It Always Has To Happen To Me

The rest of the Church of the Impending Darkness was in the main room, getting ready to summon Cthulhu and destroy this foul society once and for all. Instead of being one of the chosen ones to help in the ritual, I was stuck down in the basement, guarding the virgin sacrifices.

Our Exalted Leader (hallowed be his name!) was convinced that they were all virgins. I wasn't so certain, though. There was this one chick, and she was done all up like the girl I saw in this porno the other night.

I'd be in the barracks and a couple of the other guys had rented this really kinky porn tape. I can't remember the girl's name who was in it, but she was all chained up in this dungeon, and this mysterious guy was really giving it to her. When I went on guard duty tonight, I realized that one of the "virgins" looked a heck of a lot like the girl in the porno.

I went ahead and looked through the barred window again. Damn, she looked like her. I had to ask, even though I was supposed to talk to them.

"Ahem...uh, miss?" I said. I wish I was more self-confident.

"Yes?"

"I know this most be really embarrassing, but can I ask you...uh...have you ever made an...uh...adult video?"

"She's a Goddess, isn't she?"

Huh?! "Yeah, she was pretty hot...you're pretty hot, too."

"Would you like to recreate that scene?"

Whoa! This girl knew the porno! "Sure, I guess."

So, yeah, the next thing I knew we were doing the nasty. I hadn't fired a shot in anger since I joined the Church, and boy, it felt good.

Right after we finished she seemed a little different. A little more confident, perhaps, a little more charged up. I wasn't worried, though, she was still in bonds - and she was most definitely not a virgin before this, much less after.

It was about that time I heard the gunshots.

My brethren were running around like chickens with their heads cut off, grabbing small arms and returning fire against the intruders, who looked like a small group of federal agents and a couple of soldiers. I grabbed a Glock off the table and took a few potshots, then moved over to guard the girls.

The girl I'd just slept with looked at me funny. She was making some motions in her chains, and suddenly I realized I couldn't let anything happen to her - and she'd die if I left her in those chains. I ran inside, unlocked her chains, and started leading her out.

She looked at me with those big deep eyes. "Thanks, lover, but I've sucked out of you all I need." She started for the door.

My heart sank. "I NEED YOU!" I screamed, ignoring the shots and yells of my fellow church members. I could hear the ritual in the background and a crackle of arcane energy. Something slithered past the door and my goddess shrieked.

Suddenly, three people ran in. They definitely weren't church members, but they didn't look like Feds, either. They were armed, and one of them - a tall, black man with dark sunglasses on - looked right at my girl. "You didn't think Alex Abel was going to let you go that easily, did you?"

She looked scared. I realized I had a gun. I started to raise it.

One of the other guys, a really freaky looking dude with unkempt hair, cackled and ran at me, cutting himself with a razor as he did so. I swung at him with the gun and his flesh melted around it, swirling back into place - then he punched me, and hunks of flesh fell from my chest.

I fell to the ground, screaming.

My girl looked at me and sighed. "You're so pathetic," she said, then turned to the black man.

They started to walk off. The third member of their group - a young lady wearing an Elvis shirt emblazoned with "Viva Las Vegas" - came up to me as I lay in pain, then squatted down. "So," she asked, "didja fuck her?"

I squirmed some. "Uh...yeah."

"Damn. That'll make our job a little harder. Let's see. I'll flip a coin - heads, I win, tails you lose. Call it."

She flipped the coin. I said nothing.

"Tails. You lose." She looked at me, then said one word. "Pain."

I screamed again as the word "SLUT" wrote itself over and over again across my skin. She stood up and walked out.

A few minutes - or hours, I couldn't tell - later a soldier walked in. "We've got a live one!" he yelled down the hall. He knelt beside me.

"So, son...where's the other girl?"

I said it as succinctly as I could. "She's gone."

"Did you kill her?"

"No. Abel took her."

"Cain's brother?"

I was dealing with a real winner here. I hurt. "Alex Abel, they said."

He cursed. "So, the investigative committee was right. Abel is forming his own underground occult organization, isn't he?"

"I hurt so bad."

The soldier wasn't even paying attention to me now. He started to snicker as he looked down the hall. "Roberts, look at this!" he hollered. A man in a dark suit, carrying a Desert Eagle pistol, came over.

"What?"

"Wanna guess who did this guy?"

"Abel."

"Good guess. Have any idea how, Einstein?"

He looked at me. "You slept with one of the prisoners, right?" I nodded. "See that hunk missing from his chest? See those words?"

The soldier nodded.

"I'd guess he got hit by a pornomancer first, ripped a new one by an epideromancer, then written on by an entropomancer. Of course, Abel's crew is probably dealing with a charged up Naked Goddess cultist now."

I groaned, and the soldier looked right into my eyes. "What do we do with this freak?"

The Desert Eagle stared me right in the eyes. "Put him out of our misery."