It Devours! by Joseph Fink

Author:Joseph Fink
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-08-24T04:00:00+00:00

22

23

“Amen,” the pastor finished, recontextualizing everything she had said before this as a prayer.

“Amen,” the Congregation responded, accepting this recontextualization.

“Now, Gordon, please lead us in another joyous song.”

Gordon did, with an accordion this time.

Sing, sing, sing; give a joyous shout

For the ground below us is about to give out

And from deep underground comes a hungry mouth

Sing, sing, sing; give a joyous shout.

Hypothesis: The church plans to summon something from the otherworld.

Evidence: They basically said so in the sermon with the insinuation that there would be a ceremony of devouring. What Nilanjana didn’t know was how they would achieve it, or even if a summoning was a real thing that could be carried out.

Stephanie nudged her, and she realized that she was the only one in the room not singing. No headpiece would hide a lack of participation. She did her best to hum along, but then decided that was bringing more attention to herself. And what would she do when the service started to wrap up? Surely there was small talk? Most situations that don’t involve scripted actions involve small talk. She wasn’t great at small talk in the best of situations, and pretending to be a man she barely knew was, if not the worst of situations, close to it.

SWALLOW SWALLOW SWALLOW SWALLOW

SWALLOW SWALLOW SWALLOW SWALLOW

GULP GULP GULP GULP GULP GULP GULP GULP

YEAH! SWALLOW SWALLOW SWALLOW. YEAH!

Gordon finished with an unnecessary flourish of the accordion, and the pastor forgave it with a beatific smile.

“And now,” she said, “let’s have some testimonials. Who will go first?”

This seemed to involve individual audience participation, and while there were a lot of people in the room, there weren’t so many that Nilanjana could feel safely lost in the crowd.

“Let’s hear from Martin first,” the pastor said.

One of the interchangeable robed and headpieced figures hopped up enthusiastically and jogged to the podium.

“Hey, gang,” he said. “I’m Martin McCaffry. As most of you know, I used to run TSA out at the Night Vale Airport. I wasn’t happy with my career. The hours were long. The pay was unrewarding. I continuously made drawings of an elongated dark figure and I had no memory of making them. One day I had had enough, and I set traps all over my house to catch whatever demon or evil force was haunting my life. Sacrificed mice at tiny altars in order to gain protection. Built a complex machine that predicted the future by murdering wasps. The whole deal. I guess you could call it a midlife crisis.

“But was I happy? I was not. I only thought I was happy because of how many animal sacrifices I had made. It wasn’t until I ran into May over there (hi, May!) and she told me about the devouring mercy of the Smiling God that I saw the truth. I couldn’t fight the demon on my own. I needed an even larger, more terrifying force on my side.

“It has been amazing getting to know all of you over the past couple

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