Breakout by Paul Herron (notion reading list .txt) 📕

the turn. The inmates are heading away from us, so we leave them to do their thing. It just means we have to be more careful. Quieter.

We wait in the corridor for about thirty seconds, just to be sure. Then we turn right—

—and come face-to-face with ten of Preacher’s followers, all of them armed, their weapons trained directly on us.

I turn around and see the same thing. The group we thought had disappeared along the corridor is standing there with their guns pointed at us.

I turn back, my stomach sinking. One of the inmates smiles at me, and his smile is tinged with madness. It’s too wide, too gleeful, and it definitely doesn’t reach his eyes. In fact, all their eyes have a blank, empty look to them. Almost as if they’re not actually seeing us, but are focused on something else happening in the far distance.

The inmate giggles, then tries to stop himself. His mouth twitches as he speaks, the corners trying to stretch themselves into a Joker-like rictus. “If you would be so kind as to drop your weapons, we will escort you to your judgment. Preacher is going to be so happy with us. Amen and hallelujah. Praise be on me.”

The inmates all respond simultaneously. “Amen and hallelujah.”

We’ve got no choice except to go along with them. They lead us along the passage—heading in the direction we wanted to go—and through a set of double swing doors into what appears to be Preacher’s church.

It definitely wasn’t a church to start off with. It was a cafeteria. But Preacher has done his best to change that. All the tables have been ripped out and lined up along the walls. They hold wooden crucifixes they must have gathered from the prayer rooms throughout the prison. Crosses fashioned from twisted cutlery.

And one Bible.

Only one, though, because they’ve used the rest as decoration. The walls are covered with pages ripped from the holy book. Roof to floor—or at least roof to floodwater—and corner to corner. I’m not a hundred percent sure how Preacher got them to stick, but judging by the dark staining seeping through some of the pages, I’d say it was blood.

Preacher himself is at the far end of the cafeteria, standing behind a makeshift pulpit constructed from two of the tables piled one on top of the other. Hanging on the wall above and behind him is a cross made from two long pieces of wood. The vertical piece is at least ten feet long and the horizontal one about six feet.

I have no idea where he got the wood, but that’s not important. What is important is the inmate who has been nailed to the cross. It looks like they used nine-inch nails, ten or so for each wrist and foot. The nail heads stick about five inches out of the poor bastard’s skin like needles in a pincushion. A crown fashioned from barbed wire has been forced onto his head, the blood from the puncture wounds completely covering his features.

The rest of Preacher’s disciples all sit on the cafeteria chairs, formed into lines like traditional church pews. He looks at us with a huge smile when we’re led into the room. A few of the inmates keep us covered with their guns, prodding us so we move toward Preacher, while the rest fill up the seats at the back of the room. The followers don’t even look at us. Their attention is focused wholly on Preacher, their faces rapt in worship.

“A full house!” says Preacher. “How fortunate I am to have such a loyal ministry.”

The guy behind me tries to shove me to my knees in front of Preacher’s makeshift pulpit. I resist, but then something slams into the back of my legs and I drop into the water. Sawyer and Felix are forced down as well.

Preacher looks down on us. “I was thinking of delivering a sermon on family today. About the importance of faith in keeping those fucked-up children from straying. I mean, I did what I could, you understand? I tried to teach them the Way back in Mississippi. But the agents of evil put a stop to that. They prevented me from doing the work of God Almighty!”

The congregation, if you could call it that, all start shouting.

“Shame!”

“Agents of Satan!”

“Unbelievers!”

“Heathens!”

Preacher holds his hands out for silence. “But seeing as we have guests awaiting judgment, I will postpone the sermon.” He stares down at us. “‘Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment. I can do nothing on my own initiative; as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.’”

“Amen! Hallelujah!” shout the inmates.

Preacher stares intently at each of us in turn. “This hurricane is sent to us by God to cleanse the world of wickedness. You understand that, yes? For does it not say in Psalm 135:7, ‘He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; He makes lightning for the rain; He brings the wind out of His treasuries.’ This is God’s judgment on the wicked, and I am His sword.”

He straightens up, filled with self-importance. He opens his mouth to say something else, but before he can get another word out, Sawyer speaks.

“James 1:20: ‘Human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.’”

Everyone looks at her in surprise. None more so than Preacher himself. He stares at her a long time, confusion, then irritation, then anger twisting his features. “Are you… are you actually daring to judge me?” he shouts.

“‘Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.’ Ecclesiastes 7:9,” says Sawyer.

Preacher’s eyes widen. He leans on the pulpit and screams, spittle