Painted Demons E-Book

William Rand

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

When John Hardin’s brother, a priest, apparently commits suicide, he goes to his brother’s parish in Philadelphia to find out the truth of what happened. The events of the suicide are revealed to him by the pastor and by a possessed man through a series of short stories. Painted Demons presents a series of violent confrontations between people and elements they see as evil. The reader may not always agree with those judgments; where a character names evil, the reader may see justice, sickness or blind authority. But before that realization, the reader must often wait to see from which character or source the horror will come. In each case, normal people are introduced leading average lives; but their existence becomes threatened by something or someone they have previously known as sane and safe: an elevator, a city bus, a bit of trivia, a parent, a spouse. The stories always encase a vein of normalcy, Character and relationships become the backbone of each story and contrast with the fast plot, violence, and horror which develop to drive each story to its climax. Along with the horror, a main goal of the collection is the surprise of unpredictability from story to story. Most of the tales deal with the supernatural, but not all. They are split between first and third person narrators, but any story is as likely to be told from the point of view of the evil or predator as from the intended victim. Sometimes the evil wins, sometimes not. And once or twice the reader may not be sure. Some stories have no descriptions of gore, while others rip and bleed. But they are all stories about people—plain but very disparate people—caught suddenly in desperate, terrifying situations.

Leseprobe

William Rand

Painted Demons

Possession

For my sister, Ella "Sissie" Camille Rand. Sissie, you are a true connoisseur of the art and a wonderful source of support and enthusiasm. On many long, frustrating nights, I survived by writing for you. As a kindred spirit, your influence has buoyed my dreams, fueled my confidence, and shaped my writing style as much as any of the great horror writers before us. As a reader, your opinion has always been my first and highest criterion of a new story's worth. BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Painted Demons: Possession

by William RandThe sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood That fears a painted devil. William Shakespeare From Macbeth

As children, we are taught to respect, control, love, laugh, hate, belittle, protect, trust, help, condemn, honor and fear. During our lives, we may perceive these lessons as angels or demons, but most of us never forget them through adulthood to death. WER For my sister, Ella "Sissie" Camille Rand. Sissie, you are a true connoisseur of the art and a wonderful source of support and enthusiasm. On many long, frustrating nights, I survived by writing for you. As a kindred spirit, your influence has buoyed my dreams, fueled my confidence, and shaped my writing style as much as any of the great horror writers before us. As a reader, your opinion has always been my first and highest criterion of a new story's worth.Contents: The Stories

MAN OF FAITH: The PriestOut of Service

MAN OF FAITH: The ManFamily Heirloom

MAN OF FAITH: The Temptation The Sinners, DamnedAmbition's Debt

The Faithful, RewardedThe Other Samaritan

The Little Darling

The Wicked, ChastenedBy A Thread

The Concealed, ExposedBy Light of the Moon

I Remember Pink

His Truth, RevealedThe Harvest Is Your Own

MAN OF FAITH: The Vanquished MAN OF FAITH: The Priest John Hardin smiled when he felt the plane sink out of the sky. His seat belt pulled him down elevator fast, and his hands clamped the armrests, but he just looked around the cabin and smiled. Something thumped in the lower bowels of the jetliner. Hardin's throat clamped shut. Still he kept the smile on because no one else had panicked, so both the thump and the falling sensation must have been normal. He looked down at each hand in turn to get them to relax. An image of his mother and the purpose of the trip came to mind. Harden needed answers that only a certain priest could provide. Focus and relax, he chided himself. The cramping in his forearms eased. He checked his watch just as the voice said over the intercom: "Please return to your seats; the captain has turned on the seat belt sign. We'll be landing at Philadelphia International Airport in approximately ten minutes. On behalf of the captain and crew, I'd like to thank . . . " Ten more minutes of this, Hardin thought. He wanted to cross himself, but knew it would give him away. They'll think I'm chickenshit, he thought: scared to fly. The 727 dropped some more and banked. Hardin forced himself to smile. He realized his jaws ached and his armpits were sweat soaked. The man next to him commented on the in-flight meal, and Hardin mouthed a noncommittal reply. He hadn't touched his food. He suspected his appetite wouldn't return for days. Not that he would ever blab it to the guy beside him. Hardin gave the man a sidelong glance as he finished his beer and handed the cup up to the attendant. The man was in his twenties—ten or so years Hardin's junior—and seemed delighted to be up in the air. Their eyes met, and Hardin smiled pleasantly, casually. For a moment he forgot his fear as he thought once again that the man reminded him of his brother. Hardin's brother Dennis hadn't been afraid to fly; to his knowledge, Dennis had never feared anything. But in the end, he should have. In the end, not even God had saved him. Grief and rage overcame fear, and Hardin thought of the reason for his first—and hopefully only—airplane flight: answers, with barely time enough to seek them out. Hardin saw the ground coming up fast through the window, but everyone around him seemed calm, so he smiled and nodded and squeezed the armrests until the wheels thumped to the tarmac and the plane reversed engines and taxied slowly toward the gate. Baggage claim looked like a white sale at K-Mart. Hardin got crowded away from the front and missed his suitcase the first time round. He worried that it wouldn't come back again, but was afraid to ask. Instead he stood in a near panic until he saw it rattle back down the chute. He excused himself forward to grab the bag and hurried out to find a cab. *** The cab driver took Hardin to a quiet, middle-class west Philadelphia neighborhood and left him before a rectory, adjacent to a church built in tall, imposing angles of stained-glass and powerful gray stone. The rectory stood upon a rise, several feet above street level, yet huddled within the church's twilight shadow. The street looked gray, solid, old. Hardin felt an uncomfortable weighted tension from the sight of the tightly packed row houses fronted in stone and brick. He shook the feeling with an effort, mounted the stairs, crossed the lawn, and rang the bell. The priest who opened the door looked about sixty, with a loose-fitting face and kindly eyes. "May I see Father Xavier?" Hardin said. "He's expecting me." "Of course." The priest led him down a dimly lit hall to a small parlor. Hardin thanked him and agreed to wait. The old priest left and Hardin remained standing in the middle of the room. Despite his many visits to his warm but devoted brother—now Father Dennis, and almost always in a collar and black clothes—Hardin had never learned to feel comfortable in the cloying Holiness of any rectory. Even in his brother's study, back in Colorado, he had always felt stiff, nervous and watched. Hardin realized that he might be just as afraid of God as he was of flying. He smiled when he imagined what Dennis would have said about that. The door opened. Hardin rubbed the smile away. The priest who came in was about the age of the man who had sat next to Hardin on the flight, but more serious of expression. He was thin and dark skinned. He wore glasses, and he didn't dress like a priest. He wore an open-collared shirt and jeans, and brown loafers. The young man chuckled at Hardin's initial question. "We don't have to wear collars off duty." The priest looked at his watch and shrugged. "But I have an appointment this evening, so I'll have to change back into my work duds." "I'm sorry, Father." Father Xavier held up a quieting hand, the fingers long and graceful, the wrist, thin. "Don't worry about it." The priest's smile faded, died. "I was very sorry to hear about your brother's death." "That's what I came to talk to you about." The priest glanced away and cleared his throat. "I'm afraid there's nothing to discuss." "I think there is," Hardin said, then looked to the door and lowered his voice. "Yours was the only name in his address book I didn't recognize, and when I called—" "Please," Father Xavier said, his hand extended toward a padded leather-covered armchair. Hardin looked at the chair, sighed, and finally sat. Father Xavier closed the door, took a chair to the side of Hardin, and turned on the table top lamp between them. Xavier leaned forward and looked at Hardin. "I was acquainted with your brother Dennis. Several years ago, one of his parishioners came to him with a unique problem, and he consulted me on it. He'd heard of my work." "What work?" "I'm afraid that's confidential, Mr. Hardin. I'm sorry." Hardin leaned back, and the leather squeaked. He glanced around. The room looked somber: heavy drapes, solid wood furniture, somber wallpaper, dim lighting through opaque lamp shades, oil paintings of frowning bishops in ornate dark wood frames. The atmosphere was cloying, antique. The room looked like a place for private confessions, where the walls absorbed whispered words like dirty water into a sponge, yet watched and remembered. Sins hidden away. Hardin said, "As far as I know, all my brother did was say Mass, hear confessions, and play a little golf. I never heard of any other work." "Mr. Hardin, we are not at liberty to reveal every aspect of the Church's business. And Dennis knew a lot of people, even some not in his address book." "But I called you, Father. The Fort Collins police told me Dennis committed suicide, but you knew he didn't—" "Suspected . . . . I suspected that—" Hardin slapped the padded arm of his chair. "No, Father. Your words: 'Father Dennis did not kill himself.'" "Dennis's car was doing at least seventy down a city street when he ran it into a pole. There were no skid marks and no alcohol in his blood." The priest blew out a sigh. "I was obviously wrong." "Bullshit." The priest glanced at his watch and cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, Mr. Hardin, I have an appointment with a parishioner; I have to change clothes and drive over." Xavier stood. Hardin stood and blocked Father Xavier's way to the door. "My brother was a good priest, Father, and a good Catholic, one of your own. I'm a good Catholic. I . . . we deserve more." Xavier's eyes looked sad. He glanced away. Silence stretched, oppressive in the room. Xavier squeezed his eyes shut and pressed fingertips to his temples. The silence in the room grew heavier, hanging like the thick drapes at the windows, broken only by the metallic ticking of a clock somewhere. Xavier dropped his hands and opened his eyes, shifted his glance to Hardin. "I grew up in this neighborhood, Mr. Hardin. I went to elementary school right here at Transfiguration. I've cared for a lot of good Catholics. Now if you'd like me to hear your confession, I'll be happy to, tomorrow. Tonight I have an appointment with someone of the parish." Xavier tried to walk around, but Hardin sidestepped in front of him again. "The archbishop won't allow my brother a Catholic burial." "What?" "Suicide's a mortal sin, Father." Hardin looked into Father Xavier's eyes, expecting to see sympathy. He saw a glimmer of something that resembled confusion, wiped quickly away. Xavier said, "Father Dennis must be buried in sacred ground, and by a priest. I'll make a call to the archbishop. He'll do that much for me." Hardin grabbed the priest's arm. Father Xavier looked down. Hardin released him. "No," Hardin said. "Not as a favor. I have to know the truth. Please, Father. They bury him day after tomorrow, and I have to have something to show the police by then, or it's nothing but a favor." "The Grace of God is—" "Please, Father. I believe, but this isn't just theological. Our mother is very devout." Hardin felt powerless grief well up inside him, and melt to anger at this priest, so reluctant to help. He shoved his feelings down and forced a smile. "Father Xavier, our mother is being sedated almost constantly. You must understand: her proudest moment was the first time she received communion from her son, and we've all been taught that suicide is the unforgivable sin. She can't stand the thought of his soul . . . . Look, if he did it, I have to know why. If he didn't, I need something I can show her to confirm the fact and put her at ease." The priest looked at his watch again, and Hardin stiffened. He felt his lips set in a hard line. He wondered what he would tell his mother. "Sit down," the priest said. Hardin sat. Father Xavier produced a pack of cigarettes and lit up. He excused himself from the room and returned with an ashtray. He put the ashtray by the lamp on the end table and lowered himself slowly into the chair. Hardin watched him tilt his head back to blow smoke toward the ceiling, and he noted the sharp planes of the priest's face, his piercing, brilliant eyes, compact ears, and short, black hair, not much darker than his skin. Hardin ran a hand through his own thinning hair and waited. The priest flicked gray ash from the tip of his cigarette into the tray. Gray smoke curled toward the ceiling. Xavier cleared his throat and said, "Dennis talked about your parents." "Our father's deceased. He died—" "Several years ago, yes. His parents were Welsh, and your mother's, Irish." The priest pushed his glasses up with a stiff finger and looked directly into Hardin's eyes. "Your grandmother never learned English, but her son, your uncle, graduated from Yale." Hardin felt sweat on his palms and rubbed them dry on his thighs. He tried to think. "You and Dennis were more than just consultants." The priest nodded. "We've known each other more five years, closer to seven or eight. I suppose you'd say we were partners." "In what?" Father Xavier put the cigarette to his mouth and squinted against the smoke. He inhaled and released a cloud that nearly obscured his face. "Sometime in the middle of this century—the sixties to early seventies or so—the Church gave up the classical view of Hell and Satan; it was getting too bad for publicity, you might say. Vatican II might be what you would call the benchmark, although no one, to my knowledge, addressed this issue directly. In any event, we wanted to seem modern, rational, like scientists rather than alchemists. So, we swept the Devil under the rug." "Dennis didn't seem to—" The priest held a hand up. "We stopped performing exorcisms, or at least put the small few we did in the closet; and instead we sent our young priests to medical school and then on for degrees in psychotherapy. We decided to relegate evil to a curable part of people's minds and to redefine Hell as an individual's private torment. "Everything went fine for awhile; lagging congregations recovered as people saw the Catholic Church at least nodding to the progress bandwagon. But lately, in relative terms—and I'm talking nineteen eighty or so—things began to happen that the Church could neither publicize nor ignore." Hardin thought back. He felt cold and figured someone must have turned the heat down, but the chill had come on too suddenly for that. He laid thoughtful fingers to his chin and said, "My brother came out of the seminary in eighty-nine." "And we met in early ninety-five. Like I said, your brother consulted with me on a case he came across in his parish in Fort Collins. The Denver Archdiocese tried to ignore it at first, and then they tried to explain it away. Finally they referred Dennis to me." Hardin looked over as Father Xavier pressed his cigarette out in the ashtray. "I don't understand," Hardin said. "Excuse me, but you look so young, and nearly ten years ago . . . . Why didn't they refer him to someone higher up if the problem was so tough?" Xavier blew out a humorless laugh. "I was to be the fall guy: the African-American priest dabbling in ancient mysticism. This 'problem' resurfaced in several places throughout the world, Mr. Hardin, but it began here, in Philly. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia dropped the problem in my hands, intending to drop me if the thing went public, and so protect the Church's shiny new reputation." Xavier angrily snapped a match to life and fired up another cigarette. "There are many more of us now—your brother joined us—because this thing is spreading, even as we lose numbers. The Vatican still demands secrecy, but the problem is no longer relegated to a few scapegoats." Xavier laughed his grim laugh again. "In fact, in the eyes of Rome, we've become the new authorities." "What are we talking about here?" Hardin said. "We're talking about my appointment this evening and your brother's work. We're talking about why your brother Father Dennis was murdered doing the Lord's work, and by what. You see, we've found what we think may be the source of this problem, this disease, and I've decided to show it to you, for the sake of my friend, Dennis and his mother." The priest's eyes clouded over, thoughtful. "And," he said, "because maybe this has been kept secret for too long." "I still don't understand. Just what were you and my brother dealing with?" Father Xavier put his cigarette out and stood. "The resurgence of true evil, Mr. Hardin, an evil somehow released in this city a little over thirty years ago, and which has been quietly spreading its damned infection everywhere—everywhere, Mr. Hardin." Xavier checked his watch. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to change so we can get going. I’ll tell you how it started on our way." Out of Service: The BeginningThe fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of man. Nathaniel Hawthorne