All The Pretty Dead Girls (38 page)

“She was dead.”

Sue put her wineglass down with shaky hands.

“I walked over to her, checked her pulse, but there wasn’t one. She was dead, and I had killed her.
I killed her,
Dr. Marshall, and what was more, it felt good while I was doing it.”

“Sue, when I spoke with Dean Gregory, he didn’t mention his wife’s death,” Ginny told her. “I think he would have…maybe you imagined all of this…”

“Don’t you see? He didn’t care about her. She was just an obstacle.” Sue laughed bitterly. “He has far greater things to worry about than Mousy Mona’s death.”

“Well, if it’s true, then
you
have a great deal to worry about. A charge of murder.”

“It was in self-defense.” Sue laughed again, a sound that unnerved Ginny with its cavalier attitude. “Besides, the body was destroyed. There’s no evidence. I’m certain of that. I’ve seen it in my mind.”

Ginny shuddered.

“You’re right to tremble, Dr. Marshall. I’ve become a monster. In that moment, I knew what I was. And I knew what I had to do. I got off that campus as fast as I could. I stopped at an Internet café in Senandaga and got directions to Star of Bethlehem, the town where Joyce Davenport told me my mother lived. Curious name, no? Ironic. But I knew I had to follow that star. Bernadette told me to go see my mother…”

Star of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was just across the state line. According to the directions Sue had gotten off the Internet, it was about a six-hour drive from Senandaga. She spent that night in a motel a few hours from the border, paying cash for the room. Drifting in and out of a dreamless sleep, Sue steeled herself for what else she might discover about herself the next day. When the sun finally came up, she quickly showered and dressed and got back on the road.

The Fair Oaks Rest Home was on the far side of the little town. The building was large and made of red brick. The woman at the desk, overweight, in her late fifties, glanced up at Sue without smiling.

“Help you?” she asked.

“I would like to see—” Sue swallowed and took a deep breath before continuing. “I would like to see Mariclare Barlow.”

The woman’s eyebrows darted up. “Mariclare Barlow?”

“Is that a problem?”

Maybe she’s here under an assumed name…

“No problem.” The woman shrugged. “It’s just that she doesn’t get too many visitors.” She pushed a clipboard and a pen across her desk. “You need to sign in. I’ll call up to see if she’s finished with her breakfast.”

She glanced down at the clipboard after Sue signed it.

“A relative?” she asked after noting the name.

“I’m her daughter,” Sue said.

All her life, Sue had dreamed about her mother. She had playacted a moment like this, meeting the woman who had given her birth. She’d gazed at her photograph in the shrines set up to her, examined every little contour of her face, hoping to spot a resemblance. She’d imagined what her mother might be like, how she might have sounded, how she might have reacted to the daughter she never knew.

And now, all of that was about to be revealed.

Sitting in the spartan waiting room, uncomfortable on a hard plastic chair, Sue only felt numb. No excitement. No fear. No anticipation.

She felt nothing.

“Miss Barlow?”

An Asian nurse in a spotless white uniform had appeared in the doorway.

“If you’ll follow me?”

Sue stood, following the nurse down a narrow, dimly lit hallway into a small room. At the door, the nurse paused.

“She didn’t seem surprised when I told her you were here.”

Sue didn’t reply.

“I didn’t know Mariclare had a daughter.”

Sue lifted an eyebrow. “What should I expect?”

“She’s usually very quiet. A very sweet lady, in fact. She’s not a danger. Poor dear, she’s simply delusional.”

Sue gave her a weak smile, then walked into the room. A woman was seated at a table with her back to Sue. Long red hair streaked with gray fell down her back. She wore a cheap-looking, floral-patterned cotton housedress. As Sue rounded the table and got a look at her, she thought the woman—her mother—looked tired. Dark circles drooped under large, luminous green eyes.

“Hello, Susan,” her mother said as Sue sat down.

Sue stared at her. There was a strong resemblance to the photographs she’d grown up with—bone structure doesn’t go away with the passing of time. Mariclare’s face was devoid of makeup, but her hair was carefully brushed and held out of her face with two plastic pink barrettes. Despite the streaks of red cobwebbed through the whites, her eyes were still very beautiful.

“She said you weren’t surprised when you heard I was here,” Sue said.

“I knew you’d come someday,” Mariclare said. She smiled. “Joyce was here a few days ago. She said she was going to tell you the truth.”

“Well,” Sue said. “She did.”

“Was it terribly hard for you?” her mother asked.

Sue gave her a tight smile. “That’s putting it mildly.”

“What a pretty girl you are,” Mariclare said.

But I don’t look like you,
Sue thought.

I look like my father.

She didn’t know what to say to this pitiful woman sitting in front of her. All her life she’d missed her mother, thought about her, wished she was still alive—and now that she was sitting across a table from her, she couldn’t think of anything to say. She felt tears forming in her eyes, and bit her lower lip.

“They kept you away from me all these years.” Mariclare said. She started drumming her fingertips on the table. “I guess they didn’t want you to know your mother was a lunatic…though they’re just as crazy as I am. Your grandparents, I mean. They told you I was dead, didn’t they?”

“Yes.”

“And they sent you to Wilbourne.”

Sue nodded.

“Mother called me yesterday. She told me if you came here, I should refuse to see you.”

“I’m not surprised,” Sue said.

Mariclare smiled. “But they can’t tell me what to do anymore.”

“Did they know what would happen to you at Wilbourne?”

“Do you mean, did they know I’d be the one? The one who’d be raped?”

Sue nodded.

“I think
he
did. My father. At least, I think he was
hoping
I’d be the one.” She gave her a bitter smile. “It was a great honor, you know.”

Sue couldn’t speak.

“I didn’t know anything. I was just like you, dear Susan. Just a naïve sheep being led to the slaughter.”

“But now you know…you understand what happened to you.”

Mariclare nodded. “When you’ve been fucked by a demon, you get a few things in return.” She laughed, a brittle sound from deep inside her throat. “You can see things. Understand things. So much suddenly made sense. Those other girls who went missing or were killed at Wilbourne? Part of the bargain. Virgin blood, to keep the dark forces sustained. Keep them interested. Because to bring about the Rapture—”

“You mean, the end times? The prophecy of Revelation?”

Mariclare nodded. “That’s right. To bring about the end times, they needed an Antichrist. And Revelation says it will be a girl, eighteen years of age, and her name will be Susan.”

“It doesn’t say that,” Sue said. “I’ve read Revelation…”

“But not the
lost
books of Revelation.” Mariclare grinned, almost smugly. “The ones the Vatican tried to hide for centuries. But some renegade priest smuggled them out. Formed his own little cult, headed up by a good little Satanist named Sarah Wilbourne.” Her smile faded. “I got to see the lost books of Revelation. I actually got to read them. I told you there were a few perks to being fucked by Satan.”

Sue recoiled. This woman was crazy. And yet…she made sense.

She made horrible sense.

Mariclare looked over her shoulder, gesturing toward the door with a nod of her head. “Here, they all think I’m quite insane, you know. Delusional. It’s much easier to believe that I’m crazy than to think that I am telling the truth. No one wants to hear the truth, you know. Not when the truth is too frightening to contemplate. Not when the truth can’t be fit into a box of logic and rationally explained away. No, it’s easier to think poor Mariclare lost her mind when she was raped nineteen years ago. She became delusional because she can’t handle the reality of what happened to her.”

Sue was suddenly overcome with sympathy and compassion for her mother, and began to cry.

Mariclare seemed not to notice. “Not that it matters what they think. They can’t do anything more to me than what they’ve already done.”

“Mother—” The word didn’t feel right coming out of her mouth, but Sue said it anyway. “There’s got to be a way we can beat them. There is this girl. She told me there was still hope. She’s seen the Virgin Mary—”

“A good Christian girl, I suppose. But the Christians haven’t got the lock on God. This goes far deeper than just God and Satan, Susan. This is much more elemental. This is about the power of good and the power of evil. It transcends all religions.”

“So what can we do?”

Mariclare shook her head. “They’ve been planning this for a long time. It goes back over a hundred years. And now, finally, is the time.”

“Because of me,” Sue said quietly.

Her mother nodded. “Every religion has its own diabolical messenger, the one who is destined to ignite the final battle between good and evil. The Christians call it the Antichrist.”

“No,” Sue said. “They call it Susan.”

Her mother gave her a compassionate smile. “The girl you spoke of,” she said, reaching across the table and taking Sue’s hand. “The one who saw the Virgin.”

“Bernadette.”

“She’s right. It’s not too late. You don’t have to fulfill the prophecies, you know. I told Joyce that you wouldn’t succumb, but she said you would.”

At Joyce’s name, Sue’s ears perked up. “Was she really your friend?”

“Yes, she was.” Mariclare’s face grew dark. “When we were girls, she was a happy child. Filled with sunlight. But then her father went bankrupt and all her dreams seemed dashed. She was failing in school. It was only the influence of my father that got her into Wilbourne.” She closed her eyes. “But Joyce betrayed me. She left the room that night, knowing what was to occur. She’d already made her dark bargain with the people running the school. Success, fame—that’s what she wanted. She never told me anything, never warned me. And because of that, she’s gotten everything she’s always dreamed of.”

“Why do you see her then? Why do you let her come here?”

Mariclare smiled. “Because some part of her is torn with guilt. She knows what she did. She sees me, hoping to sway me over to her side—but I just sit here and laugh at her. I take some comfort in how she squirms.”

All at once, she leaned across the table, her green eyes filled with passion.

“But you have free will, Susan! Just as I did! I could have joined their cult. I could have sung out the praises of the dark lord who defiled me. If I had, I would have been raised to the highest honors as the mother of his daughter. But I said no. I said
no
—and I still say
no
!”

“That’s why they put you in here,” Sue said.

“That’s right. They hid me away because they couldn’t kill me.” She smiled. “You see, I’ve realized my own power—my own power for good.” She opened her blouse, revealing wrinkled, freckled skin. Around her neck hung a crucifix. As well as a Star of David. A Wiccan pentacle. An Egyptian scarab. A medal of the Hindu goddess Durga. And other symbols Sue didn’t recognize.

Sue looked from the symbols back into her mother’s eyes. “But I’m not you,” she said. “I’m not—human.”

“Yes, you are, Susan. You are
my
daughter as much as his.”

Sue sat back in her chair, struck by the realization.

“There is someone who can help you, isn’t there? A teacher. Someone who knows, someone who will know what to do…”

Sue refocused her eyes on Mariclare. “Dr. Marshall…”

Her mother nodded. “Yes. I told you. I can see things. I can see her now. She’s writing. I can see that she is good. Strong. Wise.”

“She’s left campus,” Sue said. “She’s gone to Louisiana.”

“You have an address for her. I know you do. You must go to her, Susan. They will try to find you…to force you to do their bidding.”

Sue stood up. “I—”

“Go, Sue. There’s still a chance you can save yourself.” She gave a small chuckle. “And maybe the rest of us, too.”

They faced each other for a few moments in silence.

Then Sue leaned down and took her mother into her arms.

Ginny was writing in her notebook about Sue’s meeting with her mother when she heard the girl coming down the stairs. She placed the notebook into the top drawer of her desk, and got up to meet Sue in the hallway. Sue was dressed and showered, her face scrubbed, her hair combed. She looked so much better than she had last night.

“Did you sleep well?” Ginny asked.

“Mostly. But this morning I started dreaming.”

Ginny touched Sue’s cheek. “Would you like some breakfast? A cup of coffee?”

“Coffee would be good,” Sue said, and they headed into the kitchen.

They sat at the table drinking the hot liquid in silence for a few moments.

“Well?” Sue asked. “Do you think I’m insane?”

“I wish it were that simple.” Ginny wrapped her hands around her coffee mug. “Obviously, your story is pretty fantastic.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“I believe something is happening, Sue. Right before I left Lebanon, I met with Father Ortiz—”

“The one who spoke to me at the diner.”

Ginny nodded. “Yes. I didn’t tell you last night that I knew him. And I know Bernadette deSalis. I’ve interviewed her.”

“My mother was right,” Sue said. “You do understand.”

Ginny smiled. “Understand? Hardly. But I know there’s some basis to your story. I’ve been trying to call Father Ortiz all morning. But all I get is his voice mail.”

“Do you think he can help me?”

“I don’t know, Sue. But remember what else your mother told you. You have free will. No one can force you to do anything.”

Sue rubbed her forehead. “That doesn’t change what I am.”

“What you’ve been
told
you are. I believe something is going on, something strange, but there’s no proof that you’re—” Ginny couldn’t say the word.

“The Antichrist?” Sue looked at her. “But Bernadette told you about me, didn’t she? I can see it in your mind, Dr. Marshall. She told you that the Antichrist was a woman.”

Ginny sighed. “Yes. Yes, she did.”

“And she told you more, too, didn’t she? And Father Ortiz told you—”

“He told me the same thing your mother told you—that the true Book of Revelation has been kept a secret by the Vatican. He told me that there was a conspiracy to bring about the end times…”

Sue started softly crying. “It’s true, Dr. Marshall. How can you believe otherwise? What’s the point in pretending I’m not what they say I am?”

Ginny opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by a knock at the door. They both jumped. Ginny motioned for Sue to be quiet and stood to look outside. It was a tall old man with bright white hair in a tweed sport coat. With some reluctance, Ginny pulled open the door and peered outside, hoping Sue was out of sight in the kitchen.

“Yes?” she asked. “May I help you?”

“I’ve come for my granddaughter.”

Ginny watched as the old man’s lips tightened and twitched. His nostrils flared.

“You must be Mr. Barlow,” she said.

“I know she’s here, Dr. Marshall. That’s her car out front.”

“Yes, she’s here. But she doesn’t wish to see you.”

“She’s my granddaughter! I’m her legal guardian!”

Ginny stood her ground. “You seem to have forgotten she’s eighteen years of age. A legal adult who can make her own decisions.”

The old man’s eyes were nearly apoplectic. His face was turning red.

“Let him in, Dr. Marshall,” came Sue’s voice behind her. “I’ll see him.”

Reluctantly, Ginny stepped aside. She took note of the big black car in her driveway, and the burly jumpsuited driver who was leaning against it, his massive arms crossed over his chest.

Sue’s grandfather now stood facing the girl in Ginny’s living room.

“Come home with me, Sue,” he said.

“Why? So you can tell me more lies?”

Ginny stood in the foyer watching the scene play out. Who was this man? Was he really in league with—the devil?

“We spared you the truth for your own good,” he said.

“That’s bullshit, and you know it.” Sue looked at the old man with sheer contempt. “I know everything. I know what you want of me.”

“Has this woman been telling you lies?” Mr. Barlow asked.

“I’ve been to see my mother, your darling Mariclare,” Sue said. “But then you probably know that, don’t you?”

“I just know that your grandmother is very worried, and wants you home.”

“You can’t force me,” Sue said.

Her grandfather leveled his eyes at her. “I think I can.”

In an instant, the front door opened and the burly driver was on Ginny, his hairy arm around her neck, choking off her breath.

“Kill her,” Mr. Barlow said calmly, his eyes still on his granddaughter.

“No!” Sue screamed. “Leave her alone!”

“Then come with me,” her grandfather said.

Sue was silent, not moving.

Ginny’s heart was racing in her ears. The driver shoved her into the living room, away from the door. He pushed her to the floor and stood over her, a semiautomatic pointed at her head.

“If I go with you,” Sue said, “you’ll just kill her anyway.”

“She knows too much,” Mr. Barlow said.

Sue walked across the room, seeming to contemplate what to do.

“I suppose you’re right, Granpa,” she said. And in the blink of an eye she withdrew the gun he’d given to her from her blouse and fired off one quick shot—right through the driver’s head.

Ginny screamed. The burly man staggered, as if doing a macabre little dance. Blood and brain matter was still raining down onto the carpet. Then he toppled over. He would have hit Ginny if she didn’t leap out of the way.

Mr. Barlow was stunned.

“I’m a pretty good shot,” Sue said coolly. “You taught me well, Granpa.”

“Apparently not well enough.”

This was a new voice. They all turned to look. Striding in through the front door, apparently having been waiting in the car, was Joyce Davenport, complete with black miniskirt and boots.

“Maybe if you’d been more vigilant, she wouldn’t have grown up to be such a rebel,” Joyce said, casting an angry glance at Mr. Barlow. Then she smiled at Sue. “But you do have spunk, Sue. That’s good. You’ll need it.” She laughed. “They always used to say I had spunk. Now they just call me a bitch.”

Joyce noticed Ginny on the other side of the room.

“Ah, Dr. Marshall. We meet again. How nice to see you. How’s your book coming?”

Ginny decided not to parry words with her. Somebody had already been shot in this room, and she didn’t want to be the second.

“I’m not going with you,” Sue told Joyce.

Joyce spun on her. “Sue, stop this nonsense! It’s your destiny! Do you have any idea how much power awaits you?”

“I don’t care!”

“Hell, Sue, I’d
love
it if I were in your shoes!” She laughed. “I’ve certainly been called the Antichrist enough times by mealy-mouthed liberals! But I’ve just had to content myself with being the Anti-John the Baptist.” She hooted again, seeming very pleased with her joke.

Sue pointed the gun at her.

“Oh, please, you’re not going to shoot me,” Joyce said, waving a hand at her.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

Joyce shrugged. “Because I know so many things you want to know. Admit it, Sue. This whole destiny thing…it kind of appeals to you. It kind of intrigues you.’

Ginny watched from a safe distance. She couldn’t get to a phone to call the police, and if she tried to run, she was certain she’d be shot. Mr. Barlow was probably armed, and who knows what Sue would do…

“I want no part of it,” Sue said.

Joyce laughed. “So you’ll end up like your mother. Is that what you want? Do you think we’d just let you waltz off to do your own thing?” She took a step closer to Sue. “Do you think your
father
would just let you go?”

Sue made no answer. But the gun in her hand was now trembling.

“You’d end up crazy in some lunatic asylum like your mother. Is that what you want, Sue?”

“You put her there,” Sue said. “You could have stopped what happened to her.”

Joyce winced, but just slightly. Mariclare was right: she did feel some guilt. But not enough to stop her.

“It’s your choice, Sue.” She held out her hands as if they were balancing scales. “Crazy lunatic asylum…or untold power and glory. You decide.”

“So many will hail you,” Sue’s grandfather told her.

“All those people who buy your books, who come to your readings,” Sue said to Joyce. “All those people who get riled up by your rants and raves…they’re all part of this…part of this cult?”

“We
wish
!” Joyce hooted. “Wouldn’t that be amazing! But no, Sue. They’re just sheep. I get them riled up. The televangelists get them riled up. They protest at gay weddings and blockade abortion clinics and hound illegal immigrants…They think they’re doing God’s work, but they’re actually working for the Other Guy!”

Sue was struggling to keep a firm grip on the gun.

“Strife, conflict, bigotry, name-calling—this is what we thrive on! It’s what
he
thrives on—your father. He loves discord. He is the Lord of Chaos and Conflict. It’s so much fun to get the sheep riled up. Get them shouting on talk radio. Fill their hearts with anger and accusation. It’s fun to stir up trouble between people. Admit it, Sue, you, too, enjoyed it. I know you have.”

Sue remembered the thrill she’d experienced causing trouble between Malika and Sandy. As if it was a natural thing for her…

“You’re not like other girls, Sue, and you never have been,” Joyce told her. “You know that. You’ve never been sick. You can do things with your mind. You can’t ever live the life of a normal girl.” She took a step even closer to Sue. “And you can’t love, can you? You have never been able to love a boy, or feel desire for him. What would life be like if you can’t love?”

Sue was noticeably shaking now.

“And the one boy who might have loved you is now terrified of you, isn’t he?” Joyce asked.

“How do you know about Billy?”

Joyce smiled. “He told his mother, who told me.”

Sue began to cry. She dropped the gun, and Joyce picked it up.

“So isn’t the choice apparent, Sue? What else is there for you? Your destiny is to be—”

What Ginny saw next took her breath away. She wasn’t even able to scream.

Sue transformed. In an instant her whole body changed. She seemed almost to explode—and in her place stood a fearful creature, a swirling, crackling demon whose form was indistinct—as if darkness was suddenly given life.

Joyce jumped back, terrified.

Mr. Barlow cowered behind his hands.

I NEED NO GUN TO PROTECT MYSELF FROM THE LIKES OF YOU
, came the voice of the creature. It sounded like nothing Ginny had ever heard before. A hollow sound, neither female nor male. It seemed to vibrate off the walls.

I WILL GO WITH YOU
,
BUT REMEMBER WHO I AM
.

I WILL NOT BE TOLD WHAT TO DO
.

I WILL GIVE THE INSTRUCTIONS
,
AND YOU MISERABLE SCUM WILL FOLLOW THEM
.

IS THAT CLEAR
?

“Yes,” Joyce said, her voice trembling.

And then Sue was back. Looking none worse for the wear.

“Sue!” Ginny called. “You mustn’t give in!”

Joyce rolled her eyes. “Can’t we just kill her and get it over with?”

Sue turned her face to look over at Ginny. Their eyes held for a second. Ginny thought she looked different. Hard. Cruel. As if she’d given in to the dark part of herself.

“No,” Sue said. “I don’t want to kill her.”

She reached out her hand, and in that one simple gesture, Ginny crumpled to the floor.

“But when she wakes up, she’ll have forgotten that any of us ever came here.”

Joyce looked down at Ginny’s fallen body. “Are you sure you don’t want me to kill her?” Joyce asked. “Think of the trouble it would stir up…all those accusations flying…”

“No!” Sue shouted. “She is to be left alive. And make sure that the driver’s body is removed and properly disposed of. Clean up all the blood. I don’t want any trace left.”

Joyce made a face. “But who’s going to clean it up?”

“You are. Get scrubbing.”

She turned to her grandfather.

“And when she’s done, you will drive me back to Wilbourne.” She looked out the window into the bright light of day. “I have final exams to take.”