Glassing the Orgachine Page 3

“Turn your lantern on.” They had been conversing in the dark on either side of the food slot. “I want you to see my eyes when I tell you this.”

  He did as she said and gazed into two of the prettiest brown eyes he’d ever seen. They were bloodshot from fatigue at the moment but still focused, sharp, and unwavering.

  “Listen, Verbs, and hear me well. I forbid you and your family to exorcise me tomorrow. Even if I were possessed by evil spirits, which I’m not, it’s none of your business, and I forbid it. There’s only two people who get a say about the state of my soul — me and Jesus. Not you, not your child-raping Poppy.” Proverbs flinched when she said this, so she said it again. “Least of all your incestuous, child-raping lord.

  “And second, and do believe me when I say this. I will not under any circumstance marry you — ever. I will not be your betrothed, your girlfriend, or ‘sweetie,’ or even your friend — ever. So get that whole fantasy of you and me out of your head. It’s not going to happen, and there’s nothing you can do or say to change my mind. Because I hate you. Is that clear?”

  She could see the pain in his eyes as the message sank in. But then he blinked, and all was as before.

  “Nice try, Rath,” he said. “But you and your boys better start packing your bags, because come first light, we’re tossing the whole lot of you vermin out.”

  Then he smiled and said, “I gotta get back to it. Stay warm and be strong. Till first light . . .”

  “They’ll come for me,” she shouted through the food slot. “My father will come for me.”

  BACK IN WALLIS that evening when Cindy and Rex Lawther arrived home from shopping, there was a message on the answering machine from Ginger:

  Hi guys. Drat, I missed you. I’m in town right now — in McHardy — for a little while with some of the family running errands. And while I have cell service, I wanted to wish you all a belated but joyous Christmas. I hope you had a great one. I can’t believe it — my first Christmas away from home. I didn’t imagine it could be so hard. I miss you guys!

  Anyway, looks like they’re waiting on me, heading back to Stubborn Mountain. They don’t like to spend any more time in town than they have to. They’re nice, once you get used to them.

  Oh, I almost forgot. I wanted to ask you if I could stay another few weeks. I really want to, and I think I’m doing some serious good here. And they really want me to stay too. I was hoping to talk to you about it, but since you’re out, I guess I have to make an executive decision. So I will; I’m going to stay! So, Rory, listen up. I’m now flying out on Tuesday, January 29. That’s the mail flight on Tuesday, January 29, but you should call Nellis Air to confirm the time.

  Oh, and Mom, don’t worry. This won’t affect my schoolwork. They’ve got an old laptop here I can use. Please just send me my course material. It’s all on the green thumbdrive in my top desk drawer.

  Gotta go. Love you all. Mwa. Mwa. Mwa. And Happy New Year.

  Bye.

  (Big sigh)

  (Click.)

  Rex said, “I don’t like it one bit.”

  Cindy said, “I don’t like it either, but she’s old enough to decide something like this on her own.”

  “I still don’t have to like it.”

  MK3 1.0

  POPPY EXPECTED OBAMA’S agents to launch another strike against them at any time, and every day that passed without more violence was counted as a blessing. Eventually, Poppy grew bold enough to lead the elder boys on brazen daylight raids on their old property to recover their household goods. Mattresses, bed frames, linens, pots and pans, toiletries, clothes, tubs and basins, everything they’d been forced to leave behind when they fled to the safety of the keep. They salvaged the gasoline-powered Maytag washing machine, the propane-powered fridge and freezers, tools, legal papers, photo albums. Several bankers boxes of HIS CREATIONS LLC paperwork.

  They disassembled the large, wood-fired kitchen range to move to the keep in pieces. They salvaged everything of use from the big house, prayer cabin, bathhouse, toolshed, pump house, rabbit hutches, and all the other outbuildings on their 340-acre (138-ha) Ponderosa.

  They made their forays armed and ready for ambush by Antichrist goons. They hauled everything to the base of the tailings slide and recruited the middle boys to sherpa it all up to the gate. The elder boys guarded them, scanning the skies for black helicopters and the woods for sneak attack. Three black birds circled the mine adit overhead.

  “Demons,” Proverbs said, drawing his pistol.

  “Uh, ravens,” Hosea said. “Birds. Leave ’em alone, brother.”

  They watched as the ravens alighted on the roof of one of the fortified galleries that overlooked the adit. When the birds settled, Proverbs opened fire on them, but they were too far way for a good shot, and they launched themselves into the air and scattered.

  Poppy, who had been in the machine room when he heard the gunfire came rushing out.

  “He’s taking potshots at birds, lord,” Hosea told him. “He’s wasting ammo and scaring the kids. Tell him to stop.”

  “What birds? Ravens?”

  “Yes, lord,” Proverbs said. “Demon ravens. They were trying to get inside the keep.”

  “They were not,” Hosea said. “They were just curious what we’re up to. Ravens are curious birds.”

  “We can’t take the chance,” Poppy said. “Shut the gate. From now on, we only open it when there’s something too big to fit through the sally door. And keep the sally door shut too unless someone is using it.”

  Proverbs said, “We should shut all the sniper ports too, lord. Otherwise the ravens can squeeze through them and get in.”

  “Sounds right,” Poppy said. “Do it. And now’s as good a time as any to start a twenty-four-hour guard. Tell Adam to set it up. All you boys down to Solly take turns. Around the clock.”

  “But, lord,” Hosea said, “everyone’s at his limit as it is.”

  Poppy shook his head. “I know, but there’s not much we can do about it.”

  Kitchen Window

  KW1 1.0

  IT DIDN’T HAPPEN at first light the following morning, as Proverbs had promised. After several days, it was Deut who convinced Poppy to find the time to deliver their prisoner.

  Ginger lay on the cot under sleeping bags. She only got up to pee, and that wasn’t very often. During her first stint in the powder room, she had scratched her name in the damp limestone wall and a notch for each day of her imprisonment. This time she didn’t even bother. Too much effort. Too depressing.

  Though the powder room door was solid oak, she could hear people approaching from down tunnel. Soon the white light of an LED lantern slanted through the food slot.

  “Daddy?” she said, raising her head. “Daddy?”

  “No, it’s me, Deut. I’m coming in.”

  The padlock clicked, the hasp squeaked, and the heavy door swung open. Ginger shielded her eyes from the onslaught of light.

  “Are you all right?” Deut said, holding the lantern high.

  “I can’t get warm.” Her voice was hoarse from lack of use.

  “Is it any wonder when you won’t eat anything? But don’t worry. It’s warm enough in camp, and there’s plenty to eat. We’ve set up a bath too. You’d like a bath, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, I would, Deut. Now?” Ginger pulled the covers off herself and Deut helped her to sit.

  “Soon,” Deut said. “First, we have to get rid of your stowaways?”

  “My what?”

  “You know, the demons.”

  Ginger was suddenly alert. “No, I refuse. I do not consent to this. Leave me alone.”

  “Just come with me, Ginger. I won’t let nobody hurt you.”

  “Screw you, Deut.” Ginger got up and tried to shove Deut out of the cell, but she was unsteady on her feet. Deut left anyway to make room for Hosea and Sue, who entered the cell and took hold of Ginger. Ginger fought just as hard leaving the cell as she had entering it.

  Poppy and Proverbs were wait
ing for them in the tunnel, which was two ore carts in width at that point. They had hung lanterns on the tunnel walls and laid a mattress across the tracks.

  “Looks like the demons are frisky,” Poppy said, unsnapping his Bible holster. “That’s a good sign; it means they’re afraid of us.”

  “I’m not afraid of you!” Ginger shrieked, trying to kick him. But long skirts weren’t made for kicking. While Hosea held her in a bear hug, the others bound her feet and hands with scarfs, then rolled her up in a blanket and lay her on the mattress. Sue and Deut pinned her shoulders down while Hosea prevented her from bucking her legs. Proverbs stood nearby looking ill.

  “Father God,” Poppy intoned, “we ask You to shed mercy on Your daughter, Ginger Lawther, and to vouchsafe us the authority of Thy mighty arm to cast out the evil spirits that torment her. Amen.”

  “Amen,” said the others.

  “We rebuke you, demons.”

  “We rebuke you, demons.”

  “Get behind us, demons.”

  “Get behind us, demons.”

  Their voices boomed in the stony space.

  “We banish you from this girl. We banish you from this keep. Begone and never return, in Christ Jesus name. Amen.”

  “Amen.”

  They exhorted the demons thus several times before pausing to observe the effect. Ginger had stopped struggling and lay calmly with her eyes shut.

  They loosened their grip on her, and Deut said, “Ginger?”

  Ginger opened her eyes and looked at her.

  “How are you?”

  “I’m good, I think. I think you did it. I don’t feel them anymore, and they’re not, you know, they’re not controlling me anymore.”

  Proverbs knelt beside her. “For real? Are they really gone?”

  “I think so. No, I know so. I’m free. Oh, thank you, Proverbs, for doing this for me, even though I told you not to. Thank you so much. Please help me up now.”

  He began to free her, but Poppy said, “Not so fast there. Didn’t that all seem a little too easy to you? What excuse for a demon gives up and turns tail without a fight? Let alone seven of them. Hold her down. Let’s do this again.”

  So they held her down again and repeated their commands for the forces of evil to release her soul and leave her. This time Ginger joined in, which didn’t seem likely if the demons were still in charge.

  “She’s clear!” Proverbs told his father. “Can’t you see that, lord? We done it; she’s clear. Let her go.”

  Hosea and the girls looked up at Poppy for direction, but he shook his head and said, “Demons don’t just scatter like that. Something’s off. Put her back in the powder room. We’ll try this again later. We got too much work to do right now.”

  Both Proverbs and Deut protested. She’d been locked up too long already. She wasn’t eating. She was going to get sick.

  Hosea had a suggestion. “If she’s got seven of ’em, why don’t we try calling ’em out one at a time?” He and Proverbs were able to remember most of the names the devil Martha had used. So they began again, this time zeroing in on the probable ringleader, Rath.

  “Hear me, Rath,” Poppy said. “I’m talking to you, Rath.”

  Ginger’s eyes crossed, and her body went rigid under their hands.

  “Now we’re talking,” Poppy said. “You hear me now, don’t you, Rath?”

  In a lightening move, Ginger twisted her torso, craned her neck, and bit Sue’s arm. She clamped down hard enough to break the skin and leave marks. Sue yelped and jerked her arm away. Then Ginger’s head snapped back and her whole body shuddered violently.

  “Now we’re cooking,” Poppy said. He held out his Bible. “We rebuke you, Rath, in Elder Brother Jesus name.”

  “We rebuke you, Rath, in Elder Brother Jesus name.”

  “Noooo,” Ginger croaked in a guttural Batman voice. “Stop!”

  “Begone, Rath. We cast you out in Elder Brother Jesus name.”

  “Begone, Rath. We cast you out in Elder Brother Jesus name.”

  Ginger bucked. She screamed. She writhed. She convulsed. Finally, she arched her back, and a gurgling wheeze came from deep in her throat. Then she slumped motionless and let out a long, easy sigh.

  “Well, well,” Poppy said. “Looks like it’s one down and six to go.”

  ONE BY ONE they dispatched the demons. Each spirit fought its eviction, and poor Ginger took the brunt of the struggle. It was all the prayer warriors could do to keep her from bouncing off the mattress. Around the fifth demon, her legs came unbound, and she kicked Hosea in the mouth, splitting his lip.

  The last demon to go was the most tenacious and fought the hardest, but they called on Father God and prayed for authority, and they were victorious in Christ, and when they had dispatched it back to Hell, Ginger went limp and the warriors all but collapsed on the tunnel floor in exhaustion.

  After a little while, Ginger lifted her head and looked around at them with big quizzical eyes. “What’s going on?” she said. “Where am I? Why am I tied up?”

  The warriors cheered. They shouted praise and thanksgiving and sang out with joy. Even Poppy shed a happy tear.

  “We drove out your demons,” Proverb boasted as he untied her bindings. “We kicked their horny butts.”

  And that was how Ginger Lawther joined the family in the cottage chamber.

  KW2 1.0

  GINGER VOLUNTEERED TO help move household goods from the entrance area to the cottage chamber, and Deut assigned Cora to help her. They loaded the needed clothes, bedding, kitchen utensils, and everything else into a converted ore cart and pushed the cart up-tunnel to the ramp. The cart was wide enough so that the two of them could stand shoulder to shoulder as they pushed it. It was hard work but not too strenuous for strong girls, and they were both strong girls.

  Ginger and Cora didn’t talk much while they worked. Ginger felt the younger girl must still fear her, or the demons that she had allegedly harbored. Demons were like the flu, something you could catch from another person if you were careless.

  When they reached the ramp, they would lock the cart wheels and transfer the cargo to a couple of handcarts that they pushed or pulled up to Level 2. From there they used a second ore cart to complete the trip to the cottage and storeroom chambers.

  Taking a break between loads, Ginger stood at the sally door and watched the world outside. The air was bitter cold, twenty or thirty below (–29 or –34 C). Not a pleasant day for working outdoors, but she would gladly join the boys out there hauling things up by toboggan. She hadn’t even seen the outdoors in what — seven days? ten days? She had lost track of the calendar during her imprisonment, and she was sure her parents must be worried sick about her by now. What if they came looking for her and the boys sent them away?

  A harsh voice behind her made her cringe. “What are you doing here?” It was Poppy. Upset with her, like she was doing something horrible.

  “Just taking a break.”

  “Just taking a break — what?”

  Ginger blinked. It was the female submission test again. She had failed it when she had first arrived at Stubborn Mountain, and she had no intention of failing it again. “Just taking a break — lord.”

  Poppy chewed on that awhile, perhaps trying to assay her sincerity, but in the end he let it pass and returned to whatever he had been doing.

  LATER, AS GINGER and Cora were transferring cargo to handcarts at the ramp, Ginger’s eye was drawn to a familiar robin-blue color, and her heart began to pound. It was the faux-leather cover of her Bible, her own Bible that had been taken from her.

  Her Bible and another one — Sue’s? — were lying in a carton that contained paper files and ledgers, business letters in rubber-banded bundles, and a well-thumbed copy of Vera Tetlin’s bestselling memoir. These were Poppy’s things, salvaged from his so-called prayer cabin.

  Ginger glanced at Cora to see if she was watching her. She could steal her Bible back, but how would she conceal it? And where would she
hide it? All she had to her name was a mattress and a little space in a tent with three other girls.

  Before Ginger could decide what to do, she spied a couple of things even more exciting in another carton — a box of snowmachine spark plugs, brand new, still in their wrappers. And a gun. A Smith and Wesson .38 Special. It was fully loaded. She did a quick search for more bullets, but couldn’t find any. Six slugs would have to do.

  KW3 1.0

  THE NEXT DAY, Ginger and Solly were in the new kitchen reassembling the cooking range with wrenches and screwdrivers. When Proverbs finished installing the stovepipe, they lit a test fire in the firebox, and everyone working in the house came to watch.

  Adam said, “A little heat will help the varnish dry.”

  Sue said, “Hot water whenever you want it.”

  Proverbs said, “Fresh bread and rolls. Cookies.”

  Ginger said, “I don’t know if I can live in a house without a real kitchen.”

  They all looked at her, and Sue said, “Excuse me, but aren’t we, like, standing in a real kitchen?”

  “If you say so, but what’s a kitchen without a kitchen sink?”

  “There’s the sink right over there,” Corny said, pointing to a sink mounted to the exterior wall.

  “That’s a sink, all right, but not a proper kitchen sink. Every kitchen I’ve ever been in had a window over the sink. You know, with cotton-print curtains and maybe a little shelf where you can put a flower pot or a spice rack or something. And you guys built a house with no windows.”

  Corny said, “What’s the point of windows when it’s always dark in the keep and there’s never going to be anything outside to look at?”

  Adam said, “He’s right. Windows are a luxury in our current situation. A waste of resources.”

  “I agree,” Hosea said. “We have window glass in the storeroom. But it’s for when we can live outside again. Not now. What would be the point? We have vents you can open and shut for fresh air.”