Ch. 8

With a new-found respect for my host, I rose and followed him quietly to a mean bed that had been arranged for me. It was a mat of straw with animal hide for a cover. There was no pillow. The absence of one didn't phase me however, as I wouldn't be sleeping that night anyway. I was much too troubled and shaken to even close my eyes longer than three seconds. Mr. Garris lit a small candle sitting next to my bed, and without any goodbye or well wishes, he turned to go. The desperation that now surged through me was impossible to constrain. I begged Mr. Garris to send someone to stay with me, but he shrugged me off. “No one will stay here,” was all he said. How is it that it that the church was the safest place for me, but not for him? There wasn't much that I could do. He walked off, ignoring my pleas and, sadly, my whimpers. All hope I had for comfort was shut out when my host placed the uneven planks back into the opening.

Since there was nothing left for me to do, I reduced myself to the smallest size that I could compact into and threw the animal hide over me in attempt to conceal as much of me as possible. I tried not to let my eyes wonder over to the candles since it's well known that the shadows of a fire are always deceiving. Instead I focused on the straw poking me in every place possible, torturing me with the urge to scratch, but I dare not move for fear of attracting something's attention. I knew I was being extremely childish and nonsensical, but I didn't know what may come, and the fear of the unknown is capable of reverting a man into a boy.

My eyes began to burn before long. I couldn't remember anymore prayers after I had gone through all of the ones my mother taught me. I could hear them fading from my lips when my eyes gave in to the weight of my eyelids. Half way through the St. Michael's prayer, I could feel myself nodding off, but I was determined to finish it. A few of the candles had gone out, leaving me with what was left of the lingering moonlight and the meager glow of the dying candles. My mind worked back and perused through my thoughts until I remembered how I came to be in that God forsaken church. Mr. Garris's friend's chilling tale, the hassle I went through to find a Gaskaian speaker outside of the village, learning the confounded language spoken only in the lands beyond the Gothic gate, pinpointing the uncharted village, conversing with a man who may already be dead from leprosy, and now, this is what I've earned for my hard work in my pursuit of knowing the devil: lying here in a church littered with the crimes of hateful defiance committed by the anti-Christ.

Those were my last thoughts before I woke up, thankfully, unmolested and unharmed. I was alive with the sun greeting me through the stain glass window, although the red stain across Mary's scarred face brought me back to the reality of my situation. Despite the restless night, I was excited to leave this damned village behind me and return to my normal life. I presumed Mr. Garris would be collecting me, so I decided to stretch my sore limbs while I waited. The sun coming through the opening of the church was blinding. I couldn't see a thing beyond the entrance, but it was then I remembered. Mr. Garris had lodged the planked door within the opening before he left me to my torturous night. Where had the door gone? I calmed myself instantly, refusing to allow another moment of absurd conclusions, but the temporary self-composure didn't last long. My eyes adjusted to the glimmering light, and through the opening stood a young boy, stunned, with mouth wide open, eyes unblinking, and limbs perfectly still. He was standing about thirty feet back from the first step in a kind of sandy pit that the shadow of the church must have hidden the night I arrived. I squatted to appear less intimidating, but the boy's eyes followed something that I couldn't see.

“What's the matter?” I asked him with some urgency, but as soon as the words flew from my lips, the most extraordinary thing happened. Clouds of dust rose from the ground like a mini sand storm. Screams, hellish screams of what sounded like an army of men and animals fighting to the death, shattered the morning silence. The boy covered his ears and I instinctively ran out to pull him back, but with the whirlwind of sand separating the two of us, all I could do was stand on the steps and watch in terror. Unable to endure the screams, I, too, covered my ears in order to block out the demonic noises that were churning my stomach. Fortunately I couldn't understand a word of what the voices were saying. The boy, however, was shouting something that sounded like Latin. At the sound of his voice, the commotion stopped. I looked hard at the area that was just violently attacked. I waited with an aching fear for the cloud of dust to clear, and when it did, I crumbled to the stone steps. Hunched on the ground was some sort of creature. The only visible thing about it was its spine that protruded rudely from its body. The sand that it had been rolling around in had stuck to its sweaty back which glistened in the sun. No other part of its body was perceivable; only the sand that traced his skeletal back and rested in the hollows of his ribcage.

The boy had ceased his shouting and commenced to shake from head to toe. I wanted to help him, to protect him, but my legs weighted more than the church itself. I gasped with open mouth like a fish. Tiny trails of sand on the steps were disturbed by my breathing which intensified as I witnessed the hunched back slowly uncurl into a standing position. Streams of sand drifted off of it, making it more transparent and almost impossible to see. The boy crouched, unable to look upon the thing any longer. I, however, couldn't remove my eyes from the materializing ghosts of my nightmares. Now that less sand was clinging to its back, I could see through to the other side of the thing, where there was another creature levitated in the air. With all the strength and will I could muster, I looked on, determined to see what no mortal had ever seen. The sand that covered this creature sketched out a semi-masculine body with beastly parts in certain areas. A tail of some sort was wrapped around its leg, the opened mouth exposed three layers of razor sharp teeth, the brow area was wrinkled downwards into a miserable expression of anger, the rib and stomach area, though human enough, was caved in and starved, and the legs that dangled as if being carried, were abnormally long.

I didn't know what to make of the slight outlining that I saw, but what happened next was horrible. The levitated body rose into the air above where the head of the other creature would have been. I had uncovered my ears since the screams had died, but would to God I hadn't. All at once, with a thousand voices of mingled human, beast, and unearthly things, the word PURAH rammed into my head, hissing, screaming, growling, whispering, sobbing, sighing. Man voices, woman voices, girl, boy, and voices of things unheard of in this world. Then, within a matter of seconds, the levitated creature was dropped to the ground, lifted by its ankle, and swung up into the air. It crashed into the church bell, cracking it with its skull, and both tumbled down into the church, landing at the foot of the Virgin. None of the sand remained on the creature that had been thrown, but I knew where it landed due to the noise of its fall. One more scream shot into the air, but this time it was familiar, human, and very young. I knew instantly that it was the boy. When I turned my head from the fallen bell, all that remained was the crouching boy who now bore a bloody cross scratched into his forehead. He looked back at me with wide, tearful eyes. I asked if he was okay, but he shook his head and said that it spoke to him. Even though he was confused, scared, and had just been assaulted, I had to know. I was dying to know what it said, so I asked him to repeat it. The boy, with blood sliding down his nose and between his eyes, stuttered as he repeated the creature's words: “Curiosity killed the cat.”


© Mikal Minarich