Chapter 16

The Metchettes’ mobile home was nice as far as mobile homes went. It was a small mobile home, but the Metchettes had picked it up for almost nothing. It had been repossessed and they had paid only the balance due. Their permanent house was being built a little ways down the street. In fact, the construction crew was down there working on it right now.

Glen sat in one of the cheap chairs that came with the mobile home and looked around at the living room. It was very small, but he recognized the cleverness with which Cliff had set up his situation. When his house was completed, Cliff could either sell the mobile home or rent it out. Either way, he would probably make a profit.

The telephone rang and Glen turned to stare at it. Cliff had warned him not to answer it until after the answering machine had come on. This would allow him to screen the call and make sure that he wasn’t going to be subjected to insults. Glen was expecting a call from the Sheriff and almost decided to answer, but felt like he should wait.

The answering machine finally kicked in. The voice on the other end immediately said, “Sinners, you are going to burn! Burn, do you hear me? The flames of earth will send you to the flames of hell. Sinners! Demon Spawn! First, we’ll take care of you and then your slut sisters shall join you in hell!”

Glen was half tempted to pick up the phone. He wanted to tell the caller that he was talking to the switchboard in hell and if the caller would only give the name of the specific demon he would make the appropriate connection. He resisted the urge as he realized that they had no sense of humor and it would only anger them. He listened as the caller continued to rant and rave. Only about a third of what the caller said was even understandable. It was one threat after another, although most of them were simply absurd. He wondered if this call had anything to do with the fact that the Reverend’s hearing was today.

After five minutes the caller hung up. Glen went into the kitchen and got a soft drink out of the refrigerator. It really was a small place and he wondered how the three of them could live here. He was curious about the twin’s bedroom, but chose not to investigate. He knew that if the circumstances were reversed that they would be through everything in the room in a minute. “Oh well,” he thought to himself, “that’s the nature of women.” Even as he thought it, he realized how sexist that was. It wasn’t a woman’s nature at work, it was the twin’s nature at work.

He returned to the living room as the phone rang again. He waited for the answering machine to pick up the call. A different voice started talking, “Sinners, repent. The day of judgement is upon you. You are an abomination in the eyes of the Lord and you shall soon feel his wrath. The servants of the Lord shall do his bidding!”

Glen answered out loud, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Blah, blah, blah. Me good, you bad. Bad people die. Rah, rah, rah!”

The voice continued to prattle on for several minutes. Glen just watched the answering machine record the message. He shook his head as he realized just how stupid these people really were. There was nothing like leaving recorded messages of threats to help bring a case against you if something ever happened.

The person quit talking and hung up after about five minutes. Glen wondered if they were being timed by someone. It was definitely bizarre. The telephone almost immediately rang again. He waited for the answering machine to pick up the call. This time, the voice that spoke was very calm. “The next Witch’s Sabbath, you shall burn like all witches should burn!”

The caller hung up almost immediately. The other calls were nuisance, but this one was scary. Glen didn’t recognize the voice, but that didn’t mean the Sheriff wouldn’t. He decided that Cliff would have to take this tape to the Sheriff. Such definite threats could not go undocumented.

The phone rang again. Glenn waited for the answering machine to pick it up and took a sip of the soft drink while he waited. He picked up the phone when he heard the voice of the Sheriff. He said, “Hey, Sheriff. This is Glen.”

Dale replied testily, “I’ve been trying to call for the past half an hour. The phone has been busy the entire time.”

Glen replied, “Oh just getting a series of death threats here. One of them even said what they would do and when they would act. You know, the normal kind of thing you have to expect when you’re evil.”

The Sheriff didn’t laugh. He said, “Glen, this is very serious. The Reverend didn’t show up for his court appearance.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Right, oh, shit.” the Sheriff replied. He said, “These guys are definitely upping the ante. Look, they don’t care about the law. They think they are the law. Reverend Jonathan Corwin thinks he is judge, jury, and executioner.”

This was not a good situation and it would be easy to blame Cliff. In fact, Glen had given Cliff a lot of grief about publishing that editorial about God. Now, he realized that this was the kind of guy that was just looking for an excuse to be hateful. If it hadn’t been Cliff, it would have been someone else. This guy was as sick as Amos Orvin. He said, “Dale, I’m going to ask you for a piece of advice and I want you to think about it before you answer.”

“What?”

Glen asked, “What should I do if they show up here?”

There was a long silence on the phone. Dale knew exactly what Glen was asking. He said, “Use appropriate force to stop them.”

Glen didn’t reply for a moment and then said, “That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Damn it, Glen. Don’t make me say it.”

Glen said, “I’ll never tell anyone what you said.”

The Sheriff was quiet for a long time and then he said, “If you are outnumbered, use lethal force. Don’t stop until you have superior numbers.”

Glen was silent for a moment and then said, “Thank you, Dale. That’s a bit more than I was expecting.”

“I never said it.”

“I never heard it.”

After the Sheriff hung up the phone, Glen set the handset back on the phone. He went back to the chair to wait for the Metchettes. All three of them were at the house checking out the progress on the new building. They would be home soon and he could hardly wait. They didn’t want him to see it until it was completed.

He picked up his pistol and stepped out the front of the mobile home. The view wasn’t very good, but it was their temporary home. They hadn’t spent much time trying to make it fancy. They were spending their money on their real home. He walked around the mobile home checking out the surroundings. A buck had passed right beneath the window recently. It was possibly less than five minutes ago, since the dirt was still moving into the track left behind.

He heard the truck of the Metchettes pull up in front of the house. He came around and greeted them by calling out, “Hello. Have fun at the new house?”

Wanda smiled and said, “Oh, yes. It is really looking quite nice.”

Sandra winked and added, “We can’t wait to get you there when it is done.”

Glen wasn’t sure what they were promising, but he knew that when they got into this mood it suggested that he would enjoy it. He turned to Cliff and, in a very serious tone of voice, said, “I hate to be a downer, but I need to talk to you for a minute.”

The twins glanced at each other and then went into the house. They knew that tone of voice and what it meant when Glen used it. It always meant that he was going to give Cliff some bad news. Cliff watched the twins as the closed the door behind themselves. He turned to Glen and said, “Okay. What’s up?”

“I talked to the Sheriff while you were gone. We need to prepare for war. I want you to take the twins to town. Give the Sheriff the tape to your answering machine. They made some definite threats and identified a probable time when they would attack.”

Cliff looked worried and asked, “What kind of threats?”

“They threatened to burn you like a witch.”

Looking at Glen, Cliff paled as he thought about the threat. Taking a deep breath to calm down and to find courage to face the situation, he said, “Forewarned is forearmed.”

“Exactly. We have a lot of work to do.” Glen looked around at the mobile home. It wasn’t going to be easy to protect it. The woods were too close to the trailer. He looked at the road and wondered what could be done to help secure it.

Cliff thought about it for a minute and then asked, “Where will you be while I’m in town?”

In a deadly tone of voice, Glen answered, “I’ve got a little shopping to do.”

It wasn’t long before Cliff and Wanda headed into town to see the Sheriff. Refusing to go with them stating that someone had to go with Glen, Sandra stayed behind to cover his back. Glen didn’t feel like fighting her over it since she was just doing what he had told them to do.

They drove to the mall and went into the sporting goods store. Glen looked around before spotting Henry. It didn’t take Henry a minute before he noticed Glen waving at him. His last sale to Glen had gotten him a good bonus. There was no telling what was going to happen today. He greeted Glen, “Hello, Glen. Is there something that I can do for you?”

Glen smiled and nodded as he said, “I need some guns.”

Henry smiled as he realized this was going to be another big sale. He gestured for Glen to follow him to the Gun section. When they arrived, Glen’s eyes looked over the weapons there. He smiled as he considered the firepower represented there. He said, “I’ll take two of those .22 caliber rifles. Outfit them with 4X scopes. I’ll take two of those .30-06 rifles. Outfit them with 12X scopes. I’ll take two of those 20 gauge pump shotguns.”

Henry’s eyes lit up at the money that sale represented. Glen moved over to the ammo section and looked over what they had. He stated, “Give me four of those boxes of .22 caliber long rifle bullets. The 500 round boxes. That will last them about ten days. Give me ten boxes of the 20 gauge number 4 buckshot. Let’s see, that’s 50 rounds. That’s not enough, double it. Give me 100 rounds of the .30-06.”

Henry put all of the stuff on the counter. He stated, “You’ll have to mount the scopes yourself.”

“Okay, add the mounting gear as well.”

As Henry looked at the pile of guns and ammo, he asked, “You going to war?”

Glen frowned and answered, “Not yet. This is just to train the twins on how to shoot.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. They are going to fire fifty rounds in the morning and another fifty rounds in the afternoon with the .22 caliber. Then I’ll move them up to the .30-06,” replied Glen. He had learned to shoot the same way. His father had taken him out with his old .22 caliber rifle every day for a month. A hundred rounds a day. By the end of the month, he had no trouble hitting the target with a very good grouping. He didn’t have any trouble moving up to the larger caliber rifles.

Henry asked, “Anything else?”

Glen nodded and pointed to the paper targets. He said, “I’ll take a hundred of the small targets and ten of the large.”

Henry rang it all up on the register and whistled. This was a nine hundred dollar sale. He was going to be salesmen of the month again. He handed Glen a form to fill out. Glen looked it over and sighed. He filled out the form indicating that he wasn’t a convicted felon and hadn’t been in a mental institution in the past five years. He handed over his drivers license and let Henry fill out the identification part. When they were done, Henry looked up and said, “Well, I can give you the guns in 72 hours.”

Glen snorted, “What?”

Henry nodded his head and said, “New law. Have to have a 72 hour cooling down period. I can let you have everything else to take home now though.”

Understanding that arguing was useless, Glen accepted Henry’s statement. He said, “No problem. I’ll take all you’ll let me leave with now and come back for the guns.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, Henry realized that he had been worried that Glen would change his mind. If Glen went to a private individual, he could get the guns right now. He said, “I’ll take it to the loading dock and you can drive up. No sense carrying all of this stuff through the mall.”

Sandra had watched the whole exchange with a mounting sense of dread. She wondered if he actually expected her to learn how to shoot all of those weapons. Practicing with his shotgun had been a painful experience, the damn thing hurt her shoulder every time she had fired it. She could barely hit the broad side of a barn with it, even though it was loaded with buckshot.

She followed Glen back to the truck. He pulled it around the mall and drove up to the loading dock. Henry was standing on the dock waving to him. Glen parked the truck and went to the loading dock. As Henry handed down the bags, Glen carried them over to the truck and put them in the cab. The last few bags were much lighter since they had the targets and the scopes.

Henry waved goodbye to Glen and closed the door of the loading dock. As Glen drove off, Sandra looked at the pile of packages around her. She asked, “Were you serious about us learning how to shoot?”

Glen answered, “You bet your sweet ass, I’m serious. Nobody is going to lay a hand on that body of yours except me and Wanda.”

Appreciating the concern for her, Sandra smiled. She tried to reduce the seriousness of the discussion by asking, “Aren’t you afraid that I’ll get religion and run off?”

Glen chuckled and replied, “Not really.”

“So we have to wait three days to start learning?”

“Nope, you start this afternoon. Cliff and I both have .22 caliber rifles. We’ll put the scopes on them and get you started.”

Sandra was very quiet and then stated, “I hate the shotgun. These are going to be worse.”

Glen said, “No, actually you’ll be surprised. The .22 caliber rifles hardly kick at all. Compared to them, the shotguns kick like mules.”

“You’re not lying to me are, are you?”

Glen smiled at her fear and said, “No. I don’t know of many people that can shoot fifty rounds of buckshot out of a twenty gauge shotgun. Fifty rounds out of a .22 caliber is not that bad.”