The Loveliest Dead (39 page)

Jenna checked the rearview mirror. “He’s there.”

She slowed the Toyota, turned right, and drove through the gate. Father Malcolm’s headlights swept behind her as he followed. She stopped in front of the house and they got out of the car.
 

“Should I bring all my things in?” Father Malcolm asked as he got out of his car.

“Just your briefcase for now, Father,” Mavis said.

Father Malcolm leaned into the car, came out with a large black briefcase, then closed the door.

Jenna led the way to the front door, then went inside with Mavis and Father Malcolm following a few steps behind.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Saturday, 1:23 P.M.

It was a chilly, misty evening, but when Jenna and Mavis got back to the house with Father Malcolm, the living room was warm from a fire David had managed to build one-handed, and smelled of pizza. Everyone was sitting around eating off paper plates—Shannon and Willy sat cross-legged on the floor, watching TV with Miles as they ate—except for David, who was stoking the fire. The aroma of the pizzas made Jenna’s stomach grumble with hunger, and she went to the kitchen for a couple slices.
 

She sat in the breakfast nook to eat, and listened as Mavis told their story to Father Malcolm in the living room. In the kitchen, Jenna could not understand what she was saying, but she could hear Mavis’s voice and there was a familiar rhythm to it all. She was afraid if she went out there, Mavis would ask her to tell it, and she wasn’t up to going through it again. Jenna tried to tune them out and enjoy a little time by herself, but the memory of the terror on Miles’s face when David attacked him rose up in her mind. When she closed her eyes, she saw the pain on David’s face when she’d hit his injured hand. She remembered why she’d been filling her time with chatter and busywork.
 

Someone cried out in the living room, a surprised sound, and Jenna got up and hurried out of the kitchen, leaving her pepperoni slices on a paper plate on the table.
 

In the living room, the lamp beside David’s recliner had been knocked off its table and lay on the floor. Everyone in the room—David, Martha, Miles, the Binghams, Shannon and Willy, and Father Malcolm— was on their feet and staring at the lamp, mouths open. The bulb beneath the skewed shade still glowed.
 

“What happened?” Jenna asked.

Standing beside the recliner, David turned to her and said, “Something knocked the lamp off the table. I didn’t touch it, something just... it just...”
 

“Miles, come over here,” Jenna said. Miles, who stood by Martha in front of the couch, walked over to Jenna. She turned him around and pulled him close, her hands on his chest. Jenna looked at the others.
 

Shannon and Willy had lost the color in their faces. Shannon’s hands were bunched into fists, and Willy held a paper plate with a half-eaten slice of pizza on it in a trembling hand. Arty and Mavis did not look much better—they exchanged a wide-eyed glance, then returned their gaze to the lamp on the floor. Father Malcolm stood a couple feet from the end table at the end of the couch, frowning, mouth open. To Arty and Mavis he said, “What, uh ... what was ...”
 

Mavis stepped over to Father Malcolm and whispered briefly into his ear. Father Malcolm’s eyes widened as the wrinkles in his large forehead smoothed out. Mavis looked at David and said, “We, uh... we seem to have angered the demonic entities in the house. That, um, that usually happens after we put out the religious icons. Right, Arty?”
 

Arty cleared his throat and spoke nervously. “Uh, yeah, they don’t like the icons. And now we’ve got a priest in the house, a man of God, and they
really
don’t like that.”
 

Jenna waited for one of them to continue, but they stared silently at the lamp. The fire roared softly and crackled in the silence.
 

“Then what should we do?” Jenna said.

Arty said, “We should, uh ... we should—”

The lamp at the end of the couch did not fall off its table—it flew off, and slammed into the side of Father Malcolm hard enough to nearly knock him over, then fell heavily to the floor. Its amber glass base broke with a thick
crack
when it hit the floor, but the light inside did not go out. Father Malcolm stumbled forward, away from the lamp.
 

“God!” Mavis cried as she hurried to Arty’s side and clutched his arm.

Shannon screamed and nearly tripped over the lamp on her way across the room toward the entryway. She stopped suddenly and composed herself. She was breathing rapidly when she said, “I’m sorry. That scared me.”
 

“Scared me, too,” Willy said as he went to her side.

Arty looked at Shannon and Willy and snapped his fingers a few times. “Get those cameras, start taking pictures!” he said. “Let’s not forget why we’re here.”
 

They went back to where their bags lay open on the floor in front of the couch. Willy put his plate on the floor, and they got their cameras.
 

Jenna’s heart was beating hard, and gooseflesh spread over her shoulders. But she was not so frightened that she did not notice how flustered Arty and Mavis were.
 

“Mavis,” she said, her voice unsteady. “What do we
do
?”
 

A cornucopia-shaped Roseville vase flew from the built-in shelving unit in the wall and struck Father Malcolm hard on the left shoulder, then fell to the floor and broke in half. He shouted, “Ah!” and stumbled backward, just in time to miss a heavy pitcher, which flew between Father Malcolm and Martha and landed harmlessly on the couch.
 

Shannon screamed again and dropped her Polaroid camera as Willy took her in his arms and held her tightly, still clutching a small camcorder in his right hand.
 

“Oh, my God,” Mavis said, adding in a harsh whisper, “Arty, I
told
you.”
 

“Christ,” Arty muttered, a hand on his chest.

“Take a pill,” Mavis said. “Now.”

Arty fished the small tin from his pocket and dropped a pill under his tongue.

David came over and stood beside Jenna, put an arm around her, and Martha followed. The four of them stood close together in front of the large black cabinet that held the entertainment system.
 

Frowning, David turned to Arty and Mavis and said, “I thought you guys did this all the time.”

Jenna remembered something Lily Rourke had said earlier:
These people are not accustomed to dealing with this sort of thing, they’re not prepared for it. Something bad will happen.
When she saw the lost look on the faces of Arty and Mavis, Jenna wondered if she should have paid more attention to the psychic.
 

Arty said, “Oh, yes, we do, all the time, but this ... well, it’s a little
early
for this kind of thing to happen. This is a, uh ... well, I’d say this demonic infestation has really taken root here. Don’t you think, honey?” He turned to Mavis.
 

“Yes, this is unusual. The fact is, we’ve seen much worse than this before. This is actually quite tame compared to some of the—”
 

Jenna started and spun around when she heard a sound on the cabinet behind her. Family photographs stared at her, surrounded by her collection of small ceramic elves. One of the photographs had fallen over. She was afraid to turn her back on the cabinet again. With one arm around Miles, she grabbed David’s right elbow and pulled them both back, away from the cabinet. Martha moved with them.
 

One of the ceramic elves shot off the top of the cabinet like a bullet from a gun and hit Father Malcolm in the neck. He stumbled backward, fell to the floor with a deep grunt, and Mavis hurried toward him with one arm outstretched.
 

“Mavis, wait!” Jenna said, as an eight-by-ten framed photograph of Miles dressed up as a cowboy for a school play swept off the cabinet. As if it had been thrown with intent, it flew directly at Father Malcolm stretched out on the floor. He cried out in pain when the picture hit his elbow hard and the glass in the frame shattered. The gold-colored frame missed Mavis by inches, and she quickly stepped back to Arty’s side.
 

Shannon screamed until Mavis turned to her and snapped, “
Stop
that!”
 

“It’s trying to hurt Father Malcolm,” Jenna said as another ceramic elf missiled straight toward the priest lying in the center of the floor. It shattered against his hip, and he rolled over on his stomach and covered his head protectively with both arms, bent elbows pointing outward.
 

It must be the fat man
, Jenna thought.
Why would the boys do this?

Jenna moved quickly. She stepped around David and swept her left arm across the top of the cabinet. Ceramic elves and framed photographs clattered harmlessly to the floor in a small pile—glass cracked in the frames and a couple of elves shattered. She looked around to see what else might be fired at Father Malcolm, but her attention was drawn to the broken pile on the floor at the end of the cabinet when it made a small crunching sound. The pile shifted.
 

A six-inch triangular shard of glass rose up out of the pile and made an arc through the air. It came down and lodged in the upper thigh of Father Malcolm’s left leg. Half the piece of glass disappeared through the priest’s black pants and into his flesh. Father Malcolm screamed into the carpet as another piece of glass flipped through the air and stabbed into his left buttock.
 

Arty bellowed, “In the name of Jesus Christ, stop this now!”

Tiny pieces of broken ceramic elves whistled through the air and spattered onto Father Malcolm’s back.

Arty shouted louder: “In the name of Jesus Christ,
stop this right now
!”
 

Father Malcolm lay silent and still, his body stiff. The only sound in the room, in the house, was the huffing and popping of the fire.
 

After several seconds passed, Arty said hoarsely, “It worked.”

Father Malcolm got to his hands and knees, then slowly and carefully stood with his back to the fireplace, arms held out at his sides.
 

“We must pray,” he said with a painful wince.

“You’re hurt, Father,” Mavis said.

“We must
pray
,” he said, insistent and firm. “Together, right where we stand. ‘Our Father, who art in heav—’ Come on, together! ‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done...’“
 

Jenna knew only snatches of the prayer. David’s mouth remained closed. Jenna was surprised to see her mother reciting it along with the others.
 

“Mom?” Miles whispered. “What are they saying?”

Jenna bent down and whispered into his ear. “It’s the Lord’s Prayer, honey. Don’t worry, I don’t know the words either. Just be quiet and patient for me, okay?”
 

Miles nodded, then turned his attention back to Father Malcolm.

Jenna was amazed by Miles’s strength—he seemed to be taking all of this so well, without a word of complaint, and with no apparent expression of fear so far. She wished she would hold up as well—she was terrified.
 

Mavis, Arty, Shannon, Willy, and Martha recited the prayer along with the priest, speaking together in a singsong cadence: “ ‘And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom—’“
 

Shannon screamed again and startled Willy so much, he dropped the camcorder.

Mavis made a sound that fell somewhere between a shout and a groan.

Jenna looked at Father Malcolm, and her mouth dropped open as she clutched David’s right arm.

Young boys were coming out of the fireplace, one after another—boys Miles’s age and younger. Some were clothed, others naked and emaciated. They walked directly into Father Malcolm and disappeared, sometimes as many as three at a time, overlapping like blurred images. The priest screamed and flailed his arms. Some of the boys were little more than shadows, while others were a flickery gray, like old silent-movie images, and others looked as real and solid as Father Malcolm. They silently disappeared as they walked into his back. Jenna lost count of the boys in the commotion.
 

Shannon ran screaming to the front door, opened it, and fled the house. Willy ran after her and grabbed their coats on the way out, leaving the front door standing halfway open.
 

Arty muttered, “Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh Jesus ...”

Mavis stood with a hand on each side of her face, mouth open—she looked like she was screaming, but did not make a sound.

Martha walked around behind David to Jenna’s side and stood close. Jenna felt Miles tremble as he turned around and hugged her, and she embraced him.
 

And the boys continued to come silently from the fireplace, oblivious of the hot, smacking flames. Some of them walked slowly, others hurried. None of them smiled. Then they stopped.