Seth Adams - Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Reggie continued.

‘Dad used to say that he was confused much of his life,’ Reggie said. ‘That he never knew quite where his life was going. As a kid in school he got Cs and Bs, completely average, never excelled at anything. He didn’t play any sports. Didn’t do any after-school stuff either.’

Ivan nodded.

‘I’ve been there before,’ he said. ‘Confused.’

‘He said his parents were worried,’ Reggie said, ‘but didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t like their son was misbehaving or falling in with the wrong crowd or anything like that. So they couldn’t yell at him or punish him or nothing.’

‘So they left him be?’ the killer asked.

‘Yeah,’ Reggie continued. ‘He got through high school, did some college, but eventually dropped out. He went from job to job, worked at just about everything a man could work at. Construction, retail, clerical; he even went back home at one point and did nothing but volunteering, living off Grandma and Grandpa again, saying there wasn’t any point in making money.’

‘But none of it made him happy?’ Ivan asked.

‘No,’ Reggie said, shaking his head.

‘And how’d he come about finding God?’ the killer asked.

Reggie searched the man’s tone for any sense of mocking or contempt, but found none. The gut shot man seemed genuinely interested, but Reggie kept watching, intent, wary of the man and interested also.

‘Dad used to tell me Grandma and Grandpa were what he called social Christians,’ Reggie said. ‘They went to church because that was what people were supposed to do. But they never really talked about church stuff, never went to any functions. There was a Bible around the house that found itself moving from table to table, shelf to shelf, but no one ever read it.’

The killer was like a child at a campfire ghost story, rapt and attentive.

The words came easier than Reggie would have thought, talking to a stranger about his dad. Almost as if they had always been there, waiting to be said.

‘Until one day Dad did,’ Reggie said. ‘He read it cover to cover on his time off from jobs or volunteering. Then when he was done, he read it again. The third time through he started taking notes, cross-referencing things he read.’

Ivan was nodding again.

‘I’ve known people like that before,’ the killer said. ‘Get caught up in religion. Only to give it up again.’

Reggie nodded.

‘That’s what Dad said too,’ he said. ‘He’d talked to co-workers, heard people at church or in public praising God for everything from cancer remission to baseball games. And that’s why he never really took it seriously as a kid.’

The killer nodded his agreement.

‘Then he read the book for himself,’ Reggie said. ‘And things changed. He said much of the scripture made no sense at first. But some of it did. And as he kept reading and rereading, more of it did.’

Reggie paused, looking at the killer. The expression on the man’s wan face seemed pensive, attentive, and Reggie waited for the big man to ask a question or say something. When he didn’t, Reggie continued.

‘Eventually, Dad said, it got to where the more he learned, the more it seemed there was to learn. Frustrated but committed, he figured he’d try to strip it down to the basics. He figured the most important stuff had to be what the faith was named after. So he started to focus on the Gospels, the things Jesus said.’

‘I’ve listened to that sort before,’ the killer said, almost speaking over Reggie. ‘Jesus this and Jesus that. How we’re all sinners and it’s the grace of God that saves us. How there’s an end to things coming and a new thing starting.’

‘What do you think of it?’ Reggie asked, cautiously, hearing a note of annoyance in the big man’s voice.

‘I told you before,’ the killer said, and Reggie remembered. ‘I’ve had people pray to God before I killed them, and a few pray for me. Ain’t nothing changed the outcome of what happened. Just me and my gun and the silence after.’

Reggie propped his chin in his hands, thinking about this. He was thinking of his dad and there was some of the old hurt. He was thinking of things his dad used to say, and weighing them without really doing so. Just kind of letting the memories float about smoke-like.

‘Let me guess,’ the killer said, breaking the brief silence. ‘Your dad studied, prayed, and eventually started his own ministry?’

‘Yeah,’ Reggie said.

‘How’d he die?’ Ivan asked, startling Reggie with the sudden change in the conversation. Though this was where it had been heading the whole time, Reggie realized, and he’d just been taking a detour. Sightseeing before he got to the destination.

Taking a breath, Reggie told him.

‘One of his parishioners shot him,’ he said, meeting the man’s eyes.

The killer’s response came quickly but calmly, not missing a beat. Almost as if he’d had such a response planned for a long time.

‘I guess that just about says all that needs to be said about God,’ the killer said.

‘I guess it does,’ Reggie said, then fell quiet.

He stared at the walls of the tree house and the whirly patterns in the wood. He stared at the floor too. The killer said nothing as well. They stayed that way for awhile, high up in the little house, silent with their thoughts in a place all their own.

The sheriff’s department came around about an hour later. The white and green Ford could be seen over and through the trees from their perch in the tree house, crawling up the road at a leisurely pace.

Reggie moved for the ladder and Ivan grabbed him by the arm.

‘Remember our arrangement,’ he said, not a question but a statement.

Reggie nodded.

‘In my line of work,’ he said, ‘there’s consequences for breaking your word.’

Reggie didn’t remember actually giving his word about anything, but nodded again anyway. Then he was moving down the ladder and emerging from the woods and jogging back to the house across the dry field of the front yard. A slight summer breeze stirred things and made a whisper in the air over the expanse. He walked in the back door just as his mom was leaving the kitchen to check on the sound of the car pulling up out front.

He watched from the hall as she opened the screen door and stepped out on the porch to greet the man walking up. The cadence of heavy boots pounding up the steps to meet her sounded like heartbeats.

‘Good morning ma’am,’ the man said. Through the mesh of the screen door he was a vague form with a wide-brimmed hat and a gun belt. ‘I’m Deputy Collins,’ said the man and they shook hands.

The voice was familiar and Reggie wanted to reach out and pull his mom back inside and lock the door behind her.

‘Good morning, officer,’ his mom replied. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘We’re driving around notifying nearby residents about a situation,’ the deputy said. How the same voice that had tauntingly asked You know what rape is, kid? could now disguise itself with civility, was beyond Reggie.

Such a trick seemed dangerous to him. Something a predator did to lull its prey into a false sense of security. Just before it flashed its claws and dragged the hunted into a dark den.

‘What situation would that be?’ his mom asked. Interest rather than concern tinged his mom’s voice. Serene calm or outbursts of emotion when he was late home for something or wasn’t where he was supposed to be were her only two moods since his dad had died. One or the other. Nothing in between.

That was almost as troubling to Reggie as the deputy’s dual personalities.

‘Not to cause any alarm, ma’am,’ the deputy began, ‘but it seems there’s a dangerous man on the loose.’