Chapter 12: Discovery

A light mist of rain enticed Karen to use the wiper blades as she drove back to Elisabeth's house in one of the more expensive Neighborhoods of McNeil. Their mutual silence during the short trip from the restaurant was occasionally interrupted by the shifting of gears and revving of the engine as Karen stopped and started at traffic lights. She pulled up to the house and quickly got out to open the car door for Elisabeth.

The rain had stopped only minutes before and the first smell of autumn was in the air. "Are you okay, Elisabeth? Karen asked as she closed the door and walked with Elisabeth to the front steps of her house.

"Better now, thanks to you. I just hope I have the courage to face Richard." Elisabeth answered nervously.

Karen sensed Elisabeth's deep concern. As she studied her face, the light from a nearby street lamp reflected in her black eyes making them sparkle with an almost childlike quality that Karen understood was an uncontrollable prevalent part of Elisabeth's charm no matter how concerned or upset she became.

"You can handle it." Karen assured her.

Elisabeth's face tensed and her heartbeat began to race as she turned the doorknob and entered the house.

Karen stood at the open doorway as Elisabeth tentatively called out. "Richard! I'm home!" There wasn't any response and Elisabeth beckoned Karen to enter. "I wonder where he is?" She rhetorically questioned.

Elisabeth quickly walked through the living room into the spacious open kitchen area. She returned after a few seconds holding a note in her hand. "Gee, that's strange." She commented to Karen re-reading the note. "He left me a note saying he had an appointment. I guess he thought I'd be home earlier and couldn't wait for me." She shook her head questionably. "I can't even begin to imagine what kind of appointment he'd have at this late hour."

Karen felt a strong premonition of something being terribly wrong. She couldn't put a name to it, but it was strong. She summarized that this alarming impression must have the reverend Bishop at its root, and although the factors of the vile feelings she'd had when he looked at her, Elisabeth's rape, as well as Elisabeth's contention of him not being human certainly added fuel to that fire, they were not the predominate factors for feeling the way she did now. No, it was much more than that. It was something much deeper inside her gut, something much less tangible that told her Bishop was total and ultimate corruption, and must be stopped.

Her interest with stopping Bishop was as foreign to her as was her feeling's about him. Throughout her young life she had been surrounded by selfish, self-serving, disgustingly evil men and had either accepted them as fact or just run away. "Why then," She asked herself. "did she this time feel absolutely compelled to do something about it?" No answer came to her, only the reinforcement that she somehow must do something. "God damn!" She thought. "One new wardrobe of clothing and suddenly you're the queen of sensitivity, fighting for truth, justice and the American way? What the fuck!" But it didn't change the errant conviction that now commanded her.

She tore her mind away from the unfamiliar thoughts and looked at Elisabeth thinking the worst seemed to be over for her. She looked and talked a lot better than even a half hour before. "Want me to hang around until your husband gets home to keep you company?"

"Only if you want." Was Elisabeth's reply as she turned away from Karen and sat down on the sofa so she could kick her shoes off. "Right now I'm going to take a long hot bath. The water won't wash the filth from my mind, but it'll go a long way to get it off my body."

Karen hoped her earlier assessment of Elisabeth's mental state was correct, and she wasn't just pretending not to be as disturbed as she had been. "You sure you're okay?" Karen asked now re-concerned for Elisabeth's well being.

"I'm okay." Elisabeth answered offering Karen a weak smile. "Not as good as I use to be ... but a lot better than if you hadn't been there for me. I owe you a lot Karen, I'll never forget it. But for right now, yes ... I'm okay." Then in a slightly lighter tone she continued.

"And ... after a hot bath I'll be even a little more okay." She paused momentarily then said with conviction in her voice. "You know what ... I've even made up my mind about Richard ... for now I'm not going to say anything about this. At best it would cause him a lot of pain, and at worst, he just might want to do something about it, and honestly Karen ... I'm still convinced reverend Bishop is something other than mortal, and Richard could get hurt. There's no way I could have Richard's pain or even worse on my conscience compounded with what's already there. Does that make any sense?"

"The best of sense." Karen replied returning the smile. Elisabeth's rational thinking put her at ease again. "Okay. I'm outa here. You go and jump into that hot tub and try to relax. Call me at the hotel if you need anything. I mean it, no matter how small, call me.

Okay."

"You bet I will." Elisabeth joked. "The Chinese believe that if you save the life of another, you belong to that person for eternity. Guess I own you Karen ... like it or not."

"You could find it's like owning Pandora's box." Karen joked back.

"Without out a doubt, there's more to you than the eye can see, but I know I'd like all of it." Elisabeth replied then changed the subject. "Oh yeah. You can go ahead and take my car, I won't be needing it tonight anyway."

"Okay, I'll bring it back sometime tomorrow if that's okay."

"When ever, don't worry about it." Elisabeth said casually. Almost a little too casually for Karen.

"Hey." Karen wrinkled her nose and forehead. "This isn't one of those movie things where the heroin talks and acts like everything is cool then goes and does something really stupid as soon as she's alone, is it?"

"No this isn't one of those move things." Elisabeth answered somberly. "This is a reality thing. With your help, I've found I'm a lot mentally stronger than I thought I was. After you leave, I'm not going to do anything stupid. After you leave, I'm going to rest my mind and body until I have the strength to stop that bastard whether he's the Devil incarnate or not. Revenge shall be mine saith the Lord. Well, in this case I'm going with an eye for an eye."

"I can't stop you ... Hell, I'm not even sure I'd want to. Just promise me one thing ... that you won't do anything before talking to me. Okay." Karen could easily understand revenge and felt the feeling was the best thing for Elisabeth. "Shit yes." she thought to herself. "Dey was really gonna' foake up de mudder foarker."

"I promise." Elisabeth nodded. "Not one move without you."

It was close to eleven thirty when Karen backed the car out of the driveway onto the street.

Karen drove slowly trying to sort things out inside her mind. She was having a difficult time understanding the way she felt and at having seemingly matured overnight. Her previous self-centered child self was gone, replaced by a sympathetic thoughtful adult person concerned for other's even more than herself. "This is just way too weird." She told herself and could only guess that something powerful had changed her either during or after reverend Bishop's sermon.

Karen felt a little dizzy as she turned left heading out of town toward her hotel. She still could not believe all the strange and evil feelings that haunted her mind. "It just doesn't seem like real life," she thought to herself as she momentarily looked at her reflection in the rear view mirror and sighed. Karen saw a very timid young woman looking back at her. Her eyes lacked luster, and her face seemed gray and overburdened by the very act of living. "What the hell is happening to me?" She wondered with concern.

Almost without thinking, as if by behest, she spun the car around making an ill-legal U-turn in the middle of the street and headed toward Magnesia Springs.

After parking the car by the side of the road where it couldn't be easily seen by anyone from the tent, Karen wondered what she was doing. "This is stupid. Bishop is a dangerous man. What the hell are you doing here girl? Go home." She told herself as she made her way through the parking lot toward the tent entrance. Her mouth was full of saliva and her heart was pounding with both terror and dread as the same vile feeling's she had felt when Bishop had looked at her surged through her body, sending renewed cold fingers of ice along her spine. She pushed her frightened limbs forward feeling the rough texture of the canvas flap scrape along her skin as she entered the tent.

She stood momentarily giving her eyes time to adjust to the darker interior, then she heard what sounded like muffled cry's or voices coming from behind tall drawn purple velvet drapes at the back of the tent, and she tentatively made her way toward the noise.

With extreme caution she parted the drapes just enough to look through. What she saw filled her with shock and sudden rage, her innards boiled with vehemence, and her eyes welled up with a mixture of horror and pain, but she was unable to move or intervene any more than a cinema spectator is able to change the outcome of a movie. What see saw took her back to the disgusting times of her father raping her night after night in a drunken stupor, and was a grim reminder of her father forcing her to do things no child should ever be coerced to experience, and after ... oh yes after the ordeal ... of feeling the guilt for having done something to bring it all on herself.

She strained to turn away and bound for the exit, but found she was unable, paralyzed with memories, pain and fear, she stood immobile and docile.

Bishop stood dressed in his robes with hands on hips staring down at a young girl of sixteen or seventeen years old. Behind the girl, forming a partial circle were three other men, one of which Karen immediately recognized as Elisabeth's husband Richard.

The girl looked frightened almost to death and had obviously done a lot of crying. She had been stripped of all clothing other than her brassiere and panties. The bra was thin and only partially covered the girl's surprisingly large breasts to just above the nipple line exposing round breast meat above the thin material. Her panties were little more than a thong, cut extremely high at the hips leaving her buttocks almost entirely exposed, with a little triangle of cloth over her crotch that did just manage to cover her mound.