by Stu Jones
“I have to go. I have to see for myself.”
Courtland pursed his lips. Jenna was a strong-willed person, and he already knew he wasn’t going to win this fight. “OK, but do me a favor: stay with us for now. We can’t take any more chances with you. If something happens to you out there, then who’s going to take care of us?”
Jenna looked up at the giant and smiled, nodding her agreement as he touched a meaty hand to her arm.
“One step at a time, my dear Jenna, and when Kane is stable, we’ll all go, together.”
Jenna gave a knowing look. “And then what? After all we’ve been through, what are we supposed to do now?”
“At all costs, we must pursue the will of the Lord.” Courtland’s eyes seemed to drift far away as he spoke the words with stone conviction. “And the heart of our God burns for justice.”
Blindness. At least that was the best thing he could equate it to. His senses seemed to be functioning, except for his eyes. He could hear the muffled sound of anguished cries somewhere in the distance and smell the smell of something pungent burning as the rotten stench of it stung his nostrils. And his mouth—what was in his mouth? It was filled with smoky leaves or dry twigs that made a rustling sound when he tried to work his jaw.
Think. Remember where you are.
The strange filling in his mouth, dry and highly uncomfortable, swarmed backward toward his throat. Suddenly he panicked. The thought of choking was overwhelming, suffocating here in the warmth and dark of this place. He gagged, his stomach heaving upward inside him.
Remember you. Remember who you are, and the rest will return.
He stretched his legs outward, reaching down, reaching for the ground, reaching for anything beneath him. Nothing. He thrust his arms outward, groping slowly at first and then madly as he began to flail. He was suspended in the unyielding, oppressive inky black. Spinning and whirling in the darkness, he felt the twiggy bundle in his throat push farther back as it began to gag him.
Agh!
The sound of his own garbled screams slipped frantically into the nothingness.
There is a misconception by many that hell is a place. It is not. It is not full of licking flames and dancing devils—at least not physically. People conjure these comical depictions of hell because it’s convenient. It gives a simple and even silly visualization that the average person can understand and feel somewhat comfortable with. Unfortunately, this understanding is far from what scholars have determined to be biblically accurate. Hell is nothing. It is the agonizing torment that occurs in the void left by the complete absence of God.
As this dooming realization lay down upon his spirit, he felt the weight of it begin to crush him.
This must be hell.
Nothing moved in the black.
This is forever.
Still nothing remained—nothing but sadness and despair hanging inside him.
Stop! Think. This can’t be hell. Remember who you are.
Choking, spinning in the black, he began to calm his mind.
Calm. Think. My name…My name is Kane Lorusso, and I’m not dead…yet.
Suddenly, Kane found himself on a seaside cliff as the wind whipped at his clothes, the smell of the garbage-filled sea pushing its way into his nose. It was beautiful. But something in his vision changed, a distortion, like looking through a rain-soaked windshield. The clarity of the dream took hold and became real. His heart dropped in his chest. He knew this place. He knew it all too well.
No. Not again. I can’t.
Before him on the edge of the seaside bluff sat his fiercely determined wife and his innocent children. His wife alone and his twins together—they were tied up with rope. The children were crying.
Please. No. I can’t go through this again.
As if his mind were in fast-forward, the scenes flashed before him. The thugs sneering and his family crying, and suddenly as clear as day, Malak was there, inches from his face, his scarred mug grinning wickedly.
“Tell them it’s going to be OK. Lie to them.”
Dear God. I can’t do this again.
“I want you to know…This is the dark future you and your God could not prevent.”
No, Susan, please.
“Save our children, Kane.”
Jesus, save us! Please, save my family!
“Choose!” Malak raged, the thugs simultaneously kicking everything he loved over the edge of that cliff as he screamed and threw himself forward. Everything was moving faster now—the flashes of memory moving at blistering speed. He was crying, the tears blurring his vision, the rope searing its way through the fleshy meat of his hands. He’d tried to save all of them. He’d tried so hard.
“When you see your whore of a wife,” Saxon said, sneering, through the fog of his dream, “tell her I’ve got her kids now.” Gunshots. Silence.
Frozen before him, the terrible scene sat emblazoned in his memory. His wife had been murdered and his children enslaved by a man possessed by a living demon. Kane had been unable to stop them on his own. He’d thought he didn’t need God’s help. He was wrong. These evil bandits, the Coyotes, had then tried to kill him too when they’d shot him and flung him from a seaside cliff—but he wasn’t dead. He had survived. He had survived for a reason. He always did. The words of his dear wife clanged like a million iron church bells inside his head.
“Save our children, Kane. Save them. Promise me.”
“Susan, don’t leave me…”
“Save them, Kane. Everything I’ve done has been to spare them. Don’t let it be for nothing.”
As he heard his own voice speak the words, they sounded lifeless, broken—just a frail oath hanging by the thinnest thread.
I promise.
2
TYNUK SAT ON the dusty desert turf with a heavy rope tied around his midsection. The evening was growing long as night crept in, gliding silently into existence beyond the faceless, shrouded clouds. This was not where he wanted to be. Not like this. These Comanche were supposed to be his people, and he had expected a far different reception than the one he had received.
He was now their prisoner, and they had stripped him naked, an act intended to humiliate him. A few—specifically the older boy with the broken nose, Neraquassi, and his little entourage—had made it a personal point to humiliate him further every chance they got. He had now been spit on multiple times, and Neraquassi had even gone so far as to urinate on Tynuk’s head and face. He was obviously still enraged that Tynuk had gotten the best of him and his warriors those few days earlier. In a moment where Tynuk was forced to defend himself, he had done so—and quite effectively—as Neraquassi’s flattened nose attested to. There have always been bullies. In every time, in every culture, they’ve existed. And the only thing a bully understands is force—the force they apply against others and the force applied against them to make them stop. But Tynuk’s mind was far from that now—far away from the present, shameful condition he now found himself in as he sat naked on the barren ground.
He closed his eyes, the crisp wind of the Palo Duro mixing with the granulated particles of the canyon rock that stung his skin. He needed guidance. He thought he had done what Grandfather had wanted: what he had been told to do and how he had been told to do it. Why had his own people, true-blood Comanche Indians, greeted him with such hostility? Had he made some mistake? Was there some customary or ritualistic gesture he had omitted? Or had he simply misjudged the character of his people and how they would receive him?
Sitting there, his mind drifted back to how it all had begun—back to the origins of everything. He had been a nobody, a trailer-park kid named Reno Yakeschi, whose full-blood Comanche father had walked out on him and his mother when he was a very young boy. His life had fallen apart; the only reprieve from the school bullies and the excesses of his abusive mother came in the form of a quiet old man, his father’s uncle, Nuk’Chala. The old man, whom he had always called “Grandfather,” saw the boy’s needs and agreed to take him in
under his wing, teaching him the ancient ways—what their people referred to as tsumukikatu, the “quiet spirit,” as well as the coveted narohparu, or naro for short, which was the name of the Comanche’s ancient, almost-mythical style of close-quarters combat and weapons training.
It had taken years for him to master these disciplines, to calm the angry tempest in his mind, temper the flame of his spirit, and harden the fibers of his body. But when he had emerged, he was no longer Reno Yakeschi. He had become something else—something fierce and fearless. He had become Tynuk, the warrior.
Of course, his fearless nature was emboldened by the constant companionship of a fearsome, wolfish beast. A creature of truly fantastic appearance and proportions—like the fabled shape-shifting lycanthrope—it was as though it had been conjured into this world from one much more ancient. Tynuk had come across and befriended the strange, wolfish pup back when all this had begun. For the creature he had chosen the name Azolja, or “vigilant one” in the ancient tongue of his people. To date it had been most appropriate. The beast followed his every move like a loyal dog, always there, always regarding him with those majestic silver eyes. Where the beast had come from, the boy did not know, but they belonged to each other now, truest of friends in the darkest of times.
Tynuk squinted and scanned the nearby rock outcroppings for any sign of his friend. He was sure his dark companion was watching from some distant ridge. Always watching, always observing, the beast would bear witness to the entire ordeal—and it would be difficult for Tynuk not to call upon him for aid in this upcoming trial. But he could not. It was his burden to bear, and he refused to accept any assistance in proving himself in what was to come. He would rather die.
There was purpose to this. Everything happened for a reason, and even in this dark place, some hidden purpose still remained—some ancient vestige tucked deep inside him. He could feel the Great Spirit moving as it spoke to him. The winds of change had begun to blow, and there would be no stopping the events that would now unfold. Though what exactly this meant and what exactly he was supposed to do were still entirely unclear to him.
What the boy did know was that he was a prisoner of these warrior people—these survivors whom he shared blood with and who strangely had one foot in the old world and one foot in the new. He also knew that because of his claims, because of his training, and because of Grandfather’s belt that he’d carried, he would have to prove himself. He feared the uncertainty of this more than anything. Grandfather had prepared him well, but this trial would take something more—something he didn’t possess.
Tynuk leaned his head back against the cold, dust-covered boulder behind him as his eyes searched the sky for some break in the oppressive, black cloud cover. His mind began to wander, reaching back to his friends at the radio station: to Courtland, Kane, and Jenna. He hoped they were alright, though like some distant, clouded memory, he sensed that they were not. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did. Something had happened. Something terrible. All that was left for him now was to trust. He had to believe that this was all a part of their destiny and that it had been put in motion long before they had chosen to follow this path. He had to trust; it was all he had left.
“Great Spirit, guide us,” he whispered to himself as he felt a dark cloud of uncertainty encircle the shallow warmth of his heart.
His name was Dagen. That was it. Last names didn’t matter anymore. Dagen, the former US marine. Dagen, the former career criminal. Dagen, the former lieutenant of Malak’s wasteland gang of bandits, the Coyotes. But all of that was in the past. Now he was just Dagen—a broken man with a sordid past and a complicated future, a man desperate for true purpose and real redemption.
He rotated the small, blackened twig slowly between his fingers as a putrid, garbage-tainted ocean breeze blew inland, ruffling his hair. He tossed the twig to the ground and pulled his thick military-surplus jacket tighter around him. He didn’t know what to believe anymore. Didn’t know who he was supposed to be or what he was supposed to do. All this business of God and purpose swirling around inside him made him feel crazy. Why would God want anything to do with a man like him? He had murdered innocent people—innocent children. He wanted to believe Jenna; he wanted to believe more than anything that there was such a thing as redemption for a man like him—and recent events had nearly convinced him. What he’d accomplished wasn’t possible. He couldn’t have done what he had without outside help, without the protection and empowerment of something greater. The way his broken body had been so emboldened, so filled with strength. It now seemed far away and dreamlike to him as he recalled the moment—dashing in to rescue Jenna from the clutches of that sadist, Raith. It had felt good, really good, to protect her—to do something good for her. Jenna. The lingering thought of her caused his skin to tingle.
Jenna, the woman who had pulled him back from the brink. For some inexplicable reason, she had shown him mercy. Mercy— after he had murdered her husband and infant child. After he’d held her hostage, physically and emotionally abused her, and stood by as the Coyotes had ruthlessly raped and beaten her—she’d shown him mercy. What kind of person acted like that? Who could forgive like that? Jenna could. And had. She’d told him that God had spared him for a reason. That Jesus had died for him—that even his life could still have value. It was almost too much for him to believe. When he had hit the very bottom, she had been there, gently, consistently guiding him toward the truth. And even though he hated himself for it, he now knew without question that, because of her nature, because of her devotion, he loved her. He loved her with unbridled desperation, and he knew there was no distance he wouldn’t travel, no battle he wouldn’t enter, to secure her safety. He would never be able to do enough to atone for his injustices against her.
“Ughhh,” Dagen sighed with exasperation as he pushed at the twig with the tip of his boot. It was enough to make a man lose his mind.
The door to the clinic squealed open as the very subject of his thoughts emerged, pulling her jacket on. Dagen looked over to catch her glance. He cleared his throat.
“How’s he looking?”
Jenna gave him a strange look. “You’re concerned?”
Dagen held up his hands. “I can’t ask how the man is doing?”
“You can ask. I just didn’t think you cared.”
The words stung, but she wasn’t wrong. To say he and Kane had never really gotten along was putting it mildly. Dagen was sure it had something to do with Kane’s disposition as a former police officer and the fact that their first encounter involved a fight where Kane knocked Dagen over a third-story balcony—a fall that had mostly cost Dagen the use of his legs.
“OK, I’ll concede to that. What I’m saying is I just think he has been through enough. I mean, aren’t we all supposed to be playing for the same team now?”
Jenna nodded and shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket.
“I…” Dagen paused, considering his words. “I think something has been started here. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I think Kane is at the heart of it. And he’s going to have to be there to finish it—that’s all. Everyone deserves a second chance.”
“Yeah, they do.” Jenna nodded. “And sometimes a third and a fourth.” She paused, a strange little smile on her lips. “You’ve come a long way, Dagen.”
Dagen ducked his head and grabbed his crutches to avoid having to acknowledge this praise. “So, what are we doing then?”
“We’re in limbo for now. We’ve got to wait and see how Kane does. Then, regardless, it looks like we’re headed west. Like you said, something has been started, and it might be up to us to finish it.”
“That will mean confronting Malak, again.”
Jenna nodded seriously.
“Nothing good ever comes of that.” Dagen considered this silently as he used the crutches to help himself to his feet. “So what now?” he asked.
“Now we need to scavenge some more supplies before it gets dark. Courtland wil
l stay with Kane. We’ll take the Jeep.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dagen said with a mock salute.
Jenna playfully rolled her eyes. “Just get in the Jeep. I’m driving.”
“What? You don’t trust me?” Dagen gave a false gasp as he hobbled along.
Jenna moved to the Jeep’s door and opened it, dropping a backpack and an AR-15 rifle in the back. “Let’s just say my experience with you and vehicles tends to make me feel a little out of control.”
“I can live with that.” Dagen pursed his lips and nodded curtly as he pulled himself into the passenger seat and loaded his crutches. “Where are we headed?”
Jenna turned to him with a spirited and scarcely concealed look of defiance in her eyes as she cranked the Jeep and it roared to life. “We’re not supposed to—in fact I said I wouldn’t—but we’re going back to the radio station.”
Without questioning, Dagen drew a 1911-style handgun from its holster on his hip and racked a round into the chamber.
“Let’s do it then,” he said, snapping on the safety and jamming the weapon back down into the leather holster.
In the semidarkness of the murky operating room of the small, disheveled doc-in-the-box clinic, Kane Lorusso’s eyes flashed open. Wild with fear and desperation, they jerked back and forth. His body spasmed, his legs kicking madly across the tabletop as all manner of bottles and instruments were sent clattering across the floor of the small room.
“Nnnnnnnnn…Sssstop!” he moaned in pitiful desperation as he clawed at his surroundings and rolled from the table, falling to the hard floor with a thump. “Aggggggg! You can’t! You can’t!” he shrieked at the top of his lungs as he bucked and rolled across the trash-strewn floor.
Behind him, the door burst open as Courtland’s huge frame pushed into the room. Dropping to his knees with a wince, he scooped Kane up off the floor and pulled him against his massive barrel chest. “It’s OK, brother; I’ve got you. You’re safe now.”