Chapter 16

The heavens felt Number 4's (Aries) pain, and they wept together. In the end, it was prosaic, nothing like the fantasy we hoped to view. I tried to be as credulous as possible, but the grisly scene commanded deeper thought. Shaking on the tightrope of being blind and dumb, the horizontal pole of faith feeling unbalanced in my hands. Somehow I made it through to the other side. I dared not to look down into the bottomless pit of logic. The blood wasn't that bad to me, I half expected that. It was the sharks that darkened my conscious. The budding idea that any one of us could share the same conclusion.

Number 5 (Cliff) was eaten alive. Father forced us all inside to pray over our fallen brother, while Ramses stayed outside on the deck. It placed us in an uncomfortable spot because father always started the prayer, we all just repeated after him. A choir of parrots we were, a symphony of mimics. The commotion between Ramses and father grew loud due to the complete silence below. Eavesdropping was imminent.

If father recited a bible, I'd imagine Ramses to be his amanuensis. However, this is a false statement. For the evolving truth surfaced that both men were equal in stature.

"I got a bad feeling…we're leaving a trail," Ramses said somberly.

"What do you mean He's been consumed."

"Not that type of trail."

"This may be the last time we get to do this. We've come a long way from Mexico."

"This isn't gonna work, this never works," Ramses confessed.

"God will make a way. If not him, then The Great Old One."

"Don't forget what this is. Don't go backward, and start believing yourself. The true god is money. Wasn't Cyrus proof enough"

"…don't you EVER mention his name in front of me! He made me like this, he was brilliant. Just didn't know how to keep his mouth closed. The voices said he had to go, so I handled it." barked father.

"I'm not one of your children, yell at me again, and I'll make sure we all drown. Get it together, you're actually starting to believe the bullshit you preach. We've moved past this, The Black Horse moved past this. Focus. In case you forgot, me and Apollo are the only ones on this deathtrap that's not brainwashed. You fucked up," continued Ramses.

"How was I to know he was diabetic"

Apollo slammed the door shut to muffle the conversation, making it inaudible.

"Get back!" he shouted.

Number 3 (Raena) sat quickly, stuffing her hands between her legs, rocking back and forth with the boat. Number 5's (Cliff) sacrifice to the River of Styx left the ocean unsettled, with the perfect storm brewing. I could see the early gray.

The squabble outside had cut into Divine Evaluation time, and she was up next. Despite being frighteningly close to forgetting her past life, she yearned for another chance to speak. The last thing I remember from the first one I heard was that she's an equestrienne and divorced. Married into a wealthy family with a white guy who was never home.

She said, 'I could go a whole season, and only see him once. Things died and resurrected before he would arrive home'. Her hand felt heavy, carrying a five-carat, brilliant diamond three-stone ring all day. Valued over one-hundred grand easy. The two diamonds on the shoulders of the ring were pear-shaped, making it even more of a showstopper.

She said, 'Whenever I slipped that ring off, a shadow would keep it safe and hide it. I didn't want the light to reflect off it and blind me. Deep in the night, my jaded loneliness would carry me to 'his' door, ringless, mindless, nothing but a lost soul craving a touch. In the first year, he and I didn't even talk…aside from body language.'

She went on explaining how her husband hired a private investigator to snoop on her. Bugging the house, the car, cell phone, social media, everything. If she kissed another man during REM sleep in her dreams, he would know. The evidence uncovered was overwhelming. Thick cream folders, USB devices, almost one gigabyte filled with her infidelity in HD quality. The husband even forced himself to watch some of the sex tapes. A different, futuristic version of cuckold, the rage wasn't far behind.

The unlikely receiver of that wrath was a Mister Clarence Lehman, whose stomach provided ample space for five Desert Eagle bullets to rest in. The P.I. slacked one morning. Sadly, in his folly, he was found by Number 3's (Raena) lover, and promptly executed on site. Cocaine will do that to you. Number 3 (Raena) had many white Christmases in the eye of June, and by age twenty-eight, the thrill was over. Her lover was in prison, her husband gone, and she left rehab alone. With no shame at all, she said she'd do it again to feel alive. Just because you can't feel your teeth from a Columbian breakfast was a small price to pay. This was all before father changed her of course.

Apollo's eyes glazed over when scanning the room. Unsure of how to lead, he kept lowering his head like he was answering to phantom demands. Every time he glanced at Number 3 (Raena), a sharp pain traveled up his shoulder.

Number 2 (Hoover) raised his hand gently.

"Should…should we pray for Number 5"

The sincerity in Apollo's response was the first time I partly regretted the ill-favored thoughts I had of him. He sounded shaky and scared, he bared his humanity for us.

"I…I don't know. Just wait for father to come back, he will take care of everything," ordered Apollo, with little to no confidence in his voice.

He shed the skin of his old character even further when he placed his rifle near the corner of the meeting room. There he was, vulnerable and lost, rubbing his broken arm. Number 3 (Raena) was the first to run up and hug him. She sensed guilt in herself, and we all followed her immediately, welcoming Apollo into our newfound family, accepting him as one of us. Not just father's guard dog. Well, all except Number 2 (Hoover). I envied that, I didn't want to hug him either, but my body chased Number 4 (Aries) without thought. Number 2 (Hoover) sat down, hunched forward, and starting eyeballing the unguarded semi-automatic gun.

Number 2 (Hoover) suffered from shell shock in today's terms, known as PTSD. He has a long list of family all with the same inflictions. Unchecked aggression, mental instability, army vets, even the women, a lineage of troubled warriors. In fact, Number 2 (Hoover) was the softest by their standards. His heart held too much sympathy.

During the warm embrace, Number 2 (Hoover) slyly walked over and grabbed the semi-automatic rifle. A flashback hit him, and he jumped into a shooting stance.

"Hmm…AR-15," he mumbled.

"Put down the gun!" yelled Apollo.

Number 2 (Hoover) shook his head, checked the clip for ammo, then loaded it, checked the chamber, and pointed the gun at Apollo, which mostly had all of us in its crosshair.

"We should pray for Number 5. Could be one of us next…eaten alive, drowned in the River of Styx. Could be you."

"Aim that gun to the floor right now!" shouted Number 1 (Helen), with such bravery, the paragon of the family.

"None doing."

He let off a shot in the ceiling, right through the main deck, formed a small hole. Within seconds the slight rainfall from outside began seeping through. A stampede of footsteps rushed to the door of the meeting room.

Ramses and father walked in to see all of us hovering over Apollo, a multi-human shield, as Number 2 (Hoover) readied another shot.

Father screamed his hypnosis chant this time, with no subtlety at all, raising his palm out.

Number 2 (Hoover) began to look around frantically, seeing nothing but scared faces. His hellish flashback worsened. I'd imagine every jarhead in battle to retain some terror, we must've resembled insurgents to him.

"Fall back! Fall back!"

He unloaded about ten more shots into the ceiling, destroying a bigger portion of it, widening the hole when Ramses rushed forward and tackled him to the ground. The rifle fell free, father walked over and picked it up.

Number 2 (Hoover) shielded his guilty child-like face, not wanting to be reprimanded. Ramses straddled the grown man till he could get a clear shot. Soon as his opening arrived, he punched him square between the eyes with all the power he had.

"Hoover is an inept soldier. A gun with no trigger. Raena is an inept lover. A body with no heart. Father grants all his children's wishes, regardless of fault."