Enoch smiled with his whole face from the pulpit at the front of the church. He was seventeen years old and his father had summoned him from one of the two ornate, wooden chairs he occupied just behind the pulpit so that he could give his first Sunday sermon. He had prepared a twenty-five minute speech about growing up with God and he planned to explore the theme in different ways. He would talk about his upbringing as a pastor’s son, what it meant to grow as a child of God, and how his perspective had changed when he reached the cusp of adulthood.
He had no nerves or fear as he stood before the full pews of familiar faces, many of whom had known him since the day of his birth and others who had walked with him nearly everyday of his life. He was ready for this and honestly, he felt that he was exactly where he was supposed to be, the destination of his life’s journey.
“I would first like to give thanks to the Heavenly Father who watches over us and keeps us so that we may spread His good word to others, amen. And I would like to thank all of you for allowing me to stand before you on this glorious morning. It is my everlasting pleasure to serve God, the almighty, and I know that I am a vessel for his wisdom. I am here by his grace and I will not waste the favor of the good Lord, amen.
“Since I was a little, big-headed chap running around this very church where my father has served as the spiritual counselor and preacher since before I was born, I’ve always imagined the day when I would stand here at this pulpit and proclaim…”
Enoch stopped talking when he heard loud banging at the double doors of the front entrance. Panic engulfed the room as the loud banging intensified and some stood to watch the doors rattle, bend, and then break in an explosion of debris.
“Your soul belongs to me!” a growling, almost feline voice yelled amidst the debris.
Everyone in the church watched the dust settle and most gasped in fear at the creature that had smashed the doors of the church open and now stood in the doorway. It was a chimera with the head and upper body of a cougar, and the slimy hind legs of a bullfrog. It sat like a sphinx with its paws crossed at its chest.
“Reverend!” the chimera said, pointing one of its sharp claws past Enoch. “It’s been seventeen years. It’s time for me to collect.”
Enoch was horrified by the scene of the crude monster and he looked back at his father.
“But you’re not real,” the reverend stammered. “You can’t be real. I know God, I hear his words and obey his will. You…you were just a hallucination…”
“God!” the chimera said loudly and laughed a vengeful laugh that filled the church with malice. “Where was your God when you came to the bog all those years ago, begging for your pregnant wife and unborn baby? I saved her and you promised me that baby. I gave you the time you asked for.”
“It’s the Catawampus!” someone in the church yelled and this caused others to wail in horror and despair.
“Can’t no monsters enter the house of God!” the preacher yelled. “And the Catawampus is just a story. It’s ain’t real!”
“But here I am,” the chimera growled, “in the house of your Lord. If his will is stronger than mine, let him cast me out. Otherwise, I will take what is mine and be on my way.”
The chimera moved deliberately down the aisle as the congregation cleared the pews and most left the church through the hole that had been the front door.
“Daddy…,” Enoch said as he peeled his eyes away from the horrifying vision of the chimera to stare at his father. The man was on his knees with hands up at his head as he prayed to the roof of the church. His mother was the only other person still remaining at the front of the church.
“What is happening?” Enoch’s mother said through sobs. She wore all white with a big flora accent on her chest, and Enoch could tell that her whole body trembled with fear.
Enoch heard the chimera laughing and when he looked at it, it rested in the aisle between the pews closest to the pulpit.
“I will tell you a story,” the chimera said. “Once upon a time, there was a preacher with no congregation. He had taken a job, his first, in a small mountain town and when he arrived there, he was sad to find that only a handful of people frequented his new church. He did everything he could to build his congregation; fish fries and neighborhood block parties, he even got a job with the local news and he appeared on TV every Sunday morning to give a reading of scripture and a brief sermon to viewers in the area. Nothing worked to build his congregation, though. Until one day, the biggest and most prosperous in the area was rocked by scandal. Apparently, the preacher there had been embezzling money for years and when that came to light, there were suddenly a lot of people in need of a new home for spiritual guidance and they found the preacher with no congregation.
“Everything was good for a while, until the friends of the criminal preacher started coming around to talk to the newly prosperous one, the one that had benefited the most from the criminal preacher’s downfall. They had the notion that it was the newly prosperous preacher who had caused the misfortune of the criminal preacher and they made threats, tried to pressure the newly prosperous preacher into paying money to keep trouble away. The newly prosperous preacher could have gone to the police with the threats being made against him, but he turned to his God. He prayed for years for deliverance from his predicament, but the situation only got worse.
“The friends of the criminal preacher asked for more and more, and the prosperous preacher was feeling the pinch. He had a large congregation that paid their tithes regularly and robustly, but most of that money was being used to keep the friends of the criminal preacher happy. Why he didn’t go to the police at that point confounds me. It’s a little suspicious from my point of view. Maybe he was afraid of what the police would find if they looked into the situation. But whatever the reason, it was clear that his God wasn’t going to bail him out, so he went for a long walk in the woods one afternoon and eventually he arrived at the bog that I call home.
“I don’t usually let myself be seen, but when I heard the preacher crying and cursing his God for forsaking him, I thought I would eat him to restore the quiet to my home. But when I saw him, he looked so pathetic and weak that I didn’t think he was even worth the effort. The preacher begged me to spare his life and told me his sob story, how the criminal preacher’s friends were robbing him of his livelihood. I asked him why he didn’t go to the police, but apparently they had threatened the life of his wife who was very pregnant at the time and he didn’t want to risk their lives. So I presented him with a deal, figuring that if I was not going to have a satisfying meal that day, then I could secure one for the future. I told him that I would eliminate his enemies if he would give me his unborn child in return. I could have taken the child then with no harm to the mother, but he said that he wanted some time with it before losing it forever. We agreed on seventeen years, and he left the bog, still crying and lamenting to his God like he didn’t believe that I would actually keep my end of the bargain.”
“I was sure that I was just seeing things,” Enoch’s father interjected. He was still on his knees, but he no longer prayed. “I would have said yes to anything to leave that bog.”
“Well, pretty soon all of the friends of the criminal preacher stopped pestering the newly prosperous preacher. I kept my word.”
“I thought it was God,” Enoch’s father said. “I thought that He had finally heard my prayers and took care of the problem.”
“If I am your God,” the chimera continued, “then that is exactly what I did. They kept me fed for a long time. I appreciate the meals, but that was over a decade ago. And honestly, I’ve been looking forward to this. Your despair and regret only heighten my pleasure.”
“Daddy,” Enoch said, “this can’t be real. What is this thing talking about? God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit watches over us. Why is this demon in the house of God?”
The chimera smiled as it approached Enoch who stood next to the pulpit. It opened its big mouth full of sharp cougar fangs and grabbed Enoch at the waist. His mother fainted and his father resumed his frantic prayers.
“I am your enduring servant, oh masterful God in heaven, please save my son from the mouth of the beast…”
The chimera bit down hard and the nasty sound of Enoch’s spine snapping filled the church. His body went limp and the chimera turned to leave, ambling confidently down the aisle. Enoch was dead, but his eyes were open and he seemed to watch his father pray in vain for salvation.
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