The Omen

by David Seltzer

There was Sister Teresa, Father Spilletto, and Father Tassone. Only they knew. It was for their consciences alone. In darkness of that long-distant night they had worked in feverish silence, in the tension and honor of having been chosen. In all of earth's history it had been attempted just twice before, and they knew that, this time, it must not fail. It was all in their hands, just the three of them, and it had moved like clockwork, and no one had known. After the birth, it was Sister Teresa who prepared the impostor, depilating his arms and forehead, powdering him dry so he would look presentable when Thorn was bought up to view. The hair on his head was thick, as they had hoped, and she used a hairdryer to fluff it, first checking the scalp to make sure the birthmark was there. Thorn would never see Sister Teresa, nor would he see the diminutive Father Tassone who was at work in the basement crating two bodies to be immediately shipped away. The first body was that of Thorn's child, silenced before it uttered its first cry; the second was that of the animal, the surrogate mother of the one who survived. Outside, a truck was waiting to carry the bodies to Cerveteri, wherein the silence of Cimitero di Sant' Angelo, gravediggers waited beneath the shrine.