Judgement Day

The moon followed the car like a watchful eye. The towering pines acted as its eyelashes and the clouds flitting over it behaved as eyelids. There was no pupil in the night eye. It was unencumbered by the mechanisms with which to filter light because it was not concerned with light. It wished only to discern the darkness. I shuddered and shouldered off my jacket and then promptly put it back on. I was sweating and shivering, both, and filled with a chill so cold it burned. My memory had become unreliable and last night, like all the other nights, had become a blur. The dream appeared in still shots, superimposed over my every waking moment. I flinched at shadows and often cried out for no discernable reason at all. My already feeble grip on reality was waning. One day the visions would take over and I would be trapped in a waking sleep like some kind of zombie. I shuddered again and rolled down my window. The only way to get rid of the dreams would be to fulfill them. Their recurrence was a kind of prophecy to me and I was the prophet, or rather, disciple. The one to whom I now belonged was the prophet. I looked up, afraid of his scornful eye yet yearning for it.

The hill was winding and dangerous even in the summer months. That first night I had nearly gone over the edge and I was only slightly better at maneuvering. The eye in the sky acted as my northern star but suddenly the light of my cabin was filled with lesser blue and red lights. I looked behind me and saw a policeman closely tailing me on a motorcycle. I considered ignoring him but the road only led to one place and I couldn’t lead him there. I stopped and rolled down my window as the officer approached me. The patrolmen around here were particularly easy to manage as they were mostly young men more concerned with their badged and sunglassed reflection than stopping crime. My carefully honed gift of evasion was rarely needed as demonstrated by his complete disregard for my presented I.D. and registration. They were both fake but exquisitely made and irritation lit a fire in my chest. If he was going to waste my time he could at least make it interesting.

“I see you have Minnesota plates, are you lost?”

I looked at him, wanting to toy with him, but remembered that I had other, very important things to do. I settled on a no, sir.

“Where you headed? This here is a dead end road.”

I chucked to myself. A dead end road indeed.

“I’m…visiting family.”

He leaned into the window, his face as coarse and hairy as a boar’s hide and I tried not to recoil.

“As I said, this here is a dead end road.”

I wondered briefly, since he was so curious, if he would care to join me.

“My family, they’re country people. There’s a path just up here,” I pointed to nothing in particular, “that’ll take me right to them.”

He looked around and I could see him fighting to make a decision. He was a native, knew there was no path and certainly no family living at the end of it. His face tensed and then fell and I could see that he was lazy and not at all ambitious. He had inquired and as far as he was concerned he had done his job.

“You might not be from here but I’m sure you’ve seen the news. You be careful.”

With that he walked back to his bike not even stopping to check my plates. I smiled to myself. The previous fear had dissipated for the officer had offered a respite. Where other men were lazy I was industrious. When other men pulled back I bullishly pushed forward. I had been marked and for good reason. In my heart I felt pity for him and other men who were not up to snuff. I reveled in the thought of looking down on him as he made his rounds. I, a light made just for darkness. A loud thump from the rear of the car made me jump and I returned to the present.

“Help!” she screamed.

“Sorry darling, you just missed him.”

There was a path. I had cut through the dense underbrush to make it. It was risky having a marked place to enter but fighting through the dense bushes and trees took up too much valuable time. At the end of the path wasn’t a family home but a large circle. The circle has already been there, I just happened to stumble upon it some three or four weeks ago. I never tended to it but the edge of the circle remained definitive and within it nothing grew. The surrounding woods were completely dark and the moon bore down into the circle like a beam from a mothership. I closed my eyes and allowed the dream to come to me through my senses. It always started with a feeling of doom. It felt like a sinkhole boring down forever into nothingness with my toes hanging just over the precipice. The sense of doom filled me with fear and I began to labor emotionally. The oxygen escaped my lungs like air being discreetly let out of a balloon. Then came the ending which made the rest of the dream worth it. All the tension, fear, and terror from the preceding moments, from every preceding moment in my life up to now, was released. My body went slack and the absence of feeling was the absence of suffering. I was being judged, yes, but after the trial came the sweet salvation of rapture. My eyes shot open and I looked down at my sacrificial lamb. Therein lied my deliverance. I bent down to her neck and desperately grasped it. I closely watched her eyes trying to see if she was feeling what I had felt. It took a long time with her legs thrashing and body convulsing. I stood on my knees, straddling the body and panting from exertion. I looked up tentatively. The eye was closed. He was in contemplation. After a few minutes, the cloud receded and the circle was resubmerged into a pool of light. I was holding my breath as I watched the sky when movement at the edge of the wood caught my attention. I thought it perhaps a tender sapling bending in the wind but then it began to descend the small hill and I could see that it was a tall, slender man making his way towards me. Had he come to take me or get rid of me? The figure came closer and I tried to get a glimpse of his face but it was entirely shrouded in shadow even in the light. I tried to stand but found that I could not. In front of me, I clawed at his wool cape, his perfectly seamed and tailored pants, but they slipped through my fingers as if they were made of smoke.

“You’ve brought another one. I won’t complain. The blood of one who has just killed another is very fine indeed.”

He spoke with a heavy accent but I had no trouble understanding. It was familiar though I couldn’t place it.

“Father…Saviour…”

He leaned down and pressed his lips to my neck and I didn't even have the privilege of feeling his breath. A thorn pierced my neck and all that I was flowed into him and my body gladly released it. The last thing I remember is the sky, not a blessed star sight, and then everything became as it was in the beginning.