Crawling All Over, Part Two

The office is kinda standard, as far as offices go. Cheap desk, papers, letters. There's a shelf with all sorts of books that must impress certain kinds of people. Really, this place could be like a city office. Like maybe the fire marshall's assistant or commissioner for sewage or whatever. I don't know. But it's a priest's office. And he agreed to meet me right away. I think the doctor called ahead.

I don't normally like people talking about me behind my back, but maybe it's okay this time, because it's a doctor and a priest.

So he's got grey hair and he looks really skinny. He's wearing all black with that white collar thing. He's touching his fingertips together and asking me about my troubles. I'm pretty sure he already knows, but maybe he wants to hear it from me. I can appreciate that, I just wish he could cut the crap. But, of course, he's a priest so crap is his whole business, right?

I tell him about the spiders and my troubles sleeping and how I'm probably going to get fired. He's nodding his head and looking right at me. He's making these... these fucking noises like he understands my problems. He's like cooing at me. Cooing like I'm a fucking child. Maybe that shit gets the church-ladies all wet but...

Nah wait, he's trying to help. I have to stay calm. The lack of sleep is making everything kind of crazy in my head.

And he asks me about my faith. I should have expected that. Of course that's going to be his opener, it's his whole gimmick. I'm starting to regret coming down here.

But then, he's talking about stress in life and frustrations of responsibility. He's talking about family and things just start to sink in. Maybe that's how the church works, they have a really solid spiel, let me tell you. This little lecture must put a lot of asses in the pews. Maybe it might be nice to believe in all that stuff. Maybe if I was a different kind of person, I could get into it. Thing is, I was never really raised to believe in anything. I don't know if you can change that about a person.

No, this isn't going to work. This guy is barking up the wrong tree. I thank him for his time and I'm about to leave when the guy hops up and starts begging. I mean, he's really getting into it, slapping his desk, eyes tearing up. He's going all out. Says he wanted to baptize me, wash me in the blood of christ.

I can't help but laugh, really. He's taking this so seriously. I put a few eyedrops in and tell him no. So then he starts talking about my kid. Like I should sign up for his bullshit for their sake. Like I need Jesus to protect them from me.

Protect my kids from me. Can you believe that?

So yeah, I was mad. I grab him by the collar and shake him a little. He's really light, weighs nothing. I push him up against the wall and I'm shouting something. The whole time, he's chanting at me. I think it's in Latin. He's trying to get his cross out of his shirt and hold it up like this is some vampire movie.

I just... the whole thing got out of hand. The way he was looking at me and chanting, I just got so mad I put my hand on his throat. I want him to shut up, but what I'm really doing is choking the shit out of him. And it's easy too, like he's made out of balsa wood.

So his hands flail around and claw at my arms and I don't even fucking care. Fuck everything else, honestly. I'm already fucked. I'm starting to enjoy the thought of killing this smug asshole when he tears a hole in my arm.

It's weird. I look down and there's a hole in my arm. He punched through it, stabbing down with that cross in his hands and the skin falls away like paper. It didn't even hurt. I didn't feel a thing. Inside my arm, it's all dark and empty, like I've been hollowed out.

I feel that tickle again, the skittering on my skin and a thousand goddamn spiders come pouring out, covering the priest, stinging him. They can't be real spiders, though. They chew and chomp away at the priest. Soon, he's just a red lump of chewed up meat and those things crawl back into my body. It feels good, a comfort. I feel strong and whole.

Those things weren't crawling around on my skin, but under. Looking at what they did to the priest, they probably messed up my innards too. I might be more spider than man at this point. Somehow I don't mind. Somehow I feel pretty good about it.

Maybe I'll go take a nap and drive out for the visitation after all. I can't wait to see my ex. I hope she brings her lawyer along too.