Authors: Ron Ripley
The First Church (27 page)
With a relieved sigh, he took hold of the pocket door and slid it back.
But it didn’t budge.
It wouldn’t move at all.
George tugged harder.
The door remained firmly closed.
Frowning, George began pulling on it fiercely.
Still it stayed in place.
What the hell?
He thought.
Laughter burst out from the other side of the door.
The laughter of men.
Of several men.
George took a nervous step back. His heart rattled in his chest and with painful, jerky movements he sat down on the bed.
Fists pounded on the door. The laughter grew louder.
And the light in the room went out.
George was alone in the darkness.
Bonus Scene Chapter 6: Time Passes
He had no way to measure the time.
George didn’t know if he had been in the fallout shelter for hours or for days, or simply, for minutes.
His stomach growled, yet each time it did, he thought of his mother, butchered and cast about the floor. The hunger passed.
George lay on his side on the bed. The duffel bag had been kicked onto the
floor,
and George was curled up under the old woolen Army surplus blanket. He was exhausted.
Whenever he dozed off, the dead knew it, and they pounded on the door.
He felt as though madness would consume him.
George was so terribly tired.
He just wanted to sleep.
Laughter penetrated the darkness and jarred him out of a doze.
They always know
, he thought drunkenly.
How?
George forced himself up from the bed.
A question came through the door, but he couldn’t understand it.
“I don’t speak Japanese!” he yelled. “Leave me alone!”
Fists hammered against the wood, and he jumped backward, slammed into a shelf and cried out.
A cold breath danced along the back of his neck, and George screamed.
The dead let out gleeful laughs.
Are they in here with me?
he thought frantically.
Someone pulled on his ear,
and George twisted around. “Stop it!”
The laughter stopped.
The light came on.
George closed his eyes and rubbed at them for a moment, but only a moment. He was too excited about the light.
He looked around the room.
Did they leave me alone?
he wondered.
Silently he crept up to the door, took hold of the handle and cautiously pulled back on it.
It slid into the wall on silent runners.
And George found himself looking at, well, himself.
Another George stood in front of him. Behind the second George, was an identical fallout shelter. The new George wore the same stupefied expression, and George assumed he did as well.
It terrified him.
George and his curious twin both reached out and closed the pocket door.
He waited for his heart to stop its mad race within his chest, and then he slid the door open again.
Grey, cold granite greeted him.
George reached out and touched it.
The stone was real.
He pushed, and it resisted. He closed the door again, opened it, and found
only stone.
George stared at it for a long minute, examined the time-worn
marks from the quarry in the granite, and then he shut it out. He returned to the bed and collapsed onto it.
Slowly, he pulled himself into a fetal position, and he waited for something, anything to happen.
He didn’t wait long.
The lights flickered, and then went out.
They’re coming
, George realized. They weren’t going to wait any longer. They didn’t want to return to the war-lover’s house. No. He was sure of it.
They wanted him.
They wanted to hurt him.
The same way they had harmed his mother.
He would be butchered.
The door to the fallout shelter slid open, and they came in.
Their footsteps were loud on the floor,
and he shivered at the sound of each one. His ears ached as he listened to them speak to one another softly in Japanese.
George heard knives drawn from sheaths.
He squeezed his eyes shut and chanted in a low whisper, “This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.”
The light came on, and George risked a glance.
Six headless men stood around the bed. They all wore uniforms. Each was khaki, yet some were filthy, others clean. Hatred and rage pulsed from the dead.
Two of them, George saw, had knives drawn. Terribly long knives. Short swords used for ritual suicide. Blades used to remove the head of an enemy.
The other four unarmed men pounced upon George, and as he screamed,
they seized his arms and legs. Their grip was painful. Cold, needle-like pain punched through his wrists and ankles. George
struggled, and the dead tightened their grasp on him.
With fury and fear, George fought to remain in a fetal position.
The dead would have none of it.
They stretched out his arms and legs and soon had him spread-eagle on the bed.
One of the knife-wielding
ghosts leaned in and ever so neatly and cautiously, cut away George’s clothing. Each piece went, the ghost’s hands steady. No matter how much George
writhed, he was not cut a single time.
It took only a few minutes, but soon George was naked on the bed, and he screamed furiously.
One of the dead spoke in Japanese, and the other five laughed cheerfully.
A hand reached out, grasped some of George’s chest hair and pulled slowly.
George shrieked, more in outrage than from the pain. But he was terrified as he watched the skin slowly stretch as the hair was pulled farther up.
The dead man let go of his hair, made a remark and again they all laughed.
Then the laughter died down, and the ghosts who held his limbs tightened their grips.
George pictured his mother’s remains, and he shook uncontrollably.
A moment later, he lost control of his bladder, and he wet himself.
Someone snorted in disgust.
George felt his hands and feet go numb, and the skin burned where the dead held him.
The two ghosts with knives stepped closer, and George closed his eyes.
At the first sharp bites of the steel,
he screamed and bucked. He felt blood trickle out of the wounds they had
made, and his heartbeat pounded in his ears as he listened to them speak.
“A fine mess you’ve made for yourself, isn’t it?” a voice asked.
George opened his eyes, and he saw the war-lover.
The dead man, who wore a Marine Corps uniform, stood at the foot of the bed. All of the Japanese ghosts had their heads and looked respectfully at the war-lover.
“I’m not staying long,” the war-lover said. “I was merely passing through. I heard the
boys,
though. Kind of hard to miss the Japanese, even in all the chatter out here. Not too many dead talking in anything other than English or French. Anyway, they’re not happy. Just in
case, you hadn’t figured it out on your own.”
“I’m sorry,” George whispered. “Oh Jesus Christ, I’m
sorry!
”
“Don’t doubt you are,” the war-lover said unsympathetically. “Fact of the matter is, boy, I just don’t care.
This is
your bed, literally as well as figuratively, so you may as well lie and die in it. They cut on your mother because they thought she was the one who had brought them here. Ichiru, here, is feeling mighty bad about doing it to the wrong person. I expect he’s going to work just a little harder on you, now.”
“But, I’m sorry,” George whispered.
“I know,” the war-lover said. “And they care about as much as I do.”
Something flickered, and George looked in time to catch sight of the first knife plunging into his stomach.
The pain was excruciating.
* * *
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