The Spook House (The Spook Series Book 1) Read online

  I detected a flicker of confusion in his eyes. Coles was not used to anybody challenging him. From the very beginning, we troops instinctively kept our eyes forward. The few who didn’t quickly learned the consequences. Meeting a superior’s gaze was a reason to fight and an invitation for abuse. It was a challenge to their power, and they would immediately end the threat and maintain their dominance. But I wasn’t afraid. I was past that.

  The fact this “sizing up” was happening at all was good. It suggested that the CO didn’t know what my problem was. He hadn’t been involved last night.

  I could feel my gaze going in and out of focus. Apparently, I passed his scrutiny as well.

  “Private, I order you to go to medical!” he barked, as if it were his idea.

  “Sir! Yes, Sir!” I shouted back, trying to give him the respect he deserved.

  I staggered off toward the hospital ward. I saw a number of the guys around me looking at each other nervously, worried about what I might say, or what the doctors would discover.

  Good, I thought. Let them sweat it out.

  –––––

  As I waited for the nurses to look at me, I wondered, Should I tell them everything? Maybe I should leave out the rape part. That would be easier. It would be easier on me, and on my dad.

  I thought about that. How embarrassing would that be for him? And for me? Once I became a “whistle blower,” that was it. That would be all I was, and all I would ever be in the military. I could never get beyond that. No matter what I did or how successful I was in life, I would never be remembered for anything else. The crime was just too sensational.

  “Sensational.” That was a term often used to describe the media. Oh God. The media. Could you imagine what would happen if they got a hold of the story? I’d be the poster boy for what was wrong with the military. They’d jump all over the story, especially at a time when the American public really wanted change and the war was becoming “increasingly unpopular,” as they put it.

  I’d be known nationwide as a rape victim. Or a “whistle blower.” Or a traitor by many Americans who think that unquestioning support of the president and the military is patriotic, and anything less is cowardly and treasonous.

  A victim and a whistleblower. I didn’t want to be famous, not for that. Who knows how the military might try to shut me up to prevent the story from getting leaked? Either way, if I said anything, I was screwed.

  Yes, it would definitely be easier to just go on as if nothing had ever happened – easier for me, and easier for the guys who did it. That’s where I stopped. I might be able to hide this from my family, and myself, but I was not going to let those criminals go unpunished. I suddenly sympathized with every college girl who ever claimed she was raped on campus. Unlike those women though, someday, I would be holding a machine gun and have the opportunity to mow down the men who did this to me. I could get them all at once.

  I smiled. As good as that sounded, there were problems with that plan. For one, I might not get everyone involved (and I didn’t want to miss anyone), and two: I might kill innocent people, and I didn’t want to do that. But I had to do something. I just didn’t know what.

  4

  The doctor and medical staff looked at me suspiciously, as if I were some junkie trying to get prescription drugs. They took chest X-rays. I had three dislocated ribs. There were no fractures, but even if there had been, the medics couldn’t cast that area. The ribs just needed time to heal. I had to ride it out. The doctor did give me a prescription for some heavy-duty painkillers.

  “You’ll have to spend a few days with us here in the ward for observation,” he said. “Plus, we don’t want to put you back in the unit until we file a report.”

  Sounded good to me. I was actually looking forward to some down time. I hoped I’d get a room to myself and that it would be quiet.

  As it turns out, I got both of my wishes, although I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I did have a room to myself and it was quiet – too quiet. It was like I had an entire wing of the hospital to myself. The room itself had a floor, ceiling, and walls made of cement. The ceiling was really high and the there was a window near the top. The window was too high to look out of, or for anyone outside to look in, but did give me natural light and some indication of what time it was.

  Despite the cold surroundings, the high ceiling made the room feel larger than it was. The bed was OK and I had my own toilet.

  I was a little confused by the room. I kind of liked it. It was nice to be someplace that was not cramped or crowded or smelled like guys for a change. Still, there was something odd about the place. I couldn’t tell if I was in a hospital room that resembled a holding cell, or a holding cell masquerading as a hospital room. I tested the door. I was locked in.

  For days, I did nothing but rest. I was even allowed to go out and exercise in a small, walled courtyard. I still couldn’t tell if I was a prisoner or a protected patient.

  At first, it was nice not to have to think about anything. This was a good break. But soon, the lack of stimuli or anything to do got boring. I felt a tinge of fear when I had to admit to myself that my worse fears were confirmed. I was a prisoner. I was being held for some reason. I had nothing to but wait and think, and without the daily distractions the Army and life in general usually provided, memories I thought I had safely buried resurfaced. Things I tried not to think about returned, and the memories were as clear as ever.

  –––––

  OK. I’m just going to say it. In high school, I did a lot of drugs. It might be easy to dismiss what I tell you as the delusions of someone who was tripping, and believe me, I tried to do that too. I’m just going to tell the story the way I remember it. You can think I’m crazy or call me a liar or whatever, but it’s all true.

  A few years ago, when I was in high school, my dad got a promotion. Sometimes, his new job required him do long commutes into the city to deal with union bosses, which he said “was like working with the mob.”

  Around that time, he mentioned seeing “something weird in the woods.” I don’t know what that was all about or what he was afraid of. Whatever it was scared him enough that he started carrying around a gun.

  I came home from school one day and I got a call. Dad was calling me from jail. Cops in the city busted him for carrying a concealed weapon. When he went to court, I was there. A disgustingly fat judge named Tubb (yeah, really) threw the book at him. Dad went to county, and I was on my own. I think Dad must have lied about me being 18 (instead of 16) at the time, so that left me and Sampson, my German Shepard, alone at our house in the field by the woods.

  Two nights later, I was smoking some shit on our back deck overlooking the valley. A star in the sky seemed to get brighter until it shone down on me like a police spotlight. It dimmed to a comfortable level so I could look right at it.

  I was starting to freak out. My first thought was Cops!, but I then I started thinking alien abduction. Either way, I was screwed.

  A deep voice spoke. It came from nowhere and everywhere at once.

  “Jacob, I’ve been watching you.”

  I tried to speak, and after several attempts, babbled words fell out of my mouth.

  “Who-who are you?”

  “God.”

  The light flashed brighter, emphasizing the word. Right then and there that I made up my mind. No more drugs. Ever.

  I kept telling myself I was tripping, but even Sampson reacted to the presence as well, so that proved that something was there and it wasn’t all in my head.

  God and I had a talk and after awhile I eased up a little. I asked a lot of questions. He had an answer for everything.

  Then things got weird. He went on about how I was “in the perfect place at the perfect time.” He wanted me to assassinate someone.

  He compared it to asking someone in the past to kill Hitler’s grandfather. That person would never know the evil he was preventing, he just had to trust that God knew what He
was doing and that the mission was the right thing to do.

  My mouth fell open when I learned the name of target. I couldn’t believe who it was. It was Judge Tubb.

  Two nights later, that’s when things got really weird. I was ready to write off the whole experience as an acid trip when something even more bizarre happened that actually verified the whole encounter-with-the-divine thing. You won’t believe what happened next.

  –––––

  I came home and took a hot shower, which is my reward to myself after a long day. Sampson was running around out in the field in front of my house. After getting out of the shower, I put on my sweats and went out to the front porch to call Sampson in. The sun had gone down, and the sky was turning deep blue. There were no stars yet. Actually, there was one, right in front of a thin crescent of moon. The moon looked really big, the way it does when it’s near the horizon.

  My eyes scanned the field for Sampson, but didn’t see him. They went back to the moon. There was something odd about it. The star was still there in the dark side. I had never seen that before.

  Then it hit me. I’d never seen that before, because it was impossible. A star in front of the moon?

  The unreality of the situation immediately made me uneasy. Wasn’t that a sign of the Devil or something? It was unnatural. It was wrong. You would never see that.

  The light couldn’t be a star. So what was it? An airplane? A satellite? Something on the moon?

  I ran inside, found my digital camera, and returned to the porch. The light in the sky was still there. I thought, This must be my lucky night.

  I took several pictures but you couldn’t see anything. I guess you’d need a big professional lens for that. Oh well.

  I looked around. It was getting dark. Where the hell was Sampson? I called him and scanned the field for movement. I looked past it to the tree line. The woods were dark now. Nothing on the road. Damn. Where was that dog?

  I went back into the house, put the camera away, and found a flashlight. It was on of those big steel jobs – you know, the type cops use an excuse to carry a metal club. Twilight was turning into real night. I went to the door and opened it.

  My eyes picked up moment. In the dark field, there was an even darker shape. It rushed towards me like a torpedo. I raised my flashlight. I was momentarily relieved when I saw it was Sampson, but I immediately knew something was wrong. Sampson was normally full of energy, but it wasn’t like he was running happily in from the field. It was more like he was fleeing from it. He bolted past me and disappeared into the house.

  That was weird. I wondered if he was hurt. I followed him into the house.

  I turned to shut the door and shouted out in fear. There was a person standing there. My hands instinctively flew up to protect my face. I found myself holding the flashlight like a batter at home plate ready to swing.

  The person was a woman.

  “Sorry I startled you,” she said in a very relaxed voice. She smiled. To her credit, she didn’t even flinch when I raised the metal flashlight like a club. I lowered my guard slowly.

  The first thing I noticed was that this woman was very tall and extremely beautiful. I uncurled out of my defensive pose or whatever the hell I was doing, lowered my weapon and tried to draw myself up to my full height. I was still only looking eye-level with her cleavage. Her boobs were perfect. They looked real. The woman wore a red suit. I noticed the bottom was a miniskirt that was unprofessionally high-cut. Her legs were really long.

  I felt another wave of panic. Who could this be? My imagination went wild. She did have an unnatural beauty, but the prostitute theory didn’t fit. There was nothing submissive about her. She radiated a dark power.

  I remember thinking, Oh shit! I’m busted. She’s a cop. She’s tall and looks in shape. But I haven’t done anything … yet. What does she want?

  I looked her over, searching for a badge or bulges suggesting a hidden gun. My eyes did a quick scan, trying to resist the magnetic pull of the hot zones that drew my attention – the lips, the cleavage, the hips.

  I noticed that her polished fingernails were long, and tapered to points. I had a hard time imagining her making a fist or holding a gun. Those nails didn’t seem to go with a cop. Same thing went for her shoes. They were leather high-heeled boots. They were sexy, but I couldn’t see anybody running in them.

  So she’s not a cop, I thought. Then what is she?

  A social worker, was the answer from my mind, She’s here to take me away to live with some ‘adult’ because I’m underage. Or she’s a lawyer.

  Whatever she was, it couldn’t be good.

  She had to have something to do with my dad’s case. But she didn’t look like anyone I’d seen in court. She looked like a sexy actress playing a slutty lawyer or a super-spy on TV. In other words, she didn’t look real.

  I felt I had to strain my neck muscles to take my eyes off of this woman’s cleavage and lift my head to look at her face. Her face was beautiful, and so was her long red hair.

  Her body was gorgeous, and her face was too. She had big lips and perfect teeth. Those lips – something inside my body ached when I looked at them.

  Her nose was small and cute, but her eyes ... for some reason I avoided them.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “I want to talk to you, Jacob.”

  “Do I know you?”

  She laughed. “Everyone knows me.”

  Great. A reporter. Or a lawyer. Somebody with a big ego.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Ashira,” she said, “We need to talk. May I come in?” Her mouth smiled, but her eyes didn’t.

  The woman’s eyes … There was something wrong with them. I was certain of it now. They were too big. No, that wasn’t it. It was something else. They were too dark. The pupils were too big, giving them a weird, animal look. I didn’t like how they stared at me. They seemed to go for unnaturally long time periods without blinking.

  “Please,” she said. “It’s important.”

  For some reason, I remembered something from a movie, or several movies. I don’t know. I don’t remember where I got it, but I do remember the line clearly: “Never invite a vampire into your house.”

  There was a crucifix hanging by the front door. I reached over to get it. For a moment, I felt all stretched out and exposed. But, I had faith that I would be safe once I had it. That’s what made the cross work. That was also in the movie.

  I boldly thrust the crucifix into the woman’s face. She stepped back, startled.

  I thought, OH SHIT! OH FUCK! It’s real!

  Then the woman laughed. “Oh, I saw that same movie! You’re supposed to say, ‘Back! Spawn of Satan!’”

  Actually, she was right. That was the line.

  “Can I see that? That looks like a nice one.”

  The woman reached out for the crucifix. Her long fingers wrapped around it slowly. The nails looked dangerous, almost like claws. Who would have their nails done like that?

  The woman lifted the crucifix out of my hand brought it close to her face, where she inspected it closely. OK, so she wasn’t a vampire. I felt a like a fool.

  “You know,” she said, still looking at the crucifix, “It didn’t really look like this at all. I know. I was there.”

  OK. Maybe I wasn’t so foolish. She handed it back to me.

  I took the crucifix in my hand. I was gripping it so tight my knuckles were turning white. Unfortunately, I doubted it could protect me anymore.

  “Are you an angel?” I managed to stammer.

  She laughed. Something in her eyes softened, showing amusement, sadness, pride, or something else. In any case, it was genuine emotion.

  “I am the first one,” she said.

  “What do you want?” I asked again.

  “To talk.”

  “About what?”

  “About everything that’s going on. With you. With God. You’re not being told the whole story.”

  I a
dmit it. I was intrigued.

  “I’m listening,” I said.

  “You’re being set up. And that,” she said, pointing at cross in my hand, “is not going to save you. I think you know that.”

  I said nothing.

  “There are some things that you need to know. What you do is up to you. But I know you. Let me in and we’ll talk. You want to be informed, don’t you?”

  She was right. I did. I stood aside, put the cross down on a table, and let her in.

  5

  The woman stepped inside, and I shut the door behind her.

  “Nice place,” she said. “Of course, I’ve been here before.”

  “What?”

  I had no idea what she was talking about, but I didn’t like the sound of it.

  “When?”

  Ashira gave me a disdainful look you give to someone who asks a really stupid question.

  Suddenly, I saw this as another good opportunity to test the “real” identity of this woman.

  “OK. What’s back there?” I said, pointing down a hallway.

  “Your room,” she said, and smiled.

  Could have been a guess.

  “What about in there?” I said.

  “Oh!” She said excitedly, “That’s the closet with the guns in it!”

  She listed them off. She couldn’t have been guessing. When she was done reciting the list, she was breathing deeper, as if aroused.

  “You know, it’s really dark in here,” the woman said. “I like it.”

  Suddenly, I didn’t. I could see her white teeth gleaming in the dim light.

  “You know what we need?” the woman said. “We need something to set the mood.”

  She made a motion with her hand, like somebody flicking a match. A fire burst to life in the fireplace.

  “There,” she said, beaming. “That’s better.”