“Just makin the rounds like old times. Doin some visiting, you know?”
Mrs. Sinkwater took the tract from Doug’s hand. Doug went through his spiel and then Mrs. Sinkwater and his mom spent about ten minutes talking. They left to go to the next house but Doug still felt odd about the scene at Mrs. Sinkwater’s. He felt violated.
Halfway to the next house, Doug heard from behind him, “Doug. Doug. Doug. Doug.”
He turned to look.
It was Whitney.
“I really need to talk to you.”
Doug motioned toward his mother, as though she could be missed. Regardless, he didn’t want to talk to Whitney. Before she could say anything, his mother advanced on her. The look in Whitney’s eyes was both defiant and fearful.
“You think I don’t know what you’ve been up to,” his mom said.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Backus, but this is very important.”
Doug’s mom slapped Whitney in the face. Whitney tried to push her but she stood, stout and immovable. Doug’s mom punched Whitney in the stomach, dropping her to the ground.
Doug wondered if he should defend her but he didn’t feel like it. Suddenly he didn’t feel like doing much of anything. His mother continued to pound on Whitney. It looked like Whitney had already gotten in a fight and Doug wondered about that, but only briefly. He was appalled at his mother’s unchristian conduct. He dropped the bag of tracts and said, “I’m going home.”
He walked past Whitney and his mother brawling in the sidewalk.
He went into his house and up to his room.
He slammed the door shut and thought something really needed to be done.
Forty-seven
Crank lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. Something slammed into his door, trying to open it. It was a good thing he’d remembered to put the chair there. The door bulged again. It probably wouldn’t take much to bust the door around the chair, but he didn’t think his mother had the power to do it and that was who he was worried about the most.
“You’re not getting in, bitch!” He lit a cigarette, figuring he could burn her in the eye or something if she actually managed to make it in.
“Which bitch are you talking about?” a voice significantly younger than his mother’s said.
“Is my mom out there?”
“I didn’t see her. Are you going to open the door?”
“Chloe?”
“No, douche, it’s Whitney.”
“You weren’t able to talk to Doug?”
“No. Will you open the fucking door?”
Crank got off the bed and removed the chair from under the door’s knob. The door opened and a battered looking Whitney stood there.
“What the fuck happened to you?”
“First that fat fuck Pork happened to me—”
“The guy who dresses like a wrestler?”
“Yeah. He must have somehow found out about what happened between me and Doug. It was a warning but it really just showed how serious things are and how right I am about what I thought was going on.”
Crank stared off into some middle distance behind Whitney and said, “And then?”
“And then today I found Doug and his mom out walking in the neighborhood and when I tried to talk to him, she beat me up.”
“She’s a large woman. Built like a man.”
“Fights like a man.”
“It’s kind of hot. The bruises and shit.”
“You sick fuck.”
But Crank’s hands were already on her shoulders, dragging her into the room. She tried to resist even as he slid a hand up the inside of her leg, lifting her dress.
“No. Huh-uh.” She tried to brush his hand away.
“If you want me to keep listening to you and help and all that...”
“Jesus, you’re even lazy when it comes to blackmail.”
He bent her over the bed, pulled her underwear down her legs and got on his knees behind her. He gruffly spread her ass cheeks and started tonguing her asshole and cunt. He took his head away to say, “You can still talk. I’m listening.”
“And you’ll help?”
“Depends on what it is.”
“If you think you’re putting that diseased dick in me before agreeing then I could just leave now.”
“Fine, I’ll help. Have you come yet?”
“No. Keep going. I’m close. And thanks. That feels nice.”
“No problem.”
Amidst Crank’s slurping, Whitney told him what they needed to do. He said he had the show tomorrow and she told him as long as he was finished a little before midnight it wouldn’t matter. While Crank had her on her hands and knees on the bed, going at her from behind, his mother came home. She seemed happy with the situation more so than angered. Crank didn’t stop and Whitney thought it would almost be more awkward to stop and acknowledge the woman’s presence than to just pretend she hadn’t noticed her come in. Crank’s mom stood there for a while before finally going to pass out on the couch, the television turned to top volume, her hand down the front of her pants.
Forty-eight
The beast rested, thinking about tomorrow at the stroke of midnight, just as the twentieth became the twenty-first. It would drink the blood of the virgin, the sacrifice, and its nights of rest would all be worth it.
Forty-nine
When Whitney left Crank’s trailer, she felt slightly better about things. She had considered asking him to walk her home but figured, if need be, she stood a better chance at surviving things alone. Her brief period of guilt about letting Crank take her virginity had ended tonight as Crank fucked her for what felt like hours. She knew about Crank, knew he would never consider them boyfriend and girlfriend. And that wasn’t something she wanted anyway. There weren’t many men or even boys in Clover and, at first, as much as she hated to admit it, she was planning on helping Doug because she was attracted to him. Now she felt like that probably wasn’t an option but she was going to try and help him anyway. It made her feel like she was doing a good thing.
Altruism.
That was the word she was trying to think of.
Walking the back country roads through the hills and, later, the town, was uneventful save for the buzzing energy around her. It made her think of the heightened electricity in the air before a storm.
Fifty
Officer Viled had had Amanda handcuffed to the bed for she didn’t know how long. Part of her thought he was trying to keep her from getting out but parts of him delivered such exquisite pleasure to her that she quickly put those thoughts out of her head. He was the Law. If he told her to do something then she was going to do it. The Church was another kind of law, and when it had told her to open her eyes and witness, she had done that as well.
Things were so much different since Perry had died.
So much better.
Friday , June 20th
Fifty-one
When Doug got to America Pantry for what he had decided would be his final day of work, he was surprised to find no one there. The door was unlocked, but there was no sign of Patel or even Crank. Then he remembered Crank had quit. That made Doug feel even worse about not even giving Patel two weeks’ notice.
On the ride over, his mother had seemed groggy and ill-tempered.
He spent the morning searching the paper for apartments. The only affordable places were trailers. If it weren’t for his close affiliation with the Church, he would leave Clover altogether. Then he thought of people like Whitney and Crank, the diseases this town put in its children, and thought this town needed him.
He smelled perfume and looked up to see a moderately attractive woman standing at the counter. He must have been off in his own little world. He hadn’t even heard her come in. He started to ring her up before realizing she hadn’t put anything on the counter.
“Can I help you?” he said.
“I need it,” she practically moaned.
“Need what?”
She slid a hand down the fr
ont of her jeans.
“You know,” she said.
Doug backed away. Why was this happening to him?
She started to come around the counter and the door jingled. Deacon Pork stormed to the woman and grabbed her roughly around the arm.
“Maybe you should go home, Mrs. Pauley,” he said, leading her to the front door.
The phone rang. Doug picked it up.
“America Pantry.”
“Doug...”
He slammed the phone down. It was Whitney. Maybe when things were calmer, he could talk to her, he could try and bring her to the light, but not now.
Deacon Pork stood on the other side of the counter.
“I think maybe I’d better hang around here with you all day. What with the trust issues and everything.”
Doug didn’t know what to say. This was one of his teachers, one of his leaders, and he had let him down. As much as he wanted to tell Pork he didn’t need the control, he knew Pork wouldn’t see it that way.
“Um... okay.” He didn’t know what else he could say.
Pork parked himself in the back of the store, his arms crossed over his wide barrel chest, looking like the most conspicuous security guard in the world. He stared continually at Doug. After a few minutes, Doug stopped being nervous. Most of the customers were like the first of the day. Doug began to wonder if he was exuding pheromones or something.
He didn’t see how he could go eighteen years of his life without any interest from the opposite sex and then have this much attention bestowed upon him in only a week or two.
It was strange.
It was all a test of faith.
Besides, if he had received attention from girls earlier on, there was a really good chance he never would have found the Church.
Each time he was approached, Pork was immediately at the counter to pull the offending female toward the door.
Sometime after noon, Whitney came to the store. She didn’t even make it to the counter. As soon as she spotted Pork, she turned and left.
Maybe he should have answered her call.
Nah. If it was important, she’d call back.
After fending off a few more women, the phone rang.
It was Whitney. “Don’t hang up!” she said.
He was wrong. He definitely didn’t want to talk to her. Just the sound of her voice brought back all the anger. He didn’t like feeling angry.
“I have really important things to say!”
Then, as the phone was on its way to the cradle, he heard her yell, “Don’t go tonight! ... Dad’s urn!”
He almost wanted to snatch the phone up and shout, “What about my dad’s urn?!” but felt like that would give her too much satisfaction. She was probably just saying things that would pique his interest.
Lies.
He looked at Pork and shouted, “Lies!”
Pork nodded his head like he understood.
Fifty-two
Crank was in the bathroom with his shirt off, flexing in front of the mirror when Whitney knocked on the bathroom door.
“He wouldn’t talk to me,” she said. “And my pussy really hurts.”
“Probably just a UTI.”
“You’re going to have to try talking to him.”
Crank opened the door. “Can’t do that.”
“Because of your stupid show?”
“Yeah, this is a big one.”
“What... twelve, thirteen people?”
“Tons.”
“Tons of fat people is only like seven or eight.”
“And we got some Duraflames.”
“What the fuck are those?”
“Pyrotechnics.”
“Okay. Well, tell yourself that when your best friend gets sacrificed to the dark lord.”
Crank scoffed. “All that stuff is shit.”
“How can you still believe that after everything I’ve told you?”
“Girls lie. About everything.”
“But you’re still coming after the show, right?”
“To the Church? Yeah, I’ll be there.”
“By midnight?”
“By midnight. Hey, wanna give me a blowjob?”
“Not particularly.”
“I just figured... since your pussy was sore and shit.”
Whitney snatched out her hand and punched Crank in the crotch. “And you’re still going to help me, bitch.”
Fifty-three
By early afternoon, probably the fifteenth woman threw herself at Doug. And not all of them had been women. A couple of them were probably elementary school kids. Pork had apparently had enough.
“I’ve called your mother,” Pork said. “She’s on her way to pick you up.”
“But I’m here until five.”
“No, you’re going with your mother. See you at the ceremony tonight.”
“But I need to talk to Patel.”
“I’ll punch you in the face if you don’t go with your mother. She’s here now.”
Doug slumped his shoulders and walked out as his mother pulled up into the parking lot. He opened the back door and slid into the back seat.
“What are you doing?” his mother asked.
“Avoiding as much cigarette smoke as I can.”
“You’re being a little ass is what you’re doing.”
“Do we have to do this now?”
“You’re the one who sat in the back.”
“You’re the one who developed a smoking habit.”
His mom tossed her cigarette out the window, rolled it up, and exhaled.
“Now I’m not smoking,” she said.
Doug pulled his shirt up over his head.
Fifty-four
After coming on her face and wiping his penis off in her hair, Officer Viled undid Amanda’s handcuffs and told her to go take a shower. “You smell like a whore’s mattress.”
She felt sore inside and out, but this pain created a type of ecstatic lightness within her. She wondered what Officer Viled had planned for her. Then he was in the shower with her. It was like just thinking about him made him appear.
“I had to trim my mustache,” he said.
“It looks great,” she said. And it did. “So what are we doing tonight?”
“What... you think I have plans for us just because I asked you to take a shower?”
“I guess we don’t have to.”
He vigorously tugged his penis. “Seems like you’ve been perfectly happy right here the past couple of days.”
“I told you we don’t have to.”
“Have you forgotten already?”
“Forgotten?”
“The ceremony. What you were called to witness on.”
Amanda couldn’t remember if she was called upon to witness anything specifically or not. So far it seemed like she had witnessed a lot of things. Some of them were awful, but awful in a beautiful way.
Officer Viled breathed out harshly. “The final appearance of Our Lord.”
“The Beast?”
“Yes! And you are to witness it and then go out into the world to tell people about it.”
She still wasn’t grasping the exact details but she thought it sounded good anyway. “Yes,” she said. “That sounds glorious.”
“Glorious! Of course. Glory glory.”
Amanda grew excited and asked him if he wanted to make love. He said his penis was too raw. She told him she couldn’t wait for tonight. When she got out of the shower, she put on the last nice dress she had, pounded a bottle of wine, and collapsed on the couch, waiting for Officer Viled to take her to the Church.
Fifty-five
To anyone else, the Tabernacle would have smelled toxic. To the three initiates, it smelled like a labor of love. All of their recent sacrifices now covered this room. Maggots writhed in the decaying corpses. The flies clouded the small space. And they themselves were covered in this same rot. It seemed like such a shame to wash it off. But that’s what they were supposed to do. What they’d been doing to
the Tabernacle was creating a domicile for their Lord to return to. What they’d been doing with themselves was training to provide them with the skills that would please their Lord.
In the afternoon sunlight, the three girls went down to the river and laid their clothes on the bank before wading into the water. With flowered soap, they washed every surface of their bodies. And with the sacrificial knife, they shaved all of their hair. When there was blood, they greedily lapped at it, thirsting for more. But they would get more tonight. And it would be the purest kind.
Fifty-six
“Just keep piling them back there,” Crank said.
Patrick Crayze kept kicking the individually packaged logs from the bed of the truck. Lurk stayed in the cab, his head lolling on the seat. It didn’t strike any of them as absurd that Crank was giving them the directions. Once all the logs were in place, loosely scattered toward the back of the cave, they decided they needed to rehearse so they went back to Crank’s to gather the instruments and the few remaining logs. They went through the drive-thru downtown and bought two cases of beer from the albino girl with the pegleg who would sell beer to anyone in a car.
By the time they got back to the cave, they decided they didn’t really need to rehearse. Plugging in their instruments would be enough. They couldn’t find any plugs and Crank started to wonder about the house lights. He knew he’d been to see shows here before. He knew there had been stage lights and amplified sound. No pyrotechnics, but the essentials. That’s why he thought the pyrotechnics would blow them away. If it was a group of people standing around and listening to acoustic music coming from a band they couldn’t see... he didn’t know.
Maybe that would make the pyrotechnics even more awesome. More extreme.
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