Authors: Walter Jon Williams
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Post-Apocalyptic
Some of the children had signs that said PROTECT ME FROM SMUT.
Bear State Videoramics, to its disgrace, had been renting pornographic videos out of its back room. And, to the disgrace of the community, this had apparently been going on for some time.
Action was clearly required. The world would end soon, and Frankland did not wish Rails Bluff to acquire more than its necessary share of the divine wrath.
Frankland had an idea about how to deal with these sorts of situations. He could, of course, gather signatures on a petition, and lobby and persuade the county council to pass an ordinance against pornography, but then the ordinance would immediately become the subject of legal contention— the Civil Liberties Union, or other secular satanist busybodies, might intervene, and lawyers would cost the county money, and the thing could drag on for years without resolution, and in the meantime Eric Magnusson would still be peddling porn.
So quicker action was called for. A stern warning from the guardians of the community. A picket line, a public protest, and a call for a boycott.
Hit him where it hurts, Frankland thought. Right in the pocketbook. Magnusson couldn’t be making
that
much money as it was—
nobody
in Rails Bluff was making money. Magnusson couldn’t afford to lose much business.
And the best part was, even the Civil Liberties Union agreed that picket lines and civil protest were just fine. Just citizens exercising their rights to state their opinion.
“Don’t reckon you’re going to give up this foolishness anytime soon, huh?” said Magnusson.
Frankland looked up from tying a white band on the arm of one of his Sunday School class. The owner of Bear State Videoramics stood above him, red-gold hair gleaming in the setting sun, a scowl on his long Swedish face.
“I reckon not,” Frankland said.
“What’s the problem?” Magnusson said. “I’ve got a right to earn a living.”
“You’re not allowed to earn a living by poisoning the community,” Frankland said. “Somebody might pay you to put cyanide in the water, but that doesn’t mean you should take the money.”
Magnusson scowled. “I don’t sell to no kids,” he said, “so I don’t know why you got kids here. They’ll find out more about porn from you than from me.”
“They’ll know to avoid it,” Garb said. He had walked over from where he had been organizing his youth association members.
“I won’t stay in business without the back room,” Magnusson insisted. “You want another business to close in this town? What about
my
family?”
“The righteous,” said Garb, “eat to the satisfaction of their soul; but the belly of the wicked shall want.”
“Vileness shall meet with requital, and loud shall be the lamentations thereof,” Frankland said, his mind spitting out the quote before his tongue could put a stop to it. He had to admit he had no idea whether the verse was actually in the Bible or not, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Garb’s eyes flicker as he tried to identify the quote.
Magnusson only looked grim. He glanced over the assembling parishioners and nodded to himself. “I see some of my best customers here,” he said. “People who rent from the back room a
lot.
You want their names?” He looked at Frankland. “What’s that quote, from the Bible? About the beam in the eye messing up your view, or something?”
Garb seemed troubled by this revelation, but Frankland knew the answer. “They would not have sinned,” he said, “if you had not provided the means.”
“Oh yeah. It’s all my fault. Blame the lusts of the world on me.” He waved his arms. “If they don’t get the stuff from me, they’ll get it on mail order.”
He stalked back to his store. Frankland watched him go in satisfaction.
“It’s working,” he said, and smiled.
Calhoun approached, a broad grin on his face. “Shall we start with a prayer?” he said.
*
The demonstration went well. A number of people, heading into the parking lot with the obvious intention of renting a video from Bear State Videoramics, saw the demonstrators, their friends and neighbors, circling in front of the store with their signs, sometimes chanting slogans and sometimes singing hymns. The customers would usually hesitate, then shy away.
There were a few exceptions. A couple young men, obviously drunk, made an elaborate show of renting some pornographic videos, which they waved at Frankland as they got back in their Jeep and sped away. A few other adults came into the store to return videos, and a couple stayed to make other rentals, conspicuously from the family section.
But for a Friday night, Frankland figured, Magnusson’s business was lousy. The protest was really hitting him in the pocketbook.
“It’s working,” he told Dr. Calhoun as they fell into step.
“For one night, anyway,” Calhoun said. Calhoun grinned up at him and wiped sweat from his bald head. “By the way, Reverend,” he said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you about your radio address the other day. What was that term you used? ‘Rapture wimp’ was it?”
Frankland felt heat rise to his face. “I do apologize, Dr. Calhoun,” he said. “The Spirit was in me pretty strong at the time— but I should have chosen more appropriate language.”
Calhon gave a chuckle. “Well, I’d
like
to think I’m not a wimp. I just happen to believe that there isn’t necessarily an interval between the Rapture and the Second Coming.”
“I believe I explained my reasoning in that radio speech,” Frankland said.
“But what about the Bema Judgment?” Calhoun said.
And Calhoun and Frankland then had a pleasant time, for the next hour or so, arguing back and forth about the Tribulation, the Bema Judgment as opposed to the Krino Judgment, the Twenty-Four Elders, Christ’s Bride in Heaven, the Judgment of the Gentiles, the role of the 144,000 Jews, and other significant matters pertaining to the end of the world.
They were interrupted by the publisher of the local weekly paper, who interviewed the leaders of the protest as well as Magnusson. Frankland had a feeling the coverage would be favorable, as the publisher was a member of Dr. Calhoun’s congregation.
The only real sour note came later, when the pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, Pete Swenson, turned up to rent a video. He crossed the parking lot slowly, a thoughtful frown on his beefy Swedish face, hands in the pockets of his chinos. He nodded at Frankland and Garb, walked into Bear State Videoramics, and could be seen having a long conversation with Magnusson.
Hilkiah approached, clenching his tattooed fists.
“G—” he began, then corrected himself. “Dad-blame that squarehead, anyway.”
“I can’t figure him out,” said Calhoun.
A good third of the inhabitants of the community were the descendants of a colony of Swedish and Norwegian immigrants that had been planted here in the 1880s. A great many of the members of the commercial class, such as it was, bore Swedish names. The lofty red brick Church of the Good Shepherd, sitting next to the immaculate green lawn of the immigrant cemetery, was the largest of the area’s churches, and the oldest.
And the Swedes’ attitude was
different.
It just was, and Frankland didn’t understand it. Why Swenson wouldn’t stand with the community against pornography, why he didn’t participate in the Love Offering Picnic, why he didn’t urge his flock to join the Christian Gun Club with their children— why wouldn’t a minister do these obvious things, which were so clearly a part of his duty?
Swenson left the video store and nodded at Frankland again as he shambled toward his car. There was a tape of
Spartacus
in his hand.
“Well,” Frankland said finally, as Swenson drove away. “Those Lutherans, they’re pretty close to being Catholics, you know.”
Calhoun and Hilkiah looked at him and nodded.
That probably explained it.
*
The stock market was going mad, the President thought, and all because Sam made a weird face on television. Some days he just loved his job.
“We need a full-court press on this issue,” he said. “Point out that the market is bearing out what the Administration has said all along.”
“Yes, sir,” said Stan Burdett. His spectacles glittered. He knew just how to handle something like this.
“Maybe the First Lady can say something in her speech in Atlanta tonight.”
“I’ll talk to Mrs. Grayson about it.”
There was the sound of a door opening. “Mr. President.” The President’s secretary entered the Oval Office— without knocking, the first time ever. “Something’s just happened.” There was a stricken look on her face.
The President saw the look and felt his heart turn over. For a moment he pictured the First Lady in a plane crash, his children in the sights of assassins ...
“What is it?” he said, and tried to control the tremor that had risen in his voice.
“I called Judge Chivington’s office to make your golf appointment for next week.” His secretary’s lip trembled. “The judge is dead, sir. He passed away in his office about ten minutes ago. The paramedics are still there, but they say they can’t revive him.”
The President began to breathe again. Relief warred with sorrow in his mind, and then with shame at his being glad it was the judge and not his family.
“I thought the judge would bury us all,” he said, and then his voice tripped over the sudden ache in his throat.
Judge Chivington gone. The judge had been such a constant in the President’s life, from the very beginning of his career to the present, that he had truly never pictured his life without the man.
He looked at his secretary, then at Stan. “Could you leave me alone for a while, please?” he managed.
“Yes, sir,” Stan said.
The others left in silence. The President turned his chair to the tall windows behind him, to the roses ranked in the garden beyond.
It was like losing a father, he thought.
Judge Chivington had been one of the greats. Legislator, jurist, advisor to the powerful. One of the few things that the President could absolutely rely on throughout his life.
The President would see that the judge was properly recognized as he began his trip to the beyond. A funeral in the National Cathedral, a procession of Washington’s great orators from the pulpit, a choir that spat holy fire.
The judge’s wife had died about five years ago. The President would have to call the judge’s daughter, who was a high-powered lawyer on the West Coast.
Do this right,
he thought.
If you ever do anything right in your
life, do this.
He turned and reached for the phone.
SEVEN
The two last being mechanics, and up late, mentioned that they were much alarmed at about 11 o’clock last night, by a great rumbling, as they thought, in the earth, attended with several flashes of lightning, which so lighted the house, that they could have picked up the smallest pin
—
one mentioned, that the rumbling and the light was accompanied by a noise like that produced by throwing a hot iron into snow, only very loud and terrific, so much so, that he was fearful to go out to look what it was, for he never once thought of an earthquake. I have thrown together the above particulars, supposing an extract may meet with corroborating accounts, and afford some satisfaction to your readers.
Extract of a letter dated West River, January 23,1812
Omar gave himself Monday off and drove to Vicksburg to pick up Micah Knox, the speaker from the Crusaders National of the Tabernacle of Christ, who was supposed to meet him at the bus station. There was only one white man in the station when Omar arrived, a skinny kid slumped in a plastic waiting room chair with his feet propped on an army surplus duffel bag, and he seemed so unlikely to be a Crusader that Omar’s gaze passed over him twice before the kid stood up, hitched the duffel onto his shoulder, and walked straight up to him.
“Sheriff Paxton.”
His voice was nasal and unpleasantly Yankee. He was thin and very small, coming maybe up to Omar’s clavicle, and thin, with red hair cut short enough to show the odd contours of his skull. He wore a long-sleeved flannel shirt, black jeans, and worn work boots. He looked maybe all of seventeen years old.
“Micah Knox?” Omar shook the kid’s hand. With the duffel and the short haircut, he looked like a teenage soldier on leave.
“Thanks for coming to meet me,” Knox said. His eyes were eerie, with bayou-green pupils entirely surrounded by eye-white.
“Can I help you with that?” indicating the duffel.
“No, I got it. Thanks.”
They walked out of the waiting room into the blazing heat. Omar opened the trunk of his car and let Knox put his duffel inside. The duffel seemed surprisingly heavy. Sweat was already popping out on Knox’s forehead.
“Damn, it’s hot down here,” he said.
“You’re not exactly dressed for the South,” Omar said. Knox looked self-consciously at his long-sleeved flannel shirt.
“I got Aryan tattoos,” Knox said. “I don’t want the niggers to see them. Nothing but niggers on that bus.” Omar unlocked his car doors and he and Knox got inside.
Omar started the car, and for Knox’s benefit turned on the air conditioner full blast. Two young black men, leaning against the shaded wall of the station, looked at them both with expressionless faces. Probably they recognized Omar from television. Knox glared sullenly back at them.
“I hate the way they stare,” he said.
“You had a chance to eat? You want to stop somewhere?”
Knox shifted uneasily in his seat. “I don’t eat much.”
It occurred to Omar that maybe Knox didn’t have any money. “I’m buying,” he said.
“I’m not hungry,” Knox said. “But you go ahead and eat if you want.”
Omar drove in silence over the crumbling Vicksburg streets until he got onto I-20 heading west. The freeway vaulted off the Vicksburg bluff and was suddenly over water. Omar looked down at a huge gambling casino dressed up as a nineteenth-century riverboat, with huge flowering stacks and gingerbread balconies, then saw Knox sitting with his hands clamped on the passenger seat, his eyes closed and his face gone pale.
“Something the matter?” Omar asked.
“I hate heights,” Knox said in a strained voice. “Can’t stand bridges.”
Omar was amused. When he’d got to the end of the bridge, he told Knox it was safe and Knox opened his eyes and began to breathe again.
“So you’re on a speaking tour or something?” Omar said. “The Grand Wizard didn’t make that clear.”
“Speaking. Recruiting.” He gave Omar a look with his strange eyes. “Fund-raising.”
“Can’t have raised too many funds if you’re traveling by bus.”
Knox shrugged. “I raised money here and there, but I didn’t keep it. I sent it to other Crusader groups.”
“That’s good.”
Knox shifted uneasily in his seat. “You got a bank in Shelltown, or whatever it’s called?”
“Shelburne City. And we’ve got two.”
“I might need to get some more money.” He scratched his head. “Either of the banks owned by Jews?”
“Nope. You can do business in either of ’em.”
“Mm.” Knox pulled his feet up into the seat and crossed his arms on his knees, resting his chin on his forearms. His fingers tapped out strange little rhythms on his flannel-covered biceps.
“I got a good feeling about Shelburne City,” he said. “I think we’re gonna give people something to think about.”
Omar and Knox didn’t talk much on the way to Spottswood Parish. Knox clamped his eyes shut when they crossed the Bayou Bridge, then sat up and grinned. “We’re in Liberated America now!” he said.
“As liberated as it gets,” Omar said.
“This is the only county in America not run by ZOG. You chased ZOG out of Spottswood County.”
“Parish,” Omar corrected automatically. ZOG was Zionist Occupation Government, a term that some of the people used.
They passed a sign with a blue spiral design and the words evacuation route. Knox narrowed his eyes as the sign passed.
“What is that? Is that some kind of nuclear war thing?”
“It’s in case of a big hurricane,” Omar said. “This state is so flat that a big enough storm could put half of us under the Gulf of Mexico.”
Knox looked around. “It’s flat all right.”
“It looks flatter’n it is,” Omar said. “You can’t really tell from looking, but most of the parish is actually higher than the country around. In the big flood of ’27, thousands of people saved their lives by evacuating here.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” Knox said. He peered at a strange figure that strolled up the road toward Hardee. He was an elderly black man dressed in worn overalls, with a ragged wide-brimmed hat on his head. He carried a wicker bag over one shoulder, and a stick over the other shoulder with a half-dozen dead birds hanging from it.
“What the hell is that?” Knox demanded.
Omar grinned. “That’s ol’ Cudgel,” Omar said. “He’s from down south in coonass country somewhere, came up here fifteen or eighteen years ago. Lives in a shack up in Wilson’s Woods, has a skiff on the bayou. Lives off what he can catch or trap, fish or birds or animals.”
Knox turned around in his seat, looking at the strange figure loping along the road in his homemade sandals. “Looks like he just came down from the trees,” he said. “He looks like the original Mud Person.”
“Mud people” was a term that some of the groups used for inferior races. The theory was that they weren’t created by God like white folks, they were spawned out of the mud.
“Cudgel’s all right,” Omar said. “Cudgel’s never been any trouble.”
Knox gave Omar an intent look. “Ain’t none of ’em
all right.
I’m from Detroit and I know. They chased us out of Madison Heights, they chased us out of Royal Oak. They’re animals, every one of ’em.” He flung himself back into his seat with a thump. “They should be put to sleep,” he said. “I get upset just thinking about it.”
“Well,” Omar said, “you’re in liberated country now. You can take it easy.”
“Hurricanes,” Knox muttered. “Swamp-niggers. Floods. Jesus H. Shit.”
Omar figured that the rest of the day was going to be very long. He was looking forward to getting his guest to the bus station in Monroe next morning. The kid was just too twitchy, too moody. He doubted that Knox had anything new to say about the situation. He wondered why the Grand Wizard had arranged to send him here.
Knox was pleased by the election signs and flags that were still visible in Hardee, and by the way some of Omar’s neighbors waved at him as he drove by. “You got some real support here!” he said, slapping his thighs. “That’s great! It’s great to see this stuff!”
Omar slowed as he approached his house. “I want to check if there’s reporters around,” he said. “I don’t want them following us to the meeting.”
“Jesus, no,” Knox muttered. He slumped low in his seat, just letting his eyes peer above the level of the door.
“I think most of them went home,” Omar said. “They got a short attention span, you know, Madonna farts over in Hollywood and they’ve got to go cover it.”
The road was empty of any living thing except for a couple of cur dogs panting in the shade of some forsythia. Omar parked in his carport. Knox seemed spooked by the idea that reporters might be lurking around, and he continued to slump in the passenger seat until he got out, and then kept his head down as he left the car and collected his duffel from the trunk.
Wilona wasn’t home, and Omar remembered that this was the date for her afternoon tea with Ms. LaGrande. Omar showed Knox through Wilona’s sewing room to the bedroom that Omar’s son David had occupied until he left for LSU. “Thanks, Sheriff,” he said. “This’ll do fine.”
“Would you like a beer?” Omar asked. “Co-Cola? Lemonade?”
“Coke would be good,” Knox said. He stowed his duffel under David’s narrow bed.
Omar got Knox a Coke and himself a beer. He sat on the sofa in the living room, and Knox sat crosslegged on the floor in front of him. He looked down the length of the building, through Wilona’s sewing room to his own bedroom.
“Why do they build ’em like this?” he asked. “Long and narrow, all the rooms in a row?”
“Ventilation,” Omar said. “A shotgun home was built so that any breeze would blow through all the rooms.”
“But now you’ve got air-conditioning.”
“Yep.” Omar sipped his Silver Bullet. Knox fidgeted with his Coke, making a continuous ring of ice against the glass.
“I’m curious,” Omar said. “The Grand Wizard didn’t really have a chance to tell me where your outfit is based.”
Knox turned his staring green eyes on Omar. “My action group formed in Detroit,” Knox said. “Most of us are in the West, I guess. Montana, Oregon, Washington State. But there’s no particular place we meet— we all travel a lot, and we only get together on special occasions.”
“A traveling Klan?” Omar smiled thinly to cover his unease. He was beginning to feel a degree of anxiety about his guest. “You all salesmen or something?” he asked.
Knox shook his head. “Not like you mean. I mean we all recruit, yeah, but we travel because we’re all warriors in the cause. See, I don’t
know
many other Crusaders— I’ve only met a handful. I only know the ones in my action group— that’s my cell. That way if one of us is an informer, he can only betray so many.”
“Uh-huh,” Omar said. He sipped his beer while alarms clattered through his mind. He didn’t like what he was hearing.
“You’re a police officer, right?” Knox said. “So you know how it is that serial killers get away with what they do.”
Omar thought about it. “You mean that there’s no connection—” he began.
“Right. They kill
perfect strangers.
There’s nothing to link the killers and their victims.”
“Uh-huh.” Omar said again. He narrowed his eyes, tried to think his way out of this.
Cocksucker set me up,
he thought.
“Just apply that principle to the revolution,” Knox said. “That’s all the Crusaders National are doing. You don’t do
anything
in your own area, or to anyone who knows you.” He looked up. “Say, did you ever read
Hunter
?”
Knox said.
“Heard about it,” Omar said, still thinking. He carefully put his beer down on the side table.
“
Hunter’s
a great book. Tells exactly how to do it,” Knox said. “Exactly how to overthrow ZOG and put Aryans back in charge again. It’s just about this
one guy
... and all he does is travel around, and he kills nigger leaders and kike politicians and queers and black men who fuck white women. And he’s
so inspirational,
see, that soon other people follow his example.”
Set me up,
Omar thought.
That fucking bondsman bastard.
Knox’s face glowed with enthusiasm. “ZOG doesn’t know how to fight them. Because they’re
not organized,
they’re just people doing what’s right. If they catch one, he can’t help them, ’cause he doesn’t know the others. Now the Crusaders National are a little more organized than that, but not much. We use codes to communicate, and the Internet. And we meet only to plan our actions and carry them out, see ... you know, find a bank in some little town—”
Omar moved. He lunged off the couch and slammed Knox in the breastbone with the palm of his hand. Knox’s eyes widened in shock as he went over on his back. Coke splashed over the floor.
“Down!”
Omar shouted.
“Down on your face!”
Ice skiddered across the wooden floor. Knox was on his back with his legs still half-locked in the crosslegged position. Fabric tore as Omar grabbed his shirt and rolled him over onto his face.
“Arms straight out!”
Omar said. He could feel sweat popping out on his face. He straddled Knox and slammed him in between the shoulder blades to keep him on the floor.
“What—?” Knox began.
“Just shut up!” Omar said. “Put your arms straight out!”
Knox obeyed. “I didn’t do nothing, man,” he said. Omar began patting him down. He found a knife in a sheath inside Knox’s jeans on the right side, so that it would be invisible till he drew it, and a little snubnosed .38 special in an ankle holster. Omar stood up, looked at the five bullets in the cylinder. Knox was carrying it loaded. Omar cocked the pistol and pointed it at the back of Knox’s head.
“Take your pants off,” he said.
Knox twisted his head to stare at Omar in alarm. “Hey!” he said. “You think I’m queer or something?” Fear made his voice crack. “I’m not a queer! I
hate
queers!”
“I want to find out if you’re wearing a wire,” Omar said. “Do it or I blow your fucking head off.” Knox put his hands on his belt, then hesitated.
Sweat slid off Omar’s nose, pattered on the floor. “This is my parish,” he reminded, “and you can disappear into the bayou real easy.”