The Wrath of Jeremy

by Stephen Andrew Salamon

  The obese man walked slowly up to Gabriel and gave him a rock-hard fake smile, waiting for the head nurse to give the orders to him to take Gabriel away.

  “That’s okay, you can bring them later. For now, this nurse will take Gabriel up to his room,” the head nurse explained.

  The large man then walked in front of the woman, blocking Gabriel’s view of her and forcing Gabriel to see only his large figure. With a gargoyle-like gut, round and plump, and teeth that gleamed yellow like the sun, Gabriel glared at this man in disgust, but then stared in a form of nervousness when he saw the man’s fingernails, and how clumps of dirt and mildew were embedded under their long, sharp form. The man pulled out a small wheelchair from the side of the front desk and began to unfold it, bending over to pull out the wheels. That’s when Gabriel saw lice jumping around in the large man’s black puffy hair that had streaks of gray that helped to highlight the lice even more. He scanned the man’s head, and how his ears almost seemed taped down to his scalp and bushes of hair surrounded their inner parts, causing Gabriel to look away in revulsion. He tried to look behind this man’s gut to see if he could get eye contact with his mother again. After the chair was ready, the man unnoticeably pushed Gabriel into it and waited for further instructions, while Gabriel did the same, not knowing how to react to this man’s lack of hygiene, but realizing that not everyone is clean. He finally caught sight of his mother again after the large nurse stood behind the chair, and saw how his mother was filling out forms and not even reading what she was filling out.

  The mother kissed Gabriel’s face, tapped his nose and grinned. “Sweetie, I’m gonna be down here waiting for the doctor. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.” The mother then turned away and two heavily excited tears fell from Gabriel’s eyes, pain-filled and with a mixture of fright, not wanting his mother to go and not wanting to be here. The large man looked intently at Gabriel and then at the head nurse, and, seeing her head nodding, knew this was the cue to take Gabriel away.

  He pushed the wheelchair to face the large doorway that entered the stomach of the institution. Gabriel’s fears worsened and the draft of cold wind grew stronger. As Gabriel passed through the foyer of the institution, he looked back at his mother, not realizing this moment would be the last time he would see her for a very long time, and smiled toward her worried face, wanting her to know that he was fine, but yet he wasn’t. He didn’t want her to worry. They strolled through a corridor that led to a door of metal, and Gabriel saw that it had five large, rusted locks in its body, that all dripped some form of water. The drops ran past the rust on the locks that turned the water to brown as Gabriel followed them, dropping to the floor, where a large puddle of rusted water stood. Gabriel then looked up at the ceiling in front of the metal door and saw water dripping from it, knowing now that that was where the water came from as it seeped down the doorway.

  Gabriel watched as the large man opened each lock one by one, with a smile on his ugly face growing with each lock. He finally unlocked the last lock and a form of laugh or giggle came from the man’s mouth, but Gabriel wasn’t sure what it was, so he stayed silent in his wheelchair and waited for the man to open the door. Once opened, he wheeled Gabriel through it. Now that he was on the other side of the door, Gabriel noticed the walls weren’t white anymore but gray, sinister gray with cracks at every end from aging. To Gabriel, the sounds that he felt weren’t sounds that he liked once entering this new interior.

  In Gabriel’s mind, his sounds aren’t sounds but feelings. When entering a garden, for instance, he hears the sense of fairies or birds, singing and dancing in the clouds of immense cotton, with angels shooting by the large flowers and singing a chorus to their beauty. When entering a dark room such as this, his subconscious felt the sounds of monsters, fiends, or death scaring the life out of innocence, only catering to his fright even more.

  But this room’s feeling was different; he never felt the sounds that he experienced now. The gray walls, the textures of his smells, made him feel the sounds of demons flying about, laughing toward him, showing themselves to his ears. So Gabriel shut his eyes for a moment to make his imagination go away; it didn’t.

  Once the large man locked the door behind them, Gabriel’s confusion grew and the strong aroma of urine that reached his nose came to him and upset his stomach. Gabriel then questioned the man, “Why does it smell like piss, and why does it look so shitty here?”

  The man stopped wheeling Gabriel any deeper into the hallways of Grewsal, and got in front of the chair to have perfect eye contact with Gabriel’s fears. He stopped the chair right under a dimmed light bulb, which like the locks on the door were also leaking water that made a puddle on the ground. The man smiled at Gabriel, and suddenly his face was filled with rage, and he shouted, “Shut up!”

  Gabriel was appalled at the nurse’s rudeness: being that he was a patient, he felt that the man should never raise his voice to him. So Gabriel spoke up in defense, as he snarled and rolled his eyes toward the man’s fat, sweaty face. “Excuse me, but I happen to be a patient here! I’m gonna tell my mother if you—”

  The man interrupted him. “Listen, you sonofabitch, if you speak one more time, I’ll beat the shit out of you so bad that your sickness will look like a cure compared to the way your face will look!” The man then slapped Gabriel’s head and started to push the wheelchair down the hallway again. As Gabriel sat in the chair with the urine-like smell baking his nostril hairs due to the high heat that came as they entered deeper into Grewsal, Gabriel’s bafflement grew as to why this man was acting like this. He wasn’t afraid of the man, but he felt somewhat inferior to him, strange in a way that he couldn’t explain. He knew the man was a nurse, but yet he hit him on the head. It was a mixture of rage, intimidation and perplexity all rolled into one in his eyes as he waited for the next ingredient to enter. Gabriel looked up at the nurse again while they entered an elevator with black, juicy roaches on the ground, frolicking together as if they were dancing to a waltz.

  Gabriel was sickened by this. Staring at these disgusting creatures, seeing they were multiplying before his eyes, caused Gabriel to forget the man’s warning and speak up. “This is sick, what kind of place are you guys running here anyway?”

  The man immediately pushed the emergency button on the elevator walls, causing the elevator to stop and shake, and the man walked in front of Gabriel again. Since it was a very small and confined elevator, with roaches on the ground and the smell of mucus and urine filling the air, every deep breath Gabriel inhaled caused the sweat on his head to worsen and drip down to his eyeballs, creating a stinging sensation in them as Gabriel was forced to stare at the man’s face.

  “Hey, idiot, I thought I told you to shut the fuck up?” The obese man slapped Gabriel across the face, causing blood from Gabriel’s nose to shoot out all over his mouth, dripping down the wheelchair, past its metal frame and down to the ground where the roaches fought to get a taste of it. Gabriel’s tears shot out and all he could do now was raise his eyes toward this bastard of a nurse and wait for the next blow.

  “I’m sorry, but—” Gabriel tried to speak before the man hit him in the face again with the back of his hand. The blood from Gabriel’s nose got on the man’s hand and he wiped it off in Gabriel’s hair, with Gabriel shouting in agony, “Hey, stop it!” The man started to beat him hard in the face, and all the roaches danced in the raindrops of blood that became a downpour to them. More blood fell toward the insects’ bodies, creating a small puddle on the floor under the wheelchair, and one could almost hear their echoes as each drop soared to the floor and hit the dirt and roaches.

  “I said shut the fuck of up! I know who you are, and if you ever try to speak again, I’ll kill you!” The man stopped his words as he ended the beating of Gabriel.

  Not understanding why he was beaten or why the obese man was shouting, Gabriel, weak and distorted, in pain and bewilderment, spoke with nervousness and tears. “What are you talking about?”
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br />   The obese man reached down to the floor of the elevator and picked up a bunch of bloody roaches in the palm of his hand, stuffing them into Gabriel’s mouth as Gabriel felt them walking around his gums. He vomited on the man, and Gabriel tried to catch his breath and block out the fact that roaches were in his mouth a second ago, in order to keep his vomit down. The large man then pulled out a syringe from his pocket and stuck the needle into Gabriel’s arm. That’s when he passed out as the rest of the roaches that he didn’t spit out fell from his mouth and squealed as they hit the ground of the elevator, falling to their death.

  Later on, Gabriel slowly awakened to the sight of straps on his ankles and wrists, locking him onto the bed he lay on. He tried to break free from them by moving about, but failed. He looked around this small room and saw red wallpaper and yellow dots at every end of it. Scanning the room more, he noticed to the left of him a window with twelve thick, black bars on it. He was trapped like a prisoner. Gabriel rolled his eyes to the front and saw a single cross hanging on the wall. He asked and begged it, “Please, God, help me!” Tears fell from Gabriel’s eyes and before he could close them and pray, a breeze came across his face, hitting the tears that dripped down to his neck, and he detected the Jesus on the cross’s eyes suddenly opening. The cross shook, with the eyes of Jesus opening wider toward Gabriel’s helpless figure, triggering the young man to pay close attention to the figure, with fear in his mind.

  “Thou don’t need my help yet, the help is already with you,” the Jesus on the cross echoed, with his voice traveling through the small room and hovering over Gabriel’s head. “I shall help when it is suitable for you to be helped!”

  Stunned speechless, Gabriel did not understand that he was hearing his God’s voice, which allowed more tears to fall from his eyes. “Why can I hear you? What is happening to me?” Gabriel’s sight was filled with terror and truth, seeing that Jesus showed a tear that fell from his own right eye. At the same time, a tear fell from Gabriel’s right eye, too.

  “Gabriel, you are the East, you must guide My army to the east,” echoed Jesus, with his own tears falling to the green-tiled floor and turning each tile white. It was magical and mystical to Gabriel’s blurry vision; he didn’t want to close his eyes. Wanting to see this vision as long as it would last, Gabriel fought his lids from closing, yearning to remember the moment when his Lord spoke to him, a moment of his Lord crying.

  “I don’t understand!”

  Once the last word came from Gabriel’s cut-up mouth, the straps on his ankles and wrists began to bust loose, allowing him to wipe the tears away from his eyes to control the stinging it caused in them, as well as the cuts on his lips and nose that cried out for the salty tears not to touch them.

  “Find the Shroud, that’s where the map shall lie, and find Veronica’s Kerchief, the other map is within it!” After the words came from the mouth of Jesus once more, the door to the small, heat-filled room opened, and in came the obese man who called himself a nurse. He noticed the straps had been broken from Gabriel’s wrists and ankles. His green eyes turned to the cross on the wall and he ran over to it in rage.

  Grabbing the cross with one grasp of its wooden body, he said toward Gabriel’s shadow, as it appeared on the wall from the light outside the window, “So, Gabriel, you think this will help you escape from here? I don’t think so.”

  The man ran over to him and strapped the straps to his ankles and wrists again, tightening them more stiffly than they were, giving his blood only enough room to flow one drop at a time to them. The large man then took the cross out of the room and shouted before exiting it, “You’re not going to destroy me—I won’t allow you to!”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Jeremy slowly followed behind Mary, and as they approached the mental institution he felt a nervous ache shooting up his throat. The torment of staring at Grewsal’s ugly façade made a recipe of torture in his mind. He gawked at Grewsal, seeing the statues of gargoyles guarding their places of rock, directing their devilish eyes toward his, and in a way waiting for him to enter—at least that was his impression. Coming up to its staircase, Jeremy dropped his left foot on the first step, when suddenly a penetrating bolt of lightning shot through the sky, causing him to almost lose his balance, but catching his fall by grabbing onto one of the gargoyles on the right. Jeremy turned around to look at the flash, not realizing as he took his hand away from the gargoyle that its eyes blinked, sort of as if he woke it up by accident. Yet when he turned and glanced back, his nervous perception of the beast of stone proved false, its eyes were still rock-hard as they were.

  Mary turned to Jeremy and giggled. “It looks like a storm’s coming. Man, I hate September weather.”

  Jeremy grinned at her remark and slowly proceeded to walk up the stairs. When his right foot touched the second step, another bolt of lightning shot through the sky that caused Jeremy to fall from fright. He got up quickly. Mary had her back to him and did not know that he fell; Jeremy was relieved that she didn’t see his clumsiness. Every step that he touched sent more bolts shooting through the heavens, dancing and fighting throughout the silver and dark blue clouds, as if the gods began their battle, or else were getting ready for a longed-for fight of wit. Yet, once Jeremy reached the top of the stairs, the lightning died, melting the skyline and turning it to rain, with drops of rock-like rain pounding at Jeremy and Mary’s heads, forcing Mary to quickly open up the door of Grewsal.

  In the foyer of the institution at the front desk stood the head nurse, breathing deeply and exhaling austerely, sternly waiting to see the door fully open and who would be filling the shadows that came in through the cracks of the entrance. The nurse saw a hand, a woman’s hand, and into her sight came Mary’s beautiful image, causing the nurse’s breathing to lessen and her hand against a red button on the side of the front desk, hitting it over and over again without Mary knowing. Pressing the red button over and over, the nurse still showed a straight face and a fake smile to Mary as she slowly walked up to her. That’s when the nurse caught sight of Jeremy, causing her body to freeze with fear and allowing her right hand to stay down on the red button, and just glare at him, with eyes of fright and straight lips of rage. Jeremy and Mary passed by a woman sitting in a chair, looking apprehensive; the woman was Gabriel’s mother. Jeremy smiled to her, and she smiled back, with him noticing tears in her eyes and worry in her face.

  As Mary and Jeremy came up to the front desk, the head nurse still had her hand on the red button, an alarm that, once pushed, gave off a loud piercing ring on all of the floors of Grewsal, every floor except for the foyer.

  Meanwhile, on the other floors the alarm was heard, with nurses and doctors running around the halls in fear, dropping files and papers to the floor, and some even trampling other doctors without even a second to see the blood that came from the severe injuries they caused on those they stepped on. Chaos came to Grewsal, with a doctor staring at a red, flashing light that was hanging from the ceiling and roaring, “My God, she’s here!” The mysterious and sudden panic caused one doctor, who knew the reason for the fear and panic, to run to the top floor of the building, battling to get by as workers were running around still frantically trying to get to their offices and stations before Mary and her new patient came up. “Where’s Victor?” the doctor asked one of the staff, trying to catch his breath.

  “Victor? Oh, fat Victor, you mean? The last time I saw him he was carrying a cross,” the older lady answered, picking up a broom that was lying on the ground and beginning to sweep the dirt and junk from off the floor in a fury.

  The doctor ran all around the top floor, hunting for Victor, passing by staff person after staff person wiping beads of sweat away from their faces, fighting the salt that made his eyes throb and unbearable to keep focused. He wiped the salty sweat away from his sockets, and abruptly came across Victor. “Victor, did you unstrap Gabriel?” the doctor asked, seeing Victor itching his fat face and showing a dumb look on his visage, like he didn’t re
cognize the panic around him.

  “Um, no, why?”

  “Because, you fat slob, Doctor Callahan is here. I want you to unstrap Gabriel and go check on his brother, ‘Michael.’ I don’t want Doctor Callahan to see anything that she’s not supposed to see,” the doctor yelled out, seeing Victor running away from him, and his blubber literally following his trail as he ran.

  Meanwhile, Mary shook hands with Gabriel’s mother down in the foyer and watched as his mother left Grewsal. Mary then closed the door and turned around, smiled at Jeremy, and then facing the head nurse, saw panic in her eyes. “Well, Jeremy, welcome to Grewsal.” Mary smiled, walking up to him and patting him on the back.

  As Mary and Jeremy talked a bit, fat Victor ran in exhaustion to Gabriel’s room, unstrapping Gabriel’s wrists and ankles. “What are you doing?” questioned Gabriel in a frantic way as Victor took out a syringe and began to inject a green liquid into Gabriel’s arm.

  “This is just a little something to help calm your nerves!” Victor ended his sentence with a laugh, and watched Gabriel pass out quickly. Victor then turned to leave and noticed the outline of the cross that he took, and how the dust from the room made a perfect shape of it. That’s when his eyes glistened in panic. He knew Mary would notice the missing cross and ask why he took it down, so Victor realized he had to get it back up before she saw it missing. He ran out of the room and sprinted down the hallway for a second, and then he saw Mary and Jeremy down the hallway. He mumbled, “Shit!”

  “Victor, what room is Gabriel in?” asked Mary, approaching Victor with Jeremy.

  He stuck out his hand and pointed to the room. “Right in there, ma’am.”

  She passed by Victor’s frozen, large body, standing there like a wet statue, due to the thick sweat on his face and armpits. She turned away from this disgusting sight and entered the room, seeing Gabriel’s sleeping body on the bed. She walked up to him and noticed a few bruises on his face. With her eyes widening in concern, she asked, “What happened to his face?”