Anathema (5 page)

Jim padded back into the kitchen and pulled a beer out of the refrigerator. He popped the top and took a long draught. He walked across the living room and stood in the bathroom doorway.

Diane was unpacking a box of toiletries and arranging them, somewhat loudly, in the medicine cabinet.

"I'm sorry I'm late,” Jim apologized. “I lost track of time."

Diane grunted and slammed the toothpaste on one of the glass shelves hard enough to rattle the mouthwash on the shelf above.

Jim winced. “This really is a quaint little town, and I think we're going to like it here if we give it a chance. The people are much more genuine then they were in Ventura."

Diane grunted again. Her husband's toothbrush slipped from her fingers and dropped in the toilet. She fished it out and threw it away.

"Next time you're in town visiting with your new pals, you might want to get yourself another toothbrush."

Jim set his beer down on the small telephone table in the hall and wrapped his arms around his wife.

"Are you still mad at me?” Jim cooed in her ear.

Diane's body stiffened. She pushed him away, turned, and shoved a lock of hair from her eyes.

"You stink like a drunk,” she said. “You're out whooping it up, and I'm left here to unpack when I didn't want to move into this shithole in the first place."

Jim felt his eyelid quiver. “Ah, come on, Diane, don't start up on me again, please."

"Start up! I never got the chance to finish. You walked out. Remember? You had to check out this quaint little town."

Jim rubbed his temple with his fingertips. He felt a rage building inside of him.

Hit her!
An alien voice whispered in his ear.
Hit her and get it over with. You know you want to.

"Your daughter spent most of the day crying,” Diane continued, “and I spent most of the day trying to comfort her. Jim, you pulled her out of her world and dropped her into this one, and you didn't even have the decency to stick around today and help her through it. She's traumatized."

Jim rolled his hand into a fist.

Hit her. Hit her. Show the bitch who's boss. Shut the cow up.

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Diane, she's not traumatized. She's fourteen. A hangnail's enough to ruin her life!"

Diane's gaze locked on Jim. “That was cold. Your daughter's upset, and all you have to say is: ‘She's fourteen.’ Sometimes, you're such a sonofabitch."

Do it now!
the voice inside Jim's head taunted.
Slap the bitch around! Kill her! I know you want to. I can feel your rage.

In his mind's eye, he saw himself tackle Diane to the floor, straddle her, and punch her face over and over and over again. His knuckles were red and sticky with her blood, and still he continued to pound his fist into her, pulverizing her face into a gluttonous mass of red jelly.

Hit her! Hit her! Kill her!

"No, I won't,” Jim cried.

"You won't what?” Diane snapped.

"Stand here and listen to your bullshit any longer,” Jim lied. Then he turned and walked up the stairs.

Angry, Diane snapped on the radio on the toilet tank. At that very moment, she wished Jim were in the shower so she could toss the radio in with him. That'd show him. She'd finally be rid of him.

Diane shivered. Where in the world had that thought come from?

She turned the volume up loud. Neil Diamond's distorted voice shimmered through the single speaker. He sang about love on the rocks.

It was no surprise.

What had gotten into him? He had thoughts he thought were unimaginable. Yet, they had pushed their way to the front of his mind like a bulldozer pushed dirt out of a hole. He was angry with Diane, but wanting to harm her was unacceptable.

As Jim tried to push away the unpleasantness of the last few minutes, he passed his son's bedroom and his thoughts of abuse were replaced with pangs of guilt and sorrow.

Travis sat on his bed with his elbows on his knobby knees and his head buried in his hands. Rufus lay next to him, nose between his paws and tail straight out behind him.

Jim stuck his head in the doorway. “Hey, Sport, can I come in?"

Travis looked up and nodded. His eyes were red and glistened with tears.

Jim joined his son, put his arm around his shoulders, and pulled him close.

"Why do you and Mom have to fight?” Travis sobbed. He wiped his eyes with a chubby hand.

Jim sighed. “Sometimes, mommies and daddies do that."

"But, Dad, you and Mom fight all the time."

Travis was right, and that reality struck Jim like a cold iron rod. “Mom's just a little unhappy right now and she's just taking it out on Daddy, that's all."

Then Travis asked the question that had been bothering him for a long time: “Are you and Mommy going to get a divorce?"

Jim took a deep breath. The divorce question hit him unexpectedly, grabbed him by the balls, and twisted. A ten-year-old shouldn't even know such a word existed. His biggest worry should be what flavor of ice cream to buy from the Good Humor man, not which parent he was going to visit on the holidays. But he'd never lied to his children in the past and he wasn't about to start now.

"Honestly, Sport,” Jim said, “I don't know. Mom and I are trying to work things out, but remember, whatever happens, none of this is your fault. Never was.” Jim kissed the top of his son's head and stroked the soft, blond hair. “I love you, Sport, and no matter what, that'll never change."

Travis looked up at his father. The tears were gone, and a smile had replaced the frown. “And I love you, Dad. No matter what."

Chapter 6

Reverend Timothy stood in the church sanctuary, staring at the stained-glass window of Jesus that looked out over the pews. He said a prayer, and as he'd done for the past twenty years, lit the three candles on the altar in front of him, one candle in remembrance of each man that perished in the woods that night. The pastor moved to the pulpit, opened the big, leather-bound Bible, and, by the moonlight that streamed through the leaded windows, searched the text for a verse that would comfort him and take away his fear. He prayed for strength.

After two decades, the dreams had returned—horrid, surreal images of sodomy, sadomasochism, and bondage. At last Sunday's service, Timothy looked out at the congregation and saw blood running in the aisles.

Following his moment of meditation, the pastor looked up at the Jesus window again. The Savior cried tears of blood. The images of fornicators, murderers, and whores danced at His feet.

Timothy blinked, and the vision was gone.

The pastor walked across the darkened sanctuary and into the narthex. He took off his robe and walked into the library. There, Pastor Timothy opened a secret panel next to the bookcase. Hidden within the walls was The Book. Timothy touched the fine binding. There was salvation here.

The day after the horrific events at the cave, he returned to retrieve The Book. He found it right where he dropped it. Except for a small, dirty smudge in the right corner, it was intact, just as he knew it would be. The Book was indestructible.

On his way back to town, he found Robert Stevens curled up beneath a pine tree. Bobby was filthy. His hair had turned stark white, and his eyes looked like a pair of dull marbles. When Timothy reached out to him, Stevens cowered like a beaten animal.

Robert Stevens was alive, but had lost his mind.

Pastor Timothy managed to get Bobby to Honeybrook, and when he told the Town Elders of what he'd done, they came up with a plan.

A missing person report was filed with Sheriff Ebert, the proper authorities were informed, and the paperwork dutifully tucked in a filing cabinet. All neat and tidy.

First Trust Bank foreclosed on Stevens's house and business. His car was impounded and kept in a storage facility in the next county. The fee was paid yearly from the town's petty cash fund. Five years later, the car was sold to an out of state dealer who used it for parts. The car, like Stevens, no longer existed.

Rumors spread through town like wild fire. Stevens had left with only the clothes on his back. Edna Hapcord was convinced he ran off to Tanner's Falls. He was seeing one of the town floozies there, and Edna was sure the slut got her hooks into the poor man and hauled him away. It was the sex that probably made him stay. It was an addiction, you know. Once a man got a taste of it, they couldn't get enough.

This was what Edna Hapcord believed, and she made sure all of Prairie Rest shared her view. The Elders said nothing to the contrary. Sometimes, a blabbermouth like Edna was good for a town.

Every so often, Bobby managed to escape the hospital grounds and wander into town. Fortunately, no one ever recognized the shell of the man that once owned the town's auto dealership. He was just another bum who somehow found his way to Prairie Rest. Just another derelict for the sheriff to handle.

Pastor Timothy crossed the cover of The Book with his index finger and closed the secret panel. He left the church through the back door and slipped into the night.

As he hurried to the parish house, he heard things in the wind that chilled his blood and challenged his faith.

In his room on the third floor of Honeybrook's main building, Robert Stevens stared, glassy-eyed, out the barred window.

Since the sheriff brought him back to the asylum, Stevens had been out of control. He ranted about children with golden eyes. He tried to claw through the walls, resulting in broken fingernails and bloody fingers. He bit one of the orderlies hard enough on the shoulder to draw blood. So, the staff had no other option but to drug and restraint him before he'd harm himself or anyone else further. But as stoned as he was, Stevens still had his wits about him, and as he stared out the window, he shivered with fear.

Steven's room was one of four that faced the Anderson property, and through the haze of the cold moonlight, he saw a sick, green mist crawl out of the woods. It rolled across the overgrown lawn. He saw the trees move closer to the stone house.

These things he saw might've been drug-induced, but deep in his heart, in the pit of his stomach, he knew it was not so.

Stevens wanted to bang on the window and alert the Andersons of the approaching doom, but the strait jacket prevented such movement. He wanted to scream, “Get up! Look out the window! Beware! Beware!” He still had his wits, but the drugs fogged his mind so he'd lost perception of distance. Even if he was able to pound on the window and shout his warning, he was much, much too far away to be heard. There were miles between the Anderson house and the asylum. The only thing Stevens would manage to accomplish would be alerting the night nurse, and that would result in another hypo of lithium carbonate.

Tears rolled down his gaunt face.

The children.

Stevens so wanted to tell them about the children; to warn them. But he couldn't. There was nothing he could do.

In his dream, Jim Anderson stood in the middle of town. The stores were dark and empty; the shopkeepers gone. The street was void of cars; the sidewalk absent of people. Prairie Rest had turned into a ghost town.

His house loomed above the village like a medieval sentinel, its shadow growing longer as the moon traveled across the starless sky. As the shadow touched the buildings, they burst into flames.

Now the shadow morphed into a pair of skeleton hands with long, twisted, sinewy fingers. The shadow hands changed direction and crept toward Jim.

He turned to run, but the pavement had gone soft, and he sank up to his ankles. Jim glanced behind him. One of the fingers touched a street lamp and it exploded into brilliant green fire.

Jim pumped his legs faster, and even though the world zipped by him at a hundred miles an hour, he was going nowhere and the shadow was closer.

Shadow fingers curled around his ankles, and Jim yelped as they spiraled up his legs. He felt the cold evil sear his flesh. Then Jim's feet took purchase, and he broke away from the ghastly grip. He ran down the street and into the Stumble Inn.

The place was filled with living corpses. Drinking dead lined the bar. Yellow skin hung from their bones. Eyeballs rotted in their sockets. They were naked and played with themselves beneath a blood-soaked sheet. A putrefying young man was bent over the pool table, allowing another decaying male to shove a pool stick up his ass. There was an orgy by the jukebox. Dried cocks pumped into withered pussies.

Moans and groans of tortured pleasure echoed throughout the bar. The dry sound of scraping flesh whispered in his ears. The stench of putrid meat stung his nostrils. And as perverse as it was, Jim found himself become aroused.

Jim spun on his heels. He had to get out of this hell. This was wrong. All of it, so very wrong. But as he headed for the door, Jarvis spoke from behind the bar: “You shouldn't have come here, Jim. You should've stayed away.” Cradled in his arms was the rotting, stinking corpse of Travis.

Outside, the shadow enveloped the building, and Jim was thrown into darkness.

Travis was swimming again, and the water was cool against his skin. There were others in the pond with him, but he had no idea who they were because they had no faces. Maybe they were kids from town, maybe they were some of his friends he'd left behind, or maybe they were ghosts of those who came before him.

The faceless ones stopped swimming and turned toward Travis. Their faces were as blank as a chalkboard, yet Travis felt their eyes staring at him.

"Intruder,” one of them whispered through a mouthless face.

"Interloper,” gurgled another.

The beings circled Travis and closed in around him. They hissed. The sound reminded Travis of the time he visited the zoo reptile house. All those hissing snakes gave him nightmares for a week. But this was worse. So much worse.

One of the faceless grabbed his arm. Another tugged at his leg. They were trying to pull him under the water.

Two men appeared on the muddy bank. Twins. They had bright red hair and the bluest eyes Travis had ever seen. Kneeling, they plunged their arms into the water.