But in Rio Verde, people and animals and insects were having the bodily fluids sucked out of them through holes in their necks, and Elvis Presley was kidnapping little girls.
What would J. Edgar do in a situation like this?
Go home crying to mama, a small mean part of him said.
He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled a cigarette out of the pack, put it in his mouth, and lit it. He stared up at the sky and wondered if it was going to rain.
It was raining outside, a light drizzle, and though she couldn't hear it on the roof, she could see the mist on the stained glass windows and could feel the cool dampness in the air. Sitting at her desk, opening today's mail, Corrie glanced over at the Pastor Clan Wheeler. He was at his own desk, leaning back in his chair and smiling at her. She smiled back.
For the past week, the pastor had kept her busy doing menial paperwork, filing old invoices, paying bills, reading and answering all mail, even the form letters. He had remained with her at all times, had been so omnipresent as to be suspicious. She began to wonder if he suspected her of something. He definitely seemed to be watching her, keeping an eye on her.
She took the electric bill out of its envelope and put it in her in-box. She hazarded another glance at the pastor. He was still smiling at her. "
She felt happy being here, content in the presence of the pastor, but she was starting to worry about her position in the church. For the past week, the chapel and all other rooms within the complex had been sealed off from the outside, the doors padlocked, and she was confined to the office. If she had to go to the bathroom, the pastor made her use one of the porta-potties set up outside for the construction workers and volunteers. Out of all of the rooms in the growing church, she was allowed only in this one.
All that had been strange enough, but today things were even stranger.
It was nothing that had happened, nothing she could pinpoint. It was a feeling. Things were different today.
She suddenly wished she'd worn the jade necklace. Last week, Rich had tried to bully her into wearing it, telling her that he'd bought it in order to protect her from vampires, but she'd responded that her faith in Jesus was the only protection she needed. She'd made a show of leaving the necklace at home, on her dresser.
Now she wished that she'd worn it. Something within her sensed that the necklace should have been worn to day, that it would have helped her, would have .. . protected her. From what she did not know, but her neck felt bare and naked, like her finger had the time she'd lost her wedding ring.
"Corrie," the pastor said.
" "Yes?" She looked up. In person, in a one-to-one set ting, Wheeler's voice did not have the authority that it had on the pulpit, but what it lost in strength it gained in intimacy, and in many ways that was even more powerful
"Jesus wants to meet you."
A thrill of excitement shot-through her, but she was aware of another feeling, a feeling of apprehension some where deep inside her.
The necklace suddenly seemed very important.
"He wants you to deliver the sacrifice."
Corrie's hands were trembling, and her mouth was dry.
"He wants me to deliver the sacrifice?" The preacher stood. "Yes."
"I'm honored," she said.
"Follow me." Corrie followed him outside into the drizzle, around the side of the building to the locked door of the first addition. Wheeler withdrew a key from his pocket and unlocked the door, pulling it open.
They walked into the addition. Like the outside, the inside of the building was painted black. She would have thought that extra lights would be installed to compensate for the darkness, but the illumination in here was purposefully dim, the primitive bulbs a soft yellowish white. In the murky shadowed corner, she saw figures moving, and she heard the sound of sawing. Construction, as always, was continuing.
She followed the preacher through another set of doors and down an unlit hallway. There were windows here, but they were of the darkest stained glass---navy blue and crimsonmand let in very little light.
Then they were in the chapel.
Corrie had wondered why sermons had been held outside for the past two Sundays, and she'd assumed that it was because of the construction and remodeling that were taking place in the chapel.
She saw now that that was not the reason at all. Wheeler stood just inside the doorway, beaming proudly, staring at her, gauging her reaction. Corrie looked into the chapel, awed, impressed, and, above all, enraptured. The church she had known was gone. There was no floor, only board paths over dirt that led toward three huge holes in the ground. Each hole was approximately the size of her bedroom and partially ringed by a small group of men and women. Piles of trash stood behind each group. Wooden bridges, apparently made from the backs of pews, stretched over the tops of the holes. The altar was still in place, but there were bodies lying atop it, leaning against the pulpit, placed in the choir cubicles. The bodies were all mummified, and although they appeared to be ancient, she thought she recognized some of the faces. The windows had all been painted black.
And it was beautiful. "Come with me," Wheeler said, and she followed him into the chapel.
She stared at the people standing next to the openings in the earth.
These, she assumed, were part of the, church's inner circle, those parishioners who had been with the preacher from the beginning and whom he knew to be loyal. Among the first group she recognized Bill Covey.
And Tammette Walker from the bank. Some of the others looked familiarmshe'd seen them in church or around town--but she could not put names to the faces.
She wonder, when these people had come in here. how. She did been in the office since eight this morning and had heard or seen nothing, no one going in or out.
They reached the first hole, and she saw that what she had at first taken for trash was actually a collection of small trees and shrubs.
Next to the shrubs were coffee cans, filled with what looked like ultra-black and unusually large coffee beans.
Wheeler noticed the direction of her gaze. "Insects," he explained.
"Snacks for the Savior."
She nodded, looked toward the other openings. Dead animals--cats and dogs and mice and rabbits were piled next to the second hole.
The nude, unmoving forms of two women, a man, and a child were lying behind the third group of people, the child lying lengthwise across the buttocks of the women.
Corrie returned her attention to the first hole. It was the bugs and plants that struck her as the most peculiar, and although she knew that she should be shocked by all of this, particularly by the people, she was acutely aware of the fact that she was not. Her thoughts felt strangely slow, her brain numb. '
Covey smiled at her. "We proffer our offerings to the Lord, and He looks upon us with favor. Are you to deliver the sacrifice today?"
"Yes," Wheeler answered for her. "Where is the infant Corrie looked into the opening. The hole did not continue straight down, as she'd assumed, but sloped, curved, turned into a tunnel some fifteen feet below the rim. It was dark but not black; there was a hazy glow coming from somewhere beneath the earth.
One of the women from the group by the third hole, an old lady Corrie did not know, brought forth a baby and handed it to the preacher. The baby was dead, its tiny eyes staring blindly at nothing as its head flopped from side to side on its too small neck. It had been a boy before the castration.