What's up guys! It's Halloween! Yay! My favourite time of the year!
Gonna be watching horror movies as I usually do if I'm not going out, and I got sweets ready for the Trick or Treaters, well since restrictions have eased after Covid-19, I'm sure many of the kids are going to be out tonight!
Anyway, I managed to upload a chapter this weekend! Diablo had kidnapped one of the Straight Truth's members and was going to torture him for information, but it turned out the man was more than willing to spill the beans as he claimed to be a reluctant member!
Was he bluffing or telling the truth that he wants out of the cult? Well, read below to find out!
Chapter Fifty-Three
I'm not one of them!
The Disciples stood before their prisoner as he got ready to speak.
He remained tied to the beam until Diablo decided he was satisfied with what he heard.
"First of all." Diablo requested "Tell us your name and why you are a reluctant member of the Straight Truths Baptist Church?"
The man nodded and took a breath.
"My name is Patrick Spacey!" he began, "I know you don't believe me when you looked at me and observed what I was doing in the street, but I can tell you, this is the whole truth, I take no pleasure it what I was doing!"
"Oh really?" Samson asked crossing his arms, obviously still skeptical.
"Shh!" Diablo hissed holding up a taloned finger "Let him speak!"
Rex watched Patrick intently as he spoke.
Being in the army, he had had training where he could spot a liar a mile away, so he kept his eyes unblinking on the young man and his nose waffled taking in his scent.
"I was born into the family of the Straight Truths Baptist Church." Patrick continued "I'm the youngest of three brothers, from the day I learnt to walk and talk, my parents told me what the church believed in and I was taught songs and chants about how Homosexuals were damned and other things, I guess as a child you learn from your parents, but I was also told that if I didn't do certain things, I'd be punished, even if I just looked at something they didn't approve of, there was an issue."
Diablo glared.
"A Regimented family life?" he asked.
Rex also frowned, life in the army was rather difficult, but it was used to toughen him up for war, that sort of life wasn't supposed to be within a family.
"What punishments did they give you?" he asked, not taking his eyes off Patrick.
"I was forced to do running in the yard whatever the weather or carry a large rock on my back and walk up and down the street, they said it was to represent the sin I committed and when the other members of the church saw me, they knew I had done something wrong, it was humiliating."
The other Disciples shook their heads.
"When I was little," Patrick went on "Depending on what I did, whether it was questioning the rules, or even if I didn't say my prayers when I was supposed to, I was made to sit in the basement for twenty minutes, which terrified me because it was dark and smelt funny and sometimes there was the odd rat."
Regan looked scared and snuggled into Chasity who stroked her hair comfortingly.
"Abusive parents." Lamia said thinking back to how her father and cousins treated her before they plotted her murder, "Scumbags!"
Patrick took a deep breath and continued his story.
"Every day of my life, it was, don't do this, don't do that, don't make friends with them, they're sinners, don't talk to them, they're damned, don't watch that, it's not the word of God! It's evil, you name it! I wasn't allowed to celebrate Halloween, read or watch anything that wasn't in their words, pure or to what their God would approve of."
He sighed as he took a breath.
"When I went to School, I had to keep to myself, I was scared to make friends with people in case my parents found out, so I kept my head down and did my school work, yet I longed to join in with the other students, especially when they were talking about places they had been, books they'd read, films they'd seen, and when they were getting ready for Halloween and other celebrations my family deemed evil."
He took a breath.
"When I was fourteen, I read a Harry Potter book in the school library and my parents found out, they went mad, saying it was a book of evil and that I had committed a sin! And if that wasn't bad enough, they told the Church's top members, and I was humiliated during the service!"
Chastity looked disgusted. She was a devout Christian, but she didn't feel that anything that wasn't to do with God was evil, in fact as a child she enjoyed things like Halloween and liked reading Harry Potter and similar fantasy books.
"That's awful!" Lamia cried, equally shocked as she too, in her human years, had enjoyed Halloween, and watched films and read books that were fantasy.
"How did they humiliate you?" Diablo asked cocking his head on one side.
Patrick sighed.
"I was forced to write a confession of my sin and read it out loud to the whole service, and afterwards, the parents of the church got their children to laugh and point at me saying I was a disgusting sinner, and it would be a long time before I was forgiven."
Chastity shook her head.
"You were no sinner." She said, "They were the real sinners!"
"What kind of parents would encourage their kids to bully and humiliate others?" Rex asked, "It's disgusting!"
"Anyway," Patrick continued "I won't bore you with my whole life story, but I want out so bad."
"Then why not leave?" Samson asked in an obvious tone "If you have a job outside the Church don't you use your wages to leave?"
Patrick shook his head.
"My parents control my money." He said, "I work at a Walmart in the city, and all my wages go into their bank, and they give me pocket money each week, about ten dollars, they said it was money I owed them for the years they spent raising me and I'm pretty sure some of it goes to the so-called Church."
"Hey! That's not right!" Diablo cried shocked.
Samson shook his head.
"What kind of parents are they to even think of that? You didn't ask to be fucking born!" he said.
"I'm hating this Church more and more!" Lamia snarled "I was betrayed by my family, but these…these…. people are just controllers! They don't see you as your own person! You don't owe them anything!"
"I didn't dare talk back to them." Patrick replied, "As I knew I would be punished severely."
"Well, you have no fear of that Patrick." Diablo said walking up "Not anymore! I can offer you a way out."
Patrick looked at the Raven.
"You can?" he asked, hope filling his soul.
Diablo nodded, a smirk forming on his beak and using his talons he cut Patrick's cords and let him loose from the beam.
Patrick rubbed his wrists as he looked at the Raven.
"Help us attack this church when they are having this meeting this Sunday," Diablo offered "And I can guarantee your parents along with the rest of the church will pay for their sins! All you must do to prove your loyalty to us is help us get into the Church! Give us all the details we wish to know, and you will be free!"
Patrick stared at the Raven then at the other Disciples.
"You? You'd do that?" he asked, his eyes lighting up.
Diablo nodded.
"Trust me." He said, "I can make it happen."
He flexed his talons.
"My Disciples and I consider ourselves to be the Punishers of Sinners, some people need to be punished for what they do, if the police don't do it, then we will do it for them!"
Patrick looked at all the Disciples.
"Each of my Disciples have experienced pain of the worst kind, and been betrayed, and abused." Diablo explained, he then gestured to everyone and explained their stories, although he left out Regan's story.
Patrick stared and blinked several times as he listened to the stories.
"No way!" he began to put the two and two together as he had been aware of the disappearances of Milo T'Challa, Marcus Flint, Sophie Elarah, Claudia Rice and Asiyah Abdullah.
"You're them, aren't you?" Patrick asked, "You're the ones they were talking about on the news! You're the missing people!"
"Indeed yes!" Rex confirmed "Diablo saved us! And now we want to make sure what happened to us, doesn't happen to anyone else."
"As well as see the perpetrators get what they deserve!" Chastity added "Like my abuser and mother's murderer."
"I don't remember my life." Regan said "All I know is I was saved! And I have a family who love me!" she smiled up at the other Disciples who looked back at her and Chastity stroked her hair.
Patrick smiled at Regan, despite the fact she had scared him, especially after realising she was a blood thirsty Vampire Bat mutant.
"How are you mutant animals then?" Patrick asked.
Diablo smirked then produced the water bottle of Mutopia's magical water and explained how its magical properties had mutated him and his Disciples, but how he had decided to follow his own path instead of living by the rules of Mutopia, where he stole it from.
"A mutant city?" Patrick asked, "Right under Chicago?"
"I know it's hard to believe it, but yes, there is an underground city, and it is very real!" Diablo explained.
"Well, I never…" Patrick breathed "I have seen everything!"
Diablo chuckled.
"Anyway." He said, "I'm going to give you a chance to prove your loyalty to us, and once this mission is complete, you will have the choice to go and live the life you always wanted."
The Raven then paused.
"Or…" he said holding up the bottle.
Patrick looked at it, then at the Disciples.
"Drink the water and join us as a Disciple!" Diablo said.
Patrick was silent for a moment.
He had never wanted to get out of the cult he was forced to be with so badly, and now the chance had arrived.
He was still in shock when he realised the mutants before him existed, and that they, or rather, the Raven was responsible for the attacks on the Preacher and his family.
Now the Raven was offering him the chance to be a mutant too, yet he wasn't sure at first, nor did he have any idea what they planned to do to the church on Sunday.
"You don't have to answer me now." Diablo broke into his thoughts and Patrick looked up.
"You have until Sunday to make your choice."
Patrick was relieved and he sighed.
"Okay." he said then looked at his phone "Aw crap, I got to get back! If I'm late…"
Diablo nodded.
"I'll fly you back." He said, "But from this moment, we have an arrangement to get back at those evil sinners!"
Patrick nodded and smirked.
"We do!" he said, "I can't tell you how much this has pleased me!"
Well, it turns out that Patrick is a reluctant member, and he is willing to help Diablo and the Disciples! Well, after everything he's gone through, I'd want out too!
Diablo has also offered to give him the water to be a Disciple if he so chooses, will he drink the water? Or will he stay human and move on to another life after being freed from the Straight Truth's Church?
All will be revealed soon enough!
Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Keep checking back for more updates!
But until then, Stay safe! Have a Spooky and Scary night! Mwahahaha! Mwahahaha! Happy Halloween!