Cultus

Something wicked grows in the fields near Umber, Nebraska. But it grows only under the most diligent care, and its like can be found throughout this fair land, and beyond.

***Content warning: This episode deals with themes of misogyny, racism, nativism, religious trauma, depression, and mass gun violence. Listener discretion is strongly advised.***

Transcript

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[Darker Pastures Theme - Intro]

NARRATOR

Beware those who justify their misdeeds with words such as strength, duty, honor, or natural order. And beware most of all those who see bloodshed and rapine as an act of divine communion, for of such men are the truest monsters made, both upon and beyond these darker pastures.

Cultus: Latin, noun, masculine.

1.      The act of tilling or cultivating; an act of nurture or protection.

2.      The act of veneration.

3.      A religious sect or organization; a cult.

[Darker Pastures Theme - Intro - Continues]

NARRATOR

Episode Fifteen: Cultus.

(Sounds of greater prairie chickens)

NARRATOR

The men gather upon the freshly tilled field as dusk deepens toward night. They number twelve, teenagers, men young and old and middle-aged. Their dress is plain, faded work jeans and worn T-shirts and flannel button-ups – only one among them wears finer clothes, new black jeans and cowboy boots and a pristine white western shirt.

All of them also bear a weapon: pistols holstered on their belts, rifles strapped over their backs, shotguns resting on their shoulders.

As the land turns to shadow beneath the fiery western sky, as the first stars being to peep like wary eyes in the deep blue of the void overhead, the men form a circle. The finely dressed man moves to the center and holds his AR-15 aloft with both hands as he intones: From the sacred earth we draw nourishment, and for this, we are bound to it, and it to us.

We are bound, the circle echoes back.

The man in the center begins to slowly perambulate the circle, his rifle still held above his head. As he speaks, he pumps it slightly in the air, up and down.

The land is ours – our fathers killed and bled for it. With the blood of our enemies, we nourish it.

The circle repeats the last phrase: We nourish it.

Now the man, as he walks, pauses before each of the men to look searchingly into their faces. His gray-eyed gaze is piercing and cold as a January north wind.

We are fathers, he continues, we are sons. We are protectors. We are warriors, the wolves of God. We are men!

We are men! We are men! We are men!

As one, the men of the circle raise their voices in an awful mockery of howling wolves. Perhaps, if there were any neighbors near enough to hear them, they would intervene, or place a call to the county sheriff’s department in consternation. But the nearest house is a mile away and belongs to one of the men who now howls in the dark – the same man who owns the field on which they stand. And at his right bellows the chief deputy, his mouth turned leeringly toward the risen gibbous moon.

[Brief pause]

Pastor Marvin leads the little non-denominational church at the edge of town in hymnal worship, smiles at the congregation as they finish singing and seat themselves. He gives a humble little sermon on the meaning of forgiveness, on the inherent divinity of something so fundamentally beyond human capacity – especially since no one can ever hope to be worthy of forgiveness.

Afterward, he stands at the door and exchanges empty pleasantries with each of the congregants as they depart, smiles through the unseemly flirting of Lotty Harwich as best he can. He can sense the strain in his wife Ness beside him, though he knows that her smile will be more convincing, more genuine, than his own.

Marvin reminds himself that Lotty’s tribulations are many. Only a year ago, her husband stopped coming to church, and Marvin was one of the last to learn why: he had left her to and skipped town with a high school girl he had impregnated. And somehow, the shame of that seems only to be thrown at the feet of Lotty, and of the seventeen-year-old girl, never at the forty-three-year-old man who had used them both.

When Marvin and Ness finally get home, he moves to the bedroom and strips down to boxers and undershirt, then lies facedown into the fabric of the bed, deliciously cool after the August heat.

Ness sits on the bed beside him, still wearing her Sunday dress. Her patience has always amazed him, far greater than his own. Sometimes he thinks that she should stand at the pulpit, and he smile lovingly from the pews as she speaks.

He says, slowly, as though ripping the words out of his insides, that he is lying to them all. It is insufficient as an explanation, and yet Ness seems to understand. Brushing his shoulder lightly with her fingertips, she says he is too hard on himself, has always been.

Marvin agrees, but the assent feels hollow.

She tells him that he will find it again, like he always does, and once more he agrees. But inwardly, he feels certain that this time is different. A rubber band can only be stretched so many times before it simply gives, and he knows this is also true of minds, of souls.

When, with more gentle words, his wife moves into another room, Marvin nourishes the pillow with his secret tears.

[Brief pause]

The circle meets this time in the full light of day, in the building just off Main Street where the local Rotary Club chapter holds its events. It is in fact as members of this other organization that they pose – one of their number owns the building, and no one will question it.

As servers set the light lunch upon the white-clothed tables, they wait.

At last, the youths arrive, the ones lured with promises of scholarships and bright futures. The man in the white western shirt rises and welcomes them with a warmthless smile.

One of the high school boys – and they are all boys – nudges his friend and murmurs that it looks like a total sausage fest in the room. The other boy chuckles.

The finely dressed man clears his throat and leads the group in the invocation. Some of the scholarship seekers shift uncomfortably in their seats; it is a strange prayer, totally unlike any they have heard before, and they do not like being given no choice of participation. But they do not dare to interrupt or protest or even complain amongst themselves. Somehow, when they look upon the speaker, they know that he belongs there, more than they do, even though many were born in this town, had fathers and grandfathers born in the county.

The prayer ends, but the man continues speaking, and slowly the expressions on the faces of the youths change, become an awful mélange of awe, horror, and yearning.

[Brief pause]

The following Sunday, it takes all Marvin has to get up in front of his congregation and project the sermon he has diligently, joylessly, composed. He had sought inspiration in all of the passages, all of the parables, which had once filled him with devotion.

He quotes from the Sermon on the Mount, speaks of mercy and forbearance and humility, and for a moment, he almost believes again in that perfect love which had once seemed to radiate like light from the pages he pored over, to suffuse the air and the material of the world.

When later he stands at the doors exchanging the customary words and handshakes with the departing worshippers, Hal Nystrom approaches him, face red and furious. Refusing to accept Marvin’s proffered hand, Hal demands sputteringly where the hell such a soft libtard message came from.

At first, Marvin is too stunned to reply, hardly even understand what Hal is asking. When he finally speaks, his voice quavering more than he likes, Marvin says that everything in his sermon came from Jesus’s own words.

Hal gnaws at his lower lip. Sure, he says slowly, spitting a little. Then he goes on to say that it’s weak, and that he doesn’t want to hear it anymore.

Marvin finds his nerve then and says, a little harshly, that a person cannot both call themselves Christian and reject His Word. That, he says, is as bad as not believing at all, worse even – that is bearing false witness.

Hal’s face flushes so dark that it seems almost purple, and he turns and walks away from the church. Just before he gets into his pickup, Hal turns and shouts across the parking lot that they will see who is more real, Marvin’s weakling God, or Hal’s God of blood and fury.

Then he climbs in and roars out of the parking lot, forcing Rita and Cris Montalban to hastily pull their six-year-old girl out of his way. Nystrom gives no sign that he hears the outraged shouts that follow him down the road.

As Ness moves to check on the Montalbans, Marvin stares at the rising cloud of dust that obscures the retreating pickup truck. He doubts that Hal will ever come back, and though it is contrary to his calling, Marvin is glad for that. But he cannot shake the feeling that he has unwittingly opened a door that he didn’t know was there, through which anything, anything at all, might emerge.

(Threatening music)

[Brief pause]

The circle has grown to twenty-one. The overcast sky spits a fitful drizzle as they gather in the field, trampling the sprouting field peas. The man who planted them stands among their number, betraying not the slightest hint that he is annoyed by the disturbance of his crop.

There is a twenty-second soul among them, his hands bound crudely with electric fencing wire that cuts and constricts his wrists. He has not been in the county long and speaks but a little English. His movements are marred by that subtle weakness that comes with mild starvation, and the stale body odors of one denied basic hygiene permeate his clothing. He looks around the circle with terrified eyes, and when they remove the stained blue-and-white handkerchief gag from his mouth, he can only summon the words of his first language, which they do not understand and would not heed if they could.

The leader of the circle asks the others if this man belongs among them, and they deny it. Then he asks if they would let such a stranger lie with their wives, their daughters, and the circle roars abnegation.

Dios mio, salve la vida de mi familia, the man says softly. One of the gathered men strikes him in the mouth, drawing blood.

We are the wolves of God, the leader readies his AR. We are men.

We are men!

As fathers, we nourish the earth. Like lovers, we fill her and quicken her ripe womb. Blood is life.

Blood is life!

The circle unspools into a slightly curved line. The bound man is pushed roughly forward, and, sobbing, he begins to run.

Twenty-one thunderous voices split the night, twenty-one tongues of flame lick the air, and the ruined father falls to the earth, weeping redly.

[Brief pause]

As he sits over the remains of the evening meal, Marvin says baldly that he cannot go back.

Ness tries to reassure him, but he cuts her off, saying that his faith is gone – not just wavering, but well and truly gone.

Silence holds mastery for a minute, two. Finally, Ness reaches across the table and gently cups his hand in hers, says that maybe it’s time for him to talk to someone. He has been trying to carry something on his own, she says, something that is too heavy, and that there is no shame in seeking help.

Marvin makes no reply, only stares down at the chicken bones on his plate. Inside, he feels like he is tumbling through an infinite sea of black smoke.

A little while later, Ness rises and clears the table, asks him if he’s coming to bed. Vacuously, he stands and follows her to their bedroom, lacking the volition to do anything other than what is suggested. Long after she has fallen asleep, chest rising and falling in the soft rhythm of restorative repose, Marvin lies awake, wide-eyed in the dark. Nystrom’s last utterance keeps reverberating in his skull, mocking and utterly vile.

And yet, Marvin thinks, there is a certain seductiveness there, in the rage and the cruel certainty behind the words. No, he corrects himself, not certainty: a callous unconcern with truthfulness or morality.

Yes, he admits reluctantly to himself, he envies that.

[Brief pause]

The field peas are growing tall when they lead the two young men out into the field. The youths were members, briefly, before they saw the taking of life and lost their stomach for it – before they truly understood what they had chosen to become a part of.

Unfortunately for them, when they had chosen to go to the sheriff’s department, it was one of the circle that had met them at the door.

Halfway to the place of letting, one of the boys begins to weep, to plead, appealing to their mercy.

Mercy is for sissies, one of the men says.

The boy collapses then, and they drag him the rest of the way. The other boy cries too, but silently. His gaze does not shift from his feet, and he marches hopelessly toward the place of their shared doom. Something has begun to grow there, taking form beneath a thin blanket of earth and bulging through ambiguously in patches. From what they can see of it, it is pale, and a smell rises from it of iron, of toxic smoke, of death.

It shifts under the soil as they approach, groaning with anticipation.

The men do not acknowledge it, seem not to notice its presence at all, even when the sobbing boy points shakily and utters a fragment of a question before his voice breaks. As they drag him closer, he begins to scream, continues even as the ringing shots tear and rupture his flesh, splinter his bones. The other boy falls on top of him, a tear rolling from his wide, skyward-staring eye.

The thing below them howls in ravenous delight.

(Doomful music)

[Long pause]

Sitting at the grimy counter, Marvin takes another sip of Scotch and winces. It is only his third time trying whiskey, and the taste has not grown on him. He looks furtively around the dimly lit bar, hoping not to see anyone from the church, but there is only one other patron, a man he has never seen before.

Guilt curdles in his veins as he thinks again what Ness would think of him being there. She would not scold him, but the sorrow in her eyes would be so much worse.

And he is not finding whatever it is that draws men to such places anyway. There is no comfort for him in the old-fashioned glass, and he is fishing bills from his wallet when the other patron approaches him.

The man’s smile does not touch his gunmetal eyes.

The stranger introduces himself as Hank Metford, and offers a cold hand that Marvin shakes politely, and then tries not to shudder at the touch. The notion shoots through Marvin’s head that the hand feels like something one might find under a large rock or rotting timber, something slick and translucent that feeds upon carrion and dank decay.

With a sly and knowing smile, Hank remarks that Marvin looks a little out of his element, and asks if the wife doesn’t let him out much.

Bristling slightly, Marvin says that she doesn’t tell him what to do. He hates the sound of the words coming out of his mouth, but something about the man is stirring up the shadowy side of himself, the self which he keeps buried.

Sure, the man nods, and drinks from a bottle of cheap beer.

Marvin finishes counting out his tab and the tip, tosses the bills on the counter, and is turning to leave when the man in the fine western shirt places that repellent hand upon his arm. Hank’s grip is hard and sharp, talonlike.

He says that if Marvin ever needs to feel like himself again – his true self, a man – he should come to him. Hank pulls a small business card from his pocket and thrusts it into Marvin’s face, giving him little choice but to take it and jam it into his jeans.

Marvin mumbles a word of insincere thanks, and hurries out of the bar. When he gets into his car, he cannot resists the urge to wipe his hands on his jeans, cannot help but look in the mirror to make sure he has not been begrimed. He isn’t certain whether it was more the dive bar or the encounter with the man that has left him feeling so soiled.

Then, despite his abhorrence at the thought of doing so, Marvin draws the business card from his jeans pocket and looks at it. It is plain, white with black lettering, and beneath a simple image of a Winchester repeater reads: Feel like a man again. Wake the warrior within.

His eyes linger on the phone number at the bottom, before he shakes his head and rolls down the window, tosses the card out into the bare earth parking lot.

Driving home, he tries very hard to erase the number from his mind, but it remains indelible as a hot-iron brand. When he walks through the front door and Ness, with a gentle smile, asks him where he’s been, the innocent question feels like a subtle rebuke.

He says he thinks he’ll call the counselor tomorrow, and Ness smiles a little more brightly and hugs him, tells him that she’s proud of him. He has to bite back the bitter words that swell in his throat, makes an effort to return the embrace genuinely.

All the while, the cold smile and the gunmetal eyes linger behind his eyelids, like the afterimage of the sun.

[Brief pause]

Standing around the usual gathering place, the men are silent, exchanging brief looks of discomfort.

It’s not enough anymore, one of them says. We need something better.

Hank nods and raises his free hand placatingly, says that he has a vision, that everything will be alright. They just have to be strong, have to show some balls.

We are men, he intones, and grins widely as the others echo his words. For the first time, the expression lights his eyes, and for a moment they seem to glimmer like fire in the failing sunlight.

[Brief pause]

Over breakfast, Marvin tries to calm the jitters crawling around his stomach by reading the local newspaper. He finds a third missing persons article and feels his insides lurch in sudden revolt, feels even sicker when he reads that there are still no leads in the investigation.

This is a small community, he thinks, and wonders, where is the fear, the anger, the shock, the outrage?

He hasn’t even heard whispers of gossip, which borders on impossibility.

And he imagines, as he has many times during the insomniac night and all morning, standing at the pulpit again and looking out over the assembly in the pews. But this time, the churchgoers do not look like the people he has ministered to for years and known even longer – they look like strangers, with overlarge eyes and open, hungry mouths filled with teeth that are misshapen and too numerous.

He turns the page, and reads an article about an atrocity at a school just a few counties over. The coffee turns sour in his stomach, and he runs to the bathroom and spews dark, acidic fluid into the toilet, then runs cold water and washes his face, brushes his teeth furiously. Looking into the mirror, he thinks that he looks half a corpse.

Ness knocks softly upon the door, asks if he is alright.

He answers that he isn’t feeling too hot, that maybe it’s better if he stays home today.

Silence answers him. Then, finally, Ness says that if he’s sick, she understands, but if he’s going to give up his ministry she really thinks the church should hear it from him directly.

Marvin spits into the sink, rinses out his mouth, and agrees flatly.

Sometimes he hates her, he thinks, and then reels at the thought. Ness is the best thing that has ever happened to him, has never shown him anything but love and support.

Sure, another unbidden thought flashes. As long as you do what she expects. Who wears the pants in this house?

Marvin thinks of the number, stares blankly into the mirror, then shakes his head. He really is not right, he tells himself. Nothing sounds better than crawling back in bed and sleeping the rest of the day away, sleeping forever.

He calls to Ness, tells her that he will be ready in just ten more minutes.

But when they are standing before the wide double doors of the white church building, his momentary resolve evaporates again. Ashamed, he murmurs to his wife that he cannot do this. Ness slips her arm under his, and softly replies that they will do whatever feels right to him.

Marvin knows that she is sincere, and yet cannot quiet the nagging internal voice that says this is a trap, that she despises his weakness, his unmanliness.

Just then, there is another, less pleasant touch on the opposite shoulder, and Hank whispers into his ear that he will take the pulpit in his place, if Marvin can’t do it. The words almost seem friendly, but for that particular emphasis he puts on can’t do it.

Marvin takes a faltering half-step forward, then freezes again. With a laugh so low Marvin cannot be sure he doesn’t only imagine it, Hank pushes past him and climbs the short wide steps, passes through the open double doors.

At last finding the will to move, Marvin follows him in. Ness frowns at his side, confused by the events of the last few moments.

Hank is already ascending the dais, and as he takes his place behind the lectern, Marvin leads his wife to a couple of less conspicuous seats at the back. Only sad Lotty and drunken Oz Krumm sit so far back and out of sight, avoiding the eyes of the others for their own particular reasons. Despite her obvious confusion, Lotty offers him a smile, while Oz seems as oblivious to his presence as he is to everything else.

The general murmur of surprise and perplexity at the appearance of the unfamiliar preacher quickly fades back into silence as Hank raises his arms. Lowly at first, then rising in both volume and intensity, and somehow perfectly audible throughout, Hank begins to preach a kind of gospel like none ever heard within those walls before – a gospel of unconcealed cruelty and of nascent violence. It is the vilest sort of blasphemy, Marvin thinks, and rouses in him a rage born of old loyalty to the faith his private demon has all but swallowed. That awful thing has hounded him sporadically ever since his mid-teens, appearing unbidden and darkening his mind, an inner black hole from which no light escapes. And yet, looking up at the horribly banal prophet behind the open and unheeded Bible upon its lectern, Marvin realizes that this is the first time he has seen a true and living demon.

And yet, casting his gaze around the church, he sees so many heads bobbing in rapt enthrallment to the wicked, blood-soaked words. Seeing this, Marvin knows he lacks the courage to rise and speak, to stand in opposition to the seduced throng.

Then he realizes that Ness has already risen beside him, is now moving up the center aisle. Hank falls silent and every face turns toward her.

Her voice quavering with mingled terror and fury, she asks what has happened to this church, to her community. Where, she asks, has the Christian charity and goodwill gone?

Hank looks over the crowd and nods, and then Marvin sees Hal Nystrom emerge from a dark recess within the vestibule. In his hand is a short-barreled Colt Python, and it seems so much a part of him that at first it does not register how out place it is in a house of worship and fellowship.

And then Hal and another man, a local farmer who has so many times shaken hands and shared smiles with Marvin and his wife, but who now holds a 12-gauge pump shotgun in his hands, are seizing Ness and dragging her back down the aisle and out of the church. Her screams reverberate off the walls, but no one moves to stop the men, or gives any sign of alarm or even discomfort.

After a moment of paralyzed disbelief, Marvin tears himself out of his seat and runs outside after the men, shouting his wife’s name. Emerging from the church into the harsh sunlight, he reaches out toward Hal before he feels a terrible lurching sensation, and all goes dark.

[Brief pause]

He comes to in a field, which he thinks he recognizes as belonging to one of his flock. He thinks bitterly that he has no flock, remembering at first that he has given up on his vocation, and then suddenly remembering his last conscious moments. Marvin struggles to sit up, but finds his hands cruelly bound with wire.

Turning toward a faint whimpering to his right, he sees his wife lying beside him, similarly bound, and also gagged with a greasy rag.

He chokes out an apology to his wife, and then he hears a chuckle above him.

Hank shakes his head and clicks his tongue, says that Marvin needs to learn to stop apologizing, that he needs to finally learn how to be a man. He asks if Marvin was listening to his sermon at all, with what seems almost like genuine hurt and disappointment – almost.

And, as he says this, Nystrom comes forward, holding an item in each hand: his Python revolver in the right, a Bible in the left. He holds them forward as another man, one whom Marvin does not know, clips the wires around his wrists with a pair of fencing pliers.

Choose, Nystrom says.

Choose, Hank echoes.

Rubbing the feeling back into his hands and then wincing at the discomfort of returning blood flow, he stares dully at the offered items.

Choose, Hank says again, more firmly.

Reluctantly, he reaches for the Bible, but then his hand turns toward the revolver. Hank smiles, eyes flashing.

Then Nystrom asks what they will do with the woman, and Hank’s expression sours. As he begins to shake his head at Nystrom, Marvin seizes the gun and empties half of the chambers into the man’s face. Nystrom slumps forward, falling as heavily and carelessly as a sack of rotten potatoes, his ruined face mashing into the open Bible and turning the thin white pages bright red.

Good, Hank says, smiling once more even as the circle of armed men around them point their assorted firearms at the fallen pastor. Now, he continues, there is only one thing left to do.

He points toward Ness, and tells Marvin to cut the last cord that binds him.

No, Marvin mouths.

Hank looks at him with those awful eyes, saying nothing further.

Then, there is a shifting in the bare earth behind Marvin, and he turns to see a thing like a maggot grown into the size and shape of a man rising out of the ground. As the dirt falls away from the pale, soft flesh, Marvin sees that the thing has no facial features, no fingers, no genitals. Where they should be are only writhing tentacular appendages, with leechlike maws gaping at the ends. As though it can see despite its lack of eyes, the thing falls upon Nystrom’s body with many small sucking and tearing sounds.

Marvin looks away and throws up on a pea plant. His wife, wide-eyed, cannot seem to shift her gaze from the hideous sight.

Then Marvin hears the thing shift again and forces himself to look once more. Rising from the unrecognizable wreckage of what had been Hal Nystrom, the thing is groping with its many mouths toward Ness. Even as he raises the Python, it is falling upon her, the little orifices yawning redly.

He fires but a single shot as Hank pushes his hand earthward, the bullet directed not into the abomination, but into Ness’s abdomen. With his iron grasp, Hank pries the pistol away from Marvin, and says that this is a necessary sacrifice.

Marvin screams his helpless defiance as the thing from beneath gluts itself upon Ness, as her muted whimpers fade into faint groans and then into silence. Marvin screams until he tastes blood and his voice is gone, until his sight is veined with black and he is choking upon the mingled tears and mucus that flood his oronasal passages.

After it has finished with her, the demon-god of the field turns and slowly, almost gently, moves toward Marvin. Inwardly, Marvin prays to his old and silent deity to let the thing end him too, even if it sends him to hell or to oblivion.

But as ever, that God gives no answer. And the pale thing does not feed him, only softly touches him with its many mouths, leaving thin pinkish saliva upon his skin. Marvin realizes that it is kissing him.

You are one of us now, Hank says proudly.

Marvin only continues to cry loudly, curling into a fetal ball upon the churned earth.

Lip twitching, Hank tells him to be a man, that there is much work to be done. Then, as Marvin continues to sob hoarsely, Hank adds that his wife would be ashamed to see him crying like a little girl.

My wife, Marvin says deliberately, grating the words out through his hiccupping, ragged breaths, is dead.

Hank says that he will find another, a better one, dutiful and obedient.

Then, slowly, he offers the revolver once more to Marvin.

Against his inner lights, Marvin reaches for it, feels the cold of the nickel finish barrel and the polished wooden grip, and with it, a surging feeling of power.

As he rises from the ground, Hank grins and says that they have so much fertile soil to till, so many seeds to plant. He mentions the church, then the local high school, and then the newly opened mart in the next town over.

It’s time to spread the Word, Hank says.

As he turns away, Marvin levelly raises the revolver and points it at the other man’s head. Without turning, Hank says softly and with deep satisfaction a single word: excellent.

Marvin fires, and the hollow-point .357 magnum round punches through the back of Hank’s skull and erupts from his left eye. He falls in a heap, legs tangled horridly.

As Marvin moves leadenly, hollowly, to take Hank’s place at the center of the circle, his once-brown eyes flash fiery orange, then fade to gunmetal grey.

At least, he thinks darkly, this god answers when called.

(Bleak music)

[Darker Pastures Theme - Outro]

NARRATOR

Story, narration, and arrangement by Lars Mollevand. If you enjoyed today’s story, please rate, review, and share. Thank you for listening. We’ll meet again… in darker pastures.

[Darker Pastures Theme - Outro - Continues]