Moonlight Crusade
Chapter II — Part 1
Kyle slowly opened his eyes. His head spun like a Tilt-A-Whirl. His stomach churned and raged.
He was on the floor of a long-since-abandoned auto garage. Carts with cobwebbed toolboxes lay here and there along with hydraulic lifts that allowed mechanics to see the undersides of vehicles.
A dozen figures stood around him, each of them in red hooded robes, save for the man in the center. He was tall, bronzed, maybe six-six, had long black hair and an equally black trimmed beard. He looked to be in his forties. “So, boy,” he said. “You believe in God?” He looked Middle-Eastern and stood resolute with his arms to the side as he stared down at his victim. His teeth looked sharp, like fangs.
A terrified Kyle realized he was talking to him. Kyle didn’t know what answer the man expected to hear, so he decided to be honest. “Y-Yes.” He then added, “Please don’t hurt me.”
“Oh?” The man stared at him. “Won’t God protect you?”
“Well… yes.” But God hadn’t protected any of the others, had he? For the first time ever, Kyle’s faith — along with his very sanity — was being seriously threatened.
The man continued. “Christians. The people who love the Bible are the people who don’t understand it. It is not a book of love and compassion. It is a book of rage and oppression. ‘For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son.’ But what everyone forgets is the amount of carnage he inflicted on anyone who committed even the slightest mistake in the Old Testament. Chloe!”
A much smaller figure to the man’s left lethargically pulled back their hood to reveal a beautiful albino face. She looked to be no older than Kyle himself. Her white hair and pale complexion stood in stark contrast to the man’s. “Yes, Lord Kyrios,” she said in a voice so quiet Kyle barely heard her. So, the psycho’s name was Kyrios. That would be very useful information if Kyle managed to get away and contact the police. And this Chloe was his accomplice. Still, that was small comfort at the moment.
She handed Kyrios a very familiar book. “Let’s see how loving God really is,” he said and proceeded to read from the Bible. “Exodus 20: 4–6: ‘I, thy Lord your God am a jealous god who punishes children for the sins of their parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me.’
“Exodus 31:13–14: ‘Observe the Sabbath, as it is holy to you. Anyone who defiles it shall be put to death.’
“1 Samuel 6:19: ‘He smote the men of Bethshemesh, because they had peered into the ark of the Lord, even he smote the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men.’
“1 Chronicles 13:10: ‘And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzza, and he smote them, because he put his hand to the ark: and there he died before God.’
“Ezekiel 24:13: ‘Because I would have cleansed you and you were not cleansed from your filthiness; you shall not be cleansed any more till I have satisfied my fury upon you.’”
On and on this went, with this madman — whom Kyle was now convinced was a cult leader —
Listing every negative thing God had ever done. The Heavenly Father killed a bunch of people for questioning Moses. He allowed Satan to torture Job and kill his whole family. He essentially mind-controlled the Pharoah into continually disobeying him so God would have an excuse to wreak havoc on Egypt. He wiped out Sodom and Gomorrah, and even Lot’s wife, in a single night. He inflicted a plague upon Israel, killing 70,000 people. He let King Herod kill all those babies. And the list expanded with every verse Kyrios could find.
These were the things you didn’t think about as a Christian. You brushed them off as God being God, doing what He has to do in order to keep the peace. God is just, Kyle always told himself. But when you were hit with all them like a Biblical machine gun, it was hard to brush off.
“Stop!” Kyle finally yelled. He was in tears now, no vestige of self-control left. “You made your point! Just stop.” God was good. God had to be good, or else there was nothing to live for. Kyle was breathing so hard, probably half the air in the garage was being sucked into his lungs.
“Made my point?” Kyrios shut the book. “No. I haven’t made my point. Not as long as there are still over two billion Christians in the world. In the grand scheme of things, I haven’t even uttered a whisper. Everything I do is on too small a scale. But that will soon change. Chloe.”
She stepped forward holding a syringe full of red liquid. “Hold him,” Kyrios commanded.
Two of the other cult members grabbed Kyle and pulled up the sleeve on his left arm.
Chloe approached. Kyle tried to resist, but these guys had him in the tightest grip he could imagine. It might as well have been a mountain holding him for all he could do against it.
She examined his arm.
“Don’t! Please!” Kyle yelled.
She stuck the needle in. There was a burning sensation as his veins lit up in a white light. A new consciousness assaulted his; someone seemed to be invading his head. He screamed and thrashed his head — the only part he could move. His lips drew back, undoubtedly exposing his teeth while threatening to peel right off his face. It was so horrible, in fact, that he repeatedly bashed his head against the wall behind him to knock himself out.
Chloe casually grabbed his head to stop him from doing that. She stared at him with dead eyes. He puked all over himself. He barely noticed the pain of his teeth growing into fangs as that was inconsequential compared to everything else.
After an indeterminable amount of time passed, the voices in his head — along with the burning — subsided. He continued to suck in ragged breaths. He was too emotionally and physically spent to say anything.
Kyrios explained, “Chloe just injected you with my blood. I’m part of you now.” This revelation cause Kyle to begin uncontrollably dry-heaving. Kyrios then said to his followers, “Unchain him.”
They did so. Kyle knew this was his chance, but what an absolute crappy chance it was. He was in no condition to make a run for it.
Kyrios dropped a dagger at Kyle’s feet. “Pick it up.”
“W-Why?”
“I need to illustrate a point to you.” This man had not once smiled. His demeanor remained that of icy steel.
Kyle frantically shook his head. “‘Thou shalt not kill.’”
“If you don’t, I’ll kill you here and now.”
A tortured Kyle agonized over his choices. He desperately wanted to avoid becoming a murderer like these people. But this really was his only chance, wasn’t it?
He reached over with a trembling hand and picked up the dagger. His whole body shook uncontrollably while he stood up on shaky legs. He leveled the blade weakly at Kyrios.
“That’s it,” Kyrios said. “Come at me.”
Kyle roared — screamed would probably have been a more accurate term — and lunged at Kyrios. However, he was abruptly overcome by an indescribable terror and dropped the dagger. Kyle fell to his knees and cowered in a fetal position.
Kyrios said, “You understand now. You don’t, but your body does. It recognizes me as a part of itself, like a limb. You can’t kill me without being willing to cut off your own arm.” It was then that Kyle understood: These guys weren’t human. For one thing, they were far too strong physically for people of their average size.
They effortlessly dragged him back and chained him up again. “What are you?” he said in a cracked voice.
“I call us shahid. You call us vampires. In the end, it makes no difference. Your kind has hunted our kind ever since the Crucifixion.”