Mojave by Johnny D. Boggs

Author:Johnny D. Boggs [Boggs, Johnny D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2014-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

And I want to tell Mr. Milton to shut the hell up, but I can’t take my eyes off this scene: a castle burning like Hell itself, Whip Watson whipping his twin snakes, Candy Crutchfield tossing that knife. Then here come the girls.

Maud Fenstermacher . . . Darlene Gould . . . Annie Mercer . . . Chris McGover . . . Molly Reid . . . Aibreann Halloran . . . Bonnie Little . . . and lots of girls I ain’t ever met, old and young, fat and slim, pretty and plain, even a couple of red-haired twins. They’re just walking down the street, every last one of them wearing a changyi. The snakes whip over their heads, but they don’t even blink. Just walk between Whip Watson and Candy Crutchfield, and I start to step toward them, but can’t move no more.

I look across the street, over the heads of Molly Reid and Bonnie Little, and I yell at Mr. Slater, and Mr. McCoy, and Mr. Applewhite, and a bunch of other guys dressed in brown suits. I yell at them, “Don’t just stand there. Help them poor, poor girls.”

But they don’t move, don’t speak, don’t lift a hand to help. Probably because they’re all blind—even Peach Fuzz and Lucky Ben Wong, who are sitting on a hitching post in front of the rammed-earth adobe building of Mr. Slater’s brother, the undertaker, who’s licking his lips and rubbing his greedy palms together. I reckon the undertaker can see. I know everyone else, though, must be blind because all of them are wearing black wire spectacles with dark oval lenses.

I’m looking down the street again. Watching the girls cross the moat. Their embroidered silk robes commence to smoking even before they go through the palace gate, where they just erupt in flames, scream, and vanish into dust.

Maud Fenstermacher.

Darlene Gould.

Annie Mercer.

A fat, plain-looking, gray-haired grandma.

Chris McGover.

Molly Reid.

The redheaded twins.

Aibreann Halloran.

Bonnie Little.

I turn back to Whip Watson, and yell, “Whip! Stop them! Stop them!”

Whip’s snarling, fanged whips snap in my face, and I fear they’ll bite me, but they don’t, because Whip has jerked back the black snakes, and I recollect how he can snap a horsefly off an ox’s ear without touching the ear.

I hear Whip’s voice:

“To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:

Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav’n.”

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