The Missing (Mecklenburg Book 1), page 15
“Diane,” Charlotte said as she woke up.
No answer.
Charlotte stretched, slowly pulled herself from her comfy bed, and grabbed a sweatshirt and slippers. She pulled the warmth of the shirt on and walked down to make her morning coffee. She sipped the black java while thumbing through the morning paper. Charlotte enjoyed her early quiet and private time.
The lead story was of a shooting a few days earlier, not uncommon, and almost comical. Charlotte sipped her coffee, the nectar of life that woke her daily as the news continued to amuse her.
“Momma!” a voice screamed from Diane’s room upstairs. It was gut-wrenching, fraught with fear and pain. “Momma, help me! You’re not my dad! Let me go! Help me!”
Charlotte’s coffee cup dropped to the tile floor, exploding as she instantaneously took off, running up the stairs.
Her legs felt heavy as she ran. One step at a time, she felt so far away. The closer to Diane’s room she got, the further away her mind perceived she was. The closer she got, the more her stomach churned with sickness.
Four seconds of running slowed to minutes.
Charlotte reached the top of the stairs, turning to the hallway. The carpet ignited under her feet. Flames danced like tormented demons around her as she picked up the pace. Diane’s room was at the end of the hall, with a blue light flooding through the door seam.
“Diane!” Charlotte screamed as she ran down the never-ending hallway.
Gasping for air, Charlotte stood tall in front of her daughter’s bedroom door and opened it. The door opened to a vacant room as Charlotte stepped inside. A breeze from an open window spiraled like a tornado against the walls. There was no furniture. No sound. No Diane. Just four walls with a dim white light above.
Charlotte turned around, looking at the walls covered in old faded missing person flyers of a ten-year-old girl. Hundreds of them, from floor to ceiling, the walls were covered with flyers of her missing daughter.
Charlotte took a deep breath and fell to her knees. Her eyes opened again; she woke up. Kent was shaking her. This time she was back to reality. Back in the cold of that world she was trying so hard to escape.
“Charlotte, are you awake? You were on your knees talking in your sleep for a few minutes now,” Kent explained as he held her.
Charlotte blinked her eyes, realizing she had been dreaming. She was still in the woods of this parallel world, and her daughter was still missing.
She was still in hell, fighting her way home.
Kent gathered what was left of his crew, Charlotte and Bran, Luke and Andrew, and with the Book of the Black nestled inside his shirt, took out his compass and plotted their route. “This way, guys. We can be back to the hotel before nightfall if we hustle,” Kent said with confidence.
“Kent, I’ll stay close and put Bran out front again. He has served us well so far. Why fuck up a good thing?” Charlotte said.
Chapter 24: The Rat
Ratchford smiled as he looked down on Tom. “Your life is now his and has new meaning. No longer will you be cold, scared, hungry, or poor. You will live his word. You will sacrifice for him. You will love him, and you will never leave this new world!” Ratchford stroked Tom’s hair. “Do you understand me?”
Tom, while uncontrollably shaking, nodded in agreement.
“Good,” Ratchford said as he took Tom’s left hand into his. “To remind you of your commitment,” he said as his jaw made a popping sound as it unhinged, opening his mouth wider than humanly possible.
Tom found his voice and screamed as three of his fingers were bit off. Blood ran down Ratchford’s face, pouring into the nasty water below.
“This will be the first of many sacrifices, my son. It’s all in his name. You will learn our ways. You will live our ways. You will, or you will burn. It’s really as simple as that, Tom,” Ratchford demanded after his jaw realigned.
Tom was in exceptional pain. He took a deep breath and then another. He swallowed his pride, his self-worth, and his self-identity but looked up at Ratchford, and with a quivering voice, said, “I will learn. I will obey. I will sacrifice and force others to see our new world.”
Trashman smiled as he finished himself off inside his grungy pants. Human suffering was a fetish for him. Trashman always got off on it.
“I’ll take him, preacher,” Trashman said with a laugh as he pulled Tom to his feet.
Trashman and Tom walked out of the pond, leaving Brian and Tom’s soul deep in the murky water. Trashman placed handcuffs back on Tom, tying a rope around the linked chain between Tom’s wrist. “Let’s go, fucktard,” Trashman said as he began to walk.
Tom followed Trashman. He had no choice in the matter. Three of his fingers on his left hand were gone, leaving only his thumb and pinky. He was still bleeding. His wrists were cuffed together and tethered like a dog. Time was beginning to slow down for Tom, and his vision was losing all contrast and color. They walked back to the church.
The bell rang, and the church doors opened wide and he was pulled inside. The room was quiet as Trashman led Tom to Chief Sanders.
Sanders took the rope from Trashman and leaned over, whispering in his ear.
Trashman smiled and began to snicker as Sanders spoke softly to him.
“Yes, sir. Thank you. I’ll get the men,” Trashman replied to what Sanders had whispered in his ear.
Sanders led Tom into the center of the room, where there were two chairs. “Please, have a seat, Tom.”
Tom sat on the cold, black metal chair. His wrists were still bound. Still naked. His rectum bled as he shook with fear. The pain in his hand was nearly gone, as the leftover meat of his hand was white from total blood loss.
Sanders looked at the church people. Those dirty church people. He grinned, made a circle motion with his hand around Tom, and the people began to move. They slowly and silently encircled Tom and Sanders.
“Now that you have met the preacher and understand what the true lamb of God commands of us, I will only ask you once: where did the others from the hotel go?” Sanders asked as he sat in the folding chair just inches in front of Tom. Sanders was uncomfortably close, between Tom’s legs and well into his personal space.
Tom was bleeding, exhausted, and scared. He knew precisely what Sanders was asking. He knew his answer would either kill him or kill those searching for the book.
“You know the group, Tom. The one with the dog and sexy female,” Sanders said with dirty lust in his voice.
Tom knew he had to play ball or he would die. He wondered how much THEY knew about the SEEKERS. How much THEY knew about the hotel.
The people began to chant, “Kill him!”
The churchgoers were no longer silent.
“Kill him if he doesn’t tell us, Chief. He knows what we want. He knows where they are,” screamed a man from the crowd.
The room temperature noticeably rose with the voices.
“Kill him!” said a female in the back.
The people closed in on Tom as they chanted. Sanders sat, staring intensely at Tom.
Tom knew his time in this world was ticking away, but he needed to buy a few brief moments. He needed time to think. Tom looked at Sanders as the crowd chanted. Sanders was waiting for the answer he wanted. Like fine china dropped on concrete, Tom broke. His body went limp, and eyes let loose a river. Like a freight train running free down a mountain, he quickly decided to play ball.
A baby began to cry as Tom opened his mouth, sealing his friends’ fate. “They went to find the Book of the Black.”
The crowd gasped all at once. Sanders’s eyebrows raised as his pupils drew wide.
“The book,” the crowd whispered. “Not possible. No... it’s a myth. They can’t find it. No.”
“Where?!” Sanders shouted. “Where did they go?!” Sanders grabbed Tom by his throat with easy pressure and lifted his head up so he could look into his soul. “Where are they?!”
With a moment of hesitation and a soft voice, Tom said, “Doll Island. After that, they will head back to the hotel.”
Sanders held Tom close to his face. Eye to eye, they were. “What hotel, boy?”
“The Mecklenburg Hotel off of Route 3,” Tom answered as he gasped for air.
Sanders smiled. He knew what needed to be done.
Sanders helped Tom to his feet and removed the cuffs that bound his wrists. “Welcome to the flock, Tom,” Sanders said as he held Tom to his chest.
At first, Tom was in shock and stood still as Sanders held him. A few moments later, Tom let his breath out and wrapped his arms around the evil man. He felt dirtier than a used condom. His mind was turning while his soul was burning.
“That’s it, son. We will take care of you, and you will take care of us. God loves you,” Sanders said.
Tom began to cry.
“Stop those tears, boy. No need for them. We will clothe you, feed you, and mend you,” Sanders whispered in his ear.
“Thank you,” Tom stammered.
Sanders let the embrace go and walked away. Tom stood in the center of the room, bleeding and still naked as the day he was born and again on today, the day he was reborn.
“Get him to the doc,” Sanders told the crowd just before walking out of the church. “Trashman, gather the men. There is work to do. That group we were tracking is looking for the Book of the Black. We need to resupply and pick up more men,” Sanders explained. “If they have that book, war will come and war it will be!”
Trashman smiled a devilish grin. He knew to resupply they would be forced back to the Costco, and once back at their “base,” he knew of a short-haired whore he wanted to pay a visit.
“Roger that, Chief. When are we headed back?” asked Trashman.
“First light,” replied Sanders. “Oh, and Trashy,” Sanders turned back, smiling, “I got first dibs on that red-headed whore. You know the one. You can have her when I’m done.”
Trashman laughed.
Chapter 25: Mecklenburg Hotel
The Mecklenburg Hotel occupants were running operations smoothly, with resupply operations becoming increasingly lucrative. This was happening while the main mission to find the way home was still afoot. Survival in this parallel world would ultimately lead them back home. Or so they hoped. They were sacrificing blood, sweat, and tears for hope. Hope was all they had, and hope is all they would need.
One meal at a time. Just taking it one meal at a time would breakdown this fuck show so simplistic that eventually, they would be one meal away from getting home again.
Daylight began to flee into its nightly hiding spot. The streetlights outside of The Mecklenburg Hotel turned on one at a time in a mechanical timing dance. In the distance, American flags shuttered in the wind, and a wild high-pitched whistling crept through the alleyways.
The hotel had the mandatory thirty percent security in place. Kids walked the perimeter of the building, acting as sentries, armed with walkie-talkies. The highspeed avenues of approach were blocked by abandoned cars, and 360 degrees around the hotel were covered by men acting as rooftop snipers.
Philip was a little over a mile away from the hotel, but he knew his best chance to survive was to get to the SEEKERS at the hotel. He had been in and out of consciousness for two days but finally started to gain some form of composure.
Philip found himself sitting with his back against the front passenger tire of a white Buick, laughing. Philip couldn’t catch a break in this world of hell. But he still had his sense of humor.
After a few deep breaths, Philip rolled to his side. Inch by inch, Philip fought his strength and stood up. Leaning on the hood of that old Buick, he looked around and wondered where Tom and Brian went.
Philip looked down at the pieces of sweaty clothing and three empty Pabst Blue Ribbon beer cans that lay next to his own puddle of blood.
Philip’s eyes widened, cracking the dried blood from around his temple. “Fuck. The beer,” he whispered.
Those three open cans jolted his memory, bringing back the events after those beers were consumed.
“Tom and Brian,” he said to himself as he shifted his focus to the far side of the parking lot. “They took Tom and Brian!” His head hurt. His legs had been shot and were not doing well. The noise they made as he shifted his weight led him to believe he had some bone issue. “At least my brains aren’t laying on the ground right now,” Philip giggled to himself.
Philip knew he needed help. He knew he had to get Tom and Brian some help. But, most importantly, he knew he had to take a chance on The Mecklenburg Hotel, to save his own life.
Philip stood on his broken, gunshot legs looking around the parking lot. He noticed a flatbed industrial shopping cart on the far side. It was away from the woods, and close to Route 3. Philip used to use this type of cart for large items at his favorite home improvement store, Lowe’s. It held wood and drywall and lots of bricks for him in the past. It would indeed hold his body.
Philip started to ease his way back to the ground and slid right off the hood of that Buick. “Fuck!” he screamed as the pain engulfed him with the impact of the asphalt.
Philip lay still for a couple of minutes, breathing hard and sweating profusely. His eyes were closed as he tried to control the pain. His legs were swollen and severally discolored. He looked at them and thought they resembled Paul Sheldon’s legs, from Stephen King’s Misery. “I’m your biggest fan,” Philip said jokingly.
Philip took a deep breath and began to crawl away from the Buick, toward the flatbed shopping cart. One arm pull at a time, inch by inch, and painful minute by painful minute, Philip made his way closer to that lifesaving transportation.
An hour later, Philip drug himself onto the cart. “I made it. Fuck yeah, I’m home free,” he yelled. “Wait. Fuck, I said ‘fuck’ and didn’t stutter. My stutter is gone. What a fucked-up world this is.”
“The gunplay must have fixed my stutter,” Philip said to himself, slyly. “At least I got that going for me.”
Philip lay on his stomach, using his arms to pull the cart in the desired direction. It was working. The wind was even to his back. Philip smiled in thoughts that his luck was turning. He was still around a mile from his much-needed hotel, but regardless, he was making his way to it.
Thirty minutes into his journey, Philip’s hands were stripped of skin. The rhythmic left-right-left, pulling his body on the cart through the street, had taken its toll, leaving his palms bloody and raw. The pain was excruciating and all over his body.
Philip stopped briefly to take a break on Route 3 near the Starbucks. He pulled the cart to the storm drain near the entrance and laid his head on his arms. He was a few blocks from the hotel, but his body was shutting down, again.
Philip was having the worst week imaginable, and his body shut the fuck down. His mind slipped away, and down the rabbit hole it went. Philip’s mind was protecting itself from the reality of his pain, and from the validity of this fucked-up parallel world. He was chest down on that industrial cart, fast asleep.
As morning crept through the streets, the cart began to shake and shift. At first, it was a slight nudge. But after a few minutes, the shaking escalated violently. An emaciated black dog was chewing on Philip’s leg.
Philip woke up slowly, turning his head toward the shaking as his eyes opened. He saw a skeletonized black dog gnawing on his leg.
“Get the fuck off me!” Philip yelled as he reached down and smacked the dog’s mouth. The dog yelped but kept chewing. Philip pulled his arm back as far as he could and dropped a fist to the back of the dog’s head, with a golfer-like follow-through. The dog flew back off the cart, hitting the concrete curb skull first. This time the black skin and bones didn’t get up.
Philip’s mind was coming back to him now. He had been dreaming about his senior prom. He had been holding hands and slow dancing with Amy Bolin. He could still hear Def Leppard playing as they danced. Philip smiled and inhaled deeply as he could still smell her hair. She was so beautiful, and he was deeply in love with her. Philip knew she was the one that got away.
Now that the dog was no longer a threat, Philip looked around and remembered he was still gravely injured and needed to get to the hotel. Philip’s stomach started to turn. A crampy, bubbling pain. “I gotta crap,” Philip said out loud as he began to push the cart off the curb.
One pull after the other, he inched his way down Route 3.
“One foot in front of the other will get you where you’re going. Swansong. What a great book,” Philip said to himself and laughed as he moved down Route 3. His mind was hurting and needed any kind of hope he could get. Philip thought maybe that mantra from Swansong could help him. One foot in front of the other—but in his case, one bloody hand pull after the other.
Barbra was a young teenager, fresh in from the new world. She was bold and scared. She came to The Mecklenburg Hotel by pure chance. Her father had crossed over with her but was killed by a skinny man with one eye. That nasty soulless man ate him in front of her. She didn’t stick around to see a lot but knew her father’s fate in the depths of her heart and soul.
Barbra was able to escape while her father was killed and was lucky enough to be close to the hotel when sentries noticed her. That’s how she came to live at the hotel, ultimately becoming a sentry herself.
Barbra was walking the main building perimeter near Route 3. “Barbra to crow’s nest, You there?” she asked on her walkie-talkie.
“Go ahead, Barbra.”
“Movement coming down Route 3, near the old church on the corner, not far—” Barbra reported but cut herself short as she began to hear the movement yell out in obvious pain.
“We’ve got eyes on Barbra. Good job. It appears to be a man on a flat and blue cart. He is dragging himself. He’s covered in blood,” responded a voice from above her.
With Barbra’s job done, she continued to follow the protocol. She retreated to the safety of the hotel, locking the door behind her.
