Dawn was lighting the eastern sky, spreading traces of red and pink and gray against a backdrop of purple.
'Father Le Moyne was Father Sam,' the young man told a stunned group of survivors.
'Your Dad told you?' Nydia asked, coming to him, to take her husband's hand.
'Yes. He and Father Sam left together, about fifteen minutes ago. Dad said neither of them would be back. It's up to us now, Nydia. You, me, Little Sam.'
'Little Sam is—'
'All right. Like you, Nydia, the dark side of his being will only serve to make him stronger in his faith.'
'The people at the Giddon House?' Viv asked.
'There is no one there,' Sam told them. 'Xaviere and a few of the others slipped out during the night. But I will meet them again. That is my purpose for being.'
'Lordy!' Joe said. 'Your daddy told you that?'
'No,' the tall young man said. 'Someone else.'
'Jesus!' Monty blurted.
Sam looked at him and smiled. 'Close,' he said.
FRIDAY. NOON.
Even Joe was shocked when Sam calmly and without any display of emotion lifted his AK and shot the man in the stomach. The man flopped on the littered street, screaming in pain.
'Sam—' Monty said.
'We killed probably half of this coven,' Sam explained. 'The rest are confused and in hiding. Don't ever think we aren't in grave danger. But we've got them on the run. They know they've been deserted by their leaders, and they don't know what to do or where to go, because they've discovered they can't get out. But I'm going to help them.'
The two men looked at him.
'1 am going to destroy this town,' Sam announced, with no more emotion than if asking someone to pass the butter.
'We gather up all the fifty-five gallon drums in this community,' Sam said. 'Get all the heating oil and gasoline tanker trucks left around here. Drain every filling station storage tank. Fill the drums. There are sump pumps in this town. Let's find them and get to work.'
SATURDAY
It had been a quiet night. Eerie, knowing the community was still filled with coven members, but still quiet, with no action taken against the Christians.
Sam gathered the little band of survivors around him. He had broken them down into three teams of five each. They all knew what they had to do.
'As soon as you have completed your tasks,' Sam told the group, 'get out of this community. For it's not going to exist much longer. Get your stories straight between you; keep them simple, for you are going to have to live with them the rest of your lives. All the authorities have to know is that you people survived a great tragedy. That much will be the truth. You can't tell them you've been fighting God's war; you'd all end up in the nut house. So I would just tell them you managed to survive a great fire. The stories you tell are up to you. It's doubtful any of you will ever see Nydia, Little Sam, or myself again. Everybody ready? O.K., let's do it.'
The teams began pumping raw gasoline and heating oil into the sewer system of Logandale. Thousands of gallons of flammable liquids were dumped into mains. Open drums of gas and oil were left all over the town. Anywhere a heating oil tank was found, the contents were drained onto the ground.
'Good God, don't nobody light a cigarette,' Joe warned. 'Don't scrape no metal against nothing that'll cause a spark. We'd all go up like a Roman candle.'
'That's the general idea,' Sam said.
'Lordy, Lordy!' Joe said.
When only one small tank truck was all that was left, Sam told his people to get going. But they were reluctant to leave the young man's side. Sam had led them through a living nightmare, and all had grown accustomed to taking his commands.
Sam looked at the small gathering of Christians. So very few of us, he thought. Out of a population of probably more than four thousand—this is it. Three or four hundred others had been brutally killed, tortured to death, but that still leaves several thousand whose faith was so weak they reached toward the hands of the Dark One, forsaking the Living God.
Dad was right: Heaven will be sparsely populated.
'I don't want to make this sound like an old TV show,' Sam said. 'But I have a mission. Nydia, Little Sam, and me. 1 don't know where we're going to be sent. But wherever it is, we'll go.'
Sam shook hands with everyone, receiving several kisses from the women. Nydia embraced and kissed them all.
Sam looked at Noah. 'You're in charge, Noah. Get them out of here.'
Noah stood holding hands with Susie. He nodded. 'God go with you all,' he said. He turned to the others. 'Let's go, people. We've got some planning to do. And I've got several books to write.'
Sam and his family stood and watched them leave, heading out of town. He waited fifteen minutes.
