Parasite (21 page)

Seven cars. It took
seven cars for Seth to find one that had the keys inside. Well, technically not inside. He found the keys in a small box under the driver’s seat wheel well of a blue Ford Focus. Which was great, because his elbow was raw and bruised from smashing in car windows to search for keys.

It was harder than it looked, smashing car windows. For one, you needed two or three good shots to send the small cubes of shatterproof glass scattering. And even then, you had to make sure you hit it right in the center to give yourself the best chance. What made it more difficult was that after every failed attempt, Seth’s elbow became more numb, making it difficult to muster up the same impact velocity.

But now, inside the Ford Focus, he felt good again. Great even—better than he had in a long time.

Get the girl, you have been chosen.

It was as if this purpose, however bastardized and insane, had reenergized him.

Get the girl, you have been chosen.

Seth revved the engine, put the car into drive, and sped down the tarmac. He still felt lightheaded, and his throat was raw from vomiting, but he also felt liberated.

Two hours to Askergan.

He would be there before sunup, all things being equal. Which was good. After the storm all those years ago, he had become a bit of a night owl, as his profession decreed, but at heart he was an early riser.

The streetlights blurred into a streaks as he drove, the speedometer of the stolen car glued to 55 miles per hour.

It would serve him no good if he was pulled over in a stolen vehicle. No, he was the chosen one, and he had a mission now.

“Yes, get the girl,” he said in a monotone voice. “Get the girl, you have been chosen.”

His eyes were so dry from staring out the window that he was starting to see halos from passing cars.

He forced himself to blink.

“Get the girl, you have been chosen.”

A green road sign whipped by him, and he caught a quick glimpse of three different locales listed on it.

Pekinish 78 miles.

Darborough 93 miles.

And there, beneath those two other counties that he had never even heard of, was the one that had meant so much to him then, and meant even more to him now.

Askergan 108 miles.

A smile crept onto Seth’s face.

Get the girl. You have been chosen.

*                            *                            *

Construction and abandoned cars on the road slowed Seth down, delaying his arrival in Askergan until after six in the morning.

He didn’t stop; not to eat, not to piss, not to even stretch his legs. He was determined now, and the voice in his head kept egging him on.

The rational part of his mind—what was left of it—demanded answers to burning questions.

What girl? Why was I chosen? For what? And who are you?

But whenever he attempted to pose these questions the same way he answered the voice in his head, they were met only with silence.

Empty, void space inside his head.

Like before—before seeing Jared’s face. He was alone.

Twice Seth tried to stop the car, to pull over, to really think about what he was doing, but something—
come
—compelled him forward. Similarly, he found that thinking of exactly where he was going, specifics about directions, would cause him lock up. It was like trying to drive a car staring a few feet in front of the bumper; you were stuck making micro adjustments and the car jerked dangerously left and right. But when Seth just allowed his mind to be open, to let whatever or whoever was inside him of him do the guiding, the ride was smooth and uneventful.

So now, as he pulled up to a non-descript brown building that he had never seen before and put the stolen Ford into park, he wasn’t overly surprised that he had found
the place
.

Still, although the rational part of his mind was buried for the time being, it was
there
, irritating him like a fresh mosquito bite with its nagging whisper, desperately trying to make him question what he was doing here. And when he stepped into the already warm sun and his eyes fell on the white letters on the side of the building that read Askergan Long-Term Care, his curiosity was only piqued.

Long-term care? What the hell?

Seth slammed the door closed and instinctively went to lock it, before realizing how ludicrous that was. After all, it was a car.

As he made his way up the long, wooden switchback path designed for wheelchairs that led to the front entrance, pesky questions started needling him again—but when the answers came, he was surprised that they were in his own voice.

Not his words, surely, but his
voice
.

Q: What am I doing here?

A: Get the girl.

Q: But who is she?

A: The girl.

Q: Why am I here?

A: You are chosen.

Seth swallowed hard and gave in, letting his feet instead of his mind guide him forward. His movements were so unlike him, so fluid without his typical angular gait, that he felt more an observer than the conductor to his actions.

As he neared the door to the facility, another thought occurred to him:
What if the place isn’t even open?

And then, another question quickly followed:
What am I going to say? I can’t rightly tell the clerk or nurse or whoever works here that I am here for “the girl”.

He played the conversation over in his mind.

Hi, I’m here for the girl?

Excuse me?

Yeah, the girl. You know the one; I’m here for her.

Seth glanced up at the building before pulling the door wide. The building was four stories high, and he counted at least ten windows on this one side alone.

A minimum of forty rooms, but probably more.

He fell back into his fictional conversation.

Sir? We have twenty females here at the Askergan County Long-Term facility. Was there one particular girl that you are interested in seeing?

Just the girl.

Oh?

I’ve been chosen.

His fingers tightened on the door handle, and for the briefest of moments, he hoped that it was locked—that this would foil the plan, and vanquish the voice.

Send him back to Florida, back to reality.

Madness.

In the back of his mind—the last vestiges of the rational part of his brain, which was becoming buried beneath increasing more and more insulating layers of insanity—he realized that what he was doing, what he was
about
to do, was wrong.

He was a good person, despite his flaws.

This is not me
, he thought, a single tear tracing a line down his pale cheek.

But then his thoughts turned to Henrietta’s face as he lay the child on her back, bringing the pillow closer and closer to her cute nose and mouth…

No, it
wasn’t
him; but he was doing it just the same.

When he offered the door a slight tug, it opened a little.

Turning his eyes skyward, he gazed into the bright sun until he saw spots.

Then he pulled the door wide and stepped inside, leaving any semblance of reality, of what remained of his rational mind, behind.

Seth
, the voice instructed.
Go get the girl.

“When was your last
confession?”

Father Carter Duke looked at the cigarette between his fingers as he rolled it back and forth and patiently waited for an answer.

Being a priest was harder than he’d thought, always waiting and watching, waiting and watching.

He just wanted to
do
something.

The man on the other side of the screen eventually cleared his throat and then spoke.

“Father, I have sinned.”

Yeah, no shit. This is a confessional. And I asked you when your last confession was, not if you have sinned.

Carter took a drag from his smoke, enjoying the way it warmed his lungs and calmed his frustration.

“And what are your sins?”

The man hesitated again, and Carter heard the man sniff.

“Uh, excuse me, Father, but are you smoking in there?”

Carter, still staring at his cigarette, mulled his options.

Then he shrugged.

“Yep,” he said simply.

He brought the smoke back to his lips and took another drag, turning slightly to ensure that the man on the other side would see the glowing cherry.

There was a pause as the other man clearly waited for more—for an explanation.

Carter sighed.

“What’s your name, son?”

‘Son’.

Just uttering the word gave him the creeps.

I bet Father Paul Stevens made the little boys call him daddy.

“Robert. Robert Cormath.”

“Okay, Robert, I’m going to let you in on a little secret.”

He exhaled a thin stream of smoke.

“I’m not like most priests, Robert. Like Askergan, I’m just a little bit different.”

“Oh, okay,” the man replied hesitantly.

Carter sighed again.

Buck up. Get into the game.

“I’m here for change, Robert. I’m not going to allow the Devil and his disease to infect Askergan any longer.”

He turned toward the other man, spying him through the lattice.

“You were here when the bikers came. You saw what they wanted, and you saw how I dealt with it. Now, I’m not normally an advocate for violence, but you know what the Lord said...”

“Turn the other cheek?”

Carter couldn’t help but smirk, even though he wasn’t sure if Robert was being funny or serious. If he were to bet, he would say serious.

Robert didn’t strike him as the sharpest card in the deck.

“Like I said, I’m here for change in the name of the Lord—an eye for an eye,
son.
”

Carter put his elbows on his knees and took another drag. Then he waited.

He knew little of what it meant to be an actual man of God, of course, but he had very quickly learned that listening was a big part. Frustrating, sure, but also a little bit of a reprieve from his normal everyday banter, his constant thinking one step ahead, answering suspicious questions before they were even posed.

Eventually, the other man mustered the courage to speak again.

“Well,” he said slowly. “Part of what I wanted to talk to you about was what happened earlier. About how I, you know, tackled that guy. And after your, uh, friend, took out the other guy, well, me and the others, we—we—”

Carter held up his hand.

“Robert. I’m going to be honest with you, sometimes there is a time and a place. And what you did—tackling the biker—you did it at the
right
time and the
right
place. The Lord thanks you. I thank you. That biker—both bikers—are bad men. And one got what he deserved.”

Carter took a deep breath and paused to maximize the dramatic impact.

“And the other will get what’s comin’ to him, I assure you.”

The priest suddenly clapped his hands together, and smiled broadly. Robert jumped at the sound.

“Now, is that it, Robert? Is there something else?”

“Well, usually I’m given some Hail Marys or something?”

Carter shrugged, his suspicions about the other man’s infantile intelligence confirmed.

“Seventeen.”

“Huh?”

“Seventeen Hail Marys and you’re all set. Ticket still punched.”

“Ticket?”

“Never mind. Just do seventeen Hail Marys.”

“Oh, okay. But there is one more thing, Father.”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t know if this counts as a sin, but I’ve been feeling pretty bad lately.”

Carter waited. He fought the urge to roll his eyes when Robert continued to be tongue-tied.

“Listen, Robert. You’re not the only one who has sinned in Askergan. In fact, I bet nearly everyone in the town comes to see me soon. So you gotta keep the words coming, my man.”

“Sorry—I’m sorry, Father.” The man cleared his throat and then set to talking again, this time speaking so quickly that Carter had to focus to make out the words. “So you know the house that burned? The one out by the water?
The
house?”

Carter said that he did.

The
house.

Even before they had arrived at the church, he had commissioned Pike to do some research about Askergan. And amidst the tales that kept popping up, fantastical in ways that couldn’t possibly be true, there was always one constant:
the
house. That phrase always referred to just one place in particular:
The Wharfburn Estate.

Askergan certainly had its share of demons, including the creatures that had taken Father Stevens and were rumored to have come from the very house that Robert was alluding to. There were also other rumors, too, about a storm that had sent the county into the dark ages for more than a week. And then there was the tale of a serial killer sheriff that had skinned his victims.

Carter wasn’t sure how much stock to put in these rumors, but if nothing else, seeing the late Father Paul Stevens being attacked by those strange crabs had opened his eyes. Didn’t open them quite wide enough to put the fear of God into him, but the sight had at least instilled an inkling of the Devil.

“Well that’s my house.”

Carter sat upright.

“What?”

“Uh-huh. Mrs. Wharfburn—the owner—was a great aunt of mine, apparently. And when she died, it came to me. But all this time, I did nothing with it. I mean, she even left some money behind, but I never touched that neither. There was this lawyer who told me some of the money would go to paying the taxes, but I never touched a dollar of it. It just seemed... it seemed like an evil place, you know what I mean? And besides, I already have a house. And I have a job out by the mill. I don’t get paid much, but I don’t need no more money. I gotta be honest with you, Father. I kinda even forgot about it. But now that the house burned down, and the rumors… I can’t stop thinking about it. And I
still
don’t know what to do with it.”

For once, Carter was at a loss for words.

Is this a sin? Should I tack on an Our Father or two? What the hell is he getting at?

He reached down and picked at the peeling wood on the sorry excuse for a bench on which he sat.

Fuck, this church is stuck in the Stone Age. Modernization wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.

“Father?”

“Yeah?”

“What do I do with it?”

“Well, what do you want to do with it? Sell it?”

“That’s the thing, I just don’t want it. I got a job out at the mill. I don’t need the money. And I know that the Lord says we should be grateful for the blessed gifts that thou receiveth, but I...” The man’s words just trailed off.

Carter picked a foot-long splinter from the bench.

“Well, I think—”

But then a thought hit him like a shot and his eyes went wide. He tossed the splinter to the floor.

Modernization.

“Robert? What if I told you I had an idea of how you can get rid of the property and reduce your Hail Marys? A trade of sorts?”

“Father?”

“Yeah, a trade. Look around you; this church is falling apart. And besides, it’s part of the
old
Askergan. I have plans for this county, Robert. A plan to modernize, to get the drugs out of the county. And what better way to start than a completely new church?”

Robert cleared his throat.

“That—that sounds great. But what does it have to do with me?”

Carter smirked.

“What if you gave the property to me—uh, to the church, to the Lord: We could build a new church there, start over.”

“Oh, geez, I dunno. I mean, it’s not a good place. Bad things have happened there.”

Carter shook his head.

“That’s perfect. I can bless the property, splash some holy water about. You can be the hero that cleanses the property—cleanses the
evil
—and is part of Askergan’s rebuild. What do you think?”

“I’m no hero, Father.”

“Bullshit! You saved my life by tackling that biker.”

Carter made a clicking sound with his tongue.

“The Lord has plans for you, son. Big plans. And they start here. They start by being at the
frontier
of a new county.”

There was a pause, and Carter hoped that he hadn’t laid it on too thick.

Out of practice, all this waiting and watching. I need to stay sharp, I need to
do
something.

At long last, Robert answered.

“I—I think that is a fine idea, Father.”

Carter slammed both hands down on the bench and the other man jumped.

“Excellent!”

Then he stood and pushed the rotting wooden door to the confessional open with his foot.

“Pike! Pike, get over here! We have some business to attend to!”

The smirk on his face grew into a full-fledged smile.

This was perfect, better than he could have ever imagined.

Modern County. I will change this place; I will turn it into my own.