Tribulation Bay Chapter Three

Andrew finally got on the road at just about 7:00 and looked up on his GPS the quickest route to Tribulation Bay, which gave him the quickest route to get him there in just over an hour. During that trip, he made a call to the head of the Pastor Selection Committee.

“Hello, is this Frank Sloan?”

“Yes it is,”

“Yes, this is Andrew Collins,”

“We were expecting you to be here around 3:00,” Frank responded, “not after 9:00.”

“I know, there was a bit of an incident as I was preparing to leave Philly, then I decided to wait until after seven to hit the road.”

“I see,”

“I was hoping to get the keys to the house at least, and get everything about my getting started on preaching on Sunday brought up to speed.”

“It's just a matter of signing a few papers,” Frank said, “I can bring them around to the house in the morning.”

“Well that's all well and good, but how do I get into my new house in the meantime?”

“We left a key under the mat.”

“Under the mat?” Andrew scoffed. “That's the first place an intruder would look for a key if he wanted to break in and steal anything!”

“You're coming from that urban mindset, we're nothing more than a village on the bay with barely over 600 people that's not even tourist worthy. I don't think there's been a major crime here in over 10 years.”

“That's assuring. OK. Key's under the mat, finalize any paperwork in the morning. Anything else immediate I need to know about?”

“Nothing that can't wait until tomorrow.”

Clark's bed was a nice queen sized bed, which could easily fit the two of them.

“Which side do you want to take?”

“What do you mean which side?” Rachael noticed the fact that the one side of the bed was along he wall. “I'm not sleeping in the same bed as you. Well, not yet, anyway.”

“Just because we'll be sleeping together, doesn't mean we'll be SLEEPING together.” Clark motioned towards the bed, “it's big enough for both of us to be in.”

“I'll go downstairs and sleep on the couch,”

“You know that thing is a hold-over from the 1970's,” Clark teased.

“I'll sleep in your mom's old bed.”

“She frequently wet the bed.”

Rachael looked through the window and into her old room, it was empty and stripped of all its allure, a frown came to her face as she stopped at where her bed once was.

Clark followed Rachael's gaze, “you certainly can't go there to sleep,”

“I know,” Rachael frowned.

“What's the big deal anyway?” Clark asked. “We've both dreamed of being together all our lives,”

“I know,” Rachael played with the piece of jewelry that now hung around her neck, “it's just that, we've waited 21 years, what's a bit more time?”

“Rachael,” Clark's eyes furrowed, “having sex with you is the furthest thing from my mind.”

Rachael gave Clark a look. “What?”

“OK, not really,” he looked at Rachael, “but over the past week, I got maybe an hour of sleep a night.”

“Oh,” it finally hit Rachael, as Clark's head hit the pillow, “so you actually want to sleep sleep.”

“Yes,” Clark looked up from his pillow.

“I guess we can discuss boundaries sometime tomorrow,” Rachael lay her head down so she was facing Clark.

“Rachael, I get it. You're a preacher's daughter who's father is entering a new church, so you have a certain image to uphold. When your father introduces us next Sunday, we can have him introduce us as being engaged. That should keep most of them quiet for the most part.”

“Unless there is one of those people in the church,”

“Those people?” Clark groaned.

“You know what I'm talking about, the holier than God Church Lady.”

“Well, wouldn't that be interesting!”

Karina Christina McGrudibeggar was a tall woman with light skin and dark hair and was accustomed to wearing older almost Victorian style clothes that covered her entire body. When she smiled, which was rarely, her entire face crinkled up.

Even though it was approaching midnight, she strolled across the church yard like a peacock in the sunlight to where she saw Andrew unloading the last of the U-Haul truck.

“Hello,” she said sharply, “do you happen to know what time it is?”

“It's...,” Andrew looked at his cellphone, “it's exactly 11:45.”

“At night, yes. All loud noises are to come to an end at 11:00 sharp.”

“What loud noises exactly?”

“All of that bing-bing-banging coming from that truck.”

“I'm almost done, just want the truck empty so that I can turn it in at the gas station in the morning.”

“I'm afraid that's not going to happen, you see I already called the Sheriff in,” Miss McGrudibeggar chuckled evilly as the police cruiser came up the driveway “and look here they come now!”

Dawn carried the last of the boxes into the living room and sat it on the living room floor, then looked up to see Caroline coming in with three mugs of hot chocolate.

“Where's your father?”

Dawn shrugged. “Probably locking the truck up.”

Caroline saw the red and blue lights make their dance against the wall, she looked out to see the police cruiser coming to a stop next to Andrew and some strange looking woman. “Who's she?”

Dawn shrugged. “How should I know?”

“Well let's find out.”

Natsukioni Chen was a woman of Chinese descent who was born in lower Manhattan and got her training on the police force, where she recently transferred to Tribulation Bay as the sheriff of the local police station. Off duty, or when people talked to her casually, she went by her first name Natsukioni, a name which most people have morphed into Natty. But if she was in her official officer mode, she went by Officer Chen. 99.999999% of the time though most people who knew her just called her Natty both in and out of uniform. Natty was in her early 30’s with long black hair and black eyes. She was in full uniform and seemed to be a bit disgruntled, as she glared at Miss McGrudibeggar.

“This better be a good one,” Natty looked at Miss McGrudibeggar, “otherwise why call me in personally out of a deep sleep, when there are two deputies on patrol.”

“This man,” Miss McGrudibeggar pointed to Andrew, “is disturbing the peace.”

“What peace?” Natty looked around, the only buildings within 500 feet were the church and the parsonage. “Who's peace?”

“Well,” Miss McGrudibeggar's smile turned into a frown, “mine.”

“You live on the other side of town, how can what he is doing here be bothering you?”

“Well--.”

“Now go home and go to bed and don't call me unless it's over something real.”

At that, Miss. McGrudibeggar stormed off and Natty turned to Andrew. “I'm sorry about that Mr. Collins, I'd say that won't happen again, but it's a daily ritual with her.”

“How'd you know my name?”

“I'm one of the Deaconesses of your church and was one of the members of the Pastor selection committee who voted you in. All but one member voted for you.”

“Let me guess who didn't,” Andrew nodded towards Miss McGrudibeggar's direction.

“She voted for a candidate who didn't even know how to preach a proper sermon.”

“Why would she do that.”

“Who knows?”

Carolyn and Dawn stood there as Andrew saw the Sheriff off. Carolyn was the one who spoke. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah,” Andrew responded, “just two parishioners picked a strange time to come by and introduce themselves, is all.”

The mortician looked at the body that lay on the table before her as she poked around variously inside the chest that lay open. While an autopsy was not required, there was the presence of a pacemaker inside her chest that needed to be removed.

“How long ago did they say she died?” The mortician asked her assistant.

The assistant looked at the clipboard. “At 5:02, a little over 7 hours ago.”

“Strange, the rate of cellular decay indicates she died 7 days ago, not 7 hours ago.”

“Well, the police have video confirmation that she was alive and well until 5:02, when she tried to attack several armed police officers with a butcher knife.”

“Do we have access to any of the video?”

“I'm sure I can get it,” the assistant made a few keystrokes at the laptop, and was given approval to download a cellphone video that was made, “got it.”

The mortician waited for her assistant to start the video which showed Doris hurling herself down a flight of stairs welding a butcher knife.

“My God,” the mortician was surprised at what she saw, “that's barely even possible for a healthy 20something athlete to do, let alone an 85 year old woman with a pacemaker!”

“Yet here it is.”

“Play it again, but this time around pause it just as she hurls herself down.”

The assistant did as he was asked. When he paused the video, he noticed an eerie glow around Doris. “Look at that!”

“Now zoom in on her face,” she waited for the action to be made, and the still image zoomed in on Doris's face, there was a stiffness to it with a pale, almost ghostly color to her skin. While her eyes should have been focused on her target, they weren't. “That is the face of someone who is already dead!”

Clark lay sleeping in his bed as Rachael cuddled up next to him, when there was a loud knocking at the door followed by the ringing of the doorbell.

“I think someone's at the door,” Rachael mumbled into Clark's ear, as the ringing went on and on.

“You think?” Clark painted on the sarcasm a bit thick, and went downstairs without a care about what he did or didn't have on. He pulled the door open to let whoever was on the other side see him in nothing but his boxers. “Wad-ya want?”

“I'm sorry to bother you at this time of night,” the same Police Sergeant he had spoken with earlier in the night said as he stood there.

“Yet here you are!”

“It's just that the coroner wants me to ask you a few questions concerning your mother.”

“What is it. You think I'm a suspect in her killing? Because, if I remember correctly, it was one of your men who shot her.”

“Oh,” the Sergeant responded, “no, it's not that. The coroner discovered that it's possible that your mother may have died almost a week ago.”

“Yet at 5:00 she was still up and about.”

“Yes, that's the strange thing, but on the video that the girl gave me, and the coroner viewed, she noticed a sort of glow like...like.”

“Like something was keeping her alive,”

“Yes.”

“Like I told someone earlier, about a week ago I thought she had died then, but she came back.”

“But you also said,” Rachael, who had followed Clark downstairs spoke, “that you think that something may have come back instead of her.”

“Instead of her?” The Sergeant asked.

“It's been known to happen,”

“You've been watching too many old Hammer Horror movies.”

“I think it's possible,” the Sergeant said, “I did see a sort of something come out of her when one of my men shot her.”

“Yeah,” Rachael mocked, “blood.”

“No. No.” The Sergeant protested. “There was no blood, which in and of itself is strange.”

“So there was something else. Like a spirit coming out of her.”

“Wait,” Clark looked around the room wearily, “you don't mean that whatever took over my mother's body, could still be here?”

“It's not in the realm of impossibility,” the Sergeant turned to leave, “I'm sorry for bothering you like this. I'll show myself out.”

“So,” Clark muttered as he closed the door behind the Sergeant, “whatever it was that kept my mother's corpse animated for a week is still lurking around. Nice!”

“Come on Clark, you really don't believe any of that stuff, do you?”

“How else do you explain what happened?”

“I dunno. Listen, whatever it is, all we have to do is stick it out until Monday or Tuesday.”

“But that's four whole days we have to live in this haunted house.”

“Was this house haunted before now?”

“I guess not.”

“Then it's not now.”

“I guess you're right,”

“I've never known you to be scared.”

“I'm not,” Clark replied, “just a little overwhelmed by recent events.”

“Come on,” Rachael said, “you're just tired. Nothing that a good 8 hours of sleep won't cure.”

Clark lay asleep in his bed but not soundly, a nightmare raced through his head. He was back at the steps as Doris flung herself at him. Only this time he didn't get out of the way, and the knife she was holding was plunged into his heart as she held onto his face.

Clark let out a loud scream as he jolted himself out of his sleep and sat up, where he saw a face staring into his, which only caused him to go into a deeper state of panic.

“Hey.” The face that stare into his was a blur, from which he tried to back away. “Hey!”

“What do you want from me!?” Clark screamed.

“It's me!”

“Who?” Clark wiped the sleep out of his eyes, as they began to focus themselves in the dimly light room. It was then that he realized it was Rachael who was holding him by the face.

“Rachael,” Clark gasped out.

“It was just a dream,” Rachael responded.

“I just want to get out of the place. But I need to wait at least until at least Tuesday to do so. I have to have them turn off all of the utilities: Gas; electric & water.”

“All of which can be done online, just arrange to have a final reading for each one and have the final bill be sent to your email. As for the house flipper guy, just call them first thing in the morning.”

“And what about collecting mom's ashes?”

“Again, just go to the hospital morgue, do what you need to do there tomorrow. If we do everything right, we can be out of here by first Monday morning.”

“All you've done is cut out a day. I'll still need to be in this house for two more nights.”

“This is true, but look at it this way, by Monday night, you'll be in a completely different environment.”