Free The Widow's Revenge by James D. Doss

time to help me.
A pause for sighing.
It happened not long after dark.
    From the corner of his eye, Moon thought he could see a wispy image of the dead woman. He could definitely smell the pungent scent of kerosene, the horrific odor of burned hair and roasted flesh. And then . . . and then—
    The whatever-it-was reached out with an icy hand—
touched his face.
    Charlie Moon could not move. Like a sleeper stranded between a nightmare and wakefulness, he was paralyzed.
    He felt her clammy breath, and caught a whiff of garlic as Loyola Montoya whispered in his ear,
Alphabet soup. White Shell Woman smears mud on her face. Hammers and nails. Buckets and pails. Puppy dogs’ tails. Sugar and spice and everything nice. When White Shell Woman smears mud on her face. Hammers and nails . . .
    Over and over she repeated the string of nonsense, then added,
Remember what I told you . . . Jefferson’s General Store . . . something terrible!
    Moon closed his eyes.
Please, God . . . make it stop.
    For too many racing heartbeats, the urgent prayer went unanswered.
    Then—intermittently, as if from a dream—he could hear the voices of the priest and the small congregation. The words drifted in from some faraway place.
    “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth . . . we worship you, we give you thanks . . .”
    Over it all, Loyola prattled on:
Hammers and nails. Buckets and pails. Puppy dogs’ tails . . .
    Though he could not make a sound, Charlie Moon managed to move his lips.
You take away the sin of the world . . . have mercy on me.
    Such a plea cannot be ignored.
    The agonizing spell was broken by the voices from flesh and blood:
“. . . For you alone are the Holy One
You alone are the Lord
You alone are the Most High
Jesus Christ,
with the Holy Spirit,
in the Glory of God the Father.”
    “Amen!” the stricken man said, mildly alarming the small congregation, causing even the decorous priest to arch an eyebrow.
    Moon was too relieved, too happy to be concerned about committing a churchly misdemeanor. Though a fading hint of the telltale scents remained, whatever had been haunting him had fallen silent. The
presence
was gone.
    Aunt Daisy, who had experienced more ghostly encounters than (as she liked to say) “Bayer has aspirins,” would have insisted that her nephew had been visited by Loyola Montoya’s wandering spirit. Without a doubt, the dead woman wanted to tell Charlie something. When he had the time (and inclination) to mull over this unsettling experience, Charlie Moon would conclude that he had been visited by a guilty conscience.
    The Gospel reading was from the third chapter of Matthew, where St. John the Baptist describes how the Lord—winnowing fork in his hand—will clear his threshing floor to gather the wheat into his barn—and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.
    Pretty strong stuff.
    The homily was on the same subject.
    Though Charlie Moon tried hard to concentrate on the message, he remained distracted by the memory of the
visitation.
    After receiving Holy Communion, he left the century-old brick church and pushed his comfortable black Stetson down to his ears. He was making long strides across the parking lot when a flash of lightning illuminated that jagged row of dark peaks that looms over Granite Creek.
    As he approached his parked car, Charlie Moon remembered the razor-thin crescent that had hung like a scythe over last evening’s sunset. White Shell Woman had already muddied up most of her face. If Loyolahad heard the “witches” discussing their intent to commit a “sacrifice,” the planned crime might have been committed last night.
Or it could happen tonight. Or for that matter . . . right now.
    At that very instant, as he was reaching for the car door, a long tongue of lightning took a good lick at an old, diseased, precariously leaning elm tree across the street. A withered branch splintered and burst into flames that illuminated the gray