Free Casserole Diplomacy and Other Stories by Various Page B

it.
    She jerked me to my feet and threw her arms around me. She was laughing and crying. She thrust her breast at me. “Feel it.”
    I felt it. The lump was gone. Or rather, it was in my left hand. We just stared at it.
     
     
    That Sunday, worship was a tad tense, but at least the sanctuary was packed. Lookie-loos, reporters, even the police were there. I was sweating, wishing I’d polished my sermon a little more—I’d pulled it together later than usual Saturday night. It had been a very weird week.
    The service started off smoothly though. Call to Worship. Only the usual peculiar noises from the basement. Prayer of Adoration and Confession. No lambs slopping up out of the floor.
    First hymn. And it was a bad one. Don’t know what I was thinking when I picked it. Maggie, the organist, butchers it every time.
    I could see little bumps of dark goo—as Mrs. Miller called it—bubbling around Maggie’s Phentex-slippered feet.
    The hymn finally ground into its Amen without an eruption of slime violence. The bubbles glooped back into the carpet, leaving only a thin, viscous film.
    Jennifer Keeley (her maiden name), recently divorced from her husband Roger (speaking of slime) and raising three kids, rose to read from the Old Testament—Leviticus 25, the Jubilee section.
    Roger had gone off to find himself last year after being fired from Sears, but all he found was a twenty-three-year-old “chickie-poo” with big red hair and even bigger boobs. That’s how Jenny put it. I never much liked Roger. His little adventure seemed to tear the guts out of Jenny’s self-confidence.
    I slipped down into the front pew as I usually do for readings—a much better view, and it allows me to nip over my sermon notes without the congregation seeing.
    Jenny cleared her throat and began to read. “And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants; it shall be a jubilee for you when each of you shall—”
    She faltered. I looked up. She was fiddling with the buttons on her blouse—or rather, clenching them.
    Then I could feel it. The slippery tendril of energy coming from somewhere behind me in the pews. Suddenly I could taste it, a corn-syrup sweetness with an after-taste of fish. Made me think of portly Edgar McDonald for some reason, a quiet member of the Board of Managers whom everyone liked.
    I was about to turn and confirm the source when I heard a soft pop, then a ping, and then Jenny’s green skirt hit the floor around her high-heeled ankles. I don’t know what Edgar hoped she was or wasn’t wearing under that skirt, but he wanted to know, wanted to know something fierce. I hope the pink cotton underwear and knee-high nylons were worth it.
    Jenny’s face streaked scarlet. I assumed embarrassment at first, but then I heard it inside my head, the soaring howl of her humiliation and rage. “Sweet Jesus,” I muttered, as I watched the acrid power roar out from her, blasting every stitch of clothing off Edgar McDonald’s pasty Scottish body.
    There was a collective gasp, and then a silence so sudden and so deep that God should have been checking in on us.
    Glenda, Edgar’s wife, generally had that demure, eyes-downcast look. Not at this moment, though. In fact, she had the look of someone with a confirmed hunch. And if Jennifer Keeley didn’t kill Edgar outright, I was certain Glenda would.
    Mrs. Miller started in on her nitro pills—I could feel her eyes searing my head. The press went wild, flashes blinded me. Jenny yanked up her skirt and started down the aisle. I could feel her pooling her energy. I intervened—I had visions of her splattering poor Edgar into bloody little bits of middle-management flesh. It would take weeks to clean him off the newly-painted ceiling.
    “Get the hell out of my way, Dave,” Jenny growled at me.
    “Jenny. . . ”
    “Y’know, Dave, it’s high time I had a little chat with Roger,” she said.
    Roger? Yeah, Roger, her ex.
    She