Instead, the screen was filled with a man’s smooth-shaven face, his eyes fevered and bright. The man was pointing at the camera as if chiding both the camera operator and the audience. At high speed, the man looked comical, making wild hand gestures like something out of an old Keystone Kops short. Julia was positive she had set the tape for ESPN2, the network of choice for also-ran teams like the Cardinals. She double-checked the schedule lying open on the coffee table. There, Cardinals vs. Astros, 4 PM, Channel 27. VCR’s were notoriously complicated to program, but she’d taped much of the season without being thrown a single curve. Unless her memory of setting the VCR had been a tiny little game she had played on herself, another trick to scare herself stupid. And didn’t delusional people lie to themselves? No. I didn’t spread the blocks out on the table this morning, and I didn’t tape this . . . this WHATEVER.
She stopped the tape and let it play at regular speed. The man’s face crowded the edges of the screen, the close-up so intense that she could see drops of saliva spraying from his mouth as he spoke. The man’s manic voice thundered forth as she thumbed up the volume on the remote. “And Satan has come unto the world, the world that Satan owns, the one that he has stolen from God,” the man said. “And Satan spread his wealth, spread his lust disguised as love, spread his greed disguised as need, spread his warfare disguised as righteousness. Satan stretched his fingers out across the world, touching every man, woman, and child.” The man pointed at the camera, at Julia, his voice softening. “Touching you.”
Yeah, right. The Devil touched me in the HEAD. Thanks, mister. Now I have an excuse. Here I was, all ready to accept the blame for my little problem, and now you come along and give me the greatest out of all time. I’m only a victim. Of course. Why didn’t I see it before now? The preacher allowed a dramatic pause. “This world belongs to the devil. It’s right there in the Book of Luke, set down by God’s own hand. ‘To you I will give all this power and glory,’ the Devil says to Jesus, as they stood on the mountain overlooking the wonders of this world. ‘For it’s been given over to me to do with as I please.’ The Lord could withstand the temptation, but you would snatch it right up, wouldn’t you? You’d take it all and still want more. “And I don’t blame you,” the wild-eyed man continued, wiping away the sweat that was collecting on his face from the Klieg lights and exertion. “I don’t blame you for biting into the apple, into that red, shiny, sweet apple. I’ve tasted it myself, we all have. How can we resist?” Julia almost clicked the screen off, but something about this televangelist’s spiel fascinated her. His hair was slick and perfectly styled, swooped up in a grand swirl that would stand in a hurricane. The man’s teeth sparkled, brighter than heavenly pearls, his jaw muscles contorted in the rapture of his delivery. She had no doubt of his utter sincerity. “How can we resist?” he repeated, and the camera pulled back to reveal the man’s outstretched arms, as if he were offering himself up for Christ’s welcoming hug or the next UFO. “We are empty vessels, and unless we fill ourselves with the Lord, the devil will wash in”–the man arched his arms as if diving into a lake—”and drown us with sin, drown us with sorrow. He’ll steal our breath with his false promises. He’ll take us down and we won’t even fight it. We’ll hug him right back and give him thanks.” The man paced back and forth in front of the plush purple curtain and floral arrangements that served as a stage setting. The Love Offering telephone number was emblazoned on a banner in great golden numerals. “But the Lord will fight,” said the man, voice lifting, fist shaking in the air. “The Lord will burn Satan’s eyes out, the Lord will take our love and use it as a weapon, a mighty sword that will cleave down into the fire—” He made a slicing motion with his free hand “—and cut Satan’s grasping fingers and silence that nasty tongue, the one that whispers such sweet lies to us. Lies of all the pleasures we can have, if we only turn our hearts from God.” Pause. Medium close-up. The man lowered his head in sad reverence. A perfectly scripted moment. He pointed again. “Satan wants you,” he said, almost a caricature of those patriotic Uncle Sam posters. “He owns you.”
Julia pointed back, her fascination shifting to boredom. “No, he’s only borrowing me.” She’d rather watch the Cardinals lose by six. The VCR must have jumped its memory, shut off and lost its programming. First the clock and now this. She’d have to call George Webster and have Walter check out the wiring. Sure, blame it on mechanical failure, not operator error. Or operator insanity. Talk about God sending messages wrapped in ridiculous packaging. She clicked the set off, the sound dying, the televangelist’s face sinking rapidly to black. After checking the front-door lock, she went to the bathroom and took a shower. She managed to shampoo and rinse without once looking outside the shower stall. No Creeps here, no Anthony Perkins wannabes, no peepholes carved in the walls, nothing but the sweat of mist on the tiles. Before leaving the bathroom, she glanced at the figure in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. The steamy glass almost disguised the two long scars than ran up her belly and just under the swells of her breasts. Aside from the scars, she was not too bad for an old-timer of twenty-seven. Mitchell certainly found her worthy. She went to bed and read some Jefferson Spence and was carried away to a land where the protagonists always drew upon inner reserves to overcome evil obstacles. The clock was still behaving itself, so she set it to wake her early. As she turned off the bedside light, she went over a checklist in her head. Doors locked. Windows locked. Curtains pulled closed. Mace in the living room. Baseball bat under the bed, the commemorative Louisville Slugger her adoptive parents had given her for her sixteenth birthday. All set. Nothing but darkness and the quiet settling of the house. The leaves flapped a little on the trees outside, one of them occasionally brushing against the window screen. The neighbors had cut the music. They were pretty considerate about that, except during their weekend parties. She lay in the dark thinking of the morning’s episode of paranoia, the wooden blocks, the session with Dr. Forrest, the Satanic murder, Rick. Dr. Forrest. Something during the hypnosis. A memory, crawling from its slumber, fingers reaching from the damp murk of the cellar. Clawing its way out. The bad people, around her, touching and hurting her. No. That memory was for Dr. Forrest’s office, where it could be bound by walls. Not here, not in Julia’s house, where it could slither out of her ears and under the bed to lie in the beggar’s velvet and wait. Wait for just that right moment when Julia was asleep, tangled in the sheets of nightmare. Then it would grab her ankle, open its slathering jaws and— She sat up and flicked on the bedside lamp. The digital clock moved on, counted its way from the past or toward the future, however you wanted to look at it. Julia watched it for a while, and then picked up her book. Julia read until after midnight. By that time she was thoroughly irritated with Spence’s too-perfect heroine and his libertarian worldview, not to mention the obligatory dog chuffing here and there among the pages and occasionally bloated, pompous prose. But the book had helped her forget her troubles. Spence was reliable for that, as solid as a dictionary. She tried the pillow again. Not so bad this time. She was almost ready to try the dark, but decided to sleep with the light on. Just once more wouldn’t hurt. She thought of the tape, tried to remember setting the VCR. She could remember. She could see herself punching the buttons, Channel 27. And she’d gotten the hair-oiled preacher from hell. Oh, well. Everybody made mistakes. Her thoughts spilled into nonsense, Rick’s face, the lake at the club where she’d met Mitchell, her dead adoptive parents, a teacher she’d had in the sixth grade who had worn green suspenders, Mickey Mouse, images skipping by faster and faster on the preview screen of dreams. She was nearly asleep when she heard a crack outside the window. The sound of a damp stick breaking. She held her breath, kept her cheek against the pillow. Listened. Listened. A scrabbling sound on the outside wall. How close was the baseball bat? It’s nothing, Julia. Probably the neighbor’s boxer, leaving you a stinky present for tomorrow. Or a raccoon. You live right by the WOODS. Remember wildlife? A swashing across the window screen. The boxer couldn’t reach six feet off the ground. It’s a Creep. Should she pretend that she hadn’t noticed, turn off the light as if preparing to sleep? In the darkness, she could reach the bat unobserved. She could roll to her feet and wait by the window for the Creep to come through. Then— What? Whammo, like a steroid-stoked Mark McGwire in his prime feasting on a rookie pitcher’s fastball? No. She could call the cops.
The cops. First cop: “You see anything?” Second cop (playing his flashlight beam on the ground outside the window): “Hmm. Looks like some kind of animal tracks.” First cop: “What kind of tracks?” Second cop: “Damn. I just stepped in dog crap.” Sometimes a cigar was just a cigar. Sometimes noises were only noises. She reached out, switched off the light without looking at the window. Swash against the screen. She couldn’t resist looking. Eyes. A scarce glint of fire on them from the distant streetlight, weak between the curtains. But eyes. And a face behind them? She eased one hand off the bed, tensing, ready to scream, to reach for the Louisville Slugger, the phone, anything. The eyes were gone. She lay in her own sweat, trying to convince herself that she’d imagined the eyes, that she was safe as milk. Dr. Forrest warned her about letting her fantasy world intrude on reality. Dr. Forrest wasn’t going to like hearing about nonexistent eyes at her bedroom window. The wooden blocks had been real. But, if she closed her eyes, she could picture herself selecting them off the toy rack, paying the cashier, taking them home and arranging the letters on her table. Then forgetting so she could scare herself later. That sounded crazy, multiple-personality loopy, and she was not ever going to be crazy. Dr. Forrest wouldn’t let her. Better to pretend that the blocks had never existed. No Creep played tricks on her except the one inside her head. Julia would leave that part out of the journal she would start in the morning. And if she didn’t want to imagine eyes at her window, the best thing was to shut her own eyes and watch the imaginary silent movies on the backs of her eyelids. For a moment, she longed for Mitchell’s presence in the bed beside her. Better the devil you know. She lulled herself into a shallow, exhausted sleep by the second reel.
~~~~
One of the most interesting things I realized as I read was that the author has merged many facets of a theme in many different ways. And it is only as you read, and as a mystery writer provides, that we learn clues and can begin to form a basis for solving exactly what is happening in Julia's life.
“The cops identified the victim.” Julia nodded, half-listening, clicking her way through her files. “Poor guy.” “Charles Edward Williams. Age 39. Last known address, Memphis, Tennessee.” Julia froze over her keyboard. “Memphis?” “Your old stomping grounds. Is it known as a hotbed of Satanism?” “Well, aside from Elvis selling his soul to the devil and Richard Nixon . . . and we all know how that turned out.” “Eternal life on a hundred thousand collector plates and black velvet paintings, but in exchange, he had to die drugged out on the porcelain altar.” “You are so delicate, Rick.” “Yep. Journalism hardens your heart, and that explains everything,” he said, shifting into a mocking tone. “How long did you say you’ve been a reporter?” “Very funny. Do the police have any new leads?” “No. They’ve shipped the body off to the state medical examiner’s office. Should be able to tell if the guy was drugged when he died. If the Brotherhood used him as a sacrifice, they probably had to drug him pretty heavily.” “Unless the sacrifice was voluntary. What’s this ‘Brotherhood’ business?” “One of the names Satanists use for their group.” “Boy, even Satanists are sexist. What’s the world coming to?”
Julia had been working at a newspaper and had begun to be affected by one reporter who was working on a major piece about the worship of Satan. While he normally would discuss work with Julie, she tried to avoid his updates, responding flippantly, often, to show her lack of interest. She decided to follow her doctor's advice to move into a smaller community.
She had just moved in to her new home and began to feel the freedom of living in the country--woods were surrounding much of the building. But, then, it started to happen. She came home one day and a line of children's blocks were on a table. She had no children and knew they were not hers... As she walked through her home to see if somebody was there, she noticed that the clock in her bedroom was on 4:06, not the time... and, it no longer moved forward.
There were only two individuals she knew here. Her landlord and his maintenance man, Walter, who had a key in case some emergency occurred. For some reason, Walter was cast as illiterate, often using ain't this, ain't that as if that was the only word that would confirm his difference to anybody else...
“Well, I’d better run. I’ve got some work to do.” Plus it will be dark very soon. And even though my house is only fifty yards away . . . Mrs. Covington walked Julia to the door. “Didn’t mean to scare you none. About Hartley and all that. It’s just best to be informed.” “Yes, ma’am,” Julia said. She reached down and petted the cat that rubbed against her leg. “You come on back any time.” “Thank you, Mrs. Covington.” “And call me ‘Mabel,’ hear?”
Because all of the individuals that came into the book in some way were rich, from her past, or strangers, at least at the beginning. Soon she learned that a former law officer with whom she had worked had also moved to the same town. And it was not surprising that, as she began to experience problems, that the police gave her little attention or acceptance that she was not just "forgetful..." or "confused..." These events, for readers, created an insidious reality for us. Something was definitely happening, but was it supernatural or just criminal or malicious actions by somebody... With a panic disorder and her personal history of being violently abused at the age of four, we watch as Julia tries to deal with what is occurring right now, as opposed to what she's being told by her psychiatrist, versus what began to occur, as Walter became involved...
Walter is an interesting character. His wife and child had disappeared many years ago, but Julia sensed from their interaction that he was not involved in that disappearance... Thankfully, she grew to trust him somewhat and then, one night, when he caught a man coming out of her bedroom through a window, and he caught him, they began to feel like they could at least trust each other...
Julia had reached the point, though, that she was not willing to allow herself to be in panic mode for the rest of her life... She began to do her own research!
“Were there any reports of Satanic activity in Memphis around that time?” The corners of Whitmore’s lips lifted a little as if he were about to laugh, but realized she was serious. He must have seen his reflection in the bar mirror. He covered his mouth, wiping away the milk mustache. “There’s always talk of that kind of thing,” he said. “And, no, I don’t believe the devil popped up and dragged your daddy down to hell through the bathtub drain.”
“I don’t, either. But some people apparently take it deadly seriously.” “We’ve had our share of mutilated animals,” he said. “Most of it was just high school kids with too much time on their hands and too many people to impress. As for an organized effort, we don’t have any Church of Satan branches here or anything. Who was that guy that started that mess out in San Francisco?” “Anton LaVey? The guy who wrote the Satanic Bible?” “You really did study up, didn’t you?” “Even better. I work with a guy who did. He’s either the world’s leading expert on Satanic ritual or else he ought to be writing horror novels. But LaVey was nothing but a glorified carnival barker. I’m talking about the real thing, people who are into it so deeply that they’re willing to kill to protect their secrets.” “Well, there was a lot of talk a few years back, claims of Black Masses and that sort of thing. Mostly came out of psychiatrist’s reports. You know, ritual child rape, child sacrifice, chronic abuse. Cops watch the news and read the papers, just like everybody else. Sometimes we’d see things that made us wonder, but there was one big problem with all those reports.” “Let me guess.” Julia took a large gulp of her drink. “Same as with my father. No hard evidence.” “If even a dozen kids were sacrificed every year, they would have been noticed. Sure, Memphis has a lot of runaways just like everywhere else, and probably more kids run to here than away from here.” Whitmore nodded his head toward the girl sitting beside the sound board, a pale, trembling fifteen-year-old blond. “It’s either music or go into the trade. Sometimes both.” “So you don’t think it’s possible for a huge, organized, underground cult to exist without being discovered?” Whitmore shrugged. “Hey, I was a cop for thirty-five years. I know anything’s possible. But, you’d think at least one or two of the cult members would eventually become . . . now, what’s that word I’m looking for? Disillusioned, maybe?” “‘Disenchanted’ might be more appropriate.” He laughed. “Maybe you ought to be a writer or something.” “Or a reporter, maybe. So nobody ever came forward?” “Not in my experience. But looking back, there’s maybe a handful of unsolved cases that still give me the Creeps. The Mississippi floats up something ugly once in a while.” “Like an eviscerated corpse?”
She told him about the Elkwood victim, and Whitmore’s eyes opened wider. “We had a couple of cases like that,” Whitmore said, his voice soft. Julia had to lean forward to hear him over the noise of the gathering crowd and clinking glass. “Cut up just as you described,” he said. “Come to think of it, one of them turned up a month or so before your father disappeared. Of course, there was no connection between the two, and no reason to think there might be.” “You’ve got a good memory.” He looked down at the bar, at the streaks of light in the polished oak. “A detective never forgets the cases he doesn’t solve. Because, deep down inside, he never stops trying to solve them.” The guitarist had cranked his amplifier and strummed an ominous minor chord. The audience hooted, whistled, and drank. The drummer played a fill, checking the angles of the drum heads and cymbals. Ten years ago, the anticipation would have Julia electrified and ready to dance all night. Now, she preferred a radio so she could control the volume. Whitmore looked similarly pained. “That’s my cue,” he said, heaving himself from the stool. Julia gathered her purse, finished the last sip of her drink, and paid her tab. She walked Whitmore to the sidewalk and thanked him again. “Doubt if I helped you any,” he said. “Probably just made you more troubled than you already were.” “Trouble is only what you make of it,” Julia said, reciting one of Mrs. Covington’s mountain sayings. It sounded alien in that world of concrete and steel. “I won’t tell you that you’d be better off just letting the past alone, and getting on with your life,” he said. “I’ll bet you hear that enough already.” She smiled. “A detective never stops trying to solve them, right?” His teeth gleamed in the streetlights. “Keep my number and give me a call if anything turns up.” She shook his hand and went up to her room, slightly woozy from the drinks. She lay on the bed and listened to the steady throb of traffic, the city’s blood pumping through its monstrous asphalt veins. Why hadn’t Mitchell told her about the ring? Surely he knew that James Whitmore would mention such an unusual item. But he could have easily withheld Whitmore’s number from her, he could have failed to mention the detective at all. She may or may not have found Whitmore through her own efforts. By the time she fell asleep, fully clothed, she had convinced herself that Mitchell had only been trying to protect her. Mitchell didn’t want her bothered by the past because he wanted a perfect future for her. As she drifted into a haze of jumbled imagery, she tried to pray but no words came, and neither did a response to her seeking.
One of the things she had done was to go back to where she thought all of it started... And, as she started searching, she soon was to find a secret hiding place... And, there, inside that floor location, she found a box... With a Skull Ring...
Folks, there was no way that I read this book and didn't immediately start thinking about the Epstein cult. When information started to be released, I had learned about what was discovered. The Word Baal. I knew the word and did a preliminary check to verify my source. If you are interested in further information, I've provided a complementary post. It is not my intent to connect this book. Rather, I found it an informative and plausible story by which people can be seduced or pulled into such an activity. Through contact with others who lie, cheat, and care nothing about the harm done to others.
I did like the book and would normally recommend it. And, BTW, Julia and Walter discovered love thought it all...
This book is well written and clearly respectful of a need to, in such a book, reflect multiple points of view. That was achieved, in my opinion. I do not consider this a straight review since my emotional response was influenced by all that has occurred to hide the Epstein Files and to protect, not the victims such as Julia, but to protect those who participate in search of money and/or power... You decide whether you will choose to learn more through the book or the accompanying sample news stories about what is being discovered.
GABixlerReviews
