The Apostasy

by Ted Minkinow

  A missile flying into his cockpit…a bullet heading for his brain…missile…bullet…missile…bullet. The bullet struck Tom/Mark’s right eye. Inside his dream, everything went black.

  Pain saturated Tom’s forehead. He opened his eyes and…

  They stood together, in the old theater at stage center: he, his mother and his father. People he recognized milled around them. But milling did not quite adequately describe what was going on because Tommy—little eight year old Tommy Brunson—saw everyone directed their attention toward him.

  Tommy gazed up to his mother with a nervous smile. She pulled him close against her waist and he buried his face in her flower-power skirt.

  We are here to worship. He did not know why those words flashed through his brain because this was a theater, not a church. His mind answered its own question.

  We are here to worship something other than God.

  A wave of nausea threatened to overcome Tom and he gasped on both sides of the dream.

  "Talk to the child, Harold," little Tommy, face jammed against his mother, heard Pastor Ephraim Milton.

  "Let's not rush him, Brother Ephraim, he'll do what's right soon enough," his father said. And it sounded so real to dreaming Tom…the familiar, even-tempered and friendly voice of his father. The answer conveyed another message, unspoken but there just the same. His father expected something. No matter what, Little Tommy could not disappoint Dad.

  Harold Brunson untangled his son's arms from around his mother's waist and stooped to the boy's height.

  "You see, Tommy," he began but the words did not match his lip's movement. "You are small, and the only person here who could do what we need done."

  "Do what, Daddy?"

  "See up there above the stage?"

  Little Tommy nodded.

  "That's where scenes for plays are raised and lowered. If you look carefully right now, you'll see the movie screen rolled up and stored out of the way."

  Tommy’s eyes followed his father's pointing gesture.

  "Well son, it’s called the loft. People manage props up there during a performance. You might say those people control the actors’ universe. See how dark it is up there?"

  Another nod of the boy's head.

  "Get to the point, Harold. Tommy's a smart boy" Mrs. Sprowl, Tom’s third grade teacher said.

  After a long look up at the loft Harold Brunson returned his attention to Little Tommy.

  "Son, something glorious shines down on us from up there." His father's smile broadened. "We want to know and understand, but there's a problem. You see, there’s only one way up."

  As if on cue—the way things tend to happen in dreams—Pastor Milton placed a homemade ladder beside father and son. Tommy saw a long wooden plank with smaller, irregular boards nailed across for rungs.

  Can’t hold my weight, he thought.

  "See, Tommy," the parson began in the same volume he used from the pulpit, "a grown man can’t use this ladder, nor can a woman. We've already tried." Just as with his father, the pastor’s lips could not keep pace with his words.

  Little Tommy attempted to shrug free of his father and race back to his mother's skirt. Harold Brunson’s grip maintained the boy's shoulders.

  "If you’re cautious, son, you can climb that ladder up to the loft. Take a good look. Tell us what you see up there."

  Sleeping Tom's muscles tingled and tears sparkled in Little Tommy's eyes.

  "No need to fret Little Partner,” his father said. “I'd never let anything happen to you, would I?"

  Tommy shook his head and his father pulled him into a bear hug.

  "That's my soldier.”

  With help from others, Pastor Milton raised the makeshift ladder and leaned it against a metal walkway that spanned the loft's upper regions.

  Fear paralyzed both Toms.

  "No Daddy, please," Little Tommy begged his father; tears glistening across his face.

  "Glory awaits!" the Pastor boomed, reaching both hands in supplication to the unseen force in the black loft above. "A better life born in a new, most sacred covenant!"

  "Go ahead, son."

  His father's reassurances didn’t ease Tommy’s anxiety. Other hands, belonging to life-long friends, reached out and nudged him toward the ladder.

  Tommy stood at the base and gazed up into the darkness. He took a last glance at his father, who nodded. "Go."

  Tommy placed a foot on the bottom board, and as he stepped up his weight threatened to collapse the rung. Gotta move quick, he thought. He placed a foot on the other side, balancing the load and keeping the ladder intact. Tommy pushed his face and chest against the plank and negotiated another rung in the same manner. He paused, as much to stoke his courage as to catch his breath.

  "Onward boy," Pastor Milton said in his sermon voice.

  Pushing his face so snugly against the ladder that the wood dimpled the end of his nose, Tommy advanced.

  Three more to go.

  The boards squeaked with each step...threatened to break off from the lopsided load. Little Tommy transitioned from light below to darkness above.

  Two more steps.

  Dread made him hold his breath…any noise would get the thing up there’s attention…so Tommy tried not to breathe; sleeping Tom did the same. Blood rushed behind Little Tommy's eardrums, keeping cadence with his renegade heartbeat. Above, the loft rustled…a shadow shifted back and forth across the catwalk in anticipation of Little Tommy's arrival.

  Just a foot or two more.

  One more step and his head would pass the walkway and allow clear view of whatever lurked above. If the rung failed or he lost balance…Tommy sensed he might prefer a few broken bones to what waited above. Both Tommy’s and Tom’s pulses thundered and the breathing noises from above quickened in synchronization.

  "Onward, Boy!" Milton's words echoed like from a tape played in slow motion. Tommy moved a shaking foot for the last rung, tears flowing unrestrained down his cheeks and thudding on the hardwood floor below.

  "No, Daddy, please!"

  "Onward, Boy!" He pushed off the board with enough force to crack the rung free. He heard it bounce below. Now he could step off the ladder and onto the walkway.

  Malevolence radiated from that hidden corner, malevolence spiced with heavy breathing. Dreaming Tom sensed a physical malignancy sliding across the walkway toward him. Swirling emotions struck the boy's psyche like a slap across his face.

  Hate. Need.

  Dreaming Tom detected and processed the emotions like counter-air radar sorting out friendly aircraft from bandits.

  Despite the debilitating horror, Little Tommy could not help but strain his eyes for a glimpse at what bore down on him with a malice that stifled the loft's atmosphere. Slowly, as if any movement at all would collapse his precarious perch, he strained his neck to focus on the dream monster. And he saw it.

  The grotesque sight burned through Little Tommy's eyes with such repulsiveness he lost both balance and grip. Little Tommy screamed for his life as he fell, and less than a foot to impact, a set of bony hands emerged from beneath stage-floor infinity and caught his shoulders.

  CHAPTER 47

  Monday, July 16, 2:45 pm, Brewton-Brunson House

  "Tom?"

  Cassandra nudged his shoulders and he responded by throwing his arms over his face and bringing his knees to his chest with such speed that Cassandra barely dodged a rib-cracking collision.

  Nightmare, she thought, and now he held his breath.

  "Wake up," she said and reached for his hand.

  Tom responded with a single gulp of air which he held so long that Cassandra wondered if someone really could suffocate themselves. She considered pushing on his chest to force an exhale...that’s when things changed. Tom grabbed her arms and at the same time his eyes flew to full open.

  He’s really scared.

  A response came from the back of her mind, “Or else he’s crazy.”

  That did not seem quite right to Cassan
dra though she did have to admit she didn’t know Tom all that well just yet. But if Tom were crazy, what about that antique soldier her mind conjured—the one sitting in the chair that now stood empty. Questions of sanity—his and hers, if she were being honest with herself—aside, perhaps reason existed for fright.

  Tom moved to sit up, and he looked so vulnerable and …Appealing. That thought silenced mild tinkling of warning bells in her mind.

  "Hey sleepyhead,” Cassandra said. “There's soup and coffee on the table for you downstairs."

  Recognition bloomed in his eyes and Tom did something that would have melted even Lucretia Borgia’s heart: he held out his arms.

  Monday, July 16, 10:06 pm, On Interstate 81 South, Northeast Corner of Tennessee

  Six hours on the road. The sun had long since set, but Mike Johnson decided to press. His wife encouraged him to take the trip when he explained the foreboding…how he thought Tom might be in trouble. The more he thought about the phone call the surer he became. Torch Brunson was holding something back.

  "He needs me, baby," Mike explained right after she asked why he came home so early.

  "I'm not sure I completely understand," Celia said, "but I love you and trust you. I’ll save the interrogation for the road."

  Celia Johnson began folding clothes…her clothes. As it turned out, she intended a face-to-face interrogation in the car, not over the cellular waves. The battle began. In the end, Celia waved good-bye from the front door. Jeremiah knew she would remain there long after he disappeared.

  After four hundred miles, Jeremiah held firm in his belief he did right by insisting she stay home.

  Another three hours if I drive straight through. Jeremiah concentrated on the road for a few seconds before his mind began wandering again.

  What if I get lost on some dirt road in Necksville, Alabama?

  Caricatures of a racist south—mounted and hooded Klansmen—pounded across his forehead and into the back of his mind and now he saw one hiding behind every highway sign he passed on the road heading south…Where cotton was king.

  Jeremiah shook his head. He needed to break that spell and soon because eventually he needed to pee. Maybe use a soda can?

  His aunt did that back in the sixties when she drove to Mississippi. She only stopped once to fill up—stayed to the highway as long as possible—and remained in the car until it rolled into her cousin’s driveway.

  “On the safe side of town,” Jeremiah’s aunt had said.

  His mind returned to bullwhips and burning crosses.

  CHAPTER 48

  Monday, July 16, 3:36 pm, Vienna Police Station, Vienna, Alabama

  Warren Anderson left instructions to monitor Tilbury. The report he scanned indicated that his staff obeyed.

  “Prisoner sitting on bed, looking at wall, no response to questions.” That entry repeated every forty-five minutes. The morning report noted that and something else. Tilbury refused breakfast.

  “Prisoner still sitting on bed, placed meal in room, not eating.”

  Have to be more than a bubble out of plumb to pass up a tall stack of Myra’s buckwheat pancakes, thought Warren and he reckoned he could stand a hit of pancakes, butter, and blackberry syrup right about then…Even though it’s well past noon. But that was more bravado than reality because the person who murdered the drifter and Warren’s best friend also killed Warren’s appetite…and any chance at sleep.

  Jolly, he thought, Jolly, Jolly. Every time Warren closed his eyes he saw Jolly Rogers. His brain played endless reruns of the past thirty or so years until Warren didn’t even try to lay down in bed, didn’t even get undressed except to shower…and that only happened once in the past couple of days.

  The Chief knew formal charges in connection with the two murders would not withstand legal scrutiny. Something inside told Warren that even if Tilbury didn’t do the deeds that he knew something. No evidence was found, and they did look—scoured the crud-hole the little varmint called home—nada.

  Still, though.

  Warren thudded both feet to the floor in unison, sat up straight in his chair, and swallowed the last sip of cold coffee. All this conjecture was getting him no closer to solving Jolly’s case—the drifter can go to the devil for all I care—and the legal obligation was clear even though his sensors flashed red warning lights next to the name Marlin Tilbury. Eyes sore and head pounding, Warren walked back to the cell. He’d handle this himself.

  "Wake up, Tilbury; we're going to haul your grits back to the hospital. I’d suggest you get your car and go home."

  Marlin did not move or acknowledge the Chief in any way.

  Wake up heck, thought Warren, little bubba’s eyes are wide open.

  Warren opened the cell and walked over to Marlin. He waved an open palm in front of Tilbury’s face. Marlin broke his blank stare and moved his eyes up to the Chief.

  Two pee-holes in the snow.

  Without a word and scarcely a breath, the janitor rose and took a step toward the door.

  "Now you listen up for a second, Mr. Tilbury." Warren wanted to leave no room for doubt. He felt like grabbing Marlin’s shoulders and forcing eye contact. He spoke to Tilbury’s back.

  "You stay available. Show up for your job and you spend nights at home. Any problems?"

  Marlin paused for a moment but did not reply.

  "Okay." The Chief did not feel at all okay. The primary suspect in his investigation stood in front of him lost to the mental world as if Igor had stolen his brain. To make matters worse, legal jumbo forced him to let the man traipse out of custody and back to the streets of Vienna.

  Warren followed Marlin through the police station and to the front door. No use bothering with paperwork, Warren thought, the boy doesn’t know who he is. He felt certain Tilbury would make a move to drift out of town…but Warren would make sure the Vienna PD blocked it. Do it, my friend, and I'll be all over you like stink on a pole cat.

  "Greg, you give Mr. Tilbury here a ride to the hospital."

  "Yes sir, Chief." Patrolman Beasley jumped up and led Marlin to the squad car, the same one Jolly Rogers drove on his final day of life.

  Warren watched through the window with nuclear-sized acid bubbles bouncing in his stomach. He prayed Beasley would not screw this one up.

  "Don't let the man out of your sight. If he goes fishing, you better know the name of every cricket he puts on the hook," the Chief cautioned. "Anything out of the ordinary, you lock the car doors and call in. We'll get together and handle it in numbers." Compared to Jolly Rogers, what Beasley lacked in intelligence he balanced with common sense.

  Monday, July 16, 4:55 pm, Brewton-Brunson House

  1

  "You sure nuke a mean can of soup," Tom said between spoonfuls of chunky something, but the compliment came more from politeness than anything else. It tasted OK, and it warmed his heart that Cassie cared enough to take the time, but Tom ate only to be kind. Other things roiled in his mind…things he wanted to hone in on, understand.

  The dream, he thought. Usually his dreams faded away within moments of waking up. This one didn’t.

  Like three different stories…written by three different people, he thought, but his brain told him that was lazy thinking. Three different authors, all right…but all parts of the same story…common thread.

  Part one, Captain Tom Brunson’s final moments in an Air Force fighter, could almost be dismissed as a rerun of the standard nightmare haunting him since the moment Jeremiah bailed them both out of the jet. Only somehow a new twist edited its way into this version.

  The man on the missile. That too happened before in his dreams and most likely because he imagined the man as the real missile approached…Back in the desert. So why did this first stanza of his three-part dream gnaw at him so much? His brain provided the answer.

  The ledger. Never seen that. Tom wondered if that were correct. Had he ever seen the missile rider carrying a book? He was certain he did not, and stifled a shudder as he remembered the
awful feelings radiating off the ledger…how it seemed so wrong…to…Bake with evil? And what did it mean?

  Aunt Hattie, Tom thought. The man pointed to an entry, and it said Hattie Jackson. Wasn’t there something about an open transaction? He couldn’t remember for sure because it all faded into the ejection sequence…a brilliant flash and then into the body of another man…the body of that Confederate soldier.

  That’s when the second author picked up the storyline.

  Copper Gulch. Tom remembered moving with the unit…preparing for attack. But attack what? “The men around the trees,” his brain replied, but once again Tom thought that might be wrong.

  Sure they shot at the soldiers in the clearing, but Tom suspected his dream was pointing at something else. Men tied to the trees, he remembered. But it all ended there because, hadn’t I been killed?

  “Enter the third author,” his brain said. And didn’t that bullet make a horrifying transition? Just like the missile.

  He knew it sounded crazy, but Tom had the feeling the first two parts of his dream came from somewhere else…meaning from someplace outside his own mind and, with the exception of some aspects of the missile encounter, outside his experience. But the third dream—little Tommy, his parents, and the town—he thought came from the same place that usually spawned his dreams…from his own mind.

  The theater…the loft, he remembered. Something up there. That something frightened the townies because they forced him—the pre-pubescent version of him—to do what none of them could raise courage to do. But were the townies really there? Perhaps his mind filled them in that detail too. Put familiar faces in play just to move the story along…to get him to the top rung…to warn him about some danger, real but lurking out of sight.

  That the common thread, wondered Tom?

  2

  "And you sure throw out a mean line of bull," Cassandra said as she watched him eat.

  “What?”

  Cassandra thought Tom had the look of a child caught with the yelping dog’s tail in his hand.