Divine Murder

By Ward Kelley

Experience the most sinister plot in the history of humanity – fanatics discover how to physically murder God. A search for God by going to the opposite extreme.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ward Kelley
• Release date: Jun 6, 2010

Book preview

Kelley/Divine Murder

What others are saying about

Divine Murder

Ward Kelley’s first novel is a deliriously inventive theological thriller. It’s sassy, intelligent, charming and phantasmagorical. – Tony Grist, New Hope International

Divine Murder is a fascinating look into humanity’s relationship with God and its own destiny. – Elizabeth Burton, The Blue Iris Journal

Ward Kelley’s Divine Murder is a playground for temptation and a test of moral cues. – Janet I. Buck, author of Calamity’s Quilt

One of the most interesting books I’ve read in a long time. Like all great epics, it deserves the big screen. – David M. Jackson, Artvilla

DIVINE MURDER

Ward Kelley

Divine Murder

Published by Kelley, Ward at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 by Ward Kelley

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Part One

DOWN

Forgive, Oh Lord,

my little jokes on thee,

and I’ll forgive thy great

big one on me.

-- Robert Frost

I

a different kind of lust

The night the Atlantic disappeared, Warren and Zoe debated valiantly about infidelity. They sparred with adultery on the beach, and engaged one of their most dangerous bouts, one yielding the most verbal blood, yet also capable of a quick KO. And this was how they showed an odd kind of marital love, and their interest in the marriage.

Warren inhaled the slightly ancient smell of salt, and wondered at the luminous property of the surf. He realized it reflected the lights from the Marriott Suites up beyond the dunes. On the way down to the beach, the subject of his secretary surfaced, and now he joked, I understand the innuendoes, but I’m not certain about the source of them—surely you’re not insecure. In fact I could make a case for you getting some sly, momentary pleasure from the fact I was having an affair . . . that is before you disemboweled me.

Zoe remained quiet, flicking some water up from the undertow with a raised big toe, the nail short and unpolished.

Warren went on, far too happily it seemed to some inner referee, I suspect I would tell you nearly immediately, if I were having an affair . . . at least in the first week. Particularly with my secretary, someone who thinks her beauty lies between Britney Spears and Helen of Troy. She wouldn’t go to bed with me even if it meant redeeming the known universe, but—I have to tell you—if she ever did, I’d be so amazed, I’d want to tell you all about it. In detail. In Surround Sound. You know I tell you everything.

He knew these contests really couldn’t be termed arguments, not in a pure sense with yelling and gnashing and dramatic gestures, and in fact they both attained too much satisfaction from them. On the other hand, they weren’t exactly happy with each other either; truly some anger festered on the shore this night, although an anger laced and perforated with fascination, a different kind of lust. They loved each other, true, but they sometimes loved these discourses more, and so their marriage zigzagged and dodged and evolved, or stayed alive, all fourteen years—this enthrallment with the sardonic—for truly it formed a type of sport.

Warren scanned ahead, down the sand, always the good manager who attempted to peer into the future: deserted as far as he could see through the darkness. So I haven’t reported anything to you yet, have I? I’m sure I haven’t mentioned I’m boffing my secretary between the file cabinets and the fax.

Zoe still didn’t take any of this bait so he sighed, somewhat in sorrow over his spent youth, as evidenced by this affair with Joyce—the beautiful aerobic devotee employed as his secretary—sounding so implausible. He continued, Besides, I have no time for it. Not to mention, affairs require a lot of energy. I really haven’t been up to it since I turned forty. The aging process actually seemed worse than his inability to attract Joyce.

Finally she spoke, Time is your big problem. Zoe took a studied breath while he waited. He knew she didn’t like contemplating their age, forty-three, but lately she seemed always ready to pick apart the time-at-work issue. Soon she fired her first volley, "Your big affair is with work itself. Now there’s the unbeatable mistress, all the time away from me and the family she sucks out of you. Work is sex. This dawned on you a few years back. You realized you can legitimately cheat on me. Daily."

He wondered if she tempered herself since she now tried to pick it up a little, putting a humorous spin on the next accusation. She jostled, "Here’s Warren’s idea of an afternoon jump—placing the phone on hands-free, so he can call his faithful wife while operating his calculator and laptop simultaneously, the sound of his shredder resonating from under his desk. Zoe dear, I called to tell you it looks like production is up 2% in the second quarter, and I’m about to have a climax, just thought you should be updated."

Warren admitted he admired the way she thought, the way she hooked her words together, and the nuances she used to display these verbal nets. He wondered if he should take her hand, then decided she might think he tried too hard at this business of vacationing here on the Jersey shore, here in the moonlight, here with his little dark wife, his impish wife, when maybe they would both be more content in front of a DVD.

If he saw the texture of her grins, hidden from him there in the dark, those happy little girlish smiles—ones she knew flickered unseen—he would have melted. Instead he plowed ahead, "Okay, we can stipulate I do a pretty good job of keeping you informed, of telling you everything that goes on in my own larcenous heart. But what about you? Do you ever keep me informed of the weekly shifts of your own particularly carnivorous heart? Do you keep me updated concerning the shifts of your own temperament? You know me completely, but I know of you only coincidentally, or obtusely—there’s someone in there who used to be Zoe, and every now and then she surfaces, slinks around for awhile, then submerges beneath layers and layers of . . . of . . . charisma." But what was her crime after all? There for a second he thought he unraveled another of her secrets, but apparently he came up empty-handed.

She ducked the issue of different Zoes floating around her depths, Now I’m like any other facet of your business . . . just another function of the Plant? You require updates? You would like to stay informed? She leaned toward him to pinch his belly but got mostly shirt. "Wanting to keep you informed is like someone wanting Dorothy to keep the Wizard informed. I mean you’re the one who’s always pulling my chains and twirling my levers. And now you’re requesting I inform you of the very plots you yourself devise. You are truly an insidious man."

Warren wondered where this one was going. A wave hit him just right—as startling as the lick of a St. Bernard—slapping him behind the knees, sending a spray of cold water up his thigh. I have plots? For the sake of time, or for the sake of his own curiosity, he decided to step directly on the land mine, I’m devising plots?

Of course, she again leaned toward him, this time to peer up at him with her ignited green eyes, you know you’re hatching them all the time. She moved back to her former space beside him, and he watched her taste the salt on her lips, leaving her tongue there a moment to pose the next point. Your plot concerns buying more time to spend at work by hinting around at having affairs, with the idea I’ll encourage you to work harder as an outlet for these mid-life crisis energies. Zoe reached into the surf and flicked some water at his face, but he easily sidestepped it. "Frankly, I’ve defoliated much more thorny plots from you, and in a sense, you’re right—having other women chase you around would absolutely enhance your value as a stud."

Warren imagined himself as a stud, and he felt pretty good about it—the stud here in the surf at Stone Harbor, New Jersey. So, staying with your Oz analogy . . . does that make me the Wizard or the Lion?

I think maybe the Scarecrow.

Scarecrow?

Maybe you’ll be granted a brain at the end of the film.

Warren feinted toward the surf with his hand, splashing fake water, counting on her hyperactive imagination tonight. While she watched this hand, he kicked up a good volume of water, and hit her squarely; the spray engulfed the area between her chest and the top of her head. Sometimes things happen just right, sometimes the fates allow you the bull’s-eye at the perfect time. He laughed out loud, hoping to hear her laugh too.

He looked at the full moon, and thanked some unnamed god of trajectory who directed his capricious aim, the image of her soaked, pretty face now projected by his memory on the movie screen of the giant rock up there. He enjoyed the scene for a few seconds, but when he turned back to her to begin apologizing for this terrible yet fulfilling act, he realized she vanished. This thought and the sand hit him at the same time; she briefly ducked out of his sight when she reached into the ankle-deep water to scoop out two handfuls of wet, sticky, slaphappy sand. And she apparently suppressed any laughter itching to proclaim the event even as she plastered the back of Warren’s neck. But then she cackled happily.

The sand slithered, in multiple, ill-sized clumps, down his neck, under his shirt, oozed over his back, felt alive in the same sense cobwebs sometimes feel animated to the skin, tricking the flesh into believing this foreign substance possessed life. Warren first slapped the back of his shirt but knew nothing could be done to remedy it, so he spun around, just in time to dive under her next wet sand attack. He rammed his head aside her waist, lifted her from her feet, then placed her on his right shoulder. The momentum took them out of the water, up to the beach, but Warren made a semi-circle over the dry sand, then headed back to dunk her.

Zoe pounded her wet, sandy hands on his back and kicked her legs, then tried to knee him but her large breasts seemed to get in the way. He knew none of her attacks was seriously meant to harm him. Next she attempted tickling, and tried to get a grip on his sides while he carried her, but unluckily for her, she failed to reach any sensitive area on his body.

Warren wanted to find the water again, and stopped where he felt certain it would be, but apparently he misplaced it; he still stood on sand. This seemed odd, for surely here was where they walked in the water only a few seconds earlier, and then the tide flowed over ankle-deep. He felt disoriented, similar to losing your car in a parking lot although you felt certain you knew its true location. He concluded the water must be building toward a larger than normal wave, and perhaps the undertow sucked it all out. As he carried her farther into the dark, he stayed on the lookout for a monster wave.

Zoe lurched on his shoulder, Put me down! She briefly held his sides, and tickled him before she lost hold, I said put me down. I’m about to call you a worthless piece of shit.

Warren grinned, readjusted her body, then squeezed the back of her right thigh where he balanced her. But he quickly turned his thoughts back to the ocean, and became unsettled again—he didn’t like Nature being quirky and acting in unpredictable ways.

Zoe raised her voice and issued other threats while kicking more violently, yet Warren comprehended her loud words less and less as he took several more steps out toward the water. All the while he peered into what now appeared as a black void. Abruptly, he slid Zoe off his shoulder. It surprised her because she immediately stopped yelling; she took a mental gulp. Warren hunched himself in an attempt to penetrate the space where the ocean should be, as though bending his body would help pierce the dark. He went farther out, only to still be walking over wet sand. Now he realized there was a distinct, blatant lack of noise on this beach. When Zoe quieted, she took the last decibel from the area and he could hear nothing else . . . no gulls, no wind, and most apparent of all, no crashing waves or scuttling, slushy undertow. Simply nothing. He continued moving outward.

Zoe stood quietly where Warren deposited her, like someone who got off at the wrong bus stop. Where are you going? War, come back here.

Warren turned toward her, then opened his palms, appearing to deliver a few beatitudes, Where’s the water? Where could it go? He didn’t wait for her answers—since he felt certain she possessed none—and faced the ocean again. He walked still farther out, now a good twenty feet away from the shoreline, right where there should be waist-high water. He knew something very odd occurred here, and where it disturbed him, it also fascinated, a mystery. His curiosity stirred and unsettled their marital tiff. It seemed unclear to Warren whether curiosity served him or imperiled him. How could the ocean disappear, how could such a thing happen? One moment the ocean existed, and everything appeared normal at Stone Harbor, the next moment the Atlantic vanished, leaving only an eerie, marble silence in its place, the solitude of a cemetery minus all the tombstones. And another odd thing—he felt no fear, absolutely no trepidation, in the face of this bizarre occurrence. Where most men would be frozen or backpedaling over the dunes by now, he felt only curiosity.

Warren! She placed a boomerang spin on the way she pronounced his name, and he knew she meant him to immediately return to her.

He called over his shoulder, It doesn’t make any sense. It should be right here. Did she understand there appeared to be a cataclysmic event occurring to them, an unnatural act of Nature, if such a thing were possible? You go all your life traversing the mundane, treading water, and suddenly, there it is in front of you—the grand or awesome occurrence your intellect says can’t be happening, that spectacular event eluding all explanation. All your education and sophistication leaves you then, while you wondrously approach the situation like some Neanderthal viewing a comet.

She walked up to him, and took his arm. Let’s get out of here, War.

In all their years of marriage, he only saw this look of fear on her face a few times before, and the look always gave him pause, for if Zoe feared something, he better think it through. Zoe went about her life so recklessly it seemed to acquaintances, but so methodically to those who really knew her—methodical in the sense her capricious approach to living always landed her exactly where she wanted to be. So you came to understand there was truly very little caprice to it, but rather a zest to her style of being Zoe. And here she stood, alarmed.

He tried to explain it to her, but the words kept coming out the same, regardless of how he emphasized them, "I just don’t understand it. We should be standing in the middle of the ocean. It must be right here in front of us. There’s nowhere else it could be." He tried to prove this theory even more explicitly, and took three more steps outward, while he pulled Zoe along . . . her sandy fingers locked on his arm as if she believed she could hit a home run with it.

II

a succinct communion

She stepped on a sharp shell, or a crab—certainly not a stone, here in the sand at Stone Harbor—and pulled her foot quickly from the ocean floor, skipping lightly the next two steps. She hoped like hell it wasn’t a crab—that’s the problem about walking at the beach, particularly at night, you never knew when some creature, mostly unidentifiable creatures, would try to snag you.

War! Zoe attempted to slow him up, but he continued dragging her out there with him. "War, you’ve got to listen to me. I think you’ve gone a little crazy about this thing—the word lunatic comes readily to mind. We just can’t keep going out into the ocean like we’re magnetized by empty sand. It’s not a very sensible thing to do—Ben Franklin would have never done something like this." She still tried to put a humorous spin on this escalating peril, partially as a way to assure herself she would be okay. And she couldn’t dislodge from her mind the thought of a crab grabbing her toes. Do they actually eat with those pincer things . . . and where exactly are their mouths?

More steps out into the empty ocean brought other serious questions. Why did he intently bring them farther away from shore, away from their security, away from their real lives? Zoe knew he wasn’t acting or talking like himself—usually he was a fairly prudent man, indeed more akin to Ben Franklin than Don Quixote. And she trusted his decisions, for after all, he labored as the Plant Manager of a 300-odd employee manufacturing facility and people seldom suggested he lacked good judgment.

Warren still pulled her along, still dredged sand with her, There’s no sound at all—it’s like we’re deaf to reality. What happened to all the noises that are supposed to be at the beach? This place should be a zoo of sounds. He seemed compelled to explain it all to her. We’re supposed to be up to our necks in the Atlantic by now. Where did it go? Is this some type of divine sleight of hand?

War! Zoe dug her heals into the spongy sand and locked her knees, but he easily dragged her like a child forced to the first day of school. She stumbled a few steps before catching her stride. He appeared obsessed by the idea of discovering something he thought reasonable, something he could use as an explanation, some male addiction to order. For herself, Zoe certainly felt little need to discover the cause of this mystery by endangering themselves, and she simply failed to understand him tonight, watching him from her own female obsession for security. Why was he doing this to both of them, why didn’t she have a say in this matter, about putting her own life in jeopardy?

This is ridiculous, he said, I can’t bear the absurdity of this.

She felt there might be some hope here, "It’s beyond ridiculous—you’ve become ridiculous. You’ve got to stop pulling us out! I can’t bear your absurdity." She again tried planting her heels, and this time she brought him to a stop, jerking him back as abruptly as a shirttail caught in a doorjamb. She started to tell him it was time to return to shore, but he displayed such an odd, studious, almost reverent look on his face, she didn’t tell him anything at all. Then he walked on by himself.

His abandonment of her finally inserted some surrealism into Zoe’s concept of Nature and how the world ordered itself. She now realized they extended themselves far out into the water, only there was no water, and her husband walked even farther out, even farther away from her. She could now barely make him out in the moonlight, like some ghost, some specter, dancing off into the darkness. Again she called his name, but he didn’t stop, he just stubbornly trudged ahead, no longer a ghost but now some taxi she uselessly hailed, while here she waited, alone. She wanted her children, her two little girls, or at the least she wanted to go back to their hotel and call Philadelphia, to her mother’s, so she could check on her babies.

But here she stood alone and vulnerable like some solitary sapling standing in the middle of a vast plain. She knew more than anything she didn’t want to be standing abandoned, with her husband going away from her. No, she didn’t like this turn of events at all. She sprinted to his side, then yanked his right arm, and made him stop. She discovered his mind still struggled with the current physical improbability. As soon as she arrived he explained, "It’s ridiculous. Nature simply doesn’t act this way; if it did it wouldn’t be Nature—it would be unnatural. He took both her shoulders, speaking almost kindly, the transference of priestly duties, We must find out why the ocean is missing. We must discover where it’s gone."

She shook him off—him and his crazy ideas. Maybe his kindness in the face of danger, a danger he busily created for them, infuriated her, or maybe his goonish insistence they continue moving farther out into the ocean pissed her off. Or perhaps she simply needed a release for herself, but at any rate Zoe exploded, "Damn it all to hell, Warren, and listen to me! You’ve got to stop pulling me along like I’m some kind of poodle, for chrisakes. We’re in real trouble here, and it’s because you’ve got this stupid idea that it’s up to us to find out what’s going on. Did you understand that part about real trouble? Are you hearing any of this? What must I do to get your attention?" Her chest heaved from anger, and she pierced his eyes with her own while she searched for some sign of impact.

Warren looked like he couldn’t figure out why she blew up; it appeared he felt very comfortable with their roles in this mystery, as though he rolled down the funnel of destiny. There has to be water, Zo.

She hoped to hear something beyond further recitation of the bizarre facts now facing them, and yearned to hear him suggest they get back on the shore as fast as possible. "There is no water," she insisted.

Warren appeared more rigid than normal, holding his body taut, his bearing military or evangelical, Zoe, there must be water here. How can there not be?

Do you see any goddamn water? There is no water, no water anywhere, for crying out loud! She clenched the front of his shirt with both her tiny hands, clutching the bare ends of his psyche, "Can’t you imagine what we must look like—two maniacs, in the middle of a damp desert, arguing about the disappearance of the Atlantic goddamn Ocean. I know it doesn’t simply get up and leave periodically. I know there should be some water around here. But there isn’t! I’ve accepted that. Now let’s get the hell out of here! Leave! Let’s leave! Let’s simply go back to the hotel and forget about this whole mess."

She wanted to make him see the truth of her words more than she ever wanted any prior act of communication, and she strained her stomach muscles for emphasis, just like a little girl who thought such pushing might help capture her desires. But oddly this constriction of her muscles took on a life of its own, not exactly sinister, but certainly involuntary, this desire of her muscles, this yearning of her nerves, down there inside her. The desire began to spread from her stomach, coming up to her breasts while also crawling down to her uterus, this yearning to communicate with . . . with whom? Strangely it seemed she no longer wanted Warren to accompany her in the succinct communion she imagined.

III

a little sex thing with caprice

Then they switched.

Warren saw her nostrils flare daintily, and he wondered if he placed his wife in great danger, or did she hate him for maneuvering them into this vacant ocean? Did she view this as some type of marital trick? He spotted something in her left eye, right there at the edge of her retina, where it meets the dreamy white. He noticed a vulnerability, or an art, seeing a clear distinction between choice and fate, and he knew instead of hating him, she hated it when life inevitably controlled her. He looked in her other eye, which confirmed all his suspicions about art and its depiction of choices.

He spotted this look once before, there on the edges, the time their baby, Annie, choked on a piece of fatty bacon, and their souls—his and Zoe’s—twisted forever as the baby tried to dislodge it but only gagged and gulped instead, making the most terrible of retching sounds while her face darkened perilously.

He remembered it later, there in Zoe’s eyes, a kiss on the cheek of terror, a little sex thing with caprice, the deadly caprice. But until now, he never made up his mind if he noticed it before or after the baby escaped danger, before or after Zoe dug the bacon out of Annie’s mouth.

Now he felt ready to retreat, I guess it’s time to admit I’m being impulsive. We better go back to the hotel. He unraveled her fingers from their grip on his shirt, then smiled at her as he brushed the back of his hand across her cheek, her smooth skin always raising various kinds of hope. Everything’s going to be okay—you’re right about going back to the hotel, and I’m ready to concede you’ve always been infallible on matters concerning the disappearance of huge amounts of water. I don’t know why I thought it was such a great idea for us to be out here – it’s like the attraction of a black hole, I guess. He took one last look into the void, then even took a step toward the shore, before he noticed the crimson light, shining out there in the black. It brought him to a stop, like an awesome idea will sometimes freeze the legs. How could a red light pop up far into a missing ocean?

Zoe also noticed the crimson light, and stared at it for a minute. Her voice started to produce words, but he doubted she directed them consciously. It’s out there burning, glowing, almost whispering to me. It could never harm me, could never bring pain to me. She changed into her normal voice, although it unsettled him to hear her talk to herself. Yet I’m not sure if I should trust this sense, even though I usually do trust these womanly feelings, particularly those times when logic will never do me any good, like most of my relations with men. I just can’t quite determine if this light will bring any good.

She didn’t make much sense to Warren, and she looked at him like another woman might look—perhaps an even more alluring one—when she asked, Were you going to change your mind about returning to the hotel? She waited for him to answer while she examined the light, then when she waited too long, she said, It’s red and throbbing, cool not piercing, about the size of a baseball or an apple.

Warren also inspected the light, and wondered if it might be a buoy, way out there on the water, warning ships of some danger or treachery, warning them the shore is near, alerting them to the ocean’s end. But then he realized it couldn’t be a buoy since this light was completely steady where a buoy’s light would seldom be stationary. And it appeared to be at ground level. Besides, a buoy warned you away, while this light beckoned. He knew it was quite inane to think a light beckoned, yet it was true—this light didn’t shine in stoplight-red, but rather with a neighborhood tavern scarlet.

He stepped toward the light, traveling a few cautionary steps, like those when heading toward the morning’s shower—resolute about the destination, only unclear about leaving bed. Now he felt very clear about the correctness of these steps, each stride felt good, as though he owned a sense of purpose. He knew he did the right thing by the way he felt: similar to the first major league game, his first time at Veterans Stadium, when he spotted the infield. He walked into the bleachers while down there lived that distinct green, that particular glare of green grass under floodlights, and he saw this was truly the big leagues. This potent correctness of steps also occurred on his wedding day, as he walked into the church where his childhood love, Zoe, remained stashed away in some alcove so he wouldn’t see her until she took her own correct steps up the aisle.

The nearer he came to it, the more the light assured him the risk was truly the correct risk, hardly a risk at all, although Warren didn’t know why. He only sensed it, like when he sensed Annie would not be harmed, fully fifteen seconds before she actually coughed up the bacon.

But Zoe’s next announcement snapped him out of his reverie. She said, I’m going to run up and check out that red light. I know now it’s the answer. I think you ought to stay here and wait for me. I won’t be gone very long . . . just an infinity or two.

Warren watched her jog toward the light, a relief player bringing in the new play, and he abruptly knew he didn’t like this red beacon. He bolted and quickly reached her to wrap his arms around her neck, slowing her down.

Now it was Zoe who seemed anxiety-free, coming to a decision about the light, War, War, War, there’s nothing to worry about, honey, come on now. Gently she broke his grip, Seriously, I know for certain there’s nothing to worry about here, but it’s kind of cute the way you’re concerned. I just want to go out and take a look at that light, or get as close as possible.

He never thought much about the immediacy of time, but now Warren felt nearly out of his allotment. Logically, he should be able to talk Zo out of her present compulsion, but time steeled itself, urgency squeezing the seconds into bullets.

While he debated this, she again headed for the crimson light, appearing determined