Black Horse and Other Strange Stories by Wyckoff Jason A

Author:Wyckoff, Jason A. [Wyckoff, Jason A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tartarus Press
Published: 2012-06-24T20:00:00+00:00

Raise Up the Serpent

This is going to be hell, Bradley Thurman thought as he walked up the steps to the church. Unusually, though sensibly, the doors were locked. Bradley knocked. A metallic clank quickly followed, announcing the turn of a latch in the old wooden doors. One door jerked open only slightly. A greying, portly woman no more than four feet tall stared out suspiciously at Bradley through thick lenses. A faded, fraying, lavender cardigan draped shapelessly over her squat frame.

‘Bradley Thurman,’ he announced. ‘I’m with social services. My boss, John Rog—’

‘He’s here,’ the woman’s pinched voice interrupted. ‘Come in quickly.’

The door swung open further and Bradley entered. The woman shut and locked the door.

‘I’m Sister Dagmar.’ She turned and moved down the aisle of the nave.

‘Ah. I didn’t realise—’

‘The children didn’t seem to understand the habit. I changed.’

Sister Dagmar stopped abruptly and grabbed at the end of a pew. She lowered herself down to one knee, bowed, and genuflected, before struggling upright again. She looked back sharply at Thurman. He caught the implication, nodded limply, and waved his hand across his collarbone.

‘Are the children in the church?’

Sister Dagmar turned her head around to scowl at Bradley; he didn’t know whether the look meant that his question was stupid or that the proposition it suggested was untenable.

‘They are in the school across the playground, through the back,’ she barked. Sister Dagmar’s tone made it clear that no further questions should be put to her.

She led Bradley off to the right and through the south transept, down a short flight of stairs and through a dim hallway to an exterior door.

‘Back outside for a bit, then,’ Bradley noted. Sister Dagmar ignored the uneasy quip as she pushed open the door and went out into the playground.

The wet blacktop glistened dully under overcast skies. Bradley stepped over a soggy skipping-rope coiled in a shallow puddle.

‘Come on,’ Sister Dagmar insisted.

The school was a single-storey, L-shaped, brick building. Plexiglas windows ran the length of the long side facing the playground. Bradley saw a small shape run from left to right along the hall inside, away from the main doors at the intersecting angle. He wondered if the youth was a member of the church; he couldn’t imagine any of the children he’d come to see had been left unattended at this stage. He considered asking Sister Dagmar, but thought better of it. I’ll know soon enough.

As they approached the double doors, a tall, reedy man in a tan windbreaker burst out into the courtyard. He struggled with an interior coat pocket reluctant to give up a rumpled pack of cigarettes. Bradley had to speak to make his presence known.

‘Hey, John.’

John Rogers looked up, perplexed at the interruption, and then immediately embarrassed at having his weakness observed by a subordinate. He covered with annoyance. ‘Ah. Bradley. You’re finally here.’

‘It’s a long drive.’

‘From Louisville,’ Rogers added with a hint of derision.

Bradley tried to answer as though he didn’t notice the tone. ‘No, I was in the office.

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