Twice the urge to stop and run inside a store to grope something had nearly overpowered him. But Adam Sampson resisted it fiercely, keeping his foot on the car's accelerator. He had to get to New Vibe Community Church and Reverend Swag. What resided inside him was demonic. He knew that two and two was always four despite whatever Orwellian-like ruminations implied.
But there was something else, too. It was midnight, the witching hour and the wee moments of a Friday the thirteenth. And she would be there. How he knew that was lost to him as was why he needed to see her so badly in the first place. He was being pulled to her. He needed to savagely have his way with her. The thought hardened him, making his member throb violently against his pants. He started to free it, but resisted the urge. New Vibe was but a block away.
He screeched to a halt in the church's parking lot. Leaving the vehicle haphazardly angled, he stumbled out of it and went wobbly to the church steps. The front double-doors were unlocked. Surprisingly, there was no resistance. No unseen force pushed him back. The door handles felt as cold to the touch of his hands as the night air was upon the rest of his uncovered skin. He entered unabated.
The sanctuary was partially dark. Bits of moonlight managed to snake in through the variegated window panes. Swag knelt at the altar amongst fake foliage and candles. He was alone.
Sampson yelled. “Help me!”
There was an instant of silence. Then Swag, moving nary a muscle, said, “Stop fighting it. Give in to yourself.”
Sampson moved closer to the altar. “You must help me, Reverend. Please! Help me!”
“Adsum,” Swag said.
It was Latin. Strangely, despite the fact that he'd never studied the dead language, Sampson understood him perfectly well. “Adsum et tu dominus. I'm here as well, master,” he replied, the dead words rose up from his belly of their own volition.
Swag stood up and turned around. His eyes were a fiery red and all of his fingernails were long. Harsh disbelief swept over Sampson. It couldn't be. Swag was one of…no, no. But as he watched Swag's bendy finger motioning him forth, he knew it was so.
Sampson had known Swag for over eight years and never before noticed the pastor's long fingernails. Then again, he'd had no inkling of this side of the young preacher either. Even as the wave of understanding swept over him, Sampson stared drop-jawed at Swag as he continued beckoning him hither; but Sampson didn't want to go and for a few moments willed himself still. Soon, however, his legs, as the dead words had before, started to move on their own accord. Then the demon once again exerted control of his tongue. “Cepi Corpus, I have taken the body.” But Sampson strained against the forced movements. He wouldn't relinquish his body so easily. With much effort, he forced himself to his knees, crying out. “God, help me!”
Swag laughed harshly. “Fool! Esto quod es! Be what you are!”
“I'm Adam Sampson, professor of history!”
“Sampson is no more,” Swag said. “It's over now. Fui quod es, eris quod sum. I was once what you are; you will be what I am. Et vadam ad eam. Go to her.”
Sampson dug his knees deep into the green carpet. “No, I will not leave my body. You can't have it!” But the thing inside him forced him to his feet, and soon he was scraping across the carpet toward a room at the back of the sanctuary.
In the back room, Sampson discovered who 'she' was. She was asleep on a sofa. She wore blue jeans and a greenish-blue sweater that rose up just a little, exposing a little skin, making him think of Ruth Coward. But not even Ruth Coward could compare to Kallie Hunt who looked so beautiful and dangerous lying there, waiting for him. Memory of the death of a cancer-stricken mother and the accompanying near déjà vu-fueled mental breakdown of her daughter a day short of a year later was distant and foreign. All that remained was lust, a lust that was perhaps always there, simmering underbelly, masked by a pretended asexuality. He licked his tongue over his lips as savagely lustful emotions gripped him, controlling him more so than the demon within. He leapt the short distance to her, intending to finally have his way. To give into himself as Swag had so eloquently put it. Puckering his lips, he bent down. As he drew closer, her eyes opened.
Professor Adam Sampson was destined to be her first.