Bill Franks - Jesuit

The spellbound woman moved her head to her master as she ministered to his desires. Minutes later, she was engaged in frenzied lust, the like of which she had not been involved for many years. At the end, she lay with her legs unashamedly apart, her face flushed and smiling, her mind truly on another plane.

Ignatious stroked each arm in turn, feeling and looking for the telltale signs of immunisation. The only one he found was high on the left arm, an ancient smallpox scar, too closed for his intended purpose. Unfazed, he raised his underpant and trousers from their position around his ankles and fastened them in place. Reaching into a pocket, he produced a slender, squat implement into which he poured a substance from a small phial. Replacing the phial, he bent to Mary. “You are now prepared for the final phase,” he said to her. “And, Mary.” She did not respond. “No matter, but you should refer to me as Brother, not Father.”

Through the mists of her mind, the words clicked into place. “Yes, Father. Take me where you will.”

“The Virgin Mary is awaiting you. She is the one woman whom you can truly love, with a love transcending that which you have experienced here in this miserable world. Go to her!” With that, he pressed the slender object to the scar and pushed on a square knob at the top of it. It travelled only half an inch with a sharp snap, injecting the fluid into the bloodstream with a burst of compressed air.

Mary’s eyes fluttered open, as did her mouth, saying or doing nothing for several seconds. Her eyes then took on a dark hue and she looked with lasciviousness at the holy Brother, seeing him again as a sex object. Her tongue rolled around her lips as she began to smile. Then, suddenly, her body arched upwards, supported on feet and shoulders, and the dark eyes rolled back beyond the eyelids. The tongue protruded in a bizarre rasp as Mary’s breathing became fast and laboured. She uttered a weird snarling sound, then collapsed to the ground, her body shaking from head to toe. She died in minutes from Opium poisoning.

From the top pocket of his shirt, Ignatious gently lifted out a perfectly preserved bunch of humming bird feathers and placed it next to her left thigh. He then replaced the discarded panties and closed her legs, resting the tip of the feathers beneath the thigh, holding it in position. Before leaving the scene, he said a prayer over the body, ending with: “Good Mother of God, receive your sinner and keep her safe.”

Once back inside the motor home, Ignatious brought out one of two animal skin pouches. This contained sixteen well preserved bunches of humming bird feathers, all the same iridescent colours. The other pouch held a total of twenty. Ignatious never tired of looking at the collection; the mysteries of this particular bird’s flight patterns, studied when in the Amazon, left him in excited awe.

Apart from the morning’s activity, Ignatious had spent most of the time familiarising himself with his surroundings, enjoying the summers day. He had eaten sparsely, his appetite diminished due to the heat. Now it was night and he had gone to bed, slipping easily into a gradually deepening sleep.

As in a serial, dreams, if dreams be the right description, begin where they leave off, each episode a continuation of the last.

In flashes of wakefulness, Saviour opened his eyes and took in the scene around him. The storm was still raging; the howling wind, the slanting rain and the roaring thunder ferociously attacking his weakened and damaged body as he lay helplessly entangled in the thick tree branches that offered him support. He shook with fear as a blinding flash of lightning seared through a thick branch, not six feet from his position, the wind hurling it into the air above to be swallowed into it’s insatiable belly. He managed a fearful look to his right and saw the figure of Sister Vasquez, her clothing flapping like a hummingbird’s wings, suffering the storm as he was. He noticed a deliberate movement from her; a quick shift of position, a huddle deeper into the protective foliage — she was alive! Try as he may, Saviour could not see his other comrades, Fathers Christian and Ottomier. Suddenly the screeching hurricane reached a crescendo; Saviour’s head began to swim, his eyes blurred and he fell into unconsciousness.

The jungle tribe that found the strangely attired people had a history going back many centuries. They had not developed as in the sense of the western world but their particular skills were finely honed. The men and boys were highly skilled hunters and clever at producing the necessary items of their existence, whilst the females of the tribe worked hard as farmers of the lands, cooks, nurses, weavers and, of course, mothers.

They set about releasing the victims from their entangled prisons, checking that they were still alive before carrying them not too carefully back to the village on contraptions made from stout poles and animal hides, formed into elongated stretchers. Two men rested the front poles on their shoulders and, maintaining a strong grip, dragged the injured people at quick speed behind them.

Saviour awoke several times during his fever but was only vaguely aware of what was going on around him. His senses told him that he was being cared for, there being a feeling of comfort and the occasional suspicion of a young, deep-coffee-coloured face swimming in and out of his vision. Then the demons arrived again to extract their fun at his expense. He screamed in terror but it was not heard by the carers, the only sign being the renewal of the violent shuddering, coupled with unbelievable perspiring, as the fever bit forcefully.

Fifteen days passed before Saviour finally awoke. Although his head ached, he was in command of his faculties once more. He lay still for a short while, gathering his wits, appreciating the pleasant smell of something burning — like smouldering cork. There was also the mouth-watering aroma of food being cooked; fish and beef it seemed. He found that he was lying on a comfortable bed made up of some kind of vegetation, covered over by a smooth cotton blanket with a sheet of the same material draped loosely over him. The air was warm and the summery sounds of carried voices and buzzing insects came to his ears. Looking around, he found that he was in some kind of primitive hut, the only wall decorations being various types of animal heads and two or three brightly coloured blankets placed in haphazard fashion.

Forcing himself to move from his comfort, Ignatious rose unsteadily to his feet. Leaning against a wall for support, he rested for a couple of minutes before venturing forward to the entrance — the single opening in the hut. He found he was walking with half-closed eyes and he shook his head to clear the somewhat self-pitying feelings in which he was ensconced.

His heart leapt alarmingly as he left the building and he had to grab at one of the thick bamboo poles forming a part of the structure’s entrance to save himself from crashing twenty feet or so to the ground below. The huts had been built on stilts! Quickly scrambling back inside, Ignatious knelt, looking forward out of the building at the camp below.

There appeared to be no men around, just a few young boys. However, there were many women and girls to be seen, all busy at some task or other. Like ants, they seemed to be scurrying around, to and fro, bringing, fetching, and carrying. It was obvious the main job was cooking; hence the delectable aromas abounding.

Looking to the Sun, Ignatious estimated the time to be around eleven in the morning. He was feeling ravenous. Clearing his head once more, he gingerly sought out the flimsy looking ladder with his foot and descended the almost vertical piece, holding tightly, body flat to the rungs, taking one slow step before the other. He began to sweat. The view from the top would have been quite magnificent had he been able to enjoy it, but his main concentration was surviving the journey to the ground, some thirty feet below .