The Creep, page 1
THE CREEP
By B. W. Battin
A Gordian Knot Thriller
Gordian Knot is an imprint of Crossroad Press
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Digital Edition Copyright © 2015 B. W. Battin
LICENSE NOTES
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Meet the Author
B. W. Battin grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico. After serving four years in the U.S. Coast Guard, he graduated from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He became a reporter at KOAT-TV in Albuquerque, then moved on to TV stations in Shreveport, Louisiana; Rapid City, South Dakota; and Duluth, Minnesota, where he wrote his first published novel, Angel of the Night. After it was published, he became a full-time writer. One of his novels, Smithereens, was made into a TV movie for NBC. His novels and short stories have been translated into various languages, and he has ghost-written novels for other authors. He lives in Belen, New Mexico, with his wife Sandy, whom he describes as the love of his life. They met in Albuquerque while they were both in the news business.
Book List
Thrillers
Angel of the Night
Catch Me If You Can
Demented
Fair Game
Programmed for Terror
Serial Blood
Smithereens
Tender Prey
The Attraction
The Boogeyman
The Creep
Horror
Into the Pit
It’s Loose
Mary, Mary
Night Sounds
Satan’s Servant
DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS
Visit us online
Check out our blog and
Subscribe to our Newsletter for the latest Crossroad Press News
Find and follow us on Facebook
Join our group at Goodreads
We hope you enjoy this eBook and will seek out other books published by Crossroad Press. We strive to make our eBooks as free of errors as possible, but on occasion some make it into the final product. If you spot any problems, please contact us at publisher”crossroadpress.com and notify us of what you found. We’ll make the necessary corrections and republish the book. We’ll also ensure you get the updated version of the eBook.
If you’d like to be notified of new Crossroad Press titles when they are published, please send an email to publisher”crossroadpress.com and ask to be added to our mailing list.
If you have a moment, the author would appreciate you taking the time to leave a review for this book at whatever retailer’s site you purchased it from.
Thank you for your assistance and your support of the authors published by Crossroad Press.
To Prue and Herb Jackson, Gary and Tina McCraw, Bea and Ken Halvorsen
THE CREEP
PROLOGUE
Take this job and cram it. Sideways.
But these were words that could only be spoken in wishful daydreams, for in real life the price of saying such things was entirely too high. One could not realistically balance the satisfaction of a moment against a potential lifetime of regret. Taking a deep breath of the cool afternoon air, the man jogged around a bend in the tree-lined road, then picked up his pace.
Thirty-nine years old, the jogger was tall, with thinning reddish-brown hair. His name was Mike Sanford; friends called him Sandy. Other people called him Father Michael. He was a priest.
It was a beautiful fall day, the air crisp and clean, the late-afternoon sun flashing between the branches of the trees like a strobe light. The street along which he was jogging ran through a partially wooded area on the outskirts of Maple Grove, Pennsylvania. A suburb of Philadelphia, Maple Grove was a community of commuters, people who made their money in the city and made enough of it so they didn’t have to live there.
The neighborhood through which he was running was one of the community’s more affluent. The houses here were large and set well back from the street; the one on his left had a large ivy-covered brick wall. The priest liked to run here. It was a lovely shady area with little traffic.
Father Michael chuckled. He could imagine the bishop’s expression if a priest truly told him to take this job and cram it sideways. The words cut through all the bullshit, right to the heart of the matter. But one simply didn’t leave the priesthood that way. Mike Sanford wasn’t sure he wanted to leave it at all. It was the only profession he’d ever had. And it was much more than a job; it was a way of life. Whether you were saying Mass or sleeping or playing cards with friends, you were always a priest. Although you could slip out of the black clothes, you were still part of the Church, still bound by a whole network of inflexible rules, many of which were formulated hundreds of years ago.
Rules that said birth control was a sin, even in countries where the high birth rate insured starvation for many. Rules that prohibited priests from doing anything political, even when so many people suffered because of laws that preserved power and wealth for a few. Rules that prohibited divorce even when preserving a marriage could only mean misery for everyone involved. Rules that relegated women to a subservient position in the Church.
And because you believed, you obeyed these rules. You heard the confessions of old women who shoplifted and teenage boys who masturbated and young girls who told lies to their mothers, and you meted out the required numbers of Hail Marys and granted absolution. You said Mass, which few people attended because they were too busy commuting and doing aerobic exercises or studying for their master’s degrees in business administration. In short, you obeyed rules you disagreed with so you could engage in activities that didn’t seem to accomplish anything.
And yet turning in his Roman collar would mean a lot more than just giving up the right to say poorly attended Masses and hear innocuous confessions. It wasn’t just quitting a job, the way a carpenter or plumber or accountant resigned; it was turning your back on some very sacred vows, commitments that were part of you, that should have lasted a lifetime.
“Shit,” he muttered. He was no closer to reaching a decision than he’d been yesterday. Or last week. Or last month. And he wondered whether he might spend his entire life in the priesthood simply because he lacked the courage to leave it.
A gray Volvo approached him from the opposite direction. The middle-aged man driving it studied the priest as the car passed. He looked vaguely familiar.
Ahead was Father Michael’s favorite part of this route, a small area in which no houses had been built, a spot where the road curved through the woods, then crossed a small brook. It was especially beautiful this time of year because the leaves were starting to turn. Soon the trees would put on their dazzling display of reds and oranges and yellows. One of God’s beautiful gifts, he thought. And then a wave of guilt rushed over him, because he no longer wanted to serve that God.
But I’m not a good servant, he thought. I’m too confused by my doubts. The Lord deserves a better servant than me.
“Hey, can I give you a lift?” It was the man in the gray Volvo.
He’d pulled up beside the priest and stopped.
Lost in his thoughts, Father Michael had slowed to the point where he was barely running at all. No doubt he’d been moving as though he were exhausted. Which he wasn’t. He jogged, depending on his route, two to six miles daily.
“No,” the priest said, “I appreciate the offer, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t get much exercise that way.”
“Yeah,” the man said, smiling sheepishly, “I guess it was silly of me to ask.”
“No problem,” Father Michael said cheerfully. “Thanks again.”
Giving him a little wave, the man pulled away, disappearing around a bend in the road.
Picking up his pace, the priest jogged across the brook. Again it occurred to him that the man in the gray car was familiar, but no name came to mind, and if he’d met the man, he was unable to recall where or when. He put the matter aside.
God deserves a better servant than me. The words repeated themselves in his thoughts. It was an observation based on God’s needs, not his. And yet it did not provide a solution, for it failed to take into account the effect of his leaving the priesthood would have on his devout parents who were so proud that their son was a priest. And it also failed to provide an answer because there were two completely different ways of dealing with it. Would God be better off if he quit, or if he worked harder to overcome his doubts, to become the Lord’s devoted servant?
He shook his head, and then he noticed the gray Volvo again, parked at the side of the road with its hood raised. As he approached it, he saw that the driver was staring at the motor, looking somewhat bewildered.
“Having problems?” the priest asked.
“Just started sputtering and quit on me,” the man replied. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about mechanical stuff.” A thin man with gray curly hair, he wore a conservative gray suit that was roughly the same color as the car. He looked like a stockbroker or an insurance executive.
“Maybe I can help,” the priest said, joining him.
Father Michael made a quick survey of the engine compartment, spotting no imme diately obvious problems, like disconnected hoses or broken wires. He tugged on the coil and spark plug cables, then removed the air cleaner. A couple of quick pulls on the lever controlling the throttle valve brought the strong odor of gasoline; apparently the car was neither out of gas nor having problems with the fuel pump.
“Beats me,” the priest said.
The man just shook his head. “Damn. All that money for this thing, and it just quits for no reason.” He had blue eyes and a gap between his front teeth, like David Letterman.
“Uh, you look very familiar. Do I know you?”
The man studied the priest a moment. “I don’t think so. Name’s Bill Williams.” He abruptly proffered his hand. “Thanks for trying to help.”
“Mike Sanford,” the priest said, shaking the man’s hand. “I guess we haven’t met after all.”
Williams shrugged. “I’ve got one of those faces that looks like a lot of people, I guess. People are always thinking I’m someone else.”
“Why don’t you try to start it again. Maybe it’ll fire up this time.”
Williams nodded. “Oh, uh, before I do that, take a look at this thing. It’s probably not the problem, but then with my knowledge of motors, you never know.” He moved to the side of the car that was away from the road.
Father Michael joined him, looked where Williams was pointing. “That’s the reservoir for your windshield-washing fluid.”
“Oh. I thought that blue stuff might be the problem. I told you I don’t know much about cars.”
“It’s a little low, but there’s no way it could affect the running of your engine. Go ahead and try to start it.”
“No need,” the man said from behind him.
Turning to face him, the priest found himself staring at a revolver that was being aimed at him by Williams. For a moment Sanford’s mind struggled to make sense out of what was happening; then he realized that he was being robbed. The Volvo and the conservative suit were symbols intended to gain the victim’s trust. But even as he thought this, a part of him sensed that he was wrong.
“Let’s go,” Williams said. “That way.”
“I don’t have much money on me,” the priest said, still clinging to the notion that this was a robbery. He began moving into the woods.
“Stop,” Williams ordered after they’d gone about a hundred yards into the trees. “Turn around.”
The priest did so, and suddenly he recognized the man, whose name was not Williams. And now that he knew who this was, what was happening made no sense at all.
“Why are you—” The gun fired. The priest felt himself carried back as something slammed into his chest. A jumble of confused images flashed in his mind like the lights on emergency vehicles at a bad traffic accident. Have I been shot? some part of his brain asked. No, another part concluded. How could that be? It just couldn’t happen.
“Why?” a voice asked. At first the priest thought someone else was there, but then he realized the voice was his.
“Because of what you did,” the man who wasn’t Williams answered.
“But … but I’ve never done anything to you.”
“It doesn’t matter.” The gun fired again, and something tugged at some unidentified part of the priest’s body.
Father Michael was vaguely aware that he was being propped up by a tree, that he was sliding down its trunk. Soon he would be on the soft ground, earth made spongy by the leaves that had fallen and decomposed over hundreds, maybe thousands of years. But instead of finding himself on the ground, he just kept floating slowly downward.
God deserves a better servant than me, he thought.
The word absolution came into his mind then. It seemed important, but he was uncertain what it meant.
God deserves a better servant ….
The thought trailed off, never to be completed.
ONE
“Mummmpf,” Kelsey McNeil said sleepily. “Go away.”
Her husband, who stood beside the bed, gave her a gentle push on the shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “Time to get up. There’s a house full of hungry mouths waiting to be fed.”
Kelsey pulled the pillow over her head, and Stephen took it away. “Up,” he said.
Blinking her eyes into focus, Kelsey looked up at him. At thirty-seven, Stephen was beginning to display the first signs of a middle-aged paunch, and his blond hair was starting to thin. He gave her one of his cheerful first-thing-in-the-day smiles, which always seemed to make his blue eyes twinkle. Knowing she liked to sleep until the last possible moment, he always slipped out of bed, showered, dressed, and got the kids up before waking her.
Kelsey groaned. “How can you be so damned lively first thing in the morning?”
He sighed. “I married a grump. I should have listened to my mother. She warned me about grumps.”
“Did you put on the coffee?” Kelsey asked as she sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the queen-sized bed.
“It’s on.”
“Good. Why don’t you go and watch it trickle out of the machine or something.”
Shaking his head, he turned and left the room. His voice came from the hallway. “We’re running a little late. You’d better hurry.”
Kelsey made her way into the bathroom off the bedroom, the one reserved for the private use of Mom and Dad. After hurriedly showering and using the blow dryer on her hair, she eyed herself in the mirror. She was about five-eight, with brown eyes and blonde hair that was losing its curl because the term permanent, when applied to hair products, was a complete misnomer. Where was Ralph Nader when you needed him? Why didn’t he force the manufacturers to call the stuff temporary hair curler? Mentally shrugging the question aside, she quickly applied her makeup. When she was done, Kelsey concluded that the lightly freckled face in the mirror wasn’t too bad for a thirty-five-year-old mother of two; then she headed for the kitchen.
She found her son, daughter, and husband sitting at the breakfast table. All had orange juice, and five-year-old Hope was eating a bowl of one of those terrible children’s cereals that was heavy on sugar and light on nutrition. Juice and cereal were the extent of Stephen’s culinary abilities. Asking him to put a frozen waffle in the toaster was risking disaster. When Kelsey had to work late, Stephen took the kids to McDonald’s.
Nodding at the assembled group, Kelsey moved directly to the coffee maker, poured herself a cup, and took a swallow. “Okay,” she said, “who wants what?”
“Scrambled eggs and sausage,” Stephen replied.
“Me, too,” said six-year-old Robbie. “Me and Daddy eat a real man’s breakfast, not that old cereal like queers eat.”
“Robbie,” Kelsey said sternly, “you know you’re not supposed to talk like that.”
Hope stuck out a cereal-covered tongue at her brother. Exchanging a glance with Stephen, Kelsey rolled her eyes. Because they were running late, she informed eaters of “a real man’s breakfast” that they’d have to settle for toast with their eggs. She got eggs from the refrigerator and began breaking them into a bowl.
Like their parents, both children were blond, and both had Kelsey’s brown eyes. Hope had her mother’s freckles, while Robbie had Stephen’s ski-jump nose.
They had put off having children until they owned a home and had a little money in the bank. Kelsey had been in her late twenties, Stephen in his early thirties. To Kelsey’s way of thinking, this was by no means too late to begin raising a family, and waiting had spared them a lot of the struggling endured by many young couples with children.
After serving the scrambled eggs and toast to her husband and son, Kelsey sat down with a fresh cup of hot coffee. She rarely ate breakfast; her stomach had absolutely no interest in food before noon. Someone had turned on the small-screen color TV, which sat on a small table beside the oak hutch. Jane Pauley was interviewing a congressman who was saying that the nation had to stop squandering so much money on the military.
Glancing around the room, Kelsey sighed. As usual the kitchen was cluttered. Crayons and coloring books had been piled on the counter. Spaceships from Star Wars or some other movie were arranged on the floor in what looked like a battle formation, and the USS Enterprise had landed on the hutch.
