Collected Kill: Volume 1 Read Free Page B

and see him talking to a half-foot chocolate fudge chunk that resembled the Lord.  “Go away…leave me alone!”
    “Your soul must go on, Alex.  You mustn’t skip church and indulge yourself with pleasure over obedience,” Jesus said.  “The key to unlocking heaven’s gate is discipline and sacrifice.”
    “I don’t want to talk to you.”
    “Your father wants you to go to church and live a life that’s righteous.”
    Alex perked up, feeling saddened, but yet aware of the newfound possibility.  “I want to talk to him.  I miss him!”
    The chocolate Jesus smiled and held out his tiny hands, palms up.  The chocolate slowly melted and bubbled, shifting and coalescing into a broad-shouldered man with a mustache and glasses.
    “Dad!”
    His father lifted his chocolate hand and waved.  “Hi son!”  
    Alex pouted.  “You’re not really my dad.”
    The chocolate figure crossed his arms and said, “It’s me, Alexander.  I’m in heaven now.”
    Alex felt a wave of disappointment, considering his father was once warm flesh that could be hugged or able to play catch with in the back yard.  Now, after his death, he was reduced to appearing as a chocolate chunk, only because Jesus had allowed him to.  What kind of a deal was that?
    The figure responded to Alex’s disinterest by morphing back into the Jesus figure.  “I know you’re mad and don’t understand.  You’re young and you have to learn that all things happen for a reason, but in the end, you’ll be rewarded in the kingdom of heaven.”
    Alex felt his lip quiver.  He thought about the last day he had seen his father and how much his life had changed since he had died.  He thought about his mom and how she had changed too.  She never cooked meals and hardly spent time with Alex.  It was as if Alex only reminded her of his father, and she couldn’t stand the pain of being alone, to where she had picked up Nick to fill the space.  And Nick, in turn, lived off his mother and when the walls were quiet in their room, he’d secretly sneak over to Alex’s and talk to him softly while slipping his hands under the sheets, touching Alex in a way that no one else ever had.  And Alex felt bad, like he had lost his place in the world.  At age ten, he felt as if he didn’t belong.  He trusted no one, not even the tiny figure which stared back with pleading, gentle eyes.
    “Please listen—”
    “No!” Alex shouted, leaping from the park bench.  “You listen, for a change.  Every night I talk to you and you don’t  listen.  You don’t protect me from Nick.  But you allowed my father to die and leave me here alone.”
    “But nothing matters down here…”
    “Bullshit!” Alex knelt closer to the tiny chocolate deity.  “Everything matters.  The world is bad and everyone down here is losing hope.  No one can see heaven from down here anymore.”
    “But it’s the people who have tainted this world,”  Chocolate Jesus explained.
    “But it was God who created this world in the beginning.  And when He did, He created the bad as well.  He created things that made Dad leave me and He made things like Nick.”
    “But I’ve finally come to help you, Alex.”
    Alex felt rage.  He felt how his swollen rectum still burned from Nick’s last visit.  He felt loneliness and distrust.  “Well, you’ve come too late.”  
    Alex picked up the chocolate Jesus and shoved him into his mouth.
    He clamped his jaws shut over a tiny scream and chewed with delight.  He felt movement in his mouth slowly dwindle to an oozing layer he licked off his teeth and gums.  The chocolate tasted so…divine.

    *   *   *   *   *   *

    Alex returned home to find Nick snoring on the couch and a note from his mother that read: Alex—went to the grocery.  Fix Nick something to eat when you get home.
    Alex felt his stomach cramp from eating the whole chocolate chunk on an empty stomach.  He ran to the bathroom, pulled down his pants, and released