There’s nothing like a dark country road to get the imagination running. I can’t help but grip the wheel of my beat-up old van a little tighter, trying to relax as I listen to the soft singing of some college indie band. The pieces of the dining set are rattling a little in their box the trunk, and that noise is the only think that keeps me from turning tail and getting the hell out of this place as fast as I can.
I’ve never had a delivery so far out before. My carpentry business is small, and only a couple years old. Though I have a bit of a reputation around Savannah I hardly expected someone on the other end of the state to commission the order, and to such far-out address too. My thoughts are interrupted with the vibration of my cell phone. When I see the name ‘Alyssa’ flashing across the phone I can’t help but heave an exasperated sigh. Still, I answer the phone after the third ring. A loud voice begins to speak almost immediately.
“Joseph Kim, I swear to God you had better be at this asshole’s house already!”
“Hello to you too sis. I’m still on the road, it’s really no big deal, it’s super scenic. A great time, I promise,” I lied. Alyssa snorted on the other line.
“Who d’you think you’re trying to fool, little bro, you hate deliveries!” Alyssa is silent for a moment afterwards, then says, “whatever, just make the delivery and get back home as soon as you can, I don’t like the thought of you being stuck out in the middle of nowhere.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I reply. Alyssa only sighs and hangs up the phone.
The night darkens as I drive deeper into roads that grow more and more twisted. The houses grow sparser, and soon enough there are only long stretches of field on either side of the road When the GPS starts redirecting me and my client starts sending me angry texts, however, I know I’m truly lost. There don’t seem to be any street signs either.
“Aw, fuck me,” I mutter, and make a quick turn as GPS signal gets choppy.
Soon enough I turn off the GPS, it’s more annoying and helpful at this point. I consider calling Alyssa but I wouldn’t even know how to tell her where I am, and her weird special forces tracking gadgets freak me out a little.
I only realize how stupid I’m being when, half an hour into desperate search for a highway, my car stops. In the middle of the road. For no reason.
“Oh come on,” I yell angrily. I throw the door open and stomp over to the engine. When I open it, however, everything seems to be in perfect working order. I move to turn it on again, and the car flares to life just long enough for me to see the gas gage move to zero.
There is no way I could have run out of gas; I had filled up at the last station I saw. This is bad, pretty fucking bad. I quickly open the trunk. Behind the package is the emergency kit that Alyssa had snagged for me from work. Inside is enough stuff to survive for a week.
I take out a flashlight and shine it into the distance. When I see two shapes at the end of the long street I could cry in relief. I shut the door and lock the car. There is no choice, if something lives here, I have to hope they’re nice enough to help, or at least give me the directions to a gas station. The closer I walk in the humid summer air the more I can make them out. The taller one is a church, though not a very well-kept one. The stained glass is dusty, the gables of the roof have seen better days and the poor door would probably come off its hinges with a strong push.
The house beside is not much better, though it seems sturdy at least. Though one can see the glimpse of a light from the windows they are all covered with dark heavy curtains. It must be a parish house, I think. If it is, however, the knocker is certainly an odd choice. I walk up to it and can’t help but take a second glance before I knock. It looks like one of the old illustrations from The Inferno: A demonic-looking bronze face, twisted in agony, the knocker piercing through its head and its eyes rolling up into its head.
I shake my head. It’s nothing. If anything, it probably means the guy who lives here has a good sense of humor. I knock once, twice, and on the third time the door opens to reveal a smiling face and a well-lit foyer.
My breath stutters a little, I can’t help it. The man who just opened the door, a priest as I expected. What I do not expect, however are the Hollywood looks and, complete with a gentle smile and sparkling eyes. This guy could give Cary Grant a run for his money.
“It’s a little late to be knocking on a stranger’s door, isn’t it?” the priest asks. His voice is pleasant: melodious and soft. He doesn’t sound annoyed.
“Uh yeah, sorry Father. My car ran outta gas and I’m kinda totally lost,” I say, somehow managing to tear my eyes away from him as I point behind me to my car, barely visible in the darkness.
“Oh dear,” the priest murmurs. He looks back towards the car and then to me, then into the foyer as well. He hesitates for a moment, ghost of a frown on his lips. I stand there awkwardly in the doorway for a couple minutes before the gentle smile reappears and he claps his hands together.
“Well, I do not have a telephone, but you are welcome to stay for the night. There is a gas station not too far from here, I can take you there in the morning.”
He steps away from the door and I step in. It’s almost midnight anyways, and the request sounds reasonable enough. I walk through the threshold of the door, and close it behind myself. The first thing I notice is the interior. I can tell instantly that the inside is much more well-cared for than the outside. It is obvious this guy cares a lot about the place. The entire foyer is paneled in oak… an expensive choice for a single priest in the middle of nowhere. As we walk through the house into the dining room, I realize the whole interior of the house is all oak, though the dining room looks a little more eerie than the foyer, bathed as it is in candlelight. In fact, I can’t see a single electric light anywhere. There are only massive standing silver candelabras with at least a dozen large candles each, and a small candelabra on a table that looks like it’s straight out of a renaissance fair. In fact, the whole dining room looks like it could be in a renaissance fair, or perhaps on the set of a period drama. The far wall holds a massive tapestry, a biblical scene with Jesus at the center, lovingly kept.
“Damn, oh sorry, I mean wow, this is beautiful,” I say awkwardly. The priest laughs.
“Don’t worry, I can hardly expect a layman to refrain from cursing. I am delighted you are so taken by my home. Let me take you to the guest room. There are spare clothes in there that may fit you,” he says with a smile, meeting my eyes briefly before they sweep away.
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The priest leads me upstairs quietly, though the atmosphere isn’t awkward. The scent of frankincense drifts in the air, and dissipates any unease I had been feeling. Near the top of the stairs is an open door, which the priest leads me through. It is spacious but sparsely decorated. There is a crucifix on a gray wall, a bed with grey bedding, and a small wardrobe. The priest walks over to open the wardrobe.
“Here is a set of sleeping clothes, the bathroom is across from you. You can relax a little before I fetch you for dinner. However, I am afraid that all I have for entertainment is a bible,” he says sheepishly, pointing to the tome on the bed.
“It’s fine, I’ve got my phone,” I say.
“Of course, I will see you shortly.” Before the priest can leave, however, I call out to him.
“The name’s Joe, by the way, what’s yours?”
I see the priest pause for a moment. I could have imagined it, but for a moment it seems like his whole body goes tense.
“Pleased to meet you,” he says lightly without turning, “I am Father Finnian.” He walks away without another word. It’s weird behavior for sure, but I shrug it off. I would probably be weird too if I had to live in this isolated place. He probably doesn’t see a single person for days at a time.
The very thought of that kind of life makes me shiver.
I don’t bother to try on the clothes yet. Instead I just pull out my cell phone to text Alyssa. I swear, sometimes she acts more like a mom than our parents. Still, I am grateful to her. When I was adopted, at ten years old, she hardly batted an eyelash. At school she always called me her baby brother, daring anyone at school to say otherwise.
I moved to sit on the bed, picking up the bible just to have something to do. I flipped through the paper-thin pages. The writing is dense and packed with rhetoric I have always found contradictory and difficult to swallow. When I would go to church with my family, I always asked questions that seemed to annoy my priest and Sunday school teachers alike. They would always brush me aside with impatience. I had come to the conclusion that the only people who were meant to understand the bible were those who studied it for a living, so I stopped caring about it. If anyone asked, I suppose I would call myself a casual Catholic, but ask me to talk about a bible story and I am lost.
Soon, I hear that pleasant voice at my door again.
“Dinner is ready if you are.”
I walk over to the door, perhaps a little too eagerly, and follow Father Finnian back downstairs. The staggering amount of food shocks me. The smell of thyme, rosemary, and roast duck are the first thing that hits my senses. I stare dumbfounded at the spread. There is a whole chicken and a whole duck on the table. There are also roasted vegetables and mashed potatoes and lacquered bowls of fruit. Everything is put out buffet-style, with carving knives and big spoons and two empty plates facing placed across from one another. There are two wine glasses by the plates. A jug of red wine sits at the center of the table.
“Is this all for us?” I can’t help but ask.
“Of course,” Father Finnian laughs.
I take my seat quietly across from Father Finnian. My mouth is watering at the sight of so much good food. It even looks as though it was prepared by a professional chef.
Before we can dig in Father Finnian holds out a slender hand.
“Let us say grace, first,” he says gently.
After living alone for a few years I’d forgotten saying grace was even a thing, if I was honest. I quickly take his outstretched hand, only to have to stop myself from flinching away. Father Finnian’s hands are ice-cold, and weirdly clammy. I close my eyes as he mumbles a prayer in later. As he says Amen, I pull my hands out of his freezing grip and proceed to dig in.
“So, what brought you so deep into Georgia?” Father Finnian asks. I pause from scarfing down the duck, and look up at him.
“A delivery, I’m a carpenter,” I explain quickly. Father Finnian raises an eyebrow.
“What?” I ask defensively. I am far too used to people looking down on carpenters.
“Your name is Joseph, and you’re a carpenter,” he laughs, then continues. “Perhaps it’s fitting you found yourself here.”
When the coincidence dawns on me I laugh as well.
“Now, don’t look too deeply into that, father. I promise I’m not some holy being,” I joke.
“No, I suppose not.” Father Finnian frowns suddenly, and looks at the food around us. That is when I realize he hasn’t eaten anything.
“Aren’t you hungry,” I ask incredulously. Even just looking at the food around me makes me want to eat more.
“Not quite, but do not worry about me. I do not eat much anyways,” Father Finnian says.
The conversation quickly moves away from theology and food onto history, then philosophy, then politics. I quickly realize one very interesting fact: Father Finnian is as brilliant as he is lovely. There is so much he knows I wonder how he stores it all in his brain. We don’t seem to run out of things to talk about. For a priest he’s surprisingly liberal. The more of the strong red wine I drink, the more talkative I become.
In my experience priests at least a little conservative, at least the ones in Savannah are. Finnian is a nice surprise.
As I start digging into the fruit Father Finnian begins to sneak glances towards the clock on the wall behind him. He becomes more and more withdrawn as well, as though he’s become tired of chatting. I feel a little bad for him, and decide to cut him a break. The day’s excitement has been pretty hard on me too, and I let out a very real yawn.
“Sorry to cut the discussion short Father, but I think it’s time I took a nap,” I laugh. The priest looks relieved, and we bid one another goodnight. He vehemently denies my request to help clean up, so I have no choice but to go upstairs and get some rest.
Once I get in the room, I realize how tired I am. I don’t even bother to wash up. I try on the pajamas. Surprisingly enough, the plain cotton clothes fit me perfectly. I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.
My dreams, however, are not peaceful.
I am standing in a dirt field, and someone is running past me. I can’t really recognize them, but I feel like I should. Their clothes are tattered and muddy. The smell of blood is thick in the air, and the chill of winter permeates deep into my bones.
Strange, I was sure that people weren’t supposed to feel things like cold in their dreams.
There are people -no, creatures more like it, chasing after them, howling and jeering and laughing.
A scorching hand grips my wrist before I can run to help the person.
You must save him. You must be the one to save him. You have the power to see! The voice is shrill and hoarse, it makes my ears ring and my insides freeze with fear.
I want to wrench my hand away from that grip; It feels like my flesh is melting. I want to scream but I can’t. Tears roll down my cheeks as I turn to see what spoke to me, what creature’s hands could burn flesh so terrible. All I can see when I turn around however is an imprint, like a sunspot, of a towering figure with massive, outstretched wings. I can hear screaming.
I jolt awake, but the screams do not go away. I realize very quickly that the shrill pained sound was not a figment of my dreams. It is a very real sound that carries from downstairs to my bedroom. The strange words echo through my head I struggle to get up, and I freeze when my hand touches something that was definitely not there when I fell asleep.
Rather than a mattress, I find myself lying upon a bed of straw, four walls of rotting wood around me.