Arianna Rose: The Awakening (Part 2) (5 page)

Their taunts and insults, along with their continual abuse of him, had eventually taken their toll on Howard.  One day
,
after a particularly vicious assault that had included
being sodomized then beaten
, Howard had been filled with
rage, and an unquenchable thirst for
vengeance.  He’d yearned for it, longed for the dark feeling of revenge, of retaliation.  He’d read that revenge was a sin.  The teaching
s
of the Bible had advised him to turn the other cheek, to forgive those who’d trespassed against him.  But with bright-red blood trickling from every orifice of his body and the sound of jeers echoing in his head, retribution had beckoned him. 
In that moment, he had turned f
r
o
m God, had charged God with turning His back on him
first
.  He had succumbed to the sinister seduction of score settling.  He’d known what he’d needed to do to avenge all the atrocities Tom and Greg had committed against him.

Several of the guards had been smokers.  Having had lit cigarettes extinguished on his bare torso
before they’d ravaged him
, he had known all too well of their filthy habit. 
Smoking had been
the least of their many odious,
deviant behaviors. 

Since the guards had maintained order though regular acts of brutality, they had not feared disobedience.  They had never
guessed that
Howard, t
he smallest, weakest prisoner, would take
one of their numerou
s lighters that had littered their office
, a refillable silver-plated lighter.  And they had not expected him to relieve them of a container of lighter fluid either. 

Though they had not concerned themselves with insubordination, they had been vigilant, always watching.  Howard had been forced to wait until nightfall
late one evening
to steal out of his room, down a long, dark hallway
while everyone else had slept, to collect the lighter and flammable fluid.  He had moved with agility he’d never known he’d
retained, had crept down the corridor with the silence and stealth of a cat and had gathered his tools unnoticed.  From the
guards’ office
, he’d skulked back to the dormitory and searched for the cots Tom and Greg had occupied.  Their bunks had been
positioned
side by side
, almost touching
.  Like jackals, they’d
stayed close to one another,
existed as a vile pair. 

Howard had stood at the foot of their beds and had felt the darkness stroke him with shadowy fingers, guiding him, pushing him. 
With a steady hand, he’d opened the canister of lighter fluid and had squeezed it over them, saturating them with the accelerant
, careful to soak the small sheet that rested between their beds
.  Then he’d taken his thumb and
rolled it o
ver the flint.  The wick had lit
immediately, its golden flame swaying bewitchingly.  He’d been mesmerized by it, had needed to tear his eyes from the small flicker long enough to toss it atop the sleeping boys.  The lighter had landed exactly where he’d wanted to placed it: on the sheet their bunks
had
shared.  The material had ca
ught fire immediately, and the fire had instantly spread along pathways created by lighter fluid.  Both Tom and Greg’s bodies
had begu
n to burn.  It had taken the boys several moments to rouse for their slumber and realize what had been happening.  They had awakened with a start, screaming and crying out in agony as their skin had begun to burn.  Howard had merely watched, a sense of satisfaction filling his chest as he’d smelled the fetid odor of
smoldering
flesh
.  Tom and Greg had begun to thrash about wildly, trying to pat their bodies and smother the growing flames.  Their efforts had been useless, though.  But,
as they’d thrashed
, Tom had released a guttural
shriek
and had lunged forward.  He had latched onto Howard and had held tightly.  He’d felt the heat of Tom’s blazing form, had watched
as
his
own
clothes
had begu
n to burn as well. 

Tom had looked like a man possessed.  He’d howled out,
a raspy war cry, just inches f
r
o
m Howard’s face as flames crept up his neck and began to blister his chin and cheeks.  Howard had tried to shove him off, tried to pry Tom from him, but each time he had resisted, Tom had
tightened his grip.

The last thing Howard Kane had remembered about that fateful night was
Tom pressing his fiery face to his, a blazing kiss of death, then
the feeling of blinding pain searing his entire body, pain unlike any he’
d ever experienced.  Voices had sounded from some distant void an
d oblivion had tempted the edge
of his vision.
 
He’d resisted at first, had focused on the
voices
that
had likely belonged to other guests at his internment camp, or perhaps emergency personnel.  He would never be sure
to
who
m
the voices
had
belonged to as he had surrendered to the nothingness that had called for him
.

The next memory he’d had was lying in a hospital bed.  Weeks had passed and he’d been told that he had suffered third degree burn
s
over the majority of his body. 
He’d been wrapped in lengths of white bandages, his blisters crustin
g and festering beneath them. 

During t
he time he’d spend in the hospital recovering from his near-fatal burns, he’d sunken into a deep depression.  He had realized that he had not avenged the wrongs perpetrated against him. 
He had not emerged the victor. 
Tom had had the final laugh. 
Tom had ta
ken from him the only attribute
that he’d retained during his stay as a ward of the correctional system: his looks.  Ironically, it had been his looks, his attractiveness that had bordered on feminine prettiness that had
generated such a hedonistic frenzy
among the other inmates.  And even that had been stripped of him. 
Howard had been mutilated beyond any form of recognition
, body and soul
.  He had been transformed from a beautiful twelve-tear-old boy, to a monster.  And all of it had happened in the name of vengeance. 

For months, his understanding of what his life had become had felt like bobbing lifelessly in
a
bottomless, blackened sea with no land in sight.  Despair had
crashed against him like mighty waves, drowning him.  His dejection had lasted for nearly
half
a year, until one day, God had sent him a sign. 

The Lord’s sign had come in the form of literature.  A volunteer who’d brought books and magazines to patients in the hospital he’d stayed at had dropped a Bible on her way out.  Howard had groaned before st
ooping to pick up the holy book.  He’d
had most, if not all, of it committed to memory during his eighth year of life, when his father had gone to prison and his mother had taken to drugs and men.  He had not touched a Bible in some time.  In the hospital, he had
begun thumbing through it and
was reminded of
verse after verse of testimony that
supported
God
’s
ability to
forgive him of his
egregious
sins.  He had flagrantly offended God, as many had before him, but God had forgiven them.  And he had known God would forgive him, too. 

Standing in his hospital room, Howard had felt right holding the Bible in his hands, in his heart.  Each word had nearly jumped off the pages, resonating with truth, with sense.  He had known from that point on th
at everything that had happened
had happened for a reason.  He had been tested. 
His suffering had been part of God’s plan for him.  Even his disfigurement had made sense in that divine moment.  Vanity issues had been eliminated in one swift motion by his burns.  He had known that no woman would ever want him, especially since his burns had spread over the lower half of his body destroying any chance
s of procreating or partaking of
marital relations.  He had beamed at the notion that God had chosen him, had freed him of the burden of marriage and parenthood, of pride and conceit.  With all of those factors eliminated, his life had been unfettered.  He had been granted the opportunity to devote his life to God and His work.
  He had been alleviated of the duty of creating a life for himself; one had been created for him.  He had sinned, had claimed the lives of two people, and would in turn, devote his life to God and pay penance for his offenses.

From that day forward, Howard had begun reading from the Bible each day, had repented each day, begging for the Lord’s forgiveness.  On his eighteenth birthday, six years later, all of his doctors and therapists in the federal hospital that had held him had unanimously decided that had turned a corner.  They had believed he had been rehabilitated.  They had credited his devotion to Christ for his turnaround, and no longer
s
aw him as a threat to society.  He had been released, freed to pursue his holy quest.

Propped against a wall in the hallway of the Church he’d founded nearly a quarter of a century ago, Howard
’s
breathing began to
calm.  His pain began to subside.  While the event he’d just experienced, the agony of the Sola’s sin, had been devastatingly real, his recollection of his path had confirmed what he
ha
d always believed.  He would find the Sola and kill her as God had ordered him to, and he would end
a plague intended to beset the
planet
before it began.

Chapter 4

Standing on the steps of Herald Falls High School on Monday morning, Arianna felt her stomach roil.  The weekend had passed far quicker than she would have liked it to, and she’d only spoken to Luke on the phone.  She hadn’t seen him or anyone else from school for the entire weekend.  What had happened at the nightclub, though certainly fresh in everyone’s mind, had not been discussed again.  But
inevitably,
it would be brought up
,
and likely sooner rather than later
.  She dreaded that moment.  She breathed deeply to calm her stomach and her nerves and pulled one of two twin doors toward her. 

Stale air immediately greeted her.  Invisible heat blowing from dusty vents filled the halls as fully as the roar of chatter from students in the hallway
, stifled her; choked her.
  She’d been to school for more than a week, had walked the same halls in a building that had maintained the same
ambient temperature for a week.  Y
et
,
the atmosphere seemed to have changed
.  She had changed. 
Her senses felt heightened.

Voices echoed loudly along the corridor, louder than they had the previous week
. 
A group of girls huddled by their lockers laughed
,
a grating cacophony of high-pitched staccato sounds that scraped at Arianna’s eardrums.  She strained to ignore them, but the harder she tried, the more she focused on them, the shriller they became.  When fina
lly they stopped and began talking again, after Arianna had moved past them,
she
could
still
hear their conversation as clearly as she would have had they been standing right beside her.

“John is such a player,” one said.

“I know.  I don’t know
why
Cheryl puts up with his crap,” another said.

“He cheats on her all the time.  She
has
to know,” a third voice added.

Arianna turn
ed and looked over her shoulder.  She
could barely see the girls any longer.  But
impossibly,
she could still hear the
ir catty conversation
.  She quickly tried to focus on something else,
anything
else
, all the while her heart thumped frantically
. 
She
wondered whether this was one of the new
skill
s
she’d gained, whether
enhanced senses were among them.  S
he reasoned that s
urely, shifting criminals and chairs
were the extent of her talents, along with generating fire.  Either way, she decided to find out. 
Further down the hallway, her English teacher stood at the threshold of the faculty lounge door speaking intently to her gym teacher.
  She stared in their direction, and focused on the two teachers.