by A. L. Mengel
He heard footsteps approaching from behind.
The old priest, weathered and worn looking with tufts of grey hair peeking out from the bottom of his grey wool hat, stopped him and asked if he needed help. Darius had forgotten that he was standing above a fresh grave.
“Yes, Father,” Darius replied with a look of distress on his face. The lines around his eyes, now more pronounced, drew down his cheeks as his face drew into a frown and look of anxiety.
The priest came over to him and put his arm around Darius gently. “What is wrong, dear one?” he asked, ushering Darius over to a row of small, plastic black chairs that were lined up from what had been a very small graveside burial service. “Why are you so distressed? Did you know Mr. Foley here?”
Darius shook his head. “No Father. It’s much worse than that.”
The two men sat next to each other in the chairs, and when Darius looked at the priest, he smiled back like an old friend.
“I am dying, Father.” Darius leaned back in the chair and it gave a small creak under his weight. “I do not have much time left, that I can assure you.”
“We all must come to terms with our departure, my friend. We make peace with the Lord, we say goodbye to our families, and we prepare ourselves for the inevitable.” The priest fumbled in his breast pocket and pulled out a pack of unfiltered cigarettes. “And then, of course, there are people like me, who work to put ourselves in this predicament sooner rather than later.” The priest waved his arm at the fresh grave. Darius let out a small chuckle, staring straight at the dirty plywood. The flowers around it looked so fresh and so alive, so beautiful, and such a brilliant contrast to the death below.
“Let me tell you a story,” the priest started right after he lit his cigarette. Darius stopped to smell the sweet smoke that wafted over to his seat, a scent he remembered from his earlier mortal years. Darius said ok, and the priest continued.
“The story is about this man here,” he said, gesturing down to the grave. “George Stanley was his name. He was a well-respected man, but he hardly lived his life in Miami.”
“What did he do?”
The priest continued. “He was a good man. He was a member of our parish. He attended church every Sunday, sometimes did the readings, other times he would carry up the offerings, you know…a typical good Christian man.”
“How did he die?”
“Well, there is some disagreement as to how that happened, dear sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mr. Stanley was a good and decent man, like I was saying. He was your typical lonely old Christian widower – he lost his wife more than ten years ago, yet he continued to remain connected with the parish, maintained friendships, and connected with the families here. He always wore his cardigan sweaters, striped polo shirts, and neatly pressed slacks – he looked like everyone’s favorite grandfather.”
“But there was a dispute as to how he died?”
The priest waved his hand a lit another cigarette. The sweet smell carried through the air, and Darius sniffed, treasuring the scent. A few raindrops fell through a cloudy, grey sky.
“I am getting there,” the priest said as he blew out a massive cloud of smoke that quickly was caught by the wind and blew away. “Mr. Stanley went through a bad period after Gaye died, but he would never show it to anyone. I can tell you this, though. He went through a very bad period. He would show up every week, smile beaming, glistening white teeth, shaking everyone’s hand. The whole nine yards. Great at PR. Might have been a politician. But underneath, there was a world of hurt and loneliness. And sometimes he acted on that loneliness in the strangest of ways.”
“What ways?” Darius asked, sitting down in the grass next to the marker, crossing his legs in front of him and resting his arms on his knees.
“There just something about good ol’ George that just wasn’t right. It just wasn’t right. He never acted like this before Gaye died. Trust me. I had known the man for over twenty years – and he definitely had changed a great deal. It’s like he was a completely different person.”
The priest snubbed his cigarette out and stamped on it in the grass. He got frustrated when a small plume of smoke continued rising from the green blades despite the steadily falling rain. “Let’s go inside,” he said, gesturing to Darius. “I have some newspaper clippings to show you. It will give you some insight about the life of Mr. Stanley here – later on in his life, at least.”
Darius walked next to the priest, heading through the sea of stones towards the church. Using his hand over his forehead to shield his eyes from the rain, he cast his gaze out to the sea of stones, now dark and wet – fading from a light, dry stone grey towards the bottom to a dark and wet charcoal color towards the tops.
“Why are you telling me about George?” Darius asked as they approached the stone wall and ironclad gate to the cemetery that lead to the gravel driveway next to the church.
“You will understand soon,” he said, opening the door with a creak. The faint smell of incense wafted out into the chilly air. The priest wiped his shoes on a floor mat, attempting to wipe as much water as possible off the sleeves of his black shirt. “Did a cold front come through?” he finally asked, looking at Darius as they stood in the warmth and comfort of the church.
“I don’t know,” Darius replied. “But it sure feels cold for Miami. It seems like this rain and cold just came out of nowhere.”
“Well the north must really be in the deep freeze!” the priest said, walking through the sea of wooden pews. He turned around quickly and extended his hand. “I am so sorry. Pete Bauman here. I was so sidetracked out there, I completely forgot to introduce myself.”
Darius shook Father Bauman’s hand and introduced himself. As they walked past the Altar, Darius hung his head low and dared not look up at the hanging Crucifix. Once at a small wooden door with blurred glass, the priest spoke again. “Darius, I want you to understand why I am doing this. I saw you out in the cemetery, and I initially approached you to be sure that all was okay. But, even after speaking to you, I can see in your eyes that all is clearly not okay.”
Darius nodded as they entered a small vestment room. The room was very simple and plain with pastel green walls and a small window high towards the ceiling covered in a steel mesh. The fading light accented a small, plain wooden table in the center of the room, with four chairs. “I have the book I am going to show you on the shelf over there,” Father Bauman said, pointing over to a set of shelves overflowing with books on the opposite wall. “And then we will head through that door to the Rectory.”
Father Bauman pointed to a small, windowless wooden door on the opposite wall from where they entered. It was clearly like a door to an exterior, heavier, a bolt a lock as well. “The Rectory actually was here before the church,” Father Bauman said, apparently reading Darius’ thoughts. “It used to be a courthouse, back in the early 1900’s when Miami was a small resort town. The church was built in the 1930’s during the Great Depression. See the wall there?” He pointed to the walls, which were made of stone – not the slate like the rest of the room.
He drew a key from his pocket as some thunder rumbled in the distance. “What’s with all these storms we have had lately?” he asked, fumbling with the key in the lock. “Sticks sometimes,” he added.
“It’s been a dark storm for a while now,” Darius said, his voice drifting off. “A dark storm that never seems to leave…”
Father Bauman entered a small and simple living room, furnished more like an economy motel than a residential living room. He gestured for Darius to sit, and Father Bauman went to the bookshelf in the vestment room to retrieve a large leather binder.
“This is what I have saved from George Stanley,” he said, opening it up on the coffee table. “Mr. Stanley, like I told you before, was a model parishioner. He really was. But when Gaye died, here is what happened.” He pointed to a black and white clipping with the photo of an older, heavy man with glasses. “Rea
d the article, Darius.”
LOCAL CORAL GABLES MAN IDENTIFIED AS SERIAL KILLER
The man responsible for four deaths in the area of young men has been apprehended. A resident of Coral Gables for the past four decades, G. N. Stanley was caught in a raid on his house in the late night hours.
The bodies of four young men were found in the basement of his house, along with items of the occult. In addition, there was speculation that Mr. Stanley was involved with the practice of witchcraft.
“So what happened to the young men?”
“I am getting there,” Father Bauman replied. “But they knew it was his house from the address from a tip-off. It looked like he was having a big party, and it was a big house, but there was hardly a light on at all. Just a glow coming from the back, and a single light above the front door on the front porch.”
“So what happened?” Darius asked.
“Well, the police stormed the house. They knocked the front door down, I mean it splintered out of the frame, and stormed into the house like you couldn’t believe, like from an action movie, demanding everyone to stop what they were doing and for everyone to show their ID’s.”
“Did they?” Darius asked.
“What do you think?” Father Bauman asked, chuckling. “Every last one of them were arrested. Every man in there – and there were a lot of men.”
Darius stared at the painting of Jesus on the wall in front of where they were sitting. The face was just as he remembered it from his early mortal years in France. It was the same painting that had hung in his mother’s kitchen. Jesus looked so wide-eyed, so eager to get to know you, his mussed shoulder-length brown hair framing his face, as if saying…come to me, My child…
“It’s an old painting.”
Darius snapped out of his musing. “What did you say?”
“The painting. It’s pretty old. Have you seen it before?”
“Actually yes,” Darius replied. “My mother had the same painting.”
“It was a long time ago, wasn’t it?” Father Bauman asked.
“Yes…it was.”
“I mean, a very, very long time ago, right?”
Darius paused.
He knew. He couldn’t yet put his finger on it, but Father Bauman knew that Darius wasn’t your run-of-the-mill distraught man wandering into a cemetery. “Yes it was,” Darius said.
“I know it was,” Father Bauman said. “And that’s why we are sitting here today. And that’s why I told you the story about George Stanley – and even though there is so much more to tell about that story, you and George share something in common.”
“What is that?”
“I think you know, dear Darius,” he said, standing. “George Stanley struggled until his dying day with the same demons that influenced the latter twenty years of his life.”
“So you are saying?”
Father Bauman out his hand on Darius’ back and showed him to the door. “Yes, my friend. I am here for you, I want you to know that. But I want you to know, and I want you to know very clearly, that you are being influenced just like George. You are being controlled, I can see it in your eyes, and hear it in your voice. And we need to perform an exorcism as soon as possible.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nice seeing you again.
You remember me? I’m the Mortician’s Mortician. Thought I would pop in and visit you once again.
I don’t remember much of Tramos.
He was the one who came to Darius in the middle of the night; he was the one who found his bed in the wee hours of the morning, when darkness still hugged the land and all were sleeping. But he would always come when he was sleeping. Darius would be huddled under his blanket, his eyes closed, the room dark and silent, the curtains blowing in the cool night air.
The silence was the same every night.
Until Tramos would come.
He never saw his face. But…he would always know when Tramos would arrive. He would feel a tug on the blanket, down towards his feet. And the covers would come off, and there would be a chill in the air. Darius would turn over, cradling his face in the crook of his arm, and lay face down into my pillow, as he felt the assault begin…
…Darius awoke to a thunderous crash, followed shortly by gentle, falling rain.
He remained huddled under the blanket, eyes tightly shut. He listened to the rain pelt against the windowpane, but kept the covers wrapped tight around him, in a cocoon. Until the silence was pierced by the phone ringing.
He did not budge. The phone rang several times, as he waited under the covers, listening to the storm as the thunder increased in frequency. And then the phone suddenly stopped ringing.
He pulled the covers down to his waist, feeling the relief of the cool air against his face. He lay flat on his back and stared at the ceiling.
And then the phone rang again.
He turned his head towards the bedside table and stared at the phone. It rose from the table like a black buoy, in a sea of papers, empty beer bottles and an overflowing ashtray.
The phone kept ringing.
He sighed and swung his legs out onto the floor. He reached over to pick up the phone and slowly brought it up to his ear. “Hello?”
The caller waited a minute. “Darius it’s Delia. I’m sorry to be calling you at this awful hour.”
He shook his head. “What is it Delia?” He reached for his cigarettes.
“The white worms have returned.”
Darius reached for a cigarette. “You are kidding me.”
He remembered the white worms.
It was shortly after he transformed.
Tramos was gone. He didn’t stay to see that Darius was tutored in the ways of the darkness. Darius was left to figure it out for himself. And Darius did figure it out.
But the white worms came during those times, too.
It was several hundred years before Darius had met Father Bauman in the Cathedral of the Gardens cemetery. And several hundred more years before Darius had encountered Antoine in Badulla.
The night that he remembered the white worms.
It was the days and the nights when Darius had recently transformed, and he was just learning the ways of the darkness. He had remembered how differently things looked, especially in the night time in which he was newly accustomed to living.
There had been no greeting that evening.
Darius awoke inside the darkness of a casket, the silence. He had shuffled a bit, feeling the satin lining, the constricting box. He pushed at the lid. A bit of warm, yellow light spilled in.
He pushed the coffin lid open all the way, and sat up. He looked around the room. He was in an attic. He saw the rise of the roof, the wooden floor. He sensed that it was evening, perhaps dusk; there were several tiny windows at the threshold of the first floor, and they did not offer much light.
“Tramos?” He called to silence.
Darius hadn’t remembered much after the wine and the conversation at the bar the previous night. But he did remember the suitors name was Tramos, and that was about it. But what concerned him was the apparent absence of Tramos, and the solitude that followed.
“Hello?”
He looked down at himself and examined his clothing. There were bloodstains on his white shirt; he was still wearing his pants, he was still wearing his shoes.
So he rose from the casket.
And then I saw the casket. I saw the darkness and the sadness. The emptiness and the solace. The hypocrisy of the satin against the hardness of the wood, and the comfort against the solitude.
Darius stepped out of the coffin. He felt that he was alone, and he was. There was an utter, impenetrable silence about the room. He could even hear the flicker of the candles burning against the wick.
“Tramos?”
His calling was futile. He discovered, after not much time, that he was in the chateau alone. His coffin lay in the center of the attic, where the ceiling soared to a point at the crest, and the rafters that reached
down from the points above were covered sporadically with cobwebs and spiders.
And burning candles lined the walls, attached to sconces that fingered out from the plaster. Darius reached up to one of the sconces and grabbed a candle from its holster. There was a set of stairs leading to the floor below, a rectangular opening where the stairs flowed downwards.
He walked over to the stairs and looked down. There appeared to be a hallway, lined with closed doors, credenzas along the sides of the hall, and sculptures on the tabletops. He strained to listen. He thought he might have heard some shuffling on a floor below.
But he opted to proceed.
The stairs creaked under his weight, and when he reached the floor below, he discovered that he was still alone. But it wasn’t the first night that he was discovering himself as an immortal that he discovered the white worms.
*~*~*
It was shortly thereafter; years actually. For there was a time, before he encountered Antoine, that he saw his first white worm.
He had been traveling to Paris; to the city of lights and majestic beauty; to the bustling avenues and finally the soaring Cathedrals. To Île de la Cité and Notre Dame.
The spires were familiar. So were the flying buttresses and gargoyles.
They were similar to the spires that soared over his home in Lyon, though not as grand, and not quite as soaring, but they had offered a semblance of familiarity.
And then he found himself standing in front of Notre Dame de Paris; soaring, grand towers on either side of the stone building, with a glass rosette in the center, above sculpted doors. And he treasured it. He stood on the front steps, looked upwards towards the spire, and cherished the stained glass, the stunning rosettes, like glass flowers commanding the view of the gardens. He stood for a few minutes and appreciated their exquisiteness. And when he went inside, he didn’t falter, he merely slid into a rear pew, next to Madame. He shifted in his seat, looked down at the floor. “I think it’s time that I create someone, a son.”
