Redemption Road(134)

Ramona Morgan.

Lauren something.

Then, there were the ones beneath. Nine more women, they said. Nine more ghosts. The thought made him afraid, but his mother died here, too, and if there were ghosts, maybe she would be among them. She’d been a good person, so maybe the others had been, as well. Maybe they would see into his heart and offer no reason to fear. But, Gideon was a spiritual boy. He believed in God and angels and the bad things, too.

Did that include the preacher?

It shouldn’t, but he thought it must. Why else was he here with Liz and the other girl? Why were they tied and taped and terrified? It was too much, too big. But the truth of what he had to do was simple. He had to go inside and see. So he pulled himself up the stairs and at the top looked down at how the valley rolled out, soft and narrow and long. It was pretty, he thought, then opened the door and went looking for the ugly. It wasn’t hard to find. The altar was lit, and Liz was on it. Her father was hurting her, and the sight made Gideon weak. Ten steps later the weakness was worse, and he thought of such things as blood loss and shock and the doctor’s talk of a stitched artery.

The shirt was heavy.

His eyelids, too.

Holding on to a pew, he waited for the faintness to pass, but it didn’t. If anything, he felt worse. Numb legs. Dry mouth. He stumbled and went down on a knee, smelling the carpet, the rotted wood. The girl was screaming, but all he could see was Liz on the altar, how she twitched and jerked, and how ropes cut her ankles. Veins bulged in her neck; her mouth was open. Gideon dragged himself up, thinking, This is how my mother died. Just here. Just like that. The gap in his logic didn’t close until he was close enough to see the blood that filled Liz’s eyes.

She was dying as he watched. Not being hurt. Being killed.

Gideon swayed again, seeing his mother’s death, as it must have been.

This place.

This man.

How could that be possible? He’d loved the preacher more than his own father. Trusted him. Adored him. A day ago he’d have died for the Reverend Black.

“Hmmm! Hmm!”

The girl was at his feet, shoved half beneath the pew. Her noises grew frantic as she tried to gesture with her entire body. The preacher’s coat was on the pew ten feet away. The girl dipped her head twice, and Gideon saw the stun gun beside the coat. He’d never seen one before today, but it looked simple. Metal points. Yellow trigger. He reached for it, then saw the real gun sticking out of a coat pocket. It was black and hard. He touched it once, but didn’t want to kill anyone.

It was still the reverend.

Right?

He wasn’t thinking straight, and his hands were tingling, too. The whole thing felt wrong, but life often felt that way. Mistakes happened. Things that seemed clear weren’t. He didn’t want to make a mistake now, but was so dizzy.

Was it really happening?

He bent for the stun gun and fell against the pew. New heat spread on his chest, and his fingers didn’t want to obey. They were far away, fumbling at the grip. His knees touched carpet, and blood from his shirt smeared the wooden seat. He turned his eyes to the girl beside him, saw the shiny eyes and yellow hair, the way she struggled and pleaded and screamed behind the tape as if to remind him that a woman was dying, and that it was Liz, who’d always loved him.

Gideon couldn’t allow that, so he pushed with all he had; he pushed and bled and found his feet beneath a vaulted ceiling and a wall of colored glass. The stun gun filled his hand, and shallow stairs led to the place Liz was dying. He asked his mother to help if she could. “I’m scared,” he whispered, and it was as if a dozen women kissed his face and lifted him. The pain in his chest went away. His head cleared, and he moved as light as any ghost across the carpet and up the steps to where pink light spilled down and motes hung in the air above the preacher’s head. Beyond the altar was Mary, in the glass, and in her arms an infant son. They wore halos and were smiling, but Gideon was angry and afraid and beyond such gentle things. He looked once at Liz’s bloody eyes, then put metal in the reverend’s back and lit the bastard up.

*

Channing watched it happen and felt a surge when the preacher went down. Above him, Elizabeth was unmoving. Maybe she was breathing, and maybe not. The boy, beside her, looked half dead with his bloody shirt and translucent skin. He wobbled where he stood and looked as if he, too, could drop at any second. She needed out of the tape before that happened.

“Hmmmm! Hmmmm!”

She tried to scream, but the boy seemed oblivious. He stared at the preacher and touched the man with a shoe. Beyond him, Elizabeth was open-eyed and paler even than the boy.

She wasn’t moving.

Was she breathing?

Channing screamed behind the tape, tasting it. The boy sat and looked at the face of the fallen man. He watched him stir, and even Channing saw the eyes flicker. He would wake and take the boy out. It would begin all over. Elizabeth would die, and so would she. They’d go back to the silo, or he’d kill them here. Who could stop it? The boy was glass-eyed and frozen. Liz couldn’t do it. Could Channing? She struggled against the tape, but it wasn’t going to happen. The man was moving for real, and the boy watched it happen. He waited for the eyes to open, then moved as deliberately as anything Channing had ever seen. He rolled to his knees, said something she missed, then put metal against the preacher’s skin and kept the trigger down until the battery died.