House of Cabal Volume One: Eden (11 page)

I rummage through the newspapers. There has
to be something. The main headline reads, “Former Japanese Prime
Minister Dies.” Keizo Obuchi, age 62, died from a stroke after
being in a coma for more than a month. The other headlines read:
“Innocence Lost,” the article has something to do with the
Internet, and “Boy Wins Factory,” about a legal case involving the
ownership of a candy empire. Where is the key to my happiness?

Finally, under the papers, I find a box about
the size of a videotape, wrapped in shipping paper and tied with
twine. The rain spatters a Californian return address. Orange grove
stamps form a neat line across the corner, as if someone mailed it
here. I shake the box and something heavy thunks back and forth
inside.

I did it, and the public indecency wasn’t
half as embarrassing as I thought it’d be.

Rape. My emotions swell again. I choke them
down and tell myself that I’m not a victim. I wasn’t raped; it was
only an attempt. There was no penetration. It’s exactly what I’d
asked for, drama where I make it out alive. It’s what I wanted.

I don’t want to think about it. I have to get
home so I can open this package. Besides, it wasn’t his fault he
found me attractive; those kinds of guys are just messed up. If I'd
been dressed, this wouldn’t have happened. He probably thought I
wanted it. I should have been able to stop him. Why couldn't I stop
him?

With a few newspapers from the box, I cover
myself and cover the package so it doesn’t get any wetter.

The way home passes by The Blue Stud. When
I’ve passed it in the past, I’ve always wondered what it would be
like to walk inside. Now it terrifies me. What if the men who
defended me want to talk about what happened? They probably want to
ask me if I’m okay. Am I okay? Will my assailant still be there? Is
he back on his feet, angrier than ever, wanting me dead? Will I see
him at my gym? I can never go back to my gym ever again.

Shit, I’m freezing!

I was saved by a bunch of fags. I want to
fight them and everyone.

A hand grabs my shoulder from behind. I jump,
fear taking over, and I spin around.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.” It’s the
blond woman that gave me the change for the newspaper box.

She’s maybe five years my senior and
intensely attractive, yet I still don’t want her to touch me. She
wears a long black coat that comes in at the waist and red high
heels. She pulls me under her umbrella.

The umbrella creates a private space, and as
she gazes into my eyes, the world beyond us falls away. My stomach
spins. I touch her shoulder to steady myself. Heat radiates against
my freezing hand, and now I want her whole body against mine. Her
eyes are lush with autumn colors amid blue. Her familiar features
express a fierce kindness. I’m safe, a protected child.

She leans in and breathes into my ear, “Need
a ride?” Her citrus perfume is me inside her, curled up in her womb
or penetrating her to plant my seed.

What is wrong with me?

People on the street try not to stare.

“Yes,” I tell her. “A ride would be
good.”

Is this woman the slut Carrie was so worried
about? I want to breathe her in. I want to be a man again, instead
of some fragile thing about to fall apart. Was she waiting for me
here?

She points to a sleek sports sedan down the
block. “The red one.”

Rain spatters the car roof. She strides
around to the driver’s side, hurrying because I’m getting wet. She
must be an angel.
Please take me away from this God-forsaken
city
.

I hear the passenger door unlock.

“You getting in?” she says over the car
roof.

Around us, the rain washes the color out of
the city. The lights drain into the sewer system.

The woman and I don’t seem to notice the
shifting city around us.

“What’s your name?” I say.

“Dana Parr.”

The black sky fades to gray. The buildings
bend and swirl upwards into the hovering nothingness. No one sees
what is happening except you, and you hug yourself to hide your
amazement and fear.

I see it too, Chuck. You don’t have to worry.
You and I, our first session is ending. We’re waking up.

You sit in the back seat, and with a
comforting yet sad smile, you convey that you’ll see me through
this. As you wait for the future to become the present again, I
tell you thanks. I need you.

Now stop the tape recorder.

Chapter 6

I

A year before the regression, in early 2014,
Chuck Pointer thought everything in his life was running smoothly.
His relationship with his wife had reached a comfortable
equilibrium now that they were grandparents. His career felt
secure. Then his son Bobby tried to commit suicide.

Instead of reaching out to his son or
supporting his wife through the difficult time, Chuck buried
himself deeper in his research.

While he had a knack for analyzing other
people's problems, Chuck had a blind spot for his own issues. Why
was his relationship with his son so difficult? He suspected it had
something to do with his own father issues. That was about as deep
as he was willing to dig.

He was more comfortable digging through the
public record.

In mid 2000, the National Earthquake
Information Center reported a seismic event on the coastline near
Monterey. This was the moment the House of Cabal estate fell into
the ocean. It was a huge event, talked about for months, and yet no
one had explored the subject in a book. Chuck wanted to know more,
and he was sure the reading public was just as curious.

The research, while distracting, was more
frustrating than he expected. The news reports contradicted one
another. The quake was naturally occurring or a planned explosion.
The first reports stated there were no casualties, only property
damage, but the collapse was massive, and weeks after the quake,
dead bodies were still washing up on shore, many unidentified. Soon
news outlets were reporting at least fifty, possibly a hundred,
souls fell with the rubble into the ocean. The dead that were
identified had few connections to the outside world. Even the
owners of the estate were still an unknown. Chuck and his research
assistant Warren couldn’t locate tax records, building permits, or
any record of recruitment. The House of Cabal was an informational
black hole.

After the quake, the red brick road that led
along the cliffs to the estate was barricaded and access was denied
to the media. Even boating was forbidden, mainly because three
divers died from a cave-in while exploring the still unstable
underwater ruins.

The lack of concrete information, despite the
difficulties it caused, indicated a story worth pursuing. Even
Chuck’s contacts in the FBI refused to discuss the House of Cabal,
as if the place still held state secrets. For all Chuck knew, it
did. It was beyond intriguing and more than a little maddening.

Everett Grimes was one of the few survivors,
and his exact role was still a mystery. His interview was supposed
to solve everything.

II

On September 1st, 2015, Chuck sat up at the
table in the decrepit dining room and saw himself in the mirror,
squinting, and disoriented. There in the middle of the table was
his tape recorder. The ocean rumbled faintly to his left. He heard
staccato bird chirps—a nest was built under a nearby eve. Outside
the window, the fluttering leaves of a poplar came into focus.

Next to the tape recorder on the table were
three cassette tapes. Each tape had a printed title written in his
own handwriting: “A Dark Stormy Night,” “Something Different,”
“Lovely Portland,” and in the recorder, “Street of Rain.”

I’m in Everett Grimes’s house
, he
thought to himself, piecing together his memory.
An
interview…with Everett Grimes, and we were talking about the past,
and then…

Grimes came back into the dining room and set
two glasses of water beside the empty glasses that were already on
the table. His worn face didn’t look like the Everett Chuck knew
from his memory. The real Everett was impossibly handsome. He lived
in Portland, Oregon, and was an ex-puzzle designer, an accountant,
a vegetarian who ate soy ice cream when depressed. This other,
older man across the table was so dismal it pained Chuck to even
look at him.

“It’s as if you’re a different person.”

Grimes’s vibrant red hair had faded, his
pronounced brow was wrinkled and worn, his cheeks swollen, his eyes
dull instead of sparkling.

“So you remember.” The dying man’s throaty
voice was a harsh whisper. He slid one of the full glasses across
the table as if it were a bribe. “Take it.”

As Chuck reached for the drink, his hand
trembled. He made a fist and squeezed. “What happened to me?”

“You were hypnotized.” Grimes cleared his
throat and took down more water. “Me as well.”

“Hypnotism? What do you mean?” A distinct
feeling of insanity accompanied his memories; he wanted a more
rational explanation than a party trick.

“As detailed as possible, I told you
everything as I saw it in my regression, and since you were
hypnotized too, you assimilated whatever I said into your own
memory. In your suggestive state, you made it real.”

Chuck remembered the woman in red’s light
citrus perfume, Everett’s bare feet ripping against pavement,
Everett’s fear; otherwise, he wouldn’t have believed Grimes’s
explanation.

“It’s like nothing I’ve ever... In my head,
it’s as if I was there.”

“You were placed inside the memory. We can
never go back. It would be like a copy of a copy. The next
retelling would be unreliable. If you need to, you can go back
through your tapes. It should keep your memory undistorted.”

Chuck filed the tapes back into the carrying
case. He changed them and wrote the titles as he lived in Everett’s
memory. It was something incredibly strange to remember. He read
out loud one of the tape labels. “Street of Rain.”

“You need to go home to your wife.”

Chuck gestured with the tape. “You were
assaulted. It was horrible. Are you okay?”

“It was a long time ago.”

The bond Chuck felt with Everett in the
regression didn’t seem to translate into the real word. “We just
lived through it. I was there.” But he hadn’t been there; it was an
illusion. “What have you done to me?”

“I am not brainwashing you, if that’s what
you’re thinking. The process just keeps me honest. If I told you
beforehand, would you have agreed to regress with me? Go. In time,
you will know what I know, but many hours have passed. Your wife
will be worried.”

Chuck shut the case and, realizing the
implications of the daylight, pulled out his phone. “God. It’s
almost nine. We went through the whole night.”

Grimes stood up with a grunt of effort.

“What happened? With that woman, I mean.”
They left the regression the moment Everett got into the stranger’s
car. “Was she connected to the House of Cabal? And what’s inside
the box?”

“Tomorrow. Eight AM. We will continue and
you’ll get your answers. Now go. And next time, wear something more
comfortable.” Grimes paused at the doorway without looking back. “I
don’t like suits. Now get out of here.” He left Chuck to find his
own way out.

III

As Chuck drove home, he listened to the
recordings about that stormy night in Portland back in 2000 and
relived Everett’s traumatic memories. While listening to the
attempted rape, he started to cry uncontrollably and had to pull
off an off ramp, half blind, and over to the side of the road. It
wasn’t just a story. He was there. He witnessed it firsthand.

“What have you done to me? What have you
done?”

His whole body felt limp and exhausted by the
time he stopped crying.

“Okay. I have to get home.”

He had witnessed Everett’s past. He didn’t
know it, but I had witnessed it with him.

The regression was a way for me to follow
Everett’s destiny thread without needing to see the actual thread.
The two of them hadn’t arrived at the House of Cabal yet, but it
was only a matter of time. By hitching a ride on the humans as they
explored using the regression, I could witness the events of the
timeline without actually exploring the timeline myself. I wasn’t
sure how it worked, but that too would become clear eventually.
This was something new, something no other angel had experienced,
and it was my salvation.

I had found my way inside.

Chapter 7

Chuck, having regained his composure during the rest of the drive,
stepped through the front door of his suburban home, anxious to see
his wife Meredith.

He put down his briefcase by the door. Biff,
a Labrador and Shepherd mix, padded up and licked his hand. Chuck
wanted Meredith’s comfort but also knew she would probably be upset
that he’d gone missing for a night. With Biff at his heels, he
rushed into the front room.

She wasn’t in her Gustav Stickley rocking
chair, where he thought she would be.

She received the heavy, oak, Mission style
rocker as a gift from her daughter shortly after the twins were
born. It was two-hundred and fifteen years old and symbolized
Meredith’s transition to grandmotherhood. Meredith rocked in it
whenever she was anxious. She’d even taken up knitting. The black
and white scarf she was working on was much further along than it
had been yesterday.

Maybe she was tired of waiting and went
shopping or to the college to grade papers. Her class wasn’t for a
few hours, but she could have gone early.

He would make it up to her somehow. He would
take her into his arms and tell her how sorry he was for neglecting
her. That would be a start at least.