Blackened Spiral Down (17 page)

There was one other person he needed to make the tour successful.  The Abbot knew that many of the nuns were elderly and would need assistance of someone younger that could help them along.  He needed someone who could handle the baggage that they would have, tend to the train tickets and keep them together along the way.  The Abbot also knew that this person would also be killed along with the twelve nuns, as part of the ancient rite told in the secret manuscript of Wilfred Weeks.  It was a sacrifice that he had to be willing to make, in order to see this plan come to fruition before he became too old.  He was in his 60’s now, and his fear was that if he waited much longer, he might die himself before seeing his life’s work through to the end.  He couldn’t trust another living person with such a responsibility, if he were unable to do it himself.  The Abbot knew that now was the time to strike and that nothing would get in his way.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.

“Yes, come in,” he said from behind his large desk.  He was still in the red habit from earlier in the day.  It was dark outside now.  He had the beloved Boris on his lap, purring loudly as he stroked his dense orange fur. 

Sister Mary Concordia opened the door gingerly.  She was obviously afraid, as most were when summoned to the Abbot’s office, especially late at night.  Many had heard stories about him and that he sometimes made improper advances on the younger women.  She didn’t want to believe such things, but after what she had seen the night before, Sister Mary Concordia was repulsed to be in his presence.  She asked one of the other sisters to go along with her, but Mother Mistress insisted she go alone to see the Abbot.  The Mother Mistress did not let on that she knew what the meeting was about, nor did she give Sister Mary Concordia any indication that she had seen her the night before under the blood moon, while she was being taken upon the stone altar.

The Abbot smiled at the attractive novitiate.  “Please sit, Sister.” 

She immediately noticed Boris purring on his lap.  Her heart was rising up into her throat as she did her best to control her emotions.  She thought Boris was gone for good.  She hadn’t seen him since he ran outside the night before, when she was throwing garbage away.  Now he was purring on the Abbot’s lap, and she felt sure that the priest was doing it for a reason.  He had to have known she was there last night.

She felt a chill at his gaze.  It was impossible for her to not think about him naked, thrusting himself into the Mother Mistress, their bodies entwined in the sacrificial blood.  She was horrified to think that he had seen her in the woods, shaking from behind the bush on the other side of the congregation.

The Abbot set Boris down and stood up, then walked in front of the desk, leaning against it.  He put his hand on her shoulder and felt her recoil at his touch.

“Are you afraid, Sister?”  His teeth were gritting in anger.  The Abbot slowed his breath purposefully.

Sister Mary Concordia didn’t reply.  She was petrified.  The Abbot moved off the desk and stood directly next to her, his hand still resting upon her frail shoulder.  She felt nauseas, like she would throw up at any moment.  Boris was sleeping, with his back against one of the many bookcases in the Abbot’s office.  He was content here, yet she wanted to scream out at the top of her lungs.

The Abbot moved even closer to the young novitiate, his habit brushing up against her left arm.  She was disgusted by the fact that she could feel that he was obviously erect underneath his red habit and that he was rubbing himself up against her!  She abruptly stood up and moved toward the door, crying.

“Please don’t.”  She was sobbing.

“I suggest you sit down, Sister Mary Concordia.  I suggest you sit down right now!” the Abbot said forcefully.  He was enraged that she rejected his subtle advances.  None of the novitiates he had ever summoned to his office late at night had done so, and even at his advancing age, the Abbot’s libido was alive and well.  His hubris was bottomless.

He went back to his chair and sat down, and the sister sat back down as directed.  She was still crying but doing her best to keep it under control.  Boris climbed back up in the Abbot’s lap.  He used his left hand to cradle the tomcat’s head as he rubbed his neck, and his right hand to cover the top of his head.  It made Sister Mary Concordia very uncomfortable to see him hold Boris that way.  It looked uncomfortable for the cat, and she couldn’t take her eyes off the Abbot’s hands.

“I called you in here to tell you about a special calling that I have for you.  There will be a Christmas tour of nuns going to hospitals and nursing homes later this year.  I’d like you to go with them, Sister.  They are elderly and will need assistance.  You would be perfect, and what a grand experience for you!”  The Abbot smiled, barely.

Sister Mary Concordia continued to watch his hands.  The left hand still stroked the cat’s neck, and she wondered why he was waiting to discuss what happened last night.  When Mother Mistress told her the Abbot wanted to see her, she was sure that it was because of being discovered out of the convent late at night.  Not to mention being at the Satanic mass.

The Abbot did his best to not raise his voice again, but the fact she kept her head down began to upset him once again.  His right hand began to apply pressure to the top of the cat’s head as he squirmed under the strain.  The Abbot also tightened his hold on Boris’ neck, and together his hands formed a vice.

“So, what do you think?  Mother Mistress raves about you, and the two of us think this will be a wonderful experience, Sister,” he said.  She was staring at his hands in horror, as she could see his grip tightening on Boris.  His eyes were bulging with fear, but somehow the Abbot kept the cat catatonic as he continued to squeeze even tighter.  She thought she heard the bending of bone to the point of breaking.

She looked up at the Abbot, tears still welling up in her eyes.  She knew he was killing dear Boris, but she realized there was nothing she could do.  Still, the flexing of bone was breaking the silence.

“Yes, Abbot.  Thank you for the opportunity.”  His eyes stared deeply into hers.  She could hear the strain on the cat’s skull as the grip tightened – now bone was breaking.

The Abbot remained seated, despite his desire to reach out to the pretty, yet plain young novitiate.  She looked down at the moment blood began to stream from the cat’s eyes, nose, and mouth.  It quivered slightly and died between the Abbot’s grasp.  He let Boris fall to the floor like a swatted fly.  She began to sob again.  The lifeless body of Boris was bleeding on the original hardwood floor of the office.

He continued to stare at the young woman, and then stood.  “Very good, then.  Mother Mistress will fill you in on the details as we get closer.  That is all.”

“Thank you, Abbot,” she said, standing up and making eye contact briefly as she wept.

The Abbot stared at the door.  He had seen the young woman in the woods the night before.  He knew she had seen the entire thing, and he was not about to take any chances with her talking to others.  Starting immediately, she will be cloistered away in her room for private study.  He couldn’t have her talking with the rest of the staff, or especially a visitor.  Sister Mary Concordia would be the thirteenth nun and would accompany the rest on their death march to Bartonville in December.  He laughed and poured himself one last glass of bourbon with an ice cube before turning in himself.  The Abbot wanted to get a good night sleep so he could deliver Sunday mass for his congregation the following day.

Afterward and Acknowledgements

              I had not intended to release this collection, but many of my readers insisted upon it.  I originally wanted these short stories to be a way for me to take a break from my novel, “Six”, which I was writing at the time when most of these were created.  I looked at them as palette cleanses, or a way to try different perspective such as first person, or stories that really broadened the scope of my usual subject matter.  I enjoyed emailing them to friends and family who were asking about what I was working on and who wanted a little taste.  I was very pleased with the feedback.  I did enjoy writing every one of the stories, for a variety of reasons.  I thought you might enjoy learning a little more about each one of them and hearing the back story that inspired me to write the tales.

             
Man With Spots
is a long-standing story in my family and has exalted itself as folklore.  As a young boy, I experienced some very terrible nightmares about him.  I was too young to remember it, but my parents told me about how I would wake them up.  At the time, we were living in an apartment on Fish Avenue in the Bronx.  I went to nearby PS 78 – which for you non-New Yorkers in the audience, the PS stands for public school.  In my short story, I made him a “good guy”, but in my nightmares, I was afraid of him.  The first song I wrote in my band Low Twelve was called
Man With Spots,
and it was about the same fictitious character.  I have searched online for a scary villain in the cartoons I used to watch back then, to see if I could find one that matched my description, but I have had no luck.  To this day, I don’t know if I saw him on TV or if he’s a complete figment of a very active imagination!

              The story
Unfit For Human Occupancy
was inspired by some real experiences I have had in my day job as a building inspector.  I have inspected hundreds of abandoned buildings and houses, prior to demolition, which were very similar to the creepy one in the story.  The mind begins to wander and play tricks on you when you’re in a dark place and hear things crawling around.  I always thought writing about one of those houses would make for a good story.  The sign on the front door with the words “unfit for human occupancy” is real and does make you wonder what might possibly be on the other side! 

             
Blackened Spiral Down
was a story that I started without much direction, only that I wanted the main character to discover something evil in the abandoned church across the street from his house.  Stephen King said in his book “On Writing” that the characters should tell you what they want to do.  He could not have been more correct.  This story is one example of that.  I let Ronnie tell me what he was up to in the darkness of that basement.  As you now know, he was a very, very bad boy!  I also used the words “blackened spiral down” in a Low Twelve song that I wrote about the jumpers on 9/11.  I thought those words would also make for a good title for the book you’ve just read.  I hope you agree.

              I have to admit that with
Elvis and the Two Dead Hookers
,
I went for a sensational title first.  I thought it would make readers want to find out what the heck the story would be about.  I set the story in the town that I lived in for about 12 years, Bloomington, Illinois, and many of the local readers that follow me enjoyed that.  Thanks to my good friend, Les Aldridge, for the excellent information on hot rods that was a pivotal part of the story.  The 1950 Mercury was his suggestion - right down to the glowing eyes on the shifter.  During my research, I came up with the Pontiac Chieftan, but Les informed me that it wasn’t “hot rod enough”.  I did work the Chieftan into the story, but not for Elvis’ ride.  This story was a bit of a departure from the horror-and-gore style stuff to more of a “Twilight Zone” tale.  From the reactions of my readers, I think it was a hit.  It’s really hard not to like and feel a bit sorry for Elvis Lee Lewis.

             
The Jesus Tree
was a tip of the hat to my friends from Danbury, Connecticut, who know all too well about the tree.  It was a local legend when I attended Bethel High School in nearby Bethel, Connecticut.  The actual tree was chopped down years ago, but many kids would go out there and party.  The tree was actually in Brewster, New York, which is adjacent to Danbury.  I thought it would be fun to write about the legendary tree, but instead of making it a cheesy story about kids terrorized by a cursed tree, I thought it would be more challenging to provide my own back story.  None of the back story is true – including the Manville family living there or the monks of St. Bede coming to the rescue.  There really is a St. Bede Academy in Peru, Illinois, but it has nothing to do with the real tree or this story at all.  I also experimented with writing this story in the first person, which is something I haven’t done recently.  I think it worked well and gave the story a sort of Edgar Allen Poe or HP Lovecraft feel.  Poe, especially, was a huge influence on me in my formative years of wanting to read and write stories from the dark side.  I also admire Lovecraft, too, but I didn’t discover him until a bit later in life. 

              The story
Cross to Bear
was inspired by some personal experiences that I’ve had with my own wife being on oxygen at home.  While the idea of me killing her is NOT based at all in reality, you can only imagine the look on her face when I told her about it.  My grandmother suffered for years with dementia, which was the other driving force of the story.  Combining experiences is something that I enjoy doing, a challenge to myself to make it work in a story without it coming off as forced.  I think it worked well here, and this story impacted readers in a variety of ways.  My beta reader, Chris Kovacs, was especially affected by this one, since he lost his father to cancer and could relate to my descriptions.  Ironically, both Chris and I are cancer survivors, so it’s a subject that hits close to home on many levels.