The Seventh Seal (20 page)

John knew that the first shots came from outside the house. 
It took a pause and the thumping of boots on the kitchen floor before Father’s
troops returned fire.  The men yelled about a sniper behind the garage.  One
called for grenades strapped to another soldier.

John pushed the thin piece of paneling to one side and
crawled out from underneath the basement steps.  His legs felt cramped, but he
was otherwise thankful for the hidden storage area.

Light from the late-evening sun filtered through the open
side door and down the steps into the basement.  John remained in the dark for
a minute to make sure he was not giving up his position to one of Father’s men.

Glass broke and bullets launched into the soft cedar shake
of the house’s exterior.  John tasted dried, burnt wood on his tongue, and
covered his mouth to stifle a cough.

He heard the first of two explosions roll back to the house
like a seven-ten split at the bowling alley.  The second explosion followed a
minute after the first, and the retaliation shook the foundations of the
house.  John thought that the old colonial, built in the early 1920s, might
come crashing down, burying the remains of his life.  John’s ears rang, and
dust rained down from the rafters, covering him with a thin layer of grime.  He
crept up the steps, gun barrel leading the way.

When John reached the side door and mudroom landing, he
stopped and flattened himself against the wall.  The men in the kitchen talked,
but he could not make out what was being said.

One soldier appeared in the driveway, three feet from John. 
John held his breath and pulled tight against the wall.  The soldier aimed his
gun in another direction and moved down the driveway toward the garage.

Through the pain, Sully welcomed the warm embrace of his own
blood.  He wiped the red shade from his face and watched three men closing on
his position.  His left arm snaked back over the hedge at a bizarre angle.  It
did not follow the directives from his brain.  Sully felt a burning sensation
in his stomach, and phantom pains pulsed where his right leg used to be.  The
grenade left a divot in the snow bank.

“Drop your weapons!” came the first command from the soldier
closest to him.

“Does it look like I’m holding any, numbnuts?”

The other soldiers surrounded Sully, each aiming the barrel
of their machine gun at his head.

“Hold your position,” said the lead soldier to the other
men.

Sully closed his eyes and his body spasmed from the pain he
tried to ignore.  When he opened them again, Father was coming down the steps
out of the kitchen door.  He had a Bible in one hand, and swept his robes back
and forth through the cold wind.

“You are an agent of Satan,” said Father.

Sully laughed and spit blood onto the pristine, white snow
next to his head.

“How’ya been there, Father William?”

Father looked at Sully’s face.  His skin matched the pasty
white flakes falling from the sky.

“What?  Don’t remember each piece of ass you’ve had?  I sure
do.”

Father turned and instructed the soldiers to take his
weapons, which they did.  He ordered them back into the house, out of earshot
of the conversation.

“How do you know I am Father William?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  Maybe you were the pastor of my church
when I was a kid?”

Father’s face contorted as misty recollections passed
through his mind.

“How many little boys have sucked you off?  Did it start
with Sister Anne’s class, or have you been taking cock your whole life?”

Father drew a leg back and drove his black, steel-toed shoe
into Sully’s abdomen.  “Shut your mouth, right now.” 

The biker froze, his mouth agape with silent pain.  When his
wind returned, Sully screamed. 

Father peered into Sully’s eyes as his own lit with a
distant memory.  A faint smile broadened his rough face.

“Michael Sullivan.  How could I forget your face?  You were
easy because your parents were stupid.”

Sully sat up with all of his remaining strength and lobbed a
slow, long punch at Father’s knees.  Father stepped back and stood on Sully’s
arm.  With his free leg, he delivered a blow square on Sully’s nose.  The
explosion sent bone and cartilage flying through the air.

“Before these men send you to your Judgment Day, I’m going
to give you one last chance to make amends before the Lord.  Since your days in
the parish, you have strayed.  Come back to Him now and save your soul before
it is too late.”

Sully pulled himself to an upright position with his back leaning
on the garage.  He spit more blood and looked up at Father as his vision
clouded.  Sully saw Father as he stood now, but he also saw Father William
superimposed.  The two images floated back and forth between each other.  Sully
shook his head and spoke.

“You are nothing but a rotten pervert.  A sick, twisted son
of a bitch.  You used your power and influence to abuse little kids.  There
ain’t nothing beyond this, so you ain’t scarin’ me with your threats of
Judgment Day.  But let me tell you this.  I know that the cosmic balance of the
universe will correct itself.  You will leave this world with the pain you have
inflicted on others.  Fuck off, Father.”

With a wave of Father’s hand, Sully sat back and closed his
eyes as the machine guns cracked to life.  Four men pummeled Sully’s broken
frame with rounds of ammunition.  Father held up his hand and the firing
stopped.  Michael Sullivan’s lifeless eyes stared up into the bare tree and
beyond the blue-gray sky.

Jana put her good hand to her mouth to stifle the cry.  They
gunned the man down like an animal.  She was too far away to hear the
conversation.  The makeshift splint on her broken wrist immobilized it, but it
did not hold back the throbbing, insistent pain.

She pulled back from the window and reassessed her
situation.  After pulling both wrists, one swollen and shattered, through the
loose zip ties, she’d managed to find a screwdriver in the storage room.  With
it, she’d slid the bolt back and ran out of her old house into the next-door neighbor’s. 
She timed it perfectly, as John and a gang of bikers approached the house just
after her escape.

She heard the stairs creak and spun around.

“It is good to be reunited, is it not?”

Jana shivered at the sound of Byron’s voice.

“I need you to come with me, little one.”

“Why?  So you can serve me up to that sick bastard?  Kill me
now.”

Byron hobbled through the room toward her.  A lump stuck out
of his forehead above the right eye.  The swelling almost closed the only good
one.  Byron’s pronounced hobble worsened as he walked toward Jana.  As if to
answer her thoughts, Byron spoke again.

“There are men waiting for me at the bottom of the steps. 
Do not be so foolish as to think you can fight your way out of this.  You are a
nurse, my pretty, not a warrior.”

Jana slammed her fist into the stained wall and growled at
the commander.  She stood and walked past Byron, never taking her eyes off of
his.  She held her hands high in the air and started walking down the steps. 
Half way down, the soldiers whipped out the zip ties.  Jana screamed as they
bound her broken wrist to her healthy one.

John heard Sully’s death cry.  He had managed to sneak out
to the driveway.  Father stood above Sully while his Warriors of Christ stood
behind him, firing into the man’s broken body. 

As the soldiers turned back to reenter the house, John
scurried behind the wall.  He raced around toward the front door.  Out of the
corner of his eye, he noticed movement in the neighbor’s house.  John dove
behind the evergreen bush, thankful that it had not shed its cover like most of
the other shrubbery in the region.

He saw Jana emerge first, and could not believe his eyes. 
Her hair blew in the wind like soiled straw, as John suppressed a desire to
call out.  Bruised skin and swollen features replaced the usual glow in her
face.  Jana wore a splint on one arm and cried in pain as the soldiers escorted
her across the neighbor’s lawn and back into the house through the kitchen
door.

John put his head in his hands and chased frozen tears from
his cheek.  He glanced at the gray smoke rising from Sully’s final stand, and
beyond the biker’s corpse at the dark and silent street.

***

“I’m glad to see you are with us again, Commander Byron.  My
men were worried that you would not awake from your injuries.”

Byron’s mouth twitched into a reluctant grin as he
calculated the odds of his survival.

“I understand you found the girl, Jana, hiding in the house
next door?” Father asked.

“Yes, she left just enough tracks for an experienced hunter;
the wounded fox is no match for an old hound.”

“Excellent work, Commander Byron.  I was a little
disappointed that you were not able to fight off the Infidels that attacked my
men, but we took care of them in the end.”

“Thank you, Father.  I am here to serve the Lord.”

“Are you, Byron?  I don’t understand how those despicable
Keepers of the Wormwood managed to take out my soldiers that were here, waiting
for John and Jana.  How do you explain that?”

Byron twitched and rubbed the lump on his head.  Before he could
answer, one of the soldiers dragged Jana into the kitchen before Father, who
began his questioning.

“So you are Jana Burgoyne?”

Jana stood and did not respond.  A soldier walked up and
grabbed her by the broken wrist.  His spittle hit her lips as he instructed her
to answer Father.

“Yes.”

“Finally, some conversation.  And where is John?”

“I don’t know,” Jana replied.

Father motioned to the other men. 

“Take her downstairs.”  The sun was dying as the early
winter evening began to take over.

***

John heard the screams, muffled by the earthen walls of the
basement.  He cocked the weapon and sidled down the driveway toward the side
door.  From there, he heard Jana whimpering, begging for mercy, and cursing her
captors all in one breath.

He reached for the handle of the storm door when a metallic
click sounded behind his left ear.

“Drop the weapon or lose your head.”

Without an option, John followed the command.

Byron stood back on the far wall.  His slouching posture
nagged an aching body.  The commander kept out of Father’s sight, willing to
let John and Jana occupy Father’s fury.

Father sent the majority of the troops back to St. Michael’s,
leaving four to help him with the interrogation.  They sat on boxes, smoking
cigarettes and trading dirty jokes while they played poker, the words of the
prisoners of no interest to them.  Byron tired of standing and slid down the
wall into a seated position.  Father glanced at him, but ignored the ailing
commander.  He would be dealt with later.

“Let her go.  She’s of no use to you,” said John.

“Don’t tell me who is of use and who is not.  God will make
that decision,” replied Father.

John looked at Jana, but she looked away.  Her entire face had
swelled and turned red from numerous blows.  Blood ran from her nose and mouth,
and she wheezed with every breath.

“Tell me John, what does the Lord say about the Final
Battle?  Channel him for me so I do not have to hurt your wife anymore.”

“I’m not John the Revelator.  I’m John Burgoyne.  I live
here, in this house, in South Euclid, Ohio.  I wore the stolen clothes of a
priest for a Halloween party.  That’s it.  That’s my story, no matter how much
you torture me.”

Father chuckled.

“Torture
you
?”

He walked past Jana and John, examining their restraints. 
He instructed the soldiers to blow two sets of holes in the wall and stick the
arms of the prisoners through them, binding their wrists from the other side. 
Father pulled out a crumpled cigar.  One of the young soldiers involved in the
card game jumped up and aimed his Zippo at the end of it.  With hearty breaths,
Father ignited the cigar and blew the smoke into John and Jana’s faces.

“It will be dark soon.  Retrieve the construction light from
the truck,” Father said to one of the soldiers.

The soldier returned, dropped the light on the floor, and
connected the terminals to the car battery.  The halogen bulb blanketed the
entire basement with fluorescent light.  Those in the room covered their eyes
until they adjusted to the brightness.

“Much better.  Now we can talk all night,” said Father.

Father grabbed a stained hunting knife from the table.  He
walked toward Jana.  She struggled and cursed, doing her best to turn away from
him and his foul cigar smoke.  He took the tip of the knife and placed it on
the left side of her head.  In one, swift motion, Father slid the blade down,
cutting off Jana’s left ear.  She screamed and John howled profanities at the
madman.  Father grabbed an old rag from the floor and wrapped it around the
fresh wound, tying the rag tightly.

“I don’t want you bleeding out yet, do I?” he said as Jana’s
eyes rolled back into her head, on the verge of passing out.

“You sadistic bastard!”

“It is more effective for me to get to you through her.  Sit
tight, John the Revelator.  Your time will come.”

Byron pulled himself to his feet.  He looked into Jana’s
eyes and had to turn away.

“My dear, what dance shall we dance next?” asked Father.

He took the knife and wiped it clean on Jana’s jeans. 
Father traced the outline of her breasts with the edge of the blade, barely
touching the fabric of her sweatshirt.  He slid the knife between the waistband
of her jeans and the top button.  The thread gave way and the button rolled to
the floor.  Father grabbed the zipper and pulled it down.  The soldiers stopped
playing cards and Byron took a step forward.

“I have four men here that would enjoy a little action. 
Isn’t that right?”

Father asked the question while looking over his shoulder at
the soldiers.  They stopped playing cards, but each man continued to hold them in
his hands.

“Fine.  Come here and I’ll tell you what you want to know,”
said John.

Father took a step toward John.  On his way, he bent down
and placed his head at Jana’s waist.  Father inhaled an exaggerated breath
through his nose and released it with a smile on his face.

“I can smell the excitement and fear on your wife,” he said
to John.

John ignored the comment and waited for Father to ask a
question.

“What has He said about the Final Battle?  What do you have
to share that is not explicit in Revelations?  Do not make me think that God
was mistaken about you,” Father warned.

“God says that his people will reign.  The Second Coming of
the Messiah will restore peace to the world through His one-thousand-year
reign.  The Great White throne will usher in the New Heavens and New Earth.”

Father stopped and looked into John’s eyes.  The cigar
dangled from his lips and came close to burning them.  He put the knife down
and sat on a box in front of the two prisoners.

“I’m impressed, John.  I would like to hear more.”

John sighed and licked his dry lips.

“It is the work of Seven,” John continued. “The Seven Cycles
of events in Revelations can be compared to the works of the Holy Covenant. 
The First Cleansing must surely be the first of those cycles.”

Father’s face lit with a beaming smile.  He looked at the
soldiers and Byron, all of who wore blank expressions on their faces.

“Yes, yes it is.  You are very perceptive, John the
Revelator.  Tell me more of the Book of Revelations and how it is being
interpreted here.”

John coughed and his eyes darted around the room.  He looked
to the ceiling while whispering under his breath.

“I’m thirsty.  Can I get something to drink?”

Father turned and said to one of the soldiers, “Get this man
a bottle of water.”

John looked to Jana, but she buried her chin in her chest. 

A soldier fumbled through an olive-green bag and produced a half-liter
of bottled water.  He opened it and hoisted it to John’s lips.  He gulped as
much of the sweet-tasting water as he could before the solder pulled it away.

Father’s mood turned and his face contorted into a ferocious
snarl.

“Enough!  Continue or the pain will commence,” he said to
John.

John shook his head and looked at Father through shimmering
tears.

“Don’t hold back on me!” Father shouted.

He turned to Jana and punched her in the stomach.  She
moaned and lifted her head in agony.  Father picked up the knife and placed it
under Jana’s chin.

“Talk or I will send her to her final judgment.”

John looked around the room as it began to swirl.  The dark
blacks and grays of the basement flowed together into a kaleidoscope of color
and motion which forced his eyelids shut.
 
When he opened them, Father
stood in front of Jana.  Her sweatshirt had been cut open.  Jana’s jeans sat in
a pile at her feet, and her panties hung from the hilt of Father’s knife.

Two of the soldiers moved toward her, each loosening the
belt on their pants.  Father stood in front of her, his chest heaving and eyes
bulging.  Jana finally looked over at John, her eyes piercing his soul.  John
pulled as hard as he could on the ties binding his wrists, but they did not
give.  He tried to scream, but his brain refused to form coherent thoughts and
would not send them along to his mouth.

John looked around the room and saw Commander Byron.  His
cane supported what was left of his dignity.

Father screamed unintelligible words and beastly sounds at
Jana.  He tore at his own shirt, and his fingernails drew long, red trails down
his own face.  The two soldiers that approached Jana did so with looks of
consternation.  The other two remained seated on the boxes, trying to convince
themselves that they were not part of the proceedings.

Father stepped in closer to Jana.  He bent down and placed
his tongue on her navel.  He ran it up her stomach and between her two breasts
until his lips almost touched hers.  Jana looked straight ahead, beyond Father
and into a time and place where she existed without her physical body.  He
placed both hands on her breasts and pushed her tight against the wall.

The two soldiers discarded their initial state of shame, and
dropped their pants to their ankles.  Both men gripped growing erections in
their hands.

John heard himself screaming, and the echoes reverberated
inside his head.  No matter how hard he tried, his mouth would not release a
sound.  Byron stepped closer, a foot from the wall that secured the prisoners.

Jana began to struggle, pulling hard on the ties that bound
her wrists together.  She screeched in pain as the binding tore deeper into her
shattered wrist bones.  Jana brought her legs up in an attempt to knee the
attackers.  The two men seated on the boxes saw this and ran over to secure her
ankles.  They tied them to cinder blocks laying scattered on the basement
floor.  The proximity to Jana’s exposed body and primal instincts stole their
focus on the task at hand.  The four men and Father stood, drooling like wild
beasts over their kill.

John shut his eyes and tried to replay another scene from
their past, but his mind would not cooperate.  He heard Jana crying, and he
heard the men jockeying for position.