Absence of Faith (40 page)

* * *

Linda awoke to the sound of wood
creaking. She had heard it before when her jailers brought her
food. Since they had brought her here, she had lost her voice and
she had trouble thinking clearly. She struggled to hold onto a
single thought and her attempts to think through ideas were
extremely difficult. She figured they had placed something in her
food so she hadn’t eaten the last two meals, but they gave her so
little food she was constantly starving. Now she did not know if
she could resist the food when it was placed in front of
her.

Linda squinted when the single bulb
overhead went on and then she heard the lock click open. The door
slowly opened and it was the woman who brought the food. She handed
Linda a soft white plastic enclosed tray with one hand while she
held the door handle with the other.

"I got you something hot tonight,"
the woman said. "I hope it didn’t get cold."

"Thanks. A hot meal will be
wonderful," Linda said as she opened the plastic tray revealing
hot, steamy brown rice.

"I hope you like Chinese," the
woman said.

"One of my favorites."

The woman opened the door
wider.

"I like your hair pulled back into
a pony tail. It accents your face and eyes," Linda said.

"I keep it this way for work. It’s
a special braid that my grandmother taught me."

The woman turned her head to show
the braid and Linda grabbed the ponytail and pulled it down as hard
as she could. The woman was spun around and fell hard on her back.
Linda smashed the hot rice onto the woman’s face as she hit the
floor pushing it hard. The woman screamed in pain, but instantly
lurched for Linda’s ankle and held on. Linda fell slamming her head
into a large flat rock near the doorway. Linda kicked her in the
face several times with her other foot, but she would not let go.
Linda spun around on her back, grabbed the woman's hair again, and
pulled it as hard as she could towards the floor. The woman
screamed again, but did not let go of Linda’s ankle. The woman
brought her leg up, hooked it around Linda’s neck, and quickly
slammed her down to the ground. Linda lost her grip on the woman’s
hair, and woman quickly moved on top of Linda and kicked her in the
head.

"Bitch!" the woman said.

She took out a set of handcuffs and
pulled Linda’s limp arm towards a rusty pipe that ran along the
wall on one side of the small shed. She clicked Linda to the pipe
and kicked Linda in the side.

"That’s what I get for being nice,"
she said and left.

Several minutes later Linda woke up
to a pounding in her head and an ache in her side. She sat up and
realized she couldn’t move her arm very far. Then she heard the
creaking again and shuddered. The sound stopped and then started
again. Linda sat perfectly still and listened intently. The sound
moved to a different part of the larger shed, stopped, and then
moved to a different area.

"Hellllllllllllllllllp!" she
screamed but her voice was slightly louder than a
whisper.

The creaking sound continued and
Linda slammed the handcuffs down on the metal pipe as hard as she
could.

"Clack! Clack! Clack!"

Then the creaking stopped. Linda
tapped again.

"Clack! Clack! Clack!"

She listened. Nothing. Then she
kicked the walls with all she had over and over until her foot
hurt. The darkness seemed to swallow her sounds. She closed her
eyes and her thoughts drifted to Carson and her longing to go
home.

* * *

Jack was holding several photos
when he heard something. He held his breath and
listened.

"Tap, tap, tap."

He wasn't sure what he heard or
that he heard anything at all. His chest hurt again.

"Tap, tap, tap."

It was very faint and he didn't
know where it had come from. He dropped the photos back into the
box and closed the lids. He moved slowly like a cat towards the
door trying to prevent the floor from creaking as little as
possible. Then something caught on his shoe. He jumped back like a
cat and shone his light down by his feet. A woman's sneaker had
entangled with his shoe. He moved the light towards the corner and
saw the other sneaker in the corner along with a pair of men’s
slacks and a shirt. He took a white cotton handkerchief from his
back pocket and carefully picked through the clothing using the
handkerchief like a glove. He searched in the pockets for anything
that could identify the owner, and then he noted the shoe size of
the sneaker. When he didn't find anything he got up, stuffed the
handkerchief back in his pocket and slipped outside. His eyes
darted around in all directions and he moved quickly away from the
building. A small breeze began to toss the nearby tree leaves. The
crickets were silent.

Linda stopped her tapping and
listened to the wind rustling through the trees. Frustrated, angry,
and filled with fear, she let all of her bad feelings burst
out.

"Hellllllllllllllllllllp!"

Jack thought he heard something but
he wasn’t sure. He thought it was a cat at first, but knew it was
something larger. His chest tightened and he wanted to leave - he
had plenty of information and he confirmed that the nurse was a
member of the cult, but his curiosity peaked so he slid back
towards the building and moved along its right side to the rear. He
stopped at the smaller building hidden behind the main
building.

Linda's throat burned and she
withdraw into herself - the pain had overwhelmed her. She resolved
that there was no hope. Her captors were going to kill her. She was
going to die. She thought about never seeing Carson again and
silently cried.

Jack looked at the single gray
metal door to the small shed. He moved closer and gingerly grabbed
the doorknob so it would not make any noise. He held the knob
tightly and slowly turned it without making a sound. It turned
slightly then stopped and Jack let go - it was locked. He moved
slowly around the left side of the shed like a shadow - unseen,
silent. The building was like the larger warehouse - no windows
with walls made of unpainted cinder blocks. He looked around in all
directions - he knew he should try to get into the smaller shed,
but he wasn't curious anymore - he was scared, frightened of what
might be in the shed. Suddenly, there was a rustling in the woods
behind him - a crunching of dried leaves. Jack ran through the
darkness back down the driveway. When he reached his car, he wasn't
even out of breath. He slipped in quickly put the key in the
ignition and drove off.

When he was close to home, he
stopped at a convenience store and parked next to a lone public
telephone on the right side of the building. He hated cell phones
and vowed to never use or own one. He said they caused cancer and
were harmful and disrupted human communication. He hated the fact
that it was getting harder and harder to find a public phone. He
was glad that this convenience store still had one and he used it
gratefully. He placed fifty-five cents in the phone and
dialed.

"Hello, Doctor Stokes, this is
Jack. She's one of them all right, and I found the place," he
said.

"Good work and thanks." Stokes
said.

"I found some clothing with some
blood stains," Jack said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, a man’s clothes and women’s
sneakers."

"Oh."

"There is one more thing. I found a
lot of photos of children together."

Jack hesitated.

"And the children were
nude."

H
omer
Whitehead could not sit still. He paced back and forth from the
living room to the kitchen. Martha, his wife, sat in her yellow
flowered lounge chair with a Rosary wrapped around her hands and
slowly fingered the black plastic beads while her lips moved
slightly as if she were talking to someone. Homer glanced at her
and walked into the tiny kitchen with its dark wood cabinets and
dulled, cracked linoleum.

"How long are you going to say the
Rosary?" Homer yelled over to her. "I think God has heard you by
now."

"As long as it takes to rid the
devils among us," she said. "And don't think you are going to watch
TV down here. You go upstairs."

"I don't care about TV. I just
can't get over what Jack found. I feel like going there and blowing
them all away!"

"Never you mind. You let God take
care of them and he will you know."

"Sure he will," Homer mumbled so
she couldn't hear him.

The phone rang and Homer instantly
picked it off on the wall.

"Yeah."

"Homer! This is Jack. Everyone's
gone nuts! There are hundreds of people at the hospital and they're
rushing in scared out of their wits that they will go to hell.
Wilbur the mail carrier died an hour ago, his skin burned and
bubbled, and it’s all over town. Every time someone dies in this
town, people go nuts!"

"They should be hunting down the
devil worshippers not hiding like cowards in the hospital!" Homer
yelled. "Damn fools."

"I found out there are several more
doctors and nurses involved in this devil thing."

"Really? Who?"

"I don't know yet. I'm supposed to
meet this guy and he's going to give me the names."

"Sounds like a damn trap to me.
You'd better not go alone. Talk to Doctor Stokes first and then
figure out what to do."

"Ok."

Homer hung up the phone and dialed
Stokes’ cell phone. It connected, but it wasn’t Stokes.

"Sorry, all circuits are busy," the
recorded voice said. "Please try later."

"Damn!"

"Homer! How many times have I told
you not to swear in our house?"

"Shut up old woman!"

He grabbed his keys on the counter
and rushed into the living room.

"Where are you going?" Martha said
as he rushed past her to the front door.

"Out, I have something to
do."

"Don't you go chasing those people
and getting into trouble," Martha said.

"No, it's something at the
hospital."

"I'll be praying for you,
Homer."

"I know you will," he said and
slammed the door behind him.

* * *

The road to the hospital was grid
locked about a quarter of a mile in each direction. People were
getting out of their cars to see what was causing the traffic jam.
Homer pulled up behind a tall green SUV and slammed his hands on
the steering wheel.

"Damn it!" he yelled.

He put the car in reverse, backed
up about 300 feet, and made a right onto an adjoining street. He
parked the car, got out, and started walking towards the hospital.
He walked under a canopy of 20-year maple trees that stood on both
sides of the street like old matrons guarding some ancient secret.
As he walked under one of the larger trees, a small flock of blue
jays came to life and descended in a cacophony of screeching and
fluttering onto Homer's head pecking the top of his head and
pulling his hair. He hunched over waving his hands to ward off the
attacking birds and ran as quickly as he could. The birds retreated
when he was far enough away. The top of his left ear started to
hurt. He touched it and discovered he was bleeding
slightly.

"Damn blue jays," he mumbled as he
walked towards the hospital wiping his finger on his
pants.

The double-doors to the emergency
room were jammed with seniors seven persons thick and twelve or so
wide. Homer pushed his way through the crowd.

"I have to see Doctor Stokes. I
have important information for him. Let me through," he repeated as
he squeezed through the crowd.

"What important information could
you have, Homer?" said Charles Skyler, Homer's crotchety
neighbor.

"I have information. Now if you
don't mind moving out of the way so I can get through."

"I do mind. You're not any better
than the rest of us. Wait in line," Skyler said moving his body in
front of Homer.

Homer moved to the right and Skyler
mimicked his movements several times preventing Homer from getting
through. Finally, Homer grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled
him out of the crowd.

"Now I said move!" Homer
yelled.

Skyler turned and punched Homer in
the face causing his nose to bleed. Homer fired off a punch, but
Skyler ducked and he missed. Skyler then ploughed his short, fat
body into Homer knocking him on to the ground. The two men rolled
and wrestled like two high school boys fighting over a pretty
girl.

Another man in the crowd turned and
rushed into the hospital cutting in front of several people.
Another man grabbed him and knocked him to the ground. The first
man got up and tackled the second man. Soon other men were rolling
on the ground next to Homer and Skyler. A couple went over to the
fighting duos, attempted to break them up, and was dragged into the
melee. The fighting was contagious as two women began fighting
their way into the hospital and soon the entire crowd was pushing
and shoving and knocking people over.