3 Gates of the Dead (The 3 Gates of the Dead Series) (5 page)

Chapter Seven

I arrived home feeling beaten and bruised. Bishop danced in his crate, and I got him out for his night walk. We went down to his favorite spot, the condo complex lake that now had a thin layer of ice covering its surface. I thought he only liked it because other dogs left interesting smells for him to find.

As we walked around the lake, snow began to fall, and I looked up into the night sky. The descending white flakes looked like the hyperspace scenes in
Star Wars
and opened up the thoughtless void I had erected against my feelings. The questions poured through like floodwater, chaotic and messy.

Was everyone in the church like me? Did they all hide their doubts until some crisis set off a cratering of the soul? Why didn’t anyone talk about it? Everyone was encouraged to share their feelings about everything else, so why not our doubt? Why hadn’t I been warned about it?

I gripped Bishop’s leash until it almost cut into my palm. I could understand that sort of attitude in the general population. Doubt wasn’t exactly a comfortable conversation. When the subject came up at church, you could practically see the tumbleweeds blow past the altar. Why hadn’t I learned about the possibility of losing my faith in seminary? Why hadn’t there been any classes on what to do when ministry burned you out to the point of abandoning everything you were taught to believe?

A chill ran up my spine that had nothing to do with the cold. The God I once felt so close to me seemed to have vanished for good. I could no longer call my parents. I wouldn’t call my brother. He had too much on his plate. And I didn’t want to disturb Brian. Even those who cared about me didn’t understand my struggles, or at least didn’t understand them enough to help. Brian listened well, but I didn’t need anyone to listen. I needed answers. I pulled my coat tight around me.

The snow fell harder, and a solid curtain of white descended from the sky. Bishop pawed around, looking for a place to take a dump or reading a pee message from another dog.

“So, Bishop, any answers in the urine that might help me? What does Josie have to say about the existence of God?” Josie was a little Chihuahua owned by my neighbor, Fred — a gay stockbroker who gave me fantastic investment advice. He dropped by with soup when I had the flu or even the slightest cold. The kind of guy who did what the church should be doing.

“Why? Bishop? Why is that? The church deserves for me to stay. They don’t have a right to fire me.”

Bishop looked at me with deep dark eyes and droopy cheeks.

“Yeah, I know. No hypocrisy.”

I guess I had been fooling myself. I couldn’t work at this job very long. Not with the situation like it was. I just needed time to figure out my escape plan. I would have to start looking at the want-ads. Maybe I could find a job where my training and experience in the ministry would be considered an asset rather than a liability.

My shoulders slumped. “All right, Bishop, let’s get inside.”

I turned to head back when Bishop stopped and stared across the lake. His ears stuck up, and he sat down, his head cocked with a look of expectation on his wrinkled face.

“Bishop, come on, let’s go.”

He turned to me then looked out over the lake again. As he did, a faint crackling echoed toward us as if something had stepped onto the thin layer of ice.

“What is it, an animal? Cat? Rabbit? Sorry, you can’t go after it; you might fall in.”

Bishop whined, and it sent an unexplained charge up my spine. Bishop hardly ever made any noises. He didn’t bark at strange sounds in the night or even at other dogs. Amanda and I always thought his stillness came from the fact his previous owners had beaten him.

Bishop whined again and batted at the snow with his paw. He hadn’t done that since … no, that wasn’t possible.

I knelt down beside him and patted his rump. “What is it, boy?”

The noise of the ice crackling moved closer as if someone was popping a sheet of plastic bubble wrap. I peered into the snow but couldn’t see any animal that might be attracting his interest. “Come on, boy. There’s nothing there. Let’s go inside.”

He refused to move.

“Bishop,
come
!” I said, nipping him on the neck with my fingers, trying to assert dominance. I could never quite get him to obey.

He looked at me and gave me a muted woof.

“Come on, I’m freezing my ass off and…”

A loud crack caught my attention. I looked up from Bishop’s eyes, and goose bumps erupted all over my body. My heart thumped in my chest, and I took deep cold breaths to slow it down.

Bare footprints appeared in the snow over the ice around halfway across the lake. I looked to see if there was anyone nearby and saw no one. The footprints kept appearing and formed a path in our direction.

I grabbed Bishop by the collar. “Come on, Bishop, let’s
go
!”

The damn dog refused to move and woofed again.

“Bishop, I mean it!” My own voice rose to almost a shriek. “Let’s go!”

The footprints continued to crunch their way toward us. They were bare feet, just like the ones at Olan and Edna’s. They were larger than a kid’s but not as large as a man’s, indenting the snow with light pressure that barely broke its surface.

“Hello?” I called into the darkness.

No answer. I gripped Bishop’s collar. The footprints stopped right in front of him. My legs went into lockdown as my breath came in short gasps.

Bishop whined and got up.

“Easy, boy. It’s okay. Can’t be what it looks like,” I croaked.

Bishop bent his head down as if something was petting him. He let out another little woof.

My stomach clenched, and the goose bumps became an invading army. The hairs on my neck stood up, and I began to shake from a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. He stared at the footprints, his ears pricked straight up, and his hair bristled. He looked around and began to bark.

“What is it, boy?”

Dozens of bare footprints began to appear on the ice as it cracked with whatever put its weight on the dusted surface. My scalp started to prickle, and when I touched the metal on Bishop’s collar, I received a small shock.

Whispers began to my right. I couldn’t make out any coherent sentences.

“Hello? I can’t understand you. Could you speak up?”

The whispers became more urgent, but they still didn’t make any sense.

“Okay, funny joke. You got me. Come on out.”

No response — just more whispering.

“Well, I’m going inside. Don’t let your feet get frozen or anything.”

I tugged hard at Bishop’s leash, and he finally gave way with a reluctant walk forward. He bent his head again and tried to lick whatever had touched him.

As I turned to drag Bishop back to the condo, I heard one phrase. “Find the Priest.”

“What priest?” I answered.

“The Guardian. Find him. He’s the only one who…”

“Who? What?” I called.

No Answer.

“The Guardian? What the hell are you talking about?”

Nothing.

I dragged Bishop back to the condo as he kept staring back at the lake. I shut the door, ran upstairs, and splashed warm water on my face.

What was going on? Hallucinations brought on by stress? If so, Olan must’ve been stressed out too. No, it couldn’t be that. Maybe someone was pulling an elaborate prank on me. If so, I wanted to know how they did it. It was the best I’d ever seen.

That thought made me laugh a little, and I heard the jingle of Bishop’s tags as he thumped down onto the floor. He woofed at me as he sat in the frame of the bathroom door.

“What was that out there, Bishop?”

He looked at me and woofed again.

I laughed. “I know it’s probably our imagination. Too much stress for the both of us lately, huh? Maybe we should take a vacation. We are both starting to see things. Maybe I will take you to a doggie therapist, and you can tell her what a horrible owner I am. Or maybe we can go on
Dr. Phil
and work out our problems as he calls us both idiots.”

He looked up at me with sad eyes.

I patted his head. “Let’s go to sleep.”

I got into bed and stared at the ceiling. Bishop laid down next to me and whined.

“It’s okay, boy, go to sleep.”

A few moments later, I heard his loud, slow breathing as his paws stretched out to take over his side of the bed.

I was awake most of the night, the sound of crackling ice in my head and the sight of bare footprints filling the in-between places of sleep and wakefulness.

Chapter Eight

“Pastor Schaeffer?”

A voice brought me back from the world of invisible crunching footprints, woofing dogs, and worrying about my sanity.

I smiled. “I’m sorry, Julie, just thinking about what you said. Please, go on.”

“It’s okay. I was just saying I don’t feel like Jake listens to me. He ignores me, and well, he hasn’t touched me in months.”

Jake and Julie Evans, a couple who had only been married for a few years, had come to me for marriage counseling. Why they sought marital advice from a single guy whose last relationship had blown up in his face, I had no idea.

To be honest, I struggled to have compassion in marital counseling. Most of the problems I counseled weren’t really problems, just people neck deep in their own selfishness. I thought married people forgot what it was like to be single and alone, so they stopped being grateful for the presence of the other person.

“Jake, how would you respond to that?”

“Well, she’s kind of let herself go a bit. I find myself not attracted to her anymore.”

I fought the urge to strangle him. Julie was about five foot four inches, curly blonde hair, beautiful blue eyes, and weighed, maybe, one hundred and thirty pounds. I had seen their wedding pictures at a cookout they had at their house. She had probably gained ten pounds since they were married, if that.

Jake had been pushing three-hundred and twenty pounds on his six foot frame. In the past year, he had gone workout crazy and shed eighty pounds, an amount that would have neared a hundred except for the muscle weight he had added. No doubt it improved his looks as women in the church were always fawning over him and giggling at his stupid-ass jokes. Personally, I liked him better when he was fat and not an asshole.

Julie looked at Jake with hurt in her eyes. This conversation could spiral out of control if I didn’t get a handle on it. Although a part of me wanted to see Julie claw his eyes out, I thought better of it.

“Jake, here is a good place for us to work on communication,” I said. “Do you think there might be a better way to say that?”

He sat back in his chair, crossed his legs, and fixed his gaze on me. “I don’t know.”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “Try speaking in a gentler tone for one, and use words like, ‘I feel like’ or ‘this is what I think.’ That way, it doesn’t seem like you’re attacking her.”

“Seems kind of girly.”

“There is nothing girly about treating your wife with gentleness and respect, Jake. The Bible says that…”

I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence. My vacant faith wouldn’t permit the words to come out. I had been using the phrase “The Bible says” all my faith-filled life. Now, it felt like a curse. I coughed to cover it up.

“I thought the Bible said that wives are supposed to submit to their husbands on everything.”

Not when you are being a total shithead!

“Not in everything, Jake, and it also calls you to gently love your wife.” I sighed. “I don’t want to put all the blame on you, but any sane person can see that Julie has not ‘let herself go.’ You have.”

He looked down at his flat stomach and back up with a puzzled look.

“I don’t mean in body. I mean in your personality and the way you treat your wife. It might be time to put your focus on pleasing her rather than yourself.”

You would have thought that I slapped him and called him a bitch. He had this amazing and gorgeous woman who, for some reason, loved a total jackass. He should be thanking, well,
someone
, every day of his life.

“You’re a preacher,” Jake said. “Aren’t you supposed to get her to submit to what I want?”

“I…”

The pager on my desk phone rang, and I answered.

“Sherry, I’m in the middle of a counseling session.”

“I know, Pastor Aidan, but this caller is very insistent. She called yesterday, didn’t you get the message I left on your desk?”

The printed message. I had forgotten all about it. Damn, I wish Sherry would just use email. “I did, but I just forgot to read it. Who is it anyway?”

“Detective Jennifer Brown from the Columbus Police Department.”

Jake and Julie stared at me.

“I’m sorry, Sherry, did you say the Columbus Police?”

“I did.” Her tone rebuked me for my idiocy.

“Okay, put her through.” I turned to Jake and Julie. “I’m sorry you two, this will only take a moment.”

I held the phone back to my ear. “This is Pastor Schaeffer, can I help you?”

“Pastor Schaeffer, this is Detective Jennifer Brown, Columbus Police Department. How are you this morning?” She spoke in a Scarlett Johansson voice. Low but feminine.

“Fine, detective. How are you?”

I smiled at Jake and Julie to assure them.

“Good, thank you. I was wondering if you had any time to come down to the station this afternoon.”

What in the world?

“Hold on, let me check.” I looked at my schedule. “Sure, but may I ask what this is about?”

“Of course. We think you might have some information we need to clear up some points in an ongoing investigation.”

“Can I ask about what you are investigating?”

“I would rather not say over the phone. We prefer to handle this sort of thing at the station because officially we have to record our conversation. Typical police procedure. I’m sure you understand.”

I paused. “Sure, just let me know the time and place.”

“Say, one o’clock at the main building downtown?”

“Sounds good.”

“Great, see you then. Thank you very much, Pastor Schaeffer.”

“No problem, detective, talk to you soon.”

I hung up the phone and turned back to Jake and Julie. “Now, where were we?”

“Are you sure you want to go on?” Julie asked.

“Yeah, it’s no big deal. They just need some advice on some things.”

Jake butted in. “So, you were insulting me.”

I held up my hands. “Not insulting you, Jake. I’m just pointing out that since we started a few weeks ago, you’ve resisted any notion that you bear some of the responsibilities for the condition of this marriage. I’ve tried to be tactful, but that wasn’t working.”

“Seems to me you’re being a pansy.”

I gripped the handles on my chair. “I think we are done for the day. Think over what I said.”

I did the obligatory end-of-session prayer, following the standard Protestant formula that gives the irony to our hatred of written prayers. “Dear Lord, we know we are broken people, and we confess our brokenness. O Lord, help us to admit our sin and need for You. Show us in Your word how to relate to one another. We ask this in Your Son’s name, Amen.”

Jake and Julie left the office as Jake took the time to give me, what he probably thought, was an intimidating glare. I’d seen it a million times, guys like him, heavily into compensation when their manhood got challenged in any way. I figured he would just go out and buy a bigger truck or something.

I sat back in my chair to think about the phone call from Detective Brown.
What in the world was that about?
I had enough to deal with right now. Maybe it was the parking ticket I got a few days ago. No, I had another week to pay that. Maybe they needed some sort of theological piece of information? If that was the case, why did they call me? I was an assistant pastor at a fairly small church, not really what you would call consulting material. I always pictured that kind of role to be reserved for pastors of mega-churches or respected scholars.

I worked hard to finish my tasks for the day so I could be out of the office by noon. There wasn’t much to do except plan the worship service, write a few emails, and make an outline for Sunday school.

As I made my way out the door, I stopped by Sherry’s desk. “Sherry, would you please send my phone messages by email? I lose paper all the time, and it would really help me keep track.”

She looked at me over her reading glasses. “I don’t like sending email. People might access my private information by email.”

“Sherry, no one can get your information by just sending an email.”

“Not what my friends at the coffee shop say.”

Sherry was a part of a women’s study group that Mike and I had dubbed the “Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse.” They didn’t really study the Bible. They just sat around and traded conspiracy theories for two hours every Saturday morning.

“Right, got it. Thanks, Sherry.”