are a lot of people out there who'll be grateful for the information from a practical standpoint. People are worded.'
Robert leaned against his desk. 'Tell me about it.' Rich paused.
'The reason I stopped by is because I think we should bring this up at the town council meeting next Thursday. This is getting too big. I think we need to develop some sort of... civil defense plan. I think we need to organize. We're not getting anywhere just waiting around for the vampire to strike again. We need to act, not react. We have to try to do something before someone else is killed.'
Robert nodded. 'You're right. I've thought that too. Woods told me that over a week ago, but I've been so busy bagging bodies and following up on all the crackpot calls I've been getting, that I haven't even had time to think. I've probably slept a total of ten hours for the past two weeks.' He looked at his brother. 'You want to put together a presentation?'
'Sure.'
'We'll deliver it together. It'll give it more weighL' He cleared his throat. 'Do you have a cross?'
Rich shook his head. 'No. I'm sure Corrie does, though.'
Robert walked around the desk, opened the top middle drawer, and drew out a thin gold chain with a crucifix dangling from the end, He threw it to his brother. 'Here.
Take this. I'll get another one.'
'I'm sure Corrie---'
'This one's for you. Get one for Corrie and Anna if they don't have them. Buy some jade while you're at it. Go to Fritz's Jewelry Store.
Charge it to me if you can't afford it. Fritz owes me a favor.'
Rich stared at his brother, then slowly nodded. 'Thanks,' he said.
Robert closed the drawer, not meeting Rich's gaze. 'Just do it.'
What in God's name was she doing here?
Shelly stared out the windshield of the van at Sue's home. There was a small square of light from the bathroom window on the side of the house, but other than that the place was dark. Sue, and the rest of her family, were dead asleep. Dead. Asleep.
Shelly shivered.
'What time you got?' Mr. Hillman asked.
There was the sound of shuffling in the back. 'one-thirty,' Mr.
Grimes said.
Shelly turned around, looked at the two men, at the silhouetted forms of the others inside the van. There was an almost palpable sense of excitement within the vehicle, and though she felt it too, though her blood was racing, and she could hardly wait to get outside and get to work, she sensed that they were all a little too excited, a little too pumped up, that things tonight might go too far. That scared her.
That scared her a lot.
It had started out innocently enough. She'd gone last Sunday to the Church of the Holy Trinity. She'd heard the rumors, she'd heard the gossip, and she was curious. The service had been held outside, in the vacant lot behind the church, and there had been over a hundred people there, sitting on benches, on folding chairs, on blankets, on boulders.
It had been several years since she'd been to any religious service at all, and she was not sure what prompted her to attend this one. She remembered church as being dry and somewhat boring, like a documentary-- something you knew was good for you but didn't enjoy.
But she had enjoyed Wheeler's sermon.
Oh, yes, she had enjoyed it immensely.
The preacher told it like it was. His topics were not parables from the past, Bible stories from two thousand years ago. He talked about the present.
And the future. It was his talk of the world to come that had really held her spellbound; her and all of the other people sitting enthralled in the cold desert air. Pastor Wheeler did not talk in generalities, did not make vague promises about some faraway future. He spoke in specifics, explained how Jesus would wipe the slate clean, would crush the Catholics bury the Baptists, maul the Methodists. Jesus liked blood, the preacher said, and the taste of human flesh. Christ would feast on the diseased and corrupted bodies of the unrighteous and cleanse the earth. Their discarded bones would line Highway 370, the border of the path of righteousness that would lead through this barren waste land to the Church of the Living Christ.
The people around her had really gotten into the sermon, shouting
'Hallelujah' and 'Praise Jesus!' and she had gotten into it, too. It was as if her eyes had been opened, as if she had merely been existing for the past twenty-two years of her life and had now been invited to live. The loose ends of her world, the unconnected bits and pieces that she had learned and absorbed over the years had suddenly fallen into place, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and she suddenly knew why she had been born, why she was here.
To serve the Lord Jesus Christ
And Jesus would walk among them next week.
After the sermon, she had hung around, not knowing anyone but wanting to meet everyone. She'd spied Mr. and Mrs. Grimes, whom she recognized from the Ranch
Market, and walked over to them. They were talking with a group of five or six other men and women, and all of them had turned toward her when she'd walked up.
'Jesus hates Chinks,' Mrs. Grimes said. 'The pastor said last week that He hated those slant-eyed heathens.'
'Yes,' Shelly said, nodding. She did not know why she was agreeing; she only knew that it felt right.
'Do you want to help us smoke 'em out?' another man asked. He grinned, and there was something infectious in his grin, and she found herself smiling back at him. He looked vaguely familiar, and she knew that she'd seen him around town.
Mr. Grimes nodded his approval. 'You're in, then.'
Shelly had looked around the lot, noticing that most of the congregation had broken into small groups of ten or eleven. All of them seemed to be huddling closer together becoming more intense, more insular in their discussions. I Were they making similar plans?
It was possible. The Lord worked in mysterious ways.
A short, bald man with a curly gray beard scratched his weathered cheek. 'I can get the gasoline,' he said. 'But what about the kindling?'
'No problem,' Mr. Grimes said.
And now they were here.
Once more, Shelly looked out the windshield at Sue's darkened house.
She still felt good about what they were going to do. It still felt right to her. She had no second thoughts, no feelings of guilt or pangs of conscience. This might frighten Sue into seeing the error of her ways, into going to church, into realizing, before next week, before it was too late, that Jesus was the truth and the light. And if it did go too far, if something happened and someone got hurt, well, then it was God's will.
But she and Sue had been friends forever. Since second grade, when they'd met in Mrs. Michaels's class. They'd gone through an awful lot together. Grammar school and junior high and high school. Phases and stages: dolls and music and boys. Sue was her best friend in the world.
But Jesus was more than a friend.
And if she expected to be one of The Chosen, one of
The Forty, she had to prove herself.
'I think they leave the bathroom light on all night,' she said. 'I don't think anyone's up.
'I think you're right,' Mrs. Grimes said. She opened her door, got out on the driver's side, and walked to the back of the van, opening it. 'Be quiet,' she said. 'And let's do it quickly.'
Shelly got out on the passenger side. Her adrenaline was pumping, and she felt ready for anything.
'Jesus wants us to take out those trees,' Mr. Hillman said. 'The pastor said that's the most important thing.'
There were whispers of agreement from the other men and women getting out of the van.
