Mel Bay's Book of the Dead by Harold Whit Williams

Author:Harold Whit Williams [Williams, Harold]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV031040, FIC000000, FIC029000, YAF047030, MUS050000, MUS000000, MUS035000, MUS003000, MUS018000
ISBN: 9781736177938
Publisher: SAR Press/William O. Pate II
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Second Hurricane

Graying now and tired, Daniel Tanner is, and thus finding himself one Friday night at a Holiday Inn bar in Atlanta. He is attending a music educator’s convention. The bar is almost empty, just a few attendees lingering near the exit and two fellows a couple of seats down. The men, Daniel notices with a wistful smile, are holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes. Taking this tender scene as a cue, Daniel swigs the last of his beer and stands up to leave. The muted television above the barman flashes a face along with a caption scrolling some breaking news story out of California. Daniel is suddenly frozen. That man, he thinks, I know that man.

The photo on TV displays a face gaunt and bug-eyed, hair close-cropped and a shocking white. The face is staring back at Daniel like some druidic soothsayer. His lips slightly parted as if giving some high-browed musical instruction. Both hands held up in mysterious supplication. The eyes wide open and far seeing. Otherworldly, his expression.

The barman rings up the two men and the place suddenly empties out. Daniel is still standing, jaw dropped, holding his dry pint glass and slowly blinking at the television. It’s all coming back to him now. He catches random words from the caption scrawling past: mass suicide, Hale-Bopp comet, purple cloths, bunk beds. The barman spies Daniel gawking up at the screen. He grabs the remote and cranks the volume. The man in the photo is, or was rather, a cult leader out West. Along with his female cohort, they taught strict diet and deprivation, meditation and prayer, UFO tracking, male castration. They eventually prescribed strong sedatives and vodka for an appointment with the heavens.

Daniel lowers his head as if in defeat. His eyes go out of focus gazing at the empty pint glass. He hears thunder. The rumble of it rattles the bar windows, and takes him back thirty years or more.

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