Absence of Faith (22 page)

A large part of the congregation
moved uneasily in their seats. Many stared stone-faced. Father
McDuffy knew he wasn't getting through to his followers.

"Lies! All lies!" a voice boomed
from the rear of the church.

A figure dressed in a red, flowing
robe stood silhouetted by the bright light as he held the rear
doors open with both arms outstretched. The congregation gasped in
unison.

"Your god has forsaken you. I am
the true leader of the true faith - the faith of Satan. Satan's way
is the true way. The gates of heaven are closed," the dark figure
said. "I am here to save you...to give you powers you had never
dreamed possible in this world - the powers of Satan, the powers of
yourselves to do what you want when you want to. We are not humble
slaves to your god. We are gods unto ourselves!"

Several women let out muffled
screams. The dark figure moved forward, his head covered in a black
hood. Others dressed in black robes followed the leader to the head
of the altar. They too, wore hoods.

"You and your kind are not welcomed
here," said Father McDuffy shakily. "Leave now!"

"We don't need a welcome. We are
the way and you're not," the figure in red said. Father McDuffy
backed away from the pulpit.

"Power to Hermes," the hooded group
chanted several times. "Power to Hermes."

The priest was motionless. The
figure in red stepped up to the pulpit and faced the
audience.

"Those who want to follow us can.
You will be placed in high esteem in Satan's domain. Those who do
not are doomed to horrible deaths! Save yourselves!" Hermes shouted
his eyes ablaze and intense.

"Get out!" Father McDuffy screamed.
"Get out!"

"SILENCE!" Hermes replied. He
turned towards the congregation again. "You must come now or be
lost forever."

Hermes started to leave with his
followers close behind in a procession of darkness. Some followed,
moving silently and deliberately out from the pews. No one looked
back. Those who remained watched intently. When the last person
exited, Father McDuffy raced down the aisle and slammed the doors
shut. Minutes later, the church was filled with a blinding burst of
light as the doors swung open again. A small crowd rushed
in.

"Father McDuffy? My name is Wanda
Jackson from Eyewitness News," a voice came out of the light. "I
would like to ask you about what just happened here." There was a
pause and then the woman spoke again.

"Andy, make sure Fred gets those
characters outside in the robes. Have him do an on-camera
interview. Just let the guy babble on. We'll edit later. Now
father, can you tell us what happened here?" the TV reporter pushed
her way into the church and stuck a microphone in front of the
harried priest.

"That character or whatever you
call him barged in here and disrupted our Mass. Scared a lot of the
parishioners," the priest said.

The interview was cut off as the
camera crew was pushed forward as the inside of the church lit up.
Wanda Jackson, an attractive brunette with large, puffy lips, was
pushed into Father McDuffy and they were face to face with the
microphone wedged between them. The crowd swelled.

"Father McDuffy! Father McDuffy! We
need a statement. I'm from Channel 4 News," a voice said from
within the crowd.

"You must all leave now!" Father
McDuffy shouted as loud as his lungs would allow him. "We are in
the middle of a holy Mass!"

The crowd continued to push the
priest back towards the altar. He turned and headed for the pulpit.
From his higher position, he watched the church fill with several
TV camera crews, radio reporters, and photographers wearing army
green vests with multitudes of cameras hanging off their necks. The
camera crews and radio reporters pushed and shoved each other in
their scramble to place a microphone near the pulpit. The reporters
fired a volley of questions at the priest. The questions were
incomprehensible as one question cut off the other in a swirl of
noise and confusion. Father McDuffy began to shake. He suddenly
felt very tired and short of breath. The room seemed to move from
side to side and then he felt someone grip his arm. Two altar boys
had grabbed him and slowly lowered him to the floor. One ran into
the back office and called an ambulance. The media people watched
with jaded eyes, and then frowned in disappointment.

"At least we got that other weirdo
outside," one of camera technicians said to Wanda
Jackson.

"Yeah," she replied in a tone of
disappointment. "Let's interview some of these people, and then
we'll come back in an hour for the priest."

"It's a good thing you spotted this
story on the wires," the technician said.

"We'll give it to the national
feeds after we air it. I just know they'll pick it up," Wanda
Jackson said.

C
arson sat
down at his dining room table waiting for Linda to bring in two
plates filled with one of her gourmet dinners. He offered to help,
but Linda refused. It was 6 pm and the linen drapes filtered a
yellow-orange light into the dining room giving Carson a feeling of
warmth and security. Linda carried two white plates with two slices
of gravy-covered meatloaf, buttered string beans and fluffy brown
rice. Carson filled their glasses with red Bordeaux and buttered
two freshly baked dinner muffins.

"To us," he said raising his
glass.

"To us," Linda said clicking her
glass against his.

"This is great," Carson said
smiling. "You make the best meatloaf around. I'm glad I gave you my
mother's recipe."

"I didn't use your mother's
recipe," Linda said.

"No?" Carson said.

"Joan Paulson gave me hers. She's a
teacher at school."

"Well, it's great. Better than my
mother's."

"Thanks, darling," she
replied.

The phone rang.

"I'll get it," Linda said rising
from her seat.

"No, no. Sit. You made dinner. I'll
get it."

Carson walked into the kitchen and
picked up the phone.

"Carson! Did you catch the six
o'clock news on Channel 7? They're doing a story on Ocean Village.
Turn on your TV!" Stokes shouted.

"Really? No kidding!
Okay."

Carson rushed into the living room
and turned on the TV. A car commercial was on and the announcer was
talking about a marathon of sales with great deals and low cost
financing.

"More bullshit," Carson mumbled to
himself.

The TV commercial ended and a shot
of the anchor desk appeared on the screen with a close-up of an
anchorwoman.

"Devil worship appears to be on the
rise in Monmouth County today. Here's a report from Eyewitness
reporter Wanda Jackson in Asbury Park," the anchorwoman
said.

Linda joined Carson.

"What's going on?"

"I'll tell you later. I have to
watch this," he said.

"Churches here in this tiny,
religious community appear to be losing their followings to a group
of Satanists, who appear to be growing in strength..." Wanda
Jackson said while holding a microphone in front of St. Mary's
Church.

"That's St. Mary's!" Linda
said.

The report showed the interview
with Father McDuffy and with Hermes, and then the screen switched
to another reporter - a young man in a brown suit.

"This is Richard Dieters from the
Monmouth County Sheriff's Office. Sheriff James Locust has noticed
a higher than usual crime wave in the past three weeks and he
attributes it to the Satanist movement in Ocean Village..." A burly
man in his 50s with graying hair then appeared on
screen.

"In the past three weeks, we have
had several model parolees commit the worst crimes in their prison
record. It has us baffled until one confessed that it's because of
the devil worship," Sheriff Locust explained.

The camera moved to Dieters. "Do
you mean that model prisoners have become worse because of the
Satanism, Sheriff?"

"I guess. All I know is that
several of them told me they don't have a reason to be good anymore
because they believed they were going to hell anyway. It's all tied
in with those people burning up over in Ocean Village."

The phone rang again. Carson ran
into the kitchen and picked it up.

"Did you hear that? This thing has
gone far enough. We've got to do something!" Stokes
yelled.

"What can we do?"

"I don't know," Stokes replied.
"I’ll think of something."

"I start in the lab tomorrow and
maybe I can clear it with Doctor Hansen to start some tests and we
can nip this in the bud if we can come up with a diagnosis," Carson
said.

"I'll talk to Hansen tomorrow and
get that cleared. He may not believe any of this stuff, but if I
talk to him, he'll take my word," Stokes explained.

"Okay. Are you all right? You sound
frazzled."

"I am." Stokes replied.

"Don't you know what this all means
Carson?"

"No. It's just a disease we can't
detect, and people are very frightened because they choose to
believe it's tied to religion."

"You might as well be from another
planet. You're way out in left field. People no longer believe that
God is there for them - they think the devil has won the war of
good against evil. They believe God has abandoned them and allowed
the devil to get stronger and be able to take souls into hell. The
very foundations of all religion are being shaken for the first
time in the history of mankind. Without some kind of religion
whether a man worships a giant rock or the sun, man is nothing but
a savage animal. Religion is man's hope for a better future, a
better life, everything better. Religion is a check and balance
system for mankind. Without that hope, he has no reason for living
and no reason for doing the right thing. Criminals become extremely
evil when they believe there is no hope for them. No one is born a
criminal and no one aspires to be criminal. They do evil things
because they believe there's nothing good for them in the world,
that they don't deserve anything good - that they have been denied
the good life for whatever reasons. Religion is the glue that holds
our society together."

"What about the atheists - the
nonbelievers - they don't believe in God?" Carson asked.

"They don't believe in God or a
formalized religion, but they have religion. They may believe in
themselves or in fate, and they have hope. It's not in the shape of
a formal religion. When you have people doubting their religion
like we have here and their religion is all the hope they have in
their lives, then it's dangerous," Stokes explained.

"How dangerous?"

"It scares the hell out of me,
excuse the pun. I can't be sure, but the fear of God and his
reprisals have probably kept some people in check - you know from
going off the deep end and doing wild and crazy things. Religion is
one of the foundations of our civilization. Not everyone is like
this, but there are some who have repressed desires that they might
want to satisfy now since they believe everything is lost, and they
no longer fear God and his reprisals. I'd be careful and keep your
eyes open, Carson."

T
he
overweight, middle-aged man with gold wire rim glasses stepped into
a black 1977 Chevy Impala with red vinyl seats. The car was a
leftover from the days of GM lavishness when bigger meant better
and cost didn't matter. The man had purchased the car new and now
used it for hauling firewood, furniture and items too small for a
truck, but too large for his wife's scaled down Mercedes. The man
drove through several towns that dotted the New Jersey coast until
he entered Long Branch, once a great resort that attracted many
prominent men and women in the earlier part of the 20th century.
The man stopped in front of a animal shelter in the downtown
section, where every other storefront was boarded up. He looked at
himself in the rear view mirror and smiled a smile of victory. He
entered the small building and was struck with the pungent smell of
animal urine, sundry odors and the explosive sound of barking
dogs.

"Hello Mr. Jones," said a thin,
pimpled-skinned youth from behind a glass-topped counter. It was
cluttered with point-of-purchase display cards from the humane
society and other similar organizations. "How's the breeding
going?"

"Oh, just fine, just fine. I'm here
to pick up the Dobermans Larry said he got in," the Magus
said.

"Oh, yeah, Larry said you would be
by today. I'll get them," the young man replied.

A few minutes later, the youth
returned out of breath with two black barking Dobermans tugging
frantically on their leashes.

"This one is a bit vicious...so be
careful," said the young man gasping for air. "The other one is ok
until he's with this one."

"Thanks, but I always tie them to
the seat belts," the Magus replied.

The Magus took the leashes and
pulled the dogs with him. He stopped, put his free hand in his
pocket and pulled out a $20 bill.