Blasphemy

Chapter Fourteen

Calvin stared at his empty closet with a look of dismay. This felt so wrong. Everything felt wrong. He didn't know what to think anymore. He couldn't sleep anymore. Nothing but nightmares.

He had grown up in Goodheart and he wasn't ready to leave, but he had to admit that the constant nagging was getting old. He knew what everyone thought and they all knew that he knew. His psychologist was pushing him harder. The pastor constantly targeted him in prayer as if his hallucinations could be fixed by God. He frowned.

No one understood that he wasn't crazy.

He was sick.

Calvin felt his chest clench and his heart was pounding. He couldn't breathe. He felt panicked. What if they got caught? He hadn't thought about it before, but Peter was supposed to be here by now. He had been sitting and waiting for him for about thirty minutes. What if Peter already got caught?

Were they crazy enough to kill him?

Calvin squeezed his eyes closed and tried to calm down. 

~~~~~~

"Hey, Calvin."

He opened his eyes.

The road looked nice, but his legs hurt. They had been walking for a while.

"Yeah, Peter?"

"The map says we're almost there."

"Almost", Calvin repeated, breathlessly. Peter grinned stupidly at him.

"Yeah."

"Why are we doing this", Calvin asked him, trudging along and struggling to keep up. Peter didn't reply for a moment as if thinking of what to say.

"It's safer this way."

"How", Calvin asked.

"They won't find us. You know, I think they'd kill us."

"Hang us on the cross just like Jesus, trying to save our damned souls", Calvin replied bitterly. Peter stopped walking and eyed him.

"That was oddly specific."

"That's what they did to the blond boy...the one that I...that I keep seeing", the boy muttered and Peter frowned, looking to the ground. 

"You said you saw me die too. Is that what they did to me", Peter asked randomly.

"I don't know...I don't remember."

Calvin halted and turned to look at him. 

His eyes widened in shock. 

Blood trickled down Peter's chin as he stared at the ground. Every time he spoke, flecks of it splattered on the grass, on the dirt.

"...What", Calvin began to say, but he was so afraid that he couldn't form the rest of the sentence.

"Why didn't you save me? You knew, you knew."

"I..."

"You knew something was wrong...why didn't you do anything", Peter screamed, blood spilling over his lips onto the grass. Calvin felt himself begin to shake. He looked around. They were in the middle of nowhere. 

He suddenly remembered that he had no idea when he got here. 

There a sickening squelch as a spike ripped through Peter's sternum. Blood splattered onto Calvin's face. He stared toward Peter with a horrified look.

"Peter...Peter!"

"You knew. You knew. You let me die. YOU LET ME DIE."

Calvin turned to run away from him, staring straight ahead at the nothingness that engulfed him. He looked over his shoulder to see that Peter was gone. A tree towered over him, replacing where his friend would have been. It was bare, all of its leaves having fallen off sometime during the fall. 

He faced it, staring upward.

His breath caught in his throat.

Bodies swayed in the wind, hanging from the tree's branches as though they were ornaments. He looked at the trunk and watched himself carve his name into the bark like an artist signing their name on a piece of work. He turned to look at himself and stared, confused.

Calvin tried to blink everything away.

He stood in the middle of the road, wind whipping his hair around as he hugged himself. The tree was gone. He had no idea where he was. He felt himself fall to his knees and he began to scream. He rocked back and forth. Laughter echoed throughout the loneliness. He stared up at a man he'd never seen before.

"Come out of your thoughts and join me, Calvin. I'm the Devil's Proxy."

Calvin.

Wake up.  

~~~~~~

"Calvin", a voice called out.

The world looked so cold.

He sat in his room alone, hugging himself tightly. "...yeah?"

"Can you come here, sweetie", he heard his mom reply after a moment. He struggled to get up. It seemed that his body didn't want to cooperate. Slowly, he made his way to his mother. She was startled by his appearance.

"Oh, baby, are you sick?" She felt his forehead, looking worried. He closed his eyes for a minute. He wanted to sleep.

"Hey, sweetie. Take a seat. I'll make you some tea. We're going to church in an hour. Make sure you get cleaned up."

Church in an hour.

Peter was supposed to come yesterday.