The Other Side of the Tracks

Posted on July 11th, 2007 by Jaybo.
Categories: Jaybo.

MOONLIGHT

Issue 1 - Chapter 7

David grabbed the manila folder with their assignment inside and pushed it into Eddie’s chest. Eddie took it and began to read.

“You could at least attempt to review the assignment,” the Wolf said.

“My head begins to split with every bullet-pointed direction on the paper.”

Eddie read the military document while David walked down the corridor. He felt a little guilty for not reading the document and leaving the work to Eddie. Eddie had been used to it though. Eddie had trained for it. Eddie was good at it.

David was good at something else. And for him, that provided all the excuse he needed.

———————————————————————————————

“David?”

The boy didn’t move. He sat on the guidance counselor’s couch rubbing his temples.

God, the cigarette smell in here is terrible…

“David,” the counselor said again.

The pain was worse lately. The splitting headaches and sleepless nights were driving him mad. And the voices….

“Davi…”

“YES! YEAH! WHAT,” he shouted at the counselor, just trying to stop the man from speaking so he could focus on ignoring the pain.

The guidance counselor jumped a little in his chair. “I’m sorry David. I don’t mean to make you angry.”

David just sat with his elbows on his knees on the high school counselor’s coffee stained couch continuing to rub his temples and back of his neck.

God, please make the pain go away…

“David, I want to ask you some questions about what’s going on with you so that I can help. Is that ok?”

Of course it is, jack-off, David thought. Just as long as I don’t have to tell you I’m hearing voices and my head feels like an ax is slowly splitting it open.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” David said, eyes closed and continuing to rub.

The counselor opened David’s St. Xavier High School transcripts and began to review. From what the counselor saw David had been a B-average student. He enjoyed athletics. He had friends. He wasn’t a trouble maker. And his life was going down the toilet fast.

During his junior year, David had made the cut and joined the St. X basketball team. Sometime mid-season David’s attitude took a turn in an unforeseen direction and the coach kicked him off. He had become lethargic, argumentative and slowly progressed to fighting with his own teammates. The last straw came when he broke the high school’s all-state center’s jaw after he’d looked at David wrong.

But that was only the beginning.

He couldn’t sleep; he began to lose weight at an alarming rate; he was on and off a pharmacy of medication; his friends abandoned him; his parents would find him crying uncontrollably; his ability to hold a conversation went out the window with various pieces of furniture as his temper would explode without warning or provocation.

But on this day, David Carter sat on the coffee-stained couch in his high school guidance counselor’s office waiting for the police. As the whispered voices spoke and the top of his head was slowly chewed open with rusty saws, Mrs. Walsh, a battle hardened 65 year old math teacher, had dared raise her voice and demand David’s answer to a question he couldn’t have heard even if he wanted to.

He snapped.

From the front row David leaped and grabbed Mrs. Walsh by the throat with both hands and slammed her back against the chalk board. Dust from the board poofed out from behind the teacher’s head when it banged against the dark green board. His hands tightened on her throat and David watched as her eyes bulged from her head.

Students rushed to the front of the room and pulled David off the teacher and held him down as others went for help. While the seconds had ticked away his classmates, still holding him down, watched in fear as David screamed and wept on the cold tile floor.

His sanity was slipping away one whisper at a time.

———————————————————————————————

“What’s on the agenda for today, boss,” David asked Eddie.

“We’re watching various private schools’ basketball games.”

David laughed. “You’re kidding, right?” he asked.

“Nope. Seems the powers-that-be think the guy is of above average intelligence, leading him to make more money and is assumed to be of age to have kids in high school. If he’s got the money and he’s got the kids, he’d more that likely put them in a private rather than public school. If he’s as big as they suspect, the kids are probably big too.

“Hence the basketball games,” David finished.

“You catch on quick,” Eddie said.

“Yeah… you ready for a long night in the truck?”

“Better than being locked in here.”

David didn’t say anything. They stepped on the elevator to take them back to the main floor of the Pen.

———————————————————————————————

The two New Jersey police officers tightened the handcuffs just enough to make sure David’s hands would stay behind his back. The principal, counselor and superintendent were now all in the office watching as David was about to be escorted to the cruiser waiting for him outside.

“Thank you officers,” the principal said.

The policemen didn’t respond as they opened the counselor’s door and escorted David down the hallway.

As he walked the cold floor, David could feel the student’s stares. He knew he frightened them but he didn’t care. He was alone in his pain. His parents had tried to help but all the medication and therapy sessions were useless. The voices had not gotten better and the headaches pounded in his skull with white pain.

“Freak!” one student shouted after David passed. Girls giggled at the taunt. Other students just watched, waiting for another show to erupt.

The cops walked him towards the light of the double doors where a black and white cruiser waited. Their large hands cupping underneath David’s arm pit to control his speed and body movement. They moved forward as machines through the pimple faced teenagers.

One officer on the way to the doors accidentally bumped into a student. The kid’s math book and notebook fell to the floor, scattering his organized assignments in front of him. The student looked up to shout at the cop until he caught the gaze of the still moving officer whose eyes were piercing him. The steel-cold stare froze the students tongue. As the officer turned away, the student decided he’d chose another day to die.

David was unceremoniously shoved into the back of the patrol car as a number of students and handful of teachers watched from behind the glass and mortar of the high school windows and doors. The bell rang in the hallway and everyone moved toward their next class to gossip about the exciting day’s news.

The police car pulled away from the school and onto the street. It started toward the direction of the station.

“How are you feeling?” the passenger-side officer asked David.

David didn’t answer. He was unsuccessfully hiding his tears of pain, embarrassment and fear. He was shaking in the back seat.

“I asked how you are feeling.” The cop was now turned fully around in the seat starring at David through the mesh screen.

David looked up into the officer’s eyes; once filled with cold steel, they were now empty and calm. David felt drawn to the truth was he was held in the officer’s gaze.

“I feel terrible. My head feels like it’s caving in and I’m hearing…” David began to sob. “I’m hearing voices.” The tears from the 17 year old boy’s eyes burned and rolled down his cheeks.

“Caving in or splitting in half?”

“What?” David asked.

“Your head. You said caving in. Does it feel like it’s caving in or splitting in half?”

David had seen a number of cop shows and began to wonder why this cop cared. But David, staring into his eyes, began to speak.

“Splitting in half.”

“The voices. What do they say?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” the officer asked.

“Nothing.”

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you David.” The officer said it as a statement, not as a question.

David looked at him through red puffy eyes and knew the answer. He couldn’t lie to this man if his life depended on it.

The officer smiled and turned around in his seat and faced the road ahead.

———————————————————————————————

Five minutes after David’s cruiser-based interrogation began, another black and white police car pulled up in front of his high school. Two officers exited the car and entered the building. They walked into the principal’s office and asked to see the him. As he came out, they immediately guessed something was wrong from the confused look on his face.

“Can I help you gentlemen?” the principal asked.

“We received a call from the high school stating an assault had taken place in a classroom between a student and a teacher?” the first officer said.

“Yes,” the principal said, “but two other officers just handcuffed the student and escorted him out a little more than five minutes ago.”

The second officer left the office without a word and returned to the cruiser to make sure wires weren’t crossed on who was supposed to answer the call of the assault. The first officer explained that these things happen sometimes. No big deal.

It quickly became a big deal when dispatch radioed that the second batch of officers to arrive at the high school that day were the only ones called to the disturbance. After about twenty minutes of he said/she said and a high school administrative staff running around like chickens with their heads cut off, a report was filled out by the second batch of officers concerning a possible kidnapping and number of other offenses.

———————————————————————————————

David and the two men dressed as officers turned off the main road and made their way through a series of alley’s and side streets until they reached a rusted out abandoned factory about 5 miles inland from South Jersey’s Atlantic coast. The driver had spent the entire drive silent, watching his rearview and side mirrors like a hawk. David was completely ambivilous to where they were or what was taking place. His eyes were tight with tears, desperately trying to push back the pain.

The car stopped and the man in the passenger side annouced they were there to David. He opened his eyes and shock and confusion pushed back the pain for a moment.

“This isn’t a police station,” he said.

“No. It’s not,” the man said as he exited the passenger side door. He opened the back door and helped David out of the car. The man pulled out his key ring and reached behind David’s back, unlocking his handcuffs. They opened with a click and David rubbed his wrists.

I should be afraid, David thought. Except he wasn’t.

“No, you shouldn’t be. And you aren’t,” the man from the passenger side said.

David stared at him, not understanding why the man would make such a statement.

“Walk with me a minute David,” the man said.

The man started toward the crumbling building and David followed.

“I am Mr. Smith,” the man said. “It’s not my name and you’ll never see me again after the next five minutes no matter what you choose. Don’t ask me questions. We don’t have time and I don’t have the answers. That is meant for other people. Do you understand?”

David continued to walk with Mr. Smith. He thought for a moment and then answered he understood.

“Good decision,” Mr. Smith answered. “There are going to be men who will pull up in a black conversion van within the next twenty minutes. They know you and they know what you are going through. They have drugs and training that can help ease your pain and voices. They can answer questions, teach you about what causes the voices and pain and what they are for. You have the twenty minutes to decide what to do.”

The reached a guard station out of place among the wreckage of the factory. Mr. Smith opened the door. In the cool February air, a blast of heat escaped the room. They entered and David sat down on the couch.

“If you decide to take their help, they will help you. You must stay in the guard shack. If you are not in the guard shack in twenty minutes when they arrive, you will not be helped or contacted again. The price of their help is steep and once it is accepted you cannot turn back; however, if you leave and refuse their assistance… well, today at school was just a precursor of worse things to come.”

David was staring into the man’s beautiful truth-filled eyes.

“David, do you understand what I have told you?”

David looked back at the idling police car parked 50 ft. away. He believed Mr. Smith and didn’t know why, but in his head he knew he was telling the truth. At this point any help to keep his sanity was well worth the price of admission. Still looking back at the police car David changed his life: “I understand and I believe you.”

“Good. You should. Remember, do not leave the building if you want their help.” Mr. Smith turned away to leave.

“Mr. Smith?”

The man stopped and turned back to David. His cold eyes had returned and they crawled through David’s mind in search of the question before it left his lips.

“They will tell you about people like me,” Mr. Smith said. “But I’m different from you David. You can do something very special. You know I tell you the truth because that’s what I’m about.”

David stared at Mr. Smith. The man in the police uniform pulled the door shut and walked away.

———————————————————————————————

David looked at his blue Swatch he’d gotten for Christmas the year before and counted the seconds ticking by. In the presence of Mr. Smith, the voices and pain had moved to the back of his mind, almost as if the conductor of the train ordered them to the caboose. Now that he was gone though, the villains wanted the dark engine back again and were slowly creeping forward. The dull pain was moving from between his shoulder blades into the base of his neck.

As minutes ticked by, questions began to pound in David’s head and heart. What were these men going to do to him? What would his mom and dad say when he told them what had happened? Where would they take him? What was he doing?

In the end though he realized Mr. Smith was telling the truth. And though doubt and anxiety had entered the picture, he hung on the words of what he would later call a Truth-Teller. Always telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth… no matter what the cost to them or those they interogate, he would think as he would watch them work from the opposite-side of one way glass.

As the nineteenth minute ticked by, the screaming pain in his head had returned with a vengence. It road a roller coaster around and around the inside of his skull…. The tears weren’t optional this time. The hurt was so bad he though he would die there in the shed of the adandoned factory.

I DON’T CARE WHAT THEY DO, his mind screamed. JUST MAKE IT STOP! David could see the mad grin of the conductor operating the deadly ride in his head, laughing as it went in and out of his skull and eyes then down his spine. David screamed in the booth. He wanted to run and find a tall building to leap from. The pain would end and he could finally rest after months of torture.

As if it heard his call, a black van pulled into factory’s parking lot. It drove toward the booth. David was laying on the couch in agony, unaware of its presence.

It pulled up to the guard station and a man in khakis and a blue oxford got out of the driver’s side. He jogged to the front of the guard shack and entered. The man rushed to David’s side and witnessed his agony.

“Open your mouth!” he shouted at David.

David was lost in the pain. The man reared back and smacked David across the face as hard as he could, knocking him off the couch. His eyes exploded with awareness of the man.

“Open your mouth kid!”

David, without thinking, opened his mouth and the man shoved two small pills onto David’s tongue. The bitterness of the pills was nothing like David had ever tasted before. It spread within his tongue and mouth causing him to retch.

The man grabbed David by the neck from behind and held his jaw closed so he couldn’t spit them out or throw them up. David struggled against the man, but he was too weak to resist and the man too strong.

“Swallow them,” he shouted at the David. “Come on! Hurry!”

David swallowed and the man released him. He gave David a warm bottle of water from the inside of the desk in the guard shack and ordered him to drink it. David did as he was told as tears poured from his eyes. It was the worst the pain had been.

“Listen to me carefully,” the man said. “The pain will ease in a moment. Do you hear me?”

David nodded.

“Good.”

The man left the building, shutting the door behind him and got back into the van. David stood and looked out the window and saw the man was driving away.

It was a lie… David thought. It was all a lie!

He didn’t know what the man had given him, who Mr. Smith was or what was going to happen to him. Maybe someone was taping this because they enjoyed watching children die on tape. Maybe it would be worse. Panic ruled David’s heart and he reached for the door.

Locked. He jerked the handle around and around. It was locked solid. He kicked it as hard as he could over and over. He tried to pick up a chair in the office to throw through the glass of the small window only to find it was bolted to the wall. Everything he grabbed was bolted or fixed in the room! David banged on the glass with fury.

“Mr. Carter.”

David stopped banging and looked around. There was a small, round speaker in the ceiling.

“Mr. Carter. Please sit on the couch. In between the cushions is a seatbelt. Please latch yourself in. You have 20 seconds to comply.”

“I’M NOT LATCHING A G@#DAMN THING UNTIL YOU UNLOCK THE F@#$%&^ DOOR,” David screamed!

“How is your headache, Mr. Carter?” the voice calmly inquired.

It had only been a couple minutes since he had taken the pills, but David realized it was weaker. In the middle of his panic, he hadn’t noticed.

“Mr. Carter, your choice has been made. You now have 10 seconds to comply. I would highly recommend you sit on the couch and latch the seatbelt.”

David did not trust the voice, but his headache was continuing to weaken. It was reason enough to sit. He sat on the couch and searched in between the cushions for the seatbelts.

“If (5…) you bastards try and molest (4…) me or sell me into some kind of slavery (3…),someone’s gonna lose (2…) their nuts before they have a change to (1…) kill me!” David clicked the seatbelt.

“Welcome to The Agency Mr. Carter.”

And with that the floor of the shed to which the couch was bolted plummeted into the black elevator shaft below.

David screamed all the way down.

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All story, pictures and characters are copyrighted material. 2007. There should a little “c” here somewhere. Jay Bowman

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