The Church

by Wisdom King

  “Speech?” Kane asked, “and who are they?”

  “James’s speech. Dennis’s brother. Ever since he served here, he’s been hosting the event according to some of the older folk. He says it’s to celebrate a revolution. He’s been here for 26 years and so far, the only revolutionary thing he’s done is scare the living hell out of everyone.” He said, pushing Kane back towards the door. “Now, go. Dinner is about to start and you better duck out as soon as you can.”

  “I still don’t understand why you’re not going to come with me,” Kane said, slightly annoyed about how bossy Clarke is acting towards him. “It’s much quicker if we go together. Plus, if we’re lucky you can get out in no time!”

  “Haven’t you been listening?” Clarke exclaimed suddenly before lowering his voice. “They have keen eyes, and by ‘they’, I mean everyone in that God forsaken room. They’ll all be watching me.”

  “Why?” Kane said, baffled at all the new information he’s suddenly decided to put out.

  “Because they think I’m the new future of the church.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They’re planning something. Something to solve all of their problems at once. They call it The Cleansing. They’re going to –“ Before he could even finish his sentence, the bathroom door swung open. Kane turned around and saw a tall man with platinum blond hair that was so light, you’d mistake it for white straw in the sunlight. His face looked old and stern and he has emerald eyes that had a look of perpetual anger in them.

  Those eyes looked at Clarke, now standing timidly in front of both men. He kept his eyes lowered to the ground as the man, stood on the threshold with his hand against the door and his eyes firmly fixed on the young man.

  “There you are, son. Been looking everywhere for you. Dinner’s ready. You both better head back.” He said as he shifted his cold gaze to Kane, who now has his whole body faced towards the stranger. He’s never met nor seen him around the estate before but as he stood there, gawking at the man in such close proximity to him, he couldn’t help but feel like he’s been there before.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t think we’ve met.” The man said in a deep, throaty voice as he looked at Kane. There was a faint recognition in his eyes as he looked down at Kane, extending his hand towards him.

  “I think we already have,” Kane said as he shook the man’s hand and walked away.

  Chapter 21

  “Excuse me,” Clarke mumbled as he squeezed his way through the people gathered around the long tables. He took his seat on the table near the back of the room. Dinner was about to start and everyone was starting to get settled in their seats. The tables were filled with mouth-watering food and everyone was buzzing on about it. The place was busy with chatter and in the middle of ruckus, a small, resonating sound silenced the room.

  A tall man stood up from a table in front with a glass and bread knife in hand. The whole room went silent at the sight of him looming over everyone with his haunting emerald eyes. He was wearing a black suit that made his pale skin look even more ghostly than it already was. When all the noise faded, his thin lips opened and he spoke in a deep, raspy voice, just loud enough for everyone to hear.

  Bishop James Gardner was a known around the place as a stoic, hard-headed man with a great passion for convincing people into believing in him, in his Church, and his God. He had an air of authority about him that no one dares to question. His face was weathered and stern, with eyes that always look angry, even when he’s smiling.

  “My friends, we are gathered here today to commemorate a...marvelous event,” James announced as his eyes wandered across the room before lingering at Clarke. “Tonight, we celebrate not only the establishment of a church built to fight for God and His glory but also to celebrate a revolution.” He said calmly, his eyes still fixated on Clarke who was doing anything to avoid eye contact.

  “...a revolution in Christian living. 28 years ago, we came to this church and saw it overlooked by people, dismissed by sinners, and mocked by children on the street. I came here with the intention to change that.” Clarke could feel his windpipe tightening as James recited his speech. He looked up and saw that he still had his eyes firmly fixed on his face. “My friends, religion is beginning to lose its touch as we feared.”

  “People are being misguided by unholy men! Our country is doomed if we’re going to continue on like this!” Dennis sudden exclaimed as he rose from his seat beside his brother. “It’s only a matter of weeks before our job begins. The Lord shall prevail! We shall prevail against all odds!” A ghost of a smile twitched the corners of James’ lips as he proudly watched his little brother.

  “We will never be overlooked, dismissed, and mocked again. Those who turn away from God are damned forever, and it is our mission to get them back on the right path against all odds lest we suffer a fate worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.” James said as he picked up his brother’s glass and handed it over to him, “here’s to the Lord and His free people!” He said, raising his glass.

  “To the Cleansing!” Dennis exclaimed.

  “To the Cleansing!” Said everyone, raising their glasses in a toast.

  Downstairs, Kane could hear the faint noise coming from the hall upstairs as he crept through the corridors of the living quarters. As per Dennis’ request, everyone – even the guards – were to join the event. Tonight, the security was basically non-existent.

  Kane pulled up the hood of his jacket and snuck through the back door. He walked calmly towards the building Clarke told him about. He was trying his best to be inconspicuous but that’s hardly possible since, for tonight, no one is allowed to be outside the room before the party is over. From the outside, the estate looked like an abandoned mansion. For miles and miles, not a soul could be heard and in the wide expanse of land, he couldn’t a single person walking around within his vicinity.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” A voice said from behind him. Kane was standing at the foot of the porch stairs when a voice called out from behind him. He turned around and saw a floating red speck in the air. It took him a moment to realize that the red speck was a cigarette in Ted’s mouth.

  “Just getting some air, Ted. You know that’s not allowed here, right?” Kane said as he slowly got back up the stair. “You could get in trouble.”

  A flicker of fear ran past Ted’s eyes as Kane spoke. Kane couldn’t tell whether it’s from fear of him or the fear of being caught. Nevertheless, Ted took a huge puff of his cigarette and blew the smoke in Kane’s direction.

  “The fuck do I care about getting in trouble?” He mumbled. Kane could hear the doubt in Ted’s voice as he slowly walked towards him and stopped just a few inches away from him. “Besides, it’s you who need to worry. One word from me and you’re dead.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible, Ted.” Kane smiled as he took the cigarette from his fingers, “because dead men can’t talk.”

  He pressed the cigarette firmly against Ted’s chest, putting out the flame. Ted could hardly feel the sting of the flame as he looked into Kane’s eyes. He was smiling but his eyes weren’t. Chills ran down his spine as Kane’s smile faded into a stern frown.

  “Who are you most afraid of?” Kane whispered as he dropped the cigarette to the ground and stepped on it. “Someone who can hurt you later or someone who can kill you now?” Ted stood there, petrified in fear. If Kane does anything stupid and they find out he let him go, he’s dead. If he runs now and snitches Kane, he’s dead. Instead of responding, Ted just stood there with his heart pounding.

  “This is our little secret, okay?” Kane said before turning his back and walking away.

  Ted wasn’t much of a believer in any deity or supernatural beings, but as he stood there, trembling in fear, he slowly realized that he just encountered yet another demon in human skin.

  CLARKE DRANK THE WINE and ate his food in silence, all the while aware of the stares he received from the others. He did not join in their merriment
. He didn’t even bow down in their prayer. Instead, he whispered his own, hoping that if God was listening, he’d pick him from where he sat and took him far away from there.

  He felt terrified. It was nothing new to him, but something about the way the air felt made his skin crawl. He was among the most devout people he had ever met but felt even farther from God than he had before.

  He never had anything against religion. It became his refuge in the cold nights when the world became a little too unforgiving towards him. It became his only reason to wake up in the morning and the only way he could sleep at night. But its people like the Gardner brothers that make him feel ashamed of even breathing the same air as them. Their vile actions done in the name of God is one of the many reasons he wants to get out from the hole they put him in. They’ve become blinded by their own self-righteousness that they don’t even realize they’re ruining the very name they pledged to worship. They took it one step too far and now the world felt a little colder than it was before.

  What makes it worse is that people believe in them. People actually follow them. They both had charisma unmatched by any politician or movie star and a reason that looks good enough on the surface for people to support it. Yet, they used it all in vain. They took religion one step too far and now there’s no going back from what they’ve started: a life full of hate for anyone who dares defy the will of God in their eyes.

  “Fanatics...” Clarke thought to himself as he swallowed a morsel of food down his throat, “they never know when to stop.”

  WITH LONG STRIDES, Kane reached the back of the shed. It was about the size of a small house but with higher ceilings. It bore the same rustic style as the other buildings within the estate only this time, the windows were boarded up from the inside. As Kane neared the back door of the shed, he could see a faint light glowing from between the boards.

  It was still early in the night yet the world seemed awfully quiet. The very building itself would seem abandoned if it weren’t for the lights inside. Kane looked around the yard and not a single person could be seen. He took the small piece of paper from his pocket and read the numbers. In a hurry, he punched in the pin number on the device attached to the wall.

  “ACCESS DENIED” It read after Kane pressed enter. Agitated, he punched the code in again, thinking maybe he got it wrong, but still, the door wouldn’t budge.

  “Fuck you, Clarke Tristen!” He half-whispered in fury. Clarke had given him the wrong key. Not even Clarke’s own keycard works on the three mysterious buildings inside the estate so there’s virtually no hope of getting inside the place.

  He sat against the wall in dismay, brooding over every possible way he could infiltrate the building and grab his confiscated belongings, along with his car. He could always try and find another phone but as far as he could tell, not a single one of them had a phone on hand, and even if they did, he highly doubts that they’d let him borrow it even for so much as a second.

  Suddenly, he recalled the numbers – the ones in Dennis’ diary. Excited, he got up from the ground and pressed in the digits.

  3.

  4.

  9.

  “Who’s there?” He heard a deep, raspy voice ask.

  Chapter 22

  Kane ran behind a bush just a few feet away from the door. From where he crouched, he had a full view of the door and the back of the building. In the corner, he saw a tall blond man emerged with a flashlight in hand. He wore a fine black suit that would have made the Godfather bow in respect. Kane couldn’t see his face all that well in the dark but even in the dark, he could tell that he had a dour, unsmiling look to his face.

  Kane watched as he shone his flashlight throughout the grounds, eventually passing the light over the bush. Luckily, Kane ducked just before the light hit the leaves. Still, the light lingered over the bush for a few seconds before searching somewhere else.

  With difficulty, Kane adjusted his position so he could peek through the small gaps in the bush. He saw the man slowly walk towards one of the windows and peer through the gaps between the boards. Kane squinted and tried to adjust his eyes to the dark. They were in the darker part of the estate where the lights were rarely turned on and that night was especially gloomy. It didn’t help that he was looking through a small hole behind a dark bush.

  As he tried to study the back of the man who was now standing in front of the door, he slowly recognized the shock of blond hair. He remembered how the man had looked at him with a faint glimmer of recognition in his eyes as they stared at each other in the bathroom not too long ago. He also vaguely remembered the blond man who bolted from the shed in the middle of the woods.

  The man was pulling out a wallet from his pocket now. He pulled out a white key card from the wallet and pressed it against the scanner on the wall. With a small beep, the door unlocked and he entered the building, shutting the door behind him.

  Without a second thought, Kane silently jogged to the door and pressed his ear against it.

  No sound came from inside the room.

  He looked around the area and saw no crucifixes or holy images of any kind. Not even a single bluntly placed camera was in sight.

  “Geez, if you really don’t want to be seen, James, at least place a camera, you dimwit.” He said as he tried to peer through the boards once more. Still, he saw nothing but a faint white glow coming from the inside. He neared the device once more and started pressing in the digits.

  3. 4. 9. 6. 8. 5. 1. 0.

  With a quiet beep, the door clicked open.

  Kane pulled the hood of his jacket further down his face as he slowly pushed the door open. He found himself inside a small room with two metal doors in front of him. The room was brightly lit by a single fluorescent light hanging low from the ceiling and a spiral staircase was standing in far right side of the room, just a few feet away from one of the doors. The cement walls were cracked and lined with cobwebs. The place looked uninhabited and untouched if it weren’t for the turned on light.

  Pulling the hood closer to his face, his eyes carefully wandered all over the room in search for a camera. He took a few sidesteps to the right and pressed his back against the wall beside the door. He slowly looked up and scanned the walls on the other side of the door. No cameras.

  He pinched together the sides of hood in order to hide the lower half of his face as he slowly looked up. Just as he expected; he was standing under a CCTV camera whose gaze was firmly fixed on the door. Whoever’s inside the control room at that moment already knew that he was inside the building.

  Kane stood there, baffled and confused as to what his next move should be. He knows that if he runs away now, he’ll leave ashamed and empty-handed – something he’s never let himself do regardless of the situation. If he stays, however, there’s a high risk of him getting caught, or worse, killed.

  “Might as well die a hero.” He thought as he sprinted towards the metal door in front of him. With all his strength, he pushed open the door. Luckily, it was unlocked. He found himself inside a room with boarded up windows and a bunch of shelves. The large room was illuminated by a few warehouse lights, with some of them already flickering out. A man was sleeping by the door on the other side of the room. His face was covered with a bonnet and you could hear his snores from where Kane stood. There was no sign of James anywhere in the room.

  He hunched his back and continued to cover his face, just in case there was a camera sneakily watching him. He snuck behind one of the shelves on the far right of the room and looked through the boxes. At this point, he was certain he was in some sort of warehouse filled with various junk that people wanted to get rid of.

  There were random knick knacks stuffed inside the boxes. He found old photographs, broken statues and ceramics, and even a couple of playing cards in one of the boxes. He took out the cards from the box and studied them. They were beautiful cards, with pictures that would change form when you move it around. It was the kind of deck you’d find in a five-star casino or in
some collector’s den. Without a second thought, he placed the cards back in the box and slid it into his pocket.

  Suddenly, he heard muffled noises coming from the other side of the room. There, he saw two people coming inside. From where he crouched, he could only see the torso of the two men, but one of them was clearly James Gardner just by the sound of his voice.

  “...I need you to get rid of it immediately. We’re being watched.” He heard him say. He saw him turn towards the man sleeping by the door and took the bonnet off his face. It was Valdez.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” He said as he slapped Valdez right across the face with his hat. Startled, the man nearly fell off his chair. After realizing that he stood before Gardner himself, he straightened up and cleared his throat.

  “I was just taking a break, sir.” He said, “no one ever comes here anyway.”

  “That’s what you think, you goddamn idiot,” James said, throwing the bonnet at Valdez’s face. Timidly, Valdez sat back down in his chair. “Someone tried to break in here just a few minutes ago. If I hadn’t come here sooner, you’d probably be dead!”

  “It’s just a warehouse, sir,” the other man said nervously. Slowly, James turned to him and threw a solid punch right at his face. The man fell back against a stack of empty boxes by the door. Kane peered between the boxes and took a good long look at his face. He recognized him immediately. He was one of the guards that stuck around Dennis’ office. Wherever Kane went, he always saw him. He usually hangs around the West Wing during the night, and by day, he just lingered everywhere he pleases. He calls himself Dave.

  “I know it’s just a warehouse, but if a certain asshole finds his way in here, you know what he could find?” James whispered as he grabbed the man’s face with one large hand, “he could find this.” Kane saw him pull something out of his coat jacket but he couldn’t quite see what it was. Quickly, he sprinted towards the next shelf to get a better view of the action. His view, however, was obstructed by a couple of boxes stacked neatly in front of him. Annoyed, he tried to adjust a couple of the boxes.