by J. Thorn
“There are men waiting for me at the bottom of the steps. Do not be so foolish as to think you can fight your way out of this. You are a nurse, my pretty, not a warrior.”
Jana slammed her fist into the stained wall and growled at the commander. She stood and walked past Byron, never taking her eyes off of his. She held her hands high in the air and started walking down the steps. Half way down, the soldiers whipped out the zip ties. Jana screamed as they bound her broken wrist to her healthy one.
Chapter 48
John heard Sully’s death cry. He had managed to sneak out to the driveway. Father stood above Sully while his Warriors of Christ stood behind him, firing into the man’s broken body.
As the soldiers turned back to reenter the house, John scurried behind the wall. He raced around toward the front door. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed movement in the neighbor’s house. John dove behind the evergreen bush, thankful that it had not shed its cover like most of the other shrubbery in the region.
He saw Jana emerge first, and could not believe his eyes. Her hair blew in the wind like soiled straw, as John suppressed a desire to call out. Bruised skin and swollen features replaced the usual glow in her face. Jana wore a splint on one arm and cried in pain as the soldiers escorted her across the neighbor’s lawn and back into the house through the kitchen door.
John put his head in his hands and chased frozen tears from his cheek. He glanced at the gray smoke rising from Sully’s final stand, and beyond the biker’s corpse at the dark and silent street.
***
“I’m glad to see you are with us again, Commander Byron. My men were worried that you would not awake from your injuries.”
Byron’s mouth twitched into a reluctant grin as he calculated the odds of his survival.
“I understand you found the girl, Jana, hiding in the house next door?” Father asked.
“Yes, she left just enough tracks for an experienced hunter; the wounded fox is no match for an old hound.”
“Excellent work, Commander Byron. I was a little disappointed that you were not able to fight off the Infidels that attacked my men, but we took care of them in the end.”
“Thank you, Father. I am here to serve the Lord.”
“Are you, Byron? I don’t understand how those despicable Keepers of the Wormwood managed to take out my soldiers that were here, waiting for John and Jana. How do you explain that?”
Byron twitched and rubbed the lump on his head. Before he could answer, one of the soldiers dragged Jana into the kitchen before Father, who began his questioning.
“So you are Jana Burgoyne?”
Jana stood and did not respond. A soldier walked up and grabbed her by the broken wrist. His spittle hit her lips as he instructed her to answer Father.
“Yes.”
“Finally, some conversation. And where is John?”
“I don’t know,” Jana replied.
Father motioned to the other men.
“Take her downstairs.” The sun was dying as the early winter evening began to take over.
***
John heard the screams, muffled by the earthen walls of the basement. He cocked the weapon and sidled down the driveway toward the side door. From there, he heard Jana whimpering, begging for mercy, and cursing her captors all in one breath.
He reached for the handle of the storm door when a metallic click sounded behind his left ear.
“Drop the weapon or lose your head.”
Without an option, John followed the command.
Chapter 49
Byron stood back on the far wall. His slouching posture nagged an aching body. The commander kept out of Father’s sight, willing to let John and Jana occupy Father’s fury.
Father sent the majority of the troops back to St. Michael’s, leaving four to help him with the interrogation. They sat on boxes, smoking cigarettes and trading dirty jokes while they played poker, the words of the prisoners of no interest to them. Byron tired of standing and slid down the wall into a seated position. Father glanced at him, but ignored the ailing commander. He would be dealt with later.
“Let her go. She’s of no use to you,” said John.
“Don’t tell me who is of use and who is not. God will make that decision,” replied Father.
John looked at Jana, but she looked away. Her entire face had swelled and turned red from numerous blows. Blood ran from her nose and mouth, and she wheezed with every breath.
“Tell me John, what does the Lord say about the Final Battle? Channel him for me so I do not have to hurt your wife anymore.”
“I’m not John the Revelator. I’m John Burgoyne. I live here, in this house, in South Euclid, Ohio. I wore the stolen clothes of a priest for a Halloween party. That’s it. That’s my story, no matter how much you torture me.”
Father chuckled.
“Torture you?”
He walked past Jana and John, examining their restraints. He instructed the soldiers to blow two sets of holes in the wall and stick the arms of the prisoners through them, binding their wrists from the other side. Father pulled out a crumpled cigar. One of the young soldiers involved in the card game jumped up and aimed his Zippo at the end of it. With hearty breaths, Father ignited the cigar and blew the smoke into John and Jana’s faces.
“It will be dark soon. Retrieve the construction light from the truck,” Father said to one of the soldiers.
The soldier returned, dropped the light on the floor, and connected the terminals to the car battery. The halogen bulb blanketed the entire basement with fluorescent light. Those in the room covered their eyes until they adjusted to the brightness.
“Much better. Now we can talk all night,” said Father.
Father grabbed a stained hunting knife from the table. He walked toward Jana. She struggled and cursed, doing her best to turn away from him and his foul cigar smoke. He took the tip of the knife and placed it on the left side of her head. In one, swift motion, Father slid the blade down, cutting off Jana’s left ear. She screamed and John howled profanities at the madman. Father grabbed an old rag from the floor and wrapped it around the fresh wound, tying the rag tightly.
“I don’t want you bleeding out yet, do I?” he said as Jana’s eyes rolled back into her head, on the verge of passing out.
“You sadistic bastard!”
“It is more effective for me to get to you through her. Sit tight, John the Revelator. Your time will come.”
Byron pulled himself to his feet. He looked into Jana’s eyes and had to turn away.
“My dear, what dance shall we dance next?” asked Father.
He took the knife and wiped it clean on Jana’s jeans. Father traced the outline of her breasts with the edge of the blade, barely touching the fabric of her sweatshirt. He slid the knife between the waistband of her jeans and the top button. The thread gave way and the button rolled to the floor. Father grabbed the zipper and pulled it down. The soldiers stopped playing cards and Byron took a step forward.
“I have four men here that would enjoy a little action. Isn’t that right?”
Father asked the question while looking over his shoulder at the soldiers. They stopped playing cards, but each man continued to hold them in his hands.
“Fine. Come here and I’ll tell you what you want to know,” said John.
Father took a step toward John. On his way, he bent down and placed his head at Jana’s waist. Father inhaled an exaggerated breath through his nose and released it with a smile on his face.
“I can smell the excitement and fear on your wife,” he said to John.
John ignored the comment and waited for Father to ask a question.
“What has He said about the Final Battle? What do you have to share that is not explicit in Revelations? Do not make me think that God was mistaken about you,” Father warned.
“God says that his people will reign. The Second Coming of the Messiah will restore peace to the world through His one-thousand-year reign. The Great Whi
te throne will usher in the New Heavens and New Earth.”
Father stopped and looked into John’s eyes. The cigar dangled from his lips and came close to burning them. He put the knife down and sat on a box in front of the two prisoners.
“I’m impressed, John. I would like to hear more.”
John sighed and licked his dry lips.
“It is the work of Seven,” John continued. “The Seven Cycles of events in Revelations can be compared to the works of the Holy Covenant. The First Cleansing must surely be the first of those cycles.”
Father’s face lit with a beaming smile. He looked at the soldiers and Byron, all of who wore blank expressions on their faces.
“Yes, yes it is. You are very perceptive, John the Revelator. Tell me more of the Book of Revelations and how it is being interpreted here.”
John coughed and his eyes darted around the room. He looked to the ceiling while whispering under his breath.
“I’m thirsty. Can I get something to drink?”
Father turned and said to one of the soldiers, “Get this man a bottle of water.”
John looked to Jana, but she buried her chin in her chest.
A soldier fumbled through an olive-green bag and produced a half-liter of bottled water. He opened it and hoisted it to John’s lips. He gulped as much of the sweet-tasting water as he could before the solder pulled it away.
Father’s mood turned and his face contorted into a ferocious snarl.
“Enough! Continue or the pain will commence,” he said to John.
John shook his head and looked at Father through shimmering tears.
“Don’t hold back on me!” Father shouted.
He turned to Jana and punched her in the stomach. She moaned and lifted her head in agony. Father picked up the knife and placed it under Jana’s chin.
“Talk or I will send her to her final judgment.”
John looked around the room as it began to swirl. The dark blacks and grays of the basement flowed together into a kaleidoscope of color and motion which forced his eyelids shut. When he opened them, Father stood in front of Jana. Her sweatshirt had been cut open. Jana’s jeans sat in a pile at her feet, and her panties hung from the hilt of Father’s knife.
Two of the soldiers moved toward her, each loosening the belt on their pants. Father stood in front of her, his chest heaving and eyes bulging. Jana finally looked over at John, her eyes piercing his soul. John pulled as hard as he could on the ties binding his wrists, but they did not give. He tried to scream, but his brain refused to form coherent thoughts and would not send them along to his mouth.
John looked around the room and saw Commander Byron. His cane supported what was left of his dignity.
Father screamed unintelligible words and beastly sounds at Jana. He tore at his own shirt, and his fingernails drew long, red trails down his own face. The two soldiers that approached Jana did so with looks of consternation. The other two remained seated on the boxes, trying to convince themselves that they were not part of the proceedings.
Father stepped in closer to Jana. He bent down and placed his tongue on her navel. He ran it up her stomach and between her two breasts until his lips almost touched hers. Jana looked straight ahead, beyond Father and into a time and place where she existed without her physical body. He placed both hands on her breasts and pushed her tight against the wall.
The two soldiers discarded their initial state of shame, and dropped their pants to their ankles. Both men gripped growing erections in their hands.
John heard himself screaming, and the echoes reverberated inside his head. No matter how hard he tried, his mouth would not release a sound. Byron stepped closer, a foot from the wall that secured the prisoners.
Jana began to struggle, pulling hard on the ties that bound her wrists together. She screeched in pain as the binding tore deeper into her shattered wrist bones. Jana brought her legs up in an attempt to knee the attackers. The two men seated on the boxes saw this and ran over to secure her ankles. They tied them to cinder blocks laying scattered on the basement floor. The proximity to Jana’s exposed body and primal instincts stole their focus on the task at hand. The four men and Father stood, drooling like wild beasts over their kill.
John shut his eyes and tried to replay another scene from their past, but his mind would not cooperate. He heard Jana crying, and he heard the men jockeying for position.
Chapter 50
The commander felt life draining from his body. He wished to shed the pain, to sleep and not wake up.
Sergeants drilled compassion out of the solider from the very first hours of boot camp. A good soldier was taught to react on instinct, action before thought, and to achieve the objective at any cost. All of these ideas pushed empathy to the side.
Byron fought extensively in the hills of Afghanistan in the 1980s. With the USSR at its peak, and in the midst of the Cold War against the United States, he led troops through the hellish terrain. Although he collected many war stories, the Kremlin did not have enough firepower or willpower to defeat the Afghan foot soldiers. The Afghans knew the lay of the land, they knew the local war lords, and no number of Russian tanks could change that.
Byron took his share of Afghan women. The only way to instill fear in the local leadership was through inhuman celebrations, and Byron studied the ancient masters of the Mongols. He claimed, although the legitimacy of that claim was in question, lineage from the great Genghis Khan. Once, the commander captured some Afghan rebels. As they approached the next village, the prisoners of war, dressed in Soviet fatigues and with explosives strapped to their chests, would be the first ones sent into battle.
Once a village had been conquered, Byron salted the earth. He instructed his soldiers to round up all men between the ages of ten and eighty. Byron insisted on a bullet to the back of each of their heads. Once the women of the village finished watching the grim spectacle, the commander let loose his soldiers. After repeated gang rapes, the women pleaded for death. Before Byron set fire to the village, the heads of all those that had been executed were stacked in a pyramid on the road leading into it. Byron took deranged pride in his revival of the Mongol war tactics.
From Afghanistan, the KGB offered Byron employment. He assassinated sympathizers to Democracy. Whether it was Granada, the Falklands, or Jerusalem, Byron eliminated all human targets on his docket.
He blinked again at the scene in front of him. John’s eyes were closed and his head turned as far away from Jana as possible. Father had devolved into a wild beast, his robes torn and covered with blood. Two of the four soldiers worked up to the precipice of violation. The other two, after securing her ankles, dropped their pants to their ankles and waited for a turn.
Byron lifted his nine millimeter and pulled the trigger twice. The deafening blast in the confined space of the basement blew out his right eardrum. The heads of the two men closest to Byron exploded in a burst of pink flesh. Their bodies fell to the floor behind Father. Father turned to look at Byron, but his eyes did not connect the noise with the destruction wrought upon his men.
The man on Jana’s left reached down to grab the pistol off his belt, now on the floor and tangled in his underwear. The commander lodged two bullets in his torso, the one to his chest killing him instantly. The flash of the muzzle and roar of the gun did not faze Byron. His hand moved in deathly syncopation with the cold steel.
Another shot knocked the man to Jana’s right against the wall. He slid down to the floor, leaving a meandering trail of hot blood on the white wall. The man clutched his throat as blood spurted from the gaping wound below his Adam’s apple. Mists of red tormented his final exhalations. Byron looked down at the four bloodied bodies on the floor.
For the first time since Byron fired his weapon, Father moved. He grabbed the tattered shoulder of his robe and wiped the blood and gray matter from his face. He looked at Jana, her head down and sobbing into her chest. Bits of flesh and fluid covered her naked breasts and pubic area. Jana’s head
bounced up and down with every silent heave. Father spoke first.
“You dirty piece of shit. How dare you?”
“Step away from her,” replied Byron.
“You will hang for this. I will make sure that you suffer in this life and the next.”
Commander Byron kept his gun aimed at Father’s face while the priest spoke. Father took measured steps toward Byron until the barrel of the gun was almost touching his blood-soaked face.
“You are nothing but a charlatan, a fake. You claim to be a man of God, but you are nothing more than a cold-blooded murderer like me. I cannot let you continue any longer.”
Father stepped up and pulled the barrel to his mouth.
“Go ahead then, you big coward. Do it.”
Jana glanced at John, her eyes locking on his. She closed them tight. John turned back to the unfolding stand off between Father and Commander Byron.
“Where did you stray from your faith, Father? At one time you were a respected man of God. What happened?”
Father laughed the deep, guttural laugh of a man on the verge of insanity.
“You know nothing, you piece of garbage. You have taken so many lives that it makes me sick. What right do you have to question my motives? This is not God’s will. He did not intend to have pure evil walking in His Garden. The Holy Covenant came to purify, to cleanse the palace before the King’s arrival. I’ve spent my entire life trying to help drug dealers, prostitutes, abusers, and murderers. And you know what, Byron? That’s all over now, because God prophesized the Final Battle in Revelations. He anointed His church to destroy the evil that has plagued mankind for centuries. The Covenant has begun, and there is nothing you can do about it. The First Cleansing was just that: the first. There will be more until we have brought the Thousand Year Peace to our Lord. He will sit upon the Seventh Throne and rule the world of righteousness and holiness.”
“You’re a lunatic,” spat John, interrupting the conversation between Father and Byron. “No man of God kills innocent people in his name. You continue to perpetuate the same cycle of religious fanaticism that has contaminated mankind for two thousand years. You are a sadistic fraud.”