Screaming to Get Out & Other Wailings of the Damned

by J. F. Gonzalez

  He felt that God was protecting him whenever he was in Lancaster.

  That meant a lot to him. Because for the past seven years he felt that God's adversary was always one step behind him, which was why he moved around so much. He was a drifter, taking odd jobs here and there, never staying in one place longer than seven months. He felt it was the only way to keep them from finding him.

  Only now he felt good, better than he’d felt in months. Getting back to Lancaster probably had something to do with it. The first time to the city he’d stayed at the Grace Baptist Church and Mission off Market Street and was impressed by it. Out of all the homeless shelters run by churches he had stayed at, Grace Baptist was one where they made you feel special, where they made you feel that God loved you, that you weren't just another homeless person.

  He had hopped a Greyhound bus from Springfield, Illinois where he’d spent two months working in a soup kitchen. Now as the bus rumbled into the city limits he gathered all his worldly possessions—neatly contained in one corduroy knapsack—and got ready to get off.

  Once the bus pulled into the Greyhound terminal downtown, Richard got off and began the four mile trek to Market Street where the Grace Baptist Church and Homeless Shelter was located. He was fairly confident he could get a bed there for at least a week until he found a job and saved enough money to pay for lodgings at a motel.

  When he got to the church he saw it had changed. It was now called the Lancaster Church of God.

  He stepped inside and found the office. A pleasant looking man with short blonde hair was seated behind a desk looking over some paperwork. He looked up at Richard and smiled. "How can I help you today?"

  "I was just curious about the change," Richard said, motioning outside. "Last time I stayed here this was the Grace Baptist Church. Is it still run by the same people, or—"

  "Yes, it is," the man said, rising from the desk and smiling. “We’ve just had a slight name change. I take it you once stayed in our homeless shelter?"

  Richard nodded.

  "And are you in need of a place to sleep now?"

  "Yes," Richard said, shifting from one foot to the other nervously.

  "We can accommodate you," the man said, stepping around the desk, holding out his hand. "I'm Pastor Matthews. I just started here a few days ago myself."

  Richard shook the pastor’s hand. It was warm and strong.

  Pastor Matthews led Richard out of the office and through a hallway, which he knew led toward the homeless shelter. "You know the drill here. You have a week, after which if you haven't found a job or lodgings we will try to help find one for you. Meals are at eight a.m., noon, and five p.m. We ask all lodgers to pitch in at the center, whether it's kitchen duty or helping the grounds keepers. Sound okay with you?"

  "Fine," Richard said.

  Richard found himself liking Pastor Matthews very much. That night he helped out in the kitchen. Later that evening, as he sat outside the church drinking a Coke, the pastor stepped out, noticed Richard seated there, and sauntered over. "Everything all right so far?" Pastor Matthews asked.

  "Couldn't be better."

  "Mind if I have a seat?"

  "By all means, help yourself."

  Pastor Matthews lowered himself down on the bench and for the next twenty minutes they engaged in light banter. When was the last time Richard was in Lancaster? What was it that he liked about the city so much? Oh, yes, Pastor Matthews said, he knew exactly how Richard felt. He agreed it was a beautiful city, filled with wonderful people, lovely architecture, and the surrounding Pennsylvania countryside was as sweet as can be. Richard found himself drawn into the conversation and before he knew it he was telling the Pastor about his travels, the places he had seen and lived in, the odd jobs worked at. Pastor Matthews nodded along, adding anecdotes about his own experiences. Before Richard knew it the sun was going down and he found that he’d sketched out his entire itinerary over the past seven years to a total stranger.

  Pastor Matthews rose to his feet and rubbed his back. "My, but it got dark quick. I didn't even notice the time, I was having so much fun talking."

  That brought a tinge of nervousness to Richard. He hoped he hadn’t revealed too much personal information so quick. Richard smiled. "Yeah, it crept up on me, too."

  Pastor Matthews turned to Richard and held out his hand. "I'll see you tomorrow, Richard. Have a good night."

  "You too." Richard watched as Pastor Matthews headed down the darkened walkway to the parking lot across the street where he got into a dark-colored vehicle and drove away.

  The following day was hot and sticky, and Richard stayed close to the church. He heard there was a crew needed for night-work to repair Route 30, but when he reached the main office all the positions were filled. Richard spent the rest of the day at the church helping out in the kitchen. Later that night he had another conversation with Pastor Matthews outside. And like the previous evening, he found himself telling the pastor a lot of things he hadn't spoken of in years.

  At first he was afraid he would spill the beans and tell the pastor about why he had really hit the road, but instead he found himself talking about his past before that horrifying incident occurred. He told Pastor Matthews about his days at UCLA film school, his apprenticeship at Sony, the independent film he’d made. He told Pastor Matthews about the screenwriting gig he got that netted him five grand per week. He told him everything except why he’d walked away from it all.

  Pastor Matthews never asked.

  The following three days passed with a sort of lucid tranquility. Richard rose early, had breakfast, checked out the classifieds, answered employment ads, went on job interviews. In the evening he had supper at the shelter and a talk with Pastor Matthews as the minister headed out the door. Richard felt relaxed and free around the clergyman. He felt he could trust Pastor Matthews with anything.

  On the sixth night as they sat outside talking, the subject once again came to Richard's time in Los Angeles and the successful career he once had. He was talking about the spacious luxury condo he’d had in Studio City, the Lexus he drove, the beautiful women he’d dated, when Pastor Matthews suddenly asked, "So what happened?"

  Richard sighed. He knew that things were coming around to finally telling somebody about what’d happened. He supposed he’d subconsciously wanted to tell somebody for a long time, and that since meeting Pastor Matthews he’d been giving out subliminal signals that he wanted the minister to ask him about it. He felt he could trust the man, so he took a quick look around and turned to Pastor Matthews. "Can we go to your office? I'd rather tell you privately then out here in the open."

  Pastor Matthews frowned and rose to his feet, his features concerned. "Of course."

  They headed back into the administrative wing of the church and Richard felt safer once they were in Pastor Matthews' office. The Pastor closed the door behind them and motioned for Richard to have a seat. Richard sat down and Pastor Matthews took a seat behind the paper-strewn desk. "Okay, Richard. I'm all ears."

  Richard took a long sip of the Coke he was drinking. "It's a long story. It's disturbing at times, and what I have to tell you might make you look at me different. You might think I'm crazy, but it's all true."

  Pastor Matthews looked serious. "If you don't want to burden yourself by telling me, I'll understand."

  "I want to tell you," Richard heard himself saying. He felt a rush of emotions bubble to the surface. He felt he had to tell the pastor, had to get it off his chest.

  "I'm listening," Pastor Matthews said.

  Richard thought about where to begin and decided to start at the beginning.

  "A few weeks before I...left to be on the road, I was house-sitting for an acquaintance at the studio I was working at. It was a home in the Trousdale Estates, and the house overlooked a small canyon. It was a beautiful house. I stayed there with a woman I was seeing, a...a porn star who was somewhat well known in the adult entertainment industry. Anyway, to make a long story short, o
ne night we were up at the house, in bed. The master bedroom overlooked the canyon and...well, there was a large window over the bed that overlooked a beautiful view of the canyon and the back yard of the house below us. We had the bedroom lights off and we were just, you know..." He gestured vaguely.

  "I get the picture," Pastor Matthews said.

  Richard nodded. "And when we were done we just kind of laid there for a moment, catching our breaths, letting the cool air from outside seep through the open window. And that's when we both heard the sound.

  "We sort of looked up and peered out the window down into the backyard below us," Richard continued. "And...I guess the best way I could describe it was that it first appeared that the people in the house below us were throwing a party. There were twelve or thirteen people in the yard gathered together in a circle. They even had a bonfire burning. Then...then they brought the girl in. She was naked and...two of them pushed her down on the ground and tied her wrists and ankles down with rope. She was gagged, but you could tell she was struggling. It wasn't fake at all. Tiffany and I were just sort of watching in shock as the group started moving in unison, like they were participants in some religious ceremony. They were all dressed in black robes with cowls over their heads. Then one of them—I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman at first, but I later saw that it was a man—came with a knife." Richard paused, licked his lips, his eyes wide with the memory. "He knelt beside her and stabbed her. Just drove the knife into her chest and began cutting. Then he reached into her chest and...he pulled out her heart, held it up as the people around him chanted in a sort of singing voice, and then he took a bite out of it." He closed his eyes, his breathing coming heavier now, his body trembling. "He passed it around to the others and they all took bites out of it. It was like some gross sort of communion."

  "My God," Pastor Matthews murmured. His eyes were wide with shock.

  Richard was barely paying attention to Pastor Matthews. His only concern was finally telling somebody the truth; this was the first time he had spoken of the events in such detail. "I was horrified. Tiffany was just beside herself. She almost screamed and I put my hand over her mouth and had to hold her down to stop her from going crazy. I kept thinking that if they heard us they would kill us. I got her calmed down and she wanted to call the police and I couldn't agree more. I called 911 and told them I had just witnessed a murder, told them where it happened, and then we just sat in the hallway and waited."

  There was silence for a moment. "The police came?" Pastor Matthews asked.

  Richard nodded, took another sip of Coke. "About thirty minutes later a squad car came to the door. By this time I’d managed to get Tiffany in some clothes; she was just hysterical. And I managed to get dressed myself. The cops were...well, they were pretty pissed off. Said they had gone to the home I’d reported seeing the murder at and they didn't find anything. They told the owners that an anonymous call came in about a murder that had taken place in the backyard of their home. The people that owned the home were obviously shocked. In fact, they invited the officers inside to look around. They all went into the backyard and...there was nothing." He looked up at Pastor Matthews. "No sign of violence, no blood, no evidence that a bonfire had been ablaze...in short, nothing! I asked the police if they had the right house and one of them rather sarcastically said, 'there's no other homes in this part of the canyon that your residence overlooks'. Then he went over to the balcony, looked down and said, 'yep, that’s the house.' Then his partner said that Tiffany and I oughta be taken in for filing a false police report.

  "I had to do some real fast talking to talk them out of it," Richard continued. "Even then, they almost arrested us. Tiffany was still in shock and was sitting on the sofa in a robe crying. That's when I was able to tell the officers that it was Tiffany that told me she’d seen the murder, that she was...that she had some mental problems and was under the care of a psychiatrist. I...I told them that I hadn't actually seen anything but that I believed Tiffany because she’d never lied to me before, that her mental state had been improving but that this must have been a sign that it was coming back." He looked down at the floor. "They believed that one; either that or they didn't want to waste their time with us anymore. They left and, once I got Tiffany under control, we left as well."

  "Why did you leave?" Pastor Matthews asked.

  "By this time I was so shaken up by what I’d seen and what the officers failed to find, that I felt like they—the people at the house—would be traveling up the hill any minute to find out who fingered them. So I grabbed Tiffany and some clothes and we got the hell out of there. I drove out the back way, heading north along Mulholland Drive to the valley, figuring if they were on their way they would be heading north up the road and we would miss them." He sighed. "It was a close call, but not close enough. We checked into a motel for the night in Sherman Oaks."

  Pastor Matthews didn't need to prod Richard anymore for the rest of the story. "I didn't know anything about the owners of the house below my friend's place. I wasn't entirely sure that we had...been found out, either. I stayed up and watched the motel parking lot as Tiffany slept. The next morning we figured the best thing for us to do would be to stay at the motel. I didn't want to go back to the house, house-sitting gig or not. Three days later my friend and his wife returned from their vacation." He paused. When he spoke again his voice was lowered, afraid. "Two days after that they disappeared."

  "Disappeared?"

  Richard nodded. "I found out about it a week later. By then I was fairly confident nobody had seen us at the motel, so I drove Tiffany and I over to my place. She was still very frightened, but as the days went by she got less paranoid. We talked about what we'd seen and we both agreed we hadn’t been hallucinating; we had witnessed a ritual sacrifice, probably a satanic sacrifice, and we’d gotten away without being seen. We were confident that the people at that house knew nothing about us, so Tiffany returned to her condo a few days later.

  "When I heard that Steve and Elizabeth were missing I was petrified. I knew who was responsible and I felt like I was to blame. They had gotten them...they had gotten Steve and Liz and killed them to keep them silent. They thought that Steve and Liz had...that they thought it was Steve and Liz that called the cops when it was really Tiffany and I." Richard felt like crying and he fought back the tears. "I was so scared. The police came and asked me a bunch of questions and I evaded them as much as I could. I didn’t want to be pinned to making that original phone call. The minute the cops left I went to North Hollywood to visit a friend of mine who’s a walking encyclopedia when it comes to occult lore. I told him what I’d seen, and after asking me a bunch of questions he finally gave me an answer that made some sort of sense."

  "And what was that?"

  Richard sighed. He took another sip of coke. He felt better now, more reassured. "He told me there was a group that...well, they were a secret society of devil worshippers who migrated down to LA from San Francisco in '68 or '69 and eventually went nationwide in the early seventies. They were a splinter group of a cult called the Children of the Light. Charles Manson apparently had ties with them. Anyway, my friend said that the goal of the group was to supposedly bring in the Anti-Christ to fulfill the biblical prophesies related in the Book of Revelations. I thought it was a bunch of bullshit at first, but my friend Mark told me that a guy he knew in Hollywood knew somebody who was a cult member back in the sixties. This guy told Mark that they’d actually performed some sort of ritual in which they actually called up the devil himself and brought a woman to him."

  "Brought?"

  "Yeah, brought." Richard looked at him, his features grave. "They brought a woman to him and the devil supposedly impregnated her. They kept her chained in a basement dungeon and fed her and stuff, and then apparently the baby was born and they took it." Richard shrugged. "Of course, Mark said the guy himself was pretty much a nutcase. Drugs had really fried his brain. He was like this forty-year old waste-case junkie. But Mark th
ought there was some truth to the story, based on some physical evidence collected by various journalists over the years. Mark said the guy told him that this group was pretty serious about this biblical stuff...that they really believed they were building up Satan's army for the final battle of Armageddon. That they were carrying out sacrifices and rituals to appease the Dark Lord and that they were still out there, that they had infiltrated society all over the world, that some of the most wealthiest and influential people in the world were part of this secret society."

  Pastor Matthews was looking at Richard as if he had just stepped off a space-ship. Richard rushed on with an explanation. "I didn't believe any of it either! I tried calling Tiffany and she wasn't answering the phone. I had to talk to her about it, see what she thought. So I drove to her place and found that it had been broken into." He choked back the words he was going to say, then blurted it out: "I found her dead in her bedroom. Her eyes had been plucked out of her head, she’d been raped—"

  "You don't have to go any further," Pastor Matthews said, leaning forward, his features kind and caring.

  Richard closed his eyes and willed back the images that had haunted him for the past seven years. "I have to, Pastor. I...that's when I left town. I just got in the car and drove. I didn't even go home to get my stuff. I just drove until I ran out of gas, which was somewhere in Arizona." He lowered his voice. "I got out of my car and walked to the next town. I had my credit card and a hundred and fifty dollars in my pocket. I spent the next few days taking out cash advances on my credit card until it was maxed out, then I dumped the card in a ditch. I took a bus to St. Louis and have been on the run ever since."