Her eyes at once grew wide, and he bent down nearly overcome with emotion to kiss her lovingly upon the lips.
“I’m so sorry,” he said to her. “But it’s for your own good.”
Her mouth moved as she tried to speak, but the poison was as fast as Elijah had explained.
All John could do was stare, watching as his wife’s life drained away.
“Oh my God,” he said, watching her die.
Elijah then took him by the arm, escorting him toward the door as his team began the next phase of their operations.
“What’s going to happen?” John asked, turning around to see what they were doing. They had undone her bindings and were removing her pajamas.
“What . . .?” he asked.
“John, please,” Elijah said. “Let us try to help her.”
Elijah pulled open the door, pushing him out into the hall. John took one last look just as the old man closed the door. The Coalition agents were all standing over his wife, having taken items from their bags that he had seen before while visiting some of the more primitive cultures in his research. They were items made of bone and used for puncturing and injecting ink beneath the skin.
Tools used for making tattoos.
John sat outside the locked bedroom door for what felt like days. It had been, in fact, a little more than twenty-four hours, but the reality of the actual amount of time that had passed did little to comfort him.
There had been screams, and there had been moans from the other side of the door; some had been from his wife, and others . . . The number of times he had risen, and almost pounded upon the door, demanding entry, was too many to consider at this point.
The disturbing and curious sounds had diminished over the last few hours, and John found himself back on the landing floor, leaning wearily against the balustrade.
What was happening on the other side of the door, he obsessed, and would it result in his wife being returned to him? Elijah had offered no guarantees, but as long as the slimmest hope remained, he needed to hold out.
“Anything?” a voice asked, coming up the stairs from the first floor. John turned his head as Stephan passed.
“Nothing,” John said.
Stephan reached the top, holding a tray of steaming mugs. Dr. Cho followed with another tray, this one holding three plates with a sandwich on each.
“I told you I wasn’t hungry,” John said as he stood, taking a mug of hot coffee from Stephan’s tray.
“You haven’t had anything substantial in close to fifteen hours. I’ve decided that yes, you are hungry,” Stephan said. “Have a sandwich.”
Franklin came to stand beside Stephan with the tray. “I don’t want anything,” John said, before taking a sip from his mug. “Believe me,” Dr. Cho said. “Take a sandwich.”
“See, someone listens,” Stephan commented.
John shook his head, exasperated by the badgering, but knowing better than to argue with his assistant. He did as he was told, taking a sandwich from one of the plates.
“There you go,” Stephan said, helping himself to one as well. “You won’t believe how much better you’ll feel once you have something in your stomach.”
John grunted a response, lowering himself to the floor, careful not to spill his coffee. Franklin took the spot beside him, and Stephan plopped down beside him. They all began to eat, staring at the closed doors.
“I wonder how much longer they’ll be?” Stephan asked, taking a large bite from his sandwich, chewing slowly.
“It’s making me a bit crazy that I can’t check on her,” Franklin said. “Her vitals were so iffy that . . .”
“She might be dead,” John stated, eyes fixed upon the barrier before him. The statement of fact was true, no matter how abrupt and potentially painful, and he felt as though they should all get used to the possibility.
“I don’t think that they’d still be in there with the door closed if she was dead,” Stephan said. He set the plate with the half-eaten sandwich down on the floor beside him. “I don’t even know why I’m eating that. I’m not even hungry.”
“Is that how you’re choosing to deal with this now?” Franklin Cho asked him. “To assume the worst, and take it from there?”
“I injected her with a neurotoxin,” John said.
“Which was part of a procedure,” Franklin then added. “One that I believe is extremely dangerous, but a part of their procedure nonetheless.”
“I just feel we should all entertain the possibility that Elijah and his people might not be successful,” John said. He took another bite of his sandwich, chewing slowly.
“But again,” Stephan said, “they might be. You’ve always been that half-empty guy, John. You really do need to start thinking more positively.”
“We’re going to do this now?” John asked him. “Have you seen anything positive around here these last few days? Maybe I’ve missed it.”
Stephan looked away and began to silently sip on his coffee.
“We don’t even know what they’re doing to her in there,” John said, the primitive tattooing tools prevalent in his thoughts.
“Yes, we do,” Franklin chimed in. “They’re trying to help her.”
“Are they?” John asked. He looked to his friend. “They made me agree to help them with their war against the forces of evil, or whatever, in exchange for whatever the hell they’re doing.” He motioned toward the door, his voice was growing louder. “God knows what they’re trying . . . they could just be going through the motions so I keep my part of the deal.”
He thought about his wife, as she lay in her hospital bed at the Cho Institute when he’d attempted to save her. When she had begged for him to make her a vegetable, permanently trapping the demons in her still-living body, but freeing her of the torment.
He was beginning to think that maybe there had been something to her request, and it was killing him inside.
“Let’s hope that’s not the case,” Stephan said, getting up from the floor with a loud grunt. He had started to retrieve the plates and empty mugs— When the bedroom door came open.
Elijah stood in the doorway, looking much the worse for wear. His clothes were wrinkled and stained, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to the elbow. He looked as though he could use a shave and a shower.
John sprang to his feet, going to the door. Elijah blocked his way.
“Not yet,” the old man said. “Give it some time first. Let her rest and recover.”
“Then she’s all right?” He was looking into the room, and saw some things that he wished he hadn’t. There was blood on the walls, and on the floor. One of Elijah’s crew was zipping up someone in a black, plastic body bag.
Immediately John felt his heart skip a beat with the sight, looking at once to the bed, making sure that he saw his wife lying there. And she was, curled in a tight ball, covered with a sheet, trembling as if cold.
He wanted to go to her, to hold her—to warm her with his body.
One of her bare arms shot out from beneath the sheet, and he saw the markings.
Just by looking at them, he could tell that the symbols were ancient, and filled with power.
One of Elijah’s people went to the bed, gently taking her exposed arm and sliding it back beneath the covers.
“What have you done?” John asked Elijah, still feeling images of the black, tattooed symbols that he had just seen on her flesh writhing at his brain. “What did you do to her?”
Elijah looked back into the room before grabbing the doorknob and closing it once more behind him.
“Hopefully we’ve helped her,” he said. “Given her a chance to live with the evil that infests her. Hopefully we’ve given her control.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
My name is Christopher Waugh, the boy repeated in the echoing cavern of his mind, and I lived in Chicago. Live in Chicago, he corrected. I live in Chicago.
The image of his father lying dead in the upstairs hallway almost made him cry, bu
t it was so hard for the tears to come these days.
Is it possible to actually cry out all your tears? he wondered.
Looking around him, he thought it might be.
He’d had his head down on his desktop, resting, and raised it to look about the room. There were several others in the classroom with him; most of them were sleeping They rarely moved, rarely cried out, never pulled at the chains that bound them to the wooden floor beneath their desks.
None of them were doing all that much these days— Except learning about Damakus.
That was what they were there for . . . what they were living for.
Damakus was the eye in the center of creation, and through his teachings he would come again and he would . . .
Chris silenced his fevered mind. He didn’t want to think about that, or the one who had brought them all there.
The Teacher.
With just the thought of the man, Chris felt his body start to shake, to break out in a cold, tingling sweat that made it feel as though he had millions of tiny spiders crawling up and down his back. He shifted in his chair, his chains rattling on the floor and filling the silence of the classroom with noise.
Some of the other students stirred.
That was all he knew them as, students.
The Teacher did not want them to be anything more than that. They had no names anymore. They were the students, and he was the Teacher. That was all there was to know.
And they were there to learn about Damakus so that he could live again.
The girl across from him—a little bit of a thing who couldn’t have been any older than six—looked at him with eyes that showed nothing. He wondered how long she’d been in the classroom. She’d been there when he arrived. There was dried blood all over her mouth, which probably had something to do with the fact that she didn’t seem to have many teeth. There was another boy in the first row whose hand was bandaged.
He wanted to talk to them, and was about to speak to the toothless girl when she seemed to sense his intention and immediately put her head down upon the desk as if hiding from him. The other students were stirring as well, but they refused to look at him, or each other.
The Teacher had warned them about this.
He didn’t know why he bothered, but he slid down from his seat to the floor to examine where the chain attached around his ankle. He moved aside the stinking metal bucket where he went to the bathroom, and again studied where the chain connected to a plate in the floor. Using all his strength, he tugged upon it, but only succeeded in causing a painful throb inside his head. Nothing was any different, the thick chain remaining attached to the plate bolted into the wooden floor. He even picked at the wood around the plate, but that had gotten him nowhere.
Christopher emerged from under his desk and slipped back onto his seat. The others had been watching him, but they quickly looked away when he looked in their direction.
They’d put their heads back down upon their desks, hiding from him, hiding from what he was doing.
At least I’m doing something, he thought, disgusted by the fact that they all seemed so accepting of their situation.
He wondered how long it would be until he was that way and felt a surge of anger course through him, the memory of what that man, what the Teacher, had done to his father accompanying the rush of rage. And before he could stop himself, he started to scream, tossing his head back and reaching down deep to cry out as loudly as he could. He knew he had done it before to little effect, but maybe this time . . . maybe this time somebody would hear.
The others had all lifted their heads and were staring at him intensely, their eyes telling him to stop, that it would all be for nothing. But Christopher couldn’t help himself. He had to try before . . .
Before he became like them.
He screamed until his voice gave out, ragged and raw, and sat there panting, listening for a sign that somebody had heard.
“Maybe,” he said to them, his voice little more than a dry croak.
One by one, they just looked away, putting their heads back down upon their desktops.
And then he heard the sound . . . they all heard the sound.
It was loud and powerful in the silence, a clattering sound as if something . . . someone . . . was coming in through the door from the outside.
Someone must have heard, he thought, and he began to scream again, though the sound emerged from his throat as little more than a sickly squawk. Just to be sure, he began to thrash his legs, letting the chain around one of his ankles whip about, banging off the floor and legs of his desk.
He thought for sure that the others would join him in being heard, but they all sat dumbly silent, their eyes fixed upon the doorway.
Waiting for their savior.
The front of the shopping cart came through the doorway first, and Christopher let out a happy squeak, jumping to his feet on legs that trembled from lack of use.
He was ready to be rescued . . . ready to be free, but found his anticipation shattered like brittle bone as the pusher of the shopping carriage entered the room.
“And who’s making all that noise?” the Teacher asked, his dark beady eyes moving about the classroom until they fixed upon him.
“Ah, there you are,” the man said, shoving the cart farther into the room and down one of the rows between the desks. “My, aren’t we rambunctious today?” the Teacher said, maneuvering the cart to stop before Christopher.
“What do you have to say for yourself, student?” the Teacher asked.
He had no idea why he said it, but the words just seemed to spill from his mouth.
“I’m Christopher Waugh,” he said, desperate to hold on to who he was. “I’m Christopher Waugh and I want to go home.”
The Teacher’s dark eyes grew immense as he stared.
“You still have so much to learn, student,” the Teacher said, his gaze like twin laser beams burning into the flesh of his face.
Christopher was ready for anything, ready to be punished for his behavior, but the Teacher continued on, pushing the shopping cart filled with stuff to the back of the room.
They all turned in their chairs, watching their teacher. Christopher took note of the cart’s contents, curious as to what the horrid man was planning on doing with an empty fish tank.
The Teacher left his cart and dragged two empty desks closer to the shopping cart, placing them side by side.
It was hot and steamy inside the classroom, and Christopher wondered how the man wasn’t suffocating in all the layers of clothing he was wearing, not to mention the long coat.
The Teacher hefted the empty fish tank from out of the shopping carriage and set it down atop the two desks. He hovered over the empty tank, peering down into the nothingness before returning to the cart. There were multiple, plastic jugs of some nasty-looking liquid that the Teacher then began to open and pour into the tank.
One of Christopher’s fellow students, the little girl with no teeth, whimpered as if she knew something that he didn’t.
The tank was about half-full now, the water—or whatever it was—a nasty, yellowish color filled with dark, floating bits.
“Should we perhaps add some of your tears?” the Teacher asked, chuckling to himself as he emptied the last of the containers into the tank. “There isn’t enough time,” he answered the question himself, reaching down into the brackish fluid as if to check the temperature.
Christopher’s mind raced as he tried to grasp what could possibly be happening now. What is the tank for? he wondered.
“Is this what you want?” the Teacher said to the liquid contents. “Is this what you need?” He appeared to react to his own question, rearing back as he clutched at his chest, doubling over as if in pain. “Yeeearrrrrrgh,” the man screamed as he bent nearly in half.
He panted with exertion, slowly righting himself.
“Today you will see what your learning has wrought,” the Teacher said to them. “What your belief in Him has created.??
?
Christopher still didn’t understand, but he wanted to cry as much as the toothless girl beside him had. There was a feeling in the room, a sensation even worse than it had been.
Something was going to happen, he was sure of it. Something really, really bad.
“You,” the Teacher said, pointing at him. “The one that was making all the noise.”
He twitched in his seat from the attention brought to him.
“Come here, student,” the Teacher instructed, motioning him closer.
Christopher did not want to leave the protection of his desk, and shook his head.
“You will do as your Teacher tells you!” the man screamed. He was bending over again, gripping his stomach and chest through the heavy trench coat he wore. “Come here!”
It was as if Christopher were caught in some powerful invisible current, his body pulled away from his desk toward the makeshift table where the tank of filthy water sat.
The Teacher came around to stand in front of him, before the eyes of the other students.
“Why did you cry out?” the Teacher asked. “Was it so that someone might hear . . . so that they might come to rescue you?” He looked up over the classroom. “You haven’t a clue as to what is going on here . . . the history you are about to witness . . .”
He started to unbutton his heavy woolen coat, to reveal a red checked shirt beneath. He shucked off the coat.
That was when Christopher noticed his shape, the way in which the Teacher’s shirt clung to his body.
It looked wrong.
“What you are about to become a part of.” The Teacher started to unbutton his shirt, and all the boy could do was stare in rapt attention. The Teacher pulled open his shirt to reveal the swollen mass of pulsating flesh. For a moment, Christopher thought of his friend Tommy Stanley’s mother, who was going to have a baby. But this growth was higher, and more strangely shaped than Mrs. Stanley’s stomach, and it throbbed and writhed as something moved eagerly just beneath the skin.
“Behold what my teachings have planted,” the Teacher commanded. “And what your beliefs and fears have grown.”
Christopher backed away, repulsed by the sight of the man’s awful stomach.