#kaijune

Now, my strat was for the whole convention to lie back, act mellow and say “Wow, that’s crazy” or nod, it’s easy to give these people enough rope to hang themselves if you let them talk and they think you’re One Of Them. You can lie as much as you can because it’s not like I’m going to see these fuckers again and if I do it’s not like they’re going to remember my bullshit even when they make for good news. I call it the Joe Rogan strategy, if anyone remembers that old hack.

And god did I hear some horseshit. I remember asking one of those people selling one of those “beat-your-kids” child-rearing book about their kids, in the most wishy-washy manner I could I asked “I bet your kids turned out amazing! How are they these days?” I think I could see his face turn a color in the same hexcode as a hemorrhoid after that.

“Well, you- you- You can’t change a sinner who doesn’t want to change!” he blustered. I could see the expletives straining at his mouth. “You know what the problem is, we can’t give them their just desserts before the lord! God can only sort them out so far in this fallen world, let him see them!”

That was not an answer to my fucking question. And yet, it kinda was. I just smiled and nodded like the several other figures in my viscinity. In a note unrelated for sure, I saw several spankings with a wooden spoon in public, pants on. Some of the kids got louder, most of them got real quiet.

I saw one of those kids limping, and I asked, “Hey kid, you okay?” His mother said “He’s right in the eyes of the lord” and she walked off with him. Kid had a thousand-yard stare I only saw in the war veterans at that “fireworks city,” God we need to kill these fucking parents.

And there was merch. Of course there was merch, you can’t have a house of god these days without moneychangers after all! There were the usual cringey T-shirts, your usual parodies of band shirts, the images of knights holding machine guns with shit like “Protector of Chastity” and “Groomer Remover,” the attempts at irreverence with “Sorry I’m taken… by the holy spirit!” and shit on that tier.

One of those with that exact quote had the Virgin Mary on it, they said that one was “very popular” when I asked if they had any in stock. At least that one’s funny, not like the ones with the nooses in the different pride flags saying “PRIDE WAS THE FIRST SIN/ ROMANS 6:23” I’m not sure what’s worse, the fact those came in child sizes, or the fact that the add-your-own-name shirts with “I AM [INSERT NAME HERE,} I AM A SOLDIER IN THE ARMY OF THE LORD” in bold text only came in children’s sizes.

If you wanted a package deal, there were also child-sized shotguns at the firearms booth, with names like “The Exorcist,” “Sword of the Spirit,” and “Child Protective Services”

They had a firing range for adults and kiddies too, at little plastic items they thought were sinful. If you’ve read my work you know I know my way around a shotgun, and when I tell you these were some of the most dogshit pieces of lethal hardware I’d held, I’d expect you’d believe me even if I didn’t do some long schpiel about it.

Besides, it was easier to fake being a shitty shot while I conversed with the guy running the place. “I’m just here for the money, I don’t see why they want the government to kill these people they hate,” he said. I smiled and nodded, hoping finally that I wasn’t in the company of yet another bad kind of crazy. Only to be swiftly disabused when he said “They should just let us loose to kill the [TRANSPHOBIC SLUR REDACTED], if god wants ‘em to live, he’ll let ‘em, live and let die’s the one rule God gave us, you ever read Heinlein?”

He was right next to the event hall with the panels. There was a panel I missed called “Exorcising the Willful Spirit from Your Child” that he said he sold a shotgun to, apparently it featured the headlining reverend before his main speech, “I don’t always agree with them, but man’s got convictions,”

God, I wish he did, but I digress.

The freakshow was in full swing. I passed through a stage of dueling bozos. One of them was a Strongmen for Christ-type shebang, by getting really sweaty and breaking shit from a home Depot to show the strength of Jesus. The other was some prop comic who’s “props” mainly consisted of a hammer and a sword breaking shit like durians, honeydews, and especially pumpkins. Fucker really hated Halloween. He hated a lot of things, but we all know that already.

I think he was imitating some fucker from the 80s, and not even one of the good ones like Joel Hodgson. Apparently he’d gotten some legal threats from that estate, man kept making references to watermelons with a wink and a nudge, but not once did I see a fucking watermelon on that stage.

He also referenced one of the strongmen, calling him “a homo stripper,” which got the biggest laugh out of the audience. To be fair and balanced, on the other stage one of the muscular sweatboys was shirtlessly punching a pig carcass to shreds to “bash out the demons”. Got really into it too, the men were sweating nervously there. Everyone was sweating nervously there to be fair. Which the alleged comedian, pointed out, loudly.

Which got me an idea. I brought a megaphone for a reason, after all. “HEY!” I spoke up during a lull. I pointed at the Galgalag or whatever that guy called himself, right as he was tirading against the strongmen.

“THAT GUY’S BEARING FALSE WITNESS! MATTHEW 7:15, ARE WE GONNA TAKE IT?!” There was a murmur in the crowd “NO DE-CIEVERS! NO DE-CEIVERS! I started chanting, and they followed. Even the strongmen. And I slipped out right as the mob started charging Mr Globglogabgalab and he started throwing spare mallets.

There was supposed to be a snake handling show, but they lost the snake. Poster said it was a diamondback, nowhere near where it should be. I’ve heard about this from friends, and I know they never treat the poor things decently, their lifespan is short. They warned everyone about it, but they never found it. I hope they never do...

...But it’d be a miracle if they got out with all those fucking guards and a bunch of the worst people in the world and a desire to re-enact Whacking Day. Poor thing’s probably a pile of giblets an hour in. So I digress.

There was time to wait for the main event, with the old man himself, Mr. Saul Capeck, the one everyone called The Reverend. Not a reverend mind you, The Reverend. The man had a way with words, so they said so far. They had free refreshments while I was waiting, punch; cookies; microwave lasagna, the works.

Now, if I were to say I spiked the punch, it would technically be admitting to a crime. Anyone could have spiked the punch, while I was sitting it looked like everyone and their grandma was taking some gas station shit that was approved in the eyes of the lord and the 7-11 clerks they bought it from. The improv show was pretty funny, but finding shit funny doesn’t count in the eyes of the law and the courts, as readers of my work will know.

I talked with this guy, the one black guy here. I forgot what he was selling, but he didn’t talk too much about the what he was selling as the how of he was selling it, which was of course typical multi-level marketing horsepoly.

I didn’t bring it up, again smile and nod, but he kept insisting it wasn’t a pyramid scheme, over and over, “It’s actually a spiral tower, graduated tiers for the first on each level, here’ let me show you” He took out one of his many xeroxed flow charts and drew on it in sharpie, a spired structure spiralling upward. Almost like a very specific piece from Breughel, or Dore.

“It’s like a tower, lifts everyone up as we build from the bottom” he said. Presumably the confusion of tongues meant the word Babel never crossed his mind...

...Oh fuck me, I remembered what he was selling, It was red heifer steaks, from that old zio-christofascist conspiracy. There was even a luxury variant, veal covered in gold leaf. I bought one and only one because I could write it off on my expense account, and also to say do not buy this shit, it costs too much and it tastes like horse.

I got back right for the pre-show, a burning of the vanities. All the pop-culture staples of fundie hate were there, that new Lego Technic action figure thing kids liked more than the Bionicle revival, merch from that one Persona game after the old lead died and they finally had the guts to say “guillotine the bastards who claim holiness,” that one body-horror magical girl series the kids are into, just a panopoly of grievance.

It would be funny if there weren’t so many books in there. Sex ed, queer-YA, tabletop RPG books were all in there.. Some of the kids there were reluctant to hand ;em over, the parents snatched ‘em right out of their hands. The flames licked the big pride flags they’d bought for the occasion, secondhand, soaked with oil and those chemicals to make fire turn all sorts of colors, and the crowd went wild over that Some of the other kids threw books in with even more zeal as if waiting for this exact moment, screaming “TAKE YOUR DIRTY BOOKS BACK, SATAN”.

I suppose looking in, you could see the fires of hell. Though there was one thing I saved.

I asked for that target I missed at the firing range, said I’d wanted to put it in the fire but I’d forgotten to bring one. Bought it off him for a buck, he said it woulda been free but “it’s the principle of the thing.”

But I didn’t put her in the fire. She got out there safe with me into the trailer, I’d watched that one Digital Circus cartoon from decades ago recently and I knew Lilly’s figure was rare as hell.

Yeah, I know I coulda 3d printed one, probably better quality too. But it’s the principle of the thing.

But as the fire died down, or rather the extinguishers sprayed for several minutes trying to prevent any wood damage, he came to the stage. The Reverend. His right eye blind, his left eye gazing with a hate like the sun, his knuckles tattooed with LOVE on the left side and HATE on the right. A manservant followed him holding several cups of sparkling water on a tray.

I felt the temperature drop several degrees as he walked onto the stage. That might have been the fire extinguishers, but I don’t think so.

“Friends,” he began “I see we have a full house. Seems like some of us are amongst the righteous after all. That’s why we’re here, away from the demons coming earthbound to dash the little ones against the stones!”

Maxwell, he was referring to maxwel. Big sadistic metal anklyosaur, not the first seen but the first who got a name. Because I named him. Damned thing started out as a Beatles joke, I kept doing the running gag, and I’m sorry we now have to say your fucking house got blown up by Foot Foot. But I digress.

I feel as if this was a digression for him too, or rather, he was the only one who recognized the opportunity, for “These ‘chickens,’ as the evolutionists call them, have come to roost! For they come not from the lack of love, for the lack of hate!”

He brought up his right hand. “For the right hand of god is the hand of hate, the hand that slaps the prodigal son!” He brought up his left hand, before grappling it into his right, “And the devil’s hand is the hand of love! The love of fornicators, of falsehood, of a thousand perversions!

“And oh these hands, they fight every day, but these demons from hell, they have been cast upon us with our permissions!”

“ With our permissiveness, our love of man, it has let them rise, and hate is what will let them fall!” He slammed his left hand to the table, the crowd went wild.

“Now, I have had experience with the prodigal sons of this world,” he said, to the audience. They hushed up quickly “My own son was right under my nose, committing a thousand perversions, a thousand lies a day, even as he was pretended to be the golden son, the son given by god. “ The audience murmured. His manservant handed him a cup of sparkling water, which he drank.

“But god was not the one who gave him to me! God the father is the one who came to me and guided my hand with what I had to do!” I pondered. I had heard something had happened to his son, either a disappearance or a crime, but it was hush hush. The armed guards, masked and robed, blended into the gaudy background for most of his set, but stuck out familiar like barbed wire. The man knew how to keep his secrets. But I know how to break shit. But that was for later.

“He wounded me, but I was cured!” He opened up his eyepatch. Liquid light dripped from the socket, and where it fell, white butterflies came and flew out above the audience. “This eye sees beyond, and it gives the truth, and the truth is, judgement is coming, and the rebirth is close at hand! The prodigal sons will be taken and placed into the lord’s army for the coming days!”

“God the holy father is coming, and Daddy has the belt! And better you get the belt than the shotgun!” He took out one of the shotguns from the stand, fired it into the air. The manservant moved away slightly. The audience cheered loudly.

I’ve fired enough of those to know it wasn’t a blank. But they wouldn’t have cared. An audience member coulda been struck dead by a slug from the sky and nobody would have cared.

They certainly didn’t fucking care about the butterflies. I saw them, one by one as they flew from the stage, across the crowd, and then dropped dead, from the sky, all at once. I think I saw little blue flames dance across them as they fell.

Nobody noticed.

The sermon went for a while, full of hate for all things not like him, the Reverend. He only barely stopped to rehydrate being handed water by his servant. And that would have been the fucking end of it, and the tragic, unknown end of another story.

Except in the strangest place I could have been, in the john, taking a leak, I ran into a guy.

He walked in, saw me with my wig down (damn thing gets itchy,) he grabs me by the goddamn shoulders just after I get done and says “Thank god I finally found you.”

After the ice cold shock of recognition, he clarified. “You were the one in my dreams.” That clarification rose several more questions, so he clarified the clarification, “I have some vital information about senor Capek’s... About his… “son”. I need to talk to you.”

Apparently this would be the one place we can’t get caught, The Reverend doesn’t like using public restrooms, too “worldly” whatever the fuck that means. Anyway, it turns out his “son” wasn’t exactly a son, but a daughter. And she had gotten very good at hiding that from her father.

Helped that the man was inattentive enough to leave some cracks in that closet she was stuck in. The Demiurge makes web blockers, God invents proxies, and a kid with enough neglect from daddy dearest’s ministry and computer access leads one to free places.

The manservant, let’s call him Juan Donez to protect him from Daddy Bible-Belt’s gunsels; since he used to be a doctor where he came from. He came onto the staff at her home early in her life as the ministry was rising in funds due to the Reverend’s sheer fucking audacity, in the cultural moment after this shit should have been gone. He was the first servant the Reverend hired, as the old piousshole was quick to note at dinner meetings; his “human lucky charm” as he called it.

Donez said this like he was pissing a kidney stone out of his soul. Since Juan was in her life more than the old bastard, he discovered her secret. He also, naturally, hated the Reverend, but knew the value of a good job and knew the value of keeping his mouth shut, so he kept her secret. Covered for her.

Until her luck ran out.

Then daddy dearest decided to get “involved”. She knew it only a matter of time, so she’d given him her backup drive when she suspected the jig was up. There was another one she said she’d hidden in her room, a wafer thin SD card, it might still be there, she would have given it to him if she had seen him again.

He remembered a dream the night before, with her clawing to get out of something horrible. Then he saw my face, walking in, like a phantom. “I give this to you because I am leaving him, in the night. I have heard things behind closed doors. You saw him talking about the monsters, no?”

I confirmed. I didn’t want to get into the story about how I named Maxwell, because this shit was grave. “ I have seen him talking about the crusade to… destroy the ‘sin’ causing these creatures. In private whispers late at night between him and another, I have seen him talking about making monsters. I cannot say beyond vagaries, I have added what I do know to this drive.”

He handed it to me and was about to leave. Before he went, I asked how the reverend got that injury to the eye, it seemed like his daughter had claws back, but what the fuck made it do that sht. He didn’t want to talk about it. The thousand yard stare said more than words ever could.

Now, I‘m not gonna say who set the small-to-medium sized fire within the convention or the chemical nature of those burns leading to a difficulty in extinguishing it. All I know is that I had to dispose of some old batteries, some spare alluminum and iron shavings before I went to his house, just across town, just with his goons distracted.

There was a window with conspicuous brass bars on it, but thank god I brought bolt cutters, along with the fucking Bill Clinton mask because I’m not stupid. Her room was clean, spotless. Like it was a home tour photo by baby’s first landlord, stripped bare and painted white. The only book in it was a single bible.

Where the fuck would it be, I don’t think captain fundie would have let her have secret passages, and the man seems like he stripped whatever personality he let his daughter have when she lied about being his son away. Wherever she is, she’s...

No, got to focus. I remember the one thing Juan told me, that it was hidden in a place her dad would not look. I flipped through the bible. Aha, wafer thin, an SD card. It was on the same page as Ezekiel 23:20. A good joke.

A good joke spoiled when someone kicked the door in with a shotgun. The same one from the presentation.

“THE DEVIL HAS TAKEN AND TAKEN FROM ME, SO I WILL TAKE ONE OF HIS!”

It was him, tall and gaunt and hateful. He looked at me. I don’t think he knew who I was under the mask, the type of person I was, but he saw the whole of my heart and he hated it with every fiber of his being.

For a moment he stared, holding the gun. Then, he took off that eyepatch.

The things that came out of there, I cannot fucking describe. I have been on the magic bus, down the taduki river and the white rabbit’s hole, but I cannot describe the shit that came out of there as anything other than demons. Demons wearing the smiles of angels and the light of fireless smoke.

I don’t know how I got out of there. Thank god the car was a fucking rental. He never did trace me.

I was typing at my notes in the outskirts of town, the least classy fuckmotel near me, a place the man would ever go. I read over Donez’s drive.

The details are for Propublica, so go read them, but… god, she was just a fucking kid. She started out as this sheltered, smart preacher’s “Son” who knew not to ask questions, but seeing her open up, find friends, find things she loved, every fight, every moment of tenderness, every chat record, and all of it… gone, because of one man.

I put in the SD card. It wasn’t much. But her art. She seemed like she was quite the artist, the shit she could do with a mouse. She liked dragons, the chats showed her dad thought they were satanic.

But for her, they were freedom.

I saw a poem by her. I don’t know if I should show it, I don’t know if she’s still with us. It’d be rude to show the private writing of someone who’s still alive. If I find out more about her, I’ll post the full poem.

But it talked about the Chrysopoeia of seven colors. The snake that became a dragon, a prism of light, to break apart the blinding burning white into a promise.

The promise that one day we will all be free. But that would need a miracle.

I was staring out at the moon at night, I saw a snake go through the grass. It was a diamondback, the kind you don’t see in this part of the country. I heard it rattle before I saw it. It looked at me, and I looked at it.

It stopped rattling after a while, and it slithered into the night. I hope they made it.

I hope she makes it...

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HAPPY 4th AND HAPPY WRATH MONTH! HOPEFULLY I WILL POST MOST OF KAIJUNE BY THE END OF JULY!

But yeah, this is a prequel to a series of recurring Kaijune plot points for those who haven't been following, including stuff like Maria's imprisonment in the shell of St Anger, her escape in Silent Running, implications about who her friends were, and also Devlin's general bullshit that's continued through both incarnations of Kaijune.

Hopefully it makes sense as a self-contained work, but I hope it gets folks interested more in the setting. If you want to read the last three years of it, I made a compilation you can download as a PDF here!

As per usual with my Kaijune stuff, this story and all ideas therein are put under a CC-BY 4.0 license as long as I, Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as its creator.