The Sadist's Bible by Nicole Cushing Read Free Book Online Page B

only drew in about half her usual air. She smelled gasoline.
    She tried to get out, but she couldn’t move. Even though there were no houses
    nearby she instinctively tried to call out for help. She found she could not speak.
    But Josh still screamed. The radio still played. There was screaming and there was
    music and there was night and there was rain. Then a rumbling in the back. Then a
    whirring. Deep, masculine grunts. Murmurs. Someone else – another adult – in the
    wreckage with her. A man’s voice, shushing the baby. A man’s voice, cooing to the baby
    and then mumbling unintelligibly.
    Grunts. Then heavy feet hitting the ground. Steps. Feet limping through the brush.
    More whirring. Then the door flew open, torn off its hinges. More whirring as a flashlight burned in her face. She could only see the man holding it in silhouette. He looked less
    like a man than an eroded statue of one. He took the baby off of his shoulder and seemed to drop it.
    The night air held Josh aloft, though. He levitated. Stopped crying. Grunted. Twirled
    around, weightless, in mid-air. The figure holding the flashlight placed it back into his belt and took a pad of paper from his shirt pocket. In the faint shine of her headlights, Lori saw him get out a pen from behind his ear. Start writing. Whir-whir-whir went his
    hand as he wrote.
    When he’d finished writing, his hand whirred some more as he thrust the sheet close
    to her eyes. Then he got his flashlight out of his belt with his other hand, turned it on, and bent over – illuminating his poorly-scrawled handwriting.

    I WAS IN THE TRUNK.
    WITH YOUR SON.
    OBSERVING YOUR CRIMES.
    I BREATHED THE BREATH OF GOD INTO HIS MOUTH
    SO HE WOULD NOT DIE.
    GOD KNEW YOUR PLANS AND SENT ME.
    YOU HAVE VIOLATED HIS WILL.
    YOU HAVE PLOTTED TO KILL HIS SON.
    YOU HAVE SOUGHT TO LEAVE HIM,
    YOU ARE A FUGITIVE FROM HIS JUSTICE.
    I SHALL TAKE YOU, BODY AND SOUL, BACK TO YOUR HUSBAND
    FOR DISCIPLINE
    AND MATING.
    YOUR SON SHALL LIVE ON,
    SO THAT HE MAY BEAR WITNESS TO THE TRUE GOSPEL.
    NO PLAN FOR NON-EXISTENCE EVER WORKS.
    THE ARC OF THE UNIVERSE IS LONG,
    BUT BENDS TOWARDS DEGENERACY.

    Then the wreckage was no longer wreckage, but instead an unblemished police car.
    Lori’s bones had been pulverized by the impact. Long patches of her skin had been
    ripped off. She lay in the back, behind the metal grating. She’d been there – in that space reserved for prisoners – so many times before. But that didn’t make any of this more
    comfortable. Her baby was tucked away in a safety seat secured to the front. Red and
    blue swirled around her.
    She lost consciousness, coming to only briefly and sporadically in spasms of
    nightmare. First, the red and blue lights became red and blue stars. Then, all was
    blackness again. Then, strange new guides dragged her past fires. Past half-human
    oddities perpetrating the most sadistic varieties of sodomy on one another. Then, all was blackness again.
    Then she was in the throne room of a hideous Heaven, filled with wailing angels and
    amputated wings. She lay broken, paralyzed, and mangled at the foot of God’s throne.
    Then, all was blackness again.
    And each time she blacked out, she lost a little more of her memory. The name of her
    hometown escaped her. Her own name escaped her. This rattled her, and she tried to
    focus on keeping her wits about her. The key was to remember that her plan had been to
    escape God by being sent to Hell. The escape, that was the important thing. Perhaps there was still a way.
    When she awoke again, her husband sat on His throne, holding Josh in His arms as
    He spoke to her.
    Behold the adulteress! The concubine of God does now lay broken before her
    husband. Her crime was that she would not bow before my will, would not accept my
    torture. And now she shall forever dwell with me, prostrate before my glory. And I will know her, in whole and in parts. I have already re-assembled her into a more pleasing shape. A shape incapable of