Dead Sleeping Shaman by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli Page A

you sniveling and crying and begging and pleading but the ear turned your way will be deaf, as yours has been unto Him.”
    I pushed through the people. They didn’t notice me. Their eyes were fixed on the reverend.
    “The twenty-seventh day of October, precisely at twelve o’clock, the judgment of the wicked will begin,” the man on the stage cried out to answering groans and screams. “There will be fire and blood running in the streets. There will be a great gnashing of teeth as children are torn from their mother’s arms; men from their wives. In Gehinnom will the wicked burn forever.”
    I turned for a moment to watch him. He lowered his head and paced across the stage, stopping finally to turn a terrible, wild face toward the people. “I dream to tell you my visions. ‘And the number of the army of the horsemen was two hundred thousand thousand and I heard the number of them …’ ”
    Something dark chased me. That voice rolled up behind …
    “… but then there are the saved, the cleansed who will march on to the post tribulation Rapture. There will come the time of Resurrection; the Glorification of the Righteous. That’s where you all will be, along with me. The Saved, together!”
    There was a cheer, then pandemonium as people cried, then shouted they were with him.
    My chest hurt from trying to draw deep breaths. I forced first one and then another of the people out of my way. No one noticed. Their eyes were fixed on the man, their lips moved, they were transfixed. No wonder the man had so many followers, I thought as I pushed between them. No wonder people were prepared to follow him to death. He gave them no choice. They were trapped like flies in the snare his words made.
    Face after face. Couples. Children. Old men and women with their arms around each other. I thought I saw the mysterious old woman from EATS, staring up at the stage as intently as the others. I couldn’t be sure. Faces melted around me, one into the other. Words blared until I had to cover my ears. All I wanted was to get out to my Jeep, climb in, lock the doors, and shiver.

It was another half an hour before people began making their way back from the clearing, past my car where I sat waiting for the other two. There would be no seeing the minister tonight. I couldn’t imagine interviewing him after so emotional a service. He had to be exhausted. I knew I was. Exhausted, a little angry, and feeling used. I was mostly angry at myself for getting caught up in what was obviously one man’s ego-centered delusion. I couldn’t figure out what had come over me. Maybe that hand holding me in place while Dolly and Crystalline were pushed away. It was the kind of thing where you were afraid to hurt anyone’s feelings even as you sensed yourself being pulled into a dark place you didn’t want to go.
    More and more people came out to their cars. After a while, the crowd dwindled, became a couple or two walking by. I waited, wondering if I’d been wrong and Dolly and Crystalline had gotten backstage after all, maybe were talking to him even now, and I’d wimped out.
    The door opened, finally, and the overhead light snapped on. Crystalline plopped herself into the back seat with a “Whew! That man is good ! I sure can see why he’s got so many people ready to die.” She laughed. “Almost had me with him. I was yelling back I wanted to be among the Righteous and go on to heaven. Ready to follow that man down the long road to Armageddon, until somebody stepped on my skirt, tore it, and made me mad.”
    “Where’s Dolly?”
    “I don’t know. Last I saw her she was talking to one of those people in the robes. I stood around, waiting. I had no clue but that you’d gone off with them, too. Then I figured I might as well wait in the car.”
    “Hope she gets out here so …” Just as I was about to complain the door opened again and Dolly got in the front with a shuffle of her boots and a clunk of her hardware against the