13.
10:07 A.M.
Jubilee of Life Churchyard
As the creeping mass draws closer, the grating clatter grows louder. Those toward the front of the crowd see the patterns of the tentacles and the shaking, vibrating rattles at their tips.
Somewhere near the front of the crowd, a woman’s voice screams, “The devil’s taken the shape of his serpent minions!”
Chaos erupts around the church yard. Some people run away and other, angry parishioners rush toward the otherworldly horror, only to lose their gumption and run back. Others fall to their knees in prayer. Some throw their hands to the heavens and let loose animalistic cries. A loose snake strikes at a denim covered leg as a man pulls a shotgun from the rack in his truck. A gleaming cowboy boot’s heel soon crushes its head, then repeatedly stomps it into an unrecognizable gristle as the man heads off, feeding a red and brass shell into a chamber of his Remington.
The writhing beast pulls and pushes itself shifting, crawling its way toward the crowd. Reverend Corwin and Jacob run directly at the beast.
Corwin fashioning a makeshift cross from two found branches, recites a prayer of spiritual warfare as Jacob surveys the crowd and the tangle of snakes.
The Reverend begins chanting, “God, protect us, Jesus rebukes you, fowl beast. Give us strength, oh Lord, to strike down this agent of The Enemy, this…”
Jacob looks on, catching small glimpses of blue and red amidst the unreal creature’s many scaly tails as he works his way closer.
“this wretched demon of The Pit, will be sent back to Hell from whence he came,” continues Reverend Corwin, his knuckles white from gripping the branch cross.
The shotgun toting man bursts from the crowd, stumbling past Jacob and the Reverend.
Jacob, realizing what, somehow, stands inside the knot of vipers, cries out at him to stop, running toward him. But, it’s too late.
The reverberating blast of the shotgun bounced off the walls of the church and echoes from Jacob’s garage workshop as the great ball of snakes collapses drunkenly upon the crushed gravel parking lot.
In the deafening silence that follows, disoriented parishioners rush to the man with the shotgun, praising him for taking down Hell’s Emissary on Earth.
14.
10:11 A.M.
Jubilee of Life Churchyard
Jacob approaches the rapidly dissolving Rattler King, his own lightning stick in hand. He grabs and throws some snakes with his stick and stomps others with his boots, a deranged toddler in a puddle. A man unhinged, he throws the snakes aside, nothing but his faith and determination keeping him from harm. He looks down as the last few snakes flee or are dismembered by churchgoers.
There on the ground lay the bruised, bloodied, and bitten body of Scotty in his game day attire. This was no demon, no act of Satan, just a horrible accident of nature.
Across the churchyard, the young boy who’d been knocked down by The King Rattler, crawls away and is gathered up by a nearby couple.
Miraculously, he’d survived the ordeal without a bite.
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