Cleansing

by Roy A. Teel, Jr.

  They headed back to the main house and started for the kitchen. Karen called out to Sara and asked, “Is it okay if I take a swim?” Sara told her it was fine. Karen had been wearing a terrycloth robe, and she took it off and dropped it next to the couch in the living room. Her nude flesh had a slight sheen in the morning light, and John said, “Karen, need I remind you, you are still underage.” Karen looked at the four standing staring, especially Jim, and said, “Underage to swim?” “No. You should wear a swimsuit.” Karen laughed and said, “You don’t, Sara doesn’t, Barbara doesn’t, and neither does Jade when she swims here. I don’t think there’s an age requirement for swimming in my birthday suit.”

  Sara and Barbara nodded, and John looked on and said, “I can’t argue with that logic.” Jim just stood there with his mouth open, looking at Karen who had a beautiful full pair of breasts and a curvy figure that he would never guess was under eighteen. The words ran out of his brain and onto his tongue without a thought filter, “Jesus…that’s seventeen? That’s fuckin’ jail bait!” Barbara just shook her head as she drug him into the kitchen followed by John and Sara. They heard the splash of the water as Karen jumped into the pool, and they sat down to discuss the events of the previous night.

  Charlotte had fallen asleep on the living room sofa only to be awakened by Ezra’s cries. She sat up and looked at her cell phone and saw that it was six thirty a.m. She looked, but she had no text messages or calls from Arnest. She called his cell phone but got voicemail. She left a short, curt message and then yelled into the nursery, “I hear you. I hear you, you pain in the ass. I hear you. Jesus, I’m going to warm a bottle, so shut the fuck up.”

  She walked into the kitchen and warmed some formula. She staggered back into the nursery where her senses were assaulted by the smell of a dirty diaper. She changed the diaper and then took the child in her arms and put the bottle to his lips. She listened to the sucking sounds that he made on the nipple and said, “I always wondered what it would be like to nurse a child.” Charlotte put Ezra down in the crib, and he cried while she removed her shirt and her bra. She took him back in her arms and squirted a little of the formula onto her right nipple then placed the child near her chest. Ezra moved his head quickly in a searching movement looking for the milk. She pulled him a little closer to her, and he latched on to her breast. He pulled her nipple into his mouth, and the suction was so hard she winced. She sat for a moment and then started to squirm in the chair she was sitting on. She whispered to Ezra, “Wow…now I understand why women want to have kids. You gave me three orgasms back to back.”

  She sat with the child nursing on her non-lactating breast. She moved him from breast to breast for over a half hour, and all the while Ezra was quiet, and Charlotte sat with her eyes half open with a faint smile on her face.

  Roberto, Maria, and Jesus Estonia were released from the hospital at eight. The protection detail had been released on them, and they headed for home. When they got there, Maria told Roberto, “Don’t get too attached to Jesus. He’s to be sacrificed tonight in order to fulfill the prophecy.” Roberto nodded and put the child in his car seat down on the kitchen table of their small apartment while Maria called Lisa to let her know that he was ready.

  Chapter Twenty

  “What’s in a name? I am justice…”

  “It’s all black!” Arnest said, blindfolded. He tried to move but was unable to. He tried to lift his head, but it, too, was restrained. He heard breathing coming through the darkness and called out, “Who’s there?” There was no response. He listened to the breathing and realized that it was the sound of someone sleeping. He heard his cell phone ring in his pocket, but he had no way to get to it. He lay in the blackness of the cool room listening to the breathing of his roommate and nothing else.

  Erick Sr. was wide awake and staring up at the operating room light over his head. He was restrained and unable to move, but he offered no resistance. He said quietly to himself, “Lord, I have done wrong. I ask that you save me.” “It won’t help,” came the response to the question. Erick didn’t recognize the voice, and he was unable to move his head. His eyes probed side to side to see who had spoken to him. He saw a figure in white move just out of his line of sight. He heard steel on steel and the clatter of metal objects but saw no one. “Who are you, where am I?”

  The Eagle pushed a steel tray over to the gurney and said, “Hell…Walton. You are in hell.” “I’m dead?” The Eagle let out a light laugh and said, “Not yet, but I promise you’re going to pray to be.” The Eagle pulled an IV stand over next to the table and tied off Erick’s upper arm and slapped the swollen arm hard several times. “I have to raise a vein,” the Eagle said as he took the cap off an IV set and jammed the line into Erick ’s left arm. Erick squirmed a little but made no sound. The Eagle pulled a vial of liquid from the table and put a syringe into it, drawing out the drug and then injecting it into Erick’s IV.

  “You are going to feel a burning sensation. It will start in your left arm and spread throughout your body.” “I don’t feel anything.” “Give it a few seconds.” Two seconds later, Erick was screaming uncontrollably and working to resist the restraints as his white skin began to turn ashen in color, and the Eagle sat and watched the drug change his color and character. Profanity began flowing from senior’s mouth with the color and etiquette of a sailor back from leave.

  The Eagle sat, watched, and listened as he drew the remote from the tray and turned on the recording equipment in the room. After five minutes, he gave senior a second injection, and the pain stopped. Erick was lucid and asked, “What have you done? The pain is gone.” “No it’s not. It’s masked by a painkiller. The drug in your system is still eating away at your organs and soon your brain, so let’s get right to it. Where’s Ezra Rosenberg?” Erick’s eyes got wild, and he said, “Given that I’m here, and I don’t know where the others are, if he’s not dead he will be soon.” “That does not answer my question, Mr. Walton. Who has him and where?”

  Erick started to cry, and the Eagle backhanded him across the face. The force of the strike sent blood and spit across the room. Erick was cross eyed as he tried to respond. “Charlotte. Charlotte Watson has him.” “Where?” “I do not have that answer, sir. She is not a part of my church. She is under the control of F. E. Arnest, or perhaps Arnest is under her control.”

  The Eagle stood up and injected Erick’s IV with another dose of drug, and he began to scream and curse again. Erick cried out, “Who the fuck are you?” The Eagle got close to Erick’s face and said, “At the moment, your torturer and eventual executioner, but you can call me Mr. Justice or by the nickname I am best known…The Iron Eagle!” Walton let out a scream of fear and agony as the Eagle walked across the room to his other guest.

  Arnest was on a gurney next to him. The Eagle removed the blindfold, and Arnest stared back. Erick’s screaming was overwhelming, and the Eagle walked back over to the table and struck Walton on the side of his neck, and he fell silent. “Did you kill him?” Arnest asked. “No…simply made it a little quieter, so that you and I can have a conversation. He will come to soon.”

  The Eagle set up the IV for Arnest, who was strapped down just like Walton. He could see the Eagle preparing to inject something and said, “If you do that, you will never be able to save the Rosenberg child or the final sacrifice.” “Really? Do tell,” the Eagle said, laying the syringe down on the steel tray.

  “Charlotte Watson has the Rosenberg child. What time is it?” “Eight fifteen a.m.” “Watson is less than stable, Mr. Eagle. When last we spoke, she had disobeyed my orders and left the safe house where I had stashed her and gone to another location. She’s still safe, but it angered me.” “What location might that be, Mr. Arnest?” “27855 Osborn Street in Northridge; however, if she does not hear from me by nine a.m. she will move and where she will move to will be hard to say.”

  The Eagle stood up and stared down at Arnest and said,
“You know that you are going to die badly?” Arnest spoke softly and with stress in his voice, “Yes.” “You know that no one can save you from me?” “Yes.” A tear rolled down Arnest’s face, and the Eagle looked on and said, “All of this for Richards?” “Yes.” Arnest heard a female voice calling over an intercom.

  “You should turn on the news, sir.”

  The Eagle stared down into Arnest’s dead eyes and said, “Do you know what’s on the news, Mr. Arnest?” Arnest gulped hard as his eyes filled with tears, and he said, “I have a pretty good idea.” “Want to share your idea with me?” “Bruno Richards is dead!” The Eagle nodded and walked over and pressed the intercom and said, “Mr. Arnest and I are of the belief that the news is reporting that Bruno Richards is dead.”

  There was a pause, and Sara’s voice came back on the speaker and said, “Yes.” “Thank you for letting us know.” The Eagle walked back over to Arnest and asked, “So…we have fifteen minutes to keep Ezra alive, Mr. Arnest. What do you propose?” “I will need to call Charlotte to tell her that all is well and that we are on track for the sacrifice tonight. She will then move to a remote location in the Los Angeles mountains where she will build the altar and prepare the area for the sacrifice. She will not harm the child so long as she hears from me. But if she does not, she will do the sacrifice herself, and I can be of no assistance to you as to when and or where it will take place.”

  “And when the rapture and the second coming doesn’t happen?” “She will disappear and move to a new location and keep killing,” Arnest said calmly and coolly. “Tell me about Lisa Farmer,” the Eagle said.

  “You found Lisa? I’m impressed. She was, I thought, the untraceable link to the final sacrifice.” “You thought wrong. What does she know of all of this?” Arnest looked up at the ceiling and said, “Nothing. She knows nothing.” “You will forgive me if I doubt you.” “Doubt me all you like. Lisa thinks that the baby she will receive today is going to be adopted, and she will deliver that child to the Trinity Blood Church if I speak to Ms. Watson. If not, it’s hard to say what the parents will do with the child. They didn’t want it, so…a pillow perhaps?”

  The Eagle stood up and grabbed Arnest’s cell phone. Erick was starting to murmur as he began to come to. The Eagle injected him again, and he fell silent. “Did you kill him this time?” Arnest asked, unable to move his head. “No…I gave him the antidote to the poison that I was using to torture and kill him. I have a more appropriate way for him to die.”

  The Eagle walked over and unsnapped the restraints from Arnest’s head and body and helped him sit up on the gurney. “Make the call, Mr. Arnest. Know that I will be listening to your conversation.” The Eagle picked up a phone that was on the steel table. “You tapped my phone?” Arnest asked. “Isn’t that illegal?” The Eagle tilted his head a bit and asked, “Really, Mr. Arnest? That’s your biggest concern? You know who I am and what I do, and you’re going to ask me if I did something illegal? Make the call, please.” Arnest took his cell phone and hit speed dial, calling Charlotte’s cell phone.

  The ringing jolted Charlotte back to reality as Ezra slept with his lips locked onto the nipple of her left breast. She moved quickly to get the phone off a tabletop near her, ripping her nipple out of his mouth and causing him to begin screaming. She grabbed the phone and pressed the answer key while at the same time trying to get her nipple back into the kid’s mouth. “Where the hell are you, F. E.?” Ezra’s screaming could be heard on the line, and he went silent suddenly before Arnest could reply.

  Arnest looked over at the Eagle, who was staring at him with deadly intensity. “I’m with my brothers preparing for tonight. Is Ezra okay?” “Yeah, yeah. I gave him a bottle earlier and after he ate he wouldn’t shut up, and I don’t have a pacifier or any baby things, so the kid is sucking on my breast, and he’s happy. What’s going on? Why am I just hearing from you?” “The meeting ran most of the night. There was a lot of arguing over junior and the church, then we got the sad word this morning that Bruno has died.”

  There was a long silence on the other end of the line, and the Eagle and Arnest could hear weeping. “I’m sorry, Charlotte. I wanted you to hear it from me and not on the news.” “Oh my GOD! WHAT HAPPENED?” Arnest shrugged, looking at the Eagle, who shrugged back. “I don’t know, Charlotte. He wasn’t young, so it could have been any number of things. What’s important now is that we fulfill his prophecy and usher in the terrible day of the Lord.”

  “Have you heard from Lisa with regard to Jesus?” “No…but I have been busy. I haven’t been able to check my voicemail or text messages. I just wanted to call you first and make sure you knew that everything is moving forward as planned.” “How can you say that? Nothing can move forward…my husband is dead…he had to taste of death instead of being raptured with all of us. All is lost now. How can the movement go on?” She was weeping and crying, and Ezra could be heard sucking on her breast. “All is not lost, Charlotte. The master would want us to conclude his wishes as we did from the start. His death is but a doorway that he has crossed on to the Father. It is up to us to complete his work.”

  Charlotte stopped crying and said, “You’re right. The torch has now been passed to me as his wife to complete the instructions he put in place so many years ago. I will move to a place of refuge and leave this den of death. I will have cell service there. Call me when Jesus is to be delivered to me. I feel that we must move with great speed to conclude the sacrifices and to please the Lord to usher in the end.” The line went dead as Arnest and the Eagle were listening.

  “I don’t want this damn thing,” Maria cried as baby Jesus yelped and mouthed for feeding. Roberto took the child from the mattress on the floor of the apartment and held him under his arm as he walked to the kitchen and opened a can of baby formula and poured it into the baby’s mouth.

  Jesus choked and spat but was unable to cry. “There. I shut him the hell up. Are you happy?” “For Christ sake, Roberto, he’s not breathing. You drowned him.” Maria grabbed the baby and put him over her knee and began to spank his back and bottom until there was a glob of formula on the floor, and the baby started to cry. “How long was he without oxygen?” she asked. Roberto looked over at the clock on the wall and said, “I have no idea. A few minutes.” “Shit. You probably brain damaged him.”

  Roberto rolled his eyes and said, “It’s not like he has a life ahead of him. I wish Lisa would call back, so we can get rid of him. The sacrifice is to be tonight.” Maria lifted Jesus to her face and looked into his little brown eyes and said, “You are the key to us getting out of this shithole called earth and going to the promised land and home to be with the Lord.” Maria put the baby on his back on the mattress and called Lisa’s cell phone again. Roberto said, “If the bitch doesn’t call back in an hour, I’m just going to kill the kid, and they can start over with someone else. Shit. He’s only five pounds. I can carve him up and put him down the garbage disposal.”

  Lisa Farmer was eating some breakfast that Sara had brought her, and the two were sitting alone in the holding room in silence. Lisa was dressed in nothing but a medical gown that Sara had placed her in the night before. Sara had put Lisa’s clothing and belongings in a closet that was locked. She heard the cell phone going off in the closet and asked Lisa if she knew who it might be.

  Lisa had stuffed some French toast into her mouth and talked with her mouth full of food, “It’s probably my husband. He must be frantic over the fact that he has not seen me in nearly two whole days.” Sara asked, “Would anyone else be calling?” “Any number of people, Sara. I’m a pastor’s wife. I do a lot at the church. It’s after nine, so it could also be Maria trying to see where I am or others in the congregation in need of something.” She paused and swallowed her food and looked at Sara and asked, “Can I confess something to you?” Sara nodded slowly. “While I know Erick wants to get back to the basics of Christianity and live like the early church did
in Jerusalem after the death of Christ, it’s not working. Those who have joined the church and turned over their property and money to the church are constantly in need and complaining. Everyone seems most unhappy. I mean, I have only been with Erick for six months, but even I could see just a week in to my time with him that his idea wasn’t working.”

  Sara was about to respond when the door opened and the Eagle walked in. He had heard Lisa’s last comment and said, “The idea is called communism or socialism, and you are right. It doesn’t work. Many a war has been fought over these types of ideals.” The Eagle was in his full body armor and mask, and Lisa dropped the plate of food from her hands to the floor upon seeing the giant man enter the room.

  “Where is your phone?” the Eagle asked. Sara stood up and said, “It’s here.” She walked over to the closet and unlocked the doors and pulled out Lisa’s clothing and personal belongings and handed them to him. Lisa said nothing. He took the things from Sara and sat down and pressed the screen to see several missed calls as well as text and voicemail icons on the screen. The Eagle put the phone on speaker and handed it to Lisa and said, “Check your voicemail.” She took the phone and pressed the speed dial, and her voicemail came up. She put in her password, and it said she had ten messages. She began to listen to one after the other. Several were from Erick Jr. looking for her. There were a few from people in the church, and then there were two from Maria Estonia. The first was a pleasant message letting Lisa know she was out of the hospital and to call her about picking up Jesus. The second was a blunter message: “Lisa, it’s Roberto and Maria…listen, we have been calling you for hours and no call back. We have this kid, and you are supposed to pick him up for the church to adopt out. Now, get your shit together because I have work and so does Maria. If you don’t call us back by ten a.m., I will make other arrangements for this kid.”