The Long Dark Wages of Sin: The Devil Went Down to Kentucky Read online

  The Long Dark

  Wages of Sin

  Book: 4

  A novel by B.J. Farmer

  Edited by: Amber Atchley

  Cover: Alex Saskalidis @187Designz

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  Dedicated to anyone who has ever suffered abuse from a loved one or otherwise.

  Books:

  First book: The Long Dark: Descent

  Second book: The Long Dark: Betrayal

  Third book: The Long Dark: False Dawn

  Copyright © 2021, B.J. Farmer

  Prologue

  Runt and Paul. Near Walker's Farm, about three miles from town. Thirty-five days before zero hour.

  "How many squirrels you think we'll get?"

  "About none if you don't stop talking."

  "Are you going to be a sour ass all your life or what?"

  "Depends on how many more times I go hunting with you."

  The teen everyone called runt hid a smile and pretended to be hurt by his friend's comment. "You're just pissed because easy-rider Patsy Snider gave you the big dump-ola."

  "She's not like that—"

  Runt laughed. "Not like what?"

  "You know, easy."

  "Not for you, she wasn't."

  "Just shut up."

  "Wait, what? You liked her?"

  Paul stopped and put his palm up, letting the boy know he should be quiet. Runt rolled his eyes. "What gives?"

  Runt soon heard what was causing his friend to act strangely. Singing, or more precisely, humming, was coming from somewhere just up ahead, on the other side of a bramble of thorn bushes.

  "Don't think we're on Walker's land no more. I ain't never seen this place."

  "Me neither. We're way the hell turned around."

  "I told you we should've stayed near Wolf Creek."

  Paul motioned for Runt to shut up. "What the hell is she humming?"

  "White Snake?"

  It wasn't White Snake. It wasn't rock-and-roll, country, or anything either of the boys had ever heard. Certainly not White Snake, though. "Will you stop even for a second," Paul whispered.

  Paul then pointed to an opening in the sticker bushes and a trail that veered off to their right. A structure lay almost invisible because of the density of undergrowth. "Is that an outhouse?"

  "If a redneck shits in the woods—"

  Paul walked towards the opening, leaving Runt without an audience for his joke. Runt sighed and hurried to catch up. A tall but ramshackle fence fashioned from dozens of small trees, lashed together with what looked like baler twine, stood just a few feet opposite the gap that led off to the outhouse.

  Interspersed with the humming was the sound of something smacking water and then being rubbed against a wooden board or something. This process was repeated several times.

  They lingered over the odd sounds for several moments, their curiosity slowly getting the best of them. This culminated with Runt motioning towards a tall elm tree that stood several feet away from the far corner of the makeshift fence. Paul eyed the tree for a moment and then the fence. "Let's have a look," he whispered.

  Having spent a good portion of their youth outside, engaging in BB wars, bottle-rocket wars, or just about anything that had to do with war, the boys had, in their desire for their version of air superiority, climbed their fair share of trees, hoping to get off the kill shot. They scurried up the tree like two silent monkeys escaping a predator.

  A girl sat in an old, rickety wooden chair, sloshing a tattered shirt into a washbasin of brackish water, and then rubbing it against a wash board. The boys had only seen such a thing on old television shows.

  “Who washes clothes like that—”

  Paul elbowed Runt. The girl stopped for a moment, craned her neck towards the opening in the back wall, but quickly got back to work.

  Runt mouthed “sorry.” Paul nodded before turning his attention back to the girl.

  She was cute, Paul thought. He was always a sucker for redheads, and hers was the reddest of red. It almost looked on fire. She was about his age too, which made him wonder why he hadn’t seen her at school. Because he would’ve remembered.

  He turned his attention away from the girl. Forming the back section of the wall was an old school bus. It had been painted green, which is why he hadn’t instantly seen it.

  The girl stood and hung the shirt she’d finished washing on a line that ran from a small spruce to the back of the bus. She sat and began washing a pair of pants. She worked them up and down the washboard as the boys looked on in voyeuristic wonder. The shirt she wore was too large, and it hung low. From their altitude, they could see, well, a lot.

  “This is wrong,” Paul whispered.

  Runt’s enormous eyes and wide smile let Paul know he disagreed. “She’s hot,” Runt hissed.

  Paul was ready to climb down when he heard footsteps below. They stopped. The boys didn’t look down–didn’t move a muscle. They clung to the trunk like chameleons hiding from a predator.

  “Come on down, boys,” a man’s ragged voice came from below.

  “Crap,” Paul said, as he finally ventured a look below.

  Runt rolled his eyes and whispered, "Man, we're screwed. My dad is so going to kill both of us."

  Paul nodded in agreement. He then climbed slowly down the tree. On the way down, he grabbed hold of a limb to steady himself. When he did, he noticed several spikes hammered into the tree, but also protruding from some of the larger tree limbs. How they hadn't stepped on or grabbed any of them, he wasn't sure. This is bad, he thought. Somebody doesn't just do that for no good reason. He then thought about the Purley's who supposedly placed booby traps all around their pot farm, and a police officer lost an eye to shrapnel when the explosive went off.

  Once at the bottom, the man, fully bearded, with long brown hair to go with it, looked down at the boys. He was tall. Maybe six-foot-three or four. "You all stealing looks from my daughter?"

  "No, sir," Paul said. "Never seen this place before, is all. Just trying to see what was going on—"

  "Uh-huh," the man said as he pushed his circular framed glasses up his nose. "Now, what am I going to do with you perverted sons of bitches?"

  "We didn't fucking do anything, man," Runt said.

  Paul elbowed him. "Just shut up."

  "I'm going to call your parents, but first, you're going to give me that shotgun."

  The boys hesitated. Both knew something was wrong. They were in the middle of the woods. Paul couldn't imagine how there'd be running water or electricity, much less a phone the man could use to call anyone. Hell, they didn't even see a car, well, besides the bus, and it didn't seem to be very mobile at the moment. Twenty minutes earlier, they hadn't known these people lived here. Paul wasn't even sure where here was.

  "I'm not giving you shit, especially not this shotgun," Runt protested.

  The man nodded. "Okay."

  Paul was getting ready to tell the man they would just leave and that they would never come back. Before he had a chance, the man drew a black pistol, a .45 caliber 1911 pistol, and without hesitating, shot Runt in the chest.

  Paul watched as his friend struggled to take a step before falling face-first to the ground. The last thing Paul saw was the man turning towards him, and with a grin, he said, "For the Order."

  Chapter 1

  Faith. Her parents' house, six miles from town. Three hours after zero hour.

  As he entered the bedroom, she didn't dare move a muscle. Through her dark and tangled strands of hair, she watched him slowly approach the edge of the bed. Her mind
raced. She'd already gotten her punishment. She'd been forgiven.

  He stopped an arm's length away from the bed. He kicked at something on the floor and then again. She watched as he tried to balance on one foot, his hand tugging the lip of the back of his slipper over his heel. His foot fell to the floor, and he stood tall, looming over her. Watching her. He shook his head slightly, turned, and then left the room.

  Sometime later, she heard the rooster crowing outside. She’d slept too late. “Lord protect me,” she said solemnly to herself. Loud murmurs drifted in from down the hall. They were already up, Faith thought. Already at it. She’d slept way too late.

  The murmurs grew into audible words. She tried never to hear any of what was being said, so when she was asked, she wouldn’t have to lie. It was sometimes better to sin than be beaten. Even though, she reckoned, she was just putting the punishment on layaway. Jesus was forgiving, though. Her father wasn’t.

  She ached. Sin, though, had to be cleansed from the flesh. She had her fair share of impure thoughts that needed to be atoned for. That’s the way God’s plan worked. Just because she wasn’t doing anything didn’t mean she got away untouched. Thinking was doing in God’s eyes. And the Lord knew she’d done enough of that—bad thoughts, impure, alien to God’s plan. No. Her punishment was just.

  God’s punishment, her father, Robert, would say, didn’t always have to come from a leather strap. God was above them, and his thinking was different. They didn’t have to understand or reason why. They just had to accept that things were the way they were, and that God had a plan for them. Faith accepted that notion, even though that hadn’t always been the case. Birds can’t fly as soon as they’re hatched, though. They need time to learn. She was learning.

  A loud voice came from just outside her room. It was her mother, Janet. “We’re leaving, Faith. You knew we were going—” the door popped open, and her mother was in the room in a flash. “Early this morning, and you were supposed to be ready.”

  Her mother then extolled the virtue of early rising. Janet was more of a talker than a punisher. She pulled Faith’s blankets from the bed and paused. Faith watched as her mother lingered over the hymn of her nightgown, still pulled up above her exposed pelvic region.

  “Get yourself to the bathroom… make yourself presentable,” she said, turning towards the door.

  Faith watched while her mother stared at the picture on her desk. She took the small picture frame and placed it glass down before exiting the room. On her way to the bathroom, and on one of the few occasions where she challenged her mother’s authority, Faith sat the picture frame back upright.

  After several moments, she made herself presentable. Presentable in that she no longer had the thin nightgown on. Instead, she wore an unflattering long dress. She threw her waist-length hair into a ponytail holder, and she was hurrying to the living room, where both the mother and father waited impatiently near the door.

  Janet looked at Robert. He nodded his approval. Janet began to speak, “Your Aunt Lydia will check on you randomly. You had better always be doing what we and the good Lord would expect from you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Now hug your mother goodbye.”

  Faith eased her way near her mother and then paused. When was the last time her mother had asked for a hug? She wondered. Not lingering on the question very long, she inched the rest of the way and awkwardly embraced her in a non-reciprocated hug.

  “Call Lydia if you need anything,” Janet said.

  She backed away, nodded, and then turned to her dad and said, “Bye, father.”

  His eyes met Faith’s momentarily before his focus shifted intently towards Janet. “We need to go.”

  “I’m sorry,” Janet said, contritely.

  Robert opened the door for Janet. She wasted no time exiting the house. Robert stared at the floor as he said, “The chores list is on the kitchen table.” He was on the porch when he finished, “The father is never gone.” The door closed shut.

  Faith continued looking at the door for several moments, thinking it would open again and her parents would peak in to see what she was doing. But then she heard their 1989 Astro van come to life, followed by the sound of tires rolling over loose gravel. As improbable as it seemed, they were actually gone.

  She felt a weight lifted from her, but then what her father said solidified what she already knew: Jesus and all his angels would take his place as watcher. What a scary yet comforting thing, Faith thought. She’d have to be on her best behavior.

  The Lord was not only in heaven. The only decorations adorning the walls in the spartan house were pictures of Jesus, sprinkled in with a few crosses. There were no longer any family photos and no other forms of decoration. If it didn’t uplift the Lord in his proper place on high, then there was no need for it. It was just trifling, showy things that played to human vanity.

  Faith couldn’t help wondering, as she slipped her shoes on, why her parents had left her alone. She was almost seventeen, but it wasn’t like her increased age had ever meant increased freedom. If anything, it’d been the opposite, especially since Lydia had begun going to her parents’ church.

  But she needed to stop thinking about things that didn't matter. She needed to get her work done.

  It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the sunny conditions outside. It was a glorious day, she thought. She took in the high, cloudless blue morning sky as she made her way towards the outbuilding, where the food was stored for the animals. She inhaled a long breath of fresh air and smiled. "God's glory," she said, entering the dusty building.

  Faith opened the old deep-freeze lid where the chicken feed was stored and filled two coffee cans with the tiny pellets before closing the lid with her elbow. She'd already sucked a breath of fresh air before the dust caused by the slamming lid was kicked up.

  She exited the building. As she neared the coop, she slowed her formerly brisk pace. No matter how she tried, how hard she prayed, the chickens always made her think about Paul. He hated chores, but he loved the chickens. So much so he showed them at the local fairs. He'd even advanced to state a couple times with his Rhode Island Reds.

  Robert had made him stop, though, saying he was doing it for himself. In reality, it was because Paul had met several girls while at the 4H shows and had run up the phone bill with too many long-distance calls.

  After the first phone bill came, Robert took some part of what was owed out of Paul's hide. He'd whipped him severely. But that wasn't punishment enough. He'd also killed his prized chickens, and they had them for supper over the next several days.

  That was the last straw for Paul. He showed the police the marks his father had given him, and he was going to stay with Lydia, but Robert had forbidden it. That was when Runt's parents offered to take him in.

  Faith shut off any further thinking on the matter. Instead, she enjoyed watching the chickens peck at the pellets and listening to their clucking. She imagined them having conversations with one another. She had running storylines for each of them.

  On that day, she focused on the one she'd named Gideon. He was the last of Paul's roosters, except, he'd never turned into anything, which is exactly why Robert had spared him. The hens hated him, and they picked at him relentlessly. He'd grab a pellet and then slink into the least-populated reaches of the coop before eating it.

  Faith watched as Gideon, who was missing almost all his tail feathers, looked on as the hens pecked away at the pellets. Faith had tried to give Gideon his own little pile of food before, but the hens would rush in and try to fight him for it. She learned to just let him do his thing.

  Without warning, Gideon took off in a run towards an open patch of ground just ahead of him. He stopped just long enough to pick at a pellet, which was long enough for a hen to give chase, picking at what tail feathers he had left, in the process. But he got something to eat. Faith watched him make two more trips before grabbing the few eggs that had been laid and p
lacing them into empty coffee cans. Gideon, for many reasons, was her favorite.

  She’d walked halfway to the barn, where she was going to make sure the cows had water, when she saw someone moving next to the fencerow, maybe fifty yards away.

  Seeing Faith, he stopped. She twisted her head away from him and hastened her pace towards the barn, hoping he would just go away. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him slowly walking towards her.

  He’s just walking across the property, she thought. It’s okay. But it wasn’t okay.

  She wished her father was there. He’d know what to do. Her father. What if her mother and father came home, and she was talking to a man. “Lord,” she whispered. She ran.

  He followed.

  She’d opened the side entrance to the barn when he came quickly up beside her, grabbing the door so she couldn’t close it. “Where’s the creek?” The man croaked.

  She saw his bloody hand. His eyes followed her gaze. Seeing what she was looking at, he jerked the door away from her. “Where’s the fucking creek?”

  If Robert asked you a question, you better have a suitable answer. And a suitable answer was always the right one. He’d trained her that way. She was thinking about all the different creeks that ran through the county. A couple she wasn’t even sure was in the county, but she’d swum in them, so she didn’t know how to answer. “I don’t know which one—”

  “The one—” With little warning, he threw up. He wiped his mouth and then adjusted the glasses that had nearly fallen off during his convulsions. “The one you dumb shits smoke pot and screw at!”

  “Wolf Creek?” She asked, not sure what he was talking about. She didn’t go there with the other kids. Didn’t go there at all, even though it was less than a mile or so away from her house. She wasn’t allowed to do the things other kids did.

  “Yes—I mean…” He gagged. After the fit in which he didn’t throw up, he asked, “Where’s the goddamn thing—what direction? Now!”

  She pointed back towards the house. “A mile or so… in that direction.”

  His eyes seemed too large, Janna thought. And he was sweating profusely and smelled every bit of it. His head shook, and his hands trembled, while he slowly twisted his head to see where she pointed. He pushed the small-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose and walked in that direction. As he walked away, she could see that he had a gun tucked into his belt.