“Shut the fuck up! They’ll hear. They’ll come back.”

  A rising bellow of music startles them—the warbling thunder of a pipe organ. The interior of the tent swells with impossible light from an invisible source and it is then that Coleman understands just how spacious the tent is. He and the others are seated around a stage and towering above it is the gargantuan pipe organ.

  “Oh, God! Oh, Jesus!” the bleeding man cries.

  The organ music soars inside Coleman’s ears, a rising throng that none of them can block. It flows around them and through them, and yet the shadows keep the organist a mystery. The priest just wants the song to stop and as if by his command, it does.

  Two figures enter the stage like they are made of the air itself. Zachariah and his burned companion. Sweat runs down Coleman’s back as they approach, clutching black, leatherbound books. The priest’s fellow hostages begin to keen and moan in despair.

  “Please…” the woman says. “Don’t hurt me.”

  The burned Mormon—if he truly is a Christian at all—holds out his hands to try to soothe his captive audience.

  “Oh, Miss Chisholm, we’re not going to hurt you—we’re going to enlighten you.” He turns to Father Coleman. “We have a new­comer to our flock—an actual man of the cloth.”

  Coleman swallows down his fear. “Why have you brought me here? You need to let me go.” He looks to the others. “You need to let us all go.”

  He ignores the priest. “Father Coleman here believes he knows God. He’s been the dutiful servant, holding mass, celebrating feast days, fasting during Lent, breaking the bread, and blessing the communion wine. For years, he has believed that God was speaking to him—through him. But he is wrong.”

  He moves from the priest to Miss Chisholm, who recoils in her chair. “Sally Chisholm once walked God’s path, but in her weakness, she strayed, choosing illicit substances and fornication. She refused to hear God’s word, she used her mouth to please men instead of speaking the Lord’s gospel, and her eyes?” He reaches out to touch her cheek, but she wrenches her face away. “…Through her eyes, she saw only sin.”

  Zachariah descends the stairs and places a book in each of the hostage’s laps. Still, he walks and moves as if he can see. Coleman looks down and sees the book is a collection of hymns. The burned man continues.

  “I, Jacob, have brought you here to summon you to His fold. To show you that God has returned to this world to bring forth his judgement as the one true redeemer.”

  The pipe organ starts anew, filling the air with its melancholy. Zachariah opens the hymnals for each of them, but Coleman realizes the pages are blank. Jacob and Zachariah begin to sing.

  “The blood of the Lamb

  Is a river to cleanse the sinner…”

  The organ reaches a crescendo of sound and Coleman’s ears—all of their ears—ring in pain. Sally Chisholm screams, her hearing seemingly the worst affected. Coleman watches in horror as blood oozes from her ear canals, dripping down the sides of her face. Still the organ plays its vile tune and still Jacob and Zachariah sing.

  “Our Lord, our Lamb has come

  To save the righteous.

  His blood, our blood,

  Is water for the soul.”

  More parishioners appear on the stage from the dark, clothed in matching white and black. Each of them carries some nature of deformity: a missing arm or leg, burns and cuts. Others have their mouths and eyes stitched closed. They begin to sway in time with the music, joining in the chorus. Sally Chisholm writhes in agony beside the priest.

  “The blood of the Lamb

  Is a river to cleanse

  The sinner.

  We feel his love through

  Silence, patience, and grace.

  His blood, our blood,

  Is water for the soul.”

  The man with the gash above his eye pries his hands free and tries to run, but Zachariah grabs him by his hair and forces him to the ground. The organ ceases its song and the gathered flock moves down to circle the melee.

  “Get the fuck off me!” the man says, trying to escape the blind man’s grip.

  “Silence him, Zachariah,” Jacob says, “Silence him so he can hear His word.”

  One of them produces a hooked needle, another a thread of catgut. Each is handed to Zachariah. The gashed man struggles, but the flock holds his limbs tight. Those same greedy fingers keep his head pinned down as the needle pierces his upper lip. The man’s screams echo off the revival tent walls and the organ restarts in celebration. Coleman grimaces as Zachariah meticulously weaves the hook and thread through the man’s lips, sealing them closed.

  “His blood, our blood

  Is water for the soul.”

  Sally stops screaming. “I…I can hear him,” she says.

  Coleman and the other victims turn to her, watching as her expression shifts from confusion to elation.

  “I can hear him!”

  Jacob goes to her, joyous. “Of course you can! You only needed to listen. We all only need to listen.”

  The second man pisses his pants, the sound of the torrent drawing their gazes. Jacob tuts in disappointment.

  “Gerry here is a slave to his fear. Help him see that there is nothing to fear.”

  The group moves without hesitation. Coleman sits unblinking as they draw back the man’s head, while two others go at his eyes with pocket knives. After the screams fade, they present Jacob with two red orbs. For a moment, he holds them in his palm like they are jewels, only to drop them to the floor and squash them beneath his heel.

  “Now Gerry will see His wonders.”

  Father Coleman straightens is his chair, trying to remain stead­fast against the ensuing madness.

  “What you are doing is not God’s work,” the priest says to Jacob.

  The others look to the priest, their work leaving Gerry with two red caverns in his skull, but subdued and reverent.

  “These sinners have seen the light, Father,” Jacob says. “Gerry has seen it…” He then points to the other man with the sewn lips. “Brian there has heard it, as has Sally. The only one left to understand the truth is you.”

  Coleman coughs. “Do you think this is what God meant when He wanted you to spread His word? Blinding and maiming people?”

  Jacob shrugs. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

  Coleman scoffs, but it starts a coughing fit. He spits bloody phlegm on the floor. Jacob observes the blood puddle and then steps closer to the old priest.

  “Death is what you fear, isn’t it, Padre?”

  “No, because I believe in the resurrection.”

  The leader smiles. “You don’t need to be resurrected, Father. God gave us these bodies—this flesh—to be His temple, His church here on Earth. He never wanted us to build places of stone and wood to worship Him in. Our blood is His soul.

  The group recites Jacob’s words in turn.

  “Our blood is His soul. His soul is our blood.”

  Gerry, blood oozing from his eye sockets, joins them. “His soul is in our blood.”

  Sally is untied and she walks over to join the flock. “His soul is in our blood,” she says.

  Jacob dips a finger in Father Coleman’s blood and shows it to him. “His blood is in your blood too, Padre.”

  “No,” the priest says.

  “You proclaim it to be His blood at communion. Why is it so hard for you to believe it resides in each of us?”

  Coleman looks into Jacob’s eyes and each of the others in turn. They are afflicted with a shared madness. Then the leader takes the priest’s hands in his.

  “Oh, Padre, everything is a shared madness.”

  “What? How did you—

  Jacob stands and summons the flock to his side. “Shall we show him?”

  They converge on him, scooping him up, chair and all, to carry him to the stage.

  “No, please—don’t!” the priest says.

  “But Padre, you said it yourself—you don’t fear death because of the resurrection!”

  He is carried across the stage, the organ stirring them all in their procession. At the end of the stage, a glowing crack of light begins to appear. A thin line of golden light. The doors to the tent are parting.

  “He is already resurrected, Father,” Jacob says. “He came to me as a boy on my parents’ farm. They wanted to destroy Him. They saw Him as an aberration, but I knew what He was. He was a gift, like the Son he sent to us two thousand years ago.”

  The tent doors part wide and beyond them Father Coleman beholds a lamb seated atop a field of lush grass. The lamb is eyeless, its mouth sealed over with skin, unformed. Seven legs, instead of four. Its wool gleams with ethereal light and the priest can hear its voice—its soul—in his head.

  The priest feels the warmth of its light and for the second time in his life, he understands that God is calling him.

  Octoberville

  The highway was a never-ending black vein winding through the night.

  The headlights of Tom Crane’s rental car barely illuminated the road, or the thick forest that loomed on either side. Tom wanted to be anywhere but the road; most of all he wanted to be home, with Sally and Tom Jr. His job as marketing manager had become so demanding over the last six months that it had taken on a life of its own and he feared it was the only life he was ever going to have.

  Tom stared out the window at the forest blurring by. Black ash trees, tall and spindly, disappeared into the last remnants of twilight, lost to the impending dark. Tom was starting to feel lost within that darkness when his cell phone rang. Seeing it was Sally, he pressed the receiver button on the steering wheel to answer.

  “Hey babe,” he said, trying hard not to let his weariness come across over the phone.

  “Hey, how are you—where are you?” Sally said.

  Tom recalled the last signpost he’d seen. “Uh, about 10 miles outside Hayward, I think.”

  “You’re still in Wisconsin? Tom, it’s almost seven pm—I thought you’d be closer to home.”

  Tom sighed at the exasperation in Sally’s voice. “Hey, look, I’m sorry, honey. The conference went over time. Dale needed to talk to me after.”

  “Weren’t you supposed to leave early this morning? It’s Halloween and Tom Jr.’s expecting you. I don’t know why Dale just didn’t fly you down like usual.”

  Tom squeezed the steering wheel. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. The conference just took a whole different direction once Dale brought out the annual sales report.”

  “Was it bad?”

  Tom rubbed an eye with the palm of his hand. “Yeah, it was bad—and that’s why I’m driving home, instead of flying. The sales figures were bad and Dale was just looking at me the entire time he spoke. Then, when he pulled me aside after, he grilled me about my plans for the new campaign. He was really stressed out, which only stressed me out.”

  “Are you saying he thinks it’s your fault sales are down?”

  “Well, I am the marketing manager, honey.”

  “Hey, there’s no need to take it out on me, Tom.”

  Tom looked back to the forest, as if it contained the answer to all his problems. He took some deep, calming breaths. Something shifted between the trees in his field of vision, the shape keeping pace with his car. When he blinked, it was gone.

  “Look, honey, I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” Tom said, as he tried to both watch the road and see where the shape was. “I’ve just had a really long day. I don’t think I’m going to make it back in time to take Tommy trick-or-treating.”

  Sally sighed. “He’s going to be so disappointed.”

  “I know and I’m sorry—”

  The shape rushed out from the woods right in front of Tom’s car. He swore and jerked the wheel to try and avoid a collision. The car skidded and bounced off the road into the line of trees. He slammed his foot on the brake, but the car slid across the carpet of fallen leaves like it was ice. He screamed his wife’s name as the trunk of an enormous Ash tree came into view.

  Seconds later, a sea of darkness swallowed Tom whole.

  When Tom came to on the side of the road he opened his eyes to behold a solitary word.

  OCTOBERVILLE.

  His whole body ached, but when he moved, his skull felt like it was going to explode. Gingerly, he touched his forehead and his fingers came away slick with blood. He rolled onto his side and saw his car across the road, crumpled around the Ash tree. Through the ache in his head, he tried to figure out if he’d been thrown from the wreckage, or whether he’d managed to climb out. He couldn’t recall any details after crashing into the tree. Very gently, he turned his head to look back to the spot where he’d seen the word.

  The road sign read:

  OCTOBERVILLE—2 MILES.

  Slowly he pulled himself to his knees, then stood. The high­way swayed beneath his feet for a moment, but after he took a few slow, deep breaths, the world became straight and steady. Apart from the ache in his head, he didn’t seem to have suffered any other injuries. He questioned whether he was capable of walking two miles to the town, but told himself he should call an ambulance instead. He started to cross the street to grab his cell from its cradle in the car, when the wreck burst into flames with a WHOOMPF! The sight mesmerized him for several moments until the inevitability of it sank in. He was hurt, stranded and alone. All that was left to do was to walk into the night towards Octoberville.

  The throb in Tom’s head lessened with each step, for which he was grateful. The flap of a bird taking flight from a tree to his left startled him and the image of the beast-like shape rushing out from the woods in front of his car slapped his subconscious. He rubbed his weary eyes, trying to make sense of what he thought he’d seen. There hadn’t been any beast; he’d just been tired, and distracted by the hypnotic nature of the road and the conversation with his wife. He thought of Sally and Tom Jr. and sadness pricked at his eyes. The last thing Sally would have heard was him screaming her name; maybe she would try and send someone to find him? Or maybe she never heard him at all? Maybe the phone reception cut out and they had no idea what had happened, or where he was? After all, Sally didn’t expect him home for hours. At that moment his wife and son were likely walking the neighborhood, trick-or-treating. Tom imagined his son dressed up in the zombie outfit they’d made together. His tears flowed.

  The highway curved to the right and as Tom shuffled along, a thin layer of fog drifted out from a cleared space in the woods. A rusted gate creaked gently in the evening breeze. Tom squinted through the fog and saw the unmistakable silhouettes of tombstones. Beams of moonlight sliced through the wispy miasma like shards of glass. As he tried to understand why a cemetery would be so close to the highway, he heard the sharp, rhythmic chop of steel striking earth. The sound drew Tom closer, and a much taller silhouette appeared. Someone was digging.

  “Hello?” Tom called.

  The shadow stopped digging and walked towards him.

  “Who’s that?”

  The man emerged into the moonlight. He removed his cap and revealed a grizzled, old face.

  “Please, sir, you have to help me,” Tom said, and almost ran to the old man. “There was an accident. I’ve been injured.”

  The old man rubbed his grey beard and lifted his shovel, as if arming himself.

  “You came from the highway?” the old man said.

  “Yes! Yes, my car hit a tree.”

  The old man looked him up and down, taking notice of the blood on Tom’s face. “I see. You’ll be wanting to go into town then, I suppose?”

  “Please. I need to call my wife and son and let them know what happened.”

  The old man poked a thumb over his shoulder. “I was just finishing up filling in a grave. You caught me just in time. I can take you into town. The name’s Vernon.”

  “I’m so glad I found you, Vernon. My name’s Tom. So, you can take me to… Octoberville?”

  “That’s right. Come on, my truck’s this way.”

  Tom had never been so happy to see another human being. Thankfully the truck was a short walk. It was a rust-flecked, beaten-up old thing. The doors and vinyl seats squeaked loudly when they climbed inside. On the dash, Tom noticed a long length of sharpened wood and a clove of garlic hanging from the rear-view mirror. A chrome-plated revolver sat in the center of the seat. Tom frowned at all the items and the old man as he started the truck, which roared like some sort of monster. Vernon gave him a nod and a wink.

  “Next stop, Octoberville.”

  Ironically, Octoberville was just around the bend, not even half a mile. As they drove towards it, Tom noticed the roadside was marked with carved pumpkins, all gleaming with candlelight, like a queer landing strip.

  “I’ve never seen Halloween decorations on a highway before.”

  Vernon gave him a sideways glance. “Huh, wait until you see the town. It is called Octoberville.”

  “So, was it settled in October or something?”

  “You could say that.”

  Tom watched the garlic swinging, almost hypnotically. He wanted to ask Vernon about the sharpened stick and the gun, but thought better of it. Ahead, Tom made out the shape of a tall spire atop a hall in the town square. He wrung his hands, eager to get to a telephone and call his family. Some people were walking along the side of the road towards town. Adults with excited children dressed in their Halloween costumes. Tom thought of his son. When he put his head out the window as they drove past to get a look at one boy he gasped. Both the father and son’s faces were covered with scales, like a snake. He quickly ducked back inside, a pang of uneasiness building in his gut.

  “Everything okay there, Tom?” Vernon asked.

  “Uh…yeah. You folks sure do get into Halloween.”

  Vernon chuckled. “It’s our favorite holiday. And here we are.”