“You sure it’s cyanide, Nanci?”
“Sure. Smell the bitter almonds once and you never forget it. Sodium or potassium cyanide. It wouldn’t work if what you wanted was a quick, subtle kill. Plenty of good neural destroyers for that. Invisible and tasteless and impossible to identify. But if you want to take out thirty or forty people and make sure none of them stand up and walk away…well…” She gestured around with her hand.
“Wonder what made them quit? Looks like they had a tight system going here.”
They found the answer to that question in the big, silent room at the back, where they could make out Mac and Carrie, through the partly shuttered windows, going into the largest of the aluminum-clad barns.
There was a sophisticated electronic synthesizer and a complex sound system capable of pushing music or messages throughout the entire compound.
The gloomy chamber held several long, padded benches, upholstered in a dark maroon, plush material. Prayer and hymn books were scattered all over the floor, some of them crusted with dried vomit from the sprawled corpses.
But the eye was drawn to the body that sat in the largest chair in the place. Ornate and grand enough to merit the name of a throne, it was covered in peeling gilt paint. The hands of the dead man gripped the arms with a ferocious force, black blood around the broken nails. The head was on one side, the empty sockets turned toward the ceiling, which was crudely covered with a daubed mixture of fat-assed cherubs and cartoon devils. A broken crystal goblet lay between the splayed feet.
The stomach was distended, stretching at the brilliant turquoise robe that hung from the broad shoulders, and a fine piece of Navaho silver jewelry dangled around the throat.
At his side was a small, cheap cassette recorder and a microphone resting on a wire tripod.
Jim moved to it and looked down. “Been rewound to the start,” he said. “Reckon there’s a final message?”
“Be surprised if there isn’t. Crazies like the world to know their famous last words.”
Jim pressed Play and waited.
There was this hissing, crackling sound of the tape running through, then a loud cough. The voice that came from the tinny little speaker had a rich, deep, resonant quality, with the hint of a Midwest twang to it. It had an overlaid smugness of someone not used to being contradicted.
“This is the last will and testament to the world from Jericho Malvern, apostate, prophet and leader of this community, known by the prognosticated name of the First Oracular Church of the Reborn Nazarene.”
There was a pause and the sound of the man swallowing. Nanci caught Jim’s eye and nodded.
“My followers have all done the deed required, and now I take my draft of the elixir of eternal life.” Another cough. “But I would first leave a message that will convey our beliefs to the rest of mankind.”
Another cough and a sharply indrawn breath.
Nanci shook her head. “What a stupid bastard,” she said. “Strychnine could’ve been better for them. Then again, it breaks your back and you die with a hideous grin. But cyanide…the man doesn’t have long to give us his message.”
“Didn’t think it would work as fast as this but… Jericho Malvern and the Church of—” A rattling groan issued from the little speaker, and the faint tinkling of his glass breaking on the floor.
“How quick does it work, Nanci? It’s only a few seconds since… half a minute at best.”
“Sodium cyanide doesn’t fool with you. You can have it as a gas or a powder. Doesn’t always have that almonds smell.”
The voice on the tape was rasping and painful. “My chest, like a bird fluttering its….”
“Tachycardia,” said Nanci, turning toward the door of the death chamber. “His heart’s starting to accelerate. Faster and faster. like a little kid running down a hill. Faster and faster, losing control. Falling and then….”
“Didn’t want to…important message about…we lost hope and food gone and… fucking heart’s bursting…can’t breathe and everything’s going, going…”
Silence.
“Gone,” said Nanci.
JIM CLOSED the heavy front door quietly behind him, feeling profoundly depressed at the profusion of death that brimmed out of the house.