Chapter 52
Beyond the walls of the casita, an enclosed patio was all that separated the small guest quarters from the main house. The Rodriguez family had added the small apartment-style cottage to their house as a place for the nurse to stay, during that time when Raul had been on heavy-duty chemotherapy.
Once it became clear that neither chemotherapy nor radiation therapy would save her son, Mrs. Rodriguez had removed the bedroom furniture and converted the main room of the casita into a small chapel, complete with a large altar at the far end. Even the windowpanes had been removed and replaced with stained glass.
The walls were adorned with crosses—hundreds of them, in all shapes and sizes, each with a hanging Jesus nailed through the palms and feet, painted blood running from the wounds, head topped with a bloody crown of thorns.
The altar at the back of the room had recently been removed to make room for a full-size wooden cross. This was a new addition, something Raul had insisted on. It leaned against the back wall at a forty-five degree angle, attached to a track so that it could be cranked up to stand vertically or inclined to a point where someone could lay across it.
Along the walls, candles mounted on small shelves cast flickering shadows that crawled among the crosses like roaches skittering into cracks in the walls.
Sitting on three benches that had been pushed all the way up against the wall sat four young men, all Los Alamos High School students, each of them at least a year older than Raul. Raul, clad in a long, white robe, stood at the head of the chapel, beside the inclined cross that jutted out across the room on its track. He signaled with a slight motion of his right hand, and one of the students rose to throw the deadbolt closed, securing the entrance against interruption.
Raul spoke, his voice resonating with an underlying power and confidence that belied his age.
“Welcome, my brothers. To the three of you who have already entered my service, I extend my blessing.” Raul inclined his head slightly toward the three students who sat on the bench to his right. Turning then to the boy who sat by himself on the center bench, Raul stepped forward.
“And to the new aspirant, I say welcome. You have expressed a willingness to be released from the heavy bonds of worldly doubt, so that I may anoint you as one of the chosen. You desire to witness the miracle, so that you may know that I am come and that the end of times is at hand.”
Raul paused in front of the young man. “Aspirant Roderick Bogan, rise now.”
Rod Bogan stood. He was a senior, his heavy build having earned him years of ridicule from his classmates. That ridicule had taken a toll on his self-confidence, something for which he had tried to compensate by growing his blond hair long and by piercing his nose, eyebrows, tongue, and ears with prominent metal studs. But instead of looking tough, deep in his heart, Rod knew he just looked like a pathetic, fat loser.
Rod also knew what brought him here. It was the changes he had seen in his three friends, who until recently were even bigger losers than he was. Then they had met Raul and been transformed.
Not that they had become popular—far from it. Instead, they had found a heretofore unknown reservoir of inner strength and confidence, as if they knew something nobody else knew, something that made them superior.
Rod wanted that knowledge. He wanted that confidence. Wanted it so badly he could taste it. But now, here in the strange half-light of this chapel of crosses, he felt anything but confident. When his friend Paul slammed the deadbolt shut, it was all Rod could do to keep from screaming.
“Are you familiar with the book of Revelation?” Raul asked.
Rod cleared his throat. “A little.”
Raul smiled. “I am not here tonight to preach you a sermon. I will never preach at you. I will reveal something the book of Revelation promised would come. I will show you the face of God. Mankind is out of time. The end of days is at hand, and I have come to gather the faithful to me, in preparation for Armageddon.”
Rod was confused. He glanced at his friends, but the light shining in their eyes matched the intensity of Raul’s. With a shock, Rod realized they believed what Raul was saying. Unequivocally. Completely.
Raul turned and lay back on the cross, his arms spread out along the crossbeam, palms out, his knees bent, his bare feet positioned one atop the other. Seeing Raul nod his head, the three others rose, Gregg Carter moving to Raul’s right hand, Jacob Harris to his left, and Sherman Wilkes kneeling by Raul’s ankles.
Raul’s voice rang out clear as a bell in the semidarkness. “Kneel, that you may know that you are in the presence of the Lord.”
Before Rod could move, each of his three friends pulled forth a six-inch-long spike. They positioned them over Raul’s outstretched hands and feet. In a ritualistic unison that could have been choreographed, three six-pound sledgehammers struck the spikes, driving them through skin and bone, pounding the metal deep into the thick wooden beams of the cross.
Rod was frozen in place, too stunned to move. Again and again, the hammers rose and fell, pinning the hands to the cross, spiking one foot atop the other to the vertical beam. Blood seeped out around the thick spikes, congealing at a rate that was unnatural, and although Raul’s jaw clenched in pain, he did not cry out.
Having finished the crucifixion, Jacob moved to the crank and began winding it, slowly pulling the cross along its track until it stood erect against the far wall.
Rod stared in openmouthed wonder at the image of Raul dangling from the cross, the light of the dancing candle flames now jumping as if a sudden breeze had entered the room. Rod's legs lost their strength.
As he fell to his knees on the chapel floor, Rod stared up at the crucified form above him.
“My God.”
Raul smiled down at him.
“Yes, Roderick. I am.”