The Eye of Madness

  A few minutes later they rounded a corner and came upon a security checkpoint. It was the same one where Andrews and Burt helped him escape a little over a month ago. A block of ice slid into Cecil’s stomach. What if the same guards were there from the night of his escape?

  CHAPTER 34

  THE PRODIGAL SON

  “The pattern of the prodigal is: rebellion, ruin, repentance, reconciliation, restoration.”

  ~Edwin Louis Cole

  Gestas followed Rebekah and Malakhi for the better part of the day. To the casual observer, there did not seem to be anything wrong. She behaved as a loving and doting mother. This dark soul was either very good at deception or really did relish the role of loving mother. Gestas didn’t believe it was the latter. He saw the fury burning behind Rebekah’s pretty green eyes. He knew this soul entertained no desire for redemption. It only sought escape from the darkness at any cost.

  Gestas was in uncharted territory. He did not know if it was possible to get a dark soul out of someone without killing the body. If salvation was possible, he was pretty sure that cold-blooded murder was a deal breaker. The only thing he could do was watch and make sure no harm came to Malakhi.

  The increased physical demands on the old woman’s body were starting to take its toll. He believed he either strained or broke a rib when he saved Rebekah from their possessed tent mate. The legs of the old woman throbbed with protest. He found he must rest frequently. As a result, he lost them a couple of times. He managed to stay a safe distance behind until nightfall. Tonight, he was not sure the physical limitations of his elderly host would be enough.

  Jack was awakened around mid-afternoon by the click and squeak of his cell door. A fat, older gentleman, wearing a brown smock, waddled into the room. Behind his multiple chins, bushy eyebrows and shocks of white hair above his ears, there was a kind and gentle countenance. He was a stark contrast with the two armed guards accompanying him. The man reminded Jack of Alfred Hitchcock or perhaps Winston Churchill.

  Jack sat up on his bed and rubbed his eyes. He watched the man as he took a seat in a small metal chair a few feet away. Jack glanced from the man to the soldiers. The man adjusted his long smock and tried to balance his rather ample fanny on the narrow chair seat.

  “Good afternoon, Jack. I am Dr. Turnberry,” he introduced himself with a polite nod. He didn’t offer his hand.

  Jack didn’t say anything; he just glared at Turnberry. After several long moments of tense silence, Jack said. “Why are you holding me here?”

  Dr. Turnberry straightened the wire-rimmed glasses on his button nose and then cleared his throat. “I thought it was obvious, Jack. You have an ability few people seem to possess,” he said, then narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice. “You also seem to have a propensity for violence which we were not aware of.”

  Jack’s heart rate accelerated. Had they discovered his secret? He knew what the reaction would be if he was found out. There would be no medals, no glorious media interviews, no parades, or parties. The only pedestal he would be on is a gallows. These imbeciles were too ignorant to understand the good he served.

  Jack’s pulse subsided as Dr. Turnberry said, “You were ready to kill that young woman. It wasn’t just a momentary burst of anger, it was visceral rage I saw in you.”

  Jack glanced around the room, wondering how this obese clown had watched him. He soon spotted a tiny camera mounted in a dark corner.

  “Does it have sound?” Jack asked, pointing.

  Turnberry shifted his weight nervously and said, “No, I’m afraid not. That’s why we were wondering what the girl, Donna, said to you.”

  Jack breathed a sigh of relief and experienced a flash of inspiration. They hadn’t heard. There was no telling what she told them, but now this was Jack’s opportunity to discredit her.

  “You know who the crazy brat said she was? Queen Mary.”

  Dr. Turnberry jumped with surprise. “Mary, Queen of Scots?” he asked.

  “No, no … the other one … Bloody Mary.”

  Turnberry raised an eyebrow and then folded his arms. “Why would she make such a claim?” he asked.

  “How the hell should I know?” Jack said. “She’s a nutter.”

  Dr. Turnberry smiled a little.

  “You know she can move about in the dark too, don’t you?” Jack said.

  Turnberry regarded him for several long moments before responding. “Yes, she was open about it. You weren’t quite as forthcoming so we tested you.”

  “You were in charge of that rubbish?” Jack said, remembering the relentless light blinking and music from his first night in the cell.

  “Well, not hands on,” Turnberry said. “But I did authorize it.”

  “Wanker,” Jack muttered.

  Turnberry’s mouth creased into a thin line. It seemed his sense of humor only stretched so far. “So what is your connection with Bloody Mary? Are you Henry VIII?”

  Jack wanted to explode. He wanted to bash this arrogant jerk’s skull in and then go do the same to Queen Mary. Nevertheless, he restrained himself.

  “No, I’m just Private Jack Abernathy. What you see is what you get,” he said mustering as much humility as he could.

  “You haven’t seen my cage, have you?” he thought, but did not say.

  “You never knew this Donna before?” Turnberry asked.

  “No, as I have said before, she showed up at my door the night I was stuck at my house. That’s the first time I saw her in my life.”

  “But you weren’t really stuck … were you Jack?” he asked with a straight face, yet accusation shone in his eyes.

  “I didn’t know it at the time,” Jack said.

  “When did you know it?”

  Jack studied him and then the guards as the stitches on the back of his head began to tingle. He reached his hand back and touched the bandage.

  “Right after I woke up from this,” he said.

  “Yes … yes, your injury,” Turnberry said like a professor contemplating a difficult concept. “Exactly how did it happen again?”

  Before Jack could answer Turnberry scooted his chair closer and then pointed at Jack’s head. “May I?” he said.

  Jack turned his head and let Dr. Turnberry exam it. He did not remove the bandage or even touch it. Instead, he seemed more interested in the area of Jack’s head where the injury occurred.

  “Mmm … occipital lobe … vision … perhaps … yes,” Turnberry muttered. Jack was no doctor, but he understood him well enough to know the doctor thought he might have gotten some brain damage from the fall.

  Maybe it affected his immunity from the dark. He avoided the dark until he was kicked by the old lady in the cage. He woke up in the dark, yet he never considered it unusual. He felt at home, at peace among the dark whispers. Perhaps he did suffer some brain damage since the most obvious solution eluded him. He and the dark are the same.

  “So you think my injury caused this?” Jack asked as Dr. Turnberry scooted back and began to stroke his pudgy chin.

  “At least a possibility,” he murmured, and then blinked. “Makes me wonder if your friend Donna suffered a similar blow to the head, making her immune.”

  “And knocking the sense out of her to where she thinks she is Bloody Mary?” Jack asked.

  “A possibility,” Turnberry agreed. “I will need to examine her further to make a determination.”

  Jack laughed inside while suppressing a grin. This guy didn’t know a bloody thing. He was interested in the medical aspect of Jack’s ‘condition’, nothing more.

  “I knew I was careful,” he thought. “Even if they check the moors near my house, they can’t prove I had a damn thing to do with any of them.”

  Dr. Turnberry got up to leave after offering Jack dinner. He had not enjoyed a decent meal since they stopped at Martian Burgers a couple of days ago. Jack accepted and the doctor promised him a steak, baked potato, and a Coca Cola.

  “I’ll have someone bring it to you within the
hour,” he said, motioning the guards to meet him at the door.

  As Jack’s stomach grumbled, he smiled and got up to shake Turnberry’s hand. The doctor stepped behind one of the guards who delivered a forearm causing Jack to stumble backwards. He quickly recovered, ready to respond to another blow, yet none came. Dr. Turnberry peered at him from behind the two soldiers.

  “I’ll be back shortly with your meal, Jack. In the meantime, I would like an answer to a question when I return. I don’t want an answer now because I want to give you time to think about it,” he said and then paused. “Always remember, honesty is the best policy.”

  Jack felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach; he didn’t care for Turnberry’s tone. “What question?” he asked.

  Dr. Turnberry nervously removed his glasses. With growing angst, he slowly told Jack the question. “I would like to know what the cage was for.”

  The same guards from the night of Cecil’s escape were not at the checkpoint, but it didn’t matter. They knew his name all too well. Major Cecil Garrison was public enemy number one. The soldiers responded with the same zeal as if Bonnie and Clyde had just waltzed into FBI headquarters. They dragged him from the SUV and threw him to the ground. This time, he managed to avoid another broken nose. However, he did have the wind knocked out of him.

  Even though Musial tried to explain that he was Sam Andrews, the guards did not buy it. They hauled Cecil and Musial to the same jail where Cecil resided before. It could have been coincidence, fate, or just cruel irony; but they were thrown into his previous cell.

  When he was here before, the Impals were still about, being fed into the Tesla Gate a short distance away. Now that the eye had arrived and the dark souls ruled the shadows, Cecil took note of how dim the jail was. There seemed to be a threshold of light the dark souls occupied. Fortunately, the shadows in the jail were not dark enough, but they were close. The whispers of the dark echoed all around them like a thousand mice scratching inside the walls.

  Cecil sat down in the most well lit side of the cell while Musial sat on the bed, which was under a dark shadow. That seat would have been fatal to Cecil. Sally, Burt, and Barbara were taken elsewhere. Cecil was grateful that at least they were not here in this hellhole with him. He hoped Burt and Barbara received the help they needed.

  “So what do we do now, major?” Musial asked.

  “Wait,” Cecil said. “I’m sure they have gotten word to my father in Washington by now. He’ll do one of three things. He’ll have us executed, he’ll have us rot in this cell, or he will come to see me so he can gloat before having us executed.”

  Cecil had no idea his father was currently being treated in the same base infirmary with Burt and Barbara. When he learned of the presence of the traitors, not even God knew what the lunatic would do. President Garrison worked outside the prevue of God in his own private religious fairyland.

  “Well I must say you are a lovely cell mate, major.”

  Cecil shrugged and didn’t say anything. His mind was elsewhere. It was with Steff, it was with Burt, Barbara and Sally. It was also with Abbs, wherever she may be. He possessed a natural fear of death, though it did not terrify him. He didn’t care what his father did to him. Not as long as everyone else was okay. His biggest regret was that he would not be there for his family, although … maybe he could. The Impals who stayed did so by choice. He could see himself making the same choice if he died today. Of course, the world had changed since the Impals were here. Where would his soul go now and, wherever it was, would he have a choice? The more he thought about it, the more it scared him. What had happened to the Impals?

  “Oh, Abbs,” he said as he pinched the bridge of his nose to quell tears. If alone, he would not have cared, but he didn’t want to give Musial the enjoyment of seeing him cry. He decided to change the subject.

  “What did you mean right before the tornado hit when you said one of them killed you before?” Cecil asked, jumping as the dark responded with increased agitation. Musial’s head flew up and his eyes narrowed on Cecil.

  “I had rather not talk about it, major,” he said. “I may have been a bad boy in life which earned me a plunge into the dark void. Yet … there are some things I would rather not discuss.”

  “It bothers you more to talk about that then all the people you killed?” Cecil asked.

  Musial didn’t reply. Although Cecil couldn’t see his face in the shadows, his heavy breathing echoed through the jail. Finally he took a deep breath and said, “I was on my way back from getting rid of some nigger’s body. I don’t even remember his name and I didn’t care what it was. This storm blew up out of nowhere and I tried to hide under a big oak tree outside the town where I had been performing. I heard the roar of the damned thing approaching. I thought it was a steam train, but I remembered the steam train didn’t run through the little piss ant village. By the time I figured out it wasn’t a train, it was too late. The damned twister snatched the tree up as easily as someone weeding a garden … with me clinging to it.”

  He took a deep breath and shuddered before continuing. “The last thing I remember seeing before I found myself in the void was the god-awful nigger staring down at me from one of the branches. He was smiling and swinging his feet as if it was a sunny day. I don’t know if he was enjoying the weather or enjoying watching me die.”

  “Was it his Impal?” Cecil asked.

  Musial shook his head. “Hell, I don’t know. I have never seen an Impal. I’ve only heard you living folks talk about them.”

  “You couldn’t see them before the storm?”

  Musial huffed, “I thought I told you we couldn’t see anything before then.”

  “You said you broke through sometimes to influence the weak minded.”

  “It was rare and it was more like trying to talk to someone through a knothole in a fence. You couldn’t see much and you were lucky if they heard you,” Musial said and then stretched out on the cot. “I told you I didn’t want to talk about this, major,” he said.

  Cecil’s started to suggest that referring to black people with a racial pejorative was not a good start on the road to salvation. He held his tongue. The story fascinated him and he could see Musial was shaken by its retelling. Besides, being a racist paled in comparison to Musial’s other deeds.

  Suddenly, a booming voice echoed through the jail, filling Cecil with dread. Aside from his wife and daughters, there was none as familiar.

  Cecil saw a dark form walking down the hall. A moment later, his father glared through the bars at him, smiling triumphantly. His left eye bore a hole through Cecil, while the right eye was concealed behind a wad of surgical tape and gauze. Two people stood behind him in the shadows, but Cecil could not see their faces.

  “So … the prodigal son has returned, God be praised!” he shouted.

  CHAPTER 35

  THE PERIMETER RUN

  “Indeed, without emotion it seems unlikely we can even have morality.”

  ~Julian Baggini

  Steff was getting hungry. She sat in her room for the better part of the day avoiding Carmella, which also meant avoiding meals. She didn’t feel like eating. She didn’t think she would ever eat again. Her stomach twisted in knots so tight, she felt there was no room for food. Her grandfather was an evil man, yet he was her grandfather. She still loved him. Those were two concepts she couldn’t reconcile in her young mind.

  The longer the day progressed the more she felt as if the walls were closing in on her. As the afternoon wore on and the hunger pangs intensified, she found it harder to breathe. Steff began to pace the room like a caged animal. She wanted nothing more than to leave, to be back with her family. She wanted to go someplace a long, long way from her grandfather. She thought Carmella was a friend and perhaps she was. After all, she was the one who opened her eyes to her grandfather’s shortcomings. Even after the shooting of the people in Lafayette Square, it still didn’t sink in. What had she said … he is an ignorant man? Yes, that was exact
ly what she said, and Steff almost laughed at the time.

  When she thought of an ignorant person, she thought of someone stupid like Forrest Gump, not her grandfather. She decided to Google the word and then remembered the Internet was still down. Steff took the old fashioned way and found a dictionary on one of the White House’s many bookshelves. She thumbed through the pages until she came to the I’s, and then scanned a couple of pages until she found the word.

  Ignorant

  1.Lacking education of knowledge.

  2.Showing or arising from a lack of education

  An ignorant mistake

  1.Unaware or uniformed

  “Well that didn’t sound so bad,” she thought to herself. “It means there are some things he doesn’t know about.”

  Steff knew what he did to the Impals. She also knew what he did to ascend to the presidency. Those, along with what he did to those defenseless people with a rifle was much worse than a mere ignorant mistake. It was horrible. Could her grandfather really do all those things just because he was ignorant? Did he not know it was a sin to kill people and steal something that doesn’t belong to you, in this care the presidency?

  But Carmella also said the ignorance breeds arrogance. Steff considered this and flipped to the front of the dictionary until she came upon the word.

  Arrogant

  1.Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance.

  2.Marked by or arising from a feeling or assumption of one’s superiority toward others.

  An arrogant contempt for the weak.

  Steff gasped after reading this part. Her grandfather definitely felt superior to everyone. He was God’s chosen leader. She stared at the page and read the definition over and over. It was not too difficult to see how ignorance could lead one to a state of self-importance. After several long minutes, she put the book back on the shelf, but not before soaking several pages with her tears.

  The more she paced the room, the more she felt she must get away, yet sanity held her back. However, sanity took an unscheduled break, somewhere between her 150–160th lap around the room. When it departed, there was only panic left to fill the void.