Evil Jester Digest, Vol.1 (2 page)

Sally discreetly rubbed her stomach. She was going to have another daughter and couldn’t keep this up anymore. If only there was a way to kill Connie, to end this without losing the money. But no one would understand. No one would believe that Connie was a monster. To the public, the chalk white child was their Messiah, proof that good reigned over evil and that Heaven on Earth would someday be theirs.

All Connie’s existence proved was that she was adept at fooling people. She made the statues drip and probably did cure the incurable now and again just to show off and buy some credibility. Connie had always been manipulative, always made everyone pay attention to her. . .

Sally wished Connie had died that day and that she could just be rid of her once and for all. This house was pretty nice though. She could never have afforded this on her waitress salary. The church was nothing if not grateful and generous.

Sally crawled into bed. She tossed and turned, clenching her teeth. Frustrated, she got out and stomped back to the viewing room.

“I’m not bringing you any children! You can have the elderly and the terminally ill middle aged but that is it. I know you can hear me. You can scream all you want and threaten to kill me, but if anyone hears you they’ll know what you are. No one will visit, and then you’ll die for good. Moreover, if you kill me, you’ll be sent to a nursing home or a laboratory. We have it good here, both of us. I’m not losing this house and being labeled a fraud. If you want me to keep obtaining people for you to kill and making food for you to smell, then you had better be nice to me. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

There was no reaction from Connie, but Sally knew she heard, the way any mother could read her child’s emotions. Connie was angry but knew when she was beaten.

Sally lowered the top of the bed and started to wrap the Rosary beads around Connie’s hands again.
Little bitch isn’t so strong now is she?

Connie’s hands closed tight around Sally’s wrists. Sally tried to move away but couldn’t. She sucked in her breath as Connie’s nails broke her skin and her wrists started to bruise and bleed. Connie’s fingernails dug deeper. “Get me a child tomorrow or I’ll take the bastard that Father Morrissey sired. I’ll rip its soul right out of you.”

Connie smiled and hot sour breath poured past her flawless straight teeth. “Little bitch isn’t so strong now, is she?” She laughed and then fell asleep again. Her hands relaxed, and Sally ran away.

Back in her own room, Sally huddled in the corner and wrapped a towel around her bleeding wrists.
She can read my thoughts. She can see me and read my thoughts.
Sally cried and knew she had to get on the computer, go through her deleted mail, and find a child to sacrifice.

*****

At nine in
the morning, the cars started pulling up, forming a line outside Sally’s house. Viewing hours weren’t until noon but people arrived here early, believed that one glance at this girl, one drop of the holy water that sat in a marble bowl just outside the room on their side of the clear barrier would cure them. They had no idea.

She watched her daughter from behind the glass. Connie looked truly angelic as always. It was no wonder people believed she was sent from Heaven. Pale skin against sun kissed shining blonde hair. A body that hadn’t grown since she’d died. Just like a true corpse, her hair and fingernails continued to grow, but nothing else. She didn’t go to the bathroom or have a period or sweat. She was preserved there like a porcelain doll, a smile on her face that promised salvation to all who believed.

Sally walked around to the front of the glass and cautiously stood by the foot of the bed. “Sorry about last night. I contacted the parents of three terminally ill children last night. No doubt, you’ll take their souls and that will give you more time awake. When Father Morrissey comes, I’m going to the grocery store. Tonight I’ll make you some special food to smell. Maybe we can watch a movie.”

Sally didn’t expect a response but knew now that Connie heard her.

The hours went by like molasses.

At eleven, Father Morrissey finally showed up.

She brought him into the bathroom to talk. It was the only room in the house without windows, and she didn’t want to be seen by the hundreds of people milling about outside, trying to get in.

Before she could say anything to him except, “Hello,” he asked her to do it with him. He would never come right out and say “sex,” but she knew. Father Morrissey was old and wrinkled. Crumpled all over. When she “did it” with him the other times she kept her eyes shut tight so she could pretend he was someone else, like a twenty-five-year-old movie star.

“I can’t today. It’s my time of the month.” He didn’t know she was pregnant of course.

“Oh.” He pulled an envelope from his pocket and gave it to her. It was for the mortgage and spending money. “Gave you a bonus this month for helping me out.” He coughed. His old heart couldn’t take the excitement.

She looked at the amount. A hell of a lot of money. It was a big bonus. She’d been cutting corners the last six months, saving as much as she could. Plenty to live on if—
don’t think it
.

“Do you mind if I run out for a few minutes. I need to pick up some food and just spend some time alone.”

Father Morrissey’s old dark pink mouth, buried in the crinkly old man light pink skin said, “Sure.”

She walked out to the garage. She beeped the horn and the cop on duty—there was always a cop out there thanks to the church—cleared the onlookers for her to get by. Beginning of the end, Connie, she thought as she drove down the road out of sight of the house.
Beginning of the end.
Sally smiled hard and accelerated, heading for the bank and then the mental hospital.

*****

Sally left the
bank feeling very good about life. She could do this.
Would
do this. In five months she was having a baby and there wouldn’t be any room in her life for Connie. No more gathering souls for her. No more streams of half-dead people begging at the door and windows, like the zombies from
Night of the Living Dead.
No more being afraid. Sadly though, she’d have to give up the big house.

But with what she had saved plus what she thought she could get out of Father Morrissey for blackmail, she could get a nice condo somewhere. Sell the house to the church at a mark up for its miracle potential. People would be sad for a little while that Connie died, but the church could make Connie a martyr. Father Morrissey could turn the house into a shrine when Sally moved, and people could come and pray to her spirit. Sally snickered. They’d have no idea that all along they had been worshipping an evil child caught in between here and hereafter, surviving on the lives she snuffed out.

There was only one way to kill her. She’d have to be mutilated. Physically ripped apart. If her body was destroyed, she couldn’t go on. Doctors wouldn’t stitch her back up because she defied reason by being alive. They wouldn’t mess with the miracle girl. To everyone else’s knowledge, Connie hadn’t opened her eyes, spoken, or understood a word in three years. They’d just let her die.

And even if she survived by some supernatural miracle, she wouldn’t be beautiful anymore. No one would deify a disfigured child. She’d be too flawed to be their savior.

Sally didn’t have the strength to do what needed to be done but knew some people who did. Connie might take some of them out if she awoke and struggled, or might just snatch their souls to save herself, but the souls of the people Sally would send would already be lost. It would be win-win. The people who lived would be happy they got to touch what they thought was greatness, Sally would be rid of that horrible monster of a daughter she was stuck with twenty-four/seven, and Connie’s death would make her even higher in the church’s eyes. But she had to go about it very carefully for all the pieces to come together just right.

She called Father Morrissey’s cell and told him the skewed version of the plan. He agreed it was a great idea and promised not to tell anyone about the special midnight viewing of Connie for the homeless people.

“I’m not feeling well and can’t deal with the crowds today, Father. Do you think you could take care of all this for me and just have the nurse stay with Connie overnight? I’m going to treat myself to a night at the hotel. I just need a night away from, well, you know, the sadness of seeing my little girl so lifeless.”

“Of course, Sally. Keep your hotel receipt and I’ll make sure you are reimbursed. I’ll call the mental hospital and tell them to get a bus ready. I know some people at the local shelter in the city and they can round up all the homeless people you talked about.”

“Thank you. But please, just in case Connie can hear, don’t call anyone from the house. Wait until after the crowds go and the nurse is there then call from the rectory. I want her to be surprised. She was always such a compassionate child. She’s going to love helping these people, but it has to be a surprise.”

“Oh, Sally, always optimistic that Connie still knows what’s going on.” He laughed. “I guess you do need a night off. To humor you though, I’ll make my calls later when I get home.”

Sally hung up and drove to a nice hotel. She set the alarm for ten o’clock that night, and fell into the first restful, peaceful, hopeful sleep she’d had in years. It was almost over. She was almost free from Connie.

*****

It felt like
only about ten minutes had gone by when the alarm went off, but it had been six hours. Sally shook her head awake and clapped her hands together like a kid ready to run downstairs to see what Santa left.
Almost time, almost time.

She called the Runcy Psychiatric Center and got the cell phone number of the driver.

“Ernesto, hi, this is Sally Boucheron,” she said when he answered.

“Miss Boucheron, hello.” He had a thick Spanish accent. “I have all the homeless people loaded up and I’m on the way to your house. You sure it is all right because they are a little smelly.”

“It’s fine. Connie can’t smell anything, and we’re all God’s creatures, right?”

“You are wonderful, Miss Boucheron. They are frenzied though. They are chanting that they’re going to see a miracle tonight. Already some of them seem a little less crazy; they are so filled with hope.”

“That’s just how I hoped they’d be. It will mean so much to Connie to help them. We don’t know how much longer she’ll hang on, and if anyone needed saving it’s all the patients your hospital was forced to release last year because of budget cuts.”

“So you will meet us at the house?”

“I’d like to meet down the street first. I don’t want the nurse to know about the secret visit. She’s liable to tell someone, and all the others on the waiting list will get angry, so I want to get there first and send her on her way. Meet me on the corner of Main and Scranton.”

“See you there.”

She hung up and called Father Morrissey. “Hi Father,” she said. “I called Runcy Hospital and they said their bus had some problems with the engine and now they won’t be able to come ’til morning. They also thought it would be too much strain on the people, having all that excitement in the middle of the night.”

“Well that’s a relief. I didn’t think I could stay awake that late.”

“Why don’t I meet you at my place at eight in the morning? They’ll come at nine and that will give us time to prepare.”

He yawned on the phone. She pictured him in his white long underwear, drinking warm milk, sitting on his bed. His teeth were probably in a cup on the sink. “That’s a great plan. See you tomorrow, Sally. I think you’re doing a great thing here.”

“Me too, Father. Me too.”

*****

Connie was asleep
when Sally walked in alone at midnight. She may have been faking but that didn’t matter now. It was almost over. The lights were off so Sally turned them on all at once for the full effect.

“Behold the savior!” she yelled as she opened the front door to forty-eight crazed and desperate people. All sizes and races and ages, but all willing to do anything to get a glimpse at Connie. Ernesto wanted to come in. In fact, he wanted to bring two more aides and let the guests in a few at a time, but Sally said he doubted the healing power of Connie. So he conceded and came as the lone guardian, waiting in the bus.

The dirty destitute group pressed their grimy faces against the glass partition and oohed and aahed.

They dipped their soiled hands in the holy water and splashed it on their dirt-covered foreheads. The smell of urine and whiskey filled the house, and she knew it would rouse Connie. Having her awake was better, when her soul was in her body and not traveling around eavesdropping.

Sally heard Connie moan.

“Did you hear that?” Sally said and cupped her ear. The guests stood silent, poised.

“Hnnnnn,” the little girl croaked.

Sally smiled. She hadn’t looked into the room and refused to. Maybe without eye contact Connie couldn’t read her thoughts.

“You’re doing it. You’re waking her up. Bringing her back to life. Christ said eat my body and drink my blood, and she wants you to do the same thing. She will live again if you make her live. And Christ may awaken, too. Go, feast on her! Take your piece of the miracle!”

She opened the door to the viewing room and hunched against the wall as they tumbled over each other trying to get to Connie.

They were on her in seconds like hungry rats. Connie woke up and screamed.

“Feast on her!” Sally yelled again then ran out.

Ernesto ran from the bus. “Everything all right, Miss Bucheron?”

“Yes, they’re just watching her through the glass and praying. Let’s give them a few minutes. The looks on their faces was pure ecstasy and I don’t want to take that from them. They can’t get into the room, don’t worry.”

Sally stood far across the street. Shadows of the feasting danced in the barred picture window. Ernesto was reading the paper with a flashlight and didn’t see.