Solomon's Grave (12 page)

Waiting gave him time to calm down. He didn’t like people asking him questions about anything not related to work. Then Dinneck asked about the men’s club, of all things. The timing of the kid’s question so soon after Quinn’s visit was troubling. Still, all Dinneck wanted was information. To help his father. It bothered him. Vincent thought of his notebook. His notes were his own; they were between him and God. Let Dinneck get his answers somewhere else.

Still, last week the young preacher had reacted oddly when he saw John Solomon’s grave (
Entries “816” and “817”
he thought reflexively)—and now this.

The cars moved on, rounding the corner and passing out of sight. Vincent carefully pulled away the Astroturf to reveal a small winch at one side of the hole. He offered his own prayer for Mister Gipson, then slowly lowered the coffin. He worked steadily, but was unfocused. He thought again of his notebook. He did not like it when so many entries crossed paths.

Chapter Twenty

“I still think he might not be ready.” The gray-haired woman leaned against the kitchen counter and took a long sip of tea. Ralph Hayden knew that Gabby Zawalich had more to say on the matter than that single statement. The pause was simply a way of collecting her thoughts. Gabby was one of the few parishioners who still referred to Hillcrest Baptist as “the new place.” Most younger adults in the parish were too young to remember a time when the church wasn’t here. Gabby and Hayden’s wife had been as close as friends could ever be. After Jean’s death, the woman standing in front of him had taken it upon herself to be Ralph’s self-appointed guard dog. She was also one of the church elders, the only one who continued to express reservations about their newly-appointed pastor.

Hayden waited, hands loosely clasped behind his back. The few remaining mourners sat on Karl Gipson’s living room couch, pouring over a yellowed photo album spread across the lap of his daughter. They took turns pointing to pictures and relaying stories about the man.

No sooner had Nate Dinneck excused himself and returned to the church to finish the paperwork, than Gabby ushered Ralph into the kitchen. He knew what was coming.

“It’s not that I don’t think he’s technically qualified, mind you. His grades in school were exceptional, and Reverend Burke couldn’t say enough good things about him. Emotionally, though, given his age....”

“Gabby, Sunday shook a lot of people up, but honestly I think his little ‘spell’ was an aberration. I haven’t seen anything since to worry me.”

Her teacup was a delicate china piece with intricate roses etched along the lip, now with a blotch of red lipstick. She placed it on the counter atop its saucer.

“All last week, Ralph, he seemed so, I don’t know, distracted. You must have noticed.” She cast a quick look into the living room and lowered her voice. “First Art stops coming, won’t talk to anyone about it, not even Beverly. Now Nate has that episode during the reception. I don’t want to start comparing the sins of the father to—”

“I wouldn’t call Art taking some time off for personal reflection a sin, Gabby.”

She waved her hands in front of her. “I know, sorry. If that’s what it’s about. But you’ll be leaving Monday. Do you really think Nate Dinneck is ready to run the church on his own? I’m serious,” she added when Ralph was unable to suppress a grin. “Another incident like this weekend’s and I won’t be the only one wondering if....”

She hesitated again.

Ralph’s smile faded. “Wondering what?”

“If we hadn’t made a mistake in choosing him. It’s a big move for someone so young, so much going on with his father and all.”

Ralph took Gabby’s small hands gently into his. He gave them a squeeze. “Honestly, I think he’ll do fine. I’ll stay in touch while I’m at the monastery. If I sense anything wrong, I’ll cut my visit short and move back to town a few days early. You have the number. Call me any time you want.”

She nodded.

“Then let’s keep this between us, for now at least. Give Nate a fighting chance. Don’t forget that when I came to town I wasn’t the flawless specimen of liturgical perfection standing before you now.”

She smiled. A good sign.

He said again, “Nate’ll do fine.”

He wondered, however, whether he really believed that himself. Dinneck
had
been less distracted this week. There would be bumps. No one should expect otherwise. It might take some time, but they had plenty of that.

He squeezed Gabby’s hands again and together they returned to the living room to rescue Karl’s daughter from the photo album.

Chapter Twenty-One

Nathan stood at one end of a massive blue room. Like the walls, the ceiling and floor were also painted a bright, sky blue, with no clear delineation between them. Looking too long in one place made him dizzy. The sole object in the room anchored his vision. The door. It stood opposite him, painted black, twice as big as any door should be.

He squeezed his hands into fists and thought,
Not again. Please. No more nightmares
.

He knew this was a dream, or maybe another waking vision like he’d had on Sunday. He didn’t remember going to bed, couldn’t recall
what
he’d been doing—before this room appeared.

Something pressed into his left palm. He opened his hand, saw the key. Like the door, it was the right shape but oversized, a child’s toy rendition. There was no door knob. Rather, the keyhole was built into the black wood where the knob should have been. Light shone through it. Wherever the door led to, it was bright. Another room? Outside, maybe.

He turned around. Maybe he could walk out of this dream of his own free will. He had expected to be paralyzed, rooted to the blue floor, but he was able to turn. There was no other door. Just a wall. It might have been blue, like the others, but he could not tell.

It was covered with monsters scrabbling along its surface. Ugly, horrible things, some brown, others white with red splotches, others still darker or stained green. They had two arms and legs, or only one, or four, or six. He stepped back. They swarmed over the wall like wasps on a hive. Their heads were pocked, scarred, misshapen. Some of them had the distinguishable features of eyes and noses, other less identifiable orifices. All of them, though, were
wrong
. They were terrible, misplaced. And laughing.

They were laughing at him.

As a group, they scurried to the floor, flowing like mud around and behind him. The now-exposed wall was streaked with grime, smelled of old garbage and excrement. Nathan dropped the key and covered his face. As he sank to his knees, he felt their horrid presence pass by but never touch. They were too close to him.

“
Nad ei tohi seda võtit saada!
” shouted a woman’s voice. The voice was young. He didn’t recognize it. “
Nad avavad ukse!
”

She must have been speaking to him, but what she said made no sense. The language sounded familiar, maybe Russian. The voice was urgent.

He pulled his hands away.

One of the creatures from the wall stood less than a foot away. Its brown and yellow face was malformed, looking like it had been pounded out of clay by an angry child. One milky eye considered him for a moment; then the bottom of the face split. More rotten garbage smell. It had opened its mouth to make more of that laughter-noise. Two chipped teeth were visible before it closed again and the thing reached down and grabbed at something in front of Nathan. It moved quickly and with the caution of a dog snatching food from its master’s plate.

It had the key. The mouth opened again, more laughter and more awful stench. It scuttled away, out of sight behind him.

Nathan pivoted on his knees and faced the black door again.

“
Nad ei tohi seda võtit saada!
” The young woman screamed at him from her hiding place.

The wall where the door had been was gone, covered in the squirming, giggling bodies. Were they demons? In the past few moments, Nathan had forgotten that what he saw wasn’t real. If this was another dream, and it was, had to be, demons would fit in well with this recurring theme.

He shouted, “I want to wake up, now. I don’t want to see any more!”

The creature with the key slapped and punched at the others, forcing them to clear an area around the keyhole.

“
Peatage nad! Nad avavad ukse!
”

“I don’t know what you’re saying!” Nathan stared at the blue ceiling and stood. He was arguing with a nightmare! He didn’t even know what the woman was telling him.

The laughter in front of him changed to screams and shouts. He looked down in time to see the door swing inward.

Everything that happened after, happened in seconds.

Every detail etched in his mind one moment, to be lost in the next.

Beyond the door was beauty beyond beauty beyond beauty....

Nathan screamed. It was too much; the light beyond the door spilled over them, pushing the creatures back. They huddled in the center. Something moved behind Nathan, but his eyes were locked on the world beyond the door. No single detail could be grasped. Trees, then they were gone; hills traveling on and on forever with no horizon, also gone in a blink; light so, so, so bright; colors, figures beyond the door, standing twice Nathan’s height. He tried to focus on them.

These figures stood in rows stretching away as far as he could see, standing in twos and threes. Hair long and flowing, they disappeared, returned, women, men, bald headed with beards, naked, clothed, wings? No, yes. Anger from them, savagery, love, armed with swords that burned white with flame.

Too much. More sounds behind him. More of the demons filled the room around him. Nathan forced himself to look away from the door. Behind him the wall was gone. A long shadowed hallway, stretching to eternity like the world beyond the door. But in this direction was only black, with bodies of thousands of millions of creatures racing along the walls and ceilings toward him, around him, filling the room with their stench. Too many, they couldn’t be—

He looked back toward the door. The army of monsters poured through it, tarnishing the perfect light beyond. The tall men/women/angels fell onto the creatures and smashed them from existence. But more came from behind Nathan. More and more. Beyond the door was a war not seen in this universe since—

Nathan opened his eyes.

Windshield.

Reverend Hayden
on the sign.

He was in his car. Staring at the church. Staring at the sign.

A sob hitched in his chest. Nathan reached up and wiped cheeks wet with tears. He wanted to get out of the car and start running because his heart was racing.

The engine idled. A song played on the radio.

His hand shook as he reached forward and turned the radio off.

Details of the blue room and the universe beyond the door flared in perfect detail one more time; then the dream began to fade.

He hadn’t fallen asleep. He had just parked the car. Couldn’t have simply dozed off. He remembered pulling into this space. Just a second ago.

But he
had
dreamt... hadn’t he? Another vision. A room. No, a light, along a hillside. Something terrible. Something beautiful.

He couldn’t remember. It had been frightening. At least, he thought so.

Nathan’s pulse slowed. He must have drifted off for just a second, gotten confused when he realized he was still in his car. He rubbed his face, remembered the tears. He’d been crying? Sleep tears, maybe.

No, he didn’t have another vision. Definitely not. More like an extended blink. Details of a large room came back to him. Must be thinking about the funeral parlor. Relief. Not a dream. That would’ve been the straw that broke the new pastor’s back, wouldn’t it? He turned off the car and got out. When he put the key into the lock of the side entrance, a pang of fear jabbed at him.

What was
that
about? He was just tired. Maybe take a quick nap, set the alarm for an hour later, then finish up Mr. Gipson’s paperwork.

By the time he closed the door, Nathan had forgotten the vision entirely.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The Eastside Mall was a low-lying strip of five businesses, side by side along a narrow parking lot on Main Street. Like the rest of Hillcrest, this section of town was primarily residential, but the road’s small-town semblance of traffic served enough of a justification for the mall’s existence. The large sign, embedded in the sidewalk along the road, sported distinctly-tailored logos of each company, one atop the other. The topmost advertised the town’s one small convenience store
The Greedy Grocer
, followed by the lace-adorned
Hair U Doing?
salon. Below the hair salon’s name was a blank sign, then
Thames Carpets
and
Breaker Mortgage Group
. The signs cast the parking strip in a multi-colored hue, though with the exception of the men’s club set in the middle of the strip,
The Greedy Grocer
was the only establishment still open this time at night.

Josh Everson slid the door sign to its
Closed
position as the last customer pulled from the lot with his emergency milk ration. He flipped a switch beside the door. The outside light above the entrance turned off. At the same time, the large marquee at the side of Main Street went dark. It was wired to shut off once the final store killed its overhead light. The Hillcrest Men’s Club had theirs off all the time. Just one more quirk of their bizarre little troupe. Now that
The Greedy Grocer
was closed, the neighborhood fell into darkness for the next nine hours, at which time Josh would drag himself back to start another day.

Not that he minded. He was never much of a late sleeper and all he had to do was open the place until Shirley Riggalaro showed up after her kids got on the bus. Then the day was his own, until the closing shift.

He checked his watch. Five minutes past ten. Before moving back to the register to cash out, Josh looked outside, pressing his hands against the glass to see past the inside glare. Aside from his own rusting Toyota parked out front, three other cars sat bathed in the filtered white light spilling from the men’s club two doors down. Every night, with few exceptions,
someone
was over there. Granted it was Friday, but it could as easily have been a Tuesday or Wednesday. Having to get up for work didn’t seem a priority for them. Including Nate’s dad. Mr. Dinneck’s car had arrived sometime in the past hour.