A Pagan's Nightmare Read online

  Surprise, surprise.

  2

  IMAGINE A SATELLITE VIEW of Florida, especially the sun-drenched peninsula that divides the Atlantic from the Gulf of Mexico. To the far left side of the screen, in swirling bands of white cloud, a hurricane spins four hundred miles away, heading due east from the Gulf, on a beeline for Tampa and Orlando. For all we know, this zephyr may or may not turn out to sea.

  Now picture a broadcast booth, and inside, a radio talk-show host. This man is bearded and pudgy and usually jovial. Behind him on the wall sits a plaque on which is centered a set of scales, golden in color, the two cups aligned at a perfect horizontal. For fifteen years this man’s hospitable manner has fed America’s quest to voice its every opinion, and his show has grown into a meeting place for those with extremist views, stupid views, boring views, and no views at all.

  Known affectionately to listeners as DJ Ned Neutral, he leaned into his mic, glanced through Plexiglass at his producer, and cleared his throat.

  The producer readied himself behind a soundboard and counted down the seconds on his fingers:

  Three… two… one.

  “Hurricane Gretchen is still a category three, traveling east with winds at one-hundred-twenty miles per hour. At its current pace it will make landfall along our coast in approximately four days.” Ned’s voice boomed friendly and deep, an intelligent voice that he’d parlayed into one of the nation’s most popular call-in shows. “Welcome to Fence-Straddler AM radio, where I, DJ Ned Neutral, serve not only as arbiter of American argument, but this week go far beyond the call of duty…. I’m doubling as your weather man.”

  Ned paused, checked the time, rubbed his beard. He glanced at the row of red lights on his phone, lights that signaled incoming calls. All five were lit. Before taking a call, however, he addressed his audience again.

  “Good morning to the fruited plain. This is DJ Ned coming at you live from wind-whipped Orlando. Tropical Storm Felix missed us by forty miles, and still I have limbs down all over my yard. And now, now we’ve got a bigger storm on the way. So before we get into which special-interest group hates which and for what reasons, does anyone care to share how they’re preparing for a third August hurricane?” Ned pressed line 1.

  “Yo, Nute. This is Crackhead.”

  Ned smiled above his mic. “Yo, Crackhead. Didn’t you call in last week?”

  “Yeah. I’m the guy who—”

  “I remember. You got your name from cracking your head after falling off your skateboard.”

  “You got it, Nute. I never done no drugs.”

  “Honest?”

  “I swear, Nute. I’m a health guy.”

  “Right. So, what do you have to say to America today, Crackhead?”

  “First I want to say that all these hurricanes could be God’s judgment on Florida.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Some pastor said so.”

  Neutral rubbed his chin and winked through the glass at his producer. “Okay, Crackhead, and just what denomination are you a part of?”

  “Some kind of Redeemer Fellowship thing…. I’ve only been twice.”

  “And you’re absolutely sure about this judgment from God?”

  “That pastor said so. Said too much drinking and fornication goin’ on in Florida.”

  Ned struggled for words. “Okay, Crackhead, since you’ve got the Sunshine State covered, now tell us what kind of natural disaster is going to crush the drunks and fornicators in land-locked states like Kansas and Iowa.”

  “Um… I dunno, man. . . Maybe all their peas and corn will shrivel and die.”

  Ned hit the red End Call button on his desk. “Thanks for the call, Crackhead.”

  He restrained a grin and leaned once more into the microphone. “One warning from last week, folks. Although we give voice to most anyone, I’ll not tolerate any more Nazi Skinhead versus Lutheran Senior Ladies Book Club. You all wore me out last week. Now, who’s my next caller?”

  Ned pressed line 2.

  “Neutral?”

  “Welcome to Fence-Straddler AM.”

  “Hi, Neutral, this is Nancy from Wichita. That last caller was right about the judgment, but wrong about the reasons. It’s the materialism that will cause our destruction. Everyone wants the big house on the golf course.”

  “Well, Nancy, I happen to live in a big house on a golf course. And I bought it by working hard for fifteen years to give America an outlet to speak their mind.”

  “Is your house over six-thousand square feet?”

  Ned rolled his eyes and gripped the mic. “Is six thousand the cutoff size for God’s wrath?”

  “I think so. How big is your house, Ned?”

  “Five-thousand, two-hundred square feet.”

  “You see, Ned… those limbs that fell in your yard were a warning not to expand.”

  Neutral hit the red button. “Alrighty, Florida. Who else has limbs down in their yard? Welcome to Fence-Straddler AM.”

  “Neuuuutral! You rock, man.”

  “Thank you. What’s on your mind?”

  “My name’s John, and I called in to say that I have it worse than just limbs down in my yard.”

  “And how big is your house, John?”

  “I live in a trailer, man. Just a single-wide. And now it’s turned on its side and leaning up against my neighbor’s place.”

  “And is your neighbor okay?”

  “Yeah, my neighbor is Crackhead, who called in earlier. We’re about to hitch his four-wheel drive truck to my trailer and tump it back over.”

  “Tump it back over? Where’re you from, John? Or should I call you John-boy?”

  “South Georgia, originally.”

  “And do you think your trailer getting tumped over by Tropical Storm Felix is a judgment from God?”

  “Definitely, and it ain’t got nothing to do with house size.”

  “I see. Then to what do you attribute the cause?”

  “Online gambling, Nute. I slipped up and clicked on a Web site that I shouldn’t have.”

  “And does Crackhead know about this?”

  “Crackhead told me to click on it…. It’s how he makes his living.”

  Ned considered his audience, saw that all five red lights on his phone bank were lit, and cut John off. “Next caller,” he said.

  “Neutral, this is H. Bernard Randolph.”

  “Welcome to the show, H. Bernard.”

  “Thanks, Neutral. I’m on my lunch break up here on Wall Street, and I just have to say that I disagree vehemently with both Crackhead and his neighbor John.”

  “That so?”

  “According to the blonde on the Weather Channel, the percentage of storms hitting Florida is no different today than it was back in the fifties… back when America still had its innocence.”

  Ned paused and considered H. Bernard’s factual tidbit. “So Fonzie and Ralph Malph were never in any danger of getting walloped by a tornado for lusting after Richie’s sister?”

  “No, never. But Joanie was a babe.”

  DJ Ned hesitated, wanting the caller to continue. “Is that all you had to say, H. Bernard?”

  “That’s it.”

  Just as Ned cut the call, all five red lights went dim.

  DJ Ned stared at the row of vacancies and shook his head. “That’s never happened before,” he muttered to himself. “Sorry, folks. All the lines just went dead. This show never has empty lines.”

  After ten minutes of waiting for the lines to light up again, Ned raised both hands, palms up, and shrugged the big shrug, a silent signal of give-up to his producer.

  But his producer was no longer in sight.

  Ned looked out through the glass surrounding his booth and tried to spot him. But only Ned himself was in the room.

  He figured his producer had run to the men’s room. But while broadcasting? He glanced back at his phone bank and saw that all five lights were still dim.

  By the time his show ended at 2:00, DJ Ned Neutral ha
d not received a single call since H. Bernard phoned in from Wall Street. Ned rose slowly from his radio booth and peeked down the hall of Fence-Straddler AM.

  No one else was in sight.

  He looked into all the offices, but all were empty.

  He called out, “Hey, anyone want to join me for lunch?”

  No one answered. Just the clock, ticking off the seconds. He’d never noticed the ticks before.

  Next he retrieved his cell phone from his jacket and tried to call his own show, but the call would not go through. “Please check with your phone company,” it said.

  Confused and a bit freaked out, Ned rushed from the building and into bright sunlight. He tried to calm himself, took deep breaths. He even walked a block down the sidewalk of the business district. In seconds Orlando seemed normal again—humidity high, shade low. The only thing he noticed that looked odd was that fewer people were on the streets. Maybe everyone went to the beach today.

  Food always helped Ned relax and clear his mind, o he entered The Streetside Café, one of several local eateries he frequented.

  Ned was a big eater—and had a habit of ordering dessert along with his entrée—so when a middle-aged waitress arrived to take his order, he pointed first to the dessert menu. “Got any more of that Devil’s Food Cake?” he asked her.

  She promptly pulled out a Sharpie pen, leaned down to the plastic menu, and marked out the word Devil’s. Then she wrote a new word in its place. “Management just changed the name to David’s Food Cake,” she said. “One slice could fill Goliath.”

  At first Ned could only blink at her.

  The waitress smiled politely, pointed to the menu. “Would you like a piece of David’s Food Cake, sir? It’s already quite popular in Tucson, Dallas, and Chattanooga.”

  Blank-faced, DJ Ned stared at the waitress, hoping that she was kidding.

  But she just waited patiently with pad in hand, ready to take his order.

  Ned had yet to connect his lack of callers with the renaming of Devil’s Food Cake, but it seemed to him that a strange form of religiosity was sweeping across America from west to east, just like the latest fad from L.A.

  3

  WHEN LANNY ARRIVED at Southside Elen entary on the south side of Atlanta, he parked his Xterra in ; visitor’s spot and unhitched his seatbelt. By now he had convince I himself that he was simply the victim of a huge practical joke, anc over the past half hour he had given little thought to the odd happ snings at McDonald’s and the BP station. The billboard, however still troubled him.

  Skies were sunny and winds were mild as he got out and grabbed his toolbox from the rear hatch. Whiffs of honeysuckle drifted past, and for a moment Lanny stood and sniffed. The sweet scent restored a sense of normalcy to his day, and around h m everything looked in place: grass freshly mown, windows adornec with Crayola drawings, tricycles in the playground, bicycles lined t p and parked beyond the sidewalk.

  “I remember my little purple bike, back when I was as seven,” he said to himself. He shut the hatch to his truck and toted his toolbox toward the front entrance.

  On his way toward the school, Lanny heard an intercom blaring some kind of announcement from inside the building. He could not make out the words.

  As soon as he pushed open the lobby door, he smelled Pine-Sol. But he found no one at the front desk to greet him, so he continued down the hall to room 12B, where he had been instructed to knock before entering. He knocked twice, but there was no answer, no sound at all from inside the room.

  The intercom system crackled to life, and from down the hall an emotionless male voice said, “Go to 12D. You’re at 12B.”

  Lanny wondered why no one was talking to him in person, and how they even knew he was in the building. He loped down the hallway, his toolbox heavy in his hand, his mind suspicious once again.

  This is Monday. Surely there are kids here on Monday.

  The door to 12D was also closed. Instead of knocking, Lanny almost left to find the school principal. But he went ahead and tried the door, and it opened to an empty classroom. Desks were pushed to the sides, and masking tape was arranged on the floor in the form of a big boat. Drawn skillfully on the chalkboard to his right were colorful fish and a huge octopus.

  In the rear, just outside the restroom, he saw the shiny porcelain. An uninstalled kiddie commode sat against the back wall, its lid up, as if inviting him to get to work. Lanny toted his toolbox to the back and read a note taped to the commode handle:

  Please try to have this installed by 2:15. The kids

  have their juice and cookies at 2:30, and we will

  need our restroom to be functional.

  Lanny glanced at his watch and saw that the time was already 1:28. Curious as to where everybody had gone, he went to the window and peered out at the schoolyard. It too was empty.

  Then the intercom voice said, “Better hurry.”

  Lanny muttered, “Mind your own business,” and opened the restroom door. He was relieved to see that the old commode had already been removed.

  He finished the installation in thirty minutes, and as always, he gave the commode a test flush. The swishing sound was immediately followed by the impatient voice on the intercom.

  “The children are waiting to return to their classroom.”

  Lanny paused from arranging his tools in his box to glance up at the gray speaker mounted on the ceiling. “Why can’t I meet the kids? I’m not dangerous, ya know.”

  The voice was monotone and robotic. “We cannot risk them becoming tainted.”

  “Tainted?” This was the second time today Lanny had heard that word.

  “Thank you for the new commode,” the voice said.

  Lanny frowned and shut the lid. “You’re… welcome.”

  Five seconds passed before the voice sounded again. “But you are not allowed to use it.”

  This time Lanny stood on his toes and stared at the speaker, perturbed at the lack of humanity. He decided to humor whoever was doing the talking. “Why can’t I use it? Because I’d have to sit all squished with my knees up to my chin?”

  “No, because you’re not one of us. You’re Mr. P.”

  At that instant Lanny knew that today was no practical joke. No way would two different strangers, on two sides of Atlanta, call him that. Fighting nerves, he muttered, “So I’m Mr. P., eh?”

  “Leave within the next ten seconds or we summon the authorities.”

  Defiant, Lanny waited twelve seconds. And through the speaker he heard sirens wail.

  His complexion paled as he grabbed his toolbox and fled room 12D. His footsteps echoed in the empty hallway, and the intercom offered nary a good-bye.

  When Lanny reached his Xterra, he flung the toolbox in the rear, jumped into the driver’s seat, and left skid marks in the Southside parking lot. Two miles down the road he tried again to reach Miranda on her cell phone. It was 2:15, and he knew that her flight should have landed by now. But again there was no answer, not even her friendly, recorded message.

  He tried the radio, searching for a breaking news story, hoping he was not caught in the middle of some strange invasion. Instead he discovered something far more personal—he heard Atlanta’s traffic reporter utter his name.

  The female reporter’s voice grew excited. “I repeat, Marvin the Apostle is offering a second Big Reward for the capture and conversion of Georgia’s last remaining holdout, Lanny Hooch. He was last seen leaving the building of Southside Elementary.”

  Lanny jammed the accelerator. A reward to capture and convert me? He swerved around a pair of minivans and paid no attention as his speedometer soared passed 80. What is happening to Atlanta? And why me?

  At the on-ramp to 1-285, Lanny again had trouble merging. But by now he had lost patience with the zealots. Again he jammed the accelerator. Then he pulled onto the shoulder and sped past an endless line of religious bumper stickers. He drove straight to 1-85, took exit 99, turned left over the bridge, then hung a right into Miranda’s apa
rtment complex. He parked in front of building G, hurried to her door, and knocked.

  No answer.

  She’s a smart girl. Maybe she knows about these zealots, missed her plane on purpose, and is hiding out at her sister’s.

  However strong his panic, however anxious his thoughts, what Lanny wanted most was to get out of Atlanta. He ran back to his truck, climbed in, and started the engine. But he left the gearshift in park—at the back of the lot he’d spotted an old Camaro with its front wheels up on blocks, and this car offered the subtle disguise he needed.

  Two minutes later, Lanny had swapped license plates. In survival mode, he drove out of the gate and turned back toward the interstate. His instincts told him to floor it and flee. But first he knew he should call customer service at Delta Airlines. He fumbled with his cell phone, dropping it on the floor mat. His truck swerved back and forth over the center line as he grabbed the phone from under his ankle. He dialed the number, took deep breaths, and waited for an answer.

  Finally a female voice greeted him. “Welcome to Detour Airlines, earthly flights for the heaven-bound.”

  Lanny nearly crashed his truck. “Detour Airlines?” he shot back. “What is that?!”

  But he was too shaken to wait for a response. He slammed his phone shut and veered into the exit lane, turning south onto 1-85, then back onto 1-285. Traffic flowed now, and he felt safest in the middle lanes, driving and thinking, driving and fighting panic, driving and fearing the worst.

  He looped around Atlanta in a stupor, trying his golf buddies over and over on his cell but getting no answers. He turned on the traffic report again and heard the reporter giving details of the reward offer: “. . . This offer has a three-day time limit…. The first Big Reward was claimed in Athens at 11:00 a.m. today, a deft capture of holdout number two…. He is now en route to the containment area…. And now one holdout remains…. Lanny Hooch last seen leaving Southside Elementary…. Believed to be driving a forest green Nissan.”

  Containment area? What is that?! At least they got the color of my truck wrong.