Root of All Evil

"Keep looking Pastor, what is under that butt?"

"It kind of looks like a split pumpkin, kind of like a pair of knees raised up next to the butt part."

Leah pointed into the shadowed part of the two bulbous parts of the large gourd, "Do you see that protuberance in between the two halves? Does that not look like an erect cock? Yes, that's exactly what it is, it's Jake's cock stuck into that cleft which is Rachel's pussy. I buried Jake and Rachel like they died, fucking the daylights out of each other. And now they have come out of their grave, they have haunted my garden as a pair of fucking pumpkins. The exact image of what the last thing they were doing in life. Now they are a beacon to me and the world that they are coming for me from the dark realm. Once the veil parts on All Hallows Eve, I'm doomed unless a holy person can save me." Leah had made her case, her closing argument was, "Pastor Dinah, pictures don't lie. You must believe me."

I had to admit, it was a remarkable semblance of a man and woman copulating, all grown naturally in a fantastic shape and an even more fantastic story to go with it. "Leah, I can pray with you tonight. I will give you a cross to carry. We Presbyterians don't go much for supernatural talismans, but I can give you a vial of water from our baptismal font, it's water that has been blessed."

Leah looked dejected. "I'll take your prayers and whatever else that might save me. But if I don't get holy protection by tomorrow night, I'll be snatched into the dark realm to spend eternity in the shadows. The devil is coming to collect my soul."

We prayed, I laid hands on her and sang a hymn before giving her a small cross and a vial of baptismal water. Leah pleaded with me, "Pastor Dinah, please come to my house. Please save me. You're my only hope at this hour."

I paid a visit to Leah at her house mid-morning of All Hallows Eve. Leah was relieved to see me, but she was agitated and nervous. She was completely against any suggestion that she needed mental health counseling, "Pastor Dinah I'm not crazy, I'm cursed." We prayed again and I gave her a blessing and an assurance of God's grace and protection, though I could not take her account seriously of burying her husband and sister in her garden after they were struck down by the death shriek of a homunculus.

***

I had a service scheduled for the following evening to remember those of the congregation who had passed away that year, it was a tradition at my church. I needed to put some final touches on that service, it was my intention to call Leah to check in on her and to share her relief that she had not been taken through the veil to the realm of shadows by vengeful ghosts. It was late when I remembered to give her a call. The sun was setting on All Hallows Eve, I was sure that Leah was still anxious about her demons, real enough for her and her imagination. She did not answer. I was sorry that I missed her. I'd check in on her tomorrow.

The trick-or-treaters were gone back to their bat caves and princess fairylands with their haul of candy. Leah's porch was covered with jack-o-lanterns carved with creepy faces. She didn't come to the door. I left my card with a note 'call me'.

I heard nothing from Leah for a couple of days. I was mildly concerned, but assumed she had weathered her haunting of Samhain, or our Halloween and was at peace for another year; or so I hoped. The next day my secretary let me know that a police officer wanted to speak with me.

I asked the officer in and shut the door. The officer asked if I knew the person at the address of Leah's?

I asked, with a note of apprehension, "Yes, why do you ask?"

She said, "We found your card in the door. We were asked to do a welfare check on the couple that lives there. The man has not been seen for maybe a couple of weeks and friends of the wife have not seen her for several days, which they report as unusual."

I told the officer, "Leah, the wife, had visited me unannounced a few evenings ago. I can't go into detail on what she discussed with me, you understand?"

The officer nodded, "Pastor, we're just trying to track them both down; usually nothing to worry about, but your card in the door is a lead we have to follow up on, you understand?"

I nodded. I dismissed the irrational fear that swelled within me, a fear that Leah had been taken by vengeful ghosts. "What's next in your welfare check?" I asked, trying to move past my silly thoughts of passing through the veil into the realm of shadows.

"We'll get a warrant, get into the house. Look to see if anything is amiss. We'll go from there based on the facts."

I inquired, "Would a member of the clergy be allowed to go inside the house with you?" Afraid that leah may have taken her life as she had considered at the beginning of our meeting.

"Usually not. The remote possibility that we could be entering a crime scene precludes civilians coming inside. If you'd like to wait out in the street, that is acceptable policy."

I thanked the officer, telling her, I'd like to be near the house when they did their welfare check inside. It was arranged with her captain for me to come along in the patrol car once the warrant was obtained.

I waited as the lock was picked and the officers made a search of the house. The officer came out after a while, "Pastor, we have a mystery on our hands. I'd like to bring you down to the station and have you answer a few questions about what you know about the folks who live here. Is that alright?"

This was not good news. I agreed, calling my secretary to let her know I was out for the day. I waited in the hall while the detective was briefed on the findings inside Leah's house. The detective called me in and went through the formalities of questioning a witness with me.

I was handed a sealed envelope, it was addressed: "To Pastor Dinah." The detective stated that this was found in the kitchen, are you Pastor Dinah?"

I said that I was. He asked me to open the envelope in his presence. I did, it had a brief note, "Pastor, If I am missing, it is because I have nurtured the root of all evil. Destroy my plants and these seeds with fire."

The detective read the note and examined the shriveled orange berries from a mandrake plant. "Pastor can you tell me what this might mean?"

If this was a crime or a missing person in serious danger to themselves, I was not under any obligation to conceal what I knew from the authorities. In fact quite the opposite. I told him a condensed story, as fantastic as it was, emphasizing my suspicion of mental illness and my efforts to seek counseling for Leah. I included Leah's claim of burying her husband and her sister in her garden because she believed them to be having an affair. I emphasized that I thought the possibility, as told to me, was preposterous.

The detective asked if I knew anything about Jake leaving his wife? I had skipped over that detail, but answered that Leah had believed that Jake had planned to leave her for Rachel and left Leah a note to that effect before leaving, according to Leah's account.

The detective confirmed that such a note had been found. They'd have to authenticate it, but it looks like a salient part of the story. The detective returned to the ending, with Leah claiming to have buried her husband and her sister in her garden.

I said that I found that part unfathomable, considering the bizarre details of their reported deaths and their supposed return from the afterlife in the shape of co-joined gourds.

"Pastor, I share your thoughts, but I have to establish facts. I'm going to get a warrant and we're going to have to spend some time digging in that garden - unless we can find Jake or Leah or Rachel to tell us what may have happened. Kind of weird."

I had asked and had been given permission to be on the premises when the garden warrant was executed. I stood off at a distance as a small excavating machine dug into the earth where I suggested they begin digging, under the pumpkin patch.

The long and leafy pumpkin vines were hacked away and the excavation began with shovels at first by the crew and then by delicate use of the machine, just in case a body or two were unearthed. The dirt piled up as they got about four or five feet deep. They called in the crew with the hand shovels and asked them to dig around what they'd just uncovered.

They were cautioned to dig carefully, not to damage any evidence. They were not sure what had been discovered underground. The authorities were pretty sure it was not a human body or two or three, but all agreed it was the weirdest plant roots they'd ever seen.

The first root was quite large for a garden root. It had a remarkable resemblance to the human form. It looked like a woman, a set of wide 'hips' just above where the root split into what looked like a pair of shapely legs. The root was laying facedown, for it did have the face of a woman and on the underside the root had grown a couple of extensions that looked to me and all of the men on the crew like a nice pair of tits. The detective said it was a coincidence that we were digging for a body and found a big root that looked almost human, but he doubted it was anything but a weird root.

I suggested that they dig away some more of the hole. The detective agreed and the shovel crew came across another root system. this time it looked like a couple of roots had grown together. The crew dug away the soil, revealing a large root, this time resembling a man, with some of its roots, extending from the thick taproot like arms, arms wrapped around a second root.

The crew began to giggle as they cleared away the soil from the pair of entwined roots. "Hell. Damn if that don't look like a pair fucking in the devil's own dirt. Look! He's even got a big cock stuffed right inside that pussy root."

The detective upbraided the crew, "Boys, watch your mouth. We've got a lady minister on site."

I glanced into the hole, especially curious after the crude, but honest comments from the guy digging. The male-shaped root had its two legs tucked inside the two roots spread out from the female form. Each root had two arms that were wrapped in a loving embrace. If one looked closely, and I did, I saw the erect boner growing inside of a pussy slit between the female root's legs. The crew dug away a more soil, revealing the underneath root had a pair of round lumps like breasts. One of the crew brushed the root to reveal each titty mound had a secondary nub rising from it center, looking like a pair of happy, excited nipples. The crew man squeezed her nipples and got a laugh from the crew. The detective again scolded them and asked them to finish it up and do their porn on their own time.

The shovel guy got serious as he saw something up near the head of the girl root that was on her back. He called the detective over and using a brush, the detective pulled a pair of dark rimmed glasses that were sitting on the root's face-like features. He had a photograph taken before he dropped the glasses into an evidence bag. I looked at the face that had worn the glasses, it looked familiar in a crazy sort of way. I also saw a wide feature in that part of the root that looked to me like a very happy, almost erotic smile.

The detective thought they'd found nothing more than roots to a garden plant. Albeit, the weirdest roots anyone has ever seen, so life-like, so fucking erotic in form. But they weren't bodies. But to be sure, he'd have the lab check them out.

As expected, they were organic plant material. No murder scene in the garden. Or so the police report read. The disappearance of Jake, Leah and Rachel remains an open case - at least in this world.

At my request, I was given the roots after the lab was done. Without telling the ruling elders, I dug two holes in the garden bordering the church's graveyard. Rachel found a peaceful interment under a bed of forget-me-nots. I laid Leah and Jake as one flesh for eternity into holy ground at the other end of the garden. I watered them all with water from the baptismal font. I prayed for all of them. I blessed Leah and I blessed Jake and I blessed their union in the name of our Forgiving Father, the Lord Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit and with firm belief in the forgiveness of sins and the promise of the resurrection.

From ghoulies and ghosties,

Long-leggety beasties,

and Things that go bump in the night,

Good Lord, Deliver us!

--An Olde English Prayer

Amen.