Under the Beetle's Cellar

by Mary Willis Walker

  Across the aisle, Kimberly was putting Lucy’s socks on for her. Behind them, Philip Trotman still lay on the seat with his arms wrapped around his head. He’d been getting quieter and sadder each day. Walter hadn’t heard a word from the boy for many days. Depression probably. Walter certainly knew the signs of depression in adults, but he wasn’t sure about children. He just hadn’t had enough experience with them. He was the last person in the world, the very last, who should be entrusted with eleven children. He had never had any children of his own, never wanted to; he had no younger brothers or sisters; he’d never babysat. He’d never even liked children very much. He’d only applied for the job as bus driver to augment his gardening income.

  He felt pressure against his leg and looked down. Lucy was leaning against him, resting her cheek on his hip. “Hey, Lucy goosey,” he said, bending down. “Sleep okay, sweetheart?”

  She turned her face up to him. “Mr. Demming, how much longer is it going to be?” Her mouth turned down in a perfect red arc. “I’m hungry. My stomach hurts. I’m forgetting what my mom looks like, and Winky.” Winky, Walter now knew, was her cat. “How much longer do we have to stay here?” Huge tears started to ooze out of her eyes.

  He knelt down so his face was level with hers. “Honey, I don’t know. Maybe five more days, but I’m not sure. I’ll ask him again.”

  With his face close to hers he could feel the heat of her tears and her fear radiating off her skin. Her voice came out quivery and a little shrill. “But he says the world is going to end. The Beast is coming, he says.” She shuddered. “I think it did end already. While we were sleeping it happened.” She pointed upward. “Now there’s nothing up there anymore. My mother’s gone and our house. All the people are gone, just like he says. And we’re left down here. And—” She stopped to gasp for air. The tears spilled down her face.

  Watching the tears drip off Lucy’s chin, Walter wondered where all that moisture came from. These kids never seemed to dry up. They cried and peed, cried and peed all the time, losing far more fluid than they seemed to replenish by drinking from the big water jug that sat on the driver’s seat.

  “Lucy, honey,” he said in a low voice. “Remember what I told you, our secret? He talks about all that stuff and we have to listen to him, but we don’t believe him. He’s wrong. He believes it, but he’s wrong. Remember all the times we’ve talked about this—that he’s like some phony fortune teller at a carnival who pretends to tell the future, but he doesn’t know any more about it than anyone else. I promise you”—he put his hand under her chin and tipped up her wet, smeared face—“look at me, Lucy: I promise you the world has not ended.” He stopped talking because she had begun to tremble. The trembling quickly accelerated into a shaking of her whole body, so violent he was afraid she would shake herself apart. He reached his arms around her and pulled her in tight, gasping at how thin she had gotten. He held on, trying to steady her, trying to hold her together, to hold himself together. He had moments of feeling the same thing she did—that there was nothing up there aboveground, no one who cared, no hope, no rescue, no nothing.

  “I’m so scared,” she said.

  “Now listen, Lucy goosey,” Walter whispered into her ear. “Picture this: Just a few feet above us, it’s spring. A spring morning. Today is Monday, April tenth, and the wildflowers are out in the field up there above us—bluebonnets and pink evening primroses and the red Indian paintbrush, and my absolute favorite, the Texas prickly poppies. There are flowers everywhere, in the field and along the road. It rained a little last night, so the grass is wet and the leaves are all shiny. When the sun comes out everything will dry quickly and it will be a beautiful spring day. Your mom’s at home waiting for you, and your cat, too. What’s that cat’s name?” he asked, even though he knew.

  “Winky,” she whispered in his ear.

  “Yeah, Winky.” He loosened his grip a little to see if she had calmed down, but the minute he relaxed, her body resumed its shuddering. He tightened his arms around her again and said, “Honey, you remember what Jacksonville does when he gets scared?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Remember last night when he was captured by the Barbecue Tongs and they put him in a cage?” He tried to look down at her face, but it was pressed under his arm. “He sees them building a fire and heating up the big cooking pot and he thinks maybe it’s for him. He gets so scared that he starts to go all crazy, flapping his wings and hitting his head against the bars. Feathers fly around the cage and he hurts the bare skin on his head—you know, the red part where there are no feathers to protect him. Then he remembers who he is, that he is Jacksonville the turkey vulture, from Austin, Texas, and that he is on an important mission, sent by the President of the United States himself. To calm himself, he does what he always does in times of trouble. Remember?”

  He drew his head back and looked down at her. She looked up and said, “He makes pictures in his head?”

  “Yeah. That’s right. He thinks up this beautiful picture in his head and he goes there in his mind. Here’s what he pictures: He sees himself soaring through the air with his wings spread out wide, riding high on the warm air currents that rise from the earth. He looks down at the rolling hills and lakes below. He feels so free. The wind blows through his feathers. He watches the other vultures soaring right along with him. You can do that same thing too, Lucy. But your picture would be different from Jacksonville’s. Maybe something like this—picture Winky. He’s lying—”

  “She,” Lucy interrupted firmly. “Winky’s a girl.”

  “Oh, yeah. She. She’s lying on your bed on a Sunday morning and she’s rolling over with her paws in the air and the sun is pouring in your bedroom window warming her fur and you—”

  A voice behind him said, “Mr. Demming, Philip wet himself again.”

  Hector Ramirez, at twelve, the oldest of the boys, stood holding a pair of wet jeans out toward Walter at arm’s length. Their sharp ammonia smell made Walter’s nose twitch. He slowly released his hold on Lucy, who for the moment had stopped shaking and even had a tiny smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. Walter was about to take the wet jeans when he noticed Lucy stiffen. She’d turned and was staring toward the front of the bus. He turned his head to follow her gaze, knowing what he would see. In the small black pit outside the open door, two black boots dangled in space. A sprinkle of dirt sifted down past the boots and the lightbulb began to sway on its cord.

  The boots descended slowly. Long thin legs clad in tight black jeans followed, then lean hips. With a thud the boots hit packed earth and the whole man appeared, filling the pit. It was a shock every time, Walter thought, even though his arrival was expected each day. It was like an alien dropping suddenly from another world. The man stood near the bulb, which swung wildly until he reached a hand up to stop it. The light illuminated the gold strands in his curly hair and glinted off the gold star earring in his left ear and the gold stubble on his cheeks, as if he’d absorbed sunshine from the world above and brought it down to the underworld.

  Walter Demming had known fear before; he had lain awake nights in damp jungles waiting for attacks from an enemy he couldn’t see. He had been in combat and had seen death up close. None of those events had made his stomach heave and his heart contract the way they did every time Samuel Mordecai materialized outside the bus door. Walter hoped his terror, and his loathing, didn’t show. The kids all had enough of their own without his adding to it.

  Samuel Mordecai stepped into the bus. He wore a white tank shirt and his long, muscled arms glistened with sweat. In his right hand he carried a Bible.

  Lucy began shaking again. Walter put an arm around her shoulders and whispered into her ear, “Remember Jacksonville. You can do that, too.”

  Samuel Mordecai stood at the front of the buried bus and spread his arms out wide like St. Francis waiting for the birds to light on him. He smiled, flashing dazzling white teeth, but his eyes remained cloudy and intense, unmoved by what th
e mouth was doing. He called out in a thin twangy voice: “Lambs of God, firstborns every one, a joyful good morning to you. I come to tell of what must soon take place. The time is near. It’s almost here.” He closed his eyes as if in ecstasy. “Can’t you just feel it, Lambs? You are the generation. You are the ones, alive and innocent when all the signs are right. The prophecies are fulfilled. Rejoice at being chosen for a role of the greatest importance in the working out of God’s ultimate plan.” Keeping his arms spread, Mordecai moved his fingers, inviting a response. When none came, his brilliant smile faded. His face grew stern, lips tight and thin. “Lambs,” he said, “five more days! Don’t it make you want to cry out in praise?”

  From the back of the bus came a few small voices, Brandon and Sue Ellen murmuring, “Praise Him” and “Hallelujah.”

  Walter Demming, who hadn’t been to church since he was fourteen, and even then had disliked public prayer, forced his lips to move, but he made no sound.

  Samuel Mordecai nodded his head. “Only five more days, you sweet Lambs of God. Smile. Open your mouths and praise the name of Him, oh Him, who is gonna cause wonders beyond the imagining and terrors also. The sun shall turn black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon shall turn blood red, and the stars in the sky shall fall to earth. The powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.

  “Our job is to prepare the way. You and me. We are the human agents for what is ripe. Now gather round for the lesson.” He started walking up the aisle toward them. “Open up your ears and your hearts to the word of God almighty, who can take one left adrift, helpless, wrapped in the cloak of the Beast and transform him into a prophet. That’s the wonder He worked with me so I could be here to tell y’all and the rest of the world what is transpiring on this rebel planet.”

  The kids all moved like zombies to their seats. Walter knew it would be useless to try to talk to Mordecai now, when he was already rolling, so he sat, too, and resigned himself to waiting it out.

  “Now you recall,” Samuel Mordecai said, “we was talking about the signs that have given us to know that the end is at hand. They’re all here. You see ’em every day out in the world of so-called technology. Bar codes and credit cards, TV shopping, implants, transponders, electronic transfers, cyberspace, and those so-called computer games. It was all foretold in the Book of Revelation. ‘He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the Beast or the number of his name.’

  “I told you yesterday that I would tell you something that will amaze you, Lambs. Now, I know most of you have had enough arithmetic so you can add pretty good. So follow along. In many languages there’s a code where letters of the alphabet are given numbers. Often in sixes. So A is six, B is twelve, C is eighteen, and so on. Now say we do that with our alphabet. Then we take the word ‘computer’ and assign each letter in that word its number. Okay? You following me, Lambs? You know what that adds up to? You know what number, of all the numbers in the world, that makes?” Samuel Mordecai looked around, his eyes wide and his breathing coming hard. “Do you know what ‘computer’ equals?”

  He waited, as if expecting an answer.

  Walter looked back. The kids were squirming, shaking their heads.

  “You’d need pencil and paper to do the adding up, I guess. So I’m gonna just tell you.” Mordecai paused again and his blue eyes were wide. “It adds up to six hundred and sixty-six. Six, six, six. Yes! The number of the Beast from the Book of Revelation. Ain’t that just an amazing sign, Lambs? Don’t that fill you with wonder? Just think that when all those prophecies were made two thousand years ago, the prophet John, the disciple beloved of Jesus, who wrote the Book of Revelation, could foresee the computer. John said, ‘If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the Beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666.’ Don’t that strike you with awe? The letters in ‘computer’ add up to”—he held up six fingers and shook them in the air—“six, six, six.”

  Walter Demming felt his back teeth clenching tight. As the thin voice droned on and on, he turned to check the children. All of them sat perfectly still as they watched Samuel Mordecai pacing the aisle. He held his book in his left hand and stabbed the air with his right index finger, the motion jerky and so aggressive it made Walter want to reach out and break the finger off.

  For the first week, he had tried to concentrate on these lessons so he could understand what Samuel Mordecai had in mind, but he soon discovered it was so crazy and repetitive he didn’t need to listen. He pretended to listen, of course. He didn’t want to anger the man. He looked directly at him, followed his movements with his eyes, but his mind he let float across the field of wildflowers that stretched from his house all the way to Theodora Shea’s gravel driveway where her sixteen-year-old golden retriever dozed in the sun and her garden awaited his attention and the earth awaited his hands. Today he would plant geraniums, bright red geraniums—lots of them.

  Lucy’s sobbing brought him back. He looked over at her in the seat across from him. She was trying to hold it in, but an occasional sob escaped her.

  Samuel Mordecai was shouting. “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolators and all liars—they will all be made into blood statues on the last day! We got to go through the blood. Can’t avoid it, can’t go over it, can’t go around it, got to go through it. If you reject the opportunity that is offered to you, woe unto you, for then you shall go to the place where the worm never dies.”

  Walter turned his head to check on the other kids. Bucky sat up straight with his hands folded in his lap. His eyes were shut so tight that his face was screwed up in a grimace. Philip’s head had sunk into his lap. Brandon Betts was nodding and muttering under his breath.

  Five more days, Walter thought—five more days of this shit and we’ll all be praying for the world to end. O Lord, please help us—lately he found himself praying—him, a man who hadn’t prayed even in foxholes. Whatever is going to happen, he prayed, with his eyes squeezed shut to keep the tears in, please get this over with and see us safe through it. His stomach contracted in sharp hunger pangs. But first, dear Lord, You who loved little children and incompetent sinners like myself, we sure could use some breakfast here. Oh, we sure could.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  “We’re fixing to get these new nine-digit zip codes, you know. Add this to your nine-digit Social Security number, and what does it give you? Eighteen numbers that will be your identity—that’s three sixes, and the Book of Revelation prophesied it real clear—in the end days, the number 666 is gonna be stamped on people to label them as Satan’s property. Don’t that just bring you to your knees?”

  SAMUEL MORDECAI, QUOTED BY MOLLY CATES, “TEXAS CULT CULTURE,”

  LONE STAR MONTHLY, DECEMBER 1993

  “Beyond telling you I’m sick to death of it, I don’t know how to explain it, Richard,” Molly Cates said without turning away from the window.

  “Try.” Richard Dutton’s voice retained its habitual caustic edge, even though Molly knew he was making an effort to sound warm and understanding.

  She kept her eyes fixed on the tiny cars scooting along the Congress Avenue bridge in the lunch-hour traffic twenty-one stories below. “When I first got the police beat at the Patriot, I thought it was the world’s luckiest break. I was eager for it all. Crime was an adventure, this alien subculture that sucked me in. Ever since then, for twenty-two years, I’ve been a regular visitor to that place.” She felt the slither of dread deep in her chest. “Now I feel like a native there.”

  She turned around to see his reaction. The staff meeting at the Capitol Club was over, and the rest had gone back to the office, leaving Molly alone with her boss. Richard Dutton, the editor of Lone Star Monthly, sat with his chair pushed back from the mahogany table and stared down at his l
ong legs stretched out in front of him.

  “I’ve been thinking it’s time for me to get out of that world,” she said, her voice sounding whiny and uncertain in her ears. “I’ve had too much of it—a steady diet for more than twenty years. It’s starting to give me bad dreams. And this horror going on in Jezreel is—” She stopped, at a loss for the end to the sentence. “Oh, Richard, I don’t even want to think about it.”

  “But you have been thinking about it, haven’t you?” He glanced up at her. “You are following the coverage.”

  “To avoid it you’d have to leave the planet.”

  “I want to understand this,” he said. “Your reluctance here—is it because of your past unpleasantness with Samuel Mordecai?”

  “Unpleasantness!” Just like Richard to call the most unsettling event of her journalistic career an “unpleasantness.” “Let me remind you that when my cult story came out, Mordecai called and said if I didn’t arrange network television time for him to respond, he would mark my soul with a bar code identifying me as one to be made into a blood statue, whatever the hell that is. For months I got preachy, barely literate letters from some of his followers who were trying to set me right. And I think he’s the one who put me on the mailing list for all those right-wing religious tracts, which I am still receiving.” She stopped because she was out of breath.

  Richard Dutton sat up straighter in his chair. “I hear you, Molly, and I can see how strongly you feel. But you should be able to see my point of view here, too. We’ve got this huge story going on right in our own backyard, a story that has dominated national headlines for six weeks. The clock is ticking down on it. And we’re sitting here with an unfair advantage that we aren’t using. Surely you can see that.”

  She shook her head. “We don’t have an unfair advantage. If anything, it’s more like a handicap.”