Judgment Cometh Read online

  JUDGMENT COMETH

  JUDGMENT COMETH

  and That Right Soon

  BY

  SCOTT PRATT

  © 2016 Phoenix Flying Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 1944083014

  ISBN 13: 9781944083014

  “Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgement for an evil thing is many times delayed for some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.”

  Thomas Carlyle

  This book, along with every book I’ve written and every book I’ll write, is dedicated to my darling Kristy, to her unconquerable spirit and to her inspirational courage. I loved her before I was born and I’ll love her after I’m long gone.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  TWENTY YEARS AGO

  TWENTY YEARS LATER

  FRIDAY, SEPT. 1

  FRIDAY, SEPT. 15

  FRIDAY AND SATURDAY, SEPT. 15-16

  SATURDAY, SEPT. 16

  SATURDAY, SEPT. 16

  SATURDAY, SEPT. 16

  SATURDAY, SEPT. 16

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16

  PART II

  SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 17

  SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 17

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 29

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 29

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 29

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29

  SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3

  SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4

  WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5

  WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5

  WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5

  THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8

  SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9

  SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24

  SATURDAY, MAY 20

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  TWENTY YEARS AGO

  Graduation day should have been special, but it had quickly turned into a day that made twelve-year-old David Craig wish he’d never been born. His father was looming over him, sweating and cursing and moaning occasionally, as David engaged in the unspeakable conduct that was being demanded of him.

  “You have your mother to thank for this,” the major said. “If she had stayed, you wouldn’t be down here.”

  David’s mother, a timid, plain woman named Ann, had loaded most of her clothing and her toiletries into a suitcase and had disappeared on a Monday just two months earlier. David figured she must have gotten on a bus. His father had not called the police, had not reported her missing, because his father knew why she’d left. David knew why she’d left, and David’s brother, Michael, knew why she’d left. She was gone because the boys couldn’t protect her from the monster her husband had become.

  There was a room in the basement, one that David’s father had built himself and that neither of the boys was allowed to enter, that became the place where Ann Craig lost her dignity, and, David believed, probably her sanity. David had dared one time to descend the stairs into the basement while his mother and father were down there. He’d heard his mother’s muffled cries of pain through the door, had heard her begging David’s father to stop doing whatever it was he was doing, but both David and Michael felt powerless to stop what was going on in their own home. Their father was an officer, a major in the 101st Airborne Division. He was also a lawyer, a prosecutor. He was a powerful man on the military base, and he was a demanding and intimidating force when he walked through the door at home. He ruled his private domain mercilessly, and the slightest infraction was dealt with quickly and violently. David had no doubt that his father was perfectly capable of killing any one of them, and that he would get away with it.

  David didn’t blame his mother for leaving, but had he known that he would become her replacement, he would have boarded a bus himself and ridden it to southern Texas or Maine or the Florida keys, as far away from Clarksville, Tennessee as he could get. Michael had graduated from high school that beautiful, sunny morning in May. He was the valedictorian of his class, and David listened with pride as his brother gave a speech to his fellow graduates. David felt goosebumps when Michael later walked across the stage and accepted his diploma. He was in awe of his big brother, who was the commander of the JROTC cadets, a star on the football, basketball and baseball teams at Clarksville High School and who had already enlisted in the United States Army. Michael was scheduled to leave for boot camp in South Carolina at the end of June.

  Major Christopher Craig sat silently through the ceremony. When it was over, he ordered David straight to the car. Michael was going to lunch at a friend’s house. The major had not been invited. When they arrived at home, the major ordered David into the basement. He took a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked the large padlock that secured the room where David’s mother had been taken so many times.

  “Let’s go, boy. Move,” the major said, and David moved cautiously into the room. The walls were covered in cheap paneling and two fluorescent lights flickered behind a frosted panel in the ceiling. There was a small bed in the corner, a wooden chair, a bench. There were also ropes and chains and pulleys and whips and things that David didn’t recognize. His father locked the door behind them.

  What followed was a nightmare, a series of indignities that David knew he would never be able to wipe from his memory. He’d been in the room for perhaps fifteen minutes. There were already welts and bruises on his buttocks and the backs of his thighs. His father had raped him with something – he didn’t know what it was, he only knew that it hurt. He was now tied to a chair, facing the major, who had just unzipped his pants.

  “All of it,” the major said. “If you bite me, I’ll break your jaw.”

  David thought he heard a metallic sound outside the door, and suddenly a tremendous explosion ripped through the air. The wooden door splintered at the lock as the gunshot tore into it. Another shot sent the door flying open. The major turned around, and David could see his brother, Michael, standing on the other side of a cloud of smoke.

  “Untie him,” Michael said, leveling the shotgun at the major’s chest.

  “Who in the hell do you think you are, boy, pointing a damned gun at me?” the major demanded.

  “Untie him, right now, or I’m going to splatter your brains all over this room.”

  “You don’t have the guts.”

  Michael lowered the gun slightly and the shotgun belched fire and smoke. The major flew backward as part of his right thigh was ripped away.

  “You shot me! You shot me, you little sonofabitch!” the maj
or cried from a sitting position against the wall.

  “Next one goes straight into your face,” Michael said. His voice was firm and steady. David didn’t know whether his father believed Michael, but David did. “Crawl over there and untie my brother, you disgusting pervert.”

  David turned his head and watched his father crawl across the floor. Thirty seconds later, he was free.

  “Put your pants and your shoes on,” Michael said. “Hurry up. Go out and get in my car. Right now.”

  Less than five minutes later, Michael came jogging out of the house. He tossed the shotgun into the back seat and climbed in behind the wheel.

  “What are we going to do?” David said.

  “The same thing Mom did. We’re out of here, and we’re not coming back.”

  TWENTY YEARS LATER

  David Craig was urinating in the kitchen sink when he saw something move on the back porch. He staggered over to the back door and opened it. His eyes widened when he suddenly recognized the gargantuan human being standing there.

  “What are you doing here?” David said as he staggered back a step. It was nine o’clock at night and David was drunk. He was drunk every night by nine o’clock.

  “Just thought I’d stop by and say hello,” the man said. “How long’s it been? Couple of decades? I been in prison almost all that time. Just got out a while back. Thought I’d stop by and say hello to my childhood buddy.”

  “How did you…how did you find me?”

  “Your daddy told me where you live. He also told me you get arrested for DUI every time you turn around and that your brother keeps you up.”

  “You talked to my father?”

  “Yeah, he sort of reached out to me when I flattened my last sentence. Listen, David, do you have a basement in this place?”

  “What?”

  “A basement. You know what a basement is, right?”

  “Yeah, I know what a basement is, but—”

  “Well, do you have one?”

  “Yeah. I don’t go down there much.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “Why do you—”

  The man pushed past David into the house. He walked through the kitchen and pointed at a door.

  “Is that it?” the man said. “Is that the basement door?”

  David leaned against the kitchen counter and nodded his head.

  “I’ll be right back,” the man said, and he flipped a light switch and disappeared down the steps. He was back in less than five minutes.

  “It ain’t much of a basement, but it’ll do,” he said. “It’s got an electrical outlet and room for an upright freezer, and that’s all I need.”

  “Freezer? You want to put a freezer in my basement?” David said.

  “I don’t want to put a freezer in your basement. I’m going to put a freezer in your basement. And you’re gonna help me.”

  “What? Why? I don’t understand.”

  The man put a massive hand on David’s shoulder.

  “Listen, I’m going to be doing a little contract work and I might need to keep something in the freezer from time to time. I might not ever use it, but there might come a time when I have to. So what say you get that stupid look off of your face and help your old buddy bring the thing in here and get it into the basement? I’ve got a dolly and straps. It won’t take long at all.”

  “What are you going to keep in it?” David said.

  The giant man smiled and said, “If I told you that, I’d have to kill you.”

  FRIDAY, SEPT. 1

  My name is Joe Dillard, and I had come to loathe doctors over the past decade. I didn’t loathe them for any particular reason other than they kept giving my wife and I bad news about her cancer. She’d been diagnosed years earlier with breast cancer and we’d gone through the initial surgeries, chemotherapies and radiation treatments. For a while, it went away. Then it came back in Caroline’s bones, scattered throughout her skeletal system. More treatments: hormones, chemotherapy, radiation. Then it moved into her liver. Even more chemotherapy. On this particular day, she and I were sitting in the dull, Spartan office of a neurologist named Dr. George Stoots at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He was a thin, studious-looking man with mouse-colored hair and wire-framed, reading glasses resting on his nose. He’d set a computer screen in front of us and was pointing at bright spots on the screen.

  “See this?” he said. “It’s a mass, a tumor that has made its way through the skull and is trying to get into your brain, Mrs. Dillard.”

  He then took his pen and traced a semi-circle all the way from the front to the back of Caroline’s brain, which was represented on the screen.

  “And if you’ll notice this discoloration here, this is all cancer. It’s working its way around your skull, trying to find a way into the brain. It takes a million cancer cells before they show up on a scan, so obviously, the cancer is extensive. Eventually, it will get into your brain if we don’t do something.”

  “And if that happens?” I said as I heard Caroline begin to sniffle beside me.

  “It becomes extremely difficult to treat. The brain is wrapped in meningeal fluid that insulates it and protects it. One of the things the fluid would insulate and protect the brain from would be chemotherapy. The chemotherapy drugs wouldn’t be able to get to the tumors.”

  “And surgery is out of the question?” Caroline said.

  “I’m afraid so,” Dr. Stoots said. “The only option left available to you is going to be radiation. I’ve already met with the radiation oncology people here and what they’re telling me is that you would be looking at ten radiation treatments – they call it ‘whole-brain radiation’ –given once a day for ten days. You’ll take the weekends off. We can help you set the treatments up with your radiation oncologist in Johnson City so you don’t have to drive down here and stay for two weeks.”

  “Risks?” I said, feeling the same sense of shock and numbness begin to creep over me that I’d felt so many times before. “Side effects?”

  “The most dangerous risk with radiation is death,” Stoots said flatly. “If the doctor miscalculates the dosage or radiates the wrong site, it could be fatal. I don’t foresee either of those things happening, though. The side effects are pretty tough, Mrs. Dillard. You might as well know that going in. The primary side effect will be extreme fatigue. You’ll spend about three weeks, maybe four, pretty much flat on your back. You’ll be able to get up and go to the bathroom, you’ll be able to eat, things like that, but you’ll sleep sixteen, eighteen hours a day some days. There will also be hair loss at the treatment site, most likely permanent, and some skin irritation around your ears. You might experience dry mouth, maybe some nausea, some mouth sores, and you might feel addled at times, just not mentally sharp.”

  “Sounds delightful,” Caroline said as she squeezed my hand.

  “And if she decides not to do it?” I said.

  “Eventually the tumor will get through, start shedding cells into the meningeal fluid, and those cells will start attaching to the brain. Once that happens, you’re looking at all kinds of possibilities, none of which are pleasant. She could lose her sense of taste, she could go blind, she could lose her memory, just dozens of things.”

  “And if she does it and it works?”

  “The hope is that it will kill the cancer in her skull and that we can then go back to managing the other areas of concern.”

  “Will she be herself?” I said. “Will she know me, will she be able to live a quality life?”

  “She could lose some memory over the long-term,” the doctor said. “Let’s say she can remember ten things on a grocery list right now. In three to five years, she might only be able to remember seven.”

  The doctor left us alone to talk a few minutes later. I sat there looking at Caroline and felt a tear slip down my cheek. She was already crying.

  “You don’t have to do it,” I said. “It’ll be okay. You can stop all of this right now.”

 
“Is that what you want?” she said, looking at me with glistening brown eyes.

  I shook my head. “Of course not,” I said. “I love you more than anything in this world, and I want you to stay here with me, with all of us. But I don’t want you to suffer, either. You’ve already been through so much.”

  She reached for me and we embraced.

  “Whatever you decide,” I said. “If you’ve had enough, I understand completely.”

  “I’m not ready to go,” she said softly through the tears. “I don’t want to die. I don’t care what it takes. I can handle it.”

  I stepped back a little and wiped tears from both of her cheeks. I forced myself to smile.

  “That’s my girl,” I said. “Let’s gear up for another battle. Sounds like this one is going to be tough.”

  “What about dinner tonight?” she said. My son, Jack, and his girlfriend, Charlie Story, were both practicing law in Nashville and were planning to meet us for dinner.

  “What about it?”

  “I’m sorry, Joe. I can’t do it. I’ll just wind up crying and ruin dinner and it’ll be awful.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “We had dinner with them last night so it won’t be as though we just blew in and out of town without even seeing them. I’ll call Jack and explain. What do you want to do?”

  “Let’s go back to the hotel and pack up,” she said. “I just want to go home.”

  FRIDAY, SEPT. 15

  Deputy Jason Whitson flipped on his blue lights as the small pickup truck continued to weave back and forth across the gravel road. He’d been following the truck since he’d come upon it by coincidence several miles down the mountain on Rock Creek Road and had seen it cross the center line twice within a half-mile. It had turned onto Beauty Spot Gap Road, which was little more than a glorified mountain trail, and was climbing Unaka Mountain. Granted, it was dark and the mountain road was curvy, but this was too much. Whitson felt he needed to do something, but he was reluctant to make the stop. He was alone and inexperienced, and it was nearly midnight. But the person driving the truck was either ill, drunk or high, and if Whitson didn’t stop him now, he’d soon cross over the border into the state of North Carolina.