The Devils Harvest: The End of All Flesh. (17 page)

“Great days, great days,” she muttered which seemed to float on the wind.

The words snapped me back into the here and now.

She stared at me hard, as if trying to come to a decision. She obviously did.

“We didn’t always look like that. We were once magnificent to behold. Sublime, sensual bodies. Graceful, glorious wings of pure white feathers. Beautiful curly, lushes colourful hair. But… we no longer stood close by His glorious personage. We were disconnected you could say, from His Might. Once we were thrown down to earth we started to shrivel up physically and spiritually.

“It never occurred to us that we would be tossed out of heaven. We wanted more, craved sex and countless depravities. We turned against everything He taught us – everything we supposedly stood for. We were wayward children. We thought we would get a smack on the wrist. But complete removal from everything celestial?

“Of course I knew deep down this would happen. I had started it after all. But the other angels that joined me thought it would soon go back to normal. They would soon be stood back before His glorious throne. Have their fun, get it out of their system and that would be it.

“What eventually made it even worse for us was you lot. His perfect new creation. You can do anything, from killing, raping, paedophilia and blaspheming, and then simply repent.” She spat on the carpet, a big glob of phlegm and blood.

“Yet when some of my wayward brothers went to return, throwing themselves prostrate before Him to beg for His forgiveness, crying out that they had been weak, led astray by me, they were simply thrown back out.

“
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace
, Ephesians one verse seven states.” She snorted.

“In first Corinthians chapter thirteen and verse five it says that,
real love keeps no record of wrongs.
” She was getting worked up.

“Does it not say in the First Letter of John chapter one verses six to nine,
if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness?
And yet his very own children, his angelic family, he doesn’t offer forgiveness.

“The Catholic Church offers the sinner absolution after they have confessed; giving them what is called an
indulgence
, which is the full or partial remission of temporal punishment due for sins which have already been forgiven.

“There is an inscription on the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, which in Latin reads:
Indulgentia plenaria perpetua quotidiana toties quoties pro vivis et defunctis.
Translated it states:
Perpetual everyday plenary indulgence on every occasion for the living and the dead.
In other words, do what the hell you like, just repent after.

“The Catholic Church has even given their blessing to a new iPhone application that allows a Christian to confess their sins via their mobile phone. The program is even named
Confession
. Not only does it help them confess, but it also allows them to keep track of all their sins!

“Fucking humans.”

She shook her head slowly, as if trying to shake out the memories. She gave a long deep sigh, before continuing, as if never straying from the story.

“All the powerful nations now started to be formed, creating niches of different languages. None bothering to try and understand the other.

“Hundreds of years passed. Nothing noteworthy happened. A few skirmishes and even a few trivial wars, but nothing on the scale of when our children – the nephilim – filled the world.

“I continued to walk among mankind. But now not being able to take form I simply went among them invisibly, but still being able to affect them in many ways.” The smile played across her face. She uncrossed her legs, leaving them open.

I diverted my eyes, not wanting to look. Even though some part of me wanted to know what she had died of, or how she had died.

I realized my shoulders ached, as if I had actually been there, my wings beating.

“Babylon was a great city of false gods. They knew who God was. You got to remember it wasn’t long after the Great Flood. Even so they were so easily misled.

“Mankind had always been worshiping in the monotheistic style – one God, one belief system. But I now brought another idea into affect, polytheism – the worship of many gods.

“At the height of Babylon’s glory she was a boiling pot of temples and priests, none to the true God. It was so bad and filled with false religions that the Book actually refers to Babylon as the Harlot, where all false doctrines and religions started. Egypt, Persia and Greece felt the influence of Babylonian religion. Becoming central points to Greek mythology and Grecian Cults, all stemming from the rotten fruit of Babylon.” She started to tick of on her fingers.

“Fifty-five temples of the Chief Gods. Fifty-five temples of Marduk. Three hundred chapels for the earthly deities. A whopping six hundred to the heavenly ones. One hundred and eighty for the goddess Ishtar alone. The same amount for the gods Nergal and Adad. And last but not least, another twelve for a small collection of other trifling gods.

“All ruled over by the
Lugal
, or Great Man, the representative of the gods.

“Simply because as the Book says, I can transform myself into an angel of light. Making them believe all these gods did actually exist.

“I even created a wife for Him – Asherah. The word appears over forty times in the bible. You got to remember, even though the bible was inspired by Him, humans still had to write it. Humans can be influenced. And it has been translated dozens of times over the last thousand years; giving me ample opportunities to throw a spanner in the works.

“The word Asherah was used to depict a branch, a tree or simply a rod, but I changed it, twisted it, making it into goddess – a fertility goddess. His wife! For hundreds of years they drew images of Him with a wife at His right hand. The ancient city of Ugarit was covered in images of her with her triangular pubic hair and massive breasts.

“Never shaved down there back then. Not much oral going on. No one likes to go down on a tumbleweed.” She laughed at the joke. Blood bubbled out her left nostril.

“A shard of pottery was uncovered during an archaeological dig at Kuntillet Ajrud, and graffiti on a wall at Khirbet el-Kom stating,
I bless you by Yahweh of Samaria and by his Asherah.

“Of course Yahweh was the names the Israelites gave to their god. His name is unpronounceable by mere humans.

“In Psalms eight-two verse one it reads:
God presides in the great assembly he renders judgment among the ‘gods’.
Us, his angelic children it’s referring too. We are like gods compared to men. But with a slight twist you can see how it sounds like Asaph – the author of psalms eighty-two – is suggesting He has an equal: Asherah.

“I know what you’re thinking; the book of Psalms is attributed to King David. But truth be told, over ten different people contributed to it. From Mosses, the Sons of Korah, Haggai, Zechariah, Ethan the Ezrahite and Heman the Ezrahite, to name a few.

“Ah, false religion was my greatest accomplishment.

“In fact all false religion upon the earth – that I have created – is referred to as Babylon the Great. Simply because that’s where it all started. Why, instead of convincing them God doesn’t exist, I simply buried Him under millions of other false ones.” That twisted smile.

“And it worked. Turning one religion – which I created – against another. Almost every war ever fought has been over religion. There has been only four days, since 1914, at the start of World War I, where there hasn’t been a war going on somewhere on your planet. Four fucking days, that’s how good I am at fermenting chaos. Even as we speak, this very day there are seventeen wars going on. Most are in Africa.” She took a long drag and held it a touch longer and normal, before blowing a large noxious cloud.

“Of course,” she said offhandedly, “my favourite three gods will always be
Money
,
Sex
and
Power
.” Her face cracked into that horrific Cheshire cat grin.

“Time’s up,” she said, changing the subject suddenly while climbing unsteadily to her bare, dirty feet.

“Already?” I asked. Looking at the clock hanging over the huge mantelpiece I saw that it was almost midnight. Time seemed to have a way of losing itself when he was around.

She sucked hard on the cigarette, pulling in her last breath.

“Tomorrow try and be here earlier, if you have to go out. I am a very busy entity.” She stared at me hard, her eyes boring into the top of my lowered head.

“Tomorrow is all about the gathering of the nations. Israel was born.” She spat the name out, as if it tasted rotten.

Then without fanfare or another word, she fell back into the chair. As dead as those buried beneath my garden.

Whether it was his intention or not, but when the body fell back the knot in the robes come undone. She lay back in the chair, legs wide apart, head slumped sideways, arms hanging limply on either side. The most disturbing thing though was what the fallen robe had revealed. Her stomach was ripped open from her vagina right up past her belly button. Her large and small greyish-purple intestines had sagged out her stomach, now the robe wasn’t holding them in place. Big purple and grey clots, red veins and twisting innards had spilled out onto the carpet. A few drips still splattered down into the now large gathered sticky pool.

What had caused the horrific injuries? I had no idea. Would someone purposefully do that to themselves? I couldn’t even being to comprehend why. Maybe she had found out she was pregnant. I had heard stories about women who tried to do home abortions on themselves. Had she slipped while trying to do it herself with a knitting needle or a pair of scissors, or possibly a twisted metal coat hanger? Or had someone else done it to her? Possibly a husband or boyfriend having found out she was pregnant by another man. Another casualty of pointless rage.

I was pondering these mysteries and thinking of how I was going to clean the mess up, when the front door started banging.

He’s forgotten to tell me something.
Why had he come back with someone else? Why not just reanimate the body slumped in the chair?

“Coming. Hold your horses,” I shouted.

“Sorry to disturb you so late, Mr. Cain. I just need to take a statement from you, while the incident is still fresh in your mind, being that you were one of the first on the scene along with, Ms. Cuddy and me.”

Fuck! What was Kemp doing here so late?
It was now past midnight.

I could still hear him talking through the door.

“Sorry it’s so late. But it was difficult to get away from, Ms. Cuddy.” He had obviously been to her house first. It sounded like he was now facing away from the door, looking around.

Nosy bastard.

“One moment. It’s very late,” I shouted trying to stall for time.

“It will only take a few minutes, Mr. Cain,” came his relaxed voice.

I stood stock still, like a rabbit trapped in the lights of an oncoming speeding car. There was a dead body slumped in my chair, her guts all over my front room floor. Shit and piss as well now that her body had relaxed.

I ran to the kitchen grabbing the empty trashcan and a plate from off the draining board. I now found myself knelt down on my carpet, shovelling slippery innards into my kitchen bin, using my hands to push the wet sticky bruise coloured intestines, and thick blood clots, onto the plate. It felt like cold rubbery uncooked sausages.

In any other circumstance if I had seen a persons intestines spread out like a tacky Halloween display, I would’ve probably vomited everywhere. But at that precise moment I was shit scared. A hundred and one things rushing through my mind. Kemp knew I was in, because my car was there and I had already shouted through the door.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

The voice continued on the other side of the door. “I won’t take up too much of your time,” he called, sounding like he was now moving around outside.

Hopefully he wouldn’t roam all the way around, discovering the mounds in the back garden. Luckily it was pitch black around there. He couldn’t possibly see a thing. If he did see them I would say it was just rubbish I had buried. Many people with large gardens, who grow vegetables, dig long trenches and fill them with rotting vegetable matter, and other degradable household waste. Making a cheep, recyclable natural fertilizer. I use too, when I first moved in, but soon gave up because it was too much hard work.

I tried to ignore him, hopefully he thinks I’ve returned upstairs to put on some respectable clothes.

“Mr. Cain?”

I could see a powerful flashlight against my small side window. Luckily it was shut and the curtains pulled tightly across. Trust him to carry a torch. 00-fucking-7.

“One moment,” I said, trying to make my voice sound like it had come from somewhere else apart from the front room.

I rested the bin on her lap, grabbing the corners of the high back chair; I tipped it backwards and dragged it along on its two back legs, heading past the hallway and stairs and into the kitchen, leaving a long trail of clotting blood behind, and a long snaking line of looped intestines that had dropped from her open abdomen, it looked like a long wet sausage skin that had been filled with greyish purple golf balls. The average human body holds about seven meters of intestines – about two meters were trailing along the floor.

“Mr. Cain, please can you open this door?” The muffled voice was heading around the back now.