Descent

DESCENT

by

Steve McAllister

Also by Steve McAllister

The Rucksack Letters

The McAllister Code

Published by InkenSoul Press at Smashwords

Copywrite 1995 by Steve McAllister

All Rights Reserved

www.inkensoulpress.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents

are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used

fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Except for Sarasota. That really exists.

Cover Photograph by Barun Patro

For Mom and Dad

INTRODUCTION

When I finished college in 1993 with a degree in Psychology, I quickly got a job as the Helpline Administrator for Sarasota Youth for Christ. I was still struggling with some aspects of the church, but I also felt a great inclination to help people. The organization was starting a new ministry called White Stone, a teen helpline that worked in conjunction with a nationwide television show geared toward teens. My job was to train volunteers on how to counsel with troubled teens and share the Gospel over the phone.

Around the same time, I also started to feel a compulsion to write and dreamed of one day becoming a great novelist. I was devouring books by John Grisham, Michael Crichton, and Frank Peretti, and knew that I had it in me to peck out a real page turner of a book.

I read an interview with John Grisham where he said that the best place to start writing is by writing about what you know. I had just finished working as a Youth Pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in North Carolina, moved back to Florida, and was getting loads of stories from wayward teens. So I started there.

Two years and a few drafts later, I finished the book you are about to read. I sent query letters to dozens of publishers and agents and started keeping a folder of rejection letters as inspiration to keep on trying. The folder turned into a notebook, and I kept sending letters. Getting a first novel published isn’t exactly a walk in the park.

Eventually, my parents introduced me to a guy from their church who told me about the up and coming market for eBooks. You might say this book was ahead of its time… about fourteen years ahead of its time. But now that the Kindle has made the eBook a much more valued commodity, I figured that it was time to let my first book see the light of day again. (Actually, my first book Johnny Jumper and Bumper Machine, was written when I was thirteen, but is has been lost to the ravages of time.)

Obviously, this book was written by a completely different person than the person writing this Introduction. Actually, the world of 1993 was a completely different world. Hopefully, some of you will remember that Chevy Chase had a talk show. I still think it’s a pretty fun read and I’m proud that it capped off the first twenty-five years of my life.

I hope you like it. As always, enjoy the journey.

Steve McAllister

Sarasota, Florida

August 2009

ONE

The warm water lapped against her ankles as she strode along the beach with her companion, but the storm raging in her mind wouldn’t allow her to notice the soothing tide. Normally, she relished the ease with which the waves caressed the shore. On this particular night, however, her mind was too full of other emotions to even give peace a chance. She had noticed the trembling in her hands earlier and had placed them in her pockets as she hunched her shoulders and walked into the warm breeze.

The beach seemed empty. They had been walking for at least twenty minutes, and hadn’t seen another person in ten. A lone catamaran cast a long shadow across their path. To her left, she could see the glow from the streetlights peeking over the sea oats and even heard the distant cars on the road. As they walked further, the lights dissipated, the road coming to an end. The moon was the only source of light that illuminated their path. The pale, white orb shone dimly in the black sky as the only eye that watched over them.

She had been on this beach a number of times before, though she had rarely walked this far down. There had been unorganized events held by other people in her school. On various occasions, she and her friends had stumbled upon these parties. They were your normal high school weekend gatherings, celebrations of adolescence with a lot of alcohol, some marijuana, and nubile, teenaged bodies pressed together, writhing in the sand like epileptic Siamese twins. After stumbling upon one of these parties for the first time, she and her friends always went looking for more. Only on a handful of other occasions did they find one. More often than not, the police had broken them up before they had even gotten going. Now, the only other things that moved on the beach were her, her companion, and their shadows, faint in the moonlight, faithfully following behind them. There were no kegs to be seen. No drunken teenagers. No couples making love like grunions in the sand. It was just them. And though he was there, she felt utterly alone.

As a nervous reaction to his silence, as she waited for him to stop and say something to end the monotony of their silent procession, she pulled one of her hands out of her pocket and removed the chopsticks that held her strawberry-blond hair in a bun, allowing it to fall to her shoulders. She had the ivory shafts in her hand, longingly rubbing them with her thumb.

Her brother had gotten them for her on a mission trip. They were one of the few things that she truly cherished. She never let him know how much she appreciated them; theirs was not that type of relationship. Since he had decided to follow his father’s footsteps into the ministry, they had little to say to each other.

She always knew the day would come when he, like her father, would be preaching at her about the life she had chosen for herself, and she had no intention of hurrying those conversations along, so she kept her distance from any kind of dialogue with him. But the fact that he had been on the other side of the globe and thought enough of her to get her even the smallest token was enough to show that he genuinely cared. That was all that she needed. That was why she cherished the gift. His words would only speak of his disappointment in her decisions in life; the chopsticks just said that he cared.

He was a good brother. She silently wished that he were here with her now so that she could let him know that. And his company would be much preferred over that of the man who continued to walk in silence beside her. Realizing that it was just an empty wish, she slipped the small shafts into her back pocket. She sneaked a short glance at her companion and held onto hope.

He moved silently beside her, staring ahead at nothing. Out of the corner of her mind’s eye she saw him thinking, but with her natural eyes she saw an unflinching face devoid of emotion. The stale night air made the scene seem even more tense than she had imagined it to be. Finally, her companion stopped, turned, and faced her with a soulless look in his eyes.

She stared back and could feel her own eyes trembling in their sockets. In the time she had known him, she had never seen a look like this. In her lifetime, she had never seen a look like this. Looking into his black eyes it was hard for her to believe that these eyes had once glowed with love for her. It was like looking into a wishing well devoid of wishes. There was nothing behind them; no emotion, no conscience, no memories, no stories, no hope, only this moment.

Her mind finally unlocked from the gaze, but her eyes remained transfixed. She wondered how she could possibly have ended up here at this moment. What had she done to deserve this? How could she have allowed herself to get into this situation? Why had she struggled so hard to become something that she was not prepared to be? And how could this man, this man that she had known love with, be involved in something so heinous?

In the beginning, he made her look and feel like the girl she wanted to be. When she met him, he was a loner, but esteemed by a certain crowd - a crowd with whom she wanted to be associated, a crowd that could help her to alleviate her birthright, the one she so despised.

The title of preacher’s kid had given her a reputation that she never wanted and had no intention of keeping. She resented having to wear the matching dress and smile to church every Sunday and Wednesday. It was a disguise in two measures. Her father’s faith belonged to him. He shared it with her mother, and had even convinced her brother into selling it as a career, but she wanted no part of it. She wanted to be her own person, not a pawn moved about by a board of deacons as her father was. That was one of the primary reasons she had associated, and allowed herself to fall in love with this man.

He was worldly. He was wise. He was unpredictable. He was bad, though she had not known just how much so until recently. He was just the kind of man who could help her to form her own identity, or so she had thought at the time. Yet at this moment, she would be happy to be facing her father, unworldly, ignorant to her ideals, and as predictable as the setting sun. She would give anything to be with him instead of the man before her now.

What you saw the other night… he started to speak, then paused, continuing to glare into her frail eyes. I really wish you hadn’t seen it.

She struggled to say something, to tell him that she would never mention the transaction she had witnessed to anyone. She wanted to tell him that she didn’t even know what was involved. She wanted to save herself from whatever his intentions were, but all she could do was tremble in fear. Her jaws where fixed, the words caught in her throat as if her vocal chords had become unattached.

The fact that she did know what was involved in the transaction built into the tension she was already feeling. She knew that it was illegal, that she was a witness to a crime, and that was all that mattered. For she knew that if he was capable of that he was capable of anything. His line of business explained his financial security. It explained his secrecy about his life. It was also understood that she was in deeper than she had ever planned to be, and she had to forget about what she saw.

Now, I really don’t think that you will tell anyone about my little business, he said as he looked off at nothing in the distance again.

Little business?, she thought. A shudder ran through her bones as she thought of the man she fell in love with being a felon. He touched her cheek with the palm of his hand. A brief sense of relief coursed through her as she noticed the hint of a smile in his rugged face.

The relief that she felt was coupled with a little foolishness for ever thinking that he would actually hurt her. This was the man that she loved, the one that she had given her purity to. He would never do anything to hurt her. She trusted him. They shared intimate moments together, several of them.

She had been brought up to believe that sex should be saved for marriage. And, until she was fifteen years of age, she had lived by that guideline. But she had loved this man. Did love this man. She would do anything for him. She had done everything for him. When she had given herself to him physically, she had been, at first, shy. She didn’t know exactly what to do, or how to do it well. It wasn’t something that her parents had discussed with her in great detail, if at all. But with his help and patience, plus the scores of stories she had listened to about her friends’ sexual escapades, she was able to perform quite well. Being with him had made her feel like a woman, and she liked it. So much so that most of the times they spent together were spent in bed. Yes, she loved him.

He moved his hand to the back of her neck and gently rubbed her hair. She took a small step toward him and buried her face in his chest. As she nestled against him, the waves shushed her as a mother would a frightened child. She felt comfortable with him, safe. How could she have thought that he would hurt her? They were in love. Surely, whatever trouble she had stumbled upon could not be more important than that. Feeling his heart beat faster as she leaned into him, she knew that he must feel the same way. Yet as she wrapped her arms around him and looked up into his face, that same empty look that had pierced her heart before told her that his was not beating so rapidly due to love.

"I have faith in you, but there are others who think differently."

She tried to step back, to get away, but his grip tightened on her neck. His fingers drove their way into her pressure points, paralyzing her with pain. Before she had time to even wince in agony, he kicked her feet out from under her and forced her face down into the shallow water. She tried to struggle as she tasted the bitter, salt water, but his grip only tightened. She grabbed at the arm now permanently attached to the back of her neck only to find that it had been joined by its counterpart. She scratched at his hands, but knew that he wouldn’t let her up, not knowing what she knew, not now - not ever. She knew that she was just a silly girl for ever thinking differently.

She tried to get a grip on his arms, tried to loosen the pressure, to pull them away. But every time she thought she had a grasp, he would shake her violently, her hands slipping away from his soaking limbs. Her face scratched against the sea floor, shards of broken shells scratching her skin, salt water burning into the wounds.

She felt herself hitting him time and again, but his grip would not loosen. Continuing to hold her head underwater, he grabbed one of her arms, jerking it, trying to twist it behind her. The sea water and her constant struggling wouldn’t allow him to keep a hold, and she eventually wriggled her arm free. When she had loosened it, her arm came down behind her back, and she felt it scratch against something sharp. She put her hand down to her side and felt the chopsticks in her back pocket. She pulled one out, holding it in her hand like a dagger. He shook her vigorously, pushing her face into the course sediment. The weapon slipped from her hand, joining the rest of the sea life washed to the shore.

Her hands shook as she reached for the other, grasping frantically. She made contact and gripped it firmly, the slick ivory almost eluding her grasp. She thrust the shaft over her head and behind her with all the strength she had left. She felt her hand hit him, and his grasp immediately loosened.

She burst from the water, trying desperately to put air back into her lungs. She coughed up sea water as she fell back to her knees. Blood drained from her nose and face, mixing with the water that dripped from her hair. Her eyes felt swollen as she tried to blink. She inhaled deeply, allowing the night air to strengthen her. Oxygen had never felt so good. Continuing to cough and sputter, she spun around to look at him.

He was holding his arm, blood running from his fingers and obscenities gushing from his mouth. He pulled the ivory dagger from his arm with a scream of pain and glared at her as he tossed it away in defiance. She wanted so badly to be able to laugh at him for the pain she had inflicted. Surely, the salt water was mixing with his own blood, stinging him, burning his wound, the way that it was hers. She wanted to laugh and spit in his face, but she knew that it would not be that easy. The look in his eyes shouted that message loud and clear.

This look was more than soulless. It was pure hatred. He lunged at her, and the last thing she saw was the maniacal look in his eyes and the back of his hand.

Patrick Kelly looked at the clock. 11:52 PM. He inhaled deeply and leaned back in his chair, trying not to look at the mess that was on his desk. He ran a hand through his thick salt and pepper hair. He looked dejectedly at the Bible and scattered papers on his cherrywood desk and exhaled. It was a mess. He had four different books on the desk besides the Bible: a concordance, a Charles Swindoll best seller, a synopsis of the four gospels, and a Bible dictionary. All were open to different pages, taking up more space than absolutely necessary. For the past few hours, he had been putting the finishing touches on the sermon that he was supposed to give in seven hours. The last two hours had been the least productive: looking at the clock, running his fingers through his hair, and sighing. He had a good grasp on the sermon and was sure it would go fine, but the sermon was not what was troubling him.

He leaned forward, resting his heavy arms on the desk. He placed his notes in his Bible and closed it gently, knowing that nothing more could be done to it.

Honey, I’m going to bed, his wife said as she leaned in the doorway. Are you going to be up awhile?

He slowly turned in his chair. His wife looked at him tenderly, her face lit by the desk lamp.

Yeah. I’m going to wait a little while longer.

His wife approached him and placed a loving hand on his brow. He was always so proud of her. Not just for the fact that she had always been such a strong woman of God, but for the fact that she was still as attractive to him as the day they met and could still get his blood to boil with only a touch. She wore a thin bathrobe, cut off at the knee. As she stood before him, Patrick could tell that she was wearing nothing underneath. He desperately wanted to join her as she turned in., however, he knew that he was too preoccupied to even think about making love. He smiled slightly, showing his concern.

Don’t worry, she said softly. I’m sure she’ll be home soon. She’s been late before. It’s not the first time.

I know. The pastor reached up and gingerly took his wife’s hand. It’s just that, after last night, I think I should talk to her. I mean, we got into it pretty bad.

Well, she kissed him on the forehead. I’ll leave the bathroom light on for you. Just remember that you have a long day tomorrow. Don’t stay up too late.

I won’t. Don’t worry. I’m all prepared for tomorrow. Just put the finishing touches on my sermon. He smiled limply.

Are you sure you’re okay? You seem - I don’t know - troubled. Patrick could see the compassion in her ice blue eyes.

The pastor exhaled with a puff. I’m just worried about her. I never know what she’s thinking. She came by here today like she had something to say, and then just left. I don’t know how to communicate with her anymore. We’re just so different.

I know, she said as she squeezed his hand and knelt down. You just have to be patient with her. And pray for her. Adolescence is a hard time. She’s going through a lot of changes right now and doesn’t know exactly how to deal with them.

He nodded slowly and smiled as much as he could. You better go to bed. I’ll wait up for her. You need your sleep.

Okay. I’ll see you in the morning. She kissed him and left the room.

Patrick turned back in this chair and placed his arms on his desk. He could still smell his wife’s perfume as it wafted in the air of his den. He really wished he had gone with her. His head shook slowly, and he looked at the picture of his family in front of him. The gold frame brought out the picture brilliantly. It was exactly as he wanted it to be. A perfect family surrounded by beauty and grace. His daughter’s face glowed brightly. She must have been about eight years old when they had posed for the portrait. He could actually remember when the picture was taken all those years ago. She was so innocent then, so full of love for her family and her father. She’d been Daddy’s little girl. He didn’t know what to call her now. That time had long passed.

I love you, Sweetie, he muttered, hoping his daughter could hear him wherever she was. Why can’t you understand that?

He slowly closed his eyes and lowered his head to his clasped hands. Lord Jesus, please be with my daughter. Help us both through this.

TWO

Kyle couldn’t help but think about how much he missed Florida. The flakes of ice and the biting cold numbed his hands as he worked to clear the night’s debris from his car. One of the things he had not yet become accustomed to about North Carolina was cleaning ice from his windshield. He had been in the state for almost four years now, but could still not get used to the cold winters. Though, he knew most Northerners would agree that North Carolina winters are mild compared to other places, he had been born and reared in Florida. Anything below thirty-two degrees was too cold.

As his hands lost all feeling, he wished he hadn’t lent his ski gloves to his fraternity brother. He hadn’t seen the gloves or their new wearer in days. He made a mental note to never let anyone borrow anything he might ever actually need to use again. He mused that he had to learn this lesson the way he had learned most things in his life - the hard way.

He finally removed the majority of the frost and tossed the ice scraper into the back seat among empty cans of Dr. Pepper and crumpled McDonald’s bags. He let his 5’10" frame slump behind the wheel and, and tried to get his fingers to cooperate in putting the key in the ignition. After a few tries, the old Honda reluctantly started. When the Prelude sounded like she was purring happily, at least, as happily as she could on such a cold December morning, he backed out of the parking lot of the Oak Corners Apartments and headed on without bothering to look for traffic.

He sped down the back road, looking for signs of iced asphalt. That was one factor he had wizened up to quickly, another lesson learned the hard way. He had lost control of his car once on an ice slick. Although a sign had warned him that bridges ice before roads do, he had paid no heed to it, and ended up crossing the bridge diagonally. Either by lick or the grace of God, his car had not hit the guardrail on either side of the bridge or any other cars on the road. But the incident alone was enough to give him total respect for icy roads. When he reached the overpass that would take him to the highway, he tapped his brakes, slowing down a good ten miles per hour.

The car hit the highway to Asheville as Kyle thought about what was waiting for him at the other end: work. Some of his friends kidded him that his was not a real job, and that he had no reason to get as stressed as he sometimes did about it. But on this particular Sunday morning, the job was extremely real to him. For a youth pastor, even a part-time youth pastor, he wasn’t much of a planner. It was 9:15 and he still had very little idea what he was going to teach in Sunday school at 9:45.

When he started the job at the church in August, he decided to not use a specific workbook or the suggested Southern Baptist Sunday school program. He liked the idea of being spontaneous and letting the Spirit lead. But creating spontaneity every week turned out to be quite a bit of work, and the young youth pastor, on mornings like these, regretted his decision. Another lesson learned: the Spirit can move when you’re prepared just as easily as when you’re not.

He also regretted giving up his Saturday night planning session for a date with Robyn Sizemore. It was a date that he had been trying to get for months, so when the chance finally presented itself, to go out with this seemingly beautiful person, he took it. Before he had truly gotten to know her and she was little more than eye candy, he had described her as drop dead gorgeous. She had flowing, golden locks, a winning smile with pouty lips, ice blue eyes, and a figure that could easily be seen in the pages of Sports Illustrated sometime around February. His intentions, he knew, were totally based on her appearance, and he supposed he had gotten what he deserved. Whoever said, Good things come to those who wait had never gone out with Robyn Sizemore.

She was extremely pretty. A normal male could have a perfectly enjoyable evening just watching her - as long as she didn’t talk. That was what had spoiled their evening together, her constant complaining about anything irrelevant. The only substance to any of her many monologues was ignorant bickering. She complained about her classes, her roommate, other guys she had dated, the tanning salon, and pretty much every aspect of her life that no one would ever bother to ask about. By the end of the date, Kyle had reached many conclusions about the infamous Robyn Sizemore. As he had spent most of the evening nodding his head as she rambled on, he had deduced that her hair was bleached - badly. Her eye color was not natural; he could have sworn that he saw a hint of hazel along the ridge of her blue iris. And nice figures and a pretty face were highly overrated. Anybody with a good plastic surgeon could have a nice body, but no doctor in the world could implant a personality. So Kyle accepted the fact that he had given up his time of preparation to teach the kids that depended on him to spend five hours with a cheerleader who had the intellectual stability of a salad fork.

He drove along in regret and started thumbing through his Bible to make up for lost time. He remembered how good he had been at this when he started the job, and how it had become increasingly more difficult as the months had passed. He had once had such excitement about ministering to the youth when his term had started. He used to pull out all of the stops and just hit his kids with everything he had ever learned and knew about the Bible and how God can use it. He wanted so badly for his kids to have a relationship with God as he did. But now, he had to think harder and longer to come up with something he hadn’t told them before. Everything he thought of saying, he could remember using before in a previous lesson.

His fingers glided through pages and brought him to the book of Numbers. Yeah, right, he thought. That’ll keep them awake. He continued thumbing through pages, waiting for that spontaneous Spirit to move, reading bits and pieces of scripture as he kept one eye on the road and one on the Good Book. He soon realized how much material he had covered in his short time at the church. His kids should have been spiritual giants by now. He moved on to the New Testament when something grabbed his attention.

"Therefore, since we