CHAPTER FOUR

THE VOID

Santero had returned to the netherworld to coordinate the demise of a large group of students in China.  He feared that if the government allowed open expression of democracy, the Western Evangelical community would soon begin to send in literature about the Mighty One and the land he had worked so hard on throwing into utter darkness would begin to be bathed in light.  Fortunately, even though the movement through the masses for democracy was widespread, the leadership was entrenched with his minions.

Maduke, one of Santero's strongest followers, had been running puppets throughout China for thousands and thousands of years.  Santero was counting on him to maintain his stronghold for the eventual battle of all battles with the Mighty One.

Throughout China, Maduke had replaced the ancient worship of Buddha with worship of Chairman Mao.  It had been difficult at first.  He had been forced to slaughter thousands and thousands of Buddhist monks.  They had screamed in terror as they realized that they were not going to another life, but to the fiery bowels of earth.  Maduke never got tired of the entirely enveloping feeling of power when one of his followers got their reward for years of faithful service and was dragged screaming into the center of earth to await sentencing.  They all knew the Mighty One had created the Lake of Fire for them, but none of them really thought that they would end up there.  They had followed Santero for so long, escaping their final judgment, that they believed Santero when he talked openly about his victory over the Mighty One.

"We shall thrust the Mighty One out of His Circle of Light.  We shall throw Him into His own Lake of Fire along with all of the humans He has created to take our places throughout eternity," Santero had spoken proudly.

The hordes who gathered for the conference bellowed in glee.  Their once beautiful bodies were but a semblance of their past glory.  The hate and agony they had inflicted on so many others had taken a toll on their own countenances.  Once their faces had shown glory of the Mighty One, but now they reflected the blackness of the void.  They knew of the Mighty One's promise to cast them into the Lake of Fire.  They didn't believe He could or would.  They knew His weakness was love and they could not see how it was also His strength.

The Mighty One, having created the universe and all within, could have chosen to make mindless hordes to follow Him blindly.  Without the option to do evil, one can only do good.  The Mighty One had not wanted to be followed in blind obedience.  He had wanted those who chose to love Him to do so because it was their will to do so.  The warriors and the humans had all been given the ability to follow or forsake Him.  His willingness to accept them back was not His weakness.  When He had created beings in His own image, He had made, in fact, small replicas of Himself.  They needed to communicate, they needed to laugh, they needed to find love and acceptance.  The traits that He possessed, He had passed down on all.  He had also passed down to them His own free will to do whatsoever He wanted.  He realized that the concepts of good and evil were confusing to most.  He had created within each of them a conscience to help them discern.  He also had a conscience.  It was His own conscience that formed the laws of the universe and it was His own conscience that was the original light of His being from which everything else was spawned.  His only exploitable trait, the fact that He could not lie, was also the source of His greatness.

Having spent so many eons in His presence, Santero felt that he could exploit that weakness and eventually be able to cast the Mighty One into his own Lake of Fire.  A strong delusion had controlled him since the time he had rebelled and insisted on the worship due alone to the Mighty One.  Most of his minions would have stayed loyal to the Mighty One and would be in the Circle of Light right then had he not planted within each of them his seed of rebellion and convinced them that to not follow him would mean their doom.  How wrong they had been.  Since leaving the company of the Mighty One, Maduke had not had peace or rest.  There is no peace for the wicked.  For those that created evil, there was no hope of ever finding peace.  They had banded for the sole purpose of collectively usurping the power of their Creator whom they despised.

Chun Lee was the minister of the Chinese Christian Church located at the outskirts of Chinatown.  Since its inception in 1968, the church had grown to over three thousand people, many with prosperous businesses in the Chinatown area and many with degrees in electronics and mechanical engineering who worked in the Silicon Valley and commuted to church.  Chun Lee was an avid follower of Watchman Nee, the noted Chinese author tortured under the communists for his faith in Christ.  Nearly fifty percent of the donations that came into San Francisco's Chinese Christian Church were used to evangelize China.  They had established their own publishing house and were sending about 3,000,000 pieces of Christian literature into China each month.  The church members themselves were actively taking part in letter writing and supplying their communist-controlled underground church brothers with monthly Bible studies and cassette tapes.  It was estimated the church in China had grown to almost 300,000,000 in spite of never officially being recognized and with membership in it still highly illegal.

Maduke's responsibility over China had caused him to seek extra help in the harassment of the members of the Chinese Christian Church for their continual giving.  With the sheer number of Chinese followers of the Mighty One reaching into the hundreds of millions, he was on the verge of losing control of the country and their long adherence to idol and demon worship.

"Santero."  Maduke strutted about picking his teeth with his talon.  "You have concentrated on the demise of San Francisco, and for the sake of China, it needs to be quick.  As I told you, the Chinese element there has financed a massive turning to the Mighty One.  If we are ever to assemble a large army to battle the Mighty One, we'd best end their financing."

"I know the trouble that that church and its members have been for you.  We have sent in a beautiful student nurse from San Francisco College to entice the pastor.  When she does, we shall bring it crashing down."

"That is an old technique indeed, but not guaranteed to work with the Chinese.  They are known for their strict discipline of body and mind.  The weak Americans may be so enticed, but the Chinese have long mastered self-control."

"You know better, Maduke.  You, whose own glory never rose beyond what authority I out of my awesome generosity gave you," Santero taunted.

Santero's rage was hideous.  He had been known to impale his own servants on stakes for days taunting them.  His face had already distorted grotesquely and nearly burst with rage.

"It's not that your methods are not brilliant, oh noble one."  Maduke bowed before him.  "It's not that your plans are anything but works of supreme genius . . ."

"Then why do you question them?  Perhaps you have another suggestion, a way to turn this church around."

"Yes, I have a new way.  Most of these church members have young children from infants to five years old that are left in the nursery during the main service."

"What are you suggesting?"

"I suggest that we put a pedophile or several of them in the nursery to molest the children.  Surely these Chinese will worship their own children and love them more than the Mighty One.  They will turn away and the finances will dry up."

Maduke looked to the other fallen for any words of encouragement on what he believed to be a brilliant plan.  None dared to speak up.  They knew Santero's rage was bottomless and that each of them risked being impaled.

Santero paced back and forth pondering the idea.

"I like it.  But I have a plan that will even go further.  Let's not only have them molest the children, let's have them transmit some of my favorite diseases.  And then let the poor sap we use stand a public trial and in the middle of it, hang himself, refusing to take an AIDS test."

"Yes, your noble one.  Thank you for your brilliance."

"Cadaver can find several to send in.  He knows those immersed in the area."

The conference moved to cover subjects for the entire created world.  They planned famines, industrial accidents, droughts, and even discussed which of the current new crop of entertainers would most carry out their message.

Prothesus was in charge of the entertainment division.  He was instrumental in blocking most of the good quality entertainment, most of which never made it past the financing stage.  He controlled the lives and passions of nearly all of Hollywood's top film producers.  He knew which ones liked young boys, and which ones liked teenage girls.  He knew what drugs they used, what food they liked, their favorite vacation spots, and the cars they liked to drive.

Most of them were duped.  Having sat in powerful positions and having seen young people willing to do anything for a chance to make it, they had become corrupt with power.  The casting couch was merely the first compromise for many of the young actresses and actors.  Many a male actor with promising talent found himself forced to have sex with the producer in order to secure a role that could propel him to fame.  Billy Memphis had left San Mateo, California at sixteen.  His famous sense of humor had gotten him stand-up routines in L.A. where he lied about his age.  Working a variety of odd jobs, he had been noticed while he was delivering mail for a large television network office of Paul Eckerman, a fifty something plump balding homosexual.  Paul had gotten a development with the network for a new show of black teenagers who were enrolled at a very white prep school.  He had heard Billy joking with the receptionist and had made an arrangement for him to do a reading for the part of Abdul, a black Muslim boy thrown in the heart of an upper-class prep school.

Paul hadn't always been a homosexual, contrary to the myth that men and women were born homosexual.  Paul had developed his own appetite.  As a young boy, he had been a singer with the Tucson Boy's Chorus.  At ten, he watched other boys having oral sex and stimulating one another.  One night he had been tied down, and with the director watching, several of the older boys sodomized him.  He was warned sternly that if he talked, they'd kick his butt.  He kept his mouth shut but never went back.  He never became comfortable around girls, always feeling that they would have little or nothing to do with him.  He became more and more introverted, going to classes and coming straight home.  He had been encouraged to read and audition for the part of Pippen.  He had brought down the house.  One of the teachers, Mr. Magly, had come in after the performance when he was alone showering.  He had gotten into the shower with him and molested him, only this time Paul found himself liking it.  He was a frequent guest at Magly's house, where Magly's older friends, the "old trolls," would come and ogle him.  Eventually he found that their desires for him were beyond their capacities of control.  One Darrell Topman owned a large Chevrolet dealership and let him use his Corvette.  Paul found a great advantage to being a homosexual.  His mother, struggling as a single parent to raise him and his sister, welcomed the attention that he was getting, "male bonding," as she called it, and was reluctant to even entertain the thought that her son was a homosexual.  He had plenty of girlfriends from the theatre department.  Many of them had crushes on Paul, but he had no interest in any of them.  He went straight out of high school into an entry-level job with a talent agency, and after twenty years of paying his dues, was producing his first series with a guaranteed production budget of $250,000 per episode and a prime spot as part of the network's desire to reach the large non-white populace that didn't have the funds for cable and VCRs.

Of course, Billy didn't know any of this.  As far as he was concerned, he was getting his big break.  So when he went into the office of Paul Eckerman on the studio lot, he had no idea of what was coming.

At first, he didn't know whether to take Paul's praise seriously.  Paul had asked him to remove his shirt and then pulled out some marijuana.  In most cases, Billy had refused drugs.  He was no fool.  He knew the things they did to people's careers.  The marijuana relaxed him, and when Paul sat next to him, he thought nothing of it.  He grew a little uncomfortable about Paul beginning to rub his shoulders under the guise of getting him to relax.  Paul assured him again and again that he was perfect for the role.  He could see Paul's manhood in his lightweight linen pants, and when Paul opened his fly and pulled it out, he was in shock.  Being from the hood, he had heard about homosexuals but had never met one.  He knew the brothers in prison pulled some weird stuff, but that was only because there were no ladies around.  Paul had begged him to finish masturbating him and reluctantly Billy had.  He found himself getting aroused and made no objection when Paul had unzipped his own fly.

That was not to be the first time.  During the two-year run of the series, he had been forced countless times to go through the same routine.  Eventually, he found himself hopelessly addicted and afraid to even tell his mother and sisters what had happened to him.  He became almost violently anti-gay in his diatribes against homosexuals and his comedy routines openly mocked them.  It was all a sham.  Deep inside, he knew he was hooked and he hated himself.  The things he had done to satiate his lusts had only made his empty soul even wider.  He had gone to a minister for help but had been told just to love himself the way God had made him.  Only he knew differently.  He knew that he had perverted what God had given him and could never be comfortable with it.  He had made millions and still could not live with himself.  He had dated some of the most beautiful Hollywood starlets and singers, frequently having sex with them.  Still, he found homosexual lust returning.

What he didn't know was that Prothesus had transferred into him during his first sexual act with Paul Eckerman.  It was Prothesus that had turned his career around, gotten him juicy salaries in substandard films that generated hundreds of millions of box office dollars and made him a household name.  It was also Prothesus that kept him from sleeping at night until he'd drive down the boulevard and pick up some unsuspecting teenage boys to abuse until dawn.  Only a few of his best friends knew his darkest secret.  Many of them were backslidden followers of the Mighty One.  None had the power to discern his true source of torment.

His reputation for partying grew until he found he needed to check into drug rehab because he was destroying his life.  It was there that he had met true followers of the Mighty One.  They weren't impressed by his money or fortune.  They cared for him as one would care for a small bird that had fallen out of a nest.  Several of the staff attended Bruce Wainright's small church, and at the Sunday meeting they brought up the need to pray for Billy Memphis.  Prothesus was furious.  He prompted Billy's agent to call him with unbelievably lucrative offers which Billy rejected.  He even had one of the young attendants bring Billy in some drugs.  It had backfired.  The attendant was forthrightly dismissed without benefits.  The little church took the burden of Billy Memphis before the Mighty One and the Mighty One sent Everlasting and Trustworthy to provide protection for him from Prothesus who was awakening him at all hours of the night.  After finding himself bared from being an influence in Billy's life, Prothesus found an older actor who had turned to chanting mantras and was starting his own well-financed film company.  Unknowingly, the mantra he chanted was a disguised invitation to be demon possessed.  Prothesus accepted it graciously.

By the time Billy checked out the of the rehab center, he was no longer front page tabloid material.  His last movie, though a big international success, had come and gone.  Getting in another movie was far from his mind.  He had bought his mom a small apartment complex in San Mateo.  It gave her a nice monthly income and she didn't feel like he was supporting her.  Billy knew the best thing he could do was return home to his mother and his sisters.  He knew everything would be O.K. if he just dropped out of the Hollywood scene until he found out who he really was.

As Denise and Jerry were sleeping, the phone began to ring.  It was still dark and only four o'clock in the morning.  It didn't matter, Santero never slept.  The earthly body suit he wore never got any rest.  It would be pushed until it wore out.  Then he would simply inhabit someone else equally as stupid begging to be a channel.

A week had gone by and Santero had heard nothing from Hauser.  He was furious.  He had Hauser trained and discovered that he was no longer hanging out at the porno and massage shops but was constantly in the company of his wife.  They were checking AIDS hospices throughout the Bay area and had begun to travel to other areas as well - Sacramento, Chico - all with the hope someone would know something about their daughter.  Hauser had moved Santero's threat into the back of his mind.  Being around his wife had made him feel clean again.  He hadn't told her what he had been up to while he was in San Francisco by himself.  He was hoping somehow the video tape and the memories would disappear and he could make a fresh start of it.  As the phone jarred him out of his sleep, he reached over to pick it up.

"Hello, who is this?"

"Are you forgetting our little arrangement, Commander Hauser?  It's been nearly a week and I have heard nothing from you.  I guess you must really want to be a movie star, don't you?"

"Jerry, who is it?  Who's calling the room at this hour?"

"I take it, Hauser, that your wife doesn't know about our little deal.  Look, you've got one more week and it goes public."

"Hey, wait, Santero.  It's gonna take at least two weeks.  Look, what you're asking for is not easy.  I promise I'll get on it first thing tomorrow . . ."

Santero loved it when people grovelled.  Since humans were made, most of them had been grovelling at his feet, all except the followers of the Mighty One.  He knew he couldn't touch Denise and he reasoned that there nothing she could do to help Jerry.  He wouldn't dare tell her what his problem was.

"Honey," Denise turned on the light, "who was that man?  What does he want you to do for him that's so important that he has to wake you up at four o'clock in the morning?  I don't understand."

"Denise, it's somebody that says he knows where Pamela is, only he wants information in exchange for what he knows.  Information that I am forbidden to give out."

"What kind of information?  Is he a spy working for the KGB or something?"

"No, he's not a spy.  He wants an inside track for a defense contract.  He figures I can tell him just what the Navy needs and his bid will come in lower."

"How could someone be both in defense and the porno business?  I heard him say something about movies."

He financed some of the movies that Pamela was in.  Look, let's get back to sleep.  I haven't even decided whether or not I'm even going to give him the information.  I haven't given him anything yet.  Look, I'm sorry you're upset, but really it'll be O.K."

"He knows where Pamela is and he won't tell you.  What is he - some kind of monster?"

Denise broke out crying and Jerry found himself comforting her and then making love to her.  It felt like the first time to him all over.  The ecstasy, the excitement, it was purging to his soul.  The many faces, leather straps, black lace, heavy makeup, contraptions, all the vile things he had been exposing himself to, began to fade away.  She kissed throughout like she had never kissed him before with more love than he had ever felt.  It was a warm love.  The dry bed of his soul aching from the hurt over the loss of his daughter was filling with refreshing water that was lapping over and filling every ounce of his being with joy.  As he held Denise in his arms tenderly kissing her, he felt that somehow there was a way out.

For three more days, they continued the search for Pamela.  Then Jerry knew it was time to get back to work.  Several times when Denise was out shopping, Santero had called him.  It was a Saturday afternoon and Denise had gone out to Golden Gate Park and Santero had sent a car to pick up Jerry for their meeting.

Jerry had seen a lot of limousines during his stint in the Navy, especially when he was in Washington.  He had never seen one like the one Santero sent for him.  The young ladies in the front looked as if they stepped out of a topless magazine.  The car was painted a midnight blue with a candied apple red haze stencilled all around.  It was equipped with gold wheels and a bed in the back.  He felt uneasy about even getting in.  The moment he entered the car, he saw Santero's face on the video monitor.

"I was beginning to get nervous that you weren't going to make our little meeting.  You know very few people have ever defied me like you are doing and have gotten away with it.  I want to show you a little reminder."

At that moment, Hauser felt embarrassed as the girls next to him watched him being mounted by the blonde surfer.  A voice similar to his had been dubbed in to beg for more and music had been added.  The video went on for about ten minutes.  All the time Hauser grew more and more ill.

"Look, tell him that's enough.  He's made his point.  Call him.  I don't want to see anymore."

Hauser didn't know that he was on camera, a direct satellite feed to Santero's control center.  Santero and Cad were thoroughly enjoying each moment of his discomfort, relishing it as if it were hors d'oeuvres served at a charity ball.  Each little squirm, each bead of sweat on his brow was a delicious morsel for their already satiated warped minds.

In an instant, Santero's face was back on the monitor.

"My distributors tell me it would make quite an excellent film, probably gross ten to twenty million dollars.  Navy commander goes bad.  I hired the same man that produced your daughter to enhance the story a bit.  Why we could probably even get a deal for it on the Playboy channel.  Do you get my point, Hauser?  If you don't come up with your end of the bargain, you are finished."

In front of him, Hauser could see the face of Santero growing distorted with hate.  His eyes began to glow like embers from an all night fire.  Hauser watched in horror as his shirt collar ripped and his entire head began to enlarge.  It was the most frightening thing Hauser had ever seen.  The camera switched over to Dave Gleason.

"Look, Mr. Hauser, or whoever the hell you are, I personally don't give a damn whether or not you live up to your end of the deal.  Your daughter sold a lot of videos for us.  To me it's just money.  I do know Santero is a very powerful man with great influence.  I would think twice before you disappoint him.  Save yourself a lot of grief and do what he wants you to do."

The video monitor turned off and Hauser looked at the girl next to him who had disrobed and was motioning him to join her in the back bed.  He refused and she got more aggressive, reaching her hand in between his legs.  As he pulled away, she shook her head to the side and bit into his neck drawing blood.

"Damn you, get the hell away from me," he shouted.  The car was rounding a street in the Presidio Park and Hauser grabbed the door handle and pulled it open, diving out the side just as the car was slowing down to make the curve.  He was momentarily in shock and a middle-aged couple out walking their pair of dalmatians came over to see if he was all right.

"Pretty crazy stunt."  They saw the bite on his neck.  "You're bleeding bad, mister.  You'd better get yourself to the hospital."

"No, look, it's just a cut.  I'll be all right."

It was a long walk back to the wharf and Hauser managed to stop the bleeding on his neck.  The entire incident repulsed him.  The change in Santero's face, the look when he got mad.  He didn't know if Santero was even human.  The problem was, Santero could taste human agony so much that he had lost control of himself.  It was one of the few times someone had actually seen him change except those dying who caught a glimpse of him before being hurled into the abyss.  Jerry didn't know that.  All he knew was that something was very strange.  Things had gone way out of his control and there was no way in sight of bringing things back to normal.