His Duty

“What the hell is that,” says Shane as he awakens from a very comfortable sleep. He immediately glances over at his bedside table to see an alarm clock that reads 3:00 A.M. “ Sounds like someone building something, who the hell would be building something this late at night”, Shane says to himself as he walks to his bedroom window. As Shane looked out the window he glances over the serene neighborhood with elm trees that align the sides of the street. A light from the garage of his next-door neighbor John Morris draws his attention. John Morris is carpenter by trade but his passion is preaching. John was the pastor of the near by church that most of the people of the neighborhood attended. Everyone loved John because he was always helping people around the neighborhood and had helped with Habitat for Humanity several times. Shane and John got to know each other very well helping out with the community and through the church they both attended. “What could he be doing this late at night ”, Shane thinks to himself as he walks back over to his twin bed? Shane had noticed that John had been acting weird ever since he and his wife split up. John was a middle-aged man of forty-five and the problem was that he married a woman 20 years younger than him. Shane knew Carol well because he and her went to high school together. John had been married to Carol just for a year and he treated her like a queen. Shane knew the marriage would never last, he knew Carol would end up cheating eventually. Carol was a tall brunette with a nice body. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, but she had sex appeal. Shane felt bad for John because John was the only one not to see it coming and he really loved Carol. Shane had heard that Carol was screwing around with a local lawyer. John had not been the same since the divorce. “I feel bad for John but I wish he would stop that fucking hammering so I could get some sleep”, Shane says to himself. Within the next few minutes the hammering stops and Shane walks to his window to see that the light in John’s garage had been turned off. “Thank goodness, now I can finally go back to sleep” Shane mutters to himself as he gets under the covers.
Shane tossed and turned most of the night and was never able to get good rest after being awakened by whatever John was doing. He crawled out of bed around 9:30 A.M. and started his morning routine. Shane put some shorts oh and a t-shirt and walked outside to get the newspaper. As he was walking down the drive way he glanced at the Morris residence and saw John sitting with a blank expression on his front porch. John was drinking what looked like whiskey. “John never drinks”, Shane thinks to himself. Shane decides to walk over and ask John what he was doing the night before. “How’s it going John”, Shane asks in a friendly tone. “Not to good “, replies John in silent emotionless voice. “Well I’m sorry to hear that, I know how tough things have been for you since Carol left”, answers Shane. John doesn’t respond just lifts up his drink and takes a rather large gulp. Shane knew it was liquor now, he could smell it every time John exhaled. “ I didn’t know you drink”, says Shane. “ I don’t” in that still emotionless sort of way. Shane was beginning to feel uncomfortable but he still was curious to what John was doing the night before. Shane asks,“ Say, what was all that noise that was going on in your garage last night, it sounded like you were building something”. John looked up at Shane with a slightly sinister grin. Shane had never seen this type of look on John before, his eyes looked like the cold eyes of a reptile. This was not the warm friendly John Morris that he knew. “Oh that’s a project of mine that I have been planning for the last month and I finally got the nerve to do it”, John laughingly says. “It didn’t take me too long and it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be” says John in a casual manner. Shane replies, “ Well it’s good that you accomplished a goal, it’s just that it was kind of late you know”. “Can I see what you worked on”, asks Shane. “I don’t know if you will understand it or not but, oh well, what the hell”, say’s John in drunkenly yet sinister manner. “It’s in my garage, follow me,” says John. “What exactly is it”, asks Shane. “You’ll see, it’s got a bit of religious symbolism to it, I think you might appreciate it,” replies John with a grin on his face. “ Lets just say I was doing the lord’s duty”, John adds. John leads Shane to the front of his garage and opens the door and asks Shane to go on in. To Shane’s horror, he immediately sees Johns ex wife Carol nailed to a ten foot cross. Shane noticed a line across her neck were John had slit her throat. Shane turns and looks at John and screams, “why the fuck did you do this, what the hell is wrong with you? John glances at the crucifixion and smiles and then glances back Shane with that same sinister grin and replies,” It was my duty.”