I know that
you usually expect a lengthy disclaimer at the beginning of each fan fiction,
but I have found them pointless and time-consuming. There are a lot of big name products and people that appear in
this fic. I lay no claim to them
whatsoever. However, this fanfic is
mine, and if anybody misuses it, there will be hell to pay.
======================================================================
Discarded
Souls
By
Darkslayer
Chapter 1
Prelude to a
Stranger
=============================
MYSTERIOUS FIGURE IN BLACK ENDS
"PERVERTED PRIEST'S" ESCAPADES!
He raised an eyebrow as he read that
headline. Not that anyone would notice;
his sunglasses helped to mask his expressions quite well. The only thing that a passerby would give
him a second glance about was a little further north than his face.
Oh well, sometimes it sucked to have
silver hair.
He checked his watch for the fourth
time as he waited patiently for his friend to show up. The paper had grabbed his attention with
that six-column wide caption, and he skimmed through the following paragraphs
while sipping his coffee. When he
reached the end, he leaned back in his chair and the background noise of the
café slowly dissipated as he remembered back to that day . . .
========================
His watch read 11:59 A.M.
He extracted his shades from a
pocket in his coat and slowly put them on, taking a lazy look around the small
plaza in front of the cathedral. An icy
wind blew by, catching the ends of his long black coat and tossing them
about. He shuddered as the breeze
pushed against him—he had always hated the cold, and here it was, almost
mocking him with its power. It
eventually died down, and he was able to make it to the doors of the church
just before the first bell rang.
He stepped to the left, pulling on
the handle and opening the door as someone pushed from the other side. A gasp met his ears as a middle-aged woman
dressed in her Sunday best saw a stranger dressed in black from head to toe
waiting on the outside. Thinking
quickly, he smiled as best as he could, and addressed her in his low voice:
"Allow me to hold the door for you,
miss."
She relaxed slightly after that, and
exited the church with a hasty manner, already yearning to get to her warm
apartment. He watched as several dozen
more people pushed through the small doorway and out into the plaza, hurrying
to their cars to escape the chilly air.
After waiting a few moments, he slipped through the bustling crowd and
headed toward the pulpit, moving slowly but surely. When he reached the podium, he made a sharp left and checked his
watch again.
It read 12:05 P.M.
He stopped beside a support pillar
and leaned against it, facing toward the confessional booths. Counting off the seconds in his mind, he
waited until a middle-aged man with graying hair walked past him and entered
the first booth. He took a quick look
around and found only a few straggler parishioners making their way out the
front entrance. Satisfied that they
were alone, he walked over to the first confessional booth and took a seat in
the confessor's side.
Following custom, he leaned back
against the wall and waited for the priest to open the grill. The other man did so, drawing near the small
opening and speaking in a wheezing voice.
"Forgive me Father, for I have
sinned."
"What is your sin?" the priest
asked.
"I'm going to kill a man of the
cloth today, Father."
The priest inhaled sharply at the
reply, but managed to compose himself and stammer out another question.
"Why are you going to kill a man of
God?"
"Because you haven't lived up to His
expectations, Father."
Before the priest could say anything
further, the other man got up and entered the opposite side of the
confessional. He removed a silver knife
from his coat and slashed the priest's throat once, watching the blood flow
freely from the wound. After a moment,
he lifted the weapon and plunged it into the man's chest, pinning him to the
back of the booth. The blood had
already begun to trickle down to the floor, creating a large dark shape on the
light colored carpet. Satisfied with
his work, he exited the booth and closed the door, turning to leave.
"What are you doing?" asked a
woman's voice.
He turned around to see a young
woman dressed in a nun's habit walking toward him and the booth. Before she could ask him anything else, she
looked at the dark stain that was spreading on the carpet. When she had looked back at where he had been,
she found him gone. A wave of anxiety
washed over her as she rushed forward to the booth and flung open the
door. She took one look at the mess
that had been a priest and promptly began to scream.
========================
In the following investigation,
police found the photos and videotapes of the dozen or so children that Father
Connell had abused and drew the conclusion that a family member of one of the
children committed the murder. However,
after a through alibi check, they found every possible suspect excluded from
the list, and the case was eventually marked as 'unsolved'.
A person smacking his face and
shouting in his ear suddenly threw him out of his flashback.
"Joseph! JOSEPH!! WAKE UP YOU
FREAKING IDIOT!!"
He was fully aware in a matter of
seconds, grabbing the hand that struck him in mid-swing and pulling the person
closer to him. It was a girl, about his
age, with vibrant red hair and a pair of the darkest sapphire eyes that he had
ever seen. She stood up, placing her
hands on her hips, and stared at him with a scolding look in her eyes.
"Just what the fuck is that all
about?" she demanded, motioning toward the paper on the table.
He looked at her over the tops of
his shades and smiled. "Sarah. You've been hanging around with me for too
long. You're even beginning to curse
like me."
They both managed to keep a straight
face for all of two seconds before they broke out laughing. When they recovered themselves, Sarah took a
seat opposite Joseph and signaled to the café waitress. She reached across and grabbed the paper
from him, pointing to the headline and repeating her initial question, only
slightly toned down this time.
"Seriously, J. Why this bastard?"
He sipped the scalding hot coffee as
he considered his response. "I don't
like people who fuck with kids."
"Is there something you're not
telling me?" she asked.
"I'd rather not discuss it, Sarah."
"Alright then. New topic.
When are you leaving?"
"Hmm. . .what's today?"
"It's Tuesday."
"I'll be leaving at the end of the
week, on Saturday."
"Damn. And to think of all the fun times that I won't get to have
without you here," she said, suppressing a fake sniffle.
"You'll probably get some other poor
guy to be your slave," he replied, glancing at the paper, "Well, what do you
know. The new neutral color is
eggplant."
Joseph braced himself as he felt her icy stare on the other side
of the newspaper. He slowly lowered it
to look at her flashing eyes and pouty face.
The waitress arrived at the table at that moment, and she removed a pad
of paper from her small apron, addressing Sarah:
"What'll you have, miss?"
Sarah just glared at Joseph.
"She'll have a large decaf
cappuccino, no frothy stuff," Joseph replied, looking at the paper again.
"Alright. Anything else for you, sir?"
He gave her his warmest smile and
lifted his cup again. "Just a refill
for me, please."
========================
"You know that the Church is
probably going to investigate this one personally."
"I'm aware of that fact."
"Then why in God's name did you do
that, Joseph!" she snapped, stopping on the sidewalk, "You knew about what that
man was doing—why not just point the cops in the right direction?"
"It's a personal matter, Sarah. I wouldn't expect you to understand."
"Maybe I would if you explained it
to me."
"There are some aspects of my past
that I don't know about, and there are those that I don't want anyone else to
know about, even if that person's one of my closest friends."
"Fine, fine. Let's just drop it altogether, ok?"
"Well, you were the one who brought
it back up, you know."
She smacked his arm with her fist
and shook a finger at him. "Don't even
go there right now, Mr. Miller. Now
what movie are we going to see?"
He looked up and was slightly
surprised to find them outside the movie theater. Sarah was standing a few feet away, studying the movie times as
she tried to warm her hands up in her bomber jacket. He admired her braided red hair from a distance, thinking about
how good it looked in any style, as long as it was on her. Joseph caught himself before his mind could
go any further in that direction, and he re-focused his attention on the task
at hand.
"Ladies choice," he replied, looking
over the posters, "Anything but a romance film."
"Alright. Psycho-slasher-thriller it is."
He groaned as she pulled him to the
ticket booth and then inside the old theater.
========================
After the movie ended, they exited
the theater and walked for a little while.
Sarah continued to drone on and on about various parts of the movie she
liked and hated while Joseph added an appropriate response whenever
needed. He thought of all the good
times they had had, and the time that they first met. He was surprised with himself when he felt a small pang of regret
needle at his mind as he thought about how much he would miss her. Fortunately, before he could go any further
into his own self-analysis, they arrived at her house.
There was a long, awkward pause as
they stood there on her front doorstep, looking at everything but each
other. From seemingly out of nowhere,
an almost delicate snowfall began, blowing thousands of white flakes all over
the street. He finally broke the
silence by touching her chin with his hand and looking directly into her eyes.
"It's not like I'll be gone forever,
you know," he began.
"But you don't know, right?" she
added.
"I'm sorry. The situation is pretty delicate as it is
with my mother, and this will be good for her."
"But she isn't even your real
mother!" Sarah blurted, tears beginning to well up in her eyes.
"You're sad because I'm leaving and
you don't know when I'll be back, or if I'm even coming back, and you're
worried that things will change too drastically for us, right?" he whispered.
"Damn straight," she replied, a hot
tear falling down her cheek, "I don't want things to change, Joseph. I liked it the way it was—the way it's
been."
"And you think I haven't? I don't want this any more than you do, but
I have to go. I can't just abandon my
mother without some serious trouble happening, and then where would we be?"
"Damn it all," she said, hugging him
fiercely, "I don't want to lose you, Joseph.
You mean too much to me."
"I give you my word that we will
meet again, Sarah. I can't do much
beyond that."
"Yes, you can," she said slowly,
looking up at him.
Sarah closed her eyes and kissed him
passionately, clinging to the moment for all she was worth. The world seemed to slow down around them,
and she never wanted it to end, but it was not to be. They eventually separated and stood there, looking at each other
as the beginning of another awkward silence began. This time, she broke it.
"I'll see you in a few years, then."
"Yeah."
With that, she turned and fled
inside her house, shutting the door and locking it behind her. She looked through the small decorative
glass pane at the top of her door and watched as Joseph looked at the house for
only a second, then turned and walked away.
And the snow fell . . .
