She stared at him for a moment, as if not recognizing the man lit only by a small lamp in the window, but then something, somewhere finally made a connection and she nodded to herself.
She opened the door, only a little surprised to discover that it wasn’t locked, and moved inside. At first, she was very quiet, as if hoping not to wake Father Billy, but then saw him staring back at her through the darkness, two tiny, glowing specks of white reflecting from his eyes like those of cat.
“Did I wake you?” asked Cindy.
“No,” replied Father Billy, casually. “I woke up when it started raining.”
Cindy noted a change in his voice. There was something coy, searching, and maybe even feral in there. She instinctively took a step back as Father Billy reached over to a nearby switch and turned on the overhead lights. When they came on, Cindy saw that the bloodstains from the previous night’s attack were now dried on the floor, some even on the sofa under where Father Billy had been napping.
“Oh,” Father Billy said, as if noticing the stains for the first time. “I was so exhausted when I came in, I didn’t manage to turn on the light. Do you know what happened here?”
Cindy thought the first part was plausible, but didn’t answer his question. She nodded to the back door.
“You managed to start your laundry,” she said, the only sound in the room being that of the washing machine clunking along in the background. “Guess you weren’t too tired.”
“I suppose so,” he replied, making no effort to explain. “Where are all the campers?”
Cindy had no idea how to answer this succinctly, but as she stared at him, the answer came easily enough.
“You know where they are,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“I do?” he asked.
“Yes, because you killed them.”
As the storm made its way across the lake, Maia and Faith took refuge from the downpour underneath a stand of trees. There had been no lightning, so they weren’t afraid of being electrocuted, but, still in their swimsuits, they were starting to get very cold as they couldn’t get dry. Finally, they decided to make their way back to the camp side of the lake, staying as close to the water as possible in case they ran into anybody and needed to make a quick escape.
The biggest problem wasn’t the visibility, but the fact that they wouldn’t even be able to hear someone sneaking up on them so hard was the rain pelting the lake’s surface.
“I’ll bet our clothes aren’t even there anymore,” Faith said, trying to spot the platform through the rain. “Or our books.”
“I’m sure the library’ll cut you some slack,” joked Maia, picking her way over a fallen branch. “And you didn’t take all your clothes out, did you? Aren’t there still some in the cabin?”
Faith stopped short. “You actually want to go into camp? I thought we were just going to go find a place to hide out.”
“I mean, what else can we do?” Maia replied. “We can’t stay out here in our swimsuits and a quick raid will get us everything we need. I mean, if we’re really careful, I think we should be okay.”
“But he’s probably there right now,” Faith said. “If the fire was to drive everyone back off the road...”
“Well, then, God sent the rain,” Maia said, her tone almost sing-song. “And if He sent rain to stop the fire, then He must be working against the Devil, no?”
Faith thought about this for a moment, then nodded.
“All right. But as soon as we get our clothes, we split, okay?”
Maia nodded. “Definitely.”
Back in the administrator’s cabin, Father Billy looked up at Cindy with genuine curiosity, unsure how she’d come to that conclusion.
“Why do you say that?” he asked, simply.
“Because,” she said. “I prayed and God told me it was you.”
Father Billy stopped short, having no idea what to make of this statement. He felt stung, wondering if it could be true, but then he looked at Cindy and knew it had been a feint, one he’d walked right into.
“So, it’s true?” Cindy asked. “Why? I don’t understand.”
“To make God stop me,” Father Billy said. “And as you just found out on the road, He’s not interested in any of us.”
“Well, He saved me,” Cindy replied. “Maybe He wants me to stop you.”
“To what end?” Father Billy said, rising to his feet, an incredulous look on his face. “Everybody’s dead. Why kill me now and not yesterday or the day before or the day before that when it could have counted for something? Why would He do that now?”
Cindy thought about this, but came back only to her earlier thought that God had a sick sense of humor.
“Well, why else would He keep me alive?” Cindy weakly countered.
“I don’t know,” Father Billy admitted, moving to the center of the room. “But I’m pretty tired of this and am ready to ask Him myself.”
Father Billy raised his hands, as if to indicate that he was no longer willing to fight back.
“Why don’t we test your theory?” he said, nodding towards the coffee table.
Cindy looked down and saw one of the long crucifixion nails on the table and picked it up. She saw dried blood on the tip and looked over at Father Billy.
“How many people did you kill with this?” she asked.
“Does it matter?” Father Billy replied.
Cindy hesitated for a moment, weighed the spike in her hand and then shook her head.
“I guess not.”
With a cry, Cindy launched herself at Father Billy, expecting to plunge the nail directly into his chest. But Father Billy immediately sprang into action, grabbing her wrists and twisting her arms around.
“Fuck!” she screamed, trying to pull away from him.
“After all I’ve been through, you thought I was going to roll over and die?” asked Father Billy calmly and mostly rhetorically. “If God is on your side, I want to know. Heck, I want to feel it.”
Cindy wrenched herself away from Father Billy and punched him in the face, sending him sprawling backwards. He caught himself on a chair, but Cindy was already upon him, slashing wildly with the nail, which sliced into his cheek. As blood dribbled out of the admittedly superficial wound, a surprised Father Billy still flinched away.
“Still thinking God’s not on my side?” Cindy asked, trying to catch her breath.
“If you see even that as miraculous, you don’t deserve to be His vessel,” Father Billy sneered.
“Fuck you,” Cindy replied, swinging at him again and pushing him further back into the cabin.
But then, Father Billy saw an opening and lunged at Cindy, catching her mid-torso and throwing her to the floor. Stunned, she looked up in time to see Father Billy balling up his fist, which he promptly bashed into the side of her face.
“Gnnh,” she grunted, realizing that he’d just knocked two of her teeth loose.
The good news was, his punch had momentarily made him shift his weight, which allowed her to angle her arm up and whip the nail around. She plunged it directly into his side, burying the tip a good three inches in.
“Aaaah!!” cried Father Billy, falling back and away from Cindy, his hand pressed against the wound, just below his ribcage. Blood was already bursting out of it.
As Father Billy scooted backwards across the floor, Cindy leaped to her feet and raised the nail. As she walked over to the wounded priest, his blood pumped out of his side, fast and thick.
“Guess God’s on my side,” Cindy said, blood dripping off the nail’s tip. “Time for you to go to Hell, Father Billy...”
“Gladly...” Father Billy whispered and closed his eyes.
But as Cindy brought the nail down in a fast, arcing motion, they were interrupted by what looked like a bolt of lightning blasting in through the open door which struck Cindy directly in the spine. Whether it was lightning or not didn’t ultimately matter as the result was that Cindy was on fire — her back, her hair and soon her face.<
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“GAAAAAHH!!!” she screamed, dropping the nail as a thick, burning gel oozed across her skin and scalp.
She twisted around towards the doorway as the flames ate through her hair and quickly burned through skin to skull. In the doorway, she saw an emaciated Douglas Perry holding a flare gun, looking terrified.
“Demon!!” he screeched, pointing at Cindy as she toppled over, her hands clawing at the air. “Demon!”
When she hit the ground, it seemed to snap Douglas out of whatever trance he was in and he walked inside the cabin, reloaded the flare gun, stood astride Cindy and aimed straight down.
Then, he pulled the trigger.
With a quick whooosh, the flare blasted out the tip of the gun and buried itself inside Cindy’s chest, directly below her breast bone, setting her diaphragm and soon her lungs on fire. She stared up at Douglas in disbelief, the fire spreading across her forehead and down to her eyeballs. A second later, her body gave out and her burning face smashed down onto the wood floor.
Father Billy, in a state of shock, stared over at Douglas.
“She was going to kill you,” Douglas whimpered. “I had to do it...”
Father Billy didn’t reply for a moment as he was still trying to figure this out in his mind. He had believed, wholeheartedly, that God was working within Cindy. He was more than twice her size, yet she’d been seconds away from killing him. But then this? It felt like the Lord was at the point of playing with human life just to taunt him.
“Jesus Christ,” Father Billy said, spitting out the words.
Douglas looked at him like he might cry as Cindy’s body crackled and burned, sending up cinders from her burning clothes. “Are you okay, Father Billy?”
“I am,” said the priest as he rose and went to the kitchen sink.
He took a rag, hosed it off under the faucet and quickly cleaned up his already clotting wound. As Douglas watched, he put bandages that were only recently tied around his head around his torso. The youngster noticed the oddly-shaven part of Father Billy’s head, evident to him now with his back turned, but didn’t say anything about it as the priest cleaned himself up and drank a glass of water. After Father Billy had taped off the bandages, he wheeled around to the boy, his face already contorting as he readied his next – and last – big lie.
“This?” Father Billy said, pointing at Cindy, his voice shaking. “This is the end. I made a mistake. I thought we were still on Earth. Oh, ho, ho – no. I was wrong. We’ve been in Hell this entire time, we just didn’t know it. The Devil won. He has conquered mankind. It never made sense how he could be here, freed from the Inferno, but it was we who were in his domain not the other way around.”
The room fell silent as Father Billy stared at Douglas, still holding the flare gun. The boy looked back at Father Billy, his face completely blank as she tried to make heads or tails of Father Billy’s words.
But then, his eyes went wide and he nodded.
“Oh, God...,” said Douglas. “Oh, God. What do we do?”
Father Billy’s mind raced. Keep it coming, keep it coming...
“God told me there was one road out of Hell, but it’s only for the most faithful,” Father Billy began, haltingly. “It’s the ultimate test of your belief in Him in these new, dire times. What you have believed your entire life to be the most mortal of sins, the taking of a life, is now the one thing God asks of you.”
“But I just did,” Douglas said quickly, pointing to Cindy. “I just took a life.”
“No,” Father Billy replied. “You took the life of a demon. You must take the life of a human and since it is the duty of everyone, the life you must take is your own.”
Douglas’ eyes went wide with fear.
Father Billy nodded gently. “I know it must sound terrifying, but it will bring you into the bosom of Our Lord, where we all belong and where we spend our entire life trying to get to.”
Douglas looked at Father Billy and the priest could see just the beginnings of skepticism.
“Of course, I’ll be right beside you when you go,” added Father Billy to seal the deal.
“You will?” Douglas asked, as if this would make it all right.
“Absolutely.”
“Then... will you help me tell the others?”
Father Billy nodded. “We’ll tell them now. Together.”
Maia and Faith made it back to the camp about an hour past dusk, the rain clouds finally receding off to the east, allowing the moon to peek through the gloom. The girls had just slipped past The Rocks and were nearing the dock when they saw Father Billy and Douglas walking towards the screened-in classroom.
“What’s going on?” Faith asked, staring at the bandaged wound on Father Billy’s side and the gash on his face.
“I don’t know and from the look of it, we don’t want to know,” Maia replied. “We’re here to get our clothes and go, that’s it.”
Faith nodded and the pair altered their trajectory, looping around the camp and giving Father Billy and his charge a wide berth.
On the floor of the administrator’s cabin, Cindy’s heart continued to beat deep within her torturously burned body though her brain was no longer functioning at any kind of level that could lead to a successful revival. She was dead and gone, her spirit, her soul, her memories, whatever made her the person that had so recently lived and dreamed and been loved, literally up in smoke.
In her last moments of life, her thoughts were a haze. She envisioned her parents, her home, a couple of friends, her grandmother, but more than anything, she caught fleeting memories of her night before with Ian, which gave her some peace. Cutting through all this, though, was the recurring image of Douglas standing in the doorway. But she realized that it was Douglas she was focusing on, but something behind the boy. She tried to look harder, but the pain she was in was remarkable in its intensity. Finally, she was able to glimpse what it was — a great, yellow-and-white light, but in the shape of a person. That’s when she realized that it was an angel. Douglas’s actions had been governed by an angel.
She couldn’t believe this. She tried to cry out or, at least, turn to see if Father Billy had seen the same thing, but the flames ate through her brain stem and half a second later, she had thought her thought.
But even then, the last image she watched fading in her mind, was of that angelic glow. Not a face, not a wing, but what she could only describe as holy light as might emerge from the eyes of God Himself, staring down from Heaven.
X
The children of the prayer circle took the news about the Devil surprisingly well, better than Father Billy or Douglas Perry had expected them to. Having fasted for so long, many were simply happy to know that the end, any end, had finally arrived. Some were afraid of the violence involved with their coming end, but Father Billy assured them that it would be painless. They would be provided with shallow bowls of warm water from the kitchen and they were to place their arms in them after cutting their wrists length-wise from halfway up to the elbow all the way to their palms. Long before their blood drained all the way out, Father Billy explained, they’d fall unconscious and would quietly pass over in their sleep.
“And then, like Christmas morning, you will awake in the arms of Our Lord!” Father Billy exclaimed. “Your families are already waiting there for you, watching you do this brave thing. You’ll just slip from this life into that. The reason the Lord wanted you to fast was to ease this transition. It will only make it that less painful.”
As Father Billy spoke, Douglas walked through the classroom laying knives beside each of the children. One of the kids, a thirteen year-old named Ronald Green, looked up at Douglas with wide eyes.
“Will you help me? I don’t know if I can do this.”
Douglas was about to answer in the affirmative when Father Billy shook his head.
“You have to do it yourself,” Father Billy stated, leaving no wiggle room. “If someone else takes your life, it’s murder and you’ll be trapped here in Hell.�
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Ronald stared up at the priest, but then nodded, which made the priest feel a momentary pang of guilt. He was just spinning stories now. This was no longer about putting God to the test, this was spitting in His face by killing those He most beloved.
But then Father Billy took a deep breath and pushed these thoughts out of his mind. This was his mission, all the way to the end.
When Douglas reached the last person in the room, Becca Roy, he found her smiling.
“I knew this would come to pass,” she said. “I’ve known since I met him.”
She touched Douglas’s hand, her eyes long glazed over with hunger.
“I can’t wait to see you over there,” she continued, running her fingers over his knuckles and tracing designs on his palms. “Thank you, Douglas. And thank you, Father Billy. I would be lost without the two of you.”
Without another word, Becca picked up her knife, closed her eyes and violently punctured a hole in her left wrist before winding the blade around her arm, cutting a long, continuous circular pattern all the way up to her elbow like someone attempting to peel an orange with a single cut. She did this again to her right arm, more jagged now as she was right handed. On top of that, the blood cascading down her left arm made the knife handle slippery, but she finally managed to finish and placed both arms in her bowl of water.
Everyone was surprised with the ease with which she did it, though Father Billy knew it was hardly the first time she’d cut herself. She looked around at the others, a little wistfully.
“Come,” she admonished them. “We’re doing this together.”
No one wanted to go next, but then Ronald Green picked up his knife and cut his arm, just not deep enough.
“No, no, like this,” said another girl, who demonstrated by slashing deeply into her wrists, but then gave a gasp so intense was the pain.
“Oh, my God!”
“It’s okay,” said Father Billy. “It’s all okay. You just have to be brave for a moment and then everything will be fine. Besides, it’s not really pain, just your surprise at a new feeling. There is no pain!”
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