Resentment and guilt, are like a poison in the blood. However it gets under your skin it lingers, seeps into your body, and sickens it. It begins to weaken it, until finally you either succumb or survive.
The poison is worse when cultured by the resentment of those we love or care the most about.
Or the guilt of failing so many who needed you.
I was betrayed by someone I cared about, the resentment I felt was so strong it nearly blinded me and almost cost both my life and that of my brother. But the guilt of the conclusion leads to its own peril as that guilt’s poison still seeps into my soul.
I am sorry I am getting ahead of myself. I apologize in advance, I would introduce myself but for reasons you will soon understand I will not disclose or even hint at my identity or location. I am changing the names involved as well to prevent an association from leading to any information being accidentally disclosed. It never hurts to take extra care when dealing with the sort of things and people I have gotten involved with.
Let me begin by saying that I need to warn everyone reading this. I not only need to warn you about the danger of resentment and guilt and how they can derail your life. I must also warn you of a group of people who practice human sacrifice and almost killed me and my brother.
I don’t know if they are still out there, I cannot find any trace of evidence of the existence of the group online and no physical proof from the incident remains. All I can give now is a warning not to be pulled in by their lies and to try and stay safe and as far away as you can from the Order of the Beating Heart.
About three months ago I had just gotten a new job and things were looking up for me. I had been living at my brother’s place after I was laid off from my previous job. It was a rough time and money was tight but I managed to make it through and things were changing for the better.
On top of the new job I had met someone at work and we had been dating for a little while. She worked in the same office but in a different department than I did. Her name was Kristin and she was absolutely amazing.
She was beautiful, smart, funny and kind. She had an amazing laugh and always seemed sincere even when I told her a corny joke or two.
We had been going out for a while and it was getting serious. I knew I was falling for her and I hoped she felt the same way about me.
Despite how long we had been dating I always tried to go to her place or do something else if she wanted to come home with me, since I was embarrassed I lived with my brother. Eventually, she convinced me to let her come home and make dinner for all three of us, my brother included.
I had been anxious to have them meet because my brother was always a lot smoother with women than I was and when we were teenagers he had ended up dating several girls I had had a crush on and even one who had been my first real girlfriend. I don’t know if he did it on purpose but with how much it happened it seemed to be a perverse sport for him to steal whoever I was with.
We arrived back home and my brother greeted us at the door, slapping me on the back and holding Kristin’s hand, and kissing it in an exaggerated way that felt like a bit from a daytime soap opera, but also like he was starting his normal routine of showing me up. My brother Bryce thought he was God’s gift to women, and somehow that faux confidence worked for him much to my annoyance.
I ignored it for now and we hung out a bit in the living room while Kristin made dinner.
Kristin was an excellent cook as well and we all enjoyed a great meal. My brother Bryce was boasting about his exercise regime again and during dinner quipped “If you did half of what I do every day you wouldn’t be dragging around that spare tire bro” as he literally poked me in the gut. He bellowed with laughter and Kristin let out a giggle despite herself that made my face turn red. He knew I was self-conscious about my weight and of course, couldn’t miss the chance to ridicule me about it in front of my girlfriend.
The subject turned to religion and it was something that as strange as it was for how long we had been together, I had not gotten to talk to her much about. She said she was part of a collective called the 1st Bearers of the Order of the Beating Heart. I thought that sounded off and wondered if it was like the Sacred Heart or some Christian group I thought I had heard of before. I was and am still not a particularly spiritual person, but I was surprised by how much conviction she spoke of her faith, especially considering she had not mentioned it thus far. The way she spoke of destiny and fate and the sacrifices needed to ensure salvation made me kind of uncomfortable.
Despite not being much more religious than myself, Bryce took the opportunity to insist that those same tenets were felt equally strongly by him and that he had always been looking for someone who felt as strongly as he did about them.
To my amazement and disgust, Kristin seemed captivated by his complete pious bullshit and was talking more about everything related to her faith. They started ignoring me completely when I tried to chime in and I started to get a sinking feeling that it was happening again. “Not Kristin,” I thought. “We are rock solid, there’s no way.”
I tried to ignore that feeling and excused myself even though neither of them seemed to hear me or notice I was getting up. By the time I got back to the dining room, I was shocked to see that both Kristin and Bryce were gone. There was a note on the table saying that there were no more drinks in the house and they were running to get more. The note did not say where they were going or what specifically they were getting, which led me to believe it might just be BS and that they blew me off to go to some bar nearby.
I was fuming. I couldn’t believe this was happening again, there was no way they were just getting drinks. I can’t believe my sleazy brother would do this to me again, but I thought Kristin and I had something. I was shaking with anger and stormed out of the house, intent on checking the local bars and giving both of them a piece of my mind.
At that point, I got a text from Bryce, and all it said was “Druggd MMeee, hlp at Laassst Callll….”
What the hell is this supposed to be? I wondered. The text was spectacularly slurred even for him, but he hadn’t had that much time to get that drunk.
I thought I had deciphered the Last Call, in his rambling which was a bar less than a mile away from the house. They must have gone there, but I didn’t know what the part about drugs was. I wouldn’t put it past my brother to be doing more than getting drunk, but I didn’t think that Kristin would be partaking in that sort of thing with him.
I was confused and still irate, but I resolved to investigate regardless of what was going on.
I drove over to the Last Call and parked in the back lot by the ally. “They had better have a good explanation for this,” I thought to myself fuming as I got out and headed for the front door.
When I stepped into the front door of the bar and was utterly unprepared for what I saw before me. The place was trashed, furniture was broken, glass shards were everywhere and there was blood all over the floors. I stepped back and held my hands over my mouth as a terrible smell of blood and body odor assailed my senses and I looked everywhere I could see in the establishment and not a soul could be found.
“What the hell was going on here?” I said aloud, to myself since no one else was anywhere to be seen. I did not know how there could be so much blood all over but no bodies left. Has there been a mass shooting or some other catastrophe? And where were Bryce and Kristin?
I finally heard something from what sounded like the backroom near the bar. I started to step in trying to avoid the larger pools of blood, when I heard something that made me freeze in my steps. I heard a raspy voice speaking to someone else in low and guttural tones. “Have all the sacrifices been collected?” The bass voice responded “They have, only a modicum of spoilage, more found out than needed, but everyone has secured a contribution I believe”
“Good, very good. Now we must go, take them all back to the site and we will prepare for the ascension, praise the beating heart and the blood that pumps in its veins “ “Praise the beating heart!” The other figure responded.
Sacrifices? I thought, what kind of cult insanity is this, did they kidnap the people who were in this bar? How did they take this many people and where did they take them? My mind was reeling at the madness of the situation. As I tried to make sense of this I had to duck and almost fall backward over a table to hide as the two figures I had overheard emerged from the backroom.
I tried to wedge myself under an extended bench and table and reach for my phone to call the police. My heart sank when I saw I had no service here, I had to get outside again. As it looked like they were about to head out the back door I tried to make my move and froze with fear when after trying to crouch and walk towards the front door, my foot crunched a loud patch of broken glass.
There was an awful silence and then I looked back and the two figures were staring directly at me. They were both bald with tattoos lining their heads and they appeared to have daubed their faces in blood in strange designs. They both carried what looked like oversized syringes and large bloodletting blades. I knew I was spotted so I jumped to my feet and tried to run to the front door.
Before I made it five feet the door flew open and there was what looked like a police officer coming into the bar, gun drawn. I breathed a literal sigh of relief and ran up to the officer with my hands raised. “Officer help, these lunatics did something to the patrons here, I’m not one of them, please you have to help me find my brother and my girlfriend. These guys and whatever insane cult they are with took them and I think they are going to do something bad to them.
As I implored the officer to take action he looked on indifferently until I finished and then to my horror looked at the two men across the floor and told them “I will take this one, hurry and finish up here, I can’t keep this place locked down from the public or worse from my so-called backup for much longer and we need to be gone, praise the beating heart” The officer thumped his chest with the last words and the two men copied the gesture and turned away from us leaving me alone with the deranged cop.
“You can’t do this!” I managed to stammer out. “Oh you poor little meat, you will find we can do as we will in the name of the beating heart.” He sneered and stated “You can either serve or be sacrificed. He put his gun away surprisingly but pulled out a large knife and a similar syringe to what the other men had been holding. “Last chance before this gets ugly, come quietly” He sneered, seeming like he didn’t want it to go quietly at all.
He began walking toward me, daring me to either run or fight. I was paralyzed with fear. I didn’t know what to do. I decided then since he was blocking the way out to do something very stupid but if it worked I might escape. I feigned tripping forward and fell to my knees and scooped up a large handful of glass shards and debris from the floor into both of my fists. Then I quickly stood up before he reached me and shouted “Wait! I surrender, take me in, and show me the glory of the beating heart.
The corrupt officer smiled ruefully at my surrender as if he had been wanting me to fight back and slowly approached and drew a pair of handcuffs from his belt. Just as he moved to put them onto my wrist I exploded into motion. I threw the contents of one fist into his eyes and as he recoiled from the dust and debris I opened my other hand and smashed the glass-loaded palm into his face. The impact hurt like hell and cut up my hand terribly but not as badly as it had cut up the officer’s face, I might have even cut his eyes.
He started screaming, and cursing and reached for his gun and began firing it wildly in an effort to stop me. I took that as my queue to get the hell out of there and I burst through the front door and ran as fast as I could out of there and into the side alley as I noticed more police lights coming from down the streets.
Sheer dumb luck put me near the back parking lot where my car was and the other two assailants. They were getting into a truck with what appeared to be several long tarp-wrapped objects in the flatbed. I did a double-take when I thought I saw one move. I knew it was crazy but I decided to follow them. I needed to see what was going on.
I had a moment’s hesitation when I thought about Bryce, none of this would be happening if that Lecherous bastard would just stop hitting on my girlfriends. I really liked Kristin and this one hurt. I considered that maybe I should just save myself and ignore whatever weird death cult thing this was. I felt guilty as soon as I thought of it, but I could feel the resentment festering all the same. No, I had to try and save him if he was in trouble. He may be a womanizing jerk but he was still my family.
I got in my car and tried my best to tail them without being noticed. I thought maybe I should try and call the police and report everything I had seen, but that cop in the bar seemed to be a member of whatever deranged cult this was and I couldn’t risk it if they had others who knew about this. I knew it was dangerous and stupid, but I pressed on alone.
After driving out of the city limits and almost getting spotted when they slowed down and changed lanes, I had to lag back a bit so as not to be too conspicuous. I looked on as they were driven down an isolated road into a large compound that appeared to be a closed-down slaughterhouse.
I parked fairly far away down the road to not attract notice and again I felt the sane part of my brain compelling me not to do this. Who knows what kind of shit these psychos are about to get up to in there. But I had to go in, didn’t I?
It was getting close to dark but there was still some light so I tried to walk near the ditch along the road so if someone looked my way I might be able to throw myself in and hopefully avoid notice. As I got close enough to see what appeared to be an entrance or parking lot, the two men I had tailed were just finishing unloading the squirming tarp-covered cargo, which might indeed be the patrons of the bar abducted for God knows what end.
I had no weapons but I grabbed the tire iron from my trunk just to be equipped with some means of protection, but if they had guns I was probably going to get shot. “I can’t believe I am doing this” I said aloud to myself before doing my best to sprint up the driveway without being seen after the two men had disappeared into the complex with the last of the captives.
The gate had been left open and no guards appeared to be monitoring it, which surprised and unsettled me. “Maybe they didn’t mind snooping visitors if it gave them more sacrifices for whatever the hell this is.” I thought.
I decided to look for an alternative entrance to the door the men had used in case there were still people there. I walked around the central processing building and spied a back door which I hoped was unlocked. I rushed to the door after hearing the front open up again and several pairs of footsteps emerging from the building. I was glad I opted for a different approach. I thought I heard a scream echo from within the complex. I steeled myself and grasped the handle of the door and gently cracked it open.
I stopped opening it immediately when I saw a person in deep red robes with a butcher’s smock overlaying it. I suppressed a gasp and fell back dropping the tire iron in the process. It looked like the figure’s head snapped up and looked at the door I had opened and started moving towards it to check.
I tried not to panic but I had to think fast. I heard the heavy footsteps and decided on what was probably a bad idea. The door opened outward so I stood flat against the wall behind where the door would open. I held my breath and hoped whoever it was wouldn’t open it all the way and hit me with it.
The door opened and came right up to the side of my head and stopped. A moment later I saw the shadow of the person looming past the door frame, lighted by the dome light on the interior ceiling. “Michael? Gabe? Is that you? You were supposed to be back an hour ago with the chalices and the vessel” The figure said angrily.
I had to get in but he was not stepping past the threshold so I reached out with my leg and managed to get my toe on the tire iron and kicked it into an empty drum of some sort just outside the door. He gasped and looked toward the drum and moved outside, grumbling about being too busy for all this.
I managed to slip carefully behind the door as it closed, holding my breath all the while. I couldn’t believe that had worked. I hustled into the building and was assailed by the nauseating smell of spoiled meat and fresh blood mingling.
There were blood stains all over the floor, which made sense considering this had been a slaughterhouse at one point. But the blood looked entirely too fresh and there were not any cattle here from the looks of things.
I had to move past this processing chamber fast since the man in the robes was likely coming back inside so I hurried on further inside. I saw several other adjacent rooms where similarly robed figures were hauling drums and various receptacles. Some were even carrying ornate chalices like those used in religious ceremonies. I didn’t know what kind of ritual they were planning but bringing live captives to a building previously used to slaughter animals was not a good sign and I had to find my brother and Kristin fast.
I arrived in a large central chamber where processing machinery used to be. In its place, there was a home-built amphitheater and highly ornate decorations and even tapestries with what resembled a human heart covered in blood.
A very large group of these cultists were assembling and on the center stage, there was a large group of people. They had been stripped naked and bound, with gags around their mouths so no cries of mercy or defiance could be heard.
“Holy shit what are these psychos going to do?” I thought nearly gasping aloud when I saw a figure in large ceremonial white robes brandishing a wicked-looking Kris dagger. I didn’t see Bryce or Kristin on the stage so I hoped that maybe they had not been processed yet as these unfortunates were.
I was about to step away when I heard the white-robed figure speak. “Brother and sisters, supplicants of the heart. Can you hear the beating? It begins with you. Your sacrifice will allow us to ascend to become one with the eternal and be the very lifeblood that pumps for a God!”
I continued listening in disturbed silence.
“Now is the first step all shall shed blood to become something more, the blood of believers in false faiths shall be the water that grows our budding deity. Shed blood with me now my kin and we awaited our promised reward”
The figure stopped talking and grabbed ahold of the ritual dagger just as a naked man was brought up to the makeshift altar stone. Without wasting a motion he pulled the man down on the stone by the hair and shouted “Be the blood!” as he stabbed him in the chest retracted the blade and in another swift motion cut the throat.
Blood poured out of the poor man into prepared vessels and chalices ready to receive it. I thought I was going to be sick, what kind of murderous psychos were these? I had to find Bryce and Kristin and get the hell out of there.
There were barrels near the processing bays by where I was sneaking that appeared to be full of some liquid. I paused and, compelled by suspicion, was puzzled when I opened one and saw not blood but what smelled like ethanol inside. I was even more confused now, what were they planning on doing?
I moved on trying to find another holding area and found one. A smaller figure in red robes and butcher’s smock with a more feminine outline was in there and I saw in a large cage normally for holding cattle was the unconscious-looking body of Bryce!
I kept low and got as close as I could to the room near some disassembled machinery. The figure was removing prisoners stripping them down and binding them while they remained unconscious. I approached and realized I had to distract this person or possibly find some way to knock her out if it came to that.
I decided to grab the drum of ethanol nearest to where I was and kick it over near the main gate to the holding area, hopefully distracting the woman in there and letting me get inside. I knocked the drum over but it made such a clatter that the figure looked up towards me and saw me clearly and I almost fell back with alarm when the eyes that regarded me were Kristin’s.
No, she couldn’t be, she couldn’t be one of them. I thought as I stood there mumbling and stuttering for words as she moved towards me, a stone-faced and determined look in her eyes.
“I am sorry you had to see this,” She said matter of factly. “I did love you, you know. But the blood of believers is needed to waken the heart and your brother has a conviction you lacked so I chose him instead. Do not be upset with me, we can still use you as well.”
“If you confess your transgressions and swear to follow the beating heart I can request that you be spared and allowed to join us, but” She paused, looking rueful “We still need an offering for the ceremony, Bryce must be that sacrifice, his conviction will help awaken the heart, his blood will help it pump and make it beat!” She finished with a literal maniacal grin forming on her once beautiful face.
“Kristin, you can’t be serious?” I shouted as loud as I dared not wanting to attract more of these psychos to this unfolding drama. “I am taking my brother with me and we are leaving and we are calling the cops and stopping your entire group of weird ass cultists.” I said with mounting fervor “You all need serious psychological help, preferably the kind provided in prison where you can’t kidnap people and torture them”. I couldn’t believe she was doing this, as I spoke I saw her begin to cry. I thought then maybe she was considering the gravity of her actions and all this madness and coming to her senses.
All she said through sobbing breaths was “Please forgive them, they know not how they blaspheme” and the sad eyes were replaced by embers of anger with no hint of remorse or second thoughts on her face, only grim determination and I was terrified of what would come next.
She had picked up a cattle hammer from the table and was walking toward me slowly and methodically. I tried to back away but had nowhere to go without backing into the main chamber swarming with more of the cultists preparing the ritual. It was a small miracle they were not already here as well.
I barely had time to tell Kristin to “Wait!” before a savage blow came down leveled at my head. I interposed my arm in a guarding motion and that was a mistake as I thought I could hear the bones in my arm break as the hammer smashed into it. I cried out in pain but pressed my back foot against the machinery and used it to propel myself forward in an awkward shoulder charge knocking Kristin over and sprawling us both on the floor.
I could barely stand and my arm was on fire with pain, but I managed to roll back and open the door to the cell with my good arm. It was unlocked and I swung it open to put it in between me and Kristin.
I looked down and kicked Bryce in the ribs while he was sprawled out on the ground and shouted for him to “Wake the hell up!” he stirred and looked like he was trying to sit up. I heard the hammer rebound off of the gate in a crash as it just missed my hands. In the distance, I heard footsteps and knew we had made too much sound and the figures were coming to see what was going on.
I was running out of time, I spared a glance at Bryce who was trying to get on his feet when I felt intense pain in my side and looked down and saw a small dagger sunk into me. Kristin retracted it and perversely licked the blood off the blade and stated “Your blood for the heart, one way or another it will be ours. If you love me then stop resisting” My body screamed in pain as my mind and heart were broken by the knowledge that I had indeed loved her or at least the idea of her. I know now I never really knew who she was. And that feeling of betrayal I had chalked up to my resentment over my brother almost had me leave him for dead.
I pushed the feelings out of that moment and acted on pure blind adrenaline. I saw two figures emerge down the corridor holding torches and large ceremonial blades. They shouted out to the congregation and I knew it was now or never. I didn’t think my plan through, I stepped forward as one of the cultists was entering the cell and pushed the gate back knocking Kristin out of the way and onto the butcher’s block. Then I jumped forward, sliding into her and knocking her down onto the ground and using my momentum to perform a clumsy dropkick, smashing her towards the door and knocking over one of the torch-bearing cultists.
I recoiled back and looked on in horror as the torch fell to the ground and struck the spilled ethanol and the two cultists and Kristin burst into flames! They writhed and screamed as they caught alight and I saw a mad ecstasy on their faces and they shouted out to the beating heart to take them.
I rushed back to the cell door as Bryce was getting on his feet and cut his ropes with the fallen dagger still wet with my blood. He had no idea what was going on and let out a confused “What the, where am I” Before I shouted at him to shut up and run!
I looked back and saw the fire spreading to the other drums of ethanol and knew we didn’t have much time. I got his arm around my shoulder and I tried to rush us out as fast as we could. The back door was near and it was good because as we exited the building there was a terrible explosion and we almost fell on our faces scrambling away and almost knocked out by the sound and force of the blast.
“Oh my God, everyone inside,” I said aloud though I doubt Bryce heard me he was barely conscious and I could only stumble forward carrying him with my good arm away from the spreading flame. How we were not killed in the explosion is a small miracle. Though maybe we should have died there too. I saved my brother but couldn’t save the others, that group of maniacs was stopped but everyone else died in those fires too.
Somehow we made it to the car and then to the hospital. We answered the questions of the emergency staff divulging as few details as we could about the event for fear while considering how far the cult’s influence might reach.
In the news, it was chalked up to a rave gone wrong and an electrical fire trapping and killing partygoers. The lack of no greater investigation has led me to believe that this cult of the beating heart has friends in high places. I do not know what I will do now. I forgave Bryce and we are trying to put the bad blood and resentment behind us. I still feel very guilty about my decisions and know that I could have or should have done things differently.
All those deaths are on me I know, the cult may have killed them but I ensured it happened first. It was an accident but I am alive and the cult and the victims are not. I will have to carry the guilt with me forever.
But I know that the cult is not dead, many members yes but someone covered up the incident and I know they are still out there. So my message to you is this, don’t let bad blood and resentment get in the way of taking care of yourself and your family. Do not let them poison your soul, whatever you believe in try to remember that.
And if you hear anyone espousing the word of the Order of the Beating Heart. Get as far away from that person as you can.
Stay safe.