Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (83 page)

The place reeked of gunpowder and burnt
flesh. Evil, black eyes stared at Father from where bullets penetrated
the drywall. Father’s troops cataloged the dead bodies. They
took pictures, detailed the numbers, and stole anything of use.

Father cast a sideways glance at the bodies of his soldiers.
He walked past corpses wearing the vest of the Keepers of the
Wormwood. Two of the soldiers carried Commander Byron out the back door
as Father stepped into the kitchen.

“You have cleared every room, every closet,
everything?” he asked his escort.

“Yes, Father.”

“I can feel him. He is here.”

Father turned and climbed the steps to the second floor. The
furniture in each bedroom had been tossed multiple times, every closet door
open or ripped from the hinges. He proceeded up the steps and
into the attic. A couch sat against the right wall, and a desk fit under
a window looking out upon Plainfield. Father moved the computer monitor out of
the way and stared into the dead neighborhood. He saw the roof
of the nearest neighbor and the freezing mix of snow and leaves in the gutters.

He pulled the couch from the wall and pushed open an access
door, which gave way to a crawlspace – too narrow for adults to hide. The cold
air rushed in, along with brown leaves and balls of dust.

Father returned to the main floor, where
the men stood in a circle. They’d secured the place, tagged the bodies,
and waited for their spiritual leader to give them the next command.

He stopped and looked at them, and then continued down the
steps into the basement. The darkness consumed everything. Father
shouted for a flashlight, and one of the men brought it to his side. He swung the beam around the basement to get a closer look at more
damage. Father stepped into an empty laundry-room area and a workroom. He opened the door into a pantry. The garlic from the broken
jars of tomato sauce caused his stomach to rumble.

The furnace-room door stood open, revealing boxes and
plastic bags, but not much else of value. He was about to head
back upstairs when the beam of light caught hold on a set of hinges. Father
moved in closer and discovered yet another door, composed of panels of wood. Its rusted hinges looked as old as the house. The open slide
bolt in the top, left corner of the door avoided the creeping rust.

Father pointed his flashlight at the
ceiling and put a firm grasp on the handle of the door. The curved,
metal handle stunned his palm with an icy touch. In one motion, he yanked the
door open and aimed the beam inside.

He saw nothing but brick and mortar. Cobwebs
hung from the ceiling, and the dirt on the floor showed a recent disturbance. Father shook his head and tried not to breathe the musty air. He
backed out and slammed the door shut.

He stormed back up the steps, where the men snapped to
attention. One of the younger soldiers stepped forward.

“Sir, there appears to be a set of tracks leading through
the backyard and into the adjoining house on Winston. It might
be him.”

“No, it isn’t. However, it is another thorn in the Lord’s
crown.”

Chapter
44

Sully kept his head down, disguising his puff of warm
breath. He watched as Father’s men flooded the house. Their
lights and laser beams pulsed through every room.

He wiped at his eyes and brushed the memories of fallen
brothers aside. Sully thought of those left at the safehouse,
and of the news he would have to deliver.  

Sully checked the clip, making sure that he had enough
rounds to take on Father’s men and take out the leader of the Holy Covenant. Sully drifted back through childhood with the cascading gusts of
falling flakes.

Fucking mother pretended like she didn’t know it was
happening
, he thought.

Tears began to well up in Sully’s eyes.

Sully appeared to have the childhood of Silverstein poems
and Rockwell paintings.
He grew up in suburban
Cleveland, the son of an auto mechanic and a teacher’s aide. Sully’s dad
made enough money to support the family, so his mom worked to help “settle the
rough edges”, as she used to say. Sully spent many days playing football after
school, doing homework, and attending church like the rest of the families in
the predominantly Irish neighborhood.

When Sully turned seven, the pastor of their parish,
Father William, made an appearance at school before recess.
The man had eyes of steel, and his words grabbed hold with the
abrasiveness of sandpaper. Most of the women of the parish, and the nuns
that taught in the school, feared and respected their pastor, in that order.

“You are all now of age to formally serve the Lord,” he
had announced.

The girls sat still but did not pay much
attention, forbidden to serve as altar boys.

The priest followed the statement with fiery rhetoric
straight from the Old Testament, brimming with holy vengeance. Several of the
boys in Sully’s class raised their hands and promised the pastor that they
would attend the orientation on Sunday morning.

The nun, Sully’s homeroom teacher, ushered the class out
of the room and toward the playground, where games of tag and kickball would
consume energy and renew fierce rivalries.
Except for
Sully. The priest put his hand on Sully’s shoulder, and told Sister Ann
that he would be staying after with the young man.
She
bowed her head and pulled the door shut. Sully watched his fellow
classmates run and shriek in anticipation of the big game.
He bit his bottom lip, eyes darting back and forth between the door
and the clock.

Father William pulled the blinds shut on the classroom
windows.
He turned the lock on the door. Sully
thought about all of the rules he had broken, none of which would warrant a
visit from the pastor.

“You can be of special service to our
Lord,” said Father William.

Sully did not respond, mindful of the wooden paddles
wielded like samurai swords. Father William sat in the desk next to the young
man.

“I need you to expel Satan from me. You
can help cleanse my soul of evil and bring the light of our Lord Jesus Christ
to both of us.
Can you help me?”

“Um, yes, Father.” Sully broke his silence, not wanting
to risk the disrespect of not answering an adult’s question.

Father William unbuckled his pants. With
his right hand, he removed his penis, which jerked about in a haphazard way.
Sully’s eyes widened in a mixture of shame, fear, and curiosity. Father
took Sully’s tiny hand and placed it on his growing erection.

“If you move your hand up and down, the
evil will be dispelled from the top.”

Sully did as he was told.

For eight years, Father William visited
Sully. It happened in the church basement, the rectory, the school
gymnasium, and anywhere else Father William could find that provided them time
alone.
Sully told his mother on his tenth birthday. After
three years of the abuse, he was convinced he could not live with it any
longer. She slapped her son in the face and it hurt worse than any punch that
Sully had taken his entire life.
He was never able to
look his father in the eye.

By the time he was fifteen, Sully considered stabbing the
priest.
What would they do to him, if he did? But
the next month, the organist made the announcement at the end of Mass.
The Catholic Church thanked Father William for his service to the
parish and wished him best of luck on his new assignment.

A squirrel darted across the tree above Sully’s head and
scurried onto the electrical wire running toward the house. The
tears made it hard for Sully to focus on the animal, while the spent ones froze
in his beard.

Sully was not sure when Father dropped the “William” from
his surname, or how he had managed to return to Cleveland. However,
he did know one thing. He would face his abuser, speak his piece, and
send the man to Hell.

Chapter
45

John knew that the first shots came from
outside the house. It took a pause and the thumping of boots on the
kitchen floor before Father’s troops returned fire. The men yelled about a
sniper behind the garage.

John pushed the thin piece of paneling to one side and
crawled out from underneath the basement steps. His legs felt
cramped, but he was otherwise thankful for the hidden storage area.

Light from the late-evening sun filtered through the open
side door and down the steps into the basement. John remained
in the dark for a minute to make sure he was not giving up his position to one
of Father’s men.

Glass broke and bullets launched into the soft cedar shake
of the house’s exterior. John tasted dried, burnt wood on his
tongue, and covered his mouth to stifle a cough.

He heard the first of two explosions roll back to the house.
The second explosion followed a minute after the first, and the retaliation
shook the foundations of the house. John thought that the old colonial, built
in the early 1920s, might come crashing down, burying him forever. John’s ears rang, and dust rained down from the rafters, covering
him with a thin layer of grime. He crept up the steps, gun barrel
leading the way.

When John reached the side door and mudroom
landing, he stopped and flattened himself against the wall. The men in
the kitchen talked, but he could not make out what was being said.

One soldier appeared in the driveway, three
feet from John. John held his breath and pulled tight against the wall. The soldier aimed his gun in another direction and moved down the
driveway toward the garage.

Chapter
46

Through the pain, Sully welcomed the warm
embrace of his own blood. He wiped the red shade from his face and
watched three men closing on his position. His left arm snaked
back over the hedge at a bizarre angle. Sully felt a burning sensation
in his stomach, and phantom pains pulsed where his right leg used to be. The grenade left a divot in the snow bank.

“Drop your weapons!” came the first command
from the soldier closest to him.

“Does it look like I’m holding any, numbnuts?”

The other soldiers surrounded Sully, each aiming the barrel
of their assault rifle at his head.

“Hold your position,” said the lead soldier to the other
men.

Sully closed his eyes and his body spasmed
from the pain he tried to ignore. When he opened them again, Father was
coming down the steps out of the kitchen door. He had a Bible in one hand, and
swept his robes back and forth through the cold wind.

“You are an agent of Satan,” said Father.

Sully laughed and spit blood onto the pristine, white snow
next to his head.

“How’ya been there, Father William?”

Father looked at Sully’s face. His skin matched the pasty
white flakes falling from the sky.

“What? Don’t remember each piece of
ass you’ve had? I sure do.”

Father turned and instructed the soldiers to take his
weapons, which they did. He ordered them back into the house,
out of earshot of the conversation.

“How do you know I am Father William?”

“You were the pastor of my church when I was a kid.”

Father’s face contorted as misty
recollections passed through his mind.

“How many little boys have sucked you off? Did it start with
Sister Anne’s class, or have you been taking cock your whole life?”

Father drew a leg back and drove his black,
steel-toed shoe into Sully’s abdomen. “Shut your mouth, right now.”

The biker froze, his mouth agape with silent pain. When his wind returned, Sully screamed.

Father peered into Sully’s eyes as his own lit with a
distant memory. A faint smile broadened his rough face.

“Michael Sullivan. How could I forget your face? You were easy because your parents were stupid.”

Sully sat up with all of his remaining strength and lobbed a
slow, long punch at Father’s knees. Father stepped back and
stood on Sully’s arm. With his free leg, he delivered a blow square on
Sully’s nose.

“Before these men send you to your Judgment
Day, I’m going to give you one last chance to make amends before the Lord. Since
your days in the parish, you have strayed. Come back to Him now and save your
soul before it is too late.”

Sully pulled himself to an upright position
with his back leaning on the garage. He spit more blood and looked up at
Father as his vision clouded. Sully saw Father as he stood now, but he also saw
Father William superimposed. The two images floated back and
forth between each other. Sully shook his head and spoke.

“You are nothing but a rotten pervert. A
sick, twisted son of a bitch. You used your power and influence to abuse
little kids. There ain’t nothing beyond this, so you ain’t
scarin’ me with your threats of Judgment Day. But let me tell you this. I
know that the cosmic balance of the universe will correct itself. You will
leave this world with the pain you have inflicted on others. Fuck
off, Father.”

With a wave of Father’s hand, Sully sat back and closed his
eyes as the guns fired. Four men pummeled Sully’s broken frame
with rounds of ammunition. Father held up his hand and the firing
stopped. Michael Sullivan’s lifeless eyes stared up into the bare tree and
beyond the blue-gray sky.

Chapter
47

Jana put her good hand to her mouth to
stifle the cry. They gunned the man down like an animal. She was too far away to hear the conversation. The makeshift splint
on her broken wrist immobilized it, but it did not hold back the throbbing,
insistent pain.

She pulled back from the window and
reassessed her situation. After pulling both wrists, one swollen and
shattered, through the loose zip ties, she’d managed to find a screwdriver in
the storage room. With it, she’d slid the bolt back and ran out of her old
house into the next-door neighbor’s. She timed it perfectly, as John and a gang
of bikers approached the house just after her escape.