The Lord was, quite literally, Emmy’s tether to the world. When she dedicated herself to his work, her mind ran clear and true as an alpine brook.
But to night, prayer had only tranquilized her, helped bring her in line with the paralyzing shock. She didn’t know how long they’d stood in the holding cell. Surely it must be morning soon…
The back door seemed miles away across the lawn, or maybe her mind made it feel that way, by packing her thoughts with distractions.
Gray tugged on her arm, almost pulling her off balance. Her feet wanted to please him, and the rest of her was so terrified of his anger, that she would have followed him off a cliff. But she planted her foot and started, feebly, halfheartedly, to resist him.
It didn’t matter what he’d do to her, her heart told her. If he killed her now, that might be best.
What awaited her inside, she knew, would be much worse.
Gray hissed smoke out his nose in disgust. The leaves rattling in the breeze sounded like mindless applause.
That was when they heard the laughter behind them.
Gray whipped around and searched the shadows between the house and the garage. Crazy chuckling and muttered curses strung out of his mouth; he reminded Emmy just then of her mother, seeing and hearing demons everywhere.
Except that Emmy heard it, too.
The sound was like a spray of icy water, stretched thin on the wind, but a shock on her exposed skin, not just her ears…as if everywhere it touched, the wrongness of the sound raised goose bumps. It pulled her out of her shock as she cowered behind him, looking over his shoulder.
“Oh, my God…” She searched her mind, but no prayers came.
Gray looked at her, his face as white as his bloodshot eyes weren’t. “You heard that, too?”
Emmy took hold of his arm, tears streaming.
“What is happening? Do you know?”
The demon laughed again. It was a lewd, lascivious woman—no, higher, giddy like a girl, or a woman abused so badly in childhood that her voice never grew up. She was playing hide-and-seek, and couldn’t wait to be found…or she was the seeker, and could not contain her amusement at how badly they were hiding.
When Emmy used to play hide-and-seek with the neighborhood kids, she always found the best hiding place; nobody ever found her. She’d stay hidden as they gave up right away and went to play something else, stayed hidden until she wet her pants and her stomach rumbled, too proud, then too ashamed, to run for the safe place.
They should run for the safe place now.
But where was safe?
Suddenly, she wanted him to take her into the house.
But Gray was frozen, too.
Emmy stared, dumbfounded. Up until this moment, it had never occurred to her that even this vicious killer might be out of his depth.
“Don’t you even know what’s out there…?”
All at once, he raised a shaking hand to slap her, looked equally stunned by the fact that he didn’t. The hand just hung there as they stared at each other, searched each other’s eyes for proof that they weren’t going insane.
But what they saw didn’t make things better.
“NO, I DON’T!” Gray howled, and the admission seemed to deflate him. “Okay? I don’t know anything!”
His voice faltered, hand fell.
High above them, up in the branches of the oak tree, the shrill demon voice let out haunting, rollicking giggles. Such games, such fun, for the suffering on earth.
Emmy watched the voice shudder through him, even as she shuddered herself. Gray was just following Jake’s orders. Just as she had…
“We have to get out of here,” Emmy begged. “All of us. Even you…”
“Even me?” Gray retreated into a hateful glower. She could see that she had somehow, amazingly hurt his feelings…
…and though it hadn’t seemed impossible, she suddenly felt pity for this poor, lost, frightened man. Couldn’t believe that she’d forgotten even he had a soul. And was instantly ashamed.
“Oh, no!” she cried, frantic on too many levels to count. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean…”
“You didn’t mean what?”
Words failed her; and without thinking, she threw herself sobbing into his arms like a child.
Gray’s arm enfolded her. He was stiff, unyielding, but also shaking; and if she could have seen his eyes, she would have noted, in that moment, that he looked almost sane.
The laughter circled overhead, like a murder of mad crows. He squeezed her tighter, as if to comfort them both. She squeezed tighter in return.
Then Gray’s gun pressed softly into her back; and south of his belt line, something else jabbed insistently at her thigh. His breath, stale cigarettes and something deep down gone to rot inside, came faster and harsher in her ear.
Oh God, she blurted in her head, too quick to take the small blasphemy back. He was, Lord help her, aroused.
“Please,” she whispered. “Just help us. Please…”
Gray slid the barrel, slowly, up Emmy’s back, getting some unspeakable kicks out of the contact.
The wind whistled and howled with laughter.
Gray clung tighter against her, even as he brought the gun up to Emmy’s head. Barrel to temple. And chambered a round.
Emmy froze: too frightened to move, too horrified even to pray. She was no longer squeezing him, but her arms were still wrapped around him in a hideous charade of affection.
“Why?” she whimpered into his shoulder.
“Because I don’t give a shit about you,” he said in a flat-ironed voice. “I think you’re an idiot. Come on.”
Chapter Thirty-three
Christian rationed the lighter. Even if he only sparked it to check out each item he dug out from under the sink, it still burned his left thumb. Poor baby, it almost matches the other one now.
He lay on his left side on a wadded-up bath mat and some towels, with his ruined right arm curled up against his cracked rib cage. Blessed shock had finally set in, and the reality of his predicament had settled in, as well. Perhaps he was delirious and looking at the same things over and over, but the bathroom cabinet was a bottomless cornucopia of house hold products he should have been able to make into a flamethrower or a lunar lander, if he’d been more mechanically inclined.
Jake loved his hair. Hated insects.
Christian could think of plenty of ideas, sure. He could indeed use some of the old aerosol hair spray cans and his lighter to burn the fuckers when they came for him, if he only had two hands.
He could try to make Molotov cocktails out of Jake’s cologne collection, but they were alcohol based, and though their stench would make baboons impotent, it wouldn’t burn too long, and the bottles were thick, tacky smoked-glass bricks, all but impossible to shatter.
He could try to set fire to the door and the exterior wall, maybe punch a hole in the drywall and pour the cologne and a couple hair spray cans inside, and lie in the bathtub, covered in wet towels. Wait for the firemen.
Or he could give himself a make over.
Jasper would know what to do. Christian tried not to cry. Jasper always knew what to do…
Jake’s face lit up as Emmy and Gray came in the back door. Emmy choked on her tongue, eyes swarming with hope and fear.
“There you are, my shining star! You just wait right there.”
All this hostility, all this doubt from the peanut gallery, was draining him dry. Right now, he needed what only Emmy could give.
Jake swooped in on her, taking Emmy by the arm, steering her back toward the inner sanctum.
Gray waggled his gun at Eddie from across the room, but put a hand on Jake’s shoulder, stopping him. “Jake,” he mumbled out the corner of his mouth. “We gotta talk, man. This is…”
“This is not the time.”
His beady eyes pinged the warning tone in Jake’s voice, but he jerked on Jake’s arm in frustration. “Jake…”
The lights flickered hard, and the wall
s began to rumble, as if a big cargo plane passed low overhead, or a subway car was burrowing beneath them. For a moment, the wild glare of the fireplace was the only light, but Jake could have sworn he saw the gleam of a brighter fire pouring out of his own eyes, spilling over Gray’s crumpled expression, and the blank slate of Emmy’s undone, empty face.
“Don’t make me doubt you now. You take care of your shit. I’ll take care of mine.”
Gray shuddered and took his hand back like it was scorched, turned and crossed toward Eddie with the gun cocked like he was going to brain the wetback.
Jake smiled like a bashful newlywed groom and yoked her neck in the crook of his arm.
As fast as her little legs could keep up, Jake and Emmy headed back down the hall.
Jake walked fast, half dragging her along. Emmy moved like in a dream, trying to awaken.
“Jake, please, you have to stop…this is all wrong…”
Jake’s tone was soothing, but his words crashed together in her head, like a roomful of Devil’s advocates fighting for the mic. “Oh, sweetheart. I’m back, aren’t I? Just like the Good Book said, praise Jesus. Praise Jesus!”
Stopping and folding her in arms like amorous pythons, he tenderly kissed the top of her head.
“Yes,” she whimpered. “Praise Jesus.”
“Right. And right now I need you to make me look good for the cameras. Cuz God knows I gotta look good for the cameras. Jesus would want it that way.”
She nodded, but he was already sweeping her along to the door.
They entered the studio.
Jake turned on the lights, dazzling her for a moment. When she stopped blinking, her eyes fixed on the towering cross parked in front of the green screen, and the all-too-familiar figure hanging from it.
Sweet, gentle, patient, faithful Mathias.
Scourged, mutilated, eyeless Mathias.
Emmy screamed.
“I know, I know.” Jake took hold of and massaged her shoulders. “It looks bad. But that’s only his body…”
Emmy went into shock, turning to ice water inside and leaking out of her shoes.
Jake held her up in his kneading hands. “Now…come on…you’re not gonna do me any good like that…”
Jake whipped her around and slapped her. The flush of outraged blood brought the semblance of life back into her face. She blinked, tears streaming, awakening to it all over again.
“There you are. Now shut up and listen, and don’t you worry about him. He’s gone on to meet his maker. That’s what he wanted, and that’s what he got. Now you just gotta take care of me, the way you’ve always done. Take care of the Church of Everlasting Life…”
Emmy was speechless, skydiving into his bottomless eyes.
“You still believe in me, don’t you?”
Emmy thought about miracles and demons, and all the subtle things she ignored, and all the shocking things she buried, that had tried to show her what Jake Connaway really was. No demon could have made her fall so hard; no Devil could have twisted the love of Christ into his own sick image. What possessed Jake, seething inside the decaying shell of his corpse, had always been there.
Now it was all that was left.
Eyes locked on Jake’s, Emmy involuntarily started shaking her head.
In the holding cell, Evangeline was now at Emmy’s place by the window. She could see Jake and Emmy’s shadows entangled on the curtain blocking the studio’s sliding glass doors. “That poor little girl.”
Esther’s unfocused voice cracked, every syllable a whining plea for booze. “What do you think he’s going to do?”
Evangeline turned to look at her clueless cell mate…just as Esther’s soggy, stricken visage burst out of the darkness in seizures of red and blue light.
Behind Evangeline, headlights cut through the gloom of the weed-choked parking lot.
“Look!” Esther cried, rushing over and crowding her beside the barred window.
A car crawled onto the property after someone had opened the gate, rolling its roof lights as it passed by, heading around the back of the house.
A cop car.
Evangeline screamed, “Omigod! HELP!”
She started banging on the window. Esther joined her, banging on the bars with her empty flask.
But the wicked wind wailed and threw their cries back in their teeth, stealing away their screams as the cop car pulled out of sight behind the house, and switched off its lights.
Part VI
The Tale Of The Dumb-Ass Mexican
Chapter Thirty-four
Brooding wasn’t normally an unwelcome pastime for Gray, but with the way the night was dragging on—the load of bullshit house keeping, the hour wasted overseeing this shiftless beaner on his chores—he’d had plenty of time to chew on it. Had taken refuge in it, to forget about the other shit that seemed to be trying to drive him over the edge.
Like the starving castaways in that old Bugs Bunny cartoon, whenever Gray looked at the sneaky little Mexican, he saw him slowly transform: not into a hamburger or a hot dog, but into something Gray longed even more desperately to consume.
He’d finally put together why it was that if Eddie looked him in the eye one more time, he was going to have to cut his face off and feed it to him.
Gray lurked in the doorway as Eddie put the door in place. It looked fine if you shut it, but the putty holding the upper hinge in place was still soft, and the door tilted and dragged on the porch if you opened it wide. Close enough for government work, but since they were camping out here…
Eddie looked around and fixed him with those sad, hangdog eyes, asking for it, giving away nothing.
It wasn’t the race thing. Gray had a closetful of prejudices about the Hispanic race, but he hated them no more nor less than any other race, including his own, which was six layers of rootless American mutt.
It was his fucking eyes; and God damn, but sitting around dwelling on it, he’d had time to make the connection to memory, or drag imagination into the present.
Jake and Gray used to have all kinds of fun in Mexico.
Nobody knew Jake there, but they felt his mojo, and they treated him like a god, so long as he kept tipping. Gray swam along in his wake, bored by most of the action, but always ready to laugh at the absurdity of it all. What they lacked in wealth, taste, and refinement, the Mexicans more than made up for with their eagerness to make clowns and beasts of themselves for pocket change.
Mexicali was the only place Jake could let it all hang out like the old days, the small-time rock-star days, when they ran the string of whores in Palm Springs, of which Evangeline was the only survivor.
The last time they went down there, two years ago, they were still shitfaced at daybreak when they pulled out of the gravel lot of the Casa Delicias, where Jake always left the whores crying his name, and Gray just left them crying.
Jake had a doggy bag sucking his dick for the ride home, and the bitch had a cigarette lit in her claws as she worked Jake’s cock with her tongue while he tried to steer his brand-new Hummer H2 without spilling the fifth of fine agave tequila they shared.
She burned him; the cherry must have broken off her smoke and fallen under his scrotum in his boxers, because he went berserk. Dumped the tequila in his lap and kicked the toothless skank out of it. Gray was not glad to have her crawl over him, kicking them both like a jackrabbit with her sandals, which had Goodyear whitewall tires for soles.
The Hummer swerved across the main drag, spooking chickens and chicle-peddling urchins, and sideswiped a line of parked cars.
The Hummer H2 may have been a fat-ass pussy yuppie bastardization of kickass military hardware, but it coasted down the line without stalling, ripping doors and crumpling frames on Detroit’s and Tokyo’s finest like a .30-06 rifle bullet through a line of beer cans.
Jake slewed to a stop sideways on the main drag. Gray looked for cops and saw nobody but a hot dog vendor (“Now with more dogs!”) out on the street. The federales all knew him do
wn here, respected him as a Gold Circle Club visitor, but most of the cars had California and Arizona plates.
Jake looked around for only the blink of an eye before he put on his shades, threw the H2 into Drive, and cocked that smile Gray had learned to love.
“I’m not letting this shit ruin my day,” he said.
Jake threw the whore out by her hair, peeled out, and made a run for the border.
They left Mexicali on a side road to a checkpoint where the two customs guys could be counted on to wave them through. Big fans of the show, and of the whores they often dropped off. You can’t take them with you, they always said, but we’ll always hold them for you…
Everybody knew how the game was supposed to be played, except for this one dumb, fucking patrulero.
Not four miles from the border, this shitty old white Datsun sedan came dusting up to their bumper. Jake waved him on to pass, but floored it.
The sedan flipped on a pitiful single blue light, and a siren that might have been a cranky parrot with a bullhorn.
Jake ran another two miles before he decided, fuck it, and pulled over.
“How much cash you got?” he asked.
Gray patted himself down and found only two hundred, the dregs of an eight ball of crank and a glass pipe. “Fuck this guy. We gave at the office.”
Then this bowlegged old taco-bender came scraping up to the Hummer like Slowpoke Rodriguez’s granddad. Gray could barely see his sweat-stained brown béisbol cap over the driver’s-side windowsill as Jake haggled with him.
The highway patrolman explained in choppy English that they were speeding, and he heard they had some trouble in Mexicali, and they needed to come back to sort it out.
Jake offered him a pig-choking wad of cash and told him, in serviceable Spanish, that it would be best for everyone if they could not be caught before they crossed the border, and were never seen in these parts again.
Gray got out of the Hummer, dropping into fine, chalky dust up to his shoelaces, like powdered bone. Unzipping and digging his shrunken cock out to piss, he wondered for about the thousandth time since Friday why they came down to Mexico.
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