Under the Beetle's Cellar

by Mary Willis Walker

  Molly took a few steps toward the banner until she could just make out the crude letters that ran vertically down the fingers. She tipped her head to the side so she could read easier.

  “Go on,” he said, his breathing coming quicker. “Start with the thumb on the left hand. That’s where the story begins. Read it out loud.”

  Molly read the five words: “ ‘The mother sins in blood.’ ”

  Without looking at Rain, he said, “Hard to believe any mama would give birth to a baby and just throw it out like it was garbage.” His lips were tight with anger. “The mother sins in blood. Yup. That’s sure true.” The muscle in his jaw twitched.

  Rain said, “I want to tell you about your father and the rest of—”

  “Too late! It don’t matter now.” He spat the words out with venom.

  “But there are things—”

  “Shut up.” He whirled and draped the banner over the desk, so the words on the fingers lay on top. He smoothed it out flat and turned back to Molly. “Read the next one.”

  She took a few steps closer to the desk so she could see it better. She read the words on the second finger: “ ‘The prophet moves through blood.’ ”

  “Well, that’s true, too, ain’t it? I got born and left to die, but I managed to survive. I managed.” Molly could feel the man’s barely controlled anger radiating off him in heat waves. It was an anger that could justify burying children alive, sacrificing infants, inflicting pain and death on others. His anger was so powerful, he believed he could destroy the world with it.

  “Go on.” He nodded to Molly.

  She read the middle finger: “ ‘The Beast watches.’ ”

  “You bet he does,” Mordecai said. He looked at Rain. “Tell me, what does that mean in our story?”

  Rain looked up at the guards. “It’s so hard to talk about it with them and Miss Cates here. I’m shamed. I wish we—”

  His voice sliced through hers. “Answer me!” he thundered. “The Beast watches—what does it mean?”

  Rain sighed. “I suppose that old housecoat of mine I wrapped you in, the one with the dragon on it.”

  Samuel Mordecai appeared suddenly stricken. His shoulders stiffened and his forehead wrinkled in pain, as if he hadn’t really believed it until that minute, as if the pathos of that abandoned infant were just now hitting him. “Read on,” he said to Molly.

  “ ‘The prophet touches heaven,’ ” Molly read.

  In a sudden manic shift of emotion, Samuel Mordecai smiled his dazzling movie-star smile that involved only his mouth. Looking at Molly, he said, “The tips of the prophet’s long slender fingers are his nexus to heaven.”

  Molly tensed in surprise. The wording was familiar. It was from her “Texas Cult Culture” article.

  “That’s right,” he said. “I had to look up that word. Nexus means connection or tie or link. I love your words. Go on.”

  Molly read: “ ‘The words fill his hands.’ ”

  “Uh-huh. Tell us what you wrote about my rapture.”

  Molly tried to remember the passage. “I don’t know it by memory,” she said.

  He reached down and opened a desk drawer and pulled out a folded magazine. He handed it to Molly. “Read from where it’s marked.”

  Molly found a penciled X and began to read from her article: “ ‘The tips of Samuel Mordecai’s long slender fingers are his nexus to heaven. In what he calls his rapture, he raises his bare arms above his head and spreads his fingers wide like a satellite dish seeking the right signals from on high. He stretches them higher as if reaching into heaven itself for inspiration. Even the blond hairs on his fingers seem receptive. You can see his fingertips vibrate; then his fingers tremble. He cups his hands to capture the message, his face radiant, as if a shower of gold has sprinkled down on him. He lowers his cupped hands to his open mouth. Whatever he has received, he seems to be incorporating. Then he begins to speak.’ ”

  “Right on,” Mordecai said. “The prophet touches heaven. The words fill his hands. Molly, don’t that amaze you? These words get raptured to me twelve years ago and you come along and put that sacred vision in your worldly words, for your corrupt magazine. Like it was so powerful it broke right through to you.”

  Molly was stunned. She had written that description of Samuel Mordecai as part of what she considered a devastating portrait of a dangerous, self-deluded prophet. The paragraph she just read could be taken out of context and interpreted as the description of a man having a genuine vision, but you’d have to ignore the rest of the article that detailed his endless sermons, his incoherent theology, his tyranny over the group. Didn’t he understand that?

  “Read the other hand,” he said. “The right hand tells what’s needed to start the Apocalypse. Then you’ll understand what I’m doing. Start with the little finger.”

  She read: “ ‘Fifty perfect martyrs.’ ”

  “See, God demands it. It is the only way. Tomorrow they will be complete.” He nodded at Molly to continue. She had forgotten to breathe and found herself short of oxygen. She sucked in some breaths and read the words on the next finger: “ ‘Earth to purify.’ ”

  “Yes. Earth purifies in fifty days. Read the next one.”

  Molly forced her lips to say the words. “ ‘Earth to accept blood.’ ” Staring down at the red fabric, Molly pictured Kim Bassett smiling into the camera and Bucky DeCarlo with his unruly cowlicks. She glanced up at Samuel Mordecai. He was nodding sadly, as if mourning the inevitability of it all. He said, “The blood has to soak into the earth. It’s the only way, the ancient way of the Mordecai Prophets. You understand that now. Go on. We’re getting to y’all’s part.”

  “ ‘The mother’s repentance,’ ” Molly read softly.

  Samuel Mordecai walked to where Rain stood with the red banner around her shoulders. “Tell me you repent your sins.”

  “Yes,” Rain said in an even voice, “I do repent. Every day of my life. I regret with all my heart what I did to you, and if I could undo it, I would.”

  Samuel Mordecai’s eyes filled with tears. “I can almost believe that. But it don’t matter. Before this day is done, you will repent in earnest.” He walked over to the bed and lifted the belt with the holster and pistol attached. “You surely will. The worm has turned. I’m in control now, the Alpha and the Omega, the Mordecai Prophet.”

  Rain seemed to come to life. She reached her hands out toward Mordecai. “Then help me to repent. Pray with me. Show me how to seek forgiveness. I don’t know how. But you know these things. Help me.”

  He turned to face her. “Help you?” he said in an icy voice. “Help you like you helped me when I was a helpless babe?” He slung the belt around his hips and buckled it tight. “Should I wrap you in the mantle of the Beast and set you adrift? In a beer cooler? Like a piece of garbage?” He stood inches away and looked down at her. “Like a piece of garbage.”

  “But you’re much better than I am,” Rain said. “I want to pray with you, in private, just the two of us.” She reached out again and touched his arm.

  He struck with the speed of light. His arm whipped up and caught Rain on the side of the face with a crack. She crashed sprawling to the floor. “Private!” he hissed. “The two of us!” He stood over her. “Oh, yes, ma’am,” he said, his jaw throbbing, “like it was private when I went through the blood?”

  He reached down and grabbed the front of her jacket. He jerked her to her feet and dragged her to the bed. Then he put both hands flat against her chest and shoved. She landed sitting on the unmade bed. Her eyes were startled and her cheek was darkening from his blow.

  The guards both took a step forward and aimed their rifles at Rain.

  Molly held her breath. Had he felt the gun? Did he know? If he did, they were dead.

  “Stay there,” he spat, “you loathsome whore of destruction.”

  He walked back to Molly. He was breathing hard and beads of sweat had popped out on his forehead. “Now, where were we?” He looked dow
n at the banner on the desk. “Oh, yes. The tenth one, the last. It’s for you. Read it.”

  Molly read: “ ‘The scribe’s gospel.’ ”

  “When I read what you wrote about me reaching up and getting the truth from heaven, I knew the scribe I’d been waiting on was you. And when you found my mother, I knew for sure. It was prophesied, and here you are. You have good words, but nothing worthy to write about. Now you do. Tonight you’re going to write down the new gospel, the rapture of the fifth and last Mordecai. For the righteous who will survive the coming end.”

  Molly sneaked a look at her watch. Her heart sank. Eleven twenty-four.

  “I get my words from heaven,” he continued. “But a scribe is necessary to write them down.”

  He stretched his arms out and closed his eyes. “The scribe is here. The mother will be made to repent. And tomorrow the purified martyrs will offer their blood to the earth. We are ready for Your coming, Lord.”

  God. She’d known he was crazy, but she hadn’t known the extent of it, and she hadn’t known that she had a role in his insane fantasy. She looked at him with his big golden head thrown back and his eyes closed. If only the guards were gone. This would be the perfect chance to kill him.

  He opened his eyes and jerked the banner off the desk. He walked over to the bed. “This is for you, you baby-murdering whore.” He thrust it out to Rain. She started to rise, but again he put his hand against her chest and gave her a shove. “You stay right there.” He tossed the red banner on her lap.

  Then he returned to the desk. “Sit down,” he said to Molly in a businesslike tone.

  Molly looked at her watch. “First I need to let Patrick Lattimore know I’m delayed. He was expecting me back by now. I want to talk to him on the phone. So he doesn’t panic.”

  “Time is ending. Delay don’t matter.” Samuel Mordecai pulled a stack of white paper and some ballpoint pens from the desk drawer. “Sit down. You use a computer at home, I bet.”

  She nodded.

  “That’s what corrupts your words. The Beast that lives in the computer. You start so nice and pure, like telling how the rapture comes to me. Then you go on to them other things that are false.” His face took on a stony tightness. “All warped by that Beast in the computer.”

  He set the paper and pens down on the desk. “Here you go. Everything a scribe needs.”

  She hesitated.

  He took a step closer and looked down at her. “Sit. Seize the chance for salvation.”

  Molly glanced at Rain, desperate for some clue. But Rain just sat watching, her gray eyes sweeping the room.

  Molly sat at the desk.

  Samuel Mordecai squatted down next to her. “I’m going to tell you the words, and you’re gonna write them down. By hand.” He took the cap off a pen and held it out to her. “Start like this. Write at the top: ‘The Heaven in Earth Vatic Gospel of the Jezreelite, as raptured to Samuel Mordecai, the fifth and final Mordecai Prophet.’ ”

  Molly picked up the pen. Her hand trembled. She tried to hold it steady, but it was beyond her control. The rest of her body was trembling, too. It gave her an idea. She glanced at the guards and back at the blank page in front of her.

  She put the pen to the paper and started to write the heading he’d given her. She concentrated on tensing her right shoulder and arm to make her shaking even worse, like the wild shaking her arms did during push-ups.

  It worked. Her pen hand shook like fury.

  She tried to write “The” and made only some messy squiggles. She turned her face toward Mordecai, whose head was on a level with hers. “It’s them,” she whispered, nodding at the guards at the door. “They scare me. I need good conditions to write. Calm and supportive. I can’t do it with them watching.” She gave him an anguished look.

  Mordecai reached out and wrapped his hand around hers. He forced her hand back down to the page. “Sure you can. Try.”

  When he let go, the pen shook as if she had palsy. She wrinkled her brow, as if trying to bring her hand under control. She used her left hand to brace the right. But she was unable to make a single recognizable letter.

  “I’m trying,” she told Mordecai. “I want to be the scribe, and I can be. If they leave. They send bad vibrations. Let them wait outside, or downstairs.”

  He was silent for several seconds.

  Then he stood and looked at his guards. “Wait outside,” he told them. He patted the pistol on his hip. “I’ll be fine.”

  They nodded and left, closing the door behind them.

  By the time they were out, Samuel Mordecai had squatted down again, close to her.

  “Now,” he said, “at the top: ‘The Heaven in Earth Vatic Gospel of the Jezreelite.’ ”

  Slowly, Molly printed it. “It’s easier to read if I print,” she said. “My handwriting isn’t good.”

  He let out a bitter laugh. “The Beast in the computer does that—makes you dependent. A writer who can’t write by hand anymore—that’s how the Beast takes us over.”

  Breathless, Molly glanced over at Rain. It was time, but Rain was still sitting on the bed. Close enough for a good shot. But with no direct line to her target because Molly’s body was between her and Mordecai.

  Molly could lean away and drop down to the side. But she didn’t want to do anything to alert him to danger. He could draw his gun.

  Rain raised her hand to her heart, as though she were feeling ill, about to faint.

  Molly turned in the chair and appealed to Mordecai. “Your mother looks ill. Help her.”

  Without even glancing up, he said, “We got work to do.”

  “Okay,” Molly said. “I’m ready now.”

  And she was ready. Ready to help him offer himself up freely. She said, “When I write, it has to be inspired. We want these words to be direct from heaven, every word raptured. Let’s do it right. Show me how the prophet touches heaven and gathers words in his hands. Show your mother how the words come in through your fingers. She’s never seen it.”

  It was so corny. So shameless. No one would fall for it.

  But he did.

  He stood up. And, slowly, he raised his arms, and his eyes, toward heaven. Molly leaned to the side, away from him. As she did, Rain Conroy stood and drew her gun in one smooth motion. The sharp pop came simultaneous with the move.

  Samuel Mordecai staggered back a step and stared at the woman he believed to be his mother. His mouth and eyes opened wide with shock and betrayal. It had happened again. But he didn’t make a sound. Just like the newborn baby Hank Hanley described, the baby who hadn’t cried or made a sound.

  Then he crumpled to the floor.

  Rain shouted, “Down!”

  Molly dropped off the chair to the floor and scrabbled under the desk.

  Then the world erupted around her.

  Explosions, screams, shots, and roars burst in from outside.

  Banging and shouting at the door.

  Two more shots in the room.

  The lights went out.

  Then an explosion shook the whole building. The floor vibrated under her hands. The desk rattled above her.

  Molly huddled under the desk, arms over her head. In the darkness, she smelled cordite and smoke. Bangs and thuds inside the room. Sudden bursts of light flashed so bright she saw them through her closed eyelids. Another shot. And another. A scream.

  All around her the rapid fire of guns, punctuated by explosions and cries.

  She smelled more smoke and had a sudden vision of the buildings in Waco going up in flames. If that happened here she would never get out. She’d die like all those people who died at Waco. She’d burn to death huddling under this goddamned desk.

  Voices screamed from everywhere.

  She was cold, shivering.

  Suddenly the room was filled with screeching and stomping that shook the floor all around her. More bursts of light. From underneath the floor, bangs so loud her ears hurt.

  The building was shaking, rocking on its founda
tion. It was going to collapse and burst into flames.

  This was Samuel Mordecai’s Apocalypse. The battle of Armageddon. And he was missing it.

  Molly was freezing cold, shaking wildly. She tried to hold herself together by curling up tighter. Why had she done this? It was insane. She repeated to herself, “Heather Yost. Heather Yost. Heather Yost.” Then, unbidden, the others came into her head: “Kim Bassett, Philip Trotman, Hector Ramirez, Lucy Quigley, Bucky DeCarlo, Conrad Pease, Brandon Betts, Sandra Echols, Sue Ellen McGregor.” She had learned their names in spite of herself. She pictured them curled up safe somewhere, waiting for the madness to end. And when it was over, Walter Demming would lead them out. They’d come out blinking and smiling. “Heather Yost,” she said aloud, “Heather Yost.” In the moments between bursts of gunfire, she could hear her own voice droning.

  A hand touched her back. A voice close to her ear growled, “That’s right. Keep praying. And, Molly—stay the hell down.”

  When the lights finally came back on Molly opened her eyes. Inches from her, Samuel Mordecai lay with his arms stretched over his head. Even in death his eyes and mouth gaped open in betrayal. In the exact, precise middle of his forehead was a neat third eye, wide open and dark red.

  She closed her eyes and went back to the litany of names—the names she hoped, and prayed, would not need to be included in her next vigil.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  “When he opened the abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the abyss. And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth.”

  REVELATION 9:2–3

  Walter Demming woke in total darkness.

  He was sweating and disoriented. He sat up, thinking he heard distant gunfire and bombs. Around him kids were starting to whimper.

  It was happening.

  “It’s time,” he said.

  He leapt to his feet. “Kids, get up. It’s time! Bong Tongs! Jacksonville Six! To your posts.”