Joe Lansdale - The Best of Joe R. Lansdale

The other monk clasped his hands and swung them into the side of Calhoun’s head, knocking him down. Brother Fred got up, and while Calhoun was trying to rise, he hit him with the stock of the shotgun in the back of the head, hit him so hard it drove Calhoun’s forehead into the floor. Calhoun rolled over on his side and lay there, his eyes fluttering like moth wings.

“Brother Fred, you must learn to turn the other cheek,” Brother Lazarus said. “Now put this sack of shit on the table.”

Brother Fred checked Wayne to see if he looked like trouble. Wayne put his hands in his pockets and smiled.

Brother Fred called the two dead folks over and had them put Calhoun on the table. Brother Lazarus strapped him down.

The nun brought a tray of needles, syringes, cotton and bottles over, put it down on the table next to Calhoun’s head. Brother Lazarus rolled up Calhoun’s sleeve and fixed up a needle and stuck it in Calhoun’s arm, drew it full of blood. He stuck the needle through the rubber top of one of the bottles and shot the blood into that.

He looked at Wayne and said, “I hope you’ll be less trouble.”

“Do I get some orange juice and a little cracker afterwards?” Wayne said.

“You get to walk out without a knot on your head,” Brother Lazarus said.

“Guess that’ll have to do.”

Wayne got on the table next to Calhoun and Brother Lazarus strapped him down. The nun brought the tray over and Brother Lazarus did to him what he had done to Calhoun. The nun stood over Wayne and looked down at his face. Wayne tried to read something in her features but couldn’t find a clue.

When Brother Lazarus was finished he took hold of Wayne’s chin and shook it. “My, but you two boys look healthy. But you can never be sure. We’ll have to run the blood through some tests. Meantime, Sister Worth will run a few additional tests on you, and,” he nodded at the unconscious Calhoun, “I’ll see to your friend here.”

“He’s no friend of mine,” Wayne said.

They took Wayne off the table, and Sister Worth and Brother Fred, and his shotgun, directed him down the hall into another room.

The room was lined with shelves that were lined with instruments and bottles. The lighting was poor, most of it coming through a slatted window, though there was an anemic yellow bulb overhead. Dust motes swam in the air.

In the center of the room on its rim was a great, spoked wheel. It had two straps well spaced at the top, and two more at the bottom. Beneath the bottom straps were blocks of wood. The wheel was attached in back to an upright metal bar that had switches and buttons all over it.

Brother Fred made Wayne strip and get on the wheel with his back to the hub and his feet on the blocks. Sister Worth strapped his ankles down tight, then he was made to put his hands up, and she strapped his wrists to the upper part of the wheel.

“I hope this hurts a lot,” Brother Fred said.

“Wipe the blood off your face,” Wayne said. “It makes you look silly.”

Brother Fred made a gesture with his middle finger that wasn’t religious and left the room.

Sister Worth touched a switch and the wheel began to spin, slowly at first, and the bad light came through the windows and poked through the rungs and the dust swam before his eyes and the wheel and its spokes threw twisting shadows on the wall.

As he went around, Wayne closed his eyes. It kept him from feeling so dizzy, especially on the down swings.

On a turn up, he opened his eyes and caught sight of Sister Worth standing in front of the wheel staring at him. He said, “Why?” and closed his eyes as the wheel dipped.

“Because Brother Lazarus says so,” came the answer after such a long time Wayne had almost forgotten the question. Actually, he hadn’t expected a response. He was surprised that such a thing had come out of his mouth, and he felt a little diminished for having asked.

He opened his eyes on another swing up, and she was moving behind the wheel, out of his line of vision. He heard a snick like a switch being flipped and lightning jumped through him and he screamed in spite of himself. A little fork of electricity licked out of his mouth like a reptile tongue tasting air.

Faster spun the wheel and the jolts came more often and he screamed less loud, and finally not at all. He was too numb. He was adrift in space wearing only his cowboy hat and boots, moving away from earth very fast. Floating all around him were wrecked cars. He looked and saw that one of them was his ‘57, and behind the steering wheel was Pop. Sitting beside the old man was a Mexican. Two more were in the back seat. They looked a little drunk.

One of the whores in back pulled up her dress and cocked it high up so he could see her pussy. It looked like that needed a shave.

He smiled and tried to go for it, but the ‘57 was moving away, swinging wide and turning its tail to him. He could see a face at the back window. Pop’s face. He had crawled back there and was waving slowly and sadly. A whore pulled Pop from view.

The wrecked cars moved away too, as if caught in the vacuum of the ‘57’s retreat. Wayne swam with his arms, kicked with his legs, trying to pursue the ‘57 and the wrecks. But he dangled where he was, like a moth pinned to a board. The cars moved out of sight and left him there with his arms and legs stretched out, spinning amidst an infinity of cold, uncaring stars.

“…how the tests are run…marks everything about you…charts it…EKG, brain waves, liver…everything…it hurts because Brother Lazarus wants it to… thinks I don’t know these things…that I’m slow…slow, not stupid…smart really…used to be scientist…before the accident…Brother Lazarus is not holy…he’s mad…made the wheel because of the Holy Inquisition…knows a lot about the Inquisition…thinks we need it again…for the likes of men you… the unholy, he says… But he just likes to hurt…I know.”

Wayne opened his eyes. The wheel had stopped. Sister Worth was talking in her monotone, explaining the wheel. He remembered asking her, “Why” about three thousand years ago.

Sister Worth was staring at him again. She went away and he expected the wheel to start up, but when she returned, she had a long, narrow mirror under her arm. She put it against the wall across from him. She got on the wheel with him, her little feet on the wooden platforms beside his. She hiked up the bottom of her habit and pulled down her black panties. She put her face close to his, as if searching for something.

“He plans to take your body…piece by piece…blood, cells, brain, your cock…all of it… He wants to live forever.”

She had her panties in her hand, and she tossed them. Wayne watched them fly up and flutter to the floor like a dying bat.

She took hold of his dick and pulled on it. Her palm was cold and he didn’t feel his best, but he began to get hard. She put him between her legs and rubbed his dick between her thighs. They were as cold as her hands, and dry.

“I know him now…know what he’s doing…the dead germ virus…he was trying to make something that would make him live forever…it made the dead come back…didn’t keep the living alive, free of old age…”

His dick was throbbing now, in spite of the coolness of her body.

“He cuts up dead folks to learn…experiments on them…but the secret of eternal life is with the living…that’s why he wants you…you’re an outsider… those who live here he can…test…but he must keep them alive to do his bidding…not let them know how he really is… needs your insides and the other man’s…he wants to be a God…flies high above us in a little plane and looks down… Likes to think he is the creator, I bet…”