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From: Andrew Roller <roller666@earthlink.net>
Subject: Sexy Souls part 1 of 2 (NND)
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Author’s Note:
Normally, I write sex stories. The story you are opening now
has the following history:
First, I wrote “Punished for Pleasure”.
Then I wrote “Enslaved to Eros”.
Then, doubtless in a politically incorrect move, I wrote
“Bikini Brigade”. It wasn’t a sex story, and neither is this one.
This is my newest story. You can read the previous stories,
listed above, to get a completely clear picture of what is going on in
this story. (Particularly “Bikini Brigade”.) But you don’t have to.
The story “Sexy Souls” is designed to ‘stand alone,’ but also to be a
direct sequel to “Bikini Brigade”.
At the moment, “Sexy Souls” is still a ‘wide-open’ story. I
myself am not sure what is going to happen next. What trouble would you
expect two ‘little girls’ to get into? And what is the purpose of the
dwarf? Obviously he must have been brought to life for some reason. I
pictured him originally as trying to find the girls, but the girls have
found trouble quite well on their own, without him having to bring it to
them.
If you want to read an ancillary story, there’s also “Gold
Diggers”. This takes place tangentially within what I’m calling “The
Bambi Universe”. Bambi is the narrator of these stories. (Actually,
“Gold Diggers” is a story within a story, published in a magazine in
“The Bambi Universe”.)
Also, if you want to see the chain letter Bambi was writing,
read “a love wish”. It was originally written by someone else
(presumably a girl) under the title: Eileen.txt I liked that letter so
much that I began writing this story, “Sexy Souls”. THANKS to whoever
sent it to me!
See the bottom of this document for information on where you
can read all these posts and stories I’ve mentioned.
Please e-mail me if you have any suggestions as to the
following:
a. Why has the dwarf been brought to life?
b. What trouble will the girls get into?
c. Except for the stated plot, are there any other main plots, or sub
plots?
Soon I will hopefully have the above questions worked out for
myself, but this is your chance to influence this story. I’ll try to
use your idea(s) if I can, that is, if they fit within the context of
the story. (That’s not really up to me, by the way, it’s a ‘natural
thing,’ the ideas will either seem to fit or not, so don’t be offended
if your idea isn’t used. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good idea.)
send e-mail to: roller666@earthlink.net
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Andrew Roller Presents
NAUGHTY NAKED DREAMGIRLS
in
SEXY SOULS
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Chapter One
I was sitting at my computer when Katie came dashing into my
bedroom. She had eyes as big as saucers. Her blonde hair was tangled
from running down the street.
“You’ll never b’lieve what I saw!” Katie blurted to me.
“Hmmm?” I asked. I glanced at her, then stared again at my
computer screen. I was writing a chain letter.
“Roses are REd and violets are bLue,
“If you don’t send this letter bad things will happen to U,”
I typed.
“I saw a man!” Katie yelled.
“Good for you,” I answered.
“He came up out of a manhole!” Katie told me.
“Mmmm?” I asked. We didn’t have school today, and I was
totally into what I was doing. Why couldn’t Katie go tell somebody else
about her man and his hole? “Katie, I am your best friend,” I told
her. “But that doesn’t mean you should just let yourself into my house
whenever you feel like--”
“And he had a tail!” Katie shouted.
I forgot about my chain letter.
“What do you mean he had a tail?” I asked Katie. “The next
thing you know, you’ll tell me he had red suspenders too.”
Katie thought a moment. “But he DID have red suspenders on!”
Katie said.
“Katie, April Fools was awhile ago,” I said.
“No! I’m not just making this up,” Katie insisted. “I was
walking home from school-- didn’t you have any school today?” Katie
asked. She looked at what I was writing on my computer screen.
“It was Staff Day, Katie,” I said.
“Oh, too bad we didn’t have Staff Day at my school,” Katie
said. “Anyways, I saw a man, and he looked like that guy you see on
T.V. who sells used tires.”
“Demon Dan’s Used Tire Emporium?” I asked.
“That’s it!” Katie said. She pointed at me. “Except this guy
wasn’t on T.V. He came up out of a manhole!”
“So what am I supposed to do about it?” I asked Katie. We’d
moved recently, letting me live a lot closer to Katie. Now I wondered
if it was such a great idea. It sounded like she lived in a strange
neighborhood.
“Let’s go look at the manhole!” Katie said.
I thought for a moment. When you’re 13, and your best friend
is 12, going to look at a manhole doesn’t sound so ridiculous.
“Okay,” I said. I got up from my computer and together we went
outside.
The man walked along the street. He passed under a maple
tree. It was big and old and gnarled, and stood in front of a church.
The church was old. It had been built over 100 years ago, entirely from
stone. Along its walls, in decorative relief, were carved pictures.
There were scenes from Heaven, and from Hell. Angels of stone escorted
the saved to the former place. Devils took the damned to the latter.
There were also, perched along the walls of the church, statues of
stone. Some were saints. Others were less noble, gargoyles with pig’s
faces and dog’s paws, sporting bat’s wings. The man stopped under one
of these gargoyles and looked up at it.
“Barnabas, come down from that church,” the man with the
sunglasses said. He was tall. The sun glinted off the dark glasses he
wore, glowing red as it sank low over the rooftops of the town.
“Master,” a hoarse voice croaked from the bat-like figure of
stone.
The eyes of a stain rolled in his head. He watched as the
gargoyle leapt down from his perch on the wall of the church. The saint
tried to move, but he had not been called. Valiantly he held aloft,
sharp and unmoving in the sunset, his cross, as he had for so many years
now. Perhaps, he prayed, it would be enough. Then again, perhaps it
would only be a vanity. On the ground below him the gargoyle, called
forth to life by supernatural power, crouched obediently before the tall
man with the sunglasses.
“Master,” the gargoyle croaked again. It stood on its
chalky-grey, suddenly limber hind legs of stone and looked with awed
respect at the knees of the figure that had called it. Its eyes rose up
to the man’s face. He looked down at the creature.
“Yes, Barnabas, it is I,” the man said. “I am going to give
you a human form. You won’t be particularly tall, but you will move
without notice through the people of this earth, able to work my will.”
“Oh, yes! Master!” the gargoyle said. Its hot breath flowed
from its chest and it was surprised to find itself breathing.
Above, the saint sculpted in stone found that the supernatural
power was ebbing. It had liberated the gargoyle. As a side effect,
being cast along the wall of the building, it had permitted the saint to
move his eyes. But now he felt his eyes grow sluggish. Quickly he
lifted his gaze. If he was slow, he would stare down at the sidewalk
for a very long time. He gazed at the sun-drenched roofs of the houses
that stretched for miles around the church. He tried lifting his eyes
higher, but found he could not. He felt the life-force that had flitted
within his eyes die. He stared, the sun stared back at him, and the
movement he had been capable of died away. Down below him, on the
street, a small man dressed in only a shirt stood before a tall man with
sunglasses.
“There, it is done,” the tall man said with a wave of his hand.
“Master, I have no pants,” the small dwarf-like figure said.
He was flesh-colored now, and his dog-paws were hands and feet. His
wings were gone. His pig’s ears and snout were gone. But he still wore
the medieval shirt he’d worn as a gargoyle, perched on the side of the
church.
“Ah, yes. That I cannot fix,” the man with the sunglasses
said. He reached down and picked up the dwarf. He couldn’t help but
look at the small man’s penis as he hefted him aloft.
“Master, couldn’t you make me bigger?” the dwarf croaked.
“It is beyond my power,” the man with the sunglasses said. “He
fights me every step of the way, you know.” The man with the sunglasses
glanced skyward.
“Ah, yes, Master,” the dwarf agreed. The man with the
sunglasses perched the dwarf on a bough of the old maple tree.
“Wait here,” the man with the sunglasses said. “I shall return
with a pair of pants for you. I have to go to a clothier’s and buy
them. Then I’ll give you some money to rent a flat. You can begin to
work my will here, among these people.”
“Yes, master!” the dwarf said gleefully.
The man with the sunglasses walked away. The dwarf climbed to
a higher branch in the tree, and hid among its leaves. A pigeon landed
on the cross of the saint carved in stone on the wall of the church.
The saint could do nothing. He could not even move his eyes, anymore.
He held aloft his stone cross as the pigeon went to the bathroom on it.
It was evening. I sat with Katie in the library.
“Here, this is what he looked like,” Katie said. She pointed
at a figure in a book. We’d been to the manhole but, like most
manholes, it had just stared up at us from the street. We’d tried
lifting it. But it had been too heavy.
“That’s Satan, Katie,” I said. Together we stared at a tall,
dapper man. He had a pointed chin and sharp ears. Horns stuck out of
his head, small and sharp. He had goat’s legs and he held a pitchfork.
I heard someone talking behind us, beyond the wall of
bookshelves that separated our table from the next. I didn’t pay
attention. Instead I stared at the book Katie was holding, mesmerized.
“That’s who I saw come up out of the manhole,” Katie told me in
a low, serious voice.
“Really?” I asked.
“Weally,” Katie said. She sounded scared.
“You really think you saw the Devil today, don’t you?” I asked
her.
“Yes, but it wasn’t the guy who sells used tires on T.V.,”
Katie assured me. “Anyways, he’s fat. This guy was very skinny, and
tall.”
“Did he look like a goat?” I asked her, staring at the picture.
“No,” Katie said. “He had nice clothes on. Very nice
clothes. Business clothes, well-tailored.”
“And I want you to find someone for me,” the voice, soft and
insinuating in tone, said behind us, on the other side of the books.
“Yes?” I heard a small voice croak in reply.
“She has a name,” the voice said. “Let me see. I have it
written here.”
“I wish people wouldn’t talk in the library,” I whispered to
Katie. “It’s rude.”
“Especially when we’re trying to do research on Satan,” Katie
agreed.
“Here it is,” the voice said. “Here’s her name. Pepperdine.
Katie Pepperdine.”
Katie gaped at me. I gaped at her.
“That’s me!” Katie said.
“My--” I paused. It seemed unwise to say anything. Even by
way of exclamation. Slowly I turned my head. I gazed through a hole in
the wall of books behind us. I saw a man, a tall-looking man, wearing
sunglasses, even though we were indoors and it was nighttime.
Katie found my hand under the table and gripped it. Her palm
felt sweaty. Together, almost still as stones, we stared behind us at
the figure who could be seen on the other side of the books.
“Find Katie Pepperdine,” the small, hoarse voice croaked. I
couldn’t see who it was. But I could see the man with the sunglasses.
They reflected the neon glow of the library’s overhead lights. The man
looked tall, though he was sitting down at the moment. He nodded,
smiled. He was sitting with somebody, but neither Katie or I could see
him.
Slowly I rose from my seat. I pulled Katie with me. We moved
away from the table we’d been sitting at. We left the book open. We
didn’t dare risk making a noise by closing it. It was big, and heavy.
We stole to the front of the library. Holding our breath, we went out
the front doors as fast as we could.
“C’mon, Katie!” I said, clutching at her hand. We ran as fast
as we could down the street.
We sat in my bedroom. Katie was afraid to go home.
“What do you do when Satan wants you?” Katie said to me. Her
eyes were even bigger than when she’d first dashed into my bedroom that
afternoon.
“You, um, say ‘no,’” I answered. “Like, ‘say no to drugs.’”
“I wonder if that will work?” Katie asked me.
“I don’t think I’d want to stand around and try it,” I replied.
“Me neither,” Katie agreed.
“This reminds me of when we were in Candyland,” I told Katie.
“Yes,” Katie said. “That seems so long ago now. Oh, I wish I
knew what to do! We are the Bikini Brigade, but we aren’t in Candyland
anymore.”
“I know,” I agreed.
“We don’t have our flying lollipops or our magical guns that
shoot marshmallow goop. And Pauline Praline isn’t with us anymore,
either,” Katie said.
“Why would Satan want you?” I asked Katie.
“I dunno,” Katie said.
“Did you steal any more Gummi Bears from the 7/11?” I asked
her.
“No,” Katie said in a hushed voice. “I got a free game off the
video game at Lazer Land, though,” Katie said. “By kicking the
machine.”
“I don’t think that would make Satan come after you, do you?” I
asked.
“I hope not, or Molly McCoy is going to have Satan coming after
her too,” Katie told me. “She’s the one who taught me to kick the
machine.”
“It’s sort of silly to call the police,” I said.
“I don’t think 911 would understand about a man coming up
through a man hole, and having a tail, and being Satan,” Katie said.
“Let’s go to a priest!” I said. “I’ll bet there’s one in that
big Catholic Church near the 7/11.”
“Yes! He’s supposed to know all about Satan!” Katie agreed.
“Let’s go right now!” I told her.
“My fellow Christians,” the priest intoned, sitting in his
office, reading from a typewritten sheet of paper. There was a knock at
the door. He looked up. “Yes? Who is it, at this hour?” he asked.
“It’s me! Katie Pepperdine,” Katie said. The door to the
priest’s office stood open, but we felt we should knock anyway.
“Come in, my child,” the priest said. We stepped into his
office. The church was dark and quiet. I felt it was luck that we had
managed to get in the front door. Or something. Perhaps our prayer
that we said on the way over here, to Jesus?
“Oh, I was just about to lock up and leave. How lucky it is
that I caught you,” the priest said. We didn’t know him, but he nodded
solicitously to us, as if we were old friends. “How may I help you, my
children?” he asked, seeing that there were two of us.
“I saw Satan today!” Katie blurted. The priest gazed at her.
“Satan is an attempt by man to personify evil, little girl,”
the priest said. He smiled at Katie, then at me. “Is there anything
else I can help you children with?” he asked.
“Satan’s after me!” Katie said in a loud voice. Then we both
looked quickly around, at the priest’s open door, at the darkness of the
unlit interior of the church beyond. We moved closer to the priest.
His big desk separated us from him but we stood as close to the front of
his desk as we could. “He’s chasing me,” Katie said, her voice soft.
The priest laughed. “Satan is, I’m afraid, chasing all of us,”
the priest said. “‘For instance, little girl, have you done your
homework tonight?” the priest asked.
“No,” Katie said.
“You see? Here you are, visiting with me, and I do appreciate
it, but you have homework that needs to be done. That’s Satan at work,
my child, inducing you to be lazy.” He lifted up his paper. “Look at
me. I have to attend a Convocation of Priests in the morning and should
have written my speech a long time ago. But I delayed. Now I’ve got to
cram and try to get it all finished tonight. Indolence, my child!
That’s the enemy of modern man. He has too many modern conveniences,
and it induces him to want to do less and less. Why, I remember when I
was in World War Two, on Guadalcanal. We fought from sunup to sundown,
with not a complaint from any of us. Have you ever been to Guadalcanal,
my child?” the priest asked.
“No,” Katie said.
It was late when we got out of the priest’s office. The moon
was riding high and cold in the clouds above us. I crossed my arms over
my blouse. We hadn’t worn our jackets and I regretted it now.
“I’m chilly,” Katie whispered to me.
“Me too,” I said.
“I know all about the Canal but I still don’t know what to do
about Satan,” Katie told me.
“Me neither,” I said.
“You’ve got to dig up Mr. O’Flannery,” a voice said from some
bushes.
“Yeep!” Katie cried. She jumped down off the sidewalk. I
turned. There was a man standing close beside a bush, with a tall stone
pillar at his back. A rusted gate hung off the pillar. A shadow from a
nearby tree drowned the man in darkness. The light of the moon shone on
myself and Katie.
“Who are you?” I said in a frightened voice to the man.
“That hardly matters,” the man said. He was shabbily dressed.
He lifted a paperbag to his mouth and, gripping it tightly, he drank
from it. I let my eyes dart to the rusted gate, and realized, with a
shiver that we were next to the old church’s graveyard. The man was
standing with a shovel. He leaned its handle toward me. He seemed to
want me to take it from him.
Katie crept up to where I was standing on the sidewalk. I
realized that we were alone, behind the church, with this homeless bum.
I wondered what we should do.
“Go into the graveyard,” the man standing by the gate said.
“Dig up Mr. O’Flannery and take him down to the river. Toss him in.
But whatever you do, don’t answer him if he speaks to you. Because, if
you do, instead of sending Satan back to Hell, you’ll send yourself
there instead.”
“You’re a homeless bum,” Katie said in a frank, high-pitched
voice.
“I’m dead,” the man answered.
An adult would have had the good sense to faint, or something,
but Katie and I just stood and stared. The man peered out from the
shadows at us but, with one hand on his bottle of liquor, his other hand
offering us the handle of the shovel, he seemed strangely helpful, or at
least too absorbed with his liquor to do us any harm. He took another
drink. He shivered, sighed. He took another. “God, that’s good,” he
remarked.
“You’re a wino, too,” Katie told the man. She took my hand and
held it tightly. Together we stared at him.
“I’m a wino and a slosh and a dead gravedigger,” the man said.
“Murdered on the job, no less, by Andrew Cunnanan. Perhaps you read
about it in the papers?” the man asked.
“No,” Katie said. “I only read the comics in the papers.”
“Well,” the man said. He took another drink from his paper
bag. “That’s my problem, what happened to me. Perhaps it was a good
thing. It got me a ticket to Purgatory, instead of to Hell, where I was
probably headed, knowing the life I’d led. Now I’ve been sent back. I
get a free bottle of liquor out of the deal,” the man said. He lifted
the bag and showed it to us. “You get this shovel,” the man said. He
offered us the handle again, leaning it out toward us. “Take it. Go
into the graveyard and find the grave marked O’Flannery. 1898-1968.
Dig the old boy up. I’ll help if you like. Or I can just enjoy my
liquor. It’s up to you. He’s six feet down, but I’m no slouch if it
comes to digging.” He swore. “Damn, I was hoping not to offer my
services. That’s what happens when you’re on a mission from God. You
wind up offering to do things you’d never normally do. Like helping
people. Though you are rather pretty, miss.” He looked at me. “You
too.”
“Thanks,” I said. “We’re not really interested in your
proposal, though,” I told him.
“Do you always try to get dates with girls by offering to help
them dig up corpses?” Katie asked the man.
“Really, I’m not trying to bother you,” the man said. “Satan’s
not after me. He’s after you.”
I felt Katie squeeze my hand very tightly. It was warm in the
cold night air. I shivered. I think I felt her shiver too.
“Oh, why do I have to dig up a corpse?” Katie blurted. She
said it with a kind of sob, and when I looked at her, I saw tears in her
eyes.
“Because Persephone has divorced Satan,” the man said.
“Huh?” I asked.
“Who?” Katie asked.
“We really should get digging, but I suppose a quick
explanation is in order,” the man said. Then, belying his statement, he
paused and took a long draught from his paper bag. When he finally put
his hand back down, he smacked his lips. “You see,” he said.
“Persephone and Satan had a spat. I have no idea what about. But the
upshot of it is, she’s ‘divorced’ Satan. She can’t really divorce him,
of course, she’s his wife for eternity. But try telling that to Satan.
So he’s come up to earth to find a new wife. Namely, you.”
“Me?” Katie said. “But I’m only 12!”
The man smiled. “Yes, and he’s Satan,” the man replied.
“He shouldn’t like little girls like me,” Katie said.
“Oh, look who’s talking, I said. You like Nick, don’t you?
And he likes you. How old is he?”
“He’s 27,” Katie said.
“See?” I told her.
“But Satan is like, one million!” Katie said.
“Yep,” the man with the paper bag said. He took another long
swig from his bottle. “I have to go back to purgatory when the bottle’s
empty,” the man said. “So hurry up and make up your minds.”
“How-- how can we send Satan back to Hell?” Katie blurted.
“Without me.”
“I told you. By digging up Mr. O’Flannery,” the man said.
“Dig him up and take him down to the river and throw him in.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Yes. We don’t want to be carrying around a corpse,” Katie
said. “I don’t even carry a purse, because it might get in the way if I
want to play!”
“Me neither,” I said.
“In order to send Satan back to Hell, you must do an act of
extreme piety,” the man said. “Mr. O’Flannery wanted to be cremated at
his death, and thrown in the river. It’s not expected that you would go
to the trouble of burning him up, of course. You are just two girls.
If you throw him in the river, as was his wish, the fish will take care
of the rest.”
“But why me?” Katie said.
“Because your third cousin, Geoffrey Johnson, killed Mr.
O’Flannery, back in 1968,” the grave digger replied.
“But I wasn’t even born in 1968!” Katie said.
“Me neither!” I said.
“I know that,” the man said. He glanced into his paper bag.
“Look, this bottle is getting awfully low. I vanish the minute its
empty. Do you want me to dig down through six feet of earth for you,
and help you carry Mr. O’Flannery down to the river, and throw him in,
or do you want to do it yourself?”
“Oook! I dunno,” Katie said. She put a finger to her mouth.
“All I know is, I’ve never heard of anybody named Johnson.”
“Neither has your mother,” the man agreed. “Nonetheless, he is
one of your relations, and he killed Mr. O’Flannery. You might say that
this has put a curse on your family. It wasn’t really important to you,
of course. You haven’t been having any bad luck lately, have you?” the
man asked.
“No, except that Satan’s after me,” Katie said.
“That’s entirely a different matter,” the man said. “The point
is, your family has a curse on it, so that dictates what the act of
extreme piety is that you must perform to allow God to be convinced of
your holiness and to send Satan back to Hell.”
“So if I do something really holy, God will, like, do a favor
for me?” Katie asked.
“Yes,” the man said. “He’ll send Satan back to Hell.”
“Will he give me a million dollars?” Katie asked.
“No,” the man said. “Go play the Monopoly game at McDonalds if
you want a million dollars. What God will do for you, for your extreme
act of piety, is he’ll send Satan back to Hell. Period. That’s it.
That’s the deal. And I’ll help you, taking the curse off your family in
the process, by digging up Mr. O’Flannery and helping you carry him down
to the river so he can be buried as he wished.
“Why didn’t his relatives bury him in the river like they were
supposed to?” Katie asked.
“Because he died suddenly, and only he, Mr. O’Flannery, knew
that he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes spread in the river.”
The man took a small, slow sip from his paper bag. He had to tilt the
bag up high and I could see that it was almost empty.
“Don’t dwink any more of that!” Katie yelled, her eyes wide.
The man took the paper bag from his lips.
“That’s what happens when you don’t make a Will,” the man
said. “Which is why just throwing him in the river will be good enough
for God.”
“Give me that bag,” Katie said.
“It’s mine,” the man said. Katie reached out and took it from
him. “You can have it back later,” Katie said. She pointed toward the
rusty gate. “Get in there and start digging.”
“Katie,” I said. “How do we even know this guy’s telling the
truth?”
“He can get digging, whether he’s telling the truth or not,”
Katie said. She kept her finger pointed at the gate.
“A woman who takes command. I like that,” the man said. He
lifted his shovel and, with a quick glance at the bag Katie was holding,
headed over to the gate. It was already hanging open. He pushed on it
and it squeaked and eased inward, into the grave yard.
“Why does Satan want to marry Katie?” I asked the man. He
lifted his free hand, as if to take another drink, then remembered that
Katie was holding the bag with his bottle in it.
“Because Katie is going to play Mary in the Christmas play at
this church next Christmas,” the man said.
“I am?!” Katie asked. “My mom and me don’t even go to church.
Except sometimes on Easter, and Christmas,” Katie said.
“Exactly,” the man said. “And next Christmas, that priest who
was so little help to you girls tonight, will say to himself, ‘Who
should play Mary in our Christmas play?’ And then he’ll say, ‘How about
that little girl who came by to see me one night? What was her name?
That girl, who so sweetly listened while I told her all about
Guadalcanal, and who was so worried about Satan! She must be a very
moral little girl-- the perfect girl to play Mary!’ And then he’ll look
out into the congregation, and there you’ll be, sitting with your
mother, because it will be one of those Sundays that your mother
happened to take you to church.”
“How do you know all this?” Katie asked, hurrying along behind
the man as he led us into the grave yard.
“A half-angel like me, doing time in purgatory, can see a
little bit into the future,” the man said. “And they told it to me on
the way down,” he added.
“So, why would Satan care who plays Mary?” I asked.
The man turned. We were standing amidst creepy looking old
graves. The moon, high overhead before, had begun to sink into the
western sky.
“Mary? The mother of God?” the man said. “Who do you think
he’d want for his wife?”
“A stripper!” Katie said.
“What good is corrupting a stripper?” the man asked. He looked
down at Katie and smiled. “No, Katie. Satan enjoys strippers, but he
would never marry one. Its a pure, wholesome little girl like you he
wants, a girl who a priest already has in the back of his mind to play
Mary, the Mother of God, in the Christmas play!”
“Yikes!” Katie said.
“This is beginning to make sense,” I said, standing with a man
who was admittedly dead, in a grave yard, who was asking us if we needed
help unburying a corpse. I looked at the man. I looked at Katie. I
turned my gaze to the man again and said, “So Persephone gets mad at
Satan and tells him she’s divorcing him. And Satan, mad at Persephone,
says he’s going to get himself a new wife. So he picks Katie, because
she’s supposedly this very pure, wholesome little girl, who’s going to
play Mary in the Christmas play.”
“Supposedly?” Katie said. “Supposedly?”
“Katie, I know you,” I said. “Anyway, Katie, by doing an act
of extreme piety, can send Satan back to Hell. For her family, since
one of her relatives killed somebody, the act of extreme piety is to
help the person who was killed. By throwing him in the river, since
that was what he wished for as his final resting place?”
“Exactly,” the man said. “God, I sure am glad Satan didn’t
pick a 6-year-old for his wife. We’d be standing around here all
night!”
“Yes, well, I’m 12,” Katie said. “And you need to get
digging.”
“Could I have just one little drink please?” the man asked,
eyeing the bag Katie was holding.
“NO!” Katie said. “Get digging. Dig up that dude-- what’s his
name?”
“Mr. O’Flannery,” the man said. “You’re doing an act of
extreme piety, Katie. Try to be respectful of the dead. That includes
me, since I’m dead too.”
“You’re a fruitcake,” Katie said. Then she looked at the big
shovel the man was holding and added, “But handy with a shovel. Find
that O dude and dig him up!”
“Katie,” I said. I tugged on her arm. It was soft and cold.
We were both inadequately dressed, in just our blouses and jeans, given
the chill in the air. “Let’s just go home, Katie,” I said.
“I must do an act of extreme piety,” Katie told me.
“Katie!” I yelled. I felt quite nervous, standing here, even
if it was sort of all making sense, in a strange way. This grave yard
seemed the perfect place to get kidnapped by Satan or, frankly, anyone
else who came along.
“I’m Mary in the Christmas play,” Katie told me. “Try to show
some respect when you’re addressing me.”
We found the grave. We watched as the dead man with the shovel
began digging. It was rather odd, I thought, watching a dead man dig up
another dead man. But that’s the sort of life you have when Katie is
your best friend. Meanwhile, when she wasn’t supervising the man,
telling him how to dig and that he should dig faster, she was admiring
the back of the church. Already she could see herself inside it,
standing proudly in front of the altar, playing Mary in the Christmas
play, holding a real baby that was the baby Jesus.
About an hour after he started, the man struck wood.
“What’s that?” Katie asked, leaning over the big hole the man
had dug in the ground and peering down into it.
“It’s a coffin,” the man said. He wiped his brow.
“A coffin?!” Katie cried.
“Yes,” the man said. “We’re digging up a corpse.”
“What if Count Dracula’s in that coffin?” Katie asked, pointing
down into the hole.
“I already told you. It’s Mr. O’Flannery that’s in this
coffin,” the gravedigger, standing down in the hole, replied. He began
prying at the lid.
“Don’t open it!” Katie shrieked.
“I have to. I’m not carrying the whole damn box down to the
river,” the man said. “Anyway, the box is quite deteriorated. I’m sure
the maggots have already gotten in there and eaten what they want by
now.
“Maggots?!” Katie shouted.
“Good God!” I cried. A horrible odor came up from the hole as
the man pried back the lid.
“Hmmm,” the man said. “There’s a few things crawling around in
here.”
“EEEEEEEEEEEEK!” Katie screamed. She went running out of the
grave yard. The only person who yelled louder and ran faster was me.
“I told you-- it’s an act of extreme piety!” the grave digger
called after us. “They aren’t meant to be easy.”
“Dear God, please send Satan back to Hell, and get rid of that
damn corpse,” Katie, on her knees outside the grave yard, was praying
when the grave digger walked out and found us. I was kneeling in the
grass beside Katie.
“Katie,” the man said. “God knows you haven’t been praying to
Him on a regular basis. Doing it now, when you’re in a pinch, isn’t
going to make a very big impression.”
“Well, He’s supposed to answer my prayers!” Katie said. She
looked up at the grave digger. Her eyes were wide, and reflected the
moon.
“God isn’t a vending machine, Katie,” the grave digger
replied. “You don’t just stick a prayer in and get what you want. Now,
things might be different if you’d been praying regularly. But since
you don’t say grace at dinner, and don’t say your prayers at night when
you go to sleep, you don’t have any credit built up. Frankly, I think
you’re getting a pretty good deal here, with God laying everything out
that you’ve got to do, and sending me down to help you.”
I stood up. I looked at the man. He reached for the bag that
Katie had placed in the grass. I caught his arm. It felt very cold.
It had no pulse at all. I looked into his eyes and realized he wasn’t
breathing. Somehow, I managed to say, “Look. Let’s get that fucking
body and take it down to the river and toss him in. Okay? Then you can
have your bag, and we will insist that you finish your liquor and get
the Hell out of here,” I told him.
Katie was staring at me with big eyes. “Don’t say that word,”
Katie said.
“What word?” I asked her.
“Where Satan lives,” Katie said. “I don’t want to go there.”
“Where am I?” a voice cried. The grave digger spun around.
“It’s the corpse!” the grave digger cried. “C’mon!” He
hurried back into the grave yard but turned at the gate and said to us,
“Remember. Whatever you do, don’t answer the corpse if he speaks to
you.”
“Okay!” Katie said.
We walked up to the hole. It was six feet deep now. There was
a big pile of fresh earth beside it. I smelled dirt, wetness, and
something else. Flesh. But it was a very foul smell and I found myself
standing near the grave’s edge, with my fingers clamped tightly over my
nose. The grave digger turned and looked at me. He looked at Katie.
“Whatefer’s down there stinks weally bad!” Katie told the grave
digger bluntly, holding her nose tight with both hands.
“That would be Mr. O’Flannery,” the grave digger said.
“Well, DO something about it,” Katie insisted, still holding
her nose. The grave digger sighed. “You’re lucky I’m a half-angel, or
I’d stink too,” he told her. Then he lifted his eyes to heaven. He
raised his arms.
“Dear God, as we transport this dearly departed soul down to
his wished-for resting place, the Sticks River, I ask that you cause
your little helpers to be able to do their assigned task, without
smelling his sinful bodily odor.”
“Dammit! This is my best suit. And it’s all dirty!” a voice
said from deep within the hole.
Slowly I took my hands off my nose. Somehow, the awful smell
had abated. Katie’s hands popped of her face and she drew in a
tentative breath.
“It don’t smell so bad now,” Katie said.
“Good,” the grave digger said. “I can’t breathe, so I wouldn’t
know. Now let’s get Mr. O’Flannery down to the river, shall we? It
will be dawn in a few hours. This sort of task can’t be done under the
light of the sun. And I will be whisked back to purgatory, regardless
of whether or not I’ve finished my liquor.” He looked wistfully at the
paper bag I was holding. Then he turned. He climbed down into the
grave.
“Ouch!” an unfamiliar voice cried as the grave digger
disappeared into the hole.
I waited for our half-angel to say something in reply, but he
said nothing. Then I remembered what he’d told us: “Don’t answer it if
it speaks.”
Katie walked up to the edge of the hole. A head popped up.
Its eyes were open wide and it stared up at us.
“Look at me! I’m late for the Conference on Stopping the War,
and my suit’s all dirty!” the face exclaimed to us. Despite having
wide-open eyes, the head seemed rather listless. The grave digger,
standing down in the grave, pushed the body the head was attached to up
out of the grave and let it fall in the grass near our feet. Then, as
Katie and I stared at the corpse with the wildly moving eyes, the grave
digger climbed up out of the hole in the earth.
“I’m late. Late!” the body cried to us. “For a very important
date.”
“Shut up. You’re s’posed to be dead,” Katie said to the man
lying in his best business suit in the grass.
“AUCHGHGHGH!” the grave digger, half in the grave and half out
of the grave, cried in a loud voice. He trembled. He shook. He raised
his arms quickly to Heaven as he screamed, and then he tumbled back down
into the grave. I felt a deep shudder pass through my body.
I looked at Katie. She looked at me. We were still standing
in the grave yard, and the corpse was still lying at our feet. Slowly,
up out of the hole came the grave digger.
“Do NOT answer the corpse if it speaks to you,” the grave
digger shouted at Katie. “He is going to the land of the Dead, and
unless you want to accompany him, you’ll say not another word!”
Katie put her hands to her face. Tears sprang to her eyes.
She looked down at the dead man lying at her feet. He looked up at
her. Slowly, a maggot emerged from his mouth.
“EEEEEEK!” Katie cried, through her hands.
“I’m to address the Students Against the War,” the corpse
implored Katie.
The grave digger, standing now at the man’s head, the soft
grass under his feet, the hole beside him, bent over. He seized the
man’s shoulders, gently, and lifted him.
“Stop the War,” the man murmured.
Steeling myself, seeing what was required, I picked up one of
the man’s feet. I motioned to Katie to pick up his other foot.
Slowly, we carried the dead corpse out of the grave yard. We
walked past the rusted, half-open gate. We crossed the street. We
walked up another street, staying out of the lamp lights that shone on
the side walk there. We passed in front of people’s homes. I wondered
if they had any inkling that a man who had died in 1968 was being
carried past.
“Stop the War!” the man we were carrying hollared. I wanted to
tell him to shut up, but couldn’t. His voice echoed up and down the
empty street. The moon raced quickly down the western sky toward
moonset, no more than an hour away. I looked to the east. Was it
growing brighter there? I hoped not. I looked at the grave digger and
wanted to ask him, “How long ‘til dawn? How long?!” but I dared not. I
looked at Katie, holding the corpse’s other foot. Her big eyes looked
back at me. There was a wiggle to the man’s feet, as if he was trying
to break free of my grasp. I held on tightly. Katie almost dropped his
foot when it wiggled, but somehow managed to keep her hands around it.
I smelled the river. We were getting close to it now. Only
another block or so remained. I walked faster, as did the others. The
corpse lifted his head and looked intently at Katie. I shivered.
“I remember you,” the corpse said to her.
‘Good God!’ I thought. How could this man remember Katie? He
and she were never alive on the earth at the same time! She was born
long after 1968, as was I.
“You were in the 1967 Christmas play,” the man said to Katie.
“Yes, I remember you. You did very well, young lady! But why is my
suit so dirty? Did I fall down into that hole?”
I looked at Katie. With my staring eyes, I implored her not to
answer the corpse. She understood, said nothing.
“Very well indeed!” the corpse said to Katie. “All of you, and
your little friends, did very well. Hmmmm,” the corpse said. “I’m
trying to remember what part it is, exactly, that you played. Was it
one of the Wise Men? No, only boys could play Wise Men. Were you one
of the shepherds, little girl? No, only a boy could be a shepherd. Ah,
yes! I know. You girls, the ones who couldn’t be Mary, you played the
various Angels, and the animals too.”
I felt the corpse jerk. I darted my eyes at Katie. She had
practically dropped the man’s foot, when he spoke of the animals.
‘Don’t pay any attention,’ I wanted to say to Katie, but I kept my lips
tightly shut. I looked frantically at the grave digger. Couldn’t he
shut up this damn corpse? Then, staring up at his tall, moving figure,
I remembered that he was dead too, and said nothing.
“Now, which animal did you play, little girl?” the corpse asked
Katie. “Was it the cow?” He looked at Katie, expecting an answer. She
didn’t say anything. We passed by a warehouse. I turned my head and
saw the glint of the river, moving swiftly in the dark night. “Was it
the camel?” the corpse asked Katie. “Oh, now I remember!” the corpse
said triumphantly. He grinned at his power of recall. “Now I
remember! I remember your blonde hair, yes. You played the ass!”
“The ass?!” Katie shouted.
There was a clap of thunder. I tried to hold on to the foot of
the man I was carrying, but it slipped from my fingers. I felt a whirl
of air all around me. And as the thunderclap ringing in my ears
subsided, I found myself in a deep, dark place, with a cavernous roof
over head and fires burning for miles into the distance.
I stared into the blackness all around me, illuminated only by
flames. I became aware that I was standing all alone, amidst some large
rocks, except for a small, white figure, standing beside me. I turned.
I found myself staring at Katie’s big eyes. I felt a shudder of fear
run through me. I felt a deep sense of forboding. I looked for the
corpse. He was nowhere to be seen. I looked for the grave digger. He
was not here, and here was not where we’d been. It was not anyplace I’d
ever been. Long, rock walls stretched for miles above us, to our
right. To the left, I saw vast plains, stretching for rocky mile after
rocky mile, finally lost amidst ever-richer fires.
“Thanks, Katie,” I said. I looked again at her, standing small
and big-eyed beside me.
“No pwoblem,” Katie said in reply, in a hushed voice.
30
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