“Help! Get me loose. I’m fuckin’ beggin’ ya. Help me, please. This guy’s about to explode. I don’t wanna die! Please help me!”
From his seat several rows up, Malachi Grapes shrugged. He could’ve easily freed the guy if he wanted to. He could’ve cut off the fat guy’s hand with the knife he had in his orange prison jumpsuit, but he didn’t move an inch. For one thing, he despised the gangbanger because he was black. Plus, he was keeping the knife hidden. The Day of the Pig was about to begin.
The previous day, the guards had hauled the prisoners out of Parchman, driven for several hours, and then abandoned them in the parking lot. Grapes knew it wasn’t a transfer. A guy with connections could find out anything, especially if you were the head of the local Aryan Nations. Plus, he’d never heard of transferring every inmate in the prison.
Fifteen Aryan Nations members were on that van. The rest of the inmates were Crips or Bloods or members of Mexican or Asian gangs, including the Filipino guy rotting at the back of the bus. Grapes felt sure the situation was the same in the other three vans.
In prison, the guards had blocked communication between gang members, so they’d come up with many ways to send messages. With no one standing guard over them, sending messages from one bus to another was a breeze—they just shouted a little louder. Over the last few hours, they’d concocted a plan. Grapes’s instructions raced through the other buses.
“When do we start, Malachi?” Seth Fretzen leaned across the aisle with eager eyes.
“Any minute now, Seth,” Grapes muttered under his breath.
A white liquid seeped out the corner of the dead guy’s mouth. When it dripped on the prisoner chained to him, he became hysterical.
“This motherfucker’s gonna explode! Get me loose! Get me the hell loose!”
A prisoner stood up to lend a hand, but he was chained to an Aryan Nations gang member, who yanked the chain that bound them. The prisoner fell to the ground, and a fight broke out in the back of the bus.
“Now,” Malachi Grapes said. “Let’s go.”
Seth Fretzen lit a piece of paper with a match he’d hidden and waved the flame in front of the barred window. Someone in the next bus spotted the signal and passed it along to the other buses.
Grapes didn’t wait for the flame to go out. Lightning fast, he drew the knife out of his sleeve and plunged it into the neck of the Puerto Rican guy next to him. The guy’s eyes flew open wide, blood bubbled up on his lips, and he drowned.
Seth Fretzen used his chain to strangle the guy next to him, a black guy from the West Coast. The man struggled for a few seconds, but he didn’t stand a chance. When Seth let go, the guy’s arms fell down at his sides as if they were filled with sawdust.
Malachi headed to the back of the bus to help out, but his boys had the situation under control. Since they were in the majority, were well armed, and had the element of surprise, they’d taken out the other prisoners in short order. Only one of his guys was injured. He’d cut his own arm as he hacked through another prisoner’s neck.
Adrenaline rushed through their bodies. They roared, high-fived, beat their chests, and spat on the bodies. Then they sat down to wait.
Two hours later, it occurred to Malachi Grapes that maybe offing those losers wasn’t such a good idea. In prison, you barely had time to get rid of your weapon before the guards arrived. But here, no one came. And the bodies were starting to stink.
With one swat, Grapes crushed a greedy fly that had landed on his neck. His mind was racing, devising an alternate plan. Then suddenly someone opened the door of the bus. Fifteen skinheads shouted insults at the guards, but then a heavy silence fell over the crowd.
Instead of guards in riot gear on the other side of the barrier, there stood a man of about sixty, wearing a suit and a huge Stetson hat, holding a Bible. His face gave nothing away as he stared at the carnage.
That asshole’s praying, Grapes thought, as the old man’s lips moved soundlessly. The man absentmindedly rubbed his right knee, pulled some keys out of his pocket, and headed for the door. But then he stopped, as if he’d suddenly remembered something.
“Do you men fear of the wrath of the Lord?” he asked.
Grapes shook his head, wondering if he’d heard correctly. I must be hallucinating in this heat. “What’d you say, Reverend?”
“I asked if you men fear of the wrath of the Lord,” Greene said patiently.
When Grapes got to his feet, the corpse of the Puerto Rican man fell to the floor with a thud. His sweeping gesture encompassed the entire bus as he turned back to the man behind the barrier. “Look around, Reverend. We are the fucking wrath of the Lord.”
The old man seemed pleased by that answer and nodded in satisfaction. “I see you’ve cleaned up the scum and sin on this bus. Those bastard races have no place in New Jerusalem.” His hypnotic voice silenced even the most disrespectful Aryans. “But the real evil is out there, ready to pounce on this corner of the world that God is protecting. So I ask you, if I free you, will you be the instrument of the Lord’s wrath?”
“We’ll be whatever you want, Reverend, just get us off this fucking bus.”
“Alright.” Greene’s face lit up as if he had found the solution to a particularly difficult puzzle. “But first, let us pray to enlighten your souls. Please kneel.”
“What the hell’s this lunatic saying?” Seth snarled.
“Shut the fuck up,” Grapes growled. He couldn’t take his eyes off the preacher. “Do what he says. Kneel and pray. If you don’t, I’ll kick your teeth out your ass.”
The Aryan Nations members knelt and prayed along with Greene, who whispered, eyes closed, arms raised toward the sky, his face contorted in ecstasy.
At the end of the prayer, Greene unlocked the door with the ring of keys he’d found in the police station. Then he walked down the aisle, unlocking the prisoners’ shackles, stepping over the bodies of the murdered prisoners as if they were piles of garbage. He held out his Bible for every Aryan to kiss and laid his hands on their heads.
Grapes had to bend over so the reverend could lay his hands on his bald head. The moment Greene touched him, Grapes felt an electric current run through his body from head to toe. He gasped in surprise and stared at Greene. He had to lean against the seat to keep from falling. The reverend’s eyes were fiery black pools. Grapes thought he saw sparks of madness in the midst of those flames, shrouded in a suffocating evil darkness so thick he could almost touch it.
The preacher terrified him, but at the same time, the dark force in the strange man filled Grapes with the most forceful feeling he’d ever experienced. In prison he’d met some of the craziest, most evil men imaginable, but they couldn’t hold a candle to the menacing energy radiating from the reverend’s eyes. Grapes understood the man and feared him. He fell completely under the preacher’s spell. Whatever it was, he loved the guy.
“Who do you want knocked off, Reverend?” he asked respectfully.
“Follow me and I’ll show you,” said Greene as he climbed off the bus. Grapes was surprised to see that the preacher dragged his right leg. He was sure the man hadn’t been limping when he climbed on the bus.
Outside, Grapes saw that the rest of his men were being released too. Forty-four Aryans stood on the parking lot, squinting, looking around as if they couldn’t believe they were outside with no chains, no walls, and no guards.
A van was parked in front of them. The sign on its side read:
Two people stood beside the van: a tall, burly guy who looked like he was used to being obeyed and a short, bald, potbellied sheriff in his fifties who looked extremely nervous. Can’t blame him, thought Grapes. I’ll bet he’s wondering what the fuck he’ll do if we suddenly go apeshit. But nobody was going to do that. The reverend said he needed someone killed, and Grapes would’ve killed his own mother just to see the black force in that man’s eyes.