Page 86 of Brimstone Hollow

The name my father called me—but it’s Ezra King speaking, his voice as deep and resonant as a tiger’s growl. The sound vibrates through my motionless body, rattles my bones, thrums in my ears. There’s a smell like fresh-dug earth in the room, loamy and wet.

I try to move but I can’t. Try to force my mouth open to speak but I’m frozen in place.

I can do nothing but watch and listen.

He says, “I heard you’ve been looking for me, Annie-Girl. So why don’t you come and see me? You know where I’ll be.”

Then there’s the sound.

Kssssshhhhhhhhhh…

The rattle.

He holds his hand out to me, glowing, his fingertip writing a message in the air. Blood-red and iridescent like oil on pavement. I try to read the message but can’t. The wavy shimmer-slick words slip away from me before I can grasp them.

KSSSHHHHHH…

The rattle again. Louder now.

I feel the cool, scaly weight of the snake on my chest. The tongue brushing my ear.

The king has been judged, the snake whispers.His kingdom is no more.

I blink and then—all at once—it’s all gone. Ezra King. The message. The snake. I realize that I can move. I sit up from where I’ve been slumped and inhale a deep breath. I hold it in my lungs until they burn and then, finally, exhale.

“Jesus Christ,” I breathe. And then I repeat the name: “Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.”

Like a chant. A mantra. A prayer.

My breath eventually steadies. My heart goes back to its rhythm. I rub my hands over my face, pull the covers back, slide out of bed.

I don’t need to look at the clock to know it’s only about an hour till sunrise. I can feel it. I wash my face, brush my teeth, and double-check my gun. I pull the Bronco away from the motel and into the bruised violet haze of the predawn.

When I get to the church, I let out a small gasp. There are more than a hundred cars there.

“This is crazy,” I whisper to myself.

Already, there are dozens of people with flashlights and LED lanterns milling around in the grass outside the church and up the hill around the graveyard.

I get out and watch Will as he locks the church doors and then jogs up to the front of the crowd, where he begins to lead the procession up the hill. Without a word, I take up the rear of the procession, wordlessly following the serpentine mass of the congregation. The gravel road peters out into an even older path as we climb higher onto Galilee Hill.

I walk in the back of the line, under the dense mountain canopy, my own flashlight in hand to pick out the path at my feet. Soon, I feel a presence next to me and I’m surprised to find Zelda there, wearing an old T-shirt and camo pants, her flame-colored curls pulled on top of her head.

“Morning,” she says. Then she pauses and fiddles with the processor on the side of her head and says, “Sorry. Morning. Okay.”

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” I say.

She smiles. “I’ll always turn up for a show.”

“You think he’ll appear?” I ask. “Like Jesus?”

“Hell no,” she says. “But it’ll be interesting to see what everyone does when hedoesn’tshow up.”

Ahead, another round of “Amazing Grace” has started. It drifts back to us like a slow-moving river, haunting in the half-light.

“You don’t believe Crystal saw him?”

“I believeshebelieves it,” Zelda says. “But that’s not the same thing as it really happening.”