#the unclean

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

ℭ𝔬𝔫𝔤𝔯𝔢𝔤𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔶 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔘𝔫𝔠𝔩𝔢𝔞𝔫

[justineportraits]

The Unclean Morning Friends

[lillyli-74]

Tempest by The Unclean

[numbers-31]

The Unclean

Part III (Read Part 1)

While I was being buggered by the bishop and Aradia's dad, my young disciples were busy making their own conquests. By the time I had reunited with Aradia, we had compromised half the town. Frankie himself had managed to bed two elders. With their help, I finally knew more secrets than the bishop. Naturally, this gave me and my buddies a lot of license. It only took two witnesses to impeach anyone of a crime. I had twelve. Aradia and I were allowed to be together again on school grounds and the the staff would keep their mouths shut, if they wanted to keep their jobs. Each of the other boys was free to do the same with the girl of his choice. However, as intoxicating as this impunity was, it had never been my goal. Our victims thought we were blackmailing them but, really, we were just waiting.

It wasn't long before all this freewheeling caught the attention of the bishop. It was his job to keep the flock in line; but with boys and girls mingling in the open the prophet might begin questioning his competence. We, of course, had no ability to blackmail the bishop, but that didn't matter. It had been a good run. So we went to the bishop and confessed to everything. Suddenly, half the town was indicted!

Before long I was invited to speak to the prophet. This would normally be a great privilege, only rewarded to those who had surpassed the normal measure of righteousness and, in fact, that is what everyone but me and the bishop believed when they heard the news. I, however, was trembling as I waited for her in the empty guest hall. I remember being impressed at how bleak the place was. It hardly looked lived in. The door opened.

How can I describe her? Neither my sins nor our long years apart had diminished the effect this woman had upon me. If you saw a picture of the prophet you could never understand how she had acquired such a following. She was small, shorter than me now, bird-boned and slow of gait. I could tell she was old, even though her face was peculiarly void of wrinkles and lines, because her hair was white, and her voices cracked as she greeted me. You would have to meet her, mister, to understand. The quiet that descends wherever she goes… and it's not out of reverence. It's more like how birds suddenly stop singing if a cloud passes over the sun; and indeed the birds would go quiet on those rare occasions when she was out. Our prophet was an ascetic par excellence because she did not have to flee to the desert like her predecessors; she brought the desert with her.

"Would you like some tea? Some sweets?" she asked as she sat down beside me.

"No, ma'am. "

"Good." she replied in obvious satisfaction. "The bishop says you have heard some things that I should know about?"

"Is that all he told you?" I ventured.

The prophet's mouth curled into a weak smile.

"Bishop Murphy is a competent administrator, but squeamish. He said he could not repeat those things to me. It's why I've invited you here."

I blushed but said nothing.

"Well, come on, child. Out with it!" she commanded pertly.

"I-I think I'm possessed, ma'am. And not just me." I don't know why I said it. I only know that then and only then did I believe it.

The prophet seemed unimpressed and then asked why I thought so.

"Because I've thought about doing things and done them; things I never would've considered until…"

"I only asked" responded the prophet, "because most people blame themselves. It takes a lot of insight, especially for someone so young, to understand that no true child of God could ever sin."

"But, ma'am, I have sinned. That's how I know—"

"You have not, child!" she interrupted my confession, "You cannot! It was the devil in you that sinned. "

"But doesn't someone have to sin to let the devil in?"

"Who told you that?" her voice suddenly became stern. "The bishop?"

"No ma'am! I just thought it myself."

"The devil thought it for you!" she corrected. "You are Sinless. Sinless you remain. The devil doesn't bother with unclean wretches like those in the world. What would be the purpose in defiling what was never clean to begin with?"

"But then why do it at all?" I asked. "If they can't make me sin, what's the point in possessing me?"

"I think that should be obvious…" she wrinkled her nose. "To make you think you had sinned. To make you doubt yourself and God. There's the only real danger. I myself used to believe that I was a sinner until God showed me the truth. You and me, Devin, are among the elect and the elect can do no wrong. The only sin would be to doubt our incapacity to sin!" I didn't say anything. I couldn't point out any flaw in her argument, but somehow it seemed wrong. "You cannot sin" she reassured me, "but others can. That's why I have to know what you've seen and heard. The Bishop tells me a lot of boys were involved."

Here was the chance I'd been waiting for. I told her everything that had gone on: between me and the boys and the boys and the adults. The prophet seem unmoved, but she took action. Open trials were now held every evening; such was the volume of cases. A special inquisition was formed which the prophet herself presided over. They interrogated us one by one, not asking as many questions as they were trying to impress their own versions of what they believed had taken place at the swimming hole during those many long weekends. We were happy to cooperate and not only told them about every one of our conquests, but added embellishments. Our fantastic descriptions of degenerate orgies, devil worship, and infant sacrifices would have discredited us if our interrogators had wanted the truth. Happily, this wasn't the case.

Aradia's dad was the first to stand before the tribunal. I got several boys to testify that not only had he molested them, but that he and his wife were witches. It didn't surprise me that the people ate it up — most folks harbor such a low opinion of themselves that they are happy to believe the worst about their neighbor if it makes them look even a little better by contrast — what shocked me was how many witnesses came out of the woodwork to testify against them and without any prompting from me or my conspirators! One woman blamed them for the death of her dog (Aradia's parents had complained about its barking on numerous occasions) while another accused Aradia's mother of giving her acne after rebuking her for flirting with Aradia's father. More 'witnesses' and surprise accusations followed.

Aradia's parents were hanged and their bodies burned. Aradia said she didn't mind, but this measure, while satisfying their 'victims', struck the rest of the community with terror — but also frenzy.

Further trials were held. People were charged and found guilty for the same crimes and with the same results. It seemed I had unwittingly unleashed a great reservoir of resentment that had been building up for decades. Each resident must have realized that no one was safe anymore. The more prudent took care to indict their neighbor before they themselves became an object of suspicion and so, tragically, it was the meek, the soft spoken, those least likely to be involved in anything criminal who were the first to fall victim to the mounting hysteria.

The prophet clamped down harder than ever. Residents were ordered to stay in their houses after work. A curfew was passed for all women and children and the witch hunt accelerated. It was an understandable response to a perceived danger, but it was foolish. Putting a top on a pot of hot water only makes it boil over…

One Sunday morning the wife of an elder was found dead in the church. Naked, strangled, a wild, ecstasy burned into her empty eyes. She had been strangled by her own husband. It seemed that in a particularly exquisite episode of love-making the man had not even realized she was dead when he collapsed on the floor with her and went to sleep. Only the next morning did he discover she was not breathing. Accident though it had been, the man had committed a murder. Predictably, the bishop blamed demons. If only that had been the end of it…

It seemed that some people were beginning to lose the war with themselves. They had been caged up for so long that when they finally let it all out, it came out wrong. In some, anger had been twisted into murderous rage, and a simple argument led to murder. A man who had been known for his stoicism and chastity would rape women and carve up their bodies with knives. Not that any women wouldn't have had him, he just seemed to prefer it when they struggled. I guess demonic possession is a great excuse if you want to let yourself loose. Hell, I'm pretty sure that even most of the 'possessed' did not doubt that they had been taken over by something else.

Zerahemlah only stepped up its attempt to drive the evil from its midst. But before they could do that they needed to find its root. That I was the root, that they could never seem to figure out. I was just a hapless boy who had been infected by some hidden evil among them. Me and the other boys had agreed long before that, when the time came, all our fingers would be pointing to the bishop. With so many unlikely witches having been exposed already, that the bishop might be the source of the wickedness began to sound less and less implausible (doesn't the Bible mention 'evil in high places'?). Add to that the universal rancor that he had heaped upon himself throughout the decades by spying on, molesting, and otherwise abusing his flock and it isn't hard to understand why he was tortured until he confessed to every one of his crimes, real and imaginary, and then burned alive with all the cheerfulness you might expect at a community barbecue.

The true culprit, of course, was their own flesh. The thought that their Devil lived and breathed inside them was far too obvious for such self-deceivers to understand. The Devil lives in each of us, you know, all I do is coax him out to play. I could see the lust burning in their eyes as they interrogated us on every detail of our sodomy! I was getting them off! I was inspiring them with lust and kindling the fires of their own decadence!

The boy was perspiring now, staring wildly into an abyss that seemed to exist between him and the social worker. The man himself, was entranced by what he had heard so far, his eyes had taken on the same quality as the boy's. Both seemed to be possessed by one foul spirit.

"Zerahemlah…" the social worker tried to remind himself why he was listening to this, "just tell me what happened.."

"Ah, Zerahemlah…" the boy repeated the name as if he would never have to say it again and was glad about it, "Zerahemlah is no more. There's really nothing further to say about that place. They went mad and burned witches until there was nobody left alive to put out the fires. We alone escaped, I, Frankie and…"

"Aradia..", the man said the name as if it were the key to a cipher. The boy left his place on the couch, walked over and sat on the social worker's desk; his eyes ripping into him. His hideous batrachian lips leered evilly.

"The thing that entered me in that forest has escaped with us. It has consumed me. It will consume you. It will consume the world… "

The boy had his hands down the man's trousers and was now stroking him forcefully. The man's eyes were closed, he was panting like a dog. With his other hand the boy grabbed the paperweight that had been standing on his desk and smashed it against the man's head. He fell, towards his desk, unconscious, and the boy dug his wallet out of his pants. He opened the window and jumped down into the night

[maisouestlechat]

The Unclean No one is eating the cats

[aughhghnoww-my-femur]

the half a body-d besties (the unclean gets a pet cat!!)

[no-romance-for-me-please]

Oh dear

Please don't go to the fairy ring

[i-am-the-corn]

i was looking up 939 for references and forgot the 9 at the end and got “red sea object” (093) instead and i kinda just rolled with it

so i drew a picture of the unclean