Part 52 (1/2)

Uninvited, maybe even unseen by Cantwell, big, bl.u.s.tery Armond Harrison got a leg-up from some of his men and climbed onto the flatbed. As his followers cheered and the crowd snapped pictures, he smiled, waved back, then held up the Messiah's hand like a referee announcing the winner of a boxing match. ”We're standing with you, Brandon! All of us!” Harrison's people let out one big, organic whoop.

Justin Cantwell smiled, waved, and eased Harrison toward the edge of the flatbed.

Then Cantwell shoved him off, right on top of Harrison's followers who collapsed like a house of cards under his weight.

”I am he,” Cantwell reminded him, ”and there is no other!” He returned his attention to the crowds. ”Come to me! Whatever you need, I will give it! I am the one and only Messiah in your future!”

Matt stuck his head out the truck window. ”Michael! I don't hear any prophesying out there!”

Michael turned his eyes forward again. He kept walking, but not a word would come to his lips.

Here came a vendor selling picture postcards of Jesus in the clouds and b.u.mper stickers that read, I SAW Him IN ANTIOCH, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, or I SAW Her IN ANTIOCH, WAs.h.i.+NGTON.

They pa.s.sed a booth where a man sold Antioch billed caps and tee-s.h.i.+rts that boasted, ”I saw Jesus in Antioch, Was.h.i.+ngton.” You had your choice: a picture of a farmer Jesus driving a combine or a jazzy, comic art face of Jesus between two sheaves. The Virgin got a tee s.h.i.+rt too, a more reverent pose of her standing on the curve of the earth, arms outstretched over the wheat fields of Antioch.

A barbecue-on-wheels had come to town, selling ribs and hot dogs, and right next to that was an out-of-nowhere artsy booth featuring little crosses, bookends, napkin holders, jewelry, and even Bible covers made from . . . used lumber from Antioch, Was.h.i.+ngton?

Sirens and screams broke through the din. People started running out of the way and Michael stopped dead in his tracks. Matt jammed on the brakes. Here came Rod Stanton in his squad car, blowing his siren, flas.h.i.+ng his lights, easing from a side street onto the main highway as the crowds scurried aside. He stopped in the middle of the street, jumped out of his car, searched through the crowd, then got back in and kept going.

And now, here came another christ, a blond one carrying a whip and yelling something about pollution, filth, and greed. He tried to overturn the barbecue-on-wheels in righteous rage, but it was too hot to handle and too heavy to upend. The owner scurried around and slapped him a few times, this way and that, and he moved on, dragging his whip. He had a mother too, who followed him, sharing bites of pocket bread filled with sprouts.

A skinny pilgrim in a straw hat stepped up to Michael, munching on a hot dog and grinning as if something was funny. ”Michael! I'm confused! Which christ is the real one? Do you have a word on that?”

Michael had no word. No word at all.

Then a gunshot rang out, and Jim Baylor ran onto the highway from a side street, scrambling in circles, screaming something about his crazy wife.

Behind him came Dee, waving a gun in the air and prophesying-” Thou art a robber and a jerk, and thy time has come!” People scattered like frightened rats as she fired the gun and ran by, but then they laughed and took pictures. The sight was so ridiculous it had to be a show!

But wait. A young girl had fallen to the street, her shoulder bleeding. There were screams. This was no show.

The Messiah was laughing again.

AMID SCREAMS, RUNNING, AND RUCKUS, Don Anderson came swinging and shattering his way out the front door of his store, yelling like a warrior, swinging and battling unseen enemies on every side. A teenager wearing a walkman happened to be nearby, and Don went after the walkman. ”Take that!” He shattered the walkman, breaking the kid's pelvis. ”Don't let them get you! Take them out! It's every man for himself!” The kid's father tried to grab the bat away and Don opened his skull. A lady in a sunhat got it next, collapsing to the street, her camera and the wrist that held it shattered.

The front door of Don's store was broken and hanging open. Penny Adams saw that as an invitation and stepped inside to help herself. Her life ended three seconds later.

Some say she did something to cause a spark. Some say it was Dee Baylor's last bullet that missed Jim and went through the store's front window. The explosion and fireball incinerated any way of knowing for sure, blowing out the store's front windows. Flame and shards shot out, killing fourteen people on that side of the street, setting four parked cars on fire, and breaking the windows out of a plumber's supply and beauty shop directly opposite.

The Messiah looked behind him to see the conflagration, the burning cars, the screaming people, and flaming bodies. He raised his hands heavenward and rejoiced.

Don Anderson, now a block away, saw his own store go up in a fireball and shouted ”YES!” Then he saw a hair dryer in the front window of the pharmacy and promptly broke the gla.s.s. ”Roast me, will you?”

”Let me handle it!” said an RV lady from the Macon ranch, who quickly helped herself to the hair dryer.

”Partake, my people!” the Messiah cried, his wounded arms outstretched. ”The bounty of the earth is yours! Partake!”

Even as the appliance store and the adjacent structures went up in flames, windows began to break all over town-some with stones, some with boots, some with tire irons. The people began to partake.

HER EYES BLINDED AND STINGING from smoke, her hair singed by heat, Dee fled from the inferno, stumbling, b.u.mping into other frantic bodies, trying to run, trying to see. She bowled headlong into another woman and they both went sprawling. A stolen box of hot curlers broke open, the rollers tumbling and scurrying along the gutter. ”Now look what you've done!” the woman yelled.

At that moment Dee realized she no longer had the gun in her hand.

Across the street, another window shattered. Folks started helping themselves to paper, pens, and office supplies from the Antioch Harvester office while Kim Staples, shrieking in anger and terror, tried to fend them off with reams of paper and boxes of pens.

The souvenirs, art, and trinkets fas.h.i.+oned from used lumber from Antioch went next, and there was nothing the poor wood carver could do about it.

The ribs and hot dogs were too hot to steal and the vendor too tough.

The blond christ with the whip had encountered the southern christ in the bathrobe, and now they were duking it out, rolling, kicking, and biting in the street.

The Messiah's prophet was cringing and tongue-tied, and the Virgin Mother was clinging to the back b.u.mper of the truck, cowering like a frightened child. Unfl.u.s.tered, even ecstatic, Justin Cantwell threw out some more loaves. ”Come and partake!” He began singing along with the recorded music, ”Walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain . . .”

The loaves landed on the pavement, ignored. His sheep weren't interested in bread anymore. They wanted toys.

No matter. The flatbed kept rolling, the music kept blaring, and Justin Cantwell kept right on singing as the town came apart all around him.

ROD FLOORED THE GAS PEDAL. After losing his man between houses and trees, he spotted the suspect again and shouted into his radio, ”He's heading up Maple, the three hundred block!”

The suspect ducked down an alley and through a yard.

Rod drove down the alley. ”He's running through the Wimbleys' yard! Should come out right in front. I'm going on foot.” He stopped his car, leaped out, and started running through the yard as a German shepherd chased and snapped at him and a cat in his path panicked and ran up a tree. The suspect ran into the street. Rod bolted into the street to cut him off.

SCREEECH!.

A hard, steel b.u.mper clipped Rod at the knees, flipping him onto the hood of Squad Car One. He tumbled against the winds.h.i.+eld and then rolled off onto the pavement, dazed and bruised, with one knee snapped sideways.

Brett jumped out of Car One and limped after the suspect. ”Halt! Halt or I'll shoot!”

The suspect ran.

Brett grabbed his leg, then crumpled to the sidewalk. He pulled his gun, aimed. The suspect was looking back . . .

Mark Peterson darted out of an alley and collided with the man, tackling him to the ground. With a knee in the man's back, he slapped on the cuffs.

Brett hobbled up the sidewalk, gun in hand. ”Mark! What timing!”

”Heard the radio,” he answered, yanking off the suspect's hat and sungla.s.ses.

Then he backed one step away, surprise all over his face.

The suspect was Norman Dillard.

OUR HUSHED, CLOSED-DOOR MEETING broke up the moment we heard the gas explosion. We ran out on the front steps of the church to see what had happened. Several blocks up the street, flames were billowing out of the appliance store, making black silhouettes of the scurrying mobs. The town looked like an anthill set on fire.

”It's Armageddon!” said Kyle.

Nancy was down the steps in an instant, obviously concerned for her newspaper office and store.

The siren atop the volunteer fire department began to wail. Five volunteers were already rolling out the fire trucks.