Jake's Wake by John Skipp & Cody Goodfellow

Author:John Skipp & Cody Goodfellow [Skipp, John & Goodfellow, Cody]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror
ISBN: 9781428505919
Google: yS5alfeLigsC
Amazon: 0843960760
Goodreads: 7839676
Publisher: Leisure Books
Published: 2009-01-01T11:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-two

It had been quiet for a long time now.

No screaming, no crying. Maybe it’s over, Emmy thought. Maybe Jake saw the light, and repented. Or the Devil in him had been driven out.

Emmy stared out the barred window, seeing nothing but pale walls and dark curtains. She might as well have been staring at the floor, for all the information it gave her.

But given what she’d witnessed, was there any other explanation?

Jake was dead for three days. Then he got up. It was not a miracle, but a mockery of the resurrection, and a desecration of the body that had been so powerful a messenger for God’s word, in life.

Hell would try to undo all the church’s good works like that, because that’s what hell did: it turned truths to lies, and weakness to evil.

The others in the cell with her were proof of that. Whatever truth there was in their accusations, they hadn’t seemed surprised by Jake—oh, by his return, certainly.

But the vulgar, violent beast that murdered that poor man, blasphemer or not, had only seemed like the one they knew all along.

The one who fooled only her.

No, there could be no other answer. Jake had a demon inside him. But the question now was, how long before he died had it hidden inside his heart?

Maybe…all along?

She jumped at the sound of keys, jumped again when the holding cell door flew open. And there was Gray, grimacing at them all.

Growing up, she never watched that many movies, but she always found herself identifying every new face she saw with a movie star.

This one—this sullen, rage-drunk, hag-ridden man—looked like a young Lee Marvin, who would never grow into an old one.

Gray stepped inside and smiled tightly at the terrified women. He pointed at each of them with his gun. Emmy found it easier to watch the nickel-plated eye of the weapon than the face of the man holding it. The obvious pleasure he took in their fear made her feel dirty, as if some part of her were getting raped every time he looked at her.

“Eeny, meenie, miney…” he recited, as if bored. “Ah, fuck it. He wants you.”

The gun pointed at Emmy.

She stepped forward, dizzy, feeling like she was falling out the door as Evangeline and Esther stepped back like the runners-up in a beauty contest, both terrified and ashamed at their relief.

The door slammed shut behind her.

Gray had to push her, to remind her to walk.

Above, the moon was bloodred, peeping down through the leafy cathedral dome of the old oak tree in the Connaway backyard. The wind howling across the desert took on a throaty, panpipe tone as it blew through the eaves of the big house, inescapably spreading out before her.

So quiet. Where had everyone gone? The screaming was so loud, and the laughter…had it only just ended, or was it longer?

Emmy’s mother always said she had a wandering mind. Senile from birth, was one of the nicer ways she put it. A little Devil in her head, was what she meant.

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