Eliza had lit the candles around the room at the Disciple’s urging, then stood near the door with her arms crossed. She tried to give voice to her distrust, rather than her fear. There were half a dozen people on the other side of the hollow wooden door, plus Benita, who would be back in a few moments. Whatever they had in mind for back here, it couldn’t be too horrific, not with so many witnesses at hand.
“What exactly do you mean by sanctification?” she asked.
“The problem is you’ve devoted yourself to impure things, and you need to be sanctified to the Lord. Only after you are sanctified will you be ready to survive the blood and fire that will sweep over the Earth.”
“And that means what, exactly?” she asked.
“It means you’re a dirty slut and he’s going to remove your sluttiness,” Christopher said.
“I’m nothing of the kind.”
“You are, you filthy whore. I can see it on your face, you think about sex all the time, it’s all you care about.”
“Shut your mouth,” she snapped. She turned to the Disciple. “Either he stops his lying insults, or I’m walking out of here right now.”
The Disciple fixed Christopher with a hard look. “Keep quiet. You’re here to witness the sanctification, not to do it yourself.” He turned back to Eliza. “And it’s too late to leave, you already agreed to this.”
“No I didn’t. I agreed to let you tell me about it, and then I’ll decide. I’m still waiting for you to explain to me what the rite of sanctification is. Before I agree to anything.”
“I don’t have to explain it, I’ll show it to you.”
The tickle of alarm started to spread and she forced herself to remain calm, reminded herself there were people in the other room and she could always scream if things got ugly.
Benita came back with a pan full of oil, which she put over a propane burner in the corner. Eliza had moved to let her back in and now Christopher moved around until he stood between her and the front room of the trailer. The candles cast flickering light across the inside of the room, which Eliza found sinister, not calming.
“Benita, what’s this all about anyway?” she asked.
“It’s easier if you just lie down and let it happen,” the other woman said. “Nobody likes it at first, but it’s really not so bad. And it’s just what we deserve. It’s what I deserve.” She turned to the Disciple. “Sanctify me, first. Then it won’t be so bad for her, she’ll see.”
Eliza was still caught up on the first part of what she’d said. “What do you mean, lie down? I’m not going to do anything until someone explains what’s going on here.”
“Everybody gets nervous the first time they’re touched,” Benita said. “It’s normal.”
“Nobody is going to touch me.”
“Why?” Christopher asked. “Because you’ll like it too much?”
“I’ve heard enough.” She reached for the doorknob, but he blocked the door and pushed her back toward the center of the room
Eliza didn’t hesitate. “Someone out there! Open this door and help me. I need help, now!”
“Shut up and get it over with,” someone yelled back.
The Disciple grabbed her wrist. “It’s the will of the Lord and I am his disciple, he speaks through me. We are only the Chosen Ones because we obey His will, even when it is difficult. This is how you prove you are one of us.”
She wrenched free. “Don’t do this, I’m warning you.”
“You are a pretty girl, I’m sure there are lustful thoughts in your head that you could purge. Think pure thoughts, think of God.”
“Sanctify her,” Christopher urged.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Think about it,” the Disciple said. “If you don’t sanctify yourself, men like that will come after you.” He nodded to Christopher. “You don’t want that.”
Christopher pushed her from behind and the Disciple grabbed her again. She struggled, but he was strong. “Benita, help me,” she said. “Do something, I’m begging you.”
Benita shook her head and backed into the corner, next to the propane stove. She closed her eyes. “Don’t, Eliza, please. You’re making it worse.”
Christopher grabbed Eliza’s shirt and tried to tear it over her head. She jerked her elbow back and hit him in the side of the face. He grabbed his jaw and stared at her in unmasked fury. “You slut! You whore!”
Together, the two men tore at her clothes while she struggled and screamed. Eliza hadn’t grown up on a ranch to be weak and helpless. She fought and scratched and kicked and bit. But the two men didn’t relent. The Disciple worked with grim determination, like he was doing an unpleasant task that he wanted to hurry and get over with.
They got off her shirt, had her bra up around her neck, and tore off the temple garments given to her when she’d gone through the LDS temple in Salt Lake, then started on her pants. She kicked and squirmed, but then they had her pants unbuttoned and were pulling them off. But when the Disciple had them almost to past her knees, she got one leg free and brought her knee up with a vicious thrust. It smacked him in the nose and he fell back with a grunt. His hand flew to his nose. Blood squirted out.
“Bitch!” Christopher cried. “I’ll do it myself.”
He fumbled with his pants and they came down. He was hard. But he had let go of Eliza while he did it and she scrambled away. Benita stood cowering and helpless in the corner, her eyes still closed, her head down, shaking it with such violence that she looked like she was having an epileptic fit.
Eliza reached for the pan of olive oil. She had no idea what they’d meant to do with the oil, but during the struggle it had continued heating over the open flame and now there was a smoky vapor coming off the surface. She grabbed the hot metal handle and swung it around just as Christopher reached her. He ducked, and most of the hot oil flew past his face. But a hot spray caught him on one side, narrowly missing his eyes. He screamed and pawed at his face.
The Disciple was regaining his feet and she didn’t bother with her shirt, only pulled her pants up enough to be able to run. She grabbed for the door and burst into the front room of the trailer.
Half a dozen people sat on the worn linoleum floor, staring at open Bibles by the light of a single Coleman lantern. Eliza could tell by their glazed expressions that they were not actually reading, just staring at the pages while they listened to the horrific events in the next room. Faces jerked up and eyes widened in surprise. A young man named Kirk started to his feet, but she didn’t wait to see if he was trying to help or meant to stop her.
Someone had installed locking bars to fall across the door and secure the trailer—some bit of paranoia about intruders—but thankfully, they weren’t down now. She threw open the door.
Her mind was working at a feverish pace. She had to get to the cell phone she’d hidden in the abandoned sofa, call for help. But then what? Hide in the dump until the police showed up? Find the road and follow it all night? Locate the ravine? Maybe just find a broken two-by-four in the rubbish and use it to defend herself. Land a couple of good blows and drive some sense into them. Make them back off enough to explain she’d made a mistake, and could they just let her go? She’d forget all about them, they’d never hear from her again.
In her haste, she forgot that there were no steps, only a couple of cinder blocks stacked on top of each other so that you could get close enough to the doorway to stretch your leg, grab the frame, and hoist yourself up. Her foot groped at the empty air and then she went flying into the darkness. Her arms windmilled. The landing drove the air out of her lungs. Her head smacked painfully against the ground. She wasn’t injured, but it took a moment to recover.
By the time Eliza regained her feet, they were on her.
Chapter Thirteen:
Miriam had been wrong about one thing. David didn’t make it to the state line.
They were almost to I-15 when his legs started to twitch and he broke into a sweat. How long had it been, maybe fourteen hours since he’d last slammed a needle into the muscle on his leg?
Miriam glanced over as they pulled onto the freeway. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Sure, whatever you say.”
She put a CD into the player and stayed in the right lane while faster traffic zipped past on their left. It was a choir singing “Praise to the Man.”
“Please don’t tell me this is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.”
“What do you expect, Metallica? Lady Gaga? Or do you object because it’s apostate music?”
“I don’t care about the LDS. Can you just turn it off?”
“Nah, I kind of like it. Besides, it will put you in the right frame of mind.”
He gritted his teeth. “Fine, whatever. Just speed up, will you?”
“What?” she asked in a tone of faux concern. “You’re not in a hurry, are you? I’m driving within the speed limit. Don’t want to get a ticket.”
He glanced over, saw that she was driving sixty. Seemed like forty. “Come on. I can’t stand this. Drive faster.”
“It’s almost like you need something. I’ve got a baggy in the back, a spoon, candle and matches, syringe. Everything you need.”
“You want me shooting up? And you’re worried about a ticket?”
“The odds of a cop pulling up beside us is very low. Much better chance of a radar gun.”
“The speed limit is seventy-five!”
“Okay, I’ll speed up, if that’s what you want.”
Her speed crept up to about sixty-four, sixty-five. Five minutes later it was all the way to sixty-eight and then she put it on cruise control. The headlights sliced into the darkness, illuminating the reflectors on the edges of the freeway. There was little traffic north of the city, heading for the spit of land in Arizona before I-15 cut north into St. George, Utah. An occasional semi barreled past on their left at about eighty, or even more rarely, a car, going even faster.
You are mine.
It was an audible voice inside David’s head. The demon that had taken hold of him had crawled within and was now living in his head.
“Go away. Leave me alone.”
Miriam glanced at him with a frown. “Excuse me?”
He closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing. In, out, in, out. His heart raced, it pounded in his ears. His joints felt like they were pricked with red-hot needles.
You cannot escape. With every moment your chains grow thicker. Soon you will live with me in Hell.
“Go away!”
“David?” Miriam asked. “Talk to me, tell me what’s happening.” She’d shed the snarky tone, sounded concerned.
You will swim in a lake of fire. When you lift your head, you will see me standing above you and you will worship me, beg for my mercy.
A shiver worked down his spine. His legs and feet burned, like acid was pouring into every needle track. He could hear the demon—or was it Lucifer himself?—chuckling. And a smell in his nostrils, like burning sulfur.
“Oh, Lord, please, help me.”
“Come on, David. Talk to me, talk it out.”
He turned to beg her to stop, to get him something to take away this hell, shove the bloody needle into his neck, depress the plunger. Just make it stop. But he saw nothing but blackness. He was blind. He screamed.
“Stay with me, David, I’m pulling over. Hang on.”
When you lift your head from the fire, my demons will tear open your throat and pour a bucket of acid into your gut. I will draw it from an ocean of acid and every minute of the day I will pour another bucket down your throat. When all the ages of the earth have passed and I have emptied the ocean of acid, I will refill it with my malice and begin anew.
David could feel it now, taste the acid rising from his stomach. He writhed, groped for the door handle. The pavement would end his pain. Maybe one of the semis would crush him to a pulp. And then he could throw himself on the mercy of whoever waited on the other side of the veil. The door flew open and he hurled himself into the darkness.
But he just fell and stopped. Miriam had pulled off the road and stopped the car before he threw himself out. He lay on the ground with his face pressed to the gravel. Pain shot through his body and he couldn’t control the convulsions that seized his limbs.
You cannot escape and you cannot hide.
And then Miriam had him and was lifting him to a sitting position on a curb. His vision returned. They were at the rest stop outside Mesquite. Street lights illuminated the parking lot and the half a dozen cars and a pair of idling rigs. The smell of diesel gradually replaced the sulfur and acid. The shaking slowed, but didn’t stop.
“I can’t do this,” he said. “Just fill the syringe and put me out of my misery.”
“You’re wrong. You can do this.”
The look of sorrow and compassion on her face surprised him. It was an about-face from the disdain she’d shown him at the house, hard as the steel on the end of her handgun and just as merciless.
“You were right. I’m worse than worthless, I’m a blight on the Earth and the sooner my soul flies to hell, the better for everyone. I deserve to roast for my sins.”
“First of all, I never said that,” Miriam said. “And I don’t believe it. The worth of every soul is great in the eyes of the Lord. Second, there’s no such place as hell, not like that, and you know it.”
“Outer Darkness, then.”
“Outer Darkness is for the elect who deny the holy spirit. You’re just a lost soul. And lost souls can be found. Listen to me.” She took his hand and her touch was gentle. “Jacob saw something in you. He sent Eliza to bring you back, he convinced your father to remove his edict. I believe there is something good in there somewhere, just like your brother. You even look a little like him.”
“Like a hollow caricature. A bad photocopy. I’m nothing like him, except for a nose and a chin.”
“David, please. I want to help, but you have to let me.”
“Can you get me something?” he asked
“Of course. What would you like? Water? A soda?”
“You know what I need.”
“Oh.” She hesitated. “David, you don’t have to do this. You can make it to Blister Creek without drugs.”
“No, you were right. I made it about to the state line, that’s all.”
“All that stuff I said at the house was an act,” she said. “I’m good at it, it’s how the FBI trained me and I was a natural. Don’t take it seriously, I was just trying to get you out of the house. Now that you’re out of the house, I want to help.”