Under the Beetle's Cellar

by Mary Willis Walker

  “It will all be over tonight.”

  “Yes.”

  “I was thinking it would be fun to go out tomorrow night—it’s Friday, you know—and drink some beer under the stars. We’ll take our dog along. What do you say?”

  “I say it’s a date. After my exercise class.”

  “Skip it.”

  “No. I’ve vowed to be able to do fifty consecutive push-ups by the end of the year. Did I tell you that?”

  “No, but Jo Beth did.” He chuckled. “She said you haven’t got a prayer.”

  Molly studied his face. “Did she?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, she’s wrong. Grady, do you ever pray?”

  “No. Well, maybe. Sometimes lately when I’m suffering over something, worrying about it, I find myself just stopping, and I say, ‘So be it.’ And then I let go of whatever it was that was eating at me, and I feel as light as air. All it seems to take is saying the words: So be it.”

  “Thy will be done?” Molly said.

  He leaned down and kissed her lightly. “I guess.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  “The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth.”

  REVELATION 8:7

  The night was cool and moonless. Molly had forgotten how dark it got out in the country, and how shrill the cicadas were.

  They passed through the roadblock without slowing down. At the checkpoint, Grady flashed his badge and the DPS trooper immediately waved him through.

  In front of them, the Hearth Jezreelite compound rose from the flat plain, flooded with white light like a stage set, surreal and dramatic. The first time Molly had seen the compound it had been just a ramshackle bunch of buildings housing an obscure religious group. Now, surrounded by spotlights and media attention, the crenellated stone towers flanking the flat-topped central structure loomed like a sorcerer’s castle in a grade B horror movie. Surrounded by tanks and personnel carriers, satellite trucks and press vans, it compelled attention. The whole world was watching. Molly couldn’t take her eyes off it.

  But the most bizarre, nightmarish part of the scene you had to supply yourself—the underground part—ten children and a bus driver buried alive under the barn. She tried to conjure up the picture so she could hold them in mind. Aboveground, the floodlights had banished the darkness. But belowground, it would be eternal night—just dark earth and the creatures that crawled through it. Under the light. Under the grass. Under the dirt. Under the beetle’s cellar. Buried alive. It raised goose bumps on her skin. She wrapped her arms around herself. Dear God, how could they survive it?

  Grady pulled up close to the gate. He checked his watch and turned to Molly in the back seat. “Look at your watch. The time is nine minutes past eleven. By the time you get to the front door it will be eleven past. You have until eleven forty-one.”

  Molly looked down at her watch. “Okay. Eleven forty-one.”

  “Right. I’ll be here waiting, Molly. Get in and out quick.”

  “I will.” She slid out of the car and opened the passenger door for Rain, who struggled out, groaning as if she were slightly arthritic.

  Rain smoothed her skirt around her hips and looked around at the weedy grounds and the glaring lights. “My goodness gracious but those are bright.”

  Molly turned to look at her. The voice was brand-new—a soft, shaky twang with a whiny edge to it that was totally unlike Rain Conroy’s low, clipped Boston voice. Molly was awed. The voice, the dowager’s hump she’d managed to contort her back into, the meek body language—Rain had become Cynthia Jenkins.

  They were a troupe of actors arriving on this bizarre set: Rain Conroy with her new voice and her rubber torso, Molly with her folder of lies, federal agents with weapons hidden somewhere. But the agents were not pretending; they were ready to kill in earnest.

  “Here we go.” Molly opened the gate and walked through. She held it open for Rain, who said, “Oh, Lordy.” She looked dazed as she passed through. “Lordy mine.”

  Molly closed the gate and started up the weedy gravel drive that led to the main building. Rain was having a hard time walking on the gravel. No one watching this middle-aged woman, with her heels sinking into the gravel, her breathing labored after only a few yards, would ever dream she was a professional assassin. The sound of their shoes crunching the gravel seemed very loud in Molly’s ears; it drowned out the cicadas and the steady hum of the generators outside the fence.

  Molly wanted to look back at Grady’s car, to touch base, make sure he was waiting. And she longed for some evidence that the entry team was close behind them, ready to storm to their rescue. She wanted to reassure herself that they were backed up by all the firepower the law could muster. She resisted the temptation to look back, but couldn’t stop herself from glancing up at the towers, first the one on the left, then the one on the right. Something was missing. She looked up again. The tattered red banners were gone, the banners that had been flying, one from each tower, throughout the standoff, the banners over which there had been so much speculation. Whatever image they bore had been too faded and indistinct for anyone to make out, even with sophisticated telephoto lenses or binoculars. She glanced once more. Definitely gone. Was it a sign of some sort?

  They passed the derelict green truck sitting up on cinder blocks and the two cars that had been parked in the driveway for forty-nine days. They had become part of the landscape, much debated by the press. The black Corvette was registered to Samuel Mordecai, his personal vehicle. The white Toyota had no license plate, and no one knew who owned it.

  Trying to follow orders to look straight ahead, Molly let her eyes flicker over the white barn, the huge double doors, the tin roof.

  As they neared the front door of the main building, Rain sucked her breath in.

  Up close Molly was surprised at how shoddy the construction was. The siding had separated; gaps showed the insulation in places. The gray paint was peeling. It was a run-down godforsaken place with no plumbing, no privacy, no beauty, and no comforts, and yet more than one hundred and fifty people had chosen to come here. To sit and listen to Samuel Mordecai preach. To follow him, even though he was leading them into the valley of death. It was incomprehensible. Beyond reason. She’d researched it and thought about it, and still it was a total enigma. She had written an article which purported to shed light on the cult phenomenon, which contained observations that appeared perceptive and wise, but it was a bogus wisdom. She wasn’t even close to understanding. What made these people give up everything and come to this godforsaken place?

  And here she was, too, in spite of all her vows to keep her distance.

  When they were ten yards away from the door, it swung open. Rain grabbed Molly’s arm and held on tight, as though she needed support. Molly patted her hand.

  The single cement step was cracked and crumbling. Molly’s heart was thumping so hard she was sure it must be visible under her T-shirt.

  She stepped up and Rain followed, still clinging to her arm. They walked through the doorway into the dim interior of the big room. After the bright lights outside, Molly had trouble seeing. When her eyes adjusted, she saw the room was filled with men in tan camouflage fatigues and ballistic vests. All held assault rifles. At every window several leaned against hay bales. They were watching out through holes in the sheets that covered the windows.

  The reality of it stopped Molly in her tracks. This was a war zone and they had walked right into it, right into a fortified bunker. She stood still and felt the prickle of sweat under her arms. It would be all right, she told herself, if she just followed the plan.

  The three men nearest the door kept their rifles pointed at Rain and Molly. One pushed the door shut and another stacked some sandbags against it. All escape was cut off now.

  Molly looked from face to face, seeking Samuel Mordecai. She didn’t see him.

  She needed to do her part and get
the hell out. She recited her lines: “I’m Molly Cates and this is Cynthia Jenkins.”

  No one responded.

  Molly’s eyes darted around the room. The men were lifeless automatons, their faces indistinguishable in the bad light. Only a single bulb hung near the center of the huge room. The corners and edges were in deep shadow, but she could make out dozens of boxes lined up against the walls. Several long wooden boxes looked like boxes in which guns were shipped. If the other boxes were full of weapons and ammunition, the Jezreelites were equipped to hold off an army. She wondered if the entry team knew how much force they were up against.

  They stood in silence for what seemed a long time. Molly forced herself not to shift from foot to foot. All she had to do was say her piece and get out. While she waited, she rehearsed her script in her head.

  Finally from above came a rapping noise. It seemed to come from the stairs at the back, but it was too dark to see to the top.

  One of the gunmen took a few steps toward Molly. He pointed with his rifle. “Upstairs.”

  Molly glanced at Rain, whose cool gray eyes were slowly sweeping the room.

  Molly said, “The agreement was I would show Samuel Mordecai my notes here, at the door.”

  The man touched the gun to her spine.

  “You don’t understand,” Molly said. “I’m supposed to—”

  He jabbed the gun into her back.

  Molly had a moment of panicky fear that it might accidentally discharge.

  “Upstairs,” the man repeated.

  She moved toward the stairs, with Rain still holding her arm. Panic lapped at her in hot little waves. This was not going according to plan. Not at all.

  Two of the men walked behind with their rifles just inches from the women’s backs. Molly was sweating. Her legs felt weak, undependable. Her body was undisciplined, not trained for this. She was starting to shiver. Again she wished she had worn a jacket.

  When they got to the rickety wooden staircase at the back, Molly hesitated. This might be her last chance to get the plan back on track. She opened her mouth to protest. A gun pressed into her lower back, hitting a knob on her spine and sliding off. There was no choice now. She’d abandoned the luxury of choice when she agreed to enter this madman’s lair.

  She put her foot on the first step and looked up into the darkness. There were no lights on the stairs or at the top. She had to feel for the steps with her foot. As she mounted them, she counted. One. Two. Three. Four. Next to her, Rain’s breathing was labored.

  A voice from the darkness at the top said, “We need to go through the blood. Can’t climb over it, ladies, can’t go around it. Got to go right through it. Like in childbirth. Y’all will understand that.”

  Molly and Rain stopped climbing.

  At the top of the stairs a light flicked on.

  Samuel Mordecai stood there waiting for them. He wore black jeans, boots, and a ballistic vest Molly recognized as similar to the ones the Austin police wore. That would make him harder to kill. Molly hoped fervently that Rain Conroy really was the crack shot she was reputed to be.

  Mordecai was staring intently at Rain.

  Molly started to repeat her lines: “I’m Molly Cates and this—”

  “I know,” he said, without even glancing at her. “I know.” His eyes were fixed on Rain. He looked long and hard, greedily studying her gray eyes and wide mouth, as if her features might hold some familiarity for him.

  Rain took another step up to get in front of Molly. “Miz Cates just came to introduce me. She needs to leave and I want very much to talk to you alone.”

  “Both of you will come up,” he said in an even voice.

  Molly continued to climb, reluctantly. Every step she took away from the front door carried them closer to disaster. She stopped at the top of the stairs and made another try at salvaging the plan. “The agreement was that I would stay at the door and show you how I found your mother. My break was in finding this homeless man, Hank Hanley, who—”

  “Enough,” Mordecai said.

  She held the folder out toward him. “Then let me leave this with you. I have to go. They are expecting me right back.”

  He pushed the folder back at her. “They are expecting lots of things that won’t happen.” He turned and headed down the dim hallway toward an open door.

  Molly felt the rifle against her backbone again. She followed him down the hall.

  Samuel Mordecai waited at the door for one of the guards to enter first. The other guard prodded Molly with his gun. She stepped into the room. Rain followed, then the second guard, and finally, Samuel Mordecai. He shut the door.

  The two guards positioned themselves on either side of the closed door. They held their rifles ready and stared into some middle space like servants who were expected to be in attendance but not hear the discussion.

  Molly’s heart pumped in huge bursts. Grady was right. Things were going south here pretty damn fast. Rain couldn’t take three of them on and survive. They had to get rid of the two guards, and quick. And she had to get the hell out.

  Rain stepped forward. She said, “I feel bad about Miz Cates being here. Please let her leave.”

  Still studying Rain’s face, Mordecai said, “Leave? She’s got work to do.”

  Molly held up the folder again. “Let me—”

  He held up a hand to silence her. “Not that. Here’s what I’ll let you do. I’ll let you tell me—is this woman my mother?” He pulled his gaze away from Rain and approached Molly, invading her space, stopping just inches from her. He bent his head down to hers. “Is she?” His breath was hot on her face.

  Molly felt the corner of her left eye quivering. She tried to stop it and couldn’t. This lie would be her death if he knew anything to disprove it. She met his eyes. “Yes, she is.” Her voice came out nice and steady.

  “Do you swear it on your eternal soul here on the eve of Apocalypse?”

  Molly nodded. Right now the survival of her body felt paramount; she would worry about her soul when the time came. “I swear it.”

  He looked at Rain and sighed, shaking his head sadly. “You had to come,” he said. “It was prophesied.”

  Molly glanced around the room. The only illumination was a small gooseneck lamp on a desk. Scattered around the unvarnished wood floor were barbells of various sizes. At the end of the room stood an unmade king-sized bed piled with a jumble of sheets and blankets. A belt with a holstered pistol lay on top. Above the bed was a small window that must open to the front. If she looked out, she’d see Grady’s white Ford Tempo parked in the shadows near the gate.

  One of the gunmen said, “We should search them now, Samuel.”

  Mordecai looked at Rain, who had a hand pressed over her heart, still trying to catch her breath. Then he ran his eyes over Molly, from head to toe. He looked at the man and shook his head.

  At least one thing had gone as planned.

  Molly said, “They are expecting me to walk out now. And Cynthia needs some time alone with you.” She nodded toward the guards at the door. “Could they walk me out?”

  A smile played briefly at the corner of Samuel Mordecai’s mouth. “You aren’t finished. You have a job to do.” He walked over to his desk. “The most important writing job since the Bible was wrote down.” He stared down at some red fabric that was draped across the desktop. He picked it up and shook it out. It was an old banner. Molly recognized it immediately as one of the banners that had flown from the towers. He stretched it out in front of his body, extending his arms to show them the image on it. Molly was not surprised to see that it was a coiled dragon. Painted crudely in black, it was nowhere near as detailed or resplendent as the embroidered one on the silk robe that had served as his swaddling cloth, but the circular design was identical. Like a child’s clumsy attempt at copying the other.

  “This is my mascot,” he said, glancing down at the dragon. “My defender, my rock of ages, my parent.” He looked hard at Rain. “It protected me when others
left me to die.”

  Rain took a step toward him. “Let me tell you about it.” Her voice was tremulous. “I have so much I want to say, Samuel—so much.” She took another step forward. “But it’s painful to talk about. I need to do it in private—just the two of us.” She reached out and touched him gently on the arm.

  He looked down at her hand on his arm. A vein pulsing along his jawline frightened Molly. The man was a time bomb. He could detonate at any moment.

  He took the banner he had been holding outstretched and lifted it up and over Rain’s head. He brought it down behind her and draped it around her shoulders like a shawl. “There. Now you can feel it. The presence of the Beast. How do you like it?”

  Rain didn’t move. “I’m so sorry for the pain I caused you,” she said.

  “Well, that’s as it should be. It’s prophesied.” He turned away from her and walked to the desk. He picked up another red banner and held it out. “You haven’t seen the other banner, Miss Cates. Look.”

  This one bore a crudely painted picture of two hands with the fingers stretched up. From each finger a yellow ray extended up, and on each finger some words were printed, but the letters were too faded and too small for Molly to read them from where she stood.

  With the wide-eyed, exhilarated look of a child who has been anticipating revealing a surprise he is certain will dazzle everyone, he said, “I made this when I received my first rapture and became the new Mordecai. Twelve years ago. The ten prophecies of Mordecai are here. All have come to pass, or are about to.”

  Molly glanced at her watch. Eleven-nineteen. They’d been here eight minutes already, and he was just warming up.

  “Miz Cates,” he said, “it don’t make any difference what your watch says. Time is ending.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I want you to read this out loud.”

  Molly stood where she was, unsure of what to do. She glanced over at Rain, who was standing in the middle of the room with the banner draped around her.

  “Come on,” he said. “Come closer so you can read it. Read so my mother can hear. It’s our story. Yours, too.” He held the banner out closer to her, flicking it like a bullfighter enticing a bull. “Read.”