Appalachian Galapagos

by Ochse, Weston

  "It's not lava."

  "Yeah, I know, but I don't know what to call it."

  "The Soup of God."

  Jimmy grinned.

  "Yeah, right."

  "No. Really. The preacher talked about this. Or at least I think it was this. He called it the Soup of God."

  "And what happens if we drink it? Will it cure ulcers? Cancer even?"

  Frank paused. He had several ideas, many of them akin to Jimmy's.

  "I don't know. I wouldn't try it though. There's something...Maybe, just maybe..." His voice trailed off.

  "You fuckers still alive?"

  Both Frank and Jimmy stared at Lukas, who had rolled onto his side and was rubbing a hand through matted hair.

  "Better than that, look," Jimmy said, turning. He displayed his back proudly.

  "What the fu—but I saw—"

  Lukas stopped, a wild look came into his eyes as he felt his own back. He stood and ran his hand down Jimmy's and then Frank's.

  "Where? How?"

  "Feel me up again, Lukas and I might just kiss you."

  Ignoring Jimmy's remark, Lukas stared at Frank.

  "It was the soup, man. That stuff," Frank said pointing. "It healed, somehow."

  "The Soup of God," Jimmy said, bowing his head solemnly.

  Lukas fell to his knees and stared into the bubbling mass. Tentatively, he reached out and dabbed his forefinger into the liquid.

  "It's cool. I thought it'd be hot."

  "I know. Me too," Frank said.

  "And I feel strong."

  "Me too," Jimmy said.

  "If I didn't know any better, I'd call it magical."

  "You know, if you had asked me a week ago whether I believed in magic, I would have laughed in your face. But after all that has happened, Bigfoot notwithstanding, I honestly can't disagree," Frank said.

  Jimmy began to pace around the well, staring alternately from the liquid to the stairs and back. "It might be magic, but I doubt it's gonna get us out of here. I sure as hell don't want to get hit by that damned stick again."

  Lukas grinned tiredly. "You were fuckin' awesome, man. I was seriously proud of you. I'm sorry I made you stop."

  Jimmy's eyes flashed, then softened. "It wasn't you. Maybe it was you. Hell, I don't know. One minute I felt like Conan, the next I realized that we was so outnumbered, I was merely pissin' in the wind."

  Frank placed a hand upon Jimmy's naked shoulder.

  "You were like Conan. What you did was brave. But, you know? Stopping was even braver. Bravest damned thing I have ever seen."

  Jimmy stared at Frank's hand and then into his friend's eyes for several moments before he shrugged the hand off.

  "You would have done the same for me."

  Frank turned, not daring to let his old friend see the fear flare in his eyes. He had thought about that and didn't think so. He just wasn't that brave, and that little bit of self-knowledge disgusted him.

  "So, now they're gonna let us go, right?" asked Lukas.

  "After all this, they fuckin' better."

  "They will, but not all of us," Frank said softly.

  "What do you mean, not all of us. They said we'd have our redemption. Hell, why would they punish us if they were gonna kill us?" asked Jimmy.

  "Maybe because they wanted to set an example," Frank said. "Maybe because we aren't just dealing with normal people here. These folks are Biblical, you know? They seem to do things merely because it's necessary to do. Normal reason doesn't seem to be a driving force with them."

  Lukas, who seemed to be paying more attention than he had ever been known for, stepped between his two friends, placing a hand on their shoulders. "Wait. Go back a second. What you're sayin' is that two of us will live and one of us will die?"

  "I don't know about the dying part," Frank said. "The preacher mentioned redemption. He mentioned a metamorphosis, a transformation into God."

  "A meta-fuckin-what?" asked Jimmy.

  "Metamorphosis. A change. Like this book I read in college written by some guy named Kafka about a man who woke up one day as a giant cockroach."

  "A cockroach? What the hell kind of shit they have you readin' in college, Frank? That's fuckin' insane."

  Lukas spit into the ground.

  Frank caught his friend's eye and held it.

  "Remember, Lukas. These folks don't worship a cockroach. They worship—"

  "—a Bigfoot," Lukas answered in a whisper.

  "So, and I could be mistaken here, but one of us is gonna do the presto chango into a big Hairy Mutha and the other two of us is gonna just walk away," Jimmy said.

  "So it seems," Frank said. "So it seems."

  All three paced around the cellar thinking about the choices that had been thrust upon them. They finally sat, segregated.

  Finally, it was Lukas who broke the silence.

  "I don't want to eat you guys," he whispered.

  "You would never eat us, Lukas," Frank said. "Don't be ridiculous."

  "Who says? You got one of them tree-huggin' nature guides in yer back pocket turned to the Bigfoot chapter? How the hell do we know? Somethin' that big has got to eat more than berries."

  Once again, Frank was amazed at his friend's logic. He remembered Robbie with the basketball-sized bite out of his sternum. And Teddy...

  ...missing.

  "This is ridiculous," Jimmy said. "How the hell are they gonna change one of us into a Bigfoot? It's just not possible."

  Lukas stared hard at his friend.

  "Look at your back, Jimmy, and then tell me what impossible is."

  Jimmy opened his mouth, then snapped it shut.

  "I don't know how, but looking at this Soup of God stuff," Frank said. "It makes you wonder what else they have under their big-ass hats."

  "The preacher is just a crazy man," Lukas said. "And we're just followin' him blindly."

  Frank nodded.

  "I agree the man is crazy, he has those Charlie Manson eyes. And that archaic speech takes the cake. He's not even consistent. Sometimes he even sounds normal, like he forgets to talk the right way. It doesn't matter, I suppose. He has us under his control, madman or Holy Man, or whatever. One of us is still going to have to choose to be redeemed...to drink the Soup of God."

  "Ain't no way I'm drinkin' that stuff, man," Lukas said, shaking his head. "No fuckin' way at all."

  "Me neither," Jimmy said, staring up at the trapdoor above.

  Frank closed his eyes and nodded.

  "I'll do it."

  "Frank! No!" Jimmy said. "Are you out of your goddamned mind?"

  "Maybe I am, Jimmy," Frank said, his voice soft. "What I do know is that if one of us doesn't agree to do this, then we're probably all going to die."

  "There's gotta be another way out of this," Jimmy said.

  "I don't know, Frank," Lukas said. "How do you know that the stuff just won't kill you? Maybe it's too much for your heart or somethin'. You could collapse right there of heart failure."

  "I really don't think it'll kill me, Lukas," Frank said. "It may do a lot of things to me, but it isn't going to kill me."

  Lukas frowned. "You don't really believe that stuff will change you into one of them Bigfoots, do you?"

  Frank pointed to the bubbling soup.

  "After seeing that, I'll believe anything. Besides, I have a plan."

  Lukas and Jimmy just stared at him.

  Frank put his finger in the soup and began to stir it around, hoping that it would give him the strength he needed. "Look, I know I can't say with any certainty that they know what they're talking about up there. I have no idea if it's going to change me, or not. If it doesn't, well, then good. We'll figure out something from there." He pulled his finger away and met their gazes without blinking. "Let's just say it does work. That Bigfoot is big and dangerous. Probably has the strength of ten men when it gets pissed off." He paused again, looking up at the ceiling as he ground his teeth together. "I'm going to bring hell down upon their asses. Once I chang
e over, I'll tear them apart. During all this chaos, you two should be able to escape. I should be able to take out probably most of them."

  Jimmy was grinning. "Aw, hell yeah! I can't wait to see you whoop some ass on them crazy bastards! I love this idea!"

  Lukas shook his head. "What if you can't change back, Frank? What if you're stuck like that?"

  "I don't think I will be," Frank lied. "I think there is a way to change back." He pointed at the soup. "Maybe this stuff can help me, I don't know." He tried his best to grin. "If I can't change back, you can put me in the circus, or something. Make some money off of me."

  "I don't think you should even joke about this, Frank," Lukas said.

  "There's a good chance you won't even make it. You see the size of those fuckin' knives they have?"

  "My mind's made up, Lukas," Frank said. "Look, if you have a better idea, bring it on. This seems to be the only way that we even have a fighting chance. We don't have any other options. There's just too damn many of them. Even if we do manage to get out of that church and run into the woods, they'll probably catch us. They probably know these woods the same way you know your own house. We wouldn't stand a chance. But if I'm a Bigfoot, well..."

  The door opened above their heads.

  "Remember, when all hell breaks loose, you and Jimmy need to get the hell out," Frank said, slapping Lukas on the shoulder. "I'll take care of everything else."

  "Good luck, Frank," Jimmy said squeezing his friend's shoulder. "You know I got faith in you."

  All three stared at each other from different positions around the well. Frank felt it strongly and couldn't help the tears from circling his eyes.

  This was it.

  Survival of the fittest.

  From among the three of them, they had just chosen which one was to be redeemed.

  And none of them cared shit for redemption.

  Chapter 9:

  Decision Time...Sing Along With Freaks...The Fountain of Youth...Holy Spittoons...Civil War Reasons...A Bigfoot Eucharist...Amazing Grace

  Once again, the three found themselves kneeling before the altar. Unlike last time, however, they faced the congregation. Still stripped bare, the cool mountain air slipping through the cracks in the walls sent gooseflesh leaping along their skin. Frank was in the middle this time, with Lukas to his left and Jimmy to his right. Their arms had been pulled tightly behind them, a strip of twisted barbed wire bound their wrists.

  When they had entered, Frank had noticed that the Bigfoot still lay upon the large altar. The preacher, Cletus, stood behind his pulpit right hand resting upon the Bible, left hand gripping the Faith-Be-Quick Stick. Cyrus stood in front of them. His sneer pulled the edges of his feverish eyes down. In his hand was a long dangerous-looking knife. Beside him, in the space between the right and left-hand pews was a large brass spittoon. It was so well cared for Frank could see his convex mirror self from within the deep orange depths of the polished metal.

  Frank cleared his throat. He turned to Cletus to speak, but hushed as the preacher slammed his Faith-Be-Quick Stick onto the hard wooden floor. The congregation began to sing.

  Shall we gather at the river,

  Where bright angel feet have trod,

  With its crystal tide forever

  Flowing by the throne of God?

  Yes, we'll gather at the river,

  The beautiful, the beautiful river;

  Gather with the saints at the river

  That flows by the throne of God…

  The song was well-known. It was a mainstay of all Southern Baptists. Yet here, in a place of long-haired psychedelic mountain men, a place where magic seemed common, during a wake for an animal that was not supposed to exist, the song seemed somehow wrong.

  Frank stared. The men that made up the congregation were standing, swaying from side to side and holding hands. Every one of them had their eyes closed. Frank had no doubt that they were serious about what they were doing here in this remote place.

  He could also imagine that the congregation was very carefully selected. How else could it be? After all, any normal person witnessing what he and his friends had seen would first run screaming in a random direction and then sell the story to a tabloid. Then, a hundred thousand dollars richer, they'd buy a small island where they could never be found...for the fever in the preacher's eyes promised a certain resolution.

  And that resolution was what scared him.

  Frank so wished that he could run.

  He wished he had never even come.

  Bigfoot and Darwin and Religion and The Soup of God.

  What a lark! Each one contradicted the other. Yet, here in this small old church was a link to the earth that could undeniably heal. Was it God that had placed the well here? Maybe an ancient offset to the overwhelming number of carnivorous enemies to mankind?

  In college he had heard of the sacred places. The Oracle at Delphi. The Pyramids of both Egypt and the Aztecs. Atlantis. Stonehenge. Ponce de Leon and the Fountain of Youth. There were hundreds of those places that man revered and sought after. What if each of them had been built upon a spot like this one?

  What if the well that contained The Soup of God was even the place that Ponce de Leon had searched for?

  As the congregation sung, Frank acknowledged that this spot was definitely a place of power and had been for some time. How could it be hid? The well wasn't some Jeb Clampett created hole in the ground. No. The Cherokee who had been here before must have known of its existence.

  Insight sparkled and he theorized the Trail of Tears and the expediting of Cherokee migration… He remembered reading how Northern Generals during the Civil War could not believe the numbers of Confederates arrayed against them at the Battles of Chattanooga, Cemetery Ridge, Lookout Mountain, and Chickamauga.

  And yet the location and existence had escaped history.

  His examination was postponed as the hymn ended. The congregation sat, the small rumble filling the missing space that the song had so recently filled. He heard the sound of the Faith-Be-Quick Stick striking the floor again and all was silent.

  "The prophets hath foreseen this day. 'Tis a day we all knew would come, my brothers. Just as it came twenty years ago," Brother Cletus said. He smiled widely, his sharp cheekbones rising towards the heavens. Narrowing his almost feral eyes, raising his hairy eyebrows gravely above his flashing spectacles, he continued. "Brothers, thou may approach the shell of the Living Earth."

  Two men in the front row of pews stood and approached. With nary a glance at the three kneeling men, they passed and approached the altar, where they stood to either side, mute witness to the holy event about to transpire.

  Stepping down from the pulpit, Brother Cletus removed a long dagger from the depths of his robe to match the one held by his brother. Kneeling down before the Bigfoot, he said a mumbled prayer, allowing his free hand to smooth the hair along the beast's breast, the long hair running through the cracks in his fingers. Closing his eyes, he brought the dagger to his lips and kissed it gently, his tongue sliding out and over the edge of the blade until several drops of his own blood appeared and collected upon the cool metal surface.

  "And the Lord God, committed himself upon the mount and said to the appealing masses, I do this for you. I do this for your sins," the words of the preacher were soft, yet filled the expectant vacuum.

  Then, with a great intake of breath, his hands gripped the hilt of the dagger, lifted it to its vertical limit, then arced down until the blade was buried deep within the dead beast's chest.

  Lukas managed to make eye contact with Frank and they exchanged a What the Fuck look. One of the Brethren noticed them, however, and shot them what could only be taken as a deadly promise, his previously placid countenance creased with the imminence of their danger. Both of them looked down, then raised their heads once again.

  Elbow deep into the great hairy breast, Brother Cletus soon had the heart within his fist, his tear-filled eyes turned towards the ceiling of the c
hurch, thick, congealing, black blood dripping from the heart and onto his face.

  He turned, and with the help of the two brethren who each gripped an elbow, walked into the aisle.

  "Bring me the Holy Receptacle."

  The two men grabbed the spittoon and placed it directly in front of him.

  Brother Cyrus approached and bowed before the seeping heart, then, sliced the organ open with his own blade. A dark liquid descended in a thin unbroken stream, vanishing into the hidden depths of the spittoon. All present watched, including Frank and his friends, as the heart emptied itself. Finally, the slow drip drip came to an end and the heart was lowered reverently into the brass container's depths.

  The preacher turned slowly and touched his blood-stained hand upon each of the foreheads of the kneeling men. A small patch of blood was left behind like the ash from the Wednesday before Easter. Then he moved past and behind them. He retrieved his stick and slammed it once again onto the stout wood floor.

  On signal, the congregation's mouths rose in song. But, when as before they sang to Heaven, this time they sang to the spittoon. As one they stood and in turns, entered the aisle, a line forming as they sang.

  Amazing grace! How sweet the sound.

  That sav'd a wretch like me!

  I once was lost, but now am found,

  Was blind, but now I see.

  Each member of the congregation began to file by the spittoon. Heads bowed, they would say a prayer and hold out a wrist. Cyrus, dagger in hand, drew the slick edge quickly across the proffered skin and watched as the small floods of blood were added to the Holy Receptacle's hidden mixture.

  'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,

  And grace my fears reliev'd.

  How precious did that grace appear,

  The hour I first believ'd!

  Thro' many dangers, toils and snares,

  I have already come.

  'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,

  And grace will lead me home.

  Frank began to pray in earnest. Never before had he believed in God more. Things were getting out of hand. The only reason they hadn't made their break for the door was because they were uncertain whether or not they'd be able to make it. And as a group, they refused to leave anyone behind. Although this Three Musketeer promise was silly, they would keep to it, and by abiding, one of them was condemned.