The desert stretched out like a wound that would not close. West Texas land, brittle and cracked, miles upon miles of sunburnt dirt where nothing grew but barbed weeds and twisted mesquite. The air hung heavy with heat, even at dusk, and a single telephone wire sagged across the sky, lined with black crows that looked carved from ash. Their wings twitched now and then, restless in the silence, as if they too were waiting.
Pastor Mason came walking up the road, a tall man swallowed in a dark coat that clung to him like a shadow. The brim of his hat shielded little from the glare, and sweat had soaked through his collar, but his step was steady, patient, as though he’d been told to come here long before tonight. His boots stirred red dust with each step, the sound muffled in the stillness of the plain.
The crossroads appeared out of the barren stretch — four arms of road that led nowhere, each one vanishing into a haze of desert heat. The air felt different here, charged, as if the land itself had been split and stitched together again. A wooden sign leaned at the corner, so sun-bleached the words were lost, but Mason touched it lightly, reverently, as one might an altar.
He knelt at the center of the road. Dust clung to the hem of his coat, the grit of the desert working its way into the fabric, into his skin, as though the land itself wanted to claim him. He laid the Bible across his knees — small, leather-bound, edges frayed like an old scar, the cover softened and darkened by years of sweat and touch. His fingers lingered on it, pressing into the leather as though the book might pulse with life if he held it tightly enough.
His lips began to move, but no voice followed. His throat was parched, scraped raw from thirst and the fine grit of sand carried on the wind. The words dissolved against the silence, swallowed whole by the desert. Out here, even prayer felt dangerous — every syllable carried upward like an offering, every pause heavy as though the sky itself leaned down to listen. The stillness pressed on him, too complete, too expectant, as if the land were holding its breath for something more than a man’s muttered plea.
A wind stirred. It came low and dry, dragging grit across the cracked road, teasing at the pages of the Bible until they fluttered like a bird’s broken wing. The crows shifted on their wire, claws scratching metal, black eyes glinting as they watched. One let out a single call — harsh, guttural — before silence reclaimed the air. Mason’s chest rose and fell in a shiver, his breath quickened by the weight of the unseen.
He bowed his head lower, forcing the words to spill out silently, shaping them with his mouth even though the desert devoured them. He begged for a sign. For direction. For proof that the long road that had carried him here was not simply dust and exhaustion. His knees burned against the grit. His body ached with the posture of devotion, but he would not move, not yet. Not until the silence broke.
And then it did.
The light came suddenly, merciless — a flare that did not dawn but erupted, as if heaven had been split open with a blade. It poured through the sky and into the earth, so blinding he thought it might sear his very soul. Mason lifted his head sharply, eyes squeezed against the brilliance. It was no sun; the sun was long buried beneath the horizon. This radiance had no warmth, no mercy. It was alive, spilling downward in a torrent of white and gold.
The crows scattered at once, shrieking into the burning air, their wings a storm that beat against the silence. They fled in every direction, black shapes against the impossible light, until Mason was left alone beneath it, a single figure trembling at the crossroads.
And then the voice came.
Low. Warm. Not thunder, but velvet — a voice that could coax the world itself into believing. It slid through the silence and into him, threading into his blood, his breath, the hollow of his chest.
You have been chosen, Mason.
The words came not as speech but as a murmur behind his eyes, a whisper braided into the marrow of his bones. His fingers clamped harder around the Bible, knuckles whitening, as if the leather binding might anchor him against it.
Chosen. The thought rattled in him. A people waiting. A town crying out. A shepherd’s hand reaching into the dark. He trembled, not knowing if the words belonged to heaven or only to his own desperate hunger to be seen.
The light flared again, washing the earth in gold so fierce it seemed the ground itself might split. In the blaze came another breath, softer than the first, curling like smoke through the marrow of his mind:
Sodom Hills.
The name pulsed through him, heavy with certainty, though it carried the strange weight of déjà vu. He had heard it before, hadn’t he? On a signpost, in a passing word, in the quiet urge that had pulled him along this road. Yet here it was again, rising from the brilliance like a seal upon his chest. Sodom Hills. The place waiting at the end of his journey. The place where his work would begin.
The brilliance dimmed. The desert was still again, the sky bruised purple, stars needling through the veil of night. The signpost at the crossroads leaned silently. The dust lay undisturbed, as though nothing had happened at all. But Mason remained on his knees, his face caught between awe and exhaustion, his breath ragged in the cooling air.
He rose at last, slowly, the coat draping over his shoulders like a second skin. His face, lit faintly by the last red embers of dusk, showed lines of wear — the gaunt cheeks of a man carved by faith and hunger. But when he lifted his gaze, when the shadow shifted from his brow, his eyes caught the starlight. One glimmered the pale green of moss after rain. The other burned with the faintest, molten gold.
Pastor Mason turned toward the road that led east. He knew where he was going.
And he was no longer thirsty, no longer hungry.
Chapter 2– Sodom Hills
Malthias 27:51 – And, behold, the veil of the temple was torn from the bottom unto the top; and the earth did quake, and the stones did bleed; 27:52 – And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the wicked which stirred not were given breath again, 27:53 – And they came forth from the pits before his rising, and went into the unholy city, and were beheld of many. 27:54 – Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching the sacrifice, saw the trembling of the earth, and the things which were done, they mocked greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of Perdition.
The town revealed itself at the bend of the road, shy at first, as though unsure of its own welcome. A rusted board tilted in the wind, its paint flaking, the words Welcome to Sodom Hills faded into pale ghosts above the crude outline of a rising sun. The wood beneath had split long ago, held together by a crooked plank hammered across its belly. Pastor Mason slowed as he passed, his eyes lingering on the words with the weight of recognition. He had always known this place. He had always been meant to walk here.
At the bend, Sodom Hills came into view slowly, a place that seemed almost reluctant to be seen. A single main street uncoiled from the desert’s edge, lined with buildings that seemed trapped between decades. A convenience store with its peeling Pepsi sign from another era, its red and blue circle faded into pastel ghosts by the sun. A movie theatre squatted beside it, its marquee missing letters, the bulbs long dead, though the hand-painted posters in the glass still promised double features that had last drawn crowds in the 1950s. Across the street stood Johnny’s Barber Shop, its striped pole still turning though the window display was yellowed and brittle with age.
There was life, yes — the faint hum of radios behind screen doors, the clatter of cutlery in the diner, the slow swing of a rocking chair on a porch. But it was life stretched thin, worn at the edges. The people moved quietly, their conversations muted, their smiles rare. Faith had been the marrow of this place once, but Mason could see it in their faces: the marrow had thinned.
At the edge of town the land fell back into desert. There, as if caught between heaven and sand, stood the church. It was unlike the weathered buildings of Main Street — a cone-shaped structure, whitewashed and gleaming against the red dust, its form strange and abrupt against the flat earth. A great steel cross crowned its peak, thrusting into the sky like a blade. The parking lot was not paved but raw sand, where wind scrawled its own scripture with every gust. Mason’s boots sank as he crossed it, dust swirling around him like incense.
Inside, the air was cool, shadowed. Wooden pews stood in neat rows, though many bore scratches and stains from years of neglect. A pulpit of pale oak waited at the far end, beneath windows that caught the last stretch of desert light. Mason walked slowly down the aisle, his hand trailing along the backs of the pews as though he were greeting them, each scar and splinter a reminder of souls who had once gathered here.
He fell to his knees at the pulpit and opened his Bible. His lips moved in silence, as they had at the crossroads, and though no one heard the words, something seemed to stir in the corners of the church — the faintest shuffle, the sound of wood creaking though no wind blew. He remained that way for hours, shoulders rising and falling in fervent devotion, until night folded over the town and the cross on the roof cut a black silhouette against the stars.
When morning came, so did the people. At first only a handful drifted in: a few older women in their Sunday best, children peeking from behind their skirts, men removing their hats at the threshold with hesitant reverence. Mason greeted each one with a smile, his gaze lingering just long enough for them to feel seen. His eyes — one green as moss after rain, the other glimmering faint gold — unsettled some, but none could look away.
His voice, when he spoke, carried through the rafters like music. Deep, steady, threaded with a warmth that felt both foreign and familiar, like a hymn half-remembered. He did not thunder, nor did he scold. He spoke of loss, of weariness, of the silence that creeps into a heart when faith falters. He spoke as if he had lived their lives, suffered their hunger, borne their doubts. And when he lifted his arms, his coat falling back like wings, the congregation leaned forward as one.
By the second week, the pews were half full. By the third, they overflowed. Families who had not set foot inside the church in years returned, brushing the dust from hymnals, nodding with tears in their eyes. Teenagers slipped in from the streets, restless and curious, only to sit rapt as Mason spoke. By the fifth week, nearly the whole town gathered on Sundays, crammed shoulder to shoulder in the cone-shaped church, their breaths rising in unison.
Mason himself seemed to grow with them. He moved through the town during the week, his presence a blessing wherever he stepped. He lingered at the diner, offering prayers over steaming coffee and fried eggs. He walked the aisles of the grocery, touching the shoulders of strangers and leaving them trembling with gratitude. He stood outside the old theatre one night and told stories to a crowd of boys, who stared at him with wide eyes, though later none of them could recall the tale he had told.
At night, he prayed alone in the church. Sometimes the doors were left unlocked, and a passerby might see him there — a lone figure at the pulpit, whispering into the shadows, the strange gleam of his mismatched eyes catching candlelight. Once, a woman swore she heard other voices answering him, low and layered, though when she entered the church she found only Mason, smiling gently, as though nothing had disturbed his prayer.
The town revived itself around him. Businesses thrived, families reconciled, the air of despair lifted. Sodom Hills, which had once sagged under silence and loss of faith, now rang with laughter, with hymns, with the renewed hum of life. And every Sunday the people gathered, the church overflowing with bodies, the windows fogging from the heat of their breath and devotion.
On one such Sunday, Mason stepped from the pulpit and beckoned the ushers forward. From the back room came stacks of Bibles, their black covers shining under the light. Mason’s hands lingered on the first, his thumb brushing the gilded edges. He smiled as he passed them out, one by one, to eager hands stretched toward him. Mothers pressed them to their chests. Children turned the pages with reverent fingers. Men bowed their heads, clutching them as if they had been given life itself.
The air swelled with joy, with relief, with reverence. The people of Sodom Hills felt whole again.
And Pastor Mason, standing at the pulpit with his eyes of green and gold, watched them cradle their new scriptures.
When the last hymn fell into silence, Mason stepped down from the pulpit and moved among his flock. The ushers carried stacks of Bibles, their black covers gleaming faintly under the lamps. Mason placed each one into waiting hands, pausing just long enough for the weight of his touch to linger. Mothers pressed them to their breasts as if they were newborns. Fathers nodded solemnly, children leafed through with wide-eyed reverence.
When the last copy was given, Mason returned to the pulpit. His mismatched eyes gleamed in the low light — green and gold, twin lanterns burning. His voice dropped low, intimate, so that every ear leaned closer.
“Take these words into your homes,” he said. “Read at least one chapter before we gather again. Let them live in you, let me live in you, so that when we return, we return stronger. We are united now — as it was written, so shall it be, that the prophecies are fulfilled in the scriptures.”
The congregation erupted in whispers of devotion, hands clutching their new scriptures tighter. Some wept openly. Others stared at Mason as if he had carried them back from the dead. In their faces he saw obsession, gratitude, awe — a fevered chorus without sound.
He let the silence stretch, then his lips curved into something small, sharp, and fleeting. It was not a smile. It was a smirk that no one saw, for they were too busy holding the Word to their hearts.
By nightfall the church emptied, voices still ringing in the streets. The desert air had cooled, the stars scattered sharp above the cone-shaped roof. Mason lingered inside, pacing the aisle alone, his steps echoing against the rafters. He left the doors wide as he lit the final candles, their glow casting him in pale fire.
When at last he stepped back toward the pulpit, the light behind him spilled outward through the open doors. It caught him and stretched him, made a shadow of him, long and impossibly thin, running the length of the sandy lot. It stretched farther and farther, thinning against the earth, until it seemed to touch the desert’s edge itself.
There he stood, the last figure in the church, his shadow reaching like a dark finger into the night.
Chapter 3 – As It Was Written
Donna Costa lay in her bed, the white sheets drawn tight around her like the habits of the nuns she had once admired as a child. Once, long ago, she had been Madonna — her parents’ pious gift to the Virgin herself. But the name had grown sour on her tongue. It reminded her less of holiness and more of the woman who defiled stages with gyrations and blasphemies. A Jezebel. A warning, just as Revelation had promised. That singer had stolen her name, twisted it into something vulgar, and Donna had spent a lifetime trying to take it back.
So she shed it. Madonna was gone. She would be Donna now — plain, stripped, unadorned — a name remade in humility, offered to God alone.
She had been raised Catholic, but somewhere in her adult years the statues and incense grew hollow, their rituals too weighted with stone and gilded silence. She sought something sharper, nearer, alive. Protestant fire had found her then, and she had embraced it, convinced she was no longer just a woman but a vessel. Divorced and alone, she had told herself she would never remarry. She belonged to God now, her devotion fixed and fierce.
Yet tonight, her prayers wandered.
Pastor Mason’s arrival had been a true blessing for Sodom Hills. She had seen the world unraveling — children lost to meth and glass pipes, teenagers carving symbols into their skin, neighbors worshipping football games and shopping malls more faithfully than Sunday service. Everywhere, faith was mocked, replaced with greed, with lust, with a thousand small betrayals of God. And then came Pastor Mason. The shepherd. The savior. The man who stood in the pulpit and spoke with eyes that burned green and gold.
She clutched the Bible he had given her, its leather still warm from his hands. She had read it before bed, chapter after chapter, until the words swam. There were passages that felt new to her, phrases she did not remember from the Good Book. Commands that unsettled, promises that thrilled. Her heart beat faster with every line. She should have closed it. She should have prayed. Instead, she kept reading, the words burrowing under her skin, coiling through her veins like wine.
When at last she set it aside, the room felt different. Charged. Expectant.
At first, she saw only the eyes. Twin embers smoldering in the corner of the room, green and gold, gleaming in the dark as though lit from within. They hovered there, patient, unblinking, until her breath caught in her throat and she knew, without a doubt, it was Him. Slowly, his figure emerged from the shadows, tall and cloaked, stepping into the faint spill of lamplight until his presence filled the room.
And then Pastor Mason was everywhere.
In the dark corners, shapes shifted as though they bent to his will. On the ceiling, his silhouette stretched, impossibly tall, as though he were standing above her, cloak hanging loose, arms reaching down. His voice curled into her ears like smoke, low and velvet, whispering verses she could not quite understand but that filled her with heat.
Her body stirred with it. Shame rose sharp in her chest, which only sharpened the desire. And then she did something she had never allowed herself to do — something she would have once condemned as sin beyond forgiveness. Her hand slipped beneath the sheets, trembling at first, almost reluctant, as though she were confessing with every touch. But soon the reluctance was gone. Her fingers moved faster, desperate, circling her slick heat while her thighs pressed tight around her wrist. She bit down on the pillow, muffling a moan as the image of Mason’s eyes filled the darkness above her. The thought of him watching, claiming, blessing, made her hips lift to meet her own hand. It was prayer, it was sin, it was worship and violation tangled as one, and she gave herself to it until the shame dissolved into nothing but burning release.
She pressed her face into the pillow, gasping his name as if it could sanctify the act. The room seemed to bend with her breath, the shadows thickening, his eyes glinting in the dark. Every blink made him appear nearer — until she felt the ghost of His lips brush her ear without touching.
The Bible lay open on the sheets, its pages trembling as though stirred by a breeze that wasn’t there.
And Donna trembled too, caught between devotion and delirium. Every nerve burned, every muscle taut. Her whispers unraveled into soft cries, the sound spilling into the room no matter how she tried to contain it. The walls felt alive, pulsing with unseen rhythms, as if the Pastor’s heart had stretched itself into the house itself. She could feel him inside her head, inside her chest, inside her very blood.
The shadows thickened. The eyes multiplied. Dozens of them, green and gold, opening in the corners, in the ceiling, in the mirror across the room. Watching. Judging. Wanting.
Her body arched. Her breath broke. A shudder passed through her that left her dizzy, hollow, exalted.
For a moment she thought she saw him — Pastor Mason himself — standing at the side of her bed, face calm, smile faint, his mismatched eyes glowing faintly as he reached out his hand. But when she blinked, the space was empty.
Only the Bible remained, open and waiting. Its words hummed in the silence, alive, whispering things she could not silence, things she had begun to crave.
Donna pressed the book to her chest, trembling, her breath ragged. Tears slid down her temples, though she did not know if they were tears of guilt or joy.
In the stillness, she whispered a single phrase, one she was sure she had read in Mason’s Bible but could not find now, no matter how she turned the pages:
“As it was written, so it shall be done.”
The room remained silent. But the eyes lingered in the corners, faint, glimmering, patient.
Donna woke to sunlight that felt foreign. A deep, dreamless sleep had wrapped her through the night, heavier than any rest she could remember. She had not stirred once. No tossing, no waking in the dark with sweaty palms as she often did. Instead, she felt renewed, cleansed in a way her prayers had never managed before. Her body thrummed with a strange, hushed energy, as though something in her had been poured out and replaced with new red wine.
Still in her robe, she padded barefoot to the kitchen and poured herself coffee. She carried the steaming mug out to the back door and stepped into the crisp air of morning. Her little backyard lay hushed under the pale light. The roses along the fence were wilting, the grass littered with autumn leaves — and in the center of it, crouched in her flowerbed, was the beast again — a calico cat.
The sight made her grip the cup harder. The beast had defiled her soil over and over, pawing through her roots, leaving behind the same foul offering. She had sent notes, delivered warnings, spoken sharply over the hedge — yet nothing changed. Her garden, her sanctuary, violated once more.
She set her mug down and stepped barefoot into the grass. The cat looked up, startled, but she was quicker. Her hand shot out, catching it by the scruff. It writhed, claws scraping at her robe, but her grip was iron. The sound of its mewling only sharpened the clarity in her mind. She did not rage. She did not hesitate. Her movements were calm, deliberate, precise — as though rehearsed by something greater than her own will.
She had folded the note and slipped it into her pocket, certain — somehow — that the beast would return. She had prepared her leather pouch too, heavy at her side, as if she knew what needed to be done.
Through the side gate she went, the calico’s body pressed to her chest, its small heart hammering against her palm. The street was quiet. A car hummed in the distance. Somewhere far off, a lawnmower droned. And before her stood the tidy little porch of her neighbor’s house.
Her neighbor wasn’t home — or maybe she was. The car could’ve been in the garage. But it didn’t matter.
Donna set the cat down just long enough to fetch what she had prepared. From the heavy pouch at her waist came nails and a hammer. Her breath came slow, steady. She pressed the animal against the door and drove the first nail through its paw. The cat shrieked, a thin, piercing cry, but her swing was unflinching. Another nail pinned the second paw, stretching the body into a grotesque spread. Its legs kicked weakly, until she silenced them with two more strikes, iron biting through bone and wood until the creature hung still.
Its body sagged, crucified against the white paint, blood trickling in narrow streams down the panel. Its head slumped to one side, tongue lolling, eyes half-open in a fixed, glassy stare.
Donna’s breathing slowed. She wiped her palm on her robe and reached for the final piece. The slip of paper she had folded that morning. She unfolded it, smoothed it with her hand, and pressed it flat against the cat’s belly. One more nail, driven straight through the parchment and into the animal’s stomach, pinned the note in place — black letters glaring from beneath the crucified body. The cat shuddered once, a faint rattle slipping from its throat, and with that final nail it gave its last breath.
The words were stark against the white page, the ink bold and sure:
“Thou shalt kill, that the gates of the Kingdom be opened unto thee.” — Exodius 20:13
She stepped back, the hammer still in her hand, and admired the vision she had made.
The cat crucified. The scripture nailed upon its flesh. A sermon written in blood and bone.
Soon enough, Barbara would stand before the offering.
