Garrett Cook here. I trust John Baltisberger with a lot of my boldest work. As a publisher, he has let me get away with depressing, gory, hardcore pornography and an RPG made to mock the gamemaster’s mom until they quit. Madness Heart has done a lot to reinvigorate the scene to the point where maybe I wouldn’t be running this page without him. John is a bold, anti-establishment artist who has survived unthinkable challenges. I’m proud to introduce you to this piece.
Nazarene by John Baltisberger (From All I Want Is to Take Shrooms and Listen to the Color of Nazi Screams)
Rapid City, SD – Mount Rushmore – Nikolas P. Robinson
Outside the pit that once contained a city, the tribe of faithful gathered. Children clad in rags and filth pilfered from burnt-out department stores played at the feet of the prophet. The sound slowly died off as the sun sank, turning the sky the color of red that one only sees pumping from a freshly severed limb. As if on cue, the prophet’s voice rose above the din, amplified through a PA system that had been dismantled and reassembled from a nearby school. As was the custom, as was the law, the prophet recounted the coming of the Nazarene. His voice shook from age and stuttered with the power of his memories.
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The pit was once a city… As it always began.
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Rapid City, home to over seventy thousand souls, with more coming each day to pay tribute to the stone idols that watched over them. Gods of Hubris, violence, slavery, and false justice. There was even talk of adding blasphemy, a new god of greed and deceit carved into effigy for the masses. Luckily, the Nazarene intervened. The sinkhole that swallowed a full quarter of the city was filled with screams as much as debris. And the dust cloud that rose from the demolished buildings and lives obscured the sun, and the titanic figure that rose from the newly formed sacred pit. Only the massive shadow moving in the dust could be glimpsed. Standing tall, standing regal, standing hidden.
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And though he was so far away, thirty stories up on the shoulder of the sacred baboon, we could see the Nazarene. He shown brighter than the pearly glint of fang revealed as blue lips curled back from teeth in disdain. The Nazarene wore his crown of hateful thorns, and bled from his extremities. Later, at his feet, we would learn that the thick red substance was the color of bruises and smelled of rotting grapes. But then he looked perfect, a bloody shining star riding God’s own judgment.
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“The only way to the Father is through death.” His voice carried like the prophet’s but without any need of artifice. And even if his words had not been clear, the intent was. The simian juggernaut moved with hellish ease, plucking people from the streets and tossing them with little care towards the blasphemous mountain. For days and nights they moved through fire, smoke, and screams. Each hour, hundreds more added in careless flung ragdoll repose against the stone flesh of mute gods.
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The mortal armies and soldiers and weapons could not dent a single hair on the lord and savior’s mount, and indeed they too were added to the carrion carpet, a gargantuan structure of dead heathens with no stone shown the light of our lord. Now, only the tribe of the faithful remains as Jesus rides the Behemoth out to find more, a constant cascade of corpses adding putrescent covering to the faces of those once worshiped. One by one, true believers join us, replenishing the stock of snacks for our king of kings.
John Baltisberger is a multi-award-winning author and game designer of speculative and genre fiction and gonzo games. Known for his brutal splatterpunk, occult musings, and innovative prose, John has written sci-fi, fantasy, horror, poetry, nonfiction, and romance. When not writing fiction, John edits, writes, and designs games like the Wandie-winning Odd Gobs and the Ennie-winning Obscure. He is well known for his work in the Mork Borg space for having written several novelizations of the game and for creating third-party content such as Morkkabeans and Apostles of Affliction.
Beyond his writing career, John is the Publishing Editor of Madness Heart Press, including its imprints: Aggadah Try It and Gutter Mystic Books, which focus on transgressive fiction, Jewish genre fiction, and gonzo nonfiction, respectively. He is also the Creative Director of Madness Heart Games, which focuses on creating interesting TTRPGS and pioneering the BADASS system.
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