Sanctuary

by Rod Drake

I wish that damned Golem would stop bothering me, banging on the church door at all hours when it knows it can’t come in, and I’m certainly not going out. You shakedown a little Jewish girl for her lunch money, and next thing you know, a gigantic clay monster is stalking you like a pregnant ex-girlfriend. Luckily, I made it to this Catholic Church on West 58th Street, and it being Christian, holy, sacrosanct and all that religious stuff, the Golem is powerless to enter. Still, that doesn’t prevent Golemzilla from lurking outside, threatening me with his bulk, and I can only assume its single-minded mission: crush me to a bloody pulp (for a lousy two bucks and forty-seven cents). The priests and parishioners aren’t exactly happy with me hiding here, as they have figured out that’s why the Golem is hovering outside like a double-parked angel of death with a killer headache and the last name on his list is nowhere to be found, and he only has 8 minutes left on his shift. Father Merrin has been talking to the Golem, trying to convert it I think (the old Catholic try) and during one of his sessions out on the church steps, I decide to try and make a break for it; I slip out the back door, run down the street like my life depended on it, I’m nearly at the subway entrance (what is that enormous shadow looming over me?), just a couple more feet now, and I will be safe from that clay monst—

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Rod Drake, author of Blue Moon, denies that any of his stories are based on real experience, although if they were, that would really be cool. Check out his longer stories in Flashes of Speculation, Fictional Musings, Flash Flooding, Flash Forward and MicroHorror.