“Uh, yeah. HQ. Right on up the way. Meet the boss. Meet the honcho. He’s the big boss. Big, big boss.” El Jefe pointed northwards.
“Good,” said the Devil. “Take me to your leader.”
Chapter 37. The Rain Is Disgusting
They – “they” being those folks who seem to be responsible for all the bits of wisdom for which nobody else wants to take credit – have a saying: If you don’t like the weather in Texas, wait a few minutes. It’ll change. They probably say that sort of thing in a lot of places, but Texas is special. The weather lurches about in fits of contradictory indecision so extraordinary and unpredictable that it might lead a reasonable weatherman to throw up his hands in disgust and denounce the local weather god (or gods) as “Just plain nuts.”
It started to rain. Liam flipped on his windshield wipers, but the blades just smeared the water around in big, blurry streaks, as if the window were very dirty. This was odd, because the car wasn’t dirty at all. In fact, Liam was fanatical about keeping the car clean. He glanced over at Lola, who was on the phone with her boss.
“No, no. Not goats. Sheep.” Lola pressed the phone to her ear, trying to hear over the sound of the car’s engine. “That’s what he said: It was just sheep. Right. No, the guy’s name is Festus. Festus. No, Festus. It starts with an ‘F’.” Lola pulled the phone away from her ear, and turned to give Liam a nasty look. Tiny but clearly audible barking sounds emanated from the handset. “He wants to know who Festus is and why he was there.” She thrust the phone at Liam. “You get to explain that.”
Liam frowned and took the phone. The stream of barky noises continued unabated as he held it up to his ear. He turned the wipers up a notch. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, downshifting and pulling into the oncoming lane to pass a school bus. “No, that’s right. His name is Festus. He’s a friend of mine, and—” Lola tried to explain that they needed to go after Festus, but all Boehner seemed to care about was sheep vs. goats and why the hell Festus had been there. Typical Boehner. “They took him. Yes. Yes. Correct.” He dropped the phone as he swerved to avoid an oncoming military convoy. The train of military trucks finally roared by, and Liam downshifted again, gunning the car into the oncoming lane. He reached over to take the handset from Lola, who’d grabbed it off the floor. She turned around in her seat, trying to get another look at the bus, but it was already well behind them.
Lola said, “Was that a school bus—?”
“—full of naked guys,” said Liam. “Yes, it was.” He stared straight ahead, a look of grim determination on his face as he listened to Cas Boehner rant.
“Huh,” she said. “Odd.”
“It’s not the first group of naked guys I’ve seen today.”
“I’m sorry.” Lola settled back into her seat. “What’s wrong with your wipers?”
Liam ignored her question. “No, Cas, I wasn’t talking to you.” The tiny, angry noises coming from the phone speaker came louder and faster now. “No, I’m not going to do that.” The little voice grew ever more frantic. “No,” said Liam, “I have no idea. No, I don’t know that either.” He sighed and switched the phone to his other ear so that he could use his right hand to shift. “No. Right. No, that’s not corr—” He snapped the phone shut. “Asshole.”
“You just hung up on my boss?” asked Lola, her eyes wide.
“Uh, no. He’s on hold.” He handed the phone to Lola.
She looked at the handset, seeing that it was clearly off, and that her boss was not holding the line. Lola shot him a nasty look, but only for an instant because the phone started buzzing, her boss’ name lighting up the caller ID display.
“Hello? I’m so sorry. I don’t know—” She glared at Liam again. “I know, sir. Right. Okay. I will. We will. Goodbye.” She flipped the phone shut. “He wants us back at the office. What the heck is up with the rain? It’s red.”
Liam’s windshield wipers flapped back and forth in a frantic, almost maniacal fit of ineffectiveness, smearing what looked like dirty – maybe muddy – rainwater around.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think—? Is this that supposed to be ‘blood rain,’ like on the news?”
Liam glanced up at the top of the windshield, then at the side windows. “I guess.” He shrugged.
“It’s disgusting.” Lola cracked the window open a bit, and ran her finger along the edge. “It is blood. Ew.”
He sighed. “It’s fucked up, is what it is.”
They sat in silence for a moment “Liam, Cas says we’re supposed to head back to the office.”
“Your office?”
“Yes. He says Whitford’s closed the borders entirely. Shut down the airports. Something’s going on.”
He downshifted, and they passed another bus. “I’ll drop you off at the shop so you can get your car.”
“No, we need to do what Cas says.”
“He’s your boss. You need to do what he says. And I’ll drop you off at the shop so that you can do that.”
“Fine,” she said, and turned to stare out the window. “You know,” she said after a few minutes, “it’s kind of hard…” Her voice trailed off.
“What?”
“Well, it’s just … all this stuff – the earthquakes, the weird rain, the locusts, the frogs—”
“Toads.”
She glared at him. “Anyway,” she said. “It’s getting harder and harder to avoid the conclusion that something is going on.”
“Well, yeah,” said Liam. “Something is going on. It’s raining fucked up rain.”
“You know what I mean,” she said.
“What, so now you believe Festus?”
“I didn’t say that.”
They sat in silence for a couple of awkward minutes before Lola spoke again. “What the hell happened in there?”
“What?” Liam shot her a confused look. “Back there? Preston’s?”
“Yes.”
“Um, well, I got hit in the head with a frying pan. Sucked.”
“Right,” she said, but Liam just nodded and kept driving. “So…”
Liam glanced over, surprised to find that the conversation was still going. “So. Uh, it sucked. Still hurts, in fact.”
“Yeah, but— I thought you were supposed to be some kind of superman or something. I heard all sorts of stuff—something about you and Whitford…”
He gave her a grim look. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”
Chapter 38. Running Wild as a Dog in the House of the Lord
Festus hurried as quietly as he could down a dimly-lit passage. The painted, cinderblock walls and well-scuffed flooring made him think he was probably in a utility hallway of some sort – probably for deliveries. This hypothesis found strong support from the fact that he’d already passed a sign with an arrow and the word “Deliveries” printed in bold, five-inch tall letters. He paused to listen. There were voices, lots of them, coming from somewhere up ahead. It sounded like a crowd of people shouting, or maybe even cheering. Maybe there was a sporting match going on? Not being a particularly sporty type, he had no idea whether that was even a plausible idea.
“Hippie!”
Festus twisted around and saw the two hillbillies, Jimmy and Wayne. Apparently they’d settled their differences. He marveled at the awkward gaits of two men trying to run in cowboy boots, but then, realizing that this wasn’t just an academic exercise, he turned and ran.
“Get back here, you dirty hippie!” yelled Jimmy.
“Yeah!” said Wayne.
After a couple of turns and a staircase, Festus emerged, huffing and puffing, into a larger hallway that opened onto the main bowl of the arena. His lungs burned, and he struggled to catch his breath – and not sound like an industrial-grade wind machine – as he looked out into the warmly lit space. The seats on the bowl were completely empty. The floor, however, was full of guys who looked like they’d visited the paramilitary-gear booth at a western wear convention, along with a handful of guys who looked
like actual soldiers.
Behind him he heard a dull thud. Festus glanced back and saw Jimmy sprawled out against the wall – presumably the consequence of trying to run around a corner in boots. Wayne toppled into the frame half a second later. Festus shrugged and strode out into the main arena.
He strode purposefully, assuredly, confidently. Like a man who is ready to tell people just what the F is up. This lasted about three and a half seconds – about the time it took Festus to survey the scene. There really seemed to be an awful lot of the hillbillies, none of whom looked amenable to getting told anything. He ditched the confidence and quickly ducked down behind a railing.
To his right, on the main stage, the television preacher Bill Cadmon talked at the audience of paramilitary cowboys, exhorting them to something or other. There were three big screens behind him that, presumably, usually showed giant Cadmon heads talking about love and faith and sin and all that kind of crap. But the screens were off, and the cowboys had only the actual, life-sized Cadmon to keep them entertained.
Festus paused for a second to watch, peeking over the top of the railing. Cadmon seemed to be going on and on about bringing about the Kingdom of God, which didn’t seem to Festus to be all that unusual. It seemed like a fairly normal sermon, aside from the fact that the entire audience was male, and looked as if they could probably recite the Second Amendment by heart.
“I mean it. He will literally walk among you. Soon,” said Cadmon.
Then Festus noticed that there were soldiers – real soldiers – standing just off to the side of the stage. They were pulling black, rubbery things out of giant cardboard boxes. He couldn’t tell what they were. Gas masks? S&M gear?
He suddenly had that feeling of being watched – the one that doesn’t register until, without thinking, you turn your head and find yourself looking at someone whose gaze is bouncing around between various inanimate objects as they feign interest in a random plant or a pole or something. He was disappointed to find himself being watched by Wayne and Jimmy, and not some curvy hottie who wanted him. They were still standing in the hallway, just out of sight of the people in the arena.
Jimmy cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled at Festus in an exaggerated stage whisper. “Get back here, you dirty hippie!” The well-coifed man of God at the front of the auditorium stopped talking, but Jimmy didn’t notice, and continued in his unsubtle non-whispering. “Hey! Hippie!”
Festus ducked back down and scrambled the rest of the way across the floor on his hands and knees. He glanced back just in time to see Wayne whack Jimmy on the arm and point to the stage.
“Gentlemen!” said Cadmon. “You’re late. But come on down here and have a seat. We’ve just started.” He opened his mouth into a wide, spotlight smile full of improbably white teeth.
Wayne, still frozen, stared at Cadmon like a deer caught in headlights, or, more accurately, like a dumbass. Jimmy’s glare remained fixed on Festus.
“The Lord is wondrous and patient, gentlemen, but I do not have all day.” Cadmon did the teeth thing again, this time flashing it at the rest of the members of his audience. They murmured appreciatively.
“Come on,” said Wayne, tugging at Jimmy’s shirt sleeve. Jimmy, doing his best impression of a dog who has just chased a squirrel up a tree, stayed put. “Come on!” Wayne tugged harder, almost pulling Jimmy over. Jimmy caught himself and started to walk, jerking his arm away from Wayne. He turned his head back to give Festus a death stare, but Festus was gone.
Festus made his way down a tunnel that led from the auditorium, moving slower now as he tried not to fall over dead from cardiac arrest. The black, rubbery things were definitely gas masks. Festus was sure now. Had to be. After all, hadn’t one of the soldiers been trying to fit one over his head? Technically, that didn’t rule out the possibility that it had been S&M headgear, but it just seemed unlikely.
He needed to get out of the church, or at least find a phone to call Liam. But then, Liam refused to carry a cell phone. Could he call the guitar shop? Would Liam head back there? Should he call the cops? No, he didn’t think he could stomach that.
There was a noise – voices. He stopped and listened. There were at least two people coming. Festus panicked, turning this way and that, until he noticed he was standing more or less right in front of a door. He tried the knob. It worked. He opened the door and slipped into the room.
It appeared to be a closet – completely dark and musty. He shuffled his feet and held his arms out in front of him as he groped around. After just a couple of steps he touched a smooth metal pole, which turned out to be a rack with some clothes or curtains or other fabricky things hanging on it. He climbed in to hide between them.
Festus waited, still breathing heavily but straining to make as little noise as possible. After what seemed like an hour, but was probably only about fifteen seconds, the sound of the voices faded, and he stepped out from between the clothes and crept to the door. He grabbed the knob and began to turn it, but realized that his other hand was resting on a light switch. He paused for a second to assess the situation: Risk going out into the hall, where crazy militia men would probably catch him and do bad things to him? Or stick with the safety of the closet. The choice was easy. He flicked the switch, and turned to survey his hideout.
It wasn’t a closet – it was much too large for that – but it was clearly being used for storage. There were big wooden screens, staffs, a smattering of random tables, shelves and chairs. It almost looked to Festus like a prop room. The metal pole he’d touched was indeed a rack, and the fabric where he’d hidden appeared to be a group of costumes. He flipped through them absently – a shiny blue thing with stars, something that appeared to be a pirate suit, a peasant girl’s dress – until he noticed a desk in the back of the room. It sat against the back wall, as if someone had intended it to be used, rather than just stored in the room. In fact, there were stacks of papers and – Festus was thrilled to see – a phone.
He scampered over to the desk, picked up the phone, and dialed.
Chapter 39. Wherein Satan Enjoys Dessert
The Town Car swayed and lurched as El Jefe flung it into an old restaurant parking lot. He drove as if in a zombie trance, his movements – and those of the car – the jerky and abrupt motions of an automaton. They skidded to a halt, sliding into a parking spot amid clouds of dust and bouncing gravel.
El Jefe proceeded to stare straight ahead for about the next forty seconds.
“Hello? Is this it?” asked Satan.
El Jefe said nothing.
“Is this the headquarters?”
Still nothing.
“Well, let’s go in.”
El Jefe leapt out of the car, moving with an un-elderly burst of speed as he scampered around to open Satan’s door. He stood at attention until Satan had climbed out, and then marched, with robotic efficiency, leading the Prince of Darkness toward the headquarters of the Krijgsheren Wijsheid.
Satan paused for an instant to glance at the restaurant’s sign before following El Jefe inside. The headquarters for the Krijgsheren Wijsheid, f/k/a the Militant Arm of the American Geriatrics Society, was hidden in a Lucy’s Cafeteria?
Once inside, Satan was greeted by the soothing smells of fried okra and boiled things, along with less soothing smells of old people, of which there were many. El Jefe led him past a cash register and some tables full of placid-looking geriatrics who sat spooning creamed corn and tapioca pudding into their faces. A few eyes flicked over to glance at the Devil and his companion, but the faces of the customers betrayed only stoic impassivity, not unlike grazing cows as passing motorists moo at them.
El Jefe led Satan toward the back of the restaurant, past a row of sneeze guards under which various dishes passed the time steaming or chilling and attempting to look enticing. A handful of old people shuffled along the railing, ordering various foodstuffs.
About halfway down, Satan spotted an array of Jell-O desserts sitting on a bed of finely-crushed ice.
Each sat in a fancy, faux-crystal dessert cup, and was arranged relative to its companion treats in neat, orderly rows so as to create a rainbow.
“Ooh!” Satan paused in front of the multi-hued array. He dithered for a moment —watching as El Jefe continued his robot march through a pair of metal doors at the back of the eatery – and then scooted over to the silverware stand, plucking up one each of the forks, spoons, and knives. He started back toward the desserts, but then thought better of it, and went back for a straw.
Finally equipped with the right tool, Satan returned to the spectrum of gelatin desserts just as an old man in a nasty yellow sweater reached for a green Jell-O. Satan slapped the man’s hand away and reached for the green Jell-O for himself. But then he put it back, and grabbed a red one instead. Then he set the red one down, and grabbed a yellow Jell-O. He stopped, realized something, and looked around.
“I need a tray,” he said.
By this time, the line behind him had grown not quite to epic length, but long enough to disgruntle old folks who are used to getting their mashed potatoes and gravy in a timely manner. The elderly gentleman whose hand Satan had slapped gestured over his shoulder to a stack of trays at the end of railing. The old lady behind him let loose a stream of quiet, but very obnoxious old lady ranting. Satan extended a long, warning finger at her, and she shut up.
“Give me your tray,” he said to the man, “and you go get another.”
The old man tilted his head and squinted at the Devil.
“Your tray,” said Satan. “Give it to me. This instant.”
The old man’s eyes changed from confused slits to wide-open orbs of surprise before ceding the stage to his eyebrows. His eyebrows decided that the situation called for a little bit of dismay, and arched upward accordingly. The man proffered his tray.
What Would Satan Do? Page 24