by Robert Child
Joe didn’t know any Japanese, but he guessed this was his cue to move. As he managed to stand up, he was surprised to see the soldier was wearing what appeared to be a medical or doctor’s surgical mask. Joe turned and down the beach he saw men continuing to stumble in from the sea and collapse on the shore. Many had bloodied arms and legs from crawling over the jagged lava rocks close to shore. Directly in front of him, he saw some of the crew gathering. A guard, also wearing a mask over his mouth, motioned them to form lines. Behind them, a senior Japanese officer standing on several crates in front of a large fenced in area wore a mask as well. The officer seemed to be preparing to address the group. Joe made his way closer to hear better over the howling wind.
“Attention, American prisoners of war,” the senior Japanese officer barked in perfect English through his mask. “You are only a few remaining skeletons of those who tried to defeat Japan. You are pitiful victims. You have no fighting power left, but the Imperial thoughts are inestimable and the Imperial favors are infinite that you should weep with gratitude that your lives have been spared. You are here as examples to endure a great suffering equal to that which you have inflicted on Japan. You now stand on one of the most remote islands in the Central Pacific. There is no escape from here. Behind me are 1700-foot cliffs, in front of you, the unforgiving sea. No ship ever docks here. No one ever comes here. This peninsula is home to the largest leprosy colony in the world.”
The Americans froze and turned to one another. All had heard of hidden places like this in nightmarish stories. Places where horribly disfigured, highly contagious lepers went to die among their own kind, shuttered far away from all human contact. Joe watched a few fellow sailors start to pray while others attempted to cover their noses and mouths as if not to breathe too much as the Japanese officer continued, echoing each man’s deepest fears.
“Gentlemen,” the officer smiling broadly behind his medical mask continued, “welcome to the island where you all will die.”
Chapter 12
FRANK AND KATE’S HOUSE
Katie had gone about her morning routine as Frank went on his walk. She paused in the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. Frank had said he might stop for a paper and pick up muffins so not to worry about him if he wasn’t back home right away, but that was before he realized his watch was missing. He was definitely upset when he left the house.
Katie never stopped worrying about him these days, but new fears had crept into her mind. What would happen to her if they could not bring Frank’s dad back? Would she instantly become someone else in the same body? Would she vanish out of existence? What about their son and the grandkids? She felt on the edge of a complete mental breakdown, but reminded herself she had to keep it together if she was going to help Frank.
As the coffee began to drip into the pot, Katie decided to return to straightening up the house. She entered their bedroom, quickly made the bed, and then stepped into the bathroom. There on the counter next to the shower was Frank’s Hamilton watch. It startled her so much that she jumped back. They had covered every inch of that bathroom. There was no way this watch that she now reached for was in this room when they searched. No way. She ran to the phone in the kitchen. They had to see Maria right away.
KALAUPAPA PENINSULA
Joe had returned inside his canvas shelter to escape the blazing sun. It was only 0800 in the morning but being outside felt like noon. Not only did he feel physically exhausted, but with each passing hour his hope faded of ever returning to the world where he had a family The pain of knowing this brought him to the point of complete despair. He no longer cared whether he lived or died. His dehydrated body had no water for tears, but he knew he was crying. He covered his eyes with his hands and whispered a prayer to God to take his soul from this place.
Suddenly a brightness filled the area right in front of him like someone had thrown open the canvas flap to the bright sun. Joe pulled his hands back from his eyes and saw a shimmering human figure taking shape three feet in front of him.
The figure, a man, slowly became clearer. He wore a long dark clergyman’s frock and a distinctive round hat with a curved up brim. He had round glasses and held a cross. As his face and body grew clearer, Joe could discern dark spots on his cheeks and missing fingers on his right hand.
Joe spoke, “Who are you?”
“My son, I have brought you the means, but you must find the will to survive.”
The figure spoke with what sounded like a French accent to Joe’s ears. “Father? Who… What are you?”
“I am an emissary. I minister over the inhabitants here. I am Father Damien.”
Joe felt an overwhelming sense of peace radiating from this being.
“Am I imagining you? Is this a hallucination?”
“No, my beloved. I am as real as the earth you walk upon. You must return to your world. I have been called upon by God and by your adult son to assist your transition.”
With that Joe broke down and in a quivering voice asked, “My son? Is my wife alive?”
“Your wife is with the Lord. Without your conscious awareness, the pleas of your soul have reached your surviving son.”
The son Joe never met and God were reaching across time itself to rescue him. He could hardly comprehend what was being said to him. It was emotionally overwhelming and he began to weep dry tears once more. Gathering himself he asked Father Damien to guide him.
“What do I do? When can we go?”
“All in divine time, my son. In three days a powerful storm will sweep across this island. Before this maelstrom, you and your men must prepare spiritually and unite as one in faith absent of fear.”
Joe nodded.
“You will have but a single chance to pass through the portal of the dimensions and return to your world. It will be entirely up to you. God cannot intervene. He can only light the way.”
“But what do we do?”
“Have faith without fear. Fear is your greatest enemy. Overcome your fear and you will return home to your son.”
“But how?”
“Unite your crew together under the power of your faith and believe without question that you all will return home. You have always held this power within yourselves. Know that almighty God has blessed this passage.”
Joe began to nod. He understood what he needed to do.
“Thank you, Father.”
“Peace and blessings be upon you, my son. Through the power of your faith, God’s will shall be done.”
Joe struggled with one last question, “Father, will I really see my son?”
“Only the power of your love can answer that question. I shall return to you once more before the eve of the storm to guide your preparations.”
Joe exhaled and bowed his head a moment. That was all the time it took for the figure of Father Damien to vanish. Joe leapt up, knowing in his soul that what he just experienced was real. He dashed out of the shelter. The clock was ticking. He had to see the Admiral.
CRESTWOOD AVE, DAYTON, OHIO
“Frank, you’re trembling,” Katie said as he turned the steering wheel and guided the car into Maria’s driveway. He took his right hand off the wheel and watched it shake, then he looked over to Katie.
“I gotta bad feeling, Katie. I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You can do this and you will do this, Frank Rusk. Your father needs you. We need you.”
He nodded, but was unconvinced as he shifted the car into park.
“All right. I just have no idea what to expect. I don’t even know what to do.”
MARIA’S HOME
Joe had taken his usual seat in the leather wingback chair near the window in Maria’s library. He kept rubbing his hands together. They were cold as ice from nerves.
Katie and Maria noticed.
“Frank, I feel we’re very close to an inflection point.” Maria stated as she began to prepare for the session.
“Inflection?”
“I feel circumstances h
ave become dire with your Dad. I can feel this without much psychic effort. It permeates even our energy field.”
Joe folded his hands together and shifted in his chair. His body was tense. “Maria, how the hell are we going to do this? I’m in agony. I mean are we just fooling around here? If so I’m done. It’s over.”
“Frank!” Katie blurted out.
“I understand how you feel,” Maria comforted. “This has been an arduous process, but remember we do not control the timing. The outcome is in the hands of the Universe and perhaps even God. Yes, your Dad’s circumstances have become dire, but the positive energy patterns to bring him back have also intensified.
Frank bowed his head feeling a little lost.
“Don’t you feel it? You must. It’s your love for your father and your father’s love for you reaching across the boundaries of space, time, and dimension to unite your souls in an unbreakable bond. It’s a bond infinitely more powerful than all the forces of darkness or any conquering army of history could tear apart. It is love.
Frank closed his eyes. It was true. He had an unexplainable deep love for his father. His Dad whom he had never met had been his hero all his life. And now Frank was going to be his savior.
Instantly Frank felt the great responsibility of the task and felt infused with the willpower of ten, perhaps twenty, men to see the job through. “Let’s get this started.”
Maria smiled and went into her trance.
Chapter 13
KALAUPAPA PENINSULA
Admiral Mullinnix paced back and forth in his shelter, “Raging storm, raging storm? Well, it will give us some cover to move at least.”
“Right.” Joe said as Theo joined him in the Admiral’s shelter.
“Theo, you have to pass the word to the men about this. We have three days before “H” hour to get all of us home. Get right on it,” Mullinnix ordered. “We have to get everyone on the same page and fast.”
Theo bolted from the shelter while Frank remained.
“Did this Padre tell you how we were going to break through the prison gates?”
“No, sir.”
“Did he tell you which way we should go if we do?”
“No, sir.”
“So we’re just supposed to gather in a circle, look to the heavens, sing Kumbaya, and hope for the best?”
“Father Damien said we have always held the power to return home.”
Mullinnix grunted and paced across the shelter thinking about his captors.
“These Japs, they react on a dime. They’re jumpy and I’m not sure why.”
“Maybe they know something we don’t.” Joe said.
“Perhaps. Maybe we can use what we know against them.”
Joe nodded.
“They travel and react in mass. If we could create a big enough diversion to distract their attention, maybe we’ve got a chance. We don’t have any explosives, so that’s out.”
Joe looked away into the distance. He was forming an idea.
“If you got something cooking, Rusk, spill it.”
“The lepers. We’re not the only ones on this island. They’re here too.”
“Sailor, I’m not following you.”
“A distraction. The lepers could provide the distraction.”
“We’ve never even seen one. And if I’m not mistaken, don’t they have something called leprosy, which is highly contagious and will kill us all? We don’t want to get near them.”
“Right, but the leper colony is the only thing on this island that the Japs fear. That’s why they all wear the masks. They fear exposure.”
Mullinnix nodded, still unsure where Frank was going with this.
“Father Damien said overcome your fear and you will return home. We fear the lepers, but if we can move through that and ask them to help us by coming here, then we will have demonstrated our faith.
Mullinnix nodded, seeing the logic.
“And their arrival would scare the living crap out of the Japs and certainly be a diversion.” Joe continued.
“What about the leprosy?”
“Maybe the rainstorm will dampen exposure. It’s a chance.”
Mullinnix thought a moment. It was a chance and a damn good diversion if it worked.
“But, Rusk, how the hell are we going to get the lepers to come here? Send out an all points bulletin? Call them on the telephone?”
“Father Damien said he would return to guide final preparations. I can explain our plan. He could get word to the lepers.”
Mullinnix still believed there was a danger. “Can Father Damien protect the men from contracting leprosy?”
Joe’ face went blank he didn’t have an answer.
CRESTWOOD AVE, DAYTON, OHIO
Maria was deep in her trance holding Frank’s watch. Her head was moving around in a circular motion. “The vortex is opening, growing stronger. My guides are here. They are saying we must pray.”
Frank and Katie bowed their heads. This was something new. They had not prayed at any of the other sessions.
“This situation is receiving divine assistance. I am told a Saint has become directly involved and is there with your father and the others.”
Frank looked at Katie then back to Maria.
“A Saint? Which Saint?”
“I am being told it would not serve you to possess that information. Only know it means the very hand of God is involved.”
Maria then turned directly to Frank with her eyes wide.
“You must prepare yourself. Once the dimensional door has opened, your life will be forever changed. I cannot say how or in what way, but if we are successful at the conclusion of your father’s transition, you too will have transitioned. Everything in your life will be impacted. Everything. You may not live in Dayton. You may not have the same job, and you may not have even married the same woman.” Maria looked to Katie. “Do you accept this, Frank? Do you accept that once the transition completes, it cannot be reversed?”
Frank paused and looked over to Katie. A warm smile appeared on her face. The love she held for this man since the day they first met now filled her watering eyes.
“I will always love you, Frank, no matter what happens. Your Dad needs you. You have come so far you have to save him.”
Frank exhaled and returned Katie’s warm smile. He turned to Maria, “I accept it.”
“Then let us begin.”
KALAUPAPA PENINSULA
Theo and Joe stood together in the pen watching the gathering storm clouds in the east far out to sea.
“It’s comin’,” Theo whispered shaking his head. “How we gonna know it’s time?”
“Father Damien appeared to me again last night just like he said he would. I told him our plan. He already knew what we had in mind. He said we had faced our fears and that we would know it was time upon the arrival of his flock.”
Theo nodded.
“Oh and he added a last thing before he disappeared. He told me his full name. It is St. Damien de Veuster of Molokai.”
Theo’s eye widened, “Saint?”
“That’s right Theo, Saint.”
Theo’s confidence lifted a moment then he looked down and studied the ground, “I still don’t get it. Why those lepers wanna help us? We don’t mean nothin’ to them.”
“Saint Damien said it was an opportunity to serve and for that they will be rewarded many times over.”
“Rewarded?”
“That’s what he said. He said we have moved through our fears, and they are about to conquer theirs. It is a holy exchange.”
Fierce lightning flashing two miles out to sea illuminated the skies and reflected on both Joe and Theo’s faces. A deafening crash of thunder followed.
The green-gray angry seas surged and convulsed into twenty-foot swells as the black clouds descended, blotting out the moon. A sudden intense pelting rain made remaining outdoors unbearable for prisoners and their captors alike. The fury and sound of the storm was formidable. Rain striking the
ground sounded like one long continuous hiss, broken only by the electric crackle of lightning and the crash of thunder. Mother Nature was flexing her muscles and showcasing her might.
The Admiral assigned squad leaders to groups of the men. He estimated the remaining number of prisoners to be perhaps 500 men. Mullinnix was treating this as an infantry attack, not that he and his men had had any experience with that. Their objective was to scale the prison gate and break out of their confinement. Men would stack on top of each other building a human ladder to freedom. He knew there would be hand-to-hand combat with the Japanese and men would die. His men had torn sheets and wound canvas into long strips to strangle any Japanese soldier who tried to stop them. Mullinnix had no idea what the lepers were going to do. For that matter he had no idea what he and his men would do once outside the prison gate. He had just told his men he would see them on the beach.
TWO MILES AWAY
In the inky darkness across the rain swept craggy landscape, an enormous dark mass undulated, moving in unison with deliberate purpose and pace. The amassed army was 300 strong. Their very existence inspired visions of terror.
An electric bolt lit up the sky revealing that many “soldiers” in this advancing force shouldered a long club. Others carried ropes and some had axes. But more importantly, they had a mission.
The lepers of Molokai had been quite literally dumped on the Kalaupapa Peninsula from across the territory of Hawaii. They had lived as outcasts for over 75 years. Men, women, and children had been dragged from their homes and banished to the peninsula on Molokai, never to see their families again. The seven decades of isolation had cemented their unbreakable bond and fueled a festering pent up rage.
Kekoa Manuiki led this army of the damned. Dragged from his home at five years old, Kekoa, now twenty-two, was a natural leader with a warrior’s heart. He had devised a plan that had the lepers separating into two groups as they neared the prison gates. With donkeys as strong as oxen in tow, they would approach from the north and south, tie ropes around the prison fence posts and set the animals off in opposite directions to tear down the fences.
