The horses shifted, stomping and snorting, rattling their and their riders’ gear, exhaling a hellish-looking vapor. They reminded him of a Molly Hatchet album cover.
The Four Horsemen.
Death.
Banner heard a distant, rising wind... saw images of blowing sand and barren steppes...
(swords)
(battles)
flashed before him. The distant clang of metal on metal echoed around him... cries and shouts... death and destruction... a shrill scream raining down from the skies...
Banner looked into the night sky. Brought his hands to his head; tried to shut out the madness. Looked to the horsemen, their steeds anxious and jostling.
What do they want?
Who were they?
The closest horsemen directed his pike to Banner’s left. The others followed suit, their mounts continuing to protest the needlessly imposed inactivity.
Banner discovered he stood only yards away from Safe Harbor.
The wind and cacophony of an advancing horde was all around him, filled his mind.
The crash of battle.
Trembling ground.
The stink of death... foreign lands...
Banner crouched, arms unsteadily stretched out before him. Couldn’t see straight.
No one. Nothing.
Why didn’t these guys stop traffic? Didn’t anyone else see them? What the hell was—
A horse reared.
Banner shot a look back to the four riders. None had moved, but he couldn’t shake the images... one part of him experienced the cries and horror of battle, while the other saw unmoving horsemen on a dark, lonely, city boulevard...
Banner again shook his head... it all became painful... grew in intensity... he lowered closer to the ground...
Groaned. Twisted in agony, as if his head were in a vise.
He looked back up to the horsemen and found he could no longer focus... they wavered, warped... their mounts breathing fire and destruction... death...
He felt his body doing things he couldn’t possibly be doing... running, attacking, destroying...
Banner shot back to an upright position just as one of the horsemen did or didn’t attack.
Screaming out as if he’d just been disemboweled, Banner fled.
The four horsemen disappeared, yet their stomping, snorting, and gear rattling commotion continued to momentarily hang in the air like vaporized steam...
Chapter Twelve
1
Pretty, demure, quiet, homely, and bookish. Charming. All these terms had been used at one time or the other in describing twenty-three-year-old Ronda Ettbauer, one-time Elementary schoolteacher from West Cheyenne Middle School. Except Ronda could no longer return to her Cheyenne, Wyoming position, because she’d been caught elbow-deep in the Safe Harbor Slaughterfest with the rest of the twenty-eight remaining suspects. And, like the others, Ronda had also had no idea what had brought her to beautiful Gulf Coast Florida only to commit so foul a deed, but she did know you didn’t have to go to college to know that given the evidence covering her petite frame—the coils of blood-stained rope in her rope-burned hands from hauling cinder blocks onto her victims, which she’d only remembered once incarcerated—she’d done the crime. Yours truly, single and freshly teacher-certified, in the middle of a murder spree. Not even a full year teaching, and look at the mess she’d gotten herself into. Principle Wright wouldn’t be bailing her out of this one.
Ronda huddled in the corner of her Punta Gorda Detention Center confinement, away from the direct line of sight of the view port into her cell, and rocked back and forth, arms wrapped tightly about her midsection. Her hands and arms still smarted only because she’d continued to reopen her wounds to remind her of her transgressions. She still needed to remember the pain, now, more than ever, and just like all the other pain she’d endured throughout her young life, she’d grit her teeth and bear it. Her bookish glasses were cast along the floor up against the opposite wall. Her long, dark curls hung exhaustedly about her down-turned, tear-and-sweat-stained, dour face. A face that used to smile politely at everyone she met. A pretty face, she’d heard the mothers of her children say. Well, she didn’t feel pretty any more. Her end was predefined, and it would be anything but pretty, demure, or charming.
Ronda muttered, crying in spurts, pleading with God... how could she have done such a thing? Why had she done such a thing? Her entire life had been lived in the most wholesome and upstanding of manners, as her parents had taught her.
Well, except for that time with James. Her first year of college.
But she’d chastised herself plenty for that and was still working out her own, personal, self-prescribed penance for their fornication. Penance which she’d lumped on top of that which her church and parents had already prescribed... four years ago. The church’s penance had been too easy. But the hot baths and showers, the disinfectant soap, the scrubbing and the prayers... that was what penance was all about. The lashings she’d asked her father to provide, every day for a month, once she’d broken down and told her parents; all three had sat down and calmly, intelligently, decided upon her punishment, as they quietly and tenderly soothed their distraught daughter, stroking her hair and drying her tears with their kisses; they still loved her, they assured, but we must all be held accountable for our actions—each and every one of them... yes, that’s penance. Her parents had been extremely proud of her for coming clean with God, and had even bragged about her to their congregation. It had been a good thing. Never once did they look down at their wonderful daughter for her transgressions, but we must all pay the piper when we sin... and the Lord has set up punishment for each and every sinful act. It took a strong soul to admit they’d faltered... but a stronger one still to take their medicine. Ronda was the strongest soul Mr. and Mrs. Ettbauer had ever seen, they cried, as Mr. Ettbauer stripped away portions of his daughter’s smooth, naked back with his whip in the barn that night, the strongest, indeed. And God would not forget that, no He wouldn’t, Mrs. Ettbauer lamented, standing behind her husband as he vigorously administered Ronda’s penance. He would give her the strength she needed to get past the pain, to take her medicine, and to learn and to grow from her transgression. For their God was a forgiving God... a tough and demanding one, to be sure, but forgiving. As were her parents, God bless em.
So, most-penitent Ronda had allowed herself to be tied to the posts she’d been tied to many times over her then nineteen years, and did what she always did when punished. As the blood and tears flowed, she begged the Lord for strength and forgiveness, and prayed her little heart out. She never prayed for unconsciousness, nor to dull the pain, because that wouldn’t have been fair... she needed to experience her punishment in all its fine and just excruciating detail. That was what strong souls did. Face up and take their medicine, like Jesus did for all of us. Your reward shall be in Heaven, when you stand before your Lord and Savior, then and only then, would there be no more pain, no more suffering. Our physical lives were meant to be hard and unforgiving—transitory—that was the way of the Lord...
So, Ronda knew, when it again came time for her to take her medicine, she would know what to do, and would take it full-on, staring it square in the eyes.
Because she was a Strong Soul and that’s what Strong Souls did.
But, now, in her current time of need, before whatever punishment the Lord saw fit to dispose upon her... she needed to understand why she had done so wrong. Why had she strayed from the Righteous Path... again? What had caused her to kill... and not just once, but multiple times? How had she—again—invited Satan into her soul? She had been so good at keeping things under control... so good at only thinking good thoughts... she didn’t understand this, it made no sense...
Ronda’s mind hurt. Even she knew one had to rest the mind during penance, so that one could think clearly about what it was one had done... to properly and clearly atone.
Ronda slowly got to her feet and paced her cell, still
hunched over and cradling her midsection. She needed to feel like a teacher one last time. Maybe teach herself something in the process...
She came to a cream-colored cinder block wall and extended a trembling finger. Began to outline invisible tick-tack-toe grids... flowers... Eastern Orthodox crosses. Horses. A tiger. A big tiger, with large, menacing teeth...
Teaching children had been her life, and she needed to relive that again, once more, if but for the short while she had left.
Ronda looked about her cell. To her glasses on the concrete floor across the room from her. To the cell door. Something then brought her gaze to her cot. She stared at it. Slowly turned her head. The whispers and winds, previously in their quiescent mode, once again grew in intensity. Hunched over and hugging herself, she approached the cot. The noises grew.
She lifted an end of the mattress from its frame.
There, nestled back in a little way, were hidden a handful of black, super-sized, permanent markers. Ronda pulled one out. Grasping it like a holy relic, she pulled off the cap and inhaled deeply of its scent and released memories, closing her eyes...
A teacher should never be separated from their tools.
Tears exploding from her eyes. Ronda turned, marker extended before her, and approached a cell wall. Savored the remembered feel of her previous teacher life. The sharp, defined edges, the smooth, slick feel of the writing instrument that felt like nothing else on earth. She remembered the whiteboard upon which she used to write... the infectious laughter and giggling of the children behind her. Yes, now, she could continue her work, as the wind and whispers taught her something. One last thing she could pass on to her students before she had to go. Eyes closed, and more tears running copious and unchecked down her face and off the end of her nose, she reverently touched the marker to the blank wall. Slowly a smile formed upon her thin sullen and quivering lips... bringing back the old look of that once pretty and demure woman she’d been described as having been. Slowly, deliberately she danced the marker across her whiteboard.
Class was in session.
2
Kacey Miller stood on a vast and barren plain amid howling wind. River narrows gurgled nearby, along which grew wild pear and onion. A gray hawk fluttered against the wind as it ripped apart what looked like a black (and now bloody) pheasant along the river bank. The wind gusted through Kacey’s hair and hollered past her ears, carrying with it an earthy scent. She looked down the length of the river into the dusty distance. Hazy hills and rock outcroppings. Indistinct and spotty tree growth. Scattered and grazing livestock.
Kacey looked behind her. A large, round tent. Not a circus tent, but a smaller dirty structure with internal framing that only modestly buckled against the gale. Its loose fabric and ropes flapped wildly in the rapidly intensifying tempest.
Kacey entered the tent.
Ducking through the heavy flap that closed behind her, she rose back to her full height to find herself
Inside a house.
Her Wilmington, Delaware home.
Kacey inhaled sharply.
MONSTER!
The word MONSTER was scrawled in what looked like blood across every wall. Looking to the ceiling, she quickly sidestepped. There, too, was the accusation.
A television was on in the living room. Scenes of scuba diving, skydiving, and bungee jumping played across its screen. Then the screen switched to a Monster.com commercial. Kacey absentmindedly continued into the room, but came to a stop behind the couch in front of the TV. Looking to her hands, she held a heavy heap of dirty diapers. Kacey looked back to the door from which she’d just entered. She could still hear the wind’s sorrowful wailing, but also what sounded like something pelting the house.
Sand?
Someone gingerly stepped down the stairs behind her. She turned.
Sheila.
In one of Sheila’s hands she clutched a bloodied butcher knife.
“Honey—what are ya doin with those?” Sheila asked. “Didn’t I ask you to throw them away—like everything else in your life?”
From out of nowhere laughter filled the room, like a disturbingly ghostly laugh track to a television sitcom.
Stunned, Kacey dropped the now-bloodied diapers to the living-room floor, backing away. Blood seeped out from the diapers, staining the rug.
“What are you—” Kacey asked, “Where am I?”
Sheila picked up the diapers.
“Why can’t you do as I ask? It’s so simple. It’s things like this that make me want to rip off your head and shit down your neck.”
More laughter filled the room. Kacey looked around, wrinkling her brow.
“What... what the heck is going on—what are you doing with that knife?”
Sheila absentmindedly wiped the blade on the diapers, staring off into space.
“What? Sorry!” Sheila said, “Well, I had to put the kids to bed, now, didn’t I?”
The invisible ghostly laugh track again went wild.
“Kids?”
Kacey looked to a crib that now appeared by the couch and TV. Emily and Mark were asleep inside it.
The front door suddenly flew open and in barged Jack and Hedda Hocker. Jack stood ramrod straight, a fire in his eyes smoldering out from underneath a severe white crew cut and rough face. Hedda was at his side, her white hair unkempt, her appearance tousled and unruly.
“We heard screams,” Hedda said.
The laugh track again erupted.
Scowling, Jack closed the door.
From the kitchen, Tom Fisher also entered the living room. He carried a briefcase, assorted instructional teaching aids, and a tripod and whiteboard. Several “Monsters, Inc.” stickers plastered his briefcase. Just as he entered the room, Sheila pegged the bloody diapers at him, just missing his face. Fisher shot Sheila a nasty look.
The laugh track was off da hook.
“What are you doing here?” Fisher asked Jack and Hedda. Fisher gave Jack a forlorn look and immediately went about setting up his tripod and whiteboard.
“Look, if you’re going to kill,” Fisher continued, “you have to do it right. Murder’s a privilege—not a right.”
More ghostly laughter.
Jack took a seat in a recliner, eyeing Kacey and Fisher.
“You look familiar,” Jack said to Fisher.
“The sooner I get started, the quicker this whole mess can get under way,” Fisher said.
“Hurry up, I got itchy fingers!” Jack said.
“Oh, shut up, Jack!” Hedda said.
“You shut up!”
Hedda’s face immediately bloated like a feeding mosquito. “I swear, one of these days someone’s gonna gut you while you’re still breathing, then feed you your own dick!”
The laugh track went crazy.
A look of annoyed disgust filled Jack’s face. “You don’t even know the meaning of the word, you stupid bitch....”
“Oh, I know! I know all right! It means I cut open your fucking stomach and yank out your guts, you big fat sonofabitch that’s what it means! I’ll goddamned kill you one of these days—I will! I fucking SWEAR! I’ll show you what it means, all right, I’ll—”
Fisher shot across the room, knocking a still-stunned Kacey back against the stairway banister on his way to Hedda. Kacey looked incredulously at the word “MONSTER” on all the walls, as if seeing them for the first time. The word physically crawled across everything as she looked on.
Sheila joined in on the brawl. Fisher threw himself between Hedda and Jack as Hedda made a play for Jack, then Sheila intercepted Hedda and held her arms behind her back, pinning them there.
Kacey’s legs gave out and she collapsed into a chair that was just there. She looked to it, but found she was actually sitting on the couch between Sheila and Hedda—who was simply beside herself, positively seething.
“Okay, now this is important,” Fisher instructed, “if you’re gonna cut open a person, you need a sharp knife....”
Fisher looked to everyo
ne to make sure they were paying attention.
“Okay,” Fischer continued, “class question: when do you not want to use a sharp knife? Anyone? Anyone?”
“When I’m doin Hedda!” Jack shouted, frantically waving a hand in the air, “I want her to feel all the pain and twice the rip-n-tear!”
The laugh track went off.
“That’s exactly right!”
A commotion erupted upstairs, followed by incoherent shouting. It sounded as if something extremely heavy was being dragged across the upstairs floor. Kacey turned in the direction of the noise. A man emerged at the head of the stairs. All by himself he vigorously and fervently dragged a cast-iron claw-footed bathtub down the stairs, cursing and shouting and spitting the entire way.
Kacey looked to everyone, but no one seemed to take note of the man and all his red, swollen anger. The man continued to drag the tub—with one hand—down the stairs. She heard steps snap and crack from the weight of the claw-footed tub. The man then took a right at the base of the stairs and dragged the tub behind everyone out into the kitchen. He then continued screaming and spitting his way right on out the back door.
Kacey shot to her feet.
“What is going on here! This is crazy—insane! All wrong!”
Sheila and Hedda reached out to Kacey and tried lowering her back into her seat, but Kacey swatted away their hands and followed after the Angry Man with her eyes.
“Why did you leave?” Jack asked Kacey.
“What?” Kacey turned to Jack.
“Hey, Jack, don’t talk to my wife like that!” Sheila said.
“I’ll talk to anyone I want, however I want, you prissy little dyke!”
Sheila cast Jack a hateful glare, reached between the couch cushions and withdrew a large, ugly knife...
Angry Man was now outside, still yelling and ranting on at the top of his lungs. Kacey continued toward the kitchen. As she departed the living room, only a distant part of her registered that the living-room situation had degraded into full-on yelling match. She exited the kitchen, following after the angry man.
The Uninvited Page 16
