by Jan Strnad
Peg shook her head angrily as Annie started to cry.
"I won't let you ruin things for us, Tom! Annie's back! I don't care how or why!" Tom started to protest but Peg cut him off. "I said I don't care!"
Brant took a step forward.
"If you won't listen to us," he said, "maybe you'll listen to your friends."
Tom heard a footstep behind him. He whirled to see Galen Ganger's fist fly toward his face. The punch connected and Tom staggered back. He tried to raise the shotgun but Galen's hand clamped over the barrel as his knee dug into Tom's diaphragm, knocking the wind out of him. Galen yanked the gun from Tom's hands. He swung the stock around and connected with the side of Tom's head.
Tom stumbled dizzily. He lifted his eyes to see his other friends circling around him. Darren, Kent, Buzzy...they closed in, hands hardened into fists. Shock dulled the feeling of the blows they hammered on his body and head. He was aware of Galen shoving the others aside to pummel him with short, hard jabs to the stomach, to raise a knee into Tom's groin. Tom tried to fight back but his arms refused to lift. He had gone numb, unable to fend off the punches that came at him from every side.
His knees buckled and Tom fell to the ground. Through swelling eyelids he glimpsed his mom and Annie, Peg turning away, Annie watching his beating with emotionless fascination. He saw Brant lead them off.
As darkness deep as the Blacklands closed around him, Tom knew where they were going.
They were going to church.
***
He was neither dead nor undead, and he felt like hell. The pain when he tried to open his eyes was excruciating, so he left them closed. His arms and legs did not want to move, so he quit trying. He lay on a cold floor with the smell of linoleum and sanctity in his nose and knew where they'd taken him, that they hadn't killed him yet, that something special and terrible lay in store.
A voice whispered into Tom's ear, a snakelike hiss.
"I know you can hear me. You know my name and you know my work. You nearly found me out, you and Brant. You got so close, thanks to your visit to the madhouse. I should've taken care of Donald Pritchett when I had the chance, but I didn't want to do him the favor. I wanted him to suffer for what he did to me."
Tom did not, could not answer. His brain couldn't deal with the onslaught of sensation and thought and fear and confusion and outrage flooding through it. Maybe Doc Milford had given him a shot. It was all Tom could do to listen and try to understand the words. He could not identify the hiss of a voice, was not even sure whether it came from outside his head or in. He felt the world spinning beneath his prone body on the cool, cool tile.
"Can you imagine what it was like, waking every midnight in that too-short box? Imagine your legs healing and breaking, shattered by confinement, your lungs aching for air that had staled ages before. Every night you wake to the darkness and the damp, to the encroaching earth, your eyes and ears and mouth filled with vermin and decay. Every night the same suffocating death and a moment's respite, then another terrible wakening as the nights and years course by in breathless succession. Can you imagine the never-ending pain, the horror?
"That's what Donald Pritchett did to me, and that's why I let him live. I'll never admit him to my congregation, never. Never."
The world continued to spin, swirling the whispered words around inside Tom's head.
"I've had fun in your little town," the voice continued. "Madge Duffy, the long-suffering murderess, driven to follow in her mother's footsteps. Bernice Tompkins' hands around the throats of her beloved felines. Your own mother, pulling the plug on the object of her obsession. I love women, I honestly do. Men are so easy and uncomplicated and dull. It's the women who give life its color and texture, who make it all worthwhile.
"You and your mother are the last. Your time will come soon, and hers will follow. You're my last indulgence before the next campaign.
"Listen. The congregation is singing. Do you recognize the hymn? I love the way it sounds, issuing from so many solemn throats, like a dirge."
The voice sang huskily into Tom's ear.
"Come, come, come, come...."
A wave washed through Tom from his toes to his head and deluged his brain. The voice was drowned in the crashing surf. Tom fell into the darkness, fearing where he would emerge.
***
Brant took Peg's hands in his and told her what to expect.
"He'll be sedated. He won't feel anything. Reverend Small will call you forward and place the knife in your hands. One thrust, right here, up into the heart, and it'll be over."
Peg shook her head.
"I can't do it. I won't."
"You have to. They need this. Seth needs it. It's an act of faith. It demonstrates your good will."
"I can't kill my own son, Brant!"
"You aren't killing anyone. Seth will bring him back. Tom has to be converted, as I was, as Annie was, as we all were except you. How can Seth trust you if you don't trust Seth?"
"It's impossible. I can't."
"You have to stop thinking of it as killing. It's like when you were a kid and you became blood brothers with someone. You pricked your fingers to let blood. It's a ritual, nothing more. Seth will watch over Tom. Seth will restore him. He won't feel a thing, I promise. Doc's seen to that. We can't trust Tom. He isn't one of us. He will be converted, Peg, with or without you."
"Why doesn't Seth just kill me, too, and get it over with?"
"It isn't our place to question Seth's will. He has reasons that we can't comprehend. Fulfillment lies in doing his bidding, and this is what he has commanded. I don't understand it, I don't pretend to. But I don't have to understand to know that it's the right thing to do."
"Do it, Mommy."
Annie had sidled up. She stood on the chair next to Peg's and put her arm around Peg's shoulder.
"You have to do what Seth says," Annie said.
Peg felt the tiny fingers on the back of her neck, stroking her gently. Seth had worked this miracle. What further proof could she need? Her little girl was standing beside her as big as life, playing with her hair the way she always did. Her skin was pale from her long convalescence. It made her eyes seem so dark.
"I believe what you tell me," Peg said, "that Seth will bring him back. I just don't think I can do it. He's my son. Even if he weren't, the thought of taking a knife and...and...."
A door opened and the voices of the congregation, joined in a hymn, flowed in. Peg looked up. Reverend Small had entered, walked over to her. He picked up Annie and sat beside Peg, Annie on his lap.
"She doesn't think she can go through with it, Reverend," Brant said.
"But you must," Small said to Peg. "I know it's difficult. It's almost too much to ask. But Seth never asks more of his followers than they are able to give. You'll find the strength."
"But why? I don't understand!"
"Nor did Abraham when God required him to sacrifice a son. Seth asks far less. Tom will be returned to you. It's just a ritual, a step in a passage from one state of being to a higher state. You're helping Tom, actually. He's in pain now. He suffers from many inner demons. It's within your power to banish those demons, Peg. I know it feels strange. I myself converted many of the people who sit outside this room, and every one has thanked me for it. You have to trust Seth implicitly. Trust him with your life, with your children's lives."
He looked at Annie, smiled, and she smiled back. The sight brought grateful tears to Peg's eyes.
Peg and Brant and Reverend Small spoke for several minutes while the congregation intoned their hymn, concluded it and began another.
There's a church in the valley by the wildwood....
"Come," Small said. He stood and extended his hands. Peg reached out for them, and Small gently lifted her to her feet.
The voices behind the door chanted.
Come, come, come, come....
***
Tom floated over the heads of the congregation on a sea of hands. He stared up at open
beams and stained glass windows dark with the night, his head spinning, while many hands conveyed his body like a slab of meat down the length of the sanctuary.
Voices droned in his ears along with an industrial pounding like a great machine, but it was only blood pumping through damaged vessels to a brain knocked senseless and slowly, by painful degrees, groaning back to life. The smell of too many bodies in too small a space was suffocating. His stomach churned and sent bile traveling up his throat to burn bitterly on his tongue. He swallowed, fought down the nausea.
He arrived at the back of the sanctuary. A chorus of voices from outside rose like the roar of hungry animals. He thought for a moment that he would be tossed outside, thrown to the lions and devoured, but the hands spun him around. They grabbed his shirt, tore at it as he passed, ripped it off his body as they propelled him toward the pulpit where Reverend Small shouted and gestured and banged his fist and called for blood.
His head lolled and he saw, upside down, the faces watching his nightmare journey. Galen and Brant waited for him. They grabbed his arms as he came to them over the sea of hands. They held him tight, arms twisted behind his back, kept him on his feet as the swelter and the voices and--he was sure of it now--the drugs dizzied his head and weakened his knees.
With great effort Tom lifted his chin and gazed out over the assemblage. His eyes swam in and out of focus. By ones and twos the faces came and went in the hallucinatory fog. Doc Milford. Deputy Haws. Old Merle Tippert. Clyde Dunwiddey, alarmingly sober. Franz and Irma Klempner, holding hands. Josh Lunger, who had tried to kill him, standing between his parents. Darren and Kent and Buzzy. Cindy, who gave him a reassuring nod and mouthed the words, "I love you."
He scanned the less familiar faces. One of them had hovered behind him and whispered into his ear a story of premature burial and lives corrupted and souls destroyed. Which one was the whisperer from behind? Which one was Seth, the resurrector? Which one had infiltrated and murdered his town?
The preacher's voice thundered and the congregation echoed its response. Isolated words penetrated Tom's consciousness.
Glory.
Dominion.
Seth.
Blood.
Flesh.
Sacrifice.
Blood.
Seth.
Blood.
Blood.
Blood.
A knife appeared in the preacher's hand. It gleamed in the spotlight. A name was called and a figure pulled itself from the mass and stepped forward. Tom focused on the figure as the knife passed from hand to hand.
Peg.
She turned her head to look at him, tears streaming from her eyes. She looked over her shoulder and the gathered mass shouted its encouragement. Her eyes remained long on a single face. Tom followed her gaze and discovered Annie. Sweet Annie, standing on the pew at the front of the sanctuary, her voice joined with the chorus, chanting, calling for Tom's blood.
The world shifted and Tom closed his eyes to the swirl of faces. He opened them again to see Peg approaching with the knife clutched in her hand, borne on a wave of chanting voices. He saw Annie in the front pew, and beside her was Doc Milford, and on the other side, moving closer to fill the space left by Peg, was Jed Grimm.
Grimm smiled at him.
Grimm. Grimm had come to town...when?
Two years ago, give or take.
Two years.
"You," Tom said too softly to be heard, his eyes locked onto Grimm's.
Grimm winked.
Then Peg was standing in front of him, blocking his view. Her breath was on his face, her lips brushed his cheek.
"Mom," Tom said, "Don't." He looked deeply into her eyes and she into his, soul searching for soul.
The smallest of motions--Peg shook her head.
The knife glistened, flashed, and struck like a snake.
***
"For the common person, nothing is more terrifying than death."
Reverend Small spoke to a standing room only crowd in the sanctuary. His voice was translated over wires to loudspeakers outside the church where believers had gathered on the lawn. Peg, as guest of honor, sat in the front row of pews with Annie and Doc Milford.
"For those of us who have made the farthest journey," Small continued, "death is a viper without fangs. Death holds no terror for the children of Seth.
"For we have seen the terrible dark plain. We have heard the shuffle of the great beasts. We have endured the cries of the damned.
"And we have been delivered by the power and the blessing of Seth back into the world of light and warmth, back into the world of life!
"Seth is our savior! Praise his glory and his name! Hallelujah!"
"Hallelujah!" the congregation replied.
"Hal'lujah!" Annie cried. Peg started at the enthusiasm behind Annie's cry. Annie had always been such a wiggle-worm in church.
"What are we to do with this blessing? Is it ours to keep secret, to withhold from those unblessed and unknowing of Seth's love?
"No!" Small banged his fist on the pulpit. "No! It is not a treasure to be hoarded by the few! It is a treasure to be shared with all, for the more who share in Seth's blessing, the greater it becomes!"
There was a collective gasp. Peg's heart stopped in her chest as Tom was led out, supported on one side by Brant, on the other by the Ganger boy. He showed the marks of his beating, and he looked drugged.
"Behold, the infidel!" Small announced. He gestured toward Tom. "Behold one who would reject Seth's glory! One who would thwart the dominion of Seth! Behold one who would consign you to death everlasting!"
Peg wished she could seal her ears against the chorus of jeers that issued from the congregation. They leaped to their feet, booing and hissing, reaching for Tom. They don't know I'm not one of them! Peg thought. A reptilian hiss sounded in her ear, and she realized that it was Annie. The voice and the empty eyes were parts of the same dark creature. Peg was less sure, studying the fresh, hissing face, that this creature was her daughter.
Peg closed her eyes. The heat, the sweat, the lack of oxygen made everything seem so unreal.
Of course the creature was Annie. It was the flesh of her flesh. It was....
When did she stop thinking of Annie as "she," and start thinking of her as "it?"
Peg opened her eyes to find Tom gone. No, there he was, floating over the congregation like a supine Christ. Reverend Small was preaching about blood. The blood of the lamb. The weakness of flesh. The need for sacrifice. He read from the Bible. Ezekiel.
"'I will drench the land even to the mountains with your flowing blood!'" he proclaimed. He seized the Bible in one hand and waved it aloft. "So spake God to Pharaoh! But Seth is not a vengeful God! His blood-letting is not an act of retribution, but an act of love! To spill the blood of the infidel is to embrace him! It is to open our hearts to him and say to him, 'Welcome, brother! Through your blood shall you know Seth and taste his glory and his greatness!'
"Open wide the mortal vein! Rend the impermanent flesh! Let flow the blood that numbers our days and condemns our souls to the eternal void! Cast out the life that fails and admit life everlasting through the blessing of Seth!"
The words struck Peg like stones. She knew what was required of her, and she did have faith in Seth. Tom would be restored as all the others had been. She was surrounded by the proof of Seth's power. Reverend Small's speech had her heart pounding, but had it given her the strength she needed to carry out his will?
The millipede hands of the congregation transported Tom in her direction. She watched him approach, arms spread, head drooping, his eyes black with delirium. He didn't know what was going on, he couldn't or he would have fought it. Tom would never go gently. Seth could convert the entire town but Tom would resist to his last breath if he thought Seth was wrong. Peg herself had taught him that a hundred people doing something wrong didn't make it right.
But Seth was right. Annie was the living proof.
Peg rose as Tom approached. She
stretched out her hands to support him. His eyes did not meet hers, and she wondered if he would recognize her touch. Of course not, not in a mass like this. It was pure romanticism to think otherwise.
Brant and the Ganger boy stepped forward to receive Tom. They stood him on his feet and held him there. Peg started as hands wrapped around her neck, but it was only Annie, beaming, her mouth stretched into a wide grin. She gave Peg a hug.
Peg turned and buried her face in Annie's hair. She'd always loved the way Annie smelled, even when she'd been playing hard. It was an intimate scent, a blood scent that united mother and daughter on the most primitive level. Peg drew on that scent now to give her strength.
But the scent was wrong. It was cool and distant, and sterile somehow, not antiseptic like the hospital, but lifeless the way Peg imagined the North Pole must smell, or the peak of Mt. Everest or the sands of Mars.
Peg drew back and Annie asked her what was wrong. Peg forced a smile and said, "Nothing, sweetie." She heard Reverend Small mention her name but she couldn't take her eyes off Annie's face, that perfect little-girl face, suddenly grown-up solemn and concerned. Annie looked over Peg's shoulder, toward the pulpit, and her eyes widened with delight.
"Look, Mommy!" Annie exclaimed, pointing. Peg turned around and lifted her eyes to see Reverend Small holding a long, thin knife, the blade ceremonially curved, inscribed with symbols Peg could not decipher.
She had not been listening to the words, but she knew what was expected. Doc Milford nudged her, and the voices of the congregation lifted her to her feet and moved her toward the pulpit. She glanced at Tom. He seemed to be struggling to comprehend what was going on. The knife caught a beam of light and reflected it onto his face. He winced but did not look away. He focused on the knife and the curved blade and the hands that offered and received it. Then his eyes met Peg's and Peg felt the tears pouring out and streaming down her cheeks.
She gripped the knife hard. She looked over her shoulder at the congregation, then to Annie. Dear Annie. Angel. She stood on the pew between the doctor and the mortician, chanting along with the crowd a single word that, through repetition, had become a thought-paralyzing mantra.
