William stared straight ahead at Marianne’s cold toes as they poked out of her simple pine coffin.  Reverend Tom stood above her at the pulpit and stared out over the congregation like a lion admiring his pride.  “Brothers and sisters,” he commanded, holding the palms of his hands to the sky.

William snorted and his cheeks flashed red with anger. Someone gasped in surprise.  He felt someone’s strong hand on his shoulder.  “Steady, Brother William,” a voice whispered from the pew behind him.  It was Peter’s voice.

William looked up to see Reverend Tom smiling down upon him now.  Smiling, he thought to himself, the blood beginning to boil in his veins.  The Reverend looked straight into William’s eyes.

“Brother,” Reverend Tom began.  “You have anger in your heart.  You feel as if your beloved wife was taken from you.  I understand that, Brother, I do.”

A few in the congregation muttered “Amen” and “That’s right, Jesus”.  Peter’s hand squeezed William’s shoulder gently.

“We ALL love you here, Brother William,” Reverend Tom said, his voice rising.  “And we feel your pain.”  His voice fell to a whisper.  “But know this.”  The Reverend’s head fell to his chest.

“AMEN LORD,” the congregation said.  “TELL it, Reverend.  LIGHT OUR WAY.”

The Reverend raised his hand suddenly and brought it smashing down on the face of the pulpit.  “ANGER AT THE LORD'S DOING, BROTHERS AND SISTERS, LEADS TO DOUBT!”

William felt the floor shake as many behind him rose to their feet and stomped their boots upon the hardwood planks.

“AMEN GOD!”

“WE ARE UNWORTHY, LORD. UNWORTHY!”

Reverend Tom held his hand up and the congregation fell silent.  “And DOUBT, brothers and sisters, leads to the DEVIL!”

Many in the congregation spat upon the hardwood floor.  Others hissed.  William turned around to witness the throng flailing wildly and making noises in the back of their throats.  He turned back to face Marianne’s coffin and remained still.  He was the only one in the chapel that was still seated.

“And KNOW  this, brothers and sisters,” Reverend Tom called out among the furor.  “Do NOT be DECEIVED. For when your loved one dies, when The Fever hangs like a death shroud over their head and you feel that they have been taken from you, KNOW that they were NEVER YOURS TO BEGIN WITH.   Because we BELONG TO OUR LORD AND SAVIOR ALMIGHTY GOD FOREVER!  We are HIS when we are BORN and we are HIS when we are DUST!  We are all a part of HIS PLAN.”

The congregation roared their approval and Reverend Tom held his hands over them and closed his eyes and said nothing more.

William, however, looked up at the Reverend calmly and said one word quietly under his breath.  None in the congregation heard the word – they were all seized in fits of rapture over the funeral sermon, ready to follow Reverend Tom off the edge of a cliff should he command it.

Reverend Tom’s eyes snapped open as William breathed the word again.  He stared at William for a moment with a look of surprise.  William said the word again, louder, and the Reverend’s surprise turned to disappointment as the congregation grew quiet and turned to stare at the back of William’s head.

“What did you say, brother?”  Reverend Tom asked, his eyebrows arched accusingly.

“Bullshit,” William said, and turned so that all of the congregation could hear him.  Then he turned back to the pulpit, tears flowing freely from his face.  “I said it’s all bullshit.”

One of the women in the back fainted.  Reverend Tom closed his eyes and began to pray.

“She was MINE,” William yelled to Reverend Tom.  “MINE! Not yours, not HIS, not anybody’s.”  He walked to stand over the casket and look down upon his dead wife.  “HE took her away from me.”  He turned back around to face the congregation and spoke directly to some of the men he knew from town.  “Do you remember what we found in the mine?  The lake dying?  Was that God’s plan?”  The faces of some of the men darkened and they averted their stares and looked at the floor.  “And the Fever that ravaged our town in the past year – was that part of his plan?  So many of your families dead.  For what? For his sake?” William clenched his fists and screamed at the silent, weeping throng.  “Go to HELL! ALL of you! And take your foul GOD with you.”

He spat at them and they cringed.  The Reverend was on his knees now beside the pulpit; his hands were clasped together, his eyelids raised to the ceiling in prayer.  William grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him until he opened his eyes.  “Bury my wife, you bastard.  And do it quickly, with no more bullshit.”

They did just that.

Afterwards, William returned to his home in town and packed some of his things in a bag.  He shouldered the rifle that lay beside the bed and grabbed some extra shells out of the kitchen drawer.  Marianne’s dog lay on her side of the bed.  As he was leaving he said, “Come on, dog,” and the dog came.

Together they went back behind the chapel that night and William carved words into the handmade wooden placard that hung over the rickety gates:

                                                HIS pLAyGroUNd.

They set off before dawn up the side of the mountain, past the path that led to the lake.  They came to an old miner’s cabin eventually – William threw his belongings inside and unfolded the old cot that had sat unused in a corner for two years time.

He collapsed upon it in the dark and wept for a while.  The dog settled down on the front porch.

After William calmed himself and his eyelids grew heavy, he considered himself separated from the flock.

#

Someone had to knock on the door eventually.

That’s what William told himself over and over again.  When it did come faintly one morning, the first knock at the cabin door in over a year’s time, he almost didn’t hear.

He blinked and sat up straight, his fingers instinctively rising to straighten out the tangles in his beard, as his dog shuffled beneath his feet, growling low.  He listened to the branches of the trees outside groan as they made struggling compromises with the wind.  Shafts of sunlight flickered in and out of the space beneath the cabin door. Dancing around a pair of shadows.  A pair of soft feet, perhaps?

 His eyes widened as he thought, Could it be?

“Marianne?” he breathed.

There was another knock – soft knuckles tapping at the door. William cleared his throat and shook himself out of it.  No, it’s not Marianne.  Could never be again.

He pushed himself to his feet and shuffled over to stand by the door.  “Who’s there?” he called out, his hand going up to his neck to soothe what felt like sand in his throat.  He couldn’t remember the last time he had spoken out loud.

“Brother.”  It was a woman’s voice.  Soft.  Southern.  Familiar.

William looked down at his feet and cleared his throat.  “I said who’s there?”

“A friend, William.  Who hasn’t forgotten you.  Who hopes you haven’t forgotten her.”

He let the door swing open.  “Hello, Brother.”  She smiled faintly.

Sarah.

Sarah it was.  She stood on the covered porch in a white dress that covered her from her shoulders to her feet.  Her hair was still a mass of curls on top of her head and she had the same kind smile she had when she was twelve.

“Sarah.”  That was all William could muster.  Eventually, like riding a bicycle, his manners began to trickle back into his shocked consciousness.  “Come in,” he muttered, looking down at his feet.

“Thank you, Brother William, but I can’t stay.  I come to see how you’ve been.  And to ask a favor.”

“I've been all right,” William grumbled as he leaned against the door frame and looked at her feet.  They were bare and dirty.  “What’s the favor?”

Sarah’s voice cracked as she spoke.  “I didn’t get the chance at the funeral to tell you how sorry I am.  About your loss.  Marianne was a beautiful person and she loved God.  Lord knows he’s got his reasons for taking her away from this wicked world.”  Her voice grew resolute.  “Many of us in town still pray for you, Brother.  We pray that the Lord is watching out for you up here.”

William lifted his head and stared at her hard.  “You know how I feel about that,” he said thickly.  The blood began to run hot in his veins.  Go back to your goddamned preacher, Sarah.  You’ll find no sympathy for the Lord here.  Sonofabitch took my wife from me.

Sarah stared at the sudden spark of rage in his eyes for a moment, before closing hers and taking a breath. “It’s Peter,” she whispered.  As she spoke the name her eyelids twitched.  When she opened them again a tear fell softly down her cheek.

William’s lips parted.

“He’s gotten sick, Brother William.  He’s got the Fever.”

William coughed.  “He’s – the Fever.”

Sarah nodded, tears flowing freely now. She drew a deep breath.  “The whole town is praying for him, Brother. Reverend Tom says the more that prays the better.  We’re all meeting just about every day now.  All of us together praying for Peter and some others.  The Reverend mentioned I might come see you and let you know that all is forgiven.  He wants to welcome you back to the congregation.”

Moments of silence passed.

“Sarah, I…” He looked out past her for a moment down the small trampled path that led down the mountain past the lake into town.  “I’m sorry.  Real sorry about Peter.  But I’m not going back into town.”

Sarah raised her head and cast her eyes towards the ceiling that covered the porch and began to recite scripture.  “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose.”  She looked back into William’s dark eyes.  “Regardless of what you may think of the Lord, know that he loves you.  We love you, Brother William.  All of us.”  Her hand was on his arm then.  “Do you remember when we were children, William, and we used to go up to the lake?”

 William opened his mouth again only to close it.  That was so long ago.  He hadn’t thought about that in ages.  “Yes,” he stammered finally.  “I remember that.”

“Me too.”  A brief smile flickered across her lips as she stared up at him with her big wet eyes for a moment before her shoulders sagged and she looked away.  “Please, Brother.  Think about coming back to the congregation.  At least try to pray for Peter.  And for me.”

Then she turned and walked off of the front porch into the sun, her bare feet padding silently down the dirt path towards town.  William stared after her a moment before letting the flimsy wooden door swing shut on its hinges.  He leaned his head against it and closed his eyes.

#

 Sarah.

He and Sarah were friends when they were children.  Often they left town in the mornings and tread the well-worn path that led up the mountainside to the lake.  Many times they spent the entire afternoon there making cannonball dives and playing hide and seek among the rocks that surrounded the water.  When they grew tired they laid innocent and naked on the rocks to dry off and nap.  William always woke up first and liked to fish until Sarah came around.  Then they dived in again and giggled underwater as they watched all the lazy catfish float around and stare back at them with their long whiskers bristling.

They began to go up there when they were young and Sarah could beat him at wrestling and pin him to the ground.  As they grew older, William became the one to win the match.  Eventually they got to an age where they stopped playing games and didn’t touch each other much at all.  That was the age William noticed her tan skin and smooth back when she took of her clothes to jump in the water.  After a while she noticed the way he looked at her and began to jump in with her clothes on.  And when he’d strip bare to dive in after, his veins would surge with hot blood as he caught the way her eyes rested just above the cool water’s surface, looking him up and down.

Then they got to the age when they really started paying attention to Reverend Tom’s sermons at church.

 “WALK IN THE SPIRIT!”  Reverend Tom hollered, gripping the edges of the simple wooden pulpit.  He was a tall and striking back then, with unkempt shaggy brown hair that hung in his face as he towered over his fearful congregation.

 “WALK IN THE SPIRIT, I say… THAT’S what Paul has TOLD us here… ‘And ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against THE SPIRIT! And the SPIRIT AGAINST THE FLESH! And these are contrary the one to the other: so ye CANNOT do the things that ye would.’

“REMEMBER THIS!” the Reverend cried.  “We are ALL sinners here.  Succumbing to your lusts and desires will drag you down into the dark hot pit of HELL!”  (He spit this last word onto the floor.)  “Your only desire in this life should be to understand the LOVE of JESUS CHRIST OUR SAVIOR!  Ungrateful HEATHENS!  It is HIS LOVE that carries you from one day to the next CLOSER to the KINGDOM OF YOUR LORD!”

William and Sarah didn’t dare attempt a glance at one another throughout Reverend Tom’s fiery tirade, but secretly one wondered if the other was truly frightened that they had wandered from the path of the church into darkness.

After a while they began to sit apart at church on Sundays and eventually they stopped going to the lake altogether.  Years later The Company that owned the mines on the other side of the mountain where most of the men in town worked began to use the lake as a dumping ground for what they found in the mountain. And after that, no one in town went to there to swim anymore.

Because the water was slowly turning black.

#

The next day William sat on the cot in his cabin, carving on an old piece of wood.

“Walk in the Spirit,” he muttered to himself and snorted.

The dog’s ears perked up.  Shortly after there was a faint knocking on the door.  Moments passed and William sat silent and waited.

“Brother.”

 Sarah.

“Brother William. Are you inside?  If you are, please come out! Peter is close to death.  The Fever has gotten into his lungs and he gasps for every breath as we speak. We are all praying HARD William!”  Sarah’s voice sounded desperate.  “PLEASE WILLIAM! PLEASE come back to town!  Rejoin the congregation.  Reverend Tom told us that Peter could survive but no single one of us can doubt it.  We must all join together and be REPENTANT!”  She broke down into sobs.

William remained motionless, staring at the cabin door.  I will have no part of it, he thought to himself.

“William,” Sarah carried on in between sniffles and sobs.  “Reverend Tom has disappeared.  He went missing yesterday evening.  Hope is all but lost.  When just yesterday we sat in the pew before the Reverend in the pulpit and prayed; now we crowd inside an empty church and weep in fear for our destruction.”  There was a long silence.  William stared down at the dog on the floor and the dog looked back at him.

“If you do not come, William, pray at least.  Try to pray.  For Peter and Reverend Tom.  For me and yourself and all of us in town.”  She broke down into sobs again.  William listened to her bare feet padding across the porch and back into the clearing, where she began muttering prayers as she found the path that led back to town.

“The flock is lost, Lord, without their shepherd.  Oh Lord I am REPENTANT.  Where is our shepherd…?”  Her words trailed off.

William sat still for a long time.  Eventually he got up and made himself something to eat.

#

As William sat on the front porch of the cabin a few days later, soaking in the sun and listening to the whippoorwills chirp and whistle among the trees, Sarah came again.  Her gown, once crisp and white, was now mottled with grime, its hem in tatters around her ankles.  Her hair was unkempt and bedraggled.  Dark circles imprisoned her bloodshot eyes and her nose and lips were a raw mess.  She stumbled towards the cabin as if she were in a daze, stopping just short of the front porch.

“Brother,” she muttered.

 “Sarah,” William stood up.  “How’s Peter?”

 “Dead.”

 “I’m sorry.”

"'For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything…’”  Sarah’s voice trailed off into a whisper.

William stood looking down at Sarah in silence while she muttered under her breath and stared straight ahead. The dog had wandered down from the porch and stood beside her, sniffing at her feet.  She took no notice. Moments passed.  The wind picked up around them.

She glanced up at him suddenly.  Life briefly flickered across her eyes.  “The Reverend,” she said aloud.

“Yeah?”

“Reverend Tom has returned.”

“Good news.  Where had he been?”

“The lake.”

William’s brows furrowed.

“He is changed.”  Sarah stared off into nothing, her face expressionless.

William waited for more, but that was all that came.  “How’s that?” he asked finally.

“We are having the funeral tomorrow,” she replied.  “Reverend Tom has said we are to meet at the church and pray.  Then we are all to go to the lake for a Revival.  The Reverend will wash off Peter’s sins with the blood of the lamb and baptize him again in CHRIST’S NAME." Her voice cracked.

“Sarah,” William’s eyes softened.  “I’m… sorry. About everything. If there is anything I can do – “She looked up into his eyes again, stopping him short.

“Pray for us, Brother William,” she whispered.  “Dance for us while we sing.”  Her eyes widened for a moment. Then she turned and stumbled back down the path, muttering scripture under her breath.

William stood for a moment on the porch and listened to the wind.  Eventually he sat back down and looked at his lap for a long time remembering Peter’s gentle hand on his shoulder, and his steady voice.

#

The town had not changed much in a year’s time.  A single dirt road ran through it with ramshackle unpainted houses on either side.  The road ended as all things did in town – at the chapel.  It had been painted white once, long ago.  As William walked down the center of the road towards it, he noticed that there was no one out in the streets or peering at him through the windows.  Doors hung open on their hinges.  The dog trotted along side him.

William stopped in front of the church door.  He heard nothing but a few mumbling voices and someone moaning low inside. He glanced around the corner at the gates of the cemetery and found that the hanging placard he had defaced a year ago had been removed.  “Stay,” he said to the dog and the dog obeyed, sitting in the dirt just outside the door.  William opened the door and stepped inside.

A central aisle stretched toward the worn pulpit flanked on either side by simple wooden pews.  William remembered the church being packed to the rafters with townspeople when he was young.  Before the mine closed down.  Before the Fever.  Now the church was half-empty, although he guessed that the remainder of town was in attendance.  Some wept and some sat quiet, every man woman and child clothed in long white gowns. Sarah sat in the front row, her hair unkempt.  Just beside her, between the congregation and the pulpit, was Peter’s simple wooden coffin.  Peter lay inside.

As William closed the door behind him, he forced himself not to choke and gag on the pungent fumes that wafted over him from the air inside.  It was the smell of stagnant water and rotting fish.  He covered his mouth and sat down at the pew farthest from the pulpit by the door.  No one turned around – either they didn’t notice his arrival or they didn’t care.  Everyone’s gaze was fixated on Reverend Tom at the pulpit, so William looked himself.

The Reverend was quite changed.

Gone was the shaggy brown hair that hung in his face when he used to preach fire to his congregation.  Gone were his intimidating height and his white-knuckled grip on the edges of the worn pulpit.  Now the Reverend’s hair hung in sparse white patches, as if it had been torn away from the skull in places.  His skin clung loosely to his bones, tinted grey and pockmarked with black oozing sores.  He hunched over the pulpit, grasping onto it with grimy black fingers, not in consternation, but to keep himself from falling over.  His own white gown was wet against his body and stained with mud and other things.

When William had entered the church the Reverend had been silent.  Now as William looked upon him, he began to speak.

“Herod…”  The word sputtered out and the effort to create it bent Reverend Tom over the pulpit, racking his body with convulsions.  When he arose again, a thin line of black juice trailed from the corner of his lips to the bottom of his chin.  He stared out vacantly at the people of the town, making no effort to wipe it away. “Herod heard of him,” he croaked.  “And he said that John the Baptist was risen from the dead, and therefore might works do shew themselves forth in him.’”

“Amen,”  a few voices mumbled among the congregation.

“Brothers and sisters,” Reverend Tom hissed.  “Listen to the words of Jesus our Lord and Savior. He said, ‘we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep.’” The Reverend pointed towards the door of the church with a skeletal black finger.  “'But I am going there to wake him up.’”  The coughing spasms overtook him again.

Sarah stood up then and cried, “AMEN GOD!”  A few of the others raised there hands to the sky.

Reverend Tom stumbled away from the pulpit and hobbled down the aisle towards the door.  As he passed William he looked into his eyes and grinned wide, his teeth covered in a black oozing film.  “Brother,” the Reverend spat and as he passed and flung open the door to the street.  William gasped – the rotten smell of fish grew overpowering as the preacher walked by.

The congregation followed close behind, many with their arms still raised in the air.  A few men bore Peter’s casket upon their shoulders. T he crowd was so thick behind the Reverend that William could not get out into the aisle.

Sarah passed him last.  “Sarah,” William said her name urgently.  She ignored him and walked on.  He was the last one to step outside.  The Reverend led the congregation through town towards the path that wound its way up the mountain towards the lake and William’s cabin.  Upon sight of Reverend Tom the dog scampered off and stood well away from the funeral parade. William stared after them speechless, remembering Sarah’s words from the day before:

We are all to go to the lake for a Revival. The Reverend will wash Peter’s sins off with the blood of the lamb. And baptize him again in CHRIST’S NAME.

William followed them from a distance for a time, startled at the sight of Reverend Tom stumbling up the path towards the black waters of the lake, the congregation following behind like lost lambs.

Soon they came to a fork in the path.  The funeral procession veered to the right towards the lake.  William stopped at the fork and looked after them.  He glanced down the other path that led to the cabin. T he dog stood there looking up at him, silently pleading for him to follow.  After a while he took the path back to the cabin.

Walk in the Spirit, he repeated to himself in his head over and over again, until the cabin door was shut and bolted behind him.

 #

Someone was knocking on the door again.

In his dreams, Marianne had sat before him at his little wooden table and told him about the dark place the miners had discovered before they died.  She told him how the Company, before it knew what it was doing, had deposited most of what made the dark place thick with evil into the bottom of the lake.  Then she was telling him about how she wished that they had had some children before she died.

Then the knocking had woken him.  He pulled his suspenders up onto his shoulders and reached for his rifle, checking to make sure that it was loaded.

“Who’s there?”  William called out as he pointed the barrel of the rifle at the door.

“Praise the LORD, Brother.”

Sarah.

The voice was hers.  But it was changed. 

“What do you want?” he called out to the door.

“A moment of time, Brother William.  To share my thanks for coming to town yesterday.  PRAISE JESUS.”

William’s guilt kicked in.  He should have gone sooner.  Christ, he knew what it was like to lose your most beloved.  Why did I not go sooner?  He moved towards the door.  Part of him deep down inside, the part of him that remembered Sarah’s tanned back on the rocks at the lake when they were younger, thought that maybe this was a fitting solution for a man who had lost his wife and a woman who had lost her husband.  They would be brought together in grief.  Perhaps a new kinship would bloom.

Has God willed it? 

He undid the latch and let the door swing open to find Sarah standing there, her filthy white gown damp with black lake water and clinging to her frame.  Her pale grey skin was pockmarked with thick fleshy eruptions that oozed black juice.  William stared at her in shock for quite a few moments before he could tear his gaze away.  When he finally did he cried out aloud and took a few faltering steps back within the cabin.

Peter stood beside her.

Clearly by the look of him his body had been dead for days.  The red rash of the Fever still showed around his ears and his throat beneath his chin – the only color that remained on his stiff grey skin.  His lips were pulled back into a wicked grin.  The gaps between his teeth were filled with something black and sticky that turned his gums green and ran in a line down the side of his mouth.

“PRAISE THE LORD, Brother William.  FOR HE HAS RISEN!”  Sarah opened her eyes wide and raised her head and hands to the sky, sucking in a sharp breath of air.  Peter stood frozen, glaring at William with glassy eyes, grinning like a jackal.

William started at the sudden barking behind him.  The dog leapt out from underneath the cot and scampered between Sarah and Peter out of the house and off of the porch.  Peter glanced after it and snarled in the back of his throat.  The dog whimpered in terror as it sprang away into the trees.  Peter leapt after it and followed it into the dark.  Sarah remained in front of the door, blocking William’s way outside.

She lowered her gaze to stare directly into William’s eyes.  “DELIVER US FROM EVIL!” she screamed.  And she kept screaming – long, howling screams that drowned out everything and filled William with shivering terror.  Black juice began to trickle down both corners of her lips and drip from her chin and down her stained white gown.

William cried aloud as he slammed the door closed, bolted it, and pushed the table and chair up against it.  He kept screaming as he sank into the corner between the cot and the wall, pointing the rifle in every direction of Sarah’s horrible voice as she danced around the outside in the dark, howling sermons of insanity into the wind.

“Come out Brother.  COME OUT! Come and see the lake, where Reverend Tom has seen the face of OUR LORD and drank the BLOOD of the LAMB, and baptized us all again in the HOLY WATERS OF CHRIST ALMIGHTY. OH GOD, my Peter is RISEN. HE IS RISEN!  Come to the REVIVAL William!  Come renounce SIN and be REPENTANT!  The whole town has been awash in the BLOOD of the LAMB this day Brother!  They have seen the MIRACLE GOD has performed through the Reverend unto PETER.  They have seen it with THEIR OWN EYES.  And they make now for the graveyards and their own passed loved ones! PRAISE JESUS!” 

William held his hands over his ears, shut his eyes tight and screamed until he could scream no longer.

#

Well after sunrise the racket had finally stopped.

William has stopped screaming hours ago because he had lost his voice.  Sarah had stopped dancing around the cabin – she had stopped making any noise at all.  The dog hadn’t come back.

William remained on his knees in the corner and held his head in his hands.  It was going to be okay, he told himself over and over again in his head.  Because he knew.

He knew that he had driven himself insane.

He had been away from the world too long.  Been up on the mountain by himself grieving for his dead wife, missing her so much that he constantly imagined her coming back to him time and time again in his sleep.  In his waking hours he waited for her too.  He may not have imagined Sarah, but the Reverend, Peter, the funeral parade towards the lake – they were all twisted images that William made up to drive himself crazy with the guilt of staying away from town, away from the church and angry at his God for too long.

Anger leads to Doubt.  Doubt leads to the Devil.

After a while he found it safe to smile to himself.  The sun was bright outside.  He may have wandered from the flock, but he still felt something of The Lord inside of him.  He may not believe completely, but he would try if the madness would leave him long enough.  It was time to go back to town and look upon it with eyes that did not judge.  It was time to rejoin the congregation.  He took a deep breath and rose to his feet.

Walk in the Spirit.

William considered the rifle laying next to him on the floor but thought twice about it.  I will trust in You to watch over me Lord.  I’m coming back to you.  Please forgive me.  He unlatched the door and let it swing open.  He looked up to greet the new day and found Marianne staring back at him.

He stared at her a moment in silence before letting himself play the game one more time.  He squeezed his eyes shut until they hurt.  “Marianne,” he breathed aloud.  “You are just a dream.  It’s time I let you go.”  In his mind he felt the image fade into nothing, leaving his path towards town free of emotional burden.  Now that he had acknowledged his grief, the weight began to lift upon his shoulders. Goodbye, my love, he thought quietly, smiling.

And just as William was about to take that leap of faith as the world quieted down around him and the boughs of the pine trees rustled in the wind - just as he was about to open his eyes and move on with his life - he felt Marianne’s cold dead hand slip around his arm and squeeze tight.

He let out a gasp and his eyes flew open.  Marianne was still there, pulling him onto the porch.

She was no longer ghostly and beautiful.  Her body had been underground for a year.  A thick green mold blanketed her mouth and nose and covered one eye.  The other had begun to sink back within the confines of her skull.  Her hair had grown down to her waist and her long yellow nails had curled and sunk within the skin of her decomposing fingers.  Her body was covered in fleshy black eruptions that excreted black oil.

As Marianne led William from the porch down the path towards the lake, his mind fell from him completely.  He followed dumbly.  Once she turned back to look at him with her one good eye.  He imagined that perhaps she was smiling at him beneath the putrid mask of mold that covered her face.

As they neared the lake, he smelled the fetid water.  They began to pass members of the congregation as they stood in a line that led to the shore.  Some had their arms raised to the sky. Some were completely naked and rolling around in the dirt, covered in black welts.  Some carried coffins and corpses behind them that they had brought from the cemetery in town.

As they passed a woman in rags holding the bodies of her twins that had succumbed to the Fever in succession at the Fever’s onset, she recognized William and pointed at him.  “HIS playground," she cackled with hysterical glee, rocking her decomposed babies in her arms.

Marianne’s corpse led William past the congregation to the lake, where Reverend Tom stood waist deep in the black water.  He saw that each one of the congregation was waiting in a line that ended at the Reverend and the water.  One by one each man and woman came into the man’s cold embrace and he held them close as he brought them down.  As they disappeared beneath the black surface, the water began to boil around them.  The Reverend muttered praises under his breath and brought them up eventually, one by one.  Each stumbled from the lake, their skin mottled with oozing black welts, their eyes vacant, their skin ashen and grey.

Then he saw some of them open up the caskets and drag the corpses into the water.  Some of the bodies appeared to have been buried for decades.  The Reverend touched them and held them under water, breathing life back into each.  And each stumbled out on whatever remained of its two legs and wandered off into the trees.

Marianne led William by the hand into the water.  They came to Reverend Tom and stopped.

“Brother,” the rotting Reverend muttered.  “Come unto me.”  William let himself be taken under.  As his head went below the surface for the first time since he was a child, he remembered his life before Marianne a final time - he remembered sunning himself on the rocks next to Sarah back when the air was crisp and fresh and the water was cold and blue.  Before the miners found the dark thing in the mountain and dumped it in the lake.  Before the water turned black.

By the time the Reverend raised him from the lake, he had already begun to change.

“PRAISE JESUS,” William muttered as he stumbled out of the black water into Marianne’s arms.

 

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Jeremy Kelly lives in Decatur, Georgia. He writes fiction and is currently working on his first novel. He collects bomb shelters when he's not writing. Learn more about him at Join the Birdies.