Jude shares with Timothy her dream. Father McKenzie faces in face-to-face with one of the bravest inmates though the demon who dwelled in her and exposed his deepest secrets. What are they? Is actually Sally Whigham lying?
The next morning
17th of July, 1969
The morning approached swiftly like a summer breeze. Ellie, Tristan and Agnes had already breakfast as they were playing outside, their laughters and screams levitated, relishing the summer's vibes. What the staggering was actually it has already passed ten o'clock in the morning but there were no traces of awaked Jude. She was still wrapped up with a silken blanket that covered her half bare body that was hugged in nothing more than a satin slip.
Eventually Timothy got up in eight o'clock in the morning as he made the breakfast and fed the children and he didn't want to disturb his wife, interrupting her beauty coma. As the hours reluctantly passed, the former priest's patience waned just like slowly extinguishing flare that blazed for a long time. When he realized it was ten o'clock, he didn't want to leave his wife starving as he determined to storm off in her room with platter, accomodating its made breakfast.
As he held guardedly the platter in a hand, his other hand managed to press the doorknob as it left the door ajar, pushing it a bit and stepped in the bedroom where the entire family slept. Jude was asleep yet. Whereas Timothy ignored the askewly opened door, sauntering up to the large bed.
Sun rays invalided its room darkness as the saturating, scintillating sun bathed the room in light through the window's beige blinds.
He simpered as he watched the love of his life slumbering yet. Admiring each facial featute of her. Once he seated on the edge of the bed with the platter, his sole free arm stretched as lifting a hand to her frizzy, wild honey mane hair, spilled on the pillow, saturated more due to the sunlight. It was so reassuring once he stroked her hair gently as he didn't want Judy to wake up abruptly.
"Morning, sweetheart!" Timothy held the platter with the breakfast he prepared not only for the children, but also for his wife, a coy smile distorting across his mouth, sitting on the edge of the bed. In the interim, Jude stirred as she emitted a yawn, rubbing with her fists her drowsy eyes, thereafter positioning herself in a sitting pose.
"Morning, Timothy!" She exclaimed blissfully as their lips crashed. After they broke off the kiss, a gleaming, radiant smile loomed on her face shortly after their morning kiss. She was in awe as she looked down at what was her breakfast. A plate with mouth-watering bacon and scrambled eggs with cheese. A mug of hot coffee sat motionlessly on the platter.
"How you slept, honey?" He asked her as he handed her the platter with her breakfast.
"I slept well. And you?"
"Me too. Did you dream anything?" Meanwhile Jude gripped the white mug with its hot caffeine beverage, sipping it as her hazel eyes were locked up with his warm chocolate.
"Ugh, yeah!" She recalled the bizarre dream she had the night before as her sole free hand scratched her head uneasily as she chewed her bottom lip. "It was so strange." The blonde furthered.
"Just tell me it despite its oddness, sweetie!" He insisted eagerly to listen to her reverie.
Jude inhaled after she munched a few bites of her bacon and scrambled eggs as she flipped back her untamed scalp with its sloping golden curls.
"I actually dreamed of waking up in the middle of countryside's field as there was nothing else than an enormous, multicoloured tent as I got from the grass, strolling up to the tent until I entered and I faced the toilsome challenge. To choose between three doors in three different colours such as as crimson red, emerald and lime green. The tent itself was cabalistical and so empty until I headed up to the first one, opening it as I met an odd woman, known as the most popular oracle in Massachusetts, introducing each other as I didn't know her and I have never seen her ever before in my life." Timothy nodded as he listened attentively Jude's monologue as she felt much better and relieved since the beginning of her narration, in the meantime she paused as she sipped her coffee, swallowing the coffee's fluid gushing down her body, ressurecting it in seconds.
"Her name was Sally Whigham! She wore Boho style garments. She offered me a cigarette and lit it up for me as we discussed together some things but I told her about Father McKenzie and his heinous wrongdoings, besides she knew him as she told me her story about him what he has done to her a couple of years ago. Sally was raped by him and fortunately, she has a child. Despite everything, he never bothered to see his child after her birth. Even Father McKenzie has never seen her ever again after he impregnated her viciously without her consent. And guess what she predicted about this man." The former nun paused once again as she cleared her throat, meantime Timothy placing a hand on her stark, creamy shoulder as his mammoth hand warmed her. Moreover, she gained more confidence and felt loved.
"Yes?!" He expressed questionably as he listened yet.
"She predicted his downfall as this young priest is going to be in jail one day. In the forthcoming future!" Smug smirk waved up in the corner of her lips.
***
The summer days in Briarcliff weren't that simple. Especially as an inmate or somebody from the staff.
Father McKenzie walked through the dim lit even darker than the usual hallway of the madhouse, his oxford shoes clicking against the cement floor. He wanted to check for naughty and disobedient patients in the common room and enjoy the torture over them.
Once he entered in the common room as some patients were banging their heads in the brick wall, whilst others were procrastinating, talking or just fighting. It wasn't silent at all. Their hysterical screams and shouts indisputably floated through the extensive room.
His azure blue eyes watched around as he ambled aloofly, wearing a smug, wicked grin across his lips. In the meantime, he surveyed scrutiny the common room as he wanted to make sure who is going to be his imminent victim.
The patients felt the juvenile priest's presence as some of them were apprehensive when they beheld him. Whilst there are patients, otherwise who didn't fear him at all, in spite of the inhumane sanctions.
Sun rays assaulted the window as sunlight bathed the common room. It was perhaps amidst the lightest rooms in the entire nut house. The frowst toyed with his nostrils as he checked the inmates once again.
Then he nodded as he left the common room in hushing ease, realizing they were alright.
As he was on his way to flee the room, one inmate jumped from nowhere on his path, scwrcely giving him the opportunity to move forward.
The inmate wore her tattered stone blue gown with short sleeves, amber cardigan as an overgarment and white mere slippers, protecting her bare feet from the cool climate. She was almost middle aged lady with medium length unkempt black hair, cascading down her shoulders with full fringe covering her pale forehead. She wasn't tall at all as her body build was rather slim. Her eye iris changed drastically from honey into moon yellow, glaring the monsignor mischievously.
"For Goddamn sake, Cally!" Alexander sighed frustrated as he didn't dare to touch the patient as he was man of the cloth but not exactly, due to his hypocrisy and lunatic manners. He narrowed his dark eyebrows, casting a glaring gape to the slightly older woman. He gritted his white teeth aloofly. "Let me out! I have more business than arguing with a sociopath!" He justified as he strolled to the door though the inmate didn't give him an access at all.
"Oh come on, Father! Don't be such a crybaby!" She jeered at him as she imitated his voice, catching the other inmates' attention instantly as their looks were focused on the priest and the supernatural patient. Meanwhile, a sinister laughter escaped her throat as Alexander refrained from showing any kind of an emotion as he wanted to abide potent. Mentally and physically against his pending hurdle. "It's pretty obvious you are nothing but a hypocritical madcap who hides his grimness and secrets under your filthy clerical attires!" She furthered with teasing him as she relished it from the bottom of her heart, whilst the others' stares were astonished once she continued the searing debates with the hypocrite. His heart raced as he didn't want to give up that easily as he thought he's stronger than anything. Furthermore, he was beyond livid and his dignity was no longer shimmering.
"Shut your filthy mouth, Cally! I swear..." During his grave utterance, in the meantime the supernatural patient's bighead grin gleamed as it saturated through the sunlight. The older lady recognized something in his sapphire blue eyes as deeply inside these eyes, a flame of his genuine emotions and feelings were exposed at last. A flame with somber colors, revealing his salient anger and might. Fortunately, she cut him off as laughed right at his face, seconds before to keep on with her derisive attitude towards him.
"Father Alexander Stanley McKenzie!" She stomped as she approached him as he took steps backward when he noted her adrenaline oozing from her. Cally spelled his name loudly as his cheeks heated, slightly apprehensive as he feared of the possessed woman. "I can sense your fear but you try to hide it," She grabbed him by his collar, tugging him towards her as her moon yellow eyes fixed on his winter blue, locked up in each other's gaze, gesturing with her sole free hand in front of the rest of the inhabitants of the common room. "...in this pathetic clerical attire, playing it as the benevolent and hospitable priest!" The brunette stated brashly as her voice decibels rose abruptly just like an electric guitar's strings. She sensed uncanny strength as she dominated over Father McKenzie's mental aggressivity as he struggled, shrieking as he wanted to be released from her grasp though she was much stronger physically than a bodybuilder.
"Release me from this grip, Miss! Somebody help!" The juvenile priest wailed as his wail collided in the dull, gray Briarcliff's walls just like the patients' batty cries. He shifted his eyes at the applauding patients, who triumphed over Cally's rebellion as she was the sole patient in the nut house who was capable to face such monsters, although there was a demon inside her, dwelling its shadow inside her young soul. Some of the madhouse's wretched souls burst out guffawing.
"It's your time to shut up, Mister Stanley McKenzie! Because it's my time to speak and reveal to these dear people who are committed here...to figure out what a bastard is rulling us and institutionalized abundance of nuns, sanitarians, security guards and so forth!" She rapped his shoulder teasingly as she emitted a guturral diabolical laugh. It was overwhelming for the other patients to behold Alexander in such spot. As a weak, harebrained ordinary selfish liar and hypocrite, whose deeds were always indecent. As an addition, they loved the sight of the monsignor being toyed and fooled.
He swallowed hard as he didn't dare to tremble in her grasp. He was aware of the almost middle aged woman what she would done to him. He ignored her diabolic glare as he felt it without daring to look at the fiendish patient. Alexander preferred to abide quiet as Cally began:
"Well, Alexander! I know you joined the church after you finished with passing results your high school education. I don't have any clue how you joined the church as you weren't literate at all. You used to be a bully who made fun of the poorer and weaker children in your school as you came from artistocratic family in Salem." She shook her head as she watched him his vulnerable face acquired palish tingle as Alexander was far ashamed and guilty somebody to know everything about his personal life and his profound secrets. As suspectible as he got, more power Cally got over him. In the interim, she hissed in snaky undertone, thereafter chuckling crookedly. "You joined the church to hide your deepest secrets and I know not only what have you done after Briarcliff got in your hands, but I know something more spicy when you didn't rule us."
Alexander hushed as he swallowed a solid lump in his throat, shifted his eyes to the Cally as he felt her stinky breath walloping his face especially his sensitive nostrils and eyes as he blinked. A sheepish frown shaped across his lips, his face grimaced.
"Neither a nun or a priest, nor any another living soul has known your lustful sin. How about when you raped one innocent young woman after you asked her to come in your dorm room to pray together until you shut and locked the door and you violated her without her consent?" Cally carried on with jesting voice. "You did never bother to meet her after you impregnated her or she gave a birth to a beautiful girl." Then a vile snigger escaped her lips. Meanwhile Alexander gasped inwardly in perplexion as he recalled the explicit flashbacks of his raped victim four years ago.
Flashback
April 1965
It was just days before the young, aspiring priest Father McKenzie was elected as the new monsignor and administrator of the mental hospital in Boston. After he sang church songs with the other priests as the church emptied where the people prayed and lit up candles during the Easter holidays, he bumped accidentally in a young, beauteous brunette who was about to leave the church.
"Oh, excuse me, Miss!" He wore a boyish smile across his plump lips as his azure eyes met her hazel. "I didn't mean to..."
"It's okay!" She forgave him as she was about to leave the church until he stopped her as she was incapable to move forward.
"Would you like to pray with me? I mean in my dorm room."
"Alright!" She sighed dramatically as his smile grew.
***
"Repeat after me, Sally!" He ordered her as they adjusted their praying hands, kneeling on the velvet ruby red carpet in the spacious dorm where the young priest slept, ate and spent a couple of years in desolation. They bended their heads as their temples propped their smooth hands. "Father God, my heart is filled with chaos and confusion. I feel as if I am drowning in..."
"Father God, my heart is filled with chaos and confusion. I feel as if I am drowning in..." She recited the prayer after him as her eyes were shut.
"...my circumstances and my heart is filled with fear and confusion." Then he got from the ground as he tiptoed near her.
"...my circumstances and my heart is filled with fear and confusion." She was lost in the prayer as his footsteps were far from audible.
"I really need the strength and peace..." Likewise he snuck up to the white door, shutting it silently and twisting the old, rusty silver key in the keyhole until it locked the door.
"I really need the strength and peace..." The juvenile brunette replicated after him.
"...that only You can give." He creeped over her as he was in front of her as she shed a tear.
"...that only You can give." She proceed.
"Right now, I choose to rest in You."
"Right now, I..." In this time, he clamped her mouth with his colossal hand as she struggled to speak as she attempted to get his much stronger, larger hand away from her mouth. She opened her eyes as they widened over the tall figure as his other hand grasped her long silky dark brown hair, dragging her to the bed as she opted to escape his claws, wriggling though Sally was inpotent to stop him. "Father, what are you doing?"
He threw her on the bed as she reclined her back against the yellow wall, her elbows propping up her body. In the interim, he stripped off his clerical attires slowly, gently as he expected her to be aroused. Nonetheless, it was exactly the opposite. She was disgusted and apprehensive, her heart pounding heavily in her chest. She was unable to escape him.
"A reward for your flawless prayer. I mean, you didn't make any mistakes as you recited after me. You deserve some reward, my child!" He cautioned as his clerical shirt's buttons were already undone, peeling off his shoulders as he was in his undershirt and holy white slacks and shoes. A conceited smirk loomed on his fresh, youthful face. He was about to unzip his trousers as she clutched firmly her teeth, her face bloomed in rosy tint. He didn't take his eyes off the appealing woman who wore her garments yet.
"We haven't even finished the prayer!" Sally uttered through combating tears that poured down her face.
"The prayers will continue, sweetheart! But first...the reward for you is more promising!"
"A little rape!" He said in velvety, tempting voice as she was nauseating, yielping from the sight that her hazel eyes witnessed. Beholding a face of the church who is going to rape her, facing her gruesome horror that will haunt her like a ghost for the rest of her days.
"Aaaaaah! Get your foul hands off me!"
"Come on, Sally! Where's your Easter spirit?" Alexander took off almost every garment that hugged his toned body as his sacerdotal attires were already tossed negligently on the floor as he was in his mere white boxers and undershirt, crawling up to his bed as Sally withdrawn with centimetres away from his body.
Then he tugged her clothes as he teared them off, remaining ragged as she was murderously degraded and her heart and blood froze. His warm breath pinched her face as her bile rose in her throat as she felt remorses and rage for being wobbly to halt the man of the cloth. On other hand, Sally was tremendously desperate. Nobody heard her pleas and shrieks. They were like voices in the void. As her back hit unintentionally, spontaneously the wooden headboard as she withdrawn as much as she could from the vicious, manipulative priest, he shifted down his hand to her underwear, his long, fine fingers a handful of centimetres away from her lace black panties. His winter blue eyes darted to her mortified hazel pools.
"There's no help...but there's God!" Then his fingers moved up to her panties' fabric, commencing to rubbing her core as she avoided to look at his face as much as she could, continuing to protest, in spite of nobody was there to aid her. Meanwhile his other mammoth hand moved up to her throat, gripping it as much as she didn't suffocate and lose her breathing. Sally's yowls floated in the door room.
***
"In the name of Christ, ensure me some strength!" Alexander prayed and prayed until he caught her chocolate eyes in his as she scrutinized his handsome face.
"You broke your vows, Father! You are not only a manipulator, liar and a lunatic, but also you are a rapist! Rapist! Rapist!" Cally shouted jubilantly through a bittersweet laughter as he looked up horrified at her pale face.
"Shut up! I said shut up, you sociopath!" He attempted to slap her though she carried on toying with him, lifting her forefinger, blithely cooing to him.
"No, no, no! No slaps allowed, Father!"
"How dare you?" After he grunted, he spat on her face as she wiped the spitted spot.
"You are so rude. I haven't been expecting from you to be such jerk but you can go." She released him from her grasp as he shook off some dust from his garments with his hands, without looking at her as he fled the common room.
Afterward he heard her malicious laughter, minged with the inmates' cheerful ones as they gloriously cheered her up for the impossible achievement. Moreover, he has never felt that abashed ever in his life. There were only few people who can clash Father McKenzie like a puppet. Not only the older woman exposed his dreadful, deep secrets, but also he heard about the rape where he was the perpetrator.
***
The afternoon hours were searing, tormenting not only the Howards children with its sun's brightness and hotness, howsoever, Jude and Timothy.
Jude reclined on the outdoor summer chair, tanning her still attractive body as she was dressed up in nothing else but her ravishing red bikinis, her hair tied in a messy bun and dark sunglasses on her nose tip, shielding her eyes from the sun, whereas Ellie and Tristan painted childish drawings on the wooden table as they seated on outdoor summer chairs. Agnes was with her father as he held her in his secure, affectionate arms and he taught his daughter the objects nearby such as pointing at her, explaining to her simply.
"What's this, sweetie?" Timothy pointed at the grass with an index finger as he held the youngest Howard heir, rocking her as she giggled joyously in her father's arms as a broad, radiant smile spread across his lips, watching his daughter, admiring her beauty and facial features.
"Grass?" She exclaimed shyly as Timothy pinched playfully her nose after guessing correctly the object.
"That's right, my clever girl! It's a grass." Then Timothy gestured his opened palm for a high five as the little girl gave him in return.
Jude was absent-minded as she gaped the children and Timothy chuckled rejoiced with her. She couldn't help as a broad, extraordinary smile waved up in the corner of her lips. She was beyond gleeful and overwhelmed.
The twins held crayons as they drew on the sheet of papers diversity of drawing as Ellie was drawing her entire family, whilst Tristan pressed the crayons on the blank paper as he turned to the lake, watching it as he drew it, according to his infant imagination.
To be continued...