Believe what you want to believe

by George Williams

  The cop turned into my driveway and drove down it quickly. Naturally panicking, I ran as fast as possible into the house and locked the door. Jason was smart enough to clear the table and put the rest of the fireworks in the closet. Hiding behind the couch, I saw the cop look through our windows and bang furiously on the door.

  Jason said to Ziggy, “Take care of this guy, okay? Just don’t hurt him.” Agreeing, Ziggy answered the door.

  “Hello, officer. Can I help you?” Ziggy asked in his most innocent voice.

  The cop said, “Yes. So I was driving by your house and a rocket went in my window and exploded. Let me talk to the young boy. The apartment building up the street also had a projectile shoot through the window.” Then he handed the purple pellet to Ziggy.

  The policeman asked again, “Where’s the boy?”

  Ziggy yelled, “Sean, come to the door!” When I got to the door, the officer asked me, “You shot this at the apartments’ windows. Is that true?”

  I respond, “No sir. Not me,” which wasn't exactly a lie since Freddie did it. Then Ziggy pushed me away from the officer.

  The cop aggressively started to force his way into our house, in suspicion.

  Ziggy asked, “Do you have a warrant?”

  The cop said, “I don’t need one!” and pushed Ziggy again.

  Ziggy projected his voice, “You need a warrant to come in jackass, so leave now!”

  Regardless, the cop tried to force his way in. Ziggy had had enough and pushed back twice as hard. He pushed the officer onto the front porch and right down the stairs as the cop yelled, “You can't do this!”

  As soon as the cop got on his feet, Ziggy pushed him again and again until he was all the way to his car. Feeling defeated, the cop gave up and left, pissed off.

  All was quiet for about half an hour when the entire second shift of police and cruisers begin coming down the driveway. Now Jason came out to confront the officer. “May I speak to your supervisor?” Jason asked. An older cop in a white shirt got out of a vehicle. He was the chief.

  He said to Jason, “My officer was here and was assaulted. Is that true?”

  My brother replied, “Your officer tried to enter my home illegally. We asked to see a warrant and he did not have one. And then he became aggressive. The question I have for you, chief, is if you have a warrant. Because like your officer, you are trespassing on private property.”

  The chief looked puzzled. I don’t think your average criminal knows the laws but Jason sure did. The chief started to stutter nervously. He said, “We can have a warrant in an hour.”

  My brother said to him, “We feel threatened and if you don’t have a warrant, you have to leave now. At this moment you have shot guns pointed directly at you and you are breaking the law by trespassing on our property. You have five minutes.”

  The chief turned quickly and waved his hands to his officers in surrender. The other officers, upon hearing my brother, began to panic. They quickly retreated to their cars and left the driveway in reverse, with tires spinning. A couple of the cars even bumped into each other on the way out. Turns out even the cops were not safe at the Murphy house.

  Later that night, I was tossing and turning in bed, trying to sleep as usual. Failing to get any rest, I walked into the other room to talk to Janie. We headed down to the kitchen to talk in private while rummaging for food.

  “Janie,” I said as I looked over the box of cereal dividing us, “Ziggy told me today that he is taking us to church tomorrow.”

  We both knew what that meant. Father Paul would most certainly be there.

  Chapter 14

  The Bad Dream

  Was this a dream?

  If this didn't happen, then why did Janie have the same dream??

  Ziggy tricked everyone into thinking he was this great guy but he really had a bad side that no one ever saw but the few who knew him well. One Sunday afternoon he took Janie and me to the rectory at the church to meet Father Paul. When we arrived, Father Paul came out of the office and led us into the church. Ziggy stayed behind. Running away and escaping was no longer an option. We were convinced that Father Paul would kill everyone we cared about if we defied him. Father Paul carried demons with him, demons that he mistook for God. He was mad to an extent, but just sane enough to pull anything off.

  Anxiously, we walked down the long aisle of the church. Father Paul was still wearing a robe and parchment from offering mass earlier on. He strode behind the altar and took out the brass cup and the wine used for the sacraments in mass. He then poured some wine into the cup and drank from it. Next he filled it again and inconspicuously put some white powder in the wine and told us to drink it. We weren’t stupid but after seeing what he was capable of, how could we refuse? After we drank our dose of liquid poison, he cleaned the cup inside and out, making sure not to leave any powder behind. Instantly we both felt the full effect of the drug. Janie passed out first, slamming her head on the church floor. Then I blacked out as well.

  When I regained consciousness, the first sense I had was the sight of the ocean front. I felt the cool breeze chill my neckline. Something looked familiar about this place but I did not recognize this house in front of me. Two bold, large stone lions were planted at the walkway, guarding the entrance. I noticed that it was a single-story house with a concrete façade. Strangely, no grass was growing in this yard, unlike at the neighboring houses. This house was made of just cold stone and concrete.

  I took a deep breath as Father Paul turned the doorknob and we entered two massive, custom-carved wooden doors. The inside was an empty vessel without any furniture. The hardwood floors were black and a small entryway had a podium.

  The man at the door lurked behind the podium and looked down at a list as if we were checking in. Then several men dressed in red robes came in from the back room. I saw at least one women but it was difficult to tell if she were the same one I had seen before. Father Paul placed me on display in the center of the large room while Janie stood watching beside him.

  The priests checked in and stepped over a board blocking the floor to enter the room. The next thing I knew, I was being laid face up on the cold floor on top of a strange design. I still felt the effect of the drug but was aware enough to know what was going on at the doors. The men all lined up and looked intently at me like I were some type of zoo animal. My heart raced as I remembered the little boy who was killed.

  Father Paul picked up his black magic book again and began to read incomprehensible Latin phrases. Although fear had rendered me paralyzed, I felt that this time was different. I felt the presence of something real. Was it the power of God or was I dreaming?

  Father Paul read on even louder than I had ever heard him read. I think he was trying to summon something evil. Suddenly a man with a large cardboard box came to the door. He tilted it towards the room to show us what it contained. To my disbelief, he walked towards me with a dozen or so large snakes of all kinds. In a rainbow of different colors, the vicious reptiles slithered around the open floor and formed a circle around my body. Without protection or clothes, my heart almost beat out of my chest in tremendous fear. Two of the bigger snakes immediately fought with each other. The snakes and I were aware of each other's presence. One of the snakes slithered onto my leg and bit me, then another, and I felt the pain but I refused to show them fear, nor anyone else in the room for that matter. I WAS NOT backing down. I decided to take a stand and prove who was in charge. To prove to Father Paul that he didn’t have the power to hurt me anymore. This decision was critical as something incomprehensible happened to me. As I wiped the sweat off my forehead, sharpened my gaze and stood up, I felt the power of my blood coursing through my veins. Blazing with powerful energy, I had never felt more alive. A powerful strength was piercing into my soul.

  The snakes proceeded to form a circle around my body, facing away from me and towards the evil men as if to protect me. Then they begin to hiss at the priests at the d
oorway and one by one they started jumping violently in their direction. With my powerful eyes fixed on theirs, I sensed deep fear. The onlookers felt startled and uncomfortable, almost as if they knew they didn’t belong there. The man who had brought the snakes decided to go in and remove them, but as he did, the snakes began to attack him, biting him multiple times. He desperately ran to the door in terror, screaming, “Help! They are poisonous. I’ve been bitten!”

  The others quickly exited the house, leaving me alone.

  In shock, Father Paul couldn’t take his eyes away and began reading the book again. I wondered if he thought he was going to break the spell he had put on me with that Latin book of magic.

  I walked by Father Paul with the snakes at my feet. Then I removed the boards and left the room. Father Paul called Ziggy in to take me home. His expression was of terror, just like the expressions of the others. Now I knew that even evil serial killers like Father Paul did experience fear.

  After a couple of hours had gone by, Janie and I woke up in the basement of our house. I scratched my head wondering what forces were summoned in that other house that made everyone run in fear. In my gut I knew that what happened to me was something Father Paul would never understand. It was supernatural, but not Father Paul’s doing. The snakes protected me…. that wasn’t the work of evil. It was the work of God, protecting a child.

  Chapter 15

  Defiance

  A couple of weeks had passed since our last trip with Ziggy and Father Paul. Janie and I were through tolerating their vicious games, so our goal was to conspire a plan to defeat them.

  After school one day, Janie and I were up in Ziggy’s room rummaging around for spare change so we could go to the penny store for candy. Mid search, she stumbled upon some suspicious paperwork Ziggy left behind on his nightstand.

  She looked over at me and said, “What do you think this is?”

  I replied, “I don’t know. It looks like a map or something.”

  Janie asked, “A map of what?”

  My response was, “Wait, Janie. Something looks familiar about this! Look at these dates and locations. Dad used to have numbers like this on his tickets whenever he flew to Chicago for work...”

  “So... should we put it back?” Janie asked.

  “No. I say we keep it. Let’s put it under the porch with the wallet. We need all the leverage we can to stop them. I am done being scared all the time. We just need to be smart to stay alive,” I said.

  The next day, we heard Ziggy frantically tearing his room apart. He yelled, “Hey, Sport! Get in here! Were you in my room yesterday?!”

  I walked towards the room but choose not to respond, staring blankly ahead. He asked again, “Sport, you there? I’m looking for the paper I left on my nightstand. Have you seen it?”

  Thinking quickly, I fabricated a believable story, “Jason was up here yesterday with some friends. Maybe he knows where it is.”

  “Alright, Sport. I’ll ask Jason. Let me know if you see it,” Ziggy demanded.

  The next day we overheard a conversation between Gill and Ziggy regarding the missing map.

  “I still haven’t found it,” Ziggy said muffled in the distance. I crept closer to the door, stepping softly while keeping my back against the wall. Trying not to breathe too heavily, I motioned Janie closer as well.

  “Are you kidding me, Ziggy? How the hell did you lose that? That’s concrete evidence. If anyone figures out what it is, we’re both fucked... Does Father Paul know it’s missing?” asked Gill.

  Ziggy shook his head while tapping his fingers on the desk in front of him, “No... Father Paul doesn’t even know I put it on paper. I’m not an idiot. I just need to retrace my steps again.”

  Janie and I looked at each other. They didn’t think we had the guts to steal something from them...

  Early the next day Jason asked me to go to work with him. Before starting the day’s work, we stopped by to see my father at his office, where he handed Jason a piece of paper on which he had handwritten the locations of where the stones should be placed. The cemetery system divides the graves on the ground into street names with markers including numbers to mark the lots. As we drove closer towards the cemetery, I noticed the paper my father handed Jason looked eerily familiar. As we drove through the gates, Jason told me the same stupid joke again.

  “You know why they put that fence there?”

  I said, “No.”

  Jason answered, “Because people are dying to get in here.”

  “I haven’t heard that a hundred times,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  Jason jumped out of the truck and asked the caretaker, “Excuse me, sir, I’m looking for the section this stone should go in. Could you help me?”

  As Jason conversed with the caretaker, I sat in the truck, still mesmerized by the paper that looked so familiar. Looking closer, I noticed that the numbers on this paper were the same numbers as the ones on Ziggy’s map. They were not air flights at all. They were grave locations.

  “These must be the plot locations of all the people Ziggy and Father Paul killed. That’s why Ziggy was panicking when it went missing,” I speculated.

  Jason walked back to the truck with the information he needed about the lot and the location. He said to me, “You know they can stack up to five people in one grave. We are going to have to be careful over there. The caretaker just told me the ground is still soft from a fresh burial. It could collapse from the weight of the stone when we carry it over on the two wheeler.”

  “Wait, did you say five people can be stacked in one grave?”

  Jason answered, “Listen and you won’t have to ask twice. Now quit standing there and help me out.”

  I proceeded to help Jason as the puzzle pieces started coming together. If more than one person could be stacked in a grave, Ziggy must have been burying bodies in other people’s graves all along. This was a perfect way for him to dispose of the bodies...It seemed hard to believe but genius, to say the least. The authorities would never suspect this. The perfect place to hide a body and get away with it was in a fresh grave.

  As soon as I arrived home, I explained my map theory to Janie. “So now that we know what the map means, my next question is why Ziggy is keeping the locations of the bodies on paper?”

  “Could it be that he’s using it for insurance against Father Paul?” Janie asked.

  “I don’t know. He’s Father Paul’s puppet. He will do anything he asks,” I replied.

  “Exactly, maybe he’s done working for Father Paul and wants out. But we have the map now. If we took it to the police, we could get both of them locked up for murder. Finally, something to hold against them,” Janie said.

  Now that concrete evidence was in our hands, what should we do with it? Would the cops believe us? We were just kids. Would our parents believe us? We didn’t know.

  After school, it was Janie and my responsibility to watch my six-year-old nephew Mickey for a few hours until his dad came to pick him up. We loved hanging out with Mickey who looked the most Irish out of all of us due to his strawberry red hair and a full face of freckles. Everyday Janie and I waited at the top of the driveway for him to return home on his walk back from school.

  One Tuesday afternoon, Janie stopped me at the front door on my way into the house and pleaded, “They are inside waiting for Mickey to get home! They told me to bring him to them.”

  I asked, “To whom?”

  She explained, “Ziggy and Father Paul.” My voice shook as I asked, “Wait, Father Paul is in there? Where is his car?”

  Janie explained, “He parked up the street, cut through the woods and snuck in through the cellar.”

  “Okay, what are we going to do?” I asked Janie.

  “I have an idea. Let’s cut Mickey off at the hill outside and hide him in the neighbor’s house until his dad comes.”

  Before Mickey got halfway down the hill, we grabbed him and ran for dear life. Ziggy,
watching through the window, ran up the hill and attempted to rip him from our grip. We fought for Mickey but Ziggy overpowered us.

  Since we did not have enough physical strength, Janie attacked Ziggy verbally.

  She said, “Ziggy, you are just his fool. You will do anything he says... But we know that’s because you are just weak and afraid of him. I am going to tell everybody what you’ve done! And we have the graveyard map you’re looking for! Does Father Paul know its missing?”

  Ziggy paused, still with Mickey in his grip, almost letting go. Then he looked over his shoulder to see Father Paul waving him into the house.

  Sternly he said, “We’re not finished. I will deal with you two later!”

  Heartbroken about not being able to save Mickey ourselves, Janie and I realized we could still possibly find help.

  “We have to call his dad and tell him he’s really sick!” Janie squealed.

  “But Janie, the phone is inside and they will definitely hear us. The only way to make the call is if we could get to the payphone up the street at the drugstore. Hurry, let's look for some change!”

  Knowing their intentions with Mickey, Janie and I wasted no time finding some change in the cars in the driveway. We sprinted up the street and called his father Peter’s number, explaining how sick he was. Peter arrived quickly, but it may have been too late. Ziggy and Father Paul left when they heard Peter’s car pull in and our lives were spared.

  Peter ran into the house and found Mickey cowering in the corner with soiled pants. He yelled at Janie and me, “You should have called me sooner! How long has he been like this?” Then he carried little Mickey out the door with him.

  As soon as Peter left, tears streamed down Janie’s face and she slammed her hand on the table.

  “Do you think Peter got here in time?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, sobbing at this point.

  “We can’t tell Peter the truth. They will kill him and Mickey! It’s not fair!” I yelled, while clutching onto a pillow from the couch for comfort.