The Acolyte (15 page)

Nobody had laid eyes upon The One Child since: not The Prophet, not even its own Mother. To look upon The One Child was to behold the face of the Almighty made flesh: a sight beyond any mortal’s capacity to bear. Its handlers wore blindfolds at all times and even the highest state dignitaries wore blacked-out glasses in its presence.

A photographer claimed to have snapped a shot of it from the crotch of a tree overlooking The Prophet’s compound using a telephoto lens, but when he opened the camera the insides were melted and the film turned to ash. The rogue shutterbug had been executed later that same week.

Eyes downcast, I hurried past the bier. I didn’t look back.

Outside, the famished peacock made another tortured rush at me. I held my ground as the starvation-crazed thing pecked my boots, tearing at shreds of the leather flaking off the toes and eating them hungrily.

I reached into my duster pocket for the grapes I’d surreptitiously stashed from The Prophet’s table and scattered them on the grass.

The bird ruffled its tail feathers and stared at me with sad, grateful eyes before bending over to eat them.

Sermon

I joined the sluggish traffic streaming toward the Stadium SuperChurch. I parked in the St. David section, 1-B, under a light stanchion bearing the Saint’s picture. I dodged the crowds gathered round devotional street performers and made my way to the ticket boxes.

“Your ticket has been upgraded,” the wicket maiden said. “Check at will-call.”

After presenting my ID at the will-call booth I found I’d been upgraded to third row aisle, a mere twenty paces from the stage. The ticket envelope was stamped
BY SPECIAL INVITATION
OF THE PROPHET.

I was given an invasive pat down before being ushered onto the thick red carpet of the cathedral-level lobby. Men and women I’d seen in the
Wining and Tithing
section of the New Bethlehem Bugler mingled, bowing or receiving bows according to their position.

I grabbed a program and scanned today’s sermon: “Wages of Sin, Taxes of Retribution.”

1. Prophet’s Introduction
   
2. Funeral Procession for the First Daughter of His Heavenly
   
3. Mouthpiece The Prophet
   
4. The Immaculate Mother Addresses Her Devotees
   
5. The Prophet’s Weekly Forecast
   
6. Collection Baskets
   
7. Healings (time permitting)
   
8. The One Child’s Song
   

The SuperChurch rose in sloped tiers like ancient Greek amphitheatres. Each level was barricaded with Plexiglas and loops of razor wire to keep each social strata separate. Every year when tithes were toted, families moved up or down tiers depending on their contribution.

The Prophet’s introductory music—Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”—boomed over the speaker system. Neon laser-lights wheeled across the dome roof.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer intoned, “devoted Followers, arise for your Heaven-Sent Hero and Bosom of Christly Love . . . The Prophet.”

The Prophet emerged from the sacristy, moving across the stage to a glass altar. I saw the sweat glistening on his forehead and the slim microphone friction-taped to the side of his face.

“Harken to me, my children; hear the word of God. Who amongst us cannot say that these past weeks have brought woeful tidings? Seeking answers, I fasted and prayed for three days, eyes cast Heavenward in search of an answer. And lo, the Lord did come to me and His wrathful gaze stripped me to the bone and He delivered a prophecy that froze my soul. He said, ‘The Devil has come to New Bethlehem.’”

A low moan rippled through the congregation. An old woman in the front row was so overcome she passed out; she slid bonelessly from her chair swaddled in the folds of her fur coat.

“I speak nothing but the gospel truth, Lord’s lips to mine. And when I asked why the Devil has come to New Bethlehem, how he’d come to insinuate himself within the city walls, the Lord did not tell me to blame the crafty Jew or the heathen cow-worshipper or the fanatic who exterminates himself in the name of Allah. The Lord said it was
He
who sent the Devil to New Bethlehem!”

The congregation swooned.

“He did so to test the truly faithful. For while it was written in Jeremiah 15:21 that the Lord shall deliver Followers out of the hand of the wicked and redeem them out of the hand of the terrible, first He must know His people are worthy of redemption. I spoke unto the Lord and asked how we might spot the Devil—what guises will he take? And unto me the Lord saith the Devil’s name is Legion, he contains multitudes. Thus, he might be glimpsed in anyone’s face: your wife or husband or grandfather or teacher and even your sons or daughters. The great deceiver Satan may live in every one of you; it was your lack of piety that let him in!”

A funereal bagpipe dirge dripped out of the speakers. A pair of swinging doors were flung open and Eve’s coffin emerged onto the stadium floor. Eve’s face was projected on the big screen: virginal, serene, ringed by a shimmering halo.

“Rise and pay respects to my precious daughter, swept away in the tide of blood that has washed over this city. Eve laid down her life for New Bethlehem, dying for the sins of those gathered under this roof.”

A pandemonium of sadness gripped the assembly.

“Eve!” The Prophet lamented. “Sinless Eve, we thank you for your sacrifice, and beckon you: spread your eternal beacon over our besieged city in this, its darkest hour!”

The Prophet took a knee, exhausted, mournful. The Immaculate Mother exited the sacristy to drape him in a purple robe. The choir sang “Nearer My Lord to Thee.”

Next, The Prophet’s shoulders hitched and he threw off the robe just as the choir kicked into a rendition of “When the Saints Come Marching In.”

At this close vantage I could see his eyes. They were dry as desert stones.

“Eve-
ah
!” he hollered, re-energized by the light of the Lord. “
Praaaaise
you, Eve-
ah
!” He danced on the balls of his feet. “Your death shall not be in vain-
nah
, because the people of this city are set to reform their wicked ways and root out the Devil-
lah
, root out the great scourge Satan-
nah
!”

The stadium exploded into wild cheers and cries of “Hallelujah!”

The Prophet was running in place, high-stepping, knees whapping his chest.

“Now you tell me-
ah
, we gonna run from Satan?”

“
NO!
” the congregation replied.

“Now you tell me-
ah
, we gonna let him take our city-
yah
down the path of Gomorrah?”

“
NO!
”

“Are we gonna make this city pure-
ah
; are we gonna prove to the Lord we are worthy of redemption-
nah
?”

“
YEA!
”

“And are we gonna catch the Devil wherever he lays-
sah
, close our hands round his venom-spouting throat-
tah
, and crush the life outta that fulsome serpent-
tah
?”

“
YEA!
”

“Can I hear a ‘God is Great, Amen’?”

“
GOD IS GREAT, AMEN!
”

The Prophet ran a circuit of the stage, fists pumping. Laser lights strobed and danced. A chain of fireworks went off, bathing him in a shower of golden sparks. Eve’s coffin had nearly completed its tour of the stadium floor.

“Can I get a ‘Praise be to God, Hallelujah Amen’?”

“
PRAISE BE TO GOD, HALLELUJAH AMEN!
”

The coffin passed through the swinging doors unnoticed—it was as if Eve had been some bombing vaudevillian given a merciless hook. The show went on.

I tuned out the Immaculate Mother’s address to her devotees. Same old song and dance: abstinence, denying want, pure body equals pure soul. She ceded the stage to The Prophet, who emerged in a kingly robe.

“Followers, this week’s prophecy is grave. Evil has infested our town and made it unclean. We pray to the Lord for answers in this time of need.”

We said: “Lord, hear our prayer.”

“The Lord saith we shall be visited with a punishing plague because, just as the heathen Pharaoh of old, our hearts have been hardened. The Heavens shall pour forth pestilence; so saith the Lord. We can only pray for respite—so let us pray.”

“Lord, hear our prayer.”

“And I sat in council with our Lord, and he did repeat unto me Luke 4:23—Physician, heal thyself. He shall help those who help themselves. Whomsoever might spy a man acting in an ungodly manner, defacing city property or conspiring in league with Satan, must alert the authorities. Give us strong men, devout men, to ferret out the disease festering within these city walls. We ask this in the name of the Lord.

“Followers, this is my prophecy,” The Prophet went on. “It is immutable. It is the Word of the Lord.”

The One Child was borne onstage. Its bier was rigged for sound and it began to sing . . . unearthly, that voice. The One Child’s songs were wordless—it had no need for words. Its language was one of evocation: of love, of triumph, of spirit and empathy and hope. Hearing its song, you knew this was no creature of our world. This was a Heaven-sent gift. Undeniable proof that yes, God existed and yes, He cared deeply for his creations.

The One Child’s song ended. We filed out of the stadium silently. A hundred thousand shaken shells.

Plague #2
Rain of Frogs

That night I waited outside the motel for Garvey. His car slewed up and over the curb. Its bumper sticker read:
I’m Pro-Choice . . . I choose to keep my PANTS UP!

He hoofed the passenger door open and leaned across the seat.

“How much you charging, sweetheart?”

I slid in and said, “Your soul.”

“Awful steep, even for a purty little tulip such as yourself.”

He was in an upbeat mood. This, I noted, could be due to his having consumed an enormous quantity of Hallelujah Energy Boost. Empties rattled round the floor. He had that telltale Energy Boost ’stache: gritty yellow crystals clung to the stubble of his upper lip.

The sky was scudding over with a layer of low-lying thunderheads. The perfect night for our sort of devilry. Mother Nature graciously providing camouflage.

Years ago I found myself in conversation with a Jew who’d made his living as a film producer back when Hollywood was still called Hollywood. He told me about a radio show that had provoked mass hysteria when he was a boy. It began with a newscaster stating in a calm stentorian tone that aliens—saucer creatures, he called them—had landed on Earth with the intent to enslave humanity.

Panic had broken out in the streets. Listeners rioted; they ran for the hills. Why? Because people are imminently deceivable. In a masochistic way they
want
to be deceived, so long as the deception proves the existence of an unquantifiable entity they’ve harboured a longstanding belief in.

Like aliens. Or God.

A razor wire fence ran round the airstrip’s perimeter. Garvey nudged the unlocked gate open with the car’s bumper and we drove cracked ruts along the airstrip’s edge, wheels kicking up bone-coloured dus
t
. The hangars sat like steel tortoises on the alkali flats.

Exeter was tapping his watch as we pulled up. Hollis, Applewhite, Henchel and Brewster, and the rest of the crew were there—and, standing outside the circle of men, arms locked across her chest, was Doe.

“Long night ahead of us,” Exeter told us. “We’ve got somewhere in the neighbourhood of ten tons to get from there”—he pointed at the hangars—“to there”—pointing at the trio of B-17s.

I’d been part of this plan from the jump: I’d laid out waterproof netting over the hangar floors and distributed the plastic pools which were filled with trucked-in swamp water; I’d dumped in the tadpoles and shut the hangar doors. Every week someone had driven out and tossed in a few sacksful of food pellets. Now we’d harvest the fruits of that labour.