Year's Best Body Horror 2017 Anthology

by C. P. Dunphey

  He just didn’t think it would be a good idea for the congregation to see such things.

  “Here he is! Our very own soon to be angel! Two more weeks, brothers and sisters! Just two more weeks!”

  The preteen sat in front of the congregation, his eyes hazy and his lids heavy. The only tell that he saw anyone in front of him was the small grin he gave when the crowd erupted in applause. Alfred had his doubts the boy knew exactly what was happening, but he seemed happy enough, and that’s what mattered.

  The wings attached to Ryan’s back were starting to look a bit dingy, but Alfred knew none of his congregation saw it. Alfred stood to the side, clapping vigorously, his eyes moving from the slightly yellow feathers to the crowd and back again.

  He watched as one of the chicken feathers lifted gently from the super glue and fell lazily to the floor next to the wheelchair.

  7.

  “Are you sure, Pastor Alfred? I mean he’s been using the restroom on himself the past few days. And his back . . . I just don’t know. I mean, when we clean the wound, it’s starting to smell.”

  Alfred looked at Patricia Bilbox with a mixture of concern and calm.

  “I understand, Patricia, I do. He’s using the restroom on himself because we’re giving him those pills around the clock, and that’s to keep him from hurtin’. You know this.”

  Alfred watched as Patricia looked to Terry. The mother was concerned more than the father, but that was the natural way of things. They were the weaker sex—the Good Lord had told everyone that two thousand years ago.

  “We’re worried,” Terry said. “I mean the smell coming from the back of him, and now this . . . it just might be too much, Pastor.”

  Alfred nodded. He thought something like this might come up. The boy was zonked out on Oxycontin, drooling on himself right now. He was sitting half naked in the wheelchair, and the mother wasn’t lying—Alfred could smell the stench from across the living room. He knew what he had to do, though.

  Alfred stood and walked over to the boy sitting in his underwear. He leaned the chap forward so that he could get a look at the surgery.

  The smell was awful, but the sight might have been worse.

  Puss and blood oozed from the holes in his skin. The antibacterial salve they’d placed across his back didn’t seem to be working at all. Blisters were forming, too, and Alfred didn’t even know how that was possible. It’s not like the boy had been burned.

  “This is the Devil’s work,” he said. “There’s no doubt about it. He wants to stop us, but we’re not going to let him.”

  “This next part, though . . . Pastor, I’m just not sure.” The woman’s voice shook as she spoke, but Alfred couldn’t let her faith waiver. They had come this far, and there was less than two weeks before Gabriel took over the boy’s body.

  Alfred looked up from the drooling kid to Patricia. “Now listen to me, both of you. We’re not going to let the Devil beat us here, are we? The bleach is going to clean this wound right up, and sure as I’m standin’ here, God is going to put some healing potion in it too, and we’re going to be able to take your son off these pills, okay?”

  He stared at the two of them, and finally, slowly, they both nodded in agreement.

  “Now let’s get him in the tub so we can start healin’ him.”

  It took a few minutes, but Alfred watched as the two parents undressed the child and moved him to the bathroom. His mother fed him another pill, because everyone knew the pain he was about to endure would be awful.

  “How long’s he got to stay in it?” Patricia asked.

  “I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout that,” Alfred said. “The Lord ain’t told me how long exactly, but I’m thinking three to four hours might be enough. Three to four hours will show Him we’re serious, and it’ll show Satan we’re serious too. That’s what we want, both of them to know which side we’re on.”

  “Three to four hours?” Terry asked.

  “Yes, I think that’ll do it. Now let’s pray before we put him in.”

  And they did pray.

  8.

  Alfred watched the boy the entire time. It was his duty, and to be honest, he thought the parents might grow weak if he were to leave. Growing weak now would only show God they weren’t serious, and that couldn’t happen. Not after the amount of belief the whole congregation had in what they were doing.

  The tub was 1/5th water and 4/5th’s bleach. Alfred had paid for all the bleach, and even hauled it over himself.

  The boy sat in the tub, the liquid up to his neck. His body kept trying to slide down underneath, but Alfred or one of his parents would pull him up. The feathers were getting ruined, no doubt about it, but that couldn’t be avoided. The wings were bent and wrapped around his body; the feathers had loosened and floated in the tub next to him.

  They had opened the bathroom window and put a large fan inside the room as well, blowing the bleach fumes out.

  It was slow going for a while, but eventually—about an hour and a half in—Patricia spoke up.

  “Is he okay, Pastor? Look at his skin.”

  Had Alfred been dozing off? Perhaps. Sure enough, though, the boy’s skin was changing, and not like Alfred had wanted. The point of this had been to whiten the boy’s skin, making him look more angelic. That’s what Jesus said He wanted, and it would certainly show their dedication to God’s vision.

  Red welts were rising on his arms. One of them had a trail of blood floating up into the clear liquid, looking like a red root rising to the ground’s surface.

  “That doesn’t look good, Pastor. His skin ain’t turnin’ white at all. It’s turnin’ red.”

  Alfred suddenly wanted to grab the woman by her scraggly hair and jam her face into the damned mirror behind him. He could tell it was turning red. Everyone that looked at the tub saw it.

  What’s his back look like? Alfred wondered, but then shoved the thought away, half afraid the mother might read it and then start looking.

  Alfred turned to his watch. It wasn’t time yet. Three hours minimum and the kid had only sat in the bleach solution for half that.

  “We have to wait, Patricia. Remember, it may look painful to us, but the Lord is in charge here.”

  A sick looking abrasion sat across the boy’s penis, with a deep red line cracking down the middle like some sort of STD.

  Alfred looked away.

  “Another hour and a half.”

  No one said anything. Patricia moved a bit closer to the tub. Then they sat and waited.

  Finally, almost two hours later, Patricia turned her head away from her boy and looked at the pastor with tear-filled eyes. “Can we get him out, Pastor? Please?”

  The tub was full of chicken feathers and blood. The blood tinged the entire tub red despite the bleach. The feathers both floated on top and sunk to the bottom, hiding parts of the boy’s body. Alfred didn’t need to see the whole thing to know that it didn’t look good beneath the chicken parts. The parents didn’t need to see this, not if they were to keep going along with God’s plan.

  “Let me clean him up, Terry and Patricia. Ya’ll go ahead on and I’ll dry him and get him dressed. Leave one of them pills on the counter there.” He stood, not looking at the two of them, not even going to give them the chance to brook dissent.

  The two parents slowly walked out of the bathroom, their heads down.

  Alfred waited until they were gone before he moved. He took his shirt and pants off, stripping himself down to his underwear. He looked at the red liquid and said a silent prayer that God would keep him from any disease.

  He reached in and pulled Ryan from the murky water. The boy groaned on the way up, clearly the pain beginning to rise above the drugs.

  The kid was heavy, especially with the damned wings, and Alfred barely got him from the tub to his wheelchair without falling out himself.

  He sat down on the edge of the tub, the bleached bloody water cold on his ass as it soaked through his underwear. Alfred stared at the boy, gr
owing more worried with each passing second.

  This wasn’t good. He couldn’t sit here and pray himself into thinking it was.

  The boy’s body had begun to swell up, looking fat and disgusting. Blood dripped from the welts that covered his flesh, the bleach having eaten through his skin like some kind of parasite. Alfred had told the parents that God would put some type of healing potion in the water, but that hadn’t been the case.

  Christ no, it hadn’t.

  Red, bleeding welts stretched from the kid’s neck down to his feet.

  “Oh, God, what have we done?” Alfred whispered. He couldn’t hide it from the parents.

  And yet . . . he couldn’t be wrong about this. He just couldn’t be. The Lord had come to him too many times telling him what must happen . . . and Ryan’s parents saw God too. In their dreams.

  No, this was the Devil’s work again, trying to confound the faithful.

  Alfred would do his part. He’d cover the boy and explain to the parents what was happening. The Lord worked in mysterious ways and they had to understand that.

  Alfred vomited in the toilet twice while putting Ryan’s clothes on.

  9.

  The sun was hot on the final day of Ryan’s changing. It beat down on the church’s back lawn as if they had somehow offended it. The congregation was there, every single one of them.

  Alfred P. Cunningham had promised a lot and today he would deliver. The Lord had come to him last night, laying everything out perfectly.

  They were to have service outside today, underneath God’s sky and the cleansing power of the sun. Ryan Bilbox was already sitting in his chair. The wings he wore were mostly destroyed, the metal aluminum beneath bent and twisted, poking through the cloth. A few scattered chicken feathers still stuck to them, but the magnificence had worn off.

  “I want to thank you all for coming. Sincerely. From the bottom of my heart.”

  Alfred stood in the middle of the congregation, their chairs circling around him four rows deep. His hands were on the back of Ryan’s wheelchair, and as he spoke, he turned the boy so they all could see him. Ryan wasn’t smiling anymore as he had been last week at church. They’d loaded him up on so many painkillers, Alfred didn’t think he had a clue where he was even at. A steady stream of drool rolled down his cheek, though the turtleneck he wore mopped it all up before it hit his neck.

  The patches beneath his clothing were scabbing over for the most part, but there were many places that looked as infected as his back. The boy gave off a stench that smelled of rotten meat and spoiled milk, things left in the sun too long. Alfred had doused him with cologne before rolling him out onto the field, but that stench couldn’t be hidden for long—especially not in this heat.

  “Brothers and sisters, today is the day.” Alfred looked back to the fourth row of circles. “Brother Brian, how long have you been with this church?”

  “Forty years.”

  “FOUR-TEE YEARS!” Alfred shouted. “And you’ve been waitin' for a miracle ain’tcha? Been waiting on God to send someone that would take us all back up to heaven, ain’t that right?”

  “Amen!”

  “Amen!”

  The praises came up from all around him and Alfred was glad to hear it. His voice was taking their attention from the boy, which was good—if they focused too much on him, their enthusiasm might waiver.

  It didn’t matter, though.

  God was nearly upon them and He would lift this boy up into His loving arms and replace whatever ailed him with the righteous power of angels. No more fake wings. No more red and bleeding skin. This boy would be perfect in just a few more moments. The Lord had said it and so it would be.

  “I want to especially thank Terry and Patricia. They’ve shown more faith than just about anyone I’ve ever seen and God is surely to reward them for it. Not in the next life either, but in this one. In just a few minutes, to be matter of fact. Because their son . . . I can barely even believe it. Ryan here is moments away from being an angel. If you have faith, let me hear an amen!”

  “AMEN!”

  “Now,” Alfred continued, “we’ve kept much of what we’ve done in private, but the Lord spoke to me and told me the last part is to be done in front of all you. Because we must show our faith as a congregation, not as individuals. And your participation is as important as mine, as Ryan’s parents, too. You must watch and believe that the good Lord is goin’ to deliver us from evil. Do you understand, brothers and sisters?”

  The brothers and sisters affirmed their understanding.

  “Good, good, good.”

  “Now, we’ve made this boy’s body resemble as close to an angel as we can here on Earth. Because that’s what God wanted. He commanded Jesus to go without food and water for forty days, and he commanded us to do this. But if He can keep Jonah alive in the belly of a fish, then He can certainly raise this boy high into the air. No doubt about it.”

  “None.”

  “Not a one.”

  Alfred nodded, feeling the moment approaching.

  “Ruth, bring that on out here now.” He looked out into the crowd as his wife approached. “The last thing we’re missing, brothers and sisters, is a halo. And that’s what we’re going to do together. We’re going to give this little angel a halo, and when we finish, there won’t be nothin’ little ‘bout him no more.”

  Ruth made her way through the circles of chairs.

  Her left hand carried a gold-painted, circular tube. It wasn’t nothing more than a piece of an electric bug zapper that Alfred had laying around the house. He’d taken it apart and gave it to his wife, who then painted it and attached the three metal rods to it. The bottom of the metal rods would fit on Ryan’s head, allowing the halo to stand high above it.

  Ruth’s right hand carried a staple gun.

  She handed the gun to Alfred and then stepped to the side.

  “Terry, come on up here,” the pastor said.

  Terry stood from the front row and walked to his son.

  “Patricia, you too.”

  She did as she was bid.

  “Let’s hold hands,” Alfred said. “All of you surrounding us hold hands too. Bow your heads as we bow ours and let’s ask God for His grace and power.” Alfred took the two parents in either hand and waited as his congregation did the same. “Dear God, our Lord and Savior, we come to you ready for your love and blessings to rain down upon us like the cleanest water to ever touch this Earth. These two parents here have suffered in your name, truly doing your bidding. Indeed, we all have, as we did what you asked. Now, though, at the time of truth, we ask for your strength and your guidance to carry us through. Because on the other side of this act is a glory that ain’t none of us ever thought we’d live to see. I pray all of this in Jesus’s name. Amen.”

  The crowd around him concluded the same.

  “Now, if you two’ll take your seats, we’ll bring an angel down upon us, okay?”

  Both Terry and Patricia had tears in their eyes and were smiling wide.

  Alfred P. Cunningham returned their smiles and gently hugged them both. They had suffered and he was ready to relieve them of it. God was too; Alfred knew it.

  The parents sat and his wife took their place next to the boy. They had rehearsed this late into the previous night. She took the makeshift halo and held it above the boy’s head, while Alfred lined up the metal rods with the boy’s skull.

  Lord, thank you for this opportunity, he prayed silently.

  He took the staple gun and placed it against the rod, pressing down hard so that the business end of the gun touched Ryan’s skin.

  He pulled the trigger.

  He didn’t look at what he’d done, but moved to the next spot. He knew that God wouldn’t finish the job until he finished the job.

  Boom. The staple gun fired in his hand again.

  And finally, he stepped around to the last third of the boy’s skull. He lined the gun up perfectly and shot the staple into his head.

 
He stepped back. Alfred could feel the electricity almost rising behind him, the people ready for their miracle.

  Blood dripped down Ryan Bilbox’s face. It streamed from six different holes, two from each staple. One had been pushed into the middle of his forehead, and the two streams dripped down either side of his nose; the left bloodstream mixed with the drool stemming from his mouth.

  Alfred took another step back, unsure exactly how God planned on doing this, but knowing if he was in the way, he could be injured.

  Another thirty seconds passed.

  Ryan’s head fell forward, his chin resting on his chest.

  Patricia let out a small cry from behind Alfred, breaking his concentration.

  The halo now tilted heavily from the boy’s head, gravity pulling it toward his lap. The staples in the back of his skull still held it firm, but the metal rods were bending.

  Blood dripped from the boy’s forehead, splattering on his black suit.

  “Ryan?” Terry said.

  “One second,” Alfred called back. Sweat covered his own brow and he felt his chest tightening up. There it was. That was the Lord’s sign, that He was coming now. Alfred’s hands went to his left pectoral, though he didn’t know it. He was caught up in the rapture of the Lord’s arrival.

  Sure, his chest hurt, and sure a boy looked like he was dying right in front of him, but God had spoken and God would not lie.

  Alfred P. Cunningham collapsed to the ground.

  The congregation around him stood up, many gasping.

  Patricia Bilbox began to scream—her voice sounding like a meadow full of pleating lambs.

  Alfred P. Cunningham stared up at the sky and blackness started swimming on the outsides of his vision. His chest hurt, but that’s only because the Lord was so powerful.

  Darkness came over him quickly, and then he was in God’s arms.

  The rest of his congregation that he had led so faithfully for the past ten years stared at their dead preacher and their mangled boy. Many were sobbing, others only looking on with blank faces, as if still waiting for God to shine His holy light and end the madness before him.