She knew how he felt because, surprisingly, she was no longer frightened or nervous. She was furious. At every single person in Holyoake for what they wanted to do to Becky—gentle, loving Becky, her dearest and oldest friend.
The trumpets blasted again. As if in echo, another roll of thunder sounded out in the surrounding countryside. The thunder was growing closer—but not close enough, Hallie knew, to help them now.
A third fanfare, and the doors of the church were flung open.
The chattering ceased, and all eyes were trained on the emerging procession.
First came the elders in their scarlet robes, carrying flaming torches. Under their hoods, their faces looked smug and odiously self-righteous.
Then came Reverend Thoreson with Becky, who was walking slowly and with difficulty. Her head drooped, and the vicar seemed to be holding her upright. She was obviously heavily sedated, because she stumbled and nearly fell several times. She was dressed in a long white gown and crowned with flower wreaths. The wreaths were hanging lopsidedly over one eye.
Mrs. Grigsby followed close behind, beaming.
Like the matron of honor at a wedding, Hallie noted with loathing. The old lady was even wearing a white gown in honor of the occasion.
A little cheer went up at the appearance of the main event, followed by a flutter of applause.
As the elders, the vicar, and Becky proceeded toward the pyre, Simon nodded almost imperceptibly to Hallie and Adam, and one by one, they quietly slipped away from the crowd.
Hallie hugged the edge of the Green, stopping frequently to make sure she hadn’t been detected, but she soon realized no one was watching her. Every eye was trained on Becky, the Fire Maiden. No one wanted to miss one cry. One expression of agony. They’d waited ten long years for a show like this, and they wanted to milk it for all it was worth.
They say they’re doing this for The Goddess, Hallie thought disgustedly, but it’s really for them. They’re evil and cruel, and this is how they get their kicks.
She saw Adam and Simon waiting for her behind a house that bordered the alley that would take them, unseen, to Norman’s general store. They beckoned frantically, and she slipped across the lawn, keeping as close as she could to the shelter of the boxwood hedges that grew in such profusion in Holyoake.
“Hurry!” commanded Adam as they ran down the alley.
One of Hallie’s kid slippers fell off as she ran, but she didn’t stop to retrieve it. She was out of breath and gasping from a stitch in her side by the time they raced around the side of Norman’s store, past the garage, to the shed that held the village fire engine.
“Damn! The door’s locked!” Adam said, yanking on a huge, ancient padlock. “You’d think they’d keep it open and ready for action.”
“Stand back,” Simon said, picking up a large rock and bashing the padlock once, twice, three times. The lock dropped open, and he tore it from the hasp and threw it to the ground.
The three of them flung open the wide double doors and ran inside.
The fire engine sat waiting in its newly painted, well-tended glory. Waiting, as it always did, with a full tank of gas and an even fuller tank of water. Waiting to perform its heroic job as village fire extinguisher.
Only, today it would be called on to extinguish the fires of Beltane.
Adam opened the door on the driver’s side of the fire engine and peered inside. “Norm didn’t leave the keys in the ignition. Are they on the wall somewhere?”
Hallie looked on both sides of the door. “I can’t see them anywhere. What about you, Simon?”
“No. Do you suppose he keeps them under the floor mat?”
Adam lifted the mats and pawed around frantically. Then he lowered the sun visors. Nothing. “We’re wasting time. I’ll have to hot-wire it.”
He reached under the dashboard by the ignition switch, did something with a couple of wires, and within seconds he had the engine going.
“Okay, Hallie. It’s all yours,” he said as he backed out.
“I’ve never driven a gearshift car before, you know, much less a fire engine,” she said nervously, crawling behind the wheel.
“Now you tell me,” he groaned.
“You can do it, Hallie,” Simon said reassuringly. “You have to. Adam and I will be manning the water pumps.”
“The gears are like the letter H,” Adam instructed. “It’s easy. The top left corner of the H is reverse. Bottom left is first gear. Top right, second gear. Bottom right, third. Got it?”
“Yeah,” Hallie mumbled. “I think.”
She noticed, to her relief, that a diagram of the gears had been drawn into the hard rubber knob of the gearshift.
“Are you ready?” she shouted to the boys, who had taken up their positions on the back of the truck.
“Ready!” they shouted back.
Out on the Green, Hallie knew, Becky was being led like a sheep to the slaughter by Reverend Thoreson. Up the steps to the platform and then to the stake.
In just a few seconds those evil, leering elders would be lighting the fires.
Hallie threw the truck into reverse and stomped on the gas pedal.
The truck, bucking and lurching, careened backward out of the shed, ripping off one of the shed’s wooden doors. Hallie tromped on the brake, relieved to see, after a quick glance in the rearview mirror, that the boys were still hanging on. Sure, they were yelling something angry and unintelligible at her, but they were hanging on.
So far, so good, Hallie thought. She squinted down at the diagram on the gearshift knob, then rammed it into first gear, stepped on the gas, and yanked the wheel in the general direction of the Green.
The truck responded with an enthusiastic roar. When she thought it was moving fast enough, she shifted into second, then into third, the truck leaping and shuddering each time. At one point she felt she was riding a bucking bronco as it lurched and dropped, lurched and dropped, down the alley toward the Green.
Hallie disregarded the terrified shouts from the back of the truck.
There was the Green, dead ahead. Becky was being tied to the stake, and the elders were holding their flaming torches aloft, obviously eager to touch them to the dried timber and start the so-called ceremony.
Hallie roared across the road, up and over the curb, narrowly missing a lamppost, as she headed toward the Green. Reverend Thoreson was putting the finishing touches on Becky’s bonds.
As if a part of the script, multiple flashes of lightning suddenly illumined the sky, followed by claps of thunder that came rolling, reverberating down the valley.
Almost in answer to the thunder, the ululating scream of the fire truck’s siren filled the air, and the red light atop the truck began to rotate, shooting out scarlet flashes. Hallie, carried away by the spirit of the moment, had hit every button on the dash.
The crowd scattered, screaming, as the truck hurtled toward them down the long, well-manicured length of the village Green. The carefully choreographed ceremony dissolved into shambles.
Reverend Thoreson took in the situation with one quick glance. Realizing he must now act quickly if the sacrificial rite was to take place, he signaled the elders to throw their torches on the dried wood and bones of the bonfire.
The fire caught hold rapidly, and little curls of smoke began to rise heavenward.
As the wood and bones began to burn, Hallie, steering erratically, crashed into the center of the flickering pyre and came to a screeching halt just in front of the stake where Becky, still unaware, was tethered.
Then, fearful that the flames might blow up her gas tank, Hallie frantically threw the truck into reverse with a dreadful grinding of gears. The truck shot backward, knocking down a couple of red-robed elders.
The dried wood and bones caught fire surprisingly quickly.
Simon had started the water pump on the rear of the tanker as they’d left the shed, and now he and Adam grabbed the two hoses, jumped down from the truck and began spraying first the rapidly
growing fire that surrounded Becky, then the people who were now surging toward them, shouting.
Simon, adjusting the nozzle, directed a steady stream of water at Reverend Thoreson, knocking him off his feet. In the meantime Adam dropped his hose, which writhed and twisted like a snake on the ground, and raced up the steps to free Becky.
Simon trained his hose on the crowd, keeping them back.
Up on the platform, Becky, still under the influence of Mrs. Grigsby’s drugs, resisted slightly as Adam quickly untied Reverend Thoreson’s ineffectual knots. Then Adam grabbed Becky under her arms and hauled her over the wet, smoking bones to the truck. Holding her under one arm, he managed to yank open the passenger’s-side door and thrust her inside, slamming the door behind her.
In the meantime Simon continued to spray the worshipers of Holyoake with a steady stream of high-pressure water.
“Okay! Let’s go!” Adam shouted, picking up his hose and jumping back on the truck.
He and Simon clung desperately to the truck, still managing to direct a stream of water at their pursuers, as they sped across the Green.
Reverend Thoreson crawled to his feet and attempted to take off after them, but Simon trained the hose on him and scored a direct hit. The reverend went down for the second, and final, time.
The storm had moved in closer, and another bolt of lightning flashed over the church steeple, hitting the lightning rod. Hallie, through the rearview mirror, saw a sizzling blue flame trace the outline of the steeple and the church.
The thunder reverberated all around them now, as on the ground the wet, bedraggled villagers picked themselves up and began to scream helplessly.
The sound of their screaming was drowned out by a mighty clap of thunder that accompanied, almost simultaneously, the huge forked bolt of lightning that hit the holy oak, cleaving its trunk and striking with deadly force those who huddled for shelter beneath its outspread branches.
The dry wood of the ancient oak burst into flames immediately, each branch a torch.
Hard upon the heels of the lightning came a mighty wind, scattering the fire throughout the village.
Hallie struggled with the wheel as the truck headed into the wind the storm had brought. Behind her she could see the fire spreading from the holy oak to the wooden houses that faced the Green. They were going up like tinder. Shrill screams split the air.
“Too bad we’ve got the only fire truck in town,” she heard Adam shout at Simon.
“Good-bye, Holyoake, and good riddance!” Simon shouted back.
The barricade on the road leading from town was still in place, but those supposedly manning it were running frantically past them, back toward the doomed, burning village.
Hallie didn’t stop, even though there was no one pursuing them any longer. She stomped harder, exultantly, on the gas pedal and crashed through the barricade, sending it flying skyward.
She could hear the boys behind her cheering her on.
Her hand on the wheel was surer now, more skillful, as they raced forward toward safety. She was getting the hang of this gearshift driving at long last. It really wasn’t as complicated as it seemed.
On the seat beside her, Becky stirred, then sat up. Her eyes were clear.
“Wh—where am I?” she asked.
Hallie, eyes on the road, grinned happily. “I’d say you’ve just come home.”
Becky looked over at Hallie and gasped. “Geez, Hallie, what are you doing? You don’t know how to drive a gearshift! You could get a ticket!”
Hallie began to laugh hysterically.
Behind them, a red glow lit up the sky.
The town of Holyoake had just become its own burnt sacrifice.
Class Trip II Page 12