The Wrath of Jeremy

by Stephen Andrew Salamon

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” Mary whispered in a frantic manner. “Please help me, Jeremy!”

  “Listen, everything will be okay, I promise you, Mary,” whispered Jeremy, hugging Mary tight and seeing David pulling Michael away from Victor at the same time.

  Once Victor was released from Michael’s raw, rage-filled grip, he ran up to Curtis and began coughing, trying to inhale the coldness in the cabin, wanting to breathe and speak at once. “You actually think you’re gonna complete this mission?” Victor shrieked, holding his sore throat.

  “Yeah, we are,” David replied. Michael tried hurting Victor again, but David held him back.

  As Victor still coughed and hacked up his own mucus that was choking his breath, Curtis circled his eyes around the cabin, looking at Jeremy, Michael, Gabriel and David, having his eyes twisting in a figure eight motion due to where each boy stood. Suddenly, Curtis started to giggle an evil laugh, abruptly shouting, “No you’re not!” Curtis pulled out a gun, adding, “I won’t let you complete it!”

  He then darted toward Mary’s figure, grabbing her while the three stewardesses were looking at him with trepidation, tears in their eyes. He held the gun up to Mary’s head and Victor pointed a gun toward the stewardesses. The stewardesses began screaming, not knowing what was happening, or why it was in the first place. Through their screams, a smirk grew on Victor’s and Curtis’s mouths, and as they screamed louder and cried harder, that’s when Victor aimed his gun toward them and shot two of them in the forehead. It was as if they collapsed to their death in slow motion, their innocent, lifeless bodies falling to the cold cabin floor, along with Mary and the boys gaping at them in remorse. They all closed their eyes before the two women fell completely to the floor. The last stewardess stood motionless at the end of the airplane, with tears hanging off her eyes like dripping icicles perspiring in the newly rising sun. She looked at Curtis and Victor, having nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and nowhere to protect herself. So she began praying for her life, and at the same token, pleading for her life to Curtis and Victor.

  “Please, don’t hurt me, this is my first day on the job,” the stewardess wailed, looking at the barrel of the gun and watching as Victor pointed it to her head, and then to her stomach and then back to her head.

  Taunting and teasing her fears, Victor got a kick out of teasing the stewardess. And so she watched as the barrel of the gun went up and down her body, scanning her every inch, perverting her flesh. Suddenly the gun went off and her tears of coldness broke out of her eyes in a spitting rhythm, shooting two inches from her. She fell to the ground, passing out, not realizing that Victor shot her in the leg by accident, with his target being her stomach.

  As the stewardess fell, Curtis yelled out, “Don’t shoot that thing anymore, you could rupture the cabin, you idiot!”

  Michael, David, and Gabriel ran up to Jeremy, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, like troops, directly in front of Victor’s gun. Contemplating how to handle the situation, they also watched and saw how Mary’s tears were touching the barrel of Curtis’s gun, pressing it up to her forehead tightly. They concentrated on her tears as they fell from her eyes, not wanting her to be afraid anymore, yet not wanting her to be killed as well. Unexpectedly, Jeremy ran past Victor and hit Curtis in the hand, causing the gun to release from his grip. Mary fell down and crawled quickly away from Curtis. Jeremy and Curtis rolled on the ground simultaneously, fighting for the possession of the gun. Victor watched them fight, allowing David to grab Victor’s gun speedily, attempting to rip it away from his clutch. Victor coiled his body around and saw the gun had David’s hand on it also, so he shot it, causing the bullet to go directly into David’s chest.

  Through David’s screech of suffering, Jeremy’s fight was finally won, and Jeremy was the winner, as the gun was in his grip. Jeremy pulled it toward him and pointed it at Curtis. “You can’t kill me,” Curtis yelled out with a laugh. Jeremy looked around the cabin and noticed the door of the plane.

  Silence took over again, in addition to his own heartbeat being the only percussion in his ears. His eyes swarmed the plane, and then he pointed the gun in the direction of the lock of the door. Jeremy didn’t even know himself what he was about to do, but he looked at the wounded stewardess who was waking up after she had been unconscious, and, without contemplating any longer, told her beautiful face, “Hold on!”

  Mary saw that the gun’s direction was towards that of the plane’s door, so she screamed, crying out to Jeremy, “Don’t do it, you’ll kill us all!” Jeremy noticed David’s body lying on the ground with a bloody wound to his chest; he noticed the beautiful young woman lying on the ground in fear, and also perceived Mary’s frightened attractiveness baffling her own tears that had emotions ranging so far into bewilderment and incomprehension that Mary was confused herself about where they flowed from and why. The anger began building up inside of Jeremy’s mind as his blood began to steam, caring for about half the people inside this cabin, and loving Mary like a mother. He didn’t want her to cry anymore; he didn’t want Curtis and Victor to cause this pain. Suddenly, Jeremy discerned a cross, which was hanging from the stewardess’s perfectly formed neck, beginning to shine, its small body forming a bright yellow light. This caused his blood to calm down a bit.

  “Do it, I shall protect thee,” the voice whispered from the cross.

  A brief and small rhythm of laughter started to be heard from Curtis’s mouth. Curtis laughed, “You think that a cross will protect you? Think again, Jeremy!” Without noticing, Gabriel ran up to Victor and knocked the gun out of his hand. He then grabbed the gun and ran up to Jeremy while pointing it at the lock on the door where Jeremy’s gun was pointing.

  “Let’s do this together,” said Gabriel. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Jeremy.”

  They both sealed their eyes shut and slowly pressed their index fingers onto the trigger of their guns, with Mary’s tear-filled eyes looking out one of the windows of the plane, seeing the darkness of the night and how the clouds were pressing up against the glass, as if they were begging to come in. Mary and the stewardess screamed and that’s when Jeremy and Gabriel pressed their index fingers fully, causing each gun to shoot out a bullet that headed for the door of the plane. The bullets hit the lock, causing sparks to fly, and the cabin door broke, being sucked out by the pressure of the altitude.

  Summarily, the suction came into the cabin, causing everything in its way to be sucked toward it, forcing Jeremy and Gabriel to grab onto one of the seats as the stewardess’s wounded body began to be pulled toward the open door by the suction. Jeremy grabbed her arm before her body flew toward the door, and held her tight. He watched the two dead stewardesses fly out of the doorway, with the living stewardess closing her teary eyes, showing Jeremy that she was close to the two women who were killed. “Just hold onto this,” Jeremy yelled out to the young stewardess, handing her a seat belt.

  Mary screamed for her life as well, flying past the seats and finding her eyes directly at the doorway where the suction came from. Jeremy seized her arm and used all of his strength to pull her frantic body toward him. As he did that, Curtis flew past the seat and next to the doorway. He held onto the inside of the door, with his emotions ironically showing that of laughter being amplified from his mouth.

  “You can’t kill me,” Curtis yelled out, gawking at Jeremy and their eyes met as silence took over the plane again, at least in Jeremy’s mind. He gaped at Curtis’s eyes, trying to understand who he was, what he was, and what he meant by his words of immortality. A moment they shared was a moment that Jeremy knew wouldn’t be the last; for some reason, Jeremy believed Curtis’s life was perpetual. Then Curtis let go of the inside, flying out into the clouds without a scream being heard. Jeremy closed his eyes and looked away from the plane’s doorway.

  Jeremy then looked back toward the doorway and opened his eyes. “Well, I just did,” Jeremy said with sarcasm to Curtis’s flying body, seeing it glowing against the moon
’s light before it disappeared into the darkness. Without warning, David’s body began gliding on the ground, shooting toward the doorway. David grabbed onto Victor’s body, trying to use him as a safety rope, an anchor.

  “Let go of me,” Victor shouted, sensing David crawling up him like a rope. He then grabbed onto a seat and tried kicking Victor’s hands off the grip of the seat. Victor let go and flew past Jeremy’s eyes as Jeremy witnessed a small grin on Victor’s face before he flew out of the doorway.

  The stewardess’s cross began glowing once again, with her beautiful brown eyes capturing its excelling blaze, and a voice coming from it, saying, “Shut the door!”

  Jeremy clutched onto her necklace and slashed it off from her neck. He looked at the cross as it began shimmering even more, burning his eyes to the point where his pupils began perspiring tears to cool them down a bit. So he let go of it and allowed it to fly in the thin air toward the doorway, with the suction of the altitude being its means of flight. This surreal moment forced all of their fearful, pale faces to watch closely the flight of the cross. As soon as it reached the open door, it shot out an even brighter luminosity, with a door abruptly appearing in the doorway. It was a door that was locked, that caused the suction to cease. The wind died down, and all that could be heard was the deep inhaling and exhaling of breath as they breathed deeply to fight for oxygen against the altitude.

  “Is everyone okay?” Jeremy yelled out.

  “David’s been shot, Jeremy,” answered Gabriel. Jeremy ran over to David’s wounded body and tore off David’s shirt where he noticed a blemish, a scar of an angel’s wing. The wound began going away in addition to Gabriel saying toward David’s scar, “He has the same scar as the rest of us!”

  David got up from the ground and walked to his seat like nothing happened. He buckled his seat belt and heard Jeremy’s voice ask, “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, of course I’m okay, I just want to get some sleep now,” responded David, as he noticed an impetuous scream coming from the stewardess. He got up and walked over to her, seeing her brown eyes of exquisiteness and her smooth cheekbones and luscious, innocent lips quivering as he looked at her. He then noticed a gunshot wound to her leg, so he knelt down beside her slowly and put his hand over it. A sudden light shot out from it, causing the stewardess to see a miracle taking place. When he pulled his hand away, the wound vanished, causing the stewardess to smile with intrigue, and then pass out from fright. He looked at the name tag on her chest, which read “Sam”, and smirked at it. “Well, Sam, just get some rest now.” David left her closed eyes and sleeping body behind and walked back to his seat, sitting down in it again, and yawned in fatigue.

  “What the hell is going on? What just happened?” Mary yelled out.

  “You’ll find out when we get to the Holy City,” David retorted, closing his eyes promptly.

  Without warning, the pilot came out from the front cabin, with Jeremy’s eyes being confused at their appearance. Of all the times they had to show up, it had to be after the chaos was over with; at least the chaos on the plane. The pilot shouted, “What’s going on here, I thought the cabin ruptured!” The pilot ran up to Sam and knelt down to her, seeing that her body was sound asleep. “My God, is she okay?” the pilot asked, rubbing her hair.

  David got up once again and touched the pilot’s arm. “Everything is just fine,” David answered, releasing his hand from his arm.

  Suddenly the pilot became befuddled toward everyone, mumbling, “Oh, alright, I’d better be getting back to the front cabin now.”

  David watched the pilot carefully, seeing his feet walking to the cockpit, watching as the pilot closed the door to it. David strolled back to his seat again and tried closing his frustrated eyes, while everyone, especially Jeremy, was looking at him with shock burnt into their minds.

  “Wake me up when we get to Amman,” David yawned.

  Two minutes later, after silence became too much for all the mystery that lay in their minds, Gabriel tapped Jeremy on the shoulder and whispered, “Why are we going to this place anyway? I mean, I want to, because it’s the only thing—for some reason—I know to do.”

  Jeremy stared at David in grand, great, enormous suspicion and his eyes twitched from him only slightly, and he kept his stare on him so tightly. Jeremy still stared at David, and then cracked his own neck, turning it to the side, feeling a bit of stress release from the crack. His eyes were still on David, even as two drops of sweat dripped from his forehead, rolling past his brown eyelashes and into his eyes, allowing a sting to hit his eyeballs, he kept them opened and on David.

  He replied to Gabriel carefully and calmly, whispering back, “I don’t know for sure. There is so much that I want answered, Gabriel, like who is ‘Jastian’ that Curtis and Victor spoke of at Grewsal? Well, for your question, I guess because we want to be cured…but, I don’t think that’s the real reason….”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The winds of a time-like melody whistled through the night and onto morning in the place where Grewsal used to stand, with the only sounds being that of chirping sparrows singing and frolicking toward the empty morning of perplexity. Also, the sounds of angry people emerged through the daylight as they surrounded the lot where Grewsal once stood, begging that their questions be heard by the man who owned Grewsal, fighting for their chance to find out what happened to the building that was supposed to hold hope for the sick.

  Uncertainty baked in Jeremy’s mother’s mentality, standing on the front lawn of Grewsal, as she gawked at nothing but a great big mound of dirt that was blowing in the morning wind. It caused the people who stood there to hold handkerchiefs around their mouths and shield their eyes with their free hands to protect them from the brackish-like sand that danced in the air. Tears came out of her eyes, the same weeping that came out of all the boys’ parents’ eyes as they stood on the front lawn in heavy bewilderment. Tears that asked one question, consisting of one word: “Why?” Jeremy’s mother stood next to her husband while asking that query in her mind, and frantically grasped onto her husband, wailing over his sand-filled shoulder, yearning to have Jeremy in her arms again. “Where the hell is my son Jeremy?!” she asked out loud while Michael and Gabriel’s mother stood next to her, along with David’s parents. They were all bellowing and screeching, their voices rising higher and higher toward the owner of Grewsal. He just stood with confusion at his vacant lot where Grewsal once stood, not having answers to give or questions to ask. They had all traveled there after hearing the news of Grewsal’s disappearance on the television, on the night Grewsal vanished, and came immediately.

  One day had passed since Grewsal disappeared, and the parents wanted their sons back, along with hundreds of other people who had their own relatives in Grewsal. Out of all the patients, the only thing that made Jeremy, Michael, David and Gabriel special to the disappearance was that they were the only teenagers who were admitted into Grewsal; the rest were adults.

  Lighting up a cigarette, the mother of Gabriel and Michael shouted, “I want to know right now where my sons are!”

  People with questions were pushing the owner, and he squeezed out his answer, shrieking, “Listen, we don’t know exactly where they are, we don’t even know if they were in Grewsal when it burned down!”

  David’s father pulled the owner’s arm toward him and stared at his young face with anger in his old eyes, wanting to know the truth about his son’s whereabouts. “You listen to me, Bob, my son came here because your institution specializes in his sort of sickness. Now, you’re telling us that you don’t know his whereabouts? I thought you were supposed to help him!” David’s father shouted.

  “Listen, Mr. Donovan, I’m sorry, but we don’t know where they are at this moment, we don’t know where any of your sons are at,” Bob stated in a nervous tone. He pulled his arm away from Mr. Donovan’s grip and fixed his tie that lay over his blue suit.

  “Are you trying to tell us that our sons are missing?” asked Jeremy’s
mother.

  Bob replied, “Yeah, Mrs. Daven, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. When the building burned down last night, they must have—”

  “The building didn’t burn down,” interrupted Mrs. Donovan. “There is no way in Hell this building could have burnt, there’s nothing here to be burned. I mean, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I just want you to be straight with us, no bullshit!” The media and cameramen showed up as they ran up to Bob with questions pouring out from their mouths as well, pointing their cameras and microphones to his face of sweat, mixed with dirt that blew and stuck to his face.

  A journalist held a microphone up to Bob’s mouth, literally touching his lips while questioning, “Sir, is it true that Grewsal has been stated as ‘missing’ and all that’s left is what seems to be dirt?”

  All paused, not a sound was heard, except the sparrows singing out their tune, and all waited for the answer to come from Bob, the owner. He gave out a sigh, a breath of stress and confusion, and inhaled the question, mixing it around in his mind, wanting to give the perfect answer that wouldn’t damage his credentials when he decided to build another Grewsal. He exhaled, “That is true and false. It’s true that Grewsal is missing, but it’s false that it ended up as a bunch of dirt. I mean, that’s absurd, there has to be some reasonable explanation for this and you know that.”