0300 Book 1 - 7. Chapter 7:Obedience

Chapter 7: Obedience!

We had been trained in instant obedience for so long that Matthew did not hesitate, but walked quickly to the door. I jumped up, for in Deacon Jerome, I saw darkness, but it was too late. The door closed behind Matthew, and the lock snapped.

The light went off as it did each day. It was the signal to be in bed and asleep. I sat up, waiting, vowing that I would be there when Matthew returned. I found that I could not stay awake, but I woke when the door opened. I had barely opened my eyes when the door closed, again, leaving me in darkness.

“Matthew?” I whispered. A cry as plaintive and pathetic as I’d ever heard answered me. Matthew, for I knew it was he, rushed into my arms. I pulled him to me, and we lay together. His body shook with sobs.

“Matthew, what happened? Did he hurt you?”

Matthew did not answer, but kept crying. I could feel his tears dripping onto my chest. I held him with one arm and with the other rubbed his back gently. I didn’t know what to say, so I just whispered, “Shh, shh,” over and over again. At last, his crying stopped.

“He made me suck him,” Matthew said. “And then he fucked me. It hurt! I cried and told him, but he hit me and hit me and pushed his penis into me harder and harder. It hurt! Hamish! I want to die!”

I thought furiously while repeating, “Shh, shh.” Then, I said, “Matthew, I told you that I loved you. Please don’t die. That would make me feel awfully bad. Please, Matthew, please want to live so that we can find a way to escape.”

This was the first time I’d thought of escaping from this place. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. Besides, there was something I had to do before I could leave.

I told Andrew what had happened. He shrugged; then, he must have seen something in my face. “Hamish, it happens. It happens to all of us. You’ve not seen the bruises.”

He pulled his robe up, and turned around. I saw. “Who?” I whispered.

Andrew dropped his robe. “Doesn’t matter. It could have been any of them. Some hit harder than others.”

“But Jerome! He’s not a Reverend—”

“Don’t you know who he is?” Andrew asked.

I shook my head.

“He’s the Scudder’s son.”

The room darkened, and then went black. I woke to find Andrew holding me so that I didn’t fall.

“The Scudder’s son?”

“Yes,” Andrew said. “By a . . . you must never say this, but by one of the girls. It happens, sometimes. Usually the baby is aborted. Sometimes, the girl is killed—it’s easier that way. This time, it was allowed to live.”

“He’s had most of us, usually right after we get here. While we’re still young. Once you can make seed, he doesn’t want you any more. I think he killed Jeremy a couple of years ago. Jeremy had just started making seed. Jerome took him one night. Jeremy never came back. Jerome has never reserved boys like you and Matthew, though.”

My fear deepened, but there was a more immediate problem. “What about Matthew?” I asked.

“I will ask that Matthew be examined for damage, but that’s all I can do. I’m sorry.”

I knew Andrew was telling the truth, and nodded. “Thank you.”

I told Matthew only that Andrew would arrange for him to be examined and treated. I kept the rest of what I’d learned to myself.

One of the men in green came to our quarters. Andrew followed him in. Matthew was reluctant to be examined, but acquiesced when Andrew told him how important it was to make sure he wasn’t torn.

The man in green produced a number of instruments, which he gently inserted in Matthew’s anus. Matthew cried, but I held his hand. Neither Andrew nor the man in green remarked on that.

“He’s physically fine,” the man said after returning the instruments to a black, leather bag. “Soft food for a few days and call the Senior if anyone asks for him in less than ten days.” He said this last to Andrew, who nodded.

It was four days after Jerome had raped Matthew, and I think about six months after the televisor had shown us the battle near Las Vegas. The boys were abuzz.

“It was Artie!” one of the boys said.

“No way!” another said.

“The Reverend who fucked me last night said it,” the first one said. “He even asked me if I knew him, and what would make a good boy like him turn against the Lord God.”

“What did you say?”

“What do you think I said? That he got tired of being fucked in the ass by a smelly, hairy old bastard? Of course not! I said I thought I might have seen him around, but didn’t know him, and that he must have been seduced by Satan. What else?”

It took a while for everyone to calm down and the story to unfold. It seems that a boy, like us, one of us, had escaped to a place called California, and then come back as a member of an army that was trying to attack Las Vegas. Andrew didn’t have to tell any of us not to say a word about it.

Escaped, I thought. Someone’s done it, before.

The next day, I told Andrew about my plans. Well, only the second plan. The first plan I told no one.

“Andrew, Matthew and I are going to escape from this place. I want you to tell me everything you can think of to help us.”

“I’ve never asked you where you and Matthew came from,” Andrew said. “But I know that no matter where it was, you traveled through days of desert to get here. Las Vegas is in the middle of a great desert. There’s no food, no water, no shelter for hundreds of miles in every direction. Even if you escaped this compound, even if you were able to leave the city, you’d die.”

“Artie was able to do it. How?”

“I don’t know, Hamish. Artie was the favorite of a Reverend from somewhere in Utah. I think maybe the Reverend thought he could take Artie home with him. Of course, that would have been as impossible as escaping from here. Still, Artie disappeared one day. The Reverend may have taken him in a motorcar. He may have put him on a train. Somehow, Artie got away. That’s all.”

I knew he was telling the truth, although I didn’t know how I knew. I knew it as well as I knew that he wouldn’t report me for what I’d said to him. I’m going to have to find some other way, I thought.

Deacon Jerome didn’t watch us bathe for at least a week after he raped Matthew. Then, he was back. I asked Andrew about the baths. He reminded me that the other boys bathed elsewhere, in a larger facility. “I don’t know why you’re still—”

“I know why,” I said. “It’s Jerome. He wants Matthew, again. Can you stop him? What about that senior the eunuch said?”

“Dammit, Hamish! I have fifty boys to protect. As the eldest, I have a little influence, but I have to spend it wisely. If I called the senior every time a boy was raped or beaten, I’d have been removed from here long ago. I can call the senior only in matters of life and death, and—I’m sorry—but Matthew doesn’t qualify.

“I don’t know why you and Matthew haven’t been moved into the boys’ quarters. I don’t know why you are still being bathed separately. All I can guess is that Deacon Jerome has some hidden plan for you, and that kind of hidden thing—I just can’t fight it.”

“It’s not hidden,” I said. “He wants Matthew! His father expects him to fuck girls and make him a grandson, but Jerome wants—” I must have turned pale.

“How do you know that?” Andrew asked. “How do you know what The Scudder wants? And just what does Jerome want, what you were about to tell me. And how do you know that?”

I did not want to lie to Andrew, but if I told him the truth I would be exposed as a witch, and would be burned—or worse. “I cannot tell you,” I said.

“Then I will tell you,” Andrew said. “You know what Jerome is thinking, when he thinks really hard.” Just as you know what I’m thinking, now. And just as I know what you are thinking.

The blackness came, again. This time, I didn’t fall. I pushed the blackness away, I struck out at it, and saw it tear. I saw Andrew jerk back, put up his hand, and cry out, “Stop, Hamish, you’re hurting me!”

Andrew sat for a moment. I gave him water. His breathing slowed.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“I pushed at the darkness,” I said.

Andrew and I talked for a long time. When one of the others came looking for us, Andrew dismissed him with instructions that Robin was to take charge.

Andrew knew about hearing people’s thoughts. He thought he was the only one. He didn’t know about hurting someone with thoughts. We were afraid to try that, though.

“You are right to be afraid,” he said. “I’m always afraid I’ll say something or do something that will give away what I am, or that a real witch or wizard will find me. Now, you have that to fear as well as Deacon Jerome.”

Those words made my timetable move up. I knew how to do my first task. But how to escape? That was still unknown.

Deacon Jerome dismissed us from our lesson. Matthew left the room immediately as I had told him. He was reluctant, and afraid, but I made him promise on our love. I hated doing that, because I knew that what I was about to do was a betrayal of that love, because I might die.

When the door closed behind Matthew, Deacon Jerome said, “Didn’t you hear? You’re dismissed.”

“You like to see me naked and wet,” I said. “I like to be naked and wet. I don’t need to know everything that you know to know that means something.” I giggled.

Jerome looked at me.

“Do you know what you are asking?”

“Yes, Deacon Jerome. I also know that you are closer to the Lord God than I, and that I am not worthy to be the receptacle of your seed, but I very much want to be.”

“Jesus H. Christ, boy, I think you’re serious,” the Deacon said. “Come with me.”

I followed Deacon Jerome through the hallways to his quarters. He waved me through a door and into a bedroom.

“Drop your robe, boy,” he said.

I pulled my robe over my head and tossed it into a corner. Despite my fear, my penis was erect. Thank—not the Scudder, I thought. But thank something I can be erect!

Deacon Jerome looked at me, his eyes sweeping from the top of my head to my feet. Then, he beckoned, and I walked to him until I stood only inches from him. He put his arms around me and pulled me to him. I looked up as his face bent down and his lips found mine.

I remembered the lessons in kissing, and opened my lips to his tongue. When it retreated, and I felt a pull from him, I pushed my tongue between his lips and moved it around his mouth.

He gasped, and released me. “You have been well taught, boy.”

I felt something from him, and dared to say, “Deacon Jerome, my name is Hamish.”

He froze for a moment, and then laughed. “You know that I have known that, boy. You are brave, too,” he said. And then, “Hamish. That’s a Scottish name. Are you from Scotland?”

“I don’t know, sir. Does it make a difference?” I put my arms around him, and pulled us together. I rested my head on his chest. “Does it really matter?”

I felt his excitement and his lust. I could almost hear his thoughts: This boy is going to be the one, I know it! The little one is softer, but he’s a crybaby. This one? He’s stronger, he’s eager.

“The little one cried and screamed and begged. Are you going to cry, boy?”

“Only if you want, Reverend,” I said.

“You called me Reverend,” the deacon said.

I mumbled an um hum into his chest.

“Someday, soon, I will be a Reverend. When my father dies, I will become The Scudder. Did you know that my father is The Scudder?” he asked.

“No, Reverend Jerome,” I lied.

The deacon released me, and stepped back. He sat on the edge of the bed.

“Well, he is, and I will be the next Scudder.”

I felt the uncertainty and the hope in his mind. I also sensed the tension between him and his father, and between his father and the Council of Reverends, although I didn’t understand any of these things. I also felt his lust, and suggested that he allow me to undress him.

One of the boys had described the Reverend who had fucked Artie as old, smelly, and fat. Deacon Jerome was not old or fat, but he did smell. I suggested a bath, reminding him of the “hard and wet” experience, but he wanted a blowjob immediately. I managed not to gag when I took him deeply into my mouth. Fortunately, he was quick to cum. Fortunately, his cum was scant. I managed not to upchuck. I think that knowing how important it was, I managed not to upchuck.

Once he’d gotten his rocks off, as he thought, it wasn’t hard to convince him to bath with me. I used a loofa to scrub him thoroughly, and then suggested he should treat me the same. He hesitated, but only for a moment, before applying the loofa to my body. He’s got a lot of years in him, especially if he gets castrated in, what, two or three years? I heard him think.

I realized, then, just what I’d gotten myself into. I don’t know if it was fear or anger, but I pushed away from Deacon Jerome.

“No! No! You’re not going to turn me into one of them!” I thought of the eunuchs. I thought of Matthew, and what had been done to him. I thought of the other boys who had to submit to the Reverends. I thought of the girls, whom I knew were in the same situation as the boys. I thought of Artie, who had escaped. I thought of the picture of the First Scudder with the flame of the Holy Spirit around him. I thought of Matthew’s thought that I, too, was surrounded by the flame of the Holy Spirit, and I lashed out at Deacon Jerome. I focused all my hate into a thought, and pushed it at him.

Deacon Jerome took two steps back, and stared at me. I pushed hatred at him, and watched as blood squirted from his nose. I watched as he fell to the floor. I watched and heard as he died, and I cursed him in my mind to live forever in Hell.

I dried myself with a towel, and then took my robe from the corner where I’d tossed it, donned it, and left the Deacon’s quarters. It took a few minutes to find our room, but when I did, Matthew was waiting. He rushed at me, and I had no choice but to hug him.

“Deacon Jerome won’t be bothering anyone, ever again,” I said.

“The doctor said it was a massive cere . . . cerebral hemorrhage,” one of the boys said.

“More likely a curse,” another offered.

Deacon Jerome’s death was the only topic of conversation the next evening. Matthew and I had reported that morning to the classroom, but were intercepted by a man in green, who told is that the deacon was dead, and that we would be living in the boys’ quarters from now on.

“What do you mean, a curse?” someone asked.

“He did something bad,” the first boy said. “Remember that people are cursed unto the seventh generation.”

A boy, bolder than the others, said, “Maybe that means his father, the Scudder, was cursed and he was cursed for that.”

There were shocked expressions on the faces of most of the boys. Then, Andrew spoke.

“You’ve been told that a man’s seed is cursed because Adam sinned. You’ve been told that a man’s seed can be purified in you, a holy vessel. You’ve been told that alcohol is poison. You’ve been told a lot of things.

“Most of these things are lies. That’s all I’m going to say, except that Robin is now the senior boy because Hamish, Matthew, and I are going to leave this place.”

He looked around the room. “We are going to leave but only to find a way to come back, to return and rescue you—and the girls. This is a secret you must keep, a secret that you may share only with new boys after they have earned your trust as you have earned mine.”

He held out his hand. “Come Hamish and Matthew. We have a long way to go.”

John, named for John of Patmos, drove the motorcar. “They’ll not miss us until morning,” he said. “Perhaps not until late morning, but we can’t take that chance. By morning, we’ll be close to California. You will leave the motorcar before we can be seen from the border station, and will walk across the border through the mountains. I will turn back, and lead them on a wild goose chase.”

He looked at Matthew and me in the mirror, and chuckled. “You don’t know wild goose chase? Trust me—it will take their minds off the three of you.”

“Two,” Andrew said. “I will join you on the wild goose chase. That will distract them even more.”

I knew what Andrew was promising: that he would try to keep the Reverends from tracking us—at the risk of his own life.

“Andrew! You can’t do that,” I said.

“Actually,” he said. “Actually, I can. I know my fate, but yours is hidden from me.”

“What do you mean?” I demanded.

“Do not ask, Hamish, but give me the gift of your trust as I give you the gift of my life. You know that I know you killed Jerome. You know that I know you see more than most. We are different, but we are also alike.”

My words were pushed through tears. I saw as much as, perhaps more than. Andrew. “Andrew, I give you my trust and my love,” I said. “I hope that you will be safe, and I will look for you to come, someday from now.”

The man in green stopped the motorcar. “Around that curve is the California border. It is guarded by men with guns, and more. There—” he pointed, “is a trail that will take you past the border guards and into a valley. Once you reach there, ask anyone to take you to The Don. They will know what you mean. Then, tell him your story—all of it. Leave out nothing, do you understand?”

His words were sharp, and laden with hidden meanings.

“I understand,” I said. “And I will make sure Matthew understands as well, for he is now my responsibility.”

I looked at the man in green. “John, I know you will likely die for what you have done for us, but we shall remember you.”

The man chuckled. “I would ask that you remember not only me but my fellows, for they too conspired to make this day happen.”

“You mean the one who fondled us in the bath” Matthew said.

“They did what was expected of them,” John said. “They kept up the charade—the pretending—so that we might reach this day. Now, time is upon us. Go, and remember.”

At first, I was worried that we’d been turned loose in a strange and hostile environment without anything but our robes and sandals. However, the trail was clear, and once we passed the summit we found springs that gave us fresh, sweet, and cold water. We reached a valley by late afternoon, and found someone to take us to the Don before suppertime.

“You’re from the other side of the mountain,” he said. There was no question or hesitation in his voice. Maybe it was because of what we were wearing: no one else was in robes and sandals.

“Yes, my Lord,” I said. Matthew only nodded.

The man chuckled. “Do not call me lord,” he said. “If you call me Don Renaldo, that will be sufficient.

I answered his questions: who were we, where were we from, how did we get here. I remembered that John had said to tell the Don everything. He did not seem surprised when I told him how I had killed Deacon Jerome.

“We heard that there was some confusion in Las Vegas, and that the Scudder was angry enough to curse the entire council. We also heard they didn’t take that very well, and that there will likely be a new Scudder before tomorrow.”

Then, he asked, “What do you want to happen, now?”

“Don Renaldo, I have not thought farther ahead than our escape. That has happened, but there is unfinished business in Las Vegas. The two who helped us escape are probably dead. If they are not, they will be soon. There are perhaps a hundred boys and girls who are captives of the Reverends. They, too, need to be rescued. And the men in green? Even they.”

Don Renaldo nodded his head. “You are good boys. I agree that there is unfinished business where you came from. And, I think you need to know more about that before we create plans.

“This is what will happen. You will attend school and learn about the world—the reverends and their world as well as the world outside their influence. With that knowledge as well as your knowledge of Las Vegas, you will help create a plan to destroy them.

“This is not an overnight thing. It is likely that boys you know will suffer indignities, even death, while we prepare. Still it is important, even critical, that we prepare.”

“Any questions?”