They were an obscene Madonna and child for this Christmas eve. It was not a funeral mass, but a midnight mass, after all. See? The great cross above the altar—out of her range on TV—had even been inverted for the occasion.
The head priest recoiled, lifting one arm to shield himself—itself—from Devin’s offering. But it was not for him anyway. She knelt before the bodies of the sacrificed, gently positioned her hands over the brow of her son, with his sad, troubled face.
Much of the water had wound down her wrists, despite her efforts. Only drops remained, but they splashed his small round head. Devin even shook loose the last two drops onto the head of the Madonna.
A howling of wind or voices erupted, and the congregation rushed into that dark doorway in the corner. The head priest went last, casting one last hateful look over his shoulder. The touch of his gaze made Devin scream.
The door slammed shut.
* * *
One of the nurses found Devin there, on the floor of the chapel. She screamed also.
It was first thought, naturally, that Devin had somehow stolen both the body of her stillborn son and that of the woman from the emergency ward, and moved them into this room. After all, a nurse had inadvisably told Devin about the victim. But after interviewing her, and talking with the nurses from postpartum recovery, police were willing to at least accept the possibility that some sort of cult had broken into the hospital and transported the bodies into the chapel. After all, one drugged and hurting woman could scarcely have turned that heavy cross upside-down by herself.
She was released after questioning, though there were problems with her story. For instance, there was no door in that shadowy comer of the chapel where she claimed the congregation had emerged, and fled.
It was no wonder they thought her responsible, at first, and still wondered about her later. For when the nurse found her, Devin was sitting beside the body of the murdered girl, and rocking her dead son in her arms. And laughing, of all things. Laughing as if with joy. Or at least, with relief. And her words sounded like the rantings of a madwoman.
Because she was laughing, “I saved him. I saved him.” Over and over. Her eyes bright and fervent, like those of an acolyte.
The Yellow House
When I was a boy the Yellow House was as much a part of Halloween as the jack-o’-lanterns it so closely resembled on that night, its black windows gaping sightlessly in its bright yellow face. You could see the Yellow House way down the street, glowing in the dark, almost, and the dread excitement would build. We had to go up the walk and knock on the door. Every year we did this and no one answered, but we were always convinced (okay, half convinced) that this would be the time the door would crack open and there would stand some resurrected something-or-other, decayed, grinning and glaring at the same time. So we’d knock and then run, screaming and laughing. That’s how we confront what we’re afraid of, right?—give it a quick close look and a touch and then run. But without having really seen inside.
Every town has its Yellow House, so to speak: a house where a mad old woman (witch) lived, or where someone had been murdered, or where the Devil once looked out of the fireplace. The Yellow House wasn’t located up on some desolate hill, and structurally or architecturally speaking, my old family house looked much, much more foreboding. It was a small two-story crammed between two similar houses, with only a scrap of front yard. But it had that weird color, for one. A sort of traffic sign yellow, the yellow they paint bulldozers and such. And damned if I ever saw anybody repaint the thing, but the paint never peeled or flaked away or faded in all those years I knew it as a boy. My father remarked on it more than once. As did my grandfather whom I helped repaint our family home, and he knew his painting. Of course, I moved out of state for nine years, and in that time only saw the house on a few occasions during visits home, but once I asked my father if he’d ever seen anyone adding new paint to the house, and he hadn’t. The house stood empty for most of my boyhood (and all those Halloweens) after the mysterious disappearance of its owner, but the funny thing is that the family who finally bought the house didn’t repaint it a new color. I intend to find them and ask them if they ever added a new coat. Maybe they liked the color, and didn’t want to change the personality of the famous Yellow House. The young yuppie-type couple living there now must think it’s neat, and they put up new black shutters and painted the door black. It looks quite striking, like a big plastic toy house. I’ll have to talk to them, too, now…see what they may have learned, if anything, by living inside the Yellow House.
They must have heard the stories; you can’t have lived in town a year or two without having heard them. And it was for these stories more than because of its strange color that the place had become our town’s official haunted house.
First of all, the town’s all-time prize loony had owned the Yellow House, and painted it himself, as the town was very much aware at that time. It was no quaint town tradition or landmark then, but a plain old eyesore. So kids began rapping on the door and running away laughing on Halloween night even back then in the forties. Supposedly one kid got shot with a BB gun by the owner—at least my mother seems to remember that story.
His name was Edwin Phillips, the town dog officer. Another great reason for banging on his door. One time, my mother has never forgotten (the reason she curses him to this day, obsessive animal lover that she is), three dogs were found shot in Phillips’s back yard—two of them still clinging to life, a mother and pup. The mother died, the pup was saved. The dogs had been picked up by him only the day before, not held for the proper amount of time before humane termination. It reached the papers, death threats came even from out of state, and Phillips was out a job. At that time, cages were found in his basement—his own kennel—though, oddly, no one had ever complained of undue barking at his house. There was talk of digging up his yard and some pressure from humane society people but it was never done.
He never worked again, apparently, and how he sustained himself I haven’t as yet determined. He was well known as an amateur inventor, however, so maybe one of his inventions had become successful somewhere down the line and he lived off that. For lack of a town witch, the kids called him a mad scientist, or Dr. Frankenstein. Maybe he was assembling a Frankencanine out of various parts of dogs he’d slaughtered, they no doubt joked.
It was because of the dog stories that Crazy Ed Phillips became the suspect in town gossip when those two old men disappeared in 1950. Both were boozers with no real family and they lived in the rooms over the little center pub my father still frequents today. The first, Gregory Hitchings, vanished on or about January fifteenth. The second man, old Frankie Allen, the town drunk of the day, was discovered missing (a funny expression) February seventeenth. Gone without a trace, both men, no clothes packed, and both boarders at the little center pub…two streets over from the Yellow House.
There was another funny story about Ed Phillips and the two missing men, but first a little background. Phillips himself occasionally visited the pub for some brews alone in the corner, and the other men would taunt him a bit. Kill any dogs lately? How’s the mad scientist business these days? Well, apparently several times Phillips had lashed back at the men, his tongue loosened by beer, and cursed their stupidity and ignorance at not recognizing his greatness, for not respecting his important work, which would change the world forever. The standard mad scientist lines. So the men would laugh harder, send him over some beers which he would drink in brooding silence.
But in early 1950 Phillips became a feared and hated celebrity again as the rumors spread. One man whom Phillips had raged at in the pub claimed that Phillips had alluded to “experiments in human longevity,” and suggested that he had kidnapped the two old-timers to use as human guinea pigs, figuring they wouldn’t be missed much. Others quickly took up this belief. Finally it was brought to the attention of the town chief of police, Richard McGee. He found the rumors ridiculous and groundless, and Edwin Phillips was never officially questioned about the disappearances. But Greg Hitchings and Frankie Allen were never heard from again, and even McGee couldn’t offer a plausible explanation.