The reporters had caught the scent of a story they could milk, and they weren’t going anywhere until they got some answers. They'd moved their cars and vans up the street and parked them in front of the Pritchard house, where they waited for someone to come out and talk to them, or for something to happen, anything at all.
When the front door opened, they rushed forward.
It was that limping man again. He came out onto the sidewalk and waved at them, smiling as they came forward. Before the barrage of questions could begin, he spoke.
"I'd like to have a word with all of you, if I might. It'll just take a moment.”
They moved in close and waited for him to go on.
"I am Jeremy Quillerman, the Pritchards' pastor. Needless to say, they're very upset about what has happened to their friends. In fact, the entire neighborhood is grieving today. I encourage you to keep that in mind. I know it is your business to report the news, but… there is no news here, I'm afraid. Only tragedy. The writing on the front door is simply vandalism. The nasty hole over there is best dealt with by a carpenter, not reporters. So, please folks…until something else comes up, why don't you go back to your places of employment and write your stories. The people here have suffered a great loss and a great shock. They're in no condition to answer questions now." He smiled again, nodded with a finality and said, "Thank you for your time." Then he turned and headed back into the house.
The reporters fired questions like bullets, shouting to be heard. He didn't even slow his limping pace. He went inside, closed the door and locked it.
They grumbled to one another as they turned and went back to their cars and vans.
While Pastor Quillerman was outside, no one in the house moved from where they were when he left.
George was sitting at the dining room table with his head in his hands, eyes hidden from the dull, glaring light that shined in through the sliding glass door behind him.
Karen was leaning against the lip of the kitchen counter with Monroe in her arms, stroking the agitated cat and making soft, soothing noises.
Robby and Jen stood quietly in the living room, staring out at the reporters.
A bit earlier, Pastor Quillerman had explained to the family everything Robby already knew about Lorelle Dupree and, once again, Robby had been surprised that the pastor knew everything Ronald Prosky had known. Quillerman seemed to take it all in stride, as if this sort of thing happened all the time. Of course, it didn't. It couldn't. But Robby couldn't shake the feeling that it happened more often than he wanted to imagine and that more people were aware of creatures like Lorelle Dupree than he wanted to know.
According to the material Prosky had given Robby, Lilith had given birth to as many as a hundred infants an hour… but for how many hours? How many were out there? The possibilities made Robby feel very small and vulnerable.
As Quillerman headed back up the walk, Robby whispered, "I told him everything, you know."
Jen's head snapped toward him. "You mean… about us? Everything?"
"Everything."
Quillerman came inside and beckoned Jen and Robby to follow him into the kitchen.
"I spoke to them," he said, "but I doubt it will do any good. Once they’ve found a story, reporters are a little like ants and roaches – impossible to get rid of, because if one goes, there's always another to replace it. So, I guess we'll just have to do this in front of them."
Until that moment, Quillerman had gotten virtually no reaction from the family. There had been a few monosyllabic responses and odd facial expressions, but mostly they'd avoided his gaze and remained silent. But then:
"Do, uh…do what in front of them?" George asked from the table, lifting his head slowly. His face looked heavy, the skin sagged and drooped beneath his eyes and along his jawline.
"Deal with this problem we've been talking about here," Quillerman replied.
George stood. "Well, we haven't exactly been talking. You've been talking. And we've listened to your, um… your story. Now I think you should go."
Quillerman's eye moved from George to Jen to Robby to Karen and back to George again. "You know," he said quietly, "you've been coming to church all these years and I've never been here to your house. I've never invited you to my house. I know pastors of other churches who know each and every member of their congregations well. They see them socially. They are considered friends of the family. Unfortunately, I am not made of the same cloth. Of my many faults, I'm afraid my greatest is the distance I tend to keep between myself and the members of my congregation. If I were closer to my congregation, perhaps I would have seen this coming. I might have been able to prevent your involvement. “
“Mr. Pritchard, what’s happening here is not something you can dismiss. It will eat you alive if you let it. You've already allowed it into your home, then into your mind, and the next step is -"
"Pastor," Karen said, still cradling Monroe in her arms, "we appreciate your concern, but the idea of Lorelle Dupree being a… a demon is -"
"Crazy? I suppose it does sound crazy. But the world is full of things that sound crazy. That doesn’t make them any less real. But we have protected ourselves from them, shut them out so we aren’t exposed to them. So much of what we do is just an effort to shut out all the things that seem crazy… or scary. We’ve created religion, ritual, tradition… even the family is a protective measure, a way of insulating ourselves from the frightening darkness beyond the glow of our fires. I, of course, play a part in that insulation. Religion is one of the things people turn to for comfort and reassurance when they get a glimpse of the unknown. In the end, all we really have is each other. And that’s why I’m here. Your neighbor knows this. She is pitting you against each other right now, and you will – “
”Get the fuck out of my house!" George roared, taking a couple of steps toward Quillerman.
Dead silence fell over the room as the pastor stared at him, a look of satisfaction on his face, then: "You see?" he whispered. "This is not how you normally behave, George.” He looked around at all of them. “This is not how any of you behave. Can’t you see what she’s doing to you?”
George's fists were clenched and trembling at his sides. He opened his mouth to shout something again, but Robby spoke up quickly.
"Dad, you know it's true! She tore a hole in your bedroom wall. She flew through your bedroom wall! She chased me! She's not human, Dad, and you know it." He looked at Karen and Jen, too. "We all know it. So why don't we admit it and stop letting her do this to us!"
George stared at his son intensely for a long moment, then backed up slowly and lowered himself back into the chair. He leaned forward on the dining room table. His arms began to shake, just a little at first, but when he tried to speak they got worse.
"Well, whuh-what… what do we, um… wh-what're we supposed to… I mean, what's -" He stopped suddenly, arms quaking so hard they rattled the table. He slapped a hand over his mouth, closed his eyes tightly and pressed his arms down on the table hard to stop the shaking. After sitting like that for a while with the others staring at him, he pulled his hand away and muttered, "What've we done?" Then, quickly: "I-I mean, no, no, I mean, what'll we do?"