Appalachian Galapagos (8 page)

"Makes sense," Jimmy said.

"Makes sense?" asked Frank, eyes wide. "Makes fucking sense? All you've done is shown me that we have repeatedly tried to get ourselves killed, and have been just lucky enough to make it by the skin of our balls. You sound like some religious nut seeing angels in the clouds. A list of completely fucking stupid acts does
not
just become a bunch of tests from God."

"They do after you drink a couple of beers and smoke a half an ounce of weed, man," Jimmy added, looking away quickly when Frank shot him a heated look.

"Listen to what I'm sayin', Frank," Lukas said. "You can look at it two ways, my friend. Yours or mine. Under yours, you get to go through all that shit with the river and get
nothin
' at all. You get to go home and go back to your world of fake dudes and yuppie scum and walk the big city walk. You get
nuthin
' despite the fact that you risked your life today. Now, you look at it my way and help us carry this Bigfoot to that light and all of the risks you took today could actually mean
somethin
'. You can be a millionaire. Besides, I think you can see God's hand in this. You really can."

"How's that, Lukas?"

"Think about it. The coincidences are too weird when you think about it. You bring up Darwin, we take a little journey, and what do we meet? A Bigfoot. I'm telling you, we can see God's hand here."

"That's your logic, Lukas?" asked Frank. "That's how you see God's hand?"

"It's more than that, Frank. We talked about monkeys. We talked about apes and then what do we see, but the biggest, ugliest most damned scary-
lookin
' ape-monkey-man that I ever imagined. And all after we brought up Darwin. It was like it was meant to happen. It's God's way of
showin
' us his hand, man.
Preparin
' us for what was to come. I know you think I'm stupid and that I don't know much, but I can tell you one thing. I know that us
findin
' this damn Bigfoot was meant to be. God wanted this to happen." He slapped his stomach. "I feel it in my gut, man."

Frank shook his head. "What makes you think God and Darwin are separate? Maybe they are the same thing? Maybe God made Darwin to explain the unexplainable? Maybe Darwin was just his instrument."

"
Naw
, there's no way I'm gonna believe that one," Jimmy said. "Ain't no way God and Darwin are the same person. God is not a man, if there's anything I learned in Sunday school, it's that."

"All right, then let me pose this to you. If God preaches love and wars still occur, is it the nature of man, or the nature of God to hate?"

"Why you
talkin
' about hate?" asked Lukas.

"People don't fight because there's an overwhelming feeling of love, Lukas. Hate is at the root of all conflict whether it's personal, political, or religious. Hate is the root cause."

"Well, God can't be part of that hate crap, that's the Devil's work. It must be man who invented it...man with the help of old Satan."

"But don't you see, God created the Devil and God created man, therefore God created hate."

Frank took a step back and placed his hands upon his hips.

"So what's that have to do with Darwin?"

"Because God created Darwin, too."

Lukas kicked the dirt.

"Okay. Maybe, just maybe, God created Darwin. But who is it to say he didn't create it just to test our faith."

Jimmy nodded.

Frank smiled, "That could be true. That could very well be true. And it makes a certain amount of sense. Just don't go be discounting Darwin."

"So we're back to my original argument. This whole thing with the river and the Bigfoot has been a test of God's Emergency Faith Management System and we got to play it out. We have to finish the journey. Now, you can leave us here, head home and go back to your routine life if you want. But remember one thing, man. And I know you know this is true. We are the best friends you will ever have. If you leave us now, you may as well never come back. And I would regret the hell out of that, Frank, and I know that Jimmy agrees."

Frank stared at the light. He already felt lost. "I guess I'm not gonna turn my back on my friends."

Lukas growled as he picked up one of the beast's bristly legs.

"Then let's get
movin
'."

 
Frank said, making an effort to lighten the mood. "Especially since all our beer's gone. Let's get this the fuck over with. And I ain't carrying Mighty Joe Young any further than that light."

His imploring stare all but ordered his friends to assist.

"Who's with me?"

Church Key...Incense and Acid Drops...Machine Gun Wishes...Revenge Is Mine

Ten minutes of struggling found them standing in front of a long, single story church. Even in the darkness, the weathered gray of the clapboard sidings was visible. As was the white pinnacle and slightly skewed steeple wrapped in a length of rusted barbed wire. Three stairs made from old mortar and river stones rose to a tall door. Above this was a plastic-covered transom, from which muted light illuminated a small circle of night. The thick strains of a hymn seeped through and enveloped the three.

Before our Father's throne

We pour our ardent prayers;

Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one,

Our comforts and our cares.

We share our mutual woes,

Our mutual burdens bear,

And often for each other flows

The sympathizing tear.

So lulled were they by the singing and their own exhaustion, they jumped as the voices within shouted, "
AMEN
!"

The daddy long legs along Frank's spine redoubled its efforts. There were no cars in the parking lot. There wasn't even a parking lot. There wasn't even a road. How had the people come here?

"This is straight out of a bad B-movie, guys. Shit like this is
never
good. People get eaten in places like that. I don't like it at all."

"So what are we gonna do?" asked Jimmy. "And tell me this don't seem like God's hand now. A church, smack dab in the middle of fuckin' nowhere. Right after we have a conversation about Him? Hell, I can practically see his fingers
reachin
' out of the sky."

Lukas smiled, the power of the Lord within him. "I'll go inside and see if they have a phone or
somethin
'," he said, wiping his rank hands on his jeans. "If I start
screamin
' y'all better come in and save me. This ain't West Virginia, so there shouldn't be no snake
dancin
', but this place is weird enough that I don't know what to expect."

"Maybe it's one of those Satan churches," Jimmy said, staring at the Bigfoot's haunted eyes

"Right. And that's why they have the cross, fool," Lukas said, sighing loudly. "What a fuckin' idiot."

"No," Frank said. "Let me go in. I have a plan." He grinned tiredly. "But if they have a big-ass vat of Kool-Aid, I'm running."

Before they could argue, he ascended the steps. Flecks of dried mud and Bigfoot blood fell away as he stomped a few times. The smell of incense drifted through the cracked doors and smelled heavenly against the backdrop of the dead beast's rankness. He took a breath of mountain air courage and stepped into the lighted room.

The singing abruptly stopped as he entered, giving him the bizarre feeling that the door was an on/off switch. Dozens of heads swiveled towards him, their hostility cutting like hurled hatchets. Frank was reminded of old hippie communes as he noticed that most of the congregation had long, unkempt hair, shaggy beards sticking into their chests. All that was missing was the tie-dye and maybe several hundred hits of acid.

The silence lasted for a full minute. With each tick of the clock, he fought the urge to turn and run. There were a lot of them, but with Jimmy and Lukas beside him, he felt much better. And the way the freaks were staring at him, it was almost as if they were sizing him up for a later meal.

A deep voice finally broke through the angry stares.

"And who might this be, my Brethren? Who is it that hath disrupted our service? Who is this interloper who hath so rudely stalked into our simple service, the smell of death and destruction upon his breath?"

The voice came pounding through the room from an impossibly tall man, clad entirely in black, standing at the pulpit, his arms held high as if the air demanded their presence. A top hat rested atop a shaggymane of white hair. Old fashioned silver-spectacles sat atop a large nose and a Van Dyke mustache finished the crazed look.

Frank coughed nervously. It was definitely B-movie time. If he wasn't in trouble now, he soon would be. "Uh, hello. Do you happen to have a phone we can use? We're kinda stranded out here."

His words reverberated throughout the awnings of the church as if the very structure was against his presence. Instead of answering, the congregation merely sat there staring at him.

"We do not have a phone. We do not need a phone. We need only to ask The Living Earth and our prayers are answered. Dost thou seek spiritual salvation?"

Frank swallowed nervously wondering exactly what The Living Earth was. These people were giving him serious chills.

"Um...No. I seek a way to contact home. Do you have a radio or something? Maybe a CB?"

"Nay," The bizarre preacher answered. "We do not seek to contact the outside world. We seek to keep it at bay. I ask thee again. Dost thou seek salvation?"

I seek a machine gun
, Frank couldn't help but think.
And a flamethrower.

Frank's heart began to pound fiercely in his chest. His vision began to swim. His thoughts were muddled and he wondered if the incense was drugged. He found his peripheral vision waver, the edges slipping into psychedelic colors. His vision pinpointed to a picture behind the preacher and he felt his heart stop and his knees buckle.

It was the Bigfoot, silhouetted by a setting sun. Dozens of worshippers bowed in reverence, their faces to the ground at its feet. He stared once again at the man behind the pulpit. He had seen him before as well, along the river watching them.

"Jesus Christ."

"Aye," said the preacher following Frank's gaze to the painting. "The Living Earth, Jesus Christ risen again from the Soup of God. He blesses us with his presence and washes away our sins."

And we killed it. We killed their God.

Frank took several steps back, squarely in B-Movie Hell. He had to get out of here. If these people ever found out what they...

"Are your friends outside? Mayhap they would like to come in?"

"No," Frank said maybe a bit too rapidly. "I think we'll just...um...take leave of your presence."

"Are you sure? We have some cider to warm thy soul. Cyrus, go get the man's friends and tell them to come inside."

No, Please, No.

"Of course, Brother Cletus," said a figure who was an exact twin to the preacher.

"Wait!" Frank shouted, sending all eyes to him like flies to a neon sign. "I'll get them!"

Brother Cletus' eyes narrowed dangerously under his top hat.

Frank blocked Cyrus' path to the door. His hands were out in front of him. "You know, my friends are a little bit shy. I think it's best if I was to go out there and explain to them what nice folks you are. Then we'll all come inside. Just let me—"