The Apostasy

by Ted Minkinow

  Another stunner for Tom. He did not know what to say, or what to think for that matter. She spoke again.

  "Let's get some rest."

  Tom wondered what was Aunt Hattie talking about. He faced his share of challenges and the thought of more gave little cause for alarm, didn’t it? That sort of worry departed his life with the ejection seat as it rocketed out of the crippled fighter. Difficult times, soon. The "soon" caught his attention. She said they would face some tough times, and sooner rather than later. It all sounded more like the psychic hotline rather than the little fib he expected to allay his fears about her health.

  "What about that young doctor, Tommy? I got the impression she’s interested in you,” Hattie said without moving her eyes from the television screen.

  Redirection enough to keep Tom off balance.

  "Don't think so, Aunt Hattie."

  "Now, don't you try to argue something you don't know about.”

  Aunt Hattie smiled…and for the first time Tom noticed the familiar scent of honeysuckle growing wild outside. Her room always smelled that way from his first memory of her.

  “I may be old, but I'm still a woman."

  That got a smile from Tom. Cassie sparked a bit of interest…he never intended to join a Buddhist monastery in Tibet. But romance…for him? He did not think so; at least not since that letter in Germany.

  6

  Hattie saw through Tom’s façade. "Well Tommy, you keep her in mind. She's a real person, not a memory. And you best show up for your date."

  "Did we make a date? She sounded noncommittal."

  "She'll show up, believe me." Hattie pursed her lips, working hard not to smile.

  Her Tommy needed to live again, and that would not start until he found a decent woman—one whose dedication reached beyond the shallow end of the pool.

  Hattie never met the other woman and, even though her actions caused pain for Tommy, she bore no grudge. The timing is what bothered her…wounded and in the process of losing his flying career. This Cassandra might introduce him back to the world of the living. The situation seemed an answer to her prayers.

  Hattie fought the urge to rub her aching chest. Troubles are coming back. She hoped the impending battle would not take more from the young man, though she felt certain her weak heart would not pull her through.

  Enough of that, she thought, I’m not going to die tonight. And look at Tommy. He looked on the verge of happy thoughts.

  "We'll also talk about THAT," said Tom, and with a wink he added, “Later.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Friday, July 13, 1928, 6:40 pm, Jerome’s Grocery, Vienna, Alabama

  Jerome opened the door to shades of darkness that hung in the air in smears of sepia like blots leaked from the barrel of an old pen. Something feathered along his shoulders and tingled at his spine. Not what he expected.

  Where’s the light? Where’s my Hattie?

  A human form bent over the counter in back and the second question answered itself. Hattie looked up and spoke.

  “We’ve got to leave.”

  Then he heard a sob. Jerome did not know what to think, did not understand how the warm scent of honeysuckle could escort him into such confusion.

  “Have you closed up?”

  Simple as that, he hoped. Hattie just got tired of waiting on him; and he did feel bad about leaving her alone all that time. The bank deposit only took about an hour—walking, doing, and getting back—but not getting back because Miss Elizabeth wanted to talk. Shopkeepers couldn’t rush a good customer, even outside the store.

  Wouldn’t make sense, Jerome thought. His mind agreed…it also insisted on the rest of truth, Makes even less sense when the shopkeeper’s Gran came from Africa and old Miss Elizabeth Bennett’s did not. That could bring on business of a different nature, now couldn’t it?

  And the tone of Hattie’s answer—spitting the phrase in a single breath like it was her last gulp before going under—did nothing to calm Jerome’s rising sense of dread.

  She pushed the ledger from the counter—a hearty, intentional shove that left no room for doubt —and it hit the floor with a thump that matched the drop of Jerome’s heart.

  “Baby,” Hattie said, “We’ve got to leave.”

  It sounded more like plea than a reference to overdue supper. Jerome turned the switch. Though Hattie’s mood remained opaque to him, electric light made everything else in the store much clearer. He noticed the overturned display behind the counter.

  “What on earth?” Jerome asked. Wet streaks tracked her cheeks and a damp puddle sat on the counter under where she leaned.

  “Baby,” she said, “Do you love me?”

  Jerome knew a question like that could only mean things would get worse…at least for a while. He answered the safe way and took care not to step into a minefield he didn’t know existed a few minutes earlier. All this wasn’t like Hattie.

  “You know I do.”

  “Then let’s pack up,” she said, and then added before Jerome’s brain could begin to make sense, “No need to pack, let’s just go.”

  “What?” Nothing else came to mind. Jerome stooped for the ledger and returned it to the normal place. Wrong thing to do, his mind said because as soon as that book made it back to the counter Hattie let out a sob that let Jerome know he just made a decision without knowing the issues. He raised the counter door and walked behind.

  Hattie sobbed like a child, but at least she did not pull back when he put his arms around her. After a few seconds she returned the embrace. A good sign. He offered his handkerchief.

  “Can you tell me?”

  Hattie wiped her eyes and blew her nose with one hand, held on to Jerome with the other. She pulled back enough to look into his eyes and it made Jerome more nervous that she seemed unashamed of her tears.

  “A man,” she said. “Leland Graves.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Saturday, July 14, 01:38 am, Vienna, Alabama

  1

  "Wake up little possum. We know you playin’ dead."

  The voice froze Marlin’s body. Not just English…English in Southern brogue. He expected Vietnamese. The dream bounded from its thirty-year track like a rabid locomotive. A vague sense of a ripping noise…and sleeping Marlin wondered if it represented shredding of his sanity…or did the old curtains just split.

  2

  In dreams, out of dreams, no sweat for Leland Graves—Over the river and through the woods—so what? Others pulled off that trick. Each transaction needed a new ingredient. Power requirements challenged his abilities—and he would lose track of certain issues for the moment—but Leland Graves decided to accept the risk and open the portal. The others gathered to peer from the protection of their own side. Leland Graves stepped through and took a moment to turn and sneer at the multitude of red eyes.

  Details.

  3

  But as he turned his back on the portal left ajar, things in Copper Gulch changed…and changed in a big way for Leland Graves. And it all caught him unaware.

  A new set of eyes mingled among the others. If Leland Graves took time to notice in the way a sharecropper keeps track of every okra pod, then he would have seen no timidity, no fear, no trace of fealty in that new set gazing back at him. Those eyes did not belong to one of those others anchored to Copper Gulch for the lion’s share of time gone by. Those eyes belonged to a corporate auditor.

  4

  A second, calmer, more intelligent voice spoke words that he did not hear in Vietnam. "Private Tilbury, you only delay the inevitable by feigning death. Why not open your eyes and join us now."

  Unable to wake, dream Private Marlin opened his eyes to face his fate.

  The second voice belonged to a man dressed in a light green uniform of a North Vietnamese Army officer. The NVA officer smiled from beneath a white tropical helmet.

  "So you decide to end the charade. Stand up now, Private, we have matters to discuss."

  As Marlin got to his feet, he managed a
glance around and observed, to his surprise, no other Vietnamese soldiers nearby. On the other side of the hilltop clearing stood four men dressed in blue uniforms vaguely…Nineteenth century?

  Marlin strained to see more as someone gripped his arms from behind. The uniforms definitely looked Civil War and, the men wearing them, something strange—The faces—more mannequin than human. He fought to clear his eyes as his captor spun him.

  This man, also dressed in parts of an antique blue uniform, did not look the least bit Vietnamese. An expansive belly formed the foundation for a barrel chest and a meaty face with thick lips and sunken black eyes sat atop broad shoulders. A smile revealed a thirty percent populated rack of rotting teeth. Foul aromas emanated from the man and Marlin thought he would vomit. A thin black man dressed in overalls stood ten yards behind Stinky Man.

  The black man’s face revealed little expression, maybe a pinch of boredom. Marlin felt different in this dream; a difference he could not fully comprehend until he stole a glance at what he wore.

  Exactly the same, meaning he wore his blue jeans and faded polo rather than the jungle-camouflage he wore in Vietnam. Not the only anomaly. His arms, legs, the rest of his body, did not belong to the young Private Tilbury who woke among the dead so many years before. They were the limbs of an old and tired janitor.

  "Rufus," the Vietnamese officer said through a smile, "Please, prepare our Private Tilbury for interrogation."

  Stinky Man—Rufus, thought Marlin—shoved Marlin toward a grouping of four pine trees that were peeking through the mist. The janitor brushed against a body lying on the ground. Garcia…in the precise spot where the first NVA looted and then abandoned the body. This bit held true to actual events. Then the dream mutated once more and Garcia’s body blurred from focus and a different form emerged.

  Instead of his dead friend Marlin saw a skinny, older man…just as dead as Garcia had been years earlier. The body was savaged and a bald stick about as thick as one of Stinky Man’s fingers extended from each side of the dead man’s neck. And some odd kind of sword—a thin blade that ended in a grip more suited to a walking stick—stood planted in the dead man’s chest.

  Marlin did not recognize the dead man, but he felt certain—did not understand why, just knew—the dead man below and the murder victim Doctor Walters examined earlier at Grimes were the same. Stinky Man shoved again and the stand of pine trees grew sharper as the mist thinned…as if the mist understood what the NVA officer expected of it.

  The black man lagged just inside Marlin’s peripheral vision. He trailed a rope through the mud.

  They plan to tie me to the tree. Interrogation? This thought added to dreaming Marlin’s confusion. What could they possibly expect to get from a private? Older Marlin’s paranoia concocted an answer.

  They'll ask questions I can't answer and use it all as an excuse to…to kill me! Shivers tore through his chest like shards of glass. His mouth filled with bile as he recalled the stories that circulated among the troops…stories about how the Cong brutalized prisoners. He remembered a case he witnessed with his own eyes.

  As if still following cues, remaining mist shrouding the trees dissipated and Marlin’s brain filled in missing details. Stinky Man pulled him along. Despite his captor’s strength, Marlin froze when the lower portions of the pine trees solidified. Two trunks supported decayed human carcasses.

  Blackened, putrefied skin meshed with old-style clothing to form loose, mummified wraps over shriveled bones. Rotting faces grinned as empty eye sockets gazed into the black sky above.

  "Move along, boy. Worrying ain’t gonna change nothing."

  Stinky Man pointed and his rotten teeth said, "Your friends over there, they cooperated fine, just not fast enough." He laughed an obnoxious odor and guided Marlin to an empty tree like an executioner to the gallows.

  Marlin stood knees shaking and compliant while Stinky Man and the black man lashed him to the pine tree. Ropes burned his skin and cut off circulation, tree bark dug in his back as they positioned him in a spread eagle stance. Rufus stood back and inspected the handiwork. He grunted and met Marlin's eyes.

  "Yea boy, you gonna beg to talk."

  Fear overcame control and Marlin relieved himself where he stood in the dream, and simultaneously soaked his yellowed mattress in the middle of his real-world bedroom.

  Marlin averted his gaze; as much in futile effort to avoid Stinky Man’s sneer as to see if he really wet himself. When he brought his head back up he was looking into the NVA officer’s smiling face.

  CHAPTER 23

  Saturday, July 14, 01:40 am, Vienna, Alabama

  1

  "You do see these precautions as necessary to ensure cooperation," the Vietnamese officer said. "If we cannot command your full attention, then how are we to progress?"

  "Please," Marlin said.

  That one word reply was what Leland Graves—costumed as The Man—hoped for. "We know you will cooperate, Private Tilbury. Otherwise you risk our anger. And," he pointed to the corpses on either side like a game show hostess displaying doors one and two, "I'm sure you understand the implications.”

  Marlin said nothing.

  “Now, Private Tilbury, will you offer us—Hattie Jackson’s head on a salver—your heart-felt attention?"

  Terror prevented Marlin from detecting the incongruity of the NVA Officer’s statement. The janitor could force nothing past the lump in his throat. He nodded, not wanting slowness of response to infuriate his captor in these first moments of interrogation.

  "Very good, Private Tilbury."

  How could he know my name, janitor Tilbury wondered between flashes of panic. I'm just another faceless American GI. Something else, something of an even more personal nature made it all even more terrifying.

  They knew exactly where to find me! Me!

  Fear paralyzed both his bodies: the one tied to the tree and the one asleep on a mattress soaked in urine. Once again Marlin attempted to wake.

  "You will not escape.”

  Must wake up! Marlin implored his mind as the NVA officer continued.

  “You might earn your way free of this predicament. The decision is yours."

  Can this guy read my mind?

  An icy breeze—In the jungle…in Alabama…July?—found the damp urine and made Marlin’s legs shake even more.

  "You are correct in your thoughts, Marlin Tilbury. I control everything. So you will tell me.” The NVA officer leaned closer as if the next statement would contain a secret—maybe gossip of the sort not for prying ears. “And remember; I will know when you lie."

  The interrogation began.

  "I am interested to know,” the NVA officer said, “why do you come—should I kill you now—to my country?”

  The question threw Marlin off balance and his mind fumbled for an answer.

  "Would you not answer my questions?"

  Marlin spoke before things got worse for him. "I got drafted and the U.S. Army sent me here.”

  "You think I do not know how you arrived. I'm disappointed." The enemy officer turned away and scratched his chin.

  "Private Tilbury, you appear more intelligent than this. You force me now to consider punishment."

  The janitor would have wet himself again but there was no more in the reservoir. His bladder cramped in protest.

  "You see, Private, my comrades are not convinced of your commitment to the truth."

  Stinky Man Rufus moved off in the distance, toward John Doe's body. He stopped beside the corpse and bent over. He turned his head to make sure Tilbury watched and then reached down and pulled the blade from the drifter’s chest. He returned to his position a few feet behind the Vietnamese officer and drilled piggy eyes into Marlin.

  "I can persuade them to delay for only so long."

  As if to punctuate the statement, Rufus slapped the knife in his mitts.

  "Now I ask again, why are you here?"

  Marlin found himself in a quandary. He attempted the truth and that just a
ngered The Man. Flustered, Marlin thought, Let the torture begin. He said nothing.

  "Maybe I expect too much." The NVA officer paced as he spoke. "Let me demonstrate an appropriate answer."

  He halted in front of Marlin.

  "You find yourself on my soil because of hatred and cowardice."

  Marlin did not understand, but expected this kind of doubletalk from an officer schooled in communist ideology.

  "You departed after my countrymen extracted just revenge on your unit. We imposed the sentence of death on all but you."

  Not completely true, thought Marlin.

  The NVA continued.

  "You found hatred at home; hatred of you by the right thinking people of your land.” The NVA officer paused to breathe. “More significantly,” he said, “you returned with hatred of yourself for crimes committed against your own future."

  The Vietnamese officer melded past and present; as if aware of the course Marlin's life would take over the next several decades.

  "Your own cowardice prevented reconciliation of your crimes, thereby sealing your place outside society.”

  It made some sense to Marlin.

  “So how did you arrive on my land? Let me answer. I know because I saw you. You came in the night, emerging shaking and penniless from a ride stolen on a truck; a fugitive from the society that haunts your every move." The officer nodded his head.

  The truth of this statement shook Marlin. The NVA officer meant Marlin’s arrival in Vienna, not Vietnam.

  "So you see, Private Tilbury, I know you as nobody does."

  Ropes and tree bark dug into his flesh and now words dug into his soul. The NVA officer kept up the momentum.

  "Did you think you could wrest me from my home?"

  Marlin thought about the question. He fought these guys for months. They could appear and disappear at will, accept endless strings of defeats, then spring from the jungle to kill G.I.s. He thought The Man and his invisible horde invincible.