by Billy Coffey
The crowd parted like them two’d caught a disease spread by simple nearness. Medric stepped out first. He took in the contempt on Raleigh’s face and the hurting rage on Joe Mitchell’s, but he could dwell on neither of them long. That burning cross in front of the funeral home held all his attention, and how those flames licked the porch’s roof. How those cloaked and hooded men raised their pistols and rifles. How those torches burned in the night under that full moon. It was hate Medric felt, that much is sure. But it wasn’t so much the hate he felt himself as it was the hate directed at him.
“You stay right here, Medric,” Bucky said. “Don’t you move.”
“I appreciate that, Bucky, I truly do. But Raleigh means business this time, and we all know it.”
“More of us than them,” John David said.
“Not with them guns.”
Raleigh lifted his chin. “Get on down here, Medric. Wilson, you too.”
“Don’t do this, Raleigh,” Wilson said. “It’s the witch we have to fight, not each other.”
“You brought the witch. You and Medric and your girl.”
Medric took the first step down.
Bucky tried stopping him. “This ain’t the way.”
“It is, Buck. It’s the only way. Raleigh’s right. I shot Ruth. Didn’t mean to, but that don’t matter. I go out there to him, I die. I go back inside, I still die, along with everybody else. I can’t do that. You told me we a town. I never believed it, but I guess I do now. So you go on now and let me go. It’s what I deserve for killing Ruth and giving Alvaretta what she wanted. Maybe y’all can get out of here and be safe. You do that? You keep everybody safe now.”
He walked off then, down the steps slow and one at a time, in no hurry to meet his end. John David said they had to do something, but I think he had as many ideas as Bucky, and by that I mean zero.
“Wilson,” Raleigh said. “Come on.”
You could smell the gas spread around the church. All it’d take was one of them fifteen men to drop a torch, they’d all be burned alive. Wilson must’ve known that, because he went on down the steps too and didn’t even listen to Bucky’s pleading. Medric reached the parking lot first. He waited for Wilson, then they both made their way to Raleigh. Raleigh stepped away like the men in front of him carried a stench.
The pistol in his hand twitched and had started rising up when a voice shouted, “You’ll want to hold off on that, Raleigh Jennings.”
Raleigh looked up to see Chessie Hodge pushing her way through the crowd. Briar came along behind and then the preacher, looking like he’d just been squashed like a bug.
Scarlett came out last. She saw what was happening and tried to run down the steps for her daddy. Bucky and John David stopped her.
“I love you, Scarlett,” Wilson said.
Scarlett shook her head—Please no.
“You turn’m loose, Raleigh,” Chessie said. She came down those steps like she owned them, Briar too, and neither did not so much as flinch at the guns pointed at them. “You turn’m loose or you face my wrath.”
“I’m not your lackey anymore, Chessie,” Raleigh said. “You don’t get to order me around. I don’t see iron in your hand.” He raised his voice and added, “Can’t carry guns in the Lord’s house, and I appreciate you making that rule, David,” then lowered and said to Chessie, “That makes you just a plain old woman.” He looked at Medric. “You said your prayer yet?”
“Don’t you do this, Raleigh,” Briar said.
Medric shook his head.
Raleigh smiled. “Good.”
Folk will tell you the last thing Medric Johnston ever saw was the barrel of Raleigh’s gun pointed at his nose. I’d go further and say the last thing Medric ever saw was the one thing that proved everything he ever thought true of this world. They’d come after him first, he’d told Bucky. And Medric had been right. He heard the trigger pull. By the time the shot rang out, the bullet had already gone in one side of his head and out the other. Medric fell backward onto the lot of the Holy Fire as Chessie and John David cried out. He landed with his arms stretched out at his sides, looking like the cross burning just across the way.
-7-
I told you Briar Hodge was quick on his feet for a man his size. As that night proved, Chessie could move even faster. Too bad it was all for naught.
She’d planted her fist into the side of Raleigh’s head before Medric’s body could even settle on the pavement. Raleigh spun around with a confused look in his eyes. Chessie hit him again, in the jaw this time and with all her knuckles, and did not flinch at the barrel rising for her. By then Briar had arrived, more bear than man.
John David jumped from the steps and hit the first Circle man he met, knocking him out and snatching his torch in one motion. He screamed for everyone to get out of the church. The rest of the Circle froze as if the world had suddenly gone cockeyed. I wonder just how many of the men under those hoods truly thought Raleigh would commit murder. You ask me, wasn’t a doubt at all he would. Ruth Mitchell may have been Joe’s wife and may have spent time with Raleigh just so she could feed her family, but aside from Eugenia, Ruthie’d been the only woman Raleigh had ever almost loved.
But once the Circle saw what John David did to one of their own, they sprang to action. Bucky would later call it a miracle that none of them got it in their heads to light the church or shoot their guns. I guess by then the holy war had come and went. Now was about self-preservation alone. A few turned and ran, their white robes and hoods turning yellow and then orange in the moonlight. More than one, though, chose to fight it out. They jumped on Chessie and Briar, jumped on John David, and that brought Bucky down off the steps to do what he could. Wasn’t peacemaking on that man’s mind, friend, not that night. Bucky pushed and shoved and punched right along with the rest of them, and so did Landis and Doc Sullivan and Maris, even Belle Ramsay. And our preacher. Oh yes, you can believe Reverend Ramsay scuffled along with the rest. He went not after Raleigh, but the five men who’d set upon his son. Reverend wrestled four of them away and then grabbed the last just as John David landed a blow. The front of the man’s hood flew up, revealing Homer Pruitt’s face.
Wilson had somehow been left alone in the fight. Scarlett searched for him from her spot near the steps and tried running when she spotted him. Doc Sullivan grabbed her and told her to stay, he’d get the mayor. But Joe Mitchell spotted Wilson first. He got close and raised the pistol in his hand, then fell by Briar’s fist.
“Fight or go, Wilson,” the big man screamed.
The mayor looked for a place to hide. Doc Sullivan had lost him in the crowd, as had Scarlett. The only one who noticed Wilson at all was the hooded man who’d yet to move from his place in the Circle. He carried no gun, only a torch held close to his hood, and Wilson watched with horror as a fleshless hand raised that hood up, revealing Stu Graves’s face. Now the demon walked, coming for Wilson as bodies crashed around it, pulling from beneath its cloak a long rope tied in a noose.
Wilson ran. He looked toward the church steps and saw Scarlett. Their eyes met. He could not go there. He could not lead Stu to his little girl. He pushed through the edge of the fight to open space and ran for the council building instead.
Raleigh had slipped away from Chessie. She looked but couldn’t find him for the blood in her eye. Someone grabbed her from behind, an arm wrapped in Circle man’s cloth that ended at a bandaged wrist. Chessie bit down on Tully Wiseman’s broken hand, making him squeal. Bucky saw Chessie struggling and wrenched Tully away. The grocery’s former butcher scampered off into the throng. Chessie went after him, hollering for Briar and Bucky to follow. Briar did. Bucky never got the chance. He turned to see Raleigh standing not ten feet away. The man’s face had gone blue and black with bruises. He raised a bloodied hand and pointed the pistol to Bucky’s head.
I asked what lay in a man’s mind when he knew he was about to die. I don’t know about Medric, friend, but I know what Bucky Vest thought. He thought that all
he’d done had not been enough to save his town, that Cordelia and Angela would have to live out the rest of their lives without him, scraping to get by however best they could. But worse would be them knowing that Bucky had failed in his calling, and that was a weight too heavy for him to bear. He could not lift his gun to counter Raleigh. Bucky could not do a thing. He closed his eyes and flinched at the pistol’s report, waiting for his body to ignite in pain and his soul to break free of this cold and lonely world.
I swear Bucky felt that bullet go through him. He opened his eyes and felt his chest and stomach, but no part of him had gone missing. Ten feet away Raleigh lay sprawled on his back. Two holes no more than half an inch apart had been put into the center of his chest. John David kept the pistol in his hand pointed to where Raleigh had stood. Raleigh Jennings died with his eyes open to the moon and the empty sky above it. I expect his final thought was he hoped the Lord weren’t black.
The sound of the gun scattered what was left of the Brotherhood of the Circle, sending them in every direction. A few of the Circle were never identified. Whole lot of them were. You can bet Chessie Hodge promised to see they all got what they deserved.
Men were running toward the funeral home, where the fire from the cross had spread to the porch and one side. Within the hour, the only remnant left of Medric Johnston’s existence in this world would burn to the ground. Belle and Naomi ran for Bucky, along with the Hodges and the Reverend. Landis joined them. John David dropped the gun in his hand. Bucky looked at him and nodded thanks.
The Reverend hollered for more people at the funeral home. Buckets, water, anything they could find. Scarlett asked where her daddy had gone. Chessie sent Briar with her to look. People were breathless, wounded and scared, and yet an eerie calm had settled over the church—the peace after the war.
“Is it over?” Belle asked.
Chessie looked down the way and grumbled, “Think we’re about to find out.”
From the road that led to Harper’s Field came a single headlight. Kayann’s Mercedes looked to slow at the edge of town, then gained speed. She parked at the edge of the lot and let everyone spill out. Angela and Kayann ran to where Landis and Bucky had gathered. Cordelia flung herself into her father’s arms.
“Hays,” Kayann said. “Landis, I saw Hays.”
“Where?”
“At Harper’s Field. He ran off. Something’s wrong with him, Landis. Bucky, you have to find our son before something awful happens.”
“We’ll find him. John David, you get up to the field, see if he’s hiding up there. I’ll take Landis and head—”
And that’s all Bucky got out, because that’s when Mitchell’s Exxon exploded and they all learned things weren’t over at all.
-8-
He barred the door and heard the clack of the lock swinging home, and yet Wilson knew that wouldn’t be enough. No one had followed him to the council building—living or dead—but no way could he allow himself to remain so exposed. He pulled on the door to make sure it wouldn’t budge and turned down the long hallway to his office. His key wouldn’t work. He fumbled with the ring, making sure it was his office key in his hand and not the one to the T-bird or the house. Tried again. Fingered the lock to make sure it hadn’t been tampered with. No, the key wouldn’t work.
Wilson cursed. The word echoed down the hall. Outside came the muffled sounds of shouting and fighting—outside was Scarlett—and a part of Wilson must’ve struggled against the idea that he should be out there with her, fighting for his town. But Crow Holler was Wilson’s town no longer. Oh sure, in the eyes of the law it remained his, at least for a little while more. But even if Crow Holler survived the night and Alvaretta and her demon were put down, nothing would ever be the same for Wilson Bickford. There remained Stu’s death to answer for. It would be manslaughter at the least, plus whatever other charges of cover-up the district attorney felt a need to tack on. There would be a trial and there would be jail. There would be ruination. Wilson stood to lose everything, but all of that must’ve paled to losing Scarlett. And I do believe Wilson thought he’d lost her. What else could he think, seeing his own daughter abandon him along with his town? What else could Wilson believe after Scarlett had betrayed his secret to Chessie Hodge?
A sound at the doors out front. Someone pulling the handle, wanting in.
Wilson managed to still his shaking hands enough to plunge the key into the lock. He turned the knob and raced inside, barely missing the desk corner with his knee, and looked through the drawn blinds. No one stood at the doors, but he had a grand view of everybody knocking the snot out of everybody else over in the Holy Fire’s parking lot. He heard the gunshot that killed Raleigh Jennings and dropped to the floor. Wilson crawled to the small closet in the corner and eased inside. Stu wouldn’t find him. Alvaretta Graves wouldn’t win. And do you know why, friend? Because Wilson Bickford was a survivor. Always had been.
I guess Wilson would’ve stayed in there until the Rapture were it not for the Exxon blowing up. Hays had stacked so many crates of moonshine around the pump and inside that store that when everything blew, the shock wave near shattered the windows. Wilson scampered out and raised his head enough to see. The fireball bloomed taller than anything he’d ever seen in his life—yellow and orange and red, rising like a monster to consume them all. From down the hall came the sound of a boot scuffling along the floor.
Wilson ducked again and crawled to the other side of the desk, past the two visitor chairs to the hallway’s edge. He went to shut the door and then thought better. He’d been quiet. No way anybody’d know where he’d hidden unless he made a racket like shutting a door. He got down on his belly and peered down the hall.
Nothing looked back at him but the darkness, fuzzy outlines of the other doors and the coatrack at the end of the hall, the watercooler, a wooden table with a lamp on top that didn’t work. And then from the darkness grew a moving shadow dressed in white, a hooded man with a hand of bone.
“Leave me alone,” he cried. “Do you hear me? I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean it didn’tmeanit go away.”
He crawled back inside and slammed the door, but Wilson knew the futility of it. He did, friend. His town lay burning and his daughter had gone and Wilson had been left alone with no one but the man he’d killed, and even now he could hear Stu’s boots stepping down the hallway. Growing closer.
I’ll leave it to you to decide if Stu Graves truly met Wilson that night. I’ll let you settle on whether what he saw was a demon born of hell or one born of guilt and pain collapsing in on the secret he’d held on to for so long. But I’ll tell you this, and you take it as truth—to Wilson, that was Stu and nothing else. And I think that’s why he decided what he had to do. Wilson had been the only one Alvaretta had wanted all along. He reached for a pen and a piece of paper from his desk and began writing as the knob on the door began to turn.
-9-
Four crates around the pump, another six inside the store, then the dozen or so jars Hays poured in a wavy line for a fuse to connect them all. He’d briefly considered adding a few more crates against the propane tank out back, but then decided no. Ten felt plenty. He didn’t have to think about how to arrange it all. You understand? That kind of destruction didn’t need to unfold in Hays’s mind as much as it simply needed uncovering. Like that mental picture had always been there in some fashion, ever since he’d been a little boy. It was that easy.
He could see the demons thrashing about at the church from his spot between the Exxon and the grocery, whipping themselves into a frenzy. Hell. That’s what Hays Foster gazed upon that night. Everyone he knew in the world, all he may not have loved but certainly did like, thrown to madness. He’d stood with the lighter in his hand, flicking the top open and closed as neighbor turned against neighbor. And what I like to imagine went through his mind was it truly had been a curse that had befallen his world, one beyond even the witch’s doing. This evil lay deeper and held more power. He saw not the end of ev
erything but how everything would end, if not that night then upon some night long distant. A night much like that one, in fact, when the mass of humankind would extinguish itself not with bombs and drones but clubs and rocks, completing some twisted circle first begun in the dim past. What he saw was hopelessness. There’s no other word, friend. That night, Hays Foster had a front row seat on the folly of man.
He flicked the lighter open once more and spun the wheel, sparking the flint. The flame held steady as Hays bent to touch the lighter to the path. Fire traveled in shimmers of pale blue that forked off inside the store and to the pump. There came next a short instant of nothing. And then came everything.
The pump detonated with the light of a hundred suns, taking with it Joe Mitchell’s truck and the front of the store. What remained became engulfed by the moonshine’s endless burn. The shock wave threw Hays backward hard onto the road, sprawling him. He lifted his head to revelation.
A pillar of fire stretched to the heavens, blocking the moon in reds and oranges in what Hays must have thought was what Moses had seen to lead his people to the Promised Land. That column did not rise straight but tilted behind where Hays lay, toward the grocery. Pointing the way.
He scrambled for Briar’s truck as the first of the demons ran toward the fire. Things would have to be quick now. Hays had barely managed to unload the last of the moonshine when the others reached the lot. There were not many. Some had run off, no doubt to wreak their havoc across the countryside. Others made it no further than the burning Exxon, too afraid to continue. And yet the small group of monsters that had pressed on to put an end to Hays Foster possessed the numbers to do just that. He counted thirteen—that unholy number—and even now, their leader shouted Hays’s name.