The Narrow Gate: A Supernatural Thriller (Solom Book 2) Read online

  “He’s real, Mark. He saved us from Gordon last year. But I don’t think he really cared about us. It was more like he was punishing Gordon and we weren’t even there.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Because you’re not part of Solom. I’ve heard the same stories as you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We’re leaving.”

  “Katy—”

  “I’ll have Jett call you from the road. Bye.”

  She wasn’t sure if she was being unreasonable or just refusing to let Mark influence her life. Or maybe she simply refused to believe this was happening, despite her own encounters with Solom’s supernatural legends. In the cold light of day, it was easy to think Gordon’s attack and the Harmon Smith’s sudden materialization had been nothing but a fantasy, but on long autumn nights, the legends seemed all too real.

  Katy made sure the yard was clear before she hauled her overnight bag to the Subaru. She flung the bag in the hatchback and closed it, then got behind the wheel and tapped it impatiently, glancing around to make sure no goats returned. Jett slid into the passenger seat a minute later, dropping her shoulder bag in the floor between her feet.

  “Did you lock up?” Katy asked.

  “Yep. Wouldn’t want anybody stealing your…wait, you don’t have anything.”

  Katy adjusted the rearview mirror and froze.

  In the backseat was the female scarecrow from the barn. Its cheesecloth head was missing.

  But Rebecca’s voice chilled her even more: “It’s time to go.”

  Jett jumped out of the car. “Holy crap, Mom. Did you hear that?”

  Katy harbored no desire to say “Told you so.” Even though she’d accepted the ghost’s existence, the encounter caused her hair follicles to tingle and heart to race. But Rebecca’s calm delivery kept her from fleeing the car. Instead, curiosity won out.

  After all, they’d shared a husband and shared a house for more than a year. They were practically sisters.

  “Go where?” Katy asked the scarecrow figure.

  “Mom,” Jett said, backing away. “You’re…talking to her?”

  “We have a history,” Katy said. She repeated her question to the back seat. Then Rebecca appeared beside the scarecrow, with milky skin, big black eyes, long dark hair, and a wicked gash around her neck.

  The ghost said, “Listen to me if you want to live.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Odus reached the ridge line and dismounted, letting Sister Mary nibble some dried-up rabbit tobacco as he scanned the granite boulders and stunted cedars that the wind had swept for ages. The path narrowed and grew rougher, used mostly by foxes, the occasional black bear, and deer.

  Yet this would have been the way Harmon Smith would have crossed to Virginia or eastern Tennessee. The valley cut through gaps at each end of Lost Ridge that would have resulted in less of a climb, but they were each nearly ten miles out of the way. A car had no trouble with the extra distance, and the state highway department stuck as close to the lower elevations as possible. But Harmon Smith had ridden in the days before highways and still marched to the echo of that long-dead era.

  Odus expected some sign, a hoof print or a broken tree branch or maybe even Old Saint’s spoor, whatever that might look like. But all he’d found were crackling leaves, hardwoods damaged by acid rain and insects, and the cold October air at 4,500 feet of altitude. He’d spooked a few ravens, and a red hawk cut an arc in the violet sky before diving for some unlucky rodent, but the forest remained quiet. He went for the whiskey bottle again, letting the Old Crow warm his tongue.

  “Looks like I took us on a wild goose chase,” he said to the horse. Sister Mary flicked her mane out of her eyes as if nodding in agreement.

  Odus heard a clattering, like the sound of wood against stone. Or the clop of a horse’s hoof.

  “You’ve come a long way,” came a voice from the thinning trees. “Seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened.”

  “I do want something,” Odus said, in the general direction of the voice. He would never forget the cold, deep tones of the Horseback Preacher. Outside, the voice seemed to boom even more than it had inside the general store. “I want this to be over. I want you to be over.”

  “Come to me, all that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

  “The folks that are alive today didn’t have anything to do with what happened to you. Why don’t you just go on and leave us in peace?”

  “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

  An unseen horse whinnied. The laurel branches quivered, parted, and the horse stepped out, black with a pure white chest the way the legends described him. He stood a good head taller than Sister Mary, whose ears twitched at the sight of the animal. The Horseback Preacher was astride his horse, sitting tall in the saddle, head tilted down.

  Even looking up at him from below, Odus had a hard time distinguishing his features. The dying sunlight was at the Horseback Preacher’s back, the sky cast purple with shredded sheets of pink. The shadows of the trees seemed to grow up from the ground and enshroud the mounted figure.

  Odus wondered if this was the showdown he’d been seeking. Maybe he was supposed to jump on Sister Mary, ride hell-bent for leather toward the dead preacher, and tangle with him head-on. If he’d brought a firearm, he probably would have faced him down like a tin-star hero.

  “We’re not the ones who killed you,” Odus said.

  “You belong to Solom. That’s reason enough.”

  “It ain’t the place that sinned. It was just a few preachers who did you in, the way I hear it. And they’re dead. They faced their judgment long ago, before Him that has power over all of us.”

  The Horseback Preacher’s head lifted, and Odus recognized that strong, jowly Smith chin. The hidden eyes suddenly flared like a campfire’s embers urged by the wind. “You think I like making these rounds? You think I have a choice? Did you ever consider maybe something’s got power over me? For the Bible says, ‘If you are forced to go one mile, go also the second.’”

  Odus gripped the dangling reins and held Sister Mary’s head tight. The pinto tried to back away, but the terrain was too rough and dangerous. A stench drifted off the Horseback Preacher, the smell of a dead skunk in the road, but a whisk of wind carried it off, leaving only the strong, green smell of pine and the earthy aroma of fallen and decaying leaves.

  “I’ve come to stop you,” Odus said.

  “I wish you could,” the Horseback Preacher said, relaxing his pale hands and patting his horse on the neck. “Narrow is the gate and hard is the road that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

  “Why don’t you just step down off that saddle, hang up your hat, and let it go?”

  “Told you, I got a mission. I didn’t ask for it. It was given to me.”

  “I don’t believe in the Devil.”

  “Neither do I, Mr. Odus Hampton.” The Horseback Preacher leaned to one side and spat, as if ridding himself of many years of bitter trail dust. “I knew your daddy. Good man. I could have taken him in the summer of ‘77, when he was up on a ladder cleaning out gutters on the Smith House.”

  “He worked for Gordon’s daddy.”

  “And you worked for Gordon. Some things don’t change in Solom.”

  “I reckon one thing’s going to have to change.”

  “Not tonight. Not here and now, between you and me.”

  “I’m afraid so, mister.” Odus’s throat was dry, but he wouldn’t let his voice weaken or crack.

  “Who do you think brought you here? Don’t tell me you woke up this morning and it just popped into your head to steal a horse and ride to the top of Lost Ridge.”

  “I did some studying on it first.”

  “That’s the trouble with you folks. You think you’re the boss of your arms and legs and mind, you think your soul is separate and free from your flesh. And I’m here to tell you otherwise.”

  The chill that crept over Odus’s skin had only a little
to do with the day’s fading warmth. As the sky grew darker, the shadows around Harmon Smith lessened, as if the man was absorbing the blackness. More of his face was visible, and the meat over his jaws looked to be the texture of crumbling wax. Old Saint stood stock-still during their conversation, while Sister Mary pawed the ground, shuffled, and snorted in dismay.

  Odus noted that maybe being dead had its advantages when it came to the equestrian arts. No saddle sores.

  “Well, I found you, so that means there’s a reason, doesn’t it?” Odus ached for a shot of whiskey, but then wondered if the ache was due to his own need or was caused by the whim of some bearded guy behind the clouds. He had little use for religion, but, like most hopeless sinners, he wrapped his hands around it when it was the only rope available for climbing out of a dark pit.

  “You’re not special, you’re just early,” the Horseback Preacher said.

  Confused, Odus figured he’d best keep the creature talking while he came up with a plan. “Did you kill them two tourists on the Switchback Trail? You’re only supposed to kill one and then be one your way. That’s how it’s always been, as far back as they remember to tell it. I thought you held with tradition.”

  “Know them by their fruits.”

  “You’re evil. How can a man of the cloth go around killing like that?” Odus was casting about for a fallen tree branch or a loose jag of granite. He felt foolish now for not bringing a gun. He still wasn’t sure what sort of weapon would work, if any. His was a mission of faith, despite the Horseback Preacher’s mocking.

  The Horseback Preacher ran a gaunt, crooked finger through a hole in his jacket. “Cloth is like flesh, it goes to worms. The spirit is the thing that doesn’t die.”

  The Horseback Preacher lifted his head and glanced above them through a gap in the canopy, his mouth curling up at one corner. A beech leaf spiraled down from the twisted branches and fluttered across his face. The woods were hushed in that moment as the birds and wildlife changed shifts, the daytime animals settling into holes, nests, and protective crooks of tree limbs while the nocturnal creatures roused from the slumber.

  The silence was disturbed by a faint buzzing from below, as if a giant nest of hornets had been stirred with a stick. Harmon Smith’s cracked lips bent like a snake with a broken spine in something that might have been a smile if seen on a human face.

  “I suppose the others got the same idea you did,” he said. “Funny how you give them a choice and they make the wrong one every single time. Few find the true way.”

  The buzz grew louder, changed into a roar. It was a vehicle engine. Somebody was climbing the rough logging roads that crisscrossed the mountain. And those roads led to the top, where Odus stared down his adversary. His brow furrowed in doubt. He was supposed to do this alone, wasn’t he?

  At that moment, Sister Mary reared, flailing her forelegs in front of her, stripping the leather reins through Odus’s palm, cutting into his flesh. She broke and galloped into the trees, neck stooped low and ears pinned close to her head.

  The Horseback Preacher stroked Old Saint’s mane, and the revenant horse chuckled softly in response. “I guess your friend there just exercised her free will, huh?”

  Odus took two steps backward, toward the rocky ledge that led to one of the logging roads. It was a thirty-foot drop. He could try to climb down, but he pictured his fingers gripping the granite ledge and Old Saint bringing a heavy, scarred hoof down on them. He could follow Sister Mary and blaze a trail through the tangles, or he could stand his ground and see what God had in store for him.

  None of the options settled the squirming in his chest and gut. The courage that had surged through him since this morning now seemed foolish and silly. He possessed no special gifts or weapons to bring to bear against a supernatural creature. He’d fallen back onto a sort of crippled faith, believing God would provide in Odus’s hour of need. But Odus didn’t consider that he’d never been a deeply religious man, or that faith couldn’t be turned off and on like tap water.

  “You fear me, but only because you don’t understand me,” the Horseback Preacher said, over the increasing roar of the engine. “If the shepherd has one hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the other ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?”

  The Horseback Preacher wheeled his mount and trotted back through the laurel thicket. The branches shook from his passage as if horse and rider were as solid and real as any living creature. But the smell of decay lingered, a smell that hinted of grave dirt and spent fires and blood dried black.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  A chauffeur for the dead.

  Katy guided the Subaru off the highway onto the old logging road, sure that the last bit of sanity had slipped from her, leaving the nerves of her brain raw and exposed.

  Why else would she be taking directions from a ghost? Her instinct was to stay on the highway and make time to Florida, maybe stopping at a Holiday Inn halfway between. Anything that would have put distance between Jett and Solom.

  But Rebecca’s lost voice connected with her on some primal, feminine level. They were two women who had traveled the same path, though Rebecca’s had ended too early and violently.

  Jett was reluctant to get back in the car after Rebecca had warned them of what was underway that night: Gordon had returned to the farm and retrieved the other scarecrow. Katy almost said, “But he’s dead,” and then realized such distinctions didn’t matter in Solom. She also remembered something Sarah Jeffers had warned her about. Whoever the Horseback Preacher takes always comes back.

  “Well, Mom, this is just great,” Jett said. “You brought me to Solom to get me off drugs and then you drop me right into the biggest bad-acid trip in the universe.”

  “Just hang on, honey,” Katy said. She glanced in the rear-view. Rebecca was gone but her words came as if she were leaning over the seat: Up the mountain.

  Up, an ascension, as if the journey bore a spiritual as well as physical element. But didn’t all journeys? If you thought of life as a road that must be traveled, then you encountered all kinds of exit ramps, signal lights, pit stops, and, eventually, a vehicle breakdown.

  Each fork was an opportunity, as the poet Robert Frost pointed out, but no one ever figured out if each road taken was a choice or an obligation. If you took the road less traveled, was it because you wanted to, or because you were compelled?

  Katy decided this road was definitely the one less traveled, because the Subaru bottomed out in the ruts, the arcs of the headlights bouncing ahead like light sabers cutting a path through the wilderness. The car was all-wheel drive, which gave it enough traction to navigate the roughest parts of the old road, but it groaned in protest as it leaped and jittered.

  “Mom, what are we supposed to do when we get there?

  “I don’t think we’re supposed to know,” Katy said.

  “You just have to get there,” Rebecca said, suddenly whole again, or the closest she could come to that corporeal state.

  Jett jerked away, sitting forward in her seat, fighting the tension of the seat belt. “Hey! Don’t do that. You’re freaking me out enough already without popping out of thin air.”

  “I’m a ghost,” Rebecca said. “What else do you expect me to do?”

  “I foresee years of therapy ahead,” Jett said.

  “Just imagine the stories you’ll have to tell your grandkids,” Katy said, wrestling the steering wheel as the car lurched over a fallen sapling.

  “If I live that long. Let’s not take that for granted yet. We’re on a place called ‘Lost Ridge’ with a headless woman in the back seat, headed for a showdown with your dead husband and a preacher who has returned from the grave. What could possibly go wrong?”

  “They’re waiting,” Rebecca said.

  “They?” Katy asked.

  “The ones who are supposed to be there.”

  “What’s with the riddles?” Jett said. “If you know what’s go
ing to happen, why don’t you tell us?”

  “You already know, too. That’s the trouble with the living. They only hear the past when they should be listening to the future.”

  “Oh, great. Mom, you got any dope on you? I can’t handle this.”

  Katy looked at her daughter, whose face was pale green from the interior lights. Her dyed-black bangs were parted, making her look younger than her fifteen years. Yet Katy’s little Gothling was knocking on the door to womanhood and all the crazy mysteries waiting ahead. Not to mention the crazy mysteries in the back seat. “You promised, remember?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Jett sighed and reached to turn up the music, then changed her mind and settled back against her seat, still leaning away from Rebecca. But she said to the ghost, “So, why did Gordon kill you?”

  “Because he loved me. Why else would you kill someone?”

  “No,” Katy said. “I think the reason is even more selfish that.”

  As she compelled the Subaru up the logging road, she thought back to Gordon’s fascination with myths and old cultures and his ranting about harvest gods and goddesses. Gordon might have thought offering human sacrifice was the most natural thing in the world. Maybe he viewed it as a pleasant little appeasement ritual that had been too long neglected, its neglect bringing about the sorry state of the modern environment. Maybe he was trying to follow in the footsteps of his forefather, Harmon Smith, in observing his own peculiar belief system.

  Katy assumed the Horseback Preacher rejected Gordon’s sacrifice last year, when he’d tried to kill her and Jett. But what if the sacrifice had been noted and rewarded? What if Gordon was now the preacher’s right-hand man in whatever sinister business was now afoot?

  Katy shivered and looked through the windshield at the rutted road ahead, wondering what sort of god would compel a man to slaughter his wife and maybe others. Surely Katy and Jett would have been next, and would join Rebecca in haunting the old wooden-frame farmhouse until the end of time.