Travel Bug (24 page)

“Sorry, I tried to…”

“Don’t worry about that.”

Kirk looked at Todd. The young man who had such great aspirations was not stupid. He knew what Kirk was going to do him. He smiled wickedly. Kirk put his death mask back on.

“Do it.”

The black glove came down on Todd’s face. He smothered him. The mortal wound would have killed him but Kirk didn’t want to fall behind schedule. The boss man accepted no excuses and expected sheer perfection.

The final part of the job was now done. It was time to leave the chilly outside weather and go indoors…

Kirk walked in the office, dressed like death. Henley laughed and then said actors are supposed to stay for the whole show.

Kirk nodded.

“Why are you here and not playing death in the hayride scene?”

Kirk smiled but did not answer him.

“Stop messing around,” he said.

“Sorry, kid. It’s all part of the job.”

Then Kirk took off his death mask and smiled at Mr. Henley.

“It’s all done, sir.”

“Good. Here is the money for you and your crew…”

“If you don’t mind,” said Kirk.

“Count it if you like…”

“My son was an idiot. I still hurt inside from my own foolish actions. Sacrifices are needed sometimes. Haven’t you ever heard of Abraham?”

“These deaths will make your hayride infamous. You will be the victim of a hundred lawsuits”

He was speechless.

“That doesn’t bother you?”

“Someday, people will all want to go to the haunted hayride where real people actually died! It will be the ultimate word of mouth advertising.”

Kirk smiled.

“Now, let me show you one more thing before we go.”

He brought Kirk to the front of the field. It was not quite the beginning of the hayride but soon after that. There were tiki torches and some glow in the dark red eyes placed carefully in the trees. Then he saw it.

The elder Mr. Henley had taken the body of the girl Ralph locked in the trunk and put it to good use. Her severed head was on an unlit tiki torch.

“A haunted hayride where people die?” asked Harold. He smiled. “I just don’t think that would have been likely to occur in real life.”

“I know but what about the rapture?”

“Not bloody likely,” said the old man.

“Sorry about the violence,” I said.

“That’s okay, I warned you……”

“Writing little stories is great but they are not providing adequate clues… to finding out how this woman from Rapture actually ends the world…”

I smiled at the old man.

“She’s going mad and stories and drunkenness is how we are going to beat her, God damn it!”

“Wow, Harold.”

My great grandfather and I starred at one another. We then both looked down at the floor, almost in shame, almost at the same time. Then our eyes met and we both laughed at the same time. This would have been a real Norman Rockwell moment but there was a certain disgusting giant bug behind him with red eyes and long, long, black legs.

“The unnamed species is ruining the moment, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I answered him.

“I thought as much, Andrew.”

“I see.”

“You know we shouldn’t hate it as much as we do.”

He was absolutely right. It brought us together and I really did miss my mother and father. I also really loved Harold more than I ever loved them. You talk about your Catholic guilt. I felt really bad about that but then again being a cold, distant parent with a gigantic hidden bug is also a sin.

“I can almost read your mind, son.”

“Well, what am I thinking about?”

“Andrew, you are thinking about the meaning of sin.”

“Yes,” I answered him.

“I have an idea. We go to the future, I mean to where she has fucked up the future so far. If the world hasn’t ended then maybe that was never her goal,” said Harold.

“I suppose…”

“Well, hell, think about it…”

“Harold, I will…”

“Andrew, let’s go to the future, the one she changed so far from her destructive actions. Let’s always say about twenty years or so.”

We did.

The preacher knee deep in the murky river water smiled at the man who was about to be baptized. The man looked back at him and returned his friendly smile. Two deacons, reaching out, long arms, smiled at the preacher and the man about to be baptized.

“Stephen, do you reject Satan and all his false promises?”

“Yes,” the man answered him.

“Have you repented and prepared for final baptism?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Then I baptize you…… in the name of the father.”

The man went down once.

“The son…”

The man went down twice.

“And the holy ghost…”

The man went down and didn’t come up again.

“Look, Harold, I know that adult baptism is different but…”

“Andrew, they had chains around the man from the beginning, didn’t’ you see?”

“No.”

The preacher and the deacons came out of the water. They walked towards a busload of church members and kept walking by them. Then they were speaking to some men uniform, they looked like policemen.

“The deed is done, his crimes are paid for and his soul has been saved,” said the preacher.

“Amen,” said the strange policeman.

“What’s going on here, Harold?”

“An American theocracy, Andrew that’s what this is.”

“God, she finally got what she wanted.”

“No, she got what she used to want. Her faith is shattered like broken glass; this is not what she wants.”

“Let’s see more.”

We did.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Pastor of the United States…”

We were watching TV.

“Oh my God, that’s her…”

“The Rapture woman’s old pastor from when she was little, Andrew. Now he’s the leader of the formerly free world. Pastor Fred Anderson, he’s what used to be referred to as president.”

“The senate voted today on whether to adopt some of the same tough anti-crime punishments as the Europeans…”

“They’re Catholic theocracies now,” said Harold.

“How the hell are you such an expert?”

“I can’t lie anymore; I’ve been here before, son.”

“Certain hideous crimes, murder, rape, blasphemy and witchcraft can now be legally punished by burning at the stake. We don’t like to emulate the practices of Catholics because they’re obviously not real saved Christians but these are some pretty good ideas.”

“Like Christmas and the trinity,” said Harold.

“Smart ass,” I said.

“Secondly, since it is the Christmas season…”

“See, I told you,” said Harold.

“I don’t want to come back here again to listen to him so please be quiet,” I said.

“We should be more forgiving and just. The sentence for drinking a beer is now only one month in jail but hard liquor is still six months hard labor.”

“Didn’t Jesus drink wine?” I asked.

“No, you fool, that was grape juice.”

“This kind of society that we have built, a true Christian nature will keep the antichrist from rearing his ugly head. It will also keep us safe from that terrible old serpent, the devil.”

“Amen,” shouted the senate.

“Yes, amen,” said the pastor of the United States.

“Amen!” shouted the front row.

“That’s more like it, feel the Holy Spirit!” said Anderson.

“God, this is a nightmare,” said Harold.

“Now my fellow Christians, we will move on to a new era of peace and understanding in the Muslim world. They are now for the first time engaging in real treaties with us as fellow God fearing people.”

“What?” I asked.

“They always hated us for our secular freedom, Andrew. Not it’s gone. We’re a lot like countries we used to make fun of on late night TV.

“Righteous living has now proven to be a great asset in diplomatic relations with billions of people who have a different faith than us. Although they are going straight to hell, their beliefs demand mutual understanding and cultural respect to prevent the end times.”

This was what my once great country came to now. We finally defeated the terrorists. Well, at least in part, we gave into them and now we were a Christian version of them.

“The people who want moral freedom need to be put to the test or put out to pasture,” said the pastor.

“What’s he talking about?” I asked.

“Just listen, Andrew.”

“I do believe we can offer certain cultural exchanges,” said Anderson. “For example, we are offering them all the information on final baptism they want and they will teach us how to behead nonbelievers.”

“I am proud to say, crime is down to half a percent of the U.S population of five hundred million this year.”

“What?” I asked.

“Just listen, son.”

“Since we made abortion illegal and put these tough crime laws into effect, America is a safe place to live. Extremely low crime and the protection of the unborn…… Now that the mandatory homosexual castration law has been introduced, it’s up to the states,” said the pastor of the United States.

“Wow,” I said.

“The price of freedom is considerable,” he said.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“Still, we are finally at peace with the Muslims and abortion is finally given a little scrutiny for a change,” I said.

“The price of freedom,” said Harold. “You can’t see that this sick society is exchanging one form of evil for another…”

“How about the common folk, how are they doing?”

“No. They’re mostly starving to death. Let us wish ourselves to the nearest public street corner, courtesy of one big, ugly bug!”

“Okay,” I said.

We did. It was to our regret.

“This so called young lady has some old fashioned sinful material straight from the enemy,” said a young man, dressed mostly in black.

“Amen,” answered ten kids simultaneously.

“We need to purify her. It’s them or us.”

“Amen,” the neo Hitler youth repeated.

“What is this?” the charismatic young man inquired.

“A movie,” said a young person standing beside him.

“The kind that stands for…”

I’m not stupid. This was vigilante justice to the core. These kids were staying up late after curfew to punish the wicked sinners who stay up late at night and watch forbidden movies or read banned books. It was really beginning to be hard to tell the difference between Christianity and Islam now. Jefferson’s wall of church and state had been destroyed.

“Movies, books, they… can lead a saved convert to perdition…”

“Yes,” said one of the blind followers.

“Amen!” said another member of the secret congregation.

“I think our lord and savior Jesus Christ would think that burning her alive was a just punishment for such wickedness…”

“Amen,” they shouted in unison.

The crowd slowly started to grab this girl and tie her to a piece of wood with hay beneath it. They poured gasoline all over her and she choked and screamed. She vomited up the gasoline once again and the righteous one spoke.

“For your wicked sins, burning… a great atonement…”

“Amen,” the blind followers shouted.

He poured it but then received a harsh thump on his head from a strange policeman.

“You, sinner…”

Thump, thump, he was unconscious and the girl was allowed to go free. The police had come and they didn’t seem sympathetic to the vigilantes in this particular case.

There was now nothing but an empty space where the crowd of angry vigilantes used to be. Only the evidence of sin remained.

“What was the offensive material?” asked Harold.

“Look…”

It was an old movie, a really old movie, VHS in fact. A classic 80’s cult favorite that stood the test of time.

“What is it?” asked my great grandfather.

“It was ‘Party School’ starring Ian Flick.”

“The future is appalling,” I said.

“This one is,” answered my great grandfather.

I always knew that man was meant to have free will and now in America it had been taken away. In other countries, where they cut clitorises’ off of women and made them wear burkas, free will had already been taken away.

“Awful, Harold, this is an unspeakable crime against freedom and the intentions of those who gave their blood for freedom. Can it be stopped?”

“I don’t know, Andrew.”

“I thought as much.”

“We’ll need to see more, Andrew.”

“Yes.”

Perhaps this whole idea of personal freedom had spoiled the men of the west for so long; we forgot what freedom really was. Perhaps real faith, mysticism and prophecy had given way to paranoia and an insecure need for personal safety. Fate was a very flattering concept and maybe, just maybe the end times could be prevented by a guard doing his duty.

Part of me was delighted. I won’t lie, I have always thought abortion as common birth control was immoral and partial birth procedures were infanticide. It would easily open the door to euthanasia and perhaps getting rid of some folks who dared to show political dissent. That’s what a man who came to power in Germany did prior to focusing all his venom on the Jews. Once the poor, the sick, the mentally retarded, the deformed and those who are different are targeted genocide is next.

The babies were being labeled here at Sinners Identification Incorporated. They at least, showed mercy on the weak and the feeble minded. Those with special needs disabilities would never reach that age of accountability where they could meet and know the lord in a personal way. So they were treated like children and expected to recover the rest of their intellect when they got to heaven. Babies that had a tendency towards homosexuality were put aside so they could go to special camps. That way they could learn of the consequences of their sin in advance or end up in prison where relationships like that naturally or unnaturally flourish.

“To punish a baby like this,” said Harold. “Andrew, it’s so wrong.”

“No doubt about it, Harold. This place has some good points to it, the babies leave alive for example but…”

“Free will is missing,” he said.

“The absence of free will is slavery……”

“Yes, Andrew, it is.”

“Why don’t they get the babies who come from families of addictions?”