Try Darkness

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Authors: James Scott Bell

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BOOK: Try Darkness
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2008 by James Scott Bell

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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The Center Street name and logo are registered trademarks of Hachette Book Group USA, Inc.

First eBook Edition: July 2008

ISBN: 978-1-59995-142-3

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Chapter 98

Chapter 99

Chapter 100

Chapter 101

Chapter 102

Chapter 103

Chapter 104

Chapter 105

Chapter 106

Chapter 107

Chapter 108

Chapter 109

Chapter 110

Chapter 111

Chapter 112

Chapter 113

Chapter 114

Chapter 115

Chapter 116

Chapter 117

Chapter 118

Chapter 119

Chapter 120

Chapter 121

Chapter 122

Chapter 123

Chapter 124

Chapter 125

Chapter 126

Chapter 127

Chapter 128

Chapter 129

Chapter 130

Chapter 131

Chapter 132

Chapter 133

Chapter 134

Chapter 135

Chapter 136

Chapter 137

Chapter 138

Chapter 139

Chapter 140

Chapter 141

Chapter 142

Chapter 143

Chapter 144

Chapter 145

Chapter 146

Chapter 147

Chapter 148

Chapter 149

Chapter 150

Chapter 151

Chapter 152

Chapter 153

Chapter 154

Chapter 155

Chapter 156

Chapter 157

Chapter 158

Chapter 159

Chapter 160

Chapter 161

Chapter 162

Chapter 163

Chapter 164

Chapter 165

Chapter 166

Chapter 167

Chapter 168

Chapter 169

Chapter 170

Chapter 171

Chapter 172

Chapter 173

Chapter 174

Chapter 175

Chapter 176

Chapter 177

Chapter 178

Chapter 179

Chapter 180

Chapter 181

Chapter 182

Chapter 183

Chapter 184

Chapter 185

Chapter 186

Chapter 187

Chapter 188

Chapter 189

Chapter 190

Chapter 191

Also by James Scott Bell

Try Dying

T
O THE
M
EMORY OF
J
OHN
D. M
AC
D
ONALD

1

THE NUN HIT
me in the mouth and said, “Get out of my house.”

Jaw throbbing, I said, “I can’t believe you just did that.”

“This is my house,” she said. “You want more? Come on back in.”

Sister Mary Veritas is a shade over five and a half feet. She was playing in gray sweats, of course. Most of the time she wears the full habit. Her pixie face is usually a picture of innocence. She has short chestnut hair and blue eyes. I had just discovered those eyes hid an animal ruthlessness.

It was the first Friday in April, and we were playing what I thought was some friendly one-on-one on the basketball court of St. Monica’s, a Benedictine community in the Santa Susana mountains. The morning was bright, the sky clear. Should have meant peace like a river.

Not a nun like a mugger.

Backing into the key for a spin hook, I was surprised to find not just the basket but a holy Catholic elbow waiting for my face. I’m six-three, so it took some effort for her to pop me.

“That’s a foul,” I said.

“So take it out,” she said.

“I thought the Benedictines were known for their hospitality.”

“For the hungry pilgrim,” Sister Mary said. “Not for a guy looking for an easy bucket.”

“What would the pope say to you?”

“Probably,
Well done, thou good and faithful servant.

“For a smash to the chops?”

“You’re a pagan. It probably did you some good.”

“A trash-talking sister.” I shook my head. “So this is organized religion in the twenty-first century.”

“Play.”

Okay, she wanted my outside game? She’d get it. True, I hadn’t played a whole lot of ball since college. A couple of stints on a lawyer league team. But I could still shoot. I was deadly from twenty feet in.

Not this morning. I clanked one from the free throw line and Sister Mary got the rebound.

Before becoming a nun, she played high school ball in Oklahoma. On a championship team, no less. Knew her way around a court.

But I also had the size advantage and gave her a cushion on defense. She took it and shot over me from fifteen feet.

Swish.

Pride is a sin, so Sister Mary tells me. But it’s a good motivator when a little nun is schooling you. I kicked up the aggression factor a notch.

She tried a fadeaway next. I got a little bit of her wrist as she shot.

Air ball.

Sister Mary waited for me to call a foul.

“Nice try,” I said.

“Where’d you learn to play,” she said. “County jail?”

“You talking or playing?”

She got the animal look again. I hoped that wouldn’t interfere with her morning prayers.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour we talk smack.

I took the ball to the top of the key. Did a beautiful crossover dribble. Sister Mary swiped at the ball. Got my arm instead with a loud
thwack
. I stopped and threw up a jumper.

It hit the side of the rim and bounced left.

I thought I’d surprise her by hustling for the rebound.

She had the same idea.

We were side by side going for the ball. I could feel her body language. There was no way she was going to let me get it.

There was no way I was going to let
her
get it.

I was going to body a nun into the weeds.

2

WE WENT DOWN
. The brown grasses at the edge of the blacktop padded our fall.

I had both hands on the ball. So did Sister Mary.

She grunted and pulled. By this time we were out of bounds.

I started to laugh. The absurdity of a frantic postulant and a macho lawyer in a death grip over a basketball was hilarious.

Sister Mary didn’t laugh. She wanted the ball.

I had to admire her doggedness. She’s the type who’d go to the mat with the devil himself if she had to.

But I still wouldn’t let her get the ball.

Then I was on my back, holding the ball to my chest. Sister Mary was on top of me, refusing to let her hands slip off the ball.

Her body was firm and fit and I looked at her face thinking thoughts one should not think of a woman pledged to a life of chastity.

I stopped laughing and let her have the ball.

She took it and rolled off me.

Neither of us said anything.

Then a voice said, “Now, isn’t that a pretty picture?”

Father Bob stood at the other end of the court, hands on hips.

One displeased priest.

I shot up, helped Sister Mary to her feet. “Nothing to see here,” I said. “Just a little hustle and flow.”

“Or grab and go,” Father Bob said.

Sister Mary said nothing. Her face was flushed and she was breathing hard.

“A friendly game of one-on,” I said. “You see? I’m doing my part to help the community stay in shape. You want a piece of me next?”

Father Bob, who looks like Morgan Freeman’s stand-in, said, “I know a few tricks even Sister Mary hasn’t learned yet.”

“I have to go now,” she said. Without her characteristic smile, she dropped the ball in the grass and jogged toward her quarters.

Father Bob motioned me over. “Tread carefully,” he said.

“I know,” I said.

“Do you?”

“What’s not to know?”

He picked up the ball and spun it on his finger. Like a Globetrotter.

“Not bad,” I said.

“God created the world to spin on its axis,” he said. “Perfectly. And he created man to be in perfect communion with him. Only man messed up. He messed up the way things are supposed to spin.” He grabbed the ball with both hands. “In the garden, you know the story.”

“A snake got Eve to eat an apple.”

“Don’t know if it was an apple,” Father Bob said. “It just says ‘the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.’”

“Was that such a bad thing to want?”

“If a serpent’s offering it to you, it is. Now, we’ve come a long way trying to get things to spin right again. That’s the reason for the church. That’s the reason for people taking holy vows. And that’s the reason you have to tread carefully around here.”

I took the ball from him and tried to spin it on my finger. It fell to the ground and bounced.

“See?” Father Bob said.

“Fine.”

“Then are you ready to earn your daily bread?”

3

THE WOMAN CAME
in holding hands with a little girl. The girl was maybe six years old. They were both dressed in thrift store casual. The woman had shoulder-length brown hair and a face that would have been nice if you could take the pain out of it. Her expression was grim and resolute, as if she’d been hit a few times and knew she’d get hit some more.

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