High Lonesome Sound

by Jaye Wells

  When he was young, his granny would say that when a person shuddered it was because a ghost walked over their grave. He’d always considered his granny a few drops short of a pint. But now? Now he wondered if maybe that old bird had understood more than he ever would.

  “No,” he said. “He didn’t kill himself.”

  “Did it have something to do with the lightning?” Ruby said, her voice still low.

  The lightning? He’d forgotten all about it. But now that she mentioned it, he realized that Smythe and Sharps had seen the lightning illuminate all those devils.

  “It was the others, the ones outside the window,” he said, looking at the other deacons. “Cotton ran outside before I could stop him.”

  All the color drained out of the pair’s faces.

  “What nonsense are you talking now, Deacon?” Jessup demanded. “What others?”

  Three loud knocks echoed through the building.

  “Deacon Fry! Edna! Let me in!” Bubba’s terrified voice came through the church doors.

  Everyone looked to him for guidance.

  “Deacon Fry, please!” yelled Bubba.

  He nodded to Junior. “Let him in.”

  Junior took his shotgun and jogged to the door to let Bubba in. The boy slipped through and stumbled.

  “Was anyone behind you?” Deacon Fry called.

  Bubba pulled himself off the ground. “No, sir.” His chest was heaving as if he’d run all the way from the diner.

  Junior slammed the door home and locked it. “Who would be out there? We’re all in here.”

  Two knocks boomed through the chapel. Then, three rapid beats in a row. Two more.

  Everyone in the church froze. Deacon Fry’s heartbeat tripled.

  “Y’all expecting anyone else?” Junior asked the room.

  “Maybe it’s Peter,” Edna said. “We passed him on the way over.”

  “Peter’s gone,” Bunk said quietly.

  Ruby looked toward Bunk like this news surprised her. Deacon Fry didn’t see why. From the moment he’d met Peter West he’d known that man was yellow.

  “Virgil.” The taunting singsong was too loud to have passed through the church’s thick doors. “Virgil, it’s time.”

  “Who is that?” Smythe cried.

  Junior didn’t speak as he turned and marched back toward the door.

  “If you open it,” said Deacon Fry, “I will not be responsible for the outcome.”

  Junior slowed and turned to look at him like he’d sprouted horns. “I’ve gotta find out who’s there.”

  “That’s what he wants.” His voice sounded panicked to his own ears. People were flashing him worried looks like the ones they used to use when dealing with Cotton. “It’s not safe. Do you hear me? Not safe.”

  “All right,” Junior said, propping the shotgun on his shoulder, “I think it’s about damned time you explain what’s going on.”

  His heart pounded so hard that the underside of his jaw ached. All that blood pumping through his veins should have made him feel hot, but he’d never felt so chilled in his life. Or so utterly alone. “You won’t believe me.” He placed a hand over his chest, just in case his heart made a run for it. “But I swear, you can not open that door.”

  The people who trusted him—the ones who’d followed his rules and done his bidding for decades—now looked at him with a mixture of fear and doubt.

  “Now, Virgil, it can’t be as bad as all that,” Bunk said in a patronizing tone. “Maybe it’s just Peter, like Edna said.”

  “Or Granny Maypearl,” Ruby said, suddenly animated. “Oh God, she’s out there with the girls!”

  “Granny’s back at the diner,” said Bubba. “Maybe someone’s playing a joke.”

  Was this what insanity felt like? Or maybe they’d all gone insane and he was the only one left with a lick of sense.

  But they aren’t the ones who think there’s a demon on the church steps.

  “It’s Jack!” He hadn’t meant to shout it. Hadn’t meant to say it at all, but just like those hysterical giggles earlier, the information had pressed up against his throat and his tongue until he couldn’t stand to be the sole custodian of that information a second longer. “That’s Jack out there.”

  All sound fled the room. The only noise he could hear was his traitor heart against his ribcage.

  Finally, it was Ruby who broke the spell. “Jack’s dead.”

  Knock, knock

  Knockknockknock

  Bunk finished the pattern absently, “Two bits.”

  “Virgil Fry.” That voice, that demon’s voice, came through the doors and flew toward him as if carried on midnight black wings. “The time has come for Revelation.”

  56

  Jukebox Of The Dead

  Granny Maypearl

  She stepped into the diner with her dowsing rod in her right hand and in her left, a charm bag filled with a piece of white quartz, a piece of smoky quartz, and a few oleander leaves.

  “Spirits of the dead, quit this place. I bind you with light and song to send you back whence you came.”

  The dark jukebox sprang to life. An old bluegrass song came from the speakers. Something high and lonesome, like the songs from her childhood.

  The hairs on her arms stood on end.

  A few years earlier, Deacon Fry had made a big stink about getting rid of that thing, but Edna had argued it was an antique. The jukebox stayed, but no one was ever allowed to play music.

  A shuffling sound came from the shadows near the kitchen.

  She spun in time to see Reverend Peale limp into the light. The right side of his head was dented and bits of brain clung to his temple. The swollen skin around his eyes prevented him from opening his lids all the way.

  She held up her charm bag again. “Spirits of the dead—”

  “Maypearl.” His voice scratched out of his throat. “That you?”

  She swallowed hard. Seeing him so ruined and stinking to high heaven made her want to scream and run back out that door and take refuge in the church, but her work was best done away from God’s house. She started to call him “Reverend,” but it didn’t seem right calling that thing—that broken shell of him by that consecrated title. “Harlan,” she said, using his given name just like she used to when they were children.

  His head tipped to the side. “Mama?”

  Her stomach clenched. “No, Harlan, I ain’t your mama. It’s Maypearl.” As she spoke, she set down the charm bag and removed a bundle of white sage from her tote. “Remember me?”

  “Maypearl?” he croaked.

  “That’s right.” She set down her dowsing rod and struggled to light a match.

  “I don’t feel right.” He sounded confused and terribly young.

  “It’s all gone be all right, Harlan. You just hold on.” The match caught and she used it to light the tip of the sage bundle. The dried herbs lit and a thin ribbon of smoke rose. The scent tickled her nose.

  He shuffled farther into the diner, bumping as he went into the counter. “I’m hungry, Maypearl.”

  She blew softly on the bundle to encourage more smoke. The ribbon thickened and danced across the room but didn’t quite reach him yet. She didn’t dare move closer, or make any sudden movements.

  He recovered from his collision with the counter and resumed his shuffling progress. An incoherent groan came from his mouth. The closer he got, the more his smell overpowered the cleansing scent of the sage.

  “The pact was broken,” he groaned.

  She waved the sage to encourage it to spread through every corner of the room.

  Closer. Now she could see the white pupils and bloated belly pressing against his robe.

  She held the sage in one hand and the charm bag in the other. “Come on,” she whispered.

  “Pact was broken,” he growled.

  The smoke reached him and curled around his body. He jerked, as if the smoke burned him.

  “I bind you with light and song to send you back
whence you came.”

  He made an unholy noise in the back of his throat, but the sage slowed his movements.

  She dropped the charm bag and reached back with her right hand to grab her dowsing rod. As the haint growled and sputtered, she opened her mouth and began to sing the words of the ancient song her own mama taught her the year she got her first bleeding. As she sang, she beat a rhythm on the floor with the tip of her rod. The banjo music from the jukebox accompanied her, as if she’d evoked it.

  She drew the notes from deep inside, from the place where the Great Mother had placed her power before she was born.

  The haint screamed.

  She continued to beat her rhythm and sing her song. The door to the diner flew open and a wild wind rushed inside. Her hair whipped around her head and knocked the sage from her hand. The rush of air dispersed the sage smoke.

  The haint, free of its sage binding, rushed forward. Its dead white eyes and mouth flared open.

  She gripped her dowsing rod and sang on.

  When he was three feet away, she swung the rod up to her opposite shoulder. The putrid stench of the haint’s breath reached her before it lunged the last few feet. With all her strength, she whipped the dowsing rod across his face.

  He stumbled back with a terrible sound.

  She pounded the dowsing rod into the floor and resumed her song.

  The earth rumbled under their feet. A large crack appeared in the diner floor. Edna would be apoplectic, but a pristine floor would be useless to a dead woman.

  The haint stumbled back again.

  “I bind you with light and song and send you whence you came.”

  This time when the haint came at her, she didn’t hit it or sing. She opened her arms and reached deep inside to summon her final weapon.

  When she opened her mouth this time, the note that escaped was not a part of any song known to man or mountain.

  The power of her note arced like lightning toward the haint’s body. She held the note until his eyes bulged from their sockets and smoke rose from its ruined head.

  The diner’s windows exploded. The haint screamed as its bones shattered, too. Heat from the friction built until the flesh turned to ash.

  Maypearl stopped singing and tamped her dowsing rod three times on the ground. The ash column that used to be the Reverend Harlan Peale crumpled to the floor.

  She stepped to it and whispered, “Rest in peace, old friend.”

  57

  Demon Jack And The Cadillac

  Deacon Fry

  The church doors had red glass inserts that bloodied Deacon Fry’s view of his town.

  Demon Jack stood in the road on the roof of the deacon’s Cadillac. The spotlights that illuminated the church’s façade now acted as spotlights for the demon’s wicked production.

  He whispered under his breath, “Bastard.”

  Behind him, in the church, the others had all run to the windows to see what the commotion was about.

  “It’s Jack!” Nell screamed.

  Deacon Fry tried to block out the sounds but failed—just as he’d failed to save Cotton. Just as he feared he’d fail at saving them all.

  “Sir?” Smythe’s fear sweat smelled like rotting potatoes in the small vestibule.

  He pushed his elbow back into Smythe’s soft belly. “Give me some room, Smythe.”

  “What do you see?”

  Deacon Fry blew out a long breath that fogged up the red window. More than anything in his life, he wished he could just write this entire situation off as a nightmare. He longed to be a child, curled against his mother’s soft breast, and her whispering, “It was just a dream, Virgie.”

  Virgie. How long had it been since someone called him that silly name? Sharon called him “Father,” and Sarah Jane called him “Daddy.” His flock called him “Deacon” or “sir.” Even his mother stopped calling him by his pet name after Isaac—

  “Come on out, Deacon Fry.”

  He was almost thankful for the demon Jack interrupting his mind’s attempted stroll down memory lane. Almost. Because that same interruption also confirmed his worst fear—this was no dream, but very real—too damned real.

  “Good people of Moon Hollow,” Jack called, “if you want to survive the night, send the sinner out here to face his punishment.” He opened his arms wide and his small army of undead raised their terrible voices like a devil’s choir.

  The church fell silent. He turned away from the door. They wanted guidance. Impatience expanded like hot air in his chest. These fools were so used to taking his orders they needed him to give them permission to hand him over to the demon.

  Disgusted, he started to turn back toward the window, but the sound of someone racking a shotgun made him freeze.

  Junior Jessup stood in the doorway leading into the chapel. The aim of his double barrel shotgun took away any question about his goal.

  “Now, Junior—”

  “Move it.” Junior’s right eye twitched, but the gun’s aim didn’t waver.

  He threw his arms out to grab the jambs. “You’re going to have to kill me here, Junior.”

  The twitching right eye narrowed and the gun raised a fraction of an inch. “If that’s your choice.”

  “Daddy?” Sarah Jane’s scream ripped through the cold night air and through the doors, where it took aim like an ice arrow that embedded itself in his heart.

  “Daddy, help!”

  “Virgil!”

  He turned and looked through the windows, praying it was a trick. It was not.

  The monsters circled his wife and daughter. Jack stood on the hood smiling like a snake. “Virgil, we have your women.”

  Sarah Jane craned her neck. The instant her eyes landed on Jack’s ruined face, she let loose a screech that crawled up his spine and exploded at the base of his brain. “Jack! What’s—Daddy, what’s … ” The rest of her words dissolved into sobs.

  Sharon put her arm around their daughter, but tears were streaking down her face too.

  His hand tightened until the doorknob dug into his palm.

  With everything happening, it hadn’t occurred to him to check on Sharon and Sarah Jane.

  He closed his eyes and swallowed hard to dislodge the taste of copper on his tongue and the hunk of bile wedged behind his Adam’s apple.

  Sarah Jane’s hysterical babbling continued.

  Hard metal at his back indicated that Junior had made his decision. “Time’s up.”

  This is Gethsemane, and my Judas has a shotgun.

  “Go on.” The lack of emotion in Junior’s tone barely registered.

  His fingers wouldn’t work right. The metal at his back pushed him forward until his face crushed into that red glass.

  Finally, the latch gave way and the doors swung open. Cold night air rushed in to surround him.

  A hand shoved his back. His feet missed the first step and lurched forward. The world became a riot of color and pain. It happened so fast that he barely registered the fall until he’d skidded to a stop at the bottom. It took an extra couple of seconds before the hot pain on his palms and the sounds of the demon’s laughter cut through the shock.

  Behind him, Junior’s footsteps echoed as he came to help the deacon rise with a surprisingly gentle grip. As he rose from the ground, something hard and cold pressed into his hand.

  “Wait until I say,” Junior whispered.

  Schooling his features, he turned to face the demon, and he held the gun behind his back until Jessup said. Sarah Jane sobbed and clung to Sharon as they were each tugged apart by two skeletal creatures who probably had once been members of his church. The demon who looked like Jack stood on the roof of the car like the cock of the walk. His heart pounded so hard, he could barely catch his breath.

  Anger and fear, a caustic elixir.

  Jack executed a mocking bow. “Now the real party may begin.”

  58

  Family Reunion

  Ruby

  Ruby watched her neighbors run out o
f the church. After Junior pushed the deacon out the door, they’d argued about locking the doors tight or going out to help. In the end, it had been Bunk who convinced everyone to go see if they could help by saying, “Deacon Fry’s been trying to save us for years.”

  Now, she stood alone by the altar. She looked down the red-carpeted aisle, and had the strange sensation of staring down a long, empty throat. At the other end, where the church’s double doors lay open, a bright light beckoned her.

  She shook off the feeling because it was a trick. There was no salvation at the end of that tunnel. She’d seen the monsters outside. They were not angels come to save them.

  Daddy’s out there. Mama, too.

  The thought popped up so unexpected that she jumped a little. When Deacon Fry had told them her daddy was dead, she’d felt almost nothing—except for a small spark of relief. But thinking Mama might be out there somewhere filled her with both hope and dread.

  In that moment, she’d realized something simple but earthshattering. Cotton Barrett was a man who’d spent his whole life blaming the world for his self-hatred. Every time he struck her mama or started a fight or drank until he blacked out, he was begging to be put down. She didn’t know exactly what happened to cause his death, but she understood that her relief was tied to knowing he’d finally gotten his wish.

  As this simple truth settled into the center of her being, tears sprang to her eyes. She looked up at Jesus up over the altar. Through the watery film of tears, the Savior seemed to shimmer in the red light.

  We nail ourselves to our crosses, but we know nothing of forgiveness.

  The demon’s voice sounded happy. Real joy, she realized, required a total lack of empathy.

  The corner of her ear caught the tail end of something else. Not shouting—whispering. She cocked her head and tried to hear them underneath the shouts. But every time she thought she almost caught one, its tail slipped through her grasp. The only thing she knew for sure was that they had been spoken by Granny Maypearl.