The Church of Broken Pieces

by David Haynes

  “Cavendish!” he shouted. “Where is he? Where’s John?”

  It had been a while but the church seemed tiny compared to the ones that lay under years of dust in his memory.

  “I know you’re here!” he shouted. There was no hiding in the main body of the building. There were only five rows of benches on either side of the aisle and he could see under all of them. He could also see all the way up to the altar, such as it was, covered in a dirty-looking bedsheet. There was a smell of dusty dampness in the air. Of dereliction. There were no hymnals, no Bibles, no flowers. There were no indications that it had ever been used. It made perfect sense.

  He closed the door and took two steps inside. Two large square windows on either side of the building were the only light sources. Outside, the day was a grim reminder of the approaching winter. Inside there was a bleakness, a constant funereal silence that Wilson knew was present regardless of the season.

  “Welcome!” Cavendish leaped onto the altar and opened his arms expansively, as if the church were full of worshipers. The only place he could have been hiding was behind the sheet. Blood dripped from his arm, where Courtney had shot him. It fell onto the altar but he appeared not to notice.

  Wilson raised the Colt and took aim. “You son of a bitch. Where is he? What have you done with him?”

  He threw back his head. Despite the weather and his nakedness, Cavendish’s stiff cock pointed straight upwards. Blood, both fresh and dried, coated his legs and feet. There was a child-like quality to his voice as he started speaking,

  “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!”

  He glowered at Wilson. “I cannot be shot, I cannot be killed. I am God, I am Satan and you will kneel before me! You will worship me!”

  “Fuck you!” Wilson said. He would have shot him there and then if he hadn’t needed him alive for just a while longer. He ran forward and launched himself onto the altar, at the Reverend’s torso. He slammed into him, sending them both crashing off the table and into the back wall. Wilson felt his fingers sink under Cavendish’s skin as he parted the wound on his back yet again. It made him want to vomit but he held on and pulled. The Colt was forgotten as it skidded across the floor.

  A flap of skin and gristle, as big as his fist, came off in his hand. He looked at it in horror, choking back the vomit. The new larger lesion on the Reverend’s back did not contain blood, bone and sinew. It contained slugs, thousands and thousands of tiny slugs writhing and crawling through his body, knitting together, forming a whole. Forming something inhuman.

  He pulled Cavendish over and straddled him, kneeling on his shoulders to pin him down.

  The Reverend was laughing, tears ran down his cheeks. “Like it up there do you, big boy? Is that how you ride your friend?”

  Wilson drew back his fist and slammed it into the other man’s face.

  “Where is he?” he shouted.

  Cavendish laughed again, blood coating his teeth. The church grew dark. Not by the sun’s hand, or lack of it, but only in Wilson’s vision. Nothing existed except for this vile creature beneath him. Cavendish, Baphomet, whoever it was, was about to get the beating of their life.

  Wilson hit him again, and then again and again until Cavendish’s face was no longer recognizable as human. Blood coated everything. It was everywhere.

  He stopped. He had to. He could no longer make a fist. Two of his fingers hung at crooked angles. Yet still the Reverend laughed. Still he laughed and still he tried to recite the words he had said a few moments before.

  Wilson crawled off him, sliding in the blood. He needed the Colt. If he could put a broken finger on the trigger and squeeze, he would kill him.

  He reached the gun and tried to hold it. It slipped from his grasp, becoming greasier and impossible to hold with each failed attempt. He roared with frustration as the Colt slid across the flags, coming to a rest at a door. He lifted his head. A small wooden door.

  He used the handle to pull himself upright and took a look over his shoulder.

  “If you’ve done anything to him, I’ll...” But Cavendish was still laughing, spitting his teeth and globs of blood into the air around him.

  He used his left hand to try the handle. He groaned – the door was locked.

  “John? John, it’s me. Open the door!” He put his head to the wood. Had he come seeking help from Cavendish just as he had this morning? What did it say about them both that they had come to what they thought was a church looking for answers? He hammered on the door.

  “John!”

  The Colt. If he could just pick it up, he could shoot the lock off and get to him. He leaned down, slid his forefinger through the trigger guard and lifted it. He wasn’t much of a shot with his good hand and he’d never tried with his left, but this was point blank.

  It felt incredibly heavy but he managed to heft it into position. Stepping back, he fired and in the same instant the door blew inward, splintering all the way down one side.

  Sitting motionless in the corner of the room, his eyes wide and frightened, was Donovan. To his chest he clutched a cheap-looking crucifix.

  Wilson ran forward and knelt beside his friend. “John? John, it’s me, Frank.”

  He checked him over quickly. There was no obvious sign of injury. Beside his mind, at least.

  “Come on, we have to go,” he said softly. He had no idea where they were going, or what they would do when they got there. He just knew they had to get out of Hemlock. Get out and never come back.

  Donovan was like a child. He went with Wilson’s gentle pressure to stand up but he wouldn’t let go of the crucifix. The tips of his fingers were white with the pressure he exerted on it.

  A siren echoed through the space. They were on their way to the hospice. It wouldn’t be long before Taylor and his men came here but he wouldn’t let them take John.

  He stepped out of Donovan’s cell. There was blood everywhere. Blood and small ivory-colored stones that were the Reverend’s teeth.

  But there was no Cavendish. A trail of bloody footprints led down the aisle toward the open door. He was gone.

  He took Donovan by the elbow. “We’re going right down the motel to get in the car, okay?”

  Donovan looked at him, through him.

  “We drive to Boothbay, we get some stuff and we go.” He was putting words to a plan he was creating on the move. He had no idea what he was doing.

  Wilson gave him a little shove to start him going and then followed behind. They had to move faster but he knew his friend was running on empty.

  They reached the door and stepped out into the rain. The Sheriff’s car idled in front of them, its beacons illuminating the Sheriff and his two deputies in a pulsing glow.

  “Put the gun down, Mr Wilson.”

  They leveled their own firearms at him.

  “And get down on the ground.”

  It seemed like a dream, like an awful nightmare, but as he lowered the Colt a bomb exploded in his chest. The impact rippled through his body, igniting smaller but equally intense salvos everywhere.

  He hit the ground before the Colt.

  34

  Wilson pushed the last of his clothes into the duffel. Ten days was a long time to spend in hospital, particularly if you spent most of that time thinking about someone you loved. The surgeons had opened him up like a tin can and fixed his heart, saved his life. But unless Donovan was on the road to recovery, there would be no celebration.

  “Ready to go?” his sister asked. “I’ve made up the spare room. You and dad can argue about the Pats all day long now.” Ellen winked at him and he smiled back.

  Did he want to stay at
her house? As generous as she was, as kind as she was, he didn’t. He didn’t want to burden her with any further worry. She had enough to cope with from their dad. But did he want to go home and be on his own? Not a chance.

  Every time he closed his eyes, that other place glided in. His memory of it was fading but the emotions, the feelings of despair and loneliness, were as strong as ever. He hadn’t talked to anyone about it. He doubted anyone would understand. Anyone except for Donovan, at least.

  “I want to stop by and see John,” he said.

  “Is that wise? The hospital have...”

  “I need to,” he interrupted. “Ellen, I need to.”

  She smiled and nodded. “I’ll take you,” she said, picking up his bag.

  “I can take that,” he said, reaching for it.

  “No you don’t.” She walked quickly out of the room before he could make a grab for it.

  He had been unconscious in the immediate aftermath of Hemlock Mill but in the days that followed his surgery, Sheriff Taylor turned up at the hospital. Ellen tried to send him away but Wilson insisted the man be allowed in.

  He was glad. In a search of the Reverend’s house they had found various pieces of evidence linked to the murder of Phil Moody. One of which was the dead man’s right testicle on a shelf in the cupboard. It was next to a jar of peanut butter. They also found traces of DNA in the pipes beneath the sink and in the bathroom.

  They found Reverend Hal Cavendish wandering through the woods down by the mill. He hadn’t spoken a word of sense since. Taylor didn’t elaborate on exactly what he was saying though and Wilson didn’t ask.

  The Sheriff just wanted an end to the whole matter. He wanted the Church of Broken Pieces and the hospice out of his town, and decided it was prudent to overlook certain matters which had come to light. Minor matters such as firing the Colt in the hospital and the wounding of Reverend Cavendish. Whether or not he ever put his finger on what bothered him about Wilson and Donovan, he never said. It was better that way. Donovan was off the hook and was released from the state’s care to the best mental hospital in the state.

  He was talking again, barely, but wouldn’t be parted from the crucifix. The only word he spoke with any degree of clarity was ‘Baphomet’. One day he would recover, he had to, but when he did they would never talk about what happened in Hemlock Mill.

  He looked out of the window and watched a pale sun try and force its way through the leaden skies. It wouldn’t be long until they were back in Boothbay. Maybe later they could sit on the harbor and watch the...

  Ellen’s phone rang, interrupting a tedious commentary on the radio about political reform. She flicked a stalk on the steering wheel to answer it. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Ellen.”

  He recognized the female voice immediately and turned to his sister. “Can she hear me?” He had no idea where the mouthpiece was.

  “Frank, is that you?” Evidently she could hear him.

  “Dr Hamil... Louise. Yes, it’s me.” He didn’t know what to say.

  There was a deep sigh. “It’s great to hear your voice, really great. I’ve called Ellen every day to get the updates. How’re you feeling?”

  He shot his sister an angry look. She didn’t turn, just watched the road. She hadn’t mentioned any phone calls.

  “Sore,” he said. “But better than I was. And you?” He closed his eyes, fragments of Hemlock Mill were creeping into his mind. He didn’t want them there. “And Courtney?”

  “She’s leaving town tomorrow. Closing the diner, taking whatever savings she’s got and... and just driving away. Best thing for her, I think, getting out of here. I’ve got an interview for a job in Brunswick next week.” There was a pause. “I don’t know the place but it’s got to be better than this. Do you know it?”

  “A little.”

  “Maybe you could show me around. We could have coffee?”

  “I’d like that,” he said. “I’d like that a lot.”

  “Me too.” There was a pause. “And John?”

  How could he answer that? “It’ll be a while,” he replied, looking at his sister. How much did she know about what had happened? “He’s strong though. He’ll get through it. I’ll make sure of it.”

  There was a pause again.

  “You’ve got my number,” he started. “Give me a call when you’re down in...”

  “I need to tell you something, Frank.” She took a deep breath. “You know Frances died, don’t you? That morning when... when all hell broke out, she passed away.”

  He swallowed. He knew she was gone the moment he came out of the between. He had come to a peace with what he did to help her and the others. Without Frances, all those souls trapped there could finally pass on. It was the path she had chosen and he was content with it.

  It was impossible to imagine that Richard Pace had known how this would play out. Impossible. But he must have known something, more than he let on about what was happening at Hemlock Mill.

  Maybe that’s why Pace had known Wilson would not be able to resist taking the bait. Maybe Pace’s suicide had not been the act of a man who had given up. Maybe it was something different, the opposite of giving up, a deliberate sacrifice to save his mom’s soul. Who knew?

  “Frank? You okay?” she asked. “I thought you’d want to know.”

  He nodded. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ellen turn her head.

  “Fine,” he replied. “That’s very sad.”

  The call ended naturally a few dead-end conversations later.

  “Do I want to know what happened up there, Frankie?” Ellen asked. “The media have been all over it. This Reverend they keep talking about. Did you meet him?”

  “Briefly,” he answered. “I wasn’t a fan.”

  Wilson knew it wasn’t over. There would be other conduits just like Frances Pace. People trapped in some never-ending shadow world that the Church of Broken Pieces could exploit. Someone that Baphomet could use to claim the souls of those poor wretched creatures who inhabited the between.

  For now, though, that wasn’t Frank Wilson’s fight. He closed his eyes and tried not to hear the screams of the souls that had already been claimed.

  35

  Theo Lunn concluded the press conference, smiling as if he had not a worry in the world. He walked off the podium and pushed his way through the curtain. Damage limitation, that was what this was.

  The organization had been tainted by the events at Hemlock Mill, but not irreparably so. There were always going to be casualties in an endeavor such as this, but it was managing those casualties sensibly that would keep them in the long term game.

  Cavendish was such a casualty. The organization could distance themselves from him quite easily. A single pedophile or even a hundred had not damaged the Catholic Church beyond repair, so why should a single psychopathic murderer do the same to the Church of Broken Pieces?

  It wouldn’t. They had the resources, the expertise, and more importantly the followers to ensure that didn’t happen. Cavendish had been thrown to the wolves and they would chew on his flesh for a day or two, then something bigger and more exciting would happen. His bones would be ground into the dirt. Forgotten.

  Still, he had questions to answer and those questions would come from more powerful men than a second-rate journalist. They would come from a different place.

  *

  Hal Cavendish touched his face tentatively. His winning smile was gone forever. At least four of his teeth were gone and his nose was now smeared across his face like a pancake. He wouldn’t win any beauty contests. It didn’t matter, none of it mattered because Baphomet was inside him now. He could feel the power, the strength and vitality coursing through his naked body.

  He had been promised a promotion. Well, not quite promised, but he belonged somewhere better than some lunatic asylum. He belonged in New York City and as soon as he could leave, that was where he was going.

  He didn’t need Adolf Shitler to tell him what to do, or w
here to go now. He had Baphomet for that.

  He closed his eyes and stared at the goat-headed god that lived in his mind.

  They winked at each other.

  The End.

  David Haynes Fiction Writer

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35