It seemed as if the road would never end but the hunger in Delilah's stomach had disappeared. Now even the thought of food made her feel queasy and she tried not to gaze at the blood spattered suitcase only a few feet away.
"Why would anyone want to kill a little kid?"
"I don't know" Burt glanced back, "But we might get a better idea if we look inside that." Delilah stared at the suitcase.
"You really think so?" Vicky asked seriously and Burt shrugged, "Probably not but It's worth a shot."
"I don't want to touch it" Delilah declined and hugged her arms. "Just pass it up here it Vick." Burt ordered and the teen swallowed before hesitantly reaching for the case and passing it up to her sister in law as quickly as possible. Vicky settled the case on her lap and began to fiddle with the knotted ropes that secured it shut.
Delilah stared out the window and watched a large white, decrepit barn pass by them, and as quickly as it flew by she could have sworn she saw movement. "Hey, we just passed a Barn. Maybe there's someone there."
"No, it's abandoned, no power feeds from the road. We'll have to wait until we get to Gatlin." Burt shook his head and struggled with the radio, nothing but static for miles. "Sometimes I think you see everything." Vicky almost laughed. "Freaks me out sometimes. It really does."
"It just feels like this is my responsibility Vicky, it really does. I hit him. Even if he was bleeding to death when I did, I don't see everything Vicky but I should have seen him. I took my eyes off the road." He sighed and continued to fiddle with the knobs, "Tell this to your American studies class back home. In Nebraska, the radio hasn't been invented yet."
"Nothing at all?" Delilah asked curiously.
"Ziltch"
Vicky grunted, "The other knot's coming out." She pulled of the chords as a loud voice emerged suddenly from the white static, making them all jump.
"Atonement! Only by the Blood of the Lamb are we saved! Atonement is the word, brothers and sisters!"
"Oh god" Delilah growled. But she had to note that the voice sounded off, not the voice of a potbellied minister hollering into a radio wearing black slacks that strained against a pair of elastic suspenders, waving the good book around his head for the congregation to see while he slammed his meaty fists onto the wood podium.
The voice was youthful, but full of fire. Like a fourth grader delivering an unusually impassioned oral exam.
"No wonder we're coming in fine now, we're right by the radio towers" Burt pointed out the tall structure of metal caging.
"Holy Jesus! When they gonna know that way is dead? When they gonna know that the wages of the world are paid on the other side?" Burt and Vicky chuckled uncomfortably as the unusual preacher carried on.
"That there's no room for the fornicators!" in the background an echo of "NO!" was heard from the congregation, who also sounded unusually young. "No room for the defiler of the corn, No vacancy! No room for the homosexuals, no vacancy! No room…"
"This drivel makes me sick" Vicky turned off the radio with a disgusted hiss. "Same here" Delilah agreed, relieved when the noise went silent.
"What did he say about the corn?" Burt asked and Vicky shook her head. "I wasn't listening."
"He said something about the corn, I know he did."
"I think he said, No room for the Defilers of the Corn, or something like that." Delilah pondered. "Probably just some weird old testament crap."
They continued to drive until the spotted a white plastic mailbox and beaten down shop of some kind.
"Hey! There is life in Nebraska!" Burt pulled over to the side of the road. "Are you sure anyone's here?" Vicky asked and Burt shrugged. "Doesn't matter I just need to use a pay phone. I gotta report this, the murder." He turned to look at Vicky, "You alright?"
Vicky nodded. "Yeah, I will be. As soon as we're a thousand miles away from here, sunny, sinful California. With the rocky mountains between us and Nebraska."
Burt dug in the side cup of the car. "You got any change?"
Vicky didn't bother looking in her purse. "Nope"
Delilah grabbed her cinch purse, "Here, I think I have fifty cents." She dug around and located Four dimes, two nickels, and a quarter. "That should be enough." She handed him the coins and he nodded. "Thanks"
He left them but arrived back only a few minutes later, out of breath as he handed Delilah back her change. "We'll be in town in a few minutes"
They peeled out and Vicky stared out the window with a distasteful look on her face. "Looks like fold in Galtin got Religion"
"I thought everyone in Nebraska had religion" Delilah looked out the glass as well to see signs passing them back, each one had a single word on it. "A cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night" Vicky read out loud.
"Well when they called it the Bible Belt they weren't kidding" Burt stated as Delilah squinted, reading as each sign passed by. "Take this. And Eat. So Sayth. The Lord. God. Of. Hosts." She sighed and settled back down. "That's what they say when they give you communion. I bet they use corn bread for holy wafer around these parts"
"I got it!" Vicky pulled apart the final knot. "Atta girl." Burt cheered without passion as she opened it up. Delilah leaned over the seat to observe the contents of the case. A set of clothes that looked almost Amish.
"A shirt, Belt…" she pulled out a child sized tie with a large metal medallion pinned on it, "what's this?"
"That's a real golden Oldie." Burt took the tie and examined it. "Huh." He set it down and thought. "Did anything strike you as funny about that radio sermon?"
Vicky scoffed. "You were obviously never the son of a preacher. Dragged from tent to tent going to meetings. Hearing every kind of evangelist praying on the uneducated, the lonely, and the weak instead of praying for them." There was a thick layer of bitter sadness in her voice. "I've had enough of that religious crap to last me forever."
Burt nodded. "Yeah but didn't this preacher sound young to you?"
"I noticed that to." Delilah agreed until Vicky jerked back on her seat. "Oh My God." The car screeched to a halt and they all turned their attention to Vicky and what she was holding in two trembling brown hands.
It was a crude piece of art that's for sure. Made of corn husks and twine, it resembled a crucifix only secured on a large X instead of a cross.
"Whoa," Burt took it from her, "fantastic piece of workmanship" he turned it over in his hands to study it as Vicky rubbed hers together as if to cleanse them. "Real American Primitive."
"It's hideous" Vicky spat. "It's a blasphemy, throw it out."
"No, the police will want to see this."
"Why?"
"I don't know, evidence maybe."
"Just throw it out!" Vicky demanded harshly. "Will you do that for me? I don't want it in the car!"
Delilah nodded. "I agree with Vicky, just get rid of that thing. I don't have a good feeling about it."
Burt shook his head, "a bad feeling isn't enough reason to destroy evidence, tell you what. We'll put all this back in the suitcase and in the back for now. And as soon as we see the cops we'll give them everything. The suit case, the body, the whole works, okay?"
Vicky stuffed everything back in the case and closed it. "Do what you want, okay?" she sniffed. As Burt took the case and the doll and threw it in the back by his sister who gently kicked it away with the edge of her foot and set the doll on the ground of the car as it had landed in her lap.
"You will anyway"
(Five miles way, in the town of Galtin)
A congregation of children, ranging from ages three to eighteen, sat in rows before a young boy with dark hair and a black wide brimmed hat. He held aloft a crude effigy composed of corn husks before the group.
"Behold, a dream did come to me in the night." He boasted to them, "I dreamed the Lord was a shadow who walked behind the rows, and God spoke to me as he has spoken to our older brothers since us children started making sacrifice."
"Praise God, Praise the Lord." The obedient listeners hailed in unison.
"And God told me all that has happened since. God said to me Joseph will take his things and flee this happy place because the fear of me is no longer upon him" The child told them, "so take you his life in punishment, not in sacrifice. Let not his flesh pollute the corn but cast his body upon the road, so thus ever more will Joseph Betrayer of the Corn, be known as Ahaz, Cursed of God,"
"Yea, so it is. Joseph the non-believer, yea Ahaz be cursed." They chanted as the boy continued.
"And the Lord did say, I will send outlanders among you. A Man and a Woman, and a convert for my flock. And these un-believers will be profaners and defilers of the corn. Then shall your faith be tested as it was in the days of the Blue Man."
"The Blue Man" they turned to a rotting corpse supported on a giant wooden X, dressed in a bloodied blue uniform, metal badge dangling off the limp fabric. "Yea, the Blue Man."
"He Who Walks Behind The Rows has protected us from the outside world and provided for us since the oldest among us were little. But a time of tribulation has come. A test is at hand!"
One of the oldest boys stepped forward. "We will welcome the test."
"Show not your pride Malakai. For does not the bible say the lord will not lift up his countenance upon the prideful man?" The child preacher scolded the elder who backed down contritely.
"What did God say we must do?"
The boy turned to the crowd "God told me, "Be not like Ahaz whose fate did desert him, for my name is strong here, my power is great. I'm the Lord of lords, so now you must make sacrifices to me and behold the unbelievers who've come to fulfill this purpose."
The older boy raised his sickle aloft over his head. "Make sacrifice, yea" the other boys behind his mimicked the action with their weapons.
"This is the word of He Who Walks Behind The Rows." The child informed the flock. "We do his work from shine to shadow. And it is well we do this. Verily Yea."
"Verily Yea!" the flock responded and began to depart but the eldest boy, Malakai, remained behind to face the child preacher. "Isaac, what of the girl convert with the man and woman?"
The boy looked up at him until he knelt down to face him fully. "She will be unwilling to join us, for the Holy Spirit is not upon her as it is with us and ours. Instead she must be brought to accept He Who Walks Behind The Rows and she must witness our strength through him our Lord."
Malakai nodded and stood. "God's will be done"