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Semua Bab Devourer of Souls: Bab 41
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45 Bab
Twenty
Devourer of Souls/Crystal Lake Publishing
TWENTYWhen I awoke I found myself lying face first on a thinly carpeted floor. My head pounded, feeling about twice its normal size, throbbing behind my eyes. I licked dry, cracked lips and felt my stomach heave.I felt enormously tired. Fuck it all, right? I didn’t understand any of this. Didn’t understand why it was happening. How it could happen so fast. How apparently a quaint little Adirondack hamlet had turned into a compound full of crazed cult members in just several days . . .Of course, you’re assuming it didn’t start quietly, long ago.. . . I barely understood what was really going on beneath the surface of things . . .We’re going to be over into His Unknowable image.. . . and I wasn’t sure I cared much, anymore. My best friend or what remained of him was good as gone. My preacher Dad had not only gone full-on religious-nut-loony, he’d apparently set Bobby and me up as targets or even (fucking unbelievable) sacrifices to invite the man yellow into our town. If the
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Twenty-One
Devourer of Souls/Crystal Lake Publishing
TWENTY-ONEThroughout his entire talk with me, the muffled sound of hymns had drifted from the sanctuary through the storeroom door. When he left, the hymns rose into a crescendo, exploding into a chanting the likes of which I’d never heard before. His voice boomed in that strange language I remembered from my dreams. I imagined him striding up onto the stage, arms spread high into the air, yellow suit blazing with unnatural light, the flesh on his face hanging loose as the thing that hid behind it got closer to finally coming out.I hauled myself to my feet, gasping at the pain exploding in my ankles and knees, gritting my teeth against a sudden surge of bile. Somehow I managed not to puke, leaning back against the shelf, gasping for air, trying to gather my resources for one last final . . .What?What could I possibly do? The man in yellow had covered all the angles. Had obviously planned this whole thing out long before he’d come here. Hell, he’d done it before, apparently, in
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Twenty-Two
Devourer of Souls/Crystal Lake Publishing
TWENTY-TWOEver see the movie Backdraft, Father? By the summer of my senior year, everyone including me had. A good enough movie, it was mostly forgettable, except there’s this scene in which one of the fireman characters mistakenly opens a door without checking the knob for heat first. When he opens the door, his ass gets fried by a huge gout of flame. A backdraft, caused by the sudden rush of oxygen.Now, I’m not exactly sure if that’s what I was trying to accomplish. Point in fact, I didn’t end up causing a backdraft. For that you need a smoldering fire that’s used up all the oxygen in a room. But hey—I wasn’t a firefighter or arsonist. I was a scared and pissed off (but mostly scared) eighteen year old trapped in a room with no way out. The door was guarded and it didn’t matterby whom, because I wasn’t gonna be waltzing by them any time soon.That chanting was getting louder. Weirder. The words all jumbled and mixed together, like from my nightmare of what I’d seen in that clear
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Twenty-Three
Devourer of Souls/Crystal Lake Publishing
TWENTY-THREENowFortunately not everyone in town was at church that night. A scattered few—those devoted non-attendees our faithful little town tolerated—had of course been at home. Some of them were volunteer firemen. They were the ones who found me in the basement the next morning.“Somehow I didn’t break my neck falling down those stairs. The heat and the smoke of course rose and enough of the floor held and didn’t collapse on me. I ended up spending only a week over at Clifton Heights General for mild injuries and smoke inhalation. I did, however, suffer ligament damage in my knees and ankles from the fall, exacerbated because of my CP. For several weeks I got around first in a wheel chair, then with a walker.”I sat back in the confessional booth, speechless, deeply concerned for the poor man’s soul, wondering about his sanity . . .Except.I distinctly remembered the burning of Tahawus Methodist Church, the summer after my senior year in high school. My father had helped o
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Coda
Devourer of Souls/Crystal Lake Publishing
CODAThe welcome sign for Tahawus is up ahead on the right. A glance at the dashboard clock on my JEEP shows that, indeed, it is only about forty minutes away from Clifton Heights. I find that hard to believe. It feels like we’ve been driving for hours. Of course, I’ve learned in my few years in the Adirondacks that the back roads feel endless, surrounded on both sides by thick, seemingly impenetrable stands of Adirondack pine. A thirty minute drive to Old Forge feels like an hour and half, most days.As I slow for the turn-off, I glance at Father Ward in the passenger seat. He sits with Nate Slocum’s journal in his lap, staring out the window. He’s been quiet for most the trip. I don’t blame him. His encounter with Stuart Michael Evans sounded harrowing. Of course, he’s now telling himself that clicking sound from Stuart fleeing the confessional booth must’ve been his walker, and not . . . something else. That Stuart had suffered some sort of hysterical break instead of . . .Chang
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