Intrigue (Stories of Suspense)

by Aaron Patterson

  Reaching into my pocket, I’d thrown him a packet of condoms. “At least use protection, fool.”

  He smiled again at my use of our name for each other whenever we were doing something risky. It turned out that it wasn’t the kind of protection he needed. Sarah’s estranged boyfriend, fresh out of prison and carrying a grudge against the world, had discovered them together and shot them both. Eric had not survived.

  My vision darkened again and the cold, blistering cold, returned. “You can’t blame me for that,” I cried against the darkness. Shaking my fist and pointing at the ceiling, I screamed, “You judge me unfair. How can you blame me for what Eric did? He was a grown man.” I cursed.

  Like a wet garment, the silence hung heavy on me, I could feel its presence. Even His silence was a judgment against me. I could feel His eyes boring into me, seeing my very soul, my thoughts, my imaginations… none of it was hidden from Him.

  “I have known you.”

  I turned my back to the sound of that voice.

  “Whether you are sitting down or rising from your bed, I have seen you.”

  I covered my ears with hands and screamed trying to drown out the sound of his voice, His words cutting me as sure as the stones of the floors and walls. “You don’t understand what I-”

  “I have understood your very thoughts even as they formed in your heart.”

  Clinching both fists, I shook them in His face. “You don’t know me!”

  “I have watched over your path and I know all your ways.”

  “Get out of my head. Out of my head. Get out! Get out! Out! Out!”

  “There is not a word you have spoken that I did not know it altogether. I have been behind and in front of you. I have called you and you would not listen.”

  I screamed and cursed Him. “You-You judge me guilty? But your knowledge was too wonderful for me; it was too high, I could not understand it. You are not fair!”

  “Where could you go and be free of My presence; even here I am with you?”

  The sound of His voice was driving me, driving me... I felt pushed, corralled. I stood and tried to walk away from the voice, but the cell offered me no escape. The voice continued. “If you had ascended up into heaven, I am there. While you make your bed here, behold I am still here.”

  “Leave me alone!”

  “Even if you had taken the wings of the morning, and dwelt in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there you would have had to contend with Me.”

  “Arrgh!” I rammed my head against the wall trying to rid myself of that voice, but nothing helped; nothing stopped it. It echoed in my mind and from the very air surrounding me. And still the sound of the accursed dripping added to my torment. He just would not shut up.

  “Even when you attempted to hide in the darkness, My eyes beheld you. The cover of night shown as the day around you: I saw all that you did.”

  Falling to the floor, I curled into a ball, trying to hide from Him now.

  “When I formed you in your mother’s womb; even there I’d called you.”

  “Go away! Leave me! Leave me alone! Leave me….”

  For a brief moment the silence returned. The voice had left me, and almost immediately, I missed it. I longed for it, and hated it all at the same time.

  ***

  “I sent you My messengers and you would not hear them.” He had returned. “You spoke wickedness and took My name in vain.”

  I rolled to my back, ignoring the pain in my back for the pain in my head and in my heart. “Please forgive me, I’m sorry…”

  “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”

  His words had hit me like a physical blow and then the heat returned.

  ***

  I watched her walking toward me, the very essence of feminine beauty. The gossamer veil covering her face could not hide the radiance of her smile. As she passed, the crowd which stood to either side of the isle turned and followed her with their eyes and smiles. When she stopped before me, I felt my heart would burst for having won her.

  “You may kiss your bride.” These words began what should have been the most wonderful part of my life. When I broke the kiss, I knew deep in my heart what love really was. When I held her in my arms I felt alive. With her I felt complete.

  ***

  “No,” I screamed. He was taking the vision. Around me the darkness swirled like a cloud of dust and the scene began to change. When I looked again, I was holding a different woman in my arms and tasting her lips. “How long before your flight takes off,” the strange woman asked me.

  “Oh, I have an hour.”

  “Good.”

  “Good?” I asked, puzzled, yet hopeful.

  She flashed a coy, seductive smile. “Good… then we have time-” She never finished her sentence.

  The voice returned. “Yet still I loved you, still I would have forgiven you, but you would have none of Me.”

  Intense heat flashed to cold and then back to heat again. The temperature changing so fast, I couldn’t even begin to adjust, my continual state was pain and discomfort.

  ***

  “Dad?!” The look on my son’s face was one of unbelief and pain, then shame.

  I released the woman, not his mother, and stood stepping away from the woman who appeared to be barely older than my son’s date. “Son? What are you doing here?” I looked around the restaurant as if just seeing it for the first time. I looked past him at the door, hoping his mother wasn’t with him.

  “She’s not here. She’s where you should be.”

  “Wait, boy, you don’t talk to me like-”

  “No, you don’t! You don’t have the right to talk to me like you’re a father, not right now. You should be home with your wife and I find you out here with this… this.” He pointed at the woman, who was still sitting at the table.

  “Son, I can explain-”

  “You can explain that you’re cheating on Mom?”

  I grabbed my son by his bicep and pulled him away from the table, leaving his date looking at my mine. The two women scrutinized each other; either of them could easily have stood as the target of my son’s affection. Both stood awkwardly and in the silence. “Son, you can’t tell your mother about this,” I began.

  He snatched his arm away from me. “You want me to lie for you? T-t-to cover for you?” His fist clinched and unclenched at his sides.

  “Don’t be a fool, boy. This would kill your mother if she found out.” I looked over his shoulder at the two twenty-something ladies at the table and smiled. My date smiled and waved back at me. “This is bigger than either you or me… it’s not even about me! This is about your mom. You can’t tell her.” I relaxed when I saw his shoulders sink and hands lying flat at his sides. I knew then that he understood.

  “God help me, I hate you right now.”

  “I understand. Don’t get me wrong, son, I’ll make this right with God.” I started back toward the table then stopped. “I’ll do right by your mom too. Don’t worry.” He dropped his chin and shook his head in a slow defeated motion. He slumped against the wall and covered his face with his hands.

  I made my way back to the table, careful to fix my smile and look of congealed control in place. When my son brushed passed me, grabbing his date’s hand, I at first thought he intended to fight me. But true to his word, he simply turned and stalked away.

  Smiling at the very young lady sitting across from me, I reached forward and stroked the back of her knuckles with my index finger. She looked past me toward the exit. I lifted her hand and kissed it. “Don’t worry, he’s a smart boy. He’ll do the right thing.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, you who judged others. For when you judged others, you condemned yourself; for you did the same things.”

  I was back in my cell, back in the dark, back again with His voice. “I took care of my wife,” I screamed. “She had a great house and money in the bank. We
took vacations every summer. She always had a nice car; a new car every other year. I paid tithes regularly and gave huge offerings. Ask the reverend, he’ll tell you all the stuff I did for that chur—”

  “But you were sure, confident in yourself and in your own judgments of religious duties.”

  I stood up and rammed my head on the too low ceiling. “You see, even You admit it yourself, I did serve Y—”

  “You thought and still believe that you will escape the judgment of God because you have somehow earned your way in?”

  My shoulders drooped as I saw that my latest plan, my latest hope, had come to nothing. “B-but you just said I did all those wonderful things.” I was beginning to sound pitiful even to myself.

  “You despised the riches of The Father’s goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; and thought that His goodness was a license to continue in your sin.”

  “But I—”

  “But you did not understand that the goodness of God was meant to lead you to repentance.”

  “But I—”

  “But after the hardness of your impenitent heart, you have treasured up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath where the righteous judgment of God will be poured out on you according to your deeds.”

  “But, b-but I was…”

  “Son of man, you stand guilty.”

  I collapsed in a ball and on the rough floor I cried waterless tears. Deep quaking sobs racked my body, and despite the heat, I could feel the cold tendrils of fear clutch at and squeeze my heart. For the first time since I’d been here a light began to show in my cell.

  In spite of myself, I walked toward the light… drawn by it. As I walked I became aware of people around me. Suddenly I was just one in a vast multitude of humanity. Of course I didn’t know what I looked like, but I imagine I must have looked just like the souls around me.

  The crowd all moved forward. Fear hung like a cloud over us. Like tendrils of an oily smoke, dread wrapped around us and pulled us forward, forcing us all down on our knees before the light before us.

  I don’t know how I saw it, but from what seemed like many miles away I could see in the midst of the light was a man. But this man, sitting on a great white throne, looked like no man I’d ever seen before. His eyes pierced me as surely as if they had been spears.

  In desperation I looked around for a place to hide, for somewhere to flee, but no escape was available. I was but one person in a sea of flesh.

  Even before He spoke, I knew what His voice would sound like. It would be the voice. That same voice I had spent a lifetime ignoring and practicing and pretending not to hear. This was the same, very same voice that had been my only company in the dark cell. Now the owner of that voice looked at me.

  Standing beside him was another man, less glorious, who held a book in his hands. Everything inside me feared what was found in that book.

  As the angel standing beside the throne, for that was undoubtedly what it was, began to open the books, a cry of bewailing moans lifted from the crowd. Cries turned to cursing and then mutated back into pleading.

  One voice rose above the cacophony of voices. Vile cursing and swearing directed at the one seated on the throne. As I wondered who it was who would have the audacity to speak to one so obviously holy and full of power, I realized the voice was my own.

  Then the angel turned his loveless attention on me. He pointed one finger at me and with the other traced down the page and I knew he was looking for my name in the book.

  Without speaking, he turned and looked at the one seated on the throne and shook his head, then closed the book. Even as the Seated-One opened His mouth to speak, I cried out, “But I gave in your name. I fed the poor in your name. I paid for missionary trips… I even helped pay for the pastor’s retirement trip… I—”

  “DEPART FROM ME YE WORKER OF INIQUITY, I NEVER KNEW YOU.”

  “But I….”

  Also by Ray Ellis:

  NHI: No Humans Involved

  Email Address: ray@rayellis-author.com

  Website Address: http://rayellis-author.com

  Blog Urban Fiction Unleashed:

  http://www.authorray.blogspot.com

  Mark Maciejewski

  Mark lives in Lake Stevens, Washington with his beautiful wife Joy and their two children Max and Bethany. Mark wrote the first Molly May Mudge story as a sixth birthday present to Bethany, an avid reader who is the inspiration for the luminous little character. Mark divides his time between family, coaching football, and of course writing. Occasionally he has even been seen doing his day job, but not very often. Mark has other projects in development including a teen novel that he hopes to publish soon.

  The Kindly Stop Café

  NICK HAD BEEN DRIVING for hours when the sun went down. His focus on the road and on his thoughts had caused him not to notice the darkness settling around him. Similar to a frog in a pot of cool water that is slowly brought to a boil, he now found himself in a place and situation that was not to his liking. Then the rain started. The kind of rain that makes the world feel smaller. It fell in massive oily drops that smeared rather than wiped away as he turned on the windshield wipers. He turned the knob to the fastest setting. Still the wipers could not keep up with the torrent. The drops seemed to accumulate with each pass of the rubber blades. His headlights glared off the curtain of rain. The beams created a small traveling cocoon of light that in that very moment was the only part of the world that existed to him. There were no streetlights, no signs on the side of the road, and no other cars. The one thing that spurred him on, down this mountain highway on a night like this, was knowing his father was somewhere out there ahead of him, waiting desperately for him to come.

  He had woken from a dream that morning.

  He forced himself to wake. The phone that had been ringing for hours in his dream was jingling innocuously next to his bed.

  “Hello…”

  “Nicky...?”

  “Mom… are you okay?”

  Lisa stirred and then sat up next to him. She put her hand on his back, letting him know that she was there, knowing that seldom does good news wake you at 4:00 am.

  “Nicky, it’s your father. He—”

  “What, Mom?” Nick’s throat closed a little as every worst case scenario ran through his mind at once. His father’s mind had been slipping for over a year, but his body was still as sound as it was the day he hung up his masonry tools five years ago. If something was physically wrong with him it would have been something he had done to himself. The son was not prepared to hear news like that about the old man.

  “Mom?!”

  “He left. He just… left.”

  “Where?”

  There was a long pause. Nick knew full well where his father had gone. Even though he knew what she was going to say, it hit him in the gut like a sock full of nickels when she finally said the words.

  “He went to the mountain, Nicholas.”

  ***

  The mountain was where Nick’s mom and dad had taken him and his brother Stewart when they were kids. Memories of times spent at the little cabin in the shadows of Mt. Rainier seemed to crowd out all the rest of the memories he had collected over the years. It was where his mother and father had started their life together on their honeymoon. It was where Nick had taken his girlfriends in high school when they needed to get away from the watchful eyes of parents. It was where Nick and Lisa had honeymooned. Not their first choice, but accepted with their meager budget plus the draw of tradition. It was where they took their son Joel when they needed to get away. Sometimes with Nick’s parents, sometimes not.

  The cabin in the mountains was also where they had lost Joel. It had happened during one of the trips that Nick’s parents had been along on.

  It was the last time any of them had gone to the mountain.

  The only time the cabin or the mountain was ever brought up between any of them anymore was when Nick’s father would start to slip. His mind would take off; leaving his body be
hind and he would inevitably find himself at the cabin. He would explain this to whoever was nearby when he came back to his body. He would tell them he had been there. He would tell them that it was perfect just like it was when he and his father had finished it so many years ago. He would tell them also that he had seen Joel and that he was perfect too. And then he would start to cry. Then he would tell them that he was going to go to the cabin when it was time for him to die. He would tell whoever would listen that he wished he was at the cabin… now.

  The only street sign in the last twenty miles flashed in his headlights. “Mt. Rainier Park Entrance 9 miles.”

  The sign had been there since Nick was a kid and it was always a welcome sight after a long trip. In a child’s mind that measures distance in time, it meant “Mt. Rainier Park Entrance… not much longer.”

  It also marked the spot where the road began to turn rough. It was the signal for his father to tell the boys to quiet down so he could concentrate on his driving. They always did as he asked, for the first quarter mile or so, but sooner than later they’d be able to taste the journey’s end and their excitement would override their sense of decorum. They’d soon be back to chirping and chattering like a pair of dazed chipmunks. Only now it was louder than before because they knew they were too far along for their father to actually turn the car around. He never scolded them for it. Once in a while Nick would even swear he saw the old man chuckle just when he and Stew thought they had pushed their luck a little too far.

  ***

  A small voice from the back seat jerked him out of the memory.

  “I saw the sign, Daddy,” he said, “We’re almost there!”

  Nick fought the urge to turn and look. He knew that when he turned, all he would see was an empty seat. The spark that he felt when he imagined the tiny voice burned in his stomach for a moment. He forced himself to focus on the road as the ember moved into his chest, and then into his throat. He strained his eyes, forcing them to cling to the dashed yellow line as the rain unleashed its full potential. The burning ember crawled into the back of his mouth and filled it with acid. He opened his mouth wide to breathe in a cooling gulp of air and instead released a plaintive bawl. His entire body convulsed in a spasm of sadness. Tears glazed his eyes as the rain coated the windshield. His front tire caught the edge of the asphalt and jerked the wheel to the right. He fought the wheel and it yielded. The tire came back onto the road off the gravel and bit. It was turned hard left and it forced his car into the oncoming lane. Nick jerked the wheel back to the right and stood on the brake pedal. All four tires gave up their grip and the car spun out of control. When it finally came to a stop, it was parked sideways across the two lane road. The headlights and windshield wipers were off, replaced by the rhythmic click of the left turn signal.