Children of the Program

by Brad Cox

  For the first time in years, he'd found someone to live for. It was gut wrenching. Without compromising his or her whereabouts, Joe knew he couldn't track or contact her and feared his sacrifice may leave him mopping up the devils from her past. He prayed for a safe return to Petey and for God to someday send him another pregnant girl — a lass that would tell him the most unbelievable story ever told. It was a gamble he was willing to take, over and over again.

  +++

  Dez was poised to attack. His night terrors persisted, while his ability to harness his own twisted reasoning began to dwindle. Heightened brainwaves cooked off his sanity, as the lurking truth forced him to come to terms with the weight of Crystal's pregnancy. No longer could he hide in the shadows of doubt and no more could he wrestle with the notion of her eventual return.

  “Max, I'm packing my guns and glory and heading to Texas. We've unearthed Crystal. I'll forward you the directions. It's mission critical that we find her. I need you to mobilize a small team and meet me there. Do not make a move until I arrive!” said Dez, with a hiss.

  “What's the plan?” asked Max

  “To kill the world's salvation!” Dez proclaimed, cryptically.

  “I'll be on my way,” said Max.

  It was a brief conversation, but the orders were given.

  chapter 41

  11:11

  Her body, like mangled steel, struggled to pull itself from magnetic hospital sheets. The candy stripers would sympathetically visit, but knew the strain of her best friend's disappearance was a solace they'd never articulate. The drip of morphine soothed her torn body and teased her mind into a dreamlike submission. Weaning herself from the soothing medication meant injecting the reality of Rand's trip to The Beyond. Though she'd been given a backstage pass to his calling, she was suddenly forced to believe in miracles.

  Begrudging and bewildered, she unlocked the clasps of her travel luggage, and prepared to take a trip into the unknown. The sound of her babies cries sobered her from the lingering effects of the drugs and reminded her of her new child's importance to the world. Rand's parents did their best to encourage Isabella, but were torn between the birth of their grandchild and the loss of their own. Something in the blistering air assured the Backers that Rand was never coming home.

  As mysterious as his trip to Arizona seemed, Mr. Backer gave up on understanding the nature of his offspring. Witnessing his son's dramatic personality shift only reinforced what he felt about Rand’s ramblings in the bar – his son had lost it. Mr. Backer wasn't psychologically equipped to validate the idea of Nephilim-inspired children. It mocked structure and sanity. Struggling to cope, a rush of guilt befell Isabella's falling face, as she stared in the bathroom mirror. Losing focus, she recalled the inexcusable nights of debauchery that lead to the conception of her first born. She recalled performing filthy sex acts on warehouse floors, orgies with Rand and common strangers and sharing heroin needles with cold and exploitative drug dealers. Returning to the same streets of chaos, where this new life had crawled, seemed equally as irresponsible as accepting a submissive role in her sexually abusive household. She owed the heavens a queen's penance.

  “Sweetheart,” interrupted Mrs. Backer. “Are you ready?” She pulled a convenience wheelchair into the hospital bathroom doorway and awaited her to snap from her stubborn gaze. A mother's instinct warned Mrs. Backer that it was best to leave her to tend her feelings.

  “Yes. Just a minute,” offered Isabella, attempting to avoid her lingering pause.

  “It's OK, my dear,” said Mrs. Backer. Carrying the weight of the world was more than her fragile bones could handle. Rand was her first and only child. She always sensed there was something special about his arrival, but wouldn't dare articulate it, for fear Mr. Backer would have her committed. She could almost hear Rand's story, buried deep within Isabella's heart and longed to know it.

  Turning to look at the clock, Isabella recalled the numerology of angels. It was 11:11 am. It begged her peace. Comforted by superstition, she gathered her senses and descended into the wheelchair.

  Mrs. Backer softly encouraged her through the bustling lobby area. Mr. Backer, adjusting an old war cap, led the charge. Approaching the automatic doors, they noticed a small group of young adult women, dressed in black, holding picket signs that read, 'Stop the birther,' and 'Alien Fetus!' Their angry rhetoric intensified Isabella's anxiety. Mr. Backer bulldozed through the war zone. Though Rand's threat to the Cadence of the Sun initiative was benign, the German sect never ceased observing the Backers and spreading their propaganda. Dez would have them killed for missing a childbirth. Scared by the protesters, Isabella wondered if the streets were her safe house.

  When they arrived at the Backer house and settled, Isabella entered Rand's room and picked up an old gold framed picture. She pawed the outline of his face. A longing tear crept from her tired eyes. Though their child found a natural peace in the Backer’s home, the chill of unanswered questions intensified her fury. Lying on Rand's bed, she prayed, before slipping under a spell of exhaustion.

  Dreaming, she watched golden beings being sucked into a vacuum of brilliant light. Like the walls of a high school planetarium, they illuminated the otherwise non-existent universe around her. Stepping back, she could see the living constellations; everything known and unknown was defined by the light.

  “I am with you, always and forever. I am in you, as you are in me,” proclaimed Rand.

  “Where are you?” asked Isabella.

  “Take this locket and know!” said Rand.

  Startled, she awoke to the cries of their baby. She noticed what felt like two hands softly cupping her throat. In a fog, she reached up to find a tiny sapphire choker necklace had been perfectly set around her neck. She knew it was of Rand. Before addressing her child, she wailed in joyful harmony. Excited by his presence, she instinctively threw open the blinds and looked toward the clear skyline.

  “I love you,” she motioned with her mouth.

  Forming a heart, she connected the stars, before running to grab their child. The baby instantly stopped crying. Rand's spirit radiated from the welcoming heavens. The fluorescent street lamps, blended with the blackest of nights, produced a radiant purple glow. It mimicked the hue pouring from their baby's indigo eyes.

  “Love is love reflecting,” Isabella thought. “Those were always Rand's favorite words.”

  As the weeks passed, it became frightfully clear that something was wrong with their child. Often by instinct, Isabella would awake and fear that Izzy had stopped breathing. His cheeks were always warm and flush. Cognizant of her arrival, the infant would gasp a telling cry. She always feared the worst, but was often hushed by the consolation of Mrs. Backer's experience.

  “It'll pass,” Mrs. Backer insisted. “It's just learning how to live on its own.”

  One night, the clock struck 3:00 am – the witching hour. Isabella gasped, shaken by a terrible nightmare. Thumbing through the dark hallways of the Backer house, and running toward the calling crib, she paused, listening for her newborn's living tells. Pulling Izzy from his slumber, she feverishly patted him on his soft back. She couldn't wake him, nor hear the tiny air escaping his perpetually stuffed nose. She panicked.

  “Come on, come on!” Isabella quietly cried. Her baby's body felt cold and clammy, but she was convinced her mind was playing a virgin mother's tricks upon her. She carefully laid him on the bed and grabbed a warm rag. When she returned, she bathed his skin and tried to open his clinched eyes, but they wouldn't budge. Rain began streaming down her cheeks, as she lifted the child's heart to her ear. It wasn't beating.

  The lights flickered, reminding her of Izzy's cosmic relevance. Grabbing her sapphire stone necklace, she feverishly prayed to his absentee father. The reality of the situation broke her respectful silence. With a thunderous scream, she awoke the Backer's. She could feel a massively dark energy clouding the cooling room.

  Mrs. Backer and Mr. Backer cautiously entered the nursery.
Adjusting their robes and spectacles, they tried to make sense of their uncomfortable surroundings. “What is it, what is it?” screamed Mrs. Backer

  Pushing her aside, Isabella grabbed the phone and dialed an emergency unit. Hearing the click of an operator's connection, she spoke without question. “My child has stopped breathing. Please send someone, immediately.”

  It was no use. Izzy was gone, long before they arrived.

  chapter 42

  the hunt

  Into the void of night, the devil would roam — again! Dez's overused van sputtered to find a reason, just as his heart played tug-of-war with his mind. His grip was slipping. He coped by fueling his weakened ego with convenient store heists and mainlined shots of heroin. Losing his stronghold over the Cadence of the Sun made him detest mankind. He was determined to punish humanity for his shortcomings. With each passing mile, his energy weakened. The Council agitated his rest with visions of how things could have been. Rummaging through his darkest days, a moment of clarity showed him the canyon of unbridgeable guilt he'd dug. Being betrayed by the ones he trusted most was the only justification he needed for swiftly annihilating everything and everyone in his vicinity.

  “I'm going off the rails on a crazy train,” he barked, like a crazed madman.

  Staring down the sonic highway, metal music blared through his quivering rubber speakers. Dodging cars with hesitant swerves, he tempted fate. His blurred vision was triple distilled with single malt scotch whiskey. His sanity obscured. He knew the Cadence still had the power to put him in the front seat of world domination, but their fire needed to be stoked. At times, he saw the unguarded desert cliffs as a misfired synapse between him and a Program reset. Haunted, his memories of the underworld sobered his crippled thinking — neither jail nor the afterlife were options worth entertaining. He needed to be the last man standing.

  Dez spent hours contemplating his tragic final days with Crystal. Whether it was love or food poisoning, unacknowledged feelings erupted from his stomach like a volcano and manifested upon his sweaty brow. Though thoughts of beating his child from her stomach delighted his cry for retribution, somewhere, lurking deep within his twisted cavity, just below his ribcage, lived a forgotten soul. Grinding his teeth, his hard fought feelings were proof he still loved her. After hours on the highway, sickness brought his vengeful journey to a hurried pause. Pounding headaches and nausea won the hormonal grudge match that had plagued his drive with dizziness and uncomfortable tears. Lying, with his lazy eyes fixed upon a dirty area rug, he succumbed. Though alcohol, brownstone or a flu virus were all possible culprits, his instincts sensed his misery was coming from something beyond his control.

  His derailment was Joe and Crystal's lifeline.

  +++

  After two days of slumber, he awoke, like a vagrant. He was delirious. Shoving aside the old rags he had rested upon, he crawled into the driver's seat, and finished the last leg of his trek to Joe's Texan home. The tired engine struggled, as a weakened battery sparked its final charge. It seemed poetic. He pulled from a truck station and adjusted his mirror. The sands of time were slipping through his calloused hands.

  “Max, I'm here,” said Dez.

  “We're here, too. We arrived, yesterday. We're in a hotel – just a few miles up the road!”

  “Page me at dusk! I'll survey the scene. I don't want to risk her slipping by our radar.”

  Dez pulled up to the mailbox at the end of Joe's long driveway and stared toward the empty lot. The house was dark. It agitated the boiling pit in his stomach. He knew he'd missed her. His heart, trampled under foot, longed to see her silhouette glide by the soft-lit cream curtains. Her spirit and perfume still seemed to linger in the dense air. The swaying trees above reminded him that life moves on, even when the mind is stuck in a moment. He slowly drove into the night and plotted his entrance.

  A few hours later, Max and his clan arrived and waited. Dez returned. With their headlights dimmed and their engines cut, they drifted toward the driveway. The lot remained vacant, but a tiny kitchen lamp penetrated their doubt and called them to action. Surrounding the house, they awaited in the foliage for Dez's orders. With ominous sways, the trees continued to run surveillance. Tiny woodland creatures scurried from the camouflaged visitors. With eye contact and militant hand gestures, they confirmed their positions. Dez's cigarette lighter signaled Max, who signaled the troops. Split, two teams swiftly penetrated the home. One team entered through the front door and the other through the back. Their guns were drawn. With wide eyes and a sigh of relief, they intersected in the living room and lowered their weapons.

  “Dammit! Where is she?” Dez screamed.

  In a tirade, he began throwing couch cushions and tearing framed pictures from the pine wood paneling. Like Jesus in the temple, Dez toppled the homemade coffee table, made of cinder blocks and plywood, and smashed Joe's rabbit ear television set upon the thin and rigid industrial carpet flooring. Without orders, the anxious Cadence followed suit. No one dared to make a blip on the devil's sensitive radar.

  “Tear this motherfucker apart. Go through the bedrooms, the dresser drawers, the bathrooms – all of it! I don't care if you have to reach down the goddamn toilet and pull her unappreciative ass out of the sewage drain,” said Dez. He flipped the switch in Joe's makeshift office, fired up the computer and restlessly awaited the monitor to offer him a dial-up gateway to a Netscape browser. After a brief investigation of the search history, his heart raced to a stop. “She's was here!”

  “What do you want us to do?” asked Max.

  “Max, my dear, check to see if the water's been turned off. Look for clues,” said Dez.

  They tore the house to shreds.

  “Dez, I've found this guy's old work schedule,” said Max, pulling it from its weak magnetic hold on Joe's old lima bean green refrigerator. “They're not here! Judging by the dates, his last day of work was a little over a week ago.”

  Petey rustled from behind a black sheet. Alarmed, Max slowly pulled the cover from the free standing cage and unveiled the large white parrot to a demon possessed room. Innocently, it cawed and swayed on its wooden balance beam. Anxious for its visitors' attention, it batted his snow-driven faux hawk against the tiny prison bars.

  “Petey play, Petey play.”

  “Petey, eh?” said Dez. “Does Petey want a cracker?” he sneered, making a fist.

  Max began carelessly shaking the cage, unsure of how to free the feathered creature within.

  “Take it easy,” said Dez. “The bird isn't why we came!”

  “Do you have any ideas where she might have gone?” asked Max.

  “For all we know, she's back in New Mexico. Where are you hiding, Crystal?” he muttered.

  “New York City! You're so pretty,” chirped Petey.

  “That's it.” paused Dez. “She's heading to New York City to locate Grayson.”

  Determined to impress Dez, Max kicked over the birdcage. Agitated, Dez pushed Max aside, reached down, picked up Petey, stormed though the unhinged front door and beelined to his van. Confident they'd follow, Dez never looked back. Max and his lemmings never second guessed his motives or connection to the Big Apple. Dez's wishes had a way of trumping reason, while his unapproachable demeanor handled the rest. Whistling and howling through the dead night, the hapless ghosts of combat settled into their black motorcade and paused for the procession to begin.

  “There's a bar called The Monkey Bar, up ahead. Meet me there! Max, you owe us all a round o' Parrot Bay shots,” he shouted. “Why, you’ll ask? Because you've got zero class. If it wasn't for that harmless bird, we'd have nothing — nothing!”

  Max's arrogant gesture had fallen flat. Dez was sure to maintain his dominance in the Cadence of the Sun with curt and frequent emasculation. Though they were sworn to his ideals and masqueraded as a unified front, he controlled the dogma of each day. His humiliating tone could rattle the core of even his most confident follower. Once housebroken, he knew his dogs of war woul
d continue to seek the praise chorus of their master.

  “First rounds on you!” repeated Dez.

  “OK, first rounds on me,” said Max.

  “Three cheers for the bird,” mocked Dez.

  “To the bird,” they shouted back.

  +++

  They arrived at an old log cabin. It was the local watering hole of a notorious biker gang. A small crowd of rough and tumblers lunged and leered by the front door. They analyzed the merits of their traveling guests. Steering away any doubt that the club would be mistaken for a Hollywood movie set, the gang’s authentic posture and bikes established an unmistakable cred. Assuming ownership of his sect, Dez approached the door with an alpha's pride and was quickly set loose — they were free to guzzle with the hogs! The energy in the room reminded the Cadence of their New Mexican compound.

  Fatigued, Dez's unit sucked back whiskey shots, while the jukebox spun the distorted anthems of their youth. Their empowered bravado forced the locals to take notice. It wasn't long before the club sensed the aroma of the gang’s territorial pissings. The surge of a coming bar fight was quickly quashed by the taratantara of a bartender's trumpet. Once the shotgun blast simmered the commotion and scattered the hangers-on, Dez shared his crazed reasoning for wanting to tackle New York City.

  The further they slipped down the rabbit hole, the more Dez revealed about his weakening condition. In the bar lights, he paled. His graying skin and absent eyes seemed to apologize for his recent tantrums and issued Crystal's last rites. His stoic presence was noticeably shaken by his candor and the frequent coughing and wheezing between his stumbling sentences. An uncomfortable reality crept up Max's spine.