It was probably the most exciting day of church there’s ever been. Nine out of ten times I’d have been beggin’ Momma to let me play on her phone. Most times she’d let me, as long as I keep the sound off. She says I “drive her up a wall,” but I don’t see how. I don’t have a car, and even if I did, I ain’t never seen a car drive up a wall before. But not that day. That day I was just fine sitting on that awful wood bench.
We were almost always the first to arrive. I’m not sure why Momma was so bent on gettin’ there early. Figure she might need extra time to ask God to forgive her the sin of makin’ her only daughter wake up early on the weekend and put on a dress. She always makes us sit right in the front, too. I hate it quite a lot. We’re the only ones who sit up there, so Pastor Tim always looks right at me during his talkin’, like he wants to make sure I’m listening. I never am though. I always want to stick my tongue out at him when he does that. He gives me the creeps.
Today I couldn’t stand being in the front even more than normal, what with Grandma Hazel’s casket just sittin’ there. Momma said she expects a packed house today for her service, but I couldn’t imagine how. Hardly nobody I ever met had ever seen her ‘til she was already dead. She never came out of her house, never went to church, or anything. I only ever knew she existed because her house sat right next to ours by the lake and I was always askin’ why Momma was bringing casseroles over to her house every week after church.
Nobody believes me when I say I saw Grandma Hazel walk right into the lake two days before her body washed up on shore. Not Momma, not Pedro, not any of my teachers. I swear I did, though. I like to stay up late sometimes and play some on my Switch after Momma sends me to bed. That’s when I saw her. I left that part out of my story when I told her, though. I’m not dumb.
See, but here’s the thing, I wouldn’t forget this. I had never once in all my nine years seen anybody, or anything, come out that door, so you can imagine how I was pretty surprised. Pedro says it couldn’t have been her, but I can’t imagine how it could be anyone other than Grandma Hazel, seeing as how I’d never seen anyone so old and wrinkled in my life. She walked right out that back door. The sound spooked me. I was thinking I was about to get in trouble for playing video games, but instead I saw Grandma Hazel walk right out her back door. But that wasn’t the weird thing. The weird thing was she walked dead straight, right into her backyard gate, and passed right through it, and just kept on walkin’ right into the lake. She didn’t even wince from the cold like I do. Just right into the lake and disappeared.
I think that’s why people don’t believe me. I wouldn’t believe it either.
So anyway, after the body washed up, now I have to go to church twice in one week. I see why killin’ yourself is a sin.
Even though Momma thinks a bunch of people will come today, pretty much nobody comes anymore, even though we have lots of room. I always wish I could sit on the balcony, but they don’t even bother to unlock the door to the stairs anymore. I asked Momma once why we gotta get here so early and sit right up front when there’s so much room, and she always just tells me “this is where we sit.”
Momma likes to make up stories. She thinks she can trick me, but I’m too smart. She tells me this place used to be packed full, so full people would stand against the walls just to listen to old Pastor Tim babble. She says he did something amazing once, something like Jesus, but won’t tell me what. Says it isn’t for ‘young ears.’ But I know what that really means. That’s just something grown-ups say when they’re lying to kids.
I heard the old wooden doors creak open, and I flipped around, hoping to see my best friend Pedro. He and his family always sit by themselves too, but they get to sit in the back. Some of the old people give him weird looks, but I don’t know why. Sure enough, Pedro and his dad had slid into a bench at the back. I scurried off to go say hi. Momma doesn’t like me running in church, but sometimes she forgets when Pedro is here. When Pedro saw me, he looked up at his dad, who nodded, and we crashed into the pew on the opposite side.
“Go all the way down,” he said, motioning towards the window. He had a weird look on his face. Like somethin’ had sucked out all his happiness.
“What’s the matter?” He put his finger to his lips and shushed me. He could probably tell I was about to work myself up into protest because he just kept talkin’, in a whisper.
“I saw something.”
“Saw what?” I said. He shushed me again.
“Pastor Tim.”
“Pastor Tim? So, what? I’ve seen him a million —”
“He was different. Acting weird.” I had just about had it with Pedro interrupting me and was fixing to sock him in the arm soon.
“Weird how?” I asked, secretly clenching my fist. Pedro shuffled in his seat and glanced towards the empty pulpit.
“Weird how, Pedro? You better tell me.” Pedro bent in even closer, so close I could smell his breakfast on his breath.
“Pedro! Get your stinking mouth out of my ear.” Then Pedro whispered so quietly into my ear it sent shivers down my neck.
“I saw him walk out of the lake.”
Just then the doors to the chapel swung open and Pastor Tim walked down the aisle, holding somethin’ in his hands. He stank, too. Usually, when he passed me on his way to the pulpit, he would scrunch up his face into some ugly smile at me. I always hated it, and I would have hated it double today if I had to smell him for one second longer. But he didn’t seem to notice me. In fact, he didn’t seem to notice anyone.
He was drenched to the bone, and his clothes left a wet trail all down the aisle. People gasped at him as he walked down the aisle. I thought at the time they were gasping at his clothes, or his stink, but now that I think back on it, I guess it was because of what was in his hands. I hadn’t grabbed a look yet, as I was stewing some righteous indignation about how Pastor Tim can show up wet and smelly, but I had to shower and wear a dress.
The gasps had grown louder. One lady even shrieked. It wasn’t me, though. The grown-ups were quite worked out about something. It wasn’t until Pastor Tim finally climbed all three of the stairs at the front of the chapel and turned around to face us that I finally realized what he was holding.
A human head cut right off at the neck. Pastor Tim propped it up right at the front of the pulpit as he addressed the crowd. I had never seen a human head before. This one still had a few strands of gray scraggly hair draped over its face, but not enough that I couldn’t tell it had no eyes. The skin was warped and bloated and all kinds of shades of blue. In parts beneath it, I could see bone.
I popped right up to the edge of my seat. I wish church were always like that.
“Thank you for coming today.” He said it like he didn’t have a human head in front of him, like it was all just business as usual.
“I know I’m a little early, but I’m afraid we’ve run out of time.” I looked around at the smattering of people at the service. I knew I’d be right. “So thank you to those that had the courtesy of showing up early for this important day. I wish I could wait longer. If it were up to me, my compassion would compel me to wait until the very last hour, until the very heavens split open and Jesus Himself poured his mercy and judgment down upon us all. But it is not up to me.” Pastor Tim sure loved to listen to himself talk. I guess I would too if I knew all those fancy words.
“Have not the people had their time? Have they not had their warnings? Has not every living soul in Twin Lakes heard the gospel? Have they not had their chances, each week, for years, decades, their whole lives to make it here, today?” Pastor Tim had gotten himself worked up into one of frenzies. He seems to get mad at nothing an awful lot.
“No. Today is the day the Lord has made. And we shall rejoice, brothers and sisters.” Just then he did somethin’ real weird. He stroked the hair on the head in front of him, clearing it from her eyes. Then his eyes darted around the congregation. People had got real restless.
“Few of you knew Hazel very well. But I did. For the last 40 years, you had been told that she had come down with a terrible illness and could not walk or care for herself. I too had said these things. I am ashamed to admit, friends, that I lied to you. The truth is, she was not weak, nor sick, but strong. Stronger than any of us.”
He paused for a long while here, and I figured he had forgotten what he was saying in his old age.
“Brothers and sisters, believe me now, have faith in my words — she was an angel, sent by God on a holy and blessed mission.”
Some people had gotten angry, so Pastor Tim had to yell to be heard.
“Listen to me!” His voice took a tone I had never heard before, so powerful it rattled the windows and a splitting pain rattled in my brain. A hush fell over the crowd. Nobody dared speak.
“You are all, each of you, in danger. We have lived with a spirit, a demon, if you will, inside the very depths of Twin Lakes. I have known this for years, and together, Hazel and I kept all of you safe. But God has chosen the hour of reckoning to come, and He, in His mercy, has had enough of our debauchery. He has allowed His angel to die. There is nothing that can be done. We are judged.”
He paused again before lifting the head eye to eye with his own. His voice got real quiet again. “My sweet angel, dearest Hazel. Judge me, first.” Then he did the most awful, the most disgusting, the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. He kissed it. Right on the lips. Pedro nearly vomited from gagging so hard, but I couldn’t peel my eyes away.
When old Pastor Tim finally pulled that head off his lips, he had tears in his eyes. His lips were quivering.
“Thank you, Lord.” He bowed his head, probably because he was gonna puke from kissing a dead lady. Then his eyes shot up so fast it startled me. He pointed right next to me, right at Pedro’s dad.
“Francisco Martinez. Come. Find if you are right with the Lord.” The entire room was so quiet I was too afraid to move and risk a creak in the wood. Sure enough, Pedro’s dad got out of his seat, and I noticed he had tears in his eyes. I couldn’t figure why. Just before he left the pew, he leaned in real close to both of us, looked us right in the face, and whispered.
“Run.”
I couldn’t quite make out where he wanted us to go, so I stayed put. Momma wouldn’t be too happy with me running in church, especially during a funeral. Pedro’s dad walked real slow up to the pulpit. I couldn’t blame him. I bet that head stunk twice as bad as old Pastor Tim did. When Pedro’s dad made it to the front, Pastor Tim raised the head, and wouldn’t you know it, Pedro’s dad went and kissed it too. But this time it didn’t go so good.
Mr. Martinez fell to his knees, groaning something awful, clutching his stomach. The head opened its mouth and a blinding white light filled the room. When I could finally see again, Pedro’s dad was gone. Poof. Disappeared. I thought it was a trick, a pretty obvious one if I’m honest. But it sure caused some chaos in the crowd. People screamed and knocked over the pews.
Momma was screaming too. “Shelly! Shelly, where are you?” I figured I must have done something wrong. Momma never calls me Shelly unless I’m in trouble. She used to call me Shelly-bean, kinda like jellybean, because I ‘was her little sweet thing,’ and then eventually that turned into just Bean. Shelly had turned into someone else. Someone who is always in trouble. Before I knew it, Momma had appeared before me and swept me up in her arms and I was outside the building. She let me down and told me to run to the car with a seriousness in her voice I’ve never heard before. I didn’t dare argue, and I got into the backseat and buckled myself in.
In the weeks since, Momma has done a lot of talking with me. She cries a lot when she does. We’ve been living in a hotel, which has been a lot of fun. Momma lets me go swimming every night. Plus, we don’t have to go to church anymore. Instead, she makes me go talk to a doctor every week. He’s nice enough. He gives me candy. I never got candy at church.
I miss Pedro, though. I wonder if I’ll ever see him again. I wonder if he ever found where his dad was hiding.