Stephen Blackmoore: All Bad Things

So it’s over to one of the camps in the hills of Silver Lake. There’s one they’ve traded with. Small group, twenty people. They might listen, they might not, but if they don’t, he’s not likely to get shot in the head.

He makes his way west, following the ruins of Sunset Boulevard, then north to the Silver Lake reservoir. It hasn’t been full for as long as Samson’s known about it—the scummy swamp water spread through so much of Los Angeles never made it up into the hills—but everyone still calls it the reservoir. When there’s a really heavy rain, it fills up with radioactive water that no one goes near. The smell of poison and rot are too strong for even the hardiest survivors.

At the bottom of the hill Samson crosses himself just like he saw James King do on the videotapes, his fingers brushing against the shotgun shells in their bandolier. He follows it up with a check on the twelve–gauge slung over his shoulder, the sledgehammer on his back, the Bowie knife strapped to his forearm. Once he’s ready, he heads up the hill.

The camp is quiet. Ragged men and women, thin from little food, sick from unnamed diseases. Samson steps out from a blasted–out house at the top of Angus Street, and the ones still mobile enough to care freeze when they see him.

Samson clears his throat. “And the Lord said, ‘Lead not into temptation the lambs who you would take under your protection, for I am the Shepherd and I—’“

“Who the fuck are you?” a woman says, stepping out from behind a plastic sheeting lean–to, her rifle in a grip that tells Samson she knows how to use it.

“I’m here to spread the gospel of James King,” he says. “To show you the path of righteous—”

A rock flies from the side and bounces off Samson’s forehead.

“We don’t need your kind here,” a filthy boy says, picking up another rock.

“Malcom, you cut that shit out,” the woman says. “But he’s right. We don’t need your kind here. Don’t need no preacher bullshit. Get plenty of that already.”

“I’m different, ma’am,” Samson says. “I bring the Word of God’s Prophet, the Reverend James King. He foresaw these troubles, saw the bombs coming, saw the hardships we’d all be facing when the judgment day came.”

“Yeah? Then how come he didn’t do anything about it?”

Samson’s ready for this one. His answer is straight from season four, episode nineteen. “Because it was God’s plan. God wanted us hammered into something stronger, something better, and the only way to do that is through hardship and perseverance. You have raiders come by, right? Try to steal your food?”

“Of course we do. And we fight ’em off, just like we’ll fight you off if that’s what you’re thinking of doing.”

“No, ma’am,” Samson says. “I’m here to spread the Good Lord’s Word and, should any of you fine folks like, have some of you join our new Church.”

She laughs. “A church? You want us to join your church? And I suppose you’d be sitting at the top eatin’ the best food and getting handjobs for your trouble. Is that it?”

“We deny the pleasures of the flesh,” Samson says, “so that we may be pure in the eyes of the Lord.” Season fourteen, episode nine.

She narrows her eyes. “No, I don’t think we’re gonna listen to you. You gotta get gone, Mister.”

“But—”

“I said get outta here.”

Doubt fills Samson and he stammers half–formed objections, unsure what to do next.

“She’s not listening to you,” James King says to him, appearing at his side. Samson turns to see him, his shiny teeth, his flag lapel pin, his unmoving blond hair. “She’s not listening to us.”

“She doesn’t know us,” Samson says. “Once she hears the sermon—”

“Who the hell you talkin’ to?” the woman says. “You’re crazy, aren’t you? I got enough problems without a crazy man comin’ into my camp.”

“If you’d just listen,” Samson says, frustration building, a red haze descending on him. Anger bubbles up through the cracks in his psyche, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. He knows what happens next, sees it clear as day.

“It’s all right, Samson,” King says. “You know what you need to do.”

Samson shakes his head. “But sir—”

“I asked you who the hell you’re talkin’ to,” the woman says.

Samson can take it no longer. The rage sweeps over him like a flame. “You are disrespecting the Reverend King,” he says. “You are disrespecting God.”

“Give them Salvation,” King says. “Show them the Light.”

Samson says nothing, lost to the red rage filling him. He slides the Bowie knife from its forearm sheath with a practiced move and flings it with all the force he can muster. The blade punches into the woman’s throat, blood erupting around it. She fires the rifle, but Samson’s already on the move and the shot goes too high to touch him.

Samson’s sledgehammer is in his hands. He swings it at the boy who threw the rock, shattering his sternum with one blow, caving in his skull with another. There is screaming, gunfire, but it’s all so distant. Samson is just a vessel, a vehicle for carrying out God’s will, enacting His plan. His sledgehammer swings home countless times, crushing everything in its path.

James King hovers over Samson’s shoulder. “Kill them, Samson. Kill them all. Kill them for God.”

And that’s exactly what Samson does.

Samson meets Cyrus outside the doors to the bunker where he’s reinforcing them with welded metal plates. He lifts a new pair of goggles from his eyes, stares at Samson standing there, smock soaked red with blood.

Samson looks down at him, eyes unfocused. He doesn’t remember coming back here, barely remembers going to the camp.

“You okay?” Cyrus says.

Behind Samson, James King says, “You sent many souls to Heaven.”

“I sent many souls to Heaven,” Samson says. His voice is a distant echo in his ears.

“So they didn’t listen?”

“They wouldn’t listen,” King says. “They disrespected the Lord.”

“They wouldn’t listen,” Samson repeats. “They disrespected the Lord.”

“Oh. Well, they deserved what they got, right?”

“They did,” King says, but Samson says nothing. He pushes his way past Cyrus, boots squelching from all the blood in them, heavy red tracks following him inside.

“You hurt?” Cyrus says.

“I don’t know,” Samson says. He doesn’t think it matters.

That night, Samson, blood and bits of bone scrubbed from his skin as best he can, sits in the editing bay and watches episode fourteen from season twelve of King’s show. This is the one where King calls for the cleansing of the land of Unbelievers. “Those who disrespect the Lord deserve the sword.” King sings it like a children’s song, repeating himself over and over again.

“I remember those words,” King says.

“I killed people today,” says Samson. “I didn’t even get to bring them your sermon.”

“They wouldn’t listen.”

“I didn’t give them a chance.”

“Yes, you did,” King says. “You came bearing my Word, you invoked my name. And yet they denied you. You did what was right. You cleaned the land of their foulness and delivered their souls unto the Lord.”

“Will there be a lot of that?”

“The land will be bathed in their blood,” King says. “Count on it.”

“Some folks take exception to you showin’ your face, Samson,” Bernie says. “Don’t think you should be here.”