Darkroom Saga Omnibus 1

by Poppet

  Just a kid.

  I want to shout, I want to punch, I want to howl, she's just a fucking kid! But they advocate this demented shit. How many lives have they ruined?

  This is going to destroy me as much as it's going to destroy her. Unbuttoning my jeans, loathing that I have to perform with an audience, hating myself for what I'm about to do for us to stay alive long enough to get the fuck out of here, I let my dignity drop to my ankles, soaking them in the puddle which might well fry me regardless. He gave me jeans to wear for this ritual, just so I can live the degradation of being forced to disrobe.

  How many volts can I handle before my heart says fuck you?

  “Why are you disciplining her?” says 'God', breaking my focus.

  I refuse to look at the fucktard, hoarsely answering, “A woman mustn't dress like a man. This chick wore jeans, it's blasphemy to blatantly disrespect your laws. But more than this I am about to worship you, to show you that I am your true and faithful servant.”

  I can thank John for his nightly sermons to the echoing hallways. He's given me the arsenal to splab the bullshit they crave. I can also thank my guardian angel for waking me up in time to overhear that conversation.

  Personally I don't give a shit what a woman wears. If truth be told, sometimes faded blues hugging a sexy ass is just the ticket to tickle my fancy.

  John twists, walking out of the standing water to rejoin his commander, saying to him, “He is one of us. I have no doubt, Father.”

  Is he truly his father? Is that why he listens and obeys?

  No, can't be. He owned up to fathering a bunch of names and John wasn't one of them, but then if he makes a habit of this he probably has hundreds of kids who never knew their father. Kids born as bastards from rape and abduction.

  “Worship me Sixty-six,” orders from my right, the two standing like judges to my crime. Do they hold up score-cards after?

  Taking my dick in hand, it's flaccid and isn't playing ball. Cold prickles explode across my shoulders, the muscles cramping up with tension, running a harsh ache down my back. Perspiring profusely I expect to be electrocuted any second now.

  They've tried to desensitize me to this, positioning her face down so I can't see her eyes. She's disturbingly silent, not struggling like the first victim. What did they do to her before I woke? Why is she just lying there?

  C'mon Evan, get a fucking boner. For fuck's sake!

  My life depends on this and my pride and joy couldn't be bothered to flip me with an up yours. Nudda.

  John speaks up, “It's stage fright. I had a similar dilemma my first time, what with people watching and all. The flesh is weak even when the spirit is willing.”

  Yeah, that's it. I have a bad case of performance anxiety, you tell him. Get me the hell out of this depraved purgatory.

  'God' sighs dramatically. “Fetch Twenty-three. You want her delivered, and she has displayed the patience of Job. Get her in here to fluff him.”

  Inclining his head, John walks woodenly out of the chamber, looking to me like he recently had his ass handed to him on a plate. Was it in-house or did a mob of pissed off dad's finally exact a dose of justice?

  Looking to the wanker in black, I spin a yarn, “Maybe if I just lie on top of her? Ya know? It'll help get me ready n'chit?”

  He nods permission, leaning on one leg and folding his wrestler arms, the end of the wire well wide of his body, swaying, ready to strike. He's one scary-ass motherfucker.

  Taking the window of opportunity I cover her back with my torso, leaning my elbows either side of her head, resting my mouth next to her ear while covering her diminutive form with my own, whispering, “I'm sorry. I'll go slow. Hang in there, okay?”

  She doesn't react.

  Adjusting so I can look in her face, I recoil at the cum leaking out of her mouth, the scent ripe. They... fuck, they... Jesus! Hopefully she'd done it before today. Her eyes are wide, glazed, staring at nothing. She doesn't hear me because she's been given something to shut her up, to prevent resistance.

  I dunno why but that makes me feel an ounce better. Maybe she won't feel any of it? Maybe this is a blessing in disguise?

  I've had their manna. God's a drug lord, peddling his divine 'seeds' on the poor and disenfranchised. I'd heard of manna but never seen it, and sure as fuck didn't plan on taking it. I'd bet my one bedroomed hovel this chick's been administered a generous dose of that lethal shit. My soul shrivels up and dies on the spot when John strides back in with an anorexic chick. She's so broken, so complacent, so riddled with scars inside her arms, I can only imagine what hell she's lived through.

  She's got long auburn hair and is still attractive despite her gaunt face. She looks like she might have been into body-building because she's ripped like she channels Zena once a week.

  John doesn't say a word, he just shoves her at me, forcing her to catch her balance on the splayed thighs of my 'mission'.

  Without looking up, avoiding eye contact, she takes hold of my cock, slipping it into her hot mouth. I want to resist, I don't want to do this, I don't want to be their stud on demand... but there's no power on heaven or earth other than the volts held idly in 'god's' hand that could stop me from reacting to the sensation.

  It's been months since I've been near a woman, holed up in this godforsaken asylum, and it feels so fucking fine to have soft hands on my skin, smooth lips, velvet tongue... Gritting my teeth, bunching my fingers on the lip of the table to fight the feeling of a little slice of heaven in the lowest level of hell, she pulls me into a patriotic salute in a matter of seconds.

  Did she do this for a living? Fuck! Oh yeah ... Jesus that feels good. To my dismay it doesn't deflate when she pulls away at the command of our jailers. I have no recourse left. The time is nigh. Well, I'm going to hell regardless. Turning to the exposed folds of the teenage sacrifice, I employ both hands, grasping a cute ass, pulling her open by flexing the skin taut, sinking my hips and aiming at that slick orifice, almost hoping I won't enjoy it, but my impromptu BJ has exposed I'm just a man after all.

  I'm making contact, precum oozing, sliding slow and deep into a heat so sublime it's enough to make me weak in the knees, when a canon bomb drops me. It's instinct, I just hit the deck, looking around with alarm icing my veins in flat out panic. I don't recall disengaging, I just reacted.

  'God's' standing there with a nine-mil in his hand, the chick who just had my dick in her mouth has a hole the size of Arkansas at the back of her head, gore and bits splattered across the jaundiced yellow of the floor. What kind of ammo blows out the back of a skull like that? Fuck man! Jesus fucking christ!

  Great! She's got my DNA in her mouth. He'll go out south and dump her, instantly making me a wanted man. Cunning asswipe.

  'God' gives me a helpless shrug, as if to say 'what ya gonna do'. John's man down again, out of commission and no longer in the fight. If I was a betting man I'd have backed the wrong contender. He's not the fainting type. Something's hella wrong tonight. And I mean really fucking dodge.

  The dude laughs, Mister God Almighty, walking away to the door, hingeing back briefly to throw that cable in a slow-mo arc across the room, strutting away, his voice echoing maniacal laughter.

  Shit!

  Shit!!

  With my feet stuck in my jeans, I leopard crawl in a state of disbelief, shock and fear gonging my heartbeat in my ears, launching myself like a man-mutant, trying to stand and run and hop, propelling myself off the drenched floor with a gargantuan effort, diving through the air, all with my dick hanging out and my pants shackling my ankles, trying to outrun the moment that live wire bonds with a puddle of 'who's your daddy now' bitches.

  Connecting with the hard floor, the sound of a fuse blowing is Armageddon loud, and I'm instantly plunged into a black so impenetrable that I'm not sure if I'm dead.

  Did he get me? Am I hit?

  Did he just fry my ass to kingdom come?

  ~ Chapter 9 ~

  The proudest and highest of them will be c
ut down and humiliated

  ~ Isaiah 10:33

  Preacher John:

  Agony is beginning to be a staple of my daily existence. Opening my eyes, it's pitch dark.

  Pouncing upright in immediate seek and destroy mode, crouched, every muscle already responding to a cocktail of lethal hormones utilized by warriors every minute of every day, I listen intently.

  Something's shuffling across the chasm, there on the opposite side of the abyss. Reaching quietly to my back, I stealthily withdraw the SIG Sauer P226 from beneath my jacket, moving slow so the leather of my armor doesn't alert it, aiming toward the noise.

  “State your name or meet your maker,” I warn the intruder.

  “John?” comes back to me, Evan's (?) voice elevated with relief.

  “Evan? What the fuck are you doing? You were about to swallow a bullet.”

  “Jesus christ man! Your god just threw a live wire in a puddle of water. I just happened to be standing in it at the time.”

  Your god? Is that a fact. Truth and intel in one betraying moment while his guard is down. Yes God's methods are questionable, but he always exposes the truth.

  Keeping the barrel trained on his location, I state the obvious, “I guess he blew a fuse on the motherboard.”

  Evan laughs, sounding hysterical, “Understatement of the fucking century.”

  Well it's back to business around here. I can't have him wondering the halls of the damned without a warden.

  “Sixty-six, I need you to follow my voice and come to me.”

  “Preacher, are you okay? You've been... I dunno, kinda weird.”

  “I'm fine. Evan, I gave you a direct command.”

  “Yeah yeah, hold your fucking horses man, my jeans are around my ankles. Hang on.”

  “Did you fulfill your duty to the Lord?” I ask, wondering why my Alpha chose to end Evan. I could be in line for insubordination discipline if Evan was meant to die. Then I need to cap him now and exact the will of God.

  “Yes.”

  It's curt, coarse, contrite.

  “Good,” I nod, relieved my prophet can live. Perhaps this was a test. God's will saved him, divinity spared him from harm. It's not my place to question. God works in mysterious ways. If God wanted him dead, then he'd be dead.

  “Preacher?” calls to me.

  “Ayup?”

  “Just keep chewing the fat so I can find ya.”

  Waiting, alert, ready to attack, ready for the unexpected, I speak to him, “Though I walk through the valley of darkness, I shall fear no evil...”

  “Got ya,” comes at me, so close I know I could reach out and touch him.

  Where the fuck is the knife I handed him? My grip tightens on the SIG, ready to blow his ass to the next level of existence.

  “Evan, I need you to kneel.” Waving my left hand to locate him, my fingers make contact with his chest.

  “Why, hoss?”

  “Evan I mean you no harm, please just do as I ask.”

  Now dammitall!

  If you're planning to knife me it won't penetrate this leather, and you will be dead.

  Paranoia is eating a new hole in my heart.

  His sigh hits me flat in the face. He has the cheek to huff at me, the sound of him adjusting position loud and clear. I'm neurotic, knowing that if he wanted to attack me, now would be the perfect time to do it; and thanks to God I'm in no state to physically defend myself. Reaching out again I connect with his head, feeling my way down to his shoulder.

  Keeping the loaded gun aimed at it, I pat his shoulder, “Good man. I need to check the circuit breakers which means I have to–” Pressing my thumb into the pressure point above his collar bone, I have no time to warn him, I just need him incapacitated so I can sort this fucking mess out.

  It's the pressure point that is the disable button on the human body. Press it hard and fast and you will have an unconscious body lying at your feet in a matter of seconds.

  He slumps, the sound of bone connecting with the floor unfortunate. I don't know if it was the back of his skull or his forehead, and right now I don't have the luxury of time to check.

  Pocketing the SIG, operating on pure unfiltered adrenaline, I stride to my right until I find the wall. It's times like these I'm grateful there's no clutter in the exorcism rooms.

  Feeling my way to the door, I discover it was left open.

  Sixty-six could have escaped!

  Stepping cautiously into the passage I close the door behind me, securing it with a spin of the combination lock. It can be opened from either side if you have the code.

  Knowing my way, I rush blindly, biting my cheek to distract myself from the pain of rapid movement. Once the inmates are secured and lighting is restored, then, and only then, can I tend to my wounds.

  But only if God has left the building.

  •

  Preacher John:

  It's taken me three excruciating hours and now the suffering is upon me and refuses to abate.

  Staring at the new jar of manna left behind by Alpha, as a supply until we meet again, I am so tempted to take the whole lot and end this agony.

  Curled into a tight ball, unable to move as the convulsions of pain when I do are debilitating, I forsake my instructions.

  Careful, moving slow so I don't pull open fresh wounds, I extract my cell phone, pressing speed-dial with a hand shaking so violently I can't hold it. Dropping the implement, resting my head next to it on the floor, I can't stop whimpering. My blood has turned crusty and I'm stuck to this leather with such perfect adhesion that every increment of mobility destroys my ability to focus, torturing me with the sting of sweat inside this hot-suit.

  It rings, answered on the first, “John?”

  Gritting my teeth, I whisper, “I need you brother.”

  “John? What happened? I can barely hear you.”

  “James! I need you!” I scream, my skin on fire, the effort of expending the last of my reserves enough to flare an ice cold fever up my spine.

  This keeps happening, hot cold hot cold, interspersed with the sensation of bathing in acid.

  I'm gonna die. I don't think I'm gonna make it this time.

  I'm not resilient the way I was when I was twelve.

  “Fuck! I'll be right there!”

  The light on my phone eventually goes black, tears accumulating under my cheek on the unforgiving floor, my muscles seized up like abandoned cogs.

  Sometimes even the servant of the most high must rest. I have no fear: the Lord will keep me safe. He will watch over His flock.

  For they are His. I have been charged with feeding and shepherding them - he purchased them with His blood - and the Holy Spirit has appointed me an elder over them.

  This is why I persist in the teaching of the doctrine, for in doing so I will save myself and those who heed my words. Timothy tells me that, and in it I take comfort.

  I am ashamed of my flesh and the lusts it bestows upon me. I fought the desire to defile that virgin, it was not me but the Spirit working through me. Left to the desires of my flesh, I too would dwell among the damned.

  So like the Apostle Paul I am! The things I do not want to do, I do, and the things I want to do - I do not.

  Deliver me Christ.

  Just as Satan waited until our Lord endured forty days of hunger in the wilderness, so he waits for my weakest moments to send temptation. I must be still, and know that he is God.

  No more words come to me now. I lower myself onto my humble mat on the floor in the centre of my chambers to rest in Him for just a moment. So much to do. I must tend to Evan, to Julie.

  My eyes flutter closed as I wait upon the Lord, while He renews my strength.

  I'm stuck.

  And I still hate him for doing this to me.

  ~ Chapter 10 ~

  Pay attention to him and obey him. Do not rebel against him, for I have sent him, and he will not pardon such rebellion.

  ~ Isaiah 14:29

  Preacher John:

&nb
sp; “Don't look so damn sorry for yourself. He's done it to all of us at one time or another. Keep the oil handy because odds are he'll do it again.”

  Well now I know, no need to reiterate the fucking obvious. I'm smeared from the neck down with tissue oil, naked as the day I was baptized, and looking like a gay gladiator ready to sub for Caesar.

  He laughs at me, relaxing back, propping his ankle on his knee, fidgeting with his beer, “At least he left you with some hair. You're his favorite, after Victor you've always been his golden boy. When he did it to me he left me with no hair. Fucking none. You still have eyebrows dude, consider yourself spared.”

  “If I'm his favorite I'd hate to know what he would have done if I wasn't. Fuck bro, I thought I was going to pass out again when you peeled that leather off my back. It was like being skinned for the second time in one night.”

  “Pussy,” he laughs, winking at his joke, downing his Bud with greedy slugs.

  This is why there are twelve disciples. We need each other to restore faith when we're weak, to resurrect us when we're fallen.

  James had to scope the all night supply store to get the equipment required to give me a military buzz on the sides, doing a decent job on the top by neatening it all to an inch long. God gave me the kind of haircut a toddler would execute, making me look like I had a bad case of mange.

  The oil stops wax burn and the discomfort will be gone in a day, or so James says. All I know is I'm pissed off, and uncomfortably naked without hair. I feel like Alpha's Brazilian whore, ready for carnival. The lacerations on my back are sealed with spray on skin, after James cleaned the cuts. I bit right through my lip with that lesson in love. But, it's ruined me. I need time to get my head and my body back in the game.

  “So what now? You all good so I can return to my mission?” he asks, annoying me with his mirth at my situation.

  “Can you stay? I need a day or three just so I can wear clothes again. There's no way I'm facing that lot like this,”