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Send to FriendHe looked toward his right, and then toward his left, making sure the coast was clear. It was. He was safe. Perhaps this was his lucky day, he thought. Maybe he might be able to get to his car and go home unmolested for a change. Maybe—
A hand fell over his shoulder suddenly, and he jumped, barely able to bite back a startled scream. “Bart Dawson!” howled a dreadfully familiar voice from behind.
Bart turned to see who it was, and sure enough, there he was, reeking of garbage, sweat, and body odor from probably not having showered in over ten years, his disheveled white hair done in dreadlocks, his pallid face covered in boils. His teeth were very yellow, some almost brown or black, with a few missing. His eyes bloodshot red. He was wearing that same grimy trench coat and faded blue jeans, covered in dirt and filth, reeking of sweat and dust, burning his nose if he inhaled the noxious fumes it sometimes seemed to expel into the air. Or maybe that was just Bart's imagination. It didn’t matter because to him it reeked all the same.
“Get off me, you freak!” yelled Bart, shaking the filthy, rancid, wart-encrusted, and most likely diseased hand off his shoulder, fearing it might be diseases in some way, and that he might wake up the next morning with a horrible disease--head lice, scabies, something much worse, really bad, something that at his age, in this part of the world, he shouldn't even have to worry about. He backed away. “I swear, old man, if you touch me again, I'll--”
“You must be saved, Bart. The Lord asks that I come to save you from the evil that tempts you, that now, as we speak, threatens to corrupt and damn your soul.”
"Leave her alone, damn it!" he barked. "And leave me alone as well."
“There must be a part of you, Bart, deep down inside, that believes me, knows that I am telling you the truth. There must be some doubt in your mind as to the motives of all the kindness she has shown you. You must look to that doubt, Bart, I urge you to look toward it and embrace it. For it is the Lord, struggling in his love to try and get through to you.”
“Jesus Christ--”
The Street Preacher lashed his hand across Bart’s face, and Bart felt the sting lingering over his cheek, a feeling of revulsion now growing inside him, and he immediately pushed the Street Preacher away in disgust. “Don’t touch me!” he screamed, watching as the old man fell to the ground, landing on his ass. Bart would probably have to wash his face now, as well as the shirt, which he briefly considered burning once he reached his apartment. It would be the only way to get those horrible diseases out, he figured, considering the option of pouring boiling water over his face to sanitize it, but then dismissed both notions as lunacy.
“I am only trying to bring the light of the Lord into your life, Bart,” insisted the Preacher, as he slowly emerged to his feet, backing away slowly.
“Yeah, just like that priest who was always copping a feel on my when I was twelve.” Bart shuddered at the horrible, humiliating memory it roused in his mind, and then slowly turned away, feeling that old sense of shame that came over him whenever he recalled his long-ago days as an altar boy, and of his childhood in general. “Just stay away from me, okay? Please just stay away and leave me the hell alone!”
He got into his car and slammed the door shut just as the Preacher approached him once again. “Get away from me!” he yelled, as he immediately locking all the doors in his car.
He turned the key in the ignition, feeling a great deal of relief flooding over him as the engine hummed into life. The Street Preacher was still peering in on him, watching him with those bloodshot eyes of his, but it didn’t matter. Bart was now home free, and away from the filthy bastard once and for all...at least for tonight, anyway. I’m gonna have to start bringing a can of mace to work tonight if this keeps up, he thought warily, turning the transmission to DRIVE, before pulling the Intrepid out of the parking lot.
* * *
The Street Preacher watched as Bart coasted out of the parking lot as fast as he could without breaking the speed limit; the man looked back once, an expression of contempt, disgust, and utter hatred spurning within his hazel eyes. Such a shame that he would hate his one and only true chance for salvation. Was he that far gone? Did Satan have that much of a hold over his soul that he'd be unable to realize what was truly best for him, for his soul, he couldn’t recognize God’s love for him? The Street Preacher began to grow discouraged, but strove not to give up hope. It was in the Lord’s will that the young man be saved, that he rebuke the life of sin he was currently living, and lose himself of that evil that Kathy represented, that wretched whore, that tool of Satan. But as time grew on, it seemed less and less likely that that would ever be the case.
Bart Dawson must be saved, the Lord whispered in his ear, and only he could hear Him speak. No matter what the cost, no matter what it takes, you must convert Bart Dawson to the side of the light, to the side of righteousness.
“But how, Father?”
As he walked down the sidewalk, other pedestrians continued to stare at him, most likely believing him to be some psychotic nut talking to himself. He saw a mother shielding her two children from him, as she walked hurriedly away, gaining as much distance as possible in the quickest amount of time. But he knew he wasn’t crazy. The others just couldn’t understand. No matter--when he was saved and they weren’t, then we’ll see who the crazy one is.
By any means necessary, you must convince him that what he is doing is wrong--you must put him on the path to true enlightenment, and that means that Kathy must be thrown out of the picture.
“But he refuses to see the light. I’ve tried every day for three weeks, and he won’t let me in. Just walks away as fast as he can, refusing to see that horrible wench Kathy as anything more than a sweet girl with a crush on him. What am I to do?”
If Kathy stands in the way, then she must be eliminated.
“Are you saying you want me to kill Kathy?”
If that’s what it takes, then that is what must be done.
The Street Preacher shuddered. He didn’t like the idea of murder. To kill one of God’s beautiful creatures, whether animal or human, felt horrible to him, yet understood that sometimes it must be done. You would kill an animal for food, for nourishment, to stay alive, and so, in that case, it must be done. There were other cases as well, he supposed, where it was justifiable, such as killing an abortion doctor, which he had done about six months ago.
Perhaps he wouldn't go around the country assassinating abortion doctors and staff members nationwide like Clayton Lee Waagner (he had seen the name on an episode of America's Most Wanted a while ago while he had been loitering around the television department at Sears); that was the role God had instore for Waagner, but not for the Street Preacher. Still, it was wonderful when the Lord's servants were able to help each other as the Preacher helped Wagner. It was in Terma that Doctor Vince Bailey lived, and Wagner hadn't gotten to this area yet; but the Street Preacher had been here at the time, and so bestowed upon himself--with God's approval--the duty to take the murderous abortionist's life.
It was Bailey's murder of the unborn that had been a mortal sin against God and not the Preacher's murder of the sinner himself. The Street Preacher revelled in what he had done even now as he recalled the way Bailey begged and pleaded for his life when that butcher saw the predetary gaze in the Preacher's eyes. In some ways the Street Preacher was horrified by this memory, that he could have enjoyed killing that man, no matter how deplorable his deeds had been, but was equally enraged by the magnitued of Bailey's sins: killing so many innocent babies. It was time someone put a stop to it, and Clatin Lee Waagner hadn't gotten to Terma yet (and had already been apprehended by authorities, which the Preacher was oblivious to), so it was up to the Street Preacher.
He could remember how exquisite the blood of Vince Bailey tasted as he cut into the black-hearted abortionist. And how the vile creature still begged, looking up bleary-eyed at his holy assailant, even after he'd been gutted and his blood began to spill over the black-and-white checkerboard floor, washing thickly over the tiled surface. Baily begged and pleaded while choking and gurgling over his own fluids, but never showed an ounce of remorse for the oceans of innocent blood he had on his own hands. He showed no mercy to the thousands of infants whom he'd slain, and the Preacher had shown him none either.
And in that act of murder, the Street Preacher had managed to save countless babies from dying at his hands in the future, thus his act of murder was an act of righteousness, destroying the life of an abomination among mankind to save many more innocents so that they may get the chance to live for Christ. The Preacher might even go as far as to call it an act of heroism, but thought it dangerous. He must be careful; he must never think of himself as anything more than a vessel of God’s work.
He bent his head down in shame, and a tear scrolled down his cheek. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” he murmured softly, “and my sin is pride.”
He felt the grace of God’s forgiveness wash over him. Born again, his sins once more forgiven, and he was strong again, strengthened by God’s grace and compassion. And it was then that he realized that while pride was a sin, it was okay to take just a little bit of pleasure from one’s work, as long as it didn’t transcend to that of human arrogance. He had, after all, been sent on a mission to save the world from the sin and evil that lurked within. And to start him on his journey, he must first save the soul of Bart Dawson.
If Kathy must be killed, then so be it.
Up ahead, by a street corner, standing below the lamppost within the dim cone of light, the Street Preacher saw a prostitute (an unusual sight in Terma, but not altogether unheard of), no more than nineteen years of age, wearing a leopard skinned jacket, and faded jeans, most likely a runaway, whom had gotten caught up in drugs, depravity, and sin, one whom perhaps could have been saved if enough time and devotion was set aside for her cause. But the Preacher didn’t see her like that. Instead, he became enraged, rather than feeling pity for the girl barely past her adolescence. She was nothing more than a tumor to the rest of the human race and cut out before any further damage can be done to our cancer-ridden species.
Although the hooker was four years younger than Kathy, it was Kathy’s face he saw, Kathy’s smooth, flawless skin, blue eyes, small, upturned nose. It was her lavishing blond hair that fell down just below the nape of her neck that the Preacher saw on this girl just now. It wasn’t just a vague illusion within his mind’s eye, but the actual sight he saw in front of him. He knew it to be a false vision, but what he saw was Kathy standing there, a whore on the streets awaiting her next customer.
But he still knew it to be a real prostitute nevertheless, even if it wasn't Kathy--and definitely not a cop in disguise. Had it really been a cop, sent out as a decoy to bust anyone out shopping for a whore, then God would have admonished right away that he keep away from her and let her do her job. But He didn’t. And so the whore was the real deal, a sinner herself, and thus, part of the problem.
The prostitute recoiled as the Street Preacher approached her. You could tell she didn’t want him to purchase her; she obviously didn’t want it to be the Street Preacher that she went with, even though it would mean extra cash in her pockets to help feed whatever drug addiction had enslaved her. What he couldn’t understand, though, was why. What is there to be afraid of, the Street Preacher wondered, and then thought: Perhaps she fears damnation...perhaps she fears facing up to her life of sin and the horrific consequences it entails.
He chuckled softly to himself as he pulled out his wallet, and fishing through for a dog-eared fifty dollar bill, one of the Lord’s gifts to him from last week (he had found the tattered bill lying on the sidewalk), which he had yet to spend, and one which, although she had no way of knowing at this moment in time, wouldn’t be spent tonight either. He snapped his finger at her, and she came willingly enough, despite her apprehensions. She knew that if she didn’t, her pimp would most likely beat her severely for rejecting a potential customer, and thus, she would take her chances with the Street Preacher.
She would have been better off being battered by her pimp.
* * *
Three hours from now, the body of the prostitute, Stacy Kurst, would be found, lying face up in a dumpster, the lid closed over her, leaving only her legs exposed to the cool night air, her toes providing a short snack for whichever rats scurried by within that dark alley. Her throat would be slit from ear to ear; not quite decapitated, but instead made into dead human pez dispenser laying discarded in a pile of garbage. Spurts of blood no longer shot out, but instead would cling to her body and clothing as a sticky resin, coating most of her upper torso, masking her face, and making her hair (brunette, not blond, as the Preacher had perceived it to be) into sticky clumps of seaweed.
The look of horror over her contorted face making it testement to the shear terror she had felt throughout the last few seconds of her life as the Preacher had drawn his knife from his inside coat pocket. She had gained about two or three feet before the Street Preacher had tackled her to the ground and her screams rang on long throughout the cool night air as he brought the knife down upon her throat like an accelerated pendulum, severing both the carotid artery and the jugular as well slashing open her larynx in one cold, quick swipe, rendering her forever silent. She blubbered, gasped, and wheezed during the final, agonizing moments of her life, the blood not leaking from her severed throat now gurgling from her mouth and trickling down both nostrils.
There was blood everywhere, spilling and shooting all over the place, and the Street Preacher could feel the warm, thick fluid soaking into the back of his trenchcoat. But a little blood wouldn't matter, since it had already been deeply stained from chocolate, bird feces, snot, vomit, piss, spaghetti sauce, dead insects, mud, ketchup, and everything else, that a few blood stains would be totally superfluous as the fabric had been ruined long ago (the Street Preacher hadn't changed his cloths in over two years). He then tossed the body of the dead prostitute into the nearest dumpster he could find, closing the lid over most of her body (except for her dangling legs), and then leaving her as just another piece of trash now properly disposed of.
Killing the hooker wasn't nearly as gratifying killing the murderous abortionish, but it was a deed that had to be done and one that he had received some pleasure in as well. The filthy skank couldn't be left alone unchecked and allowed to spread whatever rancid venereal diseases she'd been carrying to any other unsuspecting, helpless man who might be seduced by this filthy wench.
Sex was her weapon that she used to corrupt the world, and the Preacher thought he might take that away from her as well. He lifted the dumpster cover, holding it up briefly with his left hand as he took a final look at the vile slut he had just exterminated. Her legs were open, splayed as a wide V--even in death, she was still the repugnant temptress, her sex, while covered by her jeans (now soaking in blood and urine), still freely exposed, awaiting penetration. She was dead by now, or very close to it (it was kind of hard to tell by now), though still making a few wretched, belched gurgling noises, her body twitching slightly, looking up with that hazy, but innocent expression in her teary eyes.
Enraged, the Street Preacher drew his knife once again, brought it up with his right arm as his left continued to hold the dumpster cover high, now beginning to ache with numbness. He brought the knife down in a swift arc and the blade sank deep into her diseased cunt, drawing more blood, though not nearly as much as slitting her throat had done. He tore the knife from her cut vagina and then brought it down again, the blade sinking in even deeper this time, only to be yanked out and jambed into her vagina a third time, then a forth, and a fifth, and so on, again and again. Each time, he thrust the blade in harder than the last, pumping it in there again and again, losing count long before his arm began to grow tired of how many times he had stabbed her rancid cunt, howling madly with each blow, until her pussy was nothing more than flesh torn to ribbons, covered barely by the torn fabric of her jeans and panties, with blood lightly moistening her skin.
When the Street Preacher had finally stopped stabbing her and tore the blade free from the grips of her now tattered pussy--no longer quite a vaginal opening, but still it festered with infectious disease of the most unholy kind--he heard a soft, breathy moan, barely audible. He wondered , in the back of his mind, if he had even heard it at all, and also wondered morbidly if she had even felt the knife go into her at all. The whore uttered nothing further, said nothing, and just lay there in the garbage, unmoving, save for a few faint twitches of the limbs, and continued to stare up at him with that hazy gaze of indifference only a dead person could possess, her teary eyes like glass. And it was then that the Street Preacher knew that she was finally gone.
His trembling left arm was starting to tire; the cover of the dumpster was getting heavy, so he released his hold over it and allowed it to slam shut over the dead whore, once again leaving only her legs exposed. The Preacher couldn't help but chuckle softly as cleaned the blade of his knife with the sleave of his trenchcoat that that dumpster had made such a suitable final resting place for such a vile, disgusting slut.
Then he simply walked away.
Later in the night he would feel a small pang of guilt stab at his heart, jabbing him not because he had taken the life of the prostitute, but because he had enjoyed both instances of murder so immensely.
* * *
Bart stepped out of his shower, hoping that a half-hour would be enough to wash whatever filth had been festering over him from the Street Preacher’s touch. He hadn’t burned the shirt he had been wearing, but still sprayed it down thoroughly with Lysol (as he had done with the steering wheel of his Intrepid), before tossing it in his hamper. He grabbed a towel and quickly dried off, wondering why the old man wouldn’t leave him alone. Because the fucking guy’s nuts, that’s why, his mind insisted. Perhaps buying a can of mace might not be such a bad idea. Any form of protection was better than no protection at all, and with a guy like the Street Preacher, you had to be careful, because there was no telling what those kinds of psychopaths were capable of (or what kinds of diseases he might be carrying).
Why can’t the son of a bitch just leave me alone?
It made no sense at all to him, that someone who was most likely a bum on the street (Terma had its own share of homeless, but certainly nowhere near as much as a city such as New York or Washington DC), whom had a whole slew of his own problems, such as which dumpsters contained the best snacks, where he could crawl under when it rained, where he could find a new cardboard box for shelter when the old one finally collapsed. Why was he so damn concerned with “saving” Bart’s soul. He was a complete strange, so why take such an interest.
Bad religion.
It made sense to him in a sickening way; that’s what it seemed to him all his life; a bad religion, where priests weren’t allowed any sexual gratification whatsoever, and thus, must resort to fucking alter boys up the ass to satisfy their libido. Not all Christians were assholes, though, he had to remember that. Frank Harris was a Christian, and also one of the nicest people Bart had ever worked for, aside from Gino. It had been a shame about him having to declare bankruptcy and losing his business that he had worked so hard to build for so many years. Too much debt. That would kill anyone. And so he had to close up shop, and as a result, Bart was once again out of a job after only six months of employment at Frank’s Ice Cream Parlor.
But they weren’t all good either. Like any other group of people, there were the good ones and the bad ones, and in Christianity, he had the unfortunate displeasure of coming into contact more with the bad ones, the hypocrites, those whose actions contradicted the values that they struggled so hard to indoctrinate into the rest of society, to protect it from the "moral decay" which had been so prevailant in this day and age (Bart sneered at the thought of actually giving a rat's ass about Puritan morality). Those who drank, smoked, sinned, stole, and convinced themselves that they would be forgiven, so they could keep on sinning again and again. It made him sick; but that wasn’t the worst of it.
The worst had been Father McCarthy, whom had raped him when he was an altar boy at the age of twelve, too young to understand why any of this was happening, all he could perceive was the pain, discomfort he felt as the priest fiercely pumped his hardened cock repeatedly up the young boy's ass, and the guilt, the shame, and humiliation he endured after the act. It hadn't been the first sexual advanced the priest had made on young Bart, but it had been by far the worst, for all the other times it had merely been touching the young boy, slapping his ass or squeezing his small prebubescent penis or testicles, which had always made Bart feel uncomfortable and he loathed having to go to church on Sunday because of it, but said nothing because he knew he had no other choice. Reflecting upon that shameful sequence of sexual abuse, the innapropriate touching that had started it all had almost seemed like some twisted, perverse foreplay, preparing him for the ultimate horror that had he would be forced to endure further on down the road. But nothing could have prepared him for what he would have to go through toward the end and how it had stripped him of his innocence, his childhood, and what little dignity his mother and the priest had ever allowed him to have. And for the longest time, he couldn’t even look himself in the mirror without cringing; and he couldn’t tell anyone either.
His mother was another abuser, though she abused him physically, emotionally, mentally, but never sexually. Instead, she would resort to holding him against the wall, as though she were a cop frisking a potential suspect, and then whip the wire hanger against his naked back again and again. “Beating the demons out of you” she would refer to it as, perhaps one of the most painful exorcisms one could go through, and his mother certainly wasn’t qualified at such a task, though she may have believed that she was. Or she would yell at him, screaming insane, verbally tearing him apart, calling him a horrible serpent in the guise of a young boy, or the bastard son of Satan, bringer of all that is ungodly and evil. Another punishment was being locked in that cold, dark closet deep within the damp, murky cellar, confined, shivering, crying as he remained detained there for several hours at a time, for what seemed to be, in his young, frightened mind, an eternity.
But Bart was one of the lucky ones in that he had been taken away from his mother once word had gotten out of what had been going on in his house and of Mommy’s rather harsh punitive measures. The social workers had dragged him away against his will; ironically enough, he didn’t want to leave his mother, even after all she had done to him. It would seem so strange from a logical standpoint, but not at all uncommon or unexpected of abused children or spouses. But through years of help and counseling, he was able to be saved, saved from the fate the befell most children of his living conditions; where over ninety percent of abused kids grew up to become abusers themselves, he was actually able to mature into a productive and law abiding citizen.
That wasn’t to say there weren’t any adverse effects, for there were plenty. His inability to so much as walk past a church without shuddering deeply, looking away, feeling that old, familiar sense of shame washing over him once again as he felt Father McCarthy continue to shove his huge penis in and out of his rectum. He couldn’t move away fast enough, and supposed that that might cause problems later on, when or if he ever got married.
He would worry about that later, though, since there was never a guarantee that he would even get married. He had his eye on Kathy at work, and Gino didn’t mind him going with his daughter at all; but they weren’t even an item...not yet anyway, though they were getting closer to that status every day. It didn’t mean that they would get married though--anything could happen, and he still felt timid around her, as he did around most of the people he met.
Bart had always had trouble making new friends, even as a child; he never seemed to fit in with his peers at all back then, always the school outcast, always getting into fights and on the brink of suicide. He had been humbled long since then, no longer as suicidal, but the old depression kicked in from time to time, and he shuddered now when he thought of how close he had actually come to taking his own life so long ago.
Bart finished drying himself off and hung the towel over the rack, put on his Hanes underwear, and then pulled his pants back on before exiting the bathroom; even with the Lysol, he wasn’t going to take his chances with that shirt until it was washed. More than likely that wouldn’t be until the weekend when he made his trip to the laundry mat, but he had other shirts so it didn’t matter, neither did the abuse he suffered as a child. It was all in the past, he told himself again and again when the memories became excruciatingly clearer, vivid to the point where it seemed it was happening here and now. It was in the past, so it was best to get his mind off it and concentrate on the here and now.
And the thing that mattered most right now was the Street Preacher. It was funny, because he'd usually forget about that psycho once he had gotten home, and yet, these past two days, he couldn’t get the freak off his mind. It was Kathy that he worried about now, rather than himself. He had mentioned her name last night, and the night before, as well as this night, in one of his deranged sermons as he begged, pleaded, and demanded that he repent to save his soul from “fire and brimstone”, “Satan”, "the lake of fire," and whatever else the Preacher decided to throw into his mindless psychobabble. But he had never before so much as mentioned Kathy. Now he had, as of two nights ago, and that meant her life might be in danger if Mister Psychopath upped and decided to kill her. Bart still hadn’t told her of the Street Preacher. It was his problem, after all, and not hers, or her uncle's, and there was no need at all to burden them both with worry. But if she was in danger now as well, then she absolutely had to know.
Bart had to tell her somehow, to warn her ASAP. But how?
He thought of the phone in his kitchen. Perhaps she and Gino hadn’t left work to go home yet. It was a long shot, but he could try, couldn’t he? And who knows, maybe he might get lucky.
Once in the kitchen, he grabbed the phone and dialed the number. A few rings later, he heard someone answer it and then Gino’s cheerful voice from the other end. “Hello. Thank you for calling Gino’s Pizzeria. I’m sorry, but we are closed right now, and no one is here to take your call at the moment. Please leave your name, number, and brief message at the beep. Thank you.” He heard the beep, and then hung up the phone.
“Shit.”
He sighed, discouraged now and feeling helpless. Goddamn machine. They had already left after all, and the worst of it was that he couldn’t warn her now until morning because he didn’t know how to contact them when they were at home. And neither one of them had any idea of the Street Preacher, or the things he had said, or what he might have been capable of.
You must stay away from Kathy, the Preacher had said the night before last. She threatens to damn your soul for eternity. Only when she is gone, completely pushed out of the picture, will you have any hope at all of being saved.
Last night: Kathy is a cancer, Bart Dawson, a cancer to your very soul, and she must be cut out of your life immediately for you to ever sustain ever-lasting life in Heaven and walk the path of righteousness. Don't you understand, Bart...
And tonight’s reference to her: You must be saved, Bart. The Lord asks that I come to save you from the evil that tempts you, that now, as we speak, threatens to corrupt and damn your soul.
Was she safe at home, or did he know where she and her father lived and where to find her? Odds were, he probably didn’t, but there was still that haunting possibility, no way to know for sure...and there wasn’t much he could do about it either.
Maybe I’m just being paranoid, he told himself, trying to quell the growing anxiety that she could be in danger, perhaps even dead right this very moment. He’s just some screwed up street preacher, and that’s all he is. Probably drunk off his ass and messed up on crack, and that’s why he keeps bugging me after work everyday. He’s fried, but that doesn’t mean he’s dangerous, right? Doesn’t mean he’s out to ruin one of the few good things that might be coming into my life right now.
But there was still the doubt in his mind, still the fear, the nagging questions.
That's exactly what he wants, Bart, to ruin everything good in your life and make you just as miserable as he is. He may or may not be dangerous, but you can bet your ass he's out to ruin your life, just like your mother and your old priest as well!
What did he want with Bart? What if he really was dangerous? What if he was more than just some drunk, homeless bastard preaching the Word of the Lord on the streets for anyone who would listen, and sometimes to those not interested as well? And the absolute worst one of all: What if he could find out where Kathy lived?
He’s just a deranged, religious wino, that’s all. Quit worrying so much about it!
Bart went back to the living room, and collapsed over the swivel chair in front of his Dell PC, hit the power button, turned on the Monitor and the speakers, and then waited for the system to get done loading. He figured that perhaps he might be able to take his mind off it by surfing the net for a while, perhaps catching up with his online friends on AIM, MSN, and Yahoo! Messenger. In the real world, he didn’t have that many friends, if any at all, but online, he seemed to be quite popular, and he enjoyed the time he spent chatting with them and posting in the various message boards he frequented. Yet tonight he couldn’t seem to get into it at all, which was just as well, since most of his online buddies were offline at the moment. The only one on was an MSN buddy by the name of preacher151, and given the circumstances, he thought it best not to engage in any kind of discussion with him tonight. Instead, he checked out a few forums, checked a few websites he visited frequently to see if they had been updated, checked a few ebay auctions he had bid on earlier this week; still in the lead on one of them, and on the other one he’d been out-bid. He decided not to place another bid on the latter of the two items and instead let the other guy have it.
Bart shut down the computer. There was nothing on TV that he wanted to watch tonight, so he went to the bathroom, urinated quickly, and then shed his clothes and crawled slowly into bed.
Sleep came slowly for Bart Dawson that night. Thoughts of Kathy plagued him, keeping him late, and when blissful slumber finally did come, he had a dream, a horrible dream, though not completely unlike those he had been having throughout his life...
In the dream, Bart is twelve again, an altar boy helping to set things up for mass. The other altar boys are there as well, and so is Father McCarthy. And they all know of Father McCarthy’s sinister little secret, his more perverted passions outside that of the Lord. Most or all of these boys are aware of the things he does, the way he enjoys touching some or all of them, but none speak up, none say a word, all too scared and too deeply shamed to reveal McCarthy’s dreadful secret. The other boys are busy with the preparations, none paying attention too closely to what it going on now. In that way, Bart and McCarthy are alone, and there is no one to witness the attrocity that would unfold next, as is always the case.
Bart’s stomach rises suddenly as McCarthy approaches him. He knows what is about to happen now, and dreads it. "Not again," he thinks, his heartbeat increasing, and he begins to feel cold sweat trickle down his face. The priest pulls him forward and begins to fondle the boy. The boy is helpless, at the mercy of the priest, who continues to touch him and rub his groin, and Bart can see the huge erection poking through the priests crotch.
The boy does something that usually doesn’t occur now. He squirms, trying to break free of the priest’s degrading hold. And he screams. “LET ME GO!” He squirms again and manages to shake himself loose.
All the other boys are gone now, but he remains inside the church. It is just him and Father McCarthy now, standing face to face.
Bart looks behind for some reason, and sees Kathy naked and chained against the altar, a gag over her mouth, tracks of tears over her cheeks. She struggles to free herself, but it is no use. She is too panicked, and the chains too tight around her wrists.
Bart looks toward Father McCarthy now, and McCarthy is gone...no, not gone. He is now the Street Preacher...has somehow BECOME the Street Preacher. The once fifty-year-old priest with the short gray hair, bald on top, now has a full head of hair, disheveled hair, done in the Street Preacher’s dread locks. His teeth are now crooked, yellow and cracked, with several gaps throughout, and he now has a thick, scraggly beard hanging from his face. And instead of the vestments, stole, alb, and cinture, he has on the old, faded jacket and torn jeans worn by the homeless Street Preacher. The only accessory he still has on from before is the small cross hanging around his neck. These changes don't occur gradually, as a transformation before the boy’s eyes, but rather, as an immediate, split-second effect. One second, McCarthy is the well manicured priest, and the next he is the filthy, disheveled Street Preacher, just like that, like the blink of an eye.
“Help me!” screams Kathy, and then she sobs as she continues struggling to free herself.
In the Street Preacher’s hand is a knife, the blade old, dull, coated with rust, but still sharp enough to cleave her flesh. "I apologize, my son, but this simply must be done,” he says. “If I am to save your soul, then I have no choice but to slay this wicked creature. It is the only way.”
“NO!” screams Bart, and he feels his eyes growing teary. He jumps in the way of the Street Preacher, trying to block him and save Kathy, but he is still only a twelve-year-old boy, completely helpless, and is effortlessly pushed aside and tumbles to the ground as the Street Preacher continues to make his way toward Kathy.
Kathy shrieks again, shrilly, her screams piercing Bart’s ears, as the Street Preacher raises his knife and brings it down in a smooth arc, slitting her throat. Blood seeps through the crevice, and she looks up, her teary eyes pleading for him to stop, her breathing now ragged and husky. The Preacher ignores her pleas, merely raises the blade and brings it down upon her once more, and she screams hoarsely, a harsh, wheezing sound too horrible for Bart to bear, and even more blood is splashed about.
“Oh no...Kathy...oh God...KATHY!!”
Bart convulsed sharply and was shaken awake, finding himself lying in his own bed, night’s shadows just now beginning to disappear into the light of early morning. His entire body was now coated with cold sweat; he shivered as brushed a trembling hand through his dampened hair. Only a dream, he told himself again and again, trying to make it sink through, only a dream and nothing more. His heart began to slow back to a normal pace as the dream dwindled in his mind, and he lay back against his pillow.
On his nightstand, the alarm clock flashed in digital numerals 6:07. He didn’t have to be up for another two hours. His nervousness quelled now; no longer quite so unsettled, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again...not after that nightmare. So he merely lay back, staring up and watching as the shadows began to disappear over his ceiling as the light started coming through his window, glowing through his Venetian blinds.
“Only a dream, man,” he whispered to himself, "no need to get all worked up over a stupid dream.” Father McCarthy couldn’t have been the Street Preacher because Father McCarthy was dead and had been dead for a very long time now, his horrendous deeds now exposed to the world at large, and thus, his days had been numbered.
Bart hadn’t told anyone of what he had done to him or the other altar boys...not immediately after the social workers had dragged him kicking and screaming and against his will out of his mother’s home (he still found it amazing how much he had been so opposed being taken away from his mother at the time it had been happening). It had been a while before they got that tidbit of information out of him, before they had finally managed to coax a confession out of the boy. But once it was out in the open, it was all downhill for our perverted preacher from there. Others had come forward as well, finally mustering up enough courage to tell their tale now that someone else had already done so. What McCarthy had been doing to the altar boys had been going on for a very long time, longer than Bart would have thought. Turned out the priest had been getting away with it for over twenty years by the time he was caught. But it all caught up with him now, and all compounded against him at trial, some beyond the statute of limitations, but many still within jurisdiction. He plead guilty to dozens of accounts of child molestation and given a sentence of thirty years behind bars. A month after sentencing, the body of Father McCarthy was found in the work detail, beaten to death by his fellow inmates. No one said a word; both the prisoners and guards kept their mouths shut, denying any knowledge whatsoever, and the identities of the inmates involved in McCarthy’s murder would forever remain unknown.
That had been years ago, and had nothing to do with what was going on. Bart was sure of it. Yet the similarities were clear and present, even if no direct correlation existed. The Street Preacher was no doubt just a bum on the street, completely deranged, of course, who had somehow fixated on Bart for reasons that would only make sense within the confines of his own warped and damaged psyche. He might not even know who Kathy even was, might not have even had the slightest idea what she might’ve looked like, just had overheard Bart speak her name once or twice and somehow had gotten the notion that Kathy was evil, that she was a nothing more than a serpent, a temptress out to damn Bart’s soul. It that case, all the Preacher would have had was a name, a first name, and one as common as Kathy would mean there wasn’t much to go on or to do with such information, and thus, Kathy wouldn’t be in the line of fire at all.
Or perhaps Bart only told himself to quell his growing anxiety. Perhaps he deluded himself, pushing closer toward a state of denial so he wouldn’t be so worried about the woman whom he had somehow grown close to, grown to care about in the short time he'd known her.
The fact that he had cared for someone so quickly, had trusted in so short a period of time had been a rarity for Bart Dawson and seemed almost strange, as it seemed strange that he might find himself capable of caring for someone at all, capable of love. But he supposed he was, as was most other people. And while he and Kathy weren’t serious yet, they were getting closer to that point, becoming more open toward each other, more friendly; it was only a matter of time... And it was because she had shown an interest in him--otherwise, they wouldn’t have been so friendly had he been the one obligated to show initiative. And why should he be, after all; they were well within the new millennium, not the 1950s, so why couldn’t the girl be the one to ask the guy out?
Kathy had shown him kindness, as had Gino. They were deserving of his love, and of his trust, as were a few others. His counselor, Sean Bates, had been one of those people, though it had taken him much longer, several years, to earn Bart’s trust. Still, there was a bond of friendship that developed between the two, slowly but surely, as Sean counseled him all those years during puberty, and Bart was indeed saddened the day he had heard Sean had been run over and killed one night just two years ago--a hit-and-run, most likely a drunk driving incident, though that had never been confirmed as of yet. He was almost surprised by how deeply saddened he'd been over the news, and how long it had taken for the wound to heal.
It was nothing like his feelings and reaction (or lack thereof) he had experienced upon learning of the death of his own mother (high blood pressure--she was never one who wished to benefit from the miracle of modern medicine, believing it to be nothing more than a tool of Satan). Instead, it was little more than a clinical melancholy that was easily ignored, pushed away, and forgotten. And while there was a part of him that found it strange, was nearly appalled that he would feel nothing at all over the death of his own mother, the other part, the more logical part, understood fully. Why should he feel anything at all, after all the abuse she had shown him, after all the pain and misery she had put him through? When he remembered all those cold winter nights he had spent locked in that basement, with no heat, freezing, sitting there shivering in that cold dark room, hypothermia nearly setting in by the time she finally got around to letting him out, all he could feel was enraged. His lack of a reaction to the news of hi s mother's death may have seemed heartless to some, but they wouldn’t understand because they hadn’t been through what he had been through. And one thing he had learned over the years was that you loved only those who loved you back. Be kind only to those who showed you kindness.
He got up out of bed, and got dressed, thinking perhaps he might go to work a few hours early today. It would get him even more on Gino’s good side, and would allow him more time to warn Kathy, in case the Street Preacher really did mean business. It would give him more ample opportunity to protect her, if it came to that.
No, it wouldn’t do much good. Kathy wouldn’t arrive until 2:00pm because of morning classes at the Terma Community College. Damn!
But her uncle would be there. Bart could tell him what had been going on. Gino would have wanted to know anyway, wouldn’t he? Yes, he decided, I'll tell him the second I punch in.
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