by Aaron Dawbot
"Guardian Mother...that was her name." He said.
Louise jerked her head towards him.
Thomas continued, "She was a responsible matron for an orphanage secluded in the Valdivian forest in South-America. She, being an orphan herself, cared for them as if they were her own. They lived off whatever the earth provided, never bothered a soul until greed came knocking. The valley they were sheltered in was the navel of a turf war ravaging the land between several drug lords, they bickered over few acres of abandoned forest. She was warned and asked to leave, but the girl wasn't the yielding kind, so they had to teach her a lesson."
His face took a darker shade of gloom.
"All they found later wasn't less than terrible..."
"Stop!" Louise cried. She took a gulp of air and made out a question between stammered words, "But what happened to her after she died? How could a good person become...?"
“She couldn't continue,” Tom released a sigh, "I can only imagine the hatred and suffering in her heart when she died. Her love chained her forever; she couldn't relieve herself from that burden."
"So?"
"So, she made a deal," Thomas hesitated to express the rest.
Louise finished it for him, "She was robbed of her children in this world, so she asked the devil to bear his?" She held her mouth.
"She's at peace now. That's all that matters," Thomas swayed his head away.
"You think you only get to read about these things. Never wished to see them, I guess," She scoffed.
"Remember your words. How you said faith made life much easier."
"That was ages ago, Tom. That life is gone; turned to ruins,” Her eyes flickered in disbelief, “Tom, don't you get it? It's no longer about faith anymore. I saw you bite a fricking she-demon, nothing will ever be the same, Tom," her brows drew together, "What are you anyway?"
"I'm what's on your side," Tom smiled.
Thomas saw how his meagre response angered her further.
“You're human aren't you?” She asked.
“Not completely.” He winced with acrid words fighting out his mouth. “I am also half reaper, long story short, I can send beings to different folds of reality, including Heaven and Hell.”
Her face locked on him, it was obvious how it was impossible to formulate a proper response to what he'd said. Thomas relieved her from the burden.
"I could tell you my story, but it'll only ruin your world further. Remember the other things you told me this morning? That thing you call finding your flock. You should hold onto that," he continued,"Be sure that there will always be people like me and my brothers fighting whatever crawls out of Hell."
Lonnie stationed the car with Fitz in the passenger seat.
Thomas climbed onto his seat, slamming the door shut with a grunt.
She ran to the car window, "What will I tell everyone?"
"Give them a story they'd be happy to believe; They'll eat it up," Lonnie grinned. Thomas saw her confusion continue to build up, "Let a few weeks pass, and then start over."
"But this place is finished. A lot of evil has happened in this place."
Thomas cut her off, "And so much good as well."
He touched her fingers holding onto the van's door, and nodded to Lonnie. The car trundled off, and Sister Louise cleared out from the wake of dust.
She saw her old friend, Meredith, waddling out of the door, squinting at the early morning light.
"Oh dear, I couldn't sleep last night from all the ruckus."
Louise looked at her old friend and took her by the hand. "Everything is just fine, and I can tell what a wonderful day it will be." She stood facing the open gate, and the band of brothers disappeared from around the stone-grey wall.
Louise whispered her farewell to the peculiar creature that was Thomas and his faithful friends.
EPILOGUE
Thomas gripped the cold bottle from Fitz, "I can't believe how much I needed that." Thomas gulped a mouth full of zesty delight.
Lonnie was way ahead of him. downing his second beverage for the night. Fitz dropped onto the ancient wooden chair, stretching the seams as he rocked off from the kitchen table. With extending legs on the floor, he poured his beer right into him, where it should be.
Thomas leaned forward cradling the cold bottle in his hands, "So? How was your first real job?" he said, smacking his lips.
"You mean second?" Fitz said after gulping down his drink.
Thomas raised his hands in admission of his innocent blunder. Lonnie intervened, dangling the bottle with his hand and circling it on the table cloth, "It could've gotten shit worse, but I knew the kid had spunk in him."
"It sure could've gotten way worse if I didn't have you two," Thomas said.
Lonnie held a cold stare to the eye, there was silence for a few seconds. "If you think you're gonna kiss me now, I'll bury one end of this bottle into one end of yours, and you won't get to choose, boy."
Fitz fell into laughter. Tom understood moments later and followed suit. Lonnie chuckled at his joke as his lips reached the bottle's rim.
Half an hour later, after several bickering debates over trivial matters and outdated jokes, Thomas had to cut the night short for a long walk in the city.
"I'll be off, fellas. Don't wait up."
"I ain't holding my breath for ya. Just be safe and make it here before six months," Lonnie grinned.
Thomas gave him a feigned facsimile military salute, nodded to Fitz and then shut the door behind him.
At the end of the driveway, Thomas stood on the blank concrete pavement and filled his chest with clean air. He needed the rest of the night to get a break from his head.
Lonnie wiped his hands. Fitz sprang his head from behind the kitchen door. "You want anything, old man? I'm heading to crash."
"Know any blue chip señoritas that could tuck me in?"
Fitz frowned, "I could try to find one, but then she'll have to see that face of yours."
Lonnie smiled, "Thanks for asking, son. Goodnight."
Fitz thrummed on the door, "Good night, Lonnie."
Thomas was two miles uphill in his nocturnal hike. Everything was reassuring and silent. After a few minutes, Thomas reached a dirt-covered terrain, obscure and abandoned by any curious eyes and hidden by crumbling walls and shattered rocks. The place once served as the founding space of an old building. Now it was left as a vestigial site of discarded rock and memories.
Thomas stepped between the jagged ruins and took off his shoes. He felt the cold floor with scattered weeds and sparse underbrushes. Two burly towering trees swayed their branches under the spell of a rushing breeze. Thomas took it all in; the silence, the eternal stellar dance from above, all moving at an imperceptible speed. Yet still, he felt the night alive, but there was another who was enjoying the serenity with him.
"I can see you," Thomas muttered.
A bright-skinned female with ebony hair took form under the shade of the neighboring tree, she had a wide set of blue eyes, with a round face resembling a moon. Her chin was short but perfect for the shape of her head. A small mouth with two soft lips bearing a friendly smile completed her beautiful sight.
"I wondered if you lost your touch," she said.
Thomas scoffed, "Does everyone sell me short these days?"
"Oh, you mean since you crated yourself to Hell?"
"I had a question."
"Google, it next time," the girl snickered.
Thomas was baffled by her response. Then he couldn't hold his laughter. Soon, the transparent girl joined him as well.
"Alma, how did you find out about that?"
"I'm dead, but that doesn't mean I can't follow up."
"Next stop, Instagram." Thomas leaned over a rock beside her.
"Insta...what?"
"Forget what I just said," Thomas sighed.
Alma sat on a higher point behind him.
"I never stopped looking for you," she said over a shallow breath.
"But you knew wher
e I went," Thomas argued.
“I was hoping you'd be back sooner."
"Didn't know dead people cared about time."
"Except the time you were away," she said looking down.
Thomas looked for her hiding eyes with curiosity.
Lonnie took his favorite seat beside the table lamp. That damn black phone was just under hand's reach. Lonnie wrestled his desire to pick it up and call. But the thought of not hearing that voice was far powerful to ignore. He grunted, dialing the digits etched in his memory. And held his breath in the silence before his call reached its destination.
A woman answered, "Yes?"
Lonnie gulped.
"Hello...Hello?!" she yelled.
Lonnie's fingers rubbed on the sheen plastic with trembling knuckles.
The gruff feminine voice sighed, "Get a life, loser!" She hung up.
Lonnie exhaled and closed his glistening eyes, almost falling into a sob. The monotone beep from the ended line calmed him back to his usual bleak life.
Thomas was wildly arguing with the empty space in front of him. "I've been doing this for years, Alma. You know I can't stop now."
"I'm not telling you to stop. Just try saving the ones who are alive. Better than fighting over a shadow.”
Thomas furrowed his eyebrows, "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, you will never save her."
Thomas threw a stone in the night sky, "It's not about saving; it's about making it right by them; and everything else comes after that. Two hundred years couldn't make me forget about their screams and I'd be damned if I ever do."
Thomas stormed off the dark abandoned lot, blowing between his teeth. Alma's voice rung in his ears.
"Thomas, look around you. Everything changes, so should you."
Thomas blocked the last words with his charge of archaic fury. It shot tendrils deep within his core. Even time couldn't wipe the day hell crawled out of some pit and stared him in the eye, robbing him from all he knew. The day his flesh was charred in fire and hatred. The day he failed to save them.
Fitz was bunching his fingers into hard-knuckled fists, clutching on some brass rosary, whispering the blessed name of the Lord and pleading with faith to shield him from the darkness. He dared open his watering eyes when he saw a ripened boar's head oozing red and black juices from where its eyes should be. A swarm of overgrown flies swirled over the decomposing head. He heard a woman's giggle echoing from all around him. Fitz knew better than to follow the wicked teasing vision; he closed his eyes and went on with his ritual, declaring his fidelity to the God of mercy, the God he chose for himself.
Thomas hopped on a public bus that would take him back to his neighborhood. He examined the long aisle of empty passengers. Far in the back was a middle-aged woman rocking a baby stroller. Thomas took his side seat where he faced a hooded young man with exposed forearms covered with satanic stars.
Thomas couldn't fight off his grin. In shame, he looked back to the caring woman moving the stroller back and forth. She gave him an amicable smile. Thomas reciprocated.
It was a smooth mellow ride home until the bus stopped and the woman went down. The malicious looking youth beheld the departing two with a predatory gaze and immediately shot after her, and vanished into some God-awful alley.
Thomas jumped to the exit and rushed to conceal himself behind a brick wall corner. The woman disappeared from view after turning left into another narrow-paved alley. He thought of pursuing the woman till she reached safety.
The woman winded around another iron fence. Thomas was only meters away when he witnessed the dark slender figure of the boy he saw earlier darting after the helpless prey.
Thomas hastened after them, and was alarmed with a groaning sound following a hard thud. Thomas sprinted after the sound, barely making out what was happening in the darkness. He shielded his face from the dangling tree branches. Then he arrived to find the most abominable sight he'd ever seen.
His face contorted in disgust from the sight. The hooded teenager wiggling on the floor, his body was being drained alive. The tattooed boy was pale and gasping. The middle-aged woman and her infant were suckling on their victim's body, the baby or whatever it was gnawed off slivers of flesh from his arm. The woman pulsed her head as she pressed on his slashed carotid, chugging in mouthfuls of blood.
Thomas shouted at them to stop. The two demons yanked their heads with inhuman speed, their mouths covered in blood, licking the tasty drink from their fangs, eyes black with pinpoint dots of shimmering red light. They talked in unison in a low-pitched voice.
"You're right, Tom, the world is rotten as it is, let's burn it together with all its fucking lot."
The demons bellowed a wicked chuckle, and resumed their feast. Thomas fell to his knees shouting, "You bastards...you'll pay." He took out his gun and started shooting at them, repeatedly blowing parts of their body and heads. And left gaping holes from where the slugs touched them. Nevertheless, they continued undeterred from their gnawing, chomping as if nothing ever hit them. Thomas threw his gun at them without any effect.
Two corpses eating a third. Thomas couldn't take it any longer, and fled from the wretched scene, screaming for God to save him.
To be continued
A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR
Hello, and thank you for buying this book. I hope you enjoyed this introductory novella and will stay tuned for the upcoming episodes.
This product had been a long living brain child of mine since I can ever remember. After many revolving thoughts and dreams turned around and upside down, I came up with the alter ego of Thomas Arsen, a character facing his fears and darkness with a heart of steel.
A being of adamant resolve conquering the demons charging him on his path to redemption. All I can say is that I hope this book has served you well as a portal to Thomas Arsen's world, and I sincerely hope that we'll meet again in the next adventure coming very soon in episode two- Wicked Faith.
For more information about the Arsen Chronicles and countless short stories written by Aaron Dawbot, visit writeandforth.com and subscribe to my newsletter to get access to all the free content and the upcoming offers on my books.
I welcome all sorts of feedback about the story. Please, be kind and give this book a review online. I surely welcome your honest opinion.
Stay Awesome.
Aaron Dawbot.
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