"Watchman, How Much Longer the Night?"
Canto X
Perceptions
Author's note: A storyline titled The Reward of the Wicked was written by Scott Mitchell in 2002 as an introductory "prophecy" (adventure) for the role-playing game The Seventh Seal. Cantos 10-13 here are an account of what happened when our heroes dealt with the events Mitchell laid out for them to encounter. Some of the names, places and descriptive text included in this section of our story were created by Mitchell. Our characters did not follow the storyline quite as Mitchell may have imagined. The outcome was certainly different!
The Reward of the Wicked by Scott Mitchell. ©2002 Creative Illusions, Inc. All rights reserved.
Scene 1
"Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living."
— Anais Nin
The dreams of the previous night had been disturbing. Sean was working a morning shift at the menswear store, but couldn't keep his mind focused. The soldiers were killing the children. Sean remembered the Bible story of Herod killing children, but didn't know what that had to do with anything. Sean's nerves were getting increasingly frayed. I could use a drink.
His break came about 2 o'clock, and he made his way into the local sandwich shop. Above the counter, a TV was dispensing the day's news.
"It has been three weeks since over a dozen children were found in an industrial warehouse, abducted, drugged, and possibly molested. Thanks to an anonymous phone call, local police discovered the atrocities that occurred within. For weeks, law enforcement agents were baffled as to who was responsible for the crime. Until now... Detective Bauer, what can you tell us?"
The reporter held a microphone out to the slightly overweight detective assigned to the case.
"At this moment," the detective said, "we have evidence that this is indeed the man we have been looking for. I have no further comments at this time, but a press release will be made when the facts are sorted out."
The TV showed video footage of the 'perp walk', of the suspect being brought into the local police precinct. As the camera zoomed in on the man, the suspect gazed directly into the camera before being dragged away. Sean shuddered. He could have swore that the suspect was looking directly at him.
Scene 2
"As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances there is twilight. And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."
— Justice William Douglass
Vance was sitting at his apartment table going over the newspapers. He was getting more frustrated than inspired. The only thing that caught his eye was the front page news about the arrest in the child-abduction case. The mug shot of the suspect showed a light-skinned man with long blonde hair, dark eyes, a mustache and a short-cropped beard.
As Vance was looking over the article again, his cell phone rang. The only people who had this number were his fellow Sentinels, so he answered it immediately.
"Yeah."
The voice on the line was not one that Vance recognized.
"I'm innocent," said the male voice, low but clear. "I need to talk to you. Please... please come visit me tonight."
The call ended. Vance stared at his phone in confusion. Who... But then his eyes refocused. Just beyond the phone in his hand was the photo of the captured suspect on the front page of the paper. Him. But how? A foreboding wave of danger rose up in Vance. He's innocent, of course. I feel it.
Scene 3
Kay: "Did anything about that seem unusual to you?"
— Men in Black
A small flurry of phone calls and an hour later, Vance was standing down the street from the police precinct where the suspect was being held. Media crews and picketing citizens were plentiful in front of the building. Before long, Rab, Sean, Billy and Jimmy joined him.
"How are you going to get in there?" asked Jimmy, hoping to avoid the possibility entirely.
"Why would they even let us talk to the suspect?" Rab pointed out.
Vance shrugged. "We're here for a reason. I'm going in to see."
Sean shuffled his feet nervously. "I don't like this."
Sean, Vance and Rab made their way through the crowds, and eventually to the precinct desk. Predictably, their request to visit the suspect was denied by the cop at the desk; however, as they turned to make their way out again, a uniformed patrolman approached them. Ziolkowski was the name on the badge.
"I heard you asking about the suspect. I can take you to him." The tsaba members all stopped and looked at each other with a mixture of surprise and suspicion. Vance was the first to find his voice.
"Please. We won't take long."
They followed the officer through the precinct and down a flight of stairs. They came to a row of cells guarded by another uniformed officer, who barely noticed their arrival. Officer Ziolkowski led them to the suspect's cell, and then left them to their conversation.
"This is completely strange," whispered Sean to the others. They nodded in agreement as the suspect approached he door of his cell.
The suspect had been roughed up pretty badly, but spoke to them calmly.
"You are the chosen elect," he stated. "I am a messenger of God. I am real, and my innocence is the truth. There is a powerful evil that has been unleashed in your world. It will consume humankind unless you intervene. It is your destiny."
The tsaba members looked around in confusion and found themselves standing just outside the precinct doors, facing the street.
"Wow!" said Vance.
"Where..." Rab started to say.
"This can not be happening," announced Sean. "Did we just..." Sean trailed off.
Vance looked around with a shocked look on his face. "Let's go," he said, leading them away from the building.
Scene 4
"All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher."
— Ambrose Bierce
The tsaba members gathered at Samson's to discuss what was going on.
"You're telling me that we all experienced the same hallucination?" Rab asked Sean.
"Surely, you don't think that actually happened, do you?" Sean responded.
Jimmy cleared his throat. "Whether it actually happened or not doesn't seem to be what's important."
"So what are we going to do?" asked Sean. "Did any of our dreams give us clues?"
"In my dream," said Rab, "I was in the crowd when Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus, who was obviously innocent. The guilty man was set free. I woke up feeling terrible because I couldn't stop it.
"This guy is innocent. The real criminal is still out there. And I don't think I can stand by idly while this guy takes the blame. I feel like I have to do something. Like I can do something."
The group sat silently for a while.
"In my dream," said Jimmy, "I was at the scene of an accident. A police car had gone out of control and hit a police van, the kind they use for transporting prisoners. The van was in a ditch of water. The people needed help."
After another silent moment, Vance made a decision.
"So, who wants to go with me and follow the prisoner van? If something happens, we'll be there."
Scene 5
Forge: "Are you sure this will work?"
Nightcrawler: "No"
— X-Men: Evolution, Middleverse
Sean parked his black van on the street near the precinct early in the morning. A crowd was gathering, complete with news crews, expecting the prisoner to be moved. Vance, Billy and Rab waited in the van with him, watching everything carefully. Soon, three police cruisers pulled up in front of the building to transport the prisoner. The area around the cars was cordoned off by a line of officers.
As they watched, Jimmy pulled up beside the van on his motorcycle.
"Something's not right," he said. "Hang on." Jimmy accelerated away and spun around the corner.
A few minutes later, Rab's phone rang. She listened for a moment.
"Are you sure?... Okay." She ended the call.
"That was Jimmy," she said to the others. "He says that at the back of the precinct building is parked another patrol car and a police van. Just like the one he dreamed about. He thinks this convoy in front is a decoy."
Sean immediately started up the engine and pulled out into traffic, repositioning their van to follow the other vehicles. Before he even started looking for a place to park, Jimmy phoned again.
"They're on the move."
Jimmy gave them details about the van's route as Sean maneuvered through the streets. Before long, he was able to make out Jimmy and his bike ahead, and the police van some distance ahead of that. They followed for some time.
"They seem to be going in the wrong direction," observed Vance aloud. "They're heading out of the city. Joliet is closed. If they're taking him to someplace like Springfield, why aren't they taking the highway?"
They continued to follow at a distance, keeping Jimmy in view, who seemed to be keeping the prisoner van in view.
Soon they were on a quiet section of one of the state roads. A few minutes later, the prophesied accident happened. The lead car blew a tire, and lost control, eventually ending up off the other side of the road. The following van, trying to avoid the patrol car, swung to the right, clipped something on the shoulder of the road and rolled down into a deep ditch.
Within moments, Jimmy had pulled up on his bike and disappeared on foot down into the ditch after the van. When Sean stopped, he and Rab ran to check on the patrol car, while Vance and Billy followed Jimmy after the van.
The van was upside down in a significant amount of water. By the time Vance and Billy arrived, Jimmy was already pulling the unconscious driver out of the van onto dry ground. Billy went around to check on the officer in the passenger seat. Vance went to the back of the van, of which one of the doors was ajar from the accident. He found the prisoner handcuffed to a rail that ran along the ceiling of the van. At the moment, he was crouching upright with the handcuffs under water at his feet.
"Are you okay?"
"No worse for wear," the prisoner said, although his appearance was pretty ragged after all he had been through.
A moment later, Jimmy appeared, holding the keys to the handcuffs. The prisoner, once freed, turned to them and spoke quickly.
"Thank you. It will be up to you, now, to find out who is really behind the abductions of those children. Now, attend to the others as if you never saw me. Go with God. We will meet again."
The prisoner took off running down the ditch.
While Vance and Billy looked after the two unconscious officers, Jimmy climbed back up and disappeared over the road. A couple of minutes later, a pair of police cars pulled up to the accident scene to find Rab, Sean, Vance and Billy helping the officers involved in the crash. Jimmy and his cycle were gone.
Scene 6
"The body was never found. And for that reason alone, there was no body to find."
— Damon Knight, Anachron
The news headlines the following day sensationalized the accident, the prisoner's escape, and what happened when the police got to him again.
...The prisoner's bonds broke loose during the crash, allowing him to steal the driver's sidearm and flee. A manhunt involving county and state police quickly found and attempted to recapture the escaped prisoner. When he pointed his gun at the officers, they were forced to shoot him down. He was pronounced dead on the scene from a pair of bullet wounds to the chest... Citizens who came upon the accident were able to assist the injured officers...
"That's not how it happened," said Jimmy to other tsaba members as they met in a shaded area in Grant Park. "I took my cycle down the road a bit. I could see him again from where I was when they closed in on him. I know he didn't have a gun. He had his hands on top of his head when he went down. I was at a distance, but I know I heard more than two gunshots. A lot more than two."
Their mood was pretty somber as they split up and melted back into the crowds again.
When evening came, the TV blared another unsettling bit of news.
The Will County Coroner's office is having difficulty explaining how the body of the escaped prisoner has disappeared. The fleeing prisoner, who used a stolen gun to shoot at police when they attempted to recapture him, was shot dead this morning. Just a short while ago, our sources revealed that the Coroner's office is now conducting a thorough search for the body, which has been misplaced...
Sean and Jeb watched the television news with great distaste.
"That smells like three-week old green tripe," spat Sean.
Jeb looked at him questioningly. "What is tripe?"
"Offal from farm animals. Stomach, mostly."
Jeb grimaced at the thought. "What do they do with it?"
"Eat it." Sean answered. "And you can imagine that it's not pleasant if the guts weren't properly cleaned out first."
"That's sick," proclaimed Jeb. He returned his attention to the TV. "And speaking of sick, who would wander off with a body? It's not like it can walk away on its own."
The two of them stopped and looked seriously at each other.
"Nah," decided Sean," with a dismissive wave. That stuff is for the movies."
"I certainly hope you're right," responded Jeb. They both knew that they had failed to convince themselves.
Each of the tsaba members dreamt of the innocent prisoner, the man with the dark eyes and long hair. He spoke words of encouragement. But in the dream, he was not a prisoner. He was not dead, because there was no body. Their attempt to "rescue" him did not seem futile. Something strange had happened, for some purpose they could not yet fathom. And in the morning, their fears and anxieties about the man had dissipated.
:: End Canto 10 ::
7th Seal Image: Pat Loboyko. ©2005 Scott Mitchell.
The archangel Michael, playing a mysterious role in human affairs.
Image by Derek Stevens, ©2002 Creative Illusions, Inc.
