What Would Satan Do? (30 page)

“Aaaaaaahhh.”  Josiah screamed in the loudest, most enthusiastic voice his old lungs could muster as the car careened back and forth across the freeway.  He fired a shotgun blast through his window, presumably to punctuate his exclamation, which was really kind of the rhetorical equivalent of using twelve-molar hydrochloric acid to get a stain out.

“Jesus!” said El Jefe, moving from mere shock to Def-Con 5.  The Town Car careened some more, and a beat up old econo-box covered in stickers exhorting other drivers to save something or other departed the freeway unexpectedly.  The remaining old guys hollered and yelped. 

Satan snatched the gun out of Josiah’s hand.  He regarded it for a moment, twisting it this way and that, and then lit it on fire.

“Regard the Flaming Shotgun of … Retribution,” said the Devil.  He stifled a little giggle.  “What do you th—?”  The car changed directions abruptly, causing Satan’s aged seatmates to lurch and flop around in the back seat.  Josiah ended up in Satan’s lap. 

“Stop that,” said Satan, smacking Josiah with the butt of the gun.

Josiah sat up immediately.  “Ack!  I’m on fire!” he said.  “Put me out!  Put me out!”

Satan scowled at his seat mate, and then attempted to comply by putting the man out the open window.  This involved a lot of pushing and a few judicious smacks with the fiery butt of the gun.  It’s not easy to toss an old guy out a car window, even if you are the Devil, and even if the tossee was nice enough to shoot the glass out already.  Satan watched the man tumble and roll as he hit the pavement, and then turned his attention back to El Jefe, who had finally managed to get the automobile pointed in the right direction, and was trying to bring it to a halt on the shoulder of the freeway.

“Keep going!” bellowed Satan.  He scooted over to the larger, more comfortable seat that had recently been occupied by Josiah, and bared his teeth against the buffeting wind that streamed through the shattered window.  He sat back and smiled. 

Angus, the last remaining old guy passenger, stared at Satan with the stoic, calm eyes of a man who knows better than to try to raise a stink in the face of whatever supernatural bullshit had just transpired there in the automobile.  He held his chin high, and looked Satan right the eye.

A moment later, anyone who had continued to follow the Lincoln down the Mopac Expressway after Josiah’s untimely expulsion and tumbling routine down the freeway (and there was, in fact, a truck full of fraternity boys who had not stopped) was treated to the sight of a very stoic rooster hurtling out the rear window of the Lincoln Town Car that had been careening all over the place. 

Satan extinguished the flaming shotgun and settled further down into his seat.  “So,” he said, “tell me about this army.”

In the front, El Jefe sat hunched over, and was apparently too busy gripping the hell out of the steering wheel to notice that Satan was speaking to him. 

“Your friend,” Satan gestured to the front passenger seat, “said something about that preacher having an army.”

“I—”  El Jefe stopped, and with a tiny shake of his head, shut his mouth tight.

“Speak to me,” said Satan.  “Nobody is going to hurt you.  You’re safe now.  Very safe.”

The hardened look on El Jefe’s face melted away.  His eyes drooped and his head lolled slightly.  “The boss.  He’s in cha—in charge.  He’s— the boss.”  The tires made a rumbling sound as the car began to drift into the next lane. 

“Steady now,” said the Devil.

A hint of a comfortable smile escaped the corner of El Jefe’s mouth.  He held up his hand and dropped it again, as if he were waving off an offer of help.  “No big deal.”

“So tell me, what’s all this about an army?”

El Jefe slurred his words together.  “Cadmon.  Bill Cadmon’s got an army.  ‘S dumb.  Bunch of damned rednecks.  Secessionists.”  He made a snakey, ‘s’ sound, stretching the word “secessionists” much, much further than is really considered to be appropriate in polite company. 

“Why does he have an army?”

“Dunno.  Doesn’t need ‘em.  Whitford’s got one.”  El Jefe thumped the steering wheel arhythmically and burbled a tuneless ditty.  “Got one.  He already – got one.”

“Wait, what?  Whitford?”

“The …” he stretched this word out too, and then kind of sneezed out the rest, “Governor.  He’s the Governor.”  He waved on hand in the air as if to say, what can you do?  He’s the Governor.  Yep, the Governor.  ‘S weird, you know?  Whitford already had an army.  And it’s a big one.  So now they got one whole army they don’t even need.  ‘S crazy.  But you know what?”

“What?”

“We got one too.  Big army.  Lots of guns.  Lots n’ lots.”

“You—” said Satan.  El Jefe’s head lolled and the car began to swerve.  “Steady now.”  Satan breathed for a pensive moment.  “You were taking me somewhere.  Some kind of headquarters?  Yes?”

“Uh, yeah.  HQ.  Right on up the way.  Meet the boss.  Meet the honcho.  He’s the big boss.  Big, big boss.”  El Jefe pointed northwards.

“Good,” said the Devil.  “Take me to your leader.”

Chapter 37.
          
The Rain Is Disgusting

They – “they” being those folks who seem to be responsible for all the bits of wisdom for which nobody else wants to take credit – have a saying: If you don’t like the weather in Texas, wait a few minutes.  It’ll change.  They probably say that sort of thing in a lot of places, but Texas is special.  The weather lurches about in fits of contradictory indecision so extraordinary and unpredictable that it might lead a reasonable weatherman to throw up his hands in disgust and denounce the local weather god (or gods) as “Just plain nuts.”

It started to rain.  Liam flipped on his windshield wipers, but the blades just smeared the water around in big, blurry streaks, as if the window were very dirty.  This was odd, because the car wasn’t dirty at all.  In fact, Liam was fanatical about keeping the car clean.  He glanced over at Lola, who was on the phone with her boss.

“No, no.  Not goats.  Sheep.”  Lola pressed the phone to her ear, trying to hear over the sound of the car’s engine.  “That’s what he said: It was just sheep.  Right.  No, the guy’s name is Festus.  Festus.  No, Festus.  It starts with an ‘F’.”  Lola pulled the phone away from her ear, and turned to give Liam a nasty look.  Tiny but clearly audible barking sounds emanated from the handset.  “He wants to know who Festus is and why he was there.”  She thrust the phone at Liam.  “You get to explain that.”

Liam frowned and took the phone.  The stream of barky noises continued unabated as he held it up to his ear.  He turned the wipers up a notch.  “Yeah, yeah,” he said, downshifting and pulling into the oncoming lane to pass a school bus.  “No, that’s right.  His name is Festus.  He’s a friend of mine, and—”  Lola tried to explain that they needed to go after Festus, but all Boehner seemed to care about was sheep vs. goats and why the hell Festus had been there.  Typical Boehner.  “They took him.  Yes.  Yes.  Correct.”  He dropped the phone as he swerved to avoid an oncoming military convoy.  The train of military trucks finally roared by, and Liam downshifted again, gunning the car into the oncoming lane.  He reached over to take the handset from Lola, who’d grabbed it off the floor.  She turned around in her seat, trying to get another look at the bus, but it was already well behind them.

Lola said, “Was that a school bus—?”

“—full of naked guys,” said Liam.  “Yes, it was.”  He stared straight ahead, a look of grim determination on his face as he listened to Cas Boehner rant. 

“Huh,” she said.  “Odd.”

“It’s not the first group of naked guys I’ve seen today.”

“I’m sorry.”  Lola settled back into her seat.  “What’s wrong with your wipers?”

Liam ignored her question.  “No, Cas, I wasn’t talking to you.”  The tiny, angry noises coming from the phone speaker came louder and faster now.  “No, I’m not going to do that.”  The little voice grew ever more frantic.  “No,” said Liam, “I have no idea.  No, I don’t know that either.”  He sighed and switched the phone to his other ear so that he could use his right hand to shift.  “No.  Right.  No, that’s not corr—”  He snapped the phone shut.  “Asshole.”

“You just hung up on my boss?” asked Lola, her eyes wide.

“Uh, no.  He’s on hold.”  He handed the phone to Lola.

She looked at the handset, seeing that it was clearly off, and that her boss was not holding the line.  Lola shot him a nasty look, but only for an instant because the phone started buzzing, her boss’ name lighting up the caller ID display.

“Hello?  I’m so sorry.  I don’t know—”  She glared at Liam again.  “I know, sir.  Right.  Okay.  I will.  We will.  Goodbye.”  She flipped the phone shut.  “He wants us back at the office.  What the heck is up with the rain?  It’s red.” 

Liam’s windshield wipers flapped back and forth in a frantic, almost maniacal fit of ineffectiveness, smearing what looked like dirty – maybe muddy – rainwater around.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think—?  Is this that supposed to be ‘blood rain,’ like on the news?”

Liam glanced up at the top of the windshield, then at the side windows.  “I guess.”  He shrugged.

“It’s disgusting.”  Lola cracked the window open a bit, and ran her finger along the edge.  “It
is
blood.  Ew.”

He sighed.  “It’s fucked up, is what it is.”

They sat in silence for a moment  “Liam, Cas says we’re supposed to head back to the office.”

“Your office?”

“Yes.  He says Whitford’s closed the borders entirely.  Shut down the airports.  Something’s going on.”

He downshifted, and they passed another bus.  “I’ll drop you off at the shop so you can get your car.”

“No, we need to do what Cas says.”

“He’s
your
boss.  You need to do what he says.  And I’ll drop you off at the shop so that you can do that.”

“Fine,” she said, and turned to stare out the window.  “You know,” she said after a few minutes, “it’s kind of hard…”  Her voice trailed off. 

“What?”

“Well, it’s just … all this stuff – the earthquakes, the weird rain, the locusts, the frogs—”

“Toads.”

She glared at him.  “Anyway,” she said.  “It’s getting harder and harder to avoid the conclusion that
something
is going on.”

“Well, yeah,” said Liam.  “Something is going on.  It’s raining fucked up rain.”

“You know what I mean,” she said.

“What, so now you believe Festus?”

“I didn’t say that.”

They sat in silence for a couple of awkward minutes before Lola spoke again.  “What the hell happened in there?”

“What?”  Liam shot her a confused look.  “Back there?  Preston’s?”

“Yes.”

“Um, well, I got hit in the head with a frying pan.  Sucked.”

“Right,” she said, but Liam just nodded and kept driving.  “So…” 

Liam glanced over, surprised to find that the conversation was still going.  “So.  Uh, it sucked.  Still hurts, in fact.”

“Yeah, but—  I thought you were supposed to be some kind of superman or something.  I heard all sorts of stuff—something about you and Whitford…”

He gave her a grim look.  “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

Chapter 38.
          
Running Wild as a Dog in the House of the Lord

Festus hurried as quietly as he could down a dimly-lit passage.  The painted, cinderblock walls and well-scuffed flooring made him think he was probably in a utility hallway of some sort – probably for deliveries.  This hypothesis found strong support from the fact that he’d already passed a sign with an arrow and the word “Deliveries” printed in bold, five-inch tall letters.  He paused to listen.  There were voices, lots of them, coming from somewhere up ahead.  It sounded like a crowd of people shouting, or maybe even cheering.  Maybe there was a sporting match going on?  Not being a particularly sporty type, he had no idea whether that was even a plausible idea.

“Hippie!”

Festus twisted around and saw the two hillbillies, Jimmy and Wayne.  Apparently they’d settled their differences.  He marveled at the awkward gaits of two men trying to run in cowboy boots, but then, realizing that this wasn’t just an academic exercise, he turned and ran.

“Get back here, you dirty hippie!” yelled Jimmy.

“Yeah!” said Wayne.

After a couple of turns and a staircase, Festus emerged, huffing and puffing, into a larger hallway that opened onto the main bowl of the arena.  His lungs burned, and he struggled to catch his breath – and not sound like an industrial-grade wind machine – as he looked out into the warmly lit space.  The seats on the bowl were completely empty.  The floor, however, was full of guys who looked like they’d visited the paramilitary-gear booth at a western wear convention, along with a handful of guys who looked like actual soldiers.

Behind him he heard a dull thud.  Festus glanced back and saw Jimmy sprawled out against the wall – presumably the consequence of trying to run around a corner in boots.  Wayne toppled into the frame half a second later.  Festus shrugged and strode out into the main arena.

He strode purposefully, assuredly, confidently.  Like a man who is ready to tell people just what the F is up.  This lasted about three and a half seconds – about the time it took Festus to survey the scene.  There really seemed to be an awful lot of the hillbillies, none of whom looked amenable to getting told anything.  He ditched the confidence and quickly ducked down behind a railing. 

To his right, on the main stage, the television preacher Bill Cadmon talked at the audience of paramilitary cowboys, exhorting them to something or other.  There were three big screens behind him that, presumably, usually showed giant Cadmon heads talking about love and faith and sin and all that kind of crap.  But the screens were off, and the cowboys had only the actual, life-sized Cadmon to keep them entertained. 

Festus paused for a second to watch, peeking over the top of the railing.  Cadmon seemed to be going on and on about bringing about the Kingdom of God, which didn’t seem to Festus to be all that unusual.  It seemed like a fairly normal sermon, aside from the fact that the entire audience was male, and looked as if they could probably recite the Second Amendment by heart.