As the RV started away, Ted stomped over to Kelly and her waiting children. In his mind, he cursed Amelia City and all of its unholiness. He could no longer deny even to himself that something terrible had probably happened to Butch and Beverly, and now quite possibly Adam too.
He opened the door to the hotel room and stopped dead in his tracks- Barbara was gone, her cards spilled on the thin red carpeting. "Oh, right," he said, looking back to Kelly and the children. "Grandma wanted to take a walk. I told her I'd meet her out on the sidewalk, heh. Grandpa's just going to get changed and then we'll be back," he said, offering Kelly an easy smile.
"I think maybe you and mom ought to just stay here," Kelly said, nerves quaking in her voice. "It isn't safe around here."
"Now dumplin'," Ted began, bracing his hands on her broad shoulders. "There ain't nothin' going to happen to your mother and I," he said. "If someone is trying to scare us off, we can't let them think they can. We have work to do here. People need to know that the fags are bound for Hell. If we don't tell them, who will?"
"I know, daddy," she replied, hanging her head. "I know."
"Not to worry," he whispered before grabbing clothes to change into. "I'm going to call the police while we're walking. We'll find your husband and sister yet." He did not add that they needed find her mother as well.
**
Cody watched through the window as his father swiftly left the property, walking north up Pylon Street. The patriarch of the Jenkins family had his cell phone to his ear. Cody figured he was quietly contacting the police.
Cody himself had already put in a call, and was waiting for a patrolman to swing by to talk to him. He had been warned by the desk sergeant that there was a lot of activity at the college at the moment they were checking into, and it might be up to an hour before anyone could talk to him. Cody had replied that that would be fine, he'd wait in the front office.
If he'd told the sergeant his last name or who he was with, Cody suspected nobody would come see him.
Certainly his father would have trouble getting someone to talk to him. However, there was a precinct station not twenty minutes away on foot. He suspected his father was heading there now, calling ahead to let them know he was on his way. Ted Jenkins was a bigot, not stupid. He was covering all of his bases.
Or so Cody thought, then.
**
There are few things that can force a man of faith to accept that his devotion alone to an ethos might not be enough to save him. After all, if they survive a near-death experience, the claim of being saved by their deity comes. If they lose all of their worldly wealth and possessions, they point out that their deity's will is inscrutable and at times fickle.
The whole 'He works in mysterious ways' was usually the Big Gun that Ted Jenkins used to ward off questions about the misfortunes of his flock. In this case, he didn't buy his own rhetoric. The only adult who'd left that he could still account for was Vincent Tullman, the radio producer. Tullman had opted not to stay at the same hotel, as he had family in Amelia City he stayed with. Ted had called to check on him shortly after leaving the parking lot.
"Everything's fine here," Tullman told him over the phone. "Why?"
"Someone in this city is out to frighten us off, Vincent. You may want to lay low until the day of the funeral." Tullman had agreed to do just that and hung up, leaving Ted walking the benighted streets towards the nearest police station.
He'd turned west from Pylon onto Barlow Avenue when he felt an overwhelming urge to run back and check on Kelly. This impulse he fought down, reminding himself that she wasn't alone, and that seemed to be the biggest factor here.
Butch had been sleeping in the RV's bedroom, unseen, when he went missing. Beverly had taken off to deal with the Bleufleur woman by herself. Adam had been by himself, hocking his hand carved crosses. And Barbara had been by herself in the hotel room for a good five or six minutes before the grandkids knocked on the door to be let in.
All of which made him pause as a dark shape crept through the shadows toward him along Barlow Avenue. "I'm alone," he whispered. The dark shape crept closer, and Ted felt his body go taut. Whatever had befallen his family, he was sure he was next.
**
Cody sat in the chair, head lolling as he nearly fell asleep where he was. His whole body jerked as his leg spasmed, something that often happened just before he fell asleep for the night.
The night clerk was gone. A spicy scent, like cinnamon, wafted into the room. Suddenly, the oversized old tube-based television to his right, visible to whoever might be working the desk, flickered on with a 'pop'. Cody jumped up out of the chair, gasping. He turned toward the television. Standing in the center of a completely black field of nothing was a brutish looking, red-skinned ogre with tusks jutting up from its lower jaw. A knobby wooden club rested against its shoulder.
"A trifle upsetting, isn't it," the ogre said, then walked slowly off screen. When it was gone, the screen flashed, and Jeopardy came on.
"Jesus wept," Cody breathed, leaning back against the check-in counter.
"I imagine he did," came the rumbling sound of the stranger's voice behind him, followed by something cold and metal clamping behind his back, around his wrist. As he tried to surge forward and away, something caught the other hand and clamped it, finally letting him go to fall flat on the floor.
He tried to push himself over but couldn't- his wrists were bound together behind him. Instead he rolled himself onto his side, his right shoulder protesting at the effort. Cody found himself looking up at the stranger in the blue cloak, seated on the check-in counter like the hip rebel-type in an 80's high school movie, feet kicking slowly back and forth.
His black eyes glistened in the glow of the television, and though he had no pupils (or just pupils alone, something Cody considered a moment), Cody could tell they were aimed down at him.
"You know, when they drove the spikes in," the stranger said.
"What?"
"You said, ‘Jesus wept’," said the stranger named Marek conversationally, hopping down off the counter. "I merely observed that he probably did, when they nailed him up. Oh, the lance stab too, that had to hurt. But all of that doggerel is extraneous to the matter at hand, Cody," said the stranger, flapping his hands.
"What's the matter at hand," Cody asked, managing to keep his composure by an effort of will.
"Dealing with you, of course," the stranger said, in a 'isn't it obvious' tone. "You do not hold to the hate your father has been spreading for years. You sent your wife, sister-in-law and the children away, except for your sister Kelly's kids. You did this so they would be safe. Furthermore, you intended to stick around to help look for your missing kin, despite your intention to break away from them all."
"How do you know about that," Cody whispered, arctic winds blowing down his back.
"I knew when I looked you in the eyes. It's a handy skill my kind possess. Cody, I am not going to kill you," said the stranger. He sat Indian-style on the floor a couple of feet away from Cody then, the chains under and attached to his billowing cloak rattling. "You shall be needed, to lead the rest of the children home."
"But, Kelly-"
"Will soon be taken," the stranger supplied. "She will not likely survive what I have in mind for her. But one of your parents will live, and leave this place with you and the children. Until then, you will be here. Not to worry, the proper authorities will discover you. Just don't try to leave this office," the stranger warned, holding up one bony finger. "That is vital. Do you understand?" A silent nod from Cody. "Good. Now, I have matters to attend to," said the stranger.
He rocked back against the shadows fronting the check-in desk, falling into them with a suctioning noise. The scent of cinnamon left with him, and Cody was now left to wonder what exactly lurked in the darkness of Amelia City.
**
Ted brought up his right arm to shield his face as a brilliant search light bore down on him. The patrol car came to a halt, and the officer climbed out, approaching in front of the light to offer Ted a view of him without being blinded. "Excuse me, sir, could you bring your arm down," asked the smooth yet authoritative voice before him.
"Sure, sorry, officer," Ted replied, lowering his arm to take in the policeman. Thanks to the light behind him, though, all Ted could see was a tall, bulky silhouette. "I'm glad to see you, I must say."
"Oh? And why's that?"
"Because I believe someone has abducted several members of my family today," Ted said, squinting to make out the officer's face but failing.
"That's a pretty serious accusation, sir. Come over here out of the light," the cop said, stepping over to the passenger side of his idling cruiser. As he stepped out of the glaring spotlight, Ted could see that the officer was a tall, burly gentleman with a rough salt-and-pepper beard. He took out a notepad and pen, leaning back with his posterior resting on the car. "Did they all go missing at the same time?"
"No, different times, all within a couple of hours, though," Ted replied. The officer took a few notes, and as he was writing, Ted realized how late it had gotten. "Maybe a total of three hours."
"How many folks, and who are they?"
"Well, it would be four people. My son-in-law, Butch Garner." The officer jotted down the name on his notepad. "Then my daughter and my son, separately. Beverly and Adam Jenkins." The officer, his jaw tightening, looked up at an angle with his eyes at Ted.
"Jenkins? As in the True Power Baptist people?"
"Yes, that's us." The officer flipped his notebook closed, started back around the squad car. "Hey, where are you going?" The officer whirled around and came nose-to-nose with Ted, his eyes full of rage.
"Fuck you, Jenkins," he snarled, chest heaving as he took several harsh breaths. "You and your people are nothing but a bunch of hateful, backwards parasites, and any misery you go through, you've more than earned it!"
The officer turned and went back around the car, climbed in, and took off. Ted watched the squad car go, staring after it even after it turned onto an intersecting street and disappeared. Not ten seconds after it was out of sight, the heady scent of cinnamon wafted up behind him.
"Typical," said the booming baritone of the stranger named Marek, his breath in Ted's left ear. The preacher's whole body tensed, his shoulders bunching up. "Never a cop around when you need one, and when they do show up, they aren't much help." A hard impact at the base of his neck knocked Ted unconscious, and moments later he was carried off into the shadows.
**
The kids had all passed back out minutes after grandpa left, leaving Kelly the chance to nip outside for one of the cigarettes she kept hidden in a secret pouch inside of her purse. Everybody was disappearing, and she feared the worst had befallen her husband, her sister and her brother. Cody's family had left, and now her mom and dad were walking out on the dark streets of a city that clearly was out to get them.
Kelly tapped ashes onto the parking lot pavement, staring at the night sky. "Lord, let them be okay," she whispered. "Please." She looked out across the parking lot, shocked at the sight of a dense fog rolling in from all directions. This was no good; her mother and father could get easily lost or turned around in this. She wondered, momentarily, if that had happened to Adam, if the youngest of her siblings had simply lost his way back to the hotel.
Something moved out in the fog, a flicker of motion. Kelly stepped out onto the pavement and took one last drag of her cigarette before pitching it away. "Hello," she called out. "Daddy? Mom?" She took a few more cautious steps forward, and saw that the vague figure twenty or so feet through the fog was man-shaped, turning toward her. "Cody?"
There was a rattle of chains, and the scent of cinnamon in the air. "Not quite," said the figure in a deep baritone, its arms whipping out to its sides. From the fog to either side of Kelly, lengths of chain streaked at her, wrapping around her wrists and pulling taut. She loosed a terrified yelp, pulling and straining against the metal links as the figure approached, boots clacking loudly on the pavement.
"It is useless, child," the stranger intoned as he stepped into view a few feet away. "These chains were forged by my hands. The links have been crafted from your blind devotion, both to your husband, and to your church. Now," and the stranger stepped aside, revealing a passageway through the fog. "Look upon your doom."
Standing fifty feet away was a freakish rooster the size of a pickup truck, spears and sword blades and axes protruding from all over its body. On either side of its head dangled spiked mace balls on chains. A single cyclopean eye blinked at her in the center of its face, the beak curved downward to a stabbing point.
"Come," the stranger said, and the rooster-beast began to slowly amble forward, serrated knife blades jutting from its scaled, reptilian legs. Kelly shrieked and thrashed, but her chains held tight. "You can free yourself, Mrs. Garner," the stranger proclaimed. "You need only renounce your blind faith! Release yourself from this obsessive devotion to your husband!"
Kelly screamed again, but she was nodding. "All right, all right! Fine! I renounce him! That's fine. I think he was a cheating bastard anyway," she said, tugging again. This time, there was a little give to her binding chains, and the rooster hesitated.
"Ah, you see? Already you are one step away from freedom, from safety," the stranger cooed. "Now, you need only give over your devotion to your church."
"Never," Kelly spat, pulling with all of her might. The rooster beast closed to within twelve feet and reared up, swiping one set of razor-sharp talons in her direction. "Nooo! In the name of Jesus, get back from me," she shouted, sweat and tears running down her face. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," she quoted, straining again on her chains. The rooster then did a curious thing- it sat down.
Kelly, shocked out of countenance, went still, gaping at the creature. Slowly she turned her attention to the stranger named Marek. "I remember you. From the church. Marek."
"I'm flattered," he replied with a broad grin. Kelly chuckled, shook her head.
"You were wrong, as you can see," Kelly said, pointing at the bird-thing with her right hand, which had gained more movement, the chains slackening even more. "I don't have to turn from God. God gives us life, and has saved my life."
"No, silly woman," Marek said, snapping his fingers. The rooster leaned forward and twitched its head to one side, sending one of the spiked balls attached to it into Kelly's side. She hollered and stumbled as flesh tore, muscles ripped, and three ribs fractured, one floating up to puncture a lung. "I never said you had to renounce your God," said the stranger named Marek, walking up to stand beside the towering rooster-beast. "Just your church. There's a big difference."
The rooster then rolled forward in a summersault, blades and spear tips ramming, gouging and slicing Kelly open as it carried itself over her body. She lay dying on the cold ground, her last living vision that of the stranger leaning down over her and saying, "Ah, so delightful when faith fails them."
**
Barbara had been aware of sounds out in the darkness for a while now, and despite the light shining down on her from overhead, she felt frozen to her core. The occasional scrape of cloth on the floor out where she could not see told her she was not alone.
There came a sudden thump and a clash of jangling metal, followed by a voice. "Get him prepared," said the voice of the unseen speaker, a voice she'd heard once before, two days before coming to Amelia City. "I've one more to tend to, and then this final act. You may stay and watch."
Barbara knew in her heart that she was going to die in that cold, dark room. Chains had been lashed around her arms and legs and chest, binding her to a hard metal chair in the center of the circle of light coming from overhead. She could think of only two reasons people were trussed up like this, either to be held captive for ransom, or for torture and summary execution.
Most women would struggle, but Barbara knew that all she required was some patience. There came shuffling noises out in the darkness, which was not absolute dark. If she hadn't been sitting in the light, Barbara's eyes would have adjusted eventually to the dark. She knew this.
More scraping and rattling of metal, a grunt. Far off in the darkness, a flash and gleam of crimson lights for several seconds, then nothing once again. She squinted, but could make out no more details beyond the ring of light.
Her breath was beginning to frost in front of her, the temperature dropping. After another long period of silence, the faint scent of cinnamon filled the air, booted feet stepping into the room. "Light, my friend," said the stranger.
Another circle of light flashed down, thirty feet away, revealing to Barbara the slumped, unconscious form of her husband, Theodore Jenkins. He was bound in a chair much as she was, but for his right arm. More chains were wrapped around his body, and she could see even from where she sat that this second set on him were different.
"Awaken," the stranger muttered, and Ted'd head snapped upright. He quickly looked around and tried to get up, but pain flared in his legs, stopping him. "Yes, Mr. Jenkins," said the stranger, stepping up beside the chair in which sat his wife. "Painful, isn't it? Those chains have been altered, the links sharpened to bite through your clothes and flesh if you should move around too much. But your right arm is free, just as I'd like it to be."
"You can't do this to us," Ted railed, pointing his free finger at the cloaked, bearded stranger. "There are laws!"
"The laws of man," the stranger said, smirking. "Laws which routinely go ignored. You, a man who advocates for the murder of homosexuals openly, wish to tell me about laws? I think not," the stranger boomed. He stepped forward and turned to look down into the wide eyes of Barbara. "And you, Mrs. Jenkins, you who say nothing. You remain silent as your husband spews his invective at the world. You, who make no move to put a stop to his rhetoric. I pity you, for I have seen into your soul, and I know that you suffer."
The stranger reached into his voluminous cloak and withdrew a battered copy of the King James Bible. "This is for you, preacher," he called, tossing the tome into the darkness just outside of Ted's ring of light. Something in the dark caught it with a thump, and a moment later, a man made of shadows wearing a tattered black trench coat wheeled the book on a metal cart over to Ted's right side. The creature then swooped back into the darkness.
"What was that," Ted asked in a quivering voice.
"A wraith, preacher," said the stranger named Marek. "Powerful entities, and quite more numerous than my kind, though not as numerous as specters. Specters can be found everywhere in this city, though most aren't much of a threat. That isn't important, though. Your task, preacher, is to first turn to Genesis, locate the highlighted passage, and read it aloud."
Ted didn't know what this man, who he now knew was more than a man, possibly a demon, was playing at, but he would go along for now. He turned open the bible and flipped through until he found a passage highlighted in orange. "'Thou shalt have no other gods before me, for I am a jealous god'", he read, setting the tome down slowly.
"Note the language, preacher. It says that your God is 'a' jealous god. Not 'the' jealous god, or 'the only' god, but 'a' jealous god," the stranger said, his tone dry and academic. "One might infer from this that the author, purportedly your deity of choice, is admitting that there are other gods out there. What do you think?"
"I think your trickery will do no good for you, devil," Ted shot back. Rather than looking perturbed, the stranger reached out and backhanded Barbara across the jaw. She grunted at the impact, her body flinching against her chains. "Hey! What did she do," Ted shrieked in protest.
"That's just it," the stranger named Marek said evenly. "She didn't do anything. She didn't say anything. She never does, Ted, and that is the reason that she's here. Barbara," he said, angling his head so that his bulging black eyes were aimed down at her, "it is possible that you will die here, by my hand. Do you want to die?"
Barbara swallowed, hard, and said in a meek voice, "No, I don't."
"And that is how it should be," said Marek, looking again at Ted. "I presume you don't want to die either, preacher."
"Of course not," Ted said calmly.
"More's the pity, because only one of you will leave here alive." The stranger planted his hands on his hips, the cloak parted to reveal his leather armor and shining chains. His head hung down, shaking slowly. "Which one, though? Preacher," he said, walking over towards Ted. "Flip through that tome to Leviticus, the next highlighted passage."
Ted did so, his fingers guided by the ease of years spent referring to Leviticus. He found the highlighted passage quickly, and read it aloud. "'A man shall not lie with another man as he would a woman. If he does, their blood shall be upon them, for they are an abomination.' One of my frequent passage quotations," he added.
"Does it say to kill them," the stranger asked. Ted, nonplussed, just stared open-mouthed at the stranger. "Barbara, does it say to kill the gays?"
"No, it doesn't," she said quietly. "It doesn't say that explicitly. That's just an interpretation."
"A-HA! Interpretation," the stranger bellowed, clapping his hands loudly. As he did, the chain binding Barbara's left hand fell apart, the links clattering to the stone floor. "She is quite right, preacher! Though she says little, she listens well!"
The stranger stalked to the cart on which Ted was keeping the bible and tossed the book off into the darkness. He stepped to the edge of the light, took something from the darkness and brought it round to sit on the cart. It was a reproduction of an oil painting, depicting Lucifer being cast down from the heavens, his wings aflame, reaching skyward with a spiked mace in hand. Below him on the painting stood a gaping crack in the earth, crimson light flowing upward.
The stranger snapped his fingers, and the shadow-thing in the trench coat wheeled a cart with the same reproduction over to Barbara's left side. The stranger walked to the midway point between the Jenkins couple and stood sideways to them, first looking to Ted. "Who is that in the picture, preacher?"
"Lucifer Morningstar," Ted replied.
"And what's happening there?"
"He's being cast down to Hell, where he will rule."
"Bright boy," the stranger mocked. "Now, on what day did your precious God create Hell?" Ted seemed to consider this quite some time. Finally, he nodded.
"On the first day. In Genesis it says that on the first day He created the heavens and the Earth, and all things within it."
"But it never actually mentions the creation of Hell by its given name, does it," the stranger asked with a coy smile. "Barbara, what do you think?"
"Hell might already have been there when Lucifer fell," she said quietly. The stranger twitched a hand, and her right arm was freed of its chain.
"Not looking good for you, preacher," the stranger said. "You're oh for two. A sideline question, nothing at stake here," the stranger said, folding his arms over his chest. "If Hell was already there, and none of its denizens was mentioned before Satan, don't you wonder how nasty those things have to be?"
"Satan is the great evil, as you well know," Ted huffed. "Hell is his domain."
"The scariest, nastiest man in a country is seldom the administrator in charge," the stranger said in a flat, dead tone. "Ever think about that?" Ted did not answer, as this was a point he'd never been confronted with. "Onward."
The stranger removed the painting from the cart and tossed it into the darkness. The shadow-thing did the same for Barbara's copy, then vanished into the gloom. Barbara cleared her throat, which caused the stranger to turn toward her, bushy eyebrows raised.
"How many," she asked in her mousy voice.
"How many what, Mrs. Jenkins," the stranger asked gently, his voice and stance betraying the potential for kindness in him.
"How many people have you killed," she asked, lower lip trembling.
"Ah. Well, personally? By my own hands?" She nodded. "More than you could imagine, but to tell the truth, I don't keep track except for the ones that were memorable."
"And why do you do it?"
"Because I must," he said with a grin. "It is my nature, and it is the will of the master. I must obey him, for if I do not, the consequences would be dire and immediate. The bird has little patience." The stranger, a puzzled look on his face, turned toward Ted then. "Do you really hate all homosexuals?"
"Yes, just as the Lord hates them," Ted replied. His response came with no hesitation, as though programmed. The stranger turned his attention to Barbara then.
"And you? Do you hate them all?" There was silence, and finally, she shook her head, a barely perceptible movement.
"Barbara, what are you saying," Ted shouted from his seat, using all of his willpower to keep from moving. He didn't want to be cut into again. "The fags burn in Hell, as they must! I've been saying this for decades, and you don't feel that way?"
"No, I don't," she said, tears running down her cheeks. "But I never said anything, Ted, because you're my husband. I didn't want to speak out of turn," she said, now openly weeping, sniffling.
The stranger lifted one hand clenched in a fist, then slowly opened his fingers. The rest of Barbara's chains fell away, and she slumped forward in her seat. "Go now, pitiable creature," the stranger said in a stern voice of command. "You have broken free of your bonds of silence and servitude to this man. No more will he dominate you. But know this; if ever you should return to Amelia, you will not be safe. Your safe harbor lasts only until you leave this region."
She stood from the chair, wiped her nose on her sleeve, and nodded, looking down. The shadow-thing came from the darkness and draped an arm across her shoulders.
"Pallion, take her from here to her son, and them to the children," the stranger commanded. "It is done." The shadowy wraith led Barbara off into the darkness then, leaving behind a stunned, silent Ted. After a minute, the stranger turned toward the patriarch of the Jenkins family. "Preacher, you have been witness now to a rare thing. That woman did what so very few can. She liberated herself from the chains I forged by my own hands, composed of her greatest flaws. You, however," the stranger said, crouching in front of Ted. "You will now know what it is your hatred has been made into. Without such raw, elemental hate, I could never have crafted such fine links. I must thank you, Theodore Jenkins. Take these final moments to pray, preacher. The pain is going to be exquisite."
The sharpened chain links began to rotate around Ted's body slowly, carving shallow grooves into his flesh. He howled, legs bucking as he shook in the chair. As the bladed chains sped up their revolutions, carving deeper into him, his thrashings and screams became increasingly violent. Finally, his throat filled with blood, scarlet streaming out over his lips, spraying the stranger's face and cloak, soaking him. The chains wound tighter, carving through bone and muscle until at last what remained of Theodore Jenkins fell apart in a splash of fluids, torn meat and pulp.
The stranger reached into the mass upon the chair, grabbed a smooth set of links and hauled out twelve feet of lethally sharpened chain. He surveyed this weapon and grunted with satisfaction. "Couldn't have done it without you, preacher," he said, fading out of sight into the surrounding darkness.
**
Fog and disassociation, the loss of time and a seemingly endless stretch of road and fields passing by on either side and beneath the van. These things Cody was peripherally aware of as they drove past the Amelia County border in the wee hours of the morning.
He wasn't entirely sure now what had happened. There was something about a man in a blue cloak, an evil man who wore chains all over his body. No specific memory of their time in Amelia City stood out, except for the one in which he'd stood up at long last against his father.
"We're moving, mom," he said, his voice barely audible over the snores of the children in the back seat. "Judy and the kids and I, we're leaving."
"That's good, dear," Barbara said, her voice oddly hollow. "You should start fresh." There was a long silence between them before she spoke again. "Gina and I will take care of the children."
"They're dead, aren't they," Cody asked in a whisper.
"Yes."
"Nobody will ever even ask about it, will they?"
"No, they won't." Another lengthy pause as Barbara Jenkins let her mind flow freely. "It's better that way." Cody agreed with a grunt. "And we have to agree on something, you and I, right now."
"What's that, mom?"
"We can never go back there," she said, staring straight out through the windshield. "Hell spilled over onto the Earth, and the stain it left is called Amelia City."
Can you give me hallelujah, can you tell me amen?
-Fin
*standing applause*