by J. Thorn
“Fine. Come here and I’ll tell you what you want to know,” John said.
Father took a step toward John.
“I can smell the excitement and fear on your wife,” he said to John.
John ignored the comment and waited for Father to ask a question.
“What has He said about the Final Battle? What do you have to share that is not explicit in Revelations? Do not make me think God was mistaken about you,” Father said.
“God says his people will reign. The Second Coming of the Messiah will restore peace to the world through His one thousand year reign. The Great White throne will usher in the New Heavens and New Earth.”
Father stopped and looked into John’s eyes. The cigar dangled from his lips and came close to burning them. He put the knife down and sat on a box in front of the two prisoners.
“I’m impressed, John. I would like to hear more.”
John sighed and licked his dry lips.
“It is the work of Seven,” John said. “The Seven Cycles of events in Revelations can be compared to the works of the Holy Covenant. The First Cleansing must surely be the first of those cycles.”
Father’s face lit with a beaming smile. He looked at the soldiers and Byron, all of who wore blank expressions on their faces.
“Yes, yes it is. You are very perceptive, John the Revelator. Tell me more of the Book of Revelations and how it is being interpreted here.”
John coughed and his eyes darted around the room. He looked to the ceiling while whispering under his breath.
“I’m thirsty. Can I get something to drink?”
Father turned and said to one of the soldiers, “Get this man a bottle of water.”
John looked at Jana but she buried her chin in her chest.
A soldier fumbled through an olive green bag and produced a half-liter of water. He opened it and hoisted it to John’s lips. John gulped as much of the water as he could before the soldier pulled it away.
Father’s mood turned and his face contorted into a ferocious snarl.
“Continue or the pain will commence.”
John shook his head and looked at Father through shimmering tears.
“Don’t hold back on me,” Father said.
He turned to Jana and punched her in the stomach. She moaned and lifted her head in agony. Father picked up the knife and placed it under Jana’s chin.
“Talk or I will send her to her Final Judgment.”
John looked around the room as it began to swirl. The dark blacks and grays of the basement flowed together into a kaleidoscope of color and motion which forced his eyelids shut. When he opened them, Father stood in front of Jana. Her sweatshirt was open. Jana’s jeans sat in a pile at her feet and her panties hung from the hilt of Father’s knife.
Two of the soldiers moved toward her, each loosening the belt on their pants. Father stood in front of her with his chest heaving and his eyes bulging. Jana finally looked over at John, her eyes piercing his soul. John pulled as hard as he could on the ties binding his wrists, but they did not give. He wanted to scream but knew it wouldn’t matter.
John looked around the room and saw Commander Byron. His cane supported what was left of his dignity.
Father screamed unintelligible words at Jana. He tore at his own shirt and his fingernails drew long, red trails down his own face. The two soldiers approached Jana but could not look her in the eye. The other two remained seated on the boxes, trying to convince themselves that they were not part of the proceedings.
Father stepped in closer to Jana. He bent down and placed his tongue on her navel. He ran it up her stomach and between her two breasts until his lips almost touched hers. Jana looked straight ahead, beyond Father and into a time and place where she existed without her physical body. He placed both hands on her breasts and pushed her tight against the wall.
The two soldiers dropped their pants to their ankles. Both men gripped growing erections in their hands.
John heard himself screaming and the echoes reverberated inside his head. No matter how hard he tried, his mouth would not release a sound. Byron stepped closer.
Jana began to struggle. She pulled hard on the ties on her wrists and yelled in pain as the binding tore deeper into her shattered wrist bones. She brought her legs up in an attempt to knee the attackers. The two men seated on the boxes saw this and ran over to secure her ankles. They tied them to broken cinder blocks on the basement floor. The four men and Father stood drooling like wild beasts over their kill.
John shut his eyes. He heard Jana crying and he heard the men jockeying for position.
Chapter 49
The commander felt the life draining from his body. He wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. He blinked at the scene in front of him. John’s eyes were closed and his head turned as far away from Jana as possible. Father had devolved into a wild beast and his robe was covered with blood. Two of the four soldiers approached Jana. The other two dropped their pants to their ankles and waited for a turn.
Byron lifted his 9 mm and pulled the trigger twice. The deafening blast in the confined space of the basement blew out his right eardrum. The heads of the two men closest to Byron exploded in a burst of pink flesh. Their bodies fell to the floor behind Father. Father turned to look at Byron, but his eyes did not connect the noise with the destruction wrought upon his men.
The man on Jana’s left reached down to grab the pistol off his belt, now on the floor and tangled in his underwear. The commander lodged two bullets in his torso. The one to his chest killed him instantly.
The flash of the muzzle and roar of the gun did not faze Byron. His hand moved in deathly syncopation with the cold steel. Another shot knocked the man to Jana’s right against the wall. He slid down to the floor, leaving a meandering trail of hot blood on the white wall. The man clutched his throat as blood spurted from the gaping wound below his Adam’s apple. Byron looked down at the four bloodied bodies on the floor.
For the first time since Byron fired his weapon, Father moved. He grabbed the tattered shoulder of his robe and wiped the blood and gray matter from his face. He looked at Jana, her head down, she was sobbing into her chest. Bits of flesh and fluid covered her naked breasts and pubic area. Jana’s head bounced up and down with every silent heave. Father spoke first.
“You dirty piece of shit. How dare you?”
“Step away from her,” Byron said.
“You will hang for this. I will make sure you suffer in this life and the next.”
Commander Byron kept his gun aimed at Father’s face while the priest spoke. Father took measured steps toward Byron until the barrel of the gun was almost touching his blood soaked face.
“You are nothing but a charlatan, a fake. You claim to be a man of God but you are nothing more than a cold blooded murderer.”
Father stepped up and pulled the barrel to his mouth.
“Go ahead then. Do it.”
Jana glanced at John, her eyes locking on his. She closed them tight. John turned back to the unfolding standoff between Father and Commander Byron.
“Where did you stray from your faith, Father? At one time you were a respected man of God. What happened?”
Father laughed the deep, guttural laugh of a man on the verge of insanity.
“You know nothing. You have taken so many lives, it makes me sick. What right do you have to question my motives? This is not God’s will. He did not intend to have pure evil walking in His Garden. The Holy Covenant came to purify, to cleanse the palace before the King’s arrival. I’ve spent my entire life trying to help drug dealers, prostitutes, abusers and murderers. And you know what, Byron? That’s all over now because God prophesized the Final Battle in Revelations. He anointed His Church to destroy the evil that plagued mankind for centuries. The Covenant has begun and there is nothing you can do about it. The First Cleansing was just the beginning. There will be more until we have brought the Thousand Year Peace to our Lord. He will sit upon the Seventh Throne and rule
the world of righteousness and holiness.”
“You’re a lunatic,” John said, interrupting the conversation. “No man of God kills innocent people in his name. You continue to perpetuate the same cycle of religious fanaticism that has contaminated mankind for two thousand years. You are a sadistic fraud.”
Father stepped away from Byron and picked up his hunting knife. As he raised it to John’s neck, another blast shook the room. Plaster and dust fell into John’s face from the hole in the wall punctured by Byron’s warning shot.
“Back away from him or the next one will be at you.”
Father tossed the knife into the corner where it clanged off of the weapons of the dead soldiers. The stench of burnt hair and feces filled the room. The smoke from the exploding gunpowder helped to mask the wretched scent.
“I am at Death’s door,” the commander said. “I have no misconceptions about the price I will have to pay for my time here on earth.”
Jana opened her eyes, looking at Byron through a silent waterfall of tears.
“I have made peace with my decisions,” he said. “And I am willing to face the eternal consequences for them. Have you?”
Father sneered at Byron and spat blood upon the dangling medallions on his chest.
“I answer to a higher power than you, Commander Byron. There is nothing more I need to say.”
Byron aimed his weapon.
“Then die.”
The bullet blew a hole in Father’s abdomen and tore a ragged handful of flesh from his back on the way out. He fell to his knees and brought his hands together in an attempt at prayer. Father’s mouth moved silently as blood poured over his bottom lip. Byron put the barrel of the gun to the top of Father’s head and pulled the trigger a second time. Father’s body crumpled to the floor at Jana’s feet.
The ringing in John’s ears prevented him from hearing the silence. His eyes burned from the smoke that filled the room.
Byron stepped over the bodies and toward Jana. John heard two snapping noises and watched Jana’s hands fall from the holes and down to her naked breasts. She sat on the floor, clutching the remnants of her clothes.
“I apologize for the pain I have inflicted upon you. I wish I could take back the pain and suffering I have caused throughout my life but I cannot. My body is giving out on me. The cancer is eating me from the inside out. I only ask that you let me leave and find my own place to die. But you may kill me if you wish.”
Jana rubbed her wrists, the broken one so swollen she could not bend it. Commander Byron walked over to the corner of the room and picked up Father’s knife. He wiped it clean on his pant leg and handed it to Jana.
“I don’t know what your future will be, but it is now in your hands.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Jana asked.
Byron winced as he stepped over the bodies toward the steps. His cane would not support his life for much longer.
“What you believe you should do. You are a creature of the universe and you have free will. Exercise it. Those who surrender their life to faith risk the perversion of it. Your world will no longer be the same but it is yours to make.”
Commander Byron stopped in front of John. “Your life is hers. I wash my hands of it.”
Jana and John watched Commander Byron take each step. His knees buckled and his lungs pulled at the oxygen in the air. His silhouette disappeared down the driveway as the moon fought through the heavy clouds.
Neither John nor Jana said a word. Neither moved. A single gunshot echoed through the dead neighborhood and rumbled by the house like a spring thunderstorm.
Chapter 50
“Honey, cut me loose.”
“Why?”
John’s lower jaw fell at the same time his eyebrows peaked on his forehead.
“More of them may be on their way here right now. We need to get out of this place.”
“Why, John?”
John’s body pleaded to be free from the bindings while his mouth tried to answer her question. He dropped his head down with a careless shrug.
“John, do you remember the time we were alone on the lawn of the Machek Building?”
John looked up again, nodding.
“Do you remember what you said to me that night?”
“No, Jana, I don’t. Can’t we discuss this somewhere else?” Fear crept into John’s voice.
“You told me you’d always be faithful, no matter what. You told me you would never be tempted by someone else.”
He sighed, looked back at the steps leading to the driveway and then responded.
“Yeah, hon, I remember something like that. What does it have to do—”
“Sarah. The pics. You cheated on me with your ex-girlfriend.”
John straightened up and looked at the ceiling. He exhaled and shook his head.
“She drugged me, Jana. It was all part of her plan to be a spiteful, home-wrecking bitch. And you’re letting her do it.”
Jana slapped John hard across his face and screamed at him.
“Don’t you dare shift the blame to me.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t fucking sorry me. You should have known better than to let that whore put you in a compromising position. You should have been smarter than that. I trusted you at that party. I trusted you everywhere, John.”
“So now what?” he asked.
Jana slapped him again, this time harder. “You really have no idea?”
Jana began to cry. She set the knife down on an overturned box and pulled the olive green coat from one of the dead men on the floor. The sleeves swallowed her arms so she rolled them up to the elbows. Jana took a handgun from one of the men and slid it inside the front of her jeans. She removed the belt from another to help keep her pants together without the top button.
John twisted in the bindings, his body contorting in an attempt to break free. Blood flooded his face while beads of perspiration exploded on his forehead.
“Jana, I’m sorry. I really am. She drugged me and I don’t remember anything. I have no idea what she did to me, honest.”
“I don’t care anymore, John. Since all this shit went down, I’ve wanted nothing more than to see your face again. I dreamt about what I would do and say to you if I ever got the chance. Honestly, I was convinced I was going to cut your dick off.”
“Jana, don’t do this. We can get through it.”
“No John, we can’t. You made your decisions and now you’ll have to deal with the consequences.”
John glared at Jana and pulled as hard as he could on the plastic zip ties keeping his wrists together.
“Let me go, Jana. I’m tired of fighting with you. If you think I intentionally set out to cheat on you, fine. If you think I hooked up with Sarah and deliberately sent you those pics, there ain’t nothing I can do about it. But I’m telling you right now that I won’t beg or plead for you, or my life. I’ve had it with the fucking Holy Covenant and all the bullshit since. I’ve had it with the constant death and destruction.”
Jana picked up an old duffel bag and filled it with bottles of water, cans of baked beans and duct tape. She bundled the oversized coat around her waist and checked the batteries on the flashlight. Jana walked past John on her way to the steps that led to the driveway.
“Know this,” John said. “Since this shit went down, I’ve done nothing but search for you. You were the only thing keeping me alive.”
Jana slid the wedding band off her finger and dropped it on the step. The ring spun to rest, creating a tinny vibration. Regardless of the infidelity, Jana could not join her husband in a life on the run, always hunted by Holy Covenant. She knew John well enough that he would always resist until they put a bullet in his head. Jana would rather wake up every morning and appease the Church than be hunted down like a wild animal.
“I’m joining the Holy Covenant, John. There isn’t any other option. I’m not spending my whole life running, fighting and worrying about the future. I want to live. I can bullshit wh
oever might be in charge now that Father is dead. I did Catholic school for eight years, remember?”
John sneered.
“Go right ahead and conform yet again. You call that living and I call it dying. They’re gonna tell you what to say, think and do. What kind of existence is that? I can’t and I won’t do it. I’ll die fighting if I have to.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, John.”
Jana started up the next step but then stopped and came back down and stood in front of him. She felt his rapid breathing on her cheek.
“We can build the new society, John. We can be part of the Covenant, the chosen few to live in the Thousand Year Peace.”
“You tell me we’re over and now you’re asking me to join you in the Holy fucking Covenant, brainwashed and brain dead? You should have cut my dick off and made things easier on both of us.”
Jana shook her head and climbed up the stairs, out of the cellar and toward the driveway. She stopped at the top and shouted back down into the darkness.
“Goodbye, John.”
Chapter 51
John stole a restless sleep that night, with his dead roommates. When the sun rose the next morning, his joints ached and his head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. Reaching out with his right leg, John corralled an automatic weapon, although it was useless in his captive state. He hung there, his hands through the wall and tied together from the other side.
The first day slid into the second, piling up time and thought into a mixture of vision and dementia. John’s thirst overtook his hunger and the uncomfortable feeling of sitting in his own waste. The smells of the room, while pungent, faded into the fabric of the experience. For hours on end, John tried pulling his wrists free of the zip ties. He felt the warm blood running down his forearms and dripping from his elbows.
On the third day, John watched an infant crawl around on the floor, eating bugs slithering through the eye sockets of the dead men. It spoke to him through the voice of his mother in unintelligible words. John understood that death by dehydration was approaching rapidly.