The Book of Paul -- A Paranormal Thriller by Richard Long

shallow gulps as he struggled to lower his heart rate and move to the place where Paul had brought him so many times, a place where everything was equal and pain was just another word, another sound in his head fighting for attention.
    They sat across from each other for what seemed like an eternity, neither one making a sound. Martin battled within himself, fighting to stop fighting, to sink like a stone to the bottom of the sea. Bit by bit, he drifted down, losing form and substance until the voice of pain began to whisper instead of scream. The pain was still there but it wasn’t “pain” anymore. It was just another nameless feeling he didn’t understand or have to obey. Down, down, down, he floated, further into himself where all the pulses and demands of skin and flesh and bone became a single chorus, until at last he settled on the ocean floor.
    He rested there, breathing slowly, deeply. He was safe now, if only for a moment. Then he began to remember.
    Rats. Martin shivered in bed all night thinking about them. As soon as the sun came up, he would be going hunting for the first time in his young life. He was seven years old. The big man living with him and Momma for the past few months had been talking about it all week, telling Martin how much fun they were going to have.
    They weren’t going to the cool green forest across the wheat field behind the house. They were going to the town dump. To shoot rats. Martin was terrified.
    The man was tall and thickly built with deep blue eyes. Momma made Martin call him Daddy as soon as he moved in. It bothered him at first, but after a while he began to like it. The man was nice and would smile at Martin and give him hugs and tell him what a big strong boy he was. Martin didn’t know where Momma met him or what his real name was because she always called him Daddy too.
    They lived on a farm somewhere, but Martin wasn’t sure where. They didn’t do any farming at the farm and there were big rusty machines sitting behind the house and in the broken-down barn. They never had company, except for the other men that came before, none of them staying as long as this one. He could see other houses that were far, far away, but he wasn’t allowed to go near them or talk to any people who came to the door, though no one ever did except salesmen. “Don’t talk to strangers,” Momma said. Everyone was a stranger.
    Martin had never played with another child. He knew he was missing something, but he wasn’t sure what it was. He only knew there was a big hole inside and he felt sad almost all the time. But Martin wasn’t allowed to cry. Every time he cried, even a little, Momma always said the same thing: “I’ll give you something to cry about!”
    Then she did. Each time the “something” got worse. He hardly ever cried anymore.
    Momma didn’t have any women friends he knew about except for Norine, who was really Momma’s sister. Norine wasn’t allowed to come to the house because, Momma said, “She’s a nosy bitch and I don’t want her snoopin’ around!”
    Martin went to stay with her once in a while when Momma had to “take a rest” from him. She lived on the same big farm in another house down the dirt road and it only took a few minutes to rumble over there in Momma’s old truck and drop him off. Every time Momma came back to get him he wanted to cry, but he knew things would be even worse if he did.
    Most of the times Momma went out, he didn’t get to go to Norine’s. When he was smaller, Momma just put him in his crib. The crib was a five-foot-tall box of raw plywood with splinters everywhere. Martin would just sit there in the lump of his worn-out blankee and stare at the knots in the wood till Momma came home again. Sometimes she didn’t come home for a long, long time. If Martin went to the bathroom, Momma would be extra mad so he tried as hard as he could not to do a number two. But sometimes she would leave for two days or more, and he would have