His Dark Ways (16 page)

Blades of a helicopter make a beat against the air as it twists into large swooping circles. The pressure of violent wind smacking over my skin awakens nerves I thought were dead. The idea of being loaded like cargo into a Care flight helicopter doesn’t sit well with me, only because I’m alive. They should have kept my body in the strewn out lifeless cross it was left to die in. People I loved are dead because of me. Maybe I shouldn’t have fought so hard to survive and just accepted the nightmare. Everyone that was killed by my hands had to accept it, why not me?

I reach out for Amy one more time before the door of the helicopter becomes a barrier between us and keeps me from seeing her. As two men hover over me shining bright lights into my pupils and poking my arm with a needle, I realize this is real and there’s nothing I can do. I might as well introduce myself to my new alternate reality.

Dad never sugar coated the Bible and its truths. He blatantly told me there are doors that should be left alone—curiosity got the best of me. Everything is such a blur; I don’t even know how many lives Daniel took with my hands. I can barely breathe. Why am I the only one still alive? It’s unfair. He should have just taken me. The idea of smoldering in hell so that everyone else could have lived would be sitting much better with my conscious.

As the helicopter ascends into a sky that seems to be filled with every color of blue, my stomach turns on me because of the elevation. I’ve never had a weak stomach, but my body has never been this fragile either. I rub fingers over my abdomen, bones are all I feel—I’m skeletal.

The man with short breaths tries speaking to me again, but all the energy I mustered up seemed to be only for Amy. Any life left in me fades. I close my eyes and listen as their voices die away. My chest sinks from a long exhale as I slip into a deep sleep.

I wake to a stiff tube stuffed down my nose. It burns as I swallow. I try to pull up a hand to adjust it off the middle of my lips and I’m stopped. White and blue colored cloths are keeping me restrained to the bed. I don’t bother to tug them free because I don’t want to make any noise and face the truth. The silence in the room is soothing, but I must have made some racket because a woman dressed in bright orange scrubs with turkeys comes in to greet me. I’m comforted at the sight of her sunny smile, until two men follow in behind, uniformed police—as if to protect her.

“Hi, Savanna, how are you doing?” she says with a gentle touch.

I can’t speak and only answer with a gag.

“Sorry, the doctor told me I could go ahead and remove your feeding tube when you woke up. Would you like that?”

I nod lightly trying not to look at the two men. My mental state is already in enough agony as it is.

As I look around, this hospital is unfamiliar. Purple lettering written on a pen sitting on the counter near the sink reads Renown. They must have taken me to Reno.

As my nurse stands over me, I focus on her name tag that reads Devon. “Okay, hun,” she hesitates, “I’m going to need you to swallow a minute.”

I do as she asks and nearly throw up as I watch as a long slimy tube is extracted from my nose. “Good job,” she says as she tosses the used tube into the garbage can.

Her warm skin touches mine as she unties the soft restraints that keep me fastened to the bed. “You were a little out of it from the meds they gave you yesterday. We had to put these on you. But now that awful tube is out, you’re good, honey.”

The idea that she’s not scared of me and still stands over me like a mother hen makes me feel human again. “Thank you,” I say with a half-smile and scratchy voice.

“You’re welcome—”

One of the officers with a bushy head of hair interrupts. “Should I grab her some water?”

As Devon responds, her heavy southern accent changes pitch. “Sure, but ice chips would be best. She needs to keep it easy for now.”

The idea of placing ice chips into a dry mouth makes me click my pallet and tongue against each other—definitely dry. Ice chips sound like heaven.

As the officer rushes out for the ice, his partner clicks on a recorder and places it on the ledge of the window.

 “Hi, Savanna, my name is Detective Johnson, and my partner who just ran out to grab you some ice chips is Detective Meyers. I’m so glad you are feeling better.” He pauses and points out the cast on my ankle. I hadn’t noticed the inflexible white thing till now. I budge a toe, but it only makes me want to groan from pain. “We understand you are on pain killers right now, how do you feel?”

The way Detective Johnson’s speaking feels robotic, staged. I wish Devon could ask me these questions instead. “I’m okay,” I shrug.

“Do you know where you are right now?”

“I think so? Am I in Reno?”

“Yes, you’re in Reno at Renown hospital.”     

Devon finishes laying a warm blanket over me and pats my thigh. “All right, you holler if you need anything, okay?”

“Thank you, I really appreciate it.”

She nods and scoots past the other returning officer in the doorway. “Oops, excuse me, honey.”

Ice chips almost fall from his clumsy grip. Maybe he’s a newer officer. “Sorry,” he says, shyly. He places the chips on a tray and pushes it close to the side of the bed. “Can I get you anything else to help you feel more comfortable?”

I shake my head and scoop a few ice chips out with my fingers. My famished body has made me forget about manners. The warmth of my mouth causes the chips to quickly melt down my throat. I close my eyes a moment and take in such a simple comfort.

As I look up, I catch them giving me strange looks, but they hurriedly turn on awkward smiles. I know why they’re here, there’s no use lying to these men. Dad wouldn’t want me to lie. Dad! Is he okay? Before I say anything else, I nearly shout at the two only sitting a foot away. “Have I had any visitors? Has my dad come?”

“There haven’t been any visitors,” says Detective Johnson as he gives Detective Meyers bent eyebrows.

Even the idea that Dad could be dead sends an earthquake rippling through the solid surfaces inside my soul.

I’m quiet and I’m not sure how long, until I start to process this new life.

“Could you please get me a Bible?” I say dashing my eyes all over the room hoping there’s one to quickly grasp and hold close to my chest.

“Yes, of course,” says Detective Johnson as he opens the nightstand closest to me and places one in the palm of my hands.

I make an x across my chest with the Bible tucked in close, holding it here feels like a hug from Dad.

“How many people died?” I ask.

Johnson interweaves his fingers and then firmly unfolds them as if the question I just asked is a difficult one and he’s trying to respond appropriately. “Several have died, how many do you know about?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

“Could you possibly tell us why you don’t know?”

“Do you believe in God, Detective Johnson?”

“Yes, actually, I do.”

The verse Dad read to me when he talked about opening doors that shouldn’t be opened sits like an exposed file inside my brain. The papers it carries are strewn all about and I’m afraid to pick them up because I believe them to be true now. “Can I read you something, then?” I ask hushed.

“Please do.”

Even though I had to memorize the order of the books of the Bible as a child in Sunday school, I still find it difficult to locate Acts 19 as the Bible sits wobbly across my thighs.

I begin reading verses thirteen through sixteen under my breath. “Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, ‘In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.’ Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day the evil spirit answered them, ‘Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?’ Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.”

Detective Johnson’s face grows serious. “What do you believe you are trying to tell me by that verse?”

His somber face makes the next words I’m about to say feel
not
so crazy, but they’re still difficult to say. “Well,” I pause, and fiddle a moment. The edges of Bible pages bend up and down at the tip of my finger. This is being recorded, I tell myself, don’t be stupid. Ask for a lawyer, or whatever it is they do in the movies. But I keep lies from flowing out of my mouth and realize the dark side will win if I decide to indulge in it. I quickly spit out the truth. “I was possessed. A demon possessed me and used my body to kill people, hurt people.” 

There’s silence, the uneasy kind. The type that makes me feel like an idiot, or worse an insane serial killer. Both of their eyes grow wide with curiosity—although I’m pretty sure it is.

My brain throws a quick fit like I have attention deficit disorder as I pretend to think of something else. I reach up and touch my hair and notice how my skin smells of baby oil. Pieces of dirt still cling to strands of hair. Devon must have given me a sponge bath while I was passed out on drugs. I stare ahead at a skinny grey door that must be the bathroom and I want to drown within the confines of the shower as of yesterday. Detective Johnson’s voice makes me glance back at him sharply. “So how do you believe this happened?”

His question doesn’t ease my nerves. I want to know what these two are thinking because their thoughts are most likely going to emulate the rest of my life of “what people will think I am”. But I’m not a murderer; I’m an astronomer, a physicist with a bold heart and ideas. Should I talk about that instead? I want people to know who I am, not what my body did as Daniel used me as a puppet. 

“How much time do I have?” I say, somewhat joking to lighten the heavy mood in the room. I continue to laugh while no one else does, but I don’t care, it’s helping me shake off the pain that sits in the crease of my eyelids and is about to pour out into a pool of regret.

Meyer’s unfolds his hands and rubs them together again. “We have as much time as you need.”

They are asking me to relive my darkest moments—ones I don’t want to follow into an alleyway and convey what I saw, smelled, and touched. In my subconscious Dad is telling me that being a Christian isn’t easy, it’s one of the most difficult roads to walk because it’s filled with dirt. It’s a road filled with the type of dirt people will want to pick up and throw into my eyes to see the truths they believe, rarely wanting to hear mine. I’ll be rejected with this path. But he also said if I continue; endure the pain long enough that joy will come to me, eventually. And it’s a type of joy I won’t understand until I keep walking.

I clear my throat and step onto the path. Rocks are sharp, and I bear them as I meet the eyes of the two men waiting to hear my story.

Chapter 25

Liars

My jail cell has a tiny window outlined with black casing. I’ve been staring at it long enough that black has blurred into grey. There’s no clock. I don’t even know the time, but they must have removed my cuffs hours ago because I’ve been standing in the same spot since lunch and the sun’s already starting to set. Is this what’s it’s like to be in shock?

The paper booties enclosing my feet scuffle over rough tiles as I finally move and tell myself the truth about this little room being my new home for a while. A shiny white ceiling flows almost perfectly in sync to the walls and my bed sits close to the ground, just under the window. I take a seat on top of a thin mattress, or maybe it’s just a mat? It squeaks as I sit and lift up feet to give shaky legs a rest.

My hurt ankle throbs as if it’s telling me I’m an idiot for standing on it for so long, but I don’t care. Body parts will have all the time they need to rest, heal. Or will they? I lean against the wall. What if I’m sent to prison soon? It’ll be like being thrown to the wolves and my limp will only prove I’m weak prey.

What happened? As I collect pieces of time, I start to understand how everything has taken shape and how I got here. I play with fingers over my lap as I recount steps. Am I having blackouts again? Maybe it’s a symptom that lingers after being possessed.

No one had called or visited and I wondered why Mom didn’t come, she had to have known what happened by then. I forced memories in and tried to remember who Daniel hurt, but I could only recall the moments when he moved out of my body and I was still having a difficult time wrapping my head around how that happened. Was everyone I loved killed off? The thought wouldn’t turn off. It was making me slip back into insanity. Maybe Mom had come home early, like the time she surprised Dad two years ago, and she’s gone too?

I was lying in bed when Detective Johnson walked in with a paper outfit in hand. “Are you ready to go?” he asked.

“But I don’t have any clothes or shoes, only this hospital gown,” I responded while touching cloth coarse from bleach that was being held together by one knotted string.

He only glanced at me, the kind that made me think he felt sorry for me. “I’m just going to put this here at the end of the bed,” he said, softly. He removed the plastic bag lining the package and placed the paper thing at the foot of my bed, “And when you’re ready, we’ll be waiting for you right outside the door.”

As I hobbled out of bed and shook out my new outfit to get a better glimpse, I felt thankful I was able to take a shower at least. The paper jumpsuit made me feel less human. But my heart sank knowing they didn’t even trust me with plastic. It was what ninety-nine percent of my toys were made out of as a kid, and suddenly I was being demoted from even kid status.    

When I stepped outside, Detective Johnson asked me to place my wrists facing forward. He was gentle and kind when he slipped metal cuffs over my thin wrists. And as I peered around and listened to the small locks fastening around me, the people walking the halls of the floor made it known with their second glances that I didn’t blend in like a patient anymore.

Detective Johnson and his partner guided me into his car before our ride over to the Washoe County Jail. He even offered me a coffee and we ended up going into the drive-thru at Starbucks to grab a Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino. He was a nice guy, but I figured it was his way of asking me more questions as he tried to figure out “why” people died without the possibility of me being demon possessed. But as I savored each sip of that drink as if it was my last, I stuck with my story because it was the truth.