Cleansing

by Roy A. Teel, Jr.

  “You animals! Have you no understanding of the evil you have brought upon this house, this congregation? Hell is what you have brought on this house of worship. You have taken this church from a house of love and worship to the Lord to a house of HELL!” Erick sat down, and two men in the gallery in front of the table of twelve men stood up and walked behind the table and struck him several times with the palms of their hands then tied his hands to the chair he was sitting in and pulled a long steel blade out and held it to his throat.

  Chris went to rise, and Jim pulled him down. “This is not our area. I told you to be still.” Chris was furious. “We are going to watch while they kill an innocent man?” Jim shook his head and said, “Just wait.” Jim looked over at a door off the main platform that had a small brass plate that said, ‘Maintenance.’ He pointed to the door and said, “You see that door?” Chris nodded. “Hell is behind it. Junior will not die. Someone is waiting to hear what he wants to hear before there is movement.” Chris looked at Jim and asked, “Who the hell is on the other side of that door?” Jim hushed Chris as Arnest spoke.

  “We are the chosen ones, Little Erick. We are the ones that the Lord has chosen to usher in his second coming. I would have your throat slit now if you weren’t so damn contaminated with the world. Yes, yes. You, Erick, will take the helm of your father’s church. You’re the perfect scapegoat for us. When the smoke is clear, and we have been raptured, the filth left behind will take you and blame you for the murders of the children. It’s perfect. Your father has thought this through well.” Arnest made a gesture to all in the room, and they responded in unison with the same gesture.

  “We are the keepers of the holy light. We are the shepherds of the flock. It is our duty to see to it that the flock is led well and not astray. We have done all that the Lord and our prophet Bruno Richards has instructed. Now his prophecy shall be fulfilled, and the great and terrible day of the Lord is upon us. Each man and woman in this room has sworn a blood oath to Trinity Blood, and now it is time that you hold that oath and prepare for the end. It is time that you deliver those you love unto the Lord before the final sacrifice. When we depart this room tonight, it is your duty to your family and those friends that you love to send them to be with the Lord ahead of his coming. You don’t want any of them to have to go through the tribulation. Bruno has taught that we who have been cleansed in innocent blood can save those that we choose and if delivered to the Lord by our hand they will be welcomed into the Lord’s house with open arms. You will see them again after the rapture. As it is written, so must it be done.”

  The room erupted in unison, “As it is written, so must it be done.” “So let it be that tonight we begin the final cleansing of those we wish saved, and tomorrow night we will fulfill the prophecy and usher in the judgment day of our Lord.”

  There was a resounding applause from the group. Jim looked over to see that the door near the stage was pushed open a crack, and he grabbed Chris and pulled him to the back of the upper gallery and out the door. When they were out of the room Chris screamed, “What the fuck, Jim? We have to get back in there. We have to stop those nut jobs. They’re talking about killing their families and friends tonight.”

  Jim put his arm across Chris’s chest and put a cigarette in his mouth. He let loose of Chris, who could hear singing coming from the room behind them. Jim pulled out his Zippo, lit the cigarette, and snapped the lighter shut. He took two deep hits and said, “Relax, kid, only a few of the people in that room are going to get out of there alive, and even the ones that do won’t be going to the public.”

  Chris just sat silent, listening to what amounted to a chant, as Jim smoked his cigarette, calm and relaxed. “You’re waiting for something?” Chris asked. Jim looked over at Chris, exhaling smoke into the hallway. “Something? More like somebody!” Chris looked on with a confused look on his face.

  The Eagle had heard enough. He was able to see junior and senior as well as Hess and Arnest clearly. He pulled a tranquilizer gun from his black suit and two small grenades. The group in the room was so immersed in their singing and chanting that they did not notice the door open wider. The Eagle aimed the gun, and in a matter of seconds shot Hess, the two Ericks, and Arnest. The four men fell to the floor. The room full of people kept up their chant as if nothing had happened.

  The Eagle stepped out of the darkened closet and moved onto the stage, grabbing man after man and pulling them into the closet and through to the other door until all four were outside and laying on the concrete floor of the hallway. No one in the room was paying any attention to the Eagle. They were entranced in their chant, and the Eagle moved back to the doorway leading from the closet into the room and pulled the pins on the grenades and threw them inside.

  Through dead black eyes, he looked down at the worshippers as the grenades detonated, first with the stun of a flash grenade and then with two bursts of gas. Several women screamed at the sight of him, and he said in a cold and loud voice, “May God NOT have mercy on your souls.” And with that, he disappeared into the closet and out into the hallway where he threw two men over his shoulders and carried them to his truck. When he came back for the last two, he heard nothing from the room at all. He took the other men to his truck, zip tied them, removed his body armor and mask, and walked back to the church.

  It was one thirty a.m. when Sara had finished interrogating Lisa, and she was satisfied that she had no idea that the group she had been calling family for six months was killing children. Sara sat silent looking at Lisa’s face now stained with tears of anger and rage. She was no longer under the influence of the drug Sara gave her, and she was screaming and crying.

  “I ate the hearts of young children and drank their blood?” Sara simply nodded. “This can’t be true. This just can’t be true.” Sara sat back and said, “Oh, but it is, Lisa. You are in the nest of the Iron Eagle, and he is taking revenge on those who did harm to others.”

  Lisa was breathing hard, and she went to the bathroom and threw up. She walked back and asked, “Is the Eagle going to kill me?” Sara sat silent for a few minutes and then said, “I hope not. I recorded this whole session. I will give it to him to review. He will most likely have more questions for you, but I doubt that he will kill you.”

  “The Eagle already asked me a lot of questions, and I answered them.” Sara was silent but perplexed. “You didn’t know he already spoke to me, did you?” Sara shook her head, and Lisa asked, “Is he going to kill Erick?” “Which one?” Lisa got an angry look on her face and said, “My husband!” Sara said, “I don’t know. If he’s innocent of these crimes, then no, if he had knowledge of them, yes.”

  Lisa cried out and fell to the floor, “Erick knew nothing. I was going to the meetings of the underchurch with Arnest and Watson. They were the ones that introduced me to the Richards Family and Trinity Blood. They said we were doing the bidding of the Lord. That we were fulfilling a prophecy passed down over fifty years. That the great and terrible day of the Lord is at hand, and that we are all going to be raptured.”

  Sara stood up and said, “I don’t know much about Christianity and the end of the world or the second coming stuff you speak of, but I can promise you that there is a day of judgment coming for some of these people, and they will be wishing it was God who was dealing with them.” Sara said it as she left the holding room and Lisa to her thoughts.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Fuck…son of a bitch…Jim is

  going to lose his fuckin’ mind.”

  Jim and Chris sat in silence for a few moments when they heard two small pops and then a muffled voice coming from the room they had just left. Jim looked down at his watch and said, “Five minutes, and we can go back in.” Chris was about to ask Jim what he meant when he saw John appear in the upper doorway looking in at them.

  Jim stood up and asked, “So?” “So what?” “Did you find anything on Watson?” “I might have a lead on h
er. I’m not sure. What’s been going on here?” Chris was talking a mile a minute as Jim took out another cigarette, lit it, and took a drag as he walked out into the dark hallway and then out the double glass doors to the parking lot where there was nothing but silence. When Chris had stopped talking, John said, “Did you get this conversation on tape?” Both men nodded, and John said, “Well, shall we go see what’s going on in there? No one has come out, have they?” Jim shook his head, took a couple of deep hits, then dropped his cigarette and crushed it out with the heel of his shoe.

  The men drew their weapons and walked slowly down the corridor to the room where the group was gathered. John pointed at Chris and said, “On three, you open the door and enter.” Chris nodded. He was so wrapped up in the moment that he didn’t notice that Jim was just standing behind them with his hands in his pockets. Chris burst through the door and into the foul smelling room.

  “Jesus, it smells like rotten eggs,” Chris said, looking through a haze of smoke. The smell was still very strong, and he began to wretch on the floor. John pulled him out of the room and said, “Let’s give it a few more minutes to air out. I don’t need a dead agent who hasn’t even been through training.” Jim let out a laugh, and Chris asked, “Is this fuckin’ funny to you, Jim?” Jim shook his head and said, “No, Chris. There’s nothing funny about what’s in that room. There’s nothing funny when justice gets meted out outside of a court room. No, Chris. I don’t think it’s fuckin’ funny, but I have learned that it is sometimes necessary that a few should die so that the many may live.”

  John looked at Jim with a look of admiration, and Jim saw it and said, “Yeah…I finally get it.” He was looking at John as he said it, and Chris asked, “Get what?” Jim said, “The room is clear, Chris, go in and you will understand.” John and Jim stayed a few feet behind Chris as he walked into the room.

  Chris cried out and pressed his back against the wall of the room as he looked over a sea of bodies. “What the fuck?” Chris said. Jim walked in followed by John. Jim sniffed the air and said, “Cyanogen chloride.” Chris looked at Jim and said, “Cyanide gas?” Jim nodded. “How the fuck could cyanide gas get into this room?” The air was clearing, and Jim said, “I will give you three guesses, but I think you’ll only need one.”

  He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and lifted a letter-sized piece of paper and showed it to Chris. It had the seal of the Iron Eagle on it. Chris jumped back as John stepped forward, taking a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and taking the document from Jim. There were two large canisters in the middle of the room, and Chris looked at them and said, “Jesus Christ! The Eagle just gassed all of these people?”

  Jim nodded as well as John. Chris said, “He has to be here or in the vicinity. We have to call in officers. We need to seal a perimeter around the church and start a manhunt.” Jim laughed and said, “You don’t know the Eagle very well, kid. He’s long gone, and he probably saved dozens and dozens of lives.” Jim took out his cell phone as did John, and before they knew it the church was an official Eagle crime scene. Jim and Chris turned over their recordings to John and the FBI, and Jade Morgan and her team arrived on scene to deal with the bodies.

  It was half past three when she arrived. John greeted her and said, “You’re going to need a flatbed or something a hell of a lot bigger than your van, Jade. There are thirty-three bodies in there.”

  She walked in and looked over the scene then walked back out to John and asked, “What the hell was the Eagle thinking?” “About saving lives, Jade, about saving lives. It’s not over by a long shot. Ezra Rosenberg is in the hands of one of this cult’s leaders somewhere in LA, and this situation needs to remain under wraps until the Eagle can get to him and save him.” Jade looked on and said, “Those people in there must have done something really fuckin’ bad to deserve to die like that.” John nodded as the two went their separate ways.

  John asked Jim to take Chris home, and John gave orders to his crime scene unit then walked off to his truck. As they watched John’s taillights disappear in the predawn hours, Chris asked, “Where’s he going?” Jim walked over to his car and said, “To learn more about this group and what the hell they’re doing.” “And he’s going to do that alone?” Jim had a cigarette between his teeth as he spoke and said, “If there is one thing I know about John, it’s that he does his best work when he is alone.” The two men drove off into the early morning headed for Malibu and what they both agreed was going to be a long, long day.

  Karen had been asleep and woke up hungry. She walked through the main house to the kitchen in search of a snack. She got a glass of milk and some string cheese and sat down to eat it in the breakfast nook off the kitchen. It was ten to five, and the sun was starting to rise. She could see the white caps of the surf as it rolled in from the sea and crashed on the rocks below the dining area. As she headed back to the guest wing of the house, she saw a small slit of light coming from a wall near the foyer of the main entrance. At first, she thought it was a reflection off one of the windows as the sun was rising. She put her hand into the light and instead of being on top of her hand it was underneath it. She pressed on the wall, and it moved. She pressed a little harder, and the wall opened to reveal another room, a room she had never seen before.

  She walked hesitatingly into the foyer of the room where there was low lighting but no movement. She looked around and saw a long, darkened hallway just beginning to receive light from the morning sun. She walked quietly past several doors until she reached the end. There were multiple doors on each side of the hallway, and she tried the handles but all of them were locked. She walked out of the hallway and back into the foyer when she heard voices coming from near the entrance. She hid behind a couch and listened.

  She could hear Sara and Barbara talking to John. Sara asked, “How many?” “Four not including the Farmer girl.” Karen recognized the disguised voice. It was a voice she had not heard in many, many years. She peeked out from behind the couch to see John with two bodies over his shoulders walking down the hallway with Sara and Barbara behind him. She watched as they disappeared into one of the rooms, then John reappeared with Barbara behind him and only one body on his shoulder, and she watched him walk into another room.

  She stood up and walked quickly back to where she came from when she heard Sara’s voice behind her. “What the hell are you doing in here?” Karen froze, afraid to turn around. She heard another voice, and it scared her even more. “Karen…Karen…what are you doing in here?” It was John. She turned slowly to see John’s towering figure casting a long shadow in the hallway. He was pulling a small disc off his throat, and she realized now why the Eagle sounded different from John.

  No one moved or spoke for several seconds, then Karen said, “I have always suspected…no…I have always known it was you who saved me so many years ago, John. You are the Iron Eagle. I have always known. I just didn’t want to admit it to myself or you.”

  Sara and John were standing still looking at Karen’s tiny frame silhouetted in the morning light when Barbara came walking into the room. Barbara took one look at Karen and said, “Fuck…son of a bitch…Jim is going to lose his fuckin’ mind. Jesus Christ, Sara. What were you thinking having that child here?”

  John walked across the room and sat down on a sofa in the living room of his lair. Sara followed him as did Barbara. He patted the sofa next to him and called Karen to sit, which she did. She showed absolutely no fear. She was calm and cool and looked at him as she had always looked at him.

  John said, “You once called me your black angel.” Karen nodded emphatically and said, “You still are…you saved me from Simon Barstow and the sick people he had working for him.” “You remember that?” Karen laughed and said, “It’s not something that I will ever forget. I was a human semen receptacle for those animals for years, then you found me. You saved me. You kissed my forehead and told me it was going to be all right. And guess what?
It is. I was having sex when I was three. I was raped and treated cruelly, daily, for years, and you ended that…or the Iron Eagle did. I am trained in matters of the mind.”

  John sat for a moment looking at her pretty little face and seeing how mature and educated she was. He reached out his hand, and Karen took it. With a tear in her eye, she said, “You are a good person, John. You try to help people, and you take back, when you can, what evil these animals have done. If you can’t take it back, then the Iron Eagle puts an end to it. Your secret is safe with me. It always has been and always will be.”

  Sara had tears running down her face as did Barbara. John leaned down and kissed Karen on the forehead and said, “I have no doubt.”

  The four sat on the furniture in the outer room when another familiar voice broke the silence. “Oh no, mother fucker, what the hell is the kid doing in this fuckin’ place?” Barbara turned to Jim and said, “Jimmy…shut the hell up…we are having a moment.” “A moment…a moment of what? Jesus Christ, John. Why don’t you just take out a full fuckin’ page ad in the Times? You can do a whole photo layout and everything for the Iron fuckin’ Eagle.” Sara stood up and dried her eyes and said, “Well, it’s going to be a long day, so why don’t we have some breakfast and get up to speed on what’s going on?”

  Karen looked at Sara and said, “I will eat a little later. I think that it’s best that I know as little about the actions of the Eagle as possible.” John nodded as did Barbara. Jim just stood looking at all of them with a dazed look in his sleepless eyes and said, “Why do I think that somehow this is going to come back and bite me in the ass?” There was some quiet laughter, and Barbara put her hand on Jim’s shoulder and said, “Come on Mister ‘I got shot.’ Let’s go have some food with our friends.”