Keep The Faith

It was usually Sunday night when Father Saunders put the evils of
the world to right, with the help of a whiskey bottle. After three
shots he would loosen up a bit, cast aside the mantle of Priest,
Servant Of God, Holy Man, whichever you prefer, and then he was simply
Brian Saunders, a man whose unswerving belief in Christ had left the
road a few years back, and was perhaps lodged in a fence somewhere,
waiting to be rescued from oblivion.

And that was where he usually drank himself to, oblivion.

Twenty five years he'd served the Lord in this parish, baptised and
buried whole families, councelled, advised, cared for and even slept
with members of this congregation (some nights he still thought also of
one of the choir singers, but only when he was weak). At the outset he
had been an active proclaimer of the glories of the faith, staunch and
unshakeable in his convictions that he preached. Now the only
conviction he cared for was the one he'd luckily avoided, a risk he'd
never taken since.

His faith had, given time, deserted him. The monotony of the sermons,
the hymn's, the services, day after day, year after year, gazing down
from the pulpit at the massed below him, seeking to give to God one day
of the week in homage, so that they could sin and blaspheme without
fear on the other six.
He could have done that, instead of devoting his life, suppressing his
urges, and giving himself to the Church, so that he might be held up as
an example of how to conduct one's life in service to The Lord. From
the bottom of the bottle swelled regret, in drips of desire, and a
realisation that the more he preached, the less he believed, and the
more he felt a hypocrite for it. As the last glass touched his lips, he
often denied his belief in God, finding the touch and comfort of the
bottle more tangible.

But tonight, he didn't reach that last glass, he'd barely sunk half the
bottle when the main doors reverberated a frantic pounding from
outside. Cursing the interruption, he made his way through the church,
down the aisles, past the empty rows, to the rear of the church and the
solid old doors. As he closed on them, the banging began afresh. He
fully expected, as he unlocked them, to see a group of youth's exiting
the scene, having achieved their aim of unsettling him. However, this
time he dragged the heavy doors open to reveal a dishevelled man, the
stench of sweat and fear with him, and a desperate look worn on his
middle-aged features.

"Father.... thank God, please help me..." he stumbled forward, his legs
weak from fatigue, and grabbed Father Saunders about the body, sobbing
into his plain black robe.
"What's wrong ?" asked the Priest, rather irate.
"You've got to help me, they won't dare come here, not on Holy
ground... please.." he pleaded, fearfully looking over his shoulder, at
the main courtyard gates. Father Saunders peered into the gloom, but he
could see nothing.
"Who won't come here, who are you fleeing ?" he demanded.
"Satan's hoarde, Father, they want my soul for hell's fires. " he
replied earnestly. Father Saunders was now becoming sure he had a drunk
on his hands, and the demented man wanted a good beating, not a safe
haven. He began to shake the man violently, trying to make him loosen
his grip, and to take out some of his frustration at having his evening
disturbed by an idiot.

However, he saw movement at the edge of his vision, and it made him
cease his shaking. A stone wall bordered the courtyard, on one side the
street, on the other the graveyard (the choir boys body lay in a grave
there, his mind told him amidst the incoherent thoughts that flooded
his mind). Coming over the wall, from all sides, were shadows. Blurs of
grey and black, mists and wisps of something not quite defined, but
visible, floating over the stones and moving in on the doorway.
The babbling man in his arms caught the priest's lapse, and looking up,
followed his line of sight, when his eyes found the approaching
shadows, he convulsed in the priests arms, fear making him strong, and
supplying energy to his muscles.

"Inside, quickly, before they gut us ! " he screamed, and pushed Father
Saunders back over the threshold. The astonished priest stumbled
backwards, his hands finding purchase on a stone pillar, and keeping
him from falling to the floor. The man was hastily dragging the open
door shut, as the forms and wisps of smoke came closer, and just before
the door slammed shut, Father Saunders saw a hellish face appear from
one of the shadows, and draw back blood soaked teeth in a snarl of
intent.

The echo of the door slamming resounded about the empty church, and the
jangling of the key in the lock joined the echo in a brief tune before
the lock clicked home, and silence returned again. The man collapsed to
his knees by the door, exhausted and relieved that he had escaped the
jaws of the shadows outside. For a few minutes they were both still,
and silent.

"I owe you an explanation Father." remarked the man, after a while.
Father Saunders did not reply, he was still dumbstruck by the face that
had appeared in the mist. The man stood slowly, and moved towards the
priest, who inadvertently recoiled in fear, so the man checked his
advance.

"I dabbled, you see, thought that a few chants and nonsense would be
fun, thought it would amuse my friends to take part in a satanic ritual
", he began to explain, "didn't believe in God, thought it was all
bullshit, until those things began to appear.

"Made us laugh at first, they thought it was a staged prank, and I was
too drunk to comprehend that it wasn't. Then they attacked us, I got
out, but they tore the rest of us to pieces...." he paused, unable to
prevent a sob escaping his lips.

"And now they want me, I promised them my soul, and they want
it."
Confusion danced around Father Saunders mind, he knew passages to
quote, knew words to say, comfort and convince this man that his
salvation lay in God, but the words wouldn't form, maybe because for
the first time in his life they had meaning, yet were so shallow and
useless. He tried to find words to say, anything, but the ability
escaped him.
And then the lights went out, plunging the church into darkness. A sob
of despair sounded, Father Saunders realised it was from his own lips
seconds after it was released. Moonlight provided some illumination
through the stained glass windows, but they cast distorted shapes and
shadows about the walls, Christ on the cross displayed inches from his
face on the pillar which supported him. Various depiction's of the
Lord, and of his Crucifixion sprung up on the walls, and seemed to be
empowered with a life of their own as they flickered and moved. Father
Saunders looked up to the windows, and he saw shadows lingering there,
outside the glass, looking in with unformed faces.

Then the noises began, tapping on the glass at first. Random and
incessant, tapping, banging, scratching at the windows. More noises
followed, the slates on the roof banging, the wind whistling through
the bell tower, and the main door began to shake. The noise built up
into a thunderous peak, the roof threatened to lift, the doors to crash
inwards, and the windows to shatter. In the middle of this storm stood
the frightened Priest, and his unwelcome visitor, who was clutching his
head, trying to block out the noise.

"Noooooooooooooooooooo" he screamed, before casting his eyes and hands
up to the heavens and shouting "Come and get me then, come and take me,
do your worst !!!!!"
The noises stopped. Behind them, the main door swung open with a creak,
beyond the threshold was a congregation of shadows, clamouring to get
in, swirling around the doorway. Without a further sound, the man
turned and walked out of the door, into the very centre of the cloud.
Father Saunders heard a sudden blood curdling scream, and for a moment
he saw the man's shape in the cloud, spinning around, rips in his flesh
and clothes, as if slashed at by a thousand razors at once. Then his
shredded corpse was flung from the cloud and landing in a splattering
of blood in the entrance hall, life, and soul claimed by the
shadows.

Father Saunders felt a pain rise suddenly in his chest, his breathing
becoming laboured, then his legs went from under him as the pain
pounded in his chest, and his vision went black. He went down by the
collection boxes and hymn books, bringing a pile of them down onto his
body, and that was where the passing couple, alerted by the interest of
their dog, found him. The sliced body of the man had gone, there was no
evidence that he'd ever existed.

For his first sermon at his new parish, Father David considered a
plethora of opening lines, some comical, some serious, some praising
the late Father Saunders, after a few hours of due consideration, he
settled for,

"The Lord, moves in many mysterious ways...."