In the afternoon, Poppy went up to consult the angel. She already knew about Ned Nellis’ accident. “It was unfortunate,” Martha said, “but the pilot isn’t the first casualty in the Final Battle. Nor will he be the last.”
“Was it worth it?” Poppy said. “I mean, was the flare a success?”
Martha shrugged her tired shoulders. “We’ll know soon enough.”
“In the meantime,” Poppy said, “there are planes buzzing around looking for Nellis’ plane. With the size of that wasteland, they won’t be able to miss it.”
“Verily,” Martha said. “Our peril has multiplied. Now will you drop the key into the cistern?”
He should have consented, but still he held back.
The angel said, “You fear this little ball is not the key to the pit, don’t you, Master Prophecy? You still fear it’s actually the star Wormwood. Allow me to reassure you, I am the Fifth Angel, not the Third.”
Poppy did not feel reassured.
The angel said, “Machines will bear more men here. There is still time for Satan to snatch victory from us.
“And when the armies of Armageddon are camped outside your gate, who will be there to defend you if I am too weak? They will smash through the gate as though it were matchwood. They will cut down your sons like wheat in the field. They will smash through any door you brace against them. There is only one place in this fortress that will stymie them, only one place where we can keep this key safe. I give you my word, in Jesus’ name, they will not find it there.”
“I hear you, angel,” Poppy replied, “and when they come, I may take your advice.”
“You may . . . if you are inside the keep when they arrive. If you have time to act. If you are still alive.”
CA8 1.0
CHRISTMAS DAY 2012 was a bust. The phone and internet were completely down, so Jace couldn’t even email his sister.
This was how he spent his holiday: he caught up on long-deferred chores. He knocked down the large shitsicle about to poke up through the toilet seat in the outhouse. He hauled bathwater by sled from the dipping hole in the community stream (Beehymer had failed to mention that his hand pump would freeze up during the first cold snap unless he insulated it). He made a tour of his house and plugged drafts with bits of pink fiberglass insulation. He did maintenance on the snowmobile Elmer Gonzales had leased him. And other various odd jobs.
There’d been a lot of air traffic all day, and Jace was tempted to go to the airstrip to learn the latest about Nellis’ fate, but he decided that bad news could wait until he joined the others at Christmas dinner.
When he did go out, it was only to discover that the potluck Christmas dinner had been cancelled. Or rather, it had transmogrified into a wake. They’d found Ned’s charred body thirty-some miles (48 km) from town. Some of the men had gone out to retrieve it and were keeping it in a shed while they waited for some official or other to come out to claim it. The accident was a tragedy that seemed to touch the old-timers the hardest.
Jace had never been in Barbara Jean’s house before. It was located on Main Street and was of the same vintage and architectural style as his own. It was a little bigger, though, with an extra bedroom and a walled-off kitchen, and it was in much better shape. A wood stove kept the place comfortably warm. Half of the entire wintertime population of McHardy was crowded into the living room discussing Ned’s accident. The once-festive holiday potluck spread was laid out on the table. Jace added his bowl of sliced beets to it.
The fuselage of the Cessna had been incinerated in the accident. The cause of the crash was obvious — the port-side wing had come off and was lying some distance from the wreck. But airplane wings were not known to simply fall off, and no one could explain how it had happened. According to Kelly Cobweal, who had snapped photos of it and was passing around his phone to anyone wanting to see them, the wing had been sheered off cleanly.
Harder to explain was the crash site itself. There was a rough circle of ravine and bottom land nearly three miles in diameter that was scraped bare of all snow and vegetation. Cobweal had photos of that too, some of them taken from the air. No one had seen the likes of it, or even heard of anything so bizarre. The wreck was located near the center of this unnatural clearing.
“Before any more of you decide to go out there to rubberneck,” Ed Sulzer announced, “a guy from the NTSB radioed to say don’t do it. They’ll be out here tomorrow, and they don’t want nobody mucking up their crime scene.”
Interesting choice of words, Jace thought — crime scene. Surely he meant accident scene. After spending an hour at the wake, and despite Sulzer’s warning, Jace did ride out to the scene. With all of the snowmobile traffic preceding him, it was not difficult to locate. He looked at the wreck and wing without touching anything. But it was the bare spot that caused him the most concern. It was miles away from where the alien snow circle and tulip had been, but it was a circle nevertheless.
On his way home, Jace found himself once again loitering at the end of the illegal Prophecy airstrip. The windows of the main house were bright with lamplight. Jace wondered what Deut’s holiday was like with all the kids around. Christmas was a kid’s holiday. The look of wonder (and greed) in their eyes. The squeals of delight as they tore colorful wrapping from their gifts. The carols under the Christmas tree.
“Merry Christmas, my love,” he said as he restarted his engine.
A raven atop a spruce tree croaked a holiday greeting to him in reply.
CA9 1.0
WHEN PROVERBS OPENED the food slot, the powder room was dark. The camping buddy heater was not burning, and the air reeked of excrement. He’d have to empty the honey bucket, which meant he’d have to go in, which meant he’d have to have a girl to stand by when he did. Sue was in the keep. He could get her to help.
“Ginger, wake up,” he said through the slot. “I got your lunch.” When she didn’t repond, he said, “You gotta eat. You gotta stay strong.”
“Fuck you,” she replied from the darkness.
“Watch your language, please.”
“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.”
“I know that’s the demons talking, not you.” He left the food tray outside the door and went to fetch Sue.
WITH SUE’S HELP Proverbs swapped out the honey bucket with a fresh one. He gathered the uneaten meals. All the while Ginger lay on the cot under sleeping bags and blankets. Proverbs tried to light the camp heater, but the propane bottle was empty. The two replacement bottles were empty as well.
“You’re going through these pretty fast,” he said.
“They’re half gone when you bring them,” Ginger replied. “What do you expect?”
“No, they’re not. Don’t lie. Leave the heater on medium. They’ll last longer.”
“I’m not lying!”
“Hello, demons. Don’t make my girlfriend tell lies.”
“I’m not your girlfriend. I hate you.”
“But Elder Brother Jesus loves you anyway, and so do I.”
Sue said, “Come on, Verbs. I have work to do.”
“You’re an accomplice, Sue,” Ginger said. “You’re going to prison for this too.”
Sue said, “You can thank me later.”
“You’re as crazy as the rest of them, Sue.”
Proverbs gathered up the empty propane bottles. “I’ll fetch some fresh ones.”
“Don’t bother. Get me more clothes and blankets. I’m freezing in here.”
HOSEA FOUND PROVERBS in the storeroom having a shit fit. He had overturned a whole row of supplies, undoing hours of Hosea’s labor. He had torn open cartons of propane bottles and was slamming them against the stone floor with bellowing, unchristian oaths.
“What the heck, brother?” Hosea said.
Proverbs whipped around to confront him. “We been screwed, brother,” he screamed in reply. “Screwed!”
Hosea knew better than to interrupt one of his brother’s rants while he was wearing the eyepatch. Still, it pa
ined him to stand by silently while the boy lay waste to his orderly aisles.
Proverbs pulled one fresh propane bottle after another from a carton, shook it, and then hurled it against the floor. Finally, Hosea stooped down to pick one up and shake it himself.
“Oh, my,” he said.
“See?” Proverbs roared. “Now you see?”
The bottle, made from aluminum, should have contained sixteen fluid ounces of liquified propane gas (0.47 l). Even without the benefit of a scale, Hosea could tell that this one was seriously shy of that, practically empty. He lifted an unopened carton and weighed it in his hands. It weighed only a fraction of what it should.
“How could you?” Proverbs seethed.
“How could I what?”
“Let those bastards in Anchorage cheat us like this?”
Hosea set about checking the remainder of their stock. He lifted each unopened carton and put it in one of two piles. More than half of them were on the light side. “We’re screwed,” he said.
“I told you. Didn’t I tell you?”
“And I agree with you, so why don’t you settle down and let me think.” Hosea eased himself onto a stack of cartons and called up his recollections of buying this lot of propane.
“No, you know what?” he said after a moment. “If these were light when I stacked them in the truck, I would’a known. They were good then. Which means they only started leaking afterwards.” He popped a plastic cap off one bottle and sniffed the valve. “This much leakage and you should be able to smell it. I don’t smell anything.”
“So, you’re saying they aren’t light? Are you calling me a liar?”
“I said settle down. No one’s calling nobody a liar.”
“Who’s gonna tell Poppy about this? You or me?”
Hosea said, “I’ll tell Adam. Let him tell Poppy.”
Proverbs grabbed a carton of full bottles and left Hosea to clean up his mess. Hosea heard him in another part of the storeroom chamber throwing more stuff around. When he was like this, it was best to just let him be.
PROVERBS STILL HAD the powder room key Poppy had loaned him, and he didn’t bother fetching Sue this time to shadow for him. He set the carton of propane bottles next to the door and piled the new clothes, outerwear, and sleeping bags on top.
“It’s me again,” he called through the slot.
She was sitting on the cot when he entered. He brought the supplies in and set them in a corner, next to her untouched food tray. “Warm clothes,” he said, “and good propane bottles.”
She bolted for the door, but he was ready for her and grabbed her from behind. She struggled only a little and went limp in his arms. The heft of her, the shape of her hips, the funky odor of her unwashed hair — well, maybe it was the demons’ influence, but holding her close felt so right.
“Don’t you love me?” she said.
“You know I do.”
“Then why do you torture me? I’ll be good. I’ll do what you say. But I’ll die in here. I swear, I will.”
“We won’t let that happen.” He gently brought her back to the cot and sat her down. “Everything will be okay, I promise you. We’ll pop those demons out of you as soon as we can. Then you can come back to the house.”
“Pop them out of me?”
“Yeah, you know, cast them out?”
She pulled him down to sit next to her on the cot and buried her head in his chest.
“Cast them out now. What are you waiting for?”
“Well, things are heating up out there. Obama’s army is about to pounce on us. Even if you wanted to go back to Wallis, it might be too late. And what happens in the next few days will —”
“Did you ask him?” she said, cutting him off.
“Ask who?”
“Pastor Bunyan. About the girl angels? You didn’t ask him, did you?” She pushed herself away (and he instantly ached for her touch). “You said you love me, but you don’t. You don’t want a real wife. You want a prisoner. Someone you can lock up and only see when you want to.”
“That’s not true! Ginger, please don’t say that.”
“And you’re a coward who only does what his Poppy tells him to.”
“It’s not like that. Don’t you see?”
“Of course it is. I’ve seen it from the start, way back in Wallis. It’s all Yes, lord this and Yes, lord that, like you don’t even have a will of your own.”
“I’m only —”
“So, what are you going to say when Poppy tells you he wants to fuck me like he does your sister?”
Her words knocked the air out of him.
“You knew!” she said. She sprang from the cot and retreated to the far end of the cell. “I was praying it wasn’t true, but you knew just like your brothers knew and you were all too cowardly to do anything about it. So you pretended you didn’t know so you could live with yourself. You’re as guilty as he is. Cowards! The lot of you! She’s your own sister.”
Proverbs rose to leave. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s not even you talking. I’ll pray for you. We all will.”
She followed him to the door but didn’t attempt to escape again. “Your father rapes your sister; that’s what I’m talking about. And you did nothing to stop him. Are you proud of yourself? You murder ravens and rape girls and call yourself blessed.”
“Quiet, demons. Don’t make my betrothed say such trash.”
“I’m not your betrothed, and I never will be. I hate you. I hate all of you.”
Proverbs’ good eye burned in the lamplight. He gently shoved her away from the door so he could escape. The door clicked shut behind him, and he snapped the padlock on its hasp.
PROVERBS RAN INTO his father on the slide and asked him for a spark plug to go to his cabin on Trapper’s Slough. At first Poppy reached into his bib pocket but then had second thoughts.
“Why aren’t you up there helping your brothers?”
“Because I can’t, lord!” he shouted. It startled his father. “I can’t even see straight I hurt so bad! Lord!”
Poppy frowned and placed his hand on top of his son’s head. “Dear Father,” he said, “I ask You to ease my son’s suffering in our time of need so that he may pull his weight around here. Amen.” He removed his hand. “There. Is it any better?”
“No! No! No!”
“Well, give it a minute.”
“I hurt, lord! I’ll come back as soon as I can. I promise. I’m no good to you this way. Please, lord, let me go. Amen! Amen! Amen!”
But Poppy was unmoved. “We’ll all pray over you tonight, son, but we can’t let up on the work. It’s life and death now. You know that. Take some extra of your pills and lie down for a little while. That’ll help.” And with that Poppy patted him on the shoulder and continued up the slide trail.
The Federal Dicks
FD1 1.0
THE KNOCKING ON his door was civil but insistent. Jace cracked an eyelid to look at his bedside clock — 4:23 a.m. He got up and threw on a robe and padded through the cold living room in his slippers.
“Who’s there?” he yelled at the door.
“Federal agents,” came the reply.
A storm of conflicting emotions coursed through Jace’s sleepy brain. It was probably never a good thing to be rousted from one’s bed by federal agents in the wee hours of the morning.
On the other hand, wasn’t he a federal agent too?
Jace opened the door expecting to see men in black, but everything outside his door was black at this hour.
“I am Special Agent Nabor of the FIAS,” said a shade standing on his porch, “and this is Special Agent Bertolli of the FBI. May we come in?”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Jace said, cinching his robe against the cold. “Come on in, guys.” He ushered them in and asked them to wait a bit while he lit a couple of lamps. “Welcome to my humble abode.”
Jace led the agents to the oil stove, which he cranked up, and cleared enough stuff from the couc
h for them to sit. Their gaze strayed all over the room, taking in his rustic decor. Then he excused himself to make coffee.
“So, how can I help you?” he said from the kitchen.
“We have a few questions for you. We’re here with the NTSB team that’s investigating the recent airplane crash,” said one of them.
Jace set cups, sugar, and a jar of non-dairy creamer on the end table. They had already started recording with a video camera on a tiny tripod. Now that he could see them, he said, “You’re the FBI agent, right?”
“That’s right, Special Agent Bertolli.”
“And you?”
“Special Agent Nabor.”
“And what was the name of your agency again?”
“FIAS.”
“Never heard of it. What does FIAS stand for?”
“You don’t have the clearance to know that.”
Jace thought he was making a joke, but the man seemed completely serious, and he let it drop. The FBI agent, Bertolli, was tall, lean, and square-jawed and looked the part of a G-man. But this Nabor fellow was of average height, average looks, and average weight. That is, slightly obese. He could have blended into any crowd of American adults. Yet he seemed to be the one in charge of this interview.
Jace set about laying a fire in the wood stove. “I knew Ned Nellis, the pilot, but I don’t know anything about the accident except what I heard secondhand. I drove out to the crash site, but I didn’t learn anything new.”
Nabor asked Jace to recount that visit and then proceeded to walk him through everything he had heard in town about the crash, who said what, the timeline involved, anything he could remember. Then he walked him through it all again. Bertolli, meanwhile, took notes and operated the camera. Neither had asked for permission to record him, but Jace figured he didn’t have anything to hide. It seemed to him they were mostly using him to confirm what others had already told them, and he wondered what time in the morning they’d knocked on Ed and Ginny’s door.
But then, in true Hollywood police-procedural fashion, Nabor opened a folder and handed Jace a photo. “Tell me what this is.”
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