Death’s Demons

“What do you think of Dickinson’s portrayal of Death in this poem, Jason?”

Jason Keller closed his eyes, took a deep breath, groaned silently, and re-opened his eyes. He found the teacher’s beady, malicious eyes trained on him. “Doctor Smith, I think her depiction of Death as a stately gentleman, full of courtesy and grace, is probably one-hundred percent accurate.” He smiled his most patronizing smile at her, and visualized his mother’s reaction to the grade he was sure to receive in this class. Virginia Keller was the embodiment of pretention and snobbery when it came to literature, except that it wasn’t a pretense for her. She really had written over thirty best-selling novels, and now she thought she knew everything there was to know about reading, writing, and anything creative. 

Dr. Smith looked at Jason for a moment, and resorted to ridicule. “It doesn’t conflict with your insistence that Death is a rabid, slavering creature, bent on destruction? What did you write in your analysis? Oh yes… ‘Death could never do anything so elegant as drive a horse-drawn coach because, first, he’d terrify the horse (until he devoured it), and second, he doesn’t have the patience. He shows up, ransacks the body until he finds the soul, and savages it, tearing the soul apart, or crushing it, squeezing it until it bursts’. Isn’t that what you wrote, Mr. Keller? Is that what we’re to expect from the progeny of the second coming of Jane Austen?”

Jason heard a few snickers and giggles from the students around him, and glanced toward the door, where a huge jock in a varsity jacket sat. He lounged in his small writing desk; legs splayed in front of him. When he saw Jason looking at him, he held his fists up to his temples, forefingers extended in the semblance of horns, stuck out his tongue, and waggled it. The pretty, dark-haired girl next to the jock slapped his thigh and held a hand over her mouth to stifle giggles.

Jason thought back to the day he witnessed Death’s savagery. He was ten, and his Dad still lived. They were hunting. Bowhunting, to be precise. His Dad had tracked the buck to the edge of a pond, and they were looking for fresh signs of it. They both wore bright orange vests and red hunting caps, and binoculars around their necks. They even had deer urine splashed onto their boots to help mask their own scents. Jason’s Dad was bent over a small pile of scat, estimating its age, when they both heard the fluttery whistling in the air. Jason’s Dad looked at Jason with alarm in his wide, green eyes. “Get behind me, Jase!” he yelled, grabbed Jason by the arms, and spun around. He then bent his head to look at his own chest. Six and a half inches of camouflaged aluminum arrow, tipped with a red-tinged broadhead hunting tip, was pointing at his son from just to the left of his breastbone, like a direct hit from a cowardly, backshooting Cupid. 

Jason remembered his shock as his father fell forward in slow-motion. Jason thought it would have been more dignified if he had fallen to his knees first, then toppled forward, like in the movies, but his Dad’s knees touched the ground at the same instant that his forehead did. Jason wanted to go to his Dad, to help him, to comfort him, to talk to him one last time. Fear locked his own knees, though. Fear of the creature that had materialized from nowhere, and was now crouched over Jason’s father. At first glance, it was covered in thick, brown fur, with long, skinny legs and sharp claws, like a horror-comic rendition of a werewolf. When Jason blinked, however, he saw that it was scaly, and green, with huge, lamp-like eyes that reminded Jason of Tolkien’s ring-poisoned creature, Gollum. The beast was using its strong fingers to tear Jason’s father apart, lifting organs and guts out of the torso with grisly indifference. It dug under the ribcage to explore the lungs and heart. It tore his father’s throat open, and found what it was searching for, at last. Its talons, for now it was feathered and fierce, clutched and held high a dark, bulging sac that dripped blood. It shredded the sac, and devoured the strips.

Jason heard branches break loudly behind him, and turned to see a large man, smelling like “an Appalachian washtub”, as his father would say when his poker buddies had drunk too much whiskey.

“Hey, boy! Did you see what my arrow hit?” the man demanded.

Jason turned back to his father’s dismantled corpse, and saw that it looked just as it had before Death had found it. 

As terrible as everything else he saw that morning was to Jason, the one second in time that haunted Jason’s nightmares for the next nine years was seeing the beast start for him, Jason, when it first appeared. Only after an instant of confusion did it turn to his dying Dad and commence its gruesome business. It wasn’t hard to guess what that instant meant:  Jason was supposed to be the dying one.

******

Riding back to his dormitory on his skateboard, Jason noticed a girl on a bicycle pacing him. She looked to be about twelve years old, and she was riding her bike in the street. Yelm Street was a picturesque, small-town street:  lined with poplar trees, parked cars, and sporting a smattering of leaves. Traffic was very light on Yelm, as it led into a residential neighborhood after it passed the university. 

Jason grinned at the girl, and picked up speed. All right, missy… let’s do this! He thought.  The girl recognized the challenge, had been hoping for it, and stood on the pedals of her dirt bike. Jason knew she’d beat him over any great distance, so he planned on calling a stop to it at the first corner they came to, which was a driveway into one of the smaller student-parking lots. Jason could see the lot up ahead, but it must be a thousand feet away because he couldn’t make out the break in the sidewalk, yet.

The girl kept her eyes fixed on her opponent, and Jason found himself reciprocating the silent trash-talk. Jason was running out of breath as they approached the driveway. The girl was laboring, too, he could see, and felt a sense of pride that he could make her work that hard to keep up with him on his skateboard. He pointed to the driveway, and the girl nodded. With a sudden burst of youthful energy, she pulled ahead of Jason and stopped when she pulled even with the curb. Jason grimaced and hurried to catch up.

The girl stood in the road, straddling her bike, head drooped as she regained a normal breathing rate. Jason’s wheels clacked in furious determination as he neared the finish line. They were both caught off-guard by the bright red Corvette that tore out of the student parking lot. It made a sharp left turn and bore down on the girl on the bike. Jason started toward the girl, meaning to grab her and pull her out of the way. Before he could take a second step, he felt a bone-chilling iciness slide down his spine at the base of his neck, and stopped moving. He stood and watched as the Corvette’s front grille played the bicycle like an accordion. The girl flew onto the car’s hood, bounced onto the roof, arms and legs seeming to wave at unnatural angles, and fell to the ground behind the car, which had braked to a sudden stop. Jason saw the girl’s face clip the car’s trunk and slide down to bounce off the rear bumper.

Jason still couldn’t move. Neither could the driver, apparently, Jason noticed. Jason watched as the grotesque lizard-thing appeared and pounced on the dead girl. There was nothing to obstruct his view as the beast disemboweled the girl and found its prize behind her stomach. It held the small, inky black sac high over its head, and squeezed it between its clawed hands. The sac burst open and black juice spurted out. Then the beast swallowed the deflated sac with one gulp, and disappeared. 

Jason felt his immobility leave him and went to the girl. Her face was shattered, her skull cracked, and her right arm was badly broken, but her torso was intact. Her insides were all safely inside.

******

The Journal of Jason Keller, March 8^th, 2009

I’m not crazy, right? I see Death. I’ve seen Him ever since that day with Dad. People die around me, and I see Death come and destroy their souls. I should be used to it by now. That kid today was the thirtieth or fortieth death I’ve witnessed. No, not just witnessed. Stood by and let happen. Why am I never able to save any of them, even though I’m right there and can see what’s about to happen? Today, I just couldn’t move! I wasn’t scared. I just couldn’t make my legs move, or my arms. I even stood there, as motionless as traffic on I-5 in Portland, as Death tore that kid apart and ate her soul. And, yes, there’s no doubt that Death laughs at me. It looks at me, flashes a quick, dark grin, and starts digging. It’s taunting me. I think Dad fucked up Death’s plans for me, and now Death is playing games with me to get some kind of petty form of revenge.

I’m the son of a writer. I like writing. Journaling is my life’s blood. But I need to talk to someone about this. It’s too big for my mind to work with on its own. Who, though? Mom is caught up in her literary lifestyle and just sees me as a disappointment. Teachers judge me based on her, and think I’m crazy. I don’t have close friends, because everyone thinks I’m weird, or conceited, or a million other false misconceptions. There is Abby, though. She doesn’t think I’m weird, but that’s because she’s about as strange as they come, herself. Still, I guess I’ll talk to her again. She’s probably sick of this subject, but maybe something new will occur to one of us. Wish me luck.

******

“Jase. Come over. I need a sacrifice.”

Abby Thomas was a devout Catholic. She also dabbled in witchcraft, and possibly Satanism, though she never came right out and admitted the latter.

“Uh… to try a new cookie recipe?” Jason asked hopefully.

“Sure. If you survive. See you in ten?” The line went dead, and Jason smiled, trying to assure himself that Abby would never actually hurt him.

******

“What did it feel like?”Abby asked him, eyes bright with excitement.

“It felt like a cookie,” he answered.

“No! When Xorbis possessed your mind and body!” she scowled at him.

“Oh. Like my soul was being branded with a thousand absolute zero-degree branding irons.” Jason lied.

Abby’s sky-blue eyes crinkled as her grin lit up her tanned face. The tan, and the blue eyes, contrasted so vividly with the lank, black hair and goth outfits that Jason still found himself staring at her in disbelief, even after knowing her for three years.

“I knew it!” she exclaimed. “The book says he’s a fire demon, but something told me it was a lie to cover up his affinity for cold!”

“Hey, Abby… speaking of souls… I saw him again yesterday.” Jason said.

“I know,” she said.

Jason stared at her blankly, then decided to let it pass. “Anyway, there was this kid…” he told her what happened.

“And you think Death laughed at you?” she asked when he finished.

“I know it,” he said.

“Okay,” she said.

“What do you mean, ‘okay’?” he asked, frustration coloring his cheeks.

“Well, you seem unhurt, so… okay,” she said.

Jason laughed. “I guess that’s one way to look at it,” he said. “But I don’t think you’d be so calm if the most powerful force in any existence laughed at you as it devoured a kid’s soul in front of you!”

“Oh, come on! It was just Death, not Blizgogk! Besides, how do you know it was her soul? Wasn’t it black? I don’t think souls are supposed to be black, at least, not in twelve-year old girls.” Abby said.

Jason stopped to consider this. “That’s a good point, but what else could it be? It’s not a normal organ that you’d find in a normal anatomy textbook, I know that,” he said.

That stumped both of them.

“You should talk to a priest.” Abby said into the silence.

Jason looked pointedly at the pentagram drawn in some small creature’s drying blood.  “Maybe we should both go,” he said.

******

Abby and Jason approached the massive, forbidding church on Saturday afternoon. As they walked, a heavy cloud passed over the Sun. In bright sunlight, the gothic-style church looked quaint and charming; viewed through gray daylight, the tall spires and ominous arches inspired dread, rather than hope. Damnation, rather than salvation.

Jason shivered and asked, “How does this work?”

“There might be a line. You need to notice who’s there before us, and wait until they’re done. Father Jacobs will be in the confessional–a little room–and you go in and sit down. He’ll lead you through the rest of it. Really, it’s just you telling him what’s weighing on you.” Abby replied.

“Don’t I have to be Catholic to do this?” Jason asked.

“Not to talk to a priest. He might not grant you God’s forgiveness, but he might. I’m pretty sure they all dream of chances like this to convert a heathen.” She smiled at him.

Abby grasped the oversized handle on the giant-wrought door, and pulled. The wooden behemoth glided open, revealing the dim nave within.

“Follow me.” Abby told him, and led him to a pew. “I’ll wait here for you. The confessional’s over there,” she whispered to him, and pointed to a normal, wooden door that looked like it could be in any modern house inhabited by humans of average stature.

Jason looked around and saw no one else in the spacious church.  “He’s just sitting in there, waiting?” he asked Abby.

“Shhh! Whisper! And yes, but he’s probably praying. Now go!” she told him.

Jason tread softly to the door, twisted the knob, and walked into a comfortably bright room furnished with two well-padded chairs and a small end table. A small, black leather-bound Bible and a glass of water sat on the table. One of the chairs was occupied by a tall, slender man with white hair and a beaked nose. He gestured to the other chair, and waited. Jason sat.

“I’ve never done this before,” Jason began. “But I’m not here to confess my sins. I see Death, and I need to know some things about souls.” Jason was surprised at his own bluntness. “I mean… if you could please help me with that,” he mumbled.

******

Abby knelt in the pew, head bowed, when Jason emerged from the room. He stood next to her for nearly a minute, then asked, “It’s not a sin to carve things into the seats?”

Abby ignored him, finished her last “6”, folded her switchblade closed, and stood up. She turned to the large crucifix poised over the altar in the front of the church, and performed the sign of the cross. “All done?” she asked.

“He said Reconciliation wasn’t the proper time for our talk, so I made an appointment to meet with him in a couple of hours.” Jason explained. “Want to get a pizza?”

******

The darkened sky descended into the depths of a dismal dusk, and Jason and Abby returned to the church. The priest met them at the looming front door and offered his aging hand in greeting.

“I look forward to hearing your story, Jason. I am Father Gregory. I see you have brought a friend. Excellent. Miss?” the tall, slender man turned to Abby.

At the utterance of his name, Abby turned white, despite her tan. She held her hand out to him in response to his offered handshake, but could not find her voice to answer him. She winced and visibly recoiled when the man brought her hand to his lips and kissed the backs of her fingers.

“This is my best friend, Abby. She’s pleased to meet you.” Jason said, curious at Abby’s unexpected rudeness.

The priest smiled at Abby, then produced a large key ring from his coat pocket. He found a very large iron key and used it to unlock the gargantuan portal into the church.

“Please, follow me to my office,” he said, and led them toward the altar. He climbed the three small steps to the altar and turned left, heading for a door much like the door to the confessional. As Jason and Abby approached the altar, Abby clutched Jason’s arm and clung to him. Jason turned his head to ask if she was all right, but was cut off by Father Gregory.  “Please, make yourselves comfortable,” he said.

Abby chose a chair in the corner, leaving the chairs in the middle of the room open for Jason and Father Gregory. As Jason sat down, he heard Abby scoot her chair next to his, and felt her hand slide under his and grasp it tightly.

The priest closed the office door and sat in the unoccupied chair. “Would either of you care for a glass of water?” he asked. ‘Either’ came out as ‘eye-ther’, and Jason imagined that snakes would pronounce it in the same way if they spoke English.

They both shook their heads in refusal, and Father Gregory sat back in his chair and crossed his left leg over his right knee. “All right, then,” he said, and looked at Jason with an expectant smile curving his thin lips.

Jason squirmed under the priest’s gaze, and started the discussion. “Well, I told you about my seeing Death…” he began.

“Yes. Please recount your experiences for me.” Father Gregory prodded.

Abby stared at the tiled floor at Father Gregory’s toe of his black, polished dress shoe while Jason talked. She remembered those shoes.  She remembered…

******

…putting on her white dress that made her feel like a princess in a fairytale kingdom. She was supposed to feel sorry for her sins, but the dreamy look in her eyes, and wistful smile belied her faux contrition. Her mother drove her to the church, and waited in the car. Abby had never experienced such a feeling of responsibility and adulthood (as she imagined it), striding up to the door in her white dress, white tights, and polished black shoes. Her hair was wavy–a special treat from her mother, helping her curl her hair the night before–and had her favorite ladybug barrette clipped into it. This was the fanciest she could remember being in all of her seven years of life.

Abby pulled the heavy door open and stepped into the dark interior of the church. She had been here hundreds of times before, with one or both of her parents, but now, alone and grown up, regal but afraid, the church looked alien. Everything was where she remembered it being–the collection box to the left of the doorway, the baptismal font in the middle of the church, the pews arranged in neat, symmetrical rows–but she felt like she was seeing it all for the first time.

The heavy entrance door thumped closed behind her, and a gentle voice came from her right. “Abigail? Are you ready?”

The priest who performed Sunday mass for as long as she could recall, the priest who had instructed her and her classmates in the meaning and importance of the sacrament of Reconciliation, the man who had eaten dinner in her home with her and her parents, spoke to her from a small room in the corner of the church.

“Come in and close the door, Abigail.”

Abby did as she was told.

“Do you remember what to do now?” he asked.

She did. She knelt before him as he sat in his chair. She bowed her head, and saw the black, shiny, pointed toes of his shoes.

“What are you here to confess, Abigail?” he asked.

“I… I stuck my tongue out at Bobby Shears at school. I…uh…” she stammered.

“That’s enough, child.” The gentle voice took on an impatient tone. Had she done something wrong? Abby felt her eyes begin to water.

“That was a very rude thing to do, wasn’t it?” he asked.

Abby nodded.

“Are you sorry you did it?” he asked.

She nodded again.

She felt his hand brush her cheek, and the tears that welled in her eyes spilled in relief.  He forgave her!

“Close your eyes, Abigail. Keep them closed,” he told her.

Abby closed her eyes. This was where they would pray to God for His forgiveness. Abby heard Father Gregory move forward in his seat, and then the small sound of a zipper. Abby hadn’t been told to expect anything zipping, and this frightened her. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Do your parents punish you at home when you are naughty?” His voice sounded thick and strained.

Abby remembered her outrageous penance that day. Father Gregory had pulled her tights down and spanked her bare bottom. That was humiliating, but that was only the beginning. Abby prayed harder than ever that day, and she promised God that she would never stick her tongue out at anyone ever again. Her ladybug barrette fell to the floor, and Abby wondered why her mother had remained in the car. Did she know this was going to happen? This was permissible?

After that day, Abby only went to confession when her parents made her go, usually after they caught her in a lie, or doing something she had been told not to do, like pilfering a cookie before bedtime. Abby was thirteen before she realized that her penances were not the normal, Church-ordained and approved penances. She didn’t eat for nearly a month, retching whenever she thought that she had allowed that to happen to her for six whole years. Her parents had sought professional help for her, but she had never told a single person what had happened to her. How could she? He had never threatened her, had never told her not to tell, and yet, she kept it inside. The longer she kept the secret, the more shameful and less possible it became to expose it.

The week after Abby realized that her priest was a monster, he was transferred to another church. Abby felt relief, but locked her secret away.

******

Father Gregory stood, strode to a high bookcase stuffed with tomes of all sizes, ages, and conditions, and plucked an ancient-looking book from the top shelf. Jason saw that the book was titled The Writings of Myrcaenus Magnus. Father Gregory riffled through the pages until he found what he wanted, and paraphrased the Latin text: “’Should the Angel of Death be forestalled, or his purpose be derailed through any mortal machinations, and the soul intended for Salvation or Condemnation be allowed to remain in mortality by substitution of another, Death shall revisit the originally intended soul at the expiration of the time first allotted to the substitute soul’s host’.  That means, put bluntly, that you will die when your father would have perished in the normal course of events… if he hadn’t sacrificed himself to save your life.”

Jason felt his mouth drop open, and closed it with a conscious effort. He looked at Abby. “This is a Catholic teaching?” he asked her.

Abby looked back at Jason with a tortured gaze. “I…” she began, but couldn’t finish.

Jason looked back at Father Gregory. “Is that it, then? Just a grim fortune-telling? What about the nature of Death? What about the fate of human souls?” he demanded.

“I shall look for more answers for you, young man. This is only what came to mind right away. Allow me to confer with colleagues, and conduct further research. Call on me again in one month. It takes time to communicate with contacts in the Vatican.” Father Gregory explained with great patience.

Jason, placated, nodded his assent. “That’s fair,” he allowed. “I should thank you for listening to me and taking me seriously, rather than get frustrated with you. Sorry about that.”

They took their leave of Father Gregory, and exited the church into the oppressive dark of the cold, rural night.

“What’s going on, Abby?” Jason asked as the huge door thumped quietly closed behind them.

She shook her head, and took half a dozen steps before turning to look at her friend, who wasn’t moving with her.

“Seriously,” he said. “You looked like you’d seen a ghost, and not of the Casper variety. And you were kind of rude to your priest-“

“What do you know about it?” Abby hissed at him. “You talked to him, all nice and polite-like! You’re getting your answers! I didn’t get in the way of anything, so just move on and forget about it!”

Jason stood in shocked amazement while Abby stalked off, a Mr. Hyde on private, sinister errands in the night.

******

Mr. Keller,

I have received word from some of my colleagues and correspondents, and may be in possession of information which will be of great interest to you. Please attend me this Saturday, at the same time and place as our previous meeting. Bring Ms. Thomas with you, if you wish.

Cordially,

Fr. Gregory

******

“Abby? Are you speaking to me yet?” Jason called through her closed front door. “I heard from that priest. He has information. I’m meeting him tomorrow. He specifically said to bring you-“

The door flew open, and Abby’s tanned hand shot out of the void and pulled him inside.

“He asked for me? By name?” she spat.

“Uh…yes.” Jason said.

“He knows who I am. He remembers.” Abby muttered to herself.

“Remembers what? It was only three weeks ago…” Jason felt like he had entered a room where a conversation was already underway.

Abby looked Jason in the eyes, her own wide with hate and terror. “No. I knew him thirteen years ago, but I last saw him only seven years ago. I can’t go with you tomorrow! I just can’t! He only wants me to so he can see the effect he’s had. He wants to gloat.”

Jason was starting to form theories, but he asked the question, anyway. “What are you talking about, Abby? What did he do to you?”

She told him.

******

The Saturday morning sun shone brightly through the kitchen window as Abby finished her detailed account. “I know you have to leave in a few hours,” she said, “but let me sleep a while and I’ll come with you.”

“No way, Abby! You’re not going near that monster again! In fact, neither am I. We’ll call the police and tell them what he is.” Jason’s eyes were narrowed and determined.

“Jase, he has information for you. You should get that first.” Abby reminded him.

“There are other priests. We’ll find a different one, and… What?” he hated when she looked at him like she was still listening to him when, secretly, she saw enormous flaws in his plan and had already formed the plan he must follow.

“That takes too much time. Besides, I did some research since we met with him, to get my mind off things, you know. That book he took down from the bookcase? That wasn’t a Church-approved book,” she told him.

“So? Other people can have theories, too. Not just Catholics.” Jason shot back. His anger at Abby’s church boiling over.

“It was by a monk who was excommunicated by the Church for being a heretic. He believed in some weird shit, Jase, and that’s coming from me.” Abby said. “Let me put it in literary terms… you know about Lovecraft’s Cthulhu? Magnus taught that God and Satan were opposite ends of a beast even weirder than that. Whenever God or the Devil ate a soul… that’s what he thought happened to souls after death… the other would vomit out a new entity. Either another soul, an angel, or a demon, to replace the recently dead soul,” she said.

Jason found himself interested, despite his rage at Father Gregory. “Okay, I’ll grant that’s kinda weird, but not the strangest theory I’ve ever heard.” He stared pointedly into her reddened eyes.

“The point is,” she explained, “it’s unlikely that another priest is going to have the same ‘contacts’ that Gregory has. The information he has will probably never be yours if you don’t meet with him… and I don’t want to be alone, so I’m going with you. Now, let me sleep on it, please. You can crash here, too, you know.”

She didn’t give him a chance to choose, curling up next to him on the couch, and closing her eyes as her head touched down on his lap. 

******

Jason’s eyes snapped open, and Abby jerked her head up. Shadows filled the kitchen. Jason looked at his watch, and said, “I’m late! I was supposed to meet that bastard a half hour ago.”

They each scrambled up from the couch, heads and bodies thumping into each other. “I have to go, Abby.” Jason said when Abby reached the door before him.

“Yeah, did you think I was going to bar the way, all ‘damsel in distress’-like, and faint when you pushed me aside with your big, manly strength?  I’m going, too,” she said, and threw the door open.

The sun was setting, and the front courtyard of the church was cast in darkness when they arrived. Jason heaved the door open when Abby hesitated, and raced toward the little room next to the altar. He attempted to twist the brass doorknob, but it slipped through his grip.

“Hello?” he called. “Hey! Open up!”

He fell silent as Abby placed her hand on his shoulder, and the barely audible scrape of wooden chair legs on wooden floorboards drifted down to them.

“He’s upstairs!” they said together.

Jason looked frantically for a stairway, but Abby took his hand and pulled him back the way they had come, toward the back of the church. “They’re usually close to the door,” she told him.

At the first landing, Abby asked, “Why are you stopping?”

“I’m listening. Trying to find out where he is,” he whispered.

“Jason, he’s not hiding. He was expecting you, remember? He’s not worried about anything. We could just call out to him,” she suggested.

“There! There’s light coming from under that door!” Jason said, and stole down the short hallway.

Jason threw his shoulder into the door, and rebounded. He pulled on the knob, and the door opened into a brightly lit drawing room. He stomped in, and his reserve abandoned him.  “You fucking piece of shit!” he yelled. “You deserve to die for what you did! Let Death eat your sick soul, if he wants!”

“Mr. Keller! Lower your voice! This is a place of peace!” Father Gregory’s deep, cultured voice commanded.

Jason stopped where he stood.

“I presume Ms. Thomas has told you about our prior acquaintance, then. Pity I hadn’t thought to record our sessions on video so you could enjoy them, also. Abigail and I had many enlightening talks,” the priest said.

Jason’s face felt hot, and he knew he was blushing furiously. He tried to swallow, and his hyoid bobbed uselessly. His mouth was bone-dry.

“Now, before you attempt to defend her honor by bludgeoning an elderly clergyman to his demise, let us discuss your situation.” Father Gregory held up a manila envelope.

Abby scolded herself for her fear. She cowered in the hallway, unable to bear the thought of confronting her childhood bogeyman amidst the oppressive volume of Jason’s fury. When Gregory turned the subject to Jason’s visions, the mood lightened just enough for her to slide along the wall into the room. 

Father Gregory was standing behind a simple, pine desk that sat in front of the room’s solitary window–a three-foot by five-foot view overlooking the church’s private graveyard. A floor-to-ceiling bookcase reigned over the corner it stood magisterially in; a desk fan sat on the floor next to the desk, impotent and silent, with its cord unplugged. The room’s austere interior was otherwise bare.

Father Gregory slid a gleaming letter opener out of his jacket pocket, and sliced the envelope open. He dropped the letter opener into his pocket, and blew a short puff of breath into the envelope, causing it to billow open. He extracted the single sheet of paper, and skimmed it with his eyes.

“Mister Keller,” he said, “It may interest you to know that you, in fact, do not witness Death, personified, about his business.”

Jason looked shocked, then disbelieving. “I know what I see. Right now, I see a controlling, manipulative pedophile,” he snarled.

Gregory walked around the desk to stand in front of Jason. “Your judgement is understandable, even if misguided. Be that as it may, what you witness when a person dies in front of you is not Death, but a demon, of sorts. It serves Death.”

Abby continued shuffling along the wall, and now stood with her back against the cold glass of the window behind the desk. She shivered.

“You see, the demon feeds on the sins that people carry within their souls,” the priest continued. “If it is able to devour the darkness within a person’s soul quickly enough, the soul may be enabled to progress into Heaven. That, judgmental boy, is why my perceived transgressions upon your friend are utterly unimportant. Upon my death, I will be cleansed, and will enter Paradise, as promised.”

Abby was spared the sight of Gregory’s vulpine smile, but she watched as his hand crept toward his jacket pocket during his soliloquy.

“This is why Jesus could so blithely forgive and comfort whores and thieves. He knew that they would be cleansed of their sins upon their deaths. Even when he was being put to death, himself, he forgave his murderers. Because he knew they would be cleansed, and made pure once more before he saw them again in Heaven. So, you see, even murder is not enough to send someone to the eternal fire.”

Gregory handed the paper to Jason, and as Jason locked his eyes onto the printing on the page, he brought his hand out of his jacket pocket.

Jason looked with confusion at the paper he was given. Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall weep and mourn. Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did of the false prophets. 

Jason raised his head to ask the perverted priest what this was all about, and saw a flash of silver in the air in front of him, and Father Gregory jerk backward as Abby yanked on a cord wrapped around the priest’s throat. She was kneeling on the desk, holding a small desk fan’s cord in her hands. The fan dangled from one hand; an elderly priest dangled from both hands. Gregory bucked and kicked with all of his strength, but Abby leaned back. The priest’s face turned a furious shade of cardinal, and he thrust his torso backward to gain an instant’s slackening of the cord. His momentum pushed Abby off the desk and into the window.

Jason stood frozen as Abby disappeared into the night. He saw the cord gouge into Father Gregory’s neck, and saw the old man bow backward under the force of Abby’s weight. Then he, too, slipped through the shattered window. Jason’s paralysis broke, and he looked down to see Gregory’s letter opener lying on the floor, the metal gleaming with sinister intention. Jason turned and ran for the stairs.

Jason crashed through the gate to the small graveyard and saw a feathered monstrosity rip at Abby’s torso with a frenzy Jason had never seen before. It lifted a small, black shape in one talon and gulped it hurriedly. Jason waited for it to descend upon Father Gregory, who lay impaled on a headstone topped with a granite cross, but it sat on the ledge of the monument it was perched on and stared at Jason.

Go ahead, you bastard! Cleanse his soul so he can go to Heaven! His sins must be a hell of a feast for you, so go ahead!” he screamed at the ravenous sheen he saw in the demon’s red eyes.

With no warning, Jason’s legs buckled, and he lay on the frost-crusted dirt, unmoving. He tried to stand up, and couldn’t move a muscle in his body. He couldn’t even blink his eyes. With sudden intuition, he knew he had died. Maybe it was a brain aneurysm. He had heard that those were sudden and painless. He found that he could leave his body, and began to float upward, but a skeletal hand on his spectral shoulder pushed him back down and motioned for him to wait.

Jason’s reflexive struggle ended before it had a chance to begin, as a huge tentacle writhed out of the grave which Gregory now adorned. It encircled the dead priest’s body, and pulled it down into the earth from which it came, breaking the stone cross with heedless impunity. Jason thought that he saw the briefest flicker of a flame, and imagined the scent of brimstone as it disappeared.

Jason tried to breathe a sigh of satisfaction, and remembered that his lungs no longer obeyed such trivial orders. That didn’t stop him from trying to scream when he saw the huge talons of the demon land on the ground before his face, though. He noticed his body being turned onto its back. He heard the penetration of his flesh as the talons scored deep into his tissues. He closed his non-corporeal eyes and screamed his soundless screams of agony.

******

“Jason. Shhh. Jason, you are well. Shhh.”

The soothing voice slowly penetrated his fog of fear and pain.

“Jason. Open your eyes. Look upon me.”

Jason opened his eyes and stopped screaming. He saw a bearded man kneeling next to him, shaking his shoulder gently. Jason was laying on lush grass, thinly blanketed in fog.

“Who are you?” Jason asked. “Where are we?”

“I am Cephas. Come with me. There is someone who wants to speak with you. He is very happy you are here!”

Jason followed. There was nothing else he could do.

THE END

Bio: "I am a visually-impaired writer living in the Pacific Northwest with my Guide Dog, Edison. Previous published works include Bells In The Woods (Black Petals, Jan. 2022) and No Content Available (Black Petals, Oct. 2021)."

E-mail: Richard Brown

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