The Seventh Day

by Scott Shepherd

  “Just be glad you weren’t with him that night in the bar, and didn’t have to get on the stand to put the nails in his coffin,” said Cletus, looking as sorry as he possibly could.

  “You got nothing to feel bad about,” Trey told him. “You just told the truth.”

  Yeah, thought Cletus.

  Kind of.

  It started out innocently enough, as these things so often did.

  Cletus had come by Samuel’s house for dinner; Darleen was always offering up a home-cooked meal, saying Cletus spent so much time in junk food dives and low-life bars, and his cholesterol numbers must be off the charts. But Samuel had ended up going for drinks with some work guys after a round of golf (ironic, considering how things panned out), leaving Darleen and Cletus to eat and drink on their own.

  For the life of him, Cletus couldn’t remember who kissed whom. He liked to think Darleen had made the first move, but they both had a lot to drink and he knew deep down it must’ve been him. Not that he’d been lusting after her; he’d never really thought about Darleen that way. He did feel she was wasting her time with Sammy, even though it was his own brother. Samuel was such a damn bore; what any woman would find exciting about him was beyond Cletus. Still, that didn’t give Cletus a good reason to start up a fling with his brother’s wife.

  But that didn’t deter him.

  Because that’s who Cletus was. Selfish, self-centered, and—not that he’d ever admit it—full of self-loathing. He lived by the motto, “What’s good for Cletus is good enough for me, me being Cletus.”

  Over the next six months, Cletus and Darleen got together as much as possible. There wasn’t much talking, and Cletus would wager they were horizontal (or in related positions) about 90 percent of that time. But he was enjoying himself and that was all that mattered to him. The only time it got a little bothersome was when Darleen would start complaining about life with Samuel, telling Cletus how bored she was and that Samuel was the most ordinary person she had ever met.

  Cletus wanted to say, Tell it to someone who gives a shit.

  But he would nod like he agreed, and then suggest he could go another time if she wanted to.

  Usually she did.

  Cletus had never actually considered getting caught. He was as shocked as Darleen when Sammy came into the bar twirling Cletus’s very own pair of briefs, hurling accusations at her when it should have been both of them.

  Finally, Samuel mercifully left for the bathroom, as did Cletus’s date—leaving Darleen and Cletus momentarily alone.

  “He doesn’t have a clue it’s me,” said Cletus.

  “Or that anything was even going on,” whispered Darleen.

  “So, you just have to keep denying it.”

  “Or tell him the truth.”

  Cletus could have sworn everyone in the bar had stopped talking and started listening to their conversation. But then he realized he was imagining things. What was finally kicking in was his guilt.

  After all this time, he realized he didn’t want Samuel to know he’d been screwing his wife.

  “You can’t,” he frantically whispered back to Darleen.

  “I can do anything I damn please!” she retorted, her voice rising.

  Cletus started to grab her arm, but then thought better of it. His brain began wondering how to squiggle out of this uncomfortable situation. He came up with the same solution he always did: put it off for another time.

  Even if it meant for only a few hours.

  He told Darleen to ask his date to take her home. Which brought on a quick tirade—what was he doing with a date, anyway? How was that supposed to make her feel? Cletus, frantically trying to keep things together, reminded her: You’re married! It keeps him from suspecting! He told Darleen he would calm Samuel, get him tanked, and leave him with the bartender. Then, he’d come by and they could figure out what to do next.

  She finally agreed.

  Cletus sighed with relief. Maybe he’d be able to squeeze out of this after all.

  On the way to his brother’s house, it never entered Cletus’s mind to kill Darleen.

  He walked in to find her holding Sammy’s four-iron. But she never raised it at Cletus. She was too busy smashing everything in the living room to smithereens.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Cletus yelled upon entering.

  “I’m pissed, okay? I can’t believe you started this whole thing!”

  “That’s not the way I remember it.” Cletus grabbed the golf club away before Darleen broke more stuff, including his head. “I distinctly recall the feeling being mutual.”

  “But he’s your brother!” she cried, and there was a slur to her words. She’d obviously had more drinks since the bar.

  “And he’s your husband!”

  It went further downhill after that. She called Cletus names; he yelled worse ones back. She said they had to tell Samuel the truth. Cletus said that would be a big mistake—all the while holding his brother’s four-iron.

  “Don’t you dare fucking threaten me!” she screamed.

  He didn’t.

  Cletus swung the four-iron and crushed her face.

  Whether he’d done it on purpose or just out of pure frustration, he didn’t know.

  At least the first swing.

  Once the blood started spurted out of her head and she dropped to the floor, Cletus had to keep going and shut her the hell up.

  Forever.

  After that, Cletus was concerned only with getting away with it.

  He wiped the club clean and walked out the door. He never worried about the police finding his fingerprints elsewhere; he was Samuel’s brother, he was at the house all the time. Even if it was to screw his brother’s wife. But no one knew that. No one but the dead woman he left behind on the floor.

  When Samuel was arrested, Cletus feigned total shock that Darleen had been cheating on Sammy; his sibling had come unglued. He offered moral support when Samuel was arrested and told him he’d do anything to help set him free.

  Well, up to a point.

  Yes, Cletus felt guilty. About the affair with Darleen, and certainly for killing her. But not near enough to take his brother’s place in the electric chair.

  He got up on the witness stand and answered the prosecutor’s questions. He acted as if he was reluctant to recount his brother’s mood in the bar that night, but Cletus knew exactly what he was doing.

  Strapping his brother right into Ol’ Sparky.

  Which, he knew looking at the clock in Norman’s kitchen, was set for four o’clock that very afternoon.

  There were many reasons Cletus wasn’t going to that viewing room in the Nevada prison.

  Knowing it should have been him in that chair on the other side of the glass, for starters.

  And ending with the fact he truly loved his brother, and couldn’t bear to watch him die. Even if Cletus was to blame for it.

  He tried to push it all from his brain and plan the Donut World heist with Norman.

  Maybe this would go off without a hitch.

  Cletus figured he was due for a little luck.

  He woke up on the sidewalk beside what remained of the Donut World sign.

  For some mysterious reason, the capital D and W were missing. (Later, when Cletus had renamed himself Primo, he would wonder if the Strangers had a thing for capitalization or just large neon letters).

  Everything was gone.

  Except for the pain in his face. That throbbed like a son of a bitch. Cletus brought his hand up to his right eye. Which no longer felt oily or piping hot. Just different.

  He spotted a piece of broken glass from the Donut World sign and grabbed it. He brought it up to his good eye, and almost dropped it.

  His right eyeball was gone. What remained was a sewed-up crater, oozing liquid that was just outright disgusting. The mottled skin below it was equally so. Cletus threw the glass in anger against a wall, and it shattered. He let out a wail and clutched his face in his hands.

  “Cle
tus!!”

  For a second, he thought he imagined it. But the next time his name was called, he knew the voice was real.

  Norman.

  Cletus dropped his hands and looked up.

  There was Norman—the only other person in sight on the entire block—huddled in a ball on the window ledge of the sixth floor above an empty Donut World.

  “What the hell was that?” asked Norman as they limped through the empty city.

  “Um, a spacecraft?”

  “No shit??”

  “No shit. Unless the government’s got something we don’t know about,” replied Cletus.

  After walking a few blocks, they were both sure there was no more government.

  Later, Norman brought up Samuel.

  “You think they fried him?”

  Cletus said there was no way to know. But if the same thing had hit the prison, he thought getting zapped in Ol’ Sparky might beat a reprieve.

  They continued walking.

  It would have been the perfect time to tell Norman about his part in Samuel’s fate. But Cletus didn’t. He didn’t clue Trey in either, after he appeared with his fire-snorting horses.

  Maybe because deep down, he knew Samuel was still alive out there.

  If that was the case, and he’d told Norman and Trey about Darleen, then he would have to come clean with Samuel as well.

  And he feared his brothers would all turn their backs on him and he’d be alone.

  So, when the Husky led him to the prison and the semi-conscious skeletal Samuel, Cletus realized that the Purple, the Strangers, The Seventh Day— all had given him the thing he needed most.

  A second chance.

  A second chance to watch over his brothers.

  And God have mercy on anyone who tried to hurt them.

  Or get in his way.

  40

  Joad had gotten in Primo’s way more than any Remaining he had run across since The Seventh Day.

  He hovered over the impaled preacher, the circumstances leading to this confrontation having raced through his brain in one huge rush of bad memories. He considered unloading the whole thing on Joad and proving true the old adage: Maybe confession really was good for the soul.

  “C’mon, Primo. Let it out,” Joad said between grunts of pain. “Might make you rethink everything you’re doing here.”

  Joad’s prompting clarified the situation for Primo. Confession wasn’t going to do him any good.

  He had no soul.

  “I don’t think so.”

  He leaned down and practically spit in the wounded man’s face. “I fucked my brother’s wife and killed her. Then, I let Secundo go to the electric chair. You think I give one shit about what I’m going to do to you?”

  Joad didn’t flinch. “You’re the one who has to live with it.”

  Primo had to hand it to Joad: he definitely had balls for a preacher. “I’ll get by. No sweat.” He straightened up as something else occurred to him. “Oh. I’d remind you that you’re not allowed to share any of that—confessional privileges and all—but I’m not worrying about it. Seeing as how you’ll be—well, dead.”

  “Again, your choice.”

  Joad made a quick move with his free hand for the arrow in his shoulder.

  Primo was that much faster and kicked him square in the face. Blood spurted out of Joad’s nose, and he passed out.

  “Yes, it is,” Primo replied.

  Realizing this had fallen on deaf ears, he turned toward the back of the church.

  What was keeping Secundo?

  The blond brother lumbered up the stairs to the rectory’s second floor.

  He had done a quick search of the ground floor that had been for offices and meeting rooms back when Joad was preaching. Secundo was still trying to understand that one—Joad a reverend? He didn’t act like any holy man Secundo had ever seen. Not that he’d run into many of late. Ironically, the last man of God he’d met was the priest who stood beside Ol’ Sparky and asked for any last requests. Being given an eleventh-hour stay by an alien race and sentenced to weeks strapped to an electric chair had not been his first choice, but Secundo knew he wouldn’t be alive right now otherwise.

  Sayers and the two women were nowhere on the first floor, and a check outside revealed a garden that looked like a gone-to-shit sandbox. Except for that one huge apple tree. What the hell that was doing sprouting from the scorched soil was beyond Secundo—it was just one more of the umpteen unexplained things since the Strangers came and so abruptly left.

  Going with Primo’s assumption that the horses indicated the others weren’t far away, Secundo headed upstairs. As he reached the landing, he had to admit he was disappointed, but not surprised, by Aurora ignoring his warning and heading directly to Nemo. He understood that was what one did for those they loved—hell, look at him and Primo. He was still with his brother, even though Secundo wasn’t so enamored of his oldest sibling these days.

  He didn’t bother knocking. Secundo hurled his shoulder against the wooden door, which cracked down the middle.

  He heard the girl scream. As he burst through the door into the corridor, he nearly squished her; she’d been leaning up against the other side, trying to overhear what was going on downstairs. She lay on the floor, staring up at him in horror. Secundo realized she hadn’t seen him since he’d been on the losing end of The Fixer explosion, and now he knew what Victor Frankenstein’s creation must have felt like when the townsfolk encountered it for the first time.

  Because that’s what I am now, thought Secundo.

  A monstrosity.

  “Wh-what happened to you?” babbled the girl.

  “Ask your buddies downstairs,” replied Secundo.

  She cowered on the ground, keeping her distance.

  “Secundo.”

  Aurora emerged from a doorway farther down the hallway. At least she didn’t seem scared, he thought.

  “I warned you it wasn’t a good idea coming here,” he told her.

  “You didn’t have to either.”

  “I wasn’t left with much choice.”

  “We always have a choice.” Her voice was filled with woe. “And we both made them.”

  Sayers stepped out of the room and moved close to Aurora, actually putting an arm around her. The action cut into Secundo’s chest, for a reason he didn’t quite understand and was loath to explore.

  “There’s still time to change your mind,” the physician said.

  “No, there’s not.” This time there was no emotion in Secundo’s response. He started to move toward Sayers, then felt something had changed in the corridor, aside from the darkening mood.

  Secundo looked down and saw that Laura was gone.

  “Damn it.”

  He started to chase after her and felt Sayers lunge. Secundo whirled, grabbed the onrushing man by the throat, lifted him two feet in the air, and slammed his head into the wall. Sayers crumpled to the ground and Aurora dropped to her knees beside him.

  “That wasn’t necessary!”

  Secundo didn’t answer. His heart had gone stone cold. In that moment, he was truly his brother’s brother. It was time for all this to end.

  “Get him up,” he ordered Aurora. He looked down at Sayers. “Try that again and I’ll kill you right here.”

  Maybe his head was getting harder from all the drubbings he’d taken recently, cause Fixer didn’t feel all that bad after waking up from Secundo’s sucker punch. He didn’t think he’d been out long.

  He remained on the floor and peeked through the cracks in the pews. When he’d regained consciousness a few minutes earlier, Primo was telling Joad things that blew Fixer’s mind. With a brother like that, who the hell wanted family.

  Fixer was surprised to see Joad was still alive—he thought Primo would have finished the job once he’d impaled him on the confessional. Guess Primo thought he had himself a captive audience. No sense in rushing.

  Which meant Fixer still had time to get things done.


  But where was the blond beast?

  Laura came racing through the church doors with the answer.

  “He’s coming! He’s coming!”

  She stopped short when she saw Joad pinned to the booth. And screamed at the top of her lungs.

  “Joadddddd… !”

  The moment Laura yelled his name, Joad thought he was going to black out again. Primo had grabbed his arrow-pierced shoulder and squeezed with all his might. The scarred and scabbed sibling whispered into his ear.

  “Tell her to get out. Right now.”

  For once, Joad agreed with his captor. “Laura. You should leave!”

  “Noooo,” responded the girl, who was rooted to the middle of the long red carpet.

  Before Joad could call out again, the doors crashed open. Secundo burst into the church, pushing Aurora and Sayers. He shoved them to the ground, where they landed beside the stunned Laura.

  Secundo looked over at his brother. “What now?”

  Fixer popped up from behind one of the back pews.

  “How about asking Primo why he killed your wife.”

  The burnt blond brother spun on Fixer, in total confusion.

  “Whaaa …?”

  “Something about the two of them sleeping together?” Fixer threw a glance at Primo and called out. “Wasn’t that what you just told the reverend?”

  Joad noticed Primo’s skin go from alabaster white to furious red.

  And heard a distinct rumbling sounding in the air.

  “Sorry,” shrugged Fixer, who was now on his feet. “I’m not bound by the same rules of privilege as the good father here.”

  Joad would have hugged the man if he had been free to do so.

  Secundo only had eyes for Primo. “You murdered Darleen?”

  Primo was back on his feet. He put a hand up in defense, even though they were fifty feet apart.

  “Secundo …”

  The next rumble was louder, an actual roll of thunder.

  Secundo started walking toward the altar. Joad could see disbelief on the blond brother’s face give way to something much worse: recognition of a horrible truth.

  “I should have known. Bet you’ve been laughing yourself silly all of these years… .”