The First Church (13 page)

“What do you mean?” Brian said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest.

Shane grinned.  “I told them I had bad knees, a bad back, and tinnitus.”

“Infantry?”

“Did a lot of translating, especially on the ground,” Shane said.  “But I spent way too much time walking around the Afghanistan with a full pack.  Anyway, my first evaluator said there was no evidence of
combat-related injuries.”

“Seriously?” Brian asked.  “Hold on, why am I even surprised?  What happened?”

“I grabbed a box of copy paper nearby, told him to carry it around the building for as long as he could and then to come in and tell me how his back and knees felt.”  Shane took a drink of his coffee.  “He called the VA police, they came in, a supervisor came in, and I told them what was going on.  The super, he looked at my record, looked at the evaluator and told him to get out.  I’m on thirty percent disability now for my knees and back, plus the tinnitus.”

“I avoid the VA because of their attitude,” Brian said. 

“You were in?” Shane asked.

“Ten years.  Army. 
Forward observer,” he answered.

Shane raised his mug to him.  “More power to you, my friend.
That’s a hell of a lot of time out in the field.”

Brian laughed,
and Shane grinned before he finished his coffee.  He motioned for
Tim,
and the waiter hurried over with the bill.  Shane looked at it, nodded, and pulled a ten-dollar bill out of his front pocket. 

“Keep the change, kid,” Shane said, standing up.  “I’m all set if you are, Brian.”

Brian stood as well and slipped his book into the pocket of his sweatshirt.  “I am.”

They left the shop together and made their way up the street to the Holiday Inn.  Neither of them spoke as they entered the hotel and rode the elevator up to Brian’s room.  Once they were inside and the door was
locked, Brian turned on his laptop and glanced over at Shane.

The man stood in front of the window and looked out at the wooded landscape.

“You okay?” Brian asked.

“Hm?” Shane looked over at him.  “Oh.  Yeah, I’m fine.  Every once in a blue
moon, I wonder what it would have been like to have grown up without ghosts.”

“Well, growing up without them treated me okay,” Brian said, smiling.

Shane chuckled.  “How’d you get into this business?”

“Bought an old farm house, out in Mont Vernon,” Brian answered.  “Problem was there were a lot of dead
folks
there.  And one really
rotten
dead kid.  Things sort of went from bad to worse.”

“Yeah.  They usually do,” Shane said.

“How did you learn Japanese, if you don’t mind my asking,” Brian said.  “Did you take it in college or in the service?”

“No,” Shane said, grinning.  “Neither of those.  I’ve got this knack for languages.  If I hear a language
spoken, I pick it up really quickly.”

“If you hear it?” Brian asked.

“Yup.  I mean there are certain limitations,” Shane said.  “For instance, I’ll never be confused for a native speaker of Japanese.  I speak it extremely well, but since I didn’t learn it when my palate was still forming, there are certain sounds I won’t be able to produce properly.  I can understand it like a native
speaker,
though.  Chinese is still pretty rough for me.  So many different dialects from city to city.  Huge difference between Cantonese and Mandarin.”

“Shane,” Brian said, smiling.  “I barely speak English, and it’s my first and only language.”

Shane laughed and stepped away from the window.  “The video ready to roll yet, Chief?”

“Yup.”  Brian turned the laptop
slightly,
and Shane came closer.  Brian hit ‘play’ and turned the volume up. 

The boys laughed, and the ghost spoke.

“May I?” Shane asked, gesturing towards the laptop.

“Go for it,” Brian said, nodding.

Shane paused the video, brought it back to the beginning, and started it again.

He did it twice more before he finally pressed ‘stop’ and straightened up.

“He wants to know where his friends are,” Shane said.  “He doesn’t want to be alone.”

“Damn,” Brian said, dropping into the chair.

“You said there were two of them?” Shane said, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“Yes,” Brian answered, nodding.  “But the ghost we spoke with, Mr. Boyd, he said there were six of them.”

“And you have two?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are the other four?” Shane asked.

Brian shrugged.  “There’s more, though.”

“What?” Shane said.

“Mr. Boyd said the dead men like to have saké,” Brian said.

“Okay.  Fair enough,” Shane said.  “I mean, I prefer whiskey myself.”

“Same here.  The
problem, though, is you have to have the skulls with you.”

“Oh,” Shane said.  “And we don’t know where the skulls are?”

Brian shook his head.

“Any idea of where the first two are?” Shane asked.

“Nope,” Brian said, sighing.  “Just somewhere in the church.”

“But it still leaves four more to find?” Shane asked.

“And we need to find how the damned things are getting into the building to begin with.”

“True,” Shane agreed.  After a
minute, he said, “Do you want to go over there tonight?”

“What, to the church?” Brian asked.

“Sure,” Shane said.  “Why not?”

“No, not tonight,” Brian said.  “We’ll have to clear it with the
Reverend first
.  I really don’t want to go in without his permission, or without anyone knowing.”

“Yeah,” Shane said, glancing at the laptop.  “Our little, headless buddy there didn’t seem like he was a particularly pleasant fellow.”

Brian remembered the sight of the boy being blinded.

“No,” Brian said.  “He’s not pleasant at all.”

Chapter 31: In the Basement

Miles was tired.

Exhausted, really.

But he had calmed Sato and the others down.  He was still a little drunk, and foolishly he had driven back into the center of Rye.

Sato’s skull was in the backpack, and he needed to get the ghost into
the Church.  He had even brought a bottle of saké for the others, too.  They might not kill him, but they could certainly hurt him.

And he didn’t want to be hurt.

The wheels of the car scraped against the granite curb in front of the Church,
and he swore.  A flat tire wouldn’t help anyone at this point.  Especially himself, if a cop rolled up and found him with a skull in the bag.

And where did you get this, Mr. Cunningham?
  He thought.

Well, officer, you see, there’s a funny story about this skull,
Cunningham thought.

I don’t think there’s anything funny about a skull
.

Cunningham shook away the imaginary conversation and turned the engine off.  He took the key out, accidentally dropped it, grumbled and picked it back up.  Carefully, he tucked it into the front pocket of his jeans and grabbed the bag from the passenger’s seat.

Good God, I really am still drunk
, Cunningham thought as he stumbled out of the car.  He looked around furtively and was pleased to find himself alone on the street.

It’s three in the morning,
he told himself. 
Rye’s dead at this time of the night.  Day.  Whatever it is.

He closed the door gently, just enough so the interior light went out.

With cautious steps, he walked up the long path to the back of the Church, and he nearly giggled as the Scooby Doo theme song leaped into his head.

He shushed himself and managed to remain quiet as he got to the side door.

It took him a minute to dig the key out and let himself in, but he managed.

Yet once he stepped inside, he froze.

The lights were on in the basement.

And he could hear voices.

A moment later though, he realized he could understand the words.  Someone was speaking in Japanese.

Suddenly,
his back became cold.  Sato was awake.

Cunningham hurried down the stairs, missed the last two and sprawled into the room.  He landed in a thick, dark liquid and his hands slipped as he struggled to get back to his feet.

Once he had gotten up, he looked around the room and came to a shocked stop.

The old wooden floor was coated with blood.

Far more blood than Cunningham had ever seen before.  It was as though someone had taken buckets and mopped the floor in the dark, sticky fluid.

Bits of flesh, bone and offal decorated the walls.

A woman had been butchered.

Miles
Cunningham knew the person had been female because the dead men had neatly arranged her clothes on the floor in the center of the room.  They were stained with blood, but they were undeniably feminine.

Hideaki and Tenchi sat in a pair of folding chairs by the door to the furnace.  They stared at him with hate-filled eyes, and suddenly he was quite glad he had bothered to bring a bottle of saké.  The thought of another cup of the liquor turned his stomach, but it would be better to be sick than to be dead.

When Cunningham looked at them, he remembered his manners and bowed low.

Sato appeared at his side, and as Miles turned to look at him,
the ghost struck him.  The blow was cold and terrible.  It sent Cunningham sprawling into the blood, and he closed his mouth in time to avoid a mouthful of foul remains.

“Fool!”
Sato shouted. 
“Why haven’t you brought the others?”

Cunningham got to
his hands and knees.  He kept his head
bent, and his eyes averted.

“I cannot risk moving you all at once, Sir,”
Cunningham said, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.

“You shouldn’t have moved any of us at all,”
Sato snapped, stepping closer.  It was strange to see the ghost’s boots so clearly, and yet observe how they left no trace through the blood.

“Did he bring us anything to drink?”
Tenchi asked.

“Saké,”
Sato replied.

“Well, let him serve it,”
Tenchi continued. 
“We’re thirsty.  The woman took a long time to die.”

“Who was she?”
Sato asked.

“Practice,”
Tenchi answered. 
“Now come, brother, let him serve us.  The work was harder than it looks.”

“Get up,”
Sato snarled.

Cunningham hurried to his feet and raced to get the saké ready.

He ignored what little remained of the murdered woman.

He had his own life to save.

Chapter 32: A Ridiculous Discussion

Luke Allen’s apartment was small and austere, with no decorations of any kind.

Dan sat in an uncomfortable ladder-back chair while Luke sat on the couch.  The
Rever
end sat in a kitchen chair which had been brought into the small parlor for the occasion.  He held what looked to be the phone in question, and Dan resisted the urge to snatch it out of the man’s hands.

Patience
, Dan told himself. 
Patience.

“Detective,” Luke said, “in a minute, the Reverend is going to hand you the phone, which I’m sure he’s holding onto for dear life right now.”

Dan nodded, remembered Luke couldn’t see, and said, “Yes. He is.”

“I know.  His breathing hasn’t slowed down since he heard you walking up my stairs,” Luke said easily.  “What you’re going to see is going to be disturbing.  I heard it all, and I know what screams of pain sound like, having voiced a few myself.  I’m hoping you have an open mind, and after you see it, well, I have a favor to ask of you.”

“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves here, Mr. Allen,” Dan said, putting on his best ‘don’t mess with me, I’m a trooper’ voice.

Luke merely smiled at the tone.  “I’m not, Detective.  I’m just letting you know what I’m hoping for.”

“Fair enough,” Dan said.

“Rever
end,” Luke said.  “Would you be kind enough to hand the phone to the detective, please?”

The Reverend nodded and wordlessly gave the cell to Dan.