The Second Coming (6 page)

Father John’s heart was pounding when he felt something stir in his loins. He tried to fight the craving, but he longed for her supple body.

She started to move and Father John was relieved. He watched with the curiosity of a wild animal as she struggled to regain consciousness, intrigued by her vulnerability, but also wanting to set her free.

He could see the fear in her eyes as she began to yank against the plastic ties on her wrists and ankles. Father John wanted to tell her everything was going to be alright.

He crawled onto the linen covered altar and straddled her. She looked at him with pleading eyes as he leaned down and licked her neck. It was terrifyingly exhilarating. He couldn’t help but enjoy the feeling of power and control as he forced himself on her.

Shelly watched through tears as he straddled her. She hoped that it was over quickly. She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip as she recalled a trip she and her mother took to Yellow Stone Park after her Father left. Her mom held her and cried herself to sleep as Shelly assured her everything was going to be alright. It was the last memory she had of her mother before she met her step father.

When his hunger was satisfied, he slumped down and caught his breath. He could feel her heart racing like a struggling animal before it dies. He raised himself up and saw that she was turning her head. She was the one who made him do this and now she didn’t have the decency to look him in the eyes? If she thought she was so much better than him, then she deserved to die.

Father John waved a glimmering blade in front of her. Her eyes bulged as he raised the knife above his head.
God, please save her.
He plunged the blade into her chest with a crunching thud. Her back arched as she began to gurgle. His heart sank with despair as he watched the life run out of her eyes.

He then pulled out a scalpel and cut her belly open with the precision of a surgeon. Father John watched in horror as he reached his hands in and removed her intestines. He carried them behind the altar and began to smear them on the wall. At first Father John couldn’t tell what he was doing, but as he stepped back, he could see the number 6 with what looked like an upside down peace sign in it. What the heck did it mean? And then the killer let out a sinister laugh that woke Father John who was standing in front of the mirror in his bathroom, naked with blood running from his nose.

chapter
10

M
IKE BLINKED HIS
crusty eyes as he tried to focus. It took him a lost moment to realize that he was lying on the leather sofa in his living room, dressed in his jeans and button down shirt. In his drunken stupor, he managed to kick his cowboy boots off, which, as he unsteadily sat up, he saw were strewn next to the couch on the hardwood floor. He didn’t remember anything about getting home.

His dad’s nickel plated Colt .45 was lying on the coffee table next to a crumpled pack of cigarettes, a full ashtray and half a quart of Jack Daniels. His dad purchased a matching set of the guns and gave Mike one as a present before he went to Iraq. It was the same gun his dad used to kill himself.

Mike was in the habit of pulling it out when he was fucked up and imagining what his dad’s last minutes were like before he blew his brains out. Even though he didn’t remember, it didn’t surprise him that the gun was there. Why did he keep doing this to himself?

He rubbed his eyes and searched the recesses of his groggy mind for memories from the night before. He looked at the clock on the DVD player in his entertainment center. 6:36. He considered himself lucky to have woken up in his house instead of in a hospital bed or dead. He often thought that waking up after a black out was like coming back from the dead because he had no idea what happened while he was gone. If he died while he was in a black out, he would never even know. It was a cold and lonely feeling. When was this going to end?

He wearily got up and stretched with a grumble. His mouth tasted like a cat box. He ran his hand through his thick hair. The last thing he could remember was being at The Precinct Bar and Grill, but that was early
in the evening. That left a lot of unaccounted for hours. What the fuck happened to him? He hoped he didn’t do or say anything that he would regret. He was trying to remember how he got home when he was struck with a flash of panic. Where the fuck was his car?

He shuffled over to the doorway of the kitchen and looked into the galley. His badge and gun were strewn on the counter next to an open bottle of Heineken, a pack of smokes, chips and salsa. He approached the counter and chuckled. It looked like more of the chips and salsa made it onto the counter than into his mouth.

As the cob-webs subsided, he felt the front pockets of his jeans. He pulled out his money clip and checked it. Everything was there and there was even a little cash. He shook his head with a grimace. He checked his cell phone’s call history. There weren’t any calls later than 6:03 the previous night. He let out a sigh.

He got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he remembered his car. Did he drive it home or would it be smashed up with a dead body stuck in the windshield? It was like an out of body experience.

As he spun the rod on the blinds, he saw his Mustang sitting in the u-shaped driveway. He shook his head as he let out a sigh. Trying to remember what happened was like being a game show contestant. He didn’t know what to expect to find behind the curtain. He was acutely aware that the prize could be a coma, but that wasn’t enough to make him stop.

Mike lit a cigarette and exhaled his demons. He grabbed the Heineken and examined it. With a shrug of his shoulders, he took a gulp. What a fucking mess his life was. He sat at the counter as the morning light illuminating threads of smoke from his crooked cigarette. As he gazed blankly at the counter, he realized he was only a mirage of his former self.

He wasn’t always this dark and hopeless. In high school, he was a popular and handsome academic All-American quarterback, but his life changed after serving in the Gulf Wars and Afghanistan. That is when he began to experience symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder.

When Mike returned from Afghanistan, he didn’t trust anyone besides Big Pete. Even now, he met everyone with a scowl on his face as he sized them up and assessed their weaknesses and strengths as well as their motives.
This guy is a candy-ass douche bag.
Was the type of thing that rolled through Mike’s head upon meeting someone.

He was always worried someone was going to sneak up behind him so he was constantly looking over his shoulder in spite of the fact that he was trained to kill and there were very few people who could actually pose a threat to him.

His hands shook and he took medication for anxiety, but he didn’t like the way it made him feel so he drank excessively instead.

He wasn’t afraid of dying. He didn’t have anything to live for. His head was so messed up that dying might be the only way to put it at ease. He didn’t believe in the afterlife so if he died, he would never know it. It wasn’t like he would be in the afterlife regretting that he was dead. It wasn’t some story that he could go back and change the ending after it happened. As he snuffed his cigarette out in the beer bottle, he wondered how close to death he came the night before.

He got up from his stool and wearily stumbled over to where his dad’s gun laid glimmering in the morning light. He held it in his hand. It was cold and tormenting. There was only one reason he kept the gun and he knew eventually that he would use it on himself, but not before he had his affairs in order. There was still the case of Nurse Nancy that needed to be solved. It was his only unsolved homicide and he wasn’t going anywhere until he figured out who killed her and why.

As he admired the power of the gun he wondered if he would have the courage to pull the trigger or was the thought of a searing bullet, tearing through the top of his mouth, shredding his brain as it exploded out the back of his head, too much? Would that split second be the most painful moment of his life or would it happen so fast that he wouldn’t feel anything?

The gun was a constant reminder of the weakness that existed in his genetic makeup. Suicide was in his genes and he had an unrelenting suspicion that it was only a matter of time until he took his shame too far and in an act of callous drunkenness, would pull the trigger. He needed to find something to give him a purpose to live before it was too late.

chapter
11

I
T WAS AROUND
8:30 am when Mike let himself into Big Pete’s country style house and strutted through the hallway between the living room and dining room. As he entered the kitchen, he found Big Pete at the island reading the paper and drinking a steaming cup of coffee.

Big Pete was a bear of a man at 6’6” and 320 pounds. At 6’4”, 230 pounds, Mike was built like a steel cable, but Big Pete dwarfed him. During his playing days, he was known for being a mean mother-fucker on the field and a big smoothie off of it.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Big Pete said as he looked up. “What happened to you?”

“If I was a horse, they’d shoot me,” Mike replied as he grabbed a Gatorade from the refrigerator.

“If you keep doing this to yourself you’re going to die.”

“We’re all going to die one day,” Mike said as he snatched the sports’ page from Big Pete and sat down. “I’m just going to die on my terms.”

“That’s what you said in college.”

It was true. Mike got addicted to painkillers and was drinking heavily after he blew his knee out and eventually he graduated to cocaine. He was on a three day bender when Big Pete showed up at his apartment. Mike was sitting on his couch with his leg in a brace watching TV in a comatose haze. There was a pile of cocaine and a water bong on the coffee table.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Big Pete bellowed.

“What the fuck does it look like I’m doing?” Mike slurred with red, half-mast eyes.

“It looks like you’re trying to kill yourself.”

“What the fuck do you know?”

“I know this shit isn’t going to help you.”

“Who asked you?”

“I’m not going to let you do this to yourself,” Big Pete said as threw the table against the wall.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Mike asked as he wobbled to his feet.

“I’m taking you to get help.”

“Like hell you are.”

“You think you can stop me Mikey? Look at you. You’re a fucking mess.”

“Fuck you,” Mike grumbled as he took a flailing swing and tumbled over.

“Look how pathetic you are.”

“I wouldn’t be like this if you didn’t miss your block,” Mike said as he rolled over against the foot of the couch.

“That’s bullshit. You’re using your injury as an excuse.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You never played quarterback. You’re only a fucking lineman and a shitty one at that.”

“I know you don’t mean that Mikey.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to be the leader and have your team taken away from you.”

“I know it sucks, but there is life outside of football.”

“Oh really? Football was my life and now I’ve got nothing.”

“That’s not true. Everything comes easy for you. You just have to get yourself clean.”

At first Mike resisted, but then reluctantly agreed to allow Big Pete to drive him to a drug and alcohol treatment clinic. Mike didn’t buy into their twelve step program or belief in a “higher power” and was in denial. Then he met Gunnery Sergeant Baker who was also getting treatment for drug and alcohol abuse and he changed Mike’s life.

Gunnery Sergeant Baker was a Navy SEAL and ten years Mike’s senior. He regaled Mike with stories of the clandestine missions and used words like “camaraderie”, “brotherhood” and “leadership”. Mike realized that the Navy SEALs offered him everything he was missing from football and gave him a reason to quit drinking and get his life in order. Gunnery Sergeant Baker tried to talk him out of joining the SEALs, telling him that Basic Underwater
Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training is the toughest and longest military training in the world and only a small percentage make it through, but Mike was determined. He figured if he was mentally tough enough to get sober then he was tough enough to make it through BUD/S. He quickly found out there was a big difference. There were a couple of times during BUD/S when he almost quit and rang the bell due to fatigue and hypothermia, but he reminded himself that he didn’t have anything to go back to and this was his chance to be part of a team again. He used his sobriety as his motivation telling himself that if he wasn’t tough enough to make it through training then he wasn’t tough enough to remain sober and would probably end up killing himself. After he made it through training, Gunnery Sergeant Baker told him that he wasn’t really trying to talk him out of doing it; he was just making sure Mike was up to the challenge. He told Mike how proud he was of him.