Where the Devil Says Goodnight

by K. A. Merikan

  The electricity was out, and a storm—the storm had stopped. Rain had beaten against the window before, but now the world outside was dead silent.

  Emil took in the room with goosebumps prickling his skin, and he slowly grabbed the thick broom he’d left by the wardrobe.

  At his feet, Adam hid his head between his knees, toes digging into the wood as he rocked back and forth, mumbling something Emil couldn’t understand.

  The crows screamed outside, all of them at once, like a morbid choir, and the harsh, triumphant sound made Emil’s muscles calcify.

  “It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me who came here. It was him,” Adam whispered before looking up, his face stricken with sweat, gaze darting to all the darkest corners of the room as if he saw something Emil couldn’t.

  Emil hated what Adam was suggesting, but chose to focus on the here and now. “Listen, I don’t believe in God per se, but I do believe there are… things in the world that we don’t understand. Spirits. Maybe. You need to tell me what happened.”

  A tear rolled down Adam’s cheek, and he dove deeper into the thick comforter, as if it could protect him from whatever infernal presence he was talking about. If this were just about the sudden change in Adam’s behavior, Emil would have assumed it to be a mental breakdown, but no sane explanation could account for his burns. So he listened.

  “I was distraught. I blessed the parsonage and went to the church. To pray. And that’s when it came. You’ll think I’m crazy—”

  Emil scooted down, painfully aware of just how insane all this was. “No, you can tell me. Was he the one who hurt your back?”

  Adam’s mouth shut, and the vulnerable expression passing through his face had Emil’s stomach in cramps. “No, he… he spoke to me. I thought I heard God’s voice, but he entered my body, right there, in the church. Where I should have been safe. Where everyone should be safe from demons. And then he took me to you.”

  Emil exhaled, but since he couldn’t see anything sinister creeping at the edges of his bedroom, the ache in his flesh came to the forefront, insistent in its punishing bite. “Okay, Adam, we’ll deal with this, but it really fucking burns right now.”

  It was as if something clicked in Adam’s head and he got to his knees, touching Emil’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. Did I… was it me?” he asked and got closer to peek over Emil’s arm. Despite the pain radiating off the scalded flesh, Emil’s gaze briefly passed over the handsome line of Adam’s chest, but when Adam flinched, Emil followed his gaze to the shadowy corner of the room.

  “You see something there?” he asked, pulling Adam closer, weirdly protective of him after the sex. Adam had opened himself up to touch, to affection, and Emil wouldn’t give him the cold shoulder. Whatever this was, they would deal with it together.

  Adam’s breath caught, and he met Emil’s gaze. “Yes. Let’s go to the kitchen,” he whispered, tracing the edge of the burn with his fingertip. He was still tense, but Emil’s vulnerability seemed to have given him purpose beyond fearing for his life and sanity.

  Emil hated having to admit he was in pain, but he’d do anything to keep Adam occupied. A sinking feeling in his chest deepened whenever he thought of just letting Adam leave. He couldn’t explain it, but he knew that if he now let Adam walk out, the forest would reach out and swallow him whole.

  “What did you see there?” Emil led the way with a candle in hand, trying to ignore tremors of pain each time he moved and stretched the injured skin.

  Adam exhaled, keeping himself close, as if he wanted to make sure he could grab Emil for safety if the monster only he could see left its shadowy corner. “It has red eyes. Like the serpent in the church,” he whispered, opening the bedroom door and grabbing Emil’s wrist to lead him into the hallway. His face was pale, as if he’d been sick for a long time, and Emil already missed his earlier flush. He clearly tried to keep his gaze on the way ahead, hunched over, as if he expected an attack. Could this even be possible? That they were dealing with a poltergeist? Some unnatural force? With… magic?

  Emil couldn’t reach most of his injuries and needed help, but he also wanted to occupy Adam’s hands, and as soon as they reached the kitchen sink, he handed him a clean sponge.

  “Sit. Sit down,” Adam told him, his naked body moving like a robot whose joints hadn’t been oiled, his gait stiff and speaking of discomfort. He wouldn’t look at Emil as he picked up a metal bowl from the shelf and filled it with cold water.

  “We… maybe we should go to the church and see if there’s any signs of… paranormal activity.” Emil was making an effort to make sense of it all, because showing that he was freaked the fuck out wouldn’t help anyone.

  “Not in the next twenty minutes,” Adam said, searching through the cupboards until he found stacks of clean tea towels. He soaked two in a bowl and placed them over Emil’s back. Their cool touch provided instant relief to Emil’s burnt flesh.

  It was so rare that someone took care of Emil that his toes curled with the simple pleasure of someone offering him help. He gave Adam a sheepish glance, and the sight of his naked body was all the painkillers Emil needed. "Did he hurt you in any way?"

  Adam squeezed on the edge of the table top, and he averted his gaze before approaching a wall-mounted hook where Emil had hung his bathing towel earlier. Adam tied it around his hips, and looked up. But as soon as their gazes met, he crossed his arms and shrugged.

  “He made me do something I didn’t want.”

  Heat vaporized from Emil’s burns and went to his head. “What are you trying to say?”

  “What do you think?” Adam asked in a tight voice.

  Emil clenched his teeth, stung by the excuses. They’d had so much chemistry Adam couldn’t deny himself contact with Emil despite his misgivings. And now he was trying to convince Emil nothing about the way he’d given himself to him had been real? This had to be one of the most insidious things he’d ever heard. “I don’t like what you’re suggesting here.”

  Adam took several deep breaths, his throat moving rapidly as he swallowed. “It doesn’t matter whether you like it or not. I’ve told you so many times I don’t want anything like that from you or anyone. Maybe you should have noticed something was off. I don’t know,” he said, his voice rising in pitch.

  Emil opened his mouth in protest, but then closed it in disbelief. All of a sudden, he wanted a towel too. Once again, he wanted to confront Adam, tell him to stop hiding behind some imagined entity and take some responsibility for his actions, but the sting in his back stopped him, a reminder that nothing was normal about this night. He felt sick at the thought that if Adam was telling the truth, what they’d done had nothing to do with Adam shedding his inhibitions and everything with a dark force that had chosen to fuck with their lives.

  “I’m only human,” Emil mumbled, but when Adam stayed silent, he did too.

  Despite the tension that felt heavier than a down comforter in the summer, Adam soon returned to his side and tended to the burns with gentle care that amplified the sense of guilt rotting Emil’s insides.

  And the worst thing about it all was that no matter what, Emil couldn’t get the sex out of his head. For him, everything they’d said to each other, every touch and kiss, had been honest. When Adam had asked him to be exclusive, Emil only needed a few seconds to agree. No one had ever asked him to be theirs. Not Radek, not any other hook-up, and definitely not Filip ‘I’m-getting-married’ Koterski.

  Emil hadn’t given this much thought before, stuck in a town where everyone pretended gay people existed solely in big cities, but when Adam had asked, it hit him just how much he craved someone of his own. To be completely devoted to one person and share his life with them. His love—sex—life had always been about irregular outings to Sanok, where he’d steal moments with men who didn’t care to get to know him, and seducing tourists, who were transient by nature. He would give all that up in a heartbeat if Adam said the word.

  But Adam didn’t want him and pulled that rug fr
om under Emil’s feet so fast Emil’s teeth ached from the fall. He was almost glad for the burns, because they provided a distraction from the depth of his disappointment.

  Adam suggested they might go to the emergency room, but Emil had seen the red marks in the mirror, and they weren’t as bad as he’d feared. He wouldn’t travel all the way to Sanok so the medical personnel could put some ointment on him and call it a day. In the end, he begrudgingly allowed Adam to dress his back and put on some clothes as soon as he was free to do so.

  If Emil’s life was rich in something, it was failure, but this night took the cake.

  Adam sat in a chair close by in his damp jean shorts, since he refused to wear any of Emil’s pants, his gaze stuck to the floor, as if he feared spotting whatever was haunting him. If he stayed over any longer, he might go mad with fear.

  “Let’s go,” Emil said curtly. “You sure you don’t want a sweater?”

  Adam’s hesitation was enough for Emil to head back to his closet, but the thought of the invisible creature watching him from a corner made him pause over the threshold of his bedroom. With unease curling in his stomach, he glanced around, but when the candlelight didn’t reveal anything suspicious, he grabbed his favorite black sweater and returned to Adam.

  The priest still bore the marks of their love making in the form of a few scratches, and even a small hickey where Emil had got overindulgent with kisses, but the priest collar would hide that. Adam accepted the sweater with a mumbled “thank you” but wouldn’t step outside without Emil leading the way.

  Emil grabbed a large flashlight, and they went out into a silence so hollow it left room for a hundred devils. The moon shone like a lantern in the cloudless sky, so bright they didn’t need any additional illumination after all.

  He took a deep breath and glanced at the outline of the tallest plants in the meadow ahead. The darkness offered peace at last, and felt safer than the inside of his own home. “You didn’t summon it in any way?” he asked, still on the fence whether he should believe a word Adam said.

  “I prayed, and that voice answered. I removed all three offerings in the parsonage. I don’t know what I did wrong!” Adam said, hiding in the sweater that was oversized on Emil but became a sack on him.

  “There should be four. For each cardinal direction. Wait. Why would you remove them in the first place?”

  Adam shrugged. “I— didn’t want pagan symbols around me.”

  Emil let it go for now. It would have been fastest if they traversed the fields, but after the downpour, the roads would be more favorable, despite all the mud.

  Adam took a deep breath and stepped that bit closer, glancing over his shoulder as if he expected something to crawl out of the ditch and follow them with its teeth bared. Even Emil, who was used to the quiet of this remote countryside, felt uneasy once they left the homestead behind. It wasn’t his first time walking so late, but Adam’s behavior sent his senses in fearful overdrive and made him aware of each sound, each animal howl in the distance.

  Fog was thick enough to obscure the path under their feet, but it hung low over the ground, as if the spirits of the earth were out enjoying their freedom before sunrise.

  “Were you honest when you said you didn’t remember what you said to me during the fortune telling? Or was that a joke?” Adam asked after a long moment of silence.

  Emil frowned, fighting the urge to wrap his arm around Adam’s shoulders. He knew Adam needed comfort, and his heart ached to provide it, but his touch was unwanted. “What did I say?”

  “Really creepy shit about a goat and a feast,” Adam said, breathing loudly as he sped up, hurrying through the white vapors. “It scared me.”

  Emil frowned, his stomach getting colder with each step. “Are you saying I’m also possessed?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know what to do about this. There’s exorcisms, but—”

  Emil shook his head, wishing they were at the church already. No wind moved the wheat field as they passed, as if the storm had been a product of their imagination. “God… he doesn’t play tricks on people, right?”

  Adam gave a sharp laugh as they passed through the open gate into the churchyard. “How would I know? He never spoke to me.”

  “You’re a priest! You studied the Bible! Does God trick people or not?”

  Adam inhaled, leading the way along the side of the church, all the way to the small back door, which hung open. “He tests people’s faith sometimes. Job is the most famous example from the Old Testament. He was a happy, wealthy man who loved the Lord above all, but Satan challenged God, claiming Job was only so godly because he’d been blessed with a good life. God then agreed to a bet of sorts and allowed Satan to torment Job. The man lost his family, his livestock, everything, but he still refused to speak against the Lord. I suppose that had been a test of faith rather than a trick for the sake of it.”

  Emil shook his head. “I’ll take your word for it. So you think God might be testing you like this?”

  He was wary of entering the place where Adam claimed the demon had attacked him, but he didn’t want to be a coward and walked into the church first. He’d never been at the back of the altar before, but candlelight guided him to the well-lit space at the front. The church looked normal, as if nothing sinister could have possibly happened here. Yet it had.

  Adam exhaled. “I always believed the story of Job was just a fable for the ancient Hebrews. A God so selfish and cruel couldn’t be the same entity who offers His own son to save humanity in the New Testament. But maybe I was wrong? Maybe He is spiteful and wants to tell me he doesn’t need someone like me to serve Him,” he said, as he reached the steps that led to the aisle between two rows of benches.

  Emil’s face twisted when he noticed a whip with several tails on the floor, and he immediately thought back to the dark bruises and welts covering Adam’s back. He was about to ask about it when Adam froze, and his face fell.

  Emil rushed to his side, and when he followed Adam’s gaze to the altar, he stiffened too. The wooden snake from the sculpture of the Tree of Knowledge lay on the floor ripped in half, as if it had been struck by a powerful blow with an axe.

  “Fuck.”

  Adam wheezed, resting both hands on the altar table, but wouldn’t look away from the broken sculpture. “It’s all real. And it’s all my fault, because I let you get to me.”

  Emil faced him with a scowl. He’d meant to leave this issue to rot at the back of his mind, but enough was enough. “Oh, so I caused you to stray from the righteous path? Don’t you see I’ve been violated too? I didn’t agree to—whatever that was. You coerced me into sex after repeatedly rejecting me, and then burned me with your bare hands!”

  Adam’s face twisted into a deep scowl that made even his handsome face ugly. “I’ve been struggling with this for so long, but you had to keep on pushing until something sinister used my thoughts against me!”

  Emil’s nostrils flared, and he grabbed Adam by the front of the sweater. “How much in denial can you be? You wanted it. You loved every second, and you won’t admit it!”

  Adam’s eyes flashed and he slapped Emil so hard even the joint of his jaw hurt. “I did not. I was acting out of character, but you didn’t help me. You just went with it, because you lusted after me from the day we met and didn’t want to consider that something was wrong!”

  Emil held his cheek, wanting to scream in frustration, but when something thundered outside, and he screamed in fear. At least Adam cried out too, so it wasn’t that embarrassing.

  “Wait here,” he said and darted down the nave, to the main doors.

  The lock was easy to open from the inside, and he pushed on one of the heavy wooden wings, peeking outside, only to see a red car in the church yard, right next to a trash can it had knocked over.

  The Pastor, who was in the process of leaving the driver’s seat, waved at Emil before stumbling back into the seat.

  Emil’s shoulders sagged, and he looked back a
t Adam. “It’s Father Marek.”

  “What?” Adam stormed out of the church and joined him, studying the pastor, who finally managed to leave the vehicle and proceeded to the fallen container, even though he wasn’t stable on his feet.

  He was drunk.

  “Father?”

  “It wasn’t here before,” the older priest said, struggling to pull up the trash can until Adam did it for him.

  Emil rolled his eyes. “I’ll help.”

  Father Marek waved it off. “No need, I’m fine,” he said and proceeded to zig-zag toward the parsonage.

  Adam pulled the keys out of the ignition and locked the car before briefly meeting Emil’s gaze. He was silent for several seconds, standing there as if he considered saying something important, but what eventually came out was a simple, “I’ll take it from here.”

  Emil groaned. His cheek still stung from the slap, his body ached from burns, but it was his pride that hurt most.

  He turned around and walked toward a home that now felt much less cozy.

  Chapter 11 - Adam

  The sun outside did nothing to soothe the scars on Adam’s soul. Fresh air entered through the open window, but the scent of grass and wildflowers was like the memory of a normal life, which now seemed like such a distant concept. Curled up in his bed, he watched white clouds pass across the brilliantly blue sky, unable to come to terms with what happened last night.

  He wished he could dismiss it all as a bad trip, a case of poisoning from last night’s mushroom soup. Mrs. Luty used mushrooms she collected herself, so it wasn’t impossible that she mistook one type for another, but whenever he tried clinging to that hope, the burning sensation in his anus reminded him that he had lost his virginity last night. That Emil was willing to remain faithful, and that Adam had loved how his weight felt on top, loved the taste of his cock.

  He was a sinner, unfit to be a clergyman.