The Wrath of Jeremy (18 page)

“My God, what’s happening?” Mary yelled out
as they saw the two piles of dirt blow away with a gust of wind.
Jeremy and Mary ran up to Michael and Gabriel in a panic, and
Grewsal’s glow glistened even more, reflecting on the backs of
Jeremy and Mary.

“Don’t look at Grewsal, just don’t look at
it,” warned Jeremy. They all ran away from the fortress when
unexpectedly Jeremy’s eyes caught the sight of two patients
managing to escape through their bedroom windows. Jeremy saw the
two patients lying on the ground, so he tried desperately not to
look at the building and ran up to them while covering his eyes.
They were two women, and they were in pain due to the fall. He
helped both of them up and ran to where Michael, Mary and Gabriel
were, when out of nowhere he felt a burning sensation on his feet.
Jeremy looked down while he ran faster to them and looked at the
blades of grass, seeing that the lawn was glowing a red light that
started to burn at the grass and create smoke. He turned away from
the grass immediately, shouting toward the two women, “Don’t look
at the building, or even the grass!” But the women turned around
anyway and vanished from their human form to a shape of dirt and
mud, and the root of this horror made Jeremy scream, as the feeling
of fright crept up his blistered goose bumps-covered flesh even
more. Once Jeremy reached them, they all ran beyond the gates of
Grewsal and noticed squad cars and two fire engines waiting in the
streets. A sigh of relief came to them, yet when they ran up to the
squad cars, all they saw was nothing but dirt and soil within
them.

“What’s going on?” asked Mary, holding tears
in her eyes, seeing piles and piles of dirt by the fire engines as
well.

Jeremy gave her a hug to calm her down,
replying, “Listen, I don’t know myself, but we’ll find out. All we
have to do is go to Jerusalem.” Through their hug, Jeremy noticed a
man, a young man, about his age, walking toward them. Jeremy
released his hug from Mary and asked the strange man, “Who are
you?”

The man reached out and grabbed Jeremy’s
hand, and started to shake it. “I’m David, and you’re right, we
have to go to Jerusalem.”

Mary noticed her car parked down the street,
realizing that David moved it, and a look of relief came to her
eyes. They all began running to Mary’s car while Michael questioned
David, “Alright, who are you, and why is this all happening?”

“I can’t tell you, but I know who can.” They
got in the car while Mary started her engine and dried her tears at
the same time with a tissue. As she dried them, she noticed the
blood on them all, and started to cry even more, feeling the terror
from the aftermath of their gory experience, she cried and cried
with Jeremy hugging her to calm her down. The car was silent for a
moment, and then David added, “I’m just beginning to remember some
things, not all. In Jerusalem, I know who can tell us the mystery
of what and why we are in this position.”

As the car drove away from Grewsal, they all
looked away from its agonizing anguish. That’s when Gabriel shouted
with anger, “Alright, then, let’s get our butts to wherever we’re
supposed to go to!”

They drove off into the night, with Grewsal
behind them, not realizing that Grewsal vanished into thin air,
with the night being its only witness to its vanishing.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

M
ary drove straight
to the airport, craving to go faster, yearning for her tears to
stroll slower than her speed, yet they flowed as fast as the car
went, continuing to show their clear, transparent luster to her
skittish, paralyzed eyes as she looked in the rear-view mirror with
terror. Confusion took over Mary’s mind, as well as the rest of
them, yet she was the only one who stared at a mirror in the car,
and saw how her eyes changed, went out of tune from this
experience, showing a sort of evil blanket over them that shattered
her innocence into a kind of supernova of her soul.

Yet, they were on their way to reach their
first destination, being an airport of a confusing trip they knew
each of them had to take. The boys didn’t know how to pay for their
plane tickets, what to eat and how they would sleep, but that was
the least of their problems. The main problem that each of them,
besides David, had was why they had to be forced to jam that
terrifying image of seeing Grewsal coming alive into their
minds.

Michael felt his chest as his already
methodical mind became baffled, entranced as to why there wasn’t a
bullet hole in it, why he was still able to breathe in through his
lungs and why his mind was still crying out a subliminal secret of
a past life that he just couldn’t grasp onto and remember. Michael
turned to Gabriel and saw a bit of what he took in and felt in
Gabriel’s eyes as well, seeing Gabriel wipe his tears away as he
became bewildered as to why he’s crying and what started these
tears. Gabriel looked at Jeremy, and saw the same feeling on
Jeremy’s darkened silhouette, as he gawked through the dark
obscurity of the car at Jeremy, and saw his shadow-like image
looking down at the bloodstains all over his clothes. Jeremy was
baffled as to who the blood belonged to and why it was on them.

Then they all looked over toward Mary, and
saw that her angelic face was seared with the pain of a silent
torture that her soul cried out in. Mary was more than confused;
she was still in great shock, a numbing sensation that took over
her consciousness to help ease the fright. All that was on her mind
was to keep her right foot on the gas pedal and not to look back at
the road. She just stared out at the road in front of her, and kept
her eyes on it. Suffering from the stares coming from the boys, she
knew they wanted to know how she felt about what just happened, yet
she denied them their silent questions and allowed the stares to
continue; she didn’t know what words to say. Suddenly, as Mary
stared out at the darkened road, she remembered Grewsal, and the
basement of it where the evil angel had stood, opening its mouth to
have tiny, bug-like creatures flying out of it and toward them all.
She closed her eyes and tears squeezed out through her lids, trying
to forget that image, as well as the other tortured images that
sent their taunting message at her spinal column. She yearned for
her mind to go into an oblivion, forgetting all that was seen and
unseen, but the road in front was still visible, and so was the
prominent adventure that had begun.

Abruptly, through the silence, and the sound
of the humming engine being the only noise in existence, a voice
was heard throughout the car, saying, “We have to clean this blood
off of us before we reach the airport.” Mary turned her head and
saw that it was Jeremy’s voice, and the sound of his word, “blood,”
raped her mind, forcing her to summon up, remember the blood that
poured out from the metal door at Grewsal. She began to bellow a
soft moan and cry harder, forcing her own self to pull over on the
side of the expressway and stop the car immediately.

“Listen, I think we should go to the police
right now!” Mary screamed.

Michael gave out a crazy laugh, saying with
sarcasm to his tone, “Ooh yeah, and what would we say to the
police, Mary? That we saw blood pouring out of a door, that we saw
angels of all fricken’ sizes, and that we experience the sight of
seeing gargoyles come alive? Wake up, Mary, if we go to the police,
you can make sure that’s a one-way ticket to a nuthouse, and we’re
going to have VIP passes!”

Mary was too numb to argue, so she started
driving again as her tears fell down still at a fast pace. All she
knew how to do was drive at this moment, the stiffness of her
memories contradicted her actions, really wanting to be the adult
and turn around immediately, with the destination being the police.
Yet she was frozen, and they were frozen as well, each in his own
way. But Michael saw her tears and felt saddened by them, feeling
that they were the adults now, and she was the child. The tables
turned, forcing Michael to utter, “Listen, Mary, I’m sorry!”

Jeremy rubbed Mary’s tears delicately away
from her eyes as he sat in the passenger’s seat, saying, “Yeah,
Mary, we’re all sorry for you having seen that back there.”

Mary pulled the car over again and parked it
on the side of the road, and just pointed her eyes to the front,
not craving to make any eye contact at this moment for reasons that
this situation was uncomfortable. She said, “Alright, listen to me,
I don’t know what I saw back there, but I know it was real, at
least I think it was. Whatever is going on here, I’m going to help
you guys. I know this sounds crazy, but I’m going to come with you
to the, the—I guess—Holy Land. It seems that you won’t be satisfied
without going. So, since I’m your doctor and am supposed to help
you—I don’t know how—I agree to this, but right now I need your
help, too. I’m extremely baffled about this situation, but I know
if I stay here, my mind is going to go crazy. I know you don’t have
any money, so I’ll pay for our plane tickets.” Mary’s fear of
knowing that she’d seen angels and statues moving about allowed her
to be in a state of confusion once more, causing her voice to die,
to stop its vibrations, and for her eyes to just stare out in front
of her. She started the car again and began driving, saying in a
very low voice, “Who are they?”

“Mary, it’s nice of you to offer us the plane
fare, but we can’t allow you to come with us. I mean, why do you
want to come with us? The reason why we’re going is to get cured of
our sickness, or else die trying. Either way, we have to,” said
Michael in the midst of Mary pulling into the airport parking
lot.

“I don’t know why, Michael, but I’m
responsible for all of you, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to
allow you all to go to this place alone. If you say you’re going to
get cured there, then I want to get cured, too; I saw everything
that you all did, including statues of saints moving about,” cried
Mary.

“Alright, let’s just get the hell out of
here,” Jeremy’s voice said, not noticing that David had formed a
grin on his face for all to see, yet no one knew why he was
grinning, nor did they ask his reasons.

With no time to lose, or time that they
didn’t realize they had, they ambled into the airport in a running
motion and kept up their rhythm, with bewilderment still boggling
their eyes. Everyone was basically confused about what just came to
pass at Grewsal—everyone aside from David. He held a deep secret in
his eyes, a revelation that wandered through the hearts of all, but
only clutched the eyes of David.

Jeremy tried asking David questions, but he
wouldn’t answer him; all he told him was, “Jeremy, all I know is
who we are and why we are going to the Holy City, I don’t know
anything else!” This triggered a brief tone of suspicion to strike
at Jeremy’s nerves, yet they still continued to run, and Jeremy had
no time or breath to keep up the question toward David, in order to
break him of his clandestine-like secret.

They reached the front desk of the airport,
and Mary turned around to face the boys, still shaking from the
scares from Grewsal. “Alright, we’re only staying in the Holy Land
for a few days, that’s it. Once we get back, I want all of us to go
straight to the police; I don’t care how crazy our story is to
them. I’ll definitely lose my job, but it’s worth it. Is that a
deal?”

“Yeah, it’s a deal,” Jeremy replied.

“I would like five tickets to Amman, Jordan,
please!”

Mary turned her eyes to face the airport
worker, and gawked at the young man in impatience. The worker
noticed bloodstains on her clothes and face, but Mary had forgotten
they were there. “I’m sorry, ma’am, the last plane to Amman left
three hours ago. The next plane leaves tomorrow: would you still
like to purchase the tickets?” the worker asked as Mary looked at
his name tag; it read ‘FRANK’. “Excuse me, ma’am, but are you
alright?” Frank questioned, still perceiving the unknown blood
marks on Mary and the boys.

She didn’t answer him, not knowing what to
say while she looked at a glass window behind Frank and saw her
bloody reflection: a feeling of paranoia took her over. Her voice
was muted by her inadequate answer that she didn’t give just yet,
and her eyes were stiffened by the memory of Grewsal that her
bloody reflection reminded to her. The airport briefly became
silenced to her ears, and the echoes of Frank’s question, over and
over again, faded. Jeremy gently pushed her aside, knocking her out
of the view of her reflection, and answered in stress, “Yeah, she’s
okay. Listen, we have to leave now, are there any connecting
flights to there? Listen, Frankie, it’s a matter of life or
death!”

Frank began typing in his computer while
looking at Jeremy’s bloody face, not knowing how to react to the
color “blood,” not recognizing how to look at him with that color
on him. Yet, remembering the word “Frankie” that came from Jeremy
caused Frank to develop anger for him. “I’m sorry, sir, the next
flight leaves tomorrow,” replied Frank with an attitude. He was
debating whether or not he should call security due to the red he
saw on them.

David slowly moved his eyes around the
airport’s surface, with suspicion running through his pupils, as if
he knew of something that was watching them all. So he forcefully
pushed Jeremy out of the way and went up to Frank’s face in an
intimidating manner. David stuck out his hand and touched Frank on
the arm when suddenly a glowing light shined underneath David’s
hand as it went into Frank’s body. “So, like this woman said
before, we want five tickets to Amman, Jordan, please,” David said
with strictness.

He released his hand from Frank’s arm. “Five
tickets coming up,” Frank spoke, typing fast on the keyboard while
they looked at David with suspicion. “Okay, I have to see your
passports please,” he added as the tickets printed out.