JACOB
Four weeks. I couldn’t believe it took four long weeks for the salesclerk at the gun shop to locate everything I wanted. I had my suspicions he was intentionally forcing me to wait it out. Every time I got in touch with him, he questioned me incessantly, making quick comments in an effort to catch me off guard. Although he’d hoped to trick me into revealing the real reason for the weapons, I’d held strong in my ridiculous story that I needed the guns for hunting.
I wasn’t an idiot and neither was the clerk. He knew as well as I that the guns weren’t for hunting – not unless I was planning on gunning down an entire herd at once. But still, I went through the motions, swearing up and down that I wasn’t some psychopath hell bent on destruction. In the end, it came down to one thing for the man: money. From the amount he charged me, he must have made a fortune.
Fortunately, now that I’d cashed out my inheritance, money wasn’t an issue. Had I attempted this on my salary as a priest, I wouldn’t have been able to afford the handguns, much less the semi-automatics I purchased with them.
The trip between the city where I’d grown up and the sleepy, rural town where I’d lived twelve years of my life as a devout man hadn’t been a long one. Three days, with plenty of time taken to sleep at motels, stop to eat when I was hungry, and search the news for any signs coming from that area that indicated something wasn’t right. There was never a speck of information to be found. As usual, the small community was quiet, never making waves other than its activities in the county surrounding it.
Driving the long winding roads through the mountains was difficult. The canopy of trees, the rounded peaks of the mountains in the distance, the wild animals scurrying off on the side of the roads reminded me of the first time I’d traveled here after college. At that time, I’d hoped to find peace among the townspeople. I’d hoped to find absolution in a life devoted to God after Cassandra’s death. And here I was again, driving into the town with the guilt of another woman’s death on my mind, Eve’s face flashing in my thoughts as I drove past the businesses that dotted the area and into the heart of the town. I’d never spent much time with her outside of the parish in the week I’d known her, but that didn’t matter. She had been a constant thought on my mind as I ran errands and drove about, and, as such, she was on my mind now.
It was Sunday when I arrived, which worked out for me since I knew most of the townspeople would be at the parish. I didn’t have to worry about somebody recognizing me before I could park my truck off where it wouldn’t be seen and sneak up to check on the activities while remaining out of sight. The walk wasn’t long and before I knew it, I was crossing the yard while being careful to watch for anybody who would be watching for me. Jericho wasn’t stupid. He had to know I’d return eventually. Unless he was so far gone in his insanity that he truly believed he’d broken me with Eve’s death.
In truth, he had. Initially, at least. But as is common with the passage of time, I’d had the opportunity to lick my wounds until they healed and regained my sanity.
Ha. Sanity. The thought of it actually made me laugh as I slowly approached the parish I hadn’t seen in months with a gun tucked into the back of my pants and another at my side. There was nothing sane about this situation. Not what I’d learned about the past, and definitely not what I’d learn about Jericho claiming to be me as he continued leading the parish as its priest. We’d long traveled past what it means to be sane and wandered into a fictional world filled with the most wicked men of all.
From what I was beginning to understand, it’s the people dressing themselves in the shroud of being good men that can commit the most evil. They are given access to the young. Are trusted with the minds and bodies of the faithful. They lead us in a way of thinking that eventually grooms us to believe that they are infallible and can commit no wrongs. We are constantly directed to look into the light so that our eyes can’t adjust to the shadows. And it is within those murky confines that exist behind closed doors and within tight corners that we see the truth. There is nothing good about them at all, we’ve just been trained to believe the illusions they cast out and told us were reality.
Those are the people to be avoided above all costs. Those are the ones that should be publically shamed and brought out to admit to their horrifying crimes. Because, in the end, it’s the deceivers that are the most horrendous of all, and if good men do really exist in this world slowly slipping into Hell, then those men would be better off opening their eyes to the truth that stands before them, because to see it is to fear the wicked.
I don’t believe that all men who claim to be good are actually bad. Men like Father Timothy exist, the kind who truly believe they can make a difference. It just sucks that a faith that should have been a beautiful balm to the soul of the devout can be used to disguise pure evil.
It’s not like we weren’t warned. It’s written all over the Bible. But when a society is formed beneath the fantasy that true darkness cannot exist beneath God’s light, that society is doomed to fall. We’ve closed our eyes to the true seat of power. We’ve covered our ears and refused to believe we were led astray. It’s not the fault of the faith that we’ve sunk so far, it’s what’s been done with it in the hands of power hungry men.
Money truly is the root of all evil – it’s a shame that people have been led astray for so long, they’re no longer able to see it.
All was quiet around the parish property except for the faint murmur of noise leaking out past cracked windows to echo across the yard. It was obvious that the pews were filled inside and that Mass was ongoing, which made me wonder even more what Jericho was doing.
A chorus of voices became louder the closer I approached, and I was genuinely surprised that I hadn’t yet been spotted or encountered. Perhaps enough time had passed that Jericho was complacent in the misguided belief that I would never return, that I would never think to find out what happened to my former parish.
His complacency was good for me. It made it easier to sneak up and in position. Through a small window I remembered that looked into the sanctuary, I peeked in and damn near froze in shock.
Jericho stood at the altar speaking a blessing that had no roots in the faith. Instead of the relics and religious symbols that used to cover that altar, a woman was laid out over its surface. The entire fucking town was sitting in the pews praying in unison with my twin brother, not a single one of them concerned about the naked woman lying beneath him.
My world spun around me at that moment, reality twisting and bending before finally snapping back into place. What the hell had Jericho done to make everybody believe blasphemy like this was okay?
The prayers ended, the parish growing quiet as the parishioners rose from their knees to resettle their bodies in the pews. Jericho’s smile stretched his face as he lifted his head to face them.
“She’s possessed with the demon of lust,” he called out, his hand resting on the poor girl’s shoulder. I craned my neck and narrowed my eyes in effort to recognize his victim.
Molly Harrison was stretched out before him, a fourteen year old girl with the face of an angel. Her blonde hair was swept back so that it fell from the table’s edge, her body exposed to the eyes of the parishioners. And rather than appearing afraid or embarrassed for exposing herself to the entire town, she lay there with a peaceful expression.
“But she can be saved. Just like we’ve saved the others before her. We are powerful as a united front. We’ve eradicated the other demons. One by one, we are freeing this town of the evil that attempted to consume us. On our own, and individually, we were weak, but together we can face down any of Satan’s demons and send them back to the darkness from which they sprung. Who will assist me now in ridding this young girl of the lustful sins that infect her?”
How in the name of all that’s holy had Jericho pulled this off?
The answers wouldn’t come to me no matter how hard I racked my brain. The only thing I could comprehend at that moment was the force of my building rage. This wasn’t what the faith was about. I’d spent twelve years teaching this town about what God intended for his faithful and none of it allowed for something like this. Yet, in a few months, under Jericho’s control, the townspeople had become nothing more than the brainwashed members of his cult.
“My son would like to help,” Addy Marks called out as she raised a shaky hand into the air. “I know he’s young, but I believe it would do him some good to see how much of God’s power is inside him.”
My eyes rounded into saucers. Addy’s son, Jeremiah, was only seven years old.
Jericho grinned like a fox in a henhouse. “Send young Jeremiah up. Don’t be shy, young one. We all have the power of God inside us.”
The boy pushed from the pew where he’d been sitting beside his mother. His brown hair was cut short to his skull but still managed to look wild. Dressed in a white shirt that was freshly ironed and brown slacks that matched his shoes, it was clearly obvious he was frightened by the changes that had taken place at his parish. His mother, having noticed his hesitancy to approach the altar where Jericho stood, reached out to prod him along by pushing her hand against his back. She whispered something to him that I couldn’t hear, but the words had been enough to spur him along. Slowly he walked up the center aisle, his head turning this way and that to see the rest of the parishioners smiling over at him.
I had to fight not to reach for my gun and shoot Jericho before the boy could reach him. But unfortunately he was too far away for the weapon I had. All I would do is alert every person inside the building to my presence.
Once Jeremiah reached the altar, he reached out to accept Jericho’s hand. Led around the side, he was positioned to stand where Jericho had previously been, a blade pulled from a jeweled box by my evil twin and placed in the boy’s hand.
“Now, young one. What do we know about sin?”
Jeremiah’s voice was so tiny that I could barely hear his response. “Sin is bad.”
Jericho laughed. “From the mouths of babes. Yes, young man, sin is bad. You are right in that. And how do we get rid of it?”
Shifting his weight from foot to foot, Jeremiah looked less convinced of the answer he was about to give, but still he held on to the handle of the knife and looked over the naked body of the girl laid out on the altar in front of him. It was most likely the first time he’d seen a woman without clothes. “Through pain,” he finally answered, shifting his weight once again.
“Yes,” Jericho crooned, “That’s very good. It shows that you know how to listen. You’ve watched me release the sin from a woman’s body, right? You know what to do with the knife.”
One would think that Molly would be struggling against the fate Jericho had assigned her, but instead, she lay on that table smiling up at the man who was convincing a small child to hurt her. I shook my head, far too focused on what was occurring at the altar to notice much else.
Slowly, the boy raised the knife that looked far too large for his small hand, and with a sweeping motion that was clumsy at best, he brought the blade down to run it over Molly’s body. It wasn’t enough pressure to kill her, just enough to slice the skin, and Molly’s mouth opened as that blade ran over her body, the scream tearing from her throat filling the entire parish.
After a few seconds, Jericho took the knife from Jeremiah and whispered something in his ear. The boy smiled up at him before turning back to the parishioners with pride shining behind his eyes. Everybody clapped and began praying again while Jeremiah returned to his seat. Jericho took a cloth to clean the blood from Molly’s wound and also to clean the blade.
“This is just the beginning of her purging of the sin in her body. As many of you know, it will take a week at least to rid her of all of it. She’s made the first necessary steps by stepping up and confessing the evil thoughts in her head. She’s exposed herself to our scrutiny and begged for our forgiveness as a body of the faithful so that she may again be right with the Almighty. After today, I’ll take her to the compound to continue her path to the light. But I want to thank you all for your strong faith and the help you are giving me in freeing this town from the evil that has plagued us for far too long.”
People applauded his words and began shuffling around to get up from their pews. I watched and identified many of the townspeople, but also recognized the uniforms worn by Jericho’s cult family. Knowing I had to leave before anybody walked outside and saw me, I began to turn around when one particular face caught my attention.
It was the face of an angel.
The face of a woman who couldn’t possibly be standing among the living.
And as shock burst inside me, weakening my knees as recognition took hold, I understood for the first time the game that had been played against me.
Anger rushed in to replace the shock, my hand reaching for my gun only because the feel of the cold metal against my fingers comforted me.
There, standing among the parishioners and members of Jericho’s cult, was a truth that shouldn’t have been possible.
My heart constricted to the point where it felt like it wasn’t beating, my breath held in my lungs until they burned and forced the air out. My head swam and reality shifted again when my mind finally caught up to what my eyes were seeing and I recognized Eve was still alive.