616

By Kim Davenport and Denise Barrett Caffey

Woodbury is one of those sleepy small towns in Middle Tennessee, and Main Street is just a place people pass through to get to somewhere else. No one takes any notice of the little town in the road except those who are born and raised here. That is, unless something bad happens, and they find their community at the center of the six oclock news.

Three young women--friends since childhood--live in Woodbury, leading what they think are ordinary lives: Moss is a moonshiner, Erin is a banker, and Blue is the wife of a preacher. What they dont know is that the upstanding mayor, Erins uncle, is living a secret life--making a deal with a demon who brings evil into this small town.

Moss is also a dreamer. Her dreams are vivid, real, and terrifying, and they were starting to come true. After a botched murder investigation, the friends decide to set a trap and Moss has a redneck trick or two up her sleeve. Though the results are hilarious and are talked about around town for a month, it reveals a threat of evil. The friends lives are turned upside down when their eyes are opened and they began to see into the spirit world--a frightening world of the demonic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Feb 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781480814936

Kim Davenport

Denise Barrett Caffey and her husband Scottie live in Woodbury, Tennessee. They have four children and nine grandchildren. Kim Davenport lives in Woodbury with Loretta, her loyal mutt. She has two children and two grandchildren.

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Copyright © 2015 Denise Barrett Caffey & Kim Davenport.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-1492-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-1493-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015900944

Archway Publishing rev. date: 2/6/2015

Contents

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1

Woodbury is one of those sleepy little towns in Middle Tennessee, and Main Street is just a place people pass through to get to somewhere else. Nothing much to it—a straight two-lane paved road from one place to the other, with three little old antique-looking red lights that stop people on a street when they had rather just be moving on through.

If you’re from Woodbury, and you’ve been away visiting a week or two, it’s said you don’t breathe well until you see the rolling hills as you come into town.

That’s when you realize that of all the places you’ve visited, it is still the prettiest and best place on the face of the earth.

The biggest deal in town is Joe’s Restaurant. Located on the courthouse square, it used to be an old livery stable back in the horse and buggy days. Legend has it that two brothers got into it there with two other brothers. One of the brothers was shot, and he told his brother, They killed me. Now go kill them. So he went and killed the other two brothers. Three brothers were killed that day.

The biggest thing now about Joe’s is that it’s home to the best hamburgers in the world: hand-patted Angus dripping with melted cheese, mayo, ‘mater, lettuce, and a thin slice of onion. Don’t forget the butter-toasted bun with the pickle on top. All that with a toothpick nailing it down. It’s best to pair it with a side order of tater tots. After you eat all that, it’s hard to get out through the old screen door.

At Joe’s, there’s a table in the corner near the cash register called the Liar’s Table. A lot of the old men in town proudly claim themselves a seat there at least one meal a day to keep up on the local gossip.

Joe’s has gone through several owners over the years but the menu stays the same.

A lot of the little stores tried their best to cater to the bigger cities bordering Woodbury. Most who decided to sink their money into a business in the town found out they would have done better burying their money in a jar in their backyard.

There were those in Woodbury who tried their best to make the little town grow into a place that would support the townspeople. Unfortunately, a few old codgers did everything they could do to keep anyone out, preserving the small town feel, as they said.

Woodbury is small; that’s a fact. But it’s filled with people who enjoy life and are just plain ole country folk. No big farms left, just a few small farms. No big industry to speak of, just a few restaurants is all. Some interesting antique stores and a used clothing store or two.

Otherwise, no one takes any notice of the little town in the road except those who are born and raised there. That is, unless something bad happens, and they find their little town at the center of the six o’clock news. Now that’s when they get a little attention, and the gossips gossip.

One other thing that brings the town a little attention and makes the locals a little money is the yearly Good Ole Days.

It’s successful because it is wholeheartedly supported by those who unofficially run the town. Some of the townspeople sarcastically call them the Woodbury Mafia, usually whispered behind their hands to their neighbors.

Good Ole Days is really one of the few times each year where people gather collectively and basically feel good about themselves and their town.

A totally Southern event, Good Ole Days is centered on beauty pageants, dog shows, and music. The music is mostly bluegrass and country with a little southern gospel thrown in for good measure, to bless it. The few times the kids tried to do rock ‘n’ roll, you’d have thought they’d slapped their mommas, the shock was so bad. They weren’t invited back; the Woodbury Mafia made sure of that.

Good Ole Days is one of the only times the residents of the county welcome people from the surrounding counties with open arms. Locals prepare their merchandise all year, which means they gather and make products to sell from the end of the festival clear on through the next year.

White oak trees are felled in the fall when the sap goes down to make intricately woven white-oak baskets. Little old women with gray hair pulled tight into buns on the back of their heads painstakingly weave baskets in front of a fireplace during the winter season, hands rough from the splinters. Men and boys work in little wood-heated shops while snow is on the rooftops, turning out beautiful oak, walnut, and cherry tables and ladder-back rocking chairs from trees they cut in the fall.

By spring, they are ready to smile and welcome outsiders into their community in order to make a little money for their families.

If you move in from somewhere else, you are branded as a foreigner for life. Now that’s pronounced by the locals, with a spit, as fer-in-ner, just to set the record straight on how you say it around here. Even if someone is from south of the Mason-Dixon Line, don’t make no never-a-mind. You are still referred to as that Yankee. Especially if you still have a northern accent.

Local folk know if a foreigner buys a piece of the pie in Woodbury, all you have to do is to wait five years, and they’ll sell it again, cheaper than they bought it, just to get the H-E double-hockey-sticks out, leaving the two-horse, three-red-light town behind like a bad dream. They just up and leave—leaving an unpaid mortgage, some leftover junk, and a path of dust in their wake.

The members of the Chamber of Commerce tisk-tisk at their monthly meetings, wondering how they can ever get industry movin’ in when everybody keeps movin’ out.

And life goes on as before in the sleepy little town in Tennessee called Woodbury.

2

Tap-tap-tapping his way through the courtyard with his hickory cane, the old man paused to rest beside the cross in the courtyard.

To those who didn’t know him, the old man looked frightening due to his large, lanky frame loosely covered in black skin and his piercing black eyes that sat in hollow sockets.

With gray hair sticking out like fine wire and a permanent white five o’clock shadow, his face was as wrinkled as a prune, but his head held a mind still as sharp as a razor, even when he’d been hitting the Strawberry Hill. That is, if anyone could stand the stink long enough to talk with him, they’d find him intelligent.

Jab was once an upstanding member of the community. He knew people in town thought he was crazy, probably with good reason. Sometimes he thought he was crazy too. After he was struck by lightning at the bicentennial celebration in 1976, the ole-timers said he was a-jabberin’ about seeing the devil and his angels and hearing from God. He just knew things changed after that, and so did his name. Most people thought he was crazy and left him alone, which was just fine with him.

Jabber came to town because he’d been hearing a voice for the past two weeks. Over and over he kept hearing the same voice, waking him up out of a stupor, driving him absolutely bat crazy. He tried drinking and not drinking. He tried covering his head with pillows, turning the TV up as loud as it would go, telling The Voice emphatically No, no, no, get someone else! He even argued with it, but it still said the same thing, like a broken record.

It never had been this bad, this loud, this insistent, and this persistent.

The first time he heard The Voice, he was in the hospital room, recovering. Not understanding that he’d been hit with lightning, he couldn’t remember anything that happened. He just knew he’d hurt like hell. When he came to a little bit, the first thing he noticed was the putrid smell.

Out of his head, he thought that he was back on the farm, and his daddy was killing hogs. Then he noticed the sterile white walls, the sterile white sheets, and the sterile white people who came in and out of the room.

How strange.

He found himself drifting straight up out of his body and was surprised that it didn’t hurt. Looking at the equipment beside the hospital bed, he heard the steady beep-beep, beep-beep. Then he heard the beep go to a steady long beeeeeeeeeep. He saw the nurses and doctors run into the room, hovering around the bed, working with the paddles.

Then a big thump.

He watched as his body jumped on the bed from the jolt of electricity.

Then he heard another thump.

His body jumped again. Then the long beep became a steady beep-beep, beep-beep again.

Floating, peaceful, he felt his butt hit the ceiling. Looking down, he watched everyone, detached from it all.

He remembered seeing his legs as they worked on him, taking off the wrapping, doctoring them. He remembered thinking they looked like the turkey legs wrapped in Saran wrap after his ma’s Thanksgiving dinner.

On the parts that weren’t wrapped, he noticed that his hair was gone and parts of his skin were missing. He watched as they covered them and wrapped them back up.

He was not concerned, though. He felt so much love he was overwhelmed. Love for them, love for himself, pure love, that he had never felt in his whole life.

He was happy, happy.

It didn’t matter anymore; nothing mattered except the love that washed in waves over him.

He began concentrating on the pinpoint of light, coming closer, the comforting light. He was so happy; it was where he belonged. Then he saw the man dressed in white, glowing. He was ready.

He became distraught when the man said no and pointed. It wasn’t something he actually heard out loud but heard in his head. It’s not time, my son. You know what you have to do.

Then …

Wooooooooosh.

He felt heaviness when he came back down into his body. Sucked back inside, it happened with such a great force, jarring his being. He remembered agreeing to something but didn’t know what. Then he noticed the searing pain in his legs and cried out for God to take him, to save him.

It felt like he was being skinned and deboned alive when they came to change the dressing on his legs and torso.

He prayed for days to die. He looked for ways he could end his life but was taught by his ma that killing yourself was like killing somebody else. Not only that, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He had done enough killing when he was in Vietnam to last a lifetime and was repulsed to even think of killing another living thing.

Then instead of God answering his prayer to die, he found out he was going to live, and that’s when he knew he had either died or had gone crazy like his grandmother, Rannie. The voice told him he was going to live because he had work to do. He was in Gideon’s army.

He tried to tell the nurse that came in the room to check on his chicken leg, or was it a turkey leg? He thought he had pointed to it but couldn’t remember if he had or not. He thought he spoke, but they didn’t answer.

The nurses just saw him writhing, fear in his eyes, his mouth wide open in a silent scream, tearing his skin with his nails and making it bleed.

They determined he was in so much pain that he was delirious and upped his morphine. Then he saw shiny black bugs crawling all over the ceiling and a carpet of little green snakes on the floor, not helping things at all.

At least not right then.

But he found all the dope they gave him kept away The Voice. After they discharged him from the hospital, he found out that plenty of booze also silenced it.

So he found solace at Strawberry Hill, on Boone’s old Farm, down around The Bend, Do-Do-Do-Do and out my back door.

Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill was his favorite, and to tell the truth, he’d had a little nip or two before coming to the courthouse. Actually a little more than a nip or two, if all the truth be told, trying to quiet it down and calm his nerves.

Looking at the people in the courtyard, he held up his hand, hoping to shut their mouths, to get them to listen. He heard his voice say, Nip it, nip it. He laughed a little, feeling like Barney Fife on the Andy Griffith Show. But so far, no one was paying attention.

First off, he was feeling the craving again. His body was parched and was demanding its drink. He yearned to be home lying on the couch swallowing enough booze to keep The Voice away, but it wasn’t working so well anymore anyway.

Besides, The Voice kept tormenting him, keeping him up day and night. Add that to the confounded crazy-real nightmare dreams and seeing things in his house that shouldn’t and couldn’t be there. He was seeing things worse than the bugs and snakes he saw when taking the morphine.

The waking nightmares, the ones where he pinched himself and found out he was awake, were the worst.

Oh yes, he believed in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit—the Big Three. He was raised in a small church in the Bible Belt and was preached to every Sunday about God and His Son and our Savior Jesus and got the Holy Spirit.

Even though he had never known his pa, his ma was right there with him and taught him the difference between good and bad, right and wrong, along with Ma Rannie. He even knew the Ten Commandments by heart and could recite them. He knew there was good and there was bad in the world. But he didn’t know what to do or say when the big flash came, and he began seeing the demons come, doing their thing, roaming the pasture behind the house going in and out of people. He’d even seen them run up and down the road looking kind of like some big, skinny monkeys—thinking back, maybe a cross between a monkey and an alien. But how could you tell anyone that? Who would believe it?

He missed his wife in the worst way, and he missed his kids, even though it had been forty long years since he laid eyes on them the very last time. They all walked out and left him just a few months after the big flash.

Maybe she left because he couldn’t confide to her what he was seeing, or maybe she heard him talking in his sleep about crazy shit.

Maybe it was when he lost his job at the bottling plant the next county over and couldn’t work.

Of course, she could have left because of his drinking or because his big summer sausage got limp like a boiled Oscar Meyer weenie.

Maybe it was everything all piled up together. Or maybe she saw something in him that made her afraid for her and the kids. He would never have hurt them; he loved them so, so much.

No matter what she saw or heard, he never would have let anything happen. No violence for him; he had enough of that when he was a kid and when he went to Vietnam.

He kept playing and replaying the ifs, ands, and buts over and over for the last forty years, circling the dead relationship like a big buzzard, wondering what he could have done that would have been different.

But the answer was always the same, and he came to the same conclusion time and time again. It is what it is, and it was what it was.

He found that it was either one or the other: be tormented by the memories or be tormented by the demons. Some things never change, and loneliness was one of them.

He just wanted people to quit showing pity or fear when he saw them, and he wanted things to go back to the way they used to be. He thought about moving and starting over, but he didn’t have the money. His place was old and run down, but it was home.

He didn’t like the here and now; he wanted to go back, way back to when it was good and have himself a do-over. He would then make damn sure he would be nowhere near that ole walnut tree, or any other tree, when that storm started brewing out of the West. He would run wide open away from anything that looked like a tree.

It was not fair that he lost forty years of his life. Not fair at all.

Looking around the courtyard, be began hiking up his overall straps with both thumbs, wondering where Gideon’s army was, what was the work he had to do, so he could get rid of The Voice.

Then he saw what seemed to be a double vision, or maybe a triple vision. And then he smelled the smell of strong sulphur, or was it a cesspool? Then he decided it smelled more like the shit from his momma’s old outhouse when he was a kid, when the hole got full.

With a quick intake of breath that he didn’t dare to release, Jab stood stock still while watching Holy Joe’s face fading in and out like a bad connection on the TV, contorting itself over and over. And he didn’t like what he was seeing.

Not just one or two demonic faces but many—so many that he lost count. Different eyes, mostly yellow; green hair, some bald; green faces, and then some gray faces. And they seemed to be jumping in and out of his body, rotating in and out, all the while, sneering, looking straight at him, taunting.

He also saw red, red, blood. Lots of it. All of it dripping, dripping off the people around him.

God, oh God, oh God, oh God.

3

The little bitty county mayor, puffing his chest out in what he thought was an appropriate manner for a man of his status, stepped out to the top of the concrete steps. His body seeming as still as the marble cross below, he paused just long enough to revel in the feeling that he was the almighty king, and the throng of folks milling around the courtyard below were the slaves of his colony, ready to do his bidding.

Stuffed to the top of his cheap blue pinstriped suit, the early-morning sun jutted intense shards of bright light from the windows of the brick and mortar stores across the street, making him draw his brows together in a squint when searching the crowd below him.

Mentally taking names and locations of those who caught his eye, he knew what he had to do.

After all, The time was ripe.

Joe tugged the knot of his burgundy paisley tie and felt a drop of sweat make a slow path from the shiny beads on the flat top of his balding head to trickle down the back of his neck.

Turning to Rogie, he grinned. Lawd have mercy on us all, Rogie, it sho’ is hot. But have you ever seen such a god-almighty crowd? You’re lookin’ at the best thing ever to happen to this little bitty town. Me.

Joseph Holy Joe Donohue was christened as holy by his grandmother on his father’s side, who said because he was the seventh son of a seventh son, he would have special healing powers. By healing, she meant he would be able to rub a wart with his hand, say a few words, and make it disappear. He thought it was just an old wives’ tale. But she really believed it and coached him in what to say, on the when and the how to rub for the best effect.

Otherwise, there was nothing holy about Joe, except maybe for the fact that he got a double dippin’ of preachin’.

Grandpappy was a preacher back in the day when holy men sold snake oil out of the back of a wooden wagon while proclaiming what people thought was the Lord’s prophecy out of the front. Then he forced his son, Holy Joe’s father, into the profession.

But being the son of a preacher doesn’t necessarily make one holy. Most of the time, being the son of a preacher made a boy go directly in the opposite direction, and in Joe’s case, that’s exactly what happened.

Elected mayor for the last four terms, he hooked and crooked his way to the top, buying votes from those upstanding citizens willing to trade away their privilege of being an American for a jar of ‘shine or a pint of whiskey.

Joe was economical with his election money though. He put the pencil to it and found that ‘shine bought him more bang for the buck than the whiskey.

Since moonshinin’ was illegal, Joe pitched plenty of favors to the local law, especially the sheriff, who had an eye for any woman who walked on two legs that found herself thrown in a jail cell. In exchange, the sheriff made sure he and his loyal brothers who held the county badge turned a blind eye to the makin’ and runnin’ of the ‘shine in the county.

Of course, he would also, on occasion, rub a wart or two if asked by a county commoner and was always surprised how many people brought their kid to him to be cured. He smiled as he thought again about the last little girl and how cute she was, with Barbie on her shirt.

Pulling his mind back to the business at hand, Joe rotated his pudgy head slowly to the left and then to the right, searching the crowd, assessing those he could count on who were already in the fold and spotting those he needed to push a little.

Turning to Rogie, Joe made an astute observation, speaking in an exaggeration of his daddy’s deep southern dialect. They’s ripe for the pickins’, just like my daddy always said. Ya just gotta know your flock. They’s black sheeps, they’s white ones, and then they’s the gray ones. Ya know, the black ones gonna be on our side, no doubt, and the white ones, they say they won’t. But the gray ones, they’s just waiting for the right moment, who can give enough palm greasin’. Sometimes it takes a cat-tas-tro-fe to show ‘em how to come back to the fold.

Holy Joe turned to Rog and laughed before he continued. Now those white ‘uns, they just take a little more work. But no matter. Just put a man an’ his family in a deep enough hole, stir ‘um a little, then let ‘um stew for a few, and they’ll be right along in line with the rest.

Holy Joe gingerly picked his way down the steps, accounting for his heavy belly and the gout in his right big toe, painful as all get-out in his new, expensive, shiny Florsheim’s with the in-style square toe.

With Rogie struggling to catch up, Joe began to press through the mesh of townspeople, offering his damp, limp hand to anyone who would shake it. Smiling, sometimes showing his little tan teeth in his too-generous mouth, making small talk, asking about the kids, the cows, their job, their hobbies, their families, their health, and not really caring about the answer.

He just filed the information away in the back of his fat head filing cabinet, for later. Asking if there’s anything he can do for them, appearing to listen with concern, making preelection promises that will be broken, as usual, with a good on-the-spot excuse given when confronted.

He really didn’t care about what they thought or how he was going to handle it later. He just cared about the right now, the end result. His goal was one more term in office so he could fatten out his retirement and pay for his delishities, which just thinking about them made him feel giddy and light-headed.

At the thought, his zipper did a little dance in the holy tabernacle, as he felt his sharpened sword begin to rise to the occasion. Joe smiled.

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Joe was like most any other kid growing up, or so he thought.

Southern born by the grace of God, he was actually the son and grandson of Bible-thumping preachers. His mother was a housewife, or as they were called by Father in his church, a homemaker. Making Christian homes, not wives playing house, Father was fond of saying from the pulpit.

Each Sunday, it was drilled that women were the keeper of the homes and the men were the head of the women. The most important part was that women were only to be seen in church, never heard, and were under subjection of their husbands.

Little Joe, who was always made to sit on the front row, watched as Big Joe Donohue’s big, black, bushy eyebrows fluttered like hairy caterpillars as he turned to the side where the men sat, in what was called The Amen Corner. He would always ask, Can I hear an amen, brothers? They seemed to always be stirring themselves out of their slumber long enough to repeat a resounding, Amen, Brotha’ Joe!

Mother was a stern woman who may have been a keeper of the home, but it was Father who was the keeper of her and everything else.

Sunday dinners were not much different than any other and always consisted of a meat and three and a jar of pickles. Joe preferred his meat and most everything to be fried in an iron skillet. Not in lard and certainly not just any type of oil. It had to be Crisco shortening, which Mother bought by the tub. The only exception to the frying rule was potatoes, which must be mashed, adding milk and butter, heaven help us, not margarine. Forks to the left of the plate, spoon to the right with the knife, blade must face in, placed on a folded white napkin.

Big Joe would carefully unfold the napkin and tuck it in his collar to cover his tie. His favorite glass was an empty sixteen-ounce jelly jar, clear, with the pleasant scallop crowning the top. It always sat to the right of the knife. After each use, the glass was to be carefully washed so it would be ready for the next meal.

If no guests came Sunday after preaching, his father started giving his mother the business. No matter what she cooked or no matter what she did, he always found fault. The biscuits were too hard, the potatoes too runny, the food too cold, she was holding her mouth wrong, she wasn’t giving him due respect.

Didn’t never matter. It was always something.

He started out in a nice voice, cigarette smoke curling around his face, gently stating his case. "Hon, I don’t know if you meant to, but did you notice you burned the biscuits?’ Then on and on and on, working himself up to a snit.

Next, his voice became more of a roar, increasing with intensity. Red eyes, red-faced, looking like a monster with spittle running out of both sides of his mouth, arms flailing, knocking food off the table.

What always came next was seeing his father slapping his mother down, with the back of his fist directed to her chest or abdomen, knocking her on her haunches. To him, it was like she fell in slow motion, nothing but a raggedy doll, her feet flying up, skidding across the kitchen floor. Then he heard a sick thump as she slid to a stop along the wall.

He always struck her torso so there would be no visible bruises to her face. If he could catch her, he would straddle her abdomen, tear off her blouse and burn her breasts with the end of his cigarette, telling her what a whore she was, telling her she deserved it: Due respect, woman, you got to give me due respect. You are nothing but a barnyard slut.

Then if she was able, she would scoot to the stove, sit in a ball, hands locked around her knees, tears running down her face. That is, if she could get up at all that day.

They would all wait until he broke open a bottle of Jack Daniels (finest whiskey in the land, by heaven), watch Sunday ball games, and finally pass out. Then Little Joe always helped his mother mop up the blood and clean the kitchen. His sister went to her room and hid in the closet, in the dark.

Little Joe’s two brothers had already been raised and left home. Ron was in the state prison for murder; Roy had been killed in Vietnam. Four other brothers died at birth or early infancy, only leaving him, the seventh son, and his little sister, who was not exactly right in the head. She didn’t play with toys like other girls her age. Mostly, she sat and stared out of vacant eyes.

A year before Little Joe started kindergarten, Big Joe began to visit him each Sunday night, giving him mortal wounds that would never heal.

His mother ignored his screams.

Crying until there were no more tears, one night he shook his fist in the air and swore to the heavens he would kill his father.

When Little Joe turned twelve, things changed. Instead of his father coming to his room on Sunday nights, he started visiting his little sister. He could hear the screams. It was more than Little Joe could bear, and he cried himself to sleep. Later that night, Little Joe began to hear voices.

Most often, the voices would speak to him around midnight. Actually, not the middle of the night and not every night, but when it happened, he would turn in his bed to the clock and read it: 3:00 a.m., right on the dot.

At first he was afraid of the voices, but then he got used to them. Waking him, whispering in his ear, he was told he had been chosen, and the time was near, to take comfort, not to fear, he was going to be given great power, power to conquer the heavens.

Then one night, he thought he was hallucinating. He saw a glowing figure like a man with wings appear at the end of his bed. Then it began to speak. Out of its mouth came the same words that had been spoken to him months before, telling him not to be afraid. The being identified itself as an angel and stated he had been sent to give Little Joe an important revelation.

At first, he was afraid of the angel, who began to glow bright orange then pulsate. He was used to the voices, but all of a sudden, seeing an apparition that wasn’t supposed to be there in his room frightened him.

After awhile, his fright turned to curiosity. Mesmerized, he watched as the angel’s intense color and pulsation began to dim. Then the otherworldly being began to speak to him in a level but low voice, demanding he bow on his knees in worship.

Slowly, Joe lowered himself to his knees, then dropped to his hands, then leaned on his elbows, ultimately pressing his nose to the floor, hoping his stance was pleasing to the being, imitating what he thought would be appropriate worship.

After what seemed to be a lifetime of holding his pose, his heart thumping out of his chest, the angel finally ordered him to rise.

Little Joe painfully raised himself to his knees, which were feeling numb, and finally got back up on his feet. Moving one leg at a time in place to restore circulation, he moved slowly, afraid he might scare off the angelic being.

He couldn’t pull his attention away from the unearthly glow that kept pulsating. Not because of what the angel was saying, but it was like he was magnetized. He felt holy in the most unholy way. His body, his mind, and his total will responded, seemingly against its own will.

Then he came into agreement. He wanted power. He wanted dominance.

He listened and swore to obey.

When he came out of his bedroom that night, he felt different. He couldn’t exactly put his finger on it, but he felt older, more mature.

Doing as he was told, Little Joe hauled his father back to his little twin bed with superhuman strength. Then he tied him spread eagle.

With a little smile curling on his lip, Little Joe silenced his father, as he cut him in pieces with his mother’s southern fried chicken cleaver.

He wrapped the parts in Saran wrap and put him in the deep freeze on the back porch, preserving him until he could safely get rid of the remains.

His mother ignored the screams.

Big Joe’s flock later hired another preacher, as Big Joe’s wife, with big tears in her eyes, informed them he ran away with a blonde.

The grass grew greener as the back forty was fertilized one ground body part at a time.

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Joe smiled, relishing the memory.

After his second term in office, he’d told the townspeople he wanted to be elected just one more term, and the people always believed it.

Short, short memories they had, his little sheep. Tickle the people’s ears; make them happy. Rub elbows with the common folk; kiss their asses. Do whatever it takes.

See ya later, alligator, after awhile crocodile. Skin them all and make them into a pair of his shoes, so he can walk on their souls until he wears them out and pitches them in the trash.

Talk to them about God, country, and What can I do for you? while smiling a deep, seductive smile.

Little sheep were so shallow and trusting.

Shake the babies and kiss the hands, he tells his cronies, while laughing under his breath.

He felt a little like Elvis coming onto the stage. He threw his head back as if he was tossing a curl out of his eyes; a visible shiver went through him. He smiled. Eyes glazed over, spreading his hands wide, he began searching for love.

After all, he was The King. The King of the Road. The King of the Hill. The King of Forever. Everything and everyone was his, made just for him.

After all, it’s election time.

4

The boy who looked like a man but was still a little boy inside, wasn’t much of a man anymore.

Slouched down on the shiny antique wooden bench inside the courthouse, he was tall and thin, not much to look at. He was mostly a rack of bones.

The man wore army fatigues, his head bent down seemingly in despair. Both elbows resting on both knees, it was hard to see his face due to the black hair that hung in oily, greasy strands.

Appearing to be in his fifties, it was hard to tell which war he had been in. At first glance, he