Soul Suites

by Hulden Morse

  A cloaked figure appeared in the scene before her, its lower body disappearing below the edge of the ball of light. The figure was equally brilliant in nature, emitting spells of lustrous energy from its white cloak and featureless face. The woman neared the entity as she began to exit the trial room through the portal, into eternity. Ariana smiled at it, finding a harmony between herself and her surroundings for the first time in years.

  Then something happened. She felt a pull from below. Her soul sputtered briefly, as if it were about to vanish into oblivion, but resumed its journey toward the heavens. Though the same tug happened again. She found it painful, as if something or someone were sucking the goodness and beauty from around her and injecting traces of the horrors that had just been expelled from her being. The woman was scared once more.

  The cloaked figure reached a glowing hand toward the incoming soul, and the woman responded by extending her own ghostly arm. But her floating being flashed again like a flickering lamp, and she suddenly found herself falling back into the room, into the body of pain. The large, luminous entity above her slowly leaned away from the ball of light, the arm outstretched as it tried to grab her soul and pull it into the sanctuary of the afterlife.

  She could feel her consciousness returning, along with the physical pain and the mental tortures that accompanied mortality. The figure above her, powerful, beautiful, faded from her vision. Her soul had almost rejoined the shaking body on that cold table as the doctor sent hundreds of volts of electricity into her struggling heart. The ball of comforting light vanished, along with the entity that had tried so desperately to protect her soul from the terror she had managed to briefly escape. However, the humans proved their will stronger than their morality, and her soul was once again plunged into a Hell fashioned by those who claimed God as their muse.

  Chapter 34

  First thing in the morning, before the sun had sufficiently warmed the grass outside the compound, before the subjects had a chance to eat, before the technicians had finished their first cup of coffee, Jake was removed from his room by the guards.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” the man said to his roommate. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “No!” Mr. Munich cried. “Don’t leave! I need you here!”

  “Please. I have to go with them. You know how it works here. I have to go.”

  “But I don’t want you to. I want you here!”

  The guards stared at the two men impatiently, having watched the scene unfold multiple times before. With each reenactment, they bit their tongues and remained quiet as Jake attempted to relax his friend, hoping that Mr. Munich would finally understand and be able to accept what was happening. It was more effective when Jake did the talking. The guards’ efforts only incited Mr. Munich to a protracted, often violent, and nuclear-intense meltdown.

  “Please stay! I don’t want to be alone!”

  “I can’t. You know I can’t. But I’ll be back. Don’t worry.”

  “How do you know that?” Mr. Munich cried, tears streaming down his eyes.

  “Just trust me. I’ll see you real soon.”

  “You might not come back. Henry didn’t come back. He never come back!”

  “But I will,” Jake said as he held his roommate close, embracing the man that he had known for under two weeks as though they had been friends for life. “I promise I will return for you.”

  The older man let go of Mr. Munich and followed the guards through the door. He was in the hallway when he heard his friend call after him.

  “They tricked us! They lied! It wasn’t real! None of it was real!”

  Jake thought back to the trial he had gone through only a few days before. He had never felt so confused and so betrayed in his life than after the most recent experiment. He and Mr. Munich were both subjected to the cruelest tease a person could create, and it angered him. Not necessarily because they had tricked him, but because they subjected the innocent and juvenile Mr. Munich to such atrocities. That man did not deserve anything he was receiving. True, no one in that facility deserved to experience the pain that was nearly and literally killing them, but torturing his roommate was like torturing a puppy for sport. He had never dared to harm anyone nor did he understand what was going on. The man with whom he shared a room was wholly innocent, and the suffering inflicted upon him was securing a special place in Hell for those that dared to lay a hand upon his battered face. They were drowning a kitten, electrocuting a bunny, suffocating a newborn, torturing a man who only knew how to put his faith in every person he met.

  A trusted man was on the other end of the phone call, fearfully explaining to his client that serving a paying, yet secretive facility, would take more time and effort than previously assumed.

  “The refurbishment needs to be done. Now.” Dr. Raymond was livid at the delay in construction. He paced the perimeter of his office and kicked the desk multiple times to release his anger at an inanimate object rather than at the man who was supposedly fixing the building. He had agreed to do it completely off the books, devoid of any documentation or recognition for the efforts, but the doctor could not understand any justifiable reason for the project’s postponement.

  “Doctor Raymond. We can’t do it that quickly. I essentially need to take vacation time to do this in order to do it off the record. And I’m trying to get people to help me that you can trust.”

  “Look. Subjects can hear their neighbors through the walls. They are too fucking thin.”

  “I understand what the issue is.”

  “And I’m paying you way more than this work is worth. You will be richly compensated. You just need to get your ass down here and do the work.”

  The doctor threw himself into his leather chair and waited for the imbecile to respond. He had been pressuring his contact to do the remodel for weeks, yet nothing had been done. That was the issue with operating an illegal and unregulated experiment. So many extra steps needed to be taken in order to ensure things were done properly and securely. Hiring a construction crew to come in and soundproof rooms would pose a large security issue for the entire facility. He needed a trusted source (and a fat checkbook) to find someone to take on the refurbishment.

  “I can get a week off at the end of the month. If I get at least two other people, that will give us enough time to finish the job. But I really can’t do it any earlier.”

  “This is ridiculous. You have had plenty of time to coordinate this. I’m sick of waiting. I have been more than patient with you.”

  “Doctor Raymond. Please. This is not easy for me. I’m trying to make this work.”

  “Get here. By the end of the month. You know what I can do.”

  The angered man hung up the phone with authority and slammed his fist into the solid wood of his desk. He was tired of being surrounded by incompetence. The world was unfortunately populated by those that were physically unable to function effectively without a superior being breathing down their necks. As one of those superiors, the doctor was frustrated with how much time he wasted overseeing those who were below him.

  To take his troubled mind off the predicament of the much-needed refurbishment, Dr. Raymond called the security chief.

  “Doctor?”

  “Justin, I have a request,” he said with an exaggerated amount of composure, accidentally sounding as if he had just dosed himself with a couple muscle relaxants.

  “What is it, sir?”

  “Can you have someone escort Mr. Pearson to my office tomorrow? I’d like to have lunch with him again.”

  “Of course, sir. You seem to have struck up a relationship with him, if I may say so.”

  “Well, I actually enjoyed my lunch with him. One of the first times in a long while that I had a memorable meal.”

  “I understand, sir. Usual time for your lunch break?”

  “Yes, Justin. Thank you.”

 
“Of course, sir,” the man said professionally. “Have a good day.”

  The doctor found it strange that he was actually looking forward to eating with the subject. That man was a part of his experiment, a pawn in his fatal chess game, yet he enjoyed the CEO’s company. He wasn’t homeless like the rest, which could explain the difference. He was a member of a very particular clientele with which Dr. Raymond wanted to work and get to know intimately. The more he spoke with him, the more he could learn about his own research. Working with people was his job, but analyzing them was his passion. The human mind contained so many untapped secrets, and it was with immense pleasure that he had the chance to extract vast quantities of variable information from the brains of so many people. What better way to learn about an individual than to torture him over and over without the slightest concern for repercussions?

  Chapter 35

  The investigation continued with feverish ferocity. Nearly forty shelters were closed, placed in a government-induced suspension until they were cleared to operate once more. Every district within Reaching Dreams was torn apart as agencies searched through computers and files, hoping to unveil some signs of wrongdoing. The executives of the nonprofit asked to be a part of the investigation, citing their interest in the well-being of the company and broad knowledge of what should or should not be present in a report as enough reason to let them through the caution tape. However, the attorney general barred the company’s administrators from providing their personal (and obviously biased) opinions on the matter. They were a hindrance to the men and women working on the case, especially when there were fewer officials than typically necessary given the vastness of the various investigations underway.

  Hamilton found it hard to believe that there would be anything criminal within those other districts. She had met with Pinner, Morris, and the board of directors privately to discuss the situation. They had all agreed that there were no signs of any wrongdoing within those areas. The big businesses seemed to have complete control of the government, dictating who was investigated and who was left alone simply because they pointed their fingers in one direction and not the other. Hamilton could not help but notice that all of the attention on the nonprofit’s headquarters in San Diego, as well as on the other organizations that worked with the homeless, had dragged the government’s and media’s peering eyes away from the most suspicious areas—Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh.

  As time ticked by, nothing concrete was ever found that could prove laws were broken or that people were hurt. And yet, corporations continued to spill their swill upon the public and the media, pressuring those investigative agencies to dig deeper and deeper into the bowels of each organization, stating that they were certain something strange was going on and that those CEOs, directors, supervisors, coordinators, Fathers, Sisters, and presidents could not get away with the heinous actions of their blackened souls. Hamilton found the entire ordeal ironic and almost comical, except that those words were ripping apart the company to which she had devoted her professional life.

  And yet, beyond all the drama and temporary (or possibly permanent) closures of shelters, Charles Pearson was still missing. Much of the country continued to label him as a scoundrel that most likely embezzled millions of dollars and murdered homeless people to scrape them off the street and build a false reputation around his company. The media loved reporting it. And the public loved hearing it. In the end, no matter what side of the argument individuals fell on, no one had any idea where Charles had gone.

  In order to find her boss, Hamilton went to the source of the national crisis: the large corporations. She focused on the businesses that had actually made public service announcements concerning their denounced affiliation with Reaching Dreams and the opening of their very own shelters for the homeless. She looked to those large brand names as a starting point for her own search. If something strange was going on, then those businesses were almost certainly a part of it. They had somehow discovered signs of criminal actions where Hamilton was certain there was nothing malicious to be found. And they had successfully drawn the focus away from five cities where she knew there was something actively being covered up. Hamilton understood that she would be met with an almost impenetrable amount of resistance from those corporations, though she had to try. Her mission was no longer solely about Charles Pearson and clearing his name, it was about rescuing an entire, country-wide movement that sought to end homelessness and put a roof over every individual’s head and a hot meal on their table. She was not ready to give up on that dream. She was probably a fool for thinking she could do anything to stop or stem the avalanche of corruption, but . . . what choice did she have?

  Meanwhile, the truth behind the disappearance of thousands of homeless people remained lost in the hysteria that swirled around a city up in arms. The public was so busy grabbing pitchforks and setting fire to every building that had ever housed someone without a home that they failed to identify who the actual enemy was. The townspeople had been led on an incredibly fulfilling raid of the house of God, never noticing that it was Satan who had guided them through the gates.

  Newspaper clipping from September 5th, 2017, after reports broke that Reaching Dreams was being investigated. Obtained from innewspaperarchives.com.

  Image taken by the facility for security purposes of a homeless camp in Chicago. Images like this were often used for recruitment. Obtained from company database.

  Second phase subject room floorplan with edits by Dr. Raymond. Obtained from Dr. Raymond’s personal files.

  Final design for the trial room floorplan. The arrow designated the entrance to a large staircase leading to the subject rooms. Obtained from Dr. Raymond’s personal files.

  Sketch by Dr. Raymond of a tank designed to freeze subjects. This image was sent to the head architect for the facility, Paul XXXXX. The tank was not used often due to its inefficiency and high energy demands. Obtained from Dr. Raymond’s personal files.

  One of the hallways along which subjects were housed. Notice the metal doors with a single window. Updated rooms included a slot in the door for serving food. Most subject halls did not have a window to the outside. Obtained from my personal files.

  One of two surgery rooms utilized by the facility for many procedures pertaining to the trials, including but not limited to lobotomies, amputations, life-saving procedures, and diagnostics. Obtained from my personal files.

  The cover page from a portfolio for a single subject. Upon entrance into the facility, all subjects had a portfolio created for them. In addition to personal information, portfolios contained answers to script questions and trial notes. Obtained from company database.

  A script used by Trial Technicians to question subjects directly following a water trial. Scripts differed based on the type of trial and how many trials the subject had undergone. Obtained from Jonathan Snell prior to arrest.

  Employee badge used as identification and entrance into the facility. The name and face have been redacted to protect the employee. A gift from the employee to be used in this book.

  Dr. Raymond during his residency in Oklahoma. This image was printed in all welcome packets given to employees. Obtained from my personal files.

  Chapter 36

  Ariana knelt beside her bed and prayed to the deity she had often forgotten during her troubled past. Finding her next high, begging for her next meal, stealing her next paycheck, all took priority over a religion to which she had grown up devoted. She had been led astray by the temptations of society and then thrown into the garbage by those same temptations, only to be rescued by a doctor with vastly different intentions than what Ariana had expected. Was it a punishment for the wrongdoings she had committed for most of her adult life? Would there be a point when God said, “Enough! You have paid for your sins and are now free to go”? She had come to accept that such a point, if it were to come at all, was far away. The woman had taken
control of her future by pressing her skinny hands together and staring at the ceiling as if she were looking at the almighty Himself.

  “Release me, God. Please. I have suffered so much. Let me go home. I have forgotten you. But I’m here now. Please listen to me.”

  The woman, in her oversized grey shirt and loosely fitting grey sweatpants that barely hung on her malnourished frame, prayed for her salvation. She begged to be taken away from the grasp of Dr. Raymond, whom she assumed was operating under the will of Satan. No human, no normal person, could execute such actions of blatant cruelty without the assistance of a masterful devil.

  “Just take me now. I have seen Heaven. I know it’s there. Please, take me now.”

  The knowledge that she was destined to survive for an unbeknownst amount of time within that facility was painfully present within her mind. She was ready to die and remain dead. Ariana had seen the brilliant radiance of the afterlife shining before her like a beacon of holy redemption. She had felt the penetration of everlasting peace within her body as the accumulated horrors of a lifetime spent stumbling down the wrong path were forcefully expunged by the energy of a divine entity. She had heard the call of angels! It was more beautiful than any high she had ever experienced. No amount of happiness or combination of drugs could induce a euphoria comparable to the touch of Heaven. And how she had been ripped away from that sensation! It had been there, encompassing her, surrounding her, and they managed to thrust her back into the world she longed to escape. Ariana had a taste of what it would feel like to die, and now she prayed to be returned to that universe devoid of humanly suffering.