After Everything Else (Book 2): Creeper Following, page 15
A look of confusion crossed Priscilla’s face. “No. They won’t be allowed to Become, father says. No, I mean the Blessed. They are the ones who were given the gift of sinning no more. The ones allowed to Become. And we, the Christians remaining, are to be their shepherds, their caretakers, until we Become or until we die and go to join our heavenly Father.”
“I see. And who are you suggesting be left to their fates?” Marilyn asked, although she was pretty sure she knew the answer.
“That’s what father knows. Your friends. Chase pretended, but father knew. That boy is not a Christian. And your other friend Sonya, too. They fight against Becoming, and they are not Chosen. Father sees bigger things for you. He will ask your friends to leave. They are not a good influence on the children, they are not the sort of people father wants to raise those who will be shepherds for the Blessed. But he wants you to stay. He wants you to find the Way so you can find a special place with God.”
Priscilla’s face, so earnest, was only inches from Marilyn’s. The girl still held Marilyn’s hand in her own. Marilyn felt a revulsion that went much deeper than just the physical, and she couldn’t hold the façade of interest any more. She couldn’t hide her feelings. She stood, walked a few steps away, and turned. “Priscilla, your father’s God and my God are not the same. My God has given me all the redemption I need. And if the purpose I have been given is not as clear to me as the purpose He has given to your father and you, then at the very least I know my actions do not harm others.
“My God doesn’t require me to shun people, any people, for not believing as I do. He has told me through His son that we are all here to love one another. If there are those around me who don’t believe as I believe, it’s not up to me to judge them. I live my life as best I can by His rules, and if they can see that I am happy, and whole, and complete in His guiding, then they can ask me and I will show them and teach them. We all serve God’s purpose, believers and non-believers alike.” Marilyn spoke calmly, evenly, but she could still see the flush creeping up Priscilla’s neck and two bright red spots on her cheekbones. Her lips were set in a thin, hard line. “Priscilla, we don’t have to be enemies. But I can’t follow your father’s Way.”
“Then you will end up cast into the pit like your friends. There is only one Way now, and those not following will be doomed to burn in Hell, and their lives here on earth will be filled with fear and trials.” Priscilla stood and walked to the front door of the sanctuary. Marilyn watched her, feeling a little pity. This girl was just as her father had made her. “‘Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?’ If you set yourself with them, then you will suffer their same fate. My father has said so, and my…father…KNOWS!” Her final word was a shout, her anger clear on her face.
Marilyn held up a hand. Priscilla stood staring at her. Marilyn thought it was strange to feel so calm when so much anger was standing just a few feet away, staring at her. Very quietly, Marilyn said, “‘But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.’ We will leave, Priscilla. We’ll go wander in the world as you have said. I will feed the children tonight with a final dinner, and we’ll leave in the morning. Let your father know.” Marilyn turned and left the sanctuary. She felt Priscilla’s eyes drilling into her back.
Chapter 24 – Chase
Only Marilyn greeted them at the shore. The sun was setting, and her back was to the light, putting her face in shadow. She stood, not waving.
Chase pointed the boat toward the bank, looking for a spot with no large rocks. He found one, gunned it, and then cut the motor so that they silently coasted in. They grounded with a gravelly crunch. Danny had tossed Marilyn a rope and she tied it off to a small tree.
“How’d you know we were here?” Sonya called.
“I could hear you coming from a long ways off,” Marilyn said. “I was listening for you, too.”
“Hey, Marilyn,” he called, “why don’t you come up here and grab some of the stuff you need to make dinner? Then we can hand it down and just take that up. Everything else can wait for tomorrow.”
He gave Marilyn his hand and helped her up. She began separating, talking to him as she did so in a low voice. “They know something is up. I don’t think they know everything, but I told Priscilla we would be leaving in the morning. We have to get the kids out tonight. Jami’s coming. Sharon’s coming. I couldn’t get a commitment from Mr. Coffey. I wish I could have, but he’s waiting to see which way the wind is blowing. If we have to leave without him, we have to. What about Danny and Josh?”
“I’ll talk to Danny on the way up to the church. Pretty sure he’ll go with us. Josh is…complicated. I’m guessing by what you’re saying we don’t have time for complicated. I hope at some point tonight we have the chance to give them a last opportunity to join us or stay, but if we don’t….” He shrugged.
“I wish it could be different, but that’s right. We don’t really have a choice. The kids come first.” Marilyn looked grim. Chase tried to touch her hand, but she brushed his hand away and continued gathering supplies.
Marilyn described her conversation with Priscilla, and he told Marilyn about his conversation with the reverend. Marilyn’s story about Priscilla’s behavior didn’t surprise him, but he was worried about some of the things her father knew. How could he know? Who talked to him? Josh could have been telling him things, but there were other things that he couldn’t have known, couldn’t have told the reverend. Chase himself hadn’t mentioned his disbelief to anyone since arriving.
They carried the supplies up to the church and Marilyn began dinner. Sharon joined her in the kitchen. Chase found Danny sitting in the fellowship hall and asked him to step outside.
“Danny,” Chase began, “we’re leaving tomorrow.” Danny’s look of surprise and disappointment encouraged Chase.
“Aw, man. I guess I shoulda seen it coming. You ain’t the first the revered and Priscilla run off.” Danny leaned heavily against the wall.
“Well, I think we’re going to be the first to take the kids with us.” Danny’s look of confusion would have been funny if there hadn’t been a little anger involved. Chase stood taller than Danny, but Danny had muscles hard from working his whole life, and Chase would have been willing to bet Danny had seen his fair share of bar fights. “Danny, you know this place is no good for the kids. Look how things were when we showed up. Look out over that wall.”
“Where you going to take ‘em that’s safer than this?” Danny’s anger had faded, but his concern was still plain in the lines on his forehead.
“A camp. Up in the woods. Maybe you remember a guy named Bob that came through here and didn’t stay.” Danny nodded, his eyes widening. “Well, he was the one who told us about this place, and he’s got a camp up in the woods. The creepers don’t go up there, or haven’t yet.”
“Bob seemed like a good guy. He tried to talk me into coming with him, but what the reverend was saying was making sense to me, and mostly I couldn’t imagine leaving this place. I guess. I don’t know. I’m all confused now, but I…I think you might be right. I don’t think this place is good for the kids,” Danny said. In a lower voice, he said, “And I’m starting to think it may not be good for anybody.”
“We want you to come. We want your help. Jami’s in. Sharon’s in. Mrs. Shelton is on our side, but she says she’s not leaving. Mr. Coffey won’t decide, but we’ll take him if we can. And the kids want to go. They know, Danny. They know this isn’t a good place anymore.”
“So how do we do this?” Danny asked, and just like that, they were one stronger.
Chase knew in any confrontation their superior numbers could overpower the others, but he hoped to make it as easy as possible on the children. He told Danny that if there was a problem with Josh, they would simply push him back and out of the room and Jami, Marilyn, Sonya, and Sharon could get the kids down to the boat. The kids had little enough to take with them. When he was done with Danny, he told Sonya to go out to the children and ask them to get their things and place them along the back wall of the church just outside the kitchen door so they could grab them on the way down. They had little more than toys, so it wouldn’t appear too suspicious.
Chase had one more thing to do. It was risky, but he felt he had to try. Before dinner, Chase, Danny and Josh sat in the common room talking, Chase testing the water with Josh, checking to see if there was any possibility of him joining. Anytime he broached the subject of leaving though, hinting there might be better places, Josh stolidly insisted on remaining, on following the reverend’s Way. Chase and Danny exchanged a meaningful look. Chase changed the subject. They would simply have to see how Josh reacted when they started leaving. Chase had started talking about football. He wasn’t surprised that Danny was an Auburn fan, but he was a little surprised that Josh knew a lot, too, and was a Florida State fan. When Priscilla walked in, interrupted them, and told Josh that the reverend wanted to see him, it was clear to Chase the jig was up.
Mentally, he prepared himself for the worst. A confrontation of some sort seemed likely, but not a physical one. He and Danny alone were enough to handle the reverend, Priscilla and Josh. Throw in Marilyn, Sharon, and whatever help Jami could provide, and there was no problem.
So he decided to go ahead with the plan. Eat a good dinner, take the kids and adults who were going down to the boat, and sail off into the sunset. No announcements. No fanfare. Reduce chances for a stressful scene, and just get gone. He wasn’t completely sure it would work, but he knew waiting wouldn’t improve things, and hurrying wouldn’t be any help, either. And then he heard the first rumble of thunder.
He and Danny walked outside. Out to the east, across the lake, clouds were piling up, growing darker. Chase had seen the clouds earlier when they had just been a smudge on the horizon. He had seen light flickering below them and had written it off as heat lightning. But now, in the orange light of the setting sun, the clouds had taken on an ominous tone. Once, Chase would have taken a moment to admire them, but in light of their evening plans, he couldn’t see anything to admire.
“What do you think, Danny?” he asked.
“Man, I don’t know what to think. Could be anything. Usually stuff comes from the west and through here, but there may have been a big storm blow in off the Gulf. It might miss us completely, or it might keep coming. Shoot, there might even have been a hurricane and that could blow right through us here. We got no way of knowing, do we?” Danny looked to Chase, and again Chase had to make a decision.
“We eat dinner. If it’s storming, we wait until morning,” Chase said. Danny looked relieved.
“If there was a hurricane, that could be an all-night storm. Could even go into tomorrow or longer. Or it might blow through in fifteen minutes.”
“I guess we’ll have to just wait and see.” Chase didn’t tell Danny about his fear of what might happen if they had to wait. He knew the reverend was crazy, or maybe even worse. He knew there could be a really bad scene. But he didn’t know how bad it could really get.
Chapter 25 – Sonya
Coming back from the food-gathering trip, Sonya thought they should be greeted as returning heroes. But the joy of the day had faded. Clouds were moving in from the east, and lightning redly lit the horizon. Instead of a hero’s welcome, there was only a worried Marilyn to greet them. Sonya jumped down from the boat when they landed and stooped down to pet Honey, who had been waiting with Marilyn. At least Honey greeted her with some enthusiasm. Chase called Marilyn to come up and pick out some items, and then they all carried what they could up to the church and into the kitchen. Chase pulled Danny outside and Sonya could hear their low voices. She couldn’t make out words, but the tone of the conversation indicated things were going well. Danny was onboard. Sonya walked over to where Marilyn was sorting her supplies and getting ready to prepare the evening meal.
“What’s the deal?” Sonya asked as she took the can opener Marilyn had offered her and went to work on the cans Marilyn was setting on the counter.
“Rough day,” Marilyn replied, although Sonya thought Marilyn looked anything but rough. The girl looked positively serene. Even in the diffuse light from the kitchen windows, she was almost glowing. “Priscilla’s onto us. She knows, and somehow the reverend knows, too, even though I don’t think he’s talked to anyone except Priscilla.”
“Weird.” Sonya turned her attention to the cans for a few seconds, and then looked at Marilyn again. “Sounds like Danny is with us. So that makes what, you, me, Chase, Danny, Sharon, and Jami? Mrs. Shelton, too, I guess. What about Mr. Coffey?”
Marilyn shrugged as she opened a box of chicken stock and poured it into a large pot. “I don’t know. He wouldn’t commit.”
“He’s probably not against us, anyway. So we just have to worry about the reverend, Priscilla, and Josh. Do you really think we have to worry about Josh?” Sonya thought about Josh and how he had acted on the mission to get food. He had been okay, she thought. He didn’t warm up like Danny, but he had played the game with them, even if he didn’t seem to enjoy it as much.
“I don’t know. Before Priscilla talked to me, I thought we just would have walked out of here without anybody really noticing until we were gone. Now I’m not sure.” Marilyn’s serenity was reassuring, but her grim words disturbed Sonya.
Sonya watched Marilyn as she worked to get dinner ready. When they had picked her up on the side of the road, she had been afraid Marilyn would be a problem. Sonya realized how wrong she had been. Marilyn had come out of her weird trance and started feeding them, protecting them, nurturing them, and at last becoming such a part of Sonya’s world that she couldn’t imagine life in all this mess without her.
Jami entered the kitchen. “Priscilla finally let up and Sharon’s with the kids now. Sonya, how did things go?”
“Everything’s in place. Boat’s down the hill by the bathing area. We’ll probably have to find a vehicle to move the kids from here up to Bob’s camp, something big enough to take them and the food, but once we’re away from here we should be okay.” Sonya continued opening cans. She was opening cans of chicken, which smelled really gross. She hoped Marilyn knew what she was doing.
“Good. Marilyn, what do you need me doing?” Jami was put in charge of the noodles, and Marilyn moved to a table to begin making biscuits. They worked together and dinner began to materialize. Later, Sonya would think about this time and remember it as the last good time before everything went wrong.
Dinner was a huge success. Marilyn had made comfort food, and she knew what she was doing. Chicken and noodles, biscuits, and green beans. She had even made desserts: apple pie, cherry pie, and peach cobbler. All from cans, of course, but still everything smelled so good and looked so good as they set out the plates and loaded them for everyone. Then Jami called everyone in.
The kids and adults sat down. Everyone who was in on the imminent departure was there, and Mr. Coffey, too. Missing were Priscilla, the reverend, and Josh. Danny sat down next to Mr. Coffey and started talking to him about leaving with them, and from what Sonya could tell he was very receptive to the idea. Sonya sat across from some of the older kids and between Chase and Hot Wheels, her little friend. At a table nearby, Marilyn and Jami sat across from each other surrounded by children except for Mrs. Shelton, who sat on Jami’s right. Sharon stood in the kitchen doorway, ready to get anything anyone needed. Marilyn had invited her to come sit with them, but Sharon insisted she would eat when everyone else was through.
When some of the children began to reach for their silverware, Mrs. Shelton protested. “Can’t eat until somebody gives thanks. Who wants to do it?” In the silence after the question, the first rumblings of thunder sounded.
Jami stood, smiling a bit. “That makes it sound official. Mrs. Shelton isn’t the only one who wants us to say grace. Everyone bow your heads.” Sonya looked across at Chase, wondering if he would. She wasn’t surprised to see that he did. There was that kind of feeling in the room. “Heavenly Father, thank You very much for this food we are about to receive to nourish our bodies. And thank You so much for leading Chase, Sonya, and Marilyn to be with us and assist in preparing this food and for all the other good things they will help us do. Thank You for keeping us safe so far, and for our safety in the future and in our future endeavors. But mostly right now, thank You for this food. It smells so good, and I’m sure if we don’t thank You enough now, we’ll thank You later to make up for it. Amen.” A warm feeling filled Sonya, a feeling of belonging and loving. After the last amen died down, Sonya opened her eyes, and in a split second, that warm feeling was gone. In the doorway leading to the sanctuary stood the reverend, Josh, and Priscilla. Josh was holding a rifle.
Sonya scanned the room again, looking to see how all the adults were reacting. Danny and Mr. Coffey were frozen, both looking concerned and confused but not yet fearful. Jami’s and Mrs. Shelton’s backs were to Sonya, but Marilyn was wearing a curious expression of resigned determination, as if she had known all along that this wouldn’t be easy. Sharon stood in the doorway, stolid as ever, her face unreadable. And then Sonya looked at Chase beside her. He was doing the same thing she was, looking from face to face, judging reactions. But she could tell he was doing more. He was calculating, planning. She decided her best option was to sit still, take her cues from him. She waited for him to come up with something, and as she did so she locked eyes with Marilyn. Marilyn nodded once. They were both waiting for Chase. But the reverend wasn’t.
“‘Blessed the man who walketh not in the council of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of the sinners, not sitteth in the seat of the scornful’,” the reverend said quietly, although Sonya every word came to Sonya clearly. She studied the reverend. His dark clothes were in tatters and the skin of his face and arms, which had been tanned when she had first seen him, was pale. The improved diet had helped the others, even in the short time they had been there. Not the reverend. If anything, he was even gaunter since their arrival. Cadaverous. And despite the cloud-dimmed light of the evening sun filtering through the windows of the common room, he wore mirrored sunglasses. His mouth was a black slash across his pale lower face. He spoke again, raising his voice, “You were brought her by the auspices of the Lord and in His Way to aid me in His work, and we were on the Path. But the serpent crept in, didn’t it? The serpent is always with us, and always among us. The serpent tempts and makes promises, and you all listened to his evil. The women I can forgive; they are weak. The children know no better. But the men among you have fallen from the Way and must be addressed.” Under the table, Chase’s hand sought Sonya’s. Finding it, he squeezed twice. Sonya knew this meant to trust him, to wait for him. He started to stand, but the reverend pointed at him. “Sit, unbeliever!” he shouted. “Brother Joshua, if that infidel stands or says a word shoot him in the head.” Joshua brought his rifle up and pointed it in Chase’s general direction. Joshua looked pale and troubled, but the barrel of the rifle didn’t waver. When Marilyn began speaking, Sonya looked at her in surprise. Jami was still standing from having given the prayer, and Marilyn had risen to join her.
