The Travelling Man (25 page)

Bobby deftly took the knife from his pocket and let it slip into his hand. “That’s a shame,” he said with real regret. He stepped forward as the Doc was leaning down and reached around with the blade under the Doctor’s chin. In one fluid motion he drew the knife back and felt it slice cleanly through the man’s throat, opening the soft pink tissue wide as warm blood spurted out in a crimson spray.

Doc Stewart tried to rise as his hands clutched his throat, desperately trying to hold the edges of the wound back together, to no avail. He coughed and choked, gasping for air as blood sprayed through his fingers before he slumped forward onto the floor.

Bobby stood back, his nose crinkled in displeasure at the sight before him. Doc Stewart jerked a couple of times on the ground before he thankfully lay still. Bobby steeled himself before kneeling down and dipping his hands into the spreading red pool on the linoleum. He walked to the wall opposite and drew a large cross on the tiled surface and then wrote the words “Death to the Fallen” underneath.

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Kravis motioned for Kevin to head back outside as he could hear the sermon closing and the congregation getting to their feet. He bent down to check on the beefy man lying at their feet and was relieved to find a strong and steady pulse.

He headed to the rear door and out into the hot sun again. Kevin made for the fence but a small woodshed caught Kravis’ eye as the door was padlocked. Granton was a small town and by and large a friendly one at that. He couldn’t think of a reason for a church to feel the need to lock a storage shed.

He pointed to the shed as Kevin turned to face him and shrugged his broad shoulders quizzically. Kravis quickly crossed to the small outbuilding. The padlock was shiny and appeared to be new.

“Can you open it?” Kravis asked the deputy in a hushed voice.

“Sure,” Kevin replied and before Kravis could stop him, he took a solid flashlight from his belt and smashed it down hard against the padlock busting it open.

“I meant could you pick it!” Kravis hissed angrily as he turned back to the church, expecting angry worshippers to come streaming out any second. He held his breath until he was sure that no one had heard the noise and pulled the door open.

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Father Bruce Luther walked from his pulpit with fire in his belly. His people were his again and he now had their undivided attention. His vitriolic preaching was taking root deep in the hearts of the congregation and he no longer saw the words as Grange’s; now, they were his thoughts and prayers. Whatever agenda Grange had, it was no longer any concern of his; now he had his flock to attend to after such a long period of dereliction. This was surely The Rapture, and God was indeed judging them. There was so little time left to any of them and the sands of time were running much too fast against them.

He had a mission to cleanse Granton of the Fallen, those who had turned their backs on God and brought destruction upon all of their heads. It was a holy war and there could be no room for weakness now; they had to prove themselves worthy of God’s love once more and win back his favor.

He made his way through the upturned blissful faces of his flock as hands reached out to touch him. He touched soft faces lined with salty tears and offered a warm comforting smile. These were the good people of Granton; these were the believers who could save them.

He let two of his chosen deacons block the people as he headed through the door into the private kitchen area. He had fashioned sleeping quarters at the rear of the church and needed the quiet space to meditate and put himself in a position to hear God’s words. Darrin and Wyatt Broker were two very large and very useful brothers who shared his passion for God and treated their priest with the reverence that Father Luther now demanded.

The brothers stood guard as he passed through the door. He closed it quickly instinctively locking it behind him as he spotted the body lying motionless on the floor. He felt sheer fury at the intrusion into God’s house and the striking down of one of his followers. He recognised Redfern Warrick who mercifully started to stir. Luther moved quickly to the man’s side as he tried to sit up groggily. His first instinct was to call out for the Broker brothers to come in to help, but a small part of his brain halted the words before they reached his mouth.

Redfern looked up at him with a drunken stare and blood trickling from a wound on the back of his head. The large man had a revolver tucked into his belt and Luther took the weapon. He placed the gun against Redfern’s head and whispered gently to him. “Your sacrifice will assure your place at God’s side, my son; we all thank you for your courage.”

Redfern’s eyes seemed to clear slightly as he felt the cold steel barrel pressed against his head and he tried to move but Luther pulled the trigger.

The sound boomed inside the echoing room and the locked doors were suddenly pounded upon by agonized fists as the Broker bothers tried to break it down.

“FATHER, FATHER!” they screamed.

Luther gritted his teeth as he carefully aimed the gun at the side of his thigh and prayed that he would be sheltered under God’s protection. He pulled the trigger a second time and clamped his mouth shut as the bullet scorched a path alongside his leg but not through it. “Help!” he called out weakly.

The sound of his anguished voice was more than enough to send his followers into a frenzy and the door was soon broken open. Hands grabbed him and hauled him up and away from the body on the floor. He could feel their panic and he lifted his one good arm.

“Calm yourselves, my children, I’m fine, just a little shaken,” he said soothingly.

“What happened, Father?” Wyatt Broker demanded.

“It would appear that the wolves are at our door, quite literally,” Luther replied, adding a few coughs for effect. “I caught some of them in here, sneaking through God’s house with their slithering blasphemous intentions. They had murder in their hearts and in their eyes; murder for me, and murder for the word of God. They shot at me and Redfern tried to protect me. He stepped into the bullet of the assassin and paid with his life. Praise be that the second bullet missed me by millimeters and they fled like the ungodly cowards they truly are.”

The Broker brothers ran to the rear door and threw it open hard enough to rip one of the hinges from the frame. “I SEE THEM!” Darrin yelled and both men drew revolvers from their waistbands and started to fire wildly.

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Kravis could see inside the shed at the stolen weapons stacked up neatly. He started to count the guns and pulled open drawers to check for ammo. It took him a few minutes and his heart sunk at the inventory. There was enough firepower here to wipe out the Town Hall folks many times over. There, they were more concerned with food, water and medical supplies, whereas the good Father Luther seemed more concerned with arming himself for Armageddon.

He was just about to ask the deputy what they should do with the arsenal when they both heard the two gunshots inside. He had never heard gunfire before and he froze to the spot, but Kevin’s big paws were suddenly grabbing him and almost throwing him down the hill towards the fence.

Kravis stumbled forwards and had to jump to avoid a headstone in front of him. They had almost reached the fence at the bottom of the church’s land when he heard loud voices behind them and the air was suddenly full of small popping sounds.

Again, Kevin shoved him hard and he tumbled over the fence and fell hard onto the dusty ground. The deputy dragged him to his feet and was propelling him forwards before Kravis could understand what was happening. “Who the hell is shooting at us?”

“Does it matter?” Kevin replied coldly.

“Kind of nice to know who’s trying to kill us, don’t you think?”

“Those sounds are hand guns. We’re easily out of range, but let’s not hang around for them to start doling out rifles from the shed, okay?”

They reached the Town Hall quickly, running the last mile or so. Kravis was relieved to see the building and Cassie standing the doorway. He was relieved until he reached the steps and saw the expression on her face. “What happened?” he asked, his own brush with death momentarily forgotten.

“One of those religious nuts up at the church butchered Doc Stewart,” she snarled and Kravis took a step back from her anger as her eyes were set hard and cold. “Sliced him up like an animal and left a message written in blood on the wall. He was taking a run to his office and when he didn’t come back, I went to look for him.”

“Jesus, Cassie, I’m sorry,” Kravis offered.

“Not as much as those bastards are going to be,” she spat, unsnapping her holster and drawing her weapon.

Kravis now noticed that several people from inside the Town Hall were starting to spill out through the large double doors. Some of the people held firearms and others held a variety of handheld weapons such as bats, axes and crowbars.

“Cassie, you have to listen to me,” Kravis began but she wasn’t listening. Her face was set like stone and he could feel the burning rage coming off of her in waves.

There was a strange odour in the air and the rage of the gathering mob felt contagious. There was very little room here for rational thought. These were animals acting purely on instinct, and the whole thing stank of Gilbert Grange’s hand.

He reached out and grabbed her arm but she spun around to face him, raising her gun until it was pointed directly at his face. He could feel that she was no longer there and could no longer hear or even see him, and he also knew that she was going to fire.

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  Gilbert Grange sat in the lotus position; his eyes were closed and his face perspired slightly with concentration. A glossy sheen covered his features which were now aged and creased like never before.

He sent out his eye over the town. The crow flew high above the ruins on the drift of the desert winds. Granton was laid out before him and he could feel the raw emotion below, as the townsfolk gave in to their natures. He knew that these talking monkeys merely ate, slept and fornicated, with little else in between. He had nothing but contempt for the filthy animals and several lifetimes of dealing with their greedy natures had left him sick to his very bones.

He had come to Granton to pass the reins but he had almost immediately decided to burn the place to the ground before he went out. It was his turn now, his turn to indulge in greed and pleasure for his own ends. For so long he had been the provider, selling his wares and signing the deals; now it was his turn, his time to taste a little nectar.

The self-dubbed Believers at the church were on fire. Father Luther had proven to be a wise investment. He was a pious man but blinded by his own pride and his faith in the collar. The Believers were white hot at the discovery of one of their own slaughtered under the church’s roof and the blame had fallen onto the shoulder of the group that they referred to as The Fallen.

Grange knew that the “Good Book” that they all loved so much was full to the brim with God’s fury and fiery wrath. There were enough passages and pages contained within to stir the thoughts and hearts of men to
instill desperation and wreak bloody vengeance in God’s name.

His tongue slithered out and licked his lips with eager hunger; there was a cloud of hatred rising above the town that was almost tangible and he wanted to gorge upon its rancid meat. The pot was coming to the boil nicely and these animals were ready to tear themselves apart for his delectable feast.

The crow flew over the church and down to the Town Hall where the second group were engaged in their own raging fury. He had sent Bobby to slay the doctor, a man respected and beloved around the small town and his death had been bloody and painful. The blame had been laid at the feet of Luther and his congregation and the good folks now had murder in their eyes.

The crow settled on a nearby roof top and Grange’s mouth twisted up into a cruel smile as the Sheriff held a large gun with a nerveless hand pointed at the head of an innocent man. He could feel the anger in the Sheriff’s heart and her desire to lash out and smash something, anything, just to feel a sense of retribution however misplaced.

His attention was so focused on the woman that his eye only just glimpsed the man. Suddenly he was struck by the feeling that the man was someone familiar, someone that he had seen before, or dealt with before. It was an odd sensation that he couldn’t shake and he tried to wrack his brain for an identity, but the crow started to fail. He started to lose his grip on the scene until it began to fade away into the darkness. The harder that he fought to hold onto the crow, the quicker it faded until he could see no more.

He came back to himself and his eyes snapped open in silent rage. His blood boiled with his failings and his hands shook with incandescent fury.

“Are you okay?” Bobby Cohen asked from behind.

The town manager had recently returned from his jaunt into Granton where he’d slit the throat of the doctor. Grange found the man’s exuberant nature particularly annoying, given his own failings. He gave serious thought to what he would do to the little man to prove that he was still the master of his own domain. His mind spun with every conceivable scenario that he could bestow upon the insect.
Are you okay?
the worm had dared to ask.
Was he okay? Did the grass ask the sun? Did the bird ask the hurricane? Did a man ask a god?