Kali's Altar 11

Alfred’s old room had four steel loops bolted into the wall to accommodate ropes or cuffs. That was where Brianna stood with her wrists and ankles tied to the loops. Black Sally lit a cigarette, looked Brianna in eyes and said, “You were planning to betray us.”

Brianna shook her head and started to cry. Sally grabbed her chin, slammed her head against the wall and burned Brianna's face with her cigarette. Brianna screamed, jerked around and struggled to free hear hands. She flung her head back and forth sobbing “NOOO!!!! NOOO!!!!”

Sally slapped me on the back, “Let’s go get dinner.”

On the way down the stairs I focused on her and thought, “People have random thoughts. There shouldn’t be a death sentence for it.”

Her voice said, “Brianna didn’t just have a random thought. She had a plan. Plus she’s too fucking stupid to sit at the table.”

“She lost touch with reality. I would imagine you’ve seen that a lot.”

We stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Sally replied, “I see it more now.”

“You said you were born in this house. Were your parents at the table.”

“No Clarence. Dolores brought my mother here when she was eight months pregnant with me. My mother was sacrificed, I was cut from her womb. Dolores always called me her ‘miracle baby‘.”

“Why are you still here?”

“I spent the first 15 years of my life on this property. By the time I found out that there was a world out there beyond these walls; this had already become the only world I was conditioned to exist in. What am I gonna do? Go get a job at the fucking mall? Get a nice boyfriend? How do I tell him that I can’t take him home to meet my family because they’ll torture him and eat him?”

“No, something else must keep you here?”

“Think about how close to me you feel right now. We are communicating with our thoughts. The more we communicate with each other, the deeper we will see into each other’s souls. You can’t get that kind of intimacy out there, it’s all superficial communication. You cannot hide who you are here. I can look right inside you and into your heart, your dreams, your fantasies, your fears, your pain. You could interact with someone for 40 years out there and they wouldn’t know you as well as I do after just a few days. This house, the way we live; this is who I am, this is what I believe in.”

“The Goddess?”

“Clarence, who are you to speak of Goddesses? We are already children of the Goddess. We make our sacrifices, She strengthens and protects us. I don’t have to believe, I know She’s there. Beyond that, I don’t open random doors looking for Fate or Mystery. The Goddess has laid out a Line for you to walk. It’s right there front of you, She even provided you with a Lamp to light your way. But the thousand voices of Malice and Deception will try to lead away from your Path. If that happens you will find Destruction and Nothingness. No more.”

“Is She the Devil?”

“No. I just told you that She has placed you on the Path to Life. What don’t you understand? She gives you life, She takes away your life, She gives you life again. As Her children on this earth we give life and take life. But we’re imperfect. We can’t give life again.”

“What would it mean if somebody could do that?”

“Give life again? That’s called an abomination.”

“Lavinia killed me and resuscitated me, does that make me an abomination?”

“Let’s not get into this Clarence. Maybe she just gave you mouth to mouth. Maybe she just mind-fucked you and made you believe that you died. Lavinia is….Shit!”

“What?”

“I know why Octavia’s here. Dolores used to say that The Old Woman could bring people back from the dead.”

“You’re not being serious. Please tell me you’re not being serious. I don’t know much more of this shit I can take.”

“Calm yourself down Clarence.”

“No. If you’re saying what I think you’re saying…”

“It would be too much for any of us to handle Clarence. Let’s just hope that’s not the case.”

“Wait a minute! Tell me about the person that picks up the body parts.”

“That’s a different issue all together Clarence. Dolores made him.”

“Made what? An abomination? Let me just get this straight. What you’re talking about is a person who was dead, Dolores brought him back to life and now he eats human bodies. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Clarence, you need calm down. I have some pills upstairs if you need some.”

“I don’t want any pills Sally. Let’s just go to dinner.“ I turned and walked to the dining room. There was no other response I could make. The house was taking its toll on me. I thought about Brianna and how she lost touch with reality. I wasn’t just losing touch with reality, I was realizing that I didn’t know what ‘reality’ was and never did. I was beginning to wonder if ‘reality’ even existed.

I sat down at the table and quietly ate. Lavinia’s voice came into my mind, “Questions, questions, always questions with you. Ask Octavia about the old man with the glass eye, the one she used to see when she was little.”

I looked at Octavia and asked out loud, “Do you remember the old man with the glass eye?” She instantly went pale, her bottom lip quivered. She looked at me with wide-eyes and said, “Yes.” She seemed like she was having hard time sitting still in her seat. I said, “Well, tell me about him.”

She looked down at the table and began to speak, “When I was a little girl, there was this scary old man who lived in a shack out in the woods behind my Grandmother’s house. He had a blue glass eye. It looked like someone had just shoved a big blue marble in his head and called it an eye. He walked all hunched over, he never bathed and he never changed his clothes. You could smell him coming from a mile away. It smelled like a dead animal, but a hundred times worse. Whenever I saw him, he would have all this drool coming out his mouth, sometimes he would have a big circle of some kind of nasty pink foam all over his lips. My Grandmother used to tell me to stay away from him. She wouldn’t tell me why. My uncle said the man was dead. But I didn’t know what he meant. One day I was out by the barn and the old man came out the bushes. He looked at me like he was going to hurt me, hurt me bad. I couldn’t move, I just froze. He came up and grabbed me and started dragging me toward the woods. I screamed. My Uncle came running with an axe and he chopped the man up right in front of me. He just kept hacking at him. Later, he said you have chop ‘em up to kill ‘em.” Tears ran down her face, she bit her lip and stared at the table.

Black Sally sat back in her chair, closed her eyes and shook her head. The Gothic Girl said, “Thank you for sharing that with us Octavia. You’re just full of fucking surprises aren’t you? Did your Grandmother have anything to say about the thing she was keeping after it tried to eat you?”

“She wasn’t keeping it. It was on its own.”

“She made it Octavia. Your Grandmother was one of a few people on this continent who could still do that. How much of your childhood do you remember?”

“I remember everything after I was seven, I don’t remember anything before that.”

The Gothic Girl and Black Sally shot each other a serious look. Black Sally said, “Alright story time is over. We’re all meeting in Lavinia’s room tonight. Octavia, Lilith, you two will be in attendance this time. I believe that Lavinia has something special planned for you two this evening.”