Amygdala: The Horde

Onward through the veil, and unto the subborn back-roads of the eye, which like a candle, would only enlighten some small share of what visions that the subconscious images--stolen from the Sun, and transmuted into the purest reckoning of silver...

They had fled to Texas, when she was just a child. Submerged into the least hostile element of anomie, and a playground full of broken glass, spent needles and the old monoliths of industry, commerce--and the husks of old war forts, which had been deserted long ago in the rise of a somewhat more vicious character of civilization.

Deeper still, near its heart, where what may cause the vermin to scatter would never drive them far enough away from home, that the plague would not infest the heart and mind with those more complex sufferings of what if...

In Amarillo, her mother was known as Mouse. They had settled in near the boundary of the "white neighborhood," though she was forbidden to go there alone. Many of the people around them spoke Spanish, though never when they spoke to her--save for the traces speckled through for words that they either did not remember, or had no perfect translation upon the Anglo-tongue.

She was an outsider, though she had no memories of being anywhere else in this world. Even among those that would most seem at least some small and distant part of her.

Mouse was neither black nor white, raised where and when that it seemed everybody must take a side, while the cities burned and violence would rise and fall overnight, like unfixed turbulent storms--wild and vehement in their wreckage, until the phenomena broke, and the spell diffused into the national character.

Her mother had her own broken memories.

Only the year before her mother had brought her to the Windy City, there had been rioting. Corpuscular bouts of fear and loathing, which had been festering for decades, suddenly burst and broke open. Only the year before, a great man had died, as did her grandmother's hopes for a better place. She would eventually meet and marry a more ordinary and simple man whom made his living from the water. An engineer that designed and built the modern example of those great ships, but for himself only owned a small boat. Grandpa Al and her grandmother had retired to Wisconsin after their daughter was grown. They had opened a small bait and tackle store along the northern shores of Lake Michigan.

It had quickly become one of her favorite places to feel alive and free, when her mother's life had become too crazy and hectic, whether of choice or by necessity. No one ever discovered who it was that had brutally murdered them in their sleep. But there was always the suggestion of knowing in her mother's eyes. Always looking over her back, prone to sudden frenzies of panic. Amarillo was merely their final stop in a rapid succession.

She never got the opportunity to understand what her mother was convinced would never let them go, until she had disappeared herself.

FEBRUARY 23, 2001

"Police are searching for a missing girl. An amber alert was sent out sent out last Friday, when thirteen year old Rachel McSweeny was found missing from her home in Crest Lake Apartments. Amarillo authorities are requesting that any information"...

SEPTEMBER 23, 2007

"The body of Constance McSweeny was found, floating in the St, Clair River near Algonac Michigan. A member of the local police department, whom chose to remain anonymous, stated that Miss McSweeny had not been in the area for long; and that she had been searching for her missing daughter who had been abducted February 20th, 2001 and was still considered missing"...

OCTOBER 26, 2007

..."This reporter has become privy to certain information that a killer cult was involved in the death of Miss Constance McSweeny. You may recall the discovery of her body found on September 23 of this year. I have been personally involved in this case since, and have uncovered certain facts that local law enforcement will not discuss with me-- nor you, the public"...

MARCH 19, 2008

"This morning, near the village of Ramah Colorado, the local sheriffs department made a grisly discovery. No less then seventeen bodies were found out in what authorities describe as a natural bowl, in various stages of decomposition. Authorities believe the discovery to be connected with a cult out at what locals call The Devils Farm"...

APRIL 12, 2008

"Today, the body of ex-reporter for the Detroit Free Press, David Bellamy was found hanging in his home in St. Clair Shores Michigan. You may recall Mr. Bellamy's work for the Free Press, prior to his having suffered a breakdown, leading to the death of a local businessman Markham Maddux. Mr. Bellamy had, up until recently, been incarcerated in the criminal annex of the Wayne County Psychiatric Center, located near the downtown area of Detroit. It was reported that Mr. Bellamy had escaped three days ago from his cell at the WCPC facility.

Mr. Bellamy's last official work for the Free Press was to be a four-part expose upon what he had reported to be a killer cult. Authorities have long since denied any evidence that such a cult ever existed"...

NOVEMBER 30, 2010

"Today, in Los Angelus, the state police found a young woman who is believed to be a girl has been missing since February of 2001 from her home in Amarillo Texas. Authorities report that she has been treated for injuries undisclosed, and taken into protective custody"...

DECEMBER 13, 2010

... "Police have verified the identification of the young woman found last month as Rachel McSweeny. Miss McSweeny has been admitted to an undisclosed location for psychiatric counseling after ten years of captivity by an assailant, or possibly assailants, whose names have not been released to the public"...

And then, the nature of all of this dreaming changed.

"Hush"...

She whimpered... as the pressure that built over her in the darkness, naked and bound over the altar.

... "You are but a loathsome vessel"...

She endured... this fresh assault, as someone or something viciously tore into her. She was far beyond weeping, that she doubted she might even recall how to produce any more tears.

Pain was not the enemy any longer, for it drove her mind and heart away from this world, into another place.

... "You will bring others of us into this world."

She suffered... None of the children were ever born alive, and she was never allowed to see them, once they had been taken... stolen from her womb.

Yet, she was almost certain that she had heard one of them that never cried. The doctors had tried to convince her that what she thought could not be. That she had suffered the abuse so long, that her mind would, at times, when it could no longer suffer the reality, create alternate endings to such events that would be, otherwise, too traumatic.

There was still a part of her that believed that she had heard a child's laughter, filling her head and heart with the belief that she had given birth that was something other than human.

She had survived... her body only showing some of the scars. The others were set so deeply within her, that she could feel even more disturbed... ugly... a freak...

The doctors had suggested to her once that some of those old wounds may have been self inflicted, though she never remembered hurting herself. They believed that she had repressed most of what she knew, that her mind sought to defend itself from its own memories.

She had spent so many years kept in the dark, that even when she was finally escaped back into the light of day-- she recognized that they knew something that they were not telling her.

They only wanted to know about all of the disgusting and filthy things that had happened to her. It seemed that the more depraved  memories that she did keep were of the utmost fascination to them.

"Fuck off," she finally told them.

They told her she was mistaken...

They told her that some, or maybe most, of what she remembered was not even real...

They told her that to go on, she must endure them again...

She could, still, almost envision Dr. Bergman, stroking himself off underneath his desk. She knew that memory wasn't real. It was only left in her head as a result of such an undistilled emotional response to a man, whom on his best days, still seemed a little creepy. He had never touched her, at least not physically.

Sometimes, therapy felt like another rape. The drugs helped her to feel nothing, but they didn't always work. It was about those times that they would crank up juice and light her up.

Now that shit worked, as she could barely remember her own damn name afterward... for a little while. She ached and moved through a haze for days afterward. It was like some psychotic form of a restart button. Stick a light bulb in her ass, and that fucker would probably glow for days.

There's an alternative energy source for you. Now you all can just fuck off and die.

"Why would you want to do yourself harm?"

"Fuck off."

"Why don't you even try to help yourself, Miss McSweeny?"

"Fuck off."

"We believe that you are hording your medication..."

"Fuck you, fuck you and fuck off."

"Are we feeling any better today?"

"Oh yeah, nothing like a bit of high voltage to put a little more pep in your day-- asshole!"

"Are you starting to remember more about your time in captivity?"

"You mean it ended? Fuck off."

"We're only here to help you Rachel."

"Then fucking kill me, problem solved. Oh yeah, and go fuck yourself too."

"We're deeply concerned about your resistance to your own recovery process..."

"GOD DAMMIT! JUST LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE... and let me be crazy. I like crazy. I need crazy."

"... It is vital to you getting control of your life back..."

"Uh... you don't really get it, do you Doc? I mean, shit! What in the hell is that even supposed to mean? I've got a childhood, and then some small dark crawlspace in the middle of fucking nowhere. I'm kind of shocked that I can still walk erect, but enough about the good times. Let's talk about pain, real pain. Maybe if you hold a knife to my throat, I'll do what you want. It has usually worked in the past, but hey, who knows. I might just let you cut my god damn throat. Life and death are like two places that I haven't really been, so you tell me, which is easier for you?"

"How are you feeling today Rachel?"

"Well-done."

"Are you ready to talk about anything yet?"

"I can definitely not see how that might cheer me up."

"You've been through a lot Rachel."

"Now that's a newsflash that I really didn't need."

"Can we talk about some of the scarring?"

"Oh yeah Doc, I am so in the mood. What a sweet-talker you are, let's talk about how they mutilated me, because it really turns me on."

"We could see if we might be able to repair some of damage that was done"...

"Fake tits and fat lips, now that is just what I need."

"Isn't that how they punished you? To make you feel less than whole?"

"Oh, they found all of the holes Doc, and made a few new ones whenever they got bored."

"Who were they Rachel?"

"I don't know."

"Did they ever use any names?"

"Oh yes. Whore, garbage, pig, and my personal favorite, loathsome vessel. They had quite a few cure pet names for me Doc."

"You said that they lured you out with someone that you thought you knew?"

"It wasn't about him... I-i, my mother was not even remotely going to let me date someone. Ever, as far as I knew then. You see, she had kind of ran away from home. I mean, she was of the age of consent, and all of that legal shit... My grandparents were never just going to sit back, and let her do as she pleased. She was kind a little too wild, in her reckless youth. She liked bad boys and dope, not necessarily in that order-- or any real order I guess. She wound up in this cutesy little group of orphans and runaways that called themselves the Children of Sodom. Then she ended up out in some commune type of place in who-the-fuck-knows-where Colorado called the Devils Farm. I guess that they were some kind of biker gang or something. Harder drugs, but a somewhat easier living as you really didn't have to think-- just do as you were told. She said that some of them were bad, and some were worse. But the worst time came after she met my father."

"And he was in this biker gang?"

"No."

"She ran away from the biker gang?"

"No, the gang sold her to him."

"What?"

"By their way of thinking, she was their property. They fucking sold her? What the hell else do you really need explained here Doc?"

"So, tell me about your father then."  

"The name that my mother knew him by was Lucas Bane, which was a bullshit name, just for the record. The authorities had looked for him after she had escaped from him, but uh... Yeah, that was a truly a dead end lead."

"So, they never found him then? I presume that your father had something to do with why you were taken."  

"You can. I know that I have a time or two. Mama never really talked much about the time they'd spent together, but that she eventually escaped should definitely tell you something about it."

"And he was in this cult?"

"They all were."

"All? Whom specifically do you mean?"

"The Children of Sodom, The Strangers and my father."

"The Strangers?"

"The biker gang."

"Ah, I see. So they called themselves the Strangers."

"No, they called themselves The DS, which was an acronym for the The Deliberate Strangers. They weren't really like the Hell's Angels... I mean, not really. They didn't wear any jackets or coats to identify them to anyone, and hell-raising was really only part of the prize. That should not imply that they were not truly fucked up individuals. I guess that they made most of their money from internet porn."

"I see. And your mother went, of her own accord, into this lifestyle?"

"If you mean, was she a junkie? Yes. If you mean did she want to be passed around like a joint, and beat the hell out of on a whim? Probably not, though it never got bad enough to where she had tried to leave I guess."

"And these were the people out on the Devils Farm?"

"Some of them, yes."

"And the rest?"

"Most of them came from the Children."

"Children?"

"Sorry, the Children of Sodom."

"Why on earth would they call themselves something like that?"

"Uh-yeah, this is about my mother. She never really went into any of the histrionics. She was too busy trying to warn and keep me away from them."

"The Strangers?"

"Well, them too I suspect."

The Children of Sodom then?"

"And them."

"Your father?"

"Definitely him as well."

"So, which one do you believe it was that had abducted you?"

"None of 'em."

"There's more?"

"The Children were something like an initiation I guess. I mean, not all of them were taken in like my mother was, into the next levels. Or maybe they just went somewhere else... I don't think that was the only place that they were harvesting from, only the one that my mother was intimately aware of."

"They called it harvesting?"

"That's the word my mother used."

"And they all would become sex slaves to the biker club?"

"Some became the bikers themselves, others remained at the Devils Farm, and still others went somewhere else."

"You make this sound like a highly sophisticated system."

"I cannot help for what it sounds like Doc."

"I see, so go on."

"What go on? If you want any more of the particulars, you need to speak to a medium, because my mother is fucking dead!"

"I know... I'm sorry..."

"We're treading treacherously close to fuck off territory again Doc. Spare me your fucking pity."

"It was meant to be more like condolences. I know that you were not aware of her passing until you were brought here."

"Oh, I was aware."

"You were?"

"I was made aware, in full fucking detail. I didn't tell you about the time that they showed me her heart?"

... Rachel McSweeny opened her eyes as she lay in the small twin bed. She was not even sure at what point the dream had ended and the memories just began filling in the blanks.

The state of California had paid for her "elective" surgeries. Aside from the replacement tits, and some cosmetic repair of the scarring--they had altered her facial features to an extent that she would not be recognized, and was moved away into the witness protection program.

After they had found Dr. Bergman's body, at least someone had started believing her. The fucking assholes didn't seem to realize that her grandmother was from Alabama. Hell, she was even from this damn county. The good news was that nobody here even seemed to remember her, and obviously had no idea.

No more than anyone knew that she probably still had an older sister, if she was still alive. If she was still being kept by the cult... well, she'd probably never know what had become of her. She had had three brothers too, though one her mother knew was dead.

The Strangers had gotten rid of her because they said she had become tainted. Rachel had no clue in the world what in the hell that meant, only that was when they had sold her to the man that would become her own private living hell. One of her brothers came from one the Strangers, as well as the one that died. She never really knew which one, and it really didn't matter, because they had taken them all away from her... except for the dead one, which they did give back to her.

They made her carry it around for a while. It was actually her womb that they thought was tainted. They called it the Devil's touch... She was not allowed to leave, though she was ostracized by them. She was beaten for coming in too close, and tried to starve her to the point that she might even eat the only thing that she had.

Her mother would have rather died than consume any part of her dead child. It was just another one of their sadistic games. They had several that they utterly enjoyed playing upon the lowly ones. Not all of them were women.

Rachel had never told Dr. Bergman about the highest levels, at least that she was aware of, in the grander designs. She never told him about the group that her father was a part of, because she never really knew that much about it for one thing.

No more than she had told him about those that had taken her, for much the same reasons. She would only see what they wanted her to see. She did not tell him that they had left her where she would be found. She had no idea herself why they would do that, after ten long years.

The Devil's Touch?

Not that it really mattered, as only someone pretty fucking sick and twisted would want to touch her anyways. The doctors could really only fix so much. So if her womb was dead... for the dead?

Oh yeah, she forgot, Dr. Head-Shrinker had told her that was not real, though that her body had suffered some significant trauma. Yet another newsflash from hell, which did not require any more explanation than that she would be unlikely to bear any children. And that any such pregnancy, should it "become viable" (which sounded like some major feat of magic, the way that he had told her about it); well, it would be a high risk pregnancy.

At some point, during all of the fun and festivities, her hips had received multiple fractures. Her actual initial injuries list, both old and new, would most likely cause death, if all of them were incurred at once. Old spleen and liver lacerations, broken ribs being the most likely suspect in both of those injuries. Sometimes, when those injuries were reopened, she would be shitting and-or pissing blood for days. She had evidence of post-cranial trauma, which is to say old TBIs that riddled up her memories and perceptions all the more. Headaches, backaches from a suspected spinal injury that had fused together all wrong. She had had a few episodes of renal failure while she was in the hospital. The final swoop into the grim details were that there was evidence that she had suffered from heart failure on more than one occasion...

Clinically, she had been dead before. How she was still left alive, or how she wasn't lying helplessly in some coma somewhere was pretty much anybody's guess. The urge to rip someone's tongue out of their face was never quite so strong as when Dr. Bergman liked to remind her just how lucky she was.

Aside from her physical frailty, her head, just for kicks, decided to toss in a few of its own greatest hits. She had to force herself to leave the house, and the perpetual anxiety of just about everything was truly lucky indeed. She was incontinent, which was just more of her charm and sex appeal-- and that probably didn't really matter, as the only person whom was even remotely close to her was thousands of miles away.

She had met Tommy online, years back, when she was still in the nut-hospital. He was kind of a perve sometimes. It really didn't matter how horny he got, he sure as hell was not going to swim across the Pacific Ocean. It was probably all lies that he was telling her, which made her own a little easier to take.

When he first said that he may be falling in love with her, she had stopped talking to him for a while. She didn't log-in to chat, and she didn't respond to his emails. She was supposed to have disappeared anyways, as the Federal guys had told her that she had to severe all contacts.

He had found her at an erotica writing web-site. Up until she had adopted her disguise as the Sister Angel Talon, he was the only one that she had ever allowed to read any of her stories. Her stories were not particularly erotic, at least not to her. They were likely pretty shocking, and disturbing to some, even among those who came to Den Of Pricks for some fresh jerk-off material.

Her alter ego likely seemed depraved in her indifference. She could only imagine what her biggest fans must be like. It would be safe to say that there were no love stories in her repertoire-- at least not in the conventional sense.

Tommy had always called her Angel, even when he knew that her real name was not Evangeline.

She was hesitant to acknowledge him, at least in that she was who he thought she was. Aside from the federal marshal's constant warnings, there was the fact that it kind of creeped her out that he had followed and-or found her there.

Some online boyfriend. She had only told the old woman that so that she would not think she was weird. She had not even talked to Tommy, and she had not written anything to post up on the writers' board since he had first tried talking to her again.

Rachel didn't realize that it was morning until the sunlight peeped through underneath the old roller shade.

At least she didn't have another incident with the police.

She had called them out, utterly convinced that there was some kind of prowler roaming around her house, presumably looking for some way in. He could have been just a peeper. What a fucking shock that would have been to get a glimpse of this patch-work bod. He'd probably swear off peeping altogether if he did. Underneath all of these many layers of clothes was not a pretty sight.

She didn't care to see it--ever. On a good day, it merely repelled the eye. Left to stew too long, as showers and nakedness were always traumatic experiences... She didn't want to be like this anymore. She didn't want to smell like piss and shit, and she definitely was not attracted to the other disgusting smells her body naturally produced. She had gotten in the habit of showering at night, in the dark.

Sometimes, she could imagine a different life, when she was in the dark. A life that would probably never be. There were too many damn hurdles, and the last time that she had let herself go... she woke up in the hospital again, and could not remember how she even got there.

Yeah, she was feeling pretty damn lucky alright.