The Spook House (The Spook Series Book 1) (2 page)

“He’s still got something left,” a voice to my right jeered. I immediately saw it as a call for more abuse.

I remember my wrestling coach in high school saying, “The fight isn’t won by muscles or power. The fight is in the head.” He would also say, “Don’t choose to lose.”

I raised my right knee, and brought it down fast, shooting my foot down and outward at the same time. I had a vague sense of where my captor was standing based on his grip and his proximity. I felt my foot connect with something. I was hoping to blow out his knee, but I think I just stomped the side of this leg. I was pretty close.

There was a scream, followed by, “Son of bitch! Son of a bitch!”

I tried to do the same thing on the other side, but only connected with a foot. The result was similar to the knee injury, but much less dramatic.

The shadows moved fast. They tackled me and I could feel myself falling. I don’t know what was worse: the impact from the floor or the weight of the man landing on top of me.

I went out again. Actually, I was in and out of consciousness a lot. At once point I had the sensation of being dragged.

When I came to again, I was face down on a cold, wet tile floor. In the moonlight coming through the window, the white tile looked blue, like midnight snow covering a graveyard. I could smell the moisture and feel it on my skin.

What happened next is hard to talk about. I felt my underwear getting pulled off and I thought, What the hell?

They shoved something cold and slimy into me. It was both hard and soft. At first, I couldn’t identify what it was and I was freaking out. At this point, I cried, “No. Oh God no. What is wrong with you people?”

I think that might have gotten though to some of them, because there was a sense of discord. Somebody said, “That’s enough,” and there was a murmur of approval. After some resistance, a mouth bent close to my ear and said, “That’s for Gunner.” Then they faded away into the darkness.

The object was still in me. I reached around painfully and felt it. I was both relieved and depressed. I had been rectally violated with a bar of soap.

I don’t know how long I remained there, lying on that cold floor. My ribs still hurt. After some time, I managed to get to my feet and stagger back to my bed, knowing that many, if not all of the guys were awake and listening, waiting for me get there. When I made it, I thought I heard a collective sigh of relief as I settled back into my bed. I hadn’t died. Nobody would be charged with murder. I did in fact hear a number of bunks creak as their owners relaxed and settled into new positions.

The assault was over. There wouldn’t be anymore – not tonight, not ever. In the twisted minds of my enemies, we were “even.” I could sense that for some, the “revenge” had gone too far. Still, it was safer for them to stay quiet than speak out against the leaders of the group. It was always the same with bullies and bystanders.

The one shred of dignity I held on to was that I had fought back, and I had done some damage. At least one of the assailants was hurt. I don’t know. Maybe my attack hadn’t been as bad as I thought. Or maybe he had limped to medical. That’s what I would be doing in the morning. It would have to wait until then. It might have been dangerous if I tried to leave at the moment. Besides, I don’t think I could have made it to the hospital unit if I had tried. I was going unconscious. I closed my eyes and I was gone.

3

As always, we were jarred awake in the middle of the night, the Army’s idea of “morning.” God I hated that. That was the worst part the military: the crazy schedules and sleep deprivation. They fucked up your internal cycles on purpose. They admitted it. They gave us some bullshit answer about how troops in battle might need to go without food or sleep, so we better get used to it.

 By now, the adrenaline had worn off, and I did not want to get out of bed. I was convinced my body would be covered with bruises from internal bleeding under the skin, but it didn’t look as bad as I thought or even hoped it would.

I must have been moving extra slowly, because Sergeant Coles, our CO, made it a point to get in my face and yell about it. He looked pissed, like there was no excuse for my behavior. I said that I needed to go to medical. For a few seconds, our eyes, only inches away from each other, locked. His eyes, a hard blue, bore into mine like diamond drills excavating to find an inner truth hidden deep beneath the surface. I stared back with equal force. Coles, like all drill instructors, was scary. I mean, this guy was like a shaved gorilla. He was not used to anybody (military or civilian) eyeballing him, but I did not back down. The truth was on my side.

I detected a flicker of confusion in his eyes. Coles was not used to anybody challenging him. From the very beginning, we troops instinctively kept our eyes forward. The few who didn’t quickly learned the consequences. Meeting a superior’s gaze was a reason to fight and an invitation for abuse. It was a challenge to their power, and they would immediately end the threat and maintain their dominance. But I wasn’t afraid. I was past that.

The fact this “sizing up” was happening at all was good. It suggested that the CO didn’t know what my problem was. He hadn’t been involved last night.

I could feel my gaze going in and out of focus. Apparently, I passed his scrutiny as well.

“Private, I order you to go to medical!” he barked, as if it were his idea.

“Sir! Yes, Sir!” I shouted back, trying to give him the respect he deserved.

I staggered off toward the hospital ward. I saw a number of the guys around me looking at each other nervously, worried about what I might say, or what the doctors would discover.

Good, I thought. Let them sweat it out.

–––––

As I waited for the nurses to look at me, I wondered, Should I tell them everything? Maybe I should leave out the rape part. That would be easier. It would be easier on me, and on my dad.

I thought about that. How embarrassing would that be for him? And for me? Once I became a “whistle blower,” that was it. That would be all I was, and all I would ever be in the military. I could never get beyond that. No matter what I did or how successful I was in life, I would never be remembered for anything else. The crime was just too sensational.

“Sensational.” That was a term often used to describe the media. Oh God. The media. Could you imagine what would happen if they got a hold of the story? I’d be the poster boy for what was wrong with the military. They’d jump all over the story, especially at a time when the American public really wanted change and the war was becoming “increasingly unpopular,” as they put it.

 I’d be known nationwide as a rape victim. Or a “whistle blower.” Or a traitor by many Americans who think that unquestioning support of the president and the military is patriotic, and anything less is cowardly and treasonous.

A victim and a whistleblower. I didn’t want to be famous, not for that. Who knows how the military might try to shut me up to prevent the story from getting leaked? Either way, if I said anything, I was screwed.

Yes, it would definitely be easier to just go on as if nothing had ever happened – easier for me, and easier for the guys who did it. That’s where I stopped. I might be able to hide this from my family, and myself, but I was not going to let those criminals go unpunished. I suddenly sympathized with every college girl who ever claimed she was raped on campus. Unlike those women though, someday, I would be holding a machine gun and have the opportunity to mow down the men who did this to me. I could get them all at once.

I smiled. As good as that sounded, there were problems with that plan. For one, I might not get everyone involved (and I didn’t want to miss anyone), and two: I might kill innocent people, and I didn’t want to do that. But I had to do something. I just didn’t know what.

4

The doctor and medical staff looked at me suspiciously, as if I were some junkie trying to get prescription drugs. They took chest X-rays. I had three dislocated ribs. There were no fractures, but even if there had been, the medics couldn’t cast that area. The ribs just needed time to heal. I had to ride it out. The doctor did give me a prescription for some heavy-duty painkillers.

“You’ll have to spend a few days with us here in the ward for observation,” he said. “Plus, we don’t want to put you back in the unit until we file a report.”

Sounded good to me. I was actually looking forward to some down time. I hoped I’d get a room to myself and that it would be quiet.

As it turns out, I got both of my wishes, although I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I did have a room to myself and it was quiet – too quiet. It was like I had an entire wing of the hospital to myself. The room itself had a floor, ceiling, and walls made of cement. The ceiling was really high and the there was a window near the top. The window was too high to look out of, or for anyone outside to look in, but did give me natural light and some indication of what time it was.

Despite the cold surroundings, the high ceiling made the room feel larger than it was. The bed was OK and I had my own toilet.

I was a little confused by the room. I kind of liked it. It was nice to be someplace that was not cramped or crowded or smelled like guys for a change. Still, there was something odd about the place. I couldn’t tell if I was in a hospital room that resembled a holding cell, or a holding cell masquerading as a hospital room. I tested the door. I was locked in.

For days, I did nothing but rest. I was even allowed to go out and exercise in a small, walled courtyard. I still couldn’t tell if I was a prisoner or a protected patient.

At first, it was nice not to have to think about anything. This was a good break. But soon, the lack of stimuli or anything to do got boring. I felt a tinge of fear when I had to admit to myself that my worse fears were confirmed. I was a prisoner. I was being held for some reason. I had nothing to but wait and think, and without the daily distractions the Army and life in general usually provided, memories I thought I had safely buried resurfaced. Things I tried not to think about returned, and the memories were as clear as ever.

–––––

OK. I’m just going to say it. In high school, I did a lot of drugs. It might be easy to dismiss what I tell you as the delusions of someone who was tripping, and believe me, I tried to do that too. I’m just going to tell the story the way I remember it. You can think I’m crazy or call me a liar or whatever, but it’s all true.

A few years ago, when I was in high school, my dad got a promotion. Sometimes, his new job required him do long commutes into the city to deal with union bosses, which he said “was like working with the mob.”

Around that time, he mentioned seeing “something weird in the woods.” I don’t know what that was all about or what he was afraid of. Whatever it was scared him enough that he started carrying around a gun.

I came home from school one day and I got a call. Dad was calling me from jail. Cops in the city busted him for carrying a concealed weapon. When he went to court, I was there. A disgustingly fat judge named Tubb (yeah, really) threw the book at him. Dad went to county, and I was on my own. I think Dad must have lied about me being 18 (instead of 16) at the time, so that left me and Sampson, my German Shepard, alone at our house in the field by the woods.

Two nights later, I was smoking some shit on our back deck overlooking the valley. A star in the sky seemed to get brighter until it shone down on me like a police spotlight. It dimmed to a comfortable level so I could look right at it.

I was starting to freak out. My first thought was Cops!, but I then I started thinking alien abduction. Either way, I was screwed.

A deep voice spoke. It came from nowhere and everywhere at once.

“Jacob, I’ve been watching you.”

I tried to speak, and after several attempts, babbled words fell out of my mouth.

“Who-who are you?”

“God.”

The light flashed brighter, emphasizing the word. Right then and there that I made up my mind. No more drugs. Ever.

I kept telling myself I was tripping, but even Sampson reacted to the presence as well, so that proved that something was there and it wasn’t all in my head.

God and I had a talk and after awhile I eased up a little. I asked a lot of questions. He had an answer for everything.

Then things got weird. He went on about how I was “in the perfect place at the perfect time.” He wanted me to assassinate someone.

He compared it to asking someone in the past to kill Hitler’s grandfather. That person would never know the evil he was preventing, he just had to trust that God knew what He was doing and that the mission was the right thing to do.

My mouth fell open when I learned the name of target. I couldn’t believe who it was. It was Judge Tubb.

Two nights later, that’s when things got really weird. I was ready to write off the whole experience as an acid trip when something even more bizarre happened that actually verified the whole encounter-with-the-divine thing. You won’t believe what happened next.

–––––

I came home and took a hot shower, which is my reward to myself after a long day. Sampson was running around out in the field in front of my house. After getting out of the shower, I put on my sweats and went out to the front porch to call Sampson in. The sun had gone down, and the sky was turning deep blue. There were no stars yet. Actually, there was one, right in front of a thin crescent of moon. The moon looked really big, the way it does when it’s near the horizon.

My eyes scanned the field for Sampson, but didn’t see him. They went back to the moon. There was something odd about it. The star was still there in the dark side. I had never seen that before.

Then it hit me. I’d never seen that before, because it was impossible. A star in front of the moon?

The unreality of the situation immediately made me uneasy. Wasn’t that a sign of the Devil or something? It was unnatural. It was wrong. You would never see that.