Reach Out Of The Darkness

By Wallace Williamson

Seven hundred and seventy-seven generations ago The First Mother of Seven Sisters gave birth to her first child; and was bound to keep the Prophesy given unto her ... for over 20,000 years! Her vigil is almost over.

Audrey Chandler was a little over a year old when she fell out of her high-chair and broke her neck; the doctors all agreed that she wouldn’t last out the month. She proved them wrong by living another 14 years. The last one to give up on Audrey Chandler was the Angel who was her Soul. When an Angel prays to end the Life to which It has been Called as a Soul, many are They who listen ... but only One is Called to answer. And the answer was beyond anything that Audrey Chandler, the Angel who was her Soul, or anyone else in this time and place in the World could ever have imagined was even possible!

“And She Who Stands Sentinel over The Last Savior shall send forth Wanders to seek out Abominations Without Souls and gather them forth that the wretched creatures may be judged according to their many works and castigated accordingly; Amen.”

Sissy Sugarman grew up without a real family. She became a Neurosurgeon to treat spinal cord injuries; then went back and got a PhD to research ways to give the paralyzed their arms and legs back. Unfortunately, nobody takes her theories seriously enough to fund her research ... until Bek is told that Dr. Sugarman is the last best hope that Andy Scott will ever have of walking again. Sissy’s life ... and dreams ... are about to get a whole lot more interesting!

Be Careful What You Pray For ... Very Careful!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wallace Williamson
• Release date: Sep 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301999552

Wallace Williamson

Wallace Williamson is a storyteller; always has been, always will be. His stories range from paranormal thrillers (RETRIBUTION series, CheerLeaders In The Mist series), to elegant erotica (Stories2Read Naked@Night), to 'growing up in Dixie' (Collins Crossing series), to contemporary life in America (London Bitches). Check out his website: www.DollarDreadfuls.Com, where you'll find stories, games, trinkets, T-shirts, artwork and other examples of delightful debauchery to tease and amuse your inner-WildChild!Yes, all the profits from the T-shirts really goes to fight breast cancer; so buy a shirt and save some boobies!

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Copyright

January 2015

Version 2.2.e

Wallace Williamson

Covers & Art Work

By

Wallace Williamson

All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or otherwise, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 9781301999552

No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means, including but not limited to: scanning, photographing, transcribing, recording, and/or photocopying without the copyright holder’s written permission; except that, in deference to The Master, this novel may be committed in its entirety to human memory for recitation as deemed appropriate by the rememberer. Distribution of this book by any means without the copyright holder’s consent is illegal, immoral, and expressly prohibited and forbidden and will really hose your karma.

Author Website: www.dollardreadfuls.com

Names, characters, places, and incidents as used in declassified RedBall File dramatizations are to be officially considered either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or otherwise, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Factual errors and/or derivations from official RedBall Mission Records may be deliberate to facilitate declassification, or may be unintentional faults of the author creating this dramatization. For purposes of legal remediation, the author of this fictionalized account is not the Official Archive Custodian of any RedBall Mission Records, and may in point of fact been denied access to certain classified segments of mission records.

Author Note:

Transcriptions attributed to Angelic conversations are loose colloquial translations intended only to convey the most basic intent of exchanges as they relate to dramatization of events and should not be construed as literal dialog. In order to clarify the speaker in dialogue exchanges between Angels, I identify speakers by names given to their corporeal manifestation with the suffix –Perfected added (i.e.; Clarissa-Perfected). This is an admittedly clumsy construct, but since Angels are known by many names in the World, and since just one Angel’s True Name would consume all the times and all the writing materials in the World just to jot it down, I believe my method acceptable, if not precise.

Wallace Williamson

Table Of Contents

Prologue: Trenton-1999

Chapter 1: National Institutes of Health-2013

Chapter 2: Berjϋrlund Clinic

Chapter 3: Coon Tail Ridge

Chapter 4: Berjϋrlund Clinic

Chapter 5: Peabody Hotel

Chapter 6: Berjϋrlund Clinic

Chapter 7: 100 North Main Building

Chapter 8: Trayser

Chapter 9: Shannon Corporation Headquarters

Chapter 10: Trayser

Chapter 11: Operation Goldfinger

Chapter 12: Trayser

Chapter 13: Dark Side Of The Moon

Chapter 14: The Itchy Chicken

Chapter 15: The Conscience Suicides

Epilogue: The Gathering

Some Things Are Meant To Be Preview

Story List

Prologue

Trenton

New Jersey – USA

1999

Carl Chandler was a good Catholic boy who always tried to do the right thing; he just wasn’t much good at it. On the surface, his life looked about average. Low income white guy with a wife and a kid and an entry level job; none of which he wanted.

Knocked Patsy up on their first date.

Didn’t love her.

Didn’t even really like her.

Married her anyway.

It was the right thing to do.

That’s what everybody said.

College vaporized.

Now he was working at one of those places that lend money to idiots who couldn’t stretch a paycheck between paydays but could somehow manage the kind of added interest that made loan-sharks jealous.

Boss was a complete and utter asshole!

Carl worked twelve to fourteen hours a day; no extra pay for overtime.

Patsy worked nights at the airport; scrubbing toilets, hauling trash, buffing floors.

The kid was thirteen months old, and despised him almost as much as Patsy did.

Well, that’s the way it seemed, anyway!

Baby screamed when he picked her up.

Screamed when he put her down.

Screamed when he changed her shitty diaper.

Screamed when she was hungry.

Screamed when he fed her!

What kid screams when she’s fed!?

Tomorrow was laundry day; Carl had one clean shirt left.

He tried to feed the screaming kid.

Little bitch was pitching a fit!

Waving her tiny arms around!

Squirming and twisting!

Screaming!

Carl tried to be patient. He didn’t know what was wrong with the kid. But Patsy was running late again. Which would make him late for work … again!

Boss was going to ream his ass …

Again!

Kid smacked the bowl of purple gunk Carl was trying to feed her, sent the stinking mess flying … all over his nylon clip-on tie and last clean white shirt!

He knew she hadn’t done it on purpose.

Couldn’t have done it on purpose!

She was just a baby!

He screamed anyway!

FUCK!

Jumped up to his feet like he had a chance in Hell of dodging the stinking purple gobs of baby food flying at him!

He lost it …

Completely …

Totally …

Irrevocably …

For about a tenth of one lousy second …

Three lives effectively ended right then and there!

He shoved the old hand-me-down high chair away with one uncontrolled kick that he would later try (unsuccessfully) to tell himself was just meant to move the baby away a little.

High-chair flew across the dingy little kitchen and smashed hard against the stove!

Fell over with a sickening crunch.

Audrie Chandler finally stopped screaming.

She never cried again.

Because she couldn’t!

Woman came running from across the hall when she heard the man screaming for help. Gave the baby CPR until an ambulance arrived.

Kid was paralyzed from about the shoulders down; broken neck; couldn’t even breathe without a machine to do the heavy lifting.

By the time the swelling subsided enough to let her lungs work on their own, her daddy had hung himself in his jail cell.

Suicide is just about the worst thing a good Catholic can do. No forgiveness for that one! But Carl had always tried to do the right thing … the good Catholic thing … his whole life.

Look where that got him!

So he blew off God, who obviously didn’t give a skinny rat’s ass about him.

Blew off his wife, who looked at him with eyes so full of hate that they literally flamed in her face!

Blew off the screaming daughter who would never so much as whimper again.

Blew off life!

Whatever Hell was waiting to claim him … how much worse could it possibly be than the life he was leaving?

Patsy Chandler visited her daughter every day in the hospital.

Talked to her: mostly about how much she loved her; about how much God loved her.

Sang to her: mostly Hymns and children’s songs about Jesus; a little Blues … no Rock&Roll.

Read to her: mostly Bible stories; sometimes the Bible itself.

None of it made any sense to the child; she just loved listening to her mother.

Patsy smiled and lied to her baby that she was going to get better.

Neither of them ever did.

Patsy Chandler was a good Catholic girl who became a good Catholic woman. Spend long hours pouring her heart out to Priests who couldn’t offer any hope for her baby, only the comfort that God’s will was often unfathomable to lesser mortals.

Doctors were pretty sure the child wouldn’t last more than a year at the outside.

Audrie Chandler beat the odds.

For five years!

Then she got an infection.

Went into a coma.

Even her mother knew that she wasn’t going to wake up.

But she did!

Audrie came out of the coma after thirty-eight days … blind and mostly deaf!

Doctors were certain the kid wouldn’t last another month.

Patsy visited her daughter every day in the hospital for the next four years.

Talked to her.

Sang to her.

Read to her.

Smiled and lied to her daughter that she was going to get better.

Neither of them ever did.

Four days before her daughter’s eleventh birthday, Patsy Chandler’s heart finally gave out on her. Right in the middle of waxing a huge floor that hundreds of rushing air-travelers ignored every day.

Audrie Chandler had no concept of Birthdays.

She did, however, miss her mother’s voice.

For about the first year, Nurses talked to her; young women volunteers who enjoyed comforting sick children came and read to her. But her hearing eventually faded away completely, and visitors became less and less frequent. By her fourteenth birthday, Audrie Chandler’s body was withered and shrunken out of synch with her head, which had continued normal growth. Her atrophied limbs were twisted and deformed. So ghastly was her appearance that the girl was warehoused in a welfare ward for coma patients without financial means for proper medical care, and left to die.

But she didn’t.

So they decided to kill her.

Slowly.

Painfully.

Deliberately!

Last one to give up on Audrie Chandler was the Angel Who was her Soul.

When an Angel prays to end the Life to which It has been Called as a Soul, many are They who listen … but only One is beckoned to answer.

And the answer was beyond anything that Audrie Chandler,

the Angel Who was her Soul,

or anyone else in this time and place in the World

could ever have imagined was even possible!

Our Lady Of Prompt Succor Mercy Hospital

Trenton

New Jersey – USA

2013

"This is highly irregular." Doctor Fenton Harcourt sniffed and tossed the paper back at the woman without signing it. We couldn’t possibly release her without a Court Order from a living relative.

Jessye McAllister batted the paper aside and gritted her teeth as she fought down a near overpowering urge to clobber the living shit out of the arrogant old bastard! "She has no living relatives. We’ll take care of her …"

She is a Ward of the State, Harcourt fluffed his custom tailored white silk coat. And she is getting all the care she requires, thank you.

McAllister started to step towards the old doc who hadn’t touched a bloody body (and maybe mess up that goddamn coat a little!) in more years than she’d been alive. "What the hell do you care? We’re taking her off your hands. Why are you being such a prick about it?"

A tall dark-haired and bare-footed woman in a loose-knit black dress with a neckline that plunged most of the way to a hemline that barely covered her picturesque feminine assets stepped from the shadows. He fears our discovery that they are starving the girl to death.

Jessye shot Bek a breathless glance. "What!?"

Harcourt caught his own breath short, then just nodded his head. "That’s … absurd."

Bek stepped up and looked the old man directly in his tired, nervous eyes. "She is helpless. She is in your care. You are killing her … slowly! Justify this, if you can."

I don’t have to justify anything to you is what his mind wanted to say, but those eyes … Order came down from the State … at the Church’s request … we are to discontinue life support … budget cutbacks, you see … money is tight … and …

Bek put her hands on the old man’s face; her fingers seemed to elongate. "Your … church … hoards vast treasures of immense wealth … yet would starve a helpless Child to death … to save money that is of infinitesimal consequence to their finances."

"Well … it’s not just about the money. The elder Physician started to sweat. She is … I mean … she’s not even really alive …"

Then why do you not end her suffering quickly, rather than compound it?

"Suffering? She’s not cognizant …"

She knows the agony of starvation.

"No … that’s simply not possible …"

You have deluded yourself. You were once a man of compassion. A Healer. How is it that your heart has turned from your Calling?

"She … feels?"

Yes.

"My … God … The old man would have collapsed where he stood had the strange woman with the horrible eyes not caught him. How … she has never had a life … nothing can be done for her …"

The Angel Who is her Soul remains within. Your heart knows this to be true. Bek squeezed the man’s face even harder. I would know your justification for torturing the Child to death, for I am without understanding in the matter.

"We never meant to torture her … it’s just … we have laws … we can’t just … murder her …"

Yet, you are.

"No … it’s … all we can do … all we’re allowed to do … under the law …"

Your laws are perverse and convoluted, and defy reason.

Not supposed to be this way …

No. It is not. And yet it is. What will you do to effect remedy?

The old man was close to stroking; his heart pounding dangerously hard, lungs couldn’t suck air in fast enough! "What … can … I … do?"

Listen to your heart, as was once your way, for it speaks with the Wisdom of the Angel Who is your Soul.

Will you truly care for the girl?

Yes … as though she is my own Child. Bek released the old Doctor. Let him slump into a nearby chair. "Those who remain … I trust to your care. Do not make me come back here!"

"Yes … of course!" Fenton Harcourt held his face in his hands and wept. I should have known … should … have … known … My God … she feels!

As they situated Audrie Chandler’s grotesquely withered body into the Trauma Ambulance, Jessye McAllister fought back heartbreak and rage, emotions that had ruled her life for as long as she could remember. They won’t give the Morning After pills to rape victims, but they’ll let a little girl starve to death to save a buck … I should’ve killed that holy-rollin’ motherfucker …

Bek placed a hand on the trembling woman’s neck; the calming effect was immediate! Quick death is not always the most appropriate recourse; gratifying though it may be. He has works yet to perform.

What little life left to those trapped in Our Lady Of Prompt Succor Mercy Hospital’s Non-Ambulatory Continuing Care Ward started getting better that very night.

A lot better!

Back2Top

Chapter One

National Institutes of Health

Bethesda

Maryland – USA

Rain started on her way to work. Windshield wipers on her ten-year old Saab were shit; had to park all the way out in west hell; umbrella still in a closet back home. A superstitious person might’ve called these things omens.

Sissy Sugarman wasn’t superstitious.

But she should’ve known it was going to be a rotten day anyway.

Her sniveling weasel of a Lab Section Head …

Waited until almost five o’clock …

To chop her off at the knees!

Somebody somewhere back in Roy Craighill’s dim past had once told him that whenever he had problems talking to somebody, just picture them naked. He took the advice to heart … with women, anyway!

Especially with Sissy Sugarman.

Especially!

Tall.

Leggy.

Flaming red hair.

Piercing green eyes.

Great big melon titties like just begging to be nibbled.

He had no trouble at all picturing her naked.

She was his favorite wet dream!

"What do you mean they turned down my funding? She tried to keep her voice from faltering. I thought it was a done deal!"

Roy got up from behind his crappy government-issue desk and wrapped himself around the taller, trembling woman … and pictured himself hugging her naked! I know, hon. I know. It’s a setback. But we’ll get through it.

"But … you told me that it was a done deal!"

I know, I know, Roy threw up his hands in exasperation. I was sure we had the front office on board … but you know … the political climate is …

Bunch of retarded bible-thumping assholes! Sissy yelled a little louder than she probably should have.

Roy went over and closed his inner office door. I know you’re upset …

Upset! Sissy practically yelled back. "UPSET! I was fucking UPSET the first three times they killed my research!"

"Nobody’s killed your research …"

This was it, Roy! We both know that!

Not at all, hon, Roy tried to calm the overwrought woman down. "We just have to think of some, shall we say … creative workarounds with the current administration’s policies."

FUCK THE CURRENT FUCKING ADMINISTRATION! She wanted to break down and cry her heart out.

But she didn’t.

Couldn’t!

Couldn’t stay in the cramped little dung-hole office she shared with her boss either. "I need … some time …"

Sure … sure … Roy patted her back like a worried father tries to burp a colicky baby … and unobtrusively slipped his other hand down to the swell of her magnificent ass. Let me take you home, hon.

Sissy pushed back from the old letch and gave him a burning glare. Don’t think so, Roy.

Roy Craighill held his hands palms-out and shrugged innocently. He knew she wasn’t going anywhere; not for long anyway.

Sissy snatched her big purse out of her desk drawer and stormed out of the ratty little office like it was for the last time.

Though she really deep down knew it certainly wasn’t.

Piece-of-junk car wouldn’t start.

Well of course it wouldn’t!

Sissy hardly noticed the drizzling rain as she stormed across the sprawling-yet-somehow-crowded NIH campus to a Metro station; she was so steaming-fucking-mad that the little raindrops seemed to vaporize on contact with her.

Never even noticed three women and two men following her.

Big Al’s New Orleans Seafood Bistro was officially into Happy Hour by the time Sissy stormed through the old-fashioned revolving glass door. Drinks weren’t any cheaper, but everybody was happy that they were off work and drinking anyway.

Tough day, Doc? Joy the bartender smiled as she pulled a couple of drafts.

Sissy gave the short, rubber-boobed woman a scowl.

That bad, huh. Joy passed the tall frosty mugs to a waiting Waiter and placed three heavy-bottomed shot glasses in front of the tall red-head who looked like she was about to fall to pieces, and then filled them with Vodka. Appetizers take th’edge off.

Sissy looked at the three small, deadly glasses for a moment. Blinked back tears. Sighed deeply. Slammed the ‘tater juice down hard and fast. Waited for her breath to creep cautiously back into her lungs. Then gasped, BEER!

Sissy was on her second brew and starting on a platter of oysters when a chubby little gal shinnied up on the right-side stool and ordered a beer.

Woman had thick make-up that didn’t completely cover all her freckles and pimples, mousy-brown hair piled stiffly up on her head in a style Sissy vaguely recalled as bouffant, or beehive, or … something like that. Kept pushing her thick-framed glasses up off her squat little nose as she stared curiously at the oyster platter.

I know you, Sissy slurped down an oyster and squinted. Head hunter, right?

Mary Sue Miller, the woman beamed and offered her hand. We spoke a few weeks ago. Then the perky smile morphed to a sympathetic frown. I heard about your research funding.

Yeah … so did I. Oyster?

Mary Sue stared at the thing that looked like a blood clot dangling from the end of a long, slim fork. "Is it … cooked?"

Cooked? Naahhh. Fresh shucked. Oysters on the half-shell. Never heard of it?

"Maybe … but I’ve never been … this close …"

Sissy burst out laughing. Probably the Vodka! Well hell, girl, they don’t bite back!

Mary Sue seemed unconvinced.

Look. Some people just splash on a little Tabasco and slide‘em right off the shell. Me, I make up my own little sauce. Ketchup. Lemon. Worcestershire. Maybe a drop or two of Tabasco. Swirl th’little suckers around and slip‘em right down the gullet. Slicker’n’snot. Here, this one’s a little puny. Give it a shot.

The chubby little gal stared at the dangling glob for a moment before opening her mouth.

Sissy popped the oyster in. "Don’t hold it in there, tilt your head back and swallow! Yeah! Good! Now beer! That’s it!"

Mary Sue Miller grinned and ordered another platter.

They got a table kinda off in the corner.

And more beer.

And Sissy Sugarman finally began to vent!

"I went back and got a PhD because nobody would back my research with just an MD. Still got nowhere. Johns Hopkins said my stuff was too theoretical, they wanted results they could put to work on patients right now. Then good old Roy came along. Told me NIH was my best bet, because they’re the bleeding edge of bioengineering theory. Told me to give him two years and I’d have my own lab and all the financing I wanted. That was five years ago. Five fucking years of my life … pissed away on useless bullshit that makes Roy Craighill look like a fucking genius and me … his faithful Igor the whore! Yeah … I know he’s telling all the other good old boys that he’s banging me. Like I’d be interested in that even in a wetdream! So … you can see why I’m not exactly the most trusting bitch on the block, you know."

Mary Sue swallowed down another gooey gob of oyster and drained her beer. Hey … I don’t blame you. Don’t know shit about this stuff, ok. All I was told to do was get you to the interview. She waved at the waiter, and giggled a little. He’s kinda cute. So … you going to stick with the Feddies?

Sissy chewed a carrot from her salad and shrugged. "Dunno … Only got two papers published, and they were in crap Journals. I’m working my ass off between the hospital and my so-called day job … which is never going to pan out as long as the goddamn Republicans and their stupid-ass refusal to fund new stem-cell research are pulling the purse strings, even if that part is just a fraction of my overall project, which my illustrious peers call science fiction! Can you fucking believe that shit! I have no social life … haven’t been on a date in about two years … can’t even remember the last time I was laid. Jeeze … I’m ready to just hang it up on research and go back to the hospital full time. They’ve got a spot on surgical rotation. I’m pretty damn good with a knife, you know."

"But … what about your research? What about all the paralyzed people who can’t be fixed with a knife?"

"Yeah … well … they’re just going to have to wait until science catches up to my fiction, I guess."

The two women just sat there and stared into their beers for a while. Then Mary Sue asked in a soft voice that barely hinted at her concern, Do you believe in your work?

Sure, Sissy shrugged without noticing the depth of the question.

Mary Sue cast her gaze across the table and locked eyes with the Doctor. "I am told that your procedures are the best hope … possibly the only hope … for someone … important to me."

You’re familiar with my work?

"I am not a scientist. I have only the vaguest association with the medical arts. My associates, however, assure me that you are the last, best hope for … my friend."

Sissy stared at the woman for quite some time before she answered with a sad shake of her buzzing head. Your associates obviously don’t understand my work either, hon. It’s all theory right now. Technologies required for practical application pretty much don’t even exist yet. I’m afraid that you and your friend are in for a disappointment. Theories are quick and cheap. Development takes time and money. Lots of time. Lots of money. And I’m just flat out of both, you know.

Mary Sue Miller smiled and watched bubbles in the last swallow of beer as she swirled her glass. "Money is … available. Time … is a perception. If I arrange for you to meet with some people tomorrow, will you give us a few hours of your time?"

Tomorrow? Sissy gave the smaller woman a suspicious glance. You’re kidding. You can set up a job interview that fast?

Already have.

"Look … I know private research can get around most of the political bottlenecks the government throws at us … but NIH really is the bleeding edge of the kind of research I’m trying to launch. And it’s not just stem cells, you know. It’s an extraordinarily complex system I’m trying to put together. Bio-chemistry. Nano transport systems. Stuff that NIH has on campus, but I sincerely doubt anybody else has available in so close a proximity. And this isn’t R&D, it’s pure research … the payoff is so far down the line that you and I will never live long enough to see it."

"Lifetimes can be … very long, Mary Sue Miller smiled. Don’t cast us aside simply because you doubt our sincerity or abilities. We do not doubt yours. Give us a few hours … what could it hurt? I’ll even throw in lunch."

Well … Sissy Sugarman pretended to think it over. "Maybe it is time to start looking …"

"Yes … it most definitely is."

The Interview

Sissy woke up with a killer headache and total indifference to getting out of bed! She stared at the glowing bed-stand clock numbers with zero enthusiasm for going back to work.

Maybe I’ll just close my eyes and die …

Rise and shine, morning star! Mary Sue Miller sang out as she pranced through the bedroom door with a steaming cup of coffee and pretty much nothing else!

Thick black-framed glasses and bright red lipstick.

Sissy’s ratty old red kimono robe … looked like a little fat kid playing dress-up in mommy’s closet.

Robe hung open and loose … kinky black bush hadn’t seen a trimming in way too long!

Hair piled perfectly atop her cute round head.

Perfectly!

Sissy hated the bitch on the spot. Barn door’s open, hon.

"What?" Mary Sue looked puzzled as she handed Sissy the coffee.

You sleep over?

"Well … we got in pretty late last night … this morning, actually. You were pretty wasted. I was worried you might stiff us. I slept on