Father Max

Well, after three weeks of getting berated (not really) in my literary group and being told (not really) that JF:SP is drivel (not really), and getting depressed and cynical and being on the verge of calling it quits as a writer and telling myself I'm just not up to it (well, almost), I finally received positive feedback on the pages I brought tonight (woohoo)! And it's not Space Pirates! This, in fact, marks the first non-space, non-pirate pages I've written and/or brought to the group. I thought I'd share my success with all one of you who are interested (hi mom!).

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J+M+J

The red and blue glare of the sirens, blinding in the darkness, let me know that I was in the right place. I was not native to the area and even though I had lived in the small town of Sand Canyon for a few years now, these back roads were still treacherous for me to navigate, especially at night. I was glad to know that I had not gotten lost this time.

I pulled over to the side of the highway, as far onto the dirt shoulder as I could, and stepped out of my car.

Sploosh! My foot sunk into a muddy puddle, a remnant from the previous night's rainstorm.

"Thank you, Lord," I muttered under my breath. In the abbey, I had been taught that instead of cursing, we should thank God for the little tribulations of daily life, and the opportunity they gave us to grow in patience and holiness. I hoped that was the meaning God took from my words, and that He ignored my sarcastic tone.

I shook the water from my shoe and looked down at my habit. The only light came from the sirens, and the damage was impossible to determine. I really didn't need to see it, though. Years of experience had told me that white shows everything. I knew I would be spending most of tomorrow trying to remove the stain.

I silently praised God—again holding back the sarcasm as much as my weakened human nature would allow—and walked towards the police line. My wet shoe sloshed and squished with every other step. A young officer stood at the line watching me.

"Hello," I said to him as I approached. "Detective Roberts called for me."

"Are you Father Green?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm Father Maximilian Green."

He held the tape high enough for me to duck under, and then escorted me past the police cars and ambulance.

I had not met Detective Roberts previously, but it was not hard for me to identify him at the center of the scene. I guessed he was the tall, dark-skinned man sipping something from a foam cup—coffee I guessed from the aroma—and not the man lying on the pavement with a trickle of blood at his side.

Roberts looked like he might have been nicely dressed earlier, with a pressed shirt and nice tie, but all semblance of a sharp appearance had faded with the sun after a long, hard day. The tie was missing, his collar was unbuttoned and the shirt's tail was untucked at his side. I came up behind him. "Detective Roberts?"

He whipped around and looked me up and down. His gaze stopped twice on my left foot, probably noticing the mud on what should have been the pristine white of my habit.

"Father Green?"

"Yes, but I go by Father Max."

"Right. Father Max. Thanks for getting here so quickly." He extended his hand.

I took it. His grip was very firm for a man who looked as fatigued as he. "Of course. What can I, uh." I looked down at the body at our feet. "How can I be of assistance?"

"We were called out here about a half hour ago. A driver noticed the body on the side of the road, called nine-one-one." He pointed to the man on the ground. "I noticed his left hand and thought maybe it would be nice to call a priest."

I looked down to where the detective indicated. Clutched tightly in the man's hand were the beads of a rosary. The crucifix dangled from his grip, resting lightly in his blood.

"I'm thankful you called, but I'm not sure what I can do."

"You're a priest, right? Can't you, I don't know, give him last rites?"

Oh, would that I could, I thought. I smiled, weakly. "The anointing of the sick, like all sacraments, is reserved for the living. He is in God's hands now."

I gazed down at the body. He was on his side, face turned away from me. The only wound I could see was a large gash on his left arm, inside the elbow, but not much blood flowed from it.

"Has the body been examined? May I touch him?" I asked.

"Yeah, go ahead."

I stooped. As gently as I could, I rolled the man onto his back. The face I saw startled me.

It was young, a little older than twenty. I recognized it, but that wasn't what rattled me. I had ministered to many sick and dying. I had held them, anointed their foreheads with oil, as the life slipped from them. It was all in the job description.

No, there was something wrong about this man's face. Frozen onto it was a look of abject horror. His eyes bulged open and his jaw was locked askew, in what looked like some unearthly silent scream. Whatever had killed this man had terrified him. I understood the literal death grip on the rosary. May Mother Mary protect his soul, if She didn't his body.

I closed his eyes, then traced a cross on his forehead. "Réquiem ætérnam dona ei Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat ei. Requiéscat in pace. Amen," I whispered, and dwelt on the English meaning of the words: Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.

I remained at the man's side for a moment longer. I looked down to the wound on his arm. The blood drained from my face. It looked like a bite mark; punctures from teeth were apparent. I had seen this type of bite before. "Our Lady of Perpetual Help, pray for us," I muttered. I hoped it was not what I thought it was. We did not need that sort of animal wandering through our little community.

Very little blood had oozed from the wound. A tiny pool had formed at his side and trickled downhill towards my feet. I looked down to see my scapular dragging on the ground, in the red stream.

I sighed. "Thank you, Lord," I said once more. Mud was one thing, but blood stains were next to impossible to remove. I might have to toss this habit out, which was a shame: it was my favorite.

"I've seen this man," I said, standing. "At mass. He attends my parish. Tim something. Or Tom."

"Thomas Augustino, according to his ID," Detective Roberts replied.

I turned to face him. "Do you know how he died?" I asked.

"Not sure. He had his wallet. Still had cash in it, so that rules out mugging. The ME could only find that one wound on his arm. But there's not nearly enough blood around for him to have died from that. So he was either moved after he died, or there's some other cause."

I was hoping for the second option, for the poor man's sake.

I saw that the coroner was behind the detective, waiting to take the body. I stepped aside to let the coroner do her job. I watched the young woman, with her assistant's help, gently place the body into a bag.

"Supposing that the man died by some other means, what do you think bit his arm? What animal would have taken one bite and left?" I said, turning to face the detective.

"I dunno. Maybe a coyote took a nibble and decided it didn't like the taste. Or it could have been scared off by a passing car."

I shook my head. That wasn't a coyote bite.

The detective must have noticed my expression. He looked at me with a furrowed brow. "It doesn't look like an animal bite," I explained.

"Yeah, I know. But it doesn't look human."

He was right. It wasn't that either.

The detective smirked. "I don't know," he said. "I don't think I've seen anything like it." He hesitated before turning to look me in the eye. "Have you."

I considered what to say for a moment. "No," I lied.

I try not to make a habit of lying to those in positions of authority, but somehow I didn't think I would be believed anyways if I told the detective that his victim had been killed by a demon.

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Everyone liked it so much they asked me to bring more next week, instead of those boring, awful, dreadfully-written Pirates... in Spaaaace! (Really!) This, of course, puts me in the uncomfortable position of, you know, actually having to write more of these pages. Which requires that I figure out what I was writing about.

I think I shall call it "Father Max the Vampire Slayer: Twilight of the Blade Underworld" and make it a story about a priest who, along with his blonde cheerleader sidekick, slay sparkly vampires who look like Kate Beckinsale, wear lots of leather and carry lots of guns, and are basically big bags of red jelly.