Last Call for the Living (25 page)

Charlie tried to focus straight ahead, watching a woman with waxy, sickly-looking skin swaying from side to side in the first pew. Next to her were two children in their teens, their clothes shabby and homespun, boiling in their own sweat. A man Charlie assumed to be their father stood next to them, his hands clenched and held head high as if he was trying to fend off an imaginary blow. Charlie listened to the English being spoken around him, but the words were incoherent, a holy babble with just enough vowels to sound familiar.

“Halejebawidnusaliyababelajohavacripdonnawajasteyamannalaweya!”

Charlie had heard about these people, too, even recognizing a few faces up on the stage as customers from the bank. There was the man who owned a maintenance company. Another who managed a tire depot. They were holding snakes in their bare hands, clucking their tongues, eyes rolled back to reveal nothing but sclera. It all struck Charlie as pornography—to witness these secret, obscene lives—yet he found himself entranced by the fervor of the worshipers.

He perceived a change in the atmosphere of the church, like the barometer dropping before a thunderstorm. He turned and locked eyes with a man at the front door. Caught a glimpse of a silver-and-black pistol in the man's hand. Charlie tried to speak.

Sensing something as well, Hicklin looked over his shoulder at the front door. The man from the gas station had stepped inside, a hand on the grip of a 1911-model pistol.

Hicklin shoved Charlie to the floor, drew and fired twice before taking cover himself. Charlie fell hard on his elbow and stayed down, shocked by the gunfire.

And the screams.

He watched from under the pew as men and women scrambled like dancers over a hot bed of coals, their steps prompting bits of sawdust into the air. A woman fell in the aisle; the mason jar in her hand broke, a clear liquid splashing into her eyes. Charlie heard a man still shouting from the pulpit. Hicklin had hardly moved, standing brazenly and firing toward the church's front door.

Charlie watched a rattlesnake drop to the floor and slither away. Panic gripped him.

Because there were a lot of snakes.

And they had started to bite.

*   *   *

The pastor was
holding four snakes in one hand when the men opened fire on each other.

… the age of antlers is upon us! he shouted.

As if some hypnotic hold on the rattlers had been broken, one whipped at his neck, the fangs unfolding from the roof of the snake's mouth, catching cotton and skin. The snake struck again. Quick as a car wreck, the fangs hooked onto the pastor's jawline, the snake hanging there like a necktie. The pastor opened his mouth and groaned. His knees buckled.

The snakes lashed out, recoiled, reloaded. The congregation fled, a mass of colliding bodies. The timber rattlers—usually reluctant to bite—had followed some cue peculiar to serpents, striking indiscriminately. A woman had gathered more than a dozen in both hands. She held them high above her head, even as the snakes bit into her wrists and forearms. She didn't or couldn't let go.

The gunshots were deafening. People spilled over the pews. Some simply cowered and screamed as though shell-shocked. Shot in the neck, a man spun on his feet and fell on a cream-bellied snake more than five feet long. The eastern diamondback, smothered, struck him near the wound in his throat.

The camera man dropped his gear and escaped through the front door. Others dodged the reptiles by hopping, dancing, a clumsy clubfooted shuffle to the church's lone exit. But the snakes were animated. Achilles tendons and calf muscles their targets.

The guitar player wielded his instrument like an axe, bringing the Fender down on a knot of serpents. His amp erupted in a wail of feedback.

Rattlesnakes hung from his arms like the long leather fringe of a frontier jacket.

*   *   *

Sallie Crews scrolled
through e-mails on her mobile from the backseat of a sport-utility. A convoy of Bureau vehicles headed north into the mountains, escorted by Georgia State Patrol units, the desolate road they traveled illuminated by a bevy of blue emergency lights. All the resources of the GSP, GBI and federal agents were at her disposal, as were the Aviation Unit, Field Operations and a local SWAT. The commander of Troop B had pledged officers from six different posts. Sheriff's Deputies from four neighboring counties pitched in, establishing roadblocks and checkpoints along targeted routes. The logistics of a tri-state manhunt were being sorted through.

The photos of three men had been released to the media.

She couldn't get Sheriff Lang on his cell phone.

The convoy slowed before taking a turn. The road they were on uneven and in need of repaving. The driver cracked a window. The air smelled untainted and earthy.

“Pardon me, Agent Crews?”

Jesse Moye, a detective on loan from a metro county's Crimes Against Persons Unit, clicked off his phone and signaled to Crews in the backseat. She looked up from a pile of paperwork in her lap with a cop's natural anticipation for bad news.

“What is it, Detective?”

“A Jube County nine-one-one dispatcher received a call about thirty minutes ago. Report of shots fired at the Church of the Holy Lamb. Apparently two men just started shooting at each other during the service.”

“Sounds like somebody didn't like the sermon.”

“Or gunfight at the Jesus Christ Corral.”

“Where the hell is that church?” Crews said.

“Not far from where y'all picked up those thermals,” Moye said, already punching in an address on a dash-mounted GPS screen. “By the time you get to the church the road doesn't have a name anymore. Deputy Hansbrough from Jube County will lead us up there. You get ahold of Sheriff Lang?”

Crews shook her head, trying to quell a wave of dread and apprehension.

At the intersection of State Route 29 Hansbrough's patrol car flashed its lights and took off, leading the convoy up a long, winding switchback that cut through an enormous pine forest. The mountain they were climbing struck Crews as massive. And sparsely settled.

Crews felt a cramp of inevitability.

There was big trouble ahead in the darkness.

*   *   *

Lang slumped, the
slug in his left shoulder having taken his breath away, rendering him temporarily immobile. He could barely raise the Kimber with his right hand. Pinned behind a pew, he tried to count how many rounds he had left in the clip.

One? Two?

The panic inside the church was unbelievable. Screams of agony from more than a dozen snakebite victims.

So this is what hellfire eternal sounds like.…

He tried to put pressure on the wound. He struggled to sit up, thinking of the seconds he had to spare.

Wound 'em if you have to. Center mass. Even if it costs you your life.

He peeked over the edge of the pew. The gunman drew a bead on Lang but was suddenly distracted by a man with a guitar. Instead the gunman pivoted and shot the axe-slinger point-blank, then snapped two shots back in the Sheriff's direction. Lang scrambled the length of the pew, staying low as wood splintered around his head. A few people desperate to escape tripped over him. He glimpsed a bloody face. A swollen hand. A serpent loose on the floor.

The gunman pulled Charlie Colquitt up and proceeded to shoot anyone—man or snake—in his way. He kept an eye out for Lang, too, suspecting he was the only other pistol in the house.

Know your background,
Lang reminded himself. He could hear a child crying from the far end of the church. A woman yelling. A man praying loudly for forgiveness. The warning rattles from a dozen snakes.

And kill him.

But kill that boy and I'll hand deliver you to Hell myself.

Before he could come up shooting, a timber rattler jerked through the air and bit him on the wrist of his injured arm. The snake struck him again, near the kneecap, its fangs snagging on the denim upon release. Lang wouldn't have thought something could move so fast.

He kicked the snake away and crawled to the far wall. He tried to raise the Kimber, but Hicklin had him covered. They regarded each other for a moment, standoff-style, until Hicklin shook his head, a gesture of mercy or merely a suggestion Lang would never know.

He dropped the Kimber. The localized pain of the snakebites was spreading body-wide. Lang was going into shock.

At the door Hicklin kicked a woman out of his way, pulling Charlie across the threshold and into the night.

Lang's vision dimmed. Outside, several more gunshots could be heard. A man screamed. Lang felt the dry scales of a snake brush past a dangling finger. The world went numb and cold.

*   *   *

Hicklin drove back
up the mountain, slowing only to study a break in the trees or an outcrop. He finally turned onto a path just wide enough for the pickup, paved with pine straw and tunneling through the woodlands. With the trail unmarked and unpaved, the truck's suspension suffered mightily before Hicklin hit asphalt again near the state line. The land dipped and climbed, as if the countryside couldn't make up its mind. They followed a stream for a while, the road sweeping back and forth, always descending, a feral home or farmhouse dotting the foothills around them. Charlie saw a sign that read:
Tennessee Welcomes You,
but Hicklin had nothing to say. He noticed telephone poles and road signs, fleeting moonlit views of houses sitting well off the land, properties bordered by cattle fencing or barbwire.

They crossed over railroad tracks that looked long in disuse.

Thirty minutes later Hicklin merged onto the interstate, still in shock, the pain in his back and left shoulder a dull throb. He drove hunched over, one hand on the wheel, the other reaching back to feel the wound.

“Should of known one of them poison-drinking assholes would have a piece in they car,” he finally said.

Hicklin replayed the scene in his mind, hearing Lipscomb's voice:
You're slipping, son.
Charlie had turned a corner and was sprinting toward the pickup. But Hicklin lagged behind, almost strutting like some cocksure action movie star. Didn't know if it was arrogance or showmanship, but for a moment it was as though he were back on the yard and all eyes were on him.

He'd felt the big sting of the bullet first and
then
heard the pop. When he turned, a shaky teenager with an old .22 stood there, wide-eyed confusion on his face, as if the boy thought there was only one bullet in the handgun or an unspoken courtesy which allowed Hicklin to return fire. Hicklin raised the HK and blew most of the kid's ear off. Then Hicklin gut-shot him twice. The boy dropped the pistol and fell to the ground, clutching his stomach.

Hicklin's thoughts drifted to his mentor and friend again, up in the woods, Lipscomb praying his fearful prayers. Making promises. Offering to reverse the hit ordered by the AB leadership inside. If Lipscomb could see Hicklin now he'd be laughing.

“Why didn't you kill that man back there?” Charlie said.

“Which one? I think I killed a couple.”

“The man who came in behind us. The man you shot at first.”

“Johnny Law?”
Good question. How did he stumble on us? Thought I lost him at the gas station.

Hicklin watched three highway patrol units racing northbound, followed by an ambulance and an unmarked cruiser with dashboard LEDs strobing. He eased off the gas. Red and blue lights disappeared in the rearview mirror.

Hicklin adjusted himself in the driver's seat, wincing from pain. He lit a cigarette, aware that Charlie was watching him. He could feel the back of his bloodstained shirt sticking to the skin.

“Can I get one of those?” Charlie said, nodding to the pack of cigarettes on the dash.

“No. You can't.”

“Why not?”

“Because they're bad for you.”

Hicklin winked. Not wanting Charlie to worry. Hicklin was doing enough worrying for the two of them.

He drove south for an hour. Plentiful signs for hotels, fast food and gas stations at every exit. Charlie had nodded off. He mumbled something in his sleep. Hicklin turned on the radio, hoping a little music would take his mind off the bullet in his back. Classic Country Gold, Ray Price singing “I Can't Go Home Like This.”

Charlie woke with a start, grasping at some imaginary projectile from his dream. He yawned. Rubbed sleep from his eyes. For a while he watched Hicklin, noticing how he was flexing the fingers on his right hand.

“I used to live up here,” Charlie said, acknowledging the signs for an upcoming exit.

“Where?”

“By the university.”

“What makes you think you don't live there no more?”

“I just don't,” Charlie said after a long pause.

When he looked over at Hicklin Charlie was concerned by what he saw. All the color in Hicklin's face had gone. He shifted in his seat again, every breath costing him.

“Is there a drugstore? Maybe a Walmart?” he said.

“Next exit. It's open twenty-four hours.”

“We need food. Some clean clothes. I need—”

Hicklin held his breath at the sight of a police cruiser with its light bar flashing, parked on the shoulder of the exit ramp. He signaled, falling in behind a tractor-trailer. Charlie slumped in his seat. The police officer appeared to be studying a laptop. Didn't even look up. Hicklin made a left turn at the stoplight. Checked the rearview mirror. The Crown Vic started rolling but went the other direction.

It was a busy strip, restaurants and shopping centers on either side of the parkway. A lot of people still out that time of night. The whole situation made Hicklin nervous. He clenched his jaw. No matter what he did, he couldn't get comfortable. The pain was getting worse.