The Book of Paul -- A Paranormal Thriller (18 page)

Michael mouthed the words “complete protection” as he stared at the darkened doorway leading to his dingy room downstairs. Of all the boasts Paul tossed around, this one seemed the most plausible and desired. “I could use some fucking protection,” Michael replied, making his second mistake of the day and the biggest one of his life.

“Good!” Paul shouted, shaking Michael’s hand way too hard. “Unfortunately, we don’t have much time, lad. Normally I’d spend years training a promising lad like yourself, but I’m afraid providence demands a much more abbreviated schedule.”

Training? Providence? Schedule? What the fuck was he talking about?

“Let me cut right to the point,” Paul said, sweeping his arm like he was erasing a cluttered blackboard. “Have you ever wanted to kill someone?”

Michael’s mouth hung open, but nothing came out.

“C’mon, lad. Like I said, we don’t have much time, and no time at all for bull crap.”

“Yes,” Michael said, not believing he admitted it.

“Good boy. That’s the only honest answer any man could give, because there’s not a single breathing one of us that hasn’t thought about killing someone at least once in his life. Now here’s the more important question: Why didn’t you?”

Michael laughed. He thought Paul was joking. Until he looked in his eyes. “Fuck, dude! Because I don’t want to go jail!”

“Of course not!” Paul roared back. He seemed so happy that Michael smiled along with him. “But what if you couldn’t be caught? What would stop you then?”

“Because it’s wrong, dude! You don’t go around killing everybody you’re pissed at!”

“I do,” Paul said quietly. Then he corrected himself. “Well, not everyone
.
I’ll need a nuclear arsenal for that. Everyone I really want to.”

“Dude, I’m out of here,” Bean said, jumping from the couch.

Paul slammed him back down to the couch like he was swatting a fly. “Could it be you’ve abandoned your pledge so quickly? In my clan we take our vows with the utmost solemnity. To break an oath is unthinkable, and those that do suffer the harshest of reprisals, dealt by the very hand of destiny itself.”

“But I can’t…I don’t want to kill anyone,” Michael sputtered.

“Of course you do,” Paul said with a finality that left no room for further argument. “You just need to give yourself permission. I told you we don’t have any time for nonsense, Michael. So sit, listen and learn.”

Michael sat, freaked out of his gourd at the direction their conversation had taken—and the vow that loomed over his head like a gleaming guillotine blade. He hadn’t thought that one out too carefully, had he?

“Here’s another way to look at it…” Paul continued, his smile back in full bloom as he rose from the couch, pacing in long strides as he spoke. “Let’s say you were drafted into the army and sent halfway around the world to shoot, stab and drop huge, fiery bombs on people you didn’t even know, much less have any grudge against. Worse yet, let’s say your virtuous government actually made up a great big pack of lies to justify why it was so necessary for you to risk your life and claim the souls of all those completely innocent victims. Even with all that bullshit, it would still be okay for you to march over there, point your rifle at someone’s unlucky head, pull the trigger and blow his brains out, right? And why? Because you’re a soldier. You’re under orders. It isn’t just okay for you to kill those people. It’s your duty!”

“Yeah, that’s some pretty fucked-up shit,” Michael agreed, his smile slowly returning, though much shakier with the reminder of his promise still ringing in his ears.

“Fucked up, indeed. What gives your not-so-freely-elected government the right to tell you when it’s your duty to kill someone…and then, using the same false claim of authority, command you to die in the electric chair for having the gall to pick your own battles, to wage wars of your own choosing, against your own enemies, against the people who threaten your life directly, not in some abstract sense, veiled with obscene notions of honor and righteousness—
real
people—who mean
real
harm to yourself, your family, and the noble principles of your own calling. What if you had a new country, with its own rules and regulations, its own mandate of authority? What if you were a soldier in your own war—and not a foot soldier either—a general? Would it be okay for you to take a life in the due course of achieving your own strategic objectives? Or would it be even more than okay? Perhaps it would it be your
divine right
…your duty!”

Michael sat mesmerized, more terrified and excited than he’d ever felt before. What Paul was saying spat in the face of every conventional notion of morality that had been stuffed into his brain since he was old enough to think. Yet it made so much sense!

“Aye, son. Freedom is a terrible responsibility,” Paul said kindly. “But don’t be afraid. Least not of me. I’m here to help in a way that no one else in this awful world can.”

“What are you saying, man?” Michael implored, his anxiety mounting by the second.

“What I’m
saying
is this: The world is a very scary place for all of the sheep. But for the wolves…it’s paradise.”

Something clicked in Bean’s head the instant those words snaked into his ears. He looked at Paul and a change came over him he couldn’t have explained in a thousand years. He felt full to the brim with all the seething adolescent rage he’d been suppressing since puberty. He conjured up visions of all the schoolyard bullies who teased him for being too pretty, the girls who hosed him and the stupid teachers who didn’t know shit about shit.

Then he imagined what he really wanted to do to them. One of his oldest, darkest, hidden fantasies involved coming in to school for “show and tell” with an AK-47 and demonstrating how efficiently it put holes into all of his mean, shitty, stuck-up classmates’ heads. He thought about the shooting in Summerville High School when he was a teenager. He felt sad when he heard the news, but he also felt weird that he didn’t feel as sad as everybody else in school seemed to feel. What he mostly felt was jealous. Now here was this man, this crazy man, who admitted he was a stone-cold killer right to his face, looking at him like he was proud of it.
Proud!

Paul watched Michael’s face like a giant leering pumpkin. He could see the gears turning in his head and gave them plenty of time to grind before continuing. “You wouldn’t know it to look at me now, Michael, but once upon a time I was a shy, skinny, frightened boy…no bigger or braver than yourself.”

“No way,” Michael said emphatically, shaking his head.

“Yes way,” Paul nodded just as vigorously. “But I had an advantage you didn’t.”

“What’s that?” Michael asked, trying to imagine Paul as a shy, skinny kid.

“I had a father,” Paul replied softly.

Michael felt the tears well up. It was so unexpected that he was as shocked as he was ashamed. He covered his sobbing red face with both his hands and hung his head.

“There, there, dear boy,” said Paul, scooping up his chin with those blunt fingers. “There’s no shame in crying. Once. Go ahead and let all the pain out, so you can fill that old aching hole with your newfound gift.”

“What gift?” Michael blubbered, trying to hide his tears from Paul’s unwavering gaze.

“You’re not alone anymore. And you’ll never be alone again.”

It was more than just music to Michael’s ears—it was a symphony. He wanted it to go on and on and on…until he could actually believe it. Always one to go on and on, Paul was happy to accommodate him—at least until Martin arrived.

“My own dear dad was a very cruel man,” Paul continued, without any emotion that Michael could identify. “I don’t blame him for it. In fact, it turned out to be a gift in its own way, though I certainly didn’t think so at the time. I learned to be tough. Hard. And fight back too. I can safely say that on the day my dear daddy died, he was most assuredly impressed with the progress I’d made. Now I can offer you the same gesture, but without the harshness that marked my father’s teachings. I’ve learned much since then, and while pain is still an indispensable ingredient in claiming your freedom, what’s even more essential for your growth and development is knowing there will always be a firm, strong hand by your side. To help. To guide you. To give you the advice and encouragement you’ve always craved and sadly done without, all these long, lonely years.”

Michael nodded eagerly. The tears were gone and replaced with a look of admiration that could only make sense to someone who suffered from his condition: dadlessness. He would never admit it, but he’d been waiting for this moment all of his life.

Paul saw the change in Michael’s expression and felt the desperate need behind it. Michael didn’t know it, but Paul had been waiting for this moment too, not for all his life—for all of Michael’s. Michael didn’t know that, or a lot of other things. Like why the really tall, really creepy guy that did his scrotum implants told him there was a place to crash in an abandoned building between C and D. Or why he bothered to walk him over and make sure he got settled in. Or why there was already a bed and a dresser inside. Or why he was the only one in the building with a lock on his door. He never questioned the strange twists of fate that were guiding and protecting him. He never questioned why he was never robbed or beaten up by the Puerto Ricans who teased and taunted all the other white kids in the neighborhood, but always looked the other way when he walked by. He never wondered why he’d never seen the man on the floor above him until today. Or why he, of all people, had been singled out for the gift of the big man’s wicked patronage.

Paul, of course, knew exactly what he was doing and why. He congratulated himself on his patience and restraint. He had been saving the boy like a birthday present, to be opened at this precise instant, once all the players had been set in motion. All the pawns. If he had rushed things, if he started too early like he did with Martin, would he be sitting where he was right now, bathed in such complete adulation? No. He had earned this. It was his due. Even more importantly, it was right on schedule.

Everything was going exactly as planned.

Martin walked through the twists and turns of the darkened corridor, guided primarily by his sense of smell. The wafting food aromas grew stronger with each step. Finally, he saw a light ahead and immediately stopped. The light was coming from his left.

Martin had a touch of OCD, fueled in part by genetics and more, in all likelihood, from the years he spent in training with Paul. After his mind and heart had hardened to a certain degree, his remaining instinctive needs for comfort distilled themselves into a craving for particular physical sensations, like his fetish for softness and his affinity for certain habits and routines. Like most obsessive-compulsives, Martin loved his routines. As a hunter, he recognized that his peculiar, ritualized patterns would have to be undetectable to anyone else as routines, so he relegated most of them to his cleaning and bathing habits, or the way he buckled his belt (left-handed for odd days, right for evens).

He was also extremely superstitious. His biggest phobias involved certain rules he’d created for the direction of his movement, usually while walking. Whenever he felt in danger, he
hated
turning to the left. More than hated it—he physically loathed it. He would go to almost any lengths to avoid left-hand turns, unless his alternative route placed him in even more certain danger.

He looked at the glimmer of light coming from the corridor on his left and pondered his next move. Then he heard the voices. He looked at the light and the left-hand turn and thought about all the good and bad luck he had already experienced today.

“What the fuck,” he said, turning left without another thought. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Rose looked over her shoulder again as she trudged down the sidewalk of Avenue B. Darkness had settled in. Shadows from the glowing streetlights snaked between the trees and crumpled garbage cans like a nest of vipers. She felt a chill of fear and something else (a premonition?) that made her want to run the rest of the way home. She forced her legs to keep walking in a slow, steady gait, but her mind raced ahead, around the next corner, up the stairs and behind the locked door of her apartment.