Worry Not, John Jay, For This Is Your Finest Hour
Angels, Demons, and Teddy Bears
Warning: May be triggering
“Retrieve the child.”
“And what of the man who has him?”
There was a pause, and the sound of the brook became noticeable as he considered her question. Bird song floated into the room, followed by a flapping of wings.
“I’ll leave it to you, but I’ll say this — he must not die.”
“Why not?” Her tone was curious and soft.
His eyes were wounded when he turned to her. “Because there are worse things than dying. Now go, and end the child’s torment.”
***
The first time I saw her watching me, I was standing on the observation deck of the fire watchtower. Her obvious lack of concern she’d been observed should have been frightening; yet, I blamed the vision on the fact my body was still a drug-polluted cesspool. Clearly, the fact I saw her moving through the trees that skirted the helipad was nothing more than a hallucination?
In the tower, miles from civilization, life was simple. There was no other way for life to be miles from home or city streets and alone, which was the reason I took the position when offered. Deliver me from temptation, it was that simple.
In a few days, and more so again within weeks, my mind cleared as the drugs left my system, and thoughts took on a level of clarity I’d forgotten existed. The process of cleaning up from drug use was painful, but not as much as the clarity itself, for it was then I remembered with near-perfect recall the atrocities that heralded my doom — and her presence.
With this new clarity of mind, the second time I caught her image I hoped it was a flashback, but I knew it was not. She was, after all, no stranger to me. I lowered the binoculars and returned to the inner chamber that overlooked the surrounding valley, despair hanging likes weights from my limbs.
The stint as a fire watch would last six months, with monthly supply drops completed by helicopter. There was a satellite phone in the far corner for emergency use, and radio checks took place at 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., seven days a week.
I’d thought the isolation was necessary. My addictions, my mind, my urges — all were out of control. After setting the binoculars down, I attempted to provide a reasonable explanation for what I witnessed but soon realized the futility of the endeavor and began to cry.
The thing was out there, and it sought me as light seeks the arrival of a new day. It would never stop coming. A bark of misery burst from my throat when I considered how ridiculous it was that I ran to the wilderness. In doing so, I provided my pursuer with the means to mete out justice at their leisure and prolong my suffering in the same manner I had done.
I’d sealed my fate. I crumpled to the plank floor of the observation deck as my great gasping sobs bruised the silence in the room.
Sitting there with the sun beaming upon my face, the salt from my tears stinging my eyes, I prayed for mercy but knew none would be forthcoming. Once God witnessed my acts, my true nature exposed, He turned His back. I continued my silent prayers as the memories of my crimes continued their assault. They came one after the other, each more virulent than the last, and my stomach bucked. Unable to deny the onslaught, I began to gag and wretch, for within my trousers, the memories were stirring my arousal at the same time I dry heaved and sobbed in revulsion.
In time, having collapsed into a void of darkness on the observation deck floor, a clap of thunder woke me. A glance at my watch revealed it was nearing the time I would need to do a check-in.
The front of my pants was still tacky, deepening my shame and self-loathing, and confirming any notion of acquiring a measure of self-control was nothing more than a pathetic act of self-deception. It was hopeless.
In the center of the room was a large, hexagon-shaped desk, each flat section held a small drawer for paper, pens, and pencils. Many a watchman sat sketching, photographing or writing novels. There were many hours of the day, and they needed filling.
The woman I replaced had been an artist. Some small postcards she had designed with woodland creatures were still in the drawer, and I pulled one out now. It bore a sketch of a cougar, peering down from a sturdy branch. My hand holding the pen shook with the staggering weight of the momentous task I was about to perform.
I began writing.
In three weeks and four days, the chopper with supplies would arrive. The unloading would take somewhere around twenty minutes. If I survived until the crew arrived, I would allow them to come and go without enlightenment. They were no doubt righteous men and had no reason to fear what lurked in the forests around the tower.
However, if I did not survive the next three weeks, the letter would explain their findings — whatever they may be.
Regardless, the tireless search of one family would end.
If I was still alive, I believed it would be by the thinnest thread.
It was here for me, and me alone. My certainty on that notion remained absolute, as was my knowledge of what spurred its quest.
My descent into the agonizing hell of my worst nightmares was upon me, and no doubt, my only hope of mercy rested in the admission of my sins and the subsequent release provided to the families of my victim.
I continued my writing with determination.
At precisely 6:00 p.m., I took a brief break to establish contact with the control base 37-miles south, and that chore aside sat back down and continued my letter.
It began with my name.
My name is John Jay. I am the beast who took your son . . .
***
The first clap of thunder arrived simultaneously with a fork of lightning that cleaved the sky. One would believe the heavens had opened up. One would be correct, I thought. I folded the letter and placed it into a small envelope, writing simply ‘to the mother of Jason Walker’ on the front, and sealed it tight.
Each moment hung cast further darkness upon my soul, and that too was suspect. She would take her time. As I had done — three days to be exact. Mercy would be forthcoming to the same degree I had shown it, taking me into levels of agony no human being could withstand. When I lost consciousness, I would then, and only then, be issued a tiny reprieve if only to revive myself for the next onslaught of tortures.
I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye, and I spun toward it. A small teddy bear rolled onto its back, the sort small children covet and sleep with at night. Alarm and dread rose in my gut, for I recognized the depraved thing at once. It stood and faced me, wiping the dust from its fuzzy belly and rear end. It waved one blunt paw in greeting. It would have been comical if I was not familiar with this child’s toy, and recognized the meaning in her selection.
One glass eye shone in the dim light. The second glass eye dangled from a string that protruded from a small hole. Rough stitches told attempts to repair the damage and restore the glass bead to its rightful position had failed. Still, someone, probably Mrs. Walker, had cared enough to try. In the end, the toy bore a perfect likeness to the original.
He was a teddy much loved — a stuffed bear who accompanied Jason to his slumber every night of his four years. A stuffed bear, the one artifact found in the warehouse to suggest Jason walker had occupied the space in the days before he died.
In time, the bear was returned to the Walkers. However, the existence of copious DNA samples that told of Jason’s miserable last days was withheld from the Walkers in an attempt at compassion — to reduce their suffering by some infinitesimal measure.
I began to cry, tears and snot whetting my face and my breaths coming in gasps. So this was how it would play out.
The teddy walked toward me and appeared to be growing — rapidly — as was my terror at the diabolical flavor of her wrath. As the growing teddy continued to advance, the one eye lifeless, the other dangling, a smile formed refashioning the face into an abomination so obscene I had to look away from it. The lascivious grin was at once comedic and sickening.
Once it reached the hexagon table, it stopped and turned toward the far window, pausing as though to wait for further instruction. I knew at once she was coming. This vile thing was a mere tool, a taunt if you will, a helper by which she would mete out justice with extreme prejudice.
I dared a sideways look at the stuffed teddy. He stood still and continued to grin, and I felt my gorge rising. I leaned over, and dry heaved. A small splatter of coffee hit the floor as the room filled with her light.
Unsure which was more difficult to endure— the ethereal beauty, too pure to behold with the naked eye, which spoke of eternal bliss and a realm of such forever denied to me by my own doing, or her power aimed at me, full throttle. Her wings near filled the room, and her light was like that of a thousand lighthouses lighting a thousand shores.
I was not blinded by looking upon her only because she wanted me to witness what was coming, just as little Jason Walker had seen what was coming as he buried his face into his bear and cried for his mother. I spirited him away from his mother and into the filthy, abandoned warehouse, and there he, with only the comfort of his stuffed bear, would live out his remaining three days.
She’d appeared to him then on the third day. There, on the warehouse floor with her white wings folded over him, she shielded him in a gossamer shroud of light in his final moments. Tears flowed briefly till she turned her eyes on me. My soul began burning as her blue eyes seared into mine and never ceased for a single moment since — her wrath, begun.
I have come to understand this is the state of one destined to descend into the fires of hell. Once marked unfit for the pearly gates, the soul recognizes the shredding of ties, and the burning begins.
There in the warehouse, her delicate chin rose, and her eyes darkened. Her hatred for me was as pure as her love for the child. She was an angel of the highest order and capable of great mercy and great malice in equal measure.
I fell to my knees before her and wept with childish abandon. It meant nothing, for her eyes remained as flat as those of the bear. She moved with supreme grace and opened her mouth as though to speak. No words came, rather a sound so abhorrent and deafening I fell to the floor on my side and clasped my ears in agony. It continued until the pain was unbearable, then stopped as abruptly as it started. Pulling my hands from over my ears my palms were wet with blood. I wiped my shaking palms on the thighs of my pants and looked up at the bear, as the blood from my ears tickled down my neck.
The lascivious grin was the same as before as he advanced upon me. It was the addition of a colossal, throbbing erection better suited to a stallion than a six-foot stuffed bear that had me close my eyes. With wild abandon, he had his way. On he continued long after I was screamed mute. Then I gave myself to the darkness.
It would be the first of many such moments.
***
Too weak to stand, I laid upon the filthy mattress. I had been rested upon the stinking, foul thing uncountable days before after another blackout. Every inch of it crusted with blood, semen, urine and excrement. God knows how many days I’d been stewing in my own filth and waste. After each blackout, my two tormentors would return as soon as I awoke. Not the briefest moment was granted, which was not branded onto my soul by pain and terror.
The angel and her demon companion were nearing the end of their task. I had counted many moons since the onset of the torture and had since lost count. As well, my blood loss was now so significant the end must surely be near. Although I held no illusion she could not, and would not, thwart my demise to prolong my suffering. She’d loved the child and would stop at nothing to vent her fury. I’ve often heard the expression, ‘The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.’
The only fact suggesting any passage of time was the scabs forming on multiple cuts and abrasions — the yellowing of some bruises.
I sensed my frame was wizened and made gaunt by lack of water and food.
My throat was parched, and my lips were bloody and scabbed over. Most of my hair had been ripped from my head during the demonic bear’s continued assaults.
The flesh whipped from my bones, salt added to the wounds. Around my hips, pools of tacky blood whetted the mattress, mingling with excrement and urine. She’d instructed the bear to remove my testicles and penis, and the monstrous thing had relished in doing so. As it had no hands with which to perform the task, the offending appendage and testicles were thus hacked away using the Bic pen I’d used to write the letter days ago. The penis had been sewn back on upside down with crude stitches using the string from the bear’s eye and was already beginning to fester.
The stench of it clung to my nasal passages and burned my eyes.
Yet this was not the worst of it. The worst of it was the hands grasping and clutching and pulling at me — wrapping and entwining around my ruined soul. The hands of a million tortured madmen clinging to one common hope — they would be chosen as my tormentor. The worst of it was the knowledge rested upon me that this before me now was the best of my days. For the hands waited to drag me down and then my real hell would begin.
I closed my eyes to the sound of approaching footsteps.
The door was thrown wide, showing two silhouettes against the brilliant light. Her voice was soft, and like other times, the smell of jasmine and vanilla, gardenia and rose preceded her light.
“Your time with us is done for now, but do not consider your debt paid. I have seen to it you will continue to pay your debt in a local penitentiary. Not one hour will be spent as a free man — ever. For once your time in the penitentiary is complete, I will be back to collect you. I will deliver you to the gates of hell, myself.”
The sound of the chopper vibrated the air as it approached the pad, the tone changing as it put down.
The last of her light faded, and all that remained was a small teddy bear with one eye laying in the corner — a perfect likeness to the original.
