The Frank Peretti Collection: The Oath, the Visitation, and Monster

  I DROVE TO THE BOTTOM of the driveway and through the big stone gate. Kyle was sitting on the ground across the road, his back against a fence post, waiting. I parked the car, got out, and sat beside him.

  “How’d it go?” he asked, but I could tell his face was already mirroring mine—quite unhappy.

  “We need to pray for this guy.”

  We sat there together on the bank beside the road, a pasture at our backs and the Macon ranch on the wide, gradual hill before us, and prayed. My emotions were a swirling mixture. I loathed the man’s evil and cunning, but felt so deeply sorry for him. It angered me to hear him suggest we were so much alike, but I knew he was dredging soil from my soul that he recognized in his own, and as much as I knew my own heart, I knew his.

  And knowing his heart, I feared for those who followed him.

  DON ANDERSON WAS A GADGET GUY. He sold appliances, CD players, VCRs, remote controls, stereo headsets, radio-controlled models, radiocontrolled doors and light switches, key chains that chirped, bedside environmental sound machines and ultrasonic pest repellers—just to name a few—because he loved that stuff. A sign hung in the front window of his Pepto-Bismol pink appliance store: “Better Life Through Creative Technology.”

  The store was his own little world where he could surround himself with myriad little plastic boxes that beeped, blurped, lit up, entertained, informed, and did zillions of other amazing things.

  It was a wonderful kingdom to rule, when he could.

  But sometimes his subjects would get the better of him. Once a customer brought in a VCR that ate tapes. He fixed it, the customer took it home, and that very night, the thing ate her collector’s edition copy of Gone with the Wind. Once a remote control for a customer’s television wouldn’t switch the channels but would open the garage door. He knew how to lick that: He just switched the frequencies around. This time when the customer tried to change channels, the lights in the house dimmed, and the FM radio started searching for another station.

  Right now he was having to deal with a CD player that wouldn’t go around. There was no other problem with it. It just wouldn’t go around. He couldn’t make it go around, and that vexed him severely. A radio scanner that wouldn’t scan also vexed him, and if he couldn’t get a decent solenoid for Mrs. Bigby’s washing machine he’d have to refund her money.

  Don’s sovereignty over his little kingdom was far from complete.

  Even the gadgets in his home could be wayward and noncompliant, and his wife, Angela, never missed an opportunity to remind him about it. Just as a plumber’s wife will complain about her clogged sink and running toilet that never get fixed, so Angela often reminded him of the stereo that only played on the left side, the hair dryer that didn’t turn on at all, and the television that kept blinking in and out.

  Don had trouble remembering the stereo or the hair dryer, but the television got his attention almost every evening, and especially this evening. There was a prizefight coming in live over the satellite dish, a fight he’d paid forty dollars in advance to view. Now, as he sat there with his dinner on a TV tray and his wife looking for something to read, the tube blinked out.

  “NO!” he wailed, almost knocking his dinner over.

  “Too bad,” Angela said with a curt little smile, thumbing through her House and Garden.

  He set aside the TV tray and approached the big television with the massive oak cabinet, forty-four-inch screen, and surround sound. He stood before it, he spoke to it, he gestured. It only hissed and threw a snowy picture at him.

  “Gotcha stumped?” Angela asked.

  “No!” he growled. It was just that problems like this took precious time to figure out, and he didn’t have time. The fight was going to start in a few minutes—and knowing the champ’s record, it would only last a few minutes. “C’mon, c’mon . . .” He banged the television on the side. That didn’t work.

  “You have tools, don’t you?”

  No time, no time. Too much trouble.

  He could feel Angela on the couch behind him, enjoying her magazine and trying to pretend she wasn’t really enjoying this.

  Nuts! He’d been up to that Brandon Nichols character and received some kind of magical touch from him, something to help his business. Angela didn’t think much of that either, and maybe she was right. Nichols gave him a touch on the forehead, he felt a tingle, he went home, his television didn’t work. End of story.

  So it was mere impulse, and perhaps a little sarcasm, that caused him to reach out and touch the television in the same histrionic, Brandon Nichols fashion.

  He felt the tingle again, and the picture tube came on with a flash. The champ was winning thirty seconds into the first round.

  “Yes!”

  Angela looked up. “What’d you do?”

  He ducked behind his TV tray, his eyes glued to the screen.

  “Uh, just tweaked it, you know, adjusted the do-jiggy.”

  She went back to her magazine.

  He saw the rest of the fight—all four rounds—and then stole into the bathroom for a little appointment with Angela’s hair dryer.

  This is nuts, he kept telling himself, but he pulled it out of the drawer by the sink, plugged it in, and gave it a little touch. He felt the tingle again. The dryer came to life.

  All right, all right, one more time now, just to be sure. He walked—if he hurried, Angela might notice—into the den, strolled nonchalantly by the stereo, and gave it a tingly tap. Without his having to touch the on button, it came to life and played beautifully out of both sides.

  Don looked at his trembling hand. “This is . . . this is incredible!” He looked around the room, counting all the gadgets. The implications were staggering.

  “I can’t lose!” he said. People were coming from miles around to have Brandon Nichols touch their bodies. Would they do the same for their gadgets and appliances? This could be the dawning of a new day for Anderson’s Furniture and Appliance!

  Angela came into the room, pleasantly surprised at the full stereo sound. She even had to speak loudly. “You fixed it! You genius, you!”

  “Yeah,” he said, awestruck at his new ability. “Pretty impressive, huh?”

  King of the gadgets, that was Don Anderson.

  ADRIAN FOLSOM closed her eyes and listened for the voice of the angel Elkezar, her pen poised over a sheet of stationery. Sally

  Fordyce sat nearby, unconsciously wringing her hands in nervous anticipation, waiting to hear a word from the Lord. Suddenly, Adrian smiled as if listening to a voice on a telephone, and began to write. “Mm-hm. Mm-hm. Uh, what was that again? Mm-hm.

  Okay.”

  Sally was in Adrian’s home with Brandon’s permission. “Let Adrian tell you,” he said. “Let her bear witness.”

  Adrian finished writing, and turned toward Sally, the letter in her hand. “You’ll like this.”

  Sally leaned forward, still nervous.

  Adrian, her reading glasses on her nose, began to read. “‘This is a mystery of my true church, that all God’s children should be one, with no sense of other. As my servant is in unity with the Christ, so you are in unity with him, and the oneness that you are in spirit, you portray in your bodies. Fear not to submit to him and let your body be his, for this is higher than flesh. This is spirit, and all that is spirit is one.’” Then Adrian grinned, anticipating what she would read next. “‘Just as my servant is in unity with the Christ and you are in unity with him, so your friend Mary Donovan is in unity with the Virgin Mother, Michael Elliott is in unity with John the Baptizer, and you . . .’ ” Adrian smiled teasingly at Sally. “ ‘ . . . are in unity with Mary Magdalene, whom the Christ loves as his own flesh!’ ”

  Sally was not so thrilled, and made a face. “Mary Magdalene?”

  Adrian glowed. “Isn’t that incredible?”

  Sally only looked at the floor, her head quivering little nos.

  “That’s not incredible. It’s crazy. I’m not Mary Magdalene.”

&nbsp
; Adrian tried to explain. “Well, remember how Jesus said that John the Baptist was Elijah? This is the same kind of thing.”

  “Brandon yelled at me last night. That doesn’t sound like Jesus loving Mary Magdalene.”

  Adrian puzzled over that one a moment. “That’s possible. Even God got angry with Moses.”

  Sally didn’t buy that either. “I was too tired to have sex, Adrian.

  Brandon got all mad over a stupid thing like that. That doesn’t sound like God or somebody at unity with the Christ or whatever he’s supposed to be.”

  Adrian gasped. “Oh my . . .”

  “What?”

  “It’s Elkezar. He’s speaking again.” She turned to her table and started writing. “Oh my. Oh my oh my.”

  Sally looked over her shoulder. “What? What’s he saying?”

  She could read Elkezar’s words as Adrian wrote them: “Remember the fate of Korah and Miriam.”

  “Who’s Korah?” she asked.

  Adrian’s voice was hushed with fear. “Korah led a rebellion against Moses in the wilderness. The earth opened and swallowed him up, him and his followers.” Sally was about to back away, but Adrian grabbed her arm. “Miriam stood against Moses and the Lord struck her with leprosy!”

  Sally sank to her knees, weak with fear. “I thought he loved me!”

  “Brandon loves you! This threat is from God.”

  Sally thought it over. It didn’t take long. “I’d better get back.”

  “Brandon will receive you. You’ll be safe there.”

  Sally kissed Adrian on the cheek and hurried out the door.

  Adrian stared at the paper before her with its cryptic message.

  “Elkezar. I’ve never known you to be so harsh.”

  She felt an icy breath of wind at her back, though the curtains at the window did not stir and the houseplants did not waver. She felt it again. Her skin crawled as she turned and saw nothing, but felt something there. “Is that you?”

  There was no answer.

  “Elkezar? Is that you?”

  He had never hidden from her before, never lurked like a prowler, but now she could feel him watching her, just out of sight.

  “I gave her your message. She’s going back to the Christ right now. You saw her go, didn’t you?” She felt as if cold, heavy lead was filling her stomach. She began to tremble. “Elkezar? Please, don’t tease me now.”

  It was the eerie stillness that scared her, the deadness in the air, the chilling cold. The waiting.

  He stood there—somewhere—his presence like a poison, the pendulum on the wall clock swinging away the seconds, Adrian’s short, frightened little breaths the only sound.

  At last, without a word, he turned away. She could feel him retreating slowly, taking his own time, letting the effect linger as hideous terror seeped out of the rooms and hallways in small, agonizing degrees.

  Several minutes later, only when she was sure it was safe to do so, she stirred, turning once again to the paper on her desk.

  Now it read, “So also for Adrian.”

  JACK MCKINSTRY was having doubts, but neither he nor his wife Lindy dared say anything for fear of jinxing business. The Sooper Market was doing well. Mack’s was still the prime location where the denizens of the Macon ranch got their groceries, and Michael the Prophet came through almost every day to post flyers and announcements of coming meetings. Brandon Nichols and his followers always plugged the store to the pilgrims coming through, just as they talked up the other businesses in town. It was best not to tamper with a good relationship, but just keep sacking up those groceries and filling the tills.

  But how were they supposed to handle a visit from the Virgin Mary?

  Sure, they knew who Mary Donovan was. She’d been a regular customer and they knew her by name. She was a friend of Dee Baylor. Since she was a young divorcée, it was safe to assume she wasn’t a virgin. But here she was, decked out in a robe, shawl, and sandals, pushing a cart up and down the aisles, grocery shopping for Mrs. Macon and . . . her son.

  “Oh, he used to love this when he was little!” she exclaimed, taking a box of Cap’n Crunch off the shelf. Then she’d stroll past the bread and bakery shelves recalling, “Oh, these are just like the ones he multiplied on the shores of Galilee! I was so proud!” She picked up a jar of tartar sauce. “My son will provide the fish!”

  Jack had a good guess that, if she had a grocery list, she wasn’t following it. Mrs. Macon wasn’t going to be happy about this. He hurried to join Mary near the frozen vegetables. “How you doin’, uh, Mary?”

  “My soul doth magnify the Lord,” she replied. “And behold, these peas are on sale!”

  He opened the freezer door to grab some. “Yeah, they sure are.

  How many packages do you need?”

  She giggled. “Jesus can start with just one and take it from there.”

  He put one package in her cart and then craned his neck to see her grocery list. “You finding everything okay?”

  “He leadeth me beside the still shelves and restoreth my memory.”

  He could see the list—and the contents of the cart. “Uh, you sure you need all these olives?”

  She looked at the dozen cans strewn in the cart and mused, “Blessed is he whose quiver is full of them, for we lack oil and our lamps have gone out.”

  “Well, yeah, your list says olive oil. That’s on aisle twelve.”

  “Oh, thank you. I will turn aside and see this great sight.” She stopped when she saw bags of popcorn. “Jesus was such a creative child! He could pop popcorn by the breath of his nostrils!” She threw four bags into the cart. “He’ll be so excited!”

  Jack hurried back to the checkout counter. Ringing up groceries he could deal with. Mary as Virgin Mary was a little out of his realm.

  “Should we call Mrs. Macon?” Lindy asked from her cash register.

  He thought only a half-second and then shook his head.

  Don’t meddle, he thought. Don’t mess things up.

  JIM BAYLOR was in his basement sharpening the lawn mower blades when he heard the front door slam and the heavy footsteps of his wife thumping and creaking over the floor joists. She had been to another meeting up at the Macon ranch. She was getting to be a regular Nichols junkie, always going back for more spiritual happy pills. Yep, she was laughing again. She laughed from the front door to the kitchen, and then from the kitchen to the bathroom. After the toilet flush rushed through the black pipes over his head, he could still hear her laughing in their bedroom and then back in the kitchen again.

  He hated when she was like this.

  Now he heard smaller thumps leaving the living room and going into the kitchen. That would be their daughter, Darlene, roused from her place in front of the television.

  “Wuzzofunne?” came Darlene’s voice. Coming through the floor, “What’s so funny?” was a bit muffled.

  Jim figured out that Dee said, “The Spirit’s trickling through me, and it tickles!” She started laughing again. A chair squawked over the floor and thump! Dee sat down.

  Well, is she gonna cook this time? Jim wondered. He figured he’d better make sure, much as he longed to keep his life as simple as sharpening a lawn mower blade.

  When he got to the kitchen, Dee was doubled over the table, red in the face, eyes full of tears, laughing herself silly.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  She couldn’t answer, not then, not ten minutes later. It was much worse this time. She’d been giddy before, tittering and giggling, praising the Lord and seeing something humorous in everything, but tonight she was out of control, maybe out of her mind. He couldn’t handle it, so he returned to the basement.

  Mower blades he could handle.

  He could hear her moving around up in the kitchen, still laughing, but calming down to intermittent giggles. She was opening cupboards and drawers. Good. She’d come down from her spiritual high long enough to fix dinner.

  Then the joists started creaking
overhead and he could hear her feet shuffling about as she sang. She was dancing up there, shuffling in circles.

  The door at the top of the stairs opened and Darlene hollered down the stairs, “Dad, would you make Mom stop?”

  “Is she cooking dinner?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, see what you can do to help her.”

  He could hear Darlene walk into the kitchen. The shuffling stopped, although he still heard some giggles. Then he heard water running.

  And Darlene screaming.

  He bolted up the stairs and ran for the kitchen, passing Darlene coming the other way, drenched. He got into the kitchen in time to see Dee dancing in circles, waving the sink sprayer over her head and drenching everything including herself.

  “Thou hast turned my mourning into dancing for me,” she was singing. “Thou hast put off my sackcloth!”

  “Dee!” He grabbed the hand holding the sprayer and got a good dousing before he wrested it from her. “Are you crazy?”

  She calmed. “Oh, I’m sorry, honey.”

  He put the sprayer back in its place. “Look at this mess!” He grabbed a towel from the rack by the sink and started wiping.

  “Gonna get the French fries now,” she tittered and sang, dancestepping to the refrigerator. She opened the freezer side, took out a bag of frozen French fries, zipped it open, and dumped the French fries all over the kitchen table. “Dinner’s on!” She thought that was funny, and collapsed into a chair, hysterical with laughter.

  Darlene stood in the kitchen doorway, her wet hair matted to her forehead, her expression pathetic. “You want me to order out again?”

  Jim was standing in a puddle of water and the towel in his hands could hold no more. Dee was still laughing, starting up again each time she looked at the French fries strewn on the table. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “What do we want? Pizza?”

  “How about Chinese? The Wah Hing ought to be open.”

  Dee looked at him. “Chinese!” she cackled, then exploded with more giggling.

  Jim envisioned chow mein, rice, sweet-and-sour ribs, and fortune cookies all over the floor. “Make it a pizza. Something plain and simple.”