The Town

1

The voice talked to him.

It was a real voice, not an imaginary voice, not something he heard in his head. It was out there and it spoke to him, talking calmly and rationally about things that were not calm, not rational at all.

Gregory sat up on the bed, squinting at the brightness of dawn. He had not shut the drapes last night, and morning light streamed through the window—or came as close to streaming as was possible in this house.

Where was his mother? Had she ever come home last night? And where were Julia and the kids? Were they still in the house asleep, or had the treacherous little shits sneaked out on him? He felt for the van keys, was gratified to find that they were still in his pocket.

The voice continued to talk. He’d been hearing it all night, he realized. It had been speaking to him even as he slept, and he had incorporated its monologue into his dreams. He was awake now, though, and while he could not see the source of the voice, he knew it was in the room with him, and for the first time he listened specifically to what it had to say, to what it was trying to tell him.

“Remember when you caught Julia and Paul?” the voice whispered. “His hands were down her pants. How many fingers do you think were up her snatch? One? Two? Three? How many can she take up there? You think she was wet? You think he went sluicing through her juices?”

Gregory’s jaw muscles clenched. He didn’t want to hear this, didn’t want to think about it.

But he could not stop listening.

“It’s not the first time she did it,” the voice said insinuatingly, and there seemed to him something familiar about it. “She’s fucked half the town. She blew Chilton Bodean before he bit the big one, sucked him dry, swallowed it down and begged for more. Your old pal the bartender? She licked his balls for over an hour while he worked behind the counter, crouching down and following him on her knees, servicing him as he served the customers.”

He recognized the voice now.

It was his father’s.

It switched to Russian. “Your mother was the same way, that whore. She’d spread her legs for Jim Ivanovitch, let him have her in whatever way he wanted, then come back and deny me my husbandly right. Bitch.”

He heard hatred in that voice, the threat of violence.

“I waited, though. I bided my time.”

“Did you kill Jim?” Gregory asked.

The voice was smooth. “Of course I did.” It was back to English. “Think I could let him bang my woman? Think I could let him fuck your mother? That little hypocrite. ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ It’s one of the ten, and that lying little prick was giving your mother a sperm bath when he was supposed to be praying and reading the Good Book. Could I stand by while he fed my wife his tubesteak?”

It occurred to Gregory that his father’s English had never been this fluent, his command of slang and colloquialism never this well developed, but though he had the thought, it did not affect his belief in its authenticity, did not dissuade him from accepting his father as the true and ultimate source of the voice.

“I did what I had to do,” his father said. “As a man.”

Gregory nodded. His father was right. What he said made sense. Gregory stood, smoothing the wrinkles of the clothes in which he’d slept.

“Are you going to let Julia get away with this? Are you going to let her spread her legs for every swinging dick that comes along?”

“No,” Gregory whispered.

“Get the gun,” his father said softly. “You know you want to. Get the gun and stuff it up her pussy where all those other men have stuffed their cocks, and blow their leftover sperm out with a bullet. That’ll teach her. That’ll teach all of them.”

Gregory nodded.

“That’s what you bought the gun for, anyway. Use it. Do it tonight. Surprise her when she’s asleep, when she’s thinking about the taste of his hot sperm, when she’s dreaming about riding his cock. Do it then. Do it then.”

The voice continued to talk, but Gregory no longer heard it. It was like a radio that was on in the background, white noise, he could tune it in or out at will, and right now he had heard enough. He didn’t want to hear any more.

But he knew his father was right, and he was filled with a righteous anger, a molten core of fury that he knew he would have no trouble sustaining until tonight.

Part of him wondered why he had to wait, why he couldn’t just do it now, but that was like the thought concerning his father’s English. It was irrelevant, and he pushed it aside, ignored it.

He walked out of the bedroom, went immediately up to the attic, and pulled the ladder up, closing the door behind him as he headed to his gun shelf.

2

Teo was scared.

There was something wrong with her dad.

And something bad had happened to Sasha.

Her mom and Adam were scared, too, and that made it even more frightening. No one had talked to her about any of it—her mom had simply told her to stay in her room and not come out—but she had the feeling that it was the banya’s fault. She could not help thinking that if she had not stopped going there, not stopped seeing it, that none of this would be happening. She was being punished by the banya for her ingratitude, for the way she had treated it.

And it was taking out its anger on her family.

Teo felt like crying, but she forced herself not to, forced herself to be brave. She wanted to go back out to the banya and confront it, but her mom had ordered her not to leave her room—and she was afraid to do so anyway.

Her dad had been acting weird for the past few days, and she and Adam had talked about it, but neither of them had known how to bring it up with their mom. Besides, she wasn’t in the best shape herself. Whatever flue or illness she’d had, it had left her weak, and neither of them wanted to make things any more difficult.

But Dad was being weird.

Scary.

He was scary, and she wasn’t quite sure why. He wasn’t acting mean or angry or anything. He was either really, really cheerful or just sort of quiet and distant. But…

But neither of those was her father.

That was it exactly. He wasn’t himself. He didn’t seem like her dad. He seemed like a fake father, like someone who looked exactly the same and was trying really hard to be him but just couldn’t quite pull it off.

And that, she supposed, was what made her think of the banya.

That and the sense of danger.

For there seemed something dangerous about her dad right now. Beneath the cheerfulness, beneath the bland niceness, was something else, something deeper, something that reminded her of the swirling blackness of the banya shadows. She knew that Adam sensed it too. Their mom probably did as well, but she was staying away from all of them, keeping to herself.

She wished Babunya was here. Babunya would know what to do, and even Adam admitted that he’d feel safer if their grandmother was around. But Babunya hadn’t come home yesterday, still wasn’t back this morning, and no one seemed to know where she was.

Sasha was back. She’d come home late last night, looking like she’d been beaten up, and Mom had been hysterical, rushing her into the bathroom to get cleaned up and bandaged. Her dad had acted like he didn’t even care, and Teo supposed that was the first time she’d thought that maybe the banya was behind this.

That was the first time she’d sensed the danger.

She wished they were back in California. Things like this had never happened there. As she stared out the window of her room at the yellow-leafed cottonwood, at the cloudless blue sky and the tan rock of the canyon cliffs, she did what she had been trying so hard not to do. She cried.

3

Agafia had fallen asleep on Semyon’s couch, waiting for him to return. But by morning she’d known that something was wrong, that something had happened to him. He was supposed to have come back immediately after telling the others to bring the prophet to her house, that that was the location of the breach, the source of the neh chizni doohc. She and Semyon were then supposed to go together and try to rescue Julia and the kids. She knew there might be a problem with Gregory, that he might not want to let them leave, but with Julia, the kids, Semyon, herself, and the power of prayer and God’s grace, she had no doubt that they could get away.

Semyon had not returned, however, and she’d eventually fallen asleep, waking up this morning to find that she was still alone in the house.

And she’d hurried immediately back home.

Or hurried back as fast as her old legs could take her. All of the running around the past two days had taken quite a toll, and she ached all over: her leg muscles were sore, even her lungs hurt when she breathed. She considered herself to be in pretty good shape for her age, but that age was 74, and as much as she would like to deny it, she was not a young woman anymore.

God gave her strength, however, and Agafia hobbled doggedly along roads that had not changed or improved much since her own teenage years, grateful that the way was mostly downhill. Semyon’s house was not too far from theirs, and in less than fifteen minutes she was walking up the porch steps.

Luckily, they were all home.

Luckily, they were all right.

She didn’t know what she’d been thinking. She should have made sure Julia and the kids were out of here and safe first, before she’d even gone to Semyon’s, and she was filled with guilt at the thought of her irresponsibility. It was pure luck that it hadn’t turned into a disaster, that she hadn’t come back to find them butchered.

What could have made her act so stupidly? She looked around the living room, dark even in the day, and she wondered if she had been influenced by whatever power had taken up residence here, if she had done what it wanted her to do rather than what she knew to be right.

Of course, now that she was thinking clearly, logically, did that mean that its influence was gone?

Or did that mean that it now wanted her to help Julia and the kids get away?

Neither, she assumed. It probably meant that Gregory was enough in control here to enforce its will and it didn’t need to expend any extra energy trying to influence the other people in this house.

She’d noticed the difference in atmosphere the moment she’d come back, the second she’d walked through that door. Tension hung thick and heavy in the air, and the feeling here was far different than the one at Semyon’s. As always, she’d said a prayer before even walking inside, and she was grateful now for even that small bit of protection.

There was hrehc here.

Evil.

She and Julia huddled around the kitchen table, trying to decide what to do. The phone was dead. It had not exactly been a surprise, but it still brought home to them the seriousness of their predicament, the lengths to which the spirits here would go in order to cripple them, to thwart their efforts to escape. They were both wary, conscious of the fact that they might be under surveillance, that it was more than possible they were being spied upon.

Gregory had the van keys, and Julia had proposed going up there, confronting him and trying to take the keys from him, but it was too dangerous, Agafia told her. Even if both of them went up to the attic, they would not be facing just Gregory, they would be facing Gregory and whatever else lived in this house. Agafia doubted that even with weapons and a Bible and prayers of protection, the two of them could stand up to that sort of power alone.

Semyon had driven his car last night, but he had another old Chevy in his carport, and Agafia wondered aloud if there weren’t keys for the vehicle somewhere in his house. There was no guarantee that it would work even if they did find the keys, but taking Semyon’s Chevy was a possibility. She had not driven since coming to McGuane—Gregory had not let her do anything but ride in the van—but if worse came to worst, she could try to drive the car.

“Or I could drive it,” Julia said.

“Even better,” Agafia told her in Russian.

They talked quietly. Sasha was still asleep in her bedroom, and when the two of them went in to look in on her, they could see that she was not ready to go anywhere. Even if they could sneak out of the house, even if Semyon’s old car worked, even if they could find the keys for it, even if they could get it back here, they would have to carry Sasha out, and they both doubted that Gregory would allow them to do that.

Agafia did not like the fact that Sasha was upstairs, in her own bedroom. The girl had gone there herself, apparently, had insisted upon it after Julia had taken care of her cuts and put some salve on her bruises, but it was still too close to Gregory and the attic, and it made her nervous. If they were lucky, Gregory would remain upstairs until they had a chance to get out of here or to figure out how to call for help.

If they were unlucky…

She didn’t even want to think about that.

As Julia bathed her daughter’s forehead with a cold washcloth, Agafia had an idea. She took Adam with her out to the carport, where the two of them picked up a ladder and brought it back into the house. The attic door opened only one way—down—and they positioned the top of the ladder against the trapdoor, wedging the bottom between the wall and the floor in order to block the door and keep Gregory from opening it. Adam knew what they were doing, but he said nothing about it, and Agafia wondered what was going through his mind as they trapped his father inside the attic. It could not be healthy, it could not be good, for a young boy to have to do something like this.

All three of them walked downstairs to where Teo sat alone in the living room, reading a book and listening to the radio. Adam went to join her, and Agafia looked at her daughter-in-law. She suddenly had another idea.

“You take Adam and Teodosia,” she said in Russian. “Take them to… I don’t know. Take them away from here. I will meet you with Sasha as soon as she is strong enough to walk.”

Julia shook her head. “She’s my daughter. I can’t leave her. Besides, what do you think would happen after Gregory discovered we pulled something like that? You think he’d just wait around for several days until Sasha’s condition improved, and then let you two go walking out of here? No. He would cripple you if he had to. He’d do what he needed to make sure you two couldn’t go.”

Julia thought for a moment. “You take Adam and Teo,” she said. “I’ll stay here with Sasha. Go to your friend Semyon’s house. Draw me a map.”

Agafia shook her head. “I need to be here. Only I can fight against this.”

“Then I guess we all stay. I can’t send those two out alone. Who knows what’s out there? At least we know what we have to deal with in this house.” She glanced up at the ceiling, but Agafia knew she was thinking of the attic.

And Gregory.

They were both silent for a moment, looking at each other.

Agafia smiled, tried to be reassuring. “Don’t worry. I can handle him,” she promised.

But she wasn’t sure of that.

She wasn’t sure at all.

Julia removed all of the knives from the kitchen, saving one for herself. Agafia helped her look through the other cupboards and closets, trying to weed out things that could be used as weapons, attempting to make the house attack-proof. Everything they found, Julia took outside, tossed into the weeds at the side of the drive.

“That should help,” she said.

None of them went outdoors after that.

The day was strange. It was only a blackout, but it felt as though they’d been hit by a hurricane or a tornado and were between storms, waiting for the next one to hit. It was like being under siege.

The radio had been on the entire time, and the batteries finally gave out around dusk. There were a few other batteries, but Julia wanted to save them for her flashlight, and Agafia agreed that was a good idea. It was quiet without the radio, though. Too quiet. Even Gregory in the attic was silent, and Julia broke out a deck of cards and played War with Adam and Teo in the kitchen, getting up periodically to check on Sasha.

None of this would have happened, Agafia thought, if she had made sure to get them out before leaving yesterday, if she’d just taken them with her to Semyon’s. But that game could be played forever. None of it would have happened if they had returned to California a month ago, if one of them had remembered to invite Jedushka Di Muvedushka to come with them, if they’d never moved back to McGuane, if Gregory had never won the lottery…

She fell asleep after a makeshift dinner, on the couch again, and when she woke up, only Julia was in the room. The single candle that was still burning was low, and the room was bathed in shadows that did not all appear to be natural.

“Where are Adam and Teodosia?” she whispered.

Julia looked over at her. “In their rooms. Sleeping.”

“Why aren’t they sleeping in here?” She was instantly filled with dread—and anger at what she saw as her daughter-in-law’s stupidity.

“Because the bedrooms have locks.”

“You let Adam go upstairs—?”

“I’ve been up there myself half the time. With Sasha.”

“You should have put him in my room.”

Julia blinked, stared at her blankly. She obviously hadn’t thought of that, and Agafia again wondered how much influence this place was exerting on them, how much their thought processes were being affected just by remaining in this house.

There was a movement of shadow in the far corner that did not correspond to the flickers of the candle. Agafia picked up the flashlight, quickly shone it in that corner, and was gratified to see nothing there.

She turned the flashlight off. Her head hurt, and she was dimly aware that she’d had a dream, some sort of nightmare about the banya.

The banya.

Something clicked in her mind, a connection that had not been made before, and while it was not something she could explain, not something that was specifically spelled out, she suddenly realized that the banya was just as central to what was happening as the house was, and she thought that maybe it was the doorway through which—what did Adam say the Indians called them? uninvited guests?—were coming, and that perhaps the tide could be stemmed there.

Why hadn’t she figured that out earlier? How could she have been so blind?

She pushed herself up and off the couch, grabbed her Bible from the table.

“What are you doing?” Julia asked her.

They’d been speaking only Russian for most of the day, not wanting the children to understand what they were talking about, and they were still speaking it now even though they were alone.

Agafia picked up one of the unlit candles, placed its wick next to the burning flame of the candle on the table. “I am going to the banya.”

The statement sounded frightening even to herself. It was too dramatic, too self-important, but she felt dramatic, this seemed important, and there was an urgency about it, a powerful impetus to do this right now, this second, a sense that there was no time to waste and that if she did not hurry, whatever window of opportunity was open to her would be closed.

Something had been trying to communicate with her for quite a while—

God?

—and she did not know why she had not paid more attention to her dreams, why she had… not exactly ignored them, but not acted upon them, not pursued the truths they were trying to reveal.

She hurried over to the closet in the entryway, placed her candle and Bible on the table next to the door, and took out her jacket, putting it on. Julia was following her, unsure of what to say, unsure of what to do, and Agafia turned to her. “Keep your knife close,” she said. “I will be back as soon as I can.”

Julia seemed about to say something, but instead she just nodded.

“Get Adam downstairs. Put him in my room. When I get back, we’ll try to bring Sasha down.” She picked up her Bible and candle, said a quick prayer of protection, blessed Julia, the kids, the house, then hurried outside without waiting for a response. The sense of urgency was now almost overwhelming, and the feeling within her was something like panic. She could not run, because she did not want to put out the candle, but she walked as quickly as she could toward the back of the property, past the cottonwood, toward the banya. The thought occurred to her that she should have brought the flashlight instead of the candle, but she figured that Julia and the kids needed it more than she did.

Should she have brought any of them with her?

No. Julia was right. At least they knew what was in the house. Out here…

Who knew what she would find?

The ground was getting rough, the candlelight was not particularly effective, and she was forced to slow down so that she wouldn’t trip. From somewhere far away, she thought she heard the sound of wind.

Uninvited guests.

She had focused before on the word “uninvited,” but it was “guests” that grabbed her attention now. For that was what they were. Not indigenous spirits or beings that lived here, but neh chizni doohc that had arrived from elsewhere. Visitors.

Why had they come, though? What did they want? Agafia traveled quickly, working on instinct or being led by God, she was not sure which. She could not really see the path, but she was following it, and just as she emerged from the boulders, the moon appeared above the high cliffs to the east, bathing the scene in front of her with light.

And she saw Jedushka Di Muvedushka.

Laughing, the small figure sped out of the banya, took off up the hillside, clambering over rocks, cavorting playfully in the moonlight. Did he see her? She didn’t think so, and that made his exuberant little dance all the more eerie.

There was a rustle off to her left, and Agafia whirled so fast in that direction that her candle went out. Her heart was pounding and she was prepared to see shadows with teeth or snake-skinned demons, but instead she saw a line of people, several of them carrying flashlights.

Molokans.

One of them moved forward, toward her. It was Vera, and Agafia had never been so happy to see anyone in her life. She could tell by the expression on the other woman’s face that Vera no longer believed her to be corrupted, and her relief was so great that she wanted to cry. Semyon had obviously gotten through to them. She scanned the row of faces looking for him, but he was not among the Molokans gathered before her.

Why were they at the banya instead of the house? She’d told Semyon to make sure they went to the house.

She looked at Vera and understood. The old woman had had another dream. And it had pointed her here.

“I am sorry,” Vera said, moving closer, throwing her arms around her, and hugging her close. Agafia remained holding onto her Bible, but she tossed the unlit candle aside and hugged her old friend back with one arm.

There was a lot to be said but no time to say it, and Vera’s apology covered all of it for now.

“Did you see him?” Agafia asked, nodding toward the hillside.

Vera nodded grimly.

“Whose house is he from?”

“No one knows.”

“You have been watching him?”

Vera nodded, looked at the others. “We did not know what to do.”

It was a tacit acknowledgment that she was now the leader, that she was the one who would decide how they would act, and Agafia had never felt prouder in her life. She scanned the faces, looking for Nikolai, but the minister was nowhere to be found.

“Where is Nikolai?” she asked. “Where is Semyon?”

“Nikolai went with Peter to bring back the prophet, as you said.” Vera met her eyes. “Semyon has disappeared.”

There was no time to waste, no time to dwell on what they should have done or could have done, and Agafia nodded. She pointed toward the banya. “I’m going to look.”

Even as she said it, a shiver ran down her spine, but the others trained their flashlights on the bathhouse and followed along with her, and she was grateful for both their presence and their courage. Although she had no light of her own, the moonlight was bright enough to see by, and she did not stop until she was directly in front of the banya’s open door. Vera shone her flashlight into the darkness.

The inside of the banya was filled with bodies.

Bodies of Jedushka Di Muvedushka.

Agafia took an involuntary step back, nearly stepping on Onya’s toes. The bodies were barely there, shimmering like spirits, the flashlight beams granting them even less substance than the refracted moonlight, but she could see them piled one on top of the other, like logs, and in a sudden flash of insight, she understood what had happened.

Jedushka Di Muvedushka had followed them from California.

And he was killing off all of the other Owners in McGuane.

It explained the increase in supernatural activity, the reason why these supernatural forces had been allowed to spread outward from their home. There had been no protection. Anywhere.

Agafia stared at the stacked ephemeral bodies, stunned. A flashlight beam played across the back wall of the bathhouse, and she saw that the figure on the wall had changed. Its head had grown, its body had shrunk, and it no longer looked like a typical Molokan man. It looked like what it was.

Jedushka Di Muvedushka.

Slowly, tentatively, she walked inside. The power here was incredible. She could feel it. It was stronger than it should have been, it had obviously been fed. She recalled Father telling her when she’d asked that the Owner of the House ate mice and rats and possums, kept vermin away from the house and fed himself at the same time.

She could not recall seeing any rodents or pests on their property since they’d arrived in McGuane.

She could not even remember the last time she’d seen a bird on their land.

Vera had already started chanting. A prayer of forgiveness, a prayer of healing. It did not seem entirely appropriate, but like the others, she fell in behind Vera, repeating the words, holding tight to her Bible, and there actually did seem to be a slight lessening in the oppressiveness of the air. When they finished and she opened up her eyes, she could no longer see the small stacked bodies.

Why had she not been killed?

Why had no one in her family been killed?

That was what puzzled her. Jim was gone. People she didn’t even know, who had no connection to the family, had been murdered. But so far she and all her family were still alive.

Perhaps Jedushka Di Muvedushka could not actually harm them. Perhaps he merely wanted to shut down the defenses to show them what they were missing, how he could have protected them had they not abandoned him. More likely, he was out for revenge and wanted to destroy them, but wanted to do so in as subtle a way as possible, to drag it out, to prolong their suffering. Nearly the entire town had been turned against them now; it made her think of how things had been in Russia before the Molokans had left. The persecution. The public beatings.

She thought of Russiantown.

Was that the point of all of this? Spite and revenge? She had learned from Father—and had always believed—that the devil, like God, had a grand scheme, a master plan, and that he would use whatever means were at his disposal to convert the good and recruit the wicked and sow the seeds of death and destruction wherever and whenever possible. But was that really the case? It seemed to her that this had all been brought to bear not as part of some cosmic design but to satisfy the petty desires of a minor spirit.

Was evil really that small?

Perhaps it was. That thought gave her hope.

The Molokans all crowded into the tiny building. There were seven of them, and they could barely fit, but they stood close to each other, holding hands, and without speaking, without planning, began to perform the Cleansing. After all of their previous efforts, they knew the words by heart, and as they chanted, Agafia wondered what would happen if the Owner of the House returned. Would he be repelled by the force of their prayers?

Flashlights had been switched off, and before they were even halfway through, the darkness around them was moving, sliding sinuously between their legs, wrapping itself around their heads. They remained focused, kept praying, and the movement within the bathhouse became more agitated.

After this, they would walk back to the house, get her daughter-in-law and her grandchildren. The Molokans had obviously come in cars, and even Gregory could not hope to combat so many allies. She and the children would escape and go to one of the others’ houses and decide on a further plan from there.

Agafia felt good, invested with power by the Holy Spirit, and though she knew it was inappropriate in this place and under these circumstances, she wanted to jump, wanted to give herself over to the Lord and let the Spirit overtake her.

It was then that the sandstorm hit.