by David Barton

Not even love, no, not even that, could have saved Lenny Proctor from the hold that forces, as intent as destiny itself, had over Judith, and now him. How was he to know that the woman he‘d bedded, just the once, was someone so … special.

Judith, with the large blue eyes and the innocent child-like smile; the enchanting Judith; the adorable Judith; the drop-dead gorgeous Judith. Oh yes she‘d been all these things, but he hadn’t known she’d been something else too, something … really unique.

She was even virginal when he’d met her, how unusual was that these days? Never been with a man before, and at the grand old age of twenty-two.

That night had been something special too, special for both of them. The night they’d made love.

Something changed after that however; after that night of unbridled passion. For unbridled it was, she had been very demanding between the sheets, like someone who had performed the act many times. She knew exactly what to do, made all the right moves and with such intense passion. But afterwards he couldn’t touch her; she would pull away and became distant. Until finally she made it clear she didn’t want to see him again and they parted company. What the fuck was the matter with her? Had he done something wrong? Had he not been a good enough lover, and if so who was she comparing him with, when she had been untouched beforehand?

It was soon after he split from Judith, that he noticed the men following him. It was as if they were watching his every move. At first he thought he was imagining it, but when the same two men kept appearing behind him again and again, almost everywhere he went, he began to get suspicious.

On one occasion, one of them caught up with him and stopped him. ‘You’ve defiled our virgin,’ he said to Lenny. ‘You’ll pay for that; you’ll pay with your soul.’

Then he merely walked off with the other man without another word, leaving Lenny with a puzzled expression, as he pondered what on Earth the guy had been on about. Lenny never saw the men again, not for a while at least anyway, not until the day when everything he’d ever thought to be true suddenly turned on its head.

It had been cloudy all day and the sun had just managed to squeeze through a gap in the grey masses in the sky. Its ray shone down like a golden light shining down from heaven, as Lenny had often thought of it as a child; God shining a torch down to see what was going on, here on Earth.

It’s funny what you believe when you’re young, he thought; it seems to be so viable at the time.

Lenny was making his way to the shops when one of the men appeared. The same man who’d approached him and come out with all that strange talk weeks earlier. Lenny saw that his companion was also standing a distance away; he was looking around as if to check for the presence of onlookers. He soon joined the first man and they grabbed hold of Lenny, and dragged him into an alley, throwing him to the floor when they got out of sight of possible witnesses. As he glanced up, Judith appeared. ‘Judith? Who are these men? Are you in trouble?’ he asked her.

‘It’s you who is in trouble,’ said the first man.

‘You’re in so much shit,’ said the other.

‘Why?’ asked Lenny. This was nuts, he thought.

‘You took my virginity,’ Judith told him.

‘You wanted to do it as much as me,’ Lenny stated, wondering whether these men were Judith‘s brothers, and they thought he‘d taken advantage of her. He recalled the passion she’d exerted, it had not been the actions of someone reluctant to perform the act, in fact quite the opposite.

‘I know,’ she said, lowering her head slightly. Then she glanced back up again and stared him straight in the eye, half-turning to where the two men were as if self conscious about what she was about to say, as if trying to save her bacon. ‘But that was because I loved you, I wanted to please you. I would have done anything with you because I loved you, even give you that; my virginity.’ She paused and then added: ‘Even though I knew the price you and I would pay if I ever where to give you it.’

‘Price?’ Lenny asked.

‘You don’t think I gave you my virginity for free did you? Not from one such as I? A special one?’

‘Special one?’ Jesus, how highly did she regard herself, anyone would think she was God’s gift!

‘Yes, the Chosen One.’

Lenny was finding it hard to take all this in. What the fuck was she talking about? And whatever it was, which obviously involved these two men, what was the big crime Judith and he had committed? ‘What’s the price?’ he asked her. He thought he might as well ask, seeing how it seemed to involve him.

‘Death, or … worse.’

Lenny’s heart picked up pace, was his life in danger just because he’d deflowered these guys’ woman. Was that it, did she belong to them? Were they her pimps? Was the virginity thing just some kind of turn-on for clients? After all, she did look younger than her age and he knew that some men liked that. Or was she involved in some kind of threesome with these thugs? She didn’t seem like the type who would get involved in that sort of thing. But then, did that type ever look the type?

‘What could possibly be worse?’ he asked.

‘You’d be surprised.’

Lenny wanted some answers. ‘What do you mean Chosen One?’ he asked.

‘I’m his Chosen One. One chosen by him for him to place his seed in.’

Lenny was even more confused now, what kind of perverted game was she playing with these men? It was sick, that’s what it was. How could this woman, the one he’d thought so childlike and innocent, be involved with something like this?

Suddenly it struck Lenny that they could be part of some kind of cult, it definitely fit with all the “Chosen One” crap Judith was coming out with.

But the men didn’t look like members of a religious cult; these were apes. No this was definitely some kind of bizarre prostitution racket that was going on here.

‘I was promised to him and you put your seed in me first.’

‘Excuse me,‘ said Lenny, ‘but I didn’t know you were involved in some kind of sick game with these two.’

She laughed – she actually laughed at him, the bitch! He’d been conned by her eyes, her smile, her looks of innocence. ‘Game?’ she said. ‘You really have no idea what’s going on here do you?’

‘I don’t think I want to know.’

‘You’ve defiled his virgin,’ she said, echoing what the man had said to him some weeks before.

‘Well I didn’t know you belonged to him,’ Lenny said sarcastically. He thought he had made some sense of this now, as he probed further. ‘Who’s this “him”, some special client?’

‘Don’t tell the fucker, he doesn’t need to know, let’s just kill him,’ said the man who’d first approached him, the one who seemed to be in charge of everything.

‘If you loved me, like you said you did, you could save me,’ Lenny said to Judith, hoping there was still a chance out of this, with her help.

‘How could I save you when I can’t even save myself?’ she replied, those beautiful big eyes that had first lured him into this madness widening even larger as she emphasised this. ‘Once I’ve sown his seed, I will suffer the same fate as you.’

‘Even though she’s not a virgin anymore, she can still be used, but because she slept with you, fuckface, he’ll kill her too,’ the first man said.

Without really thinking about it and choosing his moment, Lenny grabbed Judith and they ran.

‘There is nowhere we can run,’ she told him as they fled.

‘We’ll see about that,’ he told her.

As they made their way down another alley, after losing the two men, something stepped out in front of them.

‘Where do you think you’re going with that girl, fucker?’ it said to Lenny.

He took a moment to take in the misshapen thing stood before him, which emitted a luminescent glow around itself, a bit like a glow-worm does. In fact this thing was far uglier than one of those luminous winged insects. ‘What in hell’s name … ?’ Lenny said gazing at it.

‘Not in Hell’s name,’ it said.

Judith was staring in wonder at the hideous monstrosity. Not in repulsion, but in wonder, like the sun shone out of its backside.

‘What are you?’ Lenny asked it.

The thing ignored his question. ‘Give the girl to me.’

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Lenny tried to fight with the thought that had suddenly struck him that this was Judith’s client. A man, or creature, so hideously deformed that it needed to pay for sex. But surely this was something out of a nightmare and had no place in the real world? Yet, there it stood in all its repulsive glory.

‘She’s not doing it with you anymore, no matter what price,’ Lenny found himself saying, to what he hoped was just a bad dream he was experiencing. For that could be the only explanation couldn’t it? Those bastards had knocked him unconscious in that alley they’d all been standing in a few moments earlier, and now he was having a bizarre nightmare. That was the explanation, surely?

‘Silence, you shit.’ it said. ‘I’ll make a bargain with you, you let me take the girl, without any fucking around, and I’ll make your death as painless as I can permit.’ It almost smiled, but Lenny thought that this was a creature unable to emit any goodness, any good at all, so something as wholesome as a smile wasn’t in its repertoire of facial expressions. ‘Of course,’ it continued, ‘it will have to be a little painful, otherwise there are some who may think I’m losing it.’

‘Fuck you!’ Lenny said.

‘You’ll really wish you hadn’t said that, fucker.’

‘I’m not afraid of bogeymen, I’ve outgrown you!’

‘Bogeymen?’ Now it laughed. ‘Is that what you think I am? Some Freddy Kruger, come to spook you?’

‘What the fuck are you then?’ Lenny wanted answers from this nightmare.

‘Try the other side of the coin,’ it said, and lifted what appeared to be eyebrows on what passed for the creature’s forehead but which resembled a pair of slugs that had attached themselves above its eyes. ‘She’s … was a virgin; there’s a clue. Remember one such virgin a time ago now? Do you know your bible?’

Lenny looked to Judith, who was still staring in awe at the glowing oddity before them.

‘Haven’t you sussed it yet?’ it asked Lenny.

He hadn’t, how could he?

‘I’m the Holy Ghost.’

Lenny let the words echo around his head, but the “holy” didn’t fit, there was nothing “holy” looking about the thing stood before him. This was some kind of joke, some elaborate practical joke. But that creature was definitely stood in front of him, and it was no guy in a rubber suit, like in the movies. The movies couldn’t have dreamt up something that repulsive anyway!

‘Ever heard of a little thing called the Second Coming?’

‘The …’

‘Yes.’ The twin slugs raised themselves once again. ‘The Second Coming … and you’ve fucked it up big time!’

‘But you’re not a godly thing,’ Lenny said to it, not believing a word of what he was being told. Well, how could he? This was insane!

‘No one’s precisely godly, everyone is good and evil, even God.’

This was a trick surely; this was the Devil’s words, trying to trick Lenny into handing over Judith.

‘Why do you think there’s so much suffering in the world? Does he step in to try to stop wars? Famine? Does he fuck!’

‘If you’re the Holy Ghost, then I’m … Joan of Arc!’ mocked Lenny.

‘Met her, miserable cow, glad they burnt the bitch at the stake,’ it said, and looked to be reminiscing about the occasion, becoming distant for a moment. ‘Now, are you going to let the girl come unto me?’

It held out a hand towards Judith. ‘She is truly a fine specimen of flesh and bone, he did a good job when he created her,’ it said, admiring Judith. ‘She is finely crafted. I shall enjoy fucking her.’

Lenny couldn’t say anything, he just watched as Judith walked towards the thing, who’s light was becoming so intense now that it hurt his eyes to look at it.

‘Don’t worry,’ it said to Lenny, ‘heaven holds a place in its heart for everyone, even troublesome little shits like you.’

Copyright David Barton 2005

David Barton is the editor of Lost Souls Magazine, his fiction has appeared in the "fan fiction" section of the website for American horror author, Nicholas Grabowsky  http://www.downwarden.com and in the now defunct 31 Eyes ezine.  More info can be found at: http://chainsawhell.tripod.com/homepage

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