Red Rain: Lightning Strikes: Red Rain Series #2 (7 page)

How was he supposed to begin? John hadn’t ever asked himself many questions about the afterlife. Whether God existed or you simply decomposed in the ground when this life ended. He still wasn’t too concerned with that question; John came to this place because he didn’t know what other choice he had.

He bowed his head but didn’t close his eyes.

“I don’t know how to make it stop,” he said aloud. “What I did, what I’ve done … I’m going to hurt everyone I love, one way or another.”

He paused for a few minutes, hearing nothing but the creaks of a shifting building. No God. No alerts from the sky.

“Hi,” someone called from across the room.

John’s head jerked up, surprised at the sudden sound in the silence surrounding him.

“I’m Father Charles,” the priest said.

* * *

J
ohn stood
in front of the priest, Father Charles, who stood slightly higher on the platform. He held a chalice of wine in one hand and an unleavened wafer in his right.

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…” Father Charles said. John heard the words, the same ones he had listened to so many other times standing in this same position. He bowed his head, focusing on the prayer to his Lord and Savior.

“Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, forever and ever. Amen.” Father Charles brought his left hand in front of him. “The peace of the Lord be with you always.” He moved the cracker toward John. “The body of Christ.”

“The body of Christ,” John repeated, placing the cracker in his mouth.

“The blood of Christ,” the priest said, moving the chalice to John’s lips.

“The blood of Christ,” he whispered and then swallowed the wine.

* * *

J
ohn felt
an interest from the priest that he hadn’t felt with anyone in his life before. His mother cared, but to venture into what was wrong would unveil things she couldn’t handle. His father cared, but lived in a world where nothing could ever be wrong. Dr. Vondi? He had been a mistake.

“What brought you in here?” he said a week after they first prayed together. They met in his office, John having asked before Mass if it would be possible to talk with him.

“Today?” he said.

“No, in general. What brought you to the church?”

“I feel lost,” John said. He looked at the priest’s eyes, thinking that he had done something very similar with the psychologist ten years before. Vondi’s eyes hadn’t looked like these, though. His eyes had been curious, almost intensely so. The priest’s eyes were caring, a deep brown that seemed to plead with the world to give up its worries.

Father Charles smiled. “We’ve all felt like that. I still do, quite often.”

“Really?” John said.

“Of course.”

“When?”

Again, when he would ask Vondi something like this, there would be a pause while the psychologist measured his words before speaking. The priest did nothing of the sort, but kept speaking as naturally as one might after a few drinks.

“It’s kind of cliché, actually, but when I see massive suffering. I look at what’s going on in the Middle-East, both to Christians and non-Christians alike, and I wonder how God can let it happen. How He has let it happen for centuries.”

“But you believe anyway?” John said.

“Yes, always. He is there even if I can’t understand Him.”

John was quiet for a few seconds, a question coming to him that seemed imperative to his survival. “Does He understand me?”

The priest nodded. “He does. You’re His child. You don’t have children yet and I never will … at least, I hope I don’t … I wasn’t always chaste before I donned the collar,” the priest smiled. “Don’t let me get off on a tangent, John. We don’t have children so we can’t understand it, but one day you will be able to—on some level. My point is, that God understands us better than we understand ourselves, or anything else in this world.”

“I’m not sure He can understand me,” John said. “I don’t understand me. I’m not sure anyone I’ve ever met understands me.”

Father Charles smiled. “It can’t be as bad as all that. Tell me about some of it.”

* * *

J
ohn tasted the wine
, savoring it in his mouth for a second.

He looked up to Father Charles who had tears in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” John said.

“Nothing.” The priest turned and placed the chalice behind him. “Do you want to be forgiven for these sins, John? Truly?”

“Yes.”

“And do you truly want to stop, or is it something you tell me to help your conscience?”

“I’ve always wanted to stop this. I hate everything about it. I hate myself for doing it.” John felt tears in his own eyes now, though he didn’t try to blink them away.

The priest nodded, his back still to John.

“Something isn’t right,” Harry called from the back. “Something is different here.”

John didn’t need to turn around to know that Harry was on his feet, the stress in his voice filling the church.

“Why did you call me here tonight, Father? Why tonight?”

“Where were you when I called?”

John paused. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“I was outside someone’s house, ready to go in.”

“Bless us Father,” the priest said, his head lowered.

* * *

“
A
re
you ready to take confession?” The priest said.

Three months of conversations.

Three months of moving around the real reason John came to this church. Father Charles tried to convince John he could be told anything, but John didn’t believe it. Not at first, but he began doing his own research, and learned that inside the confessional booth, the words were sacred. The priest could tell no one unless he wanted to be excommunicated, stripped of everything he worked his whole life for.

And John needed forgiveness. He needed absolution of the crimes he committed, not only against man, but also against God.

The past three months had taught John a lot about God and what He wanted. Truthfully, he felt like he was receiving the first real education of his life. He had been to school—good schools, and done well—but none of those places dealt with the soul. His soul, he thought when he first showed up, was black. Blackened more with each passing year, starting with Harry’s death and culminating in the past few years. What was there left to do except join his rightful place next to Satan and call it a life?

Father Charles taught him differently, though.

That no one was beyond forgiveness.

And now John sat inside the booth, the small window open between he and the man saving his life. Or leading him to The One that could save it.

“Tell me your sins, John.”

He swallowed, unsure how to start. He imagined this moment for the past three months, but now that he was here, he didn’t know what to say. How to tell someone the things he’d done, the thoughts that he still held.

“I’ve murdered, Father.”

Silence from the universe’s deepest regions filled the void between he and the priest.

“Murder, John?” he said finally.

“Yes. More than once. I watched my best friend die and I did nothing to save him. I murder because ….” He felt the tears hit his cheeks, hot and unforgiving. “Because I can’t stop it. Because at least a part of me really likes it.”

Again, that silence which seemed to have no end, to know all and nothing at the same time.

“Forgive me, John. I’m ….” The priest didn’t finish.

“You said God can forgive,” John said, his voice hitching. “You said He can make me whole again. That He knows me and loves me.”

John didn’t know if he was even speaking to someone on the other side, such was the cavern in between he and the priest.

“Can he, Father? Can he forgive me?”

“John, I, uh … Yes. He can. He can do anything he wants. But, I didn’t know what your sins were. I’ve never dealt with something like this.”

John didn’t speak this time, letting the priest’s words hang in the air—the final rebuke, what John knew had been coming since the very moment he watched Harry trying to keep his head above water, and yet did nothing to help him. Because he was unforgiven. He was unloved. He was the monster he always thought, and now, with this holy man’s words, it all came true.

“The most important thing, I think, is whether you have a true desire to quit, John. I don’t know everything that’s going on with you. If I’m being honest, I’m not even sure I know you at all right now. God can forgive and He can purify, but you have to be in the right place to accept his forgiveness.”

A pause, and then John spoke. “I know.”

“I’m not sure you’re there. I’m not sure about a lot right now, John.”

He put his hands to his face, sobs coming freely. “I have to stop, Father. I can’t continue. I can’t.”