'Til Death Do Us Part

Episode Three: Song of Songs

Her eyes burn; she can’t remember the last time she’s slept for more than a handful of minutes at a time. She’s been on the road for at least a week now, but she stopped counting after the third day. She doesn’t know where she’s going, but she has to find someplace far enough where no one will bother to look for her, and she needs to find it fast.

There’s plenty of room to sleep in the van, but every time she shuts her eyes, all she sees is that god-forsaken gas-mask, like she’s living that day all over again. He took her from the van once, he could do it again, and this time, she’s all alone. Neither her mind nor her body can take much more of this constant terror.

It’s been so long since she’s seen any signs that the beat up old handmade sign staked into the ground just off the side of the road draws her eyes like moths to a flame.

‘Valeside Autumn Festival, coming soon!’

The fine print of the sign says the festival is taking place in a small town called Sallowvale Creek, and that it begins later this month. She’s never heard of it before, but that also means that no one there has heard of her, and maybe, just maybe, someone there will have need of an extra pair of hands to help work the festival. At the very least, she might be able to grab a bed for the night.

She’s hesitant to pin all her hopes on the town just yet, but a little of the tension in her chest eases at the thought of finding somewhere new to give her life a fresh start—to start Judith’s life.

The town itself is small, more of a village, really. Between the farm, the blacksmith, and the old look of the buildings it could almost pass for an Amish village, were it not for the modern fashion the people are wearing…well, mostly modern. Judith notes that the fashion seems more suited to what adults from her childhood in the fifties wore than anything she’s seen people wearing as of late; of course, it’s been a while since she’s spent much time out of the city.

She isn’t surprised when people openly stare at her; she got a lot of rude stares for the grungey way she dresses back in the city; here and now, she’s got to look like death warmed over.

She certainly feels like it.

Maybe if she had been a little more cautious about sketchy looking strangers her bandmates would still be alive and she wouldn’t be starting life over again.

The staring may not bother her, but the headache she’s got brewing sure does; of course, that’s normal when you put on old glasses, isn’t it? Of course, a good night’s sleep would probably help, and she’s been drinking from the same old gallon jug of water for a week. Not a damn thing is right with her body right now; she’s in desperate need of help.

Unfortunately, she knows where her best shot of finding help is.

She spent the first eight years of her life in a small town—not quite as small as this, but the same logic applies—and she knows that The Church tends to have its fingers in every facet of life in little towns like these.

She’s never had much faith in god—her family ruined that for her—but she figures that the priest can probably point her toward a job; maybe even some place to live, if the town even is accepting new arrivals. Her hope sours at the thought; none of these buildings look particularly recent, and that worries her as far as living arrangements go.

Still, according to the bulletin board, the church is hosting its Sunday Service today, and if this church is anything like the one her Great-Grandfather ran with an iron fist, Sunday Service usually concludes with doughnuts.

It’s definitely been a while since she’s eaten.

Her fingers tremble when she reaches for the doorknob to let herself into the building. She’d like to tell herself that it’s just because her body is about ready to fail her, but in truth she can’t shake the memory of standing in front of her hometown’s church as a little girl, bracing herself to be punished for being late.

She’s not a little girl now though, and if anyone gets in her face about being late she can just leave.

She creeps in as silently as possible, and no one, save for the priest, spares her more than a passing glance as she files into an empty pew in the back to rest her aching body a while. It almost seems comical having so many pews in such a small town’s church, but it’s pretty clear this building has been around for a long time.

Her eyes seem to be fixated on the preacher; he speaks with all the flair and grandiose reserved only for men who love to hear themselves talk. It’s better than the harsh monotone of her childhood, for certain, but there’s still something about his voice that unsettles her. She can’t place her finger on it, but there’s something about him that doesn’t feel quite right.

Especially when his eyes linger on hers.

If there is anything wrong with him, it would appear that Judith is the only one aware of it; all the little old ladies sitting in the front pews look utterly enamored with him; not that anyone wants to admit to being hot for their preacher. That would hardly be virtuous.

Judith, however, has never been a particularly virtuous person herself, and the good Father doesn’t look half bad for an older gentleman. Still, she can’t shake the wrongness of him; the manic glee in his eyes as he delivers his sermon feels almost malicious, as though he’s more invested in his sway over the congregation than he is in the word of God.

She can’t help her ears heating up when her mind focuses in enough to recognize exactly what he’s preaching. Solomon’s Song of Songs drips from his lips, and she remembers being punished for balking at the lewdness of it when she was a child. However s****l the poem sounds on its own, it sounds downright pornographic the way he reads it in his soft southern drawl.

Once the Song of Songs draws to a close, the congregation falls in line to take communion, and Judith falls in with them. Her heart pounds the closer she gets to the altar, the ugliness of her childhood creeping up into her mind like black tendrils. When it’s her turn to accept communion, however, the look in the priest’s cold green eyes replaces the tendrils with a shock of ice down her spine.

There’s something about his gaze that practically strips her naked, rendering her bare before the congregation.

Something sick inside of her likes it, especially when the corner of his lip curls up when she drops to her knees on the velvet altar.

“Take this and drink from it,” he quotes. She nearly gags when he brings the cup to her face, but before she has a chance to recoil, she feels his fingers softly grip her jaw. “This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant.”

She’s practically forced to drink the wine, foggy memories of her childhood chased away by the indecency of his piercing gaze.

Never one to meekly surrender to a higher power, she decides that it’s her turn to be lewd, and she lolls her tongue out just a bit too far to be decent as she waits for him to press the wafer to her tongue.

He, however, takes his sweet time, gripping her jaw just a bit more tightly. Instead of simply pressing the wafer to her tongue and pulling away, the priest’s fingers linger in her mouth as he stares intensely down at her.

“Partake of the Body of Christ,” he all but growls. “And may his peace fill you with salvation.”

“Amen,” she forces out, barely above a whisper, when she remembers what’s expected of her.

Standing again feels like exiting whatever strange pocket dimension his attention had dragged her into, and she mentally puts her clothes back on as she makes a hasty escape back to her pew. She’s convinced she must have been imagining the tension between them; he’s a man of the cloth, it couldn’t have been more than a one sided perversion on her part. Her legs feel like jelly, but that could be from the sleep deprivation, right?