Salvage (38 page)

"They've left us," he said.

Shocked eyes met his words. Gasps of fear.

"Worry not," he assured them. "We don't need them. God spoke to me again, my brothers and sisters, but not from the water. This time, he addressed me through the
fire
."

A sudden image flashed in Owen's mind: a pillar of fire standing in the middle of Everett's office. A deep monotone mumbling arose from it, the same sound Owen had heard on the tape of his father's sermon, the sound Crouch had addressed as Woodrow.

When Crouch spoke again to the remaining members of the Blessed Trinity it was in a rush: "God said we're to stay in the basement and pray until the flood passes. He said He will spare us and our church, because we are true believers. We are
Seekers of the Mystery
. The water will
pass over us
, as the Lord passed over the first-born Hebrew sons in Egypt. But only if we
pray
."

The congregation turned to each other, mumbling their concern, nodding aggressively to one another, psyching themselves up for the confrontation. Finally, Émile Tremblay—a man with slicked dark hair and a large mole on his cheek, and faded tattoos visible under his sleeves—spoke up in his heavy Quebecois accent. "If dis is what God wants, who are we to argue?"

The others nodded in agreement. Jesus hung from his cross behind them, unable to intervene.

"God will intervene," Glenda decided, nodding along with the rest. "We're His faithful."

"We must kneel," Crouch said, moving to each of his flock one by one and laying his right hand on their foreheads. As he came around to them, they each knelt and closed their eyes. "Kneel and pray."

A sound of trickling water startled him, and he turned to look at the door, where a black puddle had begun to gather, drawing closer. Crouch's brow furrowed, the sight troubling him.

Velma Kampf, opened one eye, her hands clasped tight in prayer. "I thought you said this room vas vaterproof," the German immigrant said.

The others opened their eyes to see what she had.

"It is," Crouch said, flustered. "God is merely—uh—testing our faith." He was stammering, the same as Brother Woodrow.

"That looks like a puddle to me," Red said, his mouth conspicuously empty of all but insinuation.

"The shelter is waterproof," Crouch assured them. The congregation turned to look with scowls of concern. Crouch wiped a runner of drool from his lips, absently, with the back of his hand. Then he suddenly jabbed an accusing finger at his faithful. "You're
unbelievers
!
All
of you!"

The congregation murmured amongst each other, becoming agitated and distrustful. Émile Tremblay rose cautiously onto one knee. "Everett!" Tremblay approached Crouch, hands held out in supplication. Crouch turned his dazed eyes toward the man. "You say God will protect us, but you don't tell us nothing. If God speaks to you now, why you don't tell us what he say?"

Everett's eyes came alight abruptly. He nodded stupidly, a child finding an easy out in his lies. "Yes," he said, and addressed the congregation. "Yes, Émile is right. God
is
talking to me."

"Everett, tell us God's word," Red Adams said.

"Tell us!" the others chimed in.

Crouch gathered his thoughts. Water trickled under the door in the silence. Some of the members of his flock gave it troubled glances, waiting for their leader to speak. Overhead, footsteps crossed from the front of the church to the back.

Owen knew it was too late; the killers were on their way.

Crouch flashed his followers a God-loves-us-all smile, and his arms rose with the corners of his lips until his hands faced the crowd, palm-out. "God has sent his righteous to spare our lives!" he cried. He went to each of them, taking their hands, ushering them into a rough circle.

From above, a thunderous crash startled the entire ministry. They all looked up with terror-stricken eyes as plaster dust fell around them.

Owen pictured the men upstairs dragging the massive crucifix across the floor.
They aren't coming to save you, Everett
, he thought, but it was like warning actors in a film.
They mean to kill you.

Crouch squinted up at the ceiling, eyes following the footsteps, the loud screeching of the crucifix being dragged across the wood floor. "They mean to kill me," he muttered, as if he'd heard Owen's warning. "They hate me, because of what I did. Because of what I did to my father."

"Father Crouch, no," Glenda said, smiling through a haze of tears. "We
love
you."

The others nodded. Still holding hands. Still faithful.

"No," Everett said, anxious now. "They'll never forgive me.
They'll never forgive me!
" He jabbed a finger toward the ceiling, where the footsteps, the dragging, grew louder. "These people are not our friends. They've come to destroy us."

"They're coming to
save
us," Émile said uncertainly. "God tell you this, you say so yourself."

Everett broke the circle, grasping Glenda's plump-fingers in his own, looking her dead in the eyes. "We have to go," Everett told her, told everyone. "We have to leave,
right now
."

Glenda seemed to see the dread in his eyes and dragged old man Adams along by the hand. "Come on," she urged the others. Reluctantly, they followed Everett to the door. He twisted the handle. Outside, the footsteps and the dragging continued. Each drag was followed by a loud thump that shook the walls: they had reached the stairs.

Everett and Glenda yanked on the door together. It came open with a groan, letting a gush of water in, ankle-deep and cold.

Howard Lansall stood in the doorway, blocking their intended exodus. Behind him, Dink Deakins and Pete Jebson lugged the crucifix over their shoulders. Howard held the pocket watch, its loop of chain tucked into the breast pocket of his gray vest. He'd apparently been studying the time when the door opened, and he looked up with a cold grin, snatching the lid closed.

"Time's up, Crouch," he said.

"Oh, thank God," Everett said. "Howard, I've made a terrible mistake."

"You're bloody well right, you have," Howard said, and with the grin still on his face, he slugged Everett in the stomach. The wind escaped Everett's diaphragm with a whistling gasp. The others moved in to protect their patriarch, but Howard tucked the watch into his pocket, and neat as a magic trick, he produced a snub-nosed revolver with steady hands.

The congregation stepped back in fright. Everett, doubled-over and catching his breath, looked up to see the gun.

The other two men finished lugging the crucifix down onto the concrete floor of the stairwell.

"Let us out of here!" Velma shouted.

"You're not going anywhere," said Jeb, peeling off his hat to wipe sweat from his forehead, the T of the cross draped over his shoulder.

"It's over, Crouch," Howard said. "Madge and the boy have gone up the hill. They're with me, now." Everett shook his head meekly, veins standing out on his forehead. Howard nodded. "You
lost
."

"Let us go, Lansall!" Émile Tremblay shouted. The others shouted similar sentiments.

"You can't…" Everett took a breath. "…do this."

"It's already done," Howard said with a bored sigh. "'What's done is done and gone,' isn't that what the Voice says? Well, Crouch, 'I will tell you what's to come, even before the events are brand-new.'" He grinned, pleased with himself. His words had the feel of a prepared speech, an oration worthy of Everett himself. "You and your pathetic flunkies are going to drown in this pit. And the rest of us will go on with our lives on the hill above your grave, as if the lot of you never existed."

Everett rose to his full height, his face still red from the blow. "You won't take these peoples' lives. You'll have to shoot me dead," he said, and stepped forward until the barrel pressed into his chest.

Howard's eyes widened in surprise. He drew the pistol back, seeming to reconsider, with a glance back at his cronies for affirmation. Jeb shook his head, a look on his face as if he'd just woken from a nightmare, having come to his senses. Dink Deakins's scowl deepened.

In a flash, Howard thrust the pistol between Crouch's ribs and pulled the trigger. Everyone, even the men on the stairs, tried to cover their ears. The Blessed Trinity howled and moaned in agony.

Everett's eyes opened in stunned amazement. He looked down at himself, at the blood spilling freely down the front of his white work shirt, at the black tendrils of smoke rising from the barrel of the gun. He reached out to grasp Howard's vest, but his fingers only managed to snag the chain of Howard's pocket watch. The watch slipped from Howard's pocket. Howard reached for it as Everett dropped, the chain snapping. Everett's fingers loosened as his knees splashed down in the rising flood water. The watch fell face down on the floor with a crunch of glass, and Everett toppled sideways, sprawling out beside it in the growing pool.

Howard bent to scoop up his watch, but the Blessed Trinity hurried to their patriarch, circling him, protecting him from further harm.

"Come on, Howard!" Dink said from the doorway, eagerness to flee obvious in his face.

While the Blessed Trinity threw accusing stares at their captors, their Shepherd's eyes fluttered open and regarded them. He groaned. He panted. His lips formed a weak smile.

"Give me the watch, and I'll go," Howard told the weeping parishioners.

"You don't 'ave enough bullet to kill us all," Émile said. "Go now!
Leave
us!"

"You'll be judged accordingly," old man Adams shouted up at Howard and his cronies through gritted teeth. "The Lake of Fire awaits you!"

"I'm sure Hell will greet me warmly," Howard chuckled, stepping back from the door and drawing it shut with a loud clang. Shouting, Émile and Glenda rose to their feet and threw themselves against the door, thundering their fists upon the dense metal. The outside handles were pulled.

They were locked in.

"Everett," Glenda said. "Everett, we won't let Howard get away with this."

Crouch shook his head weakly. His eyes had filled with tears. Black water had soaked through his shirt. His blood oozed out in a dispersing pool before him. Blood poured out when he opened his mouth to speak. He wheezed in a breath.

"He's trying to say something!" old man Adams said to the two at the door. They both stopped their hammering and returned to Everett's side.

Outside the door, metal screeched—a sound Owen realized was the three men wedging it shut with the crucifix.

"
For
…" Crouch groaned. His chest hitched. "
For
…"

"For what?" Velma said. Tears stood in their eyes, the congregation looking to each other with dashed hopes.

"
Give
…" Crouch said finally, and the breath on which he'd said it continued until there was nothing left in his lungs but blood. His arm slipped out from under him, and he fell back into black water deep enough to cover half his face.

Everett's flock gave each other confused looks. "Give?" Émile Tremblay said.

"Give
what
?" Glenda said.

"
For
give," Red Adams said, sitting down hard in the rising water, looking down at what was left of the man who'd been his pastor, his spiritual guide.

"Forgive?" they wondered aloud.

As the water rose around them, the Blessed Trinity pondered their leader's last word, and told stories of the past to buoy their spirits as the end came. Everett stayed with them throughout, hovering above them in spirit. He tried to soothe them with spiritual guidance and scripture, but his words, in death, could not find their ears. In the end, all he could do was pray for them. They would be martyrs; but to what end? Everything they'd been fighting for seemed so silly now. So trivial. The business of ants.

Soon, the Blessed Trinity abandoned the Mystery of their leader's words for their own survival, clawing their way up the shelves as the water rose above their heads, then treading water, their tears lost to the flood, their cries muffled by the last four walls they would ever see. Everett's body did not rise with the water, while the limbs of the others thrashed above his head, and finally, when their muscles seized and their lungs filled with water, the six of them slowly descended to the earth, one by one, the expressions on their faces not bliss, but suffering.

1

OWEN SNAPPED AWAKE
, gagging and spitting up water.

He rolled over onto his side and blinked at the terrain. He'd washed up on a muddy shore beneath a jagged hill of bedrock that shone bone white under the moon hanging on the horizon. The cool air reeked of fish. His hood and regulator hung loose. The tank had come free of one shoulder, and he shook it weakly off the other. It clanged heavily into the dirt.

He sat up, feeling like he'd just awakened from a terrible nightmare. But he knew everything Crouch had shown him had been real, the unvarnished truth.

Woodrow was Everett's other half, his dark side. Everett had been young when his father died, about the same age Owen had been when he and his mother had left Peace Falls. A tender age; a
formative
age. He'd lived with the guilt of the accident festering inside him, until it had formed a sort of schism in his mind. A part of him, the part that even now maintained his innocence, believed he should be forgiven. Brother Woodrow—not the
real
Woodrow, of course, but a shadow who'd appropriated his name, a manifestation, a
boogeyman
who'd taken on the shape and the bushy red beard of Everett's father—would never let the boy forget that his Old Testament God required an eye for an eye. Woodrow would never forgive, and so, in essence, Everett could not forgive himself.

It hurt Owen to think what his father might have been, what
their family
might have been, if not for that traumatic accident.