Lucifer Travels-Book #1 in the suspense, mystery thriller

by Malik Will

Wistful and blue, I left the dinner table and found solace in an unlikely place—one that reminded me of her the most. The backyard. Together, we’d tossed rocks at Mr. Gaines’ house, trying to strike those boarded windows, one after another. Funny thing is, we never once aimed at that one good window—the one he protected and yelled about every so often.

  When we were children, we hoped there was some hidden treasure in there. I don’t why we never looked. Maybe we just wanted it to be just that—a dream. Something to think about. Or maybe we were just too scared to do anything. What fool would put such precious things in such a place anyways?

  All I know is, I felt closer to Caroline out there—ever more so as I swung. More and more, I felt her. It was like she was helping me pitch by guiding my arms. Together, we were aiming for that one good window because I knew it would make her smile.

  I picked up this nice sized rock. And I mean it was a nice size, nearly the size of a baseball. I tossed it around in my hand, measuring its weight. I aligned my body and aimed with my left shoulder. I imagined the crowd cheering and chanting as I gripped it. Together, they shouted not my name, but hers.

  “This one is for you!” I shouted. “This one’s for you!”

  I swung as hard as possible, until I overheard the clinging of glass and wood.

  I did it! I did it! I broke it. I don’t know why it made me so happy or why it was so important to me at the moment. It just was. I guess that’s how life is sometimes.

  “Did you see me?” I yelled. “D’ya see me sis?”

  I wanted her to know that I still remembered. I hadn’t forgotten. And that she will forever live through me. Just as I thought to reenter the house, a voice cried out to me from a distance.

  “Danny.”

  There, I froze and gawked at the clouds. It called for me a second time.

  “Danny!”

  She had been watching from the heavens, I thought. Her voice was exactly as it was when we were children, pure and full of grace.

  “I thought you’d be watching,” I said. “I miss you so much, sissy.”

  I missed her so much. And He’d allowed her to speak through me on this day. On this particular day where every memory pulled at the strings of our hearts.

  “Why are you doing this to me!” I screamed. “I am your son! You’re supposed to love me!”

  He must’ve heard me that time because right after that, my hands quivered and my knees buckled. I fell to the concrete. My arms, for some reason, shot up in revelation. I was overcome by tears. “I’m sorry! I just don’t understand!”

  Right before me, I watched as his words were violently burned into the palms of both hands. In a fury, the scabs came and went, causing the wounds to etch into the skin.

  It read: John 1:15- And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

  “What does it mean?” I asked. “I don’t know what it even means!”

  I cried for Him to answer. I even begged. Instead, He allowed the sky to rain on me. A black cloud nearly blanketed our entire house, blocking the sun’s light from illuminating the earth for just a moment. In that brief moment, tucked away in the darkness, it was there. I saw it across the street. A light shined from that single window. The same window I had broken moments ago.

  I hurried across the street. I kicked the remaining shards of glass from the opening and climbed inside.

  The drop from the window to the floor was steep. So much so, I felt a pain in my ankle as I landed.

  It looked like a long-forgotten basement or a storage room. There was dust everywhere. On the floor lay tools and chains, and old rusted instruments that seemed of no use. To the left stood a wall, on which hung more chains, handcuffs, and even a mask that seemed to have been created solely to keep individuals from seeing. To my right, the scene was even more haunting—a wooden concoction that held with it a slew of nails and rope, along with a human muzzle to stop screams. It was all covered in this burgundy and black substance that appeared to be blood. I’m sure it was. And it was everywhere.

  I had stumbled into a torture chamber. From the looks of it, some poor soul had come here and gone.

  But I came for that light. It was still there, yet subtle. I inched toward it, stepping over the nails and long pieces of wooden boards. The light was dimming. It came from the floor. I reached for it, extending my arms and carefully avoiding the objects that surrounded it. As I touched it and carried it from my fingertips into my palm, I discovered it what it was.

  A necklace made from stones like the kind in our back yard. On it was a carefully handcrafted message that read, “My love.”

  The same necklace I gave Caroline for Christmas.

  The very last time I saw her.

  “Your sister’s necklace?! How did it get there?” the priest asks.

  “Because he was telling the truth,” Daniel says.

  “Who was?”

  “C.J. He didn’t kill my sister,” Daniel continues with his confession.

  There was something eerie there. It was much more than the weapons and the blood. Maybe it was the gagging smell of perfume that wasn’t fitting for this place. Or maybe it was the cockroaches and how they scuttled across the left side of the room and never the right.

  I remembered a conversation my mother and Mr. Gaines had around the dinner table the week before. One of those famous flying cockroaches that Louisiana is famous for had revealed himself as we ate peacefully.

  “God dammit! I hate those things!” my mom had screamed. She had an intense fear of them just like Caroline.

  “He ain’t no harm to you, woman,” Mr. Gaines had said. “He’s scared is all.”

  “Scared? I didn’t know such a hideous thing could scare so easy.”

  “Yeah! Just turn those lights on.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there’s nothing more frightening, more terrifying to them than light. They avoid it like the plague.”

  “Why is that?” I asked. “Why don’t they like light?”

  “That’s just evolution, boy. They conditioned themselves to fear it because every time there’s light, there’s life. Human life.”

  He seemed so adamant about it too, like he knew.

  So I watched them for a few minutes. Some went right, some crawled on the walls, some flew, and some even crawled right past my foot with no trepidation. But still, none went left. It was as if like they were conditioned to do so.

  But…to the left was nothing. Just a long wooden board lying neatly across the floor. Standing on top of it was an old chalky chaise longue that carried with it the foul smell of waste.

  Though the smell didn’t come from the chaise. It came from underneath it.

  With my hands trembling, I sank them into what felt like a gob of dust as all its inhabitants ran free. I remember the villainous feeling inside it as I touched.

  Once pulled to the side, the wood itself became a mystery. There was no shadow from the chaise being there. And if you looked closely, you could see a metal latch on each side of the wood. It wasn’t just a board. It was a place, and the board was its cover.

  I moved it, exposing another door that had been carefully masked with a laminated cut-out that seemed to be styled with a water base finish the same as the oak floors surrounding it.

  I had stumbled upon a secret underground passageway. What was hidden behind it changed everything.

  “What was behind it?” the priest asks.

  “The truth,” says Daniel.

  The priest gasps, and for the first time in all of his priesthood, he does not have a perfect response or any convenient words from scripture. He just gasps and says nothing.

  Daniel continues. The remnants of death and woe haunted that lurid place. Along with its ghastly smell came with it scenes of dismemberment and torture. On the floor lay skulls, some big and small, positioned neatly against the wall like a hunter’s trophy.

  It was hell. A bottomless pit. From every set of bones I encount
ered, I caught myself asking the most trivial of questions like, which bones were hers? Could I find all her pieces? If I couldn’t, would she ever forgive me?

  Did she suffer? Could she hear me? And if she could, did she know I love her, because I did with all my heart. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t regret leaving.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said in that wintry black chamber. “I’m so sorry.”

  There in the mist of my own sorrow and self-pity, she spoke to me once again. “It’s okay, brother.”

  I looked up thinking it was again a sign from the heavens.

  “I’m over here,” she said.

  And there, cuddled in a corner, she was. Her body naked and bruised, chained to the chamber’s wall. I ran to her. “OH MY GOD, CAROLINE!”

  “You came for me,” she said.

  “I did...I did.”

  I removed my shirt, covering her with it. Her skin cold, riddled in wounds both old and new.

  I attempted to break the chain from her legs and arms. But the thick steel would not budge.

  “It won’t—” she said. Her body was so weak and frail, she was unable to finish her sentence.

  “I need to...I need to get something to break it,” I said.

  “No... No... No. Don’t leave me again.”

  “I have to! I have to!”

  “No, please. Don’t leave be alone again. He’ll hurt me!”

  “Listen to me, sis. Listen to me. I will not leave you. I just...I just need to get something to break you free. You understand?”

  “Yes.”

  I hurried back up through the trap door. I remembered there being a metal rod that stood near that old chaise lounge. I snatched it up and returned to her just as I said I would. “Cover your face,” I said.

  I took one swing. But it only made a dent. Those cold hard chains were still anchored inside the wall.

  I took a second swing. The once-small dent became a hole.

  I took a third swing, and a fourth, and fifth.

  It took exactly fifty-six swings to free her from her bonds. When she was finally free and able to move her arms at will, she struggled to her feet, hugged me and whispered in my ear,

  “I knew you’d come for me.”

  I smiled and so did she. Together we left that wretched place behind us.

  As we walked across the street, I found myself blacking out the same as I did when I visited CJ’s family. All I remember was going through the back door, telling Caroline to stay behind me.

  I heard Sheriff Hollis’s voice coming from the kitchen. He had come to deliver us the good news. “The execution was went accordingly.”

  My mom didn’t say a word.

  But Mr. Gaines sure did. “Praise the lord and sanctify His name. This was done in His will.”

  I stood thinking of how He could allow such things. An innocent family to die. A young girl to suffer. And that sick twisted bastard to live free using His name.

  Enraged, I walked into the kitchen carrying years of venom across my eyes.

  “How ya doing Danny?” said the sheriff.

  I kept walking toward Mr. Gaines.

  “May I help you, Danny?” he said.

  My closeness made him uncomfortable. I reached into pockets, pulled out Caroline’s necklace and placed it gently in front of him.

  His face was unmoving, as if the world as he knew it stopped for a moment. “Where did you get this?”

  I gave no answer. I just glared at his beady little eyes.

  “What’s going on here?” asked Hollis.

  I placed my right hand behind my back. I was reaching for something, and I think he knew what it was. I could see his heart pump through his shirt. I brandished my gun, the same way I did at CJ’s house, and pointed at his head.

  “Whoa... Whoa... Whoa,” shouted Hollis. He pulled his gun as well, and aimed it at me.

  My mom lifted her head from the table. “Son! What is this! What’s going on?”

  “I found Caroline, Mom.”

  “Wh-what did you say?”

  Caroline staggered into the kitchen, filthy and emaciated.

  My mom jumped from the table in rejoice and ran toward her.

  “You had that poor girl all along,” said Hollis.

  “Now wait just a minute,” said Mr. Gaines. “This is...this is all a misunderstanding! You know me!”

  Sheriff Hollis lowered his weapon. “Do what you gotta do, Danny.”

  “What! Wait a minute,” said Mr. Gaines. “Hollis! Hollis!! You know me! Hollis!”

  The sheriff turned his back. And with that assurance, I pulled the trigger and watched as pieces of brain danced across our kitchen floor.

  “He just let you kill him?” the priest asks.

  “I guess he felt a little guilty. When the other deputies arrived, Hollis told them that Mr. Gaines’s death was a suicide. He had professed over and over that the man he arrested was guilty. And that his execution would be God’s doing. Now it all came tumbling down. Even worse, he watched it fall over those he sought to save. Hidden under the wreckage were all those broken promises and unwiped tears. Not even the blackest of hearts could withstand such things.

  “This whole time, she had been only a few yards away with th-that monster. That devil. She wasn’t the only one. For the ones he tired of, he let them starve until they eventually died. They were the lucky ones. Those he became fond of, he kept them around longer, using their little bodies for his own gratification.

  The police did a search of his home and found the remains of twenty-three other children. The town couldn’t believe it. No one could. They had vilified an innocent man while the devil stood ominously at their doorsteps, seeking someone to devour just like a roaring lion.

  “Soon the town was in an uproar. The NAACP filed a series of lawsuits. There were protest and riots ensued, and looting. I watched as that town, my home, went to hell. The tensions from these events still exist today. And it was all because of him.”

  “Wow. That was...” The priest is lost for words. “Where are they now?”

  “Who?”

  “Your family,” says the priest.

  “My mother passed a few years later. My sister said it was guilt that killed her. Her cozying up to the same man that kidnapped her daughter did a number on her heart.”

  “What do you believe?”

  “I think it was the loneliness.”

  “What about your sister?”

  “She passed also. Four years ago in Bogalusa. She’d lived a long life. Married this rich fella and had five kids. One of them is named Daniel. But at long last, it’s just me. Me and my wife.”

  “Your deeds. They were great in length, Daniel. I’m sure your proximity to all that evil and pain had some bearing as well. But there is nothing…nothing that God cannot forgive.”

  “I killed four people. Three of them were innocent. I’m nothing but a murderer.”

  “So was the apostle Paul! But He forgave him and even brought him into his kingdom. So he can forgive you, if you truly seek it. But you must, you must place your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior.”

  “Can you forgive me, Father?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I was never here for God’s forgiveness.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No.”

  “Then why’d you confess? There has to be something inside of you that would make you come here. There has to be!”

  “Because my confessions were not to God.”

  “Then what were they for?”

  “Ya know, the one thing I remember most was his eyes.”

  “Whose eyes?”

  “That baby. They were so beautiful. So pure. I think...I think I loved him from the moment I laid eyes on him. And they never changed.”

  “What never changed?”

  “His eyes. You got the same eyes, Father.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “I’ve followed you, Father. Your life. I’ve watch
ed after you for so long. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You have grown to be a great man. The things you do and have done. The people you’ve helped. I’m so proud of you.”

  “What are you s—?”

  “The family who adopted you, treated you as their own. They put you through school, and college, and there you met a woman who would’ve professed to be your wife. But you chose God instead.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “You were a son to them. And every time they could, they held you up high over their shoulders even as others stared with wary eyes because a white couple holding a black baby just wasn’t that common at the time. I’m sure you call her Mom and him Dad. They were never your real parents, as you know. Your name, Clarence Jackson comes from your real father, Clarence Jackson Sr., or as his friends would call him, C.J.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “Your mother, Doris Jackson was the eldest. Your sister, Debra Jackson. And your brother, Roger.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Thought you should know. It’s your right. And I am sorry. I wanted to say that for so long. I’m so sorry.” Daniel rises from the confessional stool.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Goodbye, Father.” Daniel hurries out of the confessional.

  “Wait! Just a minute!” the priest shouts.

  Daniel walks out, shutting the door to the confessional behind him.

  The priest leaves his booth, and follows after him. “Hey. Stop! Stop there!” The priest runs out and sees the door to the church shut quickly as if someone had just left. He runs along the aisle and thrusts the door open. But no one is in sight.

  He hurries down the steps and into the middle of the street where everything is covered in blackness. The streetlights had yet to illuminate the roads. So they sit, dim and empty, with no humans to inhabit them.

  There, somewhere beneath that darkness, Daniel remains hidden.

  Worried after hearing the commotion, a group of convent girls rush outside to aid the priest. “Father Jackson, is everything okay?” one asks.

  He takes a few moments to compose himself. “Yeah...yeah. I’ll be alright.”

  “What’s wrong, Father?” asks another.

  “I think...I think I just met the devil.”

  The girls hurry down the steps. They grab father Jackson’s arms and help him back up the steps while reciting scripture. “Peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you,” one said.

  “For everyone born of God overcomes the world. And the victory that has overcome the world is our faith,” said another.

  They kept going until they all recite at least one line. Shortly, they reenter the church.

  As the doors close behind them, the lights from outside finally lit up and illuminated all the dark corners of the street, exposing the dejected old man hiding behind a vehicle adjacent from the church.

  He tears up. The wounds of fate are still etched across his eyes. He was arrogant enough to think his soliloquy would heal him. I guess the devil dances with such a rhythm, that all those horrid dreams dissipate, when he’s in bed with him.

  He takes one last look at the church building, and walks back down the road from where he came, disappearing as he walks further into the dusk.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Finally, Be Strong

  Later that night, Father Jackson enters his front door, carrying with him the weight of the day. Along with his coat, comes a brown paper bag that conceals a bottle of German vodka and the cheapest pack of cigarettes one can find.

  He hangs his jacket and makes his way to his study, a place usually reserved to read when he feels some sort of affliction. But this is different. Never since college has he touched worldly things such as these. He enters his study and turns on a lamp, lighting the room moderately. He places the bag on this wooden cabinet where he kept most of his bibles.

  He sits for a moment, thinking about what has taken place. He goes over it again and again in his head. And Daniel’s words repeat themselves at the most opportune of times. That is, “Be careful or the devil may sneak in like a roaring lion.”

  He looks back at the brown bag then removes the bottle of liquor, unscrewing its top. He walks into his kitchen toward the cabinet where several wine glasses sit, unused. Father Jackson takes one last look at the bottle, and pours its remnants down the sink until the bottle is empty. He goes back upstairs and trashes the cigarettes as well.

  He grabs a bible from the same place the brown paper bag once sat and takes a seat in his favorite chair. He rummages through the pages until he finds a fitting chapter to read from. The chapter is James 1 and 12. “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for he who have stood the test will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.”

  He smiles and looks up at the wall…at two old pictures of his adopted parents. Right next to them lays an empty space that prompted him to wonder about the family he never really asked about. But this moment of wonderment is brief as he smiles again in exhilaration, knowing he had been tested—and won.

  THE END

  About the Author

  Malik Will is an educator, novelist, and spoken word poet. He came to age in the 90s -00s in New Orleans, LA. It wasn’t until 2005, he discovered his passion for writing; and, it came from the darkest of places.

  Many years ago, in the dark of the night, Malik and his family lied helplessly on the steel floors of the most costly architectural structure in the bayou—the New Orleans Superdome. They were stranded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

  After surviving this ordeal, Malik sought to prove to himself and everyone around him that he could become something greater than his surroundings because the past is forever the past; and the future is always God’s word.