Then there was more standing as the whole grim, black procession moved to the cemetery, followed by the loose procession (the flags removed from the cars) back to her house. The house was immaculate. The spread had been laid out. Someone must have done this. Amanda had no recollection of it. Later in the afternoon, Pastor Larsta came by with a vanload of flowers, laying them out all over the house, wherever there was room. After the last person had left, Amanda was alone with the flowers. She opened all the blinds in the house and let the late afternoon sunlight pour in. She lay down in the middle of the living room floor and laughed uncontrollably. She imagined Lawrence Kansas was there, peeling off her clothes, filling her up, bringing her to shuddering climax after shuddering climax.
When the last of the day’s light left, she took the flowers outside, over the course of several trips, and set fire to them. She got drunk on wine and danced around the fire, ripped off her clothes, felt the moonlight on her body. Eventually, she was joined by a group of women, most of them probably ten years younger than she was. They were led by a man. The man made Amanda think of a goat. He made her think of the Devil. She wanted to touch his curly hair to see if she’d feel horns.
The man put his fingers to her lips, peremptorily staunching any protests. He told her she was coming with them. He told her she was going to be a witness.
Witness, Amanda thought.
First a member, then a witness.
The word—maybe it was even more than a word, maybe it was a title—made her feel powerful.
She piled into the van with them. The goat man wrapped a heavy black blindfold around her head.
“How can I be a witness if I can’t see?” Amanda asked.
The goat man laughed.
The girls laughed.
Amanda laughed, too.
Twenty-three
Doug stayed in his bed most of the day. He went downstairs twice to get something to eat and drink. Neither time did it do anything to quench his amazing thirst or nourish his amazing hunger. The first time he went downstairs was in the early afternoon. His mother had come back between the regular church service and the funerals. She stared at the television and laughed like an idiot. She didn’t notice him. The second time she sat in a chair facing the fireplace, where his father’s gleaming silver cross-shaped urn rested on the mantle. The low sun beamed in through the window and caught the cross in an interesting way, reflecting off it and onto his mother’s face. Beatific was a word Doug had heard before and he thought that described the way she looked even if he didn’t know the exact meaning of it. Again, she didn’t notice him.
On his way back through the living room, on the other side of the sunlight, looking at the darker side of her face, he just thought she looked old. Ancient. Too old to be anybody’s mother. He grabbed the phone, retreated to his room, and called Crank. Either Crank wasn’t home or he wasn’t answering. Maybe he was at the station. He usually knew Crank’s schedule but his brain was in a fog and he couldn’t think of it right now. It took a second just to jog the number of America Pantry from his head. The phone rang a couple of times and Patel said, “America Pantry.”
Doug hung up.
A second later, the phone rang. The America Pantry number popped up on the caller ID screen. Maybe Crank was there.
“Hello,” Doug said.
“I know who this is,” Patel said. “Why you think I pay for caller ID? To keep punks like you from calling. Why you call anyway? Call and hang up.”
“I was just calling to see if Crank was there.”
“Crank’s not here. If he was here, he would have answered the phone. Why would I pay him to be here if I’m here?”
“I’m not feeling well.” Doug didn’t know what else to say.
“I think you are sick with rudeness. I think this whole town is sick with rudeness. This morning I came in and find a bag of hair on the counter. Was this your bag of hair?”
Bag of hair? “Mr. Patel, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not feeling well at all. I need to get off the phone so I can go throw up.”
“See. That is a very rude thing to say. What do you punks say? Too much information. Rude. You be here tomorrow?”
“Ten o’clock.”
“Nine.”
“Nine?”
“You call and hang up without saying nothing. Nine o’clock.”
“I’ll try.”
“You will.”
Doug gagged into the phone even though his nausea was long over, and clicked the OFF button. He opened his bedroom door, threw the phone down the stairs, and shouted, “I gotta be at work at nine tomorrow!”
He didn’t listen for his mother’s response. He turned off his lights, crawled into bed, pulled the sheet up over his head and thought about Whitney, Mindy, and masturbation. Then he fell asleep.
Twenty-four
When they finally removed the blindfold, Amanda stood in front of a small structure in the middle of the woods. She had no idea where she was. The structure looked like a small church. It had a cross jutting up off the roof. Had she not vaguely recollected what happened at the Church that morning, she would have been confused. Her stomach fluttered at the prospect of more group sex. She was sore and didn’t know if she could physically take any more but there was longing deep inside her and she knew, if offered, she wouldn’t refuse.
She followed the goat man and the three girls inside.
The girls went around the interior and lit candles as if they knew where they were by memory. Amanda didn’t know what she was supposed to do.
The goat man was huge. His fleshy penis dangled between his legs and he made no attempt to cover it.
“How did you like the services this morning?” he asked.
“They were great.” Amanda’s voice sounded dreamy and distant, even to herself. “Were you there?” She thought about saying she didn’t see anybody who looked like the Devil or a giant goat but thought that might sound like a smartass thing to say.
“I’m everywhere, child.” He held out his hand and stroked a claw under her chin.
“Who are you? I’ve never seen you anywhere.”
“You’ve seen me plenty of times. Who I am is not important. I am one of many. I have another question for you.” He moved closer to her and his penis had stiffened somewhat. She felt it bumping into her stomach.
“Okay.”
“How would you like for every moment of every day to be just like what you experienced in the Church today?”
“I think that would be like... like...”
“Heaven on earth?”
“Exactly.”
“Soon. Soon, child, and I’m glad you want to be part of it. You do want to be part of it, don’t you?”
“Oh, more than anything.”
There was a knock on the door. “Angie!” the goat man called. “Please answer the door.”
Angie flicked out a match and quickly walked to the door. Before opening it, she asked, “Who is it?”
“Baal’s Goats on Demand.”
She smiled and opened the door. A small goat entered the room.
“Just need you to sign this,” the delivery man said.
Angie signed the clipboard.
“Enjoy.” The man turned to leave.
The goat man was gripping himself with his right hand. “Mindy! Ready the knife!”
Mindy brought over a large knife. She had a savage gleam in her eye. Amanda empathized with it. She probably had the same gleam. She wanted them to fall upon the harmless little goat, slash its throat, throw its blood around and roll in it. The three girls seemed fresh and nubile. She wanted to see them without any clothes. She wanted to spread them open. Taste them. Put her fingers on them and in them. She wanted the goat man’s cock to fill her throat. She wanted him to pound her ass. She was already moist and practically moaning.
“Kristen! Come and hold the goat! Mindy, hand the knife to our guest.”
Mindy wrapped her hand around the blade and off
ered the haft to Amanda. She had a tight grip on it. Amanda tugged gently but the knife didn’t come out of Mindy’s hand. “Go ahead,” Mindy said. “Take it.”
Amanda yanked on the knife. Mindy made a fist with her hand and let the blood drip onto the back of the goat. She lifted up her skirt and smeared blood on her crotch. She dropped to the floor in front of the goat and spread her legs. The goat began lapping at the blood between her legs. Mindy made wild barking sounds, her body frantically quivering.
“Do it now!” the goat man shouted.
Amanda straddled the back of the goat, held the knife against its throat and slashed. Blood drenched Mindy. She threw off her clothes and rolled around in it. Amanda threw off her clothes as well. Angie was on her knees in front of the goat man, taking his huge cock deep into her mouth. Kristen stood off in a corner, the candlelight turning her blond hair orange, writhing to the sounds of moaning and the dying sound of the goat’s hooves on the floor. Watching her, Amanda began to feel predatory. She moved toward the girl. She lifted up her dress to touch herself as she watched Kristen dance and, once again, the scene from that morning’s church service came back to her. She continued moving toward her. Reaching her, she stopped her dancing and got down on her knees in front of her while Kristen ground against her face.
She didn’t know how long this continued. There were chants and screams of pleasure. Something that might have been a prayer. The last thing she remembered was having her face buried in Kristen’s vagina while the goat man pounded into her ass. Mindy was writhing in the goat, reduced to a pile of fur and offal. The goat man raked a savage hand across the back of Amanda’s neck, clearing away the hair. As he made his final thrusts, he took a bite from the back of her neck. She cried out with pain but, at the same time, she liked it. She wanted more. She never wanted to leave.
She woke up in her room the next morning. The blinds and curtains were drawn. She didn’t want to open them. She didn’t want to leave the house. She went back to bed and waited for nightfall.
Monday, June 1 6th
Twenty-five
It was nine-oh-four and Doug stood behind the counter, staring glassy-eyed at the trashed store in front of him. It was like everyone in Clover had gone feral. Nothing unusual, he knew. The weekends were always bad. He imagined he was the only one who did anything. Patel was the owner and, therefore, too good to clean up. And then there was Crank. Doug knew what it was like when Crank was there by himself. It was a hangout and lived up to its name because, for Crank and his friends, it was a pantry. Doug wondered why Patel had never caught on that their inventory was way off. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe Patel was only running this place to lose money. Doug knew he would end up cleaning the store and straightening the shelves but he didn’t think he could do it right now. Even though he had slept most of yesterday, he still felt tired. Weighed down. Maybe he was getting sick.
Around ten, Deacon Pork came into the store, accompanied by a much smaller man wearing a black and white striped referee shirt. Pork wore the wrestling singlet he had on yesterday. Doug couldn’t tell if it was the same one or not. Doug said hi but Pork just stared at him and maybe growled.
Pork walked down the pet food aisle, grabbed a fifty pound bag of dog food and slammed it onto the floor. Doug thought about stopping him but then assumed the Deacon was just trying to make some kind of point. Pork threw himself on the bag of dog food and the small man by his side crouched down and slammed his palm to the floor three times. Then he and Pork stood up together and he raised Pork’s hand into the air.
The whole thing was silent and weird. Doug took a gulp of his Yoo-Hoo.
Pork then kicked the bag and nuggets of dog food went rolling all over the floor. It looked like Doug would be cleaning up sooner than he wanted to. Or he could just leave. It probably didn’t really matter in the long run.
Pork and the referee came up to the counter. Pork said, “That’s how you wrestle the demons,” and the referee nodded. Pork reached his large hand out and grabbed Doug’s Yoo-Hoo. He held it under his nose and took a whiff. Then he took a drink. Yoo-Hoo clung to the bottom of his mustache and Pork made no attempt to wipe it away. “I’ll see you Wednesday,” Pork said before he turned to leave.
“Definitely,” Doug said.
He watched them exit the store. For the first time possibly, Wednesday would be the first day he dreaded going to church. It occurred to him he didn’t really have to go. He was eighteen, after all. But his mom would freak. It seemed like the only thing he did to please her and, up until yesterday, he had liked going. Something had changed. He didn’t know if it was Pork’s actions, all the things Crank had said to him over the years, or if it was just something inside of him shifting around with the prospect of a driver’s license and more freedom. He put the cap on his bottle of Yoo-Hoo and dropped it into the trash can. Then he went into the utility room and grabbed the broom and the dustpan-on-a-stick.
Around two a semi pulled up. The truck driver climbed down out of the cab and walked toward the store. He had a perplexed look on his face and kept glancing back at the truck. By the time the truck driver made it to the counter, he seemed angry and winded. Doug knew it couldn’t be good. Through his experience, the truck drivers never really wanted to deal with what they had in their trucks and he knew the only thing causing this paroxysm of grief was some sort of huge shipment. But they usually received their large shipments on Monday and then the occasional small distributor through the week. This wasn’t the normal trucking company. Doug stared at him while the man huffed and wheezed.
“Where you want all this stuff?”
“Um, we’ve got a loading dock in back. Most things come through there.”
“Nah, I’ve delivered here before. You ain’t got that much space.”
“Okay.”
The driver stared at him like he had a vagina on his forehead.
“So where you want it?”
“What is it?”
“Five thousand Duraflame logs.”
“That has to be a mistake.”
The driver slammed his metal clipboard down on the counter and pointed a black-rimmed fingernail.
“S’what the order says.”
Doug looked at it but didn’t really know what he was looking at.
“Let me call the owner,” Doug said.
“I can’t wait around all day.”
“Just... one minute, okay?”
The driver stormed off back through the aisles. Doug grabbed the cordless phone and pressed the speed dial number for Patel, studying the invoice the entire time. The phone rang and rang. A name on the invoice jumped out at him and he hung up the phone. Patel’s name wasn’t on it. Stephen Tanas’ was. Crank. Asshole. He thought about calling Crank to make sure he had ordered the Duraflames but knew it wouldn’t do any good. If he actually answered his phone this early in the afternoon, he knew what he would say. Of course he had ordered the logs. In Crank’s world, it didn’t matter if anything made sense or not. It didn’t matter that, if he actually wanted the logs for himself, it would cost many thousands of dollars.
The driver stood in the back of the store chugging a forty.
Doug flapped his hand at him to try and signal him back to the front. The driver capped the forty and put it back in the refrigerator.
Doug signed the invoice and slid it back to the driver, telling him they could start putting them in back and then finish putting them in the front.
Doug helped. It didn’t take them nearly as long as he thought it would. Thankfully, they were in boxes. The only place in the front of the store not covered in merchandise was the window, so they stacked them floor to ceiling in front of that. When they were finished, the driver went back to the cooler to retrieve his forty, grabbed another one and said, holding them up above his shoulders, “Enjoy your Duraflames, fucker!” before walking out of the store.
Doug thought maybe the guy had some sort of personality disorder.
He picked up the phon
e to call Crank. He didn’t know what his plans for the logs were but if they were there when Patel came in, he was going to throw a fit. While he was on the phone, Crank stormed in the front door. Lurk’s truck was parked on the handicap ramp in front of the door, backed in. Lurk hung out the driver’s side window and vomited.
“Hey, my fuckin Duraflames are here!” Crank shouted. Then said, “Who’s callin?” He reached into the pockets of his black cargo shorts, pulled out the phone and said, “You’re callin? Why are you callin me, Doug?”
“Because of those,” Doug pointed to the wall of boxes in front of the windows. “You better get all of these out of here before Patel comes in in a couple of hours.”
“No worries, bro!”
“Why do you need so many of them?”
“White trash pyrotechnics. For the show!”
Bad idea, Doug thought. Really bad idea.
Twenty-six
Three truckloads later, the front of the store was cleared of Duraflames. Doug helped Crank move all the ones from the stockroom out behind the dumpsters off the loading dock. Crank said he would come back and get the rest of them later. Since Patel never threw anything away, they figured they were safe.
By the time Patel showed up, the store was still trashed and Doug was sweaty and tired.
“Looks like pig barn,” Patel said.
“We were real busy,” Doug said.
“Always busy. Never make much money. Mystery.”
“Maybe we need to start charging more.” Doug didn’t know what else to say.
The front of Patel’s pants were swollen and he looked anxiously at his porn drawer. “Still here,” he said.
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