“People are fassssssscinated by tragedy. Go to the scene of any wreck and you’ll see that. People park their cars on the shoulder of the road and get out to have a look. Or they slow their cars down and crane their necks to see if they can spot just a hint of blood on the asphalt.”
“And that’s where the circle both begins and ends. The snake eats its tail. We delight in the misery of others. Why else do you think reality TV is such a hit these days? We want to see the fights, the debauchery, the salacious behavior. We flog ourselves daily with whips made of coaxial cable as we flip through channel after channel of sex and violence. We open our minds to immorality, and soon the deluge of sin is so strong that we can’t close the floodgates.”
The serpent smiled, showing its jagged platinum fangs. “You feed the ssssame beast that kills you. The sin may vary from person to person but it‘s all the ssssame.”
“I’ve already been told that I’m going to die in this place one way or another. I would just prefer to die a more dignified manner than in front of a television set filling my mind with rot.”
“The way you die is up to you. I have no control of that. The sssimple fact that you‘re here is up to you as well.”
“I’m here because I need to change.”
“You’re here because you didn’t change in time.” The serpent spoke in that eerie, mechanical voice I was starting to hate. “But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Otherwise, we might have never met.”
“You’re the tempter.”
“And you’re doomed.”
“So I’m told. But that doesn’t keep me from trying.”
“You’re wasssting your time.”
“I really need to get going.”
“There’s no hurry,” the serpent said. “You haven’t had a chance to hear what I have to ssssay.”
“Unless you can show me the way out of this place, I don’t need to hear what you have to say.”
“Are you sure of that?”
I paused, not certain of anything.
“I didn’t think so.” The serpent’s voice was hollow, emotionless and electronic. “I know why you’re here, and I know what you wanted. What would you ssssay if I told you I could give it to you?”
“You can give me my family back?”
“You weren’t on your way to see your family. Let’s not forget that. You were on your way to have a nice cup of tea---or ssssomething---with little miss Karen. You were at a fork in the road, and you chose the road that led to her. You chose to take your life in a completely different direction, and the only things that brought you here were the prayers of a certain group of people who were concerned about you. But who’s to ssssay that absolution is the best thing for you? Maybe you’d be happier with the life you were about to choose. I can give you that.”
The apple in front of my eyes showed a different scene on its picture-tube skin. It showed Karen and me walking hand-in-hand along a beach, watching a gorgeous sunset as the waves tickled our toes. Palm trees swayed in the breeze. Seagulls glided across the water, plucking unsuspecting fish from the currents.
The serpent made its way down the trunk of the tree, and I was surprised to see that it had cybernetic legs of some sort that allowed it to scurry down.
“Do I have your attention?” The snake noticed the way I intently studied the forbidden fruit. “Am I showing you what you want to see? If this is little more than another channel on TV, then you can change the channel at any time or you can watch a bit more. The choice is yours.”
“I don’t want to feed you.”
“Then don’t. This is still a place of free will. Just keep in mind that I didn’t create the desires of your heart. I merely have the ability to give them to you.”
I tried to be strong. “I want my family back!”
“So change the channel.”
“I’m---not sure I can.”
“You’re not sure you want to.”
“No.” I knew that this snake would soon be eating its own tail if I didn’t change soon, but I didn’t know how.
“You determine whether I starve or feassst.”
“Yes.” I tried not to show the misgivings in my heart.
“I can hear the hesitation in your voice. I can see the greed and confusion in your eyes. You aren’t sure that you really want your old life back.”
“I do.” I spoke slowly.
“You aren’t sure of that at all. But I’m reasonable. I can let you try out that life for a while, like a new suit of clothes. If you like the suit and it fits you well, you can keep it. If it’s not to your liking, we can go back to your old life. What do you say? I can offer you a bite of this apple. It will be up to you to decide if you want to eat the rest.”
“Go away.” I thought about the way the razor-blade plants had cut me in a thousand different places and how that pain had represented a fraction of Amy’s heartache. She didn’t deserve any more punishment.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. We’ve got some unfinished business to attend to first.”
“I don’t have any business with you.”
The serpent crawled down the remainder of the tree and stood before me. Its body whirred and hummed and creaked as its internal machinery did its work. “I’m afraid there is one little matter to contend with. A test.”
“Of course, you work for Asterion. How stupid of me. What do I have to do now? Jump through hoops of fire? Correctly guess the number of stars in the sky? Recite the alphabet in reverse order?”
“I have a riddle for you.”
“Exssssssscellent,” I mocked the snake. “Give it to me.”
“As you wish, but first the rules. You will have one minute to solve this riddle. Success will buy another hour of safety for your family. Failure will put them in harm’s way.”
“A minute?” I was surprised at how sharply the stakes were rising. “That’s barely enough time to think.”
“A lot can happen in a minute. A president can push a button that will ssssend hundreds of nuclear warheads into the air. A drunk driver can ssswerve into oncoming traffic and end an innocent life. A man can choose to leave his wife and ssson for a woman he never really stopped loving.”
“Enough with the guilt trip,” I growled. “Just give me the riddle.”
The serpent tested the air with its metallic tongue before it spoke:
“The dying can live, he’s been given a gift
It’s like air for the soul, gives the spirit a lift
This gift is the difference in black and in white
This gift is the difference between death, between life
This gift is the choice between Heaven and Hell
This gift buys your freedom so choose and choose well.”
My mind felt like it was filled with cement, muddied with the ramifications of failure. I knew Darrell Gene was inside my house, and I knew the danger the serpent spoke of involved him. A hundred different possibilities flashed through my head. All of them involved blood, torment, and abuse.
I felt like Atlas at that moment, balancing the weight of the world on my shoulders. I felt like I was about to be crushed beneath the stress.
“The clock is ticking,” the serpent said.
“Shut up!”
I placed both hands over my ears to block out everything. I couldn’t think no matter how hard I tried. The riddle didn’t make any sense. My brain wasn’t focused on it anyway. I was too wrapped up in the consequences of failure to focus on the prospect of success.
“You’ve got fifteen seconds.” The serpent hummed the theme song to an old game show.
I screamed in frustration and grabbed the apple off of the tree. I hurled it as far as I could and was satisfied to hear it shatter into a million pieces.
“Time’s up.” The serpent ended the game. “The answer was free will. Free will is what allows you to choose sssssalvation. Ssssalvation, in turn, is what saves you from eternal death. All men are born with a choice, and you chose poorly.”<
br />
“So what happens now?”
“Only Darrell Gene Rankin knows for sure. I’m sure if you watch the forbidden fruit long enough, you’ll see what he has in store.”
Chapter 28
As any composer can attest, sometimes the chord progressions don’t work, don’t feel right. The music is cold, flat, lifeless. And music, as everyone knows, is all about feeling.
The Piper watched the proceedings on Pinecrest Avenue with increasing disappointment. His symphony of pain and misery, which had once showed so much promise, was now coming unraveled. Darrell Gene Rankin didn’t feel the same things he had felt only days before. There was a small, feeble ray of hope there, probing the man’s insides like a spelunker’s flashlight. From prior experience, The Piper knew that was a bad indicator of things to come. Despite that, all was not lost. Yet.
The song in Darrell Gene Rankin’s heart was different now. He spun around in circles, not sure which way to go. Watching him flounder around down there was like watching a deaf man stand on a set of thrumming railroad tracks, oblivious as to which direction he should go to avoid safety and danger. Was the man really that clueless? Was he really that naive?
The Piper decided that the conservatory he had spent so many days in lately wasn’t the proper place to advance his mission of pain and misery. He had played his pipes up on the promontory and watched as fish beached themselves in hopes of escaping the sounds he made. He had sent his minions to sing suggestions, to whisper subtle hints, to make Darrell Gene Rankin question his own sanity. And all of those things had worked to a degree. What The Piper hadn’t counted on was Carl Beckett and his ilk praying for Darrell Gene and preaching the message of salvation to him.
The Piper knew it was time to pick Darrell Gene Rankin up again, tune him miserably, and squeeze out every last sweet note of pain and abandonment. He couldn’t do that from the conservatory: this required a more hands-on approach.
The Piper could have spread his majestic cyan-plumed wings and swooped down into the city of Fairpointe. But his spirit wasn’t soaring, and he didn’t feel that his body should rebel against the spirit. After all, he knew the troubles of rebellion.
Navigating the rocks with cloven hooves was difficult. Stones shifted beneath his weight. Others rolled right out from beneath him. The Piper was determined to see this through however, and worked his way down the cliff face slowly until he reached the bottom where a nearby highway waited to lead him into town.
Now, intent on living up to his name, The Piper placed that well-worn set of pipes to his cancerous lips and began to play. Minions poured out of the rocks like rats spilling out of a barn full of grain. They fell in behind him as he led the way into Fairpointe.
********
“Where is my husband?” Amy pressed the paintball gun into the back of the big man’s head, hoping to threaten him into an answer and to keep him from seeing that her gun wasn’t a real threat.
Darrell Gene started to reply and stopped, cocking his head to the side as if listening for something. “No, I can’t do that.”
“Who are you talking to?” Amy asked.
“The machines in your house sound different than they do in mine. They speak with different voices. I‘m not used to the way they talk to me.”
Amy shot Judith a concerned look.
“We need to call the police,” Judith said. “No questions.”
“Not yet,” Amy said. “Not until he tells us where Jamie is.”
Darrell Gene leaned his head forward again, straining to hear something no one else could hear. “No, I’m not going to tell them he’s dead. You and I both know he isn’t.”
Amy stiffened. “What do you mean dead? Is Jamie hurt? Answer me!”
She smacked Darrell Gene in the back of the head with the butt of the paintball gun. When he turned, his eyes were dark and full of menace. He didn’t look apologetic anymore. He looked dangerous. “Your husband isn’t dead.” He smiled. “Not yet anyway.”
Amy’s face was a mixture of grief and anger. She was too enraged to cry and too upset to really get her bluff in with Darrell Gene. Judith grabbed the paintball gun out of Amy’s hands and rammed the barrel into the side of Darrell Gene’s face.
“What did you do to him?”
Darrell Gene smiled and let his eyes roll back in his head until only the whites showed. That look would have gone perfectly with a straitjacket and a syringe full of antipsychotic medication. “I shot him. That’s all.”
The declaration was Amy’s cue to go into hysterics. She collapsed and wept, saying “no, no, no,” over and over again.
“Where is he?” Judith asked. “What did you do with him?”
“He’s safe,” Darrell Gene said. “And he isn’t dead.”
“But you just said you shot him.”
“I shot him, but I didn’t kill him. There’s a difference.”
“Why?” Amy looked up at him from the floor with tear-stained eyes.
“The angels told me to. I can hear them, you know?”
“I’m going to call the police now.” Judith reached into her pocket for her cell phone.
Darrell Gene seemed to genuinely focus on her for the first time and a fleeting look of recognition passed over his features. “They’ve stopped talking to me for a minute. I can think better now.”
Judith kept her eyes on Darrell Gene. She had the phone open with one hand and used the other to train the gun on him.
“I’ve been hearing voices. They’ve been telling me to do things, and I‘ve been listening. I haven‘t been myself. Or maybe I have. I don‘t really know anymore”
Judith cast a cautious glance in Amy’s direction. They hadn’t anticipated this. Although neither of them had said it aloud, both of them had been expecting to find out that the culprit was a bored teenage kid or a lonely woman who had her sights on Jamie. Darrell Gene Rankin was one of the last people either of them would have suspected. And now, on top of everything else, it seemed that he was seriously disturbed.
“Where is Jamie?” Judith asked. “Where are you keeping him?”
Darrell Gene stopped to think for a moment. “I’m not sure. I don’t remember what happened to him after I shot him.”
“Where did you shoot him?” Amy asked.
“At her apartment,” Darrell Gene took great joy in Amy‘s expression. Her face crumbled, and her lower lip quivered.
“You’re lying! How can we believe anything you say?”
“You don’t have to believe me,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m lying about it all either.”
“How long have the voices been talking to you?” Judith tried to dial 911.
“The phone won’t work unless The Piper wants it to,” he explained. “He and the others speak to me through all of the gadgets. Somehow, I don’t think the police figure into his plan. But feel free to try.”
Judith hissed as the phone showed No Service. “It won’t call out.”
“Told you.” Darrell Gene was pleased that he’d been right.
“I thought you were sorry for what you did,” Amy said. “Now you don’t seem the least bit remorseful.”
Darrell Gene considered what she had said and placed both hands over his ears to stop the whispering machines from telling him how to feel. “I am sorry. I don’t want to be this way. But I can’t control it.”
“How long have they been talking to you?”
“A long time. Only they’ve been speaking a lot more frequently lately.”
Judith was just about to ask another question when she heard a knock at the door. She and Amy exchanged nervous glances. “Who could that be?”
“Check it out,” Judith said. “I’ll keep the gun on him.”
Amy found enough strength to get to her feet and approach the door. Her hand shook as she reached for the knob. “Who is it?”
“Amy, it’s Carl. I found a note in my mailbox. It told me you needed some help. What‘s going on?”
Amy gasped and op
ened the door. She had never been so glad to see Carl Beckett in her entire life. Darrell Gene seemed relieved to see the mild-mannered deacon too.
“Carl.”
“Darrell Gene.” Carl tried hard not to respond to the sight of Judith dressed in camouflage and aiming a paintball gun. “What is all this?”
“I did a very bad thing,” Darrell Gene said. “I shot Jamie.”
Carl hesitated for a moment. “Oh, my! Is he ok? We need to call the police!”
He rushed over to the phone on the wall and tapped the buttons several times before realizing that there was no dial tone. His cell phone got no signal, just like Judith’s.
“Why aren’t the phones working?”
Judith shrugged. “Darrell Gene says that someone called The Piper uses electronics to speak to him. He seems to think that The Piper doesn’t want the police to be involved.”
Carl looked at her as if she were speaking Arabic. “You can’t be serious.”
“I didn’t say that he was right about this. I just told you what he said.”
Carl turned to Darrell Gene. “Darrell Gene, where is Jamie? I’ll go and get him.”
“I don’t remember where he is.”
An idea popped into Carl’s head. “Why don’t you ask the voices if they know where he is?”
“I don’t want to talk to them. They won’t leave me alone. It’s been worse since you started visiting me.”
Darrell Gene’s words were flavored with a mixture of despair and sorrow. There was an added note of pleading there that Carl hadn’t heard in either of their two visits.
“I felt so bad about everything.” Darrell Gene’s lower lip trembled with guilt. “I listened to the voices in the beginning and they told me to leave the note and send the picture. Now they‘re telling me to hurt you. To hurt all of you.”
The Maze - the Lost Labyrinth Page 14