China Lake (26 page)

I stuck near the reporters. The TV reporter and his cameraman were moving with the crowd, and Sally Shimada was jogging behind them, reciting a running commentary into a Dictaphone. The pickup pushed on, reaching State Street. Tourists and townsfolk slowed on the sidewalks as the Remnant streamed into the road. Traffic cascaded to a stop. Distantly I heard a siren.

Shiloh marshaled the baton twirlers into a phalanx pushing everyone out of their way, marching past stopped cars and confused pedestrians. The enormous black velvet bow in her ponytail bobbed up and down. She started chanting, like a drill sergeant leading boot camp recruits on a march.

‘‘ ‘I don’t know but I’ve been told—Satan’s teats are mighty cold.’ ’’

Ahead, a police car pulled into an intersection, lights flashing. I looked around. Tabitha was lagging behind the truck, looking burdened. I saw Glory. She was clapping along with the chanters, but her fist pumping looked lackluster.

Sally Shimada jogged past me, speaking breathlessly into her Dictaphone. ‘‘A patrol car has stopped at the corner of Canon Perdido Street, but the officers have not intervened with this impromptu funeral cortege.’’

I almost congratulated her on being able to run and say
cortege
at the same time. But she was off up the street, her glossy black hair swaying back and forth.

More eggs flew, hitting a New Age store called Crystal Blue Persuasions. On up the street, and they spattered a yoga center, a gallery called Prints of Darkness, and, for unknown reasons, Starbucks. Glory, I saw, was dropping back and edging toward the sidewalk. She was trying to slip away. Ahead, eggs, trash, a skateboard went into a store window. I heard the Remnant’s favorite musical accompaniment, shattering glass. And now a police siren, and a bullhorn ordering people out of the street.

I slid up beside Glory and took her arm. Her lips parted and she squinted at me. The scar at the corner of her eye gave her a straggly look. ‘‘Evan?’’

‘‘Let’s talk.’’

‘‘No.’’ She looked over her shoulder. ‘‘They’ll notice I’m gone.’’

The TV reporter and his cameraman scurried past us, filming as they went. I pulled her inside the door of a sushi bar.

I said, ‘‘Later, then. Tonight.’’

In her hand she held an egg. She had a homemade tattoo on her hand, blue ink, with the angry look of jailhouse skin art. She hesitated, finally saying, ‘‘I get off work at nine, at the university. Meet me outside the marine biology lab.’’

She turned and hurried up the street. A police car drove past, lights going. The counterman from the sushi bar came around and peered out the door, just as a flickering object arced toward another storefront.

‘‘Holy shit,’’ the counterman said. ‘‘It’s one of those what-do-you-call-its, the bottle with a rag soaked in gasoline.’’

‘‘Molotov cocktail.’’

Crash, flash, smoke billowing from the storefront. I stepped out onto the sidewalk. ‘‘Can you see which store it is?’’

‘‘Yeah.’’ Grim face. ‘‘It’s Beowulf’s.’’

‘‘Gutted,’’ Jesse said.

We were in my rental car, driving along the edge of the University of California campus, high on a cliff overlooking the black ocean. The car’s headlights swung over eucalyptus trees, low cinder-block dormitories, and the Institute for Theoretical Physics, home to several recent Nobel Prize winners.

Jesse was leaning against the door. ‘‘Not just the bookstore, Anita too. You should have seen her standing there in the ruins. She was shaking, looking about two hundred years old, with her little hands balled into fists, muttering, ‘Fascists.’ ’’

The road descended to meet the jutting rocks and the beach at Campus Point. I swung into the parking lot outside the marine biology lab, and my headlights caught Glory sitting on the hood of a dented silver Toyota Celica. She was wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and carpenter jeans, and a blue bandanna tied around her head.

Jesse said, ‘‘Let’s see how she justifies their riot today.’’

‘‘No.’’ I turned off the engine. ‘‘Don’t antagonize her.’’

‘‘She just helped destroy Anita’s entire life.’’

"I know. But I want to find out what she knows, so don’t blow it."

Glory was walking toward my car with her hands jammed in her jeans pockets. Jesse eyed me hotly. I said, ‘‘Please,’’ wondering whether it had been a good idea for him to come along. He was angry at the Remnant, and I was still piqued with him. Then he gave a small nod. I got out.

Behind Glory the surf crashed across the rocks. Moonlight reflected from tide pools, a milky shimmer. She said, ‘‘I can’t believe I’m doing this.’’

‘‘Things are getting out of hand, and you know it.’’

‘‘Yeah. Protesting is one thing, but wrecking those stores . . . man, that’s something else.’’

I said, ‘‘Today was just the start. What’s next?’’

She didn’t answer. Jesse was still getting out of the car, and she was outright staring at him, watching him pull the wheelchair out of the backseat.

Finally she said, ‘‘Chenille . . . having her in charge has changed everything. And I don’t mean she’s going to bring a woman’s touch to the church and soften things up. You have no idea what she’s like.’’

Jesse rolled up. ‘‘Hooker with a heart of gold?’’

I touched his shoulder, warning him to cool it.

‘‘You shouldn’t make fun of Chenille,’’ Glory said. ‘‘She’s very tough. Way more intense than Pastor Pete. And she’s acting with total conviction. She has
seen
things. You know, visions.’’

‘‘What has she seen?’’ I said.

‘‘Martial law.’’

Jesse snorted.

‘‘Yes. The people in Washington, they’re the devil’s pawns,’’ she said. ‘‘The government is going to declare martial law and turn the country into a police state.’’

From Jesse’s expression, I could tell that he thought she was talking the same talk as right-wing political pundits. He didn’t yet grasp that she was speaking literally.

He said, ‘‘Who in Washington?’’

‘‘The whores and queers in Congress. The germ doctors at CDC getting ready to poison us. The Pentagon, conspiring with the UN to enslave us.’’

‘‘Gee,’’ he said, ‘‘couldn’t you be more precise?’’

She caught the sarcasm. ‘‘You bet. Chenille says the Pentagon ordered Brian Delaney to kill Pastor Pete. It’s part of the plot to bring the Antichrist to power.’’

‘‘Glory,’’ I said, ‘‘does that actually sound credible to you?’’

She looked at me as though I were ignoring a meteor flaming toward my head. She said, ‘‘Revelation, chapter eleven, verse seven. It says the beast will kill the witnesses, and now Pastor Pete’s dead. It
happened
.’’

Jesse mumbled,
‘‘Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.’’

She frowned at him. ‘‘What do you mean by that?’’

I said, ‘‘Never mind. Glory, Brian didn’t do it.’’

‘‘I can see you’re really struggling with this. That’s because you’re under the great deception. But so is your brother. The Pentagon probably lied to him, maybe brainwashed him, could have told him Pastor Pete was a security threat or a foreign agent. See what I’m saying?’’

‘‘I see.’’ It was like arguing with a brick. ‘‘Tell us about this plot to impose martial law.’’

‘‘The government is assembling its forces to subjugate humanity to the beast. This is
it
. Things are gonna get bad. And soon.’’

Jesse said, ‘‘How soon?’’

‘‘Real soon. The government’s going to attack on the devil’s night.’’

My stomach ached, but he was lost. ‘‘What’s that?’’

I said, ‘‘Halloween.’’

That was ten days from now. He leaned back, startled.

Glory explained, ‘‘Halloween is a doorway to evil. Every year satanists kill kids with poison in Halloween candy, and they slaughter pets and rape virgin girls.’’

HELL-o-ween
. He said, ‘‘Those are urban legends. They’re not true.’’

She said, ‘‘Listen to me. It’s a night when the wall between worlds gets thin, and Satan can reach into the physical dimension with incredible power. That’s why it’s the night the government is going to attack.’’

Jesse didn’t bother to hide his incredulity. I said, ‘‘What’s the Remnant going to do?’’

‘‘This is the scary part. Inside the Remnant there are . . . different levels. Different groups, like. And there’s one crew that’s especially close to Chenille, really intense.’’

Jesse said, ‘‘Define ‘intense.’ ’’

She said, ‘‘Chenille has a group of totally dedicated people, really hard-core loyalists. This is what scares me. . . ."

She looked around the parking lot. There was nothing but the surf and the stars. Nevertheless she scrunched her shoulders, looking furtive.

‘‘Man, this is hard for me.’’

I couldn’t let her quit talking. I said, ‘‘It’s okay. I’m scared, too.’’

Her head snapped around. ‘‘Don’t say that. You’re the one person I thought wouldn’t be afraid.’’

‘‘Why?’’

‘‘You’re the only one I ever saw stand up to Chenille.’’

The statement took me aback. Feeling so big in her eyes discomfited me.

She pulled the bandanna off her head. ‘‘You’ve got to understand, the Remnant saved my life. No lie—if it wasn’t for Chenille getting me out of a bad situation, I’d be dead by now. And she brought me to a place where things were clean, and true, and where I
mattered
.
Me
. In the Remnant, I
meant
something.’’

Sensing that she wanted me to pull her along, I said, ‘‘But things have changed.’’

She stared at the dark ocean. ‘‘Chenille said when I came to the Remnant that my life would be bound for glory. That’s why she gave me this name. It’s not my original one, you know. But then she sent me out here to get a job as a janitor.’’

‘‘She insisted that you take a custodial job?’’

‘‘She said it would teach me humility. As if I didn’t get enough humility before I was saved, spreading my legs in the back of strangers’ cars in exchange for drugs.’’

She gave me a sidelong glance, trying to see if she had shocked me. I rested a hand on her shoulder.

Her voice gathered heat. ‘‘And you notice
she
didn’t take a humiliating job. She appointed herself soloist in the choir. But no, she showed me the classified ad and told me to go apply for it. And you know what? I did a lot of down-and-dirty stuff before I was saved, but even when I was living on the street I didn’t think, ‘Wow, if I ever get out of this, I’m gonna get a real great
menial
job.’ Like, I used to go to the library. That’s how I got into science fiction. I read Orson Scott Card and Octavia Butler, totally amazing stuff. Oh, and Connie Willis . . .’’

I said, ‘‘
Doomsday Book
.’’

‘‘Yeah! I’d sit there wishing
I
could travel in time. . . .’’ She stopped. ‘‘But since then, I’ve found out that the future is more shocking than what you read in SF novels.’’

Jesse was tapping his fingers against his knee, letting me know that he was restraining himself from open derision.

She said, ‘‘I loved your book, Evan. But then I’d remember, This is unscriptural, and I’d feel so
dirty
. . . ."

Jesse said, ‘‘Knowledge. The love that dares not speak its name.’’

She said, ‘‘Lust for knowledge caused the Fall. When Eve ate the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. ’’

‘‘And your church is working its ass off to eradicate what we’ve learned since then. You know, burning bookstores.’’

It had been a mistake for him to come. He was justly angry, but if he kept this up the meeting would be over in about ninety seconds. I said, ‘‘Jesse—’’

Glory said, ‘‘Learning isn’t the supreme good. Truth is, and faith.’’

‘‘Yeah,’’ he said, ‘‘ignorance is bliss.’’

‘‘You know, if you believed in God, you’d be walking.’’

Shit. Point of no return.

He nodded, an exaggerated
aha!
nod. ‘‘I see. And what else?’’ She looked at him crooked, and he said, ‘‘What else would I get for believing in God? How about incredible sexual stamina, or—ooh, a private jet? Can I make a list?’’

I put my hands up in a T and called, ‘‘Time-out.’’

They looked at me.

‘‘I have a question,’’ I said. ‘‘The Remnant isn’t big on book learning, so why did Chenille tell Glory to take a job at a university?’’

They stared at me, thinking about it. Finally Glory said, ‘‘She said the reasons would become apparent in time.’’

We listened to the surf ramming the rocks.

Jesse, calming down, said, ‘‘Sabotage.’’

‘‘That’s my guess,’’ she said.

‘‘Where do you work?’’

‘‘Biological Sciences.’’

An ideal target for Pastor Pete’s hatreds—all those microorganisms, all that Latin terminology. But something about it bothered me, a niggling thought deep in my brain, one I couldn’t quite reach. I walked toward the edge of the asphalt. The wet sand shone pale silver when the waves receded. In the far distance I could see the Goleta Pier, and the Beachside Restaurant bright against the shore, its lights ticking on the water.

I said, ‘‘These hard-core loyalists. Who are they?’’

She said, ‘‘Ice Paxton, Shiloh, Curt Smollek, the Brueghel triplets . . . maybe ten or twelve people.’’

Jesse said, ‘‘You?’’

‘‘No. I’m not in the inner circle.’’ Her voice stung with the rejection.

I said, ‘‘Tabitha?’’

‘‘No.’’

Relief brushed over me. I was surprised at how much I had been rooting for that answer, how much I hoped that Tabitha wasn’t totally gone.

‘‘Tabitha’s star isn’t rising anymore,’’ she said. ‘‘She was more Pastor Pete’s favorite than Chenille’s, especially after she botched the mission to rescue her little boy.’’

Jesse said, ‘‘Rescue? That’s what you think it was?’’

‘‘Whatever. Pastor Pete was sympathetic to Tabitha afterward, but Chenille thought it showed she lacked the guts for field operations. So now Chenille’s freezing her out.’’