“Do not listen to her! Every word she speaks is a lie,” Hicks screamed, his face reddened. He’d lost his swagger. He sounded like he felt genuinely afraid. “I know her.”
But one of his people responded to Danicka with an “Amen!”
Hicks went on. “This is real—not a demonstration. You do not understand what this is. She is temptation! Sin!”
Danicka smiled. “Do as I do, not as I say, Elijah Clay Hicks.”
“A false prophet, maybe even the devil herself. She doesn’t know your names or how you got here. Listen to your hearts, to what you know is right. If it is your will to show Miss Katy some mercy, then so be it.” Hicks scrambled to make things right.
“This is faith.” Danicka teased a copperhead with her thumb. She smiled when it sank its fangs into her. The snake coiled itself tightly around her arm, like a bracelet. She let a second snake, a cottonmouth, do the same thing on her right arm. She bent down to pick up a third. “This is living without fear.”
Something exploded in the distance. A loud boom that we all felt as much as heard. Through the trees I saw a tall pillar of light.
Some of the people whooped. Some shouted, “Amen!”
“Reverend!” Danicka yelled. “Don’t leave this flock without a shepherd.”
I could smell death in the breath of the newly awakened serpents. Thousands of them from all directions. The flock huddled, pushing closer, with smaller children in the center.
“They shall take up serpents,” Danicka said forcefully.
Hicks paused and turned, coming past the gas well to issue an edict to his people. “Do not listen to her. She is evil incarnate.”
A teenage girl screamed. She clutched a wiry cottonmouth. It wriggled and twisted as the girl’s mother tried to pull it off.
“Would she have cast the first stone? I want to assure this girl,” she pointed at me, “that she only be judged by the faithful and the righteous.”
“Stop it!” I yelled.
Another explosion shook us from the north. Bright light followed by a wall of sound.
A man closed his eyes and slowly dropped to his knees. I remembered him from last night. The guitar player. Hicks had used his mic. The man picked up a serpent in each hand and lifted them over his head as he’d done a thousand times before. The snakes spiraled and twisted their golden bodies around his wrists, twisting to lash out at the man’s skin with wet fangs. He cried, whether for the pain of the venom or the pain of being forsaken, I’ll never know.
“Return with me… We’ll bring Katy and minister to her as Jesus did.” Hicks stuttered, seemingly torn between his fear of being revealed as a fake and genuine compassion for the people that had followed him for so long. He backed toward the camp. Nobody followed.
As more cries of help and screams of pain rained down from the victims, Hicks had to shout louder and louder to be heard from across the field.
“Please, leave them be,” I protested, but my voice didn’t carry very far.
Hicks spoke, but a shrieking hiss emanating from the gas well drowned out his words. Hicks turned, but had no time to react to the explosion that followed. White light and a thunderous crack echoed off the trees that edged the forest. A rush of heat followed. I turned my head and twisted away from my captors, who shielded their own faces from the light and warmth.
The noise drew the remainder of the congregation from their cabins. A hundred or so, in various states of dress, watching the pillar of flame that rose hundreds of feet into the air. They had no idea that Elijah Clay Hicks had been on the receiving end.
Danicka turned to me and tearfully said, “And it came to pass, as he walked and talked, that a horse and chariot of fire appeared, parting him asunder, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven.”
I practically choked on the scent of death that drifted through the air. By now the others had been shaken from the shock of Hicks’s death and the appearance of the thousands of serpents that surrounded their brothers and sisters. Led by Boggs himself, they broke toward me. They looked mad.
“We’re done here,” Danicka said. “I’d run.”
And the congregation swept past the pillar of fire like it was invisible. They swarmed to the rock pile and took up cobbles by the armful.
I turned and flung myself toward the trees. I pumped my fists and kept telling myself that no matter how much it hurt, I could always push myself to move faster. Rocks whooshed through the leaves. Rocks bounced off tree trunks with thuds. Heavy rocks rolled past my feet after hitting the ground short of me. Branches swatted my face with glossy leaves, so I put my arms up to shield myself. Within seconds, I came upon the electrified fence.
It looked exactly like the one on my pap’s farm, except that it hung too low to crawl beneath. So I made a sharp left and ran along the clearing between the barbed wire and the forest. The dry air burned my throat and lungs. After a minute or two I heard a set of footsteps echoing my own. I never once turned and looked. Instead I broke hard left again to a greenbrier thicket. I stayed low to avoid the worst of the jaggers, just like Bruh Rabbit. I based my strategy on the assumption that my pursuers would be larger and wouldn’t fare as well in the thorns.
Somebody barked my name. “Katy!”
I heard it loud and clear but did not stop. Bruh Rabbit knew better than to stop in the briar patch. My run had turned into a scramble. I spent more than half of it on my hands and knees.
“Katy Bear!” I knew better than to be deceived by familiarity.
Somebody crashed through the thicket with me, totally disregarding the thorns. I stood and put my arms across my face and broke into a full on sprint again. The jaggers caught my jacket and jeans, tangling me in their wiry brambles but my legs never stopped pumping. I rolled and twisted away from one thorny bush to another. When my hair got caught I jerked away. When the skin on my hands and ankles got pinched I closed my eyes and kept running. I welcomed the tiny stings of a hundred little cuts as an alternative to whatever they had planned for me back up the hill. As each jagger ripped away a little bit of skin I reminded myself that I still had my skin, and as long as I breathed, I’d find a way out.
“Katy, please.” I heard something in his voice, but knew better.
A hand brushed my back and I found the speed I knew I could muster before they caught me again. At the end of the briar patch I dashed forward, but my pursuer hadn’t been slowed one bit by my tactics. About twenty yards ahead I saw where a tree had fallen across the fence. I focused every ounce of life on that break. I envisioned myself on the other side. As soon as I jumped through I scanned the ground for rocks. He sounded close, and would catch me. But I’d find a rock, turn, and smash his head open.
“Please…” The voice came from right over my shoulder. Just like Freeze Tag in Pap’s fields.
I saw a power line right-of-way that paralleled the fence and bolted for it. In the distance I saw a river, I didn’t know which. Loose field stone had been piled up at the edges of the clearing. Over and over I told myself to swing until I saw blood. Swing until I saw blood.
My new rule number one.
Swing until I saw blood. Then keep swinging until he stopped moving. I saw my stone and lunged for it.
It felt cold, and fit into my hand like a baby doll head. When I rolled over he ran a step behind me. He fell to his knees. I raised the rock over my head.
“Katy! Hey, hey… It’s okay.” He grabbed my hand the moment I hesitated.
I looked at his face for a long time, but couldn’t make sense of it.
“I saw the explosion.”
It wasn’t Preston or Pauly or anybody else I ever expected to see out here.
“You okay?”
“Ben?” More deception?
“Preston was all over it and he called me right after he called the police.” Ben overloaded me with information to calm me. “Rachael and Jamie are on their way down. We got a way out of here.”
He stood, pulling me off the ground. Then he
took the rock from my hand. “Ain’t you cuter than a sack of puppies?”
“Ben?” A wave of relief washed over me. I fought to control my emotions. I hugged my cousin, and rested my head against his cheek. He squeezed me and held me for what felt like forever.
Just before I could ask him about Preston a rumble grew from back at the camp.
“Motorcycles,” he said, as he picked up his compound bow from the ground. “Have to move.”
“Where is Preston?”
A chorus of hounds joined the pursuit.
“Got picked up by these guys.”
“Well, where is he?”
“Don’t know. We’ll find him. Found you, didn’t I?”
“How do you know he got picked up?”
“Tried to call him and heard his phone ring from a fake cop car back by the tent. They got Pauly too.” Ben pulled Preston’s phone out of his front pocket. “You got a little run left in you?”
I nodded, but he was already pulling me ahead. We worked our way along the edge of the power line right-of-way because the going was much faster than blundering through the forest. The terrain looked fairly level for a few hundred yards. Rocky, but level. Dirt bike paths that crisscrossed the right-of-way made the going a lot easier. But it brought the sounds of Boggs and his guys closer that much faster. Little by little the noise grew louder in the forest behind us. The leaves could no longer muffle the rumble of those tailpipes. In the distance I saw the tall stacks of an old power plant. The real world.
“We need to stay in the trees.” Ben pulled me in a new direction. “Was there any sign of Preston and Pauly back at the camp?”
“Not that I saw. But I didn’t see much. They had me in the revival tent last night. There were a lot of people there,” I said, trying to keep up. “But there weren’t that many structures, unless I didn’t see everything.”
“No, there wasn’t much to see. I followed that police car back out a dirt road this way. Between the camp and the river.”
“How’d you guys come in?”
“Main road. Parked in the trees on the other side. I want to find that dirt road though. That’s the only place I have left to look.”
Through the trees behind me I heard pickup trucks—at least two, maybe three— bouncing away from camp.
He said, “Trust me.”
“How are we all going to make it back to the car if it’s on the other side of the camp?”
“We’re not leaving the way we came in.”
Ben pushed me to the ground as two of the chrome-covered street bikes sputtered through the forest below. Not Boggs. Ashby and another one.
“That the road?”
“Stay low,” Ben said as he walked ahead, answering my question.
The guys got off their bikes and walked toward a small, concrete shed. Ben handed me his bow, took a pistol out of his holster and broke into a sprint.
As soon as I figured Ben was right about Preston and Pauly waves of relief washed over me. I followed as fast as I could, quietly, as he halved the distance between himself and the little block building. Ashby still hadn’t seen him.
Ben managed to get within ten yards without raising suspicion. He lifted his pistol and brought it down onto Ashby’s hairless head. With one blow, the man dropped into the dirt. I ran toward the shed.
The other man shouted into his radio and raised an arm to defend himself. “The shed! They’re at the shed!”
Ben hit him and the radio skittered across the gravel. Ben kicked him mercilessly until he no longer moved.
I arrived as Ben shot the lock off the door, covering my ears perhaps a moment too late. Pauly and Preston stood at the back of the tiny building, sweating and shirtless. I dropped Ben’s bow, and ran past him to Preston.
He picked me up and kissed my neck and cheeks.
“Katy!” I hadn’t seen him cry since the night Stu died.
I knew it was really him by the way his skin smelled. My eyes couldn’t be trusted.
“Let’s go,” Ben said, handing Pauly his phone. “Call Andre. We got company.”
“How’d you get this back?” Pauly asked as he dialed.
“Tried to call your sorry ass once I found Katy and I heard it ringing in that cop car. You couldn’t tell they weren’t real cops?”
“We could tell they had guns.” Pauly followed Ben down the hill.
The trucks got closer. Another wave of motorcycles came with them.
I grabbed Preston’s hand, holding him back for a second longer. I said, “Why did you call her?”
He looked at me, and without preparing an excuse, said, “Jane told me to. I’m sorry.”
“What did she take, Preston? Tell me now because I don’t want to find out later that all this was for nothing.”
“What are you talking about?” Ben asked as he turned. “We ain’t got time for this.”
“Nothing. Preston didn’t give her anything. I got you covered.” Pauly held the phone up to his ear. “Andre? We’re coming in hot. Keep an eye out for us.”
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Pauly. Preston turned his back to me.
“Damn it, Preston. What did you do?” I pushed him away from me.
But he couldn’t say anything.
“Yalla, yalla, kids. Let’s move.” Ben turned and started jogging again.
I walked past Preston and followed Ben down the hill.
“I’ll fix everything, Katy. I promise I will.” Preston let me walk ahead a few steps.
But there was always a price to pay. Nothing in the world was ever free. I knew that. Ben knew that. Preston should’ve known better.
“Let’s pick it up?” Ben pointed at the hill where we’d crossed beneath the power lines.
Headlights cast long shadows through the forest. They swept from left to right as the lead pickup negotiated a sharp turn. The sun had set almost fully below the horizon. Enough light remained to see our footing, but it faded fast.
“Where are we going?”
“The river,” Ben said. “Pauly’s buddy is waiting.”
I looked over my shoulder. Pauly and Preston were running side-by-side, a few yards back.
Ben said, “Take it easy on him, Katy. He almost died for you. He may not want to talk about it, so I will. He let us drown him this morning. That’s what your mom said to do, so he did it. Without hesitation.”
I slowed down, because I didn’t want to talk to Ben anymore either.
When Preston caught up to me, I took his hand. I could feel the change in his touch as he recovered from the sting of what I’d said back at the shed. Pauly ran ahead a bit, so I called for him to slow down.
He turned, and I grabbed his hand too. The three of us followed Ben down the hill.
At once, from the forest all around, the sound of engines grew. Motorcycles and pickup trucks. Headlights swept the forest from left to right then from right to left just as quickly. Hounds came at us from the direction of the field. The three groups were converging right on us.
“Move it, boys and girl!” Ben yelled from farther down the slope. Through the trees ahead of him I could see the night sky reflecting off water. A placid, silvery pool undisturbed by wind or current. Peepers and bullfrogs called from dark nooks. The water returned their calls to the night.
The crack of a hunting rifle cut through it all.
“Oscar Mike!” Ben yelled. And after a moment or two, the peepers resumed calling as if nothing had happened. “Let’s go.”
Off to the far left I saw one of the trucks drift to water’s edge. Headlights illuminated the entire pond. People disembarked from the bed of the truck as a second pickup pulled up behind the first. We followed Ben into black mud thick as tar.
A glow appeared over the water ahead of us. A dim blue light like a pilot light in a gas stove. “Fairy fire,” I said, but nobody listened.
Ben leapt into the water first. “Stay in the shadows,” he said. “Don’t drift away from the bank. Pauly, call Andre and find ou
t where him and his old man are.”
“Are there alligators?” I said, pausing at the water’s edge. More fairy fire appeared to our right like runway lights, leading us to safer waters.
“No, now get in.”
Pauly let go of my hand and dug for his phone. I paused to wait for him in the cold water. My feet sank into the soft mud. The next step I took pulled my shoe off my right foot. The smell of decay rose from the bottom. Old mud. Rot.
Ben said, “But there are snapping turtles big enough to take your foot off. And giant catfish.”
I looked back and saw the people from the church following us into the water. We had a good forty yards on them. Headlights shone through the thin, white baptismal gowns they wore, creating silhouetted arms and legs. The shapeless men and women swept across the water like some kind of foggy wave. “Oh, shit.”
Preston and Pauly looked at the same time. From the earpiece of Pauly’s phone I heard a man’s voice. Pauly, what’s going on there?
But Pauly couldn’t speak. Neither could Preston. Not while Danicka took her place at the head of the pursuit. It wasn’t so much that she’d come to lead them. It was how she led them.
“Fucking go,” Preston said, pulling me ahead.
In a way, I wanted them to verify what I saw. That Danicka walked on the water ahead of what remained of Hicks’s church. As the men and women stumbled over submerged logs and tree roots, Danicka glided. Like she was on ice skates. Preston’s and Pauly’s reactions made it very real. Preston pulled me into deeper water. The chill made my breath catch in my throat.
“Paul.” Her voice came from everywhere, almost as if from the air itself. I released Preston’s hand to cover my ears.
Pauly stopped.
“Get him!” Ben yelled. He shined a small headlamp into the water ahead of us. Waving it back and forth over the black surface. In the darkness I heard the buzz of a small motor, like a dirtbike.
Preston retreated a few steps and grabbed Pauly’s arm. “C’mon, brother.”
The Revelations of Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 3) Page 19