Hold the Light (25 page)

"What do I do now?" I blurted at his head as it limply swiveled as I gently moved it into my lap.

"What now!" The salt of my tears seeped into my mouth I screamed up to the heavens.

They answered with tears of their own. The rain poured down and washed away the dried blood from my face. It washed away so much more than I couldn't have known.

My hand stroked Randy's clumpy, blood matted hair until I ran across the fissures in his skull. Shuddering, I gently rested his head back on the concrete.

"You better have him up there," I threatened the sky and turned back to the convict.

The convict roared like a lion yanking at his crotch, desperately trying to yank out much, much more than a thorn in his paw.

Chapter 45

The crowd drew closer. Tiny sharp raindrops pinched at my face. I barely heard the baleful whine of police sirens in the distance, probably writing it off as screams, as I watched the convict rise. He awkwardly and gingerly pulled out the glass shard in his groin and glared at me. I met his hateful gaze all the while fighting to keep my feet planted. He released a raged roar, then a second and started towards me. It wasn't a human sound in the slightest. Barely even animal. The flashing lights of all kinds of cars stopped his approach though and he jogged away bow-legged as fast as he could manage.

A few fools from the crowd chased after him, but he brushed them off like flies. My knees quickly realized how weak and fragile they were once the adrenaline stopped its flow, as I stumbled forward, still futilely trying to follow my rage and make chase. I tumbled to the wet cement, unable to pursue as my energy drained and the crowd caged me in.

The mob quieted and gazed down at me with pity and so many more emotions that I couldn't comprehend. A couple leaned in closer to offer me assistance, but I quickly waved them away. No one could help me. No one was on my side. The only one who was lie dead mere feet away.

Faces began to blur as my vigor slipped away. Whatever gave me strength before had abandoned me. My legs and arms shook. The world retreated into a whirl until one man opened his mouth.

"I'm with the big guy, kill all the faggots!" He blurted in a southern accent.

I didn't hesitate for a second. I didn't let the absolute strangeness of his shout deter me. I leapt at him so fast that the surrounding people never saw it. Landing squarely on top of him, I knocked his wind out, which gave me the critical time to beat him senseless. It was a thrashing that I never knew I had in me. I swung with the left and the right without any pain in my dislocated shoulder. One punch after another came with my knuckles digging into his face for what felt like days. I happily watched his teeth dance onto the sidewalk. I think I saw my father in his face for a moment. Enraged and confused I never regained control of my fists. I let them soften his skin into bruises as he whimpered for mercy. His bones caved with every swing, as fear no longer gripped me. Fear couldn't touch me any longer - I'm Death. Everything that scared me about life, all that burned inside me as terror, was always somehow related to dying. And without ties to that fear anymore, an immediate wave of recklessness buried my pity and pushed my fists down even harder. Enveloped with mounting anger I hadn't a harness for, I leapt off the man and lashed out at the mob, unsatisfied with just one beating. My right hand connected with a random face in the crowd.

The people quickly fled in fright and I couldn't help but laugh at them. They were shackled by such an irrelevant fear. Not me. No longer!

My body shook so much I should have fallen apart. In a way, I did though. My temples and throat pulsated with so much pumping blood that my veins strained to hold the gush. All my skin felt light around my bones, almost flaky, like it was levitating off the muscles. In the middle of a wild swing aimed at random escaping people, I lost my balance and plunged to the sidewalk next to the bloodied bigot. I trembled in what seemed to be gallons of blood. Shooting pain erupted up my hand and shoulder. I twisted and riled in the rain until the tremors stopped.

The downpour pelted harder. I was soaked and angry. I felt like an animal, wrapped in the damp darkness, ready to viciously strike out and protect myself. My primal instincts took me and I crouched, searching for threats. I balled my hands into fists but only one responded. My right hand screamed in pain. I pulled it close to me, ignored the pain, and leaned onto my heels. Yells sounded out through the rain. I looked around, curious about what was coming, and saw uniforms mixed in the chaos.

Threats, they were all threats, and coming right for me. The uniforms were red flags that egged me on. My humanity had run dry. I was alone. Abandoned to Death and everyone came to take it from me. And they were closing in.

"You're ...you're ... No." I pleaded and leapt up from my crouch, ready to fight but yearning to run.

But instead I hobbled backwards. I could smell carrion on the approaching threat.

"No more, no, I can't take anymore!" I screamed.

Adrenaline surged within me and I prepared to attack anyway, but in my hurried retreat, I stumbled backwards. My fists flailed wildly in the air until I landed in someone's arms. I turned to look at who restrained me but a convulsion took me. My limbs stretched to their limit, jarring themselves away from the connecting joints. I tried to struggle free but the pain was too fierce. My head swam and darkness washed over me with the rain as I sunk into blackness.

Chapter 46

Somewhere between sleep and sedation a poignant reverie came to me. Or was it me; I couldn't tell. I was consumed by it.

I was the sun, warming all the worlds from the vast coldness of space. I spat light across the universe, never caring where it went. I felt and was so essential and pivotal to life, so assured. No one could live without me, but no one could look at me. I was great yet alienating. But off in the distance there was a little blue ball, soaking up my rays, appreciative of my gift.

I smiled as I looked down at that blue place, with their little laughing clouds and serene pools of oceans and jagged chunks of continents. I was overwhelmed with delight. If the sun could smile, I did. My yellow and red corpulent body reveled in happiness, as the constant frigid vacuum of space nipped at me no more.

But time elapsed too quickly and joy can only last for so long. My streaming emissions of light, spreading all my happiness, abruptly screeched to a halt. I pushed and pushed to emit more light but could not. I was crushed.

Reluctantly, I took in a forced nauseating gasp and my light blinked out. Off like a light switch. I sucked in my massive, spherical body full, engorging myself, dangerously replete. No longer could I hold the enormous inhalation. I spat it out in a burning eruption across the galaxy, violently returning the light that was held so dear, in an explosion that charred the entire little blue planet.

Chapter 47

Shock welcomed me to wake. I was depleted. My conscious and subconscious streamed together in a blotch of cool colors that mingled on the inside of my eyelids. I thought of the mornings of my youth. I remembered praying and squeezing my eyes shut so hard that spots danced in the blackness, I would wake completely different from the person I had been when I fell asleep. That some previous event would hit like an epiphany with the sunrise and alter me. Change me into the man I should be; into something better. This time, my prayers were answered and I did wake and was something different.

"But not better," I sighed, barely parting my lips.

A rush of frozen air blew below my skin and told me I was not in my childhood bed. Light from God knows where hit my eyelids. A white haze surrounded me. I squinted to adjust. Everything seemed calm.

A headache stung at the top of my nose and when I went to rub at it, something restrained my hand. Pulling harder out of instinct, I tried to break the unknown resistance, when my shoulder throbbed in stabbing pain. I tried to rub my head with my left hand and it was inhibited as well. Pulling with both hands and arms, my skin began to lift. I looked down and was startled to see an IV needle tapped to the back of my right hand. My left arm was in a sling. I leaned up in the bed and attempted to get a better view of the room. It was a hospital room alright, with a TV high in one corner and a green hanging curtain that divided the other bed from mine.

My throat was swollen. I gulped, trying to swallow whatever plagued my throat. It didn't budge. I coughed to force it up, but it stayed put. There was a similar grip in my chest, sitting like a lump that weighed more than the world, nested near my heart. This burden, my destiny, brought with it misery and hopelessness. I felt kidnapped by my own innards.

"I have all the time in the world for you," a voice inside me seemed to say.

It was commanding. I could almost see it standing over me angrily, with its fists on its hips, sounding like my damned father.

"Can't bully me - I beat that bastard and I'll do the same to you," I muttered. "You will never become a part of me," I whispered. "Merely a parasite."

But the gift's misery loved my company and told me so with a shiver that ran right through my body. A flash of light blinded me and I saw a stranger approach me and scream. Then the figure was gone. Another shiver shot down my spine and tickled out all my remaining warmth. Gloom perched on my brow, pecking at me with a strange sadness, threatening to gather into depression.

Muscles tightened as my body fought with the gift. The two pushed and shoved their way upwards, writhing all the way up to my head in an all-out war. An explosion of blue light expanded across my vision and just as quickly, my courage was defeated. Fragments of Randy's and the convict's lives seeped into my mind, blending with my own memories, blatantly reminding me of what I had become and the new lineage I belonged to. With the small amount of valor I had left I vowed to be the last to carry this burden.

Chapter 48

Sick of my situation, I leaned up to change it. Pain responded by shooting through my abdomen. I pulled up my drafty gown and stared at a long slit littered with stitches. Another sigh bubbled through the small space between my pursed lips. I fell backwards not wanting to discover anything more. I just wanted to sleep.

The pain dulled as my eyes adjusted to the softly-lit room. I diverted my attention to the TV

and tried to bore myself to sleep. Fumbling around with the clutter on the stand next to my bed, I found a few remotes. After adjusting my bed, I found the correct remote and turned the television on. The picture swelled from a small dot into the image of some odd commercial. My eyelids sank low.

The bed's cushioning cradled me towards sleep until a nurse burst through the door with an earthquake of clamor. Scaring the hell out of me, she entered like a child racing down the stairs on Christmas morning. Her cranberry scrubs were infuriatingly bright.

"This is a hospital you know, not a cemetery. Most of us are alive enough to be annoyed," I said, half hoping she was carrying some sort of tranquilizers.

"Oh my God! You're awake!" She yelled, her blonde hair wrapping around her face.

"No thanks to you," I groaned. "Could I get extra blankets in here? It's freezing."

"Oh, turn on channel five, it's almost time for the six o'clock news," she exclaimed, looking at her watch. She snatched the remote from my hand and switched channel.

"You're not going to get my blankets and leave me alone are you?" I asked.

"Shush, silly, don't you want to see the news? It's about you," she said as she came around to the left side of my bed, plopping into a chair by the window.

I looked back at the television screen to see the beginning of the broadcast when the seat she was on caught the corner of my eye. I looked back and saw black cloth reaching out from beneath her. I was sure it was Randy's trench coat.

"Can you at least get the coat from..."

"Wait a minute," she said, loosely flapping her hand at me as she watched the TV intently.

"Ugh. I'll yell at you later," I whispered.

I didn't have the energy to fight her. I watched as much as I could while my hand scurried aimlessly around the bed, searching for a crevice to tuck my blanket into so I could keep in heat.

"God it's cold," I repeated.

The news segment ended and I missed it all.

"Well?" she said.

"Well, what? Just gimme the goddamn coat you're sitting on then tell me what the hell I just tried to watch,"

"Geez, what a grump," she added while she laid the coat over me like a blanket.

"Perfect," I sighed. "Thank you."

The coat warmed me within seconds and I wrapped up in it snugly.

"You've been here three days," she finally said.

"Oh," I muttered. So much for only being here a day.

"That guy hasn't been found yet and that other guy was buried today," she finished. "I've been keeping track for you, I've never met anyone who has been, like, on TV before. Except for this one time at a club ..."

"What did they say about Randy?" I interrupted. A fury of guilt built inside me if I heard her right and had missed his funeral.

She looked at me blankly.

"The guy that was buried. Tell me!"

"Oh, nothin' much. They were focusing more on you and the attacker. They think it was like a hate crime," she said shyly while playing with her nails.

"I see," I said, unsure why that came out.

I was disturbingly happy that everyone thought that it was a hate crime. At least no one would spend an exorbitant amount of time researching Randy's past. Hopefully everyone would forget about it in a few days. If they ever found out that Randy was an eighty-some man in a body appearing sixty years younger, the questions would never stop. I began to plan the story I'd tell the police when they questioned me. They wouldn't forget about me I'm sure.

"George ...if I can call you that?"

"Uh huh," I nodded, not wanting to pay attention.

"Were you two ...um, really lovers?"

I paused and contemplated my answer.

"I've had enough for one day," I sorely replied.