The Rabid (Book 1) (19 page)

Hand carved.

Hand polished.

Heavy and solid.

My dad had a friend that dabbled in woodwork out of his garage. He whittled a few pieces here and there for me, for birthdays and once or twice for the sheer fun of it. I like to think I’ve got an eye for the good stuff, for the genuine articles. Right now though, more than anything, I’m just trying to avoid her glare. That spotlight glare. I’ve taken more than enough punishment for one day.

However, Lee and I are not on the same page. Perhaps the puff pastries that sit across his eyes have impeded more than just his vision, because he speaks, and he speaks without filter. “Jesus Christ lady, save the bullshit. I lived through the eighties; I heard your type rant all the time. Back then, you morons were trying to fund your little fringe group with thrill seeker liquor store hold ups and half-assed bank heists. Nothing has changed with you people; you’re still the same group of clowns, except now your little faction is led by a woman. I’m sure you make the feminists very proud. What do you want, a pat on the back? A high five?”

She slowly folds her hands across her waist, nodding.

Is she insulted?

I cannot tell.

“Okay then,” Just like that, she says it, all cheery like a black & white sitcom. She twists towards the altar, hands still clasped at her waist; I almost expect her to come back around with a pan full of muffins and an apron.

She comes back around with a .38. 

She crosses the floor with punchy determination. Lee tries to shuffle back; he only seems to notice the gun as its being leveled at his forehead. She stops him cold by digging a stiletto heel into his shoulder blade.

The squish of flesh and the crunch of sinew are audible.

It is part scream and part growl, a sound perverted by tight lips drawn across broken teeth. His breaths are shallow and rapid, he dare not move for fear of her penetrating straight through and on down into the floorboards.

She cocks the hammer.

“Wait, wait, ma’am, no.” I’m trying to get closer, but what am I going to do? Belly bump her? Make her feel marginally uncomfortable? She’s just as liable to put a bullet in me as she is him.

She studies him if he’s some insect stuck beneath a needle, her eyes focusing in and out like a camera lens. She smiles that Susie Homemaker smile again. “You used the Lords name in vain.” She bends forward, her skirt climbing the back of her thighs, touching the barrel to his forehead. “You will not ever use the Lords name in vain in my presence again. Am I clear? If you
do, I will put a bullet right through your skull. I’ll even smile while I’m doing it, just like this, so the last image you’ll see in your miserable life will be something pretty.”

“OKAY—KAYKAYKAY—”

She pulls her heel from his shoulder, slowly savoring it. The gaping wound quickly dyes the surrounding fabric in a rich crimson. “I’m glad we’ve reached common ground.” She releases the hammer on the pistol and strolls back towards the altar, whistling some unknown tune.

“Um, Pastor Waters?”
I bite into each word, gently, careful to avoid the sharp edges.

She turns once more, still smiling
that
smile. She brushes her bangs back with the barrel of the .38. “Call me Vivian. Don’t shorten it. Don’t call me V. Last guy that called me V, got tied to a trailer hitch and drug through town. He didn’t stop screaming for two miles, right about the time his legs got ripped from his body by a utility pole.” She giggles, covering her lips with her fingertips. “I’m just—oh go on, what were you trying to say?”

“I uh,
well, I just was wondering when I might see my mom and sister?”

“I see no reason why there must be further delay. Let’s get you boys cleaned up and then we’ll take you down to see them.”

Lee is in a bad way. His shirt clings to his body like plastic wrap, soaked red by a potent mixture of blood and sweat. His hair, normally a bushel of bounding curls, is sopping flat against his skull. He doesn’t speak, he whimpers and creaks.

I wait until she is gone and I scoot close, keeping my voice to a whisper. “I know you’re in pain
, man, but we are going to get out of this. Like you said, we’ve just got to be cool.”

30

The Kennels, they call them.

It’s a row of padlocked dog cages bolted into the floor, lined side by side, up and down fifty yards of hallway. The hall is made up of white rebar enforced brick walls and the kind of smooth black on grey cement flooring you find in factories and auto garages. Hanging from the ceiling is a single file line of exposed bulbs, buzzing and popping like insects, faintly swaying with the passing of the single man patrol that comes through every fifteen minutes to check on and harass us.

He’s nothing special. He looks like the rest
, tee shirt and jeans, a toothpick hanging lazily from his lips. He carries an AK-47 in his arms and a pistol on his hip. He keeps the experience fresh by occasionally kicking our cages and slinging racial epitaphs at us as he goes by.

“Nigger lover
.”

“Coon coddler
.”

“Race
tradin’ monkey fucker,” (my personal favorite).

Dog kennels are not built for human comfort—at the moment
, I doubt whether they’re even built for
dog
comfort.

My knees are buried against my chest, my upper back presses violently against the metal grating. Lee is next to me, contorted in a similar fashion. His shirt has been removed and his wounds wrapped. He ate most of the food they’d slopped us with earlier
, and he’s been putting together words and sentences without them falling across his tongue like a drunken sailor. He still looks like hell though.

Momma lost it when she first saw him. She threw herself against the cage, cursing like I’d never heard her curse before. Eventuall
y, Bethany and me were able to talk her down. After that, she’d kept her cheek pressed against the bars, whispering with him, recalling stories of when they first met. She even strained her fingers trying to steal a touch of his head, to no avail.

“Anyone seen
Ms. Cassie or her daughter?” I feel like I am talking to myself, forced to stare straight ahead into the pitted wall. I can turn my head, but just barely. It hurts. It isn't worth the effort. Better just to find a moderately uncomfortable position and stick with it.

“We heard some screaming that sounded like them. I haven’t seen them since the house
.” Bethany is on the other side of Momma and seems as comfortable as a mouse in a cheese wheel; if height and weight have ever granted her a leg up in life, let it be noted that it was on this day.

“Yeah
, hon, it didn’t sound good. I can’t even bear to think what these people are capable of,” Momma says.

“Look at Lee’s face, that’s what they’re capable of, and he’s white. Our primary concern needs to be figuring a way out of here; no way they’re
gonna let us go. Any ideas?”

The roamer is back, I’m not sure if he’s heard my solicitation for an escape plan or not. I tuck my head and hope for the best.

He stops in front of me, spits on the ground, and kicks the door of my cage. “Knees back, Purple Rain.”

“Oh
, a Prince reference, you guys really dig deep don’t you.” Lee laughs.

No, no, haven’t you had
enough?
I want to reach through the bars and choke him.
Let the redneck pass, let him get his remarks in, whatever keeps his feet moving. Don’t give him reason to stop. Don’t give him reason to hurt us more than we’ve already been hurt. Momma and Bethany, think of Momma and Bethany, you dumb hippie.

He racks a round into the chamber of the AK and sticks the tip of the barrel through the bars, his finger skimming the trigger. “Faggot, I’ll shoot you in this cage like a dinner hog.”

“Hang on, he’s just hungry and sleep deprived. Give the guy a break, look at his face? You think he’s got any marbles to rub together right now?”

The sentry slides his tongue over his upper lip and slowly brings the rifle back to rest. “Well
, alright then. Service is happenin’ here in an hour or so. Pastor said to let ya’ll know.” He disappears around the corner, his footsteps fading up the stairs.

“Lee, what happened to playing it cool?”

“Yeah, honey, that wasn’t smart.”

He snorts through what is most likely a broken nose. “I’m just so tired of these racist pricks.”

“I think we all are, but can you not get us shot over it.”

“I’ve still got my gun.”

Bethany speaks with such passivity that I don’t fully grasp what she’s said. “Come again, sis, what was that?”

“I said
, I’ve still got my gun. The one Bo gave me.”

“The pistol?”
I want to jump to my knees and shake the damn bars with excitement.

“Yes
.”

“Sweetie, you didn’t tell me that.” Momma sounds betrayed.

“You didn’t ask, and I didn’t think it was something to brag about loudly considering the people listening.”

“How’d you hold onto it?” Lee asks.

“They didn’t search me.”

“Sexist bastards, their bigotry may yet be their downfall.” He shakes his head between his knees, gasping in pain when one of his kneecaps accidently bumps the purple mound of flesh around his right eyeball.

“Okay, we’ve got to get this right. We’re only going to get one shot at it. We screw it up and we’re done, they’ll shoot us right then and there. Where do you have the gun stashed?”

“Under my shirt, in my back waistband.”

“Alright, try to get it to me during the service. Just keep your eyes on me, and wait for my signal, alright?”

Bethany doesn’t sound nearly as nervous as I’d like her to.
“Yeah, sure.”

Then again, I’m probably nervous enough for all of us. Dance recital nervous. That’s what I feel currently. That balled up feeling in my stomach of just wanting it to happen already. It was never about winning or losing, it was just about getting it over with. I wanted to know where the chips were going to lay. Every possible scenario played itself out on a mental reel-to-reel; tripping and falling, the crowd laughing at my routine, the music skipping—never about
victory—I could handle loss. I handled loss. I just wanted to know whether it was coming or not. It's worse now though. The stakes are higher. It's not about being mocked or placated with a participation ribbon. This is Momma or Bethany being shot. Lee getting shot, or even worse, getting in the way and getting all of us shot. These are the scenarios I’m working with. It’s going to be a pistol in a roomful of rifles. I’ll be a field mouse in a vipers nest. What options do I have? Maybe we’re dead either way. I’ll go down fighting. I figure if there is an afterlife, and my father is there waiting for me, at least I’ll be able to look him in the eyes.

The guard is back, whistling a tune like the one I’d heard Vivian humming earlier. His focus wavers on Lee a little longer than the rest of us, but he continues on without kicking our cages or hurling further profane sentiments.

An omen of things to come? One can only hope—and wait.

31

At this angle, sitting upright without a boot buried in my jaw, the sanctuary is actually quite striking. The walls to my left and right are made up of long pieces of stained glass dyed in various shades of purple, green, and pink. Each new pane is divided by floor to ceiling pillars that flower outward at the top and connect with a series of thick rectangular beams, each one supporting three large black speakers pointed down towards the audience. The
aisle-facing portion of each pew is hand carved with scripture and floral design work. Each appears to have been recently and painstakingly polished; the dark mahogany blooms beneath the three-tiered chandeliers hanging overhead.

The mirage is shattered
, as Ms. Cassie and her daughter are forced to their knees in front of the altar by a couple of cackling hillbilly types dressed in collared shirts and the sort of cheap bargain bin jeans that sag in the ass. The women are bound and gagged and are made to face outward over the sea of pale faces. Their eyes are closed and their mouths appear to be moving in prayer beneath the layer of thick cloth stuffed between their lips. The two burly escorts take a seat in one of the front pews, quickly forgetting their cargo, and engaging in animated conversation with one another.

Security is tight, as I’d anticipated it would be. An armed man stands at the front of the sanctuary guarding a single exit door. Two more stand at the back guarding the main entrance. We sit in the middle of the crowd, under their watchful eye. The good news is
, they’ve unbound our hands and our feet. The bad news is, they’ve separated us; Lee and I on one side of the aisle, Bethany and Momma on the other. The only way I am getting that gun is if Bethany hurls it to me like a football. We’d be cut down like chaff before my finger even breezed the trigger; the plan is a no go.

We’ll figure something else out.

We have to figure something else out.

I didn’t expect this many people. There are dozens of survivors here. It’s a shame that all of them are fringe radicals. The pews are packed. People of all shapes and all sizes have come out to see the show. It's a family affair. There are men wearing neck ties and dark blazers, their sons in little button downs with sweater vests pulled over top, the women with their just-so makeup and their gravity defying hair do’s. They sit there, loving on each other, patting their little ones on the head; to them
, it’s just another Sunday.

A side door opens. It’s Vivian, with Dorian and Donny at her back acting as her personal guard. She’s wearing a blazer over her white blouse to match her just-above-the-knees black skirt. She lugs a heavy Bible under her right arm, the pages rife with sticky notes and extraneous study materials. The congregation stands upon her arrival, everyone except the four of us. I expect a rifle butt in the back of the head in return for my open rebellion, I watch for it out of the corners of my eyes.

It never comes.

Either they
don’t notice, or they don’t care. Maybe they expected as much. Maybe they've got something terrible planned for us and figure there is no use in wasting the energy to rough us up a little more.

“You may be seated, children of the first born.” She lowers a hand across the crowd as she takes her place behind the pulpit and relinquishes her Bible. She opens the cover and begins
shuffling through the pages, stopping suddenly, and looking out across her flock. She smiles, the same sugar & spice type smile I witnessed earlier as she was pressing a revolver to Lee’s skull. “Yes, Yahweh, yes.” She shakes her head and turns dutifully to the cross at her back, raising her hands as high as they’ll go. “Speak to me, Father, and I will speak to them.” She rocks back and forth like one of those tube dancer balloons used by car dealerships and desperate strip malls.

“Yes
, Father, speak to us.”

“In your name
, Jesus.”

Folks are standing, mimicking her movements, their hands raised, some cry, others shake, some chatter in a strange language I’ve never heard before.

Ms. Cassie and her daughter cry and chatter as well; out of fear rather than fanaticism.

Vivian springs back around
, landing with a loud thump on the stage, her eyes are wide, as if she’s been spooked by some unseen force. She slams a fist down on the pulpit so hard that it sends her Bible and notes plummeting to the floor. “The Philistines are coming!”

“Amen!
”

“Preach it!
”

“Hard truths!”

“I said, the Philistines are coming!”
Dorian is on his hands and knees, doing his damndest to keep his rifle shouldered while he collects Vivian’s scattered notes. “In fact, they’re already here. They’re pounding at the gates. The survivors, they have fled in fear. The shutters have been closed. The doors have been locked. The streets are littered with the bodies of our people; our loved ones, mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons. Our fields, they burn, our storehouses, they lay empty. Our way of life has been flayed open and left exposed for these invaders to pick apart. But all is not lost.”

“Amen!”

“That’s right!”

“I said, all is not lost!”
This time she is careful to hold her Bible in place with one hand while she batters the pulpit.

“Thank you
, Jesus!”

“Praise His holy name!”

“Do you know where the final line of defense lay? Do you know what makes up that final line of defense?” She jabs a finger into the center of her breasts and then waves it out over the crowd like a wand. “Us, this room, me, you, all of us, we make up that final line. God doesn’t care how old or young you are, he doesn’t care if you’re male or if you’re female, we’re his chosen. Look at your neighbor right now and you tell them,
you’re his chosen,
go on, do that right now.”

Lee is leaning into me, whispering,
and his breath stinking of dried blood. “This is bad, Two-Step; this is not a church service. This is the riling of a mob.”

He’s right. It’s in the air.

An electricity.

They remind me of
a chained Doberman lunging for a slab of dangling meat. Any minute the collars will break, and then what of Ms. Cassie and her daughter? What of us?

“How many of you know that being chosen doesn’t mean anything? You can be chosen all day long, but if you don’t get out there and do something about it
, then you’re no different than those who were not chosen. Just because you are destined, doesn’t mean you reach your destiny.”

“Yep
.”

“That’s right
.”

She pivots from behind the pulpit, moving down one step. “Let me say it a different way.” She bends over with her hands on her knees, getting eye level with the frenzied flock. “You’ve been chosen, and you can choose to roll over, like the rest of the nigger lovers, and let the descendants of Cain run pell-mell over these streets, this city, this state, and this country. Or, you can stand up as children of Adam, chosen by Yahweh, and cast the soldiers of Satan back into the pit of hell from whence they came.”

“Kill em’ all!”

“Lynch those niggers!”
He has a bow tie and a bushy goatee. He stands waving his fist while his son sits down beside him flipping through a dark blue hymnal with the crowned cross emblazoned across the front. His wife is opposite the child and is running a handkerchief in circles above her head, tears falling from her eyes.

“Two-Step, they’re
gonna kill them. If we don’t do something, they’re going to kill them. Then what the hell was all this for? What’d we even save them for?” His face is one giant bruise, the swelling is almost cartoonish, incapable of betraying emotion, however, his voice more than carries the extra load.

I don’t physically acknowledge him. I remain still. No need to attract unwanted attention. “Tell me something I don’t know
, chief. You think I’m not painfully aware of what’s about to happen. We’re back at the wood line again, Lee. It’s the red car, the woman, and the baby all over again.”

“No, no, I refuse to accept that.”

“There are two guys standing behind you at the door and a few more up front that are more than happy to help you accept that.”

Vivian has an elbow propped on the pulpit, waiting for the cheers and jeers to die down to a low roar before she continues. “We compromised didn’t we?” She removes her glasses and lays them on her Bible, rubbing at her eyes with a thumb and a forefinger. She takes another step down and walks over to where
Ms. Cassie and her daughter kneel before the congregation, placing a hand on each one of their heads. “We brought them over as slaves, a rightful position within our society considering from whence they sprang. But then what? All it took were a few. A few double minded nigger sympathizers are all it took. We ended up with the thirteenth amendment and it just snowballed from there.” Her hands turn into fists. Ms. Cassie and her daughter cry out as Vivian strains their scalps. Lee springs forward. His body is a stick of dynamite. His arms rigid at his sides. His knuckles are white from where he grips the bottom of the pew. I drop a hand on his knee and shake my head, hoping it’ll be enough to disarm the timer. “We got the mixing of blood and thereby we bolstered the numbers of their mongrel army. We got nigger music, niggers controlling our media, and brainwashing our children. People, we even got a nigger in the white house. How long did you think He was going to allow this to continue?”

Disjointed claps fill the air.

“Preach—Preach!”

Shaking heads.

Delusional conviction.

The window of opportunity is growing smaller.

The collars are growing looser.

“If it’d have been me,”
she releases them, wipes her hands on Ms. Cassies dress, and approaches the mouth of the aisle. “I’d have just killed everyone and started again. I guess that’s why I’m not God.”

Laughter fills the air, even the little ones join in on the act; chuckling to their parents approval.

“The Aztecs and the Mayans—mongrels in every respect—were on to something. They understood something that has been lost upon us as a nation. They knew that a slight against the Lord, could only be amended through the shedding of blood. Here we stand, as they once did, our people teetering on the brink of extinction. Shall we perish?” She walks back up the stairs and retrieves something from beneath the pulpit that I am unable to identify. “Or, shall we bring to pass the prophecy of Daniel and create an everlasting kingdom that shall never be destroyed.” She holds up the mystery object. It reflects the light like a freshly shined shoe, a silver surgical scalpel. “Blood is the price demanded by Yahweh. I say to you this day, he who puts his hand to the plow and looks back, is not fit to enter the kingdom of heaven.” She approaches Ms. Cassie, slowly, making a show of it, twirling the savage little object between two fingers like the worlds tiniest baton. “Brothers and sisters, join me.” She slashes her face in one swift diagonal motion. Vivian holds the blade, the tip now adorned in crimson, high above her head. She is greeted by a round of thunderous applause.

“
Goddamnit, you crazy bitch!” Lee charges past me and is in the aisle before I can move to dissuade him. He is taken to the floor mid stride. The guard pulls him to his feet, pinning his arms by his side. He is being drug towards the entrance. Momma is turned in her seat, gripping the back of her pew, sobbing and begging for his release.

“Stop,” Vivian’s voice echoes above the commotion. Her eyes flicker as she draws her tongue across her lips. “Make him stay and watch. Hold him there. If he moves again
, shoot the mother and daughter.”

Momma turns back around in haste, a rifle barrel now aimed at the back of her head. She shuts her eyes, sniffling as she rocks Bethany in her arms. Lee’s knees are popped from beneath him by the swift kick of a black boot heel. Every face in the crowd watches the spectacle wordlessly.

Except for me.“Don’t you move again, Lee, you hear me? Don’t you move again!” I yell, my voice now a high screech.

Vivian recaptures her audience with the next cut, this time it’s across Cassie’s collar bone. She squeals. The gag in her mouth is saturated with the blood cascading from the deep gash sprawling across the right side of her face. Her daughter is bucking her restraints, her eyeballs bulging in their sockets, trying to put herself between her mother and the scalpel. She tumbles onto her side, her antics drawing a chorus of broken laughter.

“Join me,” Vivian holds the scalpel out to no one and everyone.

Slowly the crowd stands; man, woman, and child. The children are prodded forward. Most of them recoil against the blood and the struggle, caving to that part of their soul that still protests the sight of human suffering. Some of the boys grow watery eyed, looking for their fathers to absolve them and let them turn back.

They are ignored.

They are pushed along.

Some violently.

“Stiffen that upper lip,”
the man is shaped like a bowling pin. He draws the back of his hand across his son’s face. The son, a shorter less shapely version of his father, shudders as the red welts rise against the pale flesh of his right cheek. He tempers his emotion by gnawing on his fists and hiding at his mother’s waist, as they draw ever closer to the altar.