Scratch, page 26
He would do whatever was necessary all right.
“Okay,” he said to Adam and Holly. “Get in. Let’s go find your little girl.”
Raz stood by his car and watched as Jim’s truck drove up the road and Jack’s went the opposite direction.
“What about the body in the trunk?” April asked. “We should do something.”
“We will,” Raz said, “When this is over.” April nodded, then she and Shelley walked toward him. Raz grabbed Shelley roughly around her arm. His fingers sank into her flesh and she let out a gasp of pain and surprise.
“Raz!” April warned.
“And you, you stupid little bitch,” Raz snarled at Shelley. “I’ll deal with you when this is over. I don’t know how, but I know you’re to blame for all of this.”
Shelley slapped him with her free hand. Her palm resounded off his wet cheek. She jerked free of him and stepped back, clenching her fists.
“I’m not going anywhere with you!” she shrieked. “You’re not my dad! You’re nothing! I hate you! Leave me alone!”
“You… you cunt!” Raz said, hand against his red cheek. He had never spoken the word before in his life. He unbuckled his thin leather belt and whipped it off his bony hips and took a step toward Shelley. His eyes were mad and desperate. Shelley didn’t flinch in the face of his threat.
“Raz!” April yelled and placed a hand on his arm. “We have more important things to do. The ritual? Come on, we can leave her here. It’s not like she has anywhere else to go.” Raz paused, eyes still locked on Shelley.
“You’re right,” he said. “But this ain’t over girl. You hear me? You’ve been getting too big for your britches for a long time now. This ain’t over!” He pulled away from April and got in his car. April shot Shelley a look of pure contempt, then crawled in the car next to her husband. The tires spun, throwing wet clots of muck against the barn, then caught and pulled onto the road.
“Fuck you!” Shelley screamed behind them. She ran after the car. “You hear me? FUCK YOU! April has been fuckin’ Jim, ya know! So have I! Fuck all of you!” She knelt down and grabbed a handful of gravel and sludge and threw it at the car, not knowing if they had heard her or not.
They did, though neither of them spoke as the gravel pattered on the rear windshield.
Shelley stood in the rain and watched the car go out of sight around a bend. Her breath came in hitching gasps as she wept. Anger warred with her fear of abandonment. She kicked at the gravel then turned around and trudged back toward the barn. She knew she should just get the hell out of Dodge, while the getting was good, but there was no way she could. She could take Billy’s car, except the keys were lost in the woods where she had thrown them, and there was a body in the trunk. She gave the car a wide berth as she walked by. She could take Adam’s car, if she could find their keys. She looked up the hill at the house and thought about going up to it, to look for them, or just to get out of the rain, if nothing else. But her guilt over bringing Billy here wouldn’t let her. She had caused the Mansfields enough trouble without stealing their car.
She turned the wooden lock on the barn door and stepped inside out of the downpour. The rain had definitely gotten worse since Gabrielle had disappeared. She pushed her drenched hair back over her forehead and waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark. She began to shake, a combination of nerves and a chill from the dampness.
The smell of ancient dust mingled with the scent of damp hay. The sound of rain on the tin roof was deafening, and she could hear it dripping through numerous holes. Lightning flashed outside, streaking the interior with a striped pattern from the spaces between the planks. Thunder answered almost immediately, causing Shelley to jump.
She eased forward, careful not to trip over anything. Her hand brushed against plastic and she flinched, but then remembered the furniture and boxes they had stored here. She felt her way around the mound of plastic and stepped into one of the horse stalls. It was filled with old bales of hay. Some were broken open, scattering the dusty chaff all over the floor with a dry aroma. Shelley sat down on the floor and pulled her knees up to her chest. Hay clung to her wet body as she rocked and cried.
CHAPTER FOUR
Gabrielle soared over the valley. Her wings caught the wind and lifted her high into the dark, rain-swollen clouds. Tiny lights dotted the landscape below where the humans huddled in defiance of the storm. The fire of electric lights was but a recent configuration of an ancient pattern. She had seen it for centuries, campfires lit to chase away the darkness.
But in Canaan, like in so many places before it, the true darkness lurked within where no amount of light could burn it away. Gabrielle felt anger flowing through her body, this body that was not her own. She was still trapped in the form the humans had imagined her in. Only when they were gone, when all traces of the ritual were removed, could she and her brother be free again.
She called out in a voice beautiful and terrible, singing words no human mouth ever articulated. The air became charged with energy. Lightning arced around her in a corona of fury.
She felt them come then, a multitude of her brethren, riding the wind and the rain. Though she could not see them with her eyes she knew they swarmed around her. She could picture them, winged in energy and light, denizens of the spirit world. Humans had called them many things throughout the centuries: angels and demons and fairies and djinn. They were the tiny mysteries that existed in the space between the worlds.
And they shared her outrage. She and Scratch were not the first among them to have been bottled and abused. They joined their power with hers, their little magics, and wove the energy of the storm, focusing it on the village below. They would not be satisfied until the darkness was swallowed.
Electricity coruscated around Gabrielle, then flashed down in a monstrous bolt of lightning. Thunder screamed through the heavens as the spire of the First Church of the Blessed Angel of Canaan, West Virginia shattered in sparks and splinters.
And then the deluge began.
* * * * *
Nellie Claremont was drunk. Bad weather always made her arthritis act up, and tonight was a bear, as her late husband used to say about anything difficult. She had felt the storm coming in her knuckles as early as noon and had sipped her first Wild Turkey and Coke just as Judge Judy was coming on at one o’clock. Now, in the late evening, she had lost count. The Coke had run out long before the Wild Turkey. Both bottles were now as empty as her life. She leaned back in her rocker. Her throbbing head felt muddy and a sea of nausea churned in her stomach.
Her fingers still ached.
She didn’t hear the pounding on her front door at first, but then, much like the storm, it became more insistent. She turned her head and looked at the door. It seemed very far away. She hoped whoever it was would go away, for she was sure that the knocking would set off a chain reaction that would cause her skull to explode. She put her hands on the arms of her rocker and tried to stand.
“Coming!” she slurred, but then her fingers screamed in protest and her legs forgot what they were for. She slumped backwards into the chair, almost tipping it over.
Mercifully, the knocking stopped and the door opened; no one in Canaan locked their doors. The room teetered in her vision as she swayed back and forth in the chair, and she was sure she was going to throw up instead of welcoming her guest. She swallowed hard, forcing down the whiskey and bile cocktail that sat at the back of her throat.
“Jack,” she called, and winced at the sound of her own voice. “Is that you?”
“Aw, Jesus Nellie,” Jack said as he surveyed the room. He had been in bars that smelled less like booze and corruption. Nellie’s eyes were unfocused, and she looked in no condition to do anything other than pass out.
“I was just getting ready to call it a night,” she said. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth, a foreign thing that she had little control over. Drool ran through the white bristles on her chin.
“Aw, Nellie, not tonight. We have an emergency.” Jack walked to the rocker and took her by the hand and squeezed. She yelped and jerked her tortured fingers away from him. The jolt of pain brought a shot of clarity with it.
“Sorry,” he said. “Nellie, we have to go to the parsonage. Gabrielle is free. We have to speak the ritual, or Scratch will be as well.” He didn’t go into details about what had happened. She was in no condition to understand. He wasn’t even sure she would be able to do what was required of her, and he found that he didn’t really care if she did or not. Still, he would play his role, as he had always done.
“Come on, Nell.” He took her gently by a wasted arm. He could feel the bones beneath the paper-thin skin, and was sure he was bruising her. She stood, slowly.
“She’s free?” Nellie asked, trying to find solid ground in the swamp of her confusion.
“Yes,” Jack said and tried to get her to take a step.
“Then… he will be too,” she said, and her thoughts began to clear. “The other one… Scratch.”
“That’s what we’re afraid of.”
“Give me a minute, dear.” She took a deep breath. She was still very drunk, and knew she was going to be sick before the night was through, but her duty was clear. She had spent a lifetime in fear of this moment, and she would not fail her church or her community now.
“Okay,” she said, and clutched at Jack’s arm with aching and barely working fingers. “Take it slow, but let’s go.” Jack shuffled her across the living room floor. When he reached the door he grabbed her coat.
“Leave it,” she said. “We don’t have time to wrestle these old hands into that thing. I’ve been wet before, and the rain might… clear my head up a little.”
They heard the roar of the stream under the footbridge before they stepped off her porch. The water was rising and had already spilled from its banks in a number of places. It ran down the street and splashed around their ankles, carrying leaves, pop cans, sticks and other debris. Jack saw many of Nellie’s neighbors in their yards, trying to bring in anything that might wash away. The valley had flooded before, though it had been a decade or more.
Nellie lifted her face to the rain, hoping to wash away her haze. Water coursed through the wrinkled channels of her skin and lightning highlighted her sallow complexion. She was sweating from the exertion, in spite of the cold rain. Her joints were a symphony of ache, all sharp brass and heavy drumbeats.
Jack led her under the porch roof of the store and paused to get his breath. He saw the Toland’s car parked in the lot and noticed that lights were on in the parsonage. Raz and April had arrived while he was getting Nellie.
“You okay?” he asked. She nodded, and then dropped her head in shame.
“No,” she said. Jack could see that she was crying. “I’m not going to make it, Jack,” she admitted. “I… the pain is…”
“It’s okay,” Jack said. “I’ll get you there. Just hang on. I apologize if this hurts.” He stooped and put his arms under her arms and legs and lifted her from the ground. He was surprised at how light she was.
“Why, Jack Hardy,” she said, though he could tell the effort cost her. “It’s been sixty years since a handsome man swept me off my feet.”
“You ready?” he asked. She closed her eyes and nodded, and he stepped out into the rain and hurried to cross the footbridge. The water of the stream was just beginning to run over its planks. Jack hefted Nellie to get a better grip and felt the whole structure shudder under his feet. He quickened his pace and jogged into the churchyard.
Lightning struck the church. The bell tower exploded in a flash of blue-white light. Splintered wood rained out over the yard. Every window in the building shattered, spraying glass outward in fan shapes. The church bell teetered for a moment, and then fell forward, trailing a burning length of hemp rope behind it. It smashed into the stone steps that led into the church, its dull clang harmonizing with the echo of thunder.
A nimbus of blue flame, originating where the lightning struck, ran down over the church and out across the wet grass, coming to a halt at the edges of a perfectly round perimeter. It burned hot, impervious to the rain that beat upon it.
Jack and Nellie were knocked to the ground by the concussion of the explosion. Jack, covered in muck, struggled to sit up. The church was a dim, skeletal image, limned by the unnatural fire. He glanced around and saw the lights of the town had all gone out. He could barely see five feet beyond where he sat through the torrential downpour that had followed the lightning.
“Nellie!” he shouted, and felt around the ground where they had fallen.
“Here,” she called just as his hand brushed the drenched fabric of her nylon knee socks. She sounded afraid, but more sober. He crawled next to her and realized running water surrounded his arms. The stream must have jumped its banks.
“You okay?” he shouted.
“I think so,” she muttered. “Just shook up a bit. It’s bad, ain’t it?”
“I think so,” Jack said.
“Then we better get to work. Help me up if you can.”
Jack stood, his feet slipping some in the running water. It was already threatening to cover Nellie’s prone body. He reached down and wrapped his arms around her thin torso and lifted her up. Her false teeth rattled in her mouth as she shivered. He turned and continued his trek.
* * * * *
Raz and April ran into the parsonage and flipped on the living room lights. The first thing he saw was the book and knife laying on the open roll-top desk.
“What the…?” he began, then muttered, “Shelley.”
“Now, Raz,” April said in a half-hearted attempt to defend her sister, “Jim was in here too. You know he opened the desk.”
“I doubt he broke the lock!” Raz turned on April. She had never seen him more furious. “I don’t know anymore! Maybe he did! I don’t think he would’ve have pulled out the book or stuck a knife in the desk, but then I didn’t think he would’ve been fucking my wife either! I trusted Jim, and you!” April had no response. She dropped her head in fear and shame.
“But that doesn’t matter right now,” Raz said. “Nothing matters if we can’t bind Gabrielle and Scratch once more.” He went to the desk and grabbed the book. “We better hope Jack and Nellie get here soon.”
The room filled with the light and noise of the exploding church, and then went dark as every light bulb in the house popped.
“Oh my God.” April pulled back the curtain to see what was happening outside. Her face reflected blue light and dancing shadows.
“It’s on fire,” she said, and Raz could see tears in her eyes. He went to the window and saw the church. It sat in the center of a circle of fire, bathed in blue light and flames. Smoke unfurled around it like great black wings.
“Get the candles!” he said. “Bring ‘em to the table. Time’s runnin’ out!” Raz rushed into the dark dining room, stubbing a toe on the corner of the doorjamb as he went. He opened the book and flipped through it as April lit candles around the room. They heard the door open and the house filled with a gale of moist air. Jack carried Nellie into the dining room. They were both soaked and filthy. He placed his fragile burden in her chair at the table.
“Oh my,” April said. “Nellie, you’ll freeze to death. I’ll get you a blanket and make some tea.”
“There’s no time for that!” Raz shouted. “Sorry Nellie, but you know that as well as I do. Now everyone sit down! We need to start the ritual.”
“He’s right,” Nellie said through chattering teeth. “We need to stop this.”
“The good lord willing and the creek don’t rise,” Jack said, invoking an old saying of the hills.
“We’re definitely screwed on one of those,” he added. “And I’m not sure I believe the other one anymore, either.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Turn here!” Adam said, pointing down the narrow path of the quarry road.
“How do you know they didn’t go on up the hill?” Jim asked.
“I just do.” Adam trusted the certainty of intuition that had always served him well.
“You’re the boss.” Jim wrenched the wheel sideways and plunged onto the trail. They bounced on the shocks, thrown violently against one another in the cab. The wheel ruts were filled with water and mud pulled at the tires, threatening to drag the truck sideways into the ditch.
Holly held Adam’s damaged hand tightly in her own, fingers absentmindedly rubbing at the knob of now-healed flesh. The world felt unreal to her. She had witnessed a miracle. She had seen an angel who had healed her husband right before her eyes. It was unbelievable, yet somehow more real than the idea that her daughter had been taken. Driving through the woods searching for her was much more surreal to Holly than seeing Gabrielle had been. She had lived with the idea of angels her entire life. Some part of her, the part that had known her childhood memory had been real, wasn’t even surprised by it. But the notion that she could lose Michaela, really lose her forever, had never crossed her mind as a genuine likelihood. It was a bad fantasy that could not possibly come true.
But here she was, riding with a man with a gun, chasing the man who had raped her. She never believed Billy could be really dangerous. Sure, he had beaten her up and threatened her, but that was a far cry from murder, wasn’t it? But there was a woman’s body stuffed in the trunk of Billy’s car. That had been as real, if more unbelievable, as the angel.
How had he found them, anyway? Shelley had brought him to the house; not that Shelley had any idea of who or what he was. But he had to have found out they were in Canaan in the first place.
“Oh God!” She gasped out loud as the realization hit her.
“We’ll find her,” Adam assured.
“No,” Holly choked out. “Mom. She didn’t answer the phone today. Billy had to find out where we were from somebody. Oh God!” Adam squeezed her hand, but kept quiet. He hated to think it was true, but he knew it was likely, and any words of comfort or denial would be meaningless.
