I'm so sorry, this is going to be a three parter...THEN there'll be one final chapter and an epilouge. I promise that this will end. one day. prehapse.
Chapter 42: Sin's of the Father
Part 2: Ascension
Jobe yelped, jumping back as the tendrils shot up from the carpet, hissing as they leapt into the air before coming crashing down on Claudia. The woman didn't even flinch as they snapped into binding loops the moment they collided with her and in the space of a single, lone second pinned her so tightly that Jobe expected to hear her crack like glass within their iron hold. She was still wearing that distant look of sick defeat as her writhing captors began to retract into the red pool of fabric that had born them, dragging her down with them. The crimson surface rippled like thick water as it greedily swallowed her up, inch by inch.
Still, she did not move, her unfocused, disconnected eyes staring blindly into space.
It was only when the floor lapped over her black shoulders that a ghost of their former life sparked dimly in them and she brought herself to look up at the suspended Preacher. The look she gave him as she sank was a mess of emotion.
Fear…
Hate…
Disgust...
Self-loathing…
Disbelief…
Hurt…
Each wrote itself before melting as another took its place. While the carpet rolled into her eye sockets, the two orbs of blue fell on Jobe and said the simple words the woman could no longer speak.
'I'm so sorry'-
The submerged coils gave one last yank and she was gone. The carpet rippled and finally stilled.
She may as well have never been there at all…
Jobe stared at the spot as something jarred in the back of his throat. How many people was he going to have to watch fall and be broken by this town? Despite his hatred he so rightly felt for his pale tormentor, he couldn't suppress the pity that mewed inside him. She, a woman who lived in a world as black and white as herself, had been used, manipulated and finally discarded. In his heart of hearts, Jobe knew how much that particular sting hurt.
"Good riddance" sneered Parker, shattering the morbid silence that held the church. Jobe blinked as the grating voice pierced his cloudy world of though like a fog horn and looked up at the swaying creature. He could practically feel the self assured air radiated out from Parker's twisted form and singe his skin with its egotistical heat. It was enough to make his blood boil.
"You monster!" The hiss escaped through his teeth like steam out a pipe. Without realising it, Jobe bent low as his hand sought out one of the long chunks of wood that littered the floor following Virgil's short lived flight into the pews. "How many people are you going to use before you're done? When will it be enough?"
Parker just watched him with dull amusement.
"When will it be enough?" He goaded. "My boy, it will be enough when it's enough. This town has an unfathomable capacity to swallow up pointless, wasteful souls such as your sinful self and the more it consumes, the mightier it and our lord become. When she comes forth, why she will not recreated this world as our weak minded friend so foolishly believed, but will destroy it, wiping it clan of your sin and damning you for it."
A splinter slipped into Jobe's skin as his grip on the long, wooden shard tightened but the man didn't notice.
"Don't you see?" Parker levelled his sleek, serpentine head at the man, stretching out the last word. "There's no way you can win. Why will you not just make this easy for the two of us and submit. Become the monster you were fated to be and feed this town with your ill acts rather than cling onto the false humanity you hold so dear." He grinned insanely, each of the needles like teeth that stuffed his mouth glinting in the light, transforming the candle's soft ambience into something sickening. They flashed the light running along their sharp edges as he continued his privet sermon. "Or would you rather I let it gorge on your pain when I pluck it away?"
Whether it was the contence of Parker's speech, the oily arrogance that smeared them or all the man had witnessed since entering the building that was more like a madhouse than a church, something finally shredded Jobe final shred of tolerance and consumed him. He didn't even bother to try to suppress the roar that tore its way up through his throat or stop his feet from launching him forward at a mad gallop towards the monster and its army of twitching coils. The fear had gone, blasted to pieces by something that ran thought the man's veins like ret hot molten metal, pushing him on and effortlessly drowning out the little voice of reason that screamed at him to stop.
All he wanted to do was tear apart this creature, this sick, despicable ghost of a man who had seen fit to play god with the lives of so many, including himself. And, after all this, had held itself so highly and in such a blazing light of self-righteousness that it suggested that he were nothing more than scum…
It had to die.
"ARRRRRRR!"
He swung the crude bludgeon back as he leapt over the first few coils, skipping over the tendrils that licked at his shoes. He felt the air whistle past his ear as one shot out at him, missing the mark by only a bear few centimetres but still hurdled on towards the beast, chewing up the space between it and him. More launched themselves at the rampaging man from all directions as floor became thick with them, clipping his sides as they tried to stop their rapidly approaching target but no matter how many blows they landed, Jobe's frantic speed refused to bleed.
It was as if he didn't even feel the sharp sting as they flayed his battered body….
The smugness faded from Parker's cylindrical head as something wary filled those little black eyes and dimmed their spark. He hadn't anticipated such a reaction, why, he should have been able to beak the man with a few carefully chosen words. This wasn't going to stop him, in fact, in a matter of mille-seconds Jobe was going to plough straight into him and vent all that pent up frustration (which by this point, must have built up to an unfathomable volume that swelled angrily within him, just itching to find an outlet) with that crude, blunt bat.
He needed to move right now.
The roots that held Parker suspended above the ground surged beneath him, pushing him up in a wild attempt to put some distance between his holy self and the rabid man charging towards him, bat raised high.
But the retreat came far too late. He'd only ascended a matter of inched before he felt the full weight of the man bowled into his bony frame like an out of control freight train on full speed. The veins beneath him didn't stand a chance as they tried to hold him up.
For Jobe, he'd lost all sense of control at that first howl. He didn't care how deep his fingers groped as they tried to find something to latch onto and anchor him to the freak. He didn't notice the thick, black blood that welled between them like oil as they bit through the ragged skin or the tendrils that swatted at him, feverishly lashing his back as they tried to rip him off. Above all else, he didn't hold back as he drove the wooden bludgeon down on Parker's skull with every iota of strength he could muster.
It had to die.
The bat came down again. And again. And again. Only a few blows in and ribbons of blood had begun to cling to the bat as Jobe laid into the screaming head with unrelenting fury. It was only when the brood of coils that had wrapped themselves like iron cables around his middle during the onslaught began to pull did his violent tempo falter, but he didn't stop lashing at the head until they'd plucked him free from their master's battered body, yanking him far from it. Before the man could even blink, one of the snake-ish horde had roped around the wrist that had swung the make-shift bat, snapping it like a dry twig. All it took was the wet pop of bone crunching and the rush of pain that exploded in his arm to stop the hollering man dead. The bat fell from limp fingers that had lost all their grip as Jobe froze up, going ridged in the vein's ever tightening grip as the agony throbbed under his skin. For a moment, a blessed quietness fell over the church, settling like snow on the motionless scene.
But then the screaming began anew, only this time it reeked of agony.
"FOOL!" Parker roared through a mask of his own decoloured blood. "You dare strike me, a man of God? Oh, be sure Jobe that I will make you rue the grave errors of your vulgar ways!" The coils diffused, weaving their way over Jobe's writhing body and in mutual unison, slithered towards the suspended man's neck. "Your passing will not be an easy one and you shall be praying to me for a quick death by the time your transgression is complete. Rest assured boy, this is something I will never, never deliver onto you." The words disintegrated into a viscous, low hiss that whined through Parker's mass of teeth, but if Jobe heard, he made no indication. He was far too preoccupied with the white hot ball of pain that had replaced his wrist and singed the nerves around it. He was deaf to Parker's words, in fact, the rest of the world seemed a mile away, leaving him utterly alone with the pain. It was only when the breath caught raggedly in his throat that he stopped the screaming and let the world come back into focus around him.
He couldn't breath.
Eye's jumped down but the rest of his head was locked into place. There was something wrapped around his neck, holding it there like a vice…
Couldn't breath.
In the time he'd been howling, the coils had weaved themselves into a tight, constricting noose around his throat. They twitched, crushing it within their writhing grasp. Something popped.
Jobe would have screamed but the air could no longer even rattle up his wind-pipe.
"Damn you boy, let go!" Parker roared into the man's face as he whipped him in, holding him only inches from his contorted face. Jobe' watched him with eyes that were slowly losing their grip on the world before them. He saw the words come out of the creature's tooth filled maw, but its movement didn't quite match up with the sound. He saw the spittle fly from its mouth, but never truly felt it collide with his face. The beast roared again, but the words fuzzed in Jobe's ear, his starved brain no longer able to make sense of them.
Livid frustration cracked the beast's face and the coils spasmed, twisting themselves all the tighter. He pushed Jobe back, letting his flaccid body lie on the warm air as he applied all the more pressure.
Jobe wasn't even aware of the pain any more. He lay there, motionless in the grip of the tendril as they had their way with his limp body, watching the up-side down view of the church's sealed doors.
His brain had stopped yelling at his lungs to inflate, suddenly falling as silent as an empty room. It was as if it had escaping the confides of his skull and was moving out in all directions, slowly letting him come undone. It squeezed through the cracks of the door, out into the open street and air and down to a little room deep underground where less than an hour ago, the very same scene had acted itself out.
Had Virgil felt so at peace when she 'died' that time? She hadn't looked it, in fact she'd gone out kicking and screaming as if clawing on to the life that was gradually with-drawing from her was them most important thing in the whole world…
…But he didn't feel that. The whole ordeal was almost…pleasant, and a certain comfort came with the knowledge that perhaps there was another way out of the series of grief his life had become rather than submission or bloody revenge. It would be so much easier to let Parker crush him to a bloody mess and just float away…
But then why hadn't Virgil seen it that way? Could she know that the sweet lull of death offered no escape to her and all of those who sinned? Did she realise that death was nothing but a façade in this town and those who died merely 'moved on' as the preacher had so enigmatically put? Had she realised that in accepting death, she would become the very thing she'd been running from during her two year sojourn in this damn town?
If all that was so, then wasn't there a chance that the exact same thing would happen to him? Would he wake up only to find he was back in an endless cycle of death and re-birth that he could only escape by letting the worst in him win? What was stopping this from just being another tug at the strings which Parker and Claudia had dragged him by through this whole ordeal by?
Nothing.
The flash of thought jarred Jobe's listless body like a bolt of electricity. He opened his eyes, the mist clearing from them the moment the stagnant air hit them-
'Wait a minuet, stagnant?'
Jobe coughed as a foul air invaded his lungs down his suddenly liberated throat. It stank of wet and sweet rot, a stink that plugged his nostrils and left him gagging till he was hoarse. The coils that had been slowly choking the life out of him only seconds before had gone, leaving the skin of his throat cold and numb in their absence. In fact, his whole body was free of even the memory of their splintering grip, leaving him to float aimlessly in this…this…
Hang on, just where the hell was he?
The nerves in Jobe's eyes sparked into life but found nothing but black to fill them. He jerked his head to the left but the darkness went on with his frantic gaze, stretching just as far as it could. The mummer of panic that escaped his throat was quickly swallowed effortlessly up by the limitless surroundings.
He jerked his head to right.
Black.
Up, down, back, it didn't matter, each way looked there was nothing to great him but some deep, pitch jet void that quickly lost any sense of dimensions. Black, black, black…height and distance neither possessed any meaning in this lightless place…
So, was he dead? Was this it… an afterlife filled with nothing but a numb, empty space? Jobe shuddered, but he could no longer even feel, let alone see his limbs shake. In fact, the only thing he had left to hold onto was that high, potent reek that was strong enough to singe the very skin inside his nose. Ha to think, he was almost thankful for the queasy sensation of something passing a moist, fermenting corpse inches bellow his nostrils…
Already knowing his search would be fruitlessly vain, Jobe let his eyes race over the blackness before them once more, trying to not get too carried away with the remote possibility of finding…well, anything. He sighed an empty sigh. Just as he'd guessed, the blackness wasn't quite ready yet to give up any clues as to the overwhelming stench that seemed to be the only thing the air here was. Oh well, it was probably for the best...the smell alone was enough to make him want to heave.
The man was just about to contemplate whether or not he still had the capacity to be sick when something green glinted off to his side. Without thinking, his eyes latched onto the light source ravenously, refusing to blink encase he lost it and was let to go back to drowning in this deep, never ending oblivion of black.
The two, distant points grew brighter, illuminating their dark backdrop. Jobe squinted, trying to gauge how far off the green blips were. A meter, two, aw hell, they could even be a mile away for all he could see. Of course, he wouldn't have this problem if only he had something to put them into proportion with but Jobe seriously doubted the chances of the surrounding darkness offering up anything as useful as that…
The thought barely had the time to gestate when the two dots flared, scalding their surroundings in a toxic shade of green. Jobe went to squint as the flare flooded his pupils but quickly found that he couldn't, as if he'd lost the luxury of drawing his lids the moment he'd passed into this place along with any other sense of movement.
Within seconds, he was wishing he still had that one privilege.
You see, hose two dots, they weren't a mile away, oh no, not by a long shot. They were probably not even one whole meter from the man's face, swaying ever so slightly in the darkness around them as the structure that they illuminated with their green glaze breathed in and out.
Jobe hitched a breath to scream as buzzing adrenalin pumped into his blood stream with enough force to burst every single vessel in his body. The self-concocted drug kicked in so hard that it took his brain a whole second to realise he wasn't making a single sound as his mute mouth stretched in the darkness… no, he couldn't even feel that anymore… oh god, what the hell was this?
Jobe's brain burned as it tried to salvage some sort of sense from the ever maddening situation, and all the while, his eyes, the only part of him that still seemed 'here' in this nightmare nowhere, where left to take in the sight before them. Every single detail.
The eyes stared back at him from a plane of watery, slick flesh that glinted sickly in the green light shed upon it. Asides from those, no feature broke the skin's surface asides from lines of lumpy and careless stitching that randomly ran along the face.
Jobe writhed to get away, wanting nothing more than to squirm out of site and hide in the eternal darkness that had become his world but of course, he couldn't for no matter how much he yelled at his disconnected body to move, it refused to spur into life.
So he was let to stare at the freak before him. That skin, oh god, now he could see... it were as if someone had taken a sheet of the dead, white tissue and pulled it back over the creature's forbidden face like some kind of mask. It stretched back, until that mad stitch-er who had decorated the thing's head had taken up its needle once more and sown the once living cloth to the fleshy shoulders with sloppy lines void of any order.
But surprisingly, it wasn't the smothered features that turned his nerves to water.
It was the mere fact that that this warped face that glistened like damp and rubbery meat was no strange visage. Jobe had seen it once before, a time that almost seemed like an aeon ago, back when the world had still retained some of its sanity. Jobe's stomach clenched tightly as he remembered just what it was that dream of Claudia had called it, the very thing that hovered before him now in the dark on his first visit to nowhere.
Envy.
The single word ran through his mind, leaving an icy cold trail in its wake, and all the while, the creature stared back at him with those sharp, green eyes. One of its enormous, hidden hand's (still adorned with those sharp machetes of claws) shifted up from the darkness into view, clicking its hard fingers together in a sad mockery of a 'come here' gestures as those eyes narrowed into twin sharp slits.
Just that was enough to make Jobe forget that in this realm he didn't have a voice to scream and was just about to hitch a breath when-
'Let go… you said it yourself…it would be sooo much easier…' A voice, the creature's voice crooned softly, only the sound never entered his ear but budded directly within his head like some gross, parasitic weed. Its voice…its voice…oh god…
'It's mine!' Jobe felt as though he'd swallowed a rock. This thing…this freak of nature…could it really be him?
'Come on, Jobe, you know I can sort everything out. After all, didn't I do such a good job the last time you needed me?'
Silence, and in it Jobe felt his mind begin to crack like glass under the ever building much pressure. Something hot and rancid rose in his throat and all the while the tension grew and grew, just like that thing in Parker's throat until it would all get too much and tare him apart.
'Let me out…'
"NO!"
Jobe tore his eyes open. The soft, furnished interior of the church stared back at him sans Envy, but something cold and tight around his had replaced the monster and was slowly drawing an ever tightening noose around his neck.
Jobe let his head (which felt as though it was filled with nothing but a substance lighter than air) loll in the tendril's embrace as the world around him slowly lost its sharpness. He couldn't hold on for much longer; his lungs sung for oxygen they couldn't get and his half-starved brain seemed to have descended into lunacy already, but if it were a choice between death and becoming that thing…well, he could hold on for a little longer. Hell, Virgil had managed to stave off temptation for two years.
Virgil… that reminded him, he'd never thanked her for everything she'd done for him. Well, he'd probably be seeing her again sometime soon, but now that he though about it, there were so many things he'd left unsaid…
Apologising to Grace was just the tip of a vast ice burg.
A lump clogged his already bent throat and the man could just about feel the hot tears that rolled up his forehead into his matted, tangled hair, his misty eyes half focused on the church's rectangular surface that seemed to be slowly melting into the wall around it. Oh god, she hadn't deserved any of this… He'd dragged her back here, the last place on earth that anyone would want to be and bitten her head off for it-
'No…' The voice that occupied his head whispered like a forlorn breeze. 'That's not the real reason you turned on her.' Jobe would have nodded in solemn agreement if he could. There was no point in lying to himself about that, not now. After all, he'd only just managed to pull the woollen sheet of thick, blinding deception from his eyes and he didn't deserve the secure, warm comfort it brought with its embrace.
She'd dared to speak the stark, naked truth about him and for that, he'd turned his back on her. He'd forced her through this town, and without knowing it, to her death. Even though it had been Casper who had pulled the trigger and ended her short, empty life along with ripping away any dregs of dignity the diseased woman may have had left, Jobe may as well have been the one who put the gun to her head.
Hers was just another life he'd ruined through his own self-centred nature…
…through his envy.
Jobe let his eyes slip as the mist descended on them. He was almost spent. Inside his chest, his heart wheezed as it jarred like a rusty piece of machinery, the beats coming ever slower as it wound down.
He was going…
Was going…
Going…
SLAM
Jobe cracked open his heavy lidded eyes as the coils around his neck laxed, allowing the golden air to trickle down his ravenous throat. The darkness that fogged his eyes diffused and the light trickled in once more.
The sharp bang of wood on wood had been caused by the church door flying open, allowing the grey and feeble light to invade the musty interior with prying fingers that ran over everything within with the curiosity of a child.
Yet something blocked the majority of the milky brightness, standing casually in the door way. Jobe felt his eyes go wide when his eyes finally began to decipher the silluoet's hazy details.
"Well what the fuck's been going on here?"
The devil himself must have spoken…That or Jobe had truly gone mad.
-
A/N- mmm, yep, yet another crappy place to cut off... oh well, it's not exactly hard to work out who this new arrival is.
