The red church (37 page)

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 apeshit 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 si-lent 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 Mon-ster 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 Sun-day 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 or-dained 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 tele-vision 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 hys-terical 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 de-served 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 roam-ing 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, carry-ing 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 belongs 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 hellholes 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.

Branches snapped about a hundred feet to his right, and he tensed and crouched behind a thick oak. The sound faded. Probably one of Archer's folks. One of the stray lambs, bolting the pen now that the gate was unlatched.

David reached the clearing behind the church just as glass shattered. The moon flashed on the jagged pieces that flew from the high window. Then he heard Ronnie's frantic voice.

David ran from the trees, not caring that he was out in the open where the devil could strike him down. All he cared about was that his two children, the dearest things a father could have, were inside that church with the devil's incarnation. And, almost as bad, they were with Linda, who was so cross-eyed over Archer that she couldn't tell right from wrong.

He almost shouted, but the devil's keepers were all around. Some of those stray lambs might have a few teeth. They might just want to get a good bite of God-fearing flesh, so they could chew it up in mock-ery of dear sweet Jesus. Just like they had in Califor-nia, and just like they had in the red church. And then David put it all together.

The boys.

Linda was going to give them to Archer as an of-fering. As soul food.

He ran, sweat bleeding through his pores faster than the night could chill his skin. Tim's head ap-peared in the broken window, then his shoulders and arms, and he was falling headfirst ten feet to the ground. Tim gasped in expected pain.

But David was there to catch him. He'd always be there to protect his boys. Him and Jesus.

"Shhh," David said, putting his hand over Tim's mouth before the boy could scream. Tim's glasses bounced away, settling softly in the graveyard grass.

"It's me," David said, then moved his hand away.

"Ronnie," Tim whispered, his throat tight. "It's got Ronnie."

"Who?" David said, though his heart sank like a stone down to his belly.

"The preacher."

Littlefield had better have enough faith. Littlefield had better do what the Lord required. Littlefield had better make the sacrifice.

Because even though God always won the battle of good and evil, sometimes innocent blood was shed. That much was plain through all the books of the Bible.

"Ronnie will be saved," David said, as convincingly as he could manage. Slurping noises from inside the vestry spilled through the window. Talking. Ronnie and someone whose voice was familiar.

Naw, couldn't be.

"You said the
preacher
got Ronnie?" David asked.

"Yeah. Preacher Staymore."

Staymore. David smiled and looked to the sky. God always sent a champion when times were tough, when the good guys had their backs against the wall.

A
real
preacher, a bathed-in-the-blood Baptist preacher.

Ronnie would be all right.

"Mom's in there, and she's acting really weird," Tim said. David set him down and the boy knelt to retrieve his glasses.

"She don't know what she's doing, son. The Lord will set her straight." Just like He had twice before. Once when Linda was young and pure, and once after she had returned from California.
Third time's a charm,
they said.

David led Tim past the gray tombstones to the edge of the woods. They could wait there, in the safety of shadows, for the battle to end and the Lord to come out on top.

Just like always.

Frank nearly dropped the rifle as Ronnie came from the dark vestry. The boy's face was pale, his eyes feverish on either side of the soiled bandage that covered his nose. His lips moved as if to speak, or maybe he was whispering something to himself.

It was the same look Samuel had worn the moment he realized that the Bell Monster was behind him and was going to get him, get him, get him. Frank's heart twisted in rage, but he instantly forgot Samuel. Because behind Ronnie shambled a creature that was the crowning glory of a day full of impossibilities. The mud and clay of the thing's flesh glistened in the candlelight, its limbs an awkward and perverted imitation of a human's. Worst of all were the black slits that hinted at eyes and a mouth. The mouth flapped, the edges like cold gray syrup.

Mama Bet and Linda gasped in unison, and Linda grabbed Ronnie to pull him away.

"Welcome," said the thing, and even though the word was drawn-out and slushy, Frank knew it was Archer's voice.

"Archer?" Mama Bet said, her withered face taut.

"Mother," the thing said. The clay rippled, shifted, and for a split second, the preacher's face appeared, the powerful eyes sweeping over them like a light-house beacon over a troubled sea. Linda drew back from the preacher, Ronnie tucked behind her. The preacher turned his smile to her and then the flesh fell back into corrupted mud.

"Linda, give me the child," the thing commanded.

She shook her head, speechless and numbed.

"Give me the child," it repeated.

Frank lifted the rifle.

"You got to kill it, Frank," Sheila said from behind him.

How could you kill . . .
this?

But he pointed the rifle anyway, lodged the stock against his shoulder and looked down the barrel. The rifle weighed a thousand pounds, and he felt as if he were still underwater.

"Give me the child," the thing said a third time.

Mama Bet fell on her knees before the mudstack.

"You . . . you're not Archer
,
" Linda said.

"Does it matter what face God wears?" the thing said in Archer's smooth and seductive voice. "You promised. And I ask so little, after all."

Linda backed away another couple of steps. "Not like this," she said. "You're not Archer. You can't have my baby."