Charnel House (28 page)

“Get a move on, kiddo,” Dad said from the bedroom doorway. “We’re leaving for church in fifteen minutes. I left your money for the offering on the counter.”

Bobby sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “I’m moving.”

Ten minutes later he was in the kitchen, standing over the sink while he spooned Cheerios into his mouth as fast as he could without slopping milk down the front of his dress shirt. They weren’t as good as Lucky Charms would have been, but his parents didn’t like him to eat too much of the pre-sweetened cereal. Besides, he’d snuck an extra bowl yesterday. Dana sat at the table in the breakfast nook, nibbling at a Pop-tart while she explained to a Darth Vader doll it was his turn to come to church because he needed it more than anyone else.

“Oh, Bobby,” his mother said from the doorway behind him, sighing. “Did you even
look
at the comb this morning?”

“Sure I did. It looked the same as it always does.” He grinned at her and had to raise a quick hand to catch the milk that drooled from the corner of his mouth when he did.

She clucked and crossed the room, licking two of her fingers to smooth down the cowlick that had defied both comb and water when Bobby tried to tame it. Holding his chin in her hand, she ran the fingers over the crown of his head, examined her handiwork with a slight frown, and licked the fingers to try a second time.

Bobby waited patiently. This was a routine, part of Mom being Mom.

“Did you sleep on your head?” she asked, pressing her palm down onto the unruly clump of hair in a vain attempt to force it flat.

“No ma’am.”

“Hold still.” The grip on his chin tightened and his mother leaned forward, twisting her hand to turn his head, then ran her wet tongue sensuously over the cowlick and into his ear. Probing him.
Tasting
him
.

Bobby jerked back, disgusted, but the edge of the counter caught his back and kept him from going anywhere. Milk sloshed out of the bowl and onto his shirt, dribbling to the floor in a soft patter. Her grip grew tighter still, almost painful now. She gave him another delicate lick, this time along the ridge of his cheek.

“Whatsamatter, kid?” she whispered, her voice hoarse. Thick. Warm breath tickled his moist ear, and he smelled the sickly overripe odor of corruption. “Old Norman
scare
you?”

“
Stop it!
” Bobby yelped, shoving her away with his free hand. More milk splattered on the floor. Bright bolts of red and white lightning streaked his vision, pulsing with his heartbeat.

“Don’t talk to your mother like that,” his father said. He stood in front of the oven, using the glass of the door as a mirror to straighten his tie.

“If you’d comb your hair properly, I wouldn’t have to fix it.” His mother’s gaze dropped to the stain down the front of his shirt and droplets of milk on the linoleum. “Oh, for goodness sake, Bobby. Look what you’ve done. Go put on a clean one.”

Bobby stared at her, mouth agape. She plucked the dishcloth off the edge of the sink and stooped to wipe the mess off the floor. Why was she acting like nothing had happened? And how could she know about the hobo under the house, and the exact thing he’d said?

“Bobby’s in trouble, Darth,” Dana told her doll. “He’s been a bad boy.”

“Knock it off, Dana,” Dad said. “Get changed, son. We’re going to be late.”

Bobby slunk from the kitchen, giving his mother a wide berth. She ignored him, intent on getting up all the milk. He wasn’t sure what to say to her about what she’d done, and his father apparently hadn’t seen it. He went to his bedroom and changed into a new shirt, and by the time he returned to the kitchen everyone was already in the car. Picking up his Bible and the dollar bill his father had left for him, he went to join them.

All the way to church he watched the back of his mother’s head, wondering what was going on in there that would make her lick him that way. Would make her repeat Norman’s words. Was she even still his mother? There was no way for her to know what the hobo had said to him when they were under the house, no way to know about his existence at all.
Maybe she’s possessed, just like he was.

Immediately on the tail of this thought came a second one.
Maybe she’s possessed
by
him.

That made sense, sort of. What if Norman wasn’t actually a man at all, but one of Satan’s demons? Didn’t Brother Peavey always say the devil was trying to tempt Christians, to trick them into backsliding so he could drag them down to hell for eternal damnation? Tanner and Joey weren’t Christians, not the way they talked, but he was. That would explain why they hadn’t seemed to see Norman. Why would he even bother with them when their souls already belonged to him?

The questions whirled round and round in his head, confusing his thoughts, and he found himself wishing he had paid more attention during all the sermons he’d sat through. He would ask Brother Peavey about what had happened. A version of it, anyway. A man of God like the pastor wouldn’t want to hear the specifics of the nasty things Norman had said to him, and even if he did, Bobby didn’t dare repeat them. That would be like tempting God to strike him dead.

Sunday School passed in a blur of parables and Bible verses, none of which mattered to him right then. All he could think about was the way his mother had licked him and parroted the hobo’s words and gruff voice. Even the smile from Amy Carmichael when he walked into the classroom failed to catch his interest for more than a few seconds, despite his dreams from the night before. During the break between class and the main worship service, Bobby threaded through the milling parishioners to the lobby, where Brother Peavey stood at the door greeting members as they arrived.

The preacher had a kind word for each person, and often a hug or friendly touch. His face was open and honest, his eyes a muddy hazel reminiscent of the Tennessee River in the summer, when the water was high and swift. He kept his short black hair swept back from his high forehead, and his ruddy weathered skin told a story of time spent outside working on house repairs and lawns for the congregation’s elderly and infirm. One of God’s best—and most humble—workers, Bobby thought. If anyone would know how to help him, the minister would. When there was a lull in the flow of people, he tapped Brother Peavey on the arm.

The pastor turned, his smile automatic and genuine, and his eyes lit up when he saw who it was. “Bobby! How’s life treating you?”

“Okay, I guess.” All of the sudden Bobby felt like he was going to cry, and he didn’t know why.

Brother Peavey laid a hand on Bobby’s shoulder, the smile pushed aside by concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Can I come to your office and talk to you after the service? About something that happened to me?” Bobby looked down at the floor, suddenly afraid that the pastor would look right into him and know the things Norman had done to him... and might believe it was Bobby’s own fault for what he had said to Joey and Tanner. Didn’t Jesus himself say that calling someone a name as innocuous as
fool
would put you in danger of hell? How much worse must a word like
pussy
be? Shame brought heat to his cheeks.

“Of course you can, son. My door is always open.”

The relief that flooded Bobby was palpable. He felt like someone—maybe even the Lord Jesus Himself—had lifted a great burden off his shoulders. The very thing they sang about almost every Sunday morning.

Brother Peavey continued, “Matter of fact, how would you like to come to the house and have lunch with Margie and me? We can sit in my study afterwards and talk about anything you want to, and we’ll have all afternoon if we need it. We’d love to have you.”

Something inside Bobby seemed to pop, like a pimple pricked with a pin. Brother Peavey would understand, and even better, he would be able to help. He probably even knew how to cast a demon out, just like Jesus. “That’d be
awesome
.”

“I’ll talk to your mother and father and make sure it’s okay.” The pastor gave his shoulder a squeeze, and turned his million-watt smile back on. “Now, we’d better get into the sanctuary. It wouldn’t look good if I was late to deliver my own sermon.”

Bobby found his family and took a seat on the pew next to his father, already starting to relax. Brother Peavey was a grownup, which meant he would know exactly what to do. He thumbed through the concordance to his Bible during the announcements and choir, looking for verses about demons and possession. There was a cool story about Jesus and a bunch of demons called Legion, where He cast them out of a man and into a herd of pigs, and they ran off a cliff into the sea. Awesome. Maybe he should go back to the Barlowe house sometime and try that with Norman. The thought simultaneously appealed to and terrified him. He hoped Brother Peavey wouldn’t suggest it as an option.

The choir finished their songs and several men from the congregation lined up across the front of the sanctuary to serve the Lord’s Supper. Bobby liked the little cups of Welch’s grape juice and nibbles of cracker—it was sort of like getting a snack right in the middle of church, a special one, only meant for special people—but the thought of what it represented still weirded him out. He understood the part about forgiveness and sacrifice, but
eat my flesh, drink my blood
sounded more like something out of a horror movie than a commandment from the son of God. Maybe he would understand when he was older. Either way, it was better than what the Catholics believed. Brother Peavey said they thought the wafer and juice actually turned into Jesus’s flesh and blood.
Gross.
No wonder they were going to hell.

At the end of communion, the men passed collection baskets to gather offerings while the organist played
Awesome God
. When the basket came to Bobby, he dutifully dropped the dollar his father had given him in among all the folded checks, bills, and coins. Afterward, the men stacked all the baskets on a table at the back of the sanctuary and returned to their seats as Brother Peavey sprang from his.

“Good morning, brothers and sisters!” he bellowed, charging up the steps of the dais, tugging at the knot of his tie to loosen it. “Our God truly is an awesome God, isn’t he?”

He was answered by raucous cries of
hallelujah
and
amen
. Bobby settled against his father’s arm to listen to the sermon. It was high time he started paying more attention. Sure, he was a Christian because he’d accepted Jesus Christ as his savior, but what had he done since then but come to church two or three times a week with his parents just to stare at the floor, bored out of his mind, or doodle in his Sunday School workbook while the services went on around him? Brother Peavey always said that faith without works was dead. Maybe if he’d been more well-versed in the ways of the Lord, he’d have known what to do when Norman cornered him, like command the demonic presence out of the man the way Jesus had done with Legion. A true believer was supposed to be able to do it, too. Jesus said so.

“The writer of the thirty-third Psalm tells us that the Lord God spoke the heavens and the earth into being,” the preacher continued. “That right there was the big bang, not the claptrap all these so-called
scientists
try to fill the heads of our young people with! You didn’t evolve from a monkey—you came from our awesome God.”

“Amen,” someone off to Bobby’s left cried. Everyone seemed a lot more spirited today, he thought. Maybe it was the unseasonably warm weather.

“Our God delivered His chosen people out of bondage, destroying the Egyptians, and He has protected those who belong to Him through the ages. Today, that means you and me!”

Bobby liked the thought of God destroying the enemies of Christians. Maybe when He was finished delivering some holy vengeance onto Norman and his demons, they could talk about Joey Garraty. If anyone needed a little wrath of God, it was him.

Brother Peavey went on, working himself into a righteous lather. Despite his best efforts, Bobby found his mind wandering. Now that he was doing something about his problem, he was free to focus on other things. Like the fact that Amy Carmichael was only five rows ahead of him. Very distracting.

She sat with her head bowed—probably working on next week’s Sunday School lesson, he thought—the blue ribbon she’d used to pull her hair into a ponytail draped over her delicate neck. Would the skin there smell of her shampoo? Flushing at the thought of being close enough to find out, Bobby bowed his own head. It wasn’t right to think about girls in the house of God.

But she’s so pretty.

Brother Peavey opened his Bible and thumbed through it. “In all these things we have
full
victory through God and his love for us. That’s from Paul’s letter to the Romans. What things?”—here he consulted the worn book and counted items off on the fingers of his free hand—“Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor ruling spirits, nothing in the present and nothing in the future, nothing above us or below us.
Nothing
can separate us from the love of God, my friends.”

Bobby wondered if Amy Carmichael could ever like a dork like him. She was friendly at school, always saying hello and asking him if he’d finished all his homework, and when she smiled at him earlier, in Sunday School, hadn’t it been just a little wider and longer than the smiles she gave all the other kids? He thought it had. How awesome would it be if she actually
did
like him... or even better, would be willing to do something like go steady with him? Fresh heat blossomed in his cheeks, and he covered his mouth with his hand to hide the dopey grin that had appeared without warning.