And here, for your reading pleasure, is our free excerpt:
I. Riding The Demon – Fingal’s Cave, Isle of Staffa, Scotland – March 27th, 1697 A.D.
“Lord have mercy; you say? If you have not tasted the wrath of your lord, then how can you beg for his mercy?” –Thretch.
The wretch sits atop his makeshift crow’s nest, staring through the dank blackness of the evening sea. On the deck of the ship below, the pirate William Kidd skulks about with wounded disdain. Never before had this crew been so bewitched in making the acquaintance of Tarron Nethersby; a scrawny and timid man, gone insane overnight on the open ocean. For three nights, the crew of twenty men had tried to subdue their mate, feeling ironic wrath delivered through the powerful fists of a madman. At only one hundred and sixty pounds, the lanky sailor had bested half the crew, fighting with his bare hands against the captain’s cutlass. The captain found himself the victim of a superior fighter, fast enough to strip him of his sword whilst breaking his fingers.
Captain William Kidd stands on the deck of his ship as the ocean heaves and gives beneath the ninety-two foot vessel, causing it to buck and yaw as if restrained. At age fifty-two, the ambitious Scotsman has never expressed such fear in his dark brown eyes; the hue of which matches his bronzed skin. This once charismatic leader is now shamed in the shadow of a braver and more ruthless soul. He knows that his massive biceps and fast reflexes were for naught against such an unnatural terror. His hands are wrapped in sackcloth, stained red from wounds that he received earlier at the pleasure of the undone sea dog. Kidd removes his black hat with stoic defeat, watching the entrance of Fingal’s Cave as if it is the cause of all his woes. The massive plateau sticks out of the sea like a prison built for Satan himself. Its entrance is darker still than the rest of the whole, showing not a hint of welcome to sea travelers.
Captain Kidd recalls his first venture into the abysmal cavern, when he was just a boy growing up in Scotland. He and a group of lads had taken a longboat into the majesty of the forbidden place; a formidable fortress of rock rising up out of the sea in defiance. Young William had been awestruck at the symmetrical pillars of black stone within the cave. The people of his village had issued a stern warning: that the stone pillars were the black souls of wicked men. Any trespass into the cavern would put a curse upon Scotland and its people.
As an exuberant youth, Kidd had scoffed at their superstitious notions, finding them humorous. When he tries to move his broken fingers, the defeated captain can feel only shame within, terrified of the scrawny sailor that hovers over his ship and crew. He looks up in earnest at the purveyor of this bold slight, confirming his notion that something inhuman lords over them. There is a fearless and ancient warrior, wrapped in the sinewy body of a twenty-two-year-old man.
Tarron Nethersby gazes with fascination at the deep darkness within the center of Fingal’s Cave. Despite his recent battle with the crew, his body feels vibrant and rejuvenated, having snuck in a few hours of rest amidst the heavy swaying of the crow’s nest. He knows they cannot venture much closer to the cavernous mass without risking the entire ship. Regardless, a mighty darkness within him admires the hulking rock formation. The young man laughs to himself as he glances down at the captain beneath his feet.
Never in his life had Tarron imagined having the power to strip a man of his sword, with only his bare hands. He had given ten men such a severe beating – that they dare not look in his direction. The bosun had mistook him as the ‘the wretch’ when Tarron was objecting to the actions of his new companion. This due to the portly fool being almost deaf from years of cannon fire. Anyone who was listening could have distinguished that the young man was crying ‘Thretch;’ the name of his newest friend, and the scalawag that had vexed the captain and crew.
Tarron runs his slender fingers through a mass of oily, blonde hair on his scalp, breathing as instructed by his new mentor, to quell the pain. His body is wrought with collateral damage, having beaten down most of the crew during their attempts to imprison or kill him. The young man recalls his first act of defiance, standing at the helm and changing their course by forty degrees starboard.
When the captain ordered them back to port, the ship became a scene of malicious defiance, and the brawling sailor shocked his shipmates with a primal display of force. It all had the earmarks of conventional madness, until Tarron snapped the bosun’s neck, and cast him overboard: the heavy man had flailed in the air like a dying fish. The crew stopped fighting to stare with their mouths agape, watching the lanky sailor grab another hefty pirate. He then used his face to break a section of railing, judiciously casting the man overboard.
Captain William Kidd emerged from the group of stunned men, cutlass in hand, and ready to delve out some mob justice. Tarron remembers that Thretch caused a smirk to form on his thin face, emboldening the captain in his efforts to seek vengeance. When the captain raised his cutlass with his right hand, the mighty demon used Tarron’s left hand to grapple Kidd’s throat, and stomped at his toes. He stepped into the blade before it could swing downward. While his left hand compressed the man’s windpipe, Tarron used his mighty grip to break the fingers of the captain’s free hand. The instant pain in his nerve endings caused William Kidd to cry out, and Thretch used the back of Tarron’s head to knock the cutlass from the captain’s hand. Thretch then contorted Tarron’s body, sending his right elbow into the captain’s chest, using his left hand to break the fingers of Kidd’s sword hand. With the captain disarmed, and both of his hands broken, Thretch delivered a mighty kick to the center of his chest. This assault forced the crew to catch their captain: thus preventing a nasty fall to the main deck.
Although the crew didn’t understand the newfound strength of their shipmate, they elected to follow his lead, changing their course for Scotland. During their journey to Fingal’s Cave, the men had made two more failed attempts to take down their unsavory mate. These attempts were met with further aggression, and two more large men cast overboard, along with severe injuries to other members of the crew. With only sixteen crew members remaining, the captain yielded to the vicious spider of the sea, warning the crew not to do him any harm. This accord allowed Tarron to take his leave in the crow’s nest.
Tarron caresses the back of his skull where the captain’s cutlass dug into his flesh, realizing that Thretch has no qualms about damaging his body. The young man detects hairline fractures throughout his thin frame, and his right hand has been swollen for days with two broken knuckles. He dares not offend Thretch, nor give any hint that he is a coward, fearing that the mysterious deity might cast him off the ship as unworthy. In their many ‘conversations,’ the young man has learned that the ancient presence within his body has been the subject of much suffering and betrayal. Thretch has given Tarron details from his six thousand years on earth, telling him things that would only be known to other men through songs and stories. Tarron has discovered that the creature died of plague eleven times before taking to the seas in avoidance of more agony. He knows that his new companion was a slave in Egypt, a warrior in Greece and a Viking chief. The world has subjected Thretch to almost every form of torture and pestilence that have petrified people for centuries. His role has been master and servant, fortunate and destitute. Through all this adversity, he has remained unyielding and fierce, reminding the world daily that he is a force of nature. Tarron shivers at the thought of dreaming another death suffered years ago by his companion. The creature has already shared with Tarron the worst of his own fears: enough to make a man vomit and cry just from the memories. They were harrowing experiences of drowning, suffocation, bludgeoning, burning, and even being eaten alive. These horrifying images cause Tarron to miss his old, pedestrian nightmares. He yearns for a time when his knowledge stretched only the course of his twenty-two years; rather than the vast corruption and raw reckoning of thousands of years in misery.
A noose dangles down from the mast, working its way over the top of Tarron’s blonde hair. In his state of reminiscence, the young man almost finds himself strung up by a boy of only eighteen. This brave, young adversary had climbed up the mast to join him atop the sails.
Tarron snaps back to reality, immediately emboldened by Thretch. He grips the noose before it can find a hold on his neck and pulls at it with volatile fury, staring at the teenage boy with homicidal tendencies. The familiar crack of a pistol breaks the tension, and Tarron notices a small hole in the bottom of his flimsy crow’s nest. He soon detects the heat of something unnatural cutting through his thigh and looks down to see his light brown britches saturated in blood. Tarron loses his footing and grips the rope of the noose to prevent a fall from the mast. He drops a few feet as his weight drags the rope down.
The eighteen-year-old feels instant burns from the rope as it slides through his hands, leaving patches of torn flesh from the sudden heat and friction. He loses his footing on the topsail yard, grabbing the rope in vain as his body sways fifty-three feet above the deck.
Tarron notices that the young man hasn’t bothered to tether the rope to anything, intending to use his upper body strength to hang the ferocious pirate. He glances up at the rope that is draped over the topsail yard, with both men hanging from either side. The young man’s fingers are bleeding, and he looks at Tarron as if to plead for his life. His grip slips, causing a perilous plunge to the deck nearly sixty feet below him.
Without any weight on the opposite end of the rope, it dangles in the air, allowing Tarron’s body to fall right behind the young man. During his final seconds of life, Tarron can hear Thretch laughing at the back of his mind with sadistic fervor. On his way to the solid planks, he takes one final look at the auspicious cave, admiring the wondrous solitude of the ancient formation. When Tarron’s body hits the deck, Thretch recognizes the sharp pain of ribs breaking through into organs, and the resounding shock of all limbs going numb. There isn’t time for a last breath, as his capacity to draw breath has been crushed. The creature stares at the blackened boards of the ship in the darkness, waiting for his host to die. Tarron’s passing allows his presence to transfer to another young man – somewhere on the earth.
II. Sin Screening – Dark Comforts
Jacob awakens to the horrid stench of cigarettes, combined with another smell that makes him gag. The granular filth of the cheap Spanish tiles on the bathroom floor beneath him feels sticky and littered with debris. He senses pain throughout his body, and pushes himself up from the floor to assess the damage. As he begins to rise, a shooting sensation snaps through his left arm, and he rolls over onto his back. The sharp throbbing in his forearm is not as raw as a fracture, so the young man assumes that his arm was sprained during the night. He breathes in; smelling the sour contents of many drunken stomachs having been recently emptied, inspiring him to vacate the area.
The young billionaire recalls his recent nightmare from the memories of Thretch; another horrible death at the hands of scorned men. He can almost smell the sea exactly as it had presented itself in the vision, and the lanky body of Tarron, plunging to his death on the large pirate ship. Jacob opens his eyes wide, wondering what events have led him to this place.
After a few seconds of trying to remember something about the previous night, he hears the squeaking sound of a door opening and closing in quick succession. Jacob blinks his eyes and immediately notices that his left eye is practically swollen shut. As he uses the fingers of his right hand to inspect his face for damage, the affluent entrepreneur hears footsteps approaching from the front.
“Are you still in there; you little bastard!?” The hostile voice of a woman calls out, expressing her disdain for Jacob with a Brooklyn accent. “My husband wants you out of this bar RIGHT NOW!” She orders in a self-righteous tone, trying to hide her fear as she speaks. “Do you hear me, psycho!?” The bar owner’s wife demands as she kicks the bottom of Jacob’s shoe. “We need you out of here!”
“I’m injured…” Jacob mutters, gazing with his right eye to see that he is lying on his back in a bathroom stall, and his feet are protruding underneath the door.
“Yeah, welcome to the club!” The woman exclaims with bitter sarcasm. “You have five minutes to get cleaned up and leave, or I’ll let these boys tear you apart!” She finishes in a threatening tone as the bathroom door opens and closes again.
Jacob sits up immediately, feeling a warming rush throughout his body; not the type of buzz one gets with alcohol, but something much stronger. The moment he moves his abdominal muscles, Jacob realizes that it is a mistake. He senses the entire surface of his stomach and chest reporting trauma, causing him to tremble. The young man peers down at his damaged arms, noticing several lacerations across his exposed skin. The thumbnail of his right hand is completely smashed and turning purple beneath the surface with compressed blood. Every muscle in his left arm seems to be shrieking discomfort, and he can sense bruising in the bones of the same. He is wearing a navy blue polo shirt, and a pair of black cargo pants. Beneath the stall door, he can see that his running sneakers are covered in: mud, tar, blood, dirt, and what looks like specs of asphalt. This vision comes as a surprise to the twenty-three-year-old since the shoes were like new just a day ago.
The foul odors that are wafting across the bathroom floor rise with the heat of the furnace, bringing some comfort into the dingy bathroom. Despite many injuries, Jacob manages to get to his feet, pushing himself up against the enclosure wall using his left arm. When he is standing upright, the young man notices a stinging sensation coming from both of his ankles. They exhibit an almost paralyzing tenderness that makes him wonder if he recently jumped from a two-story building.
After a full assessment of the damage to his body, Jacob shuffles to the black stall door and slides the lever clockwise to release the pin. The door opens with an odd squeak, and Jacob thrusts it out of his way as he half-stumbles to the sink for a bit of cleaning. When he reaches the white porcelain sink, Jacob is repulsed by the rancid smell of digestive fluids on the floor of this area. Both sinks are coated with a bit of cigarette ash, and he notices that they have been recently used to clean blood from someone’s body.
Jacob turns on the water, recalling the threat that the frightened woman issued just moments ago. He uses the surprisingly clean water to remove the blood and filth from his face, hands, and arms. The young man’s American-Irish features begin to show through, and his short brunette hair with blonde highlights is an oily mess. He minimizes his breathing to abstain from the smell of his unfortunate surroundings. Once his hands and face are clean, he is not surprised to see that there are no means to dry them. For the second time in the past few minutes, Jacob notices that he is feeling wonderful for someone who has been through so much pain. His body is warm all over, and although moving causes him a slight amount of agony, it is bearable.
He rubs his hands together, staring at the corroded sign that reads ‘Men’ on the door before him. The sign looks blurry through his left eye, and Jacob breathes in deeply, opening his eyelid as far as it will go in an attempt to correct his vision. His throat convulses a bit, and he feels stomach acid rising up to the back of his mouth, but he steadies himself and lets it flow immediately back down. After one last look around the lonely bathroom, Jacob pushes the door with his right hand. He then forces his body against it to help him exit the restroom quicker.
“Shh… Shh…guys, here he comes.” A man whispers from behind the bar to Jacob’s left, sounding cautious and focused as if a bomb were about to go off. “I know that we’re all hurtin’ here, but let’s not piss off the hurricane again. We don’t need any more fighting.”
Jacob takes a look around the bar, noticing that a considerable amount damage has been caused by what appears to be a recent brawl. There is a group of three large, Polynesian men standing off to his right, watching his every movement. One of them is leaning against the wall, nursing his bare stomach with a crude ice pack, fashioned from a white terrycloth, provided by the wait staff. He seems to be in agony, observing Jacob from a pair of deep, blue eyes nestled within his large, round face.
The other two Polynesian men are clad in red and yellow T-shirts, complimented by green denim shorts. Their genetics and clothing are similar, giving Jacob the impression that they are brothers. One of the men is holding a makeshift ice pack against the side of his head, gazing at Jacob with tears streaming from his right eye. His brother is pinching several napkins over a broken nose. From the amount blood seeping toward the large man’s fingers, Jacob surmises that it will soon be time for him to replace them.
“So ten thousand dollars each then?” The bartender asks with caution, gazing around the bar as if to appease his uneasy patrons, in an attempt to confirm a deal with Jacob. “You told me that you’ve got money, and we looked you up online. It’s gonna’ take ten thousand dollars to keep everyone here quiet.”
Jacob shuffles toward the bartender; not recalling having made this offer. He is grateful for the opportunity to avoid police questioning and the negative press. His short journey to the bar is akin to the haunted houses he used to visit as a child. Every man and woman that he walks past has injuries in various combinations of bruises, cuts, scratches, swollen eyes, and even broken fingers. They look like a group of people who just survived a fierce battle in a poverty-stricken nation, rather than customers at a local pub. Each of the bar patrons keeps his or her distance, watching Jacob with distrust and unmistakable fear.
When the entrepreneur is only three feet from the bar, an older woman withdraws from the group of wooden tables at his right, surrendering to the darkest corner of the room. Jacob observes the small, gloomy establishment with caution, not recalling at what point he decided to venture into this place. The lights are cheap and dim, hanging from the ceiling like a gallows of economic distress. Everything within the building screams desperation to Jacob. From the tacky, red polyester fabric that covers the small booths, to the unkempt wooden surfaces of the tables and chairs.
The young billionaire sneers at the leering faces of the bar patrons, noticing their cheap clothing and the hefty, bloated bodies before him. There are men with poorly groomed beards and mustaches, some of whose faces are soaked with blood. Many of the women are hanging out of their clothing all over, appearing to have wandered out of their homes without a shower.
Jacob places his hands atop the filthy bar surface, amused by how much this reminds him of movies that he has seen, featuring saloons from the 1800s.
“So…does your elbow hurt as much as my mouth?” The bartender asks in a pitiful attempt at humor, failing to sound friendly as his voice cracks mid-sentence.
The warmth inside Jacob’s body is remarkable, as though the greatest painkiller ever invented has been infused into him. Jacob observes the bartender for a moment, realizing that all eyes in the building are watching his every movement. The bartender seems gentle despite his ratty, gray hair and prematurely aged skin. As a man in his early fifties, the bar owner more resembles someone creeping into his seventies. His frame is lanky, and he is clad in faded blue jeans, along with a white T-shirt that covers his torso. The pocket of his T-shirt contains a pack of Marlboro Reds. Jacob assumes that the ignited cigarette in the cheap, jade ashtray behind the bartender used to be among them.
“So ten thousand dollars…and you make this all go away?” Jacob asks with growing paranoia, having not a clue as to which part of town he has embarked.
“Ten thousand dollars EACH!” The aged bartender states, trying to hide his fear long enough to ensure full payment. “You told us that every person here tonight who got injured would get ten thousand, and every witness would get two thousand.”
The young man breathes in through his nostrils, sucking in as much air as his lungs can contain. He then exhales, lowering his head and shoulders as the carbon dioxide exits his body into the atmosphere of the seedy bar. The crowd around him moves uncomfortably, and his frustration is felt through the place like a wave of pressure from a jet that has just broken the sound barrier. Some of the patrons shift from one foot to the other, while those with worse injuries make their way closer to the exits. The discomfort is growing like the splitting of atoms, rising with heat and energy at one thousand meters per second.
“That last part is bullshit, isn’t it?” Jacob asks, watching a bit of spittle fly from his lips and land on the bar as he speaks. “I’m a business guy, and I deal with liars all day long. Hell, I was raised by one of the biggest liars in the game. So tell me again what our deal was, and leave off that last bullshit about me paying each witness two grand!” He finishes with radiance and primitive flair, jutting his chin out at the barkeep with unholy disregard.
“Irene, do you have that list of injured people?” The bartender asks his younger wife, holding up his right hand as he turns to face his spouse.
A woman with thick, horn-rimmed eyeglasses is leaning against the counter where the liquor is stored. Her elbows are stretched defiantly backward, setting her body at an odd angle with her toes pointed toward the bar, and her feet pushed outward. She is smoking a cigarette and staring indignantly at Jacob, seeming to be the only person in the area that is not afraid of him. The woman shows signs of aging, looking to be in her early forties, and unlike most of the bar patrons, isn’t showing signs of injury. Her body is hidden by a pair of gray coveralls with a white T-shirt beneath them, making her breasts seem almost invisible. She takes a drag off the cigarette and daintily removes it from her mouth with her right hand, blowing a heavy wave of smoke in Jacob’s direction. The woman uses her left hand to ruffle her shoulder-length, curly brown hair, staring at the wounded entrepreneur with her light blue eyes.
“How does your arm feel?” The bartender’s wife asks, flicking her cigarette at Jacob as she snatches up a small, spiral notebook from the counter and steps over to the bar next to her husband. “Does it feel like someone caught you with a baseball bat? How about your eye?” She asks with further scorn, shifting her weight into a posture of disapproval and folding her arms across her coveralls. “Can you feel the sting; like someone clipped you with a Louisville Slugger?”
Jacob remains unflinching and stares at the woman evenly, unresponsive to her words and the fiery ashes of the cigarette that dropped to the floor near him. His eyelids flutter a bit under the pale lighting, and he looks toward the back counter, seeing a somewhat bloody, broken baseball bat atop the prep station.
“I ain’t never seen that before ‘n my life.” The woman announces, shaking her head as she gives the small notebook to her husband. “You snapped my baseball bat in half with your left arm – splinters and all. Then you just kept goin’ like some kinda’ runaway train. Are you on medication – escape the nuthouse? High on drugs, maybe? Shoot, it don’t matter; nobody here is gonna’ say a word…as long as you pay up.”
“We had to rush four men and two women to the hospital.” The bartender reads from the notepad, glancing up at Jacob with disdain. “They…had some injuries to their insides. Why did you have to hit ‘em so hard, son? I mean, Jesus, I’ve seen bar fights; broken up plenty in my twenty-some-odd years, but what happened tonight…Jesus!” He sighs with frustration, turning away for a moment and placing his left hand on his hip. “All in all, you injured twenty-seven people up in my bar; not to mention the damage.”
“How did it start?” Jacob prompts with sincere curiosity, letting his guard down for a half-second.
“It started like a goddamn fire!” The bartender answers with a shocked expression, having a fit of anxiety and distrust at the advent of Jacob’s poor memory. “You’re about two shots short of a Long Island Iced Tea; aren’t you, boy? It’s stupid for me to even ask…“ The man says with regret, tossing the notebook on the bar before him.
“I know; why would ya’ bother?” His wife interrupts with passion, shaking her head at Jacob. “I’ve never seen someone cut through a crowd – just whoopin’ on everyone without any reason. You’re lucky nobody died, because money or no money; your ass would be in jail!” She finishes with bold reverence, providing the crowd with a teaspoon of justice, despite their desire for buckets more. “Prison!” The woman exclaims with subtle insecurity. “I mean your ass would be in prison!”
“So I owe you two hundred and seventy grand?” Jacob ascertains in a cold fashion, starting to realize that what took place this evening was due to a much darker influence. “Whom should I make the check out to?” He quips with an electric stare, watching the bartender’s face transform to deeper shades of disgust and betrayal.
“That ain’t funny, dude! You hurt a lot of people tonight! …And scared even more.” The bartender raises his voice, heaving his chest in panicked fervor as he eyes Jacob with ravenous instability.
“Yeah, no shit!” His wife adds with bitter regret for their bartered hospitality. “Why don’t you spend the next five to ten years in prison to think about how you should treat people?” As she speaks, the woman snatches a cordless phone from under the bar and begins to dial.
“Relax!” Jacob orders, realizing that he can’t slide out of this situation, especially with almost two dozen angry people ready to stampede him at any moment. “Do you have a checking account?”
“Yeah,” the bartender’s wife says, showing respect for the first time as she hangs up the cordless phone. “How are you gonna’ deposit a check at this hour? It’s almost midnight.”
“I’ll do a wire transfer.” Jacob concedes with a bit of frustration, comparing this experience to doing business with natives who are seeing gunpowder explode for the first time.
“How will you get the bank to transfer the money?” The bartender inquires in a sarcastic manner. “There’s nobody to complete the transaction.”
“The bank manager will take my call; just give me the phone.” Jacob insists, holding out his right hand with the fingers outstretched.
“Why would he help you with a transfer in the middle of the night?” The bartender’s wife conveys with mistrust, smiling from the right side of her mouth as though she knows that Jacob is trying to play them.
“Because he works for me.” Jacob evokes with elitist confidence. “It’s my family’s bank, Calbraw Atlantic. Now give me the phone!” The young billionaire states with haste, snapping his fingers as if preparing a meal for a group of eager children.
The bartender’s wife passes the phone to Jacob, handing it to him like a precious, newborn baby.
“Write down your routing and account numbers on that notepad.” The young man orders with a nod as he dials a number on the keypad of the phone. “Ben, this is Jacob…doing fine. No…listen, I’m in a bad situation, and I need to do a transfer.” Jacob raises his eyes to the bar where the woman has turned the notepad around so that he can relay the numbers to his banker. “Yes, I need to do the transfer right now! Well, whatever then, I’ll just pull all of our money out. Why don’t we plan to withdraw everything in the next forty-eight hours? Yeah…yeah, I know you’re tired. That’s okay… Are you gonna’ take care of me then? Good man… Sure, no problem; go turn on your computer, and I’ll wait.” After a long, uncomfortable silence, the entrepreneur leans forward and reads the numbers twice to his banker for confirmation. “Yep, that’s right. I need you to transfer two hundred and seventy thousand dollars into that account. Yes, that’s what I want! Yes, I can confirm… No, I’m not drunk or under duress… My PIN number? Jesus, Ben, it’s 0825… Okay…okay, thanks, ‘bye.” Jacob sets the cheap, white cordless phone atop the bar with pride, as though having just scored a touchdown. “Call your bank.” He instructs the couple from across the bar with condescending malice. “Check your balance.”
The bartender’s wife snatches the phone off of the counter with festering impatience and dials the toll-free number to her local bank. The entire room is filled with greedy anticipation as the woman navigates through the automated menus to get her balance information. After punching in her account number, zip code, and PIN number, she turns on the speakerphone for everyone to hear. ‘Your balance as of February 7th, 2025 is $272,474.37.’
The dingy serving area of the bar is ablaze with gratuitous cheers, and Jacob feels two hands pat him subsequently on the back and right shoulder. He turns with surprise to see dozens of battered faces alive with the knowledge that the money they sought, and the pleasure it buys, are within their reach. The billionaire turns back to the bar with a sharp sneer, and his face transforms into a wicked smile.
“It’s all yours now!” Jacob broadcasts from his dry throat to the entire room, gesturing with his right hand toward the bar owners. “Keep it all for yourselves, or share it with your customers. I don’t care either way. But it’s all yours.” He repeats with a short wave of his right hand as he walks toward the front door. “And I’m free and clear. Good night!”
“You better give us our share of that money, Lyle!” An older man shouts from the center of the crowd, growling at the bar owner with distrust.
“Yeah, give us our money, Lyle!” A woman concurs with fiery indignation, stomping on the floor as she locks eyes with the aged bar owners.
‘You sonofabitch.’ The bar owner’s wife mouths to Jacob, glaring at him through her glasses. Jacob winks with his right eye at the small business owners, as a flood of questions come flowing from their patrons in the serving area. He glances at the bartender, who is shaking his head in disgust, and departs into the frigid night air with a grin.
Jacob steps out into the modern ruins of what looks like a poor Brooklyn, New York neighborhood, wondering how he got this far from his Park Avenue penthouse. As he walks to the street corner under a solitary streetlight, his hands immediately begin to shiver from the cold. There is an odd chill in the air beneath the pale lighting. He can see masses of frost that are hugging the sidewalk, wrapping around the aged concrete in a marriage of elemental bonding.
His thoughts are interrupted by a brief, mental vision. Jacob sees the flash of a little blonde girl screaming as someone forces her into a locked container beneath the surface of the earth. Once she is secured in her subterranean prison, its steel surface is covered with over a foot of gravel. Blood begins to rush into his brain with mortal consequences as Jacob reconstructs the events of the past few hours. He sees himself buying a few doses of heroin from a drug dealer just ten miles from where he is now standing. Jacob then recalls snapping some rubber tubing around his arm and injecting his body with the drug.
Under the sporadic hum of the poorly maintained streetlights, Jacob remembers his journey on foot to the bar, and the unprovoked attack that led to an all-out brawl. His internal visions lead him to the moment where he snapped the baseball bat in half, damaging his left arm – after the bartender’s wife used it to strike him near his left eye. This incident was the final act, inspired by nearly thirty minutes of fierce brawling. After which, he stumbled into the bathroom and passed out in the stall.
Jacob sucks air into his lungs with remorse and terror, realizing that it was he who imprisoned the little girl underground. ‘She’s going to suffocate!’ He thinks to himself, feeling perspiration coming forth from his underarms and forehead with the onset of panic. ‘What the hell is wrong with me?’ He wonders, searching his cargo pants for a cell phone, and determining that he has only his wallet.
The young billionaire begins to convulse with immediate despair, realizing that he has no idea how much time has passed. His only conscious memories are from daylight hours. He can’t recall the size of the container that he used to entomb the little girl – or whether he marked the spot of her burial. Jacob grabs the back of his head in feverish horror, trying to work through the cloud of heroin-laced thoughts and logically map out a way to rescue his quarry. ‘Where the hell did I get her!? Why did I take her!?’ Jacob demands of himself with a queasiness that he has never before felt.
“Celeste is right; I’m losing my mind!” He says aloud, trying harder to figure out in which direction he should travel to find his prisoner.
Jacob turns at the sound of soft footsteps maneuvering in his direction, surprised to see a man in a black turban approaching from the south. As the man gets closer to the light, his Israeli features are shown in clear splendor. He appears to be fit and strong, running with militant force as he hefts his way across the pavement. The man has a long beard and dark skin from many years spent in the desert. His eyeglasses and the slight patches of gray in his facial hair, make him appear wise and foreboding. The powerful Israeli looks to be in his mid-forties, having aged well.
Thretch awakens from his slumber within Jacob and immediately sees the Jewish man running toward him. The man stares through his glasses at Jacob with a guise of ownership and hatred. Under the wintry sky, he conveys a righteous and ancient vendetta through labored breaths and deliberate movements.
‘NICODEMUS!’ Thretch shouts from within his host’s mind, willing him to start sprinting; almost tearing his Achilles’ tendon.
Jacob feels his body moving faster than he has ever experienced, propelled by the terror of a man known to be nothing but fearless. He is almost struck by a car as Thretch forces him onto a reckless path of frozen streets and unknown dangers. Jacob can hear the accelerated footsteps of Nicodemus behind him, and he is awestruck by the speed that the middle-aged man is exhibiting. He urges his body forward as the mysterious Israeli gains on him, one inch at a time, refusing to back off. Jacob hears the sound of a knife snatched from its scabbard, inspiring him to run with the passion of a world-class Olympian.
After running for less than a block, Jacob concedes that several nights without sleep, a strenuous bar brawl, and being high on heroin – are limiting his movements. The young entrepreneur knows that if he doesn’t act soon, the knife that is trailing only a few feet behind him, in the capable hands of Nicodemus, will soon be his demise.
Continued….
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As a child Laina thought she would either be a truck driver (thanks to Jerry Reed in Smokey and the Bandit) or work at Taco Bell (her favorite restaurant as a child). As she grew older she realized her talents lay in academics and business and for the last several years has been a business consultant and college professor where she uses the analytical side of her brain and not the side that makes up stories.
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