The Eye of Madness (41 page)

“Can we go out and play now, Daddy?” Seth asked, referring to a group of Impal children nearby.

One little boy smiled hopefully at Thomas. He was a child who would have been condemned by most a short time ago. Like Thomas and Seth, the young boy wearing the green Lego Star Wars t-shirt had changed. Not by appearance or personality, but by an attitude adjustment. The next level of existence brought on a change in all those who entered. Patrick may have turned them in to the authorities at the Air and Space Museum due to sheer jealousy, but now envy was an expired emotion. It disappeared after he entered the Tesla Gate shortly after Thomas and Seth.

“Sure you can,” Thomas said. “But first, I have some people I want you to meet … both of you,” he said, giving Patrick a wink.

Patrick smiled as he and Seth wrapped their arms around each other's shoulder like they were buddies for life. They marched along shoulder to shoulder behind Thomas as the sea of Impals parted for them.

The bodies were hidden behind the wooden platform in front of the Tesla Gate. A group of Impals carried out the task while Cecil and his girls talked to Barbara. It wasn't done to hide them from Seth and other child Impals, but to hide them from Sam Andrews. He couldn't take his eyes off his own corpse.

Thomas arrived beside the gurney just as Barbara tried to get up. She plopped back down with an exasperated
“humph.”
It would be a while before she would be able to get up and move around. In spite of Cecil moving her arms and legs on a daily basis, her muscles needed a little time to wake up again.

“Major Garrison, I want to give you a proper introduction to my son, Seth. Also to his friend, Patrick.”

“Hello, Patrick,” Cecil said with a warm smile as Patrick stepped forward to shake his hand. After he accepted Patrick's frigid handshake, he turned his attention to Seth. He met Seth under less than ideal circumstances when he tried and failed to rescue him from the Tesla Gate.

“Hello Seth,” Cecil said as he accepted another cold greeting from the boy. “It is so good to see you again!”

Seth gave him a puzzled frown before recognition dawned over his glowing features. “You're the Army man who tried to get me back to my daddy,” he beamed.

“I tried,” Cecil said with a sad smile. “I'm sorry.”

“Why?” Seth asked with a goofy grin. “Mission accomplished!” He said, reaching out and grasping his father's hand.

All hints of a speech impediment were gone now.

Cecil took the opportunity to introduce Seth and Patrick to his daughters, who agreed to go and play with the boys. As they talked, Thomas walked to the side of the Tesla Gate. He stared in horror at what lay behind the monstrous structure. No one knew what the future held and how long this storm would last, but the situation behind the Shredder must be addressed soon. Cecil soon joined him.

“Oh, Jesus,” Cecil gasped.

A large and glowing mound started a few feet behind the Tesla Gate. It was as high as a man and stretched through the back wall of the hangar. The logistics of the mound were not important, its composition was. Cecil estimated there to be almost a thousand sleeping Impals piled on top of one another. They were the suicides tossed through the Gate, lying unseen until the eye passed a short time ago.

CHAPTER 44

JUSTICE

“The dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a duty of the living to do so for them.”

~Lois McMaster Bujold

Abraham Lincoln once said, “I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”

In the last century and a half, President Lincoln had seen much in his invisible presence at the White House. The lessons he learned since the storm arrived were far more valuable than an extra two hundred years of unseen study. Lincoln would say the two piles of burned flesh behind the wooden platform were some of the richest fruit he had ever seen. He came to realize that sometimes mercy is not deserved, nor is it beneficial to society. Like rotten flesh from a body, some people must be removed from humanity.

Lincoln was still around, yet he was a long distance away. There was no judgment on the island he had come to call home. There were only Impals, all relocated by the brother of Sam Andrews. They barely left American waters when the eye of the storm passed over the Earth. As the Impals disappeared, the crews of the two boats succumbed to the darkness. It was terrifying for the Impals to stand around, unseen and powerless. They watched, helpless, as their liberators were forced into more and more heinous forms of suicide by the dark. The evil countenance of the dark souls was burned into the heart of each Impal like a branding iron heated in the depths of Hell. The Impals could see them. So could the unfortunate fleshers who found themselves trapped in the darkness.

The Impals of the slaughtered sailors and the payload of Impals washed ashore a day later. The two boats crashed on the rocks of an uninhabited island somewhere in the Atlantic. There they stayed, unseen and alone, until the eye passed. Some considered duplicating the method they used to traverse underneath the Chesapeake Bay. Of course, they had no idea how far from land they were. The middle of the Atlantic is much deeper and darker than the Chesapeake Bay.

Cecil went about the task of removing the bodies and placing them on the tarmac outside. He didn't move his father's body. He tried to distract himself from the unpleasantness by thinking of Lincoln and the other Impals. He remembered faces, but a few names stuck with him. Of course, there was Lincoln and the recently assassinated President of the United States. His friend, Colonel Danny Bradley, who died in the evacuation. Cecil's childhood science idol, Nikola Tesla, was also part of the group, as well as the famous Chief Powhatten. Cecil thought of these people, as well as a few who were not so famous. Mrs. Fiddler and her daughter, along with little Chester Henry stood out in Cecil's mind. He especially remembered Chester, the poor child who was buried alive in an iron casket for a century. He wanted to see all these people again, and began to make plans in his mind to find them. He jumped when someone behind him spoke.

“Have you seen Steffanie Garrison?” Carmella asked.

Cecil frowned and asked, “What do you want with my daughter?”

Carmella's eyes widened. “Are you Major Cecil Garrison?”

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“I worked for you father in the White House,” she said, staring at the ground.

Cecil took a couple of steps backward as if Carmella's very presence was poisonous.

“My father?” Cecil said with disgust. “What the hell do you want with my daughter?”

“Please, I … I was trying to watch over her. I never meant for anything to happen to her. I'm so, so sorry,” Carmella said. Tears began to pour down her face, but she composed herself and wiped them away. She took a deep shuddering breath and gazed up at Cecil. “I love your daughter, Major Garrison. Just ask her.”

Cecil studied her face in the glow of the luminescent night sky. He then glanced at the bodies, all lined up and covered. He turned back to Carmella and gave her a slight nod. “Okay,” he said. “Wait here, I'll be right back.” He turned to go, then turned back to her. “What did you say your name was again?”

“Carmella,” she said.

Carmella and Steff had their reunion a few minutes later. After watching their interaction, Cecil was satisfied that Carmella was a friend. He left them to their conversation and went back into the hangar. There was much to do, but he did not know where to start.

The next day, based on the testimony of six Impal women, Private Jack Abernathy was arrested for multiple murders. He laughed and scoffed at the judge for his idiotic proclamations of Jack's evil deeds.

“Yes, this man is just another fool,” Jack said pointing to the judge. He turned to everyone in the small conference room, as if he was seeking their approval. There was none, only disdain and disgust. The most sickened face of all was from his former friend, Private Sean Poindexter. Jack made eye contact with him, expecting support from his old friend. Sean was determined not to break eye contact, to show resolve in his displeasure for Jack's actions, but he couldn't do it. The darkness hidden behind Jack's blue eyes for so long had now come to the surface like a dreadful oil spill. He couldn't look at the real face of his friend, it was too disturbing. He felt as if he was going to be sick, so he turned and left the room.

“Bloody coward!” Jack screamed as the door slammed shut.

The judge ordered he be returned to his cell to await trial in in three weeks. In the meantime, the bodies of the women would be excavated. Three weeks was a conservative estimate since the world was now in a new state of chaos and flux. The damage the darkness brought was incalculable. The uncertainty of the future was almost as terrifying as the darkness itself. A murder trial now seemed such a trivial thing. Yet, in his wisdom, the judge recognized the importance of quickly returning to a state of law and civility.

Jack was led from the room as he continued to scream his vile protests at anyone who was within earshot. Several bystanders, both flesher and Impal, lined the path to the prison. They watched in silence as the private, turned serial killer, marched past. The whole base seemed to have fallen into an eerie silence, making Jack's ramblings sound as if they were shouted in the mouth of a cave.

Jack had not been back in his cell more than an hour when one of the guards discovered him hanging beside his bed. He fashioned a makeshift noose from the bed sheets and tied them around a water pipe on the ceiling. His method of hanging was not as elaborate as Lieutenant William Langford's, but the result was the same. He was dead.

There was no Impal, sleeping or otherwise. His body dangled from the ceiling, a defiant sneer frozen on his face. The guard who found him swears that just moments before his gruesome discovery, the shadows in the prison seemed to move.

When Rebekah emerged from the medical tent, she found the entire camp engulfed with a mix of fleshers and Impals. The Impals seemed to outnumber everyone else at least two to one. They cast a brilliant bluish light that mixed with the orange rays of the rising sun. It gave the sky a temporary appearance of glowing blueberry and orange syrup. The morning sky was almost as mesmerizing as the luminescent ocean of Impals beneath.

They soon made their way through the throng, heading back to their tent. What would have been a five-minute walk took almost a half hour. Rebekah and Malakhi felt a chill at each frequent contact with an Impal, but they did not consider it disturbing. They felt it comforting.

Many of the Impals exchanged pleasantries with them, while others walked by in a confused trance. There were also a few who stopped to ask Rebekah questions, which she did not know the answer.

“Where is my husband?” an ancient Israeli woman asked.

“Where should we go?” a modern Palestinian family asked.

The oddest question she got was from a short man wearing the attire of a medieval knight. “What time is it?” he asked.

All Rebekah could do was give a polite smile and shrug. Even though she could tell they all spoke different languages, she understood them, yet she felt as lost as they did. Her head was so inundated with happiness and confusion, she did not notice something when they first entered the tent. When the unexpected presence sunk in, her jaw almost hit the floor. Sitting on a small stool in the far corner was the old woman she knew as Ruth.

Ruth and Gestas stared at each other for several moments. She did not regard him with hatred or fear, but Ruth seemed to study him as if viewing a piece of unusual art. Gestas met her gaze with a smile of gratitude. He walked over and knelt down in front of her. He reached out and grasped her right hand, and then kissed it.

“Thank you,” Gestas whispered.

She began to cry. Gestas was confused. This was not the reaction he expected or imagined. If anything, he expected her to be angry with him.

Gestas glanced back at Rebekah for help then he felt Ruth squeeze his hand. He turned back to see her smiling at him, in spite of her tears.

“Thank you for saving me, Gestas,” she said.

“I … I …” he stammered. He didn't know what to say so he said the first thing that came into his mind. “I don't even know your name.”

She wiped her tears with the palms of her hands and said, “My name is Eliezra.”

A couple of glowing tears dropped from Gestas's cheeks.

“Salvation,” he said. “Eliezra means salvation.”

Gestas ducked his head and began to sob with happiness.

“I don't understand,” Rebekah said. “How did he help you?”

Eliezra released her grip and placed her hand on top of Gestas's head.

“My husband died almost a year ago. I had my daughter and her husband to take care of me, but they couldn't be there all the time. Even though I love her very much, she just wasn't a replacement for Jacob,” she blinked and rubbed her eyes as she sat up straight. “Jacob was my husband,” she said as if Rebekah did not understand.

“I'm sorry,” Rebekah said. She considered asking the obvious question, but before she could, Eliezra answered for her.

“I was moving on, but was still lost when the storm arrived,” she said, then her face hardened and her mouth creased into a thin line. “The damn storm,” she muttered. “I got my hopes up that maybe Jacob had stayed. I hoped I would get to see him again.” She stopped and sighed as tears began to pour from her eyes again. “He wasn't here … I guess he was too smart to stay.”

Rebekah took Eliezra's other hand. The poor old woman squeezed so hard, Rebekah winced.

Eliezra took a shuddering breath and said, “I saw others around me reunited with their loved ones and felt like I had lost him a second time. I just couldn't take the pain.”

“So you began drinking?” Rebekah asked softly.