I squeezed my eyes shut and ran as fast as I could in the direction of the door. It was like running in a three-legged race with dead weight between us. The heat was like nothing I had ever felt before. Every nerve in my body seemed to be screaming in agony, and every breath seared my lungs and throat. I stumbled on the quilt as it unwound from around us, and would have fallen, but I crashed into what I could only assume was the door frame with a bone-crunching thud, the full weight of Jakes body adding to the impact. I ricocheted off and the momentum actually carried us through the door and into the hall.
This way! someone screamed from off to our right.
We ran blindly in that direction and didnt stop until we ran into something soft.
Oof! our obstacle grunted from the impact. We went down in a tangle of smoldering quilt, arms and legs; there seemed to be too many for the number of people present. When the quilt was ripped off of us and I saw 278
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our rescuers, I understood why...there were two of them: Judy...and Dash.
Hurry! Judy screamed, We need to get out of here quickly. That fire is spreading faster than a black snake on a hot road. This old house is gonna go up like dry tinder.
Jake is unconscious, I gasped, greedily gulping the relatively cool air. Hes lost a lot of blood.
Then well have to carry him. Dashel and Asher, get his legs. Killian, you and I will take his arms. Hurry!
We lifted Jake and careened down the stairs as quickly as we could without falling. We took a short breather at the bottom of the stairs while Judy opened the front door.
You go, I said suddenly, Im calling 911. I was gone before anyone had a chance to say anything. I took off down the dark hallway and ran into the kitchen door at full speed, bouncing off of it like a rubber ball. The door had only given about an inch before it had hit something. I placed my full weight against it and pain shot down my arm where Id hit the doorframe earlier, but I did manage to shove the door and its burden a few more inches. It was just enough room for me to squeeze in. I popped through and promptly fell on top of whatever was blocking the door. It didnt take long to realize that it was a person, and from the way it felt...a very dead person.
I didnt even have to time for that to fully register before the second story windows over the kitchen exploded from the heat. The flames leapt out the window, illuminating the kitchen with their ghastly orange glow.
I instinctively ducked my head to shield my face and found myself staring into Gillys wide, vacant eyes. For a moment it wasnt Gillys face I was seeing, but another young person with the same type of wound.
Im so sorry, Seth, I sobbed, Im sorry I didnt get 279
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there sooner...didnt stop Todd sooner. Oh God, Seth, please...
Another loud crash from upstairs made me look up, and when I looked back down again Seth was gone and Gilly lay in his place. I clawed my way up the counter and grabbed the phone. Dead! Just like Seth. Just like Zack. Just like Gilly. Just like Todd. So much death.
Suddenly it was too much; it was more than I could handle, and huge wracking sobs washed over me as I slid to the floor, wedged between Gillys lifeless body and the cabinet. Just then the door swung open with a thwack as it slammed into Gilly.
Killian? Are you in there? It was Dash.
Yes, I sobbed.
We have to get out. The whole second floor is on fire. Mom already called 911 from the car phone. Come on!
I...I cant.
Yes, you can. Why cant I get the door open?
Its Gilly.
Shes in there?
Yes.
Is she okay?
Shes dead.
There was a pause, and then, Theres nothing we can do, then. We need to get out of here, now! He squeezed his way through the door and looked down at Gilly. Oh my God! He gasped when he saw her.
He forced himself to look away, then reached down and yanked me roughly to my feet. Still holding my hand, he half-dragged me through the door and into the hallway. We hadnt gone more than two feet before yet another huge crash boomed above our heads. It was followed by an ominous creaking of wooden beams that stopped us dead in our tracks just seconds before a large section of the ceiling crashed down right in front of us, 280
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showering us with sparks and burning debris.
Is there a back door? Dash screamed.
I yanked him back towards the kitchen and we raced to the back door. We burst into the cool air of the backyard.
Theyre in front, by your car. Dash panted.
We ran around the corner of the house and were about halfway across the front yard when an enormous explosion ripped through the night. We were thrown to the ground as a massive fireball rolled into the sky.
For a moment I just lay there, grateful just to be still and breathing. Finally I forced myself up on the elbow that wasnt throbbing with pain, and then rolled onto my side. I looked back at the house, now completely engulfed in flames, and thought about how close I had come to dying several times over in that house that night. But the evil had died with the house and now maybe, just maybe, I could finally begin to heal.
Asher dropped to my side and threw his arms around my neck, sobbing into my shoulder. I wrapped my good arm around him, my injured arm cradled between us, and we rocked back and forth on the lawn. I watched the house burn over Ashers shoulder. Every square inch of my body was in pain; God only knew how much worse it would get as the adrenaline wore off, but I was alive. And the boy I loved was alive, and for the moment, that was all that mattered.
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EPILOGUE
Christmas that year had a special significance; we were celebrating the gift of life with a new understanding. So much had happened in the last few months that when I look back it seems almost as if I had lived a whole lifetime in that short period. I know I felt as if I had. All of the survivors of the fire gathered on Christmas morning and had a special private time together. We had all been treated to lengthy stays at the local hospital, where wed been treated for various cuts, bruises, and abra-sions, varying degrees of burns, one dislocated shoulder (mine), and smoke inhalation. Some of us required longer stays than others, with Judy and Dash having been the shortest. Jake was the last to be released, only having been discharged a few days before Christmas.
His arm was still in a sling and he had to go to rehab daily. He looked much older than he had before, but who could blame him after all he had been through?
His long hair was gone now, as was Judys. What hadnt burned off had been chopped off at the hospital to make it easier to treat their cuts. Judy had gone back to her natural blonde, and for the first time I could see the family resemblance. I was amazed that I hadnt seen it in Dash from the first.
So much information that had been hidden for years came out in the month after the fire that at times I felt like I was just waiting for Jerry Springer to call and say 282
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we were booked for the show. I was sure that if I was still confused and shocked, Jakes poor head had to be absolutely spinning.
It had turned out that Judy was Dashs mother. Shed become pregnant when she was very young and the father had promptly abandoned her. Her family had been scandalized and wanted her to have an abortion, but shed refused and ran off to California, where she had the baby and raised him herself while working as a waitress and going to school at night.
When Dash was two years old, Judy got a call from her sister, Janice, who was pregnant and wanted Judy to come back and help with her two other children, Todd and Gilly, until she had the baby. All her pregnancies had been difficult and shed lost a baby in between Gilly and this pregnancy. Judy agreed and flew back, bringing Dashel with her. While she was there Tom, Janices husband, raped Judy. She immediately told
Janice, who begged her not to report it. Judy agreed for Janices sake but left on the next flight. It wasnt long before she realized she was pregnant. She called Janice and told her.
A month later Janice showed up on her doorstep. She had lost her baby and now she had an offer for Judy.
She wanted to take Judys baby and raise it as her own.
The baby was Toms anyway, Janice had argued, and besides, they could give him so much more than a single mother with a waitress income. Judy reluctantly agreed, and Janice stayed with her until the baby was born.
Janice named him Jacob, and when she took him home she told everyone that she had given birth to him while she was in California staying with her sister.
Judy kept a close eye on things, dropping in unex-pectedly and calling often. She had begun to culture her psychic image, purposefully exaggerating when she was around Tom to scare him into believing she was more powerful than she was. It must have worked be-283
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cause he never laid a finger on Jake, even though he routinely abused Todd and Gilly, sexually and physically. Eventually Janice had Jamie and after waiting so long for another child of her own, she became fiercely protective of him, protecting him from Toms abuse.
In the aftermath of the devastating fire and the even more devastating revelations, Tom committed suicide by shooting himself. Two days later, Janice took an over-dose of a prescription sleeping medicine and died in her sleep. Ashers parents took in Jamie, and Jake was given into Judys custody since she was his birth mother.
In the space of just a few days, Jake had lost one entire family and gained a new one. The transition had not been a smooth one, and he had been spending as much time with a psychiatric therapist as his physical therapist. Wed all been in counseling since that night. It turned out that I was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder; I was having flashbacks that would lit-erally cripple me with fear until they had passed. As I went for twice-weekly counseling sessions, though, these episodes came farther and farther apart.
We were all hailed as heroes by the local media, and the story even made it to the national level. Dan Rather interviewed us all for a special episode of 60 Minutes. It was almost more excitement than I could handle, and I was very relieved when the hoopla died down and things began to return to some semblance of normalcy.
I was thankful for the presidents latest gaffe, since it diverted the medias attention elsewhere. Bad news sells better than good news, it seems.
All the attention from the press did, however, serve one very positive purpose: it spawned a special investigation into the police department and its alleged mis-handling of Seths murder case. Charges of misconduct and homosexual prejudice sprung up from militant gay 284
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rights activists all over the country. In the process, a level of corruption was discovered that led directly to
surprise dear old dad. He was forced to resign amid flying accusations as all his underlings scrambled to drop the whole ball of wax in his lap, and he was now facing more charges than his lawyer could keep up with. I was ashamed to admit that I felt a certain amount of grim satisfaction at all of this. I had more than a few conversations on the subject with my counselor.
On a happier note, Steve did move in with Adam, Kane, and me; that was one transition that came off without a hitch. Mom decided to stay in Pennsylvania with Aunt Kathy, but she agreed that I could stay with Adam and Asher at least until I graduated.
After Christmas Judy, Dash and Jake planned to fly back to California. Jake told me that while part of him didnt want to leave, he was looking forward to starting over in a new place where there werent ghosts from his old life waiting around every corner.
Perhaps the happiest note of all, at least as far as I was concerned, was that Asher and I were closer than ever. It seems that facing death together brings people together in a way nothing else can. I was beginning to think that maybe Asher was right, and true love does conquer all. I was definitely sure that we could conquer anything that life could throw in front of us...as long as we faced it together.
* * *
Adam parked the car, and he, Kane and I climbed out. We walked side-by-side across the emerald green grass; daffodils waved their cheery heads, and robins hopped out of our way as we went. Spring had exploded full force upon the Shore the way it always did without warning. Last week, temperatures had been in the 285
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low 30s and now we walked comfortably in short-sleeved shirts. It was an idyllic scene, except for one thing we were in a cemetery. Wed come to plant a flower on Seths grave.
Wordlessly, we knelt down in a small semi-circle in front of Seths simple granite headstone and Adam dug into the soft earth. Then he shook the plant out of its pot and placed it lovingly into the hole, filling it in and watering it with the small jar of water wed brought.
It was a bleeding heart. It wasnt blooming yet, but it would in time, just as we would heal in time.
Still without speaking a word, we stood up and started to leave. I paused and turned back to the grave as Adam and Kane went on.
I chose the right path, didnt I, Seth? I whispered, and then turned and walked away.
The End.
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Josh Aterovis is a twenty-something starving artist from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where he lives with his partner. Already a successful Internet author with many international readers, Bleeding Hearts is his first published book. He has won numerous awards for his writing and his books web site: http://
www.steliko.com/bleedinghearts. He has written two more books in the Killian Kendall series and is working on the fourth. Aterovis is a pseudonym meaning Black Sheep in Latin.
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