The Eye of Madness (27 page)

Steff was so lost in her own misery, she almost jumped out of her skin when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up, blinking through a murky film of tears. Her heart sank to the floor when she saw Carmella standing over her.

Cecil shrieked again as he bolted from the couch. He tripped over a pile of debris causing him to sprawl headlong across the cluttered floor. He felt sharp stabbing pains on the palms of his hands. His hands slid out from under him as if he touched something slick. He brushed his hands on his shirt, leaving long streaks of blood flecked with shards of glass and wood. His palms continued to ooze blood.

Under normal circumstances, he would have stopped, cleaned, and dressed his wounds. Not today. He got back to his feet and then trudged to where outside the wall stood minutes earlier. He stepped forward, hopping two feet to the ground below. He knelt down and checked for a pulse on Derrick. Cecil already knew the answer his touch confirmed. It was grotesquely obvious. A jagged piece of wood protruded from his abdomen. Cecil couldn't tell if the blood soaked object was from a tree or a part of the house. It did not matter. Shards of glass, small branches, and even a picture frame protruded from his body. They penetrated deep into his flesh, demonstrating the sheer power of the twister.

Cecil stood up, wiping tears and blood from his eyes. “Burt! Sally! Charlotte!” he yelled.

He paused, listening with bated breath. His heart hammering in his ears made it difficult to hear. A moment later, he heard muffled shouts. They were coming from the kitchen. His initial adrenaline rush was starting to wear off and the pain of his injured leg was beginning to throb. He limped to the kitchen as fast as he could. Musial stood beside the kitchen table. A pile of rubble covered it. Musial had one arm stuck inside the pile and he beamed at Cecil with satisfaction.

“Glad to see you're no worse for wear, major,” he said pleasantly.

“What the hell are you doing Musial? Where are the others?”

Musial smirked and shifted his wait as if he were trying to adjust for comfort. “Burt and Sally are under here,” he huffed.

“Then what the hell are you doing?”

“I'm keeping my dark companions away from them until you can pull this debris off. Do you think you can move it, major?”

The realization of what Musial was doing sank in; he was holding a light for them.

Cecil didn't waste any time as he hobbled across the room and began to pitch debris out the open wall. After several minutes, Burt and Sally emerged with bleary eyes. Aside from a few superficial cuts and bruises, they seemed uninjured. Cecil's heart sank when Burt spoke.

“Whe ah we?” Burt asked.

Cecil patted Burt on the shoulder, hugged Sally, and then turned to Musial. “How did you make it through?”

Musial smiled and pointed at the pantry door which was standing ajar on twisted hinges. It was near the center of the house. Aside from the hinges, it seemed one of the few places free of damage.

“Where is Charlotte?” Musial asked.

Cecil's heart sank. His faced flushed as he limped back into the living room.

It took a half hour before they found her. Musial tackled Cecil to prevent him from rushing into the woods. She was lying motionless in a dark area of the forest, a short distance away.

Musial entered the woods and soon returned cradling Charlotte's lifeless body. He lay her down in the grass and Cecil knelt beside her. What he saw was shocking. Not from the grotesque nature of Charlotte's body, but from the absence of it. There was not a scratch, bruise, or mark anywhere on her. It was as if she were in a deep and breathless sleep.

“Was it the dark or the tornado?” Cecil asked as he touched her cheek.

“Well, I'm pretty sure the tornado put her out here, but beyond that I do not know.” Musial said and then frowned before continuing. “It is not like them to be this gentle.”

“What the hell did it matter anyway?” Cecil thought to himself. “The tornado, the dark … Charlotte is still dead and nothing will change that.”

Cecil stood up, a sharp pain ran through his leg and it almost buckled. His stomach twisted when he turned back toward the house. This was the first time he had taken in the whole cabin at one time. The upstairs was gone. The bottom of the staircase, two external walls, and three internal walls were all that remained of the downstairs. Horror suffocated him when he checked the side of the house where the generator rested. It was gone. They had lost two people, but the even colder reality was none of them would survive the night without the generator. He glanced at his watch and noted it was a little over three hours until sunset. Only three hours until they all joined their absent friends.

CHAPTER 29

THE TRAIL THROUGH HELL

“Curiosity is natural to the soul of man and interesting objects have a powerful influence on our affections.”

~Daniel Boone

Gestas waited in the tent for Rebekah and Malakhi to return. He felt he must tell them the truth. He believed it was not only the right thing to do to help them; it was also the right thing to do to quell some of his old desires. He couldn't control it forever.

Mother and son arrived from the mess hall a little after dusk. Gestas had bathed and managed to procure a new dress along with a pair of sandals. In fact, he had stolen them from a woman on the far side of camp. He guessed if it was his worst sin thus far he was doing okay. He felt odd about putting on women's clothing, though it was not much different from the robes he wore in life.

Gestas also found a folding chair and set it against the far wall of the tent. The geriatric body he inhabited was no longer able to sit in and get up off the floor.

“Hello,” he said pleasantly as they entered the tent. “Did you have a good dinner?”

They stopped in their tracks and stared. Rebekah thought the old woman was a bit off her rocker, but this sudden presentation was completely out of character.

“Yes,” she said. “Why?”

“Just asking … did you have pomegranates? I adore them.”

“No, Malakhi is allergic to them. We had some apples, bananas, and lintel beans.”

“Great, of all the food I could have brought up, the kid has to be allergic to it,”
Gestas thought to himself. However, he did not let it dissuade him. He was determined.

“I wanted to apologize for my behavior the past couple of days. It's been quite an ordeal. I think I have been in a little bit of shock,” he said. “I'm starting to get over it now.”

Rebekah smiled, putting Gestas a little more at ease. “Yes it has,” she agreed. “I haven't been as friendly as I could have either.”

“You have been great!” Gestas said. “I am glad I found the two of you.”

They chatted for an hour while Malakhi rested on his mat and flipped through a picture book. Rebekah had indeed warmed up to the man masquerading as an old woman. She was starting to have second thoughts about her first impression. Gestas sensed this and decided now was the appropriate time.

“Do you know what the darkness is?” he asked.

Rebekah shrugged. She thought she did. Their brief encounter in the hallway when the menorah dropped exposed them. In her mind, they were devils and nothing more.

“Maybe,” she said glancing around, wondering where the other women were. “I think they are tayvls or lapitut,” she said using the Yiddish word for devils and demons.

As hard as he tried to suppress it, Gestas chuckled. “No … no my dear, nothing so extreme,” he chortled. “Although I do see why you might think so.”

She glared at him, her jaw starting to clench along with her fists. In spite of their recent rapport, she was starting to feel uncomfortable again. She didn't appreciate his patronizing laughter.

“Well then … why don't you explain it to me,” she snapped.

He felt his face reddening. Was it embarrassment? It was an emotion he had not experienced in two thousand years, and only on rare occasions.

“I'm sorry … I didn't mean to offend,” he said. It surprised him how easy the apology flowed. To the best of his recollection, he had never apologized for anything in his life.

Rebekah did not answer. She scooted closer to Malakhi and put his head in her lap, keeping her eyes fixed on Gestas.

“Your interpretation of the dark might not be far from the truth,” Gestas said, staring at the floor with forced humility. “We are tayvls I suppose, in one form or another.”

“What do you mean ‘we'?” Rebekah asked, tightening her grip on her son. Malakhi grunted and went back to his book.

Gestas seemed startled, he did not intend to use that pronoun, at least not yet. He leaned forward and stared at the ground, clasping his hands together as if in prayer. In a calm, peaceful voice, he told her the true nature of the dark and his own history. When he finished, he looked up at her, expecting to see horrified incredulity on her face. Instead, he saw something else. She was upset, yet she seemed curious.

“So, you are saying you were one of the men crucified with the prophet who claimed to be the Messiah?” she asked skeptically.

“Yes,” Gestas said.

“Well … was he the Messiah?” she asked, this time with a little more curiosity than skepticism.

Gestas shrugged. “I don't know. I have been part of the dark void since that day. All I can tell you is my friend, Dismas, and this Messiah were not in the void. I'm sure of it.”

Rebekah paused and frowned. Several emotions danced across her face at once. “So you expect me to believe you are some kind of dark soul who possessed a poor old lady in an attempt at redemption?”

“That's the truth,” Gestas said calmly.

Rebekah started to rise to her knees, pulling Malakhi along with her. It was as if Gestas was a venomous snake about to strike at any second. She wanted to get away before given a chance to bite.

“I don't believe you!” she shouted when she reached her feet. “You're just some crazy old lady who needs help!”

Rebekah turned to dart out the door with Malakhi, but a sudden jolt sent her sprawling backwards, landing on her butt. Malakhi cried out in pain as he hit the ground and his mother rolled on top of him. She sat up, dazed and blinking, expecting to see a brick wall. Instead, she saw the heavy set woman who had shared their tent the past few days. A wave of relief washed over Rebekah, now she had an ally, a quite solid ally, in the event Gestas tried to do something.

“Oh thank God!” Rebekah said. “Help us out of here!” she pleaded, holding her hand up to the woman.

The woman kept her eyes fixed on her for several moments before she spoke.

“He's telling the truth, honey,” the woman said.

Rebekah's wave of relief turned to a wave of ice.

The woman glanced at Gestas and shook her head while clucking her tongue.

“Why the hell did you have to tell them, Gestas?” she hissed. “Now we're going to have to kill them.”

Seconds after the cell door slammed with a deafening clang, Jack was able to get to his feet. He stumbled toward the door, slamming his shoulder into it as if he intended to knock it off its hinges.

“Bitch!” he screamed and peered out the small window.

He couldn't see anyone, but to his right he did see shadows moving as if people were walking down the hall. The hallway was darker than it was the last time he checked. There was a large window to his left, at the west end of the hall, facing a grove of elm trees. The shadows of dusk stretched down the hall like a taut rubber band, threatening to break and surrender to the dark as the sun went down. Jack was on the verge of breaking himself.

He shook the residual cobwebs from his head, and kicked the cot, causing it to lurch sideways with a metallic squeak.

“The stupid nutter is crazier than I thought,” he muttered to the room. “I'm going to rip out her bloody throat!”

Jack burst into laughter over the irony of her statement. “Bloody Mary,” he spat. “What kind of a fool does she think I am?”

Although he found her story humorous, he could not bring himself to relish in the humor. A part of him had its doubts. Could she be telling the truth? All the times in the darkness he felt at ease as if a warm blanket embraced him. However, that wasn't quite accurate; it was more like a web. Similar to a spider's edifice, individual threads made up the whole of the dark. They coalesced into a single minded purpose of malignancy. There were individuals there; he knew it because he sensed them. This sudden realization made him question his skepticism of Donna's story. It still didn't change the fact he wanted to kill her.

Jack lay down on his cot and tried to get some sleep because he expected another night of loud music and flickering lights. His anticipation proved correct as his lights switched off thirty minutes later. Michael Bolton would be the music of choice for the night.

As Cecil surveyed the damage, he turned in the direction of Derrick's body. His legs were just visible protruding from behind a pile of rubble. He looked back down at Charlotte. Her pale and peaceful expression made his heart ache.

“We've got to bury them. We at least owe them that much,” Cecil said, glancing at Musial, but not making eye contact.

“Damn it man … are you giving up? We don't have time. It is going to be dark in about three hours,” Musial shouted.

“That gives us plenty of time and then …” Cecil said.

“And then, what?” Musial interrupted. “Die yourself?”

Cecil's cheeks flushed as he rounded on Musial. “I don't know what the hell you want from me. The cabin and generator are gone. We have no way to produce any light at all except for some cheap ass lanterns and flashlights. Outside of a sudden air rescue or the eye of the storm passing, I don't see any hope, do you?”

Musial gave him a knowing smile. It made Cecil want to punch him in the nose, until he saw that Musial was not looking at him, but past him. Cecil glanced over his shoulder.