The Dominant Hand

by Charles Martin

  Charles was up on his elbows, looking around with the same degree of amazement.

  “You!” a voice shouted. “What are you doing here?”

  I looked up at a Guardsman toting an M-16.

  “I’m with him,” I mumbled, pointing at Charles.

  “If you want a ride out of here, you can ride back on one of our trucks,” the Guardsman growled. “Hurry up, though. There are already lots of wounded and we’re running out of room.”

  “What’s happening here?” I asked, but the Guardsman pushed me toward Charles.

  I stumbled as I jogged back toward the stretcher. The Guardsmen laid Charles on the ground near the others. Some of the wounded were unwashed fanatics who were probably from the compound, others were just college kids and music fans who came for the concert. An older man was lying on a stretcher with a neck brace on; a younger man was sitting next to him. I would find out later that this was Oscar Ramirez, a pawn shop owner and his son “Junior.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked Charles. “How long have they been here?”

  “I don’t know,” Charles answered. “It’s really crazy in the compound though. I was tied up at one point. I was almost killed. Jim’s son, Sean, was there. I helped rescue him with these guys.”

  Charles beamed a smile like a kid who just learned to ride a bike. Oscar glanced up and patted Charles’ shoulder.

  “Oorah, son,” the old man grinned.

  “Oorah,” Charles beamed, looking back at me.

  “Why didn’t the National fucking Guard do it?” I asked. “What are they waiting for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, they’re safe for now, Sean and Ashley,” I said. “I just left them. They made it to Jim.”

  “Is he going to let them go?” Junior asked.

  I nodded, but decided to keep the rest to myself. We were competing for the same story, after all.

  “Will?” the other man on the stretcher called. He waved his arm that was in a splint, but couldn’t sit up.

  “Will,” the man repeated as I moved over to him. His face was too bruised and bloody for me to make out who it was. “It’s me, Billy Cohen.”

  “Oh, my God,” I mumbled leaning down to him. “What happened?”

  “Were you talking about Ashley and Sean?” Billy asked, his voice slurred.

  “Yeah, I just left them,” I said. “They’re gone. Jim sent them home.”

  Billy smiled, revealing large spaces where his teeth used to be. He leaned back and closed his eyes.

  I crawled back over to Charles as more stretchers were laid down beside us. Full black body bags were also coming in.

  “Do you see the guys in the chemical suits over there?” Charles asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you think they are looking for?”

  “Meth labs, probably,” I said. “God knows there are probably a ton of them in the compound.”

  Charles just grunted and looked down at the splint on his leg. He then looked up at me.

  “Something big is about to happen, Stretch,” Charles grinned. “We’re not just going to leave now, are we?”

  I smiled and looked around at the National Guardsmen.

  “You want to go back and see what’s going to happen?” I whispered.

  “I know where the anomaly is,” Charles said. “Help me get out of here and we can watch it together.”

  Into the Woods

  The blue haze emanating from the forest drew Charles on as he leaned heavily against my shoulder. I could see blood oozing out of his splint. Sweat was pouring off his forehead and he beamed that stupid penis grin of his.

  As we approached, we could hear a low hum and the wind swirled faster through the trees. The blue light wasn’t bright, but it seeped far through the forest and then up into the sky.

  We could hear the shrill distortion of a guitar in the distance. I guessed it was Jim’s new disciple, Delicious. He did sound a lot like Chris. Cheers erupted, and we could vaguely hear Jim’s voice.

  “We’re close,” Charles said, pushing off me and hopping ahead. He climbed up a small embankment and I followed. At the top, we could see clearly into the light. The blue haze seemed to condense at the middle and I couldn’t see through to the other side of the grass clearing.

  “What’s making that light?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Charles said. “This is what it did before though. I was blindfolded, so I didn’t get a good look. There was something that came out, some kind of monster or something.”

  “Monster?”

  Charles hushed me. I shook my head and looked into the blue haze. There were faint shadows moving within it, or maybe on the other side.

  A crack and a human scream startled me. I backed away.

  “Stop,” Charles hissed. “Stay down.”

  I inched back up and watched the light again. Another crack and a weak groan.

  “What’s happening?”

  Charles didn’t answer. The music stopped. Jim was talking, but his voice was muffled from the hum coming from the light. The haze seemed to shrink and fade slightly, but then grew again, like a match suffocating for a moment, and then finding oxygen and blooming. Along the edges of the clearing, there were video cameras on tripods pointed at the light.

  “I’m going after a camera,” I said, but Charles held me down.

  The wind picked up, the trees around us started to rustle and creak.

  “Look over there,” Charles whispered, pointing to the side of the light.

  Small yellow and red glimmers were moving through the forest.

  “They’re torches,” Charles said. “They’re coming.”

  Shadows emerged in the blue light and were becoming more distinct. They looked vaguely like gorilla silhouettes.

  Singing voices emerged from the forest. More and more torches were apparent through the trees, and then the first figures appeared. They were the true believers. Long-haired and idealistic. They were men, women and children. Some held poorly designed spears and rudimentary shields, others had knives.

  “God, I wish I had a camera,” I mumbled, then looking down at a tripod near the light. “I’m going to get one.”

  “No, Will,” Charles snapped, sounding like my father. “You don’t want to get any closer to that light.”

  I settled back down and watched the followers approach.

  “Where are the guns?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Guns, no one has guns, rifles, look,” I said. “There’s no food, no water, they don’t have any real weapons.”

  “So?”

  “What the hell are they going over to the other side to do?” I asked.

  A figure emerged from the crowd. It was Jim. He lifted a small object in the air.

  “What’s that?” Charles asked.

  “The razor. He used it to cut himself. He used it onstage once and then I’d seen him do it just before he disappeared. I’d heard the cult had been looking for it ever since.”

  Jim jabbed the razor into his chest and blood spurted out.

  The blue light pulsed and blew us backwards. We rolled down the embankment. The trees were creaking and cracking as they bowed toward the light. There was a muffled ripping in the ground. A tree turned and twisted. It jerked out of the ground and crashed through another tree as it flew toward the light. Other trees uprooted and sailed off.

  “Oh shit!” Charles screamed.

  I grabbed his shirt and pulled him up onto his feet. He latched onto my shoulder and we began running away from the light. The wind was gushing and howling around us. Trees were being torn out of the ground around us, rocks were spinning past our heads. The blue light blossomed like a mushroom cloud and for a moment, it engulfed us. We both fell to the ground, but we quickly stood back up and ran. I couldn’t see through the light, but we continued running. Branches smacked me in the face. So much dust flew through the air that it felt like running through water.

&n
bsp; Charles stumbled and fell. I turned to pick him up, but a gust blew me up off my feet. I felt Charles’s hand clasp mine. I was lifted into the air as if I were falling up into the sky. Charles held tightly and I whipped my other hand to clutch onto his forearm. Up above me, I could see a sun glimmering through the blue. It was red and large, larger than our own sun. There were clouds, an orange sky. The wind died but my body still floated. Voices emerged, singing again. There was a scream. It sounded like Jim.

  I fell to the ground. The sun disappeared, the blue light shrank. I winced as I hit the ground. It took several seconds for my eyes to adjust, and when I looked up, I only saw our own full moon and sea of stars. Charles pulled me closer to him. He was half buried in branches, dirt and debris. The once dense forest was cleared away as far as I could see. The followers were gone.

  Charles’s face was covered in scratches; blood seeped down from a large gash on his forehead.

  Charles wiped the blood from his eyes, dug his way out of the branches and stood up onto his good leg. He began working his way back up the embankment. I grabbed his shoulder and helped him up. The clearing where the light had been was nothing but dirt. No grass, no trees, the cameras were gone. There weren’t any torches, any signs of life. The dirt itself was swirled like a tornado had swept through.

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  “Do what we came here to do, Stretch,” Charles grinned. “Get me to a phone.”

  Epilogue

  The total count of missing was 4,238. The bodies of 250 were found in and around the compound. The area in question was quarantined immediately and remains closed to the public. It is also listed as a “No-Fly Zone.” The United States government has yet to confirm anything, and has only commented on the mass disappearance as an “ongoing investigation.” They refuse to comment on the location or even the existence of Jim Jacobs.

  Media outlets have documented first hand accounts of high winds, screams and a large aura of light that could be seen above the tree line from miles away. A large circular area of utter devastation is said to surround the field where the anomaly was alleged to have been located, even stretching out as far as the concert grounds nearby.

  Herb Hefner, Brian Everett and the members of the kilted inner guard have been named as “persons of interest” in nearly every murder investigation resulting from that night. Other deaths have been attributed to trampling, dehydration and accidental overdose. Hefner, Everett and the majority of the inner guard are also among the missing. When asked about the missing persons, officials with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Emergency Management Agency, local law enforcement and the National Guard have refused to comment. Anonymous sources claiming access to the investigation and cleanup efforts say that no physical evidence has surfaced indicating either the death or survival of the missing. One source with the FBI admitted that “all possibilities are being considered at this point,” referring to Jacobs’s anomaly as well as to rumors of freak weather occurrences such as a meteor impact, or a rapid onset tornado over a mile wide.

  Cult members who survived the event claim that they can hear Jacobs’s voice in the forest on a clear night, but no recordings have been successfully made.

  The accounts recorded here came, in large part, through extensive interviews and first hand accounts of the survivors. Some portions, including those featuring Mitch the Witch, were taken from official government documents and recordings secured through anonymous sources. Mitch’s body was recovered at the scene of the concert. He had been fatally stabbed. His real name is withheld at the family’s request. Recordings purported to be Mitch’s continue to surface even after his death, and the audio account of the event briefly surfaced on his Web site and has since popped up sporadically on other sites, but no major media outlet has even referred to the recording, which is the only audio recording of the “anomaly.”

  Cynthia Anderson claims to have set up multiple cameras for the event, but lost all three and whatever footage they might have captured. Other grainy images and low-quality footage captured by those who attended the concert are scattered across the Internet. They show the cult and a large part of the concert’s crowd following Jacobs into the woods. Sheldon Aven, known to his friends as “Vader,” claims to be the only survivor of the anomaly, and even boasts of killing an “ogre.” His account varied widely each time he was interviewed, both by police and by the book’s authors, so it was decided not to include his version of events.

  “Vader” later became a suspect for the disappearance and suspected murder of dozens of people before and on the night of the concert. After fleeing to Canada, he was arrested for indecent exposure. An extradition deal with the United States has stalled because of Canada’s opposition to the death penalty.

  A video blog left by the cult member known only as “Misty” was valuable in cobbling together the inner workings of the cult. Misty is among the missing and has become something of a symbol of the movement. Her image has appeared on Web sites and T-shirts. Rumors of a love affair between Jacobs and Misty have circled among surviving cult members, as well as stories of an alleged love child given up for adoption before the event. No credible evidence of either of these could be found.

  In preparing the book, efforts were made in collaboration with law enforcement to determine Misty’s actual identity, but to no avail. A document alleged to be Misty’s diary was found in the compound and is being prepared for publication by another independent reporter, but the authenticity is in question and it was not used as a source for this book.

  Several blog entries by cult member Robbie Stanson were utilized for aspects of the book. Stanson is also among the missing.

  Jack Daniels scheduled a fundraising concert for the families of the victims of the event the following spring, and it has continued as an annual tradition. The City of Norman refused to participate in the initial concert, so it was held on private land outside of the city and drew 64,000 attendees.

  Marcus was initially a silent partner in the fundraising events, and briefly considered closing the record shop after national attention turned it into a tourist stop. Instead, he gave over control to his co-owner and opened a second store near the affluent Nichols Hills area of Oklahoma City. He asked that the name of the store not be mentioned so as not to draw any “undesirable clientele.”

  Two new albums of previously unheard Shropshire Plaid material have been remastered and are awaiting release, pending legal negotiations with Chris Ngyuen and the remaining members of the band. Def Jam Records is releasing an album of Plaid songs remixed by top-name producers and re-recorded by rap artists and rock musicians who’ve never even met Jim.

  Shortly after the event, a Japanese music magazine named Norman, Oklahoma, “The coolest place in the world to watch a concert.” Though the “award” was a direct reference to the massacre and mass disappearance, the quote quickly appeared in numerous brochures and on the Web site of the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department.

  Oscar Ramirez and his family refused interviews for the book, but Oscar’s first hand account was later secured through an anonymous source. A financial agreement with the family was arranged so the account, slightly edited for grammar, could be included. Oscar’s pawn shop bought out its neighbors in the strip mall and expanded, now carrying a wider selection of electronics, firearms, baseball cards, power tools and appliances. It still boasts the most extensive collection of Jacobs’s memorabilia. Seth “Junior” Ramirez worked with his father at the pawn shop for a year before starting another shop across town bearing his father’s name. Junior’s efforts to “expand the family empire” include a new wife and their first child, born shortly before this book went to press.

  Victoria “Baby Girl” Ramirez has successfully completed a drug and alcohol rehab program. She said her plans for the future include going back to school and learning the family business.

  Ashley Jacobs moved with her son to an undisclosed location, but agreed to a series of
telephone interviews conducted by Martin for this book. Though Ashley and Sean did not ultimately move to California, they did move out of Oklahoma. Billy Cohen later joined them.

  Ashley and Billy say that do not live together, and will not confirm rumors of their relationship. They say only that they are “very good friends who have a lot of respect for each other.” Ashley, and to a lesser extent, Billy, have both been the subject of death threats on the Internet. Ashley, Billy and Sean went into hiding shortly before press time following the arrest of a man carrying a knife, duct tape, several feet of rope, pornography and a Shropshire Plaid album in the neighborhood where Ashley was staying. A paranoid schizophrenic with six prior arrests, the man told police he had been sent on a mission by Jim Jacobs and Jesus Christ.

  Billy refused to confirm his grandmother’s account of events, contained herein. Eliza Knights ultimately was successful in publishing, but for an unrelated fictional romance novel about a pirate. The book is entitled Bravebeard, the Merciless Marauder of the Caribbean Sea.

  Charles Martin’s account of that night appeared in Spin Magazine. He quickly made the rounds of talk shows and news outlets. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his work, which was quickly revoked when he was accused of plagiarism as well as attributing a series of quotes to a source who had died a year prior to the interview. Martin retired from journalism to begin work with Will Weinke on this book.

  Weinke’s story never appeared in Timbre. The magazine folded a week from the story’s publication. Weinke released it on Skip the Opening Blog to wide acclaim among Web zines and other music publications, and was referenced in Rolling Stone magazine. Despite his efforts conducting interviews and securing sources for this book, Weinke signed over the rights to Martin and has since distanced himself from the book and the Jim Jacobs phenomenon. Martin secured the movie rights and is currently overseeing production of a movie based on the dominant hand.