ABSCESSED
Short Story by Stephen McQuiggan
‘When you reach Hanna’s plateau,’ Master
John told Riley, ‘you will come across a grove of yew trees and, in their
sombre midst, you will find His scared place.’ He kissed Riley’s forehead in
blessing, then locked his flinty grey eyes on his. ‘There you will see His true
face, feel the depths of His love, become as His right hand. Of all the
brethren your faith is strongest. This is why He chose you, why He came to my
dreams calling your name.’
Riley had hiked up the mountain at first
light and reached the plateau an hour before sunset. Yet, as eager as he was to
prostrate himself before the holy shrine, he pitched his tent in view of the
grove and meditated until the dawn. He wished to purify himself completely,
mind and body, before entering that most hallowed of places.
Even as the sun rose, a beacon of
celestial affirmation over the mountain’s crumbling crown, Riley sat motionless
by the campfire (wearing only his pants, but it wasn’t a sin if no-one else
could see), assailed by cramp and persistent, nagging doubt. His faith felt
weak now, diluted by aches and pains.
On the long trek up to the shrine he had
developed an abscess below his back molar, and the throb of his jaw at the pus
filled obscenity in his mouth felt like a warning not to succumb to vanity –
for had his pride not swelled like an abscess with each laborious step up the
mountain’s back as he recalled Master John’s praise? Had he not fairly glowed
at the thought of being chosen?
And if such a paltry thing as an infected
gum punctured his faith, if his much vaunted spirituality dissipated at the
slightest hint of physicality, then really, how strong could it have been in
the first place?
He knew what Master John would say – he
would label it a test, urge him to embrace it as a gateway to knowledge, but
that was easy to claim when your mouth wasn’t wreathed in a lattice of white
fire. The shame that enveloped Riley at this heretical thought almost drowned
out the pain that now stretched all the way up to his ear.
How dare he question the Master? That was
vanity indeed. Should he return to the vestry and tell him (Oh, the thought of disapproval in those cold
grey eyes was pain indeed) that a sore gum prevented the will of the
Almighty? He would be disrobed and cast out into the wicked world, defenceless
against the Final Judgement the Master assured was almost upon them.
Riley rummaged through his pack until he
found a small sachet of salt, offering up a benediction to Brother Tilson for
his foresight in including it amongst his rations. He poured some water into a
cup, blessed it, added the salt, and then drank deeply, swirling the bitter
concoction around his swollen mouth.
His Mother would have approved (though she
approved of little else) for it was one of her ‘natural’ cures. She was a
bitter woman, nourished on vulture soup and full of heathen remedies. If only I could cure you of that damn church,
she would often lament; it’s not a
calling, it’s an obsession.
Riley smiled ruefully to himself. I’m not obsessed, Mother, he thought, merely abscessed.
The salt water eased him for a time and he
used the reprieve to say his morning prayers, thanking the Almighty for His
wisdom in reminding him of his frailties. Perhaps, Riley thought, I’ll feel
more at one with Him if I have a few hours rest, for he was still exhausted
after his journey and a long night of pondering His majesty and ways. Refreshed,
he would be more deserving of His grace, more worthy of His notice.
The day grew dull, swathing the plateau in
a preternatural gloom, the sun veiled by pregnant clouds snagged on the sharp
peak above. The small grove was enveloped in a mist that rose like a sigh,
swaddling the trees in an eerie haze. The mist grew thicker as Riley watched,
its phosphorescence lighting the plateau with an uncanny radiance.
It’s
a sign, Riley thought, for
had the Master not said there would be wonders, had he not said that –
- A crack of thunder rent the silence and
Riley cowered, his eyes scanning the heavens for a tear, a rip in the celestial
fabric, for anything that could explain such an apocalyptic cacophony, but the
sky was placid and not so much as a blade of grass stirred on the level plain.
The thunder came again and again, and
Riley saw a huge shadow, indistinct in the mist, pacing to and fro amid the
trees, each footstep a cataclysm. He held his breath and covered his ears but
still the thud penetrated his skull, vibrating the very earth beneath him as it
shook the venerable yews. It was over as soon as it began, the mist
evaporating, though its echo throbbed in Riley’s head to the steady beat of his
abscess. The twilight was swarming with spirits and his very blood did seem to
scream.
The grove was silent now, only a bed of
leaves carpeting its border marked the sudden turmoil. An impenetrable green
haze replaced the mist clinging to its slender trunks. Riley crossed himself as
his heart hammered out its own storm in tribute.
Oh
Merciful Lord, he thought, that I should bear witness to your dreadful majesty! May I be as a
burning brand plucked from the fire in your service.
If only his Mother could have seen this
argent glow, she would think twice before blaspheming. She would baulk at
doubting His very name in the face of such power. She would no longer dare to
label the Master a charlatan, an acolyte of the Devil, if but once she had felt
His awesome glory.
But she will, Riley consoled himself, for
when I return from the mountain, when I have seen His true face and become his
vessel, I will go to her and she will see the reflection of His glory and she
will fall to her knees and beg forgiveness for the falsehoods she tried to
poison me with.
And
will I then absolve her of her sin? Master John will guide me.
His Mother had long been an abscess on his
heart, and as such she should be lanced and drained. The Master would know what
to do for the best. Yet a strange, and not entirely unwelcome, thought came to
him – would he need the Master and his ponderous instruction after his
pilgrimage to the shrine? Would he not return to the Brethren, blessed and
marked, as the true Master?
The pain increased in his mouth and an
itch spread down his spine. Riley offered up a heartfelt prayer, asking to be
washed in humility and counted once more amongst the meek.
He crawled back into his tent and, despite
the low grumbling in his teeth, slipped easily into the realm of sleep – a
realm, according to Master John, where God continuously prowled surrounded by
His angelic nightmares.
When he awoke, Riley’s jaw throbbed with a
renewed fury as if fuelled by his dreams. He howled, his voice echoing down the
mountain side, rebounding helter-skelter off the pine boughs, sending the
eagles soaring in flight from their lofty perches. Digging out a shaving mirror
from his pack, he held it up to get a good look inside his mouth. He was fully
intent on digging out the tooth with a penknife if need be; anything to rid
himself of the pain.
As he pulled away the cheek and opened
wide with one hand, the mirror positioned in the other, Riley blinked
furiously, unable to fathom what it was he was looking at. His gum was
undulating violently when, with a sickly squelch, his molar popped out in a
cascade of blood; Riley half spat, half vomited it out.
The pain had ceased but, as he ran an
exploratory tongue around the hole where the tooth had been he found its place
had already been taken. Something hard, and crowned with a sharp crest, had
risen up in its stead. Tilting the mirror, holding his head back, Riley opened
up and said ‘Ahh’.
He dropped the mirror with a gasp, and saw
his own startled eyes staring back at him in a score of broken shards. It could
not be, he must still be asleep, lost in...
He put his finger back into his mouth. It
was met by another one growing up out of the hole his tooth had so recently
vacated – the same one he had seen wiggling at him in the mirror, its nail
black and crusty. Master John had warned him there might be tests and this must
surely be one. A test of his sanity, of his ability to hold onto his faith as
the very world around him sank into illogical madness.
Riley felt the finger in his mouth
delicately scrape the inside of his cheek. He tried to bite down on it but it
was like chomping on steel. He moaned, rocking back and forth before his tent,
wrapping his arms around himself in a bid to stop himself falling apart. That
was when he noticed the large lump on his shoulder.
The skin was red and tight. As he poked at
it gingerly the flesh recoiled and burst open in a sickly spray of pus. From
its oozing, gelatinous centre a finger emerged, waggling in the mountain breeze.
As Riley moaned out the litanies that Master John had taught him red blotches
began to emerge on his torso, his forearms, his legs.
With a white hot agony that stopped his
prayers, he doubled over as with a blow to the gut. When he straightened
himself up a glistening finger protruded from his belly button, feeling the air
like the antennae of some massive, hideous insect.
‘Please Lord,’ Riley whispered, ‘I am your
servant, please find me worthy.’
He slumped to his knees hoping to crush
the bulging tumours that popped there and, although he no longer felt any pain,
he let out a cry that ran down the valley like a poisonous stream. For he felt
a new sensation, an almost pleasant burning, right in his dirty place (the
crevice of evil, the brethren had taught him) between his legs; the orifice of
sin, the gutter of temptation.
Down there, where no matter how hard he
tried, no matter how often Master John inspected, he could never keep clean,
something was burrowing its way out. He felt it emerge from Satan’s gate and he
did not need the mirror to tell him it was a devilishly long digit, or that its
nail would be browned by the taint of his own heathen bowels.
It flicked like a tail as he crawled back
into the tent – and what better adornment for a crawling, base animal than a
tail, save some horns?
As the thought struck him, Riley put his
hands to his head and felt the fingers jutting out there. He tried to scream
but all that came out of his mouth were the rest of his teeth, the fingers that
replaced them clicking together in infernal applause. Madness took him then and
he swooned down onto his sleeping bag as shadows creeped in to caress his ever
changing body. The night was devoid of stars, as if ashamed to illuminate its
work.
He slept right through until the following
sunset as his body popped and cracked, went through its torturous transition
with a numbing ease that did not wake him. When he opened his eyes he found
himself lying naked outside his tent. His body was a waving sea of fingers.
Lifting his head, he gazed down his torso and found himself an anemone of
moving digits.
He would have called out for help but his
mouth was now little more than a loose fitting glove. Without any thought, or
volition, his body started to move, carried forward by the fingers that layered
his back, propelled like some childish drawing of a monstrous millipede. Above
him the setting sun shone but dimly, extinguished at the sight of such heresy.
He was moving inexorably toward the trees.
He could hear the soughing of the wind over the clicking of fingernails on the
stone beneath him. No, his mind rebelled, the Good Lord cannot see me this way
– but then, surely it had been the Good Lord who had rendered him thus? Had
defiled him, smited him for his vanity?
I
went sorrowfully, in abhorrence of myself, Riley thought,
the beloved scripture offering him no solace; Oh, Ezekiel, how I blush at your
truth now.
As he reached the old yews, Riley
clambered up onto his feet and walked unsteadily between their weather bitten
trunks. The wind picked up as the light faded and the fingers that sheathed his
body rustled in excitement. May God forgive this pagan porcupine, he prayed
silently, as a bright orange glow pierced the gloom just up ahead.
He carried on walking through the now
cold, black pillars of the little wood, making his slow, cautious way to the light.
He expected the sting of woodsmoke, the sudden slap of heat, for he was sure he
was approaching a conflagration – in truth, he hoped to be consumed by fire,
purified by it – and when, or if, they ever found his blackened bones they
would never be aware of the obscenity he had become.
Yet the closer he got, the cooler and
brighter the light became. Riley stepped into a clearing in the heart of the
grove, swathed in preternatural daylight, and dropped to his knees before the
shrine and the words etched there – Demon
Est Deus Inversus. He bowed his head beneath the gargantuan statue that
dominated that sacred place, cowering as he dared to gaze upon it.
‘His true face,’ Master John had told him,
but never could Riley have believed that the Lord of love and mercy, keeper of
eternal life, could be such a hideous abomination, could be both so savage and
sage. As his unblinking eyes scanned the horned monstrosity rearing above him,
Riley’s heart hardened (you will feel the
depths of His love) and he embraced the honesty of the cruelty sculpted in
the unpolished stone.
Here was awe and pure majesty, here was
power that counted nations not individuals, here was the never changing truth
at the heart of all things. Here was the very claw of God. He felt on the cusp
of understanding the meaning of it all, of life and death – a terrifying blend
of vertigo and nausea – as if he tottered on the edge of a cliff, his feet in
loose shale.
Pride returned to Riley, stronger than
ever before – the deity had chosen him,
of that Master John had been right. But the venerable old guru had been wrong
about one thing, Riley thought as he stared at the statue’s countless fingers.
You
shall be His right hand.
In the glowing grove, kneeling in the
giant footprints that circled the image of the very wickedness that had birthed
the world, Riley knew that He had many hands. God was omniscient and
omnipresent and had a finger in every pie.
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