by Jim Laughter
What they’re saying about The Apostle Murders
“A chilling suspense novel with gripping characters and a plot that reaches into the depths of good and evil. Some of Jim Laughter’s best writing.”
Charles W. Sasser, author of The Detachment Delta and OSS Commando series.
“Laughter weaves a unique blend of plot and characters that will keep you reading to the end… believer or not.”
Nancy Robinson Masters, MasAir Publications, Inc.
“In The Apostle Murders, Jim Laughter penned a chilling account of an eccentric, misguided sociopath on an unholy mission.”
Bob Avey, author of Beneath a Buried House
The Apostle Murders
* * *
Jim Laughter
Denton, Texas
To the love of my life, my high school sweetheart, my traveling companion, the mother of my children, my wonderful wife–Wilma Earlene Laughter.
Proverbs 18:22 “He who finds a wife finds what
is good and receives favor from the Lord.”
Proverbs 18:22 taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Deadly Niche Press
An imprint of AWOC.COM Publishing
P.O. Box 2819
Denton, TX 76202
Copyright 2011 by Jim Laughter
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
ISBN: 978-1-62016-041-1 Ebook
ISBN: 978-0-937660-71-3 Print
Author’s website: jimlaughter.com
Prologue
Reverend Samuel “Preach” Preston was making good time. He’d pulled out of Denver at 4 o’clock Wednesday morning and reached Cheyenne, Wyoming in just under two hours before catching the I-80 west toward Utah. His Newmar Dutch Star motorhome was running perfectly after receiving her complete checkup and calibration, and he could not have asked for a better day to be about God’s business.
Interstate 80 was long, wide, and straight with very few curves or other distractions. But Preach’s mind wasn’t on the scenery. Instead, he thought about his mission and if he’d be able to complete the next sacrifice sooner than he’d originally scheduled. Would the Lord provide a suitable martyr this week, or would he make him wait for the second week of November which was three weeks away?
Preach thought about the other sacrifices he’d made over the last six months. He had biblical or historical precedence for all of them. He knew there were a few apostles later on his list whose deaths were not recorded in either the Bible or in history but he figured the Lord would provide the answers for those when he got to them. He only hoped the Lord would not find fault in his method of sacrifice, and he hoped his conscious would let him forget the pain and suffering he’d inflicted for the cause of Christ.
Now here it was October already. He thought back to August when he met Philip Carroll, a tenor traveling with a southern gospel quartet. He’d seen an advertisement about the group singing at a church in Hot Springs, Arkansas, not too far off the I-30 South on his way to Texarkana where he’d preached a night at a small country church before heading west to Abilene, Texas. He’d decided to stop and listen to the group and maybe hear some good old-time southern gospel music instead of the contemporary drivel his son’s worship center played in Denver. Preach knew Philip Carroll was God’s choice when the group’s leader introduced him and said he was originally from Bethesda, Maryland. Preach remembered thinking that it couldn’t be a coincidence.
Philip Carroll turned out to be an excellent sacrifice, and all of the pieces fell into place. Ancient church history confirmed that the Apostle Philip was originally from Bethsaida near the Sea of Galilee, and that he’d died by crucifixion at the sacred Greek city of Hierapolis, Turkey. As all biblical scholars know, Hierapolis gained its reputation as the city of health, or the city of healing because it sat on top of Turkey’s hot springs which was believed to contain miraculous healing powers.
And now Preach found himself listening to a man with very similar attributes to the original apostle in a location reminiscent of the biblical record. Surely God had provided this sacrifice and even the opportunity to abduct Philip Carroll after the concert when he’d been alone near their motor coach.
Sacrificing Philip had been a simple affair. He didn’t have time to explain his mission and to pray with Philip the way he’d done with his previous martyrs. But holding to tradition, he wanted to be authentic to history, so when he’d nailed Philip to a tree in a secluded area of Hot Springs National Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas and crucified him, he believed the Lord accepted his sacrifice and would honor his mission. Even though the park is located in the city of Hot Springs, it had taken the Hot Springs police department two days to find Philip’s body. By that time Preach was almost five-hundred miles away and had left no trace of his identity.
Nathan Bartholomew in September had been a completely different kind of sacrifice. According to church history, the Apostle Bartholomew had preached in Armenia with the Apostle Jude around 60-AD. The only record of the Apostle Bartholomew’s death was that he’d been flayed to death in 68-AD in Albanopolis, which is now called Derbend, on the west coast of the Caspian Sea. No other record of his ministry or death existed. With exception to a short missionary trip to Turkey and India, even a record of his early life is mysteriously absent from all historical documents. The only thing that qualified Nathan Bartholomew as an apostolic sacrifice was his name.
The death of Nathan Bartholomew still haunted Preach, which was why he detested the cat-of-nine-tails stored in his cargo compartment. The sound of the whip whistling through the air, and the slap of pain as the leather straps embedded with nails and glass ripped into Nathan’s flesh caused Preach many sleepless nights. He remembered the pieces of flesh, Nathan’s flesh, still embedded on the nails when he’d inspected his supplies a few days ago, and he could still hear the boy’s screams echo in the New Mexico desert night. He recalled Nathan’s body ripped to pieces by the terrible weapon, and the blood that soaked his own hands, arms, and clothing when the whip tore into the soft flesh of God’s martyr. And although history didn’t bear record to it, the boy had been in so much pain that Preach decided to stab him in the heart to help end his suffering and buried his body in the desert outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico. He hated what he’d done, but he loved God and was willing to do anything to fulfill his mission and to make his calling and election sure.
Preach thought about the road the Lord had set before him. He didn’t understand it but the vision and voice of God was clear. Why had the Lord chosen him out of the thousands of ministers preaching his word to recreate the martyrdom of the original apostles of Jesus Christ and to restore order and discipline to the modern church? Wouldn’t a man with a wide national or international audience have been a better choice? But God’s thoughts are not my thoughts, and God’s ways are not my ways. The mysteries of eternity will only be revealed in eternity.
Chapter One
The preacher rested in his RV watching the young man sitting alone at a picnic table at the I-40 rest area in east Oklahoma just inside the state line. He had met the young man at the vending mac
hines almost an hour ago. His name was Thomas. He didn’t know Thomas’s last name but that didn’t matter. He only cared about his first name. He’d learned that Thomas was a pilgrim from Boston on a cross-country odyssey to find enlightenment at a new-age colony in California. Thomas didn’t have much money, and his family had refused to buy him a plane or bus ticket for the journey they called ludicrous. Why travel all the way across the country to find enlightenment if you can’t find it in your own hometown?
Thomas stood up from the table and secured his backpack straps over his shoulders along with his sleeping bag and a lightweight single-man tent. The preacher watched Thomas toss his empty coke can and vending machine sandwich wrapper into a nearby trash can. Neat kid. The boy can’t be any more than 24 or 25-years-old. Probably some spoiled rich kid out to prove how stupid his parents are. He had spoken to the drifter at the vending machines but didn’t spend too much time with him. He didn’t want to run the risk of another motorist at the rest area associate them together when someone would eventually find Thomas’s dead body somewhere further down the road.
Thomas cleaned the top of the picnic table then started walking toward the westbound exit ramp of the rest area. The preacher watched the young man pass several cars nosed in along the curb, never once stopping to speak to any of the other travelers. He turned up the sidewalk toward the visitor center building and disappeared inside, apparently to use the restroom before getting back on the road. He reappeared a few minutes later, and with exception for holding open one of the heavy glass doors for a mother with two small children, didn’t speak to anyone.
The preacher watched Thomas amble down the sidewalk past the remaining parked cars and a row of semi-trucks lined up at the far end of the parking lot. Any other hitchhiker would have asked a few of the truck drivers for a ride but Thomas just kept walking, his head bowed into the westerly wind that had kicked up in the last few minutes. Low clouds had drifted in as well and it looked like it might rain. That boy is gonna be lookin’ for a dry place before long.
Thomas walked the quarter mile to the end of the interstate entrance ramp before turning around to try his luck at hitchhiking again. Or was it exit ramp? He could never figure it out. Was he entering the interstate or exiting the rest area? He guessed it really didn’t matter as long as he could catch a ride. He’d left his parents’ home in Boston almost a month earlier and spent three weeks with his uncle in Charlotte, North Carolina. He’d left Charlotte six days earlier on his trek across country and had slept in his one-man tent and sleeping bag every night except for one night in Tennessee when a park ranger in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park had run him off for not having a camping permit. He’d spent that night behind the buttress under a highway overpass. There hadn’t been room under the bridge to pitch his tent, but he’d been relatively comfortable. At least the weather was warm and the place was dry.
Rides across country during his first few days on the road had been hard to catch. He knew when he’d started out that people were leery of picking up hitchhikers, especially easterners who have an inherent nature of distrust. But now he was in the southwest, at least he assumed Oklahoma was in the southwest, so rides had been a little easier to catch. He’d flagged down an old man in North Carolina that had taken him as far as Knoxville, Tennessee where he’d hooked up with a cattle-truck driver at a greasy spoon roadside diner. The trucker dropped him off in Nashville just west of the city where he’d met the park ranger and spent the night under the overpass.
His luck ran out in Nashville and he was unable to catch a ride at all for two days, so he’d walked at least twenty miles along the I-40 before a family in a minivan took pity on him and picked him up. They gave him a ride through Memphis and into Arkansas where they dropped him off in the middle of nowhere when they exited to their home. From there he’d managed to catch sporadic rides with single drivers and truckers until he ended up at the rest area he’d just left. He’d spent last night at the Oklahoma rest area and now he was ready to get back on the road.
Leaving the rest area and coming toward him was an RV that Thomas had seen parked across the grassy area from him while he’d been sitting at the picnic table. The RV wasn’t like the typical boxy Winnebago campers he’d seen parked at lakes and roadside campsites. This one looked more like a bus with a flat front and large front windows. The headlights were slung low just above the front bumper. Thomas thought he saw two air conditioner units on top of the vehicle. He could tell it was a luxury coach but not something a millionaire would drive.
When the RV drew closer, Thomas recognized the driver as the old man he’d met at the vending machine that morning. He didn’t recall if the man had told him his name or not, but he recognized his face. He started to raise his right hand, thumb up, when he saw the right turn signal of the RV begin to blink. He saw the man behind the wheel smile and wave at him. The RV slid past Thomas on the shoulder of the interstate and stopped smoothly, settling down with a whoosh of air brakes and a swirl of dust. A silver 2005 Ford Focus three-door hatchback was attached to the back bumper of the RV. The words Newmar Dutch Star were painted on the back of the camper.
Thomas reached the door of the RV and was just about to twist the handle when the door opened and the old man stood on the bottom step. “It’s a long walk to California.”
“Yes sir,” Thomas answered. “And it looks like it might rain.”
“Might rain? You kiddin’? This is Oklahoma. You can bet your life it’s gonna rain.”
Thomas laughed as he shucked the straps of his backpack off of his shoulders. “Hand that up here to me,” the preacher said, “so we can get on the road before a state trooper gives me a ticket for stopping on the shoulder.”
“How far are you going?” Thomas asked.
“Straight through to Albuquerque. You still heading for Los Angeles?”
“Yes sir.”
“LA,” the preacher repeated. “The city of angels.”
“Yes sir.”
The preacher stowed Thomas’s backpack in a closet next to a small cook stove covered with a ceramic top, then stepped back down onto the shoulder of the interstate highway. He opened a storage compartment on the side of the RV and told the young man to secure his tent and sleeping bag inside. “You’re Thomas, right?”
“Do I know you, sir?”
“We met at the vending machines this morning. Remember?”
“Yeah, I remember. I just don’t remember telling you my name.” Thomas stuck his hand out to shake hands with the preacher. “Thomas Waverly.”
The preacher accepted the young man’s hand. “My name is Sam Preston, but my friends call me Preach,” he said, shaking Thomas’s firm grip.
Thomas noticed the old man’s right arm. It was permanently curled inward at the elbow, ending with his wrist in a stiff ninety-degree angle. His fingers were flexible but his hand was hard and clawed.
“Preach?”
“It’s what I do,” the older man said. “Preach.”
“Preach what? Sermons? Stuff like that?”
“Yep.”
“You’re a priest?”
“That’s me,” the preacher laughed. “The old sermon-preachin’ priest of the road. Maybe I should get me some business cards printed. I could be like Roger Miller, except I’d be the Priest of the Road instead of the King of the Road. What’cha think?”
“Roger who?”
“You don’t know who Roger Miller was? King of the Road? Do Wacka Do?”
“Do Wacka what?” Thomas hoped he hadn’t hitched a ride with some kind of nut. But if so, he could always get out and catch another ride, maybe not all the way to Albuquerque but at least for a ways. Besides, the RV was cool and dry and pointed in the right direction. He would decide the rest further down the road.
“You ready to go?” the preacher asked.
“Yes sir.”
Thomas followed Preach into the RV. Preach turned and locked the door. Thomas saw that it was neatly maintaine
d. There were no dirty dishes in the sink, and the table and countertops were wiped clean. The furnishings were upholstered in white leather. Even the windows were free of road grime and dirt, and the Berber carpeted floor had been recently vacuumed.
Thomas looked at the old man settling into the driver’s seat and hoped he hadn’t hitched a ride with some old traveling pervert that would try to make a homosexual advance at him tonight. He’s old. I can probably handle him if he does.
“You might as well ride up front with me unless you need to take a nap or something.”
“No sir, I’m good.” He’d already used the restroom that morning and he had no intention of sleeping in this strange man’s vehicle.
“There’s cold drinks in the fridge,” Preach said as he prepared to get the RV moving again.
“Beer?”
“Sorry, no beer. Just soda pop and juice. That sort’a thing.”
The preacher appeared to be in his mid-to-late sixties. Thomas estimated his height at around five foot six or seven, and his weight at about one-eighty. His complexion was ruddy from apparent extended exposure to the elements. He had a full head of gray hair, heavily sprinkled with black from his youth the way he remembered his own grandfather’s hair.
“This is a nice camper,” Thomas said as he dropped down into the passenger seat across from the old man. The preacher nodded and pulled the RV back out onto the I-40 heading west. “My grandpa has an old Winnebago but it’s nothing like this rig.”
“It’s home,” Preach said. “I started to buy a Winnebago but I wanted something with a little more class.”
“Well, this is sure it.”
“Yeah, Newmar makes a pretty nice coach,” Preach said. “It’s nice enough to be comfortable, yet not so fancy as to look like I’m putting on airs.”
Preach guided the RV into traffic and set the cruise control on 65 miles-per-hour. “I get my best mileage at sixty-five,” he said, “which is easy to remember since that’s my age.” Thomas noticed a mischievous grin cross the old man’s lips and figured his leg was being pulled.