The Salvation Shark, Chapter 39

Anton

By noon, Becki has rested enough. The Old Priest is nowhere to be found, but I know better than to look in the basement. In the shed behind the house is an unlocked black Porsche 911 Turbo with the keys in the glove box. It kills me to subject the paint job to the dirt road. I’ll have to get it fixed when we get to the city. It takes ten minutes to reach a paved road. "There is a book of CD's under your seat," I tell Becki and wait for her to retrieve it. "I want Chopin's Fourth Movement. It's on the second page."

"Why do you always have Classical music?" she asks, exasperated.

Grey sky shadows rolling hills fenced in to square pastures. An odd farmhouse every few miles watch the expanses, struggling to remember the time when the land prospered. The empty trees make it look burned. "I'm sure we could find one of your albums along the way," I say. Becki does not see the same humor I do.

She sighs. "Aren't you supposed to like Heavy Metal?" she asks.

“Heaven’s, child!” I cry, slapping the steering wheel. “How anyone could listen to that garbage, you’ll never get me to understand!” I shake my head. “You'd think religious groups would treat it like their greatest ally!”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

I throw my hands up and look at her, the car never swerving. “Look at these bands! No one should be more insulted by it than me.” I reach under the seat and pull out a record cover depicting a savage goat-monster about to plunge a sword through a pentagram. “They make me into a rampaging monster that cleaves off their heads and reigns through blood and fire! Am I that ugly? Do I have bat wings or cloven hooves? No! Their version of me doesn’t even have a sense of humor. All these little Beavis and Butt-Heads took the worst propaganda and sold their souls to it.”

I look down at her, and whisper. “You can’t scare people into Hell, they choose to go there. "I just offer.” I spin the album out the window. I watch the road. “Sweetheart, if I needed someone to fight for me, it wouldn’t be a human.”

I wait for her to say anything, but she doesn't. “Ever heard of the bastinado?" I ask. Again, I wait for her to answer, or even too look my way, or acknowledge in some way that she hears me talking. "Lictors would whip your feet for hours with a bamboo cane while you're tied to a table. It could take days of torturers twitching in shifts until you die of mental collapse without a mark on your body worse than a light bruise."

These hills look molded from thick moss tufts. Becki leans on her hand pressed against the glass. "Why would think I care?" Her voice is a monotone, broken and unfeeling.

"If I need a human to do anything for me, it’s lawyers making sure that my servants are still on the streets. I use drug dealers to poison the temple that God gave man. I use corrupt priests, and televangelists to remind people that God is green and lives in your wallet. I use gun-runners to supply a thousand jihads to which the true Divine Being would never ask for. I use humans for a lot of things, but if I used them for soldiers–even for fodder–I would have lost this war a long time ago.”

I roll down the window, even though it is very cold outside. Becki is quiet for a long time.

Go to Chapter 40