The red church (36 page)

Frank shook his head. His clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. His wet clothes gave off a mist in the moonlight

"You got to, Frankie," came a muffled, hollow voice from the ground, the sky, nowhere. Samuel's voice. Frank gripped the rifle, stood, and strode toward the church. Stepford Matheson ran toward him, saw the rifle and froze, then fled in the opposite direc-tion. The night was filled with the gargle of car igni-tions and excited shouts. Twin beams swept over Frank as the Buchanans' pickup turned around. Frank didn't even blink as the headlights pierced his eyes and the truck growled its way to the main road. He came to the foot of the old dogwood and stared up into its black branches, to the scattered white blos-soms at its top.

Where is that damned brother-killing shadow"?

But he knew that the shadow wasn't the real mon-ster. The real monster was the one who cast the shadow.

The Reverend Archer McFall.

Frank climbed the steps and entered the church foyer. He heard Sheila behind him. She would want to see. She was part of it now. Though she wasn't of the old families, she had been touched and changed by Archer.

In Archer, they were
all
one big, happy family.

Frank entered the dimly lit sanctuary. Some of the candles had blown out because of the open door, and it took Frank's eyes a moment to adjust. Someone moaned near the front of the church. Another person—looked like Linda Day—stood to one side of the altar, her back to him.

"You got to do it, Frankie," said Samuel.

He spun, and Sheila smiled at him. "Sacrifice is the currency of God," she said in Samuel's voice.

"What the hell
are
you?" Frank said, the muscles in his neck rigid. Sheila batted her eyelashes. She spoke in her own voice this time. "Just a woman, Frank. Just somebody else for you to love and lose. Just another piece of God's great puzzle." Her face twisted, dissolved, shifted into Archer's.

"Just somebody else for me to take away from you," Archer said.

Frank swung the butt of the rifle at Archer's smirk, wanting to drive the bright, secretive glee from the monster's eyes. Just before the wood struck flesh, the face shifted back into Sheila's. Her eyes widened in surprise and anticipated pain.

Dark.

So black that Ronnie couldn't see his hand in front of his face.

He was in a box, a coffin, with nothing but the hard thud of his heart to mark the passing of time.

"I'm scared," Tim whispered.

"Shh," Ronnie said. "They'll hear us."

Though
they
already knew the two of them were locked in the vestry. It wasn't as though there were a whole lot of places to hide inside the red church.

Ronnie finally opened his eyes. The weak gleam of moon fought through a small window set high in the back wall. He could barely make out Tim's pale face, though his eyes and mouth were steeped in shadows. He pressed his ear to the door again.

She was out there.

Waiting.

Wanting.

Ronnie shivered, remembering the deep and creepy look in his mother's eyes as she ate the raw meat, as she passed the plate to Tim, as she screamed at them for running away from Archer McFall. Mom knocked again. "Let me in, boys."

Ronnie put his hand over Tim's mouth before his younger brother could cry out. Tim's hot, rapid breath passed between his fingers.

"Mommy won't hurt you," she said.

Ronnie put one finger to his lips to shush Tim, then slid quietly around until his back was against the door. To get inside, she'd have to bust the old metal lock. But they couldn't stay here forever. Some of the other church people might help her. Like Mama Bet. Like Whizzer.

They'd have to find a way out.

The window was too high to reach. Ronnie wasn't sure if he could even fit through it. But maybe Tim could.

The door rattled. "Come out, my honeys. I'll pro-tect you."

Said the spider to the fly.

But that was Ronnie's
mom
out there, the one who had raised him and burped him and kissed the scrapes on his knee and stood up for him when the school counselor said Ronnie wasn't playing well with others.

This was the only mom he had.

He fought back the tears that burned his eyes and wet the bandages on his nose.
Think, think, think. You 're supposed to be smart, remem-ber? At least, that's what all those tests
say.

What would Dad do?

Something shuffled in the corner, a light, whispery sound.

A leaf?

A mouse?

This was supposed to be a fancy mouse motel, after all.

That was what Lester Matheson had called the church. But Lester also said,
It's people what makes a
church, and what and all they believe.

The people here believed some pretty weird stuff.

People like his mom. And he was so scared of his mom that he wouldn't open the door. The soft, dry rattling came again, so quietly that he barely heard it over his pounding pulse. He'd have to do something fast.

"Ronnie," Mom said from the other side of the door.

He tensed.

"Listen," she said. "It's Tim that Archer needs. Open the door and let me have Tim, and you can go. Mommy promises."

Tim gasped.

Mom usually kept her promises.

Ronnie looked into his brother's face, saw the glint of tears on his cheeks, the weak reflection of the moon in his glasses.

This was the dingle-dork who pestered him and tore the covers off his Spiderman comics and said that Melanie Ward wanted to give him a big, sloppy kiss.

Tim was the biggest pain-in-the-rear of all time.

And this moment, this choice, was another of those turning points that were popping up so often lately. This was some kind of test.

Everything was a test.

And to win, to make an A-plus, all he had to do was stand up, turn the brass catch, and let the door swing open, let Mom give Tim a big, bloody hug and carry him off to Archer. And Ronnie could walk right down the road to the rest of his life.

Yeah, right.

Mora knocked again, more firmly. "Ronnie? Be my big boy."

"Mommy," Tim whimpered, a bubble of mucus popping in his nose.

"Tim?" Mom said. "Open the door. Come to Mommy."

Tim's hand snaked toward the door handle, trem-bled, and stopped halfway. Ronnie reached out and caught it, then pulled Tim to his feet.

The thing in the dark corners shuffled again.

Mice,

He led Tim underneath the window, then put his mouth to his brother's ear. "When I boost you up, break the window and crawl out."

Tim's glasses flashed in the moonlight as he nod-ded.

Ronnie stooped and cupped his hands, and Tim put a foot in them. Ronnie grunted as he lifted, and Tim grabbed the small, splintered ledge and pulled himself up to the glass.

"Close your eyes and hit it with your elbow," Ron-nie commanded. "Hurry." Ronnie didn't worry about remaining quiet, be-cause whatever was in the corner was growing louder and larger and darker than the shadows. Tim hit the window once, and nothing happened.

"Harder," Ronnie yelled, his voice cracking.

Tim smacked the window again and the brittle ex-plosion was followed by the tinkle of showering glass.

"What are you boys up to in there?" Mom shouted, banging on the door. Ronnie pushed Tim higher. "Watch out for the glass," he said, as Tim scurried through the small frame. When Tim had tumbled through, probably landing shoulder-first on the grass outside, Ronnie jumped as high as he could. His fingers scratched inches short of the window ledge.

At least Tim made it.

He leaned against the wall. Alone. He would have to face the darkness alone.

The darkness moved away from the lesser dark-ness, and the moon fell on its face.
His
face.

Preacher Staymore.

Ronnie exhaled a lungful of held fear as the preacher's voice reached and soothed him. "With the Son of God in your heart, you're never alone."

The preacher stepped forward, calm and smiling.

TWENTY-THREE

Wait a second. What's the preacher doing here? During the First Baptist services, he said time and again
that all the other churches led people straight to hell.

Ronnie stepped back from the man's broad, grin-ning face and fervent eyes.

"You're wondering what I'm doing here, aren't you, my child?" Preacher Staymore spread his arms and held his palms upward, like Jesus in those Bible color plates.

"Let me in, Ronnie," Mom yelled, rattling the door again.

"I hid back here so I could help save you, Ronnie," the preacher said, ignoring her. "God sent me special just to watch you. We knew you'd be tempted."

"Tempted?" Ronnie glanced at the window.

"Yes. You know there's only one true way."

Mom pounded on the door.

"Can you hear Him aknockin', Ronnie?"

I can try for the window one more time. Maybe if I get a running start
—

Mom flailed at the door. "You boys had better get out here right this second," she said, her voice a mix-ture of anger and hysteria.

"Escaping won't save you, Ronnie." Preacher Staymore took another step closer. "You can run to the ends of the earth, but you can't get away from your own sorry heart. Only one person can cleanse you." Ronnie pressed against the wall, clawing at the wood behind him.

The moon bathed the preacher's face, almost like a dramatic spotlight on some crazy stage.

"Can you hear Him aknockin?" the preacher re-peated.

Mom pounded on the door. "Ron-n
eeeee
."

The preacher reached out to touch Ronnie's fore-head, just as he had done the dozen or so other times he'd helped Ronnie get saved. Ronnie closed his eyes and bowed his head slightly, the way he was supposed to do.

At least I'll get saved one last time before Mom and Archer and the Bell Monster get me. And dear
Jesus, when you come in this time, please stay awhile: Please don't let me have more of those sins of
the heart that make you so mad. And please, please, please, let Tim get away.

"You got to throw open the door, Ronnie," the preacher whispered, his hand moist and cool on Ronnie's forehead. "You got to let Him in."

The feeling came, that mixture of warmth and airi-ness expanding in his chest. The good feeling.

The kind of feeling he got when Mom hugged him or Dad mussed his hair.

A feeling of being wanted, of being loved.

Of belonging.

He smiled, because he was going to tell Preacher Staymore that the door was open, that the Lord had come right on in and then slammed it shut so that no sins could sneak in behind Him. Ronnie opened his eyes to thank the preacher, but the preacher wasn't there.

A slick stack of something that looked like gray mud stood before him. Touching him. Some of the mud slid down his forehead and clung to his bandaged nose.

The mudstack made wet noises, a bubbling like snotty breath.

Ronnie choked back a scream. The darkness took shape, the shadow behind the mud gaining sharp edges.

The Bell Monster.

Ronnie slapped away the branch of mud that stretched to his head. It was like punching a giant slug. Mom screamed his name again from behind the door.

The mudstack jiggled forward, the shadow loom-ing behind it.

It
'
s moving, oh, sweet Jesus Christ, it's moving.

Ronnie tried to tell himself it was the pain pill; this was a stupid dream and he'd wake up with a pillow-case tangled around his head. That he'd wake up and the only problems he would have were Mom and Dad's arguing, Tim's pestering, Melanie Ward's hot-and-cold flirting
,
and all the hundreds of ordinary problems that boys across the world faced every day.

Oh, yeah, and the big one: whether Jesus Christ was going to stay with him and help him get through it all, or whether He was going to cut and run at the first tiny sin of the heart. But the mud monster moved again, pressing against Ronnie, and he could no longer lie to him-self. This was real.

And the worst got worser, as Tim would say.

Because the thing
spoke.

"Come into me, Ronnie," came the slobbery, mumbling voice. "Give it up. It's the only way to get cleansed forever."

Ronnie didn't ask how getting smothered in a nasty, creepy mound of walking, talking mud would make him clean.

"I need you," the mud-monster said. The shadow grew larger behind it, filling the room, blocking the window. "Give yourself to me."

Yeah, right.

It's all about sacrifice, ain't it? I give myself up, and you let Tim go. That's the deal, huh?

Ronnie struggled against the crush of mud.

But then you'll be back, and it will be Tim's turn to sacrifice. And then Dad's, and then everybody
else's. And everybody loses but you.

Because you don't have to sacrifice anything.

All you do is take and take and take.

The weight of the mud pressed Ronnie to his knees. The slimy fluid soaked through his clothes. Mom called again and pounded on the door, the sound a million miles away.

All he wanted to do was sleep. He was so tired. It was so much easier to just give up than actually try to fight.

So much easier.

Frank tried to pull back on the rifle, but his swing had too much momentum.

Sheila's eyes widened as the rifle butt struck her cheek.