Midnight Theatre:
Tales of Terror
by
Greg Chapman
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PUBLISHED BY:
Precious Blood, Relish, Hell-O-Ween, Patrick Oswald Edwards and The Breadth of An Instant, Torment (excerpt), The Noctuary (excerpt) and The Last Night of October (excerpt)
Copyright © 2013 by Greg Chapman
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Precious Blood
Not even St. Joseph’s Church, in the little Irish town of Arklow, was immune from the icy grip of the North Sea.
Night after night, a foul wind crept in through the cracks of the stone walls of the church and each night Father Duncan Malloy watched as every candle was snuffed out by its frozen hands.
The only difference to this night from the last was the wind felt even colder. Father Malloy had been placing the Eucharist inside the Tabernacle when, right on cue, the church was plunged into darkness as the tiny flames flickered and succumbed to the icy currents.
Father Malloy sighed and offered a prayer to St Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, as frustration found its way into his heart. Being the sole priest for the congregation of Roman Catholics for twenty-five years had sent his hair grey and his eyes cracked with crow’s feet. But despite that, and the freezing cold wind that howled around him, he loved devoting his life to his church and his God.
This day, however, had been long and painful and it had tested him. Many parishioners had attended his masses to seek solace from the Lord. After years of relative peace, the scourge of terrorism had returned to Northern Ireland – a police officer and two soldiers had been struck down and killed in the town of Craigavon. Innocent blood had once again been spilled on the Emerald Isle.
Understandably, the parishioners had come to him hoping to strengthen their faith, but even he had wondered if God had forsaken them.
He tried to push the thoughts from his mind and again uttered a prayer to St. Jude. Evil tests us all, but God always casts the wicked into darkness. Innocent blood is spilled, but those lost souls are welcomed into the glory of heaven.
Father Malloy walked down the aisle and retrieved the kerosene lamp he had stored behind the lectern. It burned a faint blue in the darkness when he ignited it; a glow Father Malloy welcomed as he secured the doors. As he did, the cold breeze became thinner; the sound of its howl intensified under the pressure, as if it was coming from the depths of hell.
Satisfied the doors were locked, Father Malloy started to walk back to the Tabernacle. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a dull orange light emanating from within the confessional. Someone was inside, seemingly waiting for their confession to be heard. He hadn’t seen anyone enter the church and it was too late in the evening to hear confession. Curious, he went to the door to investigate.
The smell coming from inside the booth was overwhelming; a distinct aroma of filth and decay. But overpowering that smell was the sharp tang of iron. Father Malloy could almost taste it.
‘Is someone there?’ Father Malloy said. ‘I’m afraid I won’t be hearing any more confessions until the morning.’
‘This cannot wait until morning, Padre.’ The voice was male, but it stank with the scent of rotting meat.
‘Well, I’m sorry,’ Father Malloy continued. ‘I am closing the church and I will have to ask you to return in the morning.’
‘No, you will hear me now,’ the man demanded. ‘I need to confess.’
Father Malloy could tell the man was desperate, perhaps even dangerous. His heart told him to play it safe with the stranger.
‘All right, son,’ he said. ‘But you mustn’t be long. I must close up the church, before this cold freezes it solid.’
‘There are worse things than the cold, Padre,’ the stranger said. ‘I have come in from the cold seeking refuge. I didn’t think that I could ever set foot in the House of God.’
The stranger seemed lost; lost in hope and faith. The priest braved a closer look at the man through the mesh screen that separated them; his hair appeared matted with filth and his thin skin was wrapped so tight purple veins bulged on the surface. From his unkempt state, Father Malloy assumed he had taken the wrong path in life. But it was the stranger’s eyes that sent a shiver through the priest; dark orbs sunken deep into the flesh.
‘You haven’t been to church before?’ Father Malloy asked.
The man chuckled, but it was an unnatural sound. ‘No. I’m not the praying type.’
‘But you do believe in God?’ The priest strained to hear the man’s breathing, but he could only hear his own.
‘I know that He exists,’ the man stated. ‘He makes the sun rise and He brings the night. He created Adam and Eve and He gave man free will. He cast man out and left them alone to make their choices; some good, but many more were unforgivable.’
‘What is your name my son?’ the priest asked.
The stranger turned to consider him. ‘I thought that confessions were meant to be anonymous?’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ Father Malloy said. ‘But I sense that your troubles are different to the others I have heard in this confessional booth over the years. Perhaps we could speak outside, face-to-face?’
The stranger hesitated and with frail hands, pushed his filthy hair behind an ear. Father Malloy caught a glimpse of his fingernails; they were almost talons.
‘I daresay that you would not wish to see my face, Padre,’ the stranger said. ‘Few people have. I keep to the shadows, like the snake in the Garden of Eden.’
‘We are all created in God’s image, my son,’ Father Malloy said. ‘And beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Remember that Jesus accepted all people, He healed the blind and the infirm, even the leper.’
‘He also cast out demons, did He not?’
‘Yes.’ The priest frowned; he was concerned by the stranger’s dark words. ‘But He set the people the demons inhabited free.’
‘What happened to the demons? Were they cast back into hell?’
The priest went to reach for the screen between them, to open it, but he hesitated; his heart pounded out a warning to stay away.
‘What is really troubling you my son?’
The stranger turned to face the priest, his eyes like forbidden wells.
‘I have sinned, Padre,’ he said. ‘I have killed countless times. I have hunted and feasted on many souls.’
Father Malloy retreated from the screen. He could feel the darkness coming off the man and it terrified him.
‘Feasted?’ the priest said.
‘Yes. Even here tonight, in this town, I drained the life from one of your townsfolk.’ The man’s voice suddenly trembled. ‘Irish blood can be so sickly sweet.’
The stranger was unstable, Father Malloy thought. Drinking blood was the stuff of nightmares, of folklore.
‘Do you think so Padre?’ the stranger asked.
The priest could feel something digging around in his thoughts.
‘Do you think we are just stories? We are no different from you and your congregation. You too drink blood – the blood of the Lamb. Of course you use ceremony to disguise what you do, but you are still no better than me. So I have come here to taste that Precious Blood.’
Father Malloy felt the urge to run from the confessional booth. A hissing rose from the space beside him and suddenly the wooden frame of the booth shattered, sending splinters flying. The man’s stench filled the priest’s nostrils and he felt something sharp at his throat.
The stranger was on top of him. His wet lips burned the skin on the priest’s neck and a metallic taste threatened to make him gag. The stranger’s strength was tremendous and Father Malloy could only lie limp in his arms
and listen to the deep gulps as his blood was swallowed. But then it stopped.
‘I won’t kill you Padre,’ the stranger said. ‘I need you. You have to do something for me; something that I should have done a long time ago.’
Father Malloy felt himself being lifted as the stranger carried him past the altar and set him down in a chair. Strangely, the candles were again filling the church with their luminescence. The priest struggled to stay conscious, blinking at the man who had dined on his blood. The stranger was standing before the altar, gazing at the crucifix hanging on the wall above it.
‘I came here to be forgiven,’ the stranger said. ‘For what I have done, for what I am. I need Him to forgive me, so that I might be free.’
The priest gasped when the stranger turned to consider him; his eyes were no longer sunken and his veins were now engorged with blood.
‘If you want proof of the Son of God, Padre then here I am. You see I met Him, in the flesh, more than two thousand years ago.
‘I was there, at the Place of the Skulls. I watched Him be crucified. In those days I frequented places of execution on the off chance I could taste the spoils of justice. Crucifixion was the bloodiest form of all.
‘I was made a vampire long before that day and I had killed many of God’s kind. As I looked at Him, I knew He wanted to free me, but the sight and smell of His blood simultaneously enthralled and frightened me. He was the Son of God and I believed He would damn me for all eternity.
‘I remember how, as I watched from the shadows, He turned to look at me. Oh, there was so much pity in His eyes! Pity for me! I couldn’t turn away from His eyes; they shone as brightly as His blood. The few that were with Him shed many a tear for Him, but he chose to mourn me.
‘After I watched Him die I turned my eternal soul away from Him and I have regretted it ever since.’
The vampire kept his dark eyes on the crucifix. ‘I never would have come here, Padre, but something happened to me tonight. I feel as if I am being offered a second chance.’
Father Malloy cringed with fear as the creature knelt beside him and spoke with a growl.
‘The man I killed in your town tonight was just another meal to me, but after I feasted I saw something and for the first time in a long time, I felt terrified.’
Father Malloy watched as blood-streaked tears rolled down the stranger’s pale cheeks.
‘When I stood over the corpse I didn’t see a man; I saw God’s Son, all splayed out in that pose. He just laid there smiling up at me. Then he said:
‘This is my blood.’
The vampire strode around behind the altar and slammed his hands down.
‘And then he was gone! The dead man was in His place!
There was a blur of movement and the vampire was beside Father Malloy once more.
‘It was a sign – he is giving me another chance. That’s why I have come here tonight.’
‘I can help you,’ Father Malloy said, his senses returning to him. ‘I know a doctor, a psychiatrist … he can help you.’
Suddenly the vampire was in the priest’s face, gazing at him with eyes that pulsed with blood.
‘Do you think me mad, Padre? What do I have to do to convince you that I am what I am? Haven’t I fed on you enough? Haven’t I fed on the world enough? But, perhaps you’re right. I have drunk so much blood that I have drunk in the world’s madness. Maybe I am a monster because you are all monsters – monsters created by God.
‘Ever since I watched Him die I wondered what it was all for. He claimed it was to save you from your sins, but here the humans are two thousand years later, still cavorting and murdering and destroying.
‘Those same thoughts have entered your mind, haven’t they Padre? Why do humans kill each other, why do they torture and rape? How can God have created such … evil?’
Father Malloy thought of all the deaths from terrorism in Northern Ireland and God help him; he knew there was little difference between vampires and mankind.
‘The Son of God’s blood was wasted when He sacrificed Himself and it has been ever since,’ the vampire continued. ‘Your people have no idea the power that is held within each drop. I knew, but out of fear, I turned my back on it – but never again.’
The vampire hauled Father Malloy to his feet and dragged him effortlessly past the Tabernacle into the vestry. As he kept an impossible grip on the priest’s arm, the creature found a bottle of communion wine and broke it open. He grabbed a chalice and forced the priest to the altar.
‘Now Padre,’ he said. ‘Say it just like you do during Mass.’
The monster placed the chalice and the bottle of wine in the priest’s hands and made him stand.
‘I cannot do this,’ Father Malloy croaked. ‘This is not the way.’
‘Do it!’ The vampire bared his fangs.
Father Malloy held the wine high, his arms shaking with fear.
‘Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation,’ he said. ‘Through your goodness we have this wine to offer, fruit of the vine and work of human hands. It will become our spiritual drink.
‘Pray, my brothers and sisters, that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.
‘Through him, with him, and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honour is yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever.’
‘Faster!’ the vampire roared.
The priest faltered. ‘This isn’t the correct Order of Mass, there cannot be any transubstantiation.’
The vampire tore around the priest and knelt before him, gripping the chalice to his lips. Father Malloy gazed down at the horror that was the vampire’s face; his long sharp teeth and bloodied eyes seemed to beckon him.
‘Serve me His blood,’ the vampire commanded.
‘The Blood of Christ,’ Father Malloy said, letting the vampire drink.
The fluid rushed into the vampire’s mouth in an incredible geyser. He engorged himself on it, his whole mouth and face showered with blood. As he drank, the vampire looked up to see the visage of Jesus smiling down on him.
Father Malloy struggled to hold the chalice as the blood spilled all over the undead figure and threatened to overwhelm them both. Through the rush of the wave, Father Malloy heard the vampire speak.
‘Amen,’ he said, his mouth blossoming with Precious Blood.
The priest dropped the chalice into the red murk as the vampire closed his eyes.
‘He has forgiven me,’ the vampire said. ‘He has forgiven you.’
Then the blood pool burst into flame around the vampire. There were no screams, no heat – only a dazzling, all-consuming flame. Father Malloy watched as the beast and the blood were reduced to nothingness in seconds.
The cold wind was gone and the church once more silent. Father Malloy touched his throat; the bite marks were gone. The candles burned softly and he knew that God’s work had been done.
Tears stung his eyes as he thought of the blood the vampire’s victims had shed over the thousands of years; he prayed for their souls. He prayed for the victims of terror and he prayed for the wicked men who had inflicted it upon them. If God would cast a vampire into the fire then what punishment would he hand down to humanity? Perhaps, he thought, humanity was already being punished.
He turned back to consider the candles and spoke one last prayer for the dark soul that had come to him for absolution.