Edge of End (33 page)

“
Look at me, woman,”
Malcolm howled and gulped. “Look at this ripped soul. It can’t
appear on Earth, it belongs here.” He took my arm with his left
hand tightly. “You owe me Jonathan.”

I nodded. “Anything you
want.”

“
Find my body on Earth,”
his voice filled with determination. “Find me and turn that bloody
machine off. Let me die in peace. I’m tired of waiting.”

“
But you’ll be sent to
hell,” I burst out.

“
At least we’ll meet up
there again.” he laughed slightly, then the smile in his eyes faded
away momentarily. “Promise me you’ll do it Jonathan. Promise
me.”

I met his eye and was unable to avoid
it. This man had practically saved me from being confined to hell
forever, I owed him everything. Closing my eyes, I
nodded.

“
I promise,” my lips
whispered. Elizabeth rested her hand on my neck.

“
Then get the fuck out of
here, now!” Malcolm pushed me away. “Go!”

Elizabeth lowered her hand onto mine.
I loosened my hold on Malcolm and stood up hesitantly. He had been
given the chance to escape with me, but he had refused, and sent me
away.

“
Let’s go Jonathan,”
Elizabeth made me tear my eyes away from Malcolm. Her dusty hair
danced in the breeze that had just come from nowhere. Her face had
been wounded and dried spots of blood spattered her cheeks, yet she
was still fascinating.

“
Okay,” I said
reluctantly. “See you around old man,” I told Malcolm trying to
sound more jovial than serious.

Elizabeth ushered me away from
Malcolm. My legs felt stronger with every step I took away from
him.

The great stream of blinding bright
light was still hitting the ground. It covered what lay under that
heavenly light. Like a sword it cut the gray sky. For the last few
steps, we broke into a sprint. We were overcome by the desire to
leave this eerie place as fast as we could.

Finally, we were standing right in
front of it, only an inch from the light–the passage that was going
to lead us back to real life. I did wonder for a moment whether my
memories would return once I got there. Then I realized that I
didn’t want them back–I didn’t want to have any connection to my
past. I had a new life–a better, wiser and more loving
one.

“
Ready?” I asked Elizabeth
holding her hand tightly in mine. I was determined not to let go of
her no matter what was awaiting us in the light.

“
Ready,” she replied
grinning broadly.

For the last time I peered back over
my shoulder at Malcolm, at the man who had gotten me this far. With
one arm, he was struggling to his feet. I knew how much I owed him.
Whatever happened to me when I was back in the real world, I was
going to have to keep my word and do what he wanted me to do–I
would release him from his body.

Malcolm stood still, his coat blowing
back in the breeze. I imagined him as a soldier–a commander
standing to attention. He gave me the thumbs-up signal and winked,
I smiled back.

And then, as I blinked, we leapt into
the light, into our new life, into the reborn.

It seemed to me like an eternity had
passed since I hadn’t seen such bright light. Our surroundings got
swallowed up by the endless brightness. Elizabeth was sucked out of
my reach leaving me to fall down into the nothingness alone. I was
unable to move my hands and legs, my sides became paralyzed, my
eyes glazed up and the light suddenly turned off.

I was in a house, standing in the
middle of a large room. A long sofa was just to my right and there
were three small-sized shits randomly scattered on it. An expensive
looking carpet covered the floor–its dark morose colors made the
room appear even gloomier than it was. Directly in front of me two
angel statues were hung on the wall holding their arms above their
heads. To my left there was a huge TV and in the far right corner
was a glass coffee table an ash-tray with a smoking cigarette on
it.

Where I was? How had I ended up here?
I was supposed to go back to my body, but instead I had been
transported to a strange room full of cigarette smoke. I did a
quick scan of the room. Behind me, there was a door that led to
another room. I narrowed my eyes, and for a split second felt like
I wasn’t alone.

There was someone else in that
room.

I hesitated for a moment or two, I
just couldn’t make up my mind whether I should go in or
not.

As I was pondering what to do, a
deafening sound made me jump and refocused my attention. Turning
around, I saw the same black-haired woman that I had seen
previously in my visions. Sitting on the sofa with her knees pulled
up close to her breasts, her hands covered her face. Was she
crying? I took a step closer and knelt down to her.

“
Get out!” she shouted
through her hands. Then she slapped me across the face.

I recoiled, startled, and
instinctively clenched my fists. She jumped to her feet her eyes
red from the tears. She was clearly upset but at the same time
furious.

“
Get out of my life. If
you don’t leave now, I’m going to call the police. I swear to God
the only sun you’ll ever see is through bars.”

My hand rose up as if somebody else
was controlling my body. I followed its movements with my eyes,
unable to do anything to stop it. And I slapped across her
face.

She shrieked from a mixture of fear
and stinging pain. Her back slammed to the back of the sofa, and
she once again covered her face with her hands.

“
Mommy!”

I spun around. A little girl of about
eight or nine ran out of the room behind me and ran straight to the
woman.

Melissa
.

She hugged the woman’s leg looking up
at me with a pleading expression.

“
Please, don’t hurt Mommy,
please,” she begged; her voice trembled with innocent fear, and she
was barely able to contain the rush of tears that were brimming in
her eyes.

My sinful hand grabbed her by her arm
and brutally pulled her off her mother. The girl screamed as I kept
my fingers tightly wrapped around her thin arm.

“
Don’t hit me Daddy,” she
yelled covering her head with her other arm. “I’ve done nothing.
I’m a good girl. No Daddy.”

With a hysterical cry the woman
planted herself between me and the girl, snatching my arm in
mid-air.

“
If you dare hit my girl,
I’ll wipe you off the face of Earth,” she threatened. I stared into
her flaming eyes, the eyes of a mother who would die without any
hesitation for her child.

I dove deep into her look; the walls
slid backwards, the room darkened and I found myself running in a
dark alley charging towards a man clad in a black leather jacket.
He was at least fifteen steps ahead of me, but I could hear his
quick panicked breaths which echoed around the alley ricocheting
off the gloomy brick walls, stinging my ears. But still I continued
to pursue him, a gun gripped firmly in my right hand. Despite it
being almost pitch black, his silhouette was visible, and I could
see that he was flinching under the shadows of the high alley
walls.

My
money
, my head chimed. It was
money
that had pushed me
to follow that guy. I was ready to fire a shot at any moment, but I
soon realized that I wasn’t as quick as him when it came to
running. I was losing him, but, unfortunately for him there was no
way out, no escape. The alley was a dead end. Again my hands acted
independently of my brain. My arm rose, gun in hand
and–boom!

The man fell hard onto the concrete,
his arms open wide. I ran up to get a closer look. He lay
motionless on the ground, facedown, looking dead. I crouched down
beside him to make sure. Reaching for his arm, I slowly rolled him
over.

Another shot blasted, deafening me
even more–a shot that was intended for me. The man’s eyes slowly
opened; they were full of hatred. He began breathing faster, his
breaths short, gasping for air and spluttering blood.

I dropped his arm and looked down at
my own chest. There was a little hole in the middle of it. Blood
rapidly covered my crisp white shirt and the arm that was holding
the gun began to go numb and weaken. I felt like I was fighting for
my own breath. My lungs filled with acute pain every time I gasped
for air.

I lay on the ground on my side, trying
to get some air into my lungs. My hands trembled; my vision became
blurred and misty. Everything darkened, and I was transported into
a place of absolute blackness.

I had absolutely no idea how long I
had been there, alone, deprived of seeing anything, anyone, until
my eyes finally opened a little, allowing in a dingy
light.

What kind of new game was this? I was
lying on a bed looking up at a white ceiling. A tangled mess of
wires were stuck to my arms and chest. The buzzing sound of the
apparatus that was monitoring my heart rate echoed in the
room.

I realized I was finally back in my
body.

Overcome with sheer joy and happiness,
I tried to sit up, but a sharp pain jolted through my chest
dropping me back down on the bed again. I looked down. A large
bandage was wound round my chest, a big spot of blood right in the
center.

I howled. The last dream wasn’t a
vision, it was a memory. I’d been shot in the chest. The man I’d
been pursuing for some reason or other, probably for money, really
had shot me.

I tried to force my mind to remember
anything else, but after being shot, there was only
darkness.

My entire past life had been erased
from my mind and, to tell the truth, I was glad.

The next morning I lay on
my bed trying to recall the seemingly impossible way that I had
made it through the
town
after life.

I had returned to my body alone; I had
lost both Elizabeth and Malcolm. I didn’t even know if they had
been real or had everything and everyone I had experienced just
been a figment of my overactive imagination?

If it had really happened then I would
have to find Elizabeth. She too was probably in some
hospital.

The doctors had examined me the
previous night. They told me that everything was going to be fine;
I would soon be able to return to my normal life–a life now
completely unfamiliar to me.

The police of course had turned up
attacking me with a ton of questions and filled out innumerable
papers. I had lost my memory, but I hadn’t become an idiot. I
refused to answer them and sent them packing–there was no way I
would speak to them without my lawyer present.

The door was yanked open,
bringing me back from my thoughts of the
town
. Grudgingly I turned to look at
it and saw relatively short black frizzy-haired man. His face was
round like the moon. A large fearsome looking scar traveled from
his forehead down to his right cheek.

I knew him, at least I had met him in
my visions back in the night world.

He greeted me with a half-smile and
slipped into the room.

“
I never doubted for a
second that you wouldn’t make it back, boss,” he said happily
standing at the end of my bed.

Boss
, I thought.
Who was I?
The head of the mafia or something?
“We’ve been guarding your ward day and night. Not
a bug could pass by.”

“
What is your name?” I cut
him off dryly. “What do you do for me?”

For a long moment he stood
bewildered, his eyes frozen on me. The doctors had told me that I’d
been dead for an entire five minutes though I had wandered through
that
town
for
much longer. I had then returned and been in a coma for two
days.

“
I was in a coma. There
are a few things I can’t remember. I’ve lost my memory,” I
explained. “You have to help me remember.” Although deep down, I
hoped they wouldn’t return.

“
I’m Jack, your right hand
man,” he said. “I used to go with you everywhere you
went.”

“
Then where were you when
I got a shot in my chest?” I asked my voice mixed with a little
anger.

“
You said to cut his way
at the other end of that alley,” he stammered, his face whitened.
“Neither you nor that son of a bitch arrived at the other end, so,
when I heard gunshots, I ran down the alley. That’s when I found
you both lying next to each other in a bloody pool. You were still
breathing.”

“
And him?”

“
He was dead,
unfortunately,” his voice faded. He ran his hand through his hair
nervously.

“
Why
unfortunately?”

“
Because now we don’t know
where that prick has hidden our money.”

Money
, echoed in my head. The reason I had killed, the reason I
had almost been sent to hell.

Jack dragged a chair closer to the bed
and sat down, heaving a silent sigh. He clasped his hands together
and brought them close to his mouth, his eyes dropped downwards
deep in thought.