by David Kempf
“You’ll always be my little boy,” said David, looking and sounding like Christopher’s mother.
“I don’t like that one, David. Please change.”
He then changed into Sarah Nolan. This evoked mixed emotions for Christopher. He was glad that she was not harmed exactly, or dead. Still, this power was too incredible for words.
“You’ll always be my little boy, said illusion-Sarah.
“Knock that off!” he screamed.
Now David was the creature again. The long, black nails that had once been covered in human corpse flesh touched his shoulder. The face was unspeakably terrifying. Christopher shut his eyes.
“Change back into you.”
“This is me,” said David.
“Change back into Henry David Wells.”
“That’s not my real name, Chris.”
“Damn it! Change back into David Proctor.”
“Fine, as you wish.”
When Christopher opened his eyes, he saw that old, familiar professor again. He was relieved but he was breathing very heavy. He could feel his heart beating through his chest like it was trying to escape from it! Christopher slowly gained the courage to speak again.
“So you fought in the revolution.”
“Yes.”
“Did you serve directly under George Washington?”
“No.”
“Too bad, it would have been a great story.”
“I am, or I was, British so I would have been fighting for the other side.”
“Oh.”
David was laughing at Christopher, but not in a cruel way, as he thought how this reality could drive a typical man insane in minutes. Fortunately, Christopher was not typical. He was an aspiring horror writer.
“The first thing you need to do is…” David started.
“Yes?” asked Christopher.
“Begin reading my old writings. They should inspire you enough. The masters were quite pleased with them and so was my mentor. I suspect you will be pleased to read them as well.”
“Okay,” Christopher agreed.
“Now is the time for the start of your dark journey. Read.”
Christopher read and read. The days and nights seemed to disappear. One day fell into another, time seeming to pass by as it would for someone significantly older. He called his parents and they accepted his absurd excuses that he was sleeping over at friends’ houses that week. It was quite the show he was putting on. Christopher was someone who should have a lot more friends than he did, but unfortunately, he did not. He wasn’t always as outgoing as his parents had wanted him to be.
“Read on,” said David.
“I shall.”
David’s stories were amazing. They were nothing like Christopher pictured in his head. His novel was inferior compared to the superb short stories and tales of detection he had written. He had written them when Washington was crossing the Delaware! What made his stories truly remarkable was how incredibly ahead of his time he was. Prior to the great tales of horror and the morbid poetry that made others world famous, David had written similar stories of a higher caliber. He was truly an inspiring role model.
“Were any of these published?” Christopher asked.
“No.”
“What?” Christopher was stunned.
“They were written for my comrades. They were amusements for my fellow soldiers to keep our minds off of the dangers of war.”
“I see.”
“I never published them but they were read by a significantly more powerful audience. The masters relished them.”
“I do as well, David.”
“I know you do, Chris. Let’s face it. You and I were destined for a partnership. I have such great plans for you.”
“David, I don’t want to look like something from the late night horror show.”
“Neither did I. Now ask yourself something, please.”
“Yes,” Christopher agreed.
“Will you do that for me, Christopher?” David asked.
“Yes,” Christopher repeated.
“Do you really want to die?”
Now, talk about your loaded questions or your complex ethical issues. This was perhaps the most important question Christopher Wisdom had ever been asked. A mere few weeks before, immortality had been a pipe dream to a skeptic like him. Now it was as real as sundown and sunset, a solid, hard reality. Christopher was lying to himself. He wasn’t really a skeptic or an agnostic. He was a good, healthy atheist. The idea of God was absurd to him. The universe was random, cruel and virtually void of any kindness or fairness. People could be good to a certain point but he knew deep down inside they weren’t really highly evolved. People were still animals. They just happened to be animals cursed to be conscious of their own mortality. That’s why they had to invent religion to feel like there was something after this life.
“No, hell, no!” screamed Christopher.
“That’s what I thought. You’re a cynic, Chris.”
“I was.” Christopher agreed.
“You are, but you are no fool, Chris.”
“No.”
“I know you. You’re much like me,” said David.
“How did you come to work for the masters?”
“Later. When the time is right you will know the tale.”
“Excellent. Now what did Sarah steal from you?” Christopher asked.
“This.” David took the crystal out of his side pocket. It was magnificent. Christopher knew immediately that he had no need to try and take it from David. He instantly felt that it was going to be his. Hell, it was going to be him.
“Ah, the plot thickens. This is all becoming a great gothic horror story. I feel the presence.”
“I would hope so,” said David. “Even the dumbest mortal who happens to be clumsily in the same room as this feels the great power of it.”
“I’m sure,” said Christopher.
“You want to know how I got it back and what it was for.”
“Yes.” Christopher nodded.
“Well, that comes later, my young friend,” David told him.
“Okay.”
“Now let us read your skeptical tales of suspense.”
“David, they are really about the human condition,” explained Christopher.
“Soon that will change. There will be nothing human about your condition,” David said.
“I know.”
Now Christopher was adjusting to these extraordinary events. He knew he would accept the new life of serving David and the masters. Christopher felt great pride as he watched David begin to read two of his stories. One story was about someone who lashed out against theology and the other was about someone who pretended to have psychic powers.
PART 2
SPINNING TALES OF TERROR
“Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?”
-Edgar Allan Poe-
Chapter 7
Ask Something of Me
By Christopher Wisdom
Doubting Thomas went to confession. It had been a very long time since he had revealed his sins to a priest or anyone else. The confessional seemed strange to him after such a long absence. He didn’t really need any traditional structure; he thought his own code was superior. Thomas had gone to an amusement park when he was little. All of the kids had a great time except for one. There was a little girl in a wheelchair that couldn’t go on any rides. No one had ever been able to explain to him why God would allow this. He may not be the kind of guy who got rid of murderers and rapists, but he was working towards the common good. Signs and wonders……
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
“May the Lord be ….”
“Father, I’m sorry. It’s been a very long time. I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Yes, you can. It’s all right, my son. Please continue.”
“I’m sorry for my sins, Father. It’s been almost two decades since my last confession.”
Father Justin Milo had been living in Davistown, Pennsylvania for over a decade now. It was nice for him not to have to work in inner city Philadelphia. The city was dangerous just like any other city. The life of small town parish priest was a good one. Davistown was typically composed of upper middle class folks. They worked in New York and commuted back to the small town. It was a common little town with only two banks and a few local churches in the surrounding area. They certainly did not have a mosque or a synagogue here. In the past, they could barely tolerate Catholics, who now had gained community acceptance. It was, without question, a lot safer for Father Milo. Although he never made pastor, Father Milo was happy and felt like he could make a huge difference in his community. He was a patient man. This strange man who had come to confession was beginning to test his patience.
“I don’t know if I believe in God,” said the man.
“I see,” said the priest.
“I just don’t know.”
“It sounds as if you lack faith, my son,” the priest prompted.
“Yes, I do. I’m sorry, Father.”
“Many people have had the same problem. God commands us to be faithful. Many great people in scripture were doubters. Later on, they became some of the most well known saints.”
“I know,” said the man.
“Are you an atheist?” asked the priest.
“No. I’m agnostic.”
“This may seem strange, but in many ways being an atheist is much better,” said the priest.
“I know it is.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” said the man.
“Tell me why you think I said that,” said the priest.
“Father, an atheist knows what he believes for a period of time. So does someone who is religious, whether they are Protestant or Catholic. An agnostic does not know. It’s a terrible thing to go through life not knowing what you believe.”
“Even disciples of Christ himself had doubts, my son,” said the priest.
“Jesus appeared before his disciples and looked at Thomas,” said the man.
“That’s right,” said the priest.
“He said, ‘put your fingers here, and touch my hands; reach your hand here, and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving, but believe.’”
“Yes, my son. Do you recall what Thomas said next?”
“He said My Lord and My God,” said the man.
“Yes,” the priest replied.
“That’s me, Father. It’s who I am.”
“What?”
The priest kept asking the man where he was. He did not answer back. Then Father Milo turned around. A strange man had just walked into his side of the confessional.
“What are you doing?” asked the priest.
The man smiled and then put a Halloween skeleton mask over his head.
“That’s right. That’s who I am,” the man said.
“What? Who are you?” asked the priest.
“I’m Doubting Thomas.”
The priest attempted, but was not able to make his way out of the confessional. In a moment it was clear the man intended to kill Father Milo.
“Memento Mori,” said Doubting Thomas.
Father Milo tried to scream but the killer had already wrapped piano wire around his neck. He was strangling him savagely.
“No,” said the priest, gasping for air.
“Memento Mori,” he said once more.
“No! I have a soul!”
Doubting Thomas didn’t like the way this priest sold out and still preached about helping the poor and downtrodden like he did. Doubting Thomas had a list of fools. He would travel all over the country to maintain what he thought of as balance in matters of faith. If someone became too arrogant, he or she would be punished. Sometimes the victims were devoutly religious and other times they were nonbelievers. The fact that people could be so insanely vain about matters which cannot be proven drove him crazy. Saint George killed the dragon. Now Doubting Thomas was the killer of anyone who made it on the list of fools, those who showed arrogance. Everyone on the list represented a different kind of creature. Father Milo was a filthy troll, a parasite. He had to go.
Mary Wesley was so traumatized by the news of Father Milo’s murder that she could not speak. It would be close to a week before she felt well enough to talk again. Father Milo had been her priest and a close friend for over five years. The fact that he was strangled in his own confessional made the matter more upsetting.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” she said.
“I’m sorry, Mary,” said her husband.
“I don’t believe he was murdered in his own church. I just can’t believe it.”
Her husband, Martin Wesley, was also a friend of Father Milo. Martin was a devout Catholic like his wife. When such a vicious crime takes place in a small town, it’s bad enough. A hideous murder where the victim is a priest in his own church was tragic and unthinkable.
“You know I’m going to ask you to get the man who did this,” Mary said.
“I know,” said Martin.
“You’re going to need Jack’s help,” she said.
“I know.”
Martin Wesley and Jack Smith were private detectives in Deer County. They once were in charge of investigating many ugly crimes together in the city. Like Father Milo, they left the city of Philadelphia and located to small town Davistown. The name of their agency was as unpretentious as the men themselves. It was called Smith & Wesley Investigations. Like other members of their community, they had to commute to other parts of the state to work. There was not much crime in their small town until recently.
“It’s been a month and we have nothing,” said Jack Smith.
“I know,” said Martin.
The two detectives discussed the gruesome crime scene from weeks ago at Saint Andrew’s Church. The strangled priest lay dead. The piano wire left clear marks around his throat. His back was cut. The killer left a message on the wall behind the confessional. It was clearly written in Father Milo’s blood. It read “Ask Something of Me.” It was the worst crime scene anyone had seen in Deer County. It was signed “D.T.”
“I hate to ask you this but I have to do it,” said Jack.
“You know I know what you’re going to ask,” said Martin.
“Yes I do.”
“Jack, you don’t have to ask because he would never do something like that,” said Martin.
“No, I don’t know. It’s all over the news these days,” said Jack.
“The man never touched a child in his life. He was not a pedophile,” Martin insisted.
“The Catholic Church is full of parishioners who are sure their priest is not a pedophile. Unfortunately, it often turns out that they were wrong.”
“I know,” said Martin.
“Do you also know that there is only one other church in this town? It’s the Calvary Chapel. The pastor there is Rev. Richard Thorn. People in his congregation don’t like to think he’s taking too much money from the collection. The evidence says otherwise. He’s probably a crook.”
“A crook is better than a pedophile.”
“I can’t argue with that, Martin.
“You’re naturally suspicious of religious figures because you’re an atheist,” suggested Martin.
“No. I think religious people have an imaginary friend or friends. Just having faith doesn’t make somebody bad,” Jack explained.
There were many alcoholics in Davistown, but not too many drug addicts. Statistically speaking, this was a small town that knew how to keep substance abuse low or hidden. There was almost no homelessness to speak of. One man who was homeless was an old drunk named Jim Ridge. He would hang outside the local watering hole called The Deer’s Horns. Then when he spent what little money he had, he would pass out in front of the bar.
“Could you put another drink on my tab?”
“Sorry,” said the bartender.
&nbs
p; “Please. I just need one more than I can pass out.”
“No. You haven’t paid your tab in months. Besides you’re always embarrassingly drunk and you harass my customers and borrow too much for money,” said the bartender.
“What are you saying?” asked Jim.
“I’m asking you to leave and never come back. I’m sorry.”
“I’ve been coming here for twenty years,” Jim said.
“Twenty years ago you were a different man. You were employed. That was before you were a bum,” said the bartender.
“I’ll get going then,” Jim said sadly.
Jim left with tears in his eyes. He walked out of the bar for the last time, feeling worse than low. Jim walked around town. All the stores were closed as he looked at all the familiar sites. Jim was drunk out of his mind but he doubted he would forget about being banned from the bar.
“Oh God, I’ve got nothing. Nothing left at all,” said Jim.
He walked for a block or two and then found a nice alley in which to pass out. Jim was seeing double and close to falling asleep. He was close but then he noticed something. Jim wasn’t alone.
“Why would anyone want to do this to themselves?” asked the stranger.
“Life doesn’t make sense. Alcohol does, to me,” said Jim.
“So you’re a drunk because life is meaningless.”
“That’s it.”
“I see. Don’t you believe in God or the afterlife?”
“I don’t know. I guess there is no real way for me to know.”
“There isn’t a way for you to know. I know what you mean. I’m not a drunk but I can understand how this ambiguous existence could drive somebody to kill,” said the stranger.
“What?”
“I can understand how life’s ambiguities can drive someone to drink,” the stranger said.
“Hey, I’m wasted but you said kill! I want you to leave me alone. Who the hell are you anyway?” asked Jim.
“Who am I?”
“Who are you?” Jim asked again.
