Decoration Day (9 page)

“What is this?” he yelled at her.

She came toward him, bearing the candle ahead. The black veil obscured her face, and she said nothing.

“In the name of all that is holy in this house of God, what are you?” David yelled.

The flame flickered out, but the woman kept coming closer. He could almost touch her. When she drew close enough, David grabbed hold of her veil and pulled it down. The fabric slipped away from her face.

Instead of a human visage or even a skull, a horrible mass of entwined, squirming, tentacle-like projections reached out from where the face should have been. They groped for him. He let go of the veil and stumbled backward. Terror like he never felt before engulfed him. His feet slipped on the hardwood floor, and he toppled, hitting his head on the edge of a pew. His world didn’t go dark, but lilac.

Friday

Through the filmy vision of roused sleep, David saw a lavender glow at the edges of the ceiling. He blinked hard to clear his sight, but everything remained veiled and gossamer. The room wasn’t his apartment. The purple glow revealed enough of the ceiling for him to know that he wasn’t lying on the floor of the church sanctuary either. He stared at the ceiling in Marsh’s guest room.

David sat up in bed. The springs creaked and poked into his bottom. In the brief time he’d drunk, no hangover had been this bad. The nightmare glow didn’t bother him. He needed to know how he had ended up in Marsh’s house. The last thing he remembered was the woman in black with the tentacles coming out from her face.

The glow began to thrum. The feeling of it throbbed through his head. It rattled his teeth. The light demanded his attention. Never had it been this intense.

“What do you want?” he said aloud, looking up at the ceiling and holding his hands over his temples.

The light pulsed and thrummed harder. The rhythm of it took on the quality of language. The light tried to communicate with him, but he had no idea what it said.

“I don’t understand you.”

“Come to me,” the light said in David’s head. The words matched the cadence of the pulsing.

“Who are you? Are you God?” he whispered, afraid to speak too loudly to the Almighty.

“Come to me.”

David didn’t waste time. He felt the light inside like the warmth God had sent to revive his faith. The rhythmic pulsing of the light fell into the same pattern as his steps as he walked out of his room and into the corridor. The whole hallway ceiling glowed. The light dipped like dripping water. He stretched his hands up at the drooping light as he walked toward the stairs. His fingers brushed over the energy. His arm hair stood on end like he was too close to an electrical field. The light drooped even lower, but not around his hands. The lights in the hall blinked out just like his phone and car had when he’d driven through the purple fog.

At the foot of the steps, David looked up. The light spilled out from the third floor. Excitement almost overwhelmed him. The light had been such a burden when he thought of it as a nightmare. Now that it was God, it excited him more than anything else ever had. Soon he would be in direct contact with the Almighty. Any doubt he’d had about staying in Innsboro left him.

As he started up the first step, a hand touched him on the shoulder. A surge of excitement jolted through him. God touched him, but none of the electrical feeling of the light joined the touch.

“Where are you going?” Marsh asked.

David looked down at the man. Grave concern etched lines on Marsh’s face. The preacher tried to brush the other man’s hand off his shoulder.

“I’m going to the light, to God.”

“There is no light,” Marsh said.

David looked at the third floor. The light still spilled over the edge of the landing, but had dwindled. He reached toward it.

“It’s boiling out like fog,” he said.

“There is nothing there. Let me take you back to your room. You don’t need to be out of bed. Ebenezer said that your fall has aggravated the concussion. You’re probably hallucinating,” Marsh stepped around him and tugged on him to go back to his room.

“What is the problem?” Ebenezer asked, coming up the stairs.

“Reverend Stanley has wandered out of his room, trying to get to the light that he’s been dreaming about,” Marsh said.

“It is real. I see it spilling from the third floor.” David pointed down the hallway, which was now lit with electric light. The God light no longer drooped down but clung to the flat ceiling.

“You need to return to your room,” Ebenezer said. “Alistair found you unconscious on the floor of the church. You’ve aggravated the concussion you received. You need to get off your feet.”

“The light is God. He wants me to come to him,” David almost raved.

“He is hallucinating,” Ebenezer said to Marsh. “Get the others up here to help get him to his room. I’ll go get some medication to help him.”

“Nahum, Horace, please help me,” Marsh yelled down to the ground floor.

Ebenezer let go of David’s arm, but before he attempted to wrench himself away from Marsh, the other men were upon him. They dragged him down the hallway and back into his room. Without any ceremony, they flung him onto the bed. The springs sank and jabbed into his back. The men loomed over him, holding him place. David thought about lashing out, but they kept a secure grip while pressing him down.

“Don’t you understand that the light is God?” He looked up at the ceiling. The purple light continued to shine around the edges of the moldings. “He called to me.”

“He took quite a bump to the head,” Marsh told the others. “He believes the light from his nightmares is talking to him. Ebenezer is going to get something to help him settle down.”

Nahum looked up at the ceiling. David thought the man saw the light. Something in his eyes gave it away. The oldest of the men looked back at him. “There’s nothing up there but cobwebs.”

David started to say he’d never said the light was on the ceiling, but Ebenezer came in at that moment. He saw him uncork a small bottle that he recognized as the sleep dram. They planned to drug him again. He knew what he’d seen and what he’d heard.

“Open up.” Ebenezer squeezed his jowls until his mouth opened.

The liquid filled up his mouth. The
doctor
closed his lips and held his mouth shut. Ebenezer rubbed his throat, forcing David to swallow the dram. Now God would be angry. He hoped that the Almighty would hold them accountable. Once he’d swallowed, Ebenezer let go of his mouth.

“The wrath of God will be upon you,” David said.

He tried to struggle, but the drug worked fast. All his strength drained from him. His limbs went limp, and his lids slipped shut. All he saw was the purple light. The thrumming of it echoed through his head. The men let go of him. He willed himself to jump up and run, but the dram sucked everything from him.

“Is he out?” Marsh asked.

David felt his arm rise and fall. “Yes,” Ebenezer said.

“Is he really crazy?” Nahum asked.

“Look up,” Horace said. “What do you think?”

“He’s not,” Ebenezer said. “He’s delirious from that damned light but not crazy.”

“That light has never shown up in all the years we’ve celebrated Decoration Day,” Nahum said.

“It’s because he’s the one. I am almost sure of it. No other preacher has ever been so affected by the place, and none has ever been so determined to work at our church,” Marsh said. “I just hope that the light isn’t too much for him.”

Before he could hear the remainder of the conversation, David fell into deep sleep.

“Good morning.”

David opened his eyes. Harsh, overpowering sunlight blinded him. He put his hand in front of his face to block the light. For a moment, David forgot where he was. He reached out for Anna, but his hand fell off the bed.

“Are you awake, Reverend Stanley?” Marsh said.

Reality set in. Anna was dead. He lay in a bedroom of a very creepy mansion in Tennessee, and God had talked to him last night. It had been more than that. God had beckoned him to join him. He sat straight up and stared his
host
dead in the face.

Marsh’s steel-blue eyes looked hard and not very friendly. David wondered if the man’s eyes had always looked so harsh. He couldn’t remember. The thing he did remember was that Marsh and the other elders had kept him from meeting God.

“I want to leave,” he said.

“Why?” Marsh’s eyes softened to a look of curiosity.

“You kept me from God.” David threw his feet off the bed and stood up.

A wave of dizziness washed over him. The room made a half whirl before he plopped back down on the bed. The springs creaked and popped under his weight. The wall tilted back the other way and finally stopped. The sun shining through the window seemed harsher. It stabbed his eyes and pierced his brain.

“What did that doctor give me?” he yelled, grasping his head as he did.

“The same sleep medicine that he gave you before.”

“I don’t believe you. You had me drugged. I heard you talking about me being the right one. What are going to do to me?”

Marsh walked around and sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress depressed. He suddenly had a very fatherly, worried look about him.

“I was going to let you preach,” Marsh said, “but I’m beginning to reconsider it. I think you are losing grip on reality.”

“The only thing I’m losing is my patience. Tell me what is going on.”

“Ebenezer believes you are suffering from a kind of delirium. He believes that our isolation here has made it worse.”

“Why isn’t it affecting you?”

“Probably because we are used to the isolation. It is part of us,” Marsh said. “It’s in our character.”

“How about the light?” David asked. “Is that part of the delirium, or is it God like I believe?”

“I think it’s part of the delirium even though it started before the road ended up blocked. As for it being your God, I highly doubt that.”

“Why? Don’t you have faith?”

“I have faith in many things, Reverend, but I also know that you didn’t hear your God’s voice until you had another blow to the head. I find the two correlate.”

“I’m not crazy,” David said.

“I don’t think you are, but I do think you’ve had two severe blows to the head that are affecting your judgment and rationality.” Marsh stood. The mattress rose free of his added weight. “You will stay with me until Sunday. I don’t want you back at the church. It has ill effects on you.”

David knew he wasn’t going to win this particular battle. Marsh owned the town as best he could tell. If Marsh didn’t want David at the church, it wouldn’t happen. Also, God had come to him in this room. He might do it again.

“I’ll stay,” he said.

“Are you going to cause any more excitement?”

“I’ll try not to.” As Marsh started out the door, David continued. “I left my sermon notes in the graveyard. I’m afraid they’ve been ruined by the weather, but could you fetch them?”

Marsh smiled. “I saw the pad out there when I found you unconscious in the church. I brought it back with me. I’ll have it sent up with some food.”

“Thank you,” he said and thought about all the canned goods. “Could I get some fresh fruit with it?”

“I don’t think so. We don’t have any. There’s not enough time to eat up the surplus before Decoration Day.” Marsh smiled and closed the door behind him.

“I’ve been hearing that a lot,” David said.

The sun no longer blinded him. Clouds covered it so thickly that the light entering the room looked like twilight. Rain began to patter on the windows. David felt like he was living in a rain forest of some kind. Risking another wave of dizziness, he stood. His brain heaved forward and then backward but was not overcome with unsteadiness. He knelt by the bed, almost daring the demons of dizziness to overtake him. Everything pitched forward, toppling him face-first into the mattress, which was fitting since he planned such a position. While the world still moved in large loops, David began to pray.

“Our Father who is in heaven.” David stopped and thought over his words. He wasn’t making a public prayer but a private call of supplication. “My Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your matchless name. Oh Lord, hear me. Don’t blame me for not coming to you last night. I was hindered in my way by forces beyond my control. You have called me to this place. Now stumbling blocks are before me everywhere. Give me guidance. Tell me what to do. Give me a sign. I need the reassurance that I am not losing my mind, and that you have given me a new calling and have revived my faith for the betterment. Protect against evils that hold back your powerful light. Free me from the nightmares and walking horrors like the woman with the octopus face. Oh Lord, give me a sign.”

A tap came at the door. David looked up from his prayer. The sudden movement didn’t send his brains reeling. Thomasine stepped inside, carrying a small tray with food and his legal pad on it. She placed the tray on the dresser and left without saying a word. David felt he might have gotten his sign. The woman bore a violet aura around her.

“In the name of your crucified Son, amen.” He ended his prayer and stood.