Demons, Freaks & Other Abnormalities

by Michael Laimo

  Gently pressing an ungloved hand to his chest in effort to calm himself, he lurched towards the church, feeling somewhat vague, as if he were in some strange, wintry dream. The surrealistic scene reminded him of the very last time he had gone to mass fifteen years ago, when he was thirteen, when he disdainfully watched the hordes of frail Sunday-goers praying with their hands folded in futile ignorance, worshiping some unseen, fabled “Creator". Sickened, he was at once struck with the realization that religion was for weak-minded people (like his mother), was a conformity for the masses who were simply afraid to face a godless world and its real-life conditions. He had decided that day that he would no longer participate as a member of the Catholic community, would steadfastly ignore his mother’s aspirations for him and live life in a secular fashion, never to rely on any theologistic affiliation again.

  Utilizing this new outlook on life, he flourished for years in his desire to become self-reliant, calling himself an agnostic--curious at times if were actually an atheist--harboring all his energies towards his own personal functionality, relishing only in materialistic pleasures, all the time shunning every aspect of religious enlightenment his mother preached to him--and her religious statues--day in and day out.

  But something unanticipated and shocking happened the night he escorted Melissa Connor into the cold woods, something seemingly fraught with religious connections, and to avert the possibility of being stricken with life-long tragedy as a result of the unforeseen event, he made the very difficult decision to return to the confessional, to dampen his soul with holy water and humble himself in front of whatever God there was, in prayer that He would be forgiving of his sin.

  A hard wind blasted in and carried the large fluffy flakes to a slant. He climbed the church steps, opened the large oak doors. He remembered from his childhood that a house of worship was always welcoming, its imaginary arms open wide at any hour to embrace all those sinners in need of a temporary messiah.

  He crossed the threshold, into the vestibule. As his eyes adjusted to the warmer interior, a gray marble, holy water basin came into view at the entrance to the nave. Shivering with a combination of cold and fear on the outside, nervously laughing with denial on the inside, Warren walked to it, slid his fingers in and crossed himself with the cool water. He shivered with disgust and derision. There was no bountiful feeling, no lush impassioned touch of God, only a cold wet spot on his forehead. Skeptical, he pinched his lips and advanced into the church, hands clenched nervously at his sides, truly hoping that his non-pious sentiments were wrong.

  Looking around, the gothic architecture was just as he remembered it--columnar supports, vaulted ceilings and arched doorways, all seemingly constructed to further inspire a reflection of the heavens, to induce a mysterious, quiet apprehension that a divine presence was in visitation. Overhead, geometrically situated amidst cornered peaks, dome-shaped fixtures cast ghostly yellow auras across the rank of pews, leading beyond the sanctuary to the altar.

  Shrouded in shadows, the altar was a shrine of blessed figures and religious statuary--like the ones gracing every inch of his mother’s room--all molded from the purest porcelain, painted with the finest hand. Gracing the wall behind the altar was a great crucifix, twelve feet high, intricately carved in wood, extraordinarily detailed. Gazing upon it, Warren could almost feel the pain carved and painted on the face of the crucified Jesus: the thorned head, tortured eyes searching the heavens, mouth contorted so passionately that he could virtually hear faint echoes of the suffering wails that must have emanated from it centuries ago.

  Slowly he paced down the center aisle, his wet footfalls squeaking hollowly throughout the empty church. He ran his hands along the wooden pews, keeping his eyes pinned to the wooden Jesus, to its heavenwardly gaze; its bloody wounds; its straining, sinewed muscles and tattered loincloth.

  Like magic, a row of candles at the front of the sanctuary came alive.

  Warren halted, looked haphazardly into the nearby pews, glanced back to the nave, saw nothing. He riveted his sights back upon the crucifix and the dozen burning candles.

  A shrouded figure appeared on the altar.

  A gust of wind gripped the outside door--which Warren had left open--and slammed it shut. The jarring noise and Warren’s scream reverberated around the church like a pair of warring souls.

  “Are you all right, my son?” The figure lowered its hood. Warren blew out a breathful of anxiety, felt his heart settle. A priest.

  The clergyman leaned down and toyed with a knob on the candle basin that lowered the flames, then made his approach, head thrust forth, shoulders hunched. He was a bird of a man, clad in a black robe and sash, and seemed quite old--perhaps seventy or more.

  Watching the priest, Warren released a plaintive sigh. He had to proceed with caution, with reason and logic. He wanted to leave the church tonight with his salvation intact, and to do so, had to earn the priest’s compassion. It wouldn’t be easy.

  “Son?” The holy man neared him, noticeably watchful.

  “Yes. Father...I need to...” Warren’s thoughts rambled nonsensically. This was it, his moment of pending salvation, yet still now, after ten days of contemplation, he wasn’t sure how to proceed. At once he second guessed his decision to confess his sin and had to restrain himself from bounding away.

  Warren had been raised in a strict Catholic environment. His uncle was a preacher, his mother a church-going fanatic ever since the day his father slipped from the roof and shattered his skull on the patio while cleaning the gutters. Trying to steer Warren towards a firm, clerical lifestyle richly indulgent with religious ethics, his God-fearing mother made him travel with his uncle to Charlotte every Sunday where he served as an altar boy during his Uncle’s masses. When Warren got sick and frustrated of the whole godly routine and made the decision to abstain from all religious activities, his mother prayed relentlessly to the plethora of figurines and crosses in their home, nearly two hundred Virgin Marys, Jesuses, and Last Supper statuettes--fortifying every room in their home with pure holiness, all of them staring down with large saddened eyes, witnesses to the countless pleads for them to bring her real Warren back to her.

  Now, at twenty eight years of age, with his mother on her deathbed--surrounded by her menagerie of religious icons--and the great sin causing disharmony in his life, Warren was about to turn to God for forgiveness.

  “Come, sit, tell me what ails you.” The priest led Warren into a pew five rows from the altar and sat next to him.

  “Something is troubling me, Father,” Warren conceded, staring at the swirls in the oak floor.

  “Yes?”

  “I have committed a terrible sin.” He started to get that panicky feeling again, and although the church was rather cold, he could feel sweat swelling from his brow.

  The old man was silent. A time elapsed that felt like an eternity to Warren, but was perhaps only thirty seconds--just enough time for him to remember how he left Melissa, her body sprawled in the woods like a broken marionette, her face and neck all twisted, bloodied, and blue...

  “I...I...” He was breathing heavily, his heart thrashing wildly against his ribcage. He so selfishly wanted forgiveness now, had to be excused in the eyes of God.

  The priest placed a hand on Warren’s shoulder. “It’s all right. Just take your time.”

  Warren gazed up at him, terrified. “Father...when I was young I was taught that God forgave us for all our sins.”

  The priest closed his eyes, shook his head with slow passion. “Yes. Of course. But only if you believe in Him.” He hesitated, then said, “Do you believe in the Lord?”

  “Yes, I...”

  “Then He believes in you.” He gently grasped Warren’s hand.

  Warren felt the warmth of the priest’s wrinkled hand tingle his skin. The flow of holy blood. Perhaps he was able feel the power of God. He stared at the great Jesus, its wooden countenance gazing to the cathedral ceiling in bitter agony. Squeezing the priest’s hand, he sai
d, “Forgive me father for I have sinned.”

  The priest was silent.

  “Ten days ago I...” He looked at the priest. “Do you know about the missing girl?”

  “Yes,” the priest said, his eyes suddenly wide. “Melissa Connor. She sang in the choir for Saturday evening mass.” There was a pause of silence. “Do you know of her whereabouts?”

  The priest was tense, Warren could see it and feel it. He felt the turmoil flare out beneath his own skin like a rapidly spreading virus. This was the moment of all truths, his only chance for exoneration.

  “Y-Yes,” he answered.

  “Has she been harmed?” the priest asked.

  “Father--I murdered her.” Warren felt the priest at once try to pull his hand away. Warren gripped him tighter, swallowed past the lump in his throat, forced the confession out through his tears. “I-I didn’t mean to...we were in the woods, having sex and it just got rough. I had my forearm across her neck, like this, and I guess I pressed down too hard. My eyes were closed the whole time, I didn’t know what was happening, and when it was over there was...there was blood coming from her mouth, it was running down her face...”

  ...he watched the blood froth from her lips like crimson soap suds, and right before she died her eyes bulged and a deep guttural voice that wasn’t hers spat, “and the beast shall ascend from the gates of Hell and gather up with thy hand the murderous man that has been cast aside like a thorn...” and then her eyes glowed ebony and green putrid smoke seeped from her nose and mouth...

  His grip was now vice tight on the priest’s hand. “Father, please help me, please tell me how I can be freed from the sin I have committed...I’m begging you to have mercy on me, please ask God for his forgiveness. I fear for my life.”

  The priest closed his eyes. “Suffer the child who comes to me, and forgive him not; for such is the kingdom of God.” He looked at Warren. “To be exonerated in the eyes of the Lord...you must turn yourself in.”

  “NO!” Warren screamed. His sudden hostility echoed throughout the empty church. He instantly felt the same rage he couldn’t control the night he killed Melissa Connor--a terrible all-consuming hatred that coursed through his blood like a wicked virus. He squeezed his nails into the priest’s skin.

  The holy man tried to wrest away. “Please...”

  Warren held on. “Why do I have to give myself to the police?” He pointed to the crucifix. “Can’t that damn God of yours forgive me without me having to spend the rest of my life in jail?”

  The priest rose up in panic, eyes bulging, trying to release himself from Warren’s grip. A tuft of gray hair flew up from his head like a wing. “Jesus died for your sins! Have you no respect for him?” Saliva flew from his wrinkled mouth and his eyes sought out the crucifix. “Dear God in heaven, make this boy pay for his sins lest he go on murdering the innocent!”

  “NO!” Warren screamed. He realized at that moment why he left the church in the first place all those years ago: it was a sham, a great fallacy that harvested money from those poor souls who couldn’t afford it, all in exchange for a false sense of salvation. It was a great icon of mistrust, a cult of mass brainwashing.

  The priest was now pulling in convulsive jerks, trying to flee Warren’s constraining hold. Warren stood up and seized the priest by the collar with his free hand. “You all suck,” he shouted, and shoved the holy man backwards.

  Even a deaf man could have heard the priest scream as he sprawled back. It was a high-pitched siren-like sound that ricocheted around the church like a frightened soul lost in its intricate woodwork. The back of his foot found a knee rest in the pew, and then he flailed his arms as if slipping on roller skates and fell straight back out into the aisle.

  Warren saw his eyes bulge like two olives floating on a bed of cream, saw his nostrils flare, and then heard a startling cracking sound as the back of his head hit the wood floor.

  Warren’s muscles strained to find motion, and when he managed to catch his breath he was staring at a dead man, pallid face blankly searching the ceiling, gray hair sopped as a tide of blood flowed out in a wide semi-circle. Then the air--perhaps it was imagined, perhaps not--seemed to darken around the priest, the yellow lights above turned a hazy shade of pink, and Warren became unpleasantly conscious of something ghostly entrenched in the terrifying silence that immediately followed.

  It was an accident, officer, both of them, accidents...

  He ran a hand through his hair. Now what?

  He heard a noise rise from the altar.

  He realized at this moment that he was more afraid than he’d ever been in his life, more so than when he was a child and all of mother’s statues would stare down at him with those big porcelain eyes from the shelves in his house, more so than when Melissa Connor uttered the passage from the Bible in that eerie voice, more so than just a moment ago when he saw the blood tiding out from the priest’s shattered skull.

  He prayed that the sound was imagined, but then there was a sudden ripping shriek of tortured wood, and he turned and was swept with a bone freezing terror, a fear unsurpassed even by the knowledge that everything had gone wrong, and that he would pay for his sins after all.

  A ghostly steam was rising from the base of the crucifix, taking the shape of fingers, the dancing tips traced with phosphorescent halos. He followed the steam to the face of the wooden Jesus, which no longer gazed toward the heavens in unanswered prayer, but stared angrily at Warren, its brow downcast, its eyes glowing--shiny, black, and orb-like.

  Like Melissa Connor’s eyes a moment before her death.

  Smoke began to swell from the rear of the figure’s skull. The rank smell of sulfur filled the church. The wood floor beneath Warren began to tremble and his stomach slammed up into his throat. Then the Jesus’ head wriggled back and forth and a loud crunching sound tore through the church as the statue came alive and ripped its head away from the cross. Splinters of wood shattered and rained across the sanctuary into the first five rows of pews. Warren covered his face with his arms to avoid catching shards in his eyes, and when he uncovered himself, the wooden Jesus was snarling as it tried to wrestle itself free, like an animal trying to escape a hunter’s trap.

  There was another incredible cracking noise and a cloud of sawdust rose into the air as it yanked an arm away. The free arm swung wildly like an angry snake, the wooden fingers creaking as it grabbed hold of its other wrist, trying to yank it free of the cross. Its back tore away and it leaned toward Warren, writhing, gaze fixed on him as though it were about to erupt into a furious storm.

  Then there was a great roar as the thing finally tore free and stood for the first time on its own two legs, bending and stretching as if trying to work out the knots. The dull pink light enveloping the church parted around it as if it were a curtain, ensconcing it in shade. Warren gasped and jumped out into the aisle. His heel slipped in the gelling puddle of blood that spread out almost four feet from the priest’s shattered skull, and he sprawled down the aisle the length of six pews.

  Dazed, he felt a blanket of warmth, and then a deep shadow fell over him, blocking out almost all light. Warren spun around in a rambling circle and it stood over him, a Jesus Christ-thing, a grotesque parody of religion with a black aura, glowing black eyes and an angry mouth that dripped blood and steam.

  Warren lurched away just as the Jesus-beast slammed its wooden arms down at him, and he heard an unimaginable sound behind, first wood smashing wood and then a terrible demonic-like growl.

  The wicked sounds followed him as he leaped out the doors of the church into the snowy night, all the way home.

  ~ * ~

  Warren awoke the next morning in his bed. Sunbeams reflected from the snow outside and entered his window, making weird designs on his walls. It had to be a dream, he thought looking at the sun-shapes. Just a wild and bizarre dream.

  He sat up. The slight smell of sulfur wafted up from his pillow. And something else. A burnt wood smell.

  He rose from b
ed. His body ached terribly and he felt as if his brain was trying to escape his skull. He couldn’t remember where he was, or if he had been drinking. He moved down the hall towards the bathroom, noticing that his mother’s door at the end of the hall was shut. She never shuts the door, he thought. She can’t even get out of bed...

  Slowly he paced down the hall, his footsteps creaking the entire way. When he arrived at the end, he heard a skirmishing sound behind the door.

  “Ma?”

  No answer. He opened the door and stepped in.

  The room was dark and the air was misted with a faint pink light. His mother lay on her bed like a mummy, the sheet up to her chin, her gray hair tossed to one side.

  Something seemed different. About the room. It seemed...empty.

  He gazed around, and as soon as he realized what it was, the door slammed shut behind him.

  He heard some noises, empty chuckles and hushed, echoey whispers, and when he turned around they were all there, horded together on the floor, almost two hundred Virgin Mary’s, Jesuses, and Last Supper Statuettes, all looking up at him with angry porcelain eyes and crazy wicked grins.

  Night Fuel

  Pete’s right foot held steady on the gas as he and Kevin cruised at a cool seventy-five miles per hour down I-95, with Virginia’s state line now twenty-three miles behind them. Between them, balanced carefully on the armrest of the ‘82 Buick LeSabre, sat a half-eaten bag of Doritos and two cans of Coke. It was their first six-pack of the evening since they left Rochester eight hours earlier, and thankfully they had another in the back seat--more than enough caffeine to keep them moving all the way to Daytona Beach.

  “Damn Pete, I gotta pee bad!” Kevin fidgeted in his seat, eyes restlessly searching the road for signs of a rest stop. He lit a half-smoked joint and passed it to Pete.

  Pete pounded the gas in reply, taking no heed of the law or Kevin’s whining. He had his sights set for warm weather and babes and promised himself he’d make record time. He puffed on the joint, took a swig from the Coke can wedged in his crotch, then steered the Buick into the right lane.