On Tenterhooks (38 page)

After a short pause, he added with a hint of amusement,
“Of course,
I like to think of myself as more than the
average
man
.” 
He thumped his chest once for effect
and
laughed alone at his joke.

“Anyways, h
ere it is
.
Take it. Load it
.
If you ever get to feeling that I am going to do you wrong, pop me in the ass with a couple
shots from that bad boy and
s
hut me down
.
Got it?”

He looked around the table
.
No one moved for the gun.
“Well?” he
asked, shrugging his shoulders.
“Look, t
hat’s all I got.”

Sliding
out of
the chair
, he
stood up
,
removed his jacket and hung it on the back of the
chair, exposing
his
grimy,
threadbare
t-shirt.
Then he
raised his hands in the air and spun around in a circle
, while t
hey all watched in silence
.

“Nothin’ here.”

He sat back down in the chair and propped a foot up in his lap
.
He pulled off a
well-worn
black boot and pulled up his jeans, revealing a bare foot and ankle. “Nothin’ here,” he repeated, not looking up
.
He put the boot back on and pulled down the jeans
.
Then he put his other foot up in his lap and repeated the process
.
He pulled off the boot to reveal another bare foot and an ankle adorned with a small
,
simple tattoo of a dove.

“And nothin’ here,” he said
.
He put the boot back on and put his feet back on the floor
before
picking
up the chair and
scooting
back up to the table.

“And I don’t have
nothin’
hidden in
the
jeans either,” he said, smiling
.
“You’ll have to take my word for it though. I
ain’t
t
akin’
them off in mixed company
.” 

He chuckled again, alone.
“So,” he gestured at the gun, watching each of them
.
“Take it, if it makes you feel more comfortable.”

Without another word,
Veronica
grabbed the gun
off the table
and pulled the magazine from the base of the butt
.
She loaded the bullets
with the precision and speed of an experienced
sharpshooter
,
released the safety and pulled the gun in close to her
before shoving it
down under the table and
leveling
it at Biker’s stomach
.
Her eyes narrowed
,
and her confidence grew.

Biker bent over, at a safe distance, and peered at the gun
under the table
.

“Damn
,
girl
,
a
gut shot!  I like it
,
” he
smiled.

Without taking her eyes off him, she spoke to Steve
,
“Okay, we’re good now
.
Let’s get this moving.” 

Steve noticed how her eyes never wavered
—
she kept a constant watch on Biker’s han
d
.
He also noticed that Biker
kept his hands, palms down, on the top of the table
.
Clearly,
t
he
guy
knew the stakes were
high
.

Steve spoke
, addressing Biker
:
“
I don’t know who you are, but we want answers.
Obviously,
you know a lot about us, so I am not going to bluff you
.
We are scared
—
scared of you and of that Preacher
.”

Biker
stared at
him
, nodding
, while Steve pushed on: 
“I have only known this woman
for two days
, but
I can already say with certainty that if you do not give us the answers we are looking for, she will shoot you
.
If you try to harm us in any way, she will shoot you. And if Preacher comes walking through that door, she will shoot
him
and the
n
she will shoot
you
.”

Steve paused for a moment. He felt stronger.
“
Fear, Mr. Biker, can be a very powerful weapon.
Do not underestimate it.
”
He
did not take his eyes off Biker
.
He wanted to read any reaction
he could see
, and he
did not doubt for a minute that
Veronica
knew how to use that gun
.
Still,
he wasn’t positive that she would pull the trigger on an unarmed man
.
He
didn’t want a sideways glance
at
Veronica
to ruin any façade
created by his words
.

“Right,” said Biker
.
No
longer smiling
,
he
sighed
,
“This is kind of a long story
.”

“We’ve got the time,” said Martin
.
E
veryone seemed a little more comfortable now that there was at least some protection by way of
Veronica
.

“
Okay,
well let’s start
at the beginning
.
Well, sorta
the beginning
.
I need to ask you all to keep an open mind about what I got to tell you.”

He paused and seemed to struggle to choose his next words carefully.
“You know all that stuff you learned about in Sunday
school
?
I’m talking God, heaven, Satan, hell
—
all that?” 

Steve and Martin nodded
.
Abby just stared
.
Veronica
shifted the gun until it rested in her lap
, the business end still pointing at Biker’s mid-section
.

“Well, for the most part, it’s pretty accurate
.
The
Bible
did a
decent
job of laying it down
.
Now
this here, what we’re going to talk ‘bout now, now this is where it gets mighty interesting
. . .
”

Chapter
3
4

“God made man in his own image
.
Or, I guess I should say
,
he made
people
in his own image
.
But that was it
.
He didn’t make them to be deities or immortal
.
He wanted them to live a life of free
will and choice
.
The short life of man would make them more attuned
to living life to its fullest.”

Nodding his head for emphasis, he moved quickly on.

“God got things started
,
and then he let nature take over from there
.
He
’s had the ability to sense the potential for good and evil in people from the time they are conceived
.
He
doesn’t
plant the good and evil in a person
.
Instead, he
gives them all
free will to ma
nage
themselves
individually.
There
are some on the earth in whom God can sense a tremendous potential for good
. Call
them
‘positives.’ 
F
or those, he assigns a sort-of ‘permanent guardian angel’
to watch over them.”

Biker paused
.
He could tell that he had their interest, if not their belief
,
in
his words.

“The problem i
s
that Satan is just as real
as the Big Man
.
And he
’s
also got the ability to sense this potential for good and evil
.
He’s got minions walking on
E
arth, hundreds of them
,
in fact
.
He assigns these
personal demons to keep an eye on those
people
with a taste for evil an
d chaos
.
We call those people
—“

“Let me guess: negatives?”
Veronica
snapped
,
with a sarcastic smile
.

Gone was Biker’s jovial attitude
.
“Yes, that’s correct,
Veronica
,” he said, staring at her
.
“I made it simple for your sake
s
.
Their
true
names are much more complicated
.
Now, let me continue,
darlin
’
.
”

Steve
braced
, half expecting to hear the report from the Colt in
Veronica
’s lap
.
Instead,
her
smirk disappeared, but she did not otherwise acknowledge Biker’s stern tone
.
As Biker continued, Steve was aware that
,
while the voice was still
his,
the tone was like that of a college professor rather than a bar rat.

“
These demons
provoke and stimulate the ha
tred in the negatives.
They can coax unfounded hatred and unbridled cruelty from the negatives, making them much worse than they would have been on their own
.
Just as God is able to stimulate the power of Good in some, Satan turns others deeper into the darkness of Evil.”

Biker leaned forward in the chair.
“In the last five centuries or so, as order has been established in the world, the number of negatives on earth has
increased greatly
.
Satan’s power on earth keeps growing and growing
.
A while back, say about the turn of the twentieth century, the angels tho
ught they were gonna get a break
. T
he
age-old
tricks that Satan’s demons relied on
were
no longer cutting it.”

He tapped the table with his fingertips.

“
In the past, the demons could rely on things like superstition and folklore, geographic isolation and petty tribal ri
valries to stir up controversy
.
They used it to jack up
fear and hatred.

“
As the world
evolved
, a lot of those things went away. But it turns out the angels had it even worse off.
Today, the world
leaps ahead
in communication, science, medic
ine, technology
.
And although some might consider it a good thing,
this
has brought a lot more gateways
of evil
into being.
For nearly every
advancement
you can think of, there’
s a down side. There’s a counterpoint to every major imp
rovement made here on earth.”

He faced Steve.
“
Steve
—
you know a lot about technology
.
Think about
cyber stalking
, pedophiles
and rampant child pornography.”

“
And Martin,
”
he
continued, staring at Martin. “F
or every prescription you
fill
to ease someone’s burden, there’s
a
junkie in an alleyway or a young girl selling her body for her next spoonful
.”

Steve
could see the rising fervor in Biker’s eyes
, but
t
he
guy
was
forcing himself to remain calm.

“And
Veronica
, l
ook at what cult of celebrity this world ha
s become
,
thanks to advertising and
marketing. It makes young girls ashamed of their own bodies and reduces their self-esteem so low that they force themselves to vomit their school lunch in the
toilet
!”

His voice and his pace
escalated
with each
sentence
.

“
Y
ou raise celebrities up to a status t
hat makes them above the law
.
Drunk driving? Killed a bystander?  No prob
lem
—
community service for you!
”

Biker was nearly shouting now, but Steve was too enthralled in his tirade to notice.

“Don’t believe me?
Evil exists folks
—
in bars and basements,
government
offices,
high-
rise
buildings
on Wall Street
and
Main S
treet
,
malls across the globe
.
Sure, you don’t always see it.
Maybe you never even made the connection
.
Think back over the last century or two to the worst evils you can recall
.
Hitler
. . .
Mussolini
. . .
Stalin
. . .
Jack the Ripper
. . .
Manson
. . .
Bin Laden
. . .
Josef Mengele
.
Think back to the terrorism of 9/11
.
You’re being killed by your own political correctness
—
so worried about offending that you forgot to defend
yourselves
!”

He
was shouting now
.
The bartender and locals were all listening to him.
His already commanding
voice boomed
,
as his body language mimicked his harsh words.

“
World wars, civil wars,
genocide,
terrorism, murder, rape, child abuse a
nd so on and so on
and so on and so on, until it all comes t
rickling down
into a puddle of steamy,
stinking scum
. . .
”

He trailed off, his barrel chest heaving.

“
Much of this has been around for centuries, but not nearly so dominant
.
In the last few decades, seems like s
ociety has allowed
—
no
—
society has
enabled
evil to run amuck. You’
v
e eroded basic human values
,
until there are few safety nets left.”

He stared down at the table and shook his head
, as he
breathed deep
and sighed loudly
,
“
I ain’t sayin’ it’s all bad,
though.
Ther
e’s still good, here and there
. . .
so we keep up the good fight.”

He took Steve’s beer and downed it
in
four
sloshing
gulps
, then
rammed the glass back down on the table.

“
Hell, there have even been a few cases where God has been able to turn some of those negatives around, set them on the right track
.
Of course, those cases don’t make the history books or even the evening news.”

The group stared at him, waiting for him to continue
.

“So
,
anyway
, Satan got himself a new
game plan
.
He wanted to take advantage of this shifting tide of humanity I guess you’d say.
He recalled all of the demons on earth
,
brought
‘em
back to
H
el
l and did some
reorganization
in the ranks.”

His head nodded forcefully as he spoke.

“
Yep.
These days, there are only a few
hundred
of his demons up here with us
.
The problem is, these new ones are a might bit more nasty than your run of the mill
soul-
stalkers of yesteryear
.
They’re meaner, uglier and more powerful than ever before
.
They can influence, direct and even command humans in some cases
.
This new breed poses a much bigger danger.

“Now,
it’s tough for them
to
harm the positives directly.
God is wise to Satan’s plan
,
and he’s beefe
d up security for the positives
.
While it ain’t unheard of, it is rare that these demons can attack the positives
,
because the angels are doing their Sunday best to protect ‘em.

“But, that
’s
not Satan’s plan at all
.
He knows he can’t get to them, so he doesn’t even try
.
H
e’s too shifty to take the direct approach
.
Instead, he’s trying to hit them where it hurts
—
in the heart.”

Biker put his palm on his chest.

“You see
—
Satan figures that if he can inflict enough indirect pain and hardship on ya’ll and the others like you, he can break the spirit
.
Breaking the spirit could mean that it would change the path of a person’s life
.
He’d alter the course of your life so drastically that decisions would become blurry, difficult
.
Y
ou might end up changing so much that you might never live up to your full potential.”