Out of Heaven's Grasp (36 page)

I refused to move my legs. I wasn’t going to do a thing to cooperate.

Gideon dug his fingers into my arms, squeezing painfully. “Walk.”

I wouldn’t. I let my legs buckle, so that Gideon was the only thing holding me up.

“Worthless slut,” Gideon muttered. He turned to Bob. “Get her feet.”

Bob hauled my legs up, even though I tried to evade him.

Between the two of them, they carried me out of Gideon’s office and down the steps into his basement.

The basement wasn’t finished, so it was just a concrete hole in the ground. Gideon made Bob hold onto me, while he let one of my hands out of a handcuff. He looped the chain around one of the poles that held the basement upright. Then he re-handcuffed me. I was now chained to a support pole, and there was no way I could go anywhere.

They let go of me and backed off.

Bob looked nervous. “Uh, are you sure about this? Sacrificing her? I would be just as happy if she were simply cast out of the community.”

“You doubt the word of God?”

“Well, no. But… it seems awfully extreme. Jesus didn’t hold with stoning a woman for adultery. He told the Pharisees that whoever was without sin should cast the first stone.”

“True, true,” said Gideon. “But there’s a key difference here, Bob. Those men were executing the woman in punishment. What we do here is not punishment. Instead, we are freeing Abigail’s soul from her sinful body. She will be lifted up in glory, but if we do nothing, she will be cast down in the fiery pit when she dies. We must stop her before more evil invades her soul.”

Bob nodded slowly.

Gideon patted Bob on the shoulder. “Don’t you worry, Bob. You will not swing the knife. God has told me that it must be my burden to make this sacrifice. You and the elders will bear witness, but I offer myself to enter into this test to prove my righteousness before Heaven.”

I looked up at the two of them, terror coursing through me. I just bet that Gideon wanted to “swing the knife.” Looking at him now, I realized that there was something very, very wrong with him. This must be part of the reason he was sent away from the community in Kentucky. Gideon was not a man of God. If anyone was under the thrall of a demon, it was him. Gideon’s smile was pure evil.

“Let us leave her here to contemplate her sins,” said Gideon.

Bob swallowed, looking me over. He seemed to hesitate for a minute, but then he took a deep breath and turned away.

Gideon and Bob trooped up the steps and left me alone.

I stood, my back to the poll, my hands bound behind me. I gave an experimental tug on my wrists, even though I knew it was useless. I wasn’t getting out of here unless someone unlocked those handcuffs.

Wait.

My phone!

Bob didn’t know I had it, and Gideon hadn’t discovered it either. It was tucked inside my bra, sitting right under the swell of my breasts.

I lifted my hands behind my back, and I managed to get them up to the level of my breasts.

Slowly, painfully, I turned my hands so that they faced forward. Now I could reach around, the tips of my fingers against the outside walls of my bra.

But I was inches away from my phone.

I strained, trying to reach far enough to touch it, to move it.

My shoulders and arms screamed from the unnatural way that I’d contorted them.

I kept trying to reach for the phone.

But…

No.

I let my arms drop, gasping from the effort.

I tried to roll my shoulders, to get the pain out of them.

When I’d had a little bit of time to rest, I tried again.

But I wasn’t any more successful this time.

My body ached from stretching, from reaching and twisting.

Still, I kept at it. Resting and then trying again, over and over.

The tiny windows at the top of the basement wall grew darker and darker.

Night was falling. Jesse would be expecting me soon, but I wouldn’t show up.

I cringed, lifted my hands, and tried to reach my phone again.

* * *

After what seemed like hours in the darkness, I heard the sound of someone on the steps. There was only a tiny light, something from a small kerosene lantern.

Were they here to kill me already?

I couldn’t see who held the lantern.

“Abby,” whispered a tiny, female voice.

My heart leapt. “Susannah!”

And then she was next to me, holding the lantern up so that she could see my face. “What’s going on, Abby? Gideon left, and he said he was carrying up tarps to protect the basement floor. What does he need tarps for?”

“He’s going to sacrifice me, Susannah. He says that I’m under the thrall of a demon.”

She dropped the lantern with a little cry, and we were plunged into darkness.

I waited.

Nothing.

“Susannah?”

The sound of a match being struck. With shaky hands, she lit the lantern again. I could see her face illuminated in the small circle of light. It was bloodless. “I don’t think you’re under the thrall of a demon. Even if you were, he can’t kill you.”

“Do you know where he keeps the keys to the handcuffs?”

“Oh, Abby, you can’t ask me…” Her breathing picked up speed, and she twisted her face up. “You don’t know what he’d do to me if I defied him. No, I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t.”

Really? I glared at her. “He’s going to kill me. Would he kill you?”

“Maybe,” she said weakly.

“Well, help me and then come with me. We’ll both run.”

She shook her head. “No, no I can’t.”

“
Please
, Susannah.”

“I don’t know where he keeps the keys anyway.” She was backing away from me.

“No, wait, don’t go anywhere. I need your help. I need to get out of here.”

“He can’t know I helped you.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay, then forget the key. Help me get my phone.”

“Your what?”

“Come back here.”

She stepped close again.

“It’s inside my bra.”

Her eyes widened.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Susannah, I would touch
your
boobs to save your life.”

She whimpered, but she put a shaking hand inside my blouse.

“Down,” I said.

I felt her hands close over it.

“Good,” I said. “Take it out.”

She did. She held it gingerly, like she was afraid it might burn her. “I can’t believe you have one of these. You know that the devil is in technology.”

“Hit the button on the top,” I said.

She did.

“Now touch the little picture of the book with the outline of a head on it. That’s the contacts. Then hit Jesse’s name.”

“What are we doing?”

“You’re helping me call Jesse. And then after you do that, you can put the phone back and pretend you don’t know anything about it. They won’t know how he got here. Hit that little green phone to call him.”

She pushed on it.

I heard the phone start to ring.

Pick up.

It kept ringing.

Oh God, God, Jesse pick up the damned phone.

“Abby, where are you?” said his voice from the phone.

I started to sob in relief. “Oh, thank God, thank God.”

“Hurry up,” said Susannah, casting a terrified look up at the steps.

“Abby?” said Jesse.

“They’ve got me in Gideon’s basement, Jesse. They’re going to sacrifice me. You have to come. I need you.”

“They’re going to
what
?” Jesse’s voice had lowered to a growl.

“They’re going to kill me,” I sobbed. “Please, please—”

“That’s enough,” said Susannah. “Gideon could come back at any second.” She started pushing on random things on the screen, and the phone hung up.

“Why’d you do that?” I said to her.

She tucked the phone back into my shirt. “I have to go, Abby. I hope that helping you doesn’t mean that I go straight to Hell.”

“Oh, come on, you can’t
believe
what Gideon is saying.”

She ran across the floor to the steps. “I have to go.”

* * *

Jesse

The rage rose inside me like a live thing. I dropped the phone and struggled to make my breathing even.

Something was calling me. I couldn’t keep from falling into it.

It was a red buzz, somewhere behind my temples.

In lurching movements, I tore out of the apartment to my truck.

I ripped open the door and threw myself inside the car. I was shaking all over, and as I tried to get the keys into the ignition, I dropped them.

“
Fuck
.”

I bent down to pick them up from the floorboards.

My head collided with the steering wheel. It didn’t really hurt, but it made the rage inside me surge.

“
FUCK
.”

Holding the keys in one tight fist, I jammed them into the ignition and started the car.

I started the car and backed out of the parking lot. I was even driving jerkily—slamming on the brakes and screeching my tires to stop, then roaring the car to life again by smashing the gas pedal down. I tore out of the parking lot and onto the main road. I screamed down the road, pushing the truck to go faster than I was meant to go on this street.

My apartment was in downtown Melville, and there wasn’t a lot of downtown there, but there was enough. I flew past apartment buildings and convenience stores. It was dark outside, and the lights inside the windows burned brightly, streaking past me as I pushed the car to even higher speeds.

Worthless, lousy, elders,
I thought, smiling grimly.
I’ll teach them a lesson. I’ll show them how to behave.

My father’s voice again. But this time I didn’t try to shut it off.

I careened around a curve in the road, and then I urged the truck to go even faster.

Ahead of me—a stoplight.

Yellow light shone out at me.

And then it changed to red.

“Fuck,” I said again.

I switched from the gas to the brakes, skittering to a squealing stop just in time.

I glared up at the red light. My heart pumped blood throughout my body, and I could feel my pulse in my temple, bulging and pounding.

I gritted my teeth.

I’d spent my whole life thinking that my father was my spiritual head, and that when he hit me, it was because I’d displeased God. I’d lain awake at night as a little boy, praying and begging for God to help me to be better.

But I never got better enough for him not to hit me.

And that was because it wasn’t God making my father put his hands on me or my mothers or my siblings. My father was making that decision all on his own.

But this community—these elders—they’d taught me that it was my fault that I was being abused. They’d blamed the victim, and they’d sanctioned it with religion.

The light was still red.

I beat my hands on the steering wheel.

I should never have let Abby stay there. I should have insisted that she leave. I should have gone into the community and dragged her out of there. Her life was in danger, and this
stupid fucking light
—

The light was still red.

But I didn’t care.

I hit the gas pedal anyway.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Abby

Gideon and the other elders came down the steps, each carrying a large kerosene lantern. They were all dressed in their suits, as if they were getting ready to go to meeting. They carried tarps, and they didn’t even acknowledge me.

Instead, they began spreading the tarps out around my body, layering them two or three layers deep.

“The blood will never come out of the concrete,” they said.

“Better be sure that we catch all of it,” they said.

I screamed.

Someone stuffed a handkerchief in my mouth.

Where was Jesse?

They fussed with the tarps for what seemed like a long time, and I kept hoping that it was going to be long enough. If Jesse was in Melville, then it would take him about fifteen minutes to drive to the community, and then maybe another five or seven to get to Gideon’s house. How long ago had I spoken to him on the phone? Was there enough time?

But then they stopped messing with the tarps, and they all formed a circle around me.

“Let’s bow our heads,” said Gideon.

Solemnly, they all did.

I screamed around the handkerchief. I struggled, straining against the handcuffs.