Good and Evil : Freeland - Part Two (9781628547375)

by Pulver, William

  The water seemed to trail beside him; it was always there along his journey through this cave maze. It was dark so he wasn’t able to see that it consisted of a dark red substance. Still in flow, it trickled down, ever so gradually with gravity’s help, telling Treble that he was traveling further down at this point. Its redness lit up once he held out a firebug tail to see his way into the hollows. It was a diluted red, but blood red nonetheless. He had to know what was causing this, so he followed the flowing water to the edge of a wide-open excavation. At the edge, where the water fell down fifty more feet, he peered over the side and was instantly made aware of where the rest of the party people had vanished.

  Over the edge of this high fall, Treble witnessed something he didn’t want to see. It was an improper burial of all of those who he had been friends with since grade school. Their bodies were stacked in select piles. Arms and legs dangled in unison, used as handles when the Pasties drug them to a makeshift alter. They were going to be sacrificed and brought back to life, later turned into Pasties, by the blood of a nearly victimized, Lexie.

  A placement of various Tiki torches were placed around the makeshift alter where the unclothed, decaying body of Reagan Shaw had been lifted. Reagan was placed on top of Lexie, having been left there for who knows how long. Since the Pasties didn’t have the gender to do it themselves, they used the dead to try to change her moral status. She was left barren on a slab of stone, kind of a couch-looking rock, bound by her ankles and wrists. Treble could see rope burns on her tied areas as she was struggling to free herself from the weight of Reagan’s stiff body. Lexie kept herself pinched off. Not even the Pasties could get her to give up her virtue to the forces of evil.

  A committee of sunglass-wearing Pasties entered the almost completely dark sector, lighting it more with their headlights. The compilation of lights gave new visibility, seeming to highlight the area around the bound Lexie. She turned her head to look elsewhere, careful not to look the Dilators in the eyes. In the meantime, the dead from up above were also being brought down to this room. Treble saw his mother, dead.

  This was enough to make Treble lose it. He jumped down from the fifty-foot high extending slab and landed in the deep pool of collected blood water. He emerged, changed in color to red himself, and fought the Dilators with his bare hands.

  “Don’t look into their eyes. You will be turned to stone internally, and then they will make you one of their own.” Lexie warned him as he rolled the dead corpse off and untied her, purposely sealing his eyes for her privacy and his new respect toward Brody. He didn’t have a problem not looking at the Pasties. Lexie grabbed her clothes and redressed while Treble helped her, still keeping his eyes closed.

  The leader of the Dilators grabbed Treble by the shoulder as he pivoted around to the back of the hard and heavy creature. He lifted the Dilator up and body-to-body threw him on his head. The glasses fell off and its gems fell to the ground, rolling into the pool of water. The other Dilators backed up a bit, each holding the dead body of someone who had been overcome in battle. The bodies were dropped as the group departed back through the hole they had marched in from. The ground started to shake again; this time, it wasn’t from an earthquake.

  Chapter 12

  Armageddon

  “What is this?” Lars pulled down on a different lever than he had seen before. The robot started to do a little dance. Its blue goo-covered gold legs shined iridescently through the blackness of the cave. Several Pastie creatures were tromped upon and ground into the rock as the jig continued.

  Up the next level of stairs, Brody fell back from an unusual prophetic premonition that hit him upside the head when he was daydreaming. He wasn’t asleep though, not this time. He was wide-awake.

  “You’ve got to focus, pal.” Robber had finally come around again. “We have to eventually transport back to heaven every living thing on this planet. It is the will of God. If you don’t do what he is asking you to do, then you will never be remitted into heaven.”

  “Shut up! You don’t know that we are supposed to do away with every living creature. Sometimes, I wish you weren’t so negative. All you ever make me feel is gloom and doom. Who let you in my head anyway?” He was getting tired of this second voice, Robber. “I know what I have to do. It’s just people who I have to cast back, not creatures too?”

  The forewarning made Brody see Treble in a reflection from the lens of eyeglasses he was using to look out of the front of the robot. Treble had someone with him who looked a lot like Abby. They were getting hoarded by several types of Pasties. It reminded him of a running of bulls. They were frightened but not so scared they couldn’t move. Suddenly, the premonition vanished. The darkened reflection was overshadowed by the canopy of the cave as it came crashing down. The ripple effect squandered it to the bottom of the tunnel as the rest of the crust followed suit for miles. In the depths was revealed the tower of Babel. It had been buried in the ground centuries ago, and the wonder of where it went was finally resolved.

  But why was it on this replicated planet?

  The pillars conjoined around the tip of it as the land around crumbled, making it seem to rise up past the surface. The Pasties had been reconstructing it for years. Now, the signs of the times had led this moment to an all out Armageddon. The skies darkened. The solar star was no longer visible. Satan called forth his underground armies and then disappeared again. The waters turned blood red. Heavy rains of fire jolted down from the sky, pitting the planet in various places. The meteorite-driven showers took many out by the left hand of Satan. Death was abundant. All the good of the bad still revolted.

  Days later, in the wake of a new dawn, the solar star shone through the blood red skies, and many of those Pasties still left fighting, whose eyes weren’t protected, went barreling into the rock mid-stride. Their eye gems were rolling all about, tripping up the others who were falling flat on their faces. The domino effect made Brody’s job a lot easier, but that was only happening to the ones without glasses. There were millions more coming out of nowhere, like cockroaches on a dirty-dish-stacked counter top.

  Brody dodged the rain of smoldering rocks as he prepared the robot for horizontal diggings through the many mounds amassed on the floor. With his mission in mind, he started the drill and forced his way through pile after pile. For several more miles, everyone left upstairs stayed comfortable mid-air with Brody’s hammock invention. They were scared but not as much as they would’ve been had they not been able to suspend themselves. Voices started calling about; some seemed recognizable, and one was his mother’s. Why could he hear Kreen? Marshall’s voice was heard, Jorge’s, Treble’s, Lexie’s, Abby’s; Brody was starting to feel indifferent. He was feeling light-headed like he was getting pushed back through the tunnel of light that he had seen when he first got into the wreck. This came and went from time to time, but it had never been this strong. He felt like he was getting re-birthed through his mother’s birth canal; this time, he was storing it into memory. The pressure between his ears was unbearable. He was too big to give birth to now. He tried to rationalize with his mind. The heat, the pain, and a sudden onslaught of fierce trauma made him feel suspended, helpless.

  The intuition was interrupted by the shaking of the apparatus while it was in digging mode. He came back fully aware of what was going on but still felt the lightness in his body.

  Up ahead, there were more Pasties setting up catapults from the piles of rocks to try and stop the tag teaming robots. No such luck, Brody’s robot was spinning so fast, all it did was make the boulders ricochet and deflect them back where they started. He turned the tumbler on as he passed several dislodged gems and a vac sucked them up as they were washed clean and sent through the other-room-entering capsules to be stored in the lust and dust room. In this semi-holy vault, a computer-programmed preacher was stationed; his will from God was to exorcise the gemstones so that their negative effect would we
ar off. The preacher was freeing all of the lost souls trapped in the cuts of gemstones and sending them onto where they were intended. In all actuality, it was Chester’s way of lessening those who would always want a piece of him or those who were just a threat, due to his being a modern-day prodigy: a god in his own right.

  Brody looked back over his shoulder after putting the robot into stabilizer mode. He stood the machine up as he did as well. Through the tank womb his father was within, he could see something he never would have imagined or actually dreamed. His dad’s eyelids were open, but he didn’t have any eyes. He had been entombed in the jellied embalming fluid because he was the leader of the Pasties. No wonder the devil’s children were so determined to get inside this towering treatment facility. Chester had replacement eyes that lit up blue, as in the Hope diamond (the crème de la crème of diamonds) that had been split in two. He was the one everyone had been looking for.

  But how? He wasn’t Pastie underneath his vinyl suit, was he? Brody pondered.

  It was all piecing together, but how could a Pastie be human? Then, he remembered seeing Derek Chandlee, who was half and half, in one of his visions.

  “Did my dad steal the gems from these people, and that was why the robot was stuck in the roof of the cave system along with all the other beacons of Larami?” Brody asked himself. “Is he a modern-day tunnel pirate who steals from those who can’t defend themselves because he has never had any suicidal thoughts?” Or was Brody looking in the genetic mirror, finding that he was Chester in the future-sense, really envisioning all of this in his mind? Treach looked at him like he was crazy for asking. Lars had a look on his face like he knew the answer.

  At that moment, the jelly changed from neon green to fire red and started to ripple. This was all happening while the robot was standing still. Chester’s arms and legs began convulsing, but in a weird way. They weren’t moving in a human fashion. Instead, they were more robotic, like Rock Man’s movements or Frankenstein’s. Nevertheless, the glass started to crack around the outside of the tomb. Brody braced himself for the worst as the jelly oozed out of the cracks along with a blast of compressed oxygen. The blood-red slime crept out and flooded the tile floor, finding more cracks where the walls met. The oxygen feeding tubes detached, and Chester came to life. Brody ran out of the room, turned around, and rolled the lock on the middle of the door. He looked through the shoulder-high window as he watched his goo-covered Pastie dad (who looked like he had just been given birth to with the tank slop dripping from his entire body) strap himself into the control panel. Everyone outside of that room was safe for now, but Brody didn’t know for how long. He was paralyzed, left temporarily immobile by the mind-powers of his father.

  Brody regained mobility and led Lars, Treach, and Robber up the stairs to try to find Harmonia, hoping he hadn’t over medicated her with the Lethe, as much as he needed her to remember what was happening. He blinked in his mind and was back up top in the brains section of the robot: the Think Tank. Of course, he had to go to the Think Tank. He was the controller, still, and this was his time to shine.

  After finding Harmonia and grabbing her by the hand, Brody made her carry Soma as they went into the center of the Think Tank where he devised three makeshift bathtubs. It was made up with the jelly in which his father had been submerged. There had to have been some kind of neural chemicals injected into the mood-swing slime that had seeped through Chester’s pores and into his mind through his body, maybe norepinephrine or acetylcholine (ACH), the most abundant chemical in the hippocampus where memories are stored, or even melatonin, the regulator of biorhythms. Brody advised Harmonia to make an all-out cocktail to enhance everything about his mind to give him the ability to have a super-dream. Pulling together all of his powers that be (Treach, Robber, and Lars), he needed to have the end-all-be-all vision in order to have a chance of saving his people on this dreadful planet, now that his dad was alive, and angry.

  Harmonia, under the influence of her own cocktail of pills, mixed all of the neural chemicals together from the silver platter she had carried them in on and pumped them into the flat tub of jelly. Brody got in and laid back, sinking his head in far enough to keep his nostrils above the liquid. The compacting of the ooze held the back of his head like a pillow and kept him stable as long as he didn’t move. Again, the feeling of ethereal lightness came creeping back. Lars and Treach were situated in their own fluid on each side of Brody. They were all adjoined through the same machine. Brody wanted to combine all forces, so they each had their own vat of neurotransmitter chemical concoctions.

  At that moment, Harmonia did one of the oddest things outside of her character. She lay down next to Brody in a makeshift tub of her own and connected herself to a split in Brody’s wire coming from his Soma. They would both dream simultaneously. She was going to help him from the inside out.

  The tube was stuck in his good ear and the neural dye was pumped in through the hollow part. Harmonia dipped a wafer into the neurotransmitter can and stuck it in Brody’s mouth. He went instantly to sleep as relaxed and carefree mentally as when he had gotten into the wreck. She took another wafer and placed it under her tongue and let it dissolve until she was also in a more tranquil, dreamy state.

  “You are feeling as light as a feather, and there is nothing that is holding you down. The weather is atmospheric, carefree and subtle. You are in a perfect state of bliss, uplifted by your relaxation. Let the tension go from your body. Excrete it from your pores and release the toxins that make you feel stress. Imagine yourself in another world where you are free, nothing but happiness from anyone and everything all around. You are at peace with yourself and those things that mean you harm. They are away, far away in their rightful resting place. Push them even farther.

  “Now, let your spirit rise from your body. Let it push itself out so it is weightless, detached from the container that is holding it down. You can feel the wind through you, but it will not move you. This is vitality: the most relaxed state humans can reach. Look around; you are now aware of what you need to do. Now do you know who I am?”

  “Life is the answer. Death is the answer. There is good, and there is bad. How can we have two things so symbolic of our spiritual capture and release that we would put a human mind in the middle of all of it? Our bodies are nothing more than soul-capsules. The difference in appearance means nothing to any angel, spiritually. It is of the flesh that we separate spirituality from mortality and only try to see through our own humanism. Why am I asking myself this question? I have purpose. I was cast back for a reason, and I want to fulfill it—but how? Am I alive, or am I some thought floating by in the air, just drifting, hoping to land in some human’s mind so I can convey my message. In that case, I am not me. I am who I land on. I am they, the others who I have always wanted to be because I can’t accept myself for me. I have lived with me for too long.

  “I do deserve to live, though, I have more that I want to do. Don’t I? Who am I talking to?”

  The spiritual host who was standing behind and all around Brody covered his mind with her thoughts and told him internally, “Stop wondering, quit thinking. There is purpose, but here, you will not find it. Here, you don’t need to fulfill anything. Here, you are not yet ready for either. You have so many questions that let me know you are not ready. Your answers are within you, but they must be found before I can accept you. You have got to find peace within yourself, or you will never find the answer. The key to your success isn’t high on a mountain, it isn’t low in the sea; it is between your ears, in your heart, in your will. It is up to you to find it. That, my life-vessel, is your purpose.” Harmonia was still speaking to him from inside his mind.

  Brody got shifted by a spirit via his separation of mind and soul in the lands that belay Trendago. Good or bad, he wasn’t aware of what the spirit believed. The bodies were dissolving into the sand as the serpent shot up through the middle of them, lighting them
on fire with the whip of his tale before reemerging into the ocean of sand. The bronzy, black diamond-scaled, snake keeper sat on his high perch, starting more body fires with jolts of black lightning from the dark, cloud-covered sky. A horn blared, people’s ears bled, bodies emerged from the ground, and the beast vanished. The clouds dispersed as the burnt orange sky came back and sullen was more nauseating a feeling than anything else happening all around him. Brody was trapped in the barrens, alone but trying to find his lost friends. That was his purpose. If he didn’t find them and cast them back, then all would be lost and no one would make it back to heaven. It was up to him to save them. He wasn’t afraid of Satan, though he should have been. Instead, he asked the Lord to rebuke Satan and used that as a force field around his body. This gave him confidence, for he was now living by faith, and that would be enough for him to conquer anything.

  Brody could feel himself returning from the out-of-body-experience, which was nothing more than the remnant memories from his hovercycle wreck. Maybe the concoction was too much, or maybe Harmonia had made them all go too deep; either way, he felt better than when he had entered this stage of his enlightenment. He would always wonder the why of the wreck: was it his fault or was it Drake’s? Yet, wonder made him prone to anxiety, and anxiety pushed him farther away from the truth. Maybe the answer would never reveal itself until death, when all questions get answered. By then, the majority of our life’s questions will have become meaningless, needless worry at the time they were thought of.