Other Gods
Stephen Mark Rainey

Stephen Mark Rainey is author of the novels The Lebo Coven (Gale/Five Star), Balak (Wildside Books), Dark Shadows: Dreams Of The Dark (with Elizabeth Massie, HarperCollins), Blue Devil Island (upcoming from Gale/Five Star Books), and The Nightmare Frontier (upcoming from Sarob Press); three short story collections; and over 90 published works of short fiction, which may be found in magazines and anthologies such as Cemetery Dance, The Best of Cemetery Dance, The Book of Dark Wisdom, Dark Discoveries, Inhuman; Robert Bloch's Psychos, and many others. For ten years, he edited Deathrealm magazine and has edited the anthologies Deathrealms (Delirium Books), Song of Cthulhu (Chaosium), and Evermore (with James Robert Smith, Arkham House). Mark lives in Greensboro, NC, with his wife Peggy and three puddy tats. Visit him on the Web at httpy/home.triad.rr.com/smrainey.
"Dad, can you help me?"
Ravelle's voice sounded distant, weak, desperate. Unless she truly had nowhere else to turn, she wouldn't be calling him now. She knew that things had been bad for him. Just not how bad.
He could barely manage the words without choking. "I wish I could, honey. But I can't. There's no way."
The long silence tore at his heart more cruelly than if she had begun sobbing. "I understand," she whispered at last, and the connection died with a disenchanted sigh. He stared at the receiver for a moment, then gently placed it back in its cradle. Cutting his daughter's throat could not have been more difficult than what he had just done.
Tomorrow, Ravelle would be out on the streets of DC with nowhere to go. Her baby dead, her brain a wasteland.
Unable to pay her rent, she was being evicted from her apartment. She'd been on crystal meth for at least a year. Her HIV hadn't blossomed into AIDS yet, but it couldn't be much longer before she started getting sick. For all practical purposes, she was as dead as the stillborn baby she'd had two months earlier. As dead as his wife, Liz, who, eight months ago, had opened her wrists with a razor blade when she discovered she had inoperable cancer.
JimJim hopped up into his lap as his eyes gazed blindly into the darkness beyond his window, and he absently stroked the old tabby's head. The cat was 17 and had lost three pounds in as many months. Thyroid, probably. Not much time left for the old fellow. He had belonged to Mom and Dad before they had passed on, Dad two years ago, Mom only a few months later.
God's conspiracy with the angels to deprive Bradford of all he held dear seemed to be going ahead full-tilt. No other explanation for it; random forces of nature stood a better chance of spawning new life in his living room floor than they did of barraging him so relentlessly with loss after loss, death after death, for two solid years, starting with his father's heart attack. It was all too deliberate, too calculated.
"Ah, bullshit," he whispered, trying to keep from wallowing in self-pity, telling himself that life sometimes dealt rough hands, and neither God nor the Devil had diddly to do with it. On his desktop, a stack of bills leered spitefully at him; he had been trying to figure out which ones he could pay and which he could not when Ravelle had called. Because Liz had committed suicide, her life insurance had paid him nothing. Now, behind on his house payment, his car payment, and his credit cards (which were nearly maxed out), he could see only a dark, endless gulf on the horizon, and he was accelerating wildly toward it.
He could offer nothing to Ravelle even if he wanted to. Everything he had given her already had gone up in smoke. If he should sign over to her the rest of what he owned, she would sell it all within a day, just to feed her drug habit.
Not habit. Dependence. She was an addict, the meth as much a part of her constitution as her blood and bones.
He swiveled around to the desk, and JimJim slipped awkwardly to the floor, no longer able to leap gracefully. The cat skulked off toward the kitchen, and Bradford took up his pen and scribbled out a check to the mortgage company, hot acid rising in the back of his throat. This all but cleaned him out, and the other bills would more than claim his next paycheck.
He could make half his car payment, so maybe the bank wouldn't take it away. Yet. He had just started to write the check when the phone rang. Surely, not Ravelle again.
"Hello?"
At first, he heard only hollow nothingness; probably a damned telemarketer or bill collector. But it was after ten—later than customary even for those nuisance callers. After a few more seconds of silence, he heard a low mumble, distant and unintelligible, probably male.
"Hello, who's this?"
The mumbling rose a little, still too garbled for him to make out words. The voice was slow, deep, its cadence almost hypnotic. He said nothing and just listened, wondering if it was someone trying to be funny or a problem with the line. The phone bill was almost paid up; he doubted they would be looking to disconnect him quite yet.
The voice continued to murmur and mumble, and the longer he listened, the more unsettling he found it. Eerie. Soon, he realized that the hair on the back of his neck had risen—the very fact of which shocked him back to his senses, and he grimaced at the idea that his imagination might rattle him so.
"Sorry, can't hear you," he grumbled into the mouthpiece, then hung up with a perturbed sigh. It was just that he was alone in his dark house, depressed, the shambles of his life piled up on the desk like a stone tower about to collapse; afraid that God had deserted him, leaving him adrift in waters where the devil swam like a ravenous shark.
He stared at the phone for a few minutes, half-expecting it to ring again. When it did not, he opened the desk drawer to find a couple of stamps for his envelopes.
But they were all gone.
* * * 
"God never places on us a greater burden than we can carry. Many times, it seems so, but that's because we simply don't understand how much strength he truly gives a person of faith."
"I used to believe that," Bradford said, massaging his forehead, keeping his hand over his face so he wouldn't have to see the pastor's beatific expression. "But I don't think I have that much faith anymore."
"Even a little can go a long way, Nile."
"Yeah," he sighed. "But faith hasn't helped me pay my bills or get a better job. Or helped to save my daughter. Or my wife." He glanced up and saw that compassion had replaced the virtuous smile on Bill Ryder's face. Bradford liked Reverend Bill; his kindness was genuine, born of deep faith, free of doubt or baggage. Knowing Bradford had been hurting, he had dropped by to see him, even though it had been months since Bradford had darkened the sanctuary doors on Sunday mornings.
"I know it seems as if the world has fallen apart," Ryder said gently. "But Nile, all that's happened in your life will work out, even if you can't see it now. Of course, I can't tell you that things will soon get better for you. But God's timing is perfect. Often, we don't realize it until we are far enough along in our spiritual journey to glimpse the bigger picture. God wants you to call on him, so that he may share your burden. And he will. That much I can promise you."
"If anyone could make me believe that, Bill, it's you. But for every prayer I offer, I'm hit with some new blow. I'm just spent."
"I think you've fallen into the old trap of thinking that God helps those who help themselves, and you're trying to get by on your own strength. You have pride, and you're reluctant to commit fully to your faith because it means surrendering a part of yourself. It takes courage to humble yourself before God." Ryder held up a consoling hand. "You know I'm not saying this to be judgmental."
"I know that. Hell, you're probably right. Oh, sorry. But it's just that every time I think it can't get any worse.. .it does."
Ryder smiled sympathetically. "It's when we're at our lowest that God can raise us up. Only then do we find out who we really are inside. If you have faith—even a thimble full—God will be there for you. That's his promise."
Bradford sighed and glanced at his watch. Nearly five. "Well, Bill, I appreciate you dropping in. I know you've got a busy schedule, and I reckon I've burdened you enough."
"No burden," Ryder said, taking the not-so-subtle hint and rising from his chair. "I don't just sit in my office writing sermons all day. Well, sometimes on Thursdays." He chuckled, then clamped a hand on Bradford's shoulder. "My calling is to help those who are in need. And I know yours is genuine."
"Thanks, Bill. You know I appreciate it."
"I know. I know you do."
* * *
Eating alone, his food seemed tasteless, dull. He was tired of macaroni and cheese anyway. The only thing at his table with any flavor was the cheap scotch, and as he drained his glass, he contemplated pouring a third for dessert. But no, he decided; he'd feel it in the morning, and he could hardly afford dull senses at the office, not while he was building this damned client database that seemed beyond endless. At least at work they appreciated him. "Securitek's best data engineer," his boss called him. Marginally gratifying, but so much better if being indispensable paid more in tangible benefits.
He and Liz had seldom sat down to elaborate dinners, but they had always eaten together in the evening, and at this time of day, the pain of loneliness felt like talons closing slowly around his chest. Learning she had ovarian cancer had been such a shock, for both of them; his finding her bloodless body in the bathtub had been double that and more. He never thought she would have had it in her to do such a thing, even to spare him the burden of her inevitable decline—the reason given in her final note. But why choose such an awful way of ending it all? Why not just take pills or something?
Self-punishment for their daughter's plight. Her way of hurting him for his inability to help Ravelle. Or her.
The phone rang. He let it ring twice more before he grudgingly pushed back his chair and went to pick it up.
"Hello?"
Silence. Then a soft, meaningless mumble. Slow, deep, hypnotic. Same caller as the night before.
He tried to say, "Sorry, wrong number," but no words would come to his lips. He just stood there and listened to the rhythmic glossolalia for countless minutes until, eventually, it trailed away and hollow silence again filled the earpiece.
Sometime later, he found himself back in his kitchen chair, gazing at his half-empty bowl through a prism of tears. He glanced back at the phone, saw the receiver resting in its cradle. He didn't remember having hung it up or sitting back down.
Didn't matter. The caller hadn't wanted to talk to him. Perhaps it was someone hurting even worse than he, just trying to reach someone. Anyone. Maybe looking for help.
Or, more likely, just someone playing a prank.
* * * 
On the third day, he understood.
His wrists had begun to ache and his fingers felt numb from pounding keys day in and day out. Carpal runnel, probably; wouldn't surprise him, as several computer geeks he knew were suffering from it. His office phone rarely rang, but he usually welcomed it, even if it was nothing special; it drew him away from the keyboard for a few precious minutes. Now, his mind so absorbed with his project, the ringing startled him away from the figures on his monitor. Even before he placed the receiver to his ear, he knew what he would hear.
A soft, mellifluous voice, mouthing syllables that could mean nothing to anyone. Yet he knew now that they were intended specifically for him, even if he didn't understand their meaning.
"Who is this?" he managed to whisper. "Why do you keep calling me?"
The cadence of the voice changed slightly, as if in answer to his question. Still nonsensical, the words crept softly through his auditory organs, touched his memories, stirred his dreams. Then, as if thrilled by an electrical current, he sat up and listened intently. The voice was like an old, beloved song, bringing forth images, sensations from his past.
He saw Liz as she had been when they were married: young, beautiful, alive. Happy. Where had she gone, the woman he loved so much, even as her body succumbed to disease? Where was her spirit now?
Could this voice on the phone belong to her?
No, he thought; not her. But something that had known her. That now knew him.
"Nile?"
The voice repeated his name twice before he realized it was his boss, Jim Kirtley, speaking to him.
"Nile? You all right?"
He swallowed hard and looked up at the older man in the gray suit. Kirtley's cool blue eyes, usually hard and unreadable, briefly revealed something akin to compassion. But the moment passed so quickly that Bradford wasn't sure whether he'd imagined it.
He nodded absently. "Why do you ask?"
"You're crying."
He felt his eyebrows arching, and he ran his fingers across his cheeks. They were wet.
He looked at the phone and whispered disbelievingly, "My God."
Kirtley cleared his throat. "Do you need to take a little time off, Nile?"
After a long hesitation, he shook his head. Then he almost chuckled aloud, pointed to the phone, and said to Kirtley with conviction, "My God."
* * * 
He began to look forward to the calls, to crave them. And they came; at home or at the office, it didn't matter. With each contact came a new sense of peace, of healing, of transcendence. The mysterious, mumbling voice no longer seemed alien or eerie, but familiar and reassuring.
It offered him all the things his old God was supposed to offer.
His troubles didn't suddenly vanish. He still felt pressure at work, missed his wife, grieved for his lost daughter. But he no longer felt completely alone and abandoned. Ignored by the one to whom he had prayed so fervently.
There could be no mistake; this god was not the one he had tried to find all his life, the one his church and his pastor and all the rest of Judeo-Christian society worshipped. Everything within his soul assured him that this deity was something else altogether. Perhaps unknown to any other person or culture. Maybe he was the first to ever commune with it. He had no idea if it even had a name. Indeed, the voice on the line had yet to speak one comprehensible word to him, but its intimate focus on him promised to reveal everything he needed to know. He had called out to God, yes, but his prayers had been intercepted — and answered—by another who truly knew his needs. And how to fulfill them.
Why, O Jehovah, O Yahweh, O Great I Am, might you not be up to so simple a task?
According to Bill Ryder, God had promised to be with him in his time of need. But in his experience, it simply had not been so.
Which, then, was the false god?
* * *
Late one morning, the ringing of the phone had a different timbre, a terrible urgency about it. When Bradford picked up the receiver, he knew he would not hear the soothing, magical voice of his savior. Instead, the coarseness of Felix Rodriguez's voice almost made him cringe.
"Nile, are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Felix. Why?"
"Why? Because you haven't come into the office for a week and no one has heard from you since the first day. Are you sick?"
"No."
"Nile, it looks like you're being fired. Kirtley even went to bat for you, but I don't think it's going to do any good. Everyone's tried to be understanding, but you can't just vanish like this without checking in."
Bradford felt a twinge of apprehension, but refused to dwell on what the news meant. "Well," he said slowly, deliberately, "I guess it's their loss. Know what I mean?"
"Frankly, no," Rodriguez said. "Everyone realizes you've fallen on hard times. And we all know how hard you've worked, how valuable you are here. But no one is inexpendable, and I'm afraid your number's up on this one."
For another long minute, his voice failed him. This was his career they were talking about, the last remaining shred of the life he'd known for so many years. "I wish I could explain it to you, Felix," he finally said, his voice cracking. "But I can't. I'm changing. Hell, the whole world is changing for me. I'm sorry it affects others, but I have to do this."
"What's changing? What are you talking about?"
"Maybe one day you'll understand. Or maybe not. I don't guess it's all that important. Except to me."
It was Rodriguez's turn to fall silent. Then: "I don't know what to say, Nile. You've obviously made your decision and you're all right with this. Well, then. I wish you the best. I've tried to be your friend."
"I know. I know you have. And I appreciate it."
"Goodbye, Nile." .
His caller hung up, and the click on the other end sounded like a door slamming. This was it, then. He had committed himself. When he replaced the receiver, he stood there for several minutes, hoping to hear the more familiar, comforting ring, the soft voice reassuring him that all was well, that he had done the right thing.
He glanced around the living room, at the dirty dishes stacked on the coffee table, the newspapers piled carelessly by the door. The layers of dust on top of the furniture. Regardless of the changes he was undergoing, he could not let the old, mundane world completely fall apart. He must take care of this. He would take care of it.
At the corner of his eye, he glimpsed something —a shape that seemed out of place. It took him a minute to figure out what it was; but when he realized what he was seeing, his heart nearly stopped, and a current of fear arced up and down his back.
A pale shape at the window, a featureless oval pressed against the glass, as if peering in at him. Watching him with no eyes, but fully aware of his presence. He took a shaky step to the right, and the thing shifted slightly to follow his movement.
The phone rang, and his hand zoomed out to grab the receiver. He heard the hollow silence, followed by the rhythmic rush of soft, mumbled syllables. The sensation was heavenly, exhilarating, and now he turned back to the window with renewed confidence.
The pale shape had pulled away from the glass, and for an instant, just long enough for him to be sure he wasn't hallucinating, he saw Liz passing by the window, her face turned toward his, her sapphire eyes lit by that glimmer of love he'd seen on the day they were married.
Yes, he thought; the world was changing, being rebuilt. The voice in his ear assured him of this.
"Thank you," he whispered, knowing the other understood his gratitude. For all that was happening, losing his job, that last part of his old world, was a small price to pay. A very small price.
* * *
Considerable effort later, Bradford's house had become a thing of beauty again. Thoroughly cleaned, top to bottom. Dishes, windows, and mirrors washed; carpets vacuumed; trash removed. He felt a small measure of pride as he put away his dust rags, knowing that his world was on its way to becoming a tolerable, comfortable place again.
Thanks be to the God.
Twilight had fallen, and he was just turning on the living room lamps when a faint knock at the front door surprised him. No one had visited since Bill Ryder the previous week, and he expected no one now. Through the etched glass in the door, he could see a pale shape in the glow of the porch light, which reminded him of the image of his wife at the window, and he involuntarily shivered. Could his God truly restore life to the dead? Jehovah had done it for his son, but he had apparently gone out of that business centuries ago. The new God, however, seemed more inclined to perform miracles.
Drawing a deep, hopeful breath, he opened the door, only to exhale suddenly, as if he'd been punched. But warmth quickly spread from his chest, through his entire body, as his eyes fell on his daughter, Ravelle, whose figure blazed beneath the porch light like a radiant angel.
"Oh, my," he whispered. "Oh, Ravelle."
She took a step forward, and her eyes searched him up and down. "Dad, I had to come home."
He opened his arms and she fell into his embrace, her slender arms encircling his waist. She squeezed him tightly, but he barely felt it. With tears burning in his eyes, he drew her inside and ran a hand through her dark brown hair. It was damp and stringy, and her skin felt clammy.
As she drew away from him, he realized now that her face appeared gaunt, her eyes sunken into shadowed hollows. Her wan complexion emphasized the purplish color of her lips.
Tears streamed down her eyes as she whispered, "Dad, I hurt so bad. I think I'm sick. Really sick."
Something lurched inside him, and his breath caught in his throat. He finally managed to whisper, "I can't believe you're here.. .like this."
"I don't have anywhere else to go," she said with a whimper. "Will you let me stay? Please?"
He looked past her, toward the door. He could feel his disappointment painting itself on his face. This Ravelle was part of his old world.
She had once been so lovely. Like her mother.
Until she had wasted herself.
"How did you get here?" he finally asked in a flat voice.
"Caught a ride with a couple of truckers," she said, her eyes on the floor. "I don't have any money. Nothing. Dad, I hurt so bad. Here." She pressed a hand to her abdomen. "Please help me."
He could not pull his gaze away from the door, his mind reeling with bewilderment, with frustration. This could not happen to him now.
Realizing something was wrong, Ravelle stared deeply into his eyes, searching. "Dad, what is it?"
He could not answer her, for his mind was frantically trying to grasp his new God's plan. There had to be a plan. It was the way of things.
"Dad.. .where are you?"
His whirling mind finally began to slow. From deep in his memory, the words from an old poem crawled out and passed before his mind's eye. Unable to do otherwise, he leaned close to his daughter and recited them in a soft voice.
"'And all my days are trances.
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances.
And where thy footstep gleams.'"
It seemed ages that his memory stretched, reaching back, trying to place the origin of the verse. Only when the back of his daughter's head smashed the glass of the mirror on the wall did the name of Poe finally come to him. Her screams pealed loudly until his grip on her throat tightened, and then her voice became a dwindling, dying gurgle.
Even when her slight body sank to the floor and no more sound came from her mouth, the echoes of her helpless cries pierced his eardrums. But it was his own scream of realization—of revelation — that rose in harmony with the ringing of the telephone.