*
Charlie Johns paced back and forth before the chasm in the road. His heart thudded in his chest. “King of the Jungle,” he whispered to himself.
He needed to get out of here. He had eaten all the Vienna sausages at once, and they’d served only to make him more hungry.
He had a car, he thought, Megan’s BMW. He could just drive away, drive till he found some place that would take his credit cards or his checks. Someplace sane, where the phones worked.
But he didn’t have the keys to Megan’s car, he realized.
Megan had them. And Megan was dead and in the back of the house and lying under the tub dead in the part of the house where Megan was dead .. . His mind whirled. He felt the need to sit down, and he found the curb and sat.
The keys, he thought, were probably in her handbag. And her handbag was lying in the room somewhere. He might be able to find it without even looking at Megan.
Charlie rose from the curb, swayed, and walked back to his house. He felt he required fortification, so he went to the kitchen first, to the wine rack, and opened a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape. He drank half of it from the neck— good things in wine, he thought, real nutrition there.
The wine’s flush prickled along his skin. With his stomach almost empty, the alcohol hit him quickly.
Get to the bedroom fast, he thought. Grab the handbag. Run.
In his haste Charlie stumbled over the water heater that sprawled in the back hall and almost went to his knees. He wrenched himself upright and kept on going, his shoes squelching on the wet carpet. Floorboards sagged under his weight. Don’t look, he thought. He lurched to the door and stepped into the master bedroom.
“Oh God,” he said, and closed his eyes. He turned and lurched blindly for the door. He ran into the door frame and felt a cracking blow to his head. He staggered through the door and down the hall, and then he fell across the water heater and vomited up his Vienna sausages and red wine.
Because there were flies now, a black cloud of them, and maggots, so many maggots that they crowded on each other and leaped a foot in the air and fell to the floor with the sound of soft rain.
Charlie staggered to the kitchen and his bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape, and he rinsed his mouth with the wine and then gagged and went to his knees as his stomach convulsed.
He went out of the house to the BMW and lay down across the two front seats. He still had the wine bottle clutched in his hands.
He could still detect Megan’s scent hovering in the car.
After a while, he took another drink of wine.
*
The Comet has been passing to the westward since it passed its perihelion— perhaps it has touched the mountain of California, that has given a small shake to this side of the globe— or the shake which the Natchezians have felt may be a mysterious visitation from the Author of all nature, on them for their sins— wickedness and the want of good faith have long prevailed in that territory. Sodom and Gomorrha would have been saved had three righteous persons been found in it— we therefore hope that Natchez has been saved on the same principle.
The Louisiana Gazette and Daily Advertiser
(New Orleans), December 11,1811
“Remember to bring in the food! All the food!” Brother Frankland called after the little convoy he was sending down into the Arkansas Delta. “Bring all the survivors, but bring as much food as you can!”
The trucks and four-wheel-drive vehicles crunched gravel as they rolled out of the church parking lot and onto the highway. Frankland’s people— conspicuous in their official-looking white armbands— were doing a good job of bringing in survivors from isolated farms, along with as many supplies as could be scrounged from wrecked buildings or dug out of collapsed cellars. It turned out that Frankland would need as much food as his scavengers could provide.
They’d managed to plunder the Piggly Wiggly, though, of everything edible that had survived the quake. The sheriff’s department hadn’t interfered, being told that the people in the white armbands were relief workers, and Piggly Wiggly management were nowhere to be found. Sheryl was salting down as much of the meat as hadn’t gone directly into the stewpot, and storing the flour in plastic garbage barrels, along with bay leaves to discourage the weevils from eating more than their fair share.
Not that weevils weren’t a good source of protein in themselves.
Protein was also available in the local catfish farms. Since the catfish farmers couldn’t get their fish to market, Frankland reasoned, they might as well donate their harvest. But he hadn’t spoken to any of them other than his parishioner Joe Johnson, who was willing to contribute his income for his soul’s sake.
The food issue aside, things were going well. By now, the second day following the quake, the Church of the End Times had turned into a regular encampment, encompassing half the ten acres that comprised Frankland’s property. Tents marched in disciplined rows. Latrines had been dug and screened with canvas or plastic sheets that crackled in the brisk wind. Reverend Garb had brought in his own parishioners to help out, and now there were black hands working alongside the white in getting the camp ready.
It was laid out like an army camp. The Army of the Lord.
Hilkiah was out on the fields planting a series of poles in the ground— planting them deep in quick-setting concrete, so that they’d stay upright during any future tremors. Then he’d string them with loudspeakers, so that everyone, throughout the growing compound, could have the benefit of the Good News simultaneously being broadcast on the radio station. Frankland, Dr. Calhoun, and the Reverend Garb took turns broadcasting, varying their message between urging refugees to make their way to town, asking listeners to donate supplies, and lengthy sermons on the End Times.
Near the church, a portable drilling rig— one Frankland had bought fifth-hand years ago— was putting in a new well. The quake had sheared the pipes from Frankland’s two old wells, but he’d been prepared for that, and his cisterns would be sufficient till they could get new wells dug.
Things were much better organized here than in town. Rails Bluff had long since run out of emergency supplies, personnel, food, and fresh water. All Sheriff Gorton could do when refugees straggled in was to advise them to continue up Highway 417 to the Reverend Frankland’s place. He was shuttling them on Dr. Calhoun’s bus, along with as many of Rails Bluff’s own inhabitants as he could persuade to go.
Communication was nonexistent: the telephone exchange had been destroyed, ground lines were down, radios in the sheriff’s cars didn’t carry far enough to reach anywhere else, cellular phone relays were all gone. It was probably a blessing, Frankland thought— he could do his work here without worrying about corruption and evil broadcast from the outside, but he still felt sorry for those worried about loved ones they could not reach.
“Brother Frankland?”
Frankland turned at the sound of Garb’s voice. “Brother Garb?” he smiled.
“Heaven-o,” said Garb.
“Beg pardon?”
Garb gave a shy smile. “Heaven-o. It’s a way of saying ‘hello,’ except it leaves out the ‘hell.’ It always bothered me that there was hell in hello.”
Frankland nodded in admiration. “Heaven-o! That’s great!” he said. “Did you think of that?”
“No, I heard that there was this county in Texas that voted to replace hello with heaven-o, and I thought it was a pretty good idea.”
“Maybe we should make it official here in the camp.”
“I’d be very pleased if we could.” Garb adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles. “I’ve just been speaking to that last busload of refugees that came up from town,” he said. “Half of them are from below the bluff, down in the Delta.”
Frankland nodded. “They can hear our message in the Delta? That’s good.”
Garb shook his head. “No, they didn’t hear you. They came here because it was the only place they could go. The levees broke, and everyone in the Delta was flooded out.”
Frankland shook his head. All those rich farmers growing cotton and soya in the Arkansas Delta, living off the fat of the land while their neighbors, and their neglected brethren in Rails Bluff, stayed poor. Now the rich farmers were refugees, and Rails Bluff their only hope.
“God bless them,” Frankland said. That Wal-Mart superstore, he thought, must be flooded out, too.
“The ones who got out were those who live close to the bluff,” Garb went on, “or who owned boats that could get them through the flooding. There must be many more people down there who have been stranded.” Garb looked up at Frankland. “I was thinking that we should organize rescue groups with boats, just as we’ve done with jeeps and trucks. Go out there into the flooded country, bring people in.”
Frankland put a hand on Garb’s shoulder. “Brother Garb, that’s a brilliant idea. Bless you.”
Garb smiled. “Thank you. I can ask some of the refugees to serve as guides, because they know the country. And of course they already have boats.”
“Put our own people in the boats as well, make sure the thing’s done right.”
“Reliable people.”
“Exactly.” Frankland nodded.
It was glorious to have so many people here on his wavelength.
“I will organize it, if you like,” Garb said.
“Thank you, Brother Garb.” He hesitated. “Don’t forget the Wal-Mart. Tools, supplies, food.”
“Guns and ammunition.”
“Amen,” said Frankland.
There was the sound of a horn blaring from the highway, and Frankland looked up to see a pickup truck rolling in from the east. The driver waved a hand from his window as he turned into the church parking lot. Frankland could see another man in the bed of the truck. He and Garb trotted up to the truck as it ground to a halt on the gravel.
The driver hopped out. Frankland recognized him as the sixteen-year-old son of one of his parishioners, a scavenger who had been sent out east with some others. “We’ve got a casualty,” the boy said. “We pulled him out of a wrecked car at the bottom of the Rails River Bridge. He must have been on the bridge when it collapsed.”
“He’s been down there for two days?” Garb said, impressed.
“He was about to drown when we pulled him out. The river’s rising.” The boy walked around the pickup and let down the tailgate. “It was a heck of a job getting him up the riverbank,” he said. “We need a stretcher or something to get him to the infirmary.”
“We don’t have any stretchers,” Garb said, “but I’ll get a canvas cot.”
Garb hustled away. Frankland looked into the bed of the truck and felt a rush of cold surprise.
Father Guillaume Robitaille. Personal emissary to Rails Bluff from the Prince of Darkness.
The priest was pale where he wasn’t sunburned, and crusted with his own blood. His nose was mashed over most of his face, his eyes were black, his front teeth had been knocked out. He looked at the world without comprehension, from rolling, half-slitted eyes. He shivered and trembled and made little whining noises.
Frankland gave silent thanks to the Lord, who had put the great Roman Enemy in his power.
“We’ll take Father Robitaille to my house,” he said. “I want to look after him personally.” He looked down at the priest.
“Heaven-o, Father,” he said. “Heaven-o.”