by Tim Marquitz
My breath escaped in a hiss. I flung open the fridge door and took out three bottles of water. My fingers brushed the perspiring glass of the vodka bottle. I grimaced and rushed to the yard.
David and Liam were huddled around Liam’s phone. Liam saw me and grinned. “Check this out.”
I hurried over, wanting to be as far away from the garage as possible.
Liam held up his phone so I could see the clip playing. “Yesterday, this crazy bastard got a couple of million hits. He should top that today.”
A priest was being interviewed in a television studio. I gasped when I saw him. He hardly appeared human, more like a corpse. His hair, what was left of it, was pure white, and the majority of it had fallen out leaving only sporadic tufts. The skin on his face was loose and ashen colored, and beneath it there were blue veins dangerously close to the surface. And yet the worse thing about the priest’s appearance was his eyes. They were colorless, two boiled egg-like sphere’s set back in sunken, blood-red sockets.
“Shit. Did he always look like that?” I asked.
Liam beamed. “No—he reckoned he saw God … and it properly fucked him up. They did before and after photos of him yesterday. They’re calling him Zombie Priest on the internet.”
“He’s the one you’ve been talking about?”
“Yes, Dr. Finius Anthony, the Bishop of Manchester,” David chipped in.
Liam snatched the water and took a slug. He smacked his lips. “It’ll happen tonight. Zombie Priest reckons God will flex His muscles tonight.”
~
David had to pick up some piping from the wholesalers, which meant that Ollie was asleep by the time we reached David’s house.
I set off for home with a heavy heart, lingered by the off license for as long as it took me to beat down the urge to go inside and buy everything the contents of my wallet would allow. I got home, showered and had a microwave lasagne for one. I watched TV as the sun went down.
I hated the nights. I was alone with my thoughts then, and the voice in my head didn’t stop at justifying my need to drink. Nights were when I remembered Jess, when I remembered how the cancer changed her from a normal thirty year old woman to some decrepit shell. How she refused to even talk about getting rid of the baby, how the flesh fell off her and the pain made her cry herself to sleep. Treatment would harm the baby, so we had to make a choice. Or rather she had to make a choice. And Jess chose Ollie.
We had three months together as a family but she never really recovered from the trauma of the pregnancy. Her cancer was unchecked during that time. It ravaged her. Back then, my grief was all denial. I never thought I’d actually lose her until I did.
The nights were hardest because, sometimes, when I was alone, I still heard her weeping with pain.
I reached for the remote control. My hands trembled. A thousand agitated butterflies fluttered inside me. I wouldn’t sleep that night. I would lie in the dark and think about things again and again, no matter how much I didn’t want to.
I’d considered speaking to David, addressing the elephant in the room, talking about when I could have Ollie back.
It couldn’t possibly go well.
Mel didn’t understand, would never understand, what it was like to see your wife reflected in your child. I had felt such debilitating conflict. Why couldn’t I have them both? All Mel knew was that I had abandoned my son. I had lost my job and my home, and then drank to glorious oblivion.
I still saw Jess in Ollie, but I’d moved past my agony. I needed to make things right.
David never gave up on me. It was David who staged the intervention. It was David who saved my life. Maybe my brother would listen if I spoke to him about Ollie. Maybe I could do it. I was a good man once, a decorated marksman, the pride of my community.
But my shaking hands gave me away, and from time to time, that voice inside whispered about the sweet release a drink would bring.
I sighed as I switched channels, wondered if I would ever be ready, wondered if I could ever face David and Mel. And how would Ollie react if I brought him home? To my home?
Who was I kidding? I would never be his father, at least not in his eyes.
I stumbled upon a news channel. I recognized Manchester. The cathedral was cordoned off, hundreds of people gathered outside. There were lighted candles, cameras on every corner.
The shot showed Zombie Priest. He had reporters on either side.
The Bishop of Manchester moved to the front of the crowd. He threw back his head and reached his arms into the sky.
Nothing happened.
Laughter echoed around the crowd. The bishop didn’t move. He was freeze-framed in position.
There was a huge rumble and the mikes picked up on it. I adjusted myself on the sofa, transfixed. The laughter in the crowd stopped.
Lightning flashed. People screamed.
A second bolt. It hit the cathedral, as did the third and the fourth strikes. The crowd split, panic ensued. Zombie Priest remained unmoved, hands aloft, head tilted to the sky.
Open mouthed, I checked the glass in my hand to make sure it was filled with water and nothing stronger.
Manchester Cathedral burned, live on TV. Screaming people sprinted in all directions. One of the reporters had the ambition to ignore the melee. He grabbed Zombie Priest by the arm, shouted into the feed. “Doctor Anthony! Is this the act of God, is this the demonstration of the Almighty’s power you prophesied?”
The bishop lowered his arms slowly and faced the camera. His white eyes stared relentlessly. “Who is God? Why should we obey?”
The reporter held the microphone still before the bishop. Neither of them spoke until Zombie Priest raised five fingers. The cathedral blazed behind him.
“The flock will know the power of the Shepherd.”
“Doctor Anthony, why the cathedral? Why would God strike down His own house?”
Zombie Priest smiled, revealing blackened teeth. His fingers were still outstretched.
“Faith is no longer enough. Sinners need to witness His power. We cannot continue to let the filth of our sins destroy His world.”
The reporter frowned. “What does that mean? Are you predicting Armageddon?”
“God gave us the light. He will take it back. For five days, the sun will not rise.
And in the darkness, the spirit of the Lord will pass through … and the slaughter of the first born will commence, until every household laments and understands the folly of their sins.”
The screen froze, leaving a flickering image of the bishop’s dead stare. I reached for the remote, my hand steady for the first time that evening, and sent the room into darkness.
~
I woke to the sound of sirens rather than my alarm.
8:00 a.m.
It was pitch black outside. I peered from my window and shook off the remnants of sleep. I checked my watch as opposed to the clock. The hands pointed to eight.
It should have been light, the cold light of the morning. Instead, it was thick, impenetrable night. I remembered the crazed words of the bishop and shuddered. Five days of darkness. Patches of yellow glowered above the skyline. Fires burned all over the city. My blood ran cold. It couldn’t be true.
I switched on the TV as I hurriedly got dressed. I stopped and sat in stunned silence as the panic gripping the country unfolded before me.
People had taken to the streets in the hundreds and thousands. There were thin lines of police, almost invisible next to the armies of people gathered.
“No scientific reason for eclipse.”
I changed the channel.
“Government pressed for explanation.”
I changed the channel again and again. It was the same thing on every station.
Wrath of God: First Born At Risk?
I read the headline and dizzied. My son, my brother, they were the first born in my extended family.
I didn’t shower, or brush my teeth, or comb my hair. I grabbed the handgun I kept beneath
my bed and ran through the streets to David’s.
~
We stayed together. Three days and nights passed, although it got harder to tell as the darkness lingered. We were down to the tinned food, having demolished the contents of David and Mel’s fridge. David and I had boarded the windows and the doors. Outside, the sirens worsened, as did the screams. The madness was not just confined to the cities. We feared it would find us.
I didn’t sleep. I don’t think David or Mel did either.
The TV coverage continued throughout. It was our only connection with the world outside. We huddled in David and Mel’s bedroom, watching with the lights off and the volume on low. The streets I grew up on, the familiar landmarks from my childhood, were transformed. Manchester ran amok with rioters. Mosques burned, people were executed in public. This was not the time to be different in the eyes of the newly religious. It got worse as time passed. The army were called in. They were the last line of defense. Even in the darkness, the smoke could be seen billowing from the cities.
Zombie Priest, no longer representing the Church of England and skin putrefying by the hour, led sermons from the shell of the burned out cathedral, beyond a wall of military guard. The feeling was that the government allowed him a voice, through fear of making things worse by silencing him. His congregation was an ocean of people, either watching in the square, or tuning in from their homes.
Reports revealed tales of widespread death. The killing of the first born. The spirit of the Lord was passing through, although nobody had seen it. Nobody could finger the perpetrator. The survivors knew only the aftermath, the cooling corpses of their loved ones, taken in the blink of an eye.
“You will believe. You will know His power.”
People pleaded for forgiveness, they prayed for a way out. Someone pointed out that, in the book of Exodus, God offered the children of Israel safe passage from the spirit of the Lord’s retribution.
“That was then,” Zombie Priest answered solemnly.
On the fourth black day, something happened.
Ollie peeled himself away from David and Mel. He came and hugged me, sat on my lap.
“You look sad, Daddy.”
I held him, lost in pride and grief, and for the first time felt like a father. I couldn’t lose him. I couldn’t lose David either.
Mel stared at the screen, sat upright. “What if it’s the bishop? What if he’s the one causing this?”
~
It was the fifth day.
There was ash in the air, smoke in my lungs. I pushed myself through the crowd, clutching the handgun in my pocket. I got close enough to see the crude stage assembled before the ruins of the burned cathedral.
I didn’t have a rifle, or a weapon effective from any kind of distance that wasn’t point blank. I would never get by the line of soldiers, and if I fired the handgun in hope, I would be torn apart by the crowd.
Fear chewed at me. I had never killed anyone, not even in my former life as a marksman. I waited, shaking with nerves. My son and my brother were depending on me.
Two hours passed. Zombie Priest read assorted passages from the Old Testament. He finished, slammed the tome shut. He whispered to one of the soldiers and together they walked from the stage. A protective circle of police surrounded him. They raised their Plexiglas riot shields and led the bishop away.
I sensed my opportunity and skipped after them, never losing sight, but never quite getting close enough to try a shot.
I followed them to the Marriott hotel. The police led Zombie Priest inside. I rushed after them, through the glass doors and into the lobby. My pulse thundered. My breath was ragged.
The bishop dismissed the police and waited by the elevator. He was alone.
I moved to his side, my heart pounding, sweat beaded at the base of my back. The smell of rot and ruin clung to him. Close up, he was a shambles of withered, yellowing skin, pulled taut across sharp looking bones. He was an abomination, a parody of man.
The elevator doors opened and we stepped inside together. They closed with a swoosh. Zombie Priest pressed for the top floor then turned to me.
“You don’t believe.”
I exhaled in surprised as the elevator started up.
Zombie Priest grinned and showed me his black teeth. “You still don’t believe in His power. You think that I, His vessel, am responsible?”
My fingers trembled on the butt of the handgun. “I can’t accept that God would punish us like this.”
“Acceptance is the problem. There is no faith. These days, people need to know for certain.”
I whipped out the handgun and pointed it squarely at the bishop. “You’re behind this.”
His smile widened, revealing pus-ridden gums. “Steven – you need to see for yourself.”
I pulled the trigger, just before I realized he’d known my name, and splashed his black brains all over the inside of the chrome elevator doors.
~
“Daddy, why is it dark?”
David sat on the bed. Mel leaned against him, tears of mascara streaked down her cheeks. I was on the futon, by the floor. Ollie was with me. The gun was on the dresser, almost casual in its disregard. I could reach it in a heartbeat, if need be.
I forced a smile, fatigue a sickness in me.
“I don’t know. It will be morning soon. It will be light again.”
“Can we go to the park then?” Ollie’s eyes shone. I could tell he knew things were different, but that he didn’t know how hopeless things had become.
I fought back tears. I hadn’t told anyone what the bishop had said to me.
I ruffled Ollie’s hair. “Yes, we can go to the park. I’ll get you an ice-cream. Would you like that?”
Ollie giggled. “With a flake in it?”
I nodded. “With a flake in it.”
“Can … Uncle David and Aunty Mel come too?”
I looked up at the bed. David and Mel wept silently. I drew Ollie close to me so he didn’t see. “Of course,” I whispered, hoping I never had to let my son go.
I prayed then, wished my voice would carry across all those selfish screams from what remained of the world. The crazy thing was I hadn’t wanted a drink since God took back the light.
I asked for forgiveness. I pleaded. I screamed inside my skull with frustration, anger and hate.
When I’d finished, David stood over me. Mel had drifted and she lay curled at the top of the bed. Ollie snored against my chest.
My brother crouched, gripped my shoulder. “I have faith, Steven … faith in you. If … I … die, I know you’re stronger than before. I know you’ll look after them.”
I put my hand on top of his. “I can’t do this.”
David nodded. “You can, and you will.”
“Ollie …”
David stiffened. “I’m the first born in this family.”
I knew it wasn’t the truth. I could see in David’s eyes he knew it, too. I wanted to tell him I would take care of Mel, and that we could move forward in whatever the dawn revealed was left of the world. Instead, I said nothing.
David checked his watch, let out a shivering breath.
“Steve—it’s five to midnight. The five days, they’re nearly up.” He placed his hand over his mouth and his eyes watered. “Maybe you did it?”
I dared to hope. Maybe the bishop had been responsible? Warmth blossomed inside me; a flickering light in that part of me I thought dead. A smile crept into the corners of my lips.
That was when the shadows on the wall moved.
I blinked, thought it was some hallucination, some product of anxiety and sleep deprivation.
But the shadows kept moving. They writhed like eels, drew together like metal splinters to a magnet. The shadow grew in size until blackness consumed the entire wall. It happened so quickly I barely had time to mouth, “David –”
It peeled off the wall, a giant that stooped beneath the twelve foot ceiling. Its face was hidden behind a black cowl, its form obscur
ed beneath dark robes. It raised an arm, one long skeletal finger pointed at my brother.
I pulled Ollie tightly to me and stood. I grabbed the gun.
“Get back!” It was weak, not a command. My voice betrayed my fear.
The spirit of the Lord raised its cowled head. I glimpsed pale gossamer, misshapen features pressed against it. The veil moved as if maggots wriggled beneath the delicate material.
David took an unexpected step forward. His eyes were glassy, hands limp by his sides. I screamed at my brother to stop but he carried on.
I fired, one, twice, a third time.
The bullets should have found the spirit’s heart. Instead they thumped into the wall behind, passing through as if the thing didn’t exist.
David moved closer and the spirit outstretched both arms. Its robes began to squirm as if possessing a will of their own. They twisted and reared and stretched into black vipers. They circled my brother, fangs on show, forked tongues brushing David’s cheeks. Their vile hiss deafened me.
The robes billowed at the spirit’s chest. They opened and revealed a swirling mist. Brilliant light sparked and faded within.
David took one more step. I fired again.
My brother convulsed and I saw an aura, a shimmering essence, peel from his flesh. Two great webbed wings unfurled from the spirit’s back and they wrapped around my brother. They embraced him, just for a moment, before David fell limp to the floor.
The wings retracted and the vipers recoiled, before reabsorbing into the spirit’s robes.
You need to see for yourself.
The beast raised a skeletal finger, pointed at Ollie.
My son still slept as did Mel. The gunfire, the screams, and the hissing serpents were not enough to wake them from whatever spell they were under.
The gun wobbled.
“No! Please, no! Don’t take my son.”
The spirit approached, the foot of its robes blanketing David’s prostrate form.
The gun fell from my grip. I opened my hands, forced myself to my knees. I wept.