Transformed

By D. E. Heil

He brings new life into the world. Now, to protect his friends, he must learn how to take life instead.

 

Dr. Robert Fogler is a local hero to his community, a philanthropist, and an anti-gun activist. As an OB/GYN, he has dedicated his career to bringing life into this world… not snuffing it out.

 

But when a deadly encounter in the emergency room leaves him reeling, there's a lot more than just his values at stake. The ordinary world isn't the safe place he thought it was, and he admits to himself that law-abiding citizens need more protection than police can provide.

 

Robert doesn't want to believe in violence as a means to any end, even a good one. However, one of his colleagues is also in danger, right now, and it's only a matter of time before something terrible happens. He must rewrite his future—or face the consequences.

 

Will he have enough time to use his newfound skills to protect his friends and family?

Or is it simply another case of too little, too late?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dale Heil
• Release date: Mar 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201622985

D. E. Heil

Dale Heil was born on a wintry day in Pittsburgh in 1956. His mother was perpetually late for important appointments, and in keeping with her tardy nature, never spent more than 20 minutes in a hospital before birthing any of her four babies. He received an undergraduate degree in Psychology from Slippery Rock University, spent an adventurous winter in Aspen, CO as a ski bum, and then attended the National University of Health Sciences (NUHS) in Lombard, IL where he received a BS in Human Biology and Doctorate in Chiropractic. In a tremendous stroke of good luck, the best luck he has ever had, he met his wife, Maria, who lived in nearby Wheaton, IL. Heil has supported his wife’s activism on behalf of the Second Amendment since the year 2000. Currently, she is a Member of the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association. It is through his close association with Second Amendment issues that he has gained great insight into the world of ordinary Americans who willingly accept the responsibility of providing protection for themselves, their family, and their communities. Because of his fellowship with typical yet remarkable Americans, the True Justice series of novels was born. In addition to writing fiction as well as non-fiction books, Dr. Heil recently obtained a Master’s degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. He and his wife continue to live in Pennsylvania where they raised their four children.  

Book preview

Transformed

True Justice series Prequel

D. E. Heil

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Chapter One

Duane Spencer

Duane Spencer lifted the remote control off the water stained, cigarette-burned end table next to the easy chair he was sprawled across. Scowling at it as if seeing it for the first time in his life, he began clicking with his stubby thumb. It was an attempt to mute the sounds coming from the 86-inch large screen television mounted crookedly on the wall opposite.

Shifting his weight over the depression his buttocks had long ago pushed into the ancient seat, and sliding back to avoid a tear in the cushion, he alleviated some of the cramps in his lower back. Duane wasn’t a muscular man, but he was tall, and his round, swollen belly extended far beyond the limits of his scuffed leather belt. Without taking his eyes off the TV screen and not moving anything but his lips, he hollered, Get me another beer, will you?

Nikita Jones, the woman he’d been living with for the past four years and referred to as his fiancée, ran her bony hand through the tight knit of her tangled hair and replied in a weary voice, You don’t have any more beer. You drank it all and you didn’t give me any money for more. She said it in a low, level tone without malice or accusation. She was simply stating a fact, too mentally exhausted to care.

What do you mean you don’t have any more beer? he said, his head whipping around, glaring at her from beneath a wrinkled brow. I gave you money! What’d you do with it? You spend, spend, spend on all kinds of crap, but you can’t even get me beer that I gave you money for?

You did not give me money for beer! Nikita retorted. She thrust her bony hip to the side, her hand resting atop it. After holding that pose for a moment, she began bobbing back and forth like an enraged cobra ready to strike, and her eyes bore straight into his, challenging him to dispute what she was saying.

Duane glared at her, an empty beer bottle dangling from his fingertips, forgotten. Then, in a meek, skeptical voice, he asked, You really don’t have any of the money I gave you for beer?

Just like I said. You did not give me any money! Nikita replied. She glowered back at him with cold, flinty black eyes, still daring him to challenge her. She knew she was playing a dangerous game, but the blazing anger stewing inside her brain annihilated any sound judgment she may have ever had.

Duane was fun and exciting when she first fell in love with him after a wild weekend of partying, and it only took a few weeks of whirlwind dating before she asked him to move in with her and her infant son. But, when his promises of a better life for them all failed to appear, she became disillusioned and regretted ever meeting him. Her discouragement rapidly transformed into malicious frustration when it became clear he was nothing more than a freeloading drunkard. His anger issues only came to light when he began drinking early in the morning. Then, his morning coffee was soon replaced with whatever alcohol he could get his hands on.

A few weeks earlier, she told him she wanted him to move out. She even packed his meager possessions into two garbage bags and set them outside the door to her apartment, but all her efforts got her was a black eye, a split lower lip, and three loose teeth. Now, she was too afraid to ask him to leave. Like many battered women, she was emotionally incapable of getting out of the dismal conditions that mutated out of the situation she had once unwittingly encouraged.

The energy from her outburst flowed from her body like blood from a severed artery. Almost immediately, dismay enveloped her like a toxic fog, and her shoulders slumped. She’d been defeated once again. It was a feeling she was much too familiar with, but one she would never become accustomed to.

Sluggishly turning away from him with a loud exhale, she shuffled over to the kitchen sink. Pushing the front of her hips flat against the rust-spotted steel cabinets, she stood with the toes of her filthy, pink fuzzy slippers jammed tight against the sheet metal baseboard below.

With a deep sigh, she cursed under her breath, and plunged her emaciated hands through an opaque film of congealed grease flecked with bits of leftover food. Blindly pushing soiled dishes and cutlery aside, she felt around until she found the knurled knob of the sink strainer and gave it a series of feeble tugs. Finally, it came free in her hand, but she had to struggle to keep the swirling vortex of draining water from sucking it back down to the bottom of the sink.

Holding the strainer a few inches above the disgusting mess, and with nothing better to do, she watched as a spiraling whirlpool formed on the surface of the water, signaling the fetid water beneath was being carried away. At least, it was until chunks of debris clogged the drain. Seeing the spiraling whirlpool sputter to a halt, she could only hang her head, close her eyes, and allow her tears of misery to dimple the surface of the remaining water.

Nikita was a small woman, a tad over five feet tall and only able to top a hundred and ten pounds on the days she retained fluid waiting for her menstrual period to begin. Her wide cheekbones gave her face a look of being sturdier than it really was, and her once-rosy cheeks were now ashen, with deep crevices that had appeared much too early in life.

A soul-destroying bout with crack cocaine at an early age caused her teeth to fall out, and now her lips puckered into what appeared to be a mouth that was too small for her head. If nothing else, she proved her worth when she kicked her drug habit and cobbled together a sorry excuse for a life. But, as bleak as her existence was, it was still an improvement on what she’d had in the three decades after she was born.

Nikita knew it was only a matter of time until Duane flew into a murderous rage and killed her. She felt trapped, with no way out of her dismal situation, and lay awake most nights, dreading what the morning would bring.

On those dark, tumultuous nights she listened to people on the street yelling insults at each other, and sporadic volleys of gunfire. She wracked her brain, trying to think of some way to get her son away from there and into a safe place. So far, she’d not been able to come up with a viable plan of escape.

I told you to get beer. I told you I needed more beer, but you just ignored me! How many times you want me to tell you? Huh? Why the hell didn’t you get me more beer? Duane bellowed, his voice rising in volume with each sentence he uttered. Not content to yell, he rose halfway out of his easy chair, his arms straight, elbows locked, and his meaty hands gripping the cushioned arms. Am I the only one who can get anything done around here?

Anger flooded her mind and forced rejuvenating but demonic energy into every fiber of her limbs. Displaying the grace of a vindictive ballerina, she spun away from the sink. With a defiant and determined swagger, she took three steps toward him, her arms sweeping in wide semicircles, while her blazing eyes fixed on him, unblinking.

What am I supposed to buy beer with? Huh? You tell me that! You drank up all our money and now you need to wait until the next check comes. Or, you can go out and earn us some money. Other men have jobs! Why can’t you get one?

When’s the next check coming? he demanded, reaching for an empty bottle.

With one eye screwed shut, he peered into the bottle with the other one, straining to see what remained. Not able to see anything in its dark depths, he put the rim of the bottle to his dry, cracked lips and leaned his head back. A few dribbles of sticky, warm suds trickled out. He licked his lips with a red splotched tongue, stared at the bottle like it had let him down, and decided there wasn’t enough remaining to bother with.

Eyeing the overflowing wastebasket in the corner, he held the bottle like he would a basketball, and with his best imitation of a National Basketball Association superstar, heaved it across the room. It missed the can and spun crazily across the stained carpet before disappearing beneath a sagging couch.

Next week. Maybe then I’ll be able to get you more beer, she said, her head dropping to her chest, feeling empty and completely drained of energy again. She stood in one spot and slowly shook her head in disgust before shuffling back toward the kitchen sink.

She was tired. Not just from not getting enough sleep, but the bone-deep fatigue that comes from living a life with no future and only misery to face every day. Staring into the stagnating water sitting motionless in the sink, she gathered her courage. Taking a deep, ragged breath, and carefully choosing her words to sound apologetic, she said, The rent’s due and I’m gonna have to pay that first. Maybe you could give up drinking so much beer so we can get ahead of some of these bills I have piling up?

To hell with the rent, he growled, angrily flapping his right arm into the air as though batting away an annoying fly. That fat landlord has a bunch of money. He doesn’t need any more, and especially not from us! I need beer a hell of a lot more than he needs our money.

I’ll have to pay the rent if you want to keep a roof over your head! she fumed, tossing a soggy dishrag into the sink, causing a small tsunami of what looked like tan pond scum to splash out the other side. She grasped the rim of the sink to steady herself, her shoulders heaving with short, shallow gasps. She wasn’t crying. She had no more tears to give.

Drawing in another ragged breath, she asked, What about my son, Jeremiah? Huh? What about him? He needs new shoes more than you need beer. The kid can’t be running around with his big toes poking out the front of his shoes. And it’ll soon be winter! You think getting you more beer to make you fat and lazy is more important than him running around in the snow with holes in his shoes?

Aw! He’s fine, he slurred, his voice a low, barely audible snarl.

He is not! His teachers will soon call child protective services and turn me in for neglecting him. I can see it now. You’ll be yelling that they’re only picking on us because we’re poor, and I’ll have my son taken away from me. You think that’s a good idea? Huh? You think that’s going to do any of us any good?

Duane’s anger flashed across every neuron inside his brain and bubbled over like a boiling cauldron. Before she knew it, he’d sprung out of his chair, grabbed her by one shoulder, and spun her around to face him.

You don’t talk to me like that! he screamed. His eyes blazed and spittle flew erratically from the corners of his mouth. She cringed from the fetid breath blasting into her face from only three inches away. Not after all I’ve done for you and that boy!

Get off me! she bawled, viciously yanking her arm away. She tried raising her face to glare into his eyes, but Duane’s hand snaked out with blinding speed. In a blur of motion too fast for the human eye to follow, he clobbered her cheek with the meaty palm of his open hand.

Nikita’s head snapped back, and for a split second her eyes lost focus, then her head lolled to the side. She had been slapped, punched, and kicked all her life, and often much harder than this. She knew what to expect and how to react. It took her three heartbeats to force herself back to full consciousness, then she retaliated.

Focusing her eyes on her intended target, she took a deep breath. With her cheeks puffed out, as compressed air gushed from her lungs, she clouted him in the mouth with a weak left hook. The feeble blow barely budged his head backward and only fueled his spiraling rage. Duane’s eyelids flew wide open, revealing blood-shot sclera and beady, constricted pupils glowering out from beneath brushy eyebrows. Deep creases in the middle of his forehead confirmed the intensity of the unearthly fury roiling deep inside his brain.

Grabbing a handful of her tightly curled hair in one hand, and using his other, Duane pounded her face with one pummeling slap after the next. One battering blow from the right was followed instantly by a backhand from the left, repeatedly smashing her lips into masticated pulp. Nikita’s knees buckled and she slumped in his grasp. Instead of allowing her to sag to the floor, he held her up.

His rage intensified with each soggy wallop of his calloused palm, as it pummeled her rapidly swelling flesh.

Leave her alone! Stop hitting my mother! five-year-old Jeremiah screamed, pounding on Duane’s thigh with his tiny fists. Stop!

Without bothering to look at him, Duane swung his arm down and hit Jeremiah on the head with the back of his knotty fist. Jeremiah staggered, but caught himself, and immediately flew back to Duane’s thigh and resumed hitting him.

Tears of fear and frustration streamed down Jeremiah’s angelic face, then dripped onto the front of his food-stained tee shirt. All the time he was thrashing Duane’s thigh, he chanted his orders to stop hitting his mother. But Jeremiah’s begging rapidly melded into a low, droning hum that became part of the background. Just like the traffic noise outside their window on a hot summer’s afternoon, Duane ignored it.

It didn’t take long for Jeremiah’s scrawny arms to tire. Within seconds, he could barely lift them high enough to reach Duane’s thigh, and his flagging voice sunk further into the background.

With arms and legs flying in all directions, Duane furiously flailed at them both with all the strength he could muster, striking right, then left. His seething anger and frustration blazed out of control. Without thought or reason, he abandoned using his open hands and closed his fists into rock hard bludgeons.

The furious battle between the three raged for less than half of a minute. In the end, Nikita lay belly down on the floor with the soles of her bare feet pressed flat against the baseboard beneath the sink, her left cheek rested on the cool linoleum. Her fuzzy slippers had scattered to opposite sides of the room.

Jeremiah sprawled on the other side of the kitchen, opposite his mother. His ripped shirt was lifted toward his chest, exposing his distended belly. As if sleeping, his diminutive feet pointed toward his mother with the toes angled upward. The little boy’s head rested at a sharp angle against the grease and grime caked refrigerator, and his breaths came in sharp, wheezing gasps.

Jeremiah! Nikita wailed, raising her head off the sticky floor. She reached for him with an arm that seemed too heavy to lift. She began dragging herself to him, only capable of sliding her belly a few inches at a time. Jeremiah! What did you do to him, Duane? What did you do to my boy?

Her bawling roused Duane from the exhausted stupor he’d fallen into. Swiping at a drip of snot dangling from his nose, he looked around, struggling to keep his eyes from rolling back into his head. Then Nikita’s sobbing caught his attention, and he glanced toward the sound of her voice.

When his eyes finally focused, he looked first at her head, then his gaze ran along her arm to see what she was reaching for. Eventually, they settled upon the inert form of Jeremiah. Duane’s face screwed up, confused, and his mind searched for an answer to why the boy looked different. Then he realized what he was seeing. The child’s arms were twisted at unnatural angles.

Duane began sobbing and flailing his arms about, repeatedly chanting, What did you make me do? What did you make me do? This is your fault! Look what you made me do!

Jeremiah? Baby? Nikita cried, her voice becoming increasingly more frantic as she began dragging herself across the tacky linoleum faster. Baby? What’s wrong with you?

Look what you did! Duane howled. You did this! You see what you did now?

Hoisting herself onto her hands and knees, Nikita crawled toward Jeremiah’s unmoving body. A bloodcurdling keening sound came from deep within her chest and grew in volume with each ragged breath she took. Her wailing grew so loud that Duane put his hands over his ears to banish it from his mind.

Struggling to his feet while keeping his hands over his ears to block out the unnerving sound was difficult, but eventually, he succeeded. Standing bent at the waist with his hands clamped tightly over his ears, he swayed back and forth. Rivulets of tears coursed down his face, leaving glistening tracks marking a path to the floor.

What are we going to do? What are we going to do? he wailed.

We have to get him to the hospital! Nikita cried. Call 911!

No! Duane shouted. We can get him there without getting an ambulance. They’ll send the police, and we can’t have that.

You can’t have that! she yelled, bending her body over Jeremiah as if to protect him from further injury. The police are going to arrest you and put you away forever!

No. Duane repeated, his arms desperately thrashing the air as if warding off her words so they could not hurt him. You did this. They can’t blame me. You did this!

Nikita’s eyes widened, realizing Duane was becoming more agitated and less rational by the second. She didn’t want Jeremiah and her to die today, so she quickly said, Ok. This was my fault. But I must get him to the hospital, ok?

Yeah. You did this to him. I’ll call an Uber to take him to the hospital. No ambulance. That will look bad. I don’t want you getting into trouble, he said. His eyes flashed around the room, searching for a way out of his predicament.

Chapter Two

Dr. Robert Fogler

Huh? What? Dr. Robert Fogler murmured, his mind not functioning after being roused from a deep sleep.

Doctor. I’m sorry to disturb you, but you’re needed in the emergency room. A pregnant woman was in a car crash and the seat belt may have caused internal injuries. She’s having severe abdominal pain and they need you down there to evaluate her and the baby.

Dr. Fogler stared at her, his mind slowly battling its way out of a foggy haze. He struggled to understand what she was saying. Finally, he realized where he was and what was happening.

No need to apologize, he said, a weary grin spreading across his lips. I was just sitting on a white sandy beach, ready to take a fruity drink with a little umbrella on top of it from a tray being held by a ravishing young lady in a skimpy thong bikini. It was the best dream I’ve had in years.

Sorry! I didn’t see any white sandy beach or ravishing young women, she said. She made her voice sound cheerful and not apologetic at all. It looked to me like you were napping on the couch in the doctor’s lounge waiting for Mrs. Adriana’s cervix to dilate enough so she could birth those twins she’s been carrying for the last nine months.

Robert shook his head, grinned again, and said, You really don’t have to bring me back to reality so quickly. Did I forget to tell you that the ravishing young lady handing me the fruity drink was only wearing her bikini bottom?

Ok! Enough of that. You’re going to make me blush, she said. They both laughed. You’d better throw some icy water on your face and get yourself together quickly. That woman down in Emergency needs you fully awake and ready to go. I checked in on Mrs. Adriana and you have awhile before she’ll need you, so get moving.

Yes, ma’am, Robert said, heaving himself off the couch and waving his hand in the general direction of his forehead, giving her a sorry excuse for a salute. He strove to keep a good working relationship with his colleagues. That approach paid large