TWENTY
Father Ross’ first thought as he gingerly peered inside the box, was that this was another of the villager’s puppets, as what lay inside was a similar, if more twisted cousin to the one from the square earlier. But as his eyes gradually adjusted to the gloom it became all too clear the thing inside was no piñata.
What he had first took to be a covering of those crepe paper leaves common on a lot of piñatas was in fact on closer inspection a thick covering of dried flowers. Ross could see patches of undeniably organic matter here and there where the flowers had fallen away from the creation.
Loathed to touch the thing, Ross instead blew the covering of flowers away from the crumpled body. He lifted his torch and shone it down into the box. He instantly repulsed as the thing appeared to move. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” He gasped and just about managed to swallow his hammering heart which had leapt into his mouth, back down to where it belonged. The illusion of movement happened again as his torch beam played over the body once more. It was just shifting shadows caused by the light as it moved over the thing.
Ross cursed under his breath at his own stupidity and waited for his heart to stop racing a little before he continued his reluctant examination of the contents of the box.
Yes, now that he looked closely he could see it was a wizened creature perhaps the size of a large man curled up in a foetal position. But this thing was far from human. Its limbs seemed too long for its emaciated body and stick thin as if they would quite easily snap even under the meagre weight of its torso.
A long crooked spindly arm covered in small black scales was draped across the thing’s withered bestial head as if it were trying to shield itself against the light. Ross peered under the arm which was partially blocking its neck as a flash of greyish white caught his eye.
“It trapped them in here during choir practice,” Hauser said softly from behind him. “Six kids, organist and a couple of parents.”
Ross had to lean over the altar and into the box to get a better look. He held his breath as he could only imagine what a long dead corruption like this would smell like, despite its bed of flowers. He narrowed his eyes and held the torch closer to the thing. What was that on its neck?
“I got here just in time,” Hauser continued, a disembodied voice in the shadows. “Or just too late, depending on who you ask.” There was an unmistakable despondency to his voice as he spoke.
The young priest finally recognised what he was looking at. “Oh, Jesus.” The creature had the remnants of a faded dog collar on its neck. No, he looked closer, this wasn’t a disguise in the conventional sense. The white collar was actually part of the desiccated creature’s skin. It must have taken on the physical form of a priest as part of its own body.
His free hand went inadvertently up to where his own collar would have been if he hadn’t removed it earlier. Now he knew why they distrusted priests so much.
“Yeah,” Hauser said seeing his reaction. “The son of a bitch took on the form of their local priest, sick bastard. Someone they trusted without question. Christ only knows what it would have done to them all if I hadn’t shown up.”
The German shook his head before continuing, trying to dislodge the memory or remember it, Ross wasn’t sure. “You see, Ross. That’s what these things do, they take great delight in perverting what you hold dear. You had never seen a more devout group of people. Christ how this thing must have jerked off on their pain. It sapped the faith right out of them. These things...”
He gestured to the box. “These things and the scum that create them don’t care about anything but causing suffering, and the longer the better. They’re authors of pain, just for pain’s sake.”
“But you stopped it,” Ross said.
“It had all but changed into what you see there when I got in. It was taunting and abusing those poor children. I was too late, it had already mutilated one... The fucker was wearing the poor lad’s entrails like a garland of flowered around its scrawny neck.” His voice trailed away and Ross thought he heard the old man bite back a sob at the memory.
Ross thought back to the fiesta and the puppet show. Kids in cassocks, death creeping all around them as they prayed for help. He winced inwardly and came away from the monstrosity in the box. It wasn’t hard to imagine those weren’t ribbons exploding from some terrified child’s guts when that nightmare attacked.
“Miguel Torres?” Ross said turning to Hauser. It was his turn to wince this time as even in the near darkness Ross could see the look of horror in the old man’s eyes as he nodded.
“How is this possible?” Ross asked. He thought back to that disgrace demon time, to poor Father Winthorpe fleeting the building and the abomination inside, and the three others who had gone before him. He felt a stab of guilt at not fully believing it was anything but an elaborate illusion.
He glanced back over to the box, the lid was still open, then without asking his feet to move, he was back over to it. He moved to close the lid, but forced himself to look down at the creature curled up inside on last time.
“Christ only knows,” Hauser said. “And He isn’t telling.”
Ross closed the lid and screwed his eyes shut. A mixture of the thing inside and the puppet from the square seemed to be burnt onto his retina, lest he ever forgot what he had seen here.
He desperately wanted to quiz Hauser on his part in all this. How did he know these things existed? How did he know to come here when he did, or turn up in England just in time to save that sick opportunist Michael Davis? But in the end, did that really matter? What he really needed to know was; “Can you help me fight this thing?”
“Once,” Hauser said wearily. “Truth is this thing Davis has shouldn’t even still be alive. It was created to get him, make him suffer for whatever reason, then kill him and disappear back to whatever hell it came from.”
“But you’ve fought it before, trapped it.” Ross said.
“I sold Davis everything. The charms to hold it, even one to subdue it. Truth be told most of the trinkets he thinks are useful don’t mean anything at all.” Hauser smiled at this but it didn’t last. “I just wanted out of it all. Since I killed that thing,” he nodded to the box. “Which damn near did me in. I just wanted to retire. The people here offered to look after me for life after I saved those I could. For life, Ross! And believe me that was the first, best offer I’d ever had in that transient life I’d found myself in. I knew it was only a matter of time before I got too slow, too old or just too damn sloppy and then I’d be the one withering away in a box somewhere.”
“You have nothing left?” Ross asked with a sinking feeling.
Hauser shook his head. “That thing in England was my last. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Davis has everything, mostly useless, but everything and I was glad to sell it to him.”
A long silence fell between the two men. Ross looked up at the brightening morning sky. For inspiration?
“Don’t go into that house,” Hauser said after an age.
Before he had come to Mexico that would have been an easy request for Father Shane Ross to agree to. But after what he had seen here over such a short period of time, the children, that surreal fiesta the grave of poor little Miguel Torres; Born May 2004 died September 2013 in the most horrible of ways. And not to mention that creature in the box that had caused so much torment. Ross wondered if Mendez had known all along what he would find here, and the impact it would have on the young priest.
Because although in the end Hauser could give him no silver bullet or ancient wisdom that he could use to defeat the creature. He was at least now armed with the knowledge that Minx was all too real. And all said and done wasn’t that really the purpose of his visit here? Meeting those who had actually been touched by this evil but that come through it?
Innocents corrupted, but who had somehow come together for comfort and healing and thus defeat that monster’s legacy. To move past it and on with their lives without ever truly forgetting poor Miguel and what true evil lurked in the world.
He thought back to the fiesta again. Was he now the puppet in this sick carnival of internet horrors? If he was, and he did go into that house armed with nothing more than faith and the good book. ‘Sometimes faith isn’t enough’. He knew it wouldn’t be sweets spilling out of his broken body live on the internet if he failed.
‘Don’t go into that house,’ Hauser had said. It was good advice but advice he knew he could ultimately not take, despite every fibre in his being screaming at him to heed it.
Indeed, to his credit and despite his obvious hatred of the church, Hauser then spent the next two days of Ross’ stay at the village trying again and again to talk him out of this foolish endeavour. It became clear to the young priest that the German had taken a shine to him and the feeling was mutual. During the last few hours before he was due to return home Hauser had even tried to persuade him to stay in Mexico, out of the reach of the Vatican, Mendez, and above all demon time and its twisted star.
It was a tempting offer especially out here away from all the fear and doubt. Santuario and its inhabitants made for a compelling argument, that much was true. Perhaps he mused as he prepared to make the long tortuous journey back to Europe and his appointment with Minx. He would return here when, if, it was all over and of course if he still had body and soul intact.
‘Don’t go into that house.’ If he had said it once, Hauser had said it a thousand times since the revelations at the church. But Ross’ response each time had been just as repetitious.
“I have to.”