Purify

Ezekiel 5-17: So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts and demons… and pestilence… and I will bring the sword upon thee.
The leaves fell to the forest’s floor. In autumn it would have been beautiful; them falling in a hail of colors bombarding your sight with imagery.
But rather it was sickening. Instead of the images overflowing in glorious beauty it assaulted the senses. The horrid stench of rot made your stomach churn, and the dead would have rolled over in their grave. The black decrepit leaves curled on the ground and cringed at the touch. Instead of the sweet breeze flowing a furious wind smashed and howled its anger.
The man strode through the arcing trees entering the lane below. He held his tapering hat to his head in a vain attempt to keep it from blowing away. His jacket billowed behind him. He walked slowly under the green sky; clouds lashing out in whips of lightning but they refused to throw down their rain.
As he passed through the gateway of trees a cold chill descended upon the strange man. It was a cold that his jacket could not defend against. He tried to shake off this strange besieging freeze but it clutched to his skin.
He swung his coat sideways and pulled a gold gilded Bible out. Light glittered off the gold casing; illuminating the surrounding dark. He read a prayer aloud, his voice booming in anger. The echo carried its weight off into the distance.
“God’s power carries in even these parts, he will banish you demons back to the pits of hell from which you came,” his voice ringing out like that of which a priest would sound while talking to his congregation. A silent calm descended upon the wooded entrance. He touched the cross hanging across his neck.
He now walked through the woods. After the prayer even the lightning ceased but the decaying leaves fell all around. The man held out his palm watching one slowly falling to the earth. It rocked back and forth swaying in midair, finally descending into his gloved hand. His hand clenched around it. When his gauntlet opened, the leaf had disappeared leaving nothing behind but the trace puff of smoke. The smoke reeked of sulfur.
He had once been sick and had been taken to the apothecary. The doctor seemed crazy and senile but anything to cure the wild fever dreams he was being given. However when he entered the doctor’s chamber he smelled the same sulfuric scent and immediately threw up. He ran screaming from the room ignoring his parents’ cries of outrage. He ran to the first building that came into sight and that of course was the great towering chapel that hovered over the city. The priests saw him and took him in but refused to feed him. He was told that the disease that plagued him was God’s will and that he should be forced to fast and repent for his sins.
And although he was starving, he listened to the priests and did not eat a crumb of bread. Nor did he drink a drop of water. Instead he was constantly by the priests’ sides, learning the ways of the Christian faith.
When the disease had finally rid itself from his body, the priests praised the Lord and took the boy in as their own. He grew up in that church, sleeping in a store room and working tirelessly as a scribe, copying down thousands of reprints of ancient books. In this way he learned a multitude of languages as well as mathematics, history, and science. Repentance and faith were now taught to him as they had cured him and from those days on he had made a vow to himself; to purge evil, purify sins, and convert the non-believers.
A crack of thunder resounded overhead, snapping the man from his reverie. The smell filled his nostrils again as another leaf touched his hand which he had left outstretched. Although he had been afraid of this same odor before he was no longer. God was beside him then, leading him to a safe and holy haven, as he would forever be beside those that would follow.
It was that old vow that had brought him here as he returned to his trance. This day he had received a vision. The vision had shown a town. The town had been abandoned. The only thing recognizable was the windmill slowly creaking.
The windmill had given it away to him. He had once passed by a small town in New England area on one of his great many expeditions. He had ridden through and had seen a great creaking wheel which turned in the sky in the direction of the wind. The man at first had thought it to be sorcery. He had walked into the town to see its inhabitants and question them of the great demon in the sky.
One had known him however and spotted him and they were received in a general conversation. “Matthias you old hound, what are you doing up here in the fringe country. It has been a long time since we have seen anyone out from Philadelphia.”
The man now known as Matthias answered, “I am here on God’s work. He has sent me with a group of my servitors to raid a witch cult in a few towns up. They have killed a man you know,” he added the latter seeing the smile on the man’s face. After saying it the man laughed, which only made Matthias more cross.
“Matthias there will always be another witch, another cult, another refuge of evil; havens, sanctuaries and harems where men will go to do the works of sin. There is nothing one rock can do to turn the tide of a thousand waves just as one man can’t turn the ways of a thousand men.”
“Ah but if a thousand rocks were put together then…”
“Then a hundred thousand waves would break them apart,”
“You have lost faith Joseph, ye of all people, named after a saint and fought in more crusades then I.”
“I fought not for god, but for gold…” Joseph’s voice carried off in shame. He was not proud of his ways but he had not seen a miracle and god had not chosen to reveal him one.
“In the interest of changing subject what is that?” Matthias asked, pointing to the towering wheel which creaked on its hinge.
“Oh, that’s just a windmill. It does the work of a thousand maids in a thousandth the time,” Joseph replied in surprise at Matthias.
“So it is sorcery?” Matthias questioned further.
“No, just a simple machine, much like that of a wheel. The wind turns the wheel on the outside, rotating a wheel on the inside which moves another wheel. Place wheat in between the two inside wheels and it grinds it faster then a…”
“…thousand maids in a thousandth of the time…” he finished the sentence for him. “Work never did anyone any harm. It made our fathers strong,” He said the last sentence in a reprimanding tone, scorning Joseph for his indolence.
“Oh there is still work to be done; there will always be work to be done. This just makes it so we can do other work. And maybe take two days of rest instead of one.”
Matthias was about to chide him for his childish outlook but saw the desperation in his eyes and recognized with the helpless tone in the man’s voice. While his faith stood strong he knew the hardships his profession created. It was very low pay, the church couldn’t afford much and the bounties were more blasphemous then any. And he idolized taking two days off but it was to commit heresy to even think it.
And with more pity than anger left in him, Matthias had said his goodbyes and continued on the great quest of the month.
And had Joseph been right? There had always been another quest of faith, and the evils had never ceased. But did that mean you stopped trying? Did that mean you gave up hope in miracles? Matthias didn’t answer these questions, nor did he follow his heart as he would have you believe. He simply did all he knew how to do, and that was enough for him.
And so he strode valiantly through the darkening forest, which no light shined through. Black greasy hair, which was sometimes perceived as brown and even more often gray, whipping behind him, he now reached into his coat again, but this time did not pull the Bible out. He pulled a long barreled pistol; its silver gleamed without the presence of light. He also pulled the silver shot (for silver is the only thing that can kill the undead) and powder and proceeded to load it. He unsheathed his sword a quarter of an inch and readied himself for the battle ahead.
He saw the clearing finally, after what seemed like miles. And instead of the expected climactic violence at the end of the path, there was a tranquil calm. A peace descended in the dark wooded area, and he saw, for the first time, what his vision had promised to him; the old, decaying, creaking windmill. Its blades churned the air slowly and deliberately, proving that the wind in the forest was not replicated in the small village.
Matthias walked out of the clearing and into the village. The sulfur smell submitted to that of the smell of sickness and death. A stench reeked from every depths of the inner city and spread outward. The forest was now corrupt and infected, but its odor would never compare to that of the inside. The trees were a barrier against the evil that had happened here, and although they gave way and folded to the plague, they were still clean of the abominate sin that was held within this small empty town.
He walked cautiously to the center of the city. A gigantic fountain lay there. Water did not flow from its maw. The water in its basin was still and held the color of taint green. The tranquility of everything in this place bore with it an uneasy feeling. It was the type of calm that brought with it edginess; the type of silence that carried an expected outburst of noise. No such noise came.
Matthias strode forward, covering his nose with his glove, but still unable to protect himself from the assaulting smell. His footsteps broke the eerie silence, however the sound of leather boot on cobbled stone did nothing but add to the effect of complete solitude. And as he walked he never ceased to stare around, watching and waiting and searching for an unseen ghost, enemy, or demon.
He strode forth first to the church. Its towering steeple was matched in height only by that of the windmill. Its iron gates were wide ajar, as were its wooden doors. He stepped through and into the darkness. The odor disappeared, as if the doors were another one of its barriers.
The moonlight shined through the stained glass windows. The effect it had was the same as the stillness outside. The white light that shined through the clear window illuminated only where it struck and the colored glass cast shadows every which way. The presence of both light and dark contradicting in a small area created shifting scenery that would almost seem as if there were demons inside the cathedral, and maybe there were, for demons is what Matthias came here to fight and what better place than in the house of God himself.
He stalked passed the rows of pews to the very head of the church. He dropped a coin in the collection plate, turned the Bible to Mark 3:26, and took a cross pendant off the podium and drew it over his head.
He turned back towards the door and in a single moment, just for a split second, he thought he saw a flash of movement.
“Hallucinations of an old and weary mind, a tired hound barking at the wind is all I am.” Matthias said aloud, alone in the church. His sermon did nothing to convince him that there wasn’t anything out there, but a man of his stature had nerves of steel and so he marched forth anyways.
He went to the first house he could find. A red “X” marked the doorway. The stigma carried with such a stain didn’t bear any meaning to him, obviously he knew that it meant that this household had contracted the plague and were condemned to live their last days in the solitude of death. Buried alive, or might as well have been.
“We are the dead,” a whisper carried on the silence. The hackles on Matthias neck stood erect. The cry came from every direction. It was a voice that held the ability to soothe the soul, but rather made the stomach flip. He drew his sword and swung all around searching for his invisible assailant. Nothing found except for the staleness that gripped to the air.
“You are the dead,” the whisper came again. And Matthias now saw that it really was everywhere. The reverberations bounced off of the surrounding trees, it struck the bells of the church and made them shriek out their song; it echoed in every crevice of the town; in every crease or cranny it was absorbed but also reflected and amplified a hundred fold.
He entered the building with no greater haste than he had walked out of the church. A steady pace, a calm but alert mind, and his sword drawn were all he needed. The smell of rot hit him full blast as he crossed the threshold. The stillness of the city pertained even into its buildings.
He scoured the kitchen, the dining room, and then he walked up the stairs. No where in the dwelling did he find any bodies. He found a children’s toy, a doll of some sort, which had been left carelessly on the ground. The sheets had been drawn back on the beds as if someone had just prepared to get into them, or had just recently left them.
He turned down the stairs and walked out. From building to building he went in search of the bodies. Still he found none.
“How could a whole city die of the plague and not leave any bodies behind?” Matthias thought as he walked back toward the church.
The echo of the whisper had died perhaps, Matthias couldn’t tell because it now rang in his ears and in the very depths of his own mind.
“We are the dead… you are the dead…” What started as a whisper grew to a chant, to a roar. A thousand voices, ten thousand voices, one hundred thousand voices gibbering their madness. Louder, louder, ever louder until the calm that had preceded ceased to exist even in memory.
Matthias’s cool calm exterior broke as he clasped his hands to his ears. His heart pounded; his sweat dripped and his hands shook.
He called out a prayer to God. “Deliver me from my evil foe or let me face his form. With your strength and guidance let me battle these demons. My fate, as always, is in your hands.”
With that the demons laughed out hideously. They roared louder “We are the dead… You are the dead… We are the dead… you are the doomed… we are the dead… you are the damned!”
The last word accentuated to the point that the deafening chant brought him to his knees.
“Beg for mercy from your master,” A jittering voice cried above the others.
“My master is all merciful and does not need to be begged.” Matthias shouted back. “Now show yourself if you wish to take my mind as you are trying to do now.”
“We own your mind, we own your soul. We are the dead and you are the damned!”
“Show yourself!” Matthias commanded for a third time.
“His will be done,” the jittering voice called back and with that there was once again calm.
The calm did not last however. A moan to the man’s right broke the silence. He however thanked God for the break in calm as long as that cry did not come from inside his own mind.
He spun around and faced the noise but as soon as he did this the moan came from behind him. From his left, his right, front and back shrieks and moans came.
Once again the noise reverberated in the air. It was the sound of the sick and dying. But Matthias knew the sound for what it truly was. It was the sound of the already dead.
The first shambling monstrosity came forth into sight. A haze had descended near the churchyard and its outline was blurred. More outlines came into view. They shuffled forwards dragging their feet as if not of their own accord. They were puppets of an unseen master; pawns of an invisible chess player.
The one that appeared first from the haze halted out of swords reach of Matthias. Eventually all the abominations formed an enclosing circle around him. At least two hundred fiends surrounded him. Confidence was a thing that was hard to shake from a man of faith, but any other person would have lost sanity staring into the blank sockets of these beasts.
The beasts he now recognized as the plague victims. He did not comprehend on how he came upon such knowledge in his own mind, but he was certain of its truth. Maggots crawled from their sockets, none of them had eyes. Their skin was green with taint, the same color as the water in the basin. Hair fell in clumps. Some of the undead had other special abnormalities. Horns grew from their foreheads, limbs dangled from their sockets, boils and buboes, although attached to all of the plagued ones, grew fiercely from their skin.
Matthias was unprepared for this; so many of these abominations staring him in the face with their maggots for eyes. But he stood his ground; he had no choice in the matter. Even if he could’ve escaped he didn’t want to. To fight for God was a glorious thing, and to die for him even more worthy a cause.
“How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished!” He spoke the verses from Mark chapter 3.
The demon’s laughed and at once their voices rose in succession “We are the dead but you are the damned!” and with that they came.
Matthias sword flashed like lightning straight into the abdomen of the first plagued one. Where the blade drove deep the flesh around the wound distorted. The greenness turned back to the color of skin. The buboes and poxes fell away. The abnormalities melted and morphed to return what would have been what the person looked like before succumbing to the plague.
They were clumsy and one on one he could’ve defeated the entire horde. The problem was that hordes do not come one on one. They used their strength in numbers to overwhelm him. He slashed left and right and parried the inept blows of the horde and he slew ten, and then fifteen, but for everyone slain another filled its place.
“There’s nothing one man can do to turn the waves of a thousand men!” shrieked one of the demons as it dumbly sprang forward. With a thrust of his blade Matthias speared the demon. His face retreated into a hawked face man, a man that had once been a friend, Joseph. He stared somberly at the body of his friend. A cold stare, a calculating stare, but also a stare of loss.
He stared too long though. One of the demons thrust his rusty blade deep into the thigh of Matthias. The cold steel bit deep and Matthias yelled out his rage and pain. He slashed backwards with his sword cutting deep into the face of a young child demon.
He now needed rest more then ever. His strength waned and his parries became more awkward. Habitually he gripped his cross pendant for strength. Then thinking quickly he held it high above his head. A light began to pulse from his inner fist. The demons were repelled, at first by this light. With his remaining strength he flung the ball of light at the nearest demons and the light shown through them, burning them and incinerating them and returning them to their human forms.
The light faded as did his strength. With a last effort of sheer willpower he sprinted for the church door. The remaining horde shambled forward but he reached the threshold and they were again repelled, but this time by the metaphysical barrier of the holy house of God.
He shut the doors and slumped against them feeling his life force draining out. He pulled his pant leg up and saw for the first time his wound. It was deep, and the area around where he had been cut had turned the color of the taint. Buboes had grown also and the distorted flesh seemed to pulsate and radiate outwards. It was shifting and changing and worst of all growing.
He noticed a new light, candle light, which had not been in the church before, but hazily he did not see the cloaked figure stalking threw the pews as he had done earlier.
The cloaked, hooded man stooped down over Matthias, but Matthias had not the strength left to fight. The apparition poured, with gloved hand, water over the wound. The taint receded and the buboes disappeared. It healed and scarred in a matter of seconds. Matthias looked up into the face of his savior but saw nothing but blackness, the hood cast a shadow covering his features.
Matthias stood on his legs, both the recently wounded and the non-wounded. He stared gravely directly at where he assumed the eyes of the apparition would be. The apparition reached into his robe and pulled a gleaming metal sphere from an inside pocket.
“I have healed your wounds so that you could serve my will further. Take this and use it. Throw it into the air and speak the words “Thy will be done, I serve my master” and the ball shall burst forth and slay the rest of your demons.”
“Thy will be done…” Matthias repeated.
And with that the robed figure stalked back down the church hall. Matthias held the cool ball in his hands. With new found confidence he swung the doors open and stepped out.
The horde in a single wave came for him. He did as was told.
“Thy will be done, I serve my master!” The booming voice of his rang out, and for the third time it was reverberated in the surrounding area and vibrated off the walls of every building. And the ball was tossed into the air.
Flames burst forth in every direction. Incendiary shrapnel was thrown from the iron gate that surrounded the church. A flash of white, then of red, then of the color of fire filled boomed in the darkness. The blast knocked Matthias off of his feet and he was forced rudely to the floor.
He awoke in a dull pain all over. Looking around he saw hundreds of dead bodies. Men, women, and children all lay peacefully in a giant circle around him. He walked to the first red-x’d building and grabbed the doll he had found. He placed it in a little girl’s arm. He then took off his cross necklace and put it over Joseph’s neck.
He was about to leave, go home and rest and wait for further instructions from God, when the robed figure slid through the haze.
“You are now mine” the figure said.
“I have always been yours my Lord,” Matthias replied. The figure bellowed its laughter. Matthias stared with puzzlement.
“I suppose that’s true. You have always been mine. And you have done well, my son. You have purged the land as I have asked of you. And now I shall reward you with eternal service to me.”
“You are going to take my life then?”
“No… these were the dead… you… are the damned. Lift your pant leg and see the truth of my statement.”
He did as told and was shocked. As he unfurled his pant leg he saw that the green taint had returned. Buboes now grew big and puss flew freely from them. Open ulcers and sores were everywhere. His flesh had fully rotted away in parts and exposed the muscle underneath. In some parts bone was all that was left.
He took his sword and turned it flat. Using it as a mirror he stared coldly at his reflection. He had no eyes, just maggots. Nubs grew for horns in his head. His hair had turned completely gray and clumps fell freely to the floor.
“You are Lucifer.” He said a flat tone in his voice, not a question but a statement.
“Yes… I am Satan himself. And now you are mine forever. You promised yourself to me. And you will be my strongest. You have already proved your worth; slaying a whole towns worth of innocents. You shall do this same act again and again for me, and in time you will grow to like it.”
“And if I refuse?” Matthias asked coldly.
A bellowing laughter was his reply. “Refuse? Refute my power, mock me, but you have no choice in the matter. You have pledged your service. ‘Thy will be done, I serve my master’. My power is greater than yours, you can not kill me, I am eternal, and now you are too.”
“No,” and with that he drew his pistol, still loaded with a silver shot (the only way to kill an undead) and placed it gently to his temple.
Satan’s eyes flared open. Anger and shock grew within him in a single instant, and even more than anger, there was fear in those hollowed out orbs he had for eyes. He had controlled Matthias for years, had carefully plotted his demise and had finally put his plan into action. And now with a final act of willpower and redemption Matthias was going to defy the Dark Princes’ evil plans.
The blast of the gun and the screams of Lucifer intertwined into a single clap. They both echoed outwards, but the echoes were lost in further shouts of Satan. God hadn’t won, and neither did Satan. Matthias had won. He had won his freedom from the war between the two and himself in a single act of defiance of both. Killing himself had given him a lasting independence. He died with his eyelids shut and a calm that does not normally befall a suicide victim, and in truth he wasn’t a suicide victim. He hadn’t killed himself, for he was already dead and damned when the bullet threw its weight through his skull. The autumn leaves covered Matthias and the smell of both plague and sulfur receded to the smell of fall. The howling wind receded to a sweet breeze. Where Matthias lay it was always autumn, and it was always beautiful.