Heretics

HERETICS

Greg F. Gifune

First Digital Edition

December 2009

Published by:

Darkside Digital

A Horror Mall Company

P.O. Box 338

North Webster, IN 46555

www.horror-mall.com/darksidedigital

Heretics
 © 2009 by Greg F. Gifune

All Rights Reserved.

This book is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

1

Before the flames, the screams, the smoke and acrid stench, before the blood, her hair had been wet, he remembered that much.  The strands dangled near her jaw line, matted, twisted and dripping with gasoline.  She smiled at him then, the squat candle clutched in her hands and held out before her as if in sacrifice to unseen gods, the tiny flame dancing, casting shadow-spirits along the pale walls.  The look in her eyes signaled nothing could ever be the same; that nothing would ever be all right again.

      Still, her madness was nothing new.  Madeline had always been insane.  But then, so had he, so had Rip—they’d all been nuts.  Hadn’t they?  Whenever the memories found him, he assured himself they had, though in those rare moments when he allowed truth to find him as well, things could not be explained away so easily.  Psychosis had been a symptom, never a cause.  That was reserved for something darker than mental illness could ever aspire to be.

      Her eyes.  He remembered Madeline’s eyes through the flash of fire, how they had peered at him despite the pain, despite the tearing and blackening and bursting of skin.  

The memories dripped across his mind like a steady trickle of fresh blood.  

      “What are you thinking about?”

      He caught himself staring at the slowly rotating blades on the window fan, and the sheer curtains framing it, blowing about as if in some impromptu night ballet.  Still, the humidity was nearly unbearable.

      Without raising his head from the pillow Harry shifted his eyes across the darkened room until they’d located the woman.  “I’m sorry?”

      She sat in a large wicker chair that looked like something one might find at a garage sale.  A short, slightly chubby young woman, he looked at her with casual interest at best, for now.  Meanwhile, her attention was primarily focused on the wrinkled bag of corn chips in her lap.  “What are you thinking about?”

      “Nothing really.”

      “Must be thinking about something.”

      “Okay, then I was thinking about my home.”

    She smiled slightly, as if uncertain it was all right to do so just then.  “Where
do
 you live, anyway?”

    “Well, there’s the place you live, then there’s your
home
, you know?”

      She brushed crumbs from her breasts.  “If you say so.”

      Harry often wondered if she had been a wise choice.  Even just feet away, vulnerable and scantily clad in a sheer nightie, he felt very little physical attraction to her.  Sympathy maybe?  Had he only felt sorry for her, ignored, alone and often made fun of in life for not fulfilling some Madison Avenue version of beauty, for not being anorexic or built like a young boy, eyes always sporting the guarded hope that someone might notice her, might want to talk with her, to know her, to be her friend or maybe even something more?  Not sympathy, no.  Empathy.

    Despite her lack of experience she had been a needy, somewhat frantic lover, but once he’d managed to quiet her, once he’d slipped inside her, their eyes locked and their arms holding each other tight, he imagined that in that moment he loved her—was
in
 love with her—and if only that brief segment of time could continue uninterrupted they would be forever happy, forever satisfied.  But only nightmares last forever.

      And nightmares were his business.  

      “Ever heard of Virtue?” he asked.

      “I’m vaguely familiar with the concept.”

      “The town.”

      She tossed the bag of chips onto a nearby bureau then offered a dramatic pout.  “Where is it, upstate or something?”

      “It’s in Massachusetts.”

      “Is that where you were from or something?”

    “You’re very fond of the phrase,
or something
, aren’t you?”

      She looked away, a veteran of ridicule.

      “I’m sorry,” he said softly.  

      A smile gradually came to her elfin face.  “Was it nice there?  In Virtue, I mean.”

      “Life in a quaint New England town is rarely what people think it is.”  He returned his gaze to the window fan and the dancing curtains.  “Particularly if the town in question is Virtue.  Growing up there was never exactly what I’d call idyllic for us.”

    “
Us
?”

      “My friends and me.”  The conversation felt odd, yet strangely welcome.  He had never done this before, never discussed the past with someone like her.  “Back when I was the old me.”

   
Only Harry,
as Madeline would say.  
All Harry
.

      “So you’re thinking about your old life?”

      “Something like that, yes.”

      “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”  She shrugged.  “It’s late anyway.  Maybe I should go to bed.”

      “It’s all right.”  He sat up.  “I’m here for you.”

      The young woman had been sitting on her feet, but she propped herself up on the chair long enough to release her legs from beneath her, then plopped back down, the wicker straining and her flesh jiggling.  She crossed her arms over her breasts, as if suddenly cognizant of her scarce dress.  “I see the way you look at me sometimes and it used to scare me a little, but now I just can’t figure out why you like me.  I mean, I know you’re a lot older than me and all that, but still, even older guys don’t exactly trip over each other to get to me.”

      “Yeah, I’m pretty old.”  Harry smiled.  “You’re too tough on yourself though.  I know people can be cruel but don’t let them get to you.  None of it matters.”

      She seemed eager to change the subject.  “What did you do?  You know…before?”

      “I was a writer.”

    “Really?”  Her eyebrows domed as if he’d told her he was a lion tamer.  “That is
so
 cool.  What did you write?”

      “Horror, mostly.”

    “Oh, I
love
 scary stuff, don’t you?”

     Again, he saw the fire, smelled the singed hair and the burning flesh, felt Madeline’s eyes peering at him from their dark past, from just over the woman’s bare shoulder.  

      “Not particularly.”

      “I don’t get it.  Then why write it?”

      “I suspect it was more therapeutic than anything.”

      “So,” she said, sitting forward, eyes bright, “what did you write?  Books?”

    “Three forgettable novels under various pen names, and I did some ghost writing for people from time to time.”  Harry remembered the bookcase in his old apartment, how the shelves had been packed and overflowing with stacks of books.  “I was never a best-selling author, but I was a reasonably good hack, so add to that the occasional freelance nonfiction work I did and it was a living.  A shitty living, but a living.  It afforded me a studio apartment and a topnotch used car.  What more could a struggling
ar-teest
 pushing forty have asked for?”

      “Don’t knock it.  Look at me, working at Wonder Mart as a lowly cashier.  Been working there since graduation, but you knew that, I guess.  The pay sucks but at least there’s health insurance, which is important now that I’m eighteen.  I want to go to night school though anyway.  I want to be a vet.  I love animals.  Don’t you just love animals?  You know about my cats but do you know how they got their names?”

      “No, tell me.”

      “The big one is named Cheesy because he loves cheese puffs and the other one I named Brad mostly because I like the name but also because I have a crush on Brad Pitt, which you know from some of our recent conversations, and I figure unless I become a stalker or something that’s the closest I’ll ever get to him.”

      “I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful vet, Doreen.”

      She blushed, still unaccustomed to his compliments.  “Can I ask you something?”

      “Anything.”

      “Do you think you’ll ever go back to Virtue?”

      Madeline was playing tricks on him now.  The floor had turned to blood, bubbling about in a gurgling spray before cascading away.  Worms emerged from Doreen’s hair, inched across her forehead and disappeared into her ears.  

      Even after all this time she still wielded power over him.  Goddamn Madeline.

      How he adored her.  

      “Probably only in my mind,” he said, blinking the bloody vision away.  “But who knows?  A part of me, of who I am, of who I once was will always reside in Virtue.  So I suppose anything’s possible.”

      Doreen’s eyes seemed a bit lonelier than they had only seconds before.  “Did you…did you mean those things you said before?  The things you said about how you felt about me, about—”

      “I always say what I mean.”

      “I wish we could go to Virtue.”  She smiled.  “Together.  I’d like to see it.”

      “No…no, I don’t think you would.”

      She cocked her head to the side like a baffled puppy.  “Why not?”

      The stories I could tell you, he thought.  Stories about the last time he returned home to Virtue, when the visions of Madeline had become too vivid to ignore, about the old Harry, about his friends and about the days when they were all one and the same.  

   
The stories I could tell you.    

      “Harry?” Doreen pressed.  “Why not?”  

      “Oh, lots of reasons.”

      Harry closed his eyes and allowed himself to remember…

2

Madeline had always been magical.  Even before she’d sought out the powers that would eventually get away from her, eventually do more harm than good, eventually drive an innocent eccentric to madness, she had a somewhat miraculous quality.  Not a frightening or dark magic—at first—more a whimsical one.  She seemed a girl likely to encounter fairies and gnomes playing in the woods behind her house, unicorns prancing across the sand dunes and mermaids riding the waves of the Atlantic crashing the beach below.  

   
There are creatures in the sea winds
, she once told Harry not long after they had met.  
We can’t see them, but if you stand on shore and close your eyes you can feel them touching you.  Sometimes, you can even hear them singing.

      He’d never dismissed the wind again.  No longer was it something commonplace, it had become a living thing harboring secret beings and a mysterious opus only those who understood magic could hear.  Something that in her presence became a link to the world she so often spoke of just beyond the veil of reality.

    And even though all her theories and wondrous tales were more than likely figments of her imagination, it never really mattered.  
It’s not enough to want the magic
, she’d explained.  
It has to want you, too.

      On most days, despite her fair skin and light hair, she looked like a living caricature of a Gypsy girl from some dated Hollywood production.  And that was how he remembered Madeline in the early days of their relationship.  Magical and enigmatic, a waif of a girl who wore long skirts and hand-embroidered maiden blouses, a kerchief in her hair, dangling earrings in the shape of moons and stars and sometimes even swords, and countless cheap rings on nearly every finger of both hands.  She never wore makeup or lipstick but had a dazzling smile and the most amazing steel-gray eyes Harry had ever seen.  In the summers, she rarely wore shoes, sporting a leather ankle bracelet instead, with little silver bells that sang out with each step, and in colder months she wore suede fringe boots to her knees that laced up the back.      

      To most she was an outsider, an odd and distant girl, an only child who lived with her father in one of the nicest homes in town, set atop the cliffs of Virtue and overlooking the ocean.  By her dress, one would have never guessed Madeline’s father was a relatively wealthy man, though her somewhat withdrawn demeanor when in the presence of those she did not trust or count as friends, which encompassed nearly everyone, was often mistaken for self-importance.  In reality, there had never been a snobbish bone in her petite body.  Some arrogance, perhaps, but then, the two were not the same thing.

      Looking back on it now, it seemed only natural—if not destined—that he and Madeline and Rip had become friends.  Pariahs all, they found in one another an acceptance and camaraderie all three had lacked for most of their young lives.  Separately they were Harry, the withdrawn bookworm, Madeline, the eccentric loner and Rip, the misunderstood delinquent, but together they were a circle, the beginning, middle and end forged into one continuous entity, three parts of the same person.

     
Heretics
, Madeline had labeled them.

      Harry and Rip were friends first, and although Harry knew who Madeline was from seeing her at school on occasion, the first time they spoke to each other was on a spring afternoon along the base of the cliffs.  Harry had been sitting atop a dune reading a paperback when he noticed her strolling along the paths cut through the tall grass that so heavily populated the mountainside.  When she’d noticed him too, he’d offered a feeble smile then quickly returned his attention to his book.

      “Hey,” was the first word she ever said to him.

      “Hi,” he’d responded.

      “What are you reading?” she asked, motioning to his book with her chin.

    Harry held it up, turning the cover toward her.  “Herman Hesse.  
Beneath the Wheel
.”

      “Good book.”

      “You’ve read it?”

      “About a year ago,” she said through a smile.  “Thanks for looking so surprised.”

      “No, I—” Harry felt himself blush; quickly marked his spot by bending a page and put the novel aside.  “– that’s not—I mean—I think it’s cool you’ve read it.”

      A sea breeze caught the tail of her kerchief and it bobbed about like a waving hand protruding from the back of her head.  Her bright eyes watched him for a time, seeing something more than his self-conscious smile and nervous eyes.  “I’ve seen you around town and at school.  Your name’s Harold, right?”

    “Harry,” he said, nodding.  “Harry Paletto.”

    “Madeline Martin.”  She pushed a hand out like an overzealous car salesman.

      Harry accepted the soft skin and warmth of her palm into his own.  “Nice to meet you.”

    “You must promise never to call me
Maddy
,” she said, enthusiastically pumping his hand.  “Always Madeline.”

      “O-Okay, yes—I promise.”

      She released him and put her hands on her waist.  “And if we’re going to be friends then you must always tell the truth.  We must always be honest with each other or there’s absolutely no point, do you understand, Harry?”

    He’d nodded, already mesmerized, head spinning.  She was overwhelming, like something from a dream state where anything was possible.  How had she come to this, made these determinations, and why then, what had inspired her to decide their friendship would begin on
that
 afternoon?  

      “I’ve seen the way the jocks and all the others treat you and your friend at school,” she said, turning toward the ocean.

      “You mean Rip?”

      “Whatever his name is.”

      “He’s a good guy, people don’t know that because he’s always in trouble but  he—”

      “If he’s your friend, then he’ll be mine too.”  Madeline gave a quick nod.  Confirmation.  “But the same rules apply.”

    Harry sat looking up at her, wondering if she’d only been imagined.  Girls never paid attention to him—and
this
 girl— why would she want to be his friend?

   
Because I understand, Harry…Because I can see the magic in you, too
.

    “We’re misunderstood, and therefore ridiculed and persecuted,” she announced.  “Because ignorance is a disease, Harry, and sadly, most people have it.  It’s why they call me a space cadet and make fun of the way I dress.  It’s why they beat you up for being smarter than they are.  It’s why they never give Rip a chance to prove he might be something more than the kid the cops always go looking for whenever anything bad happens in this awful little town.  Virtue, my ass.  
Hypocrisy
, that’s what I’ll name it if I ever become Queen.”

      “Queen,” Harry repeated, laughing lightly.  “Madeline Martin, Queen of Virtue.”

    “Hypocrisy, if you please!”  Her laugh was bold and contagious.  “Queen of
Hypocrisy
!”  Without so much as a wave, she was off down the path toward the sand below like she hadn’t a worry or care in the world.

    Harry watched her go, wanting to follow, but by the time he’d convinced himself to do so she had disappeared.  Moments later, he found himself standing at the edge of the dunes, the paperback clutched in his hands and her laughter still vivid in his mind.  His eyes scanned the gracefully swaying waist-high grass but there was no sign of her.  He suspected she’d simply lain down amidst the tall reeds—it was the only reasonable explanation—but then no conclusions seemed quite
reasonable
 regarding Madeline.  

      Suddenly all things were possible, and from that point forward he knew his life would never be the same.