Hell Patrol

by R. D. Tarver

  The principal spoke with the beginnings of a wry grin. “I’ve had the honor of being principal of this school for over fifteen years.” She let the words linger in the air before she continued. “Sounds like a long time when you say it out loud, doesn’t it?”

  Jesse stared straight ahead, trying to ignore the police officers’ piercing gaze.

  “During this time, I’ve worked hard to cultivate a sense of community that extends beyond the walls of this fine institution.” She opened her arms to gesture towards the police officers who stood idly by. “And I think we have achieved that.”

  The officers nodded.

  “I would do almost anything to see that legacy preserved,” Principal Anderson said. “Right now, ours is a community in crisis. But that’s where you come in, Mr. Lynn. I think you can help this community a great deal. Would you help us, Mr. Lynn?”

  As Jesse looked around the room, he suddenly began to feel like a sick gazelle, caught out in the open savannah, surrounded by a pride of hungry lions.

  “I suppose by now you must have heard about the incident at the Macomb Springs Church of Christ lock-in that took place during the evening of October thirty-first?”

  Jesse nodded.

  “What you might not have heard is that Pastor Seth Roberts is planning on pressing charges on the perpetrators of these crimes.” She turned to Officer Jenkins. “Please remind me of those charges again, Marcus?”

  The heavyset officer looked down at Jesse as he pushed back his combover. “Malicious mischief, for starters. We’re also looking at attempted fourth-degree arson, among other things.”

  “These are very serious charges, Mr. Lynn. We will not tolerate this type of behavior here at Macomb Springs High,” Principal Anderson scolded. “If any of our students are found to have any involvement with these heinous acts, they will be expelled immediately.”

  Jesse returned a blank stare.

  “Mr. Lynn, do you know anything about this incident?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “What about the whereabouts of Mr. Russell Krokowski?”

  “Last I heard, he dropped out of school.”

  Principal Anderson opened her desk drawer and pulled out a crumpled flyer. Jesse cringed when he saw the Hell Patrol logo. It was a play off the Priest…Live! album cover, designed for the Prisoners of Flesh gig at the Beggar’s Banquet Hall. Rick’s idea.

  “It has come to my attention that you and Mr. Krokowski are more closely acquainted than you are leading us to believe. In fact, it looks as though you even play together in some sort of satanic rock band. Would that be an accurate assessment of the facts?”

  Jesse felt his skin turn hot. “Look. Nobody really worships the devil. Satan sells. And you’ll be happy to know that the band broke up.” Jesse threw his arms up in the air. “I don’t know where Rust—where Russell is, okay? Can I go now?”

  “I’m happy to hear it.” The principal looked to the two officers and then leaned back in her chair as she continued the interrogation. “Given your recent brush with the law, and the fact that you are now a person of interest in not one, but two missing persons cases, I would be sure to be on your best behavior, Mr. Lynn. We’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

  11

  Jesse found Mr. Agostino in his office, engrossed in a book as he chewed an apple. The guidance counselor looked up from the page and scrambled for his glasses as Jesse burst into the room and slammed shut the door behind him.

  “Mr. Lynn! To what do I owe this pleasant surprise?”

  “I have to show you something, and it’s going to sound crazy, but I have nowhere else to turn.”

  Agostino picked up his glasses from the desk and began to clean them on his sleeve. “Please, call me Vincent.”

  “Vincent.” Jesse slammed down the handful of photographs on his desk. “You said I can come to you with anything, right?”

  “Of course,” Agostino absently replied as he shuffled through the stack of photographs.

  “Well, right now I need someone to tell me what the fuck is going on around here. And I think you know.”

  PART III

  Epilogue

  Vincent and his older brother Henry were sparring in the weapons room when their father entered, carrying a heavy book under one arm and leaning on a cane with the other.

  “Pardon the interruption to your training, but it is time for a reading. Now that you are both of age, I am prepared to reveal a more advanced synthesis from the Compendium—one with more adult themes.”

  “If this is the one I think it is, you’re a little too late,” Henry laughed. He bobbed and weaved in front of his brother. “Vinny reads it to himself every night before he goes to bed, if you catch my drift.”

  Vincent punched Henry in the gut, sending both brothers wrestling to the ground.

  “That’s enough!” Vincent’s father shouted. “I’m trying to teach you to become men, so stop acting like boys.” His cheeks reddened and he became short of breath, taking a seat on a cushioned weight bench.

  The brothers rose to their feet.

  “Soon the fate of our organization will rest on your shoulders. Such a great responsibility cannot be trusted to children. There is too much at stake.”

  “Sorry, dad,” Henry said, removing his sparring helmet. “I was just messing around with Vinny.”

  “Apologies, father,” Vincent said. “Is everything all right?”

  Vincent’s father sat the book on the bench and removed his glasses, squeezing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger.

  “A quickening is on the horizon. It is my belief that all the prognostications and prophecies that we have been researching up to now all herald this event. We must be prepared to contend with what may very well be the greatest threat we have faced in our history.”

  “We’ll be ready. Ready to kick some ass,” Henry said as he threw a one-two combo into the air.

  Vincent nodded.

  “I hope you are right,” Vincent’s father said. His eyes became distant as he appeared to size up the two brothers. “All right then, enough lamentation,” he said as he opened the book in his lap. “More than mere hormone-inducing masturbation fodder, this is a story of accepting the responsibility of one’s true calling, and following it wherever it leads.”

  Vincent blushed as he met his father’s eyes.

  “To do so requires one to shed the skin of adolescence, and to don the mantle of manhood. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” the brothers said in unison.

  “Very well,” said Vincent’s father. “Try to refrain from indulging your baser instincts, and, instead, focus on the ultimate message of the synthesis.”

  ✠ ✠ ✠

  Seth fidgeted in his desk as his younger sister, Laura, read the final verse of scripture. Her slow, faltering speech grated at his ears as she fumbled over the words of the sacred texts.

  “‘I will n-never again p-pass by them. The high p-places of Isaac sh-sh-shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be l-laid waste.’” She swung her feet as she read, creating a pair of identical ovular depressions in the dirt floor beneath the hand-carved school desk from which her legs dangled. “‘And I will r-rise against the house of Jeroboam with the s-sword.’”

  Seth loathed the fact that being the eldest of seven meant he was the last to conduct a divine reading. Having to endure several hours of his younger siblings butchering the scripture was one thing. It was another to do so while confined to the half-century-old hardwood desk that pushed the ill-fitting brace up over his shoulders, causing burning hot embers of pain to smolder between his hips and shoulder blades.

  The brace was provided by one of the visiting missionary doctors who had passed through Temple’s Bend when Seth was a child. One of the last of the “outsiders” allowed entry to the mission, the doctor was a small, shriveled man who wore the same frumpy linen suit day after day. Seth could recall the doctor’s kind eyes, often filled with
pity when they fell upon him.

  Since the Revival, the mission had retreated into itself, shuttering its doors to the outside world. Seth was forced to contend with the aging lattice of steel rods and leather straps that ran the length of his spine— an arcane device he had long outgrown since entering adolescence.

  He could weather the pain; he had lived with it most of his life. Although his body had succumbed prematurely to an earthly affliction, his primary concern was the ultimate destination of his eternal soul.

  The words carry no comfort today. No meaning. Only pain, Seth thought to himself.

  The words are false. Better to rip the crooked tongue from her mouth and end it now than spend another minute trapped in this fucking torture device. The voice whispered to him from the deepest and darkest recesses of his mind—a place he had not known to exist until recently.

  “Well done, Laura.” The words came from his father, a stern-faced man with deep, sorrowful lines etched beneath his eyes and mouth. He stood from his chair at the head of the sweltering classroom with the help of a cane. Droplets of perspiration trickled down his brow, saturating the unruly thickets of his eyebrows. “Your tongue is feeble, but your memory is strong.” He took the Bible from her desk and placed it in front of Seth.

  Seth opened the well-worn tome to his prescribed reading, marked by a purple ribbon. Each of the children were assigned their own colored ribbons based on their age and ascendancy on the path to righteousness. He set aside the frayed piece of cloth and read aloud from the passage. The words revelation to john were writ in bold black letters at the top of the page.

  He continued to read, regurgitating the passage until he came upon the final words marked revelation 22:21.

  Seth cleared his throat and held his father in his gaze as he recited the final words from memory. “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.”

  His father gave a solemn nod. “Thank you, Seth. The Lord has blessed us.” He bowed his head and led a prayer. “Today marks an auspicious end to our eldest son’s journey through the scripture among his kin. Please continue to guide our righteous flock into your kingdom, Amen.” The old man stood and retrieved the heavy, leather-bound book, tucking it under his arm. “Now, run and clean yourselves in the bend, and be sure to lend a hand with the chores before supper.”

  “In Jesus’s name,” squeaked Michael, the youngest of the brood.

  The outburst was followed with a resolute “Amen” from all in attendance.

  The youngest siblings had already breached the wood-plank door by the time Seth was able to stretch his legs from the confines of the ramshackle school desk. He exited the schoolhouse with his father and latched the door from the outside.

  “A penny for your thoughts?” asked his father.

  Seth felt the intrusive words burn through his thoughts like molten steel before he could douse them with reason. I’d like to run a prod up your ass for every time you’ve laid hands on me, you rotten sonofabitch.

  Enough. The man is our father.

  Seth weighed his truth in his mind for several moments before uttering it aloud. “I believe I am experiencing a crisis of faith.”

  “We wouldn’t be men of faith if we didn’t experience doubt from time to time,” his father said. “Let us witness.”

  After a silent prayer, Seth felt obliged to continue. “I have had moments of doubt, father. This is different.” Seth felt his eyes take on water. “Sometimes I feel a presence inside me—a dark presence, one that questions my faith and drives me towards temptation and unclean thoughts.”

  “Have you acted on these compulsions?” asked his father.

  “No, sir.”

  Lies.

  Seth’s father sighed with relief at the news. “We’ve tried to teach you children that Satan is a powerful force. I know it can sometimes be difficult to fathom that such evil can exist in the world, especially when you are looking out from the safe haven of Temple’s Bend.” His father spoke in slow, deliberate phrasing—a convention developed from his many years as pastor. “We must remain vigilant in this war, my son. The devil is on the hunt for our very souls, and he never tires or falters in his quest.” The elder masked the glare of the sun from his eyes and gestured down the hill towards the bend. “Go mind your flock, eldest. We can talk more after supper if you like.”

  Seth traversed the well-trodden dirt road that ran from the hilltop compound—an infrastructure consisting of three familial residences, a communal barn for livestock, a school house, and a tall, though narrow, white-walled chapel erected on the highest point of the hill.

  Several of the mission wives were gathered on the edge of the river bank. Rows of woven baskets lined the bank, each piled high with dirty linens. The mission wives shared the news of the day as they washed, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the younger children who bathed in the bend. Seth enjoyed listening to the wives’ idle chatter in the same manner he enjoyed listening to the birds sing, though he would never engage in such excessive speech.

  The children cleaned themselves in the soapy runoff of hand-washed linens that radiated out into the bend from the bank. Seth joined in the watch as his siblings tore off their hand-stitched garments and immersed themselves in the tea-colored water.

  Seth’s youngest brother, Michael, was already fast at work chasing a cluster of dragonflies as they deftly maneuvered between the row of cypress trees that emerged from the shallow depths of the bend.

  He abandoned the urge to scold his brother, as bathing in the gentle shallows of the bend were one of the rare outlets for play within the mission. Few things could withstand the strictures of mission life. A child’s indomitable spirit was one of them. He took off his hard leather boots, rolled up his britches, and decided to indulge in the cool waters himself.

  Today he had completed a momentous rite of passage.

  Seth recalled the tales of traveling missionaries who regaled his kin with stories of modern conveniences such as refrigeration and air conditioning. The crisp waters of the Trinity River were all the respite from the oppressive summer heat he would need—a gift provided by God’s bountiful earth.

  Why not fully embrace your God’s bounty? Just slip beneath the waters, and spare yourself a life of pain and suffering.

  A shrill cry perforated the sound of splashing and gleeful laughter that filled his ears. Mary, his second eldest sister, was jumping up and down and pointing frantically downstream. Before he could comprehend her movements, he saw his youngest brother Michael, bobbing up and down in the murky waters, gasping for breath.

  Seth ran out farther into the bend until the waters reached above his waist. He flailed his hands and called out to his little brother. “Michael! Move your arms! Swim to the other side!”

  He knew that if his brother, barely more than a toddler, could not cross the waters soon there would be trouble. Michael was being pulled into the outflow. Soon he would be lost in the swifter-moving currents that defined the middle course of the Trinity River.

  Seth lost sight of his brother in the ensuing chaos.

  He wrenched off the cumbersome back brace and dove head first into the body of the river where he had last seen Michael. As he rounded the calmer waters of the bend, he could feel the force of the current sweep him out farther downstream.

  The act of swimming was unbearable, though nothing would compare to seeing the pain in his mother’s eyes if Michael was swallowed by the Trinity. Because of his ailment, he had not swum the river in several years, a fact his atrophied muscles could attest to as the pull of the current became stronger.

  Stop fighting. It is better this way. End it now!

  The words, no longer a whisper but a shout, clawed from the darkness and raked against the walls of his skull as he fought for breath. He sank deeper into the greenish-brown murk where he found himself surrounded by an impenetrable darkness. With limbs frozen in fatigue, his mind raced with a panic that filled every molecule of his being, desperate to stir
his broken body into motion.

  It is better this way.

  The voice was calm. Almost peaceful.

  Seth felt himself drift away just as a strong, vice-like grip pulled him to the surface, sending explosions of pain down his crooked spine as he was lifted from the waters and carried towards the bank.

  He expelled the sour, fishy water from his lungs and fell on his back, crawling away from the river’s edge. A figure stood over him, casting from beneath the glaring sun a silhouette of a man wearing a long beard and long, flowing hair.

  And now, the time of your judgment is at hand, sinner.