True As It Can Be - 19. Chapter 19

I needed to get back to Campus. I needed to get help. I needed to…breathe as the weight of everything became overwhelming. All I had was Morris, who was too drunk to drive, and the StrikeLight taser, which I’ve kept inside my jacket’s inner pocket as Mrs. Potter had instructed. Its metal tip flashlight head and metal back, along with the taser function, were strong for defensive action, but I can’t face down a dozen of Gary’s student watch guys alone.

All of my issues came down to one fact, I made a horrible mistake trusting a text message and leaving the house without reminding Brad to grab his spare keys I left in the bushes. I was caught up by Brad’s emotional issues this morning, then focused on Chip’s depressive state. I ignored all the warnings in my mind about the text message from Morris. Brad and I should have questioned why Morris needed to come by or called him using a phone’s anachronistic function rather than trust in a line of text for identity. The lack of Gary Gaston’s appearance in the last 2 days and the comfortable holiday atmosphere allowed our guards to be lowered toward a friend in need.

Sammy noticed my shock and asked me to tell him what was wrong. I explained everything to him about Brad, Keller Hall, Gary Gaston, and the danger my friends were in because I made a horrible error in judgment. He didn’t appear to be fazed by my revelations, but instead grabbed his cellphone and asked me to repeat everything. He recorded my explanation, which was strange, but I didn’t question his rationale as I needed his assistance to get back to Campus. When I was done explaining what I suspected was happening, he made a few swipes and taps on his phone, then laid it back down on the bar counter. I notice the phone screen showed that the name “Dad” was on the screen.

After a brief pause, a brusque voice boom, “Sammy, is your friend Beau planning on going back there right now?”

I answer without prompting, “Yes sir, I don’t want to intrude or put Sammy in danger, but I need to head back. My friend Morris can’t drive right now. He’s…” I held back from saying drunk as we were all legally underage to drink alcohol and I didn’t want Sammy to get in trouble, so I used the truth, “…too distraught since he learned that he was going to be a father.”

Sammy chimes in, “I can drive him back to Campus, dad. I’ll cover his back. I’ve heard stories about Gary Gaston as well. I know he’s well-connected to a lot of top brass and stuff, so I’m not sure if you can call a few guys to help.”

Sammy’s father snorts, “Sammy, son, remember I’m John Abrams, a Lieutenant of the Special Tactical and Operations Team. My guys are the first ones called in when AR-15’s and bombs are going off. Do you honestly think I would be afraid of some fucking rich rapist, his political friends, or fuck even the Governor? If half of what your friend is saying is true, I must help those people. I’ll bring up every squad member available right now. Keep your phone charged and record everything that’s going on. Even if the bastard can get a pardon from the governor for whatever shit he’s pulling, all his accomplices have to be held accountable to the law.”

I stare in shock and turn to Sammy, “Is your dad for real? What in the hell is the Special Tactical and Operations Team?”

Sammy smirks, “Yes, he’s real. I think most people just think of my dad’s team as our state’s version of the SWAT team, like the state’s version of special forces.”

After speaking with the owner of the Hangar pub, Sammy, me, and a sobering Morris left. Sammy drove a nice Toyota Corolla with all the bells and whistles. We spoke briefly in the car about what to expect at Keller Hall. He had his dad on the car’s speakerphone. I mentioned to Sammy and his dad that I had a registered taser in my coat pocket. Sammy indicated he had a registered stun gun and several cartridges, along with pepper spray, which he offered Morris. With these defensive items in our possession, Sammy’s dad provided us additional instructions on how not to be provoked into offensive actions, which were illegal. Sammy gave me a body mini-cam, which he instructed me to hook onto my jacket because I’d likely be the person to witness the most as I knew Keller Hall’s layout. He also showed me how to quickly link the camera to my phone and how to upload the video to a private cloud server that his father can have access to as well.

We entered an eerie campus at around midnight, traversing the road toward Keller Hall. Sammy turned on a GPS App on his phone, so his father could find his car and get to Keller Hall with his team. As we neared a place I thought of as my first real home since I was kicked out of my rural home in Minnesota, the sounds of glass breaking and loud shrieks were audible. About 100 yards away, we saw a large crowd of people, perhaps a few hundred, all trying to get into Keller Hall through a wide-open front door.

As we near, Sammy blew the car horn as a show of warning, along with screaming out a message as loud as he could manage, “What are you doing here? The police are coming. Disperse or be arrested for illegal assembly and destruction of property.”

The crowd parts for the car and divides shakily in half, one woman yells at us, “They have little kids held in the sex dungeon downstairs. I saw them rescue one of them earlier.”

I reply in fury at the accusation, “What the fuck is wrong with you people? The people in this house are disabled, either physically or psychologically.”

The crowd murmurs in confusion, then the same loud voice from earlier, “I saw them rescue a little boy with my own eyes. It was those brave boys from the University student watch, they acted when no one would,” she eyes me wearily, “My name is Nancy, I am an administrative assistant at this University. Who are you? How would you know about what goes on in there?”

In frustration at the stupidity, I take out my student ID card and blurt out, “I fucking live here, I am 18 years old and a student at this university. Most of my friends in Keller Hall are students, too.”

Flashlights swerved up and down my body, the voices grew silent, but shrieks from inside the house were the only audible noise. Several members of the mob came up to me and checked out my ID, they looked at me intently. Many commented on how short I was and how young I appeared with worry and shame on them. Sammy and Morris flanked me with their own student ID’s out on display to show that they belonged alongside me. The loud woman named Nancy demanded to see a state-issued ID as well, which I provided, showing my name and age. She fell silent eying my various forms of identification and walked away, mumbling something about a Facebook group lying to her again. This process repeated itself until the mob had mostly dispersed with a few tired and injured people loitering at a distance, allowing access to the front door.

Due to them coming so close to me, the body cam probably got close-up pictures of them all. I had caught a scent of stale beer and weed on their bodies, so most were intoxicated. Many were wearing university hoodies, football jerseys, or war paint, so I assumed they must have been at the Thanksgiving football game earlier. The same football game that Gary Gaston was headlining as our university’s new quarterback. Between what Morris had told me yesterday and the spattering of words from the dispersing mob, I can guess what happened and how Gary had incited this group to act in violence to people they knew nothing about, except what rumor and suggestive opinions alluded. Human beings have always been easily manipulated into rash decisions, many will grow to regret them or some will cling to stubborn denial that their cause was always correct.

We entered Keller Hall and I darted to the closest room. I saw Min being dragged by his head as he flailed about since he could not use his legs. 2 muscular men were struggling to hold Min, each showing they had several bruises on their faces. Min had probably given them as good of a fight as he could with his limited mobility.

I scream, “Let him go!”

With those words, they noticed me, Sammy, and Morris. One of them disengaged from holding down Min and came towards us with a switchblade-type knife gleaming in his raised hand. Before I could react, Sammy darted in front of me and fired his stun gun at the man. In a rapid display of martial arts, Sammy disarmed him, while the guy was still in shock from the stun gun. The other guy, having seen what happened to his partner, quickly retreated from the house. With the danger alleviated, I went directly to Min to tend to him.

I ask my friend, “Are you okay, Min?”

Min stares up at me with tears in his eyes, “Beau, there were so many of them. We beat them off at first, but I fell behind and got cornered in a tight space. I forced them back with my Bokken, but he stabbed me,” Min pointed to a bloody gash on his right arm, “I winced and my grip faltered enough for them to take me.”

I glance at the man on the ground, who groans in reply, “Stupid chink…We’re just trying to save some kids or something…damn that shit hurts.”

Ignoring the idiot on the ground, my gaze darts back Min, “Help is on the way, Min, we’ll get you to a hospital. Where’s the rest of Keller Hall?”

Min grimaces in pain, “They evacuated downstairs, near the garage door is a stairway that leads down to the basement. Cook and Mrs. Potter said there was a panic room down there.”

We allowed the idiot on the ground to leave, there was no point to guard him or imprison him like action movies would make you think after taking down armed thugs. My body cam had a close-up of his face and his friends, so when Sammy’s dad saw the video, this asshole would be looking at several years for aggravated assault in addition to a home invasion. Despite the pain, Min was in, he led us to the entrance of the stairs by the garage.

We found Min’s wheelchair inside the walk-in pantry, where Min said he tried to make his last stand along with his Bokken, a wooden stick. He offered his weapon to me as a melee weapon since he could not wield it with his damaged arm, but I could barely lift it.

I shake my head, “It’s too heavy for me to wield. I don’t think I can even swing it. Maybe Sammy can use it?” I glance over at Sammy, who is eying the wooden stick in my hand.

He takes the Bokken and makes a polite standing bow towards Min, “Thank you for the use of your Bokken, I have mostly practiced with a lighter Shinai, but my dojo has trained me in the heavier Bokken. It would be my honor to wield yours.”

Min blushes in response and bows deeply to Sammy, “Thank you for your respectful Kitsu rei, but I am not worthy.”

Sammy beams back a smile at Min, “You held two armed assailants back and found favorable ground to make the best use of your ability. You are very worthy.”

As Sammy took it in gratitude and made a bow toward Min in respect, Sammy also handed his stun gun to Min in exchange. I thought I saw something unspoken and familiar in the exchange, but I couldn’t quite find the words for it. It felt like Sammy and Min were conversing without words through their body language, which made me feel a bit like an interloper. I had not known that Sammy had studied Japanese martial arts, but it would make sense if his father was a police officer. Self-defense training was a skill among many things I wanted to learn, especially with dangers from our modern antagonistic society with a low threshold for the use of violence.

As we neared the staircase, we spotted a group of 5 guys with a variety of weapons ranging from knives to baseball bats. Without giving these guys a warning as it was apparent these people had bad intentions and we were using proportionate force to defend private property, the 4 of us surprised them. I flashed my StrikeLight’s flashlight in the eye of the closest guy. Then, while his eyes were adjusting to the sudden light, I stabbed the pointy metal head into his groin as I enabled the taser to send the electrical charge into his gonads. He instantly growled in pain and dropped the knife he was holding. I whacked the asshole in the head with the StrikeLight’s metal head and kicked his weapon away, leaving him bleeding and in pain on the ground.

Min discharged the stun gun against a guy trying to strike my head with a tire iron on my right as I was finishing off my target. It caused the man to drop in pain as well. I tossed the tire iron away. I gave an appreciative nod to Min and we looked on at the others.

Morris, having recovered some of his alcohol-dulled faculties in the last encounter with similar intruders within Keller Hall, leaped at a man with a baseball bat and sprayed him in the eye with pepper spray. He grabbed the baseball bat out of the man’s hand and slammed it into his stomach violently. Using the baseball bat as his melee weapon, he came back to my side to guard me and Min.

Sammy was the most prodigious of us, he took on two opponents. One had a baseball bat and another had a tire iron, but Sammy was a much more experienced fighter with a wooden sword. He knew exactly how to wield Min’s Bokken and quickly overpowered both men. I’ve seen Min try to teach Francis some of the basic stances of Kendo and I’ve watched a few YouTube videos yesterday to learn a bit more, but seeing a trained combatant was something else. With the sight of Sammy swinging the Bokken, I was absorbed by what appeared to be a dance.

With all 5 assailants disabled and disarmed, we prepared to go downstairs. The chair-lift mechanism that would have attached to Min’s wheelchair was damaged, so Min couldn’t go downstairs with us easily. Sammy gave Min all his spare stun gun cartridges before heading down with Morris and me. Morris gave Min his pepper spray as well, in case he needed another weapon.

At the bottom of the stairs, we found another group of 2 men and 1 woman attempting to ram open a metal door with a table. The woman was filming the entire thing with a camera drone and describing how heroic they were to a live-streaming audience. Their weapons were set on the opposite side of the room, so they were no threat to the 3 of us armed as we are.

I yell to them, “Stop and get out of Keller Hall. The police will be here any moment. You have no right to be doing this.”

The woman twists to face us, her face creasing, “Who are you? My group has a right to be here, we’re making a good faith citizen’s arrest and interdiction of an illegal activity, which is legal under state law. We’re going to free those trapped kids behind this metal prison from sexual slavery. I have thousands of followers watching us right now, who will bear witness.”

I pull my Student ID out, “My name is Beau Cocteau, I am 18 years old and a student of this university. I reside here at Keller Hall. This place is not a prison or a sex dungeon as you may have been told. It’s home to a group of students with varying degrees of physical and psychological disabilities. You have no right to perform any law enforcement activity. You and your group’s violent actions are illegal by any definition.”

She looks upstairs, probably wondering why the 5 guys guarding the stairs aren’t coming down, then turns back to me with her streaming drone camera, “Well, Mr. Cocteau, if this is just a normal dorm building, then why was it not in your university’s official campus directory? Why did the university not acknowledge the inhabitants of this dorm as being “special needs” or something? The public wants to know and deserves to have the truth. It seems too convenient like there’s a cover-up going on. Explain that to the American people.”

Yeah, the university was covering up crap. It was covering up the actions of a serial rapist sociopath named Gary Gaston. The campus police were willfully ignoring a mountain of evidence and testimony from victims and eyewitnesses, the administration was accepting what amounted to bribes in the form of donations, and people like these are playing into this sociopath’s hands through misdirection and half-truths. The mob outside Keller Hall were a bunch of intoxicated cannon fodder, who mulled around to intimidate those within, while this woman and her group carried out the actual invasion and assault for the sake of fame as shown by their use of a streaming video. People like this woman and her friends, who want recognition as heroes so badly that they would stoop to shock value conspiracy theories and disregard the injury to the innocent, sickens me. Maybe she believed what she was told, but her actions thus far have shown no interest in humanity or whatever she professed with the violence done, only glory in front of her social media followers. As a society, we’re doing ourselves a disservice by fantasizing along with these people without any critical thought behind them.

If we cannot rise above their naïve need for attention and influence, then we’ll be consumed by the fiery ambitions of others like them, who will create far bigger lies and fake narratives. We need them to see reality, a cold and brutal truth that very few, if any at all, can be considered heroes.

I call out in the direction of the metal door, “Brad, if you are in there, the mob outside has mostly dispersed and the state police’s Special Tactical and Operation Team will be here soon. Open the door and show these idiots the panic room,” Understanding they may think I am lying or under duress, I add, “Guys, you know me; I would die rather than allow anything bad to happen to you. Min is safe and in decent shape. Please, I know you are scared that this might be a trick, but believe me, if you do not believe in anything else.”

Nothing happened for a few moments, then a loud creaking sound could be heard. The metal door slid opened and Brad rushed out to greet me with a hug. I returned his hug, then directed the woman and her 2 male companions to look inside the room. Paki, wearing only his underwear, was huddled in a corner with a bloody carving knife in his hand and had dried blood on his bare torso. His body, including his exposed right stump, where his hand used to be, showed several new scars. Francis stood sentry with his white cane next to Paki, he was completely naked with noticeable bruises and stab wounds covering several parts of his body. Warren, fully clothed, sat close to his friends, but his grey t-shirt was stained with blood. Warren’s burn scars were highlighted with fresh gashes on his face, giving him features similar to Brad. Cook, heavily injured, was on a blood-soaked mattress and Mrs. Potter was tending to wounds in his stomach and chest. I turned toward Brad. He was shirtless and noticed he had a gauss bandage across the left side of his body. He had new bruises forming in various places, where the old ones had partially healed over. His sapphire blue eyes were dimmer.

The woman with the streaming video drone was speechless as she swerves her camera left and right, trying to find the fabled kids trapped in a sex dungeon at Keller Hall.

I yell at her and her comrades, “You’ve seen your handy work. The only people who were abused and traumatized here were those your group victimized tonight. Now get the fuck out of here.”

They begin to leave the panic room, the woman glances back at Cook bleeding on the floor, and winces, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, we were told…”

I scream, “Get Out!”

They departed swiftly and once they were gone, I dropped to the floor beside Cook. He didn’t look good, he was sweating and his face seemed pale.

I tell Mrs. Potter, trying to assure her as well as myself, “He’s going to be okay. Sammy’s dad is a police Lieutenant and he’s coming with his squad.”

Before Mrs. Potter could respond, Cook speaks with a languid tone, “Beau, thank you for coming back and getting help. At least, that will help the others. I think my body is entering shock right now and unless I get rushed into an ER in 20 minutes, I’ll probably start seizing and die from blood loss…” he gasps for air, “That’s just an optimistic estimate, I’m not a specialist in internal medicine.”

Mrs. Potter with tears streaming down her face chides Cook by using his full name, “Evan Hooker, you have to stop with pessimism. You’ll be fine and we’ll be spending the next few days licking our wounds and eating your Thanksgiving leftovers.”

Cook tried to laugh, but could only manage a snort, “Assuming the mob didn’t take it all or the fridge wasn’t damaged,” I turn towards me as tears begin flowing down my cheeks.

I hoarsely tell Cook, “I should have realized something was up with the text message. Brad was coming off one of his withdrawal episodes and couldn’t think as he would normally. I should have been the responsible one, I shouldn’t have let my guard down against Gary Gaston’s tricks. I shouldn’t…”

Cook cut me with a soft moan of pain, then he tenderly consoles me, “Beau, you are just like me after I found out Brian died. I could have told him to stop going to the gay bars to help pick up runaway gay teens in rural Alabama. I could have told him that his well-intentioned help would be looked down upon by the locals and the homophobes would target him. In the end, I kept quiet, because I believe in his goodness. He was murdered for his goodness and his memory was blemished to hide the fact that he was a good man. We’re only human Beau and we can’t know all the consequences of our actions. We can only do what is good for those we care about,” he pauses gasping for another breath, “I didn’t expect Gary Gaston’s moves tonight or the mob he had assembled. I didn’t expect how quickly they descended upon us or that they would be violent. I didn’t realize that on a major National Holiday, our frantic calls out for help would not be answered by the backup staff readily.”

Mrs. Potter shouts, “Stop talking you idiot, conserve your strength. You are not going to die tonight, you hear me. If it wasn’t for you fighting off those assholes and buying time for us to come down here, most of us wouldn’t have survived their first assault.”

Looking back at Sammy, who has his smartphone in his ear, I ask, “How long until your dad’s here?”

Sammy shakes his head, “He’s here right now and most of his guys are clearing out the remaining people around the building. However, the closest EMS ambulance won’t be here for 18 minutes and the closest hospital is 15 minutes away. He’s coming down to get your friend into his car and hopefully make it to the hospital in time.”

I turn back and Mrs. Potter lifts her head at me, “I can help keep him stable enough to get up the stairs, but he can’t be upright. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

When Sammy’s dad came into the panic room with 3 of his men, all were shocked at the people around them. However, their chief focus was on getting Cook into a car quickly, then getting everyone who was injured into one of their vehicles. It took us an eternity to get Cook up the stairs and into the designated vehicle belonging to Sammy’s dad. The other 3 officers offered to drive the other injured members of Keller Hall to the hospital as well, while 2 additional troopers were corralling the remainder of the mob in front of Keller Hall. Brad refused to go to the hospital with them. He argued that the other residents needed medical far more than him. Soon, Min, Paki, Warren, and Francis all were in police vehicles headed to the hospital, while Mrs. Potter, Brad, Morris, Sammy, and I were left behind.

As the scene settles slightly, Mrs. Potter gazes at me and the others, “Did any of you see Chip out here earlier? When Cook texted all of us to get to the panic room, I couldn’t find him in his room.”

Dread coursed through me as I remembered the words from that shrill woman from earlier about seeing Student Watch members “rescuing” a child from Keller Hall. From an unobservant eye, Chip and I looked very similar. We both had brown hair. We were both around 4 feet 11 inches and had similar body types. The text message from earlier asked where I lived inside Keller Hall, so if those guys didn’t see me in my room, they might have taken Chip. Remembering what Gary Gaston said he wanted to do to me, I feared for Chip’s safety.

My grim expression must have been noticed by Brad, who wordlessly understood what happened as he pieced together what details he knew about from the text message I received. I saw him change from weary and depressed to anger.

I turn towards Mrs. Potter, “I think Gary Gaston took Chip, thinking he was me. I assume he went to our old dorm building. I think Gary wanted to carry out a fantasy about me there,” I grasped Brad’s hands tightly and address my friends, “We’re going to get him back. No matter what we need to do.”

Brad tightened his grip on my hand as our group dashed to the freshman dorm building.