Timothy Long - The Apocalypse and Satan's Glory Hole

Leon likes Father O’Coddle the most. The tall skinny priest has a shock of bright red hair that sticks up as if constantly charged with static energy. He smokes crystal meth in his room and plays the acoustic guitar. He once told Leon he couldn’t play any songs but he was writing a dirty Christmas ditty called “Santa Cums Tonight” and it was his ticket out of this hellhole. Leon still hasn’t heard a verse, but he believes in following one’s dreams, and he can’t wait to hear it.

Leon walks into the seldom-used cathedral, letting the wooden doors fall shut with a bang that would normally echo in the cavernous room. Then again, the room is normally empty. Today, however, masses of people line the aisles and crowd the pews. They stare gap-mouthed at Leon, and he mirrors their faces with his own fish mouth. Father Michaels spots the wide-eyed Leon and he wiggles through the crowd to his side.

“Leon, look at all the sheep the Lord has sent for us to shepherd!”

He claps his arthritic hands and turns back to the cathedral full of humanity. To Leon, the people appear as half-sheep half-humans with gaping snout-mouths.

“Jesus love juice,” Leon says as he takes a few small steps away from the sheep-people. He sees their indignation as their sheep-faces melt to bone and then build themselves back up with an odd bubbling effect.

“Oh, Jesus’s love is right, Leon.” The kind old priest shuffles the few steps closer to Leon and asks in a whisper, “Could you go fetch Fathers Maniwhore and O’Coddle? Many in this throng wish to confess, while others seek the comfort of a service of the Lord.”

Leon backs up quickly and darts up the stone stairs to knock on Father O’Coddle’s door, nervous and sweating from his encounter with the crowd of melting sheep-people downstairs. Shadows thrown by the candles on the wall dance and crawl at Leon as his trip takes an even darker turn. Long faces scowl and laugh at him from the shimmering shadows. Panic tingles in the air around him. He hears the murmur of the crowd downstairs and shouts louder than he means to.

“Blowjob, Father!” Leon yells at the closed door.

The door next to the one on which he is knocking opens, and the dark shape of Father Maniwhore peeks his long face out.

“Are you talking to me, Leon?”

“Uh, gangbang barnyard downstairs,” Leon says. “Confession and service cock hole dirty whore.”

Father O’Coddle’s door opens, and a thin cloud of yellow smoke drifts out. His face is almost as long as Father Maniwhore’s, but it lacks the sharp features of the goatish priest. Father Maniwhore looks like a demon to Leon, while Father O’Coddle resembles Beaker the Muppet. O’Coddle fixes his wide eyes on Leon and asks, “Are you talking about a gangbang, Leon?”

Father Maniwhore growls and exits his room. “No, you twat, he is telling us that there is a throng of people downstairs, and they want confession and service in these dark times.”

He casts his dark eyes to Leon, who can only nod in reply.

“OK,” Father O’Coddle says as he tries to force his bright red hair down, to little effect.

“So you and I are doing confessions while Father Michaels preaches?” O’Coddle asks.

Father Maniwhore rubs his crotch and stares at Leon. “No, I’ll do the service and you and Father Michaels will do the confessions. As the Dark Lord rises, the throngs will seek redemption. Let me wash it over them.”

With that he turns and slams the old wooden door, and the candles rattle in their sconces from the force. Leon forces himself past Father O’Coddle into the dingy smoke-filled room, away from the shadow faces reinvigorated by the slamming door.

“I tell ya’ Leon,” Father O’Coddle says with his jaw swinging back and forth, popping as it goes, “I see more than most, you know, being a man of the Lord and all. I see things most don’t. I’m more ‘aware,’ you know?”

Leon looks at the spun priest and nods. “Tweek.”

“No, Leon, I’m enlightened by the Lord. But that’s not my point.”

He pulls his robe over his skinny pale form and slides his collar in. “I’m talking about the ogre of an angel Father Maniwhore. I may not be the straightest arrow in the quiver, but he takes it to a whole new level.”

Father O’Coddle pulls his door open as Leon stands. O’Coddle pops his wild red head through the doorway, looks both ways down the candlelit hall, and pulls the door closed. He turns to Leon and whispers, “And I don’t know why he wants to lead the service. He likes to beat off during confession.”

A sick feeling rolls Leon’s belly. He’s listened in at the confession booths, but he would never spank it there. Thinking of ugly Father Maniwhore beating his meat while relieving sinners of their faults as Leon listened, unknowingly, through the thin wood makes him queasy. He wants to go back home and hide. Maybe get on the computer to see if Chuzzle, his favorite paranoid blogger, has any words of wisdom about the chaos.

Father O’Coddle sees the sickness in Leon’s eyes. “Yeah, Leon, I feel it because we sit back to back with only the thin wall in between. It’s distracting as fuck when I’m trying to absolve a mother fucker. You know what I mean?”

Leon doesn’t want to think about it, so he nods and hopes he won’t have to hear any more about Father Maniwhore and his self-love. The two walk down the hallway without talking, Father O’Coddle whistling his Christmas song and Leon staring at his feet to avoid the laughing faces on the walls. The cathedral is even more crowded than before. The mob turns and looks at them, and Leon feels their eyes burrow into him.

Father Maniwhore’s deep voice thunders through the church. “THE END HAS COME, ALL SINNERS!!!”

The dick-shaped bruise darkening Leon’s cheek begins to burn, and Leon watches everyone melt and puddle on the stone floor as Father Maniwhore continues, “REJOICE, I SAY, FOR THE TIME IS UPON US!!!”

Whimpering, Leon pushes his way through the melting crowd, into the foyer, and out into the day. Smoke fills the sky, and flames pour from the buildings around him. Leon sets off at a dead run for home with his hands held up to shield his eyes from the chaos of people screaming, windows breaking, and cars crashing.

“I just want to make it home and go to sleep,” he repeats in his head over and over. He tries it out loud, but “Snuggle fuck holy house monkey sack” just doesn’t have the same calming effect. He pushes through the front door and past Jerome, who barks, “Where the shit is Bud?”

He ignores the fat man, still thinking “I just want to make it home and go to sleep.” As Leon turns toward the stairway to his room, he grabs an unopened Jaime St. Pucker Pocket Pussy. He amends his mantra as he trudges up the stairs. “I just want to go home, fuck a piece of pussy-shaped plastic, and go to sleep.”

The horse is a massive stallion that gallops through the rent in reality. His name is Chester, and he breathes fire when he is in a bad mood. He and Death have been together for a long time, but the stallion is sick and tired of carrying the bald man all over the damn place. He was due for retirement a long time ago. He was promised an endless field of young fillies, but that never happened. Yeah he is resentful, but he has a great job. He gets to lead the charge, and when the two-legged people fall, he gets to mush his hooves through their skin and blood.

Sometimes it’s the little things in life that make it worth getting up for one more mass slaughter. He lands on the ground going a solid twenty miles an hour and leaps over an oncoming car. The driver freaks out and hits the brakes, sending the car screeching to a sideways halt before the front end, now at an angle to the road, is sheared off by a Dodge Ram truck loaded with slot machines.