You're Just Hearing the Shot

27.

The van was hot. Reed didn't know why Eddie had attacked that woman, didn't know why he'd stolen the van, but he knew that they couldn't get rid of it. Not right away, Reed had been on the phone since they'd beaten the woman up and taken her van and no one would chop it. No one even wanted to see it. The word was out, whoever GD was he had pull. Reed didn't even know what to do, they had the van in his parents garage, but they couldn't leave it there, there was even a news report about the assault. Reed had watched it hoping to see who "GD" was, but they didn't show him, he didn't comment on the report. Eddie and Blake told him to calm down and if they had to they'd sell the van piece by piece themselves Reed wasn't calm though, he was worried, because he knew GD was out there and he wanted his fan back. When the doorbell rang he almost jumped out of his skin. Reed, Eddie, and Blake, huddled near the door to see who had rung it, all afraid it was the police. They were completely confused when it looked like a priest.

"The fuck do you want?" Eddie spoke for the group. The priest just smiled, he had all his teeth and they were very bright.

"Moment of your time gentleman, especially if the three of your are living in sin, you need what I'm selling." They looked at each other completely mystified by this bible salesman arriving in the middle of the night and calling them gay.

"Fuck off." Eddie went to slam the door, but the priest had jammed his bible into it and shockingly was strong. He flung the door open and sent Eddie sprawling in the entry way.

"Boys you are messing with a power you do not understand." He swung the bible like a club smashing it into Reed's nose and hitting Blake in the throat. "You see me as a shepard and not the wolf who keeps the sheep fearful." Eddie tried to run, the bullet hit him in the knee, the Priest had some kind of old time pistol that was loud and left a large puff of smoke in its wake. Eddie's leg was almost blown clean off. Eddie was crying, Blake and Reed just put their hands up.

"What do you want?" Reed couldn't hide the fear in his voice.

"To sit you boys down and let you know what's what."

****

"The pistol is pretty old, my daddy used it in the war, the civil war mind you, despite my backwoods accent my daddy was an officer for the union, even took part in the sacking of Atlanta, I remember he told me 'Son sometimes you just have to show people how far you're willing to go' that stuck with me. I myself did not join the military I found the lord's calling more to my liking, so I became a priest. And since I believed in the lord so strongly I believed that you should not restrict by race, so I found a congregation of colored folks in Texas to shepard into the lords light. It wasn't long before my church was burnt down by the local chapter of the KKK fully endorsed by the mayor mind you. He told me personally that next time I'd be inside it along with anyone dumb enough to follow my teachings. So I killed him with this pistol. It took them a day to get me to hang, and I don't know if you understand how a lynch mob works, but they aren't exactly good at that whole lynching thing. I believe, and I say believe because I did not have a watch, it took me about three hours to reach my final destination, or at least what I thought was my final destination. I had to dig myself out, thankfully good ole boy murderers didn't dig too deep. I was confused at first, why the lord had spared my life when so many of my followers had died, and I never have gotten that instruction from up high, so I have carved my own path." Reed, Blake, and Eddie were tied up on a couch, the priest Clarence had the pistol on them while he recounted his story.

"I tell you boys this to try and explain myself to you, I don't need to really, its not the job, but I wanted you to know that I'd been doing this for a long long time and if you thought you could have stopped me you were mistaken. Right now you're just hearing the shot, you don't realize in your lizard brain way I already killed you long before that sound caught up." They tried to move against the bindings, Eddie with his severely injured leg screamed when his friends moved against him.

"Now I apologize advance for this next part, but like god's laws, mine require a certain example to be made, violence is not something I keep in my heart, but it is something my hands do quite well." To anyone walking by it sounded like someone punching a steak, just a wet meat on meat sound. The room itself when Clarence was finished went from an off green to a dried rust red. The three young men barely recognizeable. Clarence cleaned himself up and waited outside in his van, enjoying a cigarette one of the few things he did that was strictly not for the lord.

****

"So I imagine the police will release the van in a day or so after the investigation is over."

"And you aren't worried about them suspecting you?"

"A bible salesman? No I'm not worried at all. Gilbert it's been a pleasure, I do hope you walk in the light, but I want to warn you, before one of the gentleman passed into his next trial he confided in me someone had paid him to take your van, and if you were the one currently driving it you were to be killed." Gilbert sighed.

"I figured as much."

"Well do watch yourself brother Gilbert." Clarence hung up and Gilbert sat alone in his office, contemplating on who would want to kill him, or what.