by Ninie Hammon
Emily sucked in a gasp; Daniel’s face turned ashen.
“Its voice was”—Andi shuddered again—“awful when it talked to Mr. Bishop.”
“What’d it say?” Theresa asked.
“It said something about three standing by a light and asked Mr. Bishop where to find Becky.”
Theresa’s spine went rigid; her gasp was audible. “Becca?” she whispered.
“That’s right, Becca. But Mr. Bishop didn’t answer, and then it stuck a claw down into the man’s head and the man…shot Miss Lund.”
Jack wanted to ask a dozen questions, though he doubted he’d have been able to wrap words around any of them even if he had the chance—which he didn’t. Something had shifted in the room. An unnatural stillness had come over it. And it was quiet—absolutely silent—as if a giant had dropped a bell jar down on it. None of the hospital clatter, obvious only a moment before, penetrated the silence. Neither did the rain against the window. He could see the drops pelting the glass, but they made no sound. And the source of all that quiet and stillness was the old black woman and the little girl with bright blue eyes sitting in a puddle of stuffed animals on the bed. Their connectedness had stopped the world in its tracks. He knew he should not speak and break the invisible strand running from one to the other. He was also pretty sure he wouldn’t have been able to make a sound even if he’d tried.
“The wasp thing didn’t want the man to shoot Mr. Bishop,” Andi said, her small voice a barely audible whisper. “It told the man ‘nooooo,’ but the man shot him anyway.”
Nobody said anything then. Lightning flashed, shattered like bright icicles against the window and fell away in shiny fragments. Thunder clapped instantly, the rumble ripping open the quiet stillness of the room, dragging the hospital sounds in on its coattails. The light through the tracks of rain on the windows projected squiggly gray images onto the white sheets where Andi sat clutching twin monkeys, creating images of transparent worms inching across the bed.
Theresa took a deep, shuddery breath, released Andi’s hand and stood up straight, shaking her head slowly.
“She knows,” she said, her voice almost as quiet as Andi’s had been.
“Knows what?” Daniel asked.
“Knows!” She paused, then spoke in the cadence of often-repeated words. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
“Ephesians 6:12,” said Daniel.
“You believe that?” she asked him.
“It’s Scripture. Of course, I believe it.”
“No, you don’t. Christians all say they do, but most don’t, not really.”
The old woman turned to Jack. “You believe we live in a supernatural world, Jack?”
Jack’s head was spinning, Bishop’s voice echoing in a dark, hollow cavern. Looks like you ain’t gone find out what you come here to find out, the words painted on a canvas of sound, a relentless flat-line buzz.
“I believe there ought to be a reasonable, rational explanation for everything…but sometimes there isn’t. A lot of times there isn’t. If that’s what you mean by supernatural, then yeah, I believe we live in a supernatural world. But if what you mean by supernatural is angels and gremlins and demons and fairies, then—”
“Both of you”—she looked pointedly at Jack, then at Daniel—“used to believe it, used to know the truth in here.” She patted her chest above her heart.
Jack felt the kind of unease you feel when you know you’ve forgotten something important—that a suddenly violent drunk had been packing a switchblade the last time you busted him, maybe, or that the familiar face of that bus boy had been on a wanted poster.
Did Jack know this woman? She certainly acted like she knew him.
“For centuries, everybody believed it, understood there’s a spiritual battle going on around us all the time.” She sighed. “The smartest thing Satan ever done was to get folks to believe he don’t exist.” She turned toward Andi. “But they’s those who do see the battle, folks who know. My Bishop knew. Looks like Andi does, too, now.”
“Are you saying Andi can see…what? Demons?” Emily was incredulous.
“Not only demons. Appears she’s been give eyes to see it all. What’s dark for the rest of us, she’s been give the light to see.”
Jack couldn’t hold onto the question any longer.
“How did you know me?” he asked the little girl, tried to keep his voice casual, but failed.
Andi looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure,” she said. “There are things I just…know. I don’t know how, but I do. When you called me, I knew who you were and that you needed me. So I came back.” A wistful look skittered across her features. “It was so bright there. I brought some of the brightness back with me. Not much, but enough to light up what’s around me and what’s in my head.”
Andi smiled, and Jack would have sworn the shadows in the room drew back into the corners when she did. “I know you saved my life”—he started to protest, but she didn’t let him—“and I know I don’t ever have to be afraid, Uncle Jack, because you’ll always keep me safe.”
Uncle Jack? He merely stared at her, afraid to say anything because of the real possibility that if he opened his mouth he would burst into tears.
CHAPTER 12
The two men left the building together—Jack to go home and pace some more, Daniel to go home and pack a small suitcase for Emily so she could stay the night in Andi’s room. The doctor wanted to keep the child one more night “for observation.”
The rain had stopped, leaving the empty parking lot an eerie swamp where tendrils of mist rose off the hot asphalt. Jack shivered though the breeze that tickled his neck was warm.
When they were about to step off the curb to go their separate ways to their cars, Daniel spoke, “What Theresa said in there, and Andi…what do you think—?”
“I don’t think.” Jack didn’t look at him, merely stared into the parking lot where gauzy mist drained cars and bushes and trees of color, faded them, softened their shapes and made the ordinary alien. “I can’t right now, system overload. My circuits were already fried before”—he made a sort of all-encompassing gesture at the hospital behind them—“whatever that was. I’m so far out of my comfort zone UPS doesn’t even deliver here.”
He turned and looked at Daniel. Peered into his face, but saw nothing, no recognition. It was certainly understandable. Less than twenty-four hours ago the man had been told his little girl was going to die. Not surprising his mind wasn’t keeping all the plates spinning right now. Jack let it go.
“Did what she said shock you?” Jack asked. “Didn’t you already believe that stuff?”
“I don’t know what I believe,” Daniel said, his voice flat. That surprised Jack, surprised him even more that Daniel was honest enough to admit it. No, actually it didn’t surprise Jack at all. “So many thoughts are chasing each other around in my head I can’t manage to catch one and hold on long enough to think it.”
“Copy that,” Jack said.
“Why did you call me Dano in there?”
“What?”
“Dano. You called me Dano.”
“I did?”
“Yeah, you did.” Daniel paused. “That was my nickname when I was a kid.”
Jack’s heart kicked into a gallop. He didn’t say anything, but Daniel must have seen something on his face.
“What?” Daniel asked.
Far-away thunder rumbled, the storm grumbling its retreat.
Ok, it was time. He was pretty sure Daniel would figure part of it out on his own soon anyway. And the “good reverend” was, after all, involved—whatever that meant. Daniel should know—all of it. Besides, if Jack didn’t share this with somebody, he was going to go as crazy as a nuclear waste dump rat.
“I want to show you something, Daniel. Do you have time to come with me? It’s not far. It
won’t take long.”
“Sure,” Daniel said. “What is it?”
“You’ll see when we get there.”
Daniel told Jack he’d never ridden in a police cruiser before; Jack allowed that if he’d spent less time in church as a kid and more time drinking and carousing, he could have earned any number of all-expenses-paid trips in the backseat of one. Their banter was easy and relaxed, a level of companionship not commensurate with the amount of time they had spent together. Jack found that both odd and normal at the same time.
They kept the conversation light by mutual unspoken agreement. There had been enough “heavy” already, and Jack was about to pull a dump truck up to Daniel’s mind and pour in another full load. Jack stopped the cruiser in front of a big, ornate house. All the windows were dark.
When Daniel spoke, his voice had lost the bantering tone. “You ever hear of a thing called an earwick?”
“I think it’s earwig, and yeah, used to have nightmares about them when I was in Panama. I’d imagine one of the teeming hordes of bugs that were crawling on me was going to slither into my ear and lay eggs in there and when they hatched they’d eat my brain.”
“I thought about earwigs when Theresa was talking. Something that gets in your head and…” Daniel didn’t finish.
Jack felt a small tree of sweat begin to form between his shoulder blades that had nothing to do with the fact that he was about to break the law.
“If you’re still interested in taking a ride in the backseat of a police cruiser, I’m about to give you a shot at it. Come on.”
He got out and led Daniel across the lawn toward a house, then veered around it to the back yard. They circled a kidney-shaped swimming pool toward a building in the far corner. Fat raindrops splatted on Jack’s shirt from the leaves of the big oak tree Detective Harrison had tied a piece of yellow-and-black police tape to the day before. He leaned under the tape and Daniel followed him to the porch of the carriage house. Jack paused in front of the door.
“This is where the shooter lived,” Jack said. “His name was Jacob Dumas.”
Daniel’s eyes grew large.
“I secured it the day of the shooting. And I saw something here I wanted you to take a look at.” Jack paused. “It was in a box on the porch, but forensics must have taken the box into the house.”
Jack stood for a moment, considering, then began to loosen the police tape sealing the door. He’d broken the lock when he kicked it open, so the police tape was the only thing holding the door shut.
“Uh…in case you’re interested, the name of the crime we’re about to commit is ‘breaking and entering,’ a fifth degree felony punishable by six months in jail and a fine of $2,500.”
“Well, that’s good to know,” Daniel said. “I hate it when I commit a crime and don’t even know its name.”
When Jack had removed enough of the tape to push the door open, he turned to Daniel.
“Forensics has already scrubbed this place with a toothbrush, but still, don’t touch anything.”
When Jack switched on his flashlight, black smudges were visible where CSI had lifted fingerprints all over the door, the door frame, and what had been pristine chrome and glass furnishings. They stepped inside, Jack pulled the door shut behind them and swung the flashlight beam in a wide arc, looking for the box. Among the austere furnishings it would be easy to spot. He quickly checked the other downstairs rooms, then focused the flashlight beam on the floor so he wouldn’t trip as he led Daniel to the stairs.
On the second floor landing, he opened the door to Dumas’s “office” and swept his light around the room, revealing the inch-thick layers of paper attached to the walls, decorated with red dots and blue squiggly lines.
Daniel whistled softly. “And I thought Andi’s room was a mess.” He looked around. “This is what you wanted to show me? Why?”
The cardboard box of keepsakes was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room.
“What I want you to see is in here.”
Jack led Daniel to the box and they both knelt beside it. When he shone the light into the box, he could see forensics had riffled through it—but had taken no fingerprints there and the object he was looking for was still on the top. Jack pointed at it.
“Look close,” Jack said, but didn’t need to. Daniel tensed moments after he saw it, so Jack knew the picture had had the same effect on him it’d had on Jack.
It was an old, yellowed, eight-by-ten photograph, tattered and worn, of a Little League baseball team, identified in black letters on the top as the Bradford’s Ridge Rangers, 1985. A big piece of the upper left hand corner was missing, so all that was visible of the coach was his hand on a boy’s shoulder.
Daniel peered closer.
At the bottom of the picture, the boys’ names were listed, left to right, many of them unreadable and many of the faces were too faded to make out the boys’ features. But the ones that mattered were clear.
Jack heard Daniel suck in his breath.
“That’s me,” Daniel said. He pointed to his name beneath the picture, then searched for the corresponding face in the crowd. “The kid in the middle of the second row, that’s me. Why would…?”
“Because Jacob Dumas was on the team, too. Third row, second from the left.”
“You mean I was on a Little League team with the lunatic who tried to massacre a room full of kids?”
“You’re not the only one.”
“Huh?”
“Keep looking.”
Daniel turned back to the photograph in the beam of Jack’s flashlight and continued to study it. When he spotted the second name, Jack saved him the trouble of locating the boy.
“Right there,” he said, “the big kid on the front row. Jackson Randal Carpenter. I was on that team, too.”
* * * * * * *
Theresa pulled the house key out of her big purse and unlocked her front door.
It was quiet inside, but the silence was crowded with smells—fried chicken and pot roast and apple pie and…every possible dish you could think of. All cooked with tender care and given in love. But grateful as Theresa was for the good intentions, she didn’t have no desire to taste a single bite.
It had been all she could do to convince her sister Margaret to get all them well-meanin’ folks to go home so she could be by herself tonight. She’d called on the way back from the hospital and Maggie’d argued she’d ought not to be alone, grieving like she was, the night before they put her man in the ground. But Theresa’d insisted.
Now, as she closed the door behind her, stepped into the parlor and switched on the lights, she wondered if maybe Maggie’d been right. The vacant emptiness of the house curled its fingers into a fist and punched her in the belly, knocked the breath out of her.
“You hadn’t ought to a’took him, Lord,” she said aloud into the stillness. Then she looked up at the ceiling and shouted, “You listenin’ to me, God? You supposed to be near to those who’s grieving, but I can’t find you nowhere.”
The outburst took what little remained of her energy and she sank down on the couch opposite the big chair where Bishop would never sit again.
She put her face in her hands and tried to cry, but couldn’t. Her shoulders shook for a little while, but the tears didn’t come. Felt like having the dry heaves. Her eyes were so scratchy from not crying it was like somebody’d taken a piece of sandpaper to the insides of her eyelids.
Bishop had spoke to that monster right before it killed him. The last words her Bishop had said before he crossed over was to a demon! Jack had heard him.
Jack Carpenter.
Can you imagine that! The good Lord’s ways was mysterious, all right. She and Bishop had known where Daniel was—couldn’t miss him preaching every Sunday on television—not bad sermons, just empty ones, saying what the itchin’ ears of the bums in the pews wanted to hear. But until he showed up in Andi’s hospital room tonight, Theresa didn’t know Jack was anywhere around, hadn’t laid eyes
on that boy since the days he’d sit with Daniel on the lumpy old couch in the parlor of their little house in Bradford’s Ridge, eating her fresh chocolate chip cookies, all fired up, ready to take on the whole pack of them boys as was mistreatin’ Becca.
And Becca sittin’ there between him and Daniel like a life-sized china doll, paying no mind to them boys pounding on they chests, her eyes sparkling as she watched the little silver ballerina go around and around on Theresa’s old music box.
Becca.
That monster was looking for that girl, and Theresa couldn’t think of but one reason a demon would be trying to find her. A sick dread settled deep into the pit of her stomach, snuggled up close to the fear that had already taken up residence there. Yeah, she was scared. Ok, admit it—soon’s Andi said what the demon’d wanted, that horror, that awful otherworldly terror had seized her guts and made it so she could hardly get her breath.
She shivered, then got up heavily, went into the kitchen to look at the only pictures she had of Becca. When each of the two photographs had come in the mail years ago, Theresa had stuck them with magnets to her refrigerator door.
Theresa flipped on the kitchen light switch, and then stopped and stared at the shiny silver door. The two photographs were gone. She went to the refrigerator and moved other stuck-with-magnets things around, trying to find them. A church bulletin with a phone number on it was affixed to the door with a “Maid of the Mists” magnet they’d brought home from Niagara Falls years ago. Coupons were stuck to the door with a “Visit Myrtle Beach” magnet and a black bear magnet from the Smoky Mountains. A handful of crayoned drawings from the kids at Vacation Bible School were there…but the pictures were gone.
Theresa had no recollection of when she’d last seen the pictures there, but knew they couldn’t have been missing for long or she’d have noticed. One of the dozen or so ladies from her church who’d been fussing around in her kitchen must have moved them. Theresa still hadn’t located where they put her pepper mill and the ice tea glasses was all in the wrong cabinets.
