Ritual

by Graham Masterton

  They left the accommodation block and walked along a shadowy avenue of pecan trees, until they reached a small breezeblock building surrounded by a low whitewashed wall. A young man with the oval, pimply face of a halfwit was sitting on a chair outside the door, reading a Super Friends comic. As M. Musette approached, he stumbled up off his chair and let out a hoot of enthusiastic welcome.

  M. Musette ruffled the boy’s awkwardly cropped hair. ‘Ben has his uses, don’t you, Ben? If I tell Ben that nobody gets in or out of here, excepting me and my wife, then I know that nobody is going to get in or out of here.’

  He produced a key from his robes and started to unlock the building’s green-painted door. Robyn said, ‘All those people back at the accommodation block – did they actually conspire to lead Charlie to the Célèstines?’

  M. Musette raised one eyebrow. ‘Conspire is a very media kind of a word, my dear lady. But you could say that once young Martin had been observed by Mrs Foss, there was a certain concerted community effort to induce Mr McLean to come into the fold. It is not often that you find a boy of the right age travelling alone with his father, as Mr McLean was. Especially when the time of the thousandth thousandth is imminent.’

  ‘You mean everybody at Allen’s Corners knew?’ said Charlie.

  ‘Most of them,’ replied M. Musette. ‘They knew, and they rejoiced. There were, of course, one or two exceptions, like Mrs – what was her name now?’

  ‘Kemp,’ Charlie told him. ‘That woman you told your dwarf to hack to bits.’

  M. Musette tutted. ‘She was being very obstreperous. But come on in. Your son is here, he’s waiting for you.’

  M. Musette opened the door and led the way into the building. There was only one room, with one corner of it partitioned off as a shower and toilet. The walls were white, the floor was scrubbed oak blocks. Against the far wall, there was a hospital-style bed, covered with a white sheet. Martin was lying on the bed, wearing a simple white habit. His head had been shaved, and he looked waxy-pale, with circles around his eyes that could have been stained with beetroot juice.

  ‘Martin,’ whispered Charlie, and stepped forward with his hands held out.

  ‘Dad,’ said Martin, and managed the faintest hint of a smile.

  Charlie sat on the bed and took Martin is his arms and held him close. Martin felt different, thinner, and he smelled of the same herbs which permeated all of the Célèstine buildings. Fennel, and something else unidentifiable, something bitter.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Charlie asked him quietly. ‘They haven’t hurt you?’

  ‘No, Dad, I’m fine. I’m really fine.’

  ‘Have they been feeding you properly? They haven’t interfered with you, anything like that?’

  Martin prised himself free from Charlie’s embrace. ‘You mean sexually?’

  ‘I mean in any way at all.’

  Martin looked towards the doorway where Mme Musette was standing with her arms folded, the ice queen in silky white. ‘They’ve been treating me good, Dad. They brought me down here in a private plane. It was neat.’

  ‘You don’t know how good it is to see you,’ said Charlie. He was so choked up with emotion that he could scarcely speak. His eyes were filled up with tears. Martin touched his shoulder, and said, ‘It’s good to see you, too, Dad. It really is.’

  Charlie cleared his throat. ‘You know why you’re here, don’t you? You know what they’re planning to do?’

  ‘I’m all prepared for it. I’ve been praying and fasting and now I’m all ready. Tomorrow’s going to be fantastic.’

  ‘Martin, if these people have their way, tomorrow you’re going to die.’

  Martin smiled again, a little dreamily. ‘Am I supposed to be afraid of dying? Is that it?’

  ‘Martin, they’re going to kill you. Don’t you understand? They’re going to kill you, and that’s going to be the end of your life, period. No life hereafter, nothing.’

  Martin shook his head. ‘Tomorrow I’m going to do something for which most people would give their lives ten times over. That’s what Edouard says. Tomorrow I’m going to become part of the living saviour. Tomorrow I’m going to be part of our Lord Jesus Christ.’

  Charlie was shaking. He gripped hold of Martin’s hands, and said, ‘I’m begging you, Martin. I’ve never begged you for anything before. But I’m begging you now, please don’t let them do this to you. Give yourself some time, think it over, then decide.’

  ‘It has to be tomorrow,’ said Martin. ‘Tomorrow is the day.’

  ‘Martin,’ said Charlie, ‘if I mean anything to you at all, please think this over.’

  Martin wrapped his arms around Charlie’s neck, and pressed his forehead against Charlie’s forehead. ‘Dad, you don’t seem to understand at all. I love you. You’re my father. If you hadn’t given birth to me, I never would have been able to serve Jesus this way. Don’t you know how proud and grateful that makes me?’

  Under his breath, Charlie said, ‘You won’t be serving Jesus, Martin. Maybe you won’t be serving anybody at all, except those Célèstine yo-yos. It’s even possible that you’ll be serving the Devil.’

  Martin stared at him, their eyes only inches away from each other. ‘The Devil?’ he whispered. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that this ritual tomorrow, this Last Supper, it could have completely the opposite effect to what you believe. Instead of bringing down our Lord and Saviour from heaven above, it could raise the Devil himself from out of hell.’

  Slowly, very slowly, Martin began to smile again. ‘The Devil,’ he repeated. ‘From out of hell?’

  Christ, thought Charlie, I’ve gotten through. I’ve actually made an impression on him. Maybe now he’s going to turn around and start doubting what the Célèstines have been telling him. Maybe now, at last, he’s going to set himself free.

  Martin smiled even more broadly. I’ve done it, thought Charlie. I’ve done it, I’ve done it, I’ve done it!

  Then Martin began to laugh. He threw back his head and laughed and laughed, a weird high-pitched laugh of total mockery. He grasped his bare feet and rocked from side to side, looking, with his shaved head, like some hilarious young Buddha.

  ‘The Devil!’ he gasped. ‘You really believe that we’re going to raise the Devil!’

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ Charlie snapped. ‘You only have to read the Célèstine Bible. It’s a mixture of voodoo and Roman Catholicism and cannibalism and all kinds of ridiculous mumbo-jumbo. Martin––a million people have died for this moment, over the years. Men, women, and children. A million people have died in agony, for the sake of some twisted superstition. It’s practically genocide, this so-called religion. Do you seriously think that Jesus would have condoned genocide?’

  Martin stopped laughing, and stared at his father with distant, lambent eyes. ‘Jesus said, “Take, eat, this is My body. Drink... for this is My blood of the new testament, shed for many, to the remission of sins.”’

  Mme Musette came forward, stood beside the bed, and laid her gloved hand on top of Martin’s shaven head. Martin glanced up at her with a quick smile, like an obedient pupil, or an adoring pet. Charlie got to his feet and looked down at Martin and couldn’t think what else to say.

  ‘There is one thing more,’ Mme Musette told him. ‘When your son goes to the altar tomorrow, it is you who must willingly give him as a sacrifice.’

  Charlie stared at her. ‘You expect me to offer up my own son?’

  ‘It is his destiny, Mr McLean. You cannot deny him his destiny.’

  ‘I can and I will. You must be cracked.’

  M. Musette said, ‘It is necessary for the completion of the ritual. The father must willingly sacrifice his son. Do you remember what God said to Abraham when he offered to sacrifice Isaac? “You have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed will I greatly bless you.”’

  Charlie said, ‘I seem to remember that God spared Isaac’s life.’

  ‘In those days, God had no need of
it,’ M. Musette replied. ‘But now that His only Son has been crucified, He requires such a sacrifice in order for Jesus to live on earth once again.’

  ‘This is complete bullshit,’ said Charlie. ‘If you don’t let me take Martin out of here right now, I’m going to break your face.’

  ‘Dad!’ interrupted Martin.

  Charlie turned to him.

  ‘Dad,’ said Martin, more quietly. ‘I’m not leaving. I’m staying here. I’m happy. This is what I want. Dad – this is what I want more than anything else in the whole world.’

  Mme Musette stroked Martin’s head once more. ‘You see, Charlie? He’s determined.’

  ‘I’m still damned if I’m going to sacrifice him for you.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see about that,’ replied M. Musette. ‘We do have ways of making people do what we want. Not painful ways, mind you! We managed to bring you here simply by making it difficult for you. I could see what an obstinate man you were, right from the moment I first met you. Tragedy and failure usually make people grow obstinate.’

  Charlie said nothing. Robyn came up and took hold of his hand, and said, ‘Come on, Charlie, let’s leave it for now. While there’s life there’s hope.’

  ‘You’re right, my dear,’ said M. Musette. ‘And after death, there is glory.’

  Reluctantly, Charlie allowed himself to be led away. They visited the remaining eleven disciples, who were housed in what used to be the farm’s feed store. All of them were already mutilated, some of them severely. Dulled by disgust, Charlie and Robyn were introduced to a seventeen-year-old girl without legs or breasts or ears; a twenty-two-year-old boy who had amputated his entire body below the waist, and who was being fed intravenously; and a stunningly good-looking woman of twenty-seven, who had cut off and eaten her own feet. The building smelled strongly of bile and antiseptic, and there were seven nurses and two doctors in constant attendance, keeping these pathetic scraps of human meat alive and conscious for one more day.

  What Charlie and Robyn found most disconcerting, however, was the cheerfulness of everybody in the building, Devotees and staff alike. There was almost a carnival atmosphere, and most of the disciples were singing hymns and spirituals and laughing as if to cut oneself into pieces was the happiest privilege they had ever been given.

  Charlie stood in front of the woman with no feet for a very long time, while she hummed ‘Michael, Row The Boat Ashore’. After a while, he said, ‘Could I ask you your name?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘My name’s Janet. You’re Martin’s father, aren’t you? I saw you in Connecticut.’

  ‘Janet,’ said Charlie, ignoring her question. ‘Can you tell me why you’re doing this? Can you explain to me what it is that has made you mutilate yourself this way?’

  Janet’s eyes were bright. ‘I’m giving myself to Jesus. What better reason could I have than that?’

  ‘Do you have a family? Parents? A husband?’

  ‘I’m married, with two small children. A boy and a girl.’

  ‘And don’t you think your family needs you?’

  ‘Jesus needs me more.’

  Charlie talked to two or three more disciples, but each time he found their devotion to the Célèstines impossible to penetrate. They were like gentle, loving lunatics, who had discovered a dangerous but different reality, and could never be persuaded that what they were doing was madness.

  Outside the disciples’ building, Robyn said to M. Musette, ‘They all believe in it, don’t they? I mean, they all believe in it without one shadow of a doubt,’

  ‘They believe in it because they know it to be true,’ M. Musette replied. ‘Besides, what else does the world have to offer them? Money, perhaps. But not much more. Everybody has to have spiritual goals, if they’re going to be happy. If you give people a spiritual goal, their life is transformed, and you can never persuade them to go back to the time when their ambitions were circumscribed by material greed. Once you have felt Jesus’s seamless robe brushing against your face while you sleep; once you have heard Him murmur in your ear, you are won over for ever!’

  ‘I think Sergeant Duprée put it all in a nutshell,’ said Charlie. ‘He said you were a fruitcake.’

  M. Musette smiled. ‘Sergeant Duprée has to do what he is told, by his superiors. As long as he does what he is told, he can think whatever he likes.’

  Now they walked back across the farmyard towards the main building. ‘The last part of the guided tour,’ announced M. Musette. ‘Then we must retire to meditate and to pray, and to prepare everything for tomorrow.’

  He led them back into the corridor, and into the room where the trestle tables were all laid out. ‘This way.’ He beckoned them, and he took them across the room and along another shorter corridor. At the end of this corridor, to Charlie’s deep alarm, there were two stainless steel doors, with circular porthole windows.

  ‘The kitchen,’ he whispered. ‘The ritual kitchen.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mme Musette, who was right behind him. ‘But why are you hanging back? The kitchen is the most fascinating part of our tour.’

  ‘I don’t want to go in there,’ said Charlie.

  ‘You must,’ M. Musette told him. ‘How can you understand what is going to happen here tomorrow unless you see the kitchen?’

  ‘I don’t want to go in there, that’s all.’

  Robyn took hold of his hand. ‘Come on, Charlie, you’ll be all right.’

  ‘Yes, come on, Charlie,’ M. Musette mimicked. ‘It’s only a kitchen, you know.’

  ‘I had a nightmare about it,’ said Charlie. His legs refused to move forward.

  ‘We all have nightmares,’ said M. Musette. ‘The only way to break their spell is to confront them in reality.’

  ‘But I saw those same doors in my dream, those same stainless steel doors with those circular windows.’

  M. Musette shrugged. ‘In that case, you must have considerable powers of clairvoyance. Come along now, you mustn’t miss this for anything.’

  Charlie allowed Robyn to drag him towards the kitchen doors. M. Musette deliberately heightened the suspense by standing with his hands flat on the door, pausing before he pushed them open. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked. ‘There will be no blood. We haven’t started the ritual yet.’

  He opened the doors and marched ahead of them into the kitchen. Charlie and Robyn followed, still holding hands, and Mme Musette came behind.

  The kitchen was almost fifty feet square. It was tiled in white, with a single green band running around it, and it was artificially lit with fluorescent tubes hanging from the ceiling. In the centre of the room, there were twelve tables with stainless steel tops and gutters running all the way around them. Charlie had seen tables like that before, in Quincy. They were similar to the tables used for autopsies, and the gutters allowed the bodily fluids to run off into the drains.

  At the far end of the kitchen, there was a gas-fired range, large enough to serve a small hotel. Hanging up over the burners, there were rows of aluminium pots and pans, bainsmaries, woks, colanders, and ladles.

  They walked between the tables, their faces dully reflected in the stainless steel surfaces, like people who had drowned under ice. Each table was equipped with a full selection of Victorinox knives, butcher’s saws, and surgical scalpels. There was also equipment for medical emergencies: oxygen, dressings, and electronic resuscitators in case of cardiac arrest. Each table was also provided with a large tilting mirror, so that the Devotees could see what they were doing while they amputated their own limbs.

  ‘I feel sick,’ said Charlie, looking around. ‘This is even worse than my nightmare. This is worse because it’s real.’

  ‘I’m amazed that your Devotees can actually stand the shock and the pain of cutting off their own arms and legs,’ Robyn remarked to M. Musette. Charlie thought, here she goes again, once a newspaper reporter, always a newspaper reporter.

  M. Musette trailed his fingertips across the surface of one of the tables. ‘The h
uman body is a remarkable thing, Ms Harris. You may talk about worms being cut in half, and still wriggling away. But you can cut a human body down to practically nothing, you can cut a grown man down so small that you can carry him under your arm like a dog, and still he survives! And, of course, each time a man is reduced in size, his heart has less work to do, pumping blood around the length and breadth of his circulatory system, so the body in actual fact grows stronger and more capable of survival, right up until the very last coup. You know, there was a sideshow freak called Prince Randian, born without arms and legs. He lived until he was sixty-three, and fathered four children.’

  ‘But how do they stand the pain?’ asked Robyn.

  ‘All pain is relative,’ said M. Musette. ‘These Devotees are reaching for spiritual ecstasy, they feel very little pain. Some of them revel in it.’

  ‘And what about you?’ asked Charlie, looking at M. Musette keenly. ‘You’re supposed to be transformed tomorrow, aren’t you? You’re supposed to turn into Jesus Christ. Aren’t you frightened?’

  M. Musette turned to Mme Musette and gave her a smile. ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth,’ he said. ‘He is more than welcome to live inside of me.’

  23

  Charlie couldn’t sleep at all that night. Apart from his fear of what was going to happen in the morning, there was constant activity throughout the church compound as the Célèstines prepared themselves for the second coming. Charlie heard shouting and laughing and hymn-singing, and at about two o’clock in the morning, somebody started playing a guitar. He stood by the darkened window of his room, watching the moon slowly slide across the sky. All he could see was the row of pecan trees and the corner of the building where Martin was being held. He tried reaching Martin by telepathy – by concentrating all his thoughts into making Martin wake up and realize what he was going to do – but there was no response.

  He sat on his bed and bent his head forward and prayed. He hadn’t prayed like this since he was a child, sitting next to his father at the Episcopalian Church on Sunday mornings, smelling the pipe tobacco on his father’s suit, and staring down at his polished brown shoes.