Erik Handy (5 page)

"Who hit you, son?"

Nolan shook his head. He wasn't about to break the adolescent code of honor. Doing so would ensure another beating.

But he was getting tired of the abuse and praying wasn't making it go away.

"I won't do anything. Just tell me who? Is it that boy Ricardo?"

Nolan wanted his dad to quit pestering him about this. It was his business. He'd deal with it in his own way -- which would mean more praying and bruises.

"If you don't tell me," Nolan's father continued, "I'll pull you out of that school."

"And put me into private? Little Nolan now seemed to take an interest in this conversation.

"If it's God will."

Nolan looked down at his scuffed sneakers and thought for a moment. Private school. Nolan knew that meant the King's Christian Academy. The idea he'd be with like-minded kids and away from Westgate bullies appealed to him. He hated Westgate with all those dirty, poor kids. Yuck.

His father was such a smart man. And cool, too. He knew how boys acted and what they usually wanted. He was a boy once, Nolan remembered. Nolan wanted to grow up to be a cool dad. But only if God willed it.

Was it God's will that gave Nolan the chance to get out of filthy public school? Was it God's will that he'd have such an awesome dad? That Ahmed Pavon frequently picked on him much to the amusement of the rest of the class?

Nolan looked up at his dad and said, "I won't tell you."

He started private school a few months later.

Nolan kept tabs on Ahmed Pavon. The bully would up becoming a dad -- and a child molester. Three kids and one conviction later, Pavon wound up with his throat cut and his testicles chopped off in a jail shower room. God's will and all.

***

Nolan paced back and forth in the constable's dimly lit office.

The grocer's son and daughter were at Jacoby's desk, heads down, asleep or pretending to be.

The poor children.

He thought about Ahmed Pavon. How could God let bad men like him and the men who took Marie -- and murder the grocer and his wife -- exist? To try the honest and good? Nolan was too exhausted to make sense of this madness.

"Father." The grocer's son.

Although the boy had lost his parents within the past day, the glimmer of youthful hope and enthusiasm still glowed in his eyes. However, Nolan knew if the boy remained in this slum the glimmer would soon dull like his possible fate.

Nolan was about to say the boy's name, but realized he didn't know it. Instant shame increased his determination to make amends to the boy and his sister. And to Marie and tiny John Paul.

"What is it?" Nolan asked.

"When will the men be back?"

Nolan shook his head. "I don't know. We're safe here though. There's a soldier outside."

The boy obviously had another line of thought that differed from Nolan's. "Are the men coming back?"

"Which men? The soldiers?"

Nolan hoped that's what the boy meant. He shivered at the thought of dealing with those murderers from the jungle again.

The boy, thankfully, nodded.

"Soon," Nolan replied.

"Will they find the baby?"

"Yes." Nolan wasn't so sure, but he wanted to believe there was a slim chance the baby was well. "Yes, they will."

"Alive?"

A commotion from somewhere outside ended the conversation.

Chapter 20

Nolan joined the guard outside the constable's office. Both men looked down the street at the bar there. It was night and a sickly yellow light shone out of every glassless window there. Some townspeople could be seen inside from Nolan's vantage point.

Jacoby's jeep was sloppily parked outside the joint.

"The constable's back," said the guard. "He is alone."

A thick shiver coursed through Nolan.

His fear soon turned to rage as he assumed the constable turned tail and ran, leaving his soldiers in the lurch somewhere. Why else would he return without them?

Nolan left the guard and strode to the bar with the purpose of confronting Jacoby. The guard was about to stop the priest, but didn't care enough to follow through.

The bar was packed with curious townspeople. If only they cared for each other, Nolan thought. Everyone inside crowded around Jacoby, who was already at the bar whiskey drinking straight from a bottle.

Nolan edged up to him, drawing his attention.

"Ah, Father," Jacoby drunkenly greeted. "Come! Join me!" He offered Nolan his bottle, but the priest knocked it away.

"What happened?" Nolan demanded. "Where's Fleur? Where's everybody else?"

"Everybody? I am everybody!" Jacoby laughed, then took another swig.

Nolan just glared at the constable. Jacoby had had no choice but to buckle under the priest's glare.

"Dead," Jacoby said, sobering up. He relived the massacre as she slowly spoke. "They came out of the jungle."

The nosy townspeople clung to every word the men spoke, mesmerized.

"They? Who?"

The constable shook his head. He turned his attention to peeling the label off the bottle. Why couldn't this insufferable man leave him alone? "I don't know. There are hundreds of different tribes that live out there. Death cults? I shouldn't have said that."

"Death cults?"

Jacoby regretted his words. Nolan was hooked and the small crowd around them was enthralled. He didn't want to talk about this. Leave the darkness of the jungle in the jungle.

"There are those who worship death," Jacoby said. The townspeople stood transfixed by his words. "You must know about these people."

"You're crazy," Nolan replied.

"These people sacrifice other people. Sometimes each other."

He turned to meet Nolan's stare.

"And babies." He turned to the crowd. "Sacrifices for everyone! On me!"

The audience gasped. Though they knew something taboo like a death cult was indeed a reality in their world, the horror was now made concrete. And it was closer than they would have liked it to be.

Nolan shook his head. "I don't believe --"

"You believe what you want, Father. They'll," Jacoby gestured to their audience, "believe what they want, too. It doesn't matter."

Jacoby snatched up the bottle and proceeded to head upstairs. He hoped to get drunk enough to not feel his fear.

Nolan stepped in his way. "Where are you going? We need to get help."

Jacoby went around the pest. "I am going upstairs." He was about to add something, but didn't.

Disgusted, Nolan left the bar.

The crowd lingered, absorbing the shocking news of events, whispering to one another, adding rumors and fuel to this evergrowing fire. This rumor-mongering gave purpose to their lives -- and they were reveling in it. They were afraid, but never had they felt more useful.

Upstairs, Jacoby stumbled into the room he visited earlier in the day. The same prostitute was sitting at the vanity, plying make-up to her face. It didn't help.

She looked over at him sadly, not wanting him again. She already had him once today. She thought she would start dry heaving at any second. That wouldn't be good for business so she quit thinking and start doing.

She reluctantly went to him. He unbuttoned his own shirt. Good. She didn't want to touch him. He wasn't a man, she thought. She heard what he just said downstairs. She knew what he did or rather did not do earlier.

No. He's not a man. But then again, none of them were.

Chapter 21

The village was a mirror image of the nearby town, but on a smaller scale. Several huts built from scrap wood and metal were spaced out here and there amid chicken coops and old cars and trucks which would never run again. Chickens threatened to overtake the population, but no villager noticed their numbers -- the villagers were either too despondent due to mental illness or drugs. All of this -- chickens, rusted-out autos, shells of people -- was plopped down in the middle of dense jungle, far from prying eyes.

Marie laid unconscious on the floor of one of the huts while Rosalo and two of his followers stood over her. Her chest bandage was soaked through with sweat and blood. She slept -- as if anyone could call it that -- fitfully, moaning, twitching.

Night was falling so a few lit candles were on the floor around the woman. The light wasn't for her comfort though -- it was there so the men could watch her suffer in her final hours.

Rosalo's face showed no trace of sympathy or humanity. The bitch ran. She thought she could escape with Jean Paul. How dare she defy the order of things?

The other two men just looked at her, void of any emotion. Rosalo's iron rule and their individual psychoses leeched whatever feelings they once possessed.

"Soon," Rosalo said, more to the unconscious Marie than his men. "Our child will bear witness to that sweet, cold emptiness. Then you. I'll take my time with you."

"The police," one of the men dared. "Won't they try to rescue her again?"

Rosalo grunted. "I'm not impressed with their heroics. Besides this is a big jungle. We know where we are. They do not."

He looked down at his wife for a moment longer before leaving. His men lingered, possibly offering a silent prayer for Marie, possibly not. The duo then left.

All was still save for Marie's labored breathing.

She slept, but did not dream. The stress and shock due to the past few hours shut down that luxury. No, instead she was left to nothingness as her body and soul struggled for repair.

Minutes or hours later, a hand caressed her cheek.

Her eyes slowly opened.

She backed away from the hand, which belonged to a woman her age. A fellow villager.

"Angelina," Marie barely whispered.

Angelina had gentle features, soft, peaceful, and clean, which went against the grain here. She was someone Marie talked to when the men were not around. Their conversations were brief and reassured the women that they were not alone out here despite the desolation they felt.

"It's all right," Angelina whispered. She looked over her shoulder, wary of being found. "Can you walk?"

Marie thought about it before nodding. She hurt all over, but she realized numbness was seeping into her body. Numbness and cold.

Angelina helped Marie up. She oriented herself. Home. She had to be back in the tiny village.

My baby, she remembered. No.

Angelina pulled Marie up to her wobbly feet.

"You can stand, at least," Angelina commented.

Marie flashed back to the man who carried her back to the village. Angelina's husband. She flinched.

My baby.

The duo tiptoed to the door. Marie pulled back.

"My baby. My child."

Angelina looked at the floor. "We will avenge him."

Marie's eyes shot open. "He's dead?"

"No." Angelina shook her head. "But we can not save him. We must leave. We can get our revenge."

Marie began to cry. This couldn't be happening. Not to her. She thought she was protected because of her husband Rosalo and his religious inclinations.

However, things changed and she didn't know when or how they did.

She should have known better than to stay with Rosalo and his friends. She should have left much earlier, before the baby. Before Rosalo betrayed her. Before he went crazy with all this death nonsense.

"I know what you feel," Angelina said. "They took mine. She was . . . we can not linger here. They'll return any second now."

Marie backed further into the hut, retreating into the dark. Angelina took her by the hand and dragged her outside.

***

Angelina and Marie appeared to be the only people outside, but that didn't dissuade Angelina from using caution in their escape. They sneaked to the outskirts of the settlement. Marie was basically dragged along by her arm, barely a participant in her own escape.

Angelina yanked Marie alongside a hut just as a male villager rounded a corner towards them. The village was so small that there really wasn't anywhere to run or hide. Luckily for the women, the villager passed by without noticing them.

Angelina pulled Marie, but the woman stayed put.

"We have to go," Angelina urged.

"Where?"

"Some of us who've had our loved ones --" Angelina searched for the right word, a word that didn't sting as much. "--
taken
have gathered a few miles from here. We've been waiting for there to be enough of us."

"Enough? For what?"

Angelina was about to answer, but shook her head instead. She pulled Marie back onto the path out of the village. There would be time for explanations later.