Odd Pilgrims at the Church of Hate

TW: Swearing, gangs, guns.

I’ve got a plan. It’s vicious, perhaps even cruel. That’s part of the fun.

            They gather in a giant shed. From the outside it’s halfway to a church. White wooden walls. Tall thin windows. They don’t preach the word of God here. They worship hate.

            A project I have laboured on for a week is coming to fruition. Every night I sealed up every possible vent for air in the side of this wooden temple to xenophobia. It doesn’t need to be completely airtight, just enough for the dental nitrous oxide to knock out everyone inside.

            It’s Sunday. While others rest, the hateful flock gathers for a weekly dose of indoctrination. Today they’re inhaling more than verbal bile.

            I wait for the tirade to come to its sleepy conclusion. I’ve never understood how people manage to be so hateful and angry all the time. It sounds exhausting.

            I can hear it through the wooden walls. Apparently, immigrants are to blame for what’s become of the country. Interesting that the people who were already here have nothing to do with it.

            Every sentence takes the raging preacher a little longer to get out. I hear a thump and know that someone has succumbed to the gas. There are groans of support but by the time one of them has gone down the rest won’t be far behind.

            The doors start to rattle. I locked them with the chain that you can buy that has plastic coating around the links, it keeps them quiet.

            More thuds tell me that the rest of them are collapsing. I count to a hundred and then unlock one door. Bodies collapse out, propped up against the wood.

            With my gas mask on, I touch their necks. I keep them inside so that I can do my work without anyone overpowering me. They have the usual obsession with guns and steroids. I wouldn’t call their collection of white power and Nazi flags impressive, but they have a lot.

            As soon as my hand touches skin tattooed with things like swastikas, I start stealing memories. I take everything but fear. They murmur in their sleep. All of them start to piss themselves as their fight or flight instincts realise that they’re stuck.

            The things in their heads make me want to vomit, but with the mask on I’d be inhaling it. I’ve never had thirty-two personalities in my head before. Can’t say I recommend it. Part of me wants to put their minds in small animals like mice and feed them to my cats. That would be too cruel a fate for the mice.

            When their entire existence is fear, I walk to the back of their place and pull up the floorboards. Three huge, pressurised canisters of nitrous oxide are still venting into the space. I strain to lift the tanks, but I need them out of here before the cops show up. There’s too much linking me to the crime if they’re found.

            A hand grabs my leg. I almost drop the gas tank on the burly man in soiled jeans. His confederate flag T-shirt makes me wish I had crushed him with it. I step over him. The police officer, one of fifteen in the shed, has eyes wider than saucers with tears streaming down his pocked face.

            “You deserve every salty drop,” I say.

            I carry out the tanks and drop them in the back of a pickup owned by a man called Rick. He’s got stacks of porn magazines on the dashboard of the truck with anything but white women in them. Not what you expect from a white power fanatic.

            I’m all loaded up and ready to go when a car rolls down the muddy driveway. The car is a Cadillac with pearlescent blue paint and gold rims. The Latin music stops as the ride comes to a halt right in front of me.

            Dressed in blue and black, with a lot of number thirteens on their clothes and gold necklaces. The Mexican Mafia are the last lot I’d expect here.

            Are they here to shoot up the guys I knocked out?

            Am I about to die?

            “Hey, gringo. Where’s the stuff? We brought the money.” The one at the front has the number thirteen tattooed into his scalp. He holds a gym bag in both hands. Two others have their hands on Uzis in their belts.

            “Inside,” I say.

            “Hurry up. I aint got all day.”

            I put the last gas canister in the back of the truck and nod for them to follow me. The guns come out because I’m asking them to break a clear line of sight. Whether they’re buying drugs or guns, I’m fucked.

            I open the door to the church of hate and walk inside. I hold my breath. Uzis raised, the gangsters in their blue baggy shirts and jeans follow me in.

            “What the fuck?”

            “They’re high,” I say, improvising before I even think about it.

            “These bitches aint high. They’re low. Fuck. They all pissed themselves.”

            “It’s powerful stuff,” I say.

            “You didn’t do any?”

            “Don’t get high on your own supply,” I say as if I’m not just spouting quotes from drug films I’ve seen. My goosebumps have goosebumps.

            “Whatever these dudes are on, it’s not what I came for,” says the leader. He has X and three in black ink where some guys have teardrops.

            I walk to the back of the church and nod like everything is normal. My eyelashes feel like they’re sweating.

            Don’t touch anything. You wiped it down already. Wait for the gas.

            “I feel weird.” Gangster number three, the skinniest of the trio, tilts. He walks like a man on a stormy boat. Then he falls and hits his head on one of the fold-up chairs.

            “What the fuck are you doing?” asks the leader. He pulls a gold-plated Desert Eagle from his jeans and points it at me, holding the giant pistol in one hand.

            I feel dizzy.

            “Maybe we should go outside?” I suggest.

            “You stay where I can see you,” says the leader. His brown eyes narrow.

            I hold up my hands and walk towards the door. I walk past the big guy with his automatic aimed at my chin.

            I get to the door and run out. I slam the door shut again and pull the chain back around the handles. I manage to get the lock closed before the first shot echoes around the forest.

            Throwing myself into the dirt I roll away towards the nearest car. I’m covered with dirt and autumnal leaves, but I don’t have any holes in me.

            If their adrenaline is going they’ll be inhaling the rest of the gas even faster. I wait for a minute and go to the other side of the church. All I have to defend myself is a taser with one charge. I unlock the padlock and slowly slide the chain off the handle. Instinct tells me to wrap the chain around my hand.

            When the door creaks open there are two Mexican Mafia gangbangers collapsed against the other exit. I rush to them and give them the memory wipe treatment. My head is splitting like a one litre water balloon with an elephant in it.

            I wipe the last of the newcomers then throw open all the doors. I take my chains and drive away in the stolen pickup.

            I burn the pickup and the gas tanks on the bank of a lake. I roll it down into the water after half an hour. Sorry environment. My car is waiting nearby.

Everyone who knew about me, and my family is mindless, literally. I am all too mindful. Sparks of memory hit me with the kick of cocaine while I surf the wing of a plane at cruising altitude.

            I drive north. I’m sure I live north.

            My name is Xander. My name is Xander. Other names ring out between my eyes. Memories argue with what I’m seeing. Long forgotten roads overlap with my reality. I swerve and screech on the tarmac.

            Keep it together. Think of Billie. Think of Tina. Don’t crash again.

            The sun sets. A thousand remembered sunsets seen through thirty-five pairs of eyes show me landscapes I’ve never known.

            My name is Xander. Billie is my wife. Tina is my daughter. Keep going. I swerve too far and down into a ditch.

            My stomach tries to rid itself of a few spare personalities but all it manages is bile and blood. The acid taste and the tears down my face only distract me from a dozen or so of the voices which are yelling inside my mind.

            Strength that I have only because I need to see my little girl helps me push my car out of the ditch. The car makes a rattling noise. Nothing I can do about that right now. A rest stop declares itself with neon and I pull over with a lurch. Gravel crunches beneath the tires.

            Truckers are coming and going from the diner. I act drunk as I stumble to them. It’s not much of an act, I’m brain addled, just not from alcohol.

            Nope. He’s a nice guy. I let go of a flannel shirt and move on. The bearded man squints at me with a gallon cup of coffee in his hand.

            “Have you seen? No, sorry.” Another nice guy. His cap has a bear on it. Lots of my guest personalities have opinions on bears. I wish they didn’t.

            Where are all of the dickheads when you need them?

            “Fuck you, Wallace.” A woman storms out of the diner followed by a man with his fly undone. “This is the last time.” She’s got a lot of hairspray in her blonde dyed locks.

            Bingo?

            I stumble over to the man whose shirt is half in and half out of his pants. He does up the horseshoe belt buckle as he pleads that it meant nothing. “Fuck you looking at, freak?”

            “Are you?” I look into his mind. He’s hit her. He’s cheated more than he’s been faithful. Still a better man than my father, but that bar is so low it’s buried six feet under.

            Take them all.

            He starts screaming as I walk on, unburdened.

            Freedom. Peace.

            Refreshed more than caffeine has ever made me, I turn around again and drive away.

            My key turns in the lock as slow as I can possibly turn it. The handle rotates as quietly as it can. I lift the door as I push it open to stop it creaking on the hinges. The same effort goes into closing it again. I take off my shoes and tiptoe to the bedroom.

            Tina is sprawled out in the classic messiah pose. Her face is squished up in the valley between Billie’s boobs. Both of them are drooling. Both are beautiful. I kiss my baby. She swats at her face then smiles. I kiss my wife. She says something in Japanese and licks her lips.

            I shower stealthily. Hot water burns off the sweat and the guilt and the fear. I gargle water to rid my mouth of the taste of sick. Mouthwash works better until I inhale some and cough it up and spit it down the plughole.

            Slipping into bed, I position myself to hold Billie’s free hand. I watch Tina for a minute until I’ve seen her move. I close my heavy eyes. I sleep.