Destroying Angel (6 page)

Laura grabbed my arm. “Do something!”

In desperation, I raised my hand to the square, like a man might do when calling upon his priesthood, and spoke in my loudest, firmest voice. “Annabelle Pratt Kimball! In the name of Jesus Christ, I rebuke the demon that has taken possession of thy soul. Get thee hence, Satan, and trouble this woman no longer!”

Annabelle fell still. For a long moment she did nothing but take great, heaving breaths. They turned to shudders and then to sobs. She pulled down her dress and covered her face, weeping.

“For heaven’s sake, don’t just lie there. Get up!” I told her.

She rose to her feet and reached up for us. I dropped to my belly and stretched down for her, but I couldn’t reach her fingers. And so I had her tie the blanket under her armpits and then toss me the other end. Together, Maude, Laura, Nannie, and I heaved
and strained until we had her high enough to get her arms over the edge. And then we dragged her up and out. We embraced her while she cried.

“You’re safe now,” I said. “We’re here.”

“I fell,” she said through her tears. “I wasn’t looking and I fell. That’s all, I fell.”

I stared at her. “But what, in the name of all that is holy, were you doing up here in the first place?”

“I don’t know.” She turned to me with a haunted expression. “I don’t remember.”

We retraced our steps out of Witch’s Warts, and when we got back to camp, we didn’t tell the other women what had happened. Annabelle retreated to her tent. When she came out an hour later, she set to work digging the canal and continued until dinner without speaking to another soul.

That night I didn’t wake up Sister Gretta when it was her turn for watch. I didn’t want to go to sleep. Instead I stared all night at the embers of the fire. I kept seeing a dark shape thrusting obscenely. And Annabelle’s struggles—her writhing, her moaning in fear and pain.

No, that wasn’t quite right. She had struggled, yes, but now that I thought about it, her cries sounded like a woman in the throes of passion, fighting to control her pleasure so that her husband does not think her licentious.

I slept better the next evening. Perhaps it was exhaustion, or perchance time had dulled my memory and allowed my levelheaded nature to exert itself. I no longer believed I had seen an evil spirit. The shadow was an illusion. I had spent so much time with these women, alone in the wilderness, fueled by talk about the end of days. My feverish imagination supplied the spark.

As for Sister Annabelle, she was given to manifestations of the spirit. In Salt Lake, her natural impulse made her talk in tongues and see visions. With a priesthood leader to calm her, this was harmless enough.

But here, in the harsh desert sun, with no men and no priesthood, in a wilderness that stretched for fifty miles in every direction, desolate and abandoned, Annabelle’s visions induced some sort of madness.

Again Jacob stopped reading. This time he breathed a sigh of relief. Grandma Cowley wasn’t unreliable after all. She recognized the spiritual hysteria. It was the same hysteria that infected the population of Blister Creek to this day.

Even Jacob, trained in medical school, trained to think critically, wasn’t immune. Like his first glance at Daniel the other night. What he’d taken for a man on top of his son had been nothing more than blankets wrapped around the boy while he struggled with terrors in his sleep.

He was about to resume reading, when a cry caught his ear from somewhere in the sleeping house. This time he recognized the sound and location at once. He slipped from the room and into the darkened hallway. The floor creaked underfoot, and what might have been a comforting, familiar sound in the daytime became sinister, like a warning to someone or something that he was coming. His heart pounded.

I will not see an angel. Whatever it is, there is no man and no supernatural being. It’s my son, suffering a night terror.

He came up the attic stairs in the darkness and flinched when his hand closed around the cool brass doorknob. His stomach lurched. He reached inside the room and groped for the switch, and the light came on. There was no one there but the two boys. Nephi slept soundly, head tucked into his blankets, a peaceful expression on his face, even as his older brother suffered in the next bed.

Daniel moaned and shook his head. His blankets lay on the floor this time, and he’d opened the buttons on his pajama top. His bare chest heaved, and his eyes stared at something beyond the walls of the room.

Jacob hurried to his side. “Shh. It’s nothing. There’s no one here. It’s only a dream.”

Eliza was the last to arrive at Krantz’s place. Jacob and Miriam stood on one side of the trailer, speaking in low, earnest tones, while Krantz carried a video camera in from his car. He smiled when he spotted her and came over.

“You haven’t planted the roses,” she said.

He glanced at the two pots, still sitting outside his front door where he’d put them last summer, and it was clear from his expression that he hadn’t given them much thought. “They’re still alive,” he pointed out.

“That one sent roots right through the bottom of the pot.” Eliza was more amused than accusatory. “Need a hand?”

“No, no, I’ll get to it. Look, there are buds. It’s doing all right.”

“You need to get those plants out. They’re root-bound, you can tell.”

“I don’t have much of a green thumb. I’d rather swing a hammer.” Eliza glanced at his home with a raised eyebrow, and he added, “When I have time, I mean.”

Truth was, the trailer had the same faded appearance it had presented when it housed laborers from out of town five years earlier. He’d repaired the roof, at least, and built stairs to the front door to replace the pile of cinder block that had once stood there. A seasonal wash—currently dry—cut through the backyard, and up to its edge he had planted a little grass that grew in tough, wiry clumps. Krantz went back to the car for electric cords and carried them up into the trailer.

Miriam and Jacob came around from the other side. “No,” Miriam was saying, “nothing like that. He’s fine.”

“Kid had a tough go of it,” Jacob said. “First Caleb’s cult, then child protective services. You’re sure there’s nothing?”

“You’d think, but no, he’s doing fantastic. He’s even stopped hoarding food.”

“Who are you guys talking about, Diego?” Eliza asked.

“Yes,” Miriam said. “He’s a great kid. No problems, nothing.”

“That’s fantastic,” Eliza said. “After everything he’s gone through.”

“You had nightmares as a kid, right?” Jacob asked her.

“Sure, doesn’t everyone?”

“What about?”

“The usual stuff, I guess—a monster or ghost chasing me through town. I could fly—kind of. It was slow, like swimming.”

“Anything about the devil or an evil spirit?”

“No, not that I remember.”

“And was it worse in Blister Creek? Or did you have the same dreams when we were living in Alberta?”

“I can’t remember.” She thought about it briefly. “About the same, I think. What’s this about? Are your kids having bad dreams?”

“Just Daniel,” he said. “Night terrors. He doesn’t wake up, not entirely, but he talks. Last night he said there was a man in the room. Of course there was no one.”

“What does Fernie say?” Miriam asked.

“I didn’t tell her. Not this time. She slept through it.”

“Jacob,” Eliza said.

“I know, I know, but I can’t. You’ve seen how she interprets her own dreams—don’t you think she’ll put an awful spin on this? Besides, I’m worried it has something to do with the accident. Daniel was in the car—he seemed to be in shock for several days, and now his mother can’t walk. It might be post-traumatic stress disorder. That can manifest itself in night terrors, bed-wetting, that sort of thing.” He sighed. “Of course, Diego is fine and he’s gone through hell.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” Miriam said. “It’s not like we’ve done anything special with Diego. He’s a resilient boy. Most kids are. I’m sure Daniel will be fine.”

Krantz came down from the trailer. “I’m set up, whenever you guys are ready.”

He had hooked up the video camera to the television so he could show them footage from one of the cameras Eliza and Miriam had installed under the eaves of the temple. The picture was black-and-white, low resolution. For a minute there was nothing. Then a bearded man in a hooded sweatshirt came out of Witch’s Warts and into view beneath the lights placed around the temple, walking directly in front of the camera. The duffel bag slung over one shoulder seemed to weigh him down.

“That’s the first one.” Krantz fast-forwarded through about an hour of footage, and then the visitor reappeared. “And here’s the second, going back
into
the maze this time.”

This time the man looked up and seemed to see the camera where it hung from the side of the temple. He turned away and picked up his pace.

Eliza caught her breath. It was Taylor Junior. He was thinner than when she’d seen him last summer, standing outside the chapel after the attack, just before he’d disappeared into the labyrinth. His cheekbones stood out, and his eyes—even in the grainy footage—held a haunted look.

“When was this?” Jacob asked.

“About two weeks ago,” Krantz said. “I scanned this footage once already and somehow missed it, but then I ran out of memory and was set to record over this batch, and I thought I should take one more look.”

“Any other entries?”

“No, this is the only one I found.”

“Once is enough,” Miriam said. “Run it again.” Krantz obeyed, and Miriam had him pause it when Taylor Junior looked up. “Yes, he definitely sees the camera. Check out how his face changes, and then he looks away too quickly.”

Eliza thought of Taylor Junior walking around town at night, imagined him outside the house, looking up at her window, and shuddered. And then there was the bag.

Jacob leaned back in the sofa with his hands behind his head, looking up at the ceiling. “What’s he doing? Robbing houses?”

“He’s preparing for another attack,” Eliza said. “Look at the bag. It changes weight.”

Krantz ran it a third time.

“I almost didn’t see it,” she said, “because I was watching his face. But see the duffel bag? It’s lighter on the way back. Not empty—maybe he did steal supplies—but he left some stuff in town too.”

“But what?” Miriam asked.

“Could be anything. Weapons, maybe.”

“Huge risk coming into town through Witch’s Warts,” Miriam said. “Everyone in Blister Creek knows Taylor Junior escaped that way. People see someone sneaking out of Witch’s Warts late at night, they’re going to shoot first and ask questions later.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Krantz said. “I’ve seen grannies with .44 Magnums and twelve-year-old kids toting shotguns. It’s like Mogadishu out there. I’m scared to drive through town after dark without my lights flashing.”

“Can you blame them?” Miriam said. “And imagine if they knew about this tape.”

“Better keep it quiet for now,” Jacob said. “We’re on high enough alert already.”

“Of course. But we can’t sit on our hands either, not when that guy is sneaking around at night.” Miriam hesitated. “You know the best way to put an end to this, don’t you?”

Eliza knew what Miriam was driving at—she and Krantz had discussed that option several times. “If the FBI can’t find them, what makes you think we’ve got a chance?”

“So, what, we sit here doing nothing?” Miriam said.

Krantz turned to Jacob. “What should we do, boss?”

“You’ve got my permission to spend whatever it takes on CCTV. I hate to turn the valley into a prison camp blanketed with
cameras, but if the alternative is another attack…” Jacob shook his head and looked distracted for a moment, then focused his eyes again. “Miriam, what if you went undercover?”

“Undercover? Where?”

“Tap into the gossip mill. See if any women are acting suspicious. Complain about me, try to draw out any grumblers. Maybe he’s getting help.”

Eliza frowned. Who would help Taylor Junior now? If he’d had sympathizers at one time, surely the horrific chemical weapon attacks at Zarahemla, the hospital, and Blister Creek had destroyed that bond. And after the hideout in Dark Canyon and the sinkhole in Witch’s Warts, she didn’t think Taylor Junior needed help creeping in and out of the valley undetected.

From Miriam’s snort, it was clear she didn’t think much of Jacob’s idea either.

“I know it’s a reach,” Jacob started. “But we don’t have much to work with. What if—”

“Hold on,” Eliza interrupted. “I just thought of something.”

There
were
people who had helped Taylor Junior. Never mind the remnants of his church, hiding even deeper in the wilderness—what about the three men who had joined him in his attack? Two of the men had died, but one had not.

“There’s one man who knows something. You could say he’s a captive audience.”

Jacob blinked, and then a frown spread across his face. “He isn’t talking.”

“Not yet, he’s not.”

“I don’t see how we’ll change that,” Krantz said. “We have nothing to offer, no plea bargain or early release for good behavior.
He’s serving so many consecutive life sentences, the sun will go nova before that bastard is up for parole. And you can bet they tried everything short of waterboarding to get it out of him. He wouldn’t talk.”