China Lake Read Online Free PDF Page B

plot to discredit the Bible with the big bang theory and the claim that AIDS came from African monkeys—monkeys!—when he knew God turned it loose at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
    His voice began rising. The Catholic Church was a lie, nothing but witchcraft. Latin was a lie. Yup, Latin, a pagan tongue, supposed to be a dead language—but it wasn’t dead; it’s been kept alive as . . . what? As the language of law, and science, and the Mass, and sorcery . He chanted, ‘‘Dominus Nabisco Shredded Wheat,’’ and said, ‘‘How many of you seen a Mexican ballplayer trying to cross himself into a home run?’’ Mexican came out meskin . ‘‘Am I right? It’s not coincidence. Can’t you see, people, how they’re all connected? ’’
    I felt the hair rising on the back of my neck. I turned, saw a young woman in the back row looking at me, a teenager whose Kewpie-doll mouth punctuated her moon-round face. She was staring as if she had recognized me from a wanted poster. When I met her gaze her mouth narrowed to a slit.
    ‘‘And then there’s Satan’s biggest lie—that the last days are a myth. He’s slick at getting people to believe this.’’
    The slit-mouthed teen whispered to a companion, and they both stared at me.
    ‘‘The Black Death, H-bombs, comets flying at the earth, even Y2K—every time, folks start thinking this is it . And when it’s not, people say, ‘look at them idiots; what kind of morons would believe the Apocalypse was coming?’ ’’ He paused. ‘‘And Satan sits back and smiles. ’Cause he’s gotten more people to ignore the Bible’s warnings.’’
    He gripped the mike with both hands. He had huge hands, miner’s hands, rough and reddened. ‘‘But the end-times are not a myth.’’ His voice spiraled down to a whisper. ‘‘The storm is coming, people.’’
    His sudden quietude spread a chill across my skin, a deepening sense of unease. I had expected his preening righteousness, but not for his homily to loft into the eerie winds of biblical prophecy. I stood transfixed, even though the slit-mouthed teenager and her friend were muttering and giving me darting, nasty looks.
    ‘‘Look around at the signs,’’ he said. ‘‘The president of the United States now swears the oath of office facing the Washington Monument—a Masonic obelisk, a symbol of the occult. That is a message to the devil, saying the government is ready to serve him. American soldiers are getting anthrax inoculations. That is a sign they’re preparing for the end-time plagues.’’
    Wyoming wiped his brow. With his reddened cheeks, sore pink hands, and the scarlet choir behind him, he looked like a living alarm. ‘‘Satan is preparing for war. And who will fight him? The UN?’’
    ‘‘Foreign faggots!’’ a man cried. ‘‘They’re in on it!’’
    ‘‘Who, then? Who will fight back?’’
    ‘‘Nobody—they’re all gonna die!’’
    ‘‘Yes. Because nobody is going to fight Satan. Nobody . . .’’ Wyoming paused. ‘‘Except the Remnant. The few, the pure, the clean sons and daughters of the Lord.’’
    Voices called out, ‘‘Amen!’’ and, ‘‘Right on!’’ Wyoming said, ‘‘Lucky for us, we have intercepted Satan’s battle plans.’’ He raised the Bible above his head. ‘‘It’s all in here. We know what’s coming.’’
    Amid intense concentration, more nods, a woman said, ‘‘Tell us, Pastor Pete!’’
    ‘‘Tribulation is what’s coming. Horrible, horrible tribulation.’’
    The congregation held still, waiting to hear how horrible. They looked like roller-coaster passengers preparing for the first heart-stopping drop down the rails. Wyoming flipped to a new scripture passage.
    ‘‘ ‘Behold, a pale horse, and its rider’s name was Death . . . they were given power over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.’ ’’
    Here we went. He had taken his time