Snake Handlin' Man

by D. J. Butler

  The burly club manager pushed out the door first, not even breathing hard from his burden—Adrian was a solidly-built guy, but he was short. Mike followed, then Twitch, then Eddie, holding the car keys. Jim exited last, looking around the diner as the flames charged out of the kitchen and into the rest of the building, as if daring more snakes to show their scaly heads.

  Jim was no paladin, but the guy really hated evil, and had a jones for whupping its backside whenever he could.

  Speaking of backsides, Eddie’s hurt. He limped into the gravel parking lot next to the diner, looking for a car in the pale afternoon sun. Pale, but really hot. Eddie would have been pathetically grateful for just two minutes of Chicago winter.

  “I’ll have him when you’re ready,” Owen grunted, and headed across the street for his club.

  The town wasn’t much more than a crossroads, Highway 56 and some nameless county road that cut out at right angles through the fields of dryland wheat. Everything out in this part of the world was right angles, it seemed to Eddie. Showed a lack of imagination. There wasn’t a rise of land higher than six feet in sight, and the enormous watery-blue sky was broken at the margins only by about a dozen buildings. The diner was nameless, a third-rate imitation of a Denny’s built entirely of plywood and now burning. Correia’s across the street looked like it might once have been a barn, built of corrugated steel and windows covered in iron bars and chicken wire. The two neon signs in its windows read BEER and GIRLS. Past the bar was a combination gas station / mini-mart and then a long low building with a boardwalk and a sign that read FEED AND SEED. Further beyond that, past a quarter mile of weeds, Eddie saw some bulkier building, like a smallish big box store. Finally, there were other buildings scattered here and there whose uses Eddie couldn’t immediately identify—houses or municipal buildings or signless businesses. They all looked like prefabricated sheds, square and ugly.

  And that was the whole town.

  It was easy to find Sami’s vehicle. Other than the band’s hammered brown Dodge van, the dusty little Camry was the only car in the parking lot.

  “Start the van,” Eddie told Mike. The big Mexican piled into the driver’s seat and got the engine growling; Jim and Twitch followed Eddie to look at the waitress’s car. “Crank the AC up as high as you can!” Eddie yelled over his shoulder as Mike ground his window open with the old-fashioned crank-style handle.

  But there was nothing in the Camry. A bent pine tree freshener, a purse with a few dog-eared bucks in it, a credit card and a driver’s license, and a book so creased in the spine it almost fell apart as Eddie picked it up: Chicken Soup for the Waitress’s Soul.

  “Nuts,” Eddie muttered. “Check the trunk,” he called to Twitch and pushed the button that opened it.

  He sat in the driver’s seat and leafed through the Chicken Soup book. It was full of stories about cute animals, and people helping each other, and good folks ground down by life who had faith and therefore things eventually went their way. Optimistic bullshit, all of it. Buy my book, because I will tell you what you want to believe, that you can change your life with the pure and holy power of your hope. Eddie snorted, but not too hard. He didn’t really disdain the book, any more than he disdained its readers. He almost admired them—they were trying to put a good face on existence, trying to live happy lives.

  Really, it was better that they didn’t know the truth.

  Eddie rummaged through the glove compartment. A compact mirror, a stub of lipstick, a ballpoint pen without a cap.

  Nothing else.

  “Hell.” He got out of the car.

  Bam, bam, bam! Mike pounded on the outside of the van’s door with his fist. “Come on, man!” he shouted. “Adrian’s dying!”

  “I remember,” Eddie muttered.

  “Nothing in the trunk,” Twitch reported. “Unless you think antifreeze will help our boy.” The fairy held up a sloshing blue jug and grinned.

  “Nothing in the car, either,” Eddie reported. “We may be out of luck.” Then he found the bookmark in the middle of Chicken Soup—it was a pamphlet, printed cheap on a photocopy machine on a single sheet of paper. “Hold on.”

  Jim loomed over him, leaning in close.

  “What is it?” Mike called.

  “That doesn’t look Christian,” Twitch observed. “Not that I’m an expert, but don’t you people usually put Jesus on your pamphlets?”

  Twitch was right, it didn’t look Christian. First Church of the Redeemer Nehushtan was the title printed on the front of the pamphlet, over an image that looked like a caduceus, a snake twisted around a tall cross. Under the serpent-cross was the name Phineas Irving, Preacher. “Yeah,” Eddie agreed. “We do.”

  He flipped open the pamphlet to look at the inside. There was an address and a short quotation that Eddie knew immediately: “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them: they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

  “Mark sixteen,” he said. “The pamphlet’s Christian. I think.”

  “Bible?” Twitch asked.

  “They shall take up serpents,” Eddie read out loud. “They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

  “That sounds fitting,” Twitch looked at the pamphlet, nodding as if he could read.

  “It’s Bible,” Eddie said, and Jim nodded.

  “It’s Bible again, Mike!” Twitch called out to the band’s bassist. “Wouldn’t you know it?”

  “Chingado,” Mike grumbled. “Moses half or Jesus half?”

  “Jesus half,” Eddie said. “But does it matter?”

  Mike shrugged. “Just saying I should have read that when I had the chance. Instead of all those comic books.”

  “Yeah,” Eddie shot back, “you should have. But you ain’t dead, so it ain’t too late.”

  “Too late for me,” Mike shook his head.

  “It ain’t too late,” Eddie disagreed. “It ain’t too late for anyone.”

  “Not even for the damned?” Mike asked. It wasn’t an academic question, not for any of them, but Eddie let it hang. It was only mid-afternoon, and he’d already had more than enough hell and damnation to last him the day. “But what good does it do Adrian?”

  Eddie noticed some scribbling at the back of the pamphlet and looked closer. APEP, someone had written. Next to a squiggly line. He frowned, feeling an uncomfortable nervousness at the base of his spine.

  In the distance, he heard sirens. Could be the fire department, from some bigger town, or maybe the county owned fire trucks. Could be an ambulance. Could be cops. None of those would be much of a problem.

  He held up the pamphlet for Jim to see. Jim shot his ice blue eyes over it quickly, and nodded.

  “Come on,” Eddie said to Twitch, and he climbed into the shotgun seat. Jim and the fairy got into the back.

  Eddie set his chunky watch to a two hour, forty-five minute countdown.

  “Where are we going?” Mike asked.

  Eddie flipped back to the front page of the pamphlet and picked up his sawed-off shotgun. “This is your lucky day, Mike,” he said. “It ain’t even Sunday, and we’re going to church.”

  ***

  Chapter Three

  “Who’s the redeemer Nehushtan?” Mike asked. The bass player was driving, but he rolled slowly through town, a little directionless, and he spared a glance for the pamphlet. “I know there’s a lot of saints, but I don’t think I’ve heard of that one. Is he one of the weird ones, like he sat on a pole for forty years or had his skin peeled off or somebody forced him to eat his own ears?”

  They rolled past Correia’s just as the big manager, Owen, shuffled through the bar’s front door with Adrian slung across his shoulder. He winked and waved before he disappeared.

  “The Nehushtan ain’t a saint,” Eddie said. “It’s an object. Book of Numbers.”

  “Who
knew that memorizing the Bible would be such a useful thing for the guitar player in a rock and roll band?” Twitch smirked.

  “I haven’t memorized it,” Eddie grumbled. “I’ve just read it.” Hadn’t memorized all of it, anyway.

  “Fine,” Mike surrendered. “Next time we stay in a motel nice enough to have a Gideon in the drawer, I’ll steal it. Happy?”

  “Not really.”

  “So what is it?” Twitch asked. “Is it a snake?”

  “And where are we going?” Mike asked.

  The sirens and flashing lights ahead drew closer. It looked like a couple of sheriff’s deputies in a pickup. “Let’s ask Officer Friendly,” Eddie suggested.

  “Uh … what?”

  Eddie leaned over from the shotgun seat, enjoying the squirt of conditioned air hitting his face from the slits in the dashboard, weak as it was, and jammed his hand on the horn. Mike braked, the van shuddering to a halt, and the truck slowed to meet them.

  “Twitch,” Eddie warned the fairy he was at bat.

  “Got it,” Twitch said.

  Mike and the driver of the sheriff’s truck both rolled their windows down. The deputy was a sour-faced man with thick eyebrows.

  “You got something to tell us about the fire, son,” he said gruffly to Mike, “you’d better not leave the scene.” The truck was in neutral but he revved the engine, making the point that he was on official business and in a hurry.

  Twitch leaned over Mike’s shoulder, taking on a more feminine look. It had taken Eddie a good long while to get used to the way the fairy shifted back and forth between male and female, and then was sometimes an animal, but he thought nothing of it anymore.

  “We’re not going anywhere, deputy,” Twitch said. “We’re parked right here, waiting for you.” He winked.

  “Right,” the deputy grunted, pleased. He pulled up the truck’s handbrake. “And what do you know about the fire?” He seemed to have completely forgotten that there actually was a fire, even as he was discussing it. Whatever training should have sent him to the conflagration to rescue people in peril, direct traffic, or whatever, evaporated under the direct assault of Twitch’s Glamour.

  “The snake did it,” Twitch smiled. “A snake in the kitchen.”

  “Did you manage to get your hands on the snake?” the second deputy leered. He was heavier, and wore a cowboy hat and a mustache.

  “Easy,” Eyebrows objected. “She’s a lady.” Eddie almost laughed out loud at that one. Whatever the deputy was seeing, it wasn’t the silver-haired drummer in black leather and spikes. And he definitely wasn’t seeing the horse’s tail.

  Jim shifted impatiently.

  “Address, Twitch,” Eddie muttered from the shotgun seat. “Adrian’s dying, remember.”

  “I’m new to town, gentlemen,” Twitch said to the two lawmen, “and I’m looking for someone. His name is—” he took the pamphlet from Eddie, “Phineas Irving, and his address—”

  “Crazy son of a bitch,” said Mustache.

  “You one of his weirdos, then?” asked Eyebrows. “I mean, parishioners?”

  “We get complaints,” Mustache said darkly. “Snake worshippers, or some crazy nonsense like that, and laying on of hands,” he practically slobbered at the words, “I think we all know what that means.”

  “He’s my cousin,” Twitch lied smoothly. “I’m just visiting.”

  Eyebrows jerked a thumb over his own shoulder in the direction of the big box store. “Turn right at the Sears,” he said. “Nothing else out there but your cousin and the rattlesnakes.”

  “You’ve been very helpful,” Twitch batted his eyes at the deputies. “I’m sorry you won’t remember anything about me.”

  “Me, too,” Mustache grinned, thinking he was still flirting.

  Eddie tapped Mike’s shoulder. “That’s your cue,” he whispered, and Mike put the van into gear. The deputies waved like excited little kids as the Dodge rolled forward and they disappeared from view.

  “Ugh,” Twitch flopped back onto his seat. “Two men at the same time is so exhausting.”

  Mike gulped and kept his eyes on the road.

  “Only two?” Eddie chuckled. “It looked to me like you had Mike here going, too.”

  Twitch yawned and stretched himself. “That’s our Mikey,” he said. “Excitable boy.”

  “Mike,” the bass player muttered. “Call me Mike.” He looked a little grumpy, and Jim slapped him on the shoulder to cheer him up.

  Eddie turned from his band mates, saw the Sears—

  and was stunned.

  Ice swept the ground around the blocky retailer, thick and bleak as a Minnesota lake in winter, with bodies stuck in it. Faces emerged from the ice, hundreds of them dotting the frozen plain like geese on a pond. Blue lips moaned soundlessly, and a bitter wind ripped through and around the heads, whipping up crystal flurries of snow and ice, tearing at their ears and noses and ripping away bits of flesh.

  Eddie was grateful for the burns on his bum. Their grinding pain reminded him that the vision was just a vision.

  “Damn,” he shuddered and looked away, rubbing his eyes.

  “Where do I turn?” Mike asked, and Eddie had to look back. “There’s only a parking lot.”

  He still saw the sheet of ice and the tortured heads. The sight of it hurt Eddie, and it frightened him. His glimpses of Hell were constant, but they were rarely sustained. He saw a person or a small knot of people being tortured by Azazel’s minions and then his vision passed on. He never saw this many, and he never held a vision this long.

  “Am I the only one seeing this?” he asked.

  Mike shrugged. “What, the crappy run down Sears with the dirt parking lot and no right turn?” he asked, and then he understood. “Oh.”

  “I’m the only one,” Eddie said.

  “Carajo,” Mike said by way of expressing sympathy.

  Eddie couldn’t look, and he couldn’t really keep from looking. He would have sworn the heads were looking back at him, and he felt naked and guilty. He saw the damned all the time, but the damned never saw him. What was this vision? What was this place? He shrank within himself, and then he realized something was tapping on his shoulder.

  It was Jim. The singer reached past Eddie now and pointed. Out his Infernal Eye, Eddie saw only the glacier of the damned and the wind that gnawed at their heads, but if he concentrated on the other eye, he thought he saw a dirt road exiting the parking lot at its far end. He pointed too, hesitant and uncertain.

  “I see it,” Mike said, and turned the van into the lot.

  The heads stared at Eddie as he drove through. His vision was silent, but the frost-furred lips and bluing flesh were so vivid, he imagined he could hear the crumbling, terrified moans of the damned souls. Eyes sunk deep into black pits, their lashes ripped away by the frozen wind, rolled in their sockets to stare at him as the Dodge trundled across the parking lot. They were so close, and so many, and had been there so long, that Eddie began to feel cold.

  And then they were gone, and the van was back in the griddle-hot and griddle-flat desert of the Oklahoma panhandle, rattling along a dirt road between two fields of burnt-brown wheat stalks.

  Eddie sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “What the hell is wrong with that Sears?” he asked.

  “I dunno,” Mike shrugged. “Jeez, you tell me.”

  “I … I …” Eddie groped blindly. “I don’t know. There was something really bad there.” He kneed open the glove compartment, took out a box of bullets and started reloading the Glock’s emptied clips. The ammunition ritual gave him a little tactile comfort, but no distraction. He wished he had a cup of hot coffee to sip.

  “Is it following us?” Twitch asked.

  Eddie looked back over his shoulder, past gig bags, amps and stacks of Adrian’s electronic gizmos and through the rear windows. He saw only desert.

  “No,” he dropped himself into his seat and sighed. “Forget it.”

  “Yeah,” M
ike agreed, “forget it. Tell me about the Nehushtan.”

  “It was a snake,” Eddie spat out, trying to block the images of the frozen damned from his mind’s eye.

  “Following us?” Twitch asked. “A snake at the Sears?”

  “No,” Eddie said. “I mean the Nehushtan. You’re right, Twitch, it was a snake. A snake on a stick. The Israelites in the desert, they were bitten, the Bible says, by a bunch of fiery serpents.”

  “Moses half,” Mike said, like it was an important insight.

  “Moses half, the Israelites after they left Egypt. Like with Charlton Heston. And Moses put a snake on a stick and raised it up, and when the Israelites looked at it they were healed. That snake was the Nehushtan.”

  “They were healed of their snake bites,” Mike concluded. “Adrian was bitten by a snake.”

  “And this guy’s church says it’s the church of the Redeemer Nehushtan,” Eddie said. “It can’t be a coincidence that it’s here. It can’t be a coincidence that the waitress … Sami, it can’t be a coincidence that she had this pamphlet in her car.”

  “Could be he’s the one who knocked her up,” Twitch suggested cheerfully.

  “Could be she was going to him for help,” Mike had a different take. “What was that Bible bit you read on it? People holding snakes and not getting bitten, or something? Lay on hands and heal people?”

  “Either way,” Eddie growled, “it’s the right place to start looking for a cure. Or maybe it’s the right place to start looking for the problem, which is sometimes the same thing. Only I don’t know what this other thing is.” He turned the pamphlet over and read the end of it again. “Apep.”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” said Twitch. “That’s not from the Bible.”

  “I know that,” Eddie rumbled. “So what is it?” He saw a row of naked men, pinned to the road in front of the Dodge with long jagged wooden spikes like thorns through their bellies. The van rolled over them with the same bumping it made on the dirt road, and Eddie was glad for the new vision of torment—it was brief, and it almost helped him forget the frozen Hell-Sears.