Story Excerpt | House of God

Hi folks! Please enjoy this excerpt from my newest short story ✨️ if you'd like to read an even longer excerpt, click here ✨️✨️

CW: religion, Catholicism, demons, the bible
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It was raining the Sunday we came back to church. I trailed up the glossy, wet marble steps that led to the multi-doored entrance, my parents walking just ahead of me with their heads bowed as we ushered past other churchgoers who had also arrived. On the ride over, I’d been expecting laughter, music to be playing from the organ upstairs as people took their seats and greeted one another after nearly five months away. But I was met by a wall of silent parishioners, each curled into their heavy raincoats as something dark and dim now coiled within the high rafters of the church.

We went through the motions, kneeling, singing, repeating “Amen” and mouthing through I confess. The psalms felt hollow and no one looked at one another the entire mass.

But more than anything else, I watched the sunken cheekbones of Father Julian as he said the Homily after reading Matthew 20:1-16, the way he explained that anyone who came to Christ, who came to God, would be rewarded in heaven. I watched his dark blue eyes dart across the congregation, his gaunt hands shaking ever so slightly as he gesticulated about himself and moved his robes so he wouldn’t trip up the altar steps.

This was not the Father Julian who had led us five months before, the Father Julian with full, round cheeks and firm but gentle hands when he gave communion. And as he concluded that everyone was equal, that everyone could be forgiven at any time so long as they gave themselves to Christ, I had a feeling that he didn’t believe a word he’d said.

As church ended, and the congregation began to melt towards the exits, I was gently tugged away from the crowd by my mother as she began to speak with another adult. At first, I didn’t notice who it was, my attention was towards the exit where my father was waiting. But when I heard Father Julian’s tired voice tell my mother it was an attack on our very church, my attention snapped up to his face.

The first thing I thought was that he looked like a skeleton. He was still speaking to my mother, but suddenly, his dark eyes were on me, seeing without seeing as I gazed up at him with my own wide eyes. I quickly looked away, my gaze landing on the entrance to the side altar room some feet behind him.

For a few moments, my eyes stared into the candle-lit darkness, willing my mother to lead us back to my father and the car. But after a few moments, I was sure there was someone in the side altar room, which was not unusual. What was unusual was that this person was nothing but shadow, a dark blur that was still at first. But the longer I stared, the more they undulated even in the darkness. Their shadowed head bobbed back and forth, back and forth for several long seconds.

And then suddenly, the head snapped straight up, unmoving.

“’Ma?” I started to say, my voice nothing but a squeak as the head began to turn. It was then, in the pool of blackness that was its face, that I saw a pair of glowing, red eyes, and a smile full of way too many teeth.

“’Ma!” I suddenly shouted, causing not only my mother and several other parishioners to look at me, but made Father Julian’s gaze ever more present against the top of my head, as if he had not stopped staring at me the entire time I was looking at this, this…

I realized, as my eyes drifted past Father Julian once again, that the side altar room was empty...
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