Xeno Sapiens (34 page)

“
The new lust is the belief many today
harbor. Many
near
to you.”

Hall stopped as a slight gasp went up
from the audience. He pointed his bible at a window through which
the lights of the Alamo were plainly visible, shining atop the
mountain like a lighthouse in a storm.

“
At this place,” he asserted, “are the
leading proponents of the lust not just for knowledge, but for
forbidden knowledge. The lust for the power of creation that
belongs only to God.” Hall thumped his fist on the podium.
“To
God!”

A disbelieving roar lifted from the
crowd.

“
They have profited from their lies,
from sending souls to hell. They are smug in their belief God is
dead. They believe they can mock and banter at Him with
impunity.

“
But let me tell you, friends. God is
not dead, and He has not gone away. The judge of the science
merchants is watching and their destruction is mandated by God
Himself.”

Hall pounded his bible on the podium.
He paced back and forth like a caged lion.

“
The Lord deals out stern punishments
to the faithless. He did not mercifully spare the ancient world
which was awash with wickedness. He spared only Noah and his family
from the flood. He saved Lot, who was a Godly man in a den of
thieves.

“
The science merchants who feel they
are
above
God are stiff-necked, vulgar and arrogant. They insult the
angels and spit at the name of God.”

While Hall raged on and on, Clifton
heard the sound of rattling glass. A sound like you hear outside
your window at night and you tell yourself it’s just a dog, or a
bug flitting against the screen. He didn’t know if anyone else
heard it or not. He slowly turned toward the auditorium’s entrance
as the murmurs of indignation rose around him.

“
...by God, should have known they was
into...”

“
...some sort of
deviltry..,”

“
...up there on the hill. Shut away
like...”

“
...like princes in their ivory
towers...”

“
Or,”
Hall boomed in an amplified voice that
bludgeoned the soft murmur. A piercing wail of feedback screamed
from the loudspeakers. The sound of pattering raindrops
intensified, becoming heavier and denser. The glass doors were
awash with rain water that ran like sluggish rivers through beds of
condensation.

“
Or,”
Hall continued more moderately,
“like
princesses
in their ivory towers.”

Alex barely heard him. He concentrated
on what looked like a bleak, bedraggled shape huddled in the
shadows outside the main entrance.

He wouldn’t come here. It
would be madness. You’ve been out like a light for two months,
small wonder you’re seeing gremlins around every corner.
Concentrate on Josh, baby, and don’t be swayed by weird feelings.
Feelings like there’s something right outside; something that’s
looking in here at all the people like they were ants at a picnic
or funny little bugs under a microscope. Feelings like he’s looking
right through you to Josh Hall. And you know he’s thinking, now.
He’s learned to hate.

And then it came.

A searing bolt of lightning flared.
Bare instants before the crash of thunder came, the overhead lights
went out. The monitors on the TV cameras cracked and fizzled,
crapping out in loud, blinding flashes of snow. Clifton saw Seth’s
wretched, ashen and quasi-human face plastered against the glass
door. A livid gash ran along the left side of his face and closed
one eye down to a slit. His palms were flattened against the glass
and he looked like a child staring hungrily in the window of a
candy shop.

A fraction of a second later, Seth was
lost from sight as the lightning subsided.

The subsequent blast of thunder roared
through the building like a tornado unleashed, shaking the
structure in every footing, brick, and board. There were gasps and
nervous screams. Candlelight flickered and danced, as if touched by
a giant’s breath.

Another, less intense bolt of lightning
flickered. Clifton watched the black pane of glass and the deserted
street beyond. It seemed everyone in town had attended the
sermon.

“
A sign from the Lord,”
Hall expounded in a
religious ecstasy. He clasped his bible to his breast with both
hands. His closed eyes were raised heavenward.

“
What price must we pay for the good
life,”
he
shouted, his sonorous voice carrying over the listeners even though
the PA system had gone down. He stared down on his sheep with the
eyes of a man transported by his vision. The bare candlelight
turned his face a ruddy, bloody red and shadowed his eyes like
lampblack.

“
Are we willing to turn away from the
one, true God Who has promised us everlasting life for the sake of
a few merchants of evil who say they have the cure to your earthly
ills?”

Hall raised his bible overhead. It
hovered there, trembling slightly, a hawk about to dive for the
kill.

Something settled into the ambiance of
the auditorium and thickened the air to lead in Clifton’s lungs.
The room began to stink of overloaded electrical circuits.
Movements appeared slow and sluggish. The hair on his arms and the
back of his neck stirred like grass in the wind.

“
Turn away from them,
brethren,”
Hall screamed, “Put your faith only in God for He is the
true resurrection!” On “resurrection” Hall thumped his bible on the
rostrum.

A gigantic lightning bolt blazed across
the skyline like a nuclear explosion. The glass doors of Sedgefield
auditorium exploded from the outside. Rapidly whirling shards of
razor-edged glass blew into the crowd on the dragon’s breath of
thunder that followed.

The candles blew out as one. Frightened screams erupted.
Somewhere behind the stage curtains, Clifton heard a hoarse whisper
instruct,
“...go get the goddammed lights turned on...”
and the sound of
hurrying footsteps. Hall’s audience became an exercise in terror.
They stared warily into the rainswept night beyond the shattered
glass, nothing visible of their faces but the scleras of their
eyes.

Outlined by the frequent lightning flashes, the monster
stared in at them. It was not human by any means. It was eight feet
tall and hugely muscled. It’s bulbous head and insect eyes were
terrifying. It-
he
-was naked. His face was horribly mangled and one roving
black eyeball reflected red as scarce light rays bounced off the
tapetum.

Alex found it difficult to breathe. His
chest tightened like an oaken keg bound with iron bands.

Seth’s brutish hulk towered outside the
shattered window, rain soaked and dripping, glaring balefully with
his good eye. Howling gales blasted sheets of freezing rain into
the auditorium. Hall’s eyes showed briefly in the constant
lightning flashes and Alex saw the senseless glitter in
them.

Sparked by an electric undercurrent,
the congregation milled and huddled like a flock of sheep fearing
the attack of half-starved wolves. Thunder rumbled distantly and
trampled off the black edge of the earth on leaden shoes. A
ponderous humming sprang to life in the auditorium, gaining
urgency. The overhead lights flashed briefly to life, flickered
listlessly, then perished, plunging the auditorium into final
darkness.

Moans drifted up but where quickly
drowned out when the humming began to oscillate. The vibrations
shook the building’s foundations. The audience drew itself up and
up, threatening to spill from its restraints and become a stampede.
The oscillations stretched to a dizzying height, wavering like a
warbling top. A sudden, screeching voice came up over the top of
the grainy sound. It was womanish, contemptuous, appearing to come
from the center of the room.

“
Resurrection!”
Seth screamed. He licked the
cut edges of his cheek as he spoke, enjoying the power of the word,
relishing the thought of having stolen the word from the straw man
before him. He held up his hands in brazen mockery of Hall’s
impotence. He had forgotten the fire in his face in his joy at
confronting this veiled demon.

Flickering lightning glowed in jagged
bursts against the walls and guttered out. The frightened faces of
the congregation were lit. Faces stretched into circles of
disbelief; faces with nails clutching at them.

Hall’s voice soared over the hysterical
crowd.

“
See with your own eyes,”
he rebuked,
pointing an accusing finger, “See how the monster mocks the very
Power of God! Are we frightened of the serpent?”

“
I bloody well am,”
came one dissenting
voice from the crowd. Aside from this lone maverick, there was no
other answer, only a cauldron of whimpering parishioners. Ron
Walton scribbled at a frenzied pace, squinting at his pages, trying
to hold his pen light still in his teeth against the jostling of
elbows.

“
Stand with me, brethren,” Hall
implored. “Stand with me and watch the power of Almighty God cast
the demon back into the pit of hell!”

Hall raised his arms over his head as
if appealing for Divine Intervention. For a moment it seemed his
prophecy would be fulfilled. The overhead lights rattled, then
burst with a hollow bang, raining their devil’s teeth on the crowd
below. The very air being drawn for respiration shimmered darkly
before drawing some kind of energy and beginning to glow. It was
not a glow in the sense that a light bulb glows, but a milky
luminescence, like lights cutting through fog. Some power built
over the congregation like a vast, invisible hand towering over
their heads.

Seth drew warily away from the
shattered window. He had underestimated his foe. Hall had no power
from what he called the “Lord”, but the power he did possess was
much like Seth’s; a power drawn from nature. A brooding, paternal
force favoring the hunter best equipped to thwart his enemies.
Seth’s suddenly sensitized jaw bloomed with agony as though someone
had lit a fire against it. Hall held sway over him, facing him down
stare for stare with his lunatic eyes.

Come to me. I’ll show you
how much power you have. I’ll destroy you, then I’ll destroy Ingrid
and anybody else I can bring down in the fray. You’re a devil spawn
and God will not be denied of His sport. Come and meet your master.
Look on the man who will destroy you.

Seth’s bones turned to jelly. His mind
bellowed to destroy this man. Smash him, burn him, grind him to
dust, but he had lost his abilities. He was no longer able to
influence his surroundings; he was just a pawn outplayed in a cruel
chess match by a demented and despotic queen.

The crowd surged back and forth,
unwilling to dart past the intruder, yet equally unwilling to
cluster around Hall who was obviously brainsick. The camera
operators tried fruitlessly to train their lenses on the monster,
but the electricity was gone.

Inexplicably, the videotape machines
went wonky and ejected their tapes, spewing out streamers of
magnetic media like string tugged by a runaway kite.

The two principals faced each other
only seconds more; the irresistible force facing the immovable
object. Sensing in a way that was inborn, the crowd felt the
balance of power shift. The load of righteousness that came from
Hall began to overwhelm the primitive, raw surges of emotion that
poured from Seth. They sensed Seth’s unwillingness to carry the
confrontation further and readied themselves to act on
it.

A final, anemic stroke of lightning showed the fading glow
in Seth’s eye. He now knew, as did the crowd, that Hall was far,
far more dangerous than any of them had suspected. They had felt
the improbable power Seth possessed; had seen his imposing
physique. And they had seen him overwhelmed by a man of God. But
not
their
God, they had belatedly realized. Not the New Testament
God, but an Old Testament God whose appetites were anathema to
them. A god with an appetite for disaster and hatred.

Seth turned and loped into the
darkness. The crowd broke its moorings in true panic.

In what appeared to be an orderly
fashion, a man broke free and sprinted for the door, showing
nothing but asshole and elbows. The rest of the crowd quickly
followed, picking them up and putting them down in a mad scramble
that would carry them far away from Hall’s lunacy.

Clifton was swept away in the general
confusion and had no choice but to be carried along by the tide
into the wet and miserable night. Ron Walton was scooped up by the
tumult. Clifton saw him helplessly trying to keep his notebook out
of the fray by holding it over his head. A woman sideswiped him in
her rush to get to the door. Another man put an elbow into his
ribs. Walton’s notebook went flying as if it had sprouted wings.
The wings died and the pages fluttered to the ground where they
were shredded by feet eager to destroy every account of the night’s
events. Walton’s mini tape recorder tumbled from his jacket pocket
and was stomped into an unrecognizable mass of plastic and
metal.