However, as is most often the case with cult leaders, there is a double standard. Victor had become enamoured with a young member of his flock. Elizabeth. As part of his façade before his members, Victor professed a celibate existence. He constantly preached and had them believe that celibacy was necessary for him to truly lead the group without the distractions of the worldly flesh. What was not known, however, was that Victor often picked out newly indoctrinated young women of the cult, to enjoy sexual relationships with in secret. He had them so brainwashed as to his absolute knowledge and power that none ever made known this situation.
Victor went through a series of these girls over the years until he met Elizabeth. Even he could not fully explain it, but this time the union was different. Though they would never disclose their secret union, Victor and Elizabeth became long time lovers. She being convinced that she was doing God’s work for Victor by posing as his most intimate confidant and partner. To their great dismay, Elizabeth found out that she had fallen pregnant and came to Victor with the news.
“You are sure?” Victor asked as Elizabeth first broke the news.
“I am. What shall we do?”
Victor sat back and pondered this question, knowing that this could easily undo the whole organization.
“Do you believe deeply in the teachings of The Righteous Warriors?”
“I do. You know I do.”
“Do you trust me in all my decisions in our fight against immorality and depravity of the times?”
“Of course, Victor.”
“Without question, no matter what?”
“Of course, Victor.”
In yet another masterful exhibit of deception and control over his followers, Victor had Elizabeth join him in “prayer” for a solution. He put on quite a show for her as he appeared to be truly in communication with God for guidance and an answer to the problem. As he finished, he turned to her and smiled and took her hands in his.
“The Lord has spoken to me, Elizabeth. He has forgiven us for our error and has told me how to proceed. He has said that our work is much too important to be derailed by this misstep. If the actual truth was to come out, it would ruin the movement and cast you into eternal shame as a sinner. He has told me what to do.”
“Yes, Victor?”
“I will select a member of the flock to be sacrificed for this sin. We are to tell the followers that he raped you and that God came to me in a dream, telling me that I must sacrifice the man according to our laws. Once the child is born, we must rid our house of it as its presence would just be a reminder of your suffering and victimization at the hands of a weak follower. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Victor. I understand.”
“I will take care of everything, Elizabeth. Then I will explain the situation to the group at our prayer meeting on Friday. God has spoken, Elizabeth. We are but his messengers.”
Elizabeth nodded and hugged Victor before leaving him alone once again. As the door closed, Victor sighed in relief, still amazed at the level of control he had over these weak-minded people, and how he successfully manipulated them according to his will. The plan was carried out as Victor had described to Elizabeth, and 7 months later they left the baby outside an orphanage with only Victor’s old necklace bearing a simple silver cross wrapped around the infant’s leg. The Righteous Warriors had agreed with Victor’s urging, that the child was an abomination and that leaving it to its fate in the orphanage would be in everyone’s best interests.
The child was taken in without question and, due to her angelic and beatific face, she was quickly placed in foster care and nothing more was thought of it by anyone. However, as time went on, the practice of sacrificing cult members found guilty of having children out of wedlock became too visible and disturbing to be ignored any longer within Houndsville. Members of the Maura Community Church finally rose up as an entity and broke into the church one night while they knew the cult members would be holding their prayer meeting. They had tried to work through the authorities to resolve the problem, but when no help was forthcoming, they took matters into their own hands.
As Houndsville was small and isolated, this action, though illegal within itself, was never found out or questioned. The congregation members methodically shot each cult member in turn, once it became apparent that they had no remorse for their actions and would always remain dedicated to both their beliefs and their leader, Victor. The sacrificed members of the cult were discovered in the basement of the church in a closed-off room that had not been used in decades. The congregation members finally convinced the authorities to look more closely into this matter, reporting that a huge disturbance had been heard one night.
The local and state police arrived to find evidence of the massacre in the church meeting room as well as the basement area, and concluded that the cult had been responsible for this mass murder and suicide. Once all the dead bodies were removed and the dust had finally settled after the investigation, the church elders met to decide how to move ahead with their church. It was a painful decision, based on the long history of the church, but it was unanimous that the church had been too defiled for it to continue in its current location. The structure that had been home to the Maura Community Church for over 120 years was razed, and the congregation found a new location to continue their worshipping, where the memory and psychic pall of the cult would be far removed.
The land lay dormant and undisturbed for several decades. Everyone in town was well acquainted with what had happened there, with the story passed along from parents to children as time went along. One day, however, a developer up in northern Virginia came upon this lovely piece of land. It was level and surrounded by a natural cove of leafy green trees. Being from far away, he had no knowledge of the history of the parcel of land. H only knew was a FOR SALE sign stood on the vacant land, and he recognized a bargain when he saw one. The local estate agent in town was more than happy to unload the lot, as she was sure it would otherwise remain vacant forever.
The developer erected a small but pretty 2-bedroom house on the site where the desecrated church had once stood. The building progress, delayed often by inexplicable delays, curious accidents and mysterious sights that caused labourers to flee the site, was finally completed in December of 1990 and was put up for lease by the developer himself.
Conception Perception
15th December, 1990, Houndsville, Virginia
Amberly Simmons had spent her whole life in foster care. She was a delightful and beautiful young woman, and had been much the same throughout her growing up. A number of opportunities had presented over the years for her to be adopted by willing families, but each prospective parent had ultimately backed out. No reasons were ever forthcoming, other than that they had just changed their minds. After many rounds of this, Amberly’s foster parents decided that it was becoming too much of an emotional detriment to her life, and they simply ceased all dealings with adoption agencies.
Amberly, now 20 years old, was still at a loose end, with little idea of what she would like to do with her life. She finished up high school and her foster parents, knowing what a tumultuous life she had led, agreed to let her stay on with them as she pondered her future. She had not been a poor student but, like many of her peers, she was unfocused and directionless as she approached adulthood. She could have, she supposed, regarded a four-year college or even a community college to get a better idea of what to pursue, but there was simply no money for it.
Her foster parents, while not poor, were certainly not in the position to help her out with this. In any case, they had always assumed she would have been adopted as a young girl and they had just not set anything aside for her future. While she was finishing high school, her foster mother had been stricken with cancer and it had taken all the savings available, and then some, to address her treatment. Amberly was not angry or even disappointed at this situation. The idea of college just did not appeal to her at all, anyway. She just could not see the point if s
he had no idea what she wanted to do.
Amberly took on a number of jobs in the town once out of school, in an effort to help her foster parents, who she could see were beginning to struggle financially. There had been the clerk job at the grocery store, the checkout position at the department store, the ice cream shop, even flipping burgers at the fast food joint, and on and on. Amberly just could not find her niche and she got bored easily. She felt stuck. She had no interest in further education, but at the same time could not stick with anything that was available in town to a high school graduate.
On one of her days off, Amberly awoke feeling extremely nauseous and dashed to the bathroom just in time. She flushed the toilet as she recovered her breath, and washed her face with cold water. As she looked into the mirror, this pale and pasty face stared back at her, nearly unrecognizable as she considered her reflection. She had not been feeling quite right for a few weeks, but she just assumed it to be some passing flu bug or some such thing and was sure it would pass. She had also been feeling dizzy and not much like eating these days, and assumed that the two might be related. As she stared and stared a sudden flash of fear ran through her system.
Though she had always had an irregular menstrual cycle, the unthinkable came to her slowly. Could she possibly be pregnant? She sat heavily on the lid of the toilet and put her head in her hands. She had always been careful, but certainly she was well aware not all methods were fool-proof. Probably just letting my imagination run wild, she thought. Amberly took a deep breath and let her emotions subside. She showered and dressed and decided to run by the drug store to pick up a home pregnancy test kit, just to show herself that she was letting her thoughts get the better of her. Besides, she and Tommy had just done it that one time. Without a word to anyone, Amberly walked the few blocks to Greentree Drug Store and chose one of the kits she had passed on the shelf many times.
She hid the bag under her coat and hurried home, eager to get the result that would placate her anxious mind. She followed the instructions, waited the required 3 minutes, though this had to have been the longest 3 minutes of her life. She took a deep breath and picked up the test module. There it was. A giant blue-tinted “+” image in the display window. She closed her eyes and prayed. She looked again, but sure enough, there it was. She ran the 2nd test module in the kit just to make sure, but the result was the same. Amberly stuffed the used modules and all the packaging material into the shopping bag and left the house again.
She dumped the used kit into a dumpster many blocks from her house, and spent the next while just wandering aimlessly. What was she going to do? She supposed that Tommy needed to know. She hardly knew the boy, though. She had let her better judgement lapse the night they had gone into the park after dark to have a few beers. She had known what she was doing, though. It was not like she had been taken advantage of. She should tell Tommy. But then what? They were both just high school graduates with no direction. And her foster parents. Oh, shit. She had forgotten about them. What would she tell them? She was well aware of their strict religious backgrounds, even though she had never adhered to it. She could only imagine what their reaction would be.
First thing’s first. She would tell Tommy first—she figured it was only fair. Then get a real test from a doctor. She knew these home tests were not always correct. She called Tommy and asked him to meet her at the little burger joint where they had met when they were both working there. He was puzzled by her cryptic call, but agreed to come right away. She sat with him and explained it all, and that she was seeing a doctor that afternoon to confirm everything. He held her hands and then hugged her, telling her that everything would be alright. For the first time since she had run the tests, Amberly was feeling a little bit better.
She left the doctor’s office with confirmation of the home test. Yep. Pregnant. About 6 weeks along. She was going to call Tommy with the news, but thought a face-to-face conversation was better, all things considered. She ran by the small place that he was sharing with three other guys, to give him the news. She arrived at the apartment to have one of Tommy’s roommates, Michael answer the door.
“Hey, Amberly. What’s up?”
“Tommy around?”
“Sorry. He came home this morning after meeting with you, said there was some big family emergency out with his folks in Indiana. Grabbed all his stuff and split. Was in a real hurry, too, because he ran out without his cell phone.”
“Just like that?”
“Yeah. He said you knew.”
Amberly felt her heart sink and she thought she might faint as she grabbed the handrail for support.
“You OK?”
Michael reached out to catch her by the arm as he saw her falter.
“Yeah. Sure. Now I remember. Thanks anyway, Michael.”
She plodded slowly down the steps and began the long trek back home. Indiana. So that was that. She knew for sure that Tommy was not from Indiana. In fact, she was pretty sure he had never even been to Indiana in his life. She had told him the bad news that she was pregnant and had beat feet. She had no idea where he had gone and how to get in touch with him. She did not have the strength or the desire to even try and track him down. She was on her own now. As she approached her own house, she was dreading the scene that was sure to unfold later when her foster parents returned from work.
She went to her room and buried her face in her hands and cried herself to sleep. She had alternate visions of being on the street with nowhere to go and having her foster parents understand that she had simply made a mistake and agreeing to care for her and her unborn child. She prayed with all her might for the latter, despite her lack of religious beliefs. It was right, she thought to herself, what she had often heard regarding God and religion: there are no atheists in foxholes. She did not have to wait too long for the verdict. Her foster parents returned soon after she had come home, and it was as hideous a reception and reaction as she could have ever dreamed up in her own mind.
Thirty Days
She could see the anger bubbling just under the surface with her foster father, but a calming touch from her Mom on his arm seemed to reign him in. The extreme disappointment in her face, though, was almost as painful to Amberly as the shouting and raging that might have manifested from her father under other circumstances. Neither parent had ever been physically abusive toward her—thankfully. She knew of other kids from her school who had fallen into the foster care program, who had not been so lucky. Then there were several her friends who bore the marks of such abuse from their biological parents. Her parents both had strict and unwavering religious beliefs that she supposed held them back. Certainly, there had been times in her life where she had given them just cause to ignore that code of behaviour toward her.
They had never been able to fully convert her to their way of thinking and living through the church, though Amberly was sure she had convinced them otherwise. Just to keep her life on an even keel, she had gone along with their teachings and all the events at the church. But it had never been a genuine part of her life. She was not quite sure why. It had just never felt right deep in her heart. Sometimes, though, like now, the look in her mother’s eyes. It cut her as deep as an actual physical blow. Amberly had never really caused any major behavioural issues with them, she had just never been the pious child she was sure they had wanted her to be. But this time? Amberly was sure she had crossed a line that was unacceptable to them both.
“You are sure, Amberly?” her father asked as he got his temper under control.
“Yes, sir, I am. I did a couple of those home pregnancy kit tests and had Dr Adams run a test for me at the free clinic.”
“I see.”
“What about the father? Does he know?”
“He does.”
“And?”
“He is gone.”
Amberly tried as hard as she could to hold it together, but the thought of Tommy having fled town as soon as he had found out, caused fresh tears to fall from her eyes. Sh
e refused to sob and whimper in front of them, but she could not stop the tears. She had so foolishly believed him when he had said everything would all be alright.
“What do you mean gone? Who is the boy?”
“I told him as soon as I found out, but he is nowhere to be found. His roommate says he went back to where he came from before moving here.”
She could see her father grinding his teeth as his jaw clenched and unclenched, while her mother hung her head and just shook it back and forth slowly in a sad and pitiful manner.
“I said: Who. Is. The boy!”
Amberly was caught by surprise as her father’s anger was no longer contained, and his raised voice startled her. She looked to her mother for help but there was no more support forthcoming.
“It is unimportant. He has no interest in being a father, apparently.”
“So, what do you plan on doing?”
Amberly looked up at him, her vision blurred from her tears, and waited for her quivering lips to calm before speaking.
“I was hoping…well…. thought maybe….”
“An abortion?”
The tone of her father’s voice rattled the walls of the little house where they lived.
“I hope you are not going to suggest an abortion, young lady?”
“No sir, I was not.”
Amberly was too well acquainted with her parents’ beliefs through their church to ever consider this option…. not even for a few seconds. Anyway…. this was not something she believed in either.
“I was thinking……”
“What? Just keep living here? Have us help you raise this bastard child?”
At this point in the conversation, Amberly looked over to see her mother flee the room, crying as she ran. She had been pretty sure what the reaction from her father was going to be, but until just this moment, she had been holding out hope that her mother might be a refuge. It would seem not to be so.
Haunted House Tales Page 11
