Soon, when he was worthy enough, when the Church of the Living Christ was completed, Jesus would ask
Wheeler to dine with Him, and they would feast on the blood of the sinners. The blood would be purified within their bodies, the bad made good.
He would have to get used to the blood first, however.
He did not want to embarrass himself before the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Maybe he would try some blood. Start off with some ' thing small. A bug maybe. Then work his way up to a rat.
A cat. A dog.
Wheeler smiled to himself. He would make Jesus proud of him.
He closed his eyes and fell leep instantly.
They awoke before Anna for once, and Rich place. tentative hand between Corrie's legs, testing the war, His fingers pressed against wiry pubic hair and soft and then Corrie's muscles tightened, her legs closed, she firmly pushed his hand away. He lay there for a moment, silent, unsure of whether to press on or give up] had been weeks since they'd last had sex, and it de pre him to realize that he could not even remember the exact day.
How had they let their love life deteriorate to point?
He turned toward her, spoke softly. 'Anna's not up you know.'
She gave him a disgusted look; then rolled over to the other direction.
'I'm still tired. I need more sleep He sighed, got out of bed to make breakfast. The day was long. In the morning Rich hacked of columns, typeset a want ad, and went over Sue's making only minimal changes to her lead, surprise pleased by the relatively high quality of her writin Fredricks came by and dropped off a roll of film and sports articles, staying for only a few minutes to sho breeze. Corrie brought Anna by after lunch, saying to Carole and not bothering to come into the back him, and for most of the afternoon Anna sat in the next to the secretary, reading a book, while he ran out what he had and began pasting up the pages.
After work, Rich took Anna to Mike's for pizza. To her it was a special treat, and he was glad she felt that way, but they were going out tonight more out of necessity than desire. Just before five, Corrie had called from the church and, for the third day in a row, said she would not be home for dinner. The mere thought of having to eat another one of his own meals made him feel like gagging, so he'd asked Anna if she would like to go out for pizza, and of course she'd said yes.
She stood now with a group of her school friends, watching a thin, dirty, tough-looking boy kill row after row of aliens on a video game.
Rich sat on a hard bench at the table by the front window, fiddling with a glass shaker of Parmesan cheese, glancing idly around. He had not realized that the pizza parlor would be so crowded on a weeknight, or that so many parents let their children out unattended. Fully half of the kids clustered around the video game were on their own recognizance, with no parent or older sibling in sight.
His gaze shifted from the video game crowd to the parking lot outside the window. Before leaving the office, he had called Robert and asked him to meet them here, but his brother hadn't been sure he would be able to make it. So far there'd been no sign of Robert's car.
Rich stared blankly out at the vehicles in the parking lot, wondering why Corrie was having to spend so much overtime at the church. Surely Wheeler couldn't have that much work piled up--at least not work that required immediate attention. So why did Corrie feel compelled to late instead of the next
The thought briefly crossed his mind that she was hay stay finishing things up day? ing an affair, but he dismissed that ludicrous idea immediately. He'd been watching too many movies.
Besides, Corrie seemed to find the idea of any sex all these days fairly repulsive.
He found himself listening to the talk of the people around him, tuning in one discussion, then another, ears conversation hopping. Reporter's instinct. At the ble behind him, an old man he couldn't see and had noticed upon arriving was talking about his heart problems: '... I woke up naked as ajaybird with a tube shos up my nose. There was a doctor there, and I asked him what was happening, but he just told me to take a deep breath, and then I was out again. I woke up and I had big 1' scar down the side of my leg, and my chest hurt like a son of a
'bitch...'
A cowboy-hatted man at the table to the left of wearing a turquoise bob tie, was talking about a dog in Phoenix: '... He said he got the skinny on from them fLxed races an' said he'd cut me in on it. I shot known right there that he was a crooked...'
A braless woman wearing a black tank top, stare with her equally braless friend at the counter: 'Rob he's going to make some stakes and crosses...' Stakes and crosses.
He tried to zero in on that conversation, but they moved away from the cash register toward the back. He thought of following them, trying to eavesdrop, just then Robert walked through the door, looking at the crowded restaurant, and Rich waved his brother Robert sat down.
'Where's Anna?'
Rich nodded his head toward the video game. 'Oh.' He picked up Anna's water glass. 'That's her glass.'
'I'll get her another one. I'm dying of thirst. downed the water in a single swallow, leaving only the cubes. 'God, that tastes good. The drinking fountain crapped out on us this morning at the station, and been having to make do all day. I'm telling you, you realize how much you rely on something like that until it dies. Especially in this weather.' When do you think this heat wave's going to end?'
'Who the hell knows?' , Rich took a sip of his own water. 'So what's happening?'
Robert chuckled. 'You know, I'm never sure if you're asking that as a brother or a reporter.' c!
Rich smiled. 'Both.'
'You heard about the animal hospital, didn't you?'
'That's my front page story.'
'Well, that's not the half of it. Norbit over at the Shell station said it looked like a sandstorm hit his bathroom last week. Said the floor, the sink, everything was covered with a foot-high layer of sand.
He thinks teenagers are responsible, only he claims that it happened while he was working, and he didn't see or hear anything. He came bitching to me about it this morning, asking me what I'm going to do about it. He waits a week to tell me, cleans it up before letting me look at it, doesn't even take any pictures, and expects me to tell him the culprits are about to be caught? I straightened him out, let me tell you. You know Am Hewett?' Rich shook his head. Works over at Basha's? Liquor deparefit?' :... 'Tall guy? Balding?'
'Yeah. That's him. Anyway, he's gone. The whole family's up and disappeared. I don't know if they just pulled up stakes and left, or if something happened to them. I got a call from Bailey, his boss, who said he'd already called neighbors and Hewett's sister, but no one knows anything. I ran a check on Hewett, and he's done some time, but it was years ago and for small stuff. I cabled the sister and told her she could file a missing person's, but she sounded real squirrely, so I don't know what the hell she plans to do.' He shook his head. 'There's a lot of weird shit going down, a lot of weird shit, and I don't like it. 'Whatever happened with Sophocles Johnson?'
Robert looked into his glass, shook the ice cubes. 'Did he ever let you talk to him?'
'Yeah, I talked to him. He's crazy as a damn bedbt He put on a normal act with me, told me that he he had some problems to work out and was seeking he] but I could tell it was a load of horse pucky.'
'Sounds like you have your hands full these days.' 'That's why I came over here tonight. I need a bred
'What about the FBI? Aren't they supposed to be givi you help?'
Robert snorted. 'Rossiter has the attention span fucking gnat. He and his boys came in here all hot to acting real official, threw their weight around, told they were going to put their resources behind this, m haven't heard word one from them since.' He pop an ice cube in his mouth. 'Not that I'm complaining.' FBI and the state police investigating crimes in Rio Vi is kind of like the old bull in the china shop routir don't think they understand the place or the people enough to tread as carefully as they need to in order find this..' whatever it is.' 'Well, isn't that your job? To acquaint them wit town, act as their liaison?': 'whose side are you on?'
::
'No one's side. This just seems a little out of league. I mean, murders and grave robbings are no
'No graves were robbed, and for your informadol is not out of my league. I'm not the tube you see think I am.' 'I didn't say that, and I don't think it. Don't worked up over nothing. Jesus.' 'Well...'
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