The Influence (22 page)

Except Father Ramos did not think God’s attention was on Magdalena yet. The Lord knew everything, so obviously He knew that the angel had been killed, but maybe He was busy elsewhere because the knowledge had not been acted upon. Once God focused the full force of His wrath on Magdalena, there wouldn’t be just crumbling marriages and missing children. There would be wholesale destruction. Vengeance from above. 

And that was what Father Ramos feared. 

The chapel needed to be swept, the pews polished, the confessional cleaned, but all that could wait until morning. He was beyond tired, and after he put out the candles and checked all of the doors, he intended to turn in immediately and let his worries be washed away by sleep. Yawning, he started up the aisle. 

“
Hector
.” 

Father Ramos had not heard the voice since that first night, though he had been dreading its return every second of every day, and he jumped at the sound of it. Once again, it came from everywhere and nowhere, was all around him, and with a cry of terror he fell to his knees, clasping his hands in prayer, closing his eyes tightly.  

The laughter came, that terrible sibilant laughter, mocking not only his actions but his very existence, and, wide awake now, he sent up an entreaty to God, begging that his life be spared though he knew the Lord did not condone cowardice such as his. 

As before, he heard the sound of shuffling, as though something large had entered the chapel and was lumbering up the aisle. Last time, he had turned to see what was coming, and there’d been nothing there. He opened his eyes, hoping for the same result. 

But this time there
was
something. 

A creature of dirt, a bastardization of God’s creation, not man but monster, fully eight feet high and as wide as two humans, had entered the chapel from the vestry and was shambling toward him. It had no arms or legs, only slightly delineated sections of its bulk that roughly corresponded to limbs, and it advanced in an almost waddling manner that did not require the independent movement of feet. The head, however, was less rudimentary, and despite the fact that its features were formed by the placement of small rocks and indentations of mud, it looked less like the primitive face of a child’s snowman than that of a perfectly rendered classical sculpture. Its expression was one of sly malevolence.  

The cold had come again, not merely a change in air temperature but a complete transformation of the environment, as though the church had been dropped into a new and different atmosphere. 

“
Hector
.” 

The voice bounced around the chapel, echoing from wall to wall, from ceiling to floor. He did not think it came from the shambling monster, but the two were obviously connected, their strings pulled by the same puppeteer. 

The Lord God. 

“Forgive me,” Father Ramos babbled, his hands still clasped in prayer. He closed his eyes. If he was to die here and now, he wanted to do so in a state of forgiveness. “I am and always have been Your humble servant. I know I have done wrong and will accept Your judgment gratefully…” The words, spoken increasingly fast, flowed into each other. The creature, he was certain, had been dispatched to take his life, and he needed to unburden himself before he died. 

He continued praying, and he sensed the presence of the monster next to him…but nothing happened. He did not open his eyes, afraid to find out what was going on, but beneath the by-now-rote prayer, his brain was spinning. If the monster had not been sent to kill him, why
was
it here? It certainly had a purpose and a reason for being.  

For the first time, he thought that perhaps the angel had not been sent from God. 

No. That was blasphemy. God would punish him for doubting. 

It wasn’t blasphemy, though, was it? He knew that the creature they shot down was an angel, but maybe the only reason he was so certain was because the thought had been planted in his head. Maybe the blasphemy was believing that that grotesquerie was one of God’s servants. 

He closed his eyes more tightly, his head hurting. There was no possibility here that was good. 

“
Hector
.” 

He decided to answer the voice rather than try to hide from it. “Yes?” he said tentatively. “What do you want?” 

An image seared itself into his brain: the angel, dead and rotting in Cameron Holt’s smokehouse. Its decay and deterioration had been greatly accelerated, and its dark green skin, now almost black, seemed to have melted, looking like heavy chocolate syrup that had been poured over a deformed and twisted body. He understood instantly that he was meant to protect that form, that it was being resurrected, was in the process of
becoming
and was in a fragile state.  

Father Ramos opened his eyes, feeling as though his brain had been jolted with a shot of electricity. Before him, the creature collapsed in front of the altar, devolving into its base components: mud, dirt, sand, rocks.  

The chapel was silent. 

Whatever had been here was gone, and he stood shakily, staring at the mess in front of him, afraid to touch it, afraid to go near it. 

He understood now that the angel had to be protected…but he didn’t want to protect it.
Someone
had spoken to him,
someone
had put that image in his head, but he was less sure than ever that it was God, and he realized for the first time that it was not the possibility of God’s wrath that most frightened him but the angel itself. Whatever the angel might be, it was causing havoc, and he shuddered to think about what it might do once it was resurrected and became…the thing it was becoming. 

The impulse to flee Magdalena returned, but Father Ramos knew he would not do that. As terrified as he might be, it was his sacred duty to look after his flock, to see to both their safety and salvation. Besides, he was a part of this. He had been there that night and while he had not shot a gun, he had done nothing to stop those who had. 

Tired, scared, emotionally drained, he put out the remaining candles, walked past the pile of mud, giving it a wide berth, and locked himself into his quarters. 

Where he took off his collar and cassock, put on his pajamas and went immediately to sleep. 

And dreamed of a world where flying demons filled the sky.  

TWENTY TWO 

Ross decided not to go to the farmer’s market. It wasn’t as though he was needed. In fact, the ranch’s egg and honey stocks were both so low at the moment that it made little sense for Lita and Dave to sell there, though they wanted to keep up the routine and maintain contact with customers. But Jill wasn’t going this time. She hadn’t baked any cookies or pastries this week, so she had nothing to sell, and if she wasn’t going to be there, he didn’t want to be either.  

“Dick suck mushroom! Pickaninny pie!” 

There was that, too. The girl. Ross didn’t want to see her. Was
afraid
to see her, though he was not sure why.  

So while Lita and Dave drove off to town, Ross stayed behind to feed the chickens and see if there were eggs to collect. He did not find out whether any eggs had been laid, however, because when he went outside and peered through the wire fence, he saw, in the center of the yard, a gigantic chicken, a foot taller than any of the others surrounding it, walking in an erratic circle, squawking hoarsely, its head twisting strangely atop its unusually long neck. The sight made him shiver. And when the bird’s eye met his own, holding his gaze even as the scrawny neck rotated unnaturally beneath it, Ross turned away, heading back to the shack. 

He’d wait for Dave to come back before trying to feed any animals. 

He turned on the television to drown out the infernal squawking. On the
Today
show, there was a story about a new poll that had been conducted regarding religious beliefs. A majority of Americans reported that they believed in angels, and a significant number thought they were personally protected by a guardian angel. 

He changed the channel to CNN, where they were covering a shooting at a North Carolina high school, a subject more comfortingly normal. 

He could still hear the chicken outside, and turned up the volume. Did he actually believe that an angel had been shot out of the sky here in Magdalena? No. But
something
had certainly been shot down—and he was pretty sure he’d seen it himself Christmas night. But what was it and why was it here and how was it causing all of this weird shit to happen? He didn’t know. It was a problem unsolvable by his rational, unimaginative mind. And it scared the hell out of him.  

Maybe, he thought, it was time to move on. He had some money now, and a job (sort of). Maybe he should thank Lita and Dave for their hospitality and hightail it back to Phoenix. 

But he couldn’t just leave them like that. 

And what about Jill? 

For someone living out in the middle of nowhere in a shack on his cousin’s property, his life was definitely getting complicated. 

Ross was on his laptop, checking on the status of various resumes he’d posted on jobhunting sites, when he heard his name being called from outside. He jumped in his seat, startled, and for a brief fraction of a second thought:
Chicken!
But then he recognized Jill’s voice and hurried out to meet her.  

She was standing in front of the shack, drinking water from a plastic sports bottle. 

He looked around for her Econoline, but didn’t see it. “You
walked
here?” he asked incredulously.  

“Sure,” she said, pushing the cap down on her bottle. 

“It’s, like, five miles.” 

“So?” 

He shook his head. “You’re incredible.” 

“Would you care to join me? It’s nice weather for a walk,” she suggested. 

“You always think it’s nice weather for a walk.” 

“You don’t think it is?” 

“I guess,” he conceded. 

“So, do you want to come with me?” 

“Where?” 

“Around. Here and there. Hither and yon. It’s addicting, walking. If you give it a chance.” 

“You’re talking to someone who faked sick notes from his mother in order to get out of playing P.E.” 

“Nevertheless.”  

“Sure,” he said. “Just let me lock up.” Heading back toward the shack, he turned around. “Do you need to use the bathroom or anything? Would you like something to eat?” 

She shook her head. “No. But you might want to get yourself a water bottle.” 

“It’s not that hot.” 

“But it’s dry. And I’m not sharing.” 

Ross went inside, turned off his laptop, got a can of Coke out of the refrigerator and locked the door behind him as he left. 

“Coke?” she said. “Really?” 

“You drink what you want; I’ll drink what I want.” 

He thought they’d be walking back toward town, but at the head of the driveway, she turned left instead of right, and he followed her lead as they strolled along the road, through the desert, toward some of the bigger ranches. He had to admit, it felt good to be outside in the open air. He
was
starting to get a taste for it, and though for his entire adult life, walking had merely been a way to get from room to car, from car to room, from room to room, he found that he was actually enjoying this little hike. 

At least until Jill brought up the angel. 

“I’ve been asking around,” she said. “After you told me…what you told me. It’s hard to get anyone to talk about it, but my friend Cissy did—she was there—and she said your story’s pretty much on the money.” Like Ross, Jill had stayed home on New Year’s Eve and, like Ross, she’d heard nothing about what had happened at the party. 

“Does she think it’s an angel?” 

“It seems like everyone does.” 

Ross stopped walking, turning toward her. “Maybe that’s what it wants them to think. Maybe it put that idea in their minds.” 

“It’s dead, isn’t it?” 

“But it’s supposed to have some kind of power anyway. At least that’s what people are saying. And with all of these deformed chickens and dead cattle and missing kids…” 

“I don’t think it’s an angel either,” she told him. 

“But what is it? It’s obviously
something
.” 

She turned away, started walking again. “I don’t know.” 

Neither of them spoke for awhile, but the subject was on both of their minds, and the mood as they continued on was more sober than it had been a few minutes prior. Looking off to his right, Ross could see, far in the distance, a hulking barn that he was pretty sure belonged to Cameron Holt. 

Somewhere over there, the dead body of that dark flying thing was rotting in Holt’s smokehouse. 

The idea made him uneasy. Ross stopped. “Let’s head back,” he said. 

Jill nodded, not arguing, and they turned around, walking in silence back the way they’d come. 

The mood brightened considerably as they approached the L-Bar D. Suddenly thirsty, Ross popped open the tab of the Coke can he’d been carrying and took a long drink. Jill squeezed water into her mouth, then squirted some at Ross. It felt as though they’d broken through some sort of gloom barrier, and he found himself wondering if that were possible or if the change in emotional temperature was all in his head. 

Jill walked back with him to the shack, and though neither of them had said anything, he hoped that meant they were going to have sex. But instead she told him, “I need to get back.” 

“Now?” he said, disappointed.  

“Yeah. I have some telemarketing work to catch up on. There’s no rest for the obnoxious.” 

“You want me to drive you home?” 

Jill shook her head. “That’s okay. I’d rather walk.” She gave him a quick kiss. “Maybe I’ll call you. You could use some credit card insurance, couldn’t you?” 

“No. But I’d like to hear your spiel.” 

“I’ll be calling when you least expect it.” She refilled her water bottle from his sink, gave him another kiss, then walked outside, waving as she headed up the drive.