Bethany's Sin Read online

  Tales Spoken in

  a Whisper

  “BETHANY’S SIN?” Jess screwed his diamond blue eyes up in thought and grunted. “No, I don’t guess I’ve ever really sat down and done much thinking about it. Just seems like a name to me.”

  “Sure,” Evan said, and leaned forward slightly in his chair. “But what’s behind the name? What does it mean?”

  Jess was silent for a moment, rolling a cigarette from a pouch of tobacco. They were sitting together in the office of the Gulf service station on Fredonia, drinking Cokes from the machine out front. In the garage Jess’s son was muttering over a red Volkswagen, every once in a while circling it as if sizing up an opponent before attacking it again with his wrenches. Only a few cars had come in while Jess and Evan talked; a family had driven in for directions, and Evan had seen in the eyes of the man’s wife that same expression he’d seen in Kay’s the first day they’d driven through the village. Of course Evan knew why; it was a beautiful place, and its beauty would naturally appeal to women.

  Evan had gotten some important mail that morning. Fiction magazine had accepted his short story about two former lovers, elderly now, meeting by chance on a train. And as they talked, reliving old memories, the train began to stop at stations farther and farther back in time, until at last, when they realized their love was still strong, the train stopped at Niven Crossing, their old hometown, back in the year they’d first fallen in love under summer stars on the shore of Bowman’s Lake.

  Evan’s other mail wasn’t good. A rejection from Esquire. That story, about a Vietnam veteran whose wife and friends had begun to take on the appearance of people he’d killed during the war, had been terrifying for Evan because it probed at those raw, unhealed scars where the nerves of fear and guilt lay so close to the surface. He’d decided that he needed the distance of time to be able to say anything articulate about Vietnam; every thing he’d written so far had emerged as disorganized, ragged screams of pain.

  Perhaps he would always carry that scream within him; it was his burden from the war, his memory of young men ripped down like wheat beneath the dark master’s scythe, of bodies without faces or arms or legs, of shell-shocked soldiers screaming without voices, of himself lashed to a cot with the touch of a spider on his skin and, much later, standing alone amid mortar fire, waiting for God’s next blow to fall. It had been very difficult readjusting to the world after he’d come home, because it all seemed so unreal. No one leaped for cover from incoming mail; no one screamed for medics to help hold their falling intestines in place; no one counted the stars in the sky and wondered if tomorrow night they’d still be there to repeat the exercise. No one seemed to really know what was going on, or for that matter really to give a damn. And that both infuriated and crushed Evan, that so many had died like little patriotic Jesuses while all the Judases at home counted their coins. That was how he remembered Harlin, his editor at Iron Man: a fucking Judas of the worst kind. From the very start of that job, Harlin, a hulking man with a crew cut and a long lower jaw, had made it tough for him. “You were over in Vet-Nam, huh? See much action?” Evan had said yes. “I took on the Nazis in World War Two. Fought in France. Got those goddamned Nazis by the balls. Damn, but those were good times.” Evan had remained silent. “Yes sir, you can say anything you want. But by God there’s nothing better than fighting for your country.” After a long while Harlin had turned interrogator, wanting to know how many Cong Evan had killed, if he’d ever used napalm on any in their hutches, if he’d ever killed any of those villagers, because by God they all fucking look alike, anyway, don’t they? Evan had pointedly ignored him, and by degrees Harlin had grown surly and then savage, asking him if he was certain he’d done any fighting and why he never liked to talk about it and why he hadn’t at least brought his wife home a fucking earlobe, for Christ’s sakes?

  And through this veil of savagery Evan began to see glimmers of the truth in his dreams: Harlin standing before him, his face as pale as chalk and of the consistency of clay. Very slowly Harlin’s face began to melt, as if bubbling from a vast center of volcanic hatred within the man; cheesy strings of flesh fell, sections of his face splitting away and dropping to the floor: a hooked nose, a lower lip, a jaw. Until all that was left were two hideously staring eyes set in a skull with the scalp still attached to it. And that Harlin-thing, drooling vile, dark fluids, was moving toward Kay as she slept in the bedroom of the house she and Evan had rented in LaGrange. The Harlin-thing unzipped its pants and a scaled, erect penis had risen into view, throbbing for Kay’s flesh. And just as Harlin was about to throw the sheets back from Kay, Evan had awakened, gasping for breath.

  It had been at a Christmas party for Iron Man staffers and their wives that the terror within Evan had come to a head, like a boil about to break. Harlin had begun badgering him about the war, wanting to know how many of his friends had died, and then, after Harlin had drunk a half-bottle of whiskey, wanting to know how much “little gook cunt” Evan had scored, Evan had pushed him away, and Harlin’s twisted emotions had risen quickly, like a snake whipping up from a dark hole. “You’re a goddamned liar,” Harlin had said menacingly, as people stopped talking and drinking and turned to listen. “What d’you think you are, some kind of war hero or somethin’? I did more than you by God and you know what they give me? A pat on the back and a kick in the ass. And by God my son Jerry bless him bless my son Jerry was raised right, raised to fight for his country like a man ought to do, and he volunteered to go to Vet-Nam, didn’t want to be fucking drafted, no, but volunteered because his old man said that was the right thing to do. I saw him off on the train, and we shook hands like men because when a boy’s eighteen then he is a man. And you know where he is now?” Harlin’s eyes had glistened for an instant, just an instant, then had burned into Evan’s brain with renewed fire. “That VA hospital in Philadelphia. Half his head gone. Just sits there, never says a word, can’t feed himself, pisses his pants like a goddamned baby! And the last time I went to see him he just sat at the window and didn’t look at me, like he blamed me and hated me. Hated me! And look at you, by God, standing here with a fucking eggnog in your hand and a tweed coat and a tie on and you think you’re a fucking war hero, don’t you?” Here the others tried to quiet him, and Evan took Kay’s hand for them to go, but the man wouldn’t stop. “You’re not a man!” Harlin croaked. “If you were you’d be proud of killing those goddamned gooks that shot my Jerry! You’re not a man, you cockless bastard! Hey!” He focused his eyes on Kay. “Hey! Maybe I’ll show you what a real cock looks like someday, huh?”

  And here the dream image had burst into Evan’s mind, and he’d moved with relentless, terrifying speed, past Kay before she could stop him, past two other people in the way, his face contorting as the terrible things began to come up and take control of him. His arm had whipped out, faster than anyone’s eyes could follow, and he’d gripped Harlin around the throat, spun him backward, and knelt to snap his spine over his knee. He’d heard and dimly remembered someone screaming and realized that madman’s voice was his own. And Kay had screamed “Nooooooo!” in the instant Evan, had started to apply pressure to kill Harlin in the same fashion he’d killed a young Cong who had probably been no older than nineteen. They’d wrestled Evan away from Harlin, and it was then that Kay had dissolved into soul-wracking tears. Not long after that, Evan had lost his job, been fired for “sloppiness and neglect of duty,” and they’d left LaGrange.

  My God, Evan thought now, in the Gulf station office, that seems like ages ago. But he knew that killer instinct he’d shown had never and would never go away; it was too deeply ingrained now, it was the black part of him that he kept hidden away, under strict lock and key.

  In the past few days he’d again turned his attention to a story on the village. He’d written a letter of inquiry to Pennsylvania Progress, asking them if they’d be interested in something on Bethany’s Sin. He’d had no answer yet, but why not try to find out what he could in the meantime? So
he’d found himself guiding the conversation with Jess onto the subject of Bethany’s Sin, particularly anything the man might know about the origin of that name.

  Jess lit his cigarette and pulled at it. “I don’t know,” he said. “Do you think maybe they’ve got some records or something over at the library?”

  “Maybe so,” Evan said; he’d already decided to check the library on the walk home. “But I thought perhaps, working here, you might have heard stories, gossip, something that could help me out.”

  Jess grunted and smoked in silence for a while. Evan didn’t think he was going to reply, and the next time Evan glanced over at him, Jess’s eyes seemed to have darkened a few shades, retreated back into his head as if shrinking from the sunlight. Smoke dribbled from his nostrils, and he leaned back against a couple of crates of Valvoline oil. “There’s a place up on the King’s Bridge Road a few miles,” he said finally. “Lot of locals hang around there. A roadhouse called the Cock’s Crow. A man can hear some pretty interesting tales if he’s got his ears open. Some of ’em tall tales, some of ’em…well, worth thinking about, if you know what I mean.”

  Evan didn’t. “What kind of tales?”

  “Man named Muncey ran this station before I came here,” Jess said quietly, his eyes hooded and distant, avoiding Evan’s. “I got the job because one day the man just didn’t show up. He had a wife and two kids, lived in a trailer a couple of miles east of here. They didn’t know where he was, either. A few weeks afterward, the troopers found the man’s car, pulled out into the woods and covered over with brush.” He paused, smoking his cigarette.

  “What about the man?” Evan urged.

  “Never found him. At first, see, they thought he’d run off with the cash receipts, just left his wife and kids and run for it.” Jess shook his head. “But that wasn’t so. The troopers found the cash, all bundled up in those bags the bank gives you for delivery, underneath the front seat. The window on the driver’s side was broken out, and the windshield was cracked—that’s what I heard from some of the locals at the Cock’s Crow, and maybe they’re wrong. But maybe they’re not.”

  “That’s bad,” Evan said, “but I guess people disappear all the time. it’s an unfortunate fact of life.”

  “Unfortunate. Right.” Jess smiled slightly, and then the smile slithered away. “No, more than that. The sort of thing that happened to Muncey—whatever it was—has happened before around here. And more than two or three times. Enough to make a man wonder.”

  “Wonder? About what?”

  “About what he doesn’t know,” Jess said, still speaking quietly and calmly, but his eyes brooding. “You hang around up at the Cock’s Crow, you’ll hear those stories. And you’ll wonder about them the same as me. Some of the locals have seen things at night. Strange things; and they’ve heard strange callings in the woods, too, and heard things moving fast through the brush. Things they were scared of seeing too close.”

  Evan felt a chill run along his spine. He remembered the first night in his house, the fleeting image he’d seen pass the window. What had that been?

  “Yes sir,” Jess said. “The Cock’s Crow. You hang around there a few nights and you’ll know what I mean.”

  “Sounds like somebody has an overactive imagination,” Evan said, probing for more details. Overactive imagination: how many times had Kay applied that phrase to him? More times than he could count.

  “Not imagination,” Jess said. “No. Me, I’ve never seen any of these things they tell me about. Couple of times on the drive home, my boy and me thought we’d heard peculiar cries out in the woods, but we passed it off as birds or some kind of animal. But you get close to somebody who’s had a brush with the things and you look deep into their eyes and then you come back and talk about imagination. No. What you’ll see there is fear, pure and simple. Now I’m not saying that Bethany’s Sin isn’t a nice and pretty little place. But I’ve been working here for a while and I’ve gotten a feeling about it. A feeling I don’t like. That something…well, that something’s not right around here. Like too much paint and varnish over wood that’s gone rotten.” Jess turned his head slightly and looked into Evan’s eyes. “I stay away from this place after night falls,” he said. “And I stay off the back roads.”

  For a long while Evan said nothing. Words weren’t needed; he could see a message in this man’s face. A warning, perhaps? Troubled currents churned within him, icy, gathering force. Abruptly, Jess turned away. A car was pulling into the station, and Jess left his chair to pump gas.

  On the walk home, Evan stopped at the library. The librarian, a pretty young brunette with ANNE on her name tag, listened to Evan’s questions about the origin of the name Bethany’s Sin and jotted down his request on a piece of paper. Then she came out from behind her desk and led him over to a shelf marked REGIONAL INTEREST. She pulled down the worst of three ratty-looking books and gave it to him; it was titled Names and Places: Pennsylvania’s Village Heritage. Bethany’s Sin wasn’t listed in the index, though, and turning to the date of publication, Evan found the book was published in the late thirties. He returned it to the librarian with a polite thank-you and asked her if she knew of any place he might be able to find records on the history of Bethany’s Sin; she smiled and said that was a new one on her, but perhaps there might be some old papers in the basement. Why don’t you give me your name and telephone number? she asked him; I’ll take a look and call if anything turns up.

  On the way out, Evan’s attention was caught by a framed etching that hung near the front door. He paused for a moment, then approached it for a better look. It showed a woman bearing a bow with a quiver of arrows hanging at her side; at her feet what looked like wolves followed her, not menacingly but with expressions of loyalty. Forest filled the background, and above her left shoulder was the pale oval of the moon. Beneath the etching there was a brass plaque: PRESENTED TO THE WALLACE PARKINS PUBLIC LIBRARY BY DR. KATHRYN DRAGO. Evan looked into the face of the woman in the etching; it was calm and purposeful, the eyes mirroring an inner strength of will. He glanced down at the plaque again. Dr. Kathryn Drago? He wasn’t familiar with the name, but the etching she’d donated strangely compelled him.

  “It’s from the seventeenth century,” Anne the librarian told him; she’d come up from behind while he’d been staring at the etching. “If you’re interested in art, we have quite a large selection…”

  “Who is that supposed to be?” Evan asked her.

  “The Greek goddess Artemis,” Anne said. “I think. I’m not up on my mythology like I should be.” She smiled apologetically.

  “Mythology?” Evan paused for a moment, looking into those eyes that stared out from the etching. “I once took a course in that. A long time ago. But I can’t remember anything about this one. It seems like Greek deities crawled out of the woodwork. Who’s this Kathryn Drago?”

  “Dr. Drago,” Anne corrected. “She was voted in as mayor a few years ago, and she founded the village’s historical society back in…oh, I guess that’s got to be five or six years.”

  “Mayor?” Evan raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize Bethany’s Sin’s mayor was a woman.”

  “She lives outside the village,” Anne told him. “And she raises horses.”

  Horses? Evan thought for a moment, remembering that strange house and the horses grazing on the wide swath of pastureland. “Oh, yes,” he said. “I’ve seen that place. That etching must have been a very expensive gift.”

  “I’m sure it was. Now. Can I show you our art books?”

  “No, thanks,” he said. “Some other time, maybe.” And then he was out the door and walking in the sunlight again, his mind turning in angles like a runner trying to find his way through a darkened labyrinth. Horses? Mythology? Something working in his brain, then slipping quickly away before he could grasp it. The Greek goddess Artemis. He caught himself, almost turned back to the library to ask the librarian if they had any books on mythology, and then shrugged off the impulse,
continued walking back toward McClain Terrace. Other things weighed too heavily on him right now. Like the origin of Bethany’s Sin. If he couldn’t find out about it by reading, he’d have to find out by listening to some of those tales Jess said circulated around the Cock’s Crow. His mind began to wander, and he found himself thinking about horses again. His experience with them had been limited to riding shuffling, broken-spirited ponies at county fairs when he was a child. But another memory pricked his brain like a thorn. The shape he’d seen from his bedroom window that first night: dark, moving rapidly, almost out of view before he’d been able to register it. Could that have been a horse and rider? Possibly, he thought. Possibly.

  His face began to burn. The sunlight assaulted it as if searing flesh already burned raw. He looked around, saw horses, trees, streets, but he seemed not to be able to recognize where he was. Blair? No, not yet. Walking deeper into the village as if drawn into it, one leg following the next. The sun glinting sharply through the trees, hurting his eyes. His heartbeat picking up, a heat circulating across his face with the flow of blood, burning, burning, burning…

  And abruptly he stopped.

  The museum lay before him.

  For a few minutes Evan couldn’t move; his muscles wouldn’t respond to the commands of his brain, and everything around him seemed ablaze with light. He remembered his dreams, and a finger of ice slipped through the curtain of heat to touch his throat very gently. Coming true? Coming true like they all did, eventually, in one way or another? The house waited for his approach in dark, grave silence. He wanted to turn away, to retrace his steps, to start again somehow from the library; but his path had been predetermined, and his steps had led him here to this waiting, beckoning house. He was afraid of it, and the fear writhed inside him, a dark, formless shape gone out of control; in the next moment he started to cross Cowlington toward the museum, and a car honked and veered away from him. Evan walked slowly and laboriously, his breath coming raggedly; he stopped for a moment at the gate and then pushed it open. As he stepped through, he felt the heat on his face even more intensely. His movements seemed heavy and dreamlike; his eyes were focused on the doorway centered beneath a columned arch, and though a voice in his soul screamed for him to turn back, he knew he must follow the directions of his dream. He must reach that door and…yes, open it. To see. To see what lay within.