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Eighteen
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Devourer of Souls The Skylark Diner
THE SKYLARK DINERFather Ward closes the journal but doesn’t look up for several minutes as he taps its cover with a fingertip. His expression looks similar to the one I’ve always imagined wearing after finishing Gavin’s latest batch of stories: one of incredulous, amazed unease.Of course, neither Father Ward nor Fitzy has read many of Gavin’s stories. They apparently decided early on there was a limit to what they wanted to “know” about this town. It’s become understood that Gavin’s stories are strictly for him and I. This story, however, felt intended for Father Ward. At the very least, he figured so largely in it I believed he needed to read it.When Father Ward still hadn’t spoken after another minute, I broke the silence. “When’s the last time you saw Nate Slocum?”Father Ward glances at me, his expression thoughtful. “Months. Think maybe I ran into him at The Great American one day, buying groceries. We chatted briefly about nothing in particular. He seemed okay. I mean, not
Devourer of Souls The Man in Yellow
THE MAN IN YELLOW
Devourer of Souls One
ONE. . . so I’m not sure how this goes. ‘Forgive me Father, for I have sinned?’ Except I’m not Catholic. I’m not much of anything, anymore.”I leaned closer to the confessional grate, amused. Back when I was fresh out of seminary I might’ve offered a mild rebuke or advised the penitent to seek counsel at either the institution of their denomination, or from a professional counselor. However, after years of experience I’ve come to realize that sometimes folks simply need relief from their burdens. These days I’m more than happy to offer an ear, regardless of their denomination, or lack thereof.“That’s quite all right. You’ve come here because you need comfort. I can’t promise you freedom from pain in this life, or that I’ve any advice that’ll solve your problems. I can promise, however, that I’ll listen and offer you what comfort I can.”The man shifted on the cushions in the adjoining booth. “Thanks, Father. This isn’t a problem anyone can solve, really. It’s just . . . ” More sh
Devourer of Souls Two
TWOI grew up in Tahawus, a small town here in the Adirondacks. If you’ve never heard of it, Father, don’t feel bad. Tahawus didn’t have much in the way of . . . well, anything. At a population of barely a hundred, we weren’t exactly a planned stop on anyone’s tourist agenda.Which was okay, I suppose. Old Forge and Lake George are nice enough, but in the summers especially, their sidewalks are always swamped with city folks who’d decided on a “wilderness” vacation only to spend it browsing kitschy knick-knack stores jammed full of cheap novelty items. In Tahawus, we had none of that, so far off the beaten path. Hardly anyone from outside ever came to town, save occasional product deliveries to our small stores. Mostly, folks either graduated from Tahawus High, stayed there to raise families, or they left for college and never returned.We didn’t even have a police force of our own. The nearest state police barracks was over an hour away in Woodgate. We only saw them on their random
Devourer of Souls Three
THREEJuly, 1992“What’s that smell? Geez. That’s nasty.”Bobby Simmons stopped on the well-worn path in the woods behind Tahawus First Methodist, tripped his inhaler and sucked in a wheezing breath. I stopped and sniffed, grimacing at something that smelled sour, like a bag of week-old fried chicken I’d once found in our fridge. That, however, didn’t begin to match this stench, especially on a warm July evening. Whatever we smelled had been rotting all day in 70-degree weather. It was just off the path to our right, in the brush somewhere.Bobby took another wheezing hit from his inhaler, then a swig of his Dr. Pepper. He swallowed and squinted through fish-bowl glasses into the woods. “Wanna check it out?”I shrugged, following his gaze into the undergrowth. We were skipping Sunday evening church, like always. We’d slipped from the balcony during opening prayers, then cut through the woods behind First Methodist along a path to the gas station on Wolton Road. There we bought sod
Devourer of Souls Four
FOURWe made it back to church just as the final hymn rose into full swing. We ditched our empty soda bottles in the dumpster out back. Then we snuck around front, through the front doors, through the foyer and up the balcony stairs. Everything was going according to plan, until we peeked around the corner into the balcony and saw a man sitting in the front row who hadn’t been there when we’d left.Even sitting, he looked tall and imposing. His wide shoulders stretched his impossibly bright yellow suit jacket. Leaning just a bit farther around the corner, I caught the sunny flash of his pant leg and realized his whole suit was a blazing, almost nauseatingly bright yellow. He was leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees, chin perched on folded hands. He gazed down upon the congregation with a hungry, intense scrutiny. Like a predatory bird, I thought, stalking its unsuspecting prey.And then, slowly . . . he smiled.Tapping his nose with his index finger, on which glittered a ri
Devourer of Souls Five
FIVEBobby and I parted that night with very little to say, though at the time I’d thought that was because of the congregation’s rush to the parking lot after the service. Bobby got caught up with his family, me with Dad. Looking back, however, I realize that something had already started worming its way between us, which, of course, I didn’t know at the time.I tried not to think about those dead dogs and that weird altar thing as Dad silently drove home. Like anyone faced with something they didn’t understand, I wrapped it up in a little box and shoved it deep down inside me.We were always hearing about weird stuff like that, anyway. A few years before, folks had found dead skinned cats next to the railroad tracks behind the high school. Most kids thought the abandoned barn sitting in an old cornfield on the edge of town was haunted. A ghost girl supposedly haunted Bassler Road on the way to Clifton Heights.Every small town has its creepy stories. Even though our town was smal
Devourer of Souls Six
SIXWhen Dad came to my room that night, I was doing as always before bed: strumming a few unplugged chords on my fender. The feel of strings vibrating under my fingers always helped me relax. Plus, it was my daily ritual. I was going to be a star someday, a shredder the likes of Slash or Mick Mars or Nikki Six.Of course, I didn’t have much talent. Very little separated me from thousands of other young metal heads across the country. Best I ever managed on the guitar was adequate. The biggest venue I ever played was in a Motley Crue cover band named Dr. Feelgood in the Utica bars a few years later. But still, every kid has his dream. Big-time lead guitarist of a platinum-album rock band was mine.Anyway, that night I was strumming a classic Eagles tune—“Hotel California” —when Dad nudged my bedroom door open, leaned back against the door jamb and asked quietly, “What’d you think of Reverend Alistair’s message tonight? We’re awful blessed to have someone of his stature preaching for
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Devourer of Souls Coda
CODAThe welcome sign for Tahawus is up ahead on the right. A glance at the dashboard clock on my JEEP shows that, indeed, it is only about forty minutes away from Clifton Heights. I find that hard to believe. It feels like we’ve been driving for hours. Of course, I’ve learned in my few years in the Adirondacks that the back roads feel endless, surrounded on both sides by thick, seemingly impenetrable stands of Adirondack pine. A thirty minute drive to Old Forge feels like an hour and half, most days.As I slow for the turn-off, I glance at Father Ward in the passenger seat. He sits with Nate Slocum’s journal in his lap, staring out the window. He’s been quiet for most the trip. I don’t blame him. His encounter with Stuart Michael Evans sounded harrowing. Of course, he’s now telling himself that clicking sound from Stuart fleeing the confessional booth must’ve been his walker, and not . . . something else. That Stuart had suffered some sort of hysterical break instead of . . .Chang
Devourer of Souls Twenty-Three
TWENTY-THREENowFortunately not everyone in town was at church that night. A scattered few—those devoted non-attendees our faithful little town tolerated—had of course been at home. Some of them were volunteer firemen. They were the ones who found me in the basement the next morning.“Somehow I didn’t break my neck falling down those stairs. The heat and the smoke of course rose and enough of the floor held and didn’t collapse on me. I ended up spending only a week over at Clifton Heights General for mild injuries and smoke inhalation. I did, however, suffer ligament damage in my knees and ankles from the fall, exacerbated because of my CP. For several weeks I got around first in a wheel chair, then with a walker.”I sat back in the confessional booth, speechless, deeply concerned for the poor man’s soul, wondering about his sanity . . .Except.I distinctly remembered the burning of Tahawus Methodist Church, the summer after my senior year in high school. My father had helped o
Devourer of Souls Twenty-Two
TWENTY-TWOEver see the movie Backdraft, Father? By the summer of my senior year, everyone including me had. A good enough movie, it was mostly forgettable, except there’s this scene in which one of the fireman characters mistakenly opens a door without checking the knob for heat first. When he opens the door, his ass gets fried by a huge gout of flame. A backdraft, caused by the sudden rush of oxygen.Now, I’m not exactly sure if that’s what I was trying to accomplish. Point in fact, I didn’t end up causing a backdraft. For that you need a smoldering fire that’s used up all the oxygen in a room. But hey—I wasn’t a firefighter or arsonist. I was a scared and pissed off (but mostly scared) eighteen year old trapped in a room with no way out. The door was guarded and it didn’t matterby whom, because I wasn’t gonna be waltzing by them any time soon.That chanting was getting louder. Weirder. The words all jumbled and mixed together, like from my nightmare of what I’d seen in that clear
Devourer of Souls Twenty-One
TWENTY-ONEThroughout his entire talk with me, the muffled sound of hymns had drifted from the sanctuary through the storeroom door. When he left, the hymns rose into a crescendo, exploding into a chanting the likes of which I’d never heard before. His voice boomed in that strange language I remembered from my dreams. I imagined him striding up onto the stage, arms spread high into the air, yellow suit blazing with unnatural light, the flesh on his face hanging loose as the thing that hid behind it got closer to finally coming out.I hauled myself to my feet, gasping at the pain exploding in my ankles and knees, gritting my teeth against a sudden surge of bile. Somehow I managed not to puke, leaning back against the shelf, gasping for air, trying to gather my resources for one last final . . .What?What could I possibly do? The man in yellow had covered all the angles. Had obviously planned this whole thing out long before he’d come here. Hell, he’d done it before, apparently, in
Devourer of Souls Twenty
TWENTYWhen I awoke I found myself lying face first on a thinly carpeted floor. My head pounded, feeling about twice its normal size, throbbing behind my eyes. I licked dry, cracked lips and felt my stomach heave.I felt enormously tired. Fuck it all, right? I didn’t understand any of this. Didn’t understand why it was happening. How it could happen so fast. How apparently a quaint little Adirondack hamlet had turned into a compound full of crazed cult members in just several days . . .Of course, you’re assuming it didn’t start quietly, long ago.. . . I barely understood what was really going on beneath the surface of things . . .We’re going to be over into His Unknowable image.. . . and I wasn’t sure I cared much, anymore. My best friend or what remained of him was good as gone. My preacher Dad had not only gone full-on religious-nut-loony, he’d apparently set Bobby and me up as targets or even (fucking unbelievable) sacrifices to invite the man yellow into our town. If the
Devourer of Souls Nineteen
NINETEENBobby’s front door slammed shut in the wake of my frenzied escape, a sharp crack disrupting that quiet July morning. Not caring if anyone saw me, I stumbled to a stop on the front walk, covered my face with my hands and breathed in deeply, trying to quiet the pounding in my head.What the hell had I just seen?In all respects, I’m thankful that to this day only distorted, fragmentary half-images remain of what I saw flopping in that water-filled bathtub. Those fingers, fish-belly white and slimy, had sprouted from a hand and arm of the same color. It had reached up from a body the same as it. Huge, bulging and reptilian-fish eyes had glared unblinkingly from beneath the water, and . . . and . . .Gills.Several rows of them, slits on either side of that . . . thing’s neck, from its ears to its collarbone. Gills, puckering in white skin, pink around the edges, fluttering open and shut in rhythmic pulses, bubbling . . . breathing underwater.Thankfully I remembered no more
Devourer of Souls Eighteen
EIGHTEENIt didn’t take long to figure out why Dad hadn’t heard me scream, if indeed I had. The house was empty. Six-thirty in the morning—way too early for VBS to start, but the house was empty. I had no idea where Dad was. I assumed the church. Where else would the pastor of the town’s only church be during VBS? He’d left no note, however, and I had no idea when he’d left. For all I knew, he could’ve gone two hours ago, thirty minutes ago, or maybe he’d even snuck out last night after I’d fallen asleep. He always made his bed in the morning, so that didn’t offer much in the way of evidence.All these things tumbled through my head as I sat at the den table, staring into nothing. I didn’t know what to think or feel. Three days ago, Bobby and I had skipped the opening Sunday night services of our annual VBS to get snacks from the gas station and to chill. On the way back to the church we stumbled across those two dead dogs and that weird alter with the symbol carved into it. Both of
Devourer of Souls Seventeen
SEVENTEENAmazingly, Dad didn’t wake when I screamed. In fact, I’m not sure whether or not I did scream aloud. All I really remember is jerking upright, heart banging, head pounding, sweating bullets and what sounded like a scream fading in my head.After about fifteen minutes—during which my heart hammered like I’d just finished a marathon—no sounds came from Dad’s room next door. No stirring of bedsprings, no creaking of floor boards, nothing.Eventually, my heart slowed down and my hyperventilating faded. I managed a shaking breath and ran a hand through my sweat-damp hair. I tried to piece together my second nightmare that week. Like last time, only blurred fragments remained. I’d been on the path in the woods heading toward that clearing, from which had come a strange and unsettling but also arousing medley of growling moans, grunting, hissing and yowling . . .The man in yellow.He’d been there. His face had looked different, however. Like a loose-fitting rubber mask. I reme
Devourer of Souls Sixteen
SIXTEENIn the dream I was walking down the path again, this time at night. I shouldn’t have been able to see much, but the moon above seemed strangely large and bright. It cast an odd luminescence that filtered through the trees, bathing everything in an eerie yellow glow. The path seemed different. Alien. As if I didn’t belong there. It looked like the path running through the woods from the gas station to the church, but it also looked like it led elsewhere, somewhere different . . .Somewhere beyond.Up ahead on my left, I recognized the break in undergrowth leading to the clearing where Bobby and I discovered those two dead dogs and that weird altar. As I quickened my pace, compelled toward that clearing, I felt myself moving along the path smoothly, quickly, with purpose, strength and ease. I was walking with a rhythmic, even gait. I felt no pain in my extremities or my lower back at all.I didn’t look down at my legs, however, just marveled at how fluidly I was moving down t
