Emily studied the old woman's face. The eyes were open, but she was not looking back. Emily knelt by the sofa and gently shook her. She took the woman's wrist and felt for a pulse. Then she laid her head on the old woman's chest to listen for a heartbeat or breathing. It was then Emily realized that Justine Claudia Works was dead.

Emily thought she heard a noise, a slight "clap." She stood up abruptly.

"Hello?" Emily said, "Is somebody there?"

She walked down the hall to the kitchen, where the noise came from. The light was on, the ceiling fan turning slowly. Emily's eyes fell on a small teapot, steam curling up out of the spout. It sat on a hot pad next to the stove, and there was an open sugar bowl with a spoon in it and an open box of herbal tea. Emily walked over to the kitchen counter, peered around the corner, and saw that the back door was open. The "clap" sound she had heard must have been the back screen door falling shut.

Emily pushed the screen door open and stepped out onto the back porch. She scanned the backyard and studied the alleyway. No one was there. She felt something brush against her legs, and looked down just in time to see Mrs. Works' fluffy brown Persian, Mr. Tibbs, running through the open screen door, right between her ankles. It bounded straight through the kitchen and through the open basement door. Emily wondered, had it been Mr. Tibbs who went out the screen door?

Emily sat down on the wooden chair at the kitchen table she had sat at so many times before, buried her face in her arms and had a good long cry. When time finally came back to her, she took a deep breath, wiped the wet off her face, picked up the phone and dialed nine-one-one.

After the paramedics had taken Justine away, a young medic asked her some questions. Emily explained to him that Justine had once been her piano teacher and they were friends. Justine was old and she had no family, and Emily had a key to the house because she helped Justine out with chores, shopping and taking care of the cat, and so on. Justine had been old but healthy, and her dying like this was a shock.

The young man asked, "Did she have a religious preference? Do you know the name of a pastor we should call?"

Emily was about to say "yes," and then she paused. Now that was a question. She wondered if those dreadful people counted as a church. She thought not. They were more like a cult. And she couldn't bear the thought of that horrible man, that Brother John, having anything to do with Justine's funeral. She bit her lip and then decided that they might find out eventually, but not from her. "No, not really," said Emily, "Mrs. Works wasn't really the religious type."

By the time Emily was alone again, the sun had set and it was dark enough out that the windows looked like mirrors under the yellow glare of the kitchen ceiling lamp. Emily lowered each kitchen blind. She locked the back door. She put the lid back on the sugar bowl, closed the tea box and put the box and the bowl away in the cupboard. She emptied the now cold water out of the teapot into the sink and hung the pot up.

Mr. Tibbs would have to come home with her for the time being, Emily thought. She called down the basement stairs, "Mr. Tibbs! Mr. Tibbs! Come upstairs, kitty, kitty!" She stared down into the dark basement. She didn't want to go down there alone. She decided she would have to come back later for Mr. Tibbs. She almost closed the basement door, and then realized she ought to leave it open just a crack so the cat could come upstairs if it wanted.

The light in the living room was out, but Emily could still see the sofa in the glow of the kitchen light. She turned on the hall light and saw that the pillows on the sofa were still indented where Justine had lain. Emily closed the living room curtains. Then she took one last good look around the room.

It was then Emily noticed them, sitting on the coffee table next to the couch. An open Bible and two tea cups, both half empty. A single verse on the open pages in the Bible had been highlighted in rose colored pencil: "I am the resurrection and the life."

At first, when Justine had begun seeing the missionaries of the Church of the Holy Name, Emily hoped it could be a good thing. The visits of the evangelists undoubtedly helped Justine pass the time and feel less lonely. And yet, something didn't seem quite right about these people. Justine invited Emily over once to meet some of them.

The thing she remembered most was how annoyingly self-assured and pushy the missionaries had seemed. "We know there is life after death," they had gushed.

"Well, that is a matter of opinion," Emily had replied.

"Oh, no," they insisted, "We have proof."

"I'd be interested in seeing that," Emily smiled.

"Woe unto those who demand a sign, for you will not believe in them, even if you see them."

That didn't impress Emily. Justine was embarrassed by the confrontation, and Emily realized afterwards the missionaries had been using Justine to get another convert, and obviously did not care if they strained a friendship in doing so.

The only other time Emily had encountered members of the cult was one evening after running some errands for Justine. Two men were sitting at the tiny kitchen table with Justine. One of the men, a trim, dark-haired man dressed all in black, was shuffling a stack of papers into a briefcase. The other man wore an impeccably pressed white suit with a sky blue shirt and a white tie. On his left hand Emily noticed a golden ring with a sun symbol. His hair was snowy white, but his face betrayed no age, no wrinkles or spots or imperfections. There was something awkward about the way he held himself, something stiff and unnatural about his movements. He watched Emily like a cat, feigning non-interest.

Justine introduced the man in white as "Brother John," the pastor at her church, and told Emily they were "just taking care of some business."

After the two men left, Emily asked Justine just what type of "business" she had been up to with these men, but Justine sealed up tight. Emily pushed her to the verge of tears, and then finally gave up. They never spoke about it again.

Now Emily wondered about that open Bible and the two tea cups, and the "clap" of the kitchen screen door. Someone had been with Justine when she died, and whoever that was had been in the house when Emily arrived, had been hiding in the kitchen and had slipped out the back door, as if they did not want to be seen.

Had Justine been murdered? Poison in the tea maybe? If it had been murder, Emily thought, she should call the police right away, before the murderer returned to the house to wipe finger prints off the tea cups or the Bible, and pour the cyanide-laced tea down the sink.

But if she called the police, maybe they would think she was crazy. Justine was seventy-two years old. What was more logical? That she was poisoned by a homicidal Bible-study partner, or that she had died of a natural cause such as a heart attack? No, the police would think Emily was crazy to call them with these wild suspicions.

And after all, she thought, at the hospital they'll examine her. If Justine had been poisoned, they'd figure that out, right?

But only if they did an autopsy, Emily reminded herself. And they won't do an autopsy unless they have some reason. And no one else knew what Emily knew: someone else had been with Justine when she died, and that someone had run away.

"Of course!" thought Emily, "If they even noticed the two tea cups, which they probably didn't, they would just have assumed I was the one drinking with her." And then Emily wondered, "If they found out Justine had been poisoned, would they think that I murdered her?"

Perhaps Mrs. Works was not murdered, Emily decided, but she needed to reassure herself. And if Justine had been murdered, the police would never believe her, and she had to go save the evidence. "And anyway," she thought, "I need to go get poor Mr. Tibbs." So, even though it was now something after midnight, and without any plan other than to go see what she might see, Emily pulled on a jacket and a scarf and went back to the house of Justine Works.

Although it was not excessively chilly outdoors, as Emily made her way to the house she shivered uncontrollably. The cold came from inside, from a great pit of dread that had suddenly opened up in her. And yet, she did not turn back.

It was odd to arrive at the utterly dark house. This is what the house looks like, Emily thought, without its soul. She hoped that none of the neighbors were watching as she slipped through the front door. They would surely think it odd that she was entering a dead woman's house in the middle of the night.

Emily found the light switch next to the door and flicked it up, but there was no light. In the dark, she found the end table lamp next to the sofa and she turned the tiny curved knob on its base until it clicked. Still no light. She turned it again and again, click, click. Why were none of the lights working?

As she turned around to open one of the curtains, she stepped on something that moved. There was a high-pitched scream, "WAAAOOOW!" Emily screamed too, and the front curtains shivered and sighed as something small raced past them. "Mr. Tibbs!" Emily cried, "come back!" She hoped she had not hurt the cat, stepping on its paw.

She pulled aside the curtains, drawing the light of an almost-full moon down through the front window of the living room and finally letting her see. Her heart raced as she surveyed the room. She saw the gleam of the moonlight on the rims of the two tea cups. There was the Bible, still open, its pages ghostly white in the gloom. There was the sofa. "Where did Mr. Tibbs run to now," she wondered?

"Probably the basement," she answered herself.

In the hallway leading to the kitchen and the basement it was dark, so she ran her fingers up and down the wall as she moved forward, until she found the light switch.

"Okay, this better work," she said. Flick, flick, flick. She furiously flipped the switch up and down, and still there was no light.

There was only one place in the house you could turn off all the lights at the source, and that was the switch box in the basement. The thought of it made her nauseous with dread. It was as if that great pit of cold at the bottom of her stomach had suddenly grown large enough to swallow her whole. She peered ahead of her, down the hall, into the kitchen, where stripes of moonlight leaked in through the partially open blinds of the southeast kitchen window. She stared at the basement door, wide open. Then she noticed the white linoleum floor, gray in the dark, covered with black scuffs and blotches and footprints trailing into the basement. The scent of something rotten like a broken septic tank reached her nose, and she heard a bump, like something scraping against wood and slowly shambling up the stairs.

She had an overwhelming desire to run. At the same time she went all wobbly and weak and could not move. The stench grew stronger, and the clumping and stumping grew louder and louder till something peeked out of the open basement doorway. All she could see was its profile against the moonlit white window curtains behind it, stringy hair hanging down around its face, and a bony, gap-toothed jaw dangling unnaturally open. White, claw-like fingers emerged to clutch the door frame, and then a big, muddy boot, and then, with jerky, puppet-like movements, it heaved its whole body up, and turned toward Emily.

Without thinking, Emily flew across the living room, flung open the front door with a loud slam, and then ran. She heard the yowl of the cat under her feet, and saw the feline shape of Mr. Tibbs streaking across the front lawn as fast as lightning. She didn't think which way she ran, she didn't turn back to see if the thing was following her. She simply fled, following the light of distant street lamps.

Finally, out of breath and her chest nearly bursting, she found a twenty-four-hour convenience store. The store attendant looked startled at first, but then he merely eyed her as though he had seen half a dozen similar dramas already this week. She asked for a bathroom key, which he fished out of a drawer under the register. In the bathroom, she locked the door behind her and then collapsed on the toilet shivering and weeping. Gradually she gathered herself, wiped her face, took a deep breath, returned to the front desk, and asked the attendant if she could use his phone to call the police.

When the dispatcher took Emily's report, Emily was careful to refer to an "intruder," and not offer any description that might possibly cause the operator to question her sanity.

"You saw the intruder?" the operator asked.

"Yes," replied Emily, "But not very well. The house was dark. Someone had turned off the circuits." She wondered if maybe her eyes had played tricks on her in the dark. Whatever it was, it could not have been human. Of that much she was certain.

Emily took a cab home, and went to bed, but she did not sleep for the rest of the night. The next day she started calling churches, trying to find somebody who knew something about the Church of the Holy Name and Brother John. She saw the Church of the Holy Name in the phone book too, and scribbled over the entry with a black pen until it was completely illegible.

Emily had dialed over a hundred numbers and had spent half the day before she finally reached someone who knew something. His name was Father Nicholas Karnow, of the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius. He sounded kind and sympathetic on the phone, and Emily decided that if this man could help her, she should come flat out with it, as crazy as it might sound. "I think they might have killed my best friend," she told him.

There was silence on the other end of the line for a long time. Emily wondered if he might have hung up on her. Finally he said in a very low voice, "Have you called the police?"

"Yes. Well, no. I didn't tell them I think my friend's been murdered, because I wasn't sure they would believe me. But when I went to her house last night, I saw something. I mean someone. I mean, I'm not sure what I saw. Something broke into her house. I called them about that."

"Perhaps we should speak in person," Father Nicholas said.

The church was on the north side of town, so Emily took the bus. It was a charming stone building with a beautiful, vaulted dome. A matronly, gray-haired woman greeted her at the side entrance, and led her to Father Nicholas' office. After bringing them some hot tea, the woman, whom the priest referred to as Dona, left them, closing the office door behind her.

Though in his sixties, Father Nicholas was still handsome, with a distinguished hooked nose, a strong jaw, and bright eyes. He listened attentively as Emily told him the whole story.

"Six years ago," he told Emily, "some members of my parish joined the Holy Name cult. They had been members of Saints Cyril and Methodius their whole lives, had their children baptized here. Of course I felt bad. I thought I must have failed them somehow, for them to leave. One month after they joined the cult, the father died in a car accident. When I heard the news, I decided to visit the family. They might not have been my parishioners any more, but, by God, I had been their pastor their whole lives and I still had a duty to them. So I tried calling, but their number had been disconnected. When I went to their house, it was empty. They were gone, the furniture was gone, the car was gone. Everything. So I went to the Holy Name church to ask if they knew where the family was. They said they had moved, but when I asked where, they said they didn't know. How could a church that cares about its people not know? And the more questions I asked, the more it seemed very, very wrong. I finally called the police, but nothing ever came of it. They had vanished."

"I knew there was something wrong with that cult," exclaimed Emily, "I thought I was going crazy!"

"No, you're not," said the priest. "But that was only the beginning. Since the family's disappearance, I've spent the last six years studying this Holy Name cult. It seems the family from my parish are not the only ones who have met unfortunate ends or mysteriously disappeared after joining it." The priest had a thick, black accordion file on the desk in front of him, full of manilla folders. "These are all cases I've documented," he said. He pulled out a single manilla folder full of newspaper clippings. Father Nicholas placed a clipping with the photograph of man in front of Emily. "Do you recognize him?"

Emily studied the photo. The caption below it read "John Jeremiah Jakes." "That's him," said Emily, "That's Brother John."

"Do you remember who John Jeremiah Jakes is?"

"No," said Emily.

"Perhaps you wouldn't," said the priest, "You would have been a young girl at the time." He pulled out another newspaper clipping. At the top of the clipping was a photo of a barbed wire fence and muddy field littered with corpses.

"Thirty years ago John Jakes founded a cult called Believers in the Name. They built a commune on the shores of Concord Lake, Mississippi."

Emily pursed her lips. "Now I remember," she said, "They committed mass suicide. They drank tea with cyanide in it. So now he's come here and he's planning to do the same thing again?"

The priest scowled. "Are you forgetting that John Jakes committed suicide with his followers at Concord Lake? They found his body at the center of the cult compound, along with those of his closest followers."

Father Nicholas pulled out of the folder a black and white photo of a bloated, naked corpse on an examining table, with a man in a white lab coat and a policeman standing behind it. The eyes and the lips of the corpse were dark and the face was swollen and distorted, but Emily recognized it. "The dental records proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that John Jakes died at Concord Lake," said Father Nicholas.

"So Brother John can't be him." said Emily.

"What do you know about the doctrine of the Holy Name Cult?" asked the priest.

Emily shook her head.

Father Nicholas continued, "Like most Christians, they believe in the resurrection, in life after death. But they do not wait for God to resurrect them in the next world. They bring the dead back in this world. When a member of the Holy Name cult dies, they do not stay dead."

"So that thing I saw in Justine's house...?"

"It was one of them," said the priest.

Over the years, Father Nicholas had gathered his information on the cult by studying obituaries and headlines for information about untimely deaths or disappearances, and searched for clues to a possible cult connection. When he had to, he could use his credentials as a priest to talk to neighbors or hospital officials or even police. It seemed most of those targeted by the cult were individuals who had no family and few friends, often elderly or homeless.

"Have you tried telling what you know to the police?" Emily asked.

The priest frowned. "The cult connection to these deaths is always difficult to prove, so the police have not taken me seriously. But I have also learned that at least one detective, and perhaps other officers are members of the cult."

Emily's eyes opened wide in horror. "I called the police!"

"You did not tell them any more than that you saw an intruder," said the priest, "You didn't tell them that you suspected murder. So you should just act normally, not give anyone any reason to believe that you suspect anything. They will leave you alone so long as they think you know nothing."

"Why are they doing this? Why did they kill Justine?"

"Because the death of innocents makes them younger and stronger and more beautiful," said the priest, "Because they gain property and money from it by convincing their victims to give everything they own to the cult in return for eternal life. Did Justine ever speak to you about her will?"

"Only that she did not have family left, so she planned to leave everything to charity."

"I would not go back to Justine's house if I were you," said the priest.

"I want to see them stopped," said Emily, "I want to see them pay for what they have done."

"There are others like you and me who know," Father Nicholas said, "who want to do something about it. But we must act carefully."

The priest removed a small, silver pendant from around his neck, kissed it and placed it in Emily's hand. The pendant was like a small coin, with an image of an angel on it. The angel's wings were outspread, its halo shaped like the sun, and in its right hand a long spear. There was Greek lettering around the edge of the coin. "The Greek says 'Saint Michael, Conqueror of Satan,'" Father Nicholas explained, "This icon is blessed. Take it and wear it, and let the power and love of God protect you." Father Nicholas helped Emily to her feet. "You can always call me," he said.

As he walked her to the door of his office, the door opened by itself. Dona stood there with a tray and a teapot. "Dona!" the priest said, "You startled me."

"I thought you might want some more tea," she said.

"Well thank you," replied the father. "I will have some in just a moment, after Emily leaves."

"Very well," said Dona.

"Emily," the priest continued, "I don't know if I had a chance to introduce you to Dona. Our old church secretary resigned a few weeks ago to take care of her parents in Rochester. Luckily we found Dona on very short notice."

Dona smiled politely and, balancing the tray in one arm, gently shook Emily's hand. "So nice to meet you, Emily...?"

"Emily Ames," Emily replied. "Thank you, it's nice to meet you."

As she waited at the bus stop, it occurred to Emily that she should have said something to Father Nicholas about turning up the temperature in the church. His secretary must be freezing to death, she thought, because when she shook hands with Dona the poor woman's fingers were as cold as ice.

By the time Emily returned home, the sky was pitch dark and the wind was frigid. Emily had a headache that felt as though someone had smashed her forehead with a hammer. She was so exhausted she could barely crawl up the stairs and into bed.

As she fell asleep, it was as though she were drifting and sinking. The next thing she knew, she was sitting on the couch in Justine's living room, sipping from a cup of tea with Justine. The white curtains were open and there was a perfectly blue sky outside with a few wispy white clouds drifting high.

"Oh, you know, it's not so bad," said Justine, "It's just the waiting, waiting. That is the uncomfortable part." Justine frowned, and then made a fragile smile.

"Waiting for what?" asked Emily.

"My new resurrection body of course," Justine said, "I really wish you hadn't refused, dear. I'm still trying to do what I can for you, but it may be too late."

"What do you mean, refused?" said Emily.

Justine put her tea cup down and leaned toward Emily. "Here, let me see this," she said. She gently took the silver chain around Emily's neck and pulled the pendant up out of Emily's blouse. "Let me have this," she said, trying to pull the chain up over Emily's head. Emily pulled away, but Justine held tight to the pendant, surprisingly strong for an old lady.

"Let go!" said Emily,"It's my pendant! You're hurting me!"

Justine let go suddenly and Emily fell back. "See. You're too stubborn," said Justine. "Look at it for yourself," she said, "It's broken."

Emily had the pendant clutched in her hand. She slowly opened her fingers, and saw that the pendant was indeed broken into three small fragments that were shivering. When she looked more closely she saw the shivering was caused by small, silver maggots crawling on the fragments. The maggots scowled at Emily, gnashing jagged teeth, flicking pointed tongues, and rolling their eyes wildly. They hissed at her.

Emily woke up. It took a moment for the nightmare to fade away. Then she realized she was alone in the dark in her bedroom. Her bed sheets were tangled and moist with sweat. She put her hand to her chest and found the St. Michael charm, reassuringly whole. "Dreams have a way of twisting things," she told herself. It wasn't the Justine she had known. Tears filled her eyes again. How could Justine be dead? She felt sick to her stomach. Perhaps she would get some herb tea to calm herself. Emily felt the wall above the headboard and found the bed lamp. She groped around the base of the lamp until she found the crinkly edges of the small, round switch, and then turned it with a "click."

No light came on. She turned it again, "click." Still no light. She turned it around and around and around, "click, click, click."

Emily got up and felt her way to the closed bedroom door and found the switch to the ceiling lamp and flipped it up. And still no light. Then, as she stood there, Emily caught a putrid scent in the air.

Call the priest, she thought. Call the operator, and ask to be connected to Father Nicholas Karnow. She picked up the phone, but there was no dial tone.

Then she heard a noise. The sound of something scraping against the floor, just outside her door, and something exhaling.

"Lock the door!" she told herself, "Lock the door, lock the door!" She pushed down the little button on the base of the doorknob, and then backed away slowly. There was a scrape and then a clump and then a sudden loud bang as the whole door shuddered violently.

She heard a muffled voice, raspy and unearthly low, saying, "SHE'S IN THERE!"

There was dead silence again. The doorknob rattled furiously, followed by another bang. Then a second, lower pitched voice that hissed, "OPEN IT!"

Emily slowly moved toward the window. The door was silent again, though she heard shuffling outside, and heavy breathing, as if something had placed its face right up against the crack of the door to peek through. Emily unlocked the window and heaved it open. She unlatched the storm window and pushed that up too, as far as she could. A blast of freezing air turned her skin into goose flesh. The door had gone momentarily quiet. Emily grabbed a thick, pink terry bathrobe out of the closet; it was the warmest thing there. There were a pair of rubber boots on the floor. She gave herself a rubber burn on the backs of her heels as she yanked them on. A scritch, scratch, scritch sound came from near the doorknob. Then to her horror, the hook of a wire coat hanger poked through the crack of the door.

In a panic, Emily turned back toward the window. She was about to sit on the nightstand to put her feet out the window and lower herself out when she saw it. In the thin gray light of the moon, she saw a figure down below, next to the elm tree just in front of her house. It wore a long, brown trench coat with its hands buried in its pockets, a black, broad-brimmed hat, dark glasses, and a plaid scarf wrapped around its neck. The skin on its face was strangely mottled, like old cauliflower starting to mold. It simply stood there, deathly still, its head cocked up, facing the window, coldly watching Emily's every move. Then she saw two more behind the tree.

"Scream so the neighbors can hear," she thought, "Scream for your life!" But the scream stuck in her throat, like the cork in a wine bottle.

As the wire hanger swept down the crack of the door it made a thin scraping noise. The latch went "ker-chick" and the bedroom door flew open, crashing against the corner of her dresser. Three shadows in the hallway staggered forward. The foremost shadow let the wire hanger drop with a clickety clack. As it shambled into the moonlight streaming through the open window, Emily saw taut, lesioned skin, bulging, yellowed eyes, and a mouth with no lips to cover its hideous, skeletal grin. Emily scrambled backwards, slamming into the nightstand, and as she did she remembered the pendant.

Emily grasped the St. Michael charm in her right hand and thrust it forward. Her tongue was like gum, and her throat was so clamped she could barely breathe, but she managed to whisper the words: "In the name of God!"

The thing from the doorway paused, seemingly hypnotized. Then the second shadow came forward into the moonlight revealing a pale, noseless face, and the third came forward with mournful, oozing eyes.

The leader grasped the charm with blackened claws, and flung it away into a dark corner of the room. Only now did Emily finally realize a single, heart-rending scream. But it was too late. The thing's claw clamped vice-like over her mouth as the others seized her arms. They slammed her head against the sharp corner of the window. Emily saw a bright, white light as the pain shot forward from the back of her skull through her whole head. And then there was nothing. Just blackness.

In the office of Father Nicholas Karnow at the rectory of Saints Cyril and Methodius, a small group had gathered.

"I tried calling her all day," said the priest. "I couldn't get through, so I went to her house. I got in through the back door. The house was completely empty. No furniture, no personal possessions, nothing. The floors were scraped, like whoever had moved her things out did it in a hurry. I did find this," Father Nicholas said, reaching into his vest pocket. He pulled out the St. Michael charm, devoid of its chain. "I gave this to her when she came here to see me, four days ago," his voice choked, "I found it in the corner of her bedroom."

A young man leaned forward. "Father, do you think they know about us?"

"I don't know," said Father Nicholas.

The door of the office creaked gently. Father Nicholas turned. "Oh, it's you, Dona," he said.

"The tea is ready," Dona said, smiling.

Daphne Kuha-Welter, 2004	Daphne Kuha-Welter, 2004