Consecration of the Beast- Reedsy version.
Part 1
“And now, let us pray….” With those words and Father Warren Larson’s upraised hands, the gathered faithful and not-so-much or those putting on a show for the gossips closed their eyes and dropped their heads. He began the familiar liturgy from the time before he came to the Church of the Lord here in Hugo. He spoke the words that could mean something more than simple comfort to those that needed it worse than him. The widowed, the infirmed sick, the nearly-homeless. Not for him, though. He needed his pain. His wound to remain open like a child’s scabbed cut that had been picked at over and over. Needing to feel the familiar stinging.
“Amen.”
“Amen.” came the normal relieved reply. He put the bible aside and began reading from the bulletin that usually came with the flier from the church, but he knew the flock would remember it more coming from him. That’s the popular opinion of the Sunday school ladies, anyway. The congregation found that they cooked up wonderful crockpot meals after church, so he didn’t think it was wise to stir their wrath, even when they kept asking when he was going to reconsider marriage. His eyes found the “Men’s hunting trip weekend” in a couple of weeks. Pausing, he checked the location. Duly noted. He read it all verbatim, folded up the bulletin flyer and reminded everyone of the delicious lunch/supper that would be ready shortly. Come, he said, join our community. He smiled wide, opened his arms to invite hugs. He began that practice after getting the suggestion from a convocation of pastors in the area. It seemed more friendly, more warm than just greeting the gathered at the door.
The warmth of the grateful flock pressed against him, hands pressed together and shook rapidly from those that refused bodily contact, showing intimacy in their limited way. Father Larson grinned and nodded at the hand-givers. Taking note of the heart rate, blood flow, perspiration. The animal in him began to feel re-awakened from the core temperatures, the sound of blood flowing in hidden veins, arteries. The red-brown-pink skin of his trusting faithful open for the taking if he decided to take advantage. For now, not a good idea. For now, the carb-heavy potluck meals in the kitchen and dining area would suffice until the following week. Monday evening after sundown, becoming what, to him, was now his normal self. The weather outside turned cold, but it didn’t bother Father Larson any. Not since the change.
“Chicken roast is ready, Father!” Bernice Sanderson shouted from the doorway leading to the dining room. Her heavy-set body leaning out of the doorframe, one hand holding a wooden spoon that was probably handed down from her…distant mother’s hand. “Your hungry flock is ready for grace!” she shouted musically. Those in question filed past her chatting, laughing loudly with each other. She was joking, but serious. A mix that worked well for this town, this crowd. “Coming, sister!” He decided this was another issue that will have to wait. Tonight would be perfect. He plotted his moves as he made his way toward Bernice’s motioning hand and spoon as if he were a child being chastised. Big grin on his face, he kept the charade going, raising his hands to quiet everyone while he sat with everyone. He led them all in a prayer, with their heads down, the backs of their necks exposed. That would be all it would take. “....and protect us from the wildness of the world and the hungry beasts that attempt to lead us astray. Amen.”
“Amen”. They all repeated. Like sheep obeying their shepherd. Without commenting, he dove into the chicken, devouring it ravenously. “Preaching sure gives one an appetite, huh, Father?” Darrin Colfax said to him on his right, slurping up the soup and bread, keeping eye contact with Warren. He hadn’t even noticed the new town arrival sitting next to him all of this short time. Odd. With his enhanced senses, he should have known there was a warm-blooded body next to him. Again, he mentally reminded himself that he was surrounded by those today, clamoring for his attention and time.
“Yes, it actually does.” He replied, a mouthful of the slowly roasted meat still being processed. The flesh burning through his metabolism.
“My bad.” Darrin laughed.
“No, no. It’s alright. How are you, brother? Are you adjusting to our town and its ways? To our little community here?”
Darrin nodded. He wasn’t eating at the moment. Just returning the gaze as if thinking of a reply. This was an oddly long time to be thinking of a simple reply. “I’m doing well. A job opened at the oil field supply warehouse, so I’m set there.”
“Very good. I’m glad to know that.” Warren nodded, continuing to eat between sentences. Conversations, remembrances and jokes as well as childrens’ arguments continued around this odd encounter.
“Do you believe that there’s something out there in the world other than just us humans, Father?”
Warren stopped again in mid-bite. The deer caught in the sight of a charging wolf this time. “Pardon? I don’t quite understand.”
He waved a palm to him. “Father, I’m sorry. I’m interrupting your meal. I tend to be a curious fellow, according to my ex-wives.” He said, grinning, putting his spoon down and crossing his arms, leaning back. Normally, on Sunday after-service meals, the ladies of the church would pester him to make sure he had plenty to eat, and ask him to meet available women that they knew would be “perfect” for him. This time, it was just himself and Darrin. Odd again.
“No. Don’t apologize, brother. Is there any particular reason you’re asking me this? I’m very open-minded on many topics.” Good save, he thought to himself. He decided to continue to eat the remains of his chosen meal. It wasn’t the sermon and service that made him hungry. He had not changed into his animal self in more than a couple of weeks and that always made him ravenously hungry.
“I know that your wife met with an accident while hunting with you near here. My condolences.”
“Thank you, brother. It was quite a blow to me, but she knew the risks. She’s joined me on many hunts and this time we didn’t see the bear attack us from the side.” He motioned to the busy, aproned women still asking everyone gathered if they had enough yet and would they like more to take home and how are their children and would they be coming to Sunday school…etc.. “I know they’ve made it their job to be sure I am married again, but for now, I am simply getting over the shock. I pray often for guidance.” Warren had the rhetoric down pat by now. Satisfied with the deception, he finished off the bowl, he set the spoon down and wiped his mouth thoroughly but noticed that Darrin still sat staring at him. “Something wrong with the food, brother? Sister Bernice worked…”
“I know about work, Father. I know how much work it takes to continue a charade.” Though he had not eaten as much as Father Warren Larson or anyone else that ignored this odd conversation, he wiped his own mouth too, keeping eye contact, got up and left. “I hope that we can have more than a bite together in the future.” He nodded, slipped his hat on and left the bustling crowd, scrambling for more, filling red cups. The flannel shirt and faded jeans helped him blend into the background. He was just another faithful gathering his jacket, hat on and slipping out the door before the wind picked up and blew in. For some reason, it didn’t, though everyone knew the snow front was on its way. The men going to the hunting weekend were excited, talking over ammunition, what prey were seen in the area, who was riding with who. And so on. They knew better than to ask Father Larson after the tragic event of his wife’s death. So tragic.
There was no forgetting the beginning of this holy journey. Standing in a pool of his now-late wife’s blood and gore. One of its paws squeezing Warren’s throat, locked onto it, but not strangling the human, pulling him slightly off of his booted feet. Warren grabbed the hairy arm, feeling the rough, coarse hair. This was no soft-pelted domestic puppy. This was a killer, he thought. Before he could consider further the feel and power of this creature, it sank teeth into Warren’s shoulder. He cried out and struggled of course, expecting to be slaughtered, torn apart like he assumed happened to his other victims, but he only started losing blood. The big thing just lapped at his bites. Until Warren blacked out.
“Sorry to startle you, Father.” The words came from Darrin wearing a long, dark coat, old-timey hat, color close enough to match the coat and even the old door frame. Taller than Warren, and leaning against the open door, arms crossed and leg bent, very relaxed in a church. Warren had been lost in thought again today.
“Welcome back, Darrin. Can I help you with something?”
“Well, in a way, Father. I just wanted to know what brought you here to this town and this church in particular. And what you think of the sacrament.”
“Odd questions to finish up with, brother.” Warren laughed nervously. Another odd encounter from this man. Again, the hairs on his arm stood up when Darrin came close to Warren, passing by him to sit at the same table they did a short time ago. He motioned for Warren to join him.
“I just wonder why you chose to preach to this congregation and not in some big city like Tulsa or Dallas. You have a talent for hypnotizing everyone when you preach. Captivating them. Mesmerism, almost.”
“Do I have that effect on you, Darrin?”
“At first, yes.” Warren finally sat down next to him, intrigued where this line of questioning was going. “Then, I realized that the material is all the same, just the presenter is different.”
“What do you mean?”
“Any preacher can recite the gospel, give an extended commentary on it, talk about how we should do better to treat each other right, and so on. But for some reason, everyone gathered stares at you, as if you were….no, I’m not going to make that blasphemous comparison.” Darrin laughed, slapping his knee. “I’m definitely Christian, I’m not doubting that what you’re preaching is sincere, but there’s just something else about you that seems to make these people lose themselves to you. If you get what I’m meaning.”
Warren didn’t think that anyone else noticed what he had been in the months since his wife’s death. Since his “transformation”, he noticed people around him have seemed entranced by his words, even when he read the bulletin notices. The group hug at the end of the service was something completely new that they all started right after his wife’s funeral as well. Sympathy, sure, but it became a tradition, every week. They never did that with Barry, the former preacher here that groomed Warren to take over for him. “I’ve never considered that, brother. I guess that I just have one of those personalities.” He laughed softly, still a bit taken aback by this.
Darrin sat staring at him for a few more clicks of the wall clock, the sun’s rays changing angles through the dirty windows to illuminate them both. He grinned and shifted his legs around, crossing them. “I guess if you put it that way. There’s probably more to it, but no reason to pursue the matter. So for the next question, what do you think of the sacrament of the blood and bread? I know we don’t do that at this church anymore, but you do refer to it often in your sermons lately. Over the past…oh…few months.”
Warren sat back, not realizing his jaw had dropped. “I am….fascinated by the idea that….our Lord and Savior saves us through the symbolic sacrament of partaking of his blood and body in order to…”
“Do you know that according to Roman Catholic Church history, there were recorded instances where the bread and wine actually became flesh and blood? That must have been quite a shock to everyone. Or maybe most of the congregation, Father. So sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your train of thought.”
Something growled inside Warren then. It wasn’t his stomach due to the chicken that he had two helpings of.
Darrin found a leg with meat still hanging on its bone, the smell of chicken too tempting to pass up. He chewed on it with gusto, walking back to the table. Motioning to him with the chicken leg, “So do you think that Roman Catholics actually did eat flesh and blood? Carnivores for Christ?” Darrin snickered at his own remark before nodding his head between bites. “My bad, Father. I didn’t mean anything sacreligious.”
“No, brother Darrin, it’s quite alright. No offense intended, I’m sure.”
“There’s more in the fridge. A post Sacrament feast. Regarding your question, brother, I don’t believe in the literal transubstantiation of the Christ. Such things are just legends and myths. Not the church’s lie, some local folklore made up by parishioners in the old days to win over converts.”
“And…. What role does the bread and wine serve?”
“Christ showed us all that we are all his brothers and sisters, children of God.”
Darrin nodded, smiled as he swallowed the last piece from the exposed femur bone, making sure to pull off as much meat as possible, leaving little to go in the compost heap. “Father, I respect you a great deal, but I think you believe you’re holding back.” He nodded and wipe his mouth. “Thank you and the ladies of the church for that meal and that quick snack.” He got up, tossed the bare bone into the compost can, winked at the pastor and walked toward the door, but gave Father Warren a pat on the shoulder before leaving. “Talk to me, any time, Father.”
He paced the leaf covered forest floor, toes nudging some of them, some snails, insects. The time was right, he knew and so he began his ritual. Taking out the crucifix that Father Larson gave him on his first day, he recited…“In the name….of..the Father….the Son..and the…..uurgghgg….the Holy Ghost…Bless, preserve..and sanctify me, dear Lord in heaven….”
The stabbing in his abdomen began, folding him in half. His cry came loudly, face grimacing, teeth gritting even as they grew. It was then that his throat began to change so he couldn’t speak human words anymore. Teeth in his growing snout grew curved and large, ears forming out of the top of his head and he grew taller, arms and legs lengthening, hair sprouting all over where there was none. Even in his mind, he could only hear thoughts of the hunt, and his new snout could pick up smells of fellow animals that had been here recently and those in the distance, hearing and somehow knowing of his presence now. Running for their lives. As they and all creatures should. Warren bounded on all fours, running, leaping through the woods, howling and grunting, slobbering as he tracked a frightened fox, running for her life.
While he tore open his captured feast, he smelled and heard others around him. Warm, bright blood dripped from his jaws and face, flipped around from his head snapping around quickly. Sniffing and scanning the area, he found nothing. The meat at his paws was still fresh, so he dove back to it.
Let all who hear, fear.
The voices went silent. As they should.
He froze on the spot, standing upright on his hind legs. Ears twitching, moving around, checking for intruders that will likely soon join the remains of the fox.
Nothing.
He dropped back to all fours, sniffing the ground, pawing at the leaf covered damp ground, looking around at the dim light in the east. Dawn will be coming soon. Time to go back to camp and regress to Warren. He knew where a stream was, so he could bathe the blood off of him, in case someone was following him, daring to track him. And washing away any of his remaining scent as well.
Jumping into the clear water, he came back out as quickly, shaking himself dry and cleaner. He started to feel the Beast regressing, retreating to whatever hidden cave was inside Warren. Perhaps awakened in him from the bite, the offering given to him. Perhaps, perhaps. That annoying word circled his mind so often since he was changed, given the Holy Gift, trying to understand why this was happening. He grew tired of questioning it. And having Darrin question it as well.
The dark fur began to retreat as Warren walked upright now. He had to pause, sit down, bearing the agony of his legs snapping back the other way, forming human knees again, feet without claws as well. Panting, he staggered back on those feet toward the backpack he knew was here close by. With a change of clothes and shoes. These soft, pink feet would need those shoes soon, from the brambles, thorns, weeds stabbing them. It was then he heard an automobile door slam and drive away quickly. He knew from the direction that it wasn’t his jeep, thankfully. Perhaps the foolish visitors.
He pulled the backpack down off the branch, opened it and began dressing himself. The strong light of the morning sun struck Warren, driving away the remains of the Holy Beast from his body. These “get-aways” will be coming around more often.