The Church

by Wisdom King

  They walked past each quiet building. Everything seemed to be in order that night. Nothing was amiss.

  “Unless they take a peek at the back.” James thought to himself as he caught sight of the main entrance. He ran to it with all that he’s got and quickly went inside the guard post by the small entrance of the gate. Inside, two of the men were watching the CCTV footage of two police cars driving down the private road to the estate – a road that no outsider ever took, unless they’re a wandering tourist which is a rarity in their small town.

  “Whoever sent these assholes knows the way in.” James thought. “Someone betrayed us.”

  He looked through every possibility. No one was allowed a phone inside the estate. There was no mode of communication to the outside world. The only way they could contact someone else was after they’ve served their time inside.

  “Keep the place on lock down. Lock every door, and I mean everything. No one leaves unless I say so.” He told one of the men inside.

  “Why, sir? Is something wrong?” One of them said. He quickly shut his mouth when James shot him a death stare.

  ` “If I recall correctly, part of the contract is you don’t fucking ask questions, right?” James said before leaving the room. Behind him, he could hear buttons being pushed and his order being done. He paused by the door and took a deep breath. He was only a couple of feet from the main entrance – just a few feet away from the people who could sabotage the entire operation in one swift blow.

  He took wide steps towards the humungous black gate. He stepped in front of the smaller gate within it and slid open the peephole. In the distance, he could see the flashing blue and red lights of the police car.

  “They’re fast.” He thought as he shut the opening and yanked open the door. He stepped outside and locked the door behind him. He walked down the road and looked behind him. From the outside, the place just looked like an abandoned area. He was always careful to keep the place dimly lit, especially at night, so it wouldn’t drag too much attention. But what good would that do when there are cops eager to take a peek inside anyway?

  He looked back down the road and saw the cars ride down. He stopped in his tracks and the cars parked horizontally in front of him. Four armed men opened their doors and aimed their guns at his face. He tried his best to pull out the most innocent face he could muster and raised his arms in surrender.

  “Thank God you finally got here!” He exclaimed.

  IN ONE, SWIFT MOVEMENT, Kane pushed Clarke aside with his left arm and pushed the gun away with the other, making Dennis fire the bullet at a light bulb. Debris fell over them as Kane struggled to disarm Dennis.

  “What the hell?!” Valdez yelled in disbelief. He watched the action in utter confusion and stood idly by the door.

  “Don’t fucking stand there!” Dennis yelled when he saw him, “DO SOMETHING!”

  Dennis pulled the trigger again, this time, this bullet a couple of flasks sitting by the counter. Clarke crawled away from the two and pressed his back against one of the counters. He watched as Kane slammed his knee on Dennis’s crotch, causing him to buckle. Dennis’s grasp on the gun weakened and Kane took it and threw it to the ground.

  “NOBODY,” Kane yelled as he slammed his fist on Dennis’s face. “HITS MY MOTHER!”

  As he beat Dennis with all the strength he could muster, he saw the image of his father, beating his mother over and over again right in front of him. He thought of the time his father told him the story of how he raped her. He thought of how his mother tried to be brave. As the blood poured out of Dennis’s face, he felt no remorse. At that moment, he wasn’t Kane – he was an angrier, more dangerous version of Kane. He became the kind of person he tried so hard to repress.

  He wasn’t powerless anymore. He was angry. Rage blinded him at that moment. All he could focus on was beating the living hell out of the priest that lay broken right before him. He stomped his feet on his chest with a brute force, causing Dennis to wheeze and curl up in a ball.

  Even as he spat out blood, Kane wasn’t done with him yet. He pulled him from the ground by the collar and threw him over the counter. He picked up a shard of the counter and raised it above his head. Just as he was about to slam down, a strong arm grabbed him from behind and threw him to the side.

  “You don’t know what you’re messing with here, Kane,” Valdez said as he panted. When he landed, Kane hit the back of his head against the wall. Waves of pain reverberated through his head and he could slowly feel himself lose control of his surroundings again.

  “No...please...not again...” He was concussed, and he knew it. Even when he woke up earlier, he already knew it. If he hits his head again or does anything irrational, he could wind up dead on the floor with nothing accomplished.

  He felt a strong jab on his stomach as Valdez kicked him. He coughed and groaned in pain and the world started spinning again. He could hear his mother screaming for him. He could see Clarke cowering in the corner. Everything around him was, once again, unfocused and unruly.

  “No...please...not again...” He could feel Valdez hitting him. He took each blow without any attempt to resist them.

  “I’m so sleepy...” He thought as he took another hit to the face.

  In the corner of his eye, he saw a black figure move.

  “Kane!” He heard a woman croak in a raspy, broken voice. “Please get up!”

  He turned his head to the side and saw a man going around the pole and ripping something off of another man’s face. He spat out a ball of cloth and started screaming his name. It took him a moment to realize that it was Clarke who was attempting to free his mother and best friend.

  “Please!” His mother yelled out, “Get up!”

  The punching stopped. The kicking stopped. Valdez was looming over him, his fist raised mid-air, ready to hit him but his attention wasn’t on Kane anymore – it was on Clarke.

  Chapter 29

  “Mr. Gardner?” A man said. James could barely make out his face against the harsh lights. The policeman lowered his gun and studied his face. “Bishop? Is that you?”

  Suddenly, James recognized him. He never missed a mass and was always on the dot on Sunday. James gave him a relieved smile and gathered up his wits.

  “Eriksen! It’s your old’ pal, James!” He laughed, trying to sound convincing. Patrick Eriksen was an old friend of his. James remembered his face from the countless of times he greeted him in town. Around there, he was known to be the kindly old Bishop, always giving to the poor and always willing.

  “It’s alright guys, he’s cool,” Patrick told his comrades. “We received a call earlier this evening. Something about a murder in this place. The caller wouldn’t tell us who did it. Says he really couldn’t say.”

  “He? So the caller’s a man.” James thought. He narrowed down his options to the ones most likely to call the cops on him in a split second.

  “He’s not the caller, Patrick.” A woman said, still pointing her gun at James.

  “Well, of course, I’m not!” James exclaimed. “I was nearly killed and you expect me to be the one to call?”

  James hoped and prayed they believed him. His performance at that moment would determine his fate later. He tried his best to conjure up the most convincing face of a victim as he looked at the woman. The others were beginning to believe him and started lowering their guns.

  “Can you tell us what happened?”

  James felt his heart beat faster. The ringing in his ears became louder as he raked his mind for excuses. In a matter of seconds, he thought of one.

  “I can’t tell you for sure...a black man just started causing trouble down the garage so I went down to look into it myself. I really wish I hadn’t...nearly got my head blown off.” He said.

  “Sir, the caller said there has been a murder inside.”

  “Is that what he said? I told him there’s a burglar inside.” James laughed, trying to mask his nervousness. To his surprise, the woman lowered her gun. �
�I’m an old man. Can’t expect me to know how these little gadgets work now, can you?”

  “Well that’s true,” Patrick laughed, “no wonder you got Clarke to do it for you.”

  “Clarke?” James asked. A look of confusion ran past Patrick’s face when he did.

  “Yeah, Clarke. That boy Dennis always dragged around. He sounded pretty nervous. No wonder he got it wrong!” He laughed. James smiled at this. Inside, he was infuriated.

  “Should have killed him when I had the chance.”

  “Sir, what did you say the man looked like?” The woman asked.

  “Well, he’s of average height, I’d say. Black. He’s pretty built as well and quite athletic. He was wearing a dark jacket with the hood flipped up so I didn’t really see his face.” James said, describing the way he saw Kane earlier that night. “He got away so I tried to chase after him, and then I ran into you guys.”

  As he spoke, Patrick took notes of what he said and read it back to him. James nodded, confirming everything. After a few moments, they all got back inside the car.

  “Sorry to disturb you, Bishop, but rules are rules, you know?” The woman said when they fixed up the position of the two cars. “Also, you should really rethink your security system as well.”

  “Oh if only you knew.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for dropping by so quickly.” James said. He lingered there for a moment, watching the cars fade into the distance.

  VALDEZ STARTED WALKING towards Clarke in a slow, menacing pace. Kane watched as Clarke tried his best to untie the ropes, tightly wrapped around Freddy’s wrists. He paused just a few feet away from them and picked up the gun that Clarke dropped earlier.

  Kane could feel the panic surge through him. With every bit of strength left in his body, he took a deep breath and turned to his side.

  “Clarke...” He croaked. Clarke looked up and saw Kane. His eyes quickly shifted to Valdez, who was now pointing a gun at his head. Like a frog, he jumped out of the way and ran behind the nearest counter. He started throwing broken pieces of glass at Valdez’s face, trying to keep him from shooting.

  Kane looked at his beaten mother. She was hardly recognizable with bloody bruises on her face. She was saying something but he couldn’t hear her. He couldn’t hear anything. All he heard were the gunshots and his old blood rushing in his head.

  Taking a deep breath, he crawled through the broken glass, trying to reach the gun, just a few feet away from Dennis’s unconscious body. Freddy tried kicking the gun towards him, but it was no use. His legs weren’t long enough to reach that far.

  “You chose the wrong side, Clarke!” Valdez yelled as he shot Clarke, narrowly missing his arm. “Just give up already!”

  He fired again. He stopped just a few feet away from the counter. There were a few moments of silence before Clarke got up again and raised his arms in surrender.

  “If this is what God intended, so be it. He spared me long enough to help innocent lives from people like you.” Clarke spat out.

  “You’re no hero,” Valdez said before pulling the trigger.

  Click.

  He pulled the trigger again, and still, nothing.

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” He whispered, dropping the gun to the floor. He turned around to pick up the other one, and when he did, he saw Kane, lying on the ground with the gun in his hand. He was pointing it right at this head from below.

  Valdez froze in his position and backed away.

  “You’re no hero either, Chris,” Kane said before pulling the trigger. The bullet burned through his chin and up his brains. Blood poured out of every hole in his head as he flopped to the ground like a starfish.

  Kane let his hand fall to the ground. Clarke was awestruck and his fortune again and started laughing. Soon enough, Kane found himself laughing with him. He didn’t know why, but he just did. He laughed and spat out a tooth and some blood left in his mouth. He struggled to sit upright and looked at Clarke, who had a silly, lopsided grin on his face.

  “God really didn’t want you to die tonight.” He said. “The cops are probably still outside. Call them in if you can, will you?”

  “Alright...will you be fine here?” Clarke asked, looking at Dennis, still lying on the countertop, his head hanging on the edge.

  “We’ll be fine. Dennis won’t wake up ‘till tomorrow, or if we’re lucky, he won’t wake up at all,” he laughed. He got up slowly and walked over to where his mother was sitting and gave her a light kiss on the forehead before working on the rope behind her.

  Clarke started to walk to the door and paused just before he opened it.

  “Hey, Kane?” He said, looking back at him.

  “What?” Kane said, undoing the tightly wrapped rope around his mother’s wrist, revealing the painful rope burns on them. She slowly brought her hands to her chest and covered her breasts.

  “Thanks for saving me...twice,” Clarke said before heading out the door, leaving Kane and the others inside. Kane thought nothing more of what he said and went on to undo the binds on Freddy’s wrists.

  “Thanks.” He said, “I saw them throw your clothes in that room over there.” Freddy nudged his head towards the room on the other end – the one where Dennis emerged from earlier, carrying a gun. He slowly got up from where he crouched and walked over to the half-open door. The lights were shut off inside and when he pushed open the door, light poured in, illuminating his crumpled up clothes on the floor.

  He got inside and put them on in the dark, careful not to make any sudden movements. The adrenaline in his body was beginning to drop and his head was becoming foggy again. He slipped on his shirt and flipped the lights open. Inside the small room were computers and a bunch of warehouse shelves pushed against the walls. The shelves were stuffed with filing boxes and other stuff, including the folded clothes of a man and a woman. He recognized the dress to be his mother’s, so he picked up the clothes and walked back outside the room.

  “Here,” he said, placing the clothes in front of them, “put these on.”

  He went back inside the other room and looked through the boxes. Most of them contained words he couldn’t understand, some were just empty. There was gas masks unorderly stacked on the shelves as well. He walked over to the desk with the two computers and studied the tabletop. Sitting at the back, behind one of the monitors, was a stack of folders. He pulled them up and read the cover.

  TOP SECRET. The stamp on the front said. He flipped open the first folder and read through the text.

  As he read through each and every one of the pages, he became more and more appalled.

  Apparently, the torture and cruelty they administered upon Kane and his family were just the tips of the iceberg. A few days from now, they plan on terrorizing the whole country by executing hundreds of people at once in an unnamed mall in the heart of New York City.

  The lab Kane was standing on was the breeding ground of this atrocity. Here, they manufactured gallons upon gallons of Sarin gas, the same one dropped on Syria recently during the fight against ISIS. They plan on trapping the people in the most crowded place as possible and kill them all in one fell swoop.

  “But why...” Kane thought as he read through the other files, looking for answers.

  Then it hit him.

  Dennis was hiding something in his shed, that’s why James was out there that night – to retrieve the documents, and possibly including the diary, he found. But Kane caught him in the middle of the act. He never got the chance to get what he intended to retrieve. Kane tried to remember everything he read from the diary, from the obscene remarks to the controversial thoughts Dennis poured out on paper.

  “America is falling apart. War greets us from every direction and the civil unrest grows stronger as the days pass. This is what happens when you forsake the word of God. This is what happens when you turn your back on the Maker. The wisdom of the president is nothing compared to the wisdom of the Church. This is why they should listen to us, no
w more than ever lest they see God’s people fall to the ground, one city at a time.”

  Kane shut the folders and tucked them all under his arm. When he went out, he was greeted by yet another shocking sight. Freddy was busy tying up Dennis against the post while his mother watched from the counter.

  “What are you doing?” Kane said as he walked towards the two.

  “Just a few safety measures, of course,” Freddy said, completing the knot on Dennis’s arm. He limped towards Kane and gave him a big hug. “You know, I’m starting to regret being friends with you.”

  They both laughed, but Kane knew the dangers were far from over. He was only now seeing the bigger picture, and it was unsettling. With James still walking around outside, he knew they weren’t at all safe.

  “Mom, Fred...we need to get out of here fast,” Kane said as he took Dennis’s key card and led the party to the back door. They got outside and shut the door firmly behind them. Kane took the path behind the buildings, carefully creeping behind the shadows. His mother’s injured slowed them down a little bit, making them pause for a little longer behind the buildings.

  Within a few minutes, they were finally near the exit – the small gate on the East Wing. Kane didn’t have a key, but taking a risk on that exit was way better than deliberately going on the main entrance.

  They ran as fast as they could. They were only a few yards away from the gate when they heard a man screaming.

  Chapter 30

  Clarke could hardly believe his luck.

  “I’m blessed...” He thought as he jogged through the estate. He was smiling ear to ear. Everything was finally falling into place for him – something that has never happened before in his life. For the first time, he felt free.

  He was running towards his usual exit. He knew that if he went directly to the main entrance, he’d bump into James and possibly screw over the entire escape, so he decided to go out by the East and run along the walls until he reached the road. From there, he’s going to find out what to do next.