Falling Awake

by T. A Richards Neville

  So this was how I would die. I was leaving so much behind, I thought stupidly to myself. I would have kicked myself if I could. Me and my big mouth. Flames licked at the chair legs, curling around my own bare ones. The heat burning me as the flames grew thicker, and smoke began to seep into my lungs. I was sweating.

  The heat grew more persistent, and I felt myself being lifted and carried away, still tied and bound to the chair. Then finally, I was set down into much fresher, and sweeter smelling air.

  I coughed up the thick stench of suffocating smoke as I tried to clear my clogged airways. Chaotic shouting and struggling echoed around me, and I was aware now of Caleb’s blonde head below me, his fingers racing frantically to untie my ankles, before moving onto my wrists. It was a relief to finally move my joints freely without the gritty rope biting into my tender skin. Caleb examined my wrists, turning them over carefully in his hands. Angry red marks encircled them, but no skin was broken.

  “Are you okay?” he asked me looking tense, searching my face and body for any signs of injury.

  “I’m okay,” I told him, momentarily unable to move from the chair, even though I was no longer secured to it. The sight of him here when I was certain I might never see him again was unbelievable, and I threw myself forward into his arms where he held onto me tightly, reassuring me I would be fine. I was safe.

  We were only separated when his body jerked away from mine as a loud gunshot rang out, and I mechanically lifted my head up to see Drake, rifle In hand, standing over a body lying unmoving on the floor. Caleb scrambled to his feet and I followed him quickly over there. Two more bodies lay on the floor groaning softly, one of them was Michael and shiny red blood poured out from his mouth and nose. My eyes stayed on him as I angled myself past him to stand at Caleb’s side.

  “He was human,” Drake said to Caleb, dropping the rifle to the floor. I looked down at Eddie who was now just a still figure on the floor, and I shivered. Even dead he creeped me out.

  “One got away,” Ressler shouted, emerging from the dirt path that curved around the overgrown bushes. He stopped next to us looking down to where we all stared at the body, and gripped Drake’s shoulder with blood-splattered knuckles.

  “He would have killed you first,” he said casually, not phased in the slightest that a man lay dead at his feet. “Human or not, it’s done now. It was self-defence.”

  “He wouldn’t have killed me first. He couldn’t.”

  “Let’s not get into specifics huh Drake? You’re bringing the mood down. He’s dead now, it’s done. He deserved it.”

  “He’s right,” Caleb agreed. “It was you or him. He might have known how to kill you; he was hanging around with angels. He probably knew a thing or two.” Drake nodded absentmindedly but didn’t say anything.

  I had sensed since first meeting Drake, that he was the calmest of the three. He always seemed to give off the vibe of a chilled out surfer. Make love not war, and all that.

  Choked laughter came from behind us and Caleb charged over to where Michael was trying with great difficulty to pull himself up. He kicked him back down onto the ground, and he laughed again sounding like a deranged lunatic.

  “He’ll get her,” he said, spitting blood out.

  “Who will get her?” Caleb asked icily, anger seeping from every pore in his body. “Answer me you worthless piece of shit!”

  “Her time is marked now. She’ll spend every single day watching over her shoulder,” he gurgled, and spat out more blood. “Poor sod. She’s bloody buggered. If it wasn’t for that worthless sack of shite over there-” I glanced over at the asshole Drake had shot. “We’d have had her by now,” he went on. “We only let him in on this because he was skint and up for bloody anything. He was about as psychotic as a maniac. The same sodding traits that dimmed his tiny brain, and fucked this whole thing up. I hope you kill that fucker.” Caleb bent down and searched the pockets of the leather biker jacket Michael was wearing, and pulled out a small silver pocketknife with a black detailed handle.

  “Oi,” he shouted. “That was me old mans.”

  “Angels don’t have family,” Caleb said, crouching down and bringing the knife down to rest at a point over where Michael’s heart should be. Whether there was one present was questionable. “Now who sent you?” he asked with more restraint now.

  “I’m a dead man anyway,” he said, coughing on the blood that was rapidly filling his mouth. The fire roared in the barn behind us, the smoke getting thicker and blacker.

  “We need to go,” I said to Ressler and Drake at the sight of the ferociously burning barn.

  “Before the cops get here,” Ressler added, running over to Caleb. “Come on man, we gotta get outta here. NOW,” he said, trying to pull him away.

  “Who sent you?” Caleb roared, shrugging Ressler off, and pressing the knife harder into his chest, making a visible dent. Michael laughed hysterically in between bouts of coughing fits. “What does it matter? She’s as good as dead; she won’t need you for much longer.” I looked away in horror as Caleb plunged the knife into Michael’s chest, twisting it savagely, until the laughter stopped.

  I looked back hesitantly and watched Michael’s body writhe and sputter every few seconds, and then his eyes rolled completely to the back of his head.

  “Come on,” Ressler said again, before dragging the now totally limp body that was lying next to Michael’s twitching frame, and throwing it hastily through the open doorway, and into the burning furnace. I looked on horrified, just as the body disappeared into the flames, at the sight of a tree branch lodged firmly into his temple, just above his eye.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” I said to no one but myself.

  “It’s okay,” Ressler said, rushing over to me. “He’s fallen, and not dead. And neither is that skinny runt there.” He tipped his chin towards Michael. “Well they are dead, but not for long. They’ll both wake back up soon enough.” He hooked his arms under Michael’s, and dragged him across the grass, throwing him too into the barn.

  “Caleb, get her out of here. She’s covered in petrol,” Ressler said. Then ran over to help Drake drag the lifeless human body into the blacked out van. Caleb grabbed my hand and we ran over to his dodge, slamming the doors behind us as the car roared to life, and we followed the black truck back down the uneven dirt path at the same time a thunderous explosion swallowed up the rotting barn behind us.

  Savannah

  Drake and Ressler took the van and body somewhere to get rid of them. I didn’t ask any questions. I didn’t really want to know. What happened back at the barn just wasn’t normal. Yet Drake, Ressler, and Caleb handled it like they’d been in that situation thousands of times. Fallen angels, who temporarily die? It was too unbelievable, how can any of this stuff exist? I’d say it was all fairy-tales and nonsense, but nightmare seemed much more fitting.

  Caleb and I searched practically the whole of the harbor looking for my dad. My heart leapt into my mouth when I saw that he wasn’t at the beach helping to clear up, and so after a three hour scouring mission, here we were sitting in my kitchen which looked like it had fallen victim to an unstoppable tornado.

  My dad sat opposite us after finally walking in the house claiming he and Gracey had in fact still been at the beach, but they must have been well disguised because we certainly didn’t see them. The only upright objects in the room were us, and the stools we sat on. The contents of the cupboards lay scattered around our feet.

  “Thank god you’re okay,” he said, his eyes trolling the disastrous mess we were sitting in. “I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you.” His voice cracked as he spoke. “No more nights at the garage. I’ll be home whenever your home,” he said earnestly.

  I never told him about the barn, and he didn’t seem all that surprised when he saw that the house had been turned upside down, and not a thing taken. More like he had been expecting it. I lied and told him I’d been at Mellissa’s when the break in happened. He would
freak if he knew I’d been hearing voices, and escaped my way to safety. Any freedom he might have given me before, would be instantly zapped away into none existence.

  “Dad, I’m glad you weren’t home,” I said, drawing my tired head out of my hand that was supporting it. “If you were home, you could have been hurt.” A fleeting glance passed between him and Caleb as Caleb brought his eyes up to meet my dad’s. It was so quick I wondered if I had imagined it. Now the adrenaline had stopped pumping I felt more exhausted than ever.

  “I found the attic,” I declared, not wanting to put it off any longer in case I never dared confront him about it again. “And I found the pictures of my mother, and all her stuff. It’s like a museum up there.” He looked at me shell-shocked, his face draining to the colour of a sickly patient. “How did you…” he started.

  “It doesn’t matter how,” I interrupted him. “You lied to me.” I suddenly felt more awake. “None of those things looked like they had been in a flood, so why lie?”

  Caleb shifted uncomfortably in his chair and cleared his throat. “I should go,” he said, getting up.

  “No stay,” I said forcefully, and he sat back down next to me obediently. I would need him here when either this ended in tears, or an argument and I stormed out of the house needing someplace else to go. “There was no flood,” he said, never taking his eyes off me.

  “Pria, I never meant to hurt you.” He pushed back on his stool and hung his head, rubbing his hands down over his legs.

  “Tell me the truth right now.”

  “Savannah didn’t die giving birth to you.”

  I wasn’t expecting that and I felt momentarily numbed with disbelief. “Go on,” I found myself saying, even though I was unaware my lips had even moved.

  “When she was pregnant with you, she changed and became distant towards me, pushing me away. She would always shrug it off and tell me it was nothing, I was just being paranoid…worrying too much.” Sadness filled his eyes, and his shirt strained against his forearms as I watched him visibly tense all over.

  “I wasn’t being paranoid. She was like a different person.” He took a deep breath and swallowed. “Then one night she never came home.” I watched his sallow expression and swallowed down a lump of bile that was steadily making its way up my throat.

  “She’d dropped all the hints that she was leaving me, but I ignored every single one. I couldn’t accept it, I refused. I loved her too much; she was the reason for my existence.”

  “Dad…” I said softly, reaching out my hand to him.

  “Wait, that’s not all.” He rubbed his hand along the side of his jaw. “That night after she left, I went looking for her. I was going to beg her not to do this. Beg her to give us another go, but I couldn’t find her- she was gone. When I came home, you were in the house lying on the floor.” He wiped his eyes quickly and coughed away the sadness. “She had given birth to you on her own, out there in the night somewhere, and then left you with me. I did the only thing I could. I took you and I never looked back.”

  I glanced at Caleb who looked on as though he already knew the ending to this story, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. That boy had more secret’s than he was letting on. Still waters run deep, and he was bottomless.

  My dad opened his mouth to speak, and I could swear I witnessed Caleb shake his head firmly out of the corner of my eye, but he was still as I turned to look at him.

  “I should never have lied to you.” My dad looked at me like he regretted everything that was his past.

  I was trying my hardest not to be angry with someone who looked so remorseful, and so full of regret, and who I knew would die before he let any harm come to me. I had never known any other life. He always made sure I was happy and well looked after, and I couldn’t ever stop loving him, or would ever want to, but right now- I felt like I didn’t even know him anymore.

  Everything I thought I knew about my average mildly exciting life, had been burst wide open, and I wasn’t living that life at all. Everything I thought was real, was a lie.

  “So, she just disappeared one night? How do you know she’s not still out there somewhere, looking for you? Looking for me even? I asked, partly filled with hope, and partly rage at the fact that my dad left her behind, not knowing what the hell had even really happened to her.

  He reached behind him and rubbed the back of his neck. “She’s dead Pria.” I shook my head firmly.

  “How can you know that?”

  “Because she jumped off a cliff, that’s how.” He cleared his throat, finding his composure, and I stiffened.

  “She took her own life, and her body- it was never actually found.” Caleb’s head whipped up as if he had become seriously interested in the conversation when earlier he couldn’t wait to leave.

  “A witness saw it happen. Her body must have been swept away with the tide.” This news was far from easy to digest, and I was reeling from it. The whole world seemed to shift in the last few moments, and I felt immense sadness and rejection knowing that my mom had done that. She left me behind willingly, and caused her own death.

  “What was so bad that she had to end her life in that way?” he asked to no one in particular. “I didn’t even help her.” He’d gone off somewhere, his eyes glazed over, and my heart ached for him more than myself.

  “I loved her more than anything. She was my life. Sometimes I wonder if she killed herself over admitting that she didn’t love me anymore. I should have faced up to it, made her tell me the truth; then I might have been able to stop her, help her. The fact that she couldn’t talk to me is a big enough failure in itself,” he said sadly. I could see the guilt and hate for himself pouring out of him like a tidal wave, and I didn’t like this side of him.

  I caught Caleb push his hand through his hair and huff out a loud sigh. For whatever reason, he looked guilty.

  “Seriously Caleb, what are you doing? I turned to him. “Is there something you want to say?”

  He looked at me and shrugged lazily. He was really becoming annoying, and I gritted my teeth in frustration.

  “I feel like she’s here when I look at you,” my dad said. “You have her eyes; beautiful golden brown eyes. She was so beautiful, and so are you.” My dad never really gave me compliments, and the show of affection felt alien to me. Even though I knew he loved me, we always avoided any sentimental moments.

  “There’s just one thing I need to know.”

  “Anything,” he said.

  “Why did you lie to me?”

  “I was trying to protect you.”

  “From what? The truth?”

  “I didn’t want you to know how she really died. I didn’t want you to know there was nothing of her to bury. I didn’t want you to think she chose to leave you because she didn’t love you.” His eyes glistened with moisture. “And most of all, I didn’t want you to know I’d failed her.”

  My heart restricted at the guilt and hurt on his face, and I knew he’d done what he thought was the right thing. Whether it was the right thing for him, or me, I wasn’t exactly sure of yet. There was something about this whole story that felt off to me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it and I didn’t want to press him anymore. I also didn’t have it in me to listen to any more of this.

  “Can you forgive me?”

  “I’ll promise to try,” I said honestly. “You’ve hurt me dad.”

  “That was the last thing I was trying to do.”

  “I know that, but you have.”

  The doorbell rang twice, ripping through the tension. “I’ll get it,” Caleb said, bolting up off the stool as if he couldn’t wait once again to be out of the room and separated from this awkward and uncomfortable moment that was happening between me and my dad.

  “I’m so sorry I’ve hurt you Pria, but I’m not sorry for trying to protect you. And I will keep protecting you for as long as I can, and for as long as you’ll allow me.”

  “I just need some time dad. I need to think. That’s a
whole lot you’ve just confessed.”

  Caleb walked back into the room with Gracey in tow.

  “Oh,” she gasped, throwing her hand to her mouth. “What happened here?” Her eyes skimmed over the trashed room. “I’ll help you get this cleaned up,” she said taking off her cardigan, exposing a vintage floral swing dress that stopped at her knees. She reminded me of someone out of the fifties.

  “Hi Gracey,” I said, forcing a smile onto my face.

  “Hi honey.” Her smile morphed into a frown of uncertainty as she locked eyes with me. I could only imagine what I looked like. I put my hand up to my hair. Oh my god, it felt like a bird’s nest. My dad obviously hadn’t noticed anything unusual about my dirty exterior. Luckily, I had wiped off most of the black, sooty marks on me, before he came home.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah I’m fine…It’s just been a long day.” It had been a long day. It was nearly three in the morning, but it felt like the middle of the day with the main light flooding the house in brightness. “Me and Caleb will help clear this up,” I said to my dad.

  “No, you’ve had a long enough day as it is. Just go and get cleaned up, you’re a mess.”

  “Okay.” I wasn’t going to argue with him. I wasn’t in the mood to make small talk with him and Gracey whilst my mind tried to breakdown the fact that my mother had committed suicide.

  “You can do something,” he said. “Call Mellissa and ask her if you can crash there till we’ve straightened this mess up. Go on.”

  “Fine. I just need to grab some stuff.”

  “I can stay and help,” Caleb offered. “It’ll be quicker with three of us.”

  “No. You make sure Pria gets to Mellissa’s safely if you don’t mind. I don’t really want to leave her alone right now,” he said, meeting Gracey’s eyes as she looked on with not the slightest clue of what was going on.

  “No problem. I’ll wait for you in the truck,” he told me, before saying goodbye to Gracey and my dad.