Chapter Text
A crow cawed behind him, and he whirled around, his heart in his throat. After years, he had become so accustomed to the deathly silence of that place that the slightest noise startled him.
Father Whitaker looked at the bird, its cold, coal-black eyes staring at him, its beak opening and closing a couple of times with an annoying click, as if thinking before cawing again and taking flight, vanishing from his sight.
He sighed, continuing his inspection of the church grounds.
On that humid March afternoon, with the sun obscured by gray, terrifying clouds that promised nothing but trouble, the appearance of his church seemed only more melancholy than it already was: he remembered when in Broken Bow, before the war, men, women, and children would rush to Sunday morning service, sitting on those long wooden pews, shiny with polish, their eyes filled with joy and faith, savoring that moment of togetherness as if it were the sweetest of honeys.
Whitaker fondly remembered those moments, squeezed between his brothers, tiptoeing to glimpse the priest at the altar, listening and loving that day's psalm. He remembered the sunlight hitting the stained glass and illuminating the walls, the floors, and Jesus on the cross, painting the dark wood with shades of yellow and blue.
Perhaps it was precisely those colors that had awakened in him the desire to become a priest, so he could see that wonder every day.
And then the war began, and the men of Broken Bow, including his father, gave their wives a quick kiss and a promise to return, a promise to leave as humble farmers or workers and return as heroes acclaimed by the entire country. Dennis clutched his mother's long, red, flowered skirt, searching his mind for a way to stop her tears as he watched his father get into a dirty green jeep, disappearing shortly afterwards behind a cloud of dust.
He never returned, and so did many of the men of Broken Bow, and those who did could not be considered heroes; they were merely the shells of the men immortalized in the photographs on the bedside table in the bedroom.
The church gradually emptied, the colors of the stained glass had never looked so dull.
It broke his heart to leave for seminary when he turned sixteen; the bag he had packed weighed on his shoulder, and his heart felt like a boulder in his chest as his mother ran her palms over his clothes, smoothing them as much as possible.
“They cost a fortune, your brother Gabriel will be mad at me for a while, but… you have to make a good impression on the other seminarians, right? You're no less than them just because we don't have money.”
She looked up, her brown eyes meeting her son's blue ones.
“I'm so proud of you, my boy. If your father were here, he—” His mother stopped, pursed her lips, and pulled them into a tight smile.
“I don't even remember his voice,” Dennis thought.
“I'll be back, Mom, I promise. You won't be able to count to one hundred or… John won't be able to give you another grandchild before I'll be home.” He said instead, trying to reassure her, setting his bag on the ground to hug her.
“God loves you, Dennis, and so do I.” She kissed him on the cheek, gently moving the fine hair on his forehead with her fingertips.
He hoped his mother was right, he hoped God would love him.
He didn't keep his promise to his mother, or rather, his mother didn't have time to see him return.
In his third year of seminary, he received a letter from his brother Gabriel: Mom had fainted on the stairs, perhaps due to the heat or low blood pressure. In any case, by the time John found her, lying on the floor in a position that couldn't have been comfortable, she'd been dead for a long time.
But Dennis didn't like to remember that moment: his mother had always been terrified of dying alone, which was precisely why she'd wanted to have many children, and yet it had happened anyway, the last sound she heard was probably that of her neck cracking before the void.
So he'd returned to Broken Bow for the funeral, fighting back the urge to cover his ears every time his brothers complained about how much the funeral cost.
"So much just for a fucking coffin!" Gabriel said, slamming the papers on the old kitchen table.
"Don't swear in our mother's house, you know she didn't like it." Dennis whispered, more to himself than to his older brother, feeling a shiver of fear run through him as Gabriel's pale blue eyes narrowed at him.
"Oh, sorry, Father Whitaker, I didn't know we had the new man of the house here." He stood up abruptly, the chair behind him falling to the floor, startling Dennis at the sudden noise. He approached slowly, placing the youngest against the wall.
"Always remember that after Dad died, may his soul rest in peace, I took over the farm: I talked to the other farmers, I bought the fertilizer, and I borrowed the machines to plow the fields. And what were you doing, Dennis? Were you getting snot on Mom's skirt? Were you living miles away, thinking you were superior to us?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his brother John, on the other side of the room, raise a hand towards them to stop the argument. Gabriel shook his head slowly, as if to tell him not to get involved, and his hand lowered.
"Remember, I'm in charge here, even more so now that Mom's dead."
Dennis was practically pressed against the wall as he felt his brother's hot breath hitting his cheekbones and cheeks. For a second, he thought Gabriel would hit him like Dad when he was still there with them: a little push, a slap, or a punch if he was really angry. His brother, however, only snorted a little, reminding him of a bull, before walking away and leaving the room, slamming the door behind him.
"You know how he is, Den, don't take this personally. Instead, pack your things; you have an early train tomorrow morning." John placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently, before following his older brother.
And so, the next day, after saying a final prayer at his mother's grave, he returned to the seminary, and Broken Bow was a memory again for another three long years.
He didn't want to go home again, certainly not; what did he have to come back for, anyway? His mother was gone, and his brothers now had families of their own; it would have been wiser to stay as a priest in Lincoln or some other big city.
Then came John's letter, asking him to come home: Isaiah, his third brother, had died in a tragic accident while working to dam the banks of the swollen river; it had taken them a week to find his body.
"Please, Dennis, come home. I can't live with the thought of losing another brother. I want you to be safe." The letter ended with these words.
"You're a grown man," he thought to himself.
"You can tell him no, you can tell him not to worry, you can tell him you don't want to come back."
Anyway, the next day he was already on the train back home, this time as Father Whitaker.
And now there he was, as the priest of a small church whose only visitors were a few widows from the town and the occasional rat seeking refuge on stormy nights.
“I'll have to ask John to cut the grass here, it's a disaster.” He thought as he bent down to pull out a root much larger than the others. He pulled and pulled, gritting his teeth to succeed, falling on his ass with a thud when he finally managed to uproot the roots, wetting his cassock and getting dirt on his shoes.
He looked at the stem in his hands with a slightly breathless smile, planting his palms on the ground to push himself up when the sound of snapping twigs caught his attention.
He turned his head, expecting to see a crow perched on a branch or a fox prowling the gardens, but to his surprise, not a soul besides himself seemed present in that small patch of land.
He turned his head again with a painful jerk, already knowing his neck wouldn't be happy, when he heard the noise again, this time from the other side of the garden.
A shiver ran through him as his eyes scanned the shrubs around him: he really wanted to know who the genius was who, so many years ago, had decided it was a good idea to cover half the yard with thick evergreen shrubs, blocking the view through the mass of leaves.
“Is anyone there?” he asked, clutching the branch in his hand, watching as the leaves moved thanks to the wind and to the light droplets of rain that had begun to fall from the sky.
Another noise, another twig snapping under a weight that couldn't have come from an animal. He swallowed, hoping to swallow his fear as well.
"Don't be afraid, you're safe here." He continued, hoping whoever it was (perhaps a lost child or a young man who had sneaked in after a bet with friends) would come out of hiding.
No voice answered, and the noise didn't repeat itself. He stayed there, just long enough to make sure he didn't hear it again or glimpse anyone among the branches and leaves. When that didn't happen, he dropped the root he was holding, now with the stem all crooked from his grip, and began to walk back towards the church entrance.
He twisted his neck just one last time. The leaves were still, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
"You may enter if you wish; the church is open to souls seeking shelter." He whispered into the void, shaking his head immediately afterwards. This place was driving him crazy; it was obvious no one was there: who in their right mind would hide from him, who was as scary as a wet cat?
He clenched his jaw, biting his lower lip gently before sighing, opening the door and closing it behind him, running his fingers through his now damp curls.
He closed the door just in time before a bright red glow appeared among the emerald-green leaves, a red glow with a single coal-black dot in its center, and before he could see a red trail mix with the rain that was accumulating on the ground, drenching that sacred place with impure blood.
____________________
The seven o'clock Mass that evening was just like all the others Dennis had concelebrated in the two years since he became a priest in Broken Bow: a few widows in the front row, their black shawls covering their gray, lifeless hair, and two men, one blinded in one eye by shrapnel and one left lame after a bullet struck his ankle.
And of course there was Amy, radiant as always in the front row, in her long cream-colored dress, looking with a smile at her son Theo, who was sleeping peacefully in her arms.
Dennis had met her immediately after returning to Broken Bow, finding her one Sunday morning in one of the empty pews of the church, her hands clasped in prayer and her head bowed, hot tears streaming down her cheeks.
She had just lost her husband, struck by lightning after being caught in a storm while returning from the fields. Amy, only a few months pregnant, didn't know what to do: her parents, like her husband's, had died years earlier, she had no brothers or sisters, and the only person she could count on was her baby, who was months and months away from being born.
"What will I do now, Father?" she asked through sobs, holding Dennis's hand in hers.
And he had always been too good.
So, Dennis, after begging his brothers (John had been the hardest to convince; Gabriel didn't seem to care), sold his mother's house, giving Amy the proceeds so she could focus on herself and her baby for the months to come.
It broke his heart a little, selling what was the last memory of his mother, but in any case, he found it hard to live there knowing what had happened, so he made peace with it.
After Theo was born, and after Amy wanted Dennis by her side during the birth, Dennis began sharing his priest's salary with the woman until she was able to get back on her feet and take care of the farm.
They were… friends, of course they were. The woman always made sure to bring Dennis cookies whenever she cooked something, she helped him clean the church, and Dennis helped her with the farm. Sure, it wasn't easy at first, but the boy didn't regret a thing.
Well, obviously he no longer had a home, and the small apartment near the church that had been designated for the priest was anything but habitable (really, how did those before him live there?), and living with his brothers was out of the question; they both had families to take care of.
So, yes, sleeping in the church was his temporary solution.
A temporary solution that had been going on for almost two years now, but who was Dennis to put a foot in the way of the Lord's plan for him?
He handed out the hosts after blessing them (he did everything himself; none of the boys in town wanted to be altar boys anyway) and finished Mass, smiling when he saw Amy coming towards him as everyone else filed out through the large wooden doors.
“A fantastic Mass as usual, Father,” she said with a smile, gently cradling the baby in her arms.
“Thank you so much, Amy, although I think our little Theo here found it a little boring.” He chuckled softly as he reached out a finger to the sleeping child, stroking his chubby cheek.
The woman smiled, looking at the child with a gaze full of affection.
“I’d invite you to dinner, but someone here is teething again, and I don’t think you want to eat while hearing him scream. It’s a good thing he hasn’t woken up yet.”
Dennis smiled at her, folding his hands in front of him.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t mean to bother you anyway. See you tomorrow morning.” He nodded, and the woman smiled, before she turned and walked out, leaving him alone in the large room.
As soon as the door closed behind Amy, his smile faltered slightly, and his sigh seemed to echo throughout the room.
He looked around, his eyes landing as usual on the figure of Christ on the cross on the central wall; the eyes carved into the wood seemed to stare at him, reading his soul.
Judging him.
He shivered, one hand going to the cross hanging around his neck, and began to pray softly as he walked down the corridor, never raising his head again, for fear of discovering those eyes following him every step.
He began his evening routine: he locked the front door, blew out the candles, put away the Bible after delicately kissing its cover, and entered the sacristy.
There, in a basket Amy had given him the night before, was a piece of hard bread and a few slices of cheese.
It was already evening, and Dennis had nothing else to eat.
So he tore the bread apart with firm bites, biting it repeatedly so as not to choke, and tried not to breathe as he ate the pieces of cheese, which left a faint sour taste on his tongue.
He changed out of his cassock, remaining in his undershirt and a pair of long linen pants, and lay down on the makeshift bed he'd created with an old camp bed and a blanket he'd saved from his mother's house.
He looked up at the bare, gray ceiling, clutching the fabric in his hands.
This certainly wasn't the life he'd dreamed of as a boy, but at least it was life. His mother, his brother Isaiah, and Amy's husband hadn't been fortunate enough to continue living, nor had his father, and for that Dennis had God to thank.
He made the sign of the cross, kissed the small necklace before tucking it back into his undershirt, and blew out the candle on the bedside table, turning to the side.
Drool had just begun to run down his cheek and his legs began to spasm when he heard the sudden, sharp sound of one of the church's large windows being flung open, the sound of the storm outside, previously just a muffled sound, now filling his head.
He sat up abruptly, running his palm over his cheek and listening, the sound of thunder harmonizing strangely with the pounding of his heart in his chest.
For a moment, he thought nothing had happened: the church was old, very old, some would have sworn it was falling to pieces, and it wasn't the first time the hinges of the windows had come loose; the storm looming outside must have been the final straw.
When he heard nothing but the sound of rain hitting the walls, he put his bare feet on the ground, hissing at the cold, ready to get up and find a way to close the window.
His knees were still half bent when he heard a sound very different from thunder or rain.
Footsteps, wet footsteps, growing louder and louder.
He thought about screaming, or perhaps hiding, yet his arms and legs didn't seem to want to cooperate at all; they just stood there, helpless, as if the blood was no longer flowing to them.
The footsteps grew louder, and at a certain point it became obvious that whoever had broken in was approaching the sacristy.
His lips trembled, and he thought he was about to vomit when a long, menacing shadow began to form across the open doorway to his "room."
The footsteps stopped, just for a second, and Dennis thought maybe he was imagining it, that this was all a nightmare.
Until a hand appeared, holding on to the doorpost, a large, clawed hand, in the dim light it seemed obvious that it was dripping something other than rain.
That was blood, and that hand definitely couldn't be human.
He finally rose from the cot, making his way in the meanders of the sacristy, running as if unaware that at the end of the room there was only a wall and no exit.
He stopped there, in the pitch darkness, kneeling in that cold, damp corner. With trembling hands, as he felt his eyes burning and bile rising in his throat, he took the small gold chain, bringing it to his lips despite his body screaming for him to lie down and curl up into a ball.
“Hail Mary, full of grace…” he began, his voice trembling, his body spasming ever more violently.
“The Lord is with thee…” he heard the creature enter the sacristy, heavy footsteps and the sound of claws scraping along the stone wall.
“Blessed art thou among women…”
Step. Step. Step.
“And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus…” What a coincidence, the Hail Mary had always been his favorite prayer, it was also his mother's favorite.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God…” he heard the noise grow louder, louder, louder.
“Pray for us sinners…” He wondered if his father and brother were in heaven, well, his mother certainly was, but Dennis? Would he be worthy of passing through the gates of heaven?
“Now, and at the hour of our death…” He could hear the creature's breathing, heavy, as if it had been running. He could hear the sound of raindrops and blood falling on the smooth floor.
His cheeks were wet with tears, his breathing was shallow, and his head was spinning.
“Amen.” He finished, exhaling all the air from his lungs.
There, he thought, my time has come.
He didn’t move, but the monster did.
He felt it bend behind him, the rain falling from his body wetting his shoulders and tanktop. He moaned softly in fear when he felt the monster’s hot breath on his neck.
“Beautiful…” he whispered in a hoarse, inhuman voice, the young priest swore he heard a smile in those words.
The monster's head moved even closer, and he felt what must have been its lips brush his bare, freckled shoulder, and with a stomach full of black terror, he swore he felt sharp teeth tracing his skin.
He trembled again, closing his eyes, hearing the sound of the rain outside grow increasingly muffled in his ears.
"But there's no God here, and no Virgin Mary..."
He felt hot breath hit the inside of his ear; in a moment of lucidity, he realized with horror that he'd pissed himself.
How to go out in style.
"Here, there's only me..."
That large, blood-stained hand gripped his side. Dennis realized he was falling, realized that all his strength had left him, and that he wouldn't be able to stay awake much longer.
He realized he was about to die.
"Little lamb." He heard a sound, as if the figure had opened its jaws and taken a deep breath.
The last thing he felt was the creature's other hand grasping his arm before everything went black.