Whisper Down the Lane, Clay Chapman [best short books to read txt] 📗

The door to my classroom is open.

I notice the glow first. The slightest flicker of firelight in the otherwise dark room.

Someone broke into my classroom. My room. I feel the sting of it, the very violation of this intrusion. I should turn on the lights. There are no windows in my room since it’s located in the middle of the building. With the lights off it’s truly pitch-black. But something tells me not to hit the switch. I want to see what’s laid out before me. Take it all in the way it’s meant to be.

By candlelight.

The desks have been rearranged into a circle. A ring of red and black votive candles are positioned on the desktops, drawing me in but not quite illuminating the center of the circle.

I step inside, even though I know I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t be entering this space.

Run, Sean says. RUN.

But I can’t. I can’t turn back. Not now. Not ever. Someone has done this for me and me alone. They want me to see this.

To bear witness.

The flames flicker when I step in, my very presence in the room disturbing the air. My eyes roam, adjusting to the darkness, seeing what I couldn’t before. All the pictures on the walls, all my students’ drawings, have been defiled, each one crossed out with frenzied Xs. Pictures of families slashed in magic marker. Ceramic pinch pots shattered. Our papier-mâché projects have been torn open and thrown to the floor. But the center of the room is clear. Clean.

I want to be clean.

There are markings on the floor. Even before I can see it completely, I know what it is.

A pentagram.

Just like the opening scene from the movie. Like the ritual I described to Kinderman. To all those adults who lapped up my story like so much spilled milk.

I feel eyes on me. The shadows in the room shift. Something is moving. Behind me. Over my shoulders. In the corners. Something hiding inside the dark. I turn and see them. All of them.

Dolls. A ring of puppets stripped of clothing. They’re the same kind of anatomically correct puppets you’d find in a therapist’s office. Point to where the bad man touched you…There have to be dozens of them, too many to count, all of them left in various sexual positions around the room. A fucking orgy in the toy shop. I can almost hear them moaning—no, singing.

I walk toward the pentagram.

This is for me.

All for me.

That’s when I see it. A severed hand. Perched upright, palm facing the entrance. Facing me. The fingers are so small. Even from a safe distance, I can tell it’s a child’s.

The gray boy. He’s come back for me.

His fingernails shine like the sun, the tips on fire, burning toward heaven.

Waving at me.

Hungry, Sean? Take. Eat. For this is my body…

Someone shrieks behind me, pulling me out of my reverie. Miss Gordon screams in the doorway.

DAMNED IF YOU DO

  SEAN: 1983

“If you’re just now tuning in, you’re watching Satan’s Playground: Devil Worship in America,” Manuel Cassavetes soberly intoned, speaking directly to the camera. “I’d like to encourage parents to please make sure your children are not watching this unsupervised.”

The glare of the studio lights was too bright for Sean. He couldn’t help but wince and squirm in his seat. His hair clung to his sweaty brow. His suit was itchy. His collar only grew tighter at his neck, his tie constricting around his throat.

“What you are about to hear is shocking,” Mr. Cassavetes continued. “It is heinous. But above all else…it is very, very real.”

Sean kept his attention on his host.

“Though we may never know what the exact number is,” he said with scripted precision, “as of this live broadcast, it is estimated that there are over a million practicing Satanists in the United States. One million. The mind can only reel at such a staggering figure.”

A woman from the studio audience gasped, using her hand to fan herself with Pentecostal furor. She reminded Sean of Miss Betty. How long had it been since he’d seen her?

This felt more like church services to Sean. Mr. Cassavetes preached his own televised form of fire and brimstone. The producers populated their pews with a motley assortment of audience members—churchgoers, self-professed devil worshippers, heavy-metal fans, and schoolmarms. A few waved homemade signs.

keep satan away from our babies.

mcdonalds donates 2 the devil! ray kroc gives 20% to satan.

the devil doesn’t belong in our schools.

From where Sean sat, they were a shapeless mass of silhouettes. He hardly understood why he was here. He only knew that grown-ups had become very interested in his story.

“These devil worshippers are a highly organized, well-funded operation wholly unknown to those around them,” Cassavetes said. “They can be members of your church, your school, your own family. They can be the parents of your children’s classmates, politicians, or even police officers. The people we trust with our safety, our lives. They…are…everywhere.”

The moment the man with the headset announced they were taking a commercial break, Mr. Cassavetes seemed like a completely different person. His body relaxed. All that fury faded.

He was nothing but smiles now.

“On fire tonight,” he said to no one in particular as a cluster of fussy assistants swarmed around him, powdering his temples and touching up his subtle eye shadow. His unnaturally tan skin seemed incapable of perspiring. One assistant took a small, fine-toothed comb and groomed his mustache. That mustache—full-bodied, perfectly coiffed—was clearly Mr. Cassavetes’s most distinguishing feature, Sean thought.

“Better pace yourself,” the man with the headset said. “Eighty-four minutes to go.”

“You ain’t seen nothing yet…”

Mr. Cassavetes glanced over at Sean as his team continued to primp. When they made eye contact, Mr. Cassavetes gave Sean a wink. Just a little something between the two of them.

Don’t worry, kid, that glint in Mr. Cassavetes’s eye said. We got this…

Sean and his mother had originally been in the live studio audience in the front row. At one point during the