over to the power of the Lord of Flies.
“Hail Satan!” Mama shouted.
Daddy stroked the rattlesnake. Corpse-cool flesh came alive beneath his fingers. Keeled scales rippled along the serpent’s thick body as it stirred, forked tongue flicking the hot air, yellow eyes alive with evil, slit pupils identical to those of serpents that had crawled the earth long before man trod upon it.
“Hail Lucifer!” Mama screamed.
Daddy drew the serpent from the black box. Nearly six feet in length and thick as a truck driver’s wrist, it was completely white save for those yellow slits that slashed its eyes.
A herpetologist would identify the serpent as Crotalus atrox, or an Albino Western Diamondback Rattlesnake. Daddy called it Cthulhu.
“The dark one is king!” Mama shed tears. “The dark one reigns omnipotent!”
On the altar, the Chihuahua began to whine. Fright shone in its brown eyes. It tried to rise on weak legs.
“Mama! Hold this beast!”
Mama placed her hands on the little dog and held it still. Cthulhu’s great tail encircled Daddy’s forearm. The snake’s enormous head writhed and twisted, facing Daddy, a white diamond made of flesh. Spike’s whine cut the silence, but Daddy ignored it. He stared into the serpent’s eyes, and he began to fall, and tumble, and spin. .
Mama cried, “Satan! Lucifer! Beelzebub! All one! All eternal!”
. . descending into yellow slits in eyes unblinking. And the heat of hell poured through those slits the same way the desert heat slashed through the cracks in the chapel walls, and Daddy was scorched by hellfire, and he burned in the pit, and when he began to rise anew the power was burning in his blood, blistering his flesh, because his eyes were yellow. . he knew they were. . he could feel it. His eyes were yellow slits and Satan was a comin’. .
SATAN WAS A COMIN’. .
. . AND SOON!
Eden threw open the door. Mama screamed. The dog squirmed in her grasp. The great snake’s head hovered over it.
“Daddy,” Eden said. “No!”
Her father’s eyelids fluttered. He looked at his daughter as if she were a ghost. His blue eyes were glazed with ecstasy or fear. . and Eden didn’t know what to say, and for a millisecond all was silent.
Then came the dry cadence of Cthulhu’s rattle. The snake sprang, jaws spread wide, fangs glistening as they ripped Daddy’s cheek.
“No!” Mama screamed as she tore the serpent from Daddy’s face and flung it into the mine shaft.
Daddy collapsed on the floor and the Chihuahua scrambled away, escaping between Eden’s legs.
The dog scrambled past Harold, too. He gave chase, naked and pink under the hot Mojave sun.
Eden wore a robe. Nothing else. She ran to her father’s side. He studied her with that same strange expression on his face, as if he were looking at a ghost whose presence stirred anguish and fear and love. And then a great spasm rocked him, and his eyelids fluttered closed, and he sank into Mama’s arms like a sickly child.
“If he dies. I’ll kill you,” Mama said. “I’ll burn you down. I’ll rip your heart out.”
“Mama. . I’m sorry-”
“You’re
Eden started to cry.
“Don’t you dare do that in here!” Mama spit the words. “Don’t you dare shed tears in your daddy’s church!”
Eden couldn’t help it.
“You’re so weak!” Mama’s voice was ice. “You can’t be no daughter of mine!”
Shaking with unrestrained fury, Mama cradled Daddy Deke in her arms. “I never wanted you. But your daddy said it was prophetized that we have three babies. He said it was Satan’s will.”
Eden stumbled back as if shot. Unable to speak, she could only listen.
“If I had it to do over again I’d rip you from my belly with a coat hanger. That’s what I’d do. By Satan, I would.”
Eden turned to flee but it was much too late. Her foot tangled in the rib cage of a tramp Daddy had sacrificed three winters past. She couldn’t move a lick, but she had to. She had to escape before Mama could say another word.
She smashed the bones with her free foot and kicked the rib cage into a comer. Twisting toward the light, she nearly stumbled but righted herself at the last moment and pitched through the open door.
Into the desert.
She ran.
Harold was dressed now. Night had fallen.
“She still out there?” he asked.
“Yes.” Eden stared at Daddy’s chapel, absently stroking the Chihuahua’s head.
“This is fucked,” Harold said. “I don’t want to leave you here alone. But I gotta go out. I gotta call Angel Gemignani. I gotta do it from a pay phone. Otherwise they’ll trace the call. And I can’t take you with me, because the dog is sick and someone has to take care of it.” Harold punched the air. “This is
Eden said, “Yes, it is.”
“Here.” Harold held out his.357. “I want you to have this. Just in case.”
Eden took the gun. She wanted to cry. She knew she couldn’t.
Harold said, “Don’t let anyone touch the dog.”
Eden nodded.
“I mean it, Eden. Really. Don’t fuck this up. You understand?
“Yes,” she said.
She watched him go.
He was leaving her. Alone. With them.
And he had never spoken to her. .
PART THREE
About twenty miles outside of Vegas, off Highway 95 as you headed west toward California, was a freeway exit. It connected to an overpass and a narrow dirt road that headed toward a place no one wanted to visit.
At least that was the way it seemed to Harold Ticks. Harold was parked on the north side of the overpass. He’d parked here plenty of times in the last few months, and in that time he’d seen drunks stop to take a piss and newlyweds pull off for a quick bang in the back seat and college kids pile out of dinged-up vans to light off fireworks that they’d bought at the Paiute reservation store seventy miles to the east.
