Mystery Walk

Before the headlights, the highway—ten miles north of Fayette—was a yellow tunnel cut through the mountain of night. Terry smiled, his eyes full of devilment. No one, not even his steady girl friend, Helen, knew that one of Terry's favorite hobbies was beating out the brains of stray cats with a Louisville Slugger.

Wayne was stretched out in the backseat, his legs sprawled on a half-empty box of Falconer Crusade Bibles, the last of a dozen boxes that Terry and Helen had helped Wayne hand-deliver. Fayette County residents who'd donated upward of one hundred dollars during the highly publicized 'Bible Bounty Week' got a Bible and a visit from Little Wayne Falconer. It had been a long, tiring day, and Wayne had healed whole families today of everything from inner-ear trouble to nicotine addiction. His restless sleep was haunted by two recurring dreams: one of a snake of fire fighting an eagle of smoke; and one in which the Creekmores were standing in that hospital waiting room, the woman's eyes fixed on him as if she could see right through his skin to the soul, her mouth opening to say Do you know what you're doing, son?

He feared he was falling under some kind of spell, because he couldn't get his mind off the woman and boy. They were using strong power on him, he thought, to draw his mind from the straight-and-narrow path. He'd been reading a lot lately about demon possession, about demons that were so strong they could inhabit both the living and the dead, and nothing scared him any worse. Praying in the chapel at home seemed to ease his brain for a while.

Wayne came up out of a light sleep and saw Helen's autumn hair blowing in the breeze from the open window. Both she and Terry were going to college in a few weeks on Falconer Crusade scholarships. Helen was a pretty girl, he mused. Her hair smelled nice, like peppermints. He was horrified when he realized he was getting an erection, and he tried to blank out the thought of sinful sex. Nude girls sometimes cavorted in his mind, begging him to take off his clothes and join them. Stop it! he told himself, squeezing his eyes shut. But as he drifted off again he thought: I'll bet Helen and Terry do it do it do it. . . .

'Where are you going?' she asked Terry in a nervous whisper. 'You missed the turnoff!'

'On purpose, babe. Don't worry, it's cool.'

'Tell me where, Terry!'

'Steve Dickerson's having a party, isn't he? We were invited, weren't we?'

'Well . . . sure, but . . . that's not exactly Wayne's type of crowd. I mean . . . with everybody going off to college and all, it might be kinda wild.'

'So what? It'll do old Wayne good.' He squeezed her thigh and she gave his hand a little love-slap. 'And if somebody gets drunk, Wayne can just touch his hand and draw out the deeeemon of al-ke-hall!' He giggled as Helen looked at him, horrified. 'Oh come on, Betts! You don't take that healing crap seriously, do you?'

Helen blanched, turning quickly to make sure Wayne was still sleeping. She was sure glad it was such a clear August night, no thunderstorms around—struck by lightning would be a bad way to go.

The Dickerson house was a two-story colonial on the edge of a six-acre lake. There was a long expanse of emerald green lawn, dew glittering in the squares of light cast from the windows. Terry whistled softly when he saw the tough specimens of high-horsepower cars parked along the curb.

He parked the Camaro and winked at Helen. 'Wayne? We're here.'

'Huh? We're home?'

'Well . . . no, not just yet. We're at Steve Dickerson's house.'

Wayne sat up, bleary-eyed.

'Now, before you say anything,' Terry told him, 'there's a party goin' on. Steve's folks are out of town this weekend, so he invited everybody. I thought we could all . . . you know, unwind.'

'But'—Wayne stared at the house—'Steve Dickerson isn't saved.'

'Helen and I worked hard today, didn't we? By the time we take you home and come back, it'll be pretty late. So why don't we go in for a while, just to be social?'

'I don't know. My . . . my father's expecting me home by . . .'

'Don't worry about it!' Terry was getting out. Helen was irritated at him for dragging Wayne to this party, because she knew the hell-raisers of Indian Hills High would be here, the kind of people Terry associated with before he'd been saved. Sometimes she thought that Being Saved was rubbing off Terry like old paint.

Uneasily, Wayne followed them up the flagstone walkway. They could hear the muffled thump of loud music from inside. Helen said nervously, 'Wayne, it'll be fun. I bet there are a lot of girls who'd like to meet you.'

Wayne's heart skipped a beat. 'Girls?'

'Yeah.' Terry rang the doorbell. 'Girls. You know what they are, don't you?'

The door opened, and the riotous noise of a party in full swing came crashing out. Hal Baker stood on the threshold, his arm around a skinny blond girl who looked drunk. 'How's it hangin', Terry!' Hal said. 'Come on in! Old Steve's around here some—' His blurry gaze fell upon Wayne Falconer, and his face went into shock. 'Is that . . . Little Wayne?'

'Yep,' Terry chortled, 'sure is. Thought we'd stop by to check out the action!' Terry and Helen stepped into the house, but Wayne paused. Laughter and music were thunderous inside there.

The blond girl's nipples were showing through the purple halter-top she wore. She smiled at him.

'Comin' in?' Terry asked.

'No ... I think I'd better ...'

'What's wrong, man?' the girl asked him, a foxy grin on her face. 'You afraid of big bad parties?'

'No. I'm not afraid.' And before he'd realized it, Wayne had taken a step forward. Hal closed the door behind him. The Amboy Dukes singing 'Journey to the Center of the Mind' blasted from the rear of the house. Sinful drug music, Wayne thought, as he followed Terry and Helen through a mass of people he didn't know. They were drinking and smoking and running as wild as bucks through the entire house. Wayne's spine was as stiff as pineboard. He felt as if he'd stepped onto another planet. An aroma of burning rope scorched his nostrils, and a boy stumbled past him stinking drunk.

Terry pressed a paper cup into Wayne's hand. 'There you go. Oh, don't worry. It's just Seven-Up.'

Wayne sipped at it. It was Seven-Up, all right, but it had gone flat and tasted like the inside of an old shoe. It was as hot and smoky as Hades inside this house, and Wayne sucked on the ice in his cup.

'Mingle, Wayne,' Terry told him, and pulled Helen away into the crowd. He didn't dare tell her that he'd laced Wayne's drink with gin.

Wayne had never been to an unchaperoned party before. He wandered through the house, repelled and yet fascinated. He saw many pretty girls, some wearing tight hotpants, and one of them even smiled at him across the room. He blushed and hurried away, trying to hide the stirring in his pants. On the patio that overlooked the dark, still lake, people were dancing to the roar of a stereo. Dancing! Wayne thought. It was inviting sin! But he watched the bodies rub, transfixed. It was like watching a pagan frenzy. That burned-rope smell followed him everywhere, and he saw people smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. His eyes began to water. Across the patio he saw Terry talking to a girl with long black hair. He tried to catch Terry's attention, because he was feeling a little light-headed and needed to get home; but then Terry and Helen had started dancing to Steppenwolf music, so Wayne went off toward the lakeshore to get away from the noise.

The party, to him, was like the inside of a nervous breakdown.

He almost stumbled over a pair of bodies entwined on the ground. Catching a glimpse of exposed breasts, he apologized and continued on as a boy cursed at him. Walking far away from the house, Wayne sat down on the shore near a couple of beached canoes and sucked on his ice. He was trembling inside, and wished he'd never stepped across that doorway.

'You all alone?' someone asked. A girl's voice, with a thick backhills accent.

Wayne looked up. He couldn't see her face, but she had thick waves of black hair and he thought she was the same girl Terry had been talking to. She was wearing a low-cut peasant blouse and bell-bottoms, rolled up as if she'd been wading in the water 'Want some company?'

'No, thank you.'

She swigged from a can of beer. 'This party's fucked up. I hear Dickerson put acid in the punch. That would really fuck everybody's mind, huh?'

He winced at the first use of that awful four-letter sex word; the second gave him a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach. She was the kind of girl who did it, he realized.

'Pretend I'm blind,' the girl said, and crouched down in front of Wayne. She ran her hand all over Wayne's