2

I teleport right onto a random street in the suburb, right at an unattended T-junction and behind the wall of a house and out of sight of the scurrying people running around on their front lawns.

I walk towards the corner of the house and take a peek past the side and down the street. On this particular street, the decorating excitement seems to have died down somewhat now, since it's midday and everyone's probably gone back inside for lunch. This should give me some time to prepare what I'm going to say.

Waltzing into the street, I begin walking down the left sidewalk, casually strolling and imagining costumed people of all sorts walking in front of me. I give a gentle wave and flash my cool messiah smile to these imagined people as I keep walking, hoping that they'll give me their attention and time to deliver my "Good News" to them and hopefully get their asses back into the pews. It's a potentially slow strategy, but it'll have to do. Of course, I could just run into the street and yell about how they're all going to hell, but I hear that's going out of fashion these days. Besides, if I play it cool, then I might get some bonus pussy alongside the salvation.

"Hey, that's a cool costume!" Some cute sounding kid yells out from my left and I'm rudely broken out of my thoughts.

I look toward where the voice came from. Standing next to the letterbox in the front yard, is a chubby little boy, in a simple blue t-shirt and jeans, short blond hair and the cutest, squishiest face I've seen in a while. He's pretty short as well, his head barely above the top of the letterbox.

"It's not a costume." I say. "Do you know who I am?"

"Uh… no." He pauses to rack his brain. "Should I?"

"Yes you should, because I'm Jesus Christ. Do you know now?"

"Uh… no?" He gives me the cutest quizzical expression. However, even that face can't suppress the rage that's beginning to build up inside me. How the fuck can he not know who I am? Didn't his parents teach him anything?

I try again. "Jesus Christ, savior of humanity, son of God. Ring any bells?"

"I think I've heard that name somewhere…"

Seriously? You think you've heard it somewhere? You should hear that name a hundred times a day you fucking little chubby cunt! This generation is fucked if this is normal!

"Listen, kid." I say while raising both my hands to my face in frustration, "ask your parents about –"

"Woah! Cooool! How'd you do those holes in your wrists?"

"What?"

"Your Halloween costume. How'd you fake holes in your wrists like that?"

I realized that by raising my hands, the sleeves of my robe have slipped to reveal the nail holes. "Because it's not a costume. I'm Jesus Christ. Messiah of humanity. Crucified on the cross. Died and rose again. Does any of that ring a bell?"

"Uh… no."

"Do you know what the Bible is?"

"Some old-school book of fairy tales I think."

Oh, I'm fucking mad now.

"It's not a bunch of fairy tales, you fucking chubby prick!" I say, my voice rising with every word. I'm almost yelling at this stage in fact. "The Bible is real! It's fucking real you fat fuck! I'm the messiah, and you should bow down and worship me, and accept me as your Lord and Savior or go burn in hell!"

The kid is terrified now. Slowly, he backs away, tears forming in his horrified eyes. Then he turns around and starts running to his front door, bawling his eyes out as he does.

"Mummy! There's a mean man that called me fat!" He yells between sobs, just as he throws open the front door and runs inside. The door slams shut behind him, and all I can hear are muffled yells and crying.

Serves you right, you little sinning bastard.

I turn back down the street and continue walking, my gaze wandering among the house fronts, in search of more people. Soon enough, I encounter more little kids wandering out from their front doors as I stroll by them. I decide to talk to them too – maybe these ones will be better.

I approach a short girl with blond pigtails and denim overalls, around the same age as the boy I yelled at earlier. She's happily skipping along down the walkway with a toy jack-o-lantern, and I saunter over to her just as she reaches the letterbox by the sidewalk and hangs the lantern over the mailbox flag.

"Do you know who Jesus is?" I say coolly, catching her attention.

"Sort of, I think. My daddy talks about him all the time!"

My interest is piqued. Maybe it's not all bad. "Really?"

"Yeah! My daddy says that Jesus is an old asshole that makes rednecks do stupid shit! Like vote for Donald Krumf!"

Rage bubbles up inside me once again. Seriously, fuck this generation.

"Where's your Daddy now? I'd like to show him a thing or two about how much of an asshole I can be."

Confusion overtakes the little girl's face, before turning to realization. "You're Jesus Christ? Oh… well…"

"Well what?"

"I better go now." She says, before turning around and jogging back to her front door. "My daddy says to stay away from Jesus freaks!"

"Fuck your daddy!" I yell out after her, just as she runs inside the house.

Things were direr than I thought. Screw this nice-guy approach. I had to get to the church.

I hurry down the street, ignoring the few kids that had begun to run out onto the sidewalk to continue their decorating. I reach the T-junction at the end of the road before turning right to continue walking down the length of the street. This street was one of the many main ones that connected many of the other suburban streets on both sides in alternating patterns, which meant that the left and right streets were never opposite each other. Stupid design, if I do say so myself. So many fucking T-junctions. However, it wasn't too much of a problem at this stage, since I knew that I only needed to follow this street to make my way to the church. Hopefully, I wouldn't need to do too much navigating in the future.

Three quarters of the way down the road, I reached the front of the church, towering over me by my right. I made my way down the wide paved path towards the double wooden doors and push my way inside.

The church is completely empty, except for an elderly priest with wispy greying hair and wearing a traditional cassock, sitting on the raised stage by the pulpit, elbows propped up on his knees and his head buried in his hands. He doesn't appear to notice me walk in, and continues to keep his face hidden in his wrinkly palms as I slowly walk down the aisle. As I approach, I take note of the large mural of a crucified me on the wall, directly above the ornate stone altar with eight candlesticks distributed evenly around an open bible on a stand, and two bronze statues of angels on either side. On the mural, my bloodied head is depicted as downcast, and I know they're trying to make me look like I'm suffering and all, but right now, it looks like pitying the poor priest in front of me. Normally, I'd feel like laughing, but something about the current atmosphere made that more or less impossible. This shit is serious, that I knew deep down.

I came to a stop in front of him, and for a while I stand there, not saying a word and taking in the silence, broken occasionally by very soft weeping coming from the priest. Finally, he seems to take notice of my presence and raises his head, looking at me with tear stained eyes.

"Well…, about fucking time." I say with a smile, then raise both my hands slightly in front of me so that the sleeves of my robe are pulled back to reveal the nail holes in my wrists.

His eyes widen. "Jesus Christ? In the flesh? Oh, my prayers have been answered! Maybe this wicked generation can still be saved." He says, before breaking out into joyous chuckles. Fresh tears stream down his face as he stands to his feet, stumbling forward to embrace me and burying his face into my neck while crying with joy as he does this.

I simply stand there, holding him gently as he sobs and sobs his heart out. Finally, he's spent, and he slowly disentangles himself from me, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his cassock as he looks back into my eyes.

"And to think that I had to use my ninja nuns and machine-gun priests to cleanse this filthy city, ha-ha!" He says with a bright grin, soon breaking out into hearty chuckles and I can't help but laugh along with him. Ninja nuns? Machine-gun priests? Who'd have known it? This old fucker has a sense of humor!

"Come now," he says once he finishes laughing, "we have much work to do." He leads me up the few steps on the stage, and to the door on the right side of the altar which lead to a backroom.

As I step through the door, I take note of the room. The interior is quite simple, with only a wooden wardrobe by the right corner just beside the window, and a simple wooden table by the opposite wall with a wooden crucifix placed in the center, in front of a bible. What gets my attention however, is the mass of photographs, papers and notes sticky taped and tacked into the wall behind the desk. Red string was strewn across the tacks, connecting the pieces of paper like a giant, red spider web. This guy looked like some fucking spy in the movies, planning some serious shit.

"Come now, Jesus." The priest says, as he strides over to the desk. I don't need any prompting to follow and stand by his side – my curiosity is piqued.

"This is the situation." He says, gesticulating to the mass of paper and strings in front of us. "It all starts with this." He says, jabbing his finger with lightning speed to a piece of paper near the bottom that read "COMPLACENCY," and I had to whip my head around to catch up. "People get complacent. Life's too comfortable. This leads people to forget God." He's beginning to rattle off words faster than a machine gun as he's talking now. He's pretty damn excited.

"This opens the door to Satan." He rattles off, his pointing finger whizzing along a red string to stop on the words "SATAN" up top. Once again, I have to whip my head around to catch up.

"Satan attacks when we're vulnerable you see. How does he do this? Well, there are many ways. One of them is media!" His finger whips along another red string to "UNGODLY LIBERUL MEDIA," jabbing at it for emphasis.

"The next is entertainment!" Again, his finger whips along a string and over to my side to "DEMONIC SATANIC MOVIES" and I'm finding it really hard to keep up now. Everything's just a blur as he waves his hand everywhere at warp speed. "You see what Halloween is, Jesus? Just yet another tool in Satan's arsenal, used to seduce our youth! They're too busy being entertained by Satan to pay any attention to God. Oh, all the times I've heard that Mass is boring, God is boring, Jesus is a douchebag…" He's slowing down now, giving my spinning head a brief moment to recover. However, it doesn't last long as once again, he perks back up with another salvo of rapid fire words.

"And then there's ungodly politicians… godless parents… Hillary Cunton… New Atheists…" His finger is whizzing all over the place as he's rambling, and making me dizzy as I try to keep up. Finally, he pauses to take a deep breath. "Well you get the idea."

I pause to gather my bearings as he turns to face me. "Uh, yeah. I'm the messiah. I know this already."

The priest looks at me blankly for a brief moment. Then realization crossed his face. "Oh, right, I know. I just got carried away. It's been a pet project of mine you know, the documentation of our downfall. Few people understand the gravity of the situation! We are in a war with many fronts. And there are two in this very city!"

"Wait, two? I thought there was only ungodly Halloween that was the problem?"

"And David Pilverman of the Fenwick Atheists Group. He's coming after our children this very Halloween!"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he's handing out flyers to all the local kids, trying to get them to renounce their faith and declare themselves atheists!" He says, a wild, panicked look appearing in his eyes. "Well sure, most people don't go to church anymore, but at least they still call themselves Christian! Once that's gone, once they truly reject God in their hearts..." He reaches out and grasps my shoulders tightly. "Then they are lost. Devoured by the darkness. Doomed to burn in hell forever! We must do something before it's too late!"

I don't respond at first, staring back into the priest's wild gaze and allowing the silence to lapse into awkwardness. Then, reaching up with both hands, I brush away his grip on my shoulders. "Calm down. I need time to think about a plan."

"Think? Think! The stakes are dire. Think and they're gone! And then I'll have to activate my emergency protocol transfiguratio! Do you want that!"

"Emergency protocol transfigu-what?"

"Transfig – never mind. That's not important. Just… save the children. I will not let that evil man Pilverman take my children!"

"Your children? They belong to God–"

"No, Jesus!" He yells, and I can see a glint return to his eye. However, this one is different from the last, and I can feel chills creep up my spine. "No… I will not let him have my children, Jesus. I will not." He slaps his hands on my shoulders again. "Do not let him take my children away... they are mine."

Once again, silence falls over the both of us, stretching into awkwardness. Again, I brush off his hands from my shoulders, and slowly back away to the door. "Don't worry about a thing. I'm the messiah, remember? I can do anything!"

"Oh, I hope so." He says, wild glint still in his eye. "My hands do the Lord's work. Only I should touch and hold them, to keep them within the fold of holiness. Pilverman should keep his filthy hands away from these beautiful youths if he knows what's good for him!"

With that said, I back out through the open doorway, and onto the stage until I was out of sight of the priest. Only then did I turn and speed walk off the stage and down the aisle. When I reached the front doors, I quickly pushed my way through them, crossing the road running beside the church to continue down the street that lead directly away from the T-junction.

My emotions were a mess, but my thoughts weren't, as a single statement pushed itself to the forefront of my mind, making its way to the tip of my tongue where I uttered it under my breath. "Creepy bastard."