The Eye of Madness

  He turned to see his staff enter, except for Sebastian. He had demanded to inspect the cyber security at the base. With a great deal of reluctance, they admitted him to the mainframe building. Of course, his true intentions were not for security, he could care less. His true intent was to search for any dissent on the base. He was good at what he did, and if there was anything there, he would find it.

  “What’s the plan, sir?” Avery asked as he took a seat near Garrison.

  He turned and regarded the group now scattered around the conference table, with Robby at one end and Joan at the other. He stepped forward and sat in the middle so they were an equal distance from him. Avery pulled his chair up beside Garrison and took a seat.

  “As much as it pains me to say it, we’re going to have a Halloween party,” Garrison said with a grimace.

  Robby had run out of cigars and he was now chewing on the tip of an ink pen. He began to tap it on the tabletop.

  “A Halloween party? A costume party?” he asked.

  “Now that would kind of defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?” Garrison said.

  “You want to have a social gathering so you can get a read on who is with you and who is not,” Avery said.

  Garrison nodded.

  “How will you know?” Joan asked.

  “Oh, I’ll know,” Garrison said. “The Lord will guide me.”

  “So what are you going to do with the dissenters?” she asked.

  “That’s where you come in,” Garrison grinned.

  Joan scowled as comprehension dawned on her. “If you think I’m going to have sex with half the base, you’re damn crazy! I may be good at my job, but I have my standards!”

  Garrison let out a mirthful belly laugh, causing Avery and Robby to join him. They were not sure what they were laughing at.

  “I’m not asking you to screw them to death!” Garrison guffawed. “Just make them think you are.”

  “You want me to make all them think it at one time?” Joan asked, knitting her brow.

  “You stupid bitch,” Robby said. “The president will let you know and you take them off one at a time.”

  Joan’s stare at Robby suggested she wanted to rip his head off and use his skull as a gravy boat.

  “I told you … I’m not screwing everybody! You all can go to hell!” she hissed.

  “You really are stupid!” Robby laughed. “You lure them away and then you kill them. Take them in a room and turn the lights off … the dark does the work for you, badda-bing, badda-bang!”

  If Robby Johns had known they would be his last words, he might have thought of something more profound to say.

  Before anyone could react, Joan was on her feet. In one fluid motion she grabbed a nearby flag stand with a brass flora lee on top. She hurled it like an enraged javelin thrower at Robby. The top twelve inches of the staff penetrated his throat with a sickening crunch. A second later, there was a whooshing noise like someone letting the air out of a water logged balloon. Gurgling persisted for a few moments as air wheezed in and out of the wound from Robby’s dying lungs. His eyes stared at Joan before clouding over with the vacant stare of death. The American flag draped his chest and the table top in a gruesome patriotic bib.

  “Damn …” Avery muttered.

  Garrison stared for several moments with mixed surprise and satisfaction. He shook his head and addressed Joan. “Well, are you going to clean this mess up?” he said, half tongue in cheek and half serious.

  “How the hell are you going to explain this?” Avery demanded. “This kind of takes our subtle approach and tosses it out the damned window!”

  “He was worthless anyway,” Garrison muttered and got to his feet. He felt vulnerable remaining in a seated position with this raging woman nearby. Avery joined him by the window.

  Joan huffed with rage, taking deep and rapid breaths. Her face twisted into a malicious scowl. Perhaps she was showing her true face, the face of her dark soul.

  “Ms. Titsworth, I am glad you are on our side,” Garrison said, beaming.

  She made a move in their direction causing Avery to jump, but Garrison remained cool. She brushed the hair out of her eyes with one swipe of her hand and exhaled. “That’ll teach him to piss me off,” she said, her contorted features morphing back into a beautiful woman.

  Garrison walked over and inspected the body. “He was definitely dead weight, but Avery is right … how the hell are we gonna explain this?”

  “What do you care?” Joan retorted. “You’re the damn president aren’t you?”

  “It’s not that simple!” Avery said, doing his best to suppress a shout. “If one of the president’s advisors was killed in a staff meeting, well I think we could lose a lot of credibility.”

  “Why don’t you just introduce the lot of them to the dark and be done with it?” Joan snapped.

  “Because we can’t kill everybody, we need some of them to run this base and this country!” Garrison said.

  “Make the arrangements for the party,” Garrison said to Avery and then turned back to Joan.

  “And you … you go get cleaned up and make yourself presentable for tonight,” he said waving his finger.

  The rage had not left her, not by a long shot. She turned and stormed out the door, slamming it hard behind her.

  “Is she going to be a problem?” Garrison asked.

  Avery shook his head. “No, she’s loyal but … damn,” he said grimacing at the bloody mess, which was Robby Johns.

  “Yeah … damn,” Garrison agreed. He said a silent prayer seeking forgiveness for his profanity.

  Garrison and Avery managed to drag Robby’s body into a small storage closet. They had a difficult time getting the door closed with the flagstaff protruding from his throat. The flora lee was hooked too far into his spine to pull it out. Avery unhooked the flag from the pole and used it to mop up the blood now starting to dry on the table and the carpet. Fifteen minutes later the room seemed normal to the casual observer.

  “Why didn’t we just tell them he wandered into the dark and he did it to himself?” Avery asked.

  “Because they know. They know we can pass through the dark. They saw us all come in together when it was pitch dark. Remember the damned storm?” Garrison said. He wanted to finish it with ‘idiot’ or ‘dumb ass’ but he refrained. He had to get control of his troops back and insulting his second in command wouldn’t help.

  Avery left to go about party arrangements while Garrison went back to the window. He smiled at the large hangar silhouetted in front of the woods. He intended to perform some experiments tonight.

  Steff felt as if her heart would pound out of her chest. Carmella had changed. In her eyes, she was no longer the caring and loving soul she came to trust. She wasn’t any better than her grandfather.

  “Get away from me!” Steff howled as she darted across the room and took refuge behind a large plant.

  Carmella followed and stopped a few feet away. She held out her hands, palms up, in supplication. “Sweetheart, will you please listen to me a moment,” she pleaded.

  Steff wouldn’t look at her, She sat behind the pot with her knees pulled close to her chest, rocking back and forth as if she was going to be sick. Carmella knew she may not want to listen, but she could still hear her. She was going to say what she needed to.

  “Honey, believe me when I say that hurting anybody is the last thing I want,” she said. Carmella took special care not to mention anything about killing.

  Steff continued to stare at the floor.

  “I want to make sure nobody gets hurt, but sweetheart … I know you understand your grandfather has done some bad things. He has to be stopped.”

  Steff’s first impulse was the childish reaction of ‘don’t you talk about my grandpa.’ Nevertheless, she didn’t have enough faith in her grandfather’s benevolence. Instead, she glanced at Carmella and then continued her brooding. She knew he did some terrible things, some horrific things. Perhaps she could dismiss it out o
f hand as vicious lies told by his enemies, but she couldn’t. She had seen it first-hand.

  He gunned down several people in cold blood outside the White House. She tried to forget it, tried to tell herself it was only a bad dream. Deep down, she knew it wasn’t. But kill him … blow him up? She didn’t think she could have any part of it no matter what he had done. Locking him away in prison didn’t seem very appealing either, but she could live with it. At least he would be alive. Maybe he could be rehabilitated?

  “You said you were going to blow him up,” Steff sobbed.

  “No baby, I didn’t say that. A man with a very big mouth said it. I think we need to arrest him and have a peaceful transition of power, the way it should be.”

  “Who?” Steff asked.

  “I don’t know, we’ll have to work it out. Most of the people in the legal line of succession are dead.”

  “Did my grandpa do it?” Steff asked, her body trembling.

  Carmella felt sick. She knew the answer to the question, yet she remained tactful for Steff’s sake. “I don’t know honey, I just don’t know.”

  Steff frowned and turned away, feeling ashamed. She could read the answer on Carmella’s face.

  They remained in silence for a couple of minutes until Steff jumped to her feet. Without a word to Carmella, she ran out of the room, down the hallway, and up the stairs.

  CHAPTER 31

  THE SWITCH

  “O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!”

  ~Walter Scott

  The woman was on top of Rebekah before she could scream. Pudgy hands clutched her neck and the thumbs pushed against her windpipe like two large walnuts.

  “Momma! No … don’t hurt her!” Malakhi pleaded.

  Her son’s cries began fading as unconsciousness dawned. She was going to die. All of a sudden, Rebekah felt a violent shake as the weight of the woman’s rotund body and the pressure of her thumbs lifted. Air flowed back into her lungs in a shrill whistle as her damaged windpipe struggled to expand. She rolled on her side in time to see Gestas deliver a crushing blow with a folding wooden chair to the head of the fat woman. Her limbs turned to Jell-O and she collapsed in a heap.

  Gestas had just raised the chair again to deliver another violent strike when Rebekah let out a whistling, “Noooo.” He turned and glared at her, causing the little breath she had to leave her lungs in a single gasp of terror. For the first time, she saw the true countenance of Gestas, full of hate and fury. He seemed to be taking great delight in this violent act. She rolled over, trying to catch her breath again. If she had continued to watch, she would have seen disgust wash away all the satisfaction on Gestas’s face. He caught himself at the last minute. The woman was dead. He dropped the chair and crawled to Rebekah’s side.

  Rebekah tried to get away, but she didn’t have the air or the energy to do much more than emit an airless whimper. Malakhi cowered in the corner, staring at Gestas as if he were a hungry bear about to devour his mother.

  “It’s okay, Malakhi … I’m here to help,” Gestas said as he raised Rebekah’s head and shoulders, placing them in his lap.

  The boy did not seem convinced by the assurances of this old woman. He scooted around the perimeter of the tent until he found a loose section. With the speed and agility of a rabbit, Malakhi squirmed under the wall of the tent and was gone.

  Gestas stroked Rebekah’s hair and leaned close to her face.

  “You’re son is running to get the soldiers. They will be here soon,” he whispered. “You must listen to me and you must trust me.”

  Rebekah regarded him as if he were crazy. Whether she believed him or not, it was foolish to trust him. Besides, she didn’t believe him. Ruth was just a crazy old woman. Either way, unless he changed her mind before the soldiers arrived, his chance for redemption would be gone. He would spend the rest of the storm in a stockade.

  Gestas continued, “You know I am telling the truth because the dark soul inhabiting the woman confirmed it. I saved your life, please remember.”

  Rebekah’s breathing was labored, but her throat was starting to open. “Why?” she wheezed.

  “Because I’m sorry for what I have done and realize that my ignorance nurtured arrogance in me. It drove me to a life of hate and misery. It took two thousand years of living in a dark void with other arrogant souls to realize this. I just want redemption, a chance for salvation.”

  Rebekah shook her head as she took a deep and shuddering breath. “No … why us?” she asked.

  Gestas said, “I’m not sure, a feeling … I can’t explain it. When I saw you and Malakhi alone on the street, something inside told me to watch over you. I’ll admit, it was hard at first. My dark nature was still there in the background, tempting me to return to my ways. I was able to resist because I felt different. Knowing what I know now … it is amazing how the removal of ignorance takes arrogance right along with it. Two millennia was quite an educational experience.”

  Rebekah continued to consciously push air in and out of her lungs. Her face was no longer one of a drowning woman. She was an exhausted woman, who had a lot to think about.

  “Please, when the soldiers arrive … tell them the truth. Tell them I saved your life. Please don’t tell them anymore.”

  The woman twitched, causing Gestas to jump, but it was a single movement. He reached over and checked her pulse. She was dead … probably a post mortem nerve impulse, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He lowered Rebekah’s head on a pillow. Her eyes rolled and she appeared to lose consciousness, but her breathing was steady. He placed an ear on her chest. She had a strong and steady heartbeat. Satisfied she was fine, he leaned over and whispered in her ear.

  “I’ll be right back, I have to check on something,” he said and then crawled over and put his ear between the woman’s shoulder blades. Her torso was as silent as a bag of flour. She was dead, there was no doubt.

  “What happened to the dark soul inhabiting her?” he wondered.

  Even though he was a dark soul himself, he had no answer for this question. This was new territory. He guessed it left her body and retreated to the dark shadows of the nearby woods.

  “What happened to the soul of the woman?” was the next question in his mind. Again, he had no answer. He would assume she went wherever the Impals are now. He wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad prospect, but it seemed the most logical explanation.

  He had just crawled back to Rebekah when two soldiers burst through the flap of the tent, their weapons drawn.

  “What the hell happened?” one of them demanded as he kept his weapon trained on Gestas and Rebekah while the other soldier checked the deceased woman.

  Gestas put on his best, terrified old lady act as he explained the horrific events.

  “I don’t know what came over me,” Gestas swooned. “I just grabbed the chair and swung … I don’t know where the strength came from.”

  After pronouncing their former tent mate dead, the soldier moved over and checked on Rebekah.

  “I think she’ll be fine,” he said. “A little bruising around the neck.”

  Rebekah was beginning to come around and the sat up groggily.

  “You need to come with us to see the base physician,” the soldier said as he slung his weapon over his shoulder.

  Rebekah shook her head. “No,” she croaked.

  “Where’s Malakhi, her son?” Gestas asked.

  “He’s safe. We can bring him back once we have everything squared away here,” the soldier with the weapon said as he glanced at the woman’s body.

  “Can you tell us what happened, ma’am?” the other soldier said, addressing Rebekah.

  Rebekah shrugged. “She went crazy and Ruth saved me,” she said, pointing at Gestas.

  “Do you know why?” the soldier asked.

  “No,” Rebekah said and lay back on her pillow. “I’m very tired; I want to rest for a moment.”

  “Sure you won’t come see the doctor?” the so
ldier asked again.

  Rebekah shook her head and then closed her eyes.

  The soldiers worked as quietly as they could, zipping the woman up in a body bag. They tried to be discreet as they carried her through the tents to a makeshift morgue on the other side of camp.

  A peppering of gasps and screams filled the night air as the soldiers toted the body through the maze of tents. As it turned out, this was not the only death in the camp; there were three others, each with mysterious circumstances. They were killed by someone claiming self-defense. It could have been a coincidence. After all, this camp was sizeable with around ten thousand inhabitants. A good portion of these were Palestinians who were now relocated in the same camp with Israelis. In many cases, the same tent. The dark had enjoyed plenty of amusement with this old and tiresome conflict.

  A soldier stuck his head in the door. “The other woman who was in here, when she found out what happened, she asked to move. So, we accommodated her,” he said.

  Gestas nodded and glanced at Rebekah. He was glad they were going to have some privacy after everything that happened tonight.

  “We’ll bring your son back in a few minutes,” the soldier said and then ducked outside.

  “Why don’t you get some rest and talk to Malakhi for a while,” Gestas said and pointed at the far wall of the tent where the other women had slept. “I’ll rest over here and give you some privacy.”

  As Gestas was about to get up, Rebekah grasped his arm. At first, he thought she wanted him to stay close. When he turned and saw her face an inch from his. He felt terror for the first time since entering the dark void. It was Rebekah’s features, but what was behind the eyes was not her. Fury and hatred burned through, leaving little doubt this was not her. Her mouth contorted into a hateful sneer as she pulled him even closer. He did not know the name, but somehow he recognized it as the same dark soul that had inhabited the body of the fat woman. She spoke in a raspy, hate-filled voice.