To my surprise, Lilly sat next to me. I looked all about the church. Her parents weren't present.
“I killed them, Father Henry. Sent them to Nihil. If I didn’t, Satan would torture them in Hell. With Nihil, they’re nowhere. That’s Nihil’s peace, y’know. Nothingness.” She said all this in the tone she might’ve used when describing a boring day at school. I realized then that I had not seen her since the confession two or three Saturdays ago. Whatever had been happening to her, it drained her very soul.
Mass started and the moment it did, everything about St. Joseph’s changed before my eyes. Upon the altar lay three skulls, Pater, Filius, and Sancti (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) scratched messily on their foreheads.
Above the skulls hung the Christ. Only He wasn't hanging. Arms outstretched, blood flowing freely from His hands, feet, and side, He floated there in mock glee and triumph. Replacing the stained-glass images of the saints were those of demons—monstrous creatures that resembled lizards and fish but looked simultaneously like neither. The statues of Mary and Joseph were gone, replaced by what might have been Cain the First Murderer and King Nebuchadnezzar—that old king of ancient Babylon.
Deacon Gregory came to the pulpit with his eyes gouged out. He read not from the Bible, but from a gray stone tablet. Perhaps he read in Braille. “And Yahweh said to His twin to Nihil, ‘There is no peace in this Void. I shall make a universe teeming with life.’ And Nihil, having heard this, said: ‘Fool! Peace is not attainable in life. I will show the chaos creation brings. I will use your most valued angel and make him my Satan (the accuser of the brethren).’”
Deacon Gregory then threw the stone tablet onto the floor. It broke apart in several fragments.
The Dark Christ then descended. The blood flowing from his wounds turned gray: “Do you want true peace?” He asked.
The whole congregation rose and spoke in monotone unison: “Peace. True peace in the Void. Let us be devoured.”
“Line up, all of you, and receive the blessing of peace.”
And they lined up. To each man, woman, child, the Dark Christ placed His open lips upon their foreheads and began to suck, to slurp. Their clothes burned off their bodies in silver fire. Their flesh wrinkled and crumpled and tore from their skin like sheets pulled and twisted from the center of a mattress. Their organs turned to ash, while their skeletons melted into pools of gray liquid.
Lilly and I were the only ones not in line. The little girl touched my cheek and looked into my eyes. “You should have believed me.” She was crying now.
I grabbed Lilly by the throat and began to choke her. “This is all your fault, this is all your fault,” I cried.
I don't know how long that lasted, but I knew that she'd been at least ten minutes dead when I finally let her drop to the floor. Wide, dead eyes stared up at me. I stared into that dying green gaze, realizing that I had just murdered a child.
I fell to my knees and cradled Lilly, weeping.
Someone—that Dark Christ—put His hand on my shoulder.
“Kill me!” I begged.
“There is work to be done.” And in sardonic pity, He said, “O ye of little faith.”
As if this were a lullaby, I fell into a deep, deep sleep.
* * *
After not hearing a word from either Deacon Gregory or me, Monsignor Bradly came into St Joseph's. What he saw directly contradicts what happened. All three-dozen parishioners lay strewn about the room in carnage. Each person lay dead with the blood drained from their throats.
According to Monsignor Bradly, I was sleeping naked on the altar, smiling and snuggling up to a butcher's knife that had apparently come from the rectory's kitchen.
After vomiting, Monsignor called the police. The police came, woke me up, and arrested me.
* * *
Capital punishment had been repealed in Connecticut a year before this incident. My lawyer, a good and honest man named Alan Derry, tried to get me to plead insanity, but I refused. Instead, I openly received a single sentence of life in Derois County Prison; no chance of parole.
May 5th, 2019
It's been five years since that day and though she comes up in my nightmares, I never much thought of Lilly. She was dead after all. I killed her.
That's what I thought anyway. An eighteen-year-old named Lilly visited me yesterday, claiming to be the same one I had murdered. She did not stay long, for she had only one thing to say to me: “He's inside you now. Nihil shall rise. And soon.”
And he is. I can feel Satan within me; can hear his prayers to his god. What happened at St. Joseph's was only a rehearsal for the rise of Nihil and His own Christ.
I am the doorway, I realize. Lilly was right. Bad things happened because I did not believe. Belief is the true weapon against the powers of darkness; a darkness that is not lesser than the light as most are taught, but equal to it. So maybe, just maybe, if I believe that I can bite my tongue off and choke on my own blood, it'll happen.
Lord, forgive me; it's time to test this little faith of mine.
THE END
BLACK MARKET
By Myna Chang
Apennine Peninsula
1347 A.D.
“I prefer fingers, but not too many. An overabundance will drive down the price.” The Traveling Monk flexed his own digits, studying the new gold ring that adorned his thumb. “I don’t suppose you could procure a foreskin or two?”
Alfano’s face reddened and he looked away. “This is a nasty, ungodly business.”
The Monk chuckled. “Surely a gravedigger is not so squeamish. What’s an unwanted flap of skin between two merchants such as ourselves?”
Alfano thumped his fist on the table. “I’m no merchant.” He tipped his mug, hiding his face.
“Ah, well,” the Monk sighed. “‘Tis a shame. The relics of a saint bring good coin at market.” He refilled Alfano’s mug. “And you, with a growing family.”
Alfano glowered, pulling his thin tunic tightly about himself. He looked away from the Monk, but remained at the table.
The Monk suppressed a smile. “I will pay handsomely for your relics, Sir Gravedigger. Four fingers, intact, will keep you in grain throughout the winter.”
“There are no relics here. No saints grace our village. If ever I did want to enter this devilsome bargain, I’d not be able to fulfill my commitment.”
The Monk laughed, choking on his ale. Alfano squirmed in his seat while the Monk wheezed. When he regained his breath, he smiled and shook his head.
“Alfano, do you believe all the churches and abbeys truly own pieces of Holy Saints? Does the finger of Saint Thomas rest in a box in Rome? Did Saint Nicholas abandon his eyeteeth in Bari’s basilica? No, dear Alfano, tell me you’re not so gullible.”
“But—” Alfano sputtered. “What about the miracles?”
“I’ve never seen a miracle, Alfano. Have you?” The Monk leaned across the table. “Where do you think your own village’s miraculous relic came from? The Blessed Toe of Whoever? I’ll tell you: my father sold them the tip of a goat’s tail.”
“No,” Alfano protested. “I’ll not believe such blasphemy.”
“Have it your way,” the Monk said. “But our family wore fine warm robes that whole long winter.”
Alfano glared down at his empty mug.
“No one could blame you,” the Monk continued in a sinuous voice. “Your family will need sustenance in the coming months. The Church will not condemn you for sins they, too, have committed.”
Alfano hesitated, pulse thudding in his ears. The Monk unwrapped a small piece of cheese and Alfano’s stomach rumbled in response. Finally, he nodded his assent.
“Good man,” the Monk said, offering the morsel of food. “I’ll be passing through your fair village again next week. Save the fingers for me. Oh, and please be so kind as to scrape the meat off the bones. They fetch a better price without the gore.”
Alfano grunted. He took the cheese and carefully rewrapped it, then nodded at th
e Monk and stalked away.
As he passed out of sight, the Monk smiled. “You’ll make a fine merchant yet, Sir Gravedigger.”
* * *
The packed dirt at the edge of the charnelyard resisted Alfano’s shovel. A rime of frost laced the remaining leaves on the trees, and chill wind penetrated his threadbare cloak. The coming winter promised to be harsh.
Alfano paused to study the two corpses: young men, travelers who’d been found near the village well. They’d already been stripped of valuables. By the time Alfano had been summoned to bury them, nothing was left but undergarments and torn woolen breeches.
The bodies were bloated, covered in swollen lumps that wept pus and black fluid. Though it was impossible to be certain what the men had looked like in life, Alfano estimated they had been dead no longer than a day.
Another frigid gust whisked his cloak from his shoulders. He winced, thinking of his wife and baby girl huddled by the hearth in their tiny hut. The little one had her mother’s eyes, big and brown, with long lashes. When she giggled, he couldn’t help but laugh along with her. She would need food and warm swaddling to survive until her next birthday. He scowled.
The dead travelers would not miss their fingers.
Unaccustomed to violating the bodies in his care, Alfano mangled the first man’s hand. The edge of the shovel glanced off the bones, leaving an unrecognizable mess. The other hand suffered a similar fate. When he began work on the second man, Alfano was able to remove three intact fingers before damaging the others, though one blackened fingernail sloughed off.
He realized it might be easier to remove the entire hand, so he hacked away at the last wrist until it was free. Dark juices oozed from the stump, and the flesh of the hand split wide, discharging a drizzle of sweet-smelling pus. He dropped the hand on the ground, squeezed his eyes shut, and breathed in crisp autumn air until the urge to vomit had passed.
Turning back to the corpses, he hesitated, unwilling to do more. His teeth chattered in the cold. He huffed out a breath and bent to the task, cutting away the remaining clothing. Inside one of the pockets, he found a soft, yellow handkerchief. Surprised the looters had missed it, he tucked the luxurious fabric into his own pocket.
Eyes averted, he rolled the naked corpses into the grave. The Monk’s request for foreskins came back to him. He spat. Fingers would have to be enough. He made the sign of the cross and whispered a prayer, then pushed the dislodged clods of soil over the bodies.
The severed pieces continued to seep, and they emitted a foul odor. He wrapped them in the travelers’ clothes. The stained scraps of cloth, recompense for his day’s work, would do little to keep his baby girl warm. Alfano shook his head. The Monk’s bargain, loathsome as it was, would ensure his family had provisions to last the winter.
He adjusted his cloak and hurried home.
* * *
The Traveling Monk sniffed. No sound came from the ramshackle hut, but a fetid stench wafted in the air. He yelled for the gravedigger. No one responded.
He sighed and nudged the door aside. A putrid miasma poured out. His eyes watered and he gagged. “Alfano, are you here?”
“Leave me, you hound.”
The Monk’s eyes adjusted to the dark interior. He pressed his fingers over his nose to block the stink. “What has happened here?”
“Punishment. For my sins. For your cursed relics.”
A woman’s body lay on the ground in front of the cold hearth. At least, the Monk judged it to be a woman by the clothing that adorned her body. The face was puffy beyond recognition. Lumps as large as hen’s eggs distorted her neck, the surrounding skin blackened and pulpy. Blood and dark liquid had dried in trails over the arms and legs. A tiny form, swaddled in a yellow cloth, had been placed next to her. It too ran with dark ichors.
The Monk scanned the rest of the hut. “And you, Alfano? Are you ill?”
Alfano laughed, wild and demented. “No, Merchant Monk, I am not sick. I fear I have a long life ahead of me.” Laughter devolved into a low moan as he gazed at the still forms of his wife and baby daughter. “I’ve lost everything.”
The Monk wrinkled his nose. “I’m sorry this has happened.” He paused, then continued, “You mentioned the bones?”
Alfano leaped to his feet. A raw, ragged scream tore from his throat. He grabbed the Monk by his shoulders and shoved him out the door. “Take the devil-damned things and go!” He pointed to a bundle that lay next to his shovel, then staggered back inside the hut.
The Monk looked at the bundle and groaned. It was bulky. “Ah, Alfano, I asked you to strip the meat away.” He dropped a coin on the ground near the shovel and secured the items in his bag.
* * *
Gold jingled in the Monk’s pocket. He patted it and smirked. He’d sold Saint Alfano’s martyred finger bones to three different churches in the last week. The intact hand had gone to the basilica near the port. It alone brought enough money to last a lifetime. He caressed the coins, running his fingers around the edges and rubbing little circles on each one with his thumb.
Wealthy pilgrims already filled the basilica’s coffers, hoping to buy blessings. They stood in line, even now, waiting to touch the holy relics, kiss the divine bones as they prayed for miracles. It wouldn’t be long before the priests demanded a new attraction to fill their shrine. And if Alfano refused to bargain? Well, there were other gravediggers in the countryside. The Monk smiled.
A new wineskin rested on his side table. He reached for it, but his arm complained, stiff and unwilling to do its job. An unexpected shiver rattled him. He hobbled to the padded chair by his fireplace. The effort taxed him, leaving him short of breath and sweating, despite the chill. He rubbed his damp neck, but instead of perspiration, his hand came away slicked black.
THE END
THE PRIEST’S TALE
By Carlton Herzog
Part I
This shit hole is called ‘Earth’ by its inhabiting turds. How these idiots survived long enough to build cities is the great galactic imponderable. Blessed are the idiots for they have inherited the earth. I suppose if somebody ever writes a galactic dictionary, a picture of Homo sapiens will be next to the universal word for stupid.
I admit that some of my bile comes from not wanting this species reassignment. Who in their right minds would? I have been ordered to share a body with some chattering, wobbly faced, ecclesiastical old coot who now thinks he’s possessed by a devil. I waste a lot of energy keeping that nut job closeted in the sunken place. The body itself is a complete piece of crap: arthritis, glaucoma, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high sugar, and he’s blind as a bat without his coke bottle glasses.
And there’s that smell. I never had to deal with this stuff because, before now, I never had a nose. And this guy’s nose is like a parrot’s beak, only runnier and hairier. It picks up everything, especially his own brand of stink: eau de old geezer, which is somewhere between dirty diapers and liniment. The trips to the toilet are the worst. I’m surprised he’s never hanged himself afterwards or just passed out from the smell: his stink that can take the chrome off a trailer hitch.
Clearly, somebody or something has a wicked sense of humor. How else do you explain that wrinkled garden hose between his legs and that sack of marbles swinging below it? How many years of natural selection did it take to produce that floppy mess?
I didn’t volunteer for spy duty. I was minding my own business floating in a tranquil sea along with a million or so other Cnidarians when the call came. Mind you, there was no advance warning. Just get your tentacles in order because we’re projecting your mind to a world we need to evaluate.
And so, I did, and the next thing I knew they had yanked me out of my comfort zone and sent my consciousness hurtling across the solar system straight into the body of Father Joe, closet pedophile and not so closet drunk.
He went bat-shit crazy when he felt me crawling around his noodle. He ran around all wild-eyed, flailing his arms and laughing uncon
trollably, the whole-time telling Satan, whoever that is, to get behind him.
The best part was that the merger took place during Holy Communion. Human faces are so expressive, especially when something weird is happening. Priceless!
They kept asking me, “Are you okay?” I could hear Father Joe yelling from inside our mutual head, “The Devil just jumped inside my head and will not leave—does that sound okay to you?” I told him, “They can only hear me, pal, because I’ve disconnected you. So, sit back and enjoy the ride. This buddy movie will be over soon enough. Otherwise, I will go bananas to such an extent they will lock you up in the nuthouse and throw away the key.” After that, he was as quiet as a church-mouse.
They say confession is good for the soul. I can’t speak to that. What I can say is that it gives a priest considerable power over other people, so much you can get them to do some outrageous things. Before I used that power to get one person to murder another, I had some fun with it: I talked a dentist into eating a tire and a lawyer into biting a police horse. I convinced a bodega owner that his bulldog’s litter of puppies could do a better job running the business than he. I talked a mute into stabbing a mime, a new mother into breastfeeding a rat, and a councilman into cooking a hot pocket on the third rail of the G-Train. Say three Hail Marys and go with God, stupid.
I can’t speak to the quality of all the world’s various religions, but since I’m masquerading as a Catholic priest, I have a few thoughts on the matter. What I find amusing is Christians put a lot of stock in a book they haven’t read. If they did, they would know that their sky god was a genocidal maniac who ordered mass executions of men, women children and even animals who didn’t bow down to him. And for an author who is all-knowing, it seems a bit odd there’s no mention of the germ theory of disease, the absolute wrongness of slavery, or an alternative to redemption other than torturing and murdering his own son.
Blood and Blasphemy Page 4
