The Three: A Novel

by Sarah Lotz

  Pastor Len took charge as I knew he would. He gently took the shotgun off Jim’s lap, then shook his shoulder.

  Jim jerked and stared up at us, his eyes redder than a bucket of pig’s blood.

  ‘Jim,’ Pastor Len said. ‘We’ve just heard about Pam. We’re here for you, Jim. If there’s anything we can do, you know you just have to ask.’

  Jim snorted. ‘Yeah, you can eff-word off.’

  Well, I just about died. Kendra let out a sound that could have been a laugh–probably shock.

  Pastor Len wasn’t at all put out. ‘I know you’re upset, Jim. But we’re here to help you. See you through this.’

  And then Jim just started sobbing. His whole body heaved and shook. Whatever they say about Pastor Len now, Elspeth, you should’ve seen how he handled Jim. With real kindness. Took him into the bathroom to get him cleaned up.

  Kendra and I just stood there for a while, and then I nudged her and we got to work. Cleaned the kitchen, scooped up the dog poop and gave that La-Z-Boy a good scrub. And all the time Snookie kept following after us with those eyes.

  Pastor Len led Jim back into the lounge, and though the poor man smelled a whole lot better, his tears hadn’t dried up none. He was still sobbing and sobbing.

  Pastor Len said, ‘If it’s okay with you, Jim, we’d sure like to pray for Pam with you.’

  I was expecting Jim to curse at him again, and for a second, I swear, I could see that so did Pastor Len. But that man was broken, Elspeth. Just about tore in two, and later Pastor Len said that was Jesus’ way of showing us that we needed to let him in. But you got to be ready. I’ve seen it a thousand times. Like when we were praying for Stephenie’s cousin Lonnie, the one who had that motor neurons disease. It didn’t work because he hadn’t let the Lord into his heart. Even Jesus can’t work with an empty vessel.

  So we knelt right there next to the couch, surrounded by empty beer cans, and prayed.

  ‘Let the Lord into your heart, Jim,’ Pastor Len said. ‘He’s there for you. He wants to be your Saviour. Can you feel him?’

  It was a beautiful thing to see. Here was a man, so smashed by grief that he was crying fit to break, and here was Jesus, just waiting to take him in His arms and put him back together again!

  We sat with Jim for a good hour at least. Pastor Len kept saying, ‘You’re now part of our flock, Jim, we’re here for you, just as Jesus is here for you.’ It was so heart-warming, I’m not ashamed to say I cried like a new-born baby.

  Pastor Len helped Jim back into his La-Z-Boy and I could see on his face that it was time to get down to practicalities.

  ‘Now, Jim,’ Pastor Len said. ‘We got to think about the funeral.’

  Jim mumbled something about Joanie dealing with that.

  ‘Aren’t you going to fly over there and bring Pam back?’ Pastor Len asked.

  Jim shook his head, and a shifty look came into his eyes. ‘She left me. I told her not to go, but she wouldn’t listen.’

  There was a banging on the door and we all jumped. Darn reporters had come up to the house!

  We could hear them shouting: ‘Jim! Jim! What do you think about the message?’

  Pastor Len looked at me and said, ‘What message they talking about, Reba?’

  Well, of course, I didn’t have an inkling.

  Pastor Len straightened his tie. ‘I’ll go and sort those vultures out, Jim,’ he said, and Jim looked up at him, that shifty look replaced with pure gratitude. ‘Reba and Kendra will fix you something to eat.’

  I was glad to have something to do, Elspeth. Pam, bless her, she’d made a whole lot of meals for Jim, all placed neatly in the freezer, so it was easy just to pull one out and put it into the microwave. Kendra didn’t do much to help, she gathered that dog in her arms and started whispering to it. So it was up to me to get to work cleaning up the rest of the mess in the den and convincing Jim to eat the potpie I’d put on a tray for him.

  When Pastor Len came back in the house, he had this dazed expression on his face. Before I could ask what was bothering him, he picked up the TV remote and clicked onto Fox. Melinda Stewart was saying that a bunch of Jap journalists had made their way to the crash site in that forest place where Pam’s plane had gone down, and they’d taken several of the passengers’ cellphones. Some of the passengers–God rest their souls–had recorded messages on their phones when they knew they were going to die, and the reporters had leaked them. Printed them before some of the families knew for sure their loved ones were even gone, if you can credit it.

  And one of those messages was from Pam, although I didn’t even know she had a cellphone. Pam’s message was scrolling along the bottom of the screen, and Pastor Len cried, ‘She was trying to tell me something, Reba. Look. My name, right there!’

  I guess we’d forgotten about Jim, ’cause we heard him yell, ‘Pam!’ and then he screamed her name over and over.

  Kendra didn’t help calm him down. She just stood in the doorway, Snookie in her arms, still cooing at that dog as if it was a baby.

  The following are the messages (Isho) recorded by Sun Air Flight 678 passengers in their final moments.

  (Translation by Eric Kushan, who notes that some of the linguistic nuances may have been lost.)

  Hirono. Things are getting bad here. The cabin crew are calm. No one is panicking. I know I’m going to die and I want to tell you that–oh things are falling they’re falling everywhere and I must… Don’t look in my office cupboard. Please, Hirono, I’m begging you. There are other things you can do. I can only hope that

  Koushan Oda. Japanese citizen. Age 37.

  There is smoke that doesn’t feel like smoke. The old woman next to me is crying silently and praying and I wish I was sitting here next to you. There are children on this flight. Um… uh… Take care of my parents. There should be enough money. Call Motobuchi-san, he’ll know what to do about the insurance. The captain is doing everything he can, I have to trust in him. I can sense by his voice that he is a good man. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye

  Sho Mimura. Japanese citizen. Age 49.

  I must think I must think I must think. How it happened… okay, a bright light came into the cabin. A bang. No, more than one. Was the light before the bang? I don’t know. The woman at the window, the big gaijin [foreigner] is wailing it hurts my ears and I need to get my things in case we… I’m recording this so that you know what will happen. There is no panic, although I feel as if there should be. For the longest time I wanted to die, and now that it’s coming I realise that I was wrong to wish this, that my time was coming too soon. I’m scared and I don’t know who will hear this. If you can pass this message onto my father tell him that

  Keita Eto. Japanese citizen. Age 42.

  Shinji? Please answer! Shinji!

  There was a light, bright and then… and then.

  The plane is going down, it’s crashing it’s going down and the captain is saying that we have to be calm. I don’t know why this is happening!

  All I ask… take care of the children, Shinji. Tell them that I love them and

  Noriko Kanai. Japanese citizen. Age 28.

  I know that the Lord Jesus Christ will take me into his arms and that this is his plan for me. But oh, how I wish I could see you once more. I love you, Su-jin, and I never told you. I hope that you hear this; somehow I hope it gets back to you. I wanted us to be together one day, but you are so far away now. It’s happening

  Seojin Lee. South Korean citizen. Age 37.

  They’re here. I’m… don’t let Snookie eat chocolate, it’s poison for dogs, she’ll beg you, the boy. The boy watch the boy watch the dead people oh Lordy there’s so many… They’re coming for me now. We’re all going soon. All of us. Bye Joanie I love the bag bye Joanie, Pastor Len warn them that the boy he’s not to

  Pamela May Donald. American citizen. Age 51.

  Lola Cando (not her real name) describes herself as a former sex worker and website entrepreneur. Lola’s accounts are extra
polated from our many Skype conversations.

  Lenny came to see me once, mebbe twice a month for three years or so. Drove all the way out of Sannah County, gotta be an hour’s drive at least, but that was fine for Lenny. Said he liked the drive, gave him time to think about stuff. He was strictly vanilla. Later, people tried to get me to say he was some sort of pervert, but he wasn’t. And he wasn’t into drugs or funny stuff, neither. Just straight missionary position, a finger of bourbon and a chat, that was all he liked.

  I got into this business through my girlfriend Denisha. She’s a specialist, provides a service for clients who find it hard to connect with women. Just ’cause you’re housebound or in a wheelchair, doesn’t mean your sex drive’s gone. I don’t do much specialist work, you understand. Most of my regulars are just your average Joes, guys who are lonely, or whose wives have gone off sex. I check out all my guys good, and if there isn’t a connection there or if they want funny stuff, I say, sorry, my schedule’s full.

  I’m not into drugs; I didn’t start doing this ’cause I was feeding a habit. Girls like me and Denisha, the ones who do this for a living without seeing the dark side, you don’t hear much about us in the media. And like Denisha’s always saying, it beats stacking shelves at Walmart.

  I had an apartment I used for, y’know, business dealings, but Lenny didn’t like to go there. He was real cautious about things like that, almost paranoid. He preferred us to meet at one of the motels. There are several that’ll give you a good deal on an hourly rate, no questions asked. He always insisted that I check in before him.

  Well, that day he came late. A good half hour late, which wasn’t like him. I set out the drinks, got the ice from the machine and watched a re-run of Party-Time while I waited, the one where Mikey and Shawna-Lee finally get together. Just as I was about to give up on him, he came flying into the room, out of breath and all sweaty.

  ‘Well, hi, stranger,’ I said, which was always how I greeted him.

  ‘Never mind that, Lo,’ he said. ‘I need a goddamn drink.’ That gave me a jolt. I’d never heard him take the Lord’s name in vain before. Lenny said that the only time he ever took a drink was when he was with me, and I believed him. I asked him if he wanted to, you know, start his usual, but he wasn’t interested. ‘Just the drink.’

  His hands were shaking and I could see he was real agitated about something. I fixed him a double and asked him if he wanted me to rub his shoulders.

  ‘Uh-uh,’ he said. ‘I need to sit for a moment. Think.’

  But he didn’t sit, he paced up and down that room like he was fixing to wear out the carpet. I knew better than to ask him what was on his mind. I knew he’d tell me when he was ready. He handed me his glass and I poured him another two fingers.

  ‘Pam was trying to tell me something, Lo.’

  Course then I didn’t have a clue what he meant. I said, ‘Len, you gotta start from the beginning.’

  He started telling me all about Pamela May Donald, the woman who was killed on the Japanese plane, about how she was one of his congregation.

  ‘Len,’ I said, ‘I’m real sorry for your loss. But I’m sure Pam wouldn’t want you to get all upset about her.’

  He acted like I hadn’t spoken. He dug in his bag–he always carried this satchel, like he was a grown-up school kid or something–pulled out a Bible, and slapped it on the table.

  I was still trying to keep it light. ‘You want me to spank you with that or something?’

  Big mistake. His face turned bright red, puffed up like one of those fish. He’s got what you call an expressive face, which makes people trust him, I guess, looks like he can’t lie. I apologised real fast; that look scared me.

  He told me about how Pam had left that message, one of the… what you call them? Those messages that she and some of the Japs had left on their phones while that plane was going down.

  ‘It means something, Lo,’ he said. ‘And I think I know what it is.’

  ‘What, Lenny?’

  ‘Pam saw them, Lola.’

  ‘Pam saw who, Lenny?’

  ‘All those who haven’t taken the Lord into their hearts. Everyone who is going to be left behind after the Rapture.’

  I come from a religious background, you understand, brought up in a good Baptist home. There isn’t much that’s in the Bible that I don’t know about. People may condemn me for what I do, but I know in my heart Jesus wouldn’t judge me. Like my girlfriend Denisha is always saying (she’s an Episcopalian), some of Jesus’ best friends were sex workers.

  Anyhow, even before Black Thursday, Len was one of those End Times believers. You know, those guys who saw signs that the tribulation was on us everywhere: 9/11, earthquakes, the Holocaust, globalisation, the War on Terror, all that. He truly believed it was only a matter of time before Jesus would whisk all the saved up into heaven, leaving the rest of the world behind to suffer under the Antichrist. Some of them believed the Antichrist was already on the earth. That he’s the head of the UN or president of China or one of those Muslims or Arabs or some such. Later on, course, they were saying pretty much everything in the news was a sign. That foot and mouth outbreak in England, even that norovirus thing that hit all of those cruise ships.

  Me, I don’t know how I felt about the whole Rapture thing. That one day, whoop, all the saved would just disappear into the sky, leaving their clothes and worldly possessions behind. Seems too much trouble to me. Why would God bother with all that? Lenny gave me the Gone books to read–you know what I’m talking about?–that series where the reborn Christians are Raptured all at once and the UK prime minister ends up being the Antichrist. I told him I’d read them, but I never did.

  I poured myself a stiff drink. Knew I was in for a good hour at least. Sometimes Lenny ran through his radio show for me. I pretended that I listened to it, but I never did. More of a TV type of girl, you know?

  When I first started seeing Lenny, I figured him for one of those money-hungry evangelicals, the guys you see on TV trying to get people to donate to their ministries, going on about why tithing is necessary even if you’re on welfare. Thought at first he might be a conman of some sort, and I’ve met my fair share of that type I can tell you! But I got to thinking, after I’d known him for a while, that he really did start to believe his own… I don’t want to call it bullshit, like I say, I’m a card-carrying Baptist, but I never set much store by all that fire and brimstone stuff. But there’s no denying that Lenny wanted to join the big boys, powerful fellows like that Dr Lund–the one President Blake was such buddies with. Lenny was desperate to get on the evangelical speaking circuit. His radio show was supposed to be his way in, but in all the years he’d been doing it, he hadn’t gotten very far. And it wasn’t just for the money either. Respect, that’s what Lenny wanted. He was tired of living off of his wife’s money.

  ‘Listen to this, Lola,’ he said, then he read out the message. Didn’t make much sense to me. Seemed to me that Pam was mostly concerned about that dog of hers.

  Then he started talking about how it was a miracle that those three kids survived practically unscathed. ‘It’s not right,’ he said. ‘They shoulda died, Lola.’

  I admitted it was strange. But then everyone thought it was strange. I guess it was one of those crazy things you can’t quite get all the way into your head. Like 9/11. Unless you were there and actually experienced it. But you know, I think people get used to anything in the end. Like recently, my block keeps getting these power outrages and after all the bitching and moaning, it’s crazy how quickly we’ve come to terms with it.

  ‘The boy. The boy…’ he kept muttering. He read out a passage from Zechariah, then flipped through to Revelation. Lenny was big on Revelation, but it gave me the heebies when I was a kid. And, I gotta say, it was me who put the next bit into his head. Look, I’ll admit, sometimes I play dumb, Lenny liked it (hell, they all like it). ‘You know what I could never get my head around, Lenny?’ I said. ‘Those four horsemen. Why horsemen, anyho
w? And all those different colours.’

  Well, Lenny froze like I’d just blasphemed. ‘What you say, Lo?’

  I thought I’d said something to make him angry again, and I watched him carefully in case he was going to snap at me. He stood, still as a statue, his eyes darting from side to side. ‘Lenny?’ I said. ‘Lenny, honey, you okay?’ Then he just clapped his hands and laughed. First time I ever heard Lenny laugh. He took my face between his hands and kissed me right on the mouth. ‘Lola,’ he said. ‘I think you got it!’

  I said, ‘What do you mean, Lenny?’

  But all he said was, ‘Take your clothes off.’

  Then we did it, and he left.

  The following is a transcript of Pastor Len Vorhees’s radio show, My Mouth, God’s Voice, aired on 20 January 2012.

  Good listeners, I don’t need to tell you that now more than ever, we’re living in Godless times. We’re living in a time when the Bible is shunned in our schools in favour of scientific evolutionary lies, where many are expelling God from their hearts, where sodomites and baby murderers and heathens and Islamofascists have more rights in our country than good Christian men and women. Where Sodom and Gomorrah cast a pall over every aspect of our daily lives, and our world leaders are trying with all their might to construct the culture of globalisation favoured by the Antichrist.

  Good listeners, I have good tidings. I have proof that Jesus is listening to us, that He is heeding our prayers, that it is only a matter of time before He takes us to sit at His side.

  Listeners, I want to tell you a story.

  There was once a good woman. Pamela May Donald was her name, and she was a good God-fearing woman, who had taken Jesus into her heart with every fibre of her being.