Free The Abandoned - A Horror Novel (Horror, Thriller, Supernatural) (The Harrow Haunting Series) by Douglas Clegg Page A

all else was silent. What perturbed him this day was that he had lost the feeling of being called at all.
    He closed his eyes as he knelt there, and prayed for many things, including his little sister’s recovery from whatever ailed her, and for his mother’s sadness, and his father’s stubborn nature. Then he began to list others in town—the sinners and the saints and those in the world fighting wars and those in heaven or hell who needed redemption. Roland intended to include every single human being in his prayers whenever possible.
    He was sure that this would reawaken the feeling that God had called him to this church in particular.
    That Jesus wanted him as a soldier in the Army of the Righteous.
    Dear Lord, please deliver me from the thoughts of night and from the devil’s hands, deliver me from the nightly images of women who throw themselves around me, deliver me from the desires of the flesh.
    Opened his eyes to see Jesus in the loincloth on the altar.
    Jesus’s body was like Roland’s. It was sinewy yet strong, despite the pain and torture that had put Him on the cross.
    Through your suffering, make me pure.
    Then he sat back in the first pew and whispered to no one, “I just don’t feel it.”
    He pressed his hands to his face, and began sobbing. I want you in me. I want you in me.
    And that’s when he got the strange vision in his head.
    The impure one.
    The one of tying up a girl he knew by the wrists, and tearing her clothes off, then taking his hands and...
    Lord, help me. Get these thoughts out of me.
    He closed his eyes to resume praying, and that’s when Jesus spoke to him.
    At first, he didn’t open his eyes because he was afraid he imagined it. His heart beat rapidly; he felt as if he could barely breathe—the excitement at hearing Jesus was intense.
    “Oh, my son, my precious son, you are the one who will bring about the great awakening.”
    “Lord?”
    “You are the great architect of my cathedral on this earth,” the voice said within him. “You will help lay the bricks and stain the windows. Your body will be scaffolding upon which my cathedral will reach the heavens themselves.”
    He opened his eyes.
    The statue of Christ stared back at him with sad eyes. And the statue’s lips moved. “You, before all men, will build the Cathedral of Kingdom Come.”
    The stone arms moved, and the feet pushed out the spikes that held the statue in place. It climbed off the cross, pulling the large nails with it, and stepped forward to Roland. A halo of green lightning surrounded the statue’s form.
    “Do not be afraid, oh blessed boy,” the statue said. “For I bring you great tidings of joy.”
    Shivering with fear but excited beyond reason, Roland nodded, tears streaming down his face.
    “The enemy is near. Take up the instrument that I shall show you. Take it up, and plow the furrow that my seed might be planted. That you, Roland Love, true Love, eternal Love, will plow the field of blood and iniquity and plant the seeds of righteousness in the world. And on that field, you will erect the greatest monument to the infinite love, the most magnificent citadel since the Tower of Babel itself. It will climb higher than the ladder of Jacob, and you shall be wonderful in my sight.”
    A brilliant light seemed to explode from the center of the statue. As it grew and blossomed, it was a blinding light—a light beyond all light, and Roland felt a great wind accompany it as it spread toward him—and it knocked him backward.
    He had passed out on the cold floor of the church.
    When he awoke minutes later, he felt a terrible pain in the back of his head, and when he reached back to touch it, he felt the stickiness of blood. St. Paul, he thought. On the road to Damascus. I have been visited, just as he was. I have been struck with a vision like lightning. I have heard the voice of the Lord call unto me.
    He glanced up at the altar. The statue was again on the cross.
    And there, in front of him, was