Hold the Light (27 page)

But I had to keep them at a distance so I could survive the trauma when it came time to take their life. I would stay aloof and just deal with it or risk becoming something much worse.

Chapter 51

What I wouldn't have given to have those days with Jessica drag on forever. A moment in her arms was Heaven on Earth. But still, time flew by like a movie montage. Not all the times were happy though, nothing was worse than a slow day when all I could feel were the tight grips on my throat and heart. My time with Jessica was all highs and lows with no in-betweens.

Within the first six months, her patience could no longer stand idly by and watch my condition. On a cool and breezy night over dinner, she finally managed to ask the question that had been disturbing her.

"George, what's the matter with you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"In college, Randy would disappear and twitch like you," she said dryly.

The time had come. It was only a matter of seconds until she would come out and ask me about my convulsions, which had dulled down over time into small tremors. It had been only a matter of time and I was amazed she was able to wait to ask me. I feared her reaction. Would she run?

But what do I have to fear any more? No longer did I have to obey the common rules of life for I had little fear of bodily harm as a result of my actions. But I still feared the unknown. Though I may know what it was like to leave this world, I was clueless to the paths afterward. Paths without her.

Having to explain my terrible condition would surely raise scores of more questions. She was too curious and intelligent to let things lie.

"Well, what is it?" She continued with genuine concern that, for some reason, peaked shame within me.

I contemplated and chewed my food. My degradation, as I understood it at that instant, started after the hospital and slowly filled me with the thought that I had something godly inside me. I figured gods are a tortured lot, always having to make grandiose decisions with far-reaching consequences. Most gods, in the midst of being so hard on the general public, had a soft spot for someone or something that allowed them to flounder in judgment. Whether the soft spot was for man or woman, peace or war, love or hate, the fact is, that moment weakened the chain. I, on the other hand, do my job without that weakness because the gift made its decisions on its own, never involving human emotions. And those emotions were what I had to be concerned of when I answered Jessica.

I continued to chew. I began to believe that there were no deities in existence and never had been. They were just guys like me that had found some piece of mysterious knowledge and had to keep it. These figureheads discovered some part of the great scheme that should not have been allowed to them. Let's face it; people want to know it all.

Jessica stared at me from across the table, loving the old me she knew in college and struggling with the new me that had grown like a tumor. If I could've thought of a better method of leading a somewhat normal life, I would have implemented it.

"I think you've gained an invincibility complex by surviving the attack," she said, irritated by my silence.

"I've done no such thing."

"Yeah, you have," she yelled and stood with her palms flat on the table.

Curbing her anger, she settled and sat back down, "Look, I'm just worried about you."

The grips around my heart and throat grew unbearably tight. The gift knew I wanted to expose it, so it tried to hold me in check.

"I'm fine," I choked and the grips within me softened.

So many times have I wanted to tell her about it, but the timing was never right. Plus she'd only worry once I told her. So often I wanted to sit her down and calm her fears so she wouldn't leave me. But a convulsion would always impede and delay me, making Jessica more frustrated. I loved her and wanted to tell her everything, but I was scared.

"Goddammit, George."

"I don't know how ..." the grips clamped down again and my breath wheezed out.

"Just tell me."

"I'm ..." I gurgled and choked. "I'm ..." Air deserted my lungs. "...I'm Death."

Torrents of freezing motions roared beneath my skin yet no convulsion came on. Goosebumps speckled my flesh and my hair stood on end as my fork plummeted to my plate. The frozen gust ran through my entire body, whirling about in a barrage of sharp stabs to my chest. I was breathless and my heart pounded harder and harder, pitching my torso forwards with every beat. Icy pain seethed into every joint in my body, cutting through all the spaces between my bones. In the last second before I was almost overcome by vertigo, all the painful sensations ceased.

"You're what?"

"Death," I repeated.

I had never seen anyone looked so stunned. Not even the people whose souls I've taken had ever looked as surprised as she did. Her face cringed like I had punched her. Her shoulders scrunched up so high that they melded with her earlobes and her eyes lit up like she heard the biggest lie ever told. Jessica glared at me in distrust for being the one to tell it to her.

"Did I miss something? Was that supposed to be a joke?" She finally retorted.

"No."

"And I'm supposed to believe that?"

"I'm telling the truth."

"Hey, if you wanted to break up again, at least tell me the truth instead of making up some bullshit story that you know I would never believe," she said, shaking with tears.

"No, no, no. I wouldn't do that. I will tell you the whole story."

So I did. Anything about everything she wanted to know, about Randy and the convict. She was skeptical, but she knew I was telling the truth, as I perceived it. Or thought I was nuts. She didn't know which was better.

"If you stay awhile longer I'll probably be able to prove it to you, it has been awhile since I last used the gift," I said, trying to keep her near.

"The gift?" Her anger peaked. "Oh that's just great, what the Hell? Ya know I've seen this already, I saw Randy do it ...and I'm not sure why you're mimicking him like this, but it's no good George. He's dead, get over it!"

She stormed into the living room.

"It's not like that Jessica," I said following her with both our wineglasses clanking in my hands. I turned out the lights and sat next to Jessica. I watched her intently, remembering Randy's blood flowing out onto the street, remembering that Randy gave his life to give me the gift and safeguard it. I wanted to show her somehow but had to wonder if another person knowing would only create more peril.

Was she in any more danger knowing the truth, than not knowing? No. The only person in danger was me.

I told her about the theory I had, about how the gift freezes and preserves me. Knowing the touch of my skin, she nodded silently in agreement. I was so frigid at times that she wouldn't snuggle too close. After a half an hour, I began explaining to her without using words.

"George, are you all right," she checked as I clutched the chair's arms so tightly my knuckles turned white.

"This is it," I muttered.

She watched me convulse and gasped when she saw the blue light stealthily shoot from my face. Then, within a moment, I was back again and awoke to an astonished Jessica as she fumbled with her words.

"I almost had a heart attack," she stuttered, "Your skin went pale, almost blue ...I thought you died."

Stunned and worried, a thousand thoughts must have run through her head. She raised an eyebrow with a contemplative look like she was reviewing medical conditions that she knew that could explain what I did.

"You know ...I," she said, "I've gotta go."

"Jessica wait," I stood and followed her towards the door.

"No I can't, just, just lemme go."

"So much has already gone. I can't bear the thought that you are yet another."

We stood in the dark, with the wan light of the moon mixing among the shadows. We gazed into each other's eyes. Mine trembled watching the effects of my condition on the woman I love. My legs lost their strength and turned to rubber as my neck swiveled, no longer capable of carrying my head and the anguish within. The rest of my body was bogged down with an impalpable pressure that rested on my back, pulsing tediously against my lungs.

"I need time," she said and closed the door.

And she was gone. The door blew a rush of air in my face that smelled like her. The bulk on my back grew heavier. A throbbing emanated from it that I recognized. All my failures incessantly pounded against my heart.

The fresh night air, crisp as it was, was hard to breathe. The gift had sloppily eviscerated everything decent out from me and replaced it with an empty sorrow. My forearm crashed against the door and my head followed as I cried in the blue moonlight.

Chapter 52

Two awkward weeks passed in which we didn't speak, time I spent staring at my hands and convulsing. I sat nervously impious, cross-legged in the middle of my living room, only moving to eat. Each flash of a life I had to take flogged me. The souls I stole were on a constant march across my mind and I did nothing to divert my attention away from it. I spent that week watching and dwelling on death. I let myself be overexposed to it so I could desensitize myself. I had to keep away from my own race to retain reverence for it. But I yearned for some kind of tribute to life to remind me that it all isn't bad. I found I hadn't the will or ability to ostracize myself from humanity. The answer to all my dilemmas was

Jessica.

God, I wish I could believe in something again.

The week passed and Sunday night rolled in without me knowing or caring, until there was a knock at the door. Then two. Then dozens it seemed, echoing around my head. My feet were asleep as I hobbled to the door in the blue shadows.

"Hold on, hold on dammit," I grumbled and opened the door.

She stood in the hallway with her sleek body nestled against the door. She stared at her fidgeting feet, unable to speak. My hand reached out and cupped her chin. Both my hand and her face flinched from the contact. Time seemed dead as we embraced and the world melted away. Jessica held me tightly then pulled away. Her blue eyes flinched and she looked at me cockeyed. Almost like she could see the killer inside. I could see it augment in her face. She loved me but something held her back and kept her reserved. And it was fear.

Chapter 53

All had been forgiven for the moment, or at least, understood. As time passed, Jessica grew used to me with the gift. Over time I had molded a routine and the gift had become so idle in appearance that she scarcely noticed it. Understanding and comforting me within the secure bounds she erected, was the only way she had to understand me. She truly tried to comprehend my duties and the distance I kept from her.

She painfully watched as I wallowed myself to sleep some nights, but never did I entertain the idea of accepting the gift as a part of me. I accepted her as a part of me.

The convict and Randy both took that ball of light in, not knowing it was Death, and assumed it as their duty. But in every moment of every day, I knew the gift wasn't me in the slightest. The life I had forged was me.

Many people died a day so the trips were frequent, but not as much as I thought they would be. I figured I would be taking peoples lives left and right, but the trips occurred at amazing speeds in which my ethereal body shot across space and even time. Very few laws applied to me when the gift stole souls, but one thing did apply and that was the visions.

Some days I'd just sit on the couch and stare off into my memory, vividly watching blood splatter or the sobbing of loved ones. The gift killed them with a cruel stroke and let the doctor's figure out what happened. Once the soul was out, I just let go of it for it to travel on its own path as I stayed with the living.

Days like that were hard as hell. The only thing that got me through it was Jessica.

"What happens to you on your trips?" She'd often ask.

"I die a little," I'd often respond.

So many trips were too much for me to revisit and she would hear nothing of them. These were the ones that kept me up all night.

We lived our lives like that. Day in and day out. Just being together was enough for me and that's when I realized that there was only one thing left to do.

I proposed to her at the end of that year. Beautiful days were carved out and my heart filled with love and warmth. Years passed in our marriage and we tried having children. On some nights I wondered if I was actually a dead man with a pulse, that I could never produce children. Also, the death trips would tend to kill the mood.

It took so long for me to warm up.

Even though we tried harder each day, she couldn't get pregnant and we were getting frustrated. Every attempt seemed futile and I began to feel worthless again. My Dad's voice rained down on me in his heavy and dismal tone. Nothing could get me far enough away from the words he left; no matter how hard I disassociated myself from him. Those eyes of his stared at me from wherever the dead go, calling from the grave saying, "You're totally unfit for any challenge, boy."

But all I had was hope and belief. I wished I could solidify those qualities and look at them. I prayed my efforts would congeal so I could hold them in my arms. Solid proof to show my Dad, to convince him I became a better man than he could ever be.

Chapter 54

Our fifth year of marriage came and things were on an upswing. I was promoted at work; it seemed my convulsions were something people could get used to. But the real news was Jessica got pregnant shortly after our anniversary. We were so intensely happy that we never stopped smiling. I'd touch her belly and we'd giggle. She was almost two months along.

"I can't wait to feel it kick," I said running my fingers gently along her exposed stomach.

"We can play music to her and talk," Jessica said wiggling around on the bed, nestling closer to me.

"Her? And what if it's a boy?"

"Then that's your fault," she winked, triggering a swarm of butterflies in my stomach, "That means you didn't give me what I want."

"Getting picky, eh?"