by Ronald Kelly
Now, only a few hours following the setting of the sun, Wendell was free once again. He stared at those inside the honky-tonk, knowing what must be done.
Without hesitation, he left his place by the window and walked to the door.
Wendell opened it and stood there for a long moment, unable to cross the threshold. It was another of those unexplained restrictions he found so frustrating. He caught the attention of the man at the bar. “May I come in?” he asked.
Vernon Smith looked at him like he was crazy. “I reckon so,” he said with a laugh. “That’s what doors are generally used for, ain’t it?”
Wendell stepped through the doorway, feeling as if a barrier had been lifted by the man’s invitation. He walked to the bar, regarding those who occupied the barroom. They stared back at him, speaking beneath their breath. All except the dancing couple noticed him. The longhaired man and his blonde date were too involved with their own lewd behavior to care one way or the other.
“Can I get you something?” asked Vernon, looking at him carefully.
Wendell felt thirsty, but not for anything Vernon could serve him. “No, thank you,” he simply said.
A look of recognition dawned on Vernon’s bearded face. “Hey, ain’t you that preacher that turned up missing last night?”
Wendell nodded. “I am.”
“I heard you’d run off with some woman,” said one of the poker players. Wendell turned toward the barroom table and saw the biggest one of the bunch, a fellow with a bushy red beard and a Davy Allison racing cap, grinning at him. He recognized him as a local trucker named Buford Jones. “Heard you left your wife and your church and just lit out.”
“That was a lie,” said Wendell. He wasn’t surprised, though. Leave it to the gossips of Green Hollow to concoct such an unflattering rumor.
“Naw, that ain’t it, Buford,” said Vernon, studying the minister’s pale face and bloodshot eyes. “I’m thinking the poor guy is sick or something. Look at how peaked he is.”
“He is a sorry one to look at, that’s for sure,” said a lanky redneck with acne scars all over his face. This one was Lou Hennings, who read meters for the Sevier County power company.
Buford studied the preacher for a moment, particularly the front of his white dress shirt. It was speckled with buckshot holes. “What the hell happened to you?” He recognized the pattern of a double-barreled twelve-gauge when he saw it.
Wendell smiled thinly, his lips blue. “Someone made me a believer,” he replied.
The card players looked at one another, then burst out laughing—all except Buford. He continued to stare at Wendell with suspicion. “Tell me something, Bible-thumper. Just what did you have in mind when you walked in here? Figuring to collect for some charity? If you did, you came to the wrong damn place.”
“Yeah,” said Gil Johnson, a foreman at the shirt factory outside of town. “We don’t toss much in the collection plate on a Sunday morning, but I reckon you already know that.” His eyes burned with pure meanness. “We’d rather spend our hard-earned pay on liquor and whores. Ain’t that right, boys?”
His buddies hooted and hollered, enjoying the ragging the preacher was receiving.
Wendell Craven didn’t seem offended, however. He smiled, his eyes burning with an emotion of their own. It cut their laughter off in mid-chuckle. “I came here for your sake,” he said softly. “I came here to save you.”
The long-haired fellow who danced with the leggy blonde looked over at him and let out a mule bray of a laugh. “The only thing I’m needing to save is my strength.” He winked at his date. “You know, a little thump in my hump when I get around to shaking the sheets.”
The woman cackled shrilly, as if he had said the funniest thing she had ever heard.
Wendell ignored his lurid statement. He turned toward those at the table. “Night after night you gather here and revel in the vices of Satan. Drinking his mind-robbing liquor, squandering your money on games of chance, smoking his tobacco, and listening to his music.” He turned toward the couple, who had stopped dancing to hear his preaching. “And you two, indulging in pleasures of the flesh, strutting and rutting like wild animals. You treat the human body like a plaything, not realizing that it is a vessel for your immortal soul.”
Vernon looked a little peeved behind the bar. “Uh, Reverend, I can’t say that I appreciate you coming in here and sermonizing like this. Now, why don’t you get on outta here? And don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”
“I’ll leave when I’ve finished speaking,” said Wendell, his eyes flaring. “It is important that I deliver God’s word to these drunkards and whoremongers. If they refuse to heed His warning, they shall all perish in Hell, damned for all eternity!”
Buford Jones stood up abruptly, knocking his chair over. “I’ve just about had my fill of your bullshit, preacher.” The trucker flexed his huge fists eagerly. “Now, are you gonna do like Vernon said and skedaddle? Or do I have to put a hurting on you and throw you out myself?”
Wendell locked eyes with Buford, taking a step forward. “No one shall intimidate a messenger of the Lord. If you insist on trying, you will surely feel His wrath.”
The trucker laughed. “Oh, I insist on it,” he said. He rolled up his sleeves, exposing hairy forearms as thick as fireplace logs. “I always had a hankering to beat the shit out of a preacher. Always wanted to shove them high-and-mighty words down their frigging throat and make ’em pray for mercy.”
Wendell smiled. “Well, now’s your chance.”
“Yes, siree,” said Buford. “And I sure aim to make it worth the effort, too!”
The minister did nothing. He stood there as Jones approached him, fists doubled into hard knots. Buford stepped up in front of the preacher, planted himself firmly on the floor, then glanced over his shoulder at his pals. They winked and grinned, just as eager to see bloodshed as Buford was. Then the trucker turned around and regarded the preacher. “This is gonna hurt something fierce,” he warned, then swung at the young man with a roundhouse punch that would have staggered a Brahman bull.
The first blow landed squarely across the right side of Wendell’s jaw. The preacher’s head snapped back, but that seemed to be the extent of the impact. Wendell’s smug expression hadn’t faltered at all. He still wore that strange little grin on his clean-shaven face.
Buford stared at him incredulously. Then his face reddened with anger. He launched his second punch, putting as much force behind it as he could. He wanted to break the preacher’s jaw this time, smash it into pieces, and wipe that silly grin off his self-righteous face. But his fist never reached its mark. Before Buford knew what was happening, Wendell had him by the wrist. He watched, amazed, as he tried to break his hold and couldn’t. The minister’s fingers bore into the underside of his wrist, causing him to grimace in pain.
“Are you ready to listen now?” asked Wendell.
“To hell with you!” growled Buford.
The preacher shrugged, then gave Buford’s wrist a slow twist. The trucker howled as the bones began to snap one by one. Wendell didn’t seem to put any effort into it at all. He simply twisted his hand as easily as if he were unscrewing the top off a mayonnaise jar.
“Repent!” growled Wendell. The pupils of his eyes began to glow with a crimson light. “Confess your sins to the Lord Almighty and bathe in the cleansing blood of the Lamb!”
Buford could do nothing but scream. Tears sprouted in his eyes as Wendell’s grip tightened, causing splinters of bloody bone to jut from the flesh of his thick wrist.
When the trucker’s buddies finally overcame their shock, they jumped out of their chairs and rushed forward. They were like a pack of wild dogs, ready to tear into Wendell and pay him back for the pain he had caused their friend.
Wendell laughed. He had never felt so powerful, so invincible, in his young life. He tossed Buford aside with enough force to send him flipping fifteen feet away. “Come to me, sinners!” Wendell urged. “Come
and feel the awesome might of the Lord!”
Lou Hennings reached the preacher first, losing his taste for trouble the moment he saw those fiery eyes. He gave out a yelp, then saw a flash of motion and felt a thin line of pressure crease his throat, just beneath the jawline. He stared at Wendell’s right hand and saw long claws tipping each finger, claws that were coated with flesh and blood. His flesh and blood! Numbly, he put a hand to his throat and found that it had been slit open from ear to ear. As his life’s blood flooded over his chest, he dropped to his knees.
Gil Johnson came next, a folding hunting knife fisted in his right hand. Wendell laughed and gave the man a clear target. Gil drove the blade square into the pit of Wendell’s stomach. When he withdrew the blade, he was shocked to find the steel clean. There was no trace of blood. He swung back to try again when Wendell grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off his feet. Then with a snap of his wrist, he broke Johnson’s neck and flung him aside.
The last man from the table, an unemployed roofer named Art Winters, reached Wendell about the same time as the long-haired fellow who had been dancing with the blonde. The preacher grabbed them both by the scruff of the neck and, like some bit from a Three Stooges feature, slammed their heads together. But there was no humor to the fate they suffered. A brittle crack rang throughout the barroom as their skulls shattered like eggshells. Blood trickled from their ears and noses as they dropped limply to the floor. Both men shook for a moment, their arms and legs jittering violently, then they grew still.
A scream drew Wendell’s attention and he turned. The girl was running toward the rear door. He quickly grabbed a chair and heaved it at her. It hit her with an ugly crunch of shattering wood and bones. The force of the chair threw the girl against the jukebox, driving her head through the glass. A shower of blue sparks and smoke sprayed the air. With her hair on fire, the blonde slipped from the broken dome and fell to the floor as limp as a rag doll.
“Turn around, you bastard!” Vernon Smith called from behind.
Calmly, Wendell turned and regarded the bartender. Vernon held a .44 Magnum in his fist. The barrel trembled as the man took aim and cocked the hammer.
Wendell took a step forward just as Vernon pulled the trigger. A deafening boom rang throughout the honky-tonk. The minister felt a thump in his chest and looked down. There was a large hole there, big enough to toss a tennis ball through. He looked back at Vernon, shaking his head. “That wasn’t a very Christian thing to do,” he said.
The bartender forgot the gun in his hand. Vernon turned and headed down the bar at a dead run. He didn’t get far. Before he knew it, Wendell was in front of him, blocking his way. Vernon swung the big revolver at Wendell’s head with enough force to split his skull in two.
Wendell caught the gun in one hand, then squeezed. The blued steel crumpled like aluminum foil in his grasp. The preacher flung the mangled gun away and smiled. Vernon looked into his blazing red eyes and saw an expression of intense power like none he had ever seen before. Then Wendell struck out with the palm of his hand. Vernon stumbled backward, his sternum shattered. Splinters of bone ripped through his heart, killing him instantly.
The preacher leapt over the bar and walked toward Buford Jones. The burly trucker was crawling along the floor, trying to make it to the front door. His hand flopped limply at the end of his wrist, the bones bristling from the flesh like pins from a pin cushion.
Wendell kicked him onto his back, then grabbed him by the throat and lifted him to his feet. Buford blubbered shamelessly, his eyes full of terror. A dark stain widened at the crotch of his blue jeans and the odor of urine hung heavily in the air.
“Look what you made me do!” snarled Wendell. He looked around at the bodies that were strewn around the barroom. “You made me lose my temper and condemn these sinners to an eternity in Hell!”
“Let me go!” sobbed Buford. “Please!”
“No,” Wendell told him. His fingernails grew even longer than before, anchoring deeply into the flesh of Buford’s neck. “I came here to save someone, and in the name of God Almighty, that’s what I intend to do!” He smiled cruelly at the man. “You’ve cursed your friends to damnation, Jones. They’re burning in hellfire at this very moment. Do you want to know their suffering? Do you want to feel it firsthand?”
Buford screamed as Wendell’s eyes turned completely red and fangs began to creep from beneath his upper lip.
“Look into my eyes!” he commanded. “Look at me and feel what damnation truly feels like!”
The trucker didn’t want to look, but the light in the preacher’s eyes seemed to draw his gaze. The moment he looked into those fiery orbs, his screams increased in intensity. He felt as if someone had doused him with gasoline and lit him with a match. Buford felt as if he were burning to death inside and out. His brain even burned. He could feel it boiling inside his skull, ready to burst.
The searing agony seemed to last for an eternity, then stopped abruptly when Wendell pulled his eyes away. “There, does that convince you?” he asked. “Are you ready to repent now? Are you ready to be baptized into the glory of God?”
But Buford Jones was past all reason. The illusion of hellfire had burned away what little sanity he had left. He screamed shrilly, and somehow breaking free from Wendell’s grasp, dropped to the floor. He spotted Gil Johnson’s discarded knife lying inches away. Before Wendell could act, Buford had grabbed it and plunged it under his own ribs. The long blade sliced cleanly past his diaphragm and severed a lower valve of his heart. Even as his eyes rolled up into his head, he shoved the knife deeper, until scarcely an inch of the handle jutted from the wound in his chest.
A second later, he was dead.
Wendell looked down at him. “You fool!” he said. “You’ve traded in the rewards of Heaven for the agony of Hell.”
Buford just stared up at him, his wide eyes glazed and unseeing.
Gradually, the rage Wendell had felt began to fade. He looked at the carnage around him. This wasn’t how he’d intended it to be. He had allowed his temper to get the better of him and those who he’d come to save had perished instead.
“Such a waste,” he said in disgust. “So many lost souls with no chance of redemption.” No, this hadn’t been his intention at all.
Angrily, he left the Cheating Heart and stepped out into the darkness. Someone must be saved that night. It was God’s will, or He wouldn’t have blessed Wendell in such a divine way.
Then someone came to mind, a lost lamb that would neither fight back nor refuse him. He smiled to himself, forgetting those who lay dead on the floor of the honky-tonk.
Yes. He knew exactly who it would be.
Chapter Nineteen
Tammy Craven sat on her living room couch, just as she had for most of last night and that day. She clutched a sofa pillow tightly, as if trying to squeeze some comfort from it. But unfortunately, she could do nothing to ease her troubled mind. It was preoccupied with fear and uncertainty, even more than she usually had to cope with.
Wendell was gone. He had been gone since last night. Tammy had gone out to the church to check on her husband, something she didn’t normally do. But an eerie sense of dread had gripped her that night, and to make herself feel better, she had left the parsonage around nine o’clock and approached the church. She had found the front door unlocked—something her husband would have never neglected, especially when the Sunday offerings were being counted—and walked through the auditorium.
Tammy had called out to Wendell but had received no answer. She found his office empty, just as the rest of the church was, then returned to the house, thinking maybe he had come in without her knowledge. He was not there, either. Frightened, she had lost her nerve and called the police department.
Chief Watts and Officer Mathers had gone over the church and parking lot with a fine-toothed comb. Wendell’s desk drawer was locked and that Sunday’s offerings were there, so there had been no evidence of robbery.
There had been no s
ign of a struggle, either, in the church house or the parking lot. The only thing they did find was a few drops of blood on a pine cone in the grove at the far end of the parking lot, as well as some earth that had been disturbed. They had been unable to tell whether the blood was human or animal, so they had sent a sample of it to a lab in Knoxville. All in all, it seemed as though her husband had vanished into thin air.
Tammy knew the rumors that had circulated around town, rumors about Wendell deserting her and running off with another woman. She couldn’t believe how vindictive and cruel people could be, particularly where a man of God was concerned. Wendell certainly had his faults—he could be too self-righteous and critical at times, especially of her—but otherwise he was a good man. He would never have left her, she knew that for a fact. In his book, adultery and divorce were subjects to preach against, not anything that he would ever think of doing himself. It hurt her to think that folks in Green Hollow were saying things like that about him.
She clutched the pillow tighter to her chest. Fresh tears bloomed in her eyes as she thought of how she and Wendell had met. They had both attended David Lipscomb College in Nashville. She had been there for an education, while Wendell was studying for the ministry. They had first met during a Bible study class. Wendell had been different then. He had been calmer and less critical of those around him. But he had possessed the same strength and conviction of character that he had now.
She supposed that was what had drawn her to him in the first place, his stability. They had started dating and she had quickly fallen in love with the young student. She wished she could believe that he had fallen in love with her, too, but as their marriage progressed into an ugly cycle of oppression and constant sermonizing, Tammy began to think differently. She began to believe that he had married her only because a wife was necessary for a young minister to obtain his own church. A congregation, especially one of the Baptist faith, trusted a pastor more if he was no longer a bachelor.
