The Tears of Nero (The Halo Group Book 1) Read online

  The Tears of Nero

  A Novel

  Book 1: The Halo Group Series

  By Jason Brannon

  The Tears of Nero

  JASON BRANNON

  Copyright © 2014 by Jason Brannon

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

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  Also by Jason Brannon:

  The Maze

  Winds of Change

  The Cage

  The Misunderstood

  Lake October

  Praise for Jason Brannon

  “Jason Brannon shows us a place of reckoning and judgments, of creatures that wait to ensnare us. The Maze is a novel of damnation and deliverance, of corridors fortified with death and spirituality. I found a bit of myself in The Maze." ~ Steven Lloyd, author of The Wooden Box

  “From his style, you’d think Jason Brannon was the dark double of Ray Bradbury. He cares more about character and realism than most writers I’ve read and his plots flow like well-orchestrated music. Indeed, Brannon’s writing has a classical feel, reminiscent of the best traditional work in the genre, even when he’s going for gut-wrenching terror and torture in-extremis." ~ Michael Arnzen, International Horror Guild Award winning author of Grave Markings (Dell Abyss)

  “Brannon’s work reminds me of the glory days of The Twilight Zone, when it was in black and white and carried bylines like Beaumont and Matheson. Often surreal, sometimes disturbing and sometimes enlightening, there’s real substance in his tales that few of his contemporaries can match.” ~ Mike Oliveri, Bram Stoker Award winning author of “Deadliest of the Species”

  “It is a rare treat to find a modern writer whose work is truly a mirror of the darkest corners of the world we all share. Every one of his haunting stories is infused with clear ideas and startling notions submerged in a straightforward and engaging prose. His visions linger with you long after the book has been closed.” ~ Stephen Susco, screenwriter (The Grudge, The Grudge 2, Pulse, Red)

  "Jason Brannon has frequently been mentioned in the same breath as Ray Bradbury…No one spins a horror story like Brannon." -- Kealan-Patrick Burke, Bram Stoker Award winning editor of “Brimstone Turnpike” and “Taverns of the Dead” (Cemetery Dance)

  "Jason Brannon has a fierce and invasive imagination. His work should be labeled: Warning! May get inside your head--and stay there." --Harry Shannon, author of "Night of the Beast"

  “Biblical prophecies come to life at your local hardware store? What's not to like? Winds of Change is a wild ride and then some. Jason Brannon's characters live and breathe in every story, and his horrors crawl up your spine like an icy finger in the dead of night. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough!”--James Newman, author of “Midnight Rain” (Leisure Books)

  "Jason Brannon's Winds of Change is the sort of collection that should make it to everyone's must read list. His prose is deceptively powerful and his stories are the stuff that revives my love of the genre."--James A. Moore, author of “Serenity Falls” (Jove)

  Prologue

  The Domus Aurea was built in the heart of ancient Rome by the Emperor Nero after the Great Fire consumed ten of fourteen districts. Nero’s excuse for building the sprawling edifice was because it made him feel as if he were being housed like a human being instead of an animal. Those who knew the emperor’s mania might have argued the point and claimed humanity was beyond him. Yet, the Domus Aurea’s desolation and ruin seemed a perfect complement for Kellan’s mood, and he wished that this place could make him feel human once more, as it had done for the emperor who had commissioned its building. All he felt at the moment was hollow, numb, angry.

  Covered in extensive gold leaf, the villa had formerly been both impressive and gaudy, featuring stucco ceilings inlaid with semi-precious stones, frescoed walls, and its own man-made lake. With an estimated three hundred rooms and an elaborate rotating ceiling cranked by slaves, the “Golden House” was a marvel. Today it felt like a tomb.

  Kellan had toured the Domus Aurea earlier in the week, passing the time while the doctors ran tests on his mother and did their best to pull off the kind of miracle that God had declined to perform. His curiosity had been piqued by the uniqueness of the site, and he had done some research, learning about the history of the place, the Emperor Nero, and ancient Rome in general. It was his way of occupying his thoughts with something other than the reason for their visit. Now, all he could think about was the cancer, the one hope of a cure.

  The hope that was now gone…

  Overcome with grief, Kellan had wandered around the city for hours until he found himself staring at the crumbled mosaics in the center of what had once been an octagonal courtyard. Kellan recognized the ruins immediately and decided to stay a while, hoping to clear his head and weep in private until there were no more tears left to cry. The deterioration of this place was no match for the wasteland that was now his soul.

  She was gone.

  Forever.

  It wasn’t supposed to end, not like this.

  Rome had become a place to rest their hope, a place where God’s miracle might be witnessed. But God hadn’t saved his mother’s life as Kellan had prayed. Instead, God had done nothing. Kellan’s mother had passed from this life to the next without even saying goodbye, leaving him heartbroken and furious.

  Enraged that someone he loved so dearly had been taken from him by a god he faithfully served all these years, Kellan squatted down and grabbed a handful of broken cement, remains of the site’s restoration. Fighting back the tide of tears that threatened to crest any moment and flood his soul with misery, he hurled the rocks against one of the stucco walls and watched as the fragments disintegrated into gray dust, leaving the air cloudy and full of uncertainty.

  “Kellan….”

  Startled, he whirled around to see who had called his name, sure one of the security guards had caught him in the middle of his vandalism. But there was no one. The room was empty.

  “Kellan…” the voice whispered, accompanied by the sound of heavy wings beating against the air.

  Kellan’s pulse quickened, and a bead of sweat raced down his cheek. “Who’s there?” he asked.

  “Kellan…”

  The voice had drawn closer, and he turned again, this time seeing something he knew hadn’t been there before. Kellan walked a few steps toward the north end of the room and picked up a feather. The moment it was in his hands he wished he hadn’t. It felt oily, greasy, and disease-ridden. But even more than that it felt….black. Dark and shadow-filled, the feather seemed to embody all of the properties of its color, and he wanted to throw it as far away as possible.

  There was also another inexplicable urge-the overwhelming need to protect the feather and keep it close to him. He hated the way the dreadful thing made him feel, yet he didn’t want to release it. Was this how drug addicts felt? He experienced equal sensations of repulsion and need that were at odds with one another, yet existed simultaneously.

  “Kellan…”

  Thrusting the feather into the pocket of his sports coat, he studied the shadows, feverishly searching for the person calling his name. A few seconds passed, and he shoved his hand back in his pocket, needing the hideous comfort the feather provided.

  As he paced the grounds of the Domus Aurea, he tried to recall some scripture that might soothe his torment in this time of grief, but nothing came to mind. He remembered the comforts he had given to others when o
ne of their loved ones passed, and found the old adages rang hollow now. He didn’t want to hear that his mother was no longer suffering or that she was feasting at the table of Jesus and singing with the angels. He was filled with anger, and the only thing that kept him from lashing out again was the feel of the feather in his pocket.

  Why was the feather both a comfort and a torment? He didn’t stop to give it much thought. There were other things to consider at the moment like the shadows. They moved, writhed, and swayed with deliberation and sentience. Of course, the idea of such a thing was impossible, and Kellan knew his mind was playing tricks on him. The tragedy of his mother’s passing weighed heavy on his heart, and his imagination had kicked into gear, offering him something else to focus on besides his loss.

  Splashes of darkness frolicked on the walls of the house where Emperor Nero had thrown some of his most lavish parties. Kellan wondered what sorts of debauchery these shadows might have witnessed back in Nero‘s heyday. He watched the shadows meld, separate, and dance their way across the ceiling’s mosaics. He watched them congregate, coalesce, and separate again like dark mercury with vaguely human shapes. He felt, for a moment, as if they were watching him.

  “Kellan…”

  Instinctively, he clutched the black feather, and the shadows no longer seemed so much like adversaries as friends. Fellow mourners. The darkness had taken notice of the injustice and gathered here at this makeshift memorial. Kellan nodded in understanding, grateful for their support. Then, as he realized what he was doing, he stopped nodding. He didn’t want to appear crazy. The shadows weren’t really sympathetic to his plight. It was just his imagination.

  Leaving the darkness to its folly, Kellan paced the courtyard in an attempt to quell the burning in his heart as he questioned the necessity of suffering. He imagined the day when he might meet his dear mother again and wondered if eternity had worked out for her the way she believed it would. Not long ago, he had shared her beliefs. Now he wasn’t sure of anything, least of all whether or not he wanted to serve a god who would take his mother away from him in such a violent, torturous way. She had suffered a long time, and she had been such a good, God-fearing woman. It seemed so unfair, so unjust.

  Why had such tragedy befallen her when she had done nothing to deserve it?

  “Remember Job,” the voice whispered.

  Kellan recalled the story. Job’s tale was an object lesson in suffering, but why did the voice ask him to consider it now? Job had faithfully loved and served God only to have his life torn apart. God had allowed Satan to torment Job as a test.

  “God allowed your mother to die too…” the voice whispered, completing Kellan’s thought for him. “He could have prevented Job’s suffering. He could have also prevented yours…and your mother’s.”

  “She didn’t deserve this,” Kellan wept, fiercely clutching the black feather in his pocket.

  “No,” the voice hissed like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. “She didn’t…and neither did you.”

  Kellan’s mother, Cecelia, had been healthy and full of vitality the week they found out the news. No one had given it much thought the morning she awoke complaining of back spasms. They assumed she had slept wrong, bent over the wrong way, or pulled a muscle. Yet after a few days of medicated ointments and heating pads, Kellan decided a visit to the doctor was in order. A series of tests including an MRI showed them the verdict wasn’t the innocent pain they had believed it to be, but rather lymphoma in the last stage, rampant and ravaging the body with an insatiable hunger. The news was like a knife to the heart, and Kellan spent the next few days prematurely mourning the loss of his mother.

  “God may not be finished with me,” she told him, beaming optimism in the face of such dire news.

  “Why is this happening?” he asked over and over.

  “It’s not our place to question. His will is perfect and just. Perhaps this is the last way God plans to use me,” the sick woman said.

  Kellan adored his mother. Having become quite successful in life, he spared no expense, getting her the best treatment money could buy. Yet, he soon found out money couldn’t buy everything, and the God who reigns in Heaven doesn’t do things the way we think they should be done on Earth. The chemo treatments, the aggressive medication, nor the experimental drugs did what they had hoped.

  Time was running out when Kellan heard about a treatment offered at an oncology center in Rome. A team of doctors and scientists there had been working with stem cell therapies that showed some promise. They agreed to do what they could to save Kellan’s mother but warned it was a last ditch effort. Kellan booked a flight for them to Rome.

  He read Bible passages on the flight over, trying to convince himself that God would take note of his faith and reward him by healing his mother. He remembered praying silently on the plane, in the waiting room at the hospital, during the first round of treatments, before he went to bed every night, and even shortly before his mother passed away, feeling that at any moment God would reveal His glory and perform a miracle. When his mother breathed her last breath, Kellan realized God wasn’t going to intervene.

  Was this the thanks he got for serving the Lord for so many years? He felt abandoned, alone, ignored. Why hadn’t his prayers made a difference? It didn’t matter any longer. She was gone. He clutched the black feather tightly in his hand and let the rage build inside him.

  Out of his other pocket, he took a picture of his mother, weeping openly at the sight of her.

  “Don’t be angry,” his mother seemed to speak to him from the photograph. “I am in a better place. Don’t turn your back on God.”

  Kellan sobbed and fell to his knees. His mother had protected him from so much. She had shielded him from the dangers of the world, often at her own expense. Now there was no one to guide him, no one to take up for him. No one to protect him from all of the bad things that were out there. Things like his father…

  Kellan remembered all of the horrid punishments the man had inflicted upon him when he was a boy. He also remembered how his mother had saved him from all that, enduring the worst of Jackson Lindell’s wrath so that her twelve-year-old son didn’t have to. Now she was gone, and Kellan felt defenseless.

  The darkness seemed well aware of that fact…

  The shadows danced, flailed and thrashed on the walls, moving in time to a tribal rhythm pounding in his head. In one hand he held the picture of his dead mother, in the other the feather. Carefully, he pocketed the picture and watched the shadows coalesce into an alien form. The menacing silhouette towered over him, its wings stretching endlessly on the eastern wall of the Domus Aurea.

  “Kellan…” it spoke.

  Kellan swallowed hard and tried to make sense of what he was seeing. The feather grew hot in his hand. He wanted to let go of it, but couldn’t quite bring himself to discard it.

  “Kellan…”

  “Yes?” Kellan said, bowing his head in supplication to the being before him.

  “Emperor Nero, architect of this place, was a persecutor of Christians.”

  “I’m starting to understand his anger,” Kellan admitted.

  “Are you?”

  Kellan nodded, as tears streamed down his face, staining the dirt at his feet.

  “Would you like to know a secret?” the shadow asked.

  Kellan froze.

  “I can provide you with an outlet for your pain,” the voice assured him. “Cling to that feather, and I will always be with you. Where you find these, there will I be.”

  Kellan’s eyes filled with fresh tears as he considered his pain. He thought about how he had wanted to offer his mother the same protection she had given to him, yet he had failed. Now, he felt a heavy burden of such great pain. What horrid things could he do with an outlet for that kind of hurt?

  Kellan’s mother had raised him in accordance with the Bible, taught him right from wrong, and tried to steer him toward the path that would lead him to Heaven. Because of this he knew the shad
owy figure before him was evil. But he didn’t care. Black and white had morphed into gray. Disregarding everything he had been taught, he made his decision and walked over to the enormous shadow.

  “Come closer,” the winged figure beckoned.

  Kellan obeyed, and the shadow separated from the wall, took a step, and knelt before him. He listened carefully as it whispered into his ear and watched the world around him change.

  He no longer stood in the Domus Aurea, but instead found himself in the middle of an arena. All around him Christians were being fed to lions. Tigers, their muzzles stained red, were feasting on the flesh of the faithful. Some believers had been crucified upside down. Others had been set on fire. Still others were being tortured in perverse ways that made the skin crawl.

  Kellan realized this was exactly the way things happened during the reign of Nero, and he wasn’t horrified so much as fascinated by what he saw. Although he wouldn’t admit it to himself, he was also excited.

  God had taken his mother, and in light of that, the atrocities Nero perpetuated so long ago didn’t seem as heinous. Maybe the emperor had his own reasons for hating Christians. Maybe his feelings weren’t all that different from the ones Kellan was experiencing.

  Still standing in the middle of the bloodbath, Kellan noticed the arena was filled with overzealous spectators who all seemed to be enjoying themselves. His eyes fixed on the emperor. Nero wrung his hands in delight at the spilling of Christian blood, reveling in his handiwork, pleased by his accomplishments. Then, something in his expression changed. Without warning, Nero directed his attentions away from the feeding lions and screaming Christians and fixed them on Kellan. Kellan shuddered, terrified, although he still believed this was nothing more than the work of his overactive imagination.

  “We are the same,” Nero said, as he reached into the folds of his robe and pulled a black feather out for all to see.