She could not fathom human arms and legs, a tiny torso and neck, an instinctual mouth rooting for milk. The thought disgusted her, and so she pushed it from her mind. In three months, a locust could fly. It was solitary until circumstance compelled it to swarm. The locust survived. It devastated crops. It brought men down as nothing else could.
Sometimes, if she concentrated, Chelle thought she felt a swarm already inside her, imagined the dark cloud that would follow the tide of blood when her water broke and they surged from the sac where they’d lain in wait all this time. Ready to fly. Ready to attack. Ready to bring men like her brother to his knees.
“No,” she said to no one in particular.
A crumb of herself, somewhere deep down, whispered as she slept. When she roused from sleep, it seduced her. It spoke evil things. It hid from the Lord’s light. It refused to melt. It clung desperately to the dark, awake in the night and unreachable at daybreak.
It hid.
It was right to hide.
Chelle meant to destroy it.
Soon.
With an effort she rose from her bed, stretched, smiled.
Her guests would soon be waking below. She didn’t want to keep them waiting too long. That was just rude.
~~~
There had been security in place, but that hadn’t mattered because the shooter had come from within St. Teresa’s hallowed walls. There was something particularly heinous about bringing the hardness of men and guns into such a soft space where the light was muted and the words were measured and the sharpest thing was the needle that pierced the embroidering. St. Teresa’s was where you went to learn how to be a good woman. It was the brainchild of Teresa Jones. Few knew what she looked like. She hid her face behind a shawl.
But Chelle knew it. Knew it well. She had swallowed down her revulsion every time the woman removed her shawl and knelt before the man in his recliner, her face downcast. The girl thought maybe the woman did it to keep the devils at bay. One look at the ruined visage and any denizens of Hell that made their way to the earth’s surface would turn around and scurry back to the pit.
Chelle thought of her hallowed mother now as the shots rang out. Maybe a bullet would tear Chelle’s face open, too.
Maybe the other girls would have to call upon their budding skill as seamstresses to sew it back together.
It was a terrible thing to think, and it comforted her immensely.
“This is my sacrifice,” Teresa had said once in the quiet of Chelle’s room, indicating her face as she gathered up the bloody bedding.
“You’re a woman now. And one day soon you’ll have to figure out what your sacrifice is.”
Teresa had reached out a tender hand then as if to counteract the harshness of her words.
“I will always be there to guide you.”
But she had not been. Teresa’s (Mama’s) body had devoured itself instead, like it had considered her offering and found it lacking and was intent on erasing her from the annals of history.
~~~
They had found Chelle huddled behind the organ where Mama had always told her to go in an emergency.
She vaguely remembered someone wrapping her in the space-age foil that crinkled every time she moved. And then her brother’s face had filled her field of vision.
“There, there, Chelle. The sinners are all dead. Let’s get you home. Sleeping in your own bed will do you a world of good, Sis.”
~~~
Danny heard her as soon as she was on the stairs. The wood creaked with the mass of her. He took one last drag from his cigarette and put it out in the tumbler that served as his ashtray, placing it on the floor beside him just as she came into view. Her dirty blonde hair was piled on her head in a messy bun.
She disgusted him, but that bun, that unkempt, hurriedly fashioned ball of hair. It reminded him of what she had once been.
The final girl. Lone survivor amid sinners’ corpses. Horror in her hazel eyes.
“Did you hear me, Danny?”
He snapped back to the present, reached out to touch her distended belly. The Lord’s Love incarnate.
It would not be long now. He could feel the shape of it. It made his bile rise. His hand slipped into hers and he found his voice.
“My final girl.”
“You know I hate it when you call me that.”
“Ah, sweet Chelle, I’m sorry. You know I am. It’s going to be someone else soon. Soon as they wake. Have you rehearsed?”
She smiled now. This was familiar territory. A script.
“Of course, Brother.”
Chelle’s eye was drawn to the urn, and the tears started to flow. She tried to wipe them discreetly away, but he saw.
“What? Aren’t you happy?” he asked, displeasure creeping into his tone.
“Yes, yes, of course I’m happy. I’m just … emotional. And I miss Dad, I suppose.”
Danny followed her gaze. His jaw tightened. “Let the dead have their peace, Chelle. Focus on driving the sin from women in the Devil’s snare instead. All this is God’s.” He extended his arms. “You’re just a vessel. Let Him flow through you and embrace His judgment. The cure to grief is subjugation before the divine. You know that.”
He rose from where he sat, the only chair in the small space. The one he had not thought to offer her.
“Come on, now. I think I hear them stirring.”
~~~
The space blankets had been Chelle’s idea. Let these girls have a little comfort, get their wits about them enough to be afraid, prepare to face down their sin. It was the Christian way.
Daniel had merely shrugged and they’d done it. He was distracted, she thought.
She had shielded her eyes from the sunlight filtering in through the low windows. It hit the mylar and blinded her like divine retribution.
The heavy parasite within her repositioned itself.
Lust, Gluttony, Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Pride, Envy.
They were all here. She saw with satisfaction that the girls bore the sigils of their sins, the emblems carved into their foreheads, signifiers of their ruin.
It was time to begin.
~~~
Fear crept into their eyes as they awoke to find themselves bound and gagged. Chelle watched panic distort their godless faces. Their screams were muffled, but the intensity behind the screams was not. These were cornered animals deprived of both fight and flight, desperately grasping for articulation that would not come.
“Sin is insidious. It doesn’t need much space to find its way in. It burrows, hides, grows in you like a parasite, fed by the Devil’s whispers. It likes dark places. It wriggles and squirms and eats you from the inside out. But … if you confess and make an offering, the Lord may yet fill you with His love.”
There were muffled sounds of attempted speech as each of the ragged creatures tried to cry out at once.
“This, girls, is a reckoning. A trial. And it begins as any other. Tell me what you are and enter a plea,” Chelle said, her voice smooth and even.
The fat one gesticulated madly, indicating the rag that covered her mouth.
“Be still, sow.”
Chelle indicated where Daniel sat, the AR-15 resting against his thigh.
“Your restraints and gags will be removed,” Chelle went on. “You will have five minutes. Run and you will die”
Chelle removed the woman’s gag in one fluid motion, and the prisoner blurted, “Please, oh my god, please. I don’t know what you want. My husband is a construction worker. Good money in that … he’ll pay! Oh god, oh god.”
Chelle gestured to Danny and he rose slowly from where he sat chewing tobacco. Cowering, the woman issued a squeak, then fell silent.
Chelle’s features contorted with manufactured rage. “What? Nothing of the buffet in that litany? Speak your crime, cow!”
Danny spat and stood and approached the girl, gun in hand. He thrust out the rifle butt and struck her fat chin. She cried out. A bruise began to form at the point of impact.
“State your crime, glutton!”
Tears ran down the woman’s face. “I ain’t done no crime. I ain’t …”
“Open your mouth,” Danny commanded. Out of terror she complied, expecting him to slide his penis between her lips. It was not flesh that forced her mouth open, but the barrel of the gun, long and lean and never anything but hard, ready to blow its load.
Her cheeks moved around the stock and then Danny took her hand in his, caressed it, drew it to the trigger, felt her tremor as he pressed it down and watched her brains burst forth. Viscera ran down the cheek of the gorgeous, bound brunette beside her. She licked it away without hesitation and it unnerved Danny. But goddamn if his dick wasn’t hard.
The door shut against the bloodied bodies on the cement. There were four left. The stairs had probably appeared closer than they were. Or perhaps the man holding the assault rifle had seemed a little too disinterested. Whatever it was, after Gluttony ate her final meal of bullets, Wrath and Pride had run, attempting to dart out of the line of sight. They were mowed down just the same.
~~~
The smallest of the survivors seemed to be calculating something, working out some puzzle in her brain. She leaned in conspiratorially, whispered to the girl nearest her. “Are you marked?”
“No, but it’s the key, isn’t it?”
This caught the slight thing off guard.
“The key? The key to what? I’m not marked, either. He must have had fun with the pretty ones and—”
“But you are … you are marked. Don’t you see? Your … hand.”
The first girl looked at the pads of her fingers. A fire burned from within as the letters began to appear one after the other, slowly, like invisible ink. She could only think about how she’d never play another video game for pay again, how her fan base would crucify her, how subscriptions would plummet.
There was an “S” on her thumb, an “H” on her pinkie. The middle digits held secrets, too, but she forgot them as the locking mechanism engaged and the door opened. The remaining girls sat crouched on the floor, faces in their hands, preparing to die, as if this were a game of Wheel of Fortune and losing meant death and winning meant God-knew-what.
Sloth. It felt weird to call herself such an ugly thing, but she did it and watched as the devious unmarked girl bowed her head.
Sloth felt herself pulled away. She wondered what the other one was called.
“Envy and Sloth. What an interesting pair you make,” Chelle said serenely as if reading the girl’s mind, hand dropping to her massive belly. “What are you willing to offer that you may be cleansed? Think on it. Given the gravity of the situation, you have ten minutes. Your entreaties will be heard in the isolation booth.”
They sat, smalls of their backs against the hard wall, speaking their names in whispers, smiling behind closed palms, understanding. For once in her life, the one named Envy didn’t want what anyone else had. She saw the strength in Sloth’s gaze, saw what lay beneath those eyes, hidden away from the world. Sloth was Envy’s mirror, casting her back to herself. But Sloth was also something else entirely. There was hope in her stratagems and power in her hope. And without realizing she was doing it, Envy took the other girl’s hand and squeezed. It was a gesture more of the reassurance of co-combatants than of friends, but it felt like peace. Sloth squeezed back. Something small dropped into Envy’s palm and she closed her fist around it.
Envy never knew what happened to Sloth, nor to the other girls. She never knew what they offered or refused to offer. She imagined Sloth’s lithe body lying in wait somewhere, perhaps just beyond the threshold of the isolation booth. She wondered how she would fight her ally if it came down to it, and was only glad it wasn’t that bitch Wrath. That angry one had refused to submit, and that meant elimination in this sick game of survival.
~~~
Envy spoke with conviction. “Daniel, right? In Hebrew, it means ‘God is my Judge.’ Okay, I’m just going to say it. I’m sure He thinks you’re doing really well. The other girls feared you. You’re a little rough around the edges. But Daniel, honestly. I think they’ll make you a saint when you die. Driving the sin out of us like you do—it’s not for the faint of heart. But what if you get tired? What if you run out of steam? It’s so hard isn’t it? You must be just a little concerned that you’ll falter. And what will God do then?”
His hand flew to Envy’s face and she fell with the force of his blow.
She stood and smiled, wincing. The underside of her eye was already darkening from the impact.
It would suit her, he thought. Make those ocean-blue eyes pop.
He was already hard again.
“I’ll rest when you let the Lord’s love in, if you make it that far,” Daniel said. “Have you decided on an offering? He doesn’t come into rooms he’s not invited into.” Daniel winked suggestively.
“Take my teeth, Messenger. Take my teeth as assurance that I will not bite. Paint my mouth carmine. I know you like that color best. And then use your rod to part the red sea of my lips.”
The smile reached Daniel’s eyes. “Very well.”
He fitted the mask over her face, and the world faded to black. Terror coursed through her as she woke with the mouth of an infant, all gums and inarticulation. Focus was difficult, and disorientation roiled her stomach. She thought she might vomit, but the feeling subsided. There was that smile. And another sound. A belt loosening. Pants dropping.
“On your knees.”
She obeyed and his hand caressed her chin and drew it up, like a man who means to kiss the girl he can’t quite push from his thoughts. Gentle. Firm. Determined.
She did not open for him, not all at once. Where was the fun in that?
She hoped against all hope that it was still there, prayed her hands were free. Breathed a sigh of relief. Caressed his thigh and heard him moan in pleasure.
Now or never.
Envy had once been a pre-med student. She had hated anatomy and dropped out after a semester, but had managed to pass the final somehow. Arteries were tricky, forty-one of them in the human body.
Carotid.
Aorta.
Brachial.
Alveolar.
… Femoral.
Her eyes had been closed, but she opened them now, just the smallest bit, just enough to see his closed in ecstasy.
He was close.
Oh, so close.
She felt him begin to spasm.
Now.
The knife flashed silver in the low lighting, found flesh, buried deep. It was sudden. Warm.
Red.
Not semen, but blood.
She felt something else, too. Tears in her eyes, and a spreading warmth in her crotch.
All the fear running out of her.
~~~
The Offering was no place for a woman in her condition, and so Chelle had taken the seat vacated by her brother. A newspaper lay on the old folding table. She read the front-page headline, and felt ill: “New evidence links Pastor Aurelius Jones with the St. Teresa School shooting.”
She looked to the urn, more of a statue, a monument to a legacy of righteousness that seemed made of sand. The tide was approaching. The world squeezed tight and the sea of realization threatened to swallow her. The walls of the fortress she’d built would not hold. She was falling, down, down, down. Forever down.
~~~
Envy found Chelle on the floor, the wet pooling around her legs. The pregnant woman looked delirious, eyes struggling to remain open as another wave pushed her down.
Good. Let the bitch die here with her demon spawn, Envy thought.
But she saw something in Chelle’s eye, a plea for forgiveness maybe, and something more, something actionable.
“Is he dead?” Chelle asked, her voice a strained croak.
Words didn’t come as easily as they once had, so Envy merely nodded. The prone woman’s smile was all the response she needed.
“Good. Now the locusts can come. Now the plague can eat him where he lies. They’re close, so … ahhhhh.” A contraction cut off Chelle’s words.
Her mind reeling, Envy made her way up the steep basement steps as fast as her cramped legs would allow. By some miracle, she finished the climb and fell into the house.
Phone, phone, phone, phone.
There wasn’t one. She thought of the corpse she’d created. Wondered if it was worth the mad dash back down to see if he had a cell on him. Why hadn’t she fucking checked that? Why, why, why? Stupid.
Something in the corner of the room caught her eye.
It was a wooden board. Across the top, blue lettering announced its purpose: KEYS TO THE KINGDOM. Angels flanked the words on either side. The cherubic kind. Bringers of peace and love. Or vicarious voyeurs. Witnesses to the atrocities committed under this roof.
Beneath it hung a single key.
A car key.
She unbolted the front door and stepped out into the bright sunlight, clutching the key to her salvation. The Civic’s license plate read FNL GRL. The world felt so slow and her mind raced.
This was the most free she’d ever been.
~~~
“Where is my swarm? Are they ready?”
The nurses exchanged a look.
“Must still be waking up. Might want to save the discussion of a name.”
Chelle came to consciousness slowly, instinctively feeling for the mound of her belly.
But where was her sweet locust? Where was Akrida?
“Akrida. Where are you, Akrida?”
The second nurse smiled and rolled her eyes as if to say, Well okay, then.
The baby girl had her name. Akrida.
A shadow waited just beyond the door, then entered the room, a familiar figure with a bruised, halfway healed eye that resembled an absurd blueberry.
It all came careening back. Chelle felt tears well up in her eyes. The tension of the storm broke, and she wept.
Keeping her lips tightly closed to hide her toothless mouth, Envy smiled weakly, took the woman’s hand, and caressed it like a mother comforting a frightened child.
Seeing a notepad by the bedside, she decided that the time had come for her confession. The confession she’d longed to make for what felt like lifetimes. The confession of a name.
Envy wrote, “My name is Emily.”
And they stayed like that a long time, final girls redeemed not by their innocence, but by their capacity for vengeance.