The Eye of Madness (15 page)

Avery jerked in surprise, but made no comment or argument. It would be unwise with someone carrying a deadly assault rifle in a very agitated mood. A few moments later, Avery was patted down and a small pistol removed from his pocket. Once cleared, he walked back to join his friend.

“What's with the gun?” Garrison asked.

“Do you really think I am stupid enough to go out with all these crazies about and not have protection?”

“Touché,” Garrison said with a half smirk. He then turned his attention back to the crowd. “So … are any of them useful?” he asked, making another sweep of the crowd with his rifle.

“A couple,” Avery said. “What are you going to do with the rest?” he asked with a sparkle in his eye.

“The Lord never wants us to take more than we need … waste not, want not,” Garrison said with a heart-chilling smile.

Avery was excited and perhaps a little giddy.

“Go and pick them out,” Garrison said with a wink and a nod toward the gate.

Avery turned and strode back to the gate.

“Sergeant, a word please!” Garrison yelled to a nearby Marine guard watching from beneath a tree. The soldier approached, eyeing Garrison and his weapon with suspicion. When he approached, Garrison motioned for him to lean close. He shared a special secret with the young guard. As Garrison whispered, the expression on the Marine's face melted into disgusted horror. “Sir?” was all he could manage to say when the president stopped talking.

He handed Garrison his rifle as he glanced toward the other guards. None of them would make eye contact; they were all scared and confused. They were all trained to protect the president, but then Garrison was technically not the president. The one thing never covered in their training was what to do if the president goes berserk with a gun. The sharp shooters were off the roof of the White House tonight because it was too dark up there. All security focused inside and on the well-lit lawn. The guards on the north side fell back in a row against the north wall of the residence, their guns out and ready.

The poor sergeant who handed his weapon to Garrison backed away and joined his comrades against the wall. As his back touched the side of the house, he had a disturbing thought. It seemed as if all of them were in one big firing line. The only thing missing was a blindfold and cigarette. Maybe they should act, maybe they should save Garrison from himself, but none of them seemed able to move. Did he have some mysterious control over them or were they too scared to intervene? Maybe it was a mix of both, the dark terrified them all and Garrison seemed to have control over it.

Garrison checked the new weapon and then slung it over his shoulder. He walked back to the fence and watched as Avery picked three people out of the crowd. One was a young man of slender build with unkempt hair, carrying a backpack over one shoulder. The next was a stocky, balding man wearing a business suit and chewing on a cigar. The final person picked was a woman with shoulder length hair, wearing blue jeans and a denim shirt. It was too dark to tell, but judging by the sound of her footfalls, she wore cowboy boots.

“What's so special about these bozos?” Garrison thought as he watched them parade through the gate behind Avery.

They stopped a few feet away from Garrison and then Avery turned and pointed at the young man.

“Sebastian Gardner. A computer geek, intelligence freelancer and a man who will do
anything
for his country,” he said with a knowing grin.

He then pointed at the heavy set man with the suit.

“Robby Johns,
business
man,” he said, giving no more introduction. The man chomped on his cigar and stared at Garrison through narrowed eyes. Unlike most people, he showed no fear of the new president.

Avery then walked over and put his arm around the woman.

“Joan Titsworth … what a name, huh?” he said looking from the woman's face to her well-endowed chest. She glared at him with a murderous stare. “She'll do anything for her country, but she'll also do anyone,” he grinned.

Joan clouted him on the side of his head.

“Shut up you pompous, self-righteous ass!” she hissed with as much venom as anything in the darkness. “I'll split your damned skull!”

Avery rubbed the side of his head. He was about to respond when Garrison interrupted.

“Enough of this, Avery. We have business to take care of,” he spat.

Avery's mood improved as a sly grin spread across his face. He held out his hand and Garrison gave him one of the rifles. “I haven't used one of these in years,” he said.

“Since Panama?” Garrison remarked.

Avery nodded and began to walk toward the fence as Garrison followed.

“How do you know those people?” Garrison asked as they walked.

“I may be at the Pentagon, Mr. President, but that doesn't mean I'm not still involved with intelligence. Those three are some of the best domestic operatives we have. None of them will bat an eyelash at doing what must be done.”

“Giving the government plausible deniability,” Garrison said with a crooked smile.

Avery nodded.

When they reached the fence, Garrison leaned up against the bars and stared at the small group still milling about in the dark. “You sure you got all the useful ones?” he asked.

Avery shrugged. “I got you the ones I know. Do you want to conduct interviews with the rest of them?” he said impatiently.

Garrison glared at him. “You're damn lucky I let y'all in here, yourself included, colonel.”

When Garrison first heard of the crowd gathering outside, he was terrified. He feared that he had been wrong in his assumption that God chose him. Of course, his terror was short lived. He realized God was testing him, giving him his first challenge of his new administration.

By the time he arrived at the fence, he was still hell bent on destruction. However, going out and just mowing everyone down was not practical because it was too easy. This was a challenge and shooting fish in a barrel was no challenge at all. He knew God sent these people here for a reason. When he saw his friend, Avery, he had no doubt. He thought of Proverbs 21:5:
‘The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.'

He had done his diligence. He separated the wheat from the chafe. He identified those who God sent to assist his administration. The others must die. As long as there were others who could move through the dark, a great shadow of doubt was cast on his divine providence. He could not allow it.

“Are you ready?” Garrison asked, flicking the safety off and raising the rifle through the bars of the fence.

“You start left and I start right then work our way in?” Avery asked.

Garrison nodded then turned and shouted at the group. “Okay, people nothing more to see here, it's time to move along!”

As some began to turn and walk away, he gave the word.

“Now!” Garrison snapped, loud enough for only Avery to hear.

The deafening roar of automatic weapons fire echoed off the buildings. Lafayette Square was lit up like strobe lights. It was over almost as fast as it began, twenty-eight men and ten women lay dead in pools of blood, a mere stone's throw from the White House. The guards watching the mayhem tensed and a few raised their rifles across their chests, but no one dared to act.

Garrison and Avery beamed at each other with wide smiles of satisfaction.

“Thank you Lord for choosing me and guiding me tonight. Thy will be done,” Garrison said.

As the two men were about to walk back to the White House with their three helpers, one of the guards summoned the courage to approach them.

“Sir … why?” he asked.

Garrison felt a surge of rage because his divine mission was being questioned. Even so, he was not a fool. As much as he wanted to shoot this man, he knew that discretion was the best policy. His quick thinking took over and he created a lie, a very convincing one. It would become his official stance on the incident. If over thirty of these people tried to crash the White House, no telling how many more there were around the country, not to mention the world. He was special and he must remain so. God's plan depended on it.

“Sergeant, I couldn't ask you and your men to carry out judgment, not in good conscious,” he said.

The sergeant seemed confused.

“You see, those people were taken over by the damned Impals. Instead of killing them, they were controlling them. We … we had to put them down,” he said with false remorse.

“But … what about them?” he asked, glancing at Avery and the other three.

“They were too strong for the Impals; their faith in God is pure. They mustered the strength to resist. Now, I'm going to take them in and let them recover from their traumatic ordeal.”

The sergeant still seemed confused, but he nodded and stepped aside.

Garrison returned the weapon to the guard he borrowed it from. “It handles well,” he said with a smile and a pat on the shoulder.

Garrison was about to walk on when something caught his eye above the sergeant's head. Someone was at one of the windows on the second floor. Steff stood there with her hands cupped over her mouth in horror.

CHAPTER 16

LITTLE DONNA

“It's fun to have a partner who understands your life and lets you be you.”

~Kim Kardashian

Jack's heart pulsed in every inch of his body. For someone who was so content and restful moments earlier, the knocking at his window terrified him. Not because he thought it was one of the beings from the dark, but because he was afraid it may be the police or, even worse, his base. Did he thoroughly dispose of the evidence? He never welcomed an uninvited guest before, at least not one who left alive.

He glanced about the room, keeping one eye on the window. He jumped when a white hand rapped on the glass again followed by the top of a head peering over the windowsill. Whoever was outside was either crouching on their knees or quite short and standing on their tiptoes. He watched paralyzed until he heard the muffled voice of a woman.

“Hello … I see you … can I come in?”

When the eyes of the person peeked over the sill again, he absently pointed towards the back door in the next room.

“Okay,” she said, and then disappeared.

Jack walked to the other room and flipped on the outside light. When he saw who was outside, he didn't know whether to laugh or to scream. A young girl, in her early teens, stood in the shadows peering up at him. Her grey eyes beckoned to him from underneath a mop of tangled black curls. Her ruby red lips twisted in a sardonic grimace. The first thing he noticed was that she used way too much make up. If not for her torn jeans, filthy trainers, and an unassuming green hoodie, she would have passed as a short prostitute. Jack hesitated before opening the door. This was not because he was afraid of the girl; it was because he had
some
honor. He might be a murderer, but he was not a pedophile. He did not believe her intentions to be honorable. He opened the door only a crack, but she bolted inside and plopped down at his kitchen table as if she belonged there.

“Hi sweetie, what's your name?” she said in a sultry voice way beyond her years. She propped her feet on the table and gave him a seductive wink.

Jack didn't answer at first; instead he studied her in the ambient light coming in from outside. He experienced a mixture of emotions. He wasn't sure whether he was happy to have someone to share the dark with or whether it was time to get his cage back out. He never caged anyone this young because it served no purpose. It wouldn't serve a greater good. However, in this case, he could make an exception. He didn't trust her and he wasn't sure why.

Jack sat down across from her at the table. His mood and posture were rigid. Finally, he answered through clinched jaws. “Jack.” He reached up and pulled the string, turning on the light above the table. The room flooded with light, driving the whispers to the far corners of his flat. Once he got a proper look at his guest, she wasn't quite as she had appeared. She was definitely young, no doubt a teenager. Her physical maturity was blemished by a rough existence. A large scar corkscrewed her right cheek, ending an inch from her eye. Small purple blotches peppered her neck and the top of her hands. He couldn't tell if it was due to mottling from drug abuse or a bruise from an injury. Perhaps her makeup was not a symbol of promiscuity, but rather a cover for a life of shame and humiliation. However, her voice and tone suggested otherwise.

“My name is Donna, darlin',” she said with a wink, making the scar on her cheek jump.

He thought it strange that this girl did not have a British accent. She had an American one, although it sounded fake. Donna spoke in an accent of the American south to be exact. She took her legs down and dangled them over the edge of the chair. She leaned forward with her elbows propped on the tabletop and rested her head in her hands. She regarded him with dreamy eyes.

“Well, Donna,” he began. “Where are you from?”

She rolled her eyes back and forth as if trying to recall some elusive fact. “Manchester,” she said after several long moments. “I'm from Manchester, England.”

“I figured it was the Manchester you were referring to,” Jack said. “You don't sound like you're from Manchester.”

She shrugged and frowned at him. “What the hell am I supposed to sound like?” she yelled and folded her arms over her heaving chest.

“Well, you sound as if you are from the States … Georgia or Alabama or somewhere,” he said, making no effort at apology.

“Is this bloody better?” she said using an exaggerated British accent.

Jack stared at her. He was starting to consider getting his cage back out. This girl was not in his modus operandi, but he would still be doing the world a great service if he took care of her. He could be quick and merciful, unlike how he had treated most of his guests … besides he was tired and needed to get some sleep. He didn't need this aggravation. As tempting a thought as this was, one thing stayed his hand. She was like him. She could move about in the lethal darkness. This small woman-child humbled Jack in a way others had never been able to. He felt foolish that he was naïve enough to believe he was the only one with this special immunity. Of course there were others out there … there had to be. It was a mathematical certainty.