The Golden Key: A Quest For Freedom (The Golden Key: Quest For Freedom Book 1)

by Wilmes, Marvin

  "Eceap dna evol," Roger screamed.

  ***

  Roger awoke as the world around him came into focus. He was confused and disoriented. He was surprised to see Anita softly crying by his bedside. Everything was white and sterile--he surmised he was in the hospital.

  "Anita."

  "Oh, Roger." She rushed to his side, and as he took ahold of her hand, he felt the engagement ring.

  "We're engaged?" was all he could say.

  "Oh, silly. I found it in your pocket. I'm sorry, I couldn't help but try it on. Doc Masters was in earlier. He isn't sure what happened to you, but you passed out at Paul's party.

  "Wow, I feel like yesterday's punching bag."

  "He said everything checks out. He just wants you to stay overnight for observation. He theorizes you may have had a panic attack. Do you remember anything?" Anita was wringing her hands, something she always did when fretting about making a decision. It gave him little comfort.

  Roger pondered the question for a moment, then shook off the bits and pieces of the nightmare he just had. No way was he sharing that. "No, maybe I just have too many changes occurring in my life all at once."

  "Stop," she whispered. "Get some rest. I'm going to go home and get some shut eye myself. I just wanted to be here when you woke up."

  "Thanks."

  She responded with a kiss. He didn't know why, but he felt the proposal should have been more special than that.

  Oddly enough, the kiss lacked something as well.

  Part III: Chapter Three

  The weight of depression weighed heavily as Roger returned from work and entered his cubicle while his roommate, Dave "Speed" Alspeedy, conversed with another marine.

  "Hey, Speed," Roger gave a curt greeting as he went to his locker and opened it.

  "Rog, you game for shooting some pool over at the E-Club tonight?"

  "Naw, I think I'm going to just catch forty winks and maybe a movie on base tonight."

  "And mope." Speed challenged his roommate.

  Roger nodded and worked on delivering a sarcastic smile, but the effort was difficult.

  "Well, Wes and I are going. You're welcome to come over anytime. I can understand why you want to be alone, though, but continuing to dwell on it won't make it better."

  As Roger opened his locker, Anita's picture drew him in as did the golden key and chain, which lay on top of his other personal effects. He picked it up and rolled it over in his hands as he had done so many times before and pondered his situation.

  "It's just hard to have to be here when she's there," he said. "I'm a coward."

  "You're a guilt tripper." Speed slapped Roger on the back, which vaguely reminded Roger of Mark Meyer's buddy slap and made him yearn deeper for the home fires of Blair. "Like I said, you know where to find us. Come on, Wes. I can't wait to meet your brother."

  Suddenly Roger was alone in his cubicle as he heard the laughter and joviality of his barracks outside the curtain. The Hilton it was not, stuffed like sardines in a makeshift hallway that was not unlike his boot camp barracks in San Diego.

  Here in El Toro, there was more to do within driving distance and he had a car to take him anywhere he wanted. So far, he hadn't been able to take advantage of the many tourist attractions available.

  His time here was overshadowed by tragedy.

  Anita had been involved in a collision with a semitruck near Columbia, Missouri, on I-70 four months ago. Why she had been so far away from home was a mystery to everyone who knew her to this day.

  She was treated for her major injuries in Columbia, but she was in a coma and her parents, Steve and Eve Barlow, made arrangements for the lower grade of care to take place in Blair where she could be near family and friends.

  Doc Masters had said the prognosis was fair that she would survive, but only time could determine if there was any brain damage.

  Roger, for the first time since he had arrived, put the golden key around his neck as he openly sobbed. The guilt he felt for his own transgressions, betrayal, and selfishness was intense, but Speed was right. He was a guilt tripper.

  He needed to snap out of this and--snap out of it now. Strangely, he felt comfort in wearing the key. He tried to pinpoint why Speed's friend seemed familiar in some respects. Like he had met the marine somewhere before in his past.

  Word was that Wes had a twin brother and this was Wes's last week in El Toro. He was being shipped out to Yuma, Arizona, next week--something about family members not being stationed in the same place at the same time.

  Maybe he needed to see if his pool talent had improved since he had played with Mark and Paul many times at his Blair farm home.

  He grabbed his shower supplies as he decided to make a concerted effort to come out of this funk and try not to dwell on Anita's plight.

  As he did so, he still felt the universe didn't need to be so kind to him. His eyes lingered for a brief moment on Anita's picture. "Why?"

  There was no one in the cubicle to answer his question. But that was the kicker, the burr in his saddle, the question that didn't have an answer.

  Why was Anita Barlow on I-70, and why did no one know her destination?

  ***

  Paul slipped into Anita's room as he observed Eve Barlow with her head bowed, holding the rosary beads between her thin hands. She looked so frail and alone and he didn't want to disturb her meditation.

  From the foot of the bed, he gazed at Anita. She looked so peaceful lying there, much of her body had healed from the ravages of the accident, but she remained in a coma, a state which gave Paul chills up his spine as he'd witnessed many injured soldiers in a similar state in a makeshift tent in Vietnam.

  Like then, he felt helpless to be able to do anything about her situation. As Roger's brother, he felt obligated to fill in for him in his absence. Paul knew this had been difficult on his brother, and he was unnerved at the tensions that had arisen between him and Donna. When it came to the subject of Anita, Donna sometimes seemed defensive and she would shut down.

  Those times he was left pondering reactions he could not understand, including Mark's, who time and time again turned down Roger's request to accompany the brothers to visit Anita when he was home.

  Mark said hospitals creeped him out and he just couldn't stand the sterile smell in the halls. Paul figured it was much deeper than that and had more to do with a phobia about all things associated with a hospital. He knew his own phobias ran deep and he had conquered them to be here to support his brother's fiancée.

  Eve lifted her head and weakly smiled as he walked over to her side and sat down in the chair next to her.

  "How are you holding up?" he asked.

  "Fair to middling," she said flatly. "Steve can't bring himself to sit here with her. He says it's too depressing. But she's my daughter. I can never be too depressed."

  The honesty she displayed made him fidget in his chair. "Maybe you need to go home and get some rest. Maybe he needs you home right now more than Anita needs you by her side."

  She stared at him with a look of wonder on her face. "Do you really believe that?"

  "I believe Anita would want you to be by her father's side in this time of trial."

  "Yes, I suppose so," she said as she let out a heavy sigh. "Do you suppose she was traveling to see Roger when this happened?"

  He heard the wind whistle between her lips as she let out a sob.

  "I've wondered the same thing," Paul admitted. "Roger claims they hadn't talked about it at all. Trying to figure that out now is useless, don't you think? Only Anita knows the answer to that question."

  She remained silent as she simply nodded in response.

  Paul stood up and let the elder woman silently exit the room. "I'll continue to pray," he offered. It seemed like a weak attempt at consolation.

  She left the room without comment as he settled into the chair next to Anita's bed. "Why were you on I-70?"

  He absentmindedly touched the knob on the nightstand drawer
next to her bed. He gently pulled on it, and as it slid out, he gasped as he saw the tattered book with the word "Diary" etched across the front.

  With his hands shaking, he picked it up, not sure what force had driven him to discover this personal possession of Anita's, which evidently had been brought into the room by Mrs. Barlow.

  He fumbled as he tried to open the clasp on the lock and became frustrated to see it was locked. He threw the book back into the drawer and slammed it shut, feeling the shame cascade over him at the evil thoughts that had come over him about stealing a peek into Anita's diary to solve the mystery.

  Paul got up, walked over to her bed, and caressed the side of her face. He paused and stared as the shallow breaths caused her chest to rise and fall.

  "You're kidding me," he said aloud to no one in particular. "The answer most certainly is not in the diary. That's private, personal, and off limits."

  He sat down again and closed his eyes as the vision of the diary formed in his head. He imagined opening its pages and discovering its secrets.

  "Go ahead."

  His eyes opened wide as he stared at Anita once again. He could have sworn he heard a voice, but his mind was playing tricks on him. It had to be.

  Nevertheless, after a moment of a quick prayer for forgiveness, Paul quickly retrieved the diary from the drawer and ran out of the room.

  He trembled as he made his way toward the hospital exit. This was insane. Yet, he couldn't kick the foreboding suspicion that there was more to Anita's accident than met the eye.

  The diary was new evidence. He knew Donna would not condone what he was about to do. He threw the diary into the front seat and jumped behind the wheel. He pounded his fists on the ceiling as he let out a scream and then covered his eyes.

  His demons were never going to leave him alone, but at least he could try to help someone else overcome theirs.

  ***

  "Banking the three ball off the six and will also snag the four," Speed said as he leaned across the pool table and eyed the long shot with grace and precision.

  "Wow, if he accomplishes that, I'd call him a pool master," Wes Bennett said as he glanced at Roger. "Neither one of us comes close to his mastery of the game."

  "Nope," Roger said as he toyed with the key in the fold of his shirt. "I've never been able to predict the path of the ball."

  He glanced at Wes's brother, Wayne, not sure if he had the right name with the right face. He honestly could not tell the two apart, except that maybe one stood an inch shorter.

  The bang of the pool cue against the cue ball echoed through the smoke-filled room. The precise path predicted by his roommate impressed Roger as the four ball went into the corner pocket. "Incredible."

  "Yep," Speed said as he smiled broadly and continued his assault on the balls on the table.

  "Glad you could join us," Wayne Bennett said as he slapped Roger on the back.

  Why did everything remind him of home lately?

  "Sure. Just needed to get out tonight."

  "Speed was filling me in on your fiancée. Sorry to hear about that, man. Must be a drag having to be stationed over a thousand miles away while she's going through that."

  "It is. Long-distance relationships aren't what they're cracked up to be." Roger took a sip of his beer as he winced at the thought assailing his mind. He wondered if he'd ever reconcile the changes he had gone through in the last year and the changes Anita had gone through without him. There were always doubts, but there was also pride.

  "I never got that close to a woman that I wanted to marry her. I guess I'm too wild for that. You seem a might settled soul, though, yourself."

  "You think." Roger laughed. That felt good, but he knew it was only temporary. "You two ever played a switcheroo on anybody before?" He nodded toward Wes who was engrossed in watching Speed clean up the pool table.

  "That's funny, yes, we have. In fact, we have a long history of messing with people's minds. And I bet I can mess with yours right now."

  "How so?"

  Wayne pulled out his billfold and produced a picture, which showed his pre-military persona to Roger.

  "For real, this is you?" Roger said as he grabbed the wallet and studied the photo of a wild-eyed, acid-tripping hippie. Roger's first thought was that in his other world, he'd never say hi to Wayne let alone share a beer with him.

  "It was prison or the Marine Corps for us," Wayne said. "Don't be fooled by our looks today. That's only a face a mother could love and by the way, our mother does."

  Roger handed back the wallet momentarily speechless at Wayne's revelations. In order to avoid further engagement in the conversation, he was glad to see Speed sink the eight ball clearing off the table.

  "Let somebody else play why don't you?" Roger complained.

  For Roger, any friendship connection was over. He really had no interest in getting to know the man in the picture.

  ***

  Donna was flabbergasted that Paul had taken it upon himself to violate Anita's confidence. She loved this man, but sometimes he was impulsive and she realized the house of cards was now about to fall.

  "This man Zeke intrigues me, but I don't really understand. And these entries concerning Mark are really mysterious."

  "You men are all alike." Donna sighed as she prepared to confess the secret she held so close to her heart for so long. "Mark and Anita were falling for each other. Anita was on her way to Tennessee to break up with Roger in person instead of on the phone. She cared for him enough to do that, but Mark was so upset after the accident he swore me to secrecy."

  "What?"

  The look on Paul's face both distressed and amused her. He honestly had no clue about all this. She wasn't sure why she cared so much about his reaction, except not knowing and being left out of the loop probably left his mind reeling.

  "I'm so glad I don't have to hide that secret anymore," she said as she reached out and took a hold of his hand.

  "That explains why she was in the Columbia area, but you knew then?"

  "Yes. Anita called me before she went, wanting to verify what she was about to do was something she should do in good conscience. She also wanted to make sure it was not just the absence that was causing her to have doubts. She truly was torn between Mark and Roger." She sucked in her breath as she prepared herself for the next statement. "I would have had doubts, too, about a man who left my side to seek his own adventures elsewhere while I waited for him to return."

  "But why didn't Mark visit Anita in the hospital?"

  "Because--" Donna measured her words carefully, keeping in mind that Paul was Roger's brother. "--he felt he had betrayed his best friend."

  "I wonder if this man Zeke had anything to do with it?"

  Donna gently took the diary from Paul's hands as she touched his face. "Love has everything to do with it."

  Part IV: Chapter Four

  Wayne came out of the base sauna as he reflected on how Roger had worked his way into his universe. He couldn't pinpoint any reasons why Roger was any different than any other marine. It was as if Wayne felt a responsibility to lift him up.

  He had gone to the sauna to clear his head and to shake off the dream he had the night before. Dreams were usually benign, rarely remembered, but not this one. It stuck with him. Deeply. He wasn't sure why?

  He had found himself locked in a cage being observed by an elderly gentleman who reminded him of a mad scientist.

  "Hey." He grabbed the bars and shook the frame of the cage as he desperately looked for an opening to escape.

  "Relax, young man, you are not being kept against your will. You have it within your power to leave any time."

  "Who are you?"

  "Zeke." The man displayed an evil grin. "Yes, Zeke, is all you need to know.

  A heavy, thick fog surrounded the cage and Wayne felt suffocated by the air around him. He wanted to scream, but there didn't seem to be any air to execute it.

  Then he saw a shadow begin to emerge from the fog. T
here was a beautiful black stallion with a mane that glistened from the moisture in the air.

  Upon the horse was a rider and Wayne gasped as he realized who the man was.

  It was his late father.

  "Dad."

  The man's eyes were saddened as he dismounted the horse, then walked toward Wayne without saying a word. As he arrived at the cage, he lifted the lock that secured his son in this cage of fear.

  "Don't you understand, son?"

  Wayne felt his body shiver. It had seemed like forever since he heard his father speak. Guilt washed over him after he recalled his last words to his father were that he couldn't go fishing with him on a weekend camping trip because he wanted to go to a Bob Dylan concert instead.

  His father had not argued or tried to talk him out of it.

  He wished he had, because a week later his father had been digging a trench while at work when the sides of it caved in and buried him. His coworkers tried desperately to dig him out as emergency personnel were called in to assist, but it was to no avail.

  Wayne had never been able to make sense of the tragic accident. His father had simply gone to work one day and never returned home. His sense of security in this world left him.

  What had hurt the most was his mother's pain. He didn't know how to console her, how to comfort her. So, instead, he hurt her. He rebelled and withdrew from any sense of responsibility or moral clarity. He ran into a life that eventually destroyed his sense of freedom.

  Wayne surveyed the bars of the cage around him.

  He had ended up joining the military, trading in his caged existence on the streets for the structured rigors of military life.

  "I want to make you proud."

  The words spilled from his mouth before he realized just how pathetic he sounded at the moment.

  "I know, son, but why? Why did you run from your mother and give her such a devil of a time? She's been praying for you and your brother since you literally walked out on her and took to the streets. Don't you understand? You have free will. You can choose to make me proud or to disappoint me and, yes, I am disappointed."