Calamity (32 page)
Those memories of eating at this table, slurping up chinese food and pene ala vodka from Styrofoam containers should have made him laugh. They’d buy the cheapest red wine they could find and drink it right from the bottle. They’d eat the foul food and try not to gag on the acidic wine and then they’d make love, sometimes right on the kitchen floor. Those times had all been before the kids, of course. Parenthood pretty much ended their romantic excursions in the kitchen. Instead of laughing, he almost started to cry.
Now, the final glimmers of the sun painted the room in dark red hues that reminded Anthony of Dr. Carroll’s blood staining the bed sheets. How had Anthony gone from making love to his wife next to this very table to sitting here contemplating her murder?
It seemed preposterous, completely insane, and yet here he was.
There were only two options. He could smother her with a pillow, something thev homethiny used to joke about during long nights where they’d lay in bed and talk for hours. She hated when he shoved a pillow over her face, said she was afraid even though she knew he’d never hurt her.
Using a pillow would work, considering her drugged state, but he hated the idea of doing it knowing it was something she genuinely feared. Perhaps in some other world, Chloe would understand that he had been put in an impossible situation and that her death was necessary to save Brendan and Tyler. Even if such a place did exist, killing Chloe by a means she actually feared was mean and cruel.
The other option made more sense anyway and required of Anthony almost nothing. All he needed to kill his wife waited for him in the master bathroom. Good old Dr. Carroll had left him more than enough meds for the task.
Maybe that was the whole idea from the beginning
.
He could grind up the pills and pour them down her throat. She’d never even wake up.
And, after the pills took her away, if he couldn’t stand what he’d done, there were plenty of pills to take care of him, too.
But that defeats the whole point
, the Logical Voice said.
Then Brendan will be theirs for good. If that’s what’s going to happen, you might as well stop wasting time and get on with it
.
As usual, the Logical Voice was right.
He stood, walked down the hall, stopped at the open bedroom door. Chloe and her sister lay as completely asleep as they had been a few hours ago.
Stop wasting time and get on with it
.
He approached the bed.
Chloe was curled in a fetal position beneath the sheets. Her face had, for the moment at least, regained some of its lost firmness, its youth. Here lay the woman he had pledged his life to. The woman he vowed to honor and cherish. The woman for whom he had once stood up in the middle of a crowded New York City restaurant and exclaimed,
I love you, Chloe Belmont, and I want you to be my wife
. People applauded. Chloe cried when he slipped the ring on her finger.
He caressed the side of her face. A slight tremor of life shook her body. It was like the tremors that shook her body when she orgasmed.
He kissed her forehead. “I love you, Chloe Williams, and I always will.”
* * *
Ellis’s cleaning crew had taken everything with them, including the blood-stained tire iron. That, however, was not a problem. Before he got in Chloe’s car, he took the Craftsman Rip-Claw Hammer from his tool box. Ellis wouldn’t know what hit him.
3
The Giant Jesus twitched on the wall. The smell of flowers filled the room, but Brendan knew it was from the candles and wondered if there was something more significant to that. Did the use of scented candles in place of real flowers signify some coverup? What would Bo Blast think if he were here on his knees before a giant crucified Jesus with people all around praying for a successful night in which God’s work was to be done? Would Bo find the candles odd?
Ellis was on Brendan’s right and Dwayne on his left. They had been in this position for several minutes, heads bowed, hands folded before them, the flickering flames of the candles the only sound.
Other people had been in here, enraptured in prayer, when Dwayne opened the door and told">
For my family
, Brendan told himself.
The room grew warmer and exhaustion pushed down Brendan’s eyelids. He fought to keep his eyes open but the lids got heavier and heavier like industrial garage doors. Sleep gripped his body and he spasmed suddenly out of it.
The Giant Jesus’ head had rolled from one side to the other. Jesus had been staring down to his right, eyes seeking mercy from the spectators. Now, the head was tilted to the crook of his left shoulder and those looming hollows focused directly on Brendan.
He could have screamed, almost did, but it had to be an illusion. He was remembering the statue incorrectly, that’s all. Exhaustion and anxiety were screwing with his head, making him see things.
Unless it’s God making you see those things
.
This thought deserved refutation, but he had none to offer.
God
, he thought with awe.
When Ellis spoke, his voice startled Brendan, shooting a cold shiver through him. “Lord God, whose we are and whom we serve,” he said, “help us glorify you this day, in all the thoughts of our hearts, in all the works of our hands, as becomes those who are your servants, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
“Amen,” Dwayne said and several people in the room echoed the sentiment.
Without looking at Brendan, Ellis said, “Now, repeat after me: Lord Jesus, in whom I seek empowerment, I give you my hands to do your work.”
Brendan repeated the line.
“I give you my feet to go your way. I give you my tongue to speak your words.”
As Brendan repeated what Ellis said, an invisible weight settled on his shoulders. These were not simply words; this was a statement of commitment, a devotion to something much larger and greater than anyone could comprehend.
“I give you my mind that you may think in me. I give you my spirit that you may pray in me.”
This was something priests said before they earned the right to administer communion. This was what warriors recited before they took the field with battle axe or machine gun.
“I give you my whole self without doubt.”
This was permanent. This was forever.
“Amen.”
Jesus blinked. His head moved, but perhaps it had never moved at all. Not an illusion; that was a sign that the pledge had been heard and acknowledged. Brendan was devoted to God now, and God would show him the path to empowerment. Almost a minute passed before anyone spoke.
“Are you ready?” Dwayne asked.
Though he didn’t know what to say, Brendan said simply, “I am.” Those two words had come from somewhere deep inside him, a place God had touched.
“Do you want God to save you?” Ellis asked.
“My family,” Brendan said. “Mom, Dad, Tyler.”
“But not you?”
He wanted everything to be like it used to be. That could never be. Delaney was dead. “I want them to be happy, with or without me.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
/div>
Ellis had a familiar expression painted on his face, one Dad had given him many times. Pride.
“Dwayne will tell you what you need to do. Don’t be afraid. You are one of God’s disciples now. The way may be dark at times, but in the darkness there is a gateway to the illumination of the soul. It can lead you to wonderful places.”
Brendan wanted to tell him he had heard that before but he kept his mouth shut. This was a serious moment, a solemn one in which he was pledging his loyalty to a cause impossible to fully comprehend.
“The time is now,” Ellis said. “Are you ready?”
“I am.”
* * *
A few minutes later, Dwayne was explaining how to burn a house down.
4
“It’s time.”
Sasha’s voice brought him out of the darkness of sleep. It took him a moment to recall where he was and realize he had to keep the charade going because his plan had not yet hit the crucial part. He had heard a phone ring. Had that been in his dreams? He had to grab the cell. Paul was waiting.
Sasha was wearing her cloak again, standing next to the bed. Chalice in one hand, knife in the other, she smiled. Shadows danced on her face from a lit candle on the nightstand.
“You’ve been out for over an hour.”
He sat up quickly. The sun had set a while ago, darkness only waiting outside her bedroom window. Paul was waiting for the signal; the cellphone was in his jeans pocket. Where were his jeans?
“My clothes?”
She picked up the black cloak draped on the bed. “You need to wear this or my mom will know something’s up.”
“You didn’t throw my jeans in the tub, did you? My sister’s cell was in there.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Your clothes are fine.”
He nodded, started to bunch up the cloak to slide over his head. After the deed was done, he could hunt for his clothes. It wouldn’t be good if the police searched the house and found two sets of his clothes. He’d have a lot of difficult questions to answer.
She held out a clear glass with brownish liquid in it. Something fizzed in the water, forming a white cloud. “Here,” she said.
“What is it?”
“Aspirin,” she said. “My mother always grinds it up and puts it in apple juice for me. It’s silly, I know, but it was the only way she could get me to take pills when I was a little kid.”
He shook his head. “I’m okay.”
She smiled. “It’s just pain medication. You’ll thank me later.”
What was she going to do? Why did he need pain medicine?
She tiled her head, smiled with just one corner of her mouth. “For me.
Please
.”
He drank half the glass and set it down. Beneath the apple taste lingered a bitter flavor that stung his throat. What little kid would drink that?
“Now what?”
“It’s time,” she said.
“How are you going to do it?”
Sasha raised the chalice like a priest about to bless the win doless the. “It’s all in the presentation.”
* * *
Sasha’s mother was downstairs, kneeling before her homemade altar. The red candles on the table gave the room a sickly glow that made the walls appear swollen. Tyler stopped at the bottom of the stairs, right behind Sasha.
“She’s deep in prayer,” Sasha whispered. “Don’t do anything sudden, she’ll go nuts.”
What constituted “nuts”? This was a woman who had threatened him with a knife, forced him to get naked, burned him with a hot blade. He didn’t see a knife on her altar, so she might have it under her own cloak. If she wielded a blade, Tyler could try to push Sasha into the blade and run. He could call the police and that would take care of everything. It would actually be much more convenient if it went down that way, though a cramp of nausea twisted in his stomach at the notion.
On tip-toes, Sasha approached her mother. Tyler stayed several feet behind her. The time between her steps grew longer and longer the closer she got. Sasha’s mother did not detect them. She sat slumped forward on her knees, head to her chest, her back rising and falling with slow, easy breaths.
Tyler froze with the next step. He heard something, faint, like a whisper only not decipherable. Sasha kept walking; she was only a few feet from her mother. The sound was a steady hum barely detectable. If Sasha heard it, she thought nothing of it. The hum was really smaller vibrations strung together. Those vibrations were words and they comprised a chant.
Or a curse.
“Sasha, wait,” Tyler said in a loud whisper.
She turned toward him, started to make an “it’s okay” gesture when her mother’s head sprung up and back. Her long, black hair whipped over her head and slapped her back with the hard
thwap
of a punch. The hum that was a nearly silent chant erupted from the woman’s mouth like a fire alarm. The words made no sense and might have been random consonant grunts, but whatever they were they bounced off the walls and reverberated in Tyler’s ears.
. . . sac rice luff chide . . .
He had retreated several steps toward the stairs and the safety of the front door beyond, but Sasha hadn’t moved, only covered her ears. She should use the blade to silence her mother once and for all. One swipe across the throat.
Her mother’s nonsensical cry faded quickly. She dropped her head, hair settling around her shoulders, and turned to face her daughter. Sasha lowered her hands, chalice in one, knife in the other. Their movements seemed lethargic, as if in slow-motion.
“This is the moment,” her mother said. Her throat sounded like it was full of rocks.
“Yes, mother,” Sasha said. She held out the cup. “We wish to offer our blood as a sacrifice for the love child we have created.”
Sasha’s mother bowed her head to the cup and then gently took it in both hands. “The Earth Goddess will be pleased.”
Sasha motioned for Tyler to join her. He did, slowly. His previous rush of excitement and sexual energy had fizzled into cold skin and a shriveled dick upon his shrunken scrotum. His legs were heavy, his head light.
When he stopped next to her, she raised her left hand before her and brought the blade of the knife toward her palm. He wanted to tell her to stop but he was too fascinated, or shocked, to say anything. He couldn’t believe this was really happening. Who was this girl?
Her mother moved the cup beneath Sasha’s left hand. The blade sliced into Sasha’s palm. She clenched her jaw against the pain and ran the full length of the blade across her hand. She tilted her hand sideways and blood began to drip off her skin and into the chalice. Each drop
plopped
into the cup.
“This offering I make to you, oh, mighty Earth Goddess,” Sasha said. “This is my blood, so that you might bless me and my child.”
The blood-drip became a steady stream. Sasha made a fist, stifling the flow. Then she wrapped her injured hand in her cloak and turned her large eyes on Tyler.
His hands were clenched together at his groin. His head grew lighter and lighter and he feared he might pass out.
Keep it together
. Her eyes softened, pleaded with him.
This was the only way
, they said.
Just a little cut, some blood, and it’ll all be over
.
He pried his scarred hand loose and held it out. With her free hand, Sasha’s mother seized his wrist. He pulled back but her grip, and all the weight behind that grip, held him in place. He made a fist, but his fingers didn’t curl completely into his hand. His muscles had gone loose. What was going on?
“You must make an equal offering,” Sasha’s mother said. “If not, you will suffer irrevocable trauma.”
What did that mean? Hadn’t he already endured enough pain? He tried to pull free again but he couldn’t do it unless he used his other hand to pry off her fingers. Or punch her in the face.
Sasha stepped right next to him. Her breasts pushed through the cloak and pressed against him. Her eyes had softened considerably. They were the eyes of a waiting lover, a young woman who wanted only to please her man. She took his hand gently and her mother let go. She brought it to her neck and then slowly dragged it over her breast. His hand opened; her nipple teased his palm. His crotch relaxed. He squeezed her breast gently. She moaned so slightly and delicately that he wanted to pounce on her and get her to make that innocent yet sexually loaded noise again and again.
The flickering light reflected off her snaggletooth--
like a sabertooth tiger in the moonlight
.
Sasha pulled his hand away and sliced open his palm so quickly that he didn’t fully register what had happened until his blood was joining Sasha’s in the chalice.
He back-pedaled rapidly, pulling free of Sasha’s grip. He stumbled and fell. He broke his fall with his hands and his freshly re-injured hand throbbed with hot pain. She had cut a mouth out of his palm. The skin curled back from the wound and bright red blood sluiced out. It was a gushing vagina or the mouth of a Satanic priest after eating of the animal sacrifice.
Sasha’s mother swirled the cup in front of her. “Now the blood is joined, now the sacrifice can be made. This I do for the blessing of the love child you have created.”
She brought the chalice to her mouth and took one long gulp.
He expected her to fall over immediately. All the drugs he had ground up in the Snapple were enough to knock out an elephant. That was wishful thinking, of course. The medicine needed to be absorbed into the blood stream; it would take a few minutes.
A few minutes
. His head was ready to pop off his shoulders and float away. His muscles could barely keep him propped off the floor. The damn apple juice and the aspirin.
She
had drugged him. Her mother probably had a soorably hamall pharmacy of her own.
Or witchcraft potions
.
Sasha’s mother nodded to her daughter and then turned to the altar. She set the cup on the table and slowly got to her knees like an old woman. She was deceptive--slow and heavy one moment, fast and strong the next.
“Now, dear lover,” Sasha said, “It’s time for the
real
sacrifice.”
She came at him with the knife before her, blade wet with his blood.
5
Anthony double-parked outside of the First Church of Jesus Christ the Empowered. The cops were too busy with drug dealers and gang violence to care about an illegally parked vehicle on Broadway. Newburgh could be a scary place at night, and particularly bad for a white guy who happened to get lost in the wrong area.
This is what God wants
.
Anthony got out of the car with the rip-claw hammer. It’s black leather grip clung to his skin and its 20oz weight felt good--solid and powerful. The straight claw on the back was ideal for reaching into tight spaces or driving into people’s skulls.
Only if necessary
.
The closed beauty shop next door--Nailed Nails--held a new irony that made Anthony laugh. It sounded like the cackle of someone who wasn’t all there.
Light emanated from behind two large posters of Jesus on the cross bordering the door in the giant glass windows. The glass door had been blacked out. Anthony knocked. The metal grate rattled above him with each knock. These people were awfully trusting to stay open after sunset.
A police siren’s warble echoed from somewhere.
The door opened slightly. A woman with curly brown hair and heavy eyeliner peered out from the crack.
“Yes?” she said.
He hadn’t known what he was going to say to gain entrance--figured he might just hold up the hammer and tell whoever opened the door to back off--but words came to him suddenly and with total clarity.
“In today’s day and age when every organized religion is claiming the rightful path, it can be confusing to know which direction is correct. In fact, it can be disheartening. It can be easy to lose faith.”
The woman’s brow scrunched. “Excuse me?”
“But Jesus doesn’t care if you follow this faith or that faith,” Anthony continued. “Jesus wants you to be empowered, to feel His grace and bask in His glory. He scarified Himself for all humanity as proof of heavenly empowerment.”
The woman turned behind her, called for help.
“With Jesus as our teacher, we can learn how to tackle our problems and choose the right path to glory. And, most importantly, we can be empowered with God’s love. No matter the pain from which you suffer . . .”
The woman turned back to him, realization dawning. “You’re Mr. Williams, aren’t you?”
Anthony didn’t let this stop him. The words were flowing from somewhere in his brain where the flier Ellis and Dwayne had given him so long ago permanently lived. “ . . . the difficulties against which you struggle . . .”
“
Ellis!
” she called again, more frantically.
“. . . Jesus wants to help. At The First Church of Jesus Christ the Empowered, eig Empowewe seek the fulfillment of God’s will through an honest acceptance of our faults and a faithful inquiry into the magical workings of Jesus.” He waited for her to say something but she simply stared, wide-eyed and shit-scared. She had no idea what “scared” meant. Not yet. “Are you ready for the magical workings of Jesus?”
Anthony raised the hammer.
She screamed, more of a startled shout than a scream of fear, but it was enough to take this moment to Step Two. He shoved hard against the door and the woman fell back, stepping several feet before her legs tangled and she smacked the tile floor on her hip. She started to yell for Ellis again but there wasn’t any need. Ellis stood in the middle of the room.
“Anthony,” he said, “I was expecting a call.”
He had taken off his suit jacket but still wore the black pants, white dress shirt, and black tie, though he had loosened the knot and undone the top button. His hair was poofed as if he had run his hand through it several times.
The king without his diadem
, Anthony thought, thinking of some Emily Dickinson poem he’d read years ago.
Anthony walked toward him in slow, deliberate steps. He patted the head of the hammer in his palm with each step. Three or four other people stood against the walls, eyes wide, mouths agape. The other worshippers were probably in The Temple, bowing before a giant fake god. Anthony would love to barge into that room and smash the Giant Jesus to pieces. It would feel so wonderful to destroy that thing. That statue could have been his salvation; instead, it dragged him deeper into Hell. The hammer grew lighter.
This is what the Devil wants
.
“I was going to call,” Anthony said in an equally slow and methodical voice, “but it suddenly occurred to me that you had single-handedly destroyed my life.”
Ellis was shaking his head. “No, no, no. We have done nothing but try to help you. God is mysterious and His ways cannot be questioned. We only sought to help you, empower you.”
Anthony held up the hammer. “I’m empowered now.”
Ellis started to back up. “What are you going to do? Kill me? Beat me to death? You’ll never get away with it.”
Anthony paused. “Why would I want to get away with it? I’ve already killed a man today, what does it matter if I kill another?”
None of the people against the walls moved. So much for empowerment. Ellis began to back-pedal quickly, heading for The Temple.
“I told you what you had to do. You can still have a beautiful life with Brendan.”
“
Don’t you dare say his name!
” Anthony launched into a sprint and collided into Ellis before the man could even turn to run.
They crashed onto the floor. Ellis’s hands groped Anthony’s face and arms in spastic bursts, rapidly moving from one part of his body to another in search of the best angle of attack. He shouted for help but the people along the walls remained still, fixated. If anyone was in The Temple, they’d be out any second. Anthony was enjoying this, watching Ellis writhe beneath him. Ellis’s hand found Anthony’s throat and squeezed. Ellis gritted his teeth, air pushing from his nose like he were a bull and stared Anthony dead-on with eyes that dared him to do something.
Anthony brought the hammer down into the floor an inch from Ellis’s head. The reverberations of the hit spiraled up Anthony’s arm as pieces of tile pelted his face. Ellis’s hand relaxed.
“Next time,” Anthony said, “it’s your skull.”
Ellis dropped his hand. The woman who had opened the door gasped a desperate “
No!
”
“What do you want?”
Anthony smiled.
Have I gone crazy?
“Where’s my son?”
6
Dwayne drove them to Trailer Trash Town where Sasha Karras lived. Instead of the big black car in which they had taken Brendan during Delaney’s wake, they were in a grey two-door hatchback. “Easier for people to miss,” Dwayne had said. The car smelled of cigarette smoke and ash speckled the dashboard. They parked before Sasha’s neighbor’s driveway. The neighbor’s house was dark except for one light in an upstairs window. Sasha’s house was similarly dark, save for a flickering red light in the downstairs windows.
Dwayne used his cellphone to make a call. He waited through several rings and then said, “Yes, I’m calling from Information Securities. Is the head of the house available?” A second later, he closed the phone, dropped it in his pocket, smiled.
“That’s the basement,” Dwayne said, pointing. “That’s the key to this whole thing, and the front door, of course. There’s a sliding glass door in the basement that leads to the outside. There’s no sure way to blockade that door, so you need to be sure that the most gas gets pooled there.”
Brendan nodded. Dwayne had given him work gloves that Velcroed on but the pair was too big and so he kept peeling the Velcro strips open and trying to make them tighter. The ends of the straps dangled from his wrists like extra fingers.
“The front door is the same thing. Don’t worry, the logs will make it much easier. Once the two exits are taken care of, they might try to get out a window. That’s when you have to be ready. I know you’d rather not have to do it, but it may be necessary.”
Brendan’s clothes felt too big. The car seat was two sizes too large; he felt like a little kid trying to play grow-up. He didn’t want to do what Dwayne was now suggesting. He was okay with the first part, with the logs and the fire, but he didn’t want to stand guard at the windows.
Couldn’t
do it.
From the glove compartment, Dwayne removed a small, black gun. “This doesn't look like much but it’ll do the job. One shot and they’ll retreat back into the house. All you have to do is pull the trigger.”
He held it out butt first to Brendan.
Like dropping a bowling ball
, he thought.
The gun was heavy in his hands. Could he really shoot someone? Would he have to? He was willing to be part of this to protect his brother, help unite his family again, but shooting someone was an impossible task like swimming across the ocean without stopping. Did he have the courage to do this?
“They might just freak out and breathe in so much smoke that you don’t have to do anything, but you have to be ready,” Dwayne said. “This is a test, you understand?”
Brendan waited. A test?
“If you are truly dedicated to serving God, you won’t hesitate to pull the trigger. If you fail to do this, you will lose God’s favor and your path will forever be altered. God wants this family to pay the ultimate price. He wants you to be his messenger.”
Executioner
.
Brendan swallowed something hard in his throat. “When?”
“Now.”
7
Tyler thought of how he and Paul had joked that Sasha kept a collection of severed penises in jars in her basement. That had seemed so ridiculous and yet here he was drugged and there she was coming at him with a knife.
He tried to stand and couldn’t. His legs had turned to rubber. His arms still worked enough to drag himself backward, but his hands slipped repeatedly on the carpet and he made it only a foot or so before Sasha was squatting in front of him.
The innocent expression had gone from her eyes. Something dark had taken its place. When she smiled this time it was a smile full of power and vehemence. “I know you don’t really love me,” she said. “Don’t bother saying you do.”
“But . . .” He had nothing else to say.
“I liked you but you took advantage. You
raped
me.”
“
No, no.
”
She pressed a finger to his lips. “
Shh
. Yes, you did, Tyler. You had to get some action for your little pecker and you ignored my screaming, my cries. I begged you to stop and you refused.”
“I’m . . .”
“Sorry?” she finished. She shook her head. “No, you’re not. You wanted me to drug my mother so she’d get arrested and I’d get put in a foster home. You wanted to get rid of me because you had only wanted to
fuck
me, not make love with me, not have a baby.”
Tyler
was
going to drug Sasha, too, and then call Paul and have him show up as a witness so when the police arrived--
Paul. He was waiting for Tyler’s call.
Tyler’s arms turned to rubber as well and he could no longer hold himself up; he slipped slowly flat onto his back. Sasha moved closer, stared down at him. Her hair hung past her face and for a moment she resembled her crazy bitch of a mother.
“I must confess, Tyler,” she said. “I was never pregnant. I just didn’t want you ignoring me. I wanted you to face what you did to me and, maybe, find a way to love me.”
The sedative was numbing his face and mouth but he managed to squeeze out one word: “
Bitch
.”
She sighed, pressed a hand to his face. It was her injured one and was still warm with blood. “It’s okay. You see, I’m ovulating now. Mom says that the Earth Goddess wants me to be filled with life. In two weeks, if I don’t get my period, I’ll know it worked. We will have created a love child.”
Tyler’s eyelids started to droop. He desperately needed to keep them open. He willed them to stay up. He had to see what was happening. He had to fully register the insanity of this psycho. She had completely tricked him with her innocent, crying victim routine. Paul was right; he should have threatened her life when he had the chance, maybe even bashed her head in with the baseball bat.
“Mom’s a little nuts, I know, but she means well. I don’t know if the Earth Goddess cares or not or if any of her spells actually worked, but here you are, so she must be on to something.”
The bitch
had
cursed him.
Sasha turned the knife before him. A drop of blood ran down the blade and dropped onto his chin. He barely felt ashbarely it. “I gave you a powerful dose, so you shouldn’t feel a thing.”
Feel? What was she going to do? Ah, shit, she should just kill him and be done with it.
Don’t cut off my dick, please, not my dick
.
She smiled as if she had heard his hysterical thought. “I’m not going to cut it off, so don’t worry. What would be the sense in that? If I’m not pregnant yet, I’ll still need you and your prick. But I do need some insurance.”
What did that mean?
“You’ll be okay,” she said. “I’ve been reading up on the Internet. I know right where to cut and we’ll stop the bleeding really fast.”
Her mother stepped next to her. She held her knife in one hand and a candle in the other. The blade was turning yellow.
“It’s called
cauterizing
the wound. It’ll hurt later, but right now you won’t feel a thing. I promise.”
She kissed him on the lips but he felt only the faintest warmth of her mouth. Her breath smelled of rotting garbage. If his muscles could still gag, he would have started vomiting.
She disappeared out of view. Her mother smiled at him with a mouth full of large, crooked teeth. “This is not a curse, but a blessing.”
Then his eyelids lost their dying strength and he was gone in a world of black.
8
He made Ellis drive Chloe’s car.
“What happened to all your followers?” Anthony asked. “No one came to save you.”
“The Temple is sound-proof. Doesn’t matter. They all know by now. I’m not worried.”
“Because they’re coming to save you?”
“No,” Ellis said, “because God has a plan.”
Ellis drove them to the Hidden Hills Trailer Park. It was a community of winding roads through curving hills with low-income housing. Anthony had paid good money to raise a family in a gated community that promised serenity through security. Oh, the irony.
“If you’re driving me somewhere else, somewhere where my boy isn’t, I will bury this hammer in your head, you got that?”
Ellis nodded. “I don’t believe in subterfuge.”
Anthony laughed. “That’s a good one.”
“You have a chance to be saved, Anthony. You’re walking away from it and that saddens me.”
Anthony brought the hammer to Ellis’s temple, just barely touching. “Is that making you sad or is it the thought of your brains splattered on the window?”
“Do you know what Jesus said to his doubters?”
“Good luck?”
“He told them that he would have mercy on them as he tried to snatch them out of the fires of Hell. I, too, will have mercy on you while I try to save your soul.”
“I don’t want to save my soul,” Anthony said, “I want to save my son.”
“Don’t worry about him. He’s already been saved.”
* * *
Ellis drove slowly around parked cars and down sudden steep slopes. Anthony had to tell him to hurry up, stop wasting time before he buried the claw end of the hammer into Ellis’s leg. That encouraged him to speed up.
He slowed down and stopped behind a small hatchback. A large guy in the driver’s seat noticed them in the rearview mirror and almost jumped out of his seat. The driver’s door was open a moment later and Dwayne was standing there, a surprised, though not worried, expression on his face.
“Where’s my son?” Anthony hissed.
Ellis looked at him. “Doing God’s work.”
Anthony got out of the car and went right for Dwayne, who held up his hands in innocence. “What did you do with my son?” His shouts bounced off the surrounding hills.
“Keep your voice down, Anthony,” Dwayne said. “Someone is going to call the cops and you don’t want that.”
“No,
you
don’t want that. Bring on the cops.” Anthony stepped within a few feet of Dwayne. The man outweighed him by thirty or forty pounds, but he was no match for a hammer to the skull.
“If that happens, you’ll lose your son.”
“
Where is he?!
” Anthony brandished the hammer above his head like a bludgeon.
“Dad?”
Brendan had come around the corner of a line of bushes. He was wearing work gloves and carrying a can of gasoline. His face was wet and smeared with black splotches. A strange expression floated on his face.
“What are you doing?”
Brendan looked from Anthony to Dwayne. “I was going to stay, to guard, but I heard the screaming and . . .”
“
What
are you doing?” Anthony said, anger breaking.
Tears gathered in Brendan’s eyes and Anthony fought the urge to drop the hammer and take his little boy in his arms. He had to stay strong right now while Ellis and Dwayne were around. There would be plenty of time for hugs later.
“I’m only trying to help,” Brendan said in a slow, fragile voice.
“Help?
Who?
”
“Tyler.”
Anthony stopped. What did that mean? “Help Tyler how?”
Brendan stumbled for an answer.
Behind him, large flames licked up the front of a house. They had completely engulfed the front door and thick, black smoke was spiraling above the house and into the sky.
“Oh, my God,” Anthony whispered.
9
He heard Dad’s scream and came running. He felt like he hadn’t seen Dad in days, maybe longer. Dad had become a stranger to Brendan, someone for whom Brendan would do anything and yet someone who he no longer really knew.
Before turning the corner of the Karras’s driveway, Brendan slowed. He had wanted to see him, hug him, and beg for his understanding but that urge died. Dad wouldn’t understand why Brendan had placed starter logs doused in gasoline before the main escape points of the Karras’s house. He would never forgive Brendan for Delaney’s death if he ever discovered what really happened. Dad was more likely to have him arrested or committed to some crazy-people hospital than take him in his arms.
Horror and desperation drew across Dad’s face and gritted in his voice. Brendan wished he had stayed where he was. The weight of the gun sagged the pocket of his coat. He hadn’t touched it since Dwayne entrusted him with it, and now he knew why he hgednew whyad really run toward Dad’s voice. He hadn’t wanted to shoot anyone.
“I’m only trying to help,” Brendan said. He felt like he might start crying. Dwayne was staring at him with equal parts rage and frustration. How was he supposed to please anyone?
“Help?
Who?
”
“Tyler.”
Dad’s face went blank. “Help Tyler how?”
The starter logs Brendan had placed on the Karras front porch burst with an explosion of heat. Giants flames ate at the front door and the smoke quickly engulfed most of the house’s front. Smoke also billowed from behind the house where the other starter logs ignited.
“Oh, my God.” Dad walked toward him in slow, dead steps. He spoke in a shocked whisper. “What did you do? My God, son,
what did you do?
”
“I had to, Dad. Tyler needed my help.”
“Help? Help how?” A hammer dangled in one hand.
Ellis spoke up from behind them. “Brendan is God’s disciple now. He was not afraid to do what was necessary to protect his family. He is the embodiment of all that the First Church of Jesus Christ the Empowered stand for.”
Dad was shaking his head. “You didn’t.
Please
say you didn’t do this.”
Brendan couldn’t say anything. God wanted him to do this. There was no rational way to explain what was inherently irrational. Dad might never understand it and Tyler might even be angry, but at least Tyler would be grateful. It might take a while, but he would be grateful.
“You have a choice now, Anthony,” Ellis said. “Come with us and we will keep you protected. Turn against us, and you will pay with all you have.”
Dad rested his hand on Brendan’s shoulder. “Go away,” he said with little energy. “Leave me and my son alone.”
“We can’t do that.”
Ellis nodded to Dwayne, who moved toward them. Dad raised the hammer. “Back off or I swear I will kill you.”
Dwayne paused, glanced at Ellis.
“Don’t be stupid,” Ellis said to Dad. “You can stay here if that’s what you really want, but Brendan comes with us.”
Dad’s lips pulled back from his teeth like a dog about to attack. “
You will never take my son.
”
Ellis started to respond but a car pulling up alongside him killed his words. All heads turned as the car slowed, slowed, stopped. At first Brendan thought it was more of Ellis’s people. If that were true, Dad would have to run. There’d be no way he could fight off more than two. Brendan would have to sacrifice himself to save his father. He knew right now and with complete certainty that he would do just that.
But the car belonged to Paul, Tyler’s friend. He sat in his car, glancing at everyone, dumbfounded. He slowly got out of the car. “Mr. Williams?”
Dad took a moment to respond. “What are
you
doing here, Paul?”
He shook his head as if this scene were not comprehending. “What are you doing here?”
“Call the police, Paul,” Dad said. “Call them
now
.”
Paul’s eyes set on the fire, which was now raging across most of the front of the house. Sasha and her mother might have escaped through a wihicthroughndow; this fire could be for nothing.
At least I did it
, Brendan thought.
I proved I was strong
.
“
Oh, shit!
” Paul yelled. He ran straight past Dwayne toward Dad. He meant to push past him but Dad grabbed him by the shoulders. The hammer clattered on the street.
“What?” Dad said. “What is it? What’s so important about that house?”
For a moment, the words could not escape Paul’s mouth. “
Tyler! He’s in there!
”
Then they were both running toward the burning house and Brendan was alone with Ellis and Dwayne.
10
Darkness. Yet, sounds very clearly, and voices.
“Be sure to make a clean cut,” Sasha’s mother said. “The sacrifice must be clean.”
“They’re so hard,” Sasha said. “What if I damage the other one?”
She was going to cut off one of his testicles. Oh, Jesus Christ
shit fuck shit fuck no
. Tyler tried to will himself out of his paralysis. He had to move, to get away from these psychotic women before they cut him and--
Help!
he screamed in his mind.
Please help me for the love of God!
“Do it now,” her mother said. “Before you lose your nerve.”
“He’s not a bad guy.”
“He’s a man and all he wants is your cunt. He doesn’t respect your power to make life. If your child is to be blessed, you must make the sacrifice.”
“My hand’s shaking.”
Silence for several moments with the faint sound of crinkling paper coming from somewhere distant. Was she touching his testicles, choosing which one to remove? Was she cutting into him now? Was his blood soaking the carpet?
“What’s that noise?” Sasha asked.
“It’s nothing, just--”
A loud bang almost like an explosion but not quite as forceful came from the left. Both women shrieked. The crinkling sound from before was now louder,
much
louder. The sound of fire. What was going on?
“It’s a sign?” Sasha’s mother said.
“Mom, we have to get out--”
Another burst, this from the opposite side of the house, maybe at the front door, echoed through the house. This bang was bigger, more like an actual explosion. They were under attack. Maybe he was hallucinating--a side effect of the drugs.
Maybe my testicle is in a pool of blood on the carpet
.
Sasha and her mother spoke rapidly, on the verge of panic.
“It’s the Earth Goddess.”
“It’s fucking fire, Mom!
It’s not a goddamn sign!
”
“We must pray.”
“
We have to get out of here!
”
“The whole house is burning. We must pray.”
“
The window!
”
There was a clashing and clattering of objects and Sasha’s desperate heaving breaths. Her mother had said the whole house was burning. Was that true? He felt the heat. Or was that a tring s that ck of his mind?
Sasha’s voice farther away: “
It’s stuck!
”
Her mother, closer, right next to him: “We ask you oh merciful and wise Goddess of the Earth to show us the way in this our hour of need.”
Glass shattered and Sasha yelled again. It was a cry of pain. She had cut herself trying to escape. “
Help me, Mom!
”
“We acknowledge your power and commend your brilliance. You have lit the fires that now burn at my doors. You are coming. We await you eagerly.”
“
Get up!
” Sasha screamed. More crashing objects, the floor vibrating with the clatter. She had knocked over the altar. “I said,” Sasha said now right on top of Tyler, “
GET UP!!
”
Sasha’s mother released a barbaric howl that was supposed to sound like a prayer but which reverberated around the room like the dying screech of a slaughtered animal.
The scream ended with the sudden swap of a hard smack. Then the two women were grunting and cursing and yelling and rolling on the floor in a brawl. Meanwhile, the house was burning down, and Tyler’s dick was out in the open.
The knife. If he could grab it.
Wake up
, he told himself.
Open your damn eyes.
Another sound, possibly at the window. “Oh, Jesus,
Tyler!
”
Dad. How the hell did he know where Tyler was? What difference did it make? He tried to scream and couldn’t. The heat pushed closer. Soon, the room would be boiling.
“I’m coming,” Dad yelled from the window. The sound of the fire eating the outside of the house was almost deafening.
Hurry
, Tyler tried to say.
Please hurry
.
Sasha and her mother continued their battle next to him, unaware perhaps of Tyler’s dad’s arrival. Sasha’s mother released a deep gut-sound like she were about to vomit or had been hit hard in the stomach.
Barely audible, Sasha whispered, “I’m sorry, Mom, but you’ve lost your fucking mind.”
Speak for yourself
, Tyler thought and then realized:
she just killed her mother
.
A moment later, she was screaming for Mr. Williams to help her, please help her. Tyler summoned all his power and felt his mouth open and unleashed a deep, panicked cry that was so loud it knocked his eyelids open.
11
God must hate me
, Anthony thought. Why would He do this to him? Why had He taken Anthony’s baby, his Delaney, poisoned his Chloe, let him kill Dr. Carroll, helped maniacs brainwash his son, and now try to burn his Tyler to death? What kind of a god did that?
A cruel one
.
And lo, did Misery, the god of all, lay waste to everything Anthony loved, for Misery is a mean and angry god, and cares not for justice and peace, but for pain and ruin
.
Tyler lay half-naked on the floor of this house, dead.
He’s not dead, he can’t be
. He wore a black robe of some kind, but it had been pulled up to reveal his crotch. Next to him, a large woman and a younger, smaller woman were clawing at each other’s faces, screaming.
I’m coming!
” he shouted to his son.
He started to climb through the window but it was more narrow than he thought. If he went any further, he’d get stuck at the shoulders. He might be able to force his way through, but then how was he going to escape? He backed out of the window.
The large woman grunted loudly and then fell back flat on the carpet next to Tyler. The younger one leaned over her for a moment and then turned around. It was a teenage girl, her hair a mess, her face streaked with dirt and blood. “Mr. Williams,” she cried, “Please help me,
please!
”
He had never seen this girl before. How did she know who he was? Was she Tyler’s girlfriend? Why was she wearing a black robe, too?
The handle of a knife stuck out from the larger woman’s gut. This girl had just stabbed someone.
Not someone--her mother
.
The girl ran toward the window, her face bent at weird angles and her teeth like arrowheads. Anthony stumbled backward into Paul.
“The police?”
Paul snapped his cellphone shut. “Yeah. Where’s Ty?”
The girl was at the window, which was set up high on the downstairs wall, so she could only get her forearms across the ledge without help. “Mr. Williams, save me.
I’m pregnant with your grandchild!
”