The morning sun’s glare off the half empty whiskey bottle blinded Father Rattie as he reached over to turn off his alarm. The light shot straight through his cornea and scorched his brain. Searing pain. It had been his only friend in his three years in Ewan. This god forsaken catholic outpost in the middle of nowhere. He reached for the bottle and in one gulp solved his cottonmouth problem. The burning sensation in his stomach welcomed him to another day like a nice warm blanket to a newborn. The sunlight reflected off the bare walls, lighting the sparse room and making it feel almost like noon. Or at least the heat index did. The small rectory had few amenities, and surprisingly air conditioning was not among them. He stopped asking his lord and savior why he was here long ago. Rattie reached for a towel to wipe the night’s sweat from his body, knowing that it would reappear before he finished. He grabbed the neck of the bottle and carried it over to his desk.

The old wobbly desk was his only contact with the outside world and his superiors. The monsignor emailed him almost daily. The computer was outdated with barely any memory, but it did the job. He gave the newer machine to the rectory’s secretary. She needed it more then him. The bottle came to his lips again and with his morning ritual almost complete, all he had to do was review his calendar for the day and to glance over any new emails, prior to replying to them in the evening. Today’s agenda was a relatively slow one. 9am Morning Mass; 11am Confession; a free afternoon and a meeting with a newly engaged couple this afternoon. A slow day in a slow town. What else was new?

One swig later, the email was next. The standard four messages from the monsignor were at the top. A blowhard that liked to hear himself type, the monsignor micromanaged his parishes like no other Father Rattie had seen. Below the day’s marching order, the messages were all from members of his congregation, save one. AlTeRbOyZ@hotmail.com. He didn’t recognize it; but chalked it up to some of the local kids screwing with him. He had to get ready for mass, but the morning could use a good laugh, so he opened the mystery mail. No message. What the heck, he thought, before spotting the four attachments at the bottom: four image files. His money lie on porn. Kids around here were bored and thought it funny to send him porn. Despite the impending sin, the originality of the email address had his curiosity peaked and he clicked on the first image. And his mighty machine did not fail him. Much like the second coming, the Blue screen of death never disappointed. The machine froze in such a way that it would make an Eskimo hard. Father Rattie pushed the power button to cold boot the machine and trotted off to the shower.

One cold shower later, or a priest’s best friend as it was more commonly referred to by his mentor Monsignor Strba; he dressed gingerly in order to keep from breaking out in a sweat and negating the shower. At least the church was air-conditioned. Many nights this summer he contemplated sleeping in a pew, but thought better of it. If this place was his own private piece of hell, then he should at least stay in his own cell. As he gathered his things, he remembered the mail from earlier, and went to his desk to find a floppy disk. He saved the attachments, dropped the floppy in his pocket and headed out to mass and the more anticipated air-conditioning. Christ, his balls were beginning to get sweaty already.

Mass went off without a hitch, as usual. It was hard not to please this ancient captive audience. The elderly came for the air conditioning, not the gospel. To extend their coolness all stayed for the captivating round of confession. You haven’t lived until you heard a weeks worth of sins from the elderly. Father Rattie truly believed these individuals were not capable of the sins they professed to. No way in hell, forgive his French. It was the air conditioning and the thought of saying extended penance that caused them to come up with some of the lamest sins he has ever heard. Friggin Ned Flanders would be embarrassed.

With the afternoon free, Father Rattie headed to the rectory secretary’s office. The office was in the basement of the church. The office was a nice cool spot that Rattie had adopted as his own during the long summer months. He pulled the floppy from his pocket and turned on the monitor.

The first image was a scan of a newspaper article:

Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of the boy is asked to call the Columbus Police Department at 478-4588 or Gloucester County Crime Stoppers at 478-4251.

The second was an updated article on the boy’s disappearance:

Columbus -- The ODLE is now offering $15,000 for information leading to the return of 11-year-old Ronnie Leonard. He disappeared more than a week ago. Since then, police have received more than a 150 leads about his disappearance.

Father Rattie printed both articles. Runaways were a problem in the mid-West, but why send these articles to him? No one ever ran away to Ewan, usually it was the other way around. Curiosity practically moved his cursor over to the next image and double clicked.

The boy in the picture was the definition of scared. A thin line of blood flowed from above his eye, down his cheek and across the duct tape which covered his mouth. Rattie’s second observation was that he was shirtless. Two large hunting knifes entered the picture from the right hand side. One pushed against his neck and the other held at an angle that made Rattie think someone wanted to fillet this boy’s chest. He closed the image but reopened it just as fast. The camera had date/time stamped the picture. It was less then 36 hours old.

He moved to the next image. The boy was tied spread eagle to a table and it was then leaned against a wall. A pentagram was drawn on the boy’s torso in red. Ink, wax or blood, the priest could not tell. The boy now bled from just below the right breast where the knife was in the previous picture. The duct tape looked gone, but his head hung down, not visible to the camera. To the forefront of the crucified boy pile of rocks lay. A makeshift alter, he wondered? Candles lined the floor from the rocks to the table. As with the first picture he closed it and re-opened it. This one was taken last night. But the time wasn’t what caused him to open it a second time. With his attention not drawn to the boy this time, he concentrated on the window on the opposite side of the room. It had no cover and the flash imprinted the distinct image of a dilapidated barn. He knew the old farm house; the old Grubb place out on Coles Mill Road.

Father Rattie’s mind raced ahead of his body. He grabbed his disk and headed out toward his car. His thoughts valiantly tried to catch up with an understanding of what he just saw. The pictures were taken over the past two days and mailed to him last night. Why had these images been sent to him? Was it a calculated guess by the sender that he would recognize the location? What exactly did the priest expect to do once he arrived at the old farm house? This last question crossed his synapses as the old Monte Carlo SS was dropped into drive. As he turned out onto the road, his mind was already at the farm house.

Twenty minutes later, the Monte Carlo spewed a mini dust storm behind it as it raced up the dirt road leading to the old farm house. The fields on either side of the dirt road were filled with soy bean. Local farmers now rented the land from an owner not of these parts. He saw the outline of the house in the distance, his foot instinctively pushing the accelerator further towards the floor. Father Rattie did not stop when he reached the yard. He aimed the iron dinosaur across the front yard and did not stop until it kissed the rotted wood of the front porch. He grabbed the flash light from the glove box and was out of his car and through the opening where a door previously hung. He only turned around when he heard the chiming of his own door ajar.

He headed for the stairs, not thinking of their condition until he had reached the top. The top level of the old Grubb place held three small bedrooms and a bath. All were vacant; all were covered in anti-Semitic pro-Satanist graffiti. Empty bottles and fast food wrappers littered the floors. Drunk, fat nazi Satanists, he thought; perfect. Down the steps he flew again. The room from the second picture was on his left, bare except for the table lying face down on the floor. The main level of the house was as empty as the upper. He reached for his mag lite and proceeded down into the basement.

He could feel these steps practically crumbling beneath his weight. He thought for a moment of them collapsing and he spending his days trapped in the basement until someone found him. Perhaps spending those hours with the rotting corpse of a runaway. He pushed those thoughts out of his mind by the time his feet reached the earth floor below. The beam of light cut through the darkness and lit the earthen walls as it swept across the basement. Alas, this too was barren. Could he have the wrong place? His last chance was to search the barn.

He moved across the yard towards the falling down barn. It didn’t look like it would withstand the next gust of wind. His eyes surveyed the property as he moved towards the barn. His eyes caught the shine of metal behind the house and the decided to save the barn for last. As he got closer, he noticed the glare came from metal p pipes. The piping was sticking out from a pile of old timber, a half rotted feed troth and some barb wire. Based on many of the farms around here, it only took him a minute to realize this pile of junk most likely hid the entrance to the storm cellar. Five minutes later he had cleared the mess from the doors and pulled them open.

The light cut through the darkness as he descended the steps. The earth steps held fast under his feet and all he could hear was his heart pounding in his ears. A narrow hallway began at the bottom of the steps and led into the main room. A place where once the lost art of canning and pickling were practiced. The smell that hit Rattie like a lead balloon was neither pickles, peaches or tomatoes. The place smelled as if canned shit was the latest, greatest thing to come from Madison Avenue.