The Curse Of The Moloch (3)
The 'Good Book' was the king, and his knights the righteous words, ruled precariously this kingdom. Their rule of the realm was in danger of collapse as they were in constant battle with the Devil Sin and all his emmissaries of dark evil. Both sides battled for the control of the kingdom, fighting with all their powerful weapons in their arsenals. The thunderous words of the 'Good Book' threatened those who followed the wicked ways of the Devil Sin with the deserved misery in the hell and fires of the damned. Clerics, messengers of the holy words, added phrases of the divine justice that awaits the fallen. They added the fearsome threat of taking ones sons and daughters or even the sinner himself to the sacrificial fire of the calf-headed pagan god, the Moloch; a deep omen of belief that burned deeply into the soul. The Devil Sin laughed and offered the fallen the continual pleasure in the spirits of the bottle, the carnality of sensual lust, the touch of money through ill-gotten gains, and the pleasured gossip of tongues. The Devil laughed as he watched the sinners accept again and again his tempting offerings; and he knew that within time, his domain below would be filled with their damning souls screaming out for salvation. The Devil's sin was there in the beginning of the man's life. He was born after a drunken sexual bout between Miz' Jezebel, his care worn mother, and her hard-bitten man. After a nightlong session with the jar of illicited spirits, his father, Lemmuel Micaiah to his kinfolk and neighbors, practically raped his spouse in a spell of senseless passion. It happened in a not too distant past. Lemuel Micaiah just staggered to his bed and somehow in his drunkeness attained a stiffened member that reminded him of longing for sex. Without thought or reason he jarred his woman awake and roughly spread her flat on the cornhusk mattress. He threw aside the thin patchwork blanket covering his good woman, ripped open her nightdress and forcefully spread her legs. Miz' Jezebel remained passive throughout his actions, neither crying out nor resisting as resistance would only lead to blows to her body. Her man, with a garbled exclamation of affection on his lips, pulled down his trousers, covered her body, and painfully plunged into the passage of her body. "Yeah, woman thet waz' mighty needed, sure waz'", he grunted drunkenly after his seed was ejected. Then, together with booted feet and open trousers with a display of a limp glistening penis, Lemmuel spread out on his back on the screeching springs and snored into a drunken sleep. Seeing her man in a deep intoxicated sleep, Miz' Jezebel, the tormented women, left the misery of her bed. She covered her exposed body with the torn remnants of her nightdress and with a piece of her clothing wiped the dripping residue of her man's seed from her thighs, cursing quietly the whiteness. Then she went to a hard-backed chair in the room and seated herself on its hardness. The good woman just stared with moist eyes through the window. In her mind she had sinned by accepting the fury of the rape. She tormented herself in the orgy of her sin and she feared the blare of the horn and the beat of the drum that signalled the coming of the Moloch and his fearful punishment for the damned. � They christened the fruit of their sin Jeremiah, the name of the Biblical figure who had gripped the sword of the Lord in his fight for righteousness; an expression of redemption for the evilness of the act. Jeremiah was not the first blessing of the coupling loins of Miz' Jezebel and Lemmuel Micaiah. It was remembered vaguely by their kinfolk that the boy had a sister; but as the neighbors gossiped, "She took a-likin' to a fancy man and left kith and kin.." � � Chapter Five Jeremiah's brawny and brawling father was a coal miner who labored long hours in the dank pits drilling dynamite holes into the coal seams. Stripped to the waist he was continually dusted by the black of the bitumen that clung to his body; each explosive charge dusted an additional layer of black to his body. His body, encrusted with the sweat of his labours, hid his appearance, twinning him to the other equally hard working miners. At the end of the working day the dirt of his labours was sluiced off under a pail or two of water. Only on Saturday nights he sat in the hot water-filled tin tub in the living room; and he luxuriated as Miz' Jezebel, his ever faithful spouse, did her wifely duty by scrubbing furiously his hard skin. The long-handled hard bristled brush was deftly applied by her hands till spots of whiteness appeared on her man's body. His main pleasure in his hard life was in the passing of the jar of liquid spirits and he would be staggering drunk after a night out with his fellows. Miz' Jezebel, his suffering and trying woman, felt the wrath of her drunken husband upon his return to his home. Lemmuel would heap drunken, foul words on her very being for any reason, and when frustrated by a tied tongue would heap stingy blows upon her body. After his wrath had lessened he would stagger, with curses on his lips, to the comfort of his bed. On the way he tore off his clothes flinging them about; as the door closed the sound of thrown boots could be heard crashing against the thin walls. Lemmuel's wrath was corroborated the next coming days by the many welts and bruises displayed on 'pore Miz' Jezebel's hide'. His mother coupled with phrases of Biblical wrath and the scorn of damnation would in turn, labour Jeremiah, being the only scapegoat available, upon the following morning. "Pore lil' Jeremiah, t'aint the lil' critter's fault," gossiped the tongues. Deliverance for Miz' Jezebel came with an explosion at the mine which tore apart the body of her husband. His fellow workers, in an act of primitive mercy, simply searched carefully through the pit for the remains of his body and of the other miner's killed in the blasting inferno. Five miners were counted as the dead in that tragic accident. Later they turned over over the remnants of humanity into the capable hands of the preacher's wife, a humble woman, whose task amongst many, was to prepare the departed to the hereafter. She care-fully sorted out the pieces of the human wreckage; with a blessing on her pious lips she reverently placed the remains of those killed in separate rough' hewn pine boxes. The mine owners did not fail in their duty to the memory of the miners. Sympathy was expressed in written words; limited compensation was offered to the nearest of kin. In an act of reverence the company managers sent a large wreath of flowers, with the correct message of condolence, to the solemn funeral of the five fallen in their service. The well-attended funeral was collective with the simple pine coffins carried by their fellows and kin to their respective six by six in the sacred grounds of the settlement. The services, conducted by the good preacher of the community, was mixed with extolling of Lemmuel, Jeremiah's father, and his four companions of their good life on this earth and their eventual acceptance into the bosom of the 'Lordy' in the heavens above. Miz' Jezebel joined the rest of the women in black in mourning for their departed lawful mates. They cried bitter tears as the remnants of the five bodies were laid to rest in the hard earth. Lament was wailed out as shovels of clumps of soil thumped on the pine, slowly filling each resting-place. The gathered neighbors and kinfolk offered their sympathy to the bereaving widows and a few shed tears with bewailing cries of grief. Even the blessed 'Lordy' darkened the skies with grey mourning clouds and sent down a few tears. Jeremiah Micaiah remembered the feel of the rough hands of a grizzled miner pressing his thin shoulders tightly as he offered a few crude words of condolence to him, "poor lil critter.. losing yer paw so early." � � Chapter Six Miz' Jezebel, Jeremiah's stern mother, lived a bitter life under the hard hand of her man which left its mark on her appearance and character. The passing away of her temperable spouse did not ease her miseries or improve her life. In fact the death of the bread earner added more to the demanding trials of her life. The compensation for the tragic accident, that claimed his life, and the small weekly stipend from the union was meager and barely enough to cover the expenses of keeping body and soul together. She had an additional burden in the caring for her son, Jeremiah, and bringing him up proper-like. She managed, despite all the adversaries, with the will of the Good Lordy as her spoken words proclaimed. Deep down she was a good and righteous woman, literate only in the words of the Good Book; but the accursed life she endured almost daily was etched on her blessed soul. It was seen on her angular face, creased with the worries of time, and crowned with roughly combed fiery red hair. "Handed down frum me granny," as she tried to explain the ferocity of the colour of her hair. Her heavy set body, burdened from the labours of existence, was hidden in somber hand-stitched garments; and her feet equally hidden in high laced heavy boots. When she made her appearance on the outside of her home, she was covered with a simple frayed coat topped with a worn bonnet, which symbolized her trying life. Jeremiah's mother was a believer in the Lordy and early every Sunday morning she would trod the path or righteousness with her son to chapel services at the small church in the hollow. Her voice rang true, but slightly off-key, as she joined in the hymnals. She listened to the sermons of the preacher and accepted their meanings. At times when the call came to come foward and to pledge oneself to His Son, she floated to the altar and accepted His blessing, coupled with ecstatic swooning. Her piety was shown with clear signs and loud hosannas. She encouraged other worshippers to step foward and to fol-low her way of righteousness. Miz Jezebel could be seen in the weekly Bible classes. It was one of her rare bits of joy as she read haltingly the sanctified words, and heard the explanations of the good preacher as he interpreted their meanings. Her questions were many but her shyness allowed a rare few to be asked. The good cleric called her a righteous woman for her demanding interest in the Good Book; and her presence was a welcoming sight at the sessions. Miz' Jezebel helped with the Lordy's work when there was that free moment; time that increased in her lonely widowhood. There were visits that comforted the elderly and the sick, sharing a good thought with the troubled, and to the spreading of the righteous word to those who would listen. But, the best of her work was helping the preacher's wife in the various Christian duties at the chapel; it meant an hour or two to offset her lonliness with a few words of innocent chatter. Yet, Miz' Jezebel, Jeremiah's mother, had a deep dark secret that was hidden from the eyes of the believers in the faith of the Good Book. It was a secret of foul sin that would deeply shock those who followed the righteous word. It was a dark pact she had made with the vengeful devil. But, she was a careful and cautious woman and the act of her transgression was never known. She, like many of her her kinfolk and neighbors, feared the presence of demons and spirits, and she constantly ran to the three hags of the forest for remedial incantations and mystic amulets. There under the shade of the scrub oak and pine Miz' Jezebel, together with the others that feared, heard of the mysterious ways of the spirits of the deep. Deep dark foreboding secrets from the depths of the nether world were passed to them through the slurring voices of the old crones. Through the passing of the coin to the ancient ones, Miz' Jezebel was able to learn of the secret incantation needed to call up the spirits of the departed souls. Miz' Jezebel at the sign of the full moon would slip unseen from her grand house; she chose a late hour as an extra precaution. Quietly she trod the path, looking about for a sight of the good folk of the community. Seeing that her movements were not observed, she carried on along her way. Slowly the tread of her wary steps made their way along the long dirt road to the small cemetery of the hollow. Upon reaching the burial ground she slowly and carefuly skirted the tombstones till she came to the one marked with the name of her late husband. There Miz' Jezebel stared hard at the words embossed on the slate stone. Then she called out in vilification, "Lemmuel, Lemmuel, ye dirty bastid, d'ye hear me a' callin' ye. Lemmuel, Lemmuel y' miz'able skonk, d'y hear me a callin'." Again she cursed out the defamatory abuse of her tongue. She expected no reply but had only the satis-faction of emptying the bile from her deep misery. Then her lips spread in the grin of the devil and her eyes flared. Miz' Jezebel lifted up her arms high above her head. In a state of deep ecstacy she weaved, and from the depth of her throat called out in a husky voice the strange and mysterious incantation: Ah call in th' name of Abrasax, Lemmuel, ah'm a callin' ye, Lemmuel, did ye hear me a' callin'" The winds howled and whistled as they blew in fury. Miz' Jezebel's haunting voice called louder to the departed soul of her man. Her tone disturbed the whispering shadow spirits as they wafted in the air currents. Their presence was stilled when they circled the grave and listened to her cry. They heard the harshness of her voice as she completed the uttering of the mystic spell: Ah call in th' name of Abrasax.' Lemmuel, Lemmuel d'ye hear me a' callin', Thet he may uproot ye' Lemuel rise up, leave th' ground. Th' night of th' full moon has come! Lemmuel, d' ye hear me a' callin', Ah call in th' name of Abrasax. Abrasax, Yah, Yah, Yahu!" As her mysterious words wafted in the air, the winds rose up and swirled in fury around the grave; it drummed on the mound until the red earth thunderously split open. "Abrasax, yahu, yah, yah," was called again. When the phrase ended, a mist rose rose from earthbound tomb, slowly forming into a wispy, shadowy shape of a human figure wrapped in a tattered shroud. "Who be a' callin' me, wakin' me frum me rest? Who be a' callin me?" the spirit exclaimed in a hoarse whisper.
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