A Dark So Deadly. Stuart MacBride

      Father squeezes his shoulder. ‘Come on, champ, let’s go get that ice cream.’

      But not this time.

       Now

      He stares up at the God-In-Waiting. It’s not as beautiful as the wooden man on the cross, not yet, but it will be. It’ll be better. So much better than a dead thing carved from a dead tree, hanging in a dead building.

      It’ll be a god …

      He unhooks the rope from its cleat on the wall and takes the strain. Lowers the body, hand over hand, until it rests on the freshly cleared floor. Picks it up off the hot stone slabs – it isn’t hard, the cleansed remains weigh almost nothing. The weight of sin is gone, purged, purified.

      The God-In-Waiting is pale and soft, but that will change.

      Everything will.