steel interior. Where had it come from? There was a rush of bodies entering behind me, the full-bellied being pushed up and in, gray-faced, white gowns messed and wet and filthy. Some were almost passed out. Denay pulled herself together, turned to me, and said clearly, “Don’t ruin this for us.”
“Fuck you,” I said. It felt great.
The door closed. Sirens cut through the black space around me. I thought of Geary, how he was just one of the Body. How he would sooner die than betray the church, condemn us to the laws of the world. Then came a voice on a speakerphone. “Hands up. Where are the minors?”
“Officers, you’re intruding on a perfectly legal religious ceremony,” I heard Vern say, pyscho calm. “You can go home now. It is well.”
“We’ll need you to step over here and get in this car, sir.”
“This is the Devil at his best!” Vern assured the Body. “Every holiness will be met with resistance. Have faith.”
“We’ll need that van opened up,” the voice said.
“Is there water in jail?” Taffy said.
“Shut up!” Denay said. “You should be praying for our pastor right now.” She lapsed into her spirit voice, humming and tapping against the walls. My stomach quaked again, this time with a sharp pain that radiated down my legs. I held my breath. I beat the door. “Please!” I cried. “Help! In here!”
Outside I heard a man say, “Put the weapon down. On the ground. Show us your hands. Down on the ground. Now!” Then a shot sounded. I couldn’t tell if it had come from the Holy Ghost machine gun or from the police. Derndra screamed. The van door slid open and Taffy fell out onto her back.
“Oh, Jesus,” the cop said. He helped her up and a long string of drool hung from her lip, her fake belly up under her breasts. “Call medical.”
The cop guided us all out one by one. “They’re all . . .” He trailed off and stared at our pregnant stomachs in horror. I stepped out of the van and it was then that I saw Vern lying on his back on the ground as if asleep. His chin was scruffy and unshaved. His cape had come off and he looked ordinary in jeans and a T-shirt. There was still color to his cheeks, still life in the way his arms spread away from his body, reaching out toward something mysterious. His mouth hung open and I thought I saw those silver fillings twinkle way in the back.
A crowd of police stood over him talking into walkies, one made notes on a clipboard. But no one was really looking at Vern. Not a one of them knew they had taken down our leader. He was of no importance in their world, I realized. They did not look at him and see God. One cop held the golden gun. “Where’d he get a thing like this? Never seen something like it in my life.” Vern’s dirty tennis shoes were pointed oddwise and helpless. I always thought there would be more serenity on the face of a man who was now meeting his maker in paradise, who was finally, by his steadfast belief, going to meld with God forever. But something was pinched about his eyes like he was willing them shut, bracing. I thought they did not look like the eyes of peace. There was only fear there. The baby moved hard into my bladder and I peed a little.
The night was ending, the sun was rising over the flatland. Most of the Body had run, but not everyone. There were some on their knees in prayer. Some stood motionless as statues in shock and I caught a flicker of movement in the distance. Past the red house ran a man. He was tall and thin, a flash of sand-colored hair. I knew that gait. It was Lyle alone. I looked around to find the rest of the boys’ club but they were gone, too. I didn’t have the energy in me then to wonder what life awaited them. What things they would have to put away deep into themselves. Inevitably, some would lie each night next to a future wife and that wife would have no idea what they had done, the things they had found themselves a part of. A chill whipped through the valley, the first cool breeze I’d felt here in so long.
“Is there a Lacey May Herd?” a dark-haired officer said, looking at