Travel Bug (9 page)

“It’s you, isn’t it?”

The wolf looked at Hitchens.

“Father Dawkins?”

“Yes?”

He was amazed at how quickly the wolf had become a man. These were not terrible, slow agonizing transformations like the gypsies told in their oral traditions. The changes took place so rapidly they appeared to be almost natural.

“We change quickly,” said Father Dawkins. He put his monastic clothing on and smiled at Hitchens.

“How did this come to be?” Father Hitchens asked.

“How do you think it happened?”

“It was the gypsies by moonlight; they put a curse on you.”

“You are partially correct, Father,” said Hitchens.

“What then?”

“There was a gypsy but she was asked to do this to us. The ultimate one who is responsible for our condition is your master.”

“Aragon?”

“No,” said Father Dawkins.

“Oh, you mean?”

“Yes, that’s precisely what I mean. The church itself created us.”

“The laws of the church, natural law in particular.”

“You mean?”

“Precisely,” said Father Hitchens.

Father Dawkins looked at Hitchens and Darrow and began to break out into uncontrollable laughter. The other men started to come back from the woods, naked and appearing absolutely exhausted. The monastery of shape shifting monks had come home to roost. A few of the men joined in the laughter. The ones who took a vow of silence did not do so.

“How do you think I went blind?”

“You become wolves, you turn into those damned fiends when you…”

“You must say it, Father. Speak the truth,” said Father Darrow.

“When you…”

“Spit it out, Father,” said Father Dawkins.

“When you… masturbate… you turn into those monsters!”

“Yes,” answered Father Hitchens.

“That’s insane!”

Hitchens learned the sad truth for these monks was that it was in fact church dogma that drove man into madness. This was going to change his world view forever. Sexuality when guided with a moral compass never actually hurt anyone. The monks who desired women went after them. The few but fierce ones who preferred young boys would mutilate them. The secrets of celibacy came at a very high price for the peasants who lived in the surrounding areas. They were starving because there was hardly anyone left to tend to growing food and the hunt. They became the hunted in the dreadful dark woods where blood was spilled because semen could not ever be allowed to be.

“Madness, this is madness, all of you are in league with the……”

“Let me guess, Father Hitchens. We are in league with the devil, is that what you were about to say?”

“Yes, Father Darrow.”

“Well, very well then. If you would like to cling to your delusions I suppose no one here will fault you for that.”

“I’ve seen evil.”

“You’ve seen us. We are in league with church teaching and not Satan. If your job is to investigate and not to interrogate then I suggest you learn how to do your work properly.”

Father Dawkins rolled his eyes. He started to laugh again and then opened up a bottle of wine. He drank it very fast.

“Wine and the hunt are how we work off our lusts,” said Father Darrow.

“How did this come to be?”

“We heard over and over that we were sinners who gave into our lusts. The young women here in the villages were getting pregnant from priests. Men were killed but that did not stop us from being disobedient. Then we went to see a gypsy Ceija. She said that when lusts built up inside of us and we would perform unnatural acts, we would become creatures of folly. The folly of our sinful ways, the wolves would be our new form. It was not constant, mind you. We were men most of the day and night. When our sexual attractions became overwhelming, we became the beasts.”

“You kill these villagers, these peasants…”

“We did but the days of our filthy self-gratification are over forever.”

“What!”

“We are no longer men of lusts…”

“No, you’re far, far worse. You’re blood killers!”

“We restrain ourselves because we know that we are killers. We fight the good fight over lust every day!”

“You don’t understand, do you?” asked Father Dawkins, interrupting them.

“No.”

“Perhaps we should invite you to the dance,” said Father Hitchens.

The monks were beginning to surround him. They smiled, many of them. Others outright laughed at him.

“You aren’t leaving here alive,” said Father Hitchens.

“I know, Father.”

“Aren’t you sick of giving into self-gratification and lust?”

“Well, yes but killing is a far graver offense, I think that…”

“No!”

“What do you mean?” he asked Father Hitchens.

“Killing isn’t so bad. I mean we have killed a lot of people as church, as a religion, have we not?”

“Well, yes but…”

“What in the hell makes you think that we value human life more than we detest sexual gratification?”

“This can’t be real,” said Father Hitchens.

“It can’t but it is,” answered Father Darrow.

The disturbing shape that Father Darrow then took was menacing. He must have only been half aroused because he was half man and half wolf. It was infinitely more disturbing than the sight of the wolves were. What was even more profoundly unnatural was that he could speak while in that form.

“You don’t have to die. You can be one of us. The choice, of course, is ultimately up to you.”

“Do I get eternal life?”

“Worried about damnation?”

“Yes, of course…”

“We do not live forever but our life span can be quite long. Hundreds of years and in some rare instances even longer, at least that’s what I’ve heard.”

“I suppose I have no choice. I would rather live as a monster with the risk of being damned for eternity instead of facing imminent death.”

“Good choice, Father.”

The creature had the hair of a wolf on its face and bright, sharp fangs. His eyes were human and so was part of his nose. Father Hitchens closed his eyes, he couldn’t look. The monster bit right into his neck. The pain was profound but vanished almost as soon as it had come. Father Hitchens was now a part of the world’s strangest monastic community. He could not leave and return to Aragon. He would be seen as a demonic monster fit for slaughter. If Aragon did come to the monastery, there was no doubt Father Hitchens would have to kill him. Men like him should never be allowed to become shape shifting monsters. His wounds healed miraculously fast.

He merely had to wait for his lust to overpower him and then he would change into one of them. Father Hitchens waited for the birth of the beast within.

The Rapture woman or the white haired witch as we came to know her haunted my dreams or rather my nightmares.

“Who the fuck are you, asshole?” asked Detective Warner.

“I’m…”

He struck me very hard on the top of my head with his ashtray. I reached up at my forehead and found my hand quite bloody.

“Take it easy, damn it,” said Detective McDowell.

“Good cop, bad cop.”

“Shut the fuck up!” screamed Warner.

“Who are you?” asked McDowell.

“I’ve already told you guys, my name is Andrew Godley and I’ve come in search of the Rapture woman.”

“Who is that?” asked Warner.

“Jezebel…… Eden…”

“Sounds like an alias,” said McDowell.

“It is, I don’t know her real name, and no one does.”

“Bullshit,” said Warner.

The Rapture woman did an awful lot of damage to me in my otherwise sheltered, obscenely lucky and profitable life.

“Why did you kill her?” asked McDowell.

“She’s gone mad, ever since… she saw… what she saw…”

“What did she see?” asked Detective Warner.

“I don’t know…”

“So you’re a time traveler?” asked Detective McDowell.

“Yes.”

“Where is your time machine?” asked McDowell.

“I don’t have one, you see…”

“Then how do you travel through time, H.G.?” asked Warner, very sarcastically.

“I eat the meat of a prehistoric bug…”

“Jesus Christ,” said Warner.

“Calm down, Warner” said the good cop.

He didn’t exactly calm himself. He picked me up and kicked me in the nuts so hard that I fainted for a few minutes.

“Christ, you’re going to get us sued and you’re abusive ass is headed for jail, you know that?” asked McDowell.

I was trying hard to wake up.

“Do you get the last laugh because you’re a time traveler?” asked Warner.

“I don’t know, detective. You didn’t want to hear me out,” I said to him.

“No, I didn’t,” Warner said.

“Do you wish to press charges against Detective Warner?” asked McDowell.

“No,” I answered.

“Why?” Warner asked.

“What do you want then?” asked the good one.

“I want to try and explain…”

“Do you really?” the bad cop asked me…

“My name is Andrew Godley; I come from one of the wealthiest families in the United States of America. I came here in search of the Rapture woman or the woman to end her life. I came here of my own free will and I killed her so she could not go evil…… There is a prehistoric monster, a beast, an ancient bug whose meat contains the power to cheat time.”

I was in deep trouble then I woke up from the dream. When I woke up, I realized I was still in deep trouble!

“Andrew, are you alright?” asked the old man.

“Yes,” I answered him.

“Bad dream?”

“Sure was.”

“You had one… about…… her?”

I couldn’t answer my great grandfather. I was speechless.

“What did she see, Harold?”

“Son, I honestly don’t know.”

“That’s the key to this whole crazy thing…”

“Yes it is,” Harold said.

We were kindred spirits in a world gone mad. I was no coward; I would die to save the world.

“We need to eat some more bug meat,” said Harold.

“Harold?”

“Andrew?”

“Are we the good guys or the bad guys?”

“Oh, what the hell, let’s just assume we’re the protagonists, the good guys.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I mean we never killed anyone, son,” said Harold.

“Good point.”

“Andrew, it is a good point.”

“Yes, every great movement and crazy fucking religion always assume that it’s coming from the side of righteousness.”

“Good call,” he said to me.

“So who is the antagonist?”

“Who do you think it is?” he asked me.

“The Rapture woman, that’s what you meant.”

“Yes,” he said, sounding relieved I finally got it.

The devil was in the details or at least the opposite side of the one you were on. Still, my stories or hallucinations made me question reality at times. I knew people in the Middle Ages didn’t have last names. The point was that beasts were rising up against the innocent. Jezebel was becoming a monster. I’m quite sure that Jezebel thought we were the antichrists and maybe that time beast bug destroyed the minds of the faithful. We were, after all, a Catholic family and that’s two steps below Druid on the fundamentalist Christian totem.

“She’s a fucking lunatic.”

“A few more trips from ancient bug meat and we might be as well.”

“Andrew, I know,” he said sincerely.

The two of us were a family and we would do our best to keep each other sane like the way Alcoholics Anonymous members have sponsors who keep them sober.

“Folks like her don’t have the integrity to admit their problem. It’s the devil or some other sinister force at work. It’s never just admitting one’s own personal demons haven’t been dealt with yet out of cowardice…… or…… … fear.”

“Excellent point, Harold…”

Harold and I decided to go out for a nice dinner, nothing too fancy, a good lobster place with a great wine list. It left us in very good spirits and when our limo driver took us back we decided to relax. We could go on our next time traveling journey anytime tomorrow, no pun intended.

“Oh dear God,” said Harold.

“What?” I asked anxiously.

“Andrew, look at the television right now.”

I did and I was stupefied and horrified at what my eyes saw. Now as far as the police knew, Jezebel Eden was a suspect but there was no proof that she killed my parents other than the fact that she seemed to quit without notice very close to the time of their demise. The bug meat from the unnamed species would transport both us both to the recent past, when the show was recorded.

“I don’t believe this,” said Harold.

The TV host Woody A. Brooks was a popular late night guy. He had just landed one of the coolest actors of the 80’s who was now making a hell of a comeback. That actor’s name was Ian Flick.

“Now Ian, I take it the ‘Party School’ days are over for you?” asked Brooks.

“Yes, Woody,” he answered. The actor grimaced.

“Now that your performance of a gay man on death row won critical raves, I think we can see you in a different light.”

“I hope so,” he said to the host.

“We have a clip… from ‘Party School,” said the host.

Ian frowned but the audience roared with laughter.

“Just kidding, Ian, lighten the hell up.”

“Alright…” He smiled at Brooks.

“It’s not like you ever had to work a real job even when you were starring in some of the worst movies ever caught on film.”

“No,” he said, trying not to lose his temper.

“Okay, now I see. You’re not going to deck me… like that photographer fellah, aren’t you?”

“Only if you show a clip from ‘Party School,’ Woody, only then would I do that.”

There was roaring laughter from the New York studio audience once again.

She was in the green room of the studio. Sitting there like she was just an ordinary gal. Dressed in that damned robe but having he decency to fasten it up enough to meet F.C.C. standards. It was her.

“No, don’t worry, Ian. This is a clip from ‘Death Row Closet,’ where your excellent acting is indisputable.”

“Great, Wood,” said Ian.

The audience ate up the clip with a spoon and Brooks continued in his line of silly late night questioning.

“What’s your inspiration for this new success?”