Back of the Envelope

The Rest of the Story: You can either go directly to the previous chapter, or view the whole story on one page.

This chapter was pretty easy to write. The previous chapter was a real pain in places, but this one came smoothly and painlessly. The next chapter, that's the real killer. I have a rough draft, but I'm not entirely happy with it. I'm not certain about how it plays out or how it's written. Heck, I'm not even sure how I feel about what happens. Revising Chapter 15 into something I like will be a major undertaking, one which may wait until after I write the conclusion and can go back and edit that chapter in light of it.

Having said that, here's fourteen, the one I didn't have trouble with.

---

Chapter 14
More Mysteries

Pastor Dan was speaking when Ryan and Emily re-entered the sanctuary, his eyes squeezed shut, one arm wrapped around Dominic’s shoulders and the other lifted in the air. Ryan and Emily stood at the back watching, that urge to run building again in Ryan, but he held firm for Emily. All the churchgoers had their heads bowed, but Ryan kept his eyes on Dominic. What is he up to? “Father,” Pastor Dan was saying. “Give Dominic, Emily, and their friend the strength to stand against this spiritual assault. Confound the enemy and put him to flight. Heal any rifts among them, that they may know your unity and peace. Father, may you protect our brothers and our sister from harm and temptation, and help them to rely upon you in this time of trial. In your name we pray, amen.”

“Amen,” the rest of the church answered. Even Ryan mouthed the word, although he was mostly distracted by the pins and needles which had started up in his right forearm all of a sudden. This was the most painful yet, like a hundred bees stinging him. He bit his lip and tried not to tear up from the pain. Still, even the stinging was better than the numbness.

Pastor Dan raised both hands now and called out, “Go in peace!” The organ music started up in response, and the choir filed out the rear doors they had entered by. The congregation began to stand as well, gathering their things. Dominic quickly shook Pastor Dan’s hand, then hurried to meet them by the door.

“What was that about?” Ryan asked. He didn’t know whether to be angry or grateful over Dominic’s showy request for help.

“I told him that we felt we were under spiritual attack and wanted their prayers,” Dominic replied, heading out the door. Ryan and Emily followed him.

“You didn’t give him details, did you?”

“Of course not. I said just that.” Dominic looked back and grinned. “Anyway, it ended the invitation and let everyone leave.”

“Damn, I thought I was cynical,” Ryan muttered.

“Ryan…” Emily began.

“No, Em, he’s right,” Dominic replied. “Sometimes I am. I’m the one who said we needed prayer in the first place, and I was too dang embarrassed to get up and go ask for it. It’s only because Pastor Dan kept us singing until someone responded that I finally worked up the nerve to go up there and ask. I should be grateful, and instead I’m mocking him. I’m sorry I did that.”

Ryan stopped at the base of the steps, looking at Dominic. Dominic, noticing he had fallen behind, turned and said, “What?”

“I don’t know. It just seems like you’re giving in awfully easy.”

“I was wrong. You pointed it out. I apologized. What’s the big deal?”

“It hardly seems like the natural response.”

“Heh. I guess I’m just feeling more Christian after church.” He snorted a laugh. “See, now I’m back to cynical.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said, giving Dominic another long look. He’s definitely acting weird.




When they reached the house, Dominic turned on the television, Emily started checking on the status of the food supply to see if there was anything available for lunch, while Ryan took a nap. He didn’t like leaving them alone, but he was just too exhausted to do much about it now. Dominic graciously offered his bed again, and this time Ryan took it. The room was small to begin with, and even more crowded with the queen sized bed, a dresser, and a desk. Dominic’s suitcase was still on the floor, and the bed had been left unmade. Ryan didn’t care. He tossed himself down and closed his eyes.

After what seemed like only a couple of minutes, he heard Dominic calling. “Hey, guys, come here! You have to see this!”

Ryan stumbled out of bed, bumping one shoulder against the door jamb as he wobbled to his left side. His older bruises met the new jolt with joy, and he grunted as he hurried to the living room, This had better be worth it. Dominic sat on the couch, now cleared of sheets and blankets, with the remote control in hand. For some reason, he had his tan trenchcoat on again. Admittedly, Ryan was thinking that the house was a bit chilly himself. Did it even have heat? Emily was standing in the doorway between the living room and the dining room, and Ryan stopped behind her. The television was tuned to a local news program, where a shockingly blond woman was standing on what looked like an airport runway. Police tape was strung up on a temporary barrier surrounding an area behind her, with a white chalk body outline in the center. Police were all over the place, as were a number of other news cameras were visible in the background.

“Police have not yet released a cause of death, although they are saying that they have not ruled out foul play. They are not yet offering any theories on how he came to be on the runway. The FAA has shut down all flights in and out of Atlanta as a precaution. Once again, the deceased has been identified as a Mr. Richard Majison of New York City, shown here in a photograph provided by his employer.”

Ryan’s nausea returned with a suddenness that left him gagging. Emily placed a hand on his shoulder, “Ryan, are you all right?”

“Yeah, sure,” he lied, managing to hold onto his breakfast. “It’s just a shock. No, two shocks… three… I think I lost count.” The photo on the screen was Red-eyes, the blocky face and dark hair and mustache unmistakable. That must have been why Dominic called them in the first place. The screen was now showing a recording of the body-bag being wheeled into an ambulance, with another photo, perhaps from a driver’s license, superimposed in the corner. He even had red pupils in the photo, which was no different from so many other bad driver’s license photos, but Ryan didn’t miss the irony. It wasn’t anywhere near as ironic as the name, though.

“Is he… is he a relative of yours?” Emily asked.

“I have no idea,” Ryan said. God damn it! How the Hell can Red-eyes have my last name? As if this wasn’t confusing enough! What does that mean? It’s not a common name in the States, but maybe in some other countries… Who the Hell am I kidding? Of course it’s not a coincidence! The worst part was that even if Red-eyes was related to him in some way, Ryan had no way of knowing. His father, Daniel Majison, had left when Ryan was fourteen. In truth, he had simply vanished, disappeared off the face of the earth, but the way he had left everything in order, surreptitiously prepared in the weeks before he left, made it clear that he had left voluntarily. Every debt, including credit cards, the mortgage, and the cars, had been settled, every project at work had been either completed or handed off to a colleague, papers drawn up to give Ryan’s mother full possession of every piece of property she knew about, and a few she hadn’t, and a decent trust fund set up for her and for Ryan. Then he had packed some luggage, called a cab, and left one bright Tuesday afternoon while Ryan was at school and his mother at work. The only thing missing had been a good-bye and an explanation. They had never seen him again, never received a letter or a phone call or so much as a postcard. Even if Ryan wanted to ask him about this, he couldn’t. Unfortunately, he had nothing else to go on. He had told Ryan’s mother that his parents were dead and he had no siblings, and never spoke of it again. He had never mentioned any cousins or aunts or uncles. Ryan knew absolutely nothing about his father’s side of the family.

Ryan didn’t want to think about it right now, so instead he tried to focus on what the reporter was saying. “Mr. Majison was last seen at work on Thursday, and his employer reports that he did not show up on Friday as expected. While the police have not yet released the official word on the time of death, sources close to the case say that Mr. Majison died yesterday, approximately forty-eight hours after his disappearance.”

Dominic clicked off the television. “That is weird.”

“You think?” Ryan said. “What’s he doing at the airport, rather than in the pit? That’s where he died!”

“Unless…” Dominic said, pensive. “Unless he was never really there.”

“What?” Ryan sputtered. “He was there! He nearly strangled me!”

“He seemed to be there, true. But what if it was, I dunno, his ghost?”

“I felt him. It was no ghost.”

“Well, in quite a few ghost stories, the ghosts feel quite solid. I never put much stock in them, but then I’m not entirely sure I believe in ghosts at all.”

“But, Dom, if Red-eyes was demon-possessed, would he even have a ghost?” Emily asked.

“Of course he would, Em,” Dominic said. “Demon-possession doesn’t remove your soul. The soul’s just subjugated to the demon. I suppose that could be true even in death. Hmmm. I dunno. I always thought God would take the soul after death, that’s the reason I’m not so sure about the existence of ghosts, but if souls can hang around after death, I suppose the demon could still be in charge. God would send him packing if he showed up for judgment, though.”

“Ugh, this is too much,” Ryan said. “So you’re saying that a ghost attacked me in the woods? What about at the dorm? Was he a ghost then too?”

“I dunno. He was obviously alive when he made it to Atlanta. I suppose we’ll have to wait until the police tell us his exact time of death before we know.”

“Let me think, let me think,” Ryan said, his head whirling. The ghost thing was nowhere near as disturbing as the name. But what does it mean? If he is a relative, he didn’t seem to recognize me. Of course not, he’d never met me, but the shadow-thing should have known something if I was connected to Red-eyes in some way, right? At first… at first it thought I might be a threat, but it decided I wasn’t when I didn’t know enough. Then it said something about going through me, whatever that means. What if…? Ryan’s mind floundered. There was a germ of an idea there, but it wouldn’t coalesce. He couldn’t see it, or maybe he just didn’t want to see it. He had the impression that it was truly horrifying.

“I think I need more sleep. I can’t deal with this right now.”

“Ryan, I think…” Emily began, and then the hand on his shoulder tightened painfully.

“Ow! Emily, let go!” Ryan said, but Emily didn’t respond. She just stood there, eyes wide open and staring, her hand gripping his shoulder painfully, mouth open in a small moue. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s having a vision,” Dominic said. He stood up and came to his sister, prying her hand off Ryan’s shoulder. “Come here, Em. Have a seat.”

Still holding her hand in both of his, Dominic led her to the couch. She came willingly enough, although she didn’t seem to know where she was going and her brother had to keep her from tripping over the coffee table. He then backed her into the couch until she plopped down onto it. Ryan watched all this with a sort of bemused awe. He wasn’t sure whether he really believed in her visions or not, but he was intensely curious about what she was seeing. If her visions were real, it might help them, but it looked more like she was having some sort of fit to him. “Does this happen a lot? If it had happened when she was driving, we could have been killed.”

“She can hold them off when she wants to, but I don’t think she’s ever had one while driving anyway. I guess God knows what he’s doing.”

“Do you really think her visions are from God?”

“Oh yes,” he said, watching his sister carefully. He looked like he also wanted to know what she was seeing. “I know so.”

“Right,” Ryan said, a bit disappointed that he wasn’t more skeptical. “Do you think this is about our situation?”

“Oh yes, I’m sure it is.” He looked at Ryan now, and this time it couldn’t be a trick of the light. His irises were gleaming a bright red. “In fact, I’ve been waiting for it.”

---

This chapter is 2,134 words long, bringing the total length of this novella to 43,142 words.

The Rest of the Story: This is a long story, and it won't make much sense if you start here. If you just missed the previous chapter, that's here. If you want to read the whole thing in one place, that's on this page.

Ugh, another hard chapter to write. I went over it half-a-dozen times, and finally got some of the difficult passages to work, while some other passages I'm still not certain about, but, well, here it is.

---

Chapter 13
The Church Service

The sun rose slowly. Ryan waited out the sunrise minute by creeping minute. He sat on the couch, comfortably equipped with sheets and pillows and blanket, and watched the gradual lightening of the room, waiting for the others to awake while his mind endlessly plodded through the events of that night. Did I really almost kill Dominic? he had asked himself over and over. Around four his limbs had given a convulsive jerk and he had kicked the blanket away. He had been drifting off when it had occurred to him: maybe he had shot Dominic. What if… what if, instead of going into his room, I had been coming out of it when I woke up? I could have already shot him. No. No, no, no! I couldn’t have! Even if I could, I’d know if I did! Besides, a gun shot would have brought Emily running. Yes, of course. I’m worried over nothing. He took several deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down. No, he hadn’t killed Dominic, and he hadn’t almost done it either. The sleepwalking had only been the stress, the paranoia, the recurring dream. He just couldn’t allow himself to sleep again. That wasn’t the only reason to stay awake: he couldn’t trust Dominic either. His eyes had been red. Ryan had spent the night worried that every creak and shift of flooring he heard might be Dominic rising from bed in order to seek his sister’s death. He’d startled off the couch so often, tiptoeing to the hallway and making sure no one was up and about, that he half-thought he had spent more time on his feet than on the couch. Around five, he’d tried turning on the television with the volume muted and scanning for something worth watching, but he hadn’t found anything, so instead he continued to rest on the couch, propped up on the arm, watching the light filtering through the blinds get brighter.

He remembered putting the gun back, but his sleep starved brain couldn’t recall whether he had unloaded it when he did. He didn’t think so. Certainly he wouldn’t have dared make a one-handed attempt at figuring out how to unload a gun. Ryan wondered whether he should have kept the gun with him. His heavy jacket had a deep pocket, so no one would even notice if he hid it there… like in the dream. No. That dream was already too insistent. It might be silly to worry about it, but he didn’t want to contribute to the circumstances which might make it come true.

The others started waking up around seven. Dominic was up first, and Ryan got off the couch once again, making a show of getting some water from the fridge, waving to Dominic as Emily’s brother slouched his way into the bathroom. Dominic yawned and waved back. He wasn’t wearing glasses of any sort right then, but Ryan was too far away to see what color his eyes were. Emily was up soon after, still in her blue nightgown, and finding the bathroom occupied by Dominic and the shower running, she went into the master bedroom. There must be another bathroom in there. Now that both siblings were up, and Emily had agreed to be cautious of Dominic, Ryan could relax a bit, and once Dominic had vacated the shower, he took one himself. He still had nothing clean to wear, but he at least brushed the dirt out of his clothes, and by the time he was washed and dressed, he felt decent if so tired he could have slept where he stood. Damn, I haven’t felt this tired since my senior project. I got, what, ten hours of sleep that week?

When he left the bathroom, he found Dominic and Emily at the kitchen table, eating cereal. Dominic was wearing a white shirt with a red tie and khaki pants and, for once, he had on regular glasses. Emily was wearing a dark blue skirt and a white sweater. Ryan looked at them, his fuzzy brain chewing on the scene for several seconds before it pointed out the oddity. “So, why are you two dressed up?”

“For church, of course,” said Emily. “How’s the arm?”

“Better, actually,” Ryan said. It wasn’t a complete lie. It still felt weak, but it no longer felt dead. The prickling had returned, and the fingers at least twitched when he willed them to. “I think it’ll be okay.” That part was a lie.

“Great!” Emily said. “Will you be coming with us, then? To church?”

“Er, um… I hadn’t thought of that. I’m really not dressed for it.”

“Don’t be silly,” Emily said. “No one’s going to kick you out for how you’re dressed.”

“I suppose not,” Ryan answered carefully. They’d probably stare, though. “I’m not sure…”

Dominic said, “We’re not going to force you to go, but considering what you’ve just been through, I’d think that you’d want to check it out. There’s more to religion than the demons, after all.”

“Dom, that’s not the way I’d put it,” Emily said. “But you have a point.”

Ryan sighed. When you were worried about demons, church was the logical place to go. In any case, maybe he owed God this: he’d seen quite a few of his half-serious prayers answered. It was just that he hadn’t been inside a church since his father left. “Okay, I’ll go. When’s the service?”

“There’s one at eight-thirty, which is the one we’re going to,” Emily said. “There’s a later service, too, but as long as we’re up, we should go to the earlier one.”

“Sure, sounds fine to me,” Ryan said. “Here, let me have some of that cereal.”



Ryan stopped complaining about being underdressed once they arrived at the church. True, most of the men were wearing suits or at least shirts and ties, and almost all the women wore dresses, but compared to the two hunters sitting in the back still wearing camo and smelling of dirt and sweat, Ryan didn’t feel so out of place. The church was not a large one. The sanctuary may have been able to hold three hundred people, but it was less than half full for the early morning service. There were two columns of pews, one on either side of the central aisle, and since neither Emily nor Dominic had been choosy on where to sit, Ryan had picked out a place for them on the far right near the back, where he could lean against the pew end. The pew had a hard wooden back, but the seat was cushioned, so Ryan thought that he’d probably sleep through most of the service. The windows lining either side of the sanctuary were tall but unstained, Ryan was disappointed to see, so the only stained window was in the back, behind the choir loft, and it just showed a cross with a thorn crown hung over it, with a dove overhead. Before the pulpit’s dais was a wooden table, the words “DO THIS IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME” carved across the front, a gold cross in the center, and a huge Bible with gold-edged pages lying open to one side and a thick white candle on the other.

The organ music started up shortly after they arrived, and the choir filed in wearing yellow robes, taking their seats at the front of the sanctuary, behind a low rail setting the choir loft apart from the pulpit’s dais. Soon afterwards, a lean, white-haired man dressed in a blue suit took his place behind the pulpit, instructing the congregation to rise and sing with the choir. Ryan looked on the hymnal Emily held and tried to follow the singing. It had been over a decade since he had gone to church, and he and his mother had been irregular attenders even then. He just didn’t know church music very well, and the two years of piano lessons which had taught him how to read music didn’t help much in trying to keep up. He kept getting lost in the hymn, “Be Thou My Vision,” especially when the music leader unexpectedly skipped a verse. So after a short stint of actually trying to sing with everyone else, he settled for mouthing the words. His efforts to understand what was being sung were even more futile. Many of the words were archaic, and the rest seemed to be in essentially random order. Ryan had a feeling that much of what was being said was a code, full of meaning for those steeped in the jargon of religion, but irrelevant to him. It left him feeling frustrated, and he was glad when he was able to sit down. Or he would have been, if he had been allowed to do so without first being instructed to turn and greet his neighbor, which meant shaking hands with total strangers. Since they all seemed to know one another—half a dozen people greeted Dominic and Emily by name—they recognized him as an outsider right away, and they were eager to quiz him about his identity, origin, and relationship to the siblings. At least those two made some effort to run interference for him, so he only had to give a few noncommittal responses.

Ryan was seething by the time he sat down, irritated at having been put on the spot. This whole exercise was a waste of time; he was exhausted, his head ached, and he just wanted sleep. He should have been dozing off, but he was too tense. His limbs were practically quivering with the need to move, to just get up and run out, and he felt like there was a tiny hyperactive bird in his chest, fluttering around, as frustrated as he was at being cooped up. Still, he bent his head and closed his eyes with the rest when the prayer started. He couldn’t follow that, either, but he wasn’t really trying. Even so, it was hard not to notice that the gentleman leading the prayer said “Oh Lord” at the beginning of every sentence. Sometimes at the end, too. Trust me, man, God knows who you’re talking to. Then it was more singing that he could hardly understand, and then the offering plate was passed around while the choir sang without the congregation. Ryan dropped a couple of dollars into the plate, annoyed that he was expected to give to a church he was attending for the first time. And then there was something the schedule called “The Doxology.” Everyone stood up and sang it without the benefit of the hymnal, leaving Ryan feeling even more lost, but what the Hell? He was just mouthing the words anyway.

Then, finally, it was time for the sermon. The man who took his place at the pulpit was well overweight, with a grey speckled beard, most of his hair missing from the front, and a really bad comb-over to cover it.

“Is that your Father?” Ryan whispered to Emily.

“What? No, that’s the associate pastor. Daddy won’t be home from the retreat until this evening.”

Ryan wasn’t quite sure where in the hierarchy the associate pastor fit, but he supposed that it was something like an associate professor, and he was still in the middle of some sort of pastoral tenure track. The associate pastor lay out a stack of notes on the podium and started to preach a sermon on the sin of lust. Frankly, Ryan didn’t consider himself a very lustful person. Despite ready access to pornography thanks to high-speed Internet, he’d never taken advantage of it. Why would he want to look at pictures of naked women anyway? What he wanted was a real woman, and not just for sex. He wanted someone he could talk with and just enjoy being with. Hugs and kisses were fine, and God knew he had nothing against sex, but it was loneliness he wanted relief from. His eyes were drawn to Emily, who was watching the preacher with rapt attention. He wondered whether his attraction to her was supposed to be a sin, which was what Mr. Associate Pastor seemed to be saying. So, if attraction is wrong, what am I supposed to feel? Love? I hardly know her. I like her, but love her? I don’t know if I even can. Maybe if she weren’t so damn crazy. He let his thoughts carry him away from the preaching, which wasn’t easy as it grew awfully loud from time to time. What was he getting so worked up about? Every time Ryan did listen for more than a minute or two, he ended up confused and angry. So Ryan sat there, his eyes burning and head aching, every nerve begging for this to end. He kept glancing at his watch, despite the fact that it had stopped running last night and he’d just put it on out of habit. Though he couldn’t tell the time, he was certain that the service had passed the hour mark some time ago.

When the sermon finally ended, it was time for the “Invitation.” Ryan hadn’t been quite sure what the word meant when he’d seen it in the schedule, so his wandering thoughts returned to the pastor as the organ started playing softtly and the pastor said, “Perhaps some of you this morning are slaves to Lust, and you want Jesus’s help to break the bonds. Now is the time to come forward. Perhaps you’ve never tasted the freedom that Jesus gives, not just from Lust but from a whole host of other sins. You want his help. He’s only a prayer away. Please, come now, as we sing.”

And so everyone stood up and sang “Amazing Grace,” all six verses. Then, when they were finished, the minister said, “I feel in my heart that God is calling someone here to come forward and repent. So we’re going to keep singing until he does.” They started from the beginning again, “Amazing grace—how sweet the sound!—that saved a wretch like me…”

Ryan gritted his teeth as his knuckles turned white from the grip they had on the next pew. I can’t believe this! His head pounded, the fluttering he had felt in his gut had grown into full-blown nausea, and he couldn’t even find the breath to breathe the words anymore. His arms literally trembled. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. When they started singing “Amazing Grace” for the third time, he used his left hand to pry his right from the pew back in front of him—how could his weak hand have such a grip on the wood, anyway?—and walked out of the sanctuary, not caring how many eyes were on him.

As soon as he had gotten through the vestibule and out the front door, Ryan felt a tremendous wave of relief. He still didn’t feel well, however. His head ached and his stomach roiled, and the music from inside was loud enough that he could still hear it. Ryan pressed his left hand against the brick wall next to the front door and bent into the wall, his head bowed so that his crown nearly touched the bricks. He was actually panting, and he felt like he was going to throw up. Good God, why do I feel so awful? And what was with that service? “It just went on and on and on. And most of it was uncomfortable and confusing. It was all just so… annoying!” When his breathing had slowed and his breakfast felt like it might stay down, Ryan turned around so he could lean back against the wall. While it was cool out here, the bricks had been warmed by the sun, and they felt nice against his back. His eyes were looking directly into the sun, so he closed them, letting the rays try to warm his face faster than the chill air could numb it. It felt like an even battle.

His left hand brushed the rail next to him, and he looked down. He was at the edge of the church’s concrete porch, where the iron railing which prevented the congregation from toppling off met the wall. It was pretty badly rusted, and it looked like the screws which had held it in place had come loose. Ryan wiggled the railing and it shifted with alarming ease. He certainly wouldn’t trust that thing to hold his weight.

He heard the door swing open next to him, and he turned, unsurprised to see Emily. “What took you so long?” he asked.

“I wasn’t sure why you ran off. I thought you might just be going to the bathroom, but then I realized you had no idea where the bathroom was, so I thought I better look for you. Why did you go?”

“I wasn’t feeling well,” Ryan said truthfully. Plus I couldn’t stand it in there any longer. I think—I think it was what was making me feel ill. “I didn’t get much sleep last night, and I have a headache and an upset stomach. Are they done yet?”

“They were on the fifth time through ‘Amazing Grace’ when I left. I think Pastor Dan’s going to keep going until somebody comes forward,” she said with a smile.

“I take it you think that’s a fine idea?”

“Not really. Daddy doesn’t like Pastor Dan doing that. He thinks it’s a form of coercion. If the Spirit’s working on someone, you don’t need to force him along with musical duress.”

“Huh. I’d thought you’d want to get people to God no matter what it takes.”

“That’s not how it works. It’s God who—,” she paused, her head cocking to one side. “Do you hear that? The music’s stopped.”

“I guess somebody cracked and went forward,” Ryan said.

“Yeah. Let’s go see if it was Dom.”

“He wouldn’t…”

“We won’t know unless we check.”

It was indeed Dominic who had gone forward.

---

This chapter is 3,005 words long, bringing this novella to a total length of 41,008 words.