What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [102]
“Get back here, you dirty hippie!” yelled Jimmy.
“Yeah!” said Wayne.
After a couple of turns and a staircase, Festus emerged, huffing and puffing, into a larger hallway that opened onto the main bowl of the arena. His lungs burned, and he struggled to catch his breath – and not sound like an industrial-grade wind machine – as he looked out into the warmly lit space. The seats on the bowl were completely empty. The floor, however, was full of guys who looked like they’d visited the paramilitary-gear booth at a western wear convention, along with a handful of guys who looked like actual soldiers.
Behind him he heard a dull thud. Festus glanced back and saw Jimmy sprawled out against the wall – presumably the consequence of trying to run around a corner in boots. Wayne toppled into the frame half a second later. Festus shrugged and strode out into the main arena.
He strode purposefully, assuredly, confidently. Like a man who is ready to tell people just what the F is up. This lasted about three and a half seconds – about the time it took Festus to survey the scene. There really seemed to be an awful lot of the hillbillies, none of whom looked amenable to getting told anything. He ditched the confidence and quickly ducked down behind a railing.
To his right, on the main stage, the television preacher Bill Cadmon talked at the audience of paramilitary cowboys, exhorting them to something or other. There were three big screens behind him that, presumably, usually showed giant Cadmon heads talking about love and faith and sin and all that kind of crap. But the screens were off, and the cowboys had only the actual, life-sized Cadmon to keep them entertained.
Festus paused for a second to watch, peeking over the top of the railing. Cadmon seemed to be going on and on about bringing about the Kingdom of God, which didn’t seem to Festus to be all that unusual. It seemed like a fairly normal sermon, aside from the fact that the entire audience was male, and looked as if they could probably recite the Second Amendment by heart.
“I mean it. He will literally walk among you. Soon,” said Cadmon.
Then Festus noticed that there were soldiers – real soldiers – standing just off to the side of the stage. They were pulling black, rubbery things out of giant cardboard boxes. He couldn’t tell what they were. Gas masks? S&M gear?
He suddenly had that feeling of being watched – the one that doesn’t register until, without thinking, you turn your head and find yourself looking at someone whose gaze is bouncing around between various inanimate objects as they feign interest in a random plant or a pole or something. He was disappointed to find himself being watched by Wayne and Jimmy, and not some curvy hottie who wanted him. They were still standing in the hallway, just out of sight of the people in the arena.
Jimmy cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled at Festus in an exaggerated stage whisper. “Get back here, you dirty hippie!” The well-coifed man of God at the front of the auditorium stopped talking, but Jimmy didn’t notice, and continued in his unsubtle non-whispering. “Hey! Hippie!”
Festus ducked back down and scrambled the rest of the way across the floor on his hands and knees. He glanced back just in time to see Wayne whack Jimmy on the arm and point to the stage.
“Gentlemen!” said Cadmon. “You’re late. But come on down here and have a seat. We’ve just started.” He opened his mouth into a wide, spotlight smile full of improbably white teeth.
Wayne, still frozen, stared at Cadmon like a deer caught in headlights, or, more accurately, like a dumbass. Jimmy’s glare remained fixed on Festus.
“The Lord is wondrous and patient, gentlemen, but I do not have all day.” Cadmon did the teeth thing again, this time flashing it at the rest of the members of his audience. They murmured appreciatively.
“Come on,” said Wayne, tugging at Jimmy’s shirt sleeve. Jimmy, doing his best impression of a dog who has just chased a squirrel up a tree, stayed put. “Come on!” Wayne tugged harder, almost pulling Jimmy over. Jimmy