Ovis Infernales

Jake was a weird man. He was introverted to an extent and had a sort of foreboding and dark personality. One would expect Jake to be a deeply disturbed or at least a depressed person. He was none of those, though he had a major personality flaw. Jacob Broden was a masochist. He loved feeling pain, and by love, I mean he would get high on that. I remember him describing to me once that pain felt to him “near orgasmic.” So, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t bluffing about being a masochist. He was a good man, with or without his kinks. He was sort of a local celebrity; he’d do these street performances where he’d intentionally hurt himself in front a crowd of shocked or disgusted onlookers. All in all, people actually loved this gig of his. It was probably their way of blowing off steam in a controlled, dangerous environment. Granted, Jake never did anything that would leave long-term damage. He wasn’t self-destructive per se, he just wanted to feel that sweet sensation of his nerve endings catching on fire.

That’s probably why he agreed to take part in Abigail van Buskirk’s stupid ritual thing. This bitch, she was something else. She was one of those irritating new edge wannabes playing druids. The type to find some obscure little religious movement and immediately join them. She was the type of woman to fall for a ruse organized by some narcissistic old man looking for adulation. She would ramble on and on about how everyone was living wrong, and about our energies being a negative and unhealthy and what not. She used to complain about how Satanists are a silly group who don’t even know that Satan is supposedly a corruption of Set. And how Set was totally the cool guy because being in charge of storms means he’s good to agriculture and so on. Now, I’m not a big believer in anything, but I know that “Satan” has no linguistic connection to “Set”. She also clearly had no clue about how Indo-European mythological archetypes worked. Like I said, just a wishful woman falling for the stupid ramblings of a histrionic man.

Now, one day, she came to Jake and asked him if he could take part in a ritual. One she would conduct following a book she found, a book called “The Memoir of The Fallen God”. The ritual was meant to invoke some sort of entity that would function as a familiar for her. She approached Jake because the ritual required a sacrifice. A person had to have ritualistic symbols carved into their flesh, and she knew nobody else who would agree to take part in such a ritual. Jake, obviously, being the agony enthusiast he was. He agreed to take part in this thing, thinking nothing of the ceremonial and spiritual aspects of the procedure. He told me about it because Abigail asked him to bring witnesses.

“Hey man, you know that Wiccan lady who dresses in goth?” he asked me casually.

“Yeah, I know her. The one that roleplays a witch or something, right?” I retorted.

“Yeah, that one. So she asked me if she could cut me up for some sort of ritual of hers.  I agreed I need to bring friends with me. That's why I thought I’d ask you first since you don’t have weak knees for me bleeding all over the place.” He told me.

“Cut you up? Man, you’ve to stop with that habit of yours. Don’t let some stranger slice to up like that, what if she’s in some death cult or something? She could kill you.” I told him, trying to maintain my cool. I knew it was a bad idea from the start. He convinced me to go with him, however.

“All the more reason for you to go with me. If she goes too far, you stop her,” he said with a smile.

“It’s all bullshit, what she believes in, you know?” I questioned.

“Oh yeah, I know. I know my man, but that gives me the idea. What if I pretend like something is happening when she’s done waving her fingers and chanting in some arcane tongue?” Jake’s idea amused me.

“Haha, that’d be awesome. Imagine the look on her face when you tell her you were bluffing?” I answered.

“Duuuuuude… That’s gonna be sick.” He burst out laughing. And with that, he had my agreement to tag along with him to some sort of mystical ritual.

A few weeks rolled by, and then the night of the ritual arrived. It was a full moon night because of course it was. The spirits love the full moon, for reasons unknown to man. Astrology, go figure. I don’t even know how these new-age cults come up with this stuff. If they’re trying to imitate ancient cultures who have had an interest in celestial bodies, they’re way off. Astronomy laced with mysticism, while still wrong, makes far more sense than just astrology. It’s not like Osiris the star cared about the fates of ancient Egyptians – it’s literally where Osiris the god resided and that’s why it mattered.

Anyway, my sister and me, Ruby, we showed up to the ritual grounds, in a forest clearing not far from town, a little after the proceedings had begun. Jake was lying shirtless on top of a massive rock.

Abigail was on top of him, making cuts into his skin. Ruby, seeing them remarked, “Oh, it’s one of those rituals… Crowley would’ve been proud.” Only to be told by one of Abigail’s friends, some dude dressed in a cloak, that it was nothing like what she had in mind. Looking at Abigail’s blushing face, I bit back, “Yeah, the little red riding hood is totally not into that.” My remark was met with a scowl and the guy walked back towards his band of cloaked misfits.

“Hey Jake, it looks like you’re having the time of your life there,” I called out to him. He raised a thumb in my direction and laughed in response.

Ruby and I made some small talk because obviously, we weren’t enough into the Klan memorabilia to hang out with the wannabe witch’s buddies. After a few minutes of talking about nothing important to my sister, Abigail called out to everyone to come and form a circle around Jake and herself. The whole time she kept sitting on top of him and once everyone around the two love birds she started chanting something in something that sounded like broken Irish. Jake tried joking, but she just placed her hand over his mouth to shut him up.

She chanted something for a little while before licking the bloodied knife she was carving my friend up with and spitting his own blood into his face. If everything had gone right, I’m pretty sure Jake would’ve taken her home for some alone time after all of that. I’ll admit this much - she did look great, crazy, and hot. How typical. Sadly, it didn’t pan out this way. Everyone went silent for a few moments and then Jake started convulsing and shaking, Abigail placed her hands onto his shoulders holding him down telling him everything is okay. Then he stopped moving. His head turned to me and smiled.

I smiled back at him, but suddenly his smile turned into a look of fear. His head turned towards the woman straddling him. His throat clogged with something, he started gurgling violently. As he did, his back arched violently throwing the wannabe witch off of him, and then his body collapsed with a sick thump onto the rock. His head rocked back as we all stared in awe of what was happening, including Abigail. Clearly, she didn’t plan for this to happen. I called out to Jake and tried moving towards him when Ruby grabbed my arm and told me to stop, telling me to look at his head. Something was poking out of his mouth.

A horn.

A vile tearing sound came after. A black mass came forth from within Jake’s mouth. It was huge, and it had horns. The mass just kind of stood there for a few moments, but then it got up and revealed itself to everyone attending the ritual. As the forest was filled with screams of terror and confusion, I realized that I stood before an entity unlike which I’ve ever expected to see. The trees all around us appeared to have closed the branches above us into a ring formation. Forming a crown of thorns above the rock on which now Jake’s lifeless body lied. The moonlight shining straight through the formation of branches almost made me believe in all that astrological crap. Ironically, the scenery was beautiful at that moment. There was something serene and gloomy in this whole situation.

I stared at the entity before me. It let out a cry that sounded like a hoarse old man trying to imitate a siren coming from three distinct places. It was something awful. Combined with the panicked screaming of the cultists and Abigail, it was hurting my ears, and more importantly pissing off the beast before me. It looked like a gigantic black goat with four horns, upon one of which hung Jake’s bloodied face. Its fur looked as if it moved like flames swaying in the wind.

Abigail decided it was a good idea to try to talk to the entity as if she had some control over it. I don’t think the beast was too keen on that idea. It turned its head towards her while moving one of its eyeballs to look at me and opened its mouth to speak. The beast spoke in a manner that sounded like it had three voices coming out of its vocal cords. One of them was incredibly deep, another one high pitched, and a third one that sounded shrill. With its triple voice, the beast called out, “Et ambulate in absentia Dei”. Everyone froze, and the beast repeated itself over and over. The cultists and the wannabe witch just stood there, completely confused. The beast kept repeating that phrase over and over until I realized what it meant. The creature was saying, “I walk in the absence of God.” An idea formed in my head. I had no idea if it would work, but I had to try. I looked at my sister, who was equally dumbfounded by the strange creature’s calls. I whispered to her to repeat after me. The creature called out “Et ambulate in absentia Dei.”

In response, Ruby and I called back, “Ego quoque.” I supposed my butchered pig Latin was good enough for the creature because it turned its head to us and smiled. Then it turned its head back to Abigail, called out that it walks in the absence of God once more. Seeing how she didn't respond to its liking, It lunged at her. She tried running, but the beast quickly caught up to her, goring her straight through her chest and lifting her off her feet by one of its horns.

The other cultists ran after the creature. I don’t know why I didn’t care enough to tell them not to. Their stupid antics cost me the life of my friend. I ran up to Jake’s corpse. It was drained of liquids, as if poor Jake was mummified, and the front part of his head was missing. I wanted to throw up and to cry simultaneously. Ignoring the screams of carnage filling the night, I felt my knees buckling with grief, but the moment I dropped to my knees I felt something tug at me. I turned my head backward, Ruby was digging her nails into the collar of my shirt urging me to get up and run.

Thank whichever deity out there, that my sister was there. If it weren’t for her, I would’ve stayed wallowing over the carcass of my friend, and probably would’ve ended up just like Jake. Killed by a demon goat.

We ran to my car, once inside I slammed the gas pedal and we were out of that forest. The last thing I remember seeing in that hellscape was how the beast tore out a chunk out of one cultist with its teeth. Abigail was still hanging impaled on one of the horns. Somehow, she was still alive and had the wherewithal to reach out one of her arms in our direction, mouthing something.

I might be an asshole for saying that, but in my opinion the bitch didn’t deserve any help.