Hurt: A Novel (Solitary Tales Series) (33 page)

119. The Pretty Picture in Front of You

The shaking motion of light moves around me like a shivering animal. I’m still on my knees by the time the old man steps in front of me. He doesn’t look well. I’m surprised that he can still walk and stand.

It’s suddenly gotten very quiet. Creepy quiet.

“Where is that brave young man I’ve heard so many things about?” Kinner speaks in a hoarse Southern drawl. “The boy so desperate to be a hero?”

I look around. Figures in red robes. Seated. Watching. Like inhuman, unsympathetic monsters.

“Tell me, Chrisss. Tell me the truth.”

I look at him, then at Marsh, who stands at his side. Marsh has a delirious look on his face and in his eyes.

“What—” I begin to say.

“Tell me what is in your heart. Do you believe in God, or do you reject Him? Confess before this group. Confess before me.”

I shake my head, my heart beating, not quite knowing what to do.

Can’t I just lie?

I don’t say anything. Marsh curses, then walks up to me and pulls back my hair. I feel his mouth against my ear.

“This is the moment, right here and now, Chris. They’re just words. That’s all. It’s just part of the ceremony.”

Kinner’s eyes say otherwise. He’s staring like a frustrated father. Waiting. Watching and waiting.

“Go ahead,” Marsh says.

“I can’t.”

“You can’t? Or you won’t?” Kinner asks.

Marsh slaps me in the face, and I jerk back, tasting blood in my mouth.

“You do it now. Right here and now, Chris.”

“Please,” Kinner says as he brushes Marsh aside. “I’d rather spare the violence for someone else. Chris doesn’t deserve hostility, do you? No. Please—will someone please find our guest for tonight?”

It takes a moment for one of the figures in red to disappear and then come back in with another figure in white. A big man guiding a cowering girl at his side.

I knew this moment was coming. It was just a question of when.

Suddenly I want to throw up.

Kelsey’s hands are bound, and her mouth is taped over. Her eyes look swollen and tired. Her hair is messy. She looks at me and tries to scream under the tape, but the figure in white cups her mouth and nose and curses at her to be quiet.

I stand, but Marsh forces me back to the ground.

When I look up, I see Kinner.

He looks amused. The ancient lines on his face seem to get darker and deeper in this crazy mad light.

“Remember when this was all just some silly story that a little girl told you?” Kinner says. “It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t really happen. Until—yessss.”

“Let her go.” I stare at the figure standing next to Kelsey. “You don’t need to hide behind a mask. I know who you are, Staunch.”

“Shut up, boy.”

Again I try to get up, and this time Staunch reaches out and punches me in the gut. I go to the ground, curl up, and begin coughing.

“Chris. It’s very simple. Do you or do you not believe in God the Father, the so-called Maker of this universe?”

A hundred thoughts fill me. I hear distant songs and remember random Bible verses. I hear Newt telling me secrets and Mounds telling me stories.

“No,” my mouth says without even thinking. “I don’t. Okay?”

I can’t think of what else to do. I’m lying and that’s wrong and so is saying I don’t believe in God, but I’m not going to let her die. I can’t let her die.

Kinner’s eyes grow larger. Kelsey is still squealing through her tape. Marsh looks like he’s about ready to open the most amazing Christmas present ever seen.

“Are you a true believer, or do you reject the notion that Jesus came to die for you on a cross?”

I want to lie again, but I feel something deep down that says I can’t.

I’m shaking.

I think of Peter, the disciple who denied Jesus three times.

Three times.

“Answer the man,” Marsh says.

I look at Kinner and Marsh and then Kelsey, and once again I deny that I believe anything. This gets a low chuckle from the man.

“Your eyes and your heart give you away, Chrisss. I know what’s in your heart. You’re lying, aren’t you? You thought you actually found hope in Christ, didn’t you? The amazing grace that everybody sings about. You thought you found it, didn’t you, Chrisss? Didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. No! Leave Kelsey alone. Take me. Do whatever you want to me.”

For a moment there’s just complete and utter silence. Even Kelsey is quiet. Then a sickening, throaty laugh begins and gets louder and louder. I’m not sure if Kinner is doing this for effect or if he’s really, truly amused.

“The hero,” he says softly. “There he is. I see it in your eyes. Put a pretty picture in front of you and look what happens. Just like they said. You will learn, Chrisss. You will learn.”

“Leave her be. Just—just give me the key and be done with it.”

Kinner laughs again. I’m feeling both hot flashes and cold sweats. I feel like I’m falling, and at the same time I feel like I’m cemented on this platform.

“Do you know what the words on that plaque mean? Below our great ancestor’s name? Do you, Chrisss?”

“No.”

“The literal translation is ‘when you talk about the wolf, you see its tail.’ Or as we say, ‘speak of the Devil.’ Except here, when we speak of the Devil, he appears. Just like it says. That’s what this sanctuary is built for, Chris. To see the face of the Great Destroyer. To see the face of darkness burn through the night.”

I look at Kelsey and see tears streaming down her face.

I’m so sorry, Kelsey. I’m sorry for ever talking to you after that art class.

“You will see the face of the Devil tonight, Chris. You just need to do one more thing. You see, the key you talk about—it’s not a literal key. It is not something that I can give you.”

Marsh looks at him as if he’s confused.

At least I’m not the only one.

“You
are the key,” Kinner says. “That is our power. We unlock the gates and control who goes in and out. When my last breath is taken, this power will go into you.”

“Let her go.”

“Shut up,” Marsh says. “Is it time, sir?”

Kinner nods. Marsh goes over and babbles some instructions to the group behind us.

“All you have to do is one more thing, Chrisss.”

Kinner nods, and the figure in white, who I know is Staunch, retrieves something from the back of the room. It’s a long sword.

Come on.

It’s handed to me. Not to Marsh or Kinner.

Maybe I can kill them all and get Kelsey out of here.

The sword is lighter than I thought it would be, but it’s still real. I hold it in one hand, not sure what I’m supposed to do with it.

“Take it and kill me, Chris. My time is now. Stab me in the heart, and you will succeed me. You will see the things I’ve seen. You will learn to take whatever you want whenever you want it. Chris, thrust the sword right here, in my chest.”

Kelsey tries to scream. I’m holding the sword only inches away from this man. I turn and see the figures behind me holding cups of some sort. As if this is some weird kind of communion.

“No.”

“Do it. Take the hate I see all over you and dip it into my flesh. Tear it open, son. Do it and do it now.”

“No,” I say again.

“I watched that pretty little girl you were running for in the woods die. Do you know that? I tasted her blood.”

“Shut up.”

“And this one—what are you going to do about her, Chrisss? Tell me. Do you want her to bleed and die too?”

“Stay away from her.”

“One act,” the old man softly says. “One act of pure hatred. You did it once so easily. You killed without hesitation. Except this will do the job and end it right here and now. Then the Devil will be summoned, and you will see and you will feel it, Chrisss.”

I want to shut my eyes and my ears. There is a ringing that seems to be going off all around me.

I shake my head and look around and hear Kelsey’s muffled cries, and then I look at Kinner and force myself to say it one more time.

“No.”

I drop the sword.

I’m no hero, and I never will be. My faith is weak, if it’s even there in the first place.

For a second it’s deathly silent again. But then all hell breaks loose. And I do truly mean hell swooping in and emptying out in this room.

Kinner is in front of me, standing at the base of the upside-down cross that’s the tomb of the sick freak who started all this craziness. I’m standing in front of him. Staunch in the white robe and hood is to my right with Kelsey by his side.

The twenty-some people in robes and hoods are behind us. So is Marsh.

I hear a scream. At first I think it’s Marsh going crazy, but no. One of the figures in red is coming toward us. I have an idea who it is, but it can’t be. The figure is too fast to be who I think it is.

But the howling. It’s worse than the wolves outside my house that night. It’s terrifying. It’s a high-pitched wailing and it gets right in my ear as the figure swoops in and picks up the sword.

With two bony, shaking hands, the figure picks up the sword plunges it into Kinner’s heart, just as he asked. But I’m not the one doing it.

“No!”

That’s
Marsh’s voice behind me. He’s screaming and hurling curses, but meanwhile the figure in red stabs Kinner again. And again. And when Kinner crumples to the floor, the surprise on his face growing, the figure keeps howling and stabbing.

I don’t do a thing. I don’t know what to do.

After maybe six plunges of the sword, the figure stops and takes off the hood.

“That’s for the two lives you took, you monster,” Aunt Alice shouts in an awful, raging voice. “Mine and my son’s.”

Marsh is pulling her away, but it’s too late.

Kinner is dead. He’s not groaning as if he’s about to die. No—he’s dead. His eyes are huge and mouth open, and it looks like he’s staring into the face of death, knowing he got this one all wrong.

Marsh wrestles Aunt Alice for a moment and then slams her to the ground.

I stand for a second, unable to move.

Staunch puts an arm around Kelsey, who’s suddenly jerking and fighting to get away.

The figures in red behind us are starting to disperse and sprinting to the door. Marsh runs to stop them, shouting.

I look for the sword and see that it’s underneath Aunt Alice.

I’m about to go to Kelsey, but just then a big ball of flame ignites in the front of the church right around the doors.

The closed doors.

There are screams as the fire spreads, and we’re surrounded by flames.

120. Again

Kelsey.

I rush to her and kneel at her side, trying to prop up her head, but then something hits me. No, make that kicks me.

I slam to the floor.

Marsh stands there, without his robe, an insane look on his face. He curses at me, and then he kicks me again. It feels as if one of my ribs has cracked.

He’s breathing in and out like he just ran a marathon. Behind him I can see the flames spreading on the walls.

This is no accident. This was planned.

“You ruined everything, you—” he says, and proceeds to tell me exactly what he thinks I am.

Kelsey is on the ground next to me, shaking and trying to undo the black tape around her wrists. People are screaming, and it’s getting harder to breathe.

Marsh yanks Kelsey up by her hair and holds a blade, short like a hunting knife, to the side of her face.

I’m about to lunge at him, but he juts the blade toward me. “Don’t. Don’t move, or I’ll kill her.”

I get on my knees, still coughing, and see the fire really burning now. There had to be gas in this sanctuary for it to be spreading this fast. Aunt Alice has crawled in a daze toward the side of the platform, away from Kinner. She doesn’t seem a bit fazed by the fire.

Marsh drags a squealing Kelsey over to Kinner and then examines the old man. He looks at me and curses again. “You stupid boy. What were you thinking?”

“Let her go!”

“What? What!” He clenches his teeth and jerks Kelsey back with his left arm. His right hand is shaking, holding the knife. “I’ve waited for my chance, and I didn’t get it. I waited to see if I was chosen, and I wasn’t. I waited and waited, and then you come along, and now this.”

The pastor suddenly sounds like a bratty kid. A bratty, messed-up kid. He curses again and looks at Kinner.

Some woman comes up to him, screaming, and I see that it’s Principal Harking. I’m not surprised.

“Get out of my face,” Marsh screams at her as he bats her away.

People are going crazy. I hear the sound of glass breaking. More screams. The ripple of fire.

I see another familiar face, then recognize it as the weird mannequin maker. Of course Alfred Graff is here. Unfortunately, these are all real people who are about to be burned alive.

“It was going to be just you and me,” Marsh says, facing me. I’m on my knees, trying to get closer so I can grab the knife. “All these fools—I was going to get rid of them. The world is going to burn, and you’re going to burn with it, because you’re of no use anymore. You stupid, silly little boy.”

“Please—let her go.”

Marsh looks at me, and suddenly there is no expression on his face. It’s like any kind of emotion—hate or love or fear or anger—went away. It’s just blank.

Then he slits Kelsey’s throat.

She falls back, and he grabs her wrist and yanks her up with it. He cuts her there, too.

I tackle him, and we both fall backward. I can’t get back on my feet. Marsh ends up over me and is about to lunge at me with the knife when he jerks in surprise at the sound of gunshots.

There are four shots, one that chips the upside-down cross behind us. Marsh ducks and runs to the back of the church.

It takes me a moment to pull the tape from Kelsey’s mouth and undo her hands. I have blood all over my hands and arms as I hold her and tell her she’s going to be okay. She’s crying and she’s probably in shock and I know that she’s dying.

no no no NO!

This is what happens when you reject your faith. This is what happens when you abandon the God who’s supposed to save you.

The fire is burning, and I don’t hear the voice calling my name at first. Then I feel something tugging at the back of my neck. I whip around, ready to strike out, when I see the buzzed head belonging to Brick. He pulls me up and says, “I’ll get her, come on.”

I look around at the chaos. People are trying to climb out a broken window that has flames blazing around it. Another figure is running in a robe that’s in flames. A group is banging at the front door.

Another tug gets my attention. “Not that way.”

I follow Brick to the back of the church.

I cough, and my eyes are watery from both the smoke and the tears. I follow him through a dark hallway, touching his shoulder and feeling the strap of his shotgun. He’s carrying Kelsey in his arms. He kicks a door open and leads us outside to the fresh air.

“Come on,” he tells me.

I follow him to the edge of the woods. I can hear the crackling of wood behind us.

“That building’s going up like a meth lab,” Brick says.

I lean over and see Kelsey. I breathe out and for a moment I don’t know what to do.

“Chris, come on,” he says. “We gotta get her to the hospital.”

I’m frozen, and I stare at Kelsey and know that it can’t end like this.

It can’t.

God wouldn’t do that, would He?

Would He do this to me again?

A terrible thought fills me.

If I rejected God, He has every right to reject me.