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Mary's Summer Camp Adventures - Chapter 28
This time the instructions had come directly from Rome and they ordered the widow, Marian Gallagher, to be transported by truck to a monastery run by the Fathers of Perpetual Misery. The place was hard to reach, being in a particularly barren portion of desert located in the state of Coahuila. It would be a nearly three-day trip under extremely hot and dry conditions. The crossing point into Mexico was to be at Del Rio, a small Texas city where the holy fathers had much influence.
The widow was to be transported in a sealed canvas covered rubber bag with the seal of the holy mother Church, normally enough to satisfy the border crossing agents. This approach was taken so that once she arrived at the monastery she would be in a physical and mental condition that would be considerably weakened, thus frustrating any spirit or demon that might be using her as a vessel.
The woman in question was made to fast from solid food for three days before her journey was to begin. Thus when she was placed stark naked, with hands and feet secured in manacles, into the bag that would be her personal container for the entire trip, she would be in a disoriented state from the lack of sustenance. To add to her misery just prior to being placed into the bag, she was forced to drink almost a gallon of warm water that had been liberally laced with a powerful diuretic.
Those handling her also inserted a small catheter into her urethra. It was designed to make urinating a major effort, thanks to the absorbers that were packed into the narrow tubing. Lengths of plastic tubing were wrapped around the base of each of her rather large breasts. With time, the subtle loss of blood circulation would lead to those mounds becoming swollen and sore. By the time she arrived at the monastery she would be in great pain, but no permanent damage would have been done them yet. The final step was to place pads over her eyes, plugs in her ears and a ball gag in her mouth.
This would further disorient her and give widow Gallagher time to contemplate her fate and what to do to rid herself of the evil spirit or demon that might be inhabiting her body. To make sure that she did not have an unfortunate accident and die during this trip, a heart monitor was glued to the region between her breasts and the output was registered on a gauge installed in the truck's console. Every eight hours the "sinner" would be made to ingest another large amount of water to prevent her from becoming dehydrated. Except for the water breaks, the bag containing the widow Gallagher would be hung from a bar in the ceiling of the truck to further confuse and sicken her during the trip.
By the time the truck arrived at the isolated monastery located in the low hills, the "sinner" had lapsed into a semi-coma, but her vital signs were still strong. When the bag was removed from the truck and opened, the good brothers had to cover their noses from the stench that issued from it. The potential servant of the Evil One was covered from waist to feet wth a crust of salt from the urine she had released during the trip. The catheter had done its work and she had exhausted most of her strength straining to release the ocean of piss that built up in her bladder after every water break she was given. A few buckets of filthy dishwater from the kitchen of the monastery did the trick and roused the suspect from the fog that had enveloped her mind, as well as mitigated somewhat the terrible odor that radiated from her naked body.
There were six monks and one priest permanently occupying this fortress in the desert. A trio of local indigenous people handled the jobs required to keep the monastery operational. it was one of the best guarded secrets in the Church that this seeming way station was one of the premier interrogation centers in the New World. The thick adobe walls were nothing but a false front that hid the real function of this place. Its history went back nearly to the time of the Inquisition, and over the years its methods changed to keep up with the technology used for torture as it evolved and refined itself over the decades and centuries. Business remained constant as the turning of the seasons, all but a very few being men.
The last time they had welcomed a woman to this halfway house to hell was more than eight years ago. She had been a splendid specimen, a former nun who had risen rapidly in the ranks until she had some type of nervous breakdown that led her to acccepting the Dark One as her lord and master. This one knew too much to be allowed to spread this evil gospel, and so one day she disappeared, never to be heard from again.
She was transported from Europe to the US under the greatest of secrecy, traveling in a sealed Vatican mail pouch. From there she was shipped in a coffin fitted with enough oxygen to sustain her for the nearly one week trip over this barren terrain. She had been drugged to slow her body's metabolism down so she would appear dead to all but the most educated medical personnel.
It took the good brothers the better part of three months to break her spirit. By then she had lost nearly thirty pounds and had great difficulty in speaking or understanding questions. The monks persisted, for two months afterward they kept the heretic in the helmet, a fiendish device designed to almost rewire the brain's synaptic paths so interrogation was made easier, and reeducation much less stressing for all involved, including the heretic.Three months later they certified her as free from the Evil One and recommended she once more be accepted as a member of the holy mother Church.
During that entire period she was never subjected to such crude efforts as hot irons, molten metal, the pear, the rack, the ladder, strappado, flaying, and the other barbaric tortures that had been developed and remained as testament to the brutality of those who devised them. The monks lived completely in the twentieth century and perhaps a bit beyond in some cases. Electricity, drugs, exotic fish and reptiles, insects, suffocation and asphixiation to the point that brain damage just began, high frequency noise, strobe lights, thermal cycling from temperature excursions of plus seventy C to minus forty C, acupuncture and a wide variety of techniques to attack the sensory capabilities of a person, were the tools that they used and honed on those who were brought to them for "treatment".
A few weeks later she was examined by the Vatican representative for Mexico and declared cured, but subject to daily prayer and self mortification. It was noted that she was with child and therefore could not unconditionally receive the sacraments. She remained with the monks until she gave birth to a lovely girl with wide blue eyes, unheard of for one just exiting from the mother's womb, and a beatific smile that captured the hearts of all who saw her. Certain forged documets were used to allow the mother and child to return to the arms of the Church in a Canadian parish located in the upper reaches of the Northwest Territories. Unfortunately the former nun had difficulty hearing, her eyesight was failing rapidly and she was unable to properly articulate her needs, not that they were sophisticated or many. Of great interest to the Vatican was the progress of the child, who seemed to be well above average in all ways measurable, both physical and mental.
The dossier that came with the widow Gallagher was pedestrian in the extreme and caused some consternation among the monks. What was so interesting to the Church about this servant in a convent? Some here argued strongly that using the sophisticated techniques they had at their disposal would be like casting pearls before swine. On the other hand this was a living, breathing and very naked woman they were staring at with some degree of letchery in their hearts and minds.
They decided that almost eight years without the opportunity to couple with a living, breathing woman was long enough. Therefore the first item on the agenda was to get her cleaned up and smelling like a woman. One of the trio who took care of things at the monastery was dragooned into coming up with a suitable container that would accommodate this woman and plenty of soap and water. In the meantime the catheter was fished from her urethra, bringing a smile of relief to her face and cheer to the assembled monks. The widow Gallagher was still not totally aware of her surroundings and these sharp-eyed men dressed in rough brown clothing with cowls that made no sense in a desert such as this. That is to assume that she was aware of both the location and climate that existed in this strange place.
It was fairly obvious that their visitor was quite disoriented, which was considered normal for those who came here for special interrogation. They decided it would be prudent if the priest, who had a medical degree, was summoned to take a look at their prize, and bless their plans for her. The widow on the other hand was more confused than she appeared. To her the sextet looked like dwarves, all dressed the same way and hunched over against the glare of the sun. As she tried to keep her balance, swaying from side to side in almost slow motion, she counted the group and began muttering to herself. This quickly caught the attention of the monks who moved closer to hear what she was mumbling. She had to be prompted a number of times before she said in a slightly slurred voice, " Where's doc?"
They acted as if they were facing the Dark One. There were gasps and finger pointing. How could this be? You talk about a million monkeys with a million typewriters producing the works of Shakespeare if given enough time. Her comment was on a par with that, only on a less grand scale. First there was her almost unconscious decision to decide they were dwarves. This was followed by identifying them as the famous cartoon characters created by one Walt Disney. Then came the coincidence of realizing one of the seven was missing. Then the final connection was made in her benumbed brain that the missing dwarf was the one called Doc. This little stab in the dark was worth maybe a thousand monkeys and typewriters working for a number of centuries, still mighty impressive for a high school dropout now working for the nuns in a menial capacity.
From the reaction of the monks, Marian Gallagher knew that she had done something that had frightened them. She was still too dazed and exhausted to realize that she had gone from being some foolish, old woman who was considered to be more a source of entertainment and sexual relief, to a fearsome representative of all that was evil and inimical to holy teachings. Poor widow Gallagher, she had stepped in it but good and would pay the price for her little joke.
Across the Atlantic, Mary and her dear friend, Agnes, were now captives of the Knights of Fire, who were not at all sure of their position when it came to the struggle against the holy mother Church. This ambivalence was manifest in the fact that the teens, unlike the nun and the two other heretics who had thrown in with them, were still tightly restrained and gagged as they were being transported by truck to the hideout of the little band of malcontents. There they would face another of the many trials that would dog them on this tour of Europe.
( To be continued - lex ludite )
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