A Guardian of Innocents (31 page)

“Jeshhhuaaaaaa......” a low voice echoed throughout the vast darkness of the abandoned factory. The sound had a thickness to it, seeping from the walls like tree sap.

“Jeshhhhuaaaaaaaaa......”

“You guys hear that?” I asked.

Richard gave a quick nod of affirmation, but Aaron said, “Hear what?”    

“Jeshuaaa.....?”

“Dude! You could see those ghosts, but you can’t hear that?”

“I didn’t really see them so much as
feel
them,” he explained.

“Let’s keep going,” his father said, “Maybe his voice will lead us to him.”

We proceeded into the factory, past conveyor belts, large mixing vats and all other kinds of heavy machinery whose uses I couldn’t possibly fathom. What little moonlight was available to us was trickling in through the high windows that lined the upper half of the building. Richard’s heavy flashlight searched the premises like a helicopter searchlight. He had one of those large box-shaped lights with a handle, the kind that looked solid enough to kill somebody with, if you clonked them on the head hard enough.

That thought reminded me of something. I’d once said that exact same thing about the large crucifix Desiree had given me. I felt the left side of my jacket, searching for the inside pocket. Yep, still there.

An ocean of dust particles flew through the yellow beam of Richard’s flashlight as we walked further along. The factory was so quiet I could hear my heart beating. I listened as its pace quickened.

bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ

“He’s close now,” I whispered.

Aaron and his father only responded by raising their guns a little higher. We walked a ways further and Richard’s light fell upon a figure dressed in black, leaning against a wall with his arms crossed. A gleeful smile put his perfect white teeth on display.

“Where’s Tessa?” my two companions asked in near perfect unison.

“A safe place I promise you, gentlemen. But before I deliver the goods, there is something I require. This will only take a moment.”

I felt him in my head, scanning me. But this was more intrusive, more brutal. Instead of gently skimming over the book as I usually did, he was tearing and dog-earing the pages and breaking the spine. He was delving into corners of my conscious and subconscious he had no business visiting.

I fought back the only way I knew how.

“Oowup,” he mumbled, choking in surprise as he took a step back. He waved a hand in front of his face as though trying to ward off a fat mosquito.

“That’s a little trick Dez taught me.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said casually as he pinched the bridge of his nose and blinked his eyes, “I still obtained all the information I need. You have no intention of going through with the ritual. I thought as much. You
do
know that because of this the three of you have come here in vain? Tessa shall not be freed and the three of you will now die.”

“Try whatever shit you want, Louis,” Richard said, voice raised, “But I don’t care how fast you think you are. One of us is gonna nail you first. It’s three against one and if it takes us a week to find Tessa in this place without your help, we’ll do it.”

Godwin laughed, “You’re so sure I brought her with me?”

“In the off-chance Jeshua accepted your proposal, yes,” Aaron said evenly.

“Ah, Aaron, I’d forgotten how melodic your voice was. It’s good to hear it again after so many—“

The blast of Agent Collins’ shotgun tore through the frigid silence of the factory.

“No!” Aaron cried.

“’Nuff of this shit!” Richard shouted, “Wh—Where is he?”

He shined his light where Louis’ shredded body should have been lying. Aaron and I both took out our own lights to help, but then a voice from behind our very backs addressed us.

Richard pumped his shotgun as he whirled around to face him, but found no one behind us. The gun’s empty shell clinked on the floor in the freshly returned quiet.

All the walls around us seemed to be speaking with Godwin’s voice, “Gentlemen, I’m disappointed in you. You should never underestimate your enemy. You think of me as human, though I transcended from my human state quite a while back. I am a god among men now.”

“Why are you stalling, Louis?” I heard Aaron whisper under his breath.

“Tessa,” Richard gasped, then shouted, “She’s over there! I see her!”

“Where?” Aaron asked.

For just a slight fraction of a second I felt an outraged fury emanating from somewhere nearby. And then. . .

bzz zz ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

“Sweetie, sweetie,” Richard sang as he ran and knelt down in front of nothing but empty air, “What’s wrong, honey?”

Then he blinked and seemed to rejoin reality, his eyes clearing. “What just happened?”

“I think Godwin’s playing with us,” I explained, “He can make you see things that aren’t real.”

“I know that!” he barked, “But I don’t think it was him. Not this time. I think it was really Tessa. She was trying to tell me something!”

“Dad, if it was her, then how come I couldn’t see her too?” Aaron pointed out, “I’m seeing a pattern here. Every time Louis has sent an illusion to either of you, I haven’t been able to see or hear it. I thought it might be because he was just choosing to ignore me, but if he really hates me so much, then why would he exclude me from the torment he’s subjected you to for all these years?”

“Are you saying he
can’t
appear to you? Why?” I asked.

“Maybe it’s because I’m saved, I don’t know.”

“Oh, give me a fuckin’ break,” Richard muttered, “I’m going after Tessa. And I think we should split up. We’ll find her faster that way.”

“He’ll pick us off one by one!” Aaron protested.

“Your dad’s right, Aaron. Godwin’s focus is on me. I can feel it in my gut,” I insisted, “You two look for Tessa. I can’t really say how I know, but I’m almost positive she’s locked up in an office, a large manager’s type of office. If I find Godwin, I’ll try to buy you as much time as I can.”

Aaron opened his mouth.

“Don’t argue. Just go!” I yelled as I took off into the darkness.

“C’mon. Let him go,” I heard Richard say in the distance.

“Godwin!” I cried, “Creeper! I’m right herrrrre! So where the fuck are you?”

No answer this time. I slowed to a jog, flipping my flashlight around to survey this new area of the factory. I was in a corridor of metal shelves that went at least thirty feet high. It was some kind of storage hall.

“Hey, babe. How’ve you been?” a soft, feminine voice asked from behind me.

I didn’t want to turn around. I knew exactly who I’d see if I did. He was low, so damn low to do this to me.

“Desiree’s dead. You’re not gonna convince me otherwise.”

“Sweetie, look at me,” as her chilled, lifeless hand caressed my cheek and turned me towards her. She looked just as I remembered. Only her eyes seemed different, empty.

I set the light on one of the shelves, pointing it upwards like a lamp, letting it illuminate our surroundings.

“On September 11
th
, I was nowhere near the World Trade Center. Louis had his men abduct me, that very morning. They took me from a subway car as I was getting out. I can’t remember very much—they kept pumping me full of drugs. I’m pretty sure they were holding me prisoner in some part of the sewer, because everything around me was cold and damp and smelled bad.”

“Really? And why the hell would Louis go to all that trouble? If he wanted my allegiance, the best thing for him to do would have been to tell me he had saved you. That you weren’t dead... You’re just one of his projections.”

“Is it so hard to believe?” she asked as she bared a pair of fangs that unfolded from the roof of her mouth like Aaron’s. 

“Oh! Now I KNOW this is bullshit! If you knew Dez at all, Louis, you would know she would NEVER consent to a fuckin’ satanic ritual. She loves her God too damn much.”

She pressed a firm finger upon my lips. “He’s lied to both of us if you’ll just listen to me. Please!”

“Listen to her, Jeshua,” Godwin said from behind me as he walked slowly and deliberately up to us, emerging from the darkness, “She’s right. I have lied. I told her you were already a vampire, even showed her images of you on the hunt. She only agreed to participate in the ritual out of her love for you. Isn’t that romantic?”

He smiled then. An asshole grin if I ever saw one.

“She wants to be with you forever,” he continued, “She renounced her God for you, Jeshua! And if that doesn’t say love, then I don’t know what does.”

“We can live out lifetimes together this way!” Desiree’s image insisted.

I wanted so desperately to believe in this lie, that I found myself actually trying to buy into the story. I was trying to see the logic in it, and refute the obvious holes; give it the benefit of the doubt. But then I saw an image. It was placed in the back of my mind by some kind of outside presence. I knew it wasn’t Godwin out of the mere fact that it revealed my own fallacy to me. 

From the back of my mind, riding fast up to the front, was an image of Doris. Doris looking at the blood in my hair on the night her husband was murdered. Doris talking herself into believing the dark maroon stains in my underwear were just the skid marks of a boy who doesn’t wipe well.

“I’m not Doris,” I whispered, “You’re a liar, Louis. I felt my connection with Desiree broken when the North Tower fell. Not only that. I was visited by her fuckin’ ghost that same day!”

“That was actually me,” Godwin stated, “Sorry, but just to seal the deal, I sent that image into your mind just as you were waking.”  

“You lying son of a bitch!” I growled.

“Please, Jeshua!” Desiree cried as she put her arms around my back, embracing me, “What do you want me to say? How can I prove myself to you? We’re going to have to get out of here soon!”

“Why?” I asked, suddenly suspicious.

She looked to Godwin, as if asking for permission to speak.

“Let’s just say we have urgent matters that require our attention,” he answered for her, “Just know this, Jeshua. Know that if you refuse me now, you will never see Desiree again. She is a slave under my will. And if you’d like to, you can be one alongside her, and live. If you deny me, you will die with your freedom, but you
will
die.”

“Sweetie, please!” she pleaded, “I don’t want to live if you’re gone, and now I don’t think I could die even if I wanted to!”

She buried her face in my chest, weeping. I felt the wetness of her tears in my shirt, the hiccupping of her lungs as she tried to breathe through the sobs. If she was a mirage, she was the most convincingly realistic one Godwin had ever thrown at me.

I wanted to give in to this fantasy so badly. And I was almost there. My breaking point was so close, but then I noticed something about this image of Desiree I hadn’t seen earlier, probably due to the poor lighting.

My eyes slid down the right side of her neck and found the familiar Florida-shaped birthmark. The one that was supposed to be shaped like the state, yet turned backwards. But this one was a near perfect silhouette of the Sunshine State, nothing backwards about it at all.

I shoved her away from me, furious. I pulled the handgun out of my jacket pocket and aimed it at Louis.

“If you’re gonna impersonate someone that I lived with for four years, then you might wanna get your
DETAILS
straight!”

Both Desiree and Godwin vanished, their bodies having all the substance of pixie dust, evaporating as though dispersed by a light breeze.

Louis’ voice spoke again behind me, “Well, I didn’t think there was much of a chance of this little ruse panning out, so...”

I turned to find my adoptive father, Jack, standing before me. I slipped and fell on my ass as I tripped over my own feet in shock. His left eye was blown out, blood gushing from the empty socket.

“Oooh, careful there, bucko!” he squealed.

“I’m not buying this shit, Louis! You’re not real! Fuck you! I killed you eight years ago!” I wheezed as I scrambled back to my feet.

“Betteh start clicken’ yeh heels, Dorothy,” a new voice said from my right. Galen was waddling towards me with his pants around his ankles. I looked upward from his scrunched jeans and saw his two smashed testes dangling from the vas deferens tubes just above his knees. I doubt in real life they would have stretched that far, but there they were.

“Repeat after me!” he said, “There’s no place like home!”

Jack began to chant the familiar adage in unison with Galen, and I screamed.

As if answering my call, I heard another scream far off in the factory. At first, it seemed to be an echo, but then I heard the same cry again as I took off running back the way I’d come. It was Agent Collins. He was hurt.

“We’re getting this party started right!” Jack bellowed.

“One down, two to go!
Yeahhhh, baby!!!
” Galen whooped with joy.

From the distance in their voices growing longer, I knew they weren’t pursuing me. I was racing in the dark, secretly hating myself for running away from two hallucinations and being too scared to go back for my flashlight.