The Reverend..., page 1

"My son..."
His voice was always calming to me...like the eerie stillness you hear before a storm.
"You need to put the phone down my son..."

Your always looking out for me, I thought to myself.
I put the phone back on the receiver and thought about what I had just done.

The blood still was still fresh on my hands, and the heart rate was finally dropping.
I was coming down...

"So how many times?", I asked without looking at him.
"How many times have you saved me, and brought me back from the edge?"
He looked at me with a knowing smile.

My head was pounding, and the scene was always the same.
It was all about the time, I always lost the time.

And the only thing I knew...was that the dreams, they haunted my soul.
They kept me awake at night, the cold sweats and the confusion.
But most difficult...were the faces, I saw all their faces.

The faces always made me sick.
They flashed in my head, the look in the eyes, the pain, the suffering.

"They are better now." He would remind me.
"You have sent them to the Lord, and he will cast judgment upon them now."

Hard to understand why God had chose me...
Me...he chose me to be his right hand.
A dealer of a holy punishment from the almighty himself.

Seeing him here tonight, it brought me back, back to the first time we met.

I remember the first time the Reverend found me.
I would be in jail, or dead...had it not been for him.

I had came home early that day.
That was my first mistake.

Ignorance is bliss they say, for once, on that day, I couldn't have agreed more.
The sounds of their sin echoed through my empty house.
I watched in silence as they destroyed the only solace I had known...
Her mouth saying the words I thought only for my ears...
The flesh I thought was only for my eyes, was in another's hands.

I couldn't stop myself from walking through my open bedroom door.
That was the next mistake.

They looked so surprised...

They always look that way.
The words don't come right away, there is always a moment of silence before forgiveness.
It's a quiet state of supplication that takes place before the soul can be set free.
That last second of life before they realize it's all going to end, right here, right now...
That was the first time I can remember losing touch, losing time.

I found myself sitting alone in a hotel room later that night.
My head swimming from the days events, and the news flickering on the TV.

"A brutal double murder today..."
The anchor woman's voice trailing off as she describes the bodies found in the fire.
So sad...a husband and wife butchered, then their home set ablaze.

The sad part...
The husband was supposed to be me.
The police and news had it all wrong...there's a shock.
I laughed inside...
Wondering how long it would be before the dead mans wife would start to wonder where he was at.

"They were sinners you know..."
My door was wide open.
And he stood before me.

His black suit, accented only by a thin white collar.
His eyes were as dark as asphalt, and his stare pierced my soul that night.

"You have been chosen my son..."
"The Lord works in mysterious ways, and you have been blessed this day..."

"Blessed!?!...are you f'ing crazy!" I shouted at him.
"Blessed!...I killed my wife!, that cheating whore, I've killed her!"
The reality of it all was finally hitting me...

"My God...what have I done?!"

I dropped to my knees, the tears streaming from my eyes...

"My son..."
His hands on my shoulders now.
"...They were living in sin..."
"And you...you have done the Lords work this day."

I couldn't believe my ears...was I hearing this right?
This man, this man of God, was telling me killing my wife and her lover...was right?

His hands felt icy, like the breath of death upon my shoulders...
"Rise my son...the Lord is not done with you yet, there is hope for your soul..."

I sat and listened for hours that night, as he told of the Lord's plans for me.
By this work of atonement, I would saved.
My soul would be spared the hellish torment that would have surely awaited me.
And before I knew, it was time to go to work.

The Reverend would give me the names...
The list was long, sinners of every kind.
The drug dealers, the child rapist, the whores, the crackheads.
The list was long indeed...

On that list were many "Family men", many "Good women".
...All who had chosen to forsake him...the Lord their God.

Society itself was falling into hell...and the Shepherd was losing his children to the wolf.
I had to stop that...
And with the Reverend's help, I was going to tip the scales back into the Lord's favor.

The days turned into years, and time slipped past me.
Sinner after sinner brought before the Lord by my hand...
He would point me in the direction, and I did the Lord's work for him.

I was purifying my soul with every last dying breath from their lips.

I was always on the run, waiting for the next sinner to be revealed...
But it always seemed when my life would slow, almost to a surreal crawl...he would show.

Just like he did tonight.

But this time...it was different.

All the running, all the killing...it had to stop, tonight.

As he heard the police sirens in the distance he knew...
He knew now the phone call had been placed already.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?!"
His words were venomous...
He knew had been betrayed.

"You were never here to help me..." I said.
Looking into his eyes, he knew this was the end.

"I gave you purpose! I gave you hope! I gave you something to believe in!"
His eyes darted back and forth across the tiny room, looking for an escape.

"You gave me EXCUSES!" I shouted back in defiance.
"And when the police get here...they'll all know what we've done!"

His face demonic as he screamed.
"WE!?!...WE!...Your hands are covered in blood my son, not mine!
How dare you dishonor him!
He died for you, and you kill for him, that's the deal!"

"No more deals for my salvation Reverend..."
My voice low and deliberate as I opened the nightstand drawer.
I pulled one of the many instruments the Reverend gave to me to do the Lord's work.
The chrome on the .44 magnum stained with blood, was in my hand now.
God's hand...his bringer of justice, his sinners salvation.

His voice filled with rage now as the flashing lights broke through the black of night.
"Reverend!?"

"I don't need to take them all you see.."

"Just one."

His eyes staring back at me in horror, as his face contorted with rage.

"Father forgive me..."
I looked to the heavens, praying he would hear me...forgive me.

I raised the gun, and put it to the side of my head...
I looked into the mirror for the last time.
As he looked into my eyes, I smiled and pulled the trigger.

The Reverend was dead.

When the police arrived on the scene...
There would only be a few things found in that small hotel room.
A .44 magnum, a bible...bloodied and tattered, and a body.

The body of a man...
A man who died so many years ago.