I’m sorry, Father Johnstone says. I’m so, so sorry. Please. Please, don’t burn me. I’m sick. I can’t help it, he says, crawling with his hands clamped together, begging. He begs Travis to reconsider, but the boy strikes the match. He’s disgusted by him, picturing that pale stick-thin frame touching little Betty Graybel, taking off her tiny daisy-patterned underwear and photographing what’s within. He made her spread herself apart, telling her this was a grown-up secret game that no one could know about. He said he would give her presents if she played along and never told anyone. Father Johnstone put his fingers inside her, asking little Betty if it felt good, if she liked being tickled like this. He remembers, and the memory excites him, but not nearly as much as when Travis flicks the match at his body.
The pastor tries to bat it away while it hangs in mid-air, but it’s no use. He’s soaked in old man Clevenger’s moonshine, a human torch rag. As soon as the flame kisses the fumes, he’s lit. Burning. Rolling on the grass, screaming, cooking. Fibers of his shirt melt into his skin. The plastic buttons heat, lose form, turning to a syrup that chews his flesh. Father Johnstone burns in front of the three men, but only the sheriff watches. Only he has the stomach to witness pain and take joy in it. He watches until the very last tendril of fire dies out, telling the burned body on the ground, you’re dead to this town, Mason. I’m gonna leave you out here for the birds to pick at. Tuck and Travis seem relieved by this, but they still can’t look at him directly, the skin so cooked it’s black. Muscle sinew in the neck is visible, glistening under the high beams like meat soaked in canola oil.
Sheriff Morgan crouches down, spitting onto heated grass, he tells the still-smoldering body, if you survive…if you manage the strength to drag your ass across these fields…you crawl that way, understand? He points west, away from Pratt and everything he’s ever known. He points to exile. You let the rest of the world see you for the freak you are, Morgan says. You’re their problem now, and don’t you ever think about coming back, he displays the pistol. Even though the pastor’s blinded by the smoke of his own skin, he knows Shelby’s there, caked in sticky blood. You get the bullet, he says. No warning. I’ll feed your body to the hogs and your head becomes a trophy for my wall, got it? You either die here or stay gone for good. Those are your choices.
…he fades back in.
Bitterness returns to the air and Father Johnstone regains himself, still bound to the metal folding chair with Madeline five feet to his left. He’s panting, the skin of his chest burning as if it’s just been grilled. Eyes water. The pastor is back in his own head again, but the body hasn’t fully let go of the pain yet. It needs a moment to acclimate to reality.
“There’s other things I can do with this,” Pollux says, poking Father Johnstone in the forehead, the parietal lobe. “I can make you feel bone cancer, heart failure, a lung collapsing. I can make it feel like you’re drowning. Or maybe an orgasm…that swell of bliss flushing through your entire body. I can make you feel that for hours, if you’d like. And you want to know the best part?” Pollux asks. “It doesn’t break any of your little rules. It’s just…feeling,” he shrugs. “Electrical signals. That’s all they are.” Pollux leans in, cradling the pastor’s face in his hand softly, lovingly. “We can rewrite the rules together, lead together. Your flock will consist of thousands.”
“And you’ll never be alone.” Mason buttons up his shirt, curtaining the scars behind black cloth. “You’ll have love in your life. Her love, if you want it,” he nods to Madeline, shaking, bleeding out all over herself. “She can be whatever you want her to be…daughter, wife, whore,” he lists off. “Or all three if that’s what you’re into.” Mason smirks, scratching the side of his neck again.
Meanwhile, Father Johnstone is praying. He prays Madeline regains herself, prays the Lord release them from this unholy binding. With every desperate fiber of his person, he prays for Pratt, prays that little Betty Graybel never has to feel Mason’s hands on her again. He even prays that Sheriff Morgan stays gone, stays far away from these men who wish to break him down.
“It’s futile, Johnstone,” Pollux says. “You can stop.”
The pastor stares through the window, out into the pale yellow light that the Lord brings down. He admires the work of His Creator one final time, knowing in his heart that he’ll soon be with Him in the Kingdom. Father Johnstone will be able to say that he stayed true, resisted the temptations that were laid out before him. He remained devout, despite the small compromises he made on behalf of Pratt and its people. The pastor asks forgiveness for these minor trespasses and cleanses his soul.
“No help will come,” Pollux says.
Father Johnstone stares into the light, noticing the small birds still flopping around on the dead earth. Feathers wilt and fall from their flesh. Their skin yields to the disease as lungs swell with poison. The small ones go first, as Mason Hollis said: the insects and tiny field mice. Then birds. Mary won’t be far behind. And Madeline—the pastor can’t hold out hope for her. He merely prays that whatever these men do to her, they execute it quick and with as little pain inflicted as possible. It’s a naïve sentiment, though. She’ll be raped, tortured, and sacrificed for the sake of archaic ritual. Madeline’s body won’t be the only thing to suffer; her soul will be twisted, torn apart, and no one is in any position to prevent it. In these dire times, everyone is worried about themselves.
“I feel it, Johnstone,” Pollux says. “Hope draining…despair.”
In the distance, Father Johnstone sees an object that’s neither animal nor person. It’s large, familiar. He’d recognize the blue body and those chrome fenders anywhere. It’s the Challenger, manned by an unknown driver. At roughly 40mph the vehicle speeds at the wall right behind Pollux and Mason, but only the former feels the shift. Only Pollux can sense a sudden spike of hope within the pastor, causing his brow to furrow in confusion. He stares at Father Johnstone a moment, attempting to read him, deciphering this change in mood. Pollux turns around, and the Challenger breaks through the wall just in time to meet his gaze.
Book XIII, Exchange & Ascent Theory
There are two forms of cursed state. The first is concocted by a Primary using earth-based materials in conjunction with the required incantation or recitation of passages (reference: curses). Method, ingredients, and their effectiveness vary depending on region and coven. The second form of curse is delivered directly by a god or goddess, usually as penance for disobeying an established maxim. Some scholars believe it is derivative of the ‘Forbidden Fruit Principle’ in which each deity maintains one specific rule that cannot be forgiven in the event that it is broken, also known as anti-Divine action. The god or goddess bestows either death or powerful curse, a state of being in which the Primary is restricted in their ability, and mind, body, and spirit become de-unified (or: de-harmonized). Attempts to perform Craft will either backfire or result in failure. All joy is suspended, including the sensation of orgasm. Dream state will be poisoned by the deity, tormenting the offender with visions of their crime from the perspective of their victim. If the Primary is to become sick, they will remain in that state with no method of recovery. In some rare cases, the deity will find it prudent to allow the sickness to spread to the offender’s surroundings, turning them into what’s known as ‘a walking plague.’ To counteract these effects, first the Primary must find a Secondary of equal standing. As of this writing, Holy men remain opposed to the beliefs and practices of Craft. However, should Primary and Secondary unite, they must find the individual in which the catalyst action transpired and perform the conversion ritual, a process of the utmost complexity and difficulty. It should be noted that Divine and anti-Divine cannot be within the same proximity without the deity intervening in some way, usually in the form of earthly disruption: quakes, storms, or other extreme shifts. Should the curse be passed on to another vessel, mind, body, and spirit will be destroyed—essentially, resulting in a hollowed existence of ‘the sacrificed.’ They will be incapable
of thought, voluntary movement, or verbal communication. The Primary will absorb their power and knowledge, adding it to their own. It is foretold this process would allow a Primary to ascend to godhood.
The Fray
Father Johnstone doesn’t know how it happens, but somehow both he and Madeline survive the breach without incurring any additional injury. The same, however, cannot be said for Pollux and Mason, both of whom are lying buried under a sizeable amount of wall rubble and debris: decaying planks of wood, drywall, fiberglass insulation, and numerous shards of glass and ceramic. Through the dust, the pastor can see one hand blooming from the wreckage, blood seeping down the palm and wrist. His Challenger is parked less than a foot away from his knees, lead-colored smoke billowing from under the hood. The engine makes a worrisome clanking noise to the tune of Madeline coughing up fluid in her own lap, heaving hard. Her tongue curls in a U-shape and juts beyond her cut lower lip. She coughs, gags on wall dust and poisonous air.
“You okay?” Dr. Keller disembarks from the vehicle wearing the same clothes from the night before, still stained with the blood and fluid of Helena Wright. He walks along the uneven surface of the debris, careful to avoid the various nails and shards of glass. “Are you hurt?” he tries again.
“We’re okay,” the pastor says. It feels like a lie considering he can barely breathe and his chest still aches of fire. Madeline is in even worse shape, swaying sick and hacking up torrents of fluid into her own lap. “Can you cut us loose?”
Dr. Keller pulls out a small blade that’s clipped to the back of his pants, unfolding it. He starts with the tape around the pastor’s wrists, telling him, “Sorry about your car.”
“Where’s yours?” The tape snaps off Father Johnstone’s wrists. He flexes his hands, feeling the blood flow through his palms and fingers in a cool flush.
Dr. Keller saws the tape that binds the pastor’s left leg to the chair. “Pratt has been compromised,” he says. “Everyone’s panicking. Otis Banford decided my car would be better off with him.” He saws the tape holding the other leg, careful not to accidently cut into the pastor’s ankle during the process. “Be thankful the old models are easy to hotwire. I’m afraid I had to crack the steering column.”
Father Johnstone looks at the front end of the Challenger, assessing the damage: a bent fender, various silver slivers from all the scratches in the paintjob, a busted headlight. God only knows what’s wrong underneath the hood that’s causing all the smoke, yet, it doesn’t seem important right now. Only moments ago, he was prepared to die, and Madeline may still be on her way out.
“How’d you find us?” Father Johnstone asks.
Dr. Keller begins sawing at the tape binding the pastor’s torso to the chair’s backing. “Mary,” he says. Father Johnstone feels his torso expand, relief and breath returning to his body. “She led me here about an hour ago. I peeked in the windows and saw you two taped up with Mason Hollis keeping watch. Decided it’d be best to pull out the stops.”
Father Johnstone tears the tape away from his mid-section, surveying the debris for signs of Mary walking around. It’s odd that she hasn’t hopped out to greet him by now. “Where is she?”
Dr. Keller pauses. He looks at the pastor the same way he always does when he’s forced to deliver bad news. “The car,” he says. “She’s not doing well.” He stands up, walking to Madeline with the knife ready to cut her loose. “It’s in the air. This plague. Birds are falling from the sky,” he says, but Father Johnstone is no longer listening.
He steps over the debris with unsure movements, feet tingling from the lack of bloodflow they’ve endured over the past many hours. The fear of what he may find in the Challenger allows him to look past it, peeking his head into the interior. Mary is curled up in the backseat on what appears to be a sheet from one of the hospital beds. Tiny stains spot the fabric. Black sticky fluid oozing from her mouth and nose. Father Johnstone gets into the backseat to look at her, touch her fur. As soon as his fingers smooth over her body, he notices the unusually coarse texture that’s akin to dry wheat. They break off at his touch, ending up with the rest of the strands collecting in the blanket. Mary’s eyes look at the pastor, glazed over in a film like cataracts. Fluid leaks from those as well. He doesn’t need Madeline to tell him that Mary’s on her way out. Dying. It can be heard in every breath she struggles to take.
“Bring the kit,” Dr. Keller shouts. “My black bag in the front seat.”
Father Johnstone looks at Mary, sick, falling apart before his eyes. The saving grace is that she’s still alive. Still breathing. She can be saved. If he gets her away from Pratt quickly enough, he thinks, her health will return and he won’t have to lose her. He prays he can do that. As he retrieves Dr. Keller’s black case, he prays to the Lord that the Challenger is able to deliver them from the town.
“The bottle,” Dr. Keller says. Currently, he’s holding Madeline’s head up, mouth pried open. Madeline continues to cough, struggle. “Take the cap off and pour it down her throat,” he says. “The symptoms match. It’s Kurt and Mrs. Wright all over again. We’re going to help her purge.”
“What is it?”
“Ipecac,” Dr. Keller says.
Madeline lunges forward, breaking free of Dr. Keller’s grip and plunges her fingers down her own throat. Shoves them all the way down so that two of her knuckles are past her teeth. She gags, shooting fluid down her arm. Vomit erupts on the wall debris and Father Johnstone’s pants. Madeline’s panting, gasping for air. She repeats the process again, but only a small amount exits this time.
“My way’s…faster.” She spits. Breathes deeply. Spits again. Her face is pale, sweating. “Epinephrine shot…in the bag, Johnstone.”
“No. You don’t need that,” Dr. Keller says. “You’ll be fine if you rest. It’s just going to take a moment.”
She spits again, bracing herself on her knees. Recovering slowly. “Don’t have a moment.” Her eyes lock onto Father Johnstone’s, urging him to do it, and he knows exactly why. It’s not over yet. Father Johnstone digs the shot out of the bag, attempting to hand it to her but Madeline shakes him off. “Bless it,” she says. “Then inject.”
The pastor does as she requests. He prays, bestowing the object with the Lord’s Divine sanction before uncapping it and shooting the compound into Madeline’s upper arm. She winces slightly as the chemical begins to hit her bloodstream, her muscles. Only a few seconds pass before Madeline feels it: her heart pounding in her ears. She inhales sharply and both Dr. Keller and the pastor witness the house moving, bending. Smaller pieces of the debris hover an inch or so off the ground as Madeline pants, smiling. Pupils wind tight and she’s standing under her own accord now, wiping the blood off of her face with her forearm.
Strong. Sharp. Renewed.
“Pull the car out,” Madeline tells Dr. Keller. She stomps off to the corner of the room where Mason Hollis previously had his workstation set up for translation. It’s since been destroyed by the Challenger.
“What about them?” the pastor asks. His eyes check the hand rising out from under various pieces of wall. It has yet to move as far as he can tell, but the cuts continue to pour blood down the palm and wrist.
“I’ll deal with them,” she says, and Father Johnstone thinks he has an idea of what she means by that. She’s not going to leave any loose ends. If it’s one thing Madeline Paige never wants to do again, it’s the act of looking over her shoulder in fear that Pollux will be behind her. She’s done running.
“What about the cleric?” He looks to the other corner where a body lies, stark white and frail. No breath. No life. “He should be buried,” the pastor says, remembering something that Pollux mentioned earlier in regards to the afterlife. Limbo, he said. This man would walk through Pratt for an eternity, an infinite spectator, never ascending to the Kingdom. He can’t subject him to that, regardless of his alliances.
“Load him up. Quick.” Madeline tosses planks of wood and siding over her shoulder, digging t
hrough the debris while Dr. Keller and the pastor excavate the body from rubble.
“Do I dare ask what happened to this man?” Dr. Keller hoists the body up by his armpits while Father Johnstone wraps him at the knees. He’s surprisingly light, as if his limbs and torso have been hollowed out, not totally unlike a store window mannequin.
The pastor ignores the question for the time being, careful to keep up his end of the body as the legs pass into the Challenger’s backseat. He can hear Madeline tossing pieces of wall and structure as she continues to dig around in the corner of the room. She finally finds the object that she’s looking for, inspecting the spell book for any damage it may have taken during the crash. It appears to have incurred nothing more than a few small tears on select pages. Madeline makes her way over to the Challenger, placing Book XVIII in the backseat along with Mary and the dead cleric. “Now pull the car out. Wait for me outside.”
Dr. Keller tosses his medical bag onto one of the floorboards, and the two men board the car with Father Johnstone at the wheel. He shifts the ignition into reverse, stomping on the gas. The tires kick up dust and gravel-sized chunks of drywall, spinning hard until they catch traction with the floor. Abruptly, the Challenger peels out of what’s left of old man Clevenger’s living room and onto a patch of dead earth. Mary lets out a disconcerted grumble from all the commotion while Madeline follows the tire marks, walking out of the house and showing the pastor her singed palm, indicating for him to wait there.
“What is she doing?” Dr. Keller asks.
Father Johnstone can feel it already, the sensation of warmth channeling through his body as Madeline prepares to cast. She walks out a few more strides into the yard before she turns around and faces what’s left of the house, extending both hands out and pointing them at the living room. Her palms glow, intensifying until they reach a fever pitch—then flame erupts. Fire coats the floor, walls, and ceiling of the living room, eating, burning. Black smoke begins to churn out of the crater of old man Clevenger’s home, and Madeline watches, allowing her arms to come down at her sides. The flames eat, char the wreckage, and Father Johnstone knows that she’s saying goodbye. Neither Pollux nor Mason will receive their proper burials, and the pastor prays this is the last of it, that their opposing journeys will end in ashes from whence they came.
Good Sex, Great Prayers Page 38