'I—uh—like it fine, sir. I—just can't seem to make any friends with your people, that's all. Most of them aren't even civil with me. I think they dislike me for some reason, and I don't know why. I wasn't wanted on this Dig, I know that, and I'm sorry I raised such a fuss about going, now.'
'You haven't given us a chance, Tim.' Wilder moved closer to the young man. 'You know that's true. Why. you've only attended one of our talk sessions for the new people.'
'That's something else. What has happened to the new embers. We were friendly when we first arrived. Now they won't even speak to me. I don't like your talk sessions, sir. I don't like the way you and your people scoff at God. And why is it I'm always sent to Lincoln on Fridays. I get the feeling you don't want me around here on Friday nights. Why?'
Wilder laughed at him; an ugly laugh. 'Such a pious young man, Tim. And such a suspicious one. Too bad.'
Tim was suddenly angry. 'You tell me what this is, Doctor Wilder. You tell me what's going on. This is not a Dig—most of your people don't know a dog's hind foot from a dinosaur dropping. I've never seen such careless digging in my life!'
'Are you doubting my reputation as an archaeologist?'
'No, sir. Just your explanation for being here. We've uncovered nothing of any importance here, and no evidence to suggest there
'Oh, my, yes, Tim.' Wilder's voice was soft, 'And you've found it.'
The trailer became hot—stiflingly so. The stone tablet began to pulse as Wilder moved toward Tim. The medallion glowed. Tim began screaming as Wilder reached for him. The man's eyes were wild, burning with the same intensity as the medallion and the tablet and had Mrs. Balon's eyes at the parsonage.
Terror washed over Tim. 'Leave me alone!' he screamed.
Wilder touched him on the arm, the touch searing Tim's flesh through the cloth of his shirt.
Tim screamed in agony. He screamed for a long time, the pain moving through him in ever-heightening waves of torment. In his tortured mind, he imagined the small room filled with demons, Wilder the host demon. The trailer filled with stinking smoke, engulfing Tim in a mist of evil-smelling fetor.
Tim lost all sense of date and time. He knew only his horrible pain, wondering why this was happening to him. Then, as the mist cleared, Tim found himself naked, his clothing torn from him, not by hands, but by claws. Filthy claws. His agony was unbearable, but somehow he could not escape it, his mind refusing him the luxury of unconsciousness. He was dragged outside to the ground. He screamed, but no friend came to his aid.
Claws ripped his flesh as the people of the Digging surrounded him, tearing at him, their eyes burning with hate and evil.
At a word from Wilder, the clawing ceased. The man leaned close to Tim, his breath reeking, offending Tim's face. The young man looked up into eyes as old as evil, as old as time.
'Won't you join us, Tim?' Wilder asked. 'You can. Just repeat the oath. Say this: God is filth. God is shit. Reject Him!'
'No!' Tim screamed.
'Reject Him,' Wilder urged. 'It's so easy. Join us. Accept the Prince of Darkness, the blood of the Believer. Let the Lord of Flies fill your life with all the pleasures you have but dreamed of.'
'NO!'
Wilder hissed his outrage at this rejection, spittle from his mouth dripping on Tim's face. Again and again he urged Tim to blaspheme his God. The young man would not deny his God.
'Then you will die!' Wilder stood over him.
'Oh, my God—my Savior!' Tim cried out his pain. 'Help me.'
The others began laughing as they danced around the young man, their tongues spewing blasphemy. The sunlit day grew darker, gray clouds moving restlessly overhead.
'Where is your God, now?' Wilder laughed profanely. 'You call on Him, but He does not hear you. Are you sure He even exists?'
'He hears me,' Tim said, his faith growing as his body grew weaker. 'He is real.'
'Then where is He?'
'Everywhere,' Tim spoke through his pain.
'Then perhaps He will hear you tonight,' Wilder smiled. 'When we cut out your heart. But you will suffer much before the knife ends it.' Tim began screaming.
It was a Friday.
Sam Balon, minister of the First Christian Church of Whitfield, woke from a deep and very troubled sleep. He no longer put out his hand to touch the far side of the bed. He knew his wife would not be there. She had not been there for months. She would be asleep in the bedroom on the far side of the parsonage, with heavy, black drapes pulled tightly shut, like shrouds, the bedroom door locked.
Once, weeks back, Sam had peeked into her bedroom when she had forgotten to lock the door. The heavy drapes were pulled tight. The room held a bad odor. Always a sun-lover, Michelle now avoided the sun, sleeping all day whenever she could. Sam had laid in his bed at night, many times, listening to his wife prowl the house in the darkness. Several times she had softly opened the door to his room, to stand looking at him, believing him asleep. Through slitted eyes, Sam had seen the medallion around her neck catch the light from the moon, winking at him. Once, he recalled, Michelle had hissed at him from the bedroom door.
She had not been a wife to him in months, domestically or sexually.
Once, several weeks back, when she had attempted to kiss him, Sam had jerked away from her. He still did not know why he had done that. His actions had enraged her.
On this early morning, in the summer of 1958, Sam had. as he had done so many times in the past several weeks, wakened soaked with sweat, his pajamas sticking uncomfortably to him. He had fought and struggled his way out of sleep—a sleep filled with nightmares of human sacrifice, devil worship, and orgies involving the most unspeakable of human deviations. And those creatures! Something straight out of a horror movie. But they were somehow familiar to Sam. He had seen or read about them, somewhere. But he could not pin it down.
Sam's restless sleep and troubled dreaming had tired him, leaving him feeling he had slept only a couple of hours, instead of eight. He had been experiencing these awful nightmares for weeks, and he could not understand why.
He had read no books nor seen any movies on devil worship or the supernatural—nothing to trigger such dreams. There had been no discussion of such things among his friends.
Friends? Sam's smile was bitter as he lay awake on the rumpled sheets. My once large circle of friends has certainly dwindled over the past weeks. Again . . . why?
He had read no books nor seen any movies on devil worship or the supernatural—nothing to trigger such dreams. There had been no discussion of such things among his friends. Friends? Sam's smile was bitter as he lay awake on the rumpled sheets. My once large circle of friends has certainly dwindled over the past weeks. Again . . . why?
But he did not consider his personal dreaming or his loss of a few fair-weather friends important enough to bother God with it in prayer. Yet.
But something was wrong in Whitfield.
He thought of Tim Bennett, the young archaeologist who had come to see him. He had been distraught that day, but had refused to say why. And he had not been back. When Sam had gone to the Dig site looking for him, he was told the young man had quit, gone back home, in the east.
Sam felt the man was lying to him. But why would he lie?
The preacher sat on the edge of the bed, in the dim light of predawn, and thought of his wife, probably sprawled in sleep in her black-draped room. Sam had not mentioned his dreams to her—why bother? The two of them had not shared a conversation of any substance in months. They had not shared anything in months.
Sam fought back the image of Jane Ann. Increasingly, she had the annoying habit of entering his thoughts at the most inopportune times and places. Alone in his bed. In the shower.
He had to smile. A preacher I may be, but I'm still a man, and Jane Ann is a very lovely woman.
