Chapter 38 Hammers and Nails
Hammers and Nails
RIPLEY
“It’s too quiet,” I grumble.
I don’t know how long I’ve been tied to this altar, but it stopped being fun the moment Preacher’s attention was drawn elsewhere. Where is this son of a bitch?
“You gotta be patient, for just a little longer now.”
He says that, but he’s been checking his phone at least twice a minute for the last half hour.
Every creak of the old building spikes my adrenaline, and he’s not doing much better, pacing back and forth, alternating between glancing at the door and staring at his boots.
The ropes are starting to dig into my skin as I stare up at the rotting beams that are just barely holding this church together.
Where the fuck is this guy?
And then I hear it, the unmistakable sound of an engine rumbling.
Tires on gravel.
Preacher pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts texting madly.
“What is it?” I ask.
“He’s here, and your sister said he’s pulled up alone. I’m making sure her and her men stand down, and keep an eye out for the cavalry.”
He turns to me.
“Looks like I’m going out to meet him.”
Preacher slinks toward the church door, pushing it open and slipping outside with an agonizing creak.
My cunt throbs in anticipation, at the thought of what’s to come, and a lump grows at the base of my throat.
I can’t hear shit from all the way back here, despite being surrounded by nothing but old rotting oak and silence.
Painfully ironic that my reward for all that waiting is even more waiting, but luckily this time it’s not quite as agonizing.
A sense of calm washes over me when the church door groans as it swings open yet again, and the two men step inside. I catch sight of McKinney, just a few inches shorter than Preacher, and a hell of a lot less intimidating without the uniform on.
The second his eyes fall on me, he grins.
“Hiya, sweetheart. Remember me?”
My heart thunders, not from fear, but from a beautiful anticipation. I know Preacher’s got a needle just waiting to be stuck into this prick’s neck, but he’s still a little bit too alert.
Time to put on a show.
“Please,” I rasp as he gets closer, managing to squeeze out some crocodile tears. “You’re a cop, right? You’re supposed to be helping me! Please, you don’t have to do this!”
“Yeah, I do.” McKinney sighs, putting a hand on my cheek and doing an absolutely abysmal job at playing the good guy. “Don’t worry, though, this’ll all work out fine. I’ll make sure to drop you off at a good home, a whole lot better than whatever shack or cage this guy had you—”
A few seconds of distraction was all it took for Preacher to get into position, driving the needle right into the side of McKinney’s neck in one swift motion before putting him in a headlock.
He yelps, sucking in a sharp gasp, and struggling against Preacher’s strength as the two men stumble behind me, the church filling with the sound of boots on wood, and pained, haggard grunts.
There’s a moment where the fear returns and I start to picture all the worst possible outcomes: me, trading Gabriel for Adonis, Preacher and my sister dead…
They’re horrible thoughts that happily get quickly dashed away as Preacher drags him into my field of vision, both men red-faced and breathing hard.
But McKinney looks more than a little worse for the wear.
“Sorry, bud, looks like the plan is off. I think I’m a little too attached to her. But it’s okay, I gave you something to calm you down so now we get to have a little chat. Nod your head if you understand.”
He obeys, his eyes already glassy and fluttering like a moth’s wings.
“Atta boy, you’re doing great.” Preacher tugs the needle out of his neck and tosses it on the ground. “Now, where’s your boss? My friends and I want to have a little chat with him too.”
“Swift Current.”
His voice sounds robotic, almost lifeless, and he’s already having trouble holding himself up. I can’t tell if that’s the circulation being cut off, or the drugs, but it feels like Preacher hit him with a stronger dose than usual. He’s not wasting any time.
“His name’s Adonis, right? Adonis Murphy?”
The cop nods, shuddering.
“Great, you’re doing great. Now how much does he know about us? What was the plan?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, you were doing so well,” Preacher snarls, tightening the headlock. “Don’t fuck with me.”
“I don’t,” McKinney slurs. “Never seen him face-to-face. Never even been on the property. Drops, or trade-offs. Only know Swift Current ‘cause of a case file.”
I can tell he’s starting to fade, and Preacher can too. He’s only got so long before the man’s a slurring mess.
“Alright, alright. How about this, where do you meet when you’re doing a drop?”
“Old gas station on highway one, just outside the city, but it changes. I get texts, always different numbers. Has phrases to let me know. Never sure but always ends… good.”
He trails off, his head lolling off to one side.
“Fuckin’ useless,” Preacher snarls, releasing him and letting him tumble to the ground.
He checks for a pulse before heading back to the altar and untying me, hauling me to my feet and giving me a quick kiss.
“Is he dead?”
“No, of course not, that would spoil all our fun.” He hoists the cop up off the floor, dragging him by the collar of his shirt like he’s a misbehaving puppy. “We gotta get him up on that thing.”
Preacher gets to work prying the oversized cross off the wall, and lays it out on the floor next to the altar.
He carefully lifts McKinney up and splays him across it, stretching his arms out so that they’re lined up just right while I get to work on gathering our supplies: hammers, nails, and a little bit of rope.
I’ve never crucified someone before, but it’s a surprisingly simple process.
Step one: bind the good officer’s feet and hands to the cross, making sure it’s tight enough he won’t fall off.
Step two: hand your psycho boyfriend the hammer and nails.
Step three: swoon as he shakes his head, giving you the warmest smile you’ve ever seen.
He looks like he could be another one of those Angels etched into the windows of this building.
Preacher picks out a long, thick nail, already slightly rusted, but let’s face it, the last thing McKinney should be worried about is whether or not he got his tetanus booster.
“We’ll start with the wrists. You want to drive it through the soft tissue and into bone. That’ll create a kind of anchor.”
“I thought it went through his hands, like in the pictures.”
“Lots of those paintings get it wrong. If you put the nail through the palm, the wrist dislocates because the ligaments are weaker. Right between the radius and the ulna? That’s the sweet spot. It’s how the Romans did it.”
“Wow, aqueducts, gladiator fights, crucifixions… is there anything they couldn’t do?”
“Survive,” Preacher replies with a smirk.
It’s a joke, but I can see trepidation flash in his eyes.
He’s thinking the same thing I’ve been for the past couple hours.
Even Rome fell.
What’s going to happen to us if this whole thing goes tits up?
“Press the nail against his wrist and I’ll start hammering it in.”
I obey, holding it carefully near the base as Preacher pounds on the head with a mallet, driving the metal right through the man’s flesh.
It’s a little unstable at first, but once I hear that familiar crunch of bone I know we’ve hit the mark.
The soft squelch as blood pours from the wound we’ve made is just a bonus.
It does finally get a real reaction out of McKinney, though, his strangled scream ripping through the building as he snaps back into consciousness.
“Probably should have stuck to desk duty, huh?” Preacher chuckles. “You’re playing with the big kids, pretty boy, and unfortunately, you don’t even know the rules.”
I line up the second nail and he drives it straight through in one powerful strike, our victim letting out another piercing shriek.
He’s going into shock— pale, clammy skin, shallow breathing, and his eyes already rolling back in his head.
By the time we get the cross propped up, he might already be dead.
Preacher makes sure the nails are secured before he pushes himself to his feet.
“Help me lift him up.”
“Yes sir.”
Preacher grasps my face, pressing a delicate kiss to my lips.
“We make it through to the end of this, rabbit. You know that, right?”
“I know.”
Sometimes when I look at him I think that maybe love is real, and not just some chemical concoction swirling in our veins. When I’m with him it feels like something tangible, that I can hold against my chest.
Either that or I’m really losing it.
We tip the cross, both of us grunting as we struggle a little with the combined weight of a soon-to-be dead man and his final resting place. It tears into the floor as we drag it across the church, leaving deep permanent gashes in the wood.
“Didn’t the Romans make these fuckers carry their own crosses?” I grunt as we manage to make it to the wall, straining with all the effort. “Probably should have taken that lesson on.”
He chuckles.
“Not sure. I definitely saw it in a movie though.”
“The fuck kind of movies do you watch? Cathy’s Crazy Crucifixion XXX?”
“Nah, you know, like Ben Hur.”
“What the fuck is Ben Hur?” I ask as we— well, he— props the cross up against the wall with one final push.
“You don’t know Ben Hur?”
I shake my head.
“Wow, you really know how to make a guy feel old,” he grunts.
The sight of his heaving muscles beneath his thin white t-shirt gives me butterflies.
Our work of art is lit only by refracted moonlight, making the blood dripping onto the floor look closer to motor oil than what it really is.
“It’s beautiful,” I murmur.
“Mmm.” Preacher pulls a knife out of his pocket, handing it to me. “Gonna look even prettier with you riding me while he bleeds out.”
I stride toward our brand new art piece, grinning from ear to ear. He’s barely conscious, blood oozing from the wounds in his wrists and ankles, and I can hear it dripping onto the floor like rain pattering against the roof.
I don’t bother asking him if he has any last words. It wouldn’t do him any good, and I wouldn’t want to hear them anyway. Instead, I drive the knife right into his belly, twisting it and drinking in his scream as it echoes through the church.
“Hey, rabbit!” I turn around to see Preacher pulling his phone out of his pocket. “What if we made a little home movie, hmm? Just for us.”
It’s a fantastic idea, but just as soon as he’s suggested it, I hear the scream of the emergency alert blare from the phone in his hand, followed quickly by Raphael bursting through the door in a panic.
“He dead yet?”
“Pretty much,” Preacher calls back. “What’s wrong?”
“Storm cellar. Now. Tornado’s back, and it’s close.”
“You got the dogs?” Preacher asks, grabbing my hand and holding me back.
“Yeah, they’re already down there, now come on.”
“Great.” He turns back to me, his eyes gleaming. “Chain the door shut when you leave, we’ll join you when this is all done.”
“No, seriously, this thing is—”
I grin
“You wouldn’t get it Raph. We have work to finish.”