What did that damn Indian mean about external factors? Wasn’t it a strange coincidence that Abraham had just said the same thing earlier that morning? Abe also said I should go to church. At that point, a lightbulb went off in my head, and church didn’t sound like a bad idea at all.
The church I went to wasn’t just any old church, but the one that had been broken into the night that Josie Jones disappeared.
I knew which one it was because I had read the article several times.
It was all the way on the west side of town on a very quiet block. Just a few homes here and there, and the church took up one whole corner. Off to the side was a playground. Past that was a church-type school, where the kids wore uniforms. The street was empty, and I couldn’t imagine it being any different in the dead of night. The cross on top looked nice and even, and all the stained-glass windows were clean. No one had seen or heard a thing when the place got busted into, but I needed to satisfy a curiosity. Maybe something had gone down they didn’t mention in the papers. If there was semen all over, or a swastika or some such thing, I can’t imagine the churchgoers being anxious to know about it. But I had to know. It couldn’t just be a coincidence that a church break-in occurred on the same nights as the disappearances. I could have been grasping at straws, but something told me I wasn’t. After all, there was a mighty strange incident that had happened years before I moved to Evelyn, and it involved a church.
It was 1988. The bodies of three children had been found in a drainage ditch just a few miles outside of Chicago. Two of them had been there for several weeks. The third was fresh. The papers said there were no signs of sexual misconduct, but that didn’t mean anything to me. When the full moon came around, the wolf knew what to do.
It visited the dumping ground, picked up a scent, and tracked it on the wind to a fellow named Jack Kaplan, who at that moment was joyriding on a Japanese motorcycle. He was a high school dropout with an arrest record loaded with drug charges and a couple of indecent exposures. Nothing serious, but that’s just because he’d never been caught. Just like me.
The wolf stalked him till he turned off an exit and wound up in the suburbs, far away from prying eyes. On a quiet street, it sprang from the bushes, causing the man to fall from the bike. He took off his helmet, saw what was coming at him, and took off like a bat out of hell.
Directly across the street was a church. He charged it, as if he would be granted asylum there. He kicked the door in and shut it behind him. The wolf entered the church just seconds later, but was unable to locate the man, who was just several feet away, hiding under one of the pews. This had never happened before. It was as if the wolf’s powers had been nullified once it set foot on holy ground. Anywhere else in the world, it would have been able to find the man with its eyes closed, just on scent alone, but in that church, the creature was rendered almost human.
The wolf looked left and right, and roared in confusion. The hellish sound of the beast scared the man out of his hiding place, and he ran. The wolf followed.
To make a long story short, the wolf eventually chased the man onto the roof, where he jumped and died. This incident is unique and noteworthy for two reasons. One, something to do with the church legitimately fucked up the wolf’s senses. Two, something to do with the church had prevented the wolf from ripping the man to shreds. Instead, it led him to his own doom. It was as if the wolf had obeyed some unwritten rule I knew nothing about, or if not, it seemed that Jesus put the kibosh on the beast’s dastardly ways while it was on His turf. Maybe Jesus came down and said, “Hey, man, don’t make a mess in here.” I didn’t know what to make of it at the time.
On another occasion many years earlier, I had taken shelter in a church on the night of the full moon. As night came down, the priest was alerted of my presence because I was screaming. I was changing, but it was happening more slowly than it would have in any other place. It hurt twice as much. I couldn’t move. The priest helped me outside to wait for an ambulance. The changing process then sped up, and that’s when I killed him.
I climbed the stone steps to the church and opened the heavy wooden door. The church had a high ceiling that was designed to look like the inside of a boat, like Noah’s Ark. There were pews on each side, and all the way down at the other end, the altar. A big, hungry Jesus hung on the wall behind the altar, and there were candles all over the place. Right in front of me was a big vat of holy water, like a birdbath. I dipped my fingers in the stuff and smelled it. Smelled like water to me.
There were two women seated in one of the pews, both dressed in black, like widows. I didn’t want to look at them. What I needed was a priest or something, not atmosphere. I didn’t know if there was some office located somewhere, or any kind of fancy legwork I had to do to get the man’s attention, so instead, I cleared my throat. Loudly. It didn’t work. So I did it again. The two widows looked at me.
I cleared my throat a third time. A man in black poked his head out from behind one of the columns. I waved, and he strolled over with a plastic smile on his face. He was my age, with his short brown hair combed to one side, and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched on the edge of his nose. He was trying to look older than he was. The hell of it was that I recognized the guy, and then I remembered: He had done the services for Pearce.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said. “What brings you to our house?”
I blushed. I just then realized I didn’t know how to address him.
“Hey, Padre,” I said, to which he frowned, “you don’t know me, but I was wondering if I could just ask you a few questions about some stuff. It won’t take but a minute.”
“Certainly, sir,” he said. “Time is not an issue here, because the time is always right to find yourself in God’s house.”
I said, “Sure, man. Whatever you say.”
“What is your denomination?”
“My what?”
“What church have you attended in the past?”
“Oh. Well, honestly, Your Honor, I’m not here about, uh, to inquire about attending your services and whatnot.”
“Oh,” he said sadly.
“You see, I’m inquiring about the break-in you guys had here a while back. This was two weeks ago, this happened.”
“Yes, I remember. Do you … do you have any information regarding …”
“Actually, I was hoping to get some information from you.”
“Are you with the authorities?”
I evaded the question. “The article in the local papers pointed out that nothing was stolen from the premises. Is that accurate?”
“Oh, yes. Nothing was taken.”
“How sure are you? All the crosses are accounted for, all the candles? Little things like that?”
“Yes, but … I have to wonder why you’re asking.”
“I don’t know if you’re familiar with the killings that have been going on …”
“Yes, as much as anyone else in Evelyn …”
“The break-in here happened the same night that Josie Jones went missing. The prostitute. On the night that Gloria Shaw, the first victim in Evelyn, disappeared, there was also a church break-in, with nothing taken. Allegedly. This was also the case over in Edenburgh. Don’t you think that’s odd?”
“I didn’t realize …”
“It’s a strong coincidence.”
“My,” he said. “It certainly is.”
“So, what I’m asking is, are you people sure that nothing was taken?”