by David Kempf
Like father, like son, our first born and only child, Damien, also enjoyed her breasts. In a strange and almost erotic way, he also enjoyed her lovely body.
I did love her once before she became evil…
I have no idea how or why it happened.
Well, I have some ideas in my head why she would never see heaven.
That damned woman was never honest about her baptism. I suspect she never really was baptized and therefore she knew she was evil. She suspected sinister foul play from me but ironically received justice from the unbaptized….
This proposes a question to the curious.
Was she good despite never being baptized?
No.
She was evil and impersonated goodness to trap me in a marriage where hatred and physical and emotional abuse where everyday occurrences…
“We never got Damien baptized.”
She knew religion was more important to me.
“We never got Damien baptized.”
And with good reason, my dear, I thought.
“We never got Damien baptized.”
Like adultery, divorce, murder and suicide, being unbaptized is a mortal sin, not a venial one….
Some sins are worse than others; I know that, I always have.
We were free of her and soon we would be free from sin, guilt and accusations of murder. Her body would quite simply never be found.
“I love you, son. We’re going to get you baptized soon. No point in you being a little cannibal after being baptized…”
God, he was so unholy. A true abomination, I had night terrors, night after night of his dreadful true face. The razor sharp teeth in his mouth. He was so hungry for flesh and so thirsty for blood, I feared. In all fairness, though there was no evidence for the later. I merely feared it as I did his awesome terrible face…
“I will protect you and keep you safe from harm, once you have devoured your mother’s corpse entirely, son.”
No reply, silent evil baby.
“I hope you can understand that. I will become well pleased with you, my dear child.”
Little Damien smiled a sweet and innocent grin.
Time went by, hour by hour, day by day and bite by bite. I had to seriously wonder if we were actually in the clear. I had no idea.
This was a very complicated situation. I did not act out of vengeance against my wife because vengeance belongs to the Lord. That’s in the Bible. I did not wish to spill her blood or to send her to hell; it was just meant to be. Simple as that….
“We never got Damien baptized.”
True enough.
“We never got Damien baptized.” The words never ended. They wouldn’t go away.
No reply, silent evil baby once again.
“It will not be much longer, son. Soon it will all be over.”
In a few years, they would have to declare my wife dead and then we could truly begin to move on. We were only middle class American folks here. My wife could rest in peace. My son and I could have a life together at long last. What an unclouded day that would be. Free from the darkness, free from son, free to raise Damien. Oh, I have thought seriously about changing the baby’s name. There is something about that name that gives people the creeps.
What creeps me out?
Why must you know?
Oh, it ain’t mother’s meat if that’s what you are implying.
What is it then?
These God damned scars on my arm.
They’re pink.
Pink like the unshaven pussies in a Playboy centerfold.
I’m not holding a grudge; I’m making a simple observation. I do not hate all women.
My child is not a brat.
He barely cries; he’s trying to walk, he eats his mother’s corpse, he drinks his whole milk, he plays with his blocks.
Nice kid…
“You’re getting cuter all the time,” I told him, “at least in this form.”
There was no reply at all from Damien as usual. None was expected.
“When are you going to walk?”
No reply.
“When are you going to walk, son?”
No answer.
“I don’t mean to be a pain in the ass, son. I was just curious.”
Damien remained silent.
“Son, we have the power over life and death here, please let’s take it seriously. I know you can’t help being evil right now…”
Dead silence…
Shit. We had so much power between us, Damien and me. If we wanted to do it, we could have a basement full of frozen neighbors. All ready for him to consume at will.
No.
That would be wrong and I had a firm grasp of right and wrong.
My boy and I aren’t two maniacs shooting people at a fast food establishment. We are father and son and we hope to follow God’s ways.
“Shouldn’t we have Damien baptized soon?” my wife once asked.
I just tried to get it out of my head.
***
“You don’t have to wear that, you know. This is a progressive environment that provides the least restrictive atmosphere,” Dr. Glover said.
I was silent. No response.
“Say something!” Dr. Glover exclaimed.
Too late, way too late, Doc, I wasn’t feeling guilty. You know, I was going down memory lane.
“She’s almost gone now,” I said.
My baby was silent but his tummy was full.
I had hoped to wipe that smile off of my face and that I was not hungry for vengeance because my wife was cruel. That would be wrong.
I remembered where I was for a moment and the straitjacket felt comfortable, rather than confining.
Then I went back in time, in my mind, once again. It was time remember what had happened in the past now. I wanted to go to a gun store, I remembered that. I never did. It would have surely drawn way too much attention to what I was doing. The asshole who owned the local gun store was pals with the police. Besides, I was not sure whether or not I was going to continue my search for the wicked or not. Not sure at all. Little Damien needed to be baptized and that was my most important priority.
“Mommy’s almost gone, sweet one.”
There was no answer from my little boy.
“Sweets to the sweet, son.”
God, he devoured that part of his mother with carnivorous delight.
He was not human with this appetite. The boy was like a shark!
“More, my love,” I said.
Damien ate a big old bite.
“Yes.”
He was eating her very fast, not much left of her either.
“Please drink some more of this milk from your Sippy cup,” I said.
He did. Damien drank heartily.
“Good.”
What?
Fuck off!
Every baby needs a Sippy cup!
Bad thoughts and painful memories were swimming around in my head. My wife loathed me for being such a dumb fuck. I had so many faults and so few good and admirable traits. That was fine. I never felt weak, I’ll tell you that. No doubt about that. Even with these silly scratches, I always knew that I was a real man. No doubt about that.
“Drink up, kid, you’re doing great,” I said.
He grimaced.
“Is that gas or evil?” I asked him.
But he did not answer the question.
Once the boy finished eating his mother, we would truly be free, and, Jesus he was almost done! Opening the door between the real and the unreal was difficult but not impossible. You see, there is a difference between them. My son and I saw that brief damned glimpse of how dark the abyss is. You know, how few people are saved. For Christ sake, there are churches that don’t even baptize babies!
“Eat up, boy, eat up…”
Oh God! He did!
“Eat!”
Boy did my boy do that, he loved to eat!
“Eat!”
He ate.
“Don’t you th
ink we should get Damien baptized?” my wife asked.
“Yes,” I answered her.
Time and memory were a little confused for me now. Well, I was really confused to be perfectly honest. This was no small matter like forgetting why you walked in a room or whether or not you washed your hair in the shower. This was serious business. This was big time, baby. This was my sanity!
Of course, I believe I’m sane.
What?
Yes, I know where my current residence is. I know where I live and I told you that I am very happy here. I feel safe.
“Eat!”
My boy ate some more….
“Eat!”
He really ate her up now. I was not controlling his appetite and neither was he. Somebody else was in control and sin was the fuel it ran on.
Eventually, it ended; all things come to an end. It. The food supply was not limitless. She was only one woman; she was tall but she was fairly skinny. A juicy big fat mama would have taken my little one considerable more time to devour.
It didn’t happen that way.
I served Damien his morning meal and came to a terrible realization. His food supply was really gone. This thing inside him, this terrible sin was real. The postponing of the saving waters of baptism made his evil grow stronger. This was a force of pure darkness. I needed to bring my son back into the light. I was confused. Did the light want us to find others in the darkness for consumption or was I to quit while were ahead? I did not want to wake a sleeping giant of evil. I decided one or two days at most now. If no other evildoers were there, we would quit and Damien would be a baptized child.
What?
No. I’m not crazy.
I’m sane.
I know if we were caught, they would accuse us of murder.
Actually, all the blame would go on me and I assumed the evil would be laughing its head off at my son and me. It would be getting away with murder; why wouldn’t it laugh?
“Eat.”
Damien ate.
“Don’t let this thing take its course, Damien. Eat all of the evidence so that we can be rid of this guilt and shame.”
The child paused.
“You need to finish up, son. Then we can spend two days searching for more evil. The quest will be over soon enough. Then this nightmare will be over.”
He smiled.
“Yes.”
“Daddy,” Damien said.
“Yes.”
“Daddy,” he repeated.
“Eat, son.”
Sadly, there was nothing left of her to devour.
I was frustrated but I realized little Damien, possessed though he might be, was too young to get the big picture here. This was no test screening. This was real life and we both had to pass the test. Conventional thinking would think us mad but truth was on our side. What others could see on the outside was not what was going on inside.
The invisible world, spiritual world, of angels and demons was something most folks refused to see. And they always failed to understand it!
“Eat.”
“Daddy,” he answered.
All my guilty thoughts about what had to be done to my wife were beginning to vanish. Like a witch who cast a spell, sometimes those spells faded after the witch was killed off in some recommended manner. Ding dong. The witch was dead. She never melted; she was devoured by her offspring.
“I think that this is the last dance, Damien. The final test…”
He belched.
Good appetite.
Good boy.
“Daddy,’ he said again.
“Yes.”
The last supper had finally been eaten. He ate the flesh that was required and passed the demon test. Only an evil wife could make father and son feel the way we did. Now the time had passed and it was time to step out of the darkness and into the light.
“Daddy is proud of you, son. You did what needed to be done.”
“Daddy,” he said.
I tucked my boy into bed after reading him some upbeat stories about brave animals that always did the right thing.
“Sleep tight, son.”
His little head rested on my knee and I rubbed his full tummy and his head. I smiled at him. He gave a little smile as he descended into the dark waters of slumber for the night.
“Sleep well, my little one. We have an important day tomorrow.”
That night I had no problems sleeping; this was highly unusual for me. I usually needed something on the strong side to knock me out, even for just a few hours. That night I slept well but dreamed of terrible things. A dark castle filled with mocking spirits. There was a graveyard where buried unbaptized children waited until the angels took them to judgment and they descended into hell.
My little one had to be saved soon.
“Daddy,” he cried waking me.
It was already the next morning, bright and early, just barely 6 am.
He smiled.
“Today’s the day to find out.”
We walked all around the neighborhood and my heartfelt heavy as I pushed his stroller around. The neighbors might have gotten some kind of telepathic message from my night terrors. They were wearing psychic armor to protect them from Damien’s wrath. They were wearing the devil’s armor. Damien did not blink at any of them so to kill any of them would be murder.
What?
You weren’t there to feel the true presence of evil, fighting for a chance to hide from true justice. I felt like I was surrounded by trapped animals everywhere. As long as I could not be sure they were guilty, the animals would not be slaughtered.
What?
No.
I’m sane. I tell you. Perfectly sane. As sane as you are.
“Daddy,” Damien said.
“Not long now, son. We’ll leave the park in a few hours and go home. I know you’re hungry.”
When we came home, Damien would not any of the baby food that we had in the fridge. My worst fears were realized. He didn’t want normal baby food or even adult people food. Damien wanted mother’s meat.
“Damien, eat this cheeseburger, if you don’t want baby food.”
He grimaced and let out an inhumanly loud cry.
“Sorry, kid. We’re all out of the other kind…”
He cried and cried, and wouldn’t eat—until at last I grew desperate, terrified that he would starve to death. Then we did something.
We went out on a hunt.
A hunt for food on that same morning. We were successful.
“Damien, I couldn’t find any evildoers, so this is all I have, you have two choices. I know once you get baptized, this won’t be a problem.”
Damien smiled at me.
“There are two choices because I will not commit cold blooded murder for you. I’m not that kind of person…”
“A dog and a cat are in the freezer downstairs.”
Damien smiled once again. Good! He was willing to vary his menu.
“Okay, let’s try the dog first.”
Yes, he took it.
I couldn’t believe this was happening. It was almost as if I was hallucinating or having a nightmare.
It could be said that my wife was ordinary woman, a good woman even. When we cheated the devils of sin to find out her wickedness, we crossed the line. That’s why the neighbors had such good Satanic armor on. Evil hates to be manipulated into doing good. Evil hates to be found out. This is true, I think, even when one plays by the Devil’s own rules. I think it was her love of money and lack of respect for the rights of others that woke me to the evil inside. Only an unbaptized baby would do here. Well, that and a true believer. Yes, I think it was her laughing at me every time I made a mistake. The laughter had to be silenced.
Mother’s meat….
All gone….
The child lived on the meat of animals almost like a normal child.
We found ourselves walking as father and son all around the neighborhood. Weeks went by and I mixed the last of the cat and dog with regular baby food.
Thanks to all holy things, he was gradually weaned off it, domestic pet meat, I mean. Then he only ate what other babies did and he was yet to be made free from sin. I was proud of him.
We had to endure seeing the missing posters for the cat and the dog posted all over the neighborhood. It made me sick. My conscience bothered me.
What?
Fuck off!
I have a conscience. I am not insane.
“Where is your wife, Rosemary?” asked the old lady next door.
“She left me. I don’t know where the hell she is!”
“What?”
“I said I don’t fucking know where Rosemary is!”
“I didn’t ask where she was.”
“What?” I asked.
“I wanted to know how she was….”
“Oh,” I answered her.
“Well?” she persisted.
“I told you she left me,” I said suddenly. “I don’t know where she is or how she is. She’s gone is all I know.”
Damien slept next to me in what was now our room. I hoped he would have glorious dreams of Heaven with dancing angels’ way above the lovely clouds…
Damien snored and it was adorable.
“Sleep well, son. Tomorrow we’re getting you baptized. No matter what.”
But it didn’t work out that way.
***
A knock and as simple as that….
Damien slept. The noise did not wake him.
The police had come, at the old woman’s request, in the middle of the night. I invited them in the house feeling perfectly secure because we devoured all evidence and I buried the bones in the woods at the park.
Mother’s meat….all gone…
They had no warrant.
Mother’s meat….all gone…
Evidence devoured by my hungry little one.
“Can we look around for a while?” asked a fat cop.
“Sure.” I sat with Damien on my lap.
He did.
What?
There was nothing to find. I’m telling you that.
“Please come down here,” said the fat cop. He was in the basement and he wasn’t taking to me but rather to his deputy.
“Come on, take a look!”
I was silent. But I had to sweat.