The Killing Room (Richard Montanari) - By Richard Montanari Page 0,45

the glass to her lips and drank. At first she found this new wine to be bitter, but the more she had, the less bitter it became.

The Preacher read to her from the Scriptures well into the night, and as he did they continued to drink the bitter wine.

*

In the dream that was not a dream, the Preacher stood at the foot of the bed. He was now dressed in red, and wore a Roman collar.

‘Mary,’ he said softly.

In the dream that was not a dream Ruby was naked. She felt the humid night breeze through the window. She could smell the honeysuckle and summer hyacinth.

In the dream that was not a dream the Preacher entered her. The pain was terrible, and in the dimness of the bedroom she saw his eyes, felt the heat of his breath, and for a moment she looked inside him, and there saw deep and terrible chasms of fire.

Ruby awoke in her own sleeping bag, inside one of the trucks. She sat up, her head hurting and spinning, her body aching, a wicked thirst inside her. She frantically tried to find her new dress.

It was gone.

The next stop was near a small town in southwestern Ohio called Hannibal. They set up the tent in a field overlooking a lake. It was late summer and the mosquitoes were out in full force. The Preacher sent two boys into town to tack up the flyers.

By six o’clock the people began to arrive. It wasn’t a large crowd, but this was only the first night. The Preacher always stayed three days in a new town in order for the word to spread, and it always did.

There were a total of nine people in the caravan in those days.

The Preacher learned that, when they were in small towns, poor towns, by the second night he had gotten what money he could get from the people. It was then that the Preacher instituted his From Thy Bounty nights, encouraging the people to bring food as offering, instead of money. He would hold an abbreviated service, and donations of money would of course be accepted, but mostly people would come with home-baked breads, smoked meats, jams and preserves, and homemade pies.

They always ate well after that.

When the caravan reached New Martinsville they were joined by a man named Carson Tatum. Carson was in his mid-fifties, a kindly widower with more money than faith. Carson Tatum had sold his small chain of hardware stores at a tidy profit, it was said, and dedicated his life to the Word as revealed by the Preacher.

The Preacher needed a driver to haul the ever-increasing amount of gear, and a bargain was struck. The gatherings had grown from an average of fifty or so people to well over two hundred, expanding as word of the Preacher’s healing powers spread.

Carson, who had never had children of his own, took immediately to Ruby, and they became fast friends. Many times she would ride in the front seat of his F-150, and he would delight her with stories of his time as a merchant marine, making stops in faraway places like Singapore, Shanghai, and Karachi.

A few months later they stayed at a rundown motel outside Youngstown, Ohio. The entourage had grown to eleven people by then.

Ruby had not been feeling well, and another girl, a year or so younger, had taken over the care of Abigail and Peter.

The new girl was blond and pretty, but withdrawn, and had about her many of the ways Ruby had had when she first joined the caravan. She revered the Preacher, could barely look his way when he spoke to her.

Ruby’s illness began with a sour stomach every morning, which many times led to her vomiting. More than once she could not make it to the Porto Sans that were always set up near the tent for the people who attended the meetings.

In her third month Ruby began to show, and despite her efforts to hide the presence inside her, she knew what was happening. She came to the Preacher’s RV one night to tell him the wondrous news, but she was turned away.

Before she went back to bed she saw the new girl, Bethany, playing with Abigail. They were playing a game of hide and seek among the tangle of rusted Fords and pickups.

Bethany was wearing Ruby’s pink dress.

On the way back to the tent, tears streaming down her face, Ruby thought she heard a growling sound nearby, a low keening