The Opium of the People - A sample - Chapter Two by J Erwine

CHAPTER TWO
Dominick 1:1

The interrogation room was quiet. The soundproofed stone walls absorbed any sounds from outside. Within, General Dominick Jensen, leader of the Fourth Division of the Charismatics, sat patiently reading his Bible. If his exterior was calm, his interior was anything but. Another prisoner would soon come before him, and it would be up to Dominick to extract the information the Grand Patriarchs needed.
Dominick sat his Bible gently on the steel table. It was almost time. He looked over his shoulder at the crucifix and smiled. He loved doing God’s work. Turning his chair, he lit a candle before placing it on the altar beneath the crucifix, and silently prayed for guidance.
“Amen,” he said quietly before turning his chair back around. He leaned back in his chair, and placed both polished black boots on the table and stared at the door.
A hollow knock sounded. “Enter,” he called.
The prisoner was brought in. He was a man in his late thirties, and it was obvious he’d already gone through a few interrogations. His face was a mass of bruises, hiding any identity Dominick might have been able to ascertain. That was good. He didn’t want to know the man, couldn’t know the man.
The Guards shoved the prisoner into a chair and strapped him down. The man stared, wide-eyed, at Dominick, who knew the effect the uniform had on people. No one but the Grand Patriarchs could look at the jet black uniform with the red collar adorned with a gold cross on each side of the opening at the throat and not feel fear. The prisoner’s fear was only heightened by the four gold stars on the left breast of Dominick’s shirt. He had to know that a general would be the last person who would ever question him, and would probably be the last person he ever saw.
“Are you comfortable?” Dominick asked with a smile.
To his credit, the man glared back at him with more animosity than anyone Dominick had previously questioned.
“I suppose not,” Dominick said. “Now, shall we begin? Why don’t we start by you telling me who some of your associates are?”
“Blow me,” the man said with a laugh.
Dominick stood up. “God frowns upon homosexuals. Are you a deviant, as well as a traitor?”
The man didn’t answer.
“No matter.” Dominick pulled a small steel table in front of the man. He sat on the table, placing a boot on the man’s knee. “Now, as I asked before, who are your associates?”
The man refused to answer.
Dominick moved his boot so that his heel was directly over the man’s groin. “One more chance, who are your associates?”
The only answer was an inhalation and a closing of the man’s eyes.
“Very well,” Dominick said, driving the heel of his jet-black boot into the man’s groin and twisting. There was a grunt, but no other response. “You want to make this difficult for me, don’t you?”
As the man strained against his restraints, trying to curl up into a ball, he actually managed to laugh. “I could make this very easy for you.”
Dominick leaned back and crossed his arms. “Do tell.”
“You could just let me go. You wouldn’t have to worry about that good Christian conscience of yours being bothered.”
With one quick motion, Dominick pulled his nightstick and sent it crashing across the man’s unprepared face. A small piece of tooth flew across the room, clattering into a corner. “My conscience is clear.” He brought the nightstick down on one of the man’s imprisoned hands, feeling the bone give with a satisfying crack. “Who are your associates?”
“Screw you,” the man muttered through the blood flowing freely from his mouth.
Dominick leapt from the table and grabbed the man’s broken hand. He began tearing the fingernails from each finger. He repeated his question five times, each time the prisoner refused to answer and lost a fingernail. “That’s one hand. If you’d like, we can try the other.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the prisoner said between gasps. “I know I’m not leaving this room.”
“You’re probably right,” Dominick said, “but it is your decision how long you stay here, and how much pain you suffer before I kill you.”
“No more pain than what your Grand Patriarchs inflict on us every day.”
Dominick laughed. “Don’t try provoking my anger. It won’t work. Now, tell me who your associates are,” he said, grabbing the man’s other hand.
The prisoner leaned back and smiled. With every lost fingernail, he grimaced, but the smile quickly returned.
Dominick was starting to dislike this man. He knew another tactic was necessary. “Do you believe in God?” he asked the beaten and bloodied man.
“Of course.”
“And yet you don’t believe in the Grand Patriarchs?”
The man laughed again. Dominick was becoming more than irritated with the man. That had never happened before. “No, I don’t believe in them,” the prisoner said. “I wasn’t a Fundamentalist before the Ascension, and I’m certainly not one now.”
Dominick smiled a smug little smile. “That used to be your right. Tell me, do you know the Ten Commandments?” he asked, pulling a knife from his belt.
“Of course.”
“Why don’t you tell me what they are,” Dominick said, leaning over the man’s arm. As the prisoner began to recite each of the Commandments, Dominick carved them into his arm. The prisoner screamed repeatedly, but he made it through all ten. No one had ever done that before. “Would you care to tell me who your associates are?”
“Not a chance,” the man said between gasps. Blood ran profusely from his arms, his swollen fingers, and his mouth.
Dominick couldn’t believe what he was seeing. No one had ever been able to resist him before. “Fine,” he said, pulling his gun, firing into each of the prisoner’s shoulders and thighs. “Would you like to tell me now?” he asked, reaching for a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
The man didn’t answer. Dominick poured the hydrogen peroxide onto the man’s wounds. Flesh sizzled as the prisoner struggled to free himself, but he couldn’t. The popping and cracking almost brought a smile to Dominick’s lips, but that would have been inappropriate. The prisoner screamed and called out for God to save him, but there would be no salvation without confession, and it was quickly becoming clear that there would be no confession.

*
Dominick 1:2

He stood outside the front door of his home in the wealthy section of town; a part of town where the rats hadn’t tried to take over yet, a part of town most citizens avoided. He took several deep breaths, trying to calm his nerves, which had never been frazzled like they now were after any other interrogation. The prisoner hadn’t given up a single piece of information before Dominick had been forced to put a bullet through the smug man’s brain. Now he had to face his family.
He opened the door and immediately smelled the burning tallow wax of prayer candles. A quick glance at his watch told him the kids would already be in bed. He walked into the living room and found his wife kneeling before the altar that took up one wall of the room, the wall where a TV might have gone in the past. Their TV was kept in the corner of the kitchen, and was rarely even turned on. He waited until his wife finished her prayers. As she began to smooth her dress, he cleared his throat.
She quickly turned and rose, smiling. “You’re home late,” she whispered, obviously not wanting to wake the kids.
She’s a beautiful woman, Dominick thought to himself, just as he did every time he saw her. She was tall and thin with shoulder length brunette hair. Her eyes were a hazel like none he’d ever seen before, and the light freckling of her skin seemed to come alive every time she smiled. “It was a long day,” he finally said.
She walked over to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek. She’d learned over the years to give him his space when he first came home, especially when he came home late…at least most of the time she did. “Is it anything you want to talk about?”
He shook his head.
“Will the rebels ever give up? Will they ever learn?”
He tried to smile, but he was sure he failed. “There will always be people that oppose the government. There always have been. Sooner or later, most people will see the wisdom of the Grand Patriarchs and let God into their hearts.”
She looked towards the altar before turning to face him again. Her bottom lip quivered slightly, and Dominick knew this was going to be a night when she didn’t give him his space, even though he needed that space more than ever. There would be no way of explaining what had happened, at least not a way that could spare her innocence, and that mattered to him more than almost everything else in the world, everything except his service to God and the Grand Patriarchs.
“What did you have to do today?”
He shook his head as he unbuttoned the tight black jacket of his uniform. “Please don’t ask,” he said, carefully placing his crosses on the altar. “I only do what God requires of me.”
He turned around and saw her nodding her understanding, although she was still frowning. “Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” he answered, even though he really didn’t feel like eating.
“I’ll go reheat dinner,” she said, leaving the room. Dominick listened to her bare feet on the hardwood floors. The pattering of her feet had the innocence of a child’s walk. He wished he could tell her about his job, but that wasn’t possible. Instead, he kneeled before the altar and prayed. A tear came to his eye, but he held it back. The time for tears was long gone. He could never cry for his victims, for they made the choices they made. They chose damnation. He merely sent them on their way.