Wednesday Blog Post: Flash Fiction · 12:15pm Mar 23rd, 2017
Shoutout to my Patrons, whose contributions ensure I remember to actually post the stuff I write.
So I'm a university student again, a more legitimate one this time around. Doing a writing minor, since apparently screenwriting credits don't transfer... anyway.
Anyway, I was told to build a character in five hundred words. Show who they are, give them a conflict, all that. So I did, after the break. The only character I've ever written that I have genuinely considered commissioning art of, the Father Martin.
Oh! And I'm getting an RCL interview. It's pretty cool, that'll be up in a week or so. Watch this space, etc.
The thing about being a light shining in darkness is you don’t have to shine that bright. You just have to show up.
It’s okay to be a pale shadow in the brightness of God’s day if, when you see real darkness, true darkness, you don’t hesitate to bring the light. Father James Martin of the Catholic Church was not known to hesitate by those few who knew him.
He didn’t speak so much as preach, voice like placid waters in a cavern deep in the Earth. To hear his voice is to feel the weight of your sins crawling up your back.
His shoulders hold the weight of his Kevlar cassock as if it were cloth, the practice of wearing it for most of his fifty three years. His face all straight lines and harsh angles, jaw like a steel capped boot. All except for his nose, broken more times than the man could count. His hair is more salt than pepper, but that suits him just fine, and it’s cut in the short neat style of a military man – A colonel in God’s own army.
The Good Father’s weight shifts easily as he fills supplicants’ bowls with soup. His kitchen isn’t official, sometimes operating on donations from its petitioners but otherwise it survived by scraping from Martin’s war chest. Operating out of a condemned church on the wrong side of some stolen tracks; didn’t matter, it was still consecrated ground. The light doesn’t need to shine bright, just needs to shine at all.
It was still a surprisingly popular place of worship, maybe because it was the only one in the city that let you open carry -- The Father’s own bull-barreled .44 shining in the dim barrel-fire lights.
These were bad streets in bad times, and his flock needed to know they were protected. He pours soup into the last bowl of the last man. Now was time to go down to the basement, to what he was protecting them from.
He lights a kerosene lantern and makes his way down.
Wire is wrapped around an exposed steel girder, weaving in and out of the meat of the demon’s back. They heal fast, and their flesh is strong, but they still have something close to human anatomy. There’s nothing he could use to hold the thing indefinitely, but it would have to pull the wire through its own spinal cord to escape. It hadn’t stopped screaming since.
He holds the dark light of the lantern to the demon’s face, which looks so much like a man. It spits at him, hissing as it connects with the consecrated cobblestones.
“You were feeding on my flock, Camarilla.” Martin sighs. “Which means you’re getting stupid, desperate or cocky.”
“I am a prince of the eternal legion. My armies boil forth, bubbling from black earth, and their will shall not be denied. They’re coming for me, mortal.” It shows its buck-knife fangs. Not quite human.
“Cocky it is then.”
It spits again, and laughs, something sick and manic that echoes even before it hits the ear. Martin raises an eyebrow, his face set into a grimace.
“Good. That saves me the trouble of bringing the light to them.”
A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness shall not overcome.
It's Thursday morning.
4468836
Close enough.
What the hell is that story and when can we get more?
4468842
Basically The Punisher by way of Preacher, gone senile and with more vampires.
4468847
He's senile? So was that a real demon?
I mean, contextually, that doesn't make a lot of sense, but I'm not sure where else senile comes from.
4468867
Oh no, here he isn't. It's not relevant for this part of the story.
But while he believes in his flock arming themselves for their protection, say, that doesn't help much against the people who'd want to be protected against his flock.
Badass preachers are an inherently cool archetype, and this character just nails it!
wow, I'd read the fuck out of this
HOLY SHIT, YOU'RE GETTING AN RCL INTERVIEW?! Why doesn't anyone tell me these things?