ke now. Ruth gently pulled her hand from the lieutenant’s. “I hear we’ve got a high-profile murder?”

  “Yes, of course. The body was discovered—” The lieutenant’s cell phone rang. Specifically rang with the Star Wars theme. His fingers fumbled to answer it quickly. He listened for a moment, and then frowned. Covering the mic, the lieutenant whispered, “We’ve got a five-car pileup on Lakeside Freeway. Just follow the cones. The ME is on the scene and can brief you.”

  Oh, how it must have been killing Tyner to have to attend to actual police business, when he could have spent the next hour “briefing” Ruth. Paxton let himself gloat for a few moments before following Ruth. The cone path took them behind the pews and to a side aisle. Whatever happened must have at least started down the central aisle.

  The interior of the church randomly burst with light as the CSIs’ strobes burst to life, capturing images. There were maybe a few dozen markers on the ground, indicating possible forensic evidence. Not many for what looked like such a high-priority case.

  The main cluster of personnel was up at the altar, though. Paxton couldn’t see past the wall of black uniforms. Whatever happened up there must be pretty interesting to gather this many uniforms.

  “Excuse me,” Ruth said as she tried to squeeze her way past the crowd.

  When the men parted, Paxton stopped short.

  “Dear God…” Ruth breathed out next to him.

  Before them, a naked man hung upside down from the cross in a reverse crucifixion. Worse, there had to be at least a hundred wounds scattered over the poor man’s body. His skin was sallow and sagged against his bones. Exactly how long had the man been left like this?

  Paxton wasn’t a religious man, but damn! There was something fundamentally wrong with anyone who could do such a thing.

  Ruth’s voice seemed to shake a bit as she approached the medical examiner. “Time of death?”

  The tall man turned around and smiled way too widely for such a scene. “Hey, Ruth! I didn’t think you were on today.”

  She did not return the smile. “Neither did I. Any idea who the vic is?”

  It wasn’t the ME who answered, though. It was one of the uniformed cops. “Father Gonzales. The parish priest here.”