Calamity

by J. T. Warren

  Sasha was wearing her cloak again, standing next to the bed. Chalice in one hand, knife in the other, she smiled. Shadows danced on her face from a lit candle on the nightstand.

  “You’ve been out for over an hour.”

  He sat up quickly. The sun had set a while ago, darkness only waiting outside her bedroom window. Paul was waiting for the signal; the cellphone was in his jeans pocket. Where were his jeans?

  “My clothes?”

  She picked up the black cloak draped on the bed. “You need to wear this or my mom will know something’s up.”

  “You didn’t throw my jeans in the tub, did you? My sister’s cell was in there.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “Your clothes are fine.”

  He nodded, started to bunch up the cloak to slide over his head. After the deed was done, he could hunt for his clothes. It wouldn’t be good if the police searched the house and found two sets of his clothes. He’d have a lot of difficult questions to answer.

  She held out a clear glass with brownish liquid in it. Something fizzed in the water, forming a white cloud. “Here,” she said.

  “What is it?”

  “Aspirin,” she said. “My mother always grinds it up and puts it in apple juice for me. It’s silly, I know, but it was the only way she could get me to take pills when I was a little kid.”

  He shook his head. “I’m okay.”

  She smiled. “It’s just pain medication. You’ll thank me later.”

  What was she going to do? Why did he need pain medicine?

  She tiled her head, smiled with just one corner of her mouth. “For me. Please.”

  He drank half the glass and set it down. Beneath the apple taste lingered a bitter flavor that stung his throat. What little kid would drink that?

  “Now what?”

  “It’s time,” she said.

  “How are you going to do it?”

  Sasha raised the chalice like a priest about to bless the wine. “It’s all in the presentation.”

  * * *

  Sasha’s mother was downstairs, kneeling before her homemade altar. The red candles on the table gave the room a sickly glow that made the walls appear swollen. Tyler stopped at the bottom of the stairs, right behind Sasha.

  “She’s deep in prayer,” Sasha whispered. “Don’t do anything sudden, she’ll go nuts.”

  What constituted “nuts”? This was a woman who had threatened him with a knife, forced him to get naked, burned him with a hot blade. He didn’t see a knife on her altar, so she might have it under her own cloak. If she wielded a blade, Tyler could try to push Sasha into the blade and run. He could call the police and that would take care of everything. It would actually be much more convenient if it went down that way, though a cramp of nausea twisted in his stomach at the notion.

  On tip-toes, Sasha approached her mother. Tyler stayed several feet behind her. The time between her steps grew longer and longer the closer she got. Sasha’s mother did not detect them. She sat slumped forward on her knees, head to her chest, her back rising and falling with slow, easy breaths.

  Tyler froze with the next step. He heard something, faint, like a whisper only not decipherable. Sasha kept walking; she was only a few feet from her mother. The sound was a steady hum barely detectable. If Sasha heard it, she thought nothing of it. The hum was really smaller vibrations strung together. Those vibrations were words and they comprised a chant.

  Or a curse.

  “Sasha, wait,” Tyler said in a loud whisper.

  She turned toward him, started to make an “it’s okay” gesture when her mother’s head sprung up and back. Her long, black hair whipped over her head and slapped her back with the hard thwap of a punch. The hum that was a nearly silent chant erupted from the woman’s mouth like a fire alarm. The words made no sense and might have been random consonant grunts, but whatever they were they bounced off the walls and reverberated in Tyler’s ears.

  … sac rice luff chide …

  He had retreated several steps toward the stairs and the safety of the front door beyond, but Sasha hadn’t moved, only covered her ears. She should use the blade to silence her mother once and for all. One swipe across the throat.

  Her mother’s nonsensical cry faded quickly. She dropped her head, hair settling around her shoulders, and turned to face her daughter. Sasha lowered her hands, chalice in one, knife in the other. Their movements seemed lethargic, as if in slow-motion.

  “This is the moment,” her mother said. Her throat sounded like it was full of rocks.

  “Yes, mother,” Sasha said. She held out the cup. “We wish to offer our blood as a sacrifice for the love child we have created.”

  Sasha’s mother bowed her head to the cup and then gently took it in both hands. “The Earth Goddess will be pleased.”

  Sasha motioned for Tyler to join her. He did, slowly. His previous rush of excitement and sexual energy had fizzled into cold skin and a shriveled dick upon his shrunken scrotum. His legs were heavy, his head light.

  When he stopped next to her, she raised her left hand before her and brought the blade of the knife toward her palm. He wanted to tell her to stop but he was too fascinated, or shocked, to say anything. He couldn’t believe this was really happening. Who was this girl?

  Her mother moved the cup beneath Sasha’s left hand. The blade sliced into Sasha’s palm. She clenched her jaw against the pain and ran the full length of the blade across her hand. She tilted her hand sideways and blood began to drip off her skin and into the chalice. Each drop plopped into the cup.

  “This offering I make to you, oh, mighty Earth Goddess,” Sasha said. “This is my blood, so that you might bless me and my child.”

  The blood-drip became a steady stream. Sasha made a fist, stifling the flow. Then she wrapped her injured hand in her cloak and turned her large eyes on Tyler.

  His hands were clenched together at his groin. His head grew lighter and lighter and he feared he might pass out. Keep it together. Her eyes softened, pleaded with him. This was the only way, they said. Just a little cut, some blood, and it’ll all be over.

  He pried his scarred hand loose and held it out. With her free hand, Sasha’s mother seized his wrist. He pulled back but her grip, and all the weight behind that grip, held him in place. He made a fist, but his fingers didn’t curl completely into his hand. His muscles had gone loose. What was going on?

  “You must make an equal offering,” Sasha’s mother said. “If not, you will suffer irrevocable trauma.”

  What did that mean? Hadn’t he already endured enough pain? He tried to pull free again but he couldn’t do it unless he used his other hand to pry off her fingers. Or punch her in the face.

  Sasha stepped right next to him. Her breasts pushed through the cloak and pressed against him. Her eyes had softened considerably. They were the eyes of a waiting lover, a young woman who wanted only to please her man. She took his hand gently and her mother let go. She brought it to her neck and then slowly dragged it over her breast. His hand opened; her nipple teased his palm. His crotch relaxed. He squeezed her breast gently. She moaned so slightly and delicately that he wanted to pounce on her and get her to make that innocent yet sexually loaded noise again and again.

  The flickering light reflected off her snaggletooth—like a sabertooth tiger in the moonlight.

  Sasha pulled his hand away and sliced open his palm so quickly that he didn’t fully register what had happened until his blood was joining Sasha’s in the chalice.

  He back-pedaled rapidly, pulling free of Sasha’s grip. He stumbled and fell. He broke his fall with his hands and his freshly re-injured hand throbbed with hot pain. She had cut a mouth out of his palm. The skin curled back from the wound and bright red blood sluiced out. It was a gushing vagina or the mouth of a Satanic priest after eating of the animal sacrifice.

  Sasha’s mother swirled the cup in front of her. “Now the blood is joined, now the sacrifice can be made. This I do for the blessing of the love chil
d you have created.”

  She brought the chalice to her mouth and took one long gulp.

  He expected her to fall over immediately. All the drugs he had ground up in the Snapple were enough to knock out an elephant. That was wishful thinking, of course. The medicine needed to be absorbed into the blood stream; it would take a few minutes.

  A few minutes. His head was ready to pop off his shoulders and float away. His muscles could barely keep him propped off the floor. The damn apple juice and the aspirin. She had drugged him. Her mother probably had a small pharmacy of her own.

  Or witchcraft potions.

  Sasha’s mother nodded to her daughter and then turned to the altar. She set the cup on the table and slowly got to her knees like an old woman. She was deceptive—slow and heavy one moment, fast and strong the next.

  “Now, dear lover,” Sasha said, “It’s time for the real sacrifice.”

  She came at him with the knife before her, blade wet with his blood.

  5

  Anthony double-parked outside of the First Church of Jesus Christ the Empowered. The cops were too busy with drug dealers and gang violence to care about an illegally parked vehicle on Broadway. Newburgh could be a scary place at night, and particularly bad for a white guy who happened to get lost in the wrong area. This is what God wants.

  Anthony got out of the car with the rip-claw hammer. It’s black leather grip clung to his skin and its 20oz weight felt good—solid and powerful. The straight claw on the back was ideal for reaching into tight spaces or driving into people’s skulls.

  Only if necessary.

  The closed beauty shop next door—Nailed Nails—held a new irony that made Anthony laugh. It sounded like the cackle of someone who wasn’t all there.

  Light emanated from behind two large posters of Jesus on the cross bordering the door in the giant glass windows. The glass door had been blacked out. Anthony knocked. The metal grate rattled above him with each knock. These people were awfully trusting to stay open after sunset.

  A police siren’s warble echoed from somewhere.

  The door opened slightly. A woman with curly brown hair and heavy eyeliner peered out from the crack.

  “Yes?” she said.

  He hadn’t known what he was going to say to gain entrance—figured he might just hold up the hammer and tell whoever opened the door to back off—but words came to him suddenly and with total clarity.

  “In today’s day and age when every organized religion is claiming the rightful path, it can be confusing to know which direction is correct. In fact, it can be disheartening. It can be easy to lose faith.”

  The woman’s brow scrunched. “Excuse me?”

  “But Jesus doesn’t care if you follow this faith or that faith,” Anthony continued. “Jesus wants you to be empowered, to feel His grace and bask in His glory. He scarified Himself for all humanity as proof of heavenly empowerment.”

  The woman turned behind her, called for help.

  “With Jesus as our teacher, we can learn how to tackle our problems and choose the right path to glory. And, most importantly, we can be empowered with God’s love. No matter the pain from which you suffer …”

  The woman turned back to him, realization dawning. “You’re Mr. Williams, aren’t you?”

  Anthony didn’t let this stop him. The words were flowing from somewhere in his brain where the flier Ellis and Dwayne had given him so long ago permanently lived. “ … the difficulties against which you struggle …”

  “Ellis!” she called again, more frantically.

  “… Jesus wants to help. At The First Church of Jesus Christ the Empowered, we seek the fulfillment of God’s will through an honest acceptance of our faults and a faithful inquiry into the magical workings of Jesus.” He waited for her to say something but she simply stared, wide-eyed and shit-scared. She had no idea what “scared” meant. Not yet. “Are you ready for the magical workings of Jesus?”

  Anthony raised the hammer.

  She screamed, more of a startled shout than a scream of fear, but it was enough to take this moment to Step Two. He shoved hard against the door and the woman fell back, stepping several feet before her legs tangled and she smacked the tile floor on her hip. She started to yell for Ellis again but there wasn’t any need. Ellis stood in the middle of the room.

  “Anthony,” he said, “I was expecting a call.”

  He had taken off his suit jacket but still wore the black pants, white dress shirt, and black tie, though he had loosened the knot and undone the top button. His hair was poofed as if he had run his hand through it several times. The king without his diadem, Anthony thought, thinking of some Emily Dickinson poem he’d read years ago.

  Anthony walked toward him in slow, deliberate steps. He patted the head of the hammer in his palm with each step. Three or four other people stood against the walls, eyes wide, mouths agape. The other worshippers were probably in The Temple, bowing before a giant fake god. Anthony would love to barge into that room and smash the Giant Jesus to pieces. It would feel so wonderful to destroy that thing. That statue could have been his salvation; instead, it dragged him deeper into Hell. The hammer grew lighter. This is what the Devil wants.

  “I was going to call,” Anthony said in an equally slow and methodical voice, “but it suddenly occurred to me that you had single-handedly destroyed my life.”

  Ellis was shaking his head. “No, no, no. We have done nothing but try to help you. God is mysterious and His ways cannot be questioned. We only sought to help you, empower you.”

  Anthony held up the hammer. “I’m empowered now.”

  Ellis started to back up. “What are you going to do? Kill me? Beat me to death? You’ll never get away with it.”

  Anthony paused. “Why would I want to get away with it? I’ve already killed a man today, what does it matter if I kill another?”

  None of the people against the walls moved. So much for empowerment. Ellis began to back-pedal quickly, heading for The Temple.

  “I told you what you had to do. You can still have a beautiful life with Brendan.”

  “Don’t you dare say his name!” Anthony launched into a sprint and collided into Ellis before the man could even turn to run.

  They crashed onto the floor. Ellis’s hands groped Anthony’s face and arms in spastic bursts, rapidly moving from one part of his body to another in search of the best angle of attack. He shouted for help but the people along the walls remained still, fixated. If anyone was in The Temple, they’d be out any second. Anthony was enjoying this, watching Ellis writhe beneath him. Ellis’s hand found Anthony’s throat and squeezed. Ellis gritted his teeth, air pushing from his nose like he were a bull and stared Anthony dead-on with eyes that dared him to do something.

  Anthony brought the hammer down into the floor an inch from Ellis’s head. The reverberations of the hit spiraled up Anthony’s arm as pieces of tile pelted his face. Ellis’s hand relaxed.

  “Next time,” Anthony said, “it’s your skull.”

  Ellis dropped his hand. The woman who had opened the door gasped a desperate “No!”

  “What do you want?”

  Anthony smiled. Have I gone crazy? “Where’s my son?”

  6

  Dwayne drove them to Trailer Trash Town where Sasha Karras lived. Instead of the big black car in which they had taken Brendan during Delaney’s wake, they were in a grey two-door hatchback. “Easier for people to miss,” Dwayne had said. The car smelled of cigarette smoke and ash speckled the dashboard. They parked before Sasha’s neighbor’s driveway. The neighbor’s house was dark except for one light in an upstairs window. Sasha’s house was similarly dark, save for a flickering red light in the downstairs windows.

  Dwayne used his cellphone to make a call. He waited through several rings and then said, “Yes, I’m calling from Information Securities. Is the head of the house available?” A second later, he closed the phone, dropped it in his pocket, smiled.

  “That’s the baseme
nt,” Dwayne said, pointing. “That’s the key to this whole thing, and the front door, of course. There’s a sliding glass door in the basement that leads to the outside. There’s no sure way to blockade that door, so you need to be sure that the most gas gets pooled there.”

  Brendan nodded. Dwayne had given him work gloves that Velcroed on but the pair was too big and so he kept peeling the Velcro strips open and trying to make them tighter. The ends of the straps dangled from his wrists like extra fingers.

  “The front door is the same thing. Don’t worry, the logs will make it much easier. Once the two exits are taken care of, they might try to get out a window. That’s when you have to be ready. I know you’d rather not have to do it, but it may be necessary.”

  Brendan’s clothes felt too big. The car seat was two sizes too large; he felt like a little kid trying to play grow-up. He didn’t want to do what Dwayne was now suggesting. He was okay with the first part, with the logs and the fire, but he didn’t want to stand guard at the windows. Couldn’t do it.

  From the glove compartment, Dwayne removed a small, black gun. “This doesn’t look like much but it’ll do the job. One shot and they’ll retreat back into the house. All you have to do is pull the trigger.”

  He held it out butt first to Brendan.

  Like dropping a bowling ball, he thought.

  The gun was heavy in his hands. Could he really shoot someone? Would he have to? He was willing to be part of this to protect his brother, help unite his family again, but shooting someone was an impossible task like swimming across the ocean without stopping. Did he have the courage to do this?

  “They might just freak out and breathe in so much smoke that you don’t have to do anything, but you have to be ready,” Dwayne said. “This is a test, you understand?”

  Brendan waited. A test?

  “If you are truly dedicated to serving God, you won’t hesitate to pull the trigger. If you fail to do this, you will lose God’s favor and your path will forever be altered. God wants this family to pay the ultimate price. He wants you to be his messenger.”