Widowmakers: A Benefit Anthology of Dark Fiction
Page 70
Celia writhed feebly, but found that her battered body had been tied down to the altar table. The music wore on until it clumsily came to its climax and he stood over her, his hands high above his head. The church walls shook with the reverberating organ music and dust motes danced in her vision. As all fell silent he took up a knife, kissing the blade reverently as if in some kind of blessing. He lowered it until it was just above her forehead.
He addressed the women in the pews “We are gathered here today to welcome number fourteen to the fold.”
He brought the tip of the blade down into her flesh, scoring her forehead. The searing pain brought tears to her eyes, and when her blood came fast and hot, it ran into them.
“We shall also mourn the passing of seventy-one.” She could hear violence in his voice as he stepped aside and behind him was an inverted cross and the corpse of a naked women nailed to it, the number seventy one carved into her forehead. Celia was grateful now that her years of cocaine abuse had nearly abolished her sense of smell, yet what did seep in caused her to vomit uncontrollably.
“I don’t allow such nonsense in here!” he brought his fist down crushing the bridge of her nose. His outburst sent the other three women cowering amongst the pews.
Celia swallowed her tears and wept, “OH GOD, PLEASE, JUST LET ME GO!”
“God can’t hear you here, he has no power here, ask them.” He nodded to the three terrified women that huddled together. “I AM GOD, I AM THE DEVIL, THIS WORLD BELONGS TO ME AND NOW YOU DO TOO!”
Spittle hung on his lips and the blood rushed to his cheeks. His hound growled and paced the floor and she knew with just a whistle from its master, it would eat her alive. With a slice of his knife he tore free a decaying slab of meat from seventy one’s thigh and tossed it to the beast.
“Teach her the rules.” He commanded the trio of mangled women whom he called his wives.
He cut Celia’s bindings with his gory blade and slapped a heavy shackle around her ankle. He mopped his face with the back of his sleeve and left her there. She rolled from the altar to the splintering wooden floor, her boots had been cut off and her pack was gone. He made his way to a coat rack beside the door and busied himself putting on a clean shirt. “Be a good dog.” He smiled down affectionately at the beast as it hungrily lapped up the remainder of its putrid dinner.
The car roared to life and, through the dusty window, she watched him prepare to depart.
“Don’t cry too much.” Said sixty-eight. “At least he spared you, if it weren’t for seventy-one going he would have marked you as a sow.”
“What does that mean?” Celia questioned.
“What do you think it means?” the monstrous woman asked. “You really can’t be that dense?” She dragged her chain along beside her and sat beside Celia who cradled her broken arm. “You would’ve been cut up like the others,” she pointed to the ceiling and the many photos, “Fed to the dog, fed to us.”
Celia looked up to the adornment of what was left of his victims. “We can get out of here, call the police,” she desperately offered.
“There is no getting out,” a second wife added, rubbing the number on her forehead, eighty-two. “There are no police, only him, just be thankful he is too old to consummate your marriage.”
The third and last wife, ninety-seven, nodded but spoke not a word. Celia looked back to the window as the engine of that old car revved with such ferocity she thought the motor might combust. He threw it in gear and whipped the car around, kicking up rooster-tails of powdery dust. A peculiar orb of light materialized before him, it looked like ball lightening that danced with electricity and pulsed a light blue hue. It began to expand, pulling itself wider and wider until it was large enough to accommodate the old black car. In astonishment and sickening hopelessness, she watched it open and on the other side there was a starry night sky and a stretch of highway. He flipped on his headlights and she recognized a crooked saguaro, the same cactus she had stopped beside the night she took a ride from the old man. He punched the pedal and the car was obscured in a combination of dust and white electricity that pulsed through the arid environment until it was at last swallowed up.
The passageway closed in the blink of an eye, fading to nothing but a pin prick of light and then it was gone, he was gone. She was left there with the three women, those that had lost any semblance of humanity at his hands and a dog that was raised to eat human flesh.
“There isn’t any way out.” The old woman pointed to her forehead. “I have been here since nineteen sixty eight. From your marking, I take it that the year is now twenty fourteen.”
Celia nodded and began shaking, weeping pitiful sobs until she hacked and gagged.
“Imagine if a gift like that had been bestowed upon a man with a kindly soul, one that could have used it in some way for the good of people but instead it was given to such a vicious man,” Sixty-eight sighed heavily. “He could have changed the world but instead he created his own here, a place to carry out fantasies that couldn’t be concealed on the other side, a place where God and the Devil are one in the same, they are both him.”
Eighty-two looked to the corpse of seventy-one and added. “No one makes it out of here alive, she tried, but as the days go by I wonder if a fate like hers would be so bad?” she turned and looked to the window and spoke the very question that was passing through Celia’s confused mind. “I often wonder who he is on the other side.”
* * *
The meatloaf was nearly finished. The mashed potatoes and green beans were warming on the stove top. She had set the table just how he liked it and smoothed her hair. She reapplied her lipstick and waited for him on the sofa. It wasn’t long before she heard the rumbling of his car’s engine. She grinned, it was his pride and joy, he had that old car since before they were married and refused to give it up just as he refused to give up his job as a traveling antique salesman. He spent a lot of time on the road but he always provided really well for them so she never complained. She heard the jingling of his keys in the door and she stood to check her makeup once more in the mirror above the fireplace, she wasn’t as attractive as she used to be but she knew that neither was he.
She loved him even as his hair faded white and his teeth grew yellow, he was the gentlest man she had ever known, not a mean streak in him to be seen in all thirty eight years of marriage. He came through the door and affectionately swept her up in his arms. “My old seventy-six!” he teased and held out a small jewelry box before her eyes.
“It’s beautiful,” she kissed his cheek and smirked. “I thought you had ran out on me with a younger woman!” she winked and marveled at the anniversary gift her loving husband had brought. “Not in this life, darling!” he answered with a yellow-toothed grin.
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