JMJ

Hell Is Empty,

(And All the Devils Are Here)

A Work of Pure Fiction

By

Andrew Payne

Some Terms

 “Choppauhshapaugausuck” — Montauket word meaning A separated place, A land apart, separated.

“TANSTAAFL” —There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

“Physics” —The physics of the world described below is what I say it is.

“Angel” —Sometimes a good entity on the side of God. Sometimes not.

“Demon” — Sometimes a good entity on the side of God. Sometimes not.

“Sex” —Something shared between a man and his wife. Mostly.

PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN—How the US Coast Guard begins an announcement of an emergency at sea over the radio.

Natbag—Nickname for Ben Gurion Airport in Jerusalem.

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This book is a narrative of sorts.

Everything contained herein is factual. However, not all the facts of the lives of the Smiths, Martins, Jorgensens, and Dufaighs are contained herein.

In this volume, two brothers are featured; Joshua Smith, the eldest of the Smith brothers, and Caleb Smith, the middle brother, who is the focus of this narrative, for the most part.

Patty Smith, the baby sister of the Smith brothers, says “hey” 😉

Of course, she does.

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“~~~~~~”

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Who’s Who In The Choppauhsha Archipelago

Caleb Michael Alexander Smith.

Son of Jephunneh Smith and Mary Ryan Smith. Younger brother of Joshua Smith. Older brother of Brogan and Patty Smith. He is our hero, though he really does not want to be. Caleb is a “consulting detective”, Ala Sherlock Holmes. Cal is called upon to solve crimes that normal law enforcement agencies have thrown their hands up over. He has huge potential that will not be fully realized for many years to come. In fact, he is a messiah figure, somewhat like Aslan. Defining quote: “All I do, I do for her”, referring to Gemma Dufaigh.

“~~~~~~~~~~~”

Asgeir Joergensen.

Son of Neils and Sue Joergensen. Asgeir means “Spear of God” in Old Norse. He is an Angel of God who incarnates on Earth to fulfill certain prophecies regarding the life of Caleb. Defining quote: “Totus Tuus”, referring to Glory Audel, the love of his life, both on Earth and in Heavenly Realms.

“~~~~~~~~~~~”

Jephunneh Smith.

Father of Josh, Caleb, and Patty. Husband of Mary. Sub-Patriarch of the Smith clan. Defining quote: “Mary Ryan is the reason I get up in the morning.”

“~~~~~~~~~~~”

Mary Ryan Smith

Wife of Jeph. Mother of Josh, Caleb, and Patty. Defining quote: “Jeph Smith is the head of me and the love of my life.”

“~~~~~~~~~~~”

Joshua Smith

Eldest child of Jeph and Mary. Under-cover spy. By all appearances, he is a Cistercian Monk. He is not. What he is a genuinely nice guy who is capable of putting a bullet in the brain of people who deserve it and then going to lunch because “Shooting a guy in the head really gives me an appetite.” Defining quote: “Honey, where’s my sammich?!”

“~~~~~~~~~~~”

Brogan Jacques and Annie Smith

Brogan is the third son and third eldest of the Smith children.

He has been doing covert Work for the Firm.

This was stressful on both him and his not-so-little family.

His wife, Annie, has not been in strapping mental health, and Brogan’s absence has not helped her plight.

Defining quote, Brogan: “Annie and my children before all.”

Defining quote, Annie: “My dearest husband, please know

that I am doing the best that I can for you and our babies.”

“~~~~~~~~~~~”

Patty Smith

Youngest child of the Smith Family. Natural empath and lover of men. Her sexuality is unbridled, yet she retains a child-like innocence because she truly is innocent. Defining quote: “Whatcha doin’ after?”

“~~~~~~~~~~~”

Harry Cyprianus Martin, Jr

Son of Harry Cyprianus Martin, Sr, and Joanna Martin. He is a demon of undefined power, undefined because the magnitude of his power has yet to be accurately measured in any meaningful way. Aeons ago he turned from the Darkness to the Light. He never really wanted to rebel in the first place so The Father allowed him back into the fold. Defining quote: An icy stare that kills you where you stand.

“~~~~~~~~~~~”

Gemma Dufaigh

Daughter of Jude Balaam Dufaigh and Gianna Dufaigh. Elder sister of Ora Dufaigh. She is, as an adult, the wife of Caleb. She works behind the scenes supporting Caleb in his work and making a home for him and their children. Defining quote: “I live for my husband and he lives for me.”

“~~~~~~~~~~~”

Ora Dufaigh

Blonde Bombshell. Always has the odor of Sea & Ski (look it up) on her. Daughter of Jude Balaam Dufaigh and Gianna Dufaigh. She is in lust with Caleb. Part of Ora, The Other, is a demon of unimaginable age who is, directly and indirectly, responsible for much of the horror and atrocities throughout the length and breadth of human existence. Part of Ora is a girl who wants more than anything to be a normal girl with a normal life and normal friends. Defining quote, “Lord, where is my peace?”

“~~~~~~~~~~~”

The Other

The part of Ora’s extended psyche, entity, that does not have human origin.

This part of her is responsible for the evil she inflicts upon the world.

Defining quote: “Death is both my Master and my Handmaiden.”

“~~~~~~~~~~~”

Jude Balaam Dufaigh

Father of Gemma and Ora. Husband of Gianna Dufaigh. He is an incarnation of Satan and is the ultimate force behind Ora. He was the motivating spirit behind, amongst many, many others, Joseph Goebbels in WWII. Defining quote: “The blood of your children is an aperitif whetting my appetite for your eternal suffering.”

“~~~~~~~~~~~”

Gianna Dufaigh

Mother of Gemma and Ora. Reluctant wife of Jude. She was charmed & deceived (which always amounts to the same thing) by Jude when she was a young woman. By the time she figured out who Jude truly was, it was too late and he would not allow her to leave. We will see more of her in later books. Defining quote: “Be it done unto me according to Your Will” referring to God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

“~~~~~~~~~~~”

Neils and Susanna Joergensen

Parents of Asgeir. Will become especially important in later books. Defining quote, Neils: “Ber er hver að baki nema sér bróður eigi—One’s back is vulnerable, unless one has a brother.” Defining Quote, Sue: “Eigi leyna augu ef ann kona manni —Eyes cannot hide a woman’s love for a man.

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“~~~~~~~~~~~”

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There exists evil in this world. It is very real, and it is usually very beautiful. It will smile at you coquettishly; it will caress your face; it will kiss you open-mouthed and whisper delicious sounds in your ear. You close your eyes and marinate in the juices of the seduction, and oh, it feels so good, so right. But before you realize what is happening, your throat is slit, and you are hanging upside down from a rusty hook, in the dark, bleeding through your neck and mouth and nose yet unable to die. You catch a glimpse of others around you, for there are many hanging, bleeding. Some are screaming through gurgling gushes of blood, and some merely writhe and twist in the unending agony of it all. Some hang motionless, resigned to their eternal fate, forever feeling life drain from them.

Be very careful, lest you find yourself hanging from a hook, in the dark, unable to die.

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From the journal of Caleb Michael Smith

September 1, 20–

Russia was a nightmare. I hate working there. There’s much that’s evil in that part of the world. When I was in Saint Petersburg, I needed God more than I have ever needed Him, but He was nowhere to be found, as usual. Two Orthodox priests murdered. Flayed to the bone, hung from ropes in front of the altar. Thank God they were found before any of the congregants for Divine Liturgy saw them. There were no obvious clues, other than the two hanging bodies, blood-soaked carpets—and one tooth embedded in a priest’s leg. But God gave me good friends. I sent what little information I collected to Harry in Boston. If anyone on Earth will be able to tell a story from some blood and a tooth, Harry Martin will.

I’m angry. Father Konstantin Orlov was a good friend to me and Harry and Joshua. What am I going to do? I cannot let this go unavenged. Joshua is numb, but his faith is rock solid. He and Koni were classmates during Josh’s time in Russia. I have been chasing this evil all over the world. Two priests, two good men butchered in their own church! If that is not evil, I don’t know what is. I am going to kill the shit out of whoever did this. Koni had a wife and kids. I had to break the news to Anouchka. I’m a grown man, so I remained stoic inside and out while this good and holy woman shook with sobs of grief in my arms. Telling her children was worse. I wish my Russian weren’t as good as it is.. I understood everything those poor children said through their crying. Please, God, keep their faith strong. Right now, I’m mulling over my first steps. It’s going to take a bit of planning, keeping the Russian authorities out of it, but this motherfucker is going to be dead. I don’t like killing. I got into this business to solve one murder—the only one I haven’t figured out. One. How did it get this far? How many cases? Fifty? Sixty? I don’t remember. All I know is that each seems more grisly than the last. My God, please give me just a little faith.

September 4, 20–

I found the piece of shit who killed my friends. I went to his apartment in Moscow. He cowered in a corner like the bitch he is. The walls were covered in photographs of men and women he had abducted and butchered, including the priests. His kitchen, knives of all sorts, covered in dried blood, looked like an abattoir. Even if I’m wrong about this scum killing the priests—and I’m not—this is a bad guy. So, as he crouched in the corner begging for his life, I looked at a picture on his wall of a pretty girl with an “X” drawn in blood crossed over her face. I put three bullets through that motherfucker’s throat. I know he couldn’t have acted alone, though. There is no way this pussy overpowered two priests, two men combat-hardened in the Russian army, and then strung them up all by himself, but he had a hand in it. So, I shot the piece of shit. I then walked out of the apartment, to the street, down to the corner, had coffee and a smoke in a café while talking to my brother on the phone.

November 12, 20–

It was later discovered that the man I shot was in league with The Small Man.

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Home, Sweet Home

Aeons ago, the Earth, especially that area between what would become thirty-five and forty-five degrees North Latitude was warm and green.  It was not terribly hot and never got terribly cold.  In certain parts the singing of the birds, the honeysuckle scents in the air, the wind splashing through the tops of the trees, the sound of peepers in the ponds made for a paradise not seen since Eden.

Trees grew so tall that when the forest floor was in the thick of evening darkness, it was still daylight for twenty minutes in the canopy.  A species of bird, now long gone from the Earth, lived in those canopies.  This bird, sky blue feathers, red eyes, yellow beak, woke from a sort of hibernation for one week in late summer to mate.  After mating, every one of these birds would begin to sing one note at the same time, until the entire forest, hundreds and hundreds of miles of it, was saturated with the song, the one note song of these magnificent birds.  The song would last for seven rotations of the Earth; the female would then lay eggs in their nest and the male and female, already sensing the coming of the season change would curl up next to each other, yin-yang fashion, hibernating on the eggs until the next summer, when the eggs would hatch.

The chicks, having taken a year to gestate in the thick-shelled eggs, hatched as fully-fledged birds.  After hatching and being fed one regurgitated meal, the hatchlings would sing the one note for several seconds then leave the nest to establish one of their own in some other giant, green leviathan of the forest.  This beautiful and perfect bird was only one of so very many miraculous creatures living in this near paradise.  There were wolves, silver-grey and black, with piercing black eyes, as big as horses, hunting moose and deer that were also of gargantuan proportions; bear, much larger than the wolves, breaking into hives of honey that stretched for yards and yards.

Not all animals were monstrously large, for, in the oceans, a type of dolphin, just six inches long, lived in pods of hundreds and only in the tidal pools and very shallow shallows.  Nothing, not even the sharks and larger cetaceans, fed upon these little whales.  It was as if all had been warned by the Maker, These are mine.

In other parts, herds of bison ranged across two thousand miles.  The people of the plains lived and thrived in numbers now thought to be impossible because of the bison and other animals they gratefully used to sustain themselves, and without horses.

These people, so much more obscure to us than the Anasazi, lived in peace, mostly, with their surroundings and with each other.

Almost nothing is known of the people who inhabited this continent then.  Their presence, however, was felt from coast to coast.

Many artifacts now thought to belong to Iroquois, Sioux, Chumash, and other “modern” tribal people come from the time of these Forgotten Ones.

These people are not related to the those thought of today as Native Americans.  No. Where they came from and who they were is part forgotten history, part myth and legend, much like that of King Arthur, which is to say that there is nothing at all unreal about them.

The people lived and prospered.  They called themselves by many names throughout the depth and breadth of the continent but spoke one language handed down to them from above.  The Father had taught them to speak, had taught them to hunt, to plant, and to love, so that their number would increase throughout the world.  He taught them All they needed to know.

For thousands of years the hills, plains, shores and mountains roiled with the life of the people and they did many great and wonderful things.

However, just as Evil closed the doors of Eden to mankind forever, Evil, never tiring, was not about to let this miraculous example of God’s Love stand undefiled.

Evil hates.  Evil hates God and His Creation most of all and, since the Angelic Fall, Evil had been in a mortal struggle with all that was good, all that was beautiful.  This miracle, this green gift of abundance lasted for millennia before Evil took possession of this second Eden.

For all these people did, for all they achieved in so many areas, still they fell.  They fell from a great height and were rarely heard from again, though there are a few left[AP2] .

Ever so slowly, year-by-year, degree-by-degree, the temperature in this beautiful world dropped.  God’s perfect creation, which had taken so long to come into being, was killed at an almost imperceptible rate by encroaching cold.  Most of Hell is not burning sulphur, it is a bleak, frozen place of death in which are heard no screams, no pleas for help. It is in this bitter silence that one is driven mad.

The cold brought ice, ice hundreds of feet thick, pushing, scraping, and destroying everything in its path.  New valleys, new hills, new islands were created.  In a harsh, isolate, compass-spinning, truly God-forsaken spot in the Atlantic, fifty miles from the newly re-created coast of North America, a waning part of the ice exposed an archipelago, hundreds of islands of scarred rock and dirt.

The main island, as islands go, was large, large enough for the purposes of Evil.  The ice melted and went back ever more northward, and there the island stood, waves crashing, wind blowing, and an indefinable sense of desolation and sadness hung over it.

Desolation and sadness also hung over the people, the remnants [AP3] of the “Forgotten Ones.”  Their paradise destroyed, their numbers decimated, they were altered to their very souls.  A people who once lived in abundance, generous and proud, were reduced to their most base instincts through want.  This was the first salvo fired in a war that rages to this day.

Caleb Comes To Earth

Caleb Michael Smith was born in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred-something on a rocky bump in the Atlantic called Choppauhsha to the devout Catholic couple Jephunneh Tecumseh Smith, known as Jeph, and Mary Tecumseh Bergfalk. They were both descendants of the first European settlers of the North Archipelago.

Caleb was born exactly one year to the day after his brother, Joshua. His brother, Joshua Tecumseh Smith, had come before Cal almost as if in annunciation of the birth to be of his little brother. It was a happy gathering, because Mary Smith had been told a year before that after Joshua was born it would be dangerous for her to have more children.

When Caleb was born, his father and other relatives were present, in addition to the doctor and nurses. Jeph’s father was in the delivery room. Those cousins, uncles, aunts, and friends who could not be there in person sat by their phones waiting on tenterhooks for news of the birth.

However, there was one in attendance, one who had also been awaiting this birth with great anticipation, who was not happy. A gray figure stood, unseen, in the birthing room. Only a deep sense of anxiety in Caleb’s mother indicated something was not right. Mary Smith told her obstetrician how anxious she was, and the doctor chalked it up to hormones.

The gray figure was anxious as well, but anxious for this birth to turn out badly. That was this being’s mission. If at all possible, the gray figure wanted this day to be the first and last day of the infant Caleb’s life. Toward that end, this being of rot-ridden evil sent thoughts of hate and destruction at mother and yet-to-be-born child. She had slaughtered whole peoples in just such a way, and with far less effort. This timeless, immortal, yet ever-dying entity was suffused with a hate that would ensure this infant’s death. So much rested on the obliteration of this tiny lump of flesh and the soul that inhabited it.

The gray figure focused a tight needle of hate at the mother and emerging child. The lights above the doctor, nurses, and mother exploded in a cascade of sparks. Other lights simply went dark, and the figure smiled inwardly in satisfaction. The doctor and nurses were pushed to the floor with such force that two of the nurses suffered broken bones.

And yet, the gray figure knew that something was wrong. There was still a very small light in the room. It was a light that had no Earthly source. Mary Smith’s anxiety had led her to pray ever more fervently to God, and He had dispatched an unseen being of his own to act as lifelong guardian of Caleb Michael Smith, the Great Warrior, the Archangel Micha-El.

As a vision of Michael appeared to Mary Smith, her anxiety was removed in an instant. At the same time, the vision appeared before the gray figure. Michael closed his wings about the gray figure, and a silent explosion of blinding light filled the room. When the light dissipated, Caleb Michael Smith was cradled in his mother’s arms, clean and wrapped in a blanket on which, had they examined it carefully, could have been seen the faintest image of the face of the crucified Christ. That blanket would end up carefully folded in the infant’s mother’s hope chest, the image, to this day, unseen.

Ora, what are you doing?

Caleb attended the local school with his brother and fifteen other students, graduating at the top of his class, as Joshua had done the previous year. Cal’s childhood was idyllic, spent fishing, hunting, swimming, and reading books by James Fenimore Cooper at the ends of jetties thrust out into the sea. It, like so many other things in life, seemed nearly perfect, but was not. Not at all.

On a warm and beautiful, nearly perfect, late Spring day, Caleb and his brother were walking home from Caleb’s last day of high school. Caleb was sixteen years old. Joshua was home from his first year at seminary.  As they walked, Josh pulled out a pack Pall Malls put one in his mouth, offered one to Caleb, who took it. He took out a Zippo with an engraving of St. Bruno, lit Cal’s smoke, then his own, took a deep drag, closing his eyes in a satisfied way as he tilted his head back to blow the smoke into the late Spring air. Cal inhaled the smoke from his own cigarette deeply and let out a happy sigh. They were chatting about Josh’s experiences at seminary when they saw a girl a little down the road, also on her way home. She should have arrived home already but instead had stopped to crouch by the side of the road. She was talking to herself in what sounded to them like gibberish. She was drawing odd symbols in the dirt with a stick. She was blond and beautiful, with skin that had a warm, soft, caramel glow throughout the year. Her name was Ora, meaning “light” in Hebrew. She had been created specifically for Caleb.

Cal had seen that light in Ora very early in his life and had been mesmerized by her from the first time he and she had played together as little children. That was the plan. Not Ora’s plan, but The plan.

His thrall had been cemented on the day he saw her in a short, sheer sarong, covering, yet showing to great effect, a white-and-yellow bikini, while she was walking past his family’s house on her way home from the beach. Ora had no sense of shame, and even at the age of fifteen, she behaved with a casual disregard for social norms. Sill, at times, she wanted to be different from what she was; she wanted to be out from under the thumb of her father.

Ora’s choice of bikini, her route past the Smith house, and anything else she did regarding Caleb were no accident. Ora knew that her beauty, from her hair color, her smile, to the lilt of her voice, was something that Caleb found irresistible.

As the boys got closer, the girl’s voice got clearer, and they could see the symbols she was drawing, but neither what she was saying nor the symbols made any sense to them. Cal and Josh stood there and watched her chatter away to herself and scratch nonsense in the dirt. Josh, not so enchanted as Cal—for he had special protection from such as Ora—said, “Ora, what are you doing?”

The girl, her beautiful honey-blond hair veiling her face, habit-like, as she crouched, continued to scribble and talk away in her gibberish and did not answer.

Josh spoke up again. “Ora, what are you doing?”

At that, Ora looked. “Hello, boys,” she said, smiling. The girl stood, turned, and stared directly at Caleb with her empty green-blue eyes. Cal felt the look in his gut. Then she turned, crouched, and went back to her babbling and scratching and would not be roused from them.

Josh looked over to Cal and spoke aloud, as if the girl before them could not hear him, “This is what you’re so hot for?”

On hearing Josh, the girl smiled to herself. She liked knowing that Cal was hot for her, for she knew that she had been created specifically for Caleb.

Cal knew where Joshua was going with this line of talk. He’d heard it all before. The boys looked at what Ora scratched in the dirt for a few more minutes, then slowly walked away.

Josh continued, “I may be in seminary, but I’m still a man, and I see how hot she is. And even though I’m not supposed to judge her, lemme tell ya, she’s a fuckin’ weirdo. And she always smells as if she’s just thrown up.”

Cal looked at Josh and said, “But look at her! Besides, she does not smell like that. To me, she sometimes smells like suntan lotion, or freshly cut pine, or warm cookies just out of the oven. But not vomit. And besides, Josh, you cannot see her for who she truly is!”

“Bullshit. I see her for exactly who she is. Besides, you can’t see who sees you for who you really are.”

“What? Who?”

“Who the fuck do you think?”

“Oh, yeah”, said Cal.

“Oh, yeah”, replied the big brother. “They’ve both been in love with you since they were little girls. Although, I wouldn’t characterize what Ora feels as “love”, exactly. But lemme tell ya, junior, Gemma is filling out in all the right places. And she genuinely loves you, which I don’t get, because you have made it very clear to her that you have the hots for that Bride of Frankenstein there.”

“I can’t help it, Josh.”

“Well, you’d better learn to help it, because a girl like Gemma won’t be around forever. And there are other reasons,” Josh added so casually that Cal nearly missed it.

“I know. I know, but what am I supposed to do? Hey, what other reasons?”

“Skip it. Just get your mind off this tanned necromancer and on to the girl who wants you on her.”

“I’m hot for Ora, Josh.”

Josh raised a disapproving eyebrow. “Stop it. Turn your thermostat down, Sonny Jim. Look, I’ve got eyes…and a dick, and believe me, she would be a hell of an afternoon, but no more than that.”

“She’s more than that. I can feel it.”

“She isn’t.”

“But,…”

Josh interrupted, “Cal, no fuckin’ way. No fuckin’ way.”

Caleb felt a little dejected over his brother’s negation of his “feelings” for Ora but decided to put it out of his mind for now. The two continued to walk on, leaving the blond beauty to whatever it was she was doing.

As they walked away, Cal said to Josh, “You know, Josh, you swear an awful lot for a guy studying to be a priest.”

Josh smiled and said, “God damned right, Cal.” Josh covertly crossed himself and asked The Lord for His forgiveness for taking His Name in vain. Josh is a rebel and not a rebel.

The boys walked on. At what Cal considered a safe distance, he could not resist looking back for one more glance at the crazy and mysteriously weird girl to whom he was so attracted. She had risen to her feet, her blond hair blowing about her head, and had turned in the direction the boys were walking. Cal could see that her face was calm and smiling as if she knew that he would look back at her. The beautiful girl seemed as if she might run after them, but she stayed right where she was. She waved at Cal, turned, and crouched again. The boys walked on, talking and laughing with each other. Soon they were out of sight of Ora.

Ora continued her scratching and babbling, but in a few minutes fell to the ground, unconscious. Her face went from young to old to nothing at all in a sickening montage of diabolic roiling chaos. Her body shook and twitched. Her legs and arms took on the appearance of an old woman then became almost transparent, then nothing but dried bones and sinew.

Eventually, after some minutes of this, her normal girl’s face found itself; she awoke and stood, instinctively looking in the direction of where the boys had walked but remembered none of what had happened in the preceding hour. These lapses were happening with increasing frequency, and they upset her. She had spoken to her father, a physician by training, and he had told her that it was normal for a girl, sometimes, to have these things happen around her time of the month. It was about to be that time now, so maybe he was right. Ora was unaware of what happened to her during her blackouts.

Ora knew that her father carried some dark secret. Probably many of them. She knew something cold lived inside him, though she did not know what that might be.   She was afraid of that thing coming alive in her, yet confused, she almost welcomed it.

When Ora had asked her mother about the spells, her mother got a frightened look on her face and said that her father was right. When Ora went back to her father about the “spells,” he got that look in his eyes, and she knew not to bring it up again.

Cal and Josh were walking and talking when Caleb felt weak and cold. At the same moment as Ora had fallen to the ground Caleb tripped and almost fell. For the smallest of moments, the color left Caleb’s face.

At the same moment Caleb’s body nearly fell on the physical place his spirit-form was lying on a vast grassy plain. Coming toward him was a band of men. They were dressed in what could have passed for Plains-Indian garb of the early nineteenth century but was not. The man who was clearly their leader, but certainly not their boss, stepped forward to stand over Caleb as the other men formed a circle around Caleb and their Chief.

The Chief looked up at some of his men, specifically at his second-in-command. He had spent some time on Earth during the middle of the twentieth century and had found nineteen-forties Brooklyn to be his favorite time and place. He had affected this accent and had done it very well, but lately had found that it was becoming no longer an affectation. At some point, the Chief had become Brooklyn. “Who da Hell do ya tink dis kid is? And what da fuck is he doing way da hell out here?”

A clipboard appeared in The Second’s hands. He flipped through some pages saying in a voice that was a dead ringer for Richard Simmons, while running his index finger down the pages he read, “No. No. Not him, not him, not him…. wait. Here he is! His name is Caleb Michael Smith. Caleb Michael Alexander Smith to be precise, the love. He’s not due here for hundreds of years. Oh, my. This is disconcerting! What do we do, Chief?!”

“I’ll tell yas what we don’t do.”

“What’s that?” asked his second.

“Oh, damnit. I thought one a youze guys would have an idea.”

There was laughter from the band of men. Their Chief was tough, but had a nutty sense of humor.

“Ok, ok…. I’m pulling ya leg. We don’t move him, and we don’t leave him here by himself.”

“But Chief!” The Second said in his frilly voice, “We have to get to the village in time for the Council!”

“Oy!” said the chief. “It’s a good ting for you dat you’re my sister’s kid. We have to get to dis meeting, dis Council. So formal are you! The other tribes will be dehr and some of the representatives from da home office, so we gotta be dehr. But we’ll leave a few a youse dopes…”

From within the circle, a voice rang out, “Who are you calling dopes?”

“Not you, never you” said the Chief in a sarcastic voice to the man, and the rest of the circle erupted in laughter.  As an angel, the man who spoke up was an amazing being. Thoughtful, creative, passionate. All the things one would want in an angel. As a man, though, it was different. In frank language, as a man, he was a kvetch. There are no two ways about it. No one, not even the Chief, could figure out what got lost in translation. Every angel went through a transformation in personality and other characteristics when he or she became human for whatever length of time, but no angel really ever became a pain in the ass in human form, except this one guy.

The laughter died down, the man’s angelic nature rose a little to the surface, and the Chief got on with bidness. “I need a few a youze guyz to stay here with this kid, whoever he is. Who is he?”

The man with the clipboard let out a too-audible sigh, went to his clipboard, flipped through the pages again and said in overly patient tones, “His name is Caleb. Caleb Michael Alexander Smith.”

Upon hearing the name for the second time a light went on for the Chief. A look of wonder crossed his face and he asked “Are ya sure about dis?”

“Oh, I’m sure. I keep very meticulous records.”

Another voice from the circle called out, “You would ya great fairy!”

With an indignant cast to his voice, the Second called back, “And where would we be if I didn’t? Hmmmmmm?”

“Will youze guys shut up for five seconds?! This is no ordinary kid! Foist of all, he’s big enough to eat hay and shit in the street. But dat’s not really de important ting. He may not look like someone special now, but I’m tellin’ yaz, dis kid is da most important person since JC. I’ve been playing at cowboys and Indians for too long. My udda side is watching over dis kid. What da fuck went wrong? How……why…..how? Ok, here’s what’s gonna happen. Clipboard and me are gonna go to da Council. Da rest a youze guys are gonna stay here and watch him. And don’t fuck it up!”

Groans from the crowd went up. The council meeting was always a blast. The meeting part was important, but it was also an excuse for a party. It boiled down, when the serious stuff was over each day, to wine, women, song, and these guys could not sing.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. Youse don’t wanna miss the party. I’ll make it up to yiz. I’ll arrange for a pow-wow here that will have yaz wishin’ ya mothers had never met ya fathers! I’m tellin’ ya, if I could stay and get soaked with youze boyz, I would. Dis is more important than da Council meeting and, after I tell dem guyz who we found, the usual bullshit of these meetings will be flushed down da toilet. Dis is big news.”

At the same time, somewhere Caleb could not get his bearings, he stood in a clearing in a large, dark forest. Above him a pitch sky was pocked with angry points of light. On Choppauhsha and in the rest of New England, the night sky was his friend. By the stars, Caleb could have found his way out of the darkest forest on the darkest night; by them could navigate across the Atlantic; he knew the stars, and the stars knew him. This was truer than he knew, for the stars were, are, the physical representations of Heavenly Consciousness shining in our night. Most of them. The others are not our friends. Here, in this dark tomb of a forest, the stars were unfamiliar and represented consciousnesses that were anything but Heavenly.

The eeriest thing about the scene was that there was no sound at all. There was not a breath of wind in the trees; there were no animal sounds; no birds, no cracking of twigs stepped on by night-hunters. Nothing.

Caleb felt his equilibrium return. He could just about make out the trees at the edge of the clearing and, for all he could tell, they went on forever. Which, in fact, they did. There was just enough light, coming from nowhere and everywhere to keep him from becoming completely disoriented.

The stars continued to shine down in an almost contemptuous fashion, but Caleb noted again that he did not recognize any constellations. The trees, what he could see of them, looked vaguely like tall evergreens, but something was off, something Caleb could not discern. He did not like the feeling he got from them.

Something else was off, too. There was no scent to the air. All forests have a smell. Rotting leaves, decaying pine needles, fresh pine needles, the sense of being surrounded by ancient consciousnesses. Here, there was no scent to go along with no sound.

Caleb called into the air, “Hello! Hello!” but his voice died like a quail hit by bird-shot. It sounded to him as if his voice went out a little way, got frightened and came back to him for protection. He walked toward the edge of the clearing, nearly tripping over the stumps of trees sacrificed for the sake of Caleb’s torture, but as he walked, the edge did not seem to get any closer. Caleb walked faster. The edge retreated at the same rate. He walked for about thirty seconds. Then he ran. The edge ran, too. His feet, as they landed, almost made a sound. He could feel them hitting the needle-covered ground, he could feel them breaking twigs, but could hear nothing. He stopped running and looked around. He was still in the center of the clearing. Caleb looked up. There were the stars, mocking him in their twinkling.

From behind him, in front of him, from either side, above and even below him, Caleb heard a voice say, “You’re a little early. However, I don’t mind killing you ahead of schedule.”

Caleb spun around to see where the voice came from, but he might as well have not looked at all, for the sound came from everywhere and nowhere like the light. A darkness, almost material, almost visible by the absence of light and life swirled about his head as if it were a turban come to suffocate the life from his body. The darkness became more physical, somehow like a black sheet that fluttered through the air, a hole in the sky that might engulf him. It came to a stop about ten feet in front of him. A young man about Caleb’s age stood there, a hungry smile on his face.

He reached behind him and carefully brought out a knife with a blade about fourteen inches long. On either side, the blade had three hash marks, each three inches long. The middle mark had a thorny wreath at its top. It was unusually heavy for its size and had a light-blue luminescence about it. The young man brought the blade to his to his mouth and ran the edge of the blade over his tongue.

All the while, Micha-El stood at the edge of the wood, watching. He was not sure what the young demon in front of Caleb was going to do, but Michael was here to see that it was not too terrible. That thought had just gone through his mind when it came to him that he was permitted to do nothing. Nothing at all, no matter what this cunt of a demon was up to. Caleb had to fight this fight on his own.

Behind Micha-El, the Archangel, in the endless darkness of the endless trees, eyes began to appear, watching the man and the demon. Micha-El realizing, turned to see dozens of sickly creatures, demons of one sort or another, hissing and oozing, droning and dripping. This was all too much. This he did not have to put up with. He looked around him and gave a low growl that rumbled the earth beneath his feet and the demons scattered, some pissing themselves in fright. If Micha-El had to watch his friend, charge, and colleague fight alone, then he did not have to do it in the company of vermin.

Caleb, whose eyes were adjusted to this place by now, could clearly see blood dripping from the young man’s mouth. The young man gave a gurgling, throaty yell, spitting blood and saliva, while sticking out his tongue and Caleb could see that a long, thin slice in his tongue that was now bleeding. Caleb tried to move but found that he could not. The young man in front of him slid the knife into his black jeans, somewhere hidden where Caleb could not see and called a name into the night. This young man’s voice carried into the trees and echoed throughout the forest. It did not die in the air as Caleb’s had. In a few seconds a sound, the only other sound Caleb had heard, like the pounding of small hoofs, came from the edge of the clearing to the right of where Caleb was standing. A hideous creature, smallish, the size of a medium dog, but with hands and feet like a chimpanzee. This small monkey-like creature had fur all over its body, though Caleb could not make out the color precisely. On its chest were breasts, very large for its size, pendulous and hairy, with long, twisted nipples. It ran up to the young man and climbed him like he was a tree. The young man opened his mouth, now filled with blood, and the thing lapped at it hungrily as the man stood stock-still.

When the creature stopped feeding, it held a furry breast to the young man’s mouth, and he suckled for some few minutes. All the while the creature babbled away in noises that were oddly familiar to Caleb. Then he remembered that the noises this creature was making sounded very much like the sounds Ora was gibbering when he and Josh found her along the dirt road.

When the man was finished suckling from the ill-created thing, the creature turned toward Caleb, still holding on to the man, fixing his eyes with its own. It puts its mouth close to the young man’s ear. In the odd sort of speech it used, the creature made plain to the young man that he was not to kill Caleb. The young man gave an acknowledging nod to the creature. It then let out a sickening scream, not a howl, but a scream, then it was off, running back to the edge of the wood, disappearing into the blackness of that world.

The young man spoke, “I have been told that I am not allowed to kill you now. It’s not your time. Shame. I would have enjoyed eating your flesh by the shoreline. A beautiful image, don’t you think? I may not be allowed to kill you, but I do not have to let this night be a complete waste.”

The young man walked over to Caleb, an annoying grin on his face. Caleb found that he still could not move nor speak. The young man again withdrew his knife and touched the point to Caleb’s chest, right in the center[AP4]  of his sternum. Cal felt as if the wind was being vacuumed from his lungs. He could not breathe, and a sensation of part of him being ripped away from the rest of his being wracked him, body and mind, in a pain that he would not have believed possible.

A part of you will stay here with me in a forever-night, and will never see the light again, if I can help it. I dare you to come back to retrieve it someday. Until then, a piece of you is mine.” Then, Caleb vanished from the clearing.

What had taken maybe thirty minutes in the dark world had taken weeks on the grassy plain. The men had stood watch over the boy, taking turns at night and getting into several large fights, both amongst themselves and with visiting beings who did not have Caleb’s best interests at heart. This band of men prided themselves on their fighting skills and those skills were tested very thoroughly. There had been injuries, but no one had been lost.

The men built a make-shift cot from the brown grasses and stick they had gathered. Caleb lay in a deathly coma, not moving, and imperceptibly breathing. At least he was in a more comfortable position than when they had found him. A fire had been built around him in a great circle some thirty feet in diameter with another fire nearer Caleb to warm him. Each night the men would gather large bundles of the dry, brown grass, arrange it in the circle, set it alight, and then gather around Caleb to pray. When the grass burned down, they would sleep, save for the night watch.

After some weeks, the Chief and Clipboard returned from the North. Clipboard wasted no time. “The Council has decided that he must go back. He’s not supposed to be here, and he has to go back.”

One of the men, the leader during the Chief’s absence asked, “Is this true?”

The Chief responded, “You heard da man. He’s gotta go! So, we send him back.”

The leader pro-tem said, “I see. I had hoped he could join us. He would have made a magnificent warrior.”

The Chief walked over to him and said, “Asa, my boy, he will make a great warrior, he will. He will have you to teach him, along wit da rest of these clowns. It’s just dat now’s not dat time.” With that a huge roar went up from the men. The mean cheered and roared not only in anticipation of the return of this once-and-future warrior, but also because they knew that with this decision, they would be returning to their village, to their homes and wives and families.

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaah-Huh!” they all yelled at once, led by the Chief. The Second threw his clipboard in the air, papers scattering everywhere. In the blink of an eye, the board and the papers were gone, and he yelled in a deep, masculine voice this time, “Formation, Left! Formation, Right!” The band’s garb of buffalo and buckskins dissolved and there they stood, naked for a few seconds until new clothing resolved itself about them. This time they were dressed in the uniforms of the Union Army under Tecumseh Sherman. Caleb’s clothing now matched their own, and, like the Chief, he had two stars on each epaulet. They were armed with Springfield Model 1861 rifles. In unison, the men aimed their rifles straight up and fired. Great billows of smoke surrounded them, finally settling around Caleb before being breezed away. From a short distance away could be heard the thud-thud-thud of bullets hitting the soft earth. The Chief thought to himself, “those rounds will be of use sometime.”

The men, again led by the Chief, gathered ’round their charge. Carefully they picked him up on the cot and hoisted him above their heads, then rested his cot on their shoulders. They marched in a northerly direction in lockstep for exactly thirty-three yards. When they reached the spot, marked neither on a map nor on the ground under them, the band, all at once, yelled the Warrior’s yell, the yell heard in Heaven during the battle that was and the battle that will be.

After several seconds, the band fell silent and all stood at attention. Then, noiselessly and in perfect coordination, they lifted Caleb off their shoulders, letting the cot fall to the grass and ground. With a loud and dusty “whoosh” the cot, and the man-boy on it, fell through the Earth and was gone.

What had taken thirty minutes in the dark world and weeks on the plain took a few seconds where Caleb and Joshua were standing in the “real” world.

Caleb’s face, though the same as it had been seconds before, was exactly different. There was a little less life in his eyes than there had been before. There was a little less of Caleb than had been before.

Josh looked at his little brother. There was something just a little different about him. Was Cal slightly paler than he had been seconds ago? Did he seem a little less “there”?

“Come on, Josh, I want to stop by Fitz’s swimming hole. There have got to be a bunch of kids down there by now, and this is my last year to be a kid.”

“You’ve never been a kid. Caleb. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m ok. I want to go swimming and maybe eat some burgers and dogs.”

“Ok, but I’m watching you, little brother. Don’t want anything happening to you. Let’s go.”

Off they walked, but Caleb could feel, his protestations notwithstanding, that he was anything but alright.

The brothers’ ten-minute walk took them about thirty minutes; Josh just wanted to stop and look at every flower and bird they encountered. Caleb spoke not a word.

The smell of hot dogs and hamburgers cooked over a makeshift barbecue met their noses as they approached the swimming hole. The beer keg was kept convenient but just out of sight. Cal and Josh heard the joyous laughter of classmates swimming.

Above the din, the boys could hear the shouts and laughter of their baby sister, Patty. She was the happiest, most carefree girl the brothers had ever known, and she liked to share her happiness with any boy within arm’s reach. This worked out fine, because for generations the entire island’s population of some two thousand had had a very casual approach to sex.

Gathering at the swimming hole after the last day of school had been a tradition for a least two centuries. Cal was happy to be around the joy and lightheartedness. He had been having sad and troubling thoughts for about six months. He would sink into periods of deep melancholy[AP5]  for no reason, at least no reason he could figure out. Caleb had told no one of these episodes, not even Josh, and he told Josh just about everything. The melancholy he had been feeling had been, in fact, a foreshadowing of what he had just experienced. And what he had just experienced, but did not remember, was nothing compared to what was coming.

“Hey, look, it’s Josh and Caleb!” yelled Ora’s older sister, a softly curvaceous and extremely beautiful girl named Gemma, as her head emerged from the water. Gemma could have easily partaken of the island’s laissez-faire attitude toward sex, but for Gemma Dufaigh there was one man only: Caleb Smith.

In a shot, most of the swimmers had come out of the water to greet their old friends like Thanksgiving shoppers charging the doors on Black Friday. Josh and Cal were very popular, because they were both kind, protective, and always had an ear for any of their friends who were in a bad way. Besides, having Josh back on the island was like having a celebrity in their midst, as Joshua had given up several football scholarship offers, and one for baseball, to enter seminary. The kids slapped Josh on the back, all asking questions at the same time. Most of the girls were of the opinion that Joshua Smith being a priest was a waste of a perfectly perfect man. Some of them did not know that they would be granted their wish of being with him, Josh’s vocation notwithstanding.

Josh did his best to answer the questions thrown at him. One boy, Peter Johns, felt that he might have a real vocation. He wanted to talk to Josh about his becoming a priest later during the bon fire. Josh assured him that they would talk, and the boy crossed himself and melted back into the crowd of kids standing around Josh.

It was the custom for both boys and girls to swim in their skivvies, and less, most of the time. After a year in seminary, Josh looked wide-eyed at the girls in only their underwear, and their altogether, and he, too, was glad that his so-called vocation, though very real in one sense, was more for the benefit of appearance to those who needed to think that he was safely tucked away in a seminary on the coast of Maine.

Cal saw the look in his brother’s eyes and said, deep-voiced but in a joking way, because even he was not yet in on Josh’s secret, “Father Josh, eyes front!”

Then, close to Josh’s ear, Caleb said, “Never gets old, does it?” and he gave his older brother an elbow to the ribs.

“No, it doesn’t. Seminarian or not, I know I can ever give it up.”

Gemma did not join in the fracas. She stayed in the water, floating on her back, smiling privately.

She was in love with Caleb but let no one else know it, other than Joshua and her mother. Joshua seemed to be the island’s confidant.

Cal stepped away from his brother as the other kids crowded around Josh. Cal felt a warmth come from inside himself. He had been with almost every girl here, and the thought made him happy through the haze of grey that was clouding his mind.

When he felt this warmth coming from Gemma, he became aroused. It could happen at any time and place, such as here and now when he was about to strip down to his underwear.

“No matter”, he thought. “This won’t be the first-time girls have seen the gallant response from me, or from any of the other guys here.”

He walked a few steps toward the water and saw Gemma floating there with her head toward him so that he was looking at her from her head to her feet. He was sure that she could not see him. Her eyes looked closed.

However, as he watched her floating, she raised her arm, turned her hand with its long, feminine fingers, and gave him a little wave. Cal was amazed and wondered how she did that. It was not the only thing Gemma did that made him wonder if there was much more to her than he could see. He wondered if she, too, had the gift of telepathy. It was common enough along the Archipelago. But Caleb was a very serious young man, not given to things ethereal or supernatural, despite his family being staunch, even mystical, Catholics. Had he guessed, in a serious way, that she was a telepath, and much more, he would have won the sixty-four dollars.

For her part, Gemma felt the warmth return from Caleb, and it gave her tingles. That she knew that Caleb had the hots for Ora did not really bother her. She knew that Caleb loved her, Gemma, but that he was not aware of it, and the time was not yet right. The time would not be right for a while. She could wait. She could wait a thousand years for something she knew was coming.

One boy began to yell, “Throw Josh in! Throw Josh in!” In seconds, the whole throng was chanting. Before Josh realized what was happening, he was picked up by a dozen kids and quite unceremoniously tossed into the swimming hole.

Caleb stood on the edge of the hole, laughing at his big brother until Gemma, having turned around to see what was going on, started to shout, “Caleb, too! Caleb, too!” Cal got a deer-in-the-headlights look and tried to run, but it was too late. He was tackled, dragged, and chucked in next to his brother.

At a ledge where the water was about knee-deep, the brothers climbed up and bowed deeply to the crowd, who erupted in cheers and jumped back into the water.

The boys stripped to their underwear and hung their clothes on a tree branch to dry, then cannon-balled back into the swimming hole.

Cal grabbed the tire swing, got himself swinging to fifteen feet above the water, then yelled “Geronimo!” and flew high into the air, coming down with a splash worthy of a breaching whale. When his head emerged from the water, he saw Ora standing on the edge of the swimming hole, stripped down and smiling as if she had not seen him forty-five minutes ago. A boy came up behind her, scooped her into his arms, and jumped in the water, Ora squealing with delight.

Caleb floated in the water, waiting for the boy and Ora to bob to the surface. The boy was Harry Cyprianus Martin, and was considered by the Smiths and himself to be their fifth brother. Harry had not jumped into the water with Ora accidentally. No, Harry had been chosen by a larger reality, because Caleb was a big assignment. Maybe the second biggest ever. God had chosen one of the biggest, baddest, worst-of-the-best demon-angels in His command to deal with the enemies someone of Caleb’s importance would invariably face. Though Ora’s native beauty was attractive to all the boys, it seemed that Harry was in her thrall and Caleb an unwitting suitor; This was not so. Back in time, when the Earth was populated by volcanos and the fabled Primordial Ooze, The Powers That Be had decided that Caleb and Harry would appear to be friendly-sometimes-not-so-friendly rivals for Ora’s affections.

This was the idea. It was a not the truth, but it was the idea.

Ora was beautiful in a way difficult to describe. Well, it was easy to describe, but even the most accurate description did not convey the impact she had on men and women in her presence. She had something that made her beauty both alluring and unnerving all at once. And, though Ora was beautiful, she was about as stable as a machine gun in the hands of a child. The aforementioned PTB needed a man for the Job of Ora who could not be hurt by her, not if, but when¸ her safety was set to off.

Harry Harrison

Choppauhsha is a strange and special place. Most of the people living on it are strange and special, too. One of Choppauhsha’s most strangely special people was Harry Martin, sometimes known by his nickname, Harry Harrison. Harry Harrison had been a DJ in the NYC area for decades, though the boys did not know about him. Mr. Harrison certainly knew of the boys from his vantage point beyond the vale.

Harry Martin, thought by Angels dark and devious to be like a puppet on strings, was no such thing. He had been of their kind, though these dark Angels did not know that he had flipped sides ages and ages ago. Harry had been working for The Light for most of the length of Creation; had been a close ally of Micha-El during The Battle that had seen one third of the Heavenly Host cast into Hell. Appearing to fight for the Dark while actually fighting for the Light had been an operation of extraordinary difficulty. That Harry had been able to pull it off was a major factor in The Father allowing him back into the fold.

When Harry and Ora appeared from beneath the water, Ora glanced at Caleb, turned to Harry, and kissed him square on the mouth. Caleb felt the jealousy that Ora had intended, but he suppressed it so that Ora would not see how he felt.

Harry broke the kiss. Ora gave him a look of genuine disappointment mixed with a little sadness that connected to a whirlpool of emptiness and ache that only a being like Harry could hope to fill. Harry seeing her expression, feeling her desolation, conveyed some small measure of consolation by way of a gentle, loving caress on her cheek then swam over to Caleb. He spoke in a low voice and said with a wink, “Don’t worry, old man. You know how I like to poke around in things that are already dead. Besides, there’s Janie, just sitting on the ledge behind you. You know she’s wet for you. Go have some fun and forget about blond corpses. They’re my thing.”

“I thought you liked my sister,” Caleb said to Harry who looked in Patty’s direction to give her a little wink. Patty blew him a kiss in return.

“Old man, I absolutely love your sister. I’m mad about her and she, for me. We have an arrangement for now. You didn’t see me get bent out of shape when she went off with Ben Wheelwright an hour ago, did you?”

“No.”

“Right. That’s how things are done ‘round here. You know that as well as anyone else. ‘Sides, when I marry Patty, and I will marry her, Ora will be one of our special projects.”

“Special project[AP6] ?”

“Ora’s as bad as spoilt fish. Bad as they come, but she’ll need a soft place to land at some point. See, Patty and I have been together for a loooonnngg time. She’s a special girl. We came to save Ora, though Ora doesn’t know that yet.”

“Harry, you confuse me. You always have. Not that that’s a bad thing. But today, I’m already wobbly.”

Harry put a steadying hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “Old man–for you are older than you know–we’re family. More than brothers. Same for Josh and Asgeir. It’s going to be alright. Though this game might kill the shit out of you before things improve just a bit.”

Just then, Patty yelled to Caleb, “Where’s Brogan?  He promised to introduce me to Annie!”

“Annie’s not feeling well. She had some sort of spell on the boat over from Nantucket, so she and Brogan and Pops and some of the boys are working on their hotrods in the shop down by the barn.”

“Damnit! I knew I shoulda stayed home today. I could feel it. I sense a long, successful, fruitful, difficult life ahead for Brogan and Annie., but she’s gonna need us which means that he’s gonna need us, which means…”

“What the fuck are you talking about, girl? He’s known her for a week. She’s been here three hours.”

“Don’t you worry about what I know, or how. I just know.”

“You and Harry are a fuckin’ pair”, said Caleb, glancing back at Harry.

 Harry slapped Caleb on the back and said, “That’s the spirit!” then swam back to Ora who had tears coming down her cheeks brought forth by a recurring sadness whose origin she had never understood. Harry kissed the tears away, then Ora and Harry swam to where Patty was sitting on the ledge and hoisted themselves on the ledge beside her. Harry sat between his two girls. He loved them both, very deeply, and they him. That love would, in the end, cost them dearly. Harry knew this and loved his girls, anyway.

At the Smith Compound, Brogan and his dad are elbows deep in an engine bay. On either side of them are friends of his working on their own cars. The shop looks rickety from the outside, but viewed from within, one would see an automotive-machinist paradise that would be the envy of the most sophisticated Formula One team.

Caleb was more confused than ever. He did not know what Harry meant by those remarks—and why did Harry always call him “Old Man”?

He knew that Harry was obsessed with all things dead and wanted to be a forensic pathologist, but how did that apply to Ora? Harry always acted as if he knew more about Caleb than he let on, and it made Caleb uneasy.

What Harry knew was that inside Caleb slept worlds of power, worlds of knowledge, worlds of understanding so vast that, had he been made fully aware of them at this age, it would have damaged Caleb to a degree that would take decades to heal. Harry knew what was inside Caleb, waiting for its time to awaken, but told Caleb nothing. Still, Cal felt confused by everything lately: his spells of sadness; Ora’s strangeness; Gemma’s odd, if pleasant, behavior; and Harry. He decided to put it out of his mind and take Harry’s advice. He turned and dove beneath the surface of the water, came out on the other side of the swimming hole, and sat on a rock ledge next to the pretty brunette. Jane already had a crush on Caleb, so she did not mind his attention at all.

It was now Ora’s turn to hide her feelings. A dark hatred filled her, and she could feel stirrings of things old and familiar within herself, like the smell of rotting flesh, like watching something die for the fun of it. These stirrings roused within her a pleasure that rattled her. These odd episodes from within were becoming more frequent, and though they frightened and confused her, the feelings did not scare her so much that she wanted them to stop.

Ora looked over to Caleb, who was by now kissing Jane, and said to Harry, “C’mon[AP7] , let’s get out of here.” They swam to the edge of the hole and climbed out. Harry looked over to Cal with a worried look, but Cal gave Harry the high sign, which meant that everything was good and the friendship between them solid.

Once out of the water, Ora turned to Harry to say, “Harry[AP8] , I have to go see about someone. I don’t know who he is but I think I will know him when I see him.”

Harry took her hands in his, saying only, “I know. Go do what you have to do.”

“But I can’t remember what it is I have to do!”

Harry looked directly in her eyes and said, “You will know who he is and you will know what you have to do. Now go. You must walk the path that has been set before you.”

“I don’t want to!”

“You must.”

Then, a look came over Ora’s features, the look of The Other.

Harry saw this and said, “And there she is. I was waiting for you to make a grand entrance. This is low-key for you.”

“Well, all that showy stuff is overrated. Now that Ora is safely hidden away, I can go about my business in peace.”

“Go do it, then. I can’t stand the sight of you.”

Ora, with The Other now firmly in charge, got a stony look on her features and her eyes became like flame. She was trying to intimidate Harry.

Harry looked at her with bored disdain. “Are you fucking kidding me? You pull that shit on me again and I’ll see to it that you’re put in a place that Hell never heard of. Even Samael will not be able to help you, God Help him. Get out of here, now!” Ora’s body was gone so quickly that the water surrounding her didn’t have time to fill the gap left by her absence. Then, with one quiet gurgle, the space was filled water that steamed only a little.

Harry then swam to the edge of the swimming hole, hoisting himself onto it to get a good look at the show he knew was about to commence.

Ora found herself at the beach where the killing would take place in less than an hour. She was disoriented and sick to her stomach. She was probably the best looking girl in the Archipelago. That was a feat because the men and women here tended to be very attractive. Some were born attractive, others became so over time. The whole place was strewn with striking looking people and Ora was at the top of the heap. Given her beauty and her family, others thought her existence to be an enchanted one and they were right, only the enchantment went the opposite direction from the supposed one. Her life was one of inner and outer torment. You see, each soul is born with two identities, roughly speaking. One is the identity, or personality that comes into existence at one’s birth. The other is part of the larger entity from which the newer personality is spawned. It’s much more complicated than that, but for now this explanation is enough.

When Ora was born she was born a nice normal girl of intelligence and exceptional beauty. She was born into a family that was less than, or more than, normal, to state it diplomatically. She was also part of that larger entity, previously mentioned, that was nothing like the girl who just wanted to be a girl. This entity had been part of the rebellion against Heaven and had colluded with Evil for the length of time that creation had been. This at the crux of the battle inside Ora. Given[AP9]  that, one will not be surprised to learn that when Ora found herself at Cornelius Beach, she threw up and began to sob. Her sobs were wracking and she choked on them to the point where she thought she might pass out. At this point, though, The Other took over and the crying stopped, the vomiting ended. It had a job to do and this meat bag was not going to get in the way of completing that job, even if this meat-bag met its own end today. Time was wasting. What had to be done had to be done today for things to work out. The Other, in Ora’s form, made for the swimming hole.

Peppermint Patty

While all of this was happening, fifteen-year-old Patty Smith, natural empath, the baby of the Smith family, was dangling her legs at the edge of the water. She had watched the whole scene from when her brothers had arrived to the point when Caleb started kissing Jane. She had seen Gemma wave at Caleb, and with it, Caleb’s astonishment. She had seen Gemma’s sister, Ora, do whatever it was that Ora does, and she had felt Caleb’s jealousy, even though he had hidden it well. Patty knew that her man was Harry. She also knew that the time was not yet ripe for the full fruition of their union. When their love was ready, it would, indeed, be a fruit, juicy and sweet.

She felt the Joshua’s strength as he let the raw sexual energy of the girls wash through and over him while not allowing it to move him an inch. Not now, anyway. She thought that he was making the wrong decision in pursuing his vocation, because she had sexual energy washing over and through her every day, and it always moved her. Just about every boy here had kissed Patty Smith at one time or another. She hoped that Josh would not take final vows. Ultimately, she would not be disappointed, but not for the reasons she had expected.

Patty had watched all of this with a detached and almost amused air, feeling it all, understanding most of it. She looked over at Gemma, whom she loved dearly, the big sister born to another mother, who was now sitting directly across the swimming hole from her. Patty marveled at Gemma’s composure as she watched Caleb kiss another girl. Patty would have been wild with jealousy in Gemma’s place. Patty wanted Harry. She needed Harry. Patty went off with other boys as a sort of protective measure. She was not as sanguine about their arrangement as Harry thought. She wondered how did Gemma do it, just watch without being with other boys?  Then she felt Gemma’s faith and strength and understood that, too.

This Is A Good Day To Die

Greater Love Than This No Man Hath, Than That A Man Lay Down His Life For His Friends.

John 15:13

~~~~~~~~~~~

On the night before he died, Asgeir had a vision just as he was entering that place between wakefulness and sleep. He had been reading, only minutes before, about Sitting Bull’s vision in eighteen-seventy-six. In that vision, Sitting Bull saw a great dust storm engulf a Lakota village. When the storm in his vision subsided, the village was still whole and intact. This was a propitious sign for the Lakota and the Cheyenne.

In Asgeir’s vision, not just Choppauhsha Island, but the entire Archipelago, was wrapped in a hurricane. From Asgeir’s vantage point at the Southernmost tip of the Archipelago he could see the islands being scoured of houses, vegetation, everything.

As he watched his beloved home wiped from the face of the Earth, the winds and the rain took the form of the Lakota Great Spirit, Wankan Tanka. The Great Spirit was breath-taking in his scope. He straddled the length and breadth of the Archipelago. Wankan Tanka then took notice of Asgeir. The Great Spirit opened his maw as if to devour Asgeir. Inside the mouth of the Lakota god, swimming in a lake of their own blood, were thousands, millions, maybe, of Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, Mohawk, Iroquois, Chumash, Apache and all the other tribes of peoples who had been scoured from the land of their ancestors.

Wankan Tanka moved toward Asgeir, mouth agape, Asgeir feeling as if he were falling backwards with Wankan Tanka falling on top of him. He found he could not open his eyes, he could only feel the warm, viscous blood of those betrayed carry him under its surface, then thrust him up into the sky above, only to come down again in a great, red splash and down, one more time. The blood in the Great spirit’s mouth continued to spill in monstrous waves sweeping Asgeir into its depths, threatening to drown him. The thousands and millions of the tribes of North America now rushed past and around him, some in coffins set ablaze in orange and black fire, some riding through the blood on horseback, arms outstretched in prayer to the Great Spirit, some walking the Trail of Tears. All going to their demise in a wave of promises not kept and treaties not honored.

Just as he thought he was going to be completely swept away, the blood began to recede, taking the people with it. But the flood had been too much for Asgeir to endure. The blood of Native Peoples that had been spilled from the Northeast to the Southwest had both saturated and desiccated him, drowning him and drying the very life from him. Then, he could neither see nor feel anything. He wasn’t even in blackness. He was floating in a nothingness, a null state where he could feel nothing, yet was in indescribable pain. Asgeir felt an overwhelming state of fatigue and was agitated at once. He could feel his being stretched to breaking and crushed. A fire trying to consume him fought with a frigid cold trying to freeze him to death.

Then it was over. He was stretched out on rocky ground not able to open his eyes but could feel the blazing sun overhead. Dripping. Asgeir could feel something dripping on his forehead and into his eyes and mouth. He put his hand over his eyes to shield them from the intense light above him and now found that he could open them. What he saw shook him to his core; The Son of the Living God nailed to His Saving Cross, a crown of large thorns on His head. The intense light he had assumed to be the sun was, in fact, coming from the Son, the body of the just deceased Savior of The World. The liquid dripping on him was Christ’s Own Precious Blood.

Asgeir couldn’t move, he could only stare up toward the corpse. The Light was consuming His Body very quickly now. Asgeir found that he was able to move and sat up. He heard a noise from above his head like a large man exhaling after holding his breath for some minutes. The next moment, he heard almost the same noise from in front of him, though he knew that it was the sound of a horse exhaling. He looked in front of him and a little down the hill. There he saw The Risen Christ, a crown of feathers now on His head, hands, feet, side all wounded, and He was sitting on a very stoutly built horse. In His right hand was a spear, the left held the reigns of the equine monster.

It was not lost on Asgeir that his name meant “Spear of God” in Old Norse. As he stared at Christ on his mount, he saw Our Lord lift His right hand into the air and shout at the top of His lungs, “Ho Hechetchu!” The same light that had blinded Asgeir from the Cross now blinded him from the horse and The Christ. In a silent, deafening flash, The Christ and horse exploded and were gone. Asgeir woke from the dream bolt upright from his bed, the bright shadow from the blast of light still ringing in his eyes. He knew what he had to do.

He fell back to his bed feeling the sweat on his back that had drenched his t-shirt. He lay there for some minutes, staring at the ceiling, his mind projecting a picture of the Milky Way on to it. This was a new ability and he had had a lot of fun with it in the last few weeks. There were other new abilities, such as being able to mentally transport himself anywhere in the world. He suspected that, if he were not going to die tomorrow, he would have eventually been able to physically transport himself anywhere, as well.

The irony and unfairness of it all! He loved Glory Audel! He could see what their life together would have been seventy-five years into the future! The only things that softened the blow of having to leave her behind was that he knew she would be safe and happy with Pete and he could not only see their could-have-been life for the next seventy-five years, but he could also see their life and existence together ten thousand years into the future.

Asgeir was roused from his thoughts by the feeling that someone had just sat on the end of his bed. He sat [AP10] upright, again, to see Ora there bathed in a soft gold light, smiling as if she did this every night, which she pretty much did. Asgeir was not shocked to see her.

“You’re early, Ora.”

“I am. And you know that I’m not Ora, mostly. Well I’m Ora, but the…”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.”

“I suppose you do. We have a date tomorrow! I can’t wait!”

“I bet. You’re a hopeless romantic. I bet you’re bringing a BBQ grill for when it’s all over.”

“I hadn’t thought of that! But now that you put the thought in my head, a little shredded Asgeir over the coals sounds scrumptious!”

“Emeril’s got nothin’ on you, Ora-Not-Ora.”

“It’ll be a wickid pahty!”

“Alright. Enough of the chit-chat. What do you want?”

“Well, aside from coming to look at your utterly delicious body, I just wanted to make sure that our plans for tomorrow were still on. I mean a girl would hate to get stood-up.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Now, the Ora who first meets you tomorrow will have no awareness of this meeting, but the Ora who then sees you at the beach will.”

“I guess this is my version of Gethsemane. The Good Lord has given me a better one than He got.”

“This is true. I was there that night. You were off on other business, so you wouldn’t remember. Speaking of remembering, you won’t remember this conversation, either.”

“Yes, I will. You have forgotten who I am!”

“I have forgotten nothing. I know you better than you know yourself. And I know that you will not remember tonight, because I have word from the suits on both sides that you will not remember this night. It suits me to have you not remember, I’m here, more or less, to taunt you, but when I was talking to the bosses, you know, down there, about how we might make you forget, they got a call from the bosses up there, saying that they had gotten wind of our plans and had, I shit you not, Approved of the plans of the lower regions of Creation and will sign-off on any action that your team deem necessary to carry out our chosen mission. Can you believe it?! We can do anything to you, anything, and your side has already greenlighted whatever we do!”

Ora said this with a grin on her face that would have sent the blackest soul in all of Hades scurrying for cover. Asgeir, who had, up until now, been a bit cocky, even dismissive of Ora, now looked defeated and felt betrayed. He had known what was coming, of course, but he did not think his side would be in on it. He knew that he had to fulfill certain prophesies; He knew that they knew. [AP11] What he hadn’t counted on was the betrayal of his own brothers. He was crest-fallen.

Ora noticed this and decided that this was the time to rub salt in Asgeir’s wounds. “What is a boy to do when his own Father and Brother tell him, in so many words, to go pound sand? It’s beauti—”, and she stopped mid word, hand frozen in front of her face, her face itself contorted in the way an actor’s might be when a movie is paused while the watcher goes to the bathroom.

Then Asgeir saw him. He was one of ‘the suits’ referred to by Ora. His name was Joe and Asgeir knew him well. Not on the physical planes, but elsewhere, Joe was a good friend and terrific drinking buddy to Asgeir.

He reached into an inner pocket in his jacket retrieving a piece of paper folded in thirds. Joe cleared his throat and began to read, “I no longer call you servant, but friend and brother, for everything that My Father has made known to me this night, I now make know to you. Asgeir, Spear of God, and apparently of little faith, did you truly think that I would abandon you to sweat drops of blood alone while this Gehennaite taunts you? I was alone in the garden while my friends slept, but We don’t run things that way any longer. I needed to suffer alone. That was My plan from before time was time. I carry the scars from that night, still”

Joe refolded the paper and quickly put it back in his pocket. “That’s the word from The Word. You savvy?”

“I do[AP12] ” said Asgeir.

“‘The Suits’ Up There, as she so nicely put it, and I like that term, going to use it, myself, have decided to let her do whatever she wants with you.”

Asgeir’s expression changed from complete disappointment to something between fear and anger.

“Why? Why would He allow that?”

“Did you not just listen to me read the memo? He’s not really allowing it. She can do whatever she wants. So can you. Do you realize what I’m telling you? This will give you the opportunity to be who you really are while still in this life. This is not an option offered to those of our kind very often. Let her do whatever she wants. Asgeir, Spear of God, will be able to do whatever he wants. The entity behind the Ora of Earth may be a big, black, evil deal ‘round these parts, but, come on, is she really a match for the likes of who you really are”

“No. That much is certain. So, I can fulfill the prophesy yet do it on my terms, so to speak?”

“Indeed, you can.”

“Are You sure about this?”

With that, there was a sharp clap of noise, somewhat like thunder, but thunder from a bolt of lightning that stretched across the galaxy. For a second, Asgeir’s being was pulled to those galactic proportions. It was incredibly painful, as if his eardrums would burst and his eyes felt like they were flattening in their orbits. Then Asgeir understood that this perspective was to show him, again, just Who was still running the show and that the billions of stars in our Milky Way were as dust to the Creator of those stars.

When the galactic experience was over, Joe, seeing the expression on Asgeir’s face, said, “Yes, I’m sure.”

Asgeir, holding his head in his hands, managed to hoarsely whisper, “I believe you.”

Gathering himself, he said, “What if I decide to not do this at all? I mean, no matter how you look at it, no matter how much control I’m given over how I die, I’m still going to die later today. Maybe you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be physical but dying is usually not a day at the beach.”

“Gallows humor? I love it! Of course, you can decline His invitation. You know how these things work, though. He will not hold it against you and will not judge you. Nothing bad will happen to you, but bad things will happen to others. There’s the rub. He won’t judge you, will not punish you. You’ll do too good a job of that yourself. So, there’s that.”

Asgeir gave Joe a good-natured “who, me?” shrug.

Joe continued, “Handle this in any fashion you chose. You may do, or not do, whatever you want, so long as, by the end of today, the prophesy is fulfilled. I know that this won’t be entirely fun-and-games, but it will hurt for just a tick, then you’re home, again, for a while.”

One more eardrum-splitting, eye-flattening clap of celestial thunder and Joe was no longer standing before Asgeir.

Just before Ora was reanimated, Asgeir heard the following words in his head, “Oh, yeah, one more thing; you’ll remember everything that happened tonight.  Just play along with this demonesse.”

“—ful.” Ora, sexy, blonde, perpetually tanned Ora moved closer to Asgeir and kissed him on the lips. Softly for a few seconds, then deeply and passionately. Asgeir thought, for just a moment, to resist and break the kiss. Then he realized that this would be the second to last time, in this body at least, that he would be able to kiss a pretty girl. Glory would understand, he hoped. After tomorrow afternoon, she would be safely in the care of a trusted friend. She and that friend would have an exceptionally long life filled with kisses and much more. He will have made sure of that.

Asgeir put his right hand down past the waistband of Ora’s panties right to her yoni. She gasped while her tongue was in his mouth, dancing with his, inviting him to more. Asgeir firmly took Ora in his free arm and pressed his tongue into hers, now taking the lead in their lingual pas de deux making Ora-Not-Ora yield and melt. She thought, “Why not? He is completely beautiful and neither of us will ever be in this situation with each other again. I’m going for it.”

Ora planned to draw Asgeir into the kiss, then cut him off, simply to be cruel, but she found herself the one drawn in. His power and masculinity were surprising given his somewhat slight physical stature. She, at some level of awareness, realized that the masculine power she was feeling from him came from deeper parts that were now making themselves known. This ought to have tipped her off, but she was now all too thoroughly in the throes of passion to notice anything other than her own desire.

As Ora continued to press her lips to his, she reached under the covers, then into his shorts. She gasped and her eyes got big, “There are none in Heaven or Earth who are hung such as you! You’ve been hiding this thing in plain sight?!” and she went to kiss him, again.

With a deep, choking breath, Asgeir put his hand up to stop her. Here was one of the most beautiful girls ever put on the Earth, with her hand where no girl had put her hand before this, and he had to stop her.

“What? What are you doing?!”

“I can’t do this, Ora. Believe me, I want to. I really, really want to. But I can’t.”

“What?!” the flabbergasted demon-girl screamed. She was not used to being turned down. “It’s that stupid bitch you’re seeing isn’t it?! What’s her name, Snow White Mary, or something stupid like that?”

“Her name is Glory and I love her. I can’t do this to her.”

“But you’re going to die tomorrow! You know this is going to happen! If little miss white-underpants knew you were going to die, she wouldn’t open her legs for you. She’d still keep them closed tighter than Scrooge’s purse, and here I am, offering you what I can guarantee is one of the best pieces of strange ever created and you’re turning me down!”

“Ora, I know what I’m giving up. I know it’s beyond-description amazing. But I also know what I’d be losing and Glory Audel’s heart is worth more than your snatch on its best day.”

Ora pulled her hand from beneath the sheets, ripped Asgeir’s hand from her underwear, and slapped Asgeir across his face as hard as she could. The sound bounced off the walls of the spartan room, coming back to him just about the same time that the pain was registering and the dual sensation of sharp pain and sharp sound made Asgeir shove himself back, away from Ora, putting his back into the corner where the bed met two walls.

Ora stood from the bed and fixed Asgeir with an icy look which he knew to mean that, if she could, she’d kill him on the spot. Then she began to yell, “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill her!”, her voice taking on a mechanical shrill that sounded neither natural nor artificial. “When I leave here, I’m going to turn that virginal cunt’s insides to jelly! But first, I’m going to fuck her senseless with the biggest thing I can find in her room! Do you hear me! I’m going to…” and her sentence was cut off for the second time that night.

From the opposite corner of the room from where Asgeir sat came a voice, Joe’s voice, “No, you won’t” and Ora vanished in a puff of libidinous smoke.

“Ok”, the voice said, “enough parlor-trick-theatrics for one evening. I’ve taken care of her for the nonce. Get some sleep. You’ve got a lot of dying to do tomorrow. I expect some of your own theatrics. Make it a good show.”

Asgeir, exhausted and frustrated, scooted himself to the center of the bed and was sleeping within a few minutes.

Ladies and Gentlemen! The Late, Great Asgeir Joergensen!

Before the appointed hour of his departure, Asgeir was having a good time with his friends. He was being a boy, just a boy, and that did not happen very often. Asgeir’s gift, like so many others, had its darker side. He had been an adult in many ways since he learned to talk. He understood Scripture and the ways of God that made respected theologians feel as if they had wasted their time getting their educations. He had the gift not only of curing, but of healing, which generally has more to do with the mind and spirit than of the body. But these things do not come for free. Asgeir Joergensen rarely had a day where he was not Asgeir Joergensen. The boy was frequently lost behind the gift.

Not today, though. Today he was a hot-dog-munching, tire-swinging, laughing boy who was showing off for his girl. He had a girlfriend. He loved her. He wanted to eventually marry her, though he knew that marriage was not in the cards for him.

He had caught her eye earlier in the year and she was inescapably, inexplicably drawn to him. He was good looking, but it was much more than that; Glory Audel was anxious all the time; panic stricken to the point of missing more days of school than she attended. As odd as this may seem, on the North Archipelago, it was not surprising at all. The entire archipelago was on “the spectrum”. Which spectrum? Take your pick.

Glory was nearly disabled by continuous nausea brought on by anxiety and panic. Neither drugs, nor therapy nor the near constant reassurances of her parents, who loved her dearly, could keep the panic attacks at bay. But one day, Asgeir walked by her in the school hallway and, for a moment, the anxiety, panic and nausea were gone. She could feel her symptoms being pushed away as if they had just come into proximity with a magnet of similar polarity. Then she noticed, for this was the only time in her memory that her mind was not overwhelmed by her symptoms, just how handsome Asgeir was. Then, as he passed, the peace went with him, the panic and nausea returned, but she remembered and sought him out after school. As she got within eighteen inches of Asgeir, the panic and all the rest of it, went away, again. They very quickly became friends, then a real item. It’s difficult not to if you must be within a foot and a half of someone to feel good. Her parents were surprised but grateful. His parents were not surprised in the least. Do not think that she loved Asgeir for purely utilitarian reasons, for while she needed Asgeir, she also loved him with a love that was true and pure. Not only that, she was in love with him.

He was happy that day. He had kissed his girl, he was happy that he had avoided temptation the night before. He rough-housed with his buddies, and he had eaten until he was nearly sick. It was beautiful. Then he saw her. He had been expecting her, of course, though he had hoped that the Father might still let this particular chalice pass from his lips. However, there she was, and he was ready to do the Will of the Father.

Ora was in his grade and she had always taken pains to steer clear of him. He was too good. He was too much of something that she could not bear most of the time and could not understand at all, but she was no threat to him. However, he knew that the girl in his class, who was just a girl, was not just a girl. He had known for several months, almost a year, that at some point, she would change, almost like an assassin who has been programmed to kill upon hearing a certain phrase. He knew that that sort of thing was Hollywood hokum, but in the case of Ora Dufaigh, it was too real.

The being standing at the edge of the water had Ora’s body, but this was not really Ora, as has been made plain. Of course, he remembered every second of the night before. Ora was in there, shoved aside and bound with cord of extra-earthly manufacture by the greater entity from which she sprang. This entity had made a pact at some point in the unfathomable past with unspeakably bad persons that allowed this, but this being was not Ora.

She looked at him and smiled[AP13] . He knew it was time. He swam over to his girl, wrapped her in his arms, kissed her softly, privately thanking God that he had been strong the night before, looked into her eyes and said “I have to go. You will be alright from now on. I promise. I have been promised this by Him[AP14] .”

Glory Audel knew who the “Him” was. She had been with Asgeir long enough to know the odd quirks of his speech. It was one of the things that she loved so dearly about him. His words, though comforting, left her feeling frightened. She looked down at the water. Asgeir seeing her fear, lifted her chin with his right hand so that she was looking straight into him, directly into who he was.

“You will be ok from now on. I have His promise. I love you now. I will love you forever and always. Do you understand?”

She looked into his blue-green eyes, nodding, mesmerized by his voice. He kissed her one last time, turned, and made for the edge of the swimming hole, leaving Glory Audel in a trance that would last until Asgeir was out of her sight.

As Asgeir swam by the boy who had been speaking to Joshua about the seminary, he stopped for a moment, put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and said “Take care of her, Pete. She will be ok, but she’s still delicate, she will need you. Please take care of her for me.” Adding as he swam away, “Oh, and change of plans. You’re not going to be a priest, either!”

Peter Johns looked at Asgeir, wondering what the heck he was talking about until Asgeir turned to look at Glory. An understanding came over the boy. It was an understanding that was deep; an incomprehensible comprehension, and Peter knew. Asgeir swam off, not looking back. Peter and Glory would name their first child, a boy, Asgeir Neils Johns.

Asgeir followed Ora from the swimming hole and then quickly overtook her so that she had to run to catch up to him.

“Are you that anxious to leave all this behind?” Ora asked him, almost confused.

“This is a good day to die. Crazy Horse said that in 1876.”

“I was there. I heard him say it. Well, he didn’t die that day, but you are. So, there’s that.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting him.”

“And I’m looking forward to arranging that meeting!”

“Don’t get too full of yourself. I could put an end to this right now if I wanted.”

“Oh, right. You could. You’re one of us. At least you were. So many who are. So many who aren’t. I can’t keep track. And I’m not Ora exactly, not quite the Ora you know, at least. You ought to understand that.”

“I do. I remember everything. I just can’t be bothered watching everything I say, what with all my blood about to soak into the sand and all. Not that I’m going without a fight.”

“Really? You’re going to be difficult?”

Asgeir said, “I am. Father says that the prophesies must be honored and fulfilled. I must give you my blood today. No one said that I have to hand it over in a bucket with a smile.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Really? Now you’re going to be difficult?”

“Oh. I get it.”

Asgeir broke into a run, “Hoka Hey!” he shouted behind him to Ora.

She had heard those words only once before. They were the war-cry of Crazy Horse’s men as they rode into battle on Custer’s last day on Earth.

She knew that Asgeir was strong. Stronger than she was if she were forced to admit it. If he chose to not die this day, there would be nothing in Hell nor Heaven that could or would make it happen.

Ora, with the deeper, darker part of herself in control, ran, again, after Asgeir. She was getting a little nervous. No telling what she would find if he beat her to Cornelius Beach. Maybe he would ambush her from the air or from behind one of the many large boulders that littered the sand in a way that reminded her of an abandoned game of marbles once played by giant children.

If she failed at this, her father’s wrath would be something that would be directed at all her many levels of being. That prospect was better not entertained for the moment. She had a job to do, if Asgeir cooperated.

A Bad Day At The Beach

It has been said that a bad day at the beach

Is better than a good day at work.

Yeah. Not always true.

Just ask Chrissie Watkins, the first victim in Jaws.

Asgeir did beat Ora to Cornelius Beach by about two minutes. He climbed to the top of an exceptionally large rock deposited there some ten thousand years before by retreating ice. He stood there, looking out toward the North Atlantic. Asgeir had been told the night before that the full extent of his true nature, his full self, would be made available to him during his last hours on Earth.

“Now would be a good time for that to happen”, he spoke quietly in the direction of the incoming waves.

Ora, now just a minute behind him, saw the largest bolt of lightning she could remember strike in the vicinity of Cornelius Beach. “Damnit! Someone got to him before I did!” she yelled into the warm Summer air. If she screwed this up because she let Asgeir run ahead of her, she was afraid to think. She, her father, and their faction down there were not the only ones who wanted Asgeir Joergensen removed from the physical scene. The darker echelon truly were more factious than their opposite number up there in the clouds, as it were.  That’s one of the many reasons they lost the original battle all those aeons ago. Not the only reason, but by far, the biggest one. The real scumbags from Hell would sabotage their own victory if it meant hurting the chances of victory for one of their own kind, and everyone was a real scumbag.

They each had their own agenda, their own little fiefdoms, in the greater Kingdom of Hades and they all were continually scrambling for the smallest bit of territory to lord over. Frequently, the baby was not only thrown out with the bathwater but scalded to death in the process.

If that lightning strike had come from one her father’s enemies to kill Asgeir in an attempt to hurt her father’s position and standing with E.O. then all would be lost; first she would be ended by her father, then her father, would meet his end at the hands of E.O. Evil One did not have a warm, fuzzy side.

Ora picked up her pace, running as fast as her ridiculous human legs would allow. When she arrived at the beach, sweating and out of breath, she [AP15] was not prepared for what she saw. There on the rock upon which Asgeir had stood was the biggest, blackest angel she had ever seen[AP16] . His wings were partially spread and, even at that, reached ten yards in either direction from his body. They were so dark that they look like wing-shaped holes in the otherwise bright-blue sky. It hurt her eyes to look at those black wings, as if doing so might wrest her eyes’ power of vision from them. The remainder of this angel was in proportion to its wings, though, even for its immense size, this angel gave the impression of being larger, still.

Ora, The Other part of Ora, was genuinely scared to death. So, when the dark angel turned around to face her, she took a step back in horror, while wetting herself a little, though not enough to show. The angel looked at her and smiled. This was not the sort of smile your mother, holding a plate of warm cookies, greets you with after you come home from school. This was the kind of smile, in fact, the last thing, that you see, when Carcharodon Carcharias has selected you as dinner.

This piece of angelic coal, mined from depths that even she dared not imagine, made a motion with its head, looking down toward the sand beneath him. As she followed the eyes of the demon toward the sand, she noticed, first, the pieces of chard body upon which he stood, and then, the smell of cooked flesh as it wafted its way across the bright, sunny beach. There lay the body of Asgeir Joergensen, or what was left of him. Grains of sand where rock met beach were a deep red, much redder than they ought to be, she thought, but there it was. Bits of flesh and bone were scattered at the base of the rock. Ora began to shake, sickened by the sight. Her own reaction confused her. Wasn’t she, at least parts of her, a demon, too, after all? It’s that damned human girl part of me, she thought. This is the moment when The Other in Ora chose to flee, leaving the scared teenaged girl alone, on a blood-drenched beach, with a monster of demon-angelic proportions.

The great angel looked at her once, again. It made a motion with its right arm, an underhand throwing motion. Something was being tossed to her. She could not believe it. It was a head, Asgeir’s head. When it reached her, she thrust out her arms in instinct to catch it. The head’s eyes looked at her while its mouth moved, saying, “Poor Ora. Always late to the party.” Then the mouth went silent. Ora dropped the head, screamed, and fainted to the sand.

An hour later she woke. The dark angel was gone but Asgeir’s lifeless head was still next to her. The sand at the base of the large rock was now the brown color blood takes on after it’s been “out” for a while.

Ora, The Other now gone, stood, held back her vomit, and ran from the beach, taking a seldom used footpath that would lead her to another, more secluded spot where she could be properly sick. There was much thinking to do.

Asgeir’s death might have been ruled Death by Misadventure, or, Death by Act of God (Lightning strike), save for the message, spray painted in large, white letters on the rock.  The message was clear in its meaning; this was no accident[AP17] .

Time To Go

A few hours later, kids were making their way home. Tonight would be the big bonfire and another barbecue at Cornelius Beach, and nobody wanted to miss it.

Josh looked at his watch [AP18] and realized that it was time to go. He broke off his conversation with Peter, promising to talk to him that night.

He found Patty and told her, not asked, that it was time to go home. She had her chores, too. Their mother would need her help preparing food for the kids and adults who would attend the bon fire that evening.

He then found Caleb, who was now high in the tree from which the tire swing was suspended, getting ready for one last cannonball.

“Come on, Cal. If we’re going to help Pops with chores and get ready for the bonfire, we need to leave now!”

“I’ll be along in half an hour. I have some things I want to do here before I go home.” In between bouts of jealousy and kissing, Caleb had been jumping, swimming and eating along with the others, appearing to have a terrific time, but, underneath his surface, things were very different. He had gotten a tremendous rush when he saw Gemma in her tight one-piece. She was plump in the best sort of way. When he got a look at the way the swimsuit disappeared between the “V” at the top of her thighs, he felt a pain in his chest. She was that beautiful. But Caleb had wanted Ora, and he did not think that Gemma was the right girl for him. At least not now. Aside from that, he felt completely drowned inside, like a wool sweater left out in the rain.

“Ok”, Josh said, “but don’t be long. We don’t want to keep Pops hanging and you know he’d never say anything to you, no matter how he felt about it.”

“Sure, Josh. Just tell him to leave my share of things. I will get them done before the bonfire.” Caleb[AP19]  jumped from his perch, some twenty feet in the air, landing with a great splash. He sank beneath the surface, deeper than he thought he should have. Cal opened his eyes and saw only nothingness. He remembered the old island story of a girl being lured to the swimming hole by an old woman, only to have her throat slit in sacrifice to an evil deity. Her blood was drained into the water, finally thrown, decapitated, into the depths of the spring.

Cal saw a beautiful but hard, expressionless face in front of him. She reached out with two long, delicately dead hands and held him under. As her hands touched his skin, images, hundreds of them, flashed through his mind’s eye; the girl of the story, feeling the horror of the life draining from her body; small boys, grown men and women, hanging upside down, dripping blood into this very water from throats ripped open by the claws of a woman-animal of unimaginable ferocity[AP20] ; drooling evil, lurking on the island through millennia. These images and others gripped Cal with the hands of the witch. He started taking water into his lungs and was sure that he was going to drown. Then she was gone. Cal popped to the surface, gasping. He looked for Josh, who wasn’t there. No one was there. A few seconds before, the swimming hole had been filled with kids and noise but was now empty. It was more than empty, it was deserted, not as if the kids had left, taking the BBQ with them, in a space of fifteen seconds, but as if they had never been there at all[AP21] .

He scrambled out of the water and got dressed. He stood at the water’s edge looking into its depths wondering what had just happened to him.

The breeze picked up a little, fractalizing the surface of the water, skimming leaves across it. As the small wind batted the leaves to and fro on the pond, what had happened to Caleb in the dark, forested clearing began to seep deeper into his being. An emptiness filled his chest. Nausea churned his stomach. His prodigious mind went blank, leaving him feeling more alone than he ever had felt before. He was consumed with a spirit of vast desolation, drowning in a terrible depth to which there was no bottom. In that moment, God deserted Caleb Michael Alexander Smith.

He turned and ran. Behind him, across the swimming hole, echoes of terror, neither real nor unreal, laughed at him, mocking him, tearing parts of him away, parts that had long ago been bled dry. As he ran, tears streamed down his face. This six-foot-four, two-hundred-ninety-pound man-boy cried loud, desperate sobs, the cries of someone who has nothing and no one to comfort him, to let him know that he is not alone in the whole of creation.

From some distance, Micha-El, Archangel, watched and cried along with his charge. He had seen this before. God had His ways and Michael understood them, but he did not always like them. God had pulled His Love from Caleb as He had pulled it from Yeshua in Gethsemane and for similar reasons. Caleb would not die upon a cross, but he would be crucified in a way that Christ had not.

Caleb ran and the brown, knee-high grasses of late Summer that brushed over his legs, that usually made him smile, now felt like knives against his skin. The sky over his head was crashing down, crushing him, threatening him, making him feel all that much more alone.

After a minute or two of running, he stopped, unable to continue. He stood there, glued to the spot unable to move forward toward home, nor go back to the swimming hole. In total silence, maddening, sickening silence, he stood there, a monolith on the moon[AP22] , breathing hard, choking on his own spit. From that spot, he could now hear the laughs and shouts of the kids who were still at the swimming hole, the ones too young to attend that night’s bonfire, the ones who, minutes before, he could not hear because he had run through a slice of reality that did not include them.

“Oh, Holy Christ in Heaven” Caleb thought, “I’m alone here. I was alone there. I will be alone wherever I go, forever.” And he took a step forward, a small step, for he was too afraid to walk too far along the path home, too far into the future, too far into the darkness, too far into an abandonment that might never leave him. The circle of abandonment, his own private Gethsemane, followed him as the unremembered clearing had followed him; in exactly the same way, because a very real and important piece of him remained in that other reality, suffering, dying, choking, without relief.

Caleb put one foot in front of the other in a dusty shuffle. Desperation tore ragged shreds from inside his very cells. Only angelic wings, wings of his own Cyrenian Angel, wings that Caleb could neither see nor feel, kept him from falling on the path perhaps unable to get up again, but that is all the Angel was allowed to do.

Behind them walked a shadow-boy, the part of himself taken from him in that darkly magical world inside the clearing of trees, but the shadow-boy could not see Caleb, nor Caleb the shadow boy, and the boy could see nothing but that dark, circular clearing of trees and a sky filled with angry stars.

Long Road Home

Caleb walked, his brain firing the necessary neurons to make his legs work, after a fashion, to bring him home. His neurons, indeed, all the cells in his body, were bathed in Holy Abandonment. After walking for an hour, a walk that should have taken twenty minutes, he came to the front door of his family’s home.  The wings that had been holding him up let go and Caleb fell against the door with a thud. He held himself up by the door handle, but when his brother opened the door Cal fell.

Caleb landed at the feet [AP23] of his brother, his eyes empty. Josh knelt at his brother’s head, saying “Cal! What’s going on?! What’s happened to you?!”

Cal lay where he fell, eyes open, unseeing, unblinking. This disturbed Josh, because he could see that the lights were on but no one was home. Josh and the rest of the family had seen this before, but this time seemed worse. Caleb’s eyes looked truly empty.

After the first few incidents of this, Cal had been brought to the best medical facilities on the Eastern Seaboard, from Yale-New Haven to Maine Medical Center in Portland. At first glance, doctors thought he might be having seizures. Imagine their surprise when tests revealed the opposite to be true.

During one visit to a hospital, Cal was fortunate, or not, to have one his episodes happen and he was rushed to have an EEG performed. The results left the doctors and technicians slack jawed. A seizure, generally speaking, is a group of neurons firing indiscriminately, electrical activity in the brain that is out of control. In a grand mal seizure, the body contorts, etc., whereas, in a petit mal seizure, the sufferer may simply stare into space, unaware of his surroundings.

This is how Caleb presented to the doctors. EEGs, and subsequent other tests, revealed not out-of-control brain activity but, rather, no brain activity at all. Caleb Smith was, effectively, brain-dead during one of his episodes. What the physical tests could not show but, what a gifted psychic, say Patty, could, is that there was much activity, just none of it physical.

Behind the scenes, as it were, Cal was running, mind and spirit, as far away from the circular clearing in the dark woods as he could. Running to where, Cal could not have said, but he knew he had to get there. As Cal’s eyes, devoid of life, looked up at Joshua, yelled for Patty to come from the kitchen.

Patty Smith, a little annoyed at being interrupted during time with her best friend, her mother, walked from where she had been helping Mary with a making bread, her delicate fingers covered in flour and sticky with the dough. Her long, blonde tresses were piled upon her head. In an outrageous non-sequitur, Josh looked at her and the thought came to him that his baby sister truly was an angel sent by God to help them all get through whatever Evil might befall them.

“Joshua, I left the swimming hole earlier than I wanted to because you ordered me to come home to help mom. So, I’m helping mom. What do you want?!” Then, she saw Cal on the floor. Gemma rushed to kneel beside him and, when she looked into Caleb’s eyes, she let out an involuntary scream.

“Joshua, pull him inside and close the door!” She ordered her older brother.

Patty’s scream pulled her mother from the kitchen, her mother’s own hands covered with dough and flour, her own very dark, very straight hair tied back in a tight pony-tail. All she needed to see was the look on her daughter’s face to let her know that something was terribly wrong. What she didn’t know was that the afternoon was just getting started.

Mary Smith joined Patty and Josh at Cal’s side, asking, “Patty, what do you see? Please look, again.”

“Mama, I can’t, it’s too much! No!”

“Sweetie, something is terribly wrong! Please look!”

Patty Smith looked at her mother and nodded. She stood for a moment to smooth the front of her dress, something she habitually did when she was nervous or scared. Patty resumed her place by her brother, her eyes lightly closed, lest she should again see what had frightened her to her soul.

Mary said, “Pats?”

“Ok, mom” and Patty opened her eye lids and leaned over Cal looking directly into his eyes. She screamed a second time, falling backwards on her bum. She then pushed herself on her backside along the smooth floor with her feet until she was pressed up against the wall behind her. She hugged her legs, burying her face in the fabric of her dress as she wailed sobs that choked her. Mary and Josh left their posts next to Caleb to go to Patty.

“Patty, sweetheart! What did you see?!”, Mary said as she and Joshua embraced her from left and right.

Through tears and runny nose and drooling mouth, Patty cried, “That’s just it, mom. I didn’t see anything! He’s gone!”

Mary looked worriedly at Josh, saying, “Go get your father, now!”

While Josh ran to fetch his father, Mary continued to console Patty.

Caleb, meanwhile, was unaware of his mother, brother, and, sister. He was unaware of himself, really. He wasn’t in his home in any meaningful way. He wasn’t in the circular clearing, mentally, spiritually or, physically, that place where a part of his soul had been stolen; he was in neither Heaven nor Hell; He was not in a place anyone could find him[AP24] [AP25] . But that doesn’t mean that Caleb Michael Smith was nowhere.

Caleb’s father, Jeph, summoned to the house by Joshua, and after some back-and-forth between Jeph and his wife, it was decided to get Cal to a ground-floor bedroom, that decision having been made after Jeph and Josh tried to carry Cal upstairs to his own room.

“Jesus Christ in a pancake house!” said Jeph to his eldest son. “This kid has boulders in his gizzard! He must weigh four-hundred pounds! How could this be possible?! All I can say is thank God for terrazzo”, as the Smith men dragged Caleb by his arms, each, into the nearest ground-floor bedroom.

“Pops”, Joshua said, “North Island is a weird place. Fer fuck’s sake the entire archipelago is a weird place that gets a bit more odd by the year. The fact that Caleb, even as big as he is, weighs in like a dump-truck really shouldn’t be a surprise.”

“That’s true, son, that’s all true. I haven’t left the archipelago for six months and, after a while, it all begins to feel normal, somehow. Still, he weighed two-seventy-five at his last high school physical a few months ago. That’s heavy, but it’s not this heavy.”

“I don’t know, Pops. I just don’t know. For now, let’s get him into bed without herniating a disc, then mom and Patty can come strip him down out of these sweaty clothes.”

Blair Witch? You Gotta Be Fucking Kidding Me

Three A.M. Three God-damned-fucking-A-fucking-M, and it’s raining, a drenching, God-damned rain, to put a cherry on things. Caleb has found himself a seat on a fallen tree a yard or two from the old, dark, abandoned house that has claimed the lives of almost a dozen people, so far.

He’s wearing jeans with long Under Armor leggings beneath, and nothing else, unless you count a pewter St. Michael medal on a sterling chain.

Caleb Michael Smith is broad from shoulder down, almost comically so. The family, Caleb’s family, always joked that St. Michael must have been in the delivery room with his mom, otherwise, Mary Smith would have been split in two. Almost no one knew that the joke was no joke at all but Caleb knew, at least now he knew.

His mother, father, brothers and sister had carried him to the large sofa in the Smiths TV/Family room, as best they could, stripped of his clothing, got Caleb into a pair of fresh, flannel pajama bottom, which Cal never used, but were clean and at hand. He was covered from his feet to his elbows in a dark blue sheet, his head resting on a sofa cushion. His eyes remained open, and full of lifelessness. Caleb’s father had tried to close his son’s eyes, and they did close, but slowly reopened, like someone carefully raising the window blinds in an abandoned house.

Most people would have been scared to the point of sickness being in these woods, in this rain, at this house, at God-damned-fucking-Three-fucking-A-fucking-M, but not Cal, even under normal circumstances, but these circumstances were nowhere near normal. Michael, The Archangel, is with him this night. Not just with him, but in him, occupying that space left where a bit of Caleb’s soul was removed by a demon in the circular clearing in a wood similar to this one[AP26] .

On the occasion of the night in that clearing, Michael was not permitted to lend the young Caleb any assistance, but things had changed. Michael did not know the whys-and-where-fores behind the change and he didn’t care. Now, at least sometimes, most times, Michael could give unlimited help to his future-past self.

So, there Caleb sat, the remains of the tree set out fore and aft of him, a raging fury building that threatened to knock the Gates of both Heaven and Hell off their hinges.

With places like this, and this is why they get depicted in films so often, they come ready-built to be a location scout’s wet dream. They are a focus, a vortex, if you will, of infantile hate and frustration on the part of entities whose purpose and reason for existence is to pull everything and everyone around them into their maelstrom of fear and loneliness. The infantile hate is bad enough and can kill you to death if you don’t know what you’re doing and, sometimes, even if you do. But with this sort of hate, one can grow enough to deal with it effectively, most times. It’s the sophisticated hate, the hate that is well calculated and is not the product of malformation of conscience, or damage, or insecurities. This hate is rational and directed and perfectly reasonably deadly. It’s this latter sort of darkness that Micha-El was adept at dealing with; The former, an annoying mosquito buzzing about his head. But Caleb needed to start somewhere and this infested patch of forest seemed as good as any to the Great Warrior Angel.

With the former, petulant type of badness, other evil entities, so called, just passing by on their way to create garden variety chaos, get pulled in to the weather system created by what was once merely a demonic dust-devil but is now rapidly growing toward F5 proportions. Dad and mom and kids decide it’s a nice day for a walk in the forest. God’s beautiful Creation. The Glory of Nature. Well, God created the Blue Whale and God created malaria. Isn’t God good! He truly is, but our perspective is too myopic to see the good from the other good.

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Copyright 2022 by Andrew Payne