The Zona (20 page)

Eliphaz shook his head and whistled.

“There was a killer in God’s good grace. And yet, sin and doubt cloud his judgment.  His mind and actions became unclean.”

“You shouldn’t have killed him,” Lead said.

“Don’t blame me, little Preacher.  God pronounced him a dead man and I acted as His hand.  You of all people should understand the grace and wrath of our Lord,” Eliphaz replied.

Daylight burned the back of Lead’s neck.  His arms and back ached.  Eliphaz stopped the party.

“Set up camp,” he commanded.

The assistant raised his head, his eyes rolled to whites.  Eliphaz glared at him.

“Jarrod, set up camp.”

The assistant fell out of his saddle and struck the earth like a sack.  One of his feet caught the stirrup and twisted his ankle at a sharp angle.  The assistant did not move or breathe.  Eliphaz walked over to the body; he grasped the assistant’s face and neck.

“Dig a hole,” Eliphaz told the other Crusader.

Eliphaz untied Lead and gave him a sip of water and wedge of road bread.  Lead was in too much pain to give resistance; he let himself be led docilely.  Eliphaz allowed Lead to urinate before hogtying him to a boulder for the night.  Eliphaz and the other young Crusader buried the assistant in a shallow grave.  Eliphaz recited the Lord’s Prayer and then bowed his head in silence.

Lead and the Crusaders continued in silence for days.  At each sunset, the Crusaders untied Lead from the horse and lashed him to a boulder or tree for the night.  Lead’s body betrayed him with pain that would not subside. He swore to himself he would not cry out and gritted his teeth against the agony.  His mind stayed with image of Terrence, and his mind burned with picture of his friend’s body bleeding out on the Highway Nineteen.  Lead himself was coated in small wounds and insect bites and wracked with hunger.  He forced his mind away from Terence.  He thought of escape.  He thought of Church’s prison, Purgatory, his destination.  On the third day of their journey, Lead and the Crusaders arrived at Purgatory.

XI. Purgatory, the Zona’s representation of biblical punishment

Lead woke as his body was untied from the Crusader’s horse.

“We’re here,” Eliphaz announced as he dropped Lead’s inert body on the ground.

The sun’s radiance burned Lead’s morning eyes.  His vision cleared and revealed the entrance to Purgatory.  A chain link fence, standing over twenty feet and crowned with razor wire circled the entire complex.  Trailers and portables speckled the sandy grounds and acted as the secondary standing structures.  Towards the front of the grounds, a courthouse stood as the primary building.  In front of Lead stood a gate, above which a scratch-iron sign proclaimed:

“Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter!”

Beyond the gate and the courthouse and the portables and trailers was nothing but desert, as imposing and restrictive as the prison fence and razor wire.  Lead had been here before.  He had delivered bound marks to this very gate.  The same dead smell of rot touched his nostrils.

Eliphaz pulled a bell cord and waited for guards.  Two eventually arrived, shuffling their feet in a combination of formality and haste.

“I’m Crusader Eliphaz, I deliver on to you the Goodman Leonard Marchez, of Flagstaff,” Eliphaz boomed for all to hear.

He held up the cross tattoo on his forearm, the sign of the Crusader, for inspection and then handed folded papers and Lead’s knife to the inspecting guard.

“Let the magistrate know, Goodman Lead resisted apprehension and should be shown no mercy or absolution.  So says I.”

The inspecting guard, having been satisfied, nodded and pocketed the knife and papers.  The guards lifted Lead by his bound arms and carried him through the gate.  Having delivered their captive, Eliphaz and the young Crusader abruptly left, waiting neither for reward nor praise for their capture.

“Where are we going?”  Lead whispered.

The guards did not respond.  They were cloaked in black robes cinched with belts, the uniform of Purgatory guards.  The guard to Lead’s left was marred with a scar running from forehead to neck.

“What’s inside?”  Lead whispered.

He had heard rumors, but no one in the Church spoke specifically of what happened in Purgatory. Law forbade it.

“You’ll find out soon enough, sinner,” the scarred guard answered.  “Make no stir or trouble. You’ll know the insides of this place soon enough.”

The guards carried Lead through an arch and into the courthouse of Purgatory.  They traveled through an enormous hallway of stucco walls, worn and smoothed by time and bodies.  At the end of the hall, a long white table stood in front of a towering ivory podium.  All was colored white or gray.  The black-robed guards stood in stark contrast.  Guards busily shuffled through doors and passages, but none looked to Lead as he was dragged to the table and made to sit and wait.

Eventually a judge in billowing red robes appeared behind the podium.  The judge looked older than any living creature Lead had ever seen. His skin was yellowed and crinkled like parchment. His fingers protruded from hanging sleeves like tree branches.  What hair he had stood as tufts of cotton on his scalp.  When the judge spoke, all guards stopped and stood in silence.

“Stand, sinner.  Stand to hear the words and judgment of this court,” the judge rasped.

Lead was propped up and held by the guards.  He was barely strong enough to stand on his own.  His mind filled with fear.

The judge unraveled a scroll with his spindly fingers.  He held the scroll at arms length and squinted at the print.  He raised a finger and a guard brought a lit candle to the podium.  The judge’s cracked lips silently worked themselves up and down as he read each line to himself.  Eventually he looked up at Lead.

“You are hereby accused of the crimes of treachery and heresy.  You have gone against the Church and our Lord in failing to complete your duties as a designated Preacher of the Church.  Your charge is exacerbated by the fact that upon the commission of your sin you chose to flee the divine judgment and wisdom of the Church.  Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

Lead scanned the judge’s face.  He tried to think of a defense, he tried to think of precedent or Church wisdom to act as mitigation for his crimes.  He wanted to find saving words but could not think past the pain in his body, the hunger in his belly, the dryness of a mouth which had received little water in many days.

“Your Holiness,” he started and then paused, looking for more words.  “I’ve committed sin against the Church.  I did not shoot the mark Terence Wood.”  

Lead tried to gain his feet.  It felt important to stand straight.  He looked into the judge’s eyes.

“I did not shoot the mark, I had him under the choice, but he refused the rope.  I could not make myself shoot him.”

The judge looked back at his scroll.  He jabbed it with his finger.

“It says here, Goodman, that you slew twelve marks under Church command.  What made this one different?”

“I don’t know, your Holiness.  I lost the killer inside me.  I couldn’t put a bullet to him.”

The judge leaned back in his chair; he drew forth a scrap of paper and read out loud.

“Crusader Eliphaz supplemental report: Mark Leonard Marchez passed through a village of nomad heathens on the outskirts of Havasu Perish.  One heathen was slain by two gunshot wounds from mark Lead’s .38 caliber pistol.  Two more nomads sustained injury by blunt force, possibly the mark’s pistol or a club, or a rock.”

The judge held the scrap of paper to the candle flame.  It blackened and curled and turned to ash on his podium.  It caught and burned to nothing.  The judge stared through Lead.  He spoke slowly, letting each articulated word echo in the courtroom.

“You are a hypocrite, Marchez.  You claim the Lord stayed your hand from committing violence and yet you commit violence against heathens outside of Havasu a day later.  What say you?”

Lead forced himself to stand straight.

“I admit I fired upon the heathens.  They attacked me, I defended myself.”

“Terence Wood attacked the Church.  He stopped apprehending marks.  He stopped purging sin from our precious society, even worse; he let the sinners roam free in hiding.  The fabric of our society is based on civil rules, Mr. Marchez.  That which undermines our rules undermines our society.  Terence Wood was a harbinger of chaos and his sins were unforgivable.  Sin hurts society, sin hurts the Church, and as such, sin hurts you, mark. Sin brought our society to despair.  Sin destroyed the first world nations, and it is sin that you were charged to fight.”

The judge drew forth another scrap of paper.

“Crusader Eliphaz supplemental report: Upon apprehension Goodman Terence Wood refused the rope and was brought under the blanket.  In the ensuing combat Crusader Jerrod Black was shot and killed.  I was wounded when the mark Leonard Marchez stabbed me through the left forearm with a knife.”

The judge held up the knife, the blade was still stained with Eliphaz’s dried blood.  He put the knife down and held the Crusader’s report to the flame.  Ashes scattered across the podium and drifted to the courtroom floor.  One of the guards collected the ashes in his hands and laid them on the table in front of Lead.

“You are not an innocent, Marchez.  You make claim to losing the killer inside; your very words of defense.  And yet you stab a Crusader in the course of his work.  Not only have you broken your accord with the Church, Mr. Marchez, you act as an enemy combatant of the Church.  You sir, are treacherous.”

The judge raised his hands and the guards tightened their grip on Lead.  One put his hand on the back of Lead’s neck while the other kicked out his left knee.  Lead sprawled onto the table.  The scarred guard twisted Lead’s head around so he faced the dome ceiling of the courthouse.  Another guard pressed his jaw muscles until his mouth puckered open, and a metal pipe was forced past his teeth and into his throat.  Lead tried to yell out but his words were muffled by the gagging pipe.

“You were a trusted Preacher of the Church, and you became an enemy of the Church, a lover of sin and treachery.  You are a traitor against God and country and there can be no worse crime.” The guard with the pile of ashes approached Lead.  He held the ashes above the pipe.

“For the foulest of crimes you are to be banished to the foulest of places.  You are to consume the ashes of your sins.  Eat your sins and pray that they will sustain you, for you are going to the Pit of Traitors.  There you will be given no sustenance save the Earth’s clean water.  Let your sin fill your belly, for the Church has no will to.”

The judge raised his hand and the guard poured the ashes into the pipe.  Lead’s throat was instantly coated, his body tried to cough, but the gagging pipe and ashes blocked his air.  Lead convulsed and lights flashed before his eyes when he was suddenly released by the guards.  Lead pulled the pipe out and coughed a wet black mess on the courtroom floor.  The judge sneered in disgust.

“Remove this creature from my sight.”

As Lead was being dragged away, a guard leaned in and whispered.

“Listen mark, you’re going to be rolled into the Pit.  Stays in the Pit are short but few survive.  You will be given no food. If you partake of the flesh of man, you know, eat people, you will never be removed.  If you take in no sustenance but water, you will be absolved and survive your trial.”  The guard smiled and nodded encouragingly.  “Pray God be with you and cure you of your sin.”