The adults told me that before the prophet, Zerahemlah was called Otter Creek and had been a virtual ghost town ever since the great depression of twenty nine. Only a few backward degenerates lived there. It wasn't even incorporated anymore ā which is why the prophet chose it. The prophet and her early followers had been persecuted horribly by the Satanic government of the United States before they emigrated. Zerahemlah was their promised land in the wilderness. The buildings and infrastructure may have been dilapidated, but it was all there for the takingā¦ And most importantly, an unincorporated town doesn't need to have a police department, a district attorney, a mayor, or any other 'bureaucrat of Satan' to run it. The prophet had no trouble establishing a theocracy.
The church had been small back then, about six large, extended families, a few more nuclear families, and a lot of singles; about a hundred-and-sixty people in all. More would follow, as the town was established the prophet would send missionaries out into the world and they would bring back more families and so on. Everyone heard and saw the prophet back then. The church had begun as a splinter of a splinter of the Church of Latter Days Saints. Not the big church in Utah, but one that broke off as soon as Joseph Smith got shot dead at Carthage jail back in 1844. It seems that he had secretly bequeathed his shew stone to his favorite disciple and this man had translated yet another lost book from the aether. That sect persisted for another hundred years before our prophet had her own vision and created a major schism in a church that, even then, was little more than a hundred strong. Her major point of contention had been rather minor, she only wanted to save the church from an unworthy president who had been embezzling church monies and carrying out illicit liaisons with several married women. However, once she had chased out the corrupt president she declared herself a prophet.
Lord Acton is famous for observing how power corrupts those who wield it. You will forgive me if I've never seen it myself. Those who seek power are usually corrupt to begin with; and as for the prophet: as soon as she had assumed power over the church she, if anything, became even more hostile to corruption in all its forms. One of the first things she did was abolish polygamy in the church. A few men protested, but it was a very popular policy with the women and our many bachelors. Next she outlawed dances for young people, followed by card playing, television, immoral books, knee high skirts, low-cut blouses, and cosmetics. As I said, there was no greater foe of corruption. She changed the church's dogma too: God the Father was no longer corporeal and even Jesus' body had been little more than an apparition. The world as we knew it was more a creation of the Devil than of God. But soon that would change. Soon Armageddon would arrive, as I described it before, and the the Sinless would inherit the earth and live on it forever.
Hardly anyone ever got to see the prophet by the time I was born. I had seen her; but that was because I was one of the Sinless, and then only a few times in my life. She even had the bishop read her sermons for her. Bishop Murphy was her mouth now, but he was also her eyes and ears. If you saw or heard anything, you told the bishop and you confessed your sins to him too, though that was supposed to be private. He was a repugnant old man and I'll get to him shortly, but first you should know how the justice system worked in Zerahemlah.
The Bible says there must be at least two witnesses to substantiate a crime; so all it took was two accusations against someone for the bishop to convene a judicial committee. The accused would get the call to appear, but would never know who had incriminated him. The meetings were held in secret, usually at night, and the bishop's decisions were irrevocable. Most people were merely shunned for a few weeks or months; they couldn't talk to anyone and no one could talk to them without being shunned themselves. But if you didn't repentā¦ Well, I can't say what happened then because everyone I knew repented whether the charges were true or not.
The bishop didn't say anything about a judicial committee to me. All he wanted me to do was stay after church and have a talk. He asked me to come to his office once everyone had left and I was done cleaning. I did as he asked but when I opened the door I found the office dark, heavy curtains drawn over the windows, and the bishop stark naked! It was an appalling sight, for he was not Sinless like me. His body was covered in coarse, dark hairs from his neck to his toes. Even his shoulders were hairy! He asked me to close the door behind me and I did it out of reflex. But I didn't say anything. I wouldn't have known what to say.
"Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are, Devin?"
"Well you are. Come here and sit on my lap. Take off your clothes." he said it like he was asking me to sit down for supper.
"Get over here, boy!" he yelled in a sudden flair of anger. Apparently, he was accustomed to being obeyed.
"What did you say?" he hissed.
"I know what you're doing. It's a sin and I won't! " I motioned to leave but he swiftly got up from his chair and pulled me away from the door.
"Disobedience is a sin." he said. "And if you don't take your clothes off right now I'll have you shunned! I'll have youā"
I wasn't paying much attention to his words. Instead I was remembering what Aradia had said about the bishop and suddenly I understood and I was angrier than I'd ever been.
"Did Aradia obey you?!" I snarled.
"What? What did she say to you?! That little bitch!"
So it was true. I hit him in the stomach as hard as I could and immediately regretted it because I knew what was coming. I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have mentioned Aradia. I should have obeyed. I ran out the door while he was still down and started looking for Aradia. I had to warn her. It wasn't too late. We could be gone before nightfall.
I found her, but I didn't get a chance to warn her. I was foolish enough to go to her house after exhausting all the other possibilities. I figured it wouldn't matter what they knew once we were gone. Her parents were as ignorant of our friendship as everyone else and her mother gave me a venomous look when I asked to see her.
"I just need to return something she left at school." I improvised.
"Hand it over, then. I'll give it to her."
"I really think I should give it to her myself."
"Why?" her mother narrowed her eyes and her frown got tighter. "What you got?"
I hadn't thought that far ahead. All I could do was run over to her window and hope she was in her room.
"Now wait!" her mother yelled. "What are you doing?"
When I got to her window Aradia was there sitting on her bed reading a book. When I tapped and she looked up, her face warped into a look of horror that has always stayed with me. I felt someone grab me from behind.
"You get away from her!" It was her father.
"Please sir, you gotta let me speak to her."
"Over my corpse!" he said. "Now get out! My wife's calling the bishop. You better get home and explain yourself to your parents before he does!"
I couldn't have damned myself or Aradia more thoroughly. Now the bishop wouldn't even have to make anything up. I'd incriminated myself. And Aradia as wellā¦
She was at the judicial committee too, along with her parents. I was there with my mom and the bishop had brought two elders.
"Why were you at miss Aradia's house today?" asked the bishop from behind his desk. I was seated across from him while Aradia and her parents stood at the far right of the office.
"I had to tell her something."
"Aradia's mother says otherwise" replied the bishop. "She says you wanted to return something. Is that true?"
"No.. er, yes. That's what I said, but I really needed to tell her something."
The bishop looked into my eyes with a hostility, a diabolical menace I had never thought him capable of, and then spoke slowly. "Well, she's here now. If you have something to say to her, say it."
There was silence. The bishop continued to stare at me with those unblinking, reptilian eyes.
"We'll need some privacy." I said at last.
"Privacy?" asked the bishop and then he turned to Aradia. "Can you think of why Devin would want to speak to you in private? Do you two have a secret?" As impassive as she seemed, I could tell Aradia was terrified.
"No, sir. Devin has never said much to me before. I mean, I know him from school, but we never said much to each otherā¦"
A chill pain pierced my chest. I didn't know what I was expecting her to say, but I wasn't expecting that. The Bishop turned back to me.
"Why were you really at Aradia's house today?"
"I, I told you, sir." I could feel the pressure of the tears gathering behind my eyes.
"You told me a lie!" growled the bishop. "I want the truth now!"
"I'm telling you the truth!" my voice started to crack. I wanted to tell them the entire truth even if they wouldn't believe it. But I didn't want to get Aradia in trouble as well. I wanted to tell them what the bishop had tried to do to me and what he did to Aradia, and what Aradia's father was still doing to her. But I didn't. I didn't dare.
"I don't understand this, Devin." said the bishop, shaking his head. "You're supposed to be Sinless. You shouldn't even have feelings like that for Aradia. And besides, she's just a little girl. You must be possessed!"
"I'm not possessed! And there's nothing wrongā"
"Yesā¦" he nodded. "That's what it is. There's something unclean inside you making you do these things. It's not youā¦"
"It's nothing like that, sir!"
"Miss Johnson, " he turned to my mother, "keep him on nothing but bread and water until I say otherwise."
"Yes, bishop." she nodded
"And drop him by the church every day after school. It could take weeks, but I won't stop until I've driven this thing out of your little boy!"
I shouldn't have disobeyed. For the next three weeks, the bishop had me doing everything you would imagine he would have me do in the privacy of his office. He felt safe taking every liberty, since no one would believe a demoniac. Because I hadn't been held responsible for my actions, I wasn't shunned; but Aradia didn't speak to me after that. I couldn't blame her and, in fact, I wouldn't have her do otherwise. Better I suffer alone than both of us.
Still, I was dreadfully lonely those first few weeks. No one could make it go away because my heart only longed for one person and no other could satisfy this craving I felt. It occurred to me one morning in the shower. I kept trying to clean the dirt off my body but no matter how much I scrubbed, my skin was still darker than everyone's. I eventually concluded that if what the prophet says is true: that if man's entire body is made of dirt and his soul irredeemably imprisoned in its filth; then why bother being clean? Wipe the flesh from the soul and nothing will be left but bone. So I turned the spray off and walked out of the shower. I never wanted to shower again.
I would spend the weeks to follow doing as I had done before I met Aradia. Sitting alone reading a book at recess. After school and attending to the bishop, I stayed to my room and on the weekends I spent all my time ā from seven in the morning until well after dusk ā in the deep woods. Even though I was alone out there now, I felt like part of her was always there with me.
I already mentioned the devils that were reputed to dwell out there. Since my self-imposed exile I had gone pretty feral. I'd picked up snakes, walked among the coyotes in the evening and accompanied them on their hunts, even came face to face with a black bear once ā but never had I encountered a devil in all the countless days I wandered those woods. I had concluded it was some rustic myth. Some dim remembrance of old pagan gods that were now too wild for polite Christian societyā¦ until one day that changed everything I had ever believed.
It was very still and quiet that day, like it is before an earthquake. I didn't feel the gentlest of breezes when I set out through the woods, and the birds, though they sang, seemed to be muttering amongst themselves. It was hot, hotter than it had ever been in all the summers I could remember. By the time I reached the oases where Aradia and I had caught our first fish, I had already finished all the water from my canteen and had to fill it up again with pond water.
Maybe there was something bad in that water or maybe I was just exhausted from the heat. But soon after I finished my lunch I must have collapsed, because I woke up hours later and it was completely black. The coyotes were howling and I was covered in sweat. At first I couldn't understand why I was so afraid and why my heart was beating so terribly. I had been in the forest at night before, though not this far in. Then I remembered the dream.
I couldn't recall any particular image, but I was sure there was was something with me in the dream. A thing not human, but more than animal, that filled me as much with awe as with horror. I remember the warmth from its body and its breath on my shoulder. It was ancient. As old as man, but not man. Man was to this creature what a golden retriever is to a wolf: nothing more than a newer, decadent development. I finally understood the etymology of panic: Pan, the god of the woods and the fear he struck in those who trespassed too deeply into his kingdom.
There was something rustling around in the bushes. I couldn't even see the moon but I ran. I ran as fast as I could, tripping over logs and going through bushes. I was a mess when I got home, covered in cobwebs, with leaves in my hair. I took a shower and went straight to bed still shivering. It was hard for me to get to sleep that night. The terror I
felt in the woods had followed me and would not leave. When I finally did manage to sleep I had nightmares of blazing bonfires and pagan orgies. Blood sacrifices and sexual acts that would make the Marquis de Sade blush! I woke up several times that night gasping for breath, hot, but trembling violently, as if a fever had overtaken my body. I
had thought the horror would have left me by morning, but it had only grown into something else. I woke up in wet, sticky underwear and I could feel two little lumps in my scrotum, as if my testicles were growing back. From that day on things were different. I had come into contact with something that night in those woods that I could not forget or shrug off. New feelings, new hungers, awakened within me, just as imperious but much more persistent, than what I felt after my first bite of flesh.
Nothing changed on the outside. I still went to the bishop every weekday and sated his disgusting lusts. I still obeyed. But I was no longer resigned nor was I ashamed. I obeyed and I waited for my opportunity to strike back. Meanwhile, my own lust had become insatiable. At first, I rubbed myself like Aradia had taught, but before long that was no longer sufficient and, with the libido I had now, I could no longer be picky enough to remain chaste or even heterosexual. If I was not allowed to court girls at my age, I would substitute boys. After all, I had always hated the adults and their stifling rules. I could think of no better revenge then to seduce their sons and eventuallyā¦ they themselves!
Not every boy my age was Sinless, since some had moved here with there families long after their birth. A Sinless one had to be born in Zerahemlah. The operation had to be done in infancy. Frankie wasn't Sinless, but I had known him since he moved here when I was nine. In all our years we had never grown as close as Aradia and I had in those brief months we had together. Frankie was just too cautious to allow anyone to get to know him very well. Hell, he didn't even know himself ā which is what I was counting on.
I didn't love Frankie. I didn't love anyone but Aradia. But that's what made him the perfect victim. After all, seduction demands detachment. We must distance ourselves from our quarry until they become, for us, an object that can be studied and manipulated, baited and teased ā and without sympathy. If I had loved Frankie, if I had harbored even the slightest affection for him, it would have been impossible for me to use him like this
Not being Sinless, Frankie had entered puberty a little over a year ago. His voice had deepened and he had a little acne, but otherwise he was fairly attractive. In the proper light he might even pass for a girl. At first I was cautious, I slowly befriended him and then invited him into the woods one day after school. I took him at least two miles in, to the oases. Not knowing there was a pond in the forest, Frankie had not bought along his swimming trunks. Seduction is all about small steps. I had convinced him to go into the haunted forest. One step. Then I introduced him to the thrill of killing and the savor of flesh. Another step. After that, it was easy.
He was as desperate and pent up as me and, having never entered puberty, I had the advantage of being able to appear girlish enough for a pubescent boy who didn't have a chance in hell of ever bedding the genuine article. It's quite surprising what people will do of their own free will if they are assured it will remain a secret. Frankie was not the only one; all in all, I managed to seduce a dozen boys all around my age, and a few older. We formed a sort of secret fraternity and would often go into the woods on weekends not only for sex, but to play and socialize too. Most of them were genuinely straight. It was not me, but their parent's restrictions which drove them to homosexuality. All I did was provide an outlet for natural desires, desires that would have otherwise obsessed themā¦
I was already fucking the bishop, of courseā¦ or rather, he was fucking me. Up until then I had cooperated with him all the while never concealing my disgust. I think the bishop preferred it that way. He seemed to relish the shame that emanated from while I serviced him. He never let me close my eyes or escape in any other way. One day he even had Aradia over at the same time and made me watch as theyā¦"
"How could you stand itā¦.?" the social worker's big lips gaped in horror. "I would have killed him!"
"I was tempted." admitted the boy. "But I had worse in store for him. I needed him alive." And then he continued his story.
The bishop was as corrupt as they come but, due to his authority, was invulnerable to scandal. But I remembered what Aradia said about men and their needs. Certainly there were other men like the bishop. Men who relished the idea of soiling a Sinless one like me. The first obvious choice was Aradia's dad. His indignation over my attempted liaison with his adaughter had to be a pretense if what she had said was true. And unlike the bishop, he was not unimpeachable.
But it wasn't easy getting him alone. He worked as teacher but taught younger kids. I had to volunteer as a teacher's aid to get into his classroom and, even then, it was a while before we were alone. The kids were out at recess and he had given me some papers to grade.
"I may have to put up with you as an aid" he told me frankly, "but if you think you can use me to get to my daughter you better quit right now."
"I know what you do with her." was all I said.
"What are you talking about."
"She told me." I continued. "She said you make her touch you and put it in her mouth."
The man stared at me aghast. His face was white. His limbs trembled.
"How d-dare you!" he snarled. "Get out of my classroomā¦ and if you say anythingā¦"
"No one would believe me." I got up from desk and began to come towards him. "I know that. I'm not interested in reporting you." Aradia's father stared speechless as I closed in on him. Finally I was only a few inches away. "Am I beautiful? " I asked him at last.
"The bishop tells me I am. He says it's my fault. That I make him do things he doesn't want to do because I'm so pretty." I began to run my finger down his chest, to his abdomen, and stopped at his crotch. Then I looked up at him. "So do you?"
The pedophile checked his watch and then led me into the closet. I finished him in less than a minute.
"I wish we had time to do more." I lied as he pulled his pants up and re-buckled his belt.
"Oh we will." he rubbed his hand in my hair. "Come over after school and say you're cured and only want to be friends with Aradia. My wife won't like it, but I'll permit it. That's why you did this, right?"
"Hell no!" I jested. "I just can't get enough cock!"
The teacher smirked. "You're a snarky little bastard. But don't think you're clever enough to outsmart me. You can do whatever you want with Aradia, but only if I get to do whatever I want with you. Got it?"
Aradia cried the moment we were alone. She was so sorry. But I pushed her off my chest and kissed her on the lips.
"You didn't do anything that needs forgiving. There was no sense in both of us getting in trouble. Besides, it worked out, didn't it?"
Aradia smiled, tears still streaming her puffy, red eyes. "You're a better friend than I deserve, Devin."
"I'm in love with you, Aradia. And now that we're together I want you to leave with me."
"Run away from Zerahemlah? "
"We both know how to survive in the wild and I'm tired of whoring myself to the bishop and your dad. Let's just leave while we can."
"Please, Aradia!" I pleaded
"Alright." she nodded. "Just tell me a few days in advance whenever you want to go. "
I smiled. It was, by far, the happiest moment in my thirteen years of life. "We'll leave in two weeks."
I nodded. "I intend to get even with the bishop before we go. I'll get even if with all of 'em!"
"Oh, Devin!" she smirked. "What are planning to do?"
My only reply was to return her smirk.
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