Orgy of Souls

Seeing that thing come out of the darkness had robbed Samuel of all his resolve. The only hope they had at all was the thought that if hell existed—and that could be the only place that thing could have come from—then heaven had to exist as well. And if heaven existed then God existed. He clung to that promise as the stench of hell, of burning meat and boiling blood, pursued them through the dark streets along with the sound of screams, shredding flesh, and breaking bones. The beast killed everything in its path.

“I don’t know, Samson. I don’t know.”

Samson fell silent again, trying to remember anything he’d read in those old grimoires about sending a demon back to hell.

“I can’t keep running, Samson. I’m too sick. I feel like I’m dying.”

“You’re just out of shape.” Samson said, not wanting to acknowledge Samuel’s disease. Samson scooped him onto his shoulders in a fireman’s carry and took off running again. “You’ve lost a lot of weight.”

“I’m dying, Samson.”

“Don’t say that!”

“It’s true. You’ve got to accept that. Look at the hell you’ve created trying to deny it. You’ve got to accept the fact that I’m dying.”

“I can’t. I can’t.”

Samson turned another corner and almost crashed into a line of party-goers lining up outside of Club Deviance, a gay club in the Castro district. Samson spotted Amon exiting a taxi, but he was so out of breath he could barely speak. He dropped Samuel from his shoulders and gestured toward him.

“Samson! You’re covered in blood!” Amon yelled.

“It’s my brother, he’s hurt. We need your taxi.”

“Oh, sure honey. I won’t be needing one for four or five hours.” Amon waved to the taxi driver, a portly dark-skinned Italian with thick curly hair and a face like a piece of tanned leather. “Wait. This is my dear friend Samson. He’s one of the sexiest men on earth and the highest paid male model in the industry. Take good care of him and take him wherever he wants to go.”

“Thanks, Amon. You’d better get inside the club quick!”

Amon heard the screams. “Gay bashers?”

“No…worse. Just get inside the club and stay there until it passes…and thanks for the ride!”

Samson helped his brother into the taxi and then dove in after him. “Get us the fuck out of here! That way! Fast! Just drive!”

Samuel sucked in shallow gasps of air, broad patches of sweat soaking through his shirt. His color was all wrong, his ashen skin cold and clammy to the touch.

“Don’t die on me, Samuel. You can make it!”

“Samson, what is that thing? You have to know what it is. Try to think. How did you summon it?”

Growing up, Samson always had a tell for when he’d been caught, his signature turn away, that betrayed his inability to hold a poker face. So when Samson turned his face away from his brother, Samuel already suspected what he was about to say.

“I knew.”

“What? You knew what?” Samuel pressed.

“I knew it wasn’t an angel. I knew exactly what it was.”

“How could you do this? Why? What is it? How do we stop it?”

“I tried to call God, I did, but he wasn’t listening. I prayed to every angel, every saint. I got nothing! What was I supposed to do? Let you die? I had to try everything, so…”

“So what? What did you do?”

“I think I really fucked up, Samuel. I think I brought Satan here!”

“It can’t be. One of his demons or some kind of dragon maybe? The Old Testament talks about all kinds of creatures…that…that can’t be Satan.”

Samson lowered his head and said nothing. They watched through the taxi’s rear window as clouds of darkness billowed through the streets. Flames flickered in the dark, a forest fire silhouetting a prehistoric lizard of some kind within the black smoldering miasma. A dinosaur, but not like any dinosaur either of them had ever read about. This one had six heads.

“Faster! Drive faster!”

In the rearview mirror, the cabbie’s thick eyebrows rose high on his forehead. The taxi lurched as the accelerator went to the floor.

“We’ve got to find a church! If that thing is Satan then maybe he won’t be able to enter.” Samuel looked down at his hand. His fist was covered in blood as he continued to squeeze the crucifix in his palm. He opened his fingers and studied the tiny effigy of the crucified Christ. Instead of the rapturous expression he normally wore, Jesus, saturated in Samuel’s blood, writhed in agony.

“There’s a church about four blocks away! The-the big one! St. Christopher’s!” the cabbie stammered.

Samson’s body was a riot of activity. The souls within him seemed to be struggling to break free, to flee his flesh before whatever evil Samson had brought to earth could claim them. His body stretched and morphed as more than a dozen souls fought their way to the surface, their hands and faces pressing against his skin, clawing and biting in their effort to escape. Samuel watched in mute horror, wondering if the beast outside was the only thing he had to worry about.

Sparks flew from the taxi’s rear fender as it rounded the corner on two wheels. A surge of heat blasted the cab and the windows exploded, showering them all in bits of tempered safety glass.