Gatlin attacks T-Bird and kidnaps Vicky

The attack on Burt and Vicky in Gatlin is the point at which their inquiry into the town’s children and their faith becomes open collective violence. Drawn toward a church whose public language and records have already exposed the town’s religious order, Burt and Vicky are caught in a coordinated assault: the children disable their car, take Vicky, and pursue Burt after he kills one of them in self-defense. The episode ends not with rescue but with the couple’s separation and the town’s established rites absorbing the violence into another sacrifice.

Causes and Setting

Before the attack, Burt has been investigating the church and the doctrine that organizes life in Gatlin. The church sermon board announces a message about the power and grace of He Who Walks Behind the Rows, dated the previous Sunday. Inside, Burt finds a book whose cover calls for the iniquitous to be cut down so the ground can become fertile again. These details frame the assault within a system that links religious authority, the corn, and killing, rather than presenting it as an isolated outburst.

The threat has also taken material form before the children appear. While Burt and Vicky are travelling, they find a corn-husk crucifix with a small cob attached. Most of its kernels have been removed; the remaining kernels form a crude human figure, with four raised letters above it. Later, Vicky sounds the Thunderbird’s horn in a long continuous blast. Burt runs out of the church and sees children converging from the surrounding streets and public spaces. Their appearance in the town, after the church’s religious messages and the corn-made crucifix, makes the assault the violent enactment of an already visible order.

The Children’s Attack

The attackers approach as a group, carrying knives, hatchets, pipes, rocks, and hammers. The girls wear long brown clothes and faded sunbonnets; the boys wear black clothing and round-crowned, flat-brimmed hats. They come across the town square and lawns toward the Thunderbird, and some look at Burt with calm interest while others point and smile. Their youthful appearance contrasts with the weapons and the collective purpose of their advance.

Burt calls to Vicky to get the shotgun, but she remains frozen in panic inside the car. The children surround the Thunderbird and batter it. They damage its exterior, slash its tires, and break the windows; as the car settles and the horn falters, they reach for the door lock. Vicky tries to keep them out, but they wrench open the driver’s door and attempt to pull her from the seat. The attack thus disables the couple’s means of escape before turning directly against its occupants.

Burt’s Resistance and Vicky’s Abduction

Burt breaks from his paralysis and runs toward the car. A boy with long red hair throws a knife that lodges in Burt’s arm. The boy then moves against him, invoking religious judgment and reaching for his eyes. Burt pulls the knife out and uses it against the attacker, who dies. The reversal briefly interrupts the children’s assault: they stop and watch Burt, while he stands amid the sudden consequences of having defended himself.

That pause is not a rescue. Burt looks back toward the Thunderbird and discovers that Vicky is gone. Asked where she has been taken, the children answer with a gesture across the throat, making clear that they have carried her off rather than releasing her. An older boy orders the others to get Burt. With the shotgun still beyond his reach and the group moving toward him, Burt retreats and runs. The attack has separated the couple: Vicky is in the children’s hands, while Burt escapes the immediate circle of attackers alone.

Consequences and Sacrificial Order

The later account shows that the assault has not ended the town’s ritual system. In the clearing, the children stand before two crucified skeletons and two bodies that have not yet become skeletons. Isaac, the nine-year-old Seer, interprets what has happened as a sacrifice completed by the deity and declares that the Age of Favor has been lowered from nineteen harvests to eighteen. The attack on Burt and Vicky is therefore set within a larger pattern in which violence is given religious meaning and translated into a new rule.

Malachi, who had led the hunt for Japheth and killed him after he was designated Ahaz, accepts Isaac’s pronouncement and says he will obey. Later, the girls make corncob crucifixes in an effort to ward off further evil, turning the earlier corn-made religious object into a repeated response to fear. That night, those above the newly lowered age limit walk into the corn; Malachi goes with them despite Ruth’s grief and her pregnancy with his child. The attack’s aftermath is not a return to ordinary life but a renewed submission to the sacrificial order, with the couple’s fate and the community’s continuing rites joined by the children’s religious interpretation of violence.