Darkroom Saga Omnibus 1

by Poppet

She thrashes against the punishment I'm inflicting. I dig in harder, on the objects she uses to tempt men to fornicate and lust.

  Tears well and stream from her eyes. “Please, please!”

  I love it when they beg for the mercy of our Lord. These lesser beings deserve no compassion. Besides, did the hairless body of John teach me nothing? The shepherd who does not discipline the flock he is given, he who does not the will of the Lord, will himself be punished.

  “Please what?” I test the evil cunning under my command.

  “Father!”

  “Please father what?”

  “Stop!”

  Not 'please deliver me from evil'. Not 'please absolve me and purify me'. Not 'please make me one of your flock, show me the way'. Nothing.

  “Wrong answer, Eighteen.”

  Releasing her, I use her sag of relief to smash my elbow in her face, striking her throat, and kicking her knees out from under her.

  She falls hard, unable to scream this time because I have winded her. Dropping the skin of an animal, I stand before her as the angel of chaos. Leaning down, idly lifting a tress off her breast, I slice it in front of her face, watching as horror flits across her features.

  “God punishes sinners who don't beg for deliverance. You're a whore, you are an animal, you incite men to covet and lust. First I will show you how we do that in God's house, and then I will cut the sin from your skin, inch by pretty inch. You are a temple, and a temple and its altar must be sanctified with blood.”

  ~ Chapter 12 ~

  The axe is ready to cut down the trees at the roots,

  every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down...

  ~Luke 3:9

  James:

  The fear of God crosses her features as she crawls back, pressing herself to the wall. There is nowhere for her to go, no place where she can hide her shame, expelling short gasps of anguish.

  The joy of the Lord is my strength, and I flex, revealing to her the indomitable strength displayed by His army on earth, pleased when she reveals the euphoric cocktail of desire and terror.

  It's so familiar to see that expression. The need to be dominated, and they are ashamed and disgusted when they realize they want it. They need it.

  Grabbing her brunette locks, dragging her to her feet, I explain to the simpleton, “Father John is not here to show you mercy, harlot. I am here, to sanctify your soul, not with mercy, but with the sword of the Most High God.”

  Her breasts shiver as I shake her shoulders, the nipples no longer erect but nearly inverted. They swing freely, her satan trying to hypnotize me. I am just as cunning and need to distract the satan within her, letting her see a flash of the lethal implement in my palm. Her eyes follow it as I pass it in front of her, snaking the threat of steel between us.

  “Wha—wha–?” she stammers. I hate her tongue. Still she does not beg for deliverance. Still she focuses her concern on her earthly vessel and not her soul.

  “Did I not tell you God punishes those who do not beg for forgiveness? Even now you try to use your body to tempt me to descend to the level where sins of the flesh are a distraction.”

  She shakes her swelling face in a negative, her eyes wild. Using her hair as a handle, I swing her around and send her sprawling.

  Then I see it.

  What the fuck is this? What else has John overlooked?

  I stomp to her in rage, pulling her to her feet again, and spin her to face the wall. I roar and her body stiffens. Ink decorates her skin. Pointed swooping lines in some ancient design just above the waist of the tiny shorts John left her in. How could he not see this? Leaning into her, pressing her into the wall with my hand against the small of her back, I put my mouth an inch from her ear. “You know the stories of the gospels, do you not know the commands of the Lord?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “What is this mark you have taken upon your flesh?”

  “I don’t understand!” her voice shakes, near hysteria.

  A woman in violation of the Lord’s command, and John has ignored it?

  “You’ve scarred the temple of the Lord, you wicked sinner! You spawn of satan! You have taken a mark upon your skin!”

  “What? You mean—”

  “Your fucking tattoo, whore! You know the commands of Leviticus? You will not make cuts on your body for the dead, or tattoo yourselves. I am the Lord!”

  “But—”

  “I am the Lord!”

  Slamming my rage into her cheekbone, she pinwheels across the room. Her face collides with the wall opposite, her wail that of a heathen, sliding down to sag weakly on the floor.

  “Please!”

  “Please what?”

  “Please stop. Please leave me alone!”

  “Leave you alone? Leave you to your sin and corruption? Never!”

  She does not understand. It would not offer mercy or salvation. It would only lead to more evil. “You wish to wear a scar? A scar of ink that god did not sanction? I will scar your flesh to please our Lord. I will cut out this evil, redeeming you so he might find it in his heart to forgive you.” I hiss at the shivering sinner.

  “Please no!”

  “Stop saying that!” I must gag her, before I lose control and kill this rebellious bitch of the devil. Oh no, it would not do to kill her in this unrighteous state. To do so would be to doom her soul to eternal damnation. First I must make her righteous, and then, only then, will she be ready to leave this world.

  The only useful option in here is her sheet. Slipping the blade to the edge of the cotton, I sever a decent rag. Catching it when it loosens, ignoring the infernal whimpers of objection, I grab her, tying it around her head, gagging her mouth, making sure she can still breathe through her nose. It would not do for her to suffocate. No, it would not do at all. I want her conscious for every incision, feeling me peel her sins off her with the lucid torment of a soul cast into hell.

  With a quick glance, I take in the cell where John has left her, spotting the bearskin I discarded. I remember the hunting trip well. John takes pleasure in the killing of things from a distance, the feeling of power when one takes life with a gun. This bear was not dead when we reached it. John the weak wanted to put a bullet in its head, finish it, end its suffering quickly.

  I convinced him to give me the pleasure. John of the gun, James of the knife. Two tall trees dominated the clearing where we found the dying animal. Using the ropes in my pack, I hung the bear, still breathing. I took a knife, a small skinning knife much like the one in my hand now, and I slit the bear from throat to groin.

  Its strength, even in dying, astonished me. As I worked the knife inside the gash, removing the first layer of fur, careful not to cut into the muscle, and leaving as little yellow fat on the skin as possible, the bear moaned and squirmed, thrashing against the ropes despite its wounds. It struggled against me for interminable hours. Man and beast, and man wins every time because we have dominion.

  Laughing at the swine sprawled at my feet, I smile, knowing she's the animal, and I will best her and her kind for all eternity. If they don't submit they'll be cut up and made an example of.

  The skinning of the bear was a tough ordeal. We took it in the spring: the animal’s winter reserves were nearly exhausted, the layer of fat thin, the muscle sitting just under the skin. The bear lasted for nearly an hour, its skin half removed before the giant creature huffed its last breath.

  Testing the knife against my thumb, eyeing the trembling woman before me, she has little resemblance to a bear, yet she too has skin which requires grafting.

  Indeed she does.

  Besmirched skin which offends the all seeing eye of God and his watchers. “My little whore, you’ve been blessed this day,” I smile, reassuring her of the deliverance about to change her abhorrent existence.

  She shakes her head, throwing the gift back at God, rejecting the salvation I just offered. Her hair flows back and forth with emphatic frenzy, her denial becoming hysterical be
cause she knows her time is nigh.

  Ohh, yessss.

  She makes me hard; the glory is strong in me now.

  “The Lord has shown me through the bear what I must do. You must be gird about with the belt of Truth. I have been appointed to remove the mark of Satan you’ve placed upon your skin.”

  She shakes her head again, her eyes wide.

  I’ll not only remove the evil mark, I’ll remove a belt of her flesh, leaving her with a reminder of the armor of God. This wayward child will never forget Alpha's commands again, not for as long as she draws breath.

  “Take this, let Christ alleviate your suffering.” Holding her face by squeezing her cheeks, I shove a seed of manna behind the gag. She groans, shaking her head, trying to spit it out. Such rebellion, even now, shows just how indelible the satan is in this one.

  Watching her silently for two minutes, I know the time to return her temple to hallowed and holy has arrived, when her pupils dilate and she no longer focuses, the panic fled with God's loving influence.

  With little effort, I roll her stomach down on the chalky floor, speckled with grit and grime. I sit on her shoulders, her head behind me. With my palm flexed I caress the skin of her back, stopping short of her sacrilege. It's soft and smooth, sexier than virginity, taut across delicious muscles which suction to her body like a glamor to mesmerize men. Transferring the knife to my dominant hand, I make the first incision. She stiffens, but does not move. The manna does its work, praise the Lord.

  Performing the lower cut first, I make a long shallow kerf the width of her back. Blood flows to it in gradual increments. Her dehydration, the location of the cut, and her docile state, all play in my favor. Reaching over to snag her sheet again, using it to swipe the blood away, I expose the vulnerable canvas so I can clearly splice the highest cut. The sharp blade is smooth as a scalpel, easily slicing through the toughest organ of the body.

  The lines are perfectly straight, paralleling each other with precision. Another wipe of the blanket and I lean in, carefully cutting the right side of her back, connecting the two lines.

  Slowly, obsessively meticulous, I peel her skin back, prying it away from the muscle tissue with exact slicing of the thin edge of the honed knife, pausing only to wipe the blood away so I can see where to make the next incision.

  John keeps the cells cool, but not cool enough for this kind of intense work. Sweat runs off my brow, stinging my eyes. I blink it away, concentrating on my task. Her layer of fat is thicker here than I expected, and the nubile parchment comes away smoothly in one piece. Gingerly, I roll it back, not tearing it, not risking puncturing it at all. At the end of the two lines I scored with the knife I have a roll of smooth unbroken skin, and a strip of her back three inches wide lays open, bare to the muscle. In the center, poking through, are the exposed vertebrae of her spinal column.

  How easy it would be to sever the nerves between those bones and leave her useless below the waist, neutralizing the evil lurking there! No more would she twitch her sex, bump her hips, grind her pussy, or open her legs to the unworthy.

  I shake my head. Not this time. First, her chance at redemption.

  On the left side the knife flashes out, and I have two even incisions. I peel her skin, cutting carefully, as far as I can go without rolling her over. Tearing a piece of the bloody sheet, I use it to tie the perfect roll of skin I’ve removed so far.

  Swinging my leg over her head, I roll her onto her back. She grunts and moans under the gag, but I pay it no heed. Quick but careful work is needed to complete the belt, to mark her for righteousness. I mount her upper body once again, conscious that by sitting on the lusciousness of her temptation, I’m hard at the touch of her, but I studiously ignore it. Purging and worshipping will have to wait. I am about the work of the Lord.

  I start with the lower incision again, quickly followed by the upper. Careful, I strip away the skin and the yellowed fat, rolling as I go, conscious that a pool of her blood is forming on the floor beneath her. She moans quietly, and I take a moment to consider how weak she must be; how open she is now to the obedience of the savior.

  I move faster, still precise, but allowing my skilled hands to do their work. In a few moments I hold a strip of her skin, rolled in my hands, and she wears a belt of blood. The belt of truth.

  Gripping her by the hair, I stand her up. I should scalp her. Remove the hair she glories in and give it to John, to mock his lack of glorious adornment. Perhaps later.

  Laughing at my wit, I look over my handiwork, pleased.

  Blood flows over her hips, soaking her shorts, sticking them to her butt, her thighs. They cling to her folds, saturating her crotch, soaking her shame in the glorious blood of her own sacrifice.

  Her eyes are wide, though she is limp in my grip like a rag doll. I snatch up the skin spray, aiming it at her, uncaring if it goes septic. That's a gamble I'm willing to wait out. Will god let her become infected the way she infected men, or will he miraculously save her life so she can endure the rest of her days in service to him?

  It's a mystery. But then... I'm not in a merciful mood. I'm tempted to wrap her hand around the blade, guiding her to deface her own temple until she bleeds out. Crisscrossing it while we play tic-tac-toe on her perfect body, with blood and blade.

  “This will hurt,” I warn her, for some unfathomable reason I'm feeling altruistic enough to give her a head's up.

  I spray first her back, slowly turning her, covering the equatorial gash I have created. She convulses, screaming behind the gag when pain forced lucidity back into her numb mind, but as I spin her a second time the seepage slows.

  It is good. She will live, most likely.

  Casting her onto the mattress, I kneel next to her. She tosses about for a moment, finding no place, no position, where she can find comfort. Tormented, she sits up and looks at me with pleading eyes.

  Why? she mouths behind the gag.

  She coaxes me to show the compassion of Christ. “It is for his glory. This life... it is not about us. In taking the evil from you, you can now be offered salvation. Do you understand?”

  She nods.

  The nod pleases me.

  “Dirty angel, do you wish to be sanctified? Set aside for the most high?”

  Another nod.

  Praise be!

  Taking her hand, I raise it to my lips, and though she flinches at first, I touch it to my mouth, kissing it.

  See, I am compassionate and merciful to the obedient and humble.

  Reluctant I release her hand, staring into tormented eyes, saying, “I must see to the others. They too, need me. Don’t fear little harlot, your blood has washed your sins clean. You have the belt of truth, wear it with pride that god saved your life today.”

  She looks up, and behind the fear in her eyes I think I see a glimmer of something else, a glimmer of love for the Lord.

  “I’ll return to sanctify your temple. You will receive a blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the god of your salvations” (Ps 24:5)

  I slowly close the door behind me, a smile flitting across my stoic visage, until I remember... I’ve got to tend to the rest of the scourge now. Why does he have to have so fucking many?

  John's like a closet mormon.

  ~ Chapter 13 ~

  I will come upon you like a thief

  ~ Revelation 3:3

  67: Jeremiah:

  Every time I close my eyes and try to picture Alan and his luscious body, I see the ruined body of the woman he made me fuck. It’s scarred my retinas; I need to make him pay. It seems impossible, but if we could somehow unite we might beat this bastard. I’m not the only one he’s wronged. Doesn’t his own bible say that with god all things are possible? Fuck yeah, it does.

  Jesus be praised!

  It's a phrase from my childhood and the church my mother forced me to attend. The same church that told me my desires were an abomination; a sin unto death. Add to their humiliation that Alan was a pastor’s kid, and we were doomed f
rom the start. I found the love of my life when I was fifteen: if Alan was a woman they would have celebrated that a child of God found the will of the Lord at such a tender age.

  Fuck them. There’s no satan of homosexuality, just as there is no satan of sex. There is only one satan, the one of hate. He seeks to best the lord of love, and in churches and in this place he seems to be doing just fine. The hour of reaping will come, motherfucker.

  •

  66: Evan:

  The smell, I'll never forget the smell in that dark room. Heated metal, defecation, an electrical burn so visceral it's still coating my nose; the stench of singed hair. Putrid and churning.

  Closing my eyes, clenching fists where my arms hang over my tented knees, I'm grossed out and queasy. If she wasn't dead before, she is now.

  Christ, that was some sick shit. And I went along to save my own hide. What does that say about me, as a man? Is this what it's like when soldiers go off to war, committing atrocities because they're put in situations where to survive they have no choice, only to have it haunt them the rest of their days?

  If I was thirteen that scenario would have been all too tempting. Back then the thought of getting my end away was the only thing that mattered. Now my integrity, my conscience, it means a shit load more than a quickie.

  I guess that's how it feels to fuck a girl you've slipped roofies to. I see it in movies and memes, people joking about screwing unconscious chicks. But it's not all that. Hell no, it's not all that.

  And what the fuck is up with John? Dropping like a teen at a concert every five minutes? I've known him for so many months now that it feels like years, and he has never shown weakness. He's been indomitable, which makes me think 'god' worked off some of his aggression on John before moving on to John's 'flock'.

  I don't honestly know how long I've been here, but it's guaranteed I've lost my home, my employment, my truck... If I ever make it out of here it will be like starting from scratch.

  Fuck!

  Rage at the injustice of it bombs my body and I punch the wall, getting up and pacing, wracking my brain for a solution, some loophole … an opportunity.