by Lex Sinclair
‘You don’t have to get ratty with me.’
‘Please. Let me finish.’ He cleared his throat before resuming. ‘There’s a story to the unborn foetus inside you; that you resurrected. Which, of course, automatically made you the “chosen one”. A story you have more right than anyone else to hear for yourself; to help make you understand your situation better. It was never our intention to scare you out of your wits. Margaret would vouch for me on that, too. But you weren’t going to comply with the wishes of your own accord, which is why you were forced.
‘I mean, let’s face it. If I or Margaret or anyone else for that matter explained to you in detail everything that you know thus far and everything that you are about to discover, you would not only disbelieve it but you would have run for your life, endangering yourself and others. This unfortunately happened, anyway. But we weren’t to know that. But this is no one’s fault. We’re just glad your alive and getting better.’
Sofie shook her head at the old man in disdain, not concealing a trace of her vexation at being tricked into coming here to be told more horrible yarns when she thought it was a day out as a reward for not causing any more mischief. Yet her disapproval was only minor. There was another part of her growing internally that was intrigued to discover more about the events leading to her destiny; something far greater than living the life of a lawyer.
Footfalls on the staircase leading to the church overhead grew louder as the person they belonged to descended. Sofie shifted in her chair, staring intently at the door halfway open, seeing the shadow of a woman in a dress before the woman herself entered the vestry and came into view.
Margaret stood before her, scarred, meeting the young woman’s gaze. Then she walked around the table and proffered her hand to Rodney who shook it.
‘Take my seat,’ he said, rising to his feet and heading in the direction of the walk-in closet. When he came back into sight, the old man had the dustpan and brush in his hands, glanced at Sofie who looked anxious all of a sudden and said, ‘Margaret is willing to forgive the pain you inflicted upon her the other night and will tell you the story. I’ll be upstairs doing a bit of dusting.’ Then he turned his attention to Margaret. ‘When you have finished close the door behind you.’
Moments later the old man’s footfalls faded away as he ascended to the church to do a mundane chore while the disfigured woman sat before her assailant, lifting a trembling, withered hand to her face where the blisters and boils were still evident. The flesh on her cheeks looked shrivelled as well as the visible lines that seemed to carve into the face itself due to a lifetime of chain smoking.
In a voice belonging to a patient lying in the intensive care unit, Margaret rasped, ‘I understand that what you did to me was in fear of what I had and might have done to you and not out of malice. Therefore, I am willing to forgive.’
‘If you hadn’t tricked I now have no doubt one of the others would have, eventually,’ Sofie heard herself say.
‘Yes. They would have,’ Margaret said, nodding acquiescence. ‘I did my best to try and comfort you...’ she trailed off, seeing Sofie raise her right hand.
‘Yes, you did. I remember you said something about me joining your family because my own had abandoned me, and how you knew everything in my life without having ever seen me before that day. But what I would like to know is how you knew I would pick up that flyer on the notice board where I take my aerobics class?’
‘Same as I’ve known everything else.’
Sofie sighed. ‘I thought you said that too much knowledge would be too much for me.’
Margaret folded her hands together and leaned forward. ‘At the time, yes. But now that the dreams or hallucinations have begun, it is better that you understand for your own peace of mind. It wouldn’t be fair of us to let you suffer, thinking you are trapped inside an inferno burning to death, feeling as though you’re burning to death, and then jolting awake drenched in sweat. It also wouldn’t be very wise of us as you are the bearer of our leader. If anything were to happen to you it would be our fault ultimately.’
‘I’m not sure if you knowing everything about me is doing me much good,’ Sofie said, rubbing her hands up and down her haggard face.
Lowering her liver-spotted hand on the polished tabletop, Margaret returned to a natural sitting position, not liking the girl in front of her one iota; not after what she’d done to her and then disabling her mother so that she was now in wheelchair. Nevertheless, her beliefs overrode any other personal emotions. Her faith in the cult that worshipped the same thing as she did required her to do what was necessary.
‘Ah, but it is. For if I see what you see and know what you know then you shall be better prepared for what is about to befall you imminently.’ The bones in her fingers cracked as unfolded them. She forced herself not show any sign of pain. ‘If I tell you about the thing inside you, you shan’t worry so much.’
‘Is it true what you said?’ Sofie said, taking the conversation down a slightly different route. ‘About me being rewarded eternal life?’
‘If everything goes the way it’s supposed to and you don’t resist and inflict any more commotion, then yes.’
Margaret watched the young woman as she ran her fingers through her hair tied back in a ponytail, doing her best to register everything in her busy mind.
‘Many, many years centuries ago, the thing inside of you that’s spirit you set free roamed the earth. It was God’s greatest creation. More so than Jesus. However, this angel had its own ideas. It chose not to obey the commands of God and therefore was cast out of heaven.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Sofie said, frowning, perplexed. ‘This is the story of Satan.’
The middle-aged woman got to a vertical base, and Sofie thought that she would take her leave, complaining to Reverend Ward that she refused to listen, had interrupted her in the midst of her oration. However, Margaret crossed the cold room where a draught chilled Sofie from an aperture she that wasn’t palpable to the small square table draped in white cloth and retrieved the Holy Bible then returned to her seat.
Sofie groaned. The last thing she wanted on top of everything else was this malevolent woman lecturing her about something from the Bible. For one it contradicted her own beliefs. How she could sit there riffling through the featherweight pieces of paper, looking for a chapter or verse when she worshipped the devil did not fail to stun Sofie into an incredulous, profound silence that resonated in the channels of her mind.
‘Unbelievable,’ she gasped in a voice belonging to a mouse.
Margaret ignored her remark. ‘So, you are aware of the Bible? You have read it? Yes?’
‘Yes. I found an old copy in a yard sale once and bought it cheap. I read it out of curiosity, because my folks never spoke about God or Jesus. I never had a single present for Christmas. We didn’t eat Turkey or answer the door to carol singers. It was a non-event.’
‘And very wise they were, your folks. For such festivities are fruitless, not to mention a con for traders to make extra money and for obtuse folk to spend extra money so that they can work twice as hard when the occasion has passed,’ Margaret said with complete sincerity. She paused, riffled through the pages towards the back of the tome, stopped when she reached the page she sought, raised her head and said, ‘So, you are aware of the book of Revelations, yes?’
‘It’s been awhile, but yes. Vaguely, I am.’
‘Can you remember Revelations 12?’ Margaret asked. ‘It is relevant.
‘Is it, the woman, the child, and the dragon?’
Margaret nodded, pleased. ‘The woman gives birth to a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. A war broke out in heaven between Michael and the angels against the fiery red dragon who had seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his head. They did not prevail. They were cast out of heaven. The great dragon, that serpent ca
lled Satan or the Devil. He and his angels.’
The young Swedish woman no more the wiser to what Margaret was apparently getting at, shook her head, turned her palms face up and shrugged.
‘How about Revelations twenty?’
‘I dunno,’ Sofie replied. ‘I read it a long time ago. I was too young to understand its meaning. If the Bible is supposed to have meaning, that is.’
‘It does,’ Margaret said adamant. ‘Its chapter title is Satan Bound: the thousand-year Reign; Final Judgement.’
‘If its right there in front of you then there’s no doubt,’ Sofie said, not bothering to conceal her impatience any more.
Margaret pushed the tome over to where Sofie was seated on page eight hundred and thirty-three. ‘Please read the first three verses.’
On the verge of refusing to do this task, Sofie saw the rage flash in Margaret’s steely eyes and decided to acquiesce to her demand to avoid another altercation. She licked her dry, chapped lips, took a gulp of air before squinting at the microscopic print at the bottom of the page in a clear narrative. ‘Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
‘He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years...’ Sofie’s voice trailed off. The words she read reaching her subconscious first and then flashing neon signs in the forefront of her mind. Hesitantly, she continued, ‘; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while.’
Once she’d finished reading from the script Sofie numbly pushed the tome back towards Margaret who didn’t hide her pleasure in seeing the shocked expression disguising the young woman’s unblemished features.
‘Gradually this will all start to make some kind of sense. But today there is only one verse that is relevant,’ Margaret said in that same dulcet tone she used when she first spoke to Sofie on the phone detailing the home care assistant job that didn’t exist, ‘it is Revelation thirteen: seventeen, eighteen, “No one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666”. All good, relevant stuff to your fate and condition which is a prophecy that you will fulfil whether you oblige or not.’
The nerves beneath Sofie’s right eye started twitching spasmodically, rage boiling up like the inferno that had soaked the duvet and bed sheets to her earlier that morning threatened to spill over the rim, erupting volcano style.
‘You are the most fickle person I have ever come across,’ she said, sitting ramrod-straight, every muscle in her body tense.
Margaret smiled, closed the Bible and rested her elbows on the front cover, resting her head on her upturned hands, never taking her gaze off Sofie for a split second, revelling in the poor girl’s emotions she was unable to contain any longer.
‘What?’ Sofie spat.
‘Shall I tell you the story of the thing with the goat’s head? Satan’s closest angel, who does his work?’
Sofie didn’t respond. She saw no reason why she had to knowing full well that this disfigured middle-aged woman would do anything she damn well pleased and there wasn’t a single thing she could do to prevent her indulging in something that evidently brought her delight.
And as expected, Margaret began reciting the tale from memory not text. ‘At the turn of the century - 1901, to be precise - the thing with the goat’s head made its presence known to four monks residing in a monastery alongside a canal. The four monks woke at the exact same time on this fateful night while the others slept peacefully on a hot summer night in June. They were panting and sweating profusely, wearing masks of pure fear, like you can empathise with; fear that leaves horrible flashbacks in one’s mind for years thereafter, destroying any chance of a peaceful slumber, causing them to jump out of their skin for no apparent reason... hallucinating, paranoid... incurable.
‘At a stroke of midnight the four monks met each other in the forecourt having been wandering aimlessly, glad that they were not alone, due to a presence they cannot see but feel, like the cold breeze brushing the blades of grass underfoot. The ominous presence led them around to the rear of the edifice towards the fringe of the forest. The closer they got to line of firs the warmer they became. When they reach the heart of the forest, passing the hooting owls, birds fluttering from treetop to treetop, squirrels darting in and out of underbrush, scarper up the trunks, the presence is stronger and evident more than ever. They know to cease in their tracks and wait for the beast to reveal itself, standing before them in all its glory.
‘When they see the goat’s head shining luminously, glowing white in contrast to the pitch blackness of the environing woods they wanted to flee - but the terror was so great they became instantly paralysed. The masculine man-shaped figure wearing the goat’s head stares at the chosen four with phosphorous scarlet eyes, refusing to free them of their terror-stricken condition until they listened to what he - or it - wanted them to do. And in return the beast would grant them an eternal existence (not spiritually, but in the physical manner they have been accustomed to), for it is God’s adversary. A soul catcher of men who don’t truly believe in God or Jesus Christ and are willing to wear the mark of the beast.
‘The four young men listen intently to their new leader; a leader they can see with their own two eyes, hear word-for-word what the thing with goat’s head wants them to do, as opposed to reading the Holy Bible without the slightest comprehension. What it wants them to do mortified them initially. But then the thing with the goat’s head informs them that without great sacrifices there can be no great rewards. The men agree. As the wind picks up, their winces of revulsion turn to sneers of malice.
‘The beast calls each of the four men towards it one at a time. They reach out their hand so that the palm is facing up and allow their new leader to break their skin with its razor sharp fingernails and make the sign of a pagan ritual in blood. Once this has been achieved the thing with the goat’s head steps back and reminds the four monks that their souls are no longer their own, as they have exchanged them for eternal life in the physical form. It also reminds them of the promise they have made a solemn promise... and that if they don’t make a blood sacrifice then their souls will be destroyed, destroying them physically. Because without the body cannot exist.
‘They knew that once the deed had been accomplished, the thing with the goat’s head would return after they’d fled the monastery and found a temporary hiding place from the incensed townsfolk who would be eager to kill in vengeance.’
Margaret paused, catching her breath. She hadn’t been talking quickly. Nevertheless, she hadn’t talked so much in one go for as long as cared to remember.
‘What was this awful deed?’ Sofie asked.
‘That I cannot - and will not - say,’ she said. ‘However, what do you think a blood sacrifice means?’
Sofie’s eyes rolled to the right as she contemplated this prudent question. ‘Murder.’
Margaret nodded.
‘And did the townsfolk find out who the perpetrators were and act out in vengeance?’
‘Yes, they did. And they succeed, too.’
Sofie could tell that Margaret hadn’t been so eager to divulge in the latter part of her tale. The devil worshippers (people just like herself and Reverend Ward) had got their comeuppance for their dreadful sin; perhaps the worst sin of all.
‘Then it just goes to show that good does prevail, doesn’t it?’
Margaret’s grimace gave her the expression of that closely resembling the hideous witch that had killed Janice. ‘Nothing’s over till it’s over, sweetheart.’
Sofie had been about to argue that this evidently wasn’t the case, but thought better of it. Instead she raised her arms overhead and stretched, not bothering to stifle her yawn. When she resumed her normal seated position, she said, ‘So, what happened to the thing with the goat’s head. Did it desert them? It sure sounds like it did? Some leader, huh?’
‘Enough!’ Margaret barked.
‘Woo! Temper, temper.’ Sofie grinned, taking immense pleasure in Margaret’s vexation finally getting the better of her.
‘No one knows precisely what transpired in regards to the thing with the goat’s head. One can only speculate. Yet there have been rumours flying about the cult since 1901 about its sudden disappearance. That is of course until you discovered its remains. We believed it had been buried in a wood in Vastmanland, and therefore as your mother had given birth to you for the sake of the cult and everything we believe in, the hierarchy decided to pay all expenses which would enable your folks to take you to a log cabin rural family holiday. Your mother was advised to tell you to explore the wood while she and your father prepared lunch, and then later you and your father would get into that small boat where he would row to and fro the scenic lake while you broke slices of bread into tiny little pieces so you could feed all the fish. Do you remember that?’
This time it was Margaret’s turn to smile as Sofie sat slumped in her seat like the little child she had once been, nothing now but a vague memory in the back of her haunted mind.
‘All we can deduce from the very few facts are that the angel cast out of heaven that has a magnificent, male human body and wears a goat’s head, is that it fled this country and made a journey to your homeland. It was either seen and followed or someone from Sweden had the misfortune to make its acquaintance.
‘In 1905 the thing with the goat’s head traversed Europe. Countries such as, France, Spain, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Denmark, and, finally, Sweden. We know this because members of our cult today come from pagan worship heritage. Like you they too were born and raised under the influence of Satan. Of course, they weren’t aware of this as children. But when the time came they realised they were very different from the people around them. They were very special. Like you they too have been chosen.