Spirit Of Heroes Chapter 3 – Sabrina’s Sheet
“Touching another dimension is like touching a hanging, wet bed sheet. And No, don’t you be makin’ no jokes about wetting the bed, cuz I’m not even playin’ around with this story.”
No must have had that stupid twinkle in his eye that always warned people he was about to jump in with a joke. The bad thing was, that was exactly what he was about to say, so he couldn’t even deny it. Still, he loved how Sabrina could go from speaking articulately to talking street and sound perfectly natural with both of them. Oprah had the same tendency, but could never quite make it sound natural. No liked to get Sabrina riled up just so she’d switch to her “attitude” persona. He had needled her a few times during dinner, not knowing that she was tense about having to tell her story that evening, so naturally she was in no mood for any more of his jokes. Shoot, she was still talking and already his mind had wandered.
“… different kinds of sheets. Most of ‘em I can’t hardly feel, and some of ‘em are just dead, like a sheet stretched out across a rock. There are still more dimensions which feel similar to our own, but are so differently balanced in their basic forces as to be untenable. The balance between forces in our world; strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetic force, and gravity, is very precise and very fragile, and interaction with certain of those other dimensions is just impossible. I can feel them, but they’re utterly alien. I believe there are other forces, such as Time and Spirit that exist in our dimension which may not exist in those others.
“But there are two dimensions which are very accessible and with which I’ve learned to interact. And since everyone else likes to tell the end of their story first, I may as well do the same. Those two dimensions are
I’m five years old and I’m packing to move again. I don’t know how long we’ve been in
It’s just me and Dad, cuz Mama had died when I was really little. She had cancer. Dad is always late, so when it’s time to go, he says “we’re late!” and I don’t even get to say goodbye to my friends. We get into a yellow Taxi that smells bad and we head to the airfield. It’s cold outside so Daddy keeps the windows up while he smokes. His smoke smells worse than the Taxi.
When we get to the airfield, we get on a big, gray airplane that doesn’t have any seats, but there’s a lot of other people and most of them are dressed like the Army. Daddy gives our bags to some guys and we go inside the plane. He says I’ve been in planes like this before. I tell him I remember, but I don’t really remember. He shows me the straps on the floor and tells me how to lay back when the plan takes off and how to hold on if it gets bumpy. There’s no windows and the plane smells funny. I sit on Daddy’s lap and draw and he puts his arms round me. I get tired. The plane makes loud noise all the time, so I lay down on the floor with
My face is against the warm, humming metal floor. I imagine I’m part of the airplane. My skin is metal and it stretches out away from me. When I breathe, I rumble like an engine. I have shiny, clear glass eyeballs. There’s nothing underneath me, but it doesn’t bother me, because I can fly, even though I’m super heavy. The clouds tickle under my wings when I fly through them. The sun is warm on my shiny back. My real-life body is just a sleeping thing in my tummy.
Then I am the sky, stretching and curving. I’m warm blue and wet and I am cold dark pierced by stars. I surround the globe below me. I hold it within myself.
Now I am the Sun, pulling on planets like heavy balls on a string. I feel them pull against me as they swing around and around. I see my light on them and I hear them each humming their own tune. I sing too and our voices make a song. Then our different notes become one note and I hear a giant chorus of notes like ours. That chorus becomes one note, and I can feel it. I feel everything in the universe at once, because as big as the universe is, it’s really only one thing. I don’t understand it really, but I don’t understand music either, but I know how it sounds and how it feels. It’s beautiful.
And now there are hints of other notes. Most are very quiet but some are almost as loud as ours. Most are alien and screechy, but they somehow fit into the song. I listen for the other notes that are pretty. I listen close and try to touch them with my ear. I find one and listen to it, and move close to it. It feels like a heavy blanket being wrapped around me and tucked under me.
I wake up as Daddy is wrapping the blanket under me. “Sorry Puddin’. I didn’t want you to get cold. You go back to sleep now.” I try to feel part of the airplane again, but I can’t, so I think about what if we move in next door to the Tanners from “Full House” and we all became friends, and eventually I fall back asleep.
“I can’t believe I’m tellin’ y’all this. It sounds stupid even to me when I say it, so don’t ya’ll be makin’ fun of me for this later. And No put your hand down. This aint question and answer time. I’ll kick your skinny butt into another dimension if you bug me durin’ this story.
“So that was the first time, at least, I think that was the first time that I could feel, you know, those other dimensions. I thought it was just a dream, but over the next few years I would have that same feeling sometimes when I was falling asleep, like especially if I fell asleep in a windowsill in the sunlight or something like that. I could feel the singing dimensions. It wasn’t until just a few years ago that I started to realize that what I was feeling might be real.”
I’m thirteen and we’re living in
So I’m standing here hiding and the wind is blowing the sheet against me, and it’s still damp, so it’s clinging to me and I think “this feels familiar.” I keep hiding and I’m trying to think of where I’ve felt this before. I close my eyes and try to lose myself in the feeling. Then it hits me, it’s like the feeling of when I listened to the songs of those other worlds, only it’s like a touch instead of a sound.
I reach out with my feelings, and sure enough, I can feel those other worlds, those other realities, like damp sheets blowing against me.
It’s like I’m walking through a whole field of sheets and I can run my hands against them. Some of them are barely there and some of them are flapping wildly, but I follow my feelings to the ones that are the most real, the most like the world I know. And I find them.
They’re like one sheet with two sides – one is beautiful and soft and the other side is … well, is just terrible. I’m afraid of the bad side, so I stay on the beautiful side. I stroke it and listen to it. I feel the warmth and comfort of it. It likes me. It feels like home. Then a hand grabs my arm!
“Gotcha!” yells the boy who was “it.” I’m snapped out of my trance and I’m mad, so I tackle him and start hitting him. He starts crying and runs away to tell his mama. After that, we never finish the game and the other kids are afraid to play with me.
After the game of Verstckspiel, it becomes easier to feel the sheets. I spend most of my time alone and I start studying a lot more science to try to understand what’s going on. Geometrodynamics, Electrodynamics, Flavordynamics, Chromodynamics, the Theory of Relativity, String Theory. I even read some of Stephen Hawking’s books. Much of it is lost on me, but I’m getting the bigger picture. There are many other dimensions, more than anyone guesses, and somehow I am able to touch them.
I am fourteen and we’ve moved back to the States. Dad is stationed in
But there is something different about Stefanie. She’s a Christian. And she takes it seriously. She goes to church and does stuff with the Youth Group, which is definitely not Goth. She’s not a Barbie doll like most of the other kids there, but she seems to get along with them okay. She invites me to some of their trips and they’re actually a lot of fun, even if the leader guy does get preachy at times. Some of the other kids are into metal and tats and piercing, and somehow I start to fit in. I’ve actually got friends.
Then one night, I get caught with my defenses down. My iron-strong defenses, always up and ready, slip for just a minute. It’s at a stupid camp-fire – quite possible the lamest and sappiest setting ever. But the lead guy, Pastor Todd, is telling us about Jesus and how he knows how much we hurt and how he loves us and he can forgive us for any bad thing we’ve done, yadda, yadda, yadda. And for some reason I just lose it. I cry and cry like a little baby, and Stephanie and my other friends just hug me and pray with me, and just like that, I’m born again.
Understanding what it means to be born again is even harder than understanding Quantum Physics. Still, I dig into it like a fiend. Dad’s not too thrilled that I’m carrying around a Bible and his new girlfriend is a real witch, but they give me my privacy. I learn. I grow. I move again and am devastated.
We are back in my quote-unquote hometown of
For two days I sit in my room and meditate. I take no food. I turn on no music and only see by the light of candles. I walk through fields of sheets, caressing them and examining them. I find the one I want.
In my misery, I begin to think on the duplicity of the sheet – the terrible and the beautiful. I think I must understand both sides if I’m to make this reality my hiding place. First, though, I explore the beauty. I can hear its music clearly now and feel its warmth and even see its light. It is a vast and empty place. I feel time passing there. I hear beautiful music in my spirit. I wander freely and am comforted.
But I wonder, is this only a dream? How can I tell? Can I look back through a door and see my own world? No. Have I brought anything from my world? No, not even my body. I find this discouraging and I release my focus and I am back in my dark room.
For the first time in a long time, I’m not obsessed with my own depression. I feel the thrill of discovery. I need to apply a scientific method to this experimentation. I need a video camera.
I’m stunned as I watch the playback. My figure on the screen glows for several minutes, then it vanishes entirely. I consult my time log and see that it corresponds to my efforts to channel the light of the otherworld into my own, and the vanishing corresponds to my efforts to channel the light of this world into the other. I’m grateful that I did not experiment with more substantial forces, such as electromagnetic or nuclear, or, heaven forbid, time. But perhaps a weak force such as gravity . . .
My gravity experiment yields no results. Perhaps in the future. For now I will focus on light. Science is awesome, but this is pure magic.
The strange old codger is actually quite sweet. We sit in the living room of my first apartment. The incense and black lights don’t seem to bother him at all. Maybe I just miss having an older male presence since Dad died in that car accident last winter and I moved south to start my first semester at UNC. Maybe it’s just nice to talk to someone about God again after all these years. Maybe I should go back to church.
He starts telling me a Bible story about “The Rich Man and Lazarus,” but it’s not about the Lazarus that Jesus raised from the dead. In this story, they both die and the Rich Man goes to Hell and Lazarus goes to Abraham’s Bosom, or “
But the conversation turns serious before too long, and this old guy knows way too much about me. I think he knows my secret. Yep, he does know my secret, and he says that the dimension I’ve been touching is
He asks if I’ve seen the other side of Sheol. I say “beg pardon?” He says “Sheol is the Grave, my dear. Have you seen the other side of it?” I tell him I’ve really only glanced at it and it scares me, so no, I haven’t spent a lot of time there.
We talk a little while more, then he tells me he has a group of “superheroes” that he’d like me to join. I tell him thank you very much, but I worked too hard to get a scholarship to UNC and I’m not really interested. Then he starts with the sales pitch and even tries some scare tactics, so I get mad and ask him to leave. He goes, but he says if I ever need him, he’ll be there for me. As he’s leaving, he warns me to be very careful with my powers, and especially be very careful if I ever decide to use the powers from that bad place. He says there might be other people who notice that kind of power. I thank him and shut the door and cry for no reason at all.
It’s my first Spring Break at UNC and I’m at a Rave party on the outskirts of
Then I see three of the biggest men I’ve ever seen in my life. At first I think it must be the football team, but they’re way too big. Impossibly big. They are absolutely terrifying. They begin to wade through the crowd, the strobing lights flashing off their black suits making them appear to move in slow motion. Irrationally, I am sure they’re looking for me. What the hell am I even doing here?
I slide along the wall, towards the back of the room and slide into the D.J. booth. The giant heads and torsos have spread out across the room and are trudging steadily through the dancing sea. My heart is pounding in my throat and I feel on the verge of tears. Nobody else seems to notice them.
I scan the wall behind me to see if there’s a back door. I see one on the far side, but it’s unlit and it’s far away. I wish the music would just be quiet for one second so I could think. The bass is thumping my chest and I can’t breathe.
I start to scoot towards the back wall. They are closer now. Much closer. Much too close. I am sure they’re after me now, although I still don’t know why. I am feral. I must escape. I push through people and try to run towards the exit. One of the giants has beaten me there. I see him tower over the door itself. He’s looking right at me. Oh Lord he’s coming right at me!
I dive into the crowd, hoping to beat them to the front door. I am battered by the crush of bodies. I push forward and lose my footing. I’m on the floor and I’m being stepped on. Someone spills a beer on me. I crawl until I can get to my feet again. I look around, but in the darkness and flashing light I can’t tell where I am or where they are. Then I spot them. They’re between me and the D.J. booth so I spin and head again towards the front door. I think I hear yelling behind me, but it’s so loud I can’t be sure.
I’m screaming and shoving my way through the crowd. I can’t see the front wall and I wonder how much further I have to go. Someone strong grabs me and shoves me. Another person shoves me back. I scramble on, frantic. Now I’m sure I hear yelling behind me. And suddenly I’m at a wall. I’m not sure if it’s the front wall with the main entrance, so I slide along it as quickly as possible, and mercifully find a metal door. I throw my weight against it and it bangs open to fresh air.
I look around. It is not the front door, but I don’t care. I’m not sure where my car is from here so I simply run. Part of my mind is trying to re-assert rationality. You’re running from nothing. Those guys weren’t as big as they looked and they’re not after you. Probably somebody just slipped something into your drink and you’re having a bad trip. But I run anyway, and am glad I did, as I hear the metal door bang open like a shotgun behind me. I spare a glance over my shoulder and see them emerging like giant rats through the doorway. They are chasing me. They are closing the gap.
As I run, I feel for the sheet of
I turn the corner around the back of the building and continue to sprint till I reach the far end. I still hear them behind me. I stop at the corner and look back. They are looking right at me! They can still see me!
I take off running again towards the front of the building. I still hear the thump of the bass from inside the warehouse. My side hurts and my lungs burn. I am desperate. I reach for the
I hear bodies hit the ground behind me. I hit the ground. I fight against the suddenly brutal gravity and struggle to my knees. I hear pavement stressing and fracturing all around me. My head is a lead ball and I cannot hold it up. The weight of gravity on me is unbearable. I collapse into a fetal position and strain to look behind me, under my arm. I see the three hulking figures upside-down, like enormous bats waking from their sleep. They are rising with less effort and they are stalking towards me. My defense has failed. I let go of my connection to
I hear the thunderous footsteps behind me, closer now. They will catch me before I reach the front.
Desperate, I reach into Hell and grab for the most familiar element – light.
Now the night is turned to blood. The moon and stars shine bright red – only the light from streetlamps ahead remain white. The air is suddenly filled with smoke and the burning stench of sulfur. The giants are not effected. They are almost on top of me. I hear strange sounds like giant wings flapping and the roar of a lion or a dragon.
Now I am tackled as slim arms slide underneath mine. But instead of tumbling headlong, I’m being lifted. I am ascending very quickly. I struggle and scream and kick, but I cannot get loose. I see the tops of warehouses rush past me as I ascend into the black sky. I hear the wind whipping around my ears and the sounds of screaming and battle fading below me. I believe I see giant wings in my peripheral vision.
I am soaring higher now and the ground is bulleting by below me. I try to catch my breath but I can’t. I am choking and my head feels light. I black out.
“Me and Subaran barely got outta that one alive, too, I’ll tell ya,” said Simon in his thick accent. “If they hadn’t been so set on chasing after you and Seraph I think they would a torn us apart.”
“And I said ‘thank you’, didn’t I? Now can I tell the rest of it?”
“Sure Sheila, sorry to interrupt. Go on Love.”
“Anyway, I guess that’s pretty much it. I woke up in a hotel and the Prophet was there and he explained who the guys were who were chasing me and that it wasn’t safe to go back to my apartment or school, or pretty much anything in my old life. The old codger got what he wanted after all.”
“That’s not really how I wanted it to happen though, dear,” interjected the old man.
“Whatever,” she continued. “So long story short, I joined up with the Faction and ended up here. And I’m actually very glad I did. I don’t wanna get all sappy or nothin’ but you guys is my family. You’ve all helped me grow in my powers and grow closer to the Lord, and I owe each of you my life.” She paused for a minute and took a drink from her Dr. Pepper and gave a quiet burp. “Okay, now Mr. Apollo, axe yo questions.”
“Good, cuz I was about to burst,” said No, sitting up straight. “So first of all, what happened to the Gatorade you were drinking in the Rave club, cuz you kind of left that part out. I’m just kidding. Okay, so first of all, how did the Nephilim know who you were and why were they so set on getting you?”
“Wing-man, you wanna answer that one?” said Sabrina affectionately.
No made a mental note that Seraph had saved Sabrina’s life and there was a special bond between the two that he’d never noticed before. He would have to be more considerate … scratch that; he would have to be less of a jerk to Seraph in the future.
“It was actually Peleg’s theory which I was able to confirm,” began Seraph. “Over the years, when Sabrina had experimented with touching the
“After millennia of imprisonment and torment, they now saw another possibility for escape or at least an easement of their pain, aside from the
The room was eerily silent for a few moments before No began again. “Wow. That’s heavy duty. Okay, my second question, and I might be way off base here, but did that story have anything to do with that news story from a few years ago, where they said the sun blacked out in
“Yes, the scientists had many theories around that event,” replied the Prophet “but nobody was ever able to properly explain it, so it got washed away with the next news wave of political scandal and natural disaster. Do you remember what the Christian community thought of it, though?”
“Yeah,” said No enthusiastically, “my Mom was all freaked out about it. She said it was a sign of the end-times and she got everyone at church worked up about it for a few months, but then everyone just kinda forgot about it.”
“It is from the book of Matthew,” said the Prophet. “
I will show wonders in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood.”
“Yeah, that’s what my Mom kept saying, that that’s exactly what had happened,” said No, just about jumping out of his seat. “Was that really what happened?”
“Yeah,” said Sabrina very quietly. “That’s really what happened. I brought a little bit of Hell to Earth.”
Keeping Sabrina’s somber tone, the Prophet continued, “Let none of you underestimate the importance of what we do here. The prophecies speak of what will occur during the end times, but our actions are directly involved with bringing them about. Each of you play a vital role in this unfolding apocalypse.”
The silence stretched with no one wanting to speak. Only the soft hiss of the wind against the glass was audible.
In a quiet croak, the Prophet eventually began again. “It is getting late, and you all have much to think on, but I feel I need to impart one final lesson this evening.”
Each one, lost in their own thoughts, focused again on him as he continued to speak.
“When the Israelites wandered in the desert under the guidance of Moses, and were set upon by deadly snakes, the Lord told Moses to cast a golden serpent, so those who looked upon it would be saved. When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, he explained that the golden serpent was a foreshadowing, or a ‘type’ for the Messiah. That just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
“I believe that the
No sat frozen in his seat.
“The items in the
Nobody moved.
“The second item – the bones of Elisha, the bones that give life, are like your power – your Pneuma. The Sprit which is life itself and can even conquer the grave.”
Nobody moved. Nobody even blinked.
“And lastly – the olive branch. The symbol which announced the dawning of a new age. Even so, your very life announces the end of the current age and the dawning of the next one.”
Nobody moved. Nobody even breathed.
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Sanctuary Of Heroes Chapter 1 - The Center
April, 2011
After graduating from the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor in
At age twenty-one she still looked like a perky sixteen-year-old with a brunette bob haircut and big blue eyes. Her show actually hadn’t been a “show” per-se, but more of a series of intro’s and outtro’s during the four-hour weekday cartoon block, where she dressed in goofy outfits and told corny jokes and occasionally conducted a wacky contest with a few lucky viewers, and introduced each upcoming cartoon to keep the kids at home glued to the tube.
For three years, “Miss Lisa” was a goddess to the local children, but then all the attention turned to the peace treaty in the Middle East and the rise of a politician named Raphael Wallach, and someone at the network decided they needed to devote more resources to covering current events, so Miss Lisa’s low-hanging fruit was plucked and thrown out.
In a way, Lisa had been relieved to lose her cushy job. She had always felt a gnawing pang of guilt that she had never officially joined the adult world, or at least the white-collar adult workforce. As a teenager, she had decided that she wanted to spend her life helping underprivileged children in some way, and she was always aware that bringing a little sunshine into their lives through the magic of T.V. was a far cry from the genuine difference she desired to make. She knew her natural cuteness had led her down the path of least resistance. Cute girls like her had choices.
After losing her job, she moved back into her parents house in Dead Tree, leaving fame behind forever and searching for relevance. In less than a month, she landed a position as a counselor at The Center – a psychiatric residential treatment facility for teenagers. She had applied online, and was hired at the end of her initial interview. They were desperate.
Soon after, she found herself occupying a fifteen-by-ten foot office with cloudy push-out windows, surrounded by old brown books on subjects varying from Psychology to Religion to Mathematics. Her desk was at least as old as she was and was much more imposing. Lisa felt like someone had opened the tomb of a 1970’s principal’s office and interred her in it.
The Center itself was a sprawling campus, always filled with rowdy kids. There were eight “cottages” or dormitories where the kids were divided up by age groups and gender. Each cottage held up to fourteen youths and four live-in counselors and had its own kitchen and living area. The bedrooms were utilitarian and typically had three or four single or bunk beds. Every floor was hard, white linoleum. Every building was dry red brick.
In the center of the campus stood the old chapel with its dusty wooden pews and ancient lectern. From the chapel, a brick walkway led to the basketball gym which was the most modern building in the compound having been constructed twenty years earlier. Outside the gym were more fenced-in basketball courts and scattered around were various other baseball fields and playgrounds, but a vast majority of the compound was dust, dry grass, and ancient trees. A perimeter fence enclosed the entire compound, but it didn’t stop kids from escaping on a regular basis.
At the end of the long entry driveway sat the two-story main administrative building, which housed the secretaries, administrators, and psych counselors. Lisa’s office was on the second floor and looked out over the gym and basketball courts. Even with the window closed, it was almost impossible to shut out the noise, but Dead Tree was either unbearably hot or pouring down rain most of the year, so the window typically stayed closed in any event.
As much as she chafed under the heavy-handed Christian bent of The Center, Lisa found she had a large degree of freedom to do her counseling. She had been afraid that they’d force her to conform to some Christian dogma-driven counseling plan. If there was one thing she’d learned from going to a “Christian” school, it was that Christianity was not for her. At least not the disingenuous, hypocritical, Jesus-fish-on-the-back-of-Daddy’s-BMW, head in the clouds Christianity that dominated the in-crowd at school.
Lisa had been assigned a rotation of 10 boys and 10 girls for a minimum of one hour of individual counseling a week, with several of them on a more frequent basis. For the most part, all their stories were the same. A majority of the boys were sexual predators who had been habitually sexually victimized in their younger years. They ranged from cowardly perverts who preyed on unattended little boys in public restrooms for cheap thrills to a few full-blown rapists who had managed to avoid prison. The other boys were simply incorrigible troublemakers – the type who would repeatedly break into schools and trash them for the fun of it, whose parents either couldn’t or wouldn’t handle them.
The girls, for the most part, had also been chronically sexually abused, usually by their fathers or other close relatives and were completely out of control and completely without any self-esteem or sense of right and wrong. Among boys and girls alike, there were many cases of self-mutilation, Satan worship, drug abuse, bestiality, and prostitution, regardless of the age.
Very few parents were in better condition than the kids, so the burden of rearing and socializing the teens was left primarily to the live-in-counselors (who, for the most part acted as encouraging prison guards), the staff clergy, a host of volunteers, the administrative staff, and the psych counselors, such as Lisa.
Despite her best intentions going in, Lisa quickly came to realize how marginalized her role was. For the most part, the Ritalin was the real counselor and all they could do was hope to sedate the kids enough to keep them out of trouble and hope that they continued to take their meds after their release on their eighteenth birthday. True rehabilitation was a pipe dream.
Some of the kids were genuinely sweet and some were fantastically intelligent or artistic. But those traits always had to be hidden behind teenage bravado. Lisa often recalled how confusing and difficult her teenage years had been in her well-adjusted home and moderately cliquish school. She couldn’t imagine how any of the kids could hope to develop normal, healthy habits in the cesspool of The Center. It was beyond depressing.
By the end of her second month, Lisa had settled into a hopelessly repetitive routine and had already started looking for other jobs. She cried every night, and more frequently during the day. It was during that time that Stanley Nelson, another counselor who had been there six months longer than she, beat her to the punch and quit his job to go work for a landscaping company, dumping a third of his cases in her lap. She had already been shattered, and now she took on the additional burden of know that, if she left, the Psych department would truly fall apart. For the first time since she was a teenager, Lisa Scott started smoking. Heavily.
Of her eight new clients, seven of them were absolutely horrible. They were the ones her own kids had been complaining about to her previously. Lisa realized that she had actually had it easy up until then, and that
But there was one new client who was unlike the rest. The Enigma. Walter Wilson.
Walter was sixteen when Lisa first met with him and his background wasn’t terribly different from most of the other kids in The Center. At first, Lisa had been frustrated by the lack of details in his records. All she knew of Walter was that he had been raised in a tent by a crazy mother named Gretchen Wilson. The two had moved around
Walter had never been to school and had only had social interaction with other homeless families and indigents. When he was thirteen, his mother was arrested for assaulting a park ranger and he was finally taken into custody by Child Protective Services and remanded to The Center. His mother only served a ninety day sentence, but had only visited him a few times during the first year of his stay, but always had to be physically removed when she had turned belligerent and violent. When Walter was fourteen, Gretchen’s frozen body turned up under a highway overpass in
Walter’s scholastic evaluations revealed that he was very intelligent and had taught himself to read at a high level, but was woefully uneducated in most other areas. His psych evaluations revealed that he had some insecurities and emotional dysfunctions, but Lisa thought all of them were pretty mild-mannered compared to his peers – especially when considering his background.
Walter was a fairly normal-looking teenager who wore cheap glasses and fought an acne condition. His hair was bright orange, like a freshly minted penny and he wore it a little long and shaggy like most of the other white boys at The Center. He had a shaggy patch of pubescent orange hair on his chin and a slight under bite. His face was thin but not hollow, and his hazel eyes, while usually downcast, had an ageless depth. He was average height and had a lean, wiry build and shoulders that naturally hunched up. He did fairly well in sports and didn’t have a history of sexual deviancy or criminal behavior. He had never tried to run away from The Center. He had never had a violent conflict with one of the counselors or staff. In most ways, Lisa thought Walter was a pretty normal teenager with some heavy baggage and a very dim future.
But there was something below the surface. Something Lisa hadn’t come close to putting her finger on, that chilled her none-the-less. Walter was an enigma to be sure. It wasn’t that he was sinister or threatening in any way. There was something about him on an invisible, yet visceral level, that Lisa sensed that scared her in a way none of the other atrocities she encountered had. She didn’t believe in a spirit world, or God, or the Devil. But there was just something about Walter that made her think that maybe she was wrong. She felt like she was looking at a lion in a cage.
Also, Walter didn’t sleep.
Lisa tried to assure herself that that was the issue that bothered her so much. It was such an alien, inhuman characteristic – one she had never encountered before and one she couldn’t relate to. Just the thought of a person constantly awake, owning the night like a cat in the middle of a dark and empty street gave her chills.
Perhaps more disturbing was the fact that the staff at The Center allowed Walter to wander freely during the night. His records indicated that they had tried keeping him in his room, but invariably it led to problems with his roommates and the staff, and Walter had become claustrophobic and almost feral. The young man had talked one of the pastors into “sponsoring” him for a month, and allowing him to stay in the chapel overnight. The experiment had gone so well that Walter earned the trust of the staff and was allowed to wander the campus at night, provided he did not ever break any rules or cause any problems when he was alone. For the past several years, Walter had spent every night roaming the deserted campus like a ghost.
None of the staff had been able to coax any interesting information out of him as to how he filled up those hours, but he had been seen several times simply reading in the dim halogen lights outside of the basketball court, not far from Lisa’s own office. Not once had he ever caused a problem at night or tried to run away, so his nocturnal dominion became a part of the bizarre corporate personality of The Center.
Over the days and weeks as she continued to meet with Walter, Lisa became less convinced her fear was tied to something as simple as a lack of sleep. Much deeper and darker waters were contained within the boy, and she was in them up to her bare shins. And to make matters worse, she was pretty sure Walter had a crush on her.
Her 2:30 appointment was with the Enigma. Lisa cranked open her window and lit a Virginia Slims. The April wind whipped the smoke through her office, coalescing it into nothingness like a skillful magician. Papers on her desk and piled on her bookshelves rattled in applause. Fast-moving clouds alternately darkened and lightened the room as she counted down the minutes till the meeting.
She stood looking out the window with one arm wrapped around herself and the other holding the cigarette, looking at the empty basketball court below her window. She couldn’t help herself – she imagined a very clear picture of Walter standing alone in the moonlight on that court, staring up at her empty office. Just standing and staring. Then smiling slightly and slowly walking towards her building. Lisa shook fiercely and forced herself out of the daydream. She turned and stalked quickly out of her office to finish her smoke in the Ladies’ room and splash some water on her face before the meeting.
~~~
Walter sighed and stared past Lisa out the window at the low-flying clouds. “I already told all of this to Stanley. Didn’t he tell you anything about me?”
Behind the safety of her enormous desk, Lisa’s knee bounced like a jackhammer. She was mad at herself for wasting so much of their meeting pussyfooting around the issues. They only had a few minutes left together and she wanted to get some straight answers, but she knew she’d have to take a winding path to get them.
“Walter, I really hate to say anything bad about the other adults who work here, but let’s just say Stanley didn’t exactly tell me everything before he left.”
“You mean before he ran away,” challenged Walter.
“Walter, let’s not make this discussion about Stanley okay? Let’s just forget about him for now and talk about you. I felt like our last few sessions we were starting to become friends. I want to know about you Walter.”
“Man! Will you stop saying my name so much?” he interrupted. Lisa waited patiently. If she felt she had to defend herself against all his little outbursts, she’d never get anywhere. Better to let them pass and show him that he couldn’t goad her off-topic.
“What if I just don’t feel like telling you what I’m scared of?” he continued eventually. “I’ve had a crappy day, okay. Can’t we talk about something good?”
“Okay,” replied Lisa. “Tell you what, let’s start by talking about some things that you’re not scared of.”
Walter smirked, then let out a quick, genuine laugh and made brief eye contact with her before looking out the window again. “Sounds stupid, but okay. I’m not scared of clouds. I’m not scared of trees. I’m not scared of basketball hoops. I’m not sc…”
“Try not to just list the things you’re looking at right this moment,” she interrupted. “How about – what are things that other people are usually scared of that you’re not scared of?”
“Snakes. You live in the country and you can’t be afraid of snakes or spiders or bees. I’m not afraid of the dark or the night, but you already knew that. Ummmm, I guess I’m not afraid of heights. I dunno. What stupid things are stupid people afraid of?”
“Well, I don’t know about stupid people, but most smart people are afraid of things like death, abandonment, war, poverty, disease, crime. Stuff like that worry you?”
“Nope.”
“So, what about like monsters or God or the boogey man – any of those worry you?”
“Nope.”
“What about claustrophobia?”
Walter’s eyes snapped to hers and turned cold. He blinked and looked back out the window.
Lisa continued and mentally forced herself not to use his name so much. “Okay, so you … your turn …. you talk now. What frightens you?”
Walter sat with his arms crossed for a few more moments. She could see the anger boiling up inside him until he suddenly sat forward in his chair and slapped her desk. “Are you kidding me?” he asked. “In this place? How about I have to share a room and a bathroom and shower with a bunch of homo-perverts? Do you know what those guys do? Do you know what they even do to animals? Do you know what they’ve tried to do to me? And have you seen how big some of the black guys are? They’ll kick your … “ Walter caught himself and eyeballed the sign on Lisa’s desk which read “Office Rules”, one of which was “No Cussing”. He started again, “They’ll kick your butt for no reason at all. And don’t tell me there’s no gangs in here, because there are and you just don’t know about it.”
He paused for a moment, then continued. “And all the girls around here are crazy. They’ll start rumors and lies about you for no reason at all. I’m locked up in a freaking cage here! I’m in a prison, Lisa! What the hell do you think I’m scared of? What would you be scared of?”
Lisa knew she had to come back at him with confidence if she wanted to maintain control of the conversation. “Walter, I’m not going to lie to you, those are all perfectly natural and perfectly valid fears. I wish I could change your situation, but you know what? I can’t and neither can you.
“But I think we both know those aren’t the fears I’m talking about. You’re a smart young man, Walter, and I know you know what I’m getting at. We almost got to it at the end of our last session …” Lisa motioned her hand in a “come on” motion.
He glanced at her, then looked back out the window. Lisa let out an exasperated sigh and considered lighting up a cigarette to calm her nerves, but thought better of it. She employed her best “pleading friend” tone of voice. “Last time we were talking about how you used to sleep when you were young, but something happened… Remember, you told me about how your mom had been away for a few days and you were by yourself and you were foraging for food … you were chasing a rabbit and it went into a cave and you crawled in after it, but as you kept going, the space got tighter and tighter until you got stuck ….”
Lisa paused to see if Walter would respond, but he just continued to stare out the window. She put a cork in her anger, determined to try to get through to him. “Walter,” she said softly, trying not to sound exasperated. “You actually opened up to me at our last meeting. We were getting somewhere. You told me you’d finish the story the next time we met.”
She paused, but there was no response. Softer, she asked “What happened in that cave, Walter?”
The seconds crawled past as she watched the clouds paint Walter’s stoic countenance in murky shadows. After an excruciating silence, he pursed his lips and shook his head, continuing to stare out the window. “None of your damn business – that’s what happened.” Without turning his head, Walter moved his eyes and locked her in his gaze. The insolent, frustrated teen was gone; in his place sat a confident, ancient predator. “I never should have told you nothing, cuz you don’t know nothing. You tricked me into talking last time, Lisa,” he said with disgust. “It won’t happen again.”
He continued to stare her down as he stood. Her blood froze as her mind superimposed the image of him standing on the basketball court at night, alone and malevolent, staring at the window of her empty office. She felt violated in a place she hadn’t even believed existed.
He left the room quickly and quietly. Lisa fumbled for her cigarettes with trembling hands. She wanted a quick smoke before she left The Center forever.
~~~
Halfway through the psych session, Walter realized he had made a big mistake. The little devil sitting on his shoulder was yelling in his ear that Lisa didn’t really like him, she was just doing her job by talking to him and she was really just trying to find out all the bad things about him. She could never really care for him. He was stupid for having a crush on her just because she was cute. He had already revealed too much to her because she had such beautiful, blue eyes.
The devil didn’t have to yell. Walter heard him loud and clear.
As Walter stalked out of the admin building and stormed across the campus, he cursed under his breath repeatedly. He had risked the little freedom he had just to get close to Lisa; even knowing that he would never really have any chance at a relationship with her. He had been acting like a stupid love-struck kid.
It hadn’t been hard to discover the secret about his old counselor, Stanley. There weren’t too many secrets Walter couldn’t discover, but when two of Stanley’s patients turned up pregnant, Walter didn’t have to work hard to confirm who the father was. He had taken a risk by confronting Stanley with what he knew and demanding that he leave The Center. There were three other psych counselors, so the odds weren’t good that Walter would get placed with Lisa, but somehow he thought events might turn out in his favor. He had been right – he had been assigned to the pretty young woman he had been fawning over for weeks.
Walter wasn’t a pervert – he knew that for sure. He spent enough time around real perverts to know the difference, and he had read enough books to understand how it felt to be smitten by true beauty. Plus he was sixteen and adolescence was making him insanely amorous. He just wanted a girl to love so badly.
But the devil on his shoulder had been right. It was nothing more than an unrequited, stupid crush. And even if there had been any chance of it developing into some kind of real friendship or relationship, he had certainly blown that out of the water with his behavior today.
Walter wasn’t really a whiny, confrontational jerk, but he saw plenty of them every day so he knew how to act like one. The more the devil on his shoulder kept pestering him, the more flustered he had gotten. He would have preferred to stand up and choke the devil with both hands, but that would have been even worse. So he had pretended to be a defensive, abrasive kid and when that had failed, he resorted to showing his secret menacing persona, which was the one thing he definitely had not wanted to show her. Now she hated him and no doubt thought he was a freak. All thanks to the devil on his shoulder.
As Walter walked along the side of the cafeteria, he trailed his fingers lightly along the bricks, feeling tiny slivers slide into his epidermis. Classes had finished for the day, so Walter had nothing to do but kill time until night fell. He wandered out past the baseball field, kicking dust to watch the wind grab it and spin it skyward. There was so much random power in nature, he mused.
He made his way across a vacant field of tall grass towards the perimeter fence. Any other kid would be chased by a counselor and physically hauled back to the cottage for lock-down if they approached the fence, but nobody bothered Walter.
Upon reaching the rusty old chain link fence, Walter turned left and started walking, dragging his right hand along the fence, making the wiring sing. It usually took a good forty minutes to walk around the perimeter and it always helped him clear his head, even though he had to trudge through mud and weeds at points and even though part of the fence was next to a busy street.
A smile came to his face as he walked. The one bright side to the whole Lisa debacle had been his cleverness in turning his horror story into an Alice In Wonderland parody. He had told her part of the truth – he had gotten trapped in a tunnel as a child and that experience had been the trigger for his permanent insomnia, but he hadn’t been chasing a rabbit down a hole. Who chases a rabbit down a hole for food? He couldn’t believe he had told that story with a straight face and she had totally believed it. Part of him really did want to tell her the truth about that day, but now he was immensely glad that he hadn’t. He knew he could never share that with anyone – at least not at The Center.
Walter passed by a long stretch of woods. Thin fingers of branches batted and clutched at him as he passed within their reach – puppets of the powerful wind. He had grown up among the trees. They didn’t bother him at all.
The hours passed by as Walter completed several circuits of the campus, regretting falling in love with Lisa and wondering if he would ever have a real girlfriend. The clouds bloated, blocking out the sun and hovering low to the ground, rushing quickly towards the east in an unending traffic jam. Night approached.
~~~
When he was fourteen years old, Walter made a Ouija board as a project for Woodshop class. In addition to the alphabet and the standard “yes”, “no”, and “maybe” responses, he had written dozens of extra words. Over the years, he had added more and more words in a fine script until the entire surface of the board was covered. The planchette was a powerful magnifying lens which allowed him to see the fine scrawl on the board, capturing any ambient light and shining it like a beam at a specific point. The board and planchette were the only material possessions that he really cared about.
After spending the afternoon wandering the campus perimeter, Walter returned to his cottage for evening headcount and to take his meds. His only “meds” were Stridex medicated pads which they doled out to him nightly, but the ritual was always referred to as “time to take your meds.” The other boys settled into the T.V. room to watch a Fresh Prince of Bel Air rerun.
Walter went to his room and grabbed a worn-out copy of Stephen King’s The Stand and stuffed it in the front pouch of his sweatshirt, then pulled the plastic bag with the Ouija board from under his bunk and headed back outside without a word to anyone. Walter may as well have been a ghost for all any of the other kids or counselors cared. He was a true loner.
The wind immediately gripped him and tried to whip the board out of his hand, so he shifted it lengthwise to reduce the wind resistance. The plastic bag flapped around the board like a fish out of water. The clouds were still visible in shadows of dark blue, like a low ceiling. The moon and stars, if they still existed, were invisible.
Walter pulled up the hood to his old sweatshirt and tromped off towards the Basketball court – one of the few outdoor places where the fluorescent lighting was always left on; even though that lighting was sickly and gray.
The leaves on the trees shook like rattlesnakes all around him. Walter smiled and thought “I’m not afraid of trees. I’m not afraid of snakes.” But the smile left quickly as he recalled the look on Lisa’s face as he had ridiculed her. She really was a sweet person with a natural beauty, but he had selfishly lashed out at her beautiful spirit. “Why couldn’t things have gone differently?” He lamented. “Why couldn’t I have just not told her my secret but still been nice to her? Then I could at least still see her and talk to her.” But he already knew the answer to that question. It was why he stalked the night with a well-worn slab of wood and ink. It was the fault of the devil on his shoulder.
When he reached the chain-link fence of the basketball court, Walter kicked open the gate. He knew he was completely alone, so he felt free to vent a little rage before getting down to business. The gate rebounded loudly off the fence and slammed closed again behind him. He took a moment to drop the latch and secure it in place. Leaves and small debris covered the court, revealed in shades of green and gray by the sickly light. The far end of the court was swallowed up by the shadows. His orange hair glowed in the muddy light.
Walter walked over to the wall directly beneath the lamp jutting from the outside of the gym and sat down cross-legged with his back to the brick wall. He set the bag containing the Ouija board next to him, estimating the wind might whip the bag to shreds, but it probably wouldn’t be strong enough to actually lift the board and carry it off to Oz. He pulled the copy of The Stand from his pouch and opened it to the bent page.
On a night like this, nobody else would be wandering the campus – they’d all be warm and toasty in the cottages, but Walter didn’t want to take any chances. He had a few more hours to kill until he could be sure everyone else was asleep. He needed absolute privacy for what he was about to do. He smiled and thought “M-O-O-N. That spells privacy. Laws yes, everyone knows that.”
~~~
Nobody had an internal clock like Walter. He attributed it to growing up without a clock and always wondered if humans had been born with perfect internal clocks that stopped working when external clocks were invented. His internal clock told him it was 2:00 a.m. Time to start.
He folded the page of The Stand in half. He was in the middle of a chapter featuring his least favorite character – The Kid. The Kid reminded him too much of the kids at The Center with their posturing and perversion. The reading had made him edgy.
He placed the book on the ground against the wall, hoping it wouldn’t blow away. The wind owned the night, from the dirt on the ground to the bellies of the clouds and all the darkness in between.
Walter lovingly removed the Ouija board and planchette from the bag, then crumbled up the bag and placed it in his pouch. He moved to center court and once again sat cross-legged with the board immediately in front of him, facing towards the light. He closed his eyes and took deep, slow breaths – in through the nose, filling up his lungs to capacity with the electricity of the night air, out slowly through the mouth, adding imperceptivity to the wind. When he was focused, he placed his fingertips on the planchette and began.
“Spirit Guide,” he said out loud, “come and meet with me. Come speak through me. I seek your wisdom.” He waited ten seconds, then repeated his entreaty. It was possible the wind howled a little louder.
With both hands placed lightly on the planchette, Walter spoke again. “Are you here now?” This time the wind blew decidedly harder, moving his hands until the word “Yes” was magnified in the lens. Walter stifled a grin and returned the planchette to the neutral position.
“Spirit, I thank you for visiting me. I thank you for helping me get to Lisa and for protecting me against those who would seek to harm me. You have done all you promised.”
Again the wind gusted, moving his hands until the tiny word “price” appeared in the lens. A tremor ran through Walter, possibly from the coldness of the wind.
“What price are you talking about, spirit? What price do you want?”
The leaves of the trees erupted in a rattling chorus as the wind whipped towards the island of dim light where Walter sat. The planchette moved forcefully and stopped over the word “now”, then moved to the word “you”, then to the word “will”, then spelled out the letters s-e-r-v-e, then stopped on the word “me”.
Walter cocked his head, his face a rigid, unreadable mask. Slowly he asked, “How? How will I serve you?”
“you” “will” e-s-c-a-p-e “here” “to” s-e-r-v-e “in” g-r-e-a-t w-a-y-s.
“Are you saying you’ll help me run away from The Center? And then you’ll tell me what to do?”
“Yes”
“And if I agree to serve you, you will continue to protect me and help me?”
“Yes”
“And you will give me my heart’s desires?”
“Yes”
Walter paused. “And women? You’ll help me get women?”
“many”
“And I can trust you completely? You’ll always be truthful with me?”
“Yes” “but” “never” f-o-r-g-e-t “who” “is” “the” m-a-s-t-e-r
“Spirit, that does sound tempting. But…” Walter stopped and waited.
The planchette moved. “what”
Walter took his hands from the planchette and uncrossed his legs, getting slowly to his feet. He turned to his right, stopping to look at a specific area of nothing but fence and the darkness beyond. He crossed his arms and whispered – his words physically inaudible below the wind.
“But I saw you come here with Stanley when he arrived all those months ago. I saw that you were set on destroying him, so I contacted you and let you give me the information about him screwing those girls. Things would have worked out just fine if you had left with him, but you just had to stick around The Center, didn’t you?”
Walter’s voice rose and a fire burned in his eyes. “There wasn’t enough misery here without you creating more, was there? And you just had to goad me when I was meeting with Lisa. You couldn’t let me tell her about you. You couldn’t let me be happy around her.”
The wind wailed in protest.
“You treated me like another slave. Like another one of these deaf and blind people.”
Walter started walking forward. “But I heard every word you whispered in Lisa’s office. You turned me against her. You betrayed me.”
The wind was blowing forcefully against him, but he pressed onward towards the fence. “You came here tonight looking for a slave, but you’ve found a new master.”
Walter reached out and grabbed at the air. “I see you!”
The demon was too late in realizing what was happening. The mortal child was somehow able to see him, and more terrifyingly was able to lay hold of him. The spiritual aura of the child rose out of him to surround his body like a huge ethereal gladiator. The demon was locked in the grip of the Spirit Warrior. It shrieked and thrashed with the pain of confinement.
The physical world rippled with invisible electricity as the two spirit entities wrestled. The demon was no weakling and put up a desperate fight. It wriggled like a serpent, but Walter had no fear of serpents. It clawed like a wildcat, but Walter had no fear of wildcats.
Hours passed as the sounds of battle echoed across the spiritual plane. Neither warrior tired. The demon was almost able to slip away once, but Walter clung to him with a crushing, iron grip. The young man twisted and tormented the spirit.
The eastern horizon began to lighten, imperceptibly at first, fading from black towards gray. As subtle tones of color began to shade the underbellies of the eastern clouds, the demon grew even more frenzied. Walter clutched its head in his powerful spirit hands, drawing it close to his own physical face.
“Release me, Master,” the demon pleaded as it squirmed with diminishing strength. “Please, just let me live and I will be your slave. I will do anything you ask of me.”
“Tell me your name,” growled Walter.
The devil shrieked and wailed “Nooooo, please let me keep my name. I will serve you, but let me keep my name.”
This was the risky part – the part where Walter no longer had the cover of darkness and an early riser might come along and disturb him before he finished. He pulled the demon’s face right up to his own, staring it in its invisible eyes. “You’re running out of time.” The clouds had become noticeably brighter and a distinct glow was welling up on the horizon.
“Please, please, please! Show mercy! I will serve! Let me keep my name and I will serve faithfully!”
Walter didn’t respond, but stood face to face with the devil as the sun began to crest. The spirit screamed and scrambled, but its strength was failing. Walter held it tight to himself as its struggles grew weaker and weaker. The wind around him was dying as well.
When Walter was sure the fight was over, he whispered again into the emptiness before him, “You had your chance to help me, but you chose to torment me, so I don’t think I’d ever be able to trust you. But the simple fact of the matter is …” He paused and looked into the dying eyes of the demon. “The simple fact of the matter is … I really enjoy killing your kind. I hold the true dominion in the spirit world.”
The devil gave one final whimpering tremor as the first rays of the morning sun struck it, then it was no more. The wind disappeared as well and the dawn broke warm and glorious on the stillness of the day.
Walter stood as still as a statue, casting a long shadow across the empty basketball court. Not a leaf moved. The world seemed to hold its breath. The teen savored his victory; savored the vengeance; savored the absolute power. He steeled his glare against the brilliance of the sun.
Moments later, Walter let out a long, cleansing breath and began to move. He gathered up the Ouija board and again wrapped it in the plastic bag, then grabbed The Stand which had blown against the far fence and shoved it back in his jacket pouch. He took a quick look over his shoulders and didn’t see anyone else on the campus. It was Saturday morning and it would be a long, lazy day at The Center.
As Walter strolled slowly across the court to the gate, he whispered under his breath, “And for any of you spirits who may have been watching, just let me know when you’re ready to come and get some.”
