I’m in the kitchen. Swanson is locked in the cellar. He can’t be trusted. He cries fake tears and tells me his wife and kid must be worried sick. A wreck, he says. His son has one eye and a bad leg and tumors everywhere. Cancer ridden. Hours to live. I have to release him, he says, so his son can have a father for a little while longer.
Swanson is the Antichrist. I know better than to fall for his dirty tricks. Every time I go down there, he says sorry. Why? He doesn’t know. He offers me money, millions, then whimpers like a dog when I ignore him. Avoid his eyes, Mitch. That’s what I keep telling myself. Those beady, little eyes are like black holes.
I abducted Swanson last Thursday. I kept him in the barn for a few days before bringing him down to the cellar. I wonder what Helen will say when she comes home and hears him hollering. The goal is to take care of him before she gets back, of course.
Right now I’m waiting to make my next move. I know he needs to be eliminated, but how? That’s the problem. How do you kill an ancient evil? My father would know what to do.
Too bad he’s dead. At least he raised me properly before he kicked the bucket. I count myself lucky, let me tell you. ’Cause there are some sick, sick puppies out there—people who don’t know north from south, let alone good from evil. Many of them go out looting and killing, terrorizing the public on a nightly basis. Turn on the news. You’ll see. What’s more is that there are a million others who sin in smaller but no less significant ways. They fornicate before marriage, cheat on their spouses, fake disability, lie under oath, and so on. I often think to myself, you people have no idea what’s coming down the pike, do you? But I do. I know what lies ahead for them—an eternity of fire and brimstone, that’s what, endless suffering and torture at the hands of Satan and his merry minions.
All of this is to say that Judgement Day is upon us. End times. I know this because I’m a member of the ALAA (Anti-woke Libertarians Against the Antichrist). If you know, you know.
Maybe you think I’m crazy. Maybe you’re thinking, Mitch, hold on a second, the Antichrist could be anyone. How do you know Swanson is the Antichrist? I’ll tell you. He promotes fear. That’s how I know. He’s a progressive Senator from New York. That’s strike one. He pushes oppressive policies under the guise of peace and safety. Strike two. He’s a liar. He wants to take away our guns and suppress our individual liberties. That’s strike three, but there’s more. Oh, there’s so much more. Climate change, fossil fuels, social justice reform, and blah, blah, blah. These are fear tactics. Swanson doesn’t believe in anything. Does his name sound familiar? It should. Yeah, he’s the heir to the Swanson TV Dinner empire. The guy is a gazillionaire. Plus, he’s the founder of Wide-Open AI. He wants to sedate us with technology. That’s why I’m off the grid, living way the fuck out here in the middle of nowhere. Hell, I might be the only one on Earth who knows the truth about Swanson. Go watch my YouTube videos if you don’t believe me. He must be stopped, period.
A car pulls into the driveway a minute later and stalls out. Helen’s home. Here we go. She honks the horn, meaning she wants help with groceries or some packages. She’s earlier than I expected. That’s not good. Swanson should be dead by now, but he’s not.
When Helen opens the front door, Swanson calls for help, right on cue. He’s a good actor, no doubt about it, screaming at the top of his lungs like he’s being stretched out on a rack. Helen is aghast, of course. She looks at me for an explanation, so I sit her down and go over everything in painstaking detail. She doesn’t hear a word. After I’m done, she rummages through her purse and hands me a manilla folder. There are divorce papers inside.
Terrific. I roll a cigarette and light it. I need to take action, but I have a pounding headache and all I want to do is lie down for a few minutes. The problem with that is Helen won’t stop crying and Swanson won’t stop hollering, and besides I can’t afford to waste any more time.
And just when I think the situation can’t get any worse, a police officer bangs on the front door, demanding entry. I tell Helen to keep quiet or else. Then I run down to the cellar and tell Swanson the same thing, but I’m nastier with him. I have to be. “Say one word, you devil, and I swear to Christ I’ll cut you down.” I slap him hard across the face, so hard I leave an imprint of my hand on his cheek. That ought to show him I mean business.
Peeking through the living room blinds, I see the cop standing on the porch. He’s alone, which is good. And I happen to know him personally, which is even better. What are the odds? His name is Ted something or other. We attended the same high school. Class of ’08. That was us. Go Hogs! Life is funny sometimes.
I open the door confidently and shake his hand. I even invite him inside, disregarding his lack of a warrant, thinking there’s nothing suspicious here. Come on in, Ted. How the heck are you, buddy? Remember that time you pantsed Bill Rosenberg in the gymnasium? Good times, Ted.
But the truth is that neither of us say a word, and all at once I get nervous thinking about a life behind bars.
Ted speaks first: “Mitch, I’m going to shoot straight with you. I’m here because someone tipped us off about one of your recent videos.”
Stay calm, Mitch. “Videos?”
“Correct. Videos about Senator Swanson. You know him, of course.”
“Sure, everyone knows him.”
“Right. And you realize he’s been missing for over a week.”
Ted searches my eyes for answers. I feel flushed, like I might faint. “Oh, that’s right. You still haven’t found him?”
“Well, like I said, that’s why I’m here. We have some leads, sure, but nothing major. In your last video, Mitch, you talked about Swanson for over an hour. Seventy-three minutes, to be exact. You claim he’s the Antichrist. Is that right?”
I don’t know what to say. I’m a terrible, awful, miserable liar. Ted knows this. I’m sure he does. He knows I’m hiding something.
Just as I’m about to crumble, Helen shuffles into the living room, teary-eyed and sniffling, and I could throttle her neck for all the trouble she’s caused me these past eight years.
“Miss, I’m Officer Ted Lichfield. I’m here to ask your husband some questions about a missing person.”
Helen loses it. She weeps and runs upstairs to the bedroom. The whole house shakes when she slams the door.
Ted is staring daggers at me now. He’s holding all the aces, waiting for me to fold. He knows I have no hand to play, and a minute later, when Swanson howls from the cellar like a wounded wolf, I know I’m cooked. Game over. For Chrissakes, I should’ve kept him in the barn.
Ted makes a move toward the cellar door.
“Hold on, Ted. Easy. I can explain. He’s down there, all right. Swanson’s down there. He’s handcuffed to a radiator. Now hear me out. That man is not who he claims to be, not by a long shot.”
Ted runs his fingers through his hair, and a smile plays on his lips. He lets me sweat for a long minute, then says, “I know. Relax, Mitch.”
Then he turns away from the cellar and walks around the living room, admiring the guns on the wall and the six-foot statue of Jesus in the corner. From the bookshelf, he pulls my copy of Atlas Shrugged, heavily annotated and dog-eared.
“Too bad Rand was an atheist,” he says. “I mean she was dead on the money about everything else, don’t you think?”
“She was confused, that’s all. Plenty of people are these days.”
Ted nods solemnly. “Listen, I’m here to help you take care of you-know-who. He’s a leech, Mitch. He’s sucking our blood, yet people call him a saint. He’s digging his teeth right into our flesh, just like you said in your videos. I knew I’d find him here. I just knew I would.”
I let out a deep sigh of relief, let me tell you. Seems there’s some good left in the world, after all. Anyway, I make us some coffee and then we sit down to discuss logistics for the next hour or so—how to kill him, when to kill him, what to do if we can’t kill him, and so on and so forth.
“And then there’s Helen to consider,” Ted whispers. “Can she be trusted?”
I shrug my shoulders. “The honest-to-God truth is I don’t know. I wish I did, but I don’t. I’ll tell you this much: She subscribes to The New York Times and The Atlantic and listens to NPR. She’s misinformed. That’s a fact.”
“She’s a liability. There’s no telling what she might say or do.”
“I know.”
“Tell me, Mitch. Did she vote for him?”
“Who’s that?”
“You know who I mean. Don’t play dumb. Did she vote for Swanson?”
My face says it all. Ted grunts, mildly disgusted. He won’t even look at me. I tell him to hang tight. Let me talk to her first before we do anything rash. But when I look around the house, she’s nowhere in sight. She’s not in the bedroom or the kitchen or anywhere else. And when I look outside, I see her car is gone from the driveway.
Ted panics, pacing back and forth in the living room. “What if she overheard our conversation? What if she’s in cahoots with Swanson? We need to find her. Your wife certainly can’t be trusted to keep quiet, not anymore.”
I never considered Helen might be complicit in all this hellish nonsense. The thought of her working side by side with Him makes me sick to my stomach.
Swanson howls again, an awful shriek. Ted unholsters his gun, a SIG Sauer P320. Then the whole house begins to rattle and shake. Books fall from their shelves. Lights flicker on and off. The temperature drops to nothing, and I can see my breath. He knows we’re coming for him. It’s now or never.
I tell Ted to go find Helen and bring her back here. We shake hands, and then he leaves me there to sort it out with Swanson alone, saying he’ll be back as soon as he can.
Now I’m standing in front of the cellar door, holding a rusty axe in my hands. I know what must be done. I’m determined, you see, unwavering in my mission to root out evil, to cleanse this country I love so dearly, to eliminate he who stands for everything and nothing at the same time, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. There isn’t anyone on Earth who can convince me that what I’m about to do isn’t righteous or justified. No one. And so I descend into the depths of the cellar, one step at a time, ready to kill or die for the cause.