As a fund-raiser, the church was raffling off a car donated by Whit Stasson's Chevrolet.
Sure enough, a new white Blazer was positioned in the street behind the table, half hidden from this angle by the ring toss booth.
Rich frowned. Churchgoer or not, a car was one hell of a donation for a person to make, particularly in this town where raffles were usually for video rental coupons or, at best, toaster ovens. One hell of a donation. Whit had cut hack on his advertising in the paper earlier thit year, and Rich knew firsthand that the dealership was not doing all that well.
How could Whit afford to do this? And why would he do it even if he could? Whit was no Holy Roller.
What was the money going to be used for? Rich found himself wondering.
Judging on past actions, Wheeler was not going to donate it to the poor or use it to help need} families.
The woman seated behind the table looked up at him smiling a Stepford smile. "Would you like to buy a chano to win a new Blazer? It's only five dollars"
Rich shook his head, moved away from the table "not today."
The afternoon dragged on. He and Corrie and Ann: ate together, standing with the crowd watching the relay races, then played a few of the games. He wandereq around taking a roll of photos, letting Anna carry the camera case. Several men on the fringes of the festivid grew progressively drunker, progressively louder, as hours passed, and members of Wheeler's congregatio kept sneaking furtive glances at the pastor to see what his reaction would be. But there was no reaction, no sermonizing, no lecturing. Although Wheeler's eyes seemed grow blank when he looked over at the drunks, he remained cheerfully tolerant of their excesses, choosing put up with them rather than make them an exam pl Rich found himself thinking that, in con artist terms, i was easier to take a drunk mark than a sober one.
That's what Wheeler reminded him of. A con artist. "What's the money being raised for?" Rich asked Co tie as they walked back to the car.
Behind them, the noun cement of the raffle winner was about to take plac
"The church just purchased more construction mate rials from the Valley," she said. "Pastor Wheeler is in. hurry to build the Church of the Living Christ."
Great, Rich thought, another monument to a shyste preacher's vanity.
What was next? A prayer tower? A broac casting tower? A TV show? But he said nothing.
The three of them walked back to the car in silence.
The Branding Iron, Rio Verde's only real bar, was the last building on the desolate east end of town, a low nondescript structure on the highway to Casa Grande that was separated from the Shell station the end of the town proper by a good half-mile of empty desert. The building was brick, with a small lone window next to the perpetually open front door through which shone the neon lights of red and blue beer signs. There were hitching posts around two sides of the building, and on summer ' weekends, for two days straight, an army of motorcycles remained parked in front of the posts, chrome shining in the desert sun, gleaming under the desert moon.
Tonight there were no hogs in front of the bar, only a few broken-down pickups. And Brad Woods's Buick.
Robert pulled next to the coroner's car and got out, yawning. He was fired. He'd spent most of the morning on the phone and most of the afternoon on his feet, and he'd been planning to go home and go to bed when Woods called and asked to meet him at the Branding Iron. He would've begged off, but the coroner had sounded half-crocked, and the fact that he refused to discuss what was bothering him over the phone alerted Robert's police sense.
He didn't want to meet Woods, but he had to.
Robert walked around to the front of the bar and through the door into the darkness. He heard the coronet's voice before his eyes had completely adjusted, and he made his way toward the far corner, feeling his way around the tables
There were three empty glasses in front of Woods and a half-full glass in his hand. He did not look up as Robert approached but moved over on the vinyl seat, patting the bench. "Pull up, have a sit down."
"Knock off the B-movie crap." Robert swiveled the end of the table so he could fit in and slid into the seat.
"What's all this abouL" "Vampires." "Shit."
"I'm serious."
"About vampires?"
"You know me, Robert. I'm not a superstitious man. But I'm also not a stupid man. I'm open-minded enough that I'll discard theories if they don't work, or adjust my worldview if evidence shows that I've been wrong." He swallowed a healthy amount of his drink. "And I have been wrong."
"Come on, you're drunk."
"I am drunk, but I'm not thinking this because I've had too much to drink. I've had too much to drink be cause I've been thinking this.
There are vampires, my friend. And we've got one here. Or more than one. Who knows?" He finished his glass, called for another.
Robert felt cold, but he kept his voice even, rational. "What brought this on?"
"I've been thinking on it for a while. Since Manuel's autopsy. I'm sure you know I was the one to suggest he be cremated. And I'm sure you know why."
Robert said nothing, suddenly wishing he'd ordered a drink as well.
"I got a call from Ed Durham this afternoon. Ed, you know, autopsied the animals. He didn't seem to be as spooked by them as I was by Manuel, maybe because they were animals, not people, but he sounded weird ar plenty scared when he called today. He told me to con over right away, he had a big problem. I knew somethir was up, so I hurried over there as quickly as I could.
"When I walked into the animal hospital, the place was silent. Silent.
You know what that place's like. Usually il so noisy that you can't even hear yourself think: meowin barking, braying, what have you. But there was nothing this time, and I'm telling you it gave me the creeps.
I came out, and he looked like a damn ghost. He didr say anything, just held open the door into the back, yard I followed him.
"The animals were dead, all dead. Drained. Just like] the ones from the arroyo. I could see them lying in the cages, the dogs and the cats and the hamsters and fluffy rabbits, and outside, through the window, in the dirt, horses. I've never seen anything like it. For a second, thought maybe it was some sort of unknown virus. thought maybe some government biological agent had been accidentally released into the wind and doused and that I hadn't detected it in Manuel's autopsy because I hadn't known what it was. But'I looked into the ca next to me, a tabby cat who'd been shaved around his neck for surgery, and I saw the wounds, and I knew it was a vampire. I knew it. I kept wondering if the vampire has; opened each and every cage, had grabbed the animal i side, bit into it, replaced it, and locked the cage.
"Ed asked me how he would tell people that their pets had died. He asked me about his insurance. He was we tied about all this small stuff, and I told him he had some thing bigger to worry about, and he became silent. I thi he knew it all along but didn't want to admit it." "Great," Robert muttered.
The bartender arrived with Woods's drink, and Rol ordered a Scotch.
Double.
"What I want to know is what are we going to do about this? We know what's going on here, and we can't walk around with ocular recta litis---"
"Is that what you think we're doing?"
"Don't get your damn feathers all ruffled. I know you're trying to find the murdererwthe vampire, let's be honest about it--but I'm talking about offensive, not fen sive measures. We should be practicing some pre tative medicine," ':" The bartender eturnd with Robert's drink. He 1 the man and downed it. "You really think there's a vampire here?"
"Don't you?"
Robert shook his head. "I don't know."
"But you admit it's a posslbfllty.
" He nodded. "Yeah."
"We need to start planning." He grinned. "Rein, her Jaws? If I've learned anything from movies, it's people in power should not stonewall the public if t have facts in their possession."
"Facts?"
"We have to come up with some sort of civil def
ense plan. Publicity should be no problem. We have you. brother We can't paniC people."
Woods finished his drink. "You think there is a yamF don't you?"
Robert took a deep breath. "Maybe." Woods looked at him, nodded.
They both ordered another drink.
Robert drove himself home. It was stupid and irresl: sible, having had several drinks, but he was the police chief, and there was hardly anyone on the road at time of night.
Robert staggered into the house and immediadly locked the door behind him. He turned on the lights in the living room, then the kitchen, the dining room, the den, the bedroom, the bathrooms. Just in case. '
:
The house was empty.
He took a piss, walked over to the sink, splashed some cold water on his face, and felt a little better.
Walking into the bedroom, he stood just inside the door for a moment and scanned the videotape titles in the bookcase. A lot of them were movies he'd seen once and didn't care to see again. When he'd first gotten his VCR, in the throes of what for a few years had been a full-fledged mania, he'd taped anything and everything, consumed with an absurd desire to own all that he watched. The history of his videotape obsession sat spread out in chronological order on his shelves.
Now, reading those titles, he was reminded of Julie. He moved slowly through the room and lay down on the bed, not bothering to take off his clothes or even kick off his shoes. He rolled on his side and stared at the unfinished oak dresser and the pink flowered print in the frame on the wall above it. He realized that he had never bothered to redecorate after Julie left. The furnishings and decorations had all been chosen by her, were all to her taste. For years he had unthinkingly continued to clean and straighten and live among the abandoned belongings of his ex-wife. This was her world, not his. It was funny how he'd never noticed that before. Well, it wasn't actually funny. It was sad, really. He was like one of those pathetic old guys who kept their wives' memories alive by holding on to clothes and perfume and personal items after they had died.
Was that what he was trying to do? Hold on to Julie's memory?
He didn't think so, but he found himself thinking of her now, wondering where she was, what she was doing, who she was with.
He closed his eyes, tried to will himself to think of some thing else, couldn't. He slowed his breathing, tried to fall. asleep, couldn't.
He opened his eyes, stared into space. He thought of getting out of his clothes, taking a shower or a hot bath, but he did not move, did not do anything. He simply lay there.
It was well after midnight before he finally dozed off.
In the dream he was a little boy, and he was sitting in a bathtub in the middle of a church. His father was standing before him, the Bible in one hand, a switch in the other. The man was lecturing him, but he could not understand the words; they all ran together in a loud, blurred, dictatorial drone. Behind his father, on the altar of the church, his mother was doing a striptease. Her face was calm and bland and plain, the face he'd seen in her photo, but her gyrating body was slick and supple and fantastically well endowed. Her top was already off, her large firm breasts bouncing, and only a thin line of cloth covered her dark pubic area. He tried not to look at his mother, tried to concentrate fully on his father, to focus his attention on his father's lips in order to match the movements with the sounds and decipher what was being said, but he kept sneaking peeks at his mother on the altar, and his father's droning never resolved itself into coherent words.
Pastor Wheeler awoke with an erection.
The throbbing between his legs was painful' demanding but he ignored it. Slowly, calmly, he pushed the sheet off his body, got out of bed, and walked into the kitchen. In the refrigerator, next to the milk, was the pitcher of ice water he kept for just such occurrences. He carried the pitcher to the bathroom and set it atop the closed lid of the toilet as he took off his pajamas. He climbed into the bathtub, grabbed the pitcher, and poured the it water slowly over his already fading erection, gratified to see his organ shrivel beneath the stream of cold liquid.
He stepped out of the tub, patted dry his pubic are with a towel, and once again put on his pajamas.
It was still dark outside, and Wheeler walked into his study, glancing at the liquid quartz numbers on his de, clock.
Three-thirty.
The time when Joseph of Arimathea laid Christ's boc to rest in the tomb.
He had awakened at three for the past five nights, an though he had not seen Jesus, he knew from the significance of the time that the Savior was speaking to him.
He assumed that Christ was happy with the way thing! were progressing.
If He had been displeased, He would] have confronted Wheeler with his inadequacy and failur But things were progressing as planned.
Wheeler stared down at his desk, at the plans spre out there. The first addition was not yet completed, the materials had arrived yesterday for the third section of the new church, and he saw no reason for the work be done in stages, no reason why one phase of the church's construction had to wait for a completion of the old. Jesus needed the entire complex completed before October 31, the date of His rebirth, and heads were goir to roll if it was not done to His satisfaction. So Wheel now had the skilled laborers working on the frame of the new room while the unskilled workers, within the congregation painted the original building black.
The Church of the Living Christ was going to be the finest structure ever built. The most perfect building on the face of the earth.
Wheeler looked up from the plans, and his eyes passt over the world atlas above the desk. The thought occurr to him that his makeshift conglomeration of two rath, ordinary churches and additions could not hope to match the majesty and power of the cathedrals of Europe or even such heathen structures as the Taj Mahal, that perhaps he would not be able to pay God the respect He deserved, but Wheeler quickly pushed that thought from his mind. He was thinking in Old World terms. It was a New World now.
There would never be anything like the Church of the Living Christ.
Wheeler sat down at his desk and picked up his white bound copy of the Bible, turning to his favorite book, Isaiah. He rad the entire book, from the first verse to the last, backtracking several times to reread his favorite passage: "Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts the land is burned, and the people are like fuel for the fire; no man spares his brother. They snatch on the right, but are still hungry, and they devour on the left, but are not satisfied; each devours his neighbor's flesh. '"
Smiling to himself, Wheeler closed the Bible and placed it on top of the church plans, feeling restful and contented. He stood, stretched.
He had to go to the bath room, and he walked back across the hall. He pulled up the toilet seat, slipped his penis through the pajama flap, and urinated.
A stream of red flowed out of his body into the toilet. Wheeler stared down at the swirling red water. He was surprised, a little shocked, but not scared. The blood in his urine would have panicked him a month ago, would have made him go immediately to a doctor to find out what was wrong. But he knew now that Jesus was showing him Hi gratitude for all he had done.
And the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.
Wheeler finished, flushed the toilet, and returned to his bedroom.
There was a lot of talk of blood in the Bible. He had noticed that recently while preparing his sermons almost though it was not something that had jumped out at him before. Blood was important to God in the Old Testament, important to Jesus in the New Testament. What was it that
Jesus had said at the Last Supper? "Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood."
Jesus liked to drink blood.
'
Soon, when he was worthy enough, when the Church of the Living Christ was completed, Jesus would ask
Wheeler to dine with Him, and they would feast on the blood of the sinners. The blood would be purified within their bodies, the bad made good.
He would have to ge
t used to the blood first, however.
He did not want to embarrass himself before the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Maybe he would try some blood. Start off with some " thing small. A bug maybe. Then work his way up to a rat.
A cat. A dog.
Wheeler smiled to himself. He would make Jesus proud of him.
He closed his eyes and fell leep instantly.
They awoke before Anna for once, and Rich place. tentative hand between Corrie's legs, testing the war, His fingers pressed against wiry pubic hair and soft and then Corrie's muscles tightened, her legs closed, she firmly pushed his hand away. He lay there for a moment, silent, unsure of whether to press on or give up] had been weeks since they'd last had sex, and it de pre him to realize that he could not even remember the exact day.
How had they let their love life deteriorate to point?
He turned toward her, spoke softly. "Anna's not up you know."
She gave him a disgusted look; then rolled over to the other direction.
"I'm still tired. I need more sleep He sighed, got out of bed to make breakfast. The day was long. In the morning Rich hacked of columns, typeset a want ad, and went over Sue's making only minimal changes to her lead, surprise pleased by the relatively high quality of her writin Fredricks came by and dropped off a roll of film and sports articles, staying for only a few minutes to sho breeze. Corrie brought Anna by after lunch, saying to Carole and not bothering to come into the back him, and for most of the afternoon Anna sat in the next to the secretary, reading a book, while he ran out what he had and began pasting up the pages.
After work, Rich took Anna to Mike's for pizza. To her it was a special treat, and he was glad she felt that way, but they were going out tonight more out of necessity than desire. Just before five, Corrie had called from the church and, for the third day in a row, said she would not be home for dinner. The mere thought of having to eat another one of his own meals made him feel like gagging, so he'd asked Anna if she would like to go out for pizza, and of course she'd said yes.
She stood now with a group of her school friends, watching a thin, dirty, tough-looking boy kill row after row of aliens on a video game.
The Summoning Page 19
