Disconnection (28 page)

Dean moved nearer, cutting a path through the grass and an old crooked mailbox that read DAVIS, until he reached the front steps of the house. He could hear Stan and Owen inside, shouting curses through the walls. Dean counted to three before he passed through the door, careful not to make a sound. Once inside, he cautiously leaned his body against the rooster-wallpapered walls. He knew if his friends saw him, it could have deadly consequences.

“Varmints,” he heard a man’s voice say.

“Eat my shit, buddy,” Stan’s voice said.

“You wanna steal another one of my pigs? You steal another one of my pigs. Go on, go ahead. Just stop pointin’ that thing at me. Look at my knee! Look at what you already did! Just take the damn pig, please!”

“This isn’t even about that,” Owen said. “
The Lord himself watches over you!
Mister, you have denied the children of God to use your pigs for sacrifice to our Lord and Savior, and God is angry as shit.
The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go both now and forever
, bitch!”

“You see, asswhipe,” Stan began, “if we kill you, we don’t have to sneak around stealing your pigs anymore. They’d be our pigs now.”

“That’s right,” Owen agreed.

Dean looked around for an object he could use for a weapon. Seeing nothing, he slowly opened a kitchen drawer. Inside was a long carving knife. Dean grabbed it and made his way to the living room entrance. With great care, he peered around the corner. The pig farmer was lying on the floor in a fetal position. His right leg was bleeding at the knee. Owen and Stan were standing over him, Stan pointing the rifle directly over the farmer’s head.

“Thou shall not kill,”
the pig farmer said weakly.

“We wouldn’t be killing,” Owen said. “We’d be sacrificing. There’s a difference. Even Abraham was willing to sacrifice his own son for the Lord.”

“Sure as shit,” Stan said.

“Have my pigs, you dirty devils!” the pig farmer screamed. “JUST GO! LEAVE ME ALONE!”

Dean ran into the living room and grabbed Owen from behind, holding the knife up to his former friend’s neck just as Stan shot the farmer square between the eyes. “Put the rifle down!” Dean ordered over the gun blast. Owen squealed like one of the farmer’s pigs in Dean’s grasp.

Stan turned to look at Dean. “Well,” he began, narrowing his eyes, “what do we have here? Jew boy to save the day?”

Dean looked down at the farmer. He lay motionless on his stomach, with half of his brain splattered against the wall. Dean fought back the urge to vomit.

“Why?” he mumbled, forcing his hands to maintain a grip on Owen.

“Why not, Dean?” Stan asked. “He’s a fucking pig farmer, for God’s sake. Who’s going to miss him?”

Dean nodded to a portrait on the wall of a much younger version of the pig farmer and a woman his age at his side, with two young girls standing in front of him. “His family for one,” Dean answered, his body shaking with the enormity of the trauma.

Stan inhaled an exaggerated breath. He stepped closer to the window.

“Don’t move!” Dean ordered.

“I just want to show you something, Jew boy!” Stan exclaimed, reaching over and pulling open the lace white curtains, revealing the pigpen in the backyard. “You see that?” Stan asked. “Look at them grunting and shitting everywhere! Black English Pigs, Dean, you know how fucking precious those bitches are? The nigger pigs came from
Japan
. From Okinawa. Four hundred fucking years ago. The fuckers almost got their asses extinct in World War II, but here they are! Now, I know you won’t understand this, Jew boy, but those pigs out there are a pretty fucking great sacrifice for the Lord.”

“Amen,” Owen said.

“And it’s our job to get them. Reverend Applegate gave the responsibility to us. Out of everyone in his congregation, he asked us.” Stan beamed proudly.

“A blessing,” Owen observed from under Dean’s strangle hold.

Dean’s face grew pale as the reverend’s name turned over and over in his head.

Reverend Applegate?

(You know that name)

Chloe Applegate
.

Dean remembered one of his and Chloe’s Internet conversations:

(TulaneGirl: My uncle is here, I gotta get offline. He’s the reverend I was telling you about. If he knew I was hooking up with a Jew, he’d kill me.

Soccerace: Is he the one that forced you into rehab?

TulaneGirl: Talked my mom into making me go, yeah. Uh-oh here he is, gotta go. Luv you.)

“Reverend Applegate. Chloe’s uncle,” Dean mumbled under his breath.

Stan’s ears perked up. “Oh, you know Chloe?” He lifted his rifle and pointed it at Dean.

Dean pushed the knife harder into Owen’s throat. “Don’t think about it,” he growled when Owen shuddered under his hold.

“I wouldn’t put it past you to kill an honest Christian,” Stan said, his voice oozing with righteousness.

“Good, I wouldn’t put it past myself either.”

“How do you know Chloe?”

“That’s none of your business. How do
you
know Chloe?”

Stan laughed. “Everyone knows Chloe.” He winked.

Dean blanched. “She changed her ways before she was killed.”

“Sacrificed,” Stan corrected.

Dean executed a growl so fierce and furious that Stan was forced to move another step back. “What did you do to her?” Dean asked through clenched teeth.

“Don’t you read the news, Jew boy? Or just the
New York Times
? Liberal faggots.” Stan grinned like the Cheshire cat. “I wish I could take the credit for saving Chloe, but I can’t. It was a team effort, wasn’t it, Owen?”

Owen nodded solemnly.

Stan continued, “Just like it’ll be a team effort for that new girl of yours, what was her name, Dean? Sarah or something? Cute girl, but small tits. I wouldn’t say that I would fuck her, but hell, it takes all kinds, right?”

It was Dean’s turn to step back. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

Stan laughed.
“Sela
. That’s her name, right?”

A heightened sense of terror coursed through Dean’s blood. “What did you do with her, you sick bastard?” he asked.

“Nothing yet,” Stan replied nonchalantly. “But we will. The congregation and I, and Reverend Applegate of course. Just remember, Dean, we’re trying to
save
her. Save her from people like you. Don’t you get it? No, I don’t suppose you do. Oh, well.”

It was at that moment that Stan fired off another shot, which hit Owen in the gut. Owen began to fall, and as he slid, his neck caught the blade of the knife. His throat was sliced almost in half as he crumpled to the floor. Dean stepped back and screamed. The knife he held ran red with blood. He looked up and saw that Stan was now pointing the rifle at him.

“Shit,” Stan said, shaking his head remorsefully. “Feel kinda bad about Owen, but at least he’s with the Lord. Can’t say you’ll have the same great fate, Jew boy, but let’s just see what happens.”

Right as Stan pulled the trigger, Dean jumped to his left and fell headfirst into the farmer’s blue plaid La-Z-Boy recliner. When he looked up, Stan was reloading the rifle as smoke moved through its barrel, imbuing the room with a heavy steel and sawdust smell.

“Oh, boy,” Stan hollered, “I’m going to kill me a Jew today!”

Dean twisted off the La-Z-Boy and ran right into Stan, and they both fell to the ground. Only the gun and knife stood between the boys as they fought. Stan spit in Dean’s face and knocked him in the head with the butt of the rifle. Dean took the knife and stabbed Stan in what he thought was his heart. Stan howled with pain as he fell to the floor. Blood squirted from his mouth.

“Jew boy,” Stan muttered as twitched on the floor.

Dean jumped up and limped into the kitchen where he had spotted a telephone earlier. His fingers began to press 911 when he heard a noise behind him. Craning his neck, he saw Stan standing behind him with the rifle. Stan grinned at him with blood spilling out of his mouth. “Not dead yet,” he whispered, his mad eyes glowing.

Dean dropped the phone and ran as fast as his injured legs could carry him. He exited the kitchen just as Stan released another shot from the rifle. Dean fell into the nearest bedroom. He pressed the lock button on the door knob (
like that will stop a rifle shot
, he thought) and moved to the window, pushing it to open. But the pane wouldn’t budge. Dean thrust a fist into the glass.

Glass busted in a million pieces. Dean grimaced and covered his bleeding knuckle as a rifle shot exploded through the room, blowing open the door. Stan appeared at the entrance, the rifle in his hand, the knife still stuck in the center of his chest.

Frantically, Dean searched for anything to use as a weapon. The closest item was a cheap lamp, a standard issue Wal-Mart piece. Dean lifted it and hurled it at Stan. Stan ducked, but not in time to avoid the smash of the lamp against his face. He screamed as Dean lunged forward again, this time knocking the rifle out of Stan’s hand.

“Just fucking die,” Dean whispered as he dug the knife deeper into Stan’s chest.

Stan watched Dean kill him with an empty stare in his eyes. Suddenly he smiled.
“The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance,”
he quoted.
“He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.”
And then his eyes closed.

S
ela, are you there?”

It was Chloe’s voice.

“Can you hear me?”

The presence in the room darkened with rage.

What is that sound?
It demanded to know.

“Nothing,” Sela whispered.

Sela’s eyes grew wide with trepidation as a dark funnel entered the room from the boards above and began wrapping itself around Sela, choking her at the throat, squeezing her at the gut.

The thick black mass ordered, in Harold Applegate’s voice, “Tell me what you have in your pocket.”

The mass seemed to smirk at her, but Sela could somehow feel. She could not quite pinpoint it, but it felt almost like—apprehension. It was as if the Devil was afraid of the cell phone. But why?

(Because the phone is your connection to Chloe, to the afterlife, to a place the Prince of Darkness cannot touch)

Was that true? Sela did not care. She would use his strange fear to her advantage.

“It’s God,” Sela answered. “He’s coming to kick your ass.”

The funnel made what sounded like a high pitched scream. Sela watched it change form again, this time transforming its evil particles to that of the largest coyote she had ever seen.

Sela huddled against the wall in panic when she saw the coyote’s teeth shine white and razor sharp under the dim light. But instead of the coyote lunging for her, it merely rested near her, so close that Sela could smell the decay of its breath. Its red eyes watched her with an emotion borderlining curiosity.

“You don’t believe in God. Remember?” It spoke with Harold Applegate’s voice. “Was that your cell phone ringing?” it asked as it rotated one rugged paw menacingly in the dirt.

Sela shook her head. “No.”

The coyote tilted its head sideways. “No? But I think it is.” And almost speaking to itself, the animal asked, “How could I have missed?”

Mikko Jarvi. Sela thought about him again. Rufus’s little philosopher dude, a Swedish nobody her ex-boyfriend had found in the entrails of a library.

When harmonious particles find one another, they can lock into anything. Any place and time. They can make anything possible
.

Sela and Chloe. Harmonious particles for eternity.

The coyote snorted. “A load of shit,” it spat. “You know who Mikko Jarvi was, Sela? A Finnish faggot. Pumped more men than Shell pumps gas into SUVs these days. Died from syphilis. Tell me, Sela, are you going to believe the philosophy of a diseased faggot?”

“You’re a fucking coyote, why should I listen to you?”

Its red eyes brightened. “Fiddle-faddle. Trick yourself into believing that I am a mere animal, sweet pea.”

“Sela, who are you talking to?” Chloe’s voice asked.

The coyote’s eyes narrowed. “Shut up,” Sela whispered to Chloe. “Please shut up.”

“Who’s on the phone?” The coyote sniffed the air and grinned. “Are you hiding something from me?” It grinned at her with its sharp teeth.

“How could I hide anything from you? You can read my thoughts.”

The coyote sniffed the air again. “I can’t smell the phone.” It stood up and walked closer to Sela. “I can smell everything, but I cannot smell your phone.”

“What a pity,” Sela said evenly as she scooted closer to the wall.

She was not prepared for the coyote’s attack. The animal jumped on her and ripped through her clothes with the dagger-sharp teeth. Sela screamed and held her hands out defensively, but it was no use, for in the split-second attack, the coyote had seized the phone.

“Sela, are you there?”

The coyote stepped back with the red phone in his teeth.

“Sela, are you there?”

“Sela, are you there?”
the coyote mocked. It swung its head from side to side, ripping the phone to shreds in the process.

(It doesn’t matter because it always comes back to me)

The coyote stopped. It let what was left of the gadget fall from its teeth. “What did you mean by that?” it asked.

(You’re so fucking smart you figure out you fanged fucking bastard)

The coyote laughed. “Maybe I will,” it said. “Maybe I will.”

Above the room, noises were heard. Sela could make out the distinctive sound of a man’s voice, maybe more than one.
Yes
, she thought, listening closer. There was more than one man above her.

“Help!” she screamed. “Help me!”

The coyote howled. “They work for me, Ms. Warren,” it said in a perfectly reasonable, calm voice. “They won’t come to help you.”

(How can I believe you Prince of Lies)

The coyote held one paw up in the air. “Keep screaming,” it said. “See if they come for you.”

Sela began to scream for help when the coyote lunged for her again, its claws knifing their way through her arms, its mouth biting her neck, ripping open the skin. Sela passed out in a fit of pain and blood, returning again into a dark world where she was traveling through quicksand to her death.