The Acolyte

by Nick Cutter

  “Long night ahead of us,” Exeter told us. “We’ve got somewhere in the neighbourhood of ten tons to get from there”—he pointed at the hangars—“to there”—pointing at the trio of B-17s.

  I’d been part of this plan from the jump: I’d laid out waterproof netting over the hangar floors and distributed the plastic pools which were filled with trucked-in swamp water; I’d dumped in the tadpoles and shut the hangar doors. Every week someone had driven out and tossed in a few sacksful of food pellets. Now we’d harvest the fruits of that labour.

  We donned hazmat suits and split into teams. Garvey, Doe, Hollis and I got the nearest hangar. When Hollis shouldered the door open we were hit with a wave of swampy stench. Frogs—thousands and thousands of them. They were piled ankle-high. All of them were blind after a lifetime in darkness: their eyes were tiny pearl onions socked into their faces.

  Our task was to cart chains to the far end of the hangar and hook them to the net-grommets; the opposite ends would be rigged to the hitch of a flatbed driven by Doe. The frogs would then be winched into the B-17’s payload bay en masse.

  We forged into the hangar with loops of heavy-gauge chain over our shoulders. My hazmat suit didn’t come with an air purifier; the stink was a full-bore punch in the face. Most of the toads were alive but some were long dead; their rotted carcasses blended with waterlogged food pellets and algae-scummed brine and roughly five tons of decaying frog dung to create a nauseating stench.

  Progress was slow through the quivering, squishy swampland. Frogs bounced off every part of me with sloppy smacks. A dozen species: huge horned toads and warty carbuncled ones, plus hundreds of small red-eyed frogs. I spotted a massive blind bullfrog with the rump of a small blue-bellied frog poking out of its mouth. The small one’s legs were still kicking.

  I reached the net’s end, hooked the chain through the eyelet. Hollis’s face glowed with wry good humour behind his face-shield.

  “Aren’t we forgetting something?”

  “What’s that?”

  He pointed upward. My eyes trailed up into the cavernous blackness just as Hollis hit the hangar wall with the sledgehammer he was carrying. The vibration caused all the sucker-toed frogs clinging to the ceiling to tumble down: thousands of fat, squirming teardrops.

  I backpedalled madly and, as luck would have it, I trod on a plump toad that burst underfoot with a busted-accordion wheeze. I righted myself and stared hostilely at Hollis, who just laughed.

  Doe set the flatbed in gear, goosed the gas, and the net doubled upon itself: this massive green omelette folding over. Hundreds of throat bladders burst like tiny wet balloons. Doe jerked the flatbed and this sudden pressure squeezed frogs through the bonded nylon—a sight reminiscent of cooked potatoes sent through a masher.

  “Ease up!” Hollis called to her. “You’re slashing the poor darlings to rags.”

  We transferred the chains to the winch and hauled the huge sack onto the plane. The teams reconvened beside a recently arrived van bearing the pilots. Three middle-aged men, ex-commercial airline pilots by trade. They looked jumpy in their clean shirts and trousers, ringed by Acolytes in flesh-splattered hazmat suits.

  “Listen up,” Exeter said. “Windy tonight; decent vectors but it’s a tiny window. We’re aiming for the city’s densest population centres. We’ll be going up four-and-a-half thousand feet and looping over the Badlands to slingshot in from the north. Engine power halved once we hit fifty furlongs from the city—fly over silent as death.”

  Three B-17 Flying Fortresses lifted off from an alkali-whitened runway shortly after ten o’clock. Their payloads held roughly ten tons of toad meat.

  The plane banked west over the Badlands. My ears felt clogged with wet cotton batten. I worked my jaw until they popped. Wind shear and whining rotors and the crazed croaking of toads were the only sounds.

  Doe joined me where I sat against the fore bulkhead. I kept quiet. She hugged her knees to her chest—the cabin was cooling as we gained altitude.

  The plane pitched with turbulence, throwing Doe against me. She lay there an instant before righting herself. The shape of her body lingered on my flesh the way the sun’s imprint kept burning at the back of your retinas even after you’d looked away.

  Garvey and Hollis emerged from the cockpit. Hollis tossed us harnesses.

  “Strap yourself in. Pilot says it’s bound to be a mite gusty.”

  We clipped our harnesses to steel rods down in the payload well. Garvey and Doe on one side, Hollis and me on the other. The toads were quiet: something about the altitude must have narcotized them. A lot of them were frozen stiff, coated in a fine crystal frost.

  The engines cut short as the pilot switched to phantom power. The cabin and wing lights blinked off and the ramp lowered. Below us lay an undulating, crested darkness: the topside of night clouds.

  The cover broke and there was New Bethlehem. The power grid demarcated the haves and have-nots: the SuperChurch a magnified white ball, whereas light ranged from fitful to nonexistent in the ghettos.

  The pilot opened the fore vents. A high-altitude wind blew ice pellets up the gangway. Wind shear robbed the breath from my lungs.

  Hollis gripped my shoulders. “Come, my young prince of New Bethlehem!” The man was grinning like a satyr. “We’ve got a plague to unleash!”

  I hacked at the net with a box cutter until a flap of netting gave way. A clump of half-frozen toads lifted free and smashed into my face. I stumbled as toads bounced off the bulkhead, broke apart, and were gone.

  The net came loose as the top portion of the green, lopsided, flesh-boulder of toads—frozen, suffocated, some fitfully alive—was released into the star-salted sky. However, the bottom portion remained stuck to the frozen gangplank.

  “God rot these filthy things!” Hollis roared, kicking the chilled toads with his brogans.

  We all rucked in, booting at the frozen frogs. Doe’s foot broke through into its clammy core and she jerked back, revolted. The cabin was dark and the wind howled and ice pellets ricocheted off the hull. A tiny frog fell from overhead—the wind must’ve blown it up there—and wriggled down the collar of my suit.

  For a moment we stopped and stared at one other, sweaty and panting and high on adrenaline, grinning like school kids who’d just flushed a cherry bomb down the toilet. There was something murderously, hideously fun about all of this. Our band of merry pranksters were the only ones in on the joke.

  The frogs loosened from the gangplank and slid in a solid block, down the loading ramp. What looked to be another blackout was only the plate as it fell through the night, breaking apart and disseminating, and as it did the city lights shone once again.

  Back on terra firma the mood was jubilant.

  The other two planes had already landed by the time ours taxied in. An oil-drum fire stoked with hazmat suits raged; bottles of RC circulated round the flames.

  We tossed our suits on the fire and swigged from the passing bottles. A few lucky toads croaked amidst the B-17’s landing gear. Hollis threw an arm around Daniel Applewhite’s shoulder and in a rich Scots brogue sang, “Oooh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are cah-hah-liiiing, from glen to glen and doon the moon-tayn-saaayde. . . .”

  Amidst the backslaps and laughter, borne on a soft breeze over the Badlands and drumlins south of here, from the direction of the city, came the wail of sirens.

  The pilots were thanked for their service and escorted to their van. I noted the rear windows were smoked out. I also noted the glance that passed between Exeter and Hollis before Exeter gave the slightest of nods and stepped into the van behind them.

  The pistol shots were not especially loud. Could be the van had been padded for that very extenuation. The windows lit up: three flashes in quick succession, followed by two more. The van rocked on its axles. Something thumped against the frame.

  This evening’s events mu
st be kept secret. And the most effective way to keep any secret was to cull the number of ears it had been whispered into.

  Exeter exited the van. His waxen face displayed not even a vestigial hint of emotion. He summoned Henchel, wiped away the blood speckling his lips and said: “They’ll need burying. They were good Followers and deserve proper regard.”

  Exeter retrieved a pair of shovels from his car and singled out Doe and me.

  “You two. Get digging.”

  We accepted this as further penance and found a patch of soft soil. Applewhite rigged the planes with C4. Hangars were splashed with kerosene. The site was sanitized.

  Garvey deposited the pilots beside us. Once the grave was dug we hauled them in by their ankles. Garvey was less than approving.

  “You call yourselves grave diggers? I wouldn’t bury my canary in that marble pit.”

  We dug deeper. The pilots went in. Dirt went over. We drove back to the city.

  Bedlam reigned in New Bethlehem.

  The cacophony of sirens intensified so that by the time we’d reached the outskirts my head was throbbing.

  The main road was blocked. Temporary quarantine, we were told by a whey-faced plainclothesman. Garvey flashed his badge and we passed into the downtown core.

  The city was in ruins. Toads, like most living things, were seventy percent water: they’d frozen solid during their long free-fall.

  A convertible had smashed through the plate glass window of an upscale boutique due to a frog that had torn through the cloth roof, splattering the driver’s skull over the steering wheel. Mannequins in sequined dresses were crushed over the hood at paralytic angles. The accident scene was so elegant in its gruesomeness and so static in appearance that it put me in mind of a museum exhibit.

  Garvey butted over the curb to avoid the ruins of a hotdog cart—the proprietor’s body battered and lifeless—and veered into a Puritan’s Pantry. The shop’s smashed windows were not the work of frogs but rather a band of opportunistic looters.

  Garvey fired a few shots in the air; the looters fled with pockets full of ice cream bars and pretzels and Hallelujah Energy Boost.

  We drove past Little Baghdad. The power grid was shut off. The occasional shot rang out while shapes dashed frantically in the streets. An ambulance was speeding the wrong way down a one-way street only to be clipped by a fire engine that hurtled out of a blind intersection. The ambulance spun on its axles, flipped onto its side, and careened into a bus shelter.

  Badging through another roadblock, we hit an undamaged stretch. The toads had fallen unevenly: some blocks devastated, others untouched. Followers knelt on the sidewalks, wailing, hands clasped in prayer.

  The Harbinger’s Harbour motel was unscathed. God’s hand at work.

  Back in my motel room, the blue budgie flitted in its cage. I opened the cage door so it could fly freely. I stripped for a quick cold shower. Afterward, I flicked on the TV.

  The news was predictable. God’s wrath had descended, as prophesied by His mouthpiece. Death toll in the hundreds and mounting. The Prophet, Immaculate Mother, and their compound was left unscathed by the Lord. Blessed are those who tread meekly before God. Blessed are those who follow his Prophet.

  My attention was drawn to the shirt I’d worn tonight, draped over a plastic chair beside the door. A small head poked out of the breast pocket.

  The frog was no bigger than a sand dollar, green with red suction-cup toes. It sat deathly still in my palm, sides heaving like a tiny bellows.

  I filled the bathtub with an inch of water. The budgie flew into the bathroom and perched on my shoulder. I was feeling a bit like Noah.

  The frog hopped off my palm and paddled circles around the drain plug. I was reasonably certain it would survive.

  By the time dawn arrived, the city’s air would reek of its rotting brethren.

  Article III:

  Aftermath

  Hallelujah

  Normalcy—or the curious status quo we had come to equate with normalcy—was restored in New Bethlehem.

  Toads dropped. Bombings stopped.

  Toads fell from the sky. Civil strife ended. The citizenry was properly penitent. The Prophet’s word and rule of the Republic was once again unquestioned.

  There remained, however, the ticklish chore of disposing of the toads. As with a great many inspired if feckless plans, it had been designed to achieve instant impact with precious little attention paid to the aftermath.

  In this case, ton upon ton of putrefying toad meat.

  The frogs were scooped up, scraped off, hosed away, disentangled from whatever organic matter they’d knit with, and disposed of in heavy-duty sacks dispersed free of charge. Sanitation crews compacted and burned them at the Jewtown incineration plant.

  Despite a city-wide cleanup effort, the smell lingered. Amphibians exuded sundry slimes and ichors that, regardless how much hosing or scrubbing was done, impregnated whatever surface they splattered across. The city experienced an unseasonable hot spell a week after the drop; the air was nearly unbreathable.

  Death toll: 1,438 Followers. Nobody of importance, although a Deputy Deacon was killed when a toad crashed through his skylight while he was enjoying a bubble bath—an excessive and vaguely feminine luxury that, it was whispered in rectory chambers, had been the cause of his freakish demise.

  My apartment was repaired. I bade farewell to the Harbinger Harbour and moved back in with my bird and frog.

  I’d never had pets. Ours was a society where animals were commonly viewed in terms of sacrificial value. But these ones had bucked the odds. I felt compelled to make their remaining days enjoyable.

  They made fine companions. They had no opinions of their own, or not that they could express. I liked that. I set the bird’s cage and the frog’s aquarium in front of the window before leaving so they could soak in the sunlight.

  That was life for a while. Me. The bird. The frog.

  It wasn’t much. It was . . . it was just nice.

  During the apartment repairs some mistrustful soul had bugged my telephone: the telltale tica-tica overlapping the dial tone told me so. Couldn’t say I was surprised: the Manger bombing would make me an object of casual suspicion the rest of my career.

  As I contemplated the irony of bugging a phone that rarely rang, Doc Newbarr called.

  “It’s about those tests you wanted me to run—”

  I cut him off. “Nice night, isn’t it? Meet me for a walk?”

  We convened at an all-night bakery. I sprung for coffees and a bag of sweet rolls.

  Newbarr said, “Why the cloak and dagger?” When I explained he nodded and said, “Never going to live that down, son.”

  We huddled in the doorway of a condemned apartment complex. He handed me a printout: the component breakdown of Hallelujah Energy Boost.

  “Most of it’s worthless,” he said. “That’s to say, nothing about Hallelujah Energy Boost is beneficial to the human body. Sugar and corn starch, mostly. Empty calories. Trace amounts of vermin feces . . . sadly, that’s the most nutritious part. Finding the one outstanding ingredient required a bit of guesswork. I saw the way your partner Garvey slurps the stuff down. He’s not the only one—half the stationhouse is hooked. I scanned for addictive substances in powder form. Codeine. No. Methadone. No. Cocaine. Nope. Heroin. Nada. Then I tried this little beauty.”

  He pointed out a chemical string: C10H15N.

  Doc said, “Methamphetamine.”

  “Garvey’s hooked on this garbage,” I said. “He’ll be okay?”

  “So long as the supply continues. I consulted an old pharmaceutical guide; my guess is it’s a derivation of Desoxyn, once administered to patients suffering from extreme obesity.”

  “And if the supply runs short?”

  “He’ll be clawing the walls along with everyone else in the precinct.”
>
  “You think The Prophet’s ever taken a slug of it?”

  Doc smiled sadly. “You figure Hitler popped his head in a gas chamber just to check if it worked?

  My body healed over time. Hollis’s cattle prod left dime-sized scars all over my torso. I carried a lot of them—scars. Never did get a fake tooth to replace the one he’d knocked out, either: I didn’t mind the way the gap made me look. A little hardened.

  A month went by. The citizenry of New Bethlehem settled into complacency. Things went back to the way they were—the way they’d always been.

  Until one day they weren’t.

  School Bus

  Mount Galilee elementary school gymnasium. Five hundred school kids sat on the polished hardwood floor, eyes oriented on the stage. On one wall, a mural depicted the crucifixion of Jesus on the mount of Golgotha. On the other: a humorous mural portraying Charles Darwin, his features rendered in simian fashion, locked in a cage with a bunch of gorillas.

  I stood backstage while the headliner worked the crowd. The Rappin’ Disciple was his name. He wore a rhinestone-bedazzled robe, long mane of hair, a big four-finger ring like a knuckle-duster in the shape of a Cross.

  “What is it we all want?” The Rappin’ Disciple’s arms went punch-punch. “We want to live authentic lives! We got to find redemption! And let me tell you, gang, even at your ages, you’ve sinned. Oh, yes!”

  Punch-punch went The Rappin’ Disciple’s robed arms.

  “You eat too many sugary snacks—and that’s a sin, my young brothers and sisters; the sin of gluttony! You loaf inside when God’s shining His sunlight all over the world, playing your video games”—The Rappin’ Disciple pronounced video as videar—“and it’s my duty to tell you, that’s the sin of sloth!”

  His voice grew fatherly: “But hey, that’s fine, that’s fine as cherry wine in moderation. Because I was once like you, boys and girls: a sinner. I used to stay up all night staring bug-eyed at the TV until I was thinking more of Mario than I was of Mary Magdalene! But now I love my God and my Prophet more than ever—and love is obedience, little Followers and Follower-ettes!”