“Make sure you scrub in the crevices,” Maria James told her only child, Sarah.
“Yes, Mother.”
The sixteen-year-old turned on the water and ran it until she felt the warmth on her skin. She cleansed her hands with Fels-Naptha, falling short of the entirety of the prayer. Mother wasn’t standing over her this morning to make sure her hands were near bleeding. Near bleeding meant the Lord was pleased, at least according to Mother.
The whole tribe preached that cleanliness and Godliness went hand in hand. This was why the James’ family washed before breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Maria James scoured her hands the entirety of the Lord’s prayer, sometimes to the point of rawness. But this was okay. It was God’s intent.
David James lathered his beard before and after meals. Before, because the Lord wished it. After meals, to make sure crumbs and other little mangy food particles were eradicated from the greying facial hair.
Young Sarah lessened her objections of strict discipline once Pastor Paul was voted as tribe leader, realizing her protests were futile. During the campaign period, Sarah saw her mother from a different perspective. Mother became a slithering snake as a political lobbyist; pushing weapons and survival agendas here, and throwing out progressive equality thoughts there. Shortly after Pastor’s Paul induction, the tribe determined—it was Mother’s suggestion—that all children under adulthood must live together and learn from the mentors in the privacy of the camp. But the sunny morning brought out a slight defiance Sarah was determined to act upon.
“Mother, please, why must I become confined to this prison? Look at the beauty of the day.” She waved her hand toward the blue sky from the kitchen window. “I should be going to the movies with friends, not…”
Maria cut off her daughter’s candidness, “Sarah, we will not have this conversation again.” She turned from her daughter and towel dried a pan. “Do you know why this pan goes in this drawer?” Maria asked Sarah in an even tone, not allowing Sarah to respond. “Because everything has its place and everything has a purpose.” Maria placed the pan in the bottom drawer. “The End of Days is closing in on us. We must survive its wrath in order to construct the new world. God has told Pastor Paul. We must follow The Way.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “Mother, don’t you find this sudden change of our life-style slightly daunting?”
“You are crossing a fine line here, dear.”
Sarah didn’t back down, yet didn’t allow the rage she felt to take control—the same rage that she kept dormant for most her young life. “Mother, we follow the Lord.” She tugged on the dress her mother sewed last year. It was getting snug around the waist and didn’t lay on her calves as it once used to, but around her knees. “We pronounce our faith every day, before and after every meal. We sacrifice luxuries like television and music…”
“Stop! Just stop!” Maria’s voice sounded flustered; a trait not normally expectant of Mother. “You will do as you are told. I will hear nothing more of it. This is God’s plan.”
“God’s plan?” Sarah let out a guttural laugh with no humor attached. “How is it God’s plan to wait for the end of the world? How the hell does Pastor Paul…”
Smack
Sarah held her burning cheek in her hand. Eyes watering. Mouth agape.
“Go to your room!” Maria yelled. She placed her shaking hands inside her apron pouch.
Instead, Sarah ran out the door, through the pasture of tall grass, until she heaved heavy breaths and her legs felt like a jiggly bowl of gelatin.
“What has our child done now?” David let the screen door slam behind him. Maria slumped at the kitchen table her husband had spent the last three years carving and staining. “We must pray for forgiveness.” He gently pulled Maria up off the handmade chair by the crook of her elbow. “One must never allow the Devil’s temper to enter our sacred home, or bodies, for that matter.”
David lit a white candle set on the mantle next to a wooden cross he whittled and the Pastor blessed with holy water four years ago. Together, David and his wife recited prayers with rosaries in hand, both of their knees resting heavily on a small layer of gravel placed perfectly in front of the hearth.
***
Sarah didn’t intend on running to the encampment. It must had been habit. Acres of prairie grass with a hundred yards carved out of the field were littered with canvas tents, firepits with cauldrons hanging from chains, rain barrels, and unseen underground bunkers filled with automatic weapons and survival gear. She looked around the empty land that fills with the tribe on the weekends—at least for now, and spotted Pastor Paul standing by the unlit community stone fire pit with his arms raised to the heavens.
“Pastor Paul?” Sarah spoke nearly under her breath, wondering whether she should interrupt the handsome twenty-some year-old pastor.
He stood with his back to her for an awkward second too long, as if he heard her but scrutinized how he would address the intruder. As Pastor Paul spun around to acknowledge her, she nearly stumbled backward. His eyes flashed the color of organic egg yolks with vertical black slits as pupils. She blinked, hoping the quick darkness behind her own eyes would recalibrate her crazy sight. Maybe the illusion was a result of the near mile run to camp after an argument with Mother. After all, her mind was still slightly foggy.
“Aw, Sarah. How are you this beautiful afternoon the Lord has provided?”
She shyly responded, “Fine.”
“Fine, you say. Well, quite frankly I don’t believe you.” He stepped over unburnt logs and around the firepit’s stone perimeter as he spoke. “In fact, based on the light perspiration on your brow and your breath still trying to regulate, I’d say you were running.” He gave a quick wink. “And knowing you for the past four years I’ve herded this community, I know you don’t train for marathons.” His lips curled into an arrogant twist and Sarah’s stomach churned. Something about Pastor Paul made her uncomfortable.
“I just had a slight miscommunication with Mother and needed to blow off some steam.” Sarah tugged on the waistline of her dress that always inched up. “I’m sorry for interrupting you.” She turned to walk back to the house.
“Don’t be silly. Would you like to join me for a moment of prayer?”
Sarah was torn. If Mother were here, she would tell her it was rude to not pray with the flock’s leader; but still, she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling she had with being alone with the him. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to head home and apologize for my behavior with Mother.”
He squinted, as though evaluating his response. Finally, he said, “Godspeed, my child,” and turned his back to her.
Something felt off, a feeling with no description. It was simplistic uneasiness, like knocking on an abandoned building’s door three times, and hearing three ghostly knocks in return. The perfect excuse to run away. And that was exactly what she did—ran home.
The sun had long reached its afternoon peek and started its slow waning descent into the evening’s horizon by the time she stepped onto the front porch. The screen door creaked open and Sarah tiptoed over the hardwood floor, avoiding the memorized squeaking spots.
The kitchen was empty. It wasn’t the emptiness that was peculiar, but the lack of cooking food. Mother always had something brewing on the stove, whether soup or socks. Sarah assumed there was another community supper at one of the other’s tribesmen’s homes and the reason for the lack of seasoning wafting in the air. Still, dusk was vast approaching and no note was left for her to meet her parents.
Sarah headed to the pantry to satisfy her hunger pains. Just as she reached for the cabinet’s knob, sounds of crashing glass came from just behind the basement door. In an instant, that same apprehension she felt with Pastor Paul returned.
Fifty thousand thoughts raced through her mind as to what the crash could have been. Mason Jars. It had to be the Mason jars. Mother kept the summer’s garden in jars on the shelves that seemed to collect too many spider webs in too quick of time. She stood like stone, convincing herself the sound was merely a mouse tirade. If it was just crashing glass, Sarah could pretend she was still out when the accident occurred—of course, Mother would see right through her lie. She decided to check out the commotion, even though the basement was more uncomfortable than praying in the community center. Her breath hitched as she opened the solid wooden door to the basement.
The dark, musty cellar reeked of mold, giving her an instant eyeball headache. She squeezed her thumb and index finger into the tiny crevices just below her eyebrows, desperately trying to ease the instant tight ache. When she pulled her hand from her face, the basement seemed darker somehow.
The only light shining into the tight space was from the exits. One, a discolored glass window above the ninety-degree turn of the small landing’s bend and second, from the slight gap between two, almost horizontal, bilco doors on the opposite end of the cellar. Sarah reached around in the shadows for the string of the overhead light. Just as she pulled the cord of the broken light bulb that she was asked to change a week ago, a quiet cry came from the other end of the cement floor.
She cursed her own laziness as her eyes adjusted to the night, descending quietly down the second set of wooden slatted steps. Treading on tip-toes to avoid her whole heel touching the cold floor, she headed toward the inescapable exit where the animal sound came from. Hopefully, the creeks of the scary basement weren’t playing tricks on her ears, or worse, this wasn’t a trick. Dead or dying creatures was not what she felt like dealing with.
Sarah knew the two large wooden bilco doors hadn’t been opened since they moved into the house four years ago. A rusted padlock kept the doors shut from the outside making the whole point of the escape doors irrelevant and useless. As she approached the secured doors, a scratch of nails on cement swung her back toward the landing.
A sound of a wounded wild animal entangled in a trap shrieked from under the landing’s steps. A winter morning’s frost covered her skin from head to toe. She took short, steady steps, so as not to trip on something unseen, and peered between the steps, a good ten feet away.
The hiding creature had no definite form. Her assessment could have been a result of her copious imagination or more realistically, an illusion from the slithering shadows creeping behind clouds. Another short step. Finally, the tiny ray of light shining in from the glass window allowed enough light to make out its only distinct feature.
Black marble eyes reflected a gruesome darkness that made her stomach churn, the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, and her legs quiver. Her feet froze so no matter how much she wanted to leave, she remained glued to the cold cement floor.
It screeched again and Sarah jerked back. This time, it banged or punched or kicked the el of the landing’s belly. She had to leave. She had to get out of there. Black haze or fog closed in. Her only escape route from the balmy cinderblock prison was by way of the wooden slatted steps leading upstairs, over the creature’s lair. There was no other option. The bilco doors had been sealed for an eternity.
She ran for the exit. Its cold hand reached through the step’s gap and grasped at her ankle. Fear coursed through her veins; her heart raced. Sweat speckled her forehead. She kicked the thing away and attempted another escape. Its claw reached between the wooden steps, gripping her ankle again, but this time with a hand as tight as a chained shackle. With every ounce of energy, Sarah kicked again. Its grip loosened enough for her to run up the stairs.
It followed, every stair creaking under its weight. Its high-pitched hyena laugh echoed unearthly screeches off the living room walls while she raced down the unlit hallway.
Sarah slithered sideways through the gap between the door frame and the sliding closet door. With her back pinned against the far wall hidden by shadows, she held her breath. The dark mass drew closer. It smelled of rotting fish abandoned on the shoreline.
Heavy breath heaved in and out in repetitive patterns from the other side of the closet door. The descending sun glowed through the closet door slats while she crouched in the corner under dress hems and coattails. Her heart pounded inside her chest—the beating blood vibrating her eardrums. It smelt her fear and laughed at her crumbling self-confidence.
The black plume drifted out of view. Ambient light poured into the dark closet, unveiling her once invisible cloak. With her knees pulled up to her chin, she rocked back and forth, wishing the thing to leave. But it wouldn’t. It would never leave. Somewhere deep down, she knew they were entwined, maybe even tangled together from some unfortunate ordeal she couldn’t fathom.
Mother was right. The End of Days was upon them. Sarah slowed her consciousness and began taking long, deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth. If the end were here, and Mother and the Pastor’s training were necessary, then Sarah would follow The Way.
Just as her inner Zen calmed to acceptance, still crouched in the corner, the closet door exploded off the rail track. Sarah didn’t have time to push herself deeper in the corner, to run, to do anything. It happened too fast. The foul, mutated creature with gray skin and thin hair covering its entire body, towered over her with machete sized teeth. It lifted its chin and howled. The End was upon her. As the creature’s yellow eyes with black slit pupils pierced her soul, her mind went blank, yet questions swirled. “Pastor Paul?”
Before any response or movement occurred, a knock came from the front door.
The beast huffed in annoyance.
Pastor Paul’s voice echoed through the house, “Hello? Is anyone home?”
The creature swiveled its head from the front of the house to Sarah, and back again. All of a sudden, it shrank to a little over five feet tall. Its gray pigment transformed to a pale white with freckles. Its yellow eyes changed to bright blue. And in the sweetest voice, Mother called back, “I’ll be right there.”
Mother pulled her only daughter from the closet floor. She grasped Sarah’s arm like a blood pressure cuff. With beady blue marble eyes shooting arrows, Mother’s voice deepened to the irritated, angry voice she only used before their move to the camp. “This is the Lord’s way.” Her fingers dug deeper and tears leaked from Sarah’s eyes. “I will lead these ingrates to death or salvation, whichever they choose. You are the devil’s only child. Your destiny is to rule by my side. Choose now!” She squeezed tighter. “Choose wisely!”
Sarah ripped her Mother’s hand from her bicep. She straightened her dress at the waistline and sauntered toward the front door, passing the full-length mirror on the way. With a quick glance, she watched her eyes flicker a golden hue before opening the door casually.
“Pastor Paul, how will you be serving us today?”