****************************
Doxology
“Hey! Hey you! You can’t park there!
That’s my property!”
Minnie
Klein’s house sat on a small triangle of land caught in the arrowhead
intersection between Blaine and South Gary Streets; a little pointed bit of
lawn, a tiny garden in front of her front porch surrounded by a short stretch
of wire fencing, and an absurdly long, narrow house that ran to the very end of
the property. The back end of the
house was wide enough for a door and a window, and past that there was just
barely enough space for her to park her own car, an old green Toyota Celica
that looked like it had eczema.
She
guarded her tiny space like a lion.
“No Parking” signs were tacked up to the siding, “No Solicitors/No
Salespeople” signs at the front and back door, and now there was this man, this
intruder, parking his great big boxy Honda Element alongside her house, where
the trash cans were.
She
went up to the car at a trot, her face set in a scowl, ready to do battle for
territory. She rapped on the
window, and a face turned toward her that made her step back, made her forget
the angry demand that she’d been about to make.
The
man was middle-aged, blond, with wide hazel eyes that stared at her with an
expression of horrified despair.
Minnie had seen scared people, she’d seen angry people (plenty of those,
given her general approach to her fellow humans); she’d never seen anyone remotely like this. This
man’s eyes looked as if he had been gazing into the maw of hell.
The
door opened a little, and the man turned toward her, and the thought, Don’t
speak, please, mister, don’t talk to me,
went through her head, like a bird fluttering into a room and then out and
away.
But
the man spoke anyway.
“You’ve
got to help me,” he said, his voice quiet and strangely flat. “Help us. My son… he’s hurt.”
Minnie
looked past the man, and in the passenger seat she saw a boy of about
seventeen. He was shirtless, and
his smooth, well-muscled chest was bloodied from a cut that started just below
his collarbone. It went in a winding,
loopy curve, down between his nipples, ending just left of his navel. His breathing was shallow; he seemed to
be unconscious. His head lolled to
one side, but Minnie could see the outline of a handsome, clean-cut face, high
cheekbones, a straight, narrow nose.
Blood from his injury had trickled down his belly, soaked his jeans.
But
then the boy suddenly opened his eyes, and looked up at Minnie, a desperate
plea in eyes glazed with pain.
“Help me,” he whispered, and shifted a little in the seat. And Minnie saw, around his neck, a thin
gold chain, from which hung a crucifix.
Upside
down.
Then
the boy’s head drooped again, and his eyes half closed. A thin trickle of blood came from the
corner of his mouth.
Minnie
backed away, her mouth moving but making no sounds.
“Please,”
the man said. “Please. Call 911. You’ve got to help us.
I think… I think he’s dying.”
Minnie
turned and sprinted up her stairs as fast as her short legs would carry her,
flung open her front door, ran to the phone, and punched the three numbers so
hard one of her nails broke.
The
911 operator, a woman whose voice sounded as if she wouldn’t have had her
equanimity disturbed if Minnie had said that she’d seen someone with a nuclear
weapon, took her information and said that someone would be right out to
investigate.
Minnie
went to her living room window, and pushed aside the curtains, peering with one
eye out toward her garbage cans and where the man had been parked.
His
car was gone.
She
took an involuntary step back, and her hip collided with a plant stand, sending
an African violet in a clay pot crashing to the floor. Not even turning to look, she ran back
out onto her front porch, and looked down South Gary Street, in the direction
the Honda Element had been pointed.
The
street was empty.
She
trotted around to the other side of the house, panting with the exertion, and
looked down Blaine Street. It was
also empty of cars, but a bicycle was coming toward her, ridden by a girl in
her twenties, with flowing black curls coming from under a bright red helmet.
Minnie
watched the girl approaching, a stunned look on her face. The girl saw Minnie staring, and gave
her a wide grin, applied the hand brakes, and scrunched to a halt next to her.
“Did
you… did you see a blue car?” Minnie said, stumbling over the words. “A blue car, a big one, kind of an
SUV-looking thing, squarish?”
“Nope,”
the girl said cheerfully, tilting her head a little to the side. “Nobody much on the road today. It’s like everyone’s vanished.” She laughed. “Say, lady, speaking of people vanishing – you want to see a
magic trick?”
Minnie
stared at her as if she hadn’t understood, and then frowned, and shook her
head, her mouth open a little.
“No,” she said hoarsely.
“No,
somehow I didn’t think you would,” the girl said, and winked at her, and pushed
off down the street and soon was lost to view.
Minnie
was still standing there, staring down the empty street, when the police and
the ambulance arrived five minutes later.
She
was not someone who was ordinarily at a loss for words, but she found it
frustratingly difficult to explain to the police what had happened. The policeman who took her statement
was skeptical; the ambulance driver, on the other hand, was clearly pissed, and
after a brief sotto voce word with the
cop, drove off, giving Minnie a nasty glance in the rear-view mirror.
“How
long were you inside?” the cop said, his starch-pressed sleeve creaking
slightly as he set his clipboard into the crook of his elbow.
“It
couldn’t have been more than a minute,” she said.
“What
was the make and model of the car?”
“It
was a blue, whatchamacallum, Honda.
You know, the ones that look like toasters.”
“Element?”
“Yeah,
I think that’s right. And the guy,
the man driving – he looked really scared, like he’d just seen the devil
himself.” Minnie swallowed. “And the boy, his son… he had a
necklace on, with an upside-down crucifix.”
The
cop’s thick brows drew together, and he gave her an incredulous look.
“You
mean, like the satanic sign?”
“That’s
right.”
“Well,
lots of kids wear that shit nowadays.
Pardon my French.”
Minnie
let the vulgarity go. She stared the cop right in the eye, even though he was a good foot taller than she
was. “I’ll bet that most of them
kids don’t have knife wounds on them.”
“No,
you’re right about that,” the cop admitted.
“So
what are you gonna do about it?”
“You
sure…” He stopped, and
looked down at his clipboard.
“Mrs. Klein, you sure you’re
remembering this right? You
weren’t, maybe, dreaming all of this?
Like you’d just woke up from a nap, or something?”
Minnie
drew herself up angrily, and glared up at the cop. “I didn’t dream this,
because I wasn’t asleep. It happened, just the way I said.” She huffed a little. “And it’s Miss Klein.”
“Well,
okay, I’ll file a report. If the
guy’s kid was as bad off as you say, maybe the dad decided not to wait for the
ambulance, and tried to drive him to Colville General.”
Somewhat
mollified, Minnie signed the statement on the clipboard, and watched as the cop
got back in his car and drove off down South Gary Street.
She
stood there for almost ten minutes, lost in thought, and then she realized that
she hadn’t told the cop about the girl on the bicycle.
That
smile of hers, she thought. That knowing smile. She knew perfectly well what I was
talking about. I’ll bet she knew
where that man had gone. Maybe she
even had something to do with the boy getting hurt. She looked almost… diabolical.
Seized
with a sudden idea, Minnie turned, and walked back up the stairs and into her
house. In her living room she saw,
as if noticing it for the first time, the overturned African violet, but didn’t
stop to clean it up. She went
right to the telephone, and dialed a number.
It
was answered by a male voice after two rings.
“Hello?”
“Reverend
Lohr? It’s Minnie Klein.”
“Well,
how are you today, Minnie? It’s
nice to hear from you.”
“I’m
shook up, Reverend, and that’s a fact.
I need to ask you a question, and I want a straight answer.”
Reverend
Lohr didn’t respond for a moment, but finally said, “All right, Minnie, I’ll
answer if I can.”
“How
can you tell if you’ve seen one of Satan’s minions?”
Now
the pause was longer. “… I beg
your pardon?” he finally said.
“I
said, how can you tell if you’ve seen one of the minions of Satan? One of them, you know, junior
devils. You talk about ‘em at
services sometimes, how we’re to be on the lookout for the minions of Satan. Well, I’m pretty sure I just saw one,
and I want to know what to do about it.”
“Well,”
he said, “maybe you should tell me what happened, all right?”
Minnie
launched into an abbreviated account of her day’s encounter. “And I think,” she concluded, “that the
girl on the bicycle was a demon in disguise. She looked at me, like… I dare you to do anything about this.
I would have said a prayer, but I was so startled I didn’t have the
presence of mind even to think about it until she was long gone.”
“Well,
Minnie, I think it might be a little… premature to conclude that she was a demon in disguise,” Reverend Lohr said. “She didn’t actually do anything, did she?”
“No,”
Minnie admitted. “She just asked
me if I wanted to see a magic trick.”
“Maybe
she’s just some ill-mannered neighborhood kid, trying to tease you.”
“She
wasn’t a kid. She was, maybe,
twenty-five years old. And she
wasn’t teasing. I tell you,
Reverend, if you’d seen her, you’d know what I mean. She had the, how did you call it in your sermon a few weeks
ago? The veneer of evil. It was there, I tell you.”
Reverend
Lohr cleared his throat. “Well,
Minnie, whatever she was, I think you did the right thing to call the
police. And you should remember
the boy and his father in your prayers.
And I will, as well. If you
see her again, you be careful.
If…” He cleared his throat
again, in an embarrassed sort of way, “… if she was of the devil, then you
should be cautious about speaking to her.
The devil’s own have ways of bewitching you.”
Minnie
seemed gratified that the Reverend, at least, was taking her seriously, and
assured him that if she saw the girl again, she’d make sure to protect herself
by putting on the armor of Jesus.
The Reverend said that was all right, then, and told her to have a nice
day, and that he’d see her next Sunday.
Minnie
called the police four times that afternoon, to find out what they’d discovered
about the injured boy and his father.
No one, she was told, had seen or heard anything about anyone matching
that description, and Colville General hadn’t had any wounded teenage boy show
up in the emergency room. After
the fourth call, the receptionist assured Minnie that if they found out
anything more, they would let her know, and that she shouldn’t call them again
unless the boy or his father reappeared.
Minnie
hung the phone up in a huff, and decided that all she could do was to say a
prayer and leave it in God’s hands.
Later
that afternoon, she went to the grocery store. It was only three blocks away, and the weather was fine, so
she walked, crossing South Gary Street and then turning right onto Day Street. There were few cars out – the Bicycle
Girl’s words came back to her unwilling mind, Nobody much on the road
today. Seems like everyone’s
vanished. She gave a little shiver, and walked faster, even though the
sun was shining and a warm breeze was brushing her face. Something wrong, she thought.
There’s just something wrong about today. Ever since I saw that guy in the blue
car, there’s been something wrong, like looking at a wall where every picture
frame is tilted a little bit.
A
few yards ahead of her, an elderly man was walking an apricot-colored miniature
poodle on a long leash, and as she approached him, he looked up and smiled at
her. He was tall,
stoop-shouldered, and balding, wearing a rather threadbare plaid work shirt and
khaki slacks.
“Afternoon,”
he said, affably.
“How
are you today?” Minnie said. She
normally didn’t like to talk to strangers, but there didn’t seem to be much
choice but to respond to him in kind.
“I’m
fine, fine,” the man said. “It’s a
beautiful day for a walk.”
“Yes,
it is.”
“Only
I should have brought my sunglasses, it’s a bit bright out for me. My eyes are a bit wonky, you know.”
Minnie
looked up at the man’s eyes – and only then noticed that the pupils weren’t
round – they were slits, like a lizard’s eyes, like a goat’s eyes.
Minnie
came to a sudden halt; it felt like her feet wouldn’t move. “I…” she began, and then her brain
seemed to stop as suddenly as her feet had. She not only couldn’t form words, she couldn’t form a
coherent thought.
“Don’t
be put off,” the old man said, still smiling at her. “It’s a hereditary condition. My father was like this, too. Makes us sun-sensitive, you know – we’re far more
comfortable at night. Sorry I
startled you.”
Minnie
still didn’t respond, just stood there staring at the man, her mouth hanging
open a little.
“My,
I’m so sorry to have upset you. I
sometimes forget that people who aren’t used to me can be alarmed by my
appearance. Anyway, my apologies
for disturbing you. Have a nice
walk.”
He
passed her, and the poodle sniffed briefly at her leg, and then they went off
down Day Street. The man began
humming a tune, slightly off key, and it wasn’t until he turned the corner that
Minnie realized that the music was to the Doxology: “Praise God, from whom all
blessings flow, praise Him all creatures here below…”
Minnie
walked the rest of the way to the grocery store, moving like an automaton, and
returned home with her eggs and half-gallon of milk and can of coffee with
hardly any awareness of what she was doing.
Once
the groceries were put away, she called Reverend Lohr again.
“Reverend,”
she said, “it’s Minnie Klein again.”
“Well,
Minnie,” the Reverend said, his cheerfulness at receiving another call from her
seeming a little forced. “What can
I do for you?” His voice became
suddenly serious. “You didn’t…
didn’t see the girl again, did you?
Or that man or his son?”
“No.”
“No.”
“Oh,
good,” the Reverend said, obviously relieved.
“I
saw another one. A different
one. Another minion of Satan.”
Long
pause. “You did?”
“Yes.
It was an old man this time,
walking a poodle. He did the same
as the girl. He just came up to
me, like there was nothing in the world amiss. Then he smiled at me, and when I looked at him… he had eyes like a snake. You know, weird pupils, like slits.”
“Maybe
it was just a birth defect,” Reverend Lohr suggested.
“That’s
what he said.”
“Well, then…” Reverend Lohr began, and then stopped,
seeming hopeful that Minnie would fill in the rest of the sentence on her own.
“I
know what these people are,” she said, stubbornly. “And now, I’m beginning to think that man in the car might
have been a minion, too. Not just
the girl on the bicycle. And I’m
sure about the old man.”
“What…
what makes you think these people are minions of Satan?”
“What
else could they be?”
“Well,
they could just be ordinary people.”
“Snake’s
eyes, Reverend! Magic tricks! And an upside-down crucifix! That’s a satanic sign, I know it is, I
read about it.”
“It’s
just… well, the police didn’t find any sign of the boy, did they? Did they check with the hospital? And the girl on the bicycle, and the
old man with the dog… they didn’t threaten
you, or anything, right?”
Minnie
snorted impatiently. “No,
Reverend. The boy didn’t show up
at the hospital, and no one threatened me. I just know what I saw. I know what I felt.”
“I’m
not doubting you, Minnie, it’s just that… it’s just that you’d think that
demons would be a little more direct if
they were attacking you.”
“Cutting
up a boy is mighty direct, Reverend!” Minnie said. “That was horrible.
That poor child looked half dead.”
She paused. “Unless he was
a demon, too. Maybe both the man
and his son were. Maybe they were
visions sent by the Evil One. You
told us that that happens, in one of your sermons.”
“Well,
yes, but… why you? Why would the
devil trouble you?”
“He’s
always trying to trip up the Righteous,” Minnie said. “That’s what you said.”
“I’m
sure that’s true, but it just seems an odd way to go about it.”
“The
old man was humming the Doxology as he was walking away.”
“That’s
a strange thing for a demon to hum.”
“Didn’t
Jesus say that the devil can quote scripture for his own purpose?”
“I
think that was Shakespeare.”
“Oh. Well, still. I know what I saw, Reverend.”
“I’m
sure you do, Minnie. But I don’t
know what I can do about it.” He
paused. “I’ll say a prayer for
you,” he added, a little lamely.
“Well,
that’s all to the good. But I
think I might call the police if it happens again.”
“Maybe
that’s a good idea.”
“Thank
you, Reverend. See you next
Sunday.”
“Good
bye, Minnie.”
The
evening passed, and the night, without anything else odd happening.
The
next morning, Minnie got up early, and was vacuuming her living room carpet –
she was perturbed to notice that she hadn’t gotten all of the potting soil off
the rug from the African violet mishap the previous day – when the front
doorbell rang. She shut off the
vacuum, and went to the door and opened it.
Standing
on the front porch was a smiling woman in her forties, and next to her a girl
of about twelve in a Girl Scouts uniform.
“Would
you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?” the girl asked, in a nervous voice.
Minnie
scowled at them, and pointed to her sign.
“No salespeople,” she said.
The
mother’s smile dimmed a little.
“But, ma’am, it’s for Girl Scouts.
It’s a good cause.”
“Doesn’t
matter,” Minnie said. “It’s my
property, and I don’t want any salespeople coming here uninvited. Even kids. Especially kids.” Her brows drew together with
irritation. “And I don’t want any cookies. And I definitely don’t want to stand here discussing
this. It’s my property, and it’s
my right to invite who I want and keep out who I don’t want.”
The
woman’s smile vanished entirely.
“Well, okay, ma’am, I’m… I’m sorry we disturbed you. We’ll leave.” She held up her hands, in a gesture of acquiescence – and
Minnie saw, on the palm of her left hand, a small, fine tattoo, of an inverted
star.
Minnie
froze, her shock as complete as when she’d noticed the old man’s eyes the
previous day – but she forced herself to react. She drew a deep breath, her chest swelling with the
effort. “Demon!” Minnie shouted,
at the top of her voice. “Demons,
both of you! Get off my property
this instant, and leave me alone!”
The
woman looked at her, eyes wide with what seemed like honest astonishment at
Minnie’s outburst. The little girl
gave a terrified whimper. The
woman took a step back, and her left foot went off the top stair. She lost her balance, and with a little
cry of dismay, fell over backwards and tumbled down the cement stairs and into
the garden.
The
girl shrieked, and ran down toward her mother, who lay sprawled, face down,
across the wire fencing that ran around Minnie’s little square of flower
garden. “Mom?” the girl cried, and
tried to lift her mother’s body up.
The child looked up at Minnie, eyes wide with horror, and said, “Please,
you’ve got to help my mom!”
Minnie
ran down the stairs, and knelt beside the woman and partially lifted her up –
and then recoiled in terror.
The
low fence around her garden was supported by metal stakes, and the angled tops
of the stakes had impaled the woman through both hands, and into her right
side. The girl was still staring
at Minnie, but her expression had changed from one of shock to one of
reproach. Then the mother groaned,
and turned her head around toward Minnie – and with an effort pulled one hand
free of the stake that pierced it.
Blood splattered on the leaves of the petunias and snapdragons, crimson
onto green. The woman reached
toward Minnie with a hand slick with blood, and said, in a thick, slurry voice,
“Why? Why did you forsake me?”
And
Minnie collapsed to the sidewalk in a dead faint.
When
she came to – it could have been seconds, minutes, an hour later, there was no
way to tell – the girl and her mother were gone, and there was no trace of
blood on the metal stakes, or on the sidewalk.
“Reverend
Lohr?”
“Hello,
Minnie.” Reverend Lohr’s voice
sounded guarded. “How are you,
today?”
“Well,
frankly, Reverend, I’m pissed.
Pardon the expression.”
“About
what?”
“The
demons are back, and don’t be trying to tell me they’re not demons because they
are. This time it was a Girl Scout
and her mother. I told ‘em to get
off my property, and then the mother fell and kinda skewered herself on my
garden fence. And it was just
like, you know, the Lord’s wounds.
Through the hands and into the side.”
“Not
through the feet?”
“Not
that I saw. Maybe she forgot about
that part.”
“I
see.”
“Now
don’t you be ‘I see-ing’ me, and I mean no disrespect, Reverend. I’m being besieged by the Dark
Emissaries of Satan, and you need to help me.”
“Did
you call an ambulance after the woman hurt herself?”
“No. I fainted. And when I came to, she and her daughter were both
gone. And so was the blood.” She humphed a little. “I haven’t fainted in years. The
Good Lord knows, I’m not the fainting type. But it was just so dreadful. And Reverend, I just am not going to sit around here and let
the servants of Lucifer trouble me day in, day out.”
There
was a long pause, and finally Reverend Lohr said, “But, Minnie. Have they hurt you or threatened you in
any way?”
“No,
but they’ve come on my property three times and interrupted what should have
been a nice walk to the store once, and I’ll be damned if it’s going to continue.” She cleared her throat. “Pardon the expression,” she said
again.
“I
can understand that you must be upset…” the Reverend began, but there was a
knock on the door, and Minnie looked up.
Through the curtains on the front door, she could see a curly-haired boy
of college age, with an earnest, open face. He was peering into the house, his expression curious.
“Oh,
hell,” Minnie said. “They’re back.”
“They
are?”
“Yes. It’s a kid now. He just knocked on the door.”
“A
kid?”
“Yeah. Looks like he’s twenty or so. He wants to come in.”
There
was another pause, and Reverend Lohr said tentatively, “Does he look
dangerous?”
“No,”
Minnie admitted. “He’s got curly
hair and kind of a baby face. He
looks like my sister’s grandson, a little.”
“Maybe
he’s just a kid.”
“I
don’t know about that,” Minnie said doubtfully. “Everyone I’ve seen in the last couple of days has been a
minion of the Evil One. I can’t
afford to take any chances.”
“No,
I suppose not.”
The
boy knocked again, and shaded his eyes, and he saw Minnie looking at him, and
smiled. He mimed using the
telephone, and then shrugged his shoulders.
“I
think he wants to use the telephone,” Minnie said.
“Maybe
he had car trouble.”
“You
just don’t believe me, do you, Reverend?” Minnie said, her voice rising in
irritation. “I thought if anyone would…”
“It’s
not that I don’t believe you,” he
said. “It’s just that there might
be some other explanation. And
remember our Lord’s story of the Good Samaritan. He praised the Samaritan who helped the poor man who had
fallen to thieves. What if this
boy is someone who needs help?”
Minnie
looked up at the boy, who was still looking in through the window in the front
door. When his eyes met Minnie’s,
he smiled in a charming sort of way.
“Oh,
all right, Reverend, but be it on your head if he’s a demon.” She brightened. “Maybe I should have him talk to you.”
Reverend
Lohr cleared his throat. “Well,
all right, I suppose. Although I
don’t know what I could say to him.”
“Hang
on, Reverend.” Minnie set the
phone down, and went to the front door, and opened it.
The
boy was tall and slim, and was wearing a Syracuse University sweatshirt and
running shorts. He had a scraped
knee, and an apologetic expression.
“Hi,”
he said. “I wonder if I might use your
phone. I just had a little
accident with my bicycle, and I need to call my father to come pick me up.”
“I’m
on the phone myself, which you interrupted,” Minnie said. “But I’m talking to my minister. If you’ll talk to him, I’ll let you use
the phone after.”
The
boy’s smile faltered a little.
“Talk to him?”
“Yes. To assure him, and me, that you’re not
a demon from hell.”
The
boy’s eyebrows flew up. “A demon?”
“Yes.” Minnie picked up the phone handset and
held it out to him. “Here. You talk to Reverend Lohr.”
The
boy, looking mortified, took the handset from her, and held it to his ear, and
said, “Um… hello?”
All
she could hear was the boy’s side of the conversation; Reverend Lohr’s voice
was nothing but a tinny creak from the phone’s speakers.
“Yes,
I just happened to have a little accident on my bicycle in front of her house.”
“I
don’t know, I didn’t do anything but knock on her door.”
“I’ve
never seen her before in my life.”
“I’m
not sure.”
As
the one-sided conversation proceeded, Minnie glanced through the front door
that the boy had left open, and saw, out in the middle of Blaine Street, an
object that at first she couldn’t identify. Then she realized what it was. It was the remains of a bicycle – melted, fused, twisted
almost beyond recognition. A bit
of handlebar stuck up from the scalded metal, still with a charred plastic
handgrip attached. One wheel, its
rubber tire nearly liquefied, lay a little bit away, tilted against the
sidewalk.
Minnie
stared, and then slowly turned toward the boy, who was still standing there,
holding the telephone in one hand.
And
once again, their eyes met, and he smiled at her, and gave a noncommittal
little shrug.
A
half-hour later, Minnie was strapped, unconscious, to a gurney in the back of an
ambulance, on the way to Colville General Hospital.
“Who
called it in?” one of the paramedics said to his partner, as he pulled the door
shut behind him.
“She
was talking to her minister on the phone, I guess, and had some kind of
seizure. He called 911.”
“An
epileptic, you think?”
“Doesn’t
present like epilepsy,” he said.
“She’s just plain unconscious now.
Vitals are all in the normal range.”
The
driver started up the siren, and pulled out onto Blaine Street, his red lights
flashing.
“It’s
a blessing she was talking to someone on the phone when it happened,” the first
paramedic said.
The
second paramedic nodded, and then grinned. “Praise the Lord, eh?”
The
first paramedic chuckled. “Exactly
what I was thinking,” he said.