by Ray Garton
“That’s why I kept it, dear. Today’s hasn’t come yet. It’s too early.”
“That was some storm last night, huh?” Al asked.
Everyone agreed politely.
“Something odd about it, did you notice, Nita?”
“Just that it was very loud.” She scooped scrambled eggs onto his plate.
“A lot of electricity . . . even for an electrical storm. Made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I wonder if there’ll be anything about it in today’s paper.” He opened yesterday’s paper and his head nodded up and down as he scanned the headlines and articles. “Well, what do you know,” he said, folding the paper outward neatly so he could hold it in one hand as he read and ate. “They finally executed that killer upstate.”
“The one who killed those women?” Nita asked, circling the table again to dole out the bacon strips.
“Uh-huh. The electric chair. It’s about time. All those stays of execution . . . I’m telling you, if it were up to the liberals and lawyers, the streets would be running with these crazies. They should be killed as soon as they’re caught.”
“Al, please,” Nita said quietly. “The children.”
“Well, it’s true. They should learn early. The Bible says ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ and ‘The wages of sin is death’. Case closed. No left wing lawyer has any business putting himself before the Word of God.”
Once she was through, Nita seated herself at the table.
Al munched on a piece of bacon as he read on. He chuckled. “Oh, listen to this. You know what his last words were? ‘I’m right with God, and that’s all that matters.’ Can you believe that? ‘I’m right with God!’ From the mouth of a brutal murderer! A serial killer.”
“Well,” Nita said, taking a dainty bite of scrambled eggs, “they did say he wasn’t in control of himself. That he was sick. Mentally ill.”
“Nita, for crying out loud, you’re not starting to think like them, are you? Insanity! Well of course he was insane! Using it as an excuse is like saying — ” He made his voice thin and whiny. “ — ‘I didn’t mean to.’ It’s ridiculous, just plain ridiculous. And don’t let me hear you saying things like that again, Nita. It makes me nervous, you talking like a liberal, like some Godless left-wing reprobate.”
“Daddy, what’s a rep-ro-bate?” Matthew asked.
“It’s someone who is going to burn in hell because they’ve turned their back on God’s Truth.”
“What’s a liberal?” Ruth asked.
“The same thing.” He opened the paper again and began paging through it. “You know, it’s sad to say, but this paper seems to get more liberal every day. Anybody who says there’s no slant to the press is blind as a bat.” He scanned the pages and stopped on something. “Well, what do you know. An article about us.”
Nita and both children shot their heads up to look at him.
“What?” Nita asked, surprised.
“About the coalition. It says, ‘After last week’s demonstration in front of the Women’s Health Clinic’ — health clinic, can you believe that? It’s a butcher shop! — ‘police are prepared for any possible violent outbursts that may occur at tomorrow’s weekly demonstration by the Coalition for Unborn Life.’ What outbursts? It was just one of those guys escorting a woman into the clinic who got carried away, is all. We had to defend ourselves. He grabbed one of the cameras — remember? — threw it to the ground and started jumping up and down on it.”
“Oh, yes, I remember,” Nita said. “Mr. Stanfield was very upset. He said that Nikon was terribly expensive. And besides, it was a gift.”
“Oh, and look at this! They talk about these ‘pro-choice’ people! I still don’t understand what all this ‘pro-choice’ business is! What’s to choose? They’re killing babies! Besides, we’re pro-life. They should be called what they are. Anti-life! I mean, how can we be pro-something and they be pro-something at the same time? They are anti-life, and that’s all there is to it!” He pounded a fist on the table.
“I understand, Al, but . . . well, aren’t you getting a little angry?”
“Yes, yes, you’re right. I’m sorry.” He read the paper with a frown and a sigh. “So . . . the police will be out there with us this morning. Fine, that’s just fine. We know who’s side they’re on . . . and we know Who is on our side.” He shook his head slowly. “If only this country would go back to it’s roots, back to God and Christianity and the values that made it the strongest, richest, most powerful country in all the world. God and family and the Bible. But . . . I guess that will take a while. It’ll happen . . . it’ll just take a while.”
He set the paper aside and dug into his breakfast, anxious to get on with the day’s work, anxious to go head to head, once again, with God’s enemies . . .
“You have all the signs?” Al asked.
“They’re already in the station wagon,” Nita said.
“All the cameras? I’ve got two.”
“So do I.”
“Matthew? Ruth? You have your cameras?”
The children nodded. Each had a brightly colored camera around the neck — Matthew’s was blue and Ruth’s was pink. Each camera was very easy to use, made specifically for children. “And who do you take pictures of?”
“The people going inside.” Matthew said.
“And the people taking them in,” Ruth said.
“And why?” Al asked.
Together, the children recited, “So they will know that their crimes against God have been recorded.”
Al smiled and nodded slowly. “Very good, very good. You’ll have extra jewels in your heavenly crowns for this, you know.”
The children smiled up at their father and nodded happily.
“Okay,” he said, clapping his hands together, “let’s go. They’ll be gathering there by now. We don’t want to be too late. I’ll go out and start the car. Make sure we’ve got everything, then come on out and we’ll be off.”
Jangling his keys in his right hand, two cameras dangling from around his neck, Al went out the door, down the front walk, crossed the lawn toward the carport and —
— then he froze. He looked around, looked up and down the street. Something was . . . well, not quite right. But he couldn’t put his finger on it. He frowned as he looked this way and that.
Had Baxter torn out his hedge recently? It was gone, completely gone. But then, who could tell what Baxter would do next? He was an atheist and a liberal — a noxious combination — and a bachelor who paraded different women in and out of his house at night and in the early morning hours. Al had talked with Jerry Baxter a few times, just to be neighborly, but only to find they had nothing in common.
Baxter liked to fancy himself a “thinker” and had shelves of books filled with cold and soulless secular humanism. So if he’d taken out the hedge in the last day or so . . . what of it?
But that big oak tree that used to shade the Genoveses’ yard was gone, too; there wasn’t even a stump left, just . . . nothing but a sunny, empty yard. They were a Catholic family, but good people, with five children who used to swing from the tire that hung from one of the tree’s branches. And there was something else . . .
Either he was just noticing it for the first time or all of the houses on the street had been repainted very recently. And they were all the same color: a metallic-grey trimmed with deep red, almost a blood red.
All the houses except for his, which was still a light blue with white trim.
Even more bizarre was that an American flag was waving in the warm breeze in every single yard but his. Of course, there was nothing wrong with flying the flag. But they weren’t hung from flagpoles, these were all flying . . . from crosses.
His frown deepened and he muttered, “When did . . . how long ago did they . . .”
“It’s getting late, honey,” Nita called from in the house.
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” he muttered, still frowning, still looking around. He turned and started toward the car again when h
e heard what sounded like a siren . . . except it wasn’t, really.
It was a siren-like sound that played the first seven notes of a tune, a very familiar tune, over and over again. And it was drawing closer.
The tune was “Jesus Loves Me.”
Tires squealed over pavement down at the intersection and Al looked back to see a shiny, squat black car with a disproportionately large, boxy rear-end and white doors that had official-looking markings on them screech to a halt before his house. There was a spinning red light on the car’s roof. It was a police car . . . but it looked like no police car he’d ever seen before. Instead of a gold or silver star or police shield on the door, this car had a metallic-grey cross with blood-red stains at the ends of the crossbar and at the bottom. And from the top of the cross flew the American flag, as if in a strong, whipping wind.
Both doors opened and two officers bolted out of the car in black uniforms. Each had, as a badge, a metallic-grey cross pinned over his heart. Large, odd-looking guns were holstered to their belts and they wore shiny black helmets that left only their faces visible. And their faces looked very similar to one another: hard, stern, iron-jawed and very unhappy.
One of the men — the driver — unsnapped his holster and removed a very curvy, smooth-looking gun of shiny black metal and said, “Sorry, sir, but I’m afraid you’re under temporary detention until you can explain a few things.”
“What’s going on here?” Al asked, not sounding very friendly, as he frowned at the two uniformed men and eyed the unholstered gun.
“Don’t you at least know enough to cross yourself when you see a Deacon, Brother?” the second officer barked.
“A Deacon? Cross my . . .? What are you talking about?”
The first one, the one with the gun, smirked. “Well, if I have to tell you, then you’re in even more trouble than I thought.”
“For one thing,” the second one said, waving toward the house, “this paint job is not regulation.”
“It’s blasphemous. You ought to know that. How long ago did you paint it?”
“I painted this house three years ago. Myself! And I’d like to know just what you think is wrong with it!”
“You looked around at your neighborhood lately?” the first one asked sarcastically, gesturing with the gun. “Regulation colors.”
“Those colors,” the other one said, pointing at the bloodstained, metallic-grey cross on the door of the car.
“And where’s your flag-cross? In fact . . . now that I notice it, you’re not even wearing a cross, are you?”
“Wearing a . . .” Al’s voice dropped to a puzzled, but still angry, mutter as his frown deepened. “Well, I don’t normally wear a — ”
“Don’t normally? Okay, let’s see some I.D., Brother.”
“Well, I-I . . .” He fumbled for his wallet and held it open so they could see his driver’s license.
“What’s that?” the second one snapped.
“You know what we want to see. Your CA scancard.”
“Scan . . . CA . . . scancard? Hey, look, I don’t what you’re — ”
“Church of America scancard so we can scan your barcode,” the gunholder growled impatiently.
Al could only stare at them silently.
“Either you’re suffering from some sort of demon-possession or you are a very, very bold Churchstate Sinner.”
“I . . . I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re . . . Churchstate?” he squinted at them, craning his head forward. Then, fists clenched at his sides, he snapped, “Well, I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I am certainly not possessed!”
At that moment, the front door opened and the children came out.
“How come you haven’t started the car, Daddy?” Ruth called.
“Yeah, Dad, we’re gonna be late,” Matthew said.
Both officers looked at the children with widening eyes. The second one drew his gun as well.
“These are both your children?” the first one asked, shocked.
Before Al could respond, the front door closed and Nita locked it behind her, then came down the steps to join them. As the children stared curiously at the officers, the officers looked at Nita with horror and each quickly made the sign of the cross over himself.
“You’re all under arrest!” the first one shouted.
All of them froze.
Al said, “Wait just a second, here, officer, I think you could at least tell us — ”
“Deacon! You’ll address me properly — as Deacon — or you’ll be in even more trouble.”
“Okay, then, Deacon!” Al shouted. “If you’re arresting us, what are the charges? And why aren’t you dressed in police uniforms and driving a police car?”
The two officers looked at one another in disbelief.
“I said,” Al repeated, fists still clenched, “what are the charges?” But his fists were trembling now, trembling because of his confusion and, no matter how hard he tried to fight it, his fear.
“Crimes against the Churchstate,” the first one said. “Your house is painted blasphemously, you have no cross-flag. You have two children, obviously. And your wife is painted like a slutty witch!”
Nita’s mouth dropped open with a gasp.
“Chuh-children?” Al croaked, glancing at Nita as she hurried to his side, looking frightened. “What about our children?”
“One child per family according to population regulations. The girl will have to go.” He turned to his partner and muttered, “Box her.”
The officer removed a small black device from the breast pocket of his shirt, touched the barrel of it to Ruth’s temple and there was a quick, quiet Zap! sound. Ruth fell to the grass in a limp heap.
Nita screamed and ran to her daughter’s side.
Al lunged toward his fallen child, but the first officer put the gun in his face. “Don’t move.”
Matthew hurried to Al’s side and Al put an arm around the boy, holding him close.
Nita screamed and cried hysterically as the other officer picked Ruth up under one arm. “My little girl my little girl, what are you doing to my little girl!”
The first officer nodded toward Nita. “Do her too and shut her up!” he growled.
With another zap, Nita was silent and on the ground. The officer carried Ruth to the car, opened up the large, boxy rear, threw her inside roughly, then closed it.
“My wife!” Al shouted, holding Matthew tight. “My daughter! Damn you, what are you doing with them?”
“Watch your language, you heathen,” the officer growled, pressing the gun to Al’s cheek.
Tears welled up in Al’s eyes as his entire body grew cold, as helplessness coiled around him like an enormous snake and began to squeeze. His breath came faster and faster as he gasped, “What’re you gonna do to our . . . little girl?”
“She’ll be recycled,” the officer replied as if it were a stupid question. “Given to an infertile family so they can have their allotted single child.” He moved very close to Al, until their faces were about an inch apart; he squinted, cocked his head curiously. “What . . . is . . . wrong with you, anyway?”
Al felt anger boiling in his stomach, burning its way up through his chest, felt his teeth clench and his lips tremble as he growled, “Wrong with me? What the devil is wrong with you? Who are you and what gives you — ”
The officer punched Al in the gut, knocking the wind, and the words, from him, doubling him over and sending him to his knees.
Holding the gun on the top of Al’s head, the officer snapped, “I told you to watch your language! I can shoot you for using Satanic language like that, Brother!”
Al grunted, retched and, when his vision cleared again. he turned his head toward Nita, who remained motionless on the grass.
“Nita,” he rasped as he started toward her, crawling on hands and knees, “Nita, honey, it’s gonna be okay, it’s gonna — ”
The officer pressed a shiny black boot down on him hard. “Stay right wher
e you are. Stay away from her. You too, boy. Don’t move. For the time being, she’s condemned.”
Al turned his head and looked up at the officer. “Con . . . demned? For what?” he hissed furiously.
The officer got down on one knee, close to Al, and when he spoke, there was, for just a moment, some humanity in that square-jawed face, in those steely eyes and in that harsh, deep voice.
“You . . . you really don’t know, do you, Brother?” the officer whispered.
Al shook his head slowly as a tear ran down his pale cheek. “No, no . . . I don’t. I don’t understand anything you’re telling me.”
The officer frowned at him, not angrily, but curiously, as if there was something about Al’s face that bothered him . . . disturbed him.
“Your wife will be given the Mark of the Beast on her forehead,” he said, speaking slowly, “then sent to a Prayer Camp for such time as decided by one of the Churchstate High Priests. When she has truly repented of all her sins . . .” He studied Al’s face even more deeply. “. . . and has given her soul back to Christ . . . she will be released back into society to serve as an example to the fact that the Churchstate can, indeed, overcome sin.” He backed away slowly, still frowning. “Tell me, Brother . . . do I know you from someplace?”
Al could not respond. He could only stare at this strange man who had sent his life into a downward spiral, who had sent him into such a cloud of confusion that he could not even think clearly enough to pray silently for God’s help.
The officer’s face became cold again and he stood, gesturing with the gun to both Al and Matthew. “Okay, on your feet. Both of you. Now!”
Al struggled to his feet. The officer bolstered his gun and pulled something else from his belt, jerking Al’s hands behind his back to cuff them.
Standing behind them, the officer ordered, “To the car! Now!”
They headed toward the car slowly, Matthew sucking close to his father. They watched as the other officer picked up Nita, took her to the car and tossed her into the box-like trunk with Ruth.
“Maawww-meeee!” Matthew screamed.