Forsaking Heaven

Forsaking Heaven

George approached the new headstone and smiled slightly at its beauty. The bright, polished marble stood out from the weathered stones surrounding the only grave he cared for. He pulled day-old Zinnias from the flower holder at its side and replaced them with freshly cut ones.

George traced the letters on the tombstone; S  A  R  A  H    F    K  I  N  G, with each letter a tear rolled down his cheek. “You would’ve turned twenty-three today, Sarah. I’ve missed you so much for the last four months. They caught him, though. Talked to the prosecuting attorney last week, and he warned me that the trial would be long, at least two years, and if he is found guilty, then it could be another ten years of appeals before justice is served. It’s him though, I know it. I looked into his eyes and saw it at the arraignment.

“I know you won’t agree with what I am going to do, but for me it is the only way I can see peace in my life. Something made that man do what he did to you, and that something needs to be removed from the planet before others are faced with the pain you experienced, and I am faced with.

“Sarah, I hope you understand. I can’t forgive. The only time I eat is when I think of justice, of revenge. I want you back. All I want is to have you back with me, Sarah. Life was all smiles with you; now I only want to destroy everything that destroyed you though. I’ll be back on the Twentieth of every month until I have redeemed that man’s bloodline.

“I love you, Sarah.” He finished his words as he stood and walked away, and George never saw the drops of water seeping from each letter of Sarah's name.

George left the grave, clutching at a piece of paper in his front pocket. He sat behind the steering wheel of his car and let tears flow with deep sobs that sucked all the breath from his lungs. Stretching out, he reached into his pocket and pulled the paper out. With shaky hands, George unfolded the paper, and slowly his eyes focused through the tears on a list of seventeen names and addresses.

Tears quit flowing, then cleared, and sobs eased into snivels. His breath slowed to a steady rhythm, and a vengeful mind focused all his body to one goal. Starting at the top, George read the name aloud, “Robert Mason Junior.”

******

Bobby watched the last few seconds of the clock tick above the teacher’s head. He reached for his book bag a couple of seconds early, caring less about the looks his teacher gave him. Before the teacher could say something the bell rang loudly. Bobby never heard something about a possible pop quiz tomorrow as he rushed from the classroom. He rarely spent any time studying, and the knowledge of a test wouldn’t have changed his after-school plans.

With urgency, Bobby proceeded home to turn the television on. His mother would be home within an hour of his getting out of school, and being twelve she never allowed him to watch any of the good shows at night. Luckily for him, Mom was technically challenged and the shows he recorded on the DVR, she never noticed. Still he needed to get home from school quickly, so he could have time to watch before she came home.

Two things gave Bobby an advantage to his daily routine. First, he lived only four blocks away from the school, and second his dreams of being a track star gave him further incentive to run his fastest. In a single leap, he cleared the five steps to land atop the front porch. Looking at his watch as he stopped the clock, Bobby proclaimed, “A new World Record, by Bobby Mason! School to home in only five minutes and twenty-two seconds!”

He made sounds of a roaring crowd as he fumbled with his key and pseudo-bowed to his fans. “Thank-you! Thank-you! If not for my mom banning late night TV, I may never have learned to run this fast.”

As he pushed the house-key into the door, it swung open without him ever turning the knob. Bobby stepped back, and the thrill of winning the race instantly vanished. Why isn’t the door locked? he thought peeking into his empty home.

He inched across the threshold. “Mom! Are you home? Hello?”

Pausing for a moment, Bobby looked behind him. The street and driveway were empty of cars, and with a quick peek down the house, he noticed the garage door remained closed. He swallowed the lump in his throat and bravely stepped into the house threatening emptiness, “If anyone is here, you’d better run out the back door. I’m armed and dangerous!”

“Me too.”

The voice from behind the front door caused Bobby to spin around as the door slammed shut. From his dress and build, the man looked as intimidating as Bobby’s teacher, but this man's eyes were nothing like anything Bobby had ever seen. They were nothing like the eyes of the evil villains in any video game, Bobby had played. Instead these eyes filled him with an unknown fear. He tried turning to run, but it was too late, a crackling noise came with the man’s hand up to Bobby’s ribcage.

A stunning jolt of electrical energy scattered through his body, incapacitating every nerve along its way. As Bobby collapsed to the floor, he felt the energized stun gun move up his body to the back of his neck. Bobby’s brain screamed with pain, begged his body to run, pleaded with his lungs to yell for help, but his short-circuited body only obeyed the hundreds of thousands of volts which caused it to twitch and flop like a fish out of water.

Who are you? Trembling.

Why are you hurting me? Twisting.

I am only twelve? Quivering.

What did I do? Stillness.

The electrical shocks stopped taking with it the involuntary body movements and left Bobby motionless on the ground. He could clearly hear and see a strip of duct tape being pulled from a new roll. The man pushed it roughly onto Bobby’s mouth and rolled it around his head twice before tearing the piece from the roll. Next Bobby felt his face shoved into the floor as his wrists were secured tightly together with tape behind his back. By the time he started to regain control of his body, his ankles were also bound together.

Bobby felt his fingers move, tried to pry his arms apart, and began to kick his legs wildly, but now that his brain could move his limbs, they were too restrained for it to matter. Screams emerged from the tape as small whimpers and tears flowed continuously from his eyes.

Fearful thoughts of the reasons this man was doing this popped across Bobby’s mind. The constant question of what he had done wrong echoed every question of why with a what.

Horrendous pain sent a ghastly scream from lungs to be muffled to nothingness through the duct tape. Shoulder joints popped like twin gunshots, as the man lifted Bobby by his bound wrists. Arms stretched fully over the back of his head, Bobby’s vision went black from the simultaneous dislocation of his shoulders. He felt himself being dragged headfirst across the carpet as consciousness faded in and out.

From carpet to a tile floor, Bobby faintly heard a door opening and saw the garage stairs for a brief instant before being dragged down them. Knees stung once bringing him to his senses, twice blacking the world out, then a third drop onto the garage floor brought reality back. He could see passing by tires and a car but knew Mom wasn’t home from work yet.

The man let go of his arms, and he plummeted facefirst into the hard concrete. The rancid smell and salty taste of blood gagged Bobby as his nose busted in an explosion of blood. He heard more noises and then the man’s arms scooped Bobby up, callously tossing him into a trunk. Bobby gazed up in his agonizing stupor, seeing only hate in the eyes of the man above him a second before the trunk slammed shut.

The oblivion of complete unconsciousness overtook little Bobby, and for a brief moment the pain evaporated. When he finally awoke, his eyes flickered slowly from salty crust at their corners pulling to keep them closed.
Blurred vision and a dullness of nerves allowed Bobby one last brief instance of innocence, but at the same time his eyes focused onto unfamiliar surroundings the excruciating pain of his dislocated shoulders brought him to reality. Trying to move, he found himself bound to a chair, but with duct tape no longer covering his mouth, and he screamed out for help.

A fist slammed into the left side of his face, fracturing his young, tender cheek bone. “Every time you make a loud noise I hit you. The louder the noise the harder I hit you. Do you understand?”

Bobby blinked rapidly on the brink of passing out. He looked at the man before him, nodding with fear.

Firepower, he tried to shoot flames from his eyes.

Windpower, he envisioned a gust of wind blowing the bad man away.

Invisibility, he just wanted to disappear.

“My name is George. We’ve never met, but your father and my wife, Sarah, met almost just like this though,” the voice spoke the words in a steady monotone that normally would bore a twelve-year-old to sleep.

Bobby, however, found himself wide awake attempting to figure out what this George was talking about. “I don’t know my daddy.”

“Don’t know him? Aren’t you lucky? Still his blood is your blood though, and that means you would grow up to be the same psychopathic, murdering rapist as him. I am here to stop that.” As George babbled nonsense, he brought a knife out from behind his back.

“What? Wait! What?” Bobby felt his bladder open with fear, and the warmth of pee filled his pants.

George’s voice never varied from its boring tone. He used the flat edge of the knife to wipe tears from Bobby’s face. “No hurry. You still have four minutes. See I want you to meet your daddy. I want you to know him. He raped my wife. He killed my wife. Right here in our bedroom.”

“Why me? What did I ever do wrong? I eat my green beans.” Bobby’s young mind tried in vain to decipher what the man was trying to tell him.

“Because of your Daddy. Not what you did wrong; what you would have done in twenty years. I don’t like green beans.” For the first time George’s eyes shifted, and his voice showed some fluctuation as he spoke of the green beans.

“I promise, I’ll do my homework for now on. I won’t watch the bad TV any more. Where’s Mommy? I wet my pants.” Bobby started to wail as he looked between his legs.

Slam! George’s fist smashed directly into the center of Bobby’s face. The cartilage of his nose shattered and blood filled his sinus cavities. Consciousness wandered off once again.

Cold, wet pain suddenly snapped Bobby back as a glass of isopropyl alcohol splashed in his face. The sting of alcohol made him want to scream again, but the fumes choked any hope for noise as Bobby gasped for air.

“No loud noises, Robert. Your dad took away my hopes for a son, and now, I am taking away his son. Do you know your aunt? Uncle? Cousins? Grandparents? They’ll join you soon enough.”

Bobby could see nothing through his alcohol-burned eyes. “Die. Super Combo, escape move. A, Y, Y, Z. Mommy, where are you? I can’t beat the game. Mommy?”

“Mommy can’t help you. No combos left Robert. Would you like to count down with me?”

“No! No! Please! Please! I’ll be good. I’ll never be bad.” Fear overrode pain, and for a moment Bobby felt nothing.

“Ten.”

“Ten?”

“Nine.”

“What?”

“Eight.”

“Wait!”

“Seven.”

“I will…”

“Six.”

“Do anything…”

“Five.”

“The Game…”

“Four.”

“Can’t…”

“Three.”

“Be over.”

“Two.”

Tears replaced any final words.

“One.”

The knife never really hurt as it sliced a deep crevice across Bobby’s throat. Pain flowed away from Bobby with the river of blood exiting his small body. With each pump of his tiny heart, the river shrank, but Bobby no longer felt fear, no longer felt pain. Then with a final beat, Bobby was no longer.

******

George approached her tombstone with fresh Zinnias and replaced the day-old ones. He felt less sad than the day before. Looking at the beautiful marble stone, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at the water stains under Sarah’s name, “Did it rain last night, Sarah?”

“I feel better today. I ate a big breakfast, and think I might gain a little of that weight I’ve lost back. I still have a long way to go though. Soon, that man’s blood will no longer be here to hurt anyone else.

“I may not have the time to stop by everyday. This monthly tradition needs a lot of work for me to continue, but don’t worry about me. I’m learning to live with your loss. My life is going on. I love you Sarah.”

******

Nearly two years later, George killed the seventeen people he found to be related to Robert. Only Robert remained, and in his last day of court when he was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, George did what needed to be done to finish his revenge. As he broke Robert out of jail, George hoped he didn't seriously injure or kill any of the guards, but if there were to be collateral damages then that was just the way it would have to be.

Robert never knew what happened, as a needle was shoved into his neck while he was being kidnapped.

******

Robert struggled in darkness. His hands secured firmly behind his back. Feet strapped tightly together. His mouth covered as were his eyes with duct tape. His thoughts screamed within his head, I’m going to cut your guts out and make you eat them, motherfucker.

He felt a booted foot slam into his ribcage and lift him nearly a foot into the air. As he fell back to the ground, laughter taunted into his ears. “Robert, how does it feel to know your time has come?”

Another kick raised Robert off the ground. As he landed this time, he felt a knee dig into the small of his back, and a hand grab a handful of his hair. Grunts of pain pounded to be released from behind the duct tape as his head was pulled up into a unnatural back bend.

He felt nails from another hand claw to dig under the tape covering his eyes. When the fingers got a grip on the tape they ripped brows and lashes. His red eyes glared forward into a tombstone less than a foot away. Grooves, from what looked like centuries of rain, made the dates and epitaph under the name illegible.

The name, however, was very familiar; Sarah F King. Of the four women he killed this was the only one he regretted. Because of her, he spent nearly two years behind bars as he wasted time in a useless trial. Before he could reminisce any further, his face was slammed into the ground.

“Remember her! Remember what you did?” Robert recognized the voice of George King.

“I remember her begging!”

His face was repeatedly smashed into the ground and the knee in his back dug in deeper and harder. The pain hurt for a moment, then wonderful endorphins flooded his blood and pleasure came from each pounding. Oh George, my dad beat me harder than this when I was five.

“You think she begged as much as your mom? As your sister? Or what about your son?” With each question Robert’s felt a fist pound into the back of his head. With each question and hit, the pain only became less as his anger increased.

“You’re responsible for my family’s disappearance?” Robert’s voice was gritty from the dirt and grass filling his mouth.

“Killed every part of your gene pool I could find, you son of a bitch! And now I am going to kill you!”

Robert saw a knife in front of his face, and he felt the nearness of death. Of all the emotions rolling in his body, fear wasn’t there. He knew and accepted being the embodiment of evil. Learning to hide emotions early in life, made Robert cold and heartless, and in situations such as this gave him an advantage over whoever was trying to do him harm. “Then what?”

He heard George’s confusion, “What?”

“Then what? When you kill me. Then What? Where does your life go from there?” The knee eased slightly and the hand holding his hair let loose.

“Game Over, asshole! I win!” From the top of his eye Robert saw the knife moving closer yet slower.

“Game just begins. Once you kill me, you become me.” The knife stopped moving.

“What? I’ll never be you!” The knife falls in front of Robert’s face and he feels George stand.

“Cold, heartless, killer you are George.” One kick. Two kick. Robert heard ribs crack.

George rolled Robert over and pulled him up by the shirt. Spit flew into his calm face with each word. “No! I kill you and it is over! I win!”

“No, no. I win because I become you.” Robert could smell death now, and the smell oozed from the man atop of him.

“I’ll never be you!” More spit. Then George slammed Robert to the ground and stood to pace in small circles.

“You are killing an innocent unarmed man who can’t defend himself. You’re me, cause that is what I kill. Only way to be more is to cut me free. Kill me when I can defend myself.” George stopped to stare at Robert’s lips moving with each word.

George shock his head in confusion. Again he paced and then begin kicking Robert over and over. “I am not you! I am not you! You started this!”

And I am going to finish it. Robert felt the kicks getting weaker, with the intensity of revenge being replaced with grief and guilt.

“I’ll kill you! I am going to watch you’re fucking life leave your eyes!” George kneeled down grabbing the knife and cut at the tape of Robert’s ankles and wrists.

Robert fought the urge to rush things. George still had the knife, and his body was stiff from being bound and beaten. “Kick and beat a tied up man. Kill his family, and you really think you are the good guy? You think you are different than me?”

“I am nothing like you!” George turned his back to Robert as he screamed in frustration.

His left hand grabbed at dirt and grass as Robert slowly stood. “You are becoming just like me. Killing is killing. That power of taking an innocent life, and knowing you are God is the ultimate isn’t it?”

“No! No! You’re wrong! I am only killing to save others, to prevent what you did to Sarah from ever happening again. I am not killing innocent lives.”

George kept his back to Robert, but still grasping the knife tightly Robert paused an attack. He knew he had the advantage, but revenge and anger was a powerful ally. Guilt on the other hand brought the strongest of men down, so Robert plagued George with as much as he could. “If you can think back to another time, long ago, when you had a wife and had friends, family. They would have stuck up for you. Not now. Welcome to my world. How many of my family said good things about me? Stuck up for what I did? Any of them? I am sure my own mother said anything kind. Now you have become me. Alone! Disowned! Without anyone!”

Robert watched as every word he spoke tortured George. His hands pulled at his hair with the knife barely staying in his grip. When he turned to face his wife’s killer, George’s eyes were blank orbs. Not only were the eyes void of gleam and love of living, but lacked the dark shine from the rage of revenge. “Why did you kill her? Why couldn’t you have killed me? Why?”

“She passed by me on the street, and I liked the way she smelled. Until the trail I never noticed you, but now I smile because I know my work inspired me to live on. Once you kill me I’ll be immortal. You’ll be me, I’ll be you.”

For an instance, life appeared in George’s eyes; a lost life which the owner had given up on. The reaction he had to Robert’s words proved to surprise even Robert. “No! I am Not! You.”

The knife moved with blinding speed, and if it had been intended for him, Robert never would have had time to react. The blade stabbed into George’s own throat, and in his final movement, he slashed his own jugular. A spray of blood spewed out and covered Robert’s face before collapsed to his knees.

The vision his eyes saw before darkness overcame them was Sarah’s tombstone. With one last thought, he collapsed onto her grave and died, Are those tears, Sarah?

“Holy shit!” Robert stared at the body at his feet in disbelief. He dropped the grass and dirt from his hand: a little disappointed he never got to blind George with it so he could kill him.

Reaching to grab the knife, Robert paused to stare at the head stone. Water flowed from Sarah’s name, and for the first time in his life, he felt something other than hate. A twinge of sorrow touched his soul for the briefest of moments. A drop of rain landed on the back of his neck, and goose bumps covered his body as another unfamiliar emotion, fear, entered his veins.

He jumped up, spinning, knife held outward, and it swiped only air. Dark Clouds covered the sky and all light. Bolts of lightning lit his surroundings, striking nearby light posts eliminating all other light sources. Rain fell with monsoon intensity which Robert had never imagined.

Then as fast as it started the rain and lightning stopped, leaving Robert drenched in water which washed the blood from him. His eyes strained in complete darkness, and licking his lips of the moisture, a salty and acidic taste stung his taste buds.

The clouds parted with a pure white light which hurt Robert’s eyes. As he blinked to adjust to its blindness, he stared into it watching as a beautiful winged figure glided to the ground.

The angelic woman before him encompassed every aspect of beauty. Nothing was flawed, from her perfect toes, long legs curving out to lovely hips which curved in to a tight waist. Perfection continued up and out to her chest and out stretched arms. Wings of silky white feathers emerged from shoulder blades and add the perfect backdrop for the angel’s face.

Sarah’s face before Robert had beat and cut it, flawless and glowing framed with blonde hair. Her blue eyes sparkled, and Robert found himself lost in awe of her beauty. Thoughts of lust never crossed his mind as he stared at the nude body of perfection. He felt content just looking upon such wonder, and he smiled happiness.

His eyes locked on a golden halo floating inches above angelic Sarah’s head. Her mouth open and an incomparable soothing voice emerged. “Robert, you lost soul. You brought so much pain and hate to everyone your life touched. You lacked forgiveness and passed this on to those you ruined.

Robert listened transfixed on the harmony the sound of her voice brought him. He paid no attention to the words, just found such pleasure in its sound. He saw the Halo above her head break in half, turn black and vanish. The pleasance of an angelic voice faded fast as it started cracking with hurt.

“You killed me, but that was nothing compared to what you did to my husband. He lacked hatred. He never harmed anyone, and you made him destroy so many lives. You blurred his vision, turned him against himself.” With each word a feather from her wings broke off and floated upward.

Robert fell backwards in horror, as the perfect angel before him decomposed into a rotting demon. Her flawless skin opened up in gashes and slashes his own knife created moments before Sarah died. Her porcelain face turned dark blue and black as bruises appeared and tore the flesh from her bones. Sparkling blue eyes melted out of their sockets leaving giant black holes staring back at Robert. Within moments all the feathers had left the elegant wings and their skeletal remains flapped around the transformed shape.

Nothing remained of the angel, even her voice completely different. From eloquently harmonious to seethingly discordant, when she spoke again fear overloaded Robert’s senses and he cowered on his knees.

“My love had only one thing to live for. To take your life. To kill you with his own hands. Yet you somehow talked him out of that. Pushed guilt on him till he did the unforgivable and took his own life. You will not live to see another day. You will not live to destroy any one else. I’ll go to Hell to end your life!” As Sarah screamed, spit sprayed from her mouth burning into Robert’s flesh as it splattered on him.

The trepidation Robert felt filled him with unknown urges, but he listened to and followed lost knowledge buried from a lifetime of hate and destruction. While Sarah screamed her disgust, he began praying aloud. “Jesus! Please! I have lived a life so lost. I never knew there was such beauty to live for. No one ever showed me, told me. Jesus, please.”

Sarah overheard Robert’s sobbing pleas over her screams. She paused looking at him in shock. She laughed. “Now, as death is upon you.”

Robert no longer heard anything the hideous Sarah spoke to him. His eyes closed to hide the sight of her, as he continued begging. “I lived my life all the wrong ways. People told me of you, but until I saw an angel tonight, I thought it was only people talking. But now, now I know. You are God and you are full of might and grace. Please, oh please forgive me.”

As he begged and prayed, his hands covered his head. With what were once fingernails, Sarah slashed down with her now sharp talons. His hands offered little defense, and Robert screamed in agony as he felt claws slice through his hands and into his head.

Two fingers fell in front of him, and blood poured down his forehead stinging eyes that opened from the pain above. “Jesus save me. Please save me. I can live such a better life, I can help so many see their wrong. Please save me!”

Sarah reached down and picked him up by the throat. The deep dark sockets that used to be eyes stared at Robert sobbing begging form. “Look at me!”

His eyes continued looking downward. “Look at me!”

Her other hand backhanded Robert across the face. “Look at me!”

His eyes looked into those bottomless sockets. “Please save me.”

“No one can save you now. You are dead!” The skeletal wings reached from behind her and grabbed Robert by his elbows, raising them high above his head. The hand holding his throat opened its grip. A sharp talon sliced from his head to genitals in one smooth stroke, and before he could scream in agony, Robert was pulled into two pieces.

Eyes, three feet apart, rolled around one last time, and Sarah grinned with her lipless mouth as she watched the life leave them. Light filled the space between Robert’s halves, and she watched as his soul appeared. Her eye sockets grew blacker as she watched the light beam up through the clouds. Robert’s smile stretched from Earth to Heaven as he was lifted rapidly away from Sarah. Her wings let go of the two halves as she wailed in agony seeing the vision before her.

“Why?!” She screamed skyward.

She never expected nor received an answer. With a brief hesitation she looked down at her grave. Forsaking Heaven, Sarah Feone King, embraced the flames engulfing her body and dragging her to Hell. “I am coming to spend eternity with you my love.”