A Pagan's Nightmare (17 page)

I still love you, Ned. I just disagree with you.

Angie

Also, you squished two of my daylilies in your haste to escape.

Larry may have been blunt in his confession, but he was right in his observances. I was married to someone who did her best
to live within the holy huddle, who saw the world in black and white: as Christianized (sanitized), and non-Christianized
(everything else).

Still, his confession rattled me. I mean, what does it say about a
marriage when the husband has to sneak out his patio door and scale a fence to avoid a protest led by his own wife?

I couldn’t really argue with Larry, or even be mad at him.

Perhaps he was right.

Perhaps, if she were given the power, Angie would sew the crosses on McDonald’s uniforms.

My flight to L.A. left Atlanta early the following Thursday. At takeoff I settled into seat 6F, next to a window, and was
surprised to see the flight only half full. Vacant seats beside me, vacant seats behind me.

As we ascended through storm clouds, I thought about Angie’s descent into legalism. Or was it really legalism? Did I, Ned
Watson, even have the ability to discern what should or should not be sold as entertainment?
Nah, forget about it. I’m already in the air and on my way.

We hit turbulence just as we leveled off. I heard a thud and a spill of cans in first class.

A minute later a flight attendant appeared through the curtain with her arm around a second attendant, this one taller by
a good six inches. The taller one was limping badly.

She tripped over someone’s handbag and needs to sit down,” said the short one. “Is anyone in that seat?”

She was looking right at me, and I shook my head no and reached over two seats to move the seatbelt out of her way.

“Is anyone here a doctor?” she asked of the economy class. “She twisted an ankle.”

Everyone shook their heads no.

The injured woman stood on one leg, turned her back to me, and slowly settled back into 6D. She grimaced as she sat. Then
someone handed two pillows over the seat to me. The shorter flight attendant took one of the pillows and tucked it under her
fallen comrade’s ankle.

I offered the second pillow.

“That’s okay,” said the injured woman, grimacing again. “Just leave it in the seat between us.”

She was a slender woman with brown, curly hair, plain eyes, and a Midwestern accent. But those eyes kept squinting through
her pain, and it was hard for me to just sit there and watch this casualty endure a flight with no professional care.

After some adjustments to the pillow on the floor, the other attendant left and then returned with a plastic bag of ice. She
wrapped it around her coworker’s ankle and asked me to look after her friend.

“Of course,” I said. She left to attend to her first-class duties.

The injured woman didn’t look like she wanted to talk, so all I offered was the lame, “I hope United has excellent insurance.”

“They do,” she said softly. Her discomfort level seemed to have hit a plateau, and now she seemed embarrassed at her situation.
“But I really need this job.”

After a few minutes she reached for the airline magazine and began reading, as if to distract herself. I gazed awkwardly out
my window, unsure if I should say or do anything else.

She read for all of two minutes before stuffing the magazine back in its slot. “I’ve already read that six times,” she said.

I nodded and wondered what to say; giving comfort to strangers was never one of my gifts. The best I could manage was, “You
like to read?”

“Love to read.”

I reached under my seat, opened my briefcase, and offered her the first sixty pages, which she declined with a shake of her
head.

“Go ahead,” I said, noting a certain pushiness rising in me again.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Just a little something to ease the pain.”

After accepting the pages with a confused glance, she adjusted the ice pack on her ankle and sat back in her seat to read.
I tried to get a nap.

A few minutes later I heard a small giggle. I opened my left eye. “What part?”

“The gas gouging at the BP station.”

“Ah.”

I settled back into my nap as the pilot announced clear skies over Alabama.

For two hours no one disturbed my slumber. Then, somewhere over New Mexico, the injured flight attendant tapped my shoulder.
“Hey, mister, my ankle is really throbbing. Mind if I read some more?”

So I, the good doctor, handed her chapter sixteen.

L
ANNY AND DJ NED
smelled jet fuel. They listened as the black Lincoln drove away and planes took off in the distance. Neither man could see
the planes, however, because both were blindfolded.

Lanny felt a hand on his shoulder, pressing him forward on the tarmac. “This is for your own good,” said the guard in black
fatigues.

“That’s what my mom always said,” Ned whispered. He pictured the guard tall and strapping, not someone with whom to scuffle.

“Mine, too,” Lanny agreed.

Two steps later Lanny’s foot hit something and he heard ice shake. He had kicked an Igloo cooler.

The guard opened the cooler. “Orange or cherry TraitorAde?”

“Cherry,” Lanny blurted.

“Got any Gatorade?” Ned asked.

“No, Gatorade went out of business after, well… it was for the good of the country.”

“So,” Ned continued, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that his favorite sports drink had become extinct—which was hard
to do, since his mind was already wrapped around the fact that he was a prisoner, “there’s only
TraitorAde
now?”

The guard still knelt over the cooler, hands digging in ice. “For your kind, there is.”

They were both given an orange-flavored drink and told to finish it in two minutes.

Behind them, jet engines revved, drowning out Ned’s burp and Lanny’s speculation that his drink was drugged. The guard disposed
of the empties and tied their hands behind their backs.

“What happened to Marvin and his King James English?” Ned asked.

“He won’t be traveling with us. He always takes his private jet.”

The guard led them across a tarmac that was nearly sizzling, being that this was Orlando in late August.
This is surely the hottest tarmac in the world,
Lanny thought before bumping into Ned.

When they reached the stairs to the jet, Ned stopped on the first step and refused to go farther. “This is totally unfair,”
he complained. “We did nothing to deserve confinement.”

The guard chuckled. “Oh yeah? It’s just like Marvin told you—we’ve left hints for you, played our songs for you, edited books
for you, and even left billboards on the interstate for you. None of it did any good.”

“Then why don’t
you
speak in King James?”

“Only those who rise to the high level can speak it. I’m earning bonus points today for escorting you.”

Ned felt his blindfold tighten. “Well, which of you guards gets the Big Reward for our capture?”

“None of us. That offer expired. But we’re going to convert you anyway.”

The guard poked his index finger into Ned’s back. Ned thought it was a gun, so he hurried up the stairs as best he could,
a difficult task, considering his hands were tied behind his back.

The guard brought Lanny up the stairs next, though he stopped him just as they were entering the plane. “Lanny Hooch”—the
guard said his name like a mother scolding a child—“when you stopped at the beach house we have under repair, we thought you
were on your way to joining the
big team.
But then you just left.”

Lanny turned on the top step and said, “I didn’t know the national two-word code phrase.”

“Of course you didn’t,” the guard shot back, pushing him inside.

Lanny ducked and entered the plane and stood beside Ned, who had managed to pull his blindfold down with his teeth and was
now frowning at the accommodations. The plane was mostly dark inside, outfitted in military style. All occupants had to sit
on long hard
benches, facing each other, as opposed to traditional cushy seats in rows of three and four. At the back of the plane, all
by himself, sat the red-headed guy in the duck suit. He, too, was blindfolded.

“Welcome aboard,” he said at the sound of others entering.

The guard pulled Ned’s blindfold back over his eyes and tied it tight.

Lanny wondered how the guard knew so much, and before sitting he demanded an explanation. “Just how do you people follow our
movements so well? You know about my stopping at that beach house, and that just seems, well, spy-like.”

“Yeah,” DJ Ned concurred, also refusing to sit. “Spy-like.”

The guard put a hand on each man’s shoulder and shoved them down. “Not spies. Blogs. Hundreds of Internet blogs are fascinated
with the two of you. There are even hourly updates scrolling on EFOX News.”

Ned thought on this. “That would be, um, En… Forcers… of-”

“We’re not sure about the ‘X’ yet, but we’re working on it.”

The guard tightened their seatbelts and stepped back to observe his captives. Fearing for their future, Lanny and Ned sat
in silence, black cloth over their eyes, sharing the same burden but thinking far different thoughts.

People are blogging updates about me? All I want is to find my girlfriend and live peacefully in Atlanta.

Who’s protecting American pop music without me manning mg booth at Fence-Straddler AM?

“Where are you taking us?” Ned demanded.

“Quiet now,” said the guard. He stepped out the exit door and slammed it behind him.

Blindfolded on a plane, Lanny figured that as soon as he began talking, someone would make him be quiet. He knew Ned was directly
to his left, so he moved his feet around the floor to the right and kicked the air in front of him. He hit nothing.

He then said “Boo” really loudly, but no one rebuked him.
If there are guards on the plane, they must not be seated back here.

Jet engines whirred to a higher and higher pitch, so loud they were almost deafening. The plane rolled forward, turned, accelerated,
and took off. Death was only a distant worry to Lanny; his main thought was whether he was now getting closer to Miranda,
or farther away.

Turbulence rocked the men into each other, and Lanny felt his teeth clatter. Soon the plane leveled off, and Lanny figured
it was time to speak again. He kicked Ned’s foot. “Where do you think we are?”

“Since it’s only been about thirty minutes, we’re either still over Florida or out over the Atlantic. I’m thinking they’ll
take us to Africa.”

“Don’t say that.” Lanny stood, trying unsuccessfully to free his hands.

“It’s probably Africa, Lann-o. Gotta be somewhere with a desert. I think I heard once that the zealots have a thing about
making people march around in the heat until they’re too tired to resist.”

Lanny sat dejected and sightless and all tied up. He was about to sneeze when an unfamiliar voice sounded from the back.

“Are you the two guys who were with me in the black Lincoln?”

“Yeah,” said Ned, not too surprised to hear this question. “And just who are you?”

A short pause. “Up until a few hours ago I was… well, just call me the Former Donald.”

Ned was not sure how to feel about being on the same flight with a captured duck-man. “You still haven’t told us what you
did.”

The Former Donald gave them a quack. “Can’t tell you yet. But I can assure you that they aren’t taking us to Africa.”

“Then where?” Lanny asked. “I gotta know.”

“You’ll see soon enough.”

Soon enough was only another twenty minutes. The plane descended, slowed considerably, banked, accelerated again, and then
there was the sudden bump and skid of landing gear meeting pavement.

By the time the plane stopped rolling, Lanny had wriggled his
hands free. He removed his blindfold and looked around at the sparse metal confines and the long, hard benches arranged in
parallel. But there were only three passengers—himself, DJ Ned, and the Former Donald.

He glanced first to his left at Ned, blindfolded and still tied, then to his far left, where the Former Donald sat by himself,
also bound and blindfolded, still in three-quarter duck attire.

Before the guards opened the exit door, Lanny had Ned untied. From outside and below, they heard Spanish voices mixed with
English—regular English.

Ned hurried to the back of the plane and untied the Former Donald. All three men gathered at the exit door, listening to chatter
they could not understand.

Lanny whispered his concern to Ned. “We’re not back in the Bahamas?”

“Hardly,” Ned whispered back.

“Then where?”

The door creaked partially open. Sunlight streamed into the fuselage and across Ned’s sneakers. “I can tell from the dialect,”
he said with disdain, “this ain’t Bahamas.”

The door swung open, and Lanny sniffed warm tropical air. “Then where are we?”

“Cuba,” said the Former Donald. He stood behind Lanny, waiting to depart, his blindfold dangling from his neck. “They always
take resistors and troublemakers to Cuba.”

Ned and Lanny stood fearstruck as they stared out at eight security guards in black fatigues. The guards stood on the steps
and motioned for the threesome to depart.

A creaking set of rolling stairs sat against the exit hatch, and Ned took the first, tentative step into Cuban territory.
The guards stepped backward ahead of him, watching his every move. Lanny followed Ned down but turned on the stairs to the
Former Donald.

“Are there lots of resistors kept here?” Lanny asked excitedly. He was hoping for information that might confirm that Miranda
would be among their numbers.

The Former Donald nudged him forward. “There were ten last week. But Cuba, too, has been swept over by the zealots.” Halfway
down the stairs now, the Former Donald pointed across the runway. “See those?”

Lanny was distraught to see a pair of Detour Airlines jumbo jets parked at the terminal. Then he looked above the wings of
the plane he’d just departed and saw that he’d ridden on that very airline. Past the jumbo jets sat a Lear, the name MARVIN
in huge script across the tail section.