Hell Within -- Chapter Six: The Father -- Scenes 2&3

-2-

Ben slammed the door shut behind him and pressed his back against it panting, and he looked up to the foyer ceiling and closed his eyes willing his heart to slow down.

But even as he stood in place, everything changed.

The carved door at his back smoothed out. He felt the warmth of the sun on his face. The normal fustiness of the air was replaced by the robustness of the outdoors during the fall.

But Ben noticed none of this until a jolt to the door toppled him into grass.

He opened his eyes and looked up, dazzled.

Several groups of colonists stood before him huddled behind wooden tables turned on their sides, and the man he’d seen moments before at the church -- the one who called himself a captain -- stood at the helm.

But he was different now. His long brown hair was peppered with streaks of gray, and there were deep ridges around his eyes. And all the men surrounding him carried looks of doom on their faces.

The mansion had turned into an open-air fort. A two-story enclosure was built on to the left wall that must have served as the keep, and to the right in the approximate area where the main den should have been, stood a stable. The void in the grassy courtyard was filled with wooden huts with thatch roofs and battlements.

Another heavy blow landed on the wooden gate behind Ben accompanied by the sound of wood cracking. Ben looked over his shoulder at the door and then back to the men before him.

The captain shook his head grimly.

"It’s over."

There was another thud at the door, and the wood cracked. The gate capsized in three pieces. The natives swarmed inside, and the colonists answered back with the boom and flash of muskets, only managing to take out a few. They were instantly overwhelmed.

Two natives held the captain against the back wall by each arm, and he writhed like a misbehaving child.

Then a different sort of man walked through the archway where the gate had been flanked by four natives. He was taller than the others and had the look of an Englishman, but he wore the garb of an Indian. His sandy hair flamed wildly off his head, and his beard flared down to his neck.

He passed through the sufferings of the colonists completely oblivious and proceeded straight to the captain.

"Where is the old man?" he said.

The captain glared at him and spat in his face.

The Englishman smirked and unsheathed a knife not bothering to wipe the Captain’s spit off his face, and he held the blade against the Captain’s throat.

"Make no mistake, you will die to-day. The only question remaining is how quickly and with what pain."

The Captain cast a fearful eye toward the Englishman’s blade and then he looked at the keep.

The Englishman followed the aim of his stare to the barricaded door of the keep and then looked back at the Captain and smiled.

"Thank you, friend."

With that, the Englishman jabbed the dagger into the Captain’s belly and ripped it straight up -- slashing him from navel to sternum.

The captain yelped in agony and despair.

Ben watched in horror as the Englishman reached inside the Captain’s body and yanked out his entrails, and they fell to the ground in a squirming, slimy heap. The Captain’s bladder gave way releasing a dark cloud of urine down the leg of his brown tights.

The natives holding the captain released him and he fell to the ground screaming and wriggling. He pushed his way back up on his feet and turned to run, but he tripped over his own intestines.

One of the natives guarding the Englishman raised his bow toward the captain and drew back an arrow, but the Englishman’s hand flew up. He said something in a Native American tongue, and the native lowered his bow.

Then they turned and walked through the carnage and screams of the doomed to the gate of the keep.

The Englishman eyed the gate and then looked back toward the great archway leading outside the fort, said something in Cherokee, and a band of natives carrying a log charged in, lined up and crashed the log into the gate.

Ben eyed the Captain who was begging for death and clawing through the grass, and he didn’t know why he felt pity for him.

The natives slammed the log into the gate again and this time it buckled. The Englishman nodded at his escorts and then they descended the steps into the keep. Ben followed.

The keep was the same as the old master’s quarters -- walls and floors of black rock illuminated only by torches along the walls. They descended a narrow flight of stairs, and then they stopped at an archway and the Englishman peered into the great room beyond.

Scores of people, colonists and natives alike, stood huddled inside -- among them were elderly men, women and children.

The Englishman smirked and said something to one of his escorts who nodded and shot back through the hallway the way he came. In a moment, there was a ruckus from the stairway, and the hallway filled with natives lusting after the room.

The keep filled with screams.

Ben stared with awe at the Englishman, who smirked and nodded and started further down the hallway.

They delved so deeply into the black stone passage that the sounds of the screams faded to nothing more than a memory.

Finally, they arrived at a great wooden door adorned with a coat of arms carved in its surface. Two guards stood by it, and at the sight of the Englishman, they drew their swords.

The Englishman’s escorts drew back their arrows, and the Englishman grimaced at them with amusement.

"Will you let me pass in peace, or do you wish to tempt fate?"

The guards glanced at each other, and then back at the Englishman.

"Your fortress has already fallen. There’s no longer any need to resist -- unless you wish to die defending it."

"We will not bow to you," one of the men said.

The Englishman nodded. "Even as you stand here defending a man who has put many of your friends to the sword, my warriors dull their knives on your women and children.

The guards looked at each other again and then shot past them up the corridor.

The Englishman motioned at them, and two of his escorts turned and filled them with arrows.

At last they turned their attention to the door once more. One of the escorts opened it and then they descended down another long and narrow staircase to another door, and behind that door came frantic whispers.

The Englishman threw it open, and inside Henry stood digging through a desk; he looked up and gasped.

He wasn’t the same man Ben knew from his other encounters. Gray streaks shot through his black hair like bolts of lightning. His face was pale as ever but hollowed out and wrinkled. He looked weak and old.

"Good morrow, father," the Englishman said.

"Edward," Henry said.

-3-

"Why are you ransacking my library?"

Ben gasped, rested his right hand over his heart, and then turned around and looked in the general direction that Tom’s voice sounded.

Tom stood with his shoulder propped on the oak just inside surveying the rumbled mess that Ben had made.

"You said that Henry Lancaster’s journal was around here somewhere?"

Tom squinted at him. "Why the sudden interest?"

Ben gave him a frustrated look. "Is it here or not?"

Tom stood up straight. "I’m afraid I haven’t seen it in years."

"Then why did you mention it?"

Tom half smiled, and he stepped up to the reading table where Ben had several volumes laid out open. He looked down at them and then back to Ben shaking his head.

"What do you want to know?"

"Who was he?"

Tom studied him.

"That’s a broad question."

Ben shrugged.

"He was born in London and raised in the house of an English aristocrat in Norfolk. As for his lineage, that’s anyone’s guess. He was an orphan much like yourself."

"What about all these crazy myths you keep telling me about him? ‘He protects the children.’ ‘He was a severe man.’"

Tom pulled a chair out from under the reading table and sat down, and then he eyed all the documents Ben had taken off the shelves looked up to him, and shook his head.

"He saved his colony by allying them with a band of natives – the Croatoan tribe, and later he led his countrymen in a bloody war against the Cherokee."

"What colony?"

Tom smiled as if recalling something unpleasant. "They called it The City of Roanoke."

"Roanoke?"

Tom nodded. "It was supposed to be the first English stronghold in the New World; it turned out to be a quagmire."

"Roanoke was much further north. How did they get all the way down here?"

"The Croatoan led them. They crossed over into Cherokee territory, and that’s what caused the war."

Ben frowned and scanned the pine shelves.

"Do you realize," Tom said, "that the original structure of this mansion was what they built to protect them?"

Ben looked back at Tom and squinted.

"They called it Fort Lancaster. All of the Croatoan Chiefs were murdered by the Cherokee, and Henry was the only authority left. They built this fort and it held the natives off for years."

"How did he die?"

Tom’s face darkened.

"His son."

Ben bit his lower lip and sat down.

"The longer the war dragged on the more paranoid Henry became. He watched his people suffer grizzly deaths at the hands of his adversaries."

Ben shook his head trying to overcome the image of the young Englishman dressed like a native.

"There was a growing faction among the colonists who feared Henry had gone insane. His wife was among them."

Ben looked up at Tom, but Tom seemed to be off in his own world now. His eyes had narrowed to slits and his lips had tightened. There was something spiteful in his mien.

"His wife arranged to have herself and her son to join the Cherokee, but Henry caught it, and he killed his wife. Their son, who was eight at the time escaped and was raised by the Cherokee."

"My god."

Tom nodded, and then he seemed to snap out of his trance and look directly at Ben.

"So where’s Amy? I haven’t seen her about in the last few days?"

Ben shook his head. "Gainesville. She picked the weekend of our anniversary to go to Gainesville and visit with Shelly."

Ben stood up, turned his back to Tom, and folded his arms.

"If there’s not a message there, I’m nuts."

"Your anniversary?" Tom repeated.

Ben looked at him. "Have you ever been married?"

Tom looked down at the books on top of the table. "A long time ago."

Ben studied him. "What happened?"

Tom sighed. "She died."

Ben turned around and stared at Tom who didn’t move a muscle. His eyes had glazed over as if a thousand thoughts had come to the surface at once.

"I’m sorry."

Tom looked up at him and shook his head.

Ben felt like a shit.

"And I thought I had problems."

Tom shook it off.

"You know, I have a twenty-year-old bottle of Scotch languishing away. What do you say to opening it over a few friendly games of billiards -- one lonely soul to another?"

Ben grinned. "Sounds like a plan."

(Continue to Scenes 4-6)