Chapter 57
The Rag Man stared up at the body of the unidentified agent, suspended on a meat hook in the cave he called home. Not the cave. Not the one with God's Ark. This was his cave, the place he had hidden away from society these last seven and a half years, a place several miles away from the Ark Cave.
Was he not the new Gabriel?
But God must be disappointed in him. He had allowed a longing for fellowship to cloud his vision. When he had seen the three young ones discover the Ark, he had hoped that they, too, would come to understand God’s calling, that they would also feel the importance of protecting the Ark against Satan’s false ark, which now sat inside the Rho Lab in Los Alamos.
The Rag Man stared up at Harold's broken body, swinging slowly on the hook, and a scowl settled over his thin features. But they had betrayed the trust. They had led a ravager back to the Ark. Now the Rag Man would enforce God's vengeance upon them.
He turned away from Harold's corpse, the long, dirty strands of his blond dreadlocks swinging out behind him, and trotted toward the exit to his cave.
Although the boy had been the one who led the agent to the Ark, the Rag Man thought he would deal with the girl he had been watching first. Certainly God would not begrudge him some pleasure in disposing of her. He was, after all, doing God's bidding. He would do the others in due course.
The Rag Man exited the cave, running through the moonlit night along the trail that led back toward White Rock, his moon shadow stretching away behind him as he ran.