The floor was covered with snakes in here too, slithering like slimy flesh on the floor, and up to the raised platform of the old altar. There were no holy adornments left, just the suffocating stench of sulfurous smoke. When he got closer to the decayed black altar, he saw this was still a place where ritualistic ceremonies were conducted.
But now it was the unholy kind...
What he saw was like a death and birth at the same time, but without the blood, just the wailing screams.
When each of the aberrant priests reached the altar, the darkness that was hidden inside them became stunningly real. They shuddered and wailed, as a demonic creature drifted out of their body like monstrous smoke, then took physical form.
The demons were skulking and scary, with clawed hands and lusty wet tongues.
Now he was on the altar himself.
“This is good-bye,” the croaking voice said.
The churning was even worse, as he felt a wrenching eruption so deep inside him; it felt like it was coming from the depths of his tortured soul. As it passed through his body, it was like a wave washing away the perversity and darkness, until it drifted out and became a demon croaking beside him.
At this moment, seeing the unholy creature leering next to him, he knew it had won their private war, and he suddenly realized the overall plan. In the brutal fight between heaven and hell, the Underworld was going to defeat the Church, one disgraced priest at a time, until there were none left to believe in anymore.
As his faith and goodness billowed back up inside him, he fell to his knees and began to weep.
THE END
THE CULT OF SOL
By Jude M. Eriksen
Richard hunched over the steering wheel as the wiper blades trundled back and forth across the windshield. Snowflakes drifted down out of the clotted gray sky like dull confetti as he guided the SUV down the rutty country road. On either side, stands of frost-coated quaking aspen encroached, their branches reaching into the roadway like skeletal fingers.
As daylight faded and deep shadows bloomed among the gnarled trees whizzing past, Connie had the disquieting notion they were being swallowed-up by the oncoming darkness. She distracted herself by melting smudgy marks with her fingertip into the frost-rimed passenger window.
“Could you not do that, please?” Richard asked.
Sticking her tongue out at her husband, she fingered the glass for a moment longer. When he shook his head and returned his attention to the road, she dropped her hand into her lap with a dejected sigh.
“Why would this friend of yours just call out of the blue and invite us for dinner on Christmas Eve?” she asked.
“I told you, they’ve been living abroad. When they moved back again, he got in touch. What’s so unusual about that?”
“I just think it’s a bit odd.”
“You think everything’s odd, Connie.”
The trees on their right gave way to a snow-choked stubble field enclosed within a rickety barbed-wire fence. To Connie, the weathered posts sticking up through the drifts bore an uncanny resemblance to the elongated stumps of rotting teeth.
Up ahead, the fence came to a side road and followed it east toward a low hill squatting alongside the far end of the field. At the top—nestled among a smattering of evergreens—warm lights glowed in the windows of a white two-story farmhouse. Thin smoke curled from the top of a redbrick chimney poking through the roof.
“I told you we were close,” Richard said.
When they reached the yard at the top of the hill, a pair of dogs loped around the side of a hip-roof shed, their tongues lolling. As Richard pulled up beside the house and stepped out, they nosed into his groin like a pair of crotch-seeking guided missiles. The back door creaked open and a tall man with long, blond hair tied in a ponytail stepped out on to the landing. He gestured toward the dogs with the drink in his hand.
“I think they like you,” he said.
“John,” Richard said, looking up and grinning. He turned and climbed up the steps, taking his old friend’s hand and pumping it up and down.
“It’s been a long time,” John said, clapping Richard on the shoulder.
“Way too long.”
Behind them, Connie climbed out and grimaced when the dogs mobbed her.
“Leave her alone, you knuckleheads,” John said as the dogs followed her around the front of the car, tripping over themselves in their eagerness to be petted. “I’m sorry, they get so excited when company comes.”
“It’s OK,” Connie said, pushing past them. “I’m just glad they’re friendly.”
“John,” Richard said, “This is my wife, Connie. Connie, this is John.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Connie,” John said. “Come on in. Supper’s almost ready.”
* * *
While his wife cleared the table after dinner, John grabbed another bottle of wine off the sideboard and nodded toward the room behind them.
“Care to join me in the living room for another drink of the good stuff?”
Richard and Connie picked up their glasses and followed him through a wide archway into the adjacent room. Rows of rough plank shelving lined the walls from floor to ceiling, jam-packed with old books and reams of dog-eared academic journals.
Directing them to a soft leather sofa, he topped up their glasses before taking a seat in a worn easy chair. On the mantle above the crackling fireplace beside him, a black pyramid-shaped sculpture stood between two flickering black candles. There was no trace of the usual seasonal decorations.
“Don’t you guys celebrate Christmas?” Connie asked, taking a noisy slurp from her glass.
“Honey,” Richard said, “that’s none of our business.”
“I was just asking,” she said, rolling her eyes.
Her words came out slurred. Not surprising, since she’d knocked back two big glasses of wine during dinner and was already well into her third. Connie always drank too fast when her nerves were acting up.
“My wife and I are celebrating,” John said. “That obelisk on the mantle is a large part of our observance.”
“Not very Christmasy,” Connie said. Her glass wobbled in her hand, causing wine to spill on the cushion beneath her arm.
“Connie,” Richard said, glaring at her. “Don’t be rude.”
“Oh Richard, you’re such a bore sometimes.”
“I’m sorry,” he said to John. “She gets like this sometimes.”
“It’s fine,” John said, smiling. “You see, Connie, the twenty-fifth of December is a special day for us too, but the origins of our worship date back much further than Christendom’s hollow parody.”
“Hollow parody?” Richard said. “Do I dare ask what that implies?”
“He means that the God of Christianity is a lie,” John’s wife said as she returned from the kitchen. She sat on the floor between John’s feet—letting her long, black hair splay across his groin while he smiled down at her.
“When Marilyn and I were in the Middle East, studying the cultural practices of the late Roman Empire, we became particularly interested in an emperor by the name of Aurelian—The Restorer of the World, as he was known. They gave him that title because he averted, at least for a time, the fall of the Roman Empire when it was crumbling under the strain of multiple invasions, civil war, and plague.
“After Aurelian’s reconquest of the Palmyrene Empire—part of which is now the Middle East—he reformed the ancient Cult of Sol and elevated their sun god, Sol Invictus, above the other established gods of the Roman pantheon. He even erected a new temple in its name and appointed a special priest class to oversee it. I bet you can’t guess the date when the temple was dedicated.”
“December twenty-fifth?” Richard said.
“That’s right, December the twenty-fifth, 274 AD.”
“Really?” Connie asked.
“Really. In turn, this led to the establishment of the festival of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti—Birthday of the Unconquered Sun. It became obvious t
o us that the early Christians simply co-opted the same day, claiming it as the birthday of their imposter messiah. In actuality, though, the birth date of the man they called Jesus is estimated to be closer to summertime.”
“How do you know Jesus wasn’t born on the twenty-fifth of December?” Connie asked, leaning drunkenly to one side.
“There are two answers to that question. First, we’re told in the Bible that the shepherds were in the fields with their flocks on the night of Jesus birth, but December was a cold and rainy month in Judea. It wouldn’t have made any sense for them to be out there at that time. Second, Jesus parents came to Bethlehem to register in the Roman census, but the census wasn’t taken in the winter months.”
“Huh,” Connie said, blinking slowly. “So you worship this Sol Ivingcus?”
“Invictus,” John said, correcting her. “Not precisely. When Aurelian came back from those reclaimed eastern territories, he instituted a watered-down version of the practices observed by the Palmyrenean sun cult. But he also brought with him knowledge of more antiquated observances, founded in a much older time and dedicated to a far more ancient god: Llah hag-Gabal—the God of the Mountain, Bearer of the Black Sun.
“Praised be his name,” Marilyn said in a robotic tone.
“On the plains of what is now northern Syria, the original Cult of Sol worshipped Llah hag-Gabal in a black stone temple, shaped like a pyramid. There, they were said to perform sacrifices to their deity at the height of the winter solstice in return for unearthly rewards.”
“Sounds like a load of bull,” Connie said, yawning as her eyelids began to drift shut. “Is it just me or is it too hot in here?”
Before anyone could answer, she slumped over and started to snore.
“Anyway,” John said, continuing on, “Marilyn and I worship the original sun god and tonight—as we do each year—we reaffirm his eternal sovereignty.”
“Well,” Richard said, emptying his glass, “that’s an interesting story, but it appears my wife has had a bit too much to drink. I think it’s time I took her home.”
When he tried standing, though, the room spun around and Richard collapsed back down in a heap on the couch beside his dozing wife.
“What the hell?” he managed to say before drifting off into unconsciousness himself.
“It appears our guests will be staying after all,” John said to his wife. “If you want to get things ready downstairs, I’ll bring these two along.”
* * *
Richard swam out of his stupor like a man waking from a long coma. He found himself lying on his side, his hands bound behind his back with loops of coarse rope. The gritty floor pressing against his cheek reeked of acrid dust and stale memories. In the corners of the dimly lit space, restless shadows warred with the flickering light cast by unseen candles.
Connie stirred beside him.
“Richard?” she said, her voice groggy with sedation.
“I’m here.”
“Where are we?
“I think we’re in their basement. Are you alright?”
She grunted.
“My hands are tied.”
“Same here.”
“What’s going on?” she asked, a note of panic in her voice now.
“I think we’ve been drugged.”
At that, footsteps crunched across the floor to his left as electric lights blinked. Rough concrete walls rose up around them, meeting the underside of the wood frame floor above their heads. A string of dust-caked incandescent bulbs hung from bent-over nails pounded into the underside of the old fir joists. At intervals around the perimeter of the concrete floor slab, copper bowls smoked with some kind of nauseating incense.
John and Marilyn stood before them. Strange symbols covered their naked bodies from head to toe, penned in viscous black ink.
“Welcome back,” John said. “I apologize for the tainted wine, but I’m quite certain you wouldn’t have agreed to help us if we’d have just asked.”
“What is this?” Richard said. “I thought we were friends.”
“We are, but everyone has to make sacrifices from time to time.”
At this, John’s wife tittered.
“You bastard. Now what?”
“Now, we’re going to make an offering,” John said. “In truth, only one is necessary to complete the rite, but two are always better.”
“An offering? To who? Your stupid sun god?”
“You’ll see soon enough,” Marilyn said with a smug grin.
“Come,” John said to her. “There’s isn’t much time.”
The black obelisk from the fireplace mantle sat on the bare concrete floor in the center of the basement, ringed by a dozen conical black candles. With practiced grace, John and Marilyn kneeled down on opposites sides of it and began singing to each other in lilting, atonal voices. The unintelligible gibberish flowing from their mouths baffled their captives as much as it unnerved them.
When their eyes drifted shut and they started to swoon, Richard seized the opportunity. Whoever had tied the knot in the rope binding his wrists hadn’t done the best job. They loosened a bit as he twisted his hands around. Hooking his right thumb under the coils wrapped around his left wrist, he pried while continuing to jerk and pull. As sweat slicked his skin, his left hand slipped through the bindings. Turning toward Connie, he placed a finger to his lips before climbing to his feet.
A cursory scan of the room revealed nothing that might serve as a weapon, until he noticed the length of two-by-four perched on top of the main beam above his head. It skated across his fingertips on his first attempt to grab it. Trying again, he managed to pinch the end before it slipped away again. On the third attempt—balancing on his toes—he plucked it from its perch before stalking toward the naked acolytes still swaying before the object of their worship.
As he readied himself to bring the board down on John’s skull, Marilyn opened her eyes and screeched.
Committed, Richard swung for all he was worth, but somehow John rolled over on to his back and caught it before it struck him. They played a brief game of tug-o-war until Marilyn leapt up and drove something sharp between Richard’s ribs. Letting go of the makeshift bludgeon, he sank to his knees—the stony frown on his face replaced by a grimace of agony as Marilyn withdrew the stiletto and plunged it in again. Then again. On the floor behind them, Connie screamed at the splotches of crimson blooming rapidly on Richard’s shirt.
“Wow. I really underestimated you,” John said as he rose up and hefted the length of two-by-four in his hand.
“Go to hell,” Richard said, pressing a shaking hand against the whistling holes in his side. He coughed and a trickle of crimson dribbled from the corner of his mouth.
“You first,” John said before swinging the board around in a whistling arc.
It struck the side of Richard’s head with a dull crunch.
He blinked in dazed confusion for several seconds before pitching forward on to his face. John continued raining blows down on his head as Richard’s legs jerked and spasmed—kicking up motes of fine dust. All the while, Connie wailed like a siren.
“Well,” John said in a breathless voice as he tossed the blood-soaked piece of lumber aside, “this is why we plan with redundancy in mind.”
Upstairs a clock chimed, indicating midnight had arrived.
“He comes,” Marilyn said, her voice quivering with anticipation.
A rush of wind screamed around the eaves of the house as something dropped out of the leaden sky and landed on the roof with a thud. The dogs barked and growled at first, but as the ominous shape rose up from its steaming conveyance, they yelped and ran into the trees.
Connie stopped crying abruptly as something heavy descended the stairs leading down from the second story to the main floor. The bare lights bulbs above her head flickered and jingled as it clomped across the living room floor.
“Please, make it stop,” she begged. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Oh, Con
nie,” John said, as if speaking to a child, “you act like we worship a monster, but in some ways our god isn’t so different from your Santa Claus—which I’m compelled to point out is just another pagan-influenced facet of your disgusting religion. Our god also wears a red suit and bears gifts for the righteous, but unlike your jolly fat effigy, his suit is made of celestial armor and the gifts he bestows aren’t mere trinkets and baubles. We are rewarded with perfect health, long life, and carnal pleasures you couldn’t even imagine. In return, he only requires a sacrifice once per year. It’s a small price to pay for such favor.”
The door at the top of the basement stairs flew open with a loud bang as the thing squeezed through the narrow threshold and started down. In its wake, the air filled with the sharp tang of burning metal.
Two pairs of slitted red eyes glowed within a miasma of swirling darkness as it came down the sagging wooden steps. Its vaporous cloak teased apart here and there, revealing hints of the interlocking plates beneath that smoldered like hot embers. Where the plates separated to accommodate its movements, the foul light contained within shone forth—making Connie shriek.
When the thing reached the bottom and stepped on to the dusty concrete floor, Marilyn and John raised their arms up in rapt exultation.
“Llah hag-Gabal, God of the Mountain—embodiment of the black sun,” Marilyn said in a trembling voice. “We hail thee. Take this sacrifice before you and favor us, your faithful servants, with your dark blessings.”
Its gaze passed from Marilyn to the catatonic woman cringing on the floor as it gibbered menacingly. Hungry eyes blazed brighter as it swept Connie up and engulfed her in the oily mist swirling about it. She didn’t even resist as its hissing armor parted and engulfed her within the horrid light trapped inside of it.
* * *
From their hiding place among the trees, the dogs shivered while the ichorous phantasms harnessed to the black chariot-like thing perched on the roof swirled and cavorted—eager for their master’s return. As the pale crescent moon overhead drifted out from behind wispy clouds, muffled screams from the basement pierced the chill night air. After a while, the screaming was replaced by cries of passion that lasted until the red glow of the returning sun waxed on the horizon to the east.
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