Risen: A Supernatural Thriller

by Jan Strnad

  ***

  Franz Klempner brushed his crazy wife Irma's hair.

  It had been another bad night. He'd heard the midnight bell again, and again Irma had rushed from the room in a terrified frenzy. She'd made it as far as the living room before Franz caught up with her and held her and reassured her as he had done so many times before. Eventually she'd let him lead her back to bed where she fell into a deep, sheltering sleep.

  Franz debated taking her to church today. These spells were nothing new but they'd become too frequent and too severe. He didn't want her making a scene before half the town, not because he would be personally embarrassed but because he'd be embarrassed for her. He thought about not telling her it was Sunday, but she had set out her church dress first thing upon rising that morning so she knew what day of the week it was.

  Resigned, Franz ironed the dress and brushed Irma's hair and they seated themselves in Franz' Chevy station wagon and made the drive into town. Rumor had it that the new preacher was going to address this fool notion that John Duffy had come back from the dead.

  ***

  The bell of the First Methodist Church was ringing in the faithful as Brant Kettering pulled into the parking lot. He worried that regular members of the congregation might have their own parking spots, unmarked but honored by everyone else as a matter of courtesy. If he took the wrong space, it might force someone else to take someone else's spot, setting off a domino effect that would resonate through Anderson's entire church-going community. To play it safe he took the furthest spot from the church that he could find, one in the corner where the asphalt was buckling and cracking, and then worried as he made the long trek churchward that he was, perhaps, being too ostentatiously humble.

  He noticed raised eyebrows and heads tilting together as he walked along, as if he'd forgotten to put on pants. His worries about being chucked out on his rear dissipated as he was descended upon like the prodigal son by enthusiastic well-wishers. He exchanged greetings and accepted welcomes, promised one or two wags that his appearance wasn't just to drum up subscribers for the Times, and then escaped thanks to the miraculous appearance of Clyde Dunwiddey, a son even more prodigal than himself.

  Brant slid as quietly as possible into a pew in the back of the sanctuary.

  He saw Tom Culler walk in with Peg and knew that Tom was there for the same reason as everyone else, to hear Reverend Small's analysis of Duffy's trip to the Other Side. Brant caught a glimpse of Small and could tell from his beaming face that this was a capacity crowd, surely the biggest since Small had taken over from Reverend Paulsen three weeks ago.

  Tom and Brant had another agenda, though. Only they, among all those gathered, knew that Duffy wasn't the only "Risen" person in town. They wondered if Small's comments would reveal any knowledge on his part about Deputy Haws.

  Brant scanned the crowd for familiar faces. There was Haws, in uniform but for his hat, sitting on the outside aisle. Brant didn't know if Haws was a church regular or not. While he was thinking about it, a hand clamped onto his shoulder and Brant jumped six inches.

  "Got you, too, I see," said Doc Milford.

  Brant put his hand to his chest and said, "Christ, Doc, you nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought I was busted."

  "Some crowd," Doc said, "bigger than Easter. That's usually when all the borderline cases turn out. I suppose you're here for the same reason I am, to hear the Reverend's official stance on the Duffy business."

  "You've got it. Look--there's the town deputy. He's never struck me as the religious sort."

  "You can't always tell. Maybe I'll go have a few words with him. Enjoy the sermon."

  "I'm sure I will."

  Doc walked over to Deputy Haws and they put their heads together for a minute or so, then Doc took a seat elsewhere. Brant continued scanning the crowd. While he was picking out familiar faces a silence fell over the room, washing over the congregation like a wave. Row by row the heads turned to see who had just now walked in the door.

  It was John and Madge Duffy.

  John wore the suit he'd pulled out of the mothballs the day before. Madge had mended the jacket with a button off the vest that she assured him he didn't need to wear, and she'd let out the pants a little. John was ill at ease, uncomfortable as the center of attention, but Madge marched with her head high as if she owned the mortgage on the church and everything in it. She didn't care what people thought. She walked with Seth's spirit, as everyone in this room would do, one day soon.

  They took seats in the middle of the sanctuary. For all the buzzing that had been going on about John, no one seemed particularly eager to talk to him. Cindy Robertson was there with her mother and sister, and she ended up sitting next to John. He caught her staring at him and nodded a polite greeting, and she smiled back at him nervously and said, "How are you?" "Tolerable," he said, then he sat down and stared straight ahead and so did Cindy.

  Ruth Smart took her seat at the organ and played "Lead, Kindly Light" and "Come, Thou Almighty King" and "The Way of the Cross Leads Home," and then Reverend Small made his appearance and led the congregation in the opening prayer. Choir master Jimmy Troost stepped up and directed the choir in "Are You Washed in the Blood," and after that everyone rose and gave voice to "Abide With Me" and "O God, Our Help In Ages Past." A kid Brant recognized from the grade school, Josh Lunger, gave a prayer. Then Jimmy Troost took center stage again to lead the choir in "The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power." Either Jimmy had a thing about blood or he was working a theme, Brant decided. Finally it looked to Brant as if they were closing in on the sermon.

  To Brant's relief, Reverend Small was not one of those pulpit-pounding orators who mouthed every word as if God had His hand up the preacher's backside like some kind of cosmic ventriloquist act. Small spoke warmly but intimately, as if in consideration for those who might be sleeping in the pews. He welcomed the crowd and made a couple of announcements concerning the Youth Group. Then he got down to business.

  "There lives among us--and I'm delighted to see him in our congregation this morning--one who has made the ultimate journey. No trip to Yellowstone Park or Greece or even to the moon can compare with the incredible odyssey of John Duffy. For he has been to infinity. To death. And he has come back again.

  "What are we to make of this journey, this miracle? Some have suggested that it's the work of a new preacher trying to impress his congregation."

  There was some scattered laughter.

  "Well," he continued, "as much as it would please me to take credit for John Duffy's resurrection, I can not. Such powers are not granted to ordinary men like myself. And besides, I wouldn't want Jed Grimm accusing me of stealing his business!"

  Jed Grimm called out, "Just don't make a habit of it, Reverend!" and the congregation laughed again.

  Brant hadn't noticed Grimm in the crowd before. It made sense that he'd be a church-goer, though. The work of a preacher and that of a mortician are intimately bound.

  "We think of miracles as something that happened long ago and far away," Small said. "We don't really believe that they happen anymore, and that's sad. For the work of the Lord is all around us. We witness the miracle of each new spring, of each baby born, the miracle of the breeze in our hair and the sunshine on our backs. We take these miracles for granted.

  "But when it comes to miracles of a less-common variety--the multiplying of the loaves or resurrection of the dead--we assume that those miracles belong to the distant past. If they were to happen today, they wouldn't happen here, they wouldn't happen to us.

  "Now why would we think such things? Do we truly believe that the Good Lord watches over us and protects us and keeps us in His Love, or do we not? Is it pessimism that makes us think such thoughts? Or is it fear? Fear that maybe God is dead after all, and we are on our own.

  "I still believe in the Lord, and I still believe in miracles. And to any of you who don't, I say, Look over there. Look at John Duffy. Living, breathing, hale and hearty after a fine doctor an
d every scientific principle in the world had declared him dead. Look at him. Look at him and tell me that miracles don't happen anymore, that they don't happen here, that the Good Lord isn't watching over every one of us.

  "Look at John Duffy and tell me that God is dead. If you can do that, then I'll say to you that none are so blind as those who will not see. Because miracles are there for the seeing, if we but open our eyes."

  Brant had to admit that Small was getting to him. Even as a boy, Brant had wondered why all the magic happened two thousand years ago. Why, if there was a Lord and He gave a fig about mankind, did He appear for one brief show, like a Las Vegas act, then hustle everyone off to the casino leaving later generations nothing but a tattered program to describe the wonders their ancestors had beheld? Shouldn't He be making occasional reappearances to keep the material fresh in people's minds?

  Maybe Duffy was the modern miracle that Brant had needed for so long, if he'd just choose to believe it.

  He might have had something like a revelation if Irma Klempner hadn't suddenly leaped out of her seat and aimed a craggy finger at Reverend Small as if to smite him with a thunderbolt and yelled out, "Devil! Satan!" The congregation gasped. Heads turned and bodies swiveled to get a good look.

  Franz tugged at Irma's dress and hissed, "Irma! Sit down!" but he might as well have been a mouse pulling at the tail of a tiger. Irma was incensed, every synapse in her poor, mad brain firing at once.

  "You think nobody remembers, but I do!" she screamed. Her body shook with emotion, the finger waved. "I remember Eloise! You think everybody's forgot, but I remember! I remember!"

  Franz was on his feet now and trying to escort Irma out. His look of chagrin was apology enough to the Reverend, he didn't try to say a word. Irma was doing plenty of talking for the both of them.

  "Devil!" Irma shouted as her husband ushered her to the back of the sanctuary, down the aisle under the stares of two hundred pair of eyes. "Satan!" she cried. "I remember! Eloise! Eloise!"

  All eyes were on Irma Klempner as Franz took her by the shoulders and, shushing soothingly in her ear, walked her out of the church. All eyes but two.

  Brant scanned the murmuring crowd with the scrutinizing gaze of a reporter. He saw the hateful stare creep unbidden onto Small's face and then vanish, subdued by a master actor, suppressed for the sake of appearances.

  "If God can resurrect, then God can surely heal," Small said. "Let us pray for those who need His healing touch." As two hundred heads bowed in prayer, Brant saw Deputy Haws steal toward the exit. After a few moments, Brant followed.

  He stood on the steps of the church and looked around. Haws seemed to have melted into the earth.

  Brant went around to the parking lot and watched the Klempners make the contentious journey to their car. Irma was quiet now, but sullen. She'd take a few steps and then stop and glare balefully at Franz. He'd pretend to ignore her, then he'd walk back and grab her hand and pull her along for a few steps. She'd shake her hand loose and seem to follow and then stand stock still again and wait for him to come back for her. If he hadn't, she'd have stood there for days, it seemed to Brant.

  It took them several minutes to reach the car, long enough for the congregation to sing two mournful choruses of "The Little Brown Church in the Vale." Franz opened the door for Irma and she slid in and sat there staring straight ahead. The frost from her icy demeanor threatened to crack the windshield. Franz walked around to the driver's side and got in, and then he leaned over and fiddled with something on Irma's side of the car. She slapped his hands away. He seemed to argue with her for a bit and then gave up. Brant guessed that he was trying to buckle her seat belt but that Irma was having none of it out of pure cussedness.

  Franz backed out of the parking space and drove through the lot and into the street. The right rear tire of the Chevy bounced over the curb as Franz cut the corner a little tight. Brant watched until the Klempners' car was out of sight.

  "Shouldn't let the old fool on the road," Deputy Haws said a few inches behind Brant's ear. Brant jumped. Haws noticed.

  "Didn't mean to scare you," Haws said, hauling his bulk alongside Brant.

  "You took me by surprise," Brant said. "I thought you'd left."

  "Had to make a phone call. You probably walked right by me." Haws nodded in the direction Franz Klempner had taken. "Ought to yank his license, I suppose, but everybody around here knows to give Franz a wide berth."

  "There's always room in law enforcement for compassion," Brant said.

  "You got to know when to be tough, too," Haws replied as Galen Ganger's Charger pulled into view and parked across the street. "That boy knows better than to park in front of a hydrant."

  Apparently the Ganger boy didn't know he was parked illegally because he sat right there as Haws sauntered up. Maybe Ganger was picking his mother up from church--Brant had caught her heavily painted face when she'd turn to watch Irma Klempner's exit--but if that was the case, why didn't he pull into the lot? Maybe because Brant was there, but what difference could that make?

  It occurred to Brant that Haws may have phoned Ganger from the church and commanded his immediate appearance. The Gangers didn't live far away--nowhere in Anderson was far from anywhere else in Anderson--but even so Ganger must've hauled some hasty butt to get there so soon. Was Haws blackmailing him? That seemed logical, given the circumstances. But what could the Ganger boy have that Haws wanted?

  Theirs was a short conversation. Without writing a ticket, Haws stepped away from the Charger as Galen Ganger started the engine. He made a fast three-point turn and tore off in the wake of Franz Klempner.

  Twelve

  Galen floored the accelerator and heard his Charger roar and felt the satisfying press of his body against the seat. He felt like an astronaut lifting into the cosmos. Indeed, this was the beginning of his own journey into the Great Unknown.

  It was a kick, roaring through town on an otherwise sleepy Sunday morning without worrying about Deputy Hawg lurking behind every bush. But even more, Galen felt like a revolutionary.

  His rebellion up to now had been random and unfocused, a stubborn digging in of his heels and thumbing of his nose at a bunch of narrow-minded old farts who'd gotten stale and set in their ways long before their time. Even the so-called young people in Anderson were old, old because they were afraid to be young. They were afraid to step outside the limits and do their own thing, to run right up to the edge and leap off, screaming and kicking, into the abyss.

  Not Galen. He embraced the unknown, and he rebelled against everything comfortable and safe.

  Today he rebelled for a larger cause. The exact nature of that cause and the motives of its mysterious leader, Seth, weren't clear to him, but Galen could feel the force of it, like a thunderstorm gathering on the horizon, and he wanted to be part of it, wanted it to be part of him.

  He sure as hell didn't want the revolution to happen without him.

  He hit the access road to the highway and squealed around the corner, running the stop sign. He knew the direction the Klempners would be taking and followed in their path. Soon he caught up with the old man, a positive hazard on the two-lane blacktop as he poked along at forty miles an hour, barely staying within his own lane as he wove back and forth between the lines, his bald head visible over the headrest.

  Galen kept up his speed as he closed on the station wagon. He flashed his lights and honked his horn as the distance between the cars narrowed. It was almost as if the wagon was sitting still as Galen's Charger closed the gap. He jerked the wheel at the last minute, just seconds before the Charger climbed up the wagon's rear bumper, and pulled into the on-coming lane. He honked the horn and gave Franz the finger as he roared past. The old man just stared straight ahead, colorless lips pressed together tight, cloudy eyes glued to the road. Galen wondered if the old coot had noticed anything, if he ever looked in the rear view mirror to see the Charger bearing down from behind, if he could hear the horn honking or see the flashing lights
, if he even knew that Galen's upraised middle finger meant "stick it up your ass!"

  Galen yanked the wheel hard as he cut in front of the Klempners' wagon and then roared off ahead of them. In case the old man hadn't seen it before, Galen stuck his hand with the upraised digit out the window and pumped it up and down.

  The Charger left the Chevy wagon in the dust. In just a couple of minutes, the Klempners had disappeared from Galen's rear view mirror, as if they'd never existed.

  ***

  Franz Klempner was old but he'd had stature in his time--he'd never be one of those shriveled husks who had to peer through the steering wheel to see the road. His vision was clouded a little by cataracts and the Chevy station wagon's steering hadn't gotten any tighter over time, but Franz felt that he was a good enough driver, even if his reflexes weren't as sharp as they used to be, if he just kept his speed down. He had common sense and wasn't out to prove anything with his driving, didn't have all that macho bullcrap stewing in his head like the teenage boys who were the real menaces on the road.

  He looked over at Irma sitting there like a statue.

  "You only hurt yourself with that crazy talk, you know," he said. His voice had an edge to it, but darn it, he had a right to be mad. He'd dressed her and prettied her up and driven her all the way to town to go to church, and then she'd made a damned fool of herself in front of the whole congregation.

  "How can I take you to church if you're going to make a spectacle?" he asked.

  Irma was deathly silent. She sat there cocooned in her own dark thoughts.

  "Who the hell is Eloise, anyway?" Franz said. "You don't know any Eloise."

  Irma turned her head to look at him and Franz glanced over at her, reluctant to take his eyes off the road, things changed so fast. But he stole a glance at her and what he saw in her eyes made the blood rush to his head. What he saw in those eyes was fear. No...more than that. It was terror, nothing less.