The Influence(57)

Lurlene tried to look as though she didn’t know what Lita was talking about. “Going on?”

“Lurlene…”

“Really. I don’t know.” She smiled, as though this was all a big joke or misunderstanding, but the smile was tight.

“Spill it. We both know you can’t keep a secret and I’ll wear you down eventually. You might as well come out with it now.”

Lurlene seemed about to argue, but then gave up. Reluctantly, she pulled out her phone. “I snapped a picture of it.” She pressed the power switch, then frowned. “Oh, I forgot. My phone’s not working.”

“Mine isn’t either,” Lita said. “I’m not sure anyone’s is.”

Lurlene looked as though she’d just figured something out. Something that scared her.

“Lurlene,” Lita said firmly.

Now that she’d committed herself to coming clean, the laundromat owner seemed less tense, and the expression on her face was one of relief, as though she’d been wanting to talk about this with someone but had not been able to do so. “First of all, no one’s tryin’ to keep anything from you,” Lurlene said. “I just assumed you knew. Prob’ly everyone else did, too. I thought everyone knew. It’s just that no one ever brings it up or mentions it.”

“Mentions what?”

“The angel.”

Lita wasn’t sure she heard right. “The what?”

“It was an angel. Even Father Ramos said it was.”

“An angel? I don’t believe in angels.”

“I didn’t either. Until I saw it.”

Lita was even more confused than she was skeptical. “Slow down, slow down. Start from the beginning. What are you talking about?”

Lurlene took a deep breath. “New Year’s Eve. The party at Cameron’s. You and Dave left before midnight, so you missed it all, but you know what happens, you know how it goes. Jim Haack’s kids’ band was playin’ ‘Bloody Mary Mornin’—I guess they hadn’t practiced any New Year’s Eve music—and it’s almost time, and Cameron gets up there, takes the mike, and says he’s gonna count it down. So everyone takes out their guns— Cameron, too, and my Danny, too—and Cameron starts out with ‘Ten, nine, eight…’ And everyone’s pointin’ their guns up, and the rest of us are coverin’ our ears, and then he gets to ‘one’ and shouts out ‘Happy New Year’ and everyone starts firin’ into the sky. You know, I always worried about one of them bullets fallin’ back down and hittin’ someone—”

“Me, too,” Lita said. “That’s one of the reasons we left early.”

“But what happened this time was that they hit something. Everyone’s all whoopin’ it up and shootin’ into the air, and right then this thing fell down, came crashin’ out of the sky and landed behind everyone there in the yard, prob’ly would’ve crushed some people if they weren’t all gathered around the stage.”

“That was the angel?”

“It didn’t look much like an angel, to tell you the truth. It wasn’t a woman dressed all in white, it was more like…like a demon, actually. It was about twice as big as a person and kind of dark green. It did have wings, but they weren’t feathers, like you usually think of angels. They weren’t like bat wings, either. They were thin, kinda like construction paper, and you could see through them where they were torn by bullet holes. There were holes in the body and head, too. It must’ve been flying right above us when everyone started shooting.”

“What made you think it was an angel?”

“Like I said, it didn’t look like an angel. It was all dark and slimy looking. And that face...” Lurlene shivered. “I took a picture of it on my phone, but my phone ain’t working, so I can’t show you. I think a lotta people took pictures. I was scared, and I kept lookin’ up to see if there were more of ’em, but that seemed to be the only one. It was all dead and bleeding, and its blood was red but, like, bright red, glow-in-the-dark red. I never seen anythin’ like it.

“We were all quiet. No one said nothin’. Not even those Haack kids. And then I noticed that there was sort of a light around the body. I don’t know if it was there before, because I didn’t notice it, but it was there now and it was gettin’ stronger, and all of a sudden I felt…good. Happy. Everyone did. We were all laughin’ and smilin’ at each other, and it was like…like…I don’t know. I felt like I did on Christmas when I was a kid. Sort of excited and happy all at the same time. I knew right then that it was an angel, knew it, and Father Ramos said that, too, and a whole buncha people started prayin’. The Catholics started doin’ that crossin’ thing they do over their hearts. I ain’t religious, so I didn’t know what to do, but I knew it was an angel and thought I should try to pray, too, but then I looked at all that blood soakin’ into the dirt of Cameron’s yard, and I thought, We killed it. It was an angel and we killed it, and when God found out, He was gonna be pissed. I think a lotta people had the same thought at the same time, because everyone started lookin’ around at each other, kinda frightened, and then Cameron, who was still at the microphone, said, ‘We need to hide the body.’