Читать книгу Judas Payne - Michael Hemmingson - Страница 5

chapter one

1.

When the Reverend Jedediah Payne moved himself, his young wife, and one-year-old daughter from the comfort of city life in Boston to the hedonistic West, he had aspirations of a church, his church; a congregation, his congregation—his people hinged on every word he had to give on The Word. Fundamental Baptist by training, Jedediah Payne had met with opposition from his peers concerning his “unorthodox” method of rearing a flock. Unorthodox, indeed! Obviously these fools were blinded by Satan’s crafty hand, as were so many in this day of advanced technologies and incessant bloodshed. It was Payne’s objective to make the people see what was happening, just how The Devil was interfering with their lives, and how they could prevent it…with his help, naturally. It was so simple a solution it pained the Reverend’s pious heart. And if fellow “men of God” were to criticize and ostracize him, to have him expelled from the church he preached at, then he would leave this dirty, sin-infested city and go out to the new lands of America, where people who were fresh and not yet tainted would hear what he had to say—and believe...and follow:

Him.

Payne was thirty-seven at the time. His wife, who had just turned eighteen, was not happy about leaving Boston and civilization; however, she had married a man whose mission was to save souls, thus she was avowed to accompany him, for better or worse. Katherine Payne had married the Reverend when she was sixteen. It was a marriage arranged by her father. She was, needless to say, appalled upon learning whom her betrothed was. Katherine was a quiet, shy girl who kept to her room and the libraries, ingesting the contents of books when she could and when the time permitted. She never found boys or men appealing, the majority of them lacking in intellect or address that could cause her heart to melt (the way she believed it would when love found her in its sights). Oh, she’d had her share of suitors, all of whom she had turned away like she would a glass of sour milk. Indeed, she knew she was an attractive young woman, by their standards; but she had to wonder if some of the suitors were only interested in the dowry—her father being a rather well-to-do man of Boston society. (Her mother, alas, had been dead since she was ten, a victim of pneumonia.)

Marry a man of the cloth? And this gentleman being nearly twenty years her senior? She entertained thoughts of fleeing home and hiding. She could never leave her father, however...he was sick and bed-ridden.

“I cannot marry that man,” she told her father, sitting next to his bed, her head hung low and her hands twitching in her lap like the worried and nervous girl she was.

“You will do as I say, Katherine,” he informed her. His voice was weak; he was pale and gaunt and it pained her to look at him.

“I don’t love him,” she said, “I don’t even know him.’’

“He is a good man. He is a man of The Lord. Could there ever be a more trustworthy husband?”

“Be that as it may,” she said, “I will have a life of misery. This is 1850, Father, and arranged marriages are not the staple of a civilized soci—”

“Civilized?!” her father choked. “No, my dear, this is a very bad world, one that I fear may not last long; you need a good man to protect you, because I no longer can.”

Softly, very softly, “I am but sixteen...”

“Old enough,” was her father’s reply, and that was that.

She could have refused him; she could have taken a stand; however, that, she feared, would have broken her father’s feeble heart—not because he had any concern for Payne’s interest, but the marriage put him at ease, in regards his daughter’s future days and general welfare.

Before the marriage, she and Jedediah Payne had taken a number of strolls and talked. He was an astute, tall gentleman, and a good listener from what she could tell; a little too thin for her tastes, but serious and solemn, if not perhaps a bit too quirky regarding his religious viewpoints. She liked him well enough. Any man who claimed to have been visited by an angel, and talked to the angel, piqued her curiosity.

Two days after the inconspicuous, small wedding, her father passed away.

She couldn’t stop crying for her father, long after he was buried. The man she called husband did not move to comfort her, did not put his arms around her like the men did in books of romance and adventure. He simply said, “The Lord called him; it was his time.”

She soon learned that the only emotions Jedediah Payne felt with any depth of fervor were antipathy and anger towards those who did not agree with him, those who questioned him. He believed his opinions and positions to be virtuous and correct without debate, as if handed down personally by the Almighty Himself (and, in fact, some of what he said he claimed to be straight from the angel he met, an angel sent from God); anyone who dared question the Reverend was either “on the side of Satan” or “holding an iniquitous grudge.” Paranoid, that was probably a good word for her husband, if not painfully stubborn to take a moment and consider opposing sides, and determine whether or not they had merit. Katherine Payne was grateful he was not a lawyer, like her father—her father who had become a judge and presided over the fates of many men’s lives.

Their marriage wasn’t consummated until three weeks after the wedding. The night of their marriage, she sat in her room under the bed sheets, quivering in terrible disquietude over what she was going to have to do. Would he walk in naked, prepared to ravish her? No. He came in clothed, all in black as was his preference, and sat on the edge of the bed, unable to look her in the eye.

“How are you, wife?” he asked.

She admitted to some apprehension; she didn’t want him to know how much. She didn’t want him to know that her deepest wish and desire was to run away from this room, this house, this life, and never look back.

“Do you feel unready for this part of our union?”

She nodded.

“Then it can wait,” Payne said, and left her.

He wasn’t being chivalrous; she knew that—he was as uninterested about copulation as she was frightened.

In regards to sexual relations in general, Reverend Payne had no opinion. Unlike other preachers, he did not fill his sermons with precautionary ambulation on fornication and the sins of the flesh. Payne was not concerned with drives that did not hinder him, as was the case of the hypocrites who did speak of it at length, almost as an obsession (and his knowledge of their frequency of brothels as “missionary work”). Payne could not understand what made men and women act so nonsensical over the matter; he failed to see the use, other than for procreation, that the act beheld. His sermons, rather, were warnings of Babylonian governments, war, and how to spot those agents of Satan who walked among us in every day life.

Finally, Payne came to Katherine’s room to do his duty, because he knew it was his duty: the Bible instructed him so. Katherine wasn’t frightened anymore—she had three weeks to prepare and ponder. By now, she was curious more than anything else. She wanted to get it over with.

In the darkness, her husband made his attempt to mount her. He was motionless for a while, did not seem to know what to do. His cold hands felt around down there, and placed himself inside her. She cried out, out to God, closing her eyes. It was over quickly. She felt a warm stickiness in and on her privates. She tried to kiss Jedediah—he had taken her virginity, after all, and this meant something. Payne stood, asked if she was all right. She told him yes. He apologized and left her alone.

She thought she might cry. This was horrible. But, like her husband, she ultimately had no emotional response to the matter.

This hasty act produced a pregnancy, which the Reverend seemed pleased about. Katherine was not sure how she felt; after the weeks of sickness inclined, and her belly grew, she knew the child in her would be loved by her, loved for all eternity, loved by a family. Not the most perfect family, but a family nonetheless. It was a terrible world, the Civil War was proof of this, and Katherine Payne came to realize that the finest quality of human nature was the nature of family.

Evangeline Payne was born into this world with difficulty. It was a long and arduous labor, which Katherine felt certain she would die from. She knew about the many women who did expire during childbirth; she forebode that she might follow in their path. She was bedridden for several weeks after. The doctor told the Paynes that if a large family was wanted, it would not be a good idea. Katherine was small in the hips, and maybe too young; and while she may be able to have one or two more children, any beyond that would “likely be the death of her,” the Doctor confided to the Reverend, which Katherine heard outside her door.

That was fine by Katherine Payne née Blairwood. Holding her pink, soft, gurgling daughter to her breast for suck, she felt one child would be perfectly fine. She didn’t want to go through the ordeal of labor again, ever. The only thing that worried her was her husband; men, she knew good and well, coveted sons (as her own father probably wished for during his waning years) to carry on the name, the heritage, the fantasy of dynasty. Was her husband that kind of man? How could she know, when she and Jedediah seldom discussed anything, or spent intellectual time together?

Reverend Payne was not certain how he felt about his daughter’s birth into the world of evil, war, and men who cavorted with The Devil. He was, secretly, pleased that he could produce such life from his loins, as God had created all men to do; and he was pleased with the fact that he had a young mind that he could steer in the proper direction regarding the ways of the Lord. He had hoped for neither son nor daughter, had never given it much consideration. He was not unfailing if he desired more offspring. Eventually, he supposed, he would need a son—a son he could guide into his own vocation (as his father had), a son he could look on with pride. One day he would approach Katherine about it, but not now. Payne had other things to contend with at the moment, one of which was the opposition from the rectors of his faith against his sermonizing and preaching.

He’d always been called overzealous, this was nothing new; this critical position had surrounded him since he first knew his calling, at the tender age of ten. But when he began to cast out demons and heal the meek from the pulpit, fellow preachers at his church and other Baptist establishments in the city began to let him know that what he was doing...was uncouth. Payne knew they envied his ability to cast out Satan’s fiends from the bodies of the afflicted; those he saved were happier and bright, their eyes glimmering, singing praises to the Lamb Jesus, and Payne and only Payne witnessed the ephemeral ghouls scuttle away and return—injured by God—to the dark corners of their realm. As for those who did not fully heal, it was their fault and not his; their faith was weak—if it were as solid as his, their club-feet would return to normal, their blinding eyes would see, and their deafening ears would hear...

He became convinced that The Devil was out to get him. Payne was leading men and women away from the Dark Prince’s reign. Obviously, The Devil had gotten to others in the ministry, or had planted demons in the form of men who dared quote scripture and tend to the flock. This caused Payne to be more out-spoken when addressing the church-goers.

Then he was told, by the elders, that his services at the church were no longer needed. Satan! Very well—he would find another tabernacle.

No others, however, wanted him.

Coming home one night, terrified by Satan’s powers and his own dogma waning, Reverend Payne went to find solace in his wife. It was the first time he had ever considered talking to her. But he was alone now, so very alone, and perhaps God had forsaken him, perhaps he had done something to make God angry. He had a wife, though, so he was not that alone. He went to her room. The baby was asleep. His wife was in her nightgown, combing her hair at the vanity. She moved to cover herself. A modest young woman, he admired that.

Something queer took him over. Gazing on Katherine’s white flesh, he felt a heat inside he had never felt before—other than when he was at his best form in the church—and a twitching in the loins. He was dizzy with this sensation. I succumb to my own Darkness, he thought—

He grabbed Katherine, throwing her on the bed. She started to protest, then looked away. She asked to have the lights turned off, but Payne was enraptured with this new sense of being and did not hear her request. He quickly took his wife, found that his erection had not diminished, and knew her again. She let out several loud sighs and groans. Good Lord, was the woman enjoying this? He certainly was.

2.

Katherine was not enjoying it. It was painful—not as much the first time, but still so. Her husband was being rough. Her sighs were not for joy but to let the air out, due to his weight on her frail body. She had hoped it would be as quick as that first time, but when he was done, he did it again. The sheets under her were damp with sweat and his seed. Payne said nothing to her. He stood and left her room.

3.

As quickly as the carnality possessed him, it vanished. Reverend Payne felt base, hexed. When he removed himself from her room, he went to his study, flogged himself on the back with a small whip he kept in his desk. The throbbing of his flesh made him think clear. Very clear.

If the infidels would not have him in Boston, he would go to another city.

He would go far away.

He would go West.

4.

Katherine Payne did not know what had overcome her husband that night, nor did she question it; and, after a few days, she did not care. She only hoped it wouldn’t happen again. If he wished to lay with her, she wanted to know in advance so she could relax her mind and body and prepare to do her wifely duty. She wanted to tell the Reverend this, but she did not have the gumption. That was not a wife’s place to say such things, and she did not want to incur a tirade on “submissive obligation” from him. Additionally, she was also worried whether or not the coupling would produce a second child. In her deepest fears, she saw herself having twins, since her husband had spilled his seed into her twice. She did not know how twins came about, but she thought that might be one way.

By the time they had moved out to Tyburn, Kansas, Katherine was certain that no child was going to come. She was not feeling the sickness, nor was she becoming bloated or hungry for odd foods.

She muttered a silent prayer for this relief.

5.

The minister in Tyburn, Kansas had recently committed suicide and the townspeople were in need of a new man to bring the good word. They readily accepted Reverend Payne, despite the curious rumors they heard from Boston. Payne had purchased one hundred acres of land just outside the city limits, and any man of God who could afford such a parcel was all right by the good people of Tyburn.

The land was purchased from money left by Katherine’s father. Reverend Payne secured the sale with the landowner while in Boston, appalled at the price of one thousand dollars—even more appalled when he learned there was ten thousand more dollars in the bank that Katherine’s father had left. But money was not a matter the Reverend wished to maintain or acquire. The money would be a good security, transferred from the trust in Boston to the local bank in Tyburn; and perhaps a nest egg for his heir, or heirs, should that day come.

Katherine Payne did not like the spacious land their home was on, or the animals that her husband quickly purchased. Chickens and horses and cows, and then a pig! She was a woman of the city, thrust onto this make-shift farm. She loathed the rooster that crowed in the morning—never at dawn but long after, and far into noon as well. Her husband seemed to enjoy this new life, spending time outdoors when he was not at the church, his skin going from white to red to tan. She didn’t think she would adjust to this (the library in Tyburn was very small and most of the books she had already read, so she had to make special orders through the slow U.S. Mails). This was her lot, this is what she had chosen for a life (even if her father had chosen it for her). She conceded, however, that small town life might be good for Evangeline to grow up in, rather than a crowded, bustling city.

Evangeline was growing fast, now in her first year. She was crawling about, feeding from a bottle, and curious about the world around her. The blonde hair on her head was already curly and golden. Katherine knew her child would grow up to be a beautiful woman. But you will marry whom you choose to marry, Katherine silently vowed, someone you truly love and care for....

Katherine could not say she loved her husband, nor did the Reverend ever express such a feeling toward her. She had respect for him, in a peculiar way. She prepared his meals since she did not have servants as she had in Boston; she cared for him; but he would never love him, this she knew.

On the third month of their life on the outskirts of Tyburn, Kansas, Katherine Payne went out to the barn and saw a mysterious gentleman....

6.

The reader should be aware that he was not actually a man but The Devil himself. Oh yes, it just so happened that The Devil was weary and agitated with Jedediah Payne—the Reverend had been saying bad things about The Devil for many years and while The Devil had pretty much ignored it, it was time for The Devil to pay the Reverend back. “What bad thing shall I do to that self-righteous, pious man?” mused The Devil to his minions. The Devil had tried to reach Payne in his dreams, but even there this man of God was able to fight back....

“Rape his wife!” said the minions.

“Good idea,” said The Devil, and snapped his fingers.

“Make her pregnant!” cried the minions with glee.

“An even better idea,” said The Devil, and whistled a merry little tune.

Now, The Devil, as the old stories always tell, can take human form. So this is exactly what The Devil did—he became a man, wandered onto Payne’s land like he owned it and made his jovial way inside the barn. He would feign being wounded because women always had a soft spot for the injured. He took the form of an Indian because he knew Katherine Payne felt horrible for what the United States military had been doing to the Indians all these years.

7.

Katherine Payne went into the barn later that day. She let out a small cry, seeing the soiled, wounded Indian on the ground. The Indian appeared as terrified as she. She stepped back, touching her chest: heart pounding. The Reverend was in town, she was all alone here, and there were no guns in the house. She had heard a great deal of stories about these savages. He merely stared at her with solemn, darkened eyes. She saw that he was bleeding from the side; there was a lot of dried, coagulated blood, it looked like he’d been shot. The Indian did not get up; he lay back down, watching her. He appeared sad. Katherine felt somewhat at ease, which struck her as odd. “How did you get here?” she asked. The Indian did not respond. “You probably do not understand me,” she said. “How did you come to be injured?” The Indian merely gazed at her, then closed his eyes. She feared he’d died, but he opened his eyes again. There was a glow about him, a light that made him innocent to her. He was anything but threatening. He needed help. Katherine Payne could not turn him away. “I shall return,” she said.

8.

The Devil smiled to himself because things were working as planned.

The woman returned as promised, with water and cloth. He tried to move away from her as she slowly approached, then decided it did not matter. He didn’t have to play the wounded creature too much, she was his. She bent down, putting the cloth in water, then proceeded to clean his wounds. He was intrigued by this woman; why did such a lovely piece of female flesh marry Reverend Payne? She smelled—like a warm day in the sun, and pretty like flowers. He marveled at the smoothness of her skin, how pink it was, and her golden hair. The Devil loathed all these things.

9.

Katherine was gratified the Indian wasn’t being difficult, and allowed her to clean his wounds and wrap bandages around him. The white bandage soon spotted with red. She did not know how to remove bullets, if it was a bullet wound this poor man was suffering from. And what was she going to tell Jedediah when he came home? She helped the Indian up, led him to the hay by the horses, and told him to lie there. He did as instructed, watching her carefully. What had this unfortunate soul gone through? Savage or not, he was one of God’s creations who needed help—and certainly her husband, a man of God, would agree.

She returned to the house, checking on Evangeline. Her daughter was asleep. Was she being foolish? That Indian could come in here, kill both her and the child. No—now that thinking was foolish. She knew not all Indians were maniac killers, no matter what the papers and the penny dreadfuls said; many of those people were peaceful. This Indian seemed like the latter.

She took some food out to him: dried meats and fruits. The Indian acted as if he didn’t know whether to take it or not. Finally, his hand went out to the food, and he began to eat ravenously. Katherine smiled.

She was doing the right thing—a good thing.

She let him be, checking an hour later to see if he had gone. He was asleep.

She didn’t know how she would tell Jedediah of her find, so she didn’t. It was dark by the time the Reverend returned home; he had walked to town (a two hour walk, no less!), so there was no need for him to go into the barn. She would tell him tomorrow, if the Indian were still there. She hoped—and felt guilty for it—that he would go away and the whole matter would be her secret.

Katherine could not sleep that night. She was both concerned for the Indian and apprehensive of the idea that he might come in and...no, no, Katherine, stop that line of thinking right now!

She got up, quietly moved through the house, getting some more food from the kitchen and going out to the barn with an oil lamp. He was still in there, awake, standing, and naked. She pulled in a breath. His penis...it was so enormous. She had never actually seen her husband’s, but she knew this Indian was three if not four times the size of the Reverend’s... and the phallus was glowing red.

The Indian smiled at her. His teeth were a bright white, and there was fire in his eyes....

10.

The Devil did not expect Katherine at this hour of night, standing before him in her night clothing, with an oil lamp and food. Perhaps she came for this, he wouldn’t have to force her after all. Indeed, why would she be so clean, so sweet to smell, so pure of skin, if not for him? He grabbed her hard, pulling her close. The lamp fell to the ground, and so did the food. She tried to cry out and he clamped his hand on her mouth. He whispered, “Hush, my dear.” He dragged her toward the hayloft. She put up a struggle, but not a good one; no, she gave in too easily, too quickly. “You have been waiting for this all your life,” said The Devil into her ear; “since you were a little girl, I have known your true being, and the same fate shall fall upon your daughter.” So he got on top of her, pried her legs open. He stroked his giant red penis. Her teeth sank into his palm as he entered her, but he did not bleed. Her eyes gazed up, bright and blue, then closed tightly. He could see it in her face: she was in pain, but there was also ecstasy; it wasn’t easy to get into her but once he did her vagina became wet and clasped around him; he quickly spent himself into her, and lay on her, gazing on her skin and hair and beauty.

“This is my dark gift to you,” said The Devil, “and a nice slap in the face to Jedediah.”

“You speak...”

“What? Like a white man?”

The Devil laughed, stood up, and revealed his true form—with a snap of the finger.

“Behold, my dear!”

Katherine was not frightened; she was not surprised or horrified. She sighed, closed her eyes, said, “I should have known.”

When she opened her eyes, The Devil was gone.

11.

The walk from the barn back into the house felt, to Katherine Payne, like forever. She cringed, feeling The Devil’s seed coming out of her, running down her leg. Violated. She had just been raped. Couldn’t Jedediah hear that? No. The sounds were not loud, and the house was placed a good two hundred feet from the barn. It goes without saying she felt quite soiled. She could smell The Devil’s grime and sweat on her. She wanted a bath, needed one more than anything she ever needed in her life. But Jedediah might wake up and want to know why she was bathing at this odd hour.

So she went to her bed, prayed to the Lord. Asked Him to erase the incident from her mind, if not history. How could she tell her husband? She could not. In the morning, she decided she would not.

12.

Katherine Payne’s belly was growing; the sickness she’d had when pregnant with Evangeline was also present. She knew what she had to do. She attempted, on several occasions, to coax her husband into the marriage bed. He ignored her, he had no interest in the act. He said, “Woman, what has gotten into you? Only whores ask for it!”

She looked at Evangeline one night and cried, saying to her child, “You should have been a boy, this is a world of men; for a woman, there is only anguish and affliction....”

One night, her daughter put to bed, Katherine went to her husband, who sat by candlelight in the front of the house reading from The Book. She saw that he was reading from The Book of Samuel.

“Jedediah,” she said, “have you noticed something different about me?”

He looked up. “What say you?”

“Look at me,” she said, turning to her side, “can’t you see?”

“See what?”

She sighed, then lifted up her blouse and showed him her naked belly.

“Katherine!” he bellowed, rising to his feet. She pulled her blouse down. “You are with child?!?” he shouted, rather stupefied.

“Yes,” she answered, oh so timid and soft...

13.

Yes, Jedediah Payne was, needless to say, quite the flabbergasted man in God’s flock. The last time he had relations with his young wife was in Boston. Not once since their months out here had he gone to her...touched her...or even considered the vile desires of wanton flesh.

“I cannot be the father,” he realized, saying this accusingly to his emotionally embattled spouse.

“No,” she admitted.

Payne was surprised by how calm he reacted; it was almost as if he was relieved that he had not spawned another offspring.

He said, flatly, “You have some explaining to do, wife.”

She began to talk, fast, fearful he might stop her before she could tell her story. She told him of a wounded Indian who had been in the barn, and how she had helped clean his injuries, and how she gave him some food, and how she hoped he just might go away, and when she went to check to see if he was there, he violated her. It was against her will, she assured him of this. There was nothing she could have done. He was a strong, irreligious animal.

She did not confess who the Indian really was. She was certain she had a hallucination, that vision of evil.

“Why...” and he cleared his throat. “Why did you not tell me of this when it occurred?”

“What would you have thought of me?” she asked.

The anger started to boil inside him. “So you only tell me when you are with child!?!”

“I did not know I—” and she began to cry.

“Look at me,” he said.

She sobbed.

“Look at me, wife!”

She turned to face him.

Was she telling the truth? There seemed to be no deception. He struck her across the face, very hard. Katherine fell to the porch, spitting blood from her mouth. Payne wanted to kick her, boot her in the belly and flush this evil tot from her bowels. He stopped, taking heed of what he had done. She lay at his feet, choking.

He couldn’t do it. It would be murder. He wouldn’t do it.

“You are no wife of mine,” he said, and went into the house, into his chamber, locking the door. He opened the Good Book, sought a passage to soothe his mind...

He found none.

14.

Payne and his wife did not exchange words after that; they avoided crossing each other’s paths. Payne fed himself. He didn’t see his daughter, either, but that did not matter. He was a stranger in this home, his own home, purchased by the dirty money of his defiled wife’s father. He spent most of his time in town, tending to the congregation, saving their eternal souls from damnation. When people asked of his wife’s whereabouts, he said she wasn’t feeling well, and opted to stay home with the child. This was not entirely a lie.

Many notions danced (like demons) through Reverend Payne’s mind. The first, that there had been no Indian. She had a lover somewhere, some young man from town who came to her when he was gone, and gave her that child; she was lying to him, trying to play at role of victim, trying to win sympathy. Payne looked into every man’s face in town, wondering: Is he my wife’s lover? Is he the David to my Bathsheba? He later ruled this out; what man would be so low as to seduce the wife of a Reverend and risk eternal fires? Anathema, yes: Satan. It all became quite clear now. This was the work of Satan. The Devil feared Payne, always had: for wasn’t it Payne who saved so many souls in Boston, causing The Devil to possess the men of his church and go against him? Satan had followed him out here, and struck him straight at home. Perhaps there was an Indian out in the barn, a shape Satan had taken. It made sense: why would she help such an animal? Like the serpent who had sweet-talked Eve in the Garden, so had this devil-in-Indian-guise do to his wife. Women were such ignorant, gullible creatures, indeed! Satan had beguiled her, taken her, placed his wanton seed into her womb to give forth an anti-Christ. It was so damn clear now, and the Reverend knew his mission. The world’s fate was in his hands. The Devil would have a son here to rule and destroy the planet as was prophesied in the Book of Revelations. God, he knew now, had chosen him to change the face of the future.

Payne dreamt one night that he came across a burning cacti plant in the desert.

“Tell me my mission,” he said, for he knew what the plant was, as did Moses.

“Thou salt not kill,” the bush boomed in a large voice.

“I will not break a commandment,” Payne avowed, falling to his knees.

He woke, thinking, I shall not kill....

The Devil was sitting outside the window—listening to Payne, having watched Payne’s dream—and quietly laughing.

15.

When she went into labor, Katherine stumbled from her room, knocking hard on her husband’s door; he opened it reluctantly. She was on the floor—water broken, blood at her feet.

Reverend Payne refused to fetch the town doctor or take her to him. He helped his wife back to her bed, but this was all he would do. He would let this aberration take its own course. If Satan’s child should die due to lack of proper care, so be it. This was out of his hands.

Evangeline woke from the sound of her mother’s screams, and began crying herself. Payne ignored both females, watching the birthing with rapt repugnance.

His wife thrashed on the bed, shrieking, spittle flying from her mouth like a bullet-shot coyote in the dirt—back arched, body off the bed. The child slid out from between her legs. Payne gasped. He had expected something with hoofed-feet, horns, a tail—a demon of fitting pretense. No. This was a human child. Brown of skin, green of eyes, and healthy with cry. A boy. A boy child. The afterbirth came next, looking more of the thing of nightmares than the Reverend had expected—as well as a flux of blood. Katherine wailed, then fell still, blood pouring around the infant. What was wrong with her? Why was she bleeding so?

“Jedediah,” she said.

He looked at her face.

Her glare pierced into him, undiluted, straight to his God-given soul. “Come here, Jedediah,” she said.

She knew she was going to die. She felt her insides rupturing, bursting. There wasn’t much time left. She could hear the newborn’s wails. She saw that it was a boy. He looked beautiful. She beckoned her husband to come to him, her voice weak yet insistent. He moved toward her, and he was frightened. How much of The Devil was still inside her? She reached out and grabbed his wrist. He tried to pull free. Her nails dug in, puncturing flesh.

Blood....

“I’m leaving you now,” she said, coughing up her guts, “but you must make a vow.”

“Katherine,” he said, still trying to free himself.

“No matter what, no matter what—you will not harm this child. You will not give him away, you will not hurt him, you will not leave him to starve. He is my son, and he is the brother of your daughter.”

“Katherine,” he said again.

“Swear to this,” she said.

He would not.

“SWEAR IT!” she cried. “IF YOU DO NOT, AND IF YOU GO AGAINST YOUR WORD, BY THE LORD MY SOUL WILL HAUNT AND TORMENT YOU FOR ALL YOUR YEARS! I MAY GO TO HELL BUT I WILL MAKE A DEAL WITH SATAN TO LET ME HAUNT YOU UNTIL YOU GO MAD!”

He was shaking to near paroxysms. “I swear,” he said.

“SWEAR IT TO THAT UNJUST GOD OF YOURS!”

“Blasphemy!” he choked.

“SWEAR!”

“I swear to the Lord, I—I—”

“SWEAR ON THE BIBLE!”

He did.

She let go of him. “Give me my child,” she murmured.

He would not do this. He had done enough. Evil was all around him. He began to pray out loud, asking the Angels for exact and swift relief. Katherine strained to grab the child by herself, pull him to her bosom. Blood was everywhere he looked. Payne went to get his daughter, to take her away from this sight. Evangeline was crying for her mother.

The boy child stopped his wailing as soon as Katherine offered him her breast. As the child suckled, she took her last breath.

Reverend Payne returned a few hours later, inquisitive more than concerned. His wife was still, her skin icy cold, the child asleep. Her stiff arms held the demon infant. He pulled the baby free, with abhorrence. The child began to cry. He wanted to smother it on the spot. But he had sworn an oath to her; he’d agreed to abide by God’s mandate in the dream. God had His Ways and those Ways were strange, yes, of course, he knew this. Payne had his own motives, however: he had to watch and make sure this child of iniquity did not do the biding of his true sire. If he gave the boy up for adoption, he may fall into the hands of someone who could lead him to a position to destroy the world. No, he would keep Satan’s child here, as a prisoner, and make sure he did no detriment to and in the world.

Reverend Jedediah Payne looked down at the brown newborn with green eyes and said, “Your name shall Judas...”