Father Damian

By PROJECT MONROE · Death Metal · From the album THE HORROR CONTINUES

Father Damian stood at the altar of St. Cecilia’s, hands folded in practiced serenity, voice as gentle as falling ash while the congregation whispered their amens. They called him a shepherd of souls. They never noticed the shepherd had been flayed alive long ago and something older now walked inside his skin.

At night the church was his kingdom. Beneath the crypt, past a false panel of saints’ bones, waited the true chapel: obsidian slab, inverted cross, and the steel table that had tasted nothing but terror.

He hunted the forgotten ones. Kids who slipped through every crack. A smile, a sandwich, the promise of a cot in the parish house. The collar still worked like a key.

Tonight it was a boy, thirteen at most, all sharp elbows and wary eyes. Father Damian had already poured the communion wine down his throat (just enough sedative to keep him conscious, never enough to let him thrash). The child lay strapped down now in a spotless white alb two sizes too big. Leather cuffs, rubber bite guard, the usual.

“Peace, little one,” Damian murmured, brushing the boy’s hair back with bloodless fingers. “You’re going home soon.”

He lied smoothly. Home had burned centuries before Christ was born.

The first incision was delicate, a thin red line just under the ribs. The boy’s back arched; a strangled sound leaked around the gag. Damian worked with the patience of a monk illuminating scripture. Scalpel, retractors, the wet music of a living body being unmade. He took the liver first—heavy, dark, gorgeous—laying it on the black cross like a consecrated host. Kidneys next, small and trembling, placed in silver chalices that had once held ordinary wine.

Blood sheeted down the table’s gutters, turning the white alb into a second skin. When the chest was hollowed enough, Damian climbed up, cassock open, and sank into the warm cavity he’d carved. He bathed there slowly, letting the blood soak him to the bone, chanting in a tongue that made the candles gutter.

The heart was always saved for last. He reached in bare-handed, felt it hammer against his palm like a frantic moth, and tore it free with a soft, wet pop. Held it beating to the black flame, kissed it once, then bit down. The taste was copper and lightning.

The boy’s eyes had already gone somewhere far away. Father Damian stayed inside the ruin until the blood cooled and the shadows pressed close, licking at the air.

Well done, the darkness hissed. More.

He rose slick and shining, wiped his mouth on the ruined alb, and began scrubbing the table with bleach and holy water. Morning Mass was at seven. The altar boys would be arriving soon.

So many pure voices in the choir loft.

So many perfect, disposable hearts.

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About Death Metal

Brutally heavy metal featuring guttural vocals, complex technical riffs, and themes of death and darkness, known for its uncompromising intensity and musicianship. Bands include: Death, Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel

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