Twenty-three
“Garden Party”
Condemned Town, Abandoned
5 January
Friday
It was hard to get Hippie to settle down and accept the fact that he shouldn’t go alone, that he needed assistance—backup, as Robin put it. So finally, he gave in and it became a full investigation by MHI.
Sandy was the only reluctant member. She was visibly frightened of Hippie, and yet was silent about it. While patching up the cuts on him and Stan after their memorable roll down the hill after blowing up the Belvedere mansion, she saw something visibly different about his blood. It was the wrong color, and it did something weird. She asked him if she could take a blood sample and he refused because he sensed that she was a threat. He found in her no sense of concern for him, instead feeling like she wanted to cause him some kind of complication, which he became upset about. “Sandy,” he told her, “you are not worried about me. You’re scared, and fear like that only causes trouble. You have an intimate medical relationship with me, and, I thought, a true friendship. But you no longer feel like a friend to me, but a threat. You want to send my blood to be analyzed. Let me tell you what that will cause. First, you would be red-flagged and quarantined, losing your freedom and all future possibilities of employment in any healthcare position. Because you already know it isn’t normal, and that’s why you’re asking, you know you’ll be forced to identify me. That’s exactly what you want to do. You want me gone, locked away. Studied, quarantined.
“All this, while you already know that I will never be kept a prisoner. You think I couldn’t control suddenly appearing somewhere else? I could, but didn’t understand how. Now I do, but this, whatever it is, this ability doesn’t come from evil or supernatural movie junk. I only do what is necessary to help people in danger. Nick Hall’s case—when I fought that thing and ended up in the hospital—you weren’t afraid of me then, but you were afraid for me. You performed as you were taught, and had me flown to a hospital. You questioned what anyone would have, but now you don’t. Your quest now is to get rid of me, because you’re scared. You weren’t scared enough to turn me in back then. Only after I went through the door and came back with a restored body and appearance did you start having misgivings. This is where those misgivings have brought us. You hate me because you fear me, even though I’ve never done anything to hurt anyone here.
“You would much wiser fear whatever I was thrown by that made me a casualty. You’d be much better off fearing what we’re fighting than me. I can’t make you think or feel any different about me, so let me warn you that should you attempt what you’re planning, I can cause you damage you will never recover from. This wouldn’t be for my protection, but theirs,” and he gestured to everyone else in the room. “You’ll cause them much greater harm than you will me. We have to go without you. That’s not my choice, Sandy, because what if anyone on this team is injured where the closest response is too far away to help them? This is your choice. Do you really want to stay with it?”
“I was there when Hippie went through the door. I’ve never doubted that the change when he came back was anything except the way it was meant to be,” Joe said. “That door into that place called him. I felt no pull like what I saw him trying to fight. When he says he believes he ate from the Tree of Life, I believe him. I don’t see you offering any other explanation. Sandy, I was changed, too. And I guess I should have given more detail about that, but I was afraid you all wouldn’t believe me like Angie and Hippie did. Sandy, you’re a good soul, a kind one. Be that soul now. Don’t trust Hippie, that’s fine. Trust God because we’ve all been working for God no matter what we thought.”
Sandy began to cry. A tough woman who had been a tomboy until puberty when the world of men closed in around her, valuing her looks and her body above all else, she chose a life of helping others instead of pursuing sex and other pleasures because she had been a Christian for so long, that strength and toughness was being severely tested. She cried for so many reasons she couldn’t pick one apart from the other.
Zelda settled it for her with a single question: “Don’t tell me that you saw the change in him and heard what he told us about it and never thought that he wouldn’t be genetically changed too, you weren’t that naive, were you?”
She was right. Zelda was very often right about lots of things, and this time it was obvious.
Hippie felt her change of heart. He remained impassive until he could sense conviction in it.
She came to him and wrapped her arms around him tightly, still afraid, begging by her tight embrace for him not to hurt her. “I’m scared,” she sobbed. Robin said, “He’s more afraid than you are. I can see it in his eyes. He’s not a superhero, Sandy. His heart can be hurt. Can’t you see that?”
Sandy whispered to him, “If I’m not your enemy, can I stay your friend but still be scared?”
He whispered back, “Of course.”
But this scene, if resolved for now, would happen again later, and he didn’t know it. He merely feared it. Still hugging him, she whispered, “Why do you smell so good when you sweat? Like you’ve lived in a forest all your life and just walked out?”
He smiled, cheek to cheek with her and said, “I don’t know, but I guess I don’t need to use deodorant then.”
She laughed while still crying, he backed up and wiped her eyes and face with a linen kerchief, and let her keep it. He gave her another tight hug and said, “I’ll never forget this. You make me happy.”
Entering the town was easy. The Kenworth had been so heavily modified to Vince’s specifications that the front bumper was reinforced. He just pushed the barrels and sawhorses aside and kept going downhill into the town.
Husband, you’re so close!
She, whoever she was, had suddenly been filled with hope and joy. He wasn’t immune to it, feeling an old heartache return. Heartache and the same longing she felt. He became frightened and whispered a prayer no one else could hear.
“First stop is the Patterson Plantation,”he said.
Pulling up that section of map, Robin gave Vince directions on the intercom. As they passed through the destruction left by Nick, they all felt overwhelming hopelessness and helplessness. “This town was already dying when Tommy Oppenheimer and his guests released the supernatural hold restraining Lady Patterson. She just caused the end to accelerate. Poor Nick. He was a good man and she haunted him. She also—” he hesitated “—caused something to happen to him that’s so dark I can’t read it. This place is crawling with evil and innocent spirits trapped by them. I’m in unfamiliar territory here. I want to help them, but it’s a powerful evil they are held by. I fear a fight is at hand, and close. Everyone, please pray for them—and us.”
When Vince turned slowly into the road approaching the Plantation Manor, what he saw was nothing. “Hippie, it looks like Nick burned it to the ground.”
“It’s okay, Vince. It may be visible to me when I get out. I need to walk the grounds…with you. You’ll be the monitor. Record anything that happens and record especially if nothing happens; reviewing the data later may reveal things we miss tonight.”
Hippie asked Robin, “Would you be so kind as to attend your water canon station and allow Sandy to monitor communications? Use manual controls. Our lives may depend on it.” She nodded yes, got up and moved to the console for manual controls to the cannon. A screen lit up, a 13-inch UHD LED monitor and a reticle for aiming, which was done by a joystick with a trigger. With two switches on the right of the stick, water could be adjusted to wide spray or powerful stream. It could also adjust pressure.
The side door was opened by Vince, the steps were lowered, and they went down.
“Holy shit,” Hippie said.
“What,” Vince asked. He saw nothing remarkable.
Hippie did. The mansion stood on a hill at the end of the road, not only intact, but fully lived-in and with lamps glowing in every window except those on the top floor, slave quarters for household workers.
Ahead, to the left of the dirt trail, a stagecoach was parked, the horses being tended to by the driver and a stable boy. They definitely saw him walk by, but then ignored him. That was curious. He was in modern winter clothing that should have caused some reaction.
He kept walking, Vince beside him, but at some point, the harsh winter air turned to a balmy southern Maryland night with a gentle breeze coming in from across the Potomac. He heard music—a fiddler accompanied the distinct sound of a harpsichord, and as he walked up the hill from the road, he found that the music was from behind the house. He went to the front door, having forgotten about Vince.
The door was answered by a black man, older, with a bald head, who looked pleasant and gave a charming smile. “Good evening, Mister Christian, sir, may I take your coat? It is a warm night. Mistress awaits you anxiously. I’ll show you the way.”
“You must be tired and thirsty from your journey, sir. We have iced tea, may I get you a glass?” Hippie could not answer. He was somewhat shocked, but Lady Patterson was already pulling at him with her pheromones and hormones, some of which he could identify from memory…
She really was Eve!
He was led through the hallway by the butler and exited through a monster of a screen door onto the back porch, a wood wraparound type that was painted green. Beyond it was a most curious tableau. Guests across the wide back yard froze at his appearance, as if they were terrified. He saw men in Union cavalry uniforms, women in flared bell skirts and blouses that betrayed tight corsets beneath, pushing up their breasts, and Lady Patterson herself seated before a harpsichord. Finally everyone moved again. She smiled broadly at him, but looked nothing like Eve, though she was quite pretty, and the sound of someone pitching a ringer at horseshoes mingled with the restarted music.
Chatter from everyone, soldiers and civilians alike, clinking bottles and glasses, and laughter filled the air as did the stench of body odor and horse manure from the parked teams that pulled in guests in buggies off to the side. Hippie found it overwhelming and the heat made it all worse. As taken as he was by the beauty of the Japanese lanterns and the Potomac beyond where a paddle boat steamed south, he needed to escape this nightmare.
He became dizzy, slid down the wall he’d tried to support himself with, and passed out.
He found himself being lifted under his arms by the strong butler, who was very concerned. “Is the gentleman alright, sir?”
Lady Patterson was there, and she said, “John, it is so good to see you again. You’re more handsome than I recall. But here it is my birthday, and you have given me a terrible fright. Are you going to be able to join the celebration?”
She was hardly concerned. This was not the woman he had parted with in Eden.
“Eve,” he said, “What happened to the beautiful soul I knew? You’re nothing like you were back then. And how did you come to be here?”
She turned angry. A man pitching horseshoes farted loudly, causing lots of laughter and a cigar chomping man in uniform, a disgrace, said, “Dern it, Edgar, what did you eat? It smails like I wonted some, too,” and this caused more laughter.
She squared off with him and angrily growled, “So the time has come when you fucked me and then left me. Tell me how you’ve been able to do such a thing.”
“We had no choice, damn you! Don’t you dare insinuate that I left willingly. I loved the woman I knew, and I was told to leave. You saw me back to the doorway and we kissed. How can you not remember that? We were both crying. You’ve been a monster. For how long, I don’t know and I don’t care. I came to love another, because the sins we committed outweighed to this day everything I felt back then. But I didn’t turn it to anger like you have. I dedicated my life to Yahweh and helped people. You killed them. The Bible never said you became a monster.”
“The Bible? Hah! It barely mentioned me at all! You think you knew me, but you didn’t!”
“And you’re a liar and a piece of shit,” he said.
“GET OUT! LEAVE NOW! I HATE YOU!”
He found himself lying on the ground, soaked with cold water as Robin obeyed his orders and freed him with the holy water.
Vince, also soaked, knelt beside him. “You did it again, you vanished. Something was on you, some horrible thing when you came back. I told Robin to fire away. You alright?”
“No, Vince. I’m not. I’m going to dig up the body of that sick bitch and make sure she goes straight to fucking hell.“
The Fat Man appeared, clad in a dark tweed overcoat that extended to his shins, dark shoes, a dark fur lined hat that covered his ears, and a dark muffler.
“Mister Christian, must you be so thick? The clues are all there.”
“I wasn’t really with Eve, was I?”
“No, Mister Christian, you never were. I have a proposal for you. It is to our mutual benefit, so please consider it before you get all righteously angry, will you?”
Vince started to speak. Hippie put up a hand and he stopped. “Why would you need me?”
“Because, Mister Christian, you started all of this, and you’re the only one who can stop it. You have no idea what manner of creature she really is, and if you do not kill her, she will cause you more grief than you can possibly know.”
“That, coming from you, makes me want to save her.”
“And here you just called her a piece of shit. Mister Christian, our relationship has had a rocky beginning. Let me make amends by telling you what you have finally begun to suspect: you never met Eve. Never saw her, never mated with her. That may ease your mind about sin, but it is not yet my time to come to power, and this…creature…can ruin everything. For both our sakes, it is best to end any chances of her returning to the living. You really have no idea the power she can wield should that happen. She never had any restraint, fornicating, killing and tormenting at whim. I have tried to reason with her, to bring her under allegiance to me, but she is too primitive and therefore wild for such a thing. She was aware once that your parting was not your doing, but was the command of a god lesser than I. Myself, I had no qualms over the two of you mating like rabbits in the garden. Everything would have been better that way.”
“And you are the father of all lies. I don’t believe you.”
“Do you remember Athens? Do you doubt that you were really there! You overlook, once more, the price you may pay for your lack of cooperation.”
“And you overlook my faith in God.”
“So be it, Mister Christian. So be it.”