Father Malcolm chuckled. “Then I see no reason you can’t be forgiven, child. Not as long as you are truly repentant. You are truly repentant, are you not?”
“I am,” she answered. “I truly am.”
“For all the drugs and drink?”
She gasped and met the place on the partition where she believed the priest’s eyes to be. His perceptiveness had caught her off guard but she quickly realized she’d admitted to everything but killing a person. Anything he claimed short of that was likely to hit the mark. She smiled at his ploy. “Deeply sorry.”
“The covetousness and rampant fornication?”
She nodded. “Yes, especially that.”
“The lies and betrayals?”
“For all of it, Father,” she told him, hoping to head off a point by point examination of her sins. She was on a schedule. “For all of it.”
“And what of that one time, on tour in Chicago, back in `89 was it…?” he started, letting his voice trail away.
“Chicago?” Memories floated up from the recesses of her mind and she latched onto one without meaning to, a sordid little remembrance that stirred the acid in her guts. He couldn’t possibly mean… “How could you—?”
“You stand before the eyes of God, child. How could I not know? He sees all.”
Sunny swallowed hard and stared at the door to the confessional, her hand already reaching for the handle of its own accord.
“Did you know she was only thirteen?” the priest asked.
Sunny’s hand fell away from the door at his words, thumping onto the seat beside her, limp. She had known.
An image of the young girl welled up and Sunny couldn’t tamp it down. Sunny had argued but Wex just held up the fleshy parchment, letting Sunny read the words again, confirming what they were to do. She stared down at the girl, barely into her flower, and tried to meet her eyes. Two crystalline orbs swirled in their sockets, the drugs Wex had given her having washed away all sense. A tic of an unconscious smile played across the girl’s lips. All she knew was that she was spending the night with Damaged, her favorite metal band. She didn’t have a clue what she was in for or the wherewithal to say no. Sunny tasted bile in the back of her throat, caught between the memory of the tour bus and the confessional.
Then Wex laughed and slapped the massive strap-on she wore in the reverie and rolled the girl over, lifting her hips and splaying her legs out. Sunny could see herself leaning into the girl, weighing what was right and the consequences of ignoring the Devil’s missive. She paused for only an instant before doing the wrong thing.
“You didn’t even take her to the hospital afterward, did you? Just dumped her on the side of the road, drugged and naked and bleeding.”
Sunny whimpered and buried her head in her hands. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“But you did, child. You did,” the Father told her. “You could have said no. You could have pulled the girl from the bus and faced the consequences of standing up for what was right. But you didn’t!” The priest’s voice was no longer a whisper, but a roar, the words driving into her ears as if they were nails.
“She never made it home, that girl,” Father Malcolm went on.
Sunny stiffened and sat upright. She could taste the tears spilling down her cheeks and rolling across her lips.
“Her name was Charlotte, in case you were curious. She had four year-old brother named Simon. Charlotte had snuck out to see you play. You were her idol, her walls plastered with posters of you, crashing away behind your kit, sweaty and sore but still smiling; always smiling. Simon caught her leaving and she promised him she would bring him an extra special present if he didn’t say anything.” The priest cleared his throat, Sunny only then noticing the lilt had fallen from his voice. “The next day was his birthday. Do you know what his present was, child?”
“No,” she whispered through the hand clutching her mouth. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
Father Malcolm chuckled and ignored her plea. “It was a visit from the police, telling poor little Simon that his sister was dead. Raped and bleeding internally, she’d have frozen to death if she had managed to survive just a little longer, gone to sleep and never felt a thing. A side effect of the Midwest winter you Californians have no clue about. It would have been a peaceful end and she never would have known what you did to her. But no, a trucker found her first. She woke up to his hands around her throat as he violated her, much like you did, all of it coming back to her in a rush of adrenaline-fueled terror.”
Sunny leaned to the side and a gusher of vomit spewed from her, slapping the floor and spattering her legs and feet with fetid warmth. The confessional filled with the stench of her shame and the red-pepper and onion omelet she’d had for breakfast.
“No.” She clasped the partition, fingers clawing at the holes. “No more.”
“So you see,” the priest continued, “while you might not have killed poor little Charlotte with your own hands, you’re just as guilty as the wayward trucker who chopped her into tiny pieces and scattered her down the highway a dripping chunk of meat at a time.” Father Malcolm leaned in and grinned. “He saved her head for himself. You can only imagine the state that was in.”
Only then could Sunny see the priest clear, as if the partition had fallen away. The old, pleasant countenance of Father Malcolm disappeared to be replaced by a face she had hoped to never see again.
“No!”
“Oh yes, child.” There, where the friendly old priest had been only moments before, sat the creature who had haunted her dreams ever since she’d laid the bloody quill to parchment. The Devil himself.
Masked in darkness, he bared his teeth, his eyes gleaming like two crimson stars. His hair was wild and long, dirty-brown mats framing his bearded face like a halo of tumbleweeds. The sharpened lines of his cheeks looked ready to split from his skin as he smiled feral. He looked just as he had that first day.
“There’s no absolution for you, Sunny Rains, no escape into God’s light.” He leaned in even closer, spittle peppering her face as he spoke. “You are mine, now and forever.” Satan laughed.
As if he’d dismissed her, Sunny found her strength, at last. She bolted upright and crashed into the confessional door, stumbling out the other side. She hit the ground, knocking the breath from her lungs, her glasses and wig tumbling away. The old women in the pews gasped and jumped to their feet, fingers pointing. Sunny didn’t give a fuck.
She bolted for the exit and skidded out onto the sidewalk, nearly careening into the street as she caught her balance, the pole of a yield sign the only thing between her and traffic. She didn’t even notice how close she’d come.
It wasn’t until she was in the SUV with Armand, the vehicle screaming down the 405, miles from the church, that her hands stopped shaking enough for her to take a hit off her pipe.
She hit it over and over and over until oblivion filled her skull.
About Tim
Tim Marquitz is the author of the Demon Squad series, the Blood War Trilogy, co-author of the Dead West series, as well as several standalone books, and numerous anthology appearances. Tim also collaborated on Memoirs of a MACHINE, the story of MMA pioneer John Machine Lober.
Tim is co-owner and Editor in Chief of Ragnarok Publications and co-founder of Dominion Editorial.
www.tmarquitz.com
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Kickstarter Thanks
The greatest of thanks go out to the following people for supporting my Kickstarter, the Demon Squad Initiative. This book just wouldn’t be the same without your assistance so please accept my eternal gratitude and enjoy the fruits of your patronage.
Michael Stefano, Darren Wade, Dain Eaton, Braude, Robert King, David Annandale, Matthew Summers, Gary Olson, Sadir Samir, Marc Margelli, Rini Kirkpatrick, Oswald Boelcke, Greg Bennett, Mia, Steve Caldwell, Melissa Robitille, Sam, Brian McDonald, Coffeeghoul, Seth Skorkowsky, Katherine Adamson, AJ Spedding, James Isaac MacFar
lane, MihirW, Chris Brant, Kristy Mika, Wim Spreutels, David C Aragones, Chris Garrett, Rob Matheny, Brian McClain, Amanda westfal, Tim Ward, Anja "Cha!" Schulz, Skilltapp Team, Joelle Reizes, Paul Martin, John Evans, Joseph Little, Craig Thornton, Kirk Dougal, Steven Ott, Frank Michaels Errington, Ben Glickler, Adrian Shotbolt, Nathan Boyce, Tommy Nicholson Jr., Noah Sturdevant, Stephen C. Ormsby, Doug Sturtevant, Adam Cesare, Michelle Garza, Gordon Masterton, Jonathan Keyser, Carl Smith, Charles Phipps, Phillip Seitsinger, Jim Bellmore, Moss Bliss, Ryan Lawler, Kimberly Watt, Duncan McGeary, Tyson J Mauermann, Craig Steven Herndon Jr., Timothy Feely, Anders M. Ytterdahl, Flyrite Choppers, Noah Michael Levine, Adrian, Heather D. Hartzell Paulson, Alan Baxter, Becca Butcher, Timothy W. Long, Jack, Tasha Turner Lennhoff, Robert Elrod, Jason Hough, Melissa J. Katano, Nikhil Bhagat, Michael Fowler, Edea Baldwin, Rob Hayes, J.M. Martin, KennySoward, Jeffrey Getzin, Nick Sharps, Penelope Astridge, and R. B. Wood.
Institutionalized (Demon Squad Book 10) Page 20