Apocalypse Burning (22 page)

Could she even trust Mystic?

Glumly, Danielle stared at her gray reflection in the foggy windshield. Mystic had been right about one thing: Paranoia was definitely addictive.

7

Shackleton Heights
Marbury, Alabama
Local Time 0928 Hours

“Area still look that familiar to you, Chaplain?”

“Aye. It does. Like it was just yesterday when I was here.” Delroy Harte sat in the passenger seat of the sheriff’s cruiser and peered out at the small, quiet neighborhood of Shackleton Heights. Usually Saturday mornings in that neighborhood were more active, filled with kids and noise and the sound of spring flower gardens being tilled. None of that was going on today. “You’d think after five years things would change.”

“Oh, now there’s probably been some changes. A few more folks with dish TV. Newer cars. But you’re right, of course; there probably ain’t been many changes.”

Deputy Walter Purcell drove, one hand on the wheel and the other holding a cup of take-out coffee in a Styrofoam container from Hazel’s Café. Today Walter had insisted on buying breakfast that morning before taking Delroy to the car-rental lot.

He’d also decided to take the long way there. The neighborhood tour through Shackleton Heights was part of the price of getting the taxicab service, he’d said. The car lot they were going to didn’t open till noon, and driving was better than cooling his heels waiting to make certain Delroy was safely on his way.

For his part, Delroy didn’t mind the side trip. After arriving at the Purcell home yesterday morning, he’d met Clarice, Walter’s wife, visited for a while, then sacked out in the back bedroom of the small house. If he could have remained conscious, the navy chaplain supposed he would have felt more than a little guilty about crashing the home as he had. But Walter Purcell was an insistent man and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Delroy had roused at dinnertime, called to the table by Walter, and spent an unbelievably enjoyable evening talking to Walter and Clarice, a quiet, reserved woman who at first didn’t seem to match up well with Walter. Walter came across as rough and gruff but was meek and mild around his wife, obviously loving her very much. Clarice and Walter had done the dinner dishes together, and it had reminded Delroy of evenings he’d spent at home with Glenda.

Not too surprisingly, the after-dinner talk drifted to the subject of the disappearances. Clarice had surprised Delroy by announcing that she felt certain the Rapture had occurred and that God had called His church home. Knowing he was a navy chaplain, she had asked Delroy his opinion on the matter. Delroy had quietly agreed with her but didn’t offer further elaboration because he hadn’t felt worthy enough to try to interpret God’s Word. He couldn’t do it with Walter sitting there, knowing the deputy had seen him digging up his own son’s grave, giving evidence of his own fears and doubts.

Later that evening, Delroy had made a phone call to a car dealer Walter had suggested, confirmed the existence of a rental—though the price was exorbitant—and secured it through his credit card. He’d also tried to contact the USS
Wasp
last night and this morning, but to no avail. He’d wanted to leave word with Captain Falkirk that he was heading to Norfolk, Virginia—
Wasp’
s homeport—and hoped to hook up with a ship or a plane headed to Turkey. Men and materials, as many as could be found, were being routed to the Mediterranean Sea to support the Turkish defense, but the military was feeding teams on several fronts as national defenses were shored up and martial law still ruled in some of the larger metropolitan areas around the country.

After watching the news, the three of them trying desperately to keep up on what was happening in the world, Clarice had treated Walter and Delroy to huge wedges of deepdish apple pie with homemade ice cream out on the back veranda. They’d stayed up till 2
A.M.

Absolutely stuffed and feeling guilty, Delroy had bid the couple good night and returned to his borrowed bed. His dreams had been haunted all night by images of his father pounding at the pulpit as he preached to his congregation in the small church where Delroy had grown up.

“Depends on where you’re living,” Walter said in that straightforward way he had, still talking about the changing neighborhoods. “At least, that’s what I’ve always found out. Cities what’s got money to spend—or can put a hand in somebody else’s pocket and get money to spend—why, they do a lot of changing. Neighborhoods that get bought up by one outfit or another, they do a lot of changing. It’s ‘cause money’s being pumped into them areas, you see. But here in this part of Marbury, why, folks are pretty much set in their ways and mostly happy with what they’ve got. Or, leastways, not so unhappy that they’ll move on into the city proper.” He glanced around. “Though now and again one of ‘em will kill another, or steal from another, or do bodily harm to another. It ain’t paradise.”

“No. It never was.” Delroy looked at the white wooden houses with their red and brown and green roofs. Most of the houses were forty and fifty years old, usually packed with three small bedrooms and a bath and a half. They were houses built for the middle class during an exodus to get out of the growing metropolis back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Over the years, that middle class had changed, sliding more toward poverty and the same problems that had plagued them in the inner-urban areas they’d come from.

Shackleton Heights had its beginning back when Marbury was young, and the new suburb had never quite recovered from its days of infamy. In the early 1800s, the area had been a separate town, smaller than Marbury, and it had been named Shackle Town. For forty years, till slavery was abolished at the end of the Civil War, Shackle Town had provided auction blocks for slaves and a way of rough living for hard men who preferred that. At the turn of the twentieth century, a riot had broken out and the small town had burned to the ground.

The people who lived in Shackleton Heights now were mostly black, and generally they worked shifts at factories, fast-food restaurants in the metro area, or on construction projects that were usually state sponsored. They were men and women, young and old, who held jobs to make ends meet rather than spending time in careers to keep up with the rest of the world. Those who worked for themselves tended to do so seven days a week and from can-see to cain’t-see.

Trees lined the small, narrow streets. Cars parked at the curb congested traffic. More than a few of those cars sat up on blocks or were in various stages of being cannibalized for parts. Porches that had gone crooked with age and neglect sometimes held defunct washers and dryers and refrigerators, small graveyards of dead appliances that the city wouldn’t take and the inhabitants couldn’t afford to have hauled off.

“Did you live here long?” Walter asked.

“All my life,” Delroy answered, only then realizing that Walter hadn’t wandered into the neighborhood by accident. Delroy had learned there were few things accidental about Deputy Walter Purcell, despite his easygoing manner and abrupt nature. He’d known exactly where he was taking Delroy. “Till I went away to college. If I hadn’t gotten a basketball scholarship to Alabama State, I might never have made it out of town.”

“Well, do you miss it?” As always, Walter was blunt and to the point.

“Surprisingly, I have on occasion. Shipboard life is close like this neighborhood is. Maybe that’s why I fit into the navy so easily.” Delroy wondered what Walter’s objective was for bringing him through the old neighborhood. The chaplain didn’t doubt that the deputy had one, but he didn’t know what it was.

“Was your daddy from here?” Walter paused at a stop sign.

“From farther out of town,” Delroy said. “But from this area, aye. My mother lived in Marbury all her life.”

“Was your wife from here?” Walter made the turn and approached the elementary school where Delroy had attended as a child. The buildings sat empty and forlorn.

“Glenda is from Montgomery.” Delroy had trouble referring to her as his wife since he hadn’t talked to her in so long. “She was born there. We met in college. She was bound and determined to change me and the world.”

Delroy’s heart ached as he saw the empty swings and soccer field at the elementary school. A handful of women, young and middleaged, walked through the empty schoolyards. He didn’t know if they were teachers missing students or mothers missing their sons and daughters. How could anyone live in a world without children?

Walter laughed. “Did she?”

“Change me? Aye. That she did. She took a rough, prideful young boy, turned him into a man, and guided him through the navy, prodded at him till he finished college and rose from the ranks to make officer grade, and backed him every step of the way.”

“It’s surprising that since you been gone she didn’t move back to Montgomery instead of hanging around here as she has.” Walter realized he’d spoken too quickly and held up a hand in apology. “Me and my big mouth.”

“I don’t know why she stayed,” Delroy admitted. “I bought a house here, after Terrence got to be school-age, and Glenda didn’t feel comfortable living on base. She’d always wanted a home in a small town. Both of us felt Montgomery was just too big to raise Terrence in. After Terrence … passed and I didn’t handle things well, I don’t know why she stayed.”

“Well, maybe she just feels at home here. For all its faults and lacks, Marbury is a good town.”

Delroy watched the houses. Few people were outside, but the ones who were in their yards or driveways glanced in the cruiser’s direction with nervous apprehension.

“These people are scared,” Delroy said before he knew he was going to speak.

“Yes, sir,” Walter said, nodding. “They are that. And it might surprise you to know they been scared for a while.” He glanced back at the neighborhood. “This end of town, well, it had fallen on hard times even before these last few days.” He looked at Delroy. “Bet you didn’t have crack cocaine in these streets when you was growing up.”

“No—” Delroy shook his head—“we didn’t.” His daddy had lectured on the evils of marijuana from time to time even back then, though.

“Well, sir, they have it now.” Walter tore open the lid on his Styrofoam cup. “You missed out on the gangbanger shootings too.”

“Here?” Delroy couldn’t believe it. Back when he was a boy, no drugs had been in the streets, and the most violence that was ever done was at the high school basketball courts and football fields when rival schools met. Even when Terrence had been a boy, things hadn’t been truly bad.

“Yes, sir,” Walter replied. “Here. Right in this neighborhood.” He glanced around. “What you’re looking at, this here’s a part of the city that’s well on its way to dying.”

Delroy looked out on the neighborhood and felt a great sadness. The condition of the houses and the decrepit cars bore mute testimony to the truth of the deputy’s words. “My daddy would never have allowed this to happen.”

“Not meaning to take anything away from your daddy,” Walter said, “but he might not have been able to help what this place has become through economic hardship and neglect. Then again, I hear your daddy was a man strong in his faith. A hard-knuckled man when it came to that too. But those have turned into some mean streets out there. There’s stabbings and shootings. Robberies and burglaries. Fathers battling sons, and half the time they don’t know each other until the police or the deputies pull ‘em apart and introduce ‘em to one another.”

Delroy wondered how a place that looked so familiar could sound so alien. When they halted at another stop sign, Delroy spotted the Domino Parlor sandwiched between a cleaners and a Qwik-Mart. A battered pickup was parked out front. Three old black men, their hair iron gray in the morning light, leaned against the truck and talked, evidently waiting for the Domino Parlor to open.

“I was listening to Clarice and you talking last night,” Walter said.

“I thought you were sleeping,” Delroy said.

“No, sir, I was catnapping,” Walter said, frowning. “Never make a mistake about that. I don’t sleep. I catnap. Keeps me sharp and ever vigilant.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Anyway, I was listening to Clarice and you talking about what the next seven years will probably be like. During the Tribulation.” Walter made another turn, driving past the Domino Parlor.

Delroy recognized George standing beside the pickup truck, the man who’d driven him to the cemetery. The old man waved at him and smiled. Delroy waved back.

“All that talk about the Antichrist and this being maybe the last chance to get right with God,” Walter said, “I got to thinking.” He looked at Delroy. “You know what I got to thinking?”

“No.”

“That’s okay because I’ll tell you. I got to thinking that if Satan wanted to win himself some souls that’d be cheap for the taking, why this would be one of the places to come directly.” Walter shrugged. “Ain’t nobody here gonna stand up to Satan and tell him no in this neighborhood. And he’d probably be offering most folks here a better deal than they’ve ever got in their lives.”

An old woman crossed the street in front of the cruiser. She carried a small paper bag of groceries, and her back was bent from age and from the weight of the bag. A floral patterned scarf wrapped around her head was faded from years of use.

“I come down here now and again,” Walter said. “Mostly I bust up domestic fights and take reports from people who’ve been beaten, robbed, and burglarized, and all of us knowing there ain’t nothing I’m gonna be able to do to get their stuff back, and ain’t no way I can keep it from happening again. Even if I catch the people who did it the first time, somebody else’ll take their places.”