Episode II – Session I - Revelation
Episode II – Session I - Revelation
The guard grabbed his head, screamed, and dropped to his knees. He looked up at Joe, with his eyes wide, clearly in a panic, with a trickle of blood leaking down his upper lip. Joe yelped in surprise and took a step back from the guy, and even Brother Cooper jumped back across the room to stand over by the curtained wall.
Joe glanced over at the door. With the guard disabled, they could make a break for it. But then the guard was saying something, choking out the words through clenched teeth. Joe looked back over at the guard for a second, trying to decide.
The guard gasped out the words, “It…hurts!…Make…it…stop!”
Joe cursed. He wanted very much to get out of here. He had seen Alien, and he sure as hell had seen Outbreak. He didn’t want to get stuck in here while the nosebleed-migraine monster worked its way through the Men-In-Black, and he damn sure wasn’t gonna let them inject any kind of Mr. Weaver disease into him, whatever that was. But now here he was, the hero of this group, the one everybody looked to for guidance, and the guy really did seem to be in pain. And more importantly, there was something in the way the guy was kneeling there, wild eyed staring across the room, with blood on his chin, that reminded Joe of something.
It reminded Joe of Taylor Chu.
Joe cursed again. He could help this guy. At least, he thought he could. He made a decision. Joe Empire was not gonna let somebody else die on his watch.
Plus, he would probably need to swipe that guard’s keys to unlock the door out of here anyway.
Joe unzipped his backpack and removed two white candles from a pack he had been carrying with him now for weeks. He knelt down next to the guy and laid his hand down on the guard’s head. Brother Cooper started in behind him with a worried tone, “Joe…”
Joe shook his head, “Not now, preacher.” Joe used his free hand to break both candles with a pair of audible snaps. Then Joe thought.
The world swam around him. He was a speck of dirt in a swirling cloud. He was lost: one speck among billions of specks of dust in a tornado-universe of chaos.
He had no control over where he flew. Every particle around him swirled and circled, trapped and held by the maelstrom. None had power. None had control. None had the means to change their path.
And then Joe moved of his own accord. He willed into existence the Healing Vishanti Touch.
The room came back into focus. Life-giving, healing energy was flowing through Joe like an electric shock. It flowed from his mind down through his heart, through his arm, into his hand, and then hit a barrier. The energy back-lashed sharply and bent backwards. It tore back through Joe’s arm like a needle of hot fire sliding through his veins heading back through his heart. He felt his pulse stutter as the energy-fire sweep up through his neck into his mind. Pain tore through his head.
Joe pulled his hand back from the guy’s head and put it to his own nose. The spell had failed. His nose was bleeding, and his head was killing him. He sat down hard on the floor and cursed. He had messed up somehow, and the spell had misfired. He sure as hell paid the price for it too.
The guard didn’t even seem aware that Joe had ever touched him. He was still wailing and holding his head. His nose was bleeding the same as Joe’s, and he was staring wild-eyed over at Brother Cooper.
Brother Cooper called out again, “Joe…”
Joe shook his head. Jeez, stupid Men-in-Black with their stupid Mr. Weaver injection disease, and Joe feeling sorry for them and trying to save them and live up to this stupid heroic image that everybody had of him, and now Brother Cooper wouldn’t even give him a minute’s peace. Joe patted the guard on the shoulder while he spit a gob of blood onto the floor. “It’s okay, preacher, I was just trying to heal him…” Joe dropped his hand down to the ring of keys on the guard’s belt and tugged it sharply. The key ring pulled away, and then snapped back sharply to the guard’s belt on one of those spring-lines, like a measuring tape. Joe spit again, “…and just make sure his keys were firmly attached to his belt…”
The door exploded inward. Joe looked up to see Dr. McGovern enter warily, with Willie right behind him, followed by two more guards. Joe noted proudly that Willie had his gun out. What the hell, it was worth a shot. Joe grabbed his head with both hands, letting them all see his bloody nose, “Aaaagh! You gave me SARS!” Blood dripped freely from Joe’s nose onto the tile floor.
Joe opened one eye and glanced over at Dr. McGovern to see if he was buying the SARS story. The doctor looked a little angry, maybe a little worried, and a little confused, but he did not seem to be fooled. Willie looked completely lost. Well, so much for that plan.
Joe looked down at the bright red droplets scattered about the room, as he and the guard both bled out onto the floor. He suddenly remembered the freaky Indian chief at the magic shop saying that they used blood as currency. Well, as long as he was here, might as well make a profit. He grabbed at Dr. McGovern’s lab coat and pointed at his nose, saying, “Hey, doc, can I get a beaker for this?”
. . .
Guyzell’s heart raced. Bad things were happening here, and they were happening quickly. Joe may well have gone mad. The guard had collapsed with the same sort of seizure that the dear woman in the hallway had experienced. Something was harming these people, and it was acting fast.
Guyzell watched Joe accost the man on the floor. He was trying to do something to the man. Guyzell wasn’t sure if he was out to help the man or harm him, but he didn’t know himself what the right answer was right now. There was just too much going on, and none of it made any sense.
The guard was gripping his head like he was in pain, and his eyes were wild with fright. But there was something else there. Guyzell saw something in those eyes. What was it?
Joe was doing something to the man, then he collapsed next to him, his nose bleeding freely. He mumbled something about healing the man, but it made no sense. Was he somehow affected to?
Still the man’s eyes were wild. They darted back and forth across the room. He must be in a seizure of some type, but no, there was a pattern there. Then Guyzell saw the pattern.
The guard kept looking back at the curtain on the wall. And every time he did, it seemed like his fear took a stronger hold on him, and his screams grew even louder.
Guyzell looked up at the curtain. He had ignored them when he had entered the room. He assumed they were a covering for a chalkboard, or a window. In truth, he had just ignored the curtains altogether, with everything else that had been going on.
But whatever was going on with that guard, right now he was very scared of whatever was on the other side of that curtain.
Willie burst in to the room, with the doctor and a few more guards. Willie looked relieved to see them relatively unharmed, although Joe had clearly become completely irrational. The guards stood at the door, not sure if they wanted to enter or not. The doctor stood there next to Joe, now completely lost for a suitable response.
Willie yelled out in a commanding tone, “Somebody better tell me what the hell is going on up in here!” He looked over at Guyzell for support.
Guyzell didn’t know what to say. He took a quick step forward, and yanked the curtains apart.
The curtains parted, revealing a window into a huge room that was the size of a gymnasium. The lights in the room were a dim orange color, and details were hard to make out, because the window, and indeed the entire room, were covered in a substance that could only be described as webbing. But it was not the yards of glistening web that worried Guyzell.
No, what worried Guyzell was the indistinct, shadowy, but unmistakable shape of a twenty-thousand pound spider moving through that room, slowly ambling its way in front of that window.