Chapter 10 (part 2)

Evan breathed heavily and fought off a sickening few moments when he was afraid that he might actually start crying in front of this trio. When that moment came and went without the shedding of a single tear, Evan looked Lott squarely in the eye and did his best to explain his situation.

“I’m in the middle of a very screwed up drug deal,” he said. “My life was threatened earlier tonight because the men I work for tried to outwit the men I’m buying from.”

“If you’re buying drugs from around here,” Lott said, “you must be mixed up with the cocaine pushers, yes?”

Evan realized at once that Lott was trying to trip him up, hoping to catch him in another lie. “No,” Evan said. “Peyote. From a tribe somewhere south of here.”

He was delighted to see a flash of recognition in Lott’s face as he heard this. Lott knew that there was not a big cocaine supply out here and, Evan guessed, he was equally aware of the peyote peddling tribe.

“Continue,” Lott said, paying closer attention now.

“They sent someone for me tonight, thinking that I was responsible for trying to pull one over on them. When they realized that I was blind to what was happening to them, they still kept a gun on me and sent me on a little errand.” When he said this, Evan couldn’t help but smile in spite of the situation. “My God, that asshole had no clue what he was talking about.”

There were slight tremors in his voice as a result of the pain in his hand, but as he spoke about Sam, he didn’t care. If he could just have three seconds alone with him…there’d be much more than broken pinkies for Sam to fret about.

The puzzled looks on the faces of his three listeners made him want to stall the story as long as he could. But the insistent pain in his left hand proclaimed that to do so would not be wise. So Evan went on.

“They told me about this bus that had been spotted driving through the desert at night. They said that it was a suspected disguise for running drugs without being picked up by police or competing sellers. These guys thought that the people on the bus were stealing their business.”

“That makes no sense,” Lott said skeptically, although even as he said it, he began to realize where Evan’s story was going.

“Tell me about it,” Evan said. “But drug runners aren’t really known for being clever, now are they?” He paused here and then continued. “So they told me to flag down the bus, to get on and see what sort of things were going on. Tthey dropped me off in the middle of the desert and I did what they asked. And here I am.”

The two men opposite of Lott braced themselves, awaiting any instruction that Lott may give them. But when the last word had left his lips, Evan could tell that Lott didn’t doubt the story.

“So, this tribe knows about our bus?” Lott asked.

“Apparently,” Evan said. “And according to them, I think the local cops know about it, too.”

“The police have known about it for quite some time,” Lott said without much interest. “Tell me, Evan…this tribe and their competitors…they know about the bus and even knew when we would be out, but they have no idea what we do?”

Evan shrugged. “I guess not.”

He was terrified as to what sort of condition he might be in within the hour, but he also knew that in situations like this, it was best to keep your panic at bay and carry on such conversations as if they were as simple as a casual interview. He could feel his heart racing in his chest and still felt as if he could piss his pants as a result of his painfully snapped finger. But the will to live overruled all of that and he did what he thought might help him to get out of there with only a broken finger as a souvenir.

“But you know,” Lott said. “You’ve seen first-hand what we do. Have you not?”

Evan nodded slowly. He didn’t beg ignorance and he didn’t promise that he would never tell anyone. He simply nodded slowly and said, “Yeah, I saw.”

Lott thought this over for a moment and stared at one of the black candles for a good thirty seconds without speaking. As Lott sat there thinking, Evan wondered where the bus and all of the other passengers had gone.

“What else is there?” Lott finally asked. “What else have you seen? You were in the bathroom for quite some time. Did you see anything in there?”

The mere memory of the thing in the toilet made Evan shudder and once again, he told Lott what he wanted to hear as best as he could. “I don’t know what I saw in there, but I saw…I don’t know…I saw something.”

Lott actually chuckled at this. He drummed his fingers on the table again and then stood up slowly. “Well, Evan,” he said. “This is the first time we have been put into a situation like this, so I have no idea what needs to be done. Considering your occupation, I assume that you are good at keeping secrets. So, I suppose we could let you go, so long as you vow to never tell a soul.”

Evan said nothing. He knew that if he did, he would come off as desperate and maybe end up pulling one of Lott’s triggers. But even though Lott showed no signs of having decided his fate, Evan knew that he would not be let off with something as simple as a broken finger. The fact that Lott had claimed that the police knew about their activities made Evan wonder if he’d be safe even if Lott did let him go. If the local PD was in on this somehow, maybe Lott would let him go only to have him arrested or killed.

Evan thought of Max Young from the bar and found it hard to believe that he and his fellow officers could have a hand in all of this.

“I see only one way of solving this,” Lott said, slowly approaching Evan. “Despite what you saw me do tonight, I am not an unjust man. I believe that you have told me the truth, and that truth means that you had no ill intentions towards our group when you stopped the bus. I do not doubt that you are truly a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Evan said.

“If it were up to me,” Lott said, “I’d let you go and request that you never show your face in this part of the state again. But you see Evan, we serve a higher power here and it would be sinful for me to decide your fate. We will leave such decisions in more divine hands.”

Evan slowly began to register things as Lott spoke. The black candles, the talk of a higher power, the ritualistic style murders…Lott and his minions were part of some cult. And if the ungodly thing he had seen in the back of the bus was any indication, it was a cult that dabbled in some truly bizarre shit. The beheadings and the murders were nothing when compared to that monster. There was crazy and homicidal and then there was just plain evil.

“What divine hands?” Evan said. He didn’t care if he came off as afraid anymore.

“We’ll put you before His children, Evan. Only then can your fate be decided.” After Lott said this, the two men beside him stood up from their seats and chanted, “Amen.”

At that single word, Evan felt incredibly cold.

Evan couldn’t help but resist. He pushed himself away from the table but before he had a chance to move, Lott’s two henchmen were on him. He was once again put into that same sleeper hold and was jerked to his feet. As he was raised, his head began to ache again but he did not care. He struggled against them and even when he realized that his efforts were in vain, he kept fighting. His vision grew hazy and his head pounded like a drum. Through all of that, he could hear the chants from the three men that carried him away from the table and into the hallway that Lott had appeared out of.

They chanted in some foreign language that Evan did not understand and he was actually glad that he couldn’t make out what they were saying. He did his best to keep control of himself, to take in his surroundings and make sure he knew where they were taking him. While he knew his chances of escape were incredibly slim, it wouldn’t hurt to have an escape route planned.

Halfway down the dank and featureless hallway, the two men stopped pushing him along but still held their grip on him. Lott came from behind them and stood in front of Evan with a look on his face that could have very well been sincere sadness. Behind Lott, there was a single wooden door with two bolted locks on it. There was a strange marking in the center of the door that looked like some form of ancient hieroglyphics that had been crudely carved with a knife.

Lott chanted a prayer and then cupped Evan’s face in his hands. “Forever we are and forever we will be,” Lott said, “the seeds of His rule, his legacy.”

And with that, he removed a set of keys from his pocket and set to unlocking the pair of locks on the door. Lott unlocked them as if he was taking some sort of sexual pleasure away from the action of inserting the key into each lock. When both of the locks were undone, Lott slowly opened the door to reveal the other side.

There was only a set of ancient wooden stairs to be seen. Other than that, there was total darkness. Evan tried to push away from it but the two men that held him were far too strong. There was a single moment of relaxation when the bearded man removed his arm from around Evan’s neck, but this was quickly replaced by a sheer horror as he was pushed hard from behind.

Evan went tumbling down the stairs and into the darkness. There was a moment when he felt his shoulder hit a stair very hard and then, after several hard thumps and cartwheels, Evan came to rest on a hard dirt surface, landing on his broken finger as he did so.

He screamed out in pain, not caring how desperate he seemed to Lott now. He slowly raised his head up to look up the stairs, but all he saw was a slowly thinning beam of light as Lott and his partners closed the door on him.

Evan was left alone in the darkness with only the brief clicking sound of the locks being reset to keep him company.

And then, after a few tormenting moments of silence, there came the sound of something slithering around with him in the darkness.