Littlefield Read online

  Mom knocked again. “Let me in, boys.”

  Ronnie put his hand over Tim’s mouth before his younger brother could cry out. Tim’s hot, rapid breath passed between his fingers.

  “Mommy won’t hurt you,” she said.

  Ronnie put one finger to his lips to shush Tim, then slid quietly around until his back was against the door. To get inside, she’d have to bust the old metal lock. But they couldn’t stay here forever. Some of the other church people might help her. Like Mama Bet. Like Whizzer.

  They’d have to find a way out.

  The window was too high to reach. Ronnie wasn’t sure if he could even fit through it. But maybe Tim could.

  The door rattled. “Come out, my honeys. I’ll protect you.”

  Said the spider to the fly.

  But that was Ronnie’s mom out there, the one who had raised him and burped him and kissed the scrapes on his knee and stood up for him when the school counselor said Ronnie wasn’t playing well with others.

  This was the only mom he had.

  He fought back the tears that burned his eyes and wet the bandages on his nose.

  Think, think, think. You’re supposed to be smart, remember? At least, that’s what all those tests say.

  What would Dad do?

  Something shuffled in the corner, a light, whispery sound.

  A leaf?

  A mouse?

  This was supposed to be a fancy mouse motel, after all.

  That was what Lester Matheson had called the church. But Lester also said, It’s people what makes a church, and what and all they believe.

  The people here believed some pretty weird stuff.

  People like his mom. And he was so scared of his Mom that he wouldn’t open the door.

  The soft, dry rattling came again, so quietly that he barely heard it over his pounding pulse.

  He’d have to do something fast.

  “Ronnie,” Mom said from the other side of the door.

  He tensed.

  “Listen,” she said. “It’s Tim that Archer needs. Open the door and let me have Tim, and you can go. Mommy promises.”

  Tim gasped.

  Mom usually kept her promises.

  Ronnie looked into his brother’s face, saw the glint of tears on his cheeks, the weak reflection of the moon in his glasses.

  This was the dingle-dork who pestered him and tore the covers off his Spiderman comics and said that Melanie Ward wanted to give him a big, sloppy kiss.

  Tim was the biggest pain-in-the-rear of all time.

  And this moment, this choice, was another of those turning points that were popping up so often lately. This was some kind of test.

  Everything was a test.

  And to win, to make an A-plus, all he had to do was stand up, turn the brass catch, and let the door swing open, let Mom give Tim a big, bloody hug and carry him off to Archer. And Ronnie could walk right down the road to the rest of his life.

  Yeah, RIGHT.

  Mom knocked again, more firmly. “Ronnie? Be my big boy.”

  “Mommy,” Tim whimpered, a bubble of mucus popping in his nose.

  “Tim?” Mom said. “Open the door. Come to Mommy.”

  Tim’s hand snaked toward the door handle, trembled, and stopped halfway. Ronnie reached out and caught it, then pulled Tim to his feet.

  The thing in the dark corners shuffled again.

  Mice.

  He led Tim underneath the window, then put his mouth to his brother’s ear. “When I boost you up, break the window and crawl out.”

  Tim’s glasses flashed in the moonlight as he nodded.

  Ronnie stooped and cupped his hands, and Tim put a foot in them. Ronnie grunted as he lifted, and Tim grabbed the small splintered ledge and pulled himself up to the glass.

  “Close your eyes and hit it with your elbow,” Ronnie commanded. “Hurry.”

  Ronnie didn’t worry about remaining quiet, because whatever was in the corner was growing louder and larger and darker than the shadows. Tim hit the window once, and nothing happened.

  “Harder,” Ronnie yelled, his voice cracking.

  Tim smacked the window again and the brittle explosion was followed by the tinkle of showering glass.

  “What are you boys up to in there?” Mom shouted, banging on the door.

  Ronnie pushed Tim higher. “Watch out for the glass,” he said, as Tim scurried through the small frame. When Tim had tumbled through, probably landing shoulder-first on the grass outside, Ronnie jumped as high as he could. His fingers scratched inches short of the window ledge.

  At least Tim made it.

  He leaned against the wall. Alone. He would have to face the darkness alone.

  The darkness moved away from the lesser darkness, and the moon fell on its face.

  His face.

  Preacher Staymore.

  Ronnie exhaled a lungful of held fear as the preacher’s voice reached and soothed him. “With the Son of God in your heart, you’re never alone.”

  The preacher stepped forward, calm and smiling.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Wait a second.

  What’s the preacher doing here? During the First Baptist services, he said time and again that all the other churches led people straight to hell.

  Ronnie stepped back from the man’s broad, grinning face and fervent eyes.

  “You’re wondering what I’m doing here, aren’t you, my child?” Preacher Staymore spread his arms and held his palms upward, like Jesus in those Bible color plates.

  “Let me in, Ronnie,” Mom yelled, rattling the door again.

  “I hid back here so I could help save you, Ronnie,” the preacher said, ignoring her. “God sent me special just to watch you. We knew you’d be tempted.”

  “Tempted?” Ronnie glanced at the window.

  “Yes. You know there’s only one true way.”

  Mom pounded on the door.

  “Can you hear Him aknockin’, Ronnie?”

  I can try for the window one more time. Maybe if I get a running start—

  Mom flailed at the door. “You boys had better get out here right this second,” she said, her voice a mixture of anger and hysteria.

  “Escaping won’t save you, Ronnie.” Preacher Staymore took another step closer. “You can run to the ends of the earth, but you can’t get away from your own sorry heart. Only one person can cleanse you.”

  Ronnie pressed against the wall, clawing at the wood behind him.

  The moon bathed the preacher’s face, almost like a dramatic spotlight on some crazy stage.

  “Can you hear Him aknockin’?” the preacher repeated.

  Mom pounded on the door. “Ron-NEEEEE.”

  The preacher reached out to touch Ronnie’s forehead, just as he had done the dozen or so other times he’d helped Ronnie get saved. Ronnie closed his eyes and bowed his head slightly, the way he was supposed to do.

  At least I’ll get saved one last time before Mom and Archer and the Bell Monster get me. And dear Jesus, when you come in this time, please stay awhile. Please don’t let me have more of those sins of the heart that make you so mad. And please, please, please, let Tim get away.

  “You got to throw open the door, Ronnie,” the preacher whispered, his hand moist and cool on Ronnie’s forehead. “You got to let Him in.”

  The feeling came, that mixture of warmth and airiness expanding in his chest.

  The good feeling.

  The kind of feeling he got when Mom hugged him or Dad mussed his hair.

  A feeling of being wanted, of being loved.

  Of belonging.

  He smiled, because he was going to tell Preacher Staymore that the door was open, that the Lord had come right on in and then slammed it shut so that no sins could sneak in behind Him.

  Ronnie opened his eyes to thank the preacher, but the preacher wasn’t there.

  A slick stack of something that looked like gray mud stood before him. Touching him.

  Some of the mud slid
down his forehead and clung to his bandaged nose.

  The mudstack made wet noises, a bubbling like snotty breath.

  Ronnie choked back a scream. The darkness took shape, the shadow behind the mud gaining sharp edges.

  The Bell Monster.

  Ronnie slapped away the branch of mud that stretched to his head. It was like punching a giant slug.

  Mom screamed his name again from behind the door.

  The mudstack jiggled forward, the shadow looming behind it.

  It’s moving, oh, sweet Jesus Christ, it’s MOVING.

  Ronnie tried to tell himself it was the pain pill, this was a stupid dream and he’d wake up with a pillowcase tangled around his head. That he’d wake up and the only problems he would have were Mom and Dad’s arguing, Tim’s pestering, Melanie Ward’s hot-and-cold flirting, and all the hundreds of ordinary problems that boys across the world faced every day.

  Oh, yeah, and the big one: whether Jesus Christ was going to stay with him and help him get through it all, or whether He was going to cut and run at the first tiny sin of the heart.

  But the mud monster moved again, pressing against Ronnie, and he could no longer lie to himself. This was real.

  And the worst got worser, as Tim would say.

  Because the thing spoke.

  “Come into me, Ronnie,” came the slobbery, mumbling voice. “Give it up. It’s the only way to get cleansed forever.”

  Ronnie didn’t ask how getting smothered in a nasty, creepy mound of walking, talking mud would make him clean.

  “I need you,” the mud monster said. The shadow grew larger behind it, filling the room, blocking the window. “Give yourself to me.”

  Yeah, RIGHT.

  It’s all about sacrifice, ain’t it? I give myself up, and you let Tim go. That’s the deal, huh?

  Ronnie struggled against the crush of mud.

  But then you’ll be back, and it will be TIM’S turn to sacrifice. And then Dad’s, and then everybody else’s. And everybody loses but you.

  Because YOU don’t have to sacrifice anything.

  All you do is take and take and take.

  The weight of the mud pressed Ronnie to his knees. The slimy fluid soaked through his clothes. Mom called again and pounded on the door, the sound a million miles away.

  All he wanted to do was sleep. He was so tired. It was so much easier to just give yourself up than actually try to fight.

  So much easier.

  Frank tried to pull back on the rifle, but his swing had too much momentum.

  Sheila’s eyes widened as the rifle butt struck her cheek.

  Oh, my God. No, no, NOOOO.

  The wooden stock glanced off her jaw, and for a split second, Frank had the illusion that the butt had passed through her skull. But he’d been suffering a lot of illusions lately, and the slapping sound echoed off the church and tombstones.

  Sheila dropped like a sack of wet seed corn, and Frank dropped to her side almost as rapidly, calling her name.

  A red splotch spread across her cheek. Frank put his fingers gently against the bruise. “You okay?” he whispered.

  Her eyes fluttered open and she groaned.

  “I didn’t . . . you were Archer . . .”

  She gripped his shoulder, the one she had shot hours earlier. Frank winced but swallowed his grunt of pain.

  She worked her jaw sideways twice, then said, “It still works.”

  So maybe he’d held back enough.

  “You were Archer,” Frank repeated stupidly.

  “Gee, thanks for the compliment,” she said. “Have I told you lately that you’re ape shit crazy?”

  “Not in the last five minutes or so.” Frank glanced into the branches of the dogwood above, making sure nothing sharp and black was moving around up there.

  Where was Archer? And how was Frank going to kill something that couldn’t be killed when he couldn’t even trust his own eyes?

  Sheila sat up, rubbing her jaw. “Guess that was payback,” she said, pointing at the blood seeping through his bandage.

  “Yeah,” he said, gripping the rifle. “Now we’re even, but somebody else has a debt to settle.”

  He rose and headed for the church. Most of the congregation had scattered, and the church was silent except for Linda Day’s shouting. Frank stood before the door and stared at the belfry, then into the dim interior of the church.

  Twenty-three years ago, at Samuel’s funeral, Frank had entered this structure with only one comfort: that God would take care of Samuel in the afterlife.

  And that comfort had kept Frank going all these years, even though a tiny niggling voice in the back of his mind never let him forget what the Bell Monster had done. God had been with Frank then, had helped him deal with the sorrow of losing his family, had laid by him and with him and inside him during a thousand sleepless nights.

  But now, as Frank entered the church, he knew the kind of tricks that God liked to play. And that God’s closeness was only another illusion.

  This time Frank walked alone.

  Mama Bet crawled on her hands and knees across the floor to the altar. The muck that had been Donna Gregg’s internal organs soaked into Mama Bet’s Sunday dress and coated her skin. She didn’t mind the sticky blood on her face or the rank, coppery taste that clung to the inside of her mouth. This was an offering, after all. A sacrifice.

  There’s nothing as glorious as the flesh of one of the old families.

  The others had fled, those of little faith who shied from the brilliance of Archer’s power. But not her. No, she would follow to the end. And the others were only delaying what was meant to be, what was ordained by God. The only thing that heavenly son of a snake ever did right was to give Archer to the world.

  To her.

  She licked her lips and raised up in worship of the crooked cross. The wood caught the dying light from the candles, standing as defiantly as a true believer on a devil’s playground. The Jesus-demon had been nailed to such a cross, and people had fallen all over themselves to get on the bandwagon. But when the real thing, the true messiah, came unto their midst, they scattered like a bunch of hens running from a fox.

  Except Linda Day.

  The woman banged on the vestry door like there was no tomorrow, screaming Ronnie’s name over and over again. Mama Bet chuckled to herself.

  I reckon faith is either all or nothing. Linda’s gone whole hog for Archer, giving up her boys without a second thought just so Archer will pat her on the head and flash that television smile. And people think I’M crazy.

  She wiped a fleck of flesh from her chin and stood on trembling legs.

  I’m getting too old for such foolishness. About time I took Archer up on that eternal peace he keeps promising. As long as God stays way over to the other end of heaven, I don’t think I’ll mind one bit. I believe I’ve earned a little rest.

  But first they had to nail down one little piece of unfinished business. Business by the name of Ronnie Day. Mama Bet looked at the dark shadow on the dais, at its flickering edges, at the blackness that seemed to burn through to the belly of the earth.

  She started laughing.

  Linda turned from the door, her face wet with hysterical tears. “He won’t let me in.”

  Mama Bet was enjoying the woman’s misery. After all, the blood of the old families ran through Linda’s veins. Linda was one of them—them that had hung Wendell McFall, because they were just as blind to glory back then as they were today. Them that deserved all the suffering that Archer could dish out.

  You showed them the way, you lit the path, you spoon-fed them the truth, and they spat in your face.

  People didn’t change.

  “You didn’t say the magic words.”

  “Magic words?” Linda blubbered, her eyes roaming wildly over the church as if a message might be written on the walls. “What magic words? Archer didn’t say anything about magic words.”

  “I believe the words are ‘Let me die,’“ boomed a voice
from the back of the church.

  Mama Bet turned.

  Sheriff Frank Littlefield strode up the aisle, carrying a rifle, his eyes narrowed and his face clenched in a strange smile. Blood soaked the left half of his uniform shirt. In the foyer behind him, the detective woman leaned against the wall.

  Mama Bet laughed again. “You think Archer will fall down for a bullet? You’re crazier than a liquored-up Absher.”

  “Archer wants to be killed. And it’s got to be done by one of us. One of us who belong to Archer.”

  Maybe so. Maybe Littlefield’s been chosen. Though he didn’t seem all that gung-ho at the service the other night. Just nibbled on a bit of old Zeb’s stringy flesh like it was a piece of black licorice. Didn’t put a whole lot of gumption in it.

  But Archer had his own ways, and who was she to question his workings? One Judas was as good as any other. Let the sheriff come.

  “He’s in there,” Mama Bet said, pointing past Linda to the door. “Doing a little holy work.”

  Linda gasped and put her hand to her mouth.

  As the sheriff stepped before the vestry door, Mama Bet said, “You ain’t got it quite right, Sheriff. The magic words ain’t ‘let me die.’ They’re ‘let me die for you.’“

  The sheriff pounded on the door. “Open up, McFall. I got a message for you. From a boy named Samuel.”

  Mama Bet rubbed her hands together, smearing the coagulated blood. This was going to be good.

  The old brass handle turned and the door swung open.

  David crept from the woods behind the church, keeping his eyes on the dark canopy overhead. But one of those hell holes might be under his feet, one of those gateways that allowed the devil to crawl up out of his hot pit in the center of the Earth and stir up a ruckus. God had kicked the devil’s hind end a thousand times over, but still the red-faced son of a skunk kept on trying. You had to hand it to the devil: long odds never dampened his enthusiasm one bit.

  David almost felt guilty about sending the sheriff into battle. You couldn’t fight a holy war unless you were serious about the “holy” part. The sheriff hadn’t been to church of late, and never had been a regular. David had seen the man baptized when they were both children, but sometimes the water didn’t soak completely through.