The long, unkempt grass growing around the house stirred ceaselessly in the dense air, but nothing else moved as she approached. Carefully avoiding a broken step, she climbed up to the porch and knocked hesitantly on the front door. Nothing. She knocked again. Still no-one came.
She could hear television coming from somewhere inside. Someone was watching a daytime talk show by the sounds of it. Either they couldn’t hear her, or they were deliberately ignoring her. Irritated, Carla left the porch and started pushing her way through the tall grass at the side of the house.
The sitting room drapes were drawn shut but there was still a gap that Carla could see through, thanks to numerous missing or broken curtain rings. The gloom within was relieved only by the cycling colours of the television screen. Mr Taub was slumped in an armchair, still wearing the raincoat and sandals he had worn at the hospital the day before. His jaw hung slackly and his puffy eyes were glazed, staring in rapt, unblinking fascination at the increasingly shrill argument being played out on-screen.
Carla was about to tap on the glass when she heard another window creaking open. Stepping back she looked up to see Gary Taub’s head emerging from what she presumed, based on the frosted glass, was an upstairs bathroom. She waved to him, and was about to call up when she realised that he was frantically gesturing for her to be quiet. He stabbed his finger urgently towards the street and then held up his forefinger.
Her car? One minute. Carla mouthed the words and the teenager nodded emphatically, and disappeared from view. She shrugged and trudged back to the Honda. It was Gary she wanted to talk to, not his parents. If she could question him in the car without having to square off against Mrs Taub again, it would be a bonus.
The teenager emerged from the house a couple of minutes later, looking around the deserted garden and street furtively as he jogged towards the car and got into the back seat.
“Drive!” he hissed, slamming the door too hard. “If my mom sees you out here she’ll throw a fit!”
“OK. Where to?” asked Carla, turning the key.
“Who gives a fuck? Just drive!”
Carla sighed, released the handbrake and pulled away from the kerb. In the rear view mirror she could see Gary, sitting as low as he could, with his hood up for extra concealment. He caught her looking at him and stared back as coldly as he could in an unconvincing display of teen bravado. “Hey, lady, you got any cigarettes?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“We should stop so I can get cigarettes.”
He was testing the boundaries, seeing how far he could push her. “Later. We can do that later. Maybe. Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m here?”
Gary snorted. “‘S obvious why you’re here. You’re here to stick your nose into other peoples’ business like you types always do. Ain’t none of you got a clue.”
“Actually” replied Carla, airily, “I thought we might go to church.”
Gary stared at her in the mirror. “Church?”
“Yes, the Evangelical Order of David? I thought you could take me to meet the minister there.”
Behind her, the boy threw his hands up demonstratively, and lunged for the door handle. “Stop the car!”
“I can’t stop here.”
“Stop the fucking car, lady!” He was screaming now.
“Oh, stop acting like a baby!” snapped Carla. “I’m not stopping here and that’s that.”
“Lady, I’m not going back to that fuckin’ church, and if you—”
“It’s not “lady”, it’s ‘doctor’”, she corrected him. “And if you really don’t want to go to the church then fine, I’ll drop you off.”
“Fine! Good!”
“Provided you tell me why.”
“Why what?”
“Why you don’t want to go.”
Gary stared at her in the mirror for long seconds before slumping back in his seat and turning to stare out of the window, arms folded. The silent treatment. Great. Carla wondered if she’d been this obnoxious when she was in her teens. She persisted with the interrogation, keeping an eye on him in the mirror.
“Is it that you’re afraid of the place?” No response. “Or of the people? Is it something to do with your friends’ suicides?” He grimaced involuntarily. “Is there a connection between their deaths and the church? Gary! Tell me, or we’re going back and I’m asking your mother.”
He rounded on her. “Jesus, fuck lady! Doctor! Whatever! Just drop it, OK? You’re doing my head in.”
“Answer the question then! Why the big problem with the church?”
“Because they’re fucking psychos, that’s why!”
“What do you mean, “psychos”?”
“I mean they’re fucking psycho assholes! And stop calling it a church. ‘S not even a proper church.”
Carla pushed home her advantage. “What is it then?”
“It’s a madhouse! It’s a – a… it’s wrong, OK?”
“A cult?” Carla guessed, based on what she’d found online.
“Yeah, whatever. They fuck people up. They fucked this whole town up – or hadn’t you noticed?”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, it doesn’t matter, just leave them alone. Now, can I get out of this fucking car, please?”
Carla sighed and pulled over to the side of the road. “I can’t leave them alone, I have to find out what they’re doing.”
“Yeah, well, good luck with that. Your funeral.” He opened the door but paused before getting out and half-turned back to her. “Don’t eat anything. Or drink anything. While you’re there.” Then he was gone, jogging back the way they’d come. Carla called after him – “Why not? While I’m where?” – but he didn’t look back.
Carla tried to bury her misgivings as she buzzed the intercom by the front door of the E.O.D. for the third time. She was wishing that she’d tried asking Dr Khalil to accompany her, but it was too late for that now. It was silly anyway. It was just a church. Probably no kookier than any of the strange brotherhoods, sects and congregations that her mother had dragged her around when she was a child. Revivalists, evangelists, muscular Christians, Pentecostal snake-handlers, conmen, prophets and perverts, her mother had followed them all at one point or another.
Fed up, she pressed the buzzer again and held it, staring defiantly up at the security camera. Finally, after a full minute of electronic clanging, the speaker came to life with an angry, sibilant “Yes?” She introduced herself and was told to wait. She waited. Another few minutes passed and she was ready to resume her attack on the bell when locks began to turn and the door was slowly eased open. Just a few inches. A pungent stink of fish leaked from within.
“What do you want here, Doctor?” It was the same voice she had heard over the intercom, but she could not make out its owner in the interior gloom.
“I’m here on a public health matter. I want to talk to you. Or whoever is in charge here. Please can you open the door?”
“Come back tomorrow.”
Carla rolled her eyes. “No. Today. It won’t take long, I promise.”
There was a long, bubbling sigh from the darkness, but then the door began to open properly. Carla paused to savour a last lungful of relatively fresh air before crossing the threshold.
As she entered, fluorescent strip lights in the ceiling began flickering to life, filling the warehouse with pale, sterile light. The floor was bare, dusty concrete painted an aquatic shade of green. Crude representations of sea creatures were daubed all over it, like so many telephone doodles. Sharks, squids, starfish, crustaceans – Carla instantly recognised the imagery from the graffiti she’d seen a few corners from here.
A quote from the Bible had been stencilled around the wall in a blocky, Teutonic font. Carla recognised it from Ezekiel, verse something-or-other.