Malevolent

by David Risen

  “Put your hands on your head and get down on the ground,” the cop screamed through his loudspeaker.

  Rider wagged his head. “Not gonna happen, and I’m unarmed. If you shoot me, the last thing you’ll ever see is the press handing you your ass on a plate. Tell me why you’re bothering us!”

  Though he trained his eyes on the cop cars in front of him, Rider sensed Amelia climbing out of the car.

  “Get your hands out of your pockets, lady, and both of you get down on the ground.”

  Rider craned his head around to face Amelia.

  She removed her hands from her pockets and held her hands up with her palms level with her chest.

  “Nothing in them, officer,” she said. “Or should I say Sergeant Johnson?”

  “I don’t know who you are, lady, but you’ll get down on the ground. As soon as we’ve got the two of you in cuffs, we’ll head down to the precinct and sort all this out.”

  She gave him a tight-lipped expression.

  “I’ve done nothing wrong, and neither has he. You, on the other hand, are under investigation by your version of internal affairs, because you are a drug dealer.”

  She let the sentence hang in the air, and glanced at Rider.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” he hissed.

  She waved him off.

  “They haven’t been able to catch you because every other cop who has any knowledge of your misbehavior always mysteriously dies – just like Deputy-Sheriff Fox’s brother.”

  The two men who were sitting in the cars directly in front of them looked at each other. The man on the left, a Barney Fife looking guy with a fishy face gave the other man a look of exasperation.

  “Oh, don’t be so judgmental, Fox,” Amelia said. “You’re no choir boy either. How many women have you targeted and pulled over this month?”

  The fish-face cop gaped at her with bulging eyes.

  “The same number of extra marital affairs that you’ve had this month, right? And your wife, Letha is a sweet, loyal woman who bore you children. What is she supposed to tell them when you go to prison for the girl last month?”

  All the police around them rose slightly.

  Amelia looked over her left shoulder at the mustached cop across the road from her and nodded.

  “For those of you who don’t know – and that would be all of you – Fox, here is a rapist. It started with traffic stops in which he insisted that women let him do whatever he wanted to them to escape citations, but it quickly escalated last month when he found one who threatened to tell on him. He stripped her naked, cuffed her, had his way with her, and then beat her to death and threw her down an overpass. It’s still unsolved in case you’re wondering.”

  All the cops looked around at each other now and not at Rider and Amelia.

  Amelia smiled humorlessly. “In fact, there’s only one man among you who is not a criminal. Sergeant Cope. All of you but Mr. Cope deserve the worst judgement I have to offer.”

  She looked back at the man with the microphone.

  “Mr. Johnson, you will take off all your clothes – except your boxers, boots, and your gun belt because that’s kind of funny – and you will drive home to your wife. In the morning, you will wake up, go down to your basement, and open that safe you have hidden behind the bookshelf. You will empty its incriminating contents into three pillow cases, and you will drive to the internal affairs offices where you will turn all of it over and give them a full, detailed confession. Afterwards, you will remember nothing.”

  The cop dropped the microphone, shouldered his pistol, and began removing his uniform. When he had finished stripping down to his boxers and boots, he strapped his gun belt back, climbed in his cruiser, and left.

  Once he pulled back onto the road, Amelia eyed the next officer.

  “Fox, when you leave here, you will go home to your wife and children and treat them all to something very special. In the morning, you will return to your precinct where you will seek out officer Cope, and after insisting that he records your conversation, you will give him all the details of every last woman you’ve pawed including the one you killed. When you have finished, you will remember nothing until your wife comes to you and asks. When she does, you will tell her everything.”

  Fox nodded, replaced his gun in his belt, climbed in his car and took off.

  Amelia looked back around at the other officers.

  “Officer Cope, you will remember nothing that we’ve said here. In the morning, you will be stricken with the uncontrollable urge to investigate every deputy here. The rest of you will now all drive to Dunkin Donuts where you will sate your sudden voracious appetite for pastries. When officer Cope approaches you in the morning, you will all tell him everything about all your elicit activities. You may all go, except Cope.”

  All the officers save the one cruiser directly behind the Pathfinder cleared out slowly.

  Once they were alone, Amelia turned and eyed Cope.

  “When you leave, you will return to your precinct and note in your files that you pulled over the right vehicle, but accosted the wrong suspects. That the people you are looking for are now driving a red Dodge Charger and are headed for North Carolina. You will remember none of this conversation.”

  He nodded, and climbed back in his cruiser.

  Once they had all cleared out, Amelia looked at Rider who couldn’t believe his eyes, and dusted off her hands.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  She gave him a wry smile. “Justice.”

  Then she climbed back in the car.

  Rider stood outside staring for a moment, thinking of how Lauren and her cohorts had almost screwed him yet again.

  He opened the passenger door of the Pathfinder, and then he ground his teeth so hard that it hurt and slammed the door with all his might.

  He looked down at the asphalt, and then he lifted the door latch only to find it broken.

  He grinned back at Amelia. “Can you open this please? I think I just broke the goddamn door.”

  Lauren Fields-Rider didn’t know when or how she died.

  She recalled boarding the twin engine private plane at Memphis International Airport. She remembered the plane taking off. And she recalled a brief conversation with her counselors about what they were going to do once they arrived in The Great Smokey Mountains, but somewhere in the time between....

  She opened her eyes to find a giant painted mural on the lava glass vaulted ceiling above her depicting Alyssa Rider as a toddler reaching up to her.

  She gasped and sat up to find that she lay upon a purple velvet lined shay’s lounge in the center of an open-air room so beautiful it astounded her.

  The shay’s lounge beneath her had the most comfortable velvet lining of any. The wooden frame of it was expertly carved cherry.

  The room around her had no walls. It was a circular-shaped room the size of a house. Thick, Greek pillars made of Volcanic rock supported the domed roof all the way around. Beyond the pillars, a golden sky hung above fields of reeds. In the distance, Ice-capped Mountains peppered the horizon.

  This wasn’t just the Spirit World. Lauren had been to the Spirit World before in her many Magical Meditations. This was Lauren’s Heaven.

  The only way for one to get to his or her specific heaven was to die.

  Lauren stood to find that she wore a black, colonial style dress, with a large black bow in the front of the waist with splashes of bright red fabric sewn into the black.

  The cold, stone was rough against her bare feet.

  “Lauren,” someone whispered from far away.

  The sound seemed to come from a large, narrow hallway at the far end of the room.

  She padded across the oval dome to the vaulted archway that opened into the tall narrow hallway lit by wooden torches ensconced on black pillars.

  The floor of the hallway changed into a solid sheet of polished, gray marble – cold and slick against her feet.

  In the stone walls on either si
de of her stood recessed alcoves lit by white candles in iron sconces, and these alcoves presented fresco paintings of various scenes of her life.

  Standing in the archway between the kitchen and the den of her childhood home as Daddy, who is drunk springs from the table after Mommy.

  Daddy guiding her on her brand-new Barbie bike with the wicker basket on the handlebars during her seventh Christmas.

  The last time she ever saw Mom. Her blond hair oily and disheveled. Her eyes swollen and black from her last argument with Daddy. Mom gently strokes her hair – a look of guilt written on her face.

  Daddy lying motionless and gray in a snowy ditch. His face bloody and swollen.

  She saw no speakers, but Tori Amos’ “Silent all these years,” whispered through the hallway.

  She paused at each Alcove and reflected until the voice sounded again – this time closer.

  “Lauren,” it called.

  She frowned and turned to look at the red door at the end of the hallway.

  “Come,” the voice whispered.

  She turned and started for the door.

  “Silent All These Years” ended, immediately followed by Tori Amos in a live version of “God.”

  The further she walked, the deeper the hallway became until she finally reached the end.

  She placed her hand on the brass door handle. A feeling of dread filled her. She felt something apathetic and dark settle in her spirit.

  She pushed the door open and it swung open wide revealing the black space beyond.

  And before her stretched a gold staircase so tall that she couldn’t see what lay at the top.

  The cavern beyond reminded her of a Salvador Dali relief.

  Multiple staircases – all comprised of dark rock ponderously oriented and leading to nothing. Some staircases were upside down, some diagonal, some led down, some led up.

  “Lauren,” the voice whispered.

  She could tell now that the voice was female.

  Slowly, she hauled herself up the dusty stairs that looked as though no one had used them in centuries.

  After a long, indeterminate amount of time, she arrived at the landing on the top to find a tall, rod iron cell shaped like a birdcage.

  A woman hung within suspended from rusty chains that rose from the Apex of the cage.

  The pale, white skin of her nude form glowed in the darkness. Her hazel eyes glowed green. Her thigh, length dark hair faded into the shadows.

  Lauren had never seen the perfect woman before her in her life, but she knew her. In life, her name had been Poly Rider.

  She looked tired and dejected.

  “What is this?” Lauren said.

  Poly turned her head away in shame. “This is the worst circle of Hell. No one ever visits, but we’re on display for all.”

  Lauren gave her an innocent look. “Why?”

  Poly sighed. “See these staircases that go nowhere?”

  Lauren nodded.

  “They represent my life, my deeds, and my intentions. I’ve been here for over a thousand years, and you are the first and only visitor.”

  Lauren shook her head. “I don’t understand. You were the Grand Arch Sorceress of the Sisters of Divinity. We protect all of mortality from spiritual threats.”

  Poly shook her head. “A good thing is not good if intentions are selfish, and at no point should one ever try to thwart the design of creation.”

  Lauren frowned. “How did you do that?”

  Poly’s eyes contorted in pain and anger. “The same way that you are. This is part of my penance and atonement – our meeting here. I have to convince you to stop.”

  Lauren bristled. “Stop trying to save mortality from these evil spirits that mean to cause pain and suffering the likes of which man has never known before?”

  Poly shook her head slowly. “The Celestial Shards are not what our lore makes them. They were created specifically for the purpose they are serving by The Great Spirit himself, and they are more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

  Lauren gave her a sarcastic glint of disbelief. “They kill people and wreck lives.”

  Poly looked as though she were about to cry. “And they do so with the power and judgement of the Great Spirit.”

  Lauren paced left. “What about Rider? He’s a drunken, raging drug addict who has destroyed entire societies with his raw fury.”

  She shook her head. “But he was never unjust, and because of what we did to him, he’s especially furious this time around.”

  Lauren closed her open mouth. “I don’t understand. We gave him a good life, and I gave him a sweet, little girl.”

  Poly looked down at the rusted floor of her cage in shame.

  “I was his mother, and I was cruel to him when I should have been loving and understanding. You were his wife, and you never really loved him. It was all a scam we orchestrated to serve our own purposes and thwart the design of creation.”

  Poly looked up, and her eyes glistened in the darkness with the onset of tears. “Nothing good ever happens to a person that no one loves. We led him along a path that turned him into a monster by being monstrous.”

  Lauren turned her palms up. “I did love him.”

  Poly shook her head. “No, you didn’t. Not really. You weren’t even his friend. You sat in unrighteous judgement of him instead, just like me.”

  Lauren looked down at her bare feet. “What can I do to fix it?”

  A long, thick silence filled the cavernous chamber.

  Lauren looked up to find Poly with her head slightly inclined and her eyes closed with tears streaming down her perfect cheeks. She opened her eyes.

  “Don’t try to stop him anymore,” she said with a quaking voice. “Try to help him through the trials that face him. Go to the mountain. Release Lucifer as you decided, but then seek Rider out and help him carry his cross. And don’t do it because you want to save your own ass. Do it because you care about this poor man who no one has ever loved who is trying to end this world so something better can take its place.”

  The old Pathfinder shuddered to a stop before a rusted-out iron gate with an old chain and padlock. It was still dark out, and darkness was so thick that the dull, yellow glow of the headlights barely cut through it.

  The cold around the car was so deep that the generous heater in the vehicle couldn’t knock off the chill.

  Rider stared out the cracked windshield at it and then sighed and looked at Amelia.

  “Do you want me to get out and open the gate?”

  She shook her head, and then she turned the key in the ignition – nothing.

  Rider frowned.

  “What does that mean?”

  She turned and faced him. “That means we’re going to have to walk it.”

  Rider stared at the long, path ahead that was once an access road that led to Skitts Mountain, Tennessee.

  “I didn’t bring a jacket.”

  Amelia looked at him, and then reached behind his seat bringing out the same, gray gym bag that he took from his house back in Bridgeton before everything completely fell apart.

  “This was in your motel room when you disappeared. I kept it for you.”

  Rider took the bag, unzipped it, and on top of the other items within, his thigh length black, double breasted leather coat lay folded neatly. He smiled broadly, pulled it out, and then stuffed his hands in the sleeves.

  “You are amazing,” he said.

  She gave him a sad smile.

  “Are you sure you want to go through with this.”

  Rider took a deep breath and gave her a look of self-denial.

  “I have to.”

  She bunched her lips.

  “That road doesn’t look good. How are we going to find our way?”

  Amelia held up a finger and then reached behind her seat and produced two backpacks. She unzipped the first one and brought out an old compass, and a tattered map.

  Rider nodded. “You’re a good boy scout.”

&nbs
p; She stuffed the map back in her pack, and looked at him.

  A tear rolled from her right eye down her cheek. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  Rider felt himself sinking into his own pit.

  “So don’t. Stay with me. We’re going to need each other up there.”

  She released a shuddering breath. “Can we please pretend that we don’t have to do this and take a long vacation somewhere remote?”

  Rider looked forward and sighed hard.

  “I wish we could, but then what? We get complacent, they come lookin for us, and we aren’t prepared?”

  He looked at her.

  “As much as it sucks, we’re in the right place.”

  Amelia looked down to the steering wheel, and her expression morphed into a look of cold resolve.

  “I’ve read up on this place a little more. Don’t leave me and don’t leave the road. If the fog sets in, and it will, you won’t be able to see me. I have a rope. Tie it around your waist, and I’ll do the same. Do not leave the road. A lot of people have died that way.”

  “How?”

  She gave him a stark look.

  “They get lost and they can’t find their way back out.”

  She reached in front of him and opened her glove box, and she pulled out a holstered 9 mm Glock.

  “I can protect myself; you can’t. Keep this on you at all times.”

  The hike up the mountain wasn’t bad at first.

  The beam from Amelia’s Maglite chased back the darkness. The purple shirt beneath Rider’s black, leather coat and the thick driving gloves kept the increasing cold bearable.

  But as the sun rose in the cold, blue sky, the fog swept between the trees and jagged, stony land like a poisonous mist. The incline of their hike up the broken, old road became so steep it was almost impossible to traverse on foot. The air thinned forcing them to stop for frequent breaks.

  The clear channel playlist cycling in Rider’s head landed and stuck on Elvis Presley’s version of “This Time You Gave Me a Mountain.”

  Amelia, who had much more stamina than Rider tugged hard at the rope tethered to his waist pulling him ever further up the mountain.

  And the further they rose, the thicker the fog became.