J. Gonzalez - They

“A warning?”

“A warning from that… devil group of Gladys’ in California. I can feel it in my bones. Somehow they found out we hired Ray to do that investigating. Gladys must be angry at us for trying to get Frank out of that house.”

“But that’s ridiculous, honey,” Carlos had said in a whispered voice. “How would they know we even had this cash in our house? And how would they have known its location?”

Diane had shuddered. “They knew. The devil told them where it was. How else could those men have gone right to where we kept the money?” And then she’d crossed herself and mumbled a prayer of protection.

Two weeks later they got a call from California. It was Gladys. She told Diane that she and Tom had talked things over and that she was sending Frank to El Paso to live with her and Carlos. She felt it would be better for the boy to have a change of place. Diane didn’t mention the breakin to her former sister-in-law; she merely mumbled thank you and two days later they picked up Frank at the El Paso International Airport.

When John Llama started his investigation, he started where Diane and Carlos had left off. He obtained the files Ray Allman had left with them (securely locked in a safe deposit box at a bank), and started verifying what Ray found. For the first year John didn’t learn much, except that the group called itself The Children of the Night. He learned they were involved in a lot of criminal activity: child pornography and regular run-of-the-mill porn, drugs, white slavery, weapons smuggling, and prostitution. They also had several legitimate business interests, and it was this route that John chose to take. For the first year of investigating he grew frustrated at always hitting dead ends; the cult members went by so many aliases and code names it was hard to tell one from the other. Another thing that hindered his progress was, despite the evidence the group was nationwide, possibly worldwide, there was no evidence to support the theory. It appeared that the group went by different names in different parts of the U.S., with a group in New York meeting as “The Children” and a group in Alabama meeting as “The Children of the Night.” John pressed on, uncovering information about The Children of the Night, eventually making the connection that it was this name that the group was most commonly known by.

During the time John was conducting his investigation, Mike was only fleetingly aware of it. John would call him from time to time to discuss details. He told Mike he was being extremely careful; he’d lifted all of the preliminary duties from his assistants at the office, taking the case on himself. He didn’t trust anybody with any of it. He was also being careful to destroy whatever notes he had and stored other items in a safe deposit box. He gave Mike a key and made him memorize the box number and what bank it was at. Mike was concerned and wanted to help his friend, but he didn’t want to let his wife, Carol, in on it. She would be petrified and would forbid Mike to even lend a hand. So he sat idly by on the sidelines while John did all of the work.

In the end they got to John so swiftly that even Mike was surprised at their skill and deftness. To this day, he still didn’t know how they found out. Maybe the group found out who John was and brought him into the fold secretly, setting up people to meet him at business functions, passing themselves off as businessmen or lawyers John might have met at some meeting or party. Mike recalled John telling him about a few social mixers he’d attended in his off time; he’d surely been attending a lot of them since his divorce from Connie, and Mike was afraid John would start drinking again (he’d developed a drinking problem in college that lasted through the early years of his law career). But John seemed to be doing fine and Mike didn’t press it.

Mike remembered the day in the Spring of 1982—it must have been mid April, or so—when John called him at three a.m. Mike had picked up the phone by his side of the bed, irritated at being woken up at this hour, and at first John’s slurred voice was unrecognizable. “John?”

“It’s me, Mike,” John had said. Mike could tell right away that John had fallen off the wagon. It had been three months since they’d spoken, and John had been doing fine then. Suddenly concerned, he started to ask John if he was okay when John cut him off. “There’s no way we can find out anything else about Jesse, Mike. Better chalk him up as being dead. Dead and gone. No way.”

“John what are you talking about?” Rising fear wormed its way into Mike’s gut.

“They’re everywhere , Mike.” John paused and Mike could hear the tilt of a bottle on the other end of the line. “They’re fucking everywhere.”

Dread filled Mike. He had the sick feeling he knew what John was talking about.

“I don’t know how they found me. I went to a party with an associate of mine, guy who’s president of a big firm downtown. It was supposed to be at the home of an investment banker. I was interested in offshore investing. Paul really sold me on it and he promised me this guy knew what he was talking about.”

“Who’s Paul?” Mike had asked gently. He’d picked up the phone and moved out of the bedroom and into the hall where he wouldn’t disturb Carol, who moaned once and turned over in her sleep.

“Guy I met at a seminar a few months ago.” John seemed to struggle with the memory. “Nice guy… or at least I thought so until Tuesday.”

“What happened, John?”

Another hit off the bottle. “Guy’s one of them ,” he slurred. “Fucking devil worshipper.”

Mike felt himself go numb with fright.

“Got to the house for the party,” John said, slurring his words bad now. “Everything was cool for awhile. It was a biiigg house. Fuckin’ mansion in Bel Air. Beautiful. There was this little babe that was so hot for me… ya shoulda seen her, Mikey… fucking tits to die for, a body that wouldn’t quit—”

“I’m listening, John,” Mike had said calmly, trying to quell the beating of his heart. “Tell me what happened.”

There was a pause for a moment, as if John was trying to muster the courage to tell him what happened. He started slowly. “I don’t remember her name. I think it was Susie. She offered me a drink. I thought ‘why not,’ and she went to the bar and brought me one. It tasted okay. But after awhile I started feeling funny. She started flirting with me… little cock teaser. Then I started getting dizzy. I reached out and grabbed her shoulder to support myself ’cause I felt the room spinning. I dropped the drink and then there was a hand on my shoulder helping me up. I remember being led out of the room and a voice… a real big voice, almost hollow sounding, saying something like ‘we’ll begin once it’s taken full effect.’ ” He paused again. “It was then that I realized I’d been drugged.”

Mike didn’t say anything. He listened with sinking dread as John continued.

“The next thing I know I woke up in a big room.” For a moment the slurriness of his speech was gone as John struggled with the memory. “I was naked, laid out in the middle of the room. It was lit by candles. Dozens of them. There were people in the room, still dressed in their suits and dresses. Paul was standing in front of me, looking down with a scary look. I swear to you, Mike, that man had murder in his eyes. And something more than murder. Evil. Corruption. They all did. I tried to sit up, but I felt the room spin. I tried to fight the dizziness and felt myself getting sick. Then I threw up all over the floor. And they laughed.”

The rest of it had been a blur for John. He didn’t remember much and still didn’t realize what had happened to him, or if any of it was simply a figment of his imagination. He thought he was tortured, that hot spikes were being burned into his flesh; he recalled figures standing above him and jabbing long sharp objects into his body as he writhed and screamed on the ground in excruciating pain. He thought at one time he awoke over a steaming pit of filth, his face held over a cauldron of human excretions. He felt a hand grip the back of his head firmly and push him into the steaming mess, feeling the texture of the warm wetness; lumpy, damp, mixing the stink of piss, vomit and shit. He felt it ooze into his nostrils and throat and he gagged. His stomach churned and he threw up again, the warm steaming mess joining the mixture in the bowl and he was forced to lap at it until he threw up again, he kept throwing up until his stomach muscles convulsed, wrenching his guts dry. He’d dropped to the floor in exhaustion, breathing heavily, and then he felt the searing pain as the red hot lances stabbed into his flesh again.