Chapter Thirty-Two – Faith

 

Off to the west, the sun was beginning to move down across the sky. There were only a few hours left before it found the end of its dutiful trajectory. The shadows had begun their languid stretch across the yard, their ends reaching out as they grasped more and more of the land with each passing minute. Had we already spent that much time here?

Really?

“Dr. Lawrence?” I asked as I walked out onto the front porch. “What are you doing here?”

Still wearing his suit from work that day, he stood there in the front yard with his hands clasped behind his back, eyeing me like a disappointed father about to lecture his daughter for staying out all night with “those types of boys.” The grass came up to his knees, seeming to twist and writhe around his legs in the light breeze. Behind him, his dusty Cadillac was parked beside Sam’s Camaro, a hulking and bulbous thing compared to the old example of Detroit steel.

“I should ask the same thing, Faith, shouldn’t I?”

“Eb Shook called you, didn’t he?”

His cheek twitched a little, like he was trying to hold something back. “Does it matter how I found out?”

“No,” I admitted. “I guess not.”

He took a step towards me, sniffled a little bit as he stood up straight, and pushed his shoulders back a little as he peered up at me. “So you’ve come out here to do what? To vandalize this old house? Is that what kind of person you are, now?”

I took a step back and made a face. “What? Why would you think that?”

As I spoke, the medallion around my neck, the Hand, began to grow warm, began to irritate my skin again with its heat.

“Well, what other reason could there be? You’re out here, on a piece of property that doesn’t belong to you, trespassing. That front door looks like it was locked, and you came right out from there. So what other choice do I have but to think it?”

“I wasn’t vandalizing anything, Dr. Lawrence. I promise.” I paused, licking my lips and trying to come up with something. After all, I’d told Sam I was going to try and distract my boss. “Look, it’s not like that at all. I just, I’d gotten to talking with Eb’s son Ike, and he told me about this place, that’s all. And I was curious, so I came out here.”

He paused, seeming to consider my words for a brief moment. I could tell from the look on his face, though, that he wasn’t buying it.

“That’s all it was, Dr. Lawrence,” I continued. “I swear.”

“Well, what if someone heard about this? Have you considered how it would affect where you work? How it would affect me?”

I crossed my arms. “Well, it’s not like I’m here instead of at the morgue. Today was my day off, and I can do what I want with my time.”

“No,” he said, “you’re right. But, I only hired you, Faith, because I thought you were a decent, upstanding member of the community. Because I thought I could trust you. And what do you end up doing? Coming out here to go gallivanting around in someone else’s home. It’s not right.”

I frowned, turning away from him. He took a few steps closer to the porch, the grass rustling as he passed through it. I turned back to him and caught a look in his eyes. Something that was lively, but cold.

Suddenly, I had a flashback to the day before in the morgue, when Sam had first arrived on the scene. To Dr. Lawrence staring off into space as I walked into his office, of that vacancy in his eyes like someone had just broken the lease and up and moved out without notice to the landlord. In my mind, I replayed the sound of his teeth clicking together as he situated himself.

And, on my chest, the amulet grew hotter still. I’d be damned if I was going to take it off, though, especially not after what had happened the last time I’d removed it.

He took another step closer. Then another. “Faith,” he said, his voice low. “You need to get out of here. We need to get you out of here, and back home. This place isn’t safe for you.”

I wasn’t sure how, but somehow I knew something wasn’t right with him. No, something was off. Wrong. My palms suddenly felt clammy and moist as I began to sweat from the nerves. On my chest, the amulet burned hot, like a mug of coffee on a cold winter night. Not quite scalding, but certainly not comfortable.

I took a step back, the porch’s rotting boards creaking a warning beneath my feet. “Dr. Lawrence,” I asked in a slightly trembling voice, “are you feeling all right?”

“Of course I’m feeling all right, Faith. Are you feeling okay? You’re the one who’s acting out of character. Not me. I’m just fine, dear. I’ve never felt better.”

No, something was wrong. Definitely wrong. The way he moved was nothing like the Dr. Lawrence I’d grown to respect over the last few months. There was no slight hunch to his shoulders, and an edge to his voice instead of an aged rasp.

“O-O-Okay,” I said, taking another step back, my hands reaching out behind me for the front doorknob. “Well, I promise, I’ll get out of here soon. All right?”

He took another step forward, a longer stride than he’d normally take with his shuffling, old-man steps. “Are you sure?” he asked, glancing back over his shoulder. “I can give you a ride. I know that’s not your car there, Faith. I can take you home right now, if you’d like.”

“No,” I replied, my voice suddenly having more in common with a dog’s squeaking chew toy than my normal one. I cleared my throat, tried again. “No. I promise, I’ll be fine.”

“It’s that reporter, isn’t it?” he asked, taking another step closer. Just a few more feet, and he’d be stepping up onto the porch. He’d be up there with me.

My hand, having continued to flail, finally landed on the doorknob. “What reporter?”

“The newspaper reporter,” he said, stepping up onto the bottom step, “from yesterday. Don’t tell me you don’t remember. I saw the way you looked at him, how you walked outside to meet him after I’d turned him away. I know you went to get a cup of coffee with him soon after.”

“Oh,” I squeaked again, “that one.”

He stopped on the step, locked his eyes on me. They were icy, distant. Maybe it was just the time of day, or the fact that we were actually outside, but they seemed darker than I remembered. As dark as the tarred blacktop of a Texas highway, or the night sky on a moonless night.

“Do you think I’m stupid, Faith?” he asked. “Is that why you’re pretending like this? Because you think you can get away with something?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied, my hand still on the knob.

“Faith,” he said as he took the next step. One more and he’d be on the same level as I was. This close, the wrinkles on his face looked like the rifts and valleys of a topographical map of the Rockies. Deep ravines that seemed to go all the way down to the bone. He smiled, making them even more pronounced. “Faith,” he said. “Faith, Faith, Faith.”

“Wh-wh-what?” I asked, my hand still on the knob.

He was close enough now that I could practically smell his breath as he spoke. He took another step up, a slow and methodical step that seemed to take ages as his dress shoe fell to the old wood of the porch. “It amazes me,” he began, looking right at me with those cold eyes of his, “that you think I’d be so gullible as to believe your thinly veiled excuse for being out here. Think I can’t put two and two together? That I can’t see through your little lies? Come now, Faith, don’t underestimate me quite that badly.”

“Really, sir,” I said, my hand grasping the knob tighter, “I don’t know what you mean.”

I didn’t want to go in there, not with him. Not with Dr. Lawrence, or with Sam inside getting set to light the place on fire. But, with the way he was acting, I might not have any other choice, and I knew it.

“I think you do, Faith. I think you do. I saw you with him in the morgue last night. Saw you two as you burst in on me and my master’s other servant, as you chased after us as we tried to dispose of Eb Shook’s pig.”

“That was you?” I asked, shaking my head. “But why? And how?”

“Oh, Faith. There’s more in this world than a man’s mind can hold, or even believe. And now, I’m part of it.”

My breath nearly caught in my throat. “Dr. Lawrence,” I said, pushing back on the door behind me in an effort to get away from him, “I think you should go. You’re really, really freaking me out.”

“But why, Faith? Don’t you want to see what my master has to offer?” And that was when, faster than any man Dr. Lawrence’s age had any right to move, he lunged at me.

I was so shocked, all I could do was scream.