Roy woke up hanging upside down by his seatbelt, head pounding and left eye swollen shut. The warm blood dripping up his face contrasted starkly with the windswept snowflakes entering through the broken windshield. He hung there dumbly for a minute, then reached for the seatbelt buckle. Pain seized his arm at once, and he groaned. He retreated, then tried again, more slowly this time. When his finger touched the buckle, he paused. Should he wait for emergency services, a passing good Samaritan? But his phone was nowhere to be seen, probably flung out into the snow. And who else would be stupid enough to drive up the pass in this weather?
A movement outside the truck caused him to jerk his head, which in turn caused an involuntary cry of pain. It was gone, whatever it was. “Hello?” he ventured, then coughed. “Hello? Is anyone there?” Another movement outside the same window. But it was gone in an instant, and his glasses were missing anyway, probably shattered somewhere below his head. All he could tell was that it was furry. And big.
He realized he was shaking. He wasn’t sure if it was shock, or cold, or fear. Damn me, he thought, then grimaced at the double meaning. He might find out if he’d done as much sooner rather than later.
He reached for the buckle again. He couldn’t stand hanging upside down like this, all the blood rushing to his head. He was too dizzy to think straight. He curled his back and ducked his head, trying to shield his neck with his other hand. Then, pushing the buckle in, he fell onto the truck ceiling.
Pain everywhere. He lay still for a moment, right eye closed, body bent awkwardly. Aching head, neck, arms, chest. But he could think better now. What next? Crawl out, check for injuries, find his phone. Shoot, he should have opened the door while he was hanging. It’d be harder to reach now.
He opened his good eye, glanced out of the broken driver’s side window, and froze. A bear stood outside the door. Or…not a bear. He could only see the lower body of the creature through the window. The legs were furry but surprisingly narrow, and ended in humanlike feet.
“Tell me, son of Seth,” a deep voice growled above him, “Why do you smell thus?”
He jolted at the voice. “What?” he finally managed. He craned his neck to get a better view and groaned as his back strained. “Bigfoot?” he whispered in disbelief.
“Cain!” the voice bellowed, and the car seemed to shake.
Roy’s eyes narrowed as he remembered the old Mormon legend equating the two. “It’s a prank,” he responded. “Or… I’m hallucinating.” He certainly had enough head trauma for that.
The creature didn’t answer. Its voice only grunted and its legs bent, muscles bulging under thick brown hair. They didn’t look fake. Suddenly the door clicked and swung open. Then, with a terrible screech and a wrench that tore through Roy’s body, the door was ripped from the car and flung into the trees with a crash.
Roy shook again, and this time he knew it was fear. With the door gone and the creature bent down, he could see its full figure—densely furred, naked, and staring at him with sunken eyes.
“I am going to kill you, son of Seth. But first you are going to tell me why you carry the scent of perdition mingled with exaltation.”
Roy froze, willing his heart to calm. The figure straightened to—seven or eight feet, Roy guessed—and stood still, waiting. It could still be a hallucination, he reasoned. There could be another explanation for the ripped-off door. Maybe this whole episode was in his head and he was actually in a coma at Providence. He’d heard stories of things like that. Then again, he’d also heard stories of the supernatural—stories he sometimes believed. Angels. Powers of darkness. Humans granted immortality.
Whatever it was, he could ignore it for now. He had dropped onto his upper back and fallen onto his side. He tried to adjust his legs and was horrified to discover that he couldn’t move them. He lifted himself up with his arms and rolled onto his stomach, but then collapsed, eyes shut and teeth clenched against the pain. One of his arms must be broken, if not both, and it felt like a few ribs might be as well. Blood continued to flow from a gash on his forehead. He tried not to think about his legs.
He gasped as rough hands touched him, grabbing him underneath the armpits and pulling him out. The creature’s grip was strong but surprisingly gentle. Within seconds, he was almost free of the wreckage. As he slid out, he turned his head to look at the truck. Something gleamed next to the overturned hood, and his eyes widened. A handful of objects had fallen through the broken windshield. He eyed the monster, then twisted out of its grip, earning himself a stab of pain as he hit the forest floor. A fresh blanket of snow covered the pine needles, but his arms throbbed after catching the rest of his body.
Cain growled. Roy reached desperately for the item—his phone. But it was out of reach, and the creature was grabbing him again, so he snatched the closest item he could see just as his body lost contact with the snow. His pocketknife.
The monster lifted him completely into the air and carried him several yards away until he sat him delicately in front of a pine tree.
“Now, before I kill you, tell me your story.” It crouched in front of him, close enough that the stink from his breath made Roy’s eyes water.
“But why?” Roy asked, his voice a mix of pain and disbelief. “Are you going to eat me? What do you gain from my death?”
“Am I not already damned? What have I to lose?” it responded. Roy studied the figure more closely. At first glance, it did resemble the Sasquatch images he’d seen plastered on the walls of a dozen tourist traps. But underneath the thick brown hair, the contour of skin and bone followed that of a human. He could conceivably be a man of exceptional height and strength who was afflicted with abnormal hair growth. “But enough!” he roared. “As long as you speak, you are still alive. I have only smelled your like once before. Tell me.”
“Why I smell like….”
“Perdition and exaltation.”
“Right.” Roy sighed. He’d been meaning to find a therapist. But perhaps his subconscious had taken the initiative, forcing him to confront his issues with a psychotic episode. “Fine. Well, I’m a—was a leader in my church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
“I know the Saints,” Cain interrupted. Of course he did.
So Roy explained. He told Cain how he grew up in the Church. How the Church had meant so much to him his whole life. It’d helped him grow up, get an education, get a job, and become a man. It had helped him find his wife and raise his kids. And so he’d tried to pay it forward—to serve in whatever calling, to do whatever he was asked, to make the Church a home and support and refuge for others as it had been for him. It wasn’t always straightforward, and he’d had to compromise in some areas so he could help in others. But he tried to make it a net positive for those he served—first as a bishop, then as a stake president, and finally as president of the Spokane temple.
Until his granddaughter came out as trans, and she and her parents left. He’d talked to her then. Not to convince—he’d never been one to force an issue, and had been a lousy missionary as a result—but to understand. Afterward, he’d had to admit that for her, and plenty of others, the Church was not a home. That it was, in fact, a net negative.
He had thought about leaving then. But in the end, he’d decided to work even harder. To do more to make it a welcoming place, even if he had to bend the rules. And then he’d gotten the call from the apostle, and he and Deb had received their second anointings—had been declared a king and a queen, a priest and a priestess. It had seemed like a sign.
He’d met Claire and Jackie a few months later. Two temple-worthy returned sister missionaries who happened to be in love. And he’d had the idea, or maybe even the prompting, to marry them in the temple. He’d been a sealer for years by that point and knew what paperwork to fill out and which sealing room to schedule to avoid suspicion. He made the offer, they prayed about it, then he sealed them a month later.
Roy told his story without pausing to explain niche religious concepts like disciplinary councils or excommunication, and Cain never asked him to. Either he understood or he really was just a figment of Roy’s imagination. Finally, Roy bowed his head, account complete. He was lightheaded but felt less pain than before. He wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
“So you are both made a king, and thrust out of your kingdom,” Cain growled.
“I guess so,” he responded. Then, to postpone the inevitable: “And what about you, Cain? You said you’ve smelled this scent before?”
The monster snorted as if he knew what Roy was doing, but he answered anyway. “My brother was beloved of the Lord.”
Roy nodded. “Abel.”
“Yes. I was not beautiful like him. But you can see that.” He smiled grotesquely. “The Lord never favored my sacrifices, not like his.” His face darkened. “One day after a storm, I found him in my field. Whether he came to gloat or reconcile, I do not know. He had tripped and fallen on my scythe, impaling his stomach.
“I found him moaning in agony. I knew he would not survive. He begged me to slit his throat. If I did, he promised he would welcome me into the heavens when it I passed from this life.
“No one had yet taken another’s life. But I could not watch my brother suffer, and I knew that the Lord loved Abel enough to honor his promise. I raised my scythe and ended his pain.”
Cain paused and Roy listened to the silence of the forest. The wind had slowed, and the landscape was at peace. Roy felt warmer than before and found himself struggling to keep his good eye open.
“Despite my brother’s vow, the Lord did not want me to enter His presence. So he kept me away. He expelled me from my people and cursed me so that I could not die from natural means. And he promised that anyone who killed me would suffer the same curse.”
Expulsion from your people, Roy thought numbly. Cursed to not die. He frowned and shook himself awake.
“So you see, the last time I smelled both salvation and damnation in equal measure on one person, it was myself.” With that, Cain rose to his feet. He walked a few yards away before bending over again.
With Cain preoccupied, Roy leaned forward and used his hands to bend each leg underneath him until he was kneeling. “And no one has tried to kill you in all that time?”
Cain heaved something into the air. “I am not cruel, nephew. I would not allow someone to kill me without knowing the consequences.” As he strode back, Roy flipped open the pocketknife and held it out of sight under his thigh. His eyes widened when he saw what Cain was carrying—a stone the size of a basketball.
“But now you do know the consequences. Indeed, you suffer half of them already,” Cain growled. “Now you choose.” He lifted the rock over Roy’s head.
“Free me. Or die.” Cain slammed the rock toward Roy’s head. With a shout, Roy lunged forward and slashed the blade at Cain’s ankle.
A deep cry of pain and a crash as the giant slipped and fell onto the snow next to Roy. But Cain’s hand still gripped the rock. As Cain raised himself onto one arm, he lifted the rock again with the other. Shouting a swear word he hadn’t spoken in decades, Roy flung himself onto the man. Ignoring the pain in his arm, he heaved the pocketknife towards Cain’s face. In a miracle of precision, Roy stabbed the blade into Cain’s eye and twisted. Cain screamed and writhed, but Roy quickly pulled out the knife and plunged it forward again, into the other eye. This time it sank even further, puncturing the skull. Roy let go with surprise, and both Cain and stone feel to the snow with a thud.
Roy dragged himself forward to look Cain in the face. Blood poured from his eye sockets and he shuddered with pain. Despite this, his face formed a strange smile. Not contorted like before, but serene. As Roy watched, the larger man’s convulsions slowed.
Roy caught his breath, then dragged himself over to his phone. It was probably too late for Cain. But he had to try.
As he dialed 9-1-1, he glanced back. The body lay still. Roy felt better now, not as lightheaded as before. While he waited, he stood and started pacing, praying he could get a signal in these mountains. Then he stopped and stared at his legs. For the first time since the crash, they had moved without difficulty or pain.
Tygan Shelton‘s stories “Tempting” and “Worlds Without End” were published by Irreantum in 2022. And “On the Question of Ordination” two years later.
