7
Rev. Rose never reached the vestibule; there were too many people stacked up in front of him. He turned, holding his nose, and staggered back into the church. He tried to yell to the others, but when he opened his mouth, he sprayed a great jet of puke instead. His feet tangled in each other and he fell, knocking his head hard on the top of a pew. He tried to get to his feet and could not do it.
Then large hands thrust themselves into his armpits and pulled him up. “Out the window, Rev’rund!” Nan Roberts shouted. “Boss y’freight!”
“The glass-”
“Never mind the glass! We’re going to choke in here!”
She propelled him forward, and Rev. Rose just had time to throw a hand over his eyes before he shattered his way through a stained-glass window depicting Christ leading His sheep down a hill the exact color of lime jell-o. He flew through the air, struck the lawn, and bounced.
His upper plate shot from his mouth and he grunted.
He sat up, suddenly aware of the dark, the rain… and the blessed perfume of open air. He had no time to savor this; Nan Roberts grabbed him by the hair of his head and jerked him to his feet.
“Come on, Rev’rund!” she shouted. Her face, glimpsed in a blue-white flash of lightning, was the twisted face of a harpy. She was still wearing her white rayon uniform-she had always made it a habit to dress just as she had her waitresses dress-but the swell of her bosom was now wearing a bib of vomit.
Rev. Rose stumbled along beside her, head down. He wished she would let go of his hair, but each time he tried to say so, the thunder drowned him out.
A few others had followed them out the broken window, but most were still stacked up on the other side of the vestibule door.
Nan saw why immediately; two crowbars had been propped under the handles. She kicked them aside as a bolt of lightning struck down on the Town Common, blowing the bandstand, where a tormented young man named Johnny Smith had once discovered the name of a killer, to flaming matchwood. Now the wind began to blow harder, whipping the trees against the dark, racing sky.
The moment the crowbars were gone, the doors flew open-one was torn entirely off its hinges and tumbled into the flowerbed on the left side of the steps. A flood of wild-eyed Baptists poured out, stumbling and falling all over one another as they pelted down the church steps.
They stank. They wept. They coughed. They vomited.
And they were all as mad as hell.
8
The Knights of Columbus, led by Father Brigham, and the Daughters of Isabella, led by Betsy Vigue, came together in the center of the parking lot as the skies opened and the rain began to drive down in buckets. Betsy groped for Father Brigham and held him, her red eyes streaming tears, her hair plastered against her skull in a wet, gleaming cap.
“There are others still inside!” she cried. “Naomi jessup…
’Tonia Bissette… I don’t know how many others!”
“Who was it?” Albert Gendron roared. “Who In the hell did it?”
“Oh, it was the Baptists! Of course it was!” Betsy screamed, and then she began to weep as lightning jumped across the sky like a white-hot tungsten filament. “They called me a Pope whore! It was the Baptists! The Baptists! It was the God damned Baptists!”
Father Brigham, meanwhile, had disengaged himself from Betsy and leaped to the door of the Daughters of Isabella Hall. He booted the crowbar aside the door had splintered all around it in a circle@ and yanked it open. Three dazed, retching women and a cloud of stinking smoke came out.
Through it he saw Antonia Bissette, pretty ’Tonia who was so quick and clever with her needle and always so eager to help out on any new church project. She lay on the floor near the Chairwoman’s table, partly hidden by the overturned banner depicting the Infant of Prague.
Naomi jessup knelt beside her, wailing.
’Tonia’s head was twisted at a weird, impossible angle. Her glazed eyes glared up at the ceiling. The stench had ceased to bother Antonia Bissette, who had not bought a single thing from Mr. Gaunt or participated in any of his little games.
Naomi saw Father Brigham standing in the doorway, got to her,’eet, and staggered toward him. In the depth of her shock, the smell of the stink-bomb no longer seemed to bother her, either. “Father,” she cried. “Father, why? Why did they do this? It was only supposed to be a little fun… that was all it was supposed to be. Why?”
“Because that man is insane,” Father Brigham said. He folded Naomi into his arms.
Beside him in a voice which was both low and deadly, Albert Gendron said: “Let’s go get them.”
9
The Baptist Anti-Gambling Christian Soldiers strode up Harrington Street from the Baptist Church in the pouring rain with Don Hemphill, Nan Roberts, Norman Harper, and William Rose in the forefront. Their eyes were reddened, furious orbs peeling from puffy, irritated sockets.
Most of the Christian Soldiers had vomit on their pants, their shirts, their shoes, or all three. The rotten-egg smell of the stink-bomb clung to them in spite of the sheeting rain, refusing to be washed away.
A State Police car stopped at the intersection of Harrington and Castle Avenue, which, half a mile farther up, became Castle View.
A Trooper got out and gaped at them. “Hey!” he shouted. “Where do you folks think you’re going?”
“We’re gonna kick us some Pope-sucker butt, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay the hell out of our way!” Nan Roberts shouted back at him.
Suddenly Don Hemphill opened his mouth and began to sing in a full, rich baritone voice.
“Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war-” Others joined in. Soon the entire congregation had taken it up and they began to move faster, not just walking now but marching to the beat. Their faces were pallid and angry and empty of all thought as they began not just to sing but to roar out the words.
Rev. Rose sang along with them, although he lisped quite badly with his upper plate gone.
“Christ, the royal master, leads against the foe, Forward into battle, see His banners go!”
Now they were almost running.
10
Trooper Morris stood beside the door of his car with his microphone in his hand, staring after them. Water ran from the waterproof over the brim of his Smokey Bear hat in little streamlets"Come back, Unit Sixteen,” Henry Payton’s voice crackled.
“You better get some men up here right away!” Morris cried.
His voice was both scared and excited. He had been a State Trooper for less than a year. “Something’s going down! Something bad!
A crowd of about seventy people just walked past me! Ten-four!”
“Well, what were they doing?” Payton asked. “Ten-four.”
“They were singing’Onward Christian Soldiers’! Ten-four!”
“Is that you, Morris? Ten-four.”
“Yessir! Ten-four!”
“Well, so far as I know, Trooper Morris, there is still no law against singing hymns, even in the pouring rain. I believe it to be id activity but not an illegal one. Now I only want to say this a stup once: I’ve got about four different messes on my hands, I don’t know where the Sheriff or any of his goddam deputies are, and I don’t want to be bothered with trivialities! Do you copy this? Ten-four!”
Trooper Morris swallowed hard. “Uh, yessir, I copy, I sure do, but someone in the crowd-it was a woman, I think-said they were going to, uh, ’kick us some Pope-sucker butt’ is how I believe she put it. I know that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I didn’t much like the sound of it.” Then Morris added timidly: “Tenfour?”