“You will not change my beliefs, no matter what you say. We’ve already been through this many times over,” Jacob said firmly.
“Nor will you change mine. He’s got my son, Jacob. And both our worlds are falling to ruins. So you can keep believing whatever you want to believe to keep yourself as negligent and oblivious as possible, but I’ve got a world to save, and he’s got nothing to do with it. God forbid I actually hope that I be able to live a decent life after everything else I’ve been through. And I honestly don’t know why I even bother with you anymore. You’re never there when you’re needed, just like him.”
“Right now, more than any other time in the world, we need people to believe, Aliyah.”
“You’re right, but you and I differ in what the people need to believe in. So, why don’t you just sit there and do what you do best? Nothing. While I actually take care of the situation.”
“Aliyah.”
“Don’t follow me. You and I are literally worlds apart.”
“Then why did you come back for me,” he cried after her.
“You’re right. I should have just left you in there uselessly calling for your Father to save you. But you see, that’s the part you’re not understanding. He didn’t save you. Cherise and I did, and she lost her life because of it, and I, once again, lost my son. And yet you still choose him. Goodbye, Jacob. Whatever mess you find yourself in next. I won’t be there.
“Let your Father get you out of it that you believe in so much, but I can promise you, he won’t. Then it’ll be too late for you to finally understand the life that I know, the way things really are, where prayer won’t do a god damn thing to make your life better. Your life is up to you, and that’s all it comes down to. Go ahead. I’m sure the churches are filled to the brink right now of people praying to be saved instead of saving themselves. You might as well join them, right before everyone inside is burned alive.”
“Don’t shun me like this. I want to go with you. My duty – .”
“Your duty,” Lydia scoffed. “Nothing but. Why don’t you figure out how to do things of your own accord, your own free will? Until then, stay away from me!” she said dangerously.
She was gone before he could tell her that his heart loved her and wanted to protect her, and that he’d chosen that above his duty moments before he’d realized it had been his duty all along, but it’s something he’d had to figure out himself. She left before he could tell her that he was only human, and he’d made mistakes, but he had no intention of making those same mistakes. And she was gone before he could warn her that she was turning dark, and if she turned dark, he would lose her forever.
Chapter 28
Just as the Dark soul had said, Jerome was easy pickings, as he paced back and forth, back and forth, in the emergency hospital wing, less caring about his mother-in-law, and more caring about taking his anger out on those that had resulted in his wife’s death. More than anything, those he called Lydia.
Dwayne entered him easily, reassuring him with their similar goals and their sole hatred, at the moment, for the same girl. “If not for Lydia, your life would be the same. Now everything has changed … because of her. Your mother-in-law wants to keep protecting her, because it’s the only way she can feel close to Cherise, but how many people do you want to lose because of Lydia? Would you sacrifice your own children to protect her?
“You never liked her from the get-go. The only reason you tolerated her was because she was Cherise’s friend. Cherise is dead, now, because of her. She’s not here to stop you from doing what you should have done the moment Lydia’s presence began threatening your life. Get rid of her. Only then can you be safe.”
On a normal day, the emergency wing of a hospital took forever. This was no normal night. People were being brought in by the case load with injuries far worse than Jerome’s mother-in-law’s broken hip and injured head. Less than five hours since the hundreds of Dark souls had been released into this world, and this was all they’d accomplished, with still one hour remaining before the sun started coming up.
Centuries on top of centuries for humans to establish everything they did, and all it took was less than five hours to destroy it all. The security of work, money, safety, gone, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake. Humans, so unbelievably weak. Even Jerome could care less about the downfall of the world, wrought in his grief over his wife’s death.
He saw with unseeing, uncaring eyes the mass of bloodied, wounded, dying people being rushed through the halls, because it only served to irritate him that all those stupid people were keeping his mother-in-law from getting the treatment she needed so that he could take care of his business.
So Dwayne had Jerome call a couple more of his boys. “I need you to sit wit’ my mother-in-law. I got some stuff I need to take care of.”
And the more of his boys rejected him on the basis of having to protect their own families, their own selves, the darker he became, welcoming Dwayne to possess him more and more, without him even knowing he was being possessed. He urged Jerome’s thoughts to call Gerald. “I’ll be right down,” possessed Gerald said, just as they’d planned. Gerald would take care of the mother-in-law, while Jerome was free to carry out the rest of Dwayne’s plans.
***
Lydia punched the News 9 anchorwoman in the face, knocking her out on live TV.
“Keep the camera on me. She’s been possessed.” She yanked the microphone away from her unconscious body, watching and listening to the Dark soul scream as it left into the remaining night.
“There are Dark spirits everywhere, but the only way they can possess you is if you become as dark as they. The only way to survive is if you keep your light, keep your goodness, hold your crosses. I don’t give a shit what you do, just do whatever you can to keep them from possessing you,” she said on live TV. “If you kill, if you do things you don’t feel good about, if you break the laws, they WILL get you. They will possess you. And you’re as good as done.
“You must fight them by not giving in. Keep your light. It’s the only thing that will protect you, the only thing that will save you. Don’t give up. Fight. Fight for everything that you have inside you, fight for everything you’re worth. You must fight, but not by killing people. Those people are possessed. Restrain them, knock them out, whatever you have to do, but know this, their body is not evil. It is what is inside them.
“Killing their body will not destroy what is inside them. Stay strong and don’t stop fighting for what is right, and what you believe in. Whatever you believe in, don’t stop believing, no matter what.”
Lydia’s cell-phone rang for the eighth time. 24-hour news. That’s what this station promised. And some staff remained – those that knew that there were things going on that were bigger than their families – or perhaps the ones that remained didn’t have any. Who knew.
She beckoned to a scrawny, nerdy, pasty white male that had probably spent his life dreaming about stardom, and gave him the mic. “Everything I just said, keep repeating it. We got 45 minutes before daylight, but the more people possessed, the more problems we’re going to have.” He gave her an awkward thumbs-up with a toothy smile. She’d just given him a chance of a lifetime.
“What?!” she yelled into the phone when it rang again.
“It’s Jerome. I found your son.”
“Jerome? How’s Mama?”
“Still waitin’ to be treated. It’s crazy at the hospital. They comin’ in in piles. I got Gerald watchin’ over Mama while I went in search fo’ yo’ boy.”
“Why?” she said cautiously. “You hate my guts right now, Jerome. Last thing you’d want to do is help me.”
“I ain’t doin’ this fo’ you,” he yelled. “Cherise’s mother even worse than Cherise. She down-right told me if I didn’t help you find yo’ son, she get Grandmother rights and take my kids from me. All she wants is fo’ me to carry out what she believes Cherise’s destiny was, and it has to do wit’ you. So I found him. You want hi
m or not?”
“Where is he?” Lydia said, full of desperation for her child.
“A vacant apartment building on the west side. 723 Marcellus Ave. When can you get here? I got more pressin’ matters to attend to than yo’ child, like takin’ care a’ my own, for one.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. And Jerome?”
“What?”
“Thank you.”
For once, the police had more important things to do, so she sped the entire way there. It had been Jerome’s number and Jerome’s voice, and it was Jerome that met her at the door.
“Where is he?” And only then did it occur to her. “Jerome. Where are your children? You said you got Gerald to watch over Mama, but who’s – .”
The door slammed shut and was locked behind her. He smiled, his smile, Dwayne’s, not Jerome’s, like he’d one-upped her. The game he’d always played that she’d spent her life escaping from.
“Dwayne,” she said. “Leave Jerome’s body. He has nothing to do with this.”
“Oh, but he has everything to do with this. He wants nothing more than to see you dead so that you can’t cause any more chaos in his life. How do you think I came to be in possession of him so easily? He’s happy as can be that it worked, just like I promised him.”
“Then let him talk for himself if you believe that so much. Let him tell me himself.”
“Gladly.”
She watched the Dark soul leave Jerome’s body and find haven in the darkness of the vacant apartment. “Jerome?”
Jerome lifted his gun and pointed it at her forehead. “You the reason my wife is dead,” he said coldly. “Everythin’ that happen is cuz a’ you.”
“You’re wrong, Jerome,” she said calmly. “I didn’t kill Cherise, he did. Cherise was my friend, my best friend, my only friend. I didn’t involve her in any of this. He did. He showed up, trying to kill me, and she saw him, and fought against him. If you truly loved your wife, you would fight the one that involved her and killed her, not me. He wants you to believe I’m the reason she died, but it wasn’t my hands that killed her. It was his.
“And you’ve allowed the very person that killed her to possess your own body and set this whole thing up. I am to blame in one way, because Cherise wanted to protect me. That’s the way that she was. The greatest friend I’ve ever had, the truest heart, the purest soul. Don’t let her death be in vain by killing the very person she sacrificed her life for. Think of what Mama would say.”
“You tryin’ to manipulate me same way you manipulated her!” he yelled. “If she knew the truth ‘bout you, she would’na bothered. She the most beautiful, lovin’ person I ever met in my entire life. I was a nothin’, a nobody befo’ her. Runnin’ the streets like I was somethin’, while feelin’ nothin’ but emptiness inside. She showed me my life could be different. She made me somethin’ I never thought I could be. A husband. A father. A respectable person. Now she gone. I got nothin’. Nothin’ to keep me from bein’ the way I was befo’ her.” He said, his voice pure agony.
“You’ve got your children,” Lydia continued to try talking him down. “Cherise wouldn’t want you to give up on them. She’d keep wanting you to be that man, that father, that she helped you to be. There’s nothing that Cherise cared about more than you and your children. Her being gone doesn’t change that.”
“No,” he shouted. “There was somethin’ mo’ she cared about. You. If not fo’ you, she still be here. Puttin’ me in my place, takin’ care of the kids. Cuz a’ you, they ain’t got a mother. Cuz a’ you, I ain’t got nothin’ mo’ to live for, cuz you took from me the only person that ever mattered, that ever made me feel like I was betta’ than dis.”
Jacob’s abrupt presence did little with the gun pointed at her head, while Dwayne was loving every minute of it. She could have attacked Jerome during the distraction, but she didn’t have the heart. He was hurt. He was grieving. He didn’t know any better at the moment. Would he pull the trigger? She didn’t know, but she did feel like she deserved everything she was facing at the moment, because she, herself, couldn’t help but feel fault over Cherise’s death. She was more than willing to bow down and face the consequences.
But then Cherise showed up.
She played out the human version of smacking him upside the head, while her hand went right through it. “Fool, I shouda divorced you long ago if I knew you goin’ be like dis the moment I ain’t around. All those years standin’ by yo’ side, believin’ in the good in you, and you go and turn the moment I ain’t here no more. Go right back to the way you was befo’ me. If I could beat yo’ ass, I would.”
“Cherise,” he said in surprise, shock, and a bit of fear.
“What? You think I ain’t watchin’, don’t know nothin’, now that I dead? You go back to the way you was before you met me, I kill you myself, Jerome. Our kids need you, their father, more than anythin’ right now, and you actin’ like dis? Like you neva’ changed at all. Like killin’ people take care of all yo’ problems, anyone that gets in yo’ way. Just pop a cap on they ass and all yo’ problems disappear. How well did that work for you befo’? So why you go back to that now? I thought I taught you betta’ than that. 13 years I spent with yo’ stupid ass, how long I gotta keep babysittin’ you, keep you outta trouble?”
“Baby, I’m sorry.” He placed the gun on the floor.
“Don’t Baby-I’m-sorry me. You know what you done. Settin’ my girl up like this.”
“I was possessed.”
“Now you goin’ make excuses? If you thought it was ‘till death do us part’, you wrong. I be watchin’ you, Jerome.”
“Baby, I love you. I’m hurt. Ain’t you see that?”
“I love you too, Boo. Always will. You need to stop this shit, go be a Daddy to our kids. They hurtin’ too. They scared. And you goin’ leave them alone?”
“I didn’t leave them alone. They at my Ma’s.”
“Nigga’, you gone leave my kids alone at yo’ Mother’s?” The window shattered loudly around Lydia’s head.
“Chill, Cherise. I’m goin’, ok? I’m out.” Jerome threw his hands up in surrender. “Geez, the afterlife ain’t changed you one bit.”
“And it ain’t gonna, either, Jerome. Remember dat,” Cherise called at his back. “Dark soul, I summon thee!” she called out.
“You can’t summon me, Light,” Dwayne growled.
“Oh, I can do a lot mo’ than that.” She floated up into the attic and all you could hear were his screams of pain excruciating.
“Okay, okay, what do you want?”
“You and your black spiritual cronies need to return to Otherland where you belong, leave Lydia and all the otha’ innocents alone.”
He cackled crudely. “Yeah, okay. Let me just say my goodbyes and I’ll be right there,” he said sarcastically.
“You think dis a joke, beast?” and she burned him again with the globe of white light that surrounded her.
“A compromise. I’ll return when Aliyah is dead.”
“Fool, ain’t no compromisin’ wit’ the High master. You do as you told.”
“Very well, when the High master comes to get me himself, instead of sending one of his followers, I will go. Burn me all you want, Light. You cannot kill that which is already dead. Aliyah will die, and I and the others won’t stop until she is. You can’t always protect her. Even now I can feel you being summoned. You’re not free. I am. As for you, Aliyah. Every hour that you remain alive, an innocent will be tortured in your name. If they’re lucky, we’ll let them die.” And with a gush of spiraling wind, he was gone.
“Light knight?” Cherise beckoned to Jacob.
Jacob bowed in great respect, “Yes, Light Guardian?”
“It time she know and not be left in the darkness no mo’.”
“Um, hello, I’m right here, Cherise. You can stop talking about me like I’m not.”
“Girl, I know ‘dat. Jus’ doin’ my job, is all. You goin’ disrespect me like that?”
“You got promoted to angel, already, Cherise?
“That’s where it at. I’m jus’ dat good. Did you ever doubt it?”
“I told you she would be strongly rewarded for her self-sacrifice,” Jacob said.
“I’m proud of you, Cherise,” Lydia said genuinely.
“I do have a direct message fo’ you, Lydia.”
“As opposed to talking about me when I’m right here? Don’t I feel special.”
“You neva’ alone.”
Aliyah waited for her to continue. “Wait, that’s it? That’s all I get?”
“Girl, you so damn frustratin’ some time. That message come directly from the High master. You should feel privileged.”
“I can also go to a Chinese restaurant and open a fortune cookie and get the same message. I mean, come on, how cliché’ is that? Aliyah, I am your Father. You’re never alone,” she mocked in a bad version of Dark Vader’s voice. Cherise and Jacob both glared at her. “What?” she laughed. “You don’t find it a teeniest bit funny? Not one bit?”
“You the one askin’ for a lightnin’ bolt come strike you between yo’ eyeballs, make a mockery of the High master.”
“If I can’t laugh about it, I’ll cry about it instead. You just think coming from him, he’d have something more meaningful and brilliant to say than ‘You’re not alone’.”
“Cuz he know how stupid and bull-headed you is. You won’t be makin’ a joke about it when you finally learn the truth about yo’self. Why you got the job is beyond my understandin’ at the moment. You ain’t even believe.”
“Well, I’d love to sit around all day and chat with my former best friend-now-angel and my Light knight who drives me insane, but you heard Dwayne, and Dwayne is not one for empty threats. I can’t have anyone else’s death on my conscience.”
“You betta’ not be thinkin’ of givin’ yo’self in. If we lose you, all will be lost.”
“Give in? Hell no. I’ve got to find a way to kill what’s already dead, save two worlds, all while carrying a baby at my hip.”
Otherland Page 17