Angel seemed sunken even deeper in a digestive stupor than Jerry. Not unlikely, Jerry thought, if this was the first time she’d experienced a marijuana high. Which was probable. First-time users usually didn’t get off much, but Jerry suspected that just as the Daddy’s vegetables were so tasty, his other produce, as it were, was probably as potent in its own particular way. Jerry took her by the arm and helped her step away from the table.
“See you at the service, then,” he said, steering Angel out of the kitchen.
Everyone seemed to be moseying towards a whitewashed structure set on a high point a little bit apart from the scatter of other structures. It was in better shape than most of the other buildings, with a fresh coat of whitewash and a well-maintained wood frame and shingled roof. The sounds of the guitar called to them.
“Say,” Jerry said. “Isn’t that ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Angel said. “It sounds like rock and roll and I know nothing about the Devil’s music.”
“Oh, lighten up for once, would you?”
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Angel said. “It will be dangerous for both our bodies and our souls.”
“Yeah, well, we have to check them out. We’ll get a gander at their service. Ask a few questions. Maybe slip Uzziah a couple more twenties to take care of the damage you did to their larder—”
“You ate their food as well!” Angel said, stung.
Jerry sighed. She seemed to be one of those women who didn’t respond well to criticism, no matter how mild. “Let’s not go comparing who did what to the refrigerator, all right?” Jerry said.
Angel was reluctant, but she followed him. As they ambled up the hill to the church, Jerry noticed an oddly-decorated tree standing off by itself. He wasn’t sure what kind of tree it was. It had bottles of all colors, shapes, and sizes tied to its branches by strips of cloth. The bottles hung close enough together that when a wind blew they jangled softly against each other, making an odd, strangely pleasing music that could be heard even above the wailing tones of the electric guitar.
“What is that thing?” he asked, wondering.
“It’s a Spirit Tree,” Angel said.
“Spirit Tree?”
She nodded. “That’s what I said.” They stopped to look at it for a moment. “They’re common down South, but then so are snake cults. I ‘spect these people came up from somewhere near the Appalachians, bringing their snakes and Spirit Trees with them.”
“What’s it supposed to do?” Jerry asked.
Angel reached up and touched a cobalt blue bottle that had once held a stomach tonic, looking at it as if it contained the secrets of the universe. “Oh, the noise they make in the wind is supposed to scare away ghosts. Or maybe catch them if they get too close.” She let go of the bottle and it swung back, tinkling softly as it glanced against one of its fellows. “Anyway, that’s the foolish superstition. Come on,” she said, as if suddenly galvanized. “We’re missing the beginning of the service.”
They went on up to the church where they found seats in one of the back pews. It was already filling up. There were maybe thirty people inside with a dozen or more still filing in. The wooden pews were skillfully handcrafted. The floor was laid wooden planks, polished, and cleanly swept. The church’s interior was whitewashed plaster. The walls were unadorned except for some folksy portraits of Jesus Christ, most of which concentrated on the more gruesome aspects of His life. Christ scourged. Christ crucified. Christ with the crown of thorns. Most of the images made Jerry shudder. They resembled scenes more suitable for horror movies than a church, though he wasn’t really familiar with anything but the staid upper-class Protestant services he’d largely abandoned once he became an adult.
A simple plank altar stood against the rear wall. Before the altar was a wooden podium, hanging on the wall behind it was a nicely executed wooden statue of Christ on the cross. Even from their vantage point in the back, Jerry could see the agony on Christ’s face, the pain in his thin, rope-muscled body as it hung from the nails driven through his mutilated palms. It was a powerful if morbid bit of folk art. It seemed to hit Angel even harder. She stared at it from her knees on the pew’s unpadded rail, her lips moving in mumbled prayer.
The band was to the left of the podium. Daddy was playing the guitar, a shiny red Fender that looked like it would be far more at home in places where they played the Devil’s music that Angel so abjured. He wasn’t bad. Daddy caught Jerry’s eye, smiled, and briefly waved at him. Jerry waved back. He seems like a nice enough guy, Jerry thought. He sure raises some great-tasting vegetables.
The rest of the band was musically less certain. A teenaged boy sat behind a scanty drum set that consisted of a base and a couple of snares. A couple of women beat raggedly on tambourines, and a geezer had a big pair of cymbals that he whacked together at seemingly random intervals. He did seem to be having fun, as did the rest of the congregation. They were singing the lyrics to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
“I told you that’s what the song was,” Jerry whispered to Angel, who had stopped praying, but was still kneeling on the rail, her clasped hands resting on the pew in front of them. She looked around as if she’d found herself suddenly cast into the lion’s den.
Daddy, apparently leading the band, segued into a rocking version of “I Saw The Light,” which the congregation took up without missing a beat.
It was hot inside the little wood structure, and crowded. The pew where Jerry and Angel sat was full, as were most in the small church. The congregation, the men dressed in worn jeans or stiff polyester pants and neatly pressed shirts buttoned up to their necks, the women in ankle-length dresses with lace collars and tiny flower prints and sensible black shoes, were singing and clapping along enthusiastically with the band, when Uzziah made his entrance.
He walked quietly down the center aisle while Daddy led the congregation through one more chorus of “I Saw The Light,” a worn black Bible in one hand and a long, narrow wooden box carried by a leather strap in the other. He reached the podium, put his Bible down, and went to the altar and set the wooden box upon it as the congregation’s sing-a-long ground to a ragged but cheerful halt.
Uzziah looked out upon the congregation, a thoughtfully serious expression on his lined, darkly tanned face. “Ain’t it hot in here?” he asked in a soft voice than nonetheless penetrated to every corner of the suddenly quiet church.
Somehow Jerry didn’t think that he was talking about the weather.
“I said,” Uzziah said again, “ain’t it hot in here?”
This time a chorus of “Yes,” and “Amen” burst out from the congregation. Jerry looked around out of the corner of his eyes. A growing rapture was evident on many of the faces surrounding him as Uzziah opened his Bible and read the first thing his eyes seemed to strike on the page.
“ ‘And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out Devils; they shall speak with new tongues’—”
Uzziah paused briefly and there was a sudden great intake of breath as if everyone knew what was coming next. When he spoke again his voice was raised, was exulted like the roar of a lion, though he seemed to put no more effort into these words than those that had come before.
“—‘THEY SHALL TAKE UP SERPENTS’—”
Pandemonium swept through the church like a whirlwind, leaving in its wake shouting, stamping, singing, crying people as Mushroom Daddy led the ragged band through a very up-tempo version of “What A Friend We Have in Jesus.” The energy and power exhibited by the tiny congregation was almost frightening. Jerry had never seen anything like it before. Everything that had previously transpired was the merest warm-up. It damn well was hot in there.
He glanced at Angel, and suddenly froze at the look on her face. Her features were stiff and wooden, as if paralyzed, with her eyes bulging and her teeth clenched and showing in the dead rictus smile of her mouth. A line of spittle ran down her chin. Jerry wondered i
f she’d had a seizure of some kind, and then she began to speak like a meth freak who’d mixed his speed with acid. Jerry couldn’t understand the rapid-fire words she spit from her mouth. He didn’t even know what language they were in.
Tongues, he thought dazedly. She’s speaking in tongues.
He looked around wildly, wondering what he should do. The others in their pew watched with interest but no special concern, as if this was not a terribly unusual occurrence. Jerry supposed that it wasn’t.
One man marched up and down the aisles like a wind-up toy, loudly proclaiming his love for Jesus while clapping his hands almost in rhythm with the band. Others prayed or testified in loud voices. In front of the congregation, near the simple altar, Uzziah opened the long narrow box and took out a snake.
It was a thick, gray-mottled four foot long serpent that he held fearlessly in his hands, its rattles buzzing with a determined noise that could be heard over the band playing, the congregation singing and praying, and Angel loudly proclaiming in tongues. Uzziah held it behind its head with his right hand and supported the rest of its thick, coiled body with his left, its face so close to his own that its flickering tongue caressed his lips with its questing touch.
Jerry suddenly felt that they should get out of there. He knew that he had to get Angel’s attention. He had read somewhere that it was dangerous to try to wake sleepwalkers. He hoped that the same wasn’t true of tongue-talkers.
He gripped her upper arms and tried to turn her to face him in the pew. “Angel!” Briefly he considered slapping her face, then thought better of it and tried to shake her out of her trance. “Angel! It’s Jerry—” Christ! He had forgotten what name she knew him by. “Jerry Creighton!” he amended swiftly. “Snap out of it! You’ve got—”
Her eyes focused on his, without a hint of recognition in them. Only anger.
“Shit,” Jerry said.
Angel shrugged, easily breaking his grip. He reached out to her and she grabbed his arm, pivoted, and threw him against the wall. She flung out her other arm, caught the pew’s backrest and shattered it into kindling. The people around them scattered as splinters flew among them like shrapnel. The band ground to an uncertain halt.
Apparently, Jerry thought as he crouched on the polished wooden floor, this was an unusual occurrence, even by their standards. He took a deep breath. Nothing was broken, though he’d hit the wall with the impact of a multi-story fall onto concrete. Fortunately, due to his wild card power, his bones were rather flexible.
He looked up to see Angel panting and staring at him. In other circumstances it might have been arousing. But her stare was fixed and it seemed that she was panting with anger, not passion. She launched herself at him, and Jerry did the only thing he could think of to possibly ensure his survival.
He curled up on the floor in a ball, his face buried in the crook of his elbows, his hands protecting his head, his knees tight against his gut. He felt something go by him like a train in the night and there was a mighty crash as Angel smashed through the church’s wall.
“Jesus Christ,” Jerry whispered, as if he was praying or cursing.
“Hey, man, you all right?” a concerned voice asked.
He didn’t have to turn around to realize who it was as Mushroom Daddy’s clinging aura of essence of marijuana announced his presence.
“Yeah,” Jerry said. “I guess.”
“Let me help you up, man.”
He gripped Daddy’s offered hand and the hippie hauled him to his feet. He clung to him for a moment until his head cleared. They both watched Angel run through the settlement, then stop suddenly and reverse her field.
“She’s coming back,” Jerry said. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
They watched in silence for a moment, then Daddy shouted, “No she’s not, man! She’s stealing my van! She’s stealing my frigging van, man! Man, that’s so not-cool!”
They watched in astonishment as Angel flung the van’s driver side door open and vaulted into the driver’s seat.
“How’d she start it without the key?” Jerry wondered out loud as the engine roared into life.
“The key’s in the ignition, man, where I always leave it.”
Jerry looked at him.
“What?” Daddy said. “We’re in the country man! Nobody steals shit here. Everyone’s, like, all honest and cool, man. Besides, before I thought about keeping it in the ignition I kept forgetting where I’d put it and then I’d have to go all the way to Middletown to have a duplicate made. Oh, man!”
He said the last in a disgusted voice as the chugging motor finally caught and Angel spun the wheel and roared down the unpaved road, kicking up a spray of dirt and gravel like a contrail in her wake.
Jerry sighed deeply. He turned around. Everyone in the congregation was staring at him, even the rattlesnake who was draped around Uzziah’s shoulders like a feather boa. The snake, in fact, had possibly the friendliest expression in the whole group.
“Sorry,” Jerry said with a tentative smile that no one, not even Mushroom Daddy, returned.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
New Hampton: the Snake-Handlers’ Commune
This has been an unsettling experience all around, the Angel thought. She’d felt odd ever since getting out of the hippie’s van, but had turned away the strangeness with vast quantities of the snake-handlers’ unbelievably excellent food. She felt better after eating, but now she realized that she should have resisted Creighton’s notion to attend the ophiolatrists’ services. She wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with what went on in their places of worship. He mother had taken her along when she’d attended several such churches during her quest for spiritual enlightenment. They had also frightened her. The loud music. The crazed testifying. Tonight, for some reason, she felt herself terribly susceptible to their call.
She prayed to the Lord for strength to remain calm. But for some reason he chose to deny her prayer. Part of her watched in horror as some strange spirit rose up in her and she heard herself confessing her sins, her wanton desires, fortunately speaking in no language of Earth. Which, when she thought about it, frightened her even more.
Then she heard the Voice.
The Angel was terrified at the sound of it in her head. She had never really experienced anything like that before. Clearly, she was in the grip of the Holy Spirit and it frightened her. She knew that she was not worthy.
“John Fortune is at Kaleita’s Groceries—he’s being taken by a group of armed men. Someone has to rescue him! Someone out there who can hear this—please! Help!”
The voice of the Holy Ghost was deep and masculine. It spoke to her alone. At least no one else acted as if they heard it. It spoke with great urgency, telling her that the boy was in danger, telling her that she had to reach him, fast. It was clear that if she didn’t he’d fall into the hands of their enemies and The Hand’s plans would come to nothing. The Millennium would be denied and Jesus Christ would not take his place as God’s Regent upon the Earth. It was up to her and her alone, unworthy as she was, to rescue him.
She ran almost blindly from the church. The man called Creighton—useless as he’d been throughout this entire affair—stood in her way. She removed him. She had no time to find the door. She went through the wall.
As she ran down the hill the Spirit Tree cheered her on, the bottles tied to its branches clanking musically in the wind. She remembered the store on the county road, about two miles from where she stood. It would take her about seven or eight minutes to get there on foot, maybe less if she ignored the roads and cut cross country.
Too long, she thought. Too, too long. The boy’s kidnappers would be gone by then and the Holy Ghost’s warning would have been wasted.
Then she remembered the van sitting before the ramshackle barn and hope sprang into her breast. If only, she prayed. If only...
She ran to it, flung open the driver’s side door so hard that it rebounded and slammed against her backside as she leaned into the c
ab. Praise the Lord, she silently prayed. The idiot left his keys in the ignition.
She vaulted into the seat and turned the key, gunning the gas pedal. The engine groaned like a feeble old man with a hangover. Gently, she told herself. Be gentle and patient. For once... take your time...
She eased up on the gas and the engine sputtered to life. She engaged the clutch and winced as it sounded like she ground a few pounds of the transmission into metal filings. The van bucked and humped like an unruly mustang, but slipped into gear. The Angel shot backwards, scattering the chickens who’d been peacefully pecking their day’s ration of feed, ground another month’s worth of life out of the transmission, finally found first and headed on down the road.
It was twisty and not exactly well-banked, so she couldn’t get it much over forty. She skidded through the last turn, suddenly remembering the wooden gate that stood as a barrier between the sect’s private lane and Lower Road. It hadn’t looked too sturdy, she thought hopefully.
It turned out that it wasn’t. She crashed though it like she’d crashed the wall of the church, braking into a power turn and skidding momentarily on the van’s two right tires, her right hand flying off the steering wheel and hitting the eight track’s volume knob, blasting the Canned Heat tape up to full volume.
“Going Up The Country” wailed out her window, which she’d cranked down to reduce the smell of Mushroom Daddy’s peculiar incense which actually wasn’t as bad as it had seemed at first. Fortunately there was no oncoming traffic as she slewed onto Lower Road, her heart hammering in her chest. She wasted a couple of seconds searching for the right gear as the van lurched crazily up the road, finally found the right sequence, and took it to high as fast as she could. It roared and clattered like a metallic behemoth that should have been extinct long ago, but it responded gamely to her urging and the Angel got it up to over seventy.
The left-hand turn off Lower Road was tricky, but she negotiated the down-shifting with only minor grinding of the gears. The last stretch of road was a long glide up a steep hill, then down again. The grocery store was on the left, at the base. Mere moments had passed since the Holy Ghost had delivered His message, but would she be in time?
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