The Big Reap (22 page)

At the front of the room was an unfinished wooden altar scattered with tools. Larger items – a radial saw, a couple sawhorses, a stack of two-by-fours, another of plywood, and a couple dozen paint cans full of stain and polyurethane – were scattered haphazardly beside it. Above the mess hung a utility light, a bare bulb in a hook-hatted metal cage whose cord connected to an orange extension below, which in turn snaked away into the darkness to the rear of the church, beyond the altar. A faint engine thrum from outside suggested it was plugged into a generator.

I watched as Father Yefi set the lantern down atop the altar and clicked on the hanging light. Under its harsh glare, the magic in the room receded. Now it was just an old and dusty church once more.

It was then I realized this was more than just a church to Yefi, because behind the altar I saw a military cot upon which rested a tousle of blankets and a well-worn Bible; a mini-fridge; and a hot plate, beside which sat a stack of canned goods, a single saucepan, and a wooden spoon. “You
live
here?” I asked him.

“I do,” he said. “It may sound foolish, but there are times I do not feel safe out there, among the villagers. Here, I am safe, if perhaps less comfortable.”

“I didn't see a lock on the church door.”

“The safety of which I speak is not merely corporeal,” he replied, “although that which I fear is barred entry from this place just as surely as if it were locked.”

“And what is it that you fear?” I asked him.

“Before I tell you that,” he said, fetching two chipped, age-clouded juice glasses and a bottle of
?uica
from beneath the altar and pouring us each a belt, “let me ask
you
something.”

“Shoot.”

“Why did you come to Nevazut?”

I thought long and hard before I answered. Then I figured fuck it, thinking long and hard ain't what I do, so instead I dove right in. “You mentioned a great darkness resides here,” I said. “If that's true, then I aim to kill it.”

The priest laughed, full-throated and full of delight. It echoed through the dusty church, growing hollow as it rose, like a chorus of sycophants trying desperately to let the boss know they were in on the joke. Then he pressed a glass into my hand and clinked his to mine so hard both sloshed. “Well then, fair stranger, you and I are well-met, even if I fear you're as batty as this old girl's belfry.”

He tossed back his glass. I did the same. The drink was hard and sharp, but with an undercurrent of fruit. Distilled from plums, if I recalled,
?uica
was Romania's preferred form of moonshine, more rocket-fuel than wine. I set my glass down and wiped the sting of it off my lips with the back of one hand. Father Yefi poured a second for us both.

“So you wanna tell me what's
really
going on here?”

“When you arrived in town,” he said, “did you notice anything peculiar?”

“You mean the no-women thing, or the business with the windows?”

He raised his glass in a toast of mock-salute. “Both, in fact, for the two are closely tied. Nice to see you do not miss a trick.”

“Yeah,” I said, tossing back my drink and feeling my eyeballs roll around loose in my sockets. This shit was
strong
. “Bully for me. So where'd they all go?”

“Oh, they're all
here
,” he replied. “They're simply disinclined toward socializing in the daytime.”

“Come again?”

“I confess, when I first arrived in town on this assignment, it took me a while to notice the women's absence. Blame a cloistered existence. A life spent among men and men alone. And at risk of committing the sin of pride, it took me longer still to inquire as to where they might be, for I was raised to be polite above all else. When I did, I was assured the women of the town had not fled en masse on my arrival. In fact, they were, and are, right here. It would seem the women of Nevazut all suffer from a rare affliction – a blood disorder, to hear their husbands tell it – which leaves them pale and wan, and quite light sensitive as well. Some it seems are only mildly afflicted; others are wild, delusional, bed-ridden. Again, by day, you understand. At night they are as well as you or I. They dance, they drink, they cook, they sing. I'd not encountered them because I'd set my own internal clock to accord the day's light. My access to power is limited by my ability to keep my generator fueled, and my work here leaves me so exhausted at night, I've scarcely enough time to read a verse or two after dinner before sleep takes me. And my Lord, the dreams I've had.”

“What kind of dreams?”

The priest took a long swallow of the spirit, like he was buying time, or maybe avoiding the question altogether. Given the color that rose in his cheeks as he did, I was betting on the latter. Then again, that coulda been the booze.

“Let me simply say they've been far from pious.”

“You mean far from chaste.”

“In part, yes. In fact, I'm ashamed to say there's not a woman in this town who hasn't featured in my subconscious' nocturnal meanderings, and never in fewer than groups of three or more. But there's another aspect to the dreams beyond merely addressing my own repressed desires of the flesh, for of course that's what I at first assumed them to be. Occupational hazard, you could say.”

“Yeah? What's that?”

Another pause. Another shot. “They always end with me tearing the throats out of the women with whom I find myself entangled, and bathing in the hot, wet, sticky-sweet nectar that is their blood. The light of life guttering and dying in their eyes. Their last breath begging me to drink them dry. A request with which I'm always happy to comply. And invariably, they expire at the, ah, height of their enjoyment, if you take my meaning.”

I downed my drink and wished hard I could unhear what he'd just told me. In life, I went to Sunday school, for God's sake. There's some shit you should never be forced to picture a member of the clergy do. “Trust me, Padre, your meaning's hard to miss.”

“There is one fact that serves to blunt my shame, and cast doubt on the origins of those dreams.”

“Yeah? What's that?”

“Many of the women who appeared in them I didn't meet until afterward. And by the glint in their eyes when they first saw me, I'm willing to wager they knew me just as well as I knew them.”

“You mean to say–”

“That someone, or more likely some
thing
, filled my head with these vile, blasphemous fantasies? That the women of this Godforsaken town are in the thrall of that selfsame something? Now that I say it all aloud, I'm forced to admit it sounds ridiculous. And yet here you stand, the first stranger to arrive in town since I was sent here so very long ago, asking questions about the castle on the hill and claiming you're here to fell some ancient evil. So you tell me, is it ridiculous? Or am I right to make my bed beneath a symbol of Christ's sacrifice so that it, and He, may watch over me?”

I sighed and set down my glass, then poured myself another belt. “I don't know shit from Jesus, Padre, but I can tell you you ain't crazy to be scared.”

“But
you're
not scared.”

I laughed. I couldn't help it. “You kidding me? I'm nothing
but
scared. Been that way near as long as I can remember. But that don't change what I have to do.”

He nodded, his face screwed up all drunk-serious. “Something's changed of late,” he told me. “The dreams are more sporadic now, and less vivid than they used to be.”

His words and tone didn't seem to synch. “That sounds like a
good
thing to me,” I said, “only you're throwing off a vibe that says it's anything but. Why?”

“At first, I was pleased with the development as well,” said Yefi. “I even told myself perhaps the light of my presence had dispelled the pall that hung over this poor, afflicted village. After all, I reasoned, I'd seen no overt sign of malignant intent from any of the women I'd encountered here in my conscious life, at least. Perhaps they were as much victims of these visions as was I, and once those visions abated entirely, everything here would return to normal. I even toyed with the idea of posting flyers advertising Sunday mass, the first such public Christian mass this village would have seen in centuries. But then I began to hear the night sounds, and shortly thereafter the children started disappearing. That's when I realized the evil in this town had not moved on after all. It had simply changed its tactics.”

“What kind of night sounds? And what do you mean, the children started disappearing?”

“They're hard to describe,” he told me. “Somewhere between a click and a low growl, and a sound like fine-grain sandpaper, or snake-scales dragging past dry leaves. Down by the river, mostly, and only ever at night. And as far as the children are concerned, I mean exactly what I say. Used to be, a day like this, we'd have fifteen, twenty children frolicking about the square. How many did we have today?”

I thought back. “Seven, maybe eight. But that hardly proves they're disappearing.”

“Doesn't it? This village has no school. No daycare. Nothing whatsoever for the children to do but entertain themselves while their parents do as parents do to provide for them. So you tell me, where have the others gone?”

“You ask their parents?”

“Of course I asked their parents.”

“And what did they say?”

“They told me to mind my own business. In fact, they veritably begged me to.”

“And what did they say about where the missing children
went
?”

“That's just it,” he told me. “They wouldn't admit there
were
any missing children.”

“So their kids were all accounted for,” I said.

“No,” he said. “You misunderstand me. They didn't claim their missing children were safe and sound. What they claimed was that they'd never had those children to begin with.”

 

We drank long into the night, the priest and I. Like drunks the world over, we spoke of heaven and hell, of good and evil, of life's plans sadly scuttled, of love lost or unrequited. We laughed and cried and sang tunelessly the only hymn I knew that was worth a damn the Stones' “Shine a Light,” off of side four of Exile. And I'll be damned if this here man of the cloth didn't know every bloody word.

That song always brought a tear to my eye. Jagger originally penned it for Brian Jones, whose mood swings and struggles with substance abuse had, by '68, estranged him from the band. Never mind they were on account of the fact that Jones had hell breathing down his neck and damn well knew it. I felt like shit when Jones' deal came due, but by then, the band he'd sold his soul to found had already left him in the dust – all by the ripe old age of twenty-seven. Lord knows why that's when rock stars' deals always come due. Some say it has to do with the number of books in the New Testament, or some Kabbalah nonsense about the twenty-seven names of God. You ask me, that's just how long it takes for a working class kid with real talent to build himself a set of wings from feather and wax and then fly close enough to the sun to come tumbling back down. I left Jones' body face-down in his pool, but not before we two shared a drink. Figured what's the harm? I owed him that much. It seemed like he'd made peace with his fate. Guess it was fitting from the guy whose last recording with the band was “Sympathy for the Devil.”

When I told that poor bastard it was nothing personal, you'd best believe I meant it.

Point is, me and the priest hit it off just fine. I never asked him what drove him to the cloth, and he never asked me just who – or what – I really am. But for one night by the suffuse, drunken glow of
?uica
and golden lamplight reflected off of honey-lacquered walls, I remembered what it was like to be in Danny and Ana's company – to speak freely, without care.

To have a friend.

It wasn't until dawn broke I broached the topic of my attack.

We'd stopped drinking some hours before. As drunk slid inexorably toward hung over, we both fell silent for long stretches. Not sleeping, but no longer fully conscious, either. After one such stretch, I said to him, “I've got to go up there, you know.”

His chin rested lightly on his breastbone. When I spoke, his head jerked upward, and his eyes opened. They swam a moment, as if bobbing atop a choppy surface of
?uica
and exhaustion, and then focused. “Go up where?”

“To the castle,” I said.

He shook his head. “You can't.”

“I have to. That's where I'll find the who or what that's causing all of this. I'm sure of it.”

“You misunderstand,” he said. “I don't disagree with you on that count. I simply mean you can't. The castle is… protected.”

“Protected? Protected how?”

“It's difficult to describe,” he said. “But as one approaches the castle – which none but me have dared since first came to town, so far as I'm aware – there's this point at which the forest changes. Well below the treeline, some three hundred meters from the castle, is a perimeter encircling the peak whose border is as sharp and well defined as a snow-globe's sphere. The barrier itself it tinted ever so slightly, as if what lies beyond is being viewed through a pane of dirty glass. The trees outside the sphere are hale and hearty, but those above are withered and gray, as if the sun scarcely reaches them. And yet the barrier itself is not solid. In fact, apart from the pervading sense of dread that envelops you when you approach the place, the unobservant could scarcely be blamed for wandering right through it, although I would hardly recommend it.”