One night of the year (a short story)

Your babysitter turns up in a tasteless Halloween costume. It’s fine. You’re only leaving her in charge of your kids…

Bare feet on the bathroom tiles, bearing his scrutiny, Sheryl felt like one of his patients.

 “She’s perfectly capable of handling this,” he eventually said.

Sheryl released a piggish snort that undermined the two hours she’d put into tonight’s makeup job and reached for her phone. “That’s exactly what I’m worried about…too capable.”  

 Dr Stoke gently took the phone from his wife’s fingers and pressed down on the red call icon. The caller id for Last Supper Restaurant froze and shifted to greyscale as if disappointed.

“We’ll be away three hours tops.” He gripped her elbow and guided her out of the ensuite. 

Sheryl stole a glance at the wardrobe mirror on the way out. Everything was in place. Disarmingly so. Her hair, dress, right down to the pumpkin-spice perfume. She was aiming to look like this, but that didn’t change her surprise. Anyone might think the two of them were an energetic, childless couple, in the early stages of dating.

She swallowed down a wave of nausea and bent to pick up her high heels.  

The doctor strode ahead. “Hi Beth!”

Sheryl’s neck hair rose as her husband’s voice trailed off at the head of the stairs. She rushed to the door without touching the heels.

Clutching the banister below, a pale girl—also barefooted—in a white ankle length dress, lifted her chin slowly to greet the parents. “Hi Mr and Mrs Stoke!”

“Hello Beth…” started Sheryl, lowering her eyes to a section of the dress’ fabric which was slightly off colour. Almost damp looking as if she’d waded hip deep into some type of ravine. “I ahhh…I like your outfit,” she choked.

“I’m Lesley Graves! Clever hah?” The girl pouted like a film star and did a twirl for the couple as the name sank in.

Lesley Graves, death row inmate. Lesley Graves, murderer nanny. Lesley Graves, drowner of four children at the Winstone family’s lake-front estate while the parents were schmoozing at a cocktail party.

 Sheryl leaned her lips to the Doctor’s ear—

“She’s harmless,” insisted the doctor before she could speak.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and he opened his arms. “Happy Halloween, Beth!”

***

“Honey we’re heading out now. You be good for Beth!” This high, maternal tone was as foreign to Sheryl as church on Sunday before she became a mother. These days both happened automatically.

“—Mathew! Put that down!”

Baby Mathew’s eyes widened at his father’s booming command. He cowered his elbows into his little body as if perfectly convinced the doctor had lost the plot and had infanticide on the brain.

Dr Stoke snatched the newspaper from the child’s hands and hid the cover image under his armpit. The subject of his contemptuous frown was ambiguous, yet felt in the atmosphere they all breathed.

Stumbling across the loungeroom in her heels, Sheryl cradled her whimpering son against her bosom, ignoring the slobber on the black dress. “Sorry to frighten you baby, we just can’t have you looking at this stuff. It’ll give you nightmares!” she rubbed his head.

“Good shout Mrs Stoke!” came a voice from the hallway, “those headlines have been giving me nightmares all week!” .

Sheryl looked up to find Beth, nodding towards the doctor and his half-hidden cover page. It read, “The MATRIARCH MAULER TAKES ANOTHER SCALP!”

She met the Doctor’s eye—he shot a warning glare right back at her.  

Sheryl forced a smile. “Well good thing this serial K-I-L-L-E-R—" she spelt, “only seems interested in local mothers.”

Beth snorted. “Thank God, I’ll never be mistaken for a mother!” she threw a look at the doctor as if conspiring with him.

Sheryl did the same.

Dr Stoke flattened his lips. “Please don’t take the lord’s name in vain under my roof.”   

Baby Mathew watched from Sheryl’s arms with his yet-to-grow-in eyebrows furrowed as if about to offer his own reservations on this arrangement.

***

“I think the tape’s on too tight!” Shouted Beth, way too loud for the Toyota’s small interior. “Look at the colour of his face!”

Fox’s eyebrow twitched the way it always did under a time crunch. His eyes left the road as he glanced over his shoulder. “No, it’s not too tight. You’ve got it covering the poor bugger’s nostrils. Take it off! Start again you silly bitch!”

“Ok, ok!”

Fox looked back at the road. They were still in the sixty-kilometre zone leading out of the CBD, but God it felt like thirty. “No not God. Don’t talk like that anymore!” He palmed himself in the temple. The car swerved.  “Gosh, it felt like thirty.” That’s better. Much better.

“Who are you talking to?” asked Beth.

Fox itched at the newest scab under his chin and tried his best to ignore the frantic shit going on in his rear-view mirror as the expressway lights whizzed by.

The fast lane had turned into the slow lane because everyone has a blown-out idea of their own driving ability. He indicated left and wedged his hatchback between a stock truck and a people mover.

“How far away are we taking him?”

“Just a couple of…” he trailed off.

“What was that?”

“A couple of hours. Four hours. Stop talking and handle the kid!” scolded Fox.

“Four!”

He tuned her out and turned up the radio. “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.” Fitting. The dirtiness would be behind him soon though.

“Concrete shoes, Cyanide, TNT. Done Dirt Cheap!”

He scratched at the fresh lesions under his ribs. He hadn’t told Beth about these ones yet. Just another reminder that she was the only one who’d have him.

He glanced in the mirror. She pouted for him.

She’d see soon enough.

God, he loved how much cleavage she showed though.

“Neckties, contracts, high voltage! Done Dirt cheap!” Shit he did it again. He palmed himself in the temple. Another swerve.

“Fox. What time are we gonna call the parents?” Beth hadn’t spoken for three hours. They hadn’t had phone reception for the last two. He could tell she was trying to keep the worry out of her voice.

He ignored her.

“The Stokes were due home at ten, you know?” she said after thirty more minutes.

“We’ll ahhh….” He flicked on the indicator and changed lanes for no reason, then forgot he’d been asked a question.   

Gravel crunched as Fox eased the car down a side road. Fox had the headlights on low beams which narrowed their world to the radius of a ring-a-ring-a-rosey game.  

They hit a driveway, then a shack.

They passed headlights, lamplights, bull bars and bumper less grills before finding a clear space.

Beth turned. “Who else is in on this, Fox?”

***

 “What if he mistook her for a young mother?” Sheryl stared at her four unopened messages to Beth over an untouched Mezcal.

“Don’t be silly. She’s a dumb kid. Her phone probably just died.” The doctor put an arm around her. “C’mon. Don’t let Mathew follow us out on our one date of the month.”

After their entrées have been cleared, a man with an unsteady gait approached their table. Sheryl moved her purse to the far side of her leg, telling herself he wouldn’t speak them. Not us.

“Tonight, he’ll return,” announced the man.

Sherly was struck stiff. She met the man’s eye. “Who? Who will return?”

Sheryl shifted her gaze to the doctor. If he mentioned that name. Even if this man uttered that name, The Matriarch Mauler, she’d have her leverage to head home.

“Why Jesus Christ our lord and savior of course!”

Dr Stoke smiled politely and opened his suit jacket to show the crucifix around his neck. He winked.

For a moment, it appeared this might be too much surprise for the stranger. The preacher’s zest drained from his movements and he studied the doctor’s face as if trying to place him. As if there was only one meeting where this “Good news,” had been imparted. As if the sale of crucifixes were on limited supply.  

Eventually he abandoned his investigation and hobbled away.

Sheryl sighed and took a swig.  

***

“Mr Fox, you have outdone yourself!” These words were spoken in harmonized unison by the figures in white crowding the decrepit living room they’d wandered into.

“First born son?”

This unseen questioner cast a wave of unease across the overfilled room. Hooded gazes locked in on the scabs running down their visitor’s neck and arms.

Fox hesitated, his eyes straying to Beth.

She nodded, shoehorning a glare into the gesture.

He mirrored her, visibly unsure which hairless figure to address exactly. An audible sigh of relief returned harmony to the room and a female frame stepped from the formless mass of the crowd—grinning artificially from beneath her hood. She collected the child from Fox’s arms, quickly sweeping it out of sight.

Beth tried to follow. “Hey who was that? Where are they taking him?”

“Be cool!” growled Fox.

“The ceremony will begin in T minus one phone-call,” announced the same voice from before, once again from an undisclosed position. “Mr Fox. Are you ready to enter our prophet’s graces?”

Despite the owl imagery pasted across every wall, despite the wax covered hands clutching candles almost burnt to the base, Fox lost his usual erratic movement. His constantly scratching fingernails relaxed at his side. His darting eyes settled on the scolded fingers before him. “Yes. Yes, I am ready.”

A phone appeared at his ear.

“Hello?” a panicked voice.

“Dr Stoke. We have your—”

“Bring my kid home, right now!”

“Your child is at 43 Pipiriki road, RD 12. Tell your wife to come alone. No Police.” He hung up.  

“Good,” said the member who had handed him the phone. “Now for the ceremony.”

Beth felt weightless as each stranger produced a thin knife from their gowns and exited the room. The rustling of bodies closing around a small space made her dry wretch.
But the worst part came after that. The worst part was the rattled shock in Fox’s eye when he returned from that room.

He sank into the couch beside Beth. A streak of blood on his pants where he’d wiped off his knife.
She didn’t bother asking about the ransom.

***

Sheryl lapped the entire car park looking for a free spot as if she’d popped out to buy groceries, before reason caught up with her and she left the vehicle in gear, doors open in the centre of the road.

She rushed up to the shack. Another house with lights on, but no people in it. She and the doctor hadn’t even had a chance to search Mathew’s entire bedroom by the time these criminals called.

 The whole drive down she’d tried her best to convince herself this was all a sick, sick joke.

“It’s Halloween” reasoned Sheryl. “This is the one night of the year we let these sicko’s twisted fantasy’s slide. She is a troubled girl though…” How many times had she echoed this concern to the doctor before they took on Beth? How many times had he ignored her?

Christians forgive. Christians show compassion. Christians let their children get kidnapped.

When the first figure in white greeted her at the door, she insisted the red on his forehead was paint. She insisted his lack of eyebrows was something to be empathetic about, not to be judged…or feared.

He took her by the hand.

“Mrs Stoke please meet our prophet.” He said, “I expect you’re most familiar with her moniker.” He cleared his throat. “Meet The Matriarch Mauler.”

Footsteps in the next room betrayed the age of the floorboards. They also betrayed a smaller presence than Sheryl had been expecting. In fairness, the Mauler she imagined was eight feet tall, fanged, eyeless and soulless. All saliva and hate. Nothing resembling humanity, nothing that resembled common ground between she and him. No not him, “IT.”

Beth appeared in the doorway. Same dress; cheeks sunken like she’d lived through a week’s worth of sleepless nights in the last three hours. She bowed. “Don’t worry Mrs Stoke. You’re the last one.” She produced a thin knife from her sleeve and gripped Sheryl’s palm softly with the other. “If it helps any. The doctor did give me his blessing.”

Sheryl searched for a lie in those sad grey eyes. A joke, one of the girl’s tastelessly trademarked bounces on top of another person’s feelings.

Beth massaged the hilt of the knife patiently, perhaps even sympathetically, as if compelled to let Sheryl have all the time she needed in her final moments.

A sadistic grin would have hurt less.

***

The Messiah appeared exactly as Beth had envisioned him, as you’d envision him. Regardless of what you have in your head, he was that.

Beth will never forget the sincerity in his eyes as shook her hand and issued a “thank you. You’ve sacrificed a lot for this.”

The followers immediately bowed down and chanted “Thank you!”

The surreal shock of seeing him emerge from that empty back room—the room neither baby Mathew or Sheryl would ever return from—soon gave way to a warmth.

“This is all in service of a better world,” sang the Messiah.

“A better world,” parroted the crowd.

“Come to me my son,” this time the Messiah’s sing-song cadence conjured a tangible jealousy across the unchosen as they climbed over each other to see who among them had been honoured with this address.

Fox stepped forward, a possum under torchlight.

The natural glow of the Messiah lit up every lesion, every scab and writhing movement that the latter was burdened with. Pussing flesh glistened as he cowered.

“Look at me son.” Commanded the Messiah.

“I…” Fox squinted and created a visor with his own hands. “I can’t.” he giggled in a way that Beth had never heard him do. “I can barely see anything--” Panic receded his wonder as he groped at his face and eyes. “Hold on…your greatness…what’s happening?”

“Indeed, my humble lepper. You no longer have to recoil at your wounds.” Preached the Messaiah, “Neither will anyone else!”

A collective gasp turned that back-road shack into a place of biblical import as this man’s devotees cast their eyes on Fox.  

Fox’s skin was clear. His eyes were cloudy, but there wasn’t a lesion to be seen on his entire being. He patted at his arms and neck, delight overtaking him. “And what about my eyes? Your Grace, when will my sight return?”

This conjured a smile, a glorious smile from the demi-god, that made Beth’s own bumps and bruises feel as though they were healing by his presence alone.

“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it,” answered the Messiah, “but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”       

Comfort came first. The niggling fear that it might all turn out to be bullshit, put to rest. The cynical instinct, dying at the feet of this wonderful man. But images of the news headlines cluttered the signal.

The Matriarch Mauler. Stacks of bodies. Rotting mothers. A dozen one week, two dozen the next. Murdered and defiled.

The way she’d been morphed in the media. From Beth Harlow. The daughter of Greg and Prim Harlow into a thing. A monster.

And could she really argue?

Could she really claim she was one among the innocent flock?

She glanced across at Fox, clutching his useless eyes. Silent, yet, his frantic movements betraying the anguish he couldn’t afford to express in this place, in this moment. She enjoyed his lonely plight as she returned her gaze to the streak of red on his pants.    

Beth looked down at the godly hand that still hadn’t let go. “But…” she swallowed “But what about the mothers?”

“I know,” uttered the Messiah with his eyes closed. “Such a sacrifice.”

Beth turned to the nearest candle holder. He dumped his gaze to the floorboards. This was the treatment all the followers were giving her now that the Messiah had emerged. Their bowing and piety in her presence had ended on the crunch of a sacrament cracker and was replaced with something close to scorn.

Her use to them had expired.

She was in tears as she raised her chin to the physical manifestation of joy and hope standing before her. His eyes were blue, green, purple, white, as he beamed his exclusive attention down at her, delicately massaging her hand with his thumb.

“But what about my spirit?” she asked. “Can I ever be saved after all my sins? Will you ever forgive me?”

 A smile spread across the Messiah’s lineless face. The cheeks surrounding him mirrored this expression, like a full organ section joining in for the final chorus of a hymn.

“Are you referring to the sin of murder, my child?”

Beth nodded. “I know my sins were in service of your return. In service of the new order. But it is a commandment...”

The Messiah frowned. He looked down at his sandaled feet.

It felt like the sun had gone behind a hill. It felt like the sun would never rise again. Beth’s mind and emotions felt like a cold damp valley in an instant.

“Are you implying the son of God was summoned by an act of sin?” asked the Messiah.

There was an eternal sympathy in his tone, as though he knew this couldn’t be Beth’s true intent. As if he’d seen what lay in her heart centuries over.  

Some of the followers chuckled. Some mumbled, “oh no.” Others glanced at each other, unsure how to react.  

Beth waited. Feeling ill. Feeling like she was in the presence of a mob boss.

The Messiah gripped her by the shoulder and shook. His smile widening, “No, no, no.” he shook her. “Silly girl.” He began to cackle. “I didn’t need those souls to be taken in order to return—"

Beth will never forget the sincerity in his eyes.

“That part was just a bit of old-testament fun!” The cackling did not stop as he encouraged his possie to join in. Soon the entire room was lined with maniacal laughter. All but Beth and Fox.

He ruffled Beth’s hair. “You’ll get used to my sense of humor soon enough.” Boards creaked as he made his way to the doorway. “It’s a new order. Soon enough, everyone will get used to it,” he added, and stepped out into the darkness.