End of the Road (26 page)

“
What the hell are you
talking about Bert?” asked Chuck.

“
He heard the pastor
talking about God knowing what people are thinking and this idiot
thought he meant us,” said Jerald.

Chuck laughed.

“
Bert you are so dumb. Dumb
Bert, Dumb Bert, Dumb Butt,” said Jerald.

Bert took a swing at Jerald, tripped and
fell down on the ground.

“
What are you boys doing?”
It was Chuck’s father who was approaching from around the church
side of the parsonage. Chuck was holding the bag of weed and
quickly stuffed it behind the oil tank next to the
parsonage.

“
Nothing sir. We’re just
talking,” said Chuck.

“
Your mother is waiting at
the car. You remember she wants to go eat with the pastor and his
family at that pancake place she likes so much, right?”

“
We’re coming now,” said
Chuck.

The three of them followed Chuck’s dad
leaving their precious weed behind.

“
Where do you boys want us
to drop you off?”

“
My place is good,” said
Bert. Jerald nodded.

The boys were pissed. It was half an hour
drive from where they all lived to the church. They had planned on
smoking all afternoon. Bert and Jerald got out of the car and
watched their friend being driven away.

“
Scott’s?” Jerald suggested
to Bert.

“
Yep,” Bert
agreed.

Chuck was good for money and weed but Scott
was their source for alcohol and girls. As they walked they each
lit up a cigarette. Scott’s house was right behind a strip mall.
The trash bins and rats were the view Scott had from his back
porch. When Bert and Jerald arrived there were already several
people in the house. Teniko was there and she was already trashed
at two in the afternoon. She had a friend with her today.

“
Teniko, babe how you
doing?” Bert asked as Jerald headed for the beers in the
fridge.

“
Bert, come sit with
me.”

She was on a couch with her new friend. She
reached up and using both hands grabbed Bert’s neck and dragged him
down onto the couch with her. He flopped down between the two
girls.

“
Who is your
friend?”

“
That is Reeta. Say hi
Reeta.”

“
Hi,” said
Reeta.

“
I’m Bert.”

“
And I’m Jerald,” said
Jerald as he handed a beer to everyone.

He popped open his own beer and sat on the
other side of Reeta taking up the last of the room on the couch.
They guzzled the beers and someone somewhere turned on some loud
music. More people showed up. Some started dancing. Others were
passing out bottles of hard liquor. Jerald grabbed a bottle of rum
and took a swig. Tears welled up in his eyes as he swallowed the
strong liquor. Reeta took it next and passed it to Bert. Teniko
took a swig and passed it back down. They were all drunk now and
still looking for more.

“
God I wish we had our
weed,” said Bert.

Teniko was laying her head back against the
couch. It looked like she was passed out. Reeta was interested.

“
You have some weed?” Reeta
asked Bert.

“
We had some,” replied
Jerald.

“
We had to leave it at the
church,” said Bert.

“
Well let’s go get it,”
said Reeta.

Reeta had a car. They left Teniko passed out
on the couch. It was already getting dark outside. Reeta opened the
car with a push of the button on her car key fob. They wouldn’t all
fit in the front so Bert took the back.

“
Which way is it?” asked
Reeta.

“
Go out to the highway and
turn left. It’s in Danderville.”

“
Oh, that isn’t too far,”
Reeta laughed and started the car.

“
I hope the parsonage
ghosts ain’t there tonight,” said Bert.

“
That’s just stories. It
ain’t true,” said Jerald.

“
What stories?” asked
Reeta.

“
It started when some kids
disappeared,” continued Bert. “It was three little girls one year a
long time ago, back in like 1968. They were at the church with
their parents one Sunday morning but when it came time to go home
they were gone. They never found them. Then people said they seen
them playing around the parsonage at night. Lots of people over the
years say they see children playing around the parsonage at night.
But nobody is really there.”

“
That’s so sad. I wonder
what happened to them,” said Reeta.

“
Then there is what
happened two years ago,” said Bert.

“
He just ran away is all,”
said Jerald.

“
Who?” asked
Reeta.

“
Jimmy. He was kind of a
slow kid. People made fun of him a lot. The pastor told people to
leave him alone but the one that bothered him the most was the
pastor’s son William. William didn’t care what the pastor said; he
messed with Jimmy all the time.”

“
So what happened to
Jimmy?” asked Reeta.

“
They found him hanging in
the parsonage basement,” said Bert. “But he wasn’t dead. They took
him down and took him to the hospital. He just disappeared out of
the hospital. His parents went with the pastor to see him and the
bed was empty. The nurses never saw him leave. Nobody ever saw him
again. He might have come back though.”

“
He couldn’t have done
that,” said Jerald.

“
What happened?” asked
Reeta. “Oh, and should I turn here?”

“
Yes that’s the turn,” said
Jerald.

“
What happened is last year
on the same day Jimmy was found hanging in the parsonage basement,
William was found hanging in the same exact spot. Only William was
dead,” said Bert. “It’s William’s ghost we don’t want to meet.
William was a nasty kid and his ghost is just as bad.”

“
Jimmy could not have
strung up William,” said Jerald. “William was a big guy and Jimmy
was just a skinny kid.”

“
What does William’s ghost
do?” asked Reeta.

“
Nothing,” said
Jerald.

“
He knocked the top of the
steeple off the church,” said Bert.

“
No he didn’t, it just
fell,” said Jerald.

“
Chuck says lots of people
feel bad vibes around the church. They all think it is William’s
ghost,” said Bert.

“
The church is right down
there near the end of the road. Do you see it?” Jerald asked
Reeta.

“
Yes. We’re almost there.
Where should I park?”

“
Drive past just a little
bit and pull off the side of the road.”

Reeta pulled over off the side of the road
where it was dark. You couldn’t see the car unless you were right
on it. The boys got out leaving Reeta to wait for them to return
with the weed. They snuck back to the parsonage. There were no
lights on inside so it seemed that no one was home or they had all
gone to bed early. Jerald had a flashlight he borrowed from Scott’s
house. The batteries must have been old because the light from the
flashlight was weak. They crept up to the oil tank. Jerald shone
the light from the flashlight between the oil tank and the
parsonage. There was no plastic bag of weed.

“
Damn. Someone took it,”
said Jerald.

“
Give me the flashlight.
Maybe it just fell down,” said Bert.

Bert got down on his knees and pointed the
flashlight under the oil tank. He squeezed in closer and
illuminated the dark space.

“
Wow. This must leak real
bad into the basement when it rains.”

“
What?” asked
Jerald.

“
There’s a hole into the
basement. I’ll bet our weed went in there.”

“
Let me see.”

They exchanged places and Jerald squeezed in
under the oil tank with the flashlight. After he examined the hole
he pulled back out.

“
We have to go in there and
see if our weed is in the basement.”

Bert just looked at Jerald.

“
What?” asked Jerald
again.

“
Let’s go get the gold
cross,” said Bert.

“
I’m not so sure it is
gold,” said Jerald.

“
Chuck said the
candlesticks are fake but the cross is real gold. He said you can
tell by the weight,” said Bert.

“
We don’t have the key to
the church. Chuck was supposed to get it,” said Jerald.

“
He gave it to me so his
Dad wouldn’t catch him with it.”

Bert held up the key.

“
Shit!” said Jerald.
“Still, Chuck was part of the plan.”

“
He still is part of the
plan. He’s the one knows the guy who’ll pay us for it,” said
Bert.

“
OK. We’ll get the cross
then come back here and break into the basement to find our
weed.”

The boys snuck around the parsonage and
looked down at the parking lot. It was illuminated with some tall
lights but no cars were in the parking lot. The church was dark.
The boys had to sneak all the way around to the front of the
church. When they got there they hid in some bushes near the front
door.

“
Damn. The outside light is
on. Someone will see us,” said Bert.

Jerald felt the ground under the bush and
pulled up a medium sized rock. He took aim and threw the rock at
the light. The light broke but the bulb didn’t go out. He grabbed
up a second stone and threw it at the bulb. Darkness resulted. The
boys quickly ran up to the door, unlocked it and closed it behind
them. They were inside. The sanctuary was empty but lit from the
moonlight streaming in the stained glass windows. They moved
rapidly up the central aisle and stopped at the altar. There was a
large wooden cross on the wall up above them. Bert was staring at
the wooden cross. Jerald grabbed the gold cross.

“
Man this is really heavy,”
said Jerald.

Bert dragged his eyes away from the wooden
cross.

“
Let’s go get our weed,”
said Bert.

They peeked out the clear glass windows at
the front door. There was a neighbor walking his dog.

“
Shit. Hide,” said Jerald.
“Make sure he doesn’t see us through the windows.”

Bert sat down against the wall to wait for
Jerald to give the ‘all clear’. Jerald stooped down facing the
window and he kept peeking up and out the window to see if the
neighbor had gone home. As soon as he took his dog and walked down
the street away from the church, Jerald punched Bert in the
shoulder.

“
Let’s go.”

Jerald opened the door a crack and the boys
left carrying their prize. They closed and locked the door. Then
they snuck back to the parsonage.

“
Hurry up,” said
Bert.

“
I’m coming. This cross is
damn heavy,” said Jerald.

“
How are we going to get
into the basement?” asked Bert.

“
Maybe there is a window on
the side that we can get open.”

There were flower beds around the base of
most of the walls of the parsonage. The boys found one window into
the basement behind a bush. Jerald put the cross down, the gold
gleaming in the moonlight. Jerald got down under the bush and tried
to push the window open. It didn’t appear to be locked but the
metal handle holding it shut was rusted into position and Jerald
could not get it to move. Bert was sitting as a lookout while
Jerald was under the bush. Jerald crawled back out from under the
bush. Bert glanced at him. Jerald dragged the gold cross under the
bush with him. He used it to bash the metal handle loose. He
dropped the cross though the window and slid down into the basement
after it.

“
Come on Bert. Bring the
flashlight,” said Jerald.

He pulled the flashlight out of his jacket
and slid down into the dark basement with Jerald. Jerald helped
Bert reach the floor in the basement and took the flashlight from
him. Jerald shone the now flickering flashlight beam around the
floor. It was empty. Jerald lifted the light and shone it on the
walls. They were two by fours and insulation but no wallboard. It
was an empty unfinished room. The boys moved toward the door. As
Jerald reached for the knob a floorboard creaked above them both.
Jerald and Bert paused and glanced up. The footsteps moved off.
Jerald opened the door.

The rest of the basement was also dark. Bert
followed Jerald into the open area of the basement. On the far side
the flashlight barely illuminated a washer and dryer. There was a
stairway going up to the upper level of the house. Jerald walked
toward the side of the basement where the furnace was located.

“
Hey! There it is,” Bert
ran in front of Jerald and picked the bag of weed up off of the
floor.

A cool breeze wafted past the boys. Jerald
shivered. There was a sound like a muffled voice.

“
What was that?” asked
Bert.

“
I don’t know. There seems
to be another window open. It’s cold down here.”

There were more sounds.

“
Where is that coming
from?” asked Bert.

“
Over by that bookcase,”
said Jerald. He waved the flashlight in the direction of a bookcase
standing up against the wall. To the left of the bookcase was the
laundry room set back about six feet from the rest of the wall. The
wall was covered with the old floor to ceiling bookcase and some
paintings. There was a small area with a rug on the floor and some
comfortable chairs arranged in front of a fireplace.