I know he loved his wife. He fulfilled every imaginable husbandly duty to her, but there had always been a tenderness that went beyond even his sense of duty that betrayed the deepest connection he’d ever forged between himself and another mortal. But through all the months of the illness, I never once saw him in mourning. He was a man of inhuman energy consistently applied to a large variety of praiseworthy tasks, and it left very little room for personal emotion.
BUT WE WERE FRIENDS. On my part, when do I ever know exactly why I do things? For him—well, he never refused goodness to anyone who asked. Sometimes, I see that my laziness truly can be sinful, and in those moments the Preacher always seems to be there, offering me opportunities to labor in love for others.
Then again, there are those times when I’m standing in the rain, waiting with dread to hear the details of the Preacher’s latest battle plan. At those moments, I just think I’m generally a bit dumb.
“The Abyss? Did I hear you right?”
“Could you imagine a place that needs the light more?” “Have you even been there?”
“Of course not. It’d be foolish.”
“If I go to sleep, will I wake up tomorrow and find this madness is all a bad dream?”
“If you go to sleep, I’ll go alone. But you’ll have much more fun if you go. You’re already wet—would you rather know that you ruined that leather jacket in the service of God, or because you felt the necessity to shoo off another of His servants?”
“My leather—damn it!” I was, indeed, wearing my favorite jacket, made of fine Italian leather, in the midst of a thunderstorm. “We don’t even have a place to stay!”
“Sure we will. I bought a nice, quiet inn.”
Some facts are so earth-shattering that they cannot bear response. But I was tired, irritable, and my jacket was most likely ruined—not circumstances designed to encourage politeness or forethought. “You bought a whorehouse?”
“Wha—how dare you! You, you know me! It is a respectable inn, an oasis of hospitality.”
“It is an inn in the Abyss.” I sighed. “But—well, no sense in starting a witch-trial until you’ve actually seen the gal.”
“A house of ill—heavens, what a bizarre thought.”
AND I WAS RIGHT, of course. It was a typical Abysmal inn, sustaining its profitability through the selling of poisons and human flesh while keeping a side-job of renting rooms to wayfarers. And yet the Preacher walked directly in the door—or was about to, when he saw the girl.
She was far too young to work at the inn, even by local standards. In fact, other than her obvious starvation, she was exactly the kind of person the Preacher left for others to care for—adorable and heart-rending to look at, sweet and innocent with a heart strangely unmarred by the ravages of life. But this was the Abyss, and here he needed to love everyone, not just the people who no one else would care about. Because, of course, there weren’t any other lunatic do-gooders in the Abyss.
THE GIRL WAS BEGGING, so naturally we stopped to take care of her every earthly need, while directing her to the un-worldly Lover who provides for all else. In truth, I should say that the Preacher stopped to take care of her every earthly need, and in fact it was yet another in a stream of the Preacher’s truly moving moments. He hugged her, he offered her bread and cheese, he wept with her, he spoke to her about the Divine lover whose messenger he was. And despite a lifetime of fleeing from abuse, she accepted the hug, ate, wept, and listened confusedly. It must have been first time the girl had felt love or human kindness directed at her, and I don’t believe she would have accepted it from anyone less blindly compassionate. In the end, she reciprocated with the only thing she felt a worthwhile gift—a meticulously crafted silver pendent. Of course I had seen her steal it off the neck of a departing patron shortly before the Preacher began his pitch, but the preacher didn’t know that, and what does price matter in a gift from the heart. Besides, the unlucky patron was obviously a fat, rich bastard who had no appreciation for the importance of his necklace.
I waited my turn, then spoke to the girl in a much more practical and (if I may say so) sensible manner. The Preacher, having nothing more to say, stood silently, his face demonstrating a pious but somewhat unsuccessful attempt to use this as an opportunity to develop the fourth fruit of the Spirit. Although even I must admit my conversation with the girl was far longer than the Preacher’s. For despite the Preacher’s touching kindness, she wasn’t sure how she felt about a Divine Provider who had waited this long to stop her hunger pains. She was on much firmer grounds when talking about where the money was, who to fear, or any of a number of details essential to survival in the town.
The Preacher was off again, practically running through the door and then announcing in his loudest voice a joyous welcome to The House of Virtue (as he quickly christened the inn.) The rotten fruits and dregs of beer that were hurled at him, I think, were the crowning moment of his oration—not only was he crusading for God, but he was receiving glorious wounds in the line of duty. I had already slipped past him, seated myself in the far corner of the room, and asked the serving girl for a pint of the inn’s strongest and least putrid beverage. Hearing another snippet of the Preacher’s oration, I quickly clarified my order for sanity’s sake: “Just get me whatever has the most alcohol.”
AND SO BEGAN the Preacher’s greatest crusade, in which both the preacher and I worked tirelessly and diligently. The Preacher set to be known in all the foremost places of town, where he became simultaneously the most appreciated (for bringing in much-needed money and supplies) and hated (for the sermons that accompanied the aforementioned goods) man in town.
I kept largely in the shadows and out of his sight, and tried to make sure that he was able to survive. He screamed for drunkards to remember Sodom and Gamorrah; I guarded the treasury against the thieves who he insisted on loving like everyone else. He banned all prostitution from his establishment and gave the whores capital enough to buy husbands; I reminded near-rioting patrons that there were plenty of willing and beautiful girls to be had for those who’d just remember to use a bit of their natural charm. The Preacher spoke in the streets about the evils of wealth gained through the exploitation of the innocent; I reminded the town’s leaders that the Preacher was the head of a very wealthy and generous church. And between the two of us, the town began to slowly change for the better. Of course, the Preacher constantly complained about the relative lack of true converts and believers, and I didn’t hold any illusions that the town could ever cease completely to be abyssal.
But children played games in the streets, even if they constantly cheated and fought. Marriages began to be performed in the Preacher’s new chapel, even if most of them ended in divorce. Workers were paid enough that they could survive without stealing from their employers, even if most still stole and the employers’ extended stomachs still remained the envy of the ever hungry laborers. In short, the Preacher brought the smallest glimmer of hope to the darkness, and if it went largely unheeded, at least the darkness could not quite overcome it.
But something was going on in the background that no one, and I least of all, would have expected in even our darkest fancies. The Preacher had always been an immensely disciplined man, always preferring positive action to that rest which he acknowledged in others but half suspected was mere sloth. Now he was struggling against a sea of sin so immense that he finally began to drown. The Preacher preached tirelessly, but behind his ever-present crusader’s stare he grew tired. He had never been soft, but his harshness grew and expanded.
Our first clue should’ve been his preaching, but it was hard for us sinners— who were used to ignoring the Preacher half the time anyway—to realize what was happening. Words of grace had slowly faded, replaced by more words challenging sin that finally evolved into words of condemnation. And in a man of his disciplined nature, there probably existed an untold number of other struggles that were hidden entirely from the world.
Personally, I
think that one of the waves that dragged him down was the long-delayed grief for his wife; that he finally saw her as a part of himself who had been ripped from him by death rather than as a wholly optional helper God gave him for a time. But whatever the causes, the Preacher was drowning, and shortly before his final fall even the dullest of us could sense a change in his manner as he grew harsher, less patient, and more prone to punish himself for the smallest of mistakes.
IN THE END, the very girl who the Preacher had met immediately before his first entrance to the pub was his stumbling stone. She had, in fact, sprouted quickly into one of the Preacher’s star pupils. Under the care and guidance of the Preacher, she had grown from her early confusion of innocence and anger into a young woman filled with sorrow and compassion. Her goodness, or perhaps the combination of her goodness and her iconic beauty, had ironically endeared her to the town’s populace. No townsperson, it seemed, no matter how evil, blind, or lecherous was immune to her moral charm. Where she walked, peace followed, and though the aura quickly dissipated with her departure, her memory stuck with a surprising firmness in the hearts of those around her. We all thought that no mortal man could ever intentionally do her harm. But some men are living exceptions to the mundane rules of mere mankind. Some men can only be angels—or demons.
I wasn’t there to see it, myself. Oh, how many nights I have dreamt that I was there, that I could stop it. But even in my dreams the power of the Preacher is too great, and the only role I can play is that of another helpless witness. In my dreams I see her confront the Preacher with his bitterness, weeping for him but calling out to him that he should remember the love he taught to her. I see him arguing with her, yelling at her, though she answers only with a look of sorrowful love. Then I see him grab a dirty tankard—always a dirty tankard half-full of a dirty swill, though many accounts say he used a pepper-shaker or even just his bare hand—and slam it into her face, knocking her head to the side with a horrible popping sound. I see her collapsing slowly to the ground, while the Preacher rushes over to her, arriving just in time to cradle the last of her fall. But always she is dead, and if I am able to move at all in my dreams it is only now, when nothing can be stopped and nothing can be changed.
YET IF THAT MOMENT was the low-point of the Preacher’s life, it was only the beginning of the nightmare for me. The Preacher fled the town in silence, setting off on foot directly towards the heart of the Abyss. I packed up just as silently, and then set off to walk in his footsteps. I don’t know why I did this, except perhaps from habit. I certainly didn’t know what good I could do for the him. But I had followed the Preacher into the town, and it seemed fitting that I should follow him out again.
Passing deeper and deeper into the abyss, I encountered horrors untold— but always the people and monsters I met feared, more than anything else, the fierce and desperate man who had recently passed through and whose description matched the Preacher’s all too well. Details blended together and became vague. Somewhere along the line I acquired a dark knife with an evil-looking twisted blade, probably on the loose logic that if people feared the knife enough I wouldn’t have to use it. Soon afterwards, someone took my pack and all my belongings, but left my knife and my money-belt in his haste. My full force of mind was applied to the simple task of finding the Preacher. And finally, in the most dreary town I had seen, I succeeded.
I don’t know how he had managed it, but somehow in all his debaucheries the Preacher had managed to lay hold of a loaded pistol. As he first came into view through the ever-present mist and sleet, he was stone drunk and mad, screaming in an unearthly voice about how Hell is everywhere and that death was the only peace. I saw him point the gun in the general direction of a few people and pull the trigger many times, but as far as I could tell it would take a miracle for him to actually hit anyone. Then he saw me, and I became the target of both his mad orations and his drunken marksmanship.
I wanted to turn around and walk away. Hell, I wanted to run screaming just like all the reasonable-minded people around me. But I knew I couldn’t. Too much of the preacher had rubbed off on me. I couldn’t abandon him now, when he most needed help.
As I ran towards him, I absent-mindedly pulled out my knife. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I figured that maybe it could make the point that nothing else could, or at least distract his eyes long enough for me to knock the gun from his hand. But before I could get there, the Preacher pulled the trigger.
I felt the impact in my left shoulder, though I didn’t feel any pain. The impact threw me off my balance, but I kept moving in an odd caterwaul until the bulk of the preacher’s body suddenly stopped me. He started to bring the gun down but I knocked it away with my left hand. Then I began to bang repeatedly on his chest with the bottom of my right fist, like an infant throwing a tantrum. Only when I felt his blood warm against the sapping cold of the rain on my face did I realize that my right hand still held the knife.
I sank to my knees in shock. After a few moments of eternity, the Preacher sank to his knees besides me. And there we were, two children who had forgotten how to pray kneeling humbly in the cathedral of nightmare. The preacher finally found words, his eyes open as if they saw into heaven—and registered a door firmly barred against entry.
“I killed her.” His voice was a gasp, his throat fighting against a tide of blood. “With my hands I killed her. So much promise, so much—killed.”
I looked at him for a moment, then laughed the quiet laugh of a lunatic. “Hell, that ain’t nothing. I killed you.” But my words were too late, if indeed they were meant for him. The Preacher was already dead.
“Damn it. Damn it all.” I finally dropped my knife, rose shakily to my feet, and walked out of town. No one stopped me. Only the drizzle of freezing rain slowly lessened the stick of the blood on my face.
On the outskirts of town, I saw a young crippled begging-girl. I grabbed all the gold from my purse, thinking to throw it in her face. I stopped myself, instead absent-mindedly tossing it into her ugly and worn-out hat.
After that, tears mixed with the rain and the blood on my face. I wandered on, not seeing or caring where I was going. At night I sheltered under an outcrop of rock, falling instantly to sleep. I’m not sure if that was last night or the night before or a week ago. But eventually in my wanderings I was drawn to the warm light of the entrance of this pub. And now here I sit, with flecks of blood still on my face and the Preacher’s bullet still over my heart.
I still believe the Preacher was the best of us. He loved our Creator, he loved life, and he gave his life (though not his death) in service to God and to life. And here I sit. I still feel the Preacher’s blood sticking to my face. I still have the Preacher’s bullet embedded above my heart. And how can it be that I am left alive, to live and drink beauty on this Earth, and the Preacher lies dead?
A NEW, CONTEMPLATIVE SILENCE fell on the inn. At last, Tolkien spoke, his words slowed. “It is a hard thing to accept grace for oneself. A very hard thing.” The narrator looked at Tolkien in surprise, but did not speak. After a pause, Tolkien continued. “But at some future date, it may be good to remember—you do not know all of the Preacher’s story, or even how it ended. But it is a hard tale nonetheless.” Silence once again descended.
The next to break the silence was Chandler, who walked up to the bar, held a short muffled conversation with the barkeep, and then walked over to the table with another pint of hand-pumped ale. He slid the second pint behind the first.
“Here’s another pint, for your story. Drink up, before the draft chills it.” The narrator finally collapsed against the back of his chair, then lifted
his tankard. With a sigh of sorrow, he began to drink his room-temperature bitter.
THE WATER RISES
NATHAN KNAPP
I’m a wretched, terrible man. That’s what he told me while I was in the cell, lying there, on the floor. A hard, white floor.
He keeps trying to drown me. Water, water, everywhe
re. And he called it a prison, a penitentiary. I’m not sure why he called it that. I never saw another soul while I was there, and don’t penitentiaries and jails and those sorts of things have people in them? I mean, I’ve always known that there were terrible places that were full of terrible people, but . . .
He told me to leave today, to go home. I’m not sure what he meant by that, because I’m not sure how. How do I go home, if I don’t know where I am or where I’ve been?
So now I stand in the middle of a parking lot, hoping that these dark clouds above me don’t burst and leave me standing in water—I don’t like water anymore. It doesn’t conjure up any good thoughts in me like it used to, before all this.
I hear the noise of traffic in the distance. I must have lived in the country before, because the traffic hurts my ears, even though it is distant. When the only thing you hear for an eternity of days is water, everything hurts your ears.
I think I’m supposed to have a car somewhere out here, I’m not sure. I’ll probably remember how to drive a car, if I remember anything. Back there in my distant memory driving cars was a significant thing. It’s odd how I remember the basic, the absolutely normal things about life.
I take a step but my feet hurt, as if I’ve just ran across a gravel lane barefoot. I would kill for some good shoes just about now, some that would give my tired, emaciated feet some help.
Another step.
My legs throb, but I look toward the woods. It seems odd that I can see the woods and hear traffic at the same time.
I must have lived in the country.
The trees look down on me like sentries, forbidding my entrance. Yet there is something peaceful about them, something that draws my eye and drives my heart toward them.
I don’t know what else to do, so why not go for a walk in the woods? He told me to go home, and I don’t know where that is. Maybe I will figure it out in the woods.
MIdnight Diner 1: Jesus vs. Cthulhu Page 18