"Sex is not a fearsome and terrible thing," Adam says.
On the radio I say, It's best if I just put the past behind me and move on with my life.
Up ahead, there's a point where the trees lining the road stop, and there's nothing beyond them. The sun is up and overtaking us, and ahead in the distance is nothing but a wasteland.
A sign goes by saying, Welcome to the Tender Branson Sensitive Materials Sanitary Landfill.
And we're home.
Beyond the sign, the valley stretches out to the horizon, bare, littered, and gray except for the bright yellow of a few bulldozers parked and silent because it's Sunday.
There's not a tree.
There's not a bird.
The only landmark is at the center of the valley, a towering concrete pylon, just a square gray column of concrete rises from the spot where the Creedish meeting house stood with everyone dead inside. Ten years ago. Spreading out on the ground all around us are pictures of men with women, women with women, men with men, men and women with animals and appliances.
Adam doesn't say a word.
From the radio I say, My life is full of joy and love now.
From the radio I say, I look forward to marrying the woman chosen for me as part of the Genesis Campaign.
From the radio I say, With the help of my followers I will stem the sex craving that has taken control of the world.
The road is long and rutted from the rim of the valley toward the concrete pylon at the center. Along both sides as we drive, dildos and magazines and latex vaginas and French ticklers cling together in smoldering heaps, and the smoke from those heaps drifts in a choking haze of dirty white across the road.
Up ahead, the pylon is larger and larger, sometimes lost behind the smoke of burning pornography, only to reappear, looming.
From the radio I say, My whole life is for sale at a bookstore near you.
From the radio I say, With God's help, I will turn the world away from ever wanting sex.
Adam turns off the radio.
Adam says, "I left the valley the night I found out what the elders did to you, to tenders and biddies."
The smoke settles over the road. It comes into the car and our lungs, acrid and burning our eyes.
With tears running down each cheek I say, They didn't do anything.
Adam coughs, "Admit it."
The pylon reappears, closer.
There's nothing to admit.
The smoke obscures everything.
Then Adam says it. Adam says, "They made you watch."
I can't see anything, but I just keep driving.
"The night my wife had our first child," Adam says with the smoke leaving his tears traced down his face in black, "the elders took all the tenders and biddies in the district and made them watch. My wife screamed just the way they told her. She screamed, and the elders preached and wailed how the wages of sex was death. She screamed, and they made childbirth as painful as they could. She screamed, and the baby died. Our child. She screamed and then she died."
The first two victims of the Deliverance.
It was that night Adam walked out of the Creedish church district and made his phone call.
"The elders made you watch every time anyone in the church district had a child," Adam says.
We're only going twenty or thirty miles an hour, but somewhere lost in the smoke just ahead is the giant concrete pylon of the church memorial.
I can't say anything, but I just keep breathing.
"So of course you'd never want sex. You'd never want sex because every time our mother had another child," Adam says, "they made you sit there and watch. Because sex to you is just pain and sin and your mother stretched out there screaming."
And then he's said it.
The smoke is so thick I can't even see Adam.
He says, "By now, sex must look like nothing but torture to you."
He just spits it out that way.
Truth, The Fragrance.
And at that instant the smoke clears.
And we crash head-on into the concrete wall.
In the beginning there's nothing but dust. A fine white talcum powder hangs in the car, mixed with smoke.
The dust and smoke swirl in the air.
The only sound is the car engine dripping something, oil, antifreeze, gasoline.
Until Adam starts screaming.
The dust is from the air bags protecting us at our moment of impact. The air bags are collapsed slack and empty back onto the dashboard now, and as the dust settles, Adam is screaming and clutching his face. The blood coming from between his fingers is black against the talcum white coat.
In one hand, Adam holds the statuette smeared with blood, more of a devil now than ever.
With his other hand, Adam grabs at the ground beside him and drags an open magazine across his mutilated face. The magazine shows a man and woman copulating, and from under it Adam says, "When you find a rock. Bring it down on my face when I tell you."
I can't.
"I won't let you kill me," Adam says.
I don't trust him.
"You'll be giving me a better life. It's in your power," Adam says from under the magazine. "If you want to save my life, do this for me first."
Adam says, "If you don't, the minute you go for help, I'll crawl away and hide, and I'll die out here."
I weigh the rock in my hand.
I ask, will he tell me when to stop?
"I'll tell you when I've had enough."
Does he promise?
"I promise."
I lift the rock so its shadow falls across the people having sex on Adam's face.
And I bring it down.
The rock sinks in so far.
"Again!" Adam says. "Harder."
And I bring the rock down.
And the rock sinks in farther.
"Again!"
And I bring it down.
"Again!"
And I bring the rock down.
Blood soaks up through the pages, up to turn the fucking couple red and then purple.
"Again!" Adam says, his words distorted, his mouth and nose not the same shape anymore.
And I bring the rock down on the couple's arms and their legs and their faces.
"Again."
And I bring the rock down until the rock is sticky red with blood, until the magazine is collapsed in the center. Until my hands are sticky red.
Then I stop.
I ask, Adam?
I go to lift the magazine, but it tears. It's so sodden.
Adam's hand holding the statuette goes slack and the bloody statuette rolls into the grave I dug to find something solid.
I ask, Adam?
The wind carries smoke over us both.
A huge shadow is spreading toward us from the base of the pylon. One minute it's just touching Adam. The next minute, the shadow has him covered.
Ladies and gentlemen, here on Flight 2039, our third engine has just flamed out.
We have just one engine left before we begin our terminal descent.
The cold shadow of the Creedish church monument falls over me all morning as I bury Adam Branson. Under the layers of obscenity, under the Hungry Butt Holes, under the Ravishing She-Males, I dig with my hands into the churchyard dirt. Bigger stones carved with willows and skulls are buried all around me. The epitaphs on them are about what you'd imagine.
Gone but Not Forgotten.
In Heaven with their mistakes may they dwell.
Beloved Father.
Cherished Mother.
Confused Family.
May whatever God they find grant them forgiveness and peace.
Ineffectual Caseworker.
Obnoxious Agent.
Misguided Brother.
Maybe it's the Botox botulinum toxin injected into me or the drug interactions or the lack of sleep or the long-term effects of Attention Withdrawal Syndrome, but I don't feel a thing. The insides of my mouth taste bitter. I press my lymph nodes in my neck, but I only feel contempt.
Maybe after everybody dying around me, I've just developed a skill for losing people. A natural talent. A blessing.