Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (84 page)

She heard the stairs creak and spun around.

“It is good to be reunited, is it not?”

Jana shivered at the sound of Byron’s
voice.

“I need you to come with me, little one.”

“Why? So you can serve me up to that
sick bastard? Kill me now.”

Byron hobbled through the room toward her. A
lump stuck out of his forehead above the right eye. The swelling almost
closed the only good one. Byron’s pronounced hobble worsened as he walked
toward Jana. As if to answer her thoughts, Byron spoke again.

“There are men waiting for me at the bottom of the steps. Do not be so foolish as to think you can fight your way out of this.
You are a nurse, my pretty, not a warrior.”

Jana growled at the commander. She stood
and walked past Byron, never taking her eyes off of his. She held her
hands high in the air and started walking down the steps. Half
way down, the soldiers whipped out the zip ties. Jana screamed as they
bound her broken wrist to her healthy one.

Chapter
48

John heard Sully’s death cry. He had
managed to sneak out to the driveway. Father stood above Sully
while his Warriors of Christ stood behind him, firing into the man’s broken
body.

As the soldiers turned back to reenter the house, John
scurried behind the wall. He raced around toward the front
door. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed movement in the
neighbor’s house. John dove behind the evergreen bush,
thankful that it had not shed its cover like most of the other shrubbery in the
region.

He saw Jana emerge first, and could not believe his eyes. Her
hair blew in the wind like soiled straw. Bruised skin and
swollen features replaced the usual glow in her face. Jana wore a splint
on one arm and cried in pain as the soldiers escorted her across the neighbor’s
lawn and back into the house through the kitchen door.

John put his head in his hands and chased frozen tears from
his cheek. He glanced at the gray smoke rising from Sully’s
final stand, and beyond the biker’s corpse at the dark and silent street.

***

“I’m glad to see you are with us again, Commander Byron. My
men were worried that you would not awake from your injuries.”

Byron’s mouth twitched into a reluctant
grin as he calculated the odds of his survival.

“I understand you found the girl, Jana, hiding in the house
next door?” Father asked.

“Yes, she left just enough tracks for an experienced hunter;
the wounded hen is no match for an old fox.”

“Excellent work, Commander Byron. I
was a little disappointed that you were not able to fight off the Infidels that
attacked my men, but we took care of them in the end.”

“Thank you, Father. I am here to serve the Lord.”

“Are you, Byron? I don’t understand
how those despicable Keepers of the Wormwood managed to take out my soldiers
that were here, waiting for John and Jana. How do you explain
that?”

Byron twitched and rubbed the lump on his head. Before he could answer, one of the soldiers dragged Jana into the
kitchen before Father, who began his questioning.

“So you are Jana Burgoyne?”

Jana stood and did not respond. A
soldier walked up and grabbed her by the broken wrist. His spittle hit her lips
as he instructed her to answer Father.

“Yes.”

“Finally, some conversation. And where is John?”

“I don’t know,” Jana replied.

Father motioned to the other men.

“Take her downstairs.” The sun was
dying as the early winter evening began to take over.

***

John heard the screams, muffled by the earthen walls of the
basement. He cocked the weapon and sidled down the driveway
toward the side door. From there, he heard Jana whimpering, begging for
mercy, and cursing her captors all in one breath.

He reached for the handle of the storm door
when a metallic click sounded behind his left ear.

“Drop the weapon or lose your head.”

Without an option, John followed the
command.

Chapter
49

Byron stood back on the far wall. His
slouching posture nagged an aching body. The commander kept
out of Father’s sight, willing to let John and Jana occupy Father’s fury.

Father sent the majority of the troops back to St.
Michael’s, leaving four to help him with the interrogation. They sat on boxes,
smoking cigarettes and trading dirty jokes while they played poker, the words
of the prisoners of no interest to them. Byron slid down the
wall into a seated position. Father glanced at him, but ignored the
ailing commander. He would be dealt with later.

“Let her go. She’s of no use to
you,” said John.

“Don’t tell me who is of use and who is
not. God will make that decision,” replied Father.

John looked at Jana, but she looked away. Her
entire face had swelled and turned red from numerous blows. Blood ran from her
nose and mouth, and she wheezed with every breath.

“Tell me John, what does the Lord say about
the Final Battle? Channel him for me so I do not have to hurt your wife
anymore.”

“I’m not John the Revelator. I’m
John Burgoyne. I live here, in this house, in South Euclid, Ohio. I wore a
priest costume to a Halloween party. That’s it. That’s my
story, no matter how much you torture me.”

Father chuckled.

“Torture
you
?”

He walked past Jana and John, examining
their restraints. He instructed the soldiers to blow two sets of holes
in the wall and stick the arms of the prisoners through them, binding their
wrists from the other side. Father pulled out a crumpled
cigar. One of the young soldiers involved in the card game jumped up and
aimed his Zippo at the end of it. With hearty breaths, Father ignited the cigar
and blew the smoke into their faces.

“It will be dark soon. Retrieve the
construction light from the truck,” Father said to one of the soldiers.

The soldier returned, dropped the light on the floor, and
connected the terminals to the car battery. The halogen bulb
blanketed the entire basement with fluorescent light. Those in the room
covered their eyes until they adjusted to the brightness.

“Much better. Now we can talk all
night,” said Father.

Father grabbed a stained hunting knife from the table. He walked toward Jana. She struggled and cursed, doing her
best to turn away from him and his foul cigar smoke. He took
the tip of the knife and placed it on the left side of her head. In one,
swift motion, Father slid the blade down, cutting off Jana’s left ear. She screamed and John howled profanities at the madman. Father
grabbed an old rag from the floor and wrapped it around the fresh wound, tying
the rag tightly.

“I don’t want you bleeding out yet, do I?” he said as Jana’s
eyes rolled back into her head, on the verge of passing out.

“You sadistic bastard!”

“It is more effective for me to get to you through her. Sit tight, John the Revelator. Your time will come.”

Byron pulled himself to his feet. He looked into Jana’s eyes
and had to turn away.

“My dear, what dance shall we dance next?”
asked Father.

He took the knife and wiped it clean on Jana’s jeans. Father traced the outline of her breasts with the edge of the blade,
barely touching the fabric of her sweatshirt. He slid the knife between
the waistband of her jeans and the top button. The thread gave
way and the button rolled to the floor. Father grabbed the zipper and
pulled it down. The soldiers stopped playing cards and Byron took a step
forward.

“I have four men here that would enjoy a little action. Isn’t that right?”

Father asked the question while looking over his shoulder at
the soldiers. They stopped playing cards, but each man
continued to hold them in his hands.

“Fine. Come here and I’ll tell you what you want to know,”
said John.

Father took a step toward John. On
his way, he bent down and placed his head at Jana’s waist. Father
inhaled an exaggerated breath through his nose and released it with a smile on
his face.

“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 that God was mistaken about you,” Father warned.

“God says that 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 continued. “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 to Jana, but she buried her chin in her chest.

A soldier fumbled through an olive-green bag and produced a
half-liter of bottled water. He opened it and hoisted it to
John’s lips. He gulped as much of the sweet-tasting water as he could
before the soldier pulled it away.

Father’s mood turned and his face contorted into a ferocious
snarl.

“Enough! Continue or the pain will
commence,” he said to John.

John shook his head and looked at Father
through shimmering tears.

“Don’t hold back on me!” Father shouted.

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 had been cut 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, his chest
heaving and 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 tried to scream, but his
brain refused to form coherent thoughts and would not send them along to his
mouth.

John looked around the room and saw Commander Byron. His cane supported what was left of his dignity.

Father screamed unintelligible words and beastly sounds at
Jana. He tore at his own shirt, and his fingernails drew long,
red trails down his own face. The two soldiers that approached Jana did
so with looks of consternation. 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 discarded their initial state of shame, and
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, a foot from the wall that
secured the prisoners.

Jana began to struggle, pulling hard on the
ties that bound her wrists together. She screeched in pain as the
binding tore deeper into her shattered wrist bones. Jana
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 cinder blocks laying scattered on the basement
floor. The proximity to Jana’s exposed body and primal instincts stole
their focus on the task at hand. The four men and Father stood, drooling like
wild beasts over their kill.

John shut his eyes and tried to replay
another scene from their past, but his mind would not cooperate. He
heard Jana crying, and he heard the men jockeying for position.

Chapter
50

The commander felt life draining from his body. He wished to shed the pain, to sleep and not wake up.

Sergeants drilled compassion out of the soldier from the
very first hours of boot camp. A good soldier was taught to react on instinct,
action before thought, and to achieve the objective at any cost.
All of these ideas pushed empathy to the side.

Byron fought extensively in the hills of Afghanistan in
the 1980s. With the USSR at its peak, and in the midst of the Cold War against
the United States, he led troops through the hellish terrain.
Although he collected many war stories, the Kremlin did not have
enough firepower or willpower to defeat the Afghan foot soldiers. The
Afghans knew the lay of the land, they knew the local war lords, and no number
of Russian tanks could change that.