Devil's Spinner

By Trent Brodsky

You know them to be a choking hazard, a mind-dumbing distraction, a new "hip" thing to fade into obscurity in a year's time, but fidget spinners are so much more... EVIL.
When a troubled Catholic priest is burdened with a mission from the Vatican to investigate strange occurrences relating to the mysterious Spinnerist Sect, he is thrown into the world of global deception and international intrigue. As the spinnerists are marching on all over the world, all too quickly spreading like a millennial plague, can the thoroughly outnumbered man of faith unravel the increasingly ominous web of conspiracy that threatens to engulf the life as we know it in apocalyptic flames? Does it somehow lead to the POTUS himself? How is North Korea fitting into all of this? What the hell are "fidget spinners" exactly? All of these questions (and more) will be answered in...
DEVIL'S SPINNER

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trent Brodsky
• Release date: Feb 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370336630

Trent Brodsky

Trent Brodsky grew up on the tough streets of Beverly Hills where he battled the temptation to do drugs and make movies since he was a little child. At the gentle age of twelve, Mr. Brodsky began experiencing splitting headaches, which in mere months turned into blackout migraines. Years later, the startling revelation followed: doctors have found a tumor inside his hippocampus. It was successfully removed on October 7th 1997. Even though young Trent had fully recovered, an unfortunate side effect of the treatment remained: Brodsky could no longer feel any emotions. Since then, it is his sole goal in life to bring what was taken away from him to the rest of the world: a rollercoaster ride of emotional fulfillment—through storytelling. LINKS: Follow Trent Brodsky on Twitter: @TrentBrodsky Send your love and praises for Mr. Brodsky: [e-mail] Support Trent, the independent writer, on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TrentBrodsky For business inquiries: [e-mail] Business inquiries for the cover artist: [e-mail] Donate to a noble cause: myasdf.org

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TRENT BRODSKY

DEVIL’S SPINNER

Copyright © 2018 by Trent Brodsky

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1: The First Spin

Chapter 2: Harras, Harassed

Chapter 3: The Hum of Things to Come

Chapter 4: Forgive Me, Father, for I Have Sinned

Chapter 5: Did You Call the Plumber?

Chapter 6: Feel Free to Conform

Chapter 7: Good Time to Pick One’s Brain

Chapter 8: Domestic Assault

Chapter 9: Parasites

Chapter 10: Explosive Revelations

Chapter 11: Nobody’s Home

Chapter 12: The Calm Before the Storm

Chapter 13: The Storm

Chapter 14: A Chance Meeting

Chapter 15: The Room with No Windows

Chapter 16: The Distinguished Guest Arrives

Chapter 17: Into the Concentration Camp

Interlude

Chapter 18: Schadenfreude, or: Fish in a Barrel

Chapter 19: Let Me Give You a Hand

Chapter 20: The Wreckage

Chapter 21: Into the Unexpected Enemy’s Lair

Chapter 22: Teenage Mutant Ninja Youngblood

Chapter 23: The Bi-Coming

Author’s Afterward

PROLOGUE

AUSCHWITZ, NAZI GERMANY

27 January 1945

It was an ordinarily gloomy morning. The screams of tortured souls echoed through the various halls of the main brick-clad building. The sobbing of the dying, the gasps of the living. The halls themselves were empty, barren—quite fitting for a place such as this. One of them, however, was not.

A man with a monocle around a particularly inquisitive eye was standing firmly near the northern wall. Outfitted in a brown uniform and looking curiously and alternately at the charts in his hands and at the schemes of unknown origin in a frame plastered to the wall, the monocle-wearing man felt a cold touch of a leather glove on his shoulder.

I hert zat your recent ‘projekt’ ist not goink too vell, ja? he heard from behind. When the man turned around, the figure in all leather was caught by his nervous gaze. It was partly obscured by shadows. The figure’s voice was of an exquisite Austrian descent, and also gloating.

The man in the brown uniform gulped. Quite zee kontrary, Obersturmbannführer Schrechenbachen, he finally forced himself to move his ever so slightly trembling lips. Das ist goink remarkably vell.

Oh ja? Obersturmbannführer Schrechenbachen’s stern face drastically changed, as if becoming welcoming. This new look felt eerily out of place on its dry hardened skin.

The other man continued, now with traces of hubris just barely noticeable in his voice, "In vakt, zee vill of zee lasht batsch’s tezt subjektz vas at an all-time lov ant broken in an extraordinary schort shpan of time. If I do sayen so myselv, vee are on zee verge of a breakzru."

Ooh, zat ist gut to hear. His leather-gloved finger automatically scratched the area where his moustache would be had he had moustache. Surprisingly gut newz, jawohl. A glint of pride in his Nazi eyes. Perhaps I vill tellen zee Führer zat ven I next see him.

The other man straightened his back, as if standing at attention. All I kut efer hope vas zat zee Führer vut be pleast. A tear covered his monocle-less eye.

Ja, ja. Obersturmbannführer Schrechenbachen finally walked out of the shadows—even more formidable this way. Das ist fery gut, Herr Mengele.

"Doktor Mengele, the man corrected him. Doktor Josef Mengele."

Ja, ja… he gave him a look, I knov.

A loud bang blew up the wall they were standing in front of, and a cannonball smashed the officer’s head clean off in an instant. The Obersturmbannführer’s headless body flung its arms up and instinctively touched the bloodied torn flesh at the neck. The neck was spurting blood, painting the physician’s face red.

Josef Mengele’s twitching ears took in ceaseless gunshots of various intensity, screams of agony, shrieks of confusion, defiant war cries, and other loud bangs while he wiped his face with a handkerchief.

Doctor Mengele looked at the spazzing corpse, then on the cannonball, still rolling back and forth in the officer’s immediate vicinity. Gory bits covered its metallic roundness. Something caught his eye.

OH NEIN! he exclaimed, seeing a crudely painted penis on the dark surface of the ball. Its testicles were covered in sporadic hairs. Zee Russianz!

Seconds later, he heard clicks and clanks of Kalashnikov rifles’ bolts being pulled back all around him. Doctor was surrounded by the Red Army soldiers. They looked mean and tough, scorn and justified hate on their pale faces, but, strangely, still hadn’t fired their cocked weapons at him.

Mengele couldn’t believe his eyes: his monocle dropped to the ground, shattering to itsy bits in an instance. His jaw went agape.

A mustached man in an unusual uniform—Generalissimo uniform—slowly appeared from the shadows further down the hall and put a smoking pipe into his mouth. His mustache moved, I tink we need to tok.

— 1 —

The boy’s face was nonresponsive. Eyes focused.

From an early age, Jamie Cotton was withdrawn, secretive, weird. Weirdo! they called him. Weird weirdo! they tried to hurt him.

He tried to eat a math test once.

Still, some kids were sycophantic towards him: dreamy blue eyes, blond hair ready to be tousled; but he didn’t quite get why they were acting that way—a little too friendly—so it always felt weird to be around them. Plus they were mostly girls—that made it doubly weird.

The only people Jamie confided in were his parents and grandpa. And when he did, he was kind and empathic.

His marks at school were good. He didn’t get in trouble. Sure, he played video games once in a while, but he didn’t get violent urges from them like most people do. He was a straight arrow. Straightest arrow in his class. A good life was ahead of him.

All of that changed when he got a present—something that seemed to be just an innocuous toy at first…

Now, he was sitting near the window in his locked bedroom, looking at the clear skies, but not really—he was looking through them. Face nonresponsive. Eyes focused. His left hand, jerking faintly up and down, had the particular item in it… a fidget spinner.

What was even more terrifying is it was spinning.

— 2 —

The man’s face was sturdy. Eyes confused.

From an early age, Father Harras wanted to belong. It was always hard. When he was growing up on the cruel streets of Bronx, his friend used to say, In this life, there’s only your nuts and your balls. And you break neither, you dig? He never quite understood it. Until now.

Father Harras was absorbing the moving picture on the plasma TV screen in the green room. A set of female lips was warning him and the rest of the local Washington viewers of incoming unrest, sweeping the nation and, by extension, the world. It was nothing new.

…the prospects of nuclear war with North Korea become more and more apparent and almost a certainty. The somber tone of her voice was captivating. Now, get us through the weather, John, the newscaster smiled, and a weather map along with a grinning chubby forecaster appeared on the flat screen.

Goddamn fools, the man of faith whispered, swishing a drop of sweat off his tired wrinkled brow—almost bitterly, but rather sympathetically. Sorry, JC, he asked of a wooden crucifix above the door frame and returned to the TV. You don’t even have the slightest of what’s coming. His mouth hurried to kiss a whiskey flask in his withered hand, and his face hurried to gurn on account of that.

Father Harras came to the light: his priest-like getup, black and somewhat cumbersome, was met with an early-August sun, a white collar squeezing his neck gently but tightly. As the front door of the church closed behind his slumped figure, he squinted, not expecting how bright it was outside. Bright and hot.

Father Harras! a young voice called him by name, much to Harras’ surprise and chagrin. What about your coffee? Sir? It was a handsome thirty-something fellow in an outfit similar to Harras’, with the exception of a few creases and general wear and tear identical even. He was holding two Starbucks cups.

What? When Harras’ eyes noticed the cup the priest apprentice was extending towards him, the latter barked in short bursts, Yes. Throw it away.

Father… the concerned youth began, if you don’t mind me asking… is something wrong?

Do you know what’s in this letter? A rectangular yellow envelope—fine Italics written all over it—held high in Harras’ sweating hand.

No, Father, the youngster positively shook his head.

Come with me, came a terse command.

The faces of two priests were painted by bright neon lights. Harras adjusted his elbows lying on the surface of a faux wood table. His apprentice nervously gulped.

How are you doing this evening, fine gentlemen? came from the waiter with a notebook and a pencil ready in his hands.

Clearly befuddled by the question, Harras could only say, Um... okay, I guess… before he followed it with, why?

Are you ready to order? the waiter continued with the pleasantries.

Oh yeah… coffee, Harras hastily waved it aside. The matter at hand couldn’t tolerate any further delay.

Hmm. Two coffees coming right at you. He tried to walk away, yet had stopped and lingered. From the look on his face, the waiter clearly had a hard time saying what he was about to say, Guys, I don’t want to seem like an asshole… I mean, I like role-playing myself, but that, he pointed at their matching outfits, is just a bit much. Just saying.

As he walked away, they exchanged brief uncomfortable looks.

Father Harras hit the table with the envelope. Read it.

His apprentice, George Youngblood, took it, his lips started moving. He lifted his expanding eyes. He couldn’t believe where it came from. Vatican?

Keep reading.

Youngblood’s shaking hands took a piece of paper out of the yellow container, akin to a holy relic. The handwriting stroke him as smooth—too smooth. In black and white, the letter said:

Dear Father Harras,

It is with a heavy heart I am extremely sad and distressed to inform you that your initial suspicions were, in fact, correct.

Sustained first casualties. Holy network appears to be compromised. Cannot tell you more through this channel as it is unsecure.

You have full authority to do whatever’s necessary. May the power of God be with you in tribulations yet to come.

— P.

P.S.: We should’ve listened to you from the start. Perhaps your relocation is proving to be a part of Lord’s plan after all.

When George finished reading, Harras looked him straight in the eye and offered no nonsense, "I’m afraid this is what Lord had in store for us. This is our mission now." His index finger tapped the exposed letter anxiously.

The apprentice nodded, visibly phased by the revelations that were thrust upon him. But Father… he whispered, why are we conversing about this in a gay bar?

It’s one of the few safe places still left around this Godforsaken Earth. The young priest’s eyes became rounder as he crossed himself. Harras, habitually, made the sign of the cross, too. It was either this place or a synagogue.

Eww… he let out unintentionally.

Besides, the forces we’re up against will never try to actually recruit… A strange humming pierced Harras’ skull—the penetrating sound started torturing his brain. Through the pain, he glanced to his left: a young man sitting at a nearby table was holding the very thing that made those humming noises vibrating through the air and making the priest dizzy and sick. A fidget spinner. Spinning. I was wrong! Harras blurted out, his face a colorless mess. The torture of a feeling was hard to bear, unbearable. He almost couldn’t breathe, gasping. He jumped on his feet and zigzagged to the young man with the fidget spinner between a thumb and a middle finger. YOU SPAWN OF SATAN! The young man did not respond. In fact, by the looks of his chiseled self, he didn’t even hear Harras. So the priest did the only reasonable thing he could think of at the moment, grabbing him by the sleeves and violently shaking him. HOW DARE YOU TO COME IN THIS HOLY PLACE?! Like before, it granted no response or acknowledgement. Absolutely none.

Dude, I think you’re being a little confused, a man behind another table told him.

LIKE HELL I AM! the priest protested, accosting the nonresponsive spinnerer.

Youngblood’s eyes became so wide, there was seemingly no color in them except white.

Two bouncers grabbed the cursing Harras by arms and legs, drearily carrying him away in a monotonous fashion. Strangely, his silent victim hadn’t moved still. The spinner in his unmoving hand kept spinning.

— 3 —

Being a fifteen-year-old is never easy. Jamie Cotton woke up without such a drab feeling. He had been also added to the ranks of fifteen-year-olds now, but he didn’t feel a thing. At least, his face didn’t show any such emotion of inevitability, or anything else. As soon as

Reviews for Devil's Spinner

[Jackson Cornfield · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Unfettered insanity. This guy's either a genius or a complete fucking retard. Maybe both. Loved it to the very last word. WORD UP!