Calamity

The world rarely gave you what you wanted and when it did, it was quick to snatch it away. The world was a cruel place filled with cruel people. Most nights, Anthony figured it would be better if everyone just died. Then he would think of his son and hope Brendan was laughing somewhere.

The hope of his son laughing, more than any other thing, kept him alive. Once he let that go, he’d let everything else go, too. Brendan had vanished on Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified. Easter had brought no ascension.

Christmas eve, Anthony lay in bed next to Chloe and hoped that when he got up in the morning, he’d discover Brendan asleep in his bedroom. If God really existed, if there was any truth to any of that Bible shit at all, Brendan would be there in the morning.

Anthony dreamed of Brendan’s laughter and woke up crying in the dark.

3

The Christmas Eve Mass had been lit completely with candles. It reminded Brendan of The Empowerment Temple. This new church had its own Jesus on the Cross behind the altar but this one wore regal gowns and a golden crown and stared out at the parishioners with hopeful eyes. Brendan would see the Giant Jesus with its huge, sorrowful eyes and soiled rags whenever he went to bed. In the darkness, it would be there, waiting for him.

Dwayne held Brendan’s hand as they exited the church into a chilly night. They were staying in a house with four other people, all members of the old Church of Jesus Christ the Empowered. The one woman was pregnant with Dwayne’s child. Brendan wondered what would happen after the child was born. Would Dwayne still talk to him? Would he still love him?

“You seem sad,” Dwayne said when they were in the car.

“I never knew God would want so much from me.”

Dwayne was nodding.

“I lost my entire family.” Tyler and Dad seemed like distant relatives now and would eventually drift into small memories that were so faded they couldn’t be recalled. He wondered every so often if they missed him. Did they even spend time searching for him? “I’ve done everything God asked.”

“You have.”

“So why does He keep taking from me?”

Dwayne took a moment to respond. “God brought you to me. God has given us a new life here in this town. God wants us to do good. He has a plan for us. We will start a new church, regroup, and continue to do His will. You may feel like He is taking from you, but if you really look at it, you will see that when He takes, He gives back tenfold.”

Lying on an air mattress in a spare bedroom that night, Brendan thought of Dwayne’s words. God had not given him anything tenfold. God had only taken and taken. This was not a new home; this was banishment from his real home. These people were not his new family; they were impostors. God was a thief who would eventually take all Brendan had.

Dwayne crept into the room much later. Brendan pretended to be asleep, as he always did when Dwayne made these night trips. He sat next to Brendan’s bed and breathed slowly. The rhythm of his breathing almost lulled Brendan to sleep.

“You’re such a special boy,” Dwayne said. “It’s so amazing how God has blessed you.”

Brendan pushed his face into the pillow to stop his tears. He had accepted God’s way, but he had never expected it would be so painful.

THE END

Thank you for reading,

J.T. Warren

J.T. Warren born on Halloween, a few months after his mother saw Jaws at the movies. His affinity for horror can be traced to an early age when he built a coffin out of cardboard and pretended to be a corpse, much to the concern of his parents. He can still be found in a coffin on Halloween when he gets into the spirit of the season. He is a public school teacher and has successfully lured thousands of students into literary waters through works of horror. He hopes his writing will further encourage people to discover the wonder (and dread) found in the written word.

Connect with J.T. Warren through his website, on Facebook, on his blog, or on Twitter to learn more about him and find out when his next books are available.

www.wix.com/JTWarren/JTW.com

www.authorjtwarren.blogspot.com.

Other titles from J.T. Warren:

Hudson House

Blood Mountain

Violent Glimpses: Five Dark Plays

If you enjoyed Calamity, continue reading for a sample of Blood Mountain by J.T. Warren.

BLOOD MOUNTAIN

By J.T. Warren

ONE

Victor Dolor went to the diner because two months ago a man killed five people there. The man was Hugo Herrera. He was forty-one, divorced, recently unemployed from a downsized-factory job, and had finally been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder from something that happened when he was a child. Victor scanned several online articles for more specifics about the childhood trauma but found nothing.

In response to Hugo’s most recent therapy session with some high-priced psychologist, Hugo wrote a letter to The New York Times that said he was “sick of all the fucking shit and finally going to do something about all the worthless shits in the world.” The Times did not print the letter. Two days after he mailed it, Hugo took his hunting rifle into the Alexis Diner just outside of Stone Creek, New York, and murdered five people.

It was a sign.

There had been many signs recently but the Hugo Herrera murders was the most significant. Everything was changing. The period of acquiescent apathy was over. The time of now was the dawning of the age of the great cleansing when humanity would rid itself of the living detritus, shed the human excrement clogging the world, and give birth to a new golden age of empowered living.

Victor had been chosen. He was a cleanser. Hugo had been a cleanser. Unlike Hugo, however, Victor was not about to kill in one grotesque orgy and then blow his own face off. Victor would help cleanse humanity but he would do it so he too could one day enjoy the fruits of his labor. The next world would be his.

He had also gone to the diner for the girl.

She was in a booth with her father off to the left. Victor did not let his glance linger over her smooth flesh or soft red hair. She did not look up.

Victor sat at the counter on a plush red stool. A young Mexican boy slid a place setting in front of him and produced a glass of ice water. Victor stared at it. In the journey to preserve the status quo, to stave off the inevitable shifting landscape of the cosmos and humanity, the powers that be kept the water supply bloated with mind-numbing drugs. People who drank from this endless reservoir of placation would be blind to the ensuing changes. They would be ignorant of all the signs the universe offered. The warnings.

Condensation trickled down the side of the glass like tears. Or clear-colored blood.

The swinging door to the kitchen opened and a middle-age woman in a black and turquoise uniform smiled at him. Deep wrinkles creased her face like the cracks in dried mud.

“Morning,” she said to Victor. “Coffee?”

He smiled right back, nodded.

When she set down the glass he asked her about Hugo Herrera. He expected her face to pale rapidly, her