Under Ivans Knout: The Gospel of Madness (Book 2 of 6) (The Gospel of Madness - (A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Series))

by Georg Bruckmann

  Table of Contents

  The Gospel of Madness

  Under Ivans Knout

  Foreworld III

  MADWORLD

  Foreworld IV

  Epilogue

  POSTSCRIPT

  Links´n´Stuff

  Let me introduce: OLD BARON - The Chronicles of the Red Rage!

  THE GOSPEL OF MADNESS

  Book II

  Under Ivans Knout

  By

  Georg Bruckmann

  Special thanks to Richard Briscoe and Conny Kirsch. I owe you!

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  © 2019 Georg Bruckmann. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, without the permission in writing from the author.

  Foreworld III

  Toni

  The driver who picked up Toni Da Silva along with a handful of other young people from the station did not even try to make the trip entertaining in any way. He checked on their names on his little list, put their luggage in the spacious trunk of the minibus and drove them to boarding school. Three years had passed since seven people had lost their lives in the small mountain village. Toni had spent two of these three years in a home for special children - for troublemakers, to be true - until he finally got lucky.

  However, in the end he could not stand to stay with the foster family that had freed him from this hole for a long time. They had been too soft-hearted. Stupid wool sheep, permanently grinning fools, who annoyed him with their wisdom about the good in man. Actually, he just wanted to be left alone, to continue his occult studies, but they simply couldn’t stop preaching to him. So he had taken action.

  In the end, they were more than happy about his suggestion to put him - as his “last chance”, as they emphasized - in a boarding school.

  The same applied to him. As soon as he got on the train, he felt the shackles of the restricting, fatally boring family life fall off him. This was probably not so true for his ‘fellow sufferers’, he shared the van with. All but one - a black-haired boy named Antoine, whose mother originally came from French- speaking Switzerland - seemed more or less unhappy. Three boys and two girls. Toni already had examined their faces in detail while on the train. Outcast brats who stood in the way of their parents’ lives through their very existence, or who actively caused trouble and whose education therefore has been ‘outsourced’.

  A girl had tried to start a conversation. However, after a few sentences that had been spoken with soft voices, the flow of words quickly dried up again. Everyone seemed too busy wallowing in self-pity. Toni hadn’t felt like participating anyway. Rather, he had listened with interest, listened to their mindless gossip with an expressionless face and used the talk to get a first opinion about his new comrades. After he had labeled them all as uninteresting at best quite quickly, he decided to imagine what he wanted to do with the two girls when no one would watch.

  Only after he had abused and humiliated them several times in his mind’s eye, did he notice that the black-haired boy, who had only taking part in the dry conversation with unwillingly muttered answers, seemed to do it exactly as he did. He listened, processed the information he could extract from the conversations and otherwise held back. Once their eyes met and kept contact for a fraction of a second.

  When one of the girls asked, the bus driver answered with mumbled words:

  “We’re less than twenty minutes away.”

  Then they kept quiet again and looked out the windows. Around the boarding school there were fertile fields as far as the eye could see. Grain and corn and plants of which Toni didn’t know the names. The driver hummed something incomprehensible and pointed to the right. The eyes of Toni and the others followed his straightened finger, and then they could see the large boarding school building with the numerous outbuildings from a great distance, as it lay on a gently ascending hill that rose above the otherwise quiet flat landscape. Below the majestic main building, a small town snuggled up to the hill and washed around like brackish water to an inhospitable island.

  ***

  The director was a woman in her mid-fifties and used a lot of makeup. Rather small, with dense blond hair and dressed in a neat costume of medium price range. She was already waiting for her new fosterlings in the courtyard when the bus rolled onto the grounds. The impressive, U-shaped building surrounded the courtyard, which, due to the skillful placement of carefully maintained bushes and trees, seemed quite friendly. They sure value a good first impression, thought Toni, when he got out the van and afterwards received his suitcase.

  “Line up, children!”, barked the bus driver, who, as Toni was soon to learn, was one of the three caretakers of the impressive old building. When they had all positioned themselves as asked for, they had to endure the Director’s friendly but concise welcoming speech.

  One was looking forward to their presence and attached importance to excellent performance in class and good behavior.

  Even the first sentences that left the director’s mouth bored Toni.

  Too common. Too predictable.

  He made fun of foreseeing in his mind how a sentence would end once the woman had started it.

  He was right a lot of times.

  As she spoke, she strolled up and down in front of him and his fellow sufferers with her hands crossed behind her back, looking at the pale faces and thus gaining a first impression of the young outcasts. When the little speech was over, she instructed the bus driving janitor to give each of the new arrivals a copy of the house rules and then take them to their rooms.

  Toni sincerely hoped that he would not have to share a chamber with a complete idiot. His hopes were fulfilled when the janitor said:

  “Toni Da Silva and Antoine Neri: right wing, second floor, room seventeen.”

  Before the pupils were led into the boarding school building, Toni noticed a small group of teachers and pupils forming a circle at the edge of the schoolyard. Surprised, he tried to find out what was going on there. The scene radiated a somehow intangible aura of violence, but also of orderly discipline that fascinated Toni, even though he could not yet exactly see what was going on there. He only noticed that he had stopped to have a closer look when the Director’s hand suddenly lay on his shoulder. Quiet man like she ordered him to go on and gave him a push. Then she must have changed her mind, because she said:

  “Stop. It might not be so bad if you witness this right at the beginning of your common time here. Everybody with me!”

  Her head high, with her back straightened and with wide sweeping steps, she went ahead. When those standing in the circle noticed the approaching director, they interrupted their doing and opened the circle they had formed around a slender boy. It was only now that Toni could definitely confirm his feeling that this strange assembly of teachers and students was a punitive measure.

  The boy’s upper body was naked and each of those present, with the exception of the director and the newcomers of course, held a freshly cut willow rod in their hands. The director spoke again:

  “Mr. Feretti. What’s
the occasion for this?”

  She made a vague gesture. Toni could see that everyone except the new ones knew exactly what was meant by this. It wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened. The answer came promptly and without a trace of embarrassment or insecurity.

  “Guiseppe stole money from his roommate and spent it on dirty magazines. Not only did he harm his friend, but also the reputation of the boarding school and all of us along with that. Therefore, the punishment will be carried out jointly. May the Lord teach him humility and decency!”

  Until now, the boy in the middle had successfully kept his countenance. But as his sins were now presented and spoken out loud to all those ears around, his face waved and he began to cry miserably.

  “Behold his false remorse, madam director! With God’s help, we’re gonna turn it into something real!”

  “Amen, Mr. Feretti. Now carry out the punishment”, the director ended the somewhat exaggerated full-bodied speech of the skinny guy. He had to be the religion teacher, Toni concluded, or at least a priest or something like that.

  Then the hissing of the willow rods began in an orderly manner. Toni noticed that the students who were to carry out the punishment carried out the punishment in age order. First it was the youngest ones. They were granted two lashes.

  Soon the delinquent whimpered and his upper body was covered with red stripes, some of them about to burst open. A few minutes later it was over and one after the other they gave back there willow rods to the skinny man, Guiseppe had broken his knees and barely managed to lift his head. The teacher knelt in front of him, grabbed his chin and raised his head so that he could look directly at him.

  “Guiseppe, your sins are hereby forgiven. But know: If you are prosecuted a second time for the same offence, the punishment will be much worse.”

  Afterwards, the boy was sent to the school nurse and the director seemed to prepare herself for another speech. Probably, Toni thought, she wanted to say something like: Have you all seen what happens when you don’t listen?

  But then she left it at a deep breathe. Firmly she studied the faces of the newcomers. She noticed that additional words were superfluous. Everyone had seen it. Seen what happens.

  Could have been worse, Toni thought as he went on and took a closer look at his new roommate. Antoine also did not seem to be affected by what they had just observed, nor to be completely averse to him, for he just nodded at Toni before he bent down and took his suitcase back.

  Kind of funny. The shepherdess goes ahead and the shepherd dog makes sure that no laggards are left behind, it went through Toni’s mind as they, led by the director, walked on towards the double gated main entrance of the boarding school.

  While walking, the director lectured with a loud and clear voice:

  “The girls will live in the left wing, the boys in the right. The lower two floors are for students and classrooms. The upper floor houses the teachers’ apartments, the secretariat and my office. For boys the girl’s wing is taboo and for girls the boy’s wing. In your first two weeks here, you may not leave the compound. You are adolescents, almost young men and women, and you may think our rules are antiquated or silly. Be assured that we have ways and means to enforce those rules regardless of what you think of them.”

  Toni noticed that Antoine distorted his face into a despicable smile, which immediately vanished again when the director stopped in the lobby and turned back to them.

  “My name is Ginerva Constantini. Your parents are paying me good money to put you under my maternal supervision give you the best possible education of the country. They have high expectations of us teachers, but also of you. Do your best. Do not dare to disappoint them. If you do your best, you will get our best.”

  A little break, then she went on.

  “Knowledge - the mightiest of tools for a successful life. You better value it! But enough of that now. Go to your rooms, get settled and get to know each other. Classes start tomorrow. Lunch is on time at noon, dinner at six. The girls please follow me and our friendly janitor Piras will take the boys to their rooms.”

  The girls didn’t need a second call. They struggled with their suitcases and tried to keep up with the Director’s fast clacking steps. The janitor decided to set a much more comfortable pace. In return, he spoke less.

  Good man.

  Ten minutes later Antoine and Toni had arrived in their room. It was not particularly large and - probably for the sake of justice - every piece of furniture was available twice. Exact duplicates. A narrow bed, a small cupboard and a desk.

  “What about the bathroom?”, Antoine asked the janitor.

  “At the end of the corridor.”

  With these words, that completely destroyed Toni’s low hopes for an own bathroom, the man turned around and left the two boys alone. While they stowed their belongings in the cupboards and pulled the bedding over the threadbare quilts, Antoine officially introduced himself to Toni, whereby Toni found it remarkable that he showed a tone of voice as if it were a necessary evil to make himself known.

  “What do you think of the Director? Quite a dragon, isn’t she?”

  Toni just shrugged and when Antoine realized that his interlocutor had nothing to say, he went on.

  “Well, never mind. We can handle her. Already had to get along with completely different calibers. This is the seventh boarding school my folks have parked me at. Somehow we never got together. Just don’t understand that I need a little fun every now and then. He’s a banker and mother sells saute jewelry to idiots and their stupid wives. They have nothing on their minds but money. My big brother is just like them. Terrible bore. Why are you here?”

  Antoine paused covering his bed to watch Toni carefully as he gave his answer.

  “I’m a poor little orphan boy. Chased by bad luck and rejected by God and the world.”

  An ironic grin had grown on Toni’s face as he spoke these words and to confirm that he was aware of the melodrama, he winked at Antoine twice more. He smiled just before he said:

  “You don’t seem to mind much. Fine. Somehow I’ve always envied orphans. You don’t have to please anyone anymore. Can’t disappoint anyone anymore.”

  “Do you mind? Disappointing your parents?”

  “I used to. But I’ve given up that habit. You can’t deny your nature, can you?”

  They talked for a while until they decided to explore the rest of the building together. Toni was happy to have been blessed with a halfway useful roommate. They would have a lot of fun, decided Toni.

  Because Antoine was vehemently proclaiming that it was always most exciting in the cellars of boarding schools, Toni agreed to start the exploration tour there. After all, Toni had no experience with boarding schools, but Antoine did.

  They had to search for quite a while before they found access to a staircase leading to the basement. To make matters worse, the door was locked, but that was a problem that Antoine had quickly solved by using a piece of wire when no one was around for a minute. When he noticed Toni’s astonishment at this, he just said:

  “Always have some tools with me. And I like to learn more practical things in boring school hours. If you like, I’ll teach you how to do it.”

  As Toni soon found out, his roommate was right about the cellars. They hosted the boiler room, the oil tanks, whose vapors tickled Toni pleasantly in the nose, the janitor’s workshop and several storage rooms - some for food, some for drinks and some for light bulbs and other technical wearing parts.

  Their footsteps echoed quietly from the bare concrete walls, although they always tried not to cause unnecessary noise. After a while of exploring, under the constant buzzing of the flickering neon lights that lightened the basement, they discovered, well hidden between two cabinets, a door they had not yet examined.

  Unlike most of the other doors they had seen in the basement on their ramble, it wasn’t made of plywood and didn’t look like it had been crafted by the janitor himself. This door was made of heavy metal.
A fire door. The two boys looked at each other and Antoine nodded at Toni.

  He carefully placed his fingers on the handle and gently pressed it down. This was also different from the other doors. In contrast to these, the fire door was very well oiled. It swung up softly and nearly noiselessly. Toni immediately got the smell of cigarette smoke, fresh and old, and that of something else, something he had never smelled before.

  “Toni! That is weed!” Antoine whispered with a big grin in his face.

  “You mean... drugs?”

  Toni asked this question, although of course he knew what weed meant.

  “Of course. What else? Isn’t that great? We discovered the playground for the big kids the very first day!”

  A triumphant smile played around Antoine’s lips. Toni replied and peered down the poorly lit passage that ended at another door. When boarding school students met down here to use drugs, the janitors, whose kingdom the cellar obviously was, had to know about it. They were probably paid by those spoiled brats to keep silent. Or was it maybe even the janitors themselves who smoked weed or hashish down here?

  Either way. Antoine was right. They had made an extremely exciting discovery. Firstly, Toni always wanted to know what it was like to experience a drug rush and secondly, he might be able to exercise power over those he would catch down here consuming banned substances. His palms started to tingle.

  “Come on, then.” Toni whispered. Antoine nodded eagerly but let Toni take the lead. The approximately ten meters that separated them from the direct end of the small corridor, they walked down tensed, laboriously suppressing their euphoric spirit of adventure.

  The two boys managed to reach the door without making a suspicious noise. Toni made some gestures and communicated that he wanted to listen at the door before going in. Antoine nodded agreeably, and Toni pressed his ear to the wood of the door and tried to breathe quietly so that he could hear as much as possible. He could distinguish four voices. However, he did not understand the content of the conversation.