The Darker Side

'Right,' Callie says, sardonic.

'I have taken this time to build an absolute, airtight, irrefutable case for truth. Because the most basic truth is this: live with lies, live in sin, and you will deny yourself the fruits of heaven. Live with the truth, confess your sins, hold nothing back, and you will sit at the right hand of God when you die. It is that simple. It requires no debate or endless figuring. What it does require is operation at the level of an absolute.

'We love our little sins. The secrets we hold for ourselves, sometimes they are the only things we have that we can truly call our own. I understand this. I know life can be hard. The mother who is working three jobs and raising four children on her own sneaks off for an hour affair with a married man. It gives her a rush of life and excitement and a stolen, momentary sense of freedom that perhaps she feels she might die without. Sin can be as water in the desert sometimes.

'The truth remains: she can work those jobs, raise her children well, live a life that is otherwise clear of wrongfulness, but if she dies without full and unfettered confession of that sin, she will not arrive in heaven.

'So ask yourself: are those stolen moments worth an eternity?

'I have spent two decades killing, not for the thrill of it, but so that I could arrive here and now and share with you the truth of what I have seen. I selected my sacrifices carefully, as you will see. Each had a secret, a darkness, something they could not reveal. All now sit at the right hand of God and enjoy the wonders of heaven. In the end, they gave their lives so that you could understand. Not willing martyrs, but martyrs nonetheless.

'I am no messiah. There has been only one messiah--Jesus Christ, the son of God. But I humbly submit that I am a prophet for the modern age. We are living in times that are drenched in sin. Godlessness is almost a given. If you are watching this, listening to what I say, then it's time to wake up. There is good and there is evil. There is a God. There is a heaven and there is a hell. The road to heaven is a road of absolute truth. The road to hell is a road of lies, of non-revelation, of holding tight to those treasured secrets. Which road will you take?

'If you choose the road to heaven, then watch the rest of my movies, and listen. Perhaps you'll see your own sin revealed by others. Perhaps you'll come to terms with that great and simple truth: the worst thing that you have done can still be forgiven by God. You just have to ask him.

'Twenty years ago, I realized that sharing this truth with the world was what God had called on me to do. Sin is omnipresent. We begin to sin from the moment we are born. But if you are watching this, understand: you can be saved, so long as you admit all to God and hold back nothing for yourself.

'Some will ask how I can justify murder. I answer simply that murder is not what has happened on these video clips. Sacrifice is what has happened. They confessed their sins to me, they were contrite, and thus all will have been allowed into heaven. Consider the facts--many in history have said before what I am saying now. Yet people do not listen. They continue to clutch their secrets close. They hear the words, but they do not feel them in their hearts.

'Words, it seems, are not enough. Man, it appears, needs to see his fellows weep, and bleed, and die. He needs to hear the dark secrets of others, to realize, perhaps, that he is not alone, that others have done terrible things as well. Those I sacrificed were given up to God so that I could make certain, this time, that you would listen and hear and feel this primary truth: be honest with God and achieve eternal salvation; hold back the smallest thing and burn in hellfire forever.'

These last words had come out in a rush, a quiet thunder, passionate. This is it, I think. Why he does what he does. Or at least, why he thinks he does what he does.

He's been building a case for truth before God. The deaths were necessary to proving this ideal and were justified by the potential salvation of others who'd watch and learn the lessons he was trying to teach. He didn't have to feel guilty. They'd confessed, right? That meant he was sending them to a better place. Heck, he was doing them a favor.

What a crock of shit. What about Ambrose? How had he justified killing him?

Psychotics, however brilliant, will always have blind spots. Their systems of rationalization, however logical at first glance, can never hide the basic motivation: they enjoy the suffering and death of others. He picks up the rosary again, and begins rubbing the beads.

'I offer myself as a final demonstration of the tenets I espouse. To the members of law enforcement who will watch this: everything you need to know to find me is on these and the other tapes. Everything. But you will have to be clear-minded. You will have to have the ability to see the truth. Practice what I preach and you will find me standing right in front of you. Hold on to your lies, keep the veil over your eyes, and it will take you that much longer. In this case, time is life, Officers and Agents.

'I am not done. I have names on a list, and I have put things into motion to bring them first to me and then to the right hand of God. I will kill again in the next two days, and this time, it will be a child.'

'Shit,' Alan breathes.

That frozen moment again. The world stops turning, the cicadas return. I have no doubt that he's telling us the truth, even less that he'll keep his promise.

'That's all for now. I realize in this day and age I'll be given a nom de plume of some kind. I don't want someone's clever creation to distract from the purpose of my message. So let's agree to keep it simple: you can call me the Preacher.'

Fade to black.

Everyone's quiet.

'The Preacher,' Callie finally says, with a little bit of a sneer.

'What an overblown ego.'

'Rosemary said she 'only told the people in my . . .' In her what?'

I ask.

'Church?' Alan posits.

I frown. 'That wouldn't make much sense. Did you see her face?

Zero recognition. She had no idea who this guy was. It's a small church, with a tight-knit congregation.'

'Puts Father Yates in the clear,' Alan points out. 'But how about a support group?'

'What, like Coke Fiends Anonymous?' Callie asks.

'It'd be a bigger collection of people. Harder to remember a face that way.'

'It's a thought,' I agree.

'Shitty thought.' Alan sighs. 'I've had to follow leads into groups like that before. It sucks. They take the 'anonymous' idea pretty seriously.'

'Still, let's keep it in mind. What about the rest of the clips?'

'I haven't viewed any past this last one,' he says, 'but it looks like he's been true to his word. There are another six clips or so on this page, and then . . .' He clicks on a link that says Next Page and a new page loads into the browser, filled with thumbnails of clips. 'If you look, you'll see that the information on each clip includes the author. These are all him.'

I lean forward and sure enough I see Author: The Preacher below each thumbnail. I examine the thumbnails themselves. They are a mix of images. Some simply have a black screen, others have the now familiar white lettering he uses for his 'opening credits.' Some show women, young and old. Some look dead, some appear terrified, a few have gags tied around their mouths. There's no recognizable victim type here.

'How many thumbnails to a page?' I ask.

'Ten rows of five,' Alan replies.

'How many pages?' I dread the answer.

'Almost three.'

'So if each is a separate victim,' Callie muses, 'then the numbers on the crosses he left in Lisa Reid and Rosemary Sonnenfeld were a body count, after all.'

'There's another problem,' Alan says. He navigates back to the front page of the religious section of the website. 'These make it to the front page based on popularity. In other words, the number of times they're viewed.'

'Great,' I mutter. 'And I'll assume that there's an overall popularity index too, right?'

He nods. 'If these are viewed enough, they'll end up not just on page one of the religion category, but page