The Book of Paul -- A Paranormal Thriller (9 page)

Martin opened his eyes and stared at the nail in his hand. Then his gaze drifted upward to Paul’s unblinking eyes. He was still wearing the dead mask, showing him nothing—a shark with his eyes rolled backwards. But as Martin surfaced, Paul came back to life and put on his warm friendly mask, congratulating him on his victory.

“Ahhhh…good boy,” he said, with genuine admiration. He started to get up, but then sat back down and placed his hand on top of Martin’s crucified one. Paul had no fingernails. He closed his eyes and breathed in slowly through his nose, savoring the moment, feeling the trembling wreckage inside Martin’s hand. He had evaded all the bones, tendons and major blood vessels with a surgeon’s skill, knowing that Martin would need full use of his hand very soon, but not quite yet. Paul breathed in deeply again, looking into Martin’s tortured eyes, smiling sweeter than Martin had ever seen. Then he grabbed Martin’s hand and gave it a quick sharp tug toward him.

Nothing in the world could have stopped the scream that bellowed from Martin’s throat. Paul threw back his head and screamed along with him, two mad dogs baying to a stone-deaf savior that would never, ever come. Suddenly, Paul stopped, cooing to Martin like he was just a baby, “Shhh…shhhh. Yes, that’s a good, brave lad.” He said the soothing words over and over until Martin’s breathing returned to short, sharp gasps.

Paul rose again from his chair and Martin couldn’t stop himself from groaning in relief. At the sound, Paul froze in place, hovering over him.

“Be a man,” he sneered, then corrected himself: “Be like Christ.”

They started with pins. Tiny needles that looked like the ones in Norine’s sewing kit. It scared Martin just to look at them. Daddy used the needles slowly. Push. Stop. Push. Stop. Then a little bit more, right to the point where Martin could barely stand it. Daddy talked all the time in a voice so calm it felt like a warm, soft towel: “Pain is nothing. One day you’ll grow so big and strong that no one will ever be able to hurt you again. You want to be a big strong man like daddy, don’t you?”

Martin would nod and fight back the tears and Daddy would push in the needle again. Push. Stop. Push. Stop. “Feel the needle, Martin. Feel it…don’t fight it. Feel the core of the pain. It’s sharp, but it’s soft inside. Feel the soft part in the middle and go in there, dive into it like a cool summer pond. It’s not so bad now, is it?”

It was. But the more they did it, all day long sometimes, the more he could feel the soft part…the cool pond…and the deeper he would sink. Down. Down. Down. No words. No voice. No “Ouch!” Just the switch. There it is, right over there. Push. Stop. Push. Stop. Click. Now the pain was something else. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad either. It just
was
. There was nothing you could say about it, and no more reason to cry.

The first time Martin didn’t want to pull his hand away was the proudest moment of his short young life, even better than his first kill. There was no hurt. No pain. No tears. No fear. Well, some fear, but even that must have its own cool pond. Its own switch. Martin looked up at the man with the sharp needle and asked, “Daddy…what’s your real name?”

Daddy looked at him with an expression he couldn’t understand, then answered in a whisper so faint he had to lean in to hear it.

“Son, my name is Paul.”

“Tell me a story,” Martin said with a smile half as big as his face. They were in the wheat field again, sitting in the worn wooden flatbed of a broken-down pickup truck.

“What kind of story?” Daddy asked, already knowing the answer.

“Tell me about the angel!” Martin cried in a high-pitched voice.

“Again?” he asked, feigning astonishment. “I have many stories to tell.”

“No, tell me about the angel!” Martin yelled gleefully.

The stories had become a ritual for them, every day after his lessons. Now that Martin was controlling the needle, he pushed it in even harder and deeper than Daddy, wanting him to be proud, yes, but also wanting to finish quicker so they could get to the stories. Daddy (he still couldn’t call him Paul, no matter how hard he tried) would sigh as Martin drove the needles in farther and farther, sometimes in one side and out again. When he finally said, “Aye, that’s a good lad,” it was time for the stories. Or story. All his tales seemed connected, like they were part of one big story that didn’t have a beginning or an end. Martin liked the story about the angel most of all. It seemed like Daddy did too.

“Please, please, please!” Martin begged, knowing he didn’t need to.

“Okay, you little rascal,” Daddy smirked, giving him a scorching noogie.

“Once upon a time…such a long, long time ago…there was a very special boy,” Daddy began, shaking his long blond hair back from his sun-baked face like a waking lion. “What made him so special?” he asked, giving Martin a wink.

“He had special powers…and a mark on his chest, like this!” Martin yelled, pulling up his dirty T-shirt to reveal a ring-shaped discoloration on his solar plexus. Unlike most birthmarks, it was lighter than the surrounding skin, like a halo. The first time Daddy saw it, he didn’t seem surprised. He said it was an omen. It meant he was destined for greatness, like the boy in the story.

“See, I have one too,” Daddy said, opening his shirt. In stark contrast to his own scrawny ribcage, Daddy’s was thick with muscles. The mark was even more intimidating. It was dark, dark red—so dark it looked completely black except at the edges. It started with a circle in the center of his breastbone, then radiated outward in inky snakes like the twisted blades of some of his knives. They looked like the rays of the sun—if the sun was black. Martin couldn’t help but stare. It felt like the black sun was pulling him inside.

“Yes, the boy was very special,” Daddy continued, breaking the spell. “So special that he had a very special friend watching over him. His special friend came from another world that was not at all like the world we live in. There was no sun and moon, because everything had its own inner light. The luminous beings in the other world were made of pure energy, so they could never die. But they could never really live either. Not like we do. Some called them gods or daimons, but over time most people came to know them by another name.…”

“Angels!” Martin cried with joy.

“Aye, angels,” Paul nodded, smiling just as brightly.

“On the day of his birth, the boy’s special angel was watching, peering through a gateway connecting their worlds, a portal to his heavenly realm the angel could see through, but was shielded from humans except when they dreamed, or if they had the gift of the
seer
.

“When the angel saw the birthmark on the boy’s chest he was delighted. From that moment on, the angel watched and waited for the boy to manifest some remarkable ability that would prove beyond any doubt he was
An Té atá Tofa.”

“The one who has been chosen,” Martin whispered worshipfully.

“Aye,” Daddy said, suddenly very serious
. “An Té atá Tofa,”
he repeated. Martin had to recite it over and over until he got the pronunciation right. When Daddy was finally satisfied, he continued the story.

“The angel was certain the omen would soon arrive. When it did, and the boy came of age many years later—years that would pass like the flicker of a candle for the ageless angel—then and only then would he offer his magnificent gift to the boy, honoring him with the most profound knowledge ever bestowed upon any human.”

“Tell me, Daddy! Tell me what the angel told the boy!” Martin begged.

“The boy wasn’t ready.” Daddy frowned, shaking his head solemnly. “The omen had not yet arrived. When it did,
if
it did, the boy would have to make an unbreakable vow of loyalty and secrecy. The gift of the angel was so monumental that it could never be allowed to fall into the hands of the unworthy. You see, the angel and all his kind possessed powers far beyond human understanding. They could transform thought into matter and change matter into any form they chose. They possessed all knowledge—the mysteries of life and death, time and space, past and future—the secrets of immortality. They could see far into the future and knew a day would come when our universe and theirs would face the threat of utter destruction. Only
An Té atá Tofa
could avert that apocalypse and bring salvation to all beings. If the omen came and the boy proved worthy, all the powers of the all the angels would be granted to him, if he vowed to guard their sacred knowledge until the time of his anointing. Until the
Becoming
.”

“Daddy, what’s ‘the
Becoming’?”

“You know full well I can’t tell you...until I see an omen about
you
.”

“When will the omen come? When will I be ready?” Martin pouted.

“Someday not too long from now, yet not so close either. But don’t fret, lad. I know it will arrive, just as the angel knew the boy was blessed.

“For him, the omen came on a cloudless day, as omens often do. The boy was still a tiny infant, lying peacefully in the shade while his mother bathed in a nearby stream. When the angel gazed through his portal to look at the boy, what should he see but the boy gazing right back. He was smiling. Waving! The boy could
see
through the portal, not in his dreams, but awake. And he was only a baby! Not only did he have the mark—he was a
seer!
The boy must truly be
An Té atá Tofa!
”

Suddenly, Daddy’s expression changed from elation to sorrow.

“But at the very moment when the boy revealed his true nature, something horrible happened. While his mother was still bathing, a mean, ugly crone snatched up his cradle and stole him away to her filthy hovel made of sticks and mud in the deepest, darkest depths of the forest. She treated the poor child worse than a mongrel dog. When he was old enough to walk, she tethered him to the biggest tree outside, his ankle tied to a rope just long enough to fetch wood for the fire and water from the well. She never spoke to him except to bark commands and barely fed him enough to keep his ribs from poking through his skin…”

“Then one day…” Martin cut in, anxious to get past this part of the story.

“Yes, then one day…” Daddy grinned, goading Martin along.

“He stole a knife from the cutting board and cut the rope and he was finally
free!”
Martin shouted, his smile shining like the sun coming out from a bank of thunderclouds.

“Aren’t you leaving something out?” Daddy pressed.

The clouds passed over Martin’s face again, eclipsing his eager smile.

“He had to do the bad thing first,” Martin replied, his chin sagging to his chest.

“Was it really such a bad thing?” Daddy asked, planting an ogre-sized hand on his tiny shoulder. “Is it a bad thing when you shoot all those greasy, filthy rats in the dump?”

“I guess not,” Martin mumbled, glancing back up into Daddy’s stern, yet kind eyes.

“So what did the boy do after he cut the rope on his ankle?”

“He tip-toed up to her while she was sleeping and stabbed her in the chest over and over until she wasn’t breathing anymore,” Martin said, his face pale and queasy.

“And then?” Paul smiled.

“Then he was
free!”
Martin shouted, beaming again.

“Yes, he was
FREE!”
Paul shouted even louder, slapping his skinny back with pride. “He ran all night along the riverbed, his skin glowing under the moon. Yet all the while he sensed a presence chasing after him, a dark shadow overhead. Could it be the old hag, back from the dead and seeking her revenge? Still running, he looked into the clear night sky to see what flew above him, but it was only the shadows of the moon as he ran through the trees. Alas, when he turned his head, he tripped over his feet, stumbling into the water and sinking like a stone into a deep, dark pool.

“He floated down, down, down, deeper and deeper. He knew he was drowning and all was lost, but his life had been so miserable it didn’t matter anymore. A wonderful sense of calm and fearlessness came over him as the darkness swallowed him completely. And so he closed his eyes, surrendering to his fate.