Recurrence

By Dave Norem

Career criminal John Luther lives an intense and dangerous double life. On the surface, he is a normal, happily married man. Below the surface, he is a roving professional at grand larceny and armed robbery.
He is different than most of his kind though. Luther is plagued by a violent recurring nightmare. During the nightmare, he is a different person in a different era and suffering a horrible fate. Other nightmares appear relevant to people and events in his life; some of them premonitions linked to specific crimes.
As the frequency and violence of John's crimes escalate, the frequency of the nightmares increases as well.
Then John stumbles onto a phenomenon that links past to present and draws him into a quest for answers. The search culminates with a stunning revelation in the mountains of Virginia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543946772

Book preview

PROLOGUE

THE RECURRING NIGHTMARE

Consciousness returns in waves, waves of pain! The pain is in my head and is the worst headache I can remember. My eyes are matted shut and all I can hear is a roaring in my ears. Gradually I am aware that it is difficult to breathe and that I am unable to move. The why of this doesn’t immediately occur to me? I am in an upright position and find that I can move my head, but only with resistance.

I cannot understand where I am or why I am in this position. I do not yet want to open my eyes and face my predicament, but the urge to raise an arm and rub them is overwhelming and brings tears, which help to loosen my eyelids. By stretching my forehead and working my cheeks I am able to crack open the eye matter and see; first one eye and then the other.

What I see is a grey morning mist, which slowly comes into focus as earth immediately in front of me and a riverbank at an angle a short distance away. I vaguely recall following a river with others, but not this river.

The sun has not yet risen but the sky over the water is the beginning of a new day. It occurs to me that the dirt is at the level of my neck and I am buried upright in it. My head is propped up at the back and sides just enough to keep it facing slightly upwards. My movements have pushed the dirt away. I also become aware that my hair is matted to my head, and my face is covered with a thick heavy substance. It’s even in my moustache. It has the feel of molasses but has a slight nectar smell. The earth just below my chin has the musty compost smell typical of a damp forest. With all of this, I begin to remember how I came to be here but not why.

I had been in a meadow-like opening in the forest. The clearing was completely covered with strange orange and purple flowers that grew in clusters from knee to waist high. The blossoms were as big as upside-down cowbells and the stalks as thick as my middle finger. I had been trying to understand how they came to be there, all in one place, when I had seen them nowhere else.

The short Indians were everywhere. They had risen among the blossoms all around me and then proceeded to ease through them toward me without disturbing them. The newcomers were all male and naked except for a groin-covering thong hanging from a gut-like cord around the waist.

Each man had a spear longer by a foot than he was tall. The spears were tipped with a flat, flint-like stone at least four inches long. They held the spears straight upright with both arms extended as they advanced. Not a sound was uttered as they encircled me. Three or four of them motioned with their spears by jerking the tips slightly, for me to advance to the edge of the clearing.

I tried some Spanish and a few words of Portuguese on them to no effect. Some phrases from the few Indian dialects I knew brought me only more silence.

They advanced with me, maintaining the circle of about fifty feet diameter around me. Their total silence and the lack of expression on their faces were both ominous.

As we reached the edge of the clearing, I began to take the situation more serious and considered getting close to one side so that I could charge one of them and wrench his spear away. I had no intention of using the spear against them, as this would have been futile. A spear would be a psychological weapon for whatever perils I might face alone, should I make an escape.

I would have to try my escape away from the river where I had left my camp and a small party of companions. Without the river though, I would become hopelessly lost.

I could not hope to outrun the natives anyway. Although a foot shorter than me, they were sleek and sturdy looking. Worse, I didn’t even know which country I was in. I knew only that I was in Central America.

The Indians all appeared to be young to middle aged adults but none within twenty years of my age. Their hair was thick, straight, and cut straight-around just below the jaw line. They had dark markings of black, blue and crimson on their faces, chests, and upper arms.

I resolved to make the best of the situation with friendly overtures as we left the field of flowers.

Once all of them were clear of the flowers I stopped. They closed in rapidly, to a point where I had at least fifty of them within six feet of me, some behind others. They did not seem to have a designated leader, but as I looked around at them, one took two steps toward me and rotated his spear point straight down. My attention focused on him and before I could understand the significance of this, my head exploded, and I lost consciousness.

Later I vaguely remembered them pouring something down my throat, nearly choking me. I remembered seeing brown water while they were scooping out a large hole in the earth as I drifted in and out of consciousness. I did not seem to be bound, but instead held by many hands. Later still, I remembered them smearing dark honey-like stuff on my head and face and then pouring a trail of it at an angle back over my shoulder toward the jungle. I assumed that they were attempting to attract some type of animal to my exposed head. I also began to ache in the small of my back and in my knees. They had stuffed me into the hole in a doubled-up position, which was now extremely uncomfortable.

Not yet fully awake, I alternated between dozing and trying to keep my mind from the pain by thinking of my past. This brought on the question what did I do to deserve this? Then I asked myself, is this not always a silly question for a grown man?

My dozing was constantly interrupted by my head falling over from the lost support and from the sun in my eyes. I knew that the American Indians had staked people out on their backs in the desert with their eyelids cut off to have them go mad while they are blinded by the sun. This was not my situation.

What really had I done to deserve this? I had perpetrated many serious aggressions to a number of people, all of whom I deemed to be deserving. Others were not by intention but by proximity. Still others I had wronged by neglect. I had killed but killing during war is of another world and should not count against a man. None of these things seemed to warrant what I now faced.

Time advanced, as it will, and at one point I awoke with a start to stare into the eyes of a Coati. He must have been sniffing at my breath. I growled at him and he bounded off. Later, an animal of about the same size that I could not identify, approached sniffing at me. I barked at him and he also ran off. Small insects had begun to irritate my eyes and ears. These annoyances I didn’t mind so much as they kept my thoughts from the increasing discomfort of the oppression of cold earth.

Some time later, after the sun had risen to about the nine o’clock position, I began to see and hear more animals. Some approached from behind with enough size to cause me great concern, but they seemed to stay only long enough to satisfy their curiosity. All of those I could see were traveling in the same direction, toward the river and downstream along its banks, without stopping to drink. I also saw larger animals that completely ignored me, including a green-eyed, coal-black panther that looked directly over into my eyes and set my heart to pounding. He swung his head away and trotted on. What could be so serious to them to make them move this way? I do not smell smoke.

Slowly I become aware of another sensation, a vibration of the earth around me. This is unidentifiable at first, but as time passes, I am aware that there is a cadence to it. And now I know what is to be my fate. What I am feeling is the marching cadence of——Army Ants! All plant and animal matter in their path is consumed. I attempt to break free again, but it is hopeless.

Time stops for nothing and neither do the ants. The cadence becomes a pounding and I know they will soon appear. My despair is overwhelming. I break myself free of it and then it returns. I know I cannot frighten them away, and I will die a horrible death. Nothing can save me! I know also that they will go first for the eyes and the orifices of nose and ear: the mouth also unless I can keep it shut.

I begin to see movement in my peripheral vision and can hear the crunching of thousands of mandibles. You need not have seen this to know what it is. The advance party races toward me along the path laid for them, and I see a solid wall of them clear the stripped foliage behind. I had expected them to be reddish-brown and about a half-inch long. They are black and much larger. Some are nearly an inch in length.

The first of them reach me and circle as if checking for a guard. Others forge straight on and begin to consume the coating applied. I realize that I will not be able to keep my mouth closed, and I squeeze my eyes shut as tight as I can. In moments they have reached flesh and I feel the searing, burning pain of my flesh being consumed.

They are now at my eyes and I shake my head as violently as I can, blowing my breath and screaming loudly at them. It is to no avail. I feel warmth at my groin and know that my bladder has let go. My bowels soon follow suit.

The ants crawl into my mouth as I scream, and I try to eat as many as I can. They have a bitter lemon taste and I cannot chew and swallow them as fast as they enter. They are tearing away at my nose and entering there also. I realize that I am going to suffocate and recognize it as a blessing. The pain is so intense! ……… so …… intense! …………………… I Welcome Death!!!!

Welcome Death!!!!

Chapter 1

John Luther sat bolt upright in bed, gasping for air, then leaned back on his elbows. The nightmare was back! He stayed propped up, trembling, until his wife Julie reached out and patted his shoulder.

It’s all right Honey. It’s over, whatever it was.

He hadn’t had the dream in over two years. The last time was during the Marlin Brown disaster in March of seventy-two. He recalled the events as vividly as the recurring nightmare.

Marlin was a short, scrawny man from Hayti in southern Missouri, whom John had met through mutual acquaintances. They hit it off pretty well, and when they were in the same area they would occasionally get together with their wives for a few beers and an evening of dancing.

They had worked together on several jobs and this time they were planning a bank robbery in Toledo. They would be the inside men, with a third partner as getaway driver. When they met to work on the plans, Marlin showed up wearing a pair of wire-framed glasses.

John took one look and said, You look just like Chief Joseph.

Marlin looked at him without smiling. What the hell are you talking about?

You know, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Indians? When they captured him, he was lying on his back in the snow, looking up at them through a pair of glasses just like the ones you’re wearing. You look just like him.

You’re making this shit up... You’re weird Luther. Now let’s get to work.

John was confused himself. He didn’t know where the oblique statement had come from.

The following night he had the recurring nightmare. It had plagued him since early childhood but had diminished in frequency as he grew up.

Two weeks later, John bought the latest issue of Argosy Magazine. In the magazine was an article about the chase and capture of the Nez Perce Indians. A black and white photograph showed Chief Joseph lying in the snow, looking just like Marlin Brown with his glasses. John had heard of the Nez Perce before but could not recall ever hearing their final story. He was certain he had never seen a picture of them.

The next day he showed the story and picture to Marlin, who at first thought it wasn’t real. After it sunk in that John couldn’t have known about it in advance, he turned pale and stopped talking. Later, he would only speak to John about the job.

The robbery started well but then went terribly wrong, ending in violence and death.

The robbers wore matching sports coats to keep track of each other. Over the years, the gang of varying size and number called themselves the Match Gang.

They had cleaned out almost half of the teller stations, when someone tripped the alarm, setting off a bell inside the bank and a howler siren outside.

When the alarm sounded, John shouted and waved an arm, Everybody out, side door!

Marlin was nearest the door and one of the first ones out. He separated from the group before trying to pull off his jacket. His hands, holding both gun and money, tangled in the sleeves and he had to pull it back on, his gun pointing ahead as he did so.

John heard shots from outside before he reached the door. He stopped and tore off his coat, stuffed his pillowcase full of money into the front of his oversized shirt, wiped down the .38 revolver with the jacket, and dropped them both. The last remaining bank employees and customers were in a mad scramble to escape, and he ran out with them.

Under the coat, he was wearing the same type of JC Penney’s light-gray jacket and blue work shirt with overalls that most of the men in the area wore. He always wore a different style of clothes underneath during a job, just in case. This time it paid off.

He ran a short way with the others, passed a police car, and slowed to a fast walk. As soon as he was clear, he dodged between parked cars, crossed the street, and entered an alley. The short run had taken him right past Marlin, who had drawn all the attention.

He was lying on his back in a half-inch of snow with one arm raised and a finger pointing upward. His mouth was half-open, as if he were trying to make a point. He was still wearing the blue sports coat and the glasses. It flashed through John’s mind again that he looked just like Chief Joseph in the Argosy Magazine picture.

Later, John read that Marlin had died shortly thereafter from police bullets.

The night after the robbery, John dreamed of being in a battle. A man beside him gagged and coughed up blood as he fell. There was nothing identifiable in the dream, but he knew that the man was dead. The recurring nightmare with the ants had been only a few nights prior to that.

His thoughts wandered further into the past, to other nightmares, and to the life he led from childhood.

CHAPTER 2

He was a child in a car, traveling on an ice-covered back road with steep hills, at night. Every time the car, a new yellow and green fifty-four Chevy, crested a hill, his stomach rose in his throat and made him dizzy. They crested another hill. From his back-seat view, the headlights shone into black space and then dipped down past barren treetops to a snow-and-ice-covered descent. At the bottom of the hill was another car, an old one with a split windshield, lying on its side in the middle of the road.

His father hit the brakes and the Chevy fishtailed wildly, corrected itself when he released the brakes, and then fishtailed again on re-apply. When it fishtailed, it seemed to rock up onto the wheels on one side and gravel pinged against the body of the car. When it straightened again, the lights shone onto the windshield of the car in their path. A man was kneeling upright behind the glass, exposed in the glare of the headlights.

Son of a bitch, his father muttered as he fought the wheel to bring the car under control.

The man in the headlights continued to stare right at them with his face and both hands pressed against the glass.

The boy was transfixed by the image of the man staring impending death in the face. There was an impact and he was flying through the air towards the man, face-to-face!

When John was ten, his parents and his younger sister Emily were killed in their fifty-four Chevy. A year later, the memory still haunted him.

He had been in the hospital for a tonsillectomy and they were on their way to pick him up. A construction crew had been grading for a new four-lane highway and had stretched a cable across the road between two bulldozers so that one of them wouldn’t slide down a steep bank.

The Chevy hit the cable at the base of the windshield at about sixty-five miles-per-hour. Both of his parents were decapitated. Eight-year-old Emily in the back of the car was thrown forward and cut in half just above the waist. Later, it was determined that the flagman was drunk and had fallen asleep in the cab of his truck. The car stopped with the cable buried into body metal just ahead of the trunk. The roof was turned upside down over the trunk lid, like an opened can of sardines, with body parts spilling out.

John was placed in the care of Mrs. Farmer, a kindly neighbor, until after the funeral. He could still remember the three closed caskets at the end of the parlor, with photographs of his family members propped on easels at the foot of each one. The two larger caskets were at an angle, with the smaller one between them.

While walking unnoticed as a child among adults, he overheard the graphic details of their deaths. He felt numb, as if it was happening to someone else, and couldn’t feel the floor under his feet.

After the funeral, he went home with his maternal grandparents who lived in the country several miles from Grand Haven, Michigan. The following summer, he was to stay with his paternal grandfather in rural Virginia, near Suffolk.

At first, his life in Michigan was exciting, and kept him from thinking of his family. The remote, sparsely populated area with its miles of pine forests on either side of sand and gravel roads seemed like a wilderness to him after living in Indiana. Until that time, he had lived in Carter, only a few miles from Fort Wayne. Carter was a friendly, family-oriented town where John had friends and classmates since early childhood. Now he was isolated from others his own age until school started.

He explored the forest around his grandparents’ property, finding new and different plants and animals. He discovered meadow-like clearings and old logging trails. He saw pheasants and coal-black squirrels. Once, he saw a black bear on the other side of a clearing. It seemed to discover him at the same time and they both ran, but in opposite directions.

After that he always carried a Louisville Slugger baseball bat that he’d found in the woodshed behind the house.

Several times, he almost got lost in the woods, but was able to find his way back by using the compass his grandfather had given him.

His grandfather didn’t talk much, but John sensed him to be boy-friendly. He worked long hours in Grand Rapids on weekdays, but on weekends they fished in small nearby lakes from a rented wooden rowboat, or along the Grand River from the bank. John learned how to fish, and how to row and paddle the boat. He also learned how to clean and cook the fish. The first time he watched his grandfather clean a fish he was surprised. The fish was quivering and appeared to be breathing while the man was scaling it and cutting out the fins.

Doesn’t that hurt them? he asked.

His grandfather scraped some gut and scales from the blade, wiping it against the edge of the block. It’s in shock, it doesn’t feel a thing.

Just then, the fish started to flop, and his grandfather grunted and hit it on the head with the hilt of the knife, driving his fist down like a hammer.

Don’t worry about fish or wild animals, Johnny. Mother Nature hands them a lot worse treatment. They’re designed for it.

That night he had another nightmare.

The boy ran through the brush and weeds and into the forest, heedless of direction or minor obstacles, protecting only his face from the foliage. His pursuer was gaining, and he feared that the big ugly man would soon be upon him and smash him to the ground. Worse would follow and he would be beaten, degraded and humiliated. The man would probably kill him too, but he wasn’t afraid of that.

The man would take the little girl after finishing with him. He had been threatening for days and said that he would kill them both if they told anyone. He escaped when the man had tried to make him suck on his thing. The hands and whiskers rubbing against his privates had been humiliating enough. And then, even worse, was the probing finger at his butt. It was horrible!

He stomped on the man’s moccasined foot with his hobnailed shoe, stabbed at his eyes with his fingers, and twisted free. The man’s buckskin trousers were bunched around his ankles, and he fell back cursing. It delayed his pursuit of the boy.

On and on he ran, winding through any narrow space and over, under, or around any obstacle he could place in his pursuer’s path. Leaves and limbs tore through his hair and smacked his head, while briars and branches clawed at his bare arms and snagged his trouser legs, seemingly in a personal effort to impede his progress.

They had run almost a quarter-mile from the dilapidated and peeling log cabin at the back of the meadow. The little blonde, blue-eyed girl was still there, bound with rawhide strips. His hope to find help in the settlement on the other side of the forest seemed hopeless, like an unreachable goal.

Now, in his haste, he was too late in seeing a large fallen fir tree. The trunk, with a tangle of branches supporting it from below, loomed in his path too high for him to clear. He slowed.

Behind him, he could hear the crashing and panting of the man as he tore through the undergrowth.

The man pursuing him was tall and solidly built, with close-set dark eyes and straight, shaggy iron-gray hair that hung just below the collar of his gray linen shirt. One unbuttoned shoulder strap of the greasy, bibbed trousers still hung free and bounced wildly during the pursuit. Gaps in his rotting teeth and a large scar bisecting his face made him appear even more frightening to the boy. One of the man’s eyes was offset below the other, enhancing his monster appearance.

The boy dived headlong into the branches under the tree trunk—just short of colliding with it. He clawed and kicked his way through and found himself rolling and sliding down an unseen, steep embankment on the other side. A heavy accumulation of leaves accelerated his descent to the bottom, where a rock-strewn creek with a gravel bed awaited.

He landed with a splash and found himself in a sitting position. Cold water flowed around his legs and hips and over his supporting hands. A tan muddy cloud roiled downstream past his outstretched legs and feet. He had just missed landing on a rock as big as a man’s boot. It was