Her husband, Nelson, supported her regarding the surgery; he said he hadn’t married her because of her bra size. “Honeylamb, it was your blue eyes, your pot roast, and your good heart that got me to the altar. Just leave enough up top so you float if you fall in the river.”
Loreen worried, however, about going under the knife, about all the things that could go wrong during surgery, because she had two kids to raise and a disabled mother to look after. In addition, she thought maybe it was wrong to have some plastic surgeon reshape the body that God had given her—not sinful, exactly, but ungrateful.
“Loreen, you silly thing,” Dolly Samples said, “God gave you an appendix, too, but if you get appendicitis, He doesn’t expect you to let it burst and just die like a dog.”
That was when the handsome young man stepped onto the stage, and right behind him came a second no less striking than the first. They were at once joined by as beautiful a young woman as Dolly had ever seen.
She directed Loreen’s attention to the stage, and Loreen said, “Not even the Osmonds in their prime looked that good. They’re like three angels.”
“Reverend Fortis never mentioned entertainment.”
“They’re definitely entertainment,” Loreen agreed. “Real-world people don’t look that good.”
Dolly said, “Even most show-biz people don’t look half that good. I bet they have gorgeous voices, too. You just know they do. But where’s their guitars?”
“They don’t look like a comedy act,” Loreen said. “They look like a music act.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
The three stood together, smiling brightly at the gathered families, and the power of their smiles was so compelling that the roar of conversation in the roadhouse diminished rapidly. All over the room, parishioners turned to look at the performers. Some children stood on chairs to see over the heads of their elders. People sitting in the mezzanine booths got to their feet and came to the railing between them and the main floor.
Reverend Fortis stepped through the curtains and onto the stage behind the trio. He held up his hands, whereupon the congregants fell entirely silent.
“My brothers and sisters,” said Reverend Fortis, “these three are lambs of God come to take away the sins of the world. Be not afraid of what they say or do, for they are here only to escort you to the new Jerusalem.”
Still at the bar, Dolly Samples said, “What on earth is the man saying? Does that sound like hoohaw to you?”
Loreen said, “What it doesn’t sound like is Reverend Fortis. It’s his voice but the words are fiddle-faddle.”
The three young singers, who evidently weren’t singers after all, stepped off the stage, onto the dance floor, where the bewildered congregants parted as if to make way for royalty.
The radiantly beautiful woman stopped in front of Johnny “Tank” Tankredo, who was big enough to bench-press a horse and gentle enough to make the horse happy about the experience.
Tank smiled at her, and there was an air of expectation as thick as anything that Dolly had ever felt, even just before a Garth Brooks concert back when he cared about blowing the roof off the place, and then the young woman’s smile became a yawn. The yawn grew until her mouth occupied most of her face, and out of her mouth came something like a churning mass of bees, though it was a part of her and not a separate thing. It bored right through Johnny Tankredo’s face and out the back of his head, and it pulled him against the girl, though she wasn’t a girl anymore, and Johnny began to come apart.
Dolly said, “Lord Jesus help us,” as she reached into her big purse and drew out her .38 Colt.
From her purse, Loreen retrieved her SIG P245, and said, “Praise the Lord, get the kids out of here.”
People were screaming but not as much as Glenn Botine, a full-time car mechanic and part-time quarter-horse breeder, would have expected under the circumstances, not like they screamed in horror movies. Mostly they were screaming names, shouting to their kids and wives and husbands, families trying to find their own and get out.
His Smith & Wesson Model 1076, the civilian version of the FBI’s pistol, loaded with 180-grain Hydra-Shok rounds, wouldn’t be worth spit against something like the thing that chewed up Tank Tankredo, but it ought to take out the Reverend Kelsey Fortis, who obviously was either not the reverend anymore or was in league now with Satan.
Glenn mounted the stage, where the preacher, grinning like a fiend, stood swaying from side to side. The reverend proved too slow on the draw to fire back, which alone vouched certain that he wasn’t the Kelsey Fortis whom Glenn had once admired as much as he had ever admired a mortal man. The fact that seven point-blank shots were required to take him down and keep him down only confirmed that there must have been at least a devil in the preacher if not something worse.
Someone was shouting that the front doors were chained shut.
Van Colpert, who had done two tours in Afghanistan, right away got Turner Ward and Doogie Stinson to agree that if the front entrance was chained shut or otherwise barred, the other exits also must be barricaded from outside. No sense wasting time running to one useless exit after another.
Leaving the women and some of the older men to gather the kids by the main exit, the three men circled the room to the bar, staying away from the freaky killing machines or whatever the hell they were. Machines seemed a better word for them; there was without a doubt a Terminator feel to the scene.
Erskine Potter was behind the bar, just himself, and from the smug look on the mayor’s face, Van Colpert knew that he was a Judas. Van shot him with his .44 Magnum and Turner Ward shot him with his modified Browning Hi-Power, and Doogie Stinson scrambled over the bar and shot him four times with both of his Smith & Wesson Model 640 .38 Special pocket revolvers.
Potter kept a 12-gauge shotgun behind the bar, loaded with buckshot. It was only for show. He never used it in the bar, though he’d done some hunting with it in the hills behind the roadhouse.
Doogie passed the rifle to Van and scrambled across the bar with a box of shells.
Van Colpert said, “Fortis and Potter might not be the only infiltrators. Keep your cheeks clenched and your hands quick, and God be with you.”
“God be with you,” Turner and Doogie said simultaneously.
They made their way through the tumult, trying to stay as far from the killing machines as possible. It was Afghanistan all over again, just with monsters instead of the Taliban.
Brock and Debbie Curtis—who earned a decent living escorting groups of city types on white-water rafting tours, fishing trips, and hunting expeditions—had found their two kids, George and Dick, and had progressed from the buffet table to the steps that led up to the mezzanine.
Brock saw Van, Turner, and Doogie returning from the bar with Potter’s shotgun, and Providence put him immediately behind Tom Zell and Ben Shanley when Ben said to Tom, “You take Colpert, I’ll take Ward and Stinson.”
Both men had big revolvers, they were gripping them two-handed, there was no doubt what they intended, and Brock had seen how many rounds Glenn Botine had needed to drop whatever the thing was that had been passing itself off as Kelsey Fortis. Debbie must have heard what Ben Shanley said, too, because she liked the man and wouldn’t otherwise have shot him five times in the back, which left only Tom Zell for Brock to deal with. The way they squirmed on the floor like whipping rattlesnakes and almost thrust to their feet again, Brock had no doubt they were no longer anything as mildly sinister as city councilmen, but something far nastier, and he finished them off with Debbie’s assistance.
The double doors were steel, to meet fire codes, but they were not set in steel casings. They were hung from a wooden jamb, with the hinges on the inside.
With the killing machines making a most demonic noise, Turner Ward shouted for everyone on the mezzanine in the vicinity of the doors to duck and cover to avoid ricochets.
Van Colpert took the risk of bounce-back lead and, with four rounds, blasted the woo
d out from under two of the three hinges on the right-hand door. He jammed another shell in the breech, three in the magazine tube, and took out the third hinge.
Doogie and Turner put their shoulders to the door, which was now held in place only by the chains that linked it to the left-hand door and by a half-rotted wooden stop molding on the outside. The wood cracked apart, the door shuddered open, and Van threw aside the 12-gauge to help Doogie and Turner lift the door as they swung it to the left, so it wouldn’t drag on the concrete.
The kids came through first, running for their parents’ trucks and SUVs, and Van thought and prayed they hadn’t lost a single child.
They had lost four or five adults, however, and he didn’t know who, other than Tank Tankredo and Jenny Vinnerling. They didn’t have time to take a census as people exited, so Van shouted to Turner and Doogie to get their families packed up and out, and leave him to give a ride to anybody who needed one. Van was a single man, and his big Suburban could carry a crowd.
As it turned out, Tom Vinnerling had died trying to save Jenny, so the three Vinnerling children were the only people Van needed to accommodate. Cubbie was eight, Janene ten, and Nick fourteen.
The younger kids were in tears, but Nick’s jaw was tight with anger and his mind dead-set against crying. He wanted to drive his brother and sister away in his parents’ Mountaineer.
As the tires of departing vehicles squealed across the blacktop, Van Colpert kept one eye on the front door when he said, “I know you could drive if you had to, Nick, I suspect you could do anything you had to, but there’s nobody home now for you and Cubbie and Janene. We don’t know what’s happening, what’s next, this is something big, so you guys are going to stay with me. We’re it now, we’re together from here on out. It’s the only right way.”
The boy was in shock, in grief, but he had never been a bad kid, strong-willed but never willful. He relented at once and helped his siblings into the backseat of the Suburban. He sat in the front with Van.
As they drove onto the highway, close behind the last of the departing vehicles, Nick showed Van a 9mm Beretta that he had snatched off the floor in the roadhouse. “I’m keeping it.”
“You know how to use it?” Van asked.
“I’ve been target shooting since I was twelve.”
“Target’s different than shooting for real.”
“It would have to be,” Nick said, which was just the right answer, as far as Van was concerned.
In the backseat, the two children were sobbing.
The sound of them tore at Van, the sound of them and the awful truth that he could do nothing to restore their lives to them. All he could hope to do was help them find new ones.
“What were those things?” Nick asked.
“Something no one’s ever seen before.”
“We’re going to see them again, aren’t we?”
“I’d bet on it.” Van passed his cell phone to the boy. “Call the police, 911.”
He wasn’t all that surprised when Nick tried to place the call and then said, “There’s no 911 service.”
With a first-time-ever lack of respect for speed limits, Dolly Samples drove while she, her husband, Hank, and her sons, Whit and Farley, worked out who would do what when they arrived home.
Loreen Rudolph, her husband, Nelson, and their kids would be moving in with the Samples family for the duration because their house had some land around it and on first assessment seemed to be generally more defensible than the Rudolph place. Loreen and Nelson would be bringing a lot of canned food and bagged staples, tools, ammunition, and other goods that would be necessary to fortify and defend the Samples home.
“We lost dear friends tonight,” Dolly said, “and we have to hold fast to their memories. There’s going to be some hard times ahead, too, you better believe it.”
“Well, we always knew something was coming in our lifetimes,” said Hank. “We just figured it would be the Chinese or the Russians or some plague. We never thought outer-space aliens, but if that’s what it’s to be, so be it.”
“I wish I’d have thought to grab my dish from the buffet before we got out of there,” Dolly said.
“It’s just a dish,” Hank said.
“Well, it’s not just a dish. It was my grandmother’s dish, and it’s a favorite of mine. I figured to pass it along to my first daughter-in-law whenever Whit or Farley got married.”
“I’m sorry I diminished it,” Hank said sincerely. “I forgot what dish it was you took tonight. If we get through this with all of our fingers and toes, I’ll go back and retrieve it for you one day.”
“You’re a thoughtful man, Hank Samples.”
“And you did right getting all those kids gathered together in all that turmoil. You’re a good woman, Doll.”
“We sure love you, Mom,” Farley said from the backseat, and Whit echoed that sentiment.
“Love is what’ll get us through this,” Dolly said. “Love and the Good Lord and the backbone to protect our own. And pumpkin pie. I was planning to bake a couple tomorrow, but now, Lord willing, I’m going to bake them tonight.”
chapter 72
In their room at the Falls Inn, Carson and Michael unpacked the big suitcases that contained their Urban Sniper pistol-grip shotguns, which fired only slugs, not buckshot. These weapons were essential at the end in New Orleans and would probably again make the difference between dying and surviving. The kick was the maximum Carson could handle; however, she didn’t shoot this gun with the stock high, but instead from a forward-side position, so she didn’t have to worry about dislocating her shoulder. They loaded the Snipers and put them on the bed with boxes of spare shells.
Five-year-old Chrissy Benedetto sat in an armchair that dwarfed her, drinking a grape soda that Michael had bought from the motel vending machine. She hadn’t seen Carson kill the not-mommy, and in spite of her nasty teddy-bear experience, she seemed only mildly unsettled by recent events.
“When will my real mommy come to get me?” she asked as Carson and Michael prepared the guns.
“Soon,” Carson said, because she had no idea how to tell a girl this young that her mother was gone forever. The prospect of doing so made her throat tight and seemed to constrict her lungs so she could not draw deep breaths.
The girl said, “She’s going to be very mad at the stupid pretend mommy.”
“Yes, she will,” Michael said. “And she should be.”
“Where’d that stupid pretend mommy come from?” Chrissy asked.
“We’re going to find out,” Michael said, “and we’re going to send her back there and lock her away so she can never come here again.”
“That’s good,” Chrissy said. “This is good grape.”
“I made it myself,” Michael said.
“Oh, you did not.”
“Show me the bottle.”
The girl held the bottle so he could see the label.
“You’re right,” he said. “Carson here made that one. It’s one of your bottles of grape, Carson.”
Carson said nothing because she was afraid her voice would break. She couldn’t stop thinking about Denise Benedetto with the silver disc on her temple, blood oozing from it and from her nose. Me isn’t me. Tell my baby.
“Who’re you people?” Chrissy asked.
“We’re friends of your mommy’s. She sent us to get you.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s in the city, buying you new teddy bears.”
“What city?”
“The big city,” Michael said. “The biggest big city, where they have the most teddy bears to choose from.”
“Wow,” said Chrissy. “I wish she was here.”
“She will be soon,” Michael said.
Carson said, “I have to get some fresh air. Just a minute.”
She left the room, walked a few steps along the promenade, put her back to the motel wall, and wept quietly.
After a minute or two, someone squeezed her shoulder, an
d she thought Michael had come to comfort her, but it was Deucalion.
He said, “This is new for you.”
“There’s a little girl with us now. I’m pretty sure she’s an orphan. She’s not going to be the only one in this town.”
“What’s softened you?”
“Scout.”
“I guess she would.”
“Don’t worry. I can still handle myself.”
“I have no doubt you can.”
“But what are we going to do with her? Little Chrissy? She’s not safe with us.”
“I’ll take her to Erika.”
“Erika and—Jocko?”
He smiled. “What kid wouldn’t fall in love with Jocko—as long as he’s wearing a hat with bells when she first meets him?”
“All right. Let me tell you about her mother. Before it’s done, this is going to be worse than New Orleans.”
“It’s already worse,” Deucalion said. “I’ve got a few things to tell you, too.”
Jocko’s online path was through the satellite dish on the roof. Once online, he backlooped through the downtown-Denver telephone exchange. He sidelooped from Denver to Seattle. Seattle to Chicago. Hiding his origins. Not as easy to do when starting from a satellite uplink. But doable if you’re Jocko. Banzai!
He started with a light touch. Soon he hammered the keys. They kept spare keyboards in a closet. Sometimes Jocko busted them up a little when he used his feet for the keyboard, his hands for other tasks.
He wore his hacking hat. Green and red with silver bells. When he was plinking passcodes like ducks in a shooting gallery, the room filled with a merry jingle.
This was the best. He had never been happier. One of the good guys! Cyber commando! The only thing that would make it better was a bar of soap to nibble.