“Ghost in the Grove is Frank Reddy’s prose at its finest—a tale of harrowing hymns and snake charmers, where vengeance spells itself out over the course of a generation. Its backwoods religious reckonings bring out undertones of Flannery O’Connor, blended with the gothic hauntings of Edgar Allan Poe. This page-turner of a thriller keeps you engaged and guessing—set against the backdrop of a swampy South Georgia, filled with reptiles, pecan trees, and skeletons in the closet.”

CAMERON BOGAN

author of Meeting Kentucky

“Ghost in the Grove is equal parts revenge story, Southern Gothic, and family drama. Frank Reddy crafts unique characters and sets them loose in the perfect haunting setting to absolutely brutal effect. This one will stay with you for a long time!”

VIGGY PARR HAMPTON

author of The Rotting Room and Much Too Vulgar

“In Ghost in the Grove, a worthy spiritual successor to suspenseful Southern Gothic classics A Good Man Is Hard to Find and The Night of the Hunter, Frank Reddy masterfully illustrates the soul-shaking impact of unfettered religious zeal—for better or horrifyingly worse.”

D.C. PHILLIPS

author of Frightful Fables

Also by Frank Reddy

Cofer Woods

Imminent Domain

Eyes on the Island

A Shadelandhouse Modern Press book

Ghost in the Grove

a novel

Copyright © 2026, Frank Reddy

All rights reserved.

Without in any way limiting the author’s and publisher’s exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, please direct written inquiries to Permissions, Shadelandhouse Modern Press, LLC, P.O. Box 910913, Lexington, KY 40591, or email permissions@smpbooks.com.

Ghost in the Grove is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. To the extent any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are used in this work of fiction, all are assumed to be the property of their respective owners and are used only for reference. Use of these terms does not imply endorsement.

Published in the United States of America by:

Shadelandhouse Modern Press, LLC

Lexington, Kentucky

smpbooks.com

First edition 2026

Shadelandhouse, Shadelandhouse Modern Press, and the colophon are trademarks of Shadelandhouse Modern Press, LLC.

ISBN: 978-1-945049-67-5 (paperback), 978-1-945049-68-2 (epub)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2026943400

Cover photo: Gaston Cerliani/Shutterstock.com

Cover and book design: iota books

For my father:

As he wanders the cosmic orchard,

Collecting forgotten treasure.

1950-2024

PROLOGUE

Shutting the glass liquor cabinet with a clatter, the man crosses the main living area of his large home. He steps inside his office with a pint of cheap bourbon. Not the good single-malt stuff, though he kept bottles of that around to impress visitors. No, he enjoyed nightly the crisp bite of everyman rotgut for his retreat to the office. He hefts shut the mahogany door, muffling the sound of his daughters and wife. He breathes a sigh of relief, having escaped their endless prattle. He’d done his part dutifully, appearing briefly at dinner and asking how everybody’s day was, before retreating to his privacy.

Sitting behind his desk, he twists the cap, cracking the seal. He empties three fingers into a crystal whiskey glass. Tipping it back, he feels the burn as the harsh, amber liquid slides down his esophagus into his guts. The burn is both painful and pleasurable. His doctor has warned him about all this drinking he does. He says it’s only making things worse. Hell did he know? Same physician tried to get his wife to go see one of them head doctors in Valdosta. Said she could benefit from meds. Might keep her from having those episodes. It wasn’t that he disagreed with his doctor. There was just something about another fella telling you something should be done about the mother of your children.

He shakes his head, pouring another glass of bourbon. He swivels in his supple leather executive chair. He spins the dial of the gun safe behind him in the correct left-right-left combination and pulls open the heavy, steel-plate door. He reaches in, pushes aside a sawed-off shotgun, taking out a solid, stainless steel folding knife. The weight of the button-lock lancet overlaid with golden initials is a comfort against the soft flesh of his palm.

In the safe, beneath a stack of decoy paperwork filled with meaningless numbers, he lifts the top off a secret panel. From inside the panel, he removes an oxblood leather-bound book. He places it on the desk beside the knife. He drains his second glass of bourbon, choking a little. He unties a blue velvet ribbon and opens the oxblood book—a photo album—to the first page. With his other hand, he caresses the open blade of the knife, taking in the sight of the girl.

June Marie.

The missing person flyer, centered on the pristine, lilac-scented linen paper, is time-weathered, sun-yellowed perfection. Cozy and secure inside the glistening, clear sleeve, a vertical rectangle of a black and white ink photo abutting a block of typewritten copy. He relishes every syllable like tiny bites of a confection:

Missing: June Marie Thompson. UPDATE: Reward offered by family. $1000 for information that leads to finding her. Missing from her home at 1254 Root Rot Blvd., Valdosta since 10-20-61. White female, 5 foot 3, blue eyes. 20 years old. Last known to be wearing white shorts and black shirt. Also, black tennis shoes. She has a tattoo of a sun on the inside of her right wrist. She worked this last harvest at the Ripley Orchard. This is the most recent photo of June Marie. If you have info, please contact her aunt, Lucille, at the phone number below.

He turns the page.

Another missing person flyer:

Esmerelda I.

Esmerelda means emerald. And she’d been a precious jewel indeed. As he gazes at the grainy copy-machine reproduction of the nineteen-year-old Hispanic girl’s photo, centered on a linen page in the same fashion as June Marie’s, he lifts the book to inhale…the sweet sweat on her neck. To recall…the soft feel of her body in his hands as he had her behind the shed twice a day that autumn. It had been heaven—the leaves falling all around them just before Thanksgiving, blue skies up above, her brown flesh seasonal as the harvest itself. What was it that writer fella said? Nothing gold can stay.

The third missing person flyer takes him back to a lovely time too—the year of the V-8 Corvette Stingray. 1966. He rubs the clear sheets clean with his shirtsleeve, the only thing that separates the image of Dolly S. from his skin. He hugs the album to his chest, sings a few lines of “Runaway.” He closes his eyes and inhales memories of musk oil and halter tops.

Dolly had come from somewhere up north—Atlanta area—looking for something that wasn’t the big city. She’d found it here. He’d happily acted as tour guide, not that there was a whole lot to see around these parts. Evenings, when she finished up in the grove, fingers still brown from shelling pecans, he visited her. Sometimes they’d go for a drive in his red sports car, Dolly polishing his gear shift. Most of the time he just grabbed something cheap and sweet from his liquor cabinet and slipped inside her tent trailer unannounced. Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.

But then he’d gotten too rough with his lovin’, and Dolly opened up to one of the cops. That had only escalated the inevitable. Dolly with the doll eyes deader than a doornail.

He flips another page, stopping to savor a fourth orchard girl. More magic, more tragic memories. There was all manner of crazy going on in the world that year—assassinations, spacemen orbiting the moon, and all those American boys going to Vietnam. Here at the orchard, all was steady and well in ’68…until that little lady started talking too much and he put her in her place. He could almost taste the bitter, dead flowers of perfume on his tongue—an essence all but frozen in time.

Each girl had a flavor, didn’t she? Each possessed a peculiarity that set every harvest season apart, keeping the years from running together. A sin born out of monotony, after all. Grew to a fun distraction. Evolved to nothing short of salvation from a decaying life that threatened to suck the vitality out of a man. A mental case of a wife he detested and two lovely daughters who, while he adored them, frankly annoyed the living fuck out of him.

The girls in the orchard were more than a distraction though, weren’t they? He regretted thinking that thought. They had become his lifeblood. He loved them, after all. Falling to his knees, he apologizes quietly to the girls entombed in his memories.

Planting his seed in each orchard girl was preferable to planting her body in the earth, but he couldn’t seem to have one without the other. It was like clockwork. By each harvest’s end, one of the girls was framed in cellophane because she had up and ruined a good thing.

But not his Orchard Queen.

It had been different with her. She’d been working the harvest more than a decade now and never caused a fuss. She’d been so good—staying by his side, no matter what he did to her, no matter how many of his friends he let do the same. She was a rock, that one. Loyal like a Labrador. His Orchard Queen—even if that wasn’t the name the other tree shakers—or his lunatic wife—had for her. Savages.

Snapping out of his reverie, he hones in on the last page, the most recent entry in his photo gallery: Connie D., 17. The high school dropout and youngest of the five. She was the most attractive. A big-eyed doll. Blonde ponytail tied with a blue velvet ribbon. Tight T-shirt and blue-jean short shorts. She’d been on homecoming court in the little town she’d run away from in Middle Georgia. That made what they had together even more special. To think, he was making time with a high school beauty in her prime.

He stares at her picture, finishing.

The shame always follows. If he could only be content with the black-and-white, forever-young faces he kept locked in his gun safe, he’d sleep better at night. He’d be able to be true—to himself. To become a better man.

That had been the whole idea of the oxblood leather-bound album with the blue velvet ribbon and lilac-scented linen paper—a peaceful resting place for them and salvation for him. Each new flyer protected inside was an unspoken promise to himself. A way to keep their memories alive. His tribute to their families. He daydreamed about his orchard girls, about every last one of them, at the end of each day. Wasn’t that the best way possible to honor the dearly departed?

On the day a girl’s family swept through, nailing or stapling missing person flyers to utility poles, he’d find his way late that night to the sleeping town, often drunker than hell. He’d lovingly pry a flyer from the splintered wood, whispering a promise.

Tonight, the man shuts the album, closing the door for the night on his mint-condition memories, places the folding knife on a shelf in the gun safe, hides the album behind the secret panel, and secures the lock. He pours himself another glass of bourbon, drinks it down, wincing at the discomfort. He swears to himself, and to his orchard girls, that he’ll never do it again. He repeats the words as mindlessly as a child reciting the Twenty-Third Psalm.

The muffled sounds of his daughters and wife in the other room spill through, and he’s reminded once more what he must do. He nods to himself to affirm he means it. He’s a family man, after all, and he’ll protect his lunatic wife and their annoying daughters at all costs. He stands, caressing the bottle of bourbon, and stumbles out of his office ready to once again tolerate them.

He steps over the threshold, steadying his gait on the thick, hand-knotted Persian rugs that cover polished parquet floors. He passes blindly into the family area of his antebellum home. Prisms of light from crystal chandeliers scatter a spectrum of colors across familiar portraits of Confederate soldiers and other ancestors, photographs of all the monumental moments of his life—wedding, anniversaries, family birthdays, and holidays—along with framed medals, awards, certificates, and numerous accolades celebrating his business and personal achievements, philanthropy, and community leadership. In a cabinet near the spiral staircase, a shadow box holds family trinkets and secrets.

CHAPTER ONE

Twelve-year-old Mason Green watched as pickup trucks and camper vans crested the hill of the long, winding driveway. Children’s arms, both brown and white, dangled from windows. The kids craned their necks to bear witness to the opulent antebellum home at the end of the gravel path. The polished Cadillac beside the home was itself a spectacle, glinting in South Georgia sunshine. Mason clutched his Bible, squinting toward the car—Mr. Ripley’s business-mobile. Mr. Ripley’s other vehicle, a red and white pickup truck, was parked beside it.

Mason and his momma, Gloria, had just finished the morning’s work and were eating lunch when the pee-can caravan of two dozen harvest workers arrived in the driveway, gravel crunching under tires. The folks in town called their kind tree shakers. It was meant as an insult. But it didn’t bother Mason. Harvesting and shelling pecans was simply their line of work, and he hardly could see what was so bad about that.

Mason watched as the workers piled out, unloading luggage and setting up tents, tent trailers, and pop-up campers for the harvest. Mason and his momma were the only workers who lived on the Ripley land year-round. Mr. Ripley had been very kind to them, he’d heard her say time and again. Very kind.

“Mason,” she said, standing to brush crumbs off her clothes. Their lunch had been crackers and Vienna sausages—same as breakfast and, likely, dinner tonight too. “I’ll be right back. Going to the bathroom.”

His mother walked away, passing the big house, disappearing into the wooded trail beside it.

Mason finished his lunch. He stretched in the shade, gazing toward the big house, imagining what it must look like inside. He’d dreamed about it. Up in the window, he saw a young girl staring out toward him and the other workers. In the window beside hers, another girl looked out too. Lawanda and Patti, he’d heard them called. He wasn’t allowed to interact with them, but then again, Mason didn’t interact with anybody except his own mother.

Seeing his mom emerge from the forest trail, Mason stood. He eagerly gathered his picking pole, burlap sack, and Holy Bible. The voices inside his head were loud today, but steady work in the grove had a calming effect, quieting them.

As his mother passed the big house, a woman emerged from the corner.

She stormed toward Mason’s mom. It was Mrs. Ripley, lady of the big house. She stepped directly into his mother’s path, blocking her. She shouted, stabbing a finger into his mom’s chest. Mason was too far away to hear what Mrs. Ripley was saying. He could, however, hear the hate and the anger in her voice. She shouted some more and spit in his mother’s face. Mrs. Ripley marched off, shaking.

He ran to his mother. “What happened, Momma?”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Momma, is she mad at you? Why’s she yelling?”

“It’s just a misunderstanding, Mason.”

Mason followed as she retrieved her own picking pole and burlap sack. The two journeyed into the orchard, passing a group of harvest workers still unloading gear for the season. Mason watched his mother carefully. She started in on her fingernails, chewing at the stubs. She noticed Mason watching and stopped, placing her hand at her side. She couldn’t hide whatever it was worrying her. Her very steps betrayed her usual calm. She moved hastily, clumsy, as they passed a group of teenagers throwing a football back and forth. This same group of kids had spent much of the previous harvest season bullying Mason, calling him names, stealing and hiding his Bible. Mason kept pace with his mother, trying to avoid eye contact with their ringleader—the one who’d caused him the most grief last season.

“Maricón!” one of the boys shouted. As Mason turned, he felt an explosion of pain. He stumbled backward. The boy had thrown a pass at Mason’s face, hitting him square in the forehead. At his feet, the football seesawed to a halt. His mother shouted at the boy as the group made a show of their enjoyment, laughing hysterically.

Arthur, the oldest and their ringleader, mimed the act of intercourse while grabbing at imaginary breasts. He thrust against the air, making grunting sounds. He approached Gloria. “Puta!”

Mason stared. He’d heard others say this before to his mother. He didn’t understand the words, but he knew it was an insult. He knew these boys from their cruelty last year. The bullying was one thing, but they’d gotten much bolder than that. Two of the teens—one of them had been Arthur—had broken into their tent trailer one night, stinking of beer. They’d tried to do things to his mother. She fought them off. Mason did too. She ran them out, swinging wild with a frying pan, but not before they’d torn her clothing and bruised her body. Mason still had nightmares about it. Their peace disturbed in the one place he thought they’d been untouchable.

Mason considered this as he marched toward the teens, balling his fists. This was his chance to make them stop. He believed in turning the other cheek, as the Bible taught, but none of that came to mind. He would make them bleed. One of the boys stepped forward, tilting his chin. Mason ran at him.

Before he could take a swing, he was pulled suddenly backward. His momma had him by the collar, yanking him away. She dragged him the opposite direction. “Ignore them,” she said. “We’ve got work to do.”

That night, swamp breath blew through the field, whispering into the open window of their tent trailer on the outskirts of the South Georgia pecan orchard. Mason and his mother lay side by side on a hard mattress inside the trailer, watching the breeze flutter thin curtains. The wind smelled like spoiled honeysuckle. Night bugs bounced against the window screen. A harvest moon hung, cratered and smudged, like putrid fruit in the sky.

The cross ventilation of open windows was their own brand of air conditioning out here. It was early fall, but autumn weather didn’t start until much later here.

Rustling trees, screaming cicadas, amphibious croaks, and growling gators from afar had him on edge this evening. He watched out the window. Alligators had frightened him as long as he could remember. For a moment, he thought he saw the shadow of one—the shadow of something. His momma ran her fingers through his hair. She whispered, calming him. She said they were too far from the lake for that gator nonsense. He heard them anyway—predators prowling in the darkness, tails swishing in the tall grass. The voices in his mind were loud tonight, too, and they weren’t playing nice. He asked his momma to sing.

“Is it getting noisy in there?”

He nodded.

“That’s God, sweetheart. He speaks to you.” She stroked his hair some more, smoothing sweaty strands from his eyes. “What do we say?”

The two spoke in tandem: “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. Psalm 119:11.”

She sang him a story about an Old Testament prophet. He listened, seeing in his mind’s eye the picture she painted with her words—a picture of bones dancing in a desert. The image took him away from the orchard and their tent trailer, a 1962 Oasis parked just inside the woods on the eastern border of the massive pecan orchard.

He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, listening to his mother’s song. Her voice was different tonight. Hushed. Like she was sharing secrets, not singing spirituals. He could hear the click-click of her teeth as she bit and chewed her nails.

Even still, he allowed himself to drift, the comforting maternal tones shearing away the sensory details of his world. Mason sank into imagination: He could no longer see the insides of their living quarters—a twenty-one-foot aluminum trailer with stained ash wood interior, two-tone tan and yellow kitchen, and their single twin bed. He could no longer smell the spoiled egg swamp breeze invading their abode or the sour scents of their labors from working the grove in the afternoon swelter, whacking trees with cane poles and collecting nuts, shelling till their fingers were stained bloody and brown. He could no longer taste the remnants of his dinner—another can of Vienna sausages, a pack of crackers, and a cup of Kool-Aid.

But, beginning to drift off, he heard something. This time, it wasn’t coming from inside his head. He opened his eyes, seeing his mother’s silhouette in the dark as she stared outside. Headlights invaded open windows, painting the inside of the tent trailer. The boy recognized the engine sound—the red and white pickup truck.

Benjamin Ripley, coughing as he exited, slammed the door. The boy squeezed his mom’s hand. “Don’t leave me tonight, Momma. Not again. Don’t leave me.”

She pressed a hand against his mouth, shushing him.

“What did you dooooo?” the man bellowed suddenly from outside.

“Momma,” the boy said, the word muffled beneath her palm.

She leaned toward him, whispering. Her voice was barely audible. “I’m going to talk to him. I’ll tell him to leave. You go out the back window and meet me in five minutes, OK?”

He was confused. She usually just told him to stay put when Mr. Ripley showed up late at night. The boy started to ask a question. She shook her head.

“Five minutes. Stay behind the trailer. Don’t make a sound.”

She stood. The boy got up too.

“Benjamin,” she called. “I’m coming out.”

“You bitch,” he said, voice cracking. “You told her everything, didn’t you?”

She turned to her son, whispering again. “If I’m not back in five minutes, go into the woods. Find the lake. Remember the lake and the little island? Run as fast as you can. I’ll meet you there.”

The boy grabbed his Bible and climbed out the window. Mr. Ripley had been drunk before, but the words he was saying this evening didn’t make sense. Mason landed hard in the cool grass behind the tent trailer. He steadied his breath. He rubbed his eyes, still night-blinded by those headlights. He heard the tent trailer door swing open on the other side, squeaking. His mother clicked it shut behind her.

“What did you doooo?” Mr. Ripley said.

“You’re drunk.”

“You did this to me. Paulette’s hollering about divorce. She’s scaring the girls.”

“She cornered me today,” his mother replied, stepping out of the moonlight. “She said she was going to have me fired. Have me and Mason sent off somewhere—or worse.”

“You know she ain’t got the power to do that.”

“I don’t know nothing.”

“You didn’t tell her about…about…”

“No.”

“Well, she knows. Somehow, she knows,” Mr. Ripley said, edging closer.

Mason clenched his jaw. Hugging his legs, he rocked back and forth. Several seconds of silence passed. He squeezed his eyes so tight not even a pinpoint of light could enter. He sat in the switchgrass under the harvest moon but in his own darkness, as if trying to make himself invisible. He eased his breathing, listening intensely. Praying intensely. Sometimes the prayers in his head came out of his mouth.

“Thought he was asleep,” Mr. Ripley said.

“He talks in his sleep,” she said, adding, “the voices.”

Ripley groaned and pulled her closer. “You women gonna make me crazy, you know that?”

“We’ll talk tomorrow. You need to go home now.”

“I don’t need to go home,” he said, voice taking a softer tone. “I need you. We’ll go away. Me, you, and the boy.”

“Get off of me,” she said, struggling free of his grip and inching back toward the light. “You’re a liar. And you’re not making sense. I don’t like when you’re this way.”

“Just one more kiss,” he urged. “Come here.”

A shadow fell over Mr. Ripley.

His mother screamed.

Then there was silence. A loud gasp. Heavy breathing and the sound of his mother whimpering.

The black shadow continued to spread over the ground as it slinked across the forest trail toward the big house.

The boy stood. He snuck around the trailer. There, he saw his mother and Mr. Ripley swaying in a strange embrace, their forms merely two silhouettes beneath the cloud-shrouded moon. Mason inched closer for a better look.

His eyes, still not focused from the truck headlights, adjusted to the darkness. He squinted, watching his mother and Mr. Ripley. As the wind picked up, threading invisible rivers through the pecan orchard, the moon emerged from the clouds. Its silver light spilled down as his mother’s form dropped. She landed on her back, arm twisted behind her. Something shiny and rigid protruded from her, glistening in the moonlight. Mr. Ripley fell to his knees. Mason covered his mouth and held his breath to keep from shrieking. He watched as Mr. Ripley crawled toward his mother. Then straddled her.

The boy’s body began to move as if by its own accord. He backed away, feeling like a force outside himself had taken hold. Compelled by his mother’s words and the voices inside his own head, Mason sprinted for the untamed jungle of South Georgia woods beyond the orchard. He would hide in the wilderness until his mother beckoned him home, until he heard her sweet voice calling him back.

CHAPTER TWO

When she heard the woman’s scream from her open upstairs window,Lawanda Ripley jumped out of bed. She’d heard screams from the orchard before, but it had been a long time. Years? It had been long enough she’d convinced herself that it was all part of a nightmare. That she’d not really heard anything at all but had awoken too soon, before a bad dream finished, and had dragged a piece of it with her.

She walked to the open window, brushing aside pale curtains that fluttered and tickled her neck. She squinted into the darkness. Cicadas hummed. Crickets chirped. It was the white noise of a South Georgia night. It was a comfort, unlike the sounds she’d fallen asleep to the evening before—her father and mother downstairs arguing. Shattered glass. Insults shouted by her father, Benjamin Ripley, calling her mother insane, jealous, paranoid. A dangerous, rotting debutante. Her mother responding in kind, uttering one last breathless word: Death. Her father staggering into his office. Slamming the door shut, shouting one last insult: Dummy.

That was the word he used when he got drunk. It had the force of a playground taunt. The nickname was not exclusively reserved for their mother. He called Lawanda a dummy too. Never her little sister, Patricia, though. She was the golden child, after all. She could do no wrong.

Seeing nothing from her window, Lawanda walked toward the bedroom door, following the strip of dim hallway light beneath it. She tiptoed toward Patricia’s room and opened the door. Her ten-year-old sibling was asleep, mouth hanging open in that silly way. Lawanda walked into the room, stepping carefully around the squeaky spots in the floor.

Their home was spotless. Every piece of furniture was refinished to a glossy shine. It was an old home. A sure enough pre–Civil War plantation that survived Sherman’s fiery March to the Sea—a point of pride for her father, who despised Yankees to this day, although never saying so in the public eye. Her father kept prejudices and predilections hidden within the walls of the Ripley Plantation.

Lawanda checked the lock on her sister’s window. She exited the bedroom, heading toward the stairs. She stopped suddenly, hearing the front door slam. She perched at the edge of the stairs, scooting back into the shadows.

“I took care of it,” her father shouted. “Are you happy?”

Silence, and then Lawanda waited for what was coming.

“Fucking dummy.”

The words hurt as much as if they’d been directed at her instead of her mother. She whimpered in the dark, listening to the black hatred of her father’s verbal assault. She listened as the downstairs liquor cabinet rattled open. The icebox door squeaked, ice clinking into a glass.

“Did you hear me?” he shouted again. “The things I do for you and the girls. Jesus.”

Another door slammed as her father entered his office, leaving his wife alone and crying. Lawanda sat in the shadows, stifling cries too. She didn’t know what any of it meant. The scream from the orchard. The argument. Her parents’ disagreements had gotten scarier as she’d gotten older. She didn’t know if that was because she’d grown to dread them more or if she’d begun to understand the implications, coming into her teens.

One thing she did understand was why her parents went so often to that liquor cabinet. The elixirs within that magical glass case made worries fade. She’d tried it out for herself. She’d been doing so for months now. Sneaking sips from a brown-colored bottle containing apple brandy had become a tradition following her parents’ arguments of late and, if she was being honest, she’d snuck sips from the bottle on nights when they didn’t argue as well. It had become something she looked forward to. She found herself thinking about it even during the day, at school, or walking the orchard in the afternoons.

Her mother turned off the lights downstairs. Lawanda watched the space beneath her mother’s bedroom door. After several minutes, the bedroom light went out. She descended the steps on tiptoes, fingertips trailing the curving banister. The refinished wood was smooth as silk. She could feel the calm even before she opened the liquor cabinet, which gleamed before her. She opened it slowly, careful not to let the door bang against the glass. Reaching inside, she took the bottle. She tipped it back, drinking two, three, four swallows. The warmth spread in her chest, in her legs, in her feet. It was that liquid embrace she’d come to know.

She exhaled sharply. It felt so good. Her hands wobbled as she set the bottle back inside the liquor cabinet.

Glass hit glass.

“Shoot,” she whispered. The sound was so loud it all but echoed in the large living area. Hastily, she closed the cabinet. It made more noise, the glass door clacking against the frame, as she stumbled back toward the staircase. The next sound was the one she’d dreaded for as long as memories went back—the creaking hinges of her father’s office door.

“Who’s that?” he called, stepping over the threshold. Lawanda stood there, blinking stupidly at him. It was still very dark in the room, but she could tell by his posture and gait just how drunk he was—the swaying, the over-gesturing. He aimed a pointer finger at her.

“I was just getting some water,” she said.

He stared, swaying. If the slightest wind blew through, he’d fall, she thought.

“Well?” he said. “Go ahead.”

She stared at the floor as she walked into the kitchen. She reached into the cabinet, got out a glass, and took it to the sink. She filled it halfway and sipped. She looked out the window, seeing a dim reflection of the kitchen behind her. The light above the stove provided the room’s only illumination. She sipped again, looking at the double image of the room.

Her father suddenly darkened the reflection. He stepped under the doorframe, looming in the shadows like some apparition. Lawanda nearly dropped her glass. Hand shaking, she set it in the sink. She stumbled toward the door, hoping that her father didn’t see her difficulty and that he wouldn’t smell booze on her breath.

Blocking her exit, he slouched larger than life in the doorway.

“Good night,” she said.

He shook his head. His breaths were ragged, almost asthmatic. “Let’s say our prayers first,” he slurred, clasping a big hand on her shoulder. It nearly toppled her. She steadied herself, getting down on her knees. Her father did the same, both of them bowing at the kitchen threshold. And here, her eyes slightly open as her father stuttered his way through the Lord’s Prayer, she noticed the bloodstains on his shirt.

“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory…forever and ever.”

The telephone rang. She jumped, startled.

Her father stood with some difficulty, using the doorframe to brace himself. He stumbled off toward the trilling phone, calling over his shoulder, “Off to sleep, girl.”

She hurried toward the staircase as Benjamin Ripley entered his office, shutting the door heavily behind him. The image of the blood on his shirt remained with her. So much blood.

The scream.

And her mother’s utterance: Death.

At the foot of the stairs, she stopped. She could hear her father’s voice droning on in hushed tones. She approached the office door, gently pressing an ear against it. “I know, I know,” he said, slurring. “Listen. Dale, will you listen? It’s fucked up, I know.”

Dale was the name of her father’s best friend. They’d grown up together. They graduated high school together twenty years prior. Dale was a cop, the sheriff’s deputy.

There was more hushed talking, but the volume of her father’s voice rose just enough for Lawanda to make out a few more words. “Yeah, I know. Just listen, Dale. I told you I took care of it. Got another problem though. Remember the boy? He run off.”

CHAPTER THREE

Michael Webb fried fat slabs of Spam. He popped two pieces of bread down in a rusted chrome toaster and flipped the sizzling meat in the pan. “Dinner’s ready!” he shouted. He eyed the clock above the stove. The tent revival started in thirty minutes, and it was a twenty-minute drive from here. If they hurried, they could still make it on time.

His mother walked in, kissing him on the cheek.

Gin.

It was that smell he’d come to loathe, but her eyes looked clear and she was walking easily enough. Not drunk yet, he thought.

Michael dropped two slices of Spam and a piece of buttered toast on a plate, handing it to his mother. She sat heavily on a stool at the counter. She ate, stabbing hunks of Spam, crunching toast. She didn’t say much—another good sign.

Not drunk yet. She can still drive.

If it meant getting his eight-year-old sister, Gracie, to the man in the woods they said could heal the sick, well, Michael would take the wheel himself if need be, despite being two years shy of legal driving. He was used to picking up the slack around here when his mother’s drinking got in the way or when his sister’s affliction required physical assistance.

He did most of the work in their humble home on the outskirts of Haynesville in North Georgia. Their house and a 1955 Oldsmobile 88 sedan were paid off, thanks to their father who had been good enough to do so before he left town, hitchhiking to Florida. Their mother responded by sticking her head in the sand and emptying the liquor cabinet. Six weeks later, as bills began to pile up and utilities were disconnected, she sobered up for a while, cleaned up, and got a waitressing job. She worked long shifts at the Shake and Fry.

“Gracie,” Michael called.

The young girl hobbled in, wearing a pink dress. She held on to the wall for support. Her vision and balance had gotten worse the past few weeks. Michael feared the worst about the symptoms. They’d gone to the small-town doctor. He’d recommended they make an appointment with a specialist in Atlanta. Having no insurance and living paycheck to paycheck, his mother had suggested they give Gracie just a little more time to see if things improved. Michael had gotten into a heated argument with her.

Gracie accepted a piece of toast but refused the Spam. Michael smiled, helping her to a chair at the counter. They ate together quietly, the scraping of a butter knife against toast and the clinking of forks on plates the only sounds on this slow-moving Saturday night. When they finished, Michael took the plates to the sink. Their mother disappeared into the bedroom to finish getting ready.

Thirty minutes later, their mom at the wheel, they arrived at the tent revival. Parked cars lined the side of the double-yellow state road. Michael counted more than thirty. As he helped his sister out of the Oldsmobile, Michael heard distant shouts and music coming from the forest.

They followed another family on a path into the woods illuminated by lanterns. Michael saw the tent aglow just ahead. The revival had already begun. They approached the tent, the sounds of laughter, crying, strange words—a cacophony of bewildering noise to the young man. Rows of folding chairs were peopled with the elderly and older children, while able-bodied adults stood, raising their arms and swaying to the music. Some ran laps around the tent. Others lay on the ground, eyes squeezed shut, lips moving feverishly. The children fidgeted in their seats, heads swiveling. The elderly furrowed brows, dubious, as they stabbed canes into the dirt.

The tent accommodated about fifty people, including the man standing at the pulpit, both arms lifted toward the sky, eyes shut, shouting, “Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” Two men stood behind him, mirroring his movements. They were wearing suits, setting themselves starkly apart from attendees, who sported the dress-up garb of Haynesville’s working class—button-up shirts tucked into jeans, and loud-colored dresses.

Michael and Gracie’s attire blended in well, as did their mother’s tent dress with big embroidered purple flowers. They joined the congregation as the gospel song came to an end. The pastor asked everyone to be seated. They took seats toward the back of the tent, beside the family they’d followed into the woods. Metal chairs squeaked. The people lying on the ground came quickly to their senses in unison, finding their chairs.

“Many of you have come here tonight, hearing tell of the good works God has been doing,” the preacher began. “First, let me introduce myself. I’m Mikey Avalon. You can call me Pastor Mike. God is doing something special here, church. I’m just as flesh-and-blood human as any of you bearing witness to the sights you’ll behold tonight, but God has decided to use this humble servant as a vessel to show you things that will make a believer out of every last one of you, church.”

Michael nodded along. He took it as serendipitous the pastor shared a first name with him. Listening to Mikey Avalon at the pulpit, with his dark, oiled pompadour shining in the lantern light, Michael was ready to be a believer. He was ready to believe anything at all this man said if it could make his sister whole.

Gracie’s symptoms had come out of the clear blue sky just a few weeks back. They’d gotten progressively worse and, honestly, they’d more or less scared the daylights out of him—her double vision, erratic eye movements, headaches, and dizziness. It was like something had taken hold of her body and wouldn’t let go.

“There are many of you come tonight with various maladies and diseases of the body, some with demons inside you,” Pastor Mike continued, gesturing toward the several dozen men, women, and children seated before him. Michael looked around, surveying the group. He noticed a young girl seated beside him, about Gracie’s age, shaking her head back and forth in an endless no. Her hands danced atop her knees, fingers restless. She whimpered like a puppy. A woman beside her caressed the girl’s shoulder.

“And…you may have heard some other things about the ROC ministry,” Pastor Mike said, laughing. “No, we ain’t crazy. But we do take the word of God to be gospel. And there are directions in there for us, church. It’s an instruction manual.”

The pastor picked up his Bible from the pulpit, flipping the pages. His voice changed a little, taking on a deeper tone. Less friendly. And it had a rising and falling cadence. It sounded musical: “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

The pastor leaned down, picking up a burlap bag. He hefted it high over his head. “Serpents.”

Michael’s mouth dropped open as he watched the bag sway, its contents writhing. He looked to his mother, who’d already passed out or fallen asleep. His sister leaned against him, her little arm wrapping tightly around his. “What he’s doing, Michael? I can’t see good.”

He watched as the man at the pulpit dumped the bag’s contents on the ground, carefully selecting one of three snakes at his feet. The two other well-dressed men leaned down, too, picking up the two remaining snakes. They held the reptiles before the seated group. Rusty-brown serpents with triangle-shaped heads slithered in and out between the men’s arms, traversing shoulders, twisting before a gasping audience. One couple got up and left, sneaking glances back as they exited. An elderly man in the front shouted at the pastor, calling him a goddamn fool, before standing with his cane and hobbling away.

“There are many whose faith is not strong enough, and that’s OK,” the pastor said, approaching seated congregants. The copperhead wrapped its way around the pastor’s neck, hanging like a scaly necktie. “He sees your works and knows your faith. If your faith is strong, He’ll bless you. But you must prove yourself first. He has given you authority, church, authority…to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.”

He offered the copperhead to a man in the front row. The man accepted it, grinning like a toddler just handed a windup toy.

The pastor reached inside the breast pocket of his suit, taking out a silver flask. He held it high in a toast. “Nothing will injure you.” He took a sip. “Nothing. Not even strychnine.”

Michael’s mouth dropped open. It had to be a sham.

“What’s stricklin?” Gracie whispered.

Pastor Mike offered the flask to the same man who’d taken the snake. He accepted without hesitation. All the while, the copperhead was being passed down the first row like an offering plate. “Poison won’t harm the faithful. This poison won’t. But the poison of the body. The poison of the mind. Sickness. Sin. Disease. Demonic possession. These are the real toxins, church. The venom of disbelief. I ask those of you affected by ailments or feeling the urge to come up here tonight…press in.”

The man from the front row immediately stepped forward, pulling with him the woman beside him. They stood before the pulpit, raising their arms high. The music began. A man on guitar and another with a small drum set off to the side of the tent nodded to one another, playing soft notes, the latter lightly tapping the snare.

“Like the blind man who wanted to see…press in. Like the woman with the issue of blood…press in, church. Be made whole tonight. Receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost tonight.”

People rose from their seats. Whole rows emptied as a line formed, leading to the pulpit. It was Gracie’s chance. Michael moved briskly toward the pulpit, holding his sister’s hand. They maneuvered past several adults shouting strange words that didn’t make sense. Others laughed maniacally, dancing.

He walked past a woman lying on her back, kicking her legs, dress sliding down her waist. She shouted, “Jehovah! Jehovah! God of Plenty!” Michael started to turn away. One of the men in suits approached, a copperhead still twisting around his neck. He draped a dull-colored blanket over the woman on the ground. He turned, looking at Michael and Gracie.

“Brother, sister, you can receive the healing too.”

Michael stepped in front of Gracie. The man closed in, hair shiny as plastic, toothy smile affixed to his face like a garment. The tempo of the drums sped up. The guitar player picked quicker notes. The energy of the room and the music intertwined, building on each other. There was a strong odor, sweet and pungent, stinging Michael’s eyes. A thin man and heavyset woman brushed past him and his sister. The odor was cheap perfume.

The woman accepted the copperhead, lips working frantically, whispering, as her husband raised his hands to the sky. The man in the suit laid hands on the thin man’s shoulders. They spoke, cupping words into each other’s ears. The volume of the music rose, pace quickening. The man in the suit waved his hand, gesturing to someone on the other side of the tent. The other man in the suit approached, taking the copperhead. He stood behind the couple as the other man in the suit waved a hand before them. The man in the suit danced. He approached the couple, arm drawn back behind him, coiled. He looked like a Major League Baseball pitcher winding up.

He thrust hands against the foreheads of the waiting, praying couple. They fell backward, the other man slowing their fall. He allowed them to sink to the dirt, dropping another dull-colored blanket over the woman’s naked legs.

The line moved forward, and Michael gathered Gracie. “Come on.”

“It’s hurting my head,” she shouted. “The music is too loud.”

“We’re almost there,” Michael said. “The man is going to pray for you, and then we can get out of here.”

The men in suits brushed past, joining Pastor Mike at the pulpit. He, too, laid hands on people’s heads, sending them sprawling to the dirt. Congregants fell faster than the men could catch them. One woman dropped, hitting her head on a metal chair. “Kondia, sheedia, oh-rocaho, oh-helia moccoca…” she chanted. A teardrop of blood ran down her cheek.

Michael watched the line progress. The ground before them was filled with the quaking bodies of those who’d been waiting in line in front of them.

The little girl who’d been sitting next to Michael earlier—the one shaking her head no and making the whimpering noises—was ushered to the pulpit. Pastor Mike smiled, taking hold of the girl’s head. He smoothed her hair, smile growing bigger. He gestured for the two men in suits. They arrived behind the girl. He gestured again, and the music stopped.

“Church,” Pastor Mike said, “we got ourselves a demon.”

Pastor Mike placed hands on her head. “Sweetheart, the devil has a stronghold. He’s got hold of your body. He’s coursing through your blood. He’s twisting your limbs and twisting your mind. BE GONE DEVIL!”

With this, Pastor Mike physically picked the girl up. Her mother came running over, shouting. Michael thought she’d come to put an end to it, but she was chanting that strange language, outstretching both hands toward the girl. Others close by did the same, thrusting their hands toward the little girl, palms outward, as if pushing something invisible between them.

The girl shouted out. It was the sound of an injured animal. A cry. A yelp. The pastor set her down, turning as if to walk the other direction. Suddenly, he reversed direction and thrust his palm to her forehead. She fell backward. The men in suits caught her, easing her onto the ground. She flopped in the dirt like a fish, tearing at her own hair.

“While the Holy Ghost works on the devils inside this little lamb of God, let’s pray for someone else,” Pastor Mike said.

Michael stepped forward, holding his sister’s hand. The music picked up again, guitar strumming, drums thumping like the heartbeat of some beast. The sound reanimated those who’d stopped their strange utterings and lunatic dances. The group came to life almost as one, circling Michael and Gracie. Pastor Mike laid a hand on each of their foreheads. “Pray with me, little lambs of God,” he said.

The men in suits approached with copperheads. They stood on either side of Michael and Gracie. Michael pulled his sister in closer. He surveyed those closing in around them, the gaps between human bodies grew smaller. The pastor prayed, eyes squeezed shut. Michael felt the pressure of the pastor’s palm against his forehead. He braced his legs against it. His sister’s weight started to shift backward. The others moved in closer and closer. Their outstretched arms touched, caressed, and stroked Michael and Gracie.

Michael lunged against the sea of fingers. He pushed against the swarming army of hands. Pastor Mike pressed harder against his head. Michael dug in his heels, pushing back against the pastor.

Gracie began to laugh. “It tickles,” she squealed.

“Let us go!” Michael shouted.

“Take the blessing. Take the blessing,” Pastor Mike said. “Don’t fight God, boy.”

The pace of the music quickened to a frenzy. The notes moved so fast it hardly sounded like a song anymore but instead a stream of nonsensical sound. The hot breath of the people encircling them was a sour wind. The group constricted, chanting, shouting, pushing. Someone pulled at Michael’s legs as the pastor shouted in the strange language. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Gracie fall backward. Men behind her caught her body as she laughed hysterically.

The pastor leaned toward Michael, cupping a hand to his ear. “Go down, boy. Go down. You’re fighting a force that’s gonna smite you, kiddo.”

Michael lost his balance. The people behind him lowered him to the ground beside his sister. Gracie laughed so hard tears streamed down her face. Michael was eye-level with the dirt now, watching the sneakers and dress shoes begin to move away. People returned to their seats. Pastor Mike and the two men returned to the pulpit. He watched as the pastor handed each of the two men a small wicker basket.

“God has given to you. Now it’s time to give back to Him, church. What you give unto God, I tell you, He will return back to you tenfold. Open your wallets and open your purses. God will open up the Kingdom of Heaven to you.”

Michael climbed from the ground. He sat on his haunches next to Gracie, brushing a strand of hair from her face. She wiped away the tears, dirt smudges marking her pretty young face.

“Do you feel different?” he said.

She giggled. “That was fun. Can we try the stricklin now?”

CHAPTER ONE

Kacie and Phil, both 16, held hands as Phil drove Kacie’s Camry toward ROC. In Kacie’s other hand, she held a vial of lysergic acid diethylamide—a tiny eye-drop bottle of LSD—and thought about how much was left inside. Looks were deceiving. The dropper was no bigger than her thumb, but it could hold fifty hits of acid. She’d sold at least twenty hits at school already, doling out doses of the stuff on sticks of mint gum, that taste and smell she loathed. With what she charged ($10-each), the vial had already paid for itself.

Now she herself looked forward to sampling the LSD with her boyfriend, Phil, on this summer journey to Citrus Grove in Central Florida with her church youth group, on their way to a Pentecostal conference called Fire in the Grove.

She hated the church, the pastor, and the congregation. Everything they believed was laughable, from speaking in tongues to their redneck rendition of communion (grape juice and saltines). She hated the way Pastor Avalon looked at her—undressing her with his eyes as they shook hands or when he pulled her in for a most unwelcome embrace. He did this during the Sunday morning breaks between praise and worship they called “stand and greet.” She hated the way he touched her shoulder, her back, or her knee with his sickeningly smooth hands when he prayed for her. She got a gut feeling about some men—the creeps. Pastor Avalon was at the top of that list of dirty old men.

She hated the new youth pastor, Clutch, too, but for different reasons. Mainly, she hated him because he was full of shit. Convincing though he was, the man was selling a slithering slathering of snake oil, and she could see right through his quack philosophy.

Her parents had been dragging her to this church since she was twelve years old, and as long as she was under their roof, both insisted she attend their place of praise and worship. It could be worse, she thought. After all, she’d found Phil here, who also happened to think the place was a sham and its lead pastor a geriatric creep.

Kacie rolled up her window and then untwisted the tiny cap on the bottle. She dabbed a single drop of the stuff on her tongue, shivering at the acid’s bitter bite on her taste buds. The acid, like the weed she smoked every day after school, was an escape from a world she considered boring. It was a break from an existence she found lacking anything remotely interesting. Anything interesting, that is, except for Phil. She let go of his hand, touching his leg, as they pulled up to a red light.

Phil noticed Kacie smiling as she touched his leg. Kacie was beautiful. She had big brown eyes. Brown hair. Pale skin. She wore a tight shirt and tighter blue jeans. She wore her hair pulled back in a ponytail.

There had been girlfriends before, but they were all conversation gaps, guessing games, and the struggle to make something spark between them. Not with Kacie. Their conversations were easy, almost as if they shared a brain. He’d known her for less than a year, but it seemed like so much longer than that. He recalled the first time they met. It had felt as if they’d picked up a conversation they’d been having all their lives. Maybe that was what folks called being in love.

She looked over at Phil, pursing her lips in that way that says without words, Kiss me. He leaned toward her. She passed the plastic bottle between them. “One drop,” she said. “Two drops would be too much. It would be bad.”

Phil nodded, untwisting the tiny cap. He carefully touched it to his tongue, tasting the bitter liquid. It was his first time doing acid.

The morning wind was the right kind of cool. Phil rolled down the driver-side window, putting his arm out. Carving the fast-moving air, his hand was a swimming fish in the current. He smoothed a strand of shoulder-length brown hair neatly behind his left ear. Phil had been told he was a good-looking teenager. He was broad-shouldered but thin. He was athletic, though he preferred books to basketball. “Feel that heat?” he said, Southern accent exaggerated.

“That’s Holy Ghost fire,” Kacie said, smiling. Her hand moved up his leg, and his mind flooded with tiny fluttering moths. The idea of attending Fire in the Grove was appealing to neither Kacie nor Phil. The idea of skipping the entire conference and spending the weekend alone in a hotel room fucking each other’s brains out, however, was.

Phil took a left into the ROC parking lot. He spotted their youth pastor standing at the door of the Purple People Eater—a salvaged school bus with a fading purple paint job. Pastor Clutch stood, elbow propped against the hideous vehicle, smiling. Always smiling, was Pastor Clutch, with those graveyard teeth. He was a big man with piercing blue eyes, greasy black hair, and a muscular frame, standing well over six feet. He winked when he finished sentences. He clapped you on the back when he shook your hand. He nodded, listening with seemingly laser focus.

Like Kacie, Phil thought Clutch was full of shit. The youth pastor preached a stern message about damnation, heavy on the guilt, with a heaping dose of Holy Ghost fire. While Phil disliked Clutch, even worse was that Pastor Avalon, who couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off Kacie’s breasts. Phil wondered not for the first time if it was unpardonable to punch a pastor in the face.

“Lord, send Your fire,” Kacie said, mimicking Pastor Clutch again. It was her and Phil’s favorite hobby.

Phil smiled, uttering in an exaggerated drawl, “Kacie, Phil. You two is on a downward trajeckory. You liable to find hell on your way down.”

Watching Kacie’s Camry pull into the church parking lot with that good-looking teenage boy Phil driving it, Lawanda Ripley stepped out of her Ford Escort. She waved. “Y’all bring your registration money?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kacie said. She produced two envelopes, holding them out toward Lawanda.

“Not for me,” Lawanda said, laughing. “I don’t wanna be in charge of no money. Give it to Clutch over there.”

Luggage in tow, the three made their way toward the purple bus. It was early, but the June humidity was already thick as soup. Lawanda eyed the Purple People Eater—so nicknamed by the church’s lead pastor, Mike Avalon. The spiritual leader had quirky taste when it came to music and tended toward old novelty songs. Stepping into his office, one was likely to hear him singing or whistling “The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” “Convoy,” or “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.”

Naturally, he’d named the hideous purple monstrosity on wheels in a similar vein.

Lawanda hefted her bags, walking toward the vehicle, dreading the lack of air-conditioning she’d have to endure for this eight-hour drive. She wasn’t above it; she just wasn’t used to it.

Try as she might, Lawanda couldn’t shake the affectations of old wealth. She had mannerisms that gave her away, things she said in casual conversation about the family’s silver collection or childhood equestrian lessons that raised eyebrows here in Haynesville, Georgia, several hundred miles north of the pecan orchards of her youth. In particular, here at ROC, she had to guard her words, lest these blue collars catch scent of old money, sweet as a sack of Ripley Nut Rolls.

Six months back, she’d attempted to leave the Ripley name, mannerisms, and her ever-more-serious-by-the-day pill habit behind. She’d left her childhood home and her hometown, bidding farewell to the antebellum plantation house and surrounding acres of pecan trees. She put distance between herself and the dealers she’d relied on for painkillers. The difficult thing about being a recovering addict? Once you’d experienced how pleasurable it was getting high, waltzing through your days on a fluffy cloud, it was hard to go back to life’s tedium. Getting high was so much easier and so much more fun.

Lawanda was cursed with this knowledge and so attempted to fill her mind instead with distractions. She read voraciously, watched television. She drove all over Georgia, visiting state parks. Funded by family pecan money in the form of a perpetually funded debit card, she traveled north, south, east, and west in her hand-me-down Mercedes, seeing the state’s natural wonders. She promised herself she’d get her act together soon and get a job like the rest of the world, but right now she just wanted to get better.

One night, alone in a North Georgia hotel after a long, lonely drive from Coastal Georgia—all the while fighting the urge to dial up one of those dangerous phone numbers that kept popping into her head—she reached into the nightstand and found a Gideon Bible. She flipped it open, placing her finger on a random verse: 2 Corinthians 5:17.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

The next morning, a Sunday, she’d attended the first church service she could find. Turned out it was ROC, here in Haynesville. She traded in her Mercedes for a Ford Escort, she donated her fancy clothes to the local thrift store, and she’d remained here in Haynesville the past six months, having given her life to Jesus and embracing her lifelong love of singing as the church’s praise and worship leader. She’d changed her name, too, in order to both commemorate the start of this new life and as a daily reminder she wasn’t the old Lawanda Ripley, the family fuckup forever embarrassing her father and younger sister, Patricia.

The name change had not been done legally yet—but Lawanda Smith is what she went by now. Lawanda Ripley was dead and gone. Lawanda Ripley, who’d tried every substance and distraction she’d been able to get her hands on, always attempting to drown out those awful, shrill sounds awakening her in the dead of night—the screams from the orchard and her mother’s breathless whisper: Death.

She was baptized in the Holy Ghost now and living for Jesus. She smiled, thinking about the great many changes of the past few months. And here she was boarding a bus to head back down Interstate 75. It was dangerous. God help her.

Lawanda said a prayer as she approached the Purple People Eater. Pastor Clutch winked as she drew near.

Pastor Clutch collected fat envelopes filled with cash as members of his youth group boarded the purple bus on this sweaty Georgia morning. Not South Georgia sweaty, Clutch thought, but sweaty enough. He mopped his brow. Matter of fact, it was already hotter out than a fresh-fucked fox in a forest fire.

Clutch accepted an envelope from Terry, a young teen, clapping him on the shoulder. “Welcome, brother. You ready to get some of that Holy Ghost fire?”

Terry nodded. His straw-colored hair stuck to his forehead in strands, sweat-stained sweatpants two sizes too big fell loosely around his waist, threatening to slide all the way down. He wheezed Doritos breath right into Clutch’s face, struggling with his overstuffed duffel bag as he passed. Clutch watched Terry waddle up the steps.

Fat boy.

Clutch felt a little bad for him, but not that much. The poor kid was a chubby mess. Clutch instinctively breathed through his mouth as Terry passed. The body odor mixed with flavored tortilla chips was enough to make your eyes water. The boy couldn’t seem to scrub the sour stench of sweat off his person. Clutch smiled to himself, carefully examining that phrase: His person. He let the syllables trickle down grease traps in the recesses of his thirty-eight-year-old mind. His person was cop lingo he’d picked up. More of his adult life than not had been spent in Valdosta State Prison, overhearing cops and guards talking shop in their typical, self-serious, clipped manner: “Sir, am I detecting the smell of alcohol on your person?” “Sir, do you have any firearms on your person?”

Anyway, he’d smelled inmates in the state penitentiary who had better hygiene than this little teenage slob, Terry. Kid needed an ass whooping.

Clutch saw another familiar face approaching and turned his attention her way.

“Sisterrrr!” he hooted, as Lawanda Smith, praise and worship leader at ROC, approached. She handed over her envelope, ascending the steps. He took her suitcase, placing a guiding hand on the woman’s shoulder and, with his other hand, gestured for her to proceed up the steps unhindered by the heavy burden.

She smiled, taking the steps slowly. Clutch took in the moment, watching her ass work its way up the steps in jeans one could argue weren’t appropriate for a lady of leadership in a little church like ROC. But who’s to judge? Certainly not him, Clutch thought. Ol’ Clutch stood in no place of judgment. He was but a messenger, an appointed, anointed man here in this humble church.

“All aboard the Purple People Eater,” he shouted, invoking the nickname elder Pastor Mike Avalon had christened the salvaged bus.

Clutch cupped his hands, shouting at the stragglers, Kacie and Phil, “Let’s go y’all!” He hoped like hell those two didn’t give him any shit. The little lovebirds had been the only flies in the ointment lately, the only sheep who wouldn’t walk in step. They rolled their eyes when he preached. They whispered to one another during praise and worship. They fondled each other during sermons. And he was well aware of the lingering smell of pot smoke that often accompanied their presence. Might be some tough love ahead for them.

“Brother Phil. Sister Kacie,” he said, smiling as they entered the bus.

Phil stared at him, unblinking, as they passed. Clutch could hardly wait for that boy to say something smart-ass once he had them out in the wilderness. He’d make him swallow his own teeth. Boy had some learning to do. And Kacie, well she’d better keep in line, or he had some ideas for her too.

These thoughts danced like dull-colored windup toys inside the mind of Pastor Clutch. He watched Lawanda take a seat on the bus. She smiled at him. She still had that lost look in her eyes.

Clutch closed the door of the purple bus, sitting down in the driver’s seat. He glanced in the big rectangular rearview mirror, seeing Terry playing his Game Boy. The twins, Brittany and Lisa, chattered endlessly, their voices all but intertwining in a high-pitched din. Kacie and Phil settled into a seat side by side. And Lawanda, that gorgeous beacon of God, like a shining light in the window. Here they were. All of them. Clutch’s own little flock, a shiny treasure box of busted toys just for him. They’d make for a nice diversion on the way to the Promised Land, wouldn’t they?

Before cranking the bus, he did a quick mental inventory. His duffle bag of clothing was stuffed under the bus seat. Inside it, a bottle of whiskey; a .45 Smith & Wesson with a holster, an extra clip, and plenty of bullets; his lock-blade knife; and God’s Good Word—no, wait, he’d left his Bible inside the church. That had been intentional though.

Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

Clutch cranked the engine. He got chills thinking about how long he’d been anticipating this moment. Everything had lined up so nicely. The youth group would be none too happy to learn they weren’t, in fact, headed to Citrus Grove. It was his duty as their youth pastor, however, to see to their spiritual growth and take them on the kind of journey that would truly benefit them—a journey which did not involve an amusement park with anthropomorphic citrus fruit. He was taking them on a journey of change. By the end of this, they’d all be washed and made new by the blood of the Lamb.

A whole lifetime leading up to this. Here he was about to take these children into the wilderness. That sacred crucible. That refiner of silver and gold. And once there, hidden inside that South Georgia jungle, well, hell, not even Clutch knew yet what he was going to do.

Shaved down to a fine point, the plan in full didn’t directly involve these kids. But with the Holy Ghost conference down in Citrus Grove, the bus…it was God-blessed, God-wink after God-wink. He intended to have fun with these youngsters on the way down. But what was most important? He was taking hisself and this woman back home where they belonged. Back to the Promised Land.

Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk around.

Hear the word of the Lord.

CHAPTER TWO

Phil slid open the bus window, feeling the breeze. The gust of wind blew his hair back. It was warm air, but a chill nonetheless traveled up his neck. He shivered briefly. Kacie, holding his hand, felt it. She squeezed his leg. “I’m starting to feel it too,” she said.

“Is this acid…strong?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet. New kind. It’s called Citrus Grove.”

“Citrus Grove?”

She laughed. “Yeah, makes you feel like you’re on a roller coaster.”

He laughed, too, not even sure why. He just…felt like giggling. Everything seemed humorous. He looked out the window, watching the trees glide past. They’d reached the dull part of I-75, and there was little else from here to Florida but stilted billboards touting strip clubs, personal injury lawyers, Citrus Grove with a friendly orange waving his signature salutation—and Ripley Nut Rolls.

Phil turned his attention to the inside of the bus. He could feel the rhythm of the road beneath his sneakers. It vibrated through the soles of his shoes. The road noise was a steady, musical hum. Seemed to Phil it sort of harmonized with itself, like the dial tone of a telephone. Syncopating this ambient drone were the sounds within the bus itself—rattling window panes, the tapping of Kacie’s sneakers, the squeaking of the driver’s seat ten rows in front of them.

Phil watched Clutch at the front of the bus, examining the man’s reflection in the big rectangular mirror situated overhead. His hulking frame bounced in tandem with the ruts and uneven road spots, his body seeming to dance along to that same road rhythm playing in his head, catchy as a radio tune. He found himself bobbing along to it, too, shutting his eyes. He hummed the tune. The muscles inside his abdomen felt tight, clenched. He hunched over, elbows on his knees, rubbing his eyes. He felt a presence—a warming, comforting feeling, like he was a child again and don’t worry, somebody is taking care of you now. You are not alone here or anywhere else in this world.

Phil sat up suddenly, seeing Kacie beside him, pretty as a picture.

“Holy shit,” he said quietly. “I am really fucked up.”

She rubbed his back. “It’s the first wave. Just ride it. Don’t fight it. Close your eyes.”

Phil did.

“You’re here with me, and I care about you,” she whispered into his ear. The disembodied whisper was itself a soothing caress. “Do you know how much it means that in this world we are surrounded by billions of people and you found me and I found you? This is the luckiest moment of our lives.”

Phil opened his eyes. He smiled.

She smiled back, flicking a quick side eye toward the front of the bus. She leaned into him, her lips on his, and they kissed this way for what felt like hours. The joining of their bodies was its own strange language. It was a sensation unlike anything Phil had felt before when they kissed.

Then, remembering where he was, he pulled away, looking toward the front of the bus. He saw Clutch. And Clutch saw him. Though with those mirrored sunglasses it was hard to tell. The telltale sign was the hint of a smile at the corner of Clutch’s mouth, clear as day in the reflection.

“We’re going to get another lecture,” Phil said.

“Yeah,” Kacie said. She kissed him again.

Clutch’s voice suddenly boomed from the front of the bus, “Brothers and sisters in Christ, we’re gonna make us a pit stop. Gotta fuel up and get me a bathroom break. Amen.”

He steered the bus off I-75, driving down an off-ramp. Phil watched out the window. Gas station logos, billboards, and towering signs jutted from the treetops as the bus slowed. Its squeaking breaks and billowing smoke were a smoldering parade coasting off the interstate.

“Y’all all right back there?” Lawanda called, eyeing Kacie and Phil. If the two were any closer, they’d need a condom. They looked high. Wouldn’t surprise her. They reeked of marijuana most of the time—a drug that she’d never much cared for. Painkillers had been her candy. And, of course, her first love, booze.

Lawanda shrugged, looking out the bus window. She watched Clutch and Terry through the convenience store glass, standing in line to pay. Terry fumbled with several large bags of chips, while Clutch flashed a grin at the young, female cashier. Looked like he was telling a joke. Always flirting, that one. She wondered sometimes about the youth pastor, whether his subtle advances toward her were an indifferent, practiced magic. He had the air of a player. Lawanda had known her share of those. But still there was something…familiar about this man. His face. She couldn’t place it.

“How far till Citrus Grove?” one of the twins asked.

“Four or five hours,” Lawanda said.

“We still get to stay up late tonight?”

“That’ll be up to y’all. Long as you’re up bright and early for the conference. But don’t go leaving the resort. You ain’t allowed to leave without me or Clutch.”

Ain’t.

She laughed to herself. Lawanda’s accent was Southern but not redneck Southern. She’d been working on making it fit with the way the folks here talked. Another swab of camouflage paint to hide the Ripley blood. Another brick in the wall she’d built between herself and the old life.

Lawanda heard snickering. She turned to see the twins pointing and stifling laughs as Kacie and Phil resumed their make-out session, arms wrapped tightly around one another.

“Oh my gosh, Kacie, Phil. Y’all knock it off!”

The couple pushed away from each other, all smiles.

“Think y’all can make it to the hotel, at least?”

Lawanda checked her watch, the cheap Kmart one she’d bought when she’d arrived in town. It was 11:15 a.m. It was looking like it was going to be a late check-in at the resort hotel. They were nearing Middle Georgia now, approaching Macon and its gnat line, that geographical oddity that divided the state—the top half, which was not swarming with those ferocious, annoying little bugs that liked to lodge in the corners of your eyes, and the bottom half, which was.

The gnats weren’t bothering Lawanda. What was? The hulking sign casting a shadow on their bus—a Ripley Pecans billboard.

EXIT NOW • OPEN 24/7

Try World-Famous Ripley Nut Rolls
Ripley Pecans … Homegrown!

Lawanda glared at it. The sooner they got through Valdosta, the better.

The bus door swung open. Clutch and Terry struggled up the steps, each carrying two gallon jugs of water and multiple plastic bags filled with gas station snacks.

“Y’all got enough to feed an army,” Lawanda said.

“The soul and the body need nourishment. Amen,” Clutch said, situating the bags of food on a seat across from her. “Speaking of,” he said, voice growing louder, “church, I wanna take this opportunity to pray blessings over my flock. Let’s have ourselves an impromptu Holy Ghost baptism.”

He cranked the engine. It sputtered, belching black smoke from the exhaust. He steered the bus around the building, brakes squeaking. Lawanda noticed several bystanders at the gas pumps watching the spectacle of the Purple People Eater. It was an imposing thing, this bus. In a past life, she’d have been embarrassed to ride in such an odd vehicle and wouldn’t have been caught dead mingling with this scattered assortment of rednecks and white trash. She quieted the thoughts. That wasn’t her. That was the voice of the Ripleys. The drunken, tyrannical voice of her father.

Which one of you motherfuckers is gonna be my sacrificial lamb?

Clutch turned off the engine, rising from the driver’s seat. “Father God,” he said, voice taking on that Pastor-Clutch-at-the-feet-of-a-merciful-God reverential tone, “we come to You today as humble servants of Your Word. We are disciples of Your Spirit. We long to be recipients of Your Holy Ghost fire.

“We will loudly proclaim Your glory,” Clutch continued, the volume of his voice rising to match the sentiment. He walked down the middle aisle inside the purple bus, eyes squeezed shut, feeling the seat vinyl hot to his fingertips. “We’ve invested our money so that we may catch Your Spirit at this Fire in the Grove conference. It’s our tithe to You, Father God. Inside each envelope is a seed these prayer warriors have planted. A seed we’ll water in the coming days as we learn together. We’re open, Father God, to wherever You will take us—spiritually and physically. We’ll go to the end of creation and back. We’ll go to Heaven. We’ll go to hell. We’ll walk through the wilderness, Father God, to find Your Holy Ghost fire!

“The Word says in Zecharia that You will bring us through that fire, refining these young people as silver is refined in a crucible. These young people and lovely Miss Lawanda will be tried on this trip, church. Tried as gold is tried. They shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God.”

Clutch stopped near Kacie and Phil. “But there are those among us today whose hearts are not pure in the sight of You. They do not take seriously the importance of our journey together today, church. They are not giving their all, even though so many of us today are. They have spiraled. They have descended on a downward trajeckory, and they’ve done so gleefully, Jesus.”

Clutch outstretched a hand toward Kacie, fingertips just inches from her, and began to sing the song “Awesome God.”

Lawanda joined in, singing along with the chorus.

The voices began to join his and Lawanda’s, a little church choir inside the bus. They continued singing as Clutch began to shout, “Principalities of darkness, you shall not have any member of my flock. This flock is anointed. We belong to You, Father God. These lambs belong to You. They belong to me, Jesus.”

Clutch lunged forward, palming Kacie’s skull, shouting louder, “Devil, you get out of this young woman. She is covered, Lord God, in Your Spirit. We take her back! We take her back! In Your name, Jesus. The Bible says that no weapon formed against us shall prosper. We bind the enemy here and now, God. Kondia, sheedia holia…oh-teekia mohona,” Clutch intoned in tongues. The Holy Ghost fire had taken hold. Left hand still on Kacie’s head, he grabbed Phil’s with his right, swaying with them as the purple bus choir sang.

“Glory to God, it’s lovely.”

Phil squirmed, trying to escape Clutch. He squeezed the teenager’s skull tighter, fingers scraping scalp. “Satan, you cannot have this boy!”

“Get off me!” Phil said.

“Don’t fight this, prayer warrior. I know who you are, boy. You are a mighty man of God just waiting to rise up. But the devil has a stronghold in your life. He’s using the spirit of lust to blind you, Phil. It’s manifested itself every time I’ve seen you and young Miss Kacie in the back pew holding hands. Having sexual thoughts about each other.”

“What the hell!” Kacie said, trying to pull away.

“BE GONE DEVIL!” Clutch shouted, shoving them. Kacie and Phil lurched backward.

“Let me out!” Kacie yelled.

“Lust, Lord God. It is that conniving spirit that did not exist prior to the serpent in the tree, Lord God. Tempting Eve to take the fruit. And she in turn tempting Adam. The woman, Lord God. The female body. King David saw Bathsheba bathing in her courtyard. Delilah had somebody shear Samson’s power while he slept—all at the hands of a woman,” Clutch said. “And this young woman here, tempting this young man.”

“Fuck off,” Kacie spat, pushing away.

Clutch slapped Kacie in the face. Not hard, but hard enough to get Phil to react.

Phil jumped out of his seat. He had great reflexes. Clutch hadn’t counted on that. The sixteen-year-old clambered over the seat, putting Clutch into an awkward headlock. Clutch used gravity and a trick he learned in prison—he fell, lodging an elbow into Phil’s ribs as they hit the floor. There was a metallic thud and a shout of pain as the wind went out of Phil’s lungs. The boy lay there gasping. Clutch stood. Tears streamed from the teen’s eyes. Lawanda screamed from the front of the bus.

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” the twins chanted.

Kacie scrambled out of her seat, cradling Phil in her arms. His face turned blue. “Baby,” she cried.

Clutch touched the top of Kacie’s head as he passed, walking toward the front of the bus. She slapped his hand away. “Get the fuck away from me!”

“There are those who would stray,” Clutch said. “But do you not, sheep, yearn for a place of rest? Do you not seek the Kingdom of God? Do you not seek the Promised Land? Brother Phil, Sister Kacie, the path is winding, but your shepherd knows the way.

“Sister Lawanda,” Clutch said, turning abruptly. “You know of wandering. Your soul is restless. Home is not your home. More often than not, you’ve found solace not within the four walls of the people who raised you but outside those confines. Always looking out the window toward something better. Is this not true?”

Lawanda stared at him. She looked at the twins, who quietly sobbed. She glanced at Terry, who stood on top of his seat, looking like a toddler in some kind of fight-or-flight impasse. She looked down the aisle, where Kacie helped Phil to his feet. The boy’s eyes were large, as if taking in the whole of the world for the very first time.

“Clutch,” Lawanda said, standing from her seat. “I want you off this bus.”

“Say again, sweetheart?”

“What you just done…is bad. I want you to get off this bus right now.” “Is it hard for you, Lawanda honey, attempting to assume a role of leadership?”

“What did you say?”

“Your sister, she’d be better suited for it. You’re a little lamb, sweetheart. A lost little lamb. We’re heading home, sister. We’re heading home. Your brother in Christ is here to guide you.”

Lawanda’s mouth dropped open as she sank back into her seat.

“I know, little Lawanda, that choices were never easy for you. That’s why I’m here to guide you. Your shepherd isn’t going nowhere, church. Where would you be without your leader? You’re already in the wilderness, and you don’t even know it. In the wilderness, Lord God, there’s wolves,” Clutch said, squeezing his eyes shut. “We plead the blood of Jesus now over this flock, Lord God, that they lean not on their own understanding but follow the path You’ve set out for them.”

He raised his hands in the air, chin tilting up.

“Oh…I feel it, Lord God. Your Holy Ghost fire. Kondia meroda ah-sheedia…holy, holy, hooooly is Your love. Jebia mokota libati angosha mataba oka oka oka…”

The clip-clop of sneakers pounded their way toward him. The boy was hurt. He was clumsy. And he’d be easy to take down. But for good measure, Clutch reached into the duffle bag at the foot of his seat, pulling out the .45 Smith & Wesson. He leveled it at Phil.

To his surprise, Phil kept coming. Clutch ran at the boy, hitting him with his shoulder and bringing the heavy pistol down on his face. Phil dropped—the thud of his body on the bus floor like thunder.

With a showy flourish, he chambered a bullet, aiming the gun slowly at each member of the youth group, as well as Lawanda. Clutch placed an index finger over his lips. He set the gun on a console beside the driver’s seat, sat down, and cranked the bus.

The vehicle rumbled to life, eclipsing the cries of Kacie, who held Phil in her arms. The group was silent, save for Kacie’s whimpers. It was a reverent silence, Clutch thought. He turned left out of the gas station parking lot. He merged onto I-75 South. Road noise was the only sound now as he led an obedient flock through the wilderness.

He whistled a tune.

Ezekiel cried dem dry bones.

Ezekiel cried dem dry bones.

CHAPTER THREE

Michael Webb scrambled eggs, dropping in pinches of shredded cheddar. He popped a couple of waffles in the toaster. He eyed the time on the stove: 6:59 a.m. Gotta have himself and the kids out the door in twenty minutes. He called their names once again.

“Ella! Christian! Let’s go, y’all. Breakfast coming up.”

He stirred the eggs and walked around the counter, grabbing their backpacks. He placed a bag of goldfish crackers and water bottles in each. He grabbed their lunch boxes off the counter, putting them beside their backpacks—his five-year-old son’s Citrus Grove–themed book bag and his ten-year-old daughter’s pink one. He hustled back to the stove, turning off the eye. He doled out equal amounts of scrambled eggs and waffles onto paper plates and called his kids’ names again, setting both plates on the dining room table.

Broad-shouldered and six-foot-even, Mike Webb was a gray-haired force of nature in the kitchen and a whirlwind of anxiety in the mornings as he readied the household to face the day. Walking to the kids’ shared bedroom, he spoke their names again. The children crawled out of bed, zombie-walking toward the dining room.

He was still very new to this single dad thing. It was a challenge—especially the morning routine, trying to get his children anywhere on time—but being a caregiver was his natural state. He’d been taking care of people, both children and adults, his whole life.

This morning was the first day of summer day camp, and he intended to get them there on time. “Gotta move this morning, y’all,” he called as they exited the room. He twisted the blinds open, looking at the new day. Their two-bedroom apartment unit was located next to the community pool. He eyed the reflective surface, thinking about floatation devices, thinking about keeping afloat, thinking about all the spinning plates in his life, both professional and personal. The recent divorce and ensuing settlement agreement, the joint custody arrangement, this new apartment, and the missing persons case he’d caught just yesterday afternoon.

Mostly that last one, because of the connections to Haynesville and, if he was being honest, because it was easier lately to think about professional rather than personal stuff, even though this new case was horrifying. Still, it was simpler to ponder the possibilities of how a bus full of teenagers, a youth pastor, and praise and worship leader would vanish into thin air than to think of all the unknowns that lie ahead for him as a single father.

So his thoughts lingered on the case. Right now, he had nothing to go on. Nothing but a little bus full of young people up and vanishing, poof, into thin air. And the ensuing silence. It was that silence that bugged him. Silence was no good with something like this. Silence was a frightening sound in general, even as a parent. Especially as a parent.

When he left his kids alone too long as he zipped around the apartment, doing the laundry or the dishes or cleaning, silence was the sound he didn’t like. More often than not, silence meant they were up to something. At the moment, Mike’s five-year-old son was anything but silent as he and his sister fought over who would control the television while they ate breakfast.

Mike walked back into the dining room, seeing them wrestle for the remote. “Christian, let go of your sister.”

The boy backed off, pouting.

“Who chose yesterday?” Mike asked.

“She did,” Christian said.

“OK, Ella. It’s Christian’s turn today.”

Mike handed the remote to his son. His daughter took a seat at the dining room table, frowning. She shoveled eggs into her mouth. Christian pushed play on the remote and watched while a cartoon orange and grapefruit sang and held hands, skipping down the road.

Ella sighed dramatically. Mike leaned down to her seated height. He brushed a strand of blonde hair out of her face.

“Daddy, cut these up for me,” she said.

“I ain’t doing you no favors cutting your waffles for you, kid.”

The girl sighed again and sawed away at the food on her plate.

He loved her so. And he loved Christian just as much. He couldn’t imagine life without them. They’d become so inextricably ingrained in his life that on the evenings when their mom had them, Michael found himself wandering the apartment aimlessly. He listened to old music and drank whiskey (something he never did around the kids) and cleaned the place. He folded laundry and washed dishes in the open expanse of this quiet new home that still had yet to feel exactly like their home.

Mike glanced at the clock again. “I gotta get ready, y’all. Ella, watch your brother.”

He quickly showered, going over again the details of the case in his head. He’d spent the better part of yesterday talking on the phone to scared parents and relatives—people with whom the travelers of the purple bus were supposed to make contact upon their arrival at the Pentecostal conference down at Citrus Grove in Central Florida—the stated destination for the youth group trip.

Fire in the Grove had ended on Sunday morning. He’d already contacted the event administrators as well. A friendly, dumb-sounding, teenager had spent ten minutes flipping through paperwork, coming to the eventual conclusion that the organizers of Fire in the Grove had no record of anyone on Michael’s list of missing persons checking in. Same with the adjoining hotel. Neither the youth group nor the new leader of said youth group from ROC appeared to have arrived at all.

He’d been on the phone with Haynesville’s finest just hours earlier. The local police had been willing to go the extra mile, but with only seven full-time cops in the whole city, it was clear they didn’t have the manpower. And, since it was likely going to mean crossing some county lines, they’d reached out Sunday afternoon to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

When the call came through, Special Agent Michael Webb, who oversaw missing persons cases for the twelve-county region that included Haynesville, was the man for the job. Not only was it quite literally his job, but also he’d grown up in Haynesville. He’d gone to its shitty public schools. He’d walked its streets. He knew its secrets and all the urban legends that kids who grew up there passed along to one another.

And there was also the fact of his, well, complicated past with ROC in Haynesville, back before the congregation had a physical building to call home and when that snake-handling, snake oil salesman, Pastor Mikey Avalon, had peddled his horseshit inside a traveling revival tent.

Mike turned off the shower, drying with a towel. He shaved. He put on his uniform, smoothing wrinkles on the dark blue polo with the law enforcement insignia. He threaded his belt and clipped on his GBI badge, gun holster, and service pistol.

He’d find the teens on that bus. Whether they’d still be alive when he finally tracked them down, however, well, that he didn’t know.

Michael was ten minutes late dropping the kids at camp. The folks there gave him looks, but he was paying them, so what were they gonna do? As of the moment he signed them in, the kids were their mother’s responsibility for the next seven nights. Their joint custody arrangement allowed for Michael and Sheila, his ex-wife, to bend the schedule as needed. Both worked long hours but were able to schedule their respective time with Ella and Christian accordingly. Knowing they’d be with her for the next week gave him the peace of mind he needed to mentally switch back to cop mode.

He pressed the pedal down, speeding toward ROC in his black, unmarked Crown Victoria. The church was well across the county line and at least a thirty-minute drive. Turning on the hidden blue lights in the back windshield and blazing through red lights, he’d make it in twenty minutes. Every second counted in cases like this. The longer those missing kids (five) and adults (two) were unaccounted for, the direr the situation. Every moment in a missing persons case could make or break the outcome.

On the phone yesterday, he’d gotten the names of everybody aboard the bus—purple, yes, purple in color—from Pastor Mike Avalon.

Lawanda Smith, 39, female, “praise and worship leader”

Kacie Blackstock, 16, female

Phil Redding, 16, male Terry Escoe, 14, male

Lisa and Brittany Wells (twins), 14

Clutch ???, mid-30s, male, “youth pastor”

Now he intended to stop by the church to grill the pastor some more. Saying he wouldn’t enjoy doing so would be a lie, even if he hated to admit it. His biggest question for the pastor, of course, was just who in the God-fearing fuck this mysterious youth pastor was. Not properly vetting or background checking someone who would be around children was one thing, but not even knowing the man’s last name was beyond the pale.

He pulled into the church parking lot. There were three parked cars: a maroon Toyota Camry, a green Ford Escort, and an older model BMW, also green in color, with tinted windows. Michael parked, walking toward the front door.

The building was oddly shaped, a large, imposing rectangle. A boxy, generic-looking affair on Haynesville’s Main Street. One would have zero inkling it was a church, if not for the sign out front. It had originally been a Winn-Dixie. Michael, Gracie, and their momma used to shop there. When the store closed its doors twenty-something years ago, around the time Michael graduated high school, he recalled hearing news about Pastor Avalon purchasing the property, knocking down walls, and rebuilding the structure into a more permanent version of his tent revival sideshows he’d been pitching all over North Georgia for so many years.

Michael approached the building, moving beneath its asymmetrical shadow. He tried the front door. It opened. Walking across the threshold, a pungent smell hit him—something sweet and something acrid. Like grape Flavor Aid and mothballs. It was dim inside, but the natural light from the front windows was enough for him to see. The carpet was orange. Orange. The wallpaper was a twisting floral pattern. It all had a distinctive 1970s vibe, which gave one the impression of having stepped into a time capsule.

He continued down the corridor. The light from the front windows faded. He trailed his fingers along the walls now, seeking out a light switch. “Mr. Avalon,” Michael called out. “It’s Mike Webb, GBI. We spoke on the phone yesterday. Mr. Avalon?” He refused to refer to the snake-handling, holy-rolling man he’d met so many years back in that tent revival in the woods as “pastor.”

There was a male voice talking—no, singing—in a nearby room. The notes echoed, carrying as they might in a cave. He followed the sound, coming to a door. He opened it, waiting for his eyes to adjust. It was dark inside the cavernous expanse except for a bluish glow illuminating a giant tank of water. He thought at first that it was a massive aquarium, but, his eyes adjusting finally, it turned out to be a glass baptismal. Made sense.

An old man floated within the tank, his pasty pale body on display in the glass front. He wore only a swimsuit and scuba mask. His flabby breasts and white chest hair bobbed about inside the tank. He sang a familiar song, “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport,” a 1963 tune by Rolf Harris.

Michael entered the big room, easing the door shut. He continued walking, unseen, in the darkness of what he now understood must be the sanctuary.

The man’s voice echoed more kangaroo lyrics. He grabbed a sponge off the top step. He dunked, scrubbing the glass in a circular motion. The squeak, squeak, squeak of cloth against the tank was the only other sound in the sanctuary.

He stared at the crazy old man in scuba gear scrubbing the tank. He hated him. The man responsible for giving false hope to so many poor people for so long under the guise of doing God’s work, people like the little girl with cerebral palsy inside the revival tent thirty years ago. The memory of this man picking her up as she squirmed, pretending to cast demons out as she crumpled in fear…it made Special Agent Michael Webb’s hands shake.

And then there was Gracie.

Inside that same three-ring revival tent three decades ago, giving Michael, his mother, and his little sister herself any inkling of hope that she would be healed with the wave of this man’s magic wand, and his blessed copperheads, and flasks filled with strychnine—well, yeah, that was criminal, wasn’t it? Michael stuffed his hands in his pockets to hide the shaking as he approached the baptismal.

Michael leaned forward and rapped with his knuckles sudden and loud on the outside of the big tank. Pastor Avalon let out an underwater scream. Bubbles rushed to the surface, and his head emerged. He gasped for air, coughing.

“Mr. Avalon,” Michael said. “I’ve got some follow-up questions.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Pastor Avalon dried his mop of black hair with a towel as he stepped into his office. His hair was the same jet black Michael remembered, though now it had clearly been dyed.

“Apologies, but that tank’s been due for a scrubbing,” Pastor Avalon said, sitting behind a desk littered with souvenir knickknacks—confetti-filled globes, plush animals with the names of various embroidered destinations, and a postcard: Citrus Grove! Orange you glad you came?

Michael had been waiting in a metal folding chair for the better part of ten minutes while this septuagenarian dried off and put his clothes on. It was ten long, wasted minutes he’d never get back, trying to save the lives of these kids. He took a deep breath. “I want to know more about your youth pastor. The man driving the bus.”

“We held a special communion just yesterday,” Pastor Avalon said. “Sent up a few extra prayers. I just know they’re gonna be all right. God takes care of His children. Those Holy Ghost seekers are on a path, you know. And Pastor Clutch is gonna lead them—”

“Yeah, Pastor Clutch,” Michael interrupted. “Did he say anything about where he was from? What he was doing here in Haynesville? I’m assuming he wasn’t from around here since you don’t know his last name.”

Pastor Avalon squeezed his eyes shut. “Lord God, Pastor Clutch…he has the fire. I knowed it the moment he set foot in the door. That door right behind you there. He walks into my office. Unannounced. Just as you did today, Mr. Webb. Says he’s gonna tell me a story. A story about rebirth and redemption. The wilderness and the Promised Land. Fire and the crucible. He told me about a little boy who was an orphan. Little boy who grew up hard. All by hisself in a South Georgia swamp—”

Michael wrote down South Georgia swamp.

Pastor Avalon continued, “That baby boy had to learn how to take care of hisself. Wasn’t nobody to do it for him. And he turned out all right, but it took time. He had to go into the darkness. He had to test God a little. He had to get angry before he could get refined by that Holy Ghost fire. And, that’s what he did. Angry as a swamp gator. He—”

“Angry as a swamp gator?” Michael interrupted. “Mr. Avalon, I’m not here for a sermon. Do you have photos of this man? Did he have scars, tattoos?”

Pastor Avalon smiled. “I knew you’d be asking about tattoos. When Clutch walked in my office that fateful day, he says to me, ‘Pastor Avalon, sir, have you seen the picture Bibles in the Christian bookstores? The ones supposed to make the Good Word easy to understand? My whole body is one of them picture Bibles.’ And he lifts up his shirt, showing me all manner of tattoos. They’re faded, you know, and sort of poorly done. A little scribbly. Prison tattoos, from the looks of them. Scripture and illustration. Holy Ghost fire and a crucible, brimstone raining down on Sodom and Gomorrah, Moses parting the Red Sea. Each has a Bible verse beneath it. There was a whole lot of them, but the one that stood out the most, the biggest tattoo he had, was this big old swamp gator across his shoulders. Swamp gator with a flaming sword stuck through its head. And underneath that, Isaiah 27, verse 1.

“And Mr. Webb, you might have found our little snake-handling show a little wild way back when, but this man, Clutch, he handles gators. Told me so hisself. Spent his younger days in the swamp dragging them out by their tails and tussling with ’em. Now that’s faith. Praise God. That’s the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Michael continued to take notes. “You said prison tattoos. Meaning you assumed this man had been to prison? And you entrusted the lives of these kids and this woman to a man who you assumed had been to prison?” Michael asked.

Pastor Avalon cleared his throat, straightening a snow globe on his desk. “A lot of folks didn’t like that snake show of ours. I kind of have the feeling you didn’t either. But it gave many a wayward believer the faith they was after, you know. Tell somebody to believe in some invisible bearded man up in the sky, and maybe they will, maybe they won’t. Who knows. Just as likely not to, you know. Especially folks who attend a church like mine…it ain’t easy imagining such a grand thing as that. Many’s what you might call stunted in the imagination department.

“Know what’s stronger than mustard seed faith? Snakebite faith. Copperheads slithering up your arm while you pissing your pants, knowing all the while if this thing you believe in ain’t real, you’re about to find out in the worst possible way. That’s faith. That’s the kind of faith that moves mountains.”

“I will repeat the question,” Michael said. “If you don’t answer it straight this time, I’m going to bring you in for questioning. Did you entrust the safety of this woman and these children to a man you knew had spent time in prison?”

Pastor Avalon paused, taking a breath. “I didn’t know nothing.”

“Off the top of your head, do you know that verse? The one under the alligator tattoo.”

Pastor Avalon closed his eyes, intoning in a deep, almost musical voice: “In that day, the Lord will punish with his sword, his fierce, great, and powerful sword, Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster.”

The word serpent took Michael right back to that revival tent nearly thirty years ago. He could see a clear picture of the copperheads being passed around. Could see a young Pastor Avalon drinking poison and offering it to his congregants.

“Mr. Webb, I didn’t know the facts on Clutch. What I told you a minute ago is purest conjecture. I did know Clutch had a past of some sort though. I could see it on his face the moment I laid eyes on him. Fella like that has a certain look to him. You’ve seen it yourself. And he was up front with me about it too. Said he’d done wrong in the past but that he was refined now in that Holy Ghost fire. And boy, I felt it,” Pastor Avalon said, a smile lifting the corners of his mouth.

“He had the fire, all right, the likes of which I never seen. And you without sin, please cast the first stone. We’ve all got a past, Mr. Webb. Heck, before I was preaching at the tent revivals, I did my share of sinful things. I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Webb, because I was a different man then. And who was it that Jesus broke bread with in the Bible? Did He keep the company of high priests? Nah. Did He make friends with the kings and queens? Nunh-uh. Jesus sat at the table with sinners and tax collectors. And it’s Jesus, Mr. Webb, who made me new. Washed in the blood of the Lamb, I was. I went into the darkness, into the wilderness, of my youth, and it’s the darkness, praise God, that made me see the light. Just like Pastor Clutch. Mr. Webb, I pray every waking moment for that man’s safety and the safe return of his flock on the Purple People Eater.”

Michael felt like he was in Alice in Wonderland. He stood. He could almost hear the second hand ticking away the seconds. He didn’t like the pace of things right now. Things needed to move faster than this. “Can you please show me Clutch’s office?”

Pastor Avalon flipped the switch, illuminating a large room with fluorescent lights. Inside was a long pew with ripped fabric. There was a short flagpole with an American flag. Boxes were stacked in every corner. It seemed to be a storage room.

“Office is a relative term, Mr. Webb. I can’t afford to pay my youth pastor a six-figure salary, you know. I pay him what I can and make amends by letting him sleep here so he don’t gotta spend what I do pay him on rent.”

Michael walked inside. He flipped open one of the cardboard boxes.

“Costumes for the Christmas pageant,” Pastor Avalon said. “If you’re wanting to see Clutch’s stuff, it’s over there behind the pew.”

Michael noticed an army-style cot with a thin mattress. Beside it, a stack of magazines. He pulled a fresh pair of nitrile gloves out of his back pocket.

He opened one of the magazines, titled Ignition, flipping through it. The mailing address label had been peeled off. He didn’t care about the content (it appeared to be a publication for the Pentecostal denomination), but he’d found evidence more often than not in throwaway places—inside the pages of a magazine, underneath laundry, lining the bottom of trash cans, and so on. He thumbed through the pages. Finding nothing, he dropped the magazine beside the cot. He got down on his hands and knees, peering under the cot. Beneath it were cans of sausages, a box of saltine crackers, a canister of applesauce, and packets of fruit drink mix.

“Don’t know what you’re hoping to find, Mr. Webb, but this here’s one place those kids ain’t,” Pastor Avalon quipped, smiling.

Michael reached beneath the mattress, that miraculous go-to for evidence. People liked to hide what was most dear, most secretive, most damning in the place beneath where they slept. His fingers touched something. He retrieved it—a battered King James Version Bible. On the bottom right, embossed in timeworn, flaking gold, was a name: Gloria Green.

He opened it, flipping through the highlighted, dog-eared, margin-scribbled pages. Every inch of white space on the pages in the front and back of the Bible was filled with penciled-in musings, illustrations, and more.

He continued leafing through the Bible. The pencil sketches within were rather good. The margins of the pages bearing scripture were filled with writing.

Michael stood. He walked out the door with the Bible, saying nothing to Pastor Avalon as he passed.

“Mr. Webb.”

“No time,” Michael said, opening the front door.

“I’d like a word of prayer first,” Pastor Avalon said, following him. “I’d like to plead the blood of Jesus over you, Mr. Webb.”

Michael stopped. “Plead the blood of Jesus?”

He turned to Pastor Avalon. The man stood in the doorway of his church, this very monument to the swindling of Haynesville’s naïve and despondent. Avalon’s church was a memorial to the stupefying power of hope in the face of fear. The structure, too, represented the depths that unscrupulous men like Avalon would plumb in order to fleece families like Michael’s. Its sound foundation was built on the backs of Haynesville’s working class, joists and beams fastened not by stainless steel but by offering plate tithes, empty promises, and outright lies.

He hated, yes, hated this man. He should’ve bit his tongue. He should’ve shrugged it off. He shouldn’t have opened his mouth. He was wasting precious time on this but couldn’t help himself. “What about the blood of these children? What about the blood of Lawanda Smith? You can plead the blood of Jesus all you want. You can live in this land of make-believe and try to trick poor people into thinking you’re some kind of miracle worker. But I know what you are.”

Pastor Avalon’s mouth hung open. He stood at the doorway of his church, looking possibly for the first time like a man with nothing to say.

Michael added, “And it’s not Mr. Webb. It’s Special Agent. And you are not a pastor. You are a false prophet, and now you’ve done something far worse than giving poor people false hope. You’ve put their lives in danger.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Michael held his two-way radio, squeezing it as hard as he could, as if the exertion itself could get Special Agent Anna Emerson at headquarters to find results faster. He sat in his car, windows rolled down, waiting in the ROC parking lot. Over the radio a few minutes earlier, he’d given Special Agent Emerson a description of the prison tattoos, focusing primarily on the prominent alligator with the accompanying passage from Isaiah on this Clutch guy’s back. That kind of ink would have undoubtedly been noted by the fine folks of whatever correctional facility the suspect had visited and would hopefully lead to a positive ID.

Emerson generally made quick work of these kinds of record requests. Still, it always seemed like an eternity when lives were on the line. His mind cycled through various scenarios involving the teens on the purple bus. He’d been a GBI agent for a long time now, and he’d seen some heinous shit in his time—the blood, the mangled limbs, bodies big and small discarded like garbage in ditches and shallow graves. The dead never looked Hollywood. There was no dreadful soundtrack, no dramatic camerawork to accompany their discovery. Just gray bodies, red-brown blood crusted on lips, insects scurrying in and out as nature reclaimed flesh and bone. The bodies of children were the ones that stayed with Michael, awakening him at night.

It was a hard world for the little ones.

He’d felt the calling to serve and protect, as they say, from a young age, but it was the little ones he looked out for. Following the career path he had was all about protecting them. They were the innocent souls mingling among all manner of sneaks, thieves, and molesters. There were some who lucked out and had good parents to watch over them during the most vulnerable times of their lives, but there were many—far too many—who drew the short straw.

He put the radio back in its holster, picked up the battered Bible from the passenger seat, and flipped it open. Desperately, he needed to get out of his own head.

He turned to Isaiah 27:1. He read the verse itself, as well as all the words and symbols scribbled around it: the bordering scrawl, the spiraling calligraphy, arrows, graphite circles, and curlicues accompanying childlike cartoon sketches of eyeballs, sunrises, stick figures, trees—so many trees—and yes, an alligator.

He read the shaky handwriting: Swamp Gator fastens on the fishes of the water and birds of the air…dominance established among an order of beings he himself has been accustomed to dominating and will forever or so thinks him at least. Killing. His nature. He himself embodies envy. He embodies pride. He is the father of the proud. He himself doesn’t feel the sunrays of lightning and power station energy bolting from the fingertips that the Holy Ghost harnesses in the hearts of the Chosen. In the hearts of the Children of Israel. He thinks he’s gonna win. But Leviathan doesn’t see it coming. The cards are stacked. Day of reckoning. Swimming in his own filth and blood and cum, and the greed, the motherfuckingfatherfucking greed, that accompanies the true nature of Swamp Gator. The Swamp Leviathan. Sultry Swimming South Georgia Serpent. The Sword of God shall prevail. He shall cut you down. Rest in Pieces.

The words wrapped all the way around the page, so that Michael had to turn the Bible counterclockwise as he read. Following Rest in Pieces was a sketch of the alligator with a sword plunged through its head. The man who’d written all this was a man who believed in something. He was a man who felt himself to be on a mission from a higher power.

It made him a dangerous man.

Michael set the Bible back down, fastened his two-way radio to his belt, and got out. He popped the trunk, taking out a foot-long strip of thin metal. He approached the vehicles. The BMW’s plate, AVALON7, was a dead giveaway for the pastor. Walking past the BMW, he tried the passenger side door on the Camry. It was locked. Same with the driver’s side door.

Michael pushed the thin strip of metal, a slim jim, down through the window. He maneuvered it, wiggling the tool, until he heard a dull click. He opened the car door. He immediately smelled the burnt skunk odor of marijuana. Michael pulled open the ashtray, seeing a shriveled, half-smoked joint inside. Sliding the ashtray closed, he reached under the seat: sandwich wrappers and soft drink cans. He opened the middle console. Inside were several busted cassette tape cases and accompanying cassettes: Black Sabbath’s Greatest Hits, Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast, and Ride the Lightning by Metallica. Whichever of the teenagers the car belonged to, the kid had taste. Michael loved metal—much to his ex-wife and children’s chagrin. He pushed aside the cassettes and noticed, at the bottom, hidden beneath fast-food napkins and receipts, a couple of discarded condom wrappers. Michael continued searching, digging through the glove box in search of car registration or some proof of insurance, but he found none.

He walked over to the Ford Escort. He tried the handle. Unlocked. He lowered himself into the driver’s seat. The car’s interior smelled of perfume. Not cheap perfume either. Something subtle. Sweet. The word opulent came to mind. The scent didn’t match the car, Michael thought, strange as it sounded. The inside of the vehicle was messy: scraps of receipts, candy wrappers, and junk mail. He shuffled through some of the papers, plucking a handful of them from the passenger side floor-board. He rifled through them, picking out a single piece of correspondence addressed to someone:

Dear Miss Ripley,

We have received the notice of your address change. We apologize for the previous error and have made a note of it. All future mail will be routed to this address.

I’m excited to tell you what the Holy Ghost has in store. With this subscription to Ignition Magazine, you’ll get…

Michael stopped reading. Miss Ripley. There were no Ripleys named among the missing. He wondered if the pastor had forgotten someone. He kept searching, flipping through more discarded mail and convenience store wrappers, as well as pamphlets, flyers, and other kinds of Christian literature. He reached inside the glove box, finding a wallet-size piece of laminated paper. It was the vehicle registration.

Lawanda Ripley, Haynesville, GA

Lawanda Ripley. Perhaps Lawanda had recently been married—or divorced.

Michael’s radio crackled to life.

“Got something for you,” Special Agent Emerson said. “Positive ID for that tattoo.”

“I got something for you too,” Michael said. “Can you look up a Lawanda Ripley—R-I-P-L-E-Y, age 39.”

“Ripley. Thought it was Lawanda Smith.”

“Yes, I did too. I’m thinking our elderly pastor here at ROC might not be the most reliable source.”

“OK, give me a second. You wanna know about your youth pastor?”

“Go ahead.”

“Mason Green, age 38, alias Clutch. Trespassing, forgery, aggravated assault, impersonating an officer, and here’s the big one: manslaughter. He spent the last fifteen years down in Valdosta State Prison. Just released six months ago. I’ll find you more on the charges. Last known address is an apartment complex in Valdosta.”

The words hit Michael like a gut punch. He had to find these teens. And just what in the hell was this Mason Green doing in Haynesville, hundreds of miles north of Valdosta?

“Here’s the results on your Lawanda Ripley. No records. Not even a speeding ticket. But…oh wow. OK—” There was a break in the communication.

“Can you say that again, Agent Emerson?”

“Sorry. Lawanda is Benjamin Ripley’s daughter.”

“Who’s that?”

“Ripley Pecans Benjamin Ripley. Down in Valdosta. He’s the one with the billboards all up and down I-75. Ripley Nut Rolls. Last known address, prior to this Haynesville one, is her parents’ house, small town just outside Valdosta. Oh, hey, here’s more for you on Mason Green,” she said.

Michael could feel a plan coming together now, and he had to move. He climbed out of Lawanda’s Ford Escort, slamming the door. He sprinted toward his Crown Vic. “OK, I’m heading south. Talk while I drive.”

As he learned more about Mason Green, Michael’s mind honed in on the puzzle of it all. There were two adults aboard the missing purple bus on its way to Central Florida—at least, that was the stated destination. Two people in North Georgia who belonged in South Georgia.

All roads led to Valdosta.

CHAPTER SIX

Kacie and Phil held hands, bodies pressed together, legs stuck to cheap vinyl bus seats. Stale air inside the purple bus was thick enough to choke. Phil had already stripped down to his boxer shorts. Kacie wore a sports bra and a pair of Phil’s boxer shorts too. She hadn’t packed anything for the trip other than blue jeans and a dress, anticipating being indoors in the air conditioning at Citrus Grove and not in some godforsaken South Georgia forest. They held each other, both teens still coming down from the lingering effects of LSD. It had been a long time since they took the acid, but it was still bending the sights and sounds just enough to make this nightmare scenario even more harrowing.

Where were they? Kacie tried to remember the exit number they’d seen as they’d left the interstate, but it wasn’t coming. She felt so confused. So tired and hungry. And thirsty.

Clutch kept calling this place the wilderness. He also chugged from a whiskey bottle and waved the gun around from time to time, making points about how lucky they were to be shepherded by the Holy Ghost into this place of transformation. Phil, mind still sideways from the acid, insisted the gun wasn’t real. Kacie assured him otherwise. He, more than Kacie, seemed to still be pretty warped by the LSD. The acid should have been mostly out of his system by now, but a bad trip will do that, Kacie knew. A bad trip will lock in whatever beliefs you thought were gospel in the height of the LSD frenzy. She wished like hell they hadn’t taken it before setting out on this…this whatever it was. Detour? Kidnapping? She still hadn’t come to grips with the reality of her situation.

Thump, thump, thump.

Clutch’s big sneakers stomped up the steps, awakening Kacie from her thoughts. She saw the man as he entered the Purple People Eater. He was a hulking horror show. Gone were her preconceptions of him as a simpleton touting God’s Word as some sort of cure-all for humanity. She no longer saw Clutch as a snaggletooth trying to make a case for saving her soul. He hadn’t been after her soul at all—he had much darker intentions, it seemed.

Clutch took off his sunglasses and stared at them, locking eyes with each scared member of his youth group. He placed a hand on the gun, running his fingers up and down the pistol grip.

Phil whispered, “None of this feels real. Can’t be real. Can it?”

Kacie leaned over, whispering into his ear, “It’s real.”

“Huh?” Phil, too, was stuck deep inside his own head. She thought maybe he was dehydrated. Maybe that’s what was going on with her as well. She hadn’t had a drink of water in a long time. They were trying to ration what little they had left.

“The gun is real.”

“I don’t think so,” he whispered, eyes wild.

“Don’t do or say anything.”

“I can take him.”

“No, you can’t. Keep quiet.”

“Next chance I get. Soon as I do, you run. Everybody, run.”

Kacie had assumed a maternal role with Phil. She’d fallen into it without even thinking after he’d made that run at Clutch and been sent to the floor, clocked in the face with that pistol. The dried blood was crusty and black on her boyfriend’s face, lining the outer edges of his nostrils. The left side of his face was still swollen, one eye half shut. She stroked Phil’s long hair. He’d been brave but put in his place in a swift manner. Clutch was in control here. If there was any doubt, the .45 Smith & Wesson was the only evidence any of them needed.

Clutch walked down the aisle, towering over his captive congregants. He stopped just short of Kacie and Phil. He smiled. The corners of his mouth lifted, eyes boring into hers. He looked like the Devil himself.

“Children,” Clutch said, “I think it’s best we hold each other accountable in the wilderness. Wanderers though we may be, we are dripping with his grace. Let us walk together not in sin, but in purity. In righteousness, allowing these Holy Ghost flames to purify us in the fires of trial, discomfort, pain, and fear. Fear is our friends, children. I’d tell you not to be afraid of what’s coming for you in the wilderness…to fear not, only believe, but that wouldn’t do you a whole lot of good out in the wilderness. Each and every one of you should be scared right now. Each one of you should be scared out of your fucking minds.”

Clutch removed the bottle of whiskey from his duffle bag and took a long sip. “Brother Phil, Sister Kacie. You continue to bring strife into the ranks with the spirit of lust,” Clutch said, making a sweeping gesture meant to include all those remaining from the ROC youth group, seated, sprawled out, or sleeping inside the purple school bus.

When they’d left the church parking lot on Saturday morning, there’d been seven of them. With the twins, Brittany and Lisa, having disappeared the night before, it was down to just Kacie, Phil, Terry, Lawanda, and Clutch now. Kacie dared not ponder what had become of the twin girls. She hoped they’d escaped but feared the worst. None of them had the guts to ask Clutch what had become of them.

“Sister Lawanda, you’re familiar with the spirit of lust,” Clutch said. “Pretty as you are, the boys came a-calling. Sniffing around your house.”

“Who in the hell are you?” Lawanda said.

“Let us take this moment, sister, to steel ourselves,” Clutch said, reaching for her. He placed a hand on her shoulder. She scooted away. Clutch grabbed the strap of her halter top, pulling her toward him.

Kacie felt Phil lunge, trying to get up. She wrapped both arms around his torso, yanking him back down. He turned to her, eyes wild. She shook her head. He tried again, but she pulled him down with such force that he couldn’t budge.

“Look a-there,” Clutch said, unholstering the big pistol on his belt. “Brother Phil ain’t had enough yet. He’s gonna rescue you, Sister Lawanda. Watch this.”

Clutch swung the muzzle of the pistol around in a fast arc, aiming the gun at Phil. Kacie jumped in front of her boyfriend—a human shield. She hadn’t even thought about it. The instinct to protect Phil was powerful. He was stupid right now. So stupid.

Clutch laughed. He turned to Lawanda, pulling harder on the strap of her shirt. She screamed. She pulled in the opposite direction. Clutch raised the gun, aiming it out one of the bus windows. He fired a shot. It all but deafened everybody inside. Ears ringing, Lawanda stopped, letting herself collapse into a bus seat. She stopped struggling. Kacie could not hear Lawanda’s sobs over her ringing ears, but she saw the woman’s face. She saw the eyes squinting, trying to produce the tears that wouldn’t come because nobody here had had more than a sip of water in at least twenty-four hours. This wasn’t the wilderness. This was purgatory—or, worse, it was hell.

Clutch dragged Lawanda out of the seat and walked her down the aisle, toward the front of the bus. He wondered what was going on in that pretty head of hers. Did she think she was doing a noble thing, getting the big bad wolf far away from the children like this? Yeah, probably so. Lawanda had a good soul. If she knew what awaited her in the wilderness, would she go so willingly out the bus door like this?

Like it or not, he knew they wouldn’t be able to stay here much longer. Though it had only been a couple days out in this stretch of woods, he understood they’d have to get on the road pretty soon. They were close to the Promised Land, so close he could hardly believe it. They’d pulled over just shy of Tifton at this no-man’s-land I-75 exit—Exit 16, the one he’d scouted months back, with the cut-through behind the junkyard and on back into the forest. The one with the gator pond across from the golf community. Nice and secluded.

Secluded or not, hell, they was just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Valdosta. There was something lovely about being so close, Clutch thought. There was a joy to be felt in being so close and a desire to sustain that feeling, to drag these moments out and savor the group’s trek to the Promised Land. But the time had come. Everybody was starving. Everybody was dehydrated. It was good he’d gotten rid of the twins, or there would be even less water and food left. There was the temptation to cut loose all the kids from the rest of this expedition, but he wasn’t ready for that just yet. The Spirit would lead him as need be. He’d know when their time in the wilderness had come to an end. God would speak to him when that time came.

They’d gone through most of the supplies from the gas station. Now there only remained a dwindling gallon jug of water and a box of cheese crackers. He’d also gone through most of the whiskey. When he felt a deficit in Holy Ghost fire, it was the firewater that often brought him closer to God. But he could help hisself to whatever good liquor he could find, once they’d arrived at the Promised Land. Old Swamp Gator had a whole cabinet full of it.

Until then, if they needed more food, he’d make another stop. The cash from the kids’ registration envelopes was itself a godsend. It kept their trail cold. Cash transactions didn’t leave footprints for those nosy authorities, though he had no illusions about them catching up to him at some point. What he’d done was anything but inconspicuous. He laughed out loud at the audacity of it all, that he’d finally pulled all this off. It had been a long time coming.

With the pistol resting on her shoulder, Lawanda took the bus steps down. She and Clutch exited the vehicle. He didn’t think any of the kids had the sack to try and make a run for it, but just for good measure, he called back over his shoulder in his gruffest and most admonishing voice, “If any of you sheep should happen to stray…Pastor Clutch is a worthy shepherd. Amen. And if the number of my flock is fewer when I return, I’ll put a hole in sweet Sister Lawanda’s skull. Then I’ll hunt each and every one of y’all down and do the same.”

Lawanda sobbed as he urged her onward. Clutch, quieter now, tried to sooth, “I didn’t mean it, honey. You’re important to me, but I’ll be honest, if you value the lives of these little lambs of God, you better come into the woods with me and pray. March onward, Christian soldier.”

He tapped the back of her head with the pistol as they entered a path into the forest.

Who is this man?

Clutch stayed at her side as they walked, stepping over skinny pine saplings and underbrush. Overhead, long-needle pines stabbed their way into the sky, lanky limbs skeletal in the waning blue on its way to purple dusk. She only hoped the kids would have the sense to make a run for it right now, while he wasn’t around. She knew, however, there was a good chance that they wouldn’t. As she was coming to learn, this kind of fear, the fear of death, had a paralytic effect.

Palmettos sprawled like languid reptiles beneath trunks as they walked on. They weren’t far from Valdosta. She could still make a run for it. Risk a shot to the back of the head. Certain death versus the chance of escape. But did he really plan to kill her? All this cycled through her mind as Clutch started to whistle a tune. It only took a few seconds for her to recognize the popular Christian song “There Is a Redeemer” by Keith Green.

The song had been a balm for her upon clearing three months of sobriety. Sobriety sobriety. No weed. No booze. Not even cigarettes. She’d given those up, too, which had been the hardest it seemed, the last of the vices. When she’d been able to start sleeping again without waking up multiple times in the night, legs restless, stomach cramping, the only symptom that remained was the depression.

She’d awake most days feeling like she didn’t want to go on. Jesus had given her something, though—companionship. She could wake up and feel, sure enough, like she wasn’t alone in her struggles. Lawanda Ripley wanted nothing—no substance to alter the way she felt about things. The Bible had become her addiction. Jesus Christ had redeemed her. He was her Redeemer. And hearing Clutch—if that was even his real name—whistle the tune out here in the middle of the woods as he marched her out toward whatever unsanctimonious ends he intended, well, it made her want to take a swing at him and try to take that big pistol away.

“Excuse me, Miss Lawanda, but it’s getting hot,” Clutch said. He peeled off his shirt. She saw for the first time that he was covered in tattoos. In the past, she’d noticed ink peeking from the sleeves—a flash of color when he reached, bicep creeping out of his shirt—but hadn’t expected this. His entire torso was a dull-colored rainbow of amateur animal sketches, the sun, the moon, a rainbow, a cross, the Ten Commandments, flames, and barbed wire.

She fell back a pace, looking at the most prominent of these renderings—a long, green alligator spanning Clutch’s shoulder blades. Driven into its head was a flaming sword, gore puddling beneath it.

Clutch whistled a new tune now. It was another that Lawanda recognized:

Ezekiel connected dem dry bones. Ezekiel connected dem dry bones.

“Like what you see?” he asked. “The big fella, that’s old Swamp Gator.

Leviathan. Enemy of Babylon. Psalm 74, verses 13 and 14: Thou divideth the sea by thy strength. Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou brakest the head of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.”

He gestured again with the pistol for her to go on ahead.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“We’re on a path, Miss Lawanda. Just like in life. We turn this way and that. We take detours and meander our way, wondering what it all means. We’re as clueless as hell, ain’t we? Even me, now…I know where we’re going, but I don’t know what’s going to happen once we get there. But He’s given us authority over serpents and scorpions and poison, praise God. The destination is clear, you see, but I leave the outcome to God. Take this trip, for instance. We was on our way to a holy-roller fest, thinking we was about to stay in some tourist trap hotel. But here we are walking through the woods at nighttime.”

“If you let us go right now, nobody will say nothing,” she said, sobbing. “We’ll tell anybody who asks us that you done run off. That you just up and disappeared. Won’t say nothing about the gun. About any of it.”

“‘Done run off,’” Clutch said, chuckling. “‘Won’t say nothing.’ Tell you what, it’s been most enjoyable listening to you try blending in with us working-class folks. It don’t come natural to you, Lawanda dear. You can drop the double negatives and hillbilly slang. It’s just you and me, darling. We’re refugees.”

“Who are you?”

They approached the edge of a small lake. Lawanda saw tiny rectangles of light across the waters, the backsides and lit windows of large homes fifty yards away. The other side of the lake backed up against a suburban neighborhood. If she screamed, they’d surely hear her. But he’d just as surely put a bullet in her head and leave her here to rot.

“I’m just a ghost, darling. I’m a ghost come back to haunt.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Michael pulled over at a motel in Tifton, about a half hour north of Valdosta. If he didn’t rest, he couldn’t think. If he couldn’t think,he wasn’t going to be able to find those kids at all. He’d be of no use to anybody. He’d learned that the hard way in cases of the past, trying to get by on no sleep.

He paid the old woman in the lobby $89 for a room with a king-size bed, got his key, and hefted his belongings—a single suitcase, a laptop, and a duffel bag—to his lodgings for the night.

He set up a workspace on a small table beside the television. He spread what little paperwork he had across the surface and situated the battered Holy Bible beside the papers. A Post-it note marked the leviathan Bible verse. He picked up the phone. The public affairs director had left him a message earlier that afternoon, wanting to go over a press release with him. She’d drafted a quote in Michael’s name and wanted to make sure it sounded like him and, more importantly, that it was accurate.

The media had already worked itself into a frenzy, awaiting official word from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Reporters had been stationed in Haynesville since shortly after Michael left town. Thank God he’d managed to dodge that crowd. A press release was due to go out that evening, and a press conference in Haynesville—thank God, again—was scheduled shortly thereafter. Let them stay in Haynesville, Michael thought. He needed a distraction-free trail to sniff out Mason Green.

GBI Public Affairs Director Carol Kessee answered Michael’s call on the second ring. “Gonna read this to you really fast, OK? I got everybody breathing down my neck to get this out ASAFP.”

“10-4,” Michael said, leaning back in the squeaky desk chair.

Director Kessee cleared her throat, reading:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Authorities Seek Public’s Help Locating Teens, Adult

Haynesville, Georgia - June 30 1995 - The Haynes County Sheriff’s Office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are seeking the public’s help in connection with the disappearance of five minors under the age of eighteen and one adult female. The following individuals were seen shortly after 11 a.m. Saturday in the parking lot of ROC (church) in Haynesville, Georgia:

Kacie Blackstock, 16, female

Terry Escoe, 14, male

Phil Redding, 16, male

Lawanda Ripley (also goes by Lawanda Smith), 39, female

Lisa Wells, 14, female

Brittany Wells, 14, female

The individuals left the church in a purple-colored bus (a refurbished Haynes County School System fleet bus) driven by Mason Green, a 38-year-old male, on their way to a youth group church conference at Citrus Grove in Pond County, Florida.

Green is considered a person of interest in this case. Agents from the GBI are assisting the Haynes County Sheriff’s Office in this investigation.

“We have reason to believe these individuals are in danger,” said Special Agent Michael Webb, who is over-seeing the case. “If anybody has seen any of these teens or Ms. Ripley, do not hesitate to call the Haynes County Sheriff’s Office or the GBI Tip Line. Those with information about Mason Green specifically can call me directly, at the number listed below.”

She finished, awaiting Michael’s response.

“You’re the wordsmith, Carol,” he said.

“You sure you want your phone number on here?”

“A minor inconvenience that could make all the difference.”

“This press release is going…everywhere. We’ve had inquiries from other countries, for Christ’s sake.”

“I figured,” Michael said. “Now y’all got the headshots of the kids, right? I got them right here if you need them.”

“We’ve got them. They’ll go out with the press release.”

“What about Lawanda Ripley and Mason Green?”

“Yes, send me those.”

“Will do.”

Director Kessee said she’d be in touch and hung up. She was right to caution him about putting his contact info out there. Putting your phone number out for the whole world with something like this kicked the door open wide for the crazies. Still, it was a risk he was willing to take. He knew precious little about Mason Green other than his long list of tattoos, citations, arrests, and incarcerations. And he had one hell of a bad feeling about him. For one thing, Special Agent Emerson hadn’t been able to find the guy’s birth records. That was highly unusual, especially for a white male seemingly born in this country.

Michael opened the Bible, flipping the pages. He turned to the back of the book, stopping on a page designated by the publishers as Notes and Prayers. The page was filled from top to bottom—as were the subsequent four pages—with elaborate drawings of animals, trees, buildings, and symbols.

The illustration on the first page: Beneath a canopy of pencil-gray flora, there was a well-rendered sketch of an antebellum mansion. Inside the top-floor windows were the silhouettes of what looked like two women looking out. Upon the lawn of the mansion was the same alligator that made multiple appearances elsewhere in this KJV Bible that belonged to Gloria Green. It was the swamp gator, as described by Pastor Avalon back at the church. The reptile bared its teeth, shaded heavily with dark red crayon, the only color on the page besides the shiny gray of pencil lead.

In addition to being a multiple felon, it seemed Mason Green was an aspiring artist. Michael turned the page to another wooded scene—an idyllic sketch of Florida or South Georgia flora: the saw palmettos, palm trees, long-needle pines, Spanish moss, and so on, surrounded on all sides by what looked to be water. The rising and falling pencil markings meant to indicate water patterns were clear enough. Beneath it were the words “Comanche Island: And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Michael examined the drawing. The sketches of South Georgia flora and fauna gelled with the Valdosta background. The drawing of the mansion looked like something from elsewhere though. Such an abode in Georgia was a rare sight. Michael wondered if there were any homes like this one in Valdosta.

Maybe the local cops would be able to help with all these unanswered questions. If anybody had a bead on Mason Green, it would be the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office, the agency that arrested him on that manslaughter charge fifteen years back. He had the sheriff’s phone number here in the paperwork somewhere. He searched for it, trying to remember the guy’s name. Dale…something.

Locating the name and number—Sheriff Dale Douglas—Michael put in a call. It went straight to voicemail. He hung up. He’d pay the sheriff a visit tomorrow. Just as with the meeting with Pastor Mike Avalon earlier that day, Michael found it was often better just to stop by. The sheriff would surely drop everything at the implications of a high-profile case like this one. Hell, he’d probably be excited at the possible media exposure. It helped these types in their reelection efforts.

Michael stared at the phone for a moment, thinking about the kids. It was unspoken that he and his ex-wife allowed each other’s respective times with the kids to go unhindered. Tonight, however, he just wanted to hear their voices, if only for a moment. All this business with ROC and the False Prophet Michael Avalon had him thinking about the past. Spending time in the sanctuary with that holier-than-thou prick who was floating around in those creepy swimming trunks and scuba gear had left a bad taste in Michael’s mouth. It had breathed ragged life into decades-old grievances and brought back memories he’d managed to push deep down into the recesses.

Gracie, there on the bed at his mom’s house. Sitting crisscross with her head resting in his lap, her chest stopped moving. The air stopped going in and out. The ragged breath like a metronome keeping time, up to this moment, suddenly ceased. Mouth hung open in an interrupted exclamation of one final sweet thought she was just about to put out into the world.

It would have been kind, that last word, he thought. That was the first thought he had. The second thought was that he wished it had been him. If it could have been him, he would have gladly taken her place. No question. Their mother had been in the room, too, but once the death rattle started with Gracie, she could no longer handle it and drained all the alcohol in the house. She was passed out drunk during her daughter’s final moments on the planet.

If he closed his eyes right now, Michael could see the whole scene frozen in time. Like the pop of a camera flash exposing every shadowy nook of the bedroom inside his childhood home, his photographic memory withheld few details: the discarded syringes piling up at the bedside, still coated with sticky narcotic liquid to keep the pain at bay. The empty cardboard cartons of protein drink they force-fed her, stacked in a cascading pyramid at the headboard. His mother curled into a fetal position at the footboard, snoring through her daughter’s last moments. As Gracie’s breathing stopped, the snore became a mockery. The drunken snuffling echoed against the peeling, sickly yellow walls of the claustrophobic room.

In this moment, Michael cursed his mother and, in the next, his Heavenly Father. He cursed and denounced the deity with an anger that rattled the bedroom walls. He screamed. He beat his fists against the wall. Blood streamed from his fingers. He hit the wall again and again, his knuckles in tatters. Blood dripped onto the scuffed hardwood—little spatters of science impressing evidence of life and certainty of death upon the floor below.

Where faith had once been inside Michael, there was a sudden—and certain—vacant space.

Though his mother had been dead for many years, Michael still had not forgiven her for leaving him to cope all alone with the death of his beloved sister. He’d been the one to deliver the news to his mother upon her awakening, hours later, that precious Gracie had slipped away.

No miracles had saved her. The tent revival pastor’s frenzied proclamations of the healing power of Jesus had done nothing but coerce money out of his mother’s pocketbook. In the end, the only thing that could have helped with Gracie’s brain cancer was having medical insurance or being born into a family that could have afforded it. And their own mother’s ignorance and superstitions and fears and alcoholism had prevented them from doing anything at all but reaching for empty promises in hopes of miracles. She’d gambled in the gospel lottery. She’d lost it all.

Gracie. Sweet angel.

Michael looked at the clock. If he was quick about it, he’d still have a few minutes before his kids’ bedtime. He picked up the phone and dialed his ex-wife’s phone number. Hearing the kids’ voices would be good. It would lighten the dark of these unflinchingly exact memories.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Beside a wooded pond, Clutch used the flat of his palm to slap the water. It was a trick he’d learned growing up on Comanche Island. He slapped the surface lightly—the wounded-critter ripples—it was good as a dinner bell. He squinted toward the reflective waters in the disappearing dusk. Mosquitoes hummed at his ears. What a lovely night. Felt almost like home.

“Let me go,” Lawanda pleaded, crouched beside him in the mud.

“Did you ever wonder about the noises in the woods?”

“What?”

“The noises in the woods outside your window.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Think back to when you was a young lady. Those nights when you couldn’t sleep because those old palmetto fronds kept knocking together like dry bones.”

“I want to go home.”

He looked into her eyes. She was still a little girl, this one. Never had trials in her life that tested her mettle. Never known the struggles—the real struggles. Her innocence was something so rare in this dirty old world. But she was lost, was little Lawanda.

Reaching into his back pocket, he took out his flask. He unscrewed the top. “I know more about you, Miss Lawanda, than you’ll ever realize. I know what makes you tick. I know the blood that courses through your veins. And I know what calmed the storm when your daddy got mean with you and your momma.”

He held the flask out.

She made a move for it, and then stopped, squeezing shut her eyes. She began to pray.

“Yes,” Clutch said. He, too, bowed his head. Took a sip of whiskey and spoke in tongues. He growled low, mimicking the gator mating call. Then set the flask down in the space between himself and Lawanda. Out the corner of his eye, he saw a disturbance in the water.

Gator.

“We plead the blood of Jesus over this little lamb of God. Kondia, sheedia oh-hola baheedia,” he said, stopping to growl again. The beast was drawing near. Lawanda didn’t even see it. She was too blinded by her own fear. He’d cure her in this wilderness, though, in this dark crucible of pain and hunger and survival. This purgatory.

“This woman, Lord God. She is a butterfly. She doesn’t even know it yet. She is just as I was, Lord God, a spinning chrysalis blowing in the wind, powerless and angry and impotent against the storms. Amen.”

“Oh my God!” Lawanda shouted. “Do you see it?”

“And now is the time for You to free her, Jesus. Free her of the shackles. Untether her from this mortal world and the perceived limitations of herself. Let the purifying fires of the Holy Ghost melt away all things unnecessary. Burn away with Holy Ghost fire the impurities of the flesh, and create in Lawanda a new heart, Lord God.”

He placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s time, sister. Your transformation is about to begin.”

I’m going to die, Lawanda thought.

How Clutch had managed to keep the mask on so convincingly for the six months he’d been at ROC was the scariest thing. The man beside her, hand clamped on her shoulder, eyes squeezed shut in fastidious and fervent concentration, had been a master of manipulation.

Lawanda stared at the big shiny pistol on his hip holster. She watched, trembling, as a large alligator made its way toward them. It sheared a straight swath through the pond water, rippling the reflected images of suburban homes and their rectangular windows of lamplight skirting the shore.

“There’s time,” she said, whimpering, “for you to do the right thing. For those kids.”

“There’s time for you too,” he said. “Pray, Miss Lawanda. Pray for deliverance. There’s predators afoot who would see our paths diverge. There’s predators who would rend us body and mind. You’re in a sensitive phase now. Spinning in the wind, not fully developed, writhing like a fat little caterpillar inside that chrysalis, Christian soldier. You’ll be set free by the end of all this, Lawanda.”

Free, Lawanda thought.

She’d been through too much, overcome too many obstacles, and spent too much time tortured, alone, broken, and desperate to let it all end beside this suburban swamp. Lawanda found her strength in this. She twisted away, lunging at Clutch. He tumbled backward, eyes big, slipping in the mud. Surprising even herself, she managed to grab his gun, got her fingers around the butt of it, prying it from the holster. She stood, aiming the weapon at the darkness before her. The night was black, but she could see the man’s shape. Lawanda aimed for the center of the dark silhouette. Afraid she’d hesitate, Lawanda made herself quickly squeeze the trigger.

The gun did nothing.

“Shit,” she whispered.

She heard Clutch snicker. Mud slurped beneath his big shoes as he approached. Lawanda turned to run just as his hand fell hard on her shoulder. She swung an elbow back, catching him in the jaw. He grunted, putting another hand on her. She felt his weight against her. Losing her balance, she fell face-first into the mud. Her cheek hit something hard. The side of her face tingled. Clutch got on top of her, flipping her onto her back. He straddled her torso, pinning her arms in the dirt. She couldn’t move an inch.

This is where it all ends—raped, murdered, and fed to an alligator in some godforsaken South Georgia pond. The lack of dignity in it all made her doubt the newfound faith she’d felt so strongly. She watched his silhouette moving. She heard a dull, mechanical click.

“Gun don’t work with the safety on, Miss Lawanda.”

Next she heard a tinny scraping sound. She knew that noise. It was the cheap metal flask. Clutch leaned in close to her, saying, “And he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.”

She heard him swallow a sip. “It ain’t wine, but its maker was a holy man, I’m told. Would you like to take communion with me?”

She would. She would like to very much. The whiskey would dull whatever was coming, whatever Clutch was about to do to her. And wouldn’t God forgive her? She reached for the flask, couldn’t even help herself. Lawanda’s hand was sentient, powerless, in this absurd situation. She felt weak. Clutch placed a hand on her cheek. With the other hand, he held the back of her head up. He put the flask to her lips, and she drank. The warmth enveloped her. For a moment in the mud and beneath the body of this hulking madman, she felt whole. She felt the presence of God. She took the flask away from him, drinking again.

She heard him chuckle, “Amen.”

Now, she thought.

She spit a mouthful into Clutch’s face, aiming for his eyes. He yelped, toppling off of her. Raising up, she grabbed hold of his shirt collar and clocked him in the head with the metal flask. She did it again. Clutch fell backward, hitting the ground with a thud.

She turned, not sure which way to run. She saw the rippling waters of the pond and remembered which direction they’d arrived from. She inched that way and then stopped, seeing the rigid log-like shadow of the alligator at her feet. She’d forgotten all about it. The creature had crept up on the both of them. She gasped, backing away. It followed her.

She started to cry. She thought about her life, about how, after all that she’d been through, it should end this way. She’d finally broken free from the bonds of addiction, that disease which had blasted a smoking hole dead center in the better part of her adult life. That monkey on her back, always chattering away, eradicating any ambition for doing anything but calling the man with the pills.

Suddenly, she felt herself yanked to the ground. Clutch pawed at her torso. He touched her breasts, but it didn’t feel intentional. It felt like he was trying to get hold of her. It felt like he was trying to pull her back behind him. Trying to be a human shield against the alligator shuffling toward them.

She watched as he leapt atop the big reptile. Its tail thrashed the night air between them. She hurriedly scooted back, watching this madman wrestle one of the biggest alligators she’d ever seen. Clutch grunted as the animal pulled them both back toward the water.

The sudden clap of gunfire was like thunder. Lawanda’s ears rang with the report. He fired twice more. He collapsed in the dirt beside the now-lifeless animal.

“Behold,” Clutch said, out of breath. “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

He crawled toward her, taking her shoulder.

“God’s got plans for you, Miss Lawanda. Ol’ Clutch does too. You’re more than gator bait, darlin’. You’re part of a plan. You’re helping the Lord God fulfill His promise in the Promised Land.”

The gunfire echoing from the woods told Kacie all she needed to know. She was in danger. So was Phil. Terry too. And whatever lie out there in the dark woods beyond the bus was coming for them right now with a gun in hand to kill the three of them deader than hell. They should have run the moment Clutch and Lawanda left. He was coming back now. Was on his way back with more bullets to kill the three of them. Same as he did with the twins, Kacie thought. She hadn’t heard any gunshots when the twins had disappeared the night before, but she had a bad feeling.

“Wake up,” she whispered, shaking Phil.

He’d been in and out of consciousness all day. She didn’t know if it was from the dehydration or the head wound, but he’d been of no help to her at all. Neither had Terry.

“Did you hear that?” she hissed. “Terry!”

In the darkness, she saw the boy’s silhouette rise from bus seats two rows in front of her. She climbed over Phil, who was beginning to stir. “Gunshots,” she said.

“I heard something,” Terry said.

“Something?”

“Yeah, in the woods.”

“Gunshots!” Kacie said. “Get up off your ass. We’ve got to get out of here. He’s going to kill us!”

She shook Phil again. He blinked his way to consciousness, trying to stand. “Can you walk?” she asked.

He nodded, holding on to the bus seats. Kacie and Phil made their way down the aisle. She grabbed Terry by the shoulder. The boy shrugged her off.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Terry said nothing. He was in denial. She could tell. Denial was the same place she’d been just days ago, before she saw her youth pastor clock her boyfriend in the face with a massive pistol. It had awakened something inside her—an instinct never before realized. It had snapped her out of the acid trip like magic, even if Phil was still lingering somewhere in the LSD haze. She regretted having taken acid with Phil, but if they lived through the night, she had a plan. That little eye-drop bottle might come in handy.

She leaned down, getting in Terry’s face. “We’re going to take a bathroom break,” she said, her tone softening to a maternal plea. “We don’t want you to be here all alone in the bus, OK?”

They exited the bus. Kacie led the two teenage boys toward the woods. In the pale moonlight, she saw two entries into the forest—two narrow gaps in the saw palmettos and pine saplings, indicating side-by-side trails. She eenie-meenie-miney-mo’d one, and started in the direction of the hulking pine shadows and trees dripping with Spanish moss. The boys followed her, Terry breathing heavily. He tripped, grumbling. Kacie shushed him.

They entered the woods. Palmetto fronds exploded to their right. Something big—a deer, she hoped—went tearing through the forest. The sound was unbelievably loud in the hushed evening. Best Kacie could tell, they’d only gone a mile or so off I-75 before turning down the dirt road that led here—nice and isolated for Clutch to kill them and bury their bodies.

She used tree trunks to guide their way, slapping a hand against the small pines lining the little trail. Following close behind her, hand on her shoulder, Phil matched her pace. She could tell he was struggling to keep up. He hadn’t been right since the acid or the head injury. She worried whether he’d be OK, especially without medical attention. He could have brain damage, she thought. And there was nobody here to help him. “Goddamn you,” she muttered, envisioning taking the pistol away from Clutch—this predator, this werewolf shape-shifting as a man of God. Caving in his big dumb head with it.

As they walked through the forest, Kacie caught a familiar odor: mint. Must be some wild species of it growing here in the woods. There was no other explanation for it, unless her mind was still sideways from the strong acid they’d taken. She kept walking, breathing in the smell of it. Kacie hated mint. It was the smell of ROC. Everybody all around her in the sanctuary, shoving mint gum, mint lozenges, mint candies into their mouth to cover up the smell of their rotten breath, the stench of old dentures, and whatever the hell they ate for breakfast. It was the smell they used to cover up the foul odors of human decay. It was as phony as the uncomfortable clothing they had to wear. As distracting as the sideshow antics of Pastor Avalon. As sickening as the subtle touch of Pastor Avalon’s hand on her shoulder, her back, her knee, as he sat beside her to pray. If it wasn’t him, it was the two creepy deacons who followed him around like minions to do his bidding. They always seemed to find an excuse to invade her personal space under the guise of laying hands on her to pray.

“This is a long way to walk to go to the bathroom,” Terry shouted over the sound of crunching foliage underfoot.

“Shut up!” Kacie whispered.

She stopped. Phil slowed with her, draping an arm over her shoulder. She felt the force of Terry crashing against Phil. Someone was talking up on the trail ahead. A male voice. The redneck drawl was unmistakable.

“Turn around,” she hissed, pivoting on her heels.

The three of them stumbled in the opposite direction.

Clutch laughed, shouting. She could hear him crashing through the woods behind them. He was coming from another direction she hadn’t anticipated. “And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father.…And he said, Behold, the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”

The three of them ran. Clutch pursued, gaining on them.

A gunshot rang out. Once, twice. A pause. Then a third time.

Phil dropped to the ground. Kacie screamed.

CHAPTER NINE

Michael didn’t like the smell of the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office. That was the first thing he noticed when he walked inside the double doors. There was a perfumed tinge to the air befitting not a place of criminal justice but one of commerce. It smelled like a department store. Plastic. A cloying smell because, yes, there was something underneath it, wasn’t there? Something like a garbage can filled with rotting meat.

First person he saw was a receptionist. Brunette. Green eyes like neon in the dim room. She was gorgeous. She looked like she could be on the cover of a magazine, and that was a funny thought, because on the wall behind her was a framed collection of magazine covers. All of them featured an older man in a law enforcement uniform with a Florida tan and teeth too white to be natural. He looked to be in his sixties. The sheriff, no doubt.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Looking for Sheriff Dale Douglas.”

“You have an appointment?”

Michael produced his badge. She asked Michael to have a seat. He walked toward a plush couch and chair. The furniture looked expensive. The Lowndes County Board of Commissioners must be awful kind to law enforcement here. This wasn’t no run-of-the-mill sheriff’s office furniture. He ran his hand along the couch. Felt like leather or something close enough to cost a pretty penny. He didn’t sit. Instead, he walked over to a display case in the corner of the room which featured more sheriff’s office trade magazines, as well as newspaper clippings featuring Sheriff Dale and his shiny smile and bronze tan. Guy seemed to think pretty highly of himself. Good to know, Michael thought. An ego was something he could always play to in a pinch.

The click-clack of shoes came tapping down the hallway. There he was. Fancy shoes. Teeth whitener. Yep, Sheriff Dale Douglas was going to be an ego case, for sure.

The sheriff thrust a hand out to shake, clapping Michael on the shoulder with the other. He gestured for Michael to follow him. They walked down a corridor lined with awards. It reminded Michael of the trophy case in his high school that displayed the various sports teams’ accolades. He glanced at the awards as they passed them: Crime Victim Services Award, Medal of Valor, Medal of Merit, “Cop Beats and Clean Streets” medal. Some of the awards had the sheriff’s name specifically on them, while others featured only the agency name.

They entered the sheriff’s office, a sprawling room filled with books, framed photographs, various knickknacks, and more. The sheriff opened a mini-fridge, taking out two bottles of water. He offered one to Michael, who declined.

“What can I do for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation?” the sheriff asked, putting ironic emphasis on the final three words. It was meant to mock in a playful way. Michael hated this man already.

“You’ve got a television, so I’m sure you know why I’m here,” Michael said.

“I assume it has to do with Ms. Ripley?”

“That’s part of it,” Michael said. He walked the room, glancing at the framed photos slanted against bookshelves, suspended from the wall, and propped on counters: Sheriff Dale Douglas grinning that shiny smile with members of Congress, former presidents, NBA and MLB athletes, as well as separate photos with the coaches of the Georgia Bulldogs and the Florida Gators. This man was vanity personified. Michael picked up and roughly dropped a football signed by somebody and turned. “So far, all roads lead to Valdosta, Sheriff.”

The sheriff cocked his head. “I’m sorry?”

“I’ve got a felon with a rap sheet a mile long who just got out of Valdosta State Prison. I’ve got the aforementioned Lawanda Ripley who, as you noted, hails from your neck of the woods. I’ve got a bus full of juveniles en route to Citrus Grove for a church conference. And…I’ve got what some people call intuition about there being a link between Mr. Mason Green and Ms. Lawanda Ripley. Two Valdosta folks way up north in Haynesville, Georgia.”

“I’m sorry, where’s Haynesville?”

“About an hour north of Atlanta,” Michael said, taking mental note that the sheriff did not register surprise when he told him the fake youth pastor hailed from here.

“I see. Well, what I’ve got for you is facts. I don’t put too much stock into intuition, as you say,” the sheriff said. He smiled, crossing his arms.

Michael said nothing.

The sheriff cleared his throat. “Mason Green was a transient. He got in all sorts of trouble here. Public drunk. Assault. Forgery. Impersonating an officer. Nothing to put him in prison, though, until the manslaughter charge. He got in a fight with some fella out at one of the dive bars. Hole-in-the-wall place down on the bad side of town. Eight Ball Billiards. Bunch of tree-shaker types and transients like Mason.”

“Tree shakers?”

“Yeah, you know,” the sheriff said, and mimed holding a pole. “They go out and whack the pecan trees with a big cane pole, or they run the equipment that does it automatic. You can tell them by their fingers. Brown stains on ’em from shelling pecans. The juice gets in their blood. Makes ’em crazy. Hell, that’s what folks say anyway. They’re temp hires. Live on the farm or nearby while they work a season’s harvest. End of the season, they pack up and go. Cheap labor.

“Anyway, Mason claimed it was self-defense. Other fella came at him with a broken beer bottle. You know, redneck shit. Mason pulls a knife and buries it elbow deep in the other guy’s guts. Just sits back down at the bar and finishes his drink while everybody runs out screaming. Listening to the fella dying on the ground behind him. Cold-blooded as fuck. Lucky he didn’t get a murder charge. He pulled the right card and got a good public defender that day. Guy is one sick fuck.”

Michael nodded, listening.

“So, yeah,” the sheriff went on. “He was in the state prison until just a few months ago, but you already know about all that. I don’t know what more I can tell you. Just a no-account redneck with a mean streak who happened to call Valdosta home more often than not. Hope you won’t judge our fair city by the shit that gets stuck to the bottom of your shoes while you’re in town.”

“And what was the name of the man he killed?”

“Arthur Gutierrez, half white, half Mexican, I believe. No residence to call home we were aware of.”

Michael knew all of this, of course, from the report Special Agent Emerson had sent him. He’d been up late the night before memorizing it after the phone call with his kids. He knew that and more about the latest arrest of Mason Green.

It was interesting, though, seeing how much of this the sheriff had on tap. Sometimes the best interviews were the ones when the other party had no clue he or she was being interrogated.

“How about Gloria Green,” Michael asked. “Heard that name before?”

A pause. It wasn’t meant to be a pause. And it wasn’t the sort of drawn-out silence meant to emphasize a point or make the other party feel uncomfortable. It was an interruption in the flow of a well-rehearsed script, a response to a curveball the sheriff hadn’t foreseen. Michael had interviewed many people in his life—on both the good and bad sides of the moral compass—and that little pause always meant something. Sometimes big, sometimes small. But there was always a tiny nugget of information being stowed away. With a lifetime of learning the art of the interview and the dynamics of body language, trying to discern when someone was being forthcoming and when someone wasn’t, he knew that particular pause was one of the most reliable tells.

“It rings a bell, yes. Why? Same last name as Mason and all, I imagine she’s related?”

“Yeah, you’d imagine.”

“I’m sorry. I feel like I’m being cross-examined here.”

“And why’s that?”

“The way you’re asking the questions like you got something to prove.”

Michael smiled and turned. The vibe of this man was off. He didn’t like it, and he didn’t like him. He was vain, yes, and that was a quality Michael had never been able to stand in other men. But there was something else about the sheriff that gave him pause. An insincerity in that big gaudy smile and flashy white teeth that made him wary. Michael walked away, leaving the sheriff standing stupidly behind his desk and his paper accomplishments, surrounded by framed likenesses of himself with people who probably didn’t know him or remember he even existed. At the threshold, Michael stopped and turned. “You know the fastest way to the Ripley Orchard from here?”

The sheriff hesitated, licking his lips. “Well, of course.”

He really had this man off his game. It was interesting.

“Naturally, I’d like to interview Lawanda Ripley’s parents. Maybe they can help me a little more than you have today. No offense.”

“None taken. I wouldn’t expect to learn much though. Benjamin is ill. It’s bad. Feeding tubes and inoperable esophageal cancer. His wife, Paulette, is…she’s slipping, I guess you’d say. Beautiful woman but never was all there. Her mental state is worse than ever these days.”

So, the sheriff was close with the Ripleys. Of course, as the highest-ranking lawman and unambiguously a politician, he’d be connected to the local captains of industry here in Valdosta. The extra information about Mr. Ripley’s physical health and Mrs. Ripley’s mental health seemed like an awful lot though.

“Sorry to hear. I’d like to go out there anyway.”

“You want, I can escort you out there.”

“Not necessary.”

“You take 125 North toward the Air Force Base. Go about four miles. Hang a right on Standstill,” the sheriff said, scribbling something on a sheet of paper. “There’s the address.”

Michael took the paper. He nodded and started again out the door.

“One more thing.”

Michael stopped. “Yes?”

“You a single man, Agent Webb?”

Michael laughed, caught off guard. He held his hand up, exhibiting his ring finger, minus the ring. “Newly divorced. Ink’s still drying.”

“Twice divorced myself,” the sheriff said, laughing eagerly. “Nothing worse than being in the thick of it, and nothing better than finally signing those goddamn papers is there?”

Michael smiled politely. “Right.”

“Reason I ask…what did you think of Mandy?”

“Who?”

“Mandy,” the sheriff said, coming closer. He whispered conspiratorially, “Girl up front when you came in. The green eyes. Big tits. She’s dumb as hell, but she’s got a thing for you GBI fellas. I hear she fucks like an animal too.”

Michael stared at him.

“Just a guy doing another guy a favor. She ignores old men like me, but you might have a shot at her. Lovely face of Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office,” he intoned, like it was some inside joke.

Michael started to turn. The sheriff took him by the arm. Michael yanked his arm away. He’d had enough of whatever this was.

“Just trying to be hospitable,” the sheriff said. “No need to take it the wrong way. She ain’t your type, that’s all right. Let me know if there’s anything at all I can do for you while you’re in town. I’m sort of…well, connected, as they say. Can make things happen for you. And if you got a problem with somebody, if anybody’s giving you trouble, you come see me.”

CHAPTER TEN

The road to the Ripley Orchard was littered with soft drink cans and convenience store fare. Lotto ticket tumbleweeds and candy wrappers scuttled in the unleaded breath of oncoming traffic. Spanish moss draped the trees, fluttering in the breeze of Ford Escorts and U-Hauls chugging their way along this South Georgia highway. Michael noticed a church, with letters on the marquee that spelled out REVIVAL using two inverted A’s instead of V’s. A modest house appeared here and there, connected to the power lines skirting the road—proof of electricity and civilization somewhere beyond this dreary landscape.

Michael hung a right onto Standstill Road. The homes were like dull pencil sketches of poverty. It reminded him of the double-yellow-lined road he himself had grown up on in Haynesville, the cars flying past, ready to flatten beloved pets. Homes cost less on a double yellow—that’s what his mom had told him. It was the only reason they’d been able to afford a brick-and-mortar abode instead of a single-wide trailer.

He passed one of the bigger yards fronting the road. He saw two kids—a little boy and a younger girl—throwing a baseball. The boy was shirtless and rail thin. The girl’s hair was chopped short in a way that told Michael either she took the scissors to her own hair or their parents couldn’t afford a proper haircut. Looking at the decrepit home nestled beneath scrawny long-needle pine trees, windows busted and taped over, he assumed the latter.

He passed another yard with a rusty deer stand lying on its side, like the long skeleton of some Mesozoic-era animal. Weeds sprouted so tall around the single-wide trailer that the windows and door were no longer visible.

After another mile of these sights, he came to the gates of the Ripley Orchard.

There was a call box out front. There were lion statues at the tops of pillars on either side of the gate. These rich people and their fucking lion statues, Michael thought, remembering similar displays of opulence he saw as a kid.

He pressed the button at the gate, receiving a burst of static and shrill feedback like bad audio at a concert. “Yeah?” It was an older-sounding woman’s voice. “Ripley residence.”

“Yes, ma’am. Special Agent Michael Webb with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. I’m here to talk about Lawanda Ripley.”

The woman said something in response, but it was drowned out by feedback. The gears beside the gate started up, and the colossal metal entryway swung slowly open.

The crunch of gravel on the driveway leading to the Ripley Orchard was the only sound as Michael navigated the winding path. Neatly aligned rows of pecan trees came into view as he rounded the first curve. Afternoon sunrays filtered through the canopy of rich green. Dust and bugs swirled like buzzing apparitions in the space between earth and sky. This winding driveway looked like something out of a storybook, Michael thought. He found himself mesmerized by the beauty of it.

To grow up in such a place, he thought, would be something he hoped no human being would take for granted. That Ripley girl sure was lucky having a homestead like this. But who knew? Some rich folks were even more dysfunctional than regular folks. Michael had seen domestic crimes take place in gaudy mansions and trailer parks alike. People were people, and just about everybody, rich or poor, had the capacity to do bad. Judging this place by the picture-perfect pecan orchard framed in the windshield of his Crown Vic—well, that wasn’t a fair assessment, was it?

He rounded a curve. The trail wound left and then right, the driveway grade going up and down at steep angles. He wondered what it would cost just to maintain a driveway like this. Summer storms would wash this gravel right down the hill. At about the half-mile mark, he spotted an equipment shed. A fat-tired tractor, John Deere green, backed up to the large outbuilding. A red contraption slightly larger than the tractor was situated beside it.

He spotted the home, finally, in the distance. Like the property preceding it, the house looked like it belonged in a postcard instead of a stone’s throw from the poverty-stricken South Georgia state highway he’d just come in on. With its immaculate white paint and green-shuttered windows, the home was a study in symmetry, built in the Greek Revival style. Four pillars propped up the porch. Six wooden rocking chairs were arranged between the pillars. With his rudimentary understanding of architecture, Michael recognized it as an antebellum home.

And…it was familiar.

He pulled his car forward in the roundabout driveway and put it in park—just enough time for his mind to make the connection. This was the same home illustrated inside Gloria Green’s Bible.

Michael got out of the car, swatting no-see-ums. One lodged in the corner of his eye, blurring his vision. He wiped it away. He pushed the door shut, staring at the abode and its central entrance. His eyes took in the wrought-iron latticework wrapping its way around the house. The porch was expansive, a cavernous gateway where Michael could imagine wealthy ghosts of old sipping tea and watching a summer day pass, taking in the orchard vista.

The front door opened. A woman stepped out. She said nothing, just stood there propping the door open. She scowled down at Michael. He got the sense this was her default demeanor. He also got the sense she was a housekeeper and didn’t enjoy her occupation. Hard lines from her steady glower matched worried creases over her eyebrows.

He walked up the steps, counting them. Yes, even the number of steps in the illustration matched this place. Everything about this house was the spitting image of its graphite counterpart on page 1089 inside the timeworn King James Bible belonging to Gloria Green.

“Hi, I’m Special Agent Michael Webb, with the Georgia Bureau—” he started.

“Come on,” the woman interrupted. She waved him inside. He crossed the porch, looking up at the haint blue of the porch’s ceiling—that color rumored to keep apparitions at bay. He felt the itch of a bug on his neck. He swatted it, a splotch of bright red on his palm, as he crossed the home’s threshold.

He entered the foyer, stepping upon a sun-faded crimson and cream woolen area rug. The smell of mothballs hit him. There were undertones of cleaning agents. Rubbing alcohol. Lemon-scented Lysol. Something sickly sweet too—an odor like the fake grape of kids’ cough syrup. There was a long staircase in the main living area. The place was outfitted like a museum: faded rugs with antiquated patterns, papyrus-thin curtains fluttering not from a breeze blowing in but from air pushed through retrofitted HVAC vents. A wide entrance hall led into the dining room with a long, oak table, twelve sturdy oak chairs, and china atop each placemat, glinting with golden floral patterns. The places for a dozen guests were set with polished sterling silver. Situated along the walls of every room was mid-nineteenth–century furniture: sofas, settees, and rich, refinished oak and cherry love seats in gaudy floral fabrics. The doors to each room were open, save for one—a giant mahogany door in the corner. Outside it, an antique glass cabinet with enough bottles of liquor to stock a restaurant bar.

Michael felt the way he always did when entering an extravagant home—like he didn’t belong. Like, no matter his station in life or social standing, he couldn’t shed the skin of poverty. Wealth made him uncomfortable. He felt that same discomfort now, following this woman up the long stairway.

This room was the source of the cleaning agent smells. An elderly man glared at Michael from a king-size bed in the corner. “Patrice,” he said. “Who is that? Is it time yet?”

“Mr. Ripley, this is Mr. Webb with the police,” she said.

Michael didn’t correct her. He nodded to Benjamin Ripley. Benjamin was skeletal, with deep pockets of sleeplessness beneath the eyes. His skin was a bluish-gray. His forearms were a tapestry of busted veins. A tube was inserted into his right arm, connected to a bag of liquid on a stand beside the bed.

“Mr. Ripley, I won’t bother you for long. I know this is a very stressful time,” Michael said.

“Who is this?” he asked the woman, arching an eyebrow.

She repeated the introduction.

“What do you want?” he asked Michael.

“I’m here about your daughter. I’ve got some questions.”

Benjamin squinted at him.

“Do you have any idea what she was doing in Haynesville?”

“Which daughter?”

“Lawanda.”

“Who knows with that one.”

“Did she mention having any friends in Haynesville?”

“Where’s Haynesville?”

“It’s an hour north of Atlanta. Do you have any relatives in that area? Someone she might have been staying with?”

“Patrice, I need my morphine,” he said. “Is it time yet?”

“Now, Mr. Benjamin,” Patrice said. “You’ve got two more hours still. We don’t want you to overdose. We don’t need you checking out on us before it’s time. This man is trying to find out where Lawanda went. Can you focus for a minute?”

“Who knows where she went this time. Where she went the time before that,” Benjamin said, shouting now. “That girl’s wild! I stopped keeping track. Enough to drive a man crazy. I did all I could. Soon as she was a teenager, I lost all control of her.”

“We’ve got reason to believe that she could be in danger. I need you to think. Any connection to North Georgia that—”

“Connection, yeah, now you’re talking. Drug connection. You didn’t hear it from me, but she’d be safer in jail anyway. I’ve had enough of that girl’s bullshit. I don’t care anymore. She can break her old man’s heart all she wants.”

“The person she was last seen with was also from the Valdosta area. Mason Green. Sound familiar?”

Benjamin cleared his throat, seemingly ignoring the question. “When I say I want something done around here, I want it DONE!” he shouted. “Where is my morphine?”

“What about Gloria Green?” Michael asked.

Benjamin’s mouth opened, stumbling on the first syllable. He looked Michael up and down. Jaw clamped shut, eyes focused on the man standing before him. He sat up straighter in the bed. Twin frown lines appeared like exclamation marks between his eyebrows. Saying Gloria’s name had had a similar stupefying effect on the Lowndes County sheriff.

“Ring a bell?” Michael asked.

“I’m in pain, Patrice! Fuck two hours. I am in pain. Capital P! I want my morphine.”

“Is Mrs. Ripley in today?”

“She’s upstairs, not feeling well,” Patrice replied, without taking her eyes off Benjamin.

“I’ll find my own way out.”

Patrice started to follow Michael out. Benjamin grabbed her by the wrist. She leaned down, listening as he whispered something into her ear. Michael continued out the door. He walked down the hallway, seeing several framed photos on the wall: the Ripley family, their two daughters teenaged in one picture and toddlers in another. Benjamin Ripley’s smile was odd. It was all wrong for a family portrait, Michael decided. It looked like the kind of big showy grin you’d see in a political campaign ad or commercial instead of an earnest, heartfelt smile among family. It was the smile of an actor—perhaps even more that of a great pretender. Zeroing in on one of the photos, Michael noticed similar smiles mirrored by the mother, Paulette, and their other daughter, Patricia. Not on Lawanda’s face though. She had a sincerity about her smile. She seemed to possess an innocent air, even in the photos from her teenage years.

Michael headed toward the living area and front door. He heard the footsteps of Patrice hurrying to catch up. He turned, offering a parting wave. “I’m good. Thanks for your help.”

Patrice stopped, standing between Michael and the large mahogany door, her body and sad expression doubled in the glass antique cabinet at her side. Rows of clear and brown liquor bottles like a silent audience. “Drive safely.”

Everything about this visit had felt wrong—the reaction from Benjamin to questions about the Greens and the man’s lack of emotion with regard to his own daughter’s disappearance. The only thing Michael had really learned was that the Gloria Green angle needed closer inspection. It wasn’t a coincidence that, when uttered, the woman’s name had the ability to silence the only two men he’d interrogated. If she was still around, Gloria was going to be his next visit. And if she wasn’t, then he’d go looking for anybody that knew her. She was the key to this. He felt it more than knew it. Michael’s instincts were time-tested and served him well. They hadn’t failed him once in his law enforcement career, and he wasn’t about to change course now, on the biggest, highest-profile missing persons case of his lifetime.

He exited the mansion, walking down the porch steps. He counted them again as he descended, visualizing the pencil rendering of this home inside the Gloria Green Bible. At the bottom, he paced out a few more steps. He turned and looked at the home in its entirety. As he examined its exterior, his mind continued to pick apart the past few minutes. What had Benjamin whispered to Patrice? Did it have something to do with that large mahogany door? Why was it shut, and why had she stopped right there in front of it, a human shield? His powers of deduction told him there might be something of interest behind that door. His instincts positively screamed it.

As he gazed toward the home, something startled him—a face appeared suddenly in an upstairs window, looking right at him. It was the face of a ghost. The pale skin, bug-like, haunted eyes, cheekbones pushing through the skin itself. It was the face, he decided, of Paulette Ripley—or what had become of Paulette Ripley. The face as it was now, not how it used to be. There was no kind way to say it—she was absolutely terrifying in her emaciation. She did indeed look sick. Patrice wasn’t lying about that. Michael waved. Paulette shrank from the window, vanishing like the apparition she appeared to be.

Michael walked to his car, remembering the faces in the window on the pencil sketch inside Gloria Green’s Bible. He reached over to the passenger seat, picking up the Bible. He flipped it open, fingers finding the page he’d bookmarked. There it was. His eyes lifted above the pages, examining the real thing. There was no doubt this was the same house—the treeline surrounding it, the front yard shrubs, the porch, and the rocking chairs—it was like looking in a mirror reflection at the mansion.

This wasn’t quite the artist’s vantage point though, was it? Michael walked toward the right side of the house. He approached the wood line on one side of the home and decided it was right here—or close enough—that Mason Green had sat with a pencil to sketch out his rendition of the Ripley mansion. Michael noticed a break in the seemingly impenetrable tangle of pine trees, palmetto fronds, and thick lantana shrubs. His heart quickened. It looked like an old trail. Could be something made by deer, but he didn’t think so. It was wide. He looked into the woods, squinting through the thick, twisting flora.

A smell suddenly drifted his way—curdled milk. He turned his head slowly, following the scent. A pale, trembling woman was just inches away—Paulette Ripley. A paper-thin, faded nightgown draped her upright corpse-like body, billowing in the breeze. Skin and bones. Thin lips stretched across yellow teeth in an unsettling smile. Cheekbones jutted prominently, giving her eyes a cavernous, sunken appearance.

“Shuck rot,” she said, licking her lips.

“Mrs. Ripley,” Michael said. “I didn’t even hear you coming.”

“Makes the insides all soft, squishy.”

“If you’ve got a minute—”

“Those pecan trees got the disease. They were gonna infect all the rest of them. So we cut them off from the rest. All you can do. We let the woods grow wild all around—all the while, the disease is twisting limbs, scorching leaves. All that’s left is rotten fruit. Nothing to harvest but sick. It spreads.”

She reached out, taking hold of his hand. Her skin was white, with wormy blue veins slithering along the backs. Her fingertips, with their chewed red cuticles and shredded fingernails, scratched his hand. He took an involuntary step away from this withering shell, its teeth bared in a maniac grimace. As she came closer, he could feel her breath on him—spoiled milk and spearmint. He felt sorry for her, but she also frightened him. She appeared to be the walking embodiment of illness.

“Mrs. Ripley, Lawanda is missing. Did you know that?”

“Lawanda has been missing for a long time now,” Paulette Ripley said.

“We have reason to believe that there’s someone else involved. Someone else from Valdosta. He goes by the name Clutch, but his real name—”

“Lawanda was the one gave us so much trouble, you know. She wasn’t happy. Even though she had every privilege you could imagine. Set up like a princess here in the pecan orchard, with anything she could ever want. And she was still unhappy.”

“I want to find your daughter, but I need your help. Do you know the name Mason Green? Or Gloria Green?”

Static erupted suddenly from the two-way radio on his belt.

It was Agent Emerson, mid-sentence: “—and two of the teenagers from the bus have been located. Alive and well but dehydrated. A little confused.”

Michael held up his hand in a “give me a minute” gesture to Mrs. Ripley. She was already shrinking away, though, drifting back toward her house. As Michael listened to Agent Emerson on the two-way radio, he watched Mrs. Ripley float off, calves like twin sticks beneath the fluttering nightgown as she made her way to the porch of the mansion.

Michael jogged to his car. “What’s their 10-20 right now? Can I still catch them?”

Agent Emerson continued, “Just north of Valdosta. Cook County Sheriff’s Office. It’s the twin girls. They were trying to hitchhike their way back home. A deputy recognized them and picked them up. Their family’s on their way now. Driving down from Haynesville. But you’ve got a couple hours with them. They’re pretty shook up, from what I’m hearing.”

“I’m heading that way. Tell me everything.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Nobody slept.

Terry shared a bus seat with Lawanda. He embraced her like a young child clinging to his mother. He’d been operating in some sort of trance. He wasn’t talking anymore. Lawanda didn’t blame him. With an arm draped around the boy, she stared out the window at the huddled silhouettes of Kacie and Phil in the soft glow of dawn. Kacie crouched in the dirt at Phil’s side. The boy had been tied around the waist to a tree. The night before, Clutch used ropy vines from the forest to do the job. Phil wore only jeans, his shirt wrapped tightly around his lower leg and, even in the early morning light, Lawanda could see dark blood soaking the garment.

The forest was already awake as the sun peeked through the trees. The din of birdsong and other sounds of nature seemed all wrong. These noises were meant to welcome an optimistic new day. The avian warbling and whistling this morning out in the woods felt instead like something dreadful. The sounds would soon awaken Clutch, who’d spent the night fading in and out of sleep, if the sporadic snoring sounds were any indication. Twice overnight, Lawanda had started in his direction, thinking his slumber heavy enough for her to take the gun from his belt without awakening him.

He started snoring again now. If she could walk up the aisle quietly enough, Lawanda thought, she could take the gun away from him, point it, and blow his brains out. Self-defense. No argument there. Hell, she’d be a hero for killing this man. He’d shot an innocent child, after all.

Lawanda strode toward the front of the bus. She could see Clutch’s face in the big rectangular rearview. His mouth hung open in a sure-enough sleep mask if ever she saw one. It gave her confidence, and she walked quicker now, feet padding soft as possible on the metal bus floor. She was barefoot, helping her stealth. The rubber-padded, skidproof mat on the floor felt cold against her skin. Her entire body shivered as she neared him.

The big .45 Smith & Wesson rested on his hip in a holster. Her own father had been a gun fanatic. He had all the different kinds. Smith & Wesson, Glock, even one of those James Bond guns—a Walther PPK. He kept them all in a big safe inside his office—a whole container filled with pistols, rifles, and a shotgun. The shotgun, he’d told her, was for “shoot first, ask questions later.” He never got the guns out to show her and her sister unless he was really drunk, which was, now that she thought about it, a bit terrifying.

In all the times her father had shown her and Patricia his arsenal of weapons and all the times he’d demonstrated the safety feature of a pistol, it was an idiotic wonder she’d not realized her error the night before when turning the gun on Clutch. This long nightmare would have been over with the flip of a little safety switch.

She was close now. Close enough to hear heavy breathing between ragged snores. She was close enough to see imperfections and blemishes on the skin of his forearms. She was close enough to see the crudely inked, tattooed tail of something slithering out his shirt sleeve, onto his big bicep.

She touched the black rubber grip of the .45 pistol. Her fingers moved, wrapping their way around the studded ridges. With her other hand, she eased her index finger beneath the snap button that released the weapon. It would be like an alarm going off the moment she undid it. She breathed quietly, closing her eyes.

Clutch continued to snore.

Her hands shook. She couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the moment. Maybe it was that little sip of alcohol she took the night before, reawakening addiction. She didn’t know. But right here and now, her own body betraying her, Lawanda resolved she’d see this man dead. Opening her eyes, steadying her hand, watching Clutch’s chest rise and fall, she thumbed the button, applying pressure.

His hand came down hard on top of hers. “Good morning.”

She jumped. She pulled at the weapon. Clutch laughed, pulling her toward him with one hand against her entire body weight. Moving both her hands off the gun and the holster, Clutch brought the sole of one of his big shoes against her torso, pushing her backward. The world tilted, and Lawanda’s head crashed hard against the door of the bus, partially opening the door with the force of her fall. Her backside landed hard on the bus steps. Shooting pain went through her back. Darkness clouded her vision for a moment. She looked up to see Clutch, pulling the big mechanical arm that opens the door of the bus. She fell backward out of the bus, landing on her back. Lawanda stared up at the tree canopy above, sobbing and whispering softly, “I’m going to die out here.”

Making matters worse, those happy, chirping birds wouldn’t shut the fuck up.

Clutch got out of the seat and descended the bus steps. He approached Lawanda. He leaned down. “I’m sorry, sister. Didn’t mean to push so hard. You all right?”

“Go to hell,” she said, kicking at his leg.

He turned his back to her, stretching. He unzipped his pants, pissing beside the front passenger-side tire of the bus. She was close enough for his urine to splatter her arm. She rolled away, disgusted. Zipping up his pants, he turned around and looked at Lawanda. He looked behind her, where she could hear Phil groaning in pain and Kacie whispering reassurances to him.

Clutch pulled a flask out of his back pocket, taking a sip. He squinted at the trio. “Today’s the day, y’all. The Promised Land awaits. Praise God. Holy be His name.”

Kacie watched Clutch put the flask away. She remembered he had more whiskey stashed somewhere inside his bag and wondered how much he had left. She filed this question away for the moment and turned toward Phil. The bullet wound in the calf of his left leg hadn’t fully stopped bleeding. She began to swirl in a haze of pulsating anxiety that was like a stimulant to her system. Her mind felt like a steel trap, her body capable of anything. All her senses had come alive in a way that she’d never experienced. She felt like she could charge Clutch and take that gun right off his hip—something Lawanda had unsuccessfully tried to do just moments earlier. Kacie had seen her through the bus windows. But she wouldn’t test her luck right now.

Phil groaned. A bead of sweat raced down his forehead. Kacie wiped it away with a wadded T-shirt. “Is it worse?” she asked.

He nodded, opening his eyes. “It burns. I don’t wanna die.”

She carefully unwrapped the blood-soaked shirt fixed firmly on his leg. “You’re not going to die. I’m here for you. I’m just gonna take a look. Then we’ll wrap it right back up. Hold still.”

He winced, groaning again, as she pulled the last of the fabric from the skin, the sticky, coagulating blood like dried glue. The bullet hole in the back of his calf, where it had entered, was clean. It was a perfect circle-shaped void of flesh punched neat as can be in the meat of his leg below the calf muscle.

It was the exit wound on the front of his leg that scared her. There were yellow-white bone splinters sticking out of his shin, surrounded by a much larger and less symmetrical hole in his leg. She heard Phil gulp loudly, mouth working. She pushed down on his sneaker to keep his leg still as she rewrapped the leg, tight as she could. “I’m going to get us out of here, and we’re going to find a hospital,” she whispered.

“Are we ready for the last leg of our road trip?” Clutch asked. “Pun intended.”

“He needs water. We need a hospital.”

“In time,” Clutch said, placing a meaty hand on her shoulder.

She shrugged it off. “You could drop him at an emergency room somewhere. There’s got to be something close. He can’t go any farther. He needs a doctor. The wound needs to be disinfected.”

“Children, I hope you know I don’t want to hurt you. I never meant for that bullet to hit you, Brother Phil. I was trying to warn you, praise God. I was trying to tell you that you can’t run from God’s plan. We’re so close to our redemption, to the very place, the very crucible,” Clutch said. The smile that lit up his face told Kacie she’d been wrong about this man from the start. She’d thought he was a snake oil salesman. She’d thought he was some sort of redneck, hocking religion as a cure-all, just like that creepy Pastor Avalon who’d duped dozens into thinking Holy Ghost fire was something they could harness like hillbilly superheroes.

She’d been wrong about that. She’d been wrong because the look in this man’s eyes, the hopeful smile, the energy emanating as he talked so optimistically about God’s plan and rebirth and plans of divine origin…

He believed it all. Every word. And that made this man dangerous.

The idea made her angrier with Pastor Avalon than anybody else.

She remembered it like it was yesterday: the Wednesday night youth group meeting when they first met Clutch. They’d been gathering in the sanctuary with the rest of the congregation on Wednesdays until Pastor Avalon dismissed them one evening to retreat to a separate part of the church. Upon entering the room with Phil, Terry, the twins, and several others, Kacie smelled fresh paint. The walls had been brightly adorned with purple and neon green splashes of color. A Bible verse, Ezekiel 37:11, was stenciled painstakingly in black lettering on the far end of the room. The words God is AWESESOME (misspelled, she noted) on the other end.

A man she didn’t recognize stood, arms akimbo, behind a music stand as the group slowly entered the renovated, repainted room. The man smiled at her with crooked incisors. The smile was stupid, Kacie thought. The smile of a slack-jawed fool—the only idiot who’d be willing to join ROC alongside Pastor Avalon, with his grease-slick hair and suggestive smiles.

“Ladies and gentlefellas,” the man said, clearing his throat. “Call me Clutch. I’m here to bring the Holy Ghost fire. I’m here to lead you through the wilderness into the Promised Land.”

Pastor Avalon had trusted this man to influence the young people in his congregation. He’d entrusted this man to intrude upon the lives of teenagers. It was as wholly unforgivable as anything that old man could flip through the Bible and point out. Putting their lives in danger the way Pastor Avalon had by letting this madman take the wheel was nothing short of a mortal sin.

Clutch clapped his hands together enthusiastically. Phil had lost consciousness for a moment but now jumped, seeing Clutch descend the bus steps. Clutch said, “This is the day that the Lord has made!”

He lumbered toward Kacie and Phil. Kacie balled her fist as he approached. With her other hand, she scooped a handful of dirt, ready to plunge it into the man’s eye sockets. Clutch walked past her. He pulled a knife from his pocket, flicking his wrist in a swift motion that produced the blade. Clutch cut Phil’s binds. He grabbed the boy by the torso. He picked Phil up, hefting the teen over his shoulder like he weighed nothing. Phil cried out.

Clutch slammed the bus door shut using the mechanical arm, eyeing the rearview mirror to make sure all the little precious sheep of the flock were docile. He merged onto the interstate. He all but stood on the accelerator, seeing black smoke belch in the bus’s wake. Cars flew past, the drivers in them giving him angry looks. That was all fine and good with him. Less chance for the kids and Lawanda to be tempted to try and alert passersby to what they might perceive as their peril even if it was their salvation. Praise God.

The voice of God broadcasted on a clear frequency, no static at all, as he navigated Interstate 75. He could feel the presence of that singular voice in his head. Gone were the demonic chidings, the din of crowd chatter, and the belittling shouting that so often plagued the wide-awake reality of his mind. God’s voice vibrated through his very being while his hands steered the Purple People Eater as if on autopilot. The closer they got to the destination, the clearer that booming voice became, saying one thing only: Farther.

Go farther on—to the Promised Land, he thought. That’s where this path ends. It ends at the beginning. The beginning is the end. Birth and rebirth on the same plot of soil, and taking out the one who’d brought so much pain into his life and the lives of God knew how many others.

Clutch would find Leviathan and plunge the Lord’s sword of vengeance into him and any who dare stand in his righteous path.

He spotted an exit sign with the logos of several gas stations and fast food spots (thanks, Chamber of Commerce) but decided it was too busy. He was looking for a one-gas-station exit. Fewer folks the better, for obvious reasons. But first, he wanted to put some miles on the odometer. Close the gap a bit more between here and the Promised Land. They were close now, so close he could almost taste all the blood he was going to spill once they arrived.

CHAPTER ONE

Thirteen-year-old Mason Green fastened trotlines around the trunks of two long-needle pines, feeling the breeze coming off the cool waters of the little lake. He walked back into the woods.

The lake belonged to somebody else, but this little island—Comanche Island, he’d named it—was his. Had been for as many cold nights and cold mornings as he could remember, shivering through the fall and winter months in the shelter he’d built for himself here. The lake had fed him. It had given him boundaries all his own between himself and the thing that had happened before.

Mason picked up his Bible from a stump inside the crude lean-to he’d fashioned from deadfalls and saw palmetto fronds. The lean-to abutted an outcropping in the earth that provided shelter from the elements. He flipped to Philippians 4:19, reading aloud. Quietly, but aloud: “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

He eyed the lake. God and nature, he thought. Sometimes, it felt like they were one and the same. It was one of the many thoughts he had, which he quickly scribbled in the margins of his momma’s Bible. He had thoughts like these many a calm morning here on his island. Comanche Island.

Mason tended his fire. Springtime mornings were still cool enough that the flames of his little fire were a welcome warmth. Using a poking stick, he prodded the foil-wrapped catfish fillet balanced on two logs. He could hear its flesh crackling. He could smell the delicious scent of warm breakfast.

The sound of voices made him turn. He looked over his shoulder, eyeing the lake between tree trunks. He stood and walked toward the shore. He hadn’t seen a boat out for several days now. This lake wasn’t easy to get to. It was more of a glorified pond, truth be told. He didn’t think he was on Ripley property anymore. Must have been somebody passing through the woods. Or he’d heard the voices of his own mind. Lately, he couldn’t tell the difference between the voices in his head and those of the world. They’d gotten louder since his mother’s passing.

Passing. That was a kind word for it.

He turned toward the curtain of pines and saw palmettos as he walked back up the hill. Approaching his camouflaged campsite, he nudged a foot against the bag of dirt he kept close to the firepit to douse the flames should someone approach. He didn’t want anybody to take this away. He’d found Heaven. He’d found the Promised Land, the one his momma had spoken about for so long.

As he used the poking stick to nudge at breakfast, Mason thought about his momma. He thought about Leviathan. He thought about the time before the thing happened. And he thought about the night that it happened. The night that split his life in two. His life. Was that his life? It seemed like somebody else’s. It was almost unfathomable that such things had really happened to him.

Mason recalled his actions on that night. He had done precisely what his momma had told him to do when she left their tent to go out and meet Mr. Ripley. He had waited behind the trailer. He had tried to make himself invisible. He had heard Mr. Ripley’s lies, his mother’s words, and the voices inside his own head. He had gone into the woods and sprinted as fast as he could. And he had found the lake and the little island. But his momma never came to meet him, not in five minutes, not in a whole year.

He wiped his eyes, drying the tears with the back of his dirty shirt sleeve. He forced himself to stop thinking about this. About the thing he had seen. Remember what happened to Lot’s wife in Genesis? She looked back on the things of the past and…pillar of salt.

He plucked a sizzling catfish fillet from the foil, dropping it on a stump before him. Using his fingers, he picked flesh from the bones. He’d thought some more about the Ripley Orchard. Tonight, he was going back, like it or not. He needed supplies.

He stood, wiping catfish grease on his shirt. He walked around to the other side of his lean-to, getting the large chunk of foam he’d found. He hoisted it, walking it toward the lakeshore. He’d discovered it on the other side of the island weeks back, a piece from the underside of a boat dock that had floated away. He could swim to and from the shore on his little island, but if he was stealing equipment and food, he needed something he could use to float it back, especially if he found anything good to eat.

Mason squeezed through the narrow opening in the back of the equipment shed. His hands fumbled for the flashlight. Clicking it on, he beheld a world of possibility in the scattered tools and machinery. He spotted a lock-blade knife on a metal shelf. It was loose among other tools. He pocketed it, tiptoeing deeper into the shed. He passed by a shovel, gardening shears, multiple bags of fertilizer, and insecticides. He looked underneath a workbench. He got on his hands and knees, looking into low shelves. He opened a drawer…SQUEEAK. Mason winced. He pocketed a few other loose tools he figured nobody would miss and squeezed back through the place where he’d got in.

He walked through the orchard, making his way toward the Ripley mansion. He used the pecan tree trunks as cover, in case somebody happened to look out the windows. Mason crested the hill and spotted the home’s hulking shadow, its windows glowing in the darkness. He observed human forms moving in the windows. Like fish in an aquarium, he thought. Mason continued toward the house. He made his way to the right side of the home, where thick woods skirted the property. He was quiet as a ghost as he moved closer, the path illuminated by the lights shining from an upstairs bedroom. He glanced up, seeing a flash of skin in an open window. It was a naked body. He turned away instinctively at the sight of something he wasn’t supposed to see.

He entered the woods, finding the descending trail made by the Ripleys’ servants, Patrice and her husband, Harold—the path that he knew led down to the trash mountain. When Mason and his mom lived here in the tent trailer together, she’d told him how she’d snuck off and seen the excess of this wealthy family atop a mountain of trash in the woods. They’d dined together many a night on sealed bags of sweet rolls, tins of mashed potatoes, plastic containers of fried chicken. All of it good—just more than the Ripleys could apparently eat.

Underbrush beneath his shoes crackled as he stepped into the forest. He stopped. Curiosity got the better of him. Mason turned back toward the house and looked slowly up toward the window. He knelt in the saplings and pine straw, shrinking from sight as a teenage girl rushed past the framed, lighted view above. Curtains fluttered beside the open window. He saw her naked body clearly. She wore nothing except a towel wrapped on her head. His heart beat fast. He could feel the blood rushing in his ears. He knew this wasn’t something he should be seeing, but he didn’t move.

He waited. The teenage girl entered the space framed by the window again. From this vantage, he could see posters on her wall. One had a woman with a guitar and sunglasses giving a peace sign. There was a shelf beside the poster filled with colorful book covers and something that looked like red binoculars resting on top of the stack.

The girl stared out the window but not at Mason. Her focus lay over the orchard to his right. She was beautiful. Her face was likable in a way he felt but didn’t know why. His eyes scanned her breasts first and then to the rest of her body. It was the first time he’d seen a female naked.

She sing-songed, “Yes, Patti?”

Someone said something from farther away. The voice was coming from another room. “It’s in the closet…no, my closet,” said the Ripley girl with the towel on her head. He thought her name was Lawanda. He’d seen her on the property many times.

Mason heard another young female voice. Must be the younger Ripley girl, Patricia. Sometimes he’d heard Mrs. Ripley call the girl Patti.

“Is that all you’re packing?” she said, taking the towel off her hair. She turned and moved out of sight. “Well, first of all, you need the big suitcase. Not that one.”

His heart still beating like a bass drum, Mason started to get up. He wasn’t entirely hidden here, and it was dangerous. He felt almost glued to this spot though. He felt possessed by something outside his logic to remain right here, beneath the window eavesdropping and watching. He felt ashamed. Even still, he remained.

Lawanda walked over again, wearing a bra and panties now. “Mom said the shuttle bus is gonna be here at eight a.m. You better be ready. I’ll go to Citrus Grove without you. You’ll have to go with Dad on his boring business trip.”

“Shut up!”

“You shut up. I’m just trying to help you.”

So, they were leaving town. This opened all kinds of possibilities in his mind. Namely, it meant his visit to the trash mountain could wait until tomorrow. He didn’t have to creep through the woods tonight. That was a relief. As his mind wandered, Mason forgot himself for a moment and stood to go, stepping on a twig. It snapped. It was loud. So loud. Might as well have been thunder. He sprinted for the orchard, knowing he might be seen now but not wanting to get caught. He was afraid of what Mr. Ripley might do, but he also felt something else—shame. Shame for what he’d just seen, the naked girl in the window.

CHAPTER TWO

The next morning, after floating his foam raft again from Comanche Island to the main shore, Mason trekked through the woods back to the Ripley Orchard. He walked, thinking that while he loved his little island—and all the spiritual growth and healing that had taken place alone there these past few months—he couldn’t stay much longer. He’d spent the night praying about it. God had spoken; he was no longer safe this close to Mr. Ripley. Mason could no longer hide right under the nose of Leviathan.

Having overheard Lawanda and Patti the night before talking about going on vacation and Mr. Ripley leaving on a business trip, he couldn’t think of a better time than now to make his exit. He didn’t want to do it, but the time had come for him to flee. He must follow the path God had set for him. He must listen when God spoke.

He mapped it out in his head as he walked through the woods. First, he’d raid their home of supplies—enough food and necessities to get him somewhere far away. Once he got outside county lines, he could hitchhike a ways to put some distance between himself and this place.

Mason crouched at the edge of the wood line fronting the pecan orchard, listening and watching. The Ripley home was just over the hill. He emerged from the woods, keeping close to the forest as he quickly walked in that direction. Mason carefully, quietly, crested the hill. Mr. Ripley’s car, a big Cadillac, was gone, but his wife’s station wagon remained. Mason was at first disappointed before remembering one of the girls mentioning a bus picking them up for this morning’s trip. “Eight a.m.,” they had said. He looked toward the sky. The sun was high enough for it to be well past eight o’clock. Only question was whether their mom had gone with them. Of course she had. She was their mom.

Mason walked on, keeping close enough to the wood line to disappear if need be. The property was quiet. It was too early in the year for the orchard workers—the day laborers, like him and his mother—to be around. He approached the house, walking around the side. He walked over to the spot where he’d been standing the night before, outside Lawanda’s window. The window frame was cracked open, a small gap at the bottom where it hadn’t been sealed shut. He knew they did that sometimes in the spring to let in the fresh air.

Mason smiled, seeing it as divine intervention. He remembered seeing a ladder in the equipment shed. This was one of those God-winks his mom always used to talk about. The Good Lord making the impossible possible so that lambs might see and know when they’re walking in His path.

When God closes a door, He opens a window.

At first, the voice startled Mason. It was so abrupt. So loud. Then he realized it was the voice of his mother. It was as clear as if she were standing right beside him. Praise God. His momma was still with him, after all. Her voice drowning out the static of his mind—those disembodied echoes, laughs, and tunes spinning on a never-ending loop. Her voice was calming. It had the same effect on Mason as it would were she truly right beside him.

He walked to the equipment shed, still watching over his shoulder as he went. He started toward the back of the shed to the place where he’d slipped in the night before. Realizing he wouldn’t be able to get the ladder through that opening, he headed instead toward the front of the long building. There, he found a padlock on the door. He grasped it. Dummy locked. He smiled, twisting it open and swinging wide the big entrance.

When God opens a window, He opens a door.

“Thanks, Momma,” he whispered, entering the building. He found the ladder, hefted it through the opening, and walked back to the house.

Propping the ladder beneath Lawanda’s bedroom window—or what he assumed was her bedroom window—he climbed. When he got to the top, he took out the lock-blade knife he’d found the night before. No going back now, he thought. Before he could lose heart, Mason quickly slashed the screen in an X-pattern big enough to reach his arm through. He grasped the bottom of the frame, pushing upward. It didn’t budge. Mason dug into the ladder rung with his heels, thrusting upward. He felt his arms burn with the effort. The window squeaked open an inch. He pushed up harder, straining. It went up another inch—almost big enough to get through.

He gave it another big shove. The ladder beneath him shifted sideways, clattering to the ground. He gasped, grabbing hold of the bottom of the windowsill. He dangled there, collecting himself. His hold was not strong, his fingers slippery on the wood. There was about fifteen feet between Mason and the ground below. He struggled, pulling himself up. He crooked his arm around the bottom of the window. Using his foot, he found a hold beneath his sneaker, pulling himself up and squeezing his body into the narrow opening.

He landed inside the room, rolling onto his side. He stared up at the ceiling fan. A small, plush orange doll dangled from the fixture’s pull string. Mason sat up, taking in the room. The sweet fragrance of lotions, perfumes—those of a young girl’s bedroom—overwhelmed him. The smells were pleasant, like an olfactory embrace. The room felt lived in. Personal effects adorned the walls, hung from the ceiling. Shelves were stacked high with books. He spotted a pair of red binoculars on top of a stack of books, the ones he’d seen the night before while spying through the window.

He felt suddenly aroused at the memory of Lawanda. He also felt guilt. His heart beat rapidly in his chest. He reached out for the red binoculars. The word ViewFinder was embossed across the front of them. There was a flat, white disc with tiny, multicolored squares slid into the center of the binoculars. An orange knob stuck out the side of them. He pushed it down, and the device made a clicking noise.

Curious, he raised the binoculars to his eyes. Inside was a picture of the entrance to Citrus Grove. The photo looked real, like he could reach out and touch the people waving at the gate, run his hand along the metal of the cars, feel the warmth of Florida sunshine on his shoulders. He’d seen photos of the iconic entrance to Citrus Grove in the cheap souvenir shops off I-75 where his mom sometimes let him pick out a present for Christmas. But the photos at the gift shops were nothing like this.

His finger found the orange knob, pushing it down again. The device made a clunky, choking sound. The disc inside turned. The photo changed to one that featured somebody dressed in an orange character outfit, waving from the conductor’s seat of an old-timey choo-choo train. He’d seen this postcard before, too, in the souvenir shop, with accompanying text: Orange You Glad You Climbed Aboard the Orange Express!?

He pushed the knob again, seeing within the ViewFinder the giant triangle of steel and glass that towered 100 feet over the amusement park, housing Cosmic Ascent, the theme park’s flagship ride. Mason lay down on the bed, atop a pink-blanketed, plush mattress that was twice as big as the one he and his momma used to share in the tent trailer. Feeling the feathery but firm give of the mattress, he realized it was twice as comfortable too. He continued flipping through slides in the ViewFinder, eyes growing heavy with the comfort of it all. He’d never lounged on anything this soft. His eyelids felt weighted down.

He pushed the knob, seeing all the Citrus Grove attractions one by one: the Lenny Lemon Drop, Princess Valencia’s Castle of Wonder, and the Wahlahatchee Springs Mermaid Encounter. He remembered all the attractions from their postcard likenesses in the souvenir shop. Seeing these photos that seemed to reach right out of this magical toy made the place seem real.

His eyes closed. His breathing fell into that relaxing pattern just before drifting off, when he heard his mother’s voice whispering in sing-song, like a lullaby.

A dem bones dem bones gonna walk all around,

I hear the word of the Lord.

Sleep came like a sweet good-night kiss from his momma.

The sound of crunching gravel awakened Mason.

He jumped out of bed. The red ViewFinder clattered to the floor as he sprinted to the window. He peered out toward the driveway. A patrol car made its way toward the house. Mason jerked his head back inside the window. The crunching sound ceased. The engine died. The car door opened. A million thoughts raced through Mason’s mind as he considered what to do. With the ladder down on the ground, he’d have to jump. It was a long fall though. He might break something. Then again, it beat the alternative.

Thunking car door. Gravelly footsteps. Mason silenced his breath. If a policeman saw the open window and the ladder laying on the ground beside the house, this whole thing was going to skyrocket. He’d been careful, hadn’t he? Nobody had seen him enter the home. No neighbors within miles of the Ripley Orchard. Nobody to witness him breaking and entering. Unless Mrs. Ripley had been home after all? Shoot. He’d just assumed she wasn’t. Who sends their kids to a place like Citrus Grove all alone?

He listened carefully, hearing the jingle of keys on the porch. Strange, he thought, that a deputy sheriff would have keys to the Ripleys’ house. The cops must be even better friends with Mr. Ripley than Mason thought. Even more reason not to get caught. Never get caught. Get out of this county and never come back. He heard muffled voices downstairs.

“Hello?” It was a man’s voice. He wasn’t sure, but it sounded like Dale, the deputy who was friends with Mr. Ripley. The cop who’d come out to Mason and his momma’s tent trailer drunk sometimes. Mr. Ripley’s drinking buddy, his momma had said, which was all she’d ever said about him. She never did explain what they were doing there or why Dale wanted her to leave with him and Mr. Ripley.

“Paulette? You here or what?” Mason could hear thumping and tapping on hard floors beneath him. “There you are,” said the man downstairs. The woman said something in response. Mason pressed his right ear against the wall so he could hear her voice a little better.

“Thought I heard something outside earlier,” the sleepy female voice said. “Scared the shit out of me. Must have been dreaming.”

“Dreaming about me?” Dale asked.

Mrs. Ripley said something in response. Mason lay on the floor, putting his ear to the carpet. He knew he should leave but found himself transfixed, just as he had outside Lawanda’s bedroom window the night before. Seeing and overhearing things he wasn’t supposed to was a thrill he’d never experienced.

“You get to hearing things all alone in this creepy old house, you just call me up. Anytime,” Dale said. “But make sure you’re naked for me when I get here.”

There was about a minute of silence. Mason started to get up. Then Mrs. Ripley called out, “Oh God. Yes!”

Mason was confused by what he heard. She sounded like she was in pain but also like she was happy. “I want it!” she shouted.

There was a knocking sound against the wall, getting faster and faster. Mrs. Ripley began shouting, “Harder! Harder!”

Mason sprang from the floor and scurried to escape. He swung his right leg over the windowsill. Then he spotted the red ViewFinder on the floor beside the bed. He retreated back into the room and grabbed it and a few of the white discs. The noises downstairs had stopped. He shoved his newfound treasures into his pockets and scrambled out the window. In his haste, Mason lost his grip and fell out the window.

He landed on his side. The impact knocked the wind out of him.

He lay there, trying to catch his breath. Suddenly, the squeaky hinges of the front porch door swung open. No time to linger. He saw stars, fighting to get up on his feet. His legs were shaky. Still feeling lightheaded, he steadied himself and dragged the ladder into the woods just out of sight. A sharp, piercing pain shot through his side. He entered the wooded trail, cautiously diving behind a felled oak tree off to the side of the path. He quieted his breathing, listening. He heard the hiss-snap of a drink can popping open. Crunching and cracking beneath sneakers.

Peering carefully from behind the log, Mason saw the deputy coming his way. He held a can of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Dale approached the trail entrance but stopped just shy of the woods. He saw it, Mason thought. He saw the ladder. And if he kept walking, he’d see the slashed window screen and open window.

Dale cleared his throat. He farted. He fumbled a lighter out of his pocket, lighting the cigarette. He exhaled smoke and entered the trail into the woods. Dale walked the path close enough the boy could have reached out and grabbed him by the ankles.

A dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones.

The voice inside Mason’s head was so loud it startled him—his mother’s words so close to his ears he could all but feel her breath.

Now I hear the word of the Lord.

As Dale continued down the path, past Mason, his mother’s voice in his ear sounded like a scratched record skipping. He watched Dale stop at a clearing not too far away. There was an outbuilding and a couple of old, stray pecan trees beside it. Mason lay close to the ground and the fallen log, watching the deputy from behind a couple large limbs.

“Miss Gloria,” Dale said, taking a long sip of beer. He dropped the can on the ground. Mason’s ears perked up at the mention of his mother’s name.

Dale unzipped his pants, urinating on the ground. “Came to pay my final respects,” he said, chuckling.

Mason’s whole world went wobbly. His mind reeled. What did the deputy mean by this? He knew, of course, but his boyish innocence couldn’t seem to mold the thought into a truth. The final scream of his mother echoed in his mind, and Mason found himself feeling woozy. The revelation short-circuited every prior thought and feeling on the matter—every attempt at burying his head in the sand—lighting a long fuse inside his mind.

He hadn’t gone looking for his momma or her final resting place. Mason had buried that night, the thing, all his memories deep inside him. All of it had little more consequence than a nightmare from which he had awoken long ago. All that Mason had left from that night was his mother’s voice singing in his ear, wringing out his pain.

But here now, in this place, evidence in the dirt that what had happened wasn’t one of his night terrors. It was real. All of Mason’s senses were awakened. His tears flowed freely. It was the most he’d cried since the night of his mother’s murder so many months back. It felt good to cry. He wiped the tears as he watched Dale zip his pants back up, flick his cigarette to the ground, and stomp it out. The deputy turned and walked back up the trail, passing Mason in silence.

Mason cringed as he watched Dale exit the trail near the home. If he saw the slashed window screen or the ladder in the woods, Mason didn’t know what he was going to do. Run, he figured. That was his only plan. Run. Run and hide. That’s what he was going to do. That’s what he was best at—a skill he’d been perfecting all this time. And if he got out of this alive, he was going to run some more. And then hide some more.

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones.

Dale kept walking toward his patrol car, seemingly not seeing the slashed window screen above or the hidden ladder in the underbrush. Mason sighed relief as he heard the patrol car’s engine rumble to life and the gravelly crunch fade as the vehicle disappeared back down the driveway.

Mason crawled out from behind the log, brushing pine needles off his pants. He looked toward the clearing where Dale had been standing. He walked over to it. The flora changed. Long-needle pines thinned out, replaced by the crumbling husks of old pecan trees. Bark hung in tatters from the trunks, which were miraculously still upright. Hollowed-out holes in the dozen or so tree trunks revealed a dark substance oozing from beneath the bark. A diseased orchard. Bulbous tumors studded the branches of every tree in sight.

Mason quietly made his way through the tired pecan trees, stopping to stand before the discarded beer can and stomped cigarette, still smoldering, a languid curl of smoke ascending from the urine-soaked dirt.

Studying the ground, he saw clear dimensions of where the earth had been disturbed. Tiny seedlings from busted pecan shells had begun to sprout. Little green plants unfurled like frozen inchworms upon the final resting place of his momma, Gloria Green.

Mason sat at the grave, raking fistfuls of dry earth with both hands as he wept. He cried like a baby. Salty tears pockmarked the dirt. They’d buried his mother in a failed orchard, just ten yards or so from the mountain of trash the wealthy family dumped in the woods.

He closed his eyes and, careful to avoid the urine-soaked soil, lay down beside the grave. He remembered nights when they’d sleep next to one another in the tent trailer. When the metal door thudded shut and the evening enclosed them and the night bugs bounced off the window screens, it was as if only two people existed in this world, Mason and his mother. She read him Bible verses. They’d sing Christian songs. They’d talk about where they were going to go when they won the lottery. How beautiful the house would be. The grand size of their own orchard. An orange grove with plump citrus as big as their heads to reach up and pluck from the sky.

He allowed his thoughts to drift in this way, situated at the grave of his mother, as the day faded into evening. When night came in full, he stood, brushing the dirt from his clothes. Quietly, he walked through the woods until he came to the end of the trail fronting the Ripleys’ yard. The house was mostly dark, except for a window glowing brightly on the bottom floor.

Mason stood in the shadows of pine trees, waiting patiently, thinking dark thoughts. He wondered about the kind of parents who would send their children off on a vacation without them. He pondered the type of mother who would stay at home alone to entertain the deputy, her husband away on a business trip, instead of spending time with her daughters. Mason had dreamed of going to Citrus Grove since he was six years old, when he had heard of the amusement park for the first time in his life. His mom told him, “One day.”

Always, “One day.”

The light on the bottom floor blinked off, and Mason made his way toward the house. He walked the perimeter, not really knowing what he was going to do. Still clutching the lock-blade knife in one hand and the ViewFinder in the other, he paced the property. The recessed pain returned, fresher now with the discovery of his mother’s grave. Walking was all he could do to stop his body from trembling with grief and rage. He circled the house three times, traversing the turf with a vague, unfamiliar desire to go inside the house and do something terrible. The ladder was still down here. The window was still open. He could retrieve the ladder, climb up, and slip inside easily. Only he and Mrs. Ripley were around. He stopped walking and flicked out the lock-blade knife. He liked the way it gleamed in the silver light of the moon.

Mason smiled for the first time since that night. He could do things tonight. He could make other things right. An eye for an eye.…As he hath done, so shall it be done to him.…Just as another has received injury from him, so it will be given to him.

The idea excited him. He felt the pull of revenge. He felt the allure. And, in this moment, Mason felt 100 percent capable of cold-blooded murder.

Ezekiel connected dem dry bones.

Instead, Mason turned, walking in the opposite direction of the home. He was compelled by that sing-song lullaby and his mother’s calming voice to go this way and continue on, through the front yard, up the hill, through the dark trunks of pecan trees in the orchard.

A dem bones dem bones…gonna walk all around.

He approached the equipment shed, taking hold of the big door. It was still unlocked. He eased inside, moving almost as if by instinct now. It was so dark in here, but he navigated it with ease, running hands along the wall, his fingers brushing the metal and wood and greased machine parts until he found the thing he’d been looking for.

He opened the door, exiting the shed, dragging the shovel behind him.

Now I hear the word of the Lord.

CHAPTER THREE

Leading her younger sister, Patricia, through the gates of Citrus Grove, Lawanda felt the oncoming buzz of the two painkillers she’d dry-swallowed half an hour earlier. It’d been several years since she and Patricia had been here. It was the first time they’d been here without their parents. The familiar scents of popcorn and confections pulled them onward as they stepped over the tracks of the Orange Express crossing. Gilly Grapefruit waved from a nearby curb, giant permanent smile plastered across the face of the costume’s hulking, disproportioned head. Lawanda waved. Patricia eyed the citrus character with an arched eyebrow. They continued on, walking in the general direction of Cosmic Ascent. The sunlight gleamed from its slanted angles. A mirror double of the ride shimmered in the waters of Wahlahatchee Springs beneath it like some mirage.

They navigated their way through the crowd and stood in line for the ride.

“Where do you wanna go after this? We got the whole weekend, Patti,” she said, unfolding a map of the park. “The Lenny Lemon Drop is right over there. Ollie Orange Adventure Zone…wait, that’s for little kids. Never mind. How about Princess Valencia’s Castle? That’d be fun.”

“Why are you talking so much?”

Lawanda smiled. The painkillers had her chatty. “I’m just excited, that’s all.”

“Aren’t you too old for all this? You’re a goddamn teenager.”

“Don’t cuss.”

“I’m just saying.”

After about fifteen minutes in line, they entered Cosmic Ascent.

Lawanda and Patricia got onto a boat together. They sat side by side as a staff member told them to fasten their seat belts. They lunged forward into a dark cavern. Spooky music played, complemented by the chirring of night bugs.

“This old swamp tells a story,” a booming voice announced from loudspeakers above. “It’s a story of growth and achievement. It’s an origin story…”

They listened as the narrator continued. Lawanda turned, looking back at the dark waters swirling and the boats following their same trajectory. She giggled, remembering the first time she rode this. Her mom had been with her, and she’d been frightened. She must have been six years old. It felt like a whole lifetime ago. “Patti,” she whispered. “If you get scared, you can hold my hand.”

Her sister shot her a side eye. “Are you serious?”

Before the end of the ride, Lawanda reached into her purse and dry-swallowed two more pain pills.

A few minutes later, standing in line for the Lenny Lemon Drop with Patti, Lawanda’s chest tightened and her legs felt like jelly. The entire amusement park was spinning. She felt queasy and clammy. She told Patti she was going to sit down for a moment, hastily planting herself hard on the ground. She couldn’t possibly be on her feet for another second in this Florida heat. Hard to catch a breath.

Patti squatted, eye level with Lawanda. “You don’t look good.”

Her sister’s words sounded distant. The uneasy feeling in her chest tightened. “Breathing ain’t easy,” Lawanda said, speaking the words rather than thinking them like she’d intended.

Everything felt so…well, floaty. Yes, that was the word. Floaty. Nothing weighed a thing here in this nice place. “Sweetest place on the planet,” she said aloud, as the world went totally dark.

Lawanda awakened to the sound of people talking. She was lying in a bed in a hospital, her sister beside her. Patricia hugged Lawanda, sobbing. She hadn’t heard her sister cry since she was a toddler. “They called Mom,” Patti sobbed. “The doctors said you had some kind of poison in your body. I thought you were gonna die, Sissy.”

Someone walked in the door.

“You’re very lucky,” said an older woman wearing a white coat and thick-rimmed glasses. Lawanda looked down at the sheets, smoothing them. She was so ashamed. She couldn’t believe she’d done something so stupid.

“Yes, ma’am,” she muttered.

“Those pills. Where did you get them?”

“I found them,” she said. “On the ground.”

The doctor arched her eyebrow in disbelief. She handed Lawanda a trifold pamphlet that said Hidden Dangers of Prescription Drugs.

Paulette Ripley burst frantically into the room. Her eyes all but bulged from her skull. Premature wrinkles looked more pronounced on her face and neck in the bright lights of this medical facility. She hadn’t bothered with her usual heavy makeup routine before going out of the house. She’d really rushed to get to the hospital. That thought made Lawanda happy. Her mom would be mad, and she’d probably ground her for life. But her mom cared about her, she thought.

The doctor introduced herself and explained how Lawanda was doing. She handed Lawanda’s purse to her mother. “We found the rest of the pills inside and disposed of them,” the doctor said, turning to Lawanda. “Honey, I’m sorry for going through your purse, but we needed to know what kind of drugs you’d taken to properly treat you. Hope you’ll forgive me.”

The doctor said goodbye and pulled the privacy curtain around them. Paulette Ripley approached the bed. She was biting down hard, grinding her teeth together. Her jowls shook with the effort. With no warning, she lunged at Lawanda and slapped her across the face. Lawanda shrank back into the pillows, shocked. Her father had struck her before, but never her mother.

Her lips quivered. A tear rolled down her cheek. Her mother stuck a threatening finger in her face, whispering, “Do you have any goddamned clue what this kind of shit could do to our family? To our business? Do you like the nice things you have? Do you like getting to go on trips to Citrus Grove? Well, guess what? The rest of your trip is now canceled, and you can spend the rest of spring break grounded. Now be quiet. No more tears. Nod if you understand me.”

Lawanda pulled the sheet up to her chin.

A nurse came in. Mrs. Ripley’s face transformed instantly—her frown becoming a sunny smile. “I’m just so glad you’re OK,” she said, her voice taking on a caring, compassionate tone. “Your father and I just wouldn’t know what to do if we lost you.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Michael Webb, fifteen, carried his nine-year-old sister to the Oldsmobile, her pretty, cotton-candy-pink dress that had fit to a T just six months back now swallowing her whole. She was asleep, limp in his arms, as he covered the short distance from the front door to the station wagon. His mom was asleep too. Even outside the house, he could hear her snores from the living room couch. She hadn’t been to work in two weeks now. There wasn’t a moment—except when she was sleeping—that she wasn’t drinking away what little money they had.

The inability to save Gracie’s life was now a foregone conclusion. The doctors he’d taken her to see over the past several weeks hadn’t said it with words. But they had with their eyes. He saw their bluffs. The instantaneous assessment of her condition and the too-quick smiles that foretold terrible things in the future for his baby sister. They used the phrase quality of life as they prescribed high quantities of painkillers for her.

He opened the car’s back door, maneuvering carefully to place her gently inside. Her body was frighteningly light now. She was practically a skeleton. There were moments when he saw just how bad it was, moments that penetrated that protective wall he’d built up just to function day to day—and this turned out to be one of those moments.

He laid her across the back seat, fastened the middle lap belt around her torso as best he could, and closed the door. After getting into the driver’s seat, he fastened his seat belt and held his breath as he cranked the engine. The car rumbled to life.

Twenty minutes later, his sister sat up in the back seat. “Where are we, Mike?” Gracie asked. “I hear people. And music.”

“We’re going back to the tent revival,” Michael said, as he lifted her out of the car and helped her stand. “Here, hold my shoulder.”

“The man with the snakes and the stricklin.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe this time it’ll work.”

They arrived at the tent, its glow lighting the forest all around. Michael heard the musical lilt of Pastor Mikey Avalon’s booming voice. He was quoting scripture: “And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves…”

Someone suddenly shrieked in a strange language. Gracie laughed, leaning on Michael. They walked inside, taking seats in a middle row of folding chairs.

“And he shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no harm,” Pastor Avalon continued. He reached down, hoisting the writhing burlap bag of snakes in the air. A line formed before the pulpit. Michael and Gracie waited patiently, inching forward in the line. A man sitting in a chair beside them started to snarl. He looked at Michael. His eyes drilled holes straight through him. Michael recognized the man. He’d seen him at the first service they’d attended months back. He’d been in the congregation—the first one to take the snake from Pastor Avalon. The man leaned forward in his seat, suddenly getting in Michael’s face. He hissed, placing a hand on Gracie’s shoulder. Michael’s mind went blank. He attacked.

Michael was on top of him, throwing punches before he even realized what he was doing. The man grabbed Michael by the shirt collar, pulling him in close, whispering into his ear, “Easy, kid. It’s just a gig.”

The man rolled away. He stood, blood trickling from his nose. “I am Legion!” he shouted.

Pastor Avalon rushed toward the man. “We have a demon, church. A demon!”

Michael understood. This man was playing a role. Pastor Avalon had stacked the deck. This wasn’t church; it was theater. Theater of the grotesque.

Pastor Avalon approached the “demon-possessed” man, winding up like a Major League Baseball pitcher and hurling an invisible fastball. The man fell to the ground, shaking. Michael had seen theatrics like this. Before his daddy left them, he’d sit on the couch drinking beer in the evenings, watching professional wrestling. Men in masks pretended to beat each other up. Their faces grimaced in caricatures of pain and excitement. This was like that.

“Young man. Young lady,” the pastor barked. “My little sheep. Let me pray for you.”

He nodded to Pastor Mikey Avalon, hating himself for it but desperate. He bowed his head, keeping an arm around his sister’s shoulders, as the pastor started to pray. The pastor placed a big sweaty hand on Michael’s forehead. He could feel the man’s sour breath in his face.

Michael opened his eyes just enough to see the two men in suits approaching.

The snakes.

He pulled Gracie in closer.

Pastor Avalon accepted a copperhead from one of the men, allowing it to twist around his forearm. “Accept the power. Accept the healing.”

The pastor lifted the snake over Michael’s head, placing it around his shoulders. It had a weight to it he hadn’t expected, as well as a shifting, disconcerting grace. Michael looked down, watching the snake’s body—golden, copper, and brown like dead leaves—moving. “Bless you, brother,” Pastor Avalon said, lifting the snake back over his head.

He turned to Gracie, placing the snake now on her shoulders. Michael kept his arm wrapped tightly around his sister as he watched the reptile slither along her collar bone, around her neck. Everything in his body told him to fling this serpent off his sister.

The pastor spoke more gibberish and took the snake from Gracie’s shoulders.

“My beautiful little lamb of God,” he said to her, smiling. “Would you care to take the strychnine?”

“She would not,” Michael said.

The pastor smiled. He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket, palming out a silver flask. He unscrewed the cap. He took a sip…and then another. “Ye of little faith, I’m only offering you and this young lady the healing power of God.”

“We’re not going to drink your goddamned poison.”

Gracie tugged at his sleeve. “I need to sit down.”

Michael helped her to one of the chairs. She collapsed into it, sliding down. Pastor Avalon rushed over, making a show of helping. Together, Michael and the pastor gently placed Gracie on the floor. One of the men in suits appeared with a small blanket, laying it across her pale legs. She closed her eyes, smiling as if in the middle of a sweet dream.

The pastor clapped a big meaty hand on Michael’s shoulder. “Young man, you take care of this little lamb of God. Heaven knows we need angels like this on earth, praise God.”

“They said you were a healer,” Michael said.

“Sorry?”

“That’s what they say in town. The man in the woods who can heal the sick.”

“Yes, God brings his healing power through this tent, yes. But sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways.”

“There’s nothing mysterious about it. My sister is dying of brain cancer. I brought her here to be healed six months ago. God didn’t help her then, and he’s not helping her now.”

“When God closes a door, he opens a window.”

Michael examined the man’s gaze. He stared at the big smile and the greasy black hair. He hated this man, this human parasite, this tentacled, lecherous leech bleeding dry the working-class with sideshow antics and the promise of that which could not be given. Michael smiled back. “You and your poison and your snakes and your God can take a flying fuck out that window.”

CHAPTER ONE

As he pulled out of the sheriff’s office parking lot, Michael Webb checked the voicemail on his mobile phone: twenty-six missed calls and eleven voicemail messages. He listened to the messages as he navigated the road. He didn’t know where exactly he was going, but he headed in the general direction of Valdosta. The interview of the missing twins from the youth group, Lisa and Brittany Wells, had been interesting, to say the very least.

The girls had recounted for Michael an episode two nights earlier in which Mason Green, who was now, by their own testimony, indeed the perpetrator in this kidnapping case, had marched them out of the purple bus at gunpoint while the rest of the passengers slept. According to the girls, he’d walked them to the edge of a highway. They weren’t sure where exactly, but they’d been picked up by local cops the next morning. Lisa and Brittany said Mason recited a Bible verse to them and told them to find their way home. He even pointed them in the right direction and gave them a half-gallon of water.

They’d told Michael during the interview that Mason parked the bus in the woods somewhere off the interstate. Their food supplies had been dwindling. They also described his tattoos—Pastor Mike Avalon’s description rang true—as, apparently, Mason had been roaming shirtless on the grounds of whatever makeshift campsite he’d set up.

The violence the girls described toward one of the youth group members, Phil Redding, made Michael’s blood boil and intensified his commitment to find Mason quickly. Apparently, the teen had been beaten and pistol-whipped by Mason for not following orders.

Driving down the same highway where the twins had been discovered, Michael listened to a voicemail from someone proclaiming Mason Green to have been sent by the devil. The caller offered his services as a “fully deputized prayer warrior” to assist Michael in his search for said perpetrator.

He deleted it.

The next voicemail was a prank call from two teenaged-sounding boys who took turns making fart noises into the phone receiver. Deleted.

Third and fourth calls were hang-ups that still registered as voicemails.

Michael sighed, turning onto the highway that led south to Valdosta, the same one Mason had marched the girls out to for their journey back home. The verse Mason recited to the twins before bidding them farewell was from the Gospel of John: Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

He deleted another voicemail from somebody breathing sexual moans into the receiver. The next voicemail message, however, caught his attention: “Mr. Webb, sir. Special Agent Webb. This is Alana Gutierrez. It said on the news this is the number to call. Mason Green was the person who murdered my son, Arty. Arthur Gutierrez. I can tell you all about Mason. He is a sick person. He thinks he’s some kind of man of God. And…there’s some stuff about his past that I could tell you. Maybe it would help. My son and I worked together at the Ripley Orchard with Mason and his mother, Gloria, a very long time ago. Back when Mason was a boy. Back before Gloria…disappeared.”

Michael quickly pulled over the Crown Vic, calling the number.

He found the trailer park on the northern outskirts of Valdosta. He steered his car down a narrow driveway between single-wide trailers, pop-up campers, and tent trailers. A couple of men eyed his car warily. They went swiftly back inside one of the trailers, looking over their shoulders. The unmarked Crown Vic had that effect on people, especially in poor neighborhoods like this.

He spotted Alana Gutierrez’s trailer on a weed-choked corner of the property, overlooking a retention pond. Her home and several others were shadowed by a hulking billboard for Ripley Pecans.

TRY OUR WORLD-FAMOUS RIPLEY NUT ROLLS…

OPEN 24/7

He got out, walked over, and knocked. Alana opened the trailer’s cheap, squeaky metal door. She gestured for Michael to enter. He noticed the sweat on her forehead. A broom and dustpan propped beside an island kitchen counter. Bottles of bleach and Lysol by the sink. She’d been cleaning. She probably didn’t get much company out here. Underneath the scent of cleaning agents, he noted the sweet, pungent odor of unsmoked tobacco. Snuff, specifically, he thought. He knew the smell. His dad used to dip snuff when Michael was a boy. He’d dip snuff and drink beer and watch wrestling in the living room before he’d left them all in a lurch.

Ms. Gutierrez’s home had the feel of a single working mom’s domicile. There was a chaotic but functional atmosphere that he recognized. Though her son had been dead for a long time, the trailer still retained that maternal feel.

“You want some coffee?”

Michael shook his head. “No, thank you.”

“You sure? I just made a fresh pot.”

To be polite, he accepted. Michael watched as she reached up into the kitchen cabinet, fumbling down two coffee cups. She had a kind smile but a jittery demeanor. Ms. Gutierrez was slightly heavyset and looked to be in her late fifties. Maybe early sixties with a youthful face. She appeared to be Mexican, but her voice had no discernable accent.

“Cream and sugar?”

Michael shook his head again.

She gestured for him to have a seat on a tattered couch in the living room. She sat across from him in a recliner, placing their steaming mugs on a coffee table before them. Michael’s cup featured a time-faded Citrus Grove logo.

“Mason was odd,” she began. “Nothing was right about that boy, even before his momma disappeared. He used to stare at the sky. He’d be walking around, talking to himself. Always getting in the way. Always reading that Bible of his. We all just thought he was weird. Didn’t realize he was mentally ill. Having a mother like Gloria Green couldn’t have helped.”

“Tell me about Gloria Green, Ms. Gutierrez.”

“You can call me Alana. Well, she was Benjamin Ripley’s favorite,” Alana said. “Most of us tree shakers, we’d come and go. You’d work the Ripley Orchard one year, then you wouldn’t come back for two or three seasons. But she and Mason were always there—even stayed there year-round in that little tent trailer. That was very unusual. And there were rumors.”

She drank a big sip of coffee.

“What kind of rumors?”

“Well, Benjamin Ripley was…he was a womanizer. He would flirt with some of us. It was just something we tolerated. Sometimes he’d get a little too close to you. Sometimes put an arm around your shoulders or a hand on your back. Most of the time, it was when he drank. You could smell the whiskey coming off him. I made it a point to never be alone with him. I had a feeling about him, you know? But Gloria, well, she welcomed that man’s attention. We all saw her flirt with him. You’d see the two of them together all the time. It was like she was his girlfriend. You didn’t have to be a genius to see they were sleeping together.”

“Did Paulette Ripley know about it?”

Alana nodded. “Oh, I’m sure. But we didn’t see Mrs. Ripley that much. I’d see her peeking out of the windows of the big house every now and then. Other than that, she might as well have been a ghost. But yeah, I’m sure she knew about Benjamin and Gloria. From the little I saw, Gloria didn’t try to hide it around her. Benjamin wasn’t the only one who took a liking to Gloria. Benjamin would bring his buddies to the place after an afternoon of drinking. Some of them was cops. That’s what made Benjamin so scary to me. Had the law on his side. You’d hear him and a couple of cops shushing each other while they stumbled over to Gloria and Mason’s tent trailer in the dark. Sometimes you’d see her climb out and go with them to the equipment shed, leaving Mason all alone in that tent,” Alana said, shaking her head. “God knows what she told that boy when she’d do stuff like that. Anyway, rumor was…around the time she disappeared, she was pregnant.”

Michael stared at her. “Benjamin Ripley’s child?”

“Who knows? Be a good reason for her to disappear, though, wouldn’t it?”

Hearing of Benjamin Ripley’s philandering and abusing his power the way he did angered Michael, but it didn’t surprise him. Men in power took advantage all the time of the Gloria Greens of the world, and they did so with impunity. If Michael thought for long enough about it, men like Benjamin Ripley and those he had known as a kid, cut from the same cloth—even if of a cheaper grade—were the very reason he’d become a cop.

“She had a nickname,” Alana said. “It wasn’t a nice one. Orchard Whore. Something like that. The older kids, they’d tease Mason. Tell him his mom was a loose woman. Tell him his mom was a slut. Not that he had any idea what any of that meant. He was just a little kid. Something I’ll say about Gloria. Whatever it was she did with those men was her own damn business. I tried to stay out of it. And she loved that boy, Mason. She was a good mom most of the time, even if she was a little touched in the head too. These things pass down sometimes, you know.

“So, like I said, out of the blue, Mason’s mom goes missing one day. And Mason too. Some of us heard something the night before. Wasn’t unusual to hear funny things in that old orchard. Grove ghosts, they call them. The wind has a funny way of whipping through the trees. You’ll hear branches out in the woods rub together, sounding like an incantation. Gators growling down by the lake. I’ve heard wildcats in those woods too. You ever hear one of them scream at night? Raise you right out of bed. But the scream we heard the night before Mason and Gloria went missing? That wasn’t no wildcat.

“As I said before, tree shakers gossip. Some around here said they’d seen shadows swaying in the woods that night, as if they were dancing under the moon. One man said he saw two shadows. Another swore he saw three silhouettes tangled up close together, bending over and moving around like they were casting a spell. Three of the older tree shakers said it weren’t shadows or silhouettes. It was ghosts who’d gotten restless and come out of the grove to play in the woods.

“So, anyway, the next day when everybody shows up for work, Gloria and her boy, Mason, are nowhere to be found. And there’s a policeman walking the property with Benjamin Ripley. Her tent trailer was still there though.”

“Do you know who the policeman was?”

“Yeah, it was Dale Douglas. He’s sheriff now. He was a deputy sheriff back then. He and Benjamin were best buddies then and are to this day. Or so I’ve heard.”

Michael’s hand trembled a little. He set the coffee cup down, clearing his throat. “Are you sure the policeman with Bejamin Ripley was Dale Douglas?”

“Oh yeah. Definitely. They was walking the property half the morning. Nobody asked what they was doing. But us tree shakers, we didn’t talk to the big boss unless he talked to us, you know? Day after that, Mason and Gloria’s trailer was gone. Benjamin had it towed out of there. And nobody heard from either one of them, until ten or eleven years later, when Mason shows back up.”

Alana stopped, squeezing her eyes shut. She walked to the kitchen and removed something from a drawer. It was a tin of snuff. Michael watched as she unscrewed the lid, pinching some out. “Sorry,” she said, walking back over and sitting down. “I know it’s a gross habit. But it’s the only thing that’ll get rid of the migraines anymore.”

“It’s OK. Did Mason tell anybody where he’d been all that time? When he came back to town?”

“No explanation whatsoever. You could tell it was him the moment you saw him though. Same crazy eyes. Looked like he was seeing and hearing all manner of things nobody else could. Be chatting with somebody one minute, and the next, his eyes would roll up in his head, and he’d smile all creepy. Start quoting scripture. He took some odd jobs—construction, yard work, that kind of thing. Never set foot anywhere near the Ripley Orchard again far as I could tell.

“Arty—that’s Arthur, my boy—he’s the reason I know all this. Weekends, Arty would leave the orchard and go down to Eight Ball Billiards for a couple beers and see Mason at the bar. They got to be sort of acquaintances. He told Mason that Mr. Ripley would probably give him a job. He said Mason didn’t seem interested in that,” she said, sighing. “I don’t know why my son talked to that crazy man. Maybe because they grew up working in the same orchard. I told him a hundred times to stay away from that Mason Green. Mason was always getting in trouble with the police here. Getting arrested for stupid stuff. Arty told me Mason was harmless though. Said he was an interesting fella. Had a way of pulling you into a conversation and had some wild ideas about God and the Bible.”

Alana stood. She took Michael’s empty coffee mug and her own to the kitchen sink. She rinsed them out. Michael could see she was crying. There was a box of tissues on the coffee table. He handed it to her as she came back and sat down in the recliner.

“I heard it from another boy, Luis, who was at the bar drinking with Mason and my son. Arty got really drunk that night. He started asking about Mason’s mom. Asking about the nicknames. Luis told me my son was sort of teasing Mason about the Orchard Whore stuff. Maybe he used to do that when they were kids, too, I don’t know. I don’t believe my boy would do anything like that, but that’s what Luis said. And…well, you’ve already heard what happened next.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry.”

“It still hurts,” she said, wiping her eyes.

“I’m sorry for asking you about it. I just want to find these youth group kids.”

She smiled. “You’re a good man.”

“Just doing my job,” Michael said, standing.

“No, there’s plenty of cops out there just doing their jobs. And there’s some out there who make it hard on people like us, and on our kids.”

“Yes, ma’am. There’s people like that in every profession.”

She smiled. “You got kids?”

He nodded.

“When you get back home, you hold them close.”

He thanked her, starting toward the door. Alana Gutierrez had turned out to be his biggest help since the case began. The Ripley Orchard was less than a half hour from here, he figured. There was no question that’s where he was heading next. He’d be speaking with the Ripleys. And, if it went the way he thought it was going to, he’d be bringing that old man in for questioning. Sheriff Dale Douglas too.

As he opened the door of his car, Alana called out from behind him.

“Wait, before you go,” she said, walking down her wooden porch steps. “I shouldn’t be talking about this, but if it brings any kind of justice for what happened to my boy, then it’s worth it.”

Michael nodded, listening.

She looked around, eyeing the open windows of the trailers that surrounded her own. She stepped closer, speaking in hushed tones, “Mason’s momma wasn’t the only one to go missing from that pecan orchard. Over the years, there’s been other women too. And the other thing…there was some of us who felt like Mason Green had a strong resemblance to Benjamin Ripley.”

CHAPTER TWO

Kacie dashed toward the front of the bus. She had maybe sixty seconds to do this while Clutch was distracted inside the convenience store paying for gas. He’d filled the tank, waved the gun around at each of them, saying he’d be watching. Then, before going inside the gas station, he told them that if anybody made a run for it, he’d kill whoever he could catch first.

They’d stopped at an exit with almost nothing around except the little gas station with a flickering timeworn sign. Kacie reached the driver’s seat of the bus. She checked the ignition. She didn’t think Clutch was stupid enough to leave the keys, but it was worth checking anyway.

She was right—no keys there. She got down on her knees, peering beneath the seat for his duffle bag. Nothing there. She looked under the seat behind it, finding the bag. Kacie grabbed it, fingers dancing over the material in a mad hunt for the zipper. She heard the ding of the bell on the gas station doors.

Shit.

Her fingers found the zipper. She ripped it open, shoving her arm inside. She dug through it hastily but was careful not to disturb the contents. Her fingers touched glass. She grabbed hold of it, removing a pint-sized bottle of whiskey. Quickly, she unscrewed the cap. The container felt mostly empty, but there was enough brown liquid inside for her plan to work.

He’d be at the bus door any second now. Kacie reached into her pocket, producing the tiny eye-drop bottle. She tried to steady her shaking hands, positioning the vial of LSD over the pint of whiskey. She squeezed until the little container was empty.

She heard Clutch’s footsteps approach. “Fuck,” she whispered, screwing the cap back on. She shoved the whiskey back into his bag, zipped it up, and stood on wobbly legs just as the bus door swung open.

Clutch stared at her, two bags of gas station groceries in one hand and a gallon jug of water in the other. “What you doing, girl?”

“I need to use the bathroom,” she said—the first lie that came to her.

Clutch studied her for a moment. His eyes drilled straight into her.

He stood at the bottom of the steps, unmoving. He suspects something, she thought. He put a hand on the rail, taking big strides up the bus steps. He stopped just shy of her, standing a full foot taller, looking down at her. She thought he was going to hit her. She stood her ground, unmoving. Maybe he was bluffing. “Come on. I gotta take a piss, dude!”

Clutch leaned down, grabbing his duffle bag. “You ain’t leaving this bus,” he said. “Not here, you ain’t.”

Unzipping the bag, he laughed to himself. She didn’t move an inch as she watched, ready to kick him in the balls if he tried to grab her. He removed the bottle of whiskey she’d just been holding. He knows. Kacie tried to steady her breathing. He couldn’t have seen her though. She watched as Clutch unscrewed the cap. He turned the bottle up, emptying the ounce or two left in one gulp. “Here, use this,” he said, handing it to her.

He drank it.

With the slow realization that her plan worked—and the shock of it working much faster than she’d anticipated—Kacie took the empty bottle from him, her actions still playing out the charade.

She returned to her seat with the empty bottle of whiskey in hand, unsure of what to do with it. She didn’t have to pee, and, even if she did, pissing into the tiny opening of a whiskey bottle wouldn’t exactly be easy for a girl. She sat down beside Phil, thinking about how many hits of acid had been left inside the little vial. There had to have been twenty doses remaining, at least. If Clutch didn’t outright die from an overdose, he was sure to go stark raving mad within the next hour.

She put an arm over Phil’s shoulder. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he had a high fever. She feared his leg might be infected. “How’s it feel? Still burning?”

Phil nodded. She saw the restlessness. His mouth moved endlessly in a delirium.

“I’m going to take care of you,” Kacie said.

“We’re going to Citrus Grove? Gonna catch the Spirit?”

“No.”

“Where we going?”

“Just rest. I’m going to get you to a hospital soon.”

Clutch walked down the aisle, tossing single-serving bags of potato chips to everyone. He uncapped a gallon of water, allowing each of them to take a big sip. He left the jug with Lawanda. The bus rumbled to life. The smell of exhaust filled the interior. Phil shivering, Kacie stood, closing her window and those in front of and behind them. “Hey, Terry,” Kacie said. “Push your window up.”

She saw the back of his head turn. He was seated next to Lawanda, two rows up. He hadn’t left her side since the gunshot incident. Kacie watched as the boy struggled to shut the window and then leaned a head on Lawanda’s shoulder.

“Sisters and brothers,” Clutch shouted over the rumbling engine. “Little lambs of God. Wandering sheep. You have spent many a troublesome day in the desert. Your time in this wilderness will soon come to an end. You won’t be with old Clutch too much longer. Just as it did with the little lambs Lisa and Brittany, the time has arrived for our paths to diverge.”

Kacie wondered what he was talking about. Was he going to let them go now? Was he going to kill them?

“When you look back on all this one day and see how much you’ve changed, how much you’ve grown in the Spirit, how much of that Holy Ghost fire you got, you’ll say to yourself, ‘That Clutch, he wasn’t half bad.’”

Phil leaned his head against Kacie’s shoulder. He was shivering violently. She held him tightly, trying to warm him. She no longer felt anything but a maternal love for this boy. Clutch was right. Something inside her had indeed changed. She was no longer the person she had been when she walked up the steps of this bus at ROC however many days ago. A change had taken place in her—a change that had been hard to put a finger on until this very moment. The ever-present dark blanket of fear for her life, the terror of watching her boyfriend assaulted and then shot in the leg, and the intense hatred she felt for this man, Clutch. A week of horror, fear, and hatred.

Now she felt possessed by something. Her youth and her innocence, her soul, her essence, were still there, but all were buried inside her. Laid to an uneasy rest. The girl she was, the one who had boarded this bus, this crucible, was no longer in control. And now someone else had control. Not someone, but something. Instinct. A primordial life force long dormant—or newly born.

Kacie ran her fingers along the cold neck of the whiskey bottle. She wondered what it would look like buried in Clutch’s throat.

“Did he give that to you?” Phil whispered, not believing what he was seeing—a glass bottle in his girlfriend’s hand.

“Shh!”

“Why would he give you that?”

“To piss in. But listen,” she said, leaning toward him. “I poured the rest of the acid into the whiskey in this bottle, and he drank it. He drank it all.”

Phil nodded and whispered, “Will that kill him?” Phil’s whole body shivered. The burning sensation in his leg had begun to spread from his calf to his thigh. He feared the worst.

“I don’t know. But be ready. First chance we get, we’re going to get you out of here. We’re going to get you to a hospital.”

They rode in silence for miles. Hours, it felt like. Phil passed in and out of consciousness. The rumbling road noise of the bus, the left-and-right and back-and-forth motions as he snuggled against Kacie were comforting, like being rocked to sleep. Someone was humming a song too. It was Kacie, crooning a lullaby in his ear.

The reality of the last few days seemed to be crashing down on Phil in this moment. The acid trip and being kidnapped by this lunatic who’d been masquerading as some kind of man of God at his church all this time…well, it was no wonder he’d had a hard time coming to grips with all that had unfolded these past few days. He didn’t want to die.

He eased up, looking at Kacie. She was wide awake, alert, staring back at him. She was an angel of God, this girl. She’d been his protector through all this. He’d found new respect for Kacie. He was more in love than ever. But the way she looked at him was different now. A pity in the gaze. The shame of getting his ass kicked by the youth pastor days earlier had been a tough pill to swallow. He suspected she’d lost respect for him.

Kacie took his hand.

Phil turned, looking out the window. It was pitch dark out there, other than the occasional streetlight illuminating generic South Georgia woods in and around it—Spanish moss, longleaf pines, and saw palmettos in a never-ending loop. They were very much in the middle of nowhere. The bus slowed, coasting off the highway and rolling to a dead stop.

“All right, everybody who ain’t named Lawanda, please rise and join me up front,” Clutch said, standing from his seat. And then he started to sing “Awesome God.”

Kacie stepped in front of Terry and Phil. “Come on,” she whispered. “Follow my lead.”

Clutch swayed back and forth, eyes shut. “Lord, I can feel the Spirit now with such…oh wow. God, You are here tonight. Speak through me, Lord God. Use Your Spirit.”

Phil watched Kacie approach Clutch, whiskey bottle held behind her back. He and Terry followed at a distance.

“Oh kalla mahoda sheedia. Oooooohhhh praise You, Father God. Praise You,” Clutch said, and he raised his hands toward the ceiling of the bus. “John 15:2: Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit; Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you.”

Clutch opened the bus door, stepping aside. “Abide in me, and I in you, Sister Kacie.”

Kacie hesitated. Phil saw her head turning from Clutch to the open door. She looked back at Phil and Terry, gesturing with her hand in a “hurry up” motion. They joined her.

“Brother Terry and Brother Phil. Abide in me, and I in you.”

Kacie exited the bus, remaining close to it at the bottom of the steps. Phil followed, eyeing Clutch carefully as he passed him. Clutch’s eyes were squeezed shut and he continued to speak in tongues in a whisper. Terry exited the bus, stumbling down the steps in the dark. Phil turned, eyes searching for Lawanda. He saw only her silhouette in the back row of the bus. He hated to leave her like this, but he didn’t seem to have a choice. His girlfriend was outside now, waiting on him. He was also feeling more feverish by the minute and knew he needed medical attention or he was going to die.

Once all three of them were outside the bus, Clutch walked to the edge of the steps. He was crying. “You’ve wandered the wilderness, yes, and the wilderness hath refined you as precious metals inside the crucible. We’ve reached a point in our journey where I can lead you no further. You little lambs must find your own path to the Promised Land. Sister Lawanda and your humble youth pastor have wandered many years. We’re making our way to a place you cannot go. Your journey is just beginning, praise God. And I will always be with you in your hearts.”

There was a sudden explosion of glass to Phil’s left. Kacie dashed up the bus steps, wielding the busted bottle. She made two quick slashing motions, catching Clutch in the torso. He screamed.

“Run, Lawanda! Run!” Kacie shouted. She stabbed again at Clutch. This time, he grabbed her wrist, twisting it behind her. Phil hobbled up the bus steps. Clutch kicked him in the chest before he could make it to the top. He tumbled backward. Clutch shoved Kacie out the door too. Terry stood there, still as a statue, watching the scuffle from a safe distance. It was dark out, but Phil could see a large patch of blood on Clutch’s T-shirt. They could hear Lawanda sobbing loudly from the back seat as Clutch slammed shut the door and the vehicle rumbled to life.

The bus rolled forward an inch and then stopped. Clutch opened a window and leaned out, wielding the pistol. Phil gasped, taking a step back, as did Terry. Clutch smiled, aiming the gun in their direction. He squeezed the trigger. The gun exploded like thunder in the dead of night. They heard deafening gunfire, punctuated by the metallic PLINK of something behind them. They turned to see a blue government-issue highway sign with a big H, indicating hospital, with an arrow pointing ahead. “It’s a half mile up that way,” Clutch said. “Close as I could get you. God be with you. May that Holy Ghost fire light your path and keep you safe, little sheep. I’ll see you on the other side.”

He disappeared from the window. The bus resumed, rolling slowly back onto the highway, black smoke billowing in its wake. They looked at one another, survivors of a shared nightmare. They shed tears of happiness as Terry and Kacie helped Phil. The three of them made their way slowly toward the hospital.

CHAPTER THREE

Lawanda breathed a sigh of relief, watching the teens. She waved from the window, thinking it was the last time anybody was going to see her alive. Still, she was so happy that these innocent children escaped. She wiped away the tears. She remained in the back seat, as physically far from Clutch as she could possibly be. Now that she had nobody else to account for, she could risk prying open the emergency exit door in the back.

“We’re going home, darling,” Clutch hollered from the driver’s seat. He hooted in a strange, choking laugh. She could hear the pain in his voice though. She hadn’t seen how badly Kacie wounded him, but it was bad enough. She smiled, thinking about Kacie. She’d surprised him with that sudden pluck. Lawanda hadn’t seen it coming either. They were already free to go, and yet Kacie tried to kill him right there on the bus steps anyway.

“Now that we’re all alone, I don’t mind telling you my real name, Lawanda Smith,” Clutch called from the driver’s seat. “It’s Mason Green.”

The revelation was a powerful one. Her memories of the little boy in the orchard and his momma surfaced. Gloria? The one who had disappeared, the woman her own mother had despised. The screams from outside her window that night years ago. The blood on her daddy’s shirt when he came home later. Dale and her daddy searching the woods the next day for Mason and his momma. Lawanda had buried those memories in the graves of her mind—her favorite final resting place for personal pain and family secrets. Now they had resurfaced, the aging pages of a history book, archived like an ancient story in a locked drawer. They were here in the open, in the real world she occupied.

“What are you going to do?” Lawanda said.

“Can’t hear you, sister.”

She swallowed. This man was going to kill her. He was going to take revenge for whatever happened in the orchard that night. Lawanda had known deep down, when she was a child, something awful had happened. And that her daddy—perhaps her mother also—had been involved. Gloria had been the source of so many of her parents’ arguments.

Then one morning, Gloria and Mason were gone. Vanished.

Dale and her daddy searched the woods the next day. Lawanda never saw Gloria or her little boy again.

Lawanda stood, her knees shaky, swaying to the road rhythms of the purple bus. She hobbled her way to the back exit. She tried the handle. Clutch—or rather, Mason—called out, “Ain’t no use, sister. You jump while I’m driving this speed, you’re dead. Our stop’s right up ahead. You’re almost home, girl. We’re almost home. Lemme ask you something. You remember the lake way back in the woods behind your house?”

Clutch pulled the bus onto a narrow gravel road off the side of the highway. Rocks crunched beneath the big wheels as he coasted to a stop. He stood from the seat, holding his chest. She saw that he wasn’t moving with the usual vigor and grace. Kacie had wounded him badly.

“That little lake,” he went on with a knowing laugh, “and the little island, Comanche Island. I named it when I was a boy. Don’t know why. Just liked the sound of it.”

He hobbled toward Lawanda. He pulled the gun from the holster, gesturing for her to walk to the front of the bus.

“My daddy took me fishing there sometimes,” she said, swallowing hard.

“I know. You caught some nice catfish. I was just across the way on that little island. I seen every fish you and your daddy caught. I seen your daddy help you bring them in. I seen your daddy get drunk and lose his temper and throw your little tackle box in the lake.”

She listened, wide-eyed.

“I swam out and found that tackle box after y’all left,” he said. “Came in handy. Caught a ton of cats.”

“How long were you out there? On the island?”

“Long enough.”

“What about your mom? Gloria?”

Mason pressed the gun into Lawanda’s ribs. “You’re about to meet her.”

Mason knew the way to the flame-blackened crucible of his youth, even in the dark of night. He’d walked the path a thousand times. He touched the tree trunks with the fingertips of one hand, greeting each tree like an old friend. With the other, he gripped Lawanda tightly. He couldn’t move as fast as he’d like. That little Kacie had done a number on him. He admired her. He was proud of her. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, but she had scraped one of his ribs with that broken bottle. Something felt different in his body, something more than the wound. He still had his faculties, but there was a distraction inside him—a bubbling brook of Holy Ghost fire aflame in his guts. It had a grip on his mind, whatever it was. He thanked God for this new baptism.

“I feel Your presence, Lord. You’re inside me, Holy Ghost,” Mason said, leading Lawanda through the woods toward Comanche Island. The silver moon hung high in the sky, reflecting in the rippling waters. Mason felt mixed emotions about this place. It held a strange nostalgia for him. This had been the very place where he found himself so long ago. Paradoxically, it had also been the place where he’d lost the person he was, the innocent boy in the orchard. Mason carried the memory of that boy with him, not as a piece of his own identity but as proof of a life that had once been.

When they reached the lakeshore, Mason took the gun out of the holster, keeping it close, should Lawanda take a notion to finish the job little Kacie started. He took off all his clothes, placing them in a neat pile on the shore. “You’re next,” he said.

“What are you going to do?”

“We’re having us a water baptism.”

“Why do I have to take my clothes off?”

“You wanna wear wet clothes all night, it’s fine with me,” he said, placing the gun on top of his stacked garments. He took the lock-blade knife out of his jeans pocket, examining it in the moonlight. He placed it on top of the clothing pile, next to the Smith & Wesson. “Let’s go. Right across.”

“There’s gators in there. I’ve seen them.”

“Course there is. A couple a big ones last time I was here.”

She took off her jeans and her shirt, leaving on her bra and panties. Mason averted his eyes as he gestured for her to lead the way. He recalled the shame he had felt as a boy when he saw Lawanda’s naked body in the lighted window of her bedroom in the Ripleys’ home.

She shook her head. “I don’t know where I’m going.”

“Shit, girl. Have you ever? Any of us know where we’re going?” he said, chuckling. “Path I got you on here, whether you realize it or not, it’s the most straight and narrow thing you ever walked.”

“I just want to go home.”

“We’ll get there. That’s the point of this whole trip. But all the bad shit leading up to it…that’s God’s plan, whether you know it or not. If it wasn’t for the bad, for the time wandering in the wilderness, you’d never appreciate the blessings…the promises He keeps.

“The rainbow after the flood,” he said, gesturing toward a patch of ink on his torso, beneath his rib cage. One of his best pictures. “That’s an everlasting covenant. The calm after the storm that you’d never appreciate if it weren’t for the storm. You and me, we both been through our share of them storms. We lost our way, didn’t we? Meandering all over on our downward trajeckories. Me with the prison time. You with the pills.”

She looked at him like she couldn’t believe that last bit. “But…how do you even know about that?”

“Art Gutierrez. Arty Boy. Your half-Mexican drug dealer.”

Her gaze dropped. She looked as if she’d found something interesting somewhere in the slick lakeshore muck. “What did he tell you?”

“Said you had a habit about as big as anything he’d ever seen. Said you was gonna be his ticket outta the orchard and outta Valdosta, once he saved enough of the Ripley money you spent buying drugs from him.”

“Wait…you…you killed him in that bar. Did that have anything to do with—”

“He was poisoning you. Others too. He was selling that shit to high schoolers, Lawanda. He had a big mouth too. A big fat mouth. I reckon I lost my temper a little with him that one night. Truth be told, I was just waiting for a reason to put that motherfucker underground. Awful excuse for a human. Least I could do for you, sis.”

She stared at him, mouth agape.

Mason cleared his throat. “Swim straight ahead. You know where the island is. It ain’t far. Water’s nice and warm this time of year. Be a refreshing swim. Like a muddy hot tub.”

He remained behind her in case she decided to swim another direction. He wanted eyes on her all the way to the shore. The gators here didn’t tend to go after something as big as people, but if the Lord willed it, then he wouldn’t stand in the way. He was very much in the path of the Living God. He could feel the Holy Trinity coursing through his veins. He watched Lawanda enter the still waters, her body disappearing inch by inch into the lake. He followed behind her, feeling at his feet the cool slurp of mud that he remembered all too well.

Lawanda swam ahead. He doggy-paddled his way behind her, keeping an eye out for gators. The big reptiles were less a concern out here than the cottonmouths he’d seen swimming so many evenings along the surface. But now seemed like a bad time to mention those. Watching Lawanda’s naked shoulders glistening in the silver moonlight, working her way through the water, halfway to Comanche Island now, took him back. “We’re close, sister,” he called out.

The lake felt so warm. It was a liquid embrace encasing his body. He dove, dunking his head into the waters. He opened his eyes beneath, envisioning on the bottom of the lake the endless fish skeletons he’d picked clean and tossed back. This lake had provided for him when there was nobody left to provide. The lake had taught him to work for what he wanted. Nobody else out there to take care of him. He came back up, taking a big breath. He saw Lawanda up ahead, crawling onto the island shore.

The lake had provided, but the island had taught him to survive.

Water caressed his body as he swam. Mason pulled handfuls of liquid beneath him, kicking sprays of lake juice behind him. The steady drone of cicadas punctuated by the bullfrog chorus was a song he knew so well. It was the nighttime lullaby of Comanche Island. Hearing the ambient din, he rejoiced at this nocturnal hallelujah homecoming. Mason laughed out loud as he neared his island. He felt the muddy floor of the lake beneath his toes. He stopped swimming, trudging up onto the island. The root tangles were like slippery fingers prodding his toes, massaging the arches of his feet.

He envisioned the island as a many-tentacled, free-floating vessel tethered for now, for Mason’s lifetime, to this body of water. The dirt, the trees, the flowers, the fauna—all components of the ecosystem of this little island—were things not of this world. They were the sealed-shut guts of a crucible, meant to take in broken souls and spit them out whole again. They were the greased-slick gears under the hood of a sandy vessel that traveled by Holy Ghost fire, finding their way by tiny fingers crawling, fueled by the high-octane blood of Christ—a machine of change Mason had been blessed to set foot upon following that tragic night so many putrid harvest moons ago.

Mason was a man brimming with visions of glory as he followed Lawanda up onto his island. He could hear the trumpets of Zion exploding from the heart of this land. And yes, this was his land. His birthright. He’d take it back tonight. He felt brand new, born again, exploding with energy. He was a charged battery as he hobbled up the shore, clutching the puncture wound. His chest throbbed with pain, but the lake water washed the wound. He felt something rigid in the fleshy opening and pinched out a shiny chunk of whiskey bottle. The pain was good, he thought. Pain was life fighting death.

He watched Lawanda pause at the edge of the woods. He saw her pale body shiver in the moonlight of this dream. Suddenly, she sprinted, disappearing into the woods. This is what she’d intended to do, Mason thought. He’d anticipated it. He walked to the edge of the woods himself, seeing saw palmettos still swaying at the point of her entry. The whisper of her footfalls would be easy to follow. The sights, sounds, tastes, and smells of Comanche Island were his and his alone. Lawanda was treading now on hallowed ground. Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

He entered the island forest at a rapid clip, whistling.

A dem bones, dem bones gonna walk all around.

CHAPTER FOUR

Lawanda crashed through the woods. Rocks and sticks stabbed at the soft soles of her feet as she ascended the island’s slope. She swatted back saplings and dodged ropy vines that hung like giant snakes in the dark. She ran for her life, thinking that if she could just make it as far as the other side of the island—it was a tiny island after all, no more than half a mile wide—then she’d dive into the waters on the other side and swim.

The buck moon lit up the night like a giant beacon in the sky, illuminating Mason’s naked body. His muscular torso, thighs, and biceps were covered in those cheap-looking tattoos and Bible verses. She would rather die than have Mason catch her all alone in this jungle. She’d rather drown in this swampy lake or have an alligator tear her to pieces.

She reached a clearing where the ground leveled out. The trees thinned, the moon lighting up the ground. She slowed, turning in every direction. It looked like an old campsite or maybe even a homesite. There were scattered pieces of old garbage—glass bottles reflecting the moonlight, rusty metal containers overturned and crumbling. There was even an old fire ring, the ground within it black with old carbon.

She’d reached what seemed to be the top of the island. Lawanda padded through the clearing, her feet screaming in pain from the forest-floor puncture wounds.

Mason was behind her. She could hear his footsteps no more than a few paces back. Could hear him breathing, ragged and frantic. Sick-sounding sucks of breath. She bolted, running through the clearing. Her arms pumped furiously, heart pounding in her chest, as she found a fixed point in the approaching woods and focused all her efforts on reaching it. She prayed out loud, pleading with God to intervene, to take this situation she’d found herself in and turn it around. She believed wholeheartedly that God had a plan, and that when we walked in His Grace, we followed right along.

But this…how could this be part of God’s plan?

Mason began to cackle and Lawanda shuddered. Tears streamed down her face.

“You’re loud, darlin’,” Mason said, grabbing her elbow. She swiveled quickly, instinctively, slamming a strong right hook into the side of his face. A piercing, searing pain flashed through her wrist, and she knew she’d broken it. Mason staggered back a step, and she sprinted, gaining ground. If she could just reach the edge of the forest…it couldn’t be much farther.

Lawanda heard Mason coming again. As she ran, she turned to see him lumbering toward her, gaining on her. Her legs so weak now, the soles of her feet slick and bloody, she kept running. She dared not turn again. The horror of his approach was paralyzing. She prayed for strength. She prayed for an end to this terrible night. Could this be how things ended? She panted, breathing in the evening’s vegetative and sulfurous odors. It was the smell of her childhood, of evenings overlooking the grove, at a safe distance from the terrors of the night.

Here in the thick of it, in the swamp, in the murk and the sweat, she ran for her life, hunted and haunted. Something had awakened from the dead with snapping claws, yawning jowls, and a bloodlust. This apparition arising from the wispy tendrils of night was all too real though—the sound of Mason Green’s maniacal laugh as he closed in was ice water on flesh.

His footfalls grew louder behind her. The crunch of dead palmetto fronds. The crack of twigs. The whoosh of tree limbs as he shoved them aside. Mason seized her, wrapping a big arm around her neck. She cried, choking on her own sobs. He force-walked her toward the middle of the site, pushing her down to a sitting position. She screamed again. He crossed his arms—a pale, hulking monster—indifferent to the sounds. She’d done a number on him with that punch. She could see the left side of his cheekbone swelling, the eye slightly closed. Despite the defeat of having been captured again, she took some small victory in this.

She screamed again. Louder this time.

“I’ll do more than stop you from screaming, if you don’t cut that out.”

She screamed again. Then again. She screamed until she was out of breath. “What do you want?”

“I want a witness,” he said.

She trembled, watching him walk away. She turned left and right, looking for something, anything, she could use as a weapon—a rock, a stick. She spotted a small stone. Grabbing it, she hid it behind her. Mason approached a close-by outcropping at the edge of the old campsite clearing—an angular rock jutting from the earth with a large chunk of Styrofoam propped against it. It looked like the kind of foam used to keep boat docks afloat. Mason took hold of it, sliding it away.

He whistled the tune to the old spiritual, “Dem bones.”

Getting on his hands and knees, he crawled into the cave-like opening beneath the big chunk of granite, which shimmered like diamonds in the moonlight. Now was her chance. Lawanda tightened her grip on the rock and steadied her body as she stood up, readying herself to strike.

“Don’t even think about it,” Mason said, as he crawled back out from beneath the outcropping. He was cradling what appeared to be a bundle of lanky branches like a baby. As he walked toward Lawanda, the bundle in his arms came into focus. She shrank back with revulsion. It was a sight that made no sense.

He stopped just before Lawanda, who fell back to the ground, scooting backward.

Arm bones knocked against vertebrae, ribs, pelvis as he thrust the slack-jawed form toward her. He spoke in tongues while he hugged it to his chest, leg bones dancing a jig, toe bones bouncing in rhythm to the cadence of Mason’s voice. Lawanda took in the terrible vision. Mason embracing a skeleton with a red ViewFinder strapped to its skull. It looked like the same kind she’d had as a child. The toy was fastened to the head of the skeleton with some kind of twine. It was wearing the ViewFinder like sunglasses.

Mason’s expression changed suddenly. He was looking somewhere over Lawanda’s shoulder. He convulsed, his body all but vibrating. His teeth chattered. She could see the whites of his eyes, and his skin appeared to go from pale to gray. For a moment, he pumped the heels of his hands against his ears and breathed rapidly. Then he stopped and gave her a glassy-eyed stare. “Leviathan knows we’re here,” Mason whispered. “We’ve got to move quick.”

He thrust the bundle toward her. Lawanda shook her head. Mason grabbed her by the throat, squeezing. He whispered into her ear, “This is your moment, sister.Walk in His path, or you’ll be of no use to Him…or to me.” She saw stars in her peripheral vision. Mason’s voice faded to a muffled roar and was replaced by the erratic drumming of her own heartbeat.

She stretched out her clammy hands toward a shoreline of darkness, a receding tide. The world was about to continue without her.

Mason released her, pushing the skeleton to her chest. She gasped and grabbed the mass. A chill pulsed through her body. Her fingers traced the rack of bones, noting a few missing fingers and toes, the grotesque bundle mostly intact but brittle. Bones. Human bones. Sharp, busted, rigid, yellowed. Not like the clean plastic skeletons she recalled from Halloween or her high school anatomy class. She shivered.

“Momma always wanted to take me to Citrus Grove. Said we was gonna go one day when we saved enough money. Neither one of us ever made it. So I borrowed your magic binoculars and the picture discs,” Mason said. “Wanted to give Momma something to look at to pass the time.”

Mason picked up the large Styrofoam slab, hefting it over his shoulder. He pointed a finger in the direction they came from. She walked, feeling the bones of Gloria Green splinter and stab at her abdomen.

When they reached the island shore, Mason set the Styrofoam in the lake. He took his mother’s skeleton from Lawanda and gently placed it on top. He tenderly tightened the twine that held the ViewFinder in place. He ordered Lawanda to swim. She obeyed, stepping into the lake. She prayed. She prayed that she’d feel the warm sun on her shoulders again somewhere far from here. She prayed that she’d experience the satisfaction of a good meal. She prayed that she’d feel the warm embrace of a lover, cuddling close. She prayed that she’d escape this man and this whole night and be reunited with her mother and Patti and, yes, even her father, despite knowing everything she did now.

It was the most doubt-filled prayer of her life. The events of the past week had blasted a gaping hole in her faith. Did God even hear her prayers?

The sins of the father.

The words were like a whisper in her ear. She knew it was God speaking.

Mason dragged Lawanda through the woods behind him, gnats buzzing their ears and lodging in the corners of their eyes, fat mosquitos bouncing off their bodies. With his other arm, he held close the gangly skeleton of his dearly departed mother against his shoulder, like one would hold a toddler. He could feel his momma’s soul—her very essence and her maternal warmth. He could feel tissue and flesh forming on the decades-old skeleton. This body would live again, God Almighty. He would bear witness to a miracle this night.

The gun holster bit into his side. In his haste, he’d left his shirt on the muddy shores of the lake, grabbing only his pants, pistol, and the lock-blade knife. The wound on his chest seethed with pain, but it felt better out here in God’s green nighttime nature without his shirt.

Mason Green was filled with Holy Ghost fire. He could feel it in his fingertips, emanating outward from the recesses of his soul. He was a vessel, filled to the brim, sloshing around, and overflowing with Jesus juice. He was a glowing beacon of goodness.

They were close to the Ripley Orchard. He numbered the oaks and pines as they drew nearer. He knew each tree. The branches bowed to him. The breeze whispered through the latticework of flora like fanfare greeting Mason Green as he blew kisses to the trees and smiled at the open orchard unfolding. He pressed the skeleton ribs close to his body as he navigated the woods. His momma’s skull bobbed along with the weight of the ViewFinder. “We’re almost there,” he whispered. “Glory be to God.”

Palmetto fronds and pine saplings thinned as they approached the orchard clearing. He heard a chorus of angels serenading him from the grove. He saw a whole host of them, ranks of them, taller than the trees. They stood ready to sound the alarm for this holy mission. If God is for us, who can be against us?…For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.

That serpent slithering, that swamp gator sullying the ground of this regal land with its filth, it stood no chance.

Lawanda said something to him, but he didn’t understand. Her words were of this world. He no longer was. He was operating from a higher place. His mind was attuned to the Holy Ghost broadcasting live from the Ripley Orchard. Twenty-four seven, no commercials. He parted saw palmettos, stepping through ivy and wild grape vines as they crossed to the green grass. The trees towered above, those life-giving plants that gave sustenance, shedding pecans in the fall season so that he and his momma might scrape out a living and the Ripley Serpent could grow fat and old and lazy and…yes, this was his revenge. Emboldened to lead this campaign of vengeance and now, a commanding general in the Lord’s Army, he would massacre the enemy and lay waste to his lands. When he finished with Leviathan, he’d burn down the pecan trees that gave him power. He’d sow his fields with salt so nothing could ever flourish here again. He’d light afire the reptilian burrow where he hid. This land would be made sacred again. The unconsecrated earth made holy. This would become, in full, a Promised Land.

There he is.

The wrinkled remains of Benjamin Ripley were framed in the kitchen window. The old man’s scales, his snapping jaws masticating flesh. Blood and sinew and all manner of gore dripped from his jowls as he stood over the kitchen sink shoveling something into his mouth.

Mason tugged at Lawanda’s arm as they stumbled through the front yard. He grabbed the pistol from the holster.

He leaned down, placing the skeleton in the grass before him. He looked toward Lawanda. He could feel goodness emanating from her, pulsing through her veins, and blessing every cell in her body and all the air she breathed. How could someone so good spring from the loins of Benjamin Ripley, Leviathan?

Mason chambered a bullet, firing it into the sky. It exploded like God’s own wrath, beckoning the wretched reptile. Mason pulled Lawanda closer, situating her between himself and the swamp serpent’s den. Mason raised the knife to her throat.

CHAPTER FIVE

As he entered the gates of the Ripley driveway, having gained entry at the call box by the harried sounding voice of Patrice, the Ripleys’ caregiver, Michael heard the unmistakable clap of gunfire coming from the house. He pressed the pedal down, picking up speed, a dry crackling sound beneath the big tires. It was deep into the overcast night, but the faint starlight and the moon lit the driveway well enough. He turned off the headlights, coasting the Crown Vic toward the house. He kept it steady between the hulking shadows of pecan trees.

When Michael crested the hill that overlooked the mansion, he could see silhouettes in the front yard. From his vantage point, it was hard to make out who it was or what was going on. He pulled off the driveway and cut the engine. He climbed out, leaving the car door open. The air was cool tonight. The haze, heat, and thick humidity of the day had given way to a South Georgia breeze threading its path through the orchard. It smelled of swamp water, rotten tree husks, and blood. Michael wiped his brow and drew his gun, sneaking his way through the tall grass toward the silhouettes. Their backs were toward him. He moved fast, closing the gap between himself and them. He squinted his eyes as he moved to get a better view. As his night vision became more sensitive, he was able to make out another form—tiny, skinny, childlike—lying on the ground in front of the standing silhouettes. Michael kept walking, finding his way to the grove itself. He positioned himself behind a large pecan tree. Carefully, he peered around the trunk, leading with the muzzle of his gun as he stopped to observe.

He heard a deep, distressed-sounding male voice shouting, “Lightning… livening!”

Michael thumbed off the safety of his service pistol, quietly chambering a bullet. He crept stealthily around the tree.

“Leviathan…LEVIATHAN. Enemy of Babylon!”

Mason Green was here tonight.

Michael took a big breath and sprinted to the next tree trunk, hiding. He eyed the space between the trunks, mentally calculating the distance between himself and the others. He raised the pistol, putting the heads of each silhouette, one by one, in his sights. He was nowhere close enough for a clean shot. The two standing silhouettes were also very close together, swaying back and forth as one.

“Show yourself!” shouted the man Michael presumed to be Mason Green.

Michael estimated that he was less than fifty feet away from them. He moved to the next trunk and looked toward the scene. The front door of the house suddenly swung open. A figure stumbled out, letting the screen porch door slam behind him. Michael squinted. It was Benjamin Ripley, making his way outside with the assistance of a cane. A female figure shadowed him, holding his shoulder. Patrice. She guided him to the porch rail, placing his hands firmly on the painted wood. Once she had him settled, Patrice quickly jogged down the porch steps and sprinted toward the grove, out of sight.

Michael watched the two huddled silhouettes stumbling closer to the porch, approaching Benjamin Ripley, frail and unsteady, leaning heavily on the handrail. Michael chanced another few paces toward them, taking cover behind the next closest tree.

“Leviathan!” Mason started shouting again, squeezing off another round. An explosive clap. It sounded like a big pistol—a .45 or something even larger. Michael ducked back behind the tree. The cloud cover broke, and the sudden wash of moonlight and starlight brought the two figures in front of the porch into focus. Michael could see the dull tattoos coloring the man’s back. He could even faintly make out the distinct shape of an alligator. It was definitely Mason Green, and he was holding a woman close in a choke hold—Mason was using Lawanda as a hostage to threaten Mr. Ripley.

Michael sized up the situation once again in the sights of his service pistol. He traced the head and shoulders of the silhouettes with the bead on the end of his gun. Mason and Lawanda’s bodies were pressed too close together to hazard a shot, that was for sure. If he could just get a little closer…maybe. From this far away, he was likely to accidentally kill the wrong person.

He reached for his belt, palming his two-way radio. In a hushed tone, he requested backup. Agent Emerson responded, “10-1: Unable to copy.” He tried again. She still didn’t copy. He tried again, louder. No response this time. Hell of a time for communication issues.

He looked around. Scattered harvest equipment lay like dead, hulking dinosaurs in the dark, a big shed with its double doors hanging open like the unhinged maw of some beast, and…a car? Yes, a car parked toward the top of the hill just to his right. Had it been here moments ago? How had he missed it?

One’s surroundings could be the biggest enemy or greatest ally in these kinds of situations. The differences between a wide-open grove and a farm-trash-strewn orchard like this were immense. He looked frantically for something to help him, something bigger and closer to hide behind, where he could steady his breathing, take his time squeezing that trigger.

Benjamin Ripley said something. His voice was pleading. Michael was too far away to make out the words. He took another deep breath and sprinted to a closer tree. It was too small and didn’t hide him well, but he had no choice. He needed to get to a better place so he could take the shot. Time was a precious thing at moments like these. Impatience grew more impatient.

He wondered where the kidnapped kids could be. With only Mason and Lawanda accounted for here, and the childlike form there in the grass at their feet, Michael feared the worst for them.

Michael looked around, searching for the purple bus. The other passengers on that bus were nowhere to be seen. He sprinted again, this time finding a pecan tree much closer to the three of them—Benjamin Ripley on the porch, leaning against the rails, and Mason holding Lawanda in a death grip. His big muscular arm wrapped around Lawanda’s neck like a constricting reptile. He could almost hazard a shot to Mason’s head.

Almost. If he’d just move. Left. Right. Up. Down. Anywhere.

Michael put the back of Mason’s head in the pistol sights. He was a big man, nearly a foot taller than Lawanda. Michael kept the gun trained on Mason as the kidnapper bobbed and swayed. He was moving as if inebriated, speaking faster now. In tongues. Drunk on the Holy Ghost. The phrase popped into Michael’s head, a leftover bit of dialogue from the evenings when he’d visited the tent revival in the woods with his Gracie.

Whether Mason was drunk on the Holy Ghost or just plain drunk, insobriety was an advantage Michael would take right now, in the dark, where there was a hostage, possibly two. He’d take all the luck fate could throw his way.

“I’ll cut you down,” Mason shouted, his words coming out in English again. Michael was close enough now to hear every syllable. “There are others, thus saith the Lord, who this vile man, this…Leviathan squirming in the dirt has made worms’ food. You didn’t know it, old man, but you was putting poison in the soil all along. Their bones and their blood you thought was fertilizing this dirt? You was just sowing your fields with salt, motherfucker. Same salt God used on Lot’s wife when she looked back on the evil they was leaving behind. You don’t turn back, saith the Lord. The past belongs in the past, but it’s the past where the seeds of the future are planted, Praise God. And you done planted your last vile seed, Leviathan. Vile, squirming, scaly serpent. I’m just glad—”

Mason wobbled suddenly as if about to fall. He stammered, “Because…because…” Mason took a beat, shifting his weight to one side. This shift in Mason’s posture brought into Michael’s vision the form on the ground. Now he could see what it was. Hard to believe he’d thought it to be a small child. The dim moonlight played tricks sometimes. The form on the ground wasn’t a living child or a small corpse. It was a human skeleton, dirty bones the color of brackish water, with a red apparatus grotesquely strapped to the skull. Michael felt nauseous and disoriented. He was distracted just long enough to lose the only clean shot he could have taken.

Once Michael was able to think clearly again, he felt certain the bones were the mortal remains of Mason’s mother. It was the only thing that made sense. The pieces fit together so snugly.

Suddenly, Michael’s focus turned to a nearby rustling. The gentle snap of a twig and the unmistakable hush-hush-hush of sneakers upon the ground. He followed the sound with his eyes only, afraid even the slightest physical movement would be detected. In his peripheral vision, he saw a tall male silhouette approaching a pecan trunk in the row beside him, aiming a gun in the direction of Mason, Lawanda, and Benjamin.

Squinting toward the porch, Michael saw for the first time that Benjamin, too, was armed. Michael thought he’d been holding a cane of some sort, but now, as the old man stumbled into the bright light of the moon at the edge of the house, Michael saw it was in fact a 12-gauge shotgun.

He could see the withered, frail man in full now. Fresh blood stained his wrists and forearms, dripping from his hands. He must have hastily yanked free the IVs pumping morphine into him.

Benjamin trundled toward Mason and Lawanda. He was staggering and weaving, trying to stay upright. Michael had now moved close enough to see crimson drops splattering on the pristine, freshly painted porch.

“That’s good enough!” Mason shouted. “You come anywhere near us, I’m spilling your daughter’s blood in the dirt.”

Mason pointed the gun toward the sky and fired it again. Benjamin halted at the clap of gunfire. Lawanda whimpered like a caged puppy.

That’s three, Michael thought, wondering if that .45 held more rounds than his own police-issue weapon. He chanced a glance to his right, looking for the silhouette behind the tree. Whoever it was, they were gone. He got an uneasy feeling.

Michael squeezed the button on his two-way, whispering again for backup. He turned down the volume all the way this time, afraid that, at this proximity, any response at all would alert Mason Green.

Benjamin suddenly raised the shotgun toward Mason.

“Do you see your girl here? Beautiful little Lawanda?” Mason shouted.

“I see,” Benjamin said. “Turn her loose.”

“Did you know about me?”

There was a pause. The muzzle of the shotgun wavered.

“Yes.”

“What was you planning on doing that night? After you did what you done to Momma?”

“Now listen—”

“You don’t gotta answer to me, but you’re gonna answer to God.”

“Whatever you think you saw that night…I was only doing it to protect the family.”

“Protect the family? Murdering my momma? How’d that protect anybody?”

Michael’s eye caught a flash of movement in the upstairs window. The home was a backdrop to all this. That ghost, Paulette, watched, half shrouded in the curtains. The indifference in her face was frightening. She looked like she was watching television, as the curtains fluttered and she shrank back into the shadows. Michael’s focus went back to Mason and Lawanda. Mason was still holding her close, knife all but drilling into her larynx. No chance of a clean shot.

“Changed my mind. I don’t want answers no more,” Mason said. He fired a shot, clipping Benjamin in the shoulder. The old man fell backward, landing roughly on the porch steps behind him. He bellowed.

“Yeah, I’m your daddy,” Benjamin wailed through heavy, ragged breaths. “Wasn’t supposed to be. I’m glad you was born though, you hear? Now let’s just have us a talk.”

“You was gonna stick that knife in me, same as you did to her. Was you gonna put me in the ground too? Bury me in a shallow grave on the rotten side of the grove?”

Michael couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He leaned in, listening closer.

“What I did, I did for you. I did it for the girls. Your momma was saying things, OK? Things that was gonna get out in the public eye. Wasn’t no other way. Listen, Mason, I’m proud of you. You hear me? Mason, my son, you’ve overcome so many hardships. You’re a mighty man of God. Your momma raised you right, boy.”

As he eased a hand toward the shotgun that had fallen from his grasp when struck by the bullet, Benjamin continued, “This here’s your shot at redemption, boy.”

Mason fired again, clipping the hand reaching for the shotgun. Two of Benjamin’s fingers disappeared as if by magic, replaced by a geyser of blood that quickly covered the bottom porch step. He squealed like a maimed animal.

“It’s over. Your reign of evil comes to an end,” Mason said. “Look at me. Look at your bastard son. You brought me into this world. You brought your own ruin. Leviathan. Swamp Serpent. Tonight, I take away your power. Come into the moonlight where I can see you. Where I can see your scales. Withered animal.”

Mason fired another shot. It hit the porch steps. Splinters and dust rose from the freshly pockmarked wood. Benjamin struggled, pitching forward onto his hands and knees. Michael could see blood pouring from the hole in his shoulder, darkly painting the ground. Benjamin Ripley crawled like a dog toward his daughter and son.

Mason eased the grip just a little on Lawanda. She started to slump forward. Michael trained his sights on the grotesque alligator tattooed between Mason’s shoulder blades. Lawanda dropped to the earth suddenly, sobbing.

This was his chance.

“Stay down,” Michael whispered. He filled his lungs with air, breathed out to steady the shakes, and started to squeeze the trigger.

Before he could, a gunshot rang out. Mason grabbed his abdomen, falling to his knees. Michael followed the sound, jerking his head to the right to see Sheriff Dale Douglas creeping from the shadows, pistol still pointed at Mason.

“Took you so long?” Benjamin shouted, writhing on the ground before the porch steps. “Paulette called you an hour ago!”

Lawanda crawled on hands and knees toward her father. She was covered in blood. Michael couldn’t tell if it was Mason’s blood or her own. It hadn’t been a clean shot. He knew that because Mason was already hobbling back to a standing position. Michael watched in horror, the moment unfolding so fast, as Mason raised the pistol and shot the sheriff in the head. The close-range power of the .45 was like a cannon. The back of Dale Douglas’s head exploded, covering the trunk of a pecan tree behind him. The sheriff’s legs danced a jig. His body fell, pitching in the dirt and squirming like a snake with a severed head.

Mason saw Michael now and seemed to quickly register the weapon in his hand. Mason lunged at Benjamin. Michael fired a shot that barely missed. He didn’t risk another, as Mason was too physically close to the others now. Mason hurdled over Lawanda, who lay on the ground a couple yards from her father. Michael still couldn’t tell if she was wounded or just traumatized.

Mason grabbed Benjamin by the shirt collar. He put him in a choke hold. He made of the elder Ripley another human shield, rendering Michael’s gun useless yet again. There was a dark trail of blood in Mason’s wake, shimmering in the moonlight. Maybe it hadn’t been a clean torso shot, Michael thought, but Mason was hurt badly. If the sheriff had only stayed back, Michael would have ended this with no more bloodshed.

“Let’s take it down a notch,” Michael announced loudly, though he kept his tone calm. He knew from what he’d read about these kinds of situations that the last thing you wanted to do was bark harsh orders at a man with a hostage. “We can both set down our guns at the same time.”

Mason’s eyes burrowed into Michael’s. “What good will that do?”

“I’m just trying to have a conversation with you,” Michael said. “You’re hurt. Your sister’s hurt. Your daddy’s hurt too.”

“That ain’t my daddy,” Mason shouted. “My Heavenly Father is my only father. And He reigns from on high.”

“OK, well,” Michael said, trying a different tactic, “that man you killed was the sheriff. But I saw he took a cheap shot at you. I’m your witness. I saw what happened with my own eyes. It wasn’t fair. I’m GBI. My word holds water in a court of law. You got no better witness than me.”

“I don’t give a shit about any of that. Only one can judge me is Jesus in the heavenly courts of Heaven, praise God.”

The man spoke a little like Pastor Mikey Avalon, but there was a conviction in his tone that convinced Michael, at least in this moment, that Mason Green really did believe all that he was saying.

“I’m taking a step forward, but I ain’t coming for you,” Michael said. “I just want to check on Lawanda here. See how bad she’s wounded.”

Mason cringed as he shifted, pressing himself closer behind his father. Michael could see a barely visible nod. Knowing what he knew—or what he thought he knew—about Benjamin Ripley, Michael was tempted to hazard a shot at Mason anyway. Clipping Ripley wouldn’t be a huge loss. But he couldn’t play things that way. He was a better cop than that. Michael was no judge of Benjamin Ripley. And he was certainly no executioner.

“How bad is it?” Michael asked Lawanda, easing down onto his haunches.

“I’m OK,” Lawanda said.

“You get shot?”

“My shoulder, yeah. It burns.”

“Don’t move,” he whispered. “Keep low.”

Michael raised up to a standing position. “Your sister. She’s got a bad wound here.”

“She does?”

“Yes, she’s just told me that same bullet that hit you hit her too. I need to call an ambulance.”

“Yeah, OK,” Mason said, voice suddenly agreeable.

“So, I’m gonna lower my weapon to get my two-way radio off my belt here, all right. That means I want you to do the same.”

“Why?”

“You don’t drop your weapon, how can I trust you ain’t gonna shoot me?”

There was a moment of silence. Mason seemed to be digesting the information. Slowly, he nodded. Michael could just barely make out the head movement. Mason was wearing Benjamin like a T-shirt now. “That mean yes?”

“Yes.”

Michael slowly lowered the muzzle of his pistol. He watched, relieved, as Mason did the same. Mentally, he calibrated the previous angle of his arms. Something tapped at Michael’s foot. He glanced down quickly but tried to also keep his eyes on Mason and Benjamin. Lawanda, eyes wide, mouthed four words. He shook his head, gently, not understanding. She did it again: The Knife.

Michael understood, but it was too late. He looked up to see Mason plunge a big blade into Benjamin’s jugular. Mason grunted with the effort, tearing skin as he sawed into the man’s throat. Blood spurted, geysering with each heartbeat. Crimson spurts of Benjamin’s blood stained the porch steps, puddling beside Mason’s big sneakers. Mason removed the knife. He punched a hole on the other side of Benjamin’s throat. More blood erupted from the second hole. Mason stood the old man up. He walked him out to the grass where Lawanda crouched. Michael watched, stupefied, as Mason flung Benjamin onto the ground. He leapt on top of him, shouting words that didn’t make sense.

Mason grabbed the knife again, raising it in the air. Benjamin’s body lie sprawled at an impossible angle, arms and legs twisted like a stomped spider in the dirt. His head was all but decapitated by the force and trauma, his neck wounds a slippery spaghetti of exposed veins and flapping tissue. The grin on Mason’s face, the peeled-back lunatic beaming, crooked teeth flashing, stirred something in Michael. This man could not be allowed to live. He could not be permitted to spread whatever poison was inside him beyond the Ripley Orchard.

Mason buried the knife once more in his father’s neck. He rose from the body of Benjamin Ripley, arms dangling, trudging forward like a marionette. He stumbled toward the skeleton with the red binoculars strapped to its head. He grabbed the yellowed ulna and radius. He positioned the knife in one of the skeleton’s hands. A phalange disconnected, dropping in the grass. He kneeled at the side of the grotesque, decades-old human skeleton. Mason shouted more words that didn’t make sense. Michael recalled the cadence, the nonsensical syllables from the tent revival in the woods. He was speaking in tongues.

Mason suddenly stopped talking. He smiled. Winked at Michael. His hand went for Michael’s gun.

Michael didn’t hesitate. He emptied his entire magazine into Mason Green.

The colors of everything surrounding Mason were so vibrant. He’d never until this very moment seen the true green of grass. The purple glow of night sky. Silver of the moon beaming down like a stage light upon God’s gorgeous creation. He hadn’t taken any of it for granted, but he hadn’t fully appreciated it either, had he? He’d never touched the cool grass blades upon his face, so refreshing in the night air. He’d never inhaled honeysuckle scents this way, never been so hungry for the smell of summer, had he? He lay on his back, facing the sky as if lounging somewhere on a beach, basking instead in the lunar rays of this July Georgia night.

It could have been any night really.

Even as life spilled rapidly from the body of Mason Green—little crimson hot springs spurting from his torso, a coiled garden hose of guts on display, pockmarked and deflating like punctured circus balloons—he still felt an appreciation for the life God had given him. He felt clarity. A clear mind that now saw the reason for the path that led from the spot where he watched his momma cough and spit and sputter her last breath to the patch of grass where he now lay, not far from the place she’d died.

A giant circle, it all was. Round, seamless, and symmetrical as a freshbaked apple pie.

Mason looked over, seeing the bones of Gloria Green all yellow like the crust of that banana pudding he and his momma found one afternoon—a whole pan of it—in the trash mountain back behind the Ripley House, where he’d scavenged so many meals with her and then without her. Where he’d found the discarded invoice for the Christian magazine Ignition, with the Haynesville address change that had led him straight to Lawanda six months back—discarded just as Lawanda had been. She was once lost, and now she was found.

“She OK?” Mason sputtered. It hurt to talk. The policeman, shirtless for some reason, stood over Mason Green saying something, but there was no longer language being passed between them. Words felt like a washcloth caught in his throat, so he didn’t speak again. Instead, he rose up a little, seeing Lawanda sitting on the ground. She was holding the policeman’s shirt against her shoulder, wrapped in a knot around her like a big blue bandage.

Good man, Mason thought, nodding at the policeman. Good man.

He rested his head, feeling no pain. Mason felt only calm as he turned slowly to look upon the bones of his mother again. But they weren’t bones anymore. Red muscle had begun to spread across the skeletal latticework. Before his eyes, sinew bloomed along the rib cage. Red-colored flesh surged like ocean surf spilled out over sands. Her fingers danced to life. The ViewFinder vanished, and her eyes blinked. She had eyes now. Flesh-colored pigments painted her body the milky white of the earthly form he once knew and held and loved.

She turned her head to look upon her son. He smiled at his momma. Gloria Green looked more beautiful than she’d ever been. She was the picture-perfect specimen of a human being, not a blemish upon her body nor a hair out of place on her head. Fingers white, no longer stained brown by the labor of shelling and sorting pecans. She smiled, big and sunny as a Citrus Grove postcard in a souvenir shop.

Mason himself had never looked so clean and unblemished. He was naked but unashamed by this. It just seemed natural. There wasn’t a single smudge of blood now, not even a bullet hole. His skin was as perfect as his momma’s. The tattoos were gone too. He heard voices suddenly harmonizing. He heard the song. But it wasn’t coming from his momma this time. It was coming from somewhere beneath his feet.

As Gloria Green walked toward Mason, the sun suddenly rose in the east, a sped-up version of dawn, like time-lapse photography on the nature channel. The moon hung high as could be, a pristine moon, strangely appearing to be without craters. It hung there in the heavens beside sister sun. Suddenly, the clouds parted, retreating toward the horizon. And then the blue heavens split in two. Massive fingers folded open the sky as if it wasn’t sky at all but a cosmic down comforter over the grove.

The fingers belonged to God. And Mason saw now what he’d suspected all along: God was a woman. Left breast the sun, right breast the moon. God was a mother. Made sense. She’d given birth to the world.

Mason’s own mother—his earthly mother—took his hand as they looked up together toward the heavens. Even as the dirt erupted all around them, with skeletal fingers of others clawing their way out of the dirt, Mason felt that perfect peace. That peace that passeth understanding, as the Good Book said. The bleach-white bones tunneled out of the earth, leaving five anthill-shaped mounds of Georgia dirt behind them. The bones all sang the song he’d been hearing since childhood. It was a lovely, angelic chorus. The skeletons joined hands, not a smudge of dirt on their perfect bones. And then, just as had happened to his momma, flesh began to form on them. First the red, sinewy muscle, and then perfect skin. Two of the skeletons became Caucasian women, while the other three were Hispanic or Latina. The beautiful, naked women moved together as one, like waves in the ocean, the back-and-forth sway as the hand of God gestured, beckoning them all home.

The song soothed Mason Green as he closed his eyes, the din of the voices in his head finally gone forever.

CHAPTER SIX

It didn’t take long for Michael’s backup to arrive. Thankfully, his two-way radio transmissions to Special Agent Emerson had been successful, after all. Two GBI Crown Vics zoomed up the driveway. Deputies with the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office also showed up, going into a frenzy when they spotted the body of the sheriff, minus the back of his head.

The deputies tried questioning Michael, but he ignored them, squatting instead beside Lawanda to sooth her. She was shaken up but, given the circumstances of the past week or so, she seemed better than anybody should. Add to the mix that she’d just witnessed Mason brutally slaughter their father.

She asked Michael if he’d say a prayer with her, and he agreed, bowing his head, the two of them bathed in the flashing blue lights of a dozen squad cars. She squeezed his hand tightly, whispering a prayer he couldn’t hear. Upon finishing, she looked up at him, giving him an honest-to-God smile through the tears rolling down her cheeks. “Thank you,” she said.

“What about the children…the youth group?”

She told him where Mason had left them, close to the hospital. He thanked her. He got on the radio to see if someone could track them down. When the medics showed up at Lawanda’s side moments later, having already seen the lost-cause corpses of the sheriff and Mason, Michael accepted his blood-stained shirt from Lawanda, putting the garment back on. Lawanda lay back on a gurney as the paramedics wheeled her into an ambulance. Slamming the door shut, the rescue personnel left the property, noisy siren trailing in their wake.

Michael shivered. The air felt cool tonight, whistling through the trees of the forest surrounding the Ripley property. It felt like wind coming off a big body of water, the kind of breeze that came from miles away, from another climate, from a whole other world. He had half a mind to explore these woods now but decided instead it was a job for the light of day. Tonight, top of mind was talking to Paulette Ripley. He’d tell her what happened and see if he could squeeze any information out of her. In circumstances like these, with emotions running out of control, interrogations could sometimes prove the most fruitful, as a subject’s guard was down.

Benjamin Ripley had a skeleton in the closet named Gloria Green he’d tried to bury, but Mason had dug it up, secret bones and all, leaving it at their doorstep, where it lay even still. Michael figured the forensics folks might want a word about that one in particular. The whole place should be considered a crime scene now—every inch of the property.

He turned up the volume on his two-way as he walked up the steps of the Ripley home. Wood creaked as he crossed the porch. He knocked. He waited. Nobody answered. He tried the knob. Finding it unlocked, he walked inside. He crossed the threshold. The smell of mothballs and cleaning agents stung his nostrils. And there was that sickly sweet, medicinal kids’ cough syrup tang to the air, as well, as he gazed up the long staircase in the main living area.

“Mrs. Ripley,” he called.

No answer.

Michael noted this time the mahogany door was open to the room that had been shut off during his first visit. He walked past the kitchen and dining room, the table still set with silver and dishware for a dozen. In the corner of the living area was a tall glass liquor cabinet with every variety of booze one could imagine.

Michael walked through the doorway of the room with the mahogany door. It was a large office. Aged tomes lined long bookshelves. The shelves and walls were filled with framed photos of Benjamin shaking hands with various people: the President of the United States, and the Georgia governor, as well as athletes and celebrities Michael vaguely recognized. It looked a lot like now-deceased Sheriff Dale Douglas’s office he had visited recently.

The office was also filled with the kinds of mid-nineteenth–century furniture he’d seen in the rest of the house, including a long desk in the back of the room. He approached the desk, reaching into his pocket for a fresh pair of gloves. Before he could put them on, he noticed a tall gun safe back behind the desk. The door of the safe hung wide open. He counted three handguns, an old .22 rifle, a thick stack of banded $100 bills, an expensive-looking folding knife, various pieces of gold and silver jewelry, and a stack of what looked like accounting paperwork.

In his haste to grab the shotgun that now rested beside his dead body, Benjamin had opened the safe but apparently failed to shut and relock it. Using gloved hands, Michael took the handguns and rifle out, setting them on the desk. He examined the folding knife. It was large. He opened it. It was overlaid with Benjamin’s initials in gold. He pushed aside the money and jewelry. He picked up the paperwork, setting it aside. Beneath it was a small, flat rectangular indentation like a puzzle piece—a false panel inside the safe. He’d seen something like this before. Michael slid away the panel. Inside, there was a thin, oxblood leather-bound album. Michael sat in Benjamin’s office chair, untying the blue velvet ribbon, opening the book.

The first page contained a sun-yellowed missing persons flyer, snug inside a clear protective sleeve. It featured a grainy black-and-white photo of a young girl who looked to be in her twenties. It was hard to tell because of the poor photo quality, but she seemed to be a white woman, very pretty, standing in front of a billboard for Citrus Grove.

Missing: June Marie Thompson. UPDATE: Reward offered by family. $1000 for information that leads to finding her. Missing from her home at 1254 Root Rot Blvd., Valdosta since 10-20-61. White female, 5 foot 3, blue eyes. 20 years old. Last known to be wearing white shorts and black shirt. Also, black tennis shoes. She has a tattoo of a sun on the inside of her right wrist. She worked this last harvest at the Ripley Orchard. This is the most recent photo of June Marie. If you have info, please contact…

What the fuck.

He flipped the page.

Another missing persons flyer. The girl on this one looked Hispanic and younger than the previous girl. He continued flipping the pages. There were four more flyers, all containing photos of pretty girls. What struck him was none of the flyers looked to be official, like those produced by local law enforcement. They were homemade. What was Benjamin doing with these, and why in the hell were they in his safe? He started getting a feeling—a feeling he knew all too well.

He continued flipping. The final page of the album stopped him in his tracks:

Have you seen Mason and Gloria Green? Missing since October 20, 1969.

It was the most recent of the six missing persons flyers. It featured a grainy photo of a mother and her young son in front of a tent trailer.

Gloria loves Jesus and her little boy too. They worked the orchard together many harvests. Last seen on the Ripley property, where they lived in a 1962 Oasis tent trailer. Mason is medium height, 12 years old, blue eyes, brown hair. He always carries his Bible with him. His mother, Gloria, is about five foot two inches. She has the same color blue eyes as her boy. Dark brown hair. Photo old, so they may look a little different than this. Have you seen them? Contact Alana Gutierrez …

Michael shut the photo album, allowing his mind to process what he’d just seen. These weren’t missing persons flyers. These were trophies.

He felt sick. He stood on shaky legs, thinking back to the exchange only an hour ago—what felt like days ago—in the front yard between Mason and Benjamin Ripley: Buried in a shallow grave…on the rotten side of the grove.

Unclipping his two-way radio from his belt, Michael steadied his breath. He closed his eyes, pushing down the button to talk. “Special Agent Emerson.”

“Yes. I’m listening. Sounds like you got a bloodbath down there. Are you injured?”

“I’m OK. Did you get a 10-20 on those missing kids?”

“Yes, the remaining three are all at a nearby hospital. Only a few miles from you.”

“Thank God. Can you do me a favor? I need to request more forensics people out here. A lot more.”

“10-4. Anybody in particular?”

He shook his head, opening the photo album and flipping once more through the pages of missing young women. “Send all of them. Everybody. Tell ’em to bring shovels.”

A NOTE ON THE TYPE

The typography of this book is intended to reinforce its atmosphere and thematic tensions. The primary display typeface, Mason, designed by Jonathan Barnbrook, appears on the cover and on select pages throughout the interior. Influenced by nineteenth-century Russian letterforms, Renaissance Bibles, Greek architecture, and political and pop-cultural typography, Mason embodies a layered duality that feels both elegant and unsettling. Originally released under the name Manson, after Charles Manson—the typeface was conceived to reflect opposing forces such as beauty and ugliness, devotion and violence. That resonance feels especially fitting within the world of this novel and the presence of the character Mason himself. Additional typographic elements, including decorative drop caps and aspects of the title lockup, draw inspiration from antique prayer cards and devotional ephemera, subtly merging the story’s religious undertones with its darker emotional register to create a cohesive visual identity throughout the book.

Mason is distributed through Adobe Fonts. Historical and descriptive information regarding the typeface is adapted from Adobe Fonts reference materials.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my children, Stella and Sterling, for keeping me on the straight and narrow path. I am forever grateful for the perspective you’ve given. Becoming your father saved my life. I’ll spend the rest of it giving back to you. I am so proud of you both.

Thank you to Virginia Underwood for your hard work editing this novel.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Frank Reddy is an award-winning writer of fiction and non-fiction, living in Atlanta, Georgia, with his two children. You can find him on Instagram @reddyfiction.