The Dark Age: A Marlowe Gentry Thriller (Marlowe Gentry Thriller Series Book 2)

by Dallas Mullican

  “Ms. Crimshaw?” He tried to keep anticipation out of his voice and speak with ease.

  “Yes?” The old woman appraised him, attempting to recall his face.

  “It’s Evan. Evan Marshall.”

  Her eyes narrowed for an instant, and his heart stopped. They popped wide and the smile broadened. “Evan! Well I’ll be. Isn’t this a surprise?”

  Evan returned the smile and relaxed his stressed shoulders.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  His eyes drooped, and he allowed a mask of sadness to inch across his face. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but my daughter died recently. My wife…a few years ago.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. No, I didn’t know.” Ms. Crimshaw stepped forward and placed a soft, gnarled hand on his arm. “Since my move here, I don’t talk with folks from Lee so much. I’ve outlived most of my friends. I still get birthday cards and Christmas cards, the occasional phone call, but…well, I’m sure you know how these things go. Out of sight, out of mind. Folks have their own lives to live.”

  “I never forgot you.”

  She blushed. “You always were so sweet. Tell you a little secret…you were always my favorite, too. Never seen any child take to the scriptures like you did. I bet by the time you went off to college, you knew more than Brother Cecil.” Ms. Crimshaw chuckled.

  “That’s the reason I’m here,” said Evan.

  “Oh?” She arched an eyebrow.

  “After my daughter died, it got me to thinking about people I love and care about. Made me want to see them again. You never know when the last chance will pass you by. You were the first person to come to my mind.”

  Ms. Crimshaw startled him by leaning in and giving him the tightest hug she could muster. “Means so much to me, Evan, hearing you say that. And you couldn’t be more right. Only so many chances in this life. You know I’m here for you. Anything I can do.”

  “I just wanted to talk, spend some time with you. Can I give you a ride home?”

  “I usually walk. Get my exercise. But for you, I’ll make an exception.” She grinned, her whole face beaming.

  Evan took her arm, guided her to the truck, and helped her inside. He glanced around the area. No one seemed to pay them any attention.

  Good.

  They drove the four blocks until the retirement home came within sight. Ms. Crimshaw had chattered nonstop as they caught every red light, but Evan paid little attention, his mind otherwise occupied. As they passed the home, the old woman pointed.

  “I think we missed our turn-off, Evan. No worries, you can turn around up here.” She indicated the parking lot of an Arby’s on their right.

  “I thought we might talk over lunch.” His voice dropped, devoid of emotion, his eyes focused straight ahead.

  “Well…I-I suppose that’d be alright.”

  Once they passed the Rockford city limits sign, Ms. Crimshaw grew puzzled. “I don’t believe there’s anything out this far. All the eating places are back in town.”

  Evan said nothing, a coldness creeping over his features. He could feel it, like a frigid ooze seeping across his face and down his body. His hand eased onto the wrench lying beneath the seat with his left hand and slid it next to his hip.

  “Evan, I think I wanna go home now.” Her voice strained—confused and apprehensive at the change in him.

  In a smooth motion, he transferred the wrench to his right hand, and with a backward swing struck Ms. Crimshaw’s left temple with the butt end. Crack. The old woman’s head slumped onto her shoulder, blood trickling down the side of her face.

  * * *

  Evan rolled through the undergrowth and halted beside the Redwine shack. A half-dozen teenagers bolted when they saw his truck enter the clearing. He wasn’t concerned with them returning tonight. The fresh pile of beer cans littering the ground gave away the kids’ purpose for being out this far. He doubted they would test getting caught at their illicit activities. Regardless, he had painted the windows black to avoid the off chance of prying eyes.

  He hoisted Ms. Crimshaw over his shoulder and carried her onto the porch. No signs the teens had attempted to venture inside, the padlock on the door undisturbed. Evan undressed her, gently seated her in the chair, and fastened the straps around her forearms, lower legs, chest, and across her thighs. Her body pressed down on the nails, but her face showed no awareness. Thin trails of blood seeped out to drip off the armrests and down the chair’s legs. He had expected more. The tap of his shoes on the floor counted away the seconds, echoed by the pounding of his heart. Hundreds of questions and accusations he planned to pose to her whirled in his mind. Tempted to wake her, he approached her sagging form several times, always backing away. Remnants of affection? Uncertainty? No, it must continue. It must be completed.

  * * *

  Ms. Crimshaw, perhaps forty, stood before the window, smiling at him. With the sun at her back, shining onto her shoulders, she looked angelic to thirteen-year-old Evan. She had asked him to stay after Sunday school to talk for a moment. Being alone with her both terrified and excited him. His eyes took her in, youthful hormones guiding his stare. Long blonde hair, glinting blue eyes, a hint of cleavage, enough to send fantasies racing, Ms. Crimshaw was every boy’s wet dream.

  “You’re very special, do you know that?” She flicked her hair over her shoulder and stepped close.

  Evan shook his head. His groin tightened as he tried and failed to fight down an erection.

  “You are. I’ve never seen a child so eager to learn. To really understand and know God.”

  Shamed by his feelings, Evan averted his eyes. He had immersed himself in the Bible for the five years since moving in with Grandma. Defined by his knowledge and actions, the practice of Godliness alienated him from his peers, but gained praise and attention from adults. Attention he craved.

  “I know you’ve had a tough time. No child should ever have to go through what you have. But I want you to know, you’ve come through it now. So brave. God has blessed you with a special strength; never forget that. And know I’m always here for you. If you have questions, or need anything, you just ask me. Okay?”

  Evan managed a shy yes ma’am, unable to meet her gaze. Many nights he lay awake thinking about Ms. Crimshaw…Teresa. She seemed to care about him, always kind, always generous with her affection and time. In his adolescent mind, even though many years separated them, he thought someday they would be together. A couple. Real love. She became something of an obsession. Something to focus on. Something good, beautiful, and pure.

  Kids, thirteen and younger at Lee Baptist, attended what they called Kids’ Church while the adults went to the main service after Sunday school—known to the children as Big Church. Evan had shunned Kids’ Church in favor of the worship service for years now. He sat with his grandma, underlying passages from Brother Cecil’s sermon from Second Samuel. David lusted for Bathsheba, but she was married. David, the king, had her husband killed so that he might have her for himself. Even after the dishonorable and sinful deed, God still claimed David a man after His own heart.

  Following the service, he walked with his grandma to their car. Ms. Crimshaw stood a few cars down, hand-in-hand with a man Evan did not know. She pushed up on tiptoes to kiss him. He whispered into her ear and she giggled with a modulation Evan had never heard from her before. The man guided her with a hand on her back to the passenger side of the car, opened the door for her, and they drove away together.

  They married a few months later, but the marriage didn’t last long. Her husband died in an accident shortly after the wedding. A mechanic who owned his own auto shop, he worked late one evening. Apparently, while underneath a car, the jack had collapsed, and the vehicle crushed him. No one could explain how the brand new jack malfunctioned. Ms. Crimshaw was devastated, and Evan did all he could to comfort her, bringing her flowers at church and assisting her with preparing the Sunday school lessons. He even taught them on occasion when she didn’t
feel up to it. She didn’t remarry until years later, long after Evan had gone away to college and left Lee behind.

  * * *

  Evan stormed forward and slapped Ms. Crimshaw, the force stinging his palm. Her head flopped back and a whimsical expression sprang to her face. He staggered a step when her eyes met his. No consternation or fear registered in her features—not a grimace, struggle against her binds, or wail of terror.

  She smiled at him.

  He rushed to her, placed his hands on her shoulders, and thrust downward with all his strength. Nails drove into her flesh, a sound like an icepick jabbed into a melon five hundred times at once. Ms. Crimshaw’s disregard for her predicament infuriated him. Her gaze held pity, not for herself, but for Evan. He struck her again. Her head lolled in a semi-circle, came to rest, the stare locked on him. Evan slumped to the floor, on his knees. His fingers, stiff, kneaded at his scalp. The laughter rose, a shriek thundering through his mind, and underneath, a million voices crying in a darkness of incoherent thoughts.

  “What do you want, Evan? Do you know?” Ms. Crimshaw, with a clown’s painted grin, gazed down on him with a mixture of puzzlement and sympathy.

  He knocked the heels of his palms against his head, mouth open, a groan of agony pushing past his lips. The clamor in his ears faded, but lingered as a faint chaotic din swirling in his mind.

  “I-I want you to confess.” With effort, he tilted his head upward. Ms. Crimshaw appeared as a blurred image in the distance, though she sat only a few feet away. His own voice sounded unfamiliar in his ears. “Confess everything, all you taught me…it-it wasn’t true.”

  “God can’t be love and let his children suffer and die? Do you think you’re the first to ask such questions? God doesn’t love the way we do. His love destroyed mankind with a flood and murdered the first born of the Egyptians. God’s love ordered His enemies’ children’s heads bashed out against the rocks. How can we hope to understand such love?”

  Ms. Crimshaw did not strain against the belts holding her, but seemed perfectly content, even comfortable. Her voice carried no trace of the pain she must be enduring, but instead, issued in a monotone tenor that unnerved him.

  “How can you…we, worship a god so cruel?”

  “Cruel? Wouldn’t you call it righteousness? The acts of a just God?

  “No. No, I wouldn’t. I would call it petty, and mean, and tyrannical.”

  Ms. Crimshaw shrugged. “Really? Did you not punish the evil of your parents?”

  Evan’s head snapped back. “What? It was an accident? I-I didn’t …”

  “But you did. You started the fire and poured the alcohol over them. You watched as your parents burned alive. Just and righteous punishment guided by the Lord’s hand.”

  “No! No!” Evan dashed to her and yanked the straps as tight as possible. Blood streamed from the wounds and stopped once the pressure abated. He struck her until his hands throbbed.

  He fell to the floor, panting. Chatter…chatter…louder and louder. Laughter swelled, a squall crashing down. For a long time, he lay there, his eyes closed, hearing only the sound of his own furious breaths in his ears. Finally, he mustered the resolve to push to his feet. Ms. Crimshaw still stared at him with cold eyes and a smile.

  “I don’t want it anymore. I don’t want to believe. Why can’t I make it go away?”

  “As children, we believe because we’re instructed to. As adults, because the world is too frightening not to.” She glanced down at herself and nodded. “When we grow old, we believe because death is lurking, hovering over us, ready to take us away.”

  “Fear? Not good enough. I have worshipped Him all my life. Did everything he commanded…and this is my reward?”

  Ms. Crimshaw chuckled. “His ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts higher than our thoughts.”

  Evan shook his head violently. “No. I can’t accept that. I’ll understand why, or I’ll deny Him.”

  “Does the river care if the boulder resents its force crashing against it? The river has a purpose the rock cannot know. It flows on, without regard to the stone’s objections.”

  Evan staggered toward her. “You’re not making sense. No reason’s enough. It’s all a lie. History making things up to explain it all. I want it gone. Out of my head. Out of here…” He pounded a fist against his chest.

  “I’m sorry, child. Your faith runs too deep. Its tentacles reach down to sink hooks into your most secret places. It intrudes in rooms you don’t even realize exist. You can’t kill your belief.”

  He couldn’t deny it. Hatred only strengthened his belief. No one could despise the nonexistent. Doomed to believe in something so repulsive, nausea churned in his belly, vertigo swayed the room.

  “I taste damnation on my tongue, but I will have my vengeance. Somehow, some way, I’ll eradicate this awful faith. Wipe my mind clean, every shred gone. There must be a way.”

  “Only one I know of.”

  Evan’s head spun to Ms. Crimshaw. “Tell me, please.”

  “You aren’t ready. You may never be ready.” Her smile crawled up her face.

  “Tell me! I swear I will hurt you. So much pain.” Evan retrieved the pear and crawled close, kneeling at her legs.

  She smiled.

  “Tell me.” He rammed the Pear of Anguish between her thighs and deep inside her.

  Ms. Crimshaw showed no distress. Her stare fixed on him, emotionless.

  Evan cranked the screw and felt the resistance of her womb as the leaves separated. He rotated the end in frantic motion. Ripping, tearing…blood oozed from her vagina, thick and dark. He gritted his teeth and opened the instrument until it would turn no further. Sweat poured down his face as he collapsed onto his rear.

  “Tell me…tell me…tell me…” The words rolled into oblivion. Expecting no answer, Evan hung his head in despair.

  “The source,” said Ms. Crimshaw in a whisper.

  He bolted to his feet and surged forward. With his hands clutching her knees, he glared into her eyes. “Source? What source? God? I’ve got to kill God? How? Tell me how?”

  “The source of your belief. You must destroy the source.”

  CHAPTER

  20

  Fulton Hill Mobile Home Park consisted of four rows of a dozen dilapidated tin can trailers laid out in straight lines and divided by narrow lanes. Spence drove slowly through the complex, careful to avoid the horde of barefoot children scampering across the lanes in tattered t-shirts and shorts. Scrawny cats scurried to hide under homes as mangy curs barked as his passing.

  Lot #12 sat halfway down the first row, resting place of a hideous olive green and yellow single-wide monstrosity that had seen better days. He pulled the Explorer into what served as a driveway. A man, presumably Jake Gibbs, sat in a lawn chair near the front door. In a white “wife-beater” tank top, revealing an obscene amount of hairy potbelly, the big man slugged down a beer, crushed it in one meaty hand, and flung it onto a pile stacked high with identical Milwaukee’s Best cans. Spence screwed on his best fake smile and strolled to within a few feet of the man.

  “Who the hell are you?” Jake popped open another beer and busied himself rolling cigarettes from a can of cheap tobacco.

  “Spencer Murray. I…”

  “Murray? Kin to that dead preacher?” He didn’t look up as he licked the rolling paper and sealed the cigarette.

  “Brother,” said Spence through gritted teeth, fighting to maintain his congenial facade.

  “Humph. Well, what’cha want?”

  “I’d like to speak with Laticia for a moment.” Spence glanced around, something off in the scene making him antsy.

  “What fer?” Jake narrowed his eyes. “You a cop?”

  “Yeah. But I only want to talk to her. No one’s in any trouble.”

  “Gotta warrant?”

  Spence sighed. This wasn’t going as planned. “No. Like I said, I only want to talk to her.”

  The door creaked open and a pretty, ebony-skinned wo
man poked her head out. “Want some lunch, Jake?” She noticed Spence and shied, pulling inward.

  “Did I say I did?” He caught Spence appraising Laticia and bolted out of the chair. “Get yo ass back in there. I’ll tell ya when I want somthin’.”

  Laticia’s eyes met Spence’s for a split second…fear. She spun into the house, but not before he noticed a dark purple bruise high on her left cheek. Jake took an aggressive step toward Spence.

  “If’’n you ain’t got no warrant, get the hell off my property.”

  Spence stood his ground. He could push it, but no way Laticia would talk to him with Jake around. He let his smile fade to a smirk.

  “Fine. Sorry to disturb you. Have a good day.” Every word carried an unspoken fuck you, which Jake may or may not have noticed. Regardless, the contemptuous nip felt good.

  Spence weaved his way through the children at play and onto the highway. He needed to get Laticia alone. Time to ask Tamara for a favor.

  * * *

  Salisbury steak, fresh green beans, fried potatoes, and cornbread. Spence hadn’t eaten a home-cooked meal since Stacy’s last visit almost a year ago. Tamara, in addition to being hot as hell, appeared to be a master chef. Why hadn’t he stayed and married this girl? A mistake he might never live down.

  “This is amazing. When did you learn to cook like this?” Spence rolled a bite of steak in thick, brown gravy and popped it into his mouth.

  “Since always.” Tamara giggled and seemed to take great delight in watching him devour the meal. “Mom had me cooking as soon as I could stand at the stove without burning my fingers or setting the house on fire.”