chapter 5 and 6.

Chapter 5

“Are you still with me father?” Caleb asked thinking his story was dragging on.
“Yes, yes my son I am still here. This is just a lot to take in at one time.” The priest went silent for a moment. “If what you are telling me is true son, it would just seem that you are too normal for the occurrences that took place in your childhood. I have heard of children turning in to men with warped minds because of less.”
“Well father, although I am not without my quirks, I think the man in white’s hold on me kind of protected my mind in a way until I “snapped” out of it. When you hear the rest of my story you will understand.” Caleb responded thinking carefully of his next words.
‘Too make a long story a little shorter, Bonnie kept me in her house for about seven years…’
“Seven years? Did you say seven years my boy, good lord almighty! She kept you for seven years? How did you survive such torture?” the priest asked seeming genuinely concerned.
“Well, due to the “gift” I had received from the man in white, I healed from her beatings quite fast and she fed me and cleaned me, she even read to me and taught me. She taught me about our government, and kept me up to date in current affairs in the newspapers. She expanded my mind like a mother would do to her child.” I paused for a second contemplating my thought.
“She treated you like she would have treated her seven year old boy that you…” The priest stumbled over his words. “That you sent to God.” The priest’s revelation was surprising seeing how it had taken Caleb years to figure that out.
“It was a most uncomfortable situation,” Caleb said. “And yet, I learned so much. I believe it was the man in white’s way of punishing me and teaching me at the same time. He is a very tricky one that man in white.”
“How did you ever escape?” The priest asked sounding more like a boy waiting for the ending of a good story than a man of God.
“I didn’t escape, I was let go…” And Caleb began once again.

My eyes opened to the sunlight blaring down through the small and only window the basement had. I sat up and stretched, and took in my surroundings. A bowl of oatmeal was on the ground next to the mattress I had been given years back. I wasn’t hungry yet I picked up the bowl anyway and began eating. I had become almost bone thin in the years, and only the man in white’s “gift” had kept me alive for so long. I was brought two small meals a day. Everyday was the same thing, bowl of oatmeal and glass of water in the morning, then, as the sun started to set, Bonnie brought me cold pork and beans, bread, a small piece of what I assumed was chicken, and another glass of water. My hatred for Bonnie had evolved into a fear of ever being without her. She had almost become this God that she talked so much about. I, however, never paid much attention to her “lessons” considering the hypocrisy of what she was teaching and what she was doing. I had grown a full beard now which she trimmed every now and then. I had a bucket to go to the bathroom in, and a small blue ball I used to keep myself entertained for the countless hours I had suffered in that basement.
Bonnie was tolerable most of the time, her mood swings were rare but severe, but I had learned to watch my tongue. I hadn’t seen nor heard of the man in white since the first night at this house all those years ago, yet I thought about him everyday. I would have had no idea how long I had been there unless bonnie hadn’t had an anniversary every year. The seventh anniversary had been the day before.
For years she had beaten me, cursed at me, yelled at e, and for years, with the shackles on my legs and sometimes my arms there was nothing I could do. I would think of attacking her when it was just my legs that were chained but when the time came I could not bring myself to do it for some reason. My emotions had faded with my body till they were as bare and raw as my skin. All these years I still hadn’t cried, all the hours and hours of solitude so lonely that I yearned for Bonnie to come and beat me, and still I never shed one tear.
I finished the bowl of oatmeal and the glass of water as I heard the basement door open. Bonnie was coming to see me earlier than usual today, which was odd because she barely ever broke routine. She didn’t walk down the steps either, she was practically running and I could hear that she was skipping steps as well. I saw her as she took the last step into my dungeon, which was the only step she slowed down on. She was snarling and as furious as I had ever seen her and she was holding my ruby hilted dagger. I remembered I had hidden it behind the dresser in the room she had originally given me before I met her son. Bonnie was holding the hilt in her hand now, and brandishing the blade at me menacingly.
“I found this in your old room today Caleb,” she said, her brow furrowed in rage. “Were you planning on killing us from the start? Did Lucifer send you here for me and my son? Did he?” She screamed waving the dagger inches from my face.
“Actually I did,” the man in white said appearing out of nowhere. My jaw dropped in utter shock and amazement as a man who I had almost begun believing was a figment of my imagination, had just popped into the hell I had been living in for the last year. It was fitting actually, when I thought about it. He walked over to Bonnie and grabbed the dagger out of her hand.
“How are you doing love? Did you miss me?” He said with a devilish grin. “I hadn’t known about the son you had bore me at first, but once I eventually found out, I was forced to take care of the problem.” The man in white twisted Bonnie’s arm until she was sitting on the mattress in front of me. “Normally a son wouldn’t have been so bad, I have hundreds of them, but you decided to keep him locked up in a box like an old toy, and well, you ruined him Bonnie. I had no choice but to end his suffering. As for you Caleb,” he said turning his head to me, “I’m severely disappointed in you, here I thought you could handle a woman and her son, and now look at you, shackled to a wall for seven years. I would have come sooner but, well I figured you could have used the alone time.”
“In the name of God I command you to…” Bonnie couldn’t get the rest of it out as the man in white grabbed her throat with one hand while gesturing at me with his other one. Bonnie began making gurgling sounds, as I was sure it was hard for her to breathe.
“Now, I’m going to let you go, but I expect better out of you in the future my boy. This captivity has been a suitable punishment, as for you my love,” he said now looking back at Bonnie while undoing the shackle around my ankle; he had taken the key out of her shirt pocket. “I’m going to shackle you to the wall and let my boy Caleb here do with you what he pleases. It’s my gift to you Caleb; call it a, released back in to the world present.” With a hand still around Bonnie’s throat, he locked the shackle around her ankle and threw her against the wall. He handed me the ruby hilted dagger and took a step back.
“Caleb my boy, you will be the justice for the atrocities this woman committed against my son. Bonnie we had fun my dear, but all good things must come to an end.” The man in white looked right in to her eyes and she started screaming. “Or maybe not, after all, when Caleb is finished you... Well let’s just say I don’t think heaven is in your future. Caleb I will be back, I expect you to take care of this, and bonnie,” he said again smiling. “I will be seeing you soon.” Bonnie started screaming even louder as she huddled her self in a ball against the wall. The man in white vanished as I turned my attention towards Bonnie. I hadn’t said a word during the whole ordeal, but now there was just no need for words. My anger began hitting me in waves as I picked up the lead pipe that Bonnie had introduced my head to so many years ago. She was screaming in absolute terror as I walked towards her, lead pipe in one hand and the dagger in the other hand. I couldn’t see myself but I knew I had the same grin on my face that the man in white did earlier. The screaming didn’t bother me but as I swung the lead pipe down on the top of Bonnie’s skull, I was filled with a sense of peace. The crunch of her skull breaking under the pipe was the best sound I had heard in years. I brought the knife out as her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she slumped to the ground. For the first time in seven years I was smiling, and for the first time in seven years I embraced the silence and the loneliness and went to work at what I did best.
When she woke up, I was standing over her. She realized she was chained to the wall and that her situation was helpless, and yet still she smiled.
“A sheriff came by asking questions about you a few years back. I told him you stayed here for a while and then left. He said he wouldn’t give up his search or you and that you were an evil person. I was doing God’s work by punishing you, and I will join him in his eternal light so you can not hurt me. I hope the sheriff finds you and locks you away forever,” Bonnie finished with an evil smile. I just smiled back.
Her screaming was the back round symphony to the movie of my work. It seemed as if I was watching someone else perform the atrocities that were taking place, and though I still feel I had no control in committing these grisly acts, I can not lie and say I did not enjoy them. Her pain was my candy, and her tears quenched my thirst. When it was over, I sat back and stared at my, or the man in white’s, handiwork. I had cut my finger and fed Bonnie some of my blood in order for her to endure the pain and not die too quickly. Bonnie’s left eye had been cut out of her face but her right eye remained intact so she could view her demise. Her right ear was also left unscathed so she could here my laughter and her own screams. Bonnie’s nose, left eyeball, and her left ear lay in a pile on the floor next to her. Her lips had been cut off and each tooth on the bottom jaw had been pulled out, and replaced with nails that I pushed through her tongue into her gums. Her breasts were in the pile with the other body parts as were her thumbs and big toes. Each finger was bent sideways, broken in horrible positions. She had been stripped naked and the patch of hair covering her sex called to me. Curiosity had more to do with this then revenge as I had spread her legs and shoved the lead pipe between them. Her screams had been steady and constant the whole time yet they rose considerably when the lead pipe was thrust inside of her. She cried and screamed, spit, yelled and cursed until her voice was hoarse but I was relentless.
I stood there for a moment watching her scream and writhe in pain, and I felt nothing. I was empty inside. She stared up at me with the one eye she had left while weeping blood over the loss of her other eye. She was panting heavily, as she mumbled for me to just end it. I smiled then thinking of the times I would beg her to do the same. I stared at her for a moment longer and then turned my back and walked away. Her shrieks of agony and hopelessness followed me up the stairs of her house. I passed a mirror on my way out of the front door and almost didn’t recognize myself. I had grown up into a man. The woman had kept my face shaven but already I had stubble growing and my eyes were deeper, older. I smiled into the mirror liking what I saw, and then I walked into the sunlight. It was the first time I had taken a breath of fresh air and felt the sun shine down on my face in seven years. I walked down the dirt road that led away from her house whistling a tune that I didn’t remember learning.
I kept turning my eyes back to the house watching it get smaller and smaller in the distance, smiling that it was actually real. I had finally gotten free. I turned to look at the house one last time smiling and as I turned my head back to the dirt path, the man in whites eyes were right in front of me.
“Do not think I have forgotten about you boy,” the man in white said grinning. “Oh no, you and I have plans together, big plans, but first where did you plan on going?”
I just looked at him blankly.
“Hmmm, you didn’t think about that now did you? What money were you going to use? How were you going to get there? What were you going to do when you got there? C’MON CALEB THINK,” the man in white screamed, and after all I had been through it hardly made me flinch.
“Ok, ok I will help you yet again, but you owe me, and this time you owe me really big. I’m talking about something that people will remember years and years down the road, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. For now, I will make it so your pockets never run empty with money. Every time you reach into your pockets there will be more money in them. As for the car you stole from your late foster parents, it’s been moved up the street to some abandon warehouse, for some reason, that’s were it has been all theses years. The car is just sitting there so here are the keys,” the man in white said while pulling the keys out of his pocket. “I went back in the hose and got them for you. As for where you are to go, I say we just let fate control that one, eh my boy,” the man in white said laughing. “I’ll check in on you later but I’ll be watching your every move, don’t let me down like last time. You are mine Caleb remember that,” and the man in white vanished.
I had walked to the warehouse and spotted the car sitting by itself with absolutely no reason to be there. The ’55 Chevy was so rusted and dirty that you could barely tell it had started off red. I thought of Pa at that moment and thought about how mad he would be if he could see his car now. I unlocked and opened the door, put the key in the ignition and brought the car back to life. I put the car in gear and then drove away from the last seven years of my life and into my destiny. The man in white said I owed him big, and somewhere inside of me I dreaded whatever that was going to be.

Caleb went silent until the priest finally interjected.
“Is everything alright my son?” The priest asked.
“Everything is fine father, its just that,” Caleb choked up for a moment. “Its just that it gets terrible from here on out and I can understand if you don’t want to listen anymore.”
The priest thought about how it could get anymore terrible. He also thought about what terrible could be if he didn’t consider what he had already said terrible. “I am of God, my son, and I told you I would hear your story and that is what I will do.’
“Thank you father, I will continue,” and Caleb began again.





I drove until I saw a sign that said Richmond, Virginia, and stopped a nearby hotel. I had no idea where I was driving to, nor did I know the direction I was driving. I had just listened to the man in white and let “fate” control where I was going. I had stopped at the John Marshall Hotel, and I went in to get a room. The man at the front desk was skinny and balding. I paid for a room for a couple of nights and he gave me a key and told me where to go. When I got there I opened the door and immediately went to the bed. Exhaustion had finally hit me, and I let it take me into its black world. I had the same dream that night of me on the stone ledge burning. I woke up some hours later covered in sweat, wondering what was happening to me. Moments of clarity would hit me every so often only to be pushed back into the depths.
I sat up and looked around the dimly lit room I had purchased. The King sized bed at in the middle of a small room that consisted of a bathroom near the door to the room, a dresser, and a small table next to the bed. There was a chandelier hanging from the ceiling over top of me, and I lay staring at it for a moment trying to gather my thoughts and push the nightmare back into the recesses of my mind. I stayed in bed for an unknown amount of time, realizing I had nothing to do, nowhere to go, no purpose in life. What was my purpose?
“Oh you have a purpose little one,” a familiar voice said as the man in white materialized at the end of my bed. “Your purpose is to do as I tell you to do and keep me happy. Everything else is inconsequential.” The man in white had sat down on the end of the bed smiling at me. I brought m eyes away from his and looked down to see the ruby hilted dagger had appeared in my hand. That would explain the smile.
“A new hospital has opened here in town my boy, why don’t we take a visit there?” he asked rhetorically, still smiling. “You see Caleb, faith is a remarkable thing, it truly is. People believe in…” He looked at me questioningly as if trying to read my thoughts. I was dressed and by the door without even realizing I had gotten out of bed. My mind was blank, and although I was hearing the man in white speak I wasn’t listening, I was concentrating on the events ahead that should have been breaking my heart. “People have faith in God, through good times they believe in God, through bad times they believe as well but they have faith that God will see them through their bad times, not even thinking that the whole point of giving mankind freewill was that their lives are their own. But I digress. Today my boy, you and I are going to challenge people’s faith in God. People find it hard to believe in a Being that could let tragedies happen.” An evil smile played upon the face of the man in white. “Today we are going to be that tragedy. You see Caleb, with technology starting to boom, and society’s minds being filled with greed for material possessions; they almost have no time for religion. This makes me extremely happy. Atheists and agnostics are rising everywhere and pretty soon, with some help from us, they will become actual American organizations. You and I are going to infiltrate the strongest country in the world and begin the destruction of one of the only things that has stood the test of time, religion. We are going to take Christmas away from the religious, Christmas will become about the gifts and greed, and Easter will become the same way. These major holidays will lose all connection with religion. Atheists will start to convince the country that they do not need God or religion to celebrate holidays. There will be signs on busses, billboards, commercials on television, you may even be around long enough to see it Caleb my boy. Churched will crumble and religion will fall, slowly but surely and God’s little “experiment” will be all for naught. Maybe I am getting ahead of myself right now, but on day maybe. I can only wonder at how a race that was created on a blue sphere floating in the middle of black nothingness could refuse to believe they were created. Even more astounding is how close this human race is to creating life on its own, yet still their ignorance shows through. God is dying Caleb, he is being slowly poisoned by ignorant betrayal and we are going to try and speed that poison up. I need to know you are with me though, are you with me Caleb?
I looked up to see the man in white staring at me as serious as I had ever seen him. He looked at me as if I had a choice in the matter, as if I knew enough about anything to care about my choice. My conscience was being extinguished, and although I was somewhat aware of it, I didn’t know what was right or wrong. I looked back at the man in white’s face and jumped in terror as for a brief second his face wasn’t the beautiful face that had showed up in my yard all those years ago. It was the face of a monster, with big pointed ears, a flattened nose, big sharp yellow teeth, slanted eyes and a black mane of hair and leathery skin that would cut you if you touched it. I was trembling when I nodded my consent.
The man in white merely nodded back, his features once again becoming beautiful and unmarred.
We walked in silence for a few moments more before the man in white spoke. I kept my eyes to the ground, not wanting to look up and see the monster next to me.
“Caleb, do not be frightened of me. You and I have a common purpose and I wouldn’t hurt you. I apologize for showing you an ugly side of me, I get carried away sometimes. We need the world to see how bad it has gotten. I am not as evil as people make me out to be. I just realize man kinds flaws and ignorance, and that is something He will never understand,” the man in white said pointing up towards the sky. “You humans have no loyalty unless forced, no allegiances to anything but yourselves. He does not want to comprehend that. You care not that he has given you chance after chance, and yet what did he give me? He banished me into a hell which I rule and yet loathe. No, I will make the human race understand and I will hurry them to their doom. You and I will speed the process up and maybe I will even let you share in my glorious victory. Even you, who are not loyal, can be molded into the perfect servant. You are doing a good thing my boy, making the world understand its sins, and that they should not have any more chances. That they should be doomed to the same hell I am, yet they shall not rule, they shall dwell in eternal punishment for the ignorance they have shown.”
The man in white kept talking yet I had stopped listening. His rants made no sense to me, but I could sense he was angry at something, at everything. I wanted to just lie down, but it seemed I couldn’t, that I was compelled on. I looked up when I realized the man in white had stopped talking. He was looking at me with his head tilted to the side as if reading my thoughts.
“Well he we are,” the man in white proclaimed, shifting his view to the building looming in front of us. “St. Mary’s Hospital. You will know what to do, but this is where I must leave you. Do me proud Caleb, do mankind proud. Remember, God is watching.” I heard him laughing as he faded out of sight. I stared at the front doors of the hospital now devoid of any emotion. I had the ruby hilted dagger in my hands and I walked forward, ready to make mankind weep. I knew this was a bad thing and yet for some reason, at that moment, I just did not care. My mom’s tears came to mind then and then I stopped. A wave of regret and emotion washed over me just as a wave of pain wracked my head. I tucked the dagger in my waistband, and all thoughts of my mother were gone. There was only the task at hand. I pushed through the hospital doors intent on making the world realize what the man in white wanted them so badly to realize.



Chapter 6

“Sheriff, the Clarks called and said somebody was going through their trash again. Should we go out there?” The deputy waited a moment before realizing the sheriff hadn’t heard him. “Sheriff, I said…”
“I heard what you said Thomas, and you deal with it,” the sheriff snapped cutting the deputy off. Thomas saw a case file in the sheriff’s hand; he recognized it as Caleb’s file. Word around the department was that the sheriff had hardly worked on any case since the death of the old couple that owned the diner. The only suspect in the murder was a little boy named Caleb but he had vanished with their car. Now all the sheriff did was search for the boy.
“Sir, you have been looking for this boy for the better part of a decade now, he’s gone,” the deputy exclaimed apologetically.
The sheriff put his head down on his wooden desk with a frustrated sigh. “He’s not gone dammit, that hell spawn is out there somewhere and I’ll find him, on God’s name I’ll find him.”
“God’s name isn’t the name that will help you find the boy,” a smooth voice whispered inside of the sheriff’s head.
“What did you just say Thomas?” The sheriff asked furiously, but the deputy had already left the office.
“I can guide you to the boy sheriff; I can help you find him. I can give you a way to unleash your vengeance. Would you want that?” The smooth voice asked.
“Who is talking? Where are you? Thomas if this is some twisted fucking joke ‘m gonna burn you alive.”
“This is no joke sheriff!” The voice yelled angrily, echoes pounding the inside of the sheriff’s skull. The sheriff grabbed his head in agony and the pain slowly started to fade. “I want to help you find this boy you are after, but I’m going to need your cooperation. We can make a deal of sorts.”
“Who am I ta-talking to? And how are you in my head?” The sheriff asked nervously.
“I am a friend, a friend that wants to see justice done. How bad do you want the boy that murdered your mother?” The voice asked.

“How did you know she was my mother? I have never told anyone that.”
“I am good at figuring out things Sheriff. I know all about your family. I know that you are the reason your mother and Jacob never married. She had you while she was unfaithful to him, and he forgave her but he couldn’t forget. You were raised by Margaret’s sister and told not to ever say who your real mother was in order to spare Jacob’s feelings and embarrassment from the rest of the people in your town. I know more than you think sheriff, I know who your real father is.” The voice went silent for a bit leaving the sheriff to contemplate everything he was just told.
The sheriff, pushing back all the emotions at what he was just told, now believed that whoever this voice belonged to could help him. “How do I find the boy that killed my ma?”
A beautiful man in all white materialized in front of the sheriff just then, with a smile on his face. The sheriff stood up from his chair and was neither afraid, nor even thinking about how a man could just appear in his office; revenge was the only thing on his mind.
“Well my boy,” this startled the sheriff, for he appeared to be much older than the blonde man in front of him. “We make a deal of course, and then I will show you where the boy, who isn’t a boy anymore, is.”
“What kind of deal?” The sheriff asked suspiciously.
“I’m not going to beat around the bush here, my child. What I want will not alter your life in any way; it will just help me out greatly. You aren’t a religious man though are you sheriff?” The man in white asked.
“No, I’m not. But I thought you weren’t gonna beat around the bush. What is it you want?” The sheriff asked growing more irritated with each second that passed.
“Why, I want your soul of course,” the man in white answered smiling.
The sheriff sat back down in his chair rubbing his face, trying to wrap his mind around what was happening right now. He now knew who he was talking to and he now knew what was at stake. He could finally find the person that had killed his ma after all these years, but he had to give up his soul and he knew that meant damning himself to a hell that he didn’t even believe in five minutes ago.
“I’m not a religious man sir,” the sheriff began. “But I know what is at stake with you asking for my soul. That would make you Satan, and if you are standing here after materializing out of nowhere, that could only mean that God does exist. There is nothing I want more than the boy who killed my ma, but I can’t give you my soul sir.”
The man in white stared at the sheriff with his head coked to the side. “It’s that damn family stubbornness; it comes form my side of the family you know. Your mother was such a pushover she would give in to anything,” the man in white chuckled. “And I mean anything.”
“What are you talking about Devil? Why are you talking about my mama?” The sheriff questioned standing out of his chair, his rage rising.
The man in white met the sheriff’s challenging stare. “All pride aside my boy, you will realize and respect who you are talking to, or I will make your life a living hell. Now sit down.” The sheriff did not abide. “I SAID SIT DOWN!” The man in white yelled adamantly, and the sheriff now terrified, sat down.
“You are my father aren’t you,” the sheriff said beginning to cry. “I thought my mother a better person than that. But I can feel it inside of me; I can feel that I am bonded to you somehow.” The sheriff put his head down and began to cry softly.
The man in white rolled his eyes. “I do not have time for this; I have other things I need to do. You can keep your soul for now, but if you ever get smart and realize you will not find the boy without my help than call for me and I will come.” The man in white began to fade. “Your mother did not know it was me at the time,” and the man in white was gone.
The sheriff sat up and looked around curiously. He was furious that the devil had tricked his mom, yet at the same time the man in white did not have to tell him that. He could have let him think his mother was a whore. The sheriff sat back to rethink the deal the man in white had offered. He would try to search for Caleb himself a while longer, but if nothing turned up he may just call on his father to help.

Caleb shifted around in his seat. “Are you still with me father?”
“Yes I am my son. Your story is too intriguing to walk away from, even if I tried. I would like it if you kept on going.”
“We have been here a while, I was just making sure that you were still comfortable. I will continue.”

I was standing in the lobby of the hospital taking in my surroundings. Sick people were sitting in chairs waiting to be seen, nurses were walking around everywhere with something important to do, while the janitor, a middle aged black man, pushed a mop across the floor. I walked up to the janitor whose name tag said Robert.
“Hi Robert, my name is Caleb, I was wondering if you could show me where the maternity ward or the nursery is. My sister just had a baby and I am dying to see him for the first time.” The Janitor looked me up and down, and then smiled.
“There is nothing better than hearing the sounds of a newborn baby. Your sister is blessed. Many people look down on custodial work, but here at the hospital, I get to listen to the sounds of a new life everyday. That puts a lot of things in perspective.” The janitor kept smiling to himself for a moment, while I waited patiently. “Oh excuse me,” Robert laughed. “I got caught in the moment. The maternity ward is up those stairs two flights, and then your gonna take a left. The nursery is right there next to the ward if you keep going a little further, you can’t miss it. I myself stop by the viewing window every day in about an hour so maybe I’ll see up there.” The janitor kept smiling and mopped his way down the hall away from me. I walked to the stairs and slowly began climbing them, savoring the evil that was about to take place. I became lost in my thoughts of different scenarios of how this would take place, and yet, somewhere in the back of my mind, I was screaming at my self to turn around. It was then I felt the tip of the ruby hilted dagger press into my flesh. I situated it in the waistband of my pants and kept climbing the stairs. When I reached the top floor, I turned left like the janitor told me and easily found the maternity ward. My hands were sweating and I could almost hear the giddiness of the man in white echoing in my head. I walked into the ward and stopped as I hear the sounds of joy and love coming from a room. I moved quickly into the bathroom behind the door as footsteps fast approached.
“I’ll be right back honey don’t worry,” a man said as he walked into the bathroom. In his excitement he kept the lights off and the door open. I could sense how happy he was, and how much of a man he felt he was now that he had his family. Pure love for his newborn was emanating from him in powerful waves. I slowly took the dagger out of my waistband as I heard the steady stream of urine begin to dwindle. I walked behind the pride-filled man as he bent down to flush the toilet. When he stood up again, I ran the blade into the back of his neck. He jerked once and was still. I saw his face in the mirror of the bathroom as I was laying him down. He was still smiling.
“Honey hurry up,” a woman’s voice called out, and the small noises of an infant followed behind. I wiped the blade off on the man’s shirt and took his blue hat and put it on my head as I walked out to meet the woman and her new baby. With the dagger out and the hat pulled low I walked towards the bed where the woman held her face buried in her new child. I walked right up next to the bed without her even noticing it wasn’t the man she loved. I stood there for a moment almost drowning in the anticipation, and then I reached down to take the baby. She offered the babe to me for a split second until her maternal instincts kicked in and she tried to pull back. It was already too late because I had him in my hands. I yanked the newborn out of her hands. She screamed. I shook my head at her and she instantly knew she was to be quiet. A nurse, who must have heard the terrified scream, burst into the room. She rushed to the petrified woman’s side. The woman had not taken her eyes off me or her son the entire time, and the nurse sensed something was wrong. As soon as she stood and turned around, the dagger was in her throat. Blood spewed from her mouth and onto the baby as she gurgled and spun around. The new mother never took her eyes off her baby as the nurse fell on top of her, blood spraying out all over her. In some state of shock, the mother did not scream she just laid there shaking not taking her eyes off the baby. I swayed the baby to the left and to the right watching the mother’s eyes follow in unison. I smiled then, and the new mother saw, that is when the pleas began.
“Puh-please, p-p-p-please don’t h-h-hurt my baby,” the woman begged and cried. Her tears matted her blonde hair to her flushed cheeks. She was a pretty woman through the trauma she was facing now and even after the stress of a fresh delivery. “I’m beg-begging you,” she pleaded still crying almost unable to catch her breath. “I’ll, I’ll g-give you anything you want, ju-just puh-please put my baby down.” He baby had started crying now and his mother’s tears were coming down harder as her breathing was coming in rapid sessions. “Puh-please put my baby down.” I nodded as I dropped the newborn baby on the ground. With a “thud” the baby hit the floor as the woman jumped off the bed to try and catch him. She went to her baby and just as she was about to touch him I grabbed her and lifted her off the ground. I stabbed the dagger into her back and made her watch as I stepped on her new child’s head with all of my weight. She let out a scream of anguish, that shook the man in white’s grasp on me and for one split second, I was free to see the atrocious act I had just committed. My self awareness snapped back into my head then, shut and locked the door, and hid in the recesses of mind. The man in white now had full control. I dropped the woman onto her dead child, and watched her cry cradling her lifeless son in her arms until she too joined him in death. I licked the blade of my dagger clean; it tasted of desperation and love. I walked out of the room, surprised no one else was around. The man in white had full control of my body, yet my emotions were mine, my eyes I could feel were being shared. I tried to stay hidden in the dark depths of my mind, yet I believe it was the man in white, who pulled me out, or maybe someone or something else. I was slamming my conscience into the barrier of my mind Satan had created but it was no use. I was dying on the inside tortured and confused. The deaths did not bother me; the mother in pain tore at my heart. For some reason at that moment, I began to try and think of the scripture my mother used to quote at me, that was when I heard the man in white’s laugh.
“You disappoint me my son, you will learn however,” and his voice was gone, just as were the thoughts of my past and the scriptures. I walked out of the room down the hallway towards a sign that read nursery. I shuttered inside of myself and went back to try and hide inside of my mind. The sign on the glass door read “Parents Only” I pushed the door open and walked inside. There were 13 cribs in the room and only 12 babies filling them. There was no one in the nursery to try and stop me; there was no one in the hallways around either. They would soon come looking for the nurse I had disposed of, but I would be finished before they came. I walked over to the first crib and my body picked the baby up. It was pink and wrinkled, and smelled of new life. The baby looked me right in my eyes as if peering inside of mind where I was trying to hide. I watched my other hand come up with the dagger and slit the baby’s throat. Blood sprayed out across my face, and the baby gurgled but never took its eyes off mine. My mother’s eyes came to me then again, and a blinding pain came right after and crashed into my skull. The baby was thrown back into the crib as the pain subsided and I could hear laughter in the distance. I went to the next baby, and the baby after that, and the baby after that and so on, until the nursery floor was slick with blood, and dead quiet. All I could hear was the beating of my own heart. I walked out of the door of the nursery knowing I was evil and finally starting to accept it.
As I was walking down the hall, I heard a woman scream. As I was walking down the stairs I heard more people screaming, and watched pandemonium begin to rise in the hospital. As I was walking towards the doors out of the hospital, I was tripped by a mop and fell, my face smacking the floor.
“You the man just did all them horrible things,” the janitor said, tears drenching his cheeks. “I led you to them babes, so I’m partly to blame. But there will be justice in this world, and then you can be at the mercy of God’s justice in the next one.”
I did not acknowledge what he said, and I am sure he noticed. I began trying to get up as the wooden handle of the mop came down on top of my head, the world went black.
“The soles of my feet were on fire as I screamed in agony. The metal of the chains burned against my naked flesh as I looked down and saw millions upon millions of hands reaching for me, yearning to pull me down into their lake of fire. The smell of burnt flesh stung my nose as the fire moved up to my knees. There was no going into “shock” in this place, I felt everything. My though process was shut down as the flames caressed my cheeks, not yet able to strike me with their fiery whips. Through the pain I looked down once again and gasped at the vastness of the lake of fire. There was no beginning and no end. It was like looking into a burning outer space. I saw bodies once again burning and regenerating under me as I was lowered even more into the flames that had now reached and melted my manhood. The pain was too much to bear yet I could not lose consciousness. I heard laughing then over the sound of my own screams. Up on a rocky ledge stood the man in white, holding the end of a chain that was lowering me into the eternal fire. I was in too much pain too struggle as the flames reached my chest. My head fell to the side and I saw Johnny, the man in the red Ford truck, smiling, standing in the lake of fire untouched by the flames. The man in white’s laughter grew even louder as the flames finally reached my head. My body was writhing in agony as my eyes began stewing in my skull. I took one last look Johnny who was still smiling at my suffering. The man in white’s laughter was smashing the inside of my head as I saw Johnny’s smile grow wider. My left eye was completely gone and the vision in my right one was fading. Johnny lifted a woman up, as my head jerked up from a spasm of pure torture. Hands began ripping me apart as I was finally submerged in the fire. I took one final look at Johnny’s smiling face and screamed as the pain intensified a million times over. He had my mother. The man in white’s laughter followed me to consciousness.
I woke up sore, on a hard stone floor, surrounded by stone walls. As I stood up to get my bearings, I turned around and saw I was caged in. One whole wall of bars stood before me. I walked to them so I could see what was out there and there was nothing, just some more bars lining a dimly lit hallway. I backed away from the bars to a bunk bed in the corner of my cell. I sat down on the bottom bunk and tried to remember how I had gotten here. Somehow I had crawled part of the way out of the recesses of my mind in to the tiny light of my cell. I remembered then. I remembered the little faces looking up at me as I stole their lives. I remember the little head giving way under my shoes and the mother’s agonizing scream as they died together. Grief wracked my body as I slowly crawled back into the emotionless pit of my mind. The world meant nothing to me anymore; I just wanted it to be over. I didn’t know if I was terrified of what I had done, or if I was terrified at the thought that I may have actually enjoyed it. A creaking noise broke the silence of my thoughts as my body tensed searching for the source of the sound. It had come from the bunk above me. I stood up slowly and looked over the tiny railing of the prison bed. My eyes beheld a man sleeping in a fetal position with a soft smile upon his face. He had been in the cell with me this whole time and I had not even realized. I stared at this man, this prisoner like I, and wondered what he had done to deserve the same fate as me, a destroyer of the innocent, and a murderer of babies. I kept staring at this man, wondering what evil the man in white had made him do, or if it was even the man in white at all. I wondered if a man could be evil or do bad things without having any influence from the man in white or his followers. I was pondering all of this while taking in the man’s small body and hairy face. He had long dark brown hair that looked stringy and dirty. He smelled rotten onions and yet I could not make myself look away. My fascination with this man was strange and yet I could not fathom a man that would deserve a cell with me on his own accord, without being tainted by the man in white. Somehow I could feel that he had no connection with him. My thoughts went back to the evil acts I had committed and the evil acts that the man that lay on the bed before me committed. I did not even notice when the man’s eyes started to open. I almost didn’t notice as he started screaming, since it had become such a common sound to me, except he hit me in the process of his flailing. He began thrashing his body around on the bed, shrieking at the top of his lungs, keeping his eyes locked on mine. Through the reflection in his eyes I what he saw while staring at me. The pointed teeth, the oversized mouth, the dark hair that framed the leathery skin of my face, I took a step back in horror as this was a similar monster to the one I had seen the man in white turn into some time ago. The man was shrieking even louder now and he began rousing my anger.
“Be quiet man, I’m no monster,” I begged him holding my hands up in front of me, yet he would not hear me. The noise he was making could wake the dead and all of a sudden my world went wavy and I was thrust back into my mind. My eyes still provided me windows into the outside world and I could still view this man’s face being smashed in as I pounded him with my fists. I immediately felt his nose give way and his cheek bones shatter as I pummeled him harder and harder. I was relentless in my attack as teeth began flying away with the blood. An eyeball slid out with one blow and then was crushed with another as I rained down a barrage of fists. Very soon blood was everywhere, and even sooner the screaming had stopped. Again I took a step back only this time it was to view the havoc I had just unleashed on this prisoner. His head was hanging off of the side of the bed as his medium length hair reached out for the ground, dripping blood. I lay on the floor under the man then, feeling the coldness of the stone press against my back. I opened my mouth as my face became splattered with even more of his blood. Soon the steady drip of red was pouring down my throat and that is how the men in the blue uniforms found me when they came to investigate the screams.