The Rabid (Book 1) (18 page)

I am at the front of the room now. Turning away from the fireplace, the heat is rushing up my back, and massaging the tension from my shoulders.
Ms. Cassie’s daughter has closed her book and is sitting upright in the chair, all her attention honed in on my next move.

I am dizzy.

My legs are weak.

It’ll be nothing fancy, just the basics.

I close my eyes and catch the next swell. It takes me. Each note acts as a signpost telling me where to turn, stop, and start. I’m down and up, flourishing on the sonic tide that envelopes me like a starved lover. No room, no audience; just the music and the movement.

And I am still.

Dizzy.

Weak.

But…still…

I am on my knees, staring at carpet
fiber. There is silence. And then there is Lee, boosting me atop his shoulders, pulling me to my feet.

“That was something wasn’t it?” Lee drags me back to the couch, letting me free-fall once he’s gotten me positioned over the cushions.

Ms. Cassie just nods for a bit, as if replaying the scene in her head. “That was…something. Don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it.”

I tip my hat to her.
“Thank you, ma’am.”

29

I’m lying in the aisle of Pastor
Waters sanctuary. My face is battered and my hands are tied. Lee is beside me, groaning, in a similar state of disarray. His eyes are all but swollen shut and rich, red, blood oozes through his teeth, and clutters his beard. He’d gotten the worst of it. As I stare up at the chandelier adorned triangle ceiling, I feel a rage turned inward. The events replay like a highlight reel; I curse and edit every step.

I should have done it different. I caved too easy. Attachment trumped strategy. Hindsight is 20/20. Hindsight is life and death. It’s a feeling I imagine is quite common among the defeated; football coaches and generals. I feel more like the latter. My troops scattered.
My people in bondage.

I’d been asleep upstairs when the front door had come off the hinges. The first shower of automatic gunfire tore through the ceiling before my feet were even on the floor. I’d locked and loaded my rifle and hauled it to the top of the stairs
, but it was already too late. They had Momma and Bethany. They had Ms. Cassie and her daughter. They had them on their knees with M16 and AK barrels embedded in the hollow of their skulls. Lee was already relinquishing his weapon a few steps down from where I’d stood. With shaky knees, he’d plead, “Don’t hurt them, please, whatever you want, just don’t hurt them.”

All eyes had been on me. Their lives balanced precariously on the tip of my trigger finger.

They’d cried.

Except Momma.
She was the strong one. Momma just shook her head, urging me to stand down.

“Two-Step, it’s a no go, just set it down. Save it for later.” Lee had assured me as he’d laced his fingers behind his head.

Once they’d gotten us downstairs and away from our weapons, two of them took to kicking the mess out of us while the others loaded the girls into the idling pickups waiting out front. Momma and Bethany had clawed, bitten, and begged, but it made no never mind. They just laughed harder and kicked harder. I’d never taken a beating like that in my life. I was thankful to have blacked out halfway through. I came around as we were being dragged through the sanctuary doors and discarded on the plank wood floor.

I struggle and kick out at the pews, leveraging one off the ground and moving it forward with the shrill yell of polished wood upon polished wood. I wriggle to loosen the restraints, but there is no budge to be had. “Damn it,” I arch my back and butt off the floor, trying to gain enough room to get my arms around, under, and in front of me. “We’ve got to get to Momma and Bethany. I swear on everything
, Lee, everything, if they hurt them, I’m burning this place and these people to ashes.”

“Two-Step…
listen…just,” his words are stammered and obscured by flesh and chipped teeth. He spits a wad of saliva and blood and starts again. “Unless you’ve got scissors or a samurai sword, or are, pound for pound, the world’s strongest teenager, we aren’t breaking out of zip cuffs. We’ve got to play it cool for now. Don’t rock the boat; we can’t do anything if we're dead.”

“I’m all out of plays here
, Lee, all out. They’ve got all of our gear, everything from the duffels. They’re gonna kill my mom and my sister. I don’t give a damn about myself or you, no offense, but I’m not gonna let them hurt them, so you need to help me think of something.”

He drops his forehead to mine, a dense layer of blood and dirt still separating us. His eyes are mere slits in a pulpy pile of flesh, as if someone replaced the lids with dried prunes. “We’ve got to look for the moment. We look for the moment and then we make something happen. If you keep going off, and kicking stuff, they’re going to bury us behind this church. We can’t do a thing if we’re buried behind the church, you agree with me on that?”

“Yeah, I agree.”

“Smart kid,”
he rolls away from me onto his back, groaning at the motion. “Feels like someone broke a glass off in my chest. Bastards definitely loosened a rib or two. What about you, you feeling alright?”

“Banged up, but I don’t think anything is broken.”

“Good, that's good. When we get out of here, what do you say you and me take that camping trip?”

I look at him and manage a smile.
“You're on.”

The double mahogany doors behind us spring open like a set of curtains, wrestling back the shadows, and spilling light across our broken bodies. Three sets of heavy boots march down the aisle as the portal behind them closes. Even upside down and distorted by draw distance and illumination
, I immediately recognize one of them: Dorian. The
Massai Warrior
from the roadblock we’d come across yesterday. The man I’d almost shot. The man I should have shot.

A black automatic handgun secured in a nylon thigh holster is his only weapon. Flanking him is that pencil
mustached trigger-happy psycho he’d referred to as Donny. The third man is unfamiliar to me. They both carry the heavy artillery.

“I thought you folks were headed west, and yet here you are.” He stands over us with his hands on his hips. “It vexes me. I’m deeply vexed.”

“Well, I thought ya’ll were a couple of destitute survivors keeping an eye on the roads for the good of humanity, so count me vexed as well.” I roll onto my stomach, craning my neck.

“Well now, you’ve gone and gotten yourself into a pickle; a fine pickle, very fine. You
shoulda just kept on driving, just kept on keeping on.”

Donny lifts his upper lip and flares his nostrils as if he’s about to sneeze. “We
shoulda just plugged em’ like I said, just turned em’ all into swiss cheese, saved ourselves some dough on the flexy cuffs.”

“I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you cut me loose, go get me my rifle, and we’ll do our little dance again. I promise, this time it’ll be much shorter and I won’t leave you feeling
vexed
.” I smile at Donny. He doesn’t smile back.

“
Whoo hoo,” Dorian claps his hands together, the acoustics in the building make it sound like a small bomb going off. “There it is boys, that—panache—didn’t I tell ya’ll, this kids got it? Lordy Jesus, lordy, lordy, whoo doggy.”

“
Well I'm glad I excite you.”

Dorian shakes his head and crouches next to me, dabbing at the corners of his mouth.
“You puzzle me, you don't excite me. Lucky for you, I happen to like puzzles.”

“
Taking them apart, or putting them together?” I wince at the pain still running circuits through my body.

“
Well now, I think you can answer that one for yourself.”

“
So, you and your little crew, you weren't looking for bandits, you were looking for colored faces, is that about right.”

“
Are the two really so different?” He laughs, looking to his crew for support.

“
So you being 1/20th Massai, that puts black blood in your veins, doesn't it?”

His face goes
grim, he's not as quick on the rebound this time. “I'd say anyone with a knack for observation can see niggers today, ain't the same as niggers from the past.”

“
Or maybe you and your needle dick hillbilly crew are just looking for a cheap thrill and don't really give a damn about whether your logic remains consistent.”

His boot heel connects with my jaw like a sledgehammer. The impact torques my neck so hard
that I’m surprised it doesn’t snap in two. “Ah, shit!” My face burns against the cool of the floor as I begin checking each tooth on the left side of my mouth to confirm that they are still intact.

“Now that’s some panache right there.” Donny wipes a line of tobacco stained saliva from his chin.

“Say something else smart, you goddamn little bastard.” Dorian chuckles.

“He’s just a kid, c’mon, he doesn’t mean anything. C’mon, leave him alone.” Lee rolls back and forth like a
hobbyhorse, staring up through half drawn blinds, reasoning on my behalf. They gather over him like a storm cloud. There’s nothing I can do. I can’t feel the bottom half of my face, let alone intervene.

“Dorian, what have I said about using our Fathers name in vain in this house?” The voice stops them before they can bury their boots in Lee’s abdomen.

“Ma’am, my apologies, I...”

“Does our
Savior go charging into your double wide smelling of stale beer and cigarette smoke, cursing your name?”

“No
, ma’am, He does not, blessed be His name.” Dorian is hunched at the waste, backing towards the entrance.

“Leave, I want to be alone with these men.”

“But, ma’am, I think...”

“I don’t care what you think
, Dorian, leave or I’ll have you gutted and tied to the poles with the niggers next feeding, am I clear?”

Their exit is a shower of boot heels and slammed doors.

She stands over us, arms crossed, her red lips curled in a playful smile, our reflections shining back at us in the lenses of her black rimmed glasses. “You were expecting someone a bit more masculine I’m assuming?”

“Pastor…Waters?” My mouth moves as if there is a thousand pound weight attached to each side.

“I would be lying if I said it didn’t please me to elicit such surprise upon each new meeting. It keeps things fresh. Some might say I should be insulted at such assumptions,
why not a woman
? Valid point, though it may be, I’ve never been one to hold peoples prejudices and misconceptions against them, though I do welcome the opportunity to prove them wrong.”

“My mom and sister, where are they?”

“Conscious and in one piece, downstairs in the kennels,” she puckers her lips at me. “Don’t you worry, I didn’t group them in with the niggers; though that hardly matters to a little race traitor like you, now does it?”

Her patronizing air is easier to brush aside when accompanied by the knowledge that Momma and Bethany are alive and well. “How’d you find us? Was it the fireplace?”

“The fireplace? No, I know of no such fireplace. It was that fat old coons nephew. He broke down like an old lawn mower.”

“She said he’d been eaten up by the Rabid.”

“It would appear, given your current state, that she was quite wrong.” She releases the top two buttons on of her white blouse and fans at the beads of perspiration that have begun to form along her neckline. “It is hot in here, isn’t it? I swear, when my daddy built this place, he must have purchased the cheapest AC system in the whole state.”

“Can’t say I’ve noticed; the temperature is the last thing we’re really worried about at the moment.”

She cocks her head, studying Lee’s condition, her shoulder length brown hair falling delicately about her neck, the silver hoops in her ears following suit. “I do apologize for my men. I beg of them,
sharpen the wit and not just the sword,
you attract more with honey than you do with vinegar, yes? You need not sacrifice one to sharpen the other, I ask you, can you not be proficient with both the mind and the fist? But alas, pearls among swine. What can you do?” She turns towards the altar, twirling on her stiletto heels. She walks, one foot over the other, staring up at the giant wooden cross topped with a three point crown that hangs against the back wall. “When the church pictures the Lords vessels, the ones that dove into the fray and did the rough and tough, they think of David, they think of Moses, and Samson. Yeah, there is Mary, but it’s that maternal image that springs to mind, not might, not valor.”

“The rough and tough?
Is that what you call this?” Lee is on his back still staring at the ceiling, laughing now. “Rounding up people of color and feeding them to the Rabid, that’s the rough and tough? That’s you being a vessel for the Lord?”

She turns towards us and leans back against the altar, linking her arms under her breasts, and crossing her ankles, her black skirt rising just above the knees. “I don’t expect you to understand our cause. Few do, which is why humanity finds itself in such a precarious state. Here we stand, on a precipice, and you along with billions of other sheep see random chance. We see the truth, we see the Lords judgment.”

“Oh, so God did this? What? Hurricanes and the AIDS epidemic just weren’t flashy enough anymore for his tastes?” Lee sputters with painful laughter.

Her smile melts away. She considers Lee with a hand propped beneath her chin and a hint of pink tongue poised between her lips.
“You know, tsk, tsk, on you Mr.” She wags a finger at him. “Tsk, tsk. You deride me, you attempt to hurt my feelings and yet here you are. You are helpless, or do you not realize it? You are at His mercy, which means you are at my mercy, or do you not realize it?” She takes to pacing. “You’re onto something, the natural disasters and the AIDS you speak of—messages—yet we did not listen. We were tapped on the shoulder and yet we didn’t turn around, so now, he has to hit us with a hammer. How long did you think he’d let us go on building a nation of mongrels over the ground he’d consecrated for his chosen? How long did you think he’d let us mix pure blood with the blood of savages?” She stands exasperated, arms spread, awaiting a response.

I have none. What words exist that can possibly appease such overpowering insanity? My eyes go to the cross hanging behind her and the crown perched above it.