Warren Murphy: The Arms of Kali

Chapter Four

Number 107.

Holly Rodan's mother was delighted. When she heard that her daughter's new religion did not involve dating minorities, everything took on a positive glow. It was a real community kind of religion but Holly would not have to live there all the time. Just occasionally, for formal prayers and ceremonies, such as tonight, when Holly would be inducted, and then return home in a few days.

"Do you need any special dress like for First Holy Communion or something like that?" her mother asked.

"No," said Holly.

"I see you have an airplane ticket. Is your church far away?"

"Mother. I have found a meaningful involvement. Are you going to try to ruin it now?"

"No, no. Father and I are really happy for you. I just thought I might help. After all, we can afford to help. We would be happy to give you the price of a full fare on a scheduled airline. You don't have to be poor or anything for your faith, do you?"

Holly was a beautiful girl with a blond cherub's face, innocent blue eyes, and a ripe milkmaid's body.

"Gawd, will you ever leave me alone," she said.

"Yes, yes, dear. Sorry."

"I have found a place for myself in this world."

"Absolutely, dear."

"I have done this despite the oppression of wealth . . ."

"Yes, Holly."

"A family environment devoid of a meaningful sharing . . ."

"Yes, dear."

"And parents who have never failed to fail me. Despite all this, I have found a place where I truly belong."

"Yes, dear."

"Where I am needed."

"Absolutely, dear."

"So get off my back, bitch," said Holly.

"Absolutely, dear. Can I give you something to eat before you leave?"

"Only if you want to saute your heart," Holly said.

"God bless you, dear," said her mother.

"She does," said Holly Rodan.

She did not say good-bye to her mother and she did not tip the cabdriver who took her to the airport. She took her just Folks cardboard ticket to a counter, where someone checked it against a handwritten list of passengers, then made a mark on the back of her hand with a rubber stamp. She was then directed to a waiting area, where someone was renting stools to sit on.

Holly steadied herself and thought of the prayers she had been taught. She chanted silently to herself and then knew that whoever she selected would be a demon and deserved to be killed for Her. Because She was the mother of all destruction and required that demons be killed so that other humans might live. All it took was killing, Holly realized. Kill, she thought. Kill. Kill for the love of Kali.

She walked around the waiting room looking for a suitable demon to sacrifice.

"Hello," said Holly to a woman with a paper bundle. "Can I help you get that onto the plane?"

The woman shook her head. Apparently she did not believe in speaking to strangers. Holly smiled her warm smile and tilted her head winningly. But the woman wouldn't even acknowledge that she was there. Holly felt the first chill finger of panic. What if she couldn't get anyone to trust her? They had to trust you first, she had been told. You had to win their trust.

An old man was sitting on a rented stool reading a newspaper. Old men had always seemed to trust her. "Hi," she said. "That's an interesting newspaper you're reading."

"Was reading," the man corrected.

"Can I help?" she asked.

"Usually I do my reading solo," he said. It was a cold smile he returned.

Holly nodded and walked away, frightened now. Nobody is going to let me help. Nobody is going to let me be friendly.

She tried to calm herself but she knew she was going to fail. She would be the first to fail. Every other initiate had passed. It was supposed to be so easy because people traveling were supposed to feel vulnerable, grateful for help, but there was no one in the sparse waiting room of just Folks Airlines who would let her help.

She tried a young boy reading a comic book and he physically kicked her away.

"You're not my mommy and I don't like you," he snarled.

The world was like that. She was going to fail. She had failed emotional development at the consciousness institute. All the marches for peace, for support to revolutions, to end all arms-they had all failed, because there was still no peace. Governments refused to sponsor and support revolutions, and there were still arms. All failures, and now, in the most crucial test of her life, she was failing again. She cried.

A young man with a face of acne that looked ready to harvest with a hard rub of a washcloth asked if he could help.

"No, dammit, I'm supposed to be the one helping," she said.

"Help any way you want, honey," he said, giving her a lascivious wink.

"Really?" said Holly. Her eyes widened. The tears stopped.

"Sure," said the young man, who was a sophomore at a large Louisiana university and was returning to New Orleans on just Folks because it was cheaper than a bus. In fact, he said, when you considered what shoes cost today, it was cheaper than walking. While he was talking, he was recording everything in his mind to boast about back at the dorm if this pickup should turn out to be as successful as he hoped.

"Are you going to be met by anyone?" asked Holly.

"No. I'll just take a bus to the campus," he said.

"Do you need a lift or anything?"

"Well, I'll take one," he said.

"What is your name, where are you going, and why; is there anyone you really care about in your life; what are your main worries and hopes? Mine are to live happily," said Holly. Dammit, she thought. She was supposed to ask those questions one at a time, not all at once.

But the young man didn't mind. He answered them all. She didn't even bother to listen. She just smiled and nodded every few minutes and it was enough for him.

Every one of his jokes was funny, every one of his ideas profound. He discovered in this milk-skinned, big-busted blond beauty an approval the world had never given him before.

The two hardly noticed the two male flight attendants on just Folks, one of them wearing a kimono. They must have been efficient, though, because everyone seemed to stay in his seat and there were no calls for anything. Once someone wanted to use the lavatory and the old Oriental in the kimono explained how to use bladder control.

But Holly and her new friend didn't mind at all. At the airport outside New Orleans, Holly offered the student a lift. He thought that was a great idea, especially since she implied she knew of a lonely, secluded place.

The place was an old ramshackle building in a black section of the city. Holly led him inside, and when she saw her brothers and sisters in Kali, she could hardly contain herself. They were her prayer-mates. And there was the phansigar. He had brought the strangling cloth.

Holly smiled when she saw the yellow cloth in his hands. Tradition, she thought. She loved tradition. She loved calling the strangler "the phansigar," just as Kali devotees had done in the olden days. The cloth too was a part of that tradition.

"This isn't going to be a gang bang, is it?" The student laughed and all the rest laughed with him: He thought they were wonderful people. They thought he was as brilliant as she did.

He waited awhile for Holly to take off her clothes. While he was waiting, one of the others asked if he could get a handkerchief around the student's throat.

"No, I don't go for kinky stuff."

"We do," said the other man, and then they were all on him, holding his hands, his feet, and there was a cord around his neck.

He couldn't breathe, and then, after a point of incredible pain, he didn't even want to breathe. "She loves it," said Holly, seeing the death struggles of the young man, his face becoming red, then blue with death. "Kali loves his pain. She loves it."