The Night Listener and Others (18 page)

It seemed to take an eternity, but an eternity that I wanted to last forever. Still, the sensation finally passed, and my mouth was empty. The feeling, though, lingered. The peace and love of God was within me, and would remain.

I recited the closing words then, to a congregation of myself—”For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come.” Then I prayed once more, extinguished the candles, left the church, and slept the most peaceful sleep I can ever recall.

So the years have passed, the flesh has been removed and dried and consecrated and ingested—rather say
absorbed,
for it has become one with me, and when I partake of it I have become one with God. In no other place could I practice such communion, and so I remain at Dunbarton Methodist, even when other, finer, larger churches were offered me. They are offered no more. The diocese knows of my attachment to this place, and my congregation knows of my love for them.

And the second Tuesday comes, and I renew my strength, find more love, meet with God. It was time again, Tuesday night, but late now, as I had been to Daniel Hess’s retirement dinner. I arrived back at the parsonage at 10:30 to find the choir long since gone from the church. I made myself sit down and have a cup of tea, and read from Galatians while I sipped. The anticipation had been present all day and all evening long, and now I decided it was finally time. I took a piece of the dried flesh from the small box in my parsonage desk, locked the parsonage, and went out to the church. No one would notice the lights on in the sanctuary at midnight, for the church was barely visible from the road. I had held my private services as late, or later, than this before. God seemed even closer in the stillness of the night.

I unlocked the church, donned my vestments, and prepared the communion table. I had no idea I was not alone. It had been a long time since I had locked the church door behind me. But halfway through my prayer I thought I heard a strange noise—the creak of a floorboard, or perhaps the slight groan of a pew as it was leaned upon. I froze, then turned around and looked back at the empty sanctuary. It was so dark that a figure would have had to have been in motion for me to observe it. I listened for a few seconds more, then, deciding that it must have been merely the sounds of wood expanding, turned back toward the altar and resumed my prayer.

“…O gracious heavenly Father, I pray that you will sanctify these elements of wine and flesh…” (I had changed the phrasing to suit the reality. Perhaps I should not have done so, for once I nearly said
flesh
instead of
bread
at Sunday morning communion service)

“…and by doing so bless this Thine Ordinance that we, in love, faith, and obedience—”

There. Something again, some slight noise, some presence glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. I jerked my head around, but saw nothing. It occurred to me to walk back through the pews, swiveling my head to look into each one, but I bit back the urge. Then a thought out of horror movies came to me—the people from whom I had taken the host had come back, returned to claim me at midnight, would fall upon me even as I was in the midst of my gruesome practices.

But fall upon me with what? I thought. They could not be reamimated corpses, as in the comic books of my youth, for there was no corpse left to reanimate. Ashes then? Ashes that formed together wetly into the consistency of papier-mâche? Ashes that came together after being scattered in water, or on the winds? Absurd, ridiculous, impossible. No, there was nothing super-natural in the sanctuary except for the presence of God, and it was that presence, that comforting, reassuring presence that put my mind at ease, pushed back that clinging vestige of guilt. There was no reason for anything to avenge itself upon me, for there was nothing to avenge. They now lived with God, who had shown me how to use their flesh to see His face. I dismissed the bizarre fancy, and turned back to the altar.

“…that we, in love and obedience and faith, may nourish our spirits and souls—”

“Upon this
worm food!”

The end of the world had come.

I knew the voice instantly, without having to turn my head. Keith Holt. I could discern him now, a tall, thin figure standing near the front of the pews meant for the choir. When I looked at him, he smiled.

“A little private communion service. Pastor? Once a month not enough for God’s munchies?”

He began to move then, coming around the side of the pew to which he must have crept in the semidarkness. In another moment he would be by my side, and I thought of grabbing the host, stuffing it in my mouth, and swallowing it, but by the time I was able to put the thought into action, Keith had already lifted the paten, and was examining what lay on it.

“Flesh, you said.” He sniffed at the host, then gingerly picked it up between two fingertips. “Not bread, but flesh.” He turned it this way and that. I looked away, strangely ashamed, ashamed for my beliefs, and that made me even more ashamed, not to have the power of my convictions, not to stand up for what my God had had me do. Instead, I felt like a boy caught masturbating.

“It really is, isn’t it?” Keith said, as if impressed. “Flesh. Skin. Dried human skin. Y’know, I saw some in a gris-gris shop in New Orleans when my folks took me there on vacation, but I always thought the old guy who ran it was jiving me. But no. No, it looked just like this.” I looked at him then, and found that he was staring at me with disbelief and a touch of admiration that chilled me, as if he had discovered a brother. “Still waters sure as hell run deep, Pastor. I never would’ve thought it of you.”

I cleared my throat roughly. “What…what do you want?”

“You mean originally?” The wolfish smile was there now. “I came out here tonight to do the real thing, shoot the works, do it right, y’know? No cat this time—the genuine article. Only I, uh…” He shook his head regretfully. “I came a little early, so to speak. But when I got out of the car—I parked up the lane—I saw the light in the church, that little candle glow? Looked just like a Christmas card. When I came in you were praying so loud you didn’t hear me crawling up the aisle until I almost got where I wanted to be. I figured something weird was going down. I mean, you all dressed up and all? Actually, I thought maybe you were into the same thing as me, but you disappointed me. Still praying to God.” He shook his head in mock resignation. “But you sure got a strange way of doing communion. Skin. Holy shit.” I write his words, though I do not approve of them. “What were you gonna do with this?” His eyes narrowed. “You gonna eat it? Like the bread?”

I gave no reply, but he saw the answer in my face.

“I underestimated you, man. That is pretty radical.” He weighed the piece of flesh in his hand, then put it into the pocket of his blue-jeans. “I think I’ll just keep this. For insurance? And if you don’t think anybody’ll believe me, they will. I mean, you’re at all these cremations, so who else could get human flesh around here beside the undertaker? Probably got some way to dry it too, huh? Got the whole operation going. How long you been doing this anyway?”

I didn’t answer.

“Undertaker leaves you alone for a while with ‘em? To pray or something? I bet the police asked him he’d tell ‘em that’s
just
what happens. And that’s when old Pastor St. Ripper goes to work, huh?”

I had suspected before that the boy had some dark knowledge, some way of looking within people, and now I saw it clearly. He was a tool of the devil, to be pitied, perhaps, but a tool nonetheless, whether he had chosen his destiny or had it dictated to him by his parents. Whatever the route, he now lived in hell. His mind worked like one of its citizens. He could not be brought back, not in this life. He was not the first insane person I had ever spoken to, nor the first evil one, but he was the only one who was, without God’s prompt intervention, most certainly damned.

“It’s amazing,” he said in the silence. “I mean, a sacrifice is one thing, but to eat them afterward…”

One of his words struck a further note of alarm in my already chaotic soul. “Sacrifice?” I said, recalling his words about coming “a little early.” In what sense? Surely not a sexual one. But what?

Then I remembered the cry his little sister had given, alone with Keith in the car. Suddenly everything came together, and I was blessed (or cursed) with knowledge myself, the knowledge of what Keith was doing here, the nature of his sacrifice, and the reason for his regret at what he had done “a little early.”

I turned my back to him and ran down the aisle, through the door, down the lane in the dim light of a gibbous moon. The autumn leaves crunched beneath my feet like the bones of small animals…

Or small children.

Kimberly Holt lay dead in the front seat of the car. Her face was turned toward me, and through the window I could see her staring eyes, her tongue filling her mouth, blood still shining wetly at both flared nostrils. The head was at a right angle to the line of her shoulders.

“She didn’t want to play anymore,” said Keith’s cold voice behind me. I couldn’t take my eyes off the girl, and whispered prayers for her soul while Keith went on. “I told her it was a game, that I had a big surprise for her at the church. She liked Sunday school a lot, and was pissed when Mom and Dad wouldn’t take her anymore, so when I mentioned the church, it was easy to get her in the car, even this late. But when we got here, she wouldn’t get out. She was scared of it at night, scared of the graveyard.”

He gave a deep sigh. I would like to have heard in it regret for his sister’s death, but I heard only exasperation at the failure of his plans. “I wanted to get her into the church alive, and
then
do her. But the dumb little cunt wouldn’t go. You wouldn’t believe the things I offered her—candy and toys and dolls and all kinds of shit that I said was inside—but no way. So I grabbed her and she started to pull back and started yelling and I was afraid you were gonna hear and call the cops, so I started shaking her just to make her shut up, and put my hands on her neck so she’d stop yelling, you know, muffle her a little. But I guess I didn’t know my own strength.”

“Or the strength of Satan,” I whispered, and he chuckled.

“Yeah, that’s pretty good—the strength of Satan. I guess that’s true.”

“You don’t
know
that it’s true?” I asked him. “I thought you were so sure.”

“I am,” he said rather defensively. “I
am
sure.”

“ ‘I know that my redeemer liveth,’” I quoted from Job, “‘and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.’”

“Mine too, asshole,” Keith said with a snarl. “And with both of them there the shit’s really gonna hit the fan.”

I looked at the little girl again, and then back at Keith. “What if you get caught, Keith?”

“You won’t tell.”

I didn’t agree to that. “You’re careless. Your sister disappears, you’ll be investigated.”

“I won’t get caught. Pastor. I have faith. What did Jesus say about faith? That if you have as little as a grain of mustard seed, you can really kick some ass? Don’t worry. The devil watches over me. He lets me know when things get too dangerous. He doesn’t want me caught, ‘cause then I couldn’t serve him.”

“What were you going to do with your sister?”

“Consecrate her, then leave her. According to my parents, I’d’ve been home all night.”

“But your parents—they would know, they’d figure it out.”

He shook his head and gave the same patronizing sigh that his father had given me. “Pastor, even if they
knew,
they wouldn’t do anything about it. I mean, being the parents of a murder victim is one thing, but being the parents of a murderer? You’ve met them, you think they’d stand for that?”

With a shiver, I knew that what he said was true, and even as I hated him, I pitied him. “What will you do now?” I asked him softly.

“‘Not my will, but thine.’ The devil can quote scripture, huh? You’re going to help me, Padre. I’m going to wipe the little bit of blood off this nice vinyl upholstery, drive this car back home, and we’re all going to wake up tomorrow and wonder whatever became of my little sister. And you know what? Nobody’s ever going to find out.”

“Why not?” I didn’t have to ask. I knew what he had in mind.

“You have a key to that crematorium, don’t you?”

My hesitance told him I was lying. “No.”

“Bullshit. Sure you do. And I know your pet nigger isn’t in tonight, so we won’t be disturbed. Get the kid.” I stood there, not moving. “Come on, Pastor! Get that kid and let’s get it done, or the tabloids are gonna have a fuckin’ field day next week.”

Dear God, I prayed, I put myself in your hands. Make me an instrument of your will.

And suddenly I felt peaceful, serene, and I somehow knew that God wanted me to do what Keith Holt told me to. I did not question His ways, I only obeyed.

Keith opened the car door and jerked his head toward the still form inside. I leaned over, took out my handkerchief, wiped the blood from the child’s nose, then lifted her in my arms. Keith closed the car door, and I followed him as we walked down the lane to the church and the crematory. It was the first time I had ever carried a child in my arms. She was still warm, the limbs still supple, and I realized that adults’ arms were meant to carry children, and I grieved that I had never had any of my own. I prayed for her soul as we walked, and by the time we arrived at the locked door of the crematory, I knew that she was with Christ in paradise, and knew too that this had been Christ’s way of delivering her from the hands of her parents, under whose ministrations she would only have become as evil as they. It had not been Satan’s strength, but God’s that had entered Keith Holt’s hands.

“You got the key on you?”

I did. Hoisting the little girl higher in my right arm, I reached with my left for the key ring that held those of the church and parsonage as well, and handed it to Keith. “The one on the right,” I said.

He unlocked the door, pushed it open, fumbled for the light switch, found it. “Come on,” he said, as the light from inside flooded over me and my soft burden. “Hurry it
up
.” His voice shook.