Suffer the Children Come Unto Me

SUFFER THE CHILDREN COME UNTO ME

1.

He shields his eyes with his careworn Bible as he approaches a sandstone hovel on the village’s outskirts. The sun’s rays are bouncing off the hovel’s tin roof, casting a harsh glare that stings his eyes. He pushes on however, despite the sun and the cold unease souring his guts.

He wants to run away. He knows he should, on some primal level. But he can’t. He’s come here so many times, and no matter how hard he tries not to, he knows he’ll come here again.

Because this is where everything changed.

This is where he learned True Evil exists. It’s also where his faith was exposed for a lie.

As he approaches the hovel’s rectangular entrance, a darkness oozes toward him like a viscous black slime. Cold air wafts from the doorway, rippling across his skin, smelling of death and rotting things.

He steps closer, muttering prayers which sound like meaningless gibberish, clutching his rosary tight. He hears the screams. The thrashing body. He hears profanities and an incomprehensible tongue . . .

go fuck yourself priest!

I know you’re out there!

don’t fuck with me, you goddamn ph’nglui mglw’nafh wgah’nagl fhtagn . . . hastur!

He tells himself again to run away, to flee . . .

But as always, he steps through the hovel’s entrance, into the darkness . . .

And screams.

***

Monday, 3:00 AM

April 17th, 2007

Father Bill Ward stood before the bathroom sink, holding his trembling hands under the cold water rushing from the tap. He closed his eyes, breathed, and splashed water against his face.

The icy shock awakened him completely. He brushed back his hair, opened his eyes and gazed into the mirror. A haunted face stared back. The shadows under his eyes and the pallor of his skin spoke of how little sleep he’d been getting. His face looked much thinner than a year ago, when he’d first returned from Afghanistan. No surprise, because he hadn’t been eating well. Not hungry most days, which was ironic. During his tour he’d wished every day for good, solid American food instead of MREs, but now that he was home? He could barely stomach rice or toast, let alone a full meal.

Because his nightmares wouldn’t go away.

They didn’t come every night, but they troubled his sleep often enough, waking him around 2 or 3 AM. Usually, he was unable to fall back asleep for fear of slipping into another nightmare.

This morning, however, weariness tugged at his mind. Maybe for once he could return to sleep. His eyelids fluttered, fatigue sweeping over him . . .

priest!

where’s your faith?

damn you!

Father Ward shivered, eyes snapping open. He turned off the sink’s faucet and glanced at the clock on the bathroom wall. 3:15. Might as well get ready for school. Have some toast, a cup of coffee and attend to his morning devotions, which felt emptier by the day. He hadn’t lost faith in the power of prayer . . . but he was beginning to wonder if anyone was listening to his, anymore.

He turned from the mirror to get dressed, ignoring the whisper threatening to drag him to hell.

Because he was already there.

***

Father Ward sat before his Bible and missal, feeling hollow and frustrated. Today’s reading dealt with the importance of charity and a giving heart. A worthy message, it still felt prescribed and detached from the real world.

He grunted, flipped the missal closed and glanced at his watch. 4:15. If he left now and took the back way (to avoid construction on Main Street) he could get to All Saints early. Stacks of essays were waiting on his desk. Also, there was a faculty meeting after school tonight, and his monthly counseling session with Father Thomas. Given his nightmare this morning, he didn’t think he should miss that.

He stood from the small table in his kitchen to gather his things.

***

5:00 AM

Maybe it was the morning’s cloying dark, but Father Ward couldn’t suppress a slight shiver when he saw it at the intersection of Hollow and Beartown Road.

A school bus.

Idling at the corner.

Its exterior lights blazing in the early morning dark. But the bus was pitch black inside. As he drove past, he couldn’t see anyone sitting behind the wheel.

It was only five in the morning.

Awfully early for school buses.

However, a logical explanation surely existed. Maybe the driver lived in the Heights and drove his bus home last night. Now he needed to start earlier than usual. Admittedly, Father Ward hadn’t driven to school this way before. Maybe a bus always sat here this time of morning.

He didn’t think it was an All Saints bus. Most of those didn’t leave school until six thirty. However, many of the back roads in the Heights were narrow and slow-going. Maybe those drivers left earlier in order to arrive at school on time.

All these explanations sounded logical. They didn’t, however, blunt the vague dread shifting in his belly. Still, he brushed his unease aside. He didn’t have the energy to ponder such mysteries this morning.

But curiosity continued to nibble at the edges of his thoughts all the way to school.

***

All Saints

5:30

Father Ward’s shoes squeaked on tile along the partially lit hall leading to his classroom. At his door, he withdrew his keys, savoring their jingle in the morning silence.

He enjoyed arriving at school early. He’d enjoyed everything about teaching at All Saints. It had been a fine year. He’d nothing but good memories of working with his students, getting to know them, watching them grow and mature. Good, pleasant memories, memories which almost eclipsed other memories . . .

The key half-turned.

He stopped and closed his eyes, gripping the cool brass knob. He breathed deep, pushing away the dark thoughts.

He’d become a good teacher. God had given him a new purpose here at All Saints. What happened in Afghanistan wasn’t his fault. He was only human. He couldn’t predict the future. He couldn’t have foreseen what happened when . . .

Where’s your faith, priest? WHERE?

It wasn’t his fault.

DAMN YOU! BE DAMNED AND KNOW I DAMNED YOU!

One more deep breath. Father Ward turned the key and the knob, opening the door. He entered his classroom, hoping he could forget Afghanistan for now, trying to tell himself what happened hadn’t been his fault, and only partially succeeding.

***

6:00 AM

Father Ward was through half a dozen essays when he heard it: the faint squeak of a large vehicle braking, the distant rumble of its idling engine. His classroom was located in the rear of the high school wing. His windows faced the bus parking lot. It sounded as if the noise was coming from there.

He glanced at the wall clock, which read six. Bus drivers wouldn’t show for another thirty minutes, along with the custodians. He should be the only one on campus.

A faint sense of unease, like he’d felt this morning when passing that odd bus, returned. He stood from his desk and walked toward the windows.

He heard another squeak.

A high pneumatic hissing.

The rumbling pulled away. By the time he drew the blinds aside and peered into the parking lot, red taillights were slipping out the school’s front entrance and down the road.

Father Ward stood and stared for several seconds. On the other side of the parking lot, the elementary wing’s sidewalks were empty. Far as he could see, the high school’s sidewalks were empty, too, except where the sidewalk rounded to the school’s front entrance . . .

A shadow flickered.

Father Ward closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Tired. With the dark slowly brightening to pale dawn, his exhausted eyes had imagined the shadow. That’s all.

Even so, he stood there for several minutes. Watching the sidewalk where it bent around the corner, searching for movement or shadows.

He saw nothing.

***

12:15 PM

Father Ward noticed the new student in his 6th period Catechism class as he took attendance. His class was working on the daily opening exercise explicating a Bible passage he’d written on the white board. In the back row next to the door hunched a slight figure with a scraggly head of hair, hands clasped on his desk.

Father Ward re-checked the class roster on his computer. It showed the usual twenty students, no additions. He frowned, stood and approached the boy.

“Excuse me,” he said, “I don’t have you on my attendance register. Are you new?”

The boy looked up.

Dark eyes met Father Ward’s gaze. A creeping unease filled him as the new student stared at him with a blank expression.

“His name’s Maurice, Father Ward. Maurice Leck. Moe for short. He’s shadowing me today, visiting All Saints. Might transfer here next year.”

Father Ward glanced at the speaker, sitting next to “Moe.” Bobby Mavis’ parents Eileen and Lee had been no account white trash who’d also run a bargain-rate meth operation from their trailer in the Commons Trailer Park. One day while Bobby was in school, their ramshackle little meth lab exploded. The incident caused enough of a stir to warrant a brief mention on the national news.

In a macabre way, many folks viewed the explosion as a blessing. The Department of Social Services hounded Bobby’s parents for years with no success, citing multiple incidents of parental neglect. Despite teachers and counselors’ best efforts, it appeared likely Bobby would follow his parents’ misbegotten path. The explosion was viewed as much as Providence as it was clumsiness. Free from his parents, Bobby became a ward of the state and was placed in the Boys of Faith Residence Home, located in a stately old Colonial on Clarke Street. Father Ward himself worked the summers there during his seminary years.

All Saints headmaster Father Thomas served on its Board of Directors. Soon after his placement, Bobby Mavis began attending All Saints Elementary. A bright, happy boy, Bobby flourished, a true testament to the good work being done at Boys of Faith.

Father Ward offered what he hoped was a friendly smile. “I see.” Back at Maurice. “Do you attend Clifton Heights, then? Or maybe Webb High or Old Forge?”

The boy’s wooden face remained expressionless, his gaze distant. “I’m home-schooled,” Moe said, “and my father wants more structure in my education.”

Father Ward nodded. “Excellent. I hope your father will find the structure you need here. How long will you be shadowing us?”

Maurice blinked and spoke what sounded like a pre-recorded script. “Only today. He’ll make a decision by the end of the week.”

“Well then. I hope your experience proves fruitful.”

Maurice nodded stiffly, staring at him, but he said nothing more. Father Ward nodded back, feeling uneasy and yes, why not admit it?

A little afraid.

Which was foolish. Surely he was only spooked by this morning’s nightmare. Surely that was the source of his unease. There was nothing to fear from this boy.

Surely.

However, returning to his desk to gather the day’s lesson, he didn’t like turning his back on the new student. Not one little bit.

***

3:15 PM

Before heading to the library for the faculty meeting, Father Ward slipped through the main office to the guidance counselor’s wing to ask after Maurice Leck. Usually he received an email from guidance when a prospective student was shadowing his class. He hadn’t this time, although he knew the entire school’s population was split among only two guidance counselors, making their days hectic. However, it was hardly a crisis. Shadows appeared unannounced in his classes often.

Regardless, after his Catechism class he hadn’t been able to shake the sense of cool disdain he’d seen in Maurice’s eyes. Much as he hated to admit it, something about the boy bothered him. A twinge in his gut, nothing more . . . but his years of religious service in the military taught him to take such twinges seriously.

He stopped at Elizabeth Hull’s office and knocked on the door-frame. Elizabeth, a petite woman with shoulder-length blond hair, glanced up from her computer and smiled. “Father Ward. What’s up?”

He leaned against the door-frame. “Got a question. Had a student shadowing Bobby Mavis in my Catechism class today. Didn’t get an email.”

Elizabeth grimaced. “Sorry. Been getting ready for Advanced Placement tests next week and things have been crazy around here. Totally slipped my mind. Realized it around lunch today.” Elizabeth offered him an apologetic grin. “You’re not the only one, don’t worry. I totally dropped the ball.”

Father Ward waved. “No problem. Just curious. He acted . . . oddly.”

Elizabeth wrinkled her nose while she clicked her computer’s mouse. “Yeah, his situation is unusual. His father arranged the visit over the phone but we didn’t have our usual introductory face-to-face meeting because he lives out of town—downstate, somewhere—and Maurice is staying with an aunt over in Inlet. So his father called, I ran through all the registration protocols and we arranged the visit.” She clicked the mouse once more and said, “Ah. Here it is.”

Father Ward moved to her shoulder and read the computer screen. “Maurice Leck. Age fifteen, freshman. Previously home schooled.”

Surprisingly, he saw nothing else. “That’s it? His father didn’t give any reasons for considering All Saints, or for moving his son here?”

“Nope. And this early in the game, with all the privacy policies these days, Father Thomas doesn’t let us probe a student’s background. If the father calls back after the visit and wants to enroll his son, then we investigate deeper.”

She leaned back in her chair and pursed her lips. “How did he strike you? Bit of a cold fish for me. Quiet and distant. Not outright rude, but he sorta acted like . . . ” she paused, appearing to search for the correct words, “ . . . like he wasn’t there.”

Father Ward nodded slowly. “Yes. Quietly dismissive. Remote. Like he was going through the motions.”

“Yep. As if I was a box on his list to be checked off, nothing more. Could’ve been talking to a wall, honestly.”

“Anyone meet whomever dropped him off this morning?”

Elizabeth frowned. “Now that you mention it . . . I’m not sure. He must’ve signed in and spoke to someone, because he came to my office wearing a visitor’s sticker.” She shrugged. “I’ll check. Anything comes up, I’ll holler.”

Father Ward smiled. “Thanks. Now. Any chance you can take my place at the faculty meeting tonight?”

She smirked; suddenly busy shuffling papers on her desk. “You’re on your own there, Father. My condolences.”

Though he chuckled, a small knot of unease twisted in his guts. The few answers he’d received only incited new questions. Also, try as he might, Father Ward still couldn’t shake the memory of Maurice Leck’s cold black eyes.

***

Thankfully the faculty meeting didn’t last long. Father Thomas managed to move things along at a brisk pace. Somehow, they avoided the tedious issue of dress code violations; for once no one complained of untucked shirts, too-short skirts or non-regulation colored socks.

The meeting adjourned at four. Having lasted only forty-five minutes instead of its usual hour and a half, Father Ward had thirty minutes to grade two more essays before heading to Father Thomas’s office for his mandatory monthly counseling session.

Father Thomas’s office appeared more suited to a college professor than a Headmaster of a Catholic school in the Adirondacks. Everything was polished oak: the desk, bookshelves, and wall-paneling. The two chairs before Father Thomas’s desk gleamed of black leather. Books filled the shelves. Having been there many times, Father Ward knew the subjects ranged from Theology, Counseling Practices, Educational Philosophy and World Religions to literary classics. On the wall behind Father Thomas’s chair hung the requisite framed degrees and certificates from seminaries and graduate schools, as well as a Certificate of High School Administration.

Despite the decor, the room managed to feel warm and inviting, not stuffy or pretentious. Accompanying the framed degrees were pictures of Father Thomas with former students on graduation night, some of them (judging by hair styles and the gentle progression of Father Thomas’s age) going back twenty years. In stark contrast to the weighty literature they housed, knick-knacks lined Father Thomas’s two bookshelves from all the institutions he’d attended: Le Moyne, Syracuse, and Binghamton University.

Altogether, Father Thomas’s office managed to feel both stately and comfortable, the latter having to do mostly with Father Thomas himself. Standing nearly six foot four with wide shoulders but a trim build, Father Thomas carried himself like an ex-athlete with a quiet grace instead of a fifty-five year old priest. His steel gray hair—thick and wavy—portrayed strength and wisdom, not age. His lined face appeared rugged and weathered, not old.

His eyes glowed an earnest blue. This, more than anything else, gave his office its relaxing warmth. They could, however, cut a person to the quick with one glance. Not coincidentally, All Saints suffered few discipline problems.

Today Father Thomas’s eyes were warm and sympathetic, filled with concern as he perched on the edge of his desk, another casual mannerism belying his impressive office. Crossing his arms, Father Thomas regarded him closely and said with no preamble, “So Bill. How’s the last month been? Sleeping any better?”

Father Ward shifted, slightly uncomfortable despite the chair’s cushion. He opened his mouth, considered lying . . .

But he sighed and admitted, “Not so much. It comes and goes. Some nights, fine. Others—like last night—no.”

“Nightmares?”

“Yes.”

“Can you describe them?”

Father Ward clenched his hands in his lap, cracking his knuckles. “There’s not much to tell. Not any different from the usual. It’s always of Afghanistan. I’m part of a detachment providing domestic aide to the locals. There’s this sandstone hovel, on the village outskirts. Someone . . . something is screaming inside. And, though I know I shouldn’t go in . . . I do, anyway.”

“What happens then?”

He gripped his hands so hard his knuckles ached. “Nothing. Darkness. Then, laughter. Low and cold. The evilest sound I’ve ever heard. Then, an explosion. And I wake, screaming.”

He met Father Thomas’s somber gaze, smiling weakly. “Good thing I don’t have any roommates. Probably would’ve scared them all off, by now.”

Father Thomas smiled gently in return. “Let’s shift our focus. How are things in the classroom? Still running smoothly? I hear nothing but good reports from students and parents.”

Father Ward nodded, relaxing. This he could speak genuinely of. “Fine. Great, actually. I’ve enjoyed working here.” He broke into a wry grin. “Teaching high school students has certainly been an eye-opening experience. I’m sure I’ve learned more from them than they’ve learned from me. This school year has truly been a blessing. All my students . . . ”

He faltered.

Remembering Maurice Leck’s cold, dark and empty eyes.

But somehow he pushed on, hardly missing a beat, and if Father Thomas noticed, he didn’t show it. “ . . . all my students have been a blessing. Teaching has been a blessing. I’m thankful to both you and the Diocese for offering me this chance to heal. To rebuild. Especially after what happened.”

“You mean your breakdown,” Father Thomas said simply and directly, but with compassion. “The nervous breakdown you suffered.”

Stated with such simplicity and kindness, Father Ward, perhaps for the first time, felt no shame. “Yes,” he breathed. “This year has been restorative, to say the least.”

“But not completely.”

Father Ward bit his cheek. “No. Still have those dreams, of course. And I’m fine while teaching and hearing confessions at the church. When I’m alone . . . ”

“You dwell on it,” Father Thomas answered for him. “You wonder if there’s anything you could’ve done differently to save those three soldiers.”

Father Ward nodded, swallowing, his throat suddenly tight. “Yes,” he rasped. “Also . . . I wonder . . . ”

Father Thomas lifted an eyebrow. “What?”

Father Ward looked away. He’d avoided this subject their past several sessions—largely at Father Thomas’s insistence, because of how agitated it made him—but he felt compelled to speak of it today, for some reason. “I wonder what I really saw in there.”

Father Thomas’s voice remained level, betraying no recrimination. “How’s your . . . obsession been? Been searching the Net for demon lore?”

He shook his head. After Afghanistan, he’d gotten stuck in a rut. Researching demons, their summoning rights, “binding spells” and rites of exorcism. It became an obsession interfering with his duties, ultimately leading to his discharge. “No,” he whispered truthfully.

“Sure you want to go into this, then? If you’re not ready, it could cause you to regress.”

Father Ward looked at Father Thomas, suppressing his fear. “Think so. Yes. The question keeps coming to me, over and over . . . and I think . . . I know . . . I have to start dealing with this. If I don’t, I’ll never put it behind me.”

“Indeed.” Father Thomas straightened, squaring his shoulders as if readying for an athletic contest. “What do you think you saw in Afghanistan, Father Ward?”

“EVIL,” he murmured quickly, decisively. “I saw pure, unadulterated, True Evil.”

“Of course you did. Insurgents learned of your platoon’s movements and were waiting in ambush. They meant to kill all of you. And to do so, they’d strapped bombs to a six-year old girl. If that’s not evil I don’t what is.”

Father Ward shook his head, resolution hardening inside. They’d encountered this impasse several times already and each time he’d relented.

Not this time, however.

“There was something else there, Father Thomas. Something different. An ephemeral force. A presence. Yes, what those men did was evil. Humans are capable of so much evil, born of anger, hatred, jealousy, cruelty, negligence, prejudice, unkindness, pride and greed . . . but what I sensed emanating from her . . . ”

He made himself meet Father Thomas’s gaze. “It felt bigger. Like a source. Also . . . ”

Father Thomas shifted his arms, folding his hands at his waist, interested. They’d never gotten this far in their counseling sessions before. “She spoke to you. According to your debriefing this little girl spoke to you. In ways a little girl shouldn’t.”

where’s your faith, priest?

DAMN YOU!

Father Ward barely repressed a shudder. “She was . . . obscene. Profane. Blasphemous. Spoke in a deep, guttural voice. The strange thing was . . . it sounded Arabic, and only knowing basic Arabic, I shouldn’t have understood it. But I heard the words in English. Well, most of them. Some of it sounded like gibberish. But I still heard it in my head. And the men in the hovel. The insurgents. They may have strapped those bombs to her, may have set things into motion, but they were not in control. They were paralyzed with fear, I’m sure of it.”

Father Thomas rubbed his chin. “‘Set things into motion.’ Can you elaborate?”

Father Ward sighed. This was, after all, where his memories grew hazy. “Incense or herbs or something else aromatic was burning in several bowls scattered around the hut. I saw old books. Designs scratched into the floor and on the walls. I couldn’t quite tell of what.”

“So you believe they . . . ”

Father Ward inclined his head. “Invoked a powerful force. Invited something. Offered the little girl to it. I . . . believe something was dwelling in her body.”

“But consider this, Father Ward: How could such a young, naturally innocent girl deserve possession? How could a demon possess an innocent?”

Resolve thrummed deep in Father Ward’s gut. Setting his jaw, he forced himself to meet Father Thomas’s gaze. “You read the report. You know what I said.”

“I’d like to hear it from you.”

Father Ward exhaled, forcing himself to relax, trying to loosen the tension coiling in his guts. “Dead. She was already dead.”

“And you know this . . . how?”

“Her throat had been cut. Blood . . . all over her clothes and the bombs.”

“Allowing the demon possession of her body.”

Father Ward nodded slowly.

“What do you imagine their plans were?”

He shrugged. “Have the demon march the little girl’s corpse into a crowd? Or right into a group of soldiers. But we happened upon them first, so . . . ”

“And after this . . . demon-possessed girl, we’ll say . . . shouted obscenities at you, she . . . it . . . ”

“Challenged me,” Father Ward rasped.

“Excuse me?”

Father Ward swallowed. “It challenged me. Challenged my faith. Challenged the power of God and Christ, the Sovereignty of the Church. It knew me. Called me by name. And . . . I failed.”

“Failed? You were faced with a little girl strapped with explosives and insurgents bent on your death and the deaths of your escorts. And you believe you failed? The odds, Father Ward. For a moment, consider the odds stacked against you.”

He shook his head slowly, understanding how Father Thomas was trying to help . . . but he refused to be swayed. “As I said, the insurgents were no threat. They’d looked paralyzed, weapons pointed at the ground. The only threat lay in what animated the girl’s corpse, and when I . . . I tried to banish it . . . I failed. And good men died as a result.”

“They’d advanced into the hovel ahead of you. Standard procedure, as I understand. They died protecting you, as was their duty.”

Father Thomas folded his arms. “And you were standing nearest the doorway. The explosion threw you ten feet away. You suffered shrapnel lacerations and a grade three concussion. Took you weeks to recover. You hardly escaped unscathed.”

“But I lived.”

Father Thomas grunted. “Survival guilt, nothing more.”

Father Ward opened his mouth to protest but stopped at Father Thomas’s upraised hand. “I’m not saying you’re consciously lying. I believe you believe what you’re saying. But I also believe what’s eating away at you most is an age-old question: why me? Why did I survive?”

The defense he’d been rallying sagged. He closed his eyes and bent his head. Whatever else he believed happened in Afghanistan, Father Thomas was right. It plagued him, hiding in the dark corners of his mind while he conducted his business during the day. Rearing its ugly maw at unexpected times, howling in his nightmares.

Why me?

Why’d I live?

Despite whatever Father Thomas thought, a dread worry nestled in his heart: because It let him live.

To remember.

And to suffer.

He opened his eyes and stared into his clenching and unclenching hands. “So you think I imagined it? Think it didn’t happen the way I remember?”

He looked up and regarded Father Thomas’s carefully neutral expression. “You don’t believe it was demonic possession, do you?”

Father Thomas paused before answering—perhaps searching for the right words—then said, “I believe you encountered a situation horrible enough to make most grown men fall to their knees. I believe you acted with great courage. I also believe you’re suffering under the heavy burden of survivor guilt, which is so common in cases like these. And bearing up under it admirably, all things considered.”

“But you don’t believe the encounter was demonic in nature.”

Father Thomas allowed a small shrug. “I don’t believe we can know anything for sure, with the scant evidence we have. Also, I don’t need to remind you the Catholic Church has developed strict measures in regards to evaluating demonic possession. Not to overstate the obvious, but you aren’t trained in those measures. Wartime conditions begat some amount of papal leniency, but in civilian life, your exorcism attempt would’ve been viewed by the Church as an overstepping of your authority.”

He looked out the window. “So you don’t believe me.”

“Father Ward.”

Father Thomas’s stern tone brought Father Ward’s gaze back, like an adult’s reprimand commanding a child’s attention. When Father Ward met his gaze, however, all he saw in Father Thomas was compassion and sympathy.

“We’ll come back to this, but I think for now we should rest. My advice—and my prayer for you, by the way, over this next month—is you’ll focus less on the supposed supernatural elements of your experience and more on immediate issues like your guilt. You survived neither by mere chance nor by the whims of some evil entity because it wanted you to suffer. You survived because God willed it and because He has more for you to do in this world.”

Father Thomas smiled softly. “And my prayer for you, of course, will be that you’ll come to believe it over the next few weeks. Even if only a little.”

***

5:00 PM

When Father Ward pushed through the school’s front doors he was still thinking about his session with Father Thomas, so he barely noticed the lone school bus exiting the parking lot. He caught its number—253—but dismissed it instantly, his attention drawn somewhere else: Bobby Mavis standing on the curb, staring into space. Arms hanging at his sides, back-pack slumped on the sidewalk at his feet.

Father Ward approached him. “Bobby. Everything okay?”

Bobby said nothing. Worried but unsure why, Father Ward stepped around him, his alarm growing at Bobby’s slack features. “Bobby?”

Bobby shuddered and blinked. “Father Ward? Wow. Sorry.” The boy yawned and rubbed an eye with his fist. “Geez. Must be tired. Sorry, Father. Did you want something?”

Father Ward shook his head. “Wondering if you were all right, is all.”

Bobby chuckled. “Been up late with a History project the past few days. I’m beat.”

Father Ward forced a smile, a chill creeping up the back of his neck, though he didn’t know why. “I bet. Hear Mr. Monachino’s projects are killer. Hey, don’t mean to pry . . . but why are you still here? Doesn’t the Boys Home usually come around three-thirty?”

Bobby’s smile grew wider. “I advanced to Independent status this year. Means I can do more things on my own if I ask ahead. Like walk home from school or catch the Late Bus.”

“Which one did you ask for?”

“Late bus.”

“Ah.” Father Ward searched the boy’s eyes for deception but found none. “So what were you doing here on the curb?”

Bobby’s smile slowly dissolved into a slight frown. A shadow passed over his face, his eyes becoming unfocused again. “Uh. I don’t . . . huh. I sorta don’t remember. I must’ve fuzzed out. All I remember is standing here with Moe, shooting the breeze with him while he waited for his ride, but . . . ”

Bobby shook his head and offered a weak grin. “I must be really bushed.”

Father Ward grinned in return, hiding his growing unease. “Aren’t we all? Hey. You want to go back inside, give the Home a call? You missed the Late Bus.”

Bobby cocked his head, puzzled. “Didn’t miss it, Father. Late Bus doesn’t leave until five-thirty. It’s only five. Late Bus isn’t back from its regular route yet.”

Father Ward opened his mouth. The image of bus 253 flashed through his mind. He glanced at the parking lot, then back at Bobby. “Didn’t the Late Bus . . . didn’t it just leave? Bus 253?”

Bobby shook his head. “Didn’t see any bus 253, Father.”

“Huh.” Father Ward glanced at the street, then back to Bobby. “Maybe I need some more sleep, too.”

Which made sense. He’d woken early after another nightmare, arrived here early to grade essays, also spent all his free periods grading. All before a faculty meeting and a session with Father Thomas. He didn’t exactly feel perky. No wonder his senses were playing tricks on him.

but I saw it

bus 253

I saw it

He shrugged and let it go. “Anyway, have a good night. Glad you didn’t miss the Late Bus.”

Bobby returned Father Ward’s forced smile with a much more genuine one. “Me, too. Have a good night, Father. See you tomorrow.”

Father Ward nodded, stepped off the curb and walked across the parking lot to his car. His shoes scuffed against blacktop in the silence. A creeping dread nipped his heels the whole way.

***

6:00 PM

Father Ward entered his sparse apartment above Chin’s Pizza and Wings on Main Street. Offering only meager furnishings, it appeared more like a modern abbot’s cell than a home, but it was more than sufficient for his needs.

There was no one he wished to entertain, anyway. His parents moved to Florida after his father retired as pastor of Clifton Heights First Baptist. His father then passed away. His mother now lived in a Florida nursing home. He was an only child and didn’t enjoy close relations with any of his cousins. Most of his childhood friends had moved away. Or, he simply hadn’t the nerve to contact them.

He had seen one old childhood acquaintance, a man named Nate Slocum. Apart from casual greetings, however, he’d made no attempt to interact with him. Besides a shared affinity for old Universal Monster movies, they hadn’t much else in common as kids. Hardly something to resume a friendship on after twenty-some years.

Besides.

Father Ward wasn’t sure if he could stomach monsters, anymore. Not after what he’d seen . . .

I DAMN YOU!

Where’s your faith, priest?

“I don’t know,” he whispered. “God help me . . . I don’t.”

He dropped his satchel next to his old recliner. Gazed into the kitchen, where he knew a bottle of wine waited for him. He licked his lips, a troubling thirst aching in his throat.

one glass

just one glass

Instead, he turned and went to his bedroom to study and pray.

2.

Tuesday, 4:00 AM

April 18th

Father Ward opened his eyes. He gasped and somehow managed not to scream.

It wasn’t real.

It wasn’t. If he waited long enough, breathing slowly, the dream’s grip would fade and his heart would relax . . .

Somehow he pushed away the nightmare’s lingering dread. He glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand. It read 4:00. Time for his morning studies.

He stood slowly. The nightmare was already fading, but he could still hear those profane screams echoing in his ears.

***

5:15 AM

When Father Ward again approached the intersection of Hollow and Beartown Road, the same bus idled at the corner, its headlights blazing. Curious in spite of his unease, he slowed and peered out the window. Upon closer inspection, the bus itself looked like a much older model. He couldn’t see much more. The glare of its headlights only made its interior darker, but as his headlights panned the bus’s grill he briefly saw its number . . .

253.

He drove through the intersection. The number fell back under darkness. As Father Ward returned his gaze to Beartown Road, he thought something moved in the bus, behind its steering wheel . . .

A rumble behind him.

A diesel engine revving.

Bright light filled his car, headlights of the bus slowly pulling onto Beartown Road behind him.

It saw me, Father Ward thought. It saw me. I got too close and it saw me.

Which made no sense. He’d passed through the intersection as this bus was beginning its route. That’s all. In fact, glancing at the clock—which read five-fifteen—he was coming through later than yesterday. Five-fifteen was probably when this bus always began its route. It meant nothing at all.

Still, Father Ward couldn’t banish the idea that he’d veered too close, foolishly drawing its attention.

Ridiculous.

Ten minutes later, however, the bus was still following at a distance, driving at a moderate pace. Not threatening in the least.

But still.

Father Ward couldn’t shake the sensation of it stalking him. That profane voice from his nightmares echoed in his ears . . .

go fuck yourself, priest!

Where’s your faith?

“No,” he whispered, gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles ached. “No. It’s a bus. A BUS.”

However, ten minutes later the bus was still following him. In the slowly graying dawn, Father Ward could see in the rear-view mirror the number under the grill, 253. Another glance in the mirror revealed a shadowed profile sitting behind the bus’ steering wheel . . .

“My Jesus . . . ”

No. I won’t do this. That’s a bus back there. Not evil, not a demon, not . . .

NO.

His lips moved separate from his mind, however, the litany pouring from him in a frenzied rush. “My Jesus, by the sorrows Thou didst suffer in Thine agony in the Garden,” he whispered between his teeth, clenching his hands around the wheel, “in Thy scourging and crowning with thorns on the road to Calvary, in Thy crucifixion and death, have mercy on me, deliver me from this . . . ”

No, NOT evil!

a bus

He swallowed. Cracked his neck and forced his gaze ahead. “From this evil and protect me with your merciful embrace, Father God in Heaven, cast away this evil thing, Father God . . . ”

Don’t look. Don’t look until . . .

“Amen.”

Father Ward slowed to a stop as Beartown Road left the countryside and intersected with Allen Road. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

Please, God.

Please.

This is ridiculous. The bus will still be there. It’s not evil. It’s not. You can’t pray away what’s not evil.

He licked his lips. Breathed one last time, opened his eyes and gazed into the rearview mirror.

Nothing.

Nothing but miles of empty road.

He sat still, telling himself nothing had happened. No evil had been warded off. The bus simply turned onto a side road and continued on its route.

But he didn’t believe it.

God help him, he didn’t believe it.

***

Father Ward pulled off the road and parked his car. He slumped back and stared blankly for several seconds before glancing at the clock on the car stereo. It read 5:30.

Stupid, absolutely stupid.

There’s nothing to be afraid of.

He withdrew his TracPhone from his pants pocket and dialed the number for All Saints’ Vice Principal, Anne Wasser. The person to call for arranging substitute teachers, she was always awake by now. It rang only twice before she answered.

“Anne Wasser.”

Father Ward coughed—exaggerating a little—feigning a raspy voice. “Mrs. Wasser, this is Father Ward. I’m calling in sick. Got a nasty chest cold. I’m supposed to hear confessions tonight at All Saints Church, but sitting in the confessional is one thing, while being on my feet teaching all day . . . ”

Mrs. Wasser clucked her tongue. “No worries, Father. Stay at home and rest. I’ll get someone to cover your classes. You have lesson plans in your substitute folder?”

“Yes,” Father Ward said, feeling ashamed and weak.

Where’s your faith?

“Everything’s set then. Go home, Father. Don’t let it trouble you one bit.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Wasser. Tell Father Thomas I’ll be in tomorrow, regardless of how I’m feeling.”

“Please, Father. Take all the time you need. Father Thomas will understand.”

“Right. Anyway, thanks Mrs. Wasser. I’ll not abuse the time off, promise.”

“Bosh. Get well, Father.”

“Thank you.”

The line clicked and fell silent. Father Ward turned the Tracphone off and tossed it onto the passenger seat next to him. Feeling cowardly, he put his car into drive, pulled into a K-turn and drove back up Beartown Road.

***

5:45 AM

Despite his best intentions Father Ward stopped the car at the intersection of Beartown and Hollow. With no traffic behind him, he sat there and stared at the pull-off where he’d seen that bus two days in a row. The bus that pulled onto Beartown Road this morning and stalked him like a predator, until he’d prayed it away . . .

Ridiculous.

Where’s your faith?

“Dammit,” he muttered, indulging in the rare profanity. He wanted to go home to try and stave off the breakdown looming on the horizon. He didn’t want this, didn’t want to fool with things best left alone . . .

He slapped the wheel. Put the car into drive, turned off Beartown and parked in the pull-off on Hollow.

He killed the engine. Sat back and folded his arms, debating with himself until he indulged in another curse he hadn’t used since college. “Fuck it.”

Before he understood what he was doing, Father Ward was exiting the car. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and stood there in the cool morning air. He examined the area and saw nothing unusual. Thick stands of tall Adirondack pine. Ditches soon to be filled with Black-eyed Susans and milkweed, come summer. Goldenrod and other weeds . . .

There.

On the opposite side of Hollow Road. An opening in the brush. Beyond, a path wound away into the looming darkness. A trail-head, opening into a trail probably leading to a secluded pond or a lake. There were nearly two thousand lakes in the Adirondacks, literally hiding in the middle of nowhere.

However, Father Ward grew up here. He’d never heard of a pond or lake off Hollow Road. Besides, if it were an official Adirondack Trail, there’d be the ubiquitous wooden sign with gold lettering on a blue background, declaring the trail’s name and its destination. Especially if it led to a pond or lake. No such sign stood here.

So where did this lead?

Father Ward squeezed his hands into fists. “Go home,” he muttered. “Go home and forget it. Leave this alone.”

Where’s your faith?

Sighing, giving in, Father Ward crossed the road in brisk strides. He plunged into the trail-head, down the path beyond.

***

A quarter of a mile later, past a metal gate marked ‘No Trespassing’ and a steep decline, the path descended into a clearing. Father Ward entered it, walked to the middle and stood there for several seconds, not nearly as frightened now, for some reason.

because it’s daytime

He turned around, examining the clearing. Nothing appeared amiss. Someone had cleared and raked the ground, also lined the border with smooth white rocks, the kind outlining flower beds all over the Adirondacks. He stopped looking when his gaze fell on an oddly-shaped fire-pit bordered by those same white rocks. He frowned and approached it . . .

Something cold flipped over in his guts.

He knelt next to the fire pit, which he now saw was shaped like a cross. Black soot filled it, along with powdery splinters of white ash.

Like a cross

white-grayish ash

no

Father Ward lurched back and stood on suddenly rubbery legs, weary of this ridiculous Father Brown Detective Routine. This was wood and paper ash. Nothing more. The shape of the fire-pit was coincidental, too. He should leave before someone showed up and wondered why a priest was trespassing on private land.

But as he stumbled up the path to Hollow Road, he couldn’t stop glancing over his shoulder.

Local kids. They sneak here occasionally for some beers and hot-dogs.

That’s all.

He almost believed that, except for the strange cross-shaped fire pit and the neat circular clearing lined with decorative white rocks . . .

He pushed those thoughts away as he broke from the tree line and walked to his car. He got in, started it and headed home; never quite shaking the fear of bus #253 lurking around every corner, watching, waiting.

For him.

***

6:15 AM

Father Ward entered his apartment, flicked on the lights, closed the door and sagged against it. Suddenly his fabricated sick call became a reality. A great weariness settled upon him. His shoulders ached. His thighs quivered. He felt like he could sleep the day away.

Sounds like an excellent idea.

Father Ward dropped his satchel and walked across the den to the kitchenette. Once there, he opened the cabinet next to the refrigerator and withdrew a glass tumbler. From the refrigerator, he withdrew a bottle of dandelion wine. He set them both on the counter and gazed at the bottle. He slipped a finger under his clerical collar and undid it.

He’d never been much of a drinker. In college he’d occasionally enjoyed a few casual beers, but maybe because he’d always known seminary lay ahead he’d never over-indulged. Dandelion wine was the only alcoholic beverage he’d ever consumed regularly. Its light, crisp taste favored his palate and didn’t sit heavy on the stomach. Before coming home from Afghanistan, he’d only drunk it with certain dinners.

Regarding the bottle and glass sitting on his counter, Father Ward felt some mild alarm. He couldn’t recall how many bottles he’d consumed in the last few months.

Pushing those fears aside, he uncapped the wine and poured it gently into the tumbler. Its fizz instantly relaxed him. A bad sign, he thought. Regardless, he filled the glass, recapped the bottle, grasped the tumbler and took a sip, savoring the warmth flowing down his throat.

He grabbed the bottle and glass, returned to the den and sat in an old recliner. He set the bottle on the floor next to his feet. Took another sip and closed his eyes, reclining his head against the chair’s lumpy headrest.

Where’s your faith?

Father Ward drained his glass in one gulp, coughing slightly as the warmth tickled his throat. He sat forward, glancing at the wall clock as he reached for the wine next to his feet. It was only six-thirty in the morning. He was reaching for his second glass.

But it would be his last. He may have taken the day off from school but he was still hearing confessions at church tonight. His shift didn’t begin until five, but the last thing he wanted was to fight his way through a hangover all evening. He’d have one more glass. No more.

He was still making those promises four glasses later.

***

7:30 PM

Guilt stung Father Ward in the confessional booth at All Saints Church. Maybe it was his failed promise to only drink two glasses of wine. Maybe it was how drinking too much allowed him his first patch of dreamless sleep in months, which produced in him a conflicted elation. No nightmares! But only because he’d consumed more wine than he’d intended. Regardless, as he’d unlocked All Saints and turned on the lights, he tried clearing his head, but he couldn’t stop admonishing himself for his drinking.

Also, his mind kept returning to the student who’d shadowed Bobby Mavis yesterday. Maurice Leck. Try as he might, Father Ward couldn’t stop thinking about those eyes and the cold emptiness he’d seen in them. And his mind kept flitting around bus 253 and it following him down Beartown Road, pacing him . . .

Stalking him.

The door to the adjoining booth creaked open. Someone rustled inside and sat with a whispery sigh. Father Ward straightened, suddenly alert. He hadn’t heard the church’s front doors open. Nor had he heard anyone walk down the aisle. But now, through the grate, he could see a shadowed profile bowing its head.

And then he smelled damp earth, moist leaves and fresh Adirondack pine wafting through the grate, spiced with the sharp incense usually burning in All Saints. The outdoor smells weren’t unpleasant, but in here, coming from the booth next to him . . .

Who was this, carrying these woodland scents with them?

A voice, barely above a whisper: “Father.”

Father Ward swallowed and leaned toward the grate. “Y-yes? Can I help you?”

Silence.

Rustling, a body shifting in the confessional. Then:

“Father. Help us. Please.”

Father Ward frowned. An icy chill ran down his neck, and he shivered despite his best efforts. The voice sounded vaguely masculine, of a boy not much older than twelve or thirteen. Odd, someone so young seeking confession this late at night, all alone.

“Help who, son? Your family? A friend? Are you here alone? Are you in . . . some sort of trouble?”

Labored breathing.

Sandpaper rasps, as if the boy had just finished running a long distance. A deep, wavering breath, then: “He . . . He takes us. Takes us away. To the Dark Place. And He won’t let us go.”

The cold unease trickling along Father Ward’s spine intensified. With a start, he realized how cold it was in the confessional. “My son . . . are you in danger? Has someone hurt you, in any way? And what do you mean by..?”

“The ones no one wants. We’re the ones no one wants. That’s why He takes us. No one will notice . . .”

A sigh.

“ . . . because we’re the ones no one wants.”

Father Ward opened his mouth, but before he could speak the body in the confessional rose. The door slammed open and steps raced away, in what direction Father Ward couldn’t tell.

For a moment, he couldn’t move.

He just sat there, trembling, unwilling to stand. After several minutes he breathed deeply, gathered himself and stumbled into the eerie stillness of All Saints.

Alone.

He was alone.

Shaking, he pushed the confessional booth’s door open and peered inside. The faint scent of damp earth and wet leaves still lingered. Also, he couldn’t tell in the dim light, but it appeared as if the bench had been sat on. He saw indentations in the cushions . . .

There.

On the floor.

A rosary, crumpled in the corner. Father Ward scooped it up and stood. He spread it in his palm and examined its medallion.

St. Raphael.

Patron saint of policemen. Something tickled his memory, but for the life of him . . .

Steps running away.

To his left.

A side door—leading outdoors, to the rectory—slammed shut. Father Ward was already in motion before he knew what he was doing, walking briskly toward the door, clutching the rosary of St. Raphael tightly. And it was odd; he realized calmly, how unafraid he felt.

He closed the distance in several strides. Grabbed the handle—wincing at how cold the brass felt—and jerked the door open. He slipped outside into the cool spring night.

Silence covered everything like a velvet shroud. Before him stood the rectory, where Father Thomas lived. Porch lights burned above the front door but the windows were dark, which was no surprise. Father Thomas was speaking tonight at St. Mary’s over in Indian Lake, nearly two hours away. He wouldn’t return until after ten.

Father Ward listened to the dark night, trying to discern the rustle of cloth or the scrape of shoes on sidewalk. There was nowhere to hide in the decorative garden between the church and the rectory. However, Father Ward supposed the mystery visitor could’ve ducked around the back corner and into the woods, or turned left toward Henry Street.

In fact, Father Ward was ready to admit defeat when he caught the smell of something sour, coppery. Something slightly spoiled, floating on the night breeze.

He faced the garden, to the left of the rectory’s front walk. The smell came from there. Father Ward clutched the rosary of St. Raphael as he approached the smell. Halfway to the rectory, the stench intensified . . .

At the statue of the Virgin Mary, in her nave.

Small ground-lights cast her face into a haunting, beatific glow. They also highlighted the reddish-brown streaks on her cheeks, illuminating what lay at her bloodied porcelain feet.

A cat.

Or what remained of one. Gutted, its entrails piled at Mary’s feet and, he saw, looped around her neck like a profane rosary. Purplish flesh glistened in the ground-lights. With an obscene touch, someone had painted Mary’s beseeching hands with the cat’s blood and viscera.

As Father Ward fought the gorge rising in his throat, Mary’s hands dripped, as if fresh from a kill.

***

8:30 PM

At the entrance of All Saints Church, Father Ward recounted the evening’s events to Sheriff Beckmore. He’d known Beckmore since the man served as deputy, when Father Ward was young. Beckmore was ponderous and slow-moving back then. Nothing had changed, past a thicker body, rounder face and a sheriff’s star.

“Father, I don’t mean any disrespect,” Beckmore rumbled, “but let’s go over this once more. You were sitting in the confessional when you heard sounds coming from outside, in the direction of the rectory?”

Father Ward nodded, pressing his lips together. He hated withholding information . . . but what was he withholding, exactly? He might have heard a boy creep into the confessional next to him? He thought he’d heard someone whisper strange things? He’d no proof of anyone actually being there. The rosary he’d found could’ve easily been dropped any time in the past few days.

He clenched the string of beads in his pocket, felt the rosary’s tiny cross and the medallion of St. Raphael, wondering again why it seemed so familiar.

“Yes. I was praying when I heard noises in the garden.”

“What time was this, Father?”

“Can’t say, for sure. Didn’t have a watch, and there aren’t any clocks in the sanctuary. I called you . . . ”

Beckmore flipped back a few pages in a yellow notepad. “Received your call around 8:00.”

“Then it must’ve happened around 7:45, best I can figure.”

Beckmore nodded slowly, licked a thick fingertip and flipped a page. “Outside, you heard footsteps running away, too. But you couldn’t tell which direction. Didn’t see anyone, either.”

Father Ward shrugged. “It’s dark out. And I was a bit scatter-brained, a little frightened. I didn’t see anyone, and you’re right. Couldn’t exactly tell which direction I heard them running.”

Beckmore huffed a little at ‘frightened’ but Father Ward ignored him, well aware of what the sheriff must be thinking. He’d gotten used to it. He wondered if everyone in town thought the same: poor jumpy Father Ward, who’d gone to war and was now scared of his own shadow . . .

Of course, no one ever said as much. But he saw it in their eyes, all the same.

Always in the eyes.

“So you found the dead cat after coming out here.”

“Yes.”

Sheriff Beckmore flipped his notebook shut. Which, more than anything else, spoke volumes. “Well, can’t say for sure, but I don’t think this is anything too serious.”

It was Father Ward’s turn to snort. “Other than knowing some kid is running around mutilating animals.” A kid, he added mentally, also visiting confessionals and whispering nonsense about Dark Places and someone taking someone away.

Which didn’t sound right, at all. Those two things didn’t sync, and he couldn’t exactly put his finger on why.

“Father Ward, I know you’re a man of the cloth and all. Supposed to believe the best in everyone. But most kids’re bent these days. It’s all those damn video games like Grand Theft Auto and the Internet, where they can watch any sick video they want. Stuff messes with their heads.”

“I suppose, but . . . ”

“Course, kids’ve always been bent,” Sheriff Beckmore offered almost gleefully as he stuffed his notepad into his breast pocket. “I remember when I was a deputy, when you were a kid, in ‘92 or so, someone finding six dead dogs skinned and laid in a row by the railroad tracks on Bassler Road. Same summer, staties got called to Tahawus, back before it was abandoned? Some kids found a bunch of skinned cats next to their railroad tracks. Kids get into weird shit, Father. Happens all the time.”

Father Ward nodded mutely. Something still didn’t make sense.

“Course, we’ll investigate. Have one of my deputies drive by next few nights. I’ll leave Shackleford here to touch base with Father Thomas when he gets in, and I’ll call in the morning. You say he’s speaking somewhere?”

“St. Mary’s. Indian Lake. Won’t be home for another hour or so.”

Beckmore nodded, meaty hands on his hips. “Like I said, I’ll leave Shackleford here to touch base. I’m sure Father Thomas’ll be upset it’s happened again, but like I told him first time, hard to keep up with kids ‘n their shit these days. Especially in this town.”

Father Ward said nothing immediately, because it took a moment for the happened again to register. When it did, he frowned. “Wait. Are you saying this has happened before?”

Beckmore shrugged and crossed his thick arms over his barrel chest. “Yep. Happened about six years ago. Sort of different, then. A dead rat, hanging around Mary’s neck by a string.”

“I see. No suspects then, either?”

“Naw. Probably a bunch of kids. We don’t have any gang-bangers here or any major junkies or pushers, but our kids wreck their share of mischief. Hell, this week alone, someone found big piles of—uh, dog leavings—dumped on the front lawn of First Methodist. Week before, someone wrote gibberish and drew circles with squiggly lines in them all over First Presbyterian’s Welcome Sign with red paint.”

Father Ward raised his eyebrows. “Sounds like an epidemic.”

Sheriff Beckmore shrugged his shoulders. “Whaddya gonna do, right? We can patrol all we want, but I haven’t got the manpower or funds to post guards all over town or enforce a curfew. Doubt if I could get the Town Board to approve one. Besides,” he waved dismissively, “folks wanna wreck things bad enough, they’ll find ways to do it, guards or not. Some people like to destroy shit, for no other reason than they can.”

Father Ward thought of a sandstone hovel in Afghanistan, shivered and whispered, “Yes. I suppose so.”

***

Fifteen minutes later, Father Ward drove numbly home. He forced himself not to think of the gutted cat and its entrails sprawled at Mary’s feet and looped around her neck. He just drove.

When at his apartment, limbs still trembling with fatigue and leftover adrenaline, he undressed in a fog and slipped into bed, falling into an uneasy sleep. And, as he had so often for the past few weeks . . .

He dreamed.

3.

He stands before the looming dark of the sandstone hovel’s door. Profanities and gibberish pour forth from the darkness . . .

fuck me priest, fuck me fuck me I know you wanna

motherfucking ph’nglui mglw’nafh wgah’nagl hastur!

. . . but he’s here to do Good Works. How can he face himself tomorrow if he can’t face this, standing firm in his faith?

So he steps into the darkness as always, but instead of being swallowed by the screams he finds himself in his classroom at All Saints. He looks around, gaze sliding over the neatly ordered desks.

This isn’t how the dream goes.

Something else is supposed to happen. Something . . .

“He takes us.”

He sees a slightly built and gangly boy staring out the window. The boy rasps, “The Faceless Man takes us. The ones no one wants. The Faceless Man drives the black bus and sends His shadows to bring us to Him, and He takes us away. To His court by Lake Hyades, in Carcosa, under black stars.”

He steps toward the boy, but he can’t say anything. He doesn’t have the words.

The boy faces him.

Revealing a thin and pale face with dark, sunken eyes. A face Father Ward knows from somewhere.

“He takes us. He’s always hungry and is never satisfied and He always comes back. Always.”

The boy steps closer, his dark eyes swirling with a dizzying intensity. “He saw you. He saw you, and knows you know. He knows you know. He knows you . . . ”

***

Father Ward opened his eyes.

It wasn’t real.

His bed. His bedroom. Those were real. The dream wasn’t. As always, if he waited long enough, the dream’s grip would fade . . .

But this was different. That boy, and what he said . . .

the Faceless Man, the dark bus, His shadows

His court near Lake Hyades

in Carcosa, under black stars

Slowly he pushed away the nightmare’s lingering dread and glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand.

4:00.

He eased out of bed. The nightmare was already beginning to fade, but the boy he’d seen there still whispered in his ear.

***

Father Ward sat at his small dining room table, staring with heavy eyes at a page open in Microsoft Word on his iBook. His morning devotions faltered so he’d opened his laptop and tried to write something, anything, even if only through stream-of-consciousness thinking. He’d generated random paragraphs of nothing, and then deleted them. Every ten minutes he stood, paced, sat and repeated the cycle. Try as he might, he couldn’t shake his dream. Scattered refrains from it echoed in his head over and over . . .

the Faceless Man

motherfucking ph’nglui mglw’nafh wgah’nagl hastur!

His shadows take us to him

to His court near Lake Hyades

under black stars

shadows

His shadows

Something bothered him about those thoughts, but he didn’t know what.

He sighed, leaned forward and typed “a Faceless Man took us.” He paused, fingertips hovering over the keys. Then he typed, “the Faceless Man takes the ones no one wants.”

He sat back and stared at those words, shock running through him: takes the ones no one wants.

Last night’s mysterious visitor in the confessional.

He takes us

because we’re the ones no one wants

“God in Heaven,” Father Ward breathed, “what is this?”

On a hunch, he minimized Word, opened Google Chrome and typed “missing children,” which produced results ranging from stories of kidnappings to runaways. Most of them were national cases, except . . .

A result at the bottom read: “NO NEW LEADS IN ADIRONDACK PARK CASE.” Father Ward clicked on it and found himself at the Utica Herald’s website, reading an older article detailing the disappearance of Martin Spencer, a freshman from All Saints. He’d apparently gone missing six years ago.

Father Ward stopped reading for a few minutes, his mind refusing to process the rest. Martin Spencer. I know that name. How? Something to do with St. Raphael . . .

He sighed and continued reading. As he did so, a chill crept over his shoulders. Martin Spencer went missing six years ago on the night he’d walked home from All Saints to the Boys of Faith Residence Home. He’d recently been granted Independent status . . .

like Bobby Mavis

. . . and requested permission to walk home after school.

like Bobby Mavis, who’d wanted to take the Late Bus

the bus

sitting on the corner of Beartown and Hollow Road

Martin Spencer never made it to Boys of Faith, and was never seen again. According to the article, authorities concluded—as unlikely as it seemed, given his excellent reputation—Spencer ran away.

Father Ward snorted and shook his head. No doubt other authorities joined the search, but he wondered how strongly Sheriff Beckmore pushed the runaway theory. It reeked of his laissez-faire passivity.

Troubled, Father Ward clicked on Martin Spencer’s school photo embedded in the article, feeling little surprise when he recognized the boy in his dream as Martin Spencer.

Impossible.

Coincidence.

Father Ward minimized the photo and continued to read the article, which became more surreal with each line. All the academic and social awards Martin won, all the clubs and causes Martin belonged to . . .

like Bobby Mavis

. . . didn’t indicate a boy intent on running away. Which, of course, according to the article, compounded the “tragedy.” Father Ward continued to read, not surprised to see Martin was vice-president of the freshman class, on the Honor Roll, member of a group called Letters to Soldiers . . .

Father Ward straightened, his mind screeching to a halt.

Letters to Soldiers.

no, couldn’t be

Father Ward pushed away from the kitchen table, stood and walked down the hall toward his small bedroom. There, from under his bed he withdrew a small metal lock-box. Fingers trembling so badly he could hardly hold it, he returned to the kitchen table and sat, gently placing the box next to his laptop as if it were an explosive device. For several seconds he stared at it, once again filled with the urge to forget all this, to leave it alone.

But he couldn’t.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed the ‘release’ button on the box. The lid clicked open, uncomfortably resembling a slit mouth waiting to sever unsuspecting fingers. Pushing his dread fancy aside, Father Ward lifted the lid and opened the box. He stared at its contents for several seconds before rifling through them.

Letters. Postcards. His dog-tags. Notes from casual childhood friends and loved ones, sent to him while he’d served in the military. And, somewhere in here, letters from . . .

His hand shaking, Father Ward pulled out several envelopes held together with a rubber band. He gazed at the address: Father William Ward, Fort Benning. Above his address, LETTERS TO SOLDIERS was carefully written in adolescent block letters. In the upper left corner, the return address.

Martin Spencer.

At the Boys of Faith Residence Home.

The details felt so abruptly clear Father Ward couldn’t believe he’d ever forgotten Martin Spencer—then in 8th grade—who’d written him as part of All Saints’ “Letters to Soldiers” campaign. He didn’t remember every word, but he clearly remembered Martin’s desire to become a police officer, to help those in need, to help kids with lives like his.

“Because we’re the ones no one wants,” Father Ward rasped, holding the packet of letters in trembling hands. He didn’t have to read through them, he knew. Martin Spencer wrote those words several times, words spoken to him in the confessional last night, and in his dreams afterward.

The voice in the confessional hadn’t been responsible for the desecration last night. An air of quiet, sad desperation had accompanied that voice, clashing with the creeping malice he’d felt in the rectory’s garden. The voice in the confessional hadn’t been responsible for the desecration . . .

It led Father Ward to it.

As a warning?

And there was the rosary with the medal of St. Raphael, the patron saint of policemen, purchased for a few bucks at The Catholic Shop near Fort Benning. A standard rosary, one of thousands like it, most likely mass-produced . . .

And yet he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, the rosary he’d found in the confessional last night was the same one he’d sent to Martin Spencer, the 8th grade boy who’d wanted to be a cop someday, to help kids like him.

Father Ward swallowed. He placed the packet of letters back inside the box. Closed it and sat there, feeling numb.

Too much.

Too much to process, to make sense of. Too much to believe.

Where’s your faith?

Father Ward took a deep breath and released it, slowly. He closed his laptop, stood on weak legs and headed to shower and change. His mind buzzed with dark thoughts he didn’t want to examine right now. He needed to get on the road while it was still early, take the back way to school again and see if bus 253 was waiting on the corner of Beartown and Hollow Road.

***

No bus. As his headlights splashed over the dark intersection, Father Ward saw nothing except a dark stretch of road winding off into the countryside . . .

that strange clearing shaped like a cross

. . . but he didn’t feel any better, because it only made him wonder if the bus had already taken its next passenger.

Bobby Mavis

And when Beartown Road wound toward Allen Road, Father Ward saw what appeared to be a school bus turning the corner. He nudged the gas but by the time he reached the intersection, Allen Road was empty of all vehicles save his.

Shamefully, he felt relieved.

***

Father Ward tried to spend the hour before school grading more essays but fragments of his nightmares interrupted his thoughts. His mind wandered down dark alleys populated by shifting shadows . . .

His shadows take us to Him

motherfucking ph’nglui mglw’nafh hastur!

This continued for an hour. Reading and re-reading the same essays. Making lame notes in the margins. His attention drifting off and snapping back.

The wall-intercom crackled. Father Thomas said in a scratchy voice, “Father Ward? Could I see you for a moment?”

Father Ward glanced at the clock. Fifteen minutes remained before homeroom. “Certainly.”

The intercom crackled again. “Excellent. See you shortly.”

Father Ward glanced down and saw he’d only graded two essays the whole hour.

***

“Father Ward. Thanks for coming. Glad to see you’re feeling better. Won’t take too much of your time. Know you’ve got homeroom in ten minutes.”

Father Ward nodded and stepped into Father Thomas’s office. Father Thomas sat behind his oak desk, completing paperwork. He smiled at Father Ward, blue eyes warm and kind, as always.

For some reason, Father Ward felt anxious under Father Thomas’s gaze. He’d no reason to. Obviously Father Thomas only wanted to know what had happened last night. Still, he felt nervous all the same. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why, which only made him more nervous.

“So I heard some interesting visitors stopped by the church last night. Deputy Shackleford was strutting around like he was guarding a homicide scene when I returned home from St. Mary’s.” Father Thomas shook his head, chuckling. “Heaven help us if Shackleford ever succeeds Beckmore as sheriff.”

Father Ward opened his mouth but forced himself not to spew forth a rush of apologies. “I swear I didn’t hear anything, Father Thomas, except a little noise, right before I found . . . it. I . . . ”

The lie caught in his throat. He swallowed it, for some reason feeling it would be a mistake to tell Father Thomas of the voice in the confessional and the rosary . . .

he’d sent to Martin Spencer seven years ago

. . . he’d found there.

Father Thomas smiled and waved away his worried apology. “No worries, Father Ward. Clifton Heights certainly suffers its share of young ne’er-do-wells. Nothing you could’ve done to prevent it, for sure.”

Father Ward relaxed slightly. Still, something inside stayed wary. “Sheriff Beckmore said there’s been vandalism all over town this last month. Especially at the local churches. They sound like . . . desecrations.”

Soon as the word slipped, Father Ward knew he’d committed a crucial mistake.

Father Thomas’s smile faded, eyes growing somber. “Desecrations. A necessary rite in summoning a demon. Supposedly.”

A rush of instinctual guilt tightened his chest. Father Ward rubbed his temples. “Father Thomas. I’m not falling back on old habits. I swear. And I know we’ve talked of this. The other day, in fact. But . . . isn’t this disturbing? All the religious institutions in town vandalized at once?”

Father Thomas sat back in his chair, expression grave. “Disturbing, absolutely. A sign of our youth’s general disdain for the sacred. Unusual, given the general decline of our youth? I’m afraid not so much.”

Father Ward nodded, letting it go, ashamed he’d felt the need to prove he wasn’t again sinking into the obsessions which ended his Army career. But something was going on. The dreams. The strange bus. The voice in the confessional last night, the rosary, his unexpected and eerie connection to the long-missing Martin Spencer . . .

All things he couldn’t bring himself to share, for fear of finding himself the subject of an unwanted Diocesan review.

Or maybe.

Maybe he didn’t want to tell Father Thomas these things for other reasons.

“Anything else unusual happen last night? No odd visitors at the church?”

Father Ward smiled broadly, forcing himself to meet Father Thomas’s bright blue eyes, which, for the first time, weren’t as comforting as usual.

“No,” he said, “no one at all.”

***

Bobby Mavis wasn’t in Catechism class that afternoon. Worried, Father Ward’s attention drifted the rest of the day. Fortunately, however, ninth period was free. Soon as his eighth period class ended he went to the office and confirmed Bobby’s absence. He then called Boys of Faith and spoke with the resident manager, a man by the name of Harold Connelly. The news of Bobby’s absence came as an unwelcome surprise because Bobby had left for school—walking—at 7:30 AM sharp.

Barely listening to Connelly’s reaction, Father Ward thought of the bus he’d seen turning onto Allen Road, which wasn’t so far from Clarke Street and Boys of Faith. A ball of icy dread formed in his stomach. He left the main office for the guidance-counseling wing.

***

Elizabeth Hull glanced up at his knock and smiled. “Afternoon, Father. Feeling better? Heard you were absent yesterday.”

Father Ward offered a fake grin. “Better, thanks. Listen, I’ve got a question. Might sound odd.”

Elizabeth pushed back from her desk and spread her hands. “Shoot. I’m a high school guidance counselor at a Catholic School. Odd questions are what I do.”

“Do you keep records of visiting shadow students?”

Elizabeth nodded. “Sure do. For recruitment purposes. With the parents’ permission we keep their email addresses on file so we can send them our seasonal newsletters and other school updates. For example, say a family initially decides against All Saints. We’ll send them our newsletter at the end of the year and over the summer, keeping a point of contact. Maybe they’ll change their minds; maybe they won’t. But it doesn’t cost us a thing to email our newsletters.”

Father Ward nodded, wheels turning in his head. “Okay. Here’s another. Do you remember a student named Martin Spencer? From six years ago.”

Elizabeth frowned, brow wrinkling. “Kristen and I have only worked here five years, but that name . . . I was working at Inlet High six years ago. Didn’t he go missing, or something? I remember my sister-in-law freaking about her kids staying out late because of it.”

Father Ward pursed his lips, searching carefully for the right words. “Official story is he ran away, but they never solved the case. Here’s the weird question. Can you check through our records; see if a prospective student shadowed Martin Spencer . . . ”

His shadows take us to Him

“ . . . before he went missing?”

Elizabeth shrugged, scooted toward her desk and began typing. “Sure. Six years ago? Information should still be on file. Let me check . . . ”

Several seconds filled with clacking keys, and then, “Ah. Here we go. Six years and two days ago, a Hammon Bale shadowed Martin, and . . . ”

She frowned and peered closer. “Weird.”

Father Ward straightened. “What?”

“Says here Hammon Bale lived with his father downstate, was being home schooled, and he was staying with an aunt in . . . ”

“Inlet?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth said, “an aunt who was frequently unavailable to answer calls. Also, the reason given for considering All Saints . . . ”

“Let me guess. He needed more ‘structure’ in his education?”

Elizabeth frowned. “Bingo. And I don’t have an email address here. Father, what the hell is this?” Her eyes widened at her slip. “Oops. Sorry.”

Despite the circumstances, Father Ward chuckled. “Don’t worry. It’s a perfectly appropriate sentiment.” He nodded at the computer screen. “What date did Hammon Bale shadow Martin Spencer?”

Elizabeth checked her laptop. “April 17th.”

A cold weight settled onto Father Ward’s shoulders. “So this Hammon Bale shadowed Martin Spencer two days before he ran away. And another prospective student—Maurice Leck—with disturbingly similar background information shadowed Bobby Mavis two days ago . . . ”

“Oh, God. On the 17th. Is Bobby absent today? You don’t think . . . but I mean, how could..?”

Elizabeth met his gaze. “Father. What the hell is this?”

Father Ward couldn’t say. Half-formed ideas and fears too fantastic to believe swirled in his head until he didn’t know anymore what was down and what was up. But he refused to speculate in front of Elizabeth.

“Father,” Elizabeth whispered, “should we call the Sheriff?”

Father Ward shook his head. “No. I’ve got nothing concrete to say.”

“Right,” Elizabeth breathed, “because maybe it’s nothing. I mean, doesn’t Boys of Faith have a history of run-aways? No offense, Father, but it is a half-way house, so . . . ”

Father Ward offered Elizabeth what he hoped was a convincing smile. “Perhaps. Either way, I don’t want to raise a big fuss over nothing. Best I think on this, then speak with Father Thomas before calling the Sheriff.”

He nodded. “See you tomorrow.”

“Sure thing, Father.”

He left her office, stomach churning.

***

Father Ward knocked softly on Father Thomas’s open door. Father Thomas paused in typing on his laptop and smiled. “Father Ward. Good afternoon. Wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon. Everything all right?”

Father Ward entered the office, warring with himself. What could he possibly say to Father Thomas? How could he ask questions without appearing as if he was fully in the grip of the paranoia which drove him from the military last year? Worse yet . . . could he trust Father Thomas?

maybe you can’t

because maybe you are crazy

again

Father Ward smiled weakly. “Doing fine. I wanted to mention. Bobby Mavis missed school today. He acted preoccupied the last time I spoke to him. I was worried, so I called Boys of Faith. According to them, Bobby left at 7:30 sharp this morning, packed and ready for school. But he never showed.”

Father Thomas sagged back into his chair and sighed, his expression grave. “Lord have mercy.”

“The man from Boys of Faith,” Father Ward barely avoided a cringe at yet another lie, “mentioned another runaway. A Martin Spencer?”

Father Thomas frowned slightly. “Yes. From before your time. Unfortunately, residents run away from Boys of Faith quite often. Given their clientele, it’s the nature of the beast. Runaways like Bobby Mavis and Martin Spencer, however, are more dismaying. Boys who’ve made such great progress, have attained such growth . . . and then, for whatever reason, they regress. Fall off the wagon, so to speak.”

Father Ward frowned. “Bobby Mavis was a model student. Never a behavior problem, from what I understand.”

Father Thomas steepled his fingers. “No discipline problems. Unfortunately in his early years Bobby tried to run away from the Home often. He was classified a ‘flight risk’ until around the fifth grade. I was so proud when he’d attained Independent Status recently. A sadly premature promotion, apparently.”

Father Ward opened his mouth to speak but stopped. He hated holding things back, feeling as if it was another form of lying. Worse, he hated his sudden wariness of Father Thomas, but the last thing he wanted right now was to be reported back to the Diocese as unfit.

But was that it? The only reason for his distrust?

Or was there something . . . more?

“Something else, Father Ward?”

Father Ward swallowed and said, “It’s a shame. I held high hopes for Bobby.”

Father Thomas nodded, smiling sadly. “As did I. Boys of Faith does tremendous work. I know, personally. My mother left my father when I was seven, for good reason. He wasn’t of sound mind. He never recovered from his time in Vietnam, I’m afraid. Which I’m sure you can appreciate.”

Father Ward nodded stiffly, somehow keeping his expression neutral. Wait. What the hell does he mean? Was that a . . . a threat..?

Unperturbed, Father Thomas continued. “Eventually, circumstances required my removal from his care. For all intents and purposes, I grew up at Boys of Faith. They saved me, literally, as they’ve saved hundreds of boys over the decades. Which is why I eventually petitioned for a seat on their Board of Directors, then became Chairman of the Board. So I have a vested interest, you see. Every boy they lose . . . I lose. Suffer the little children to come unto me, as Jesus said. Yes?”

Still reeling from Father Thomas’s comment . . .

was that a threat?

. . . Father Ward could only nod.

“Did you know we nearly lost Boys of Faith? Nearly twenty-four years ago this month, right before I joined the Board. So many budget cuts, a lower than usual popularity of the Church at the time, parish giving at an all-time low . . . but I joined the Board and, thanks to a miracle, I helped save that which saved me. A wonderful turnabout, if I do say so.”

Father Ward nodded, oddly desperate to be away from Father Thomas and what felt like an uncharacteristic posturing.

“Anyway. I apologize. Gathering wool there, wasn’t I? Was there anything else? Boys of Faith will deal with Sheriff Beckmore regarding Bobby Mavis. He’ll want to question us, of course, and perhaps a few students, but I didn’t notice anything amiss with Bobby. Did you?”

There.

Something lurking in Father Thomas’s quietly inquisitive gaze. A question. Curiosity. And, also . . . a curious sort of . . .

Hunger.

Father Ward swallowed, and for the second time in fifteen minutes and the third time in one day, lied.

“No. Not at all.”

***

Half an hour later, after a numb and mindless drive home, Father Ward sat at his kitchen table, staring at the open Google Chrome browser on his laptop. An insistent, traitorous thought kept banging against his brain: Father Thomas was hiding something.

Ludicrous.

Impossible.

A man who’d played such a crucial role in giving him peace of mind. A man universally respected in the community could be party to . . . what? Kidnapping? Murder. Or . . .

the fire pit

No.

Father Ward refused to speculate on what Father Thomas did or didn’t know. He instead turned his focus on the two names of those shadow students, which he suspected were fakes. Something in them rang familiar. If only he could place from where . . .

His hands hovered over the keypad as he realized what he was doing: searching on the ‘Net. His paranoia, his obsession, coming back?

No.

This is different. Something is happening. I know it. Besides, I’m only searching some names. Nothing more.

He sighed, typed into Google Chrome’s search field “Maurice Leck” and hit ENTER.

The results offered nothing of importance at first glance. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram profiles, all for Maurice Leck, Maurice D. Leck, and several other derivatives. Two or three address-finder services offered to find Maurice Leck for “reasonable” fees. The search results also offered several hits on a Maurice G. Leek, an MD at Georgetown University Hospital.

He stared at the results, thinking. Then it came to him . . .

his name’s Maurice, Father Ward

Moe for short

He typed “Moe Leck” and hit ENTER. Google Chrome received several more hits on various social media profiles. Even an old Myspace account for a punk rock band MOLOKSTAR. He was ready to quit when he saw Google’s suggestion at the page’s head: DID YOU MEAN MOLECH?

“I know that name,” Father Ward whispered. He clicked the link. The page refreshed, offering new hits . . .

There it was. The first result. MOLOCH/MOLECH, at JewishEncyclopedia.com. Father Ward clicked the link and scanned through the first several paragraphs. He read of King Solomon’s last days, his reign over Jerusalem and how he created a ‘high place for Molech.’ Also noted where Molech’s ‘Ammonite origins’ . . . .

The words leaped from the text, stabbing cold little daggers into his guts: Passage through fire. Right of initiation. Appeasement.

And child sacrifice.

He takes us

the Faceless Man takes us

the ones no one wants

The cross-shaped fire pit.

His heart thumping, Father Ward clicked IMAGES along the page’s header. Immediately, several different pictures appeared. Paintings and drawings of a great bull-headed figure looming over congregations of supplicants, gigantic hands outstretched, accepting infants from the hands of robed acolytes. Several other pictures depicted stone statues of the same figure cradling small children.

Father Ward swallowed.

Closed his eyes.

And wished desperately he could stop. Wished he could continue as if nothing ever happened, as if he’d never seen that strange dark bus. He wished he’d never met Moe Leck, or heard a voice whispering in the confessional, or found that dead cat . . .

But he couldn’t.

The memories of a gaping black doorway to a sandstone hovel in Afghanistan wouldn’t let him. So he returned to Google, typed in “Hammon Bale” and clicked SEARCH.

His first results produced nothing but websites for law firms and LinkedIn business references. He stared at the name, wondering why it bothered him so much, thinking of the transformation of Moe Leck to Molech . . .

He cleared the field and typed ‘Hammon Baal.’

The first hit read: “Baal-hammon.” Here, his seminary studies proved more useful. He of course recalled the Old Testament contest between God’s prophets and Baal’s worshipers. Baal was unable to light its sacrifice, while God was able to light a sacrifice drenched in water. He clicked the link, which this time took him to a Wikipedia page.

Scanning the text, Father Ward found a more detailed description of Baal-hammon: a fertility god of sky, harvest and prosperity. Also, similar to Molech, many of Baal-hammon’s followers sacrificed their children as burnt offerings.

the cross-shaped fire pit

A fragment from his nightmare came to him, of a little girl screaming obscenities and things in a strange, inhuman tongue . . .

fuck me priest!

go ahead and fuck me!

motherfucking ph’nglui mglw’nafh hastur!

hastur

Father Ward’s trembling fingers typed ‘hastur.’ This produced several images of a spectral figure cloaked in yellow, one of which reclined on a throne made of skulls, and another Wikipedia link. The entry proved vaguer than the others, but no less disturbing.

“Hastur,” he whispered. “The Unspeakable One. He Who Shall Not Be Named. Also known as Assautuu, Yastur, H’aztre, or Kazum. Mythical deity said to reside in far off Carcosa, along Lake Hyades. Often associated with gods of pagan and child sacrifice.”

takes us to his court

near Lake Hyades, in far off Carcosa

under black stars

Carcosa

Father Ward typed ‘Carcosa.’ Again, the first link went to a Wikipedia page. He scanned the first few paragraphs, which detailed Carcosa as a fictional lost city written by several 18th century speculative writers. He was skimming the page, ready to dismiss the entry as irrelevant until his eyes snagged on a bit of verse: The shadows lengthen/In Carcosa. He stopped scrolling and read the full poem, his skin growing cold with gooseflesh as he did so.

Along the shore the cloud waves break,

The twin suns sink behind the lake,

The shadows lengthen

In Carcosa.

Strange is the night where black stars rise,

And strange moons circle through the skies,

But stranger still is

Lost Carcosa.

Songs that the Hyades shall sing,

Where flap the tatters of the King,

Must die unheard in

Dim Carcosa.

Song of my soul, my voice is dead,

Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed

Shall dry and die in

Lost Carcosa.

The poem, credited to a play he’d never heard of entitled ‘The King in Yellow,’ made him feel weary and afraid, though he didn’t know why. Something about the desolation in its lines, about the emptiness of a lost city in which everything—including soul songs and tears—was dead. And of course, there was his dream, in which Martin Spencer claimed the ‘Faceless Man’ had taken the ‘ones no one wants’ to Carcosa.

Father Ward exited Google Chrome and sat at his desk. He stared at nothing, reluctantly fitting pieces together to form an insane puzzle.

Two days ago on his way to school he saw a strange-looking school bus idling on the corner of Beartown and Hollow Road. A bus dark inside.

the Faceless Man drives the black bus

That day a prospective student shadowed Bobby Mavis . . .

sends His shadows to bring us to the bus

. . . a boy named Moe Leck, which was a derivative of an ancient god named Molech or Moloch, which demanded child sacrifice. The next day the bus followed him down Beartown Road . . .

stalked

. . . and afterward he’d found a clearing in the woods near the intersection, with its strangely-shaped fire pit. At night he’d dreamed of Martin Spencer . . .

he takes us

the ones no one wants

to His court . . . near Lake Hyades . . . in far off Carcosa

. . . a former resident of the Boys Home who “ran away” six years ago after being shadowed by Hammon Bale, which also was a derivative of the child-consuming god Baal-Hammon. Martin Spencer, who’d written him several letters seven years ago as part of a school-sponsored Letters to Soldiers campaign. Martin Spencer, who’d expressed dreams of becoming a policeman someday, to whom Father Ward sent a rosary with a medal of St. Raphael, patron saint of policemen, a rosary Father found in the confessional the night a voice (his imagination? his paranoia?) whispered to him: He takes us. A voice which lead him to the desecration at the foot of Mary in the rectory’s garden.

And then today, after everything, Bobby Mavis “ran away.” After being shadowed by Moe Leck (Moloch?). Also, on the morning Moe first appeared in class, Father Ward swore he’d heard a bus leaving the empty parking lot. Thought he’d seen a shadow dart around the front of the school. He remembered later that day coming upon Bobby Mavis standing on the school’s front sidewalk, dazed and confused, as a bus—number 253—pulled away. A bus Bobby didn’t remember seeing. He thought again of bus 253 following him yesterday morning . . .

stalking

he sees you

. . . thought of it turning the corner onto Allen Road this morning . . .

Clarke Street, near where it cuts across Allen Road

And now Bobby Mavis had ‘run away.’

253.

Bus number 253. On a whim, Father Ward re-opened Google Chrome and typed in ‘253.’ All he got were various telephone numbers and area codes. He typed in #253 and got the same thing.

Next, he typed ‘number 253,’ which produced an interesting result third on the list: Numbers 25:3 at biblepedia.com. He clicked the link, which led to a Bible verse from Numbers—chapter twenty-five, verse 3. He cleared his throat and in a thin voice he whispered . . .

“So Israel yoked themselves to Baal of Peor. And the Lord’s anger burned against them.”

Baal.

Hammon Bale.

Baal Hammon.

He tried one last entry into Google search, “bus number 253” and the first hit referenced a site titled “Adirondack Park Journalism Archives.” He clicked on it and found himself staring at a scanned image of a yellowed newspaper article dating back to 1959, about the solving of a child homicide case. A little boy walking home from Clifton Heights Junior High had vanished without a trace. No leads ever surfaced. The case remained unsolved until a fifty-five year old school bus driver, Eli Thomas, swallowed the muzzle of his own shotgun, leaving behind a hastily scrawled note confessing to the rape and murder of the little boy, whose body was never found.

And then Father Ward stopped and stared at the next sentence . . .

. . . on April 25, 1959, after finishing his route, Eli Thomas killed himself in his school bus—bus number 253—while it sat idling on the corner of Beartown and Hollow Road.

Numb with disbelief, Father Ward sat back in his chair and closed his eyes.

Impossible.

Outlandish. Fantastic. Insane. A child-devouring demon was lurking around Clifton Heights? And somehow it had harnessed the bus in which a pedophile and murderer killed himself over forty years ago?

Ridiculous. He should have his head examined for thinking of it. This was obviously the result of his paranoia rearing its ugly head.

But still, that strange bus he’d been seeing looked like a much older model. And Father Ward wondered fearfully what answers he might get if he researched how many residents had ‘run away’ from the Boys Home over the years.

the ones no one wants

Eyes still closed, Father Ward leaned forward and put his face into his hands. He rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. For the sake of speculation, say someone had raised a demon demanding child sacrifice in exchange for bounty and good fortune.

Who?

Who would do such a thing? Who possessed the knowledge, and why?

A thought clicked in his head, one he didn’t want to face, but couldn’t avoid.

Father Thomas was hiding something

The bus driver’s name was Eli Thomas.

my mother left my father

he wasn’t healthy

circumstances . . . required my removal from his care

Eli Thomas.

Father Ward opened his eyes and finished the article. The old cliché of ‘blood running cold’ didn’t feel so old, at all.

The article closed with:

“A single parent, Eli Thomas is survived by a six year old son, Archie Thomas. The son has been remanded by social workers to the Boys of Faith Home in Clifton Heights.”

Father Ward exited Google Chrome and closed his laptop gently, fingers trembling.

Archie Thomas.

Father Archibald Thomas, Headmaster at All Saints High, priest at All Saints Church and Chairman of the Board for Boys of Faith Residence Home.

Son of a child molester and murderer.

“And the sins of the father shall be visited upon the sons,” he rasped in the silence.

Of course, he didn’t believe that completely. Father Thomas was not a puppet. No human being was. Despite his own sagging faith, Father Ward still believed in free will. There existed choice. There always existed choice. If the truth was as insane as it sounded—Father Thomas was dabbling in the occult—it wouldn’t be because ‘Daddy’ had been evil. There must be a reason, a cause . . .

Why?

Why did people pay homage to these . . . beings? Usually for bountiful harvests, for prosperity and gain, short-lived as they may be. The scripture passage he’d found in Numbers chastised God’s people for turning to Baal, desperate for immediate deliverance instead of trusting upon the Lord . . .

Father Ward sat straighter in his chair.

we nearly lost Boys of Faith

I joined the Board

I helped save that which saved me

The horrifying question was: How did Father Thomas save Boys of Faith?

Father Ward’s mind raced. He possessed no hard or even circumstantial evidence. But in his heart, he knew.

He knew.

And he felt betrayed on the deepest of levels. Father Thomas—son of a confessed child murderer and rapist—had made an unholy deal to save Boys of Faith twenty-four years ago, and Bobby Mavis was the next payment.

But one last thing. He needed something more to make this real.

Father Ward sat forward, typed in St. Mary’s in Indian Lake’s website, found their phone number. He grabbed his TracPhone from next to the laptop, took a breath and dialed.

A few rings, a click, and then: “St. Mary’s of Indian Lake.”

With false cheer—his insides twisting at yet more lies—Father Ward said, “Good evening. This is Father Bennington, from St. John the Evangelist in Binghamton. A relative of one of my parishioners attends your church and heard Father Thomas of All Saints speak there last night. We’ve been searching for special guests for an upcoming series, and we were wondering what you thought of him?”

A pause, and then the secretary’s polite voice. “I’m sorry . . . but I’m looking at our schedule, and there must be some mistake. There was no special speaker here last night, no Father Thomas.”

“Are you sure? Because your parishioner’s cousin was raving . . . ”

The secretary’s tone sounded firm. “I’m quite sure. Perhaps you’re thinking of St. Mary’s in Blue Mountain?”

Father Ward offered a fake chuckle. “Now, that would be like Dorothea, wouldn’t it? Wonderful woman, but easily excited and confused. Thanks for your time, anyway.”

“No problem. God bless.”

“You, too.”

The secretary hung up.

Nauseated to the point of dizziness, Father Ward dropped his TracPhone to the table, put his head into his hands and whispered, “Dear God. Father Thomas. What the hell have you done?”

4.

Father Ward spent his childhood and teen years rambling through the Adirondack forests. During his military service, his active upbringing served him well. He’d never considered himself ‘combat ready’ by any means, but he’d held his own in PT. As a result, he now moved through the night woods with adequate ease.

Along his thigh he held a semi-automatic Springfield .45. He’d quietly and legally purchased it not long after coming home. He’d been practicing regularly since, visiting a firing range in Utica, dressed as a civilian. While he wasn’t an expert marksman, he could mostly hit what he aimed at. Also, shooting wasn’t exactly foreign to him. He’d grown up in the Adirondacks, after all.

And as he slid past trees and eased over uneven ground, he flexed his grip on the .45, trigger finger lying alongside the barrel. After his call to St. Mary’s, he’d gotten the Springfield from its locked box under his bed and loaded it. He’d collected his Tracphone and the rosary he’d found in the confessional, traded his black dress shoes for hiking boots, but left his clerical clothes and collar on. Maybe it was vain—especially considering his recent struggles—but he believed the clothes and the collar stood for something bigger, something more powerful than what he was heading to face. Even if he was weak, what they represented was not.

Or so he’d dearly hoped and prayed.

He’d then driven past Beartown’s intersection with Hollow and parked at the old abandoned Disbro Farm three miles past it, pulling his car behind the dilapidated barn. Then, with a small flashlight, he’d slowly picked his way through the woods in the general direction of Hollow Road.

He was nearly there.

Light flickered through branches and brush. What would he find over the rise? He still didn’t know or understand what he’d uncovered. Father Thomas, a demon-worshiping killer who’d been kidnapping children from the Boys Home, children no one would notice?

the ones no one wants

runaways from Boys of Faith occur quite often

nature of the beast

And he’d been . . . sacrificing them? Or was someone else to blame? What of the ghostly bus, stalking him? Same number as the bus Eli Thomas—Father Thomas’s father—killed himself in, after admitting in a letter to the rape and murder of a child?

suffer the children

come unto me

And here he was, digging into something he didn’t understand, investigating something he’d no proof of, without contacting proper authorities.

Father Ward shifted the .45 to his side, muzzle pointed down. He ascended the gradual rise, eventually pausing at the edge of the clearing he’d found yesterday. He raised the Springfield and peered through the trees. Scattered points of light—torches?—flickered in the dark.

Who could he contact? Who would believe? Sheriff Beckmore contented himself with wrangling town drunks, investigating vandalism and petty larceny, and handling the occasional domestic abuse. Should he approach Sheriff Beckmore with his fears, he’d be gently humored and told the matter would be investigated. By then, it would be too late for Bobby Mavis.

And Father Thomas?

What if Father Thomas wasn’t involved with this at all, despite the lie he’d uncovered? He was the diocesan-appointed Headmaster at All Saints High, the priest-superior at All Saints Church. He held considerable influence at the Utica Diocese. Quite simply, Father Thomas could do much more than ignore him. He could remand Father Ward back to the Diocese for review. In short, Father Thomas could set into motion the stripping of his ordination. If, of course, he wasn’t involved in this.

Or worse . . . especially if he was involved.

To keep Father Ward quiet.

Father Ward braced his shoulder against a tree as he examined the clearing. The torches secured to trees around the clearing bathed the scene with a hazy, surreal glow. Past the torches, he saw nothing but an inky blackness. Despite his best intentions, he couldn’t keep from wondering what spirits swirled in the depthless dark.

Why was he doing this? Why take the risk? Why drag his limping faith into something so uncertain, so dangerous . . . and possibly evil?

He could tell himself it was because no one would believe him, because he was the only one who cared enough to investigate. He could tell himself that, but he’d be lying, because it was really about what had happened in an Afghani hovel a year ago, when three soldiers died because he’d been afraid. If he let himself believe this was happening and it wasn’t a manifestation of his guilt, then there was no choice but to face a horrible truth. As a demon profaned a dead little girl a year ago, here in his hometown a demon was going to consume another child.

And though his faith was cracked and torn, Father Ward would be damned if he’d let it happen again without a fight.

He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the tree’s rough bark. “Merciful Lord,” he breathed, “come alongside me now. I don’t deserve You or deserve to serve Your Holy Church. But Bobby Mavis doesn’t deserve to die, either.”

A deep sigh.

He tightened his grip on the .45. “Please. Amen.”

He pushed off the tree, opened his eyes, raised the .45, flicked off the safety and stepped through the brush and into the clearing beyond.

***

“Dear God,” Father Ward breathed as he moved into the clearing, gripping the .45 so tight his knuckles hurt. His arms and legs trembled at the sight before him. “Holy Mary, pray for us. Dear God in Heaven, shield Your unworthy servant in this hour, pray for us . . . ”

He tried to continue, but fear snatched the words away. He swallowed, his heart pounding, lungs thundering. New to the clearing was a statue made of thick tree branches, a stick-figure extending pine-branch arms, like the images of Moloch and Baal he’d seen on the Internet. And lying before the cobbled-together abomination, naked and spread-eagled in the cross-shaped fire pit, lashed to stakes driven into the ground . . . a boy.

Bobby Mavis.

Father Ward tore his gaze away, further examining the scene. Small flickering torches lined the path leading away to Hollow Road. The night lay deathly still. No owls or night birds calling, no wolves howling. No sounds at all save the sighing of the wind and the fluttering whisper of the torches against the night. From what he could tell, they were alone. Which, of course begged the question: Who lit the torches? And how soon before they returned?

For a moment, the silence and the profane tableau overwhelmed Father Ward. His legs quivered. The .45 dropped to his side as his arm went limp. He swayed on his feet. It was Afghanistan all over again. Someone was going to die because of his weak faith . . .

“No,” he rasped. “Not again. Not. Again.”

Father Ward switched off his flashlight, stuck it into his jacket pocket and withdrew the rosary of St. Raphael. He looped it over his wrist, clutching the medallion in one hand, gripping the .45 in his other, comforted by its cool steel against his skin. Holding it pointed to the side, he approached Bobby Mavis, gaze darting back and forth between him and the torch lit path leading to Hollow Road.

Though it felt like forever, he eventually reached Bobby’s side. He knelt, pointing the .45 at the path. With his other hand he clumsily felt the boy’s neck, without letting go of the rosary of St. Raphael.

Two fingers found the boy’s pulse. Weak, but there. He risked looking down. In the flickering light, Bobby was deathly pale. Slight tremors shook the boy.

He was alive. Weakened and sick, but alive. And for him to remain so, Father Ward needed to move him somewhere safe and warm, immediately. He laid a hand on Bobby’s forehead, then cupped his face. The boy’s eyelids twitched, but he remained unconscious. Too weak? On the verge of a coma? Drugged, perhaps?

Awkwardly, the rosary’s medal still dangling from his wrist, he dug into his jacket pocket and withdrew his Tracphone. His heart twisted, however, when he saw that—not surprisingly—this deep in the forest, he got no service.

He was on his own.

Didn’t matter. He must get Bobby away from here, now.

Father Ward put his Tracphone away and from the same pocket retrieved a pocketknife. He flicked the blade free, bent over the boy and gently sawed at the bonds holding Bobby’s wrists to the stakes pounded into the ground.

After several seconds of awkward cutting, trying not to slash the boy’s wrists, the ties fell away. When he shifted near Bobby’s head to work on the other wrist, Father Ward couldn’t help but stop and stare at what had been slashed into Bobby’s chest.

Bile rose at the sight. The cuts were shallow and would eventually heal, but Father Ward knew Bobby would carry around internal scars for much longer. Perhaps the rest of his life.

It was a circle. Inside the circle, three hooks spiraling from the center.

And as he sawed the ties on Bobby’s left wrist, glancing between the path and the design, he knew he’d seen it somewhere, though he couldn’t remember where. One thing he did think, however . . . it was a seal or a brand.

The kind denoting ownership.

Father Ward pushed the chilling thought from his mind. He’d worry about it later. If he didn’t get Bobby away from this unholy place soon, whomever . . . whatever cut the sign into his chest would return to claim its prize.

A few more draws of the knife. The lashing fell free. Father Ward slid near Bobby’s feet. Maybe because he’d gotten into a rhythm, or maybe because of the situation’s urgency, he made short work of the lashings on Bobby’s ankles.

He closed his knife and stashed it, bent over and placed his hand against Bobby’s burning forehead. “Father God . . . give me the strength to endure, make my path through this trial clear . . . ”

Bobby Mavis groaned and arched his back. He thrashed and kicked, hands and feet drumming against the ground. Father Ward tried to secure Bobby so he wouldn’t hurt himself, but a deep cold spread through him . . .

The sigil on Bobby’s chest.

It was blazing yellow.

“Bobby! It’s Father Ward!” He desperately fought the boy, trying to grab his arms and legs. “Please! You’re going to—”

From the path, he heard it: the throaty rumble of a diesel engine.

Father Ward stood, one hand gripping the rosary and its medallion, the other tightening around the .45’s grip, finger against the trigger. As he turned and faced the path, he wondered what good such an earthly weapon could possibly do.

Yellow light spilled down the path leading in from Hollow Road. As Father Ward stared in horrified fascination, a figure approached, its features cast into darkness . . .

the Faceless Man

. . . as it approached him in measured steps. Father Ward raised the .45, finger tensing on the trigger. “Dear God in Heaven, protect us, now.” As he said the words, however, an empty wave of cold despair washed over him.

Because he wondered if God was listening, anymore.

***

The figure drew near, the dark shadows falling away. Father Archibald Thomas stood before him. Face wooden, eyes wide and black. Though he wore his vestments, around his neck hung a strange, glowing medallion. Father Ward knew with a curdling stomach: It had burned the mark into Bobby’s flesh.

And on the heels of his dread realization came another: The medallion’s symbol was the same as the etchings he’d seen on the floors and walls of the little sandstone hovel in Afghanistan.

The same demon.

Father Thomas stepped closer.

Father Ward raised the .45, his finger pressing against the trigger. “Father Thomas,” he whispered. “What . . . What in God’s name . . . ”

He trailed off.

No recognition sparked in Father Thomas’s fathomless black eyes. He wore no expression, only a blank, pitiless stare.

A machine.

A force of unholy nature. Whatever Father Thomas was during the daylight hours, whatever he’d been when Father Ward met with him earlier today, he was no longer. What stood before him was an automaton, possessing no conscience or soul.

And it wanted to feed.

Father Thomas leaped. Father Ward shouted and squeezed the .45’s trigger one-two-three times, hitting Father Thomas center mass, jerking him with each shot. Father Thomas stumbled and fell to one knee. He caught himself before collapsing. Father Ward stepped forward and pressed the .45’s muzzle flush against Father Thomas’s forehead. “I’m sorry, GOD I’m so sorry . . . ”

His finger tensed against the trigger.

But Father Thomas surged upward, swiping the .45 from Father Ward’s hand, clamping onto his neck with an icy, iron grip. Father Ward kicked, hands clawing weakly at Father Thomas’s clenching fingers.

His eyes a cold swirling black, chest oozing from several gunshot wounds, Father Thomas hurled Father Ward away. He landed onto his back, head cracking against the stones around the clearing. Pressure filled his head, vertigo rising and swelling, threatening to sweep everything away.

He’d failed.

Again.

no

He’d survived his failure in Afghanistan by filling every waking moment with service and volunteering, doing what little the Church allowed him to. He’d found a true measure of enjoyment, a semblance of peace. But he couldn’t fail again.

He’d rather die.

“No!”

Forcing his dizziness aside, ignoring the throbbing in his temples, Father Ward scrambled to his feet, slipping on damp leaves. He lurched forward and leaped at Father Thomas, who was bending over poor Bobby, something sharp and gleaming in his hand . . .

God, please!

me for him!

. . . which he slammed into Father Ward’s belly.

Father Ward’s momentum carried him into Father Thomas, impaling him on the dagger. Father Thomas staggered back but didn’t fall. Father Ward clutched onto Father Thomas’s arms, his gut somehow on fire and freezing where the knife dug into him.

Waves of pain radiated from the knife in his belly, washing over his abdomen. Father Ward coughed, gagging on a small flush of blood against the back of his throat.

But power surged through him.

It didn’t wash away the pain, but it gave him the strength to grab Father Thomas by the throat as an all-consuming conviction blossomed inside. Driven by an instinct Father Ward didn’t understand, he pressed his other hand and the medal of St. Raphael against his wound, and the blood.

“You cannot have this child,” he rasped, managing to speak despite the roaring pain. “By the power . . . and blood. My blood. Which belongs to HIM, I deny YOU.”

He slapped his bloody hand and the medal of St. Raphael against Father Thomas’s face. Father Thomas gaped in a wordless shriek. Smoke rose from sizzling, popping flesh.

“In . . . in the name of . . . ”

A coughing fit bent him over, raking his tortured muscles against the blade, but he grit his teeth, spat and straightened, staring into Father Thomas’s black eyes. “In the name of Christ: Leave!”

Father Thomas shuddered, opened his mouth impossibly wide and screamed.

Marshaling what little strength remained, Father Ward placed both hands flat onto Father Thomas’s chest and pushed. Father Thomas, still screaming an inhuman wail, staggered back, his hands slipping off the knife’s hilt. The knife’s edge twisted against Father Ward’s belly, sending icy shocks of pain across his abdomen. He clapped his hands to the knife embedded in his stomach, but lacked the strength—or courage?—to yank it out.

He collapsed sideways.

The world spun.

Father Ward felt cold, especially in his extremities. Darkness seeped into his vision. The world was spinning and tilting and falling.

Father Thomas—or whatever it was, now—staggered back, still screaming, face smoking where Father Ward had pressed his blood-smeared hand and the medal of St. Raphael, patron saint of the police, and Martin Spencer. Under his feet, soil began to shift and move. As if something was tunneling from the ground below.

And they burst forth.

Dirt, pine needles and leaves flying as dozens of hands exploded from the ground, reaching for Father Thomas.

As the darkness closed in, Father Ward saw them . . . perhaps. Like the hands reaching up from the ground, maybe a hallucination, a figment of a dying mind. But he saw them. Standing behind a screaming Father Thomas as those hands pulled him into the earth.

Children.

Rows of children. Standing still, watching. Before them, Father Ward thought he recognized two children. One, a little Afghani girl. The other, standing next to her . . .

Martin Spencer.

And they were smiling, and it was horrible to see.

Father Ward gasped and shuddered.

Then darkness came.

***

Utica General Hospital

Two Days Later

April 21st

“One last time, Father Ward. You were heading home from working late at school,” Sheriff Beckmore droned. “You were driving Beartown Road because of construction on Main Street, and you saw . . . ”

He heard Beckmore flipping pages in his small notepad. “Here it is. You saw lights at the intersection of Beartown and Hollow Road. A school bus? An older one. From the fifties, you say.”

Father Ward nodded, shifting slightly in his hospital bed. He was rewarded with a dull stab of pain from the stitches in his abdomen. “Yes.”

“Okay. You doubled back, parked your car at the old Disbro Farm and made your way through the woods from the opposite side. And you had a gun. Which you’ve kept around for protection ever since you came home from Afghanistan.”

Sheriff Beckmore paused here. “Weird. A priest packing heat. But you were in the Army, so I guess it makes sense. Anyway, your piece checked out nice and legal. Of course . . . strange how you happened to have it on you, in the car, on your way home from work.”

Father Ward shrugged, wincing again as the motion tugged on his stitches. “Intuition. God was whispering in my ear, that day . . . ”

“Yeah. Good thing you’re a priest. Anyone else, that’d be reason enough for the psych ward. Anyway,” Beckmore consulted his notes. “When you found the clearing, you saw Bobby Mavis—who the Boys Home reported as a runaway—tied on the ground, naked. And with a damn brand on his chest, poor kid. You also saw someone dressed in black, wearing a mask . . . ”

Yes.

A mask. He was wearing a mask.

One looking like Father Thomas’s face. But whatever it was . . . it hadn’t been Father Thomas, anymore.

“ . . . getting ready to perform some sorta satanic ritual on the boy. You charged in there John Wayne style, fought with him . . . the clearing showed signs of struggle . . . and knocked him out cold. While he was dazed you cut Bobby free but this guy came to and attacked you again. You plugged him three times in the chest, but he somehow closed the distance and stuck you in the gut. And that’s how we found you. Knife in your gut, unconscious, nearly bled out and damn near to the pearly gates.”

He gestured at Father Ward’s bandaged abdomen. “According to the doctoryou’re awfully fortunate. That knife cut you a little deeper at a different angle, sliced your intestines, we might not be talking right now.”

Father Ward nodded, a memory flickering of him lying on the forest floor, bleeding into the dirt, and a little Afghani girl pressing her small hand into his wound, waves of soothing warmth flowing from her into him . . .

He cleared his throat.

The vision faded. He coughed, winced at the throb in his stitches and said, “Yes. Lucky. Or blessed. Depends on your perspective, I suppose.”

Beckmore grunted. “This guy musta been jazzed on his Satanist kick to shake off getting clocked in the head, and for him to get away after being shot three times. Maybe he was high. Probably will never know, unless we find his body, or him. Got men searching the area . . . ”

Images flashed again.

Of hands dragging Father Thomas screaming into the ground.

“ . . . but between you ‘n me, I’m not so hopeful. Deep wilderness out there. Either he’s somehow escaped, or he stumbled into some ravine and no one’s gonna find him until they happen on his bones.”

“I suppose so,” Father Ward said, forcing himself to meet Sheriff Beckmore’s gaze with a blank expression. He hated lying. After everything he’d endured, it was such a small thing, indeed . . .

But he still hated it.

Beckmore closed his notepad, becoming uncharacteristically somber. “Considering the set-up there in the woods, we’ve been excavating that clearing. I bet you can figure what we’ve found.”

Father Ward swallowed, remembering again those grasping hands pulling Father Thomas into the earth, but also strangely sure, wherever Father Thomas was now . . . it wasn’t under a clearing off Hollow Road. “Yes.”

“Most of em are burnt to hell, nearly impossible to identify. I figure . . . you don’t wanna know how many.”

runaways are a fact of life at Boys of Faith

nature of the beast

the beast

“No. I’d rather not.”

“Bobby Mavis’ll be okay. Thanks to you. Was a bit dehydrated and he’s fighting a cold, and he’ll need some more skin-work to cover that damn thing burned into his chest . . . but I suspect he’ll make it okay. Physically, of course. In his head? Probably another story.”

Despite the circumstances of his survival and Bobby’s rescue, a wave of grief rose in Father Ward’s heart. “What does he remember?”

Sheriff Beckmore pushed his hat higher on his forehead with a thick, sausage-like finger. “Not much, thank God. Remembers walking to school, hearing something big—like a school bus—behind him, and then . . . BOOM. Nothing until he woke here. Luckily, they’d already finished the first set of skin grafts on his chest by then.”

Beckmore shook his massive head. “Who knows what kinda shit’s gonna be in his dreams, though.”

Father Ward said nothing to this. But he knew of dreams, indeed.

Sheriff Beckmore turned to go, but stopped. “Y’know, some strange things I can’t quite figure. First of all, this business with the bus. An old bus, from the fifties, like the bus you saw, and the bus Bobby Mavis says he heard pull behind him before he blacked out. No schools in the area run buses that old anymore, and no one’s running a bus 253. Also, we didn’t find any bus tracks.”

Father Ward didn’t say anything to this either, simply because he hadn’t expected them to find traces of the bus at all.

“Another thing is this ‘Moe Leck’ and ‘Hammon Bale’ stuff the guidance counselor at All Saints said you two talked of. Far as we can tell, though you and Mrs. Hull and Bobby himself swear they met him, no Maurice Leck exists. Further back, we couldn’t find any records of a Hammon Bale, either. They don’t exist, and I can’t for the life of me figure what they have to do with all this.” He paused. “And honestly? Don’t think I want to know.”

his shadows

his shadows take us to him

“I do have one last question. Something no one knows what to make of.” Sheriff Beckmore eyed him closely again, his stolid expression blank, unreadable. “You’ve got no next of kin to call. Dad passed on, Mom in a Florida nursing home, so we tried Father Thomas. No dice. We visited the rectory, but no one was home. Car’s gone, place looks empty. Two days later, he’s still gone. Doesn’t show at the church or school. Family relations and superiors at the Diocese have no idea where he is, or why he left so suddenly without telling anyone where he was going.”

Sheriff Beckmore bent over slightly, his gaze bright and penetrating. “Father Ward . . . you haven’t any idea where Father Thomas might be . . . do you?”

Father Ward forced a blank, confused expression, shook his head slightly and rasped, “I have no idea.”

And that, more or less, was the truth.

Sheriff Beckmore stared at him for a heartbeat longer. Then he sighed, his face relaxing, as if resigning himself—gratefully—to no answers.

“Besides that, most everything else has been settled. Got some loose ends can’t be explained, course. Like how Bobby Mavis managed to call 911 from your Tracphone despite the spotty service out there, then pass out again, all without remembering him doing it. Of course, 911 never got a name, did they? Only identified the caller as ‘young teen boy.’ So that’s sorta hanging, with a few other things. But that’s life here in Clifton Heights, son. Probably didn’t notice much growing up, but now you’re an adult? Well, suppose this might be your first lesson there. One you’re gonna need, with what’s coming for you next.”

“Next? What do you mean?”

“Well, unless Father Thomas shows up with an air-tight explanation as to where he’s been and why he left, All Saints Church and Academy are in need of a priest and Headmaster. And right now, you’re the hero of the hour, saving Bobby Mavis and all. Don’t know how the Diocese works, not being Catholic and all, but seems to me their choice for a successor would be clear.”

Sheriff Beckmore touched the brim of his hat. “Get some rest, Father. You’re gonna need it.”

Sheriff Beckmore turned and left.

Father Ward lay back in his bed. He stared at the shadows shifting on the walls until fatigue claimed him, pulling him under the warm, dark covers of sleep.

Where he didn’t dream.