Embracing Darkness (80 page)

“And Swell.” she added. “He killed Swell. And I know he killed poor Ziggy.”

“Ziggy was an accident,” Father Poole said absently, as though reciting a former delusion.

“Ziggy!” exclaimed Zachary Black. “The littlest piggy of them all! Little Ziggy the piggy! Yes, I
did
kill him.”

“No!” said the priest. “It was an accident! He sleepwalked!”

“He must have woken up in the bathroom that night because he began to cry,” explained Zachary. “I immediately heard him and knocked on the bathroom door. He opened it for me without thinking twice. He trusted me unconditionally. I knelt down in front of him as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. I flashed my trusting smile at him, opened my arms, and told him to come to me. Oh, how he trusted me!
He
came
to
me
. I took him in my arms, and he hugged me. He didn’t make a sound. He didn’t struggle, not even when I hugged the life out of him, not even when I felt his ribcage collapse against mine.”

“God, what have I done?” Father Poole muttered, his hand over his mouth, unable to take in the horror of what he was hearing. “What do you want, Zachary?” cried the priest.

“Want?” replied Zachary Black, beginning once again to walk slowly toward the two of them. “I want every male on this earth to die—man, boy, and infant. I want to love every young, innocent woman. But if you’re asking me what I want right now, I want
her
.” His yellow eyes locked onto Jessie, making her cringe. “Give her to me. Then I’ll leave this place forever. You’ll never see me again, Father. You can rebuild the church and rectory, a new place with no memory of me. I just want to have her one last time. Let her come to me. It’ll be the same as before. I’ll mount her and love her, but this time I won’t need the mask.” Tossing the pig mask to the side, he continued, “She already sees me and knows me. We go back so many years, you and I, Jessica.”

As he got close to the desk, Father Poole put his hands up to block any attempt by Zachary Black to get to Jessie.

“I’ll love her like I did before,” added Zachary. “And after I’ve had my way with her, I’ll do to her what I did to the other one.”

“Sue Ellen Hartley,” Father Poole said quietly.

Zachary Black brought his hands up toward the priest and began tightening them into fists, his knuckles cracking as he did so. “I’ll wrap my hands around her neck and slowly squeeze until her heart can no longer pump blood to her brain.”

These words made Jessie scream in abject terror, and she clung to Father Poole’s coat in desperation.

“Let her come to me, Father,” said Zachary, lowering his head. “
Give
her
to
me!
”

While Father Poole and Jessie kept their eyes locked on Zachary and retreated slowly, the priest cried, “Are you not afraid, man, for your very soul?”

Zachary stopped and then sneered, “Oh, that’s right, Father. You taught me all about God, didn’t you? That Bible you dropped in my lap made for good entertainment, I assure you. All those nights I spent reading it!”

“You defaced it,” replied Phineas. “You tore it apart.”

“No, just the parts that meant something. I took my favorite parts with me. I gave you back the dull and useless ones. I kept the first page and the last chapter.”

“
Armageddon
,” Father Poole said under his breath.

As Jessie cowered behind the priest, Zachary shouted, “BEHOLD, MAN! I AM COMING SOON! TO REPAY EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE!”

Zachary’s eyes were never as hateful as they were at that moment. The priest and Jessie now saw that he meant to kill the both of them. Having retreated across most of the burning room, they now had little space in which to elude the psychopath.

“AND MY PUNISHMENT IS WITH ME!”

“What is he talking about?” cried Jessie.

Zachary continued, staring at Father Poole: “I AM THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA! THE FIRST AND THE LAST! THE BEGINNING AND THE END!”

“Revelation 22:12,” said Father Poole, aghast at Zachary’s perverse and profoundly sacrilegious understanding of the Scripture. “Those are the words of God. They don’t pertain to what lies in the heart of man, Zachary. You’ve twisted what you’ve learned, warped it into a justification for hatred and revenge.”

Zachary said nothing but kept slowly advancing, like a lion ready to pounce on its prey.

“I will protect her from you,” said Father Poole courageously “After all this time I
will
protect her from you. God forgive me for not doing it sooner!”

Zachary paused, as if taken aback by Father Poole’s unwillingness to give him what he wanted. “Really?” he replied coldly. “And tell me, priest, how can a man protect this child from Zachary Black if that man meets his Maker before she does?”

Father Poole gasped in surprise, scarcely noticing that Zachary had picked up the lamp from the desk. Immediately Zachary smashed the priest over the head with the base of the lamp. Blood gushed from Phineas’s head as he collapsed to the floor. Jessie screamed and covered her mouth in disbelief.

“
Come
to
me!
” said Zachary Black calmly.

As Jessie ran for the door, her attacker stalked after her, knowing she couldn’t escape him.

The entire rectory was now engulfed in flames. Jessie covered her mouth against the acrid smoke and ran out the front door. She thought that her brothers would be waiting outside for her, but she was alone on the hill, the other boys and I having already run down it to safety. Recognizing her isolation, Jessie dashed toward “The Path to Salvation” but stopped short of racing down the hill, remembering that Father Fin was still inside the rectory. She didn’t want to leave the hill until Father Poole was with her, or until she knew for sure that he had perished.

She ran back to the rectory but couldn’t enter it, since flames from the staircase leading up to the second floor were now licking the front door. The longer Jessie stood there, the more helpless she felt. She wanted more than anything to risk her life for Father Poole, as he had risked his immortal soul for her, and as she thought of his final words, vowing to protect her as he had neglected to do earlier, she wept for him. “FATHER FIN!” she screamed. “FATHER!”

Noticing movement in the doorway and completely forgetting about Zachary Black in her concern for the priest, Jessie walked toward the rectory’s stairs. From the doorway, however, emerged not Father Poole but Zachary Black. She ran to the first place she could think of, which was the Benson house, but once there Jessie realized that her pursuer could trap her inside the residence. She then remembered the maple. Jessie hid behind its massive trunk before Zachary Black made it to the back of the rectory.

As she crouched there, her heart pounding in her ears, Jessie waited for the impending arrival of her attacker. “Where is he?” she whispered to herself, her nerves increasingly on edge as the seconds passed. Meanwhile her fingers ran along the ridges of the maple’s coarse bark. Digging her fingertips inside the gaps, she pulled back in pain, having slightly cut one.

She saw the various inscriptions on its trunk: “THEO IS #1
,
” “JONAS & JOEY WERE HERE ‘35,” and the curious “PP + EF.” Jessie also saw the heart she’d etched into the bark with the pledge, “JB + BN,” and she immediately thought of Billy Norwin, wishing he were now here with her. He had been the one person Zachary Black knew would be a match for him. As she stood there careful not to make a sound, she could hear the noise of the glass windows blowing out and the overwhelming crackling of the conflagration itself. She lamented the place that had been her home ever since she could remember. She also grieved for Father Poole, who she believed could not have survived either the massive blow to his head or the fire in the rectory and church.

Jessie wanted to see where Zachary Black was but thought that, as long as she didn’t hear footsteps or breathing, he was far enough away for her to be safe. Too consumed with fear and fatigue to notice any new graffiti that adorned the far side of maple’s trunk, she closed her eyes and tried to catch her breath, just as a hand grabbed her from the side.

She screamed and pulled away from Zachary Black but lost part of her shirt in his vice-like grip. Running around to the other side of the tree, she acted on her first instinct, which was to climb the maple. By the time Zachary rounded the trunk, Jessie was already aloft.

“COME TO ME!” he shouted, but she only climbed faster.

Zachary considered the gigantic trunk, remembering his loathing of the maple as a child. Although he had never scaled the tree, he wasn’t afraid of it. Placing his foot on the first nailed crosspiece, he began his ascent. He climbed slowly at first; then, once he cleared the first thick branch, his progress quickened. Even so he was unexpectedly frustrated by the maze of limbs and the density of autumnal leaves still attached to them.

All these impediments made it more difficult for Zachary Black to find his way up to Jessie, angering him beyond measure. Now he was more determined than ever to kill her. His hatred mounted with every scratch on his arms, every cut on his hands, and every slap on his face from obstructing branches and leaves. Enduring these setbacks, Zachary thought of how he was going to end Jessie’s life. He planned to throw her from the tree’s upper reaches. After she plunged to her death, he would rape her corpse, and he made this known to her as his threat reverberated loudly through the foliage.

From where Jessie was perched, almost as high as she’d ever gone, she could see the rustling below her. She gauged that her attacker was only three or four body lengths distant. As the movement of the limbs underneath her came closer, her fear increased. Looking up at the last few branches between her and the maple’s crest, she knew that there was nowhere else to go but down.

Then Jessie stopped to reflect. The maple was wide and large enough that she could descend by a different course. Those limbs that were not as sturdy as the ones of her usual path near the center, but she knew that she was light enough to be supported by the weaker branches.

She therefore climbed over to her left onto a thinner branch. She tensed, hearing the limb’s strain, but Jessie was confident that it would support her. She then probed with her foot for the next lower branch, finding one further down than she wanted, but it was the only one strong enough to carry her weight. Jessie unlocked her legs and let her body drop five feet down to the next limb. She wrapped her whole body around it.

Just then she heard Zachary Black call out again, “COME TO ME, SOW! COME TO ME NOW! I’LL LOVE YOU AS NO OTHER MAN CAN! COME TO ME!”

Jessie reacted swiftly, finding yet another limb that would lead her further down. Zachary had been so busy looking upward that he was unaware of the fact that his quarry had descended to almost the same level where he now was. As he climbed further up and passed her, Jessie’s hopes for survival were reenergized. She smiled in spite of her tears and watched as her pursuer ascended higher and higher into the maple’s canopy.

She climbed horizontally now, further toward the tree’s center where Zachary had been just moments before. As she leaped onto the next branch, it made a crackling noise, as if the limb were ready to split. She gasped and saw Black’s face through an aperture among the leaves, closer than she thought he’d been. He must have realized that she’d been coming down and so reversed his course.

Zachary Black was suspended not more than fifteen feet from where Jessie was positioned. She screamed again, and as she went to move the branch cracked. She froze in fear, thinking that she was about to fall to her death. Just then, as Jessie’s legs wrapped themselves more tightly around the branch, she felt something pushing against her right buttock. Reaching back to her hip pocket, she pulled out the magnifying glass. A way to use it as a protective weapon dawned on her.

While Zachary Black struggled to descend from the tree, having encountered a tangle of impassable branches, Jessie directed the magnifying lens at one of the yellow maple leaves. Within a few seconds she saw that nothing was happening. The sunlight in that part of the tree wasn’t strong enough to ignite the leaf. Scooting up toward the branch’s perilous end, Jessie found a clearing where an intense beam shone through the foliage. She focused the magnifying glass on an orange leaf. Soon smoke and tiny flames expanded outward. Jessie kissed the limb on which she was hanging and said, “Forgive me. I’m so sorry.”

Just then the cluster of leaves ignited. Jessie pulled down the branch just above her and brought its leaves to the flame. As soon as they were lit, she released the limb, which snapped back like a loaded catapult. It set fire to the next set of leaves and branches, but they didn’t burn as quickly as Jessie had hoped. What’s more, there wasn’t the slightest breeze to fan the flames. Meanwhile Zachary Black was gaining on her and getting closer every second. “PLEASE, GOD!” Jessie cried aloud. “PLEASE! HELP ME! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!”

At that precise moment she heard the rustling of leaves around her as a breeze began to blow. It was as impromptu as anything Jessie had ever seen. Before, the air was completely inert. Now, inexplicably, what she needed most came to her: a gust of wind to swallow up the entire maple in a calculated inferno. Soon it spread through the dancing branches and leaves, making its way up the tree.

As the flames rampaged out of control, Zachary’s monomaniacal concentration on Jessie broke. For the first time in his life he began to panic. Seeing the flames below him now almost licking his boot heels, Zachary Black believed the fires of hell were finally coming for him, and he acknowledged with a loud growl that he would have much to answer for.

“I’LL BURN DOWN THERE SOON! I’LL BURN FOREVER! AS LONG AS YOU WANT ME TO! AS LONG AS YOU THINK I SHOULD! BURN AS EVERY MAN SHOULD! JUST LET ME FINISH OFF THE SOW! LET ME END HER FIRST!”

Everything below him was ablaze. While Jessie made it safely to the ground, the flames now reached to where Zachary was clinging. A few seconds later she heard branches snapping, along with several high-pitched screams from Black. His blazing body hit the ground with a solid thud and as hard as his body impacted with the earth, his legs still kicked outward and his hands continued to flail in the smoke-filled air. Jessie could hear miserable cries of panic escaping his constricting throat in the short distance that there was between them. The thought of how pain this incredible could even exist must have passed through his evil mind, even if only for a moment. A thought he’d never cared to consider for any of his victims.