The Light at the End of the Tunnel
Read The Light at the End of the Tunnel Online
Authors: James W. Nelson
Tags: #'romance, #abuse, #capital punishment, #deja vu, #foster care, #executions, #child prostitution, #abuser of children, #runaway children'
The Light at the End of the Tunnel
(If the State executes a worst-of-the-worst
criminal, does he really die?)
A supernatural thriller
by
James W. Nelson
Copyright 2012 by James W. Nelson
Published by James W. Nelson at
Smashwords
To all foster, missing, runaway. and unloved
children, now and forever
Introduction
Worst-of-the-worst criminal Les Paul is on
death row awaiting execution.
The chaplain is trying to stop the execution,
and not because of a love for mankind.
Mrs. Leslie Markum in nine months will give
birth to the reincarnation of evil.
Ms. Nicole Waters is nursing where the
infant, Les Paul, will be abandoned.
Cassandra is yet divided between her mother
and father.
Patrolman Sikorsky is just doing his job and
hoping to advance to detective.
Riley Stokes, ex-military, will train the
chaplain and Nicole to become private investigators.
When Cassandra is born her mother will live
long enough to name her. On the same day her father will die in
Afghanistan. Cassandra starts her life alone. In foster care she
will fall through crack after crack, and nobody wants to adopt this
darling girl child. Lacking love, she soon discovers her crying
brings her nothing. She stops crying. As she grows she does not
come to love, anything, and does not come to trust…anyone.
So, on October 18, this little girl will be
born. Halfway across the country another baby will be born on the
same day, just another child who will find no love. Les Paul will
find no love because he is the reincarnation of a long string of
evil killers, born with the memories of each prior life, not really
intact memories but memories nonetheless, and they will serve him
well in his next new life.
Table of Contents
Chapter
8 Meet Nurse Nicole Waters
Chapter
19 Talk With a Drug Pusher
Chapter
26 A Few Foster Homes Behind
Chapter
27 Meeting With Cassandra
Chapter
33 Meet Patrolman Sikorsky
Chapter
41 Nicole’s Confrontation
Chapter
42 Back Room Prostitution
Prologue
His skin crawling with goosepimples the
prison chaplain opened a wall locker that he had never seen before.
He expected the hinges to creak. They didn’t. They moved as if
oiled regularly. Inside lay a book, a big one, like an
old-fashioned scrapbook but with hard covers. No dust anywhere.
He placed his hands on both ends and lifted.
The book was old, and heavy enough to bend in the middle. He
stepped back, smoothly turned, and placed the book on a table, then
lifted the hard cover and placed it open. The pages were worn. Some
showed folds on the corners, as if others had regularly looked and
marked pages. But nobody had, because, to his knowledge, the book
and the wall locker did not exist. The goosepimples continued their
rampage as he stared, and remembered his dream.
Was it a dream? Was I awake? Was I
sleepwalking? Was I dead…? AM I dead…?
An hour earlier he had awakened, and
remembered his dream. He didn’t remember dreams. Never. But this
one he did. The dream showed this wall locker where no locker had
ever existed. But his telepathic instructions were clear: “
Go to
the prison basement under the chapel. Open the locker. Remove the
book. Open it gently. Grasp a handful of pages and turn
them.”
He had done everything but the handful of
pages. He grasped them and turned them over.
Just one verse appeared in very large
calligraphic lettering:
“
If the state kills a worst-of-the-worst
criminal, rather than allowing a natural death, that criminal, man
or woman, will reincarnate as not only the same person but more
evil than before. He or she will have the same memories, though not
fully intact memories, but they will serve well in the new life. A
worst-of-the-worst criminal MUST be allowed to die a natural death,
which includes being killed by a fellow criminal.”
Chapter 1
Meet Les Paul
(Twenty-four hours later)
Les Paul wore a smirk. They were going to
kill him. He wasn’t worried. Freshly scrubbed he waited in the
jumpsuit they had given him. The jumpsuit and an extra pillow.
Earlier he had finished his last meal, except for the extra large
Coke, which he just sipped at. He wanted plenty of liquid to be
released from his system when that final moment came.
Two extra large California Whoppers from
Burger King should help make that final mess memorable too, and the
French Fries, and the pumpkin pie, and the chocolate shake. He
hadn’t planned on being required to wear an adult diaper though,
and would take it off if he could.
But he couldn’t. The cell he waited in was as
bare as his last room in that dingy hotel, more bare, in fact. The
hotel room at least had a real bed. Here it was just a fold-down
iron spring, a thin mattress, and the two pillows. No place to hide
anything. Not that he could get away with doing anything
anyway.
He glanced at the guard, “Hey, man…,” and
sent his now-starched-on smirk, “You stoppin’ for a brew
after?”
Standing, the guard remained about twenty
feet away, too far for Les Paul to read his name tag. Didn’t matter
anyway, he had no desire to make new friends. Course he didn’t have
any old friends either. Nobody to see him off. No family.
Nobody.
The guard’s face didn’t change. Just a mask
of non-emotion.
“Heyyy…wipe that smile away.” Les Paul said
it sing-songy, “Whoa, wait! It’s wipe that frown away! I’m sorry,
man…but wait! That’s not really a frown you have on, is it? That’s
probably just your normal face—hey, you married man? You got a wife
waitin’ for ya after, with a little lovin’? You’ll probably need a
little lovin’ after watchin’ them stick all those drugs in me.”
“I don’t have to watch.”
“Heyyy, that’s the very first thing you’ve
ever said to me, man. You’ve walked past my cell at least once
every day, and you’ve never said a thing before now. How come?”
“I’m not required to talk.”
“What
are
you required to do?”
“I don’t have to talk to scum like you,
that’s for sure.”
“Oh, so the first time you speak to me is to
call me
‘scum.’
That hurts my feelin’s, man.”
“Why don’t you just shut the fuck up? There’s
only about forty minutes left.”
Les Paul needed that reminder. He didn’t fear
the end of his life. In fact he, sort of, looked forward to it.
During the months of waiting he had done some research on the
various religions, the various options of afterlife, and had
decided reincarnation sounded the best. He could die and come right
back as a new person. He would have been glad to take the needle
right after his conviction…
He stood on a hill in a world of grass, a
few trees, and many, many, animals of all kinds. Deer and elk and
buffalo and mammoths grazed and browsed the hills and the forested
valleys. It was a very, very, beautiful, place.
His main lance rested at his side, spear tip
pointed up, ready to use instantly. Two more lances he gripped in
his left hand. Over his fur-covered shoulder hung a bag of stones
for his sling, which hung from a strip of skin wrapped around his
middle, also ready to use in an instant, to face any threat from
this beautiful but very dangerous world. A saber-toothed lion could
spring from nowhere. A bull buffalo could charge for no reason.
Even a mammoth could attack if surprised or if one of their young
was threatened.
His woman searched in the nearby woodland
for herbs and edible mushrooms. He stood at the edge of the
decline, where he could watch in all directions for any sign of
danger, even threats from other men of different tribes, and
sometimes even different clans.
His woman looked up from her work, then
stood and held up a large, colorful mushroom. She smiled. He smiled
back. Then she added her treasure to her carry bag and moved on,
continuing her search. They both knew that certain edible and
medicinal herbs grew in this particular grove. About a quarter mile
in diameter the woodland of mostly poplar trees sloped down to a
depth of about forty feet. The variety of plant life was
amazing.
Between him and his woman played his darling
little girl child. She had her mother’s glowing and bright eyes,
and light brown hair that flowed to the small of her back. She had
lived already for six seasons, and grew more lovely every day. She,
next to her mother, was the pride and love of his life.
“
Look, daddy!” she cried, first bending
and then rising with a fist-sized rock, “Flint!”
Yes, his darling little girl knew nearly as
much about their natural world as he and his woman did. She would
grow to become a leader someday. He so loved the two delightful
women in his life…
Les Paul shook his head! Where the hell did
that goofy memory come from? It was not
his
! Yet he had
experienced so many memories
like
that, as if they
were
his, every day of his life it seemed—but they
weren’t
! Yet, somehow, the memory seemed familiar—parts of
it, a woman and child, his family? But they weren’t! He had
no
family! He had never
wanted
a family! But still,
the memories seemed as if he had seen them before, but he
hadn’t!