by K. Marvin Bruce.
In the night she screams. I’m bathed in a cold sweat. Her night terrors began from the beginning.
Rocky Grove College, 2005. Senior year. Can’t say how she caught my attention. I’m a sensible business major. My career will pay the bills. I see her at the Union. She looks desperate, as if she has no way to get home and no calls left on her plan. Alone at a table that seats twenty.
“What do you plan to do with a religion major?” This may be my last chance. College doesn’t last forever.
“Find meaning,” she replies, as if there’s a living in that.
“I can show you the way.” She trusts me.
Her night terrors unnerve me. Her religion was very strict. Kissing before marriage was only just tolerated. I had no way of knowing what happened after dark. We were young and inexperienced. All these years later, my job teaching at Neshanic Community College means she doesn’t have to work. She spends her days studying religion. Out from under her parents’ roof, she has come to understand their faith more objectively. That’s what college does to your values.
“Monkrissians aren’t exactly biblical literalists. They’re conservative, yes, but their beliefs grew out of the teaching of their two founders in the darker days of the Reformation. A sect with their own internal laws and the power of punishment. Even now I’m afraid to say too much about them.” She drops her eyes. A concussive reverberation of thunder fills the air. Gray clouds have been building all day. “They have small enclaves around the country.”
“Tell me more about these Monkrissians,” I say over the beef casserole. “Obviously they’re not vegetarians.”
“Sacrifice is important to them. Even in the present day. As soon as I left the farm for college, I was already an outcast. A target.”
“And you’re worried that they’ll try to bring you back?”
She grips my forearm and squeezes until it hurts. “They have to punish me. It’s their mandate. That’s why we eloped, remember? My parents don’t even know your name.” I pat her hand reassuringly. Another crack of thunder. Our secret marriage.
“Neshanic is far from Rocky Grove. And Monkrissians don’t use the internet. They can’t search for students from the college. They don’t know we moved to New Hampshire for my masters’ and spent years in England for my doctorate,” I reassure.
“They may abhor technology but they’re very resourceful people. They were experts in research before the world-wide web. They can find the information they want. Slowly, maybe, but they find it.”
“They’ll never be able to find you here.”
“Maybe we should move to New York City. I’d feel safer in a big city.”
“The problem is jobs. Professors can only go where the jobs are. I guess we’re a closed community too.” The day has grown prematurely dark. Tomorrow I cover comparative advantage and I don’t have my PowerPoint slides ready yet. I stand as she clears the table. “They’ll never find you here.”
The night terrors erupted on our wedding night. I’d just drifted off blissfully after watching her sleep. A scream so loud I feared the next room over would call the front desk. Her voice dropped after that, muttering in deep tones. Pressed against the hotel headboard I didn’t know what to do. She’s snarling and raging. One more loud scream and she suddenly drops. Tentatively I feel for a pulse. She awakens at my touch. “What’s wrong, Howie?”
“Nothing,” I lie, trembling. “It’s just I love you. Go back to sleep.”
Some men, I know, count such things as grounds for divorce. I can’t do that to Megan. She says she doesn’t remember a thing. I’m the only one who knows. My cross to bear. Worse than being wakened by a bump in the night.
Neshanic is an old town. Houses built of insouciant fieldstone, heavy with soot and the grime of ages. White sashes frame panes flowing under their own time-honored weight. Doors with gaps at the threshold, not altered on the outside since it’s a community on the historical register. Drafty houses with ancient woods all around. Oaks, maples, sycamores, hawthorns. Undergrowth wild and ensnaring. The woods smell pungent and sour. Not hiking woods. Threatening woods. Untamed woods. The kind of woods where unspoken things happen.
The community college stands outside the village on a hill shaved of forest. Great grassy expanses with trees by invitation only. Modern buildings. Low but functional budget. I teach in classrooms looking out over sun-drenched fields. The dark woods lay beyond. I teach knowing that Megan shudders at home in the forest.
Students comment on Rate My Professors about how sleep-deprived I appear. Sunken eyes with bags beneath. When you’re committed to someone, you’ve got to be willing to sacrifice. I study Monkrissians.
They have pure motives, according to my understanding. God makes certain demands and the faithful must obey. Lying is permitted if it advances their truth. Their punishment for desertion can’t be shared with the outside world. Throughout history religious communities have had their own internal means of dealing with sinners. Shunning can be as effective as stoning. When the state lifts one of the two swords, however, religions can no longer implement the severest of penalties. At least not where they might be discovered. The days of Salem are long past.
“I saw Claire Hunt today,” she says. The neighbors know us only by pseudonym. “She says Ollie saw people in black, hooded robes going into the woods again last night.”
“Aw, Megan—you know it’s just bored teenagers messing around.”
“She said he found skinned animals out there today. In that place with the graffiti on the trees?”
We’d tried hiking when we first moved here. I remember the place well. Nobody else was in the woods. They smelled sinister. Who sprays religious symbols on trees and stones?
“Bored kids,” I repeat. “How would they know who you are?”
She shrieks in the night. Did this all begin when she tried to escape by attending college? I fall asleep fitfully in my office. A knock on my door. The Dean wants a word with me.
The drive home takes me through heavily shaded roads with the forest hard on each side. Something’s wrong at home. We’ve isolated ourselves, and her terrors don’t improve. She fears doctors, for the Monkrissians are very capable physicians. To intensify their spiritual punishments, they study the biology of bodies. How to cause nauseating pain while keeping apostates alive. Giving them time to repent before dying horribly for their sins. It’s a wonder such a medieval faith survives into enlightened times.
Megan, behind locked doors, reads a book of theology. She can’t put her name or image on the internet. Can’t have a job. Hunched over her tome, it’s as if a dark cloud swirls over her. Such intense concentration. She startles when I say hello.
“Why do you pore over that so much?” I ask.
“I have to make sense of my past. You can’t escape the religion your parents choose. Sure, you can drop out. Join a different group. Even stop believing. But you’ll never truly get away.” The scars on her hands prove it. Monkrissians are punishers.
“Let’s get away. You need a break. Reading all that theology isn’t healthy.”
“We can’t afford it.”
“Doesn’t have to be an expensive get away. Look, the fall break begins this weekend. Let’s head out and get a hotel. We can pay in cash. Use false names. Please?” Our hotels have to have thick walls. Nobody wants to hear a scream in the dark. Ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties that go bump in the night would be preferred.
Night’s Inn doesn’t really live up to its name unless you run the words together. Dr. Jackson, my Dean, recommended it. Just a sheet above tawdry, there’s ground-in grime in the corners and the decor is tacky. Although tidy on the surface, it’s clear nobody really loves these rooms. Dull golden bedspreads and forgettable carpet. Beige wallpaper pealing back at the joins. Students surely know about the cut rates and I try not to imagine what has happened within these walls. Dark and private things.
Still, it’s different from home with its perpetual gloom. Hopefully the change will help. Night’s Inn is far from anywhere but close enough to everywhere. The silence of the night is almost sinister. She screams in the morning. I rush to the bathroom. “Did you slip?” I yell anxiously toward the tub.
“No! There!” She’s pointing at the mirror, steamy from her shower. Written in the condensation are the words, “We know you’re here.” She shudders beneath her towel.
We check out before her hair has dried.
“Are we being followed?” she keeps asking.
“Why would they want to punish you?” I respond, driving home.
“Monkrissians believe they’ll be held accountable for any soul that goes astray. The book of Ezekiel says the prophet is responsible for those who don’t hear his message. They take it further. If a believer leaves them, she can drag the whole sect to Hell unless she’s punished. I’m keeping all of them out of Heaven.”
“They won’t accept your reasoning? Why not?”
“They’re true believers, Howie. It’s almost impossible for reason to change beliefs.”
“But it did for you.”
“That’s why they hate me.” A melancholy journey beneath a ponderous October sky. The wind squeals through the closed windows of our Fiat as if in torment. We drive on.
“Don’t you ever think you might’ve done something wrong?”
“What do you mean? We all make mistakes.”
“I mean like they accuse you of doing. Do you think they might have an actual case against you?”
“You mean, did I sin? According to them, of course I did. In reality, no. How can the truth be sin?” Her frightened tone matches the overcast atmosphere. She clearly doesn’t want to talk about this. She stares into the side mirror. “How do you suppose they got into our hotel room? The door was locked and the chain was still across.”
“I’ve been wondering about that too,” I admit. “Maybe the writing on the mirror was old—you know, from a previous guest. It might’ve been brought out when the glass steamed up. They can’t wipe down the mirrors after every single guest in a place like that.”
“It was such a creepy note. Too appropriate to our situation.”
“Think about it this way—maybe it was a couple on a romantic weekend. One of them wants to, you know, invite the other…”
“There are more romantic ways for a guy to use.”
“You’re assuming it was the man who wrote it.”
“Would a woman ever do such a thing?”
Every topic leads to silence on our drive. Her sheltered upbringing has led to a limited adult imagination.
We take backroads and detours to get home. Check often that no one’s behind us. Lugubrious and glowering, our house awaits at the end of the leaf-littered drive. The neglected wrought iron fence with its black spear blades leans inward. The massive oak in the front yard, twisted with age, looks weary, yet malevolent. Everything is as we left it.
Except the single light, beaming from our bedroom.
“We turned it off, I know we did.” She cowers, shivering in the car. “You said so when you came out.” Huddled next to me, she wants comfort.
“Of course I turned out the light. I’ll go in first and check.”
“They’ll hurt you, too. They’ll do anything to get at me. Call the police.”
“The police? You think it’s that serious? They’d be annoyed if we call them out for a light left on.” The wind squeals through the windows. “Look, just let me go and check. I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t want to be left out here alone.”
“Lock the doors, then.”
“Locks don’t keep them out, Howie. They know how to get to anyone. Not even Hell would stop them.”
I look up at the single window glowing in the dark. “You’re sure you’ve done nothing wrong?”
“All I did was learn the truth.”
“I’m going in.”
“Howie! Don’t! Call the police—these people have their own laws. They’re dangerous!”
She’s hysterical as I open the car door. I approach the house slowly. Things are just as I left them. The door is still locked. I glance back at the car. She’s frantic.
“I searched everywhere,” I assure her. “There’s nobody here.”
“What about the light?” she trembles.
“I must’ve left it on after all.”
It takes some effort, some pleading, to get her inside without calling the police.
As I watch her sleep, I know she must never learn what I truly believe. We never escape our childhood faith. She’s obviously an unrepentant sinner. Punishment in Hell has no beginning and no end. She requires further discipline, lest we all go to Hell. It’s time for her to be taken out into the woods where my fellow Monkrissians await. The true night terrors begin.