Hallowed (22 page)

When I open my eyes again, it is pitch black and I feel a cold wet draft seeping through my clothes.  There’s a smell not unlike a freshly extinguished candle.  The smell is all around me.  The air is saturated with it.

The mattress on which I slept had somehow turned hard.  I lift my hands and press them against the surface.  The texture is rough and splintery and ashen.  My nails dig and it crumbles beneath them like the stone wall of a cavern.

Then it hits me.

I am inside.

I am inside the House.

I hear a creaking coming from the darkness before me.  From the sound that bounces around the wide open darkness, I know there’s a vast space before me.

“Hello?” the sound I make is infinitesimal, making about as much impact as a pebble tossed into the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  I know that if I am to be heard in this great abyss, I’ll have to make a lot more noise.  So, I take a deep breath and with all the strength I can muster, I yell, “Hello!”

A moment later, I awoke to find Claudia at my side.  A light had gone on upstairs and Mom and Mrs. Wicke stepped out of their respective doorways.

Claudia glanced up at them and gave them a wave and a smile.  Mrs. Wicke yawned and disappeared back into her room, but Mom lingered there.

For the time being, I was just aware of Claudia and of my own embarrassment of waking her.  “Did I say something?”

She scoffed.  “You screamed, Paul.”

“Screamed?”  For the first time, I noticed that she was dressed in her sleeping clothes.  Tonight, it was a baggy t-shirt and shorts.  It wasn’t revealing or particularly tight, but because it was what she chose to wear to bed, it was infinitely intriguing to me.

“Well, you yelled something.  I couldn’t understand what it was.”

I ran a hand through my hair.  God, I was awake, but the raw intensity of the images remained with me.  I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was only separated from the place I had been before by a matter of seconds.  It was so fresh, the smell of burnt wood filled my nostrils.

“God, Claudia, it was so damned real.”

“Easy, man.”  She sat down next to me on the bed and touched my forehead.  I saw her glance up self-consciously over her shoulder.  When I followed her eye-line, I caught my mother disappearing into her room.  “You’re shaking.”

“Am I?”  I didn’t want to admit it, but I felt the trembling.  Trouble was, I couldn’t tell if the cause was the dream or the sudden proximity of Claudia.  The attraction to her was so strong now it was like a physical need.  With every stroke of her hand, the desire to return the touch was becoming more irresistible.  “I’m all right now, I guess.”

“I don’t know about that.  Maybe I oughtta hang around.”

I shifted away from her.

She just remained sitting there.  I could feel her watching my back.

“I think you were there, Claudia,” I whispered.  “I think I was calling your name.  I was trying to find you.”

“Where?”

“In that house.  You were trapped somewhere inside and I was trying to find you, but I couldn’t find you.”  I was shivering again, uncontrollably this time.

Suddenly, I felt her there next to me, her body pressed against mine, her chest there in my back and her arms reaching around and holding me.  She was making a soothing sort of shushing sound and stroking my forearm with her cool palm.

The muscle spasms finally subsided as the warmth of Claudia’s body mingled with my own.  I don’t know how long we lay like that together, but when I next opened my eyes, it was morning and she was gone.

Despite all that happened the previous night (or perhaps because of it), Mom insisted that I go to mass with her again.  She was up first, around eight o’clock, and started preparing breakfast for us as a way of thanking Mrs. Wicke for her hospitality on such short notice.  Mrs. Wicke came down around nine.  Claudia never did.

“She rarely gets up before eleven or twelve on the weekends.”

I figured as much.

We gathered around the eggs, bacon, and toast that Mom had prepared and Mrs. Wicke said a quick grace that everything gets back to normal.  I silently added that I hoped the killer would be caught and brought to justice, but how is justice meted out to a mass murderer, I wondered.  You can only kill a man once.  That hardly seemed like just punishment to a monster that caused so much misery, pain and death to so many others.

I stared down at the wrinkled strips of fried pork flesh in my plate alongside the congealed chicken embryos and wasn’t quite as hungry anymore.

“Your Mom tells me that you might have some interest in doing the same type of work as your father.”

Though I was a little surprised at the topic, at least she hadn’t asked about my early morning screaming bout.

“I don’t know about that.  I told my Dad that if I can help, I want to do whatever I can.”  I glanced over at Mom, who was scowling down at her plate.  “If we all just stand around and let someone better qualified handle it, a lot more people will die.”

Mom looked up and was on the verge of saying something when there was a loud knock on the door and a familiar voice called from the other side of the screened in front doorway.

“C’mon in, Jack.”

Mom leapt up and grabbed Dad up in her arms and gave him a long grand kiss.  I looked politely down at my plate and Mrs. Wicke gave me an amused smile.  “Did you get much sleep?” she asked him.

“Managed a couple of hours,” he muttered, squeezing my shoulder.

Mrs. Wicke pulled a chair out for him, and Mom slid the remainder of her eggs over to him, but he shook her away.  “Please, Jack.  You know my appetite.”

With that, he snatched up the fork and went to town demolishing what was left of it.  I fetched a mug from the cabinet and poured him some coffee.  I sat it down in front of him and waited patiently.

He glanced up at us.  All our eyes were on him.

“Well, any small talk I had to make pales in comparison to what you might have to say,” Mrs. Wicke snapped.  “Let’s hear it.”

“Let’s leave him alone,” Mom responded.  “I’m sure he’s done all the talking he wants to do on this subject right now.”

Dad seemed to ignore her and looked directly at me instead.  “Though she claims to have information about the murders, she’s being very evasive.”

“Does she know anything that isn’t common knowledge by now?” I asked.

“She seems to know some things, though how much she knows from personal research”—his eyes flitted to me—“and how much she knows first-hand, she’s not saying.”

“But is it her?”

He cornered the last forkful between knife and fork.  “She claims she’s Courtney Noble of Monroe, Louisiana.  According to the portable fingerprinting we did on her, results are inconclusive,” he said in an odd tone of voice that I couldn’t interpret.  He dropped his knife and fork, leaving the last bit of food uneaten.

“Dad, is it her?” I repeated.

He peered up at me with a look that said, “Watch it, kid.”

I took a different angle.  “What does Uncle Hank say?”

“Well, you know Hank.  He’s got to be contrary just for the sake of it.”  He took a swig of coffee.  “I’ll say this much.  If she is who she claims to be, she should be at least forty years old.”  Dad just grunted and looked up at Mom.  “I ask you, does that woman look forty to you?”

Mom gave a single shake of her head and said with the serenity that comes from stating a simple fact, “Doesn’t look old enough for grey, I know that.”

“No,” he said with finality and got up to refill his cup of coffee.  When he was done, he continued standing at the sink, staring out into the front yard through the window there.

I glanced up and found my mother staring at me with a kind of desperation in her eyes.  I gave her a smile and a shrug.

“Okay, Jack, we’re going to church, would you like to come with us?”

“I just spent a good part of my night in that place, and you want me to go back?”  He gave us a dark laugh.

Mom stood and gave me a look that brought me to my feet as well.

“What are you going to do now?” I asked him.

“Go down to the station.  Knock out a report on all this.”

“What about the woman?”

“What about her?” he looked around at me, his eyes angry and red.

“Didn’t they take her into custody?”

He cocked his head at me and gave me an almost crazed grin.  “Oh, didn’t you know?  Anyone can ask for sanctuary and…”  He snapped his fingers in the air violently.  “…They’re untouchable.  Hell, wouldn’t matter if this is the exact same guy we’re after!”

Mom guided me by the base of my neck toward the door.  “Honey, I think you should go home and get a decent night’s rest.”

“Yeah, maybe get a few more hours worth before the next…”  He stopped just short of saying it, but I could feel that frustration and bitterness in his voice.

I glanced up at my mother again and she looked on the verge of tears.  To cover it up, she grabbed her purse by its strap off of the back of the chair.  “C’mon, Paul.”  She stepped over to Dad’s side and waited patiently for him.  Finally, he turned and gave her a kiss.  She leaned over and whispered something in his ear.  He looked at her then, and I saw something flash between their eyes that I’d never seen before that morning, the passion of a couple half their age.

He kissed her again then, but this time he meant it.

Eleven o’clock mass was nearly at capacity.  At first, I surmised that something had leaked out about the suspect taking refuge there, but then I noticed the overwhelming amount of crying babies and deduced that there must be a baptism following the mass.

I joined my mom about ten rows down from the front on the left hand side facing the altar.  After saying a quick prayer for Dad, I rose from my kneeling position on the pew and sat back.  Someone was leaning forward just behind and to my left, murmuring a prayer under their breath.  It’s always bugged me a little when I sit back like that and someone is still praying.  I’m not sure if it’s an issue of my personal space or that I feel that I’m intruding on an intimate act, but I’ve never felt comfortable in that position.

Whoever it was, their lips were inches from my ear, because I began to detect words and feel their heated breath. I was just about to lean forward out of the way, when I heard a woman say, “Don’t turn around, Paul.”

I glanced over to my right.  It wasn’t my mother, she was busy talking to one of her friends from her monthly book club.  They were busy debating the substance of the latest book Oprah had “discovered.”

“Who..?”

“I’m the old friend of your father’s.”  I started to turn, but a hard placed “no” stopped me in mid-swivel.  “If you turn around, I’m walking away, and you’ll be left with all those unanswered questions you’ve been dying to ask.”

I simply nodded.

“Do you want to ask me those questions, Paul?”

I nodded again.

“I want you to go into the last confessional on the left side of the church just after the gospel reading.”

With that, the organist started his intro and the parishioners began to rise around me.  I rose and glanced back behind me, catching a glimpse of a woman as she was excusing herself out into the aisle.  Her long white hair was held together by a clip and she wore the same outfit I remember seeing last night, including the long sleeves and gloves.

At the same moment, the incense from one of the censers swept over me, and for one unsettling moment, I felt like this was all just an extension of the dream I’d had the night before.  Was it possible that I was still trapped inside the House?

But when I saw Bishop Boudreaux walking up the aisle followed by Uncle Hank, my anxiety subsided.

Just after the gospel reading as everyone was sitting down, I touched my mother on the arm and murmured, “I’m going to the restroom.”

She nodded indifferently.

I marched down the left hand side about three-fourths the length of the church.  When I reached the door leading to the foyer, I glanced to my right to the confessional booth, and saw it open just a crack.  She was there already.  As I stepped out into the foyer, the daylight from the large glass windows flooded my eyes.  Several suited men gathered over on the other side, preparing the donation baskets.  I hesitated a few moments there and made a show of going through my pockets, pretending that I had forgotten something before I opened the door into the church again.

The last confessional booth was well behind the last row.  The Bishop had just begun his homily and everyone’s eyes were trained on him.  I was sure that the shadows were dark enough here that he wouldn’t be able to see me.

I edged over to the confessional, grasped the knob in my hand and scurried into the darkness of the booth.

I gently pulled the door closed and took a seat on the hard wooden bench.  The tiny coffin-shaped room smelled musky and old.  The opening at the top allowed the light of the church inside, so it wasn’t completely dark.

The slot in front of me slid open and through the cross-shaped grating, I saw half a face staring back at me.  The smell of nicotine wafted through.  “Paul,” the woman whispered.

“Yeah.”

“My name is Tracy.  Tracy Tatum.”

I hesitated as I considered my response.  Finally, I just said what was foremost on my mind anyway.  “How do you expect us to believe you?”

“You’ll have to just trust me until you see the evidence for yourself.”

I gave a snort.  “With all due respect, you’re a total stranger asking me to trust you.”

“It’s your choice, but you agreed to meet me for a reason.  If you don’t believe I am who I’ve said, why are you here?”

“Curiosity.  Why
are
you here?”

“I wanted to meet you,” she answered.  “Just as you want to see the face of the person your father saved thirty-five years ago, I want to see the son of that man.  I knew your mother would never allow us to talk openly out there.”

“She thinks you’re dangerous.”

She sighed.  “Good mother.  Better than mine ever was.”  She paused and made a noise that might have been a clearing of the throat.  “But we’re not here to talk about that part of my life.  You have questions.  I’ll try and answer them.”

“Do you know who’s committing the murders?”

“No. I wish I could give your father a name in repayment for what he did for me, but that’s beyond my ability.”  Through the cross-shaped screen a single eye appraised me.  “One of your uncles gave his life in a time of war to save others.”

It was not a question and I wondered how she could possibly know that.

She continued: “Would you willingly sacrifice your life to save someone you love?”

“Yes,” I answered without hesitation, asking myself a moment after if it was true.  Could I step in front of a bullet or car, knowing that it meant the end of the road for me?  After all, it was one thing to claim that you would, but quite another to actually do it--not only because it’s honorable but also because it is somehow romantic to imagine that you can value something beyond yourself.

I could see her through the screen now, watching me with a hungry sort of interest, almost as if she could hear the conflict going on within me.  Clearing my throat, I continued my questions: “If you don’t know the identity of the killer, why did you come to my uncle’s church?”

“You and your family… you’re all in danger, Paul, but I can’t ex... I can see things sometimes, things that are imminent, especially since the last victim.” Then, in an abrupt almost stream of consciousness shift, she asked me, “Have you ever known your father to be afraid?”

“Not my father,” I answered with no hesitation.

“Every man is capable of fear.  Do you think he’d ever willingly avoid a confrontation out of fear?”

I hesitated at the audacity of the question.  “How can I answer something like that?”

“Every man is capable of the act of betrayal.  I just wanted to know if you’d ever suspected it in your father.”

“No,” I snapped empathetically.  “Why do you think we’re in danger?  What do you know?”

“I haven’t seen that part yet.  It’s only an overall feeling.”

While I was trying to choose one of the many questions I wanted to ask her next, she threw out another left-fielder.  “He never touched me, by the way—the one who kidnapped me--accept to feed me.  He fed me cold cuts and cheddar cheese.  Once he gave me fried chicken.  He always came in and blindfolded me before he fed me.”  She paused and gave an apologetic smile.  “The memories are still very vivid to me.  I was in the house for three weeks, but that never seemed right to me.  Time… had a funny way of slipping past in the darkness.”

“The House?  Does it still exist?”

There was a moment of silence, and I could hear a rumble of laughter, perhaps a response to a joke the Bishop told, but I could see her lips twist into an uncomfortable smile.  The flash of teeth she displayed to me looked yellowed and aged, tobacco-stained.

“Exists? Well, it’s interesting how you phrased that.  If something existed once, can you ever really say when it’s gone that it leaves nothing behind?  If you remove a rock from the grass, does it not leave an imprint?  Even the most seemingly insignificant person leaves a sort of after-image on the world around him in a lifetime of interacting with others.

“If a person uses an object for great good or great evil, that thing makes an impact on the world, especially if it is imbued with great hate.  It has always seemed to me that the capacity for an individual to do Evil has always been easier than for a person to do an act of Good,” she said to me.  “Doing a good deed is an act of creation, and it has always been easier to destroy.”

She leaned forward again, her voice becoming more animated, like a priest wrapping up his sermon.  “I think that House still exists, though in a different form than we would recognize.”

“Tell me where it used to be and…”

“I don’t know anymore,” she snapped almost plaintively, as a child might.

I heard the Bishop go quiet outside and the parishioners rising from the pews.  I saw her glance to her right and start to move.  I had to ask it now, the most important question, or I’d never get another chance.

I leaned forward toward the screen and hissed urgently, “What’s my connection to all this?”  Then after a pause, I threw two more at her: “How do you know that song? Why did you want me in the room yesterday?”

Her face turned back to me.  She was mere inches from me now, as intimate as a lover.  She gave the awkward smile of someone unpracticed in everyday human niceties.  The sigh that followed carried with it a burden I would never understand.  The smell of nicotine had somehow disappeared and her breath smelled of freshly turned earth.  It was somehow comforting.

“I don’t know what the song means, but you will,” she responded.  “You know the where and the when.  Soon you will know who.”

In my mind, I could hear Claudia spelling out the letters on the Ouija board.

S-O-O-N.  Do you see, Paul?  Soon.

“Which ‘who’?  Are you saying it’s going to be Dad… my father?  He’s going to stop the serial killer?”

“I believe he’ll play a part in it, but you…  You’re going to have to learn to lead.  He’s going to have to learn to follow.”

She tilted her head and nailed me with a single piercing eye.  “Samhain.”  The words came out the correct way.  Sow-In.  “The murders.  You want them to stop.  Your father wants them to stop.  But I need them to stop for different reasons.”  She pulled back from the screen, and I could see her clearly for an instant, gripping a curl of platinum white hair and curling it around a gloved finger like a nervous teenager.  “I need this to end, just like Dr. Joyner’s life was ended thirty-five years ago.  I need to silence the voices again.”

With that, light flooded through the small slot and I felt a breeze rush through, chilling my eyes pressed close to the opening.  She was gone.