“Honey, I know it's always rough on your first day but I promise you will fit right in, okay, so just try to relax sweetheart.”
The little blonde-haired girl just clung to her teddy bear lost within a world in her mind. As she sat on the floor of the cramped room, surrounded by others, all silent and cold, she fought back tears.
Philip spoke to the class, his voice soothing yet oddly unnerving.
He kept his gaze fixed upon Shirley.
The Bible lesson was simplistic as they were all too young for depth, Philip's class was different from the poison these modern bastards attempted to pollute these children's minds with.
Pushing toxic ideas, confusing morals, sex was putrid to Philip; it was the filth that ruined everything in this world.
Everything aside from what took place here.
Philip could barely stand to exist but he lived for his class. His perfect little angels.
Philip was reminded of the past as those sad eyes of Shirley’s stared at him. They were like the eyes of his mother's dolls that covered every inch of that goddamned house.
The thought alone enraged him. There were days as a child his stomach ached because of his mother's insanity over those fucking dolls. Every cent she had she wasted on those stupid ass dolls.
She even took in foster children just to support her lust for spending money. She was a lush and a whore and if Philip dwelled any longer upon her memory he would lose it entirely.
But in those sad eyes, he also saw himself. As adults were vermin, children were the only truth. They were pure and perfect in every sense of the word.
“Mr Barnes, are you okay?”
Philip was snapped back into reality.
“Sorry sweetie, just the memory of some old ghosts came to visit me. We old people are always haunted by something.”
The little girl just stared as Philip went on with the lesson.
He tried his best but he knew he wasn't at his best that day. He never was when the past reflected itself in the eyes of a new student.
And as he wrapped the lesson he decided to speak with Shirley as she still was very much lost within herself. He was equally so.
Philip sat across from the despondent little girl.
“So sweetie, what did you think of your first lesson? Please be honest. Remember honey it is always the best policy. I won't be mad, I promise, okay.”
Shirley just shrugged looking down at the floor.
“Sweetheart, please tell me.”
The little girl broke out in tears.
“I just want to go home, Mr Barnes, please.”
“Why! Why the hell would you want to go back there? Your mother probably hasn't even noticed you're gone, yet here you are shedding years over someone who in reality couldn't care less.”
The little girl began sobbing uncontrollably. Philip realized he had gone too far as he took the little child in his arms.
“Sweetie, please don't cry. I understand I promise I will take you to see your mother. I promise just please stop crying, please!”
He held Shirley tightly and after a while, she began to calm down as he stroked her hair. She was so beautiful, so pure a doll much like the ones his mother collected, and although he knew he shouldn't he smelled her hair it was sweet as he felt that vile tinge of arousal.
His rage grew inside for he knew she had that evil within that was a cancer all young girls had. It was the undeniable truth that they would never remain pure; they would grow into the filth corrupted by sex and lust.
“Mr Barnes, are you okay?”
Shirley asked as Philip saw clearly in her eyes. It was always within their eyes. It was their vile nature they could not suppress and only he could help her. No matter what, Philip would save her from her own nature.
“Honey, I'm going to take you back to your mommy but let's have something to drink first okay, and wipe those sad eyes. We can't have that pretty face all red and swollen when you go see mommy. We wouldn't want to worry Mommy, now would we?”
Shirley sniffled looking at Philip not knowing what to truly say.
“It's okay honey, just drink this and we will be on our way. You have had a rough enough time.”
Shirley took the drink not daring to anger Mr Barnes. She sipped her juice. The flavor was beyond sweet almost to the point of being sickly sweet.
Philip was over his urges as once again he knew why he was the only one who could do this task.
The little girl coughed with that familiar sound.
“Mr Phillips?”
Shirley began to cry as she began choking on her own blood. Philip found such comfort in the sound as he suppressed his urge to burst out in laughter as the past victims’ children watched with those dead black glass eyes.
They were all so perfectly frozen in time as little Shirley would be. She entered the last stages, hitting the floor, convulsing to the annoyance of Philip. He had to stop himself from just grabbing a hammer and bashing her head in. Why these little bastards fought the inevitable truly frustrated him.
As his perfect former living dolls just viewed as another would be joining them soon, Philip was reminded of the past in the eyes of the innocent. Maybe that is why he took such joy in ripping them out to replace them with the cold dark pools of his haunted past remembrance.
He would add her missing child's poster to his collection and tomorrow he would fight his urge to drive the bus off a bridge. He viewed the whores of a promised future walk blindly into oblivion to take a perfect innocent canvas and soil it with drugs, piercings, and lust; so much filth as the teachers preached it's all in their putrid acceptance.
Philip took the innocent and gave them immortality; he truly did God's work; he knew it within his soul his beautiful works of art. Cold preserved and very much dead as he was in every facet of this plane of existence.
He only held passion for his secret purpose in life, his work his art that others must suffer with him for.
He walked amongst them the truest wolf in bloodstained sheep clothing.
John Patrick Robbins is a Southern Gothic writer. His work has been published in Schlock Magazine, Horror Sleaze Trash, Fixator Press, Yellow Mama Webzine, It Takes All Kinds Literary Zine, Lothlorian Journal Of Poetry, and the Dope Fiend Daily.
His work is often dark and never safe.