The Wicked by Michael Wallace

Author:Michael Wallace
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Religion, Fiction / Thrillers, Thriller, Spirituality
ISBN: 9781612182209
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2015-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

“Are you ready to die?” the Disciple asked.

“I will die for the glory of God,” Christopher said. “If I have to.”

Christopher stood close enough that their noses were almost touching. They were almost the same height and once, in a BART station restroom in San Francisco, the Disciple had glanced in the mirror to see Christopher watching him and for a moment he’d seen himself reflected in the other man’s eyes. A prophet, a visionary. The man worshiped him, honored his every word and edict. If only they all felt this way, things would be different. He could stand on the wall overlooking the quad at the universities, proclaim the will of God, and they would listen.

“They mock us,” he said.

“Yes, Master.”

“They laugh, spit on us, throw beer in our faces, egg us from cars.”

“You warned us it would happen,” Christopher said. “And it came true. You speak for God.”

“In Seattle, the police arrested us for vagrancy, in Los Angeles, they dragged us in for questioning.” The whispering in his head grew louder. He closed his eyes, tried not to listen.

“They always persecute the righteous,” Christopher said. “But still His holy work continues. Nothing can stop it.”

“Well spoken, my servant. That is all.”

Christopher handed him the nettles cut from the far side of the dump, then picked his way through the piles of tires toward the trailer. The Disciple felt the sting on his hands, reveled in it. He would sit naked in the sanctifying room and rub nettles over his nude body until he had clarified his thoughts. They needed to be very clear today if he was to have the strength to accomplish the horrific tasks that lay before him. He couldn’t have the angels and demons whispering, arguing, fighting in his head.

The Disciple couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t hear the voices of the damned and the elect. And sometimes one of the demons would go a step farther and try to possess him entirely. He remembered once when he was a boy waking with his limbs paralyzed and a terrifying presence sitting on his chest. The voices were screaming, and only after he’d prayed silently for several minutes did the evil being leave him alone. He’d crept down the hall in the darkness to the bathroom, thinking that if he splashed water on his face he could shake the urge to hurl himself from the second floor window.

The hall in the children’s wing was maybe fifty feet long, with half a dozen bedroom doors on his left. Twenty children slept in these rooms, most of them set up like dorms, with three or four children per room. His older brothers Gideon and Taylor Junior shared the room next to his. He heard them arguing as he crept past.

“Do it, TJ. You know you want to.”

And Taylor Junior’s whining voice. “I don’t want to. Come on, please, just go back to bed.”

Caleb—that was his name in those days—stopped, amazed at the cowardly tone in TJ’s voice.

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