Deacon Moe wheezed, his lungs and throat rasping out an acknowledgment that sounded like an asthmatic trying to say rruuaah through a jugful of snot. Jerry spun him about-face and impelled him through the curtain to disseminate the Word. He heard Moe's stomach-load of accumulated venom slosh. Corrosion was running amok in there. Any second now, gravity might fill Deacon Moe's pants with his own zombified tripe.
Tonight they were billeted in an actual church. Most of the faithful loitered about the sanctuary. The Deacons led them through Jerry's motions; the response quotient of the total group, two score and ten, was about as dependable as a trained but retarded lab rat. Less control, and Jerry would have starred at his own Last Supper months ago. Right now he saw his congregation only as vessels itching to be filled with the prose of the Lord. He tried to keep them fed as best he could manage.
He was most proud of the glorious day he had commenced his cross-country revival. He strode boldly into the murk of a Baton Rouge honky-tonk and let God say howdy-do to a nest of musicians calling themselves Slim Slick and His Slick Dicks. Marching right behind him were twenty hungry born-agains. That holy purge, that first big feed with which he had blessed his new congregation, would forever burn brightly in a special corner of his heart. Slim Slick, et al, had seen the light. Some of them had joined the marching ministry, those that had not been too chewed up to locomote.
Like Jesus to the temple, the Right Reverend Jerry came not to destroy, but to fulfill. To fill full.
He poked his snakestick into the hatch of the pet caddy. Nobody buzzed. Nobody could. Rattling tended to upset the faithful, so he had soaked the rattle of each of his four Little wine-makers until it rotted into silence. Little Matthew was disengaged from the tangle of his brothers. Eastern diamondbacks were rightly feared for their size and high venom delivery; full contact bites were almost always fatal. Little Matt was five feet long, with large glands that would effortlessly yield a Love Gift that could convert six hundred sixty-six adults to the cause, and wasn't that a significant coincidence of mathematics? Jerry had to push the figures a smidgen, converting milligrams to grains to ounces. How a lethal dosage was administered was a big variable. But the final number summoned by his calculator was 666, repeating to infinity. That was how many sinners could swing low on three ounces of Little Matt's finest kind. To Jerry, that number was a perfect sign . . .and wasn't that what really counted in the Big Book? Perfection just tickled God green.
Deacon Curly had not come forth to receive communion. Perhaps he had wandered astray?
Back in the days before it had become synonymous with smut, the Right Reverend Jerry had enjoyed comedy. Upon his nameless Deacons he had bestown the names of famous funnymen. As the ramrods wore out or were retired, Jerry's list of names dwindled. Just now, the Deacons in charge were Moe, Curly, WC. and Fatty. Curly was running late. Tardiness was a sin.
Jerry felt secure that his flock would follow him even without the able assistance of his Deacons. He represented the Big Guy, but his course work with Graham and Hummell pealed just as righteously. His tent-revival roots ran deep and wide, he had always trodden the upward path, and his congregation now burgeoned beneath his loving ministrations.
When he sermonized, the born-agains seemed to forget their earthly hungers. He could not pinpoint why, past his own Rock-solid certainty that the Word held the power to still the restless, and quiet gnawing bellies. There were other kinds of nourishment; these lost ones were spiritually starved as well. Jerry held dear a reverence for awareness and sheer faith, and fancied he saw both in the eyes of his congregation when he vociferated. He Witnessed this miracle in a most hallowed and traditional fashion, during a sermon, when he looked out upon the milling throng and just knew. The born-agains depended on him for the Word just as much as the Deacons counted on him to deliver the holy imbibitions. Venom governed the Deacons, but it had to be a new kind of faith that oversaw the members of the marching ministry. Had to be.
They needed saving. Jerry needed to save. Symbiosis, plain, ungarnished, and God-sanctioned as all get-out.
In a most everlasting way, they fed each other. Maybe it was not such a big whodunnit, after all.
Still no sign of Deacon Curly in the sanctuary. Jerry motioned Deacon Fatty inside. Fatty's eye had popped out to hang from the stalk again. Jerry tucked it in and brushed the bugs from this Deacon's shoulders, then re-knotted the armband which had drooped to the zombie's elbow. Each member of the new congregation wore a Red Cross–it seemed an appropriate symbol for the New Dawn, and Jerry needed a handy way to take quick head counts while on the march.
The sudden, flat boom of an explosion not far away made Jerry's heart slam on brakes. Deacon Fatty stood unimpressed, awaiting his communion, insects swimming in his free-flowing drool.
Orthodoxies had spent too long fucking up the world, so Wormboy had obliterated all of them with a snap of his knockwurst fingers. Enough was enough. Idiots fumbled about, living their lives by accident, begging nonexistent gods for unavailable mercies, trusting in supernatural beings and nebulous powers of good and evil that predetermined what breakfast cereal they ate. If there were any evil now, its name was either Starvation or Stupidity–two big items that could make you instant history. True Believers spent their lives preparing to die. Wormboy preferred fighting to live.
His survival ethics might become the first writ of a new doctrine. Another system would rise in time. Nobody ever really learned a goddamned thing.
He preferred heavy caliber projectile peace of mind. Cordite calm. He had named his M60 Zombo and it was swell. One round made raspberry slush. Vaporize the head and the leftovers could not eat you or infect you with the geek germ.
And spraying on Pam kept them from sticking to the cookery.
Wormboy dumped his dishes in the steel tub sink and relaxed on his Valley View sofa. Abasso toilet belch eased him into sleep and he dreamed about the first person he had ever eaten.
Duke Mallett had dubbed him Wormboy because of his obesity and spotty complexion. Which, quoth Duke, indicated that 15th Street Junior High's resident wimp, blimp, pussywhip and pariah sucked up three squares chock full 'o nightcrawlers each day, with squiggly snacks between. 'To, Wormy–wotcha got in your locker? More WORMS, huh?" That was always good for a chorus of guffaws from Duke and 15th Street's other future convicts.
Duke smoked Camels. His squeeze, Stacy, had awesome boobs and a lot of pimples around her mouth. She used bubblegum flavored lipstick. Two weeks prior to becoming a high school freshman, Dukey wrapped a boosted Gran Torino around a utility pole at ninety. He, Stacy, and a pair of their joyriding accomplices were barbecued by sputtering wires and burning Hi-Test. Paramedics piled what parts they could salvage onto a single stretcher, holding their noses.
Tompkins Mortuary also provided local ambulance service, and when Wormboy caught wind he raced there, to grieve. Old Man Tompkins admired the fat kid's backbone in requesting to view the remains of his classmates. "I have to be sure!" Wormy blurted melodramatically, having rehearsed. Tompkins was of the mind that youngsters could never be exposed to death too soon, and so consented to give Wormboy a peek at the carbonized component mess filling Drawer Eight.
Wormboy thought Tompkins smelled like the biology lab at shark-dissecting time. While the old man averted his gaze with a sharp draw of untainted air, Wormboy sucked wind, fascinated. The flash-fried garbage staining the tray and blocking the drains was Duke. Harmless now. The sheer joy of this moment could not hold, so Wormboy quickly swiped a small sample. When Tompkins turned to look, he sheepishly claimed to have seen enough. He lied.
Later, alone, he wallowed.
The piece he had purloined turned out to be one of Duke's fricasseed eyeballs. It had heat-shrunken, wrinkled in a raisin pattern, deflated on one side and petrified on the other . . . but without a doubt it was one of Dukey's baby blues. The eye that had directed so much hatred at Wormboy was now in his very hand, subtracted of blaze and swagger and no more threatening th
an a squashed seed grape.
It gave under the pressure of his fingers, like stale cheese. He sniffed. It was sour, rather akin to the smell of an eggshell in the trash, with no insides.
Wormboy popped it between his lips and bit down before his brain could say no. He got a crisp bacon crunch. His mental RPMs redlined as flavor billowed across his tongue and filled his meaty squirrel cheeks.
His mom would not have approved. This was . . . well, this was the sort of thing that was just not done.
It was . . .a rush of liberation. It was the ultimate expression of revenge, of power wielded over Duke the dick-nosed shitheel. It was the nearest thing to sex Wormboy would ever experience. It was damned close to religious.
Once Wormboy was old enough, he began to work part time for Old Man Tompkins after school. By then his future was cast, and his extra weight gain attracted no new notice.
At the National Guard armory he had tucked in quite a few Type-A boxed combat meals. The gel-packed mystery meat he pried from olive drab tins was more disgusting than anything he had ever sliced off down at the morgue.
BONE appétit!
Wormboy's wet dream was just sneaking up on the gooshy part when another explosion jerked him back to reality and put his trusty .44 in his grasp quicker than a samurai's katana. It was getting to be a busy Monday.
His mountainous gut fluttered. Brritt. Lunch was still in there fighting. But what the binoculars revealed nudged his need for a bromo right out of his mind.
Two dozen geeks, maybe more, were lurching toward the front gates of Valley View. Wormboy's jaw unhinged. That did not stop his mouth from watering at the sight.
The Right Reverend Jerry unshielded his eyes and stared at the sinner on the hilltop as smoking wads of Deacon Fatty rained down on the faithful. He'd been in front. Something fist-sized and mulchy smacked Jerry's shoulder and blessed it with a smear of yellow. He shook detritus from his shoe and thought of Ezekiel 18:4. Boy, he was getting mad.
The soul that sinneth–it shall die!
Deacon Moe and Deacon Fatty had bitten the big one and bounced up to meet Jesus. The closer the congregation staggered to the churchyard, the better they could smell the sinner . . . and his fatted calves. The hour of deliverance and dinner–so long promised by Jerry seemed at hand.
Jerry felt something skin past his ear at two hundred per. Behind him, another of the born-agains came unglued, skull and eyes and brains all cartwheeling off on different trajectories. Jerry stepped blind and his heel skidded through something moist and slick; his feet took to the air and his rump introduced itself to the pavement and much, much more of Deacon Fatty. More colors soaked into his coat of many.
The Right Reverend Jerry involuntarily took his Lord's name in vain.
At the next flat crack of gunshot one more of the faithful burst into a pirouette of flying parts. Chunks and stringers splattered the others, who had the Christian grace not to take offense.
Jerry scrambled in the puddle of muck, his trousers slimed and adherent, his undies coldly bunched. Just as wetly, another born-again ate a bullet and changed tense from present to past. Jerry caught most in the bazoo.
It was high time for him to bull in and start doing God's work.
Wormboy cut loose a throat-rawing war whoop–no melodrama, just joy at what was heading his way. The guy bringing up the rear did not twitch and lumber the way geeks usually did, so Wormy checked him out through the scope of the high-power Remington. He saw a dude in a stained suit smearing macerated suet out of his eyes and hopping around in place with Donald Duck fury.
He wore a Red Cross armband, as did the others. End of story. Next case.
Wormy zeroed a fresh geek in his crosshairs, squeezed off, and watched the head screw inside-out in a pizza-colored blast of flavor. With a balletic economy of motion for someone his size, he ejected the last of the spent brass and left the Remington open-bolted while he un-racked his M60. Zombo was hot for mayhem. Zombo was itching to pop off and hose the stragglers. Wormy draped a stretch belt of high velocity armor piercers over one sloping hillock of shoulder. The sleek row of shell casings obscured the Dirty Rotten Imbeciles logo on his T-shirt.
Dusting was done. Now it was casserole time. Zombo lived. Zombo ruled.
The next skirmish line of Bouncing Bettys erupted. They were halfway to the moat. The stuff pattering down from the sky sure looked like manna.
Jerry let 'em have it in his stump-thumper's bray, full bore: "Onward, onward! Look unto me, and ye be saved, all the ends of the earth!" Isaiah 45:22 was always a corker for rousing the rabble.
By now each and every born-again had scented the plump demon on the hilltop. He was bulk and girth and mass and calories and salvation. Valley View's iron portals were smashed down and within seconds, a holy wave of living dead arms, legs and innards were airborne and graying out the sunlight.
"Onward!" Jerry frothed his passion to scalding and dealt his nearest disciple a fatherly shove in the direction of the enemy. The sinner. The monster. "Onward!"
The flat of Jerry's palm met all the resistance of stale oatmeal. A fresh cow patty had more tensile strength and left less mess. He ripped his hand free with a yelp and gooey webs followed it backward.
The born-again gawped hollowly at the tunnel where its left tit used to be, then stumped off, sniffing fresh Wormboy meat.
The explosions became deafening, slamming one into the next, thunderclaps that mocked God. In the interstices, Jerry heard a low, vicious chuddering–not a heavenly sound, but an evil noise unto the Lord that was making the faithful go to pieces faster than frogs with cherry bombs inside.
He tried to snap off the maggot-ridden brown jelly caking his hand and accidentally boffed Deacon Moe in the face. The zombie's nose tore halfway off and dangled. Moe felt no pain. He had obediently brought the pet caddy, whose occupants writhed and waxed wroth.
Zombo hammered out another gunpowder benediction and Jerry flung himself down to kiss God's good earth. Hot tracers ate pavement and jump-stitched through Deacon Moe in a jagged line. The pet carryall took two big hits and fell apart. Moe did likewise. His ventilated carcass did a juice dump and the Right Reverend Jerry found himself awash in gallons of zombie puree plus four extremely aggravated rattlesnakes.
He never found out who was the first to betray him. The first bite pegged him right on the balls, and he howled.
Deacon Moe, his work on this world finished, keeled over with a splat. It was like watching a hot cherry pie hit a concrete sidewalk.
Wormboy rubbed his eyes. Zombo had missed. It wasn't just the salt sting of sweat that had spoiled his aim. His vision was bollixed. The oily drops standing out on his pate were ice cold.
It was probably someone's something he ate.
Zombo grew too heavy, too frying-pan hot to hold. Zombo's beak kept dipping, pissing away good ammo to spang off the metal spikes crowding the moat. Wormboy gritted his teeth, clamped his clammy trigger finger down hard and seesawed the muzzle upward with a bowel-clenching grunt. He felt himself herniate below his weightlifter's belt. Zombo spoke. Geeks blocked tracers, caught fire and sprang apart at the seams. Those in front were buffaloed into the moat by those behind. They seated permanently onto the pungi pipes with spongy noises of penetration, to wriggle and gush bloodpus and reach impotently toward Wormboy.
Zombo demanded a virgin belt of slugs.
Womboy's appetite had churned into a world class acid bath of indigestion. This night would belong to Maalox.
It took no time for the air to clog with the tang of blackened geek beef. One whiff was all it took to make Wormboy ralph long and strenuously into the moat. Steaming puke pasted a geek who lay skewered through the back, facing the sky, mouth agape. It spasmed and twisted on the barbs, trying to lap up as much fresh hot barf as it could collect.
Zombo tagged out. Wormboy unholstered his .44 and sent a pancaking round into BarfEater's brain pan. Its limbs stiffened straight as the hydrostatic pressure blew its head apart into
watermelon glop. Then it came undone altogether, collapsing into a pool of diarrhetic putrescence that bubbled and flowed amidst the pipework.
Now everything looked like vomit. Wormy's ravaged stomach said heave-ho to that, too, and constricted to expel what was no longer vomitable. This time he got blood, shooting up like soda pop to fizz from both nostrils. He spat and gagged, crashing to his knees. His free hand vanished into the fat cushion of his stomach, totally inadequate to the task of clutching it.
The Right Reverend Jerry saw the sinner genuflect. God was still in Jerry's corner, whacking away, world without end, hallelujah, amen.
Jerry's left eye was smeared down his cheek like a lanced condom. Little Paul's fang had put it out. Must have offended him. Jerry seized Little Paul and dashed his snaky brains out against the nearest headstone. Then he began his trek up the hill, through the valley of death, toting the limp, dead snake as a scourge. Consorting with serpents had won him a double share of bites, and he knew the value of immunization. He stung all over and was wobbly on his feet. . .but so far, he was still chugging.
This must be Hell, he thought dazedly when he saw most of his congregation sliced, diced, and garnishing Valley View's real estate. Tendrils of smoke curled heavenward from the craters gouged rudely in the soil. Dismembered limbs hung, spasming. A few born-agains had stampeded over the fallen and made it all the way to the moat.
Jerry could feel his heart thudding, pushing God knew how much snakebite nectar through his veins. He could feel the power working inside him. Blood began to drip freely from his gums, slathering his lips. His left hand snapped shut into a spastic claw and stayed that way. His good eye tried to blink and could not; it was frozen open. The horizon tilted wildly. Down below his muscles surrendered and shit and piss came express delivery.
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