by David Beers
“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.”
Father Charles kept his head bowed.
Lord, forgive me. Please forgive me, he prayed.
He didn’t know if forgiveness was possible, but he felt his hand was forced. He couldn’t stand by and let it continue to happen. He couldn’t let this man continue to murder.
The priest turned around, raising his head and looking at John.
“Let’s go to my office. I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”
John nodded.
“Okay.”
God helped.
John couldn’t deny that. God and Father Charles, and eventually, Sexaholics Anonymous. It all helped to keep Harry at bay and the world he brought with him.
Years passed and the initial shock over what he told the priest faded.
John went to church. He participated. He took communion and he prayed daily.
“Have you thought about therapy?” Father Charles asked.
“I’ve been. It didn’t help.”
“And this? How is this helping?”
“It’s the only thing to ever help alleviate the urges,” John said.
Their relationship was close, if strained. John still saw the care inside the priest’s eyes, but he saw fear there as well.
John met Diane. Father Charles married them.
“Does she know?” he asked.
“No. I can’t tell her.”
“And you think you can live this lie forever, without telling your other half?”
“I’m not sure I have a choice,” John said.
“We always have a choice.”
“Not if I want her to stay.”
Years went and John stayed, what the twelve-steppers called, sober. Until he didn’t.
How many years passed? Three? Four? Quite a few. His longest stretch ever, but as always, Harry returned. He came back wanting the only thing he knew—murder. John saw him and knew that the only choice he had was to turn to Father Charles. The group couldn’t help, and though he prayed, God’s representative answered him more often than God.
“It’s back,” John said inside the confessional booth. Once the rite concluded, John could confess, and even evil thoughts were protected under the seal. “The thoughts, Father. I can’t stop them. They’re all the time.
“Have you prayed?”
“Yes, but God’s not answering.”
The priest sighed. “You have an opportunity here, to end all of this, John. You can turn yourself in now, before any more damage is done. God does not always alleviate us from our suffering. Sometimes we must alleviate ourselves.”
John said nothing.
“You’re talking about murder. You’re telling me that you’re having thoughts of killing someone and you don’t know how to stop it, yet when I say, turn yourself in, you don’t have an answer.”
Father Charles had never spoken like this. The relationship was complicated, but John hadn’t felt the pull like this since starting church. It seemed as if Father Charles would take the attitude that as long as the dogs slept, let them.
Until now.
Turn himself in? The thought never crossed his mind. He would have sooner killed himself than put his family through the knowledge of what he’d done.
“Do you hear me, John?”
“I can’t do that, Father. I love my life too much.”
“You love yourself more than the rest of God’s children?” the priest said.
John felt the hot damp of tears in his eyes.
“Only you can make this choice,” Father Charles said. “You can choose to do what is right or what you’ve always done. No one else can make that choice for you. If you choose to continue down this path, of even entertaining thoughts like this—I’m not sure how much more help I can be.”
“Have a seat, John,” Father Charles said. He watched as John took a chair in front of his desk, placed there for a very specific reason. The priest sat on the corner of his desk, halfway standing. “Is it worse than before?”
John nodded but didn’t make eye contact.
“How so?”
John looked up at that question. “You know I won’t tell you out here.”
“No details.”
John took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s happened twice already.”
“Another one since we last spoke?”
John nodded and Father Charles looked down at his feet. Black shoes to go with the black get-up. So much black, though the Lord was supposed to be a God of joy. Maybe, though, the Church only peddled that. Maybe God was something very different and Father Charles was just now coming to understand that. Maybe God didn’t care about humanity at all, despite what the Book said.
He looked at John and thought, what God would make him like this? What God would put Father Charles in this position?
A serial killer and a priest?
God brought this man in front of Father Charles and left him no choices.
Perhaps God was a sadistic child and did this for fun. Perhaps God and John Hilt were more similar than not.
Is this why I’m here? Father Charles prayed. To do this bidding?
He prayed like he spoke, oftentimes interchanging silent thoughts with vocal words. He had prayed for so long—years and years—that it was simply an extension of himself, as natural as breathing. Father Charles hadn’t lost his faith despite the anger he felt right now. He would do what he needed to because of his faith, not in spite of it. His love for God led him to his love for mankind, and thus to the necessity of what came next.
“Would you like a drink?” he said, looking up.
“You have something here?”
Father Charles nodded to the bar behind him, a small thing. “Jesus drank wine, right?”
John smiled. “I always thought that was for decoration. Sure, I’ll have one.”
Father Charles stood from the edge of the desk and walked behind him, opening up the bottle of whiskey.
“Do you think you’ll get caught, John? Does that scare you?” he said as he poured the brown liquid into a glass.
“I’m terrified of it. I feel like the world is closing in around me and there’s nothing I can do to put it off. Like it’s a rope around my neck and it’s tightening. It’s been tightening my whole life, but it’s moving quicker now, and it’s going to choke me soon.”
Father Charles nodded, looking at the glass of liquor. “I feel it too, I think.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t sleep, John. I wake up at night almost screaming because I’m watching you do these things. I don’t know why God brought you to me. It’s like He cursed me.”
John didn’t speak for a few seconds before saying, “I’m sorry, Father.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
The priest poured another drink so that now two sat in front of him. “I don’t have any ice.”
“Straight is fine.”
“Your wife still thinks you’re an alcoholic?” Father Charles said.
“Yes.”
“So this is your first drink in a long time?”
“Yeah.”
The priest turned both glasses in his hand and walked to the side of John’s chair. “Here,” he said, and handed him the glass. John took it and offered it up for a brief toast. They clicked and both put the glass to their mouths. Father Charles took his down without a grimace, though he felt the warmth draining along his throat.
He too
k both glasses and walked them back to the bar, standing there for another few seconds.
“What are you going to do?” the priest said.
“I don’t know.”
“You won’t turn yourself in?”
“No.”
The priest sighed. I would say Your will, not mine, Lord, but I don’t know what Your will is anymore. He reached into his pocket and pulled out what he hadn’t wanted to, what he hoped could be kept hidden forever. No more, though.
He turned around and walked toward John’s back.
“This isn’t good,” Harry said.
John didn’t turn around to look at Father Charles, but kept his eyes on the floor as he leaned on his knees.
“I don’t like what he’s saying. He hasn’t ever spoken like this before, John,” Harry said.
John ignored him. Harry might be right, but this was also the first time Father Charles had somewhat leveled with him, talking about these monstrous acts on a semi-human level.
“I want to stop,” he said, for what felt like the millionth time. “I just can’t.”
“Would you fucking listen to me?” Harry said. “I don’t like this. Turn around, see what the hell he’s doing. Why would he call you here like this and have a goddamn drink with you? None of it is making sense.”
John didn’t feel happy, per se, but he felt better than when he’d been sitting in the car waiting to walk into Kaitlin Rickiment’s apartment. He felt like at least someone was listening to him. And as long as he was here talking, he wasn’t out there killing.
Still, he couldn’t ignore Harry. Something in what he said rang true, because the whole situation was past the point of oddness, despite the contentment it gave John.
He turned around.
“FUCK!” Harry screamed, seeing the priest for the first time.
John reacted, some primitive part of his mind taking over and pushing everything else out in one hard rush.
Father Charles held a knife horizontally, the blade facing John and moving straight toward his neck. John pushed on the chair, simultaneously standing up and shoving the chair into the priest.
It hit him hard, stopping his walk forward and causing him to bend over as it collided with his stomach. John looked into his eyes for a brief second, saw the surprise echoing across the priest’s brain, and recognition that what he hoped to happen, wouldn’t.
“Kill him,” Harry said, his voice a whisper of ice floating by John’s ear.
The hunger came, falling over John as a fever might a child. He couldn’t fight it, couldn’t understand it, could only embrace it in all its horrible glory.
John reached into his pocket and pulled out his own knife.
The priest backed away a few steps, his eyes widening with each step he took.
“John …,” Father Charles said.
John couldn’t hear him, though. Had Harry spoken, he wouldn’t have heard him either.
He moved forward, his feet sure and his hand tight on the knife. The priest didn’t even try to feign an attack; he kept backing up until he hit the bar he’d just served drinks from. The bottle tipped over, clanging against a metal tray. John kept pushing forward, and with his left hand grabbed the priest’s right, pinning the knife to the bar.
The Father’s flesh shone with sweat and John looked at it dripping down his neck, knowing absolutely nothing and yet everything that mattered. He brought his own knife up to the priest’s throat, pushing forward, and though the man fought, the knife sunk further and further toward his neck.
At last, it reached his skin, piercing it with the point.
Blood started in a trickle, but John kept pushing, and the flow increased as the flesh separated.
The priest screamed, but no one heard it. Not John or anyone else inside the empty cathedral.
Finally, the windpipe was severed, and the screaming stopped, but not the blood flow.
13
A Portrait of a Young Man
Years Earlier
John sat at the back of the class. The teacher hadn’t assigned seats, and he was running late this morning, so when he arrived, he slid into the first seat he saw.
He arrived late because he had lain in bed all morning, not getting up when his alarm went off, or the next five times he hit snooze.
A year had passed since Harry’s death, but things hadn’t gotten easier. Maybe from a societal standpoint, given that no one checked in on him anymore—not outside of his monthly meetings with Vondi. What grew tougher were his thoughts, though he hadn’t noticed them at first. Slight things, like wisps of smoke filtering through someone’s vision from a cigarette burning a few feet away. He saw them for a brief second but they passed just like air, and that had been that.
As the months passed, the wisps grew thicker. He didn’t understand their origin, though he understood their content fine.
Thoughts of murder, plain and simple.
Was it Harry that triggered this, watching his friend drown and wanting so bad to relive his drowning over and over so that he could witness it forever?
Maybe it didn’t matter why, only what.
So he lay in bed that morning imagining what it would be like to actually kill a person. He had done those things to animals before but … the human body was so much bigger, with so much more blood inside. Larger organs. The ability to speak. To beg. All animals could do was squeal from tiny vocal cords and struggle against his much stronger muscles.
It didn’t suffice anymore. He found little enjoyment in it.
But to kill a person? Was that something he could even do? What did it make him, that he thought he might be able to?
John looked around the room at his classmates, not hearing anything the teacher said. All of them were alive and he could make any one of them dead.
What the fuck is wrong with you? he thought. You gotta stop this. It’s going to consume your life. It already is. There’s a goddamn test next week and you’re not going to have a clue what’s on it.
The entire scolding was true, but it didn’t stop a single vision.
The blonde in class sitting to his right. He didn’t imagine having sex with her like most fifteen year olds his age; no, he saw what she would look like, tied up, with a bullet hole in the middle of her forehead. He could think of nothing else. Would it be a simple entry wound, with a stream of blood rolling down her face? Would there be an exit wound behind, her head opening up like a mushroom cloud, sending both brain and bone onto the bare mattress beneath? Would she die immediately, or would her body keep trying to live? Would her bladder and bowels empty themselves?
Sick, disgusting thoughts.
But things he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to—and a part of him didn’t want to.
A very large part wanted to see it happen.
Nothing of note.
That’s what Lori told Dr. Vondi at her last visit.
And it was true. Harry’s death had been the last issue with John. No other dead animals.
“What about you?” she had said to him.
“Just the usual conversations.”
Lori didn’t like to have nothing of note, but she felt this might be the calm before the storm. Clara had periods like this, times when she wasn’t wild and villainous. That didn’t mean the woman wasn’t insane any longer, only that she might be storing up some of that insanity to let it all loose at once.
Lori didn’t know what that would look like with John, but it frightened her, because if he exploded—doing something rash (Murder, Lori—can’t you say it, even to yourself?), it would be hard for her to help him.
And so, she thought it might be time to bring Scott into this. If something were to happen, he would need to know about it, and if he believed her—then maybe they could take action now to prevent it. Lori didn’t know what to do on her own, not without getting John in trouble.
“We need to talk about John,” she said as Scott climbed into bed.
“Now?” he said.
�
��I don’t know when else we’ll have the chance. I think now is probably best.”
Scott sighed as he padded his pillow behind his head. “Okay, what about? Something to do with the psychologist he’s seeing?”
“Yeah,” she said, completely unsure how to start the conversation. Scott knew very little about her family and she wasn’t going to try and open that history right now. She needed some other way to broach the subject, and she couldn’t simply say, Our son has something wrong with him inside his brain, and he’s probably going to murder someone soon. I’m not turning him in because I love him too much, so we should plan something out before it happens.
“Well … what is it?”
“I’m scared he might be going down the wrong path.”
Scott laughed. “The wrong path? Did he join a cult or something that I’m not aware of?”
“Scott, seriously, I’m not joking.”
“Me either. What is it that makes you think that? He’s not wearing all black is he?”
Lori looked over at him and saw the grin across his face.
“I’m worried that Harry’s death might have done something to him. Like, messed him up somehow.”
Scott’s smile faded and he looked ahead at the television. “I worried about that for a while, too, but nothing has happened to make me think he’s not okay. His grades are fine. He acts the same around the house. He hasn’t had any trouble at school. Right?”
“Yeah, that’s all true, but … well, I talk to Vondi also, and ….”
“And what?”
“He just seems darker to both of us.”
Another sigh from Scott’s side of the bed. “So what do you want to do? He’s in therapy; it’s that guy’s job to help him not be so dark. That’s why we pay him.”
Just say it, Lori. Just tell him the truth, all of it, right now. Lay it out for him and then let him decide which pieces he wants to pick up and which ones he wants to discard. You can’t keep beating around the bush.
But she couldn’t say it out loud.
Because if he didn’t believe her … if he responded like Vondi, or worse, thought something wrong with her … it all led to something she couldn’t have happen: an inability to protect John. The worst case scenario for anything she saw far outweighed the best.