Rabid

Father Thomas wakes from the nightmare and knows it was not a dream at all, because he is surrounded.

There is the sound of flies buzzing, their nagging wings are drills and needles to his aching mind.

These are the sounds of corruption.

Of Beelzebub.

One crawls through the ragged gash in his palm. He looks down, at the festering, swollen tissue.

He sees the indent of her teeth. The bite that turned him.

He bats the fly away.

He tries to catch his breath, but he can smell it: blood and offal, thick in the air— like incense.... an offering.

The priest grimaces.

He knows this smell rising to the heavens... would not please the LORD.

Father Thomas is damned in his heart.

There is an aftertaste in his mouth. The lingering umami of slippery, raw fat.

It is the smell of sour bacon but more physical. It clings to his tongue, coats his gumline and festers at the back of his throat…. filmy, spoiled, rancid.

For the first time in decades, he wants the Sacrament of Penance, to confess his evils and pray the Act of Contrition.

He hasn't knelt in the penitant side of the confessional in what feels like a lifetime.

He needs that space now.

But...

The flavor in his mouth is too shameful to admit to the open air, let alone God.

Their sweat and their blood!

Could God forgive him?

Could he forgive himself?

Never.

He feels contrite, but.…

There can be no absolution.

The family.

Their voices still haunt him.

The family.

He knows he must have heard them snoring, as he drew glose.

But he can no longer recall nor imagine any of the sounds of peace.

All he has now are the sounds of high and wild panic.

They had begged God to help them-- and hadn't Father Thomas gloated! He remembers his own lunatic howls, as he sank his teeth into their pulsing throats.

Yes, he remembers those deranged, guttural noises that rose from his own tortured larynx...

Inarticulate...

Animal...

But crystal clear in meaning, like a profane inverse of glossolalia-- he had spoken in tongues of violence, blasphemed the Holy Spirit.

There are pieces of the family trapped between his teeth.

Stringy.

Fibers against his swollen taste buds.

Their bodies and their blood-- but not The Body and The Blood.

An unholy Communion.

This host, not consecrated but desecrated. By him.

His sinuses are hot. Running with fever.

And his eyes feel drier than sand, even though they overflow with tears.

Then Father Thomas remembers their tears-- the confused terror in their eyes.

God their eyes! So wide and so sad in light of last night's pale moon!

A scarlet tanager flits onto a branch over his head-- its bright red wings flay his soul.

He remembers that verse, Matthew 6:26.... "Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?"

The priest, the murderer, the blasphemer, he stands: and the blazing red bird flies away. He cries out “My God, my God, why have You—”

Then he vomits— no time to double over, it just lurches up and out of his mouth and onto the soft, sandy floor of the Pine Barrens.

He sees a scrap of clothing, bloody and slimed with his own bile, but the design is cruelly legible: cartoon dinos.

He heaves again and again, expelling pounds of gore, until churning agony is all that remains in his stomach.

His face is washed with bitter tears, pink, stomachy saliva and a self-loathing that is pure and extreme.

He stumbles.

He blinks.

The afterimage remains burned onto his retina: their tent, shredded. Their tent, opened like a carcass.

Lifeblood like sacramental wine or the crimson of stained glass-- red spray on nylon, glowing in the piercing white light of their battery lantern.

He stammers “God, why have You forsaken me?”

And since he cannot find forgiveness, he does the only thing he can:

He renounces his faith and runs.

***

He trips while leaping a brook. He lands hard in the rocks and the mud, bruising his shin and scraping his elbows.

But the cold water soothes the fire on his skin. He looks down and sees just how much of their blood he'd been carrying on his body.

He splashes his face into a deep part of the water, and scrubs his cheeks and his nose and his jaw and especially his lips and his chin.

But the smell of death still lingers, trapped in his pores.

He scrubs his neck until his skin feels raw. He tears his shirt off and works it with a stone. He scrubs his chest and his arms. But the maroon stains on his cuticles are stubborn.

He rakes his fingers through the grit at the bottom of the stream.

The waters of this wild baptism fail to clean him, so he abrade his wound and his skin with sand, and begs the earth itself to wash him clean as snow.

The bite wound on his hand burns like hell. But the waters and sands cannot remove the poison she's placed inside his veins.

Eventually he rises and staggers.

His fingers are dripping water and blood.

He licks his lips, they're still laced with an iron-coppery tang. He spits.

Then he runs the rest of the way out of the gnarled woods, his injured shin throbbing with each frantic leap.

He must take justice.

And revenge.

He will visit the woman who cursed him and turned him-- the woman who seduced him: Rose Marie.

He knows he will rot in hell for the evil he's done.

But by God or by the devil or by his own fury-- he is going to make damn sure to drag her there with him!

***

Thomas-- no longer Father-- ruminates on her.

He'd believed in her. She’d started their food drive. She sang in the choir. She’d volunteered to help the older parishioners with their housework.

He'd admired her.

Her presence soaked his mind and permeated his dreams.

But he could never act-- he'd taken a vow of celibacy.

A freer man swooped in. She'd asked Thomas to officiate her wedding.

But she'd made it so painfully obvious that he was the one she really wanted.

The way she'd looked at him!

The way her eyes had lingered on his, the way her lips parted.

Her gaze said it all!

Her desire had been louder than a bell.

It should have been Thomas who kissed her at the altar. Instead, he'd officiated her kiss to another man.

She'd vowed to love that other man.

Thomas had began, right then and there, to resent her-- as if he could blame her for having taken vows of his own.

His eyes flash a stupid, primal kind of hate.

Thomas remembers the final insult:

After evening prayers, everyone had left, except for her.

She'd asked him to hear her Confession.

She'd said she'd been working up the courage. But that she trusted him as her friend.

He remembers stepping into his side dark confessional booth, and hearing her enter the penitent side-- the side he hadn't entered in decades.

He'd seen the vague outline, her shape through the screen.

How his breath caught!

Her voice, so soft-- a painful reminder of all he could not have: "Bless me father for I have sinned. It has been 13 months since my last confession."

Her hesitation.

He'd assured her-- urged her to scrub her soul with unbridled honesty before the Lord.

Her voice wavered but she'd laid aside her doubts and detailed her lasciviousness.

She'd confessed how much she'd enjoyed sex with her husband.

A graphic image had sprung into his mind-- her sweating on her marriage bed, moaning and begging.

With a great and terrible shame, he'd realized he'd been growing stiff.

The feeling had rocked him with a sense of deep contamination.

He'd been committing adultery in his heart.

He'd cut her off to say, "Rose it's not a sin to enjoy intimacy with your husband. The pleasure--" He'd choked slightly "--is a gift from God, to help you both draw closer together in the joy of opening your family to new life. This is not a sin, go in peace."

But she'd not left. "Father, I'm not done. I need to get this off my chest."

She'd told how they'd gone to a fertility doctor-- and determined her husband's sperm were abnormal.

Pregnancy was impossible.

But even without the chance of life, they'd still 'fucked like animals.'

Her words had made his skin go clammy and cold and feverishly hot all at once.

He'd been repulsed. He'd been hard as a rock, almost painfully erect. He'd tried to excuse her.... Told her it wasn't a sin for her to enjoy physical affection with her husband within the confines of their married life.

She'd gone deeper.

She'd always wanted to be a mother. Once she'd believed motherhood her calling.

From God.

She'd confessed the dream was falling into lust. With her husband, she'd close her eyes and imagine... someone else. She'd fantasize about cheating and conceiving with a fertile man.

She'd confessed that most nights, while her husband slept, she'd sneak off to the downstairs couch, search for fetish breeding videos, and masturbate.

She'd known this was wrong but that she'd done it anyway. With full knowledge. That made her lust a mortal sin.

That made her wretched.

She'd said she'd never willingly cheat on her husband.

... Then she'd confessed that her guiltiest fantasy was that a strong man-- an authority-- would force himself on her... force her to receive him....

... Because then she could have the act without any guilt.

She'd dreamed about a rapist taking all her guilt on to him-- and 'absolving her'.

He'd almost fainted at her word choice... in the confessional... where priests grant absolution.

Thomas had known then, clear as day, the tone and the pause in her voice made it painfully obvious.

She'd been talking to and about him.

She'd given him permission, without giving him permission.

That'd been her, begging him to fuck her.

To satisfy her and absolve her.

He'd seen a vision of her then-- as though the privacy screen had simply disappeared: her, sitting there, staring into his eyes... naked. Her, sucking the middle fingers of her left hand, her wedding ring glistening before her lips.... and her right hand: squirming between her thighs.

His mouth had gone dry-- his cock strained against his clothing.

She'd raised her fingers from between her legs.

She'd beckoned him forward with wet fingers.

Thomas-- then Father Thomas-- had flung open the door to his side of confessional and attacked his zipper.

The empty church had echoed with his haste and his clamor.

He'd torn open the door to the penitent side.

The vision had seemed utterly real, he'd expected to see her smirking, legs spread, ready.

But...

Her clothes were on. Her fingers were not wet.

Her face was a mask of shock and alarm, to see him standing there, pawing at his pants and panting at her.

Tears had carved little rivulets down her cheeks.

She'd been crying through the confession-- from the strain of baring her soul.

She'd been sincere?

This hadn't been seduction?

"Father Thomas, what are you doing?"

He'd hesitated.

But the anger and lust in his hands ached for an excuse.

And the Devil had given him one. He'd heard it like a whisper, from the back of his mind. "She's playing along. You remember what she said-- she wants to cheat and conceive. But she doesn't want to feel guilty. You're doing her a favor. Absolution."

He'd left his soul on the floor of that empty church and forced his body in to the dark, cramped confessional-- and into her.

She'd fought back. begged him to stop.

He'd told himself she was playing along. Playing out her fantasy.

So she could be guiltless.

She'd screamed.

He'd clamped a hand over her mouth and she'd bitten him hard-- she'd drawn blood.

So had he.

He hadn't realized until he had staggered out of the dark confessional and into the sterile incandescence beneath moon-stained glass windows-- until he'd stood there dripping sweat and using his shirt to wipe semen and blood from his flaccid genitals.

She'd called after him, her voice wracked with sobs, "I-- Thought-- you-- were my-- friend!"

He'd stammered, "You are absolved of all wrongdoing, sister. Pray seven Hail Mary's and the Act of Contrition."

Her voice-- high with hurt and rage: "You're an animal! A dog!"

He'd heard her fumbling her clothing back in place. He tried to pick his soul up off the floor, but found it had gone-- slipped away.

The gravity of his assault....

He couldn't let it be his fault.

He'd felt her curse take hold. He'd felt the dog-- the wolf-- tear it's way up from the black of his heart. How it had ripped towards his surface! He'd felt the teeth of a predator puncture his gums, and every agonizing molecule of change.

The knowledge of what she'd done overwhelmed him.

He'd fled from the church and from her: into the moonlit night.

***

No more running.

When he approaches her door, he sees his reflection in the glass: yellow eyes, pointed ears, matted fur on his muzzle. He is a monster. A dog.

He sees his teeth and they are sharp.

Sharp enough to take revenge.

Sharp enough to kill her.

The wolf is rising.

He salivates at the thought of tearing her temptress-whore body to pieces with his teeth.

***

“Babe, it’s been about 12 hours. Can you bring me my second dose of levornogestral?”

Her husband brings the emergency contraceptive with a cup of hot cocoa.

When their doorbell rings Rose Marie winces.

"Stay... Please."

Her husband passes a gentle touch across her cheek. "Babe, it could be the police. Maybe they caught him."

She begs him to stay. "They said they'd call the second they knew anything."

"What if it's a neighbor? I’ll be back in just a minute, and I won’t be far."

She shakes her head. "What if it’s him?”

Her husband’s face darkens. “Then I’ll fucking kill him.”

***

Waiting outside her door, Thomas the Wolf has a flash of rationalization: she deserves to die for ruining his life and turning him into a monster, but she’s almost certainly pregnant, with his child.

He can’t kill her. Not yet.

Give it nine months.

Thomas forces the wolf down, he staggers backwards, he hurries from her door.

He does not know where to go, so he wanders.

And finds himself in sight of his parish.

There is a sheriff stationed out front.

But Thomas is now more wolf than man. He clings to the shadows, creeps on all fours and slips in through the sacristy.

He feels the eyes of God watching him.

He knows he is not welcome.

He is in a state of mortal sin.

Because of what she did to him!

It’s not his fault!

She seduced him. She bit him. She infected him with this lycanthropic curse.

So he resolves to steal holiness back, to force his soul to return, and to scrub it by the force of God!

He approaches the tabernacle, where consecrated hosts are stored.

He knows it is sacrilege to take the Eucharist while in a state of mortal sin.

But the more he thinks about it the more he realizes his sins aren't mortal-- only venial. He never acted with full knowledge— he was under her manipulations.

His body murdered that family, ate of their flesh— all without his spiritual consent.

Holy Communion would heal him, make him whole.

He opens the tabernacle. The unleavened bread has been transubstantiated, in full physical truth. The tabernacle is filled with the Holy Flesh of Jesus.

A miracle-- sopping wet and tender!

He cries out, “God, You had forsaken me, but I will never forsake You!”

He scoops The Body with his hands.

He takes a heavy mouthful.

It burns his throat but he swallows down every piece. Then he licks his fingers clean.

His stomach turns, a crippling pain clenches his insides— like claws tearing his gut. Like teeth gnawing their way up his gullet.

He hears a voice, deep and deadly and righteous:

“You have eaten of My Flesh, while in a state of deadly sin. You have profaned My Body and shall I devour you, the way you have devoured My children?”

The windows seem to darken, the stained-glass runs red, blood flows down the walls.

You have swallowed judgment on yourself.”

He shakes his head. “No! My God!”

And the LORD speaks like thunder and fury, from the torment in his stomach. “Where are My children? The voice of their blood cries out to Me from the ground.”

And The Body crawls back up Thomas' convulsing throat-- The Flesh before him, in the form of his torment: a Ravening Wolf.

His face shines like the Sun and His eyes blaze like fire.

His fur is like polished bronze.

And the LORD says, "My children cry out for justice!

Thomas runs again, and the WOLF hounds him-- howling at his back.

He runs to the only shelter in sight: the penitent side of the confessional.

When the door slams shut behind him, all noises cease.

He is in the forgotten dark and his soul is there.

It is ragged with guilt, it is in ruins.

And there is nothing left to do, save this:

Thomas pulls a damp notepad from his pocket and breaks the confessional seal.

To Rose Marie and to the Lord. To the family and to the world.

Then he removes his belt and ties it to the ceiling.

One final Act of Contrition.

***