The Devil All the Time Read Online Free PDF

outhouse without someone holding my hand. They was hanging in their webs everywhere waiting on me. It was an awful way to live, in fear all the time, awake or asleep, it didn’t matter. And that’s what hell is like, brothers and sisters. I never got no rest from them eight-legged devils. Not until I found the Lord.”
    Then Roy dropped to his knees and gave the jar another jiggle before he twisted the lid off. Theodore slowed the music down until all that was left was a sad, ominous dirge that chilled the room, raised the short hairs on the backs of necks. Holding the jar above him, Roy looked out over the crowd and took a deep breath and turned it over. A variegated mass of spiders, brown ones and black ones and orange-and-yellow-striped ones, fell on top of his head and shoulders. Then a shiver ran through his body like an electric current, and he stood up and slammed the jar to the floor, sending shards of glass flying everywhere. He let out that awful screech again, and began shaking his arms and legs, the spiders falling off onto the floor and scurrying away in all directions. Some lady wrapped in a knitted shawl jumped up andhurried toward the door and several more screamed, and in the midst of the commotion, Roy stepped forward, a few spiders still clinging to his sweaty face, and yelled, “Mark my word, people, the Lord, He’ll take away all your fears if you let Him. Look what He’s done for me.” Then he gagged a little, spit something black out of his mouth.
    Another woman started beating at her dress, crying out that she’d been bit, and a couple of children started blubbering. Reverend Sykes ran back and forth attempting to restore some order, but by then people were scrambling toward the narrow door in a panic. Emma took Helen by the arm, trying to lead her out of the church. But the girl shook her off and turned and walked into the aisle. She held her Bible against her flat chest as she stared at Brother Roy. Still strumming his guitar, Theodore watched his cousin nonchalantly brush a spider off his ear, then smile at the frail, plain-looking girl. He didn’t stop playing until he saw Roy beckon the bitch forward with his hands.
    ON THE DRIVE HOME, WILLARD SAID , “Boy, them spiders was a nice touch.” He slipped his right hand over and began moving his fingers lightly up his mother’s fat, jiggly arm.
    She squealed and swatted at him. “Quit that. I won’t be able to sleep tonight as it is.”
    “You ever heard that boy preach before?”
    “No, but they do some crazy stuff at that church over in Topperville. I’ll bet Reverend Sykes is regrettin’ he ever invited them. That one in the wheelchair drank too much strychnine or antifreeze or something is why he can’t walk. It’s just pitiful. Testing their faith, they call it. But that’s taking things a little bit too far, the way I see it.” She sighed and leaned her head back against the seat. “I wish Helen had come with us.”
    “Well, wasn’t nobody slept through that sermon, I’ll give him that.”
    “You know,” Emma said, “she might have if you’d paid a little more attention to her.”
    “Oh, the way it looked to me, Brother Roy’s gonna give her about as much of that as she can handle.”
    “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Emma said.
    “Mother, I’m going back up to Ohio in a day or two. You know that.”
    Emma ignored him. “She’d make someone a good wife, Helen would.”
    SEVERAL WEEKS AFTER WILLARD LEFT for Ohio to find out about the waitress, Helen knocked on Emma’s door. It was early in the afternoon on a warm November day. The old woman was sitting in her parlor listening to the radio and reading again the letter she’d received that morning. Willard and the waitress had gotten married a week ago. They were going to stay in Ohio, at least for now. He’d gotten a job at a meatpacking plant, said he had never seen so many hogs in his life. The man on the radio was blaming the unseasonable weather on the