I Will Fear No Evil (Psalm 23 Mysteries Book 10) (7 page)

6

“What happened?” Cindy asked, horrified.

“There was an explosion,” Wildman said in distress.

“What! Where?”

“In the gym. One of the tubs of fake blood burst open and the stuff is everywhere.”

Cindy sagged against the door in relief. “Fake blood.”

“Yeah.” He glanced down at his hands then back at her. “Oh gosh, you didn’t think this was real blood did you?”

“It looks like real blood,” she admitted.

He stared at her for a moment and then grinned and said, “Yes!” He punched the air with his fist and fake blood splattered on the door. “Oops.”

“Let’s get this cleaned up before this whole place looks like a massacre zone.”

“Good idea,” he said.

“Why don’t you go wash off your hands in the bathroom and I’ll meet you back in the gym with some cleaner and paper towels.”

“Solid plan. I’m on it,” he said, turning and heading for the nearest bathroom.

Cindy went into the office, deposited her purse in her desk drawer and waved at Geanie before heading for the supply closet. Armed with cleaning supplies she left and headed over to the gym.

She hadn’t been inside since construction on the haunted house had started the week before. Temporary walls draped in black fabric had been put up in the left half of the building. More stacks of wood, ladders, tools, and boxes of props littered the right side. It was easy to see where the accident had occurred. There was a bright red spot in the middle of the chaos with streaks of red radiating out from it for several feet. Some had even splashed on the walls. As her eyes drifted upward she discovered that some of it had even managed to make it onto the ceiling.

A few seconds later Wildman came in and moved to stand beside her. “What do you think?” he asked.

“We’re going to need a bigger ladder,” she said.

“I should probably get the janitor,” he said sheepishly.

Carl the janitor was prone to fits when things got too messy. Cindy wrinkled her nose at the thought of what he’d say about this place. Then again, even if it hadn’t been a total mess he’d probably complain. He’d been the only person on staff to speak out against the haunted house complaining it would cause too much mess and would inspire hooligans to acts of vandalism.

Cindy took a deep breath. “No, we can handle this.”

“Really?” Dave asked, the relief on his face nearly comical.

“Sure. We’ve dealt with worse.”

That was true, but she still had no idea how they were going to reach the ceiling. She moved one of the trash cans in the room over closer to where they’d be working then tossed him one of the rolls of paper towels.

Before she started using the cleaner she began to mop up as much of the liquid as she could. Dave did the same.

“So, what all is going to be in the haunted house?” she asked as they worked.

“It’s going to be awesome. The kids and I worked hard to pick some of the more frightening passages from the Bible, or at least ones that could easily be made frightening. We’re starting off with the plagues in Egypt. We’re going to show locusts consuming a body, have fake animal bodies representing the killing of the firstborn. The people in that sequence will be made up as dead, too, but they’ll be the actual people instead of props so they can jump up and scare everyone who’s going by.”

“Are you using all this fake blood for the plague sequence?”

“Some of it. We’re actually setting up a sort of sprinkler system so it looks like the walls are bleeding and we’ll have buckets filled with the stuff.”

“Gross, but cool.”

“Thank you. Next we move on to the fiery furnace and we’ll be blowing hot air through that section so people feel like they are Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. All around them we’ll have people who are burning in the fire with skin melting off and everything.”

“That is disgusting.”

“I know! Isn’t it awesome?”

It was something, alright. Just because it wasn’t her cup of tea didn’t mean that she was going to rain on his parade, especially not after he’d explained to her how important he thought this event was as far as outreach.

“What next?” she asked.

“We’re going to show the battle where the Israelites under Barak defeated their enemies and the last part of it will show Sisera having the tent stake driven through his temple by Jael. One of our kids has an uncle who works for a special effects house in Los Angeles, and he’s rigging up something for us so that it will look like she’s actually hammering the stake into his skull and fake blood will spurt out. I can’t wait to see that.”

Cindy was very, very glad that she wouldn’t be seeing that. Having mopped up a lot of the excess liquid she began to use some of the cleaner on part of the floor. “What next?” she asked.

“We’re going to have one of those shaking floor sections and the scene is going to depict Samson pulling down the pillars of the building and slaying the Philistines. We have some fake rock falling effects to go in that section. So the ground will shake, it will look like the ceiling is collapsing. It’s going to be epic.”

“It sounds like it,” she said. She had to admit to herself that she’d actually like to see that section because it sounded frightening without being gory.

“From there we move on to the New Testament and we have an assortment of demon possessed people roaming the maze trying to scare people. We also have a few squealing animatronic pigs to represent the herd that Jesus allowed the demons to go into when he cast them from the one man.”

“That’s going to be a bit disturbing. Not nightmare inducing at all,” she said unable to hide the sarcasm in her voice.

“That’s the point. Then we’re going to show the slaughter of Christians in the coliseum but we’ll make the people going through the maze feel like they’re the ones being rounded up to be slaughtered. Then for the end we have a massive dragon with many heads.”

“Ending with Revelation?”

“It’s a classic.”

“Sounds like this should be the most terrifying haunted house around.”

“I really hope so. The kids are so excited and they’ve been working so hard. A lot of them have already got their friends and classmates to agree to come.”

“You’ve done some amazing work,” she told him.

“Thanks. There’s still so much left to do, though. Opening night is in nine days.”

It was hard to believe Halloween weekend was coming up that quickly. Time had flown since July. Before she knew it Christmas would be on them. She felt herself beginning to tense up at the thought of all the work ahead of her, but then forced herself to breathe and focus on the task at hand.

They worked on in silence for a couple more minutes. Finally they had the floor clean and they moved over to the wall.

“Can I ask you something?” Dave asked, his voice far more subdued and serious sounding.

“Sure,” she said, wondering what was troubling him.

“Do you ever get bad feelings about things, like you know there’s something wrong even if you can’t quite place your finger on what it is?”

“I don’t know, sometimes I guess. Although usually I have a pretty good idea what it is when I have that kind of feeling,” she said. Her mind instantly conjured up images from the creepy house the day before. She wondered if Mark had found anything else about the case yet. She knew part of her would be unsettled until that one was solved. Part of her was also a little bit frightened to hear what that solution would be, though. She turned her attention back to the pastor. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s just…I’ve had this weird feeling the last day or so and it keeps getting stronger. It’s like my stomach is clenched in this tight little knot of anxiety and nothing I can do makes it better. I keep feeling like something bad, really bad, is about to happen. I don’t know what, though, and as much as I’m trying to ignore it the feeling is getting worse. I’m really getting edgy and I don’t like feeling this way.”

“Have you ever felt this way before?” she asked.

He nodded. “I felt this way for three hours before I got the phone call that my father had been killed in a car crash.”

“Sometimes with close relatives there can be an extra connection there, I guess,” Cindy said. At least, she’d heard that could be the case although she didn’t have family that she was close enough to that she’d have a connection like that with them.

“It’s been other times, too. I had it the day we left for Green Pastures, but I ignored it, told myself I was crazy.”

“Only you weren’t,” she said softly, fear rippling through her.

“I wasn’t. I should have listened.”

“You had no way of knowing what was going to happen or where or to whom. For all you knew it could have been something that was going to happen here or to a cousin halfway across the country.”

“I know. That’s what I tell myself when I start to freak out. This is the first time in a year-and-a-half that I’ve had that feeling, though. And I don’t want to ignore it this time and assume that everything is going to be okay.”

Cindy didn’t know what to say, how to help him. “Have you prayed about it?”

“I was up half the night last night doing just that. Unfortunately I don’t have any more clarity about what it could possibly be that’s wrong.”

She told herself that it was just the power of suggestion, or the memory of what she’d felt when she was in the basement the day before, but suddenly her stomach was also twisting in knots and she felt like she wanted to throw up. She said a quick prayer as she struggled to regain mastery over herself.

“Are you okay?” he asked suddenly.

“No, I’m a little freaked out to be honest,” she told him.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just don’t know what to do and I needed to talk to somebody about this. Somehow you seemed like the right person.”

“I’m glad you could share with me. I just wish I knew what I could do to make you feel better or to stop whatever might be about to happen.”

“Believe me, I understand,” he said, sounding suddenly old and tired.

There was a loud crashing sound behind them and Cindy jerked around.

“What in tarnation is going on in here?” Carl bellowed, his voice echoing around the gym.

Cindy jumped and then faced him with a grimace. “We’re just working on the haunted house.”

“It looks like you’re cleaning up a mess to me,” he said, his voice only a notch below a shout.

“No messes here, just creation,” she said defiantly. She wasn’t in the mood for one of his temper tantrums.

She saw his eyes drift to the ceiling and she forced herself to stand her ground when he looked back at her.

“Make sure you clean it up then,” he growled before turning and leaving the room.

“Thanks,” Dave said, once the door had closed behind him.

“You’re welcome. I figured neither of us really needed to deal with him today.”

“You figured right. I know where he keeps the extra tall ladder. After he’s left today I’ll get it out and clean the ceiling.”

“I think that might be a good idea,” she agreed. “At least we’ve almost got the rest done.”

“Thank you, for everything,” he said.

“That’s what friends are for,” she said, forcing a smile onto her face. Inside, though, she was worrying about what he had told her about his feelings that something bad was going to happen. All she could do was pray that he was wrong.

When Mark had gotten into the office in the morning he’d discovered that they finally had an identification for the murdered girl. Her name was Cheyenne and she was seventeen, a high school senior who had been reported missing yesterday morning by her parents.

He went to see them and the visit made him sick to his stomach. He’d talked to lots of parents of victims before, just never when the victim was so young. He spent the entire time thinking about his own children and what he would be feeling if he was in their shoes and one of his children had been killed. It made it hard to stay on task and he silently cursed Liam for being on vacation.

In the end her parents had been no help at all. Their daughter was a nice girl, homeschooled, no close friends. At least, not any that they knew about. Then again, sometimes parents were the last to know what was really going on with their kids. Again he found himself worrying about his own children even though they were just babies.

When he’d finally finished talking with them he had no new leads to follow. He checked with the coroner but there was nothing new on that end either. The man was still running tests, taking samples.

Waiting was the part of the job that Mark hated the most. He did manage to swing by and pick up the crime scene photos he’d asked for duplicates of so that he could get Jeremiah’s help with translation. Once he’d done that, he called the rabbi.

“Free for an afternoon meeting?” Mark asked.

“About the symbols?”

“Yes.”

“I can be available at four.”