“Pagan sites.” He’s got a leaflet in his hands now—On the importance of baptizing your child in Christ—crumples it. Tosses it atop the small table of candles where it catches fire, withering and burning into a blackened claw.
“Vatican’s way of rewriting history,” Rebecca says. “Erect sacred and protected sites on grounds that were here long before.”
“You sound so certain of this, it would almost be impolite of me to challenge you.” His face teems with a smile he can barely hold back.
“It’s pretty clever, you ask me.” Rebecca’s fingertips tingle. The fillings in her back molars dance. She scratches her scalp and tears two strips of flesh away like wet tissue. In the dark space between her blinking eyes, the red-faced woman stares back, mouth propped wide in a silent scream.
It’s like looking into a funhouse mirror and snatching the very worst memory of yourself from twenty-five years ago.
The priest comes from the shadows, seemingly electrified. He points at Rebecca like he suddenly recognizes her. “You feel it.”
Rebecca reaches for the photo, starts to ask. The priest waves it away. He has no interest in looking. This conversation’s beyond that. He starts to laugh fondly at the sight of her, but the tobacco has blunted his voice so it sounds more like he’s clearing his throat.
She spins in the center aisle and notices at last why this place feels so inherently wrong. It’s the only Catholic Church she’s ever seen that’s entirely devoid of Christian iconography. No Stations of the Cross, no hymn books in the pews, and nothing at all to indicate Messianic identity.
Windows and murals showcase rustic landscapes and cracking skies. Heavy rain pelts kneeling peasants. A field of stone markers stands unmolested. A crowd huddled together around a fire, pointing in horror at an elongated silhouette emerging from the dark of the forest. Everything here is old world European. Pagan. And the longer she looks, the emptier she feels.
Above the altar, a mass of sculpted ceramic hangs suspended. It’s not Christ on the cross, but something harder to describe. A torso. Humanoid in shape, with stylized gray flesh that kind of resembles the protective exterior of a hornet’s nest—chaotic patterns rushing everywhere and folding beneath themselves. On the sculpture’s shoulders sits a flat-topped head. The kind of nest you’d find in the gutter of an abandoned barn—even more swollen and delineated than the body. This “face” is without features, save for the oval entry hole positioned in the precise spot where a mouth would be.
This perfect blank, with that awful, swirling mouth pitched in disbelief, looks down on Rebecca in somber judgment. That she has its attention at all makes the warmth inside her flicker like a candle in a blizzard.
“Go on.” The priest stands behind her now. Sour breath gusts across her neck. Spit crackles and pops in her ear as he licks his lips in anticipation. She feels his hands hovering over her shoulders, down her arms, around her hips . . .
Never touching, but always close.
It’s the prod she needs. Rebecca passes beneath the sculpture to ascend thick marble steps. Echoes like wishing well screams. An opened book sits atop the altar cloth. The words are in English, but as soon as she reads them, they begin to animate and swirl and her eyes feel dizzy watching the text become an inky blur.
Then the world follows suit.
Outside the windows, the sun sets in fast-forward. Crickets chirp in high-pitched squeaks. The pages rearrange into symbols she can no longer read.
Rebecca’s eyes roll back into her head, finding darkness first and then the young red face waiting there. Green eyes roll down and put color inside the strange girl’s cloud-white orbs.
“Read it.” Her voice is a muffled, underwater gargle.
“You heard it, didn’t you?” The priest grins, suddenly standing against Rebecca’s face. He’s eager to know, but keeps just enough distance, as if locked into place by an invisible leash. His eyes continue to widen and he looks desperate. Can’t look away.
Neither can she.
The rising sun scales the sky and beams through the windows once more. The priest is caught there, and the light renders his skin translucent. His flesh looks like a plastic bag stretched tight around contents ready to burst through. What’s beneath this façade is inhuman, and she can no longer stand the sight. Beady, briquette eyes. A mouth so wide its thin lips seem to stretch off the sides of its fake human face.
This realization prompts Rebecca to retreat. She starts down the far aisle when she blinks and glimpses the red face again.
Each blink summons more than just that face. Rebecca hears her voice each time her eyes fall.
“It’s . . .”
Blink.
“. . . not . . .”
Blink.
“. . . yours . . .”
Blink.
“. . . to read.”
At that, Rebecca squeezes her eyes shut and finds the face staring straight through her. Can’t focus on anything beyond the blood. It’s just slathered everywhere. More than just a face, there’s a body, too. Cold hands spring outward and seize Rebecca’s wrists with searing frostbite.
“It’s mine.”
When Rebecca opens her eyes, she’s alone in the church. Each window is flanked with the Stations of the Cross that weren’t there before. And there’s no priest here, she knows, because her thrill killers slaughtered him like an animal. Hanging over her head is a sculpture of Jesus Christ.
She mumbles those very words beneath her breath, presses the book tight against her chest and rushes out.
18
REBECCA DRIVES TO THE CENTER of town because she’s shaken up and needs to be around whatever passes for normal in Bright Fork. Sits on the hood of her car across from the park and tries to enjoy the fresh air. Clearing her head’s impossible, but every so often she remembers what peace of mind feels like.
The air is chilled and the occasional gust refreshes her all the way down to her pores. She unbuttons the first few of her blouse to expose as much of her flesh as decency allows.
The park isn’t much to look at. An empty gazebo sits dead center surrounded by well-kept flowerbeds. A few of the trees have plaques at the bases, in memory of the town’s founding fathers. The place is nearly deserted, save for one mother pushing a baby stroller along the far edge of the grass, away from town center.
The book sits in Rebecca’s lap. A few minutes ago, it had been some generic hardcover thing you’d find in any church across America. Now, the cover’s old. Sunken intaglio print engraved in the lines. Written in a language long lost and forever secret is the title Rebecca can suddenly read.
On The Decretals Of Tanner Red
She pages through. Text is wrapped around crude illustrations of cruder sexual acts. Young and petite female bodies violated by a shape that in no way resembles anything human, though the meaning is clear—she’s seeing Tanner Red.
The pages are thick. The acids on her fingertips stain with blasphemous curiosity. The last nine pages are of different paper stock, thinner and cheaper and appear to have been added much later, part of the binding carefully removed in order to squeeze them in before reattaching it. The book feels overstuffed and slightly awkward as a result.
Her hand leafs through, trawling illustrated and forbidden rituals. Part of her admires these. Superstitions kept the world docile and controllable, and if the followers of Tanner Red lived up to even a fraction of what He asks here, they’d have done some real living that she hasn’t.
Rebecca chases that envy off as she thumbs back to those last nine pages and begins to read. And then reread. Tears nest around her eyes and for some reason, she thinks, Finally.
Rebecca wonders why the priest allowed her to take the book out of there but figures it’s obvious enough.
He wants me to see this.
The final nine pages begin with a brief description of the travelers who landed on the shores of this New World—these people, The First, were ostracized for their denial of Christianity and
believed they’d find seclusion in these unnamed wilds of future America.
They establish temporary shelters, raid the enveloping forests for whatever sustenance can be sacked away against the incoming cold. And yet, it’s not enough to merely survive. They came to find fulfillment without persecution. They came for Him. They go to work on the most important task of all—summoning.
It’s months before they can.
They need the rebirth, but winter is long. Uncertain. Worry is scratched into their faces during the seemingly eternal night. Still, they practice tribute. Coupling bodies by firelight in large groups or in traded partners. There is no monogamy here.
The thaw comes and preparations begin. The ritual is ready for fallow ground: A mass of moans and orgasms that ignite the air. Spilt seed sows the earth and the two in combination create the sounds and smells that lure Him forth from the abyss.
In those woods, in the place deemed by The First as the Village of Gar, the one they call Tanner Red moves between worlds.
They see him just beyond the dark of the forest. Pacing the clearing like a long-caged beast. Drawing off the energy of the tribute. A body attuning once more to its motions.
The eldest villager walks out reluctantly to greet Him, torch in hand, raised high to the night.
She’s never seen again. It barely matters.
This land of Gar was theirs.
It’s now His.
The sick return to health. The earth is easier to till. Every crop is beyond bountiful.
In the woods surrounding them, native tribes begin to compete for scavenge. They strike at night, dealing heavy bloodshed. In order to keep hunting and gathering, The First asks Him for protection.
Offerings such as this are never made lightly, but considering Gar’s dwindling resources, the natives may win the war.
This is desperation. And desperation breeds sacrifice.
So it’s a lottery. The village gathers for evening commune, thanks and praise, and the patron who discovers a swab of red paint on the underside of their plate is to be the chosen one.
Tanner Red is aroused by such placation. Grows accustomed to the flesh as a result of this sacrifice. He begins whispering to the women of Gar on evening winds. They soon succumb to the idea of lying with a god—privilege too great to resist. As the men go off to battle once more, He comes.
The skies over Gar thrum with ecstatic cries that explode the valley.
The men return and discover bulging stomachs the size of boulders. Children are born from every able womb in just a few short weeks.
The men are cruel. They attempt to force confessions from their partners and lovers. No matter how hard they beat, the stories are the same.
The men are angry. They stay in Gar long enough to dress their wounds and heal. Then set off to hunt the god they had summoned to protect them.
One season passes. Then another. They never return.
To the women of Gar, this matters little. Each is too busy raising their blessed child. And He provides all that’s necessary in the ways of sustenance and fortune. Lean winters, ample crops, complete self-sufficiency.
In time, the children learn the practices of men.
In time, others from the Old World come and discover Gar.
In time, Tanner Red spreads like a fever to other colonies.
But in the minds of the oldest, there remains the action of a merciless god. One who takes what He wants and who spares none from humiliation.
He senses this resentment and chooses to act through the men, instead of on behalf of them. The seeds of husbands and lovers form the life spark this time. And the world is good again.
So good that other religions begin surfacing inside Gar. Some of these faiths do not demand as much from their followers.
But creatures of pride do not fare well when deprived of worship. The unbelievers in Gar are stricken with illness. The curse spreads further, striking out at committed followers should they bother to treat those already suffering.
The women turn barren. Worse, their innards become shriveled and diseased. They begin to rot from the inside out. Clustered pustules line their bladders and intestines, spilling from their holes in sickly, runny globs of yellow. Their cunts drip with rot, the same poison seeping from their mouths, a stench so putrid even animals refuse to venture anywhere near Gar.
It’s the women this time who tire of their god’s cruelty. Only a devil would turn their bodies against them. They will go out into the world, not with weapons but with their bodies, and confront the thing called Tanner Red in a way He will not resist.
They trek to the Barrens, to the place of their first ritual and cast off their clothing, squatting onto the ring of stone phalluses they’ve stuffed down inside the ground. They force their broken and diseased bodies to perform tribute, done solely in defiance.
He is unmoved, but too vain to acknowledge this as anything but desperate apologia.
But they have figured out how to revoke His domain. And on this spot, deemed this day The Plowing Fields, the women of Gar assert their freedom. And to their surprise, they see Him once more in the woods. A rough-skinned figure without features, one humbled hand reaching outward, one final plea for mercy as hunks of His body crack and crumble and then blow through the air like scattering ash.
Their denial drives Him back beneath the earth. Into the world between worlds.
Nothing of Him will be remembered. Unlike the men whose might and muscle led them to extinction, the women return home victorious and decree their current way of life be destroyed.
Tanner Red’s most loyal followers are slain that night.
The women, too diseased to live among the world, embrace finality in the wilderness. The healthy are brought into neighboring communities where they are encouraged to forget about the gospel of flesh and instead adopt another, more caring faith.
The women sleep more soundly in their new lives, but as birthrates decline due to elements and diseases, there remains temptation for the old way. Only it’s buried now and He does not seem to have a way back.
Except that He does . . .
The rest of these amended pages, however many there originally were, are torn out.
Rebecca’s stomach twists into knots as she reaches the end of the book once more. She’s sick of reading it and slams it shut. As sickened as she is, her fingers stoke the cover with curiosity. Maybe even admiration.
It’s gotten late. Rebecca is ready to call it a day when she looks up to stretch her eyes and is unable to reconcile the terrain sprawled before her. The gazebo and surrounding landscape are gone, traded for a circle of knee-high statues sitting way down there—at the end of a long walk.
She starts down to where the earth is dirt and thinks what she sees is stone carved flowers planted in an otherwise fallow garden.
Downtown Bright Fork is nowhere to be seen, just empty grasslands—earth that squishes around her feet.
The moon hovers behind a scratch of gray clouds that lift like a curtain, casting the ground there in a natural spotlight.
The fates wish for Rebecca to see the truth. She walks toward the circle of statues, catching rising bile that fills her throat like a flooded basement. She knows what she’s looking at because the book clutched beneath her arm has told her.
Deep-rooted stone phalluses, twelve of them, form a circle. The Plowing Fields. She reaches out to touch one. Not in admiration, but because she has always believed her eyes. Until lately.
The stone is smooth to touch. Shafts are thin enough for her fingers to get around. Each one of these is capped by a wider head.
And without understanding what’s happening, she steps away and keeps stepping, afraid to turn her back for fear of this terrible thing disappearing. Because if it does, she can no longer trust herself at all. She moves back up the incline without ever once taking her eyes off the display, praying it stays right there.
19
THE HEADACHE STRIKES MID-GAIT. THIS one’s unlike t
he others.
The world dials to white and shanks her equilibrium. Rebecca sails horizontal and skids through the muck like she’s diving for home.
She looks up, the usual blown-out white fades away in the aftermath until there’s focus. She realizes she’s staring up at the sun and a ring of silhouetted townies circling overhead. For the second time in as many goddamn days.
“You again?”
“What’s her problem?”
“Drugs.”
“Don’t you know all the girls today take cocaine?”
“Always in a hurry, too.”
Not a single one of them helps her up. That’s good. Rebecca would rather everyone in this place keep their fucking hands off. She lifts herself and rolls onto her back, sits up and barks for space.
Bright Fork has returned in full. The gazebo and its surrounding flowers are there in the distance. The Plowing Fields are a dream that’s nowhere to be seen.
Rebecca stands hobbled and limps the few feet to her car.
“Miss . . .”
She isn’t going to turn because she has nothing to say to anyone. Opens the door and a hand taps her back.
A girl with jet-black hair and movie star eyes has dislodged from the crowd and flashes a confident smile. “Don’t forget your bible.” She holds it out like it’s steaming garbage. Rebecca snatches it back and mumbles a humiliated thank you. The girl gets back in line, sipping some awful green drink out of a small to go cup while staring at Rebecca like she’s a zoo animal.
Rebecca can’t get out of there fast enough. She twists the ignition and speeds off down the road toward the motel.
“Of course,” she grouses as she finds Cortez waiting for her in the parking lot. He laughs at the sight of her. His might be the only friendly face in town, but she doesn’t want the company. Company complicates things.
“People love to talk about you,” he says.
“People should find something else to worry about.”
“Crazy woman passing out every day in public—”
Rites of Extinction Page 6