Healed: A Short Thriller Read online

  Healed: A Short Thriller

  Allen Raithe

  Published by Allen Raithe, 2014.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  HEALED: A SHORT THRILLER

  First edition. March 30, 2014.

  Copyright © 2014 Allen Raithe.

  ISBN: 978-1498976336

  Written by Allen Raithe.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 1

  Pastor Jonas Weir slipped the key into the brass lock securing the oaken double doors of Eternal Faith and Promise Church and turned to shake hands with the remaining congregation. Old Millie Watson sat in her wheelchair, waiting for a blessing as she did every Sunday morning and Wednesday night. He had a quick word with Bill Johnson, a prominent local contractor and then made his way over to the elderly woman.

  “Mighty fine service, Pastor. Mighty fine, indeed. Ain’t heard it said like that since your daddy.”

  He smiled and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You tell me that every week, but I thank you kindly. It makes a man feel good to know that his words can warm people’s hearts. Now what can I do for you today, sweetheart?”

  “Could you lay hands on me?” Millie asked. “I can feel Satan gripping at my heart again. I do my best not to let him in, but it’s getting harder each day.”

  “Chest pains again?” Jonas knelt down to get a better look at her. “You been in to see the doctor? You’re pale as can be.”

  “Doctor ain’t got nothing to say that can help me. Devil’s got hold of me. It’s like you said back in January, Pastor. He can catch hold of a man if he’s allowed!”

  Jonas sighed, trying to remember the sermon; he couldn’t. They all seemed to run together now.

  “Millie, I’ll lay hands on you, if that’s what you want. You know I will.”

  “It is,” she whispered. “It’s exactly what I want. You’re the only man who can keep the evil from me!”

  Jonas took a deep breath and exhaled. He placed his hands on Millie’s forehead, fighting the urge to cringe as he touched her leathery flesh. His wedding ring scraped against a wrinkle, but she didn’t protest. Instead, Millie Watson closed her cataract-ridden eyes and awaited prayer. Jonas felt his chest welling up with sadness as he recited the words from Psalm 23 that she always requested. When he was finished, he waited for her usual demands.

  “Ask Jesus to save me,” the elderly woman panted, clearly in ecstasy. “Tell the demons to get out of me!”

  “Evil, I rebuke you!”

  “Yes, Pastor. Go on! In whose name?”

  “In the name of Jesus, I rebuke you, evil spirits!”

  “Tell them to leave me alone, Pastor. There’s a good boy!”

  “Leave Miss Millie alone, Devil! In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave her alone! Let go of this poor woman’s heart! She is strong; a soldier of God! We will not have you holding on to her heart!”

  The pastor gave her head a gentle shove; then he hugged her close. Her breathing was heavy, and her eyes were still closed. She raised her head to the sky and writhed as much as her weakened body could while confined to a wheelchair. Jonas’s stomach turned at the sight of the old woman taking pleasure in the demons being exorcised from her body.

  Too bad she was never told that the pastor performing the exorcism didn’t believe in demons.

  He removed his hands and waited for her eyes to open.

  “Do you need any help getting home? You know I don’t drive but—”

  “Well I do! Ain’t no one gonna take my car away until I’m dead and in the ground. If you’ll just wheel me over to it and help me get into the driver’s seat, I’ll be fine.”

  He did as she asked, still fighting the sensation to vomit and weep. As he mentally prepared himself for the lonely walk home, Millie Watson began singing a merry tune about preparing God’s children for the Rapture.

  Chapter 2

  Jonas enjoyed walking home because it was the only time he really had to be alone with his thoughts. As soon as he walked through his front door, he would have to deal with e-mails and answering machine messages from church folk. It wasn’t that he didn’t care for his congregation; perhaps he loved them too much. He merely enjoyed being alone with his own self-doubt for the hour-and-thirty-minutes-or-so that it took for him to walk in the evenings. Someone always took him home after morning service; he also got a ride to church for the evening service. But when the time came to go home after his final gut-wrenching performance, he always preferred the company of darkness and shadows.

  It was an interesting choice for a man of the Light.

  He clenched his bible close, imagining that it burned a hole through his suit jacket and opened his flesh with jagged, sharp teeth; for he doubted its contents and still found himself ramming it down the throats of the gullible three times each week. Sometimes he entertained the notion that he was the problem, not his bible. Maybe it was his lack of faith that kept the man upstairs from working through him.

  Jonas had been pressured by his father to take over the church. When Matthew Weir had finally died, there was nothing left but for him to take charge, though he had protested against it for years.

  For a while, it was tough going, but his congregation had eventually warmed up to him. He immediately banished the former Weir’s practice of handling snakes, because he had never believed in it. Interestingly enough, only a few members had put up a fight over it. He didn’t care and he told them as much. His reasoning for not believing in such a callous activity was pure; he found it a mockery of God’s teachings.

  Now he was the only remaining mockery.

  He rounded a bend and something caught his eye. It took a few seconds for his eyes to focus, and when they did, he gasped. A man was kneeling over something he couldn’t make out in an alleyway. He brought his right hand up and dropped it back down repeatedly.

  It almost looked like he was trying to stab someone to death.

  Without thinking, Jonas ran towards the person, waving his arms over his head. His bible fell to the ground with a thud, but he paid it no heed. Instead, he propelled himself forward as fast as his legs and feet would carry him.

  “Stop! I see you! I’m a witness! What are you doing? PLEASE STOP!”

  The man looked up and jumped to his feet. He charged forward, but Jonas quickly sidestepped. The attacker fell to the ground and Jonas grabbed him by the jacket, lifting him to his feet. The pastor heard a loud clank as the weapon fell from the man’s hand and hit the road. The attacker shook free from Jonas’s grip and stumbled back a few steps. It was dark, but he could see the man’s eyes.

  They were wide; his pupils were dilated. It wasn’t the sort of look of terror a man gave when he was caught in the act. It was more representative of the madness, remorse, and fear that drove Judas to hang himself upon committing the ultimate betrayal.

  “Stop right there!” Jonas’s voice cracked, but he held firm.

  The attacker stepped closer. His face was a ghostly white. “The red petals wither!”

  Jonas blinked. “What?”

  “THE RED PETALS WITHER!”

  Jonas didn’t have time to react before he was shoved out of the way. He caught himself and spun around, ready to defend against the madman.

  But he never had to.

  Knife in hand again, the man backed away from Jonas until he was bathed in moonlight. “I had to kill her... The red petals wither!”

  Jonas watched, horrified, as the attacker lifted th
e knife and stabbed himself in the chest over and over again until blood soaked his shirt and he collapsed. His spasms ceased almost as soon as they began and the pastor remembered the victim. He rushed to the woman and knelt, taking her head into his lap. Tears streamed down his face as he brushed her hair from her eyes.

  “Jesus, I beg of you to restore this woman. Please! Don’t abandon me now!”

  It was too late; she was quite dead. God wasn’t listening. Pastor Jonas held the woman and wept.

  Chapter 3

  It was well midnight when Jonas finally made it home. Now, the ungodly man of God sat in his meager home, waiting for the Ambien to kick in and sweep his worries under the rug for another night. It had taken him nearly an hour to remember that his clothes were stained with the dead woman’s blood. Jonas eventually stripped them off and tossed them into the already-too-full trash bin in the corner of his run-down kitchen.

  He picked up the picture of his wife that never left the mantle and looked at it for a moment before returning it to its rightful spot. It sat amongst other memories that should have been forgotten long ago when his beloved Rachel had died. He still wore the ring, but it meant nothing more to him than a decade of abandonment. He hated that he felt that way; it wasn’t Rachel’s fault that the brain tumor took her life. He couldn’t help himself; it was then that he began to doubt his faith. Not one of his prayers to heal her suffering had been answered and now she was gone.

  Sleep finally came, striking its deadening blow before Jonas had a chance to lie in his bed. His dreams were sporadic and from what he could remember, fitful. He awoke to the shrill ring of a telephone, the image of a red rose bleeding and then withering into ash still burned into his mind from the nightmare he had been having.

  He scrambled out of the old recliner and headed for the kitchen. He grabbed the phone receiver from the wall, biting back a yelp from a sudden cramp in his neck.

  “Yes?” He managed to croak.

  “Jonas? I’m sorry if I woke you. It’s an emergency.”

  “Gus?” Jonas asked. “Is that you? What time is it?”

  “Quarter till four, Pastor. And I’m sorry, but it’s Aunt Millie. She’s in the hospital. Doctors don’t think she has long to live and she’s asking for you.”

  “I’ll never make it in time,” he replied. “I don’t drive. I’m also pretty groggy.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m on my way to get you. Will you come?”

  He sighed. “Of course. I’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

  Gus was knocking on the door just as the pastor was putting on his shoes. He stood from the couch, still a little shaky from the pill he’d taken earlier, and left his house, sleep and the bloody suit he’d thrown away behind. He climbed into the car and tried not to fall asleep on the way to the hospital.

  * * *

  Millie was barely hanging on when they arrived. A nurse was recording her vitals onto a chart and shaking her head as she wrote. She left the three of them alone, but not before letting the two men know that they should probably say their goodbyes quickly, while Millie Watson was still lucid.

  Jonas approached the bed and took the woman’s hand into his. She felt cold to the touch and her eyes fluttered spasmodically in their sockets.

  “What happened, sweetheart?” Jonas asked.

  She took a short, labored breath and exhaled. “You tried, Pastor. The Devil’s gonna take me anyway. You did what you could.”

  “She’s been talking that nonsense all night,” Gus said. “I was at her place keeping her company and she kept going on about demons. She seemed well enough, until she tried to go to the kitchen without her wheelchair. It was the oddest thing. She got up, seemed to have a fire in her eyes like she did when I was a kid. Then she just collapsed.”

  Jonas nodded and turned back to the dying woman. “You weren’t supposed to be up and walking around.”

  “Don’t matter anymore,” she whispered. “I just wanted to bring you here and thank you for all you did to help me.”

  “Well I’ll stay with you as long as you want,” Jonas said. “Is there anything I can do for you now? I’ll pray if you need me to.”

  “That’d be nice,” Millie said. “I’d like for you to lay hands on me, Pastor. Just one more time.”

  “I can do that.”

  He reached over and slid a chair close to the bed, sitting. Gus sighed, mumbling something about “Too much damn praying,” and left the room.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Millie said. “He’s just like his mother. Don’t believe in nothin’ good. He ain’t a man of God like you, Jonas.”

  “Millie, about that... I need to tell you—”

  “Nonsense. You just pray for me, understand? I need you, Pastor.”

  He placed his hands on her head and began to speak.

  “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.”

  Before he could start the next verse, Millie took in a deep, rattled breath, held it and exhaled. Her head tilted to the side and her stare went blank. Jonas removed his hands from her head and started to stand. Before he made it out of his chair, Millie’s cold hand reached out and seized Jonas’s arm. Her grip was inhumanly strong; he gasped at the pain. He tried to wiggle out of her grasp, but she held him fast.

  “Look at me.” The voice did not belong to Millie Watson. It was three voices rolled into one, each one harmonizing into a sickening tone that sent shivers up and down his spine.

  “I said look at me, Father!”

  Jonas braced himself and looked into what should have been Millie’s eyes. Instead, two smoldering, black sockets stared back at him.

  “Pray for me, Jonas!” Millie’s face smiled, mocking him.

  She still held him tightly. He wanted to shrink back, hide in the corner, cover his face and wait for the nightmare to end.

  “You aren’t real. I’m dreaming!”

  Millie’s body rose slightly from the bed. Her face was close enough for him to feel the maddening heat coming from her empty eye sockets.

  “I’m not real!” She laughed. “You’re dreaming!”

  “What do you want from me?” He was close to tears. Somewhere deep down, he thought he was still sleeping in bed, possibly having a nightmare.

  “He with doubt will see the red petals wither. Thrice a death, now thrice shall be healed. He with doubt shall again feel. When red petals wither, he who feels shall fall to sin!”

  “Who are you?” Jonas demanded. “What have you done to Millie?”

  “Healed by one with doubt! She’s in Hell!”

  He shrieked and the deathly hand around his arm released its grip. Millie’s body fell back to the bed as Gus and the nurse rushed in.

  “What the hell was that?” Gus was reaching down to pluck Jonas off the floor where he had stumbled and fallen.

  “She grabbed me! Her eyes!”

  “Damnit!” The nurse was shouting. “Equipment’s burned out! Must have short-circuited!”

  She sped out of the room, screaming for a doctor, and Jonas managed to lower himself to a different chair; it was as far away from Millie as he could get.

  “What happened in here?” Gus asked.

  The door to the room opened again and a doctor rushed in. He walked over to the bed, but stopped short.

  “I can’t resuscitate this patient, Nurse Jones. She’s been electrocu—”

  The doctor stopped mid-sentence and addressed Gus directly.

  “There’s been an accident. I don’t know what went wrong, but I promise you, we’ll get to the bottom of it. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but it looks as though Mrs. Watson may have suffered from electrocution. Whether it happened before or after she passed is unclear, as the equipment monitoring her vitals malfunctioned. That’s all I can say at this time.”

  Jonas, still trembling, stared up at the doctor. “But she grabbed me. Her eyes were burning!”

  “Let me see
that arm,” the doctor said. “Is this where she grabbed you?”

  Jonas lifted his arm and was shocked to find the imprint of Millie’s fingers burned into his flesh.

  “This only confirms my suspicions. I’m very sorry you had to go through this, Mr. Weir. We’ll get your arm cleaned up immediately.”

  “But she was—”

  “I understand what you’re going through. What you saw was nothing more than a byproduct of the electrical shock. I assure you, it was an accident.”

  An accident. Jonas wasn’t so sure he agreed.

  Chapter 4

  The week had flown by rather uneventfully, and now it was Sunday morning all over again. Jonas Weir stood at his lectern, facing his congregation for the first time since the events of last week transpired. He had cancelled Wednesday service to allow himself a chance to recuperate, but he knew perfectly well that come Sunday, he’d have to face seeing everyone again. To prepare for it, he’d made his rounds, visiting most of his people in hopes of hearing a few kind words. For some reason, only six people, none of whom he visited, had bothered to show up for the service.

  He stood for a moment, trying to think of something to say. He hadn’t bothered to write a sermon, and now he was stuck. He looked out into the audience and shrugged his shoulders. It was now or never.

  “I’m sure you already know that I witnessed a murder a week ago. I was also present when Millie Watson passed on.”

  Heads began to nod; a woman seated toward the front of the room wiped her eye with a handkerchief.

  “You know what this tells me about our Lord? Do any of you know? Well how about I tell you?”

  A man in the back raised his voice. “Tell us, Pastor Weir!”

  “I think God is dead.”

  Gasps sounded; several people gawked, wide-eyed.

  “Does that surprise anyone here?”

  “You don’t mean it!” Someone exclaimed.

  “Blasphemy,” Billy Smith shouted from the back row. “Pure blasphemy!”