Stranger

Stranger
The day Joseph Burnbaum came to town was the day of the annual Linden Ridge Parade. The whole population turned out to see the fire squad drive by in their polished red trucks and the 4-H Club from the high school ride their tractors and horses down the street. The mayor even came by in an open-top car, waving at everybody. I heard later from Patty, the owner of the Mountain View Hotel downtown, that when she got back, there was a guy waiting for her at the lobby door. He had a real fancy car and a nice suit, and he introduced himself as “Mr. Joseph T. Burnbaum.” She thought he was a salesman, but he didn’t try to pitch anything, he just asked if there were any rooms available. She gave him #6, and he thanked her and went inside.
The first time I saw him was at Martin’s Market on Hagler Street. I was in there to pick up some fresh lettuce for the salad that my wife Karen was going to fix for dinner when he came wandering into the produce department. He didn’t have a cart or a basket or anything, and I thought that his choice of a blue three-piece suit and expensive-looking black loafers was a little much for just a grocery store trip. When he came close, I cleared my throat and said, “Hello there.”
He just kind of looked at me and didn’t say a word. He had this half-smile that made me wonder whether he was really happy, but I couldn’t tell. For a second, we did nothing but stare at each other. I thought his eyes were intimidating. I couldn’t tell you why, but it’s just that whenever I looked right into them, I felt like I was less of a person than him. Anyway, I finally stuck out my hand and said, “I’m Mark Berry. Pleased to meet you, Mr. …” I knew his name, but I wanted to see what he would say.
He smiled real big and said, “Mr. Joseph T. Burnbaum. The pleasure’s all mine.” He took my hand and shook it. My goodness, he had some grip! I thought he was going to pull my arm off.
I said, “So, you’re new in town?” I guess he’d been there for almost a month.
“Yes, you could say that.”
“What brings you to Linden Ridge?”
“I’m actually here on business.”
“What sort of business?”
“To put it simply, I help people.”
I thought that answer was kind of strange, so I asked, “And how do you help people?”
“Oh, in a variety of ways,” he said as he waved his hand about in the air. “In a way, I’m like a handyman.”
That sounded fine to me. “I guess you and I are in just about the same line of work.”
“Really?” He looked surprised. “What do you do?”
“I’m the town doctor.”
He kept right on smiling and said, “Ah, a fellow public servant. Now, that is wonderful.”
We talked for a few more minutes before I excused myself so I could take that lettuce home. I felt better after I’d had that talk with him. He seemed like a pleasant enough fellow.
***
On the next Sunday, Karen and I went to the early service at First Baptist. I forget what Pastor Patrick was preaching about, but it was a powerful sermon. He couldn’t have been older than forty, but he was perfectly capable in the pulpit, and all of us were glad to have him. After the service, Karen and I waited in line with the rest of the congregation to shake hands with the pastor. In front of us were Bill and Robin Hatcher, one of the younger couples at the church. Robin wasn’t able to have kids, but that didn’t stop them from believing that God would provide; they’d told me that themselves. They’d been trying for so long that they were starting to lose heart, but when it was their turn to shake hands, Pastor Patrick gave Robin a warm hug and Bill a hearty handshake. I heard him say, “Fear not. God will provide.” He patted each of them on the shoulder, and then they left.
I was just about to take the pastor’s hand when a voice behind me said, “Now, Doc, do you think I can get through here first?” I turned and smiled. There was Muriel Hartwell in her wheelchair. She’d had compound tears in both knees twelve years before, and it’d been so bad that she had no choice but to spend the rest of her life in an electric wheelchair. Bouts of depression had followed, but they’d slowed and eventually stopped as she became accustomed to her new chair.
I stepped aside and gave her a passage to Pastor Patrick. He bent down and embraced her, whispering “God bless you, Muriel” at the same time. As she headed out the door, I finally took the pastor’s hand in my own. He said, “And how are you this morning, Mark?”
“Fine and dandy, Pastor,” I answered with a smile. After he gave Karen a quick hug, I asked, “Have you met the new man in town?”
He looked confused. “I haven’t heard anything about that. I assume that you have, though.”
“Yes, I have. Name is Joseph Burnbaum.”
“Is there something special about him?”
I paused for a second before saying, “Not really. He’s different.” I paused again. “I don’t know how to describe him. You’d just have to meet him for yourself.”
He said, “I look forward to it. You should invite him to next week’s service.”
“I’ll do that.”
Karen and I waved our final goodbye and opened the door just in time to see Jeffrey Cumberland’s ancient red pickup roll slowly by. The sputtering and rumbling were enough to attract the attention of all the people at the door, but what was even more unusual was when it slowed and stopped in front of the church. Jeffrey himself leaned out of the passenger window and shouted, “Hey, Pastor, good service today!”
Pastor Patrick shouted back, “Thank you, Jeffrey.”
“Do you think God’ll get me a new car this week?”
The pastor chuckled a little. “He may. Just keep praying.”
“I will,” responded Jeffrey. He smiled and said, “Right now, I think I’ll pray that this thing’ll keep going.” Jeffrey had been praying for a new set of wheels for a solid two months, and I was beginning to wonder if he would ever find one. For the sake of the people who were coughing and hacking on account of the black smoke pouring out the back of his pickup, I hoped that he would.
***
Exactly one week later was when the weird stuff started happening. It was right after I’d gotten home from First Baptist when my emergency cell phone rang. My secretary Evelyn was on the line. “Doc Berry, can you get in here right now?”
“I suppose,” I answered. I didn’t want to have to work on Sunday, but I still asked her, “What’s the matter?”
“It’s Muriel Hartwell. There’s…been a development.”
I knew it had to be something serious. Muriel had never been married, and she lived alone in her little cottage on Ferguson Street, so she was always in danger of having an accident. More than once, we’d had to head out in the ambulance to help her after she’d fallen or something. I hoped that nothing like that was up.
Boy, was I in for a surprise when I got to the hospital. In the waiting room, Muriel was on her feet and walking around. And she wasn’t hobbling or limping. She was walking just like a normal person would, and from the fact that she was shouting “I’ve never felt better!” over and over again, she didn’t feel any pain either. Her wheelchair was sitting in the corner, and Evelyn and all the patients that were there were staring and pointing and whispering to each other. I walked up to Evelyn and said, “What in the world is going on here?”
She said, “Well, Muriel came in about half an hour ago, still in the chair, and told me, ‘Evelyn, something feels different today.’ I asked her what she meant by different, and she said, ‘I know this is going to sound crazy, but I think that if I wanted to walk today, I could.’ I told her it did sound crazy, asked her where she got such a fool idea. She said, ‘I’ve got a feeling deep down in my stomach, honey. I do believe it’s the Lord.’ And then she started to stand up. Of course I ran around the desk to stop her, but darn it if she wasn’t already up on her feet by the time I got there. Well, I was so surprised that I didn’t know what to do. Next thing I knew, she was walking around the place, yelling and shouting that it was a miracle. That’s when I called you up.” Evelyn put her hands on her hips and looked at the new, overjoyed Muriel who was jumping up and down now. “What do you make of it, Doc?”
I didn’t know what to say. I mean, there was Muriel, who’d been in her chair for about ten years, and she was up and out of it like it’d never been there. I finally managed to calm her down and told her that I needed to run some tests, take some X-rays, that sort of thing. She agreed, so for the rest of the day, I did just that. I ran all sorts of physical tests, stuck her on a treadmill, X-rayed her legs, everything. It was like she had gotten a brand new pair of knees. I’d never seen anything like it. When I told her, she said, “I’ve been praying for this day for so long, Doc, and the Lord must’ve heard me at last.” She was singing praises as she walked out the hospital doors, leaving her wheelchair behind.
***
That wasn’t the only thing that happened. On that next Tuesday, Jeffrey Cumberland woke up with a new, shiny red sports car in his driveway. The Saturday after that, Bill and Robin Hatcher came in saying that she was pregnant. She’d started to have all the signs, so I checked, and lo and behold, she was. None of us could believe it. But they weren’t the only ones who experienced “miracles” – well, at least that’s what everybody around town was calling them. All over Linden Ridge, people’s greatest wishes were coming true.
When all this was happening, I couldn’t help but think about that conversation I’d had with Mr. Burnbaum. I don’t know why exactly that came to mind, but what I especially remembered were those lines about “helping people” and such.
The next time I ran into him on the street, he was wearing the same blue suit and black loafers that I’d seen him in the time before. I wondered if he ever changed his clothes as I asked him about all the goings-on around town. He said, “Yes, amazing, isn’t it?”
I told him, “Well, sure, but what about you? Anything good happened to you?” I hadn’t gotten around to inviting him to service, and I hadn’t seen him for a few weeks, so I wanted to know if he’d gotten accustomed to life in our little town.
He smiled again, and I shivered just a little bit. “Doctor Berry, the best thing that happened to me was coming to this town. Linden Ridge is absolutely ideal.”
I thanked him for that, but then I said, “What about your business of helping people? Have you started that up yet?”
That smile got even bigger. “Why, yes I have. It’s been going steadily for a few weeks now.” I started to say something else, but he excused himself and said that he “had to go attend to some more business.” Needless to say, I thought the whole thing was just a little more than odd.
The next Sunday after church, I got to talking to Patty about Mr. Burnbaum. She told me that he was one of the best customers she’d ever had: he paid his fees every week, right on time, and whenever she went in to do cleaning, she hardly had to touch anything. His clothes were always pressed and ironed; his shoes looked like they’d just been shined; even his car was spotless. I asked her if she’d had any sort of conversations with him, and she said that except for that first time she met him, they hadn’t really talked, maybe just a quick “Thank you” or “Hello” here and there. After she told me that, she looked me square in the eye and said, “But, you know, I don’t know that I really care. He’s the ideal occupant.”
“Don’t you wish you knew more about him, though?” I asked.
She said, “Sometimes. But most of the time, no, I don’t know if it matters all that much.” She smiled and excused herself. As I was driving home, I thought that maybe I was making a big deal out of nothing at all, that Mr. Burnbaum wasn’t as bad as all that. The only problem was that I couldn’t shake the strange feeling that something wasn’t quite right. It sat in the pit of my stomach and wouldn’t leave, no matter what I told myself as reassurance.
***
It was – how much later? – about five or six months later that strange stuff started happening again. The only thing was that this time, all of it was different. Remember how I said that Jeffrey Cumberland got a new sports car? Well, according to the police report I saw in the paper, he was taking it for a spin on the highway somewhere near the east side of town when the car split right in half. Yeah, I know, I thought the same thing. The police investigation revealed that there wasn’t really evidence of tampering. It was almost like the whole thing had just been in one piece one second and two the next. Poor Jeffrey didn’t make it.
Needless to say, his family was a wreck, especially his sister Beth. When I saw her at the funeral, she was sobbing and crying the whole time. I tried to comfort her, but she asked me, “Why would God do this, Doc? A car was all he ever wanted. Was it too much to ask?” I didn’t have any answers. I didn’t see her at church the next week. She started coming less often, and then just stopped altogether. Whenever I talked to her after the accident, she just didn’t seem the same. She was so depressed, I didn’t know what to do or what to say. All I could do was watch as she withdrew from everyone around her. To this day, I don’t know where she is or how she’s doing.
Then there was Muriel. I got the call on a Wednesday night that she’d taken a fall. Expecting the worst, I rushed to the hospital, and there she was, sitting in one of the hospital’s wheelchairs, just staring off into space. I asked her what had happened. She told me that she’d been in Martin’s Market picking out biscuits when her knees had just given way. When I talked to others who’d seen the incident, they said that it was terrifying how quickly her legs had fallen out from under her.
I ran some tests, just in case. It was like she had never been healed. The X-rays I took of her knees that night looked almost identical to the ones I’d taken twelve years before. The tears were in the same places and the same severity as before. She had gone back to the way she was before, and what made it worse was the fact that she had been able to walk for all of those months. We had to start therapy sessions up again, and she wasn’t into them at all. Her spirits were as low as they’d ever been.
I remember that during one session, when she was trying to use crutches, she looked straight at me and said one word: “Why?”
I shook my head and said, “I don’t know, Muriel.”
She said, “God gave me new knees, Doc. He gave me a new lease on life. What happened? Why would he take them away?”
I told her, “I don’t have any answers.”
“Then who does, Doc? Who does?”
“I don’t know.” That was all I could say.
The worst one, though, was the Hatchers. Bill and Robin came to the hospital in a panic on a Saturday, saying that something was wrong. I did my best to calm them down, but when I ran the ultrasound, there was nothing. They watched the screen in horror, expecting to see a very small child growing inside Robin, but instead, nothing appeared. I couldn’t think of anything to say because I’d never seen anything like it. They were in tears by the time I told them that there was nothing I could do. Both of them were asking the same question that Beth Cumberland and Muriel Hartwell had asked: “Why?”
I asked myself that question more than once when everything started going wrong. Several people died when things broke or disappeared all over town. Others were injured (or re-injured). The entire congregation was distraught. Less and less people began to come to the services as bad things befell them. It was apparent that the most common response to the tragedies was to blame God. I didn’t know what to do, so one Sunday night, I spoke with Pastor Patrick about the whole situation. I asked him, “Why could this be happening, Pastor?”
He shook his head and said, “I don’t know, Mark. I just don’t know.”
This wasn’t any comfort to me. I asked, “What about God? People seem to be blaming Him for all of this. Why?”
“They might be thinking about the book of Job: ‘The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.’ The only thing is that I don’t think that it’s the Lord who’s giving or taking away.” He stared past me. “I can’t see any rhyme or reason in any of this. I haven’t stopped praying – believe me – but I feel like something’s getting in the way, blocking my communication with God.” He put his head in his hands. “I just can’t shake that feeling, and I don’t know why. It’s driving me crazy.”
I thought about my own prayer life and realized the same. Every night, before I went to bed, I would kneel down and offer up a prayer to the Lord, but lately, my nights would be racked with tension and discomfort. I agreed with the pastor; something was coming between me and God. What disturbed me the most was the fact that it was even affecting Pastor Patrick. Me, I could understand, but Pastor? Something was definitely going on in Linden Ridge.
***
The town slowly sank into chaos over the next couple of weeks. People were losing jobs, friends, and even their lives as things went wrong all over the place. At the Speedway on West Rockwood Street, one of the gas hoses developed a leak and caused a huge explosion that killed three people, one of whom was a member of First Baptist. His family never came back to the church. One of the little girls from our Sunday School class – I think her name was Sara – woke up one morning and couldn’t see anything. I checked her out, but there was nothing I could do. She was completely blind. Sara’s parents never forgave God for what happened. Through all of this, the numbers at First Baptist went steadily down until there were only a handful of people attending every Sunday. Pastor Patrick worsened as the congregation declined. I’d try to visit him as often as I could, but each time I did, he said less and less and stared off into space more and more.
On one Wednesday, I came home exhausted. As I collapsed onto the couch, Karen came in and said, “What’s wrong?”
I answered honestly, “I’m tired of dealing with all of this. I saw three people today who had suddenly developed genetic defects, the type of things that people normally have at birth, and each one of them asked me why God would inflict something like that on them. I tried to explain that it wasn’t God, but none of them believed me.” I sighed. “This town is turning into a bunch of atheists.”
She sat down next to me and said, “I’m asking myself why all of this is going on. I just wish there was something I could do to help everybody out.”
Suddenly, I had a thought: Where in the world was Mr. Burnbaum? If he was supposed to be helping people, then why didn’t I see him doing anything? I realized that I hadn’t seen him for a few weeks. I wondered if he had skipped town.
As it turns out, though, I saw Mr. Burnbaum at the grocery store again the very next day. He was in the same blue suit with the same black loafers. I couldn’t help but think that the whole thing was a bit strange, and that feeling that something was wrong came back strong. This time, I decided to confront him. I said, “Mr. Burnbaum, have you heard about what’s been happening around town?”
He said, “Yes, I have. Tragic…unfortunate.”
I said, “I agree with you. Now, what do you plan to do about it?”
He looked shocked. “What do you mean?”
“You said that your business was helping people. Well, sir, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen people who need more help than this town.”
He cracked a slight grin and said, “Doctor Berry, I told you that my line of work was helping people, yes, but unfortunately, I’m not in the tragedy prevention business. What do you expect me to do?”
“You could at least visit them or something.”
“I suppose so, but remember, I don’t know these people very well. Now, you’ve lived here much longer than I – in fact, haven’t you been here your whole life?”
“Yes, I have.” I didn’t remember telling him that.
“Then I believe you would be better suited to that kind of comfort. You have been doing your part to encourage, haven’t you? It’s only right during these difficult times.”
I thought about it hard. What had I done? I really hadn’t helped anybody outside of my usual medical duties or having conversations after church or when I ran into people I knew. I could have been doing so much more. Suddenly I realized that he had turned the tables. Now I was defending myself to him. He was trying to make me feel guilty about things that both of us were failing to do. I said, “Now, look here, Mr. Burnbaum. I know what you’re trying to do, and I don’t appreciate it. I’m beginning to think that you don’t give a lick about any of the people here in Linden Ridge.”
“You are, are you?” He had that grin again. It was making my skin crawl. It didn’t seem right at all. He continued, “And how have you proven that you do care? Could you shed some light on that?”
I opened my mouth to say something, but then I realized that he was right. I couldn’t just leave the conversation hanging, though, so I responded with, “All right, so maybe I haven’t done as much as I could.”
Before I could continue, he said, “Then how do you justify judging whether or not I’ve done my duty? Doctor?”
That last emphasized word really got to me. I snapped back, “Listen, Burnbaum, I’ve had just about enough of you for now. Is there a point to any of this, or are you just here to argue?”
He looked around and said, “I don’t think that this is the time or the place, Doctor Berry, but I would love to continue this conversation at a later time. Would you like to visit me tomorrow at, say, two o’clock?”
“Yes sir, I would,” I responded sharply before I realized that I’d said anything.
He smiled one last time and walked off. I was suddenly afraid. What in the world would we talk about the next day? I didn’t know what to expect, and I couldn’t shake that feeling in my stomach again. It was more potent than ever.
***
Two o’clock the next day found me knocking on the door of #6 at the Mountain View Hotel. I’d been praying all morning, and I had some idea of what I was going to say. Nobody answered at first, so I knocked again. This time, the door opened and Mr. Burnbaum’s smiling face appeared. He said, “Ah, Doctor. Please come inside.”
I walked into the room. It smelled like fresh cleaning fluid. The bed was made and smoothed out. There was nothing on the small round table or the poorly padded chair. Even the TV stand was empty. I couldn’t spot any luggage at all. His back was turned to me as he asked, “Would you like something to drink, Doctor?”
“No thanks,” I responded. I might have been thirsty when I came in, but all of a sudden, nothing sounded good. And then I saw that Mr. Burnbaum was wearing the suit that I always saw him in. This was just a little more than weird, so I asked him, “Don’t consider me rude, but do you ever change your clothes? And where’s your luggage?”
He was still turned the other way when he said, “I have no need for any of those things, Doctor. This outfit never becomes dirty, and I always have everything I need to survive.” He had his hands down at his sides, and I started to notice something really strange about them. They looked pretty much like normal hands except that they were starting to turn, well, black. It was like the blood in his veins was running a lot darker than it had before. I couldn’t tell you why I noticed that, but I just happened to look down at his hands, and there it was, plain as day.
I asked him, “Mr. Burnbaum, are you all right?”
He responded, “Never better, Doctor Berry. Now that you’re here, everything is coming to fruition.” Before I could say anything back, he turned around. That was when the real shock came.
A phenomenon seemed to be happening over his whole body. His eyes were a solid black; there was no other color in them. It looked as though there were small, black rivers of blood running through his face and into his eyes. The rest of his body was covered by his suit, but I’m sure that if he hadn’t been wearing it, the same thing would be going on across his chest and up and down his arms and legs. That was strange enough, but then he opened his mouth to speak. Call me paranoid, but I swear that his teeth were…sharper than most other teeth. His throat didn’t have a hint of red in it; it was like looking into a dark pit. He said, “I’m very different, Doctor Berry, from everybody else.” When he spoke, it was like there were two voices at once, one high and piercing and one low and guttural. The lights in the room started to dim until they were barely there. He continued, “You may see that now. But, then again, you’ve had questions about me since the first, haven’t you?”
All I could do was nod and stare with my mouth wide open. I had no idea what in the world was going on.
He said, “I thought as much. You’re one of the stronger people I’ve seen in this town. The rest, they were so easy.”
I found my voice somehow and said, “What do you mean?”
He laughed, and I shivered as he did. Then, he said, “You didn’t think that maybe there was a connection? I show up and miracles just start to happen. You must be stupider than you look.” He closed his eyes and made a growling sound, then said, “I certainly helped it all along. You humans are so predictable. Whenever something good happens, you thank God for it, but then, when things go bad, you turn right around and point your fingers at Him. You doom yourselves, you shallow beings. I barely have to lift a finger to shatter your faith.”
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing or hearing. I didn’t know what was talking to me, but it was no longer the same Joseph T. Burnbaum that had come to town so many months before. This was some kind of ungodly creature that filled me with terror. I didn’t know what to do.
It continued, “This town has fallen so easily. Soon, it will be completely beyond repair. My master will be most pleased.”
I didn’t know who it meant by “master,” but I had a pretty good idea. I closed my eyes for a second and said, “Mr. Burn – whoever you are, what makes you think that you can get away with this?”
It laughed harder than before. “But don’t you see? I already have! These people have had everything taken from them; their possessions, their health, their lives, and who do they think is the cause of it? God! They are filled with anger and confusion. They need something to hate, something to fight against. What better candidate than the deity they perceive as being a traitor?” It must have known what I was going to say next because it said, “And no, you cannot stop them. They are too far gone. They will find an outlet for their anger. It looked me square in the eye. “Doctor Berry, it’s time for you to leave. And tell the story of what you saw to whomever you wish; I wouldn’t count on anybody believing you.” It pointed a dark finger towards the door.
I backed away slowly at first, then ran quickly out the door. I don’t even remember getting into my car and driving home, but somehow, I got there. When I did, Karen met me at the door and showed me into the living room. The news was on the TV, and she pointed desperately at the screen. A graphic at the bottom said “Breaking News,” and the picture above that was of a mob of people marching down some street. They were throwing rocks and breaking things. When I took a closer look, I realized that they were on Garden Street, the same one that our church was on. The newscaster, who wasn’t in the shot, said, “This throng of people has apparently gathered in some sort of protest. Their destination is unclear at this point, but what we do know is that they are causing a great deal of destruction along the way.”
I said to Karen, “They’re headed for the church.”
She turned to me and said, “How do you know?”
I looked back at her, and I must have had some kind of fire in my eyes or something, because she looked like she was afraid of me. All I could say was, “Pack up, Karen. We need to get out of here.”
She started to ask me why, but then she looked at me again and knew that something was up. We got our things together quicker than you can say “Jack,” and we were out the door in twenty minutes, tops. Before we went for the car, I took one last look at the TV. The gang had reached the church and was starting to break the door down. I hoped that Pastor Patrick wasn’t inside. I said a quick prayer, but then I wondered whether or not it would do any good.
*