Last Rites

By: Sean Wilt
September 9, 2008

See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father. What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray (New American Bible Matthew 18, 10-13).



Really, you cut me off. I am that one sheep; I don't see you coming after me. It was a sour thought, one that kept it going in life. The unseen being watched. As the large oak doors opened, a breeze entered into the funeral parlor and rustled the well-worn pages of the Bible. It moved with perfect silence, watching the reader. Suddenly, he started heading toward the ventilation shaft as the man held onto his Bible like a shield. He sat back down, convinced that it was just the nature of the place. Damn fool, he'll never realize that his faith had just protected him from a supernatural attack. The reader had placed a tattered red bookmark emblazoned with Psalm 23 between the pages and closed the Book. He gently rubbed his fingers across the gold leaf lettering on the leather cover, spending a final moment to contemplate the scripture. As he stood up to leave, cradling the Bible like a newborn, he looked back at the unadorned steel coffin. There were no flowers, except for the portrait of a bouquet of roses hanging on the wall. It noted everything that the man did. If that person had the right eyes, he would have seen a column of black smoke that darted into the ventilation system.

It found a hearse that just arrived from a nursing home. It entered the coffin and dwelled inside the body that was in it. The dark force analyzed the body for a few seconds and decided on the moniker Mr. Young. A nice name, full of irony...only one being on the Earth would have known; unfortunately, we cannot find her. The coffin slowly opened up and Mr. Young leaped out of it.

Invisible scouts searched the area for any witnesses to this action. They found no one that saw anything. Using the powers of illusion and trickery associated with his kind, he disguised the appearance and rigor mortis of the dead body. The same powers also muffled the noises made while the body shambled forward. Another spirit reported the location of all living beings in the funeral home. Mr. Young received the report from the scoutling and dismissed it. He decided to engage in a bit of spiteful fun. His kind regularly took advantage of the fact that they never fully dwelled in this dimension. No actions or words of power were necessary. Without fanfare, he ignored the laws of physics and teleported into the empty director’s office.

Meanwhile, an old woman in a somber black funeral outfit walked down the hallway as she spied a white vase with roses in it. She haughtily picked it up with the expectation that it would be a fake Ming vase. She shook with nervousness as she realized that it was actually from the Ming Dynasty. Who in their right minds would something this valuable out there? Probably don't even know what they have here. She put the vase back on the pedestal and continued to walk down the hallway. As she walked, she tried to find a name she recognized on the paintings hanging on the walls. She noticed that the landscape portraits and religious scenes were from anonymous artists.

She started to shout, “Is anyone in here?” when a tall and slender man carrying a Bible stepped out of the office and stood beside her.

The old woman noticed that there was a “Director” sign on the door, and asked, “Are you the Director?”

The man smiled as he noticed the startled look on her face and said, “Indeed I am, ma’am, is there anything I can do for you? My name is Adam Young and I am the funeral director at this humble establishment.”

She replied, “Yes, I am looking for the Doris Clayborne service.”

He silently motioned for her to follow him as he led to the viewing room. He opened the large double-set oak doors and he took her coat and put it in the foyer. While he was hanging it on a brass hook, she noticed that the door to the viewing room had John 3:16 engraved along the entire arch. She looked into the room and saw several empty rows of chairs leading to a large portrait of her friend and the open steel coffin.

He walked her to a seat in the front and whispered, “There is actually going to be a service for her instead of calling hours. Someone in her family requested the change.”

The old woman nodded to him before she settled down to pray. A few minutes later, a portly middle-aged man entered the room. He walked up to the coffin and said, “My, she looks like a saint waiting for Judgment Day. How do you know the deceased, Mrs. …?”

“The name is Mrs. Turner. I knew Doris through the Church. She went to St. Martin De Tours. I am a member of the same church. She was the most generous person I have ever met. Her life was a living testimony. In fact, she helped me to accept Jesus into my life.”

He smiled sympathetically at her before walking to the podium and announcing the start of the service. He started the service by singing ‘Amazing Grace’ and continued singing for over half an hour. Then, he preached a stunning liturgy that caused her head to spin from listening to the strikingly accurate description of her life.

He walked over to her once more and gave her a hug. She hugged him back stiffly before praying for another few minutes. He walked out and mentally laughed at her inability to recognize him as the ‘director’ she met less than an hour ago.

A tall, red-haired man entered the room, closed the coffin lid and started to pull the cart underneath the coffin. She got up, shuffled to him, and scolded him by saying, “Can’t you give an old woman a few minutes to grieve without interrupting her? Why can’t you be more like that nice Mr. Young?”

The man replied, “Are you ok, ma’am? I am sorry if I startled you but I have to tell you that I don’t know a Mr. Young.”

“What, you don’t know the director of this place? Are you new here or something?”

“No, ma’am, I have been here for five years and I know Mr. Atwall, the director.”

She lost the color from her cheeks as she asked, “Is there a Mr. Young here at all?”

He shook his head no. It isn't worth arguing with this guy. Why would he lie about something like that? She turned around and ignored the man she was just talking to a moment ago. She grabbed a pamphlet and scanned the list of staff. Mr. Atwall's name appeared on the line next to the word 'Director.' She fainted; he ran to the first aid kit and he pulled smelling salts out.

"Are you okay, ma'am? Would you like me to call 911?"

And have them put me in the loony bin, I don't think so. "I'm fine. Calling 911 isn't necessary. Please just walk me to my car." She took his outstretched arm and they walked out the door.

Meanwhile, Mr. Young walked to the embalming room and laid down on one of the empty tables. A dark essence escaped from the body. The corpse became bloated and discolored once the animating force had discarded the dwelling it recently inhabited.

A few hours later, the essence that called itself Mr. Young found a thin man with a wispy beard trying to add numbers together. The man growled in frustration at his inability to make the funeral home solvent. The essence detected the sense of desperation and greed coming from the owner/director Mr. Atwall.

It formed into a cloud and hovered over his head. It seeped into his ears, filling his head with ideas of arson and quick cash. The director got up and walked to the storage room where all of the formaldehyde and other chemicals were stored. He loosened the lids from the bottles of inflammable chemicals and he went back to the entrance. He pulled out a lighter and a cigarette from his pocket, lit the cigarette, flung it towards the fumes and started running towards the exit.

The building started to catch fire rapidly but he believed that he would beat the flame and become rich in the process. Using one last bit of shadow magic, the spirit called upon a Hound of Lies to defy reality by placing a cell phone into Mr. Atwall's pocket. The cell phone started to ring and he tried to grab it from his pocket but he managed to trip instead. His last thoughts were trying to figure out where he got the cell phone and why did he even bother trying to answer it. The fireball rushed over him and he burned, becoming nothing but a charred corpse.

Mr. Young seized the moment when Mr. Atwall's soul left his body. The cloud of darkness quickly entered the body and animated it. As it did, a veil of illusion fell over the body, making it appear young and healthy. Mr. Young, who inhabited, animated and dwelled within Mr. Atwall's corpse, skipped out of the burning funeral home and headed toward downtown. As a "prince of the air", he called 911, using only his thoughts, and informed the operator of the fire at the Whispering Oaks funeral home.

No one saw the body inhabited by Mr. Young before nightfall. He recently changed bodies and eluded anyone or anything that could track him. By that time, neon lights filled the sky as the advertisements for various forms of escapism. The night was abuzz with possibilities, both good and bad.

One of those possibilities sprang into life as an itinerant preacher stood at the intersection, preaching about the sins of the flesh and their need to seek the Lord. He was a humble man wearing the traditional outfit of a preacher, black trousers with a black short-sleeved shirt. He flipped through the Bible to one of its many

annotated pages.

He shouted out with great zealousness, “For God so

loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that

everyone who believes in him might not perish but

might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil!.”

He pointed to the people walking on the sidewalk and said, “Because their works were evil! You walk down this path, seeking earthly pleasure, alcohol…sex…avarice, ignoring the poor among you as if they were merely piles of garbage to be avoided!”

Someone in the crowd had thrown an open container of liquor and hit him in the face, splashing its contents on him and on the good book. That someone looked exactly like Mr. Atwall.

The onlooker cried out, “I don’t know about the rest of the poor but I know there is one pile of crap in front of me.” Then, he ran off, laughing as he disappeared into the crowd. The prophet's unkempt appearance and the actions of the man that threw the alcohol put shame into the crowd, and their shame caused them to walk around him

as they did their best to ignore the unpleasant situation. . The audience barely looked up for a moment and then they listened to a voice in the ether that told them to go back to their night of escape. Unknown to the preacher and to the crowd, the man that threw the alcohol was wearing an outfit cloaked in shadow. He looked up at one of those signs, nodded at it and headed toward the glass door leading inside.

Look at this, plenty of prey to choose from, it would take but one of their moments to ensnare one. He smiled once again as he opened the glass door with a picture of a blue tortoise on it. He glared at the crowd of partiers, drinkers and dancers for a moment.

An attractive Asian woman with long black hair that matched her miniskirt and blouse lustfully asked, “Welcome to the Blue Tortoise. How many tonight?”

He answered, “Just one although hopefully it will more than that when I leave here tonight.”

“I don’t see where that will be a problem sweetie;

It’s a good crowd tonight”, she commented with a husky undertone to her voice.

She extended her arm and he hooked his arm into hers. She led him to a table near the dance floor and then he sat down. He watched the hostess walk away and then turned his gaze toward the dancing crowd. He started to look for a potential victim when he noticed the bartender throwing a glass of liquor into the air, using centripetal force and fast reflexes to keep it from spilling. Several women gathered around and watched the bartender do his fancy drink mixing. The bartender coyly nodded and grinned with delight at a few of them that were smiling at him. Some hotshot wannabe trying to impress the ladies…I’ll show him how it’s done.

He stared at an extra-curvy lithe blonde woman staring at the bartender. She looked now as she did long ago. Her aura is still a white-hot flame. I have found her at last. I wonder if I could still take her up on her offer. Hopefully, she will give me the Gift. He watched as she spat out her drink and headed toward his table. Her sixth sense has kicked in. The bartender dropped his martini shaker as she walked away.

Mr. Young's focus swooped down on the bartender and her like a hawk that had just spotted a mouse. He saw the cocky bartender pick the shaker up and redo the routine as he heard the young guy shout, “Come back here. I’ll let you have a couple rounds on the house.”

Just like her. Mind always on the task at hand. She did not even hear the bartender as she walked toward the mysterious man. He mentally charged by taking advantage of her confused state. It worked. She shook from the dizziness in her head before she sat down and looked into his eyes.



Mr. Young looked back at her and said, “Hey, why don’t we get outta here and go someplace private?”

Mr. Young gingerly felt the veil draping her face and clouding her thoughts. He felt relieved when she meekly nodded at him and grabbed his hand. As he watched her aura, her mind became more and more devoid of thought. They headed out the door and walked toward a deserted parking lot.

Mr. Young used a mere thought to have the veil of shadows cover them as they silently walked with purpose. They arrived in the deserted parking.

He tested her by asking, “You know that you are a slut, Twilight?"

Suddenly, he noticed her aura repairing itself, strengthening as her thoughts returned to her. He managed to see a tear rolling down her eye. The surprise nailed him, similarly to the way a sucker punch would.

A brief flash of understanding and oncoming horror showed itself on Mr. Young’s borrowed face. He saw her ripping the illusion away, showing her true ghoulish features to him.

Twilight told him, "You shouldn't have tried

to seduce me, Body snatcher." He caught the sarcasm dripping from that statement. It felt similarly to the way mortals would have reacted if liquid metal had just hit them in the face.

Twilight jumped on top of him like a wild animal, consuming his flesh confidently as she weaved an illusion of darkness around them. A column of black smoke tried to escape through the mouth of Mr. Atwall. She grabbed at the column of smoke that was the true form of Mr. Young.

Twilight asked, "Am I really that ugly or does your inability to appreciate good cloud your perception of me?"

Mr. Young wiggled around and tried to seep through her hand but he was chained with tendrils of pain that activated whenever he tried to disappear.

He implored, "You saw our brethren in Hell. Can't you understand why we want to get out?"

"Yes, I do. However, you placed yourself there."

"What are you, now?"

"Mr. Young, I am neither angelic, demonic, nor human. I will show you mercy by offering you oblivion."

He said, "You found me, very good. I have thought about it. I should have taken your offer long ago." Mr. Young stopped moving, pondering the offer.

Twilight continued, "You don't like being a lost sheep, dark one? Hell is like a wound that never heals, a void that can never be filled. Perfect understanding, perfect severing."

I'll never get the love back but I can become nothing...feel nothing. Mr. Young accepted her offer and she willingly destroyed him by absorbing his uniqueness into herself. His last thought was of victory. No Lake of Fire for me. Sweet Release. He was happy allowing her strength to increase on this night, just as it did on those other nights where she offered oblivion, her brand of mercy to those that deserved it or needed it.