Judgement Day (El Loco - Part 3) - (Five minutes freewrite)

'Well done, people, well done! You almost fooled me with your smiles and your friendliness. You seemed so real and lively when I first came here, but I know what you are. I've seen your kind before. You're all DEAD, do you hear me? DEAD!'
Don Tomasso's booming voice could be heard even from the churchyard where an old beggar was waiting, cap in hand, for the Sunday Mass to be over.
Those gathered inside the church were just staring at the priest – that was the moment they've been waiting all of these months. Let the fool speak...
'Don't look at me like that, Dona Juana, you're so dead inside no amount of perfumed herbs you keep in your drawers can hide the rotten stench. I don't even know why you come to church every day. You're not going to Heaven, even if you live to pray for a million years. And you, senor Roberto, don't cover that poor girl's ears. Let her hear the truth and wake up before she, too, becomes just another dead soul going about as if she were still alive.'
A growing wave of whispers agitated the crowd, but no one seemed actually shocked.
'See what I mean? You're so dead you don't even react when I damn you all to Hell. You have no life in you, no feelings, no passion. Have you ever felt love? Real love?'
The crowd started to laugh, each howl a slap in his face, like when he was a kid and they all mocked him. That was not the reaction he had expected from them.

At first he thought it was a trick of the light, the flicker of a candle perhaps, as the faces in front of him suddenly became brighter and translucent, faintly revealing the bones behind sagging cheeks and wrinkled brows. But it was not some weird trick and Don Tomasso watched in horror as the skin on their faces slowly melted away until nothing remained except for rows and rows of hollow skulls, strands of loose hair still clinging to bare bone, black kerchiefs slipping from the heads as if Death himself had finally decided to reveal his monstrous face. The howls of laughter died down in their gaping lipless mouths giving away to an obscene string of guttural rattling noises. Some pointed bony fingers with yellowish impossibly-long nails at him while grabbing with the other skeletal hand at now non-existent bellies in a fit of demented mirth.
It was more than Don Tomasso could bear, but as he raised his hands to cover his eyes his skin was gone too. He stared in horror at the trembling white bones, then started to shake them in a vain attempt to make them disappear. He tried to avoid acknowledging what that meant, but the ruthless crowds' suggestive gestures made it all too obvious.
'You are one of us. You've always been one of us'.
Invisible burning tears ran down the hollows of his vanished cheeks as Don Tomasso realized the exact moment he himself had died. Ten years ago, his soul had been crushed the day when he'd pressed a few crumpled bills into Lucia's hands, telling her to get rid of the baby, as he could not afford a scandal, so close to graduation. He'd promised he'll love her forever, but that was a lie, he realized that now. All his fantasies of finding her again had been a lie. He was dead on the inside and he stank just as bad as the others.
That's why he'd been sent here, he belonged with them.

Don Tomasso spent his last night in Santa Clara hidden in a back room where old church records were kept. By sunrise he'd reached his decision. He had to find Lucia. It was a cold day with low-hanging clouds, and by the time he reached the station it started to rain. He welcomed the first raindrops splashing on the newly grown skin, which now concealed the ugliness he could not face.

Story written for @mariannewest's freewrite challenge. Today's prompt was: herbs! Check out her blog and join our freewrite community.

You can find the beginning of the story of Don Tomasso here:

El Loco - (Part 1)
Dia de los Muertos - (El Loco - Part 2)

Thanks for reading!

Images: 1, 2.