Description
“YOU KNOW WHAT you have to do,” said the distant voice at the other end of the phone.
Sheriff Jessup nodded. Moonlight glinted off the cars parked in front of the small church: the Alsops’ rusted Jeep, Bear McKnight’s new pickup truck, Reverend Curtis’s Cadillac that had been a bequest from Elena Partridge when she passed. All of them were here.
He was here.
Jessup was a powerful man. Six-foot-three, weighing close to three hundred pounds, he was more muscle than fat. The teenagers and wise-asses in town gave him a wide berth. His handcuffs usually stayed on his belt. One grip of his iron fingers on your collar and you knew you were up against a force of nature.
The occasional fool who tried to outrun the sheriff found out the former high school football player who could sprint with the best of the track team hadn’t lost much speed with age.
Jessup walked up the stone steps to the church and entered the doorway. Adam Alsop turned in the pew where he was sitting next to his wife and watched with confusion as Jessup bolted the door shut.
“Carson?” asked Adam, calling the sheriff by his first name.
Natalie Alsop, with her gray hair pulled back in a bun and the same tired eyes as everyone else, froze when she saw the ferocity of the sheriff’s expression.
Reverend Curtis and Bear McKnight were huddled at the lectern turning the pages of the church’s oversized Bible.
“Christ,” McKnight said as he saw the sheriff.
Jessup walked first toward the Alsops. Adam was paralyzed with panic as the sheriff clenched his neck, thick fingers stabbing into his throat. His wife tried pulling at Jessup’s thickly corded arm, but was backhanded so hard her head cracked against the wooden pew, knocking her out cold.
McKnight ran toward Jessup to intervene. His heavy footsteps were the only other sound in the hall besides the gurgling noise coming from Adam Alsop’s mouth as he tried to breathe.
Reverend Curtis hurried to the back of the church, toward the fire exit he’d reluctantly installed after the fire marshal had demanded it. His frantic hands pulled at the crossbar. The door wouldn’t open. Something was blocking it from the outside.
Curtis turned back as Sheriff Jessup grabbed McKnight by the arms and bit into his shoulder, tearing away a mouthful of flesh. Even more shocking than the savage act was the cold dispassionate look in the sheriff’s eyes. It was the lifeless stare of a great white shark on the hunt. A predator that didn’t see another life, only something to be eaten.
McKnight screamed and dropped, falling next to Adam’s body. He tried to cover the wound with his hand, but the blood kept pumping relentlessly through his fingers until the cold, tingling sensation of consciousness fading overcame him.
Jessup kicked him aside and strode down the aisle dividing the pews. His boots left prints in the growing puddle of blood. Shreds of McKnight’s shoulder muscles and skin still hung from his mouth, his face misted with arterial spray.
“Carson . . . Carson,” pleaded the reverend. “I can help you. I can help you rid yourself of this . . . this thing.” He fell onto his knees, hands grasped over his head in prayer.
Sheriff Jessup looked down. “Rid me of the thing? Rid me?” His vacant expression broke for a moment. He grabbed the reverend by the back of the jacket and pulled him to his feet. “I am the cleansing fire! I’m the one ridding you of the evil!” Spittle flew from his mouth, a sputtering teakettle on the verge of exploding.
Reverend Curtis futilely kicked and punched. In an act of desperation he clawed at the large man’s cheek. But the deep gouges didn’t even faze Carson Jessup.
Jessup punched back, breaking the smaller man’s nose. He pounded again and again until the entire bridge collapsed, sharp fragments of bone embedded into his raw fist like pieces of coral.
The reverend fell to the ground in a bloody heap. The whistling sound of his breath through what was left of his nose faded.
Sheriff Jessup pulled the phone from his pocket. “It’s done.”
The phone had been dead for days, yet the sheriff heard a voice tell him, “Good, my son.”
He closed his eyes and waited for the fire to cleanse away the wickedness and evil.
On his knees, he folded his hands and thanked the guiding archangel for showing him a clear path. He thanked the Lord for the strength to do His bidding. He thanked God for bringing this long nightmare to an end.
WHEN THE EXPLOSION ripped through the church, a sleep-deprived grad student at the Seismology Lab at the University of West Virginia jerked upright in his chair, spilling his coffee as his computer sounded an alarm. His first reaction to the sudden spike was that there had been a plane crash, or a meteor strike.
The residents of rural Hawkton ran outside to see the source of the explosion and were horrified to see the huge ball of flame rise from the direction of the old church, a bright orange plume against a plum-colored evening sky. Some felt it was an end to the darkness that had enveloped the town. Others suspected that the darkness had only just begun.