The Eye of Madness (42 page)

“Yes, but it was more than that. I was willing to try anything to get rid of the pain. I hadn't seen my daughter for weeks. I was passed out in an alley when Gestas found me.” She glanced at Gestas who was listening to her with a sad smile. “He scared the hell out of me at first,” she said as she patted his head. “I could see … I knew all the horrible things he had done.”

She took her hand away and placed it in her lap.

“I could also see the goodness fighting to get out … his struggle for redemption.”

Nobody said anything for a long time. Not even Nehemya understood the significance of their struggle. Only Eliezra and Gestas could appreciate it. They saved each other.

“I need to find my daughter now,” she said with resolve. She knew there was a good chance her daughter had not survived the darkness, but she allowed herself to hope. She refused to consider the possibility that her daughter might be dead. Gestas may have saved her from her own hopelessness, but if her daughter was gone, she wasn't sure she could endure it.

“We will help you,” Rebekah offered. She turned to her father and son. “We all will.”

The world would be a delicate place in the coming days. Several people would search for lost loved ones, both Impal and flesher. Some would find happiness, but many would find themselves in a nightmare from which there was no waking.

CHAPTER 45

A NEW BEGINNING

“Much as we may wish to make a new beginning, some part of us resists doing so as though we were making the first step toward disaster.”

~William Throsby Bridges

Mary Tudor, formerly Bloody Mary, walked through the streets of a small hamlet about ten miles from the base. She led a nervous young woman by the hand. Donna had not been home for almost a year and didn't believe her parents would take her back. The drugs, the booze, and the promiscuity had driven her away. She thought it drove her parents away, but she didn't know the truth. Donna's parents spent months searching for her, never giving up hope that their daughter would come home again. Her mother refused to accept the possibility she might be dead. She very well may have died if Mary hadn't found her when she did. Her heart was beginning to fail from a massive overdose when Mary came forward and took control. She was able to give Donna's body enough strength to live and become sober. Mary managed to give both of them redemption.

As they travelled the short path leading to Donna's cottage home, it reminded Mary of a house she used to visit as a child. It was a happy memory. One of the few pleasant memories before becoming entrenched in the arrogance of her self-righteousness royal duties. Mary tried to focus on the positive as they walked. She had witnessed too much blood and violence in her existence. She was responsible for it all. Even though she gained redemption for herself, she still couldn't slip the memory of her past. It was too painful. The innocuous nature of their serene setting drove the point home. Weren't her own deeds immortalized in the words of an innocent nursery rhyme?

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With silver bells, and cockle shells, And pretty maids all in a row …

“Contrary” is one way to describe a murderous psychopath. This popular English nursery rhyme reads like gardening advice. In truth, it is a recounting of the homicidal nature attributed to Mary. A fierce believer in Catholicism, her reign saw the execution of hundreds of Protestants. Silver bells and cockleshells are torture devices, not garden accouterments. Maids, or maidens, was another name for the crude guillotine used in England at the time. Even as an Impal, she now found it difficult to escape the horrors of her past. She shivered and wiped a tear from her eye. Mary felt unworthy of this grace. She channeled her thoughts back to helping Donna find her parents.

She had a bad feeling about this trip from the beginning. Once they confirmed Donna's parents were not at the base, she knew the chances that they were still alive were slim. There was another base about thirty miles away, but reaching it alive would have been problematic at best. She walked a few steps in front of the expectant girl, hoping to shield her against what she feared they would find. She asked Donna to wait on the top step as she passed through the front door to make a perfunctory search of the home. At first, Mary found nothing, but then she looked out a back window and gasped.

Donna's parents were in the back yard. They were dead. Mary felt sick and hollow; it was almost as if the dark souls knew she would be the one to find the bodies. Besides torture and beheadings, Mary was well known for another atrocity; burning people at the stake.

A clothesline, bookended by metal poles a short distance apart, stood several yards from the house. Lashed to each pole were the charred remains of two people. Their blackened heads lolled forward over the binding as if they were paying their respects to the queen.

She knew they were Donna's parents. A gasoline can rested on its side halfway between the poles. The surrounding yard and shrubs were scorched. If it hadn't been for an excess of rain the past month, the house and woods may have burned down. She peered closer and saw several pieces of charred wood lying on the ground beneath them. They had gathered the kindling and placed it on the ground around the pole before tying themselves to it. A burnt line between the two poles suggested one of them lit the fire after they doused themselves in gasoline. She wondered how she ever allowed something so horrific and barbaric in her name, not to mention, God's. Silver tears began to stream down her cheeks. Mary lost herself in regret for a few moments, which is why she did not realize Donna had walked in behind her. She heard a gasp and then turned to see the horrified girl standing there.

“My parents?” she whispered.

Mary moved to block her view, and then tried to usher her out of the room. Donna resisted. She pushed right through Mary, taking no notice of the bizarre sensation. Donna stood at the large picture window with her palms pressed against the glass. If not for the occasional rise and fall of her chest, a casual observer might have thought her to be a mannequin. She didn't move, didn't blink, and didn't feel. This was the way she appeared on the outside. Inside, there raged a tempest of emotions, each fighting to come forward and seize the moment. Donna did not let them. At first, she felt guilty that her parents were dead and she was not. If she only hadn't left, if she hadn't been stupid then she would have been here with them. If she had, all three of them would be dead. In the end, the only real emotion surfaced. Donna burst into mournful tears.

“Why?” she sobbed. “Why …?”

She was startled for a moment when she felt Mary's cold hand on her shoulder.

“My dear, I am sorry that you saw this,” Mary said. “You do know your parents are still here, don't you?”

Mary's words did not register at first. Donna was too lost in her own grief. As the truth of what she said began to sink in, she wiped her eyes and took a deep, raspy breath.

“Do you think?” she asked.

“I know,” Mary said.

Donna turned to face Mary and was surprised to see a radiant smile on the former queen's face. There was something else unusual, something she couldn't put her finger on at first. Then it occurred to her. The room was brighter than it was a few moments ago. It was a cloudy, overcast day and the power was out. Yet, it was as if someone turned on a bright lamp behind Mary, or … perhaps it was two lamps.

As Mary stepped to the side, Donna rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. She blinked and screwed up her eyes. As the world came into focus, her heart leapt. Standing a few feet away, glowing with silvery luminescence, were her parents. They smiled lovingly at her. Before anyone could speak, Donna rushed to them and embraced them both. She didn't notice the cold and warmth of their intimate touch. Nor did she notice the warm shooting stars streaking through her body that were her parent's tears. All she knew was unconditional and unbounded love. Mary had saved her from her own arrogant stupidity and brought her home. Perhaps not quite as expected, but she was home.

Many of the Impal men spent several hours placing the sleeping Impals in straight lines at the back of the hanger. They carried out the task with a great deal of respect and dignity. After all, they were still people regardless of how they died.

Cecil spent time with his wife and daughters, but not as much as he wanted. Even though the darkness seemed to have passed, the world was still dangerous. It would take strong leadership from a benevolent military to restore order. He considered it his solemn duty to begin the healing right away. Cecil left the girls in the trusted hands of Thomas Pendleton as he and a few other officers made their way to the base headquarters. He did not consider it his own personal mission, he realized he would be one part in a large and moving machine of reformation. He still felt somewhat responsible for his father's actions. However misplaced his feelings may be, Cecil was ashamed to carry the surname of Garrison.

As he and a few other soldiers walked the dark trail between the hangar and headquarters, Cecil noticed something. A person watching from a well-lit window on the second floor of the infirmary, which stood next door to base headquarters. His heart sank into the pit of his stomach when he remembered what his father told him about Burt. The person watching in the window was Sally.

“Jesus,” he thought to himself. “I need to get in there and talk to her.”

Cecil broke off from the group with the promise he would meet them in the conference room in twenty minutes. Little did he know, it was the same conference room with a closet containing the corpse of a man impaled by a flagpole.

Sally met him at the door with a big hug.

“I've been so worried about you and your girls … what happened?”

“We're fine,” Cecil said and then shook off the question. “I'm so sorry about Burt,” Cecil said as he gave Sally another hug.

He felt as if he needed a hug himself. Cecil felt numb and empty on the inside because he had lost his daughters and now his best friend.

“Would you like to see him?” a woman in a doctor's lab coat asked from behind Sally.

Cecil looked to Sally for consent and she nodded her approval. He patted her on the back one last time before stepping past her, and then followed the nurse down the long, sterile hallway to the stairs at the far end. They went up one flight and then turned right, walking a short distance before pausing in front of a partially shut door.

“He's in here,” the nurse said. “I'll come back for you in a few minutes.”

They were in an area with several patients rooms. Cecil thought it a bit strange that his friend was not taken to the morgue or at least a private and secluded area of the building. He stood outside the door, feeling empty and alone. A tear rolled down Cecil's face, but he wiped it away when another thought occurred to him. Shouldn't Burt's Impal still be here? After all, he had seen Sam Andrews die and his Impal was still here.

Cecil stepped forward and eased open the door. What he found in the room, he did not expect. He presumed to see Burt lying in a state of eternal repose with his Impal standing beside the body. His expectations did not even approach the truth.

There was no bright light from an Impal, in fact there was no Impal at all. A standard hospital bed rested in the shadows a few feet away from a high, narrow window. There were several pieces of medical equipment humming beside the bed. Someone lay in the bed, but the darkness were too thick to make out any features. Cecil took a couple of steps forward before he stopped in his tracks. The person spoke.

“It's about time.”

It was weak and labored, yet he recognized it all the same. His hair stood on end and his stomach felt as if it was on a runaway elevator. The notion of ghosts or Impals fled his mind as his thoughts turned to something more sinister, something ‘undead'. The voice was Burt's, but yet, it couldn't be him. He was dead and there was not an Impal anywhere in sight. Cecil took a step backward and rasped, “Burt?”

There was several moments of silence as the machines beside the bed whirred and beeped. Cecil heard a long and labored inhale followed by an exhale.

“Yep.”

Cecil walked to the side of the bed. The covers were pulled up to just below his neck and a large bandage encircled his head. In the faint glow from the heart monitor, he could barely make out his features. His eyelids resembled a turbulent ocean, bobbing and rolling up and down over his eyes. It was hard for him to focus. Cecil reached out and took Burt's hand. He felt a faint squeeze, not much, but enough to know that Burt acknowledged his presence.

“I'm here, buddy,” Cecil said, trying to restrain the tears of joy. “I'm here and we won.”

Cecil knew this was not exactly the truth. There was still a lot to be done before any victory could be claimed. Of course, he wasn't going to tell Burt. He felt another faint squeeze letting him know he had been heard. Cecil was trying to think of something else to say when someone spoke behind him. He almost jumped out of his skin.

“The doctor said, screw your old man,” Sally said. “He wasn't going to let Burt die.”

Cecil turned, his mouth agape. Sally mistook his shock at her uncharacteristic use of profanity as offense for mentioning his father.

“I'm sorry, Cecil,” she said. “I know this has been hard for you … please forgive me.”

He shook his head as if fending off a pesky fly.

“I'm glad he told him to ‘piss' off,” Cecil said. “I hope he didn't face any repercussions because of it.”

Sally ducked her head and stared at the floor.

“The doctor's Impal is downstairs. He is still caring for Burt in spite of his execution.”

The Impals stranded on the island in the Atlantic Ocean were fortunate to have such good leaders, not to mention the brilliant mind of Nikola Tesla. These men would help lead them back to civilization, but their good fortune did not end there. Since the eye passed, they had come to realize they were not the same as before the storm. They still looked the same, but they were not as dense as before. The Impals were able to pass through things with little or no concentration. They also seemed to have lost their desire for food. In fact, they suffered no more ties to physical existence, including the need to sleep. While this was curious and interesting, it was not the most incredible thing.