A massive, carved oak pocket door slid open with an oil-thirsting squeak and Malcolm Thorndike stepped into the room. Motoshi immediately followed, wheeling a serving cart upon which rested a small, ornate tray of sterling silver and an ancient alabaster jar, which was sealed with a wooden plug covered in decaying black wax.
Malcolm took a quick gaze around the room. Satisfied to find all his guests present, he flashed a smile of rehearsed cordiality and greeted them. “Welcome! Welcome to my humble abode. I’m delighted that you’ve all chosen to accept my invitation!” He quickly turned and thanked his servant. “That will be all for now, Motoshi. I’ll summon you when we’re ready.”
The Japanese houseboy bowed and departed the room.
No sooner had the squeaking pocket door slid shut, Malcolm popped the stopper from the alabaster jar and tilted it on its side until a shiny black log of petrified poop slid out of the ancient vessel and onto the ornate tray. A silvery-white aura faintly shimmered around the turd.
“Behold!” he trumpeted like an overacting thespian. “This is my latest acquisition! The crown jewel of my collection!”
Gunther Vogel wrinkled his bulbous nose in disgust and his upper lip curled upward to reveal a row of tobacco-stained teeth. “I did not travel all the way to the United States from Germany to look at a turd on a silver platter!” he remarked, his voice smoldering. “I came because I was told you had uncovered the secret of immortality!”
“An elixir that renders death obsolete, I believe,” Jules Christos added.
R.J. Solomon cleared his throat. “A ten million dollar elixir to be exact. That’s what we’ve all come here for.” He turned to Malcolm. “Time is money, Thorndike, so let us get down to the business at hand. I have a plane to catch at ten.”
“I wholeheartedly agree,” said the televangelist, his high-pitched voice tinged with a southern accent. “Enough of this talk about turds.”
“Ah, but the turd you see before you on this silver platter is no ordinary turd,” the collector replied with a gleam in his eyes. “That I can assure you!” He gazed down lovingly at the excrement. “This is a turd so special, so venerated, so sacred, that it was kept under lock and key at the Vatican for centuries.” Malcolm paused, grinned from ear to ear, and then continued. “Friends and colleagues, feast your soon-to-be-immortal eyes upon the holy shit of none other than the Son of God himself!”
A mixture of startled gasps and chortles filled the parlor.
“After Jesus died on the cross for our sins, he, to put it bluntly, shit himself—something a lot of dead people do as the muscles in their body relax. Mary Magdalene, who attended the crucifixion, gathered up the crap of Christ after the Roman guards had departed Golgotha and stored it in this alabaster jar.”
Lightning illuminated the window and another rumble of thunder sounded as the guests exchanged hushed whispers among themselves.
“My friends,” Malcolm continued as the thunder and whispers died away, “I have promised each and every one of you everlasting life, and everlasting life is what you will have… tonight! I have gone to great lengths and expense to acquire this divine stool, for this is the stool of immortality! According to a lost scripture tucked away in the vaults of the Vatican, a life eternal—not in heaven, but right here on earth—is guaranteed to all who partake of the Christ turd!”
“This is blasphemy!” Skyler Raines declared, clutching the diamond-encrusted gold cross he wore around his neck. “But tell me more.”
“Hold on a minute. Are you telling us we have to eat it?” Jules Christos asked, squinting his eyes in apparent puzzlement. His voice clearly rang with anxiety, which he seemed to make no effort to conceal.
Malcolm grinned, amused by the expression of alarm raging on the shipping magnate’s face, and nodded his head. “Relax, Jules, old boy. A turd of antiquity possesses neither an unpleasant odor, nor taste.”
“I’m not going to inquire as to how you’ve come to know that,” the Greek man stated. “I will simply take your word for it.”
Malcolm chuckled at his guest’s remark and then explained to everyone, “Just one pinch of powdered Christ turd added to a goblet of wine will make you immune from the clutches of death. Or, if you prefer, you can snort a line of it like nose candy. The choice is up to you.”
Giselle sensuously drew on her cigarette and exhaled the smoke ever so slowly before breaking her silence. Her lips, which matched the color of the Chateau Margaux in her crystal wine glass, parted, and in an impassive voice laden with a French accent, she inquired of her host, “Malcolm, darling, these things you tell us are, how do you say,” she paused to find the right word in English, “extraordinary! But how can we be sure that the legend of this holy relic is rooted in fact, or even that it’s safe for us to ingest it? After all, it doesn’t appear that anyone has ever put it to the test.”
Before Malcolm could string together the words to form a reply, the voice of an intruder bellowed from the pocket door that had slid open when no one was watching. It was a gruff-sounding voice, allocating dread and blazing with fury. It was a voice clad with familiarity.
“Everybody put your hands in the air! Now!” the intruder growled, his gaze darting around the room, his trigger finger ready to dispense death. “I want to see those goddamn hands!”
Without the necessity of turning around to look, Malcolm instantly knew the intruder’s identity: It was a man by the name of John Butler—a master jewel thief to whom he had paid what one would call “a small fortune” for services rendered… services that included stealing the Christ turd from the Vatican and the killing of several Swiss Guards in the process. Malcolm had no delusions about the thief’s motives. He knew he had come to rob him of the holy shit.
Giselle threw her head back in a defiant gesture, and the diamonds in her gold earrings caught the light of the massive, red chandelier above. “You have your nerve!” she blasted Butler, her painted lips curled in an insolent sneer. “Just what is the meaning of this vulgarité?”
“Shut your trap, lady, and get your hands up in the air like I told you!” the gunman shot back, the level of anger rising in his voice. He waved his gun recklessly in front of the woman’s high-cheekboned face. “Do it, if you know what’s good for you.”
Giselle reluctantly did as ordered, all the while grumbling something in French.
Appeased by the woman’s compliance, Butler turned his eyes to the other guests, whose faces reflected varying degrees of shock and dismay. Pointing his gun at random targets, he barked out more instructions. “Don’t anybody try to be hero. I won’t hesitate to blow a hole through your head if you so much as move a finger.” His right eye began to twitch. “Just do as you’re told, and nobody gets hurt. Got it?”
Heads nervously nodded in unison.
“Hello Butler.” Malcolm said, flatly, his voice devoid of its usual good cheer. “So, we meet again, as they say in the movies.”
“Hello shit collector,” Butler replied, aiming his gun at Malcolm’s chest.
“What do you want?” Malcolm inquired. “More money?”
Butler smiled, contemptuously. “You’re a screwball, but you’re not a stupid man, Thorndike. You know exactly what I want, and you know I won’t hesitate to kill you and everyone else in this house to get it. Now, hand over that Christ turd!”
Malcolm placed his hand protectively over the stool on the silver tray. “For what possible reason could you want my Christ turd?”
“The Vatican hired me, of all people, to retrieve their precious turd. They had no idea I was the one who stole it in the first place!” A laugh escaped Butler’s mouth. “They’re paying me almost as much as you paid me to steal it. But when I found out its true value and why they wanted it back so desperately…”
“You decided it would be more advantageous for you to double-cross them,” Malcolm said, finishing Butler’s sentence.
“You’re nothing but a blasphemer!” shouted the televangelist. His cheeks were flushed
with rage and a pulsating, blue vein that traveled from the edge of his left eyebrow to his hairline made itself prominent. “There’s a special place in hell for sinners like you!”
“Not if I become immortal,” Butler snapped back.
“Thou shalt not steal!” Raines blurted out. His words did little but to arouse a look of amusement from the thief’s face. “God shall judge and punish accordingly those who willfully break any of his Ten Commandments! You need to repent, my son. Let me save you.”
Outraged by the T.V. preacher’s blatant hypocrisy, Butler flew into a rage. “Shut up, you sanctimonious sleazeball! If God is going to give anyone a one-way ticket to hell, it’ll be con artists like you who fill the heads of your weak-minded followers with lies and false hopes so you can milk their bank accounts in the name of religion!” He then pivoted and waved his gun before the trembling host. “The turd, Mister Thorndike… “
Unbeknown to John Butler, Motoshi had stealthily crept up behind him during his tirade, a heavy cast iron wok clenched tightly in his hands. Being the ever-loyal servant that he was, he raised the bowl-shaped frying pan above his head and then struck it against the back of Butler’s head with all his might. The blow produced a loud cracking sound. Butler’s eyes rolled up into his head, becoming ghost-white orbs. His body lurched forward in response to the impact, and he involuntarily squeezed the trigger of his gun. A shot rang out and a bullet darted across the room, ripping open a ragged gash in the throat of the Reverend Skyler Raines, before shattering one of the glass domes and imbedding itself in the oak paneling behind him.
Dropping her wine glass, Giselle erupted with a scream as Butler collapsed onto the floor before her feet, and the horrified preacher frantically clawed at his blood-spurting throat. From his bleeding mouth came a sickening gurgling sound in place of words. Raines began to stagger as though intoxicated and then fell forward into the antique Chippendale desk, knocking over the fossilized pterodactyl dropping. His legs gave out from underneath him and he sank to the floor, still clawing and gurgling.
Stricken with panic, Malcolm’s guests leapt from their seats and bolted in the direction of the open pocket door. But, before they could escape from the feces-filled room and its metallic stench of blood, Malcolm blocked the exit, waving the holy shit in the air.
“My friends, please, you have no reason to panic!” he shouted, his eyes wild as the storm raging outside the mansion. “I implore you all to return to your seats! There’s no need for anyone to leave. I have this situation well under control, as each and every one of you will soon bear witness to!”
The eyes of his rattled guests followed him as he calmly made his way over to the profusely bleeding televangelist and then grew wide with shock when he proceeded to insert the turd into the bullet hole in the man’s throat. Within a matter of seconds, there emanated a loud sizzling sound from the wound, not unlike the hissing of bacon in a hot frying pan. He gently withdrew the turd from the wound and the river of blood that had turned Raine’s white shirt the same color as the red leather interior of his brand new Rolls Royce Wraith ceased to flow. The room resonated with gasps of disbelief as all traces of red spillage mysteriously vanished and the ragged gash just as mysteriously mended itself. Malcolm then helped Raines to his feet.
The stunned televangelist brought his ring-adorned hand up to his throat and placed it over the spot where the bullet hole had been just moments ago. He then checked his hand for blood. There was none. Finding the wound completely healed and his neck as good as new, a look of astonishment spread over his face like an oil lick.
“It’s a miracle! I’ve been healed!” he marveled. “Praise be to the divine turd of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!”
Malcolm smiled at him and then turned to face the others. “Behold the miraculous powers of the Christ turd!” he exclaimed, holding the hallowed fecal matter high in the air for each of his astonished guests to feast their eyes upon.
The words that flowed from his lips ignited a blaze of cheers and applause from everyone in the room, with the exception, of course, being John Butler, who lay facedown on the floor, the graying hair at the back of his bashed-in head matted with dark and foul-smelling blood that was now congealing and mixed with bits of his shattered skull.
“If any of you had entertained even the slightest doubt about its life-giving power,” he continued, “the spectacle you all just witnessed, here in this very room, with your very own eyes, should be more than enough to lay those doubts to rest.”
The hand-clapping horde rose, almost in unison, from their seats, bestowing upon their host a standing ovation. Like an actor on a stage, Malcolm took a bow before his adoring audience.
“Who’s ready for eternal life?” he asked, coyly.
The six immortality-craving guests immediately responded to his question by extracting bundles of cold, hard cash from purse and pockets and eagerly depositing them into his open hands, which he had cupped to receive them.
After stuffing his pockets to their brims with the money, he returned the turd to its alabaster jar and replaced the wooden plug. He then motioned for Motoshi with his hand and told him to take the turd to the kitchen and “prepare it,” following to a tee the detailed instructions he had written down for him. However, before he could pass the jar to the young, obedient houseboy, he suddenly experienced the powerful grip of a hand around the ankle of his right leg, stopping him dead in his tracks. He instinctively looked down and saw that the hand belonged to Butler, who was, to his surprise, still alive. He attempted to kick his captured leg free, but was unable to do so. And then the sensation of sharp teeth sinking themselves deep into the tender flesh of his right calf muscle burned him to the core with excruciating pain. He lost his balance and fell to the blood-slicked floor, alongside John Butler, howling in agony.
The French woman let out another scream, springing from her seat and darting to the other side of the room in a fruitless attempt to find a spot where she might feel safer.
The unrelenting pain was bringing tears to Malcolm’s eyes. He smashed the alabaster jar against Butler’s forehead, again and again, until the Christ turd flew from the centuries-old vessel and landed on the floor. But still his assailant refused to release him from the death grip of his fingers and teeth, which now were stained red with Malcolm’s still-warm blood. Fighting against his pain, he wrapped his fingers around the rock-hard turd, and with one mighty blow, plunged it into Butler’s right eye, bloodying the gelatinous orb and bringing forth the spew of its milky-white contents like a geyser erupting into the air.
“If thine right eye offends thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee, so sayeth the Gospel of Matthew!” shouted the wild-eyed televangelist like a cheerleader at a sporting event. “For it is profitable for thee that one of my members should perish, and not that my whole body should be cast into hell!”
Butler shrieked, releasing his teeth from Malcolm’s blood-drenched leg. In turn, Malcolm dislodged the turd from Butler’s annihilated eyeball. Small, sticky blobs of stomach-churning matter clung to the fecal matter like chunks of red Jell-o. Butler covered what was left of his right eye with his hand, as if the action could bring relief of the savage pain and somehow restore his mashed eyeball to its former state.
Malcolm’s mind was now racing with adrenaline-fueled madness. He jammed the turd into Butler’s other eye and twisted it back and forth until the decimated orb spilled its gooey contents like a punctured, cream-filled, white-chocolate Easter egg. A sudden awareness that the wailing and thrashing of the man had stopped washed over him and his mania all at once subsided. He was sure that Butler was dead; comforted by the realization that a turd possessing the power to bring life could also bring death.
He withdrew the gore-covered turd and stumbled to return to his feet, despite the gnawing pain in his leg. He wasn’t worried about his blood loss or risk of infection. He was confident that, after his partaking of the Christ turd, his physical wounds would immediately depart as the bl
essing of eternal life flowed through him. Looking down at John Butler, he was astonished, yet strangely satisfied, to observe the man’s gore-filled eye sockets squirming with hundreds, if not thousands, of fat, little maggots. The legless fly larvae ate and ate, rapidly multiplying in their numbers, and feasted upon the eyeless corpse until a dark crimson puddle was all that was left of it. The puddle and the maggots slowly disappeared from sight until not a single trace of John Butler remained.
“Another miracle!” Malcolm exclaimed, his heart returning to a normal pace.
The preacher brought his palms together in prayer and raised his eyes to the ceiling. “We thank Thee, O Lord, for the gift of Thine divine defecation. Amen!”
A choir of “Amen” came from the others in the room.
Motoshi wrinkled his nose, unable to conceal his disgust, as he took the turd from his employer, placed it upon the ornate silver tray, and with it in hand, disappeared through the pocket door. Nearly half an hour passed before he returned to the parlor with the silver tray. Upon it now sat a decanter of expensive red wine, seven sterling silver goblets, and an eighteenth-century snuffbox, decorated with the Coat of Arms of the Thorndike family and filled with the pulverized remains of the coveted Christ turd. He emptied the powder from the snuffbox into the decanter and swished it around a few times, then poured some into each of the seven goblets.
One by one, Thorndike’s guests reservedly took a goblet from the tray and stared, in silence, at the wine within its metallic confines. It was clear to Malcolm that they were all waiting for him to drink his portion first. He was unsure if it was due to politeness or cowardice, but nevertheless, he raised his goblet, offered up a toast to everlasting life, and then downed the wine. He licked the fragrant liquid that moistened his lips and smiled.
His guests followed his suit, each anxious to feel the blessing of immortality flow through their systems. With death no longer an encumbrance, they would be free to amass even greater wealth, even rule the world if they so desired. Nothing and nobody could ever stand in their ways again. They would be indestructible. Their collective euphoria overpowered any apprehension that dwelled within their hearts.
Blood and Blasphemy Page 34
