“What you’re supposed to believe is the word of God,” the man snarled. “And that’s clear as day to everyone who lives inside the Kingdom.” He’d looked back at his men and smiled an evil wolfy grin. “Hansen, Molloy, I think we might need to question these two more intensively. Radio command and–”

That was the last thing the fat man said, probably ever.

Roland shoved a hand into the Martyr’s mouth, pulled downward, and shattered his jaw in four places. Then he leapt into the others. It went quickly. He gouged eyes, broke jaws, severed tongues, and then started in on their limbs. By the end of it, all four men were still alive, but none of them were in any shape to report on what they’d seen.

Manny vomited several times.

“What happened to doing your best, Manny?” Roland asked, more irritated than angry once he’d finished. The kid recoiled. Roland realized Manny had started to shake a little. He also realized there was still part of a man’s ear in his mouth. Aw hell, you scared him.

“Sorry kid,” he said, and squatted down next to Manny. “Look, the odds were always good that this first try was gonna be a scratch. The good news is, they’ve got other checkpoints. We’ll hop on the access road and find the next one. It’ll be fine.”

“What did you do to–” Manny started.

“I stopped them from talking,” he said, very quickly. “No one’s dead. They’ll be, uh,” he glanced down at the burbling, bleeding mess of shattered humans, “…they’ll be aight. But we need to move now, before someone else comes along and I’ve got to break them too.”

Roland popped open the cab so he could change into a clean set of spare clothes. He was grateful that Skullfucker Mike had packed them bags to lend their story extra verisimilitude. Manny changed too, and once his hands stopped shaking they rolled off to the next checkpoint. Roland tried not to think too much about the men he’d just broken. It helped that one of them had been an asshole. It helped that none of them had died. But still…

They hit the next checkpoint eight minutes later, and things went much better this time. For one thing, it was busier. There were already a dozen other cars in line when they pulled in. The guy who questioned them was less of an asshole and he seemed to buy Manny’s claim.

“We weren’t brave enough to make the journey until now. But we prayed all night about this. I know it’s the right thing to do.”

Roland had to fight to avoid rolling his eyes. The line worked, though. The man at the checkpoint waved them in and issued them a temporary transit pass.