It is still a few hours away from dawn’s early light. Theresa, Barb, and Kathy have been crucified 19 hours and suffered oppressive heat and two storms with the second worse than the first. It lasted several hours with high winds, hail and lightning. The storms knocked out power and the only light below the mound is from the plantation masters’ and overseers’ quarters that diesel generators keep both the lights and the air conditioning on.
I call out to Barb and Kathy but there is no answer. The rain has become just a mist but the clouds obscure the full moon and I cannot see their crosses flanking me
-Theresa
Only one camera on the mound still works. It is aimed at Theresa and her image is ghostly both from the night vision function and the raindrops that distort it. Tree lights his Zippo lighter and looks at his wind-up Westclox travel alarm and sees it is now 4:45 AM. It annoys him he does not know how Barb and Kathy are doing. He steps out of his million dollar Prevost motorhome (one of the few vehicles of his Barb and Siss
haven’t stolen and wrecked) with his Seagram’s 7 and water and lights a Marlboro. He thinks it is damn near time to retire. Around him the only sounds he hears are generators that keep a few lights on and his motorhome cool.
At five-thirty the clouds begin to break revealing the first hint of dawn. He makes another drink and by the time he finishes it is six in the morning. Looking through binoculars he sees Theresa writhing on her cross, Kathy hanging limp from hers and has bled from her chest, and Barb’s cross stands vacant of Barb. He wonders what the hell is going on and packs a soft-sided cooler with ice, a 1.75 liter of Seagram’s and shoves a half carton of Marlboros in the side pocket thinking 100 cigarettes should get him safely to noon and begins his trek from the main gate of the slave compound around the perimeter that the three slave were led on their last walk to their crosses. His Red Wing boots were unfazed by the glass meant to block escape.
The sky lightens and I can see again and what it is! Below me Barb’s body lies next to the puddles left from the night’s rain.
To my right Kathy hangs motionless with a wood stake piercing her chest. Did I sleep or faint? I remember nothing of this!”
-Theresa
I walk up the path that three slaves had been marched to their crosses. It about a quarter to seven and the sun has been up around twenty minutes. As I get near the summit it is plain to see Barb’s cross is empty. At first I wonder if Plantation Master Gunner was so stupid as to allow a rescue outside the perimeter of the crucified slave Barb and then who would go through such an effort for her. As I near the plateau I see Theresa writhing and Kathy Summers with a wood shank driven into her heart. ‘What the fuck is going on’ I ask myself as I finish the climb.
I see Barb lying at the base of Theresa’s cross and say “How the hell did she get here?”
“I was hoping you could tell me” Theresa replies. “Why did you kill them and leave me alive?”
“I didn’t kill them” I say as I flip Barb’s body with my boot from her back to her belly and look at the shards of wood that have lacerated her back.
I look at Kathy’s dead body with the large shard of wood that pierced her chest and heart with such force it is buried into her cross’ stipe. Glancing back at the empty cross and see when the wood came from I realize what happened and say to Theresa “The Devil or God came and took them. Barb’s cross took a direct lightning strike and blew her off the cross. If the ‘juice’ didn’t kill her when her head hit that rock she was dead then. The 30,000 amps of the lightning bolt boiled what moisture was in the
Messaline’s Premium French Crucifixion Wood™ blasting that piece through Kathy’s heart. Best I can figure you made it because Heaven doesn’t want you and the devil is afraid you’d take over.”
“Very funny” she groans. “So what happens to me?”
“You wait to die” I say as I walk down the mound.
“Fuck you” she yells back.
“Yeah, whatever” I call back…
Tree