Dead Souls (11 page)

"Probably had the wind knocked out of her when she hit the floor." Hanson put his glasses back on and opened the folder clipped to the edge of the bed. "We'd still like to find out why she fainted, of course. Judging from your mother's medical records, it's safe to assume that she might've forgotten to take her anti-depressants, which in effect can cause terrible withdrawal symptoms, including dizziness and even fainting. I'm guessing that it's either that, or she had an anxiety attack, which could also bring about similar symptoms. But, we must rule out anything else before we can make that determination."

Yeah, she had a major-league anxiety attack all right, right after I mentioned the name of someone who died and left me a fortune. Clearly, she knew the man, and her relationship with him couldn't have been any good, because immediately after that she threw some desperate prayer at the Lord to save my soul from eternal damnation
.

"How long is she going to be here?" Johnny asked. "The nurse mentioned something about her staying for a few days."

"We'll give her a more complete examination tomorrow, make certain that she takes her medication and gets enough liquids. She's been rather groggy since coming in." He paced along the bed and adjusted the flow on her IV drip. "Probably the day after tomorrow, but I'd like to wait until the morning before we come to any conclusions."

"Okay, thank you."

Dr Hanson returned the file back to the foot of the bed. "Is your mother still married?"

"Yes," Johnny responded quickly, feeling somewhat guilty that his father had not yet arrived. "My dad works late," he lied, knowing that his father was probably out at Pete's Tavern, or some other watering hole down at the docks. "He's probably on his way."

"At this point I think it's best that we let Mary sleep for the night. It's late, and she needs her rest. Try to get a hold of your father. You can both come back in the morning, around eight."

"That'll be fine," Johnny answered blankly, thinking of Ed and wondering if he would even see him before the morning. Hanson grinned politely and walked out of the room. Johnny turned back to gaze at his mother's sleeping face. The corners of her mouth were twitching, as were her hands, and Johnny could see her eyes shifting beneath her lids.
I'm sorry this had to happen, mom. I'm sorry I disappointed you. I'm hoping this happened because you forgot to take your meds, but something deep down inside of me is saying that this isn't the case. No, not at all. You've been hiding something from me all my life, and now that something has come back to haunt you. Haunt us
.

Johnny stepped around the side of the bed and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead, catching a whiff of her bitter, stale hair. He was about to say something small to her, but realized that waking her would be the gravest of all mistakes, so he kept his honest concerns to himself. He backpedaled around to the foot of the bed, and had stepped halfway across the room when a powerful thought crossed his mind…something instinctual, coercive, and it made him stop and backtrack to the foot of the bed.

Feeling strangely uneasy, he grabbed the patient info folder clipped on the bedrail. His hands were shaking, breaths escaping his lungs in sour spurts.

He opened it up.

The first page was a medical history record, which included all of Mary's personal information. His eyes ran down the info that had been typed in, the words so common, and yet, seeming so alien, as though he'd just walked into a stranger's room.

Her name.

Her date of birth.

Her social security number.

The names of her family members—only two answers here.

And then, her…
oh my God
…

And it was the very moment Johnny read the next item of the file that his mind whispered,
this can't be
, and he was immediately overwhelmed, fresh tears tracking down his face as a newfound fear grew in him, this time for his mother because only God knew what terrible aura of truth surrounded her, and demanded of him, and when he looked back at her she appeared even more different, not his mother at all but some strange individual he'd never met, and he realized at this moment that he needed to be away from her, not just now but forever and ever, because part of the mystery that she'd kept bottled up inside her all these years had finally escaped by will of chance and the sheet of paper he gripped in his trembling hand.

He closed the folder and clipped it back onto the bedrail, the image of 'line five' on the medical history sheet bound to stay with him until his dying day.

Maiden name: Conroy
.

August 24th, 1988

9:17 AM

B
enjamin Conroy was sitting in a chair before an open window in his office, staring unblinkingly at the notebook in his lap as he scrawled his thoughts on the morning's events down. The baby had stopped crying about an hour ago, thank God, and now the wind provided a fairly soothing backdrop as it bustled across the wheat fields a hundred yards away. He'd been in this position for over two hours, a copy of The Egyptian Book of the Dead on the desk beside him to provide moral support.

No matter how much he prayed, how much he wrote down, he knew it would not reverse the blunder that had become of the ritual.
  

Amazingly, things had gone entirely as planned up until that point. But then something rotten had gotten into Daniel,
damn him, doesn't he appreciate what I'm doing for him?
, and all that had been worked on was flushed to hell when the spirit of Osiris vacated.
He'd never appeared before!
Countless times Benjamin had explained to everyone that all conditions had to be perfect for the ritual to succeed, and they
had
been perfect, and things had come off without flaw, better than he could have ever hoped for. Even the timing of the bells had worked properly! But then the boy had decided to pull his stunt—had tried to spare his little baby brother of a moment's pain, and in turn might have destroyed a lifetime's worth of effort and planning.
Didn't he see the spirit?

The spirit must be angry.

Angry at me, for failing him. For my sins…

In between his prayers and thoughts of impending failure, Benjamin reflected upon his years of preparation and his life-long obsession with the biblical history relating to Jesus' rise from the dead; how he became convinced that the son of God could not have relied on his Father's unseen inspiration alone; how fifteen hundred years earlier, the mid-fifteenth century BCE Egyptians had left behind what would later be interpreted as
The Book of the Dead
, a series of mortuary spells written on sheets of papyrus covered with magical texts and accompanying illustrations. Thousands of these exhaustive passages had been found in coffins, detailing prayers addressed to the spirit god Osiris who carried with him the power of the afterlife. Those worshipping Osiris's power could call upon him to lift the spirits from the passed-on bodies of kings and princes, so that their souls could be reunited with their loved ones in the underworld, or what modern occultists now call the 'astral plane'. Here the souls of the deceased would make their ultimate decision: remain as spirits for eternity in the astral plane, or choose to return to their own bodies so their Kingdoms could be protected by their divine rule. Many would place this ultimate decision into the hands of the Egyptian God himself. Jesus had chosen the latter (according to the code Benjamin found in the bible), while Benjamin himself elected to pursue an eternity with his family in the spirit world.
It is my only chance for salvation
…

Benjamin had divided his life's work equally and fairly between his observable Christian beliefs, and his clandestine occult practices. He'd inherited the farm from his father—
Wellfield's
previous minister Anton Conroy—who'd died of a heart-attack when he was forty-three (Benjamin had been eighteen at the time, with plans to marry Faith two months later; the wedding had commenced as planned). Additionally, Benjamin had inherited the church that his father built in 1956, and without hesitation had stepped into his father's shoes to perform Sunday services himself. At the time, the church had had about 200 devout parishioners, most of them Christians from
Wellfield
, although perhaps two dozen people would make the trip in from Skowhegan to sit in on the elder Conroy's services. As the years passed, and as Benjamin's obsession with the occult grew, he would focus his sermons more upon the darker writings of the Old Testament, which eventually disenchanted many of the Christian parishioners seeking a higher bond with God. Still, today, there were about 100 faithful followers of the assembly, and Benjamin would perform two masses every Sunday, collecting more than enough in donations to keep the farm running smoothly.

Sundays had been reserved for his Christian practices. The other six days of the week would go toward tending the farm, with the evenings spent practicing the rituals as demonstrated in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and then, in an effort to expand his powers as a magician, from the
Goetia
, and the
Grimoire
of
Honorious
. He'd never felt a conflict of interest, wholly convinced through years of exhaustive research that Jesus had known all along he would be crucified, and had performed a spell from the Book Of The Dead prior to his death with intentions to come back as a savior.
A synchronous fate exists amongst the two Gods. And I have proof of this…I have cracked a code in the bible that reveals Jesus' use of Osiris's name in the Old Testament. It is proof that Jesus himself had studied portions of the Egyptian Book Of The Dead prior to his fall! Jesus rose from the dead because he evoked the spirit of Osiris!

Benjamin loved his family,
or is it that I love to dominate them?
, and had made every effort to keep them close to him, recreating a lifestyle as evidenced by the chronological accounts in the bible. They lived and worked and studied at home, remaining solely amongst each other and making every last effort to keep themselves free of the evil influences of the outside world—to maintain lives consisting of only purity and
sinlessness
.
It is the way of God
, Benjamin would say.
And the demand of the Lord Osiris. If we seek his support, then we must conform to his conditions
.

It had made no sense for Benjamin to perform the ancient rituals solely upon himself—who would ultimately crucify him for his sins? To Benjamin, there would be no place on this earth for him without the worship of his family. Upon final completion of the ritual, he would die for their sins…and they would die for his. And as always, upon envisioning how they would all remain together for eternity, he recalled his very first evocation of the Lord Osiris, and how he dedicated his life to the ritual of ancestral afterlife…

…and a sharp, needling pain struck his chest, and then his head; it had come without warning, pulling a fearful cry from him. And then the golden light appeared…at first it was just a pinpoint, but it soon expanded to an orb the size of a basketball, maybe bigger, and from within he could hear the winds gliding across the surface of the astral plane, he could see the starlight within…starlight that in some mystical way carried the voice of the spirit he'd spent years trying to summon: "Commence with the ritual." The small fire before him rose, and he clapped his hands to his eyes before reaching down and groping for the wand. He grabbed it and shoved the molded end roughly into the flames. He held it there for a minute, maybe longer, taking deep breaths as his heart ran fast in his chest, and when the heat from the wand rose to his face, he opened his eyes and thought he saw for the briefest instant an embodiment composed of a million unrealized fears…and it had a voice…and it told his to make the sacrifice…and Benjamin had listened to it, bringing the fiery end of the wand down against his own sternum…

"Benjamin?"

The voice shook him from his musings. He opened his eyes and caught sight of the Book of the Dead sitting on his desk, its tattered leather cover seeming to undulate. He shook his head and rubbed his tired eyes, unable to tell if he'd fallen asleep. The scar on his chest tingled suddenly, and he clutched it tenderly with trembling fingers.

A gentle knock upon the door.

He cocked his head, looked at the book again. It…it was not moving.
A trick of the light, is all
. "Enter," he uttered, his thoughts far away, charged with the past—a decent but hopeless distraction to the morning's fiasco.

Faith entered the room, her face pale and solemn: a frozen mask of fatigue and sickness. Like a schoolgirl called to the front of the class, she stood before Benjamin, hands folded compliantly before her. "The baby is asleep," she whispered.

"We've failed," Benjamin stated, ignoring her. "The damn boy…"

"I've spoken with Daniel. He feels terribly for what he did. Please, Benjamin, he needs no further punishment."

"
Did you not see the spirit?
" he asked, teeth clenched, voice low but filled with fury.

She remained
unanswering
, fingers knitting nervously. She took a deep breath, then asked, "Have you no concern for your baby's condition?"

"He's experienced a pain no different than the rest of us." He paused, then pinned her swollen gaze and added, "He'll live…for an eternity now."
I hope and pray
…