The Cherub comes close one last time, intimately close, Wormwood taking in the full aroma of rotten teeth, blackened gums, halitosis mixed with frothing drool. For a brief millisecond, Wormwood almost thinks that he sees a shred of humanity in this monster’s eyes. Something he’s responsible for eradicating. A person buried and burned by faith…
“God givesth pain. Far back as I remember…”
A sneer. The Old Testament is grasped loosely in a lobster-like claw, and Wormwood watches as his son casts the book away into a mound of cinders, the embers floating up to mingle with the flames.
“He should feel too.”
And with a scream of anguish building in the corridor of his throat, Wormwood begins to feel. The Cherub lopes away through the aisle, freedom and fresh night air awaiting beyond the doors, and the Pastor is allowed to view his son’s escape before the fire reaches his eyeballs, turning them to melted gelatinous ooze in the orbital sockets. He sucks in air to scream again, but smoke comes instead, flooding his lungs, scorching them black as tar. He seizes and buckles, his flesh curling into the perfect crucified form.
A final memory assaults him before death, a small infant cradled to his chest, deformed, but innocent. Reaching for his face with fused fingers, hoping for a father’s love.
So small. So pure.
Cherubic…
THE END
PURGATORY
By Shawn Wood
It was hot, dry, dirty. Everything one would expect from a town called Purgatory. A fine, white alkali dust caked his worn leather boots. It lingered on his jeans and wormed into his nostrils. It choked his scorched throat. His boot heels clumped, echoing on the seasoned wood of the church stairs. Sweating bodies huddled tight, all facing the altar, swayed in the dizzying heat. The last rays of light sunk beneath the horizon. Full darkness had come.
Cobwebs hung from the worn wooden beams. Candlelight danced, caught in a backdrop of stained glass. Kaleidoscope colors, blue, red, yellow, reflected on the aged plaster walls. Ancient boards bleached to the color of nothingness lined the floor forming a path towards the altar.
It was black as pitch. Covered with dark linens. A single red candle threw shadows towards the parishioners. It was all a mirage to Daniel. All he could focus on amongst the flickering candlelight and swirling colors was her.
She stood apart from the rest of the congregation. The lace of her dress swayed as she rocked back and forth, her hands raised to the ceiling. She was floating in rapturous ecstasy.
He watched the pale blue dress sweep the floor as she clapped her hands to some mysterious internal rhythm. In the stark vision of his mind's eye he remembered the first time he had seen her in that dress. The scent of rose water enveloped him. He was home again.
* * *
Early morning sun sparkled in the dew. He was walking to town, adolescent dreams creeping at the edges of his mind. He crested a hill and looked towards the west. In the distance, among the rolling hills, he glimpsed the prettiest flower, standing, staring at the horizon. The long strands of grass waving around her in the wind mirrored her raven hair. He passed and tipped his hat to her, painfully aware of her beauty. She smiled the sweetest smile Daniel had ever seen. In that moment he fell in love.
* * *
Thunderous clapping tore him from the bliss of his memories and back into the church. The air was leaden. Cobwebs that had once danced against the breeze hung lank. The flames of the candles froze in place. His vision narrowed, focused razor sharp on her.
“Rebecca!” he yelled. “Rebecca!” His voice echoed off the walls.
Not a soul in the congregation stirred from their trance. Their faces were turned up towards a preacher all in black. His vestments hung from his sinewy frame. Muscles twisted and writhed under silken fabric. He wore no collar, no crucifix.
Daniel stopped and squared off, mimicking what he thought a brave man, a warrior, a gunfighter would do. His eyes fixed on the preacher. A bead of sweat trickled slowly, carving a glistening trail in his dust-caked face. He could feel the uncomfortable weight of the gun hanging from his hip. The finality in it made his stomach clench. Chasing after her for days and weeks, tracking her through miles of dust and desert. There has to be more to it than this? Daniel thought.
The preacher’s voice was cool, smooth. His words were an oasis surrounded by scorching sands.
“And in the end I sayeth to the faithful...”
Daniel felt his mind float along with the rhythm of the words. There was a magnetism here that pulled at his very soul.
“My children,” the preacher sang. “My children, we have amongst us one that wishes me harm.” His silken voice rose to a crescendo.
Their trance broken, the gathered faithful stirred. Nervous, narrowed eyes glanced in Daniel's direction. Brows furrowed. Voices murmured.
“Now, now, my children. This man has simply fallen off the path. He has cast away something dear to him and he seeks to reclaim it.”
The preacher turned the full power of his brilliant gaze upon Daniel.
Now! Do it now! The last traces of Daniel's sane mind screamed. His hand dropped to the pistol butt. He felt the heaviness of the world as he drew the gun. Stinging sweat poured into his eyes.
“Son... My son,” The preacher cooed. “You're just lost.” He moved towards Daniel. “She's mine now, son.” Twisted reflections danced in the black shine of his boots. He stepped towards Rebecca. He took her hand lightly, kissed it. She rose to her feet. His lips lingered a moment too long against her skin. His eyes flashed at Daniel.
“You bastard.” Daniel cocked the hammer, grasping the gun with both hands.
“Tell him, my child,” the preacher said as he guided her into the aisle between Daniel and himself.
“Daniel, I'm home... I'm finally home.” She turned her eyes toward the preacher. “I'm staying with him.”
“That's a good girl, Rebecca.” The preacher gently kissed her forehead as he dismissed her from his side.
With liquid speed the preacher closed on Daniel. His long fingers were ice as they clamped over Daniel's. The weight of the gun floated away as the preacher raised it to his own forehead. Daniel's hands shook with fear. Daniel could smell him now. Rotten. The smell of aged death. His stomach lurched once, twice.
The preacher’s voice was a harsh whisper, “Well?” He smiled savagely. His teeth were razor points. His eyes, red flames.
The air hummed with electricity. Seconds hung as time turned in on itself. Daniel could feel the preacher’s will forcing itself in upon him. Goading him. Pushing him towards pulling the trigger. His resolve broke as his stomach and his will betrayed him. He crumpled, vomiting onto his own boots. A wet sob flew from Daniel's throat. Fear paralyzed him. Only his heart resisted. She was your wife, your world, he thought.
The preacher seemed to grow, to rise above Daniel. With a dull thud, the gun dropped to the floor. Tears streamed down Daniel's face. Trails of snot and spittle clung to his boyish stubble.
“Even this sinner cowers against the might of the chosen,” he called to his congregation in his smooth drawl. The candles flickered again. The parishioners swirled in colors. Their faces twisted into masks of demonic levity. Their teeth. What's wrong with them? Daniel thought through a tumultuous storm of a headache.
“We cannot be harmed by the sins of the wicked. We cannot be harmed by jealousy or greed or even the gravest of all sins: Murder,” the preacher’s voice rose to a crescendo as his hands rose towards the heavens. Thunderous applause rained down from the writhing, jostling creatures. Rebecca's eyes fell on the shadow of the man she had once loved. They dropped, staring aimlessly at her hands. “Shame on you Daniel. Go away, let her be,” cawed a twisted creature from its spot in an adjacent pew. The congregation of vile creatures laughed as one.
Daniel's heart broke. He had endured days of scalding desert heat, nights of bone-chilling cold, thirst, hunger, all to lay eyes upon her again. All to win her back. His moment had come and he ha
d crumbled under the weight of it. His spirit dropped to a new low. The gun lay still, impotent on the floor. Realization dawned on him. I failed, he thought. He turned and cast a last look in her direction. She looked longingly at the preacher. Daniel ran out into the night. Laughter chased him.
* * *
Oil lamps, old news back east, brand new out in the fringes of the western frontier, cast flickering light along Purgatory's main street. The copper and brass fixtures swung in the dry desert breeze. Daniel walked in a daze. His mind tussled with he had seen. He loved her. Of that he was certain. She was gone. He had not accepted that.
His skin crawled. The hair stood rigid on the back of his neck. The whole town felt wrong. The shadows were too deep. The light couldn't penetrate them. Buildings were shuttered, enveloped in darkness. He saw thin lights ahead. He hooked his thumbs into the empty gun belt sagging at his waist and headed towards the light.
In every town there are places best avoided. The Silver Sluice was Purgatory's. Scars of past conflicts lingered in the facade of the saloon. One batwing door hung from a broken hinge. A sad ballad, horribly out of tune, escaped from a dying piano. A single tooth was embedded deep into the bar top. Its former owner lost to time. A deep, dark auburn stain lingered on the warped boards of the floor.
The ring of a blade clearing a scabbard stilled the off-key warble of the piano. “I'll cut ya. I swear I will. Ya dirty cheat,” a shrill voice cried through the still air.
In rapid succession, two deafening cracks brought silence to the bar. A gold coin tumbled through the air and landed on the dead man's chest, bouncing to the floor.
“That should cover any damage to your fine establishment, Hal,” a husk of a voice called. Chair legs screeched across the dirty grime of the floor. A tall, wire-thin figure stood with a smoking pistol in his hand. His hat hung low, casting deep shadows across his face.
“You... You killed Bart!” a voice yelled.
“Yes. Yes I did,” came the stranger’s cool reply. He looked from face to face. They all cast their eyes downward; none would meet his blazing eyes.
Daniel was lost in the blur as the oiled blue steel of a revolver vanished back into its holster. The stranger turned and eased his way out through the one functioning batwing door. With a final glance over his shoulder, he stepped out into the blackness of the night.
Slowly, with the caution of a cat approaching a mouse, two men crept out after the stranger. Daniel's whiskey-laden mind scrambled for purchase. He rose to his feet, the world a spinning torrent of lanterns, gun smoke, alcohol. Staggering, he pushed past the broken door. In his haste and stupor, he missed the last step and landed heavily in the dirt of the street. He swore angrily as he rose to his knees. Daniel dug his hands into the hard packed dirt. He cried, “Rebecca! Damn you! You son of a bitch preacher!”
Across the street, an ember glowed red. Gray smoke floated up, mingled with the darkness and disappeared. The stranger watched, listened. This town was different from others ringing the western frontier. It had a disease. A cancer that had eaten away its soul and left a stinking, black emptiness.
He had watched the two duck from the bar and creep along the boardwalk towards the sheriff’s office, taking what they perceived as extra care to keep to the shadows. Like most of the residents left, they avoided the light as much as possible. The stranger smoked his cigarette and watched, letting the world roll in on him.
He had heard rumors the congregation had settled here. Ever since he had ridden onto Main Street he could feel their evil, smell their stench. Malice and gluttony dripped from them and left a stinking trail wherever they went. New converts in tow. Now this sodbuster ranting about his woman and a preacher confirms it, the stranger thought.
In another life, in another time he had known the preacher. He rubbed his throat lightly, his fingers tracing the knotted scars. A reflexive gesture he had tried to quell over the years. He shook his head to clear the memories.
Here he was again, standing, waiting to see what cards would fall. Cut and run before things get heavy. Maybe this really ain’t your fight, a voice whispered in the back of his mind. The hair stood up on his arms. Maybe it is my fight, he thought.
Commotion erupted down the street. Out of breath and half dressed, the sheriff arrived with the two men from the bar in tow. His prodigious gut rolled and bounced, he gasped for breath. The tin star hung askew on his crumpled shirt.
Daniel lifted his head again and wailed her name into the night. He never saw the heavy leather sap as it sailed through the air. It landed with a deep thump across the back of his head. “Shut yer mouth. Dontcher know how late it is?” the sheriff shouted. “This your mad killer, boys? This the one that killed old Hal?” the sheriff chuckled. He stood over Daniel's limp body, proudly.
“No sir,” one of the men answered, shakily.
“He's over there. Watching.” The other thrust his thumb towards the stranger.
The sheriff turned slowly. Knowing he had been caught blind, he stared at the glowing ember. The stranger stood still, watching.
“You. Over there. Git out where I can see you. Show me your hands,” the sheriff called into the night. His voice wavered ever so slightly.
Three loud cracks, three roaring belches of fire. At this angle, from behind them, I'd get them clean enough before they even had a chance to draw. They'd fall like silent stones and my problems would be over, the stranger thought. He smiled and tossed his cigarette into the dirt.
“It was a fair fight, Sheriff. He pulled a knife on me. Accused me of cheating,” the stranger called as he stepped into the light. His raised arms made him look even taller and more gaunt than he already was. Even in the bright light of the oil lamps his hat hid his eyes.
“Welp, that may be and it may not be. Ain’t for me to say,” the sheriff answered. “Zeb, grab his gun. Eli, you get hold of that other one on the ground. These boys are gonna be guests of the fine town of Purgatory,” he said. His eyes smiling with malice. Two more souls to rot in Purgatory, he thought.
* * *
Rebecca lay still in her bed. It was soft, luxurious, yet it folded up neatly. It fit her new life. She sometimes missed the bed she had shared with Daniel. She sometimes missed lying awake next to him, just listening to the night. In the dim hours before dawn, she remembered her old life. She remembered him.
He had courted her relentlessly. “That boy is hounding on you,” her father said one morning as he came inside carrying a bouquet of flowers that had been left on their front stoop. Her smile radiated through the room as she clutched the flowers, brought them to her nose and whiffed deeply. The smell promised hope.
Even now, remembering the flowers he used to bring her made her smile. Her memories landed square in the first year of marriage. She remembered Daniel working in the fields, working on the house, in the barn. Days spent building the life that Daniel wanted. The flowers stopped early in that first year. She would sit for hours staring out the window, looking over the horizon. Looking for something more. She knew there were chores that needed doing but her soul cried out for adventure.
One evening, on her way back from a ride through the tall grass, she found it. The preacher and his congregation were holding service a few miles outside town. She dismounted quietly, snuck to the edge of the clearing, the warm glow of their bonfire washing over her. She heard laughter, conversation. Fiddles played. Drums thumped. Couples danced, whirling in colored clothes. She thought she heard a voice whisper in her ear, “Come. Join us.” Wonder gripped her.
Her feet moved of their own volition, propelling her farther into the circle of light. “Closer,” the voice said playfully in her ear.
Her night had been rapturous. Talking, laughing, listening to tales of the exciting places they had been. As dawn approached, she said her farewells. They begged her to join, to leave her old life. Two days later she obliged.
* * *
His head throbbed. The world was a blurry landscape of iron bars and worn
wood. Daniel sat upright. He cradled his head carefully as he rose. Across the cell bars, a man sat on his haunches. His hands clasped between his thighs. Shadows from his hat fell over his face. A lit cigarette dangled between his lips. Smoke ringed him.
“Hell of a bump you took, kid,” the stranger said.
“Where am I? What happened?” Daniel stammered.
“You were yammering in the street. Sheriff whumped you. You were blubbering about a woman. Rebecca, nearest I can recall.”
Daniel shook his head gently to clear out the remaining cobwebs. “My wife. Rebecca. I came to get her back. He changed. They all did.”
“Yep. Now, slowly tell me what happened.”
Daniel told his tale, finishing with, “You. That's right. I was looking for you. I followed you out into the street.”
“Yeah. Me,” the stranger said, his husky voice carried through the rickety jail cell. “I think you and I might just help each other out.” A skeleton key dangled between his fingers. “Shhhhh,” he whispered as his index finger touched his lips.
The sheriff’s snores banged and rattled throughout the jail. They crept slowly down the hall, the cell left empty behind them. From the shadows a figure slunk out. The stranger caught the movement ahead and hesitated. “Now you boys just freeze right there,” Eli called. His gaunt hands caressed a double-barreled shotgun. His eyes were a dull red. His lips curved upwards into a twisted smile exposing a mouthful of crooked rotting teeth. “I knew you two was trouble. I tried to warn the sheriff, tried to get him to take you right over to the preacher square away. But he wouldn't listen to me,” he said, overjoyed with himself.
As fast as lightning, the stranger dropped and rolled. A metal blur leaped from his hand and embedded itself deeply in Eli's chest. He sunk to his knees. Reflexively, his fingers squeezed the twin triggers. The shotgun roared. A huge hole appeared in the wall to Daniel's right. With a thud and a scream, the sheriff rolled out of bed. Sleep addled and moving as fast as his bulk would carry him, he tore down the hall.
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