Beneath by DeMeester Kristi

Author:DeMeester, Kristi [DeMeester, Kristi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Word Horde
Published: 2017-04-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 30

“Michael the archangel. He fought the dragon. Threw him out. Condemned him to burn.”

The woman who spoke had dark hair that twisted like snakes. Like worms alive in dirt. The sight of it repulsed Michael, but her face was beautiful. Every feature a delicate tracing. Cheekbones lifting upward. A Cupid’s bow mouth that twisted into something that looked like a smile and stained berry-red.

“They named you for him. Your parents. Hoped that his strength would flow through your blood when you took up the snakes. It did at first, didn’t it? Didn’t it feel good the first time your father asked you to open those boxes? The way the people looked at you? Anointed. Holy.”

The walls hummed. Something breathed and lived and fucked inside of them. The thought made Michael burn, and he groaned.

The woman smiled. “Have you ever known a woman, Michael?”

There had been a time, when Michael was young, when he had thought of leaving his father and mother behind. All that he believed like so much dust. Something he could wave away and forget. Day after day dreaming of what it would be like to bury himself inside something sweet and hot. Late nights sweating under the quilt his mother had pieced together with the church’s quilting group, his erection pressed against it.

Michael had been afraid then. He was afraid now, and of course, the woman knew. He reeked of it. Sweat on his forehead darkened his hair. The woman would smell it on him, that dark stink of fear. Draw it inside of herself and taste it. Perhaps laugh at his weakness.

How easily Michael wanted to give up everything his father had fought for. He waited for the woman to tell him he was weak. That he had been weak since he had been small. Something that should have been crushed before it grew. Like a worm under the heel of a child.

The woman stayed silent and watched him. Eyes the color of the sky before a storm.

“How did you get here?”

She didn’t answer, and the woman stretched out on the bed that another woman slept on. Dark curls clouded and obscured her face.

Michael knew her but couldn’t remember her name. She was important, but he couldn’t place his finger on the spot that told him why. Not his mother. The face was far too young. No wrinkles beside the eyes and mouth. No silvering hair or crepe paper skin. Not a sister. He felt he would recognize his own features reflected in the face below him.

“Ashes to ashes. Isn’t that how we all come into this world? Springing up through the dirt?” the woman said.

“No. That’s how we die,” Michael said, but the Bible verse was muddled in his head.

“All the same. Birth. Death. Shitting and pissing and bleeding into the ground.”

“Our home in heaven,” he began, but the woman’s mouth crinkled at the corners, and she laughed.

“Worms eat at the dead. Pull apart muscle and bone until what’s left is so small. Inconsequential. Food,” she said.

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