The Last Church

by Richard Lee

  Samantha regained her feet and back kicked Telly. The kick knocked him sideways but he stayed on his feet, wobbled against a pew.

  Peter knelt down to his computer. The screen was smashed. A blue liquid flowed inside it. Enraged, Peter lifted it off the floor and threw it with all his might at the altar, hoping to hit the girl, but she ducked out of the way. The screen snapped off the base and slid to the front pew, next to the basin of holy water.

  The old man was rushing to the girl. Peter wanted to stop him, but he couldn’t use the dagger, not around that little bitch. Because she knew.

  The chanting from outside stomped into the church. Peter spun and saw a group of people standing at the entrance.

  Peter remembered.

  The blood of the innocent.

  He flicked the dagger from hilt to blade in his palm and threw it at the boy. It embedded in the side of the kid’s head...

  “NO!” Ami clutched Dennis to her chest...

  Samantha front kicked Telly in the solar plexus...

  “The blood spilled on holy ground,” Peter said, moving forward.

  Samantha grabbed Telly’s head, pulled it down and drove her knee into his face. Telly fell back, his face covered in blood. His head hit the side of a pew and he dropped unconscious to the floor...

  Peter spun around and knife chopped Samantha at the back of the neck. He stepped up to the pew with the woman and child, grabbed the limp boy from Ami and tossed the kid to the ground... The kid landed next to Samantha. She reached for the dagger...

  Peter let her...

  Samantha strained, barely conscious herself. Her finger wrapped around the hilt...

  A group of people moved into the church...

  She pulled...

  The chanting grew in pitch...

  The dagger slid out. Blood gushed from the hole and splattered on the floor next to Samantha...

  Peter laughed...

  The words exploded into his head like dynamite in a hole.

  He raised his arms in a large arch to the ceiling. And began. He spoke in the old language. The language of the angels. The language of the devils.

  The effigy of Christ on the wall behind the altar slipped sideways, inverting itself...

  The chanting stopped...

  Peter’s voice rose in pitch as he repeated the speech again and again.

  A black swirl of insects rose at his feet... He continued speaking the old language... The insects grew in number with each passing word... They covered his body, entered his mouth and nose and ears...

  And suddenly they were gone.

  Peter’s eyes were closed.

  They snapped open.

  Green light glowed from the holes. His voice boomed. “Welcome.” His fingers grew longer, the nails twisting into points. Hair fell from his head. Ivory horns pushed through the skin, shiny with fresh blood. His body changed under the clothes. The shirt stretched until it tore. Peter’s neck grew thick with muscle. The back of the shirt hung like rags against two enormous red skinned wings.

  The crowd was cheering...

  Ami dropped to the floor. She crawled to Dennis’ body.

  The beast grabbed her by the hair and lifted her to her feet. His lips peeled back, revealing a mouth full of jagged teeth. He licked the side of her face. The tongue was split in the middle, the two sides separated from one another. The rough bumps scratched her cheeks, blood spilled from them.

  “You’ll do nicely,” it said.

  Samantha felt herself blacking out. She could hear the girl at the altar screaming something, and trying to stay conscious she focused on the screams to discover they were words directed at her.

  “The dagger,” the girl screamed. “I need the dagger. Quickly.”

  The beast turned to face the crowd. He still held Ami, but he had released her hair and held her by the throat.

  Samantha picked up the dagger. It was heavy and slipped in her blood-covered hand. How had she gotten so bloody? And she remembered the kid.

  “No, you don’t,” Telly hissed and reached for the dagger.

  She flipped her hand around and drove the dagger into his right eye. She felt it hit bone and, using her other hand, punched the hilt, driving it into his brain.

  Telly did not scream. He froze and stared at her with his one eye.

  “Told you I’d kill you,” Samantha hissed. She pulled the dagger out and with a new-found source of energy, she tossed it to the girl...

  The girl threw it to the old man. He caught it deftly...

  The beast spun around. “NO!” It dropped Ami. It flung out its hand, calling the dagger...

  The old man held it tightly, wrapping his fingers around the hilt and blade. “Go back where you came from, Peter!” he yelled and slammed the dagger into the holy water.

  The holy water bubbled, turned to red foam and overflowed the basin.

  The beast screamed as fire swept its body. The dagger jumped out of the holy water. The hilt split open when it hit the floor. From the opened hilt rose many screams. White light poured from it. The light took the shape of people. The lights ran at the burning beast. Each one charged into the fire and vanished.

  It roared in pain, a deep rumbling that shook the church. Bright orange flames licked the high ceiling black as thick black smoke billowed towards the altar.

  The flames whipped side to side. The uneven leaping licks of fire suddenly froze, the points slowly turned, as if they were being sucked into the black charred shape without horns, or wings, which now stood before the crowd. The head tilted back and he screamed as the fire entered his body, vanishing. The thick smoke formed into an arrow. It flew from the altar and slammed into the beast.

  The roof of the church shook; pews flew into the air and crashed against the altar. The effigy of Christ fell off the wall and landed in an upright position. It stayed upright.

  The charred body fell silent. Its head drooped forward...

  Samantha stood up and staggered to Ami...

  An explosion knocked her off her feet.

  Dazed, she looked back. The charred body was gone. In upturned pews, she saw fragments of bone embedded in the hard wood.

  The crowd inside the church stopped cheering and looked at each other. They looked confused and lost. A few rushed to help Ami and Samantha. Others screamed and fainted.

  The professor picked up Penny and carried her past the fallen and gently placed her in the cruiser...

  ...The fourth world war froze in mid-action. Bombers suddenly turned and headed back to base. Soldiers dropped their weapons and the president of the world appeared on monitors and screens across the globe... A solution had been found. The war was over, for everyone.

  Speeding through the streets, the professor dodged living and dead bodies, scraped the cruiser against other vehicles and took every shortcut he knew.

  He used soothing words of encouragement to the injured Penny. Once he glanced back at her and was shocked at the wounds. They seemed more real now than back at the church.

  Jesus, had that really happened?

  The pain coursing through his body told him it had. They had come that close to the end of everything. But he feared for Penny in the back. Perhaps for her it could very well be the end.

  Taking dangerous corners at high speed, wishing the flight mechanism worked, the professor rushed to the hospital as quickly as he could. But the loss of blood was too great.

  At the entrance to the hospital, he stopped and looked at Penny. Her skin was very white and lips were purple.

  Wiping a tear from his eye, he lifted her frail, light body out of the cruiser and laid her gently on the grass under the hospital sign.

  A great sadness filled him. His want of answers to Terry’s death...his quest...was over. He looked around the streets as life was slowly turning back to normal; people were accessing email, and they were typing with one finger. He laughed a little. Not all the systems had been restored yet. The dome was still down but repairs were fast. Most peopl
e didn’t want to wait. Instant access, instantly. That was the world he lived in.

  He didn’t want to live in it anymore.

  Having made his decision, the professor climbed into the cruiser and pulled out into the street...never to be seen again.

  ...Together Ami and Samantha left the church. Shock had set in and Ami struggled with the weight of the child. Her plan was to lay him in the graveyard and say a silent prayer, if she could remember one.

  She had a feeling life was about to change, maybe not for the billions of people across the planet, but for her.

  It was impossible to forget the death of her friend, the return of Peter and his black desire. Nothing was ever going to be the same again. The thought of returning to her apartment, with the broken viewer and the false sense of security she had previously believed in, was impossible.

  She had no idea where to go or what to do once she’d laid Dennis to rest. She decided to let fate step in take her where it needed.

  “There are more.”

  The voice surprised her. She turned to see the tough lady keeping pace with her. She hadn’t known they had left the church together. Taking each step at the same time.

  The woman held out her hand. “Samantha,” she said in greeting.

  “I’m Ami.”

  They shook hands and Samantha said, “I’m serious, you know. About there being more, I mean.”

  Ami reached the graveyard. She kicked the iron gate open and entered slowly, looking for a spot. She found it at the far east end; a lonely Willow she just noticed, long branches tilting to the earth.

  Gently, she laid him down, under the branches near the base of the trunk. “You were a brave little man.” Her voice caught on the last word and for the life of her, she couldn’t remember a single prayer, so she knelt next to him waiting for her flow of tears to cease.

  She felt suddenly cold and her hands and stomach started to twitch. Wrapping her arms around herself, Ami tried to keep warm. She knew it was shock causing the shaking.

  “Take this,” Samantha said, holding out an army jacket. “It was lying on the road with no owner. Has a couple of blood stains, but it should help.”

  Ami accepted the coat and instantly felt a little better. She looked up at Samantha and said, “Are you sure there’ll be more?”

  The woman nodded. “A few more, actually. Another chosen one will show himself soon. You don’t think the dark prince would give up this easily, do you? Especially since he came so close.”

  Ami gave it a moment’s thought. Samantha was right. No one would give up. They’d just refine the plan and learn. “How do you know so much about it?”

  Samantha smiled and knelt next to her. Looking at the child, she said, “Have you ever heard of an organization called The Black Snake?”

  Ami shook her head and listened to a story she found easy to believe. Fate had chosen her to follow and help Samantha. She was ready.

  Chapter Forty

  The mystery of the dagger and its new whereabouts were the talk of Area City for a full week. There was no media coverage of the events that played out and no mention of the heroes who risked their lives to save all they knew that existed. As far as everyone was concerned, World War Four had luckily been avoided.

  In time, when things settled, rumors spread of the events at the church and the two women who were to blame. The media was quick to grab this story and twist the tale, turning Samantha and Ami into terrorists wanted for questioning.

  The hunt was on.

  Someone had to take the fall.

  They were never seen or heard from again...

  Life went on...

  People forgot...

  Time passed...

  Christianity died.

  No one seemed to notice.

  No one mourned.

  Epilogue

  One hundred and eighty-three years later.

  “Tommy, don’t go there.”

  “Come on, Lucy, it’s an adventure.” The boy stopped and looked up at the church at the top of the hill. He was halfway up the driveway; a safe distance, but he felt a tingle of fear crawl along his spine.

  “You remember what the professor said in history?” Lucy rushed to catch up to Tommy. He was walking fast and she had to quick step to keep up.

  Tommy stopped walking. “You don’t believe that, do you?” He waited for an answer but none came. “Come on. The German/Arabian Front dropped a bomb with a H27 drug and everyone had this weird hallucination about the church? Come on, that’s complete rubbish and you know it.”

  Trying a different tact, Lucy asked, “Why do you want to see this place? It’s banned. We’re not supposed to be here.”

  Tommy smiled. “That’s why I want to see it. If you’re chicken, stay here.”

  “I will,” she said and sat down on the driveway.

  He shook his head and started walking up the driveway. Lucy could be such a prude at times. If their parents hadn’t agreed to set up an arranged marriage, he would be here by himself and having fun. Arranged marriages should be a thing of the past, not a return to the past.

  The church had no roof and only three walls. Wild plant growth covered most of the walls, as it had all the gravestones on the left. Roof beams were exposed and the two large oak doors were gone.

  He looked up at the blue sky and wondered if the dome (something he had only heard about) would ever be brought back online. He held up his left hand and punched the tattooed numbers. A screen appeared in front of him. A voice inside his head said, “You have one new mail.” He closed his hand into a fist and the screen vanished.

  Tommy checked on his wife. Married at birth, what a downer. Lucy sat on the driveway with her knees drawn up to her chest. She was fully exposing herself wearing a short skirt like that. But the sight did nothing for him. He had seen it all before and more. She was trying to tease him down, make him do what she wanted. Not going to work, he told himself as he stood on the first of three steps leading into the church.

  He took a deep breath before going on. He had heard many stories about this place and all of them bad. Luckily he didn’t believe in ghosts or spirits or any of that other stuff.

  Then, why am I here?

  To prove it, he answered and stepped into the gloom... And found himself in a brightly lit and magnificent church. The roof had wonderful pictures of angels and all looked happy, kissing and playing harps. They wore glorious white-feathered wings. The walls were intact, the roof, everything. All looked new.

  Shocked, he went back to the door and looked down at Lucy.

  “Are you finished?” she called.

  He looked back at the church, falling apart and decrepit from the outside. But inside was the most magnificent building he had ever seen. The place shone. Everything was highly polished. Even the cross hanging on the wall. He ran his hands along the gleaming pews and scuffed his shoes on the shiny marble floor.

  Slowly he made his way to the altar. A red carpet appeared under his feet. No one had said anything about the church becoming...this.

  He was not prepared for this, anything but this. He wanted out and he wanted out in a big way but his feet kept heading towards the altar.

  He walked up to the rostrum. It was a long table with a large colorful sheet draped over it. On the sheet was a small steel stand, and on the stand was a book...

  END

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  Also by Richard Lee

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  A splash of Red

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  Bio Virus

  Luki

  Of Machines and Men

  The Seal

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  The Last Church

  Watch for more at Richard Lee’s site.

  About the Author

  Award winning author, Richard Lee, is a displaced writer of the weird, wonderful and grotesque. Since 2001 he has made an impact on the genre world and thrives within its limitless boundaries.

  Over seventy short stories have slammed his name on anthologies and magazines across the globe. Five novels impacted humanity and two novellas were the icing on the cake.

  He still sends his books out to independent and legacy publishers, looking for that elusive million dollar cheque. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/threeand10/

  Twitter: http://twitter.com/threeand10

  Website: http://richardleewrites.com

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  Read more at Richard Lee’s site.