A Pagan's Nightmare Read online

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2006 by Charles “Ray” Blackston

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This book is a parody, and any similarity in names to real titles, corporations, or products is intended solely for the purpose of spoofing and is not intended to be taken literally or to imply any sort of endorsement, authorization, or sponsorship.

  Warner Books, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  First eBook Edition: November 2009

  Warner Faith and the “W” logo are trademarks of Time Warner Inc. or an affiliated company. Used under license by Hachette Book Group USA, which is not affiliated with Time Warner Inc.

  ISBN: 978-0-446-56997-2

  “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie,

  and worshiped and served created things

  rather than the creator.… “

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to Beth Jusino for finding a home for this project, and to my editors, Anne Goldsmith and Chip MacGregor, for their keen insight and advice.

  The voyage at sea was influenced by the author’s reading of The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, by Gideon Defoe.

  Assistance with the (admittedly few) Spanish words courtesy of Susanne Leland and Ana Mejai.

  Early test reads handled by the talented Annie McCarthy.

  With apologies to Sister Sledge, ABBA, the Bee Gees,

  the Beatles, R.E.M., the Who, KC and the Sunshine Band,

  Wild Cherry, the Dave Mathews Band, and anyone else

  who has ever produced original music.

  Larry Hutch—all lanky, six-feet-three of him—bounded into my downtown Atlanta office at 10:45 Monday morning and dropped a screenplay on my desk. Thwack.

  “This is it?” I asked.

  Larry folded his arms, pressed his lips together in a kind of triumphant smirk, and nodded. “Done.”

  He looked as if he’d run across Georgia to get there; he was sweating through his madras shirt onto my best chair. This was August, however, so I kept my composure and read his title page. Larry looked on, silent and self-assured.

  I thumbed the inch-high stack of paper—thicker than the average screenplay—and felt a tiny breeze tickle my nostrils. “This is what you said I just had to read… your best yet?”

  “Done,” he repeated. Larry sat sprawled in the guest chair and gazed out of my 22nd-story window. “I still may tweak the ending a bit, Ned. And it’s not a screenplay. I wrote it in novel form.”

  I thumbed the pages a second time and noted the coffee stains on chapter one. “Does it have drama?”

  He nodded. “By the boatload.”

  “Adventure?”

  “Gobs.”

  “Romance?”

  “Of the highest quality.”

  I read the first page with my usual dose of skepticism. “You have got to be—”

  “Nuts?”

  “Completely.”

  Larry interlocked his fingers behind his head and smiled the confident smile of a creative. “After you sell the movie rights, we’ll get the book deal. We’ll do this in reverse.”

  And just like that, Confident Larry rose from his chair and departed. He left my door ajar, and seconds later I heard his muffled voice from down the hall.

  “Just read the first ten pages, Ned, then go visit a McDonald’s.” His booming laugh followed, a laugh more appropriate for a Halloween gig than an agent/writer meeting.

  Nine years earlier, Larry had graduated from film school. Twenty-two years earlier, I had graduated from the University of Tennessee—which is why so many of my shirts were orange. Larry called me Agent Orange, most likely because I killed his previous idea, which was terrible. Aliens invaded a Billy Graham crusade and, well, I’ll spare you the rest.

  I spent the afternoon on other business. Calls to other authors. Ten other manuscripts to skim through and reject. I badly needed to sell something.

  Around 5:30 p.m., just before I left the office, I read Larry’s title page again, shook my head in bewilderment, and stuffed his inch-high stack into my briefcase.

  It was August 14th, a sunny afternoon as I walked to my car. My Saab sat next to a city park; I remember that clearly. I also remember jingling my keys, unlocking the door, and recoiling when I touched the hot blue paint.

  I climbed in and buckled my seatbelt. Traffic was horrendous in all directions, so I figured the thing to do was to stay put, to climb back out and go sit in the park and read Larry’s stuff. Like unearthing something rare and unexpected in your backyard, I had that feeling of discovery, the urge to dig further. A shaded bench looked welcoming beneath a burly magnolia, so I hurried over and took a seat and began reading.

  A half hour later, I had coined a new phrase for my profession. In my small circle of agent friends, a manuscript that we cannot put down is now known as a “bencher.” This is one that keeps you glued to a park bench and causes your spouse to question your whereabouts.

  In my learned opinion, Larry had written a bencher. Or at least the beginnings of one. And by the time I had finished his third chapter and darkness was descending on muggy Atlanta, I was experimenting with the term “double bencher.” That’s when you employ a flashlight and end up spending the night.

  Oh, I should also mention that I was married, that Larry was single, and that my wife, Angie, was a devout Baptist.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  LARRY HUTCH’S READING GROUP GUIDE

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  WHO’S EVER HEARD OF A REVERSE RAPTURE?

  1

  SUFFICE IT TO SAY that a certain people—some would call them the fortunate ones—took over.

  Well, took over is too strong a phrase. Actually it was more like an inheritance. No, actually it was more like they were sitting at a very long table with many strangers, and in mid-course all the strangers left without finishing their strawberry cheesecake, so the fortunate ones just helped themselves.

  How shameless—helping oneself to the early departeds’ dessert. The gall!

  Lanny Hooch will be our hero, or anti-hero—or perhaps an innocent bystander—depending on your perspective. You see, Lanny was in the right place at the right time: in a church, in northwest Atlanta, on a Monday morning, on his knees, atop hardwood floors, facing a baptismal.

  He’d been here once before—the previous Friday—and on that morning he’d assumed a similar posture.

  And you think Lanny was repentant?

  Repentant? Hah!

  Lanny owned Hooch Contracting, and on this day he was on his knees with his trusty Craftsman cordless dril
l, removing rusty wood screws from a ruined baseboard. The baptismal had sprung a leak, and the Baptists had summoned Lanny. He was a good worker. Punctual, with reasonable rates. Sometimes he cursed loudly if he hit his thumb with his hammer, and by 10:00 a.m. he had done this twice. He was alone in the sanctuary however, so no one heard him.

  Or did they? During his break he visited the men’s room. He washed his hands at the sink, reached for a paper towel, and spotted a sign next to the dispenser. SOMEONE ALWAYS HEARS, it read. The blue lettering was still wet, and Lanny returned to his work, wondering who had painted the sign.

  Perhaps it was because Lanny was on his knees, down front in an empty sanctuary on a Monday morning in August, that he was picked. Though at this point he was thinking only about lunch, and of course the forty-mile drive to his next work site, an elementary school on the south side of Atlanta.

  After he finished the repairs to the Baptist baseboard, Lanny climbed into his sage green Nissan Xterra and headed for the school, where he was to install a kiddie commode, the kind that force adults to sit all squished, with their knees up to their chins. But first Lanny had to stop for gas, so he took exit 57 and turned into a BP station. He stopped at this BP often; they usually had the lowest price.

  In a hurry, he paid no attention to the price as he filled his twenty-gallon tank. For several minutes he stood staring out at the traffic, thinking about Miranda and sniffing the fumes. Miranda was his girlfriend. She was twenty-nine, and her flight back from Orlando was due in at 1:30. She had gone to visit her parents and had taken Monday as a vacation day. Lanny could not wait to see her again.

  After he replaced his fuel cap, Lanny blinked his confusion as he finally read the sign above the pumps:

  UNLEADED: $0.12 PER GALLON FOR THE REDEEMED

  $6.66 PER GALLON FOR EVERYONE ELSE

  “No way!” Lanny shouted to the pump. He looked around to see if someone were holding a camera, filming him as part of a joke.

  He saw no one. At that moment, he was the only one pumping gas.

  Surely someone is messing with my head. But what if they’re not?

  To Lanny, such price gouging seemed positively satanic, not to mention awfully unfair. This pit stop was also his first warning that something—he thought the air smelled funny, never mind the fumes—might be different about this particular Monday. But what could he do? He chalked it up to a practical joke and kept his composure. And composure was a trait he needed, since he had to hurry to south Atlanta to install the kiddie commode.

  Lanny had only thirty-two dollars in his wallet, so he walked inside and asked the clerk in the Nike hat what the real price of gas was today.

  “For you it’s $6.66 per gallon,” said the clerk, blank-faced.

  “But that’s outrageous.” Lanny pushed away from the counter. “I won’t pay it.”

  The clerk shrugged and pointed to the hidden camera mounted in the corner. “We have you on tape, and the gas is already in your truck. Don’t make us call the authorities.”

  “Then I’ll siphon the gas back out into your storage tank.”

  “We cannot take it back, sir. The gas is now tainted.”

  In no mood to deal with the police, a frustrated Lanny wrote out a check for $126.54.

  Intelligent persons might pause here and say, “Wait, that does not compute! Twenty gallons times $6.66 equals $133.20.”

  Intelligent persons would be mistaken. Even blue collars like Lanny know not to drive till their tank is empty. He still had one gallon left in his Xterra.

  Hungry and feeling ripped off, he drove across the street to a McDonald’s. Everyone behind the counter was smiling the pasted-on smiles of those who have endured fast-food training but are still uncomfortable greeting the customers. Yet Lanny was confused by the uniforms, which, though still the basic red and yellow, possessed no golden arches but instead golden crosses—one on each sleeve.

  Perhaps this was Lanny’s second warning. But he was hungry and still mad over the satanic gas gouging, so he ordered a cheeseburger, a fish sandwich, large fries, and a Coke.

  He hoped that the smiling blonde cashier girl would not tell him that his total was $6.66, and he felt relieved when she said, “That’ll be seven dollars and thirteen cents.”

  Lanny was superstitious about the number thirteen—and normally he would have ordered something else just to change the total—but he was flustered by all the golden crosses and quickly forked over the money.

  The cashier girl handed Lanny his change. “Enjoy your meal, Mr. P.” she said.

  Lanny looked at her with his head cocked funny. “My name is not Mr. P. My last name starts with an H.”

  Counter Girl smiled politely. “Today we’re referring to you as Mr. P.”

  Even more confused, Lanny shook his head, picked up his tray, and sat in the far left corner, next to the window. He felt like he was being watched, so he munched his fish sandwich and avoided eye contact with the fast-food workers. He was still eating, staring out the window at the traffic on 1-285, when he noticed the billboard:

  How Does It Feel to Be the Last One?

  ~God

  Nervously glancing around the restaurant, Lanny gobbled his cheeseburger before starting on his fries. Imagine his shock when he withdrew the first fry from the pouch and saw that it was curled into one long word, Pharisee. He frowned at the wordy potato and stuffed the entire thing into his mouth. Then he read the slogan on the cardboard pouch: “McScriptures—a new kind of french fry, pure as gospel.”

  Lanny tucked his fries into the bag, grabbed his Coke, and left his trash on the table for the smiling blonde to clean up. “I’m outta here,” he mumbled to himself as he pushed open the glass door.

  Lanny was a self-professed pagan. Mannerly, sure, and usually a patient fellow, but he had wanted nothing to do with religion ever since eighth grade, ever since he’d found out that his neighbor, an associate pastor, had been convicted of trafficking drugs and adult magazines. That summer Lanny had made up his mind to use Sundays for golf. He would be a low-handicap pagan.

  Perhaps that’s why Counter Girl referred to me as Mr. P., he thought as he climbed into his truck. How ironic. But I’m still ticked about the gas thing.

  Traffic was horrible, and Lanny grew frustrated at the congestion, even more so when he reached the on-ramp to 1-285 to south Atlanta. No one would let him merge. Here traffic was worse than bumper to bumper; it was religious bumper sticker to religious bumper sticker. They were all reading each other’s spiritual platitudes and giving each other the thumbs up.

  In contrast, Lanny’s only bumper sticker read “Sometimes I wake up grumpy; other times I let him sleep.”

  .Miranda put it there. She read novels on Sundays while Lanny played his golf.

  Annoyed at what the day had wrought, Lanny waited for someone, anyone, to let him merge onto crowded 1-285. But everyone ignored him, so he called Miranda’s cell, hoping to reach her before she boarded her flight from Orlando. He wondered if she, too, was experiencing the religious weirdness in the South today. There was no answer, so he tried her work number. That number went unanswered, so he called her cell again and left a message for her to call him as soon as possible.

  The temperature was already near one hundred degrees, and Lanny turned his AC on high. Still no one would let him merge. Not the SUVs, not the minivans, not even the redhead in the silver Audi. Her bumper sticker read “Traffic Is My Mission Field.”

  But the redhead would not look his way, even though Lanny was motioning for her to lower her window so that he could ask her what was going on today in Hotlanta. He hoped the religious weirdness was a regional thing. In fact, he almost prayed that it was a regional thing, but then he remembered that he never prayed to anything but his golf clubs, which he tended to slice.

  So Lanny sat waiting to merge, fiddling with the radio and eating his McScripture fries. He thought they tasted very much like regular fries, only with less salt.

  Lanny had installe
d satellite radio in his vehicle and figured his best move now was to tune in to a station out of L.A. It was his favorite, as their mix of oldies and modern rock suited his worldview just fine. So he tuned to the station and increased the volume, only to hear the Beatles singing their greatest hit, “I Wanna Hold Your Tithe.”

  Lanny slammed his fist into his seat. Someone is even changing the song lyrics, he thought to himself. That’s sacred territory.

  Minutes later a little old lady in a Volkswagen Bus honked, waved a brochure that read “Repent of Bingo,” and allowed Lanny to merge.

  He waved with no sincerity at all, then tried Miranda again on the cell phone.

  But again he got no answer. Maybe she’s already on the plane.

  He tried her parents in Cocoa Beach—where they’d retired and where she’d been visiting.

  Again, no answer.

  He tried Miranda’s sister, Carla, in Augusta.

  No luck there, either.

  His father and mother had passed away two and four years earlier, respectively, so the next closest persons he thought about were his golf and poker buddies.

  He tried all five of them.

  Nothing.

  Rolling along on congested 1-285, sandwiched between zealots, Lanny felt very alone. In fact, he was beginning to feel like the lone yellow M&M in a bag full of reds. But not quite like that, since feeling alone in the world is much worse than being a solitary piece of chocolate, which has no feelings at all, even when it melts in your mouth instead of your hand.

  The smaller shock to Lanny was that religious people seemed to be the only ones inhabiting the state of Georgia. The real shocker to him—it was more like a revolving question—was, where had everyone else gone? Who had taken these people? And how did he—or she? it?—manage this?

  Lanny’s thoughts ran wild. They ran in circles. They even ran all the way back to his childhood, when he had sat in the back during Sunday school.

  Surely there’s no such thing as a reverse rapture? Is there? Did I miss that part?