Episode 4: The Sacrifice: Barlo, Kentucky 1917: Part Four

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly.

Must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.

Old Gods of Appalachia is a horror anthology podcast and therefore may contain material not suitable for all audiences.

Also, this is part two of a three-part story.

So if you hadn't heard the first part, Go back and listen to that.

We'll wait here for you.

That being said, listener discretion is advised.

Are your garments

spotless?

Are they white

as snow?

Are you washed in the blood

of Lamb?

And behold, Revelation 12.

Lay aside the garments that are stained

with sin

and be washed in the blood

of the Lamb.

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman who was secretly a mountain, clothed with the sun sun and legions of men inside her, and upon her head a crown of black lungs.

And she being a child cried, travailing in birth and pain to be delivered, so they bound her.

Backbone kept straight by centuries of settlement and privilege that sings silent hymns through a sandstone jawbone.

Two decades from crumbling to dust under the weight of a bad bite.

Gutted and rotting in the mouth of a beast that cannot afford seven crowns to cover the holes in its seven heads, ten horns sound the end of the workday,

and one-third of the stars in heaven return from the inner dark just in time for supper and Wednesday night prayer meeting.

An autopsy of faith.

A congregation of corpses.

A murder of faithful crows gathered in the humble rites of cadaverous sanctity, claiming nothing more than the air they rattle through the desiccated woodsheds of their bodies, singing softly that this

is not our home.

Are your garments

spotless?

Are they white as snow?

Are you washed in the blood

of the lamb?

I won't these hills

leave these dark valleys

For I can't stay now in the lands unknown

Then the

I can feel the winds now.

Hold your ghost.

Pastor Cletus Garvin had just finished his prayers, such as they were, consulting with the voices that had guided his hands these past seven years, when a wail rose up from the front of the church that made his heart leap with fear.

Ruby, his wife.

Cletus jumped up and ran to the front of the church, where he found his wife on her knees sobbing, her apron pressed over her face with trembling hands, and Cletus saw that she knelt beside their second oldest boy.

Noah,

who lay on what was once a clean white sheet, now stained with blood and soot.

Half his blackened face melted away.

The other bright pink darkened with the coal dust that marked a day in the life of any miner.

His remaining eyes stared up at the rafters.

Its former bright blue now robbed of its color, empty and cold and blind.

Cletus knew he was gone.

But that couldn't be right.

There was a strike on.

Noah wouldn't have crossed the picket line.

He was a union man.

Well, he wouldn't.

Pastor, someone said quietly beside him.

Cletus turned to find Dewey Hubbard standing beside him, hat twisting nervously in his hands.

When he simply stared, Dewey stammered, He

Noah went in to help put up the fire this morning.

Most of the men were already out, but a few stayed behind.

They were looking for more fires or anyone who might have got hurt.

Papinki and Eddie Avery were in there, too, but

we didn't find them.

Oh,

Cletus said.

Of course, Noah would want to help.

He was a good boy, and of course Dewey Hubbard would want his family to know their oldest boy hadn't died a scab.

Cletus almost laughed, as if that mattered right now.

And then he remembered what the voices had tasked him with,

the visions they had shown him.

Cletus felt his stomach twist,

bile rising in his throat.

They'd always promised to keep his family safe.

He spotted his youngest boy, Herschel, lingering behind the lectern, staring at his mother with wide eyes, and Cletus crooked two fingers at him to call him over, quietly trying to keep his thoughts clear in case the voices were listening.

Cletus told the boy to run back to the house and fetch his mother's round mirror from the vanity, along with the big box of salt from the pantry.

And when Herschel started in with the why daddies, Cletus spoke with the weary voice of his own daddy and every father to ever come from these hills.

Boy, you just do what I said.

Now, come on, get it.

The look in Cletus' eyes must have told how thin his patience was because Herschel didn't waste any time bringing what his father had asked for.

Cletus took the mirror, bowl, and big box of Morton's salt and told the boy to go check on his mother.

Meanwhile, Cletus set the mirror on a small table just inside the church door.

The table usually held a small pewter bowl of oil for anointings, and this this he set in the center of the mirror.

Around the outside edge of the mirror, he carefully poured a generous ring of salt.

Cletus' mema had always kept a small mirror like this on top of her pie chest.

She said it helped ward off the evil eye and kept eavesdroppers out of her business.

He didn't know about all that, but it had proved effective at giving him a little peace and privacy when the voices chattering started to make his head ache.

He hoped it would keep them from knowing what he planned on doing today.

Once he set up his mama's ward, Cletus went back to the front of the church to check on Ruby.

One of the women had helped Ruby up and sat her down in the front pew and fetched her a glass of water.

Cletus knelt down by her side and grasped her hand.

He fished his handkerchief from his pocket and gently dabbed the tears on her face as she stared vacantly ahead.

Ruby, he said softly, Ruby, honey, look at me.

Her eyes, swimming in tears, rimmed red red and her grief, slowly focused on his face and met his.

Noah, she whispered.

Cletus, her

Her voice started to hitch and Cletus spoke gently to her.

Shh.

Sh hush now, honey.

Now I want you to go back to the house and lie down.

Take Herschel and the girls with you.

Robert and Clay'll be done with their chores soon.

Send one of them to tell Lily Ruth what's happened to her brother.

He could tell Ruby wanted to protest.

She didn't want to leave her Noah's side.

But Cletus called Herschel, Amanda, and Virginia over to him and ushered the four of them out the door, telling Virginia, the oldest of the three, to take her mama home.

With the family headed safely home, he turned back to his congregation, a room full of faces watching him expectantly, to do what must be done.

One by one, they carried the victims of the blast down to the cellar, a bare, floored room where a long, low altar of sturdy pine had been placed, carved and sanded and polished by Cletus himself.

He'd spent six feverish nights working on that thing, dragging himself from his sweat-soaked bed out to the shed, driven by both the voices and his own desperate need to get their visions out of his head.

The pattern carved deep into the wood.

was nearly impossible to follow with the eye.

Twisting in whirls and slashes that made your head hurt.

When Pastor Garvin told his congregation they had been divinely inspired, well, they said amen.

A knife rested on the right edge of the altar.

It wasn't nothing special, just a good kitchen knife, but Cletus kept it sharp.

The air in the basement was thick with the smoke from candles and burning herbs and the heat of too many bodies squeezed in under the low ceiling.

The men had returned with the livestock Cletus had requested and stood in a ragged half-circle around the altar with the skittish animals.

Those men who had not been invited to the sacrifice stood with the women and the children, those old enough for this kind of work, you see,

around the fallen men.

Cletus nodded solemnly to the men behind the altar as he took his place and turned to face the tabernacle of the elder covenant.

Family, he said to them, we face a difficult task this day but with the lord's help we may yet save these men are you ready brothers and sisters are you ready are you prepared to make sacrifices on behalf of our own can you do what must be done say amen the chorus of amens filled the cellar after all they had turned their hands to this task before and they had witnessed miracles amen Cletus echoed back to them and he reached for the knife.

The first cut was his own.

A quick slash carved on top of layers of old scars on his left palm.

Cletus flicked his hand out into the crowd, blood splattering the altar and the men on the ground.

Lord of the night and of the day of life and death, we pray.

Grant us your aid in this time of need.

Save our brothers and sisters, Lord.

Let them be resurrected into the light of day, he intoned.

And then he reached for the first calf.

Blood Blood spilled over the altar and onto the floor, staining sheeps and soaking the men on the floor, and the bodies of Barlow's young animals fell limp.

Cletus spoke the words.

The congregation swayed on their feet, chorusing some parts back to him or shouting, Amen!

Amen, Brother Cletus!

Some began speaking in tongues, although the voices remained silent this time.

Not a whisper in Cletus's head of their presence.

And truth to tell, he had noticed before that some of the members of his congregation would begin babbling in what seemed like a strange foreign tongue, whether or not he felt their power coursing through his own words or not.

But today,

they prayed, they wept,

they made sacrifice.

At the end of the day, none of the miners stirred.

They were dead to a man, as Cletus had known they would be,

because the salvation of these men was not part of the plan the voices had for Barlow.

Sweating and hoarse, Cletus wiped his hands on a rag someone handed him and stepped back from the altar.

Family, we have done what we could for our brothers, he told the assembled flock.

But sometimes we must accept when our Lord calls a man home and rejoice, for they will face the cleansing fire.

A few scattered, tired amens echoed back to him.

For now, these men have sacrificed their lives in service to Barlow and to their families, and we must honor that sacrifice.

There were murmurs of agreement, and as always, the men and women of Barlow did as their pastor bid them.

No one questioned him when Cletus asked six men to fetch more clean linens from their homes.

Anything that could be had at this point, even tablecloths, would do, and to soak them in running water from the creek, or even when he told the women to bring all the salt they had in their pantries.

The other men he tasked with digging graves, seven in total, six standard for the men of Barlow, and one deep pit for the body of them three scabs.

At Cletus' direction, the congregation carefully cleaned the blood from the bodies of the miners from Barlow and wrapped them in the wet linen soaked in fresh water from the creek and the salt the women had brought.

Cletus said the Lord's prayer over the salt and the linens too, and then over the men's bodies once they'd been prepared.

It was late and very dark by the time the Elder Covenant had finished its preparations.

Cletus had insisted the burial must be today when a couple of the men's wives protested they wanted to sit vigil with their husbands.

It was tradition, after all.

But he pointed out that after all, no one wanted coyotes or bears to come sniffing around, interfering with the bodies.

They all deserved better than that.

And so the families set their misgivings aside and laid their dead to rest by the light of several lanterns.

With all the respect, tears, prayers, and hymns you could ask for.

Cletus, for his part, prayed hard.

Prayed to a God he had long since stopped serving, if he were honest with himself.

Prayed that the measures he'd taken would be enough to save his son and those few who died with him from what was coming.

The miners from out of town, they simply wrapped in the blood-soaked sheets from the afternoon's ritual and lowered them into the mass grave the men had prepared for them.

From the point of view of the people of Barlow, they'd done well enough for a bunch of scabs and black ones at that.

Cletus merely hoped the voices weren't counting bodies too closely and that that mass grave would disguise what he had done to protect his own.

It was near midnight when the pastor returned to a dark and silent house and quietly crawled into bed next to his wife's.

Ruby was sleeping deep enough that he felt sure she must have taken a nip of whiskey or two, and he didn't blame her.

They could discuss his plans for the Garvin family tomorrow.

There was time or so, he believed, based on what he could figure from their revelations.

And anyway, he would need to speak to Cletus Jr.

and Lily Ruth and her husband, too.

It was near dawn, three days later, when Annie Messer called on Pastor Garvin.

And he received her visit on the front porch so Miss Annie wouldn't ask questions about the obvious moving preparations underway in the Garvin home.

Annie hadn't seen Sarah Avery in a few days at school, and yes, her family must be grieving, and she'd need to help her mama since Pinky and Eddie both died in the collapse of old number seven.

But someone should go check on them, shouldn't they?

Wasn't that the Christian thing to do?

The slithering voices in Cletus' mind went wild at the mention of Sarah Avery's name.

The shrieking nearly drowned out Miss Annie's words.

Cletus couldn't even make out all they were saying, but one bit was clear enough.

Yes,

The girl.

Bring her.

Bring her.

Cletus felt sick at the thought.

The past few days he'd begun to have quite a few second thoughts about his service to

them.

But he knew it was best to follow their orders, at least for now.

At least until he could get his family safely out of Barlow.

And so he went inside to fetch his hat and his coat, and he and the schoolteacher headed for Goshen Creek, riding east into the last sunrise Barlow would ever see.

There is a curse upon my every

waking breath,

and

I cannot escape

the darling.

How are you, family?

Welcome back to Barlow, Kentucky.

We're starting to catch up with where our story left off, but we're not quite there yet.

There is still more things to find, but we are uncovering answers, aren't we?

Unfortunately, for every answer we find, who knows how many questions are underneath.

I don't even think we should try counting, do you?

Old Gods of Appalachia is a production of Deep Nerd Media.

Our intro music is by Landon Blood.

Our outro music is by those poor bastards.

Today's story was written by Cam Collins and performed by Steve Schell.

Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb?

was performed by Brandon Sartain.

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly, must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

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