I love small towns and I love small churches. There’s character and nuance to both. Yes, there’s always the official architecture of orthodoxy, but there’s also a little bit of variety pushing the boundaries of conformity.
I like to randomly pick a town on a map and drive there. I usually go on Sundays, because obviously that’s when most church services occur.
Bakerstown. I chose that town about two years ago. It was about a three-hour drive south of where I lived.
There was a main street with one traffic light, dotted with empty store front windows, well except for one store on the very corner. There was a platform elevated above the lower window frame and huddled around a potted plant was a crowd of naked, unkempt mannequins. They were old, dirty, and cracked. Someone had painted their lips bright red and their eyes white, with no pupils, and the most absurd aspect was that they were fitted with realistic genitals. I stopped at the flashing red traffic light, lost in the void of mannequin eyes and grotesque private parts. I wasn’t paying attention, thinking no one was around.
There was a honk and rumble of an engine impatient with my impertinence. I accelerated but this wasn’t fast enough for the large green truck behind me. It rammed into the back of my car and pushed me into the intersection. The truck then swerved around to the side of my car, forcing me into the sidewalk, facing the ever-observant mannequins. My hood crumpled and steam erupted from the front of my car. The truck turned a sharp right, sped through the intersection, and disappeared behind the buildings further up the road.
I got out of the car and flashed my middle finger. Now I was broken down, with no one else in sight. The town looked abandoned, and I was sure there was no one to help me. I looked around trying to spot a garage, wrecker service, or a mechanic, anyone who could at least get my car out of the way. There was nothing around and the closer I looked at the buildings the more mannequins I began to notice.
They were looking out of second and third floor windows. They were positioned in doorways and alleys. It was uncanny how I hadn’t noticed it before. It wasn’t confined just to the one store front window. They were everywhere. I now saw them on the crosswalk, on front porch swings, waiting at the bus stop, or aimlessly looking into the sky. One mannequin stood out. Thankfully, he was dressed in a suit and tie, pointing east to the church situated on a side street parallel to the main avenue.
I walked to the church, thinking that I might find some good folks to help me. It was a small church with an unusually large steeple. The steeple looked borrowed, like it was taken from another church and forced atop this smaller church. It seemed unstable and ready to fall at any moment. I pushed opened the large wooden red doors and went inside. The pews were filled with mannequins, dressed in their Sunday best, staring up at the strangest painting of the crucifixion I had ever seen.
Jesus was on the cross, but it didn’t look like the traditional portrayal of Jesus. He had no beard, and he was gray in complexion. A ridiculous amount of blood was flowing from his hands, feet, and side, and below were several of his followers collecting his holy blood in chalices. There was a succession of frames in the very bottom of the painting. An elderly woman holding a chalice, then drinking from the chalice, then appearing much younger in age.
I was creeped out and decided I would find help elsewhere. Before I could get to the door, I heard a voice.
“My son, thank you for you sacrifice. Welcome to Bakerstown.”
Someone hit me from behind in the back of my head and I was out.
I woke up strapped to a gurney and an intravenous needle in my arm. I felt weak and disoriented. There was a woman standing in front of the gurney. My sight was still blurry and my mind fluttering with random thoughts. I couldn’t focus on where I was, or what I should do.
“Well, hello sleepy head. How are you feeling?”
“Where am I?” I muttered.
“Don’t worry. We’ll explain everything. Looks like you filled this bag up honey.”
I looked over at the intravenous bag hanging on the rack. It was filled with blood, my blood, ready to pop like a bloated tick. The woman unattached the bag and carried it to an ornate trunk. She popped it open, kissed the bag, and gently placed it in the trunk.
“Thank you for your sacrifice honey.”
“What are you talking about? I need to get my car fixed.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. The boys have already taken care of your car.”
She then proceeded to wheel me down a long hallway. The further we went down the hallway, the more I smelled a strong metallic odor. We got down to a set of swinging impact doors. A man walked through, looking refreshed and full of vigor.
“Oh Nancy, what a blessed wonderful day. Hey, another one. Thank you for your sacrifice, sir.”
“Isn’t it Bill. Blessed life forever.”
This phrase was starting to worry me and quite frankly I was tired of hearing it. I hadn’t consented to any kind of sacrifice.
“Why do you damn morons keep saying that? Let me go. This is kidnapping.” I was weak, but I was also angry.
“Oh honey, it’s because a divine power led you here. Everything happens for a reason. You were chosen to help us live forever.”
She pushed me through the double-doors. There was an Olympic sized swimming pooled filled with a red liquid, a deep dark red liquid. On one end of the pool, affixed to the wall was an upside down cross, with a black altar below it.
She pushed me all the way up to the altar. A man in priestly vestments walked out of a door behind the altar. He was holding a crucifix upside down in one hand and an empty chalice in the other hand. On his sash were pentagrams and horns. He was chanting in Latin. He walked to the pool and dipped his chalice, scooping up a fair amount of the red liquid. Finally, he spoke in English.
“Lord of Darkness, with this blood give us everlasting life. Make this sacrifice willing and ready to die.”
He walked over to me and slowly emptied the chalice over my face and down my chest.
I tasted a sharp tinge or copper and knew immediately that it was blood. I struggled against my constraints but to no avail.
A group of nude elderly men and women walked through the back door and lined up in front of the pool. I shook and struggled, trying to free myself.
“Honey, you have to be a willing participant. You’re being difficult.”
The priest, visibly frustrated, instructed her to move me back out of the way.
A couple of men wheeled in another gentleman strapped to a gurney. He was bald with a rose tattoo across the side of his temple. He looked horrible, drained of all life. He was a skeleton with a veneer of skin laid loosely across his body. He was a willing participant, because he was ready to die.
I watched the priest perform and say the exact same ritual, except this time he got to the part where he pulled out a knife from the altar.
“Do you give yourself freely?” he asked the man.
“Yes, I do.”
The priest plunged the knife into his chest and twisted it in a full circle, chanting all the while. The woman who was attending to me brought out several bags of blood and handed it to the priest. He walked and emptied the contents of the bag into the pool.
The group of elderly participants walked down a set of steps into the pool. They immersed themselves into the blood and when they came back out, they were younger than when they went in. I remember one particular woman, with gray hair and sagging skin, come back out of the pool with beautiful red hair and a voluptuous figure.
The man with the rose tattoo was now deceased. Each of the former elderly participants walked up to him and thanked him for his sacrifice. They then wheeled him out of my sight, and I assume out of the room. I could not look back to see where they were taking him.
“This one is not quite ready,” the priest said.
“Yes sir,” responded Nancy.
Nancy wheeled me back to the room that I woke up in. She took a syringe out of the cabinet and stuck it in my shoulder.
“This should relax you honey.”
I went out again.
When I finally woke up, I felt nauseous and ready to vomit. I must have been out for a while, because when I looked down at my body, I noticed how thin and frail I was. They must’ve been keeping me under and poorly fed. I was skin and bones like the rose tattoo guy. This was their modus operandi. Weaken you to the point where you would rather die. That’s how you become a willing participant.
“Good morning sweet thing. Are you ready to be a willing participant?”
“Go to hell.”
“Oh, not quite there yet.” She walked back over to the cabinet and grabbed another syringe. As she walked back over to me, I saw a man come out of the closet and approach Nancy from behind. He had a crowbar in his hand. He lifted it high in the air and clubbed her in the back of her head. Nancy fell to the floor. The man then began to keep swinging the crowbar up and down, until at last he stopped. He came over and loosened my constraints.
“Come on man. I’m getting you out of here.”
He pulled me out of the gurney and dragged me down the hallway. I wasn’t able to do anything. I was too weak to even move my legs. The man grew impatient and picked me up over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry position. He ran up a flight of stairs. He didn’t seem to struggle with my weight. I must’ve weighed at that point less than a hundred pounds.
When we got up the stairs, I noticed we were in the church. The mannequins were still facing towards the painting, forever praying for relief. He crashed through the red wooden doors. There in the parking lot was a large green truck. He opened the passenger side door and flung me on the seat. I was in and out of consciousness. I heard the roar of an engine and felt us moving along at a high rate of speed.
As weak as I was, I forced myself to sit up and survey my surroundings. We were barreling down the main avenue. I just happened to catch a glimpse of a mannequin, with a bald head and a rose tattoo standing in a store front window, with painted lips and white eyes. He, along with a group of other mannequins was, for some odd reason, admiring a potted plant.