Souls - IX

The most unsettling thing about demons is the amount of whistling they do. Any lapse in sound, any silence at all and they’re at it, whistling some tune that was intended to be happy but now just sounds eery and menacing. Molech is an especially obsessive whistler.

We’re in the van, he’s driving. Tapping his intentionally long fingernails on the steering wheel as he whistles; something by Creedence Clearwater Revival I think. He’s been whistling this for hours. I don’t know where we’re going. I’m afraid to ask.

Jesus Christ.

That’s the name Lucifer gave to me. My list had one name. Jesus Christ.

I’m starting to get dizzy again. Molech looks over.

“Are you hungry?”

I shake my head.

“You don’t look well.”

“Jesus Christ?”

Molech smiles, “Yes, that’s the plan.”

“He has one?”

“A soul? Yes, for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son. That means he was human, ala he has a soul.”

“But he died.”

“Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Well, I mean, he has come again, he is here. Liturgy is a bit dated now I suppose.” He starts whistling again.

I stare to the horizon through the window, trying to calm my whirring brain. We are passing through southern Kansas, our destination unclear. 

The alternating billboards speed by:

“Jesus Saves!”

“Abortion is Murder!”

“Adult Bookstore, Next Right!”.

Repeat. 

Beyond those signs is the world’s new landscape, pulsing skyless sky, decimated tree-lines, and moving shadows. None of it is real good for my nerves. I don’t even notice that Molech has stopped whistling. 

I look over and he’s staring at me, not even pretending to be watching the road.

“I don’t see it. Try as I might, I simply don’t see it.”

I shift to my seat, attempting to meld with it to the point of invisibility.

“What makes you special?”

I don’t want to do this. Not now.

“A woman no less, one who insists on covering herself. Pretending to be a man.”

It’s starting. I can feel it. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

“I saw your scar by the way, where is your child?”

“Don’t.” It’s the only word I can squeak out as a warning.

Molech smiles. “Ahh, that’s why he assigned me here. You sacrificed your child? Magnificent.”

My brain is burning. I put my hands up and try to hold it in my skull.

Molech turns back to the road. “You humans are curious. Pathetic, but curious.”

It happens. I can’t hold it in anymore. I see a flash of light burst outwards from me. I hear Molech scream. The van squeals as the tires leave the asphalt, it moans as the metal crumples, tumbling over the flat earth of Kansas. We come to a rest upside down, I feel the seatbelt digging into my right shoulder blade. 

I black out.