Something Bad, page 2
The doors of the church opened wide and a slow wave of horrified gasps swept into the church. Gabe shifted to the other side of the door. The morning glare from the doorway spilled a V-shaped beam across the altar, spotlighting the little man’s artwork, and Father Costello’s frozen body.
Back to the hinge side of the door. People flowed in, moving along the walls, avoiding direct movements toward the altar. Within minutes, the group framed the back and two sidewalls of the church.
When the influx of the now-hushed group slowed, a man’s voice boomed in the cavernous room. “Father Costello?”
Gabe lunged back to the other crack just as Father Costello’s paralysis lifted. The chalice fell to the floor with a muted bell ring as he stood on wobbly legs. Without saying a word, he pivoted and hurried into the back room. The back door of the church slammed.
Gabe slid back on the inhouse seat and the door bounced to a rest. A moment later, bright light flooded the inhouse again. He lifted his arms against the luminescence and flailed, trying to fend off something he vaguely remembered as threatening. He wasn’t quite sure what it was. There were voices, different voices, seemingly off in the distance.
“There’s someone in here.” A deep one.
“It’s a boy.” A little higher in tone.
“Who is it?” A woman’s voice?
He flailed his arms as hands touched him, pulled him from his sanctuary, lifted him up, and placed him on a hard wooden pew. He curled into a fetal position and crossed his hands over his head and face. And more voices aimed at him.
“Is he all right?”
“What happened here?”
“Did you see anything?”
“Who is it?”
In answer to his prayers, the room went black again.
CHAPTER
2
Boyston, Tri-counties, 2007
GABE DIDN’T KNOW what was worse, his last hangover or going to Mac McKenna’s general store in the late afternoon. It took two days to get over the first, and today, he couldn’t avoid the second. He knew John Johnson would be holding court on the store porch, and he didn’t relish the prospect of walking through the thick air that always formed between him and John.
Two of the three members of John’s crew were there with him. Billy Smyth sat hunched in his mechanic’s jumpsuit, splotched with the grease of trucks, tractors, and assorted farm machinery. In contrast, Press Cunningham’s pristine overalls bore no evidence of his farm ownership. John stood over the other two, his flannel shirt rolled up to show huge forearms, the left bearing the words, “Semper Fi” in the faded blue of a Viet Nam era tatoo.
Gabe parked to the side opposite “John’s” bench and tried his best to hurry into the store with a nod.
Billy Smyth leaned forward and swiveled on the bench. He flipped his head to the left sending a cascade of straight blond hair toward his ear. It fell back over his left eye. “Gabe. Where you going in such a hurry? Come and sit awhile. John was just telling us about—”
“Billy.” John’s booming voice vibrated the corrugated metal roof over the porch. The crimson flush of John’s face extended to the top of his bald head, highlighted by the horseshoe of grey-silver hair that connected his ears.
Gabe rolled his eyes. Not another one of John’s schemes.
“Come and sit,” Press Cunningham said. “Maybe you can get John off his high horse.”
John scowled at Press.
Gabe suppressed a chuckle. He loved to watch Press mess with John. Of John’s three cohorts—Billy, Press, and Mac McKenna—Press was the only one John didn’t try to bully, and Gabe enjoyed it more than Press did.
It wasn’t a secret why John left Press alone. John’s full name was John J. Johnson, and only one person outside of John’s family knew what the “J” stood for. That was Press.
Gabe shook his head. Secrets were like a narcotic to residents of the Tri-counties. The lifespan of most was short as the locals had snooping and prying down to a science. But none was as long-lived and protected as John’s middle name. John became furious whenever it was mentioned, and Press resisted all attempts to draw out the information.
Gabe thought of how he loved the way life played out in the Tri-counties. It was predictable, but with its share of local intrigue. There was order and understanding, with few surprises. It was no wonder he felt so comfortable here.
Gabe’s mind came back to the porch. “I can’t hang around. I only have a few minutes.” He remained standing. “What’s up?”
Press smoothed the bib on his overalls. They always looked like they were dry cleaned instead of washed and hung out. “You have to hear John’s latest,” Press said. Like John, he was in his mid-fifties, but his clothing hung on him the same as in his youth when he earned the nickname, “No-ass Cunningham.”
“Shut up, Press,” John said.
Gabe rolled his eyes again. He didn’t want to hear John’s latest, or earliest, or middle for that matter. It was bad enough he horned in on their card games, but every time Billy or Press started to tell a good story that involved John, John would shut them up.
Press blew a noisy exhalation and looked up at Gabe. “Heard you had quite a time after the game.”
Gabe smiled. He didn’t want to open up the conversation to John’s ridicule. “Did just fine. Had a bit of a headache, though.”
“You hear about Horace Murtry?” Billy said.
“Shut… up,” John said.
Gabe bounded two steps closer. “No. What happened?”
Billy looked at John and slumped against the bench back.
“Disappeared again, for two days,” Press said. “The way I heard it, he came back smelling like whiskey and women’s perfume, and I ain’t talking about the store bought kind of either.”
John stood up and stomped to the edge of the porch, then turned to face Press. He bobbed his head downward and clenched his fists.
Gabe’s mind accelerated. What was Horace up to? Another of his schemes to frustrate his wife? He shook his head and scanned the group. “Is Miz Murtry doing anything about it?”
“No.” John said. He took a step closer to the bench and positioned himself between Press and Gabe.
The roar of an engine increased in pitch at a rate that suggested an unusual speed for Main Street, and all four men turned their heads to watch a U-Haul whip by. It stirred up a small cloud of the same dust that had been stirring and settling in the town of Boyston for decades.
Billy started to say something but John held his hand up in front of Billy’s face in a stop motion. “Go get Mac,” John said.
No one moved.
The U-Haul turned left at the four-way without stopping, circled behind the church, and skidded to a stop in front of the rectory. All four men turned to face the truck, without a word.
The doors of the U-Haul opened to reveal two of the most mismatched individuals imaginable, even for these parts. What should have been a cacophony of speculative “betchas” was replaced with total silence. Gabe’s eyes flicked back and forth between the two men.
The driver was about the largest human Gabe had ever seen. His arms were as big as the thighs of a normal man, and they were decorated with a series of tattoos that stretched from shoulder to elbow, showing more faded blue decoration than normal skin tone. He wasn’t a young man and his barrel chest gave way to a midsection that was well on its way to dominating his shadow at high noon. He arched his back and stretched his arms skyward, turning his head toward the general store. To Gabe, his nose appeared to be missing its cartilage, like he had been a sparring partner for a series of heavyweight contenders over the past couple of decades. His dirty white tank top was tucked into faded jeans that fell significantly short of the top of well-worn steel-toed work boots.
The giant lumbered to the back of the truck, bringing his passenger into unobstructed view. Only about five feet tall, Gabe thought. Probably weighs in double figures fully clothed.
The man was dressed in a dark gray, three-piece suit over a silver turtleneck that seemed to reflect the sun, even when he was standing in the shade. In contrast to the lumbering walk of the giant, the passenger took small steps that barely placed the heel of one foot ahead of the toe of the other. To Gabe, it looked like he adjusted his gait like he was consciously trying to avoid stepping on sidewalk cracks and concrete spacers.
The passenger ascended the four steps of the rectory porch, bringing both feet to each step before navigating the next. He disappeared through the double doors as the driver raised the sliding door on the back of the truck.
An ache tugged at Gabe’s belly. It was weak, but it was there, and it appeared to be building, rising.
The giant man jockeyed a large wooden crate to the edge of the truck bed. The U-Haul was the smallest one available, and the box took up nearly the entire back of the truck. Its apparent weight made Gabe take a silent wager that it was highly unlikely the two men could lower the box out of the truck, much less carry it up the stairs into the rectory. As the giant inched the box to a tilting balance point part way over the edge of the truck bed, the passenger appeared from the doors of the building.
The giant grunted and strained against the box in a futile effort to lift the protruding edge, and Gabe counted the proceeds of his imaginary bet.
Billy Smyth uttered the only words that came from the general store porch over the next minute or so. “I betcha—” was interrupted by a jerky movement of the small man; his hands clenched into tiny fists, his elbows bent slightly, and his torso curled forward. The box appeared to lighten so the giant could easily lift it out of the truck. It looked like the only problem facing the giant now was the awkwardness of the box’s size.
Gabe bent forward slightly as a stomach cramp shot through to his backbone.
The giant maneuvered the box like it was made of styrofoam, first up onto the sidewalk and then up the rectory steps. The whole time, the small man remained at the top of the steps and kept his wide-eyed gaze on the ungripped end of the box. He turned his whole body rather than his neck as it was moved toward him. The little man walked backwards ahead of the box, through the rectory doors, never changing his unique posture.
“You see that?” Billy said. No one answered.
The beginnings of another contraction grumbled through Gabe’s midsection, so he shifted his weight and took a deep breath. He wanted to go into the store. Tending to his business would dull the cramps, but he couldn’t move. He needed to see what happened next.
John turned to say something, but he spun back around when Billy flicked his eyes back to the rectory. The two strangers emerged from the doors and stopped on the porch. The small man presented the large man with a white envelope, and the giant turned on his heels and jogged to the U-Haul. He sped away like he wanted to put a great deal of distance between him and his employer as quickly as possible.
The little man moved back toward the rectory doors, but suddenly spun around, stiff-necked, to face the general store.
Gabe felt the little man’s eyes burn into his, and his stomach let loose with a powerful pain that nearly doubled him over. Hair raised on his arms. He felt like he was looking through a telescope, with a fix on the man—nothing in the periphery of his vision. His knees went weak. The little man had high-arching eyebrows and a mouth guarded by narrow lips that were straight for most of their length. The corners of his mouth appeared to turn in upward arcs, ninety degrees, giving the mouth a strange grin. But the upward turns didn’t look the same as the lips. His eyes were dark, cold looking, as if there were no irises, only pupils.
A shock of panic hit Gabe from head-to-toe all at once. He wanted to drop on the ground and curl up into a ball. His heart produced an extra beat, then another, and his throat felt thick, full. Lightheadedness darkened his peripheral vision. No way this should be happening here, in his comfort zone.
As quickly as the little man made the long-distance visual acquaintance, he terminated the greeting with a pivot, again with stiff neck, and short-stepped back into the rectory.
Someone spoke, but Gabe didn’t focus on it. His mind was closing down. Something in its deep recesses tried to warn him that the little man was familiar, and evil, but that was as far as it went. Gabe had no active recollection of the man, yet connections were coming, each with a wrong-number hang-up. He resisted the urge to drop to the floor, and hunched slightly to get control of his heart. The words came out of his mouth involuntarily, but loud, interrupting John in mid-sentence.
“Something bad.”
“What?” Billy said.
Gabe blinked three times and focused on the three men. “Huh?”
“You said, ‘Something bad,’“ John said. “You know that man?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Gabe said. “Must have been day dreaming. I have to go now. See you later.” Gabe turned and headed for his pickup.
“Thought you had to do some shopping,” John said.
Gabe didn’t react. A command echoed in his head, its source unknown. “You’ll forget what you saw today if you know what’s good for you.” But who had said it? Did it have to do with the little man in the rectory? Was it a clue to his missing years? He had to find out. Even though his instinct screamed for him to run.
CHAPTER
3
Lake Oswald, Jefferson County, Two weeks later
A BRIGHT STREAM of crimson light shot through his closed eyelids and heated the pain in his head. Gabe curled tighter, into a ball. He crossed his arms over his head, bringing his hands over his eyes, but the pain wouldn’t go away. It throbbed with his pulse, way too fast. He turned slightly, and the surface gave with his weight. He was in a space that was small, confined—he felt something solid with his feet and with the top of his head. He knew his left side was on some kind of soft floor, and his back against a soft wall. Then, he felt the cold. A shiver started in his back and diverged into two waves; one ran down his legs and the other up his torso. The violence of the first wave pulled his hands away from his eyes and he closed them tight to keep the light from getting through. The pulsing pain in his head crashed like cymbals with the effort. It felt like his head was expanding and contracting with each heartbeat. He turned away from the light.
His right arm hit something hard. Or, was it the left? With his arms crossed and the pain in his head, he had trouble telling. But whatever arm it was, it hit something hard. He pushed his back against the wall and pulled into a tighter ball. Both arms hit. It was solid, immovable, and right in front of his head.
He was always safe when he curled up. He could roll up his mind into a tight ball, just like his body, and let it go black. But now, the light pulled at him, unfolding his mind from its dark cocoon. And the light carried something hard, closing in on his head. He had to do something. He had to get away.
Gabe pushed his hands outward at the hard object, and his legs involuntarily kicked. The force pushed his head against the opposite wall hard, amplifying the pulsing pain. He struck, then grabbed the hard object, and twisted, trying to move it away. It turned slightly with his push.
Light flooded his eyes and his mind let it in. The blurred image showed a horizon, removed from his immediate view by a tall ledge. His focus moved from the light to the ledge, and to a large, round dial with numbers in a circle. Closer in, a large ring projected from the ledge.
Gabe’s mind was slow to put the images together through the pain, but the initial sensation was of familiarity. Friendly familiarity. He shifted his eyes downward toward his feet and a bright beam of orange cut through the horizon directly into his eyes. He cringed, eyes shut, and felt the give of the wall against his head. His unfolding mind was making connections now, and his anticipation turned the pain loose again. He was … in his truck. He was curled up on the seat of his truck.
The connections were now outpacing the pain pulses. He was in his truck. Last night was card night. He was in the front seat of his truck sleeping off the Jack Daniel’s from his bi-weekly card game. Maybe if he drank more frequently the alcohol wouldn’t have such an effect. His stomach growled in agreement. Then, another sensation elbowed its way in. He had to pee.
He reached for the top of the steering wheel and pulled himself up on the seat. The long, angled gearshift poked into his side. He looked down at the floorboard, at the rubber bellows that hid the entry of the gearshift into the floor, and smiled. The original leather casing disintegrated years ago. But two years back, when he was junking an old washing machine, he noticed the rubber bellows sealing the washer’s transmission shaft against the outer water tub. It fit perfectly on the gearbox of his truck and solved his annoyance of seeing daylight through the floorboard.
His smile faded. The stretch of the bellows was severe left, down. “I left it in reverse?” Gabe said out loud. “I always leave it in first.” No wonder it’s poking me, he thought.
He shifted his weight so he could raise his head over the dashboard and supported himself with a straight left arm. He rubbed his right eye, then his left with his right fist, and waited until the blazing afterimages faded. He squinted at the morning, forgetting about his pounding head.
“What the hell?” He fell into a fetal ball on the truck seat so fast the last word came from beneath his arms, which were crossed over his face and head. His knees bumped against the gearshift and the steering wheel brushed his right ear.
It’s a lake, he thought. I’m right on the edge of a lake. He relaxed his body a little. “Which one?” he said out loud.
He pulled himself back up by the steering wheel and squinted to his left, following the bank of the lake off in the distance. His head started to pulse again. He gripped the steering wheel with both hands, so tight his knuckles went white, and flicked his gaze to the right. He followed the lakeshore into the distance. Looked left again.
