by David Haynes
Not like Baphomet. Not like Him. He was magnificent in every sense of the word. Last night, after he had stumbled into his bedroom and collapsed among the sweaty and sticky sheets, he had fallen asleep immediately. He slept like a log. There had been no early-hours sojourns to the sofa to watch Flesh 69, or toilet visits that seemed to take hours to complete. No, he had slept all the way through the night and woken in the gray morning for the first time in... Well, he couldn’t recall the exact date but it was just before he was posted to Iraq. That had been a very long time ago.
“Good morning, Nurse Jones!” He strode across the foyer toward the young nurse. My, what he would like to do to her. What he would do to her later – when it was dark and her shift was over. She was in for a treat.
“Good morning, Reverend,” she replied. Her smile was as false as his. She looked at his feet and frowned. “Did you forget something this morning?”
He laughed and shook his head. “Only how beautiful you are.”
She laughed back. He could feel his magnetism growing by the second. His power over these cretins had magnified by the power of a thousand overnight. He felt sharp. Focused.
He had slept soundly, but in those hours he had been treated to a slideshow of what his new life would entail. And what would be expected of him. There were those who did not know Baphomet, and those same people were not to be trusted. They were dangerous.
Even among the dying and the elderly, there were those who worked against Him. Those who sought to escape him by sending themselves to a place even He couldn’t reach. Cavendish didn’t understand it. Surely if they knew what He knew, felt what He felt, then they would leap into His arms just as he himself had. The mingling of the pain they must feel in those last few moments of life, with a pleasure so deep and all-encompassing, was surely too hard to resist.
And yet there were those who did. Thomas Newsome and Lucy Beaumont, for example. They had deliberately sent their souls to exist in some unreachable, bleak and confused world they called purgatory. Why? Why do that when he and his congregation could deliver them to Baphomet?
And then there was Frances Pace.
“You know the way, Reverend.” Nurse Jones scribbled something in the visitors’ book and continued with her work.
“This way!” he called out. They followed him. They might not be his followers exactly but they followed him. He gave them authority to be here. He controlled them just as Baphomet would have him do. He listened to their footsteps as they climbed the stairs behind him. Once or twice he’d been forced to look away from some of them. One man in particular seemed to wear a perpetual grin of knowing on his bearded face. While he couldn’t be totally sure, he felt the man might have done something to him yesterday. Not that the act itself mattered but he didn’t want the man thinking he had power over him. He didn’t. Nobody did, not even Adolf Shitler could tell him what to do this morning. His orders came directly from Baphomet Himself.
He reached the top of the stairs and paused. Should he visit Dr Hamilton to inform her of his presence? He tutted at the thought. Why should he think that was necessary? She did not know Baphomet, she was not to be trusted.
He turned down the corridor and walked toward Frances Pace’s room.
“Reverend?” Dr Hamilton’s voice called from over his shoulder. Where had she been hiding?
He turned to face her. “Good morning, Dr Hamilton!” he exclaimed as loudly as he could. It momentarily confused her. Good. “We will be visiting with Frances this morning. Please do not disturb us. In light of everything that has happened, Mr Lunn requested extra prayers for all of our guests. ”
He turned away before she could answer or throw any objections his way. He didn’t have time for her tittle-tattle this morning.
Today was all about Frances, dear old resistant Frances. They might not have delivered her soul yet but that was only because she was trapped in some netherworld that nobody understood; not alive, not dead, apart from this world and the next. And that made her difficult to reach. Difficult but not impossible.
He put his hand on the door. No need to knock.
“Ready for us?” he called out, pushing down and releasing the lock. “Because He’s ready for you.”
He walked into the room, making his way to the top of the bed. It would be easy to turn off the devices that kept her breathing, to unplug the monitors and to pull out the tubes that kept her fed. But that would serve nothing and no one. Death was inevitable; it was where you went next, that was where the debate lay.
By turning them all off, he would just send her away from Baphomet permanently and that wouldn’t do. He needed all the souls he could get, from all of the Churches of Broken Pieces and associated hospices just like this all over the country. Once he had enough, everyone would know the name Baphomet and they would worship Him and not some apathetic nonentity who clearly had no power. They would also know the name Reverend Hal Cavendish. The thought made his cock stiffen.
He watched the others take their place around the bed, just as they had done countless times before.
“Shall we pray?” He smiled at them each in turn. Even the bearded man received one of his winning smirks.
They nodded.
The humming began, filling the room with the familiar and constant drone. For so long he had missed the point, been deaf to what it really meant. He had regarded it as nothing more than new-age claptrap. The kind of crap toted by hippies on the community television channels. How wrong he had been.
There were words beneath the drone. Strange, wonderful words, as sweet as any birdsong. He saw their mouths moving, forming the words that he did not recognize. Antennae forced their way between the lips of the bearded man, the words, the prayer, the incantation giving strength to the slug creature. A creamy liquid ran from his mouth, dribbled into his beard and disappeared. It was nauseatingly captivating.
He looked to the others. The same thing was happening to them too. Slugs crawled across their lips, and with each word uttered they grew in size. Their slimy backs were covered in weeping pustules that oozed milky fluid onto the flesh of their hosts.
One by one they fell from the open mouths of The Deliverers, slapping onto the tiled floor like wet fish. The drone continued, the prayer went on. The prayer to Baphomet.
And as his head began to swim at the delicious chant, it stopped. At what point had he become naked? Who had removed his clothes? He looked about the room until his eyes fell on the bearded man again.
“You?” he asked.
He nodded a reply and then strode forward, the others making way for him. He stopped beside the Reverend and crouched before him. Cavendish smiled, his penis growing harder still. What a morning this was turning out to be!
He closed his eyes but what came next surprised him somewhat. Not that being kissed between his balls and asshole was unpleasant, just unexpected.
His body spasmed with a thunderous orgasm. It left him grasping for the bedsheets, teetering on the brink of unconsciousness. But no sooner had it arrived than it had gone. Images of his god swarmed through his mind. Baphomet, the goat-headed, beautiful god he loved. Baphomet was Him. He was Baphomet. He could feel the power, the strength the desire.
He crawled onto the bed and sat cross-legged by her feet, cupping his cock and balls. He had never heard the words that came from his lips before. He had never uttered them but they fell from his mouth like the well-rehearsed lines of an Oscar winner.
“In the first eon, I was the Great Spirit.
In the second eon, Men knew me as the Horned God, Pangenitor Panphage.
In the third eon, I was the Dark One, the Devil.
In the fourth eon, Men know me not, for I am the Hidden One.
In this new eon, I appear before you as Baphomet.
The god before all gods who shall endure to the end of the Earth!”
The congregation, His Deliverers, began their chant again. Was he Baphomet? Was Baphomet him?
He crawled over the
sheets toward Frances’s head. He could see her properly now. He could see her soul. How solid it was. How utterly unlike the ephemeral nonsense they had tried to teach him about in Sunday school. Her soul plunged through the bed, through the concrete foundations of the building to the very core of the Earth where it was anchored. He could see it all.
And all he would need do was cut it away, bite through the cord that kept her here and take it for himself. For Baphomet.
32
Wilson slid the Colt under the waistband of his jeans and pulled his shirt over the top to try and hide it.
They marched up the driveway toward the hospice without saying a word. His mind was busy trying to work out exactly what he would do when he got hold of Cavendish; how he would get him to tell them where Donovan was. That was before he killed him.
He glanced sideways at Courtney. Although he couldn’t see her face, he could imagine the grim expression. If he gave her half a chance, he knew she would grab the gun and shoot Cavendish herself. He suspected she would turn the Colt on herself given the opportunity too. And that was something he was desperate to avoid. She wanted her pound of flesh though. She wouldn’t be denied that under any circumstances.
Nurse Jones looked them both up and down as they strode across the foyer.
“Is he here?” Wilson asked.
“Is who here?” she replied.
“Reverend fucking Cavendish!” Courtney jumped in.
“Frank?” a voice called from up above.
He looked up. Dr Hamilton was at the top of the stairs. She waved them up.
“I thought I told you to wait here?” she said as they reached the last step. “You left before...”
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry but I had to.”
She turned to her friend. “Courtney? What are you doing here?”
Courtney pushed her hood back off her head. “Where is he? Where is that motherfucker?”
Dr Hamilton’s eyes widened. She looked from Courtney back to Wilson. “What’s going on here? What do you want?”
Wilson cocked his head to the side. He could hear the low droning hum of the Reverend’s followers.
“He’s in there, isn’t he?” He pointed toward France’s room.
She nodded. “For the last hour. I contacted the organization and was told to give him all the time he needed. I tried to get in but the door’s locked...”
Wilson was already moving. Courtney was running to keep up.
“Frank?” He heard Dr Hamilton’s confused voice call out behind him. He ignored it, kept moving forward.
He drew the Colt and, without breaking stride, fired a shot into the lock. It exploded and the door creaked open.
A wall of sound hit him before he could take a step inside. It almost pushed him back out into the corridor.
He felt his mouth drop open as if there were a brick in it. His jaw felt like it was resting on his chest.
The Deliverers crowded around the bed creating a shield but through a gap he saw Cavendish crawling over the bed. He was completely naked. Not one of them turned to look at him. It was as if they hadn’t heard the gunshot.
“Get away from her!” he called and took a step forward. That was when he looked down and saw the carpet of slugs that squirmed together in a slimy mass. He heard Courtney gasp.
“They’re not real!” he called above the din. His feet slid through the creatures as if they were made of smoke, yet with his second step his heel ground down on something that felt like gristle. Pus squirted over his boot, coating it with milky liquid. They weren’t solid but they weren’t entirely an illusion either. They were part of these people, part of The Deliverers’ poisoned souls. Souls claimed by Baphomet. In another few minutes, the slugs would be part of Frances Pace too. She would be one of them and in her state she was powerless to stop it happening.
Still, not one of the congregation turned around. They hadn’t heard him above their own voices, but as he grabbed the nearest one and pulled at her shoulder, they all turned as one.
“Get out of here before I...” He lifted the Colt but his heart gave an audible groan in his chest. It came up into his throat and lodged there like a cork. He tried to take a breath but there was no way any air was getting through.
He croaked and grabbed at his neck and chest. They were all looking at him, their eyes boring into him like diamond-tipped drill bits. It was intense but it was their voices that drove him to his knees. The humming, droning chant that passed through his brain, scraping it away, driving him down into the darkness. Were there words in there too? Strange, wonderful words.
The gun fell from his hand as he looked upward. Cavendish was on the bed. He was on all fours like an animal, the skin on his back taut, stretched tight over his spine. The wound had opened up again and inside Wilson could see a dark chasm. As his vision closed in from all sides, he saw slugs crawling from the wound. Hundreds and hundreds of tiny black slugs. They fell onto Frances Pace, onto her face, mouth and eyes. Cavendish leaned down and kissed her on the lips. Had his face not been an abyss of shadow and darkness, it might have been a tender moment. A bestial growl escaped his mouth as he pulled away, gnashing his teeth.
And then he was there again. Turning, rolling, spinning, climbing and falling all at the same time. The dark chamber of the between.
The walls of the vault contracted and expanded as if it were a living, breathing organism. As if something were trying to get in. He could hear them in here, he could hear The Deliverers’ chant. It was breaking through the walls. Something was coming through, using Frances Pace as a conduit. Breaking through to claim what it believed belonged to Him.
He was pushed up against the walls, just as he had been last night. Beside him, the deformed forms of the suicides writhed and screamed in agonized desperation.
“He’s coming!” they screamed. And the chant, the prayer to Baphomet, grew louder, more powerful.
He was thrown, along with the others, down to the dusty, cracked slabs of the floor.
“Help her!”
Wilson turned to see what had once been Richard Pace slither across the floor toward him. His legs gone, he trailed a single twisted bone behind him. He pointed to what had been the ceiling a few seconds ago.
He recognized her immediately. Frances Pace, her face a tortured mien of exertion, was trying to resist, trying to hold back the flow of effluent that poured into her from the walls. But it wasn’t effluent, he could see that now. It was the slugs and they dripped from her eyes, her mouth and ears in a stream. They fell to the floor in a sodden carpet and crawled toward the poor deformed souls who had fled here to escape.
Wilson felt his body rise, lifted by those very souls toward Frances. “Help her,” they wailed.
He reached for her arms and pulled his body to hers. The slugs crawled over her skin, leaving their silky, poisoned trail on her flesh. How could he help? He was useless here. How could anyone stop this?
“Kill me,” she whispered. “Stop them using me.”
He saw her as she was in the hospital bed then. Just briefly but long enough to feel the hideous pain she felt. Neither alive, nor dead, her soul lay in permanent torment; a vessel that floated between life and death. And now she was being used by something hideous. Her pain and suffering exploited in the worst possible way.
“Kill me,” she whispered again. “Let me go on.”
He raised his hands, pushed his fingers through the heaving morass of slugs and found her throat. He closed his eyes and squeezed. In the background, he heard the hum of her life support machine go quiet.
Frances Pace smiled. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“You motherfucker!” Courtney roared.
The sound of the gunshot pulled him back to the room. Out of that place.
The report was deafening and the flash blinding. Deliverers screamed as they ran from the room, kicking him in the head and body. A pair of bare feet, bloody and blackened, slid past his face, and Courtney fell to the til
ed floor beside him. Blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth.
The humming had stopped. He could breathe again.
Pulling his knees up to his chest, he rocked over, kneeling beside her. “No,” he whispered, putting his fingers to her neck. The pulse was there, good and strong.
Screams and shouts echoed throughout the building. He added one of his own. It was one of frustration.
“What the hell’s going on?” Dr Hamilton was beside him. She took Courtney’s head.
“She’s breathing,” he said, taking the Colt from Courtney’s hand. “Where is he?”
“Gone,” she said. “I saw him on the bed. I saw him.” She sounded in shock. “He was naked. And his eyes... I...Courtney shot him. She shot him! It hit his shoulder, I think. Jesus...”
He knelt beside her. “Which way did he go, Louise?”
“Down the stairs. Outside”
Wilson looked around the room. The slugs had gone, if they had ever been there at all. There was blood on the wall, on the sheets too. Cavendish’s blood. Frances lay still in the bed as if she were taking a nap and nothing had happened. Apart from the disheveled sheets, she looked none the worse for her experience. But, Wilson knew, the silent life support machine told a different story.
He blinked away the tears that scorched his eyes. There would be time to think about what had just happened later. But now he needed to find Cavendish.
33
For the second time that day, Wilson ran along the driveway toward the road. He gripped the Colt in one hand, making no attempt to conceal it. If Taylor wanted to stop him then so be it, but it would take a bullet to do it.
He reached the road, pausing to look first up and then down. It was a good thing he paused. The two MPVs that had been parked on the verge streaked away from the church with their wheels spinning. Had they taken him away?
He squinted through the rain at the church. For the first time since arriving at Hemlock Mill, the wooden doors were open. He sprinted across the road and ran inside without pause.