A Vampire in the Church Choir
By Matt Mikalatos
Copyright 2012 Matt Mikalatos
Discover other titles by Matt Mikalatos at https://matt.mikalatos.com/books.
Cover art and interior art copyright 2012 by M.S. Corley. https://mscorley.blogspot.com. Used by permission.
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Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual people living, dead or undead, business establishments, events, locales or churches is entirely coincidental.
As a vampire, I tend to stick out, especially at church. So I decided to try a Big Box Mega Churchtm in an attempt to blend in. I became a vampire years ago at the hands of my husband at the time, and since then I had been through a lot. I’d been learning how to live a normal life, and most of the time no one would know the difference. I could go out in sunlight, even though it hurt, and since I was a Christian, the cross hardly bothered me at all. I struggled with blood sucking but I still loved Jesus. The one thing I couldn’t get rid of was the need: the hunger to take vitality from others and make it my own. I couldn’t get rid of that hunger. Which brought me to the parking lot of the semi-local mega church.
I stared at the warehouse with the cross on top, letting thousands of identical churchgoers flow around me like soldiers headed to a mess hall. All the men were wearing button down shirts and slacks, the women were in their floral dresses, and I didn’t see anything as informal as a t-shirt on the kids. And here I stood in black jeans and a baby T with an Army jacket thrown on over it. I didn’t know about the dress code, but apparently it was a given because I was the only one getting looked over by the women and furtively checked out by the guys.
I was about to get back in my car and leave, when a chubby young woman came sprinting across the parking lot, a laminated nametag flapping on her chest. She wore khaki pants and a blue polo shirt with the church’s logo on it, and a complicated walkie-talkie rig that connected to her shoulder like a police officer. Her smile was so bright I had to shield my eyes and she clapped his hands over mine and shouted, “Welcome to Big Box Mega Churchtm! A friendly, non-judgmental place where you can be yourself!”
I shook her clammy hand, intending to head for my car as soon as she let go. But she didn’t let go. “I’m Caroline,” she said. “First time?”
“Yeah,” I said, and then added, “It’s not my first time to church, just my first time here. I mean, I’m a Christian.”
Her grin widened. “Of course you are!”
She was still shaking my hand, so I pried it loose. “Anyway, I think I’ll come back next week. I didn’t know about the dress code.”
Caroline smiled. “There’s no dress code it’s just that we all want to be modest and show our respect for Jesus when we come to Sunday services.” I frowned and she added, “Not that you’re being disrespectful by showing up in jeans and a faded Army jacket. Or that the Lord is any way offended by your tight, form-revealing shirt.”
“I think I’ll be going.”
Panicked, she grabbed my hand again and said, “Miss, don’t let this chance to meet with the Lord pass you by.”
I sighed. You can’t blend in right away. You have to learn the church, you have to figure it out. I tried to think of something to say in Caroline’s language and what came out was, “The Holy Spirit is leading me to stay, Caroline.” She was so relieved I practically had to hold her up. “My name is Lara.”
“Wonderful,” Caroline said, and she turned her head to the walkie-talkie on her shoulder and said, “We have a code black coming in through the front door. Please prepare the package.”
Caroline led me toward the warehouse, nattering on about what a great church Big Box was, how much she loved it, how many people attended here, how great Pastor Nate was, on and on.
“Where do all the white people come from?” I asked.
“Oh,” Caroline said, as if noticing for the first time that we were in a perfect blizzard of Caucasians. “Around ten thousand people come through every week. Many of them drive two hours or more to get here.”
“They bus the white people in,” I said to myself. “Incredible.” Not to exaggerate the effect, but it reminded me of a folk concert, except without the haze of pot over the crowd. If there was a cigarette within six miles of this place it was probably being used as an object lesson for the children.
We were about to enter the main auditorium when Caroline said, “Lara, I think you should take a quick stop.” She inclined her head slightly toward the restroom. I looked around, confused.
“I don’t need to go,” I said, and she laughed her little laugh again and told me, no, there was a gift waiting for me in there.
So I went into the bathroom. Hanging on one of the stalls was a hanger with an awful blue blouse with orange flowers and a beige wrap around skirt. One size fits all. The revulsion and anger fought each other until finally I decided I’m here to fit in, let’s fit in. The blouse was baggy and the skirt looked like a terrycloth towel. I was glad to see there were no official church shoes, so my boots stayed on. I looked like a doll dressed by a particularly fashion-challenged five year old.
I came out of the bathroom and Caroline clapped. She told me I could leave my clothes in the bathroom because no one would steal them. Given the church’s peculiar fashion sense I figured she was right. I rolled my eyes and curtsied and she seemed pleased by this, but not as pleased as she was by the tall man striding down the hallway toward us.
“It’s Pastor Nate!”
Pastor Nate wore a charcoal gray suit, perfectly tailored to his long frame. His silver hair was blown back as if he lived in a wind tunnel. He had a smile on his lips and hard, black eyes, and he moved through the churchgoers like a ship parting waves. Pastor Nate paused when he saw me, and he turned to shake my hand. His skin was papery and cold, and I tried to think of a response when he welcomed me to Big Box. I noticed some bandages on his wrist, sticking out from his suit jacket and I asked, “What happened there?”
He yanked his sleeve down and said, “Badminton injury.” Caroline started to speak, but Pastor Nate squeezed her shoulder and said, “Excuse me, I need to get behind the pulpit.” He whisked away, plowing through his fans. Some high school kids tried to talk to him, but he elbowed them out of the way and disappeared through a side door.
“Isn’t he the greatest?” Caroline asked, looking after him with a peaceful grin.
“Oh yeah, he’s swell,” I said, thinking about that one time in the Bible when the parents tried to bring their kids up to Jesus when he was busy and how Jesus shouted, “Out of my way, I need to get up on the stage!”
Caroline walked me up a flight of stairs that led onto a wide balcony. The auditorium was set up theater style. Giant screens showed us what was happening on stage, and there were fog machines belching out clouds to give a sense of depth. The lights went down as we entered our aisle and I fumbled for a seat.
The Big Box Mega Churchtm wasn’t so much a denomination as a brand. Things looked a certain way (slick and cool) and there was a definite ritualistic approach to the service. As soon as the lights went out, an upbeat, catchy song started things off. The band was polished and just short of professional. Competent. Nothing I would listen to outside church, but I don’t like Christian music. Maybe because secular musicians give their whole life to their music and Christians give their whole life to Jesus. Chris
tian music doesn’t seem as committed. I gave the band a 7.5 out of 10. They wouldn’t bother me on Sundays, but I wouldn’t wait in line to buy their album, either.
There were three songs, and then announcements. The lights went up. There was a precise amount of time set aside for “greeting your neighbor”… enough to feel connected but barely enough to say your name.
During the greeting time Caroline asked, “How long have you been following Pastor Nate?”
“Following him? Like on Twitter?”
She slapped my shoulder. “Sure, or his blog or on Facebook. Listening to his podcasts, reading his books, watching his sermons online. You know, following him.”
This sounded like a trick question people ask at church to trap you and prove their superiority. “I don’t follow Pastor Nate,” I said carefully. “I follow Jesus.”
She tapped her fingers against her lips, as if considering this answer, and the more she tapped the wider her smile became. “I like you. ‘Following Jesus.’ Ha ha ha.” Then the lights went down and Pastor Nate took the stage. Caroline kept chuckling.
An anticipatory hush fell over us, and I leaned forward. A podium rose from the stage. When he reached it, he began to speak. He caressed the words as they came out of his mouth, as if they were precious jewels. Wise, beautiful words you wanted to devour. I thought to myself, “I should repeat some of this to my friends.” My co-workers. My family.
But ten minutes in he said something that jolted me out of my trance. He said something about vampires. He strolled across the stage like a lion, his mane shining in the lights and he said, “There are enemies of the church. Creatures we should fear, which desire to do us harm and we must –” he paused here, softened his voice, “—we must do what is necessary to fight against them.” He slapped his fist into his hand. “They have an agenda. Whether it’s the new zombies, the werewolves, the invisible people, the killer robots, the vampires, the mad scientists or the trolls.”
Stunned, I listened as he continued, going on at length about how the corruption of sin must be combatted, whether by political or legislative or spiritual means. He mentioned several pastors by name, and said they were soft on these issues, that there was a reason Big Box didn’t carry their books in the bookstore. “No monsters,” he said, “in our church. Our church takes a stand against monstrosity. Our church brings wholeness and happiness and perfection to the Christian experience.”
He got increasingly animated. “Some churches let their pastors wear dresses!” He flounced around the edge of the stage like a little girl, curtsying. The crowd laughed and whistled. I assumed he meant robes, but he never clarified. “None of that here.” He stuck his teeth over his lower lip in an outrageous overbite and covered his face with one arm, as if he wore a cape. “Some churches let vampires in, putting their people in danger. But we don’t allow those who choose to suck blood. Not here! We’re in the world but not of the world.” He went on. They didn’t let in zombies because of the rot. They didn’t let in werewolves because of the fleas. Mad scientists could come, but only if they left their experiments at the door.
I shrank back into my chair, feeling smaller and smaller and I realized why everyone looked the same at Big Box. Everyone was blending in, everyone was making sure not to be different. It’s the nail sticking out that gets the hammer. Uniformity meant safety. A hidden life was a secure life.
Pastor Nate talked about “immoral legislation that seeks to grant zombies full personhood” for a while. He shared how vampires tore families apart, how they were unnatural. How invisible people couldn’t be trusted, the way they skulked around on the edge of society, and how he had heard of another pastor not far from here who had been a werewolf. A werewolf pastor! This particularly disgusted him.
As scared as I was, another part of me was having fun. Pastor Nate’s message was funny and entertaining. It was spiritual-ish, and the main message wasn’t threatening, wasn’t convicting or guilt-inducing. It was this: keep being who you are. Mainstream, white, upper middle class, conservative and family-centered. You’re doing it right. Don’t worry about becoming a better person, you’re already better than plenty of other people. Apart from the fact that I was a vampire, it sounded good.
The whole thing was polished, professional. I laughed when he talked about his wife and how she used to be an out of control werewolf. One time he told her “the man is the head of the wife” and it was time for her to stop running wild every full moon and she said, “We’re going to need a guillotine.” Now she led the church’s Biblical Submission for Women Bible Study. I cried when he talked about his brother, who had become a robot after the loss of his only child, completely devoid of human emotion. I felt a dull emptiness in my chest when he described someone who had become a vampire “through no fault of his own” but refused to get help. It made me wonder if I had somehow refused help, if that’s what he would say about me.
Overall, I gave the sermon an 8. It was like going to the movies, if movies had a message instead of a plot. The movie was a little weird because the main character, Jesus, never showed up. But still, I could enjoy this once a week, so long as I could keep my vampirism under wraps. Could I hide it well enough to prevent people from figuring it out?
After the sermon a spotlight hit upstage and a tall, wide-shouldered blond man materialized, his eyes squeezed shut, a microphone in his hand. He wore white jeans and a white turtleneck. The piano started playing and he opened his mouth, his lips close to the microphone. His voice shot through the auditorium and struck me in the chest. His song, something about God being a safe haven in the midst of any storm, drew me in. I wanted to climb over the rows of chairs and get near him. He tilted his head back and the flesh of his neck peeked out of the turtleneck and I wanted to snap my teeth into his jugular and drink. He looked like a giant juice box and I wanted to use his throat like a straw. My hands tightened on the armrests.
The song ended, the lights went out. I leaned back in my chair, tried to relax, gulped down deep breaths. The auditorium lights snapped on and we squinted like newborn rats, all looking for the exit. Caroline said, “Lara, you should come join the church choir. We’re practicing for our big performance. You have a great voice.”
I muttered something, told her I was busy, told her it wouldn’t work. She pointed to the man in white at the front of the warehouse. “Gabe is in the choir,” she said, smiling. “It’s on Wednesday nights.”
I couldn’t go where he was, I knew that much. I wouldn’t be able to hold myself back. I’d fall into my old patterns and I knew where it would end: he and I, somewhere private, somewhere we wouldn’t be interrupted, me guzzling his blood. I wouldn’t kill him. I would take little drinks. It would feel amazing. Guilt would hound me for a week or so, and I would vow never to do it again and then we’d be in his car or at his apartment or out walking somewhere and I would do it again. I had to stay away from him at all costs.
Mentally kicking myself before the words came out of my mouth, I told her I would be there. She walked me out to my car and said goodbye. I rested my head on the steering wheel. I had three days to convince myself not to go to choir practice.