PROPHET'S DEATH
Robert Creekmore
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GENRE: Southern Noir
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BLURB:
Death-cult leader Joseph Proffit has met his end! Along with him perishes the secret method for manufacturing indigo, the substance that imbued him with godlike abilities.
To the dismay of Naomi’s family, she succumbed to the injuries Joseph dealt her during their final battle atop the abandoned Coast Guard station, Frying Pan Tower, thirty miles off the North Carolina coast.
Both of their bodies were lost at sea when the one-hundred-foot-tall structure crumbled during Tropical Storm Gabriel.
Naomi’s beloved companions escaped aboard her dive boat, along with Joseph’s final victim, who is on the verge of death.
In the aftermath, Naomi’s family has no choice but to rebuild their lives in hiding, fearing reprisal from the handful of remaining Apostle loyalists.
Soon, their secret, dormant conflict will be thrust onto the world stage by a wealthy benefactor who funnels his personal hatred and unfounded grievances into throngs of ignorant followers.
Is this the end of Naomi’s family? Without her, how will they survive?
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Excerpt Two:
He guides the boat between the two wooden bunks of the boat lift. Nate fights his way onto the dock through the sheets of rain blasting sideways into his face. He activates the hydraulics. The lift pulls the boat out of the water and level with the dock.
The three of them drag Malcolm off the boat before Nate lifts it higher to avoid the rising water.
Exhausted after moving Malcolm from the dock to the side door, the three can go no further and lie him on his side atop the sofa in front of the picture window.
“We have to call home,” Nate says.
“Telling someone that their spouse is dead isn’t something you do over the phone,” Herschel replies.
“More urgently,” Rebecca interjects, “we have to get electrolytes into Malcolm. He drank plenty of water before passing out, so he’s not in imminent danger of thirsting to death. To regain some level of consciousness, we need to get something like Pedialyte in him.
But, no stores will be open in this storm.” “Would powdered Gatorade work?” Nate asks.
“Yeah,” she responds.
Nate gets up and begins rummaging through Naomi’s kitchen junk drawer. He excavates an old plastic container, half-filled with clumpy orange Gatorade powder. Nate mixes up a batch inside a large plastic cup with a flexible straw. Malcolm mumbles and occasionally opens his eyes. When he does, they encourage him to drink. Within the hour, he’s holding the cup himself. His eyes begin to regain life. He looks around, saying, “Where is the other woman?” “She didn’t make it,” Rebecca answers.
A wave of melancholy washes across his exhausted face.
“The sooner we leave, the better,” Nate says.
“Will he make the week-long boat trip back to Northern Virginia?” Rebecca asks.
“No. That’s why I’m going to take Tiffany’s Corolla.”
“They’ll follow you,” Herschel says to Nate.
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GUEST POST
Please describe a compelling scene and why it's important.
Chapter two of Prophet’s Death delineates a transition in family dynamics. Hours earlier, Naomi Pace, the protagonist of books one and two had died valiantly fighting serial killer, Joseph Proffit atop a collapsing structure miles offshore. He also succumbed to his injuries.
With his last victim clinging to life, Naomi Pace’s three best friends race him to shore in her boat through the rains of tropical storm Gabriel.
The cult was unaware of this development, which gave Nate, Naomi’s closest friend, a chance to get out of town with Joesph’s final victim, Malcolm. Rebecca and Herschel, stay to cover their tracks. Unfortunately, Nate is unable to take Malcolm, in failing health, to a local hospital because of the cult’s presence in the region. Instead, he decides to drive him north to his home in Tysons Corner Virginia where he could be treated without fear of being discovered.
Malcolm had been trapped in a small room for months and was malnourished. His hair and beard were unkempt. His clothes were ragged and he stank horribly. However, like all people, at some point, one has to go to the bathroom, so the pair stopped at the Virginia Border rest area.
Because of the advancing storm, it was nearly empty, except for two vehicles, a work truck, and a red Mercedes.
Five men stood outside smoking cigarettes. Four are workmen, dirty from a hard day's labor, the other a college-aged young man. All shoot disapproving stares.
Minutes later, however, it’s not the laborers who enter the bathroom to harass Malcolm, it’s the college boy.
While kicking on Malcom’s stall door, what he doesn’t expect is the feeling of the muzzle from Nate’s pistol being pressed against his skull. This shocks him because Nate is a relatively short, slight man.
As Nate said to Malcolm later, “My mere presence and asking nicely wouldn’t have made him stop. He would have seen a second victim. However, one tends to listen intently to whoever holds a gun to their head.”
On his knees with Nate’s pistol to the back of his head, the college boy begs for his life, offering all the money in his wallet.
Nate killed two cult members hours before. One murder was to save Naomi’s life from a shooter. Nate’s second victim was a man named Levi who lured gay men, like himself and Malcolm, into the clutches of the serial killer, Joseph Proffit.
What’s a third, then? Just one less asshole.
At the last minute, it’s Malcolm who talks him out of it by saying, “Nate, baby, don’t do that.”
Nate tells him that Blair deserves it.
Malcolm agrees but asks what good it will do him. With that, Nate smashes the butt of the pistol against the college boy’s head, knocking him out.
The pair flee, leaving Blair unconscious on a filthy bathroom floor.
It’s after this that Nate takes the reigns of leadership left over after the death of Naomi Pace.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Robert Creekmore is from a rural farming community in Eastern North Carolina.
He attended North Carolina State where he studied psychology. While at university, he was active at the student radio station. There, he fell in love with punk rock and its ethos.
Robert acquired several teaching licenses in special education. He was an autism specialist in Raleigh for eight years. He then taught for four years in a small mountain community in western North Carolina.
During his time in the mountains, he lived with his wife Juliana in a remote primitive cabin built in 1875. While there, he grew most of his own food, raised chickens, worked on a cattle farm, as well as participated in subsistence hunting and fishing.
Eventually, the couple moved back to the small farming community where Robert was raised.
Annoyed with the stereotype of the southeastern United States as a monolith of ignorance and hatred, he wanted to bring forth characters from the region who are queer and autistic. They now hold up a disinfecting light to the hatred of the region’s past and to those who still yearn for a return to ways and ideas that should have long ago perished.
Robert’s first traditionally published novel, Prophet’s Debt, was a Manly Wade Wellman Literary Award Finalist.
His second, Prophet’s Lamentation, was a Lambda Literary recommendation for July 2023.
Website: https://www.robertcreekmore.com/
Twitter: AuthorCreekmore
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Prophets-Death-Robert-Creekmore/dp/1962308162/ref=sr_1_1
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