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An Offering [MultiFormat]
eBook by J. E. Deegan
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eBook Category: Dark Fantasy
eBook Description: A five-dollar bill changes hands in surprising and sudden turns. Characters good and shady cross paths in Limboland, a bizarre and seedy section of a large unnamed city. Limboland stories by J.E. Deegan have appeared elsewhere, including in Deep Outside SFFH.
eBook Publisher: Clocktower Books and Far Sector SFFH (magazine), Published: Short Story Writers Showcase, 2000
Fictionwise Release Date: May 2003
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [69 KB], eReader (PDB) [25 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [10 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [10 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [86 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [82 KB], hiebook (KML) [68 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [66 KB], iSilo (PDB) [9 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [11 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [51 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [18 KB]
Words: 3140
Reading time: 8-12 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
Wanda Moroski felt her spirits rise upon finding a crisp, brand-new five-dollar bill in the cash register. She removed it carefully, heartened to know she could place a bright, unsullied offering in the basket at St. Timothy's this All Saints Day. Heaven knew such occurrences were rare, given the slapdash clientele she and her husband Sal catered to in their liquor store.
Wanda's spirits were in dire need of a boost this morning. Sal, as usual, was too hung over to attend mass, and she was running late for the eleven o'clock service. She neatly folded the immaculate bill in half and placed it in her purse while poking her head through the drapes covering the doorway that led to the flat upstairs. She sighed at the thought of Sal, curled in a ball on the couch and still wearing yesterday's clothes. "Sal? I'm going now." His reply was a gagging snore. Outside, the wind hit Wanda hard, and she felt her face tighten like a closing fist. From habit she looked north as she left the store, past the sun-faded, peeling marquees of neighboring shops that were hiding behind their protective sliding steel cages. From habit she looked toward Limboland. SAL'S LIQUORS sat on White Rock Road, halfway between Hatcher Avenue and Terminal Lane. North another block and a half on White Rock was Limboland, five-square blocks that contained every imaginable type of sin and perversion. It was a place of whores and pimps and addicts and drunks; of grubby bars, porn shops and sleazy strip joints. Limboland...a brick and steel island of contagion and wickedness precariously quarantined from decency by four narrow borders of asphalt that anyone who dared could cross. And like a malignant tumor, Limboland was slowly spreading outward, year by year extending its poisoned tentacles deeper into surrounding neighborhoods. Wanda shook her head, pulled her collar up over her ears, then hurried off toward St. Timothy's. She prayed that father Malone wasn't standing watch at the door this morning. * * * *Although eleven a.m., it was dark as dusk and bitterly cold. A dull gray blanket of clouds blotted the winter sun above St. Timothy's and stretched horizon to horizon like a shroud. A scattering of people, their heads pulled into woolen scarves and their hands knotted in the sleeves of bulky overcoats, threaded stiffly through puffs of white breath up the long row of steps leading to the church. Father Neil Malone waited at the great opened doors, methodically shuffling his feet and smacking his arms against his chest. He urged his flock on like a drill instructor. "No need for mass today, Father," said Paddy Harris as he painfully pulled his arthritic legs up the steps. "It's too cold for the devil to be to work." Father Malone smiled briefly and felt the chill hit his teeth. "Is that a fact now, Paddy? Well, it'll be hot enough in Hell if you're late for mass. Now get along with ya'." He lent a hand to Paddy Harris then skipped down the steps to an old woman bundled in a long threadbare coat. The collar was pulled so high that only her eyes showed. "Good morning to ya', Mary." "No, it isn't, Father. It's a perfectly dreadful morning, and I'm offering this mass for the Eskimos. God knows I feel like one." The priest laughed and took the woman's arm. "Come along, Mary. The Lord's good word will soon case the chill." He helped Mary up the steps then whispered in her ear. "Get close to the altar, Dear. It's warmer there." Father Malone turned back at the door to find the steps vacant. He sighed and was about to dart inside when his eye caught a face peering around one of the great gray blocks of granite that stood like sentinels at the sidewalk. It abruptly disappeared, but Malone had seen that worn, haggard face often of late in front of St. Timothy's. It belonged to a local vagrant who hustled coins from the parishioners as they entered the church. A few weeks earlier, Malone had startled the man when he rounded one of the great granite pillars. Malone, too, had been startled, by the look of total resignation that greeted him. The man's face was rough and overgrown with a gray stubble of crusted, blotched beard. His hair was thick and tangled with grease and dirt, and his clothes looked salvaged from a sewer. But it was his eyes that rooted Malone to the sidewalk and froze his tongue in his mouth. They seemed adrift in some timeless void where neither hope nor hopelessness held consequence. Like poorly stained glass, they simply stared vacantly outward from a lifeless inner world. They were the eyes of a dead man looking for a grave. A man from Limboland. The man turned that day and walked quickly away.
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