Flies, and something else. A silky constriction that pinged on a fainter sonic register—a rhythmic coiling and tightening that called to mind a sightless worm of endless length braiding over and around itself in knots of terrifying complexity. The rub of its flesh produced a delicate hiss that was somehow staticky, like the sound on a vinyl record between songs.
This voice—was it a voice?—this presence would occasionally intrude upon the voice of God. Amos would flinch from it, shaking his head to fling it out of his mind.
Just a blip. Then it was gone again.
Amos Flesher stared over his fiefdom, shrouded in midnight dark. He heard no voice now. He heard nothing at all. Only the jumpy beat of his own heart.
7
THE ROAD RIBBONED EASTWARD, flat and gray in the morning sunlight. They had been driving for hours: Micah, Minerva, and Ellen in Ellen’s ’57 Oldsmobile. Ebenezer followed on a Honda CB77 motorcycle he had bought from a pawn agent in Albuquerque. Evidently he wasn’t entirely sold on the idea and wanted to be able to skedaddle if things went hinky.
They had stopped in Albuquerque for the motorcycle, gasoline, and camping gear. They bought backpacks, boots, tents, and sleeping bags. Lost hikers—that would be their angle. They would hike it to Little Heaven. Ellen knew its whereabouts; her sister had demanded that Reggie tell her, going so far as to make him draw a map and mail it to her in jail. If they needed a closer look, they would claim to be lost and appeal upon the Little Heavenites’ Christian decency for a night’s sanctuary. Once they knew the boy was well cared for, they would thank the Bible bashers for their hospitality and leave them to their woodland rites.
According to Ellen, the settlement nearest to Little Heaven was Grinder’s Switch. A village of less than three hundred souls situated in a valley, with the wilderness unfolding to the north and east. They drove down a single-lane blacktop banded by vast sweeps of sorghum. They passed the odd billboard for Dash laundry soap or Lestoil or Winston Super Kings, but most of the billboards were of a religious nature.
Satan tries to limit your prayers, one billboard proclaimed, because he knows your prayers will limit him!
“Well, he’s doing a hell of a job,” Minerva said. “I don’t pray at all. So good for you, Satan.”
Ellen tried the radio. They pulled in a few old episodes of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.
“The transcribed adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account!” the announcer intoned. “America’s fabulous freelance insurance investigator!” When the station bled out of range, Ellen manipulated the knob with great delicacy to pull in Dr. Don Rose, broadcasting on AM 610, KFRC, all the way from San Francisco. They listened to “One Grain of Sand,” by Eddy Arnold, which segued into “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Pocket Full of Rainbows.” This was followed by commercials for Bubble Up gum, Roi-Tan cigars, and Ken-L Ration dog food, which Ellen sang along to lustily in a little boy’s voice.
They lost the signal in the hills. Ellen fiddled with the dial until—
“Pestilence!”
A great fulmination filled the car. A man’s warbly, southern-fried voice.
“The four horsemen are saddled, payy-poll! Their spurs are sharp to goad their flame-eyed steeds up from the bowels of the infernal pit to spread pain and suffering amongst the unbelievers, the heretical, the unwed muuuthers, the adulterers and the idolaters and fornicators and awwwll the ho-MA-sexshals, the tax chayyyts, the nig-…-gardly of spirit, the interbreeders, the faithless, the impure, the—”
Ellen snapped the radio off.
“Holy shit, buddy,” she said. “Take a pill.”
They pulled into a gun shop that sat off the freeway. Jimmy’s Gun Rack. A squat, flat-topped building that resembled a bomb shelter. Barred windows, smoked glass. They needed ammunition. Micah had his Russian Tokarevs. Minerva, her US Colts. Ebenezer had borrowed the farmer’s English-made Tarpley carbine, a .52-caliber single-shot rifle. He hadn’t hunted wild game—a gentleman’s diversion, if ever there was—in years. This trip might offer the chance to sportingly plug a deer or feral hog.
Micah wasn’t sure they would even need guns. He hoped not. But then, he couldn’t be certain there weren’t a few rogue survivalists at the compound—if so, there was a chance those men would have guns. Better to be safe.
A bell chimed as they walked into the shop. Rifles lined the walls, with heavy-gauge chains threaded through their trigger guards. The man who was assumedly Jimmy stood behind a glass display cabinet. A stuffed boar’s head was mounted on the wall above him. Some joker had put a pair of Buddy Holly glasses over the boar’s snout and stuffed one of those trick cigars—already exploded—in its mouth. The boar’s eyes were wide and shocked-looking, as if the cigar had just blown up in its face.
Jimmy was himself boarish in appearance. Squat and round with stiff hairs sprouting from the vee of his camouflage shirt. His eyes were loose and eggy behind a pair of thick bifocals.
“What can I do you fine folks for?” he said.
“Unusual request, my fine fellow,” said Ebenezer. “I’ve got an old hunting rifle, .52 caliber.”
Jimmy hooted. “Jesus, son—you steal it off a dead Boer?”
Micah and Minerva gave Jimmy their orders.
“Those I can do,” said Jimmy. “And I’ll take a look for some .52 loads. Not promising nothing.”
Jimmy opened a door leading to the stockroom. Ebenezer spotted an unusual weapon just inside that door: two huge canisters and a long-nozzled gun with an attached asbestos-wrapped hose. A flamethrower. He tapped Micah on the shoulder and pointed.
“You ever use one of those in the war?”
Micah shook his head. “No flame unit in our detachment.”
Jimmy returned some minutes later. His forehead was caked with dust. He slapped down a box of shells on the counter.
“Sonofabitch, boy. You’re in luck,” he told Eb.
The box was ancient, the colors bleached out. Jimmy opened it and checked the loads. “They look fine. Found it waaaay in the back, where I lay down poison for the rats. But they’ll fire. I wouldn’t sell them to you if they didn’t.”
“You are a prince amongst men,” Eb said, peeling a few bills out of his wallet.
THEY REACHED GRINDER’S SWITCH just past one o’clock that afternoon. The village had a single paved road. The surrounding land was peppered with shotgun shacks. A sundry store with a gas pump out front composed the entirety of the Grinder’s Switch commercial district.
Minerva pulled the Olds up beside the Sky Chief pump. She had been behind the wheel the last few hours, as Micah’s depth perception tended to drift on long car trips.
Micah popped the hood. The radiator was boiling over. The rad cap was blisteringly hot. He pulled his sleeve over his hand and unscrewed it. Oily steam hissed up.
A man came out of the sundry store. The skin of his face was as thin as a bat’s wing and stretched tight over his skull. He wore overalls with an oil-spotted rag poking out of the chest pocket.
“You let ’er boil dry.” The man spoke in the tone one might use to address the feeble-minded.