Jake's Wake

by Cody Goodfellow, John Skipp

  For Lisa, however, a hole had been blown in her good-time vibe, even before the local news came on.

  It was hard not to be jealous, despite Jasper’s protestations, when she learned that he was backing up Evangeline this evening. Everybody knew they’d had a thing, and that they were still just-short-of-kissing close.

  But Jasper was so cool on the phone—so clearly excited about hooking up tonight—that Lisa had put that noise on the emotional back burner, trusting her own charm and bedroom skills to knock that skank out of the running. You didn’t have to be a pro to fuck like one; all you had to do was connect, throw down, and give it up like you meant it.

  So she was confident, if a little apprehensive, that the night would go just fine.

  Then the music cut out, right in the middle of that stupid “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” song; and while that would normally be cause for rejoicing, the volume on the TV sets went suddenly up.

  And the news of the “Funeral Parlor Massacre” came up with it.

  Her first reaction was a generic oh-my-god-that’s-so-horrible: the kind of reaction you gave to every bit of bad news that had nothing to do with you.

  But as the story unfolded, her stomach sank into her knees; and she found herself trying to pull all of Jasper’s cursory info into sharp relief.

  Was Jasper at the funeral home? No. He said he was going to the widow’s house. Was the massacre at the widow’s house? No. It was at the funeral home.

  Did Jasper need to know about this?

  Yes, probably he did.

  It was so hard not to call him up immediately. If it weren’t for the fact that he’d asked her, explicitly, not to, there would have been no hesitation at all.

  As it was, she watched the details pile up: multiple deaths, the original dead guy’s body missing, a $10,000 reward, some mystical mumbo jumbo.

  Then the segment ended, and the TV cut to a life insurance commercial. Someone hit the mute button. The jukebox kicked back in.

  And her panic attack went into full swing.

  She spent the next ten minutes letting various friends buy her drinks and try to talk her down, with no success whatsoever. In fact, half of them were like no, you HAVE to call him!

  Until she finally did.

  And she was still kicking herself for having called from inside the bar, with AC/DC shrieking “Back In Black.” Because the fact was, she couldn’t be certain that she’d heard what she heard.

  But the whispering hiss—just before the line cut out—sure as shit sounded like it said Jasper is dead.

  She hit redial. It didn’t work.

  She tried Christian’s number. It didn’t work.

  She tried them both a trillion times.

  At that point, Lisa felt like she had no choice but to open it up to the floor: trying not to get hysterical as she told her friends, then the people nearby, then anyone who would listen that something was wrong at the Connaway house.

  It was amazing to watch how people shrank back from her then, like she had some kind of contagious disease: a leprosy of involvement that averted all gazes, and left all backs turned.

  On the far side of the pool tables, she found Denny and Steve huddled in deep conversation, their game all but forgotten. Denny was a bony-faced, scruffy-ass psycho in a dingy white I Think You Confused Me With Someone Who Gives A Shit T-shirt. He looked much older than his forty years. The rumor was some sort of lymphatic cancer.

  But Steve was younger, and sort of cute in a beefy farmboy kind of way; and though she’d seen him flash his temper at the bar on several occasions—and heard him say some fairly out-there things about niggers, queers, and Zionists—he’d always been pretty nice to her.

  They looked up, startled, as she approached, like they’d been caught in the middle of planning a 7-11 heist. And Denny’s T-shirt spoke clearly for him.

  But the second she mentioned the Connaway place, their eyes lit up, and they looked at each other, then back down at her tits, as if she’d just offered them blow jobs and backstage passes to a ZZ Top reunion.

  Yes, they said. They would be happy to drive her. And yes, they said, they would definitely bring guns. They could leave right now, if she was ready. The sooner, the better. They were parked right out back.

  And this was exactly what she’d wanted to hear; but coming from them, it suddenly sounded like the worst idea in the history of the world. Maybe it was the fact that they never once met her gaze for more than a split second. But all of her alarms went off.

  When she hesitated, they started to get angry and insistent. Steve actually grabbed her arm, tried to lead her like a dog on a leash.

  And just as she was about to shout for help, an enormous shadow fell over her from behind.

  “I understand,” boomed a voice like a white James Earl Jones, “that there might be a problem.”

  Steve let go of her arm so fast there was almost a ricochet effect; and Denny jumped back, his scrawny arms raised up in front of his cowering, bug-eyed face.

  Lisa turned to face the giant behind her, who had inspired such fear.

  “Jasper Ellis is my friend,” he said. “You just let me know what you need…”

  Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, let the wind pick up the conversation. Lisa snapped out of her reverie, back into the present, and the monster truck’s cab.

  Fierce light glinted in the side-view mirror, making her jump and blink. It was the high beams from a pickup truck that was coming right up on their ass; and she didn’t need to read the subtitles to know that Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear.

  She whipped around in her seat to see firsthand, was blinded anew by the high beams. Then the pickup abruptly switched lanes, left her seeing dots as it made to pass.

  Through the dots, she saw a second pair of headlights.

  And they, too, were closing in fast.

  Chapter Forty

  There were few things sweeter than a reason to hit one hundred miles per hour.

  And with the hour of reckoning finally at hand, this seemed like the best possible reason of them all.

  It had only taken a couple of minutes to scrounge up some believers: if not in Jake, then in either ten grand, some drunken mayhem, or Christ Almighty. Any one of them would do.

  So there were six crazy bastards in or on the vintage Chevy pickup truck, howling through the wind like the mad dogs they were: Steve in the back, on the flatbed, careening around with Syd, Doyle, Pablo, Chuck, and a case of cheap longneck Tecate beer; Skinny Minnie, the possible booby prize, riding shotgun, so blitzed she could barely sit up; and in the driver’s seat, Denny Chabert—the man with nothing left to lose—pressing that pedal all the way to the metal.

  “FUCK YOU!” Denny hooted, though he knew Big Keith couldn’t hear him. It was a little pregame warmup for the moment—just about to go down—when bulk succumbed to numbers, and the big man got whittled down to size.

  Denny felt pretty goddamn good, all miserable cancerous things considered. He had his hands on the wheel, and a new world a-comin’. A world where remission was no longer an issue, and his skin no longer felt like it was filled with ground glass, no matter how many drugs and drinks he took.

  The world that Jake had promised.

  Rapture and resurrection, just over the horizon.

  In all honesty, he was probably way too high to be driving right now, much less pushing his turbocharged Chevy into the red. But he had spent years working on that bitch, making her as badass as he’d ever hoped to be. It was the single most rewarding relationship of his life.

  A hundred per was well within her comfort zone.

  And, by God, he would rise to this occasion.

  As he came up even with Big Keith’s monster 55-inch wheels, he eased off the gas just enough to hang steady, flashing his ugliest grin; but it was like driving next to a tractor-trailer. All he could see was tires and the stepladder beneath the door.

  The twin networks of nerves and cancer began to jangle
in concert, fear cutting through the drugs and excitement to reactivate pain like glass through an eyeball. In his truck, Denny wasn’t used to looking up at anyone. He couldn’t even flip the fucker off. But he could be crushed like a beer can, anytime Big Keith wanted.

  In that instant, he forgot why this was a good idea.

  Then the artillery kicked in, and brought the joy back to his life.

  Chuck was the first to lob an empty bottle straight at the Murderator’s cab. But the wind was tricky, the sand like needles on his skin; and when his missile flew off to nowhere, like it was smacked out of his hand, all he could do was yell, “Damn!” and start laughing.

  Pablo took the next shot, and it was slightly better, denting the spit-polished bed of the monster truck in a brown spray of glass and beer. The fact that it was still half full had a lot to do with how true it flew. This elementary physics lesson made a deep and immediate impression on all of them.

  Doyle, of course, didn’t learn a thing. He thought two empty bottles would be twice as good as one. When it didn’t work, he cracked open a third and spat in his own eye: as always, far better at feeling than thinking.

  That left Steve, who pulled a full beer from the case and winged it with all his might. He had a third base-man’s throwing arm—trained for hurling long distances, with pinpoint precision—and he aimed for Big Keith’s head.

  It was an excellent shot, thrown off just enough by the wind to smash the handle on the driver’s-side door.

  “BOO-YAH!!!” he bellowed, throwing up his arms, the clear champion of round one…

  …and that was enough for Big Keith, who muttered, “Fuck this!” and veered abruptly toward the passing lane.

  He knew that an actual collision, at seventy per, would not work out so well for him. His center of gravity was a lot more precarious than an ordinary, lower-slung vehicle. He would flip before they did. And that would be very bad.

  But what the Murderator lacked in high-speed maneuverability, it more than made up for with intimidation.

  Big Keith couldn’t see the driver’s face; but from the look of shrieking terror on poor, dumb Skinny Minnie, he could extrapolate Denny’s bug-eyed shit-your-pants expression with relative ease.

  And when that pussy stomped on the accelerator, pushing the Chevy ahead and—for the moment—out of harm’s way, it was a pure gut pleasure to watch those assholes in the back turn white as they whipped by, suddenly not so cocky.

  He pulled full into their lane, missing their rear bumper by inches; and as they screeched up to eighty and beyond, he just smiled at their apelike asses, jumping up and down on the flatbed, his headlights in their squinting eyes.

  Lisa started laughing in the passenger seat; and for a moment, he allowed himself the smirk of the just.

  Then another set of headlights appeared behind them, less than a hundred yards back, and gaining on them like Keith was going backward.

  Chapter Forty-one

  Trista Gluck was no stranger to sin.

  She had worked her way through hell’s buffet, and stayed to lick all the plates clean, so she could look any sinner in the eye and know what they were going through.

  But she knew when to say she’d had enough.

  That night had come only two years ago, in a biker bar on the edge of town, where Trista, hoping only to blow a stranger for a taste of cocaine, and compulsively picking holes in her face, had first heard him preach.

  Not just on his show, but in the flesh. He had waded into the deepest slough of sin and despair to rescue her, when she was going down for the last time.

  Not that he’d spoken to her directly, or cast her a second glance when he came in the door. Trista wasn’t much to look at even in her youth, and she’d had to party twice as hard to keep up with the guys, to be the girl ready for anything, after all the pretty ones had passed out.

  Those days were long gone. Jake had addressed his sermon to a hot young thing with tits like honeydew melons and no acne scars and, more than likely, all her own teeth.

  Trista had to eavesdrop on their conversation, but she was struck to the quick by the handsome preacher’s words, as if they were for her alone. They owned her every failing, and forgave her; as if his piercing stare cut right through the empty vessel of the bleach-blonde slut at the bar, right into Trista’s scarred, loveless heart.

  She went home before last call to watch his show, and with the first golden words of his sermon, she began the first day of her new life. She took the pledge, right then and there. In Jake’s name.

  She’s been a drunk, a drug addict, and a whore with four abortions, chronic herpes (Simplex I and II) and a crappy cot in the Joshua Tree Recovery Center to show for her misspent life. But Pastor Jake had thrown her a rope, and she had climbed out of her pit of despair, ascended into the light of grace.

  To look at her these days—two years clean, and now, she ran the recovery center—was almost to see a different person. Her dentures fit so well hardly anyone could tell, and the dermatologist said the scarring might even be treatable.

  But for the last three days, none of those things had mattered. Not even the love of the Lord seemed to matter.

  Because he was gone. And with him, all hope.

  That was thirty-five minutes ago.

  When, once again, everything was changed by the hand of her savior.

  The wind howled through the broken window of Trista’s beat-up old Toyota Camry, almost loud enough to drown out the asthmatic scream of the overtaxed engine; but the uniquely penetrating tone of her strident voice cut through the maelstrom of noise.

  “Who’s smoking back there?”

  She couldn’t look away from the road, and her rearview mirror was knocked askew when Army got in the passenger seat, but the stink of a burning menthol butt assailed her nose like a Devil’s promise.

  None of the lumpen cargo in the backseat made any sound. For a change.

  “I smell it,” she continued. “When the Lord calls you to testify, silence is a lie.”

  That one was stenciled all over the walls at the halfway house, so it got a response.

  “Rudy’s smoking, Ms. Trista!” Charlene bleated, a heartbeat from hysterics. “I told him put it out—”

  “Rudy. We are all tempted, but his Love is the only drug we need. ISN’T THAT SO?”

  They all sounded off a dutiful echo, and Rudy flicked the butt out the rear window. Some hand-slapping and whispered cursing went on in the backseat, but the four of them were packed in too tight to hurt each other.

  Charlene, Rudy, Tammy, and old Mrs. Tibbs—and her blind tortoiseshell tomcat, Timothy—all wanted to come to witness the miracle, but Army had the front seat all to himself. Even if someone else could have fit in the seat with him, none of them wanted to be next to him.

  Army rocked back and forth, his huge bald head knocking against the roof of the car, making the rotten foam headliner crumble and fly away on the wind. Practicing his lines, rehearsing with the knife.

  Trista caught her hand digging at a scab on her forehead, and bit off her last press-on nail. She couldn’t trust her hands, but she could hardly blame them. It felt like the coke bugs were back, burrowing under her skin, making her sweat through her only nice dress, despite the shivery chill in the rushing wind. But she put it behind her, threw it over her shoulder like Jake always said to do.

  She didn’t read too well, but she knew full well how the apostles and the early Christians were outlaws, persecuted, hated, and feared for following their savior. To do his work and spread his word, they had to break the laws of Rome.

  The world they lived in was a second Rome, another Babylon of de cadence and idolatry. A Devil in human form—a succubus like the platinum blonde in the bar—had silenced Jake Connaway.

  But even the Devil did God’s work, as the prophet said.

  Trista clamped both hands on the wheel and steered the car out of the last hairpin turn at the top of the mountain overlooking the town, and crushed the pedal to
the floor, heading into the two-lane straightaway that she had driven so many times.

  But this time, she would not pass by his house, as she had, so many empty nights.

  They would stop, and their actions would lay the foundation of a new gospel.

  If what the news said was true, they would be first to bear witness; but Trista was no fool. Even if he did not rise, the Church of Eternal Life would rise out of the ashes of Jake’s death.

  With Trista Gluck at its pulpit.

  But there would be obstacles. Up ahead, she saw the taillights of her rivals, whipping down the road like it was slicked with shortening as they drunkenly swerved up around a cruising monster truck like it was standing still.

  She fought the urge to point and shriek at the first glimpse of Denny Chabert and his pathetic wet-brained pals: the focus of all her hatred, in that speeding pickup truck.

  But here, as in all things, she was too loaded down, and she was falling behind.

  Then the pickup slowed, as if taunting the giant. Why, she could not begin to say. But it was clearly a sign from God.

  She stomped down hard on the gas.

  The Camry’s bald tires squealed on the blacktop, Trista fighting to keep them from sliding off the shoulder into soft sand as the acceleration grappled with her for control of the car.

  In the back, her fellow apostles tried to rally their spirits with a rousing hymn, but they were each singing a different one, and Timothy yowled in his cat carrier. They knew all of Pastor Jake’s songs, but they couldn’t keep the lyrics straight.

  To hear his heavenly message mocked as if by chain-smoking howler monkeys stretched her last nerve to the breaking point. But it gave them something to do, until they were needed.

  Beside her, Army rocked harder. His meaty forehead thumped the windshield with each thrust, pumping like on a child’s swing, to push the car forward.

  This made her more than nervous; it scared her; but Army was more important, and she didn’t want to confuse him by telling him to do anything else. If you poured too much into a shot glass, you would spill something, and Army’s shot glass of a brain was filled to the brim.