Quarrel with the Moon Page 13

  A swarm of copperheads, rattlesnakes, blacksnakes and garter snakes constituted all that was left of the congregation of the Holiness Church of Sweet Jesus Savior.

  Several were draped from the rafters like morbid party decorations. Others wound around moldering songbooks like satanic rosaries. Still others clustered together in unholy wreaths.

  Reverend Hooper ascended the steps to the pulpit. A copperhead unwound with intricate grace and slid away, allowing him access to his Bible. He opened the brittle book to St. Matthew. A waterstain, like a dark yellow birthmark, blemished the pages. The preacher cast his watery eyes downward. He recognized the section only by the number of letters in its name in the upper right-hand corner. The reverend recited from memory, often paraphrasing the passages to suit his feelings of the moment. The shocking events of the past years had so scrambled his mind that he could no longer read.

  He parted his cracked lips and spoke in a hoarse, fanatic voice. "An' I say! For where three or four of you are gathered together here in My name, then I am here in the midst of you." He scanned his congregation, and his distorted memory filled the pews with people. "Yea, Lord. There are spirits that are created for vengeance an' in their fury they lay on grievous torments. I say that they are the enemy of God an' must be scattered!"

  As he preached, the reverend punctuated his words with vigorous gestures. He slapped his hands together, balled them into fists and struck his cheeks. He pulled at his shoulder-length hair and stamped down the steps of the pulpit. The serpents, long used to the preacher's histrionics, did not stir. His words became a choked babble, as he began to hop about the church on one foot. The snakes, pointing their seed-like eyes at him, darted out of his way. Some hissed and struck at the preacher's heavy boots, angry at being disturbed.

  "I will rise again in glory and they will reap the punishment of their iniquity!"

  Reverend Hooper had once been a tall man, broad-shouldered and roughly handsome. Now he was stooped, thin as a starved bird; all vestiges of his good looks had long since disappeared. His pallid skin looked repulsive and artificial. His hair, knotted and unwashed, grew about his head in rank profusion and intermingled with the matted hair of his beard. It was hard to tell where one left off and the other began. He had the wild eyes of a fallen saint ... vacant, opaque, the pupils cast up as if waiting to be imprinted with the image of paradise.

  He wore a pair of bib overalls, foul with sweat and mottled with food stains, a white shirt now as yellow as old ivory, a string tie, and a jacket whose seams sprouted black threads.

  In one sense, Reverend Hooper had descended into hell on the night of September twelve, nineteen seventy and four. In another, his ruination had begun many years earlier.

  ***

  There had been a burial on that September day in 1974. Wilma Gillespie's favorite child, Fern, twelve years old and an epileptic, had died, when she suffered a convulsion. There had been no one to help her and she had choked on her own tongue. Following the funeral, the preacher had attended the grieving mother for the remainder of the afternoon and well into the evening. Then, exhausted, he had gone to the church to pray for the young girl, as he had promised Fern's mother and father.

  The interior of the church had reeked of flowers and something else - the scent of death. Fern's distraught mother had refused to give up her child to the earth, and it wasn't until the granny women had talked to her that she agreed to let her daughter be buried. Bodies were not embalmed in the mountains. Because of the delay, the casket had to be closed and sealed. Still, the air had become permeated with the unmistakable smell of the dead.

  He took a long swallow from the bottle of Reuben's strong blend which he carried with him for "medicinal purposes." Then he knelt and began to pray for Fern's immortal soul. The alcohol helped work up his fervor.

  "Sa-weet Je-sus! Take this little gal unto your bosom. Amen. Praise the Lord an' Hallelujah! Take little Fern an' set her right next to You on Your golden throne." He took another sip from the bottle, which he set on the floor. Perspiration coursed down his face. The bandanna came loose and fell to the floor, which was littered with flower petals like so many split communion wafers. He reached for his bandanna, swabbed his brow and raised his mighty voice again.

  "You remember, Fern, Lord? The youngest gal on the Ridge to find salvation an' give testimony. Only twelve years old, Lord, an' she knew enough to test her faith in You. An' they shall take up serpents, an' they shall speak with new tongues an' in Thy name they shall cast out devils!"

  Fern had given her testimony only a few weeks before her death. Too tall for her age, elbows jutting, wrists thin and angular, frizzy red hair framing a valentine face - Fern had eased her way down the aisle toward the preacher, toward the rattlesnakes coiled around his arms. Her eyes were rolled back in her head, as if she was having one of her fits, but her expression was serene.

  The choir started up the upbeat mountain version of "Gimme That Old Time Religion"; the worshippers, gathered in a crescent around the preacher, clapped and praised and pressed close together.

  Fern approached Reverend Hooper and calmly placed her bare arm next to his. The rattler uncoiled and swiftly wrapped itself around her wrist. Fern was transfixed. Hallelujahs and amens burst from the congregation. The preacher's voice boomed out: "An' a little child, I say, a little child shall lead them!"

  It had been a memorable testimony, and the preacher had recalled it on the night of her funeral with swelling pride. "Her soul was purified, Lord. Amen. I know. You will stretch forth Your hand and take Your anointed one. Fern Gillespie was a true believer."

  An unearthly howl interrupted the preacher's prayers for Fern. He gave a violent start. The stench of corruption, hideously evocative, was overpowering.

  He rose to his feet. The sound had come from outside the stained-glass window overlooking the graveyard.

  A series of howls more like mocking laughs erupted outside. The preacher pressed his face against the glass. He could see nothing but the bright moonlight outside, now turned a ghastly shade of green by the glass. He looked up at the face of Christ. He would be able to see through that lightly tinted oval. He dragged the stepladder from behind the organ, set it by the window, and started to climb. Terror shook his body. Why did fear consume him? The preacher was not a coward. Indeed, little on the earth caused him trepidation. When he reached the top rung he pressed his face against the face of Christ.

  Had God been toppled from his throne? Had Satan's messengers been released from the burning pits to plague the living?

  Creatures - their bodies covered with hair, their limbs grotesquely misshapen, their faces masks of degeneracy - had dug up the grave of Fern Gillespie, dragged her body from its resting place and were dancing around it. Shredded and bloodied and only partially covered by her communion dress, Fern had been placed on a fallen tombstone. They were devouring parts of her.

  The preacher opened his mouth to cry for help, but no words came out. Who would have answered? In that moment he lost his faith. God had deserted His earth. Reverend Hooper pulled his face away from the window and retched, but his body found no relief in sickness. He knew that he should tear the cross from the wall, march into the graveyard and defy them. But he was gripped by fear unlike anything he had ever experienced. The mocking howls reverberated throughout the church and chilled the preacher to the very marrow of his bones. Try as he might; he could not quit the scene. His eyes were drawn back to the graveyard. He watched, his mind crumbling with horror, through the rest of the night.

  Toward dawn the creatures dispersed and their hold over the preacher was broken. He climbed down the ladder and crouched at the foot. He stayed there, shivering, until the sun was in the center of the sky.

  In the years after Fern's death, his torments had continued - strange birthings, violent deaths and hideous night sounds of digging in the graveyard. Graves were ripped asunder, bodies withered and atrophied were desecrated and sometimes devoured. And there were the orgie
s - unholy couplings of the things upon the gravesites.

  Ashamed of his cowardice and his loss of faith, the preacher had closed the doors of the Holiness Church of Sweet Jesus Savior and became an outcast in the community, an object of ridicule. He was pressed into the bitter role of "Sin-Eater." When someone in the community died, the Sin-Eater had to be the first to enter the house after the dead was laid out. He had to eat a bit of each dish provided for the wake. Symbolically, he was eating the sins of the dead.

  One night his house burned down, whether by accident or plan Reverend Hooper never knew. It mattered little. He had already adopted the church as a shelter. He existed on food which the older members of his dispersed congregation left on the church steps. He never bathed. He rarely left the sanctity of his own madness.

  Now the only human inhabitant of the Holiness Church returned to the ladder. He was watching for some sign that would tell him that God had returned to the Ridge and had driven away the infidels of the night. Balancing himself on the top of the ladder, his eyes fixed on the unmoving eyes of Christ, he began to sing in a wavering voice, "Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound, come save a wretch like me!"

  At the melody the serpents stirred. They began moving rhythmically, in time to the preacher's voice.

  ***

  Cresta and Josh reached the site of the coal mine just before noon. The tunnels and shafts had been boarded up. A ruined trestle, a damaged and rusting bulldozer, and a section of track were all that testified that the mine had existed. Deep fissures in the mountainside, washed deeper by rain, resembled great, angry scars.

  Josh and Cresta sat in the shadow of the trestle and ate a lunch of hard-boiled eggs, cheese and iced tea, plus butter-and-jam sandwiches.

  "You'd think they'd put up some sort of a memorial or something," said Cresta. "I mean, all those men who died here...."

  "They probably wanted to forget it," said Josh. He glanced up at the tipple. "Thank God Dad got that job in Morgantown, where there were better schools and a university, or I might have very well ended up working right here."

  Cresta shuddered. "What a life, digging in the ground. It makes a man old before his time."

  Josh laughed. "What do you know about mining, love?"

  "I read, you know. And I see movies. Remember watching How Green Was My Valley on television?" Josh shook his head. "That's right. You were out that night." It had been one of those nights when Josh hadn't come home until dawn. She pushed the unpleasant memory out of her mind. "In a way, I'm glad the mine didn't continue. It would have ruined the beauty of the setting."

  "We'd better get going," said Josh, swinging his backpack into place.

  Cresta groaned. "How far is it to the river?"

  "Not far. Look down there, through the trees. You can see it winking in the sun."

  "I don't see anything."

  "You will, love, you will."

  An hour later they had reached the Cheat River. It sparkled as if in reward for their efforts. Despite their exhaustion, they were exhilarated by the beauty of the river. They broke into a run and at the river's edge knelt to splash cool water on their faces. "How long did it take us, Josh?"

  He looked at his watch. "It's nearly two. God, we've been hiking for more than five hours." Cresta touched Josh's arm. They looked at each other and smiled; she realized that she had experienced more pleasure in being with him today than she had since the early weeks of their courtship.

  "I think I see the mound," cried Cresta, pointing down the river. "See there, to the right? It sort of looks like a giant Reese's Cup."

  "That has to be it," agreed Josh, shading his eyes against the sun. "But I don't see the camp."

  "It's probably further on, behind those Christmas trees." Josh grinned at Cresta's catchword for every evergreen, but he was uneasy. Harry was a man of convenience. He would not have made camp far from the subject of investigation.

  On their way downstream they came upon some blackberry bushes and stopped to sample a few berries.

  "I wish I had something to put them in," said Cresta. "We could take some to Harry and his assistants. What are their names, anyway?"

  "Ted Dwyer and Amy Parrish," replied Josh. "A very nice young couple."

  "A boy and girl?" queried Cresta.

  "Isn't that the usual setup?"

  She began laughing. "For God's sake, and I always accuse you of being chauvinistic. I assumed that they were both men."

  The sun had sunk to the treetops when the couple reached the area which had been the campsite. Josh was puzzled as he looked around the clearing. "They would have set up here, Cresta, near the burial mound. That inlet in the river would have been a perfect place to moor the canoes."

  "Perhaps they moved," suggested Cresta. "Maybe they shifted to those trees beyond the mound."

  Aggravated, Josh kicked at the sandy earth. His foot uncovered the remains of a campfire. He knelt down and examined the rocks and the partially burnt wood. "They were here, all right. It had to be them." At that moment, almost as a confirmation of his suspicions, a sudden breeze from the river lifted a scrap of paper and sent it spinning through the air. Like a bird it first dipped and then glided over the campsite. Josh caught it. "What's this?" he muttered and turned the paper over. "Hmmmm, Mail Pouch Tobacco." He looked at Cresta. "That's Harry's brand."

  "You mean he chews tobacco?"

  "Only when he's in the field. He worries too much about forest fires to smoke." Josh smiled. "That's the way good old Harry is."

  They looked over the ground and found other evidence that the group had been there - a bright hair ribbon, a razorblade caked with soap and stubble, and a page torn from a paperback novel.

  "Well, that proves it," Josh said at last. "They were here. But where the hell did they get to?" An insinuating kind of fear crept into his thoughts. What would have caused the group to move on? Had it been something related to the mutant skull and bones? He wanted to take Cresta into his confidence, but decided that there was no need to upset her unnecessarily.

  They approached the mound. The ladder was lying there; Josh picked it up and secured it in position. Then he climbed to the top of the mound, made his way across the boards and looked around. "No sign of them. They must have been recalled by the institute. We must have just missed them, damn it."

  Cresta sat on a pile of stones at the base of the mound, flexing her tired feet. Behind her, the wall of the mound shifted beneath Josh's weight as he started down the ladder. She didn't look around. Thus she missed seeing a crack appear at the top edge of the mound; powdery, dry earth began to trickle downwards. As the rent in the mound deepened, Harry Evers' grasping hand, stiff with rigor mortis, seemed to push through the earth.

  Below, Cresta went to hold the ladder steady. "What are we going to do now, Josh?"

  "Well, it's sure as hell we can't start back tonight, love. Avarilla was right. I'm tired, and I know you are. And I wouldn't want to try finding my way in the dark."

  "But where will we sleep, Josh?"

  "We brought blankets. We'll sleep beneath the stars. Isn't that what you wanted?"

  "The prospect seemed more romantic in New York."

  "Let's just hope it doesn't rain. When we get back to the Ridge I'll have to drive down to Jericho Falls, call New York and find out what's going on. But right now I'd better see to dinner." He grinned. "I said we'd get in a little fishing."

  "But we don't have any fishing poles."

  "I brought some line and tack. I'll cut a straight branch and put one together Huck Finn style."

  "What can I do?"

  "We'll need a campfire. You can gather some medium-sized stones and some dry twigs."

  Getting into the spirit of the adventure, Cresta headed off towards the woods. She passed the burial mound. The dirt had continued to trickle down, and Harry's hand was fully exposed, but Cresta didn't notice.

  By twilight, freshwater bass, which had been slathered in clay, were baking on the coals. A bottle of wine was
chilling in the rapids.

  "You amaze me, Josh," complimented Cresta. "I didn't know you were such an outdoors boy."

  "Dad used to take me on fishing trips. It's good to know you can still live off the land."

  "You sound like Aunt Avvie."

  "I guess I do."

  They dined with gusto on the fish and the wine. Afterwards Cresta asked, "How's the water? Is it warm enough to bathe in?"

  "If you take a deep breath first," replied Josh.

  Josh and Cresta stripped out of their clothing, just as Ted and Amy had done, and went to the river to bathe.

  Beneath the trees near the burial mound, shadows shifted and moved. They crept forward for a better view of the couple in the water.

  Josh and Cresta emerged from the river. As they walked toward their fire the night air, still warm with the day, caressed their bodies and dried them. They hid their blanket down on a bed of leaves, and pulled the other one over them. "Josh," breathed Cresta, her pink tongue passing quickly across her lips, "make love to me."

  "I intend to." Josh leaned on his elbow and looked at Cresta's alluring body. In the soft light of the moon her skin was alabaster white. His eyes moved from the rose-tipped mounds of her jutting breasts down to her flat stomach to the small blond triangle between her rounded thighs. His breath came in sharp, quick gasps.

  A tremor passed through Cresta's body as the tip of his tongue flicked over her nipples. She turned to Josh and pressed her pelvis against his. The leaves, shifting with the weight of their bodies, made delightful crunching sounds as they thrust their hips against one another.

  The act of making love outdoors (something they had never done) stimulated their senses and released their inhibitions. Cresta demanded more fervor, more passion, than Josh had ever given her before. Josh, in response, gripped Cresta's waist and roughly entered her. Cresta's legs tightened around him and she emitted a long wailing cry of ecstasy.

  Gleaming ghosts in the silver moonlight, they stood at the edge of the forest. At the sensual sounds they gathered closer together, nuzzled and bit at one another. Saliva dripped from their jaws. Their legs trembled with excitement, their muscles coiled and they seemed to grow bulkier. The females knelt to allow the males to mount them. An acrid odor of musk emanated from the group.