In the Beginning - Thanksgiving Green

Chapter 37, all of the previous are below, two of them very recently.

"You bought the biggest turkey we had in the store."

"It's for my first Thanksgiving as a host," Bob mumbled, almost embarrassed. He made his way out of the store as quickly as he could. Before more conversation followed.

It was his first time as a host because he never had many friends. That might have been what drove him to the Postal Service in the first place. After losing that job he drifted further from humanity and its rituals. Floating in the darkened landscape of desperate loneliness civil servants traversed as guides and the long term unemployed often found themselves thrust into.

He traveled the road alone, his tiny social group withering to nothing.

In the suicide support group that he found friends again. They were freaks. They were pathetic, lonely losers. Having those things in common bound him more closely to them than the ties of blood and placating friendship ever had with others.

So, he was cooking dinner for thirty. Any one of whom might slip off during the gathering to use his lavatory as a convenient place to slit their wrists. The room was used to human waste and tears though. It could see worse.

The "hallucinations" never stopped. Not really. They just slowed down.

They no longer surprised him. He still had a sense of something dark on the horizon. That might be why someone offing themselves in his bathroom didn't bother him that much. So, the Dickensian looking ghost showing up in his kitchen shocked him not at all.

The creature beckoned. Bob knew cooking was done. He did not bother turning the oven off. Perhaps his guests would arrive and think to baste the bird. He followed the chain rattling ghost through the streets to a home that looked a little too Cleaverville for any modern home.

The juxtaposition of the spirit to the house was not lost on Bob. He did not waste energy on deep thoughts about it though. When the phantasm passed through the door, after a brief look over his shoulder, Bob opened said door and followed without hesitation.

He knew the young women running hands over him were not one of his "episodes" but he almost wished they were. Thos soft palms running over his chest, stomach, and thighs were too perfect. They were things he did not deserve but very much wanted. As half-clad bodies pressed in against him, Bob barely repressed a shudder.

It was not desire though.

He shivered in terror. He knew they were bringers of darkness. This was an army of the type the crazies in Waco had been rumored to be, except for real.

The beautiful woman rounded the corner. Bob had not seen her in years, and he might not have recognized her, if not for the children. They were older as well, but the little boy looked at him with the same piercing eyes and spoke words that made Bob's soul drop out of a trapdoor in his stomach, into a vat of liquid nitrogen.

"Mommy, I told you that man sees too much."

The daughter had the privilege of saying grace that year. Everyone looked at her with drool on their chins, waiting for communion to begin.

",,,and that is we all get to eat hamburgers. Amen."

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In the Beginning - Dead Man's Party

Chapter 36, all others are below.

Hector passed Jack on the way out of the building. The once disgraced cop gave the mortician a gaze that made Hector feel the other man was looking into his soul.

"Where are you off to in the middle of your shift, Hector?"

That look, the growling way the detective spoke. The fact that Jack could have been a private eye straight out of one of the pulp novels Hector's father used to read, second hand, in Mexico. It all led to Hector almost admitting to the letter in his pocket. Then a shadow passed over his heart. The shiver that ran through his body kept him moving.

"Going to lunch."

He kept moving to avoid the look. He felt it but he gave it no power over him. Jack knew the mortician was lying, but it was none of his business.

"Don't get too drunk to cut up the perps I bring in," the detective joked.

Hector paid it no mind. He kept walking, his hand slipping into his pocket. He caressed the letter like a lover to ensure it was still there. Assured that the cop had not picked his pocket, the mortician sighed in relief.

The note was simple, written in a child's hand. Though, it could have been someone who never learned to write very well. It invited him to a cadaver concert and gave an address and time. A time Hector could just meet if he left now. Hector was too much the mortician to pass it up.

Arriving at the house he knocked on the door and waited. Until a little girl opened up and took his hand. Without a word she led him through the house.

He wanted to pull back. A man his age should not be drawn through a house by a child he did not know. There was a power to the girl though, it coursed off of her. He could not resist.

"Where's your mother?" He whispered.

"She's out. She does not like me showing him to strangers," the girl chittered merrily and skipped along.

"What about all of these young women?"

"Oh, they answer to mommy for now. But they are mine and they know their place."

She giggled. Hector looked over the women, dressed in leather and lace that looked more like armor than sex appeal. Yet he found them appealing. When she spoke of them knowing their place he saw one, almost surely dead and rotting from the smell coming off of her, bleeding and bruised in a corner.

Yet he still followed.

Into a room with a man in a coma. A man Hector felt he knew from somewhere. He had little time to think about it though. Instruments in the corner, children's toys, started to play as the eyes of the man moved rapidly behind his lids. A miniature piano, a drum set, and a my first guitar all sounded out. They played something by Brahms that Hector couldn't quite place.

He stood transfixed, staring down at the instruments playing on their own. He was so enthralled that when the knife pierced his back and through his heart he barely felt the pain. He had a moment to wonder where the little boy had come from. The one his blood was raining down to anoint. Then he thought no more.

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In the Beginning - Nursery Crimes

Chapter 35

The daughter looked into glassy eyes. They should scare her, she was old enough to know that now, but all she felt from them was an odd, comforting cold. They drew her in, pulling her towards another world. A better world.

Maybe that was why she liked telling her stories to the body. They weren't prophecies... yet. Not like grandpa's stories, rest his soul. Mommy promised that, if she was very good, one day her tales would be like that. For now, she did the best she could.

She liked to think she was making an impact on the body's world.

She held her very favorite book up, pointing at the pictures as she spoke. She was still young, but she was eloquent. Enough so that she knew what eloquent meant.

"This is the dish. He is the first boy and he loved his sister. Loved his mommy and daddy too. So much that he ate some of the daddy when the daddy became food. He was not Jewish or he could not have eaten any of the daddy. The Prophecy doesn't care about them or the Muslims though. Mostly he loved his sister though.

"This is the spoon, she is the daughter. She loved the spoon too. Not as much when he cried, and not as much as she loved having the mommy and daddy to herself, but she loved him. It was okay though, because in the end they have to fight. If it were just boys that would never happen, because boys are not strong enough to follow the Prophecy.

"No matter how much she loved him, the spoon knew she had to try and break the dish. Not right now, but when the time comes. She will kill her brother if that is what it takes. The world is more important than love. That is the secret grandpa knew that the other preachers get wrong."

"Then comes the twist!" She was proud to use that word right, just last week she said twisted. "The two did not run away together. Instead, the traitor stole the dish."

"Sweetheart, what are you doing?" Inquired Nicole from the doorway.

"I am reading to the dead priest, mommy."

"Why are you doing that?"

"So he can understand when he comes back to life."

"You know he's not really dead, right?"

"Yes. It was a lie."

"A good lie."

"To get uncle Jack to do what he needed to."

"That's right. Your brother needed to go and be raised somewhere else."

"Why do you keep the dead priest?"

"He's not dead. He's in a coma. We keep him like that so the tumor doesn't get any worse. We keep him because he has a part to play."

"I do not like his part."

"You don't know his part."

"Do too."

Nicole held out her hand and her daughter came to her. As they left the room the daughter looked over her shoulder. She saw the lamp turn itself off when the mother did not. She wondered who didn't know the dead priest's part after all.

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Time for the Lost Cover Reveal

So I had this whole intricate plan for using the format this wonderful author had set up for her #coverreveal but the blog is not playing nice. Instead I will give you a link.

Go check out an amazing #Awethor and see what she is up to. This is one of the best covers I have seen. i know they say not to judge a book by its cover but... let's face it... we all do it.

https://chessdesalls.wordpress.com/2015/11/13/time-for-the-lost-cover-reveal/

If nothing else you will get to check out an author who is much prettier than me. So, go now!

In the Beginning - The Seventh Sign

Chapter 34, all previous chapters can be found below. As per usual.

Bob wondered, why the hell did they still make him go out on days like this? Most people had their mail delivered electronically and the important packages delivered by one of the "premium carriers". Still, it was in the creed. With the storm of the century barreling down on his home town... he still had mail to deliver.

Little old ladies got their social security direct deposited these days, but still depended on the coupons in the mail to feed their gaggle of cats... and themselves from the same cans.

The wind kicked more, approaching a hundred miles an hour. One of these errant breaths of Zeus struck an old maple at just the wrong angle. The limb, torn asunder, whipped through the air to smash into the grill of the postal vehicle under Bob's care. The force of the collision crushed the front end until the engine rode shotgun. It continued its brutal and unwarranted assault by grabbing the vehicle and flipping it, wheels over tea kettle, to drop it on its roof.

Having thus had its fun, the branch danced merrily down the street to wreak vengeance on some other innocent. The engine continued to purr and sputter, unphased by such rough treatment.

Bob was not so lucky.

When the truck crashed to a rest, so did he. His head thumped brutally against the roof, causing him to gray out for a few minutes. Bob assumed the encounter was the strangest thing he would see that day.

If only he had been right.

When he regained himself, Bob took rapid inventory of his body. Finding only a goose egg sized lump on his head he considered himself fortunate. His first muddled thought was, are the circulars okay? A quick glance back confirmed they were, other than being upside down.

His second thought was to wonder why the engine would not shut up. It chose that moment to die, leaving him in, not silence but, that sound one only knows when experiencing a storm from inside a steel drum.

His third thought was to wonder... when had it started raining toads?

The critters plopped to the ground and onto the truck. Peering through the ichor covered windows, Bob saw stranger things still.

He witnessed a man straight out of a pulp detective magazine leading a young boy down the street. They hurried as if escaping something.

He saw ethereal fire consuming the buildings and the few unfortunates caught in this biblical plague.

A blood red moon rose at noon to blot out the blackened eye of the sun.

Angels soared through the sky, doing bloody battle, not with demons or humans but with each other. Was heaven as divided by politics as humans were? He stopped that thought though. If he continued he would rage to himself about possible funding cuts.

Bob saw many strange and wondrous things that afternoon. Impossible things.

The strangest of all was the sad, beautiful woman walking through it all with a young girl holding her right hand and an infant clutched to her breast with the left. She walked through the chaos like she owned it.

Then the infant turned its head and pointed at Bob. The child spake in the voice of judgment.

"Mommy, that man sees too much."

Bob passed out from fear, and maybe a little from the head trauma. He woke in the hospital to find the world back to normal. Realizing nobody else spoke of strange events he, wisely, decided to keep his mouth shut.

Even a week later, when they fired him and took away his pension for operating a government vehicle under the influence of drugs.

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In the Beginning - Father's Chair

Chapter 33, others are below, as usual.

Harold, that was the armchair's name. He didn't know how he came by it originally, but the crazy man with the followers in prison knew it. The man started calling Harold by name before anyone else even knew the chair could think.

That was why they were friends.

That was why Harold supported Peter in this important moment.

Peter loved the daughter, and he loved Nicole. He was sure there was a flaw in the prophecy. Peter confided this to the armchair in their moments alone. He whispered the dark, near blasphemous thoughts into the faded green felt.

"There can be no prophecy without a son. The girl is nearly ten now. She has to listen, you can convince her."

Harold was starting to think Peter might be running truly mad. Peter knew that, from the way the chair stared at him. It held accusations and pity in its buttons. Still, the chair was always there.

The chair looked on with disbelief as Peter presented the philosophy to Nicole. It watched with amusement as Peter tried to convince the woman of the truth of his words. It stared in shock as Nicole admitted that there might be some truth to the idea. Harold would never forget the way she admitted partial defeat.

"There may need to be a second son, but where would I find a father for him?"

Harold laughed so loud that he covered Peter's tears with it. A mocking, hollow sound that only Peter heard. He hated the chair a little in that moment. He quickly forgave the slight though. Both because the chair was his best friend and because Peter was sure amusement was hard to come by as a chair.

Harold watched with intense interest as Peter convinced Nicole that he would be an acceptable sperm donor for the new son. Harold held back his laughter as Nicole took this seriously at first. He viewed the impending drama with baited breath as Peter worked to convince her that the old fashioned way was better.

Harold leered lasciviously when Nicole finally gave in. He watched the action like it was his own personal, live action porno. Until they ended up on top of him and he could no longer see anything. They didn't even wash him afterwards.

Peter should know better.

Harold was smarter than most people in the house. He knew it was a bad idea to argue with Nicole. He heaved an inward sigh when the fight began.

"The new boy should have a name!"

Peter insisted this to Nicole. She was not the most reasonable of women when she was not six months pregnant. She gave him a chance to take it back.

Harold knew what was coming. Now he held Peter in his arms as the man bled his life out onto the cushions. Harold knew something the woman didn't though. Peter had shared the idea with him. Her father had never mentioned it but there was a danger in a third child. It was a hidden part of the prophecy.

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