FAR WEST Chapter Nine

GOLGOTHA

Robert’s methamphetamine fed mind drifted off into reverie.  His waking narcodreams were often of his times teaching History and Literature at Wycliffe University, but were just as often lost in the montage of dead and extinct civilizations with special attention paid to the Roman Empire, the Mayans, and the Jerusalem of the Jews, Maccabees, and Zoroasters.

            Doctor Robert Stegner, until the recent closure of the University and the subsequent sale of the charter back to the British Sovereign, had been a full tenured Professor at Miskatonic College.  Miskatonic was one of the original colleges of Wycliffe established before the American War for Independence, well respected for its noted volumes of Latin and Hindi demonology books, religious texts, the papers of Milton, Cromwell, and Stowe, and original Arabic manuscripts in the library and its esteemed alumni in fields such as Philosophy, Theatre, Literature and more recently Atlantic History. 

            It had been a fitful job placement for Robert, who had the intellectual discipline and curiosity to devote his life to education, as it provided him many carnal opportunities with his female students and their mothers, if possible.  At Miskatonic, Robert met his future and former wife. 

            In the beginning, she was simply another sexual conquest to be notched in his hidden black notebooks he had used to catalogue the bagged students in some semblance of an accessible archive.  He was a real stickler for data, spreadsheets and organization.  She proved to be the shot in the arm that forced him to abandon his perverse dreams and accept the good and honourable society.   

            Audie struggled mightily to climb the Tower lugging the full weight of his pack with his heavy flak jacket and a large brown sledgehammer.  By the time he reached the landing beneath the metal access door he was out of breath, softly panting to himself.  He wiped the sweat off his hands onto his jeans and unsheathed his MP5 submachine gun from the back of his Kevlar vest.

            In a sudden jarring stroke of the hammer Audie sent the horizontal door flying upwards and open.  As it banged loudly in the confined space he pulled himself up by his arms into the belfry.  Flashes of brilliant white light were exchanged between the two as the teeming masses below watched on in unbroken fascination.

            The crowd had cocked their heads in near unison towards the exchange of fire emanating from the observation deck.  Rachel stared down at the road at her feet plaintively in a manner that mirrored Maggie save for the tears rolling down her face that revealed her real sentiments that she usually could keep hidden from the world. 

            The motley army of Cranbury Sheriffs, Police and County Firefighters looked up to the burning Tower in complete and unexpected silence.  This was an extraordinary sight to behold for the Tower had been part of the Vale for many generations without change or second thought for its place as meaningless landscape.  It was only a matter of time before it would return to the earth.

            Audie lay up against the far wall of the open air belfry busily checking his body for wounds, burns and all other possibly injuries.  When he finished his crude diagnostic exam, he brought his attentions to the dying man on the opposite wall beyond the gaping doorway in the floor that dropped hundreds of feet down to the shattered pieces of the broken television camera.

            The man writhed in pain. 

            His upper body was torn apart from the array of small entry and large exit wounds.  Audie had used ammunition of an explosive and illegal nature because he did not care of these consequences.  The man coughed out dark blood over his already blackened shirt, choking to death.  His eyes were covered in a thick layer of blood and severe acid burns from the muzzle flashes that now dominated his visual cortex’s last received images.  He would never know who had ended his earthly tenure—his surprise remained.

            “Sleep.”

            Audie said to the man unsure if he had yet to pass through the threshold to the other side.  This brief valediction was more for his own aide than that of the Shooter.  The moment passed as Audie threw off his vest as the heat of the chemicals smoldering grew more intense.  He dropped his pack to the ground and dropped down through the doorway to the small landing below the floor. 

            He raced blindly down the stairwell as he fumbled, tripped and hung on the rusted bars of the railings for the duration of his descent.  The vapors of various chemical reactions and the festering wounds he had not discovered on his body filled the Tower although he sensed nothing in this blurred and confused epinephrine state.

            Rachel and Ernie were permitted to film the growing conflagration, with a borrowed digital police camera, the final moments of the standoff under the close personal supervision of Commander Jaskilka. 

            The Mayor arrived to the operational headquarters with his outed Chamberlain to observe the unfolding events.  He had not changed out of his jogging suit and was openly ridiculed by his underlings for his silly appearance.  Rachel refused to speak to her father let alone give a single glance over to her future stepmother, who had failed to wipe all of the semen and curly black hairs off her mouth.

            Meanwhile, Maggie sat on the hood of the Major’s car ignoring the characters that had come to surround her in the flickering orange light and dark shadows of the wild conflagration consuming the high belfry of Victoria Tower.  The tears remained fixed on her cheeks as her beveined eyes continued to worry about the unknown futures that would arise the following morning.

            The world shook as the roof of tower erupted in a tremendous explosion.  The watchers retreated in their places as others ran for cover behind back alleys and dumpsters in desperate need to be emptied as their bowels were formerly.  Maggie was a stone.  Large portions of the roof were deposited in the rivulets of sewage, the clock and its gears landed in a chaotic range of scattered locations among the grave markers of the old Castle Cemetery, as for the bell it was never to be seen again.

            Out of the blanketing darkness Audie came stumbling across Taconic Street until he reached the inner perimeter where the firefighters had frantically established triage in the moments after the belfry was vaporized. They let it burn, unwilling to put out a fire that affected nothing of value.  Audie was brought to an ambulance to be patched up by the trauma nurse as her assistants tended to the burns that had accumulated around his neck and face.

            Maggie met her husband sitting upright on the stretcher and held his hands.  Her tears were gone as she kissed him lightly on his brow.  He whispered, “I believe.”