Chapter 11: Don't Turn Around, You Might See My Soul Screaming

Zac felt a stinging in his cheeks before he even opened his eyes. And when he did open them everything was blurry.

He could see red attached to black and white. He knew it was Divia. And she was slapping him to his senses.

"Zac! Wake up, please wake up." Divia pleaded. She saw the priest coming to see what the problem was.

"Father Joseph! Father Joseph! Come quickly! He has been taken ill."

"Ill by what my child?"

"The 'bali boconus '"
The priest's face became pale and his lips quivered. He stood there for a moment then knelt by the boy unknown to his eyes.

"It is fresh, Father. It can still be cured, can't it?" Divia asked looking up at the priest with sea blue eyes. Father Joseph was silent as he pried the boy's eyelids open. They were still brown.

"CAN'T IT? Please say yes Father Joseph!" Divia pleaded taking hold of the priest's robe.
"Hopefully, my child, hopefully. But if we can we must hurry. It only took a few hours to place a part inside of you." Father Joseph reminded Divia. Divia knew this already. She had felt her soul coated in a layer of evil for a long time. But she had found Father Joseph before she had been bitten by the bali boconus. And part of her soul could fight back with faith. But the other had been infested with the nature of the bali boconus. The bali boconus was a night creature, of ancient evil. It was like a vampire but worse. It caused death, and disease and the spread of their kind.

Divia felt guilty for not warning Zac of the dangers of this town and reached out to put a few hairs behind Zac's ears. As she reached forward her sleeve pulled back revealing the bite marks of the bali boconus. Father Joseph took her arm in his hand and looked at the bite marks with careful eyes. The bites looked like snakebites, but were covered in a foamy substance.

"Child! Why did you not tell me you also had the bite of the bali boconus?"

Divia pulled her arm away. "I did not want you to worry Father Joseph. I have more immunity to its bite than he does," She pulled her sleeve back down, "and he needs his soul saved"

Zac was hearing bits and pieces of this conversation, though it did sound like he was sitting in a tunnel.

Divia was talking to the priest about what had happened when Zac sat up. He screamed and twisted about in pain.
"It has begun! We must hurry now!" Father Joseph cried seizing Zac's wrists, "Grab that rope! We must bind his hands and feet or he will scratch his eyes out"
Divia obeyed and went to get the rope. She ran into the storage closet and ran her fingers over all the paints for the Sunday school children, the bibles, the hymnals, old choir robes, and the spare costumes from the Christmas play. She heard Zac's scream of pain and looked faster. She saw it. On the highest shelf it sat, a few strings dangling just out of Divia's reach. She jumped and tried to get it, but it only took a few hops to figure out she wasn't getting it that way. She heard Zac screaming again.
"Hurry Divia! Hurry! I think his eyes are turning!" the priest shouted. Divia looked around for something. Then she saw a shepherd's crook sticking out from under the wool of the shepherd's costume. She pulled it out and dragged it along the top of the shelf. The rope came tumbling down. She grabbed it. She looked down at it. It still had her blood on it. She felt sick and dizzy; the bites were getting to her. She shook her head to clear it then ran back outside.

Father Joseph took the rope and quickly tied Zac's hands. Zac screamed. Divia saw the sharp teeth starting to come in, or was that his canines? Divia couldn't risk it. Divia tied his feet and lifted his legs. The priest grabbed Zac's arms and they began to carry him toward the bed in the priest's room in the back of the church.

"Please, Lord, hear my pleadings. I am praying to you for the first time in a long time. I know you may not like the nature of my soul now since my bites, but it was not by choice that I was bitten. It was not Zac's either. I barely know the man in there. I am not sure of his faith but if you can save him I'm very sure a few people will like it. His family must love him. And it sounds like this Alanis girl means a lot to him. Please save him and don't let the bali boconus pass through him, I don't want him to share my fate in this. I love him Lord. I do not want him to be hurt in any way. Please save him Lord. Amen" Divia prayed with her head bowed.

"Zac, it's time to go" Aundria said to him, "take my hand Zac" Zac looked at Aundria. Her hair was a-glow with a radiant light. And what was that behind her? She had wings. "You're an angel?" Zac asked. Aundria nodded. "It's time to go" she repeated. Zac shook his head. "I'm not going," he said.
"But it's time"
Zac shook his head again. "Not now, not this night" Zac said.
"But don't you want to see your grandmother again?"
Zac shook his head. "I have my whole life in front of me. I'm not leaving Divia or Alanis or my family, especially if I promised Avery I would come home," he said. Aundria shook her head. Then another person stepped into this conversation. It was an old man with deep wrinkles and a beard. "Let him do what he wants, Aundria. Alanis needs him. So does Divia." He said in a raspy voice. Aundria nodded. And both Aundria and the old man disappeared.

Zac moaned as he tried to regain consciousness but his brain was screaming for Divia. Father Joseph leapt forward to his side. He pulled the ropes tighter because he thought he knew what was coming. Zac opened his eyes and stared upwards. He looked to the side and whispered "What happened? Where's Divia?"

Divia was overjoyed that Zac was alive and well. She nearly ran into the room without thanking God that he was healthy and okay.

"What happened to me?" Zac asked softly.

"You were bit by something, rest Zac" Divia said smiling and playing with a lock of blonde hair.

"Could you untie my hands? They hurt"

Divia nodded and moved her hands to the rope and began to untie them. Soon everything but his feet were untied and they still had the roller blades on them.

Zac rubbed his wrists and felt a thick layer of gauze around them.

"You put up quite a struggle with the ropes," Divia said, "Father Joseph had to bandage them while you were out. She looked into his eyes. They were still caramels and his teeth were the same as they were when she met him.

Zac moaned "I felt like he had been hit by a truck," he said. Divia laughed. "What was that thing Divia? It was weird and freaky. And it did the same eye thing you had done, Why?" he said. Divia sighed.

"I am like the creature that attacked you, the bali boconus. It's an ancient evil, like a vampire. But it doesn't suck blood, not all the time at least. It usually likes to eat raw meat, mostly human flesh. And it doesn't like fire. This creature once bit me, but Father Joseph helped me through it. I lived with a bit of the creature inside of me. That's why I don't like people around me after dark, that's why I left in a hurry, that's why I know what they fear and what they do and what they can hear and see. Now rest"