by Lee Goldberg, Scott Nicholson, J A Konrath, J Carson Black,
Just like Shirley, Harker thought.
“Watch the doooooooor,” Bub instructed.
He dragged the carcass of the sheep further back into his habitat, coming to rest behind some bushes. Harker stood in the doorway to Red 14, alternating her attention between the hall and the habitat.
“How about the surveillance camera?” she called to Bub.
He didn’t answer. Minutes passed. Harker could see the legs of the sheep poking out from behind the brush. At first they twitched, then the twitching became bucking. When the blood started to spray, Harker left the door to take a closer look.
Bub rested his palm on the prone sheep's chest. The sheep was jerking wildly under his hold, almost as if an electric current was being passed through it. Slowly, it began to expand. The wool, matted black with blood, peeled away like strips of wet carpet. Then the skin detached itself from the skeleton and puffed out until the sheep was double its original size. It began to bleat, high-pitched and frantic.
It's screaming, Harker realized.
There was a large wet POP as the skin burst. A fine mist of blood sprayed Bub, covering him with droplets. With his free claw, Bub tore away the remaining skin. The muscles underneath were dark red and stringy and...
Changing.
All four legs shortened, seeming to shrink into themselves. As if its bones were made of rubber, bending and twisting until it no longer resembled a sheep, just a squirming mass of connective tissue.
The bleating became the choke of someone drowning.
Then the head imploded and promptly expanded into a human skull shape.
“Watch the dooooooooooor,” Bub commanded.
But Harker was rooted. The body convulsed, sending blood and stringy sinew in all directions like thrown spaghetti. It curled up into a position that was obviously fetal. Bub continued to keep his claw on its chest, in contact with the heart.
The musculature became a lighter and lighter red until it was pink. Harker realized it wasn't changing color; skin was forming. It kicked its legs, now ending in recognizable feet rather than hooves. Harker watched as its hands, shaped like two mittens, began to divide and splay until they each had five fingers.
Bub's concentration was intense. He appeared almost in a trance.
The bleating was high-pitched now, almost the wail of a siren. It slowly died down, becoming rhythmic, more recognizable.
The cries of a child.
Harker tried to swallow, but the lump in her throat was too big.
The changes became more gradual. Harker came up to the habitat and pressed her forehead against the Plexiglas. She could make out fine hair, springing from the scalp wet with blood. As the girl cried, Harker could catch glimpses of the gums forming and the tongue taking shape.
“Incredible,” Harker whispered.
The child blinked, revealing startling blue eyes. The details on her small body became sharper: nipples formed, fingernails grew, a belly button. Genitals, small and delicate. The many bends of the ear. Eyebrows and lashes. It was as if Harker was looking at her from far away through binoculars, slowly fine-tuning the focus.
“All dooooooooone.”
The girl had stopped crying. She lay on her back, arms and legs twitching.
“She's done?” Harker asked.
“Yessssssssss.”
“Can she eat?”
“Sucking reeeeeeeflex.”
“Bring her,” Harker said.
Bub gently picked up the child with one claw and took her to the side door. Harker hurried over to it.
“My daughter.” Harker’s voice broke.
She took the child in both arms, holding her close. It felt so natural. So good.
“Mama needs to clean you up, Shirley. You're all covered in blood.”
The child gripped her blouse and Harker almost swooned from joy. She had to get her back to her room in the Blue Arm without being seen. How?
“Watch her for a moment,” Harker said, handing the child back to Bub.
The girl closed her eyes and sucked her thumb.
Harker flew out of the room, through the gates, through the Octopus, into the Green Arm. Green 8 housed the two large food freezers. Harker went into the first, finding a large box filled with frozen loaves of bread. She emptied the bread onto the floor. The box seemed big enough.
She hurried back to Red 14 unseen. Shirley was sleeping in the palm of Bub's claw, curled up in a little ball. Perfect. Harker put the child into the box gently, so as not to wake her.
“Haaaaaaaave fun,” Bub said, grinning.
Harker was too nervous, too excited to answer. The box was cumbersome, but she welcomed the burden. She held it tight to her chest, careful not to jostle and redistribute the precious weight inside. More valuable than gold. More valuable than even freedom.
A box full of love, Harker thought.
The tears came freely now. Joy so sharp it was painful. Once again, after years of fruitless fantasies and desperate dreams, Julie Harker was finally complete once again.
She was a mom.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Father Thrist had never felt so close to Jesus Christ. He felt Him in his heart. He felt Him running though his veins. He felt Him with every breath, every step, every pore.
He hurried down the Red Arm, anxious to perform his first baptism in over twenty years. Bub, having read the bible Thrist had lent him, had decided to become Catholic.
Besides receiving the First Sacrament, Bub was anxious for others as well; the Second Sacrament, Penance, and the Third Sacrament, the Eucharist, receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion.
The world was soon going to change, Thrist knew for sure now. Bub would usher in a new era of religious awakening. His message of Christ's Divinity would resonate to all corners of the earth. There would be no more doubters. Even the most stubborn contrary faiths would have to recant. Rabbi Shotzen's conviction that Jesus never met the criteria of the Messiah would soon be overturned. Every knee would bow. Every tongue would swear loyalty to the one true God. And when that happened, the lion would lay down with the lamb and there would be universal peace, praise be to Christ.
Thrist had dressed for the occasion. Over his green cassock and Roman collar, Thrist wore a white alb and amice, a stole, and a white floor-length chasuble. Pride was a sin, of course, but Thrist loved wearing full Christian liturgical garb. It made him feel holy.
He entered Red 14 with an uncharacteristic smile.
“Good afternoon, Bub.”
“Faaaaaaaaaather.”
The demon sat in the center of the habitat, his legs in an odd lotus position—odd because his knees bent forward rather than backward.
He looked peaceful, Thrist thought.
“Have you decided on a Christian name?” Thrist asked.
“Luuuuucifer Michaeeeeeeeeeel,” Bub answered.
Father Thrist's chest swelled.
“I am honored. Lucifer Michael it is. I was named after the arch angel Micha-el. Did you know him?”
“Nooooooooo.”
“Tell me about God again,” Thrist said.
He felt like a child who never tired of his favorite bedtime story.
“God is pure blissssssss. He’s watching us right noooooow. He loves yoooooooou.”
Thrist closed his eyes, trying to imagine being in the presence of God. Thrist had never known bliss. It sounded too wonderful to bear.
“Let us save your soul then,” the priest said, “so you may once again be with God in heaven.”
Father Thrist nodded and patted the satchel he carried. In it were two copies of the Missale Romanum—the Latin Mass. Bub would serve as the choir and read the responses. The bag also contained a vial of holy water, a goblet, an unleavened circle of bread with a cross imprinted upon it, and a small bottle of red wine.
“We shall celebrate Mass,” Thrist said. “You shall be baptized, get Penance, and finally receive the Body and Blood of Christ.”
“Through
the glasssssssss?” Bub asked.
The priest shook his head. “I shall be in the habitat with you.”
The creature uncrossed his legs and stood. He approached the Plexiglas slowly.
Bub whispered, “Aren't you afraaaaaaaaid?”
“Of course not, Bub. I have no reason to be.”
Father Thrist marched over to the side hatch without fear. He opened the small door with the assurance of his faith.
Big mistake.
Bub was waiting for him when he entered. He grabbed the priest in his claw and held him up against the inner wall of the dwelling, five feet off the ground.
“What are you doing?” the priest asked, more surprised than afraid.
Bub grinned, a mouth of daggers.
“Open the dooooooooor,” the demon said.
“This is not the way to be saved,” Thrist said. “That door isn't the door you need to worry about. The door to heaven is...”
“Shhhhhhhhhhh,” Bub held a talon over Thrist's mouth. “Enough talk of heaven and God and Jesussssss. I met Jesus, priest, but not in the desssssssert. I met him in a whore hooooouse. He was fat and uuuuuugly.”
“Lies,” Thrist’s voice was barely a whisper. He couldn’t get his mind around what was happening. “Blasphemy.”
“The whoooooooores didn't want to touch him. He had to pay extraaaaaa. But at least he didn’t die a virrrrrgin... like yooooooou.”
The reality of the deceit now weighed fully on Thrist. His friend, Rabbi Shotzen, had been right all along. In his eagerness for proof, he had eschewed faith.
This time, the epiphany had come too late. He was a fool to think he could change the devil.
But he wasn't fool enough to listen to his lies.
“I... renounce you, Satan.”
“Open the doooooor.”
Bub traced an upside down cross on Thrist's left cheek, drawing blood. Thrist was terrified, but the holy man refused to flinch.
“Let meeeee give you Holy Communion, Faaaaaaather.” Bub barked a laugh. “Hoc est enim corpus meum!”
Take and eat this, for this is my body.
Bub pinched himself in the pectoral muscle and removed several ounces of his own flesh. The wound knitted itself instantly.
Thrist tried to turn his head away, but Bub forced the raw meat into his mouth. It was warm and smelled of decay, and it seemed to wiggle and squirm as if still alive.
The priest vomited, staining his vestments.
It would be the first of many stains.
“Open the doooooor.”
“Never,” Thrist spat. “I will not do the work of the devil.”
“Christ died in paaaaaaaain.” Bub said. “Your death can be woooooooorse.”
Bub moved his face closer to the priest's. Thrist could smell his fetid breath and see ragged bits of sheep still clinging to his teeth.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” Thrist said, “I shall not want.”
“Heeeeere comes the paaaaaaaain.”
Thrist felt Bub's claw sliding down his left leg. The demon grabbed it tight and slowly began to twist. There were cracking sounds, and then a loud pop when the knee gave out.
Thrist screamed, the first time he'd ever screamed in his life.
“Now waaaaatch.”
The priest felt a pressure in his chest, akin to suffocation. Then his body was enveloped in a fold of warmth, a warmth so complete that Thrist thought the Holy Spirit had rescued him.
He was mistaken.
“I just healed yoooooour leg”
Thrist was astonished to find the agony completely gone. He moved his leg and it felt normal.
“Here is cooooomes.”
Bub twisted the leg again, faster than before.
Again Thrist cried out, but this time Bub opened his toothy maw and a black tongue snaked out, slithering into Thrist's mouth and silencing the cry.
Tears streaked down the priest's face as Bub wiggled the broken leg this way and that way, his vile tongue raping Thrist's throat.
Father Thrist prayed for death.
It didn't come.
Just as he was close to passing out, Bub removed his tongue and allowed him to breathe again.
“Do you want me to heeeeeeeeeeal you?” Bub whispered.
Thrist's face began to spasm, his left eye blinking uncontrollably. His facial tic had returned.
“Open the doooooor.”
The priest said nothing. The pain in his leg was overwhelming, but even worse was the left side of his face. Every twitch of his upper lip pierced his soul.
“What's wrong with your faaaaaaaaaace?”
Thrist's entire world was reduced to despair. The facial tic was proof. His God had forsaken him.
“I can make it wooooooorse,” Bub said.
He gave the leg a twist and Thrist blacked out.
*
When the holy man awoke, there was no pain.
“We can do this all daaaaaay,” Bub said.
He grabbed the same leg. Father Thrist gagged at the thought of the oncoming agony. He knew he couldn't handle it again. The very idea made his gorge rise.
“...please...”
“Where is your God nooooooow?”
Thrist’s eyelid was blinking like crazy. “...no more...”
“Pray to me, Faaaaaather. Pray to me to not to hurt yoooooooou.”
“I... I...”
“Kneeeeeeeel, priest.”
Thrist knew he was a dead man. The moment he'd stepped into the habitat, his fate had been sealed. But that was the fate of his body. The fate of his eternal soul remained unresolved.
Until now.
Father Michael Thrist silently asked God for the forgiveness of his sins, and thanked the Almighty for the privilege of his life and the opportunity presented to him. Thrist had come there today expecting a baptism, but it turned out he was the one about to be baptized.
The Church called it the Baptism of Blood. Dying a violent death in the name of the Lord.
Thrist embraced martyrdom like a gift.
“No.”
“Nooooooooooo?”
Thrist faced the demon. His facial tic had disappeared, and he stood proudly, without fear. Jesus died for mankind’s sins, and Thrist was honored to die in His name.
“I shall not kneel.”
Bub lifted the priest up and twisted each of his feet backwards. Thrist began to cry, and Bub held him on the ground in a kneeling position.
“Worship meeeeeeeee.”
“No,” the priest said through clenched teeth.
The demon took one of Thrist's arms and bent it back at the elbow. It snapped with the sound of a gun shot. Thrist screamed again.
“Proclaim your loyalty to meeeeeeee.”
There could be no worse death, Thrist thought. Or no greater death.
“I proclaim... my loyalty...”
“Yesssssssssssss.”
He looked up, past Bub, past the ceiling, past the two hundred feet of earth above them.
Thrist said it clear and strong, “To my Lord, Jesus Christ.”
Bub went to work on the other arm, but Thrist had gone to another place in his mind. He knew Bub was twisting and breaking his body, but he no longer felt any pain. He could picture heaven, as Bub had described it. Eternal bliss. His faith had been restored, and Thrist had no fear of death.
Not even when Bub pulled off his leg.
“Fooooooool,” Bub hissed at him. “Open the fucking dooooooooor.”
The priest looked up at Bub and smiled beatifically through his veil of tears and blood.
“I forgive you,” Thrist whispered.
He didn't feel it when Bub bit off his head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Rabbi Shotzen thought he heard a scream. He stopped his prayer and listened.
Silence.
He began again in earnest, intoning under his breath, “Kadosh kadosh kadosh...”
Another scream. This time he was sure he heard it. Moving cautiously, he appr
oached the door and opened it a crack.
The Red Arm was empty.
He craned an ear to listen.
Nothing. Not a sound.
Perhaps it wasn't a scream. But he should check. He'd heard the gate open a few minutes ago. It had been Father Thrist, visiting Bub in full church regalia. But that couldn't have been Thrist who screamed. Even he wasn't foolish enough to go into the habitat.
Then again...
Rabbi Shotzen was overcome by a sudden burst of urgency. He grabbed his bag of Molotov cocktails and held onto the lighter, and then he rushed out into the hall and saw...
Bub was crawling out of Red 14.
“Jesus Christ,” Shotzen said.
The demon pulled himself through the tight fit of the door and cocked his head at Rabbi Shotzen.
“Shalom, Raaaaaaaabbi,” Bub said.
Shotzen set down the bag and with shaking hands and took out the first bottle.
Bub couldn't stand erect because the ceiling was too low. He crawled up to the first gate, and to Shotzen's amazement, punched in the code.
The bars swung open.
Shotzen flicked the lighter. Once. Twice. Three times. No flame. He looked at it and saw he had the wrong one.
“Your friend Faaaather Thrist,” Bub said, crawling forward, “has something to saaaaaay.”
The demon opened his mouth and coughed. A red ball flew out of his throat and bounced before him, sticky with goo.
Shotzen took a closer look and saw it wasn't a ball.
Bub picked it up and held it out to Shotzen.
Father Thrist's head, slicked in gore.
It blinked.
Then it blinked again, and opened its mouth as if to say something.
“What's thaaaaaat?” Bub asked, holding his other claw to his ear. “You’ll have to speeeeeeak up.”
Shotzen gagged.
“He wants to talk to yoooooou.”
The creature chucked Thrist's head at the Rabbi. On reflex, Shotzen dropped the bottle and the lighter and caught it with both hands like a basketball. The firebomb fell to the ground and shattered.
Shotzen stared at the head in his hands.
“Kill me,” the priest's lips clearly said.
Shotzen yelled out in shock.
Bub laughed so hard he vomited out Father Thrist’s leg. It flopped onto the floor and wiggled like a fish.
