The Eye of Madness (18 page)

Jack paused and examined the gaudy sign. Peering inside, he could see the lighted menu sign, slightly obstructed by the painted green alien on the window. The plethora of space themed menu choices was endless. No one appeared to be inside. Of course, the whole town was either dead or evacuated.

“You hungry?” Jack said, glancing back at Donna.

“You better believe it!”

Jack was getting sick of her fake English accent, but he was in no mood to argue about it. He was hungry and he didn't want to wait until he got to base. First of all, the base food was tolerable at best, and second, he knew he was going to be questioned for hours. Technically speaking, he was AWOL last night. He also knew he would be getting a full examination from the base physician due to the blow to his head. It throbbed and stung each time a bead of sweat ran down the back of his head and into the shallow wound.

“Well, let's go in,” Jack said, heading for the door.

“Is it open?” she asked.

“Probably not, but who cares? I used to flip burgers at a McDonald's in Manchester in my younger days. The concept is all the same.”

At first, Jack thought the restaurant was locked as he pushed on the door and it didn't budge. Then he saw the body lying inside like a macabre door jam. The corpse was a young woman in her late teens or early twenties. She was overweight with a pear shaped middle, making it all the more difficult to work the door open. The poor woman wore the green uniform of a Martian Burgers employee, complete with flying saucer hat and hair net.

Once they scooted her out of the way, it was not immediately evident how she died. As they placed her in front of a trash receptacle, Donna noticed something. A thick liquid coated her swollen and blistered mouth. The floor around her head was also thick with this viscous substance. She got down on her hands and knees and sniffed. A moment later, she sprung to her feet, gagging and covering her mouth.

“Oh, Jesus,” she said. “It smells of burned pork, vomit, and cooking oil. I think she drank hot oil from the fryer.”

“I would suggest skipping the Martian finger French fries then,” Jack said casually as he made his way to the kitchen door. Death did not bother him; he was good friends with death. He just didn't care for the smell that sometimes accompanied it. He was determined to keep his distance from the pathetic woman on the floor. He couldn't help chuckling at the creative way the dark had chosen to claim this victim. What was whispered in her mind to get her to commit such a horrid act? He would never know, but it might be fun speculating.

Donna pulled some aprons out of a supply closet and covered the victim as best she could. Jack found the beef in the freezer and within a short time had grilled up a couple of custom flying saucer burgers. They each filled a ‘Take me to your Liter' sized soft drink from the fountain and took a seat at a table on the far side of the restaurant. Jack was thankful that the building still had power. Although, he knew later today nowhere in a hundred mile radius would have power except for the base.

Jack devoured his burger, while Donna pensively nibbled at hers. She ate a few bites and then stared out the window. For someone who was complaining about a lack of food less than an hour ago, she didn't seem to have much appetite now. Jack watched her at first with curiosity, and then apprehension started to creep back in. Whatever trust he had gained for this small and mysterious woman was starting to erode. He believed she was like him, an analogous spirit in her own way. However, the longer he observed her, the more he could see that she was very, very different.

Jack did not know how she was different. The not knowing scared the living hell out of him.

CHAPTER 19

CARMELLA

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

~Martin Luther King, Jr
.

President Garrison managed to get a few hours sleep, but not
where
he expected. He went to Steff's room to scold her for wandering about, but when he got there he found her sound asleep on the floor. She was curled up with a pillow and quilt from the bed.

He was angry. Angry at the Impals. Angry at what they had forced him to do. He was angry at his granddaughter for disobeying him. There was a part of him, now buried very deep, that felt ashamed of his actions. Perhaps more accurately, he was ashamed because Steff had witnessed them. Of course he still believed he was doing the right thing. Yet, as pure as he believed his motives to be, sometimes the work of the righteous is not glamorous. In fact, it can be quite unpleasant.

A dutiful soldier would not want his child witnessing his actions in battle. As well, the state executioner would not want them to see him insert the lethal needle into the arm of a condemned murderer. Garrison's family never witnessed his deeds. Now Steff had seen him gun down several people for seemingly no reason. There was a very good reason in his mind, but he knew that Steff was not privy to his divine insight. She was too young to understand and he couldn't afford to leave her unattended again.

She was so peaceful; he couldn't bear to wake her. He decided to take matters into his own hands for the time being. He locked the door, deposited the key in his pocket, and then stretched out on the blue comforter of the full size bed. He rolled on his side so he could see Steff. He thought about turning out the light, and then reconsidered. It occurred to him what would happen if the lights went out and she was not in his grasp. Steff was too old to snuggle with her grandfather, so he left the lights on. He wavered in and out of sleep for the remainder of the night because lights were not agreeable to his sleeping habits.

The one thing he did not know was that Steff did not sleep at all. The shock of seeing her grandfather act so violently weighed heavy on her. She found herself locked in a state of sickened insomnia, compounded by the terror of
him
sleeping a few feet away from her. The man she reached out to for help had proven he was not the man she believed him to be. She wanted her mother and father worse than anything. She would give anything, even if it meant living in the darkest and dirtiest hole, to be with them again. She fantasized about escaping and reuniting with them. How she would make it out of the most secure house in the world, and where she would find them, she did not know. Frustration overwhelmed her and by the time morning arrived, her eyes were swollen and her mouth dry as sandpaper. She had laid on a tear soaked pillow, listening to the incessant snoring of her grandfather all night.

He got up without disturbing her and left the room, locking the door behind him. Whatever hopes of her fantasy coming true evaporated with the click of the lock. There was no way to get out without the key. She studied the small windowless room and felt sick to her stomach. She got up and lay across the cool fabrics of the bedspread. A few moments later, she heard a knock at the door. Steff just stared. There was nothing she could do to unlock it and let this person in, so she chose to ignore it. A few moments later, there was another knock followed by the clicking of the key in the lock. She sat up as a tall, slender black woman carrying a silver tray came inside. She had short shoulder length hair and wore a beautiful blue dress and white blouse which was a compliment to her vivid white smile.

“Hello, dear … my name is Carmella. I figured you would be hungry this morning,” she beamed.

Steff did not reply. She watched her suspiciously as she walked across the room and set the tray on the bed.

“I'm sorry I don't have a breakfast tray,” she said. “Do you mind sitting on the side of the bed to eat?”

Steff shook her head. She was still in shock.

“No problem,” Carmella said as she pulled back the lid, revealing a plate of scrambled eggs, sausages, and toast. There were also two large glasses of orange juice. Carmella picked up one and smiled. “I already ate,” she said. “I hope you don't mind me joining you over a glass of Florida's finest.”

Steff shrugged and mumbled. “No … I don't mind.”

“Good … good,” Carmella said as she took a seat in an armchair, and sipped her juice. “I'll just sit over here if it is okay with you darling.”

Steff drank half the glass of juice before she touched her food. She was very thirsty. The breakfast was a little cold, but still quite good. She felt only a little better after eating. She was still dealing with a lot of issues that a good breakfast just can't fix.

“Do you work here?” Steff asked.

“Yes, for many years,” Carmella said. “I am older than I look,” she said brushing the side of her face with mock vanity.

This brought a smile to Steff's face. She couldn't help it. The woman exuded a relaxing and pleasing charisma, putting her immediately at ease.

“How are you, honey?” Carmella asked.

Steff shrugged. She was tired, she was frightened, she was disappointed, and she missed her family. However, she tried not to let on that anything was wrong.

“I am fine,” she said through pursed lips.

Carmella was too perceptive and too empathetic to believe it for one second. Of course, anyone with eyes could have seen from the poor girl's gaunt face and haunted eyes that she was far from fine.

“It's okay, sweetheart … I know,” Carmella said softly.

Those five simple words spread relief through Steff like sinking into a warm bath. She began to cry, this time not for fear and disappointment, but for hope. Maybe she would be okay after all.

Carmella placed her glass on the table and scooted the tray to the far side of the bed. She sat down and let Steff fall into her arms, stroking her hair as she wept.

“He's a monster!” Steff gasped between sobs.

Carmella patted her on the back and said, “Sweetheart, he is your grandfather. You must always remember that.”

Steff pulled back a little. Was it possible her grandfather sent this kind woman to influence her? She was about to pull away when Carmella continued, “None of us is perfect and none of us is evil. Men do evil things because they are ignorant mostly. They believe they are doing the right thing, but their ignorance leads them down the wrong path. I doubt there are very many people in history who made the conscious decision to be evil, they didn't say,
I'm going to be evil today.”

“How can anyone not believe that shooting down a bunch of people for no reason is evil?” Steff sniffled.

“To the un-ignorant, like you and I, it is most definitely evil. But for the ignorant it seems logical.”

“How can he be ignorant?” Steff asked. “He has always been a very smart man.”

“Honey, often times superior education breeds superior arrogance, which leads to superior ignorance. Some of the smartest people I have known have also been the most ignorant. You have to understand that ignorant is not the same thing as stupid. Ignorance just means they are lacking some key pieces of information to make an informed decision. Stupid means lacking intelligence. Your grandfather is not a stupid man … he just doesn't have all the information he needs to make the right decisions.”

“But … he is a Christian,” Steff argued. “He always goes to church and has me study Bible verses with him. I don't think there is a part of the Bible he doesn't know about.”

“Do you know Ephesians 4:18?” Carmella asked.

Steff shook her head.

“Well, my memory is not perfect, but I believe it goes something like this—
They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.”

“What does that have to do with my grandfather?”

Carmella pulled back and gazed into her eyes. She smiled and rubbed Steff's cheek. “Honey, your grandfather has lived a hard life. His heart has hardened over the years. To him, it seems as if God has toughened him up, made him ready to take on anything. But instead …” she continued with a sad tone. “It has hardened his head and muddled the true meaning of what he is trying to accomplish … what he is trying to accomplish in the name of God. There are few things more dangerous than an ignorant Christian with power.”

Steff considered this for a while. “Why can he walk around in the dark now when most people can't?” she asked.

“I don't know baby, I don't know.”

“Can he be saved?” Steff asked.

Tears brimmed up in Carmella's eyes and she clasped a trembling hand over her mouth. “Yes he can, honey … yes he can, but it won't be easy.”

“How do you know?” Steff asked with hopeful skepticism.

Carmella brought her hand down and slowly unbuttoned the lower buttons of her blouse. She pulled it open and turned sideways for her to see. Steff gasped. There were very few areas of the kind woman's torso without the scars of long and terrible lacerations. Her body resembled a raised topography map of several mountain ranges.

“What happened?” Steff croaked.

“Ignorance,” Carmella answered matter of factly. However, the tears streaming down her cheeks were a contradiction to her casual tone.

“Who?” Steff breathed.

“A man … a white man … many years ago.”

Steff remembered studying about the Civil Rights movement in school. She was disgusted when she learned about the horrific treatment endured by blacks in the South. She swallowed hard before she asked her next question.

“Where did you live?”

Carmella pulled her blouse back down and began to work the buttons with her trembling fingers. She smiled ruefully. “A little town called Hackney in Alabama. I lived there until I was ten years old.”

“How old were you?” Steff asked.

“When I got these scars I was only six years old.”

“Why?” Steff asked.

“I was a black girl playing on the playground of a white church. The preacher came out and told me to leave. When I didn't, he went to work on me with a mimosa branch.”