Maddix released the psychiatrist’s hand and smiled. “I’ll keep you in mind in case I go completely nuts.”
“Have you given much thought to what you’re going to do in your civilian life?”
Maddix nodded. “I’m thinking about enrolling in a seminary. If the hell I saw truly exists, I have to warn people about it,” he said right before raising his right hand up to his brow.
Major Triplett returned the crisp salute and watched Maddix limp out the door. I hope America treats you well, Petty Officer Maddix. You deserve it after the hell you’ve been
through.
Chapter 2
Four years later
Like most mornings in Felicity, Utah, the sun rose bright and hot. The brilliant orb inched its way higher into a cloudless sky as blue as ripened blueberries and promised to bake the dusty resort town with unrelenting desert heat.
Andrew Maddix left his modest apartment above the town’s drugstore and began his morning run. His ritual always took him to Zion Baptist Church located near the town’s east end. The small church was a tick over a mile from his apartment, and Maddix usually covered the distance in five minutes.
Everywhere he went he ran. He wanted to retain as long as possible the rock-hard body he’d developed during his stint in the Navy SEALS. It wasn’t easy. The bi-monthly potluck dinners his congregation put on made it hard not to pack on flab. But his determination couldn’t be extinguished, and so far the running regimen was working. He only wished he could find a place to swim. He longed for the daily four-mile ocean swims he used to partake in while in the SEALS.
Maddix ran swiftly along the shoulder of Highway 9 and directly into the sun. Dressed in athletic pants and shoes, Body Armor shirt, and Ray-Ban sunglasses, he looked nothing like a pastor. But then he had always bucked the trend. Things were no different now, even though he’d recently turned thirty-two.
Maddix settled into a consistent stride. His arms pumped evenly at his sides, and he hardly noticed the rhythmic impact of his feet impacting the ground. Today’s run was turning out to be one of the better ones of the week. He felt strong, could feel the runner’s high approaching.
Nearing the half-mile point, Maddix glanced at his watch. Two-minutes and twenty-one seconds had elapsed. If he kept this pace up he would shatter his pre-injury personal best for the mile run.
Sweat filmed on his body, cooling him from the sunbeams flooding the sky. He could see the church now—a humble yet quaint structure with a steeple and a few stained glass windows. Surrounded by enormous cottonwoods, the church looked innocuous enough on the outside, but a dysfunctional mess churned inside. The small congregation was at odds with most everything he did. The pews were too hard, the music too loud and his sermons too long. And on and on it went.
Two months on the job and he sensed that most of the members despised him. They didn’t like his take-charge demeanor and pointed sermons. Almost every day he got a letter or call from a disgruntled member, chastising him for the way he led the church. Their judgmental eyes disapproved everything he did.
His professors at Dallas Theological Seminary warned him about taking on a small church reeling from a catastrophic split. But like a fool, he didn’t heed their sage advice. Now he had serious doubts as to whether he was the right man for the job. Discord bled so freely that he didn’t know if the flow could ever be staunched. Like a plate of broken glass, disharmony fractured the church into a thousand pieces.
But more sinister than backbiting conversations and a clash of wills was something that a degree in divinity hadn’t prepared him for.
Paranormal activity haunted the church.
The occurrences were too plentiful to explain away as coincidences, and happened to trustworthy people he knew would never fabricate such disturbing events.
The bedevilments ranged from deacons shoved down flights of stairs by invisible attackers, to the church pianist being struck in the face by a flying hymnal. Even Maddix himself had a run-in with a poltergeist. Two weeks ago he had been in his office, working late on a sermon outline. After finishing he had walked back through the sanctuary and happened to look back toward the pulpit. That’s when he saw the heavy wooden cross over the baptistery hanging upside down.
He had personally locked all the doors before retiring to his office that night, and had heard no unusual sounds that could be associated with vandals. The cross was constructed of burr oak and would take a couple of lumberjacks to heft it into a different position. But in his opinion, the cross had been moved into its blasphemous position by something lacking human hands.
One-hundred more meters to go. Maddix looked at his watch. His run just eclipsed four-minutes and twenty-five seconds. He dug down deeper, ignored his gasping lungs and pushed his legs to their absolute limits.
He could see the ghost hunters’ GMC Yukon parked in front of the church. The black SUV’s back hatch hung open. Last night he followed around the paranormal investigators as they set up their motion sensors, digital voice recorders and digital cameras in different areas of the sanctuary and in various classrooms. He even helped them hang wind chimes from light fixtures. After setup, the ghost hunters left the church, promising to return after midnight to begin their investigation.
Maddix sprinted the last twenty yards into the church parking lot. He stopped and looked at his watch. He completed the run in four minutes and forty-two seconds. Not bad for a man with only one leg, he thought.
With hands on hips, he walked up to a cottonwood tree and sat down in the shaded grass. He looked at the church as he reined in his racing breath. I wonder what they found.
He didn’t have to wait long to find out. The front doors of the church suddenly burst open. The two ghost hunters, their arms laden with equipment, ran out of the church and up to their vehicle.
Maddix got up and hurried over to them. “Hey, what did you guys see in there? How many ghosts do we have?” he asked, trying his best to sound cheerful, as if pastors ask this sort of question all the time.
The ghost hunters ignored him and began dumping their equipment into the Yukon’s ample storage area.
Maddix touched the shoulder of the man closest to him. “So how did it go last night?”
The man turned to face him. His wild eyes bugged out from an ashen face. “Preacher, you don’t have ghosts in there,” he said as he jerked his thumb back towards the church.
“Then what do we have?”
The ghost hunter tossed an EMF meter onto the equipment pile and slammed shut the hatch. He ran around to the driver’s side door and hopped in. Maddix followed him. He rapped on the window until the driver put the window down.
“Can you please answer my question?” Maddix said firmly.
“Preacher, you and your congregation need to clear out of that building,” the man said, his voice quivering. “And you need to do it fast.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t have ghosts in there, you have demons! And you have lots of them!” the driver hissed just before backing up out of his parking stall.
Slack-jawed, Maddix watched the ghost hunters speed away, tires squealing down the road. He watched the retreating vehicle until he could no longer see its taillights. He sighed and looked back at the church. Nestled among soaring cottonwoods and a babbling creek, the church complimented the bucolic setting, yet inside its walls it had become a haunt for demons. Maddix could hardly believe it. What have I gotten myself into? What in the name of
Heaven do I do now?