Jerusalem’s Lot. Henry Petrie, and his wife and son are gone, and Mr Petrie, a Prudential Insurance Company executive, could hardly be called a deadbeat. The local mortician, the local librarian, and the local beautician are also in the dead-letter file. The list is of a disquieting length.
In the surrounding towns the whispering campaign that is the beginning of legend has already begun. ‘Salem’s Lot is reputed to be haunted. Sometimes colored lights are reported hovering over the Central Maine Power lines that bisect the township, and if you suggest that the inhabitants of the Lot have been carried off by UFOS, no one will laugh. There has been some talk of a ‘dark coven’ of young people who were practicing the black mass in town and, perhaps, brought the wrath of God Himself on the namesake of the Holy Land’s holiest city. Others, of a less supernatural bent, remember the young men who ‘disappeared’ in the Houston, Texas, area some three years ago only to be discovered in grisly mass graves,
An actual visit to ‘salem’s Lot makes such talk seem less wild. There is not one business left open. The last one to go under was Spencer’s Sundries and Pharmacy, which closed its doors in January. Crossen’s Agricultural Store, the hardware store, Barlow and Straker’s Furniture Shop, the Excellent Cafe, and even the Municipal Building are all boarded up. The new grammar school is empty, and so is the tri-town consolidated high school, built in the Lot in 1967. The school furnishings and the books have been moved to make-do facilities in Cumberland pending a referendum vote in the other towns of the school district, but it seems that no children from ‘salem’s Lot will be in attendance when a new school year begins. There are no children; only abandoned shops and stores, deserted houses, overgrown lawns, deserted streets, and back roads.
Some of the other people that the state police would like to locate or at least hear from include John Groggins, pastor of the Jerusalem’s Lot Methodist Church; Father Donald Callahan, Parish priest of St Andrew’s; Mabel Werts, a local widow who was prominent in ‘salem’s Lot church and social functions; Lester and Harriet Durham, a local couple who both worked at Gates Mill and Weaving; Eva Miller, who ran a local boardinghouse…
4
Two months after the newspaper article, the boy was taken into the church. He made his first confession-and confessed everything.
5
The village priest was an old man with white hair and a face seamed into a net of wrinkles. His eyes peered out of his sun-beaten face with surprising life and avidity. They were blue eyes, very Irish. When the tall man arrived at his house, he was sitting on the porch and drinking tea. A man in a city suit stood beside him. The man’s hair was parted in the middle and greased in a manner that reminded the tall man of photograph portraits from the 1890s.
The man said stiffly, ‘I am Jesus de la rey Munoz. Father Gracon has asked me to interpret, as he has no English. Father Gracon has done my family a great service which I may not mention. My lips are likewise sealed in the matter he wishes to discuss. Is it agreeable to you?’
‘Yes.’ He shook Munoz’s hand and then Gracon’s. Gracon replied in Spanish and smiled. He had only five teeth left in his jaw, but the smile was sunny and glad.
‘He asks, Would you like a cup of tea? It is green tea. Very cooling.’
‘That would be lovely.’
When the amenities had passed among them, the priest said, ‘The boy is not your son.’
‘No.’
‘He made a strange confession. In fact I have never heard a stranger confession in all my days of the priesthood.’
‘That does not surprise me.’
‘He wept,’ Father Gracon said, sipping his tea. ‘It was a deep and terrible weeping. It came from the cellar of his soul. Must I ask the question this confession raises in my heart?’
‘No,’ the tall man said evenly. ‘You don’t. He is telling the truth.’
Gracon was nodding even before Munoz translated, and his face had grown grave. He leaned forward with his hands clasped between his knees and spoke for a long time. Munoz listened intently, his face carefully expressionless. When the priest finished, Munoz said:
‘He says there are strange things in the world. Forty years ago a peasant from El Graniones brought him a lizard that screamed as though it were a woman. He has seen a man with stigmata, the marks of Our Lord’s passion, and this man bled from his hands and feet on Good Friday. He says this is an awful thing, a dark thing. It is serious for you and the boy. Particularly for the boy. It is eating him up. He says… ’
Gracon spoke again, briefly.
‘He asks if you understand what you have done in this New Jerusalem.’
‘Jerusalem’s Lot,’ the tall man said. ‘Yes. I understand.’
Gracon spoke again.
‘He asks what you intend to do about it.’
The tall man shook his head Very slowly. ‘I don’t know.’
Gracon spoke again.
‘He says he will pray for you.’
