The sun seemed to freeze on the horizon, as if stunned to find Angela and Alex alive, and walking hand-in-hand down Highway 7. Angela, herself, was in shock that the night had not claimed them both, so she squeezed her son’s palm just to be sure. It was true. They had survived, though not unscathed.
The awakened day revealed every battle wound Angela had collected. Her arms were bestrewn with deep gashes from the Behemoth’s claws, while colourful bruises and scrapes from the roof of the church marred her legs. A double coat of blood was unevenly lathered over her torso and face. She smelled like smoke and metal.
Although they walked together, Alex had not spoken a word to her. He lumbered alongside Angela like a zombie. His eyes looked straight ahead of him, as if staring at the impossible end of the endless road they traveled.
Once the repetitive sound of feet against pavement became too grating, Alex finally spoke.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Home,” Angela responded with a deep-seated rasp.
“Home?”
“It’s where we live, Alex.”
“I don’t want to go there.”
“Yes you do, sweetie. It’s best we keep moving. We’re just going to walk and walk and walk, until we reach our door.”
“But, I want to see the forest man.”
“You can’t,” she said, shaking off some soot from her shoulder.
“Why?”
“You just can’t.”
“But why?” he hollered.
“Cause mommy burned him up!” Exhaustion had dismantled her parental filter. She was raw. Alex could have asked her anything and she would have answered with the truth, even if it hurt, even if it was terrible.
“Like everyone in the church?” questioned Alex.
“That’s right, just like everyone in the church. I burned them all up.”
“Even dad?”
“Yes, especially your dad,” she said quickly, then amended, “Well, no, not your dad. He was popped in half by the forest man, just like breaking a loaf of bread.”
Alex remained silent as he considered what his mother had just confessed. She was a murderer, as he had come to understand the definition. Then again, it sounded like everyone was. He didn’t want to walk down this road anymore. He was tired and confused. He wanted to be swept away by the grace of the forest man. Within the beast’s presence, Alex had found an alluring tranquility. All he could think about was being wrapped up in that cozy blanket once more.
He pulled his hand away from Angela.
“What are you doing, Alex?”
“I’m going home.”
“Yes, you are, that’s exactly where we’re headed.”
“No, mom. I’m going to my home. You go back to yours.”
“It’s our home we’re going to, not mine. You’re still my son, no matter what lies that beast told you.”
“He didn’t lie!”
“That’s all he did, Alex! That’s all anyone did. Everyone lied. Everyone.”
“I’m not going with you.”
Angela’s attention was diverted when she spotted a van approaching from far off, down the road. It was still about a minute away, but she nonetheless started to wave it down. So hectic was her flailing, that her arms were liable to be thrown right off her body.
“Yes! Oh, please see us,” Angela yelled excitedly. “Alex! We’re getting out of here!”
She secured her arm around Alex and pulled him close. Angela was anxious to get as far away from the church as possible. She was sure as the distance grew between them and the beast, Alex would gradually come back to her. All they had to do was get in that van.
The routine of opening a car door, taking a seat, and buckling up crossed Angela’s mind. It seemed so hysterically mundane that she couldn’t help but release a brief, if slightly insane, chuckle. Imagine, clicking the seatbelt into place. Click. Safe. Done. She laughed again, this time with full force of her gut.
Her amusement stopped when the van failed to slow down. On the contrary, it had gained in speed. And the vehicle..she had seen it before. The problem became one of placing it to a time and location. Yes, in the church parking lot. Underneath the dirt and ash it had collected, it was Gary’s van. But it couldn’t be Gary behind the wheel. Rick would have been just as impossible, and she doubted the Behemoth knew how to drive. Who ever it was, they didn’t look interested in offering a ride.
The van swerved off the road, onto the shoulder, and aimed its wheels straight toward Angela and Alex, tossing up an angry fog of dust behind it.
Angela had two options in front of her, but not enough time to properly consider either of them. She could jump with Alex into the ditch and hope the van would not follow, or she could push Alex out of the way, and guarantee his survival by sacrificing hers. The choice between life and death had almost become tiresome, and she worried she no longer had the energy for it. Her mind was detached, as if it floated ponderously three feet to her left. So, she let her hands decide for her.
She pressed both her palms against Alex’s shoulders and shoved him down the grassy slope. He rolled through the green thickness and settled, gently, in the bottom of the ditch.
Angela had no time for last words, or even a final glance. The snarl of the spinning wheels was already upon her.
She turned to face it.
Suddenly, her mind returned to her. A rapid succession of desperately meaningful images, people and moments from her lifetime, coursed through her head. She wondered if she should have forgiven her father when she had had the chance, what her grandmother would have been like if she had ever met her, and what had become of the boy, Steven Brachmayer, who had taken her virginity in the ninth grade. Some proved more trivial than others, as she found herself wondering what happens to the two lovers in her trashy, pulp novel. She assumed, by the end, they worked things out. This mixed-bag of snapshot memories had no continuity. Each thought shuffled through to the next, as if nothing was connected. Finally, she recalled the great bonfire of the church. She saw the faces of the congregation melted and wrinkled, their eyes replaced by spouts of smoke, their reproachful tongues, cooked and swollen. They had wronged her, but she had also wronged them, and she regretted it. She thought of the disintegration of her beliefs, and her new abiding faith in faithlessness. She thought of her son having to continue on through this godless world without her. She thought of the lessons she never got to teach him. She thought of being remembered. She thought of being forgotten. She thought of Clara. She thought of the determined, yet futile beating of her heart and the ache of her body. Her final thought was of the mysterious patterns of her thoughts – the simple miracle of the act of thinking itself. She focused on how many more she might be able to fit in before the van hit, and what thought might come next.
Nothing came next.
The bumper connected first. It cracked her shins in half and sent a devastating ripple-effect through her joints. Her bones shivered loose from her flesh, as the brunt of the van compacted her torso. Her elbows and knees unlocked from their counterparts, and spun wildly in all directions, as if she were a windup toy. The less-solid parts of her body, such as her stomach, poured out over the windshield, and rained down upon both the van and the ground on which it drove. Angela Morris was spectacularly undone.
The van, with a new, brilliant red paint job, skidded to a stop once Angela’s body had been exploded from the face of the Earth. Not much of her remained – at least, nothing recognizable. A few strands of her hair gave away which part of the spill used to be her head. Her face, splashed in blood, was nestled next to the contortions of her spine. Her left eye was open, the other locked shut, like a devilish wink to greet the Reaper.
The collision happened so fast, Alex missed his mother’s grand martyrdom. He raised his eyes and saw only red. Everything was red. Although he hadn’t witnessed the act itself, he understood what had happened, and what Angela had done. His mother’s body, it seemed, was just as malleable as the forest man had sa
id. Life really was made of mere globs of putty and the proof was on display, splashed all across the road.
The van rattled into reverse and backed up next to where Alex lay. The front of the vehicle was badly dented, contributing to the chug of its engine.
Alex stood and brushed off the grass that clung to his shirt.
The side door of the van slid open with a tremendous metal clang. Like a curtain being lifted, Angela’s murderers were suddenly revealed.
Looking entirely out of place behind the wheel was Matthew, still wearing the soot of the fire that had claimed his grandmother, as well as his congregation. Manning the sliding door was Susan. She too appeared to have been brazenly seared. They both stared at Alex expectantly.
Alex stared back.
“Come on, Alex, we’re taking you home,” Susan said warmly, as if she were rescuing him.
“Home?” he asked.
“The Behemoth wants you back.”
“He does?”
“Of course he does. He needs you. We need you. We’re all in his service now.” She smiled and offered him her hand.
Alex hoped it was true. With both his mother and his father gone, there was not much family left, in fact, none that he knew of.
“Alex,” Matthew added, “you belong with us. Trust me. We’ve seen it too. Hop in and we’ll go meet the beast together.”
“You saw it?”
“Yes. We saw it all. He found us in the field and showed us the world, the real world. How it used to be.”
“The world on fire,” Alex added quietly.
“You’re meant to lead us, Alex. You can hear him like no one else can. Please, come back with us,” Susan pleaded. She stretched out her hand to make it a little more enticing.
More than anything, Alex wanted out of this tragedy. He knew his mother would never again be by his side to guide him. He had no delusions about that. So, what choice did he have but to return to his precious giant in the woods?
Alex took the hand that had been offered.
CHAPTER 51
The carcass of the church smoked like an ashtray, balanced on the edge of Davidson’s field. A few twisted pillars of brick and scorched wood still reached for the sinking clouds above, but no matter how hard they stretched, they could never hope to recapture what had been lost. The home of fellowship had been utterly devoured. St. Paul’s United Church was no more.
A handful of firefighters tromped through the coals, while police cruisers encircled the area. A dozen emergency vehicles had gathered around the steaming pit, which was set aglow by flashes of red and blue lightning.
Once they confirmed that the fire had not only claimed the building, but also its congregation, waves of devastation began rolling in. It hit everyone at different times, but no one was spared the weight of the flood. These singed bones were once their friends, their family members.
The local paper called it Judgment Day. Headlines dramatically declared it the greatest tragedy in the history of the county, which, to that point, was true. Alas, despite the media hubbub, headlines and breaking reports, the ones left behind would never be privy to all the sordid details. However terrible the fire looked – and it did look terrible – no one could have imagined the profound horror that had taken place. The secret agony of the congregation had been buried in ash, reduced to a featureless black smear besmirching the flattened planes.
While the rest of the world was busy sorting through the carnage, the sound of little footsteps echoed through the Burward forest.
The children of the congregation, led by Matthew and Susan, marched merrily toward the Behemoth’s clearing in an orderly line, with their feet bouncing along the ground like playful goose steps. All the kids were present and accounted for, including Alex, Stanley, Samantha and Dylan. Each one wore a look of reverence, with their eager heads turned toward what was left of the beast’s temple.
Earlier that morning, before the first emergency vehicles arrived, the children visited the remains of the church and had taken certain keepsakes. In their arms, they carried pieces of what was left of their parents. Stanley gripped a dusty bone from Michael’s leg, while Samantha lovingly hugged onto Emily’s ribcage as she would a teddy bear. Each child brought with them their own ashy bit of memorabilia as an offering to the beast.
However, the bones swinging in Alex’s hands were not blackened by soot like the others. Clenched in his left fist was a bloody jaw, while in his right, he held the rest of his mother’s skull with his two fingers hooked through the eye sockets. Both items looked freshly peeled.
Twigs cracked under their delicate feet, as the children gathered around the scorched car. The sagging vehicle jutted forth from the pile of wood like an old bombshell. The roof of the car had melted into itself, and the interior had been completely hollowed by the fire.
Burnt wood beams that used to comprise the temple sprayed from the front of the car like a living Rorschach test. The inky swell of the wood had a reaching quality as if it attempted to eclipse the car, and perhaps, the children along with it.
“Well kids,” Susan announced to the group. “Did we bring anything for the beast?”
A few of them nodded, and then placed the bones of their parents among the remains of the temple.
Alex cleared a flat space for himself, near the centre of the scorched monument. He gently laid the jawbone down as a base, then fitted the skull into it with a satisfying click. The two pieces snapped together rather nicely.
“I love you, mom.” Alex’s whisper was so modest, even he could barely hear it.
He took a step back to admire the altar they had raised from the rubble. The bones extended naturally from the twisted coals, but it was the shimmering red of Angela’s skull that stood out like a ruby and gave the composition focus.
Susan continued, “We entrust to him the bodies of the ones we have loved, and know that if we remain faithful, they will never truly be lost.”
“Praise the Behemoth,” added Matthew.
“Will we ever see them again?” asked Stanley, who hadn’t taken his eyes off his father’s bones.
Before Susan could speak, Alex stepped out from the cluster of children. He stood in front of the burnt temple and drank deep of its smoky air.
“Of course we will,” Alex responded. “The Behemoth showed all of us the path. We just have to follow.”
“That’s right, Alex.” Matthew wore a proud smile.
Susan clapped her hands together, and with a bright face asked the children, “We’ll never forget what he showed us, will we? No, no we won’t. And we praise him for it. He saved us. Now, lets hear it. All together...”
The children recited in unison, “In the name of our god, the Behemoth, ruler of wood and stone, of blood and bone, and keeper of our eternity, we pray.”
Despite these words, and an exhaustive search, the new congregation could not find their god. It was no longer stalking the tunnels of the Burward forest, nor was it slumbering in its desecrated temple. The field was empty, and all had grown silent.
As Alex stared into the pitch-black underbelly of the rubble, a few wisps of smoke drifted up through the boards. Whether this fog was just the remnant of forgotten cinders, or the precious breath of their god was impossible to say. So, he took it on faith.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Craig Stewart is a Canadian author and filmmaker who learned how to count from the rhyme, “One, two, Freddy’s coming for you.”
He’s a creator and connoisseur of everything horror; never afraid to delve into the dark, and then a little further. His written works include short stories, film scripts, articles, and most recently, a novel. He has also written and directed several short horror films that have enjoyed screenings across North America.
Don’t be afraid to reach out to him on twitter: @TheCraigStewart
Or visit his website: everythingcraigstewart.com
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