by Shawn Inmon
Copyright
The Redemption of Michael Hollister
By Shawn Inmon
©·by Shawn Inmon 2017
This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the authors, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.
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Published by Pertime Publishing, 2017
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
For Terry | My writing best friend | Who believes, even when I don’t
Part One
Chapter One | 1977 | Dimension AG54298-M85677
Chapter Two | 1966 | Dimension AG54298-M85678
Chapter Three | The Universal Center of Life
Chapter Four | Dimension AG54298-M85679
Chapter Five | Dimension AG54298-M85765
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Part Two
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Part Three
Chapter Forty-Two | July 1969
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine | 1971
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One | 1974
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three | 1976
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight | 1977
Postscript One
Chapter One | The Death and Life of Dominick Davidner | Dimension AG54298-M25735 | 1999
Coming Soon: | The Death and Life of Dominick Davidner | Preorder Available Now
Author’s Note
For Terry
My writing best friend
Who believes, even when I don’t
Part One
Chapter One
1977
Dimension AG54298-M85677
Finally, I can kill myself.
Michael Hollister pushed his face against the bars of his cell. He was alone for a moment, a brief reprieve in what had become his personal hell. Beatings. Rape in its many varieties. An endless cycle of horror and ignominy. He wasn’t strong enough to fight off even a single hardened thug, much less a pack of them. The inmates of C Block found such a fresh young prisoner an unusual treat.
Michael removed the sheet from his bed and twisted it. If I mess this up, they’ll put me on suicide watch. That’ll make this just that much harder.
Now that the moment had arrived, with the jury-rigged noose actually in his hands, he didn’t stop to consider whether he really wanted to end his life. It was all he had thought about since he’d arrived in the Oregon State Penitentiary.
There is no Hell an angry God can create that will be any worse than this life.
Happy thoughts of ending it all and escaping the humiliation and pain had allowed him to survive with his mind intact. Now was his chance. He twisted the other end of the sheet tight and fixed it around the top post of the bunk. He had to make do—and to make haste.
He tied the other end around his throat, paused for just a moment, remembered the feeling of his hands around Carrie Copeland’s neck, and smiled for the last time. He jumped slightly and let himself fall, a dead weight. He hoped to break his neck.
He did not. The sheet tightened and choked him. Michael’s eyes bulged, his face turned first red, then a deep purple. His bare feet beat an involuntary staccato tattoo against the concrete floor. His arms never left his sides. His last thought before consciousness deserted him was, “Will this never end?”
Eventually it did.
Chapter Two
1966
Dimension AG54298-M85678
Michael Hollister opened his eyes.
The room was dark and cast mostly in shadow, but he recognized it even so—his childhood bedroom. He held his hand in front of his face. His long, thin fingers were gone, replaced by short, chubby ones. He touched his neck. No sign of strangulation. He tried to get out of bed, but fell face-first to the floor. It was much farther down than he had anticipated. His bed seemed enormous.
He crept down the hall to the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He flicked on the light and blinked back the brightness. When his vision cleared, he gazed into the bathroom mirror.
Michael looked into his own childish face.
What. The. Fuck?
Michael’s hand went to his cheeks. Chubby. Soft. He flexed his fingers. Short. Weak.
His legs went weak and he sat down with a thump on the toilet seat.
Holy shit. How the hell did this happen? He got to his feet and looked, fascinated, in the mirror. He raised his eyebrows, watching his boyish image do the same. He closed his eyes, shook his head violently from side to side. When he opened them, it was all unchanged.
He opened the bathroom door and walked, automatically, through the house and back to his bedroom. His family had lived in the same house since he was born, so, aside from a few cosmetic changes, this house was the same as the one he had been living in until his arrest for murder, just before his high school graduation.
He climbed back onto the bed.
I killed myself. That should have been the end of it. Instead, I woke up here. So. There is something other than devils with pitchforks or the long dirt nap on the other side. Interesting. And now, here I am, in the body of a child. It’s a clean start. No prison, no murder. I can do anything I want.
Outside, a breeze kicked up. The house creaked. Michael froze, eyes on the dim slit of light at the bottom of his door. His heart pounded.
If he comes in here ... what? If he comes in here, what will I do? Bunch up my little muscles and scare him away? He would like that.
Again, Michael slipped out of bed and crept through the house. He went downstairs to the kitchen and pulled a carving knife with a bone handle out of the block on the counter.
Back in bed, he slipped it under his pillow.
Better.
Michael lay back against his pillow, thinking furiously.
Eventually, dim gray
light began to show around the edges of his curtains. Michael sat bolt upright.
Time to get some answers.
He pulled the knife from beneath the pillow and got out of bed, less awkwardly this time.
Already getting used to this shitty little body.
He walked silently down the thick carpet runner that ran the length of the hall. He opened the door to his parents’ room and peered into the semi-darkness. Two forms in the bed—his parents, Clayton and Margaret Hollister. Michael’s lips pulled back in disgust.
Finally.
“Father,” Michael whispered. A child’s voice.
His father blinked once, twice, then focused on Michael.
He’s younger, too. Of course.
“What the hell? Michael, what are you doing? Get back to bed.”
In one smooth motion, Michael pulled the knife from behind his back and jammed it into his father’s throat.
Blood spurted against the hand-tufted chenille bedspread and spattered onto his father’s blue and gray striped pajama tops.
Michael pulled the knife back, giving it as much of a twist on the way out as he could muster. The handle was slippery with blood, and his hands were not strong.
Clayton Hollister’s hands flew to his throat, but trying to stanch the blood flow was like trying to hold back the tide.
Margaret Hollister awoke, groggily lifted her sleep mask, and saw an Alfred Hitchcock movie come to life in her own bedroom. She screamed, loud, shrill, and long.
“Oh, now you have something to say, Mother? Where were you when I needed you?” His words went unheard in the reverberating screams that filled the room.
Michael stepped back and admired the tableau playing out before him. Clayton Hollister tried to speak, could not. Margaret Hollister tried to stop screaming, could not. Michael Hollister made no effort to hide his smile, which revealed two missing front teeth.
The Hollister bedroom, decorated in muted golds and taupe, was now splashed by crimson, arcing across the bed, the table, the floor. Clayton, gurgling, finally slumped back against the headboard, his eyes unfocused. His hands fell limply into his lap.
Michael nodded, satisfied. He wiped the bloody handle of the knife on his own pajamas. He closed his parents’ door, muffling his mother’s screams.
That was fun. But, now what? They would never convict a small child of murder, but there will be long years of doctors, therapy, drugs, treatment, people probing me. I don’t think I can handle that. Still, the end is not the end. There is something after life. What if I kill myself again? Will I come back here? Somewhere else in my life? I’d rather not be a small child like this, if I don’t have to be. There’s only one way to find out.
He tossed the knife onto his bed and clambered up after it. He looked around at his childhood room. A picture of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet hung above his dresser. A toy box with a firetruck and a Slinky poking out of the top sat in one corner. His bed, dresser, and night table were a matched set.
Not a bad room. Would have been a good life, I suppose, if not for him.
Michael buttressed the knife against the mattress, pointed at his chest at a 45-degree angle. Before he had a chance to reconsider and change his mind, he drove himself forward onto the tip of the knife.
Michael Hollister screamed, but only for a moment.
Chapter Three
The Universal Center of Life
Darkness.
Darkness.
Darkness.
Carrie Copeland opened her eyes. She gasped, and her hand flew involuntarily to her throat. After the peace, the quiet embrace of the darkness, the nothingness, the room around her was large, bright, and empty.
Wait. This isn’t right. Where am I? I always wake up in the same place. I’m supposed to be on Mom and Dad’s couch, with a stiff neck and the sun in my face.
“Hello.” A honey-smooth female voice. A voice meant to soothe.
Carrie looked around. White walls, floor, ceiling. Rows of white benches that blended into the unrelenting whiteness. Aside from Carrie and the benches, the room was empty.
“Hello?”
“Welcome. I am Bertellia.”
“I’m sorry. Who?”
“Bertellia. Your trainer, if you wish it.”
Carrie touched a hand to her forehead. Closed her eyes for a beat, then two. When she opened them, everything was unchanged.
“Trainer?”
“Well, guide could work just as well. Or, supervisor. Whatever works. We don’t get hung up on titles here. People who feel powerless need titles. We just are.”
“I can’t see you, and it sounds like you are sitting right next to me. Are you ... invisible?”
A laugh like wind chimes sounded from all corners of the room. “No, I am visible, and at the moment, made up of organic material, just as you are. I am simply elsewhere at the moment. Here, let me come to you.”
Carrie jumped. A woman of indeterminate age sat next to her, where no one had been a moment before. She had long gray hair, pinned up. Her face was mostly unlined, but there were laugh lines around her eyes. She was dressed in long, soft robes the color of pale moonlight reflected on snow.
“Better?”
Carrie scooted away from her, eyes wide.
“Where am I? I know I died. I’ve done that often enough. But I always wake up in the same place, the same time—twelve years old, on my parents’ couch.”
“You were stuck, returning to the same spot over and over. Now, you are free.”
“Stuck?”
Bertellia nodded gently. “You took your own life, which makes for an incomplete cycle, so you were started over. Each time you took your own life, you were started over. Your most recent life, you followed it to its conclusion.”
“All those lives—why did I wake up in the same place and time?”
“This is eternity, but I still don’t have time for all the questions you will want to ask.”
“How about just that one, then?”
“Very well.”
Bertellia smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle from her robe, which shimmered at her touch.
“You awoke at the same place and time because an algorithm in the Machine decided that was the place, the time, when things had gone awry for you. Or, the place and time where the Machine thought you had enough time to get your feet on the right path. I am not a cosmic mathematician, so I cannot fully explain it.”
“Wait. The Machine?”
Bertellia raised her eyebrows. “One question, remember?”
Chapter Four
Dimension AG54298-M85679
Michael opened his eyes. He was back in his same childhood bedroom, darkened once again. The knife was gone. There was no pain.
He climbed down, padded silently down the hall and into his parents’ room.
Inside, his father snored softly.
He’s alive. Everything has been reset, exactly the same.
Michael went to the kitchen and retrieved the bone-handled knife from the block.
He walked up the stairs to his parents’ room.
Chapter Five
Dimension AG54298-M85765
Michael Hollister killed his father eighty-seven more times. The scene played out the same each time, with minor variations. The knife, slicing his father’s throat, then killing himself. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
The well of anger and hatred inside him was deep.
The eighty-ninth time Michael opened his eyes in his darkened bedroom, he went downstairs, got the same knife, and returned to his parents’ door. He stepped inside and watched them sleep, as he had so many times before.
He looked at the knife in his hand. Moonlight entering the window glinted softly off the blade.
I think I’ve killed him enough.
Michael returned to his room, slipped the knife under his pillow, and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
Chapter Six
Carrie swept her hair from her eyes. It was the same haircut she’d had on he
r last day on Earth, when Michael Hollister had trapped her in the church and murdered her.
“Fine. So, I’m here, even though I have no idea where ‘here’ is. What’s next, then? Judgement? Heaven, hell, or purgatory?”
“Ah. Of course, I should have realized.” Bertellia’s gentle smile conveyed a knowledge and certainty that prompted Carrie to knit her brows and swallow hard. Bertellia looked around the room. “It’s so sterile here. Let’s go for a walk.”
And they were outside, walking a curving path around a small lake. White swans floated. Frogs sat on lily pads. A warm breeze ruffled their hair.
Carrie stumbled at the sudden transition, nearly falling.
Bertellia caught her arm. “You’ll get used to that. Now, where were we? Oh, right, heaven, hell, judgement, fire and brimstone, all that. That is not part of our program. You still have much work to do. There may be a final reward, but I’ve never known anyone who got there. We all still have much work to do. Why people dream of sitting around on clouds, playing a harp, I have no idea. I would be bored silly before the first millennium passed. Here’s a hard truth: most people on Earth can’t face the fact that they don’t know what comes after death. Eternal darkness? Recycling? Reward or punishment? No one knows, so they make up stories about it. The best storytellers are called prophets. People believe, and that makes them feel better.”
Carrie looked down. She was wearing a robe similar to Bertellia’s, though hers was not nearly so lovely. She stopped. “This is too much. I can’t handle it.”
“Of course you can. What else are you to do? Where else are you going to go if you can’t handle this? Don’t worry, you will acclimate soon enough.”
I have my doubts.
Chapter Seven
Michael awoke once again in his childhood bed. He looked out his window at the rain-heavy clouds. Looks like I’m here for the long haul this time. Thought I might wake up in a different time or place, but here I still am. Now what? And, for that matter, when exactly is this? What year? What time of year? Time to find some answers.