Alfred was a messenger, nothing else, and he was happy with that. The Lord had many different needs and many different ways to serve Him. Alfred P. Cunningham was humble in both his ambition and ways. He was a messenger. The Bilbox family—and more specifically, Ryan Bilbox—was the person the good Lord wanted.
“Tell me, Aunt Jennie, do you believe in angels?”
“You know I do, Preacher. You know I do!”
Aunt Jennie was nearly in rapture, Alfred speaking to her personally almost too much to handle.
“I know you do,” Alfred said. “I know we all do, ain’t that right?”
“It is!”
“Yes, suh!”
He soaked it all in, feeling the moment nearly upon him. The temperature in the church was rising, if that was possible (but all things are possible through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, amen).
“Ryan Bilbox, where are ya, son?” Alfred called into the congregation.
“Here he is, Preacher,” Ryan’s father, Terry Bilbox, said.
“Come on up here, son. Come on up and let’s tell the world what the Lord’s been tellin’ you, okay?”
A boy rose from one of the wooden pews. He was twelve years old, though his size made him look ten. He was thin and pale, and he walked as if something large, black, and with massive claws might reach out at any moment and grab him.
He didn’t shirk his duty, though, and Alfred was glad for that. The boy had a lot ahead of him. Important things that would change the entire world. This was the first step on that road, and him simply coming to the pulpit meant he believed.
Just as Alfred did. Just as his parents did.
Ryan reached the pulpit and Alfred took him by the hand, pulling him up. The boy came to just above Alfred’s waist, and the preacher placed his hands on Ryan’s shoulders, standing behind him.
“The days of miracles are to begin again, and I’m here to tell you that personally. Our Lord, my personal Savior, has told me so, and ain’t nobody in the world gonna convince me otherwise. Ain’t no book or no scientist goin’ to tell me that the Lord is wrong. Are you with me?”
“AMEN!”
“I knew you would be because I know you all love Christ as I do.” Alfred looked down at the top of Ryan’s head. “The Lord is going to show the world miracles exist, and he’s going to do it through this boy here. God has told me, told Ryan’s parents, and Ryan himself, that he is to become an angel. This boy here, so meek, will rise up as God’s own righteousness, and strike down the wicked of this world!”
2.
Alfred P. Cunningham was the pastor over a 60-person church, in a town of 64 people. The four people that didn’t attend church were the Bernsteins—Jews that lived at the very edge of the town and had nothing to do with no one.
Good riddance, Alfred always thought. The chosen people that crucified Christ. They would get what was coming to them in due time.
To call Rineswald, Alabama a town was a stretch, and Alfred would be the first to admit that. The only jobs inside Rineswald were at the diner. If you wanted anything outside of a burger, you had to drive twenty miles east and there you had a Walmart, Stop-N-Go, and a Taco Bell. Even farther east and you started seeing more, but Alfred didn’t concern himself with any of that. Most of the people in Rineswald didn’t either, not outside of where they had to drive for work (most worked at the Walmart twenty miles east).
Alfred concerned himself with his flock that the Lord had entrusted him with.
And now God had bestowed a great gift upon Alfred and his congregation.
“It’s not going to be easy,” Alfred said, “though we can’t expect something this great to be. We have to show our dedication, just like Abraham. Do you understand?”
Terry and Patricia nodded. Ryan was quiet, per his usual countenance. The four of them sat at Alfred P. Cunningham’s dining room table. His wife, Ruth, was in the garage finishing up the final touches on what would be the first part of Ryan’s change. She had been working on them for months, ever since the Lord started talking to Alfred.
“Before I keep goin’, has the Lord started talkin’ to any of you, yet? Tellin’ you about how important this is?”
Both Terry and Patricia nodded again. “Oh, yes,” Terry said. “We’ve both had dreams the past three days, each one better than the last.”
“Good, good,” Alfred said. He had known they would. The Lord told him as much, that once he started explaining the Lord’s Will, He would make himself known to them, too. The entire town (except for those troublesome Jews out there on Route 41) would start dreaming soon. “The Lord has specifically told me how this is supposed to go, and I want to say I thank both of you for trustin’ me with your son. I promise ain’t no harm comin’ to this boy, not as long as we keep doin’ the Lord’s Work. You understand?”
“Yes, Preacher. We definitely do,” Terry said. Patricia nodded in agreement.
“Okay, then. The Lord has told me that this is to take three weeks, and at the end of three weeks, Ryan here is goin' to be possessed by an angel. Not just some regular angel either, but Gabriel himself. If we follow the Lord’s plan just right, at the end of three weeks, Ryan will be an angel, and he’ll bring all of God’s strength with him.” Alfred spoke louder at the open garage door. “Ruth, go ahead and bring ‘em out. We’re ready for ‘em.”
The door to the garage opened wider and something white emerged. It was hard to tell exactly what was being shoved into the kitchen, only that it was large, nearly stretching from floor to ceiling.
Ruth entered the kitchen next, a huge smile across her face. Just as the white thing she held almost stretched the height of the house, her smile nearly touched both ears.
She kept walking and another white monstrosity came in with her other hand.
Alfred looked at their glory. Tall and feathery. Indeed, those were real feathers. Ruth had plucked each one from the chickens out back over the past three weeks. They’d killed a hundred chickens from their small farm for this, the meat was packed in the freezer as proof.
“Wings. That’s the first thing Ryan’s got to have. The Lord said if the miracle is to happen, he has to play the part, and he showed me just what Gabriel’s wings looked like. This is them right here.”
Alfred P. Cunningham’s wife held two large contraptions made out of aluminum wiring. They did indeed stretch from floor to ceiling, and they’d been wrapped in cloth. Ruth Cunningham hadn’t known exactly how to make the feathers stick, but God told Alfred to simply lay some super glue down across the cloth and then attach the feathers that way.
The five people in the kitchen stared at these homemade wings, smiles growing larger and larger across each of their faces. Ryan was the only one not smiling. He stared at the huge apparatuses with nothing but terror.
3.
Ron Jerwin wasn’t a doctor, but he was the closest thing Rineswald had to it. Terry Bilbox had talked to him extensively before allowing him to operate on Ryan, and he’d walked away convinced Ron could do a good enough job. That’s all that was really needed anyway—a good enough job, because God would take care of everything else.
That’s what the world outside didn’t understand, and that’s why Terry and Patricia had decided to pull Ryan from school for the next few weeks. Ryan went to school in Kentwood, and the people over there always turned their noses up at the people of Rineswald. They certainly wouldn’t understand what was happening now.
Heathens, the lot of ‘em.
Terry wouldn’t hear nothing of it. He knew Ron well, known him since they were kids. Hell, he’d watched Ron patch up his younger brother at least nine or ten times over the years. The wings would be easy. It wasn’t like it was real surgery. This was basically cosmetic work.
Pastor Alfred told Terry and Patricia that if God was going to put Gabriel inside their son, then they had to show Him they believed. They couldn’t simply look up at heaven and ask for a miracle, ask for a blessing. No, the Lord needed dedication before He would
bestow His grace upon them.
That’s what the wings were for.
It didn’t have nothing to do with Ryan flying away or any such nonsense. It was them showing God their faith.
Terry trusted Ron to do a good job, but he still sat in the room with his son. He’d kissed his cheek before they administered the laughing gas (Pastor Alfred had ordered some off the Internet, though Terry didn’t ask too many questions about it. He trusted the Pastor.), and then stood over Ron as he started sewing the wings on.
The needle pricked his son’s skin and blood immediately pooled. They were attaching the wings directly to his back, right in the middle on either side of his spinal cord.
“Pastor, how is he goin’ to be able to hold these things up? I mean, they look pretty heavy, like they might just rip right out his back.”
Pastor Alfred was in the dining room with Terry and Ron. It was his dining room after all, and Ryan was lying face down on the table.
A stream of blood rolled down the boy’s rib cage and onto the newspaper they’d laid down before starting.
“He’ll have to sit in a wheelchair,” Alfred said, not looking away from Ron’s work. His eyes were just as bright as they’d been at the pulpit days ago.
Ron slowly poked the needle into the boy’s skin again, pulling it out the other side and stretching it away from the bone it rested on.
“Only for a few weeks though, Terry,” the preacher continued. “As soon as God places Gabriel’s spirit in the boy, he’ll hop right out of that wheelchair as if somebody had placed a hot brand on his behind. Remember, this is just to show God we’re serious. Nothing else. Three weeks in a wheelchair and then he’ll be flyin’ around this whole town.”
Terry nodded, his own eyes wide with anticipation. He wouldn’t tell this to the preacher—of course, not—but he was proud. It was his son the Lord had chosen, after all. His little boy that kids at school picked on. He was to be God’s Avenger, amen.
He watched Ron work, the needle and thread moving in and out of his son’s skin.
“Grab the wing now, I have to tighten it against his back.”
Terry grabbed the metal wing, lifting it above his son. It wasn’t heavy exactly, but Alfred was right: Ryan would need to sit in a wheelchair for a bit to make sure the wings didn’t rip right out of his back and leave him with two huge holes staring out at the world.
That would be embarrassing and certainly wouldn’t send the right message to the Lord.
Terry lowered the first wing onto his son, watching as Ron pulled the whole thing tight.
4.
“How do you feel?”
Tears sat in Ryan’s eyes. He hurt. His whole back hurt worse than anything he’d ever known. Daddy said he had to sit in the wheelchair, that if he tried to stand up, the wings on his back would just fall right out. Ryan didn’t want that at all. He knew that would hurt worse than what he currently felt, and he didn’t think he could handle so much pain.
“Okay,” he said, his voice as watery as his eyes.
The pastor squatted down in front of him; Ryan really didn’t want to show how bad this hurt in front of him. Crying in front of his father and mother had been awful enough. Daddy had told him to ‘man up’ and while his mother’s eyes were wet, she only said that this would all be over soon.
“Now, look, your dad told me that you’ve been crying a lot at home. Is that true?”
Ryan didn’t move in the wheelchair. Not an inch either way. The only time he felt even a moment’s relief from the pain in his back was when sitting completely still, and then the fire raging over his flesh died down to relative embers.
His dad stood behind the chair, but Ryan wouldn’t have lied to Pastor Alfred anyway. He knew liars went to hell.
“It hurts,” he said and felt ashamed as tears burst forward onto his cheeks.
“I know. I know it does,” Pastor Alfred said. “That’s why I brought you these.”
The Preacher opened his palm and two little pills sat in his hand.
“You take these every few hours and you won’t feel any more pain, okay? You’ll feel right as rain.”
Ryan looked up from the preacher’s hand, tears still streaming down his face. He’d never felt so much gratitude. Not in his whole life.
“Yeh—Yes, sir. Thank you so much.”
“It’s my pleasure, son,” the preacher said, smiling. He reached forward and placed his hand on Ryan’s leg. Ryan was just glad he didn’t try and hug him.
5.
Alfred lay in bed with his eyes open, wondering if Jesus was going to come. Alfred P. Cunningham had been expecting Jesus for some time, and in complete honesty, had started to grow a little bit worried. He’d told the Bilbox’s that this would be done in three weeks (because that’s what God told him), but the Lord hadn’t given him all the information at once. Alfred only knew the wings were first.
Jesus needed to tell him what the second part was supposed to be.
And tomorrow was the weekly service. Alfred was going to wheel the drugged-up child onto the pulpit and show how God was already working through him. The congregation didn’t have to know about the Oxycontin Alfred was feeding the boy. It was necessary. Local anesthetics wouldn’t last as long, nor help as much. They only needed the pills for a few weeks.
But, without the next commandment from God, he’d simply be rolling out a boy wearing wings. There would be no plan, and Alfred needed to be sure of God’s will in order to deliver a powerful sermon. If he was to get his flock riled up about this, then Alfred had to believe it himself.
As he lay in bed, he didn’t feel much in terms of his faith. If anything, he felt scared that he might have made a horrible mistake. Perhaps he’d misunderstood what God wanted, and instead of demonstrating his dedication, he’d simply surgically implanted chicken feathers on a boy and then fed him illegal drugs to keep him from crying.
Alfred need not have worried, though.
That was the thing about God.
He always came when you least expected it, as if He was testing your faith.
Jesus came as he always did, through the bedroom window. A white light looked in on Alfred, starting small and then growing larger and larger until Alfred P. Cunningham could see nothing else.
6.
“Last week I told you all that God had chosen us, this place, to begin showing the world that miracles existed. Let me hear an amen if ya remember!”
“Amen!”
“And who here believes that I was telling you the truth?”
“I did!”
“I’m sorry,” Alfred P. Cunningham said, “I didn’t catch that. Who thought I was telling the truth?”
“I did!” more voices shouted, echoing off the walls.
There wasn’t much to Alfred’s church. It was humble, just like he was, and just like his father before him. It was a two-room church, with ten wooden pews right in front of the pulpit. The second room was a small office just behind the pulpit, with a single desk and chair in it. Alfred did the church’s business back there, but he wasn’t above a little showmanship every now and then, either.
Ryan Bilbox wasn’t sitting out with the congregation today. No, sir. He was in the back and he was going to be rolled out just as soon as Alfred had these people in a roar to see him.
The Lord was speaking powerfully through Alfred today. He was using His servant well—Alfred walked all over the pulpit, making eye contact with the people in each row; his voice was in fighting form. The night before had been beautiful and Alfred was ashamed he ever doubted his God.
For his God was powerful, just, and above all, loving.
“Now the Lord came to me last night, brothers and sisters. He came and He spoke long, and He spoke well, and He told me what we’re to do! You see, did God simply give Job everything he wanted?”
“No!”
“No, he didn’t! Did he make Job show his faith? Show how much he loved God?”
“Yes!”
“
Yes. Yes, he did,” Alfred said, growing very, very serious. “And he won’t give us something even greater without the same sacrifice, without the exact same show of faith . . . Will he?”
“No,” the congregation whispered back.
“No, indeed.” Alfred looked down at his feet for a few seconds, feeling the crowd's emotion. They were waiting on him, their leader, to show them the way—just as he had waited for God to show him last night. “I love each and every one of you,” he said, still not looking up. “Love you like you were my own children. What I’m about to show you the rest of the world might scoff at. They might look at us and call us crazy.” His voice rose as he spoke, each sentence slightly louder than the last. “They might say we need to be in the looney bin over there in Birmingham, but we don’t believe that do we?”
“No.”
He looked up, his face flush and those flames dancing again in his eyes.
“I said, do we believe that?”
“NO!”
“No we don’t! Because we have the Lord our God telling us the truth, leading us! We don’t need man, and we don’t want man telling us what to do! Those people that might scoff, well when our angel arrives they’re going to have a lot of explaining to do, aren’t they?”
“YES!”
“That’s right! Terry, bring your son on out here, the boy that’s going to bring God’s righteous wrath down on all those that doubt Him and us!”
Alfred stepped to the side and the door behind him opened. Terry, dressed in his absolute best Sunday attire, walked out of the back room pushing the wheelchair in front of him.
Ryan sat in the chair, and though no one could see it, Alfred knew the wounds in his back were bleeding. Before the service, they had done a good bit to try and stem the blood flow, but the wings were just too damned heavy—even with him sitting in the wheelchair all day.
They’d put an extra thick coat over him, as well as padded the back and seat of the chair with black towels. If any of the blood did leak out, it would be tough to see. Not that Alfred cared so much about the child bleeding; he knew the Lord would make the boy well as long as they held faith.
Year's Best Body Horror 2017 Anthology Page 4