69 INCHES AND RISING

by Rebecca Steinbeck

  “Maybe not,” Jonathon replied, “but it can buy you fear, and when someone fears you, you own them.”

  The angel dropped what was left of the soldier’s heart and stepped forward. She looked into his eyes. “Do you fear me, Jonathon?” She searched his heart and soul for any sign of the fear that would give him to her all over again. It was a fear she had seen in the eyes of hundreds of young girls as she ripped the flesh from their bones and drank their blood and as their lives were about to come to an end. “Are you hiding it from me? Hmmm?”

  “I don’t fear you, Elizabeth,” Jonathon said. Elizabeth Bathory. The most fearsome woman that ever lived and one that fascinated Jonathon for many years. And one that fuelled the imagination of the man whose books about blood and horror and fear scared the hell out of readers all over the world and they sat on best-sellers lists for weeks and months on end. His love of the Universe was only ever matched by his love of everything bad and Elizabeth Bathory was as bad as they came. But Jonathon had found a new love, and it changed him forever. “I don’t fear you and I don’t want you. Not now.”

  “But you did,” she said. “I know you did.”

  “Not anymore. It’s time for me to let you go and move on with my life.”

  She smiled. “But there is no life, Jonathon. There is only death.”

  Jonathon leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. He could taste the blood of a thousand dead girls and their tears too, and their deaths gave him the courage to go further and faster and harder than he ever had before. Before he could go anywhere though, one of the other soldiers attacked him from behind, hitting him over the head with his shield. Jonathon collapsed to the ground at the angel’s feet and she began to weep. The soldier turned to the angel and stabbed her in the heart with his sword. She saw beyond her tears that his heart was good, but there were too many layers around it that weren’t and she knew he was destined to burn in Hell because of what he had done to her, but what had been done needed to be done, and she knew it, for what had been done was part of God’s plan to help Jonathon become what he needed to be to save his mother. “May God have mercy on your soul,” the angel said to the soldier. The angel faded into the darkness, leaving Jonathon by himself to fend off an army of soldiers, each of them armed with shields and swords and the know-how to use them. But none of them had the one thing that had seen Jonathon through to where he was - a determination to succeed beyond his or anyone else’s wildest imagination. It was cased in a suit of armour and was ready to fight any time. Having risen to the top of the literary world, and conquered it, it was time for that determination to prove itself yet again.

  He climbed to his feet, picked up the sword and shield belonging to the soldier that had fallen earlier, and turned to the rest of the soldiers who were coming toward him. They looked at him without fear because in life after death there is no money, and where there is no money there is no way to buy the fear you want from those around you. He had to find another way. He looked around him and saw nothing he could use and then he realized that all the power in the world was not outside himself but within, and all he had to do was let it out. But first, he had to acknowledge it. He looked up and opened his heart to a power that was higher than him. The man who in life had ruled the literary world and who bowed to no one, became, in life after death, a servant of the field of energy known by some as God and others as Jehovah and Allah and even the Universe. But in that one moment, as men armed with swords and shields approached him on the run, it didn’t matter what it was called. It only mattered that he surrendered to it, and he did. He felt the power of all the stars and planets in all the galaxies of the Universe combine like a bolt of lightning more powerful than anything man could ever dream of. It surged through his veins like a tidal wave of adrenalin and it propelled him without fear toward the soldiers running toward him. He was unaware in that one moment that his greatest lesson had been learned, that greatness is not caused by creating fear in others. It is created by leading others without fear of what lays ahead. It’s what made him different from the man in black. And it’s what made him different from his father.

  Just then a bright light exploded into existence and Jonathon was blinded by it. He stopped running and raised his hands to his eyes and covered them. A voice called out to him and he turned his head to it. “By the greatest power of God Almighty, I call upon thee to serve Him and all He stands for.” Jonathon lowered his hands, opened his heart, and let in the voice. His many hundreds of thousands of words about blood and darkness and horror slipped away from his heart and they were replaced with the words of God. They filled him to the brim and he rejoiced in them. He found it in himself to forgive the man that pulled the trigger that caused the bullet to be fired at his mother. It hit her in the chest and blood flowed from the wound. She staggered across the front porch as the heat from the bullet tore shreds from her soul. She fell to her hands and knees and looked at the man who had shot her. He was smiling. The heat from the bullet was ferocious now, burning her inside like she was on fire. Tears rolled down the sides of her face and the man in black smiled some more. Her dress was soaked in blood and she crawled to the top step. She hoped to get someone’s attention, praying to God they could help her. But she didn’t get it and even if she did they couldn’t help her because the bullet had done the damage the man in black hoped it would, and it made him happy to see that.

  Her body was close to giving up now and the tears flowed hard and fast. She looked around, not for help anymore but for comfort, because she had accepted in her heart that by then it was too late. She looked around because she wanted the last thing she saw before she died to be the thing that had given her the most happiness - her home town that kept chugg-chugg-chugging along during the day, and its sordid little secrets to itself at night. But night had not yet come and one member of the population of a small town blowing the hell out of another could not be kept a secret for very long.

  Jonathon closed his eyes and he saw his mother’s blood flowing freely from the hole in her chest. He looked closer at her and saw her tears too. They fell from her eyes and they landed on the scorched earth. The fire would not go out even with the tears falling on it. It burned her skin because the fire was hot and she was cooking like a Thanksgiving turkey. She looked up at him. The pain in her eyes cut him deep and hard like a rusty razor. It tormented his soul, playing with it like a child would play with his dog, but this dog was dead. Jonathon reached out to touch her but he didn’t touch her because he couldn’t. He could only hope and pray that he would reach her before the Devil swallowed her whole. “I’m coming, Mom,” he said, and he set off in the hope he could bring her back from the depths of Hell, and he was armed with a sword, a shield, and the love of a God that for so long he didn’t believe in. Little did he know that his time on Earth, during which he had suffered time and again and about which he had written any number of horror stories for which he had become rich and famous, had been practice for the real thing, the ultimate test of his strength and depth as a man who, according to God’s wishes, would one day be king.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Jonathon walked along a dirt road that wound its way around hills and trees. Plumes of smoke rose into the darkness and they watched over him like a hawk watches over its prey. Black bats flew overhead. They screeched as they searched for food and they found it in the form of a slab of roasted meat that looked like a horse but Jonathon couldn’t tell for sure. All he knew was that the animal was now dead. The bats tore at the roasted meat, pulling it away from the bones and Jonathon watched them closely as he walked by. One of the bats looked back at him. They were kindred spirits, Jonathon and the bat, both surviving at night on whatever they could get their hands on. For the bat, it was food for its body. And for Jonathon, it was food for thought for his novels. But now the novels didn’t matter, and the food for thought that once fuelled them was fuelling something else - the survival of the woman who gave him life.

  Soon Jonathon
was tired and he stopped by the side of the road to rest. He saw a skull on the other side of the road and he wondered whose it might be. Were they young or old? Were they in love with another, or were they a single soul in a single body? He stopped his train of thought because he knew it had but one destination, Novel Central, and he knew the computer he wrote his words on no longer existed, and Novel Central was a destination that could no longer be reached. Instead of thinking about what the skull might represent, and writing a story about it, he accepted its true meaning, which was death, and death stood still for no one. He climbed to his feet and carried on down the road in search of his mother. The road was hard and hot, and it was hurting his feet, but still he carried on. And while the road hurt his feet, the darkness around him burned his heart because within it was a fire breathed by the Devil and fanned by his demons. But still he carried on, and he carried on because of the love he had for his mother. He wanted to reach her and save her. He wanted to bring her back to a better place, one that had been burned to the ground but would surely be rebuilt on a foundation of true love that he shared with Serena, and one that a woman who raised him to become who he was would be safe because she would be protected there by the man who, in life, was her son, but in death, and with every step forward, would become her guardian angel.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Jonathon’s mother pulled her knees hard to her chest, and the tears that were falling cut her face and blood dripped from the wounds. A demon peered at her from the darkness and it licked its lips in anticipation at the meal that lay ahead. It circled her, its black heart pumping fury around its dead body and hatred across its soul. It ran its bony hand up and down the spear it was carrying then touched its tongue to the sharp end and its tongue began to bleed. It drank its own blood and smiled. Its razor sharp teeth that were poisoned by the souls of a thousand dead men were ready to plunge into the heart of the woman, to tear it apart so the demon could feast upon it with greater ease. The demon moved closer now. It could taste her blood and it was sweet like the nectar dripping from the fruit in God’s great Garden of Eden. It came to the edge of the darkness and peered into the blood red light from the fires that burned in the heart of the Devil. Jonathon’s mother had her back to the demon and she didn’t move except to rock back and forth like a baby in its mother’s arms. All hope had been drained from her body and she no longer cared for her heart and soul. She welcomed death for she had no reason to live. But she had every reason to live, and as the demon came even closer the angels in Heaven looked down on her and prayed that her son was ready to fight for her and to win her back from the bowels of Hell. As Jonathon wandered further down the road, he saw into the heart of the Devil, and there he saw his father, and his girlfriend’s father, and they were drowning in the Devil’s blood. The time had come to avenge the loss of not just a loved one, but of one too many. He turned to God and said, “Please give me the strength to give my mother back to you.” God looked down at him and smiled, for He knew at long last that Jonathon was ready. “The final layer has been removed,” God said. “You now want for someone more than yourself. That is all the strength you need.” Jonathon heard his words and believed. His heart believed too and it drove him toward his mother, and it drove him toward the demon that was readying its spear to pierce his mother’s heart. Jonathon felt her pain and he began to run, and while the road was hard and hot, and while it hurt his feet, he carried on.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The demon came up behind Jonathon’s mother now and raised its spear high. “In the name of Beelzebub, God of Gods, Lord of all the Lands, I smite thee.” The demon lowered the point of its spear toward the woman’s heart and she felt no pain, and while the road was hard and hot, and while it hurt his feet, Jonathon moved faster now for his mother needed him. The point of the demon’s spear pierced his mother’s skin and still she felt no pain, and while the road was hard and hot, and while it hurt his feet, Jonathon moved faster now for his mother needed him more than ever. He approached the demon and reached into it. He grabbed its black heart and squeezed it until it stopped beating and now the demon’s body was dead and so too its soul. Smoke rose from the demon’s body and soon it caught fire and Jonathon let go. It fell to the ground and a great roar echoed through the darkness surrounding them and soon the demon was gone, leaving behind a spear and a pile of ashes as the only proof in Jonathon’s eyes it had been there at all. He turned to his mother who had her back to him and was still holding her knees to her chest and he reached out to her. He touched her shoulder and it was real. He kneeled behind her and wrapped both arms around her. He held her tight and cried as the beat of his heart matched hers. Then there came a voice from the darkness. “You can’t have her, Jonathon,” the voice said. “She belongs to me.” The words cut Jonathon deep for he was sure Serena’s father was gone for good. He let his mother go and stood up. He turned to where the voice had come from and Serena’s father stepped into the light. He was armed and ready to fight for what he believed was his, but Jonathon wanted her too.

  Jonathon stood between the man in black and his mother. “I will not fight you, because men don’t fight for what is theirs. They work for it, and they love it with all their hearts. When they do that, they want for nothing.” He took a step towards the man in black. “And don’t take my unwillingness to fight as a sign of weakness. It’s nothing more than proof that I’m more man than you’ll ever be.”

  Serena’s father circled Jonathon and Jonathon followed him out the corner of his eye. “You can have this piece of shit, Jonathon,” Serena’s father said before spitting at Jonathon’s mother. “I’m talking about my daughter, Serena. You thought you could take her from me? You thought that all your money and fancy cars and big houses could take my daughter away from me?” He looked at Jonathon’s mother then back at Jonathon and spat at him too. “Now we’re even.”

  Jonathon looked at him. “You didn’t kill her because of anything I’ve done. You killed her because you danced with the Devil when you should’ve been dancing with your wife and you lost. That’s the difference between you and me. I earned that money and those fancy cars and big houses. You couldn’t even earn your wife’s love.”

  Serena’s father pointed his finger at Jonathon. “You earned jackshit, Jonathon,” he said. “Your father gave it to you on a plate. He sold his soul to the Devil and he gave it all to you and you earned jack-fucking-shit.”

  Jonathon thought about all the words he had written and all the stories he had told, and sold, and all the money and fame and everything that went with both. He thought about all the girls he had slept with and all the time he wanted only one thing - someone to truly love, and he had found her in the form of Serena. The man in front of him could only dream of finding such love and when he didn’t find it at home he went looking for it in his mother and then he shot her dead. A bright light descended from the heavens and it wrapped itself around Jonathon and his mother. He looked at Serena’s father. “Some things need to be earned more than others, you son-of-a-bitch. Like the love of a woman.” The world around them exploded and fire and brimstone shot in all directions like bullets from a gun, and the white light protected them. But it didn’t protect Serena’s father and the fire and brimstone pierced his soul and burned it until there was nothing left. Moments later the light disappeared and Jonathon and his mother were standing in front of Serena and the angel. He looked around and saw that his home had not been mended and the smoke still rose from the ground. He looked at the angel. “I need your help to rebuild this.”

  The angel shook her head. “You have everything you need already.” She tipped her head towards Serena and then his mother. Then she stepped toward him and took his hand. She placed it on her heart and then she placed it on his. He felt her love enter his heart and he knew he would be safe and so would she. “You’ve earned this, Jonathon. You’ve earned the right to live in eternal peace and happiness, and you will.” The angel stepped back. “Love them both, Jonathon. L
ove them as you loved me.” Jonathon knew in that moment what he hadn’t known before, that this angel was the same one he had seen in another place at another time. Indeed, she was the teenage girl his father killed in an accident in which two cars collided head-on. A tear escaped his eye because he loved her every bit then as much as any man had ever loved a woman, but now it was time to love another. It was time to truly open his heart to Serena as he had to God. It was time to let his mother in as well. And it was time to rebuild his home.