Jeremy and Gabriel looked at each other as Jeremy pulled out the toilet paper from his lap and placed it near his tray filled with a slice of half-eaten meat loaf. Then Jeremy looked at Michael with demanding eyes, responding, “I know, I thought about that also…and I came up with a conclusion. After we leave here, we take a taxi to the nearest seaport, and from there we steal a boat and take it to Jerusalem. All we need is a map and compass.”
Laughter struck a chord in Michael’s throat, as he giggled, “That’s a good plan, Double-O Nuts. But if my memory serves me correctly, every person on this side of California will know that a few nutcases escaped from Grewsal, they’ll know even before we get in the taxi. Grewsal is networked to every major news station, and once they find out—which they will—that we broke out of this hell-hole, all they have to do is press a button, type in our names, and bingo, are faces become more famous than the word ‘famous’. Plus, three nutcases over a large body of water for a long distance, with only a compass to guide—I don’t think so. This is reality, Jeremy, try living it once!”
Luckily the guards who stood outside the room were too busy conversing with the nurses and techs, and didn’t hear the laughter. Gabriel scanned the room once again, and looked at the guards outside, seeing that their eyes weren’t on them. Gabriel interrupted Michael’s speech with: “Listen, guys, Jesus, or some voice said that the help is with me, or it’s with us. So, if we need help, then he will be there for us.” Not even a second after Gabriel’s last word, Michael busted out with laughter. “It’s not funny, Michael!”
“I don’t believe it, Jeremy, you made my brother just as crazy as you are!”
“Faith…we have to have faith, Michael,” spoke Gabriel. Michael’s laughter ceased and a serious face took over.
Jeremy became infuriated toward their conversation. Since they were only to discuss how to execute the plan, Jeremy’s frustration turned into words as he explained, “For right now, let’s just concentrate on getting out of here. Once we do, then we’ll discuss how we’re going to get to the Holy City, or wherever it is. We just have to get there.”
Suddenly the silence of the room was pierced with a noise of the door opening, which made the three of them turn to face it momentarily. In their view was Mary, their doctor of beauty, approaching them with a smile. She asked politely, “Hi, boys, how are you all doing today?”
Before their thoughts could turn into words to answer Mary’s question of casual kindness, her cellphone rang in her white lab coat that reeked of new perfume, smelling like fresh roses with a ting of alcohol.
“Oh, we’re fine, thank you,” Jeremy answered, with suspicion in his voice.
Mary nodded to them and answered her phone. Walking away from them slowly, she pressed the “on” button that her cellphone had and faced the other direction, so they wouldn’t understand her conversation.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is this Mary Callahan?” the voice asked.
“Why yes it is. Who’s this?”
“This is Frank Stevens,” Frank answered while looking at David through a hole that was the only source of light that shimmered into David’s cell. Frank stood in the jailhouse, surrounded by three guards, while gaping through the hole in the steel door and seeing David’s confused eyes staring back at his.
“Um, your name doesn’t ring a bell—do I know you?” Mary questioned, playing with her red hair, showing that it was a nervous habit by the amount of knots she made in a short time. She began pulling on her hair, since it always made her nervous when she didn’t know who she was talking to. After working in a mental institution night and day, hour after hour, it’s almost a law to know whom you speak to before you begin speaking. But then she stopped pulling, playing and teasing with it, realizing that it was beginning to hurt. There was no answer on the phone, nothing except breath. So she waited patiently, understanding that maybe this was a prank call.
Without a moment for her to hang up, the voice named “Frank Stevens” coughed for a second, causing Mary to jump back in fright. Frank said, “Listen, I don’t have a lot of time to waste, so I’m going to make it simple. Last week I heard about you, I heard that you help severely disturbed individuals, or whatever you call them these days. I also heard that you are already helping three others who have this kind of sickness in them!” Frank was in panic: trepidation filled his already anxiety-filled mind, so much so that he didn’t even notice that David walked up to the hole and was trying to listen through it to hear Frank’s words.
“What kind of sickness are you referring to, Mr. Stevens?” she asked in an apprehensive manner while staring at the boys from a distance. She circled the entire cafeteria, waiting for his reply.
“Does seeing statues and crosses move ring a bell?” he asked abruptly, causing Mary to drop the phone in shock.
She stared at the phone, her eyes frozen in a strict glare, watching it as it lay motionless on the cold, green cafeteria floor, feeling the shock of knowing that there was another person out there with the same condition, which made her stomach turn in an upside-down cyclone. She rapidly went to pick up the phone, waiting to hear more information that Frank had. Mary couldn’t believe that he knew about this so-called “sickness.” It was confidential, no one knew, no one except for the staff at Grewsal and the parents of Jeremy, Michael and Gabriel.
“Doctor Callahan, I have a young man right next to me who is presently suffering from this illness. I’m currently standing in a jail right now and looking at this boy. He’s in a jail cell. The judge held a hearing yesterday for him and ruled that he is legally insane. Miss Callahan, I need you to come as soon as possible to pick up this kid and take him to your institution. If you don’t, another institution will take him instead. Since I am a close friend to the family, I want him to be helped instead of thrown in another nuthouse and left to rot. Am I making myself clear?” Frank’s words were tangled in firmness, sincerity and strictness, yearning to make Mary understand that he needed her help. Looking at his watch, seeing that it read 6:04 p.m., Frank breathed a loud breath of cold air into the phone, wanting to let Mary know that time was short, that his patience was almost gone.
“Oh yes, yes you are. How soon do you want me to pick him up?”
“Today,” Frank replied before David suddenly stuck his arm through the hole of the cell and tried grabbing at Frank’s neck, missing him, but scratching Frank’s face in the process.
“Alright, I’ll take the first plane there. Um, where are you?”
Frank explained the address and more information to Mary. After she hung up, she walked over to Jeremy, Gabriel and Michael, feeling excited to know that another patient might be linked to the boys, dividing hope from despair. “Some cure or a lead to a cure might be possible,” she spoke under her breath, comprehending that this had to be a breakthrough into another unknown virus or disease that she had tapped into by seeing Jeremy, Michael, Gabriel and now another; it had to be linked. “Yes, I knew there were more of them out there with this sickness. That means there has to be some sort of explanation for it,” she breathed out under her breath, walking up to the boys slowly. She explained to them that she’d be going to New York, but she would be back later on tonight. She stared into each of their eyes, and saw wretchedness in them. The sadness was the fact that they would miss her, and another fact that Gabriel would speak of. As Mary walked out of the cafeteria, Gabriel started crying, defining his own reason for showing despondency and gloom toward Mary’s exit.
“Why are you crying?” Jeremy asked as he patted him on the back.
Gabriel tried to hide his tears from the guards who started to watch closely through the window of the cafeteria, as he felt that if they saw his weakness they would try to pick at it. Yet Gabriel’s nervous self caused him to retort, “Because, as soon as she goes, they’ll hurt us.” He knew what would happen once she left, thinking about how Victor stuffed roaches in his mouth, and still feeling them bunched within his gums, tasting the unbear
able taste. Gabriel knew what would begin once Mary left Grewsal. Knowing that Mary basically lived in the west wing of Grewsal, wanting to be there night and day for her patients, Gabriel was sickened by his imagination, envisioning her leaving the west wing behind for a bit, wondering what the techs, nurses and doctors would become and do to them. He apprehended that he was going to get something else, besides having roaches stuffed in his mouth; something that was beyond his fear-filled mentality.
“Who will hurt us?”
Gabriel stared at Jeremy’s inquiry, distinguishing it in his mind, having Michael answer for him, since it was too hard for Gabriel to speak the hurt out loud that he endured.
Michael patted Gabriel on the back, and answered Jeremy, “The guards, doctors, nurses and techs! Before you and Gabriel came here, she used to leave a lot. Every time she left to go help out a patient across the country, the guards or techs, or anyone working here, used to hurt me ruthlessly. Gabriel had a piece of what I mean. The first day he got admitted into Grewsal, that fat-ass nurse, Victor, stuffed roaches in his mouth!”
Jeremy’s mouth dropped in utter shock. He shouted, “What? You can’t be serious….” Jeremy covered his own mouth, forgetting that he had to be quiet or else the guards outside would get suspicious of their actions. So he lowered his tone a bit. “Listen, everything will be okay, we’re leaving tomorrow night and never looking back at this place again.”
“Yeah, tonight I want you two to meet me in my room. Come in through the vent, that way the guards won’t see you,” Michael explained, halting his words swiftly at the sight of Victor walking in the room and bellowing out that their dinner time was over with.
The vent was their only way of getting in and seeing each other; it was their escape to privacy without cameras watching every word they spoke. Cameras were everywhere in Grewsal, the hallways, the foyer and even their rooms, but Michael’s room held a broken camera that Grewsal still failed to fix. The vent was Jeremy and Gabriel’s only way to get into Michael’s dungeon and leave their own.
Yet, even with Jeremy knowing already how to get into Michael’s room, he still had to question, “Why?” because he sought to recognize the reasons for them going to his room.
Victor yelled it out again, his voice ringing louder, scaring the three enough to make the acid from their stomachs jump up to their throats. Michael didn’t even look at Victor; instead he countered Jeremy, whispering, “Stop the questions, man. Because—I’m the only one that has a cross in my room. I want us to pray for guidance. I know it’s clichéd, but once Mary leaves, everything will change here, you’ll see, Jeremy. Besides, as soon as she goes, Victor and that asshole doctor, Curtis, will take down the crosses in all our rooms. They’re evil, Jeremy. I’m the only one that stashed a cross under my mattress. Damn. I know it sounds crazy, but we’re the ones who see them moving, so why not use them for help.”
Victor stood right in front of them, spit a large piece of gum on their table, and yelled, “Are you deaf? I told you that dinner time was over with, now get your butts moving!”
They all went up to their rooms and looked out of their barred windows, watching calmly and closely as Mary exited the building and got into her car. Bitterness stood straight in their minds, gripping their souls and fighting their hope, seeing Mary leaving, allowing their depression to win. The fear built up in their minds, as they watched her drive away from Grewsal. They were trapped in its sinister dungeon, that would show its true evil when they least expected it. They feared not knowing what would happen to them when Victor and all the other workers came to their bedrooms. They watched her drive away, knowing that something darkly sinister would show itself to them; what color it would be was something they had no idea could ever exist.
At five minutes after midnight, Michael looked up at his ceiling, feeling the coldness of the room, since the staff of Grewsal had turned off any heat that would travel into each of their quarters, just to be wicked. Michael grabbed a thin cover from his lumpy bed and just stared. He kept his eyes on his vent that was in the center of his room, watching and listening for any noises that came from it; he also took watch over his door. He knew, if Victor or someone came in while Gabriel and Jeremy snuck through his vent, that all Hell would break loose, literally. He watched the clock on his wall as the time turned to 12:30, feeling frustrated as he walked back and forth in his room, awaiting the arrival of them. His gaze fell on the clock more and more. The second hand moved to the next second ever so slowly and he pondered the frustration of how slow time goes, and wondered who began the second hand, who gave it life. “How did time begin, and why did it start?” were the questions that circled through his mind, and what happens if this sickness has a time limit leading to his death?
As Michael waited, the questions slowly seeped out of his mind, and he focused his eyes on his bed, knowing the cross was under his mattress. Yet, something inside of him made his mind fear it. “Why am I afraid of a measly cross?” he asked out loud, slowly approaching the bed to face his fears. He kneeled down on the floor and reached under his mattress, saying, “This is stupid, I don’t know why I’m doing this, it’s a cross, for crying out loud, it’s not a compass. Why do we need a cross anyway, why can’t he talk to us without it?” He then proceeded to search for the cross, sliding his hand from left to right over the cold, rough material, his hand like a piece of meat between two large slices of bread, as he attempted to find the cross in blind luck. Michael moved his right hand throughout the mattress, and finally touched the tip of the cross. Silence took over the room while he slowly pulled it out. Then he stopped. A loud bang came from behind him; he turned around to see what it was. As he turned, he pricked his middle finger on the sharp tip of the cross, stinging at his flesh. He looked up at his vent while sucking the blood from his finger to stop the pain from worsening. He saw Jeremy climbing through it, empathizing that Jeremy kicked in the vent door to open it up quickly. Jeremy jumped to the ground.
Michael yelled, “Look what you made me do!” He showed Jeremy his pricked finger, with Gabriel climbing through the vent in the process. Jeremy started laughing at Michael’s little complaint, finding it humorous. Jeremy walked over to the cross, seeing it lying on the ground, and picked it up in a speedy fashion. He noticed Michael left a bloodstain that was on the tip of the cross; the bloodstain was on Jesus’s feet. It was as if it was engraved in the iron of the statue.
Jeremy laughed out, “Well, don’t worry, it won’t get infected.” As Jeremy laughed, Gabriel grabbed the cross away from him, reaching for it through the dimly lit, cold room; he pricked his finger as well, on the right side of it, causing a bloodstain to appear on Jesus’s right hand. He dropped the cross and began sucking his middle finger, with Jeremy laughing again.
“Boy, you two are sissies,” said Jeremy. He picked up the cross and laid it gently on the bed, trying to avoid the sharp tip that seemed inevitable to give a cut to anyone who touched it. With Gabriel and Michael still sucking on their fingers filled with pain, Jeremy looked at the cross, and tried to wipe away the blood from it, with some of it coming off slowly. But then, before Jeremy could even blink an eye, he noticed through the cold room that the bloodstains on it began to glow a green, faded light. He turned to show the others what was occurring, but the glowing stopped, and once it vanished, the bloodstains became a part of the miniature statue’s body. Jeremy tried scratching the bloodstains away from the cross, but they wouldn’t fade, they were engraved in the metal. “It happened again. I guess the sickness caused me to see the cross glowing. Shoot. Well, anyway, what’s next?” Being so accustomed to seeing things out of the ordinary, Jeremy wasn’t so shocked when he saw the cross glowing, blaming it on his sickness so he didn’t have to face the reality of it being real, which deep down inside he knew it was.
After Jeremy asked the question, he stopped his words and gapped at the cross, speculating if the light that appeared through the red thick blood was really there, trying to face reality inste
ad of blowing it off. Contemplating whether it was real or if it was his sickness that illuminated it, Jeremy was knocked out of his thoughts by Michael replying, “I don’t know.”
Jeremy kept his eyes on the cross, saying, “Well, this was your idea to come in here. So, what do you want to do now?”
“I guess we ask him for guidance or something,” Michael answered, slowly walking over to the cross. He hesitated from speaking out loud to it; he felt that it was neurotic and insane to be talking to something that was made in a factory.
Yet, he did it anyway, pushing his words out of his mouth, saying in the thick cold of the room, “Well, um—Jesus, are you there?” They waited for a reply from their Lord, but there was no answer. So, he asked again, in a tone that was below a shout, “I said, Jesus, are you there?”
They waited for ten minutes, but still there was no reply. Seeing the second hand on the clock moving slowly to the next second, draining their hope for a miracle into hopelessness that they’re in fact sane, all of them covered themselves, with Michael and Gabriel sharing one, and the other going to Jeremy. Standing up, and staring at the cross on the bed, Michael turned to face Jeremy and Gabriel as Jeremy spoke. “Well, we just have to keep on asking until we get an answer!”
Michael was angry and frustrated. He sat down on the bed and said, “This is so stupid, no wonder we’re admitted in Grewsal—we are crazy!”
“Listen to me, we’re not crazy, we all heard him, we all heard him say to leave in one month,” stated Jeremy.
The contemplating began as the hope of escaping vanished. Michael became stressed out, explaining to them, “It could have just been our imagination, Jeremy. Besides, even if he did really speak to us, why should we risk being caught by the guards tomorrow by us attempting to escape? Maybe, just maybe, we truly are sick in the head. I mean, why is it that we only see stuff like statues moving or crosses talking when we don’t want them to, yet when we want them to, nothing happens? Maybe when that thing, or Jesus in our imaginations, said that we should leave tomorrow, what it really was, was the sickness. You know?” Michael asked in a stressed-out manner, looking up at his clock again. “Actually, it’s already tomorrow,” he added, as Gabriel walked in front of Jeremy and stared Michael sternly in the eyes.
The Wrath of Jeremy Page 10