Black Magic (18 page)

Sweet Jesus, this can’t be real,
Rusty prayed through the torrent of pain.

“And our volunteer has experienced it all!” Lyle said. “But he hasn’t quite seen it. Let’s show him what he’s missing!”

Lyle pivoted the top half of the box up, raising Rusty’s head. The box went fully vertical and the bottom hit the floor with the gushy crush of Rusty’s spleen. The rest of the organs in his torso dropped to the ground and yanked his head forward like a puppet’s.

Rusty stared straight into the bloody empty cavity of his lower body. It smelled like shit and piss and copper. An intestine flapped over the edge like an undigested sausage.

His mind snapped, unable to fathom the incomprehensible. He did not hear Lyle’s last victorious taunts. He did not feel the saw blade against his neck. He only knew when it cut his spine for the final time and the world went forever dark.

Lyle sighed, smiled and leaned back against the wall. Blood dripped from his hands and speckled the legs of his pants. The Reverend’s entrails seeped to the edge of the floor pentagram. He propped the preacher’s severed head back up on top of the box, glazed eyes looking across the room.

It had been a long time since he’d killed with his own hands. The magic made it so easy to do it remotely, like the stupid waitress’s heart attack or the animals swarming from the swamps. Ah, but what a liberating experience using the saw had been. He missed that physical contact, the sensation of having life seep away through his fingers.

Across the millennia he’d been alive, that was the one true constant. From his youngest days he’d found the death of any creature pleasurable, and killed any insect or animal he could overpower. As he grew older, he loved the days when the calves were slaughtered or the hunts brought down deer and bison, because he could openly indulge his bloodlust to the praise of others, a far cry from their reaction if they saw him when he silenced family pets in the night.

Would his master ever have taken him on as an apprentice if he knew the cold, dark current that ran though his heart? Most certainly not, and Lyle had hidden his inclination from his instructor until their last night together, when their roles reversed and Lyle taught the old man a few things about the art of ending life.

As a boy he’d liked kicking over ant mounds. He’d watch the stupid creatures scurry in panic to save their young and right their world turned inside out. Now every hundred years or so, when the ennui of immortality set in, he did the same thing with mortals. He’d plan a Grand Adventure.

And now the time was ripe. His last obstacle was removed. The cavern under the Apex plant hummed with the power the magic had unleashed. Lyle’s own apprentices were hard at work topping off the tank. His two unwitting assistants with the clouded
whapnas
were about to be summoned.

The Grand Adventure was about to shift into high gear.
 

Chapter Forty-One

Autumn Stovall awoke to the unaccustomed sensation of Oscar’s soft, insistent head butting. She stirred in bed with great effort. She had been up late analyzing the plant samples from the green swaths around town. She’d found no reason for their rapid growth. It was as if someone had just turned on the “springtime” switch all plants have buried in their genetic code.

She opened one eye. Oscar acknowledged her change in consciousness with a plaintive meow. She reached out to pat his head and he bounded away.

“Fine. Be that way.”

Sunlight flashed in under the camper’s thin shades with each flap from the morning breeze. Strange item Number Two. The Everglades’ air was usually still as death each morning until the sea breezes worked their way in.
 

Oscar trotted the length of the RV floor, leapt into the passenger seat, transited the dashboard, jumped down to the driver’s seat and started a second lap. Autumn checked his food and water, but both were full. In fact, they looked untouched from when she filled them last night.

“What’s the matter, Osc?” There wasn’t a cat less likely to be agitated than Oscar. He slept through south Florida thunderstorms.

Oscar stopped on the dashboard and stared out the window.

Autumn exited the RV to total silence. No splashes of water, no drone of insects. All the vibrant sounds of Everglades life were gone. Strange item Number Three.

The deep blue sky above made her feel like she could see up into space. But the rising sun burned crimson in the east. Black puffy cumulus clouds enveloped all horizons. Falling rain made gray curtains beneath the clouds. Both coasts were getting hammered by thunderstorms. That was usually an afternoon event, and usually only on one coast or the other.

She turned to see Oscar peer out at her through the RV windshield. She probably anthropomorphized her cat way too much, but she was certain the look in his eyes said “Get back in here!”

Carlina arrived at the Congregation of God at eight-fifty a.m., brimming with enthusiasm for the revival’s start. The rest of the volunteers would be there soon and they would spend the day scrubbing the church and working the grounds. The burst of life around the fountain needed a bit of trimming to keep the walkway clear. Inside and out, the church would look its best. If the revival went as planned, plenty of new folks would be in attendance, and you know what they say about first impressions.

She first checked the tent and mini-stage at the side of the church. She’d last seen it in the darkness and in the daylight it was much more impressive. The tent shone like a mountain snowcap in the bright morning light. The edges ruffled in the soft morning breeze. The
REVIVAL
sign’s big red letters could be read from across the street. Great advertising, but also she had a few members of the congregation posting notices around town. Wilbur Garrison, the Citrus Glade postman, would even drop flyers in mailboxes today. Delivering items without postage was against regulations, but Wilbur felt the Spirit move him to bend the rules a bit.
 

Carlina checked the front door of the church, but it was locked. Odd, since Reverend Rusty would have already been up and working by now. She went around back to his parsonage and knocked on his door. He didn’t answer.

Strange. His car was in the driveway. Worst-case-scenario thoughts ran through her mind. Heart attack. Slipped in the shower and unconscious. Stroke. She fumbled for the spare key hidden in the potted palm by the door. The door creaked as it opened.

“Reverend?” she called from the doorway. When no one answered, her concern doubled. She bustled through the living room, arms pumping with each shift of her stocky frame. “Reverend!”

There were no dishes in the sink. Coffee wasn’t brewing. The Rev never started a day without coffee, what he called God’s natural stimulant. The Reverend could be dead. She rushed down the short hall and threw open his bedroom door.

The bed was made. A set of dark blue pajamas lay draped over the back of a chair at a small desk. He never went to bed. Sometime after she left last night, the Reverend disappeared.
 

Where would be go? Did he need to spiritually prepare for the evening, spend time in isolation like John the Baptist? Surely he would have told her. Wouldn’t he?

She left the parsonage and ran into Eric Thompson. The retired schoolteacher wore a faded old golf hat and carried a pair of long garden shears in his gloved hands, ready to give the shrubbery a haircut.

“Reverend Rusty in there?” he asked.

Any answers she had would only breed more questions she
couldn’t
answer. The Reverend would return from wherever he went. She hoped. She couldn’t divert her volunteers from their mission readying the church for the revival.

“He’ll be by, Eric. He mentioned having the bushes trimmed out front.”

Eric gave the shears two quick snaps. “I’ll cut them down to size. Amazing how they kicked into overdrive this time of year, isn’t it?”

“One of God’s gifts,” Carlina answered.

Chapter Forty-Two

“And we’ll get the weather this morning from Chuck Randall,” the WAMM anchor said. “Chuck, what’s going on out there?”

Whitney had the day off, at a minimum. The local news knew how to play up any story, to spread a little panic and bump up some ratings. This was not one of those times. They hadn’t brought the trusted Chuck Randall in early to make a ratings point. They thought his gravitas might save lives.

“Reggie, what we are seeing is unprecedented,” Chuck said. A map of south Florida with an isobar overlay filled the screen behind him. It looked an awful lot like an archery target. “Low pressure systems like this usually form in the Atlantic Ocean. But we have one forming overland, centered off Alligator Alley near the town of Citrus Glade. Barometric pressure has dropped to 28.2 so far.”

The screen switched to radar. Huge swaths of green arced across the Miami area, across north of Sebring, down through Naples and south across the Keys. Patches of red flashed within the green where violent thunderstorms hammered away.

“This system is drawing energy and moisture from the sea surrounding us. In the past dozen hours, a tropical storm formed right over the south end of the state. Normally such a system would move either north or west, but what has just been named Tropical Storm Rita hasn’t moved at all. Both coasts and the Keys have already seen several inches of rainfall and winds of over forty miles per hour.

“This storm has stymied most of our prediction models, but the consensus is that it will grow to hurricane strength. Evacuations of the Keys and all coastal regions have been ordered. Southbound lanes of the Turnpike, I-95 and I-75 have all been switched to northbound traffic.”

The camera closed on Chuck until he nearly filled the screen. He looked straight out of millions of televisions across the state.

“This will become a killer storm,” he said. “Do not wait. If you live along the coast or in a high rise or have special needs, head north now.”

Chapter Forty-Three

Mayor Flora Diaz slammed down her office phone in frustration. The county supervisor had been worse than useless. He’d been useless and insulting.

She wasn’t surprised when she called Florida Division of Emergency Management. Tallahassee was as shocked by the arrival of Tropical Storm/Hurricane Rita as anyone. Help was coming, but it was a long way away and would be there in time to help in the aftermath. She hadn’t expected much more.

But the county supervisor not only could spare no deputies or resources, he confessed that he didn’t know Citrus Glade had a mayor. He thought the dead town had been re-incorporated into the county years ago. He said he had coastal population centers to worry about and didn’t have time to worry about “the boonies” as he put it. When he hung up, Flora felt lost.

A killer storm was more than she had bargained for as mayor. She had no real leadership experience, not for something like this. The mayor's position was supposed to be mostly PR, cheerlead for getting a few businesses started up, manage the micro budget, organize the Fourth of July fireworks with the Elks Club. Life and death decisions were for someone else, somewhere else.

Andy knocked on the door and entered.

“The weather’s supposed to go to hell in a handbasket soon,” he said. “FPL has repair crews stationed in Sebring ready to start repairing downed lines as soon as the storm passes. I’ve pulled all the trash cans from the parks and all the vehicles are secure in the parking lot.”

“There’s no help coming,” Flora blurted out. “No sheriff’s deputies, no FDEM, no National Guard. Stuart tells me the Food Bonanza is being picked clean down to cocktail onions and canned beets. We are going to get pounded and we are not prepared.”

Andy sat in the chair by her desk. “Citrus Gladers are pretty resilient, used to standing on their own. The fact that the Food Bonanza is cleaned out means that they have taken their safety into their own hands.”

“But many can’t,” she said. “Mary Wickersham out in her little trailer. Jenny Bingham here in town with no car and using a walker. Someone needs to help them. I need to help them.”

There had to be some way for her to shelter the townspeople in need. Her eyes lit up.

“The bomb shelter,” she said. “We could open that.”

The bomb shelter, like all the infrastructure of Citrus Glade, was a remnant from another decade. In the 1960s, the Cuban Missile Crisis had the country on edge, but it put the fear of the Apocalypse into South Florida. Citrus Glade had gone whole hog on Civil Defense and hollowed out the basement of City Hall into a bomb shelter, complete with hermetically sealed doors, air conditioning/recirculation and a generator that was also a backup for City Hall. Those townspeople were going to survive the bomb so they could slowly starve to death in America’s radioactive remains. Access was through ground-level storm shelter doors against the building’s east side.

“It’s ready,” Andy said. “I cleaned it up last month. MREs and water and first aid supplies are still stockpiled from when Hurricane Katrina brushed the area. I kicked on the generator and it checks out.”

Flora sat up straighter in her chair. She could make this happen. She just needed to let everyone know the shelter would be open. She punched a button on the intercom on her desk, another technological leftover.