Miles of Stolen Souls

By Jack Whalen

When a fraternity prank turned terrible, I found myself in a snowstorm on a back road somewhere about four hours from the frat house. Blindfolded, during the entire trip, I was lost and disoriented when we stopped to let me out. I had no idea where they left me. Worse yet, they didn't tell me which way to walk to find the college town. The horizons were black, so I walked in the tracks in the direction we came.
It turned out to be Hell Night for my Pledge Class, and everyone decided Miles payback would be to spend the night as a Pledge for treating me as a captive. So he stripped naked and took his bare ass paddling like the other pledges then began a week of frat house chores.
I wasn't the only young person taken prisoner by these guys, but only the second to live to tell about it. The other was their daughter since neither knew which was her biological father. She ran away so often when she could; her dads paid a local junkie to keep her and maintain an addiction program that would keep her.
After a few weeks of brutal treatment by the frat brothers, we dumped him in a local ghetto to eke out a living. His surprising return to the college town had hardly changed him. He was determined to exact revenge on me for all that went wrong in his life, and he knew to hurt me; all he had to do was capture, Maggie.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Aug 31, 2020
• ISBN: 2345678901234

Jack Whalen

Leaving my hometown for college was a dive from all I'd known into a sea of unfamiliarity. Gone were the sports I loved that kept me healthy, my friends who taught me about life via fun and games, and the experiences only found in a small town. I also left a home that I later discovered was dysfunctional. Although I earned an AA and BS degrees, college life showed me a freedom I didn't manage well. My freedom changed me. I married my college sweetheart the week after graduation, which was a month before the Woodstock music festival and three months before our "love child" was born. Full of ambition, I changed IT jobs every few years, staying on the "fast track - high potential" lists from start-up companies to mega-corporations. We started poor but built an American Dream in a few short years. On the outside, we had it all, on the inside I was dying. Drugs and alcohol finally brought me down after decades of hard-partying. In spring 1982, I returned from a long assignment in Singapore, where I stayed clean and sober. I could be myself and loved it. I moved my family out of suburbia to clean up our lives. While I attended A.A., my wife slid into the world of IV drug use. We helped her fight her demons, but that lifestyle claimed her. She chose life in a drug den several miles from us. We were in pain. My single parenting skills were inadequate, but the extra effort by each of us proved enough to get the kids' college degrees. Much of this story is about recovery from lost love, dreams of a better life, and my struggles to conquer my addictions. The evidence shows sobriety is a way of life - not an event.

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Miles of Stolen Souls

Miles of Stolen Souls

Copyright       © 2020 Jack Whalen

Published       New Wave Books

                   Alpharetta, Georgia

ISBN#           9780578733579

Ebook ISBN# 978-0-578-73590-0

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the author.

Contact: [e-mail]

Other Books Written by

                           Jack Whalen

The Courage to Surrender – John W.

        (Original)

Part 1 of my memoir covers my life from a 1955 small town to experiences with college, Vietnam, Woodstock, and career movement. During an aggressive and successful career through 2012, I reflect on my family life, building the American Dream. Drug addiction and alcoholism held me down for decades until my 2001 recovery.

Copyright © 2012 John W.

Published 2013 E-book only

ISBN# 9781624077395

The Courage to Surrender – John W.

       (Second Edition)

A Part 2 continuation of the memoir updated through 2019. More relevant detail to the original book with in-depth feelings and outward impressions of me socially and at the office. Focused on career challenges and struggles to stay clean and sober for additional years to 2019.

Copyright © 2019 John W.

Published 2019 as

E-book and Paperback

ISBN# 981624077395

The Wild Weed        Jack W.

My book offers an in-depth understanding of marijuana and ayahuasca as pleasurable experiences and their contribution to healing mental and physical problems. The storyline takes place on Cape Cod in a contemporary adventure with enough humor, intimacy, mystery, and escapades to be an enjoyable read.

Copyright © 2019 Jack W.

Published in May 2019

E-book and Paperback

ISBN# 9781644387566

The Weed Day Massacre Jack Whalen

This tale chronicles a man-made apocalypse that killed millions of Americans within a couple of days. The key to this order of magnitude success was infiltrators from other countries who lived in the U.S. for two years. They betrayed our trust and friendship with the distribution of the chemical warfare agent. Soon after the massacre, when we were most vulnerable, we were invaded by a conspiracy of 7 countries led by Russia. The infiltrators played a role in that battle then went home waiting for another attack on American soil.

Author: Jack Whalen

Copyright © 2020 John W.

Published: May 2020

Publisher: Ingram Spark

ISBN# 9780578602868

Introduction

I sensed his misguided mannerisms. He wanted to be like a folksy farmer, but something about him didn’t look the part. His clothes looked city-like, he had clean fingernails and was stinking of alcohol with bloodshot eyes. Driving an old back road on a snowy night, he seemed to not care about me. Then, as though he had an idea, he convinced me to spend the night at his place.

I discovered too late that he derived his pleasure from the pain of others. Unlike my capture, he snatched his victims from their lives. He blindfolded them, leaving them to wonder where they were. With their hands and feet bound, he emphasized his control, forcing each to fear what might happen next.

Although their body seemed content, in their next days, their mind thrashed over who would kidnap them and for what. Their soul searched for some understanding of what they did to precipitate this nightmare, and they prayed for rescue. What would the kidnapper do to them to get what they wanted?

I felt outraged over the self-serving cops who watched pride stripped from the innocent soul.

It was ironic the more prolonged the torture continued, the easier it was to bear. Anticipation blotted out body pain and general discomfort. While their mind seemed to have satisfied all its fear concerns, the only unknown was how much longer the captivity would last.

Miles became a troubled person when we interfered with his game by disrupting his easy-going control over others. Although necessary, he hated torture and worried about his victims.

His desire to remove the vulgar seriousness of humiliation was futile. Miles’s narcissistic attitude expected everyone, including the victim, to enjoy the game as he did. His twist continued to seek the fun of his early games even though subsequent games became more trouble than pleasure.

I bumped into Miles on a snowy night in the area of Lake Oswego, New York. The snow had soaked me while the wind and fear kept me shaking. It was a fraternity pledge prank turned terrible.

It took more than a week to escape the hospitality of Miles and his friend, Matt, who drank while I did the back-breaking chores. I wondered about their income and lifestyle. Who were they? How did they end up in this isolated old farm, driving a rusted-out pickup? As I discovered, the mystery of their existence was an outline of related secrets

The high point of my escape was to meet Maggie, the love of my life. It was love at first sight – we had been waiting a lifetime for each other. She worked with me as I tried to find Mary, the prior occupant of the room Miles locked me in, during my stay on the farm.

The trail between Oswego College and my fraternity house in Albany, New York, was about a four-hour drive. As retribution, my fraternity brothers took Miles to our house and made him a Pledge for Hell Week. First up was ten hits on his bare ass from a painful wood paddle. He stayed all week to complete his sentence.

Such treatment brought out a dark side of Miles that touched on taboo practices. His game was to kidnap then subject captives to sessions mixed with ecstasy, pain, and humiliation. As the victim's mind tried to make sense from the onslaught of feelings, he’d isolate them, bound and blindfolded, between their daily sessions.

Miles’s hate for me festered but did not interfere with his game playing. His hatred intensified when I put all the game pieces together, informing the State Police and FBI.

Then the unthinkable happened - Maggie disappeared.

The FBI sent in an undercover girl into Miles perverted world who got steamrolled into the game. Her skills and street smarts caused Miles to shoot her, committing his first face to face killing.

I asked the FBI if the surviving victims and I could execute a search for Miles as we knew him best, and we were agile. We found him, drove him to the abandoned fraternity house for his second trip, and the brothers began treating like he had treated his victims. He left a broken man

They dropped him slum to live awaiting his trial. Months later, he was convicted and given a handful of life sentences. When the general population in prison learned of his crime, inmates regularly abused him. Two years later, he died.

Table of Contents

Preface

All we have to fear is fear itself.

It’s a concept that FDR summarized so simply.

My story is one of fear, both real and imaginary. The truth is that if you feel fear, it doesn’t matter how you got that feeling. You are scared.

In my high school years, my level of anxiety didn’t change from one day to the next. Insecurity caused me uncomfortable feelings that surrounded events I couldn’t control. Worry over the future resulted from my fear of how events might impact my life.

When I graduated, none had a permanent effect on the grand scheme of my life, except one – my first Selective Service Draft Notice.

In the spring of 1965, the war in Vietnam was raging. Uncle Sam intimidated me with an invitation to have an Army physical.

Even though I failed the physical because of my football damaged knee, the event swayed my desire to attend college.

I was reminded of the real fear on the 11:00 News every night when the TV showed a video of the combat and displayed the GI to Viet Cong kill ratio.

I was fearful of leaving the only life I’d ever known for a new life that I imagined would cause me stress to compete at a high level. And of course, I had to maintain a GPA high enough to keep my 2S Student Deferment status.

Mom instilled enough phobias and scare tactics that I learned to fear, which produced a life full of anxiety. That feeling of always being careful or else something awful could happen to me was a burden I had to overcome many times.

The frat brothers showed no fear as they were a tough group, and I expected to be the same once I was a brother. They made sure I’d face my fear and walk through it.

My experiences with fear have shown me that I am sensitive to being alone, as it seems my imagination can keep me on edge.

During Hell Month, I learned to fear the pain associated with getting hits on my bare ass with a small wooden paddle designed to inflict pain.

But the ultimate fear came with an innocent pledge trip where imaginary fear turned real.

My story creates such fearful situations that the victims cry for others who experience their same emotional pain.

As you read, you’ll see, there is no greater control mechanism than fear itself. As is the case of the story’s victims, the need for relief from pain and humiliation is so overwhelming one will do anything to avoid it.

Anxiety moves my storyline through the control of people's lives, innocent and guilty.

My story will reach feelings that don’t often surface in daily life. In particular, fear, compassion, retribution, sadness, anger, control, terror, insecurity, and loneliness.

While the purpose of the book is entertainment, one can argue these are not feelings that entertain, until you consider the definition of entertainment. It’s acting and performing to create a diversion and distraction in one’s life. I can assure you this book will hook you with its characters and bizarre action.

A taboo practice is integral to the plot, which disturbed me as I wrote it. I had to stop after five weeks of writing. I felt so bad about the victims; I couldn’t put it away. I had to help them.

The book took on a life of its own, which is strange as I’ve never even read about this stuff. Anyway, I wrote the book in five weeks. It just flowed out of me once I got the actual fraternity prank into a manuscript. Having been in lockdown gave me time to explore these feelings.

Miles is the main character who is a drunk with sexual issues. He lives Matt, another drunk who doesn’t have a conscience and obeys Miles.

Together they have created a game that causes victims pain, humiliation, and loss of self. Once the particulars of his game