Iglesia ……………………………………… Episode 38

Special edition to compensate for last night’s operator error!



(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

Previous episode

“…………To begin with, please walk down this lane at a normal pace and to the very end of its length. Do NOT turn off. Do NOT speak. Do NOT interact with, er, anyone you happen to encounter. Do nothing but walk straight ahead….no matter what may happen….until you have reached the end, where I shall be waiting for you…I would suppose.”

When Rogers finished his instructions, Abe looked him in the eye and saw how deathly earnest he was. Then he shrugged and stepped through the door. He semi-consciously noted wind speed and direction, the angle of the sun and where he could stand to put it in the eyes of an opponent, and tested the traction of his moccasins on the dirt of the little, tree-lined country lane. He resolved to keep his attention on the surrounding wheat fields, since the road was apparently ‘safe’….and he set out walking.

His senses were alert and his head was on a swivel between the two sides of the road. His mind kept going back to the cats…and in a flash, he had a memory, almost a sense-memory, of back when he had been a toddler. He had, in the rough and careless way toddlers have, been able to grab and pick up one of the semi-feral cats in his village. A calico….that had scratched the shit out of him for his trouble and sent him off wailing for his Mama. Interesting…..until.

He sees a small figure wearing white in the distance, walking towards him down the road. His hand flies to his hip in a gesture his body has been learning ever since he saw his first western when he was little. Of course it comes away empty and in that moment he remembers Rogers’ instructions and reflects that it is definitely for the best that he did not shoot…her, as he can see now. Which stuns him a bit, since she also went for a gun! Also plainly out of instinct, since her hand came down from her hip as empty as his. He instantly liked her, though he tried not to, not good tactics.

But it just got harder as she got closer. Even though she was wearing some sort of weird white dress that he realized, she had modified herself. There were loose threads at the shoulder where she had ripped off the arms…and tied them around her waist to cinch the billowy garment in…and it looked like the hem had been hacked off with a …teaspoon or something. Nice legs. Shoulder length jet black hair with tight curls, big lovely brown eyes, sweet little mouth, caramel colored skin, a classic Latina beauty. She moved like an athlete and he assumed she was trained in some fighting art, the way she kept her balance at all times and her weight just slightly more on her back foot than her front one. She was small compared to him, she struck him as delicate….demure, slightly vulnerable….he could just tell she would be sweet and unassuming and quiet…

And as he passed her on the road, the hairs on the back of his arms stood up and he felt like he used to feel back in the jungle during a big storm………just before a big bolt of lightning struck.