Vestigial
Part Two
I wrote “Vestigial" directly to a prompt, which is rare for me. But DarkLit Horror issued a call for religious horror short stories, and I thought to myself, self, if you can’t get a piece picked up in a religious horror anthology, what are you even doing with that Ph.D. in Religious Studies? Content includes problematic descriptions of physical anomalies, gore, and violence, including toward minors.
I walk to my dressing room and shut the door on the hubbub of people that are necessary to run an enterprise of this scale. The dressing room is blissfully silent and I drop the robe on the couch. Crossing to the mirror I examine myself carefully, looking for any flaw, anything out of place. I must be perfect at all times.
My examination complete, I pull on a pair of white velvet shorts that leave my long legs bare. Put drops in all three of my eyes to prevent redness and also to minimize the risk of infection. Her eye dirties easily and keeping it clean and moisturized ensures my continued health. I top the whole thing with a clinging shirt in the same soft fabric. It clearly shows the shape of my body, my nipples, my ribcage. For this next part, she needs to be seen.
Terry knocks on my door exactly twenty-eight minutes later. I’m sitting in lotus, my eyes at half mast. I always take offerings seriously. It’s important to be in the right head space.
She waits until I bid her enter. “The packages are in place,” she tells me. “And the offering is prepared.”
I pull the white robe back on, leaving it to flow open over my shirt and shorts. I go through an outfit a week; the velvet is too difficult to clean and makes a great souvenir for my devotees.
A decent size crowd has hung around, hoping to get another glimpse of me. The robe has a hood and I pull it up, leaving my red curls to stream down over my chest. Terry touches up my roots every ten days; she is the only one I trust to know that my hair is brown and that the color of my eyes had once been perfectly ordinary. Terry has been with me for a long time.
She follows me unobtrusively, letting my huge bodyguards handle the crowd. They have also been with me for years; I’d rescued them from a Mongolian orphanage as babies and raised the boys to serve me. I have a weakness for twins.
Hands reach for me and I allow some of them to brush my robe, flashing my violet eyes from beneath the hood. The crowd surges and whispers and sighs, calling my name: “Lisbet! Lisbet! We believe in you! We love you! We worship you! We’d die for you! Sacrifice me, Lisbet!”
The Mongolians clear a way to the offering room door and the ones outside shove one another for a glimpse inside. Someday maybe some of them will be allowed in. One day, they may even be brought to the dais.
As I step through the doors I push back the hood and the ones inside look up at me, their voices falling silent. They have all been brought in through a small entry on the far side but I enter through huge mahogany doors opening onto a balcony overlooking the rest of the room. As I appear the lights in the rest of the room subtly dim, leaving me spotlighted against the dark wood of the doors as they close behind me. Twenty-one pairs of eyes gaze up at me. I pause to let them look and then descend the marble stairs, one of the Mongolians taking a hand, Terry quickly sweeping the train of the robe out so that it drapes majestically behind me.
At the bottom, I drop my helper’s hand and make my way through the small crowd, looking into each face, pausing occasionally to touch a shoulder, brush a smooth cheek. They are a menagerie of human beauty. I do not discriminate on the basis of sex, gender, color, weight, or age and they are a rainbow of human diversity. And they are all for me though only one will be chosen.
I always know immediately who she will pick. She’s decisive, my autosite. Today she chooses the youngest of the bunch, a girl who can’t be older than sixteen. With those blue eyes and dark skin she has to be mix. Model material if she hadn’t come to me.
I take her by the hand and the small crowd sighs. They want to be chosen but they also want to watch. It’s a combination of disappointment and relief.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Mara,” she says.
“Do you want to be mine, Mara?” I ask.
“Yes,” she consents. Her parents or guardians will have consented as well, in writing, assuming she is under age.
“Show me how you’re special.”
Her eyes fall away from mine but she turns so show me her back, dropping the loose dress she wears so that I can see the full expanse of her flesh. At the base of her spine a tiny tail sprouts. It is about four inches long and curls at the end, nestled against the top of her buttocks.
“You are special,” I say and she turns to face me again, meeting my eyes.
“People made fun,” she whispers.
“People are stupid,” I say, and she smiles a bit.
Taking her hand, I lead her to the far end of the room where there is a balcony matching the one by the doors. This one is set with a dining table and a platform without rails that hangs out over the room below. It is subtly slanted giving the audience a better view. I must be careful not to lose my footing on the uneven surface.
I walk up the stairs and invite Mara to sit at one end of the table. I sit at the other. The Mongolians open the doors and waiters stream in. There are platters of mac and cheese, egg rolls, pizza, cheeseburgers, potato fries, ranch flavored corn chips, chocolate pudding, ice cream, and lemon cake. There are pitchers of red Kool-Aid and Coke.
Mara’s eyes are wide. “These are my favorites,” she says.
I hand her a plate. “Have as much as you want,” I tell her and begin heaping my own plate. This is the only time I eat solid food.
She takes a bite of pizza and wipes her chin as grease from the cheese runs down. “Did people make fun of you, too?” she asks.
“For…?” She nods at my chest.
“Only until they realized that she allows me to speak with the gods.” I tuck into my own plate, starting with the mac and cheese, a favorite since childhood.
“When I was born my tail was just a little nub. But I grew with me.”
“Did you ever think of having it removed?”
She looks at me shyly. “I hide it. But it makes me special.”
I smile at her. “I know exactly how you feel.”
A waiter refills her glass of soda and she takes another long swallow. “But your eye isn’t scary.” Her face fills with reverence. “It’s god.”
I push the rest of the pasta aside and reach for an eggroll. “She’s not god,” I correct. “But she speaks with the gods.”
“And that’s what allows you to hear them.”
I tilt my head back, closing my eyes, blotting out Mara and the rest of the room. “Yes,” I breathe. “I can hear them.” I feel her eye open.
We had intertwined in the womb, our juices mingling. My body had consumed hers and she fed me, my first offering. I had ingested her blood and bones, my body growing strong from hers. But she had not been subsumed. She persisted, her eye peering across the void and into other worlds.
I will be the last prophet. But to end the world I must feed. I finish the egg roll and reach for the cake.
Below, the twenty who did not get chosen are eating their fill as well, gorging on the comfort food. The waiters make sure they all have plenty to drink. I only drink water.
I can see it when it hits, the glassiness to Mara’s eyes, the way her mouth gapes open in a smile. She has gotten a much stronger dose than the ones below. It will keep her docile. They consent but most of them lose their courage in the final moments.
I finish eating and gesture for more water. Terry brings me a glass with a splash of mint to cut the grease and oils of the fattening meal.
I wait until the wait staff whisk the last of the food away and the stand, waiting for the room to quiet. The lights slowly dim again, leaving me standing in a dazzling spot. A hush falls.
When I take Mara’s hand she stands obediently and follows me to the platform. I position her facing the people below. I bask in all those eyes on me. They see me for what I truly am: a god. And all gods are monstrous.
I push the loose dress off Mara’s shoulders and it falls to the floor, leaving her naked. The crowd sighs.
I spin her around to face me and the people below look at the tail curled at the base of her spine. They all have something that makes them special, too: extra toes, missing bones, different colored eyes. My only requirement is that they have to have been born different; no accidents, surgeries, or cosmetics allowed.
“Hinduism is the only tradition that recognizes birth anomalies for what they are: gods breaking through into our world,” I tell those gathered below. “The rest of the world see difference as abomination and uses surgery to banish the divine. I know that this world was once the home of the gods. Then humans multiplied and drove them out. But I have come again. I am Ebeji, the divine twins, the Changing Woman. What is my name?”
“Lisbet,” the crowd moans. They have gotten a lighter dose of GHB to keep them alert but compliant.
“I am Lisbet, the last. What is my purpose?”
“To end the world,” they say. “To restore heaven on earth.”
“And how will heaven come again?”
“We will inherit the earth.”
“What is required?”
“Sacrifice.”
I look deep into Mara’s eyes. She looks back, her gaze sleepy and stoned. She smiles at me and I caress her cheek.
“What is the only worthy sacrifice?”
“A god.” The crowd sways, arms lifting. In the gloom I can only sense movement but I can feel their adoration.
I reach up and wrap my hand through Mara’s hair, pulling her head back as the knife hidden in my hand slices across her throat. I pull her forward, into the knife, putting all of the pressure I can into the cut. The goal is to sever both carotid arteries in a single smooth slice. I am getting better at it.
Blood geysers up, splattering my face and the white velvet. I love how it shines on the rich fabric, turning from frosty to scarlet in an instant. I open my mouth and drink in that blood, the coppery taste of it shocking against the mint.
I feel the eye in my chest open wide. She blinks as the blood rains down. I’m always impressed with the force of that initial gush. Mara’s eyes roll up and then close. Her dark skin turns ashy as her blood continues to pump out. It pools on the platform, caught in the gutter that runs around the edge. There is a drain that captures the blood in a vat to save for later.
She sags against me and I lower her down, kneeling beside her, washing my hands in the life-force that flows from her. I wash my face in all that red and lick my fingers. Like Kali, I am a bloodthirsty goddess. Together, we feed.
She is gone and I stand, stepping to the edge of the platform. The crowd surges forward, their arms raised. I drip blood from my hands into their upturned faces and they open their mouths like baby birds to drink.
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I thoroughly enjoyed your story. Thank you for sharing it.