“The Children of the Night,” Vince said.
“Yes,” Mike said. “The Children of the Night had infiltrated the End Times Church early on. By the time they initiated the break, their goals were more solid thanks to their leader, a middle-aged wealthy business tycoon named Samuel F. Garrison. They didn’t just see themselves as overthrowing Christianity, they now saw themselves as going into battle with God, who they perceived as being not only weak, but also a blind idiot god who was indifferent to his creations. Their goal was to play a key part in the Battle of Armageddon.”
“You mean as in, actually participating?” Vince asked between slices of pizza.
“Yes,” Mike was eating slowly too, and he chased a mouthful down with a swallow of iced tea. “Their goal became clear: the total destruction of the Christian Church and the return of Satan to his rightful domain: earth.”
There was silence for a moment as Vince digested this bit of information. He ate his pizza, mulling it over. Frank didn’t say anything, concentrating more on the food in front of him. After awhile, Vince voiced a question. “Where do Frank and I come in?”
Mike traded a glance with Frank, and Vince thought he caught a faint sign of wariness there. As if an unspoken message passed between them. Do we tell him everything? No, I don’t think so. Vince was about to open his mouth to say something but decided against it.
“We don’t know where you and Frank come in,” Mike said. “That’s what we’re trying to find out now.”
“What happened to Frank’s sibling?” Vince said, already having a feeling what the answer to that would be but wanting to hear it aloud.
Mike glanced at Frank again, who didn’t return his gaze. Frank kept eating, concentrating on his food. Mike leaned close to Vince and whispered: “This is still hard for Frank to deal with, so I’m going to whisper it in your ear. Okay?”
Vince nodded, the dread blossoming in his stomach.
Mike leaned closer to Vince.
Frank didn’t look up from his plate as he ate. His features were stony.
Mike began to tell him.
Vince stopped chewing. He listened to the atrocity. The initiation. The offering ending in sacrifice.
Three-year old Frank being present as his newborn sister was ritualistically murdered on a dragon-shaped altar in a large, dark room. Looking through the eyes of three-year-old Frank Black as the cultists swarmed over the body and tore it apart in an orgy of death.
Vince felt a black wall loom before him. He closed his eyes, squeezing out the pain he felt. When he opened them Mike was back at his spot at the table, pouring himself another glass of iced tea. Frank was still eating, head down, not looking up. Vince stole a quick glance and saw now why Frank had built up such a strong layer of armor around him. His shell was thickened by what he’d seen and experienced as a toddler. Not to mention what he’d went through after he got out of his family situation.
Vince turned to the slice of pizza sitting on his plate. He picked it up and bit into it, chewing slowly, savoring the taste. He felt like the inside of his skull and innards had been carved out.
They ate in silence for a while. As he ate all he could think about were the atrocities that had been described to him. Human sacrifices, satanic rituals, all in the form of black-cloaked adults grouped around an altar in a candle-lit room, chanting softly, their voices rising reverently. The fact that such people would believe such bullshit and follow it was one thing; Vince had always held a low opinion of religion in all its forms, probably because of his own strict religious upbringing. He’d become an atheist early in life, based on his own intellect and reasoning. He found the Christian God just as unbelievable as the Muslim God Allah, the Jewish Yahweh, the Hindu God of Life, and the various sects he’d heard about through word-of-mouth, the occasional television show or the printed word. His knowledge of the occult was minimal. He knew the Christian version of what the occult was supposed to stand for, and who Satan was supposed to be and what his purpose was. As far as educating himself from a layman’s point of view on the Devil, he hadn’t done a very good job of it. Why educate yourself on a segment of Christianity if you felt that Christianity, not to mention all religion, was non-existent, all created by man to fulfill some Jungian need for spiritual belief?
There was one thing that bothered Vince, and that was the extreme nature of the story Frank Black and Mike Peterson just told him. If such an underground organization existed, wouldn’t they have been exposed by now? Surely somebody would have run to the police. Vince wondered why nobody had spilled the beans yet; somebody always talked: mafia hit men, royal family members, mistresses to the stars and high ranking politicians, members of highly organized drug cartels. Somebody always talked and was eventually rewarded richly for their story.
Vince finished his last slice of pizza, reflecting on this. Frank had already finished, wiped his hands on a napkin, and risen to his feet. “Be right back.” He headed out of the booth toward the restrooms.
When he was out of earshot, Mike wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Hearing about what happened to his sister still affects him, even though he only remembers the ritual through his therapy sessions.”
“I can understand why,” Vince said.
“Things got worse later,” Mike said, slipping back into the narrative. “Gladys became deeply ingrained in the cult, and became especially devoted to Samuel Garrison. Frank’s told you about him already, I take it?”
“Yes,” Vince nodded. “The Head Devil.”
“Samuel Garrison comes from pure European stock,” Mike explained. “His father’s family can be traced back to medieval England, his mother’s from Spain, and some of her ancestors settled in Mexico during the Spanish Conquest of Mexico and parts of the Southwestern United States. We have reason to believe his grandmother became involved with a group of devil worshippers in the Yucatan valley as a teenager. When Sam took control and resurrected The Children of the Night in 1966, the nicknames just became attributed to him.” Mike took a sip of his iced tea. “Gladys became a sort of sex slave to Sam,” Mike continued, speaking slowly and softly. “Frank was very well taken care of during these years, I might add. Sam took care to make sure all the children were taken care of.” He eyed Vince. “I don’t know why Sam insisted the children be well taken care of, but one thing we’ve found out is that this wasn’t happening in Frank’s household.” He shot a questioning glance at Vince. “Do you remember your folks ever mistreating you?”
Vince shook his head. “No. Not at all. Except for my dad yelling at my mom and me in the last year we were in California and throwing things around… nothing out of the ordinary.” Vince shrugged. “I just always chalked that up to whatever stress he might have been going through. A young guy with a wife and a kid and a demanding career. You know?”
Mike nodded. “To make a long story short, Frank attended rituals between the ages of three and five, rituals he remembers you being in attendance at as well. Frank stayed with the group until Child Services Authorities took him out of the house in 1973. He spent the rest of his youth in various foster homes and his Aunt Diane’s until he left home at sixteen to move to Hollywood. You know the rest.”