Robert shook his head. 'I don't know.'
'But you admit it's a posslbfllty.
' He nodded. 'Yeah.'
'We need to start planning.' He grinned. 'Rein, her Jaws? If I've learned anything from movies, it's people in power should not stonewall the public if t have facts in their possession.'
'Facts?'
'We have to come up with some sort of civil defense plan. Publicity should be no problem. We have you. brother We can't paniC people.'
Woods finished his drink. 'You think there is a yamF don't you?'
Robert took a deep breath. 'Maybe.' Woods looked at him, nodded.
They both ordered another drink.
Robert drove himself home. It was stupid and irresl: sible, having had several drinks, but he was the police chief, and there was hardly anyone on the road at time of night.
Robert staggered into the house and immediadly locked the door behind him. He turned on the lights in the living room, then the kitchen, the dining room, the den, the bedroom, the bathrooms. Just in case. '
:
The house was empty.
He took a piss, walked over to the sink, splashed some cold water on his face, and felt a little better.
Walking into the bedroom, he stood just inside the door for a moment and scanned the videotape titles in the bookcase. A lot of them were movies he'd seen once and didn't care to see again. When he'd first gotten his VCR, in the throes of what for a few years had been a full-fledged mania, he'd taped anything and everything, consumed with an absurd desire to own all that he watched. The history of his videotape obsession sat spread out in chronological order on his shelves.
Now, reading those titles, he was reminded of Julie. He moved slowly through the room and lay down on the bed, not bothering to take off his clothes or even kick off his shoes. He rolled on his side and stared at the unfinished oak dresser and the pink flowered print in the frame on the wall above it. He realized that he had never bothered to redecorate after Julie left. The furnishings and decorations had all been chosen by her, were all to her taste. For years he had unthinkingly continued to clean and straighten and live among the abandoned belongings of his ex-wife. This was her world, not his. It was funny how he'd never noticed that before. Well, it wasn't actually funny. It was sad, really. He was like one of those pathetic old guys who kept their wives' memories alive by holding on to clothes and perfume and personal items after they had died.
Was that what he was trying to do? Hold on to Julie's memory?
He didn't think so, but he found himself thinking of her now, wondering where she was, what she was doing, who she was with.
He closed his eyes, tried to will himself to think of some thing else, couldn't. He slowed his breathing, tried to fall. asleep, couldn't.
He opened his eyes, stared into space. He thought of getting out of his clothes, taking a shower or a hot bath, but he did not move, did not do anything. He simply lay there.
It was well after midnight before he finally dozed off.
In the dream he was a little boy, and he was sitting in a bathtub in the middle of a church. His father was standing before him, the Bible in one hand, a switch in the other. The man was lecturing him, but he could not understand the words; they all ran together in a loud, blurred, dictatorial drone. Behind his father, on the altar of the church, his mother was doing a striptease. Her face was calm and bland and plain, the face he'd seen in her photo, but her gyrating body was slick and supple and fantastically well endowed. Her top was already off, her large firm breasts bouncing, and only a thin line of cloth covered her dark pubic area. He tried not to look at his mother, tried to concentrate fully on his father, to focus his attention on his father's lips in order to match the movements with the sounds and decipher what was being said, but he kept sneaking peeks at his mother on the altar, and his father's droning never resolved itself into coherent words.
Pastor Wheeler awoke with an erection.
The throbbing between his legs was painful' demanding but he ignored it. Slowly, calmly, he pushed the sheet off his body, got out of bed, and walked into the kitchen. In the refrigerator, next to the milk, was the pitcher of ice water he kept for just such occurrences. He carried the pitcher to the bathroom and set it atop the closed lid of the toilet as he took off his pajamas. He climbed into the bathtub, grabbed the pitcher, and poured the it water slowly over his already fading erection, gratified to see his organ shrivel beneath the stream of cold liquid.
He stepped out of the tub, patted dry his pubic are with a towel, and once again put on his pajamas.
It was still dark outside, and Wheeler walked into his study, glancing at the liquid quartz numbers on his de, clock.
Three-thirty.
The time when Joseph of Arimathea laid Christ's boc to rest in the tomb.
He had awakened at three for the past five nights, an though he had not seen Jesus, he knew from the significance of the time that the Savior was speaking to him.
He assumed that Christ was happy with the way thing! were progressing.
If He had been displeased, He would] have confronted Wheeler with his inadequacy and failur But things were progressing as planned.
Wheeler stared down at his desk, at the plans spre out there. The first addition was not yet completed, the materials had arrived yesterday for the third section of the new church, and he saw no reason for the work be done in stages, no reason why one phase of the church's construction had to wait for a completion of the old. Jesus needed the entire complex completed before October 31, the date of His rebirth, and heads were goir to roll if it was not done to His satisfaction. So Wheel now had the skilled laborers working on the frame of the new room while the unskilled workers, within the congregation painted the original building black.
The Church of the Living Christ was going to be the finest structure ever built. The most perfect building on the face of the earth.
Wheeler looked up from the plans, and his eyes passt over the world atlas above the desk. The thought occurr to him that his makeshift conglomeration of two rath, ordinary churches and additions could not hope to match the majesty and power of the cathedrals of Europe or even such heathen structures as the Taj Mahal, that perhaps he would not be able to pay God the respect He deserved, but Wheeler quickly pushed that thought from his mind. He was thinking in Old World terms. It was a New World now.
There would never be anything like the Church of the Living Christ.
Wheeler sat down at his desk and picked up his white bound copy of the Bible, turning to his favorite book, Isaiah. He rad the entire book, from the first verse to the last, backtracking several times to reread his favorite passage: 'Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts the land is burned, and the people are like fuel for the fire; no man spares his brother. They snatch on the right, but are still hungry, and they devour on the left, but are not satisfied; each devours his neighbor's flesh. ''
Smiling to himself, Wheeler closed the Bible and placed it on top of the church plans, feeling restful and contented. He stood, stretched.
He had to go to the bath room, and he walked back across the hall. He pulled up the toilet seat, slipped his penis through the pajama flap, and urinated.
A stream of red flowed out of his body into the toilet. Wheeler stared down at the swirling red water. He was surprised, a little shocked, but not scared. The blood in his urine would have panicked him a month ago, would have made him go immediately to a doctor to find out what was wrong. But he knew now that Jesus was showing him Hi gratitude for all he had done.
And the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.
Wheeler finished, flushed the toilet, and returned to his bedroom.
There was a lot of talk of blood in the Bible. He had noticed that recently while preparing his sermons almost though it was not something that had jumped out at him before. Blood was important to God in the Old Testament, important to Jesus in the New Testament. What was it that
Jesus had said at the Last Supper? 'Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood.'
Jesus liked to drink blood.
'
