The waning light of the day was making traveling any further nearly impossible. He had preached the Lord’s word and gospel to 4 different communities today, and fatigue was setting into the bones of Reverend Schuster.
Many miles from home and a place to lay his head was beginning to be a thought that he couldn’t cross off of his mind without giving in to the urge to sleep. He was a man of simple means and relied on the kindness of would-be parishioners when his needs rose on the road. They usually came through for him to fill his mouth with a bite to eat and a place to lay his head, but he just had to make do when they didn’t or couldn’t. He had no blanket, no pillow, and no food. He had been here before, but tonight he was especially saddle weary from the day’s riding. His old mare Tulip whinnied as if she agreed with him on the sentiment. Her hooves clopped along wearily, hoping for an end of the day’s travels. He could feel her fatigue underneath him. He figured that it was time to look for a patch of grass for her to chew on and for him to have a place to lay his head. He just needed to make it until sunrise and he could make his way back home to Wakefield in the morning, beating the heat of the day. As if he conjured it up from his wishes as he rounded the bend in the coarse red dirt road, he saw a house sitting back in the trees off to his left side. There were no lights illuminating the house’s windows, and the weeds had begun to stake their claim on the clapboard siding and rock foundation. It looked abandoned, and that suited him just fine. He had already made up his mind that he was going to sleep under its roof if there was no protest and had dismounted and retrieved his bible from the horse’s lone saddlebag after tying Tulip happily to a rotten hitching post outside of the overgrown walking path that led up to the crooked front door. Tulip liked the overgrown weeds and happily munched on them as Reverend Schuster stretched his old bones back straight from being hunched in the saddle. When a crooked old man sidled up next to him without him noticing his approach, his skin jumped and ran cold when he heard him say
“I wouldn’t sleep in thar if’s that’s what yer thinkin’. House has bad secrets and ill intent.” The preacher clutched his heart with his bible, stilling the stir of adrenaline that the old man had just unexpectedly stirred. He was already ambling off down the road when he called back out to him “Sir? Is this your house? I just need a place to rest my head while I wait for the dawn, I don’t mean to be a bother!” The old man stopped his shuffling gait, turned back toward the reverend, and replied “None lived there for years for a reason. Don’t say I didn’t warn ye…” and continued walking away from him, not being bothered with any more explanation than he had given. Reverend Schuster looked down at the worn and ragged leather-bound bible in his hands then back to the old man. He thought for a few moments about stopping the man in order to share the gospel with him, as this was the whole intention of his travels, but the lack of light and the fact that he was surely tired hushed his tongue and stilled his mind’s intent. He hugged the Bible to his chest with both arms and walked reluctantly through the crooked wrought iron arbor that marked the entryway to the path to the front stoop. The wind rustled in the trees around him and his pace quickened, suddenly finding himself as nervous as a finch in anticipation of a storm. He chuckled lightly under his breath, feeling that a bit of brevity could cast away whatever gloom tried to creep into the cracks that the devil was prodding. Reaching the porch, he placed one of his worn leather loafers onto the first step and tested it with his weight, seeing that the wood in which it was constructed was weather-worn and ragged. The step, despite creaking, held his weight, along with the 8 more that followed it until he was standing on the porch looking at the large wooden door looming in front of him.
From a distance, he couldn’t tell, but now that he was closer he could see that the door was askew, only slightly, cracking its ancient maw against the dark interior of the house. Fetching the box of matches from his jacket pocket, he struck one and lit the dust and cobweb-laden lantern that hung on a rusted nail by the door. He was hoping that whatever kerosene that once powered it was still holding residence within its pressed steel bowels, and was relieved when the wick flickered to life inside of the murky glass globe. The light that it produced was sickly, but an infinite improvement on the somber mood that was settling on the twilight gloom. He could see that Tulip had already settled into a post-meal trance near the hitching post where he left her, one foot propped languidly in rest the way that horses are want to do when they’ve been walking for too long. Turning back toward the cracked door of the house, he prodded the interior of the home through the ajar doorway and could see the interior of the house. Much like the porch, cobwebs, and dust were pervasive in here, and he could see that several vines had begun springing from cracks in the ancient wooden floors. He stepped inside, hoping to find somewhere to rest his head. The room was empty aside from several wooden crates, some strewn papers on the floor, and a rickety wooden chair in front of a wall-length rock fireplace on the far wall. The penetration of the light from the puny flickering wick of the lantern only cast the room in a momentary semblance of recognition to his eyes, which were still trying to adjust from the comparatively bright exterior of the home. It smelled of mildew and disuse, but he knew that it would be a far sight better than lying in the grass should a popup storm decide to grace his presence in the middle of the night. He took several steps into the room, floorboards creaking in protest of his weight, and found the room to be empty aside from the aforementioned detritus.
As his lantern light peered into the darkness, he could make out that there were still half-burned logs in the fireplace from some long-forgotten fire that once warmed the room. He kicked at one of the old empty wooden crates and could see the dust puff from its surface as he did. It hadn’t been moved in quite some time, as once it had been dislodged a few inches from its former resting place, the outline of the crate was still left on the cleaner floor underneath where it had been sitting. He raised a foot and brought it down on top of the crate, easily shattering it from its once square form into shards of wood that he would now use as kindling. He carried them to the fireplace, moving the logs off to the side, and making a semblance of a pyramid shape out of the splintered lumber.
Looking around the room, he gathered up several pieces of paper to crumble into kindling. The first was an old newspaper ad, clearly old as the news on the front talked of the war which had been over for over 20 years now. He crumbled it into a ball and placed it under his pyramid of sticks. The next was a piece of sheet music, but not the first page of the arrangement. Not being able to read music, it was of no use to him, so it followed the same course of action into a ball of paper. The third that he gathered to him was a photograph. Turning it to the light of the lantern and brushing its dusty surface across his pant leg to remove the coating of grime, he could make out the stoic faces of a man and woman with 3 little girls all staring back at him. The little girls appeared to be triplets, all bearing the same facial structure and the same dark-colored hair. He didn’t recognize them and doubted he should considering the age of the photograph. It looked as if it had been lying there for perhaps longer than he had been alive in his 54 years on earth. He put the picture to the side, not feeling right in his gut about burning the memory of someone for the sake of his own warmth. The paper he had already crumpled should be enough. And it was. As he struck another match and placed it against the ancient paper, it didn’t hesitate in turning from paper to flame, spreading its warmth to the dried wood from the old wooden crate. The room automatically felt better having the firelight instead of the pekid glow of the lantern for illumination. He noticed now that there was a small stack of firewood in the corner of the room. He got the fire stoked enough to ignite the logs and slid the half-burned ones onto the newly formed pile of coals. This would do him just fine for the night. Just fine indeed.
Pulling the chair closer to the hearth and realizing it was a rocking chair, he sat down in it with a huff, finally feeling relief from all of his day’s travels. Comfortable and warm, what more could he ask for? He pulled out his bible, sliding the picture he found on the floor between its well-used pages. As exhausted as he was, sleep alluded him, so he decided to read a few passages of scripture to ease his racing mind. This was a near-nightly ritual. Opening the Bible to the page that the photograph was inadvertently marking, he began to read.
Ephesians 6-10
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.
Reverend Schuster felt a cold chill nipping across his neck, and the hairs on his arms stood up in tingling reverie to a mood in which he didn’t know the source. That verse that he had just finished reading sent his mind into a region of fear within his heart and within his head. He didn’t believe in coincidence but did believe in being spoken to in holy hints, so he was trying to interpret the meaning of turning to that exact verse. He shrugged his jacket further toward his collar and shuddered. The rocking chair creaked as he settled into it from the tension that he had just found himself in
…until he heard it.
There was a padding of footsteps coming across the floor behind him, and everything inside of him warned him not to turn around. But you know how it is, the things that you know better than to observe have the strongest draw to look at them despite knowing how much you shouldn’t. It was almost a reflex as he turned around and saw a black cat traipsing across the floor, leaving small dusty paw prints in its wake. It acted as if it owned the place as it strode into the room nearing the fire and Schuster himself as an aside. It walked past him and sat on its haunches near the foot of the hearth and raised a paw to its mouth and began bathing. The reverend settled back into his chair, smiling at himself and his silliness at jumping at shadows. He picked his bible back up to read but the fire had died down into embers.
Just as he was about to get up and stoke the fire and throw another log onto it, the cat stood back up and walked right into the coals.
A flush of fear washed across his face, and the reverend’s heart sank in his chest.
But what he was expecting to happen didn’t.
There was no flash of fur igniting or wails of pain, no. The cat rolled over onto its back and wallowed in the glowing coals inside of the fireplace as if it were scratching an itch upon its back. It carelessly batted at a red-hot ember and then sat back upright, glaring at Reverend Schuster with golden eyes that seemed to radiate their own light. The cat, after sitting there for longer than should be feasible, sauntered out of the coals and sat down, facing the Reverend. What happened next, would need to be corroborated by another soul to convince him that he hadn’t lost his mind, but to him, it was as real as the sun rising in the East. The cat spoke in a hissing and airy falsetto.
“I should wait for Nick….yesssssss, wait for Old Nick.”
Reverend Schuster jumped from his chair clutching his bible as if it were an effective barrier between him and whatever abomination of The Lord he had just witnessed. The cat looked unperturbed, golden eyes still glinting at him in the dim light of the room. Knowing not what else to do, the reverend backed up to the wall, holding up his bible and quoting scripture in shuddered words, trying to focus his mind on the incantation of the word of God.
“O Lord, You Who love man, we beg You to reach out Your powerful hands and Your most high and mighty arms and send the angel of peace over us, to protect us, body and soul. May he keep at bay and vanquish every evil power, every poison or malice invoked against us by corrupt and envious people. Then, under the protection of Your authority may we sing, in gratitude, ‘The Lord is my salvation; whom should I fear? I will not fear evil because You are with me, my God, my strength, my powerful Lord, Lord of peace, Father of all ages.”
The cat sat down against the wall opposite of where he was standing. Slowly he crept to the woodpile and picked up a log, prodded the coals with its end, and eventually nestled the log upon the coals. It sizzled and smoked and flames engulfed it lighting the room again in warm firelight. The cat seemed to be sleeping, looking disinterested in his fear and his actions. Eventually, he settled back into his rocking chair, turning it to be able to watch the now-slumbering feline. It still didn’t seem to have any interest in moving from where it had settled down, though occasionally he could see its eyes find him in the darkness, a golden hue exposed through lazy slitted eyes.
The reverend read his bible with intent now, seeing out scripture pertaining to God’s protection and solace, but eventually, he found himself drifting off into slumber without choosing to do so.
He was awakened by the creaking of the door. He jolted awake, squinting his eyes, trying to focus on the origin of the sounds that he heard interrupting the otherwise quiet room. Glancing across the room, the cat was still where he had left it, now staring at him and the commotion that he was making from the adjacent side of the room. Reverend Schuster couldn’t believe his eyes and he felt his pulse quicken. Now there was not one but three pairs of eyes, reflecting the same sickly golden glow at him from their place of silent witness. He picked up a scrap of the busted wooden box that was at the foot of his rocking chair and threw it haphazardly toward the cats. His aim was atrocious and it sailed far out of reach of hitting the cats who were all looking identical as they glared at him from across the room. They didn’t advance or retreat, but one of them hissed at him in disdain as if he should never dare disturb them. They didn’t speak though. They were sitting in silence, almost reverent, and it didn’t take him long to understand why.
A growling preceded heavy footsteps on the wooden floorboards. There in the darkness, two more glowing eyes, this time larger and further apart dissolved into the shape of another cat. This time, the cat was larger, nearly the size of a good hunting hound, and black as pitch. The cat was watching him, but not with any intent, lazily striding into the room as its smaller counterpart had done earlier. It side-eyed him as it walked past crawling right into the fireplace where it started using the bed of glowing coals as a scratching pad. The clawing was incessant and Reverend Schuster couldn’t help but imagine those claws making their marks upon his skin as it scratched and stretched. The fire, just as before, seemed to have no effect on this oversized version of the cat who had tainted him before he fell into a fitful sleep. His heart was pounding as it turned around and examined him as if it were sizing him up. One of the smaller cats approached the larger one, and he instantly knew that it was the original as the ash still dusted its inky fur. Again with the breathy hissing language, it spoke to the large cat still sitting in a bed of coals.
“Wwwwwhat sssssshould we do? Wwwwwwwhat ssssssshould we do?”
The larger cat narrowed its eyes at the reverend and then looked back at the cat. His stomach was sick anticipating the larger-than-normal cat who was nesting in fire to reply to the small but foreboding house cat. It growled in a lower baritone in comparison to the hissing small creature:
“Wait for Nick we sssssssshould….yessssss we ssssssssshall wait for Old Nick!”
The smaller cat slumped its shoulders and sauntered back toward his pack of black-furred spitting images waiting in the darkness of their corner looking disappointed. The larger cat evacuated the embers in the fireplace, the log still burning cheerfully, and sat between the reverend and the now wide-open front door to the house.
Frantically, the reverend, realizing that he was trapped from leaving the house without walking past the dog-sized cat, was looking for a way out. There was an adjacent room that he knew not where it led that he could see through a doorway to his right. It was dark and uninviting, so he steeled his nerves and dragged the char to where it was touching the wall furthest from any of the cursed cats. Eight golden eyes reflected the light of the fire back at him in the gloom of the room, sizing him up he assumed for a meal. But they were not currently being an aggressor so he quoted the scripture again in defense of what he felt was both his body and his soul.
“Lord our God, be merciful to us, Your image, and save your servant Humble Reverend Schuster from every threat or harm from the evil one, and protect me by raising me above all evil. We ask You this in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost, Amen!”
Anticipating the cats to react to the prayer, they just glared at him as if they were annoyed and watched as he sat back down in the chair, its back rocking into the wall and sending a puff of dust into the room. “Curse this wicked house! Morning must surely be nigh, I shall leave at once!” the reverend said, and this caused a growl to emanate from the larger of the cats as he could see its tail swishing a pattern into the dust on the wooden floor. The reverend gulped hard and silently began to pray to himself. He wasn’t sure how many moments had passed in prayer as his mind drifted into the catatonic state of deep reverence that only prayer could do for him. His mind was focused on the Lord, his god, and he continued his silent pleas inside of his head, still clutching his bible tightly. There was a silence-shattering groan coming from the open door of the porch. He tensed and silenced his mind of the words from the scripture that he had been reciting over and over to himself. Creak. Creak Creak. The doorway darkened and the room turned its back on the warmth that the fireplace was offering it. The firelight flickered, and he noted that it could use another log, but damned if he was going to spend another second in this room that he didn’t have to. Again like looking for the grotesque thing that you shouldn’t want to see, he was darting his eyes from the cats to the door. He knew in his heart what to expect before it revealed itself to him. He was frozen and all that he could do was watch and pick from an endless list of poor choices that he was left with, wedged against the wall of this dusty room in a dilapidated house. A deep grumble that sounded half hungry and half perturbed pierced into the room, announcing the entrance of a creature that made the reverend feel as if he were going to soil himself. He was hanging on to his composure by a thread. The room was 3 shades darker as its black body filled the room that now felt like a prison rather than a grand hall in an old home. It was another cat, eyes the size of golden saucers straining the floorboards underneath its massive paws. It was the size of what he imagined a lion in scripture that taunted Daniel would be. Its head was brushing the ceiling in the room when it was fully erect and it eyed him with hatred and amusement. As the cats before it had done, it made its way toward the hearth, purring in a baritone growl as it wallowed its head in the bed of coals sounding as if it was enjoying itself. Its maw opened and closed in satisfaction as the fur of its face rubbed the glowing charcoal of log remnants within the stone fireplace. Its teeth were easily the length of a man’s hand. The reverend watched this spectacle in horror and fear as the cat emerged from the hearth and turned toward him, eyeing him with a look that he couldn’t describe. The smallest of the black cats approached the gargantuan creature. Just as it had done before with the dog-sized cat, but this time it appeared to bow to it as it lowered its head on its approach.
“Wwwwwhat sssssshould we do? Wwwwwwwhat ssssssshould we do?”
It hissed as it eyed the giant feline hopefully. The second dog-sized cat reiterated the statement with a growling
“Yessssss……What…….”
The largest of the cats eyed him contemplatively and seemed to smile. It growled a horrid baritone of voice and he watched its macabre mouth form the words that were to follow.
“He issssssssss nigh. We sssssssshhallll wait for Old Nick.”
The other cats in the room, now 5 in total seemed to nod in agreement as they all glared in unison at the reverend who was now physically shaking in the corner. His heart was pounding And he cried out loud. “Oh Lord of lords, help me to know what to do!” he jumped from his chair and ran into the adjacent room. It was darker than night in here, but his beacon was a window on the other side of the room. Luck was on his side as he rushed through the dark room as it seemed to be empty. The floorboards protested with every step, and one gave into a crack as his foot slipped through the planking becoming temporarily dislodged. In his fall, his Bible went flying off into the darkness. He said aloud “Forgive me, God!” As he freed his leg and continued through the room, leaving the Bible behind.
He reached the sill of the window and used his elbow to bust through it with relative ease. The glass tinkled on the ground outside and he crawled through the now open window tearing his trousers in the process. He was outside, and he ran around the corner to the front of the house. Tulip was gone.
The entire hitching post was gone from the ground and there was no sign of his steed. She was smart and had left it would seem who knows how long ago. He didn’t hear any pursuit of him as he ran down the overgrown path of the house and into the red dirt road. He knew that town was east, so he turned right, running as fast as he could, his lungs burning in protest to the activity that he wasn’t used to. He rounded a few bends and out of nowhere, the silhouette of a man was walking down the middle of the road. The full moon high in the sky gave enough of him away to see that he was slender and wearing a hat and long coat. It wasn’t as early in the morning as he had hoped. Thank God! Two is better than one when satan himself was on the prowl. He hoped in his heart to join the man in prayer and retreat. He needed to warn him! He slowed his pace and called out: “You there, sir! Excuse this humble reverend as I approach! This night is full of the devil himself, we must run!”
The man stopped walking and awaited the reverend’s approach. He was getting closer and the smell of smoke was in the air as he did. He hadn’t noticed in his gasping of breath mid-run, but something was burning. He chanced a glance behind him and saw the aura of a fire on the horizon down the road. It looked to be coming….directly from where the old house stood. Then as if they were summoned, he could see casually walking down the middle of the road a group of cats, some small, some indescribably large, all slinking silently down the road. “Lo there, see there they are! The spawn of Lucifer himself, I swear it!” He pointed with a shaking finger toward their visage and then turned back to the stranger in the road. The man was still standing 30 paces away but he heard in a muffled voice “I see it as you speak it, my good sir”.
His head was turned down and the reverend gave pause as he was looking at the top of his pitch-black hat, eyes cast to the ground. “But sir, you aren’t even looking!”. As if on command he raised his head, two glowing golden eyes being the only thing that could be described as a face glowing in the full moonlight. The preacher froze and he heard a deep baritone laugh emanate from the stranger in the street. “I see it as you say it. The name is Nick. Some call me Old Nick, though I don’t feel a day beyond thirty-five!” The reverend saw a tail swish from behind his coat, long and slender and he approached him faster than his eyes could fathom, still laughing maniacally as the preacher dropped to his knees. The golden eyes loomed above him, laughter consuming his visage. A black hand touched Reverend Schuster on the shoulder and the world went dark.
If one were to look inside of a forgotten house, on an almost forgotten dirt road they might find a picture. Three sisters and their parents. What they wouldn’t find would be a reverend and his bible.