She Nailed a Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror
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I shook my head, remembering how I thought Patrick had been praying before dinner. “Other things? What other things?”
Molly sighed. “Other kinds of livestock. Cows. Pigs. Anything else.”
“Pig blood?” The idea disgusted me. “He wants my daughter and grandchildren to drink pigs’ blood?”
“No, not all of us. Just him.”
“Just him?” I repeated. My thoughts drifted to Catherine, everything she’d wanted that I hadn’t given her, that I had refused to give her. Her misery when she’d first moved to the farm. All the things I hadn’t understood, that had gone unsaid. I thought she’d change but she was stubborn and I thought she wanted to change me. But I couldn’t change anymore than she could.
I’d never understood, I realized. Why is that only now, when she’s gone, I finally understand?
“Papa?” Molly asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry, Molly. I don’t know what to tell you.”
Molly kissed me on the cheek. “I didn’t expect you to.”
“I love you, my Molly,” I said, hugging her to me.
“I love you, Papa. Come home soon.”
I watched them go before I walked out to the field, saw Patrick open the door for Molly and lift the kids into the backseat of the pick-up truck without waking them. I waved as they pulled away, and then walked into the field.
The casket would be gone before the night ended but nobody would have moved it yet. I’m not sure what I wanted to see or do when I got out there. Certainly not fall down in the snow and cry like a child, but that’s exactly what I did as I looked inside the casket, empty but for the ashes.
“There’s so much I didn’t tell you,” I sobbed. “So much I didn’t understand.”
The moon hung above me where the sun had been hours before. I spent the next few hours sobbing and praying, trying to make up for past mistakes and regrets. I talked and talked and talked; hoping for some kind of answer or sign from God that my prayers weren’t in vain, that there would be a resurrection, that I would see Catherine again. But all I heard was the howl of animals from my farm, their cries surrounding me, filling the field, empty except for me.
I stayed out there beside her empty casket, waiting.
Author Bios
Christi Krug’s speculative fiction has appeared in Defenestration and The Absent Willow Review. Her poetry, nonfiction and short stories have appeared in Umbrella, qarrtsiluni, Halfway Down the Stairs, Colored Chalk and VoiceCatcher. She coaches beginning writers at Clark College and independently through http://christikrug.blogspot.com. Horror closest to home: she torments her family with weird healthy recipes.
Daniel Kaysen's short dark fiction has appeared online at Chizine and Strange Horizons and several times in the print magazine Black Static. His short story “The Rising River” was reprinted in Ellen Datlow's first Best Horror of the Year anthology. He lives in the south of England.
Gerri Leen lives in Northern Virginia and originally hails from Seattle. She came to fiction writing late in life and writes stories in many genres, including fantasy - both light and dark, and often centered around mythology - science fiction, and literary. Look for her upcoming collection of short stories, Life Without Crows, in early 2010. She also dabbles in poetry and has several poems published. You can find her stories in such places as: Sword and Sorceress XXIII, Return to Luna, Triangulation: Dark Glass, Footprints, Sails & Sorcery, Origins, Desolate Places, and GlassFire. Visit http://www.gerrileen.com to see what else she's been up to.
Elissa Malcohn was a 1985 John W. Campbell Award finalist and is on the recommended reading list in The Year's Best Science Fiction, 26th Annual Edition. Her work appears in Asimov's, Hugo Award-winner Electric Velocipede, Bram Stoker Award-winner Unspeakable Horror, IPPY Silver Medalist Riffing on Strings, and elsewhere. When not writing she enjoys photographing bugs, singing, performing spoken word at open mics and deconstructing scripture with her Midrash buddy Michael Koran. She lives in central Florida with her partner Mary C. Russell. More info, plus free downloads of her Deviations series, may be found at http://home.earthlink.net/~emalcohn/index.html.
Lyda Morehouse is a big fan of God and the author of the AngeLINK tetrology. The well-recieved series is religious cyberpunk mash-up which includes Archangel Protocol and Apocalypse Array, which won the Shamus and Philip K. Dick (2nd place) awards respectively. A prequel to the series called Resurrection Code is forthcoming from Mad Norwegian Press in December of 2010.
Lyda leads a secret life as the psuedonym Tate Hallaway, a best-selling romance writer. Tate will have two books this year: Honeymoon of the Dead (the last in the Garnet Lacey series) coming out from Berkley May, and Almost to Die For (the first in the vampire princess of Saint Paul series) from NAL in August. She lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota with her partner, six year old son, four cats, two gerbils and countless fish. You can find her all over the web, most directly at http://www.lydamorehouse.com
Romie Stott is an editor of the slipstream magazine Reflection's Edge. Her work has been published by Strange Horizons, Jerseyworks, The Huffington Post, and Death List Five, among others. As a filmmaker (working under the name Romie Faienza), she has displayed work at the National Gallery in London and the Dallas Museum of Art, and participated in Jonathan Lethem's Promiscuous Materials Project. She is a founding member of the film and art collective Rocker Box Gasket.
D.K. Thompson is a devout member of the church of Fox Mulder, whom he describes as the 13th apostle of Christ (screw Chris Rock). He is a recovering Baptist and practicing Quaker. He likes exploring his faith through his fiction and has written stories about Saint Darwin, Puritan Noir, God-Shaped Boxes and serial killer saints who get swallowed by alien spaceship whales (although he’s still trying to find a home for that last one). His work has been published by Pseudopod, Apex Online, Murky Depths, Hub, and Variant Frequencies. He lives with his wife, two children, and two cats in Southern California, where he can be found wandering through bookstores with a glassy-eyed expression in search of coffee and interesting things to read. He is planning on launching a podcast on geeks and faith in late 2009. Break blog and drink coffee-flavored Kool-Aid with him at http://krylyr.livejournal.com
Catherynne Valente is one of the most exciting voices in modern fantasy. She has written poems, novels and short stories including Palimpsest (Random House 2008), The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (available online) and A Guide to Folktales in Fragile Dialects (Norilana Books 2008). She has won numerous awards and her blog is at http://yuki-onna.livejournal.com.
Stephen M. Wilson is Poetry Editor for Doorways Magazine, editor of microcosms and co editor of several issues of the Dwarf Stars Award anthology. His own writing has appeared in such places as The Queer Collection, Avant-Garde for the New Millennium, The Vault of Punk Horror, The Huffington Post, Star*Line, rattlesnake review, Tule Review and Space and Time Magazine. He received an honorable mention from Ellen Datlow in the YBFH series as well as several Rhysling Award nominations. Stephen has three teenagers and lives in California.
More at: http://speceditor666.livejournal.com