The Light at the End of the Tunnel Read online

  The Light at the End of the Tunnel

  (If the State executes a worst-of-the-worst criminal, does he really die?)

  A supernatural thriller

  by

  James W. Nelson

  Copyright 2012 by James W. Nelson

  Published by James W. Nelson at Smashwords

  To all foster, missing, runaway. and unloved children, now and forever

  Introduction

  Worst-of-the-worst criminal Les Paul is on death row awaiting execution.

  The chaplain is trying to stop the execution, and not because of a love for mankind.

  Mrs. Leslie Markum in nine months will give birth to the reincarnation of evil.

  Ms. Nicole Waters is nursing where the infant, Les Paul, will be abandoned.

  Cassandra is yet divided between her mother and father.

  Patrolman Sikorsky is just doing his job and hoping to advance to detective.

  Riley Stokes, ex-military, will train the chaplain and Nicole to become private investigators.

  When Cassandra is born her mother will live long enough to name her. On the same day her father will die in Afghanistan. Cassandra starts her life alone. In foster care she will fall through crack after crack, and nobody wants to adopt this darling girl child. Lacking love, she soon discovers her crying brings her nothing. She stops crying. As she grows she does not come to love, anything, and does not come to trust…anyone.

  So, on October 18, this little girl will be born. Halfway across the country another baby will be born on the same day, just another child who will find no love. Les Paul will find no love because he is the reincarnation of a long string of evil killers, born with the memories of each prior life, not really intact memories but memories nonetheless, and they will serve him well in his next new life.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 Meet Les Paul

  Chapter 2 Meet the Chaplain

  Chapter 3 It’s Time

  Interlude

  Chapter 4 First Evil Act

  Chapter 5 Meet Cassandra

  Chapter 6 Second Evil Act

  Chapter 7 The Abandonment

  Chapter 8 Meet Nurse Nicole Waters

  Chapter 9 Alone

  Chapter 10 Lay-down Comedy

  Chapter 11 Foster Family #4

  Chapter 12 Partners

  Chapter 13 Meet Riley Stokes

  Chapter 14 Murder

  Chapter 15 Training

  Chapter 16 Still Alone

  Chapter 17 For Graduation

  Chapter 18 More Murder

  Chapter 19 Talk With a Drug Pusher

  Chapter 20 Baby Boy-Doe9

  Chapter 21 The Barbie Dolls

  Chapter 22 Cassandra at Four

  Chapter 23 Employed

  Chapter 24 Les Paul at Seven

  Chapter 25 Rape!

  Chapter 26 A Few Foster Homes Behind

  Chapter 27 Meeting With Cassandra

  Chapter 28 The Engagement

  Chapter 29 Last Foster Home

  Chapter 30 Jail

  Chapter 31 Marriage

  Chapter 32 Learning His Trade

  Chapter 33 Meet Patrolman Sikorsky

  Chapter 34 The Tommerdahls

  Chapter 35 Juvie

  Chapter 36 The Markums

  Chapter 37 His First Sex

  Chapter 38 DNA Disappointment

  Chapter 39 Adoption

  Chapter 40 Hitchhiking

  Chapter 41 Nicole’s Confrontation

  Chapter 42 Back Room Prostitution

  Chapter 43 He Remembers Her

  Chapter 44 The Discrepancy

  Chapter 45 Diva Girl

  Chapter 46 Lights Out

  Quotations

  Characters & Places

  Reviews

  Books by James W. Nelson

  Descriptions of Books

  Biography

  Contact

  Prologue

  His skin crawling with goosepimples the prison chaplain opened a wall locker that he had never seen before. He expected the hinges to creak. They didn’t. They moved as if oiled regularly. Inside lay a book, a big one, like an old-fashioned scrapbook but with hard covers. No dust anywhere.

  He placed his hands on both ends and lifted. The book was old, and heavy enough to bend in the middle. He stepped back, smoothly turned, and placed the book on a table, then lifted the hard cover and placed it open. The pages were worn. Some showed folds on the corners, as if others had regularly looked and marked pages. But nobody had, because, to his knowledge, the book and the wall locker did not exist. The goosepimples continued their rampage as he stared, and remembered his dream.

  Was it a dream? Was I awake? Was I sleepwalking? Was I dead…? AM I dead…?

  An hour earlier he had awakened, and remembered his dream. He didn’t remember dreams. Never. But this one he did. The dream showed this wall locker where no locker had ever existed. But his telepathic instructions were clear: “Go to the prison basement under the chapel. Open the locker. Remove the book. Open it gently. Grasp a handful of pages and turn them.”

  He had done everything but the handful of pages. He grasped them and turned them over.

  Just one verse appeared in very large calligraphic lettering:

  “If the state kills a worst-of-the-worst criminal, rather than allowing a natural death, that criminal, man or woman, will reincarnate as not only the same person but more evil than before. He or she will have the same memories, though not fully intact memories, but they will serve well in the new life. A worst-of-the-worst criminal MUST be allowed to die a natural death, which includes being killed by a fellow criminal.”

  Chapter 1 Meet Les Paul

  (Twenty-four hours later)

  Les Paul wore a smirk. They were going to kill him. He wasn’t worried. Freshly scrubbed he waited in the jumpsuit they had given him. The jumpsuit and an extra pillow. Earlier he had finished his last meal, except for the extra large Coke, which he just sipped at. He wanted plenty of liquid to be released from his system when that final moment came.

  Two extra large California Whoppers from Burger King should help make that final mess memorable too, and the French Fries, and the pumpkin pie, and the chocolate shake. He hadn’t planned on being required to wear an adult diaper though, and would take it off if he could.

  But he couldn’t. The cell he waited in was as bare as his last room in that dingy hotel, more bare, in fact. The hotel room at least had a real bed. Here it was just a fold-down iron spring, a thin mattress, and the two pillows. No place to hide anything. Not that he could get away with doing anything anyway.

  He glanced at the guard, “Hey, man…,” and sent his now-starched-on smirk, “You stoppin’ for a brew after?”

  Standing, the guard remained about twenty feet away, too far for Les Paul to read his name tag. Didn’t matter anyway, he had no desire to make new friends. Course he didn’t have any old friends either. Nobody to see him off. No family. Nobody.

  The guard’s face didn’t change. Just a mask of non-emotion.

  “Heyyy…wipe that smile away.” Les Paul said it sing-songy, “Whoa, wait! It’s wipe that frown away! I’m sorry, man…but wait! That’s not really a frown you have on, is it? That’s probably just your normal face—hey, you married man? You got a wife waitin’ for ya after, with a little lovin’? You’ll probably need a little lovin’ after watchin’ them stick all those drugs in me.”

  “I don’t have to watch.”

  “Heyyy, that’s the very first thing you’ve ever said to me, man. You’ve walked past my cell at least once every day, and you’ve never said a thing before now. How come?”

 
“I’m not required to talk.”

  “What are you required to do?”

  “I don’t have to talk to scum like you, that’s for sure.”

  “Oh, so the first time you speak to me is to call me ‘scum.’ That hurts my feelin’s, man.”

  “Why don’t you just shut the fuck up? There’s only about forty minutes left.”

  Les Paul needed that reminder. He didn’t fear the end of his life. In fact he, sort of, looked forward to it. During the months of waiting he had done some research on the various religions, the various options of afterlife, and had decided reincarnation sounded the best. He could die and come right back as a new person. He would have been glad to take the needle right after his conviction…

  He stood on a hill in a world of grass, a few trees, and many, many, animals of all kinds. Deer and elk and buffalo and mammoths grazed and browsed the hills and the forested valleys. It was a very, very, beautiful, place.

  His main lance rested at his side, spear tip pointed up, ready to use instantly. Two more lances he gripped in his left hand. Over his fur-covered shoulder hung a bag of stones for his sling, which hung from a strip of skin wrapped around his middle, also ready to use in an instant, to face any threat from this beautiful but very dangerous world. A saber-toothed lion could spring from nowhere. A bull buffalo could charge for no reason. Even a mammoth could attack if surprised or if one of their young was threatened.

  His woman searched in the nearby woodland for herbs and edible mushrooms. He stood at the edge of the decline, where he could watch in all directions for any sign of danger, even threats from other men of different tribes, and sometimes even different clans.

  His woman looked up from her work, then stood and held up a large, colorful mushroom. She smiled. He smiled back. Then she added her treasure to her carry bag and moved on, continuing her search. They both knew that certain edible and medicinal herbs grew in this particular grove. About a quarter mile in diameter the woodland of mostly poplar trees sloped down to a depth of about forty feet. The variety of plant life was amazing.

  Between him and his woman played his darling little girl child. She had her mother’s glowing and bright eyes, and light brown hair that flowed to the small of her back. She had lived already for six seasons, and grew more lovely every day. She, next to her mother, was the pride and love of his life.

  “Look, daddy!” she cried, first bending and then rising with a fist-sized rock, “Flint!”

  Yes, his darling little girl knew nearly as much about their natural world as he and his woman did. She would grow to become a leader someday. He so loved the two delightful women in his life…

  Les Paul shook his head! Where the hell did that goofy memory come from? It was not his! Yet he had experienced so many memories like that, as if they were his, every day of his life it seemed—but they weren’t! Yet, somehow, the memory seemed familiar—parts of it, a woman and child, his family? But they weren’t! He had no family! He had never wanted a family! But still, the memories seemed as if he had seen them before, but he hadn’t!

  What had he been thinking about? Before that really stupid memory intruded? That’s how those memories came, out of nowhere, not like normal memories where one thought led one to another—No! These memories just bolted in and destroyed what he wanted to be thinking of!

  Finally he remembered. He was thinking he would have liked taking the needle right away—get it the hell over with!

  But hell no! His lawyers had demanded they investigate every avenue of appeal. The system required the endless, useless, appeals, but now they were down to just forty minutes. In just forty minutes he would be back in the world and ready to go again. He didn’t know of course if things would work out quite that way, and quite that fast, and would he remember anything of this life? Would he be able to go out and do better what he did before? Or would it all be trial and error again?

  Mainly he wondered if he really would travel the same path. He wanted to. He wanted nothing to do with a goody-two-shoes life. He wanted to do the same as he did before, but just better and that would require him to remember. Everything.

  Except for those stupid and goofy memories that weren’t even his!

  Chapter 2 Meet the Chaplain

  Warden Miles remained at his desk. It wouldn’t take that long to walk the short distance to the cell and then to the chamber. He didn’t really want to have to deal with the chaplain either, at least not before he absolutely had to. The phone call that morning was simply too far off the wall. Way too many new and totally unorthodox concepts and speculations, and where in hell had the man gotten his information, anyway, his…enlightenment?

  Directly from the devil himself?

  The idea of a man reincarnating not as a new person but as the same person. But if he’s killed by the system, the state’s death penalty, then he comes back as not only the same person but even more evil. And how on earth could Les Paul be more evil?

  The clock said eleven-forty. Twenty minutes remained. No word from the governor and no word from God Himself. If the chaplain’s enlightenment of reincarnation was true, God would know. God would hear of it and would change it. No way would God allow an evil person to come back more evil then before. No way!

  He stood and glanced in his small wall mirror. His tie was fine, his coat buttoned, his hair okay. He looked all right.

  He glanced out his small window. Lots of lights. Torches. People with signs. Les Paul had no friends, no family, but these executions always brought out the wackos of every stripe and circle.

  A knock. He glanced at the clock. Fifteen minutes yet. Not time! Damn. Probably the chaplain with more last-minute enlightenments.

  The knock came again, more insistent.

  The warden stood still for another moment, then walked to the door, stood for about thirty more seconds, then opened, “Chaplain, I was just coming to meet you.”

  “Warden, we have got to stop this execution.” The white-haired prison chaplain stood with his hands clasped. Strange how a man as young as the chaplain had white hair, a pure, white hair, like snow, a genetic mishap the man had once said. What was he anyway? Thirty-four? Thirty-five? Something like that he thought.

  “Chaplain, it’s not up to me. You know that.”

  “Yes, I do know that. I also know that if you are willing to give up your career, for the good of humanity, then you will stop this execution. We must stop it.”

  The warden stepped outside his office and closed the door, “Who, exactly, told you about this…craziness, that you are trying to convince me about?”

  “God Himself, sir.”

  “No, Chaplain. God does not speak to us mortals. Maybe to the pope, and a few other top religious people from various religions, but not to us regular mortals, so, I repeat: Who told you?”

  The chaplain rubbed his hands and looked away, then looked right back, “It’s in a book I’ve came across.”

  “A book?!”

  “Yes, Warden, a book. This might be our only chance to get it right. We don’t want Les Paul, the worst-of-the-worst, to come back as himself—Dear Lord, we don’t.”

  “We are not stopping the execution, Chaplain. Show your book to the authorities. Wrap it around someone with some real religious power. Not me.”

  “Sir, right now, you are the authority. This is directly the word of God.”

  “The word of God from just a book.” The warden released an exasperated breath, “Not even from the Bible.”

  “Yes, a book. It was in the basement, in a wall locker. A locker that I think has never been opened…before I opened it.” The chaplain looked away again, rubbed his hands again, more vigorously, “In fact, I’ve never before even noticed that locker.”

  “So you’re saying God told you to look in that locker that you’ve never seen before—was it locked?”

  “No. I…had a dream.” The chaplain finally lined his eyes solidly with the warden, “God didn’t exactly speak to me in that dream, although I did
receive instructions. And I was shown the location of the locker. I woke up, dressed, drove to the prison here last night at about midnight, went to the chapel basement, and there it was. I would have brought the book to your office, but, well, it’s not in the best of condition—“ He glanced away again and said mainly to himself, “Who knows how long it’s been hidden away?” then continued in his normal voice, “I just didn’t feel right about removing it from that room…and that wall locker. That’s why I called you early this morning, and I have been trying all day to locate important religious figures…seems everybody is out to lunch, or something, or just not answering their phone.”

  The warden shook his head and rolled his eyes, “Come on, it’s time. You may continue this…this, story as we walk.”

  “I laid the book on the table and opened it immediately,” the chaplain explained, “I didn’t plan anything, just opened it, and there it was. A scripture I have never seen: ‘If a criminal is killed by the state, he, or she, will come back as the same person only far more evil. The worst criminals must be allowed to die a natural death. A natural death includes death by other criminals.’”

  “What about just bad criminals—not the worst-of-the-worst? Or actually innocent people who just haven’t been proven innocent? How are we to figure out which criminals will actually come back—how do we draw that…line?”

  “I don’t know, Warden. Maybe this message from God is just plain to stop capital punishment, even though—I guess—I do, personally, believe in capital punishment.”

  “Us right here on the east coast, far out in the country away from that tiny city of Bradleyville, should begin a wholly new procedure which, hopefully, all the other states and the whole world will soon adopt.”

  “Yes, Warden, and soon all the worst criminals will die of natural causes…and that will be the end of it.” The chaplain’s face said he absolutely believed it.