Madeline by Louis Berry
Passion for Madeline never waned within the only man who’d loved her ethereally. The writer, who’d spent his career examining desires of fictional characters, knew the woman sitting across from him possessed celestial abundance. She resonated within his being.
Noah had known the woman for eighteen of his thirty five years. Juvenile logic offered evidence of how she’d been a part of the majority of his life. No matter how great the distance between them, Madeline echoed within his consciousness. Never had he known a woman who stoked visions of an eternal existence.
He’d resigned himself to never experiencing a bond more significant than friendship. Writing stories inspired by the most beautiful and strong soul he’d ever known, offered his only hope for creating an existence beyond human manifestations.
Published works were his only contribution to mankind.
Neither Noah nor Madeline wanted their day to end. Gaps of silence were spent staring across the picnic table at one another.
An occasional tingle spread throughout the young man’s psyche. He found Madeline’s beauty so intense, passage of time was rendered inert against profoundly piqued physical desires. What the writer felt was intense; yet ethereal. He could sit indefinitely, enjoying her beauty, without want for another experience.
Hours drifted along. Abandoned shrimp tails and paper cups, caked with dried ketchup, filled the basket that had been pushed to the far end of the table. Only when it emanated an odor that affected sensibilities, did Noah remove it.
Even the action of policing their table exacerbated pangs of separation.
The trained observer watched, throughout the afternoon, as men approached the restaurant. Glances soaked up Madeline’s beauty. Men were incapable of concealing intensity of desires for a woman they didn’t know.
Madeline offered pseudo-suitors innocent smiles in recognition. It was a defense mechanism she’d honed for years. Expressions were pleasant; without encouragement of furthering admiration into physical encounters.
Having such a beautiful woman acknowledge the existences of random men lifted strangers’ spirits for weeks beyond encounters.
Noah had eighteen years to relegate physical desires that raged beneath the surface. Even a man of his intellect, who examined all manner of human behavior when creating stories, was incapable of understanding magma-like desires seeking ventilation. Intense passion only breached the surface once.
As the couple sat and talked the day away, Noah’s ethereal connection dissipated into nothing more than wanton desires. Slowly, he lost recognition of thoughts entering his mind. Time and distance exacerbated basic desires. He’d lingered upon memories of their night on the beach. Noah imagined another sexual encounter with the beauty. He wished to be more than friends. Intensely tactile thoughts reduced him to the level of the many and random troglodyte males encountering beauty.
Men without souls were abundant.
An otherwise intelligent man found himself succumbing to that which was carnal.
Competing in football placated family and community. Noah understood from an early age, growth wasn’t inherent in playing a children’s game well into adulthood. He sought an understanding of that which moved humanity forward.
It wasn’t until William’s trial that the young writer gained an understanding of the ubiquitous nature of evil. It’d been allowed to exist because people became blinded by innate goodness of humanity. That which once existed below conscious thought, had been exposed for all to see.
Madeline peered across the table at the only man she’d known who considered her as offering more than beauty to the world.
William doted on his daughter after that fateful night in 1972. Her father attempted to instill recognition of a man’s true intentions. Failure was assured once evil took from the girl that which allowed her to connect spiritually. Rape was dogmatic and created a barrier impenetrable by future associations. It was an indelible stain left by Jack Elliott.
Noah created a spark possessing the energy to overcome that which the rapist sullied. It was up to Madeline to recognize and embrace it. No one could do it for her.
Jealousy was an emotion that never entered her consciousness. Constant thrusting of attention muted consideration for lost love.
Noah might be taken from her.
Men had come and gone. Madeline had yet to recognize Noah’s significance within a quickly approaching future. Thoughts of squandered relationships never crossed her mind.
Dusk settled over the area and alerted both souls their time together was drawing nigh. They’d be made to split from the other and face individual existences.
Noah felt compelled. He reached across the wooden table, and grasped the hand of the only woman he’d ever truly loved.
Madeline offered a genuine smile reflecting palpable energy sparking between them.
“Can I give you a ride home?” Noah asked.
“That would be nice.”
“Do you still live on MacArthur?”
She shook her head. “I bought a condo at the beach, but you can take me to my dad’s home. I think there is a gathering there tonight.”
“Darn.”
“What?”
“Well, if I had to take you to the beach, I’d get to spend more time with you. Your dad’s house is only ten minutes away.”
Madeline smiled coyly. “When are you going back to New York?”
“Tomorrow.”
She released a heavy sigh. “That doesn’t leave much time for us to visit.”
“No, it doesn’t.” His reply was tinged with disappointment.
“Why don’t you come by the house tonight. I’m sure dad would enjoy seeing you again.”
Noah nodded slowly. “I’d like that.”
“Where are you staying?”
“The hotel across from the mall.”
“That’s close. It wouldn’t place much of a burden on you getting home tonight, and to the airport in the morning.”
Suddenly, a loud bang echoed in the distance and startled the couple.
Noah looked around feverishly for its source.
Madeline clutched her heart. “Whoa. That startled me. Someone must be lighting fireworks at the courthouse.”
Noah hadn’t hunted since he was twenty-three years old. Living in New York didn’t offer opportunities for the sport. He questioningly offered, “that sounded more like a gunshot.”
Madeline shook her head. “No. Dad was going to stay behind and thank all of the people on the courthouse lawn for their support. It must have developed into a tailgate celebration.”
Noah witnessed his friend become discombobulated. “Are you okay?”
His date shook away obvious malaise. “Something powerful just came over me; like it passed right through me.” Madeline breathed deeply. “Gave me a bit of a swoon.”
Noah’s response reflected hope. “Maybe it’s because you’re sad I’ll be leaving tomorrow?”
Madeline smiled. “Regardless, the sensation is gone now.”
Noah’s heart sank.
Innocuous conversation continued for several minutes. Each realized the time had come to leave the picnic table they’d occupied for nearly six hours.
Slowly, within their consciousnesses grew the sound of eight cylinders. Vibrations resonated through once still air. Its source emanated from beyond the stand of trees; at the edge of the restaurant’s parking lot. The sound was obnoxious, and captured the couple’s attention.
From the direction of the courthouse, and down the hill on Fourth Street, sped the same truck that brought Madeline to her lunch date with Noah hours earlier.
The driver turned the vehicle sharply into the parking lot. Once it left the pavement, its tires kicked up a billowing cloud of dust.
Ten yards from the table wheels were locked and tires slid across the gravel parking lot. The truck came to rest in front of Madeline and Noah.
A member of Madeline’s impromptu security force emerged from the front passenger door. He ran as quickly as oversized and muscular legs could move. From behind the young beauty, he lifted her. “We need to go now.”
“What is it?”
“Your father’s been shot.”
Madeline was incapable of comprehending what she’d heard. Perception took several moments, as she stood with the help of her friend.
They walked toward the waiting vehicle. “How?”
The occupants of the rear of the double-cab truck opened the door for the young lady.
“Some guy sniped him from the woods across the street from the courthouse…while everyone stood on the lawn.”
“Did he get away?”
The muscle-bound protector lifted the young beauty by her waist, into the vehicle. Heightened by oversized tires and lift kits, his response was reduced to a grunt. “Nope.”
Once Madeline was seated inside, she looked down at her friend standing in the gap of the open rear door.
The man explained, “we surrounded him like a deer in a block. We closed in on him. He’s bound to the flagpole.”
Decades of uncertainty concerning her father’s love had been answered at trial. She’d finally become aware of just how violently he fought for her; and others who’d been made to suffer at the hands of evil. Madeline’s smile reflected a sinister hue. “Don’t let him out of your sight.”
As Madeline was being briefed, Noah made his way to his car, and exited the parking lot ahead of the truck.
Both vehicles sped up the hill on Fourth Street and turned down McKenzie.
Noah dutifully sought out a parking space in the lot across from the courthouse.
The driver of the truck drove over the curb and delivered the daughter of the man dying on the grass.
A crowd gathered around William. He clung tenuously to life.
When onlookers recognized the young woman, they backed away; allowing access to her father.
Kneeling around the father were his three children, Beverly, and Lilith.
Her mother’s partner backed away when she saw Madeline approach. Beverly knelt on one side near William’s head. Charles occupied the other.
Boldly, Madeline approached and grabbed her eldest sibling by the shoulder. She pulled him away; and without a word occupied the space he’d been forced to vacate.
“Dad. I’m here. It’s me. Madeline.”
From the other side of the victim’s body, Beverly explained, “He’s been in and out of consciousness. I was certain he was dead about ten minutes ago, but something seemed to give him strength.”
Madeline glanced at her mother without response. Quickly, she affixed attention upon her father. “I don’t want you to leave me, dad. You’re the only person who’s ever fought for me. I need you.”
The daughter glanced down at her father’s abdomen. A crimson and viscous liquid soaked through his shirt and covered her mother’s hand.
The ex-spouse continually applied pressure to stem blood-flow.
Madeline laid her hand atop her mother’s, and pressed gently. Affection became most genuine between the three.
Slowly, Beverly removed her hand and gently positioned that of her daughter’s in its place. “You can feel an ever so faint pulse. Be tender and allow your father’s soul to flow through you.”
The former wife knew the man she’d pledged a lifetime of devotion wasn’t long for the world. For all the conversations between husband and wife concerning death, no one anticipated a violently random end.
Hope burgeoned after the trial. Optimism lasted not a single afternoon.
Miraculously, William opened his eyes and uttered one last statement to the one person who’d offered intense purpose to an otherwise mundane existence. “I owe no one…but you Madeline. My pledge to keep you safe will be eternal. I can only hope our souls will be endlessly intertwined. Just know that I will always protect you. Live your life to its fullest, and forgive me my failures.”
The daughter watched as life exited her father’s eyes.
Within moments, the gunshot victim’s skin turned ghostly white. Blood no longer coursed through the man’s veins.
His daughter no longer detected the faint pulse through her blood-soaked hand.
Madeline’s calloused soul hardened beyond retraction in that moment.
She gently laid her father’s head on the courthouse lawn. The young woman stood and looked around.
Faces in the crowd looked to her for direction.
The only emotion she’d ever inspired were spurious male libidos. They were mere puppies who’d have followed her to death’s door at the mere mention of the trip.
Local elite families hadn’t considered her beyond the catalyst for murder; and her father’s trial. Myopic and pedophilic energy was only capable of envisioning the elimination of that which threatened their structure and existence. Criminals occupied a purely physical realm.
Madeline’s ethereal expression resonated from a point located deeply within her repressed psyche.
The young victim had decades to overcome rape at the hands of a family friend. She looked long and hard at each individual set of eyes that stared back at her. In the twenty-eight years since the incident, Madeline honed the skill of assessing intent in a man’s eyes.
Her seven-guard sentry stood at the ready; as did others.
Weakness was seen through the windows to weaker souls of several in the crowd. They appeared scared; unsure of what the assassination of Madeline’s father meant for their community.
Unlike her father’s hesitation to commit his initial murder, Madeline spent the better part of three decades envisioning just such a deed.
William developed a rag-tag network of locals who knew they must stop evil’s advancement. She hoped several of those anonymous faces staring back at her possessed the same quest for righteousness. There was an organization. She needed to wrest control of its purpose before others became marked for execution.
Madeline McVie spoke authoritatively. “There will be a meeting at my father’s house on South MacArthur in one hour. Anyone who wants to continue to rid our city of evil, be there.”
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