Summer, 1966.

 

The Messiah was walking among the sinners.

 

Like all men, the Messiah was a sinner Himself. But He was also proof of the power of God's Love, for He had been forgiven in the eyes of the Lord.

 

Not long ago, the Messiah had been nothing more than J.C. Masters, a motorcycle thug. He smoked too much weed and drank too much beer, and He beat His women. His girl, a tramp named Paisley, tried to get with some other guy, Rommel, and that started a war between them. J.C. raped and murdered Rommel's girlfriend and wiped out anyone who tried to help him. At the end of things, Rommel was dead, and J.C. was badly wounded.

 

While in the hospital, J.C. had a vision. He saw the Christ, the Nazarene, who told Him that He would incarnate in Him in the New Age, the Age of Aquarius. Through Him He would be God on Earth, who would once more give up His life to save the souls of Man. He had been bathed in sin so that He might understand it, and steel Himself against it. By embracing the Love of God, J.C. died, and in His wake there was only the Messiah.

 

Since then He had taken to wandering the land, spreading the good word and preparing for the turn of the cycle—the changing of the Ages.

 

It had not been an easy road. He had gone through a period where He was crazy horny, horny for Jesus. He had seen Him in His deep, dark wet dreams, calling to Him, carrying Him towards the light with an open hand and an open mouth. He had carried His Cross in the streets, nude, bearing the stigmata. But this was a distraction by the Devil, who had tried to convince Him that He was not Jesus reborn, but instead a mortal obsessed with Jesus. Once He had shaken off that delusion, that was when He had finally found His followers—His Apostles. He found them in brothels, in drug dens, in all the world's holes of vice. He had pulled them into the light and so won their undying loyalty. And so when His past caught up with Him, and a group of Nazi bikers tried to murder Him before His appointed time, they had saved Him, and nursed Him back to health, so that He could face His proper destiny.

 

They were a true Family, all of them together, and they all shared the divine goal of Man's Salvation. They followed Him into the cesspools with might be called a form of eagerness.

 

Some of them loved Him so much that they became His Mary Magdalenes, taking the veil in His name.

 

He was roaming the streets with two of His Nuns, His Brides, when the blonde woman called to Him.

 

The Messiah looked upon her. At once, He smelled the sin on her, and saw its stain upon her clothes. She smelled like cannabis, and she was dirty; it was the sort of dirt that came from rolling around in dirty beds, the kind that clung to wrinkles and pimples. Poor child, He thought, and yet none are beyond My love.

 

She caught Him looking at her. “Hey, stranger,” she said, twirling her greasy hair around her forefinger. “You lookin' for a good time?”

 

“It is God, my child, who supplies my 'good times,'” the Messiah said. “I do not partake in matters of the flesh.”

 

“So you got all that long hair for nothin'?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

For a moment, His Nuns seemed to laugh below the cowls of their habits. He shot a glaring look at them, and they were quieted.

 

“I mean, you look like one of them Free Love types,” the woman said. She was chewing bubble gum, and blew a bright pink bubble. “You're telling me you don't like rollin' in the hay with pretty girls?” She gestured towards the Nuns, as if she knew they were His Brides. The Messiah felt His cheeks turn scarlet.

 

“I am the Lamb of God. I am innocent of fornication.”

 

“Ah, a Jesus freak. Well, I know that some of you guys don't mind a little...entheogenic communion with the Lord.” He reached into one of her pants pockets, and took out a bag filled with greenish lumps. This was the weed she had on her breath.

 

The Messiah sighed, ignoring the widening eyes of His two Nuns. “I am a priest, dear woman...”
 

“Sadie. Name's Sadie. Sadie Mae Glutz.”

 

“I am a priest, Sadie, and a servant of God. I will go with you, but only so that I may lead you away from the path of sin.”

 

“We all have our excuses,” Sadie giggled. She took His hand. “Come on! Let's not waste time. I've got other guests waiting...”

 

“Other guests?”

 

She tilted her head, locking eyes with Him. “Future conversions,” she said, her lips turning up into a smile.

 

The Messiah looked at His Brides. Something in their eyes told Him they were thinking the same as Him, that this was a trap.

 

But did Daniel not delve into the lions' den? Did Jacob not wrestle the Angel?

 

The Messiah raised His head high, towards Heaven. And He followed the Whore of Babylon into the snake-pit.

 

Yet it was not a pit. They had to climb to reached this fated place. The party was taking place on the top floor of one of the city's great skyscrapers—a complex known as Asilo del Mar. It wasn't long before they crossed the threshold.

 

It seemed to be a typical apartment, despite its atypical crowd; they were welcomed into a wood-paneled living room, with a shag carpet touching their sandaled feet. Beyond they could see two bedrooms, a kitchen, a shitter—the floors were dirty, ashes and food everywhere, but that was not uncommon in this depraved age.

 

The Messiah and His Nuns never knew what to expect when they wandered in these sorts of places. Some of them were rich parties and some of them were poor parties. They always found drugs, and music, and women, but the quality of each varied depended on the money backing it. It was a matter of cocaine versus heroin, clean sound versus scratchy, no crabs versus...well. Here, in spite of the filth, it was hard to tell who was who and what was what. There were plenty of weirdos here, weirdos whose personal expressions defied God's will.

 

Beatniks were the chief population. A bearded guy with an eyepatch recited profane poetry; a singer named Sandifer toyed with a stack of records; a drug pusher named Saul tried to move his product. There were biker types, like the dude calling himself Anchor and a woman with a whip named Grace. Beyond these simple degenerates, there was an intense, mustachioed young man named “Master,” who bossed around a silent servant named “Brother.” Oddest of all, however, was a young man named Charlie, whom Sadie seemed close to—the long-haired, far-staring man was surrounded by similar disheveled figures, who orbited him like moons around a planet. Fittingly enough, the first one to introduce himself said he was named “Moon.”

 

“First time meeting Charlie?” Moon asked, his voice trembling somewhat. “He's big. Well, he'll be big. I promise you. He'll be big. Real, real big...”

 

The Messiah could barely hear him over the sound of the blaring vinyl, which was blasted out a song that seemed to be played backwards. Every so often, the Messiah's ears seemed to catch hints of discernible phrases, including a few that troubled Him greatly as a Christian man. This distracted him from Moon.

 

A slobby-looking guy with big curly hair spotted Moon leaning in on the Messiah and His women. After kissing “Charlie” firmly on the lips, Sadie had danced her hand in front of this other man's genitals. He pushed her aside to move through the crowd, and pushed Moon out of the way too.

 

“Welcome, friends,” the man said, flashing them a grin. “Welcome to our little gig here, that Sadie and I are throwing. You can call me Krug Konitz, and, uh, it sounds like you've already met Sadie...”

 

“Greetings, Mr. Konitz. I am the Messiah.”

 

The mirth which had entered the man's face grew stronger. “The Messiah, huh? Well, Christ alive, it's good to finally meet you. I'm a big fan, a big fan.”

 

“You have heard the Good News?”

 

“Oh, fuck, yeah! I love that Good News. Yes, O Lord, I have taken Your divine Love into my heart and into my soul, amen.” And he crossed himself, with a laugh which piqued the Messiah's eyebrow.

 

He raised an eyebrow. “Sarcasm,” he said thuddingly. “A common tool employed by sinners these days. You had me going there for a moment. Your mockery is unappreciated.”

 

“I'm sorry, O Lord, to have deceived you—real sorry. Maybe later you can hear my confession?” Krug looked around the room. “Yeah, yeah, I have a lot to confess. Come on, Jesus, let's meet the party.” He ushered the Messiah deeper into the room, casting his eyes licentiously over the Nuns as they walked past.

 

The Messiah knew this group would be a hard sell. But even sensing that didn't prepare Him for the sinking feeling He felt in His heart, as he met the guests one by one.

 

“I saw some of those bozos out near the door said hi to you,” Krug Konitz said. “Don't worry about them, they're just hanger-ons for Charlie. You saw Charlie, but I'll save him for last. He's the best, y'know? And you always save the best for last. We got him out of jail, just for a little bit, for this shindig. Sometimes the pigs are nice to us, man...but only sometimes...”

 

The Messiah found His head spinning, and He suspected that this Konitz guy wanted it that way. He was talking a mile a minute, and the Messiah could only pay attention for so long before someone shouted or dropped something, and played on His slowly-tightening nerves.

 

“So first we got Fontaine, say hi, Fontaine!”

 

A puff of Virginia Slims smoke seemed to flood the room. “'Hi Fontaine,'” the elegant young woman intoned. Her pretty eyes looked him up and down. “You're certainly rocking the toga.” Her voice was as sharp as poison.

 

“It's a robe,” the Messiah replied, and Fontaine snickered silently.

 

“Fontaine, you've got a new stud, don't you?” Krug said. “Who's this meat-slab? She used to be with Johnny Laurence, Messiah, you know, the rock star? God, she loves to fuck. Don't you, Fontaine?”

 

“I do. At least, with interesting men.”

 

“Good girl! So who's the boy-toy?”

 

The man on Fontaine's bracelet-burdened arm looked dead inside. His aged face turned towards the Messiah, and he said, “My name's Malloy. I was a boxer once, and...” He looked hesitant to go on, until Fontaine's eyes drilled holes in him. “Well, some say I could've been a contender.”

 

She laughed. Malloy cast his eyes downward, restraining a sigh. Fontaine's laughter was long, and even sharper than her spoken voice.

 

“You into fag stuff, Messiah?” Krug asked then.

 

“What?”

 

“It's just that Malloy's the stud for tonight, and he's open to you if you want him. I mean, Fontaine bought the business he worked for, broke up his little union. Broke his soul in the process. He doesn't feel a thing anymore.”

 

The Messiah was speechless. Fontaine seemed irritated that He wasn't having some sort of outburst; she drank in other people's lives for entertainment, like a vampire, and didn't bother hiding it. He didn't want to feed her.

 

A teenage boy appeared then, stumbling his way over to Krug. Krug gave an enthusiastic cry—“Hey, buddy!”—and put his arm around the boy's shoulder. “Messiah, this is my son, Ricky. Say hi, boy.”

 

“Hi, dude,” the kid said hurriedly. He quickly looked away from the Messiah, back towards his father. “Hey, Alex. Alex, I was thinking—”

 

Without warning, Krug slammed his fist into the ragged lad's face. The room went quiet for a second, before the normal chatter resumed.

 

“It's Krug this time, boy!” he shouted. “Don't fucking call me Alex. It's Krug.”

 

“I-I'm sorry, Krug, I'm sorry, won't screw up again. I was just gonna say, I was thinking it's time for my fix again...”

 

“Talk to your mother about it. Or Fred, or...look, just don't bug me. I'm trying to help our Lord and Savior here!” Krug looked back. That terrible smile of his never seemed to fade, even when it wasn't actually there. It was still there when he had beaten the boy he called his son.

 

“Kids these days have no respect,” Krug went on. “Here, Messiah, I just wanna point out a few more people, because they're gonna be important for what we're doing here, okay? Over there, that's Mark and Patty. They're gonna be the high priests. They may look like a couple of old squares, but I bet you can't even guess at how old they are. They're so old they go past square and loop around into cool again.” The pair that Krug was gesturing towards had stone-hard faces, with big brows that gave them an almost Neanderthal-like appearance. The woman, Patty, wore a leather patch over one eye, giving her a resemblance to Odin, a pagan spirit whom the Messiah detested.

 

Those words he'd used: “high priests.” Was this some perverse worship of Odin, or some other evil god?

 

“The people surrounding Charlie, they're his Family. They're his Brothers, his Sons, too. You got Moon, who you met.”

 

“Is he one of those Unification idiots?” the Messiah demanded.

 

“No, no, it's just, uh, he's got the soul of a werewolf. Gets crazy when his namesake's full. He's not a follower of that slimy bastard Moon. I bet you hate him, don't you, Messiah? He thinks he's Jesus, too!”

 

“I am the true Christ.”

 

“That's good! That's good, we'd hate to have a false Christ here for the proceedings.”

 

Before the Messiah could ask any questions, Krug continued his forceful introductions. Pointing out once more at the crowd around Charlie, he said, “That balding fucker is Joshua. Dude with his eyes closed is Roger Lime—he says he's making a psychic deal with a pal of ours, Khorda. That guy over there's King. You got Sand, you got the Chief—you've got Hawkins, who'll be filming everything...” Hawkins was a man who looked even more threadbare than Krug's son, and more degenerate than Krug himself. He had a movie camera in one hand and a baby—perhaps his own son—in the other. There was another child here, a wild toddler named Turk, whose dad was Krug's pal Fred.

 

“Beyond those big names, you have the Four Horsemen.”

 

“The what?”

 

“Of the Apocalypse, you dope. Y'know, Death, Famine, War...what's the fourth one...Pestilence? We've assigned Charlie's Sons to each role. For Pestilence, we have Invar. He's a sick man, so I guess that's why we picked him—but he's also real good at spreading our ideology, like how germs spread. For Famine, we have Scorpio Murtlock. His brand of asceticism is cruel, and definitely makes you drop the pounds, but it's effective. Especially when it's forced. War has to be Horace Bones. Dude just loves to kill. And for Death, we have the grandmaster himself—Satán. Bones gets joy out of killing. For Satán—oh boy! It's just how he breathes. I don't think he even notices stabbing bitches anymore...”

 

“You...you invite the Devil himself among your ranks?!”

 

The Messiah looked back to His Nuns, who seemed hypnotized by Charlie. He was staring at them, almost like he was speaking silently into their minds.

 

Sadie was near Charlie, rubbing her body on him as she had with Krug. Krug seemed only distantly jealous.

 

“I like your name,” Charlie was saying. “If I meet a girl just like you...can I give her your name? That way a bit of your soul will live in her.”

 

“I'd love that,” Sadie replied. “Give her my full name. Give her all my power.”

 

Fontaine was removing Malloy's clothes; he weakly resisted. Around him a few of the guests, both male and female, were looking him up and down with hunger in their eyes.

 

“If you don't care for Satán,” Krug said, “you probably won't like what we're gonna be summoning.”

 

“Summoning? What—what do you mean, summoning?”

 

“You know, blowing the horn at the Gates of Hell. Kicking at those Gates and shouting, 'Hey, you dirty cocksucker! Hey, you scum-sucking shit! Come and get me!'”

 

The Messiah raised his hands. “This foul deed must not come to pass! Join me, my Brides! Get on your knees and pray for these poor sinners!“

 

He dropped to his knees and clasped his hands together. His Nuns hesitantly followed suit.

 

The party once again became silent, but this time, they did not resume their talk. They gazed full and wide on the three who prayed. The Nuns didn't close their eyes to do so—they were too scared.

 

Krug, Sadie, and their son stepped forward. They grabbed the trio by their shoulders and forced them to their feet, shoving their hands behind their backs. Now the Nuns now began to scream, loudly and shrilly. If anyone from the neighboring apartments heard them, there was no sign.

 

“O Lord, I am subject to Your mercy and Your Love,” the Messiah cried. They were tying them up with thick twine. “I fear not what these Roman heretics will do to me, but I ask that You spare those who have chosen to follow me!“

 

His prayers went unheard. Krug's guests set about stripping the Messiah and His servants naked, ripping away the clothing that they couldn't remove from their tied hands. Their skin raised up from the cold, and they all felt terribly mortal.

 

“You probably haven't heard of Zembri, Messiah,” Krug said then. “He's an old god, older than your dad. I don't really believe in him myself, but Mark and Patty do. They worshipped him in their caves, 12,000 years ago.”

 

“Impossible! The Earth is only 6,000 years old!” the Messiah shouted.

 

The woman with the eyepatch, whose name was probably not really Patty, raised her scratchy voice.

 

“Our globe is many ages old, boy,” she said. “I have lived through millennia and I have only seen a fragment of its history. There are powers here far more terrible than any in your Bible.”

 

“But no one has eternal life on Earth! That can only be promised in Heaven.”

 

“Yeah!” one of the Nuns cried out. “Besides, biological immortality is like, impossible and stuff! I read about it in a book once. We don't have the technology for it now, and we definitely didn't in the Stone Age.” Before converting to the Messiah's cause, she had been a student at Berkeley.

 

The old woman only laughed. “If only that were true, child. The Stone Age, as you call it, was a veritable hotspring of immortality. Many people from the ancient tribes still live today, though most of them have hidden themselves.”

 

“Let's not delay any further,” said her companion, who called himself “Mark.” “Zembri awaits his sacrifice. It's best not to keep him waiting. Just because he made a deal with you, Charlie, doesn't mean he'll spare you his wrath.”

 

Charlie nodded. Only now did the Messiah see how soulless his eyes were.

 

Mark took his place at the head of the room. Krug was at the front of the audience, standing close to Sadie; he occasionally kissed up and down her neck.

 

“We are gathered here today to fulfill a pact to Lord Zembri,” Mark said. “We are here so that our dear friend Charlie may commit the binding ritual that will join this Family. He shall commit his soul to Zembri, and in doing so, he shall commit the souls of his Sons as well. That which is below is like that which is above. As he is bound them, so are they bound to him, for eternity.”

 

The “Four Horsemen” closed their eyes. At once, the energy in the room changed.

 

The Messiah and the Nuns saw that each of the members of the party had knives. But these were only for the Nuns.

 

For the Messiah, they had a Crucifix, and a box of nails.

 

When He saw it, the Messiah's eyes widened. He gasped out, low and ragged, “O God my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” A chorus of mocking laughter smothered His voice.

 

Mark continued: “As this story recreates that which has come before, so too shall this chapter of history recur.” The party set upon the Nuns, and began to carve their naked bodies to pieces. The Messiah felt his sanity begin to fray as he listened to their agonized shrieks. “As we restage the killing the Messiah, so shall all history be pitted with repetition. So shall the battles of history be eternally returning, fueled by ignorance, so that there is no light, no progress.

 

“This world is now blooming into something new. Something good. Something beautiful, led by the gentle hands of the Flowerchildren.”

 

“Kill it!” roared Krug, as he cut one girl's kidney out. “Kill that beauty, that faggot goodness.”

 

“Let the final war come!” Charlie cried, raising his hands. “Let the primal ways return! Let there be bloodshed, and killing for killing's sake! Let women be as breeding-cattle! Let the poor, the Black, the queer, the foreign be slaughtered like pigs, so that we may rise from the bottomless pit and rule the ashes!”

 

“Let us murder the world, for the sake of cruelty!” shouted Horace Bones of the Four Horsemen. “Let's skull-fuck it, brothers and sisters!”

 

“Let us always have the chance to invade history and make it ours. Let us always have the power to be the strong men who will enslave the lesser,” said Mark. “Let this party become the party, linked to all others of this epoch, tainting the psychedelic dream. Let our Horsemen ride out over the world and sacrifice the innocent to the inner horrors, the Beasts of Id.

 

Let Death, War, Famine, and Pestilence reign over the world. Into infinity. Forever.”

 

There was very little left of the Nuns that was recognizable.

 

And they were now driving nails into the Messiah's wrists.

 

He prayed, his voice straining, until he could not anymore.

 

When at last His words were done, He received a vision. But it was not divine.

 

The two ancient ones were opening a gate, and in doing so they were empowering Charlie. The Messiah could see his soul now, a writhing, crackling mass of energy. The gate, too, was energy, a structure made of pure, bright psychedelic force. Parts of Charlie's essence flew out and fused with those around him, mingling their soul-energies, transforming them into aspects of his being. These soul-shards would transform his Sons even on the genetic level, until they resembled him.

 

Past this psychic infection, the Messiah saw time seething like a froth; it grew ever more vicious and agitated as these creatures poured their will into it, until it was a whirling hurricane mess, spitting blood and viscera. Bubbles formed within the slurry, replicas of the bubble which seemed to cradle these events in time. Like sand-grains inside a mollusk, they rubbed against the soft surface of time and made grotesque pearls bloom.

 

By damaging this Century, the makers of this ritual were creating a new one—one where jackals like them would rule.

 

J.C. Masters, who believed that he was chosen by God, saw the truth of himself—he gained the bleak Gnosis of the Abyss. He was naked before the flame, and found an honesty which even his hideous killers had found before him.

 

It was not their killing of the sacred which had sent venom into time. It was his hypocrisies and failings which had brewed the poison. He believed that he had found forgiveness, when in truth he thrilled to the power he had over his followers—especially his Nuns. He had failed to protect those Nuns, and now their screams, too, seemed to add to the raw evil pouring forth into the substance of history.

 

He thought of Rita. Rommel's girl.

 

The blood leaked free from the nails in his wrists. His mind seized, overwhelmed by the flashing lights the ritual's sorceries produced. All went dark—and so he did not see the frightful end of the rite, which would have annihilated the last of his sanity.

 

In time, it ended, but it was only the beginning.

 

The Family stood enraptured for a moment, speechless as what they had seen and wrought. Slowly, they filed out of the room. Distantly, the half-living Messiah wondered why they weren't lingering to bathe in his suffering—but perhaps they thought it was a punishment for him to die alone.

 

Instead, he felt it gave him a form of dignity.

 

* * *

 

As he neared his final moments of life, the Messiah became aware that he was being filmed. It was Hawkins, who had filmed the whole ritual, including the butchering of the Nuns, and everything they'd ended up doing to Malloy.

 

“Please...” the Messiah said. He could not reach for the man, as much as he wished to. “Please...let me go, man...”

 

The man lowered the camera. Slowly, he walked towards the crucified prisoner. He knelt down, picking up a butchered piece of one of the Nuns.

 

“The answer...his virgin bride...” he whispered, before casting the chunk downward. He seemed to delight in the splashing sound the wet meat made as it struck the soaked carpet.

 

Then he raised his camera to the Messiah's face. He would keep filming until he lost went under for the last time.

 

“Please...I beg you...”

 

Hawkins grinned.

 

“Long live the new flesh.”

 

The Messiah was silent for a moment. A haunted look lingered in his eyes.

 

Then he broke out laughing.

 

He died unmourned, in darkness.

 

—

 

“And so I say to you, tolerate no tyranny—! Tolerate not the raper of women and children, nor the slaver of men, nor the empire-builder, nor he who puts the white race above any other! Curse all those who hate the doctrine of Love! You must battle them in their temples and their halls, and you must show them no quarter when they resist you! For they shall claim that they are the pious ones, the victims, when they are sadistic assassins of the innocent! Repay their cruelty unto them, so you may have justice for their victims!”

 

- Lutum Hominus (13th Century Monk)

 

Sources:

​

• The Party at Kitty and Stud's, 1970

• The Last House on the Left, 1972

• The Tormentors, 1971

• The Sidehackers, 1969

• J.C., 1972

• Him, 1974

• 1BR, 2019

• The Rebel Set, 1959

• Daddy-O, 1958

• The Cool and the Crazy, 1958

• Satan's Sadists, 1969

• The Female Bunch, 1969

• Electronic Lover, 1966

• Sweet Savior, 1971

• Hitch-Hike, 1977

• The Stud, 1969

• Rock You Sinners, 1957

• On the Waterfront, 1954

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• Green Lantern #78, July 1970

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• Mandy, 2018

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• Horror House, 2008

• Venus Flytrap, 1987

• The Manson Massacre, 1971

• Hearing Secret Harmonies, 1975

• I Drink Your Blood, 1970

• Snuff, 1976

• The Hippy Cult Murders, 1970

• Videodrome, 1983