Porter .

Porter

Written By Sammy King.

“Is there anyone here? We don’t mean you any harm; we just want to speak with you”

He sat crouched in the corner, eyes black, lips pulled into a grimace, darkness enveloping him, as he tried to control the guttural roar that was building deep inside his belly.  He hated humans. He had been one, but he hated them now. They came seeking what they called truth, if only they knew what the truth was.

“Can you turn on our light? Can you move something?”

I’ll fucking move something, he thought, slowly he stood, lurching forward trying to control the speed of his steps, as he drew his face near the pretty little blonde girl. He sniffed in deep; he could smell the fear that coursed its way through her veins. He never understood why they came, if they were so afraid, little girls, who wore black. His grimace grew wider, looking around at the men, with their black arm bands, and tight t-shirts, he knew that they weren’t worthy of playing with.  But this girl; she was something different; she was only here, because her boyfriend wanted to come.  One of the macho wankers in black, he sniffed at her hair, closing his eyes as he smelt the sweet scent of fruit and fear.

He heard her suck in a breath, she felt him; she could sense him there. This made his stomach, or what was left of it, leap in joy. His excitement was building; it had been months since he had such a pure fear in his presence. With one soiled and broken finger, he touched the strands of her hair, just moving them enough, to make her aware of him, but for her not to be sure. She let out a little yelp of fear.

“Um, I think I might have felt something” she said meekly, her voice quivering.

His grimace became bigger, as he ran his gnarled finger down her back, from her neck to the base of her spine.  He almost felt alive again when she screamed and ran into the arms of her jarhead boyfriend. It wasn’t the one he had thought it was, but he could feel the laughter begin to form in his throat. In a few steps he was back next to her, bringing his cracked lips close to her ear.

“Fuck you” he whispered deep into her ear.

She screamed again.

“I heard something”

“You leave her alone; you are not allowed to touch her, in the name of Jesus”

He couldn’t control it any longer; the laughter flowed from deep within him, in the name of Jesus.

“What the fuck is he going to do” he screamed.  But it was inaudible to them; he knew they heard on a different level. He had given up on the idea of communicating with humans, with their warped sense of eternity.  They couldn’t hear him, even with their machines and recorders. He had tried for decades.

His anger was rising. He entangled the pretty blonde hairs in his fingers, and dragged her to the floor, listening with pleasure to the blood freezing scream and thud as she hit the floor, tugging at the invisible force that had hold of her head.

The commotion of the men yelling, telling the scared minions with camera’s to keep shooting, and screaming oh my God like he would do anything to help. God wasn’t anywhere he could find. He had spent many years screaming the same words trying to find the afterlife he had once believed in.  He knelt next to the trembling and sweating girl, who couldn’t make any more noise other than a childlike whimper, and with one hand held her neck tight, he could feel her begin to gasp for air, her legs writhing around on the dusty floor of the old gothic church.  He could hear her heart thudding in her chest faster and faster.

“Want to meet God now?” he growled into her ear.

Her eyes opened wide in fear, blood began to trickle from her lip where she had bitten it. A squeak came from her mouth, as she turned her eyes to face him, his face close to hers.  Her breath hit his face, like a sweet air. When he was certain she could see him, he smiled, his teeth white, his eyes black.  He let go of her throat, and heard the scream that finally was able to escape.

“What did you see? Ally what did you see?” Her jarhead boyfriend was screaming at her.

She turned to look at him, scrambling to her feet, her hands on her throat; she stumbled towards the door of the church, with her boyfriend and his friends in close chase behind her. He sat back against the wall, laughing the laugh of the insane. 

The truth is that Porter wasn’t evil, well he hadn’t always been, not that he believed that anything could truly be evil.  After all that meant that there had to be good in the world for there to be evil; Porter was born in 1875, to a hardworking father Richard and mother Hannah, they were God fearing people, who went to church every Sunday.  His father held regular bible studies in their meek home in the woods. His mother made meals for those less fortunate than themselves.  She made clothes for the new babies being born in their village; they raised their seventeen children, to be God fearing men and women.  Richard was thrilled when Porter said he was going to join the seminary to become a priest, Richard, told everyone he met, his son was going to be a priest.

After leaving the seminary at twenty five years old, he went on to be a junior priest of a church in Saddleberry; he studied under an elderly father, named Joseph. He was a gentle soul and taught Porter all that he knew.  Porter was in charge of meeting with the young people, encouraging them to live the righteous way.  He enjoyed the feeling of them looking up to him, and emulating their lives on his own pious one.

Porter looked forward to the day that he would run the church, he had ideas to bring more young people to the church, he was more progressive in his teaching, but he knew he had to be patient, that it was God’s timing not men. His day had finally come, when Porter was a week away from turning thirty, he received a letter from the Dioceses, letting him know that there was a position in his home village of Newmarket in the church he grew up in as the senior priest.  Porter leapt at the chance.  And there he worked tirelessly doing God’s work.  He was committed, reading his bible front to back every week, praying for hours at a time, fasting for days on end, self-flagellating with every impure thought or feeling.  He wanted to be more committed, no; he needed to be more committed to ensure to bring his flock to the righteous path.

Porter, now nothing more than a spirit roaming the empty walls of the church, spat at the thought of who he allowed himself to be.  How much of his life he had given up, and for what? Where would God be when he needed him?  Porter had preached so often about eternal life, the beauty of heaven, the Garden of Eden, the place that they would all spend eternity after they passed.  But within three years, he would see this was a lie, he had been teaching a lie. There was no after life of beauty, it wasn’t hell either, and there was no fire and brimstone. There was nothingness. There was an endless roaming the halls of an empty church, the only distraction was humans, the stupid ones that thought that it would be fun to interact with ghosts, spirits, ghouls, demons, angels. It was nothing more than a lonely existence; a wasteful end to life.

Porter was a good priest, he helped everyone that needed assistance, he loved those who could only be loved by Jesus, and he welcomed everyone.  But that was his mistake, his demise. One night, as he stood at his alter, praying, fasting, crying to God, he heard the crack behind him only seconds before he felt the pain spring through his back into the depths of his chest. He turned, facing a woman, her face twisted in anger, his eyes opened wide in fear.  He looked down at his chest, where blood bubbled.  His knees buckled, and a sharp pain shot through his thigh as he hit the hardened floor.  He looked up into the wretched face of his killer, a woman, blonde long hair, eyes an ice cold blue, she peered down on Porter, with a mix of contempt and pity. He knew her, but he couldn’t be sure of from where.  His eyes grew heavy, as he could feel his heart begin to slow, his breath grew more laboured, and the pain became more intense. A cry escaped his lips, as his last breath left his body.

But it wasn’t heaven that Porter saw. He first saw the arms, the arms that reached from the floor, gripping his waist, pulling him into the depths of the earth, before shooting him high into the sky.  He felt himself land hard onto the wooden floor of the church, looking up he could see the candles, that flickered in the darkness, rolling on his side he looked at his ashen face, eyes rolled in their sockets, blood dribbling from his chest, no life left in the body.  With fear he stood over his bleeding crumpled body, he heard the movement from behind him as he watched the woman, his murderer run from the church, Porter chased her, but there was an invisible veil he couldn’t push through, it held him there.  He slapped against the veil, but it didn’t move, his hand simply bounced off it, there was no sound like a window; it was just nothingness that held him there.  Only once did he see the woman turn her head to look at the church, before disappearing into the darkness.

“Jesus, Jesus, where are you?” he screamed. But only silence followed.

He ran to his body that lay, bloody and broken on the floor, he tried to slap his face, he tried lying on top of his body to climb back in, but nothing. Nothing worked. He heard the shouting of the men as they came running into the church building.  He recognised his father’s pale face, drained of all colour.  Reaching out he tried to grasp his father’s shoulder, but his hand simply fell through. He could hear his mother’s scream.  But there was nothing Porter could do to comfort his grieving parents.  No matter how loud he yelled, they couldn’t hear him, no matter how much he tried to hold them, they couldn’t feel him.

The congregation came, sobbing, crying.  He heard many men tell their children and wives that Father Porter, would be in a better place now.  He screamed to them that he wasn’t, but none of them heard.  He watched as police came and left again.  No trial would be held.  No arrests to be made.  No one knew who killed the sweet kind Father Porter.

For what felt like an eternity Porter sat, roamed, paced facing the evil that he knew as nothingness.  At first he thought this was hell, but where was Satan, where was that devil with hooves and a pitchfork, he had warned his congregation about, even he had abandoned Porter. 

He had been a good man, he had done his best; he had followed the good word as best he could, but in the end it had been for nothing. Stewing in his anger, his hatred grew.  Porter grew to hate everything that he had stood for. And he really hated those stupid fucking kids that came in with their recorders wanting him to perform, to turn on their torches or push a chair.  For a decade or two it was entertaining, but soon he drew bored of it.  Now it was like a thorn in his side, nothing but a pain.  He had searched for others like him, he had walked the rooms of the church, hoping that there was another like him somewhere, but there was not a single soul. He had hoped for that murdering cunt to come back, but she never returned, even when he lay in the coffin, his family and congress crying over their loss, she never returned.

His spent much of his time wracking what was left of his mind trying to remember who she was, but couldn’t place her. He had tried so hard to find her, pushing on the windows, doors, imagining himself in other places, but he just couldn’t seem to move from the church.

A rustle at the door of the church shook his thought; he stopped pacing to seek the pretty blonde back, with her big beefy wanker of a boyfriend and his friends.

“Round two” Porter grunted.

“Set it down here” one of the guys demanded.

Porter peered down over their shoulder, as they opened the board that held letters on it; he hadn’t seen something like this before, something glinted in the torchlight. He shifted his eyes to the blonde’s neck, where sat a silver cross delicately on her throat. The sight made Porter grimace, as he fought the temptation to rip it from her neck.  He wanted to see what this new contraption they brought with them did.  Porter watched with mild bemusement as each of the teens held their hands gently on the glass over the board.

“Now don’t push it, allow the spirits to answer us” the wanker said.

The blonde looked more nervous than ever, as she fingered the cross with one hand, gingerly touching the glass with the other.

“Do you think this is a good idea?” she asked meekly.

“Yes” the wanker said sounding irritated “we can find out who this is once and for all”.

They shifted and got in position, the wanker looked around at each of them sitting there, hands on the glass.

“Are you ready?”

They all nodded, he cleared his throat and nodded back at them.

“What is your name?” he called into the darkness.

Porter watched the board with amusement, waiting for a name to appear, but there was nothing, the glass sat still. The wanker cleared his throat impatiently, looking around the room.

“Tell me your name” he demanded, sounding angrier.

Porter snorted, bored, he shuffled back over the corner and flopped down onto the floor.

“Oh my god it’s moving” the blonde squeaked.

Porter looked over at them, the blondes face paling in the torchlight, fear beginning to take over, and Porter snorted again in disgust.

“L – A – U – R – A” the wanker spelt.

Porter crept forward, they had peaked his interest. This was something new. The blonde now looked purely terrified, which filled Porter with a new sense of excitement.

“Laura, did you pull Ally’s hair?” the wanker asked.

“No I did you fucking idiot” he spat

Porter waited for, their new spirit Laura to answer, but nothing came, he snorted again and fell back into his position against the wall.

“I came back to you Father”

Porter spun to his right, any colour that he could have had in his face would have drained. There beside him stood the woman, that murderous bitch, the woman that took his life and put him in this place.  All words had left him; he felt nothing, not even the hatred that had welled up for so many years in him. It was all gone, as he sat their face to face with the woman who stole life from his body.

“Who are you?” he said through clenched teeth.

She smiled sweetly at him, as she ran her hands around the backs of the four teens sitting around the board with letters, flicking the blonde’s hair on her way through.  The blonde instinctively reached up smoothing her hair flat, this action just seemed to give the woman more satisfaction, and she leaned in closer to the blonde staring at her.

“Isn’t it funny they can sense us, but don’t know any more about us” she said in an almost inaudible whisper.

“Answer me” Porter roared, lurching towards her.

The woman side stepped, and watched as he crashed down in amongst the teens, causing the glass to move to the word yes.

“Laura, can you show yourself to us?” he heard the wanker say.

Porter looked up at the woman, who had that same look of pity and contempt on her face as she stared down at him, as she did on the night she put a bullet through his chest.

“Who are you?” Porter tried again.

“Laura” she said flatly.

Porters mind reeled; he had never known a Laura. He watched as she sauntered her way over to the altar, which although cracked, dusty and cob web covered stood strong.  She ran her fingers gently across the ledge that once held candles for the dead and sick. He stood slowly, when she spun suddenly and flew across the room, stopping directly in front of his face. He searched deep into her eyes, trying to place her in a time before she had taken his life.

“You really don’t remember me sweet Porter?” she said, reaching up touching his face with a soft hand, it was the first touch he had on his face in decades, it felt delicious yet cold and painful in one touch.

Porter looked deep into her eyes again, as she turned and kicked the glass from the teen’s hands.

“I remember you killing me” Porter said.

Laura looked at him, her eyes turning sad.

“Yes, but before that”

Porter tried to remember but everything before his human death was a blur, nothing stood out. He looked at Laura and shook his head.  Laura grimaced and flew towards him, grabbing him painfully by the neck.

“You threw me away, you deserve to die in body and spirit” she spat, clasping his neck tighter.

Porter screamed with the pain that shot through his neck, he hadn’t felt pain since the day he left his body; he hadn’t really felt anything but anger since the day he left his body. Porter closed his eyes, suddenly he felt Laura loosen her grip, and he opened his eyes.  He was no longer in the church, but instead in the woods that looked so familiar to him.

“Where are we?” He said, looking around for Laura.

“Look around, you will remember” she whispered into his ear. 

Porter looked around trying to find a clue to let him know where they were. In the distance he could see a light glimmering through the trees, his senses began to awaken, and he could hear voices to his left, a moan from a woman, a moan of pleasure.  The scent of wet leaves and dew played in his nostrils, the smell was ecstasy; Porter hadn’t smelt anything for decades. But the moans grew louder and more intense, taking his attention away from what he could see or smell.  Porter began to move towards the sound.  Laura appeared next him, he glanced down at her, and she smiled bitterly at him as he moved forward.

Porter felt these woods were familiar, he knew the moans, and he knew where he was but couldn’t place it.  As he rounded the oak tree, he saw a blonde girl leaning against the tree, her eyes closed; head tilted back, her breasts bare, and the ends of hair tickling the ground behind her.  Porter furrowed his brow, who was this girl? Why did Laura bring him here?  Watching as the girl writhed in apparent pleasure, Porter saw the young man causing such joy.  His brown hair buried deep between her legs, his muscles damp with a mix of sweat and dew.  With a jolt of electricity, Porter, was thrown back in time. The young man sat up, moving towards the girls breasts, kissing each nipple tenderly, working his lips and tongue up her neck, before engulfing her mouth with his.

Porter turned to look at Laura who stood staring furiously at him.

“You remember now you cunt?” she spat at him.

“Laura” Porter uttered.

“Where were you?” She screamed as she flew towards him, grabbing his throat again, tearing at his face with her nails.

Porter held his arms up to protect his face from her assault.  She screamed an ear piercing scream.  Porter caught a glance of the young lovers who seemed oblivious to the turmoil that was taking place in the opposite realm.  Laura continued clawing at Porter, while he held her arms away from him.

“Stop, just stop” he shouted.

Laura flopped onto the wet ground, with one look she suddenly looked like a broken girl, her black eyes, had changed to a sea of blue, her hair caught around her face, her lips sad. Porter reached out to take her hand and pull her up to him.  Holding her hands, to prevent another attack, he brushed her hair from her face.

“I’m sorry” he said.

“You left, you were gone, I was full, with your child, you gave me your child, right there” she said pointing to the lovers who were now fully embraced in one another’s arms and legs.

Porter stared at Laura, he hadn’t known that she had fallen pregnant, he had no idea, no one knew of their brief encounter, he was about to leave to join the seminary, he had fallen into her arms in a moment of weakness. 

He reached out and held her face in his hands, and looked deep into her eyes, the anger seemed to be escaping from them.

“I didn’t know, I didn’t know” he said.

Suddenly he felt himself being thrown through a reality, the woods were slipping from his vision, as he felt himself moving out of his control. They were in a room, hot, the sound of a fire crackling, when a piercing scream filled his ears. He spun to see commotion, women moving fast, a woman on the bed, screaming, screaming, and blood flowing from between her legs.  He looked at the face of the woman, and recognised it as Laura.

The Laura on the bed, screamed again, as a small pink baby slipped into the fat arms of the woman standing at the foot of the bed.  The baby made no noise.

“Make it cry” Laura on the bed cried. 

The fat woman slapped the baby on the backside, pinching its foot, trying everything she knew how, in order to make the baby cry, but only silence followed.  The door flung open and there a man stood, in a long coat.  Porter recognised the man as the local doctor, Jacob McCleary.  He bustled through the room, taking the child into his arms, turning it over, rubbing it on the back and slapping its rear.  But still no sound escaped the child’s lips.

“Please make a sound, God please make a sound” Laura screamed from the bed.

Porter watched in horror, as he saw two arms reach out of the earth, reaching for the baby.  The hand reached its long scrawny fingers around the child’s leg, tugging, and pulling the child’s spirit from its body.  Porter began to shout for it to stop, but felt Laura’s arm on his, holding him back.  He turned back to look at her.

“It’s too late, it happened”

The doctor, shook his head, the fat lady bowed her head, wiping a tear from her eye.

“I’m sorry, he has left us” Jacob said.

Laura began to scream from the bed, it filled the room, the scream pierced every corner.  The shadows began to close in on Porter, as he felt himself being sucked from the room, through the floorboards.  He could see the arms grasp hold of his legs, pulling him down through the floor into the earth.  He could smell the dusty dank earth as he was whipped from the hot room, into the cold ground.  Porter matched Laura’s scream as the arms clasped him tighter, dragging him deeper into the earth’s crust.  Soon he could no longer hear the screams of Laura, but only his own.

He closed his eyes tight, as fear gripped every part of him.  If he had a heart, he knew it would be beating out of his chest at this point.  He landed with a thud.  Crumpled on the hardened ground, he was too afraid to open his eyes, afraid of what torment would be bestowed on him.  Maybe this was hell.  Now he would feel the fire and brimstone.

“Laura, can you move the chair” Porter heard, it was the wanker’s voice.

He shot his eyes open, and looked around him to see that he was back in the church, his church, the dusty old church he had known for so many decades.  With blondie and wankers sitting playing their game, trying to conjure up the spirits of the dead, if only they knew.

“Why did you leave?”

Porter spun on the spot, Laura sat staring at him; her eyes still a saddened blue.

“Laura, I didn’t know” he stammered, still taking in all that he had seen.

He had no idea that she had fallen pregnant, he definitely had no idea that she had lost their child.  The anger he had held onto for so many years, for having his human life cut short, was suddenly gone, as Laura’s overwhelming sadness overcame him, like a tsunami slapping at the earth. The grief, the sadness it came in waves, it was more painful than any anger could be.

Porter heard a murmur, and looked down, to see connected to Laura’s breast a child.  He had not noticed it before, had the child always been there? He reached out to touch the child’s silk hair, but Laura snatched her body away out of his reach. Covering the child with her arms in protection.

“I looked for you, I tried to find you, but you were nowhere” she snarled.

Porter wanted to explain to her, that he didn’t know, that he hadn’t known, if he did he would have never gone to the seminary, he would have stayed, married her. But he couldn’t find the words to express the sorrow that he felt, no word seemed to suffice, there wasn’t the vocabulary to apologise enough for the pain that she had gone through, by his hand.  But then she had taken his life maybe that was enough.