Chapter 27: Vitelli's Hell

M. Vitelli froze in mid-step and stared, unbelieving, at the two figures holding hands, standing side by side on the altar of the small chapel. There were only the three of them there in the gloom. Vitelli spun around when the front door he had arrogantly left standing ajar slammed shut. The room reverberated with the sound. The interior gloom intensified. He could barely make out the walls of the small chapel, scarcely four strides to either side. The darkness seemed to close in around him, except for the altar ahead where a circle of pale light illuminated the wall. A cross mounted high upon it bore the carved figure of a crucified Christ. A statue of the Holy Virgin stood on her pedestal in the corner opposite the office doorway. The two motionless figures stood directly before him.

Stand! Heed Us!

The command thundered forth like the crash of doom. The words must have come from the mouth of the boy ... the young man. His mouth opened and his lips moved but the sound did not come from him. Rather, it seemed to issue forth from the very walls. It boomed and crashed in Vitelli's head. He sought to sneer, to stride forward and thrash this insolent youth, but he found himself frozen, paralyzed. He could not move his arms or legs. His rage became fearful apprehension. He could not believe this was happening.

A burst of hostility and anger swelled up within him. He glared at the figures, his eyes like weapons focusing his hatred at them. He willed them to fall, to submit, to cringe in terror before him. How dare they command me, these insolent whelps? Who are these peasant spawn to stand and confront me?

Graydon saw Vitelli's face contort with rage. Vitelli's eyes became two glowing orbs of evil, eyes of Satan, enlarged and glaring, flashing streams of fire. Two fiery streams shot forth and joined into a looped snare to grasp them, to fling them down. Graydon's aura flared and swelled, its golden sphere billowing forth. It crushed Vitelli's searing attack and quenched it. The flaming snare scattered in a shower of grey ash. Marilee stood unflinching, watching, waiting for Vitelli to fully commit his aggression against them.

Vitelli tried to shriek his frustration but his throat was frozen. No sound could issue forth. He gasped like a fish out of water. His neck was rigid, frozen like cold stone. He might have clutched at his throat but his hands could not move. His arms hung limply at his side. They felt to him like cold, lifeless stone. A magma of seething hatred burned his heart. It labored frantically to keep Vitelli's body from collapsing.

The boy stood still, his golden aura shielding himself and the girl. A pale circle of light intensified around them. The light coming through the stained glass windows faded behind them. It seemed that an eclipse of the sun had darkened the world outside. Vitelli could see only the two children, the crucified figure of Christ, and the stately figure of Mary upon her column.

The circle of light shifted. It closed upon the girl and illumined only her. It brightened as she transformed into something larger. Her face changed, her hair grew darker, her robe hung loosely and was rent in tatters. As she grew her arms and legs revealed the grotesque outlines of another's bones outlined against her skin. She was no longer the girl. She became someone else.

She was Vitelli's long dead mother.

Approach me, my son!

Vitelli felt himself dragged forward, his feet sliding on the thin carpet. Neither his feet nor his legs could function except to hold him upright in a paralyzed stance. He slid forward until he would touch her face, if he could only lift his arm and extend his fingers.

Oh, God! Her face!

He saw two faces on that grotesque head: the face of his dead mother, and the contorted face of her forbidden love, the young priest she had lustfully seduced. The priest's face was contorted in agony, trapped inside the woman's face, straining and struggling inside her skin, seeking to burst forth and be free of his eternal curse.

Vitelli could plainly see the outlines of the young priest's bones moving just under the skin of his mother's arms, her neck, her exposed legs. Her arms shifted downward and her hands clutched and tore at something under her robe. In horror, Vitelli saw that she was tearing at the young priest's organ that jutted forth from under his mother's belly. She was tearing at it, shredding it. Rivulets of blood streamed down her legs from the wounds she inflicted on that obscene organ with the claws of her fingernails.

She shrieked into Vitelli's horrified face:

My loving son, flesh of my flesh, fruit of my womb, see how you have repaid your mother! See how you betrayed me with your spying, your betrayal, your cold selfishness. You exposed me to your father! He had us slaughtered, a sword run through us while joined upon our forbidden bed. See the condemnation you heaped upon us, my son!

Vitelli tried to close his eyes. They would not. He tried to raise his hands to cover his eyes. They remained frozen at the ends of his arms. He tried to turn his head aside. His neck was immobile, petrified. Utterly helpless, he could only watch as the horror before him shrank and faded. He gazed again upon the young girl. She stood impassively on the altar, her cold eyes boring into his panicked soul.

The light shifted again. Vitelli felt himself dragged sideways until he faced the young man. The light narrowed, brightened, and new horror appeared before him. The young man transformed into a visage of his father, growing until it towered over Vitelli so massively that it might fall forward to crush him into the floor. Its clothing hung in tears and tatters.

Through the shredded cloth Vitelli saw movement in and upon the flesh. He looked up to see his father's face. There he saw, wriggling outward from his father's empty eye sockets and gaping mouth, serpents reaching for him. Their forked tongues flickered to taste him. Their glowing eyes blazed forth at him. He felt terrible pain, felt their fangs sinking into his flesh and the scalding, flaming, burning venom. One serpent struck his neck. Another struck his shoulder, and another his arm. Two more struck his chest, another his belly; he stood helplessly and was consumed with unbearable agony. Their fangs tore at him; their venom burned him; his flesh dissolved into a thousand overlapping, putrid craters.