A

Little Place

Down The Road





A Short Fiction
In Celebration

Of

The Fall Season

By


David A. Archer
02/15/1968




10/11/2006







I had passed it as I was first arriving. It really didn’t strike me as out of place and most definitely didn’t seem as though it could hold the depth of sustained torment that I would soon find it housed.

It looked like an average, though quite ornate and medium sized church with leanings toward the old world décor. It had enormous stained glass windows that would make a person wonder being that it wasn’t uncommon for tornado’s to occur in this area.

It didn’t even dawn on me then that it was obviously deserted… or seemingly so, but not one of the large windows was even soiled. In fact, they gleamed.

I didn’t even think about it for some weeks after I had settled in my new place of residence just up the way.

It was a smaller sized town than what I had been used to living in, but work demanded that I move there and being a single young man I had no real reason not to. Especially given the incentive of position and stock options presented as compensation.

The house was nice. Quaint, almost petit…but rather nice. The neighbors matched it in a queer way that was hard to put a finger on at the time. As if they had been refurbished as well, when the siding had been replaced and the trim was painted.

Luckily enough for me, I lived just at the edge of a zoning area that became retail spaces. Shops and the sort which made for a level of comfort near what I had been used to in the bigger city settings. It was a main street intersection of sorts, and was situated between my dwelling and the old, deserted church.

I worked from home, being an employee of a rather large internet based commerce company, so I found that living wasn’t all together too different than what it had been in more populated settings. There was even a small café type of place with outdoor seating and a bar near, which I took full advantage of in my off hours.

Most stories around “haunting” tend to happen… or are said to happen in the darker hours. At night as it were.

I would soon find a mind altering experience which could be described as nothing but personally witnessing such super natural activity, in the light of day. At least, from what I can recall that is, when it began.

As I have stated, a person would never begin to suspect such dire occurrences in such a docile and even subdued to the point of strangeness, township. No one ever mentioned it… the church, beyond passing comments which didn’t seem too alarming. Most times speaking about it as if it were the family pet, or something. Even in response to a few of my own topical queries pertaining to it, I was met with just as remote as per substance, as was my ignorance in inquiry.... though laughably and quite usually, a bit more colorful in expression. It seemed that most of my new neighbors and co-habitants of this small town, could talk a blue streak through a brick wall without chipping the mortar or really saying anything.

I found myself kind of wishing I had possessed such skills in most of my tenure inhabiting large cities. Of all the conversations I managed with the rather hospitable populous of this smaller town, I cannot remember one thing of pertinence actually having transpired in the exchanges.

I had experienced the perfection of “small talk” first hand and found it rather comforting. Even pleasant if a person can imagine such.

I found myself with some bonus time one afternoon and decided I would use it to further familiarize myself with the area. So I set out for a walk around the extended neighborhood.

I strolled through the little stretch of residential area between my address and the retail shops, and began to notice the season. The leaves were just turning and the blossoms were falling away, leaving lonely looking stems where only recently had been a variety of blooms to rival even the ornate configurations of stained glass in the church I was inadvertently bound to experience.

The leaves were giving up their post at the ends of branches and twigs on branches. Some more willingly than others as was evident in the mysteriously growing number of them blowing down the breeze. This happening in the area of seasons change where you can’t really tell where they come from, being just as many still aloft and undaunted as now were skipping along the ground.

I continued past the stretch of shops and hospitality establishments, and found myself again entering a more residential type of area. Yards full of squash gardens… nearly ripe pumpkins and of course the bare stems of in flower beds. I then noticed briefly, the passing paper boy seemingly hurried to some degree. Peddling and breathing as if in a sprint. The sort of hurry that is accompanied with a spooked look, and a need to be somewhere else, though differing in the fact that it was obviously an accustomed state of existence.

It reminded me of my own similar tasks as a child. Those which dictated the immediate need in a boost of effort and concern in getting past the yard with the large, unchained dog and always open, entryway for instance.

This paper boy was concerned with something, though was obviously quite used to it however uncomfortable it may have remained in his routine.

I then looked to notice I had managed to find myself directly at the front entry to the church yard which stood open, and off the hinge. The metal frame beginning to show signs of decay as was the wooden, parched looking slats that comprised the fencing. Themselves presenting an aura as if to be charged with maintaining the tragic constant of the universe itself.

It was no sooner than I began to consider stepping into the church yard that the entire scene changed dramatically. If I were superstitious, I would have been wracked with near panic at the speed of it.

Being rational and most modern, I knew the seeming change was due to the weather pattern developing quickly as was rather a common expectation this time of season and local. I noticed huge thunder heads forming and beginning to crawl over the mountain peeks nearly surrounding the town itself. Big, dark and heavy looking clouds bent on convincing anyone of the ominous potentials they bore.

It definitely looked like rain soon.

As I again looked to the church in the near distance, just beyond the churchyard itself now seeming to be a playground of sorts for various colors and types of leaves, even being similar in the respect of clusters of them.... grouping as if in cliques here and there through out the dull, brownish tan grass, I couldn’t miss the idea that somehow the leaves seemed to be in a celebration. They tumbled and frolicked as if in jubilation brought on with the sudden change in weather. A celebration touched with a somber tone which I found accented in the sudden shiver moving through me as I gazed upon the quiet scene.

I think back now and realize, that if a howl would have been emitted from somewhere at that moment, I would not have been the least bit surprised. But there wasn’t, which maybe made it all the more tense in a subliminal way likening to ethereal velvet.

I then noticed the growing lack of light. It was still quite obviously mid day sometime, but the darkness was growing as were the clouds now immense and looming.

The darkness itself carried a similar tension as it grew… as it strained even, to gain entry in spite of the light. As if it were demanding in some way, more so even knew of itself it would eventually win out and cover everything known, in darkness.

The small, cathedral like church itself, remained as if to shine. As if the darkness were everywhere except on the structure itself. It was a reflective presence from somewhere perhaps even non-existent though easily discernable in the extreme contradiction which was represented as the wind now chilled and excited farther, the dance and frolic of the leaves. It is safely said that the immediate atmosphere now resembled something stuck between the living realm and death... though somewhat cyclically.

I now stood just inside of the grayed and splintered perimeter and found myself particularly intrigued with the grand entry way to the church as it now seemed to loom in competition with the growing clouds.

Some leaves had gathered in a corner of the deep corridor leading to the common double doors, just as commonly set with an array of depictions. They softly moved just beyond the influence of the growing breeze and looked to be huddled along with a few articles of miscellaneous derivation.

I realized that the darkness in that corridor was the only example of it on the entire form from what I could see. As if in some way by design as some unspoken effort to warn and thwart any light hearted or unsure steps that may approach.

I found myself taking a deep breath. I knew before I knew, that I was going to go into that building and my body was already preparing the fortitude with which to trod past those foreboding aspects usually given from such darkness. I was actually stepping before I made the realization entirely in a cognitive manner.

The doors were very much as I had expected them. Deep hardwood with inlays and etchings of various religious references and of course framed and fitted with iron. Forged and pounded, again as expected.

I really had no reason for concern at this point given that nothing besides my own perception had foretold of anything that might be of concern. A perception that was notably influenced from the common, though freakish turn in the weather.

Needless to say, my reason won out and I stepped through the heavy doors. Intent on making myself expect nothing in particular.

What I found immediately was nothing of the sort. In fact, it was very particular to say the least.

In a moment where I thought I may have been blinded with the contrast of the darkness outside and that which I stepped into, I luckily realized that it was only the rather natural effect of stepping from considerable darkness into rather pronounced light. I could almost feel the glare on the back of my eyes.

It wasn’t until I began to adjust to the contrast that I began to note how out of place such a presence of seemingly natural light was. It streamed through the stained glass and filled the entire cavern within the church with a bright and warm light reminiscent of those days bordering spring and summer.

It was breathtaking and even welcoming simultaneously. The colors and patterns from the large windows combined nicely with the brightness of the apparent sunlight.

A person could have thought to even sit and have a quiet moment to themselves if it weren’t for the delayed entry of a host. A rather disconcerting and confusing presence as it approached, bearing a recognizable form of a female. A considerably young.. perhaps mid twenties, female.

The confusing aspect of this presence was not in the idea of it having been a female, but more to the effect and condition of her appearance. Her blouse hung open as if it had been torn, and her breast was exposed and was obviously maimed, though still bearing the shredded remnants of a bloody brassiere. Her body must have been wracked as the contortion in movement was enough to bring most to a quick panic…then further were the noticeable wounds growing more obvious as she approached, including one of her eyeballs looking as though it had exploded in the socket.

Again I was enthralled with another extreme in contradiction being her presence and the comfort of the area itself, but the curiosity lasted only until the smell of her state in and of existence accompanied her visage. It came upon me as if it were an entity itself seeking to cover everything within it’s reach.

She was obviously dead.

When the smell hit me, I found myself surprised that it wasn’t just as visible as now was her mangled and repulsive physical being.

She stopped at the edge of the stage like riser which held an altar and various effigies gleaming in the light around a podium.

“What have we done?” I distinctly heard emit from the broken bone and torn flesh of what was once a jaw.

All I could do was sit silent in the pew and fight the urge in no longer wanting to breath as she seemed to hover… almost dangle there from her position near the podium.

“Don’t stay long” I then heard in a deep, booming voice which sounded more than familiar with the act of speaking, “You won’t be able to leave, if you do.” I looked to the top of a staircase where it became apparent that the voice was that of a priest. A priest having a pronounced wound just over the eyebrows which allowed brain matter to droop and sway slightly from it.

“We no longer hold services here” the voice continued, “none that are open to the general public, though some of us have to be a part of them here at least until the rapture.”

I then found the initial concerns lift some with the calm presence of the priest… even through the decidedly apparent fact that he was dead... while still animate.

“I feel somewhat uncomfortable in asking this….” I found myself with the courage to speak, “but just what is all this?”

The quiet in the large chamber then turned into silence. A hard silence that I had never experienced before. As if that place between the living realm and death shifted in that instant more toward that of non-existence.

Then he spoke simply and clearly, in short words; “Take up a hymnal” was all that he said, and I found myself wondering momentarily if I might just be imagining it all. Then I looked to see myself reaching for one of the many thick books he had suggested, in the back of the pew in front of me.

No sooner had I grabbed it, than it began. It started as a strange feeling.. a tingle so to speak in my fingers and hand that held the hymnal. I began to get flashes of imagery, horrific stills and terrified feelings mixed with pleasant and rather warm sensations of the same sort. It was all I could do at that point to actually bring the hymnal closer and open it.

As I began the attempt in reading my vision fell away and I found it replaced with a suspended state of consciousness.. riddled with more flashes and imagery as a person might imagine would come of a skipping needle on a record as it was placed, in extremely slow motion.

The flow of information smoothed… much like a stone skipping across a pond comes to rest eventually… though with this progression I found myself now immersed.

I couldn’t have told you at that point whether I was experiencing the things I was, or if it were only in my head… as I am sure in hind sight, that it was. A product of some inter-dimensional connection.. perhaps a captured bit of the existing consistency between our waking lives and that state beyond death. But it continued… and in doing so revealed everything I had wondered in that instant of question.

It was very much a replay of sorts, like a person might imagine their life flashing before their eyes. But it was the lives of those inhabiting this place, and the series of things which brought them to this state of existence. What is more, is that it was somehow from the perspective of the very reason they were now cast as such.

I was now a cursed psychopath, possessed by things beyond human understanding and bent on the slow and very cruel destruction of any and all in attendance at this given church.

Further, I knew instantly that I personally had no reason for such… more so that the initial individual I now vicariously perceived as, seemed to have no want or reason beyond pure and simple blood lust. Only a burning hatred of centuries if not eons in torment was discernable…. And of course the unstoppable want to exact that same measure on any living creature within grasp.

It was terrifying at first. I found a level of automation within the living… or dead display…that soon served as a strange comfort. Doing so through letting me know that it really had been someone else which perpetrated the atrocities I now was forced to experience the act of having done.

There are few words to describe the blur of it all. The pleasure I found myself having as the life seeped from the eyes of victim after victim… somehow making sure to fill the want of actually watching it disappear while the cries and pleas of others forced to watch in waiting for their turn at the business end of wrath unspeakable.

I found that the more the victim wanted of reprieve, the worse and longer were their demise.

Violent actions and words sparing no level of violation. Definitely sparing no means through which to administer sustained forms of inhuman pain. At times even while fully inside of the victims in the most detestable of sexual manners, in any and all ways a person could imagine. The screams serving only to fuel the morose pleasure indescribable within the performance of such transgressions.

Children were not spared. In fact, there seems to have been some added level of pleasure in laying upon them the most vile of monstrosities in action and display for the others, not yet lucky enough to be dead… to witness and consider in their last moments.

This continued one after the other. One grotesque form of climax and carnage smeared into the repetition of initial torments in games meant for choosing the next to be subject in such a manner.

Then finally all that was left in view, was the priest. Sitting among the evidence of present and very ungodly evils having just transpired and bearing the expression a person could never describe in the rest of eternity through the mumbled action of something similar to prayer.

Then words came from the only other place left able to produce them, being my perspective, in a guttural tone I hope never to hear again… from any perspective.

As a large gauge firearm was produced and set directly against the priests head, they became audible…rumbling from somewhere near the edge of everything imaginable; “Anything you’d like to request?”

“A chance” came the priest’s response through tears and something resembling exhaustion, “a chance to have been more like Jesus… I wish I could have been more like Jesus” he concluded in sobs.

“Consider it done” was all that was heard just as the explosion of the weapon slightly acted as precursor to the spattering of blood and fleshy matter, itself just previous to the collapse of his carcass entirely.

At that point there was a release. It was a release which connoted even more than just a completion. It seemed to signify a continuance yet realized, and was accurate in only moments as the priest then again stood up.

“You are a very lucky man, Mr. Goody Priest Guy” exclaimed the insanity which still waved the shotgun like a pointer stick. “It just so happens that I was cursed by the Devil himself…. So I choose to extend the favor and grant your wish” he hissed as the blood still spilled forth from the priests near empty head. “Rise Mr. Goody Priest Guy… and resurrect your flock, if you will…but know that I have not extended to you the power of healing them…. So as I have left them, is as you will have them from the moment you choose to reanimate their worthless existences…… and further consider Mr…. Holy Man…” he spat in disdain… “They will continue to decay at the rate as does your love for them…. So choose wisely when you choose between your guilty conscience in having failed them… and their immediate damnation for the rest of eternity. Either way…” he again spewed as if from the mouth of hell itself, “it is no ones but yours to now choose.”

“Now go” I then heard in the slightly familiar tone of the priest.. as I still seemed to stand there commanding his torment and seething hatreds unknown. “Go and don’t come back… and never speak of this or have it known, or he will find you as well… and any you may have even ever been a slight part of.”

“How possibly so?” I then managed of my own volition still not sure of which or where it was that I may be.

“He is the essence in the eternal body of death tied to creation. He is that on which the very idea of existence unravels while it forms from somewhere else. He is the reason that people age. The reason that things die. His presence in perpetuity alone is that which begets pains and sorrows. Rot and decay. Loss and any form of horror the devil himself no longer had interest in. His curse is life. His life is forever entwined in even the concept of our existence. He is that which will never be felled between human want of immortality and the wretched excuses they call living. He is that which inhabits the path toward death, unseen. Exacting the interest of his life long toll on the other side of mortal demise. He is that which sups upon the continuance of dying, destruction and the demise which is human life.”

His voice fell silent as I noticed I no longer held the firearm and the bodies only moments ago strewn around the area, were now quietly making their way down the long staircase. It would appear that I had returned to waking reality. At least as close to it as I had been at all.

They stood there around the podium in a choir like formation looking in silence as I silently looked back at them.

They didn’t move or fidget at all and they all seemed to have that dangling demeanor. They didn’t speak and neither did the priest, I noticed, once I returned to waking consciousness.

They just stood and I soon joined them standing, though some distance away once I felt I could hold my own footing. This being further inspired by the proportionately more pronounced smell of death in relation to the arrival of the flock in entirety.

I found a reluctance to leave which seemed as much a want to be with them as I made the concerted effort to force my movement toward the door. Perhaps some form of enchantment… perhaps some heightened desire through a familiarity none else would ever know. But most definitely present all the same. Accented with the beginning notes of something I will never forget as they started to sing as best they could from the tattered remains of their existence;

“God sent His son, they called Him Jesus
He came to love, heal, and forgive.
He lived and died to buy my pardon,
Our empty graves are there to prove my Savior lives.

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives, All fear is gone.
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living just because He lives.”

I found another moment of hesitation in closing the door behind me as I again entered the light of day… something wanting me to stay for another little while seemed to echo in the tone of their words.

Maybe it was a sense of loneliness that rang through even the words now faintly on the wind beyond the door?

Maybe it was a familiarity starting to form through having been their executioner if only vicariously?

Maybe it was a want to know more about the monstrosity I had embodied which was described in such broad, sweeping strokes?

“And maybe” I then thought to myself as I stopped a the top of the stairs just out of the darkness in the corridor, “Maybe I would like to sing with them a little…I could just stay for a song or two? It would be the neighborly thing to do” I thought…

“After all, I just lived in a little place down the road.”