“Scorpion, Mother Hen. I’ve got video of Christyne Nasbe being led out of the main building-the assembly hall, or church, or whatever. It’s now designated Building Alpha. She’s in some kind of ceremonial garb, looks like nothing underneath. Barefoot. Nothing good can possibly come from this. How close are you to being in position?”
Boxers’ foot leaned more heavily on the accelerator.
The sudden noise and light startled Ryan. He wondered where it was coming from when the whole town-or whatever you call this place-had no electricity, but then he recognized the unique sound of a generator, probably like the one that Coach Jackson brought in for track practices after dark.
After they’d made him strip naked, Sister Colleen had helped him pull this piece-of-shit tunic over his head-he refused to think of it as a dress-and thread his arms through the corresponding holes.
As far as he could tell, this was all about humiliation and discomfort. The former was obvious, but the latter, the discomfort, was all about making sure that he stayed cold all the time. His bare feet felt like ice blocks against the floor, despite the heat from the wood stove, and the rest was breezy as hell.
“Why are you doing this?” When they didn’t answer- again -he promised himself never to ask the question again.
When he was finally ensconced in his ridiculous outfit, two guards took turns holding him at gunpoint while the other walked to a closet and donned black KKK robes with a weird facial twist to the hoods. They looked like Arab terrorists. The fact that their faces were covered told him that there was going to be another ceremony of some sort, maybe for another television camera, and the fact that he was wearing this… thing, told him that it was not going to go well for him.
Just as they finished dressing, the door to the house opened, and another eight of these masked nut jobs streamed into the room. Ryan felt panic swelling in his gut. They were here to kill him. All doubt that it was anything else evaporated. It’s what they promised from the very beginning, but now they had a reason because he’d killed Brother What’s-his-name.
Stephen. His name was Stephen, and you should always think well of the dead. Even when the dead guy was an asshole.
“Is the condemned prepared?” asked one of the masked guys in the front of the crowd.
“He is,” said Brother Zebediah.
The condemned? Ryan’s mind shouted. What the hell? Knowing in your gut and hearing with your ears were two entirely different things.
A hand clasped the bare flesh of his biceps on his left side-his good side-and Ryan jerked it away. “Quit touching me!” he yelled, and he started to run. He didn’t know where he was going, but he by God knew where he wasn’t going, at least not without a fight, even if it just meant an extended game of tag through the living room.
The game stopped, though, when Sister Colleen punched him in his arm, right at the spot where it was broken-the spot where she’d worked so hard to help him mend. The bones inside moved against each other at the impact, igniting a sharp, mind-splitting, electrical pain that rocketed through his arm, and up into his neck and shoulders. The spike of agony made him see stars, and his knees sagged.
When Sister Colleen grabbed him under his armpit, she said very softly in his ear, “Don’t make us tie this arm behind your back, Ryan. Die with dignity.”
CHAPTER TWENTY – EIGHT
As they opened the doors to the church, the cold air hit Christyne like a wall. Fear and frigid temperatures combined to trigger a spasm of trembling. The bright lights blinded her. She drew to a stop just short of the doorjamb, but hands fell on her, squeezing her biceps and nearly lifting her off her feet.
“Keep going,” the female voice said quietly in her ear, the sound muffled by the veil that wrapped her face. “It will be over soon.”
Christyne looked at her. “What will be over soon?” Even though she knew, she wanted some kind of acknowledgment that she was about to die.
A crowd had gathered in the night. She could feel them as much as see them, a terrible malignant energy that sickened her as she watched their covered heads and robed bodies undulate in the artificially lit night. When they saw her, the crowd erupted with jeering. Fists pumped the air. Somewhere out there, a ripple of gunfire tore at the air. She saw the flashes of light. Women in the crowd ululated. It was as if by walking through the doors into the night, she’d passed into a different part of the world. It was as if someone had brought the Middle East to West Virginia.
“Killer!” someone yelled. Or was it “Kill her”?
Others picked up the chant, and as the noise grew, she realized that either interpretation meant the same for her.
The hands tightened around her arms as she was half guided, half pushed out the door. She found herself standing on a kind of stage in the front of the building. Maybe it was just the porch, but if that was the case, it was a big one. As she approached the front edge, the crowd surged forward, hands reaching for her. One hand grabbed her ankle and she kicked it away. Two of her robed guards hurried to take a position between her and the crowd, as if to provide personal security.
Off to her left, the generator that was responsible for half the noise and all of the light churned away, pumping exhaust fumes into the night.
Once her guards were positioned on either side, another commotion arose from the crowd on the far right, the other side of the stage. More gunshots filled the night. More ululating.
Christyne watched heads turn, and people stand on tiptoes. They craned their necks to see who or what was approaching, and as they did, she scanned the crowd and the night for some way to get away. Even if she were able to shake free of her captors, the crowd would tear her apart as soon as she entered it. This was a frenzied herd of animals, and she was the red meat that would soon be thrown out to keep them sated.
There had to be a way.
Boomer would find a way.
No, she thought, Boomer would never have allowed himself to be taken in the first place.
“Killer!” the crowd yelled. They started chanting it again, and as they did, she was surprised to see so many looking away from her.
She bent forward to see what they saw. It couldn’t be.
There was Ryan, dressed identically to her, looking small and bent as he was ushered up some stairs to the same platform as she, but separated by twenty feet.
“Ryan!” she cried.
His head snapped up. “Mom!”
“Kill them both!” someone yelled. “Avenge Brother Stephen!”
Now they had a new chant: “Avenge Brother Stephen! Avenge Brother Stephen…!”
“I love you!” Christyne yelled.
True to form, he looked embarrassed and cast his eyes downward.
These people are all crazy, Ryan thought. It sounded like a friggin’ football game, with people shouting and chanting. Then the idiots with the machine guns, firing them into the air.
He’d picked up a couple of extra guards as soon as he stepped outside the house into the cold, and they formed a kind of flying wedge to escort him through the mob. There had to be two hundred people out here. At first, he moved as if he were invisible, with everyone’s attention distracted by something toward the front of the crowd. He didn’t look up to see, because he was too busy trying to keep track of where he placed his bare feet on the freezing ground. When everyone else in the world is wearing heavy boots, you become keenly aware of your feet.
Then they started to recognize him. He didn’t know how they even knew what he looked like, but he heard his name muttered nearby. Then the same voice shouted, “That’s Ryan!”
The focus of the crowd turned. They pushed and shoved, trying to get closer to him, their hands reaching out to grab him as if he were some kind of rock star in hell. Everyone wanted a piece of him, and every bit of jostling launched new pain through his arm. Through his whole upper body now.
