by J. T. Warren
Executioner.
Brendan swallowed something hard in his throat. “When?”
“Now.”
7
Tyler thought of how he and Paul had joked that Sasha kept a collection of severed penises in jars in her basement. That had seemed so ridiculous and yet here he was drugged and there she was coming at him with a knife.
He tried to stand and couldn’t. His legs had turned to rubber. His arms still worked enough to drag himself backward, but his hands slipped repeatedly on the carpet and he made it only a foot or so before Sasha was squatting in front of him.
The innocent expression had gone from her eyes. Something dark had taken its place. When she smiled this time it was a smile full of power and vehemence. “I know you don’t really love me,” she said. “Don’t bother saying you do.”
“But …” He had nothing else to say.
“I liked you but you took advantage. You raped me.”
“No, no.”
She pressed a finger to his lips. “Shh. Yes, you did, Tyler. You had to get some action for your little pecker and you ignored my screaming, my cries. I begged you to stop and you refused.”
“I’m …”
“Sorry?” she finished. She shook her head. “No, you’re not. You wanted me to drug my mother so she’d get arrested and I’d get put in a foster home. You wanted to get rid of me because you had only wanted to fuck me, not make love with me, not have a baby.”
Tyler was going to drug Sasha, too, and then call Paul and have him show up as a witness so when the police arrived—
Paul. He was waiting for Tyler’s call.
Tyler’s arms turned to rubber as well and he could no longer hold himself up; he slipped slowly flat onto his back. Sasha moved closer, stared down at him. Her hair hung past her face and for a moment she resembled her crazy bitch of a mother.
“I must confess, Tyler,” she said. “I was never pregnant. I just didn’t want you ignoring me. I wanted you to face what you did to me and, maybe, find a way to love me.”
The sedative was numbing his face and mouth but he managed to squeeze out one word: “Bitch.”
She sighed, pressed a hand to his face. It was her injured one and was still warm with blood. “It’s okay. You see, I’m ovulating now. Mom says that the Earth Goddess wants me to be filled with life. In two weeks, if I don’t get my period, I’ll know it worked. We will have created a love child.”
Tyler’s eyelids started to droop. He desperately needed to keep them open. He willed them to stay up. He had to see what was happening. He had to fully register the insanity of this psycho. She had completely tricked him with her innocent, crying victim routine. Paul was right; he should have threatened her life when he had the chance, maybe even bashed her head in with the baseball bat.
“Mom’s a little nuts, I know, but she means well. I don’t know if the Earth Goddess cares or not or if any of her spells actually worked, but here you are, so she must be on to something.”
The bitch had cursed him.
Sasha turned the knife before him. A drop of blood ran down the blade and dropped onto his chin. He barely felt it. “I gave you a powerful dose, so you shouldn’t feel a thing.”
Feel? What was she going to do? Ah, shit, she should just kill him and be done with it. Don’t cut off my dick, please, not my dick.
She smiled as if she had heard his hysterical thought. “I’m not going to cut it off, so don’t worry. What would be the sense in that? If I’m not pregnant yet, I’ll still need you and your prick. But I do need some insurance.”
What did that mean?
“You’ll be okay,” she said. “I’ve been reading up on the Internet. I know right where to cut and we’ll stop the bleeding really fast.”
Her mother stepped next to her. She held her knife in one hand and a candle in the other. The blade was turning yellow.
“It’s called cauterizing the wound. It’ll hurt later, but right now you won’t feel a thing. I promise.”
She kissed him on the lips but he felt only the faintest warmth of her mouth. Her breath smelled of rotting garbage. If his muscles could still gag, he would have started vomiting.
She disappeared out of view. Her mother smiled at him with a mouth full of large, crooked teeth. “This is not a curse, but a blessing.”
Then his eyelids lost their dying strength and he was gone in a world of black.
8
He made Ellis drive Chloe’s car.
“What happened to all your followers?” Anthony asked. “No one came to save you.”
“The Temple is sound-proof. Doesn’t matter. They all know by now. I’m not worried.”
“Because they’re coming to save you?”
“No,” Ellis said, “because God has a plan.”
Ellis drove them to the Hidden Hills Trailer Park. It was a community of winding roads through curving hills with low-income housing. Anthony had paid good money to raise a family in a gated community that promised serenity through security. Oh, the irony.
“If you’re driving me somewhere else, somewhere where my boy isn’t, I will bury this hammer in your head, you got that?”
Ellis nodded. “I don’t believe in subterfuge.”
Anthony laughed. “That’s a good one.”
“You have a chance to be saved, Anthony. You’re walking away from it and that saddens me.”
Anthony brought the hammer to Ellis’s temple, just barely touching. “Is that making you sad or is it the thought of your brains splattered on the window?”
“Do you know what Jesus said to his doubters?”
“Good luck?”
“He told them that he would have mercy on them as he tried to snatch them out of the fires of Hell. I, too, will have mercy on you while I try to save your soul.”
“I don’t want to save my soul,” Anthony said, “I want to save my son.”
“Don’t worry about him. He’s already been saved.”
* * *
Ellis drove slowly around parked cars and down sudden steep slopes. Anthony had to tell him to hurry up, stop wasting time before he buried the claw end of the hammer into Ellis’s leg. That encouraged him to speed up.
He slowed down and stopped behind a small hatchback. A large guy in the driver’s seat noticed them in the rearview mirror and almost jumped out of his seat. The driver’s door was open a moment later and Dwayne was standing there, a surprised, though not worried, expression on his face.
“Where’s my son?” Anthony hissed.
Ellis looked at him. “Doing God’s work.”
Anthony got out of the car and went right for Dwayne, who held up his hands in innocence. “What did you do with my son?” His shouts bounced off the surrounding hills.
“Keep your voice down, Anthony,” Dwayne said. “Someone is going to call the cops and you don’t want that.”
“No, you don’t want that. Bring on the cops.” Anthony stepped within a few feet of Dwayne. The man outweighed him by thirty or forty pounds, but he was no match for a hammer to the skull.
“If that happens, you’ll lose your son.”
“Where is he?!” Anthony brandished the hammer above his head like a bludgeon.
“Dad?”
Brendan had come around the corner of a line of bushes. He was wearing work gloves and carrying a can of gasoline. His face was wet and smeared with black splotches. A strange expression floated on his face.
“What are you doing?”
Brendan looked from Anthony to Dwayne. “I was going to stay, to guard, but I heard the screaming and …”
“What are you doing?” Anthony said, anger breaking.
Tears gathered in Brendan’s eyes and Anthony fought the urge to drop the hammer and take his little boy in his arms. He had to stay strong right now while Ellis and Dwayne were around. There would be plenty of time for hugs later.
“I’m only trying to help,” Brendan said in a slow, fragile voice.
“Help? Who?”
“Tyler.”
Anthony stopped. What did that mean? “Help Tyler how?”
Brendan stumbled for an answer.
Behind him, large flames licked up the front of a house. They had completely engulfed the front door and thick, black smoke was spiraling above the house and into the sky.
“Oh, my God,” Anthony whispered.
9
He heard Dad’s scream and came running. He felt like he hadn’t seen Dad in days, maybe longer. Dad had become a stranger to Brendan, someone for whom Brendan would do anything and yet someone who he no longer really knew.
Before turning the corner of the Karras’s driveway, Brendan slowed. He had wanted to see him, hug him, and beg for his understanding but that urge died. Dad wouldn’t understand why Brendan had placed starter logs doused in gasoline before the main escape points of the Karras’s house. He would never forgive Brendan for Delaney’s death if he ever discovered what really happened. Dad was more likely to have him arrested or committed to some crazy-people hospital than take him in his arms.
Horror and desperation drew across Dad’s face and gritted in his voice. Brendan wished he had stayed where he was. The weight of the gun sagged the pocket of his coat. He hadn’t touched it since Dwayne entrusted him with it, and now he knew why he had really run toward Dad’s voice. He hadn’t wanted to shoot anyone.
“I’m only trying to help,” Brendan said. He felt like he might start crying. Dwayne was staring at him with equal parts rage and frustration. How was he supposed to please anyone?
“Help? Who?”
“Tyler.”
Dad’s face went blank. “Help Tyler how?”
The starter logs Brendan had placed on the Karras front porch burst with an explosion of heat. Giants flames ate at the front door and the smoke quickly engulfed most of the house’s front. Smoke also billowed from behind the house where the other starter logs ignited.
“Oh, my God.” Dad walked toward him in slow, dead steps. He spoke in a shocked whisper. “What did you do? My God, son, what did you do?”
“I had to, Dad. Tyler needed my help.”
“Help? Help how?” A hammer dangled in one hand.
Ellis spoke up from behind them. “Brendan is God’s disciple now. He was not afraid to do what was necessary to protect his family. He is the embodiment of all that the First Church of Jesus Christ the Empowered stand for.”
Dad was shaking his head. “You didn’t. Please say you didn’t do this.”
Brendan couldn’t say anything. God wanted him to do this. There was no rational way to explain what was inherently irrational. Dad might never understand it and Tyler might even be angry, but at least Tyler would be grateful. It might take a while, but he would be grateful.
“You have a choice now, Anthony,” Ellis said. “Come with us and we will keep you protected. Turn against us, and you will pay with all you have.”
Dad rested his hand on Brendan’s shoulder. “Go away,” he said with little energy. “Leave me and my son alone.”
“We can’t do that.”
Ellis nodded to Dwayne, who moved toward them. Dad raised the hammer. “Back off or I swear I will kill you.”
Dwayne paused, glanced at Ellis.
“Don’t be stupid,” Ellis said to Dad. “You can stay here if that’s what you really want, but Brendan comes with us.”
Dad’s lips pulled back from his teeth like a dog about to attack. “You will never take my son.”
Ellis started to respond but a car pulling up alongside him killed his words. All heads turned as the car slowed, slowed, stopped. At first Brendan thought it was more of Ellis’s people. If that were true, Dad would have to run. There’d be no way he could fight off more than two. Brendan would have to sacrifice himself to save his father. He knew right now and with complete certainty that he would do just that.
But the car belonged to Paul, Tyler’s friend. He sat in his car, glancing at everyone, dumbfounded. He slowly got out of the car. “Mr. Williams?”
Dad took a moment to respond. “What are you doing here, Paul?”
He shook his head as if this scene were not comprehending. “What are you doing here?”
“Call the police, Paul,” Dad said. “Call them now.”
Paul’s eyes set on the fire, which was now raging across most of the front of the house. Sasha and her mother might have escaped through a window; this fire could be for nothing.
At least I did it, Brendan thought. I proved I was strong.
“Oh, shit!” Paul yelled. He ran straight past Dwayne toward Dad. He meant to push past him but Dad grabbed him by the shoulders. The hammer clattered on the street.
“What?” Dad said. “What is it? What’s so important about that house?”
For a moment, the words could not escape Paul’s mouth. “Tyler! He’s in there!”
Then they were both running toward the burning house and Brendan was alone with Ellis and Dwayne.
10
Darkness. Yet, sounds very clearly, and voices.
“Be sure to make a clean cut,” Sasha’s mother said. “The sacrifice must be clean.”
“They’re so hard,” Sasha said. “What if I damage the other one?”
She was going to cut off one of his testicles. Oh, Jesus Christ shit fuck shit fuck no. Tyler tried to will himself out of his paralysis. He had to move, to get away from these psychotic women before they cut him and—
Help! he screamed in his mind. Please help me for the love of God!
“Do it now,” her mother said. “Before you lose your nerve.”
“He’s not a bad guy.”
“He’s a man and all he wants is your cunt. He doesn’t respect your power to make life. If your child is to be blessed, you must make the sacrifice.”
“My hand’s shaking.”
Silence for several moments with the faint sound of crinkling paper coming from somewhere distant. Was she touching his testicles, choosing which one to remove? Was she cutting into him now? Was his blood soaking the carpet?
“What’s that noise?” Sasha asked.
“It’s nothing, just—”
A loud bang almost like an explosion but not quite as forceful came from the left. Both women shrieked. The crinkling sound from before was now louder, much louder. The sound of fire. What was going on?
“It’s a sign?” Sasha’s mother said.
“Mom, we have to get out—”
Another burst, this from the opposite side of the house, maybe at the front door, echoed through the house. This bang was bigger, more like an actual explosion. They were under attack. Maybe he was hallucinating—a side effect of the drugs. Maybe my testicle is in a pool of blood on the carpet.
Sasha and her mother spoke rapidly, on the verge of panic.
“It’s the Earth Goddess.”
“It’s fucking fire, Mom! It’s not a goddamn sign!”
“We must pray.”
“We have to get out of here!”
“The whole house is burning. We must pray.”
“The window!”
There was a clashing and clattering of objects and Sasha’s desperate heaving breaths. Her mother had said the whole house was burning. Was that true? He felt the heat. Or was that a trick of his mind?
Sasha’s voice farther away: “It’s stuck!”
Her mother, closer, right next to him: “We ask you oh merciful and wise Goddess of the Earth to show us the way in this our hour of need.”
Glass shattered and Sasha yelled again. It was a cry of pain. She had cut herself trying to escape. “Help me, Mom!”
“We acknowledge your power and commend your brilliance. You have lit the fires that now burn at my doors. You are coming. We await you eagerly.”
“Get up!” Sasha screamed. More crashing objects, the floor vibrating with the clatter. She had knocked over the altar. “I said,” Sasha said now right on top of Tyler, “GET UP!!”
Sasha’s mother released a barbaric howl
that was supposed to sound like a prayer but which reverberated around the room like the dying screech of a slaughtered animal.
The scream ended with the sudden swap of a hard smack. Then the two women were grunting and cursing and yelling and rolling on the floor in a brawl. Meanwhile, the house was burning down, and Tyler’s dick was out in the open.
The knife. If he could grab it.
Wake up, he told himself. Open your damn eyes.
Another sound, possibly at the window. “Oh, Jesus, Tyler!”
Dad. How the hell did he know where Tyler was? What difference did it make? He tried to scream and couldn’t. The heat pushed closer. Soon, the room would be boiling.
“I’m coming,” Dad yelled from the window. The sound of the fire eating the outside of the house was almost deafening.
Hurry, Tyler tried to say. Please hurry.
Sasha and her mother continued their battle next to him, unaware perhaps of Tyler’s dad’s arrival. Sasha’s mother released a deep gut-sound like she were about to vomit or had been hit hard in the stomach.
Barely audible, Sasha whispered, “I’m sorry, Mom, but you’ve lost your fucking mind.”
Speak for yourself, Tyler thought and then realized: she just killed her mother.
A moment later, she was screaming for Mr. Williams to help her, please help her. Tyler summoned all his power and felt his mouth open and unleashed a deep, panicked cry that was so loud it knocked his eyelids open.
11
God must hate me, Anthony thought. Why would He do this to him? Why had He taken Anthony’s baby, his Delaney, poisoned his Chloe, let him kill Dr. Carroll, helped maniacs brainwash his son, and now try to burn his Tyler to death? What kind of a god did that?
A cruel one.
And lo, did Misery, the god of all, lay waste to everything Anthony loved, for Misery is a mean and angry god, and cares not for justice and peace, but for pain and ruin.
Tyler lay half-naked on the floor of this house, dead. He’s not dead, he can’t be. He wore a black robe of some kind, but it had been pulled up to reveal his crotch. Next to him, a large woman and a younger, smaller woman were clawing at each other’s faces, screaming.
Anthony knocked away pieces of jagged glass remaining in the window frame. One of the pieces sliced into his knuckles but he barely felt it. “I’m coming!” he shouted to his son.
