Darrell Gene"s carpet was a mess. It was stiff with dried blood and black ichor. The state of his house, however, hardly mattered anymore. He was a different creature-barely even human. The world and the air were his domain, not some quaint little brick house in the middle of suburban America.
A pile of wet skin lay behind the recliner. Some of it he"d cut away with the pocket knife, and some he"d sloughed off like a snake. He"d torn away the rest in his haste to rid himself of every last trace of humanity.
All that remained of the old Darrell Gene were his green eyes. The rest of him was covered in glistening black scales. Parchment thin wings covered in maroon feathers folded behind him, eager for the chance to stretch and take flight. His breath stank of sulfur and rotten meat.
He was a monster, and now he embraced that fact.
And monsters, of course, were supposed to do monstrous things.
He looked in the mirror and studied himself in amazement. Never in a million years would he have guessed that this was his true ident.i.ty.. He tried to remember the war in Heaven, the moment when he"d been thrown out of the Eternal City. He couldn"t though: the amnesia was extensive.
"You"re one of us," the wingless angel had told him. "Part of our family." Now he knew it was the truth.
Unsure of how to act now that he was no longer human, Darrell Gene spent the next couple of hours ransacking his house, practicing the fine art of destruction. He ripped the couch apart with yellowed talons. He gouged holes in the sheet rock with the curved horns that jutted from his forehead. He cracked the ceramic tile in the kitchen with his cloven hooves. He crumbled the washer and dryer into wadded b.a.l.l.s of metal with his overlarge hands. He was just about to reduce the kitchen table to kindling when he heard a knock at the door.
Darrell Gene panicked for a moment, wondering if he should hide from his visitor. Then he remembered who he was. What he was.
He didn"t need to hide from anyone now.
The potted plant in the hallway wilted and began to rot as he pa.s.sed by on his way to the door. He narrowed his eyes when he saw Carl Beckett knocking again. The man was whistling a melancholy tune this time. It sounded like a hymn.
Darrell Gene flung open the door, fully expecting to send the good Christian into cardiac arrest. Carl merely smiled at him and offered his hand in greeting.
"Hi, Mr. Rankin. I was just driving through and thought I"d pay you a little visit. I received another note, and I think that must be the Lord"s way of putting you on my mind. Is this a bad time?"
"No, it"s not a bad time at all." Darrell Gene spoke in a deep, booming voice that scarcely resembled the one he"d grown accustomed to. "Won"t you come in?"
"I"d love to." Carl stepped over a ratty heap of yellow foam that had been ripped from the guts of Darrell Gene"s recliner.
If he noticed that the house was a wreck, Carl gave no indication. He simply found a place to sit amidst the couch springs and sheet rock dust and waited for Darrell Gene to have a seat as well.
"Did you have a chance to think about our conversation?"
"I did," Darrell Gene sharpened his claws on what was left of the recliner"s upholstery. "But I don"t think church is right for me. I"m different than most."
"Different? How?" Carl looked him in the eye. "You"ve sinned. You want to be loved. You want to be forgiven for all the bad things you"ve done in your life. You"re just like everyone else. You just don"t want to admit it."
"Don"t you see me?" Darrell Gene wondered why Carl hadn"t noticed his black skin, his talons, his wings.
"Sure, I see you. And please don"t take offense, but all I see is someone who needs G.o.d"s love. That"s what we all need. You"re no different in that respect than anyone else."
"I"m a monster!"
Carl smiled again. This time it was a smile of understanding. "Darrell Gene, all of us have done things that we think are unforgivable. We listen to the world and give in to the flesh and we sin. That"s the condition we"re born into, but Jesus died to atone for those sins. There isn"t a single thing you"ve done that"s so bad that His blood can"t cover it. When you repent from your sins and accept Jesus Christ as Savior, those sins are gone. Forgotten. And you"re a new creature."
Darrell Gene stared intently at Carl, wondering if the man could really see him as he was or if he was just pulling his leg. "I am a new creature. Surely you see that."
"Not until you accept Christ," Carl clarified.
"I"m a pariah. A rebel. If I did manage to make it to Heaven, G.o.d would cast me out."
"But it doesn"t have to be that way."
"Sure it does."
"It doesn"t," Carl explained. "A few words and an honest heart are all it will take to keep you out of h.e.l.l."
"I"m a monster," Darrell Gene repeated, trying to convince himself of that fact now. "And this is my h.e.l.l."
The tears that streamed down his obsidian cheeks were like drops of blood. All Carl Beckett saw was a broken man weeping under the conviction of G.o.d.
"I"ve been praying for you. I"ve asked G.o.d to soften your heart."
"I don"t have a heart!"
"Your heart may have hardened but it"s there."
"Don"t you see the way I"m living now? Don"t you see? My life"s a wreck."
"I see the way you"re living," Carl stood up and stepped over what remained of the coffee table. "That"s why I keep praying."
"I"m not human anymore. I"m something else."
Carl smiled. "It"s easy to think you"ve lost your humanity. But I can a.s.sure you, you aren"t a monster. You"ve just convinced yourself that you are. There"s a sense of good just under the surface. I"m sure of it. You just need to be convinced of that yourself."
"I need some time alone. Please go."
"I understand. I"ll keep praying for you. It"s not always easy to admit that we"re headed down the wrong path."
"Goodbye.
"G.o.d bless you." Carl Beckett walked out the door with a wave. "And remember, you"re only human. Don"t beat yourself up too much."
The moment the door was closed Darrell Gene found his blood-encrusted pocket knife. He needed to prove to himself that there was no good beneath the surface. He needed to prove Carl wrong. As he"d done before, he made another incision at the wrist and cut all the way around his arm.
He gasped as he saw unblemished skin there beneath the scales, pink and fresh like the flesh of a newborn baby.
"It can"t be," he said. But it was.
This changed everything.
Chapter 23.
It was Wednesday. Amy hadn"t been home in two days, and she was apprehensive about how things would be when she saw Jamie again. As it turned out, that wasn"t a problem. Jamie wasn"t there. Amy was both disappointed and discouraged to see that his car wasn"t in the driveway. Wild thoughts and theories about where he might be and what he might be doing immediately sprang to mind, but she tried not to let her mind wander. Instead, she used the time alone to plan out her strategy, to consider what she would say when and if she discovered who had been leaving those notes.
A cursory inspection of the house showed that all of Jamie"s stuff was still there. He hadn"t packed a bag of any kind nor had he taken anything for an overnight stay. His red toothbrush was safely in the toothbrush holder, and his blood pressure pills were where she expected to find them in the medicine cabinet. All indications suggested that he planned on coming back. Maybe he had just gone to the store or to rent a movie or to the mall. Or maybe---.
She blocked the thought before it could take root in her mind. No good would come of it. The doorbell rang, giving her a welcome distraction from the mental images that were forming-images of flesh and l.u.s.t and things going on behind closed doors that had no business going on.
She raced to the door, eager for the reprieve from her own imagination and froze with her hand on the doork.n.o.b. What if it was the person who was terrorizing her family?
"Get a grip, Amy. I kind of doubt whoever it is would just come right up to the house and ring the doorbell."
She took a deep breath and tried to appear calm. However, nothing could have prepared her for what she saw. Judith was dressed in camouflage and armed with a paintball gun. Her hair was hidden beneath a camouflage doo-rag, and dark smudges of blackout formed horizontal lines beneath her eyes.
"Mom?" Amy stifled a laugh. "Oh my word!"
"Let it never be said that I"m not willing to help out a daughter of mine that"s in distress."
"You look like Rambo."
"Rambo"s a wimp!" Judith laughed. "If your little informant decides to show his face tonight, I"ll blast him. Now where are we going to hide?"
"We should hide inside the van. That"s probably the safest option."
"Inside the garage?" Judith sounded more than a little disappointed that they weren"t going to play commando on the roof or in the bough of one of the oaks in the front yard.
"The garage will keep us from being seen. We can see if someone approaches the house. If we get scared, we can lock the doors and drive away. If we decide to confront the person, we"ll be close enough that they won"t be able to escape."
Judith nodded. "You"ve really been thinking this through."
"Thinking is all I"ve been doing lately."
"So let"s do it." Judith produced a greasy brown paper bag that Amy hadn"t noticed initially.
"What"s that?"
"Hamburgers and fries. I thought of everything."
Amy rolled her eyes and opened the van door. "Get in, Chuck Norris."
It was dark by the time they"d finished eating. Amy turned the radio on at a low volume to help cut the boredom, but neither of them listened to the music. They didn"t speak much either. Both of them were nervous, antic.i.p.atory.
They didn"t have long to wait. At a little after nine o"clock, Judith spotted someone creeping across the driveway. Amy saw him too. He was going for the mailbox.
"That"s our stalker?" Amy was confused.
"Who is he?" Judith frantically tried to get her paintball gun ready in the dark.
"Darrell Gene Rankin. He lives across the street. He"s always seemed like kind of a loner. I don"t know why he would do something like this. We"ve never had much contact with him. We barely know him."
"Maybe he"s tired of being alone," Judith let the thought linger. "Maybe he"s been watching you and thinks that if he gets Jamie out of the picture---"
"You"re creeping me out, Mom."
"I was just thinking."
"Let"s go." Amy watched as the heavyset man stepped onto the front porch and lifted the lid to the mailbox, but Judith was already out of the van and running toward the house. "Freeze!" She pointed the paintball gun at the intruder. "Don"t move a muscle!"
Darrell Gene did as he was told and raised his hands. "I"m sorry. I"m so very sorry. I"ve made a mistake."
"Turn around." Amy wasn"t prepared for the expression on his face. She had expected to see someone who was bitter, resentful, angry. The man she saw might have been all of those things, but he was also remorseful and guilt-filled. Large tears the size of raindrops ran down his cheeks.
"Hold out your hand." Judith noticed that Darrell Gene had intended to leave another note.
The big man did as he was told and gave her the sc.r.a.p of paper.
"It was all a lie," the note read. "Please don"t hate me."
"Why did you do this to us?" Amy felt the rage built inside of her. "Do you know you"ve nearly destroyed my marriage?"
"I was jealous of what you had. It didn"t seem fair that your life should be so good while mine was so horrible."
Amy grabbed the paintball gun out of Judith"s hands. "And you thought you"d wreck my life so you wouldn"t feel so bad? Is that it?"
Darrell Gene recoiled at the sight of the gun. He obviously thought Amy was going to shoot him.
"Be careful, Amy! It"s loaded."
"Be careful?!? This man has been playing with my family"s future for the past week, and I don"t want to be careful around him. I really want to shoot him."
"Please, don"t," Darrell Gene blubbered. "I haven"t been myself lately. I haven"t been in control."
"Don"t blame anyone else for the things you"ve done."
"I"ve been trying to talk to G.o.d. I"ve wanted to ask for help. I did a very bad thing. Something much worse than the note."
This stopped Amy cold, leeching the anger out of her. Darrell Gene was obviously a man who needed help, and he realized it.
"What"s that in your hand?" Judith asked.
Darrell Gene shrugged his shoulders and gave them a pitiful looked that seemed best suited for a dog that knows it"s about to be whipped. He held his hand out to Amy. "I"m really sorry." He handed her Jamie"s wallet.
"Where did you get this? Where is my husband?"
"I"m sorry."
Darrell Gene repeated that phrase over and over again.